Shepard relaxed in her bed in the Loft, muscles sore from the final push to the rendezvous point. The troopers had actually pushed at them harder when they saw that Persephone was with them, instead of pulling their shots for fear of catching her in a crossfire. For having no armor and no weapons, the young woman had actually proven an asset, throwing up a barrier to block enemy fire and Throwing troopers out of the way when their path was blocked.
Steve had been rightfully surprised when they boarded the shuttle that she was Project: Persephone, having assumed along with the rest of them that it was an inanimate object, not a person. She had been quiet on the trip back to the Normandy, curling up in one of the seats and hugging her knees to her chest.
Chakwas had given her a clean bill of health and estimated her age at around twenty, twenty-one, seeing as she didn't remember having ever celebrated a birthday. Cerberus, it seemed, had made a habit of wiping her memory on a regular basis, though how many times they had was unknown. One of the first things Shepard had Karin do after giving Persephone a physical was sweep for a control chip, not wanting to get blindsided by a sleeper agent. She found none, but she did find several cybernetic implants, nothing too extreme like Shepard had, hers would increase her reflexes, cognitive abilities, and sensory perceptions. She also found, unsurprisingly, a biotic implant, again nothing extreme, only slightly better than the one they had outfitted Shepard with during Project: Lazarus.
Persephone was currently sleeping soundly in the medbay until they figured out where they wanted to put her. EDI was still decrypting the files she had mined from the facility, but it seemed they only had a partial set, ones from the Project's beginning, the rest either destroyed or in an off site location for safety.
Bringing up her omnitool, she punched in a number and the screen came up, a spinning circle on the display until it was answered, Kaidan's face coming in view, the angle telling her that he was laying down. The bruises had started to fade to a sickly green and he wasn't nearly as pale as he had been the first time she saw him after he woke up.
"Hey, Maddy." He said, a smile pulling at his lips as he saw her.
"Hey, Kaidan." She said, returning the smile.
"How was your mission? Did you find what you were looking for?" He asked as he shifted, moving to lay on his side.
"Oh yeah, we found it alright." Shepard said, "Let me tell you about it."
Persephone wasn't in the medbay when Shepard emerged early next morning, nor was she in the mess hall or any of the crew areas. She hadn't been there when Karin arrived in the morning, the bed she had been using neatly made, no sign that she had been there at all.
Garrus didn't remember seeing her recently, neither did Liara or anyone else she asked. She couldn't have left the ship, they were in cloaked orbit around a planet.
"EDI, where's Persephone?"
"Persephone is in the area below Engineering, the space Jack used to occupy."
"Thank you, EDI." Shepard said and took the elevator down, heading down the stairs to the gloom beneath the drive core. Persephone didn't look up when she approached, sitting with her legs folded on a crate, looking down at something cupped in her hand. "What're you doing down here?"
"I didn't touch anything and I didn't go into Engineering." She said immediately, "It's quiet down here, and this little guy has been keeping me company." She scooped into her hand and brought it up, the small, pudgy ball of brown fur clinging to her fingers as she held him gently.
"Pressly!" Shepard exclaimed happily, going over to her, the hamster squeaking at her in acknowledgement. "I was wondering where he ended up."
"He's yours?" Persephone asked, "I found him down here, he crawled into my lap to say hello while I was sitting here. Do you want him back?"
"No, you keep him." Shepard said after a pause, "He seems to like you. I have his habitat in my quarters."
"I'll bring it down here later." She said, resuming her petting of the hamster cradled in her hand.
"You don't have to stay down here, you know. The Crew Deck-"
"They don't want me there. The rest of the crew." Persephone said, "Biotics may not be telepathic, but I know what they're thinking and they don't want me there. They look at me with suspicion and carefully guarded hostility. It's better down here; quiet and I'm out of the way and out of sight."
"I'll talk-"
"Don't, it's fine." She said quickly and they fell into a silence.
"Where'd you get the clothes?" Shepard asked, having noticed when she got down there that Persephone was no longer wearing the white patient scrubs, having changed into a C-Sec hoodie and sweatpants, thin flats on her feet.
"Garrus and the Asari next to the mess, Liara?" She said, "The sweater fits a bit strange seeing as it's for Turian physiology, but it's comfortable, and it was nice of them to share. Oddly enough, the aliens were more welcoming than the humans. The AI, EDI? She said that if I needed anything, I only had to ask."
"Given her ordeal, I thought it would be wise to try to make her feel as comfortable as possible."
"Thanks, EDI." Persephone said with a ghost of a smile, "I appreciate it, really."
"Speaking of," Shepard said with a sigh, "Do you have any memories of what they did to you in that facility? What tests they ran?" The other woman went very quiet, staring down at Pressly as her fingertips moved over the sleeping hamsters fur.
"Vague snippets." She said finally, "Waking up, being called Persephone, having blood drawn. Some combat training, but I can't remember what exactly. And pain, I remember lots of pain. I remember a couple of the scientists saying that the "Illusive Man" was demanding an update. Who is that?" She looked up at her at that.
"He's the head of Cerberus."
"Like, the whole organization?" She asked and Shepard nodded. "Guess he was invested. He's probably going to pissed that I'm with you now."
"That's just an added bonus, annoying him was always so much fun." Shepard said and she gave a brief sound of amusement, her lips pulling into a wide smile that was almost familiar, though like her eyes, Shepard couldn't place from where.
"What're you going to do with me?" Persephone asked, once again serious, looking down in her hand and Shepard gave another sigh.
"I don't know, kiddo." Shepard said, "My boss, Admiral Hackett, he wants an update on what the Project was."
"Tell him the truth." Persephone said with a shrug. "Tell him it's me."
"I don't know what he'll do." She did know what he would do. He would insist that Persephone be taken off the Normandy to some Alliance lab to be tested on, poked and prodded to see what Cerberus had done to her, how they had changed her, see if they could use that against them. They did the same thing to her while she was incarcerated on Earth.
"Can't be any worse than what's already been done." She said.
"I thought you didn't remember."
"I don't." She said with another shrug, "But it's feelings, mostly. I think they wiped my memory for a reason. Shit, Shepard, if the Alliance wanted to not risk it and put a bullet in my head, I wouldn't blame them."
"That is not going to happen. Do you understand me?"
"Don't make promises you can't keep." Persephone said, "I mean, hell. For all you know, I'm a literal time bomb, like…" She thought about it for a moment, "If a code isn't transmitted to my implant every X number of hours, it detonates and blows out a chunk of my brain stem." They shared a look.
"Let's get you to Dr. Chakwas."
"Yes, please." She said, climbing down off the crate and putting Pressly in the hoodie pocket as they made their way back up to the medbay.
A few extensive scans later and they both breathed a sigh of relief as Karin informed them that there was no such device or programming in any of her cybernetics or her biotic implant. While they hadn't put it past Cerberus to install that kind of failsafe, it seemed the scientists and/or the Illusive Man hadn't anticipated losing control of their Project.
"He was an arrogant bastard when I worked with him, too." Shepard remarked and Persephone snorted in amusement. "Karin, what's with the look?" The Doctor was looking back and forth between them two of them, her brow furrowed.
"Must be a trick of the light." She said dismissively, "Now, if that will be all, Commander…"
"Yeah, we'll get out of your way." She said and tapped Persephone's knee, "Come on, let's go get Pressly's tank. Are you sure you want to stay down in that hole?"
"I like it down there." Persephone said with a small shrug as they left the medbay. They both almost walked into James as they rounded the corner to the elevator.
"Jesus, walking wall." Shepard said, having clearly been startled by his sudden appearance.
"Sorry, Lola." James said, looking for all the galaxy that he wasn't sorry, "Traynor is patching the comms and she asked me to tell you Urdnot Wrex and the Salarian Dalatrass are ready to meet with you and the Primarch." He then looked over, noticing the other woman was there, a slow smile pulling at his lips. "Hey, Persephone."
"Hello." Persephone said, a slight pink tinge coming over her cheeks.
"Will that be all, Lieutenant?" Shepard asked and his attention snapped back to her at the authoritative tone.
"Yes, Commander." He said and moved past them as they went to the elevator.
"Really, Shepard?" Persephone asked.
"Let me tell you something about James Vega." She said as they took the elevator up to the Loft, "He's a shameless flirt that hits on pretty much anything that walks on two legs."
"I wasn't planning on reading anything into it, don't worry." She said, sounding very amused with the whole thing. "Besides, all he said was "hi" so I think you're reading a bit too much into it."
"He was my...guard while I was under basically house arrest on Earth, I got to know him really well in that time."
"Oh, really?"
"Not like that. I'm already with someone. Sort of. It's complicated, we're working on it."
"What's his name?" Persephone asked, "Or her name?"
"Kaidan, his name is Kaidan." Shepard said and they stepped off the elevator, going into the Loft. Persephone gently removed a still sleeping Pressly out of her pocket, gently putting him in the habitat on a shelf.
"Alenko?" She asked, turning to look at her with a soft scowl.
"Yeah, actually. Do you...know him?"
"Not personally, obviously, but I have vague memories of the name being said once or twice. Couldn't tell you the context, though."
"Not sure how I feel about that, to be honest." Shepard said as she went over to her wardrobe, the rack extending out from the wall and she took down the garment bag with her dress blues.
"I'll leave you to get ready for your meeting." Persephone said and turned to leave.
"You forgot Pressly." Shepard said and she stopped.
"You should keep him, he'd just be bored down in the hold with me." With that, she left, the door to the Loft closing behind her.
