I would like to thank HeidiM2574 for pretty much reviewing everything I had posted today. She actually pushed me forward on posting this chapter instead of waiting for a bit.
Enjoy!
Two months of grueling torture. That was what this bullshit with Aria had been. Sure, she'd asked for it. Hell, Aria is one hell of a biotic and Aeryn would have been stupid for not training with Aria given the chance. But still, the woman was a slave driving asshole.
Aeryn returned with Aria to her apartment most nights in a state of catatonia. She was exhausted and would usually just collapse on the couch and sleep where she fell.
However it was getting easier. It was becoming less hard, for a better phrase – more second nature. Her biotic skills weren't the only thing that was changing. Her body fat and muscle ratios were also on the move. She had always kept a bit of flesh on her in order to look less imposing.
She was used to doing undercover work and she wasn't supposed to look like a career soldier.
Now, she no longer had that holding her back. She was slimmer than she had ever been, but a slim beanstalk of pure muscle and violence. Aria was rubbing off on her.
She prided herself on being as nimble, if not more so, as those Cerberus phantoms and nemesis that had stalked her and her brother throughout the war. Little bitches.
She could even creep along beam and rope without so much as breaking a sweat whereas she used to just crawl and pray to whatever deity she could think of that she wouldn't fall.
She had trained herself, with Aria's help, to be an unstoppable and precise assassin.
Now she just needed a name…
The Black Dahlia.
News reports were coming in sporadically from the traverse. Aria had not only gotten herself a private army in the Talons, but apparently a private assassin as well.
A very good assassin.
The Black Dahlia was stacking up quite the body count.
John had asked Liara to look in to the assassin and even as the Shadow Broker she had come back with pretty much nothing.
The Black Dahlia:
Profession: Assassin
Age: Unknown
Gender: Female
Race: Human
Alias: Unknown
Family: Unknown
Affinity: Omega, Aria T'Loak, Talon Gang
History: Unknown
Defining Features: All black suit of unknown manufacture origins, head is covered with a hood and face is partially covered with a fabric mask that covers from the nasal bridge and below, possible tattoos visible on arms and torso around suit but of undiscernible origin or content.
Recruitment Possibility: Low, have sent multiple requests for recruitment and all requests have been denied… Vehemently.
John threw the data pad back on to his desk and sighed. He was supposed to track this woman for Hackett and he pretty much only had one lead. Aria.
Liara wasn't too thrilled with the prospect of him going to Aria since the last meeting with the self-proclaimed Queen of Omega had landed him a kiss from said Queen. Liara had taken offense.
So Liara would definitely be on the ground team, he should probably take Garrus as well. He needed to start taking Garrus on more missions.
He had been leaving Garrus out for a while now. He hadn't decided if it was because he was giving him and Tali some alone time or if he was still pissed off at his friend for sleeping with the quarian so soon after Aeryn had died.
Aeryn. He missed his sister. She had this quirky sense of humor that melded well with his own. She was a hot head and had this way about her that commanded respect. But she was fast friends with everyone she had come in contact with. Everyone except Tali.
Maybe that was why John had been so peeved when Garrus and Tali had started sleeping together. It was the one person his sister wouldn't have approved of. Not that appeasing the dead was ever high on John Shepard's list of priorities.
There was no point in dwelling on what his sister would and would not have liked anyways, she was gone and you can't live for the dead.
He would bring Garrus and Liara to Omega.
Darius looked at his little human as she lazily drank her beer across the table. They were in his apartment, away from prying eyes and cameras so her mask was thankfully off and he could actually look at her fully.
She wasn't answering his question though, so he simply asked it again.
"Why haven't you sent anything to your brother about being alive? It's almost been a year since we found you. You've let him think you dead for over a year and a half."
She grimace when she realized he wasn't going to just let it go.
"I don't know, Darius. He's moved on, they all have. What good would it do for me to pop out like a party favor and be like 'Hey guys, I'm alive! Wassup!?' I mean really… I think it would cause more harm than good."
He growled again, it was that damn scientist talking again. She had managed to fight most of their brainwashing bullshit, but this 'they don't care' attitude had stuck.
The only way he was going to get her over it was to push her past her emotional limit.
He knew he was probably shooting himself in the foot. He had been trying to convince the woman to date him exclusively for months. He had been trying to make her his.
If he was going to push for her to contact her brother that meant the other turian would follow. The turian who had bondmarked her and then moved on no less than a month after she had 'died'. Bastard.
He hated that man. But he was willing to take that risk if it meant her reconnecting with her family. It was obvious she had little to live for as it was and that she was just going through the motions.
Sure, she cared about him and Aria, but it wasn't the 'I live for you' type of caring. It was that they were nice, unassuming company who had emotionally started to build her back up.
Their only expectations of her was for her to take what she wanted and to give nothing back, not much foundation for building some personal happiness.
He looked her straight in the eyes as he pushed her further, hopefully far enough. "That's bullshit and you know it. You're scared. You're scared that your brother will bring him. You're a coward."
He saw it in her face. Calling her a coward had pushed her into a defiant frame of mind. She hated being called a coward. You could call her every name in the book, but calling her a coward would throw her into a blood curdling rage.
Without so much as a glance she stood and walked to his extranet terminal. He could see her every move as she made and every word she typed.
She sent the mail from her business address. This was the Black Dahlia sending a message, not Aeryn Shepard.
It was good enough.
She left after the message was sent and Darius dropped his forehead to the table top.
He prayed to every spirit he could think of that this wouldn't backfire on him. He prayed for her heart and happiness – with him.
John was just laying down for a bit before they arrived at the citadel. He needed to rest some before they went and talked to more politicians. Liara was busy doing her Shadow Broker thing so he had more than enough time to himself.
After that they would head to Omega and track down this Black Dahlia person.
As soon as his eyes closed and he began to get comfortable his omnitool pinged him alerting him to a message on his terminal. He debated for a good five minutes whether he should move or not.
Responsibility and curiosity won out. He was always brutally curious about messages he received. What if it was important? What if it was some sweepstakes that he had won!?
He situated himself at his terminal and just sat there for a minute while looking at the title and the sender…
Aeryn Shepard, Subject Alpha.
The Black Dahlia.
Subject Alpha? Why the assassin would be sending him of all people a message, a message about his sister at that, was beyond him.
He uploaded the vid attachment and leaned back.
John felt his heart sink as he watched the vid unfold.
Aeryn was alive. She was alive and had been experimented on. She had even tried to kill herself to escape it! John didn't even hesitated to call Garrus up to his cabin. He had emphasized that Garrus should come up alone and he hoped his friend caught the underlying tone of his summons. They would collectively deal with Tali and her expectedly poor reaction later.
John couldn't stay sitting. He couldn't watch anymore. He grabbed a whiskey and began to pace.
What was taking the damned turian so long!?
What seemed like hours later, five minute-hours later, Garrus knocked on the door and entered the cabin.
Garrus was taken aback by John's state. He was pacing and drinking… He looked horrible. He looked like someone had kicked him in the head.
John tried to talk, but no words seem to come out. Which is a disconcerting state for John Shepard, Hero of the Galaxy and Mr. 'I-Never-Shut-Up' to be in.
Finally he signed and gestured to the desk.
"Garrus… Watch the vid I have up on the screen. I received it today."
The words were strangled, forced. What could possibly have set John in to such a state?
Garrus clicked the play key and sat back… People at an excavation site in some jungle, nothing unusual…
Then he saw her. She was alive.
They hadn't searched for a person who was still living. They hadn't searched for his bondmate… They had assumed the reports were right and that she was lost to them.
He sat through the entire vid, his heart sinking further and further in to his abdomen. He nearly lost it when she stared up at the camera, up at him, and slit her own throat.
Watching her bleed out… While staring at him. Somehow it was so much worse than he remembered – watching her die instead of listening to it, that pain in his chest, the inability to breathe properly.
He watched her escape, wounded, but alive.
Why hadn't they heard from her?
"John… Why hasn't she contacted us? Has she…"
"No, this is the first I've heard of it. We're supposed to be going after this Black Dahlia after the Citadel. Hopefully she'll have more information and she can tell us where she found this…" John gulped down another glass of whiskey before sitting on the edge of his bed.
Garrus' mind was reeling. His Aeryn was alive… And she knew about him and Tali. He could guess as to why she hadn't contacted them. He had watched her treatment at that facility, he knew they were trying to convince her that they didn't care about her.
And spirits damn him! He had given them all the ammunition they had needed! He gave interviews for that bastardized vid special on the 'couples of the Normady'! Tali had convinced him it would be fun for a human holiday called Valentine's Day. He had agreed because why wouldn't he? He and Tali were, are, together and he didn't have to worry about a dead person seeing it!
But she saw it all… and he saw her reaction to it.
The betrayal and hurt was there on her face, plain as day. She hadn't even pretended to hide it behind the stoic mask she wore through most of the recording. Then she'd slit her own throat.
His actions helped cause her to do that…
Garrus dropped his head into his hands and keened loudly. He'd been why she hadn't contacted them.
Aeryn left Omega the next day for the Citadel. She had a job to do there and decided that she would not be saying goodbye to Darius. Let him freak out for a few days that she may have left permanently.
Calling her a coward, puh!
She boarded her personal corvette shuttle and charted the trip. She had to kill some idiotic volus diplomat who was threatening to sell Aria's secrets to the counsel.
Moron.
She needed to kill him quickly and move on to the next mission, Aria was in a hurry with this one and said she had some big fiasco she wanted Aeryn involved with.
Aeryn settled herself down in bed and just stared at her ceiling. She had a bad feeling about this… She shouldn't. It was a volus for cthulhu's sake!