A/N: Thanks to Meleba and VorchaGirl for their wonderful and very much appreciated beta-ing.


Chapter Seven

Shepard launched herself off the dais and slammed into Nathan, using her whole body weight to shove him off to the side, as far toward the edge of the room as possible while still staying in the shadow of the dais. If they were lucky, the meagre cover it provided would save them.

He hit the ground with a thump, his bulk cushioning her own awkward landing. Before she could move, a rough slab of concrete hit her side-on, sending her flying off Nathan in a tangle of limbs. She tucked and closed her arms over her head as best she could, but her elbow clipped something solid, spinning her, and suddenly her head was unprotected and—

She heard a sickening crack. Everything flashed white, then faded to black.


The first thing she became aware of was a slick wetness at the back of her head. Groaning, she forced her eyes open, then immediately squeezed them shut as roaring sound and blinding light rushed in. It felt as though something was pressing in on either side of her head, leaving her groggy and disoriented. She squinted and blinked through watering eyes, but all she could see was fire and debris. She could feel the heat radiating off the flames and smell the ash in the air.

She raised a hand to the matted hair at the back of her head and held it up in front of her eyes, blinking at the red smear of blood on her fingers. Not good. Suddenly a face appeared above her, looking down with a concern bordering on panic. Nathan. She felt a rush of relief, both at the fact that he was alive and that she remembered who he was, given her obvious head injury.

Nathan grabbed her arm and pulled her up to her feet, the movement sending shivers of pain through her head. She scrambled to get her uncooperative feet to hold her weight. She winced, blinking to try to clear her head, and he leaned down so he was directly in her line of vision. His mouth was moving, but she couldn't hear what he was saying through the roaring in her ears. He shook his head and grasped her arm, turning her away so he could get a good look at whatever was causing all that blood to soak into her hair. She could feel it trickling down the back of her neck now as his fingers gently probed the area. Not a good sign.

He produced a tube of medi-gel from somewhere, squeezing its contents directly onto the back of her head and carefully working it in under her hair. Cool tingles immediately spread across her skull. She gasped with relief as the pain receded. Her vision cleared somewhat, and the rushing in her ears dulled to the sound of a loud breeze.

"Shepard?" Nathan was asking, again staring at her from inches away, brow lined with worry. "Can you hear me?"

She nodded hesitantly, expecting pain, but it didn't materialise. "I can hear you." Her mouth was dry.

Relief settled over his eyes for a moment, but was quickly gone. "Do you remember what happened?" he asked.

"I… yes. Shit. Yes." She blinked, taking in the ruins of the situation room. Bodies were sprawled across the floor haphazardly. Half the room was little more than rubble. There were far fewer bodies than there had been staffers in the room before the Reapers attacked… She swallowed, realising the rest of the bodies would probably be crushed under the rubble.

She clenched her jaw and clamped down hard on the sick feeling in her stomach. They needed to get out of there fast. Alliance HQ was a top priority target and the Reapers would want to kill or capture anyone left alive. There was no time to waste on fear or grief.

"We need to get out of here," Nathan echoed her thoughts, shouting over the rending sound of a Reaper klaxon coming from uncomfortably close outside.

Shepard tapped her ear. "Do you have comms?" she called in reply, wishing for her own in-ear comm. She hadn't had one of those since she had been taken into custody.

He laid a finger over his ear then shook his head and pulled out his omnitool. The interface flashed to life, but Shepard could see a multitude of red error symbols and knew it wasn't going to work. She looked around the room, searching for other options.

Spotting a bank of untouched terminals on the less-damaged side of the room, she hurried over, trying to test and shake out her limbs as she went. Nothing complained beyond some light aches and minor sprains. Thankfully it appeared her head-wound was her only real injury. It was nothing to sneer at, but it would only cause problems if it caused her to lose focus or start to feel nauseous at the wrong time. She could work with it.

Nathan followed her, closing down his omnitool. "I have text only, and I can only connect directly to another receiver. I can't get any comm channels on it," he told her.

She nodded grimly and pulled up a holographic keyboard on one of the terminals, tapping a few things into it experimentally. Thankfully it appeared to be accepting commands. She needed to get a comm channel up and running. The Alliance had emergency bands set up that would no doubt be in use; if she could broadcast a distress signal on that maybe she could find a ship that could pick them up and get them off Earth.

She had to get to the Normandy. The Reapers were finally here. She had to fight, and the best way she could do that would be from her ship.

She had no idea what they had done with it after she had turned herself in. For all she knew, it was half way across the other side of the galaxy under a new Captain. The idea gave her an unpleasant pang of dread. There was no way they would let a ship as advanced and useful as the Normandy sit around in mothballs for months while its commander languished in prison; of course they had reassigned it.

What if it had been destroyed?

What if they had assigned a new Captain who had gotten her ship blown up?

She shook her head. Now she was just being silly. She got to work on the terminal, pushing all thoughts of another broken Normandy out of her mind. It was probably fine. All she had to do was get off Earth and get in contact with whoever was in command up there. She thought they would probably assign her to the Normandy, but when it came right down to it, it didn't matter. Hell, if they busted her down to Private she could live with it as long as they put her on the front lines. There was no way they could lock her away in a cell again when the Reapers were attacking.

The terminal squawked at her again and she slapped her hand against its housing in frustration. It wasn't allowing her to log in. If she couldn't get them off Earth because she had forgotten her goddamn password…

"For god's sake, Shepard, move over," Nathan muttered in equal parts amusement and irritation, elbowing her aside. She glared at him, annoyed at the humour in his tone, then watched as he calmly entered his own information and was immediately granted access. "Your access was revoked, remember?"

She glared daggers at his back. She had forgotten that. "Just get us a comm channel," she ordered, ignoring the fact that she technically couldn't order anyone to do anything.

Nathan didn't seem to notice. His hands flew over the holographic keys, eliciting happy chirps from the terminal, until he ran into a decidedly prominent error. He muttered something to himself and ducked back behind the terminal housing. It took him a couple of minutes, but when he got up the error message was gone, replaced by an active comm interface. He grinned triumphantly at her.

Huh. Looked like Nathan Briggs was a bit of a tech. She wouldn't have picked it.

He opened the channel and leaned forward so he was within range of the voice pickup. "All ships in the vicinity of Alliance HQ, this is Lieutenant Nathan Briggs. I have Commander Shepard with me. We require urgent extraction. Repeat, I have Commander Shepard with me and we require urgent extraction."

Shepard grimaced at his use of her name. It was good thinking on Nathan's part to use it – it would work to get them bumped up to the top of the priority list for extraction, if such a thing existed – but that didn't mean she had to like it. When you came right down to it she was just another soldier. Why should she get extracted ahead of anyone else?

To cover her discomfort she jogged over to one of the dead Alliance soldiers and claimed his pistol. As she straightened, she quickly laid a hand on his still shoulder, silently promising him that the Reapers would pay for what they had done to Earth. She cocked the pistol efficiently and tucked it into the waistband of her BDU trousers.

Nathan repeated his call for assistance, casting nervous glances at the edge of the room that was open to the sky. Shepard could see the fiery trails of drop ships landing, as well as a Reaper moving around out there. It was far too close, but focused elsewhere at the moment. She watched as its plasma beam rent through another building, sending it slowly crumbling to the ground in a cloud of dust and ash. She steeled her heart as the number of people who had just lost their lives flashed through her mind. Her blood boiled. She would find a way to wipe the Reapers from the face of the galaxy.

"Lieutenant Briggs, this is the Normandy. You say you have Commander Shepard with you?"

The voice was intertwined with static, but she would know it anywhere. She darted over and leaned toward the voice pickup. "Joker, is that you?"

"Shepard! Aren't you supposed to be—Wait, forget it, where are you? I'm coming to get you."

"We're at Alliance HQ. Can you pick up our location from Briggs' omnitool?" she asked, glancing toward him. He nodded and brought up his omnitool interface, keying in a command.

"Got it. It reads as being inside the building, you need to get out to somewhere I can get to. Ping me from the omnitool again when—shit, Commander, gotta go, see you soon!"

Shepard felt a fierce rush of joy. The Normandy was here! And with Joker at the helm! If they could just get somewhere he could bring the Normandy, they would be off Earth and into the battle faster than she could ever have hoped for. She drew her pistol and cocked it, holding it at low ready and jogging for the open edge of the room. "Let's go, Briggs," she called to him.

"On your six, Commander," he replied.

That brought her to a halt. She looked back at him, surprised. Aside from the distress call he had just made, Nathan hadn't used her rank at all since they had first met. The fact that he was using it now meant that he intended to honour it. He had effectively just told her that he would follow her lead.

And that meant… he trusted her. She knew they had started to get along very well – in fact, she would consider him a friend – but she hadn't realised that he trusted her as much as she had instinctively come to trust him. He was trusting her with his life by putting himself under her command. She felt… honoured.

He gestured impatiently at the open sky outside, sheepish. "Don't give me that look. Out of the two of us, you're the only one who seems to have some idea what the hell these Reaper things are, so you have the best chance of saving our asses. Get to it, Shepard." His eyes twinkled with amusement.

She tossed him an exasperated look, fighting a grin as something fluttered low in her stomach. There was something about the way he looked at her, the way he lazily poked good-natured fun at her that she just couldn't get enough of.

She cleared her throat. "Shut it, Lieutenant," she fired back. "Just keep up." She stepped out onto the wide ledge on the side of the building.


Nathan let himself grin as she turned away and climbed out onto the ledge. If there was one thing he had really grown to enjoy doing over the past few weeks, it was teasing Shepard. The looks she gave him were priceless. Vancouver was already largely in ruins and their chances of making it out of there weren't particularly good, but this, the banter he had become used to between them, was normal. If he kept it up, it was something that could keep him grounded.

He followed her as she worked her way along the wide concrete surface, keeping his pistol out and ready. His boots crunched on broken glass as he walked. The ledge wasn't particularly narrow but he was well aware of the long fall to the ground twenty stories below. He didn't look down or out at the burning city, keeping his eyes firmly set on Shepard's back.

She didn't appear to be bothered by the height. She glanced over the edge numerous times, seemingly keeping an eye out for something. "What are you looking for?" he called out to her.

"Husks," she replied. "Blue and black humanoids with cybernetic enhancements. They like to climb."

Great. He shuddered and braved a look over the edge himself. Holy shit! Quickly he pulled back. Yep, they were up just as high as he thought they were. "So… I don't know if this is the right time to mention this but I'm not the best with heights," he shouted.

Shepard tossed him an amused glance. "Just cover the walls above us, then, and keep an eye on our six," she told him, taking another look over the edge as she walked. This time she leaned a little closer and squinted down at the ground below. "Dammit. We're going to have company in a few minutes," she warned, all mirth gone from her tone.

Nathan swore, spinning around and scanning the direction they had come from for an alternative route down. There was nothing, though; the way past the blown out windows of the situation room was blocked in the other direction. "No way back," he said.

Shepard had stopped next to one of the immense concrete support pillars that led straight up the side of the building. It had been scored along the entire outward-facing length, leaving a naked rocky surface exposed to the wind. Nathan's heart sank. "Oh, Christ," he murmured. "No way."

Somehow she heard him over the wind and screams and shrieking metal. "You can do it," she said with conviction. "We can't go down, there are too many husks for us to take with pistols. I'll go first. Follow me up. Be careful, but we need to move quickly." Without further ado she tucked her pistol into her waistband and began to climb.

Mouthing a string of creative swear words, he waited for her to get a few metres up then secured his own pistol against the magnetic plate in his belt and followed.

It was a disconcerting and dangerous climb. He carefully checked each handhold as he moved, fully aware that just because they could hold Shepard did not mean they could hold his greater weight. Every time the building shook with the reverberation of the destruction the Reapers were meting out across the city his heart leapt into his throat. His muscles tensed and he clung to the pillar, hoping it would hold.

They were almost shaken loose twice, and once Nathan had frozen in sheer terror, certain it was all over, as a Reaper angled its glowing weapons port in their direction. The plasma beam had impacted a few hundred metres back in the direction they had come from, however, so he had forced a deep breath and continued to climb.

By the time they reached the top of the building, his muscles were tightly tensed and sore. He was glad to stop and rest his weight on his legs, bracing against the wind, when Shepard signalled the halt. She inched up to the top of the pillar, which was flush with the roof. She raised her head up just high enough to see over the top. He kept a sharp eye on her, ready to move quickly if she gave the order. She watched for a few seconds, then slowly lowered her head and looked around. She didn't move to climb up.

She looked down at him, tufts of loose hair blowing around her face, and raised a finger to her lips in the universal signal of keep the fuck quiet. He nodded grimly. She pointed to him, then her eyes, then indicated the floor one level below the roof, which remained mostly in one piece. The windows had blown out, but there was a wide, intact balcony jutting out over the length of the building. It appeared undamaged. He nodded in understanding and slowly reversed his climb until he hung next to the balcony wall. He craned his head as best he could to try and see through into the darkened offices beyond, but couldn't quite get the angle right from his current position.

Carefully he edged over onto the balcony wall and dropped to the floor in a crouch, pistol quickly up and ready, grateful to feel solid horizontal concrete beneath his boots once more. He crept up to the now-empty window ledge and looked over.

Nothing. An empty office.

Breathing a sigh of relief, he signalled the all-clear to Shepard, who dropped nimbly down beside him.

"Roof's a no-go?" he asked quietly.

She nodded, grim. "Dropship. Too many hostiles." She paused, thinking.

Nervous, Nathan peeked over the balcony railing, swallowing the vertigo as he looked down. "Those husks aren't far off," he warned. "What if we cut through the office…" As soon as he said it, he changed his mind. It wouldn't work.

Shepard shook her head. "No, they'll be coming down through there, searching for survivors. They can smell us. We can't let them get too close. If they work out I'm here, they'll send everything they have against us."

He glanced at her in surprise. "They would go after you in particular?"

She nodded grimly. "Their leader doesn't like me much."

Damn. The leader of an immensely powerful invading race held a grudge against a single Alliance Lieutenant Commander? What had she done to deserve that?

"Ping the Normandy, quickly," she ordered. "They'll have to pick us up from here."

Nathan stared at her. "What?"

"Do it now, Lieutenant. Ask questions later," she snapped.

He glowered at her tone, but did as ordered and received a text reply shortly after. 'Inbound. Kaidan aboard.'

He angled the screen so Shepard could see it. "Perfect," she muttered, leaning in to type a response. Her hair smelled of dust and ash.

'Zone hot. Pickup from balcony. Kaidan to assist.'

'Acknowledged. ETA four minutes.'

"Right," she said, satisfied. "We hold here for four minutes."

"I can ask questions now?"

She ignored his sarcasm. "When we've got some cover, sure." She cast around for cover but the balcony was almost completely bare. There was another support pillar, this one intact, a dozen metres away. "You take high, I'll take low," she instructed, ducking behind the pillar and crouching down.

He followed her, drawing his pistol and positioning himself behind and above her line of fire. "First question. What the hell are you planning, Shepard? This balcony is not big enough for the Normandy to land."

She glanced up at him with a slow grin. "It won't have to. Joker's at the helm."

He blinked. "So… he's going to back the ship up and we're just going to jump?" he demanded.

She shrugged. "I've done it before. Don't worry, it'll be fine. Kaidan's a biotic, he'll catch us."

Nathan stared at her. It'll be fine? "It'll be fine? We'll just take a running leap and hope we make it far enough that your biotic friend will be able to catch us? We're going to jump off a building?"

She looked up again to reply, eyes shining with laughter, but just then Nathan spotted a blue and black humanoid figure beginning to pull itself over the side of the balcony they had come from. Its black skin seemed to glisten wetly, cybernetics straining to keep pieces of flesh fused together. "Heads up," he barked, raising his pistol. He waited until he had a clear shot, then fired, hitting it in the shoulder.

"Aim for the torso," Shepard advised, all business once more.

He did so, and the thing jerked as its legs suddenly stopped functioning and collapsed to the ground with a wet smack. It lay there unmoving. He shuddered. "What are these things? I've never heard of a race of husks, or an alien species that looks like this."

"They were made from humans," Shepard told him grimly. Another husk crawled onto the balcony and she took it out with a single shot.

He opened his mouth to reply but couldn't find the words. Made from humans… He felt sick to his stomach.

Husks began appearing more rapidly, coming over the balcony in pairs. Nathan fired as methodically and accurately as he could, mindful of the fact that he only carried another three thermal clips and Shepard had none. Shepard was freakishly accurate. She ejected her clip long after he had moved onto his second and he was pretty sure every one of her shots had felled a husk.

He passed her a new one and she loaded quickly, then smoothly took out another husk all in the one motion. "Ping them again," she ordered, upping her rate of fire so he could stop.

He raised his omnitool and sent out another ping, checking the four-minute timer he had set. "Two minutes," he informed her.

"Clips?" she asked curtly without taking her eyes off the approaching husks. They were starting to get a foothold on the balcony; two were now on their feet while another two climbed the rail.

He had just reloaded again. "On my last one," he replied. He aimed and fired, and a husk collapsed when one of its calves exploded. To his horror it started crawling toward them, moaning.

"Hurry up, Joker," Shepard muttered as she fired. The husk flopped and went still.

Nathan's pistol overheated after a few more shots. He slapped it back onto the magnetic point on his belt. "What are they like up close?" he asked, priming his omniblade.

"One is easy, but they swarm," Shepard explained. She fired one last time then tucked her pistol into her waistband. "Stay together and stay in the open."

He nodded and moved out of cover, Shepard right beside him. The husks spotted them immediately, letting out unearthly moans as they loped forward. Nathan side-stepped one of them and impaled it on his omniblade, shoving it back into another. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Shepard, who was fighting bare-handed, land a punch so hard the husk's head spun to the side and its neck cracked. Damn.

Two husks rushed him. He managed to get his omniblade up, slicing it into one husk's chest, but he couldn't pull it free before the other one was on him too. It ran at him mindlessly, arms outstretched, and he threw an awkward punch with his off-hand. His fist connected with a wet smack, sinking into the malleable skin. The husk stumbled but his punch had been relatively weak; it was back up and on him again quickly. He pushed at it with his free arm while trying to get his omniblade free from the other husk's chest. It moaned, straining against his arm. The give in its flesh made it all the more difficult to keep away from him.

Finally he managed to shove the dead husk off his omniblade. It slid to the ground, leaving his arm soaked in black blood. He swung the blade across his body and speared the living husk in the side of the head. It jerked and went still. He let it fall.

Shepard was swearing, surrounded by three of the things. She had one by the arm; as he watched, she swung it awkwardly into another, sending both stumbling away. She continued to spin, using her momentum to backhand the remaining one across the cheek, snapping its neck. The first two husks had risen and were reaching for her; she swung her elbow at one, scoring a glancing blow and knocking it to the side, but the other grabbed her. Nathan reached out to pull it off but she was quicker. She used its weight to fall back and clumsily heave it back over her head, lifting it so its head was caught in the crook of her shoulder while its body continued to cartwheel over her head. Nathan winced as its neck bent in an unnaturally sharp angle and it went limp.

"Damn, Shepard, you sure know some creative ways to break necks," he commented wryly, stabbing the remaining husk through its torso with his omniblade. It was the last one for the moment. No more were climbing over the balcony rail. They had a momentary reprieve.

She shook her head as she clambered to her feet. "I'm a bit rusty," she grumbled. Nathan blinked. It sure hadn't looked that way to him.

She was covered in thick black blood from the side of her face, down her neck, and all of one shoulder. Her face was smudged with streaks of ash and blood – red this time – and her BDUs were barely recognisable.

She had never looked more beautiful.

Her eyes lit up and she nodded at something over his shoulder, smiling. "Our ride is here," she said.

Nathan turned, and felt his heart lift into his throat, spine tingling as the gleaming white hull of the Normandy swung into view, gliding smoothly through a gap between two buildings. It swung around and slowed, engines emitting a high-pitched whine as its pilot fought the wind and its mass effect field met the walls of the Alliance HQ building. He had never seen the Normandy up close before, but the pictures and news segments hadn't done it justice. It was the most beautiful ship he had ever seen.

"Come on." Shepard grabbed his wrist and jogged down to the farthest end of the balcony from the husks. "We'll have to jump together."

Even as she said it, another blue-black head appeared. She was right; they wouldn't have time to jump one by one. Shepard had also been right about not letting them get close. Nathan spotted more husks descending from the roof. They must have recognised her and somehow reported back to whoever was leading them, and now they were starting to swarm.

The hull of the Normandy was gliding closer, then swinging around, thrusters burning above and to either side of them. The pilot gradually inched the ship lower, keeping it square. If those thrusters swung over towards them, they'd be piles of ash before they knew what hit them. As he watched, dividing his attention between the approaching ship and the husks, he saw the cargo ramp swing down to reveal the figure of a man attached to the ship with a safety line. Kaidan.

The husks were beginning to find their feet. As he watched, one started loping toward them. The Normandy was still a good twenty metres out, drifting closer. They had to go!

Shepard still had an iron grip on his wrist, however. She held him back. "Wait," she warned.

The husk was halfway to them now, and others were starting to follow. "Shepard…"

Kaidan flared blue, and the husk suddenly floated up off the ground, forward momentum gone.

Kaidan flared again, and Shepard yanked on his arm. "Go!" she shouted.

Together they sprinted for the balcony railing. Nathan twisted his hand around and gripped Shepard's forearm as he began to pull ahead. With one stride he leapt up onto the railing, pulling her with him, and jumped.

Ohshit ohshit ohshit ohshit…

His stomach fell away as he launched into empty air, one hand clamped around Shepard's forearm, free arm reaching for the ship, legs moving as if to propel himself across the gap. There was a terrifying moment where he felt himself start to drop, and then they were surrounded by a field of blue biotic energy and lifted up onto the solid waiting ramp.

Kaidan grabbed them and hauled them into the cargo hold proper, momentum sending them both crashing onto the deck. Kaidan quickly raised a hand to his ear. "Joker, they're in, let's go!"

Nathan lay back against the deck for a moment, breathing heavily and still holding tightly to Shepard as if she might fall if he let go. His heart hammered in his chest. He closed his eyes, willing the vertigo to go away.

Shepard laid her other hand over his, then gently pried his fingers loose, but she didn't move away. Instead, she slipped her small hand into his and held tight. The strength in her fingers grounded him, reminded him that they were okay. They weren't falling to their deaths just yet. They were safely on board the Normandy.

He opened his eyes and sat up, casting her a rueful smile. At the questioning look in her eyes, he nodded and squeezed her hand. "I'm okay." She gave him a small smile, holding tight to his hand, searching his eyes as if to make sure he meant it.

Finally, after holding his hand for what seemed like far longer than necessary, she let go and got to her feet. As the cargo bay ramp began to close Nathan's eyes were drawn to the building they had just jumped from, to the roof in particular. Now he understood why they hadn't been able to go that way.

It was covered in… monsters. Brown, glistening, bulbous bodies connected to spindly humanoid legs. Tall, armoured constructs with sickeningly turian-like fringes. More husks.

The tall constructs were herding husks and the other bulbous things down into the building. As he watched, they caught sight of the Normandy and some of the larger monsters started firing in their direction.

They were too far away, though. The cargo ramp closed with a thump as the Normandy shot up into the sky.