The Lucifer Effect
Author's Note: Medical Jargon Bottomline - Remy has difficulty speaking because it's a motor control problem, not comprehension. What she has is 'dysarthria' which is an impairment of speech, whilst aphasia is an impairment of language. So it's like saying a word vs having that word. There are a ton of sub-types but this isn't Blue's Anatomy ;P Things get intense, but hope you still enjoy and hang in there!
Remedy shifts uncomfortably. She's already been warned not to move, but she can't help it. She hates this. Hates that she's just decaying here in a near-vegetative state.
It's worse than near-death.
She looks over at the empty chair. As much as she actually wanted the company to keep her mind off this, it wouldn't have helped if Sophie passed out on her. She looks down at the sheets; they hug two stumps, then nothing beyond that. She doesn't even have knees, but what's scarier is that it feels like she still does.
Her head sinks into the pillows as she takes a deep breath, trying to stave off the tears. She had a bright future ahead of her. She could see it; now it's all shrouded in darkness, and she has no clue what tomorrow holds for her. She doesn't even know what today holds for her.
She hates the unknown.
Remedy's gaze snaps to the room's entrance when the door slides open. Her mouth instinctively curls into a smile without hesitation, or thought.
"Sophie..."
-—-—-—-—-—-
Suvi...
Remy tries not to smile. Instinct takes over anyways, saying it's okay with this one. It's not okay. Anybody who's aligned with Nexus is never okay; especially the man on the other plinth. He won't stop staring at her, won't stop staring at Suvi too. Suspicious much?
"I asked Gil for this," Suvi breaks Remy from her stare-down, and she looks back at the approaching woman. She still hasn't figured out what Suvi is; her uniform is the mark of a civilian of some sort though. No military training, then. Good to know.
Something is thrust in front of Remy's face. A datapad? Suvi taps the screen to unlock it, and a slew of formulas litter the screen. Remy grunts when a headache immediately burrows between her eyes; her brain's already trying to solve the equations and she wants to do literally anything but. She brusquely pushes Suvi's hand away.
Apologize. That was rude.
So what? The agony is more freaking important. Why the hell is Remy chastising herself now, of all times?
...But she concedes to the kicked puppy look all over Suvi's face, and motions for the omni-tool to type. If only the doc let her use her other hand; it's not like the implants will cause any more damage than there already is. A groan gurgles in the back of Remy's throat. Her brain won't shut the fuck up today, and here's Suvi waltzing in with an infinite list of calculations to make.
At least she's trying to help.
Remy ignores herself—if only it were actually possible—and reaches when the omni-tool hovers in front of her, typing. [Sorry. Major headache.] She pauses, thinking, caving in. [But... Thank you for trying to help me pass the time.] She pushes Suvi's arm far more gently now, struggling to get the other half of her mouth coordinated in a weak grin.
Suvi reads the message, her crestfallen look clearly etched in every single feature of her face. She's so easy to read, it's almost endearing; even more so when she smiles apologetically, but brightly. "I should be the one apologizing. I should've remembered about your concussion."
Oh. Hah. Yeah. Concussion... Remy almost forgot about that. The whole getting her brain poked just kinda seems a bit more of a pressing issue. But she gets where Suvi's coming from. Gets that it's the grumpy side thinking that Suvi is in fact the one that should be apologizing, and not Remy. Gets that Suvi's just trying to help. Gets that it's still the grumpy side thinking that Suvi should know better.
Remy's already been through all that hocus pocus therapy to understand why everybody else would get frustrated with her; if only they went through the same and just tried to imagine how frustrating it was—is—to be her.
All half of her.
And now—
"May I keep you company, or...?" Suvi worries her lip. She has a nervous tic—or Remy thinks it's a nervous tic, with how often it happens—and sometimes Suvi's thumb tends to rub along her other palm. Is it to soothe, or is there a scar hidden by the gloves? The longer she stands, the more Remy wonders what for.
Then she remembers.
Without thinking, she pats her bed and nods as her answer. She doesn't dare try to talk, not anymore. It's embarrassing—depressing—how idiotic she sounds now. T'Lova would surely joke that Remy now looks and sounds the part; except it wouldn't be a joke anymore.
At least Suvi doesn't seem to mind, and she doesn't have that look of pity anymore either.
Remy ignores the man bristling in silence, focusing all her attention on learning everything there is to learn about Suvi. The woman's an open book; she makes absolutely no move to hide anything about herself. She's setting herself up for danger. How long would it take until Kadara tainted this one too? It'd probably set a record time. There's something about Suvi that screams honesty; and honest people were the first to die out on that god-forsaken planet.
Remy shoves the memories away, but there are nothing but reminders everywhere. If it's not Kadara, it's Sophie, or the Nexus, or how everybody's dream has been shattered by cruelty and reality, or how Remy has turned into a criminal just like anyone else. She's probably considered the 'stereotypical exile' on this ship.
But then Suvi gently takes her hand. Remy still doesn't understand why this one is being this kind to her; compassion only goes so far. Didn't Suvi mention something about being woken up to replace her? Maybe it's just simply curiosity that's turned into a complicated clusterfuck now.
Dull pain trickles in and starts to throb in the center of Remy's forehead and she groans. Too many questions, too much thinking. She subtly shakes her head when she feels her hand squeezed. Her chest squeezes too, when Suvi leans forward and rests her elbows on the plinth, whispering ever so quietly. "Would it help if I told a story?"
Remy's brow furrows in confusion. She nods dumbly. Anything is better than suffering in silence like this, anyways. Suvi smiles softly. The lights behind her head make her look like she's got some sort of freaking halo; cheesy, but true. Maybe she's a guardian angel. Something tells Remy she wouldn't be here right now, alive and relatively intact.
But the reminder is too much.
One woman pulled her out of water, another woman pulled her out of fire.
Remy closes her eyes, trying to stall the tears growing in one of them. She squeezes the hand in hers as tightly as possible. Her mouth refuses to move. Frustration burns and makes her snap, makes the tears roll. She hears Suvi curse under her breath, then warmth seeps into the back of her hand. She can't even cuss this anger out herself. She can't say she wants to be left alone. She can't do anything anymore. She's just lying here, utterly useless, assaulted by memories over 600 years old.
Now there's a woman who may as well be Sophie #2.
She tries to pull her hand away, but Suvi won't let her. "It'll get better," she murmurs into Remy's hand. Something wet touches it too. "I promise it will. You're under the best care here. Cutting edge technology and an A.I., and the best of the best work here. I promise you'll get nothing but the best here."
Remy doesn't want the best of the best. She wants to get out of here. She wants to go back to Kadara, to the kids, to—
...The kids!
Her eyes snap open and she squeezes the hand in hers so it won't get away, tugging and tugging until Suvi offers her forearm. Remy tries to blink the mist away from the world, ignoring it fiercely, swallowing her pride. This is weakness on Kadara. It'd rip her apart and dance on her grave if she was ever caught crying, and now it's the only thing left that she's able to do. How much more will be taken away from her until both the Milky Way and Andromeda are satisfied?
Omni-tool engaged, Remy types furiously, determined to get the answer to that question. [Where are the kids? Can you bring them here?] She studies Suvi's expression, keen on absolutely any fucking change that might hint on something terrible.
It doesn't come as a hint, but as a goddamn roar.
Suvi's eyes are still sheen, but she immediately turns off her omni-tool and looks down, cutting off any means for Remy to communicate and interrogate her.
Damn if she won't try, though.
Remy keeps telling herself: open your mouth. Open. Open. Open. Tongue to the roof of the mouth. Tongue, to— "SSS..." She'll get this. She has to. If she can say 'fuck', she's going to learn to combine it with Suvi's name if any harm came to the angaran children. "Ooh..."
Vee.
How the hell is she supposed to make that sound? It's not like she paid attention to the exact movements of her mouth back when she could talk. She keeps repeating vee in her thoughts, hoping her lips and teeth will magically coordinate with each other. They don't. Time to move on to the next best thing, then.
"Fi."
Too light, too airy, but it'll do.
Until realization crashes down as to who she actually called out.
Remy knows it. There's no way Suvi doesn't know it, with the look she's making now. And for the first time in ages, Remy falls apart; a heart-wrenching sound bubbles in her throat, no human should ever sound like this. She watches the med-bay's entrance, hoping the doors will slide open, desperate to remember the woman with that stupid grin.
"Sofi..."
-—-—-—-—-—-
Sara folds her hands behind her head and aimlessly meanders around the vidcon room. Tasks sit on top of a hundred other tasks in her mind. She collapses on the couch, draping a forearm over her eyes. Her brain is honestly hurting from the weight of each decision waiting to be made; how is she supposed to prioritize priority missions? This is worse than triage drills.
There's the angaran children, the asari ark, the sightings of turian survivors on Havarl, the need to convince exiles to return to the Nexus, the need to convince krogan to return to the Nexus, the need to convince an asari—
"Why the fuck is everybody fighting each other?" Sara hisses under her breath, turning to lie on her side and face the conference room.
"I have pondered on that myself, Pathfinder." SAM chimes on their private channel.
Great. In addition to this shitstorm, she has a curious A.I. who's just as confused as her.
"Was hoping you'd have the answer to that, SAM." Sara sighs, then chuckles humorlessly. "You'd think everybody would realize 'hey if we don't work together, we're going to go extinct', but noooo... Let's just drive ourselves into extinction even fucking faster and dump all our problems on one chick who doesn't know what the fuck she's doing, and expect her to fix all the mistakes everybody keeps fucking making. Yeah, what a great idea! What could possibly go wrong?"
A beat. Within a second, Sara's heart plummets to the dreadful pit of her stomach.
"There are many possibilities. The chance of—"
"Sarcasm, SAM! I don't actually want the statistics of all the ways the Initiative can fail!" Sara groans, flopping on her back to cover her eyes again. "I need support, actual support from people who want to make this work. It can't be just the people on this ship; and not even everybody on this ship are working to make this work..." she huffs bitterly, her thoughts pulling in the one direction she's trying to avoid.
"Speak for yourself. You're the one being a drama queen on the couch while we're all busting our ass."
Sara freezes. Her eyes snap open as she shoots up into sitting, but is shoved back down. She blinks in disbelief. "Peebee?" She tries to get up, but is shoved back down again. A spike of hot anger burns beneath Peebee's touch. Sara nearly snaps at all the nerves this arrogant asari has, but crumbles when Peebee turns and walks to the stairs, casually waving over her shoulder as she leaves the conference room.
"What's taking you so long? Get up, Pathfinder!" Peebee shouts out from the research center. There's a mischievous grin in that smug voice; she's asking for trouble. "We got work to do and a cluster of clusterfucks to fix!"
A beat. Within a second, Sara's heart soars to pound at the base of her throat.
"You know where to find me when you need me!"
When?
Now.
-—-—-—-—-—-
"Fuck," Peebee gasps, trapped between wall and woman. Again. Déjà vu, much? She smirks lazily when heated breaths skirt over the sensitive cartilage of her ear canal, sending tingles down her spine. A flood of goosebumps break out when Ryder's hand sneaks under her jacket and ghosts across the small of her back.
"Who pissed you off?" Peebee asks breathlessly, cheekily. Her answer is muffled grumbling against her shoulder again, but this time she knows who.
She knows who pissed herself off too. Ryder isn't going to get away with her fuck up, and for expecting Peebee to just be a willing accomplice too. No way. Those kids should've been with the pirate from the start; Peebee and Jaal should've had a much bigger say since they did all the work. Plus maybe a wee bit Cora, but mostly those two.
Instead, the almighty, macho, powerful Pathfinder frankly said: fuck no.
Because apparently boarding with complete strangers is smarter than being with the foster parent? Sometimes Ryder's logic—or lack thereof—worries Peebee.
Now they're here again. Pushing. Pulling. Fighting. Fucking. Fighting. It's a never-ending war. Peebee can't find it in herself to end it, though. The heady rush is addicting. Anger even more so; but the way Ryder handles her this time hurts without actually hurting. It's beyond a mindless need to blow off the frustration.
It's a mindful need to hurt.
This is a string. There isn't supposed to be any of them of any kind; not just from Ryder's end, but Peebee's too. She can't bring herself to cut it. She was pulled back by it. She's surrendering. She's supposed to be fighting. No, she's supposed to be running.
Pressure builds, and she hates it. Hates how she's responding, thrumming, humming. Hates the woman coaxing all of this out of her. Hates how the woman is changing her. Hates her for making her agonize over staying or leaving. She's not supposed to agonize, she's not supposed to anything. She hopped on board for an adventure and the unknown and the Remnant and she's doing anything and everything but what she actually wants.
"I hate everything about you," slips out her mouth. She stops, and the hands on her stop. Silence falls, making every ragged breath thunder. Peebee nervously chews the inside of her lip when Ryder doesn't do anything. Peebee's heart drops at the hoarse mumble back.
"I know." Ryder suddenly pulls and turns away, hiding her face. "And it hurts." She takes a deep breath. Her shoulders slump, and she chuckles mirthlessly. "But it's not because you hate everything about me." She shrugs and stuffs her hands in her pockets. Peebee wants to scream don't say it, but she's frozen in place. This stupid human is going to ruin what little's left between them.
The Pathfinder—no longer bearing a name to shield Peebee—walks out, but not before delivering the final blow to torment them even more. Selfish asshole.
"It's because I love everything about you."
-—-—-—-—-—-
"What is wrong with you?" Drack grumbles in annoyance. "And don't lie to me, kid. You never bring me along. Not unless you need me to headbutt sense in ya."
"You're bored, I get it." Sara sighs. "So go find shit to kill."
"Not gettin' rid of me that easily. What's eating you up this time, kid? Tann piss you off?"
"No, of course not, because bureaucrats never piss me off..." she drawls sarcastically, rolling her eyes. She leans on the railing and watches Jaal on the platform below, talking with whom she presumes are his mothers as the children hide behind him. This is still for the best, she tells herself. The exile is dangerous and has never been fit to care for them.
Remedy has some nerve for trying, after what she's put those kids through. They deserve a normal and proper family; ones who understand and can provide both the biological and emotional necessities.
...But Sara can't believe her own bullshit, can't stop from feeling like she's missing or misunderstanding something, can't stop from believing that second chances should exist. Besides, what even constitutes as 'normal' or 'proper' anymore? She's torn. She doesn't trust the exile, but wants to trust the exile. 'Yalaon' showed the kids trust Remedy, but they're just kids. They can be tricked, which is the fucking theme of Kadara. That exile must have done the same just to survive. With everything SAM uncovered, she was manipulative; but who knows if she was manipulative to or for the kids?
Why does everything have to be all kinds of god damn gray? This is too complicated.
She avoids looking anywhere near Drack's direction, knowing he's studying her, knowing he knows something is eating her up, knowing he knows that she did bring him for the exact reason he said. She needs sense knocked into her, logic that actually makes sense. Maybe then it'll stop her from feeling like a brat trying to fill daddy's shoes.
It pisses her off that she's the one pissing herself off nowadays, nobody else.
Drack sighs. She steals a sideways glance, watching him push off from the railing. "I think you already know what you want, kid. Should listen to that instead."
If only it could be that easy. Sara props her chin on her palm and shrugs. "Sometimes I can't always have what I want, and sometimes what I want isn't what's good."
"Who's the one sayin' it is or isn't good? You. You're the one gettin' in your own way. Everybody else's way too. Look." Drack taps her shoulder, making her turn around. "You take a good look at who's watchin' from the ship. See that?" He points to the ramp leading to the cargo bay; it's hard to see in this distance, but the colors make it easy to tell as to who's watching from afar.
Suvi and Peebee.
"They never wanted this shit. Nobody does. I know you don't want this shit either, kid. So why the hell are you going through with this?"
"Because we can't take them in and keep them with us." Sara looks away. "And we don't know what Remedy's like—or will be like now, with all that crap with her brain. She's an unknown but I know she's dangerous, especially to them."
"If you know something about her then spit it out already." Drack huffs, stomping to stand right in front of her. "Why don't you actually want the kids with her?"
Sara grits her teeth, looking to the other side. Drack just moves until he's in front of her, trapping her against the railing when he grabs her shoulders, forcing her to meet his eyes. Sara snaps, growling. "You're looking at me like I'm a criminal, tearing a family apart. I'm not." She shoves his chest with all her strength, but there's no way she's going to make this krogan budge. "That's what the exile did, and she's been playing fucking pretend. I'm willing to bet my life those kids don't know what she did, that she's the one that's been lying this entire time."
Drack frowns, confused, but at least he finally backs off. "What the hell are you talking about?"
"She killed their parents, Drack! SAM pieced their story together with a broken turret Cora found in their home. That exile even had the nerve to keep the fucking turret for parts." Sara spits vehemently, knowing fully well how sensitive the topic of children is to the krogan. "So you tell me: what the fuck would you do?"
...And she immediately regrets revealing this to such a krogan.
Especially when Drack storms back to the Tempest.
-—-—-—-—-—-
"Drack, stop this at once! What do you think you're doing?!" Lexi barks, rushing to the nearest cabinet to grab a syringe—several, this is a krogan after all—containing a potent sedative. She will use it if she has to. The horrifying scene unfolds before her as Drack lifts the exile right off the bed and rips out the IV from her, his prosthetic hand wrapped around her throat. Remedy claws, gasping for air, her stumps kicking wildly, blood dripping down from her elbow where the IV was.
The Pathfinder charges inside a second later, a pistol aimed at Drack. Liam's already halfway out his bed, omni-blade out.
"Put her down!" Sara yells, marching fearlessly to the krogan, pistol at his head. "I didn't tell you what I did so you could do this, Drack. I'm ordering you: put her down now!"
"No." Drack seethes, bringing the writhing exile to his face. Her movements are slowing. The color from her face is drained, skin stained by the bright red trailing down. "You're garbage. Don't deserve to live. I've done fucked up shit in my life as a pirate, but nothing like what you did."
"Drack, let her go or I swear I'll shoot your fucking hand!" Sara shouts, unlocking the safety. "You're going to kill her!"
"Good!" His fingers tighten, his teeth bared in a vicious snarl. "She's worse than the kett. Why the hell are you backin' her up now, when you know what she did?"
Lexi panics when she looks over her shoulder, but nobody's outside the med-bay. Not yet; it's only a matter of time before Suvi comes here. Remedy falls limp. There's nothing to think about. Lexi quickly closes the distance and jams one syringe behind his arm, stepping to the other side when he looks down and exposes his neck. She sinks the other two syringes in, then uses her biotics to hold the exile before she's released.
Drack stumbles about, and Sara scrambles out of the way before he falls and crushes her. Liam starts to hobble to help and Lexi snaps. "SAM, lock the med-bay!" The doors slam shut. She never saw Suvi either, so that's one good thing at least. Now: damage control. She glares at Liam. "Get back to your bed, you're not supposed to be bearing any weight on that leg!" Then at Sara. "And you! What in the world is going on with Drack? What did you tell him?"
"More pressing issues at hand, doc," Sara urges as she rushes around the exile's plinth and unlocks it, rolling it closer. "Get her on here. She needs the IV and to get her head checked. I'll deal with Drack." She locks the plinth's wheels and stomps around as Lexi works to carefully lay Remedy back down, setting to work. Her hands are shaking; not out of fear, but fury. What in the world could have possessed Drack to go this far and try to kill Remedy?
...And if so many attempts to take the exile's life have been made, there must be a reason for it.
So does she deserve a second chance?