Chapter 10

Miranda's entire body was beginning to grow numb but it was her breathing that really had her worried. Shock had begun to take hold of her and she'd seen enough injuries to know where that led. She was dying in the arms of a woman who had every reason to let her do it.

Her eyes fluttered open and closed, and when her senses returned, she had no way of knowing how much time had passed since her last lapse in consciousness. This time, she found herself cradled in Jack's surprisingly strong arms as she was dragged up a long-abandoned stairwell.

"Fuck, Cheerleader," Jack cursed as her chest heaved with her exertions. "Dammit, keep your eyes open."

"Jack?" Miranda mumbled.

"That's right, it's me. Talk to me. Tell me about your stupid sister, or your big, Cerberus ass, or anything you want. Just keep talking."

She couldn't. Everything went dark once more, and when her eyes opened again, it was to the image of Jack pulling her shirt up over her head. She was staring down at the wound in Miranda's stomach with wide, almost fearful eyes. The operative's mind focused long enough to look down there herself. Her prominent abs were sliced down the middle by a blade wound deeper than she had realized.

"Must have… severed celiac artery," Miranda mumbled. "Bleeding to death. Need...medi-gel to seal…" Her head rocked back and forth before she collapsed backwards into the softness of what seemed to be a couch.

"Miranda!" she heard Jack scream, but the sound was dim, as if coming from far away.

"I'm...I'm dying, Jack. Unless you can…" Miranda gasped for breath with a desperation that startled even her. "Need wound… sealed. Find medi-gel or-" She didn't even manage to finish her sentence before she blacked out once more.

This time, she awoke in darkness. Her body was drenched in a cold sweat that mixed in with the blood that stained her torso, leaving her shaking from the chill. Her ears were ringing and her vision was blurred, but once her eyes had adjusted, she was still able to make out the familiar sight of the abandoned office she and Jack had camped out in the night before. The sun had apparently set while she was passed out, the dust-covered windows that stretched the entire length of the room displaying the image of a bright, full moon. She could hear the distant sounds of gunfire and explosions in the streets below, accompanied by the occasional flash of light.

"Jack?" Miranda cried out weakly as she struggled to sit up on the couch, wincing at the agony that her every motion brought. Her wound made a sickening, wet sound and Miranda looked down at her bare torso to see her ghostly pale flesh painted red. The cut was still open and a steady trickle of blood had pooled around her and seeped into the cushions of the couch.

There was no answer from the convict. Perhaps she had decided to leave Miranda for dead or perhaps she had gone for help. The operative wasn't sure which possibility was more likely but one thing was for sure: she was alone.

It didn't take Miranda long to start dwelling on the bleak future that awaited her if Jack didn't return soon. After everything she'd accomplished, all the sacrifices she'd made, and the crimes she'd committed, she'd bleed out alone on this god forsaken planet and be forgotten. In some ways it would be a mercy.

At least my final days were interesting. The thought comforted her slightly. It was better to die here, fighting, than to waste away in the Alliance's cage or be lynched by her own people back on Earth. Miranda looked down at her blood-stained hands.

I suppose I got what I came here for.

Miranda wondered if this was how it felt for Shepard at the end. These past few months, she had thought a great deal about the man. While she rotted away in her cell, she had tried to focus on her happier memories of their time together. Making love in the Normandy's drive core, standing by his side when she finally found the strength to leave Cerberus. She thought about how he looked at her, how he kissed her, and of the moment he told her that he loved her. Nobody had ever said those words to her before. She doubted he truly understood how much they had meant.

As she sat there, alone and dying, she found her thoughts on Shepard turning to questions she'd vowed to stop asking herself long ago.

Why did you leave? What changed? Did you love her more?

Did you ever actually love me, Shepard?

The more she thought about the man, the more she realized how the hero of the galaxy had let her down. She had trusted him, loved him, and he had betrayed all of that.

"Dammit…" Miranda hissed. "Damn you, Shepard."

Tears stung in her eyes and rolled down her cheeks. She didn't know why she still bothered wasting her pain on Shepard anymore. Before she had met him, she used to tell herself that love didn't truly exist. That it was merely an illusion created to bring about false hope, and justify lust. As she stared out the window at the full moon hanging over Typhon, Miranda feared she had been right.

She sniffed back more tears, burying her face in her palm, but suddenly the sound of a door flying open her pulled her from her pain. Miranda gazed into the darkness as the sound of footsteps grew closer, preparing herself to come face to face with some blood thirsty non-human or a Cerberus soldier, but before she could see the face of the figure, they spoke.

"Miranda?" Jack called out as she came into view.

The operative quickly tried to wipe her tears away with the back of her hand as she turned her face away from the convict to hide them.

"Are you good?" Jack asked, her voice softer than Miranda had ever heard it before.

"Not dead yet," she answered in what passed for an attempt at humor in her pathetic state. "Did you find…"

Before she could finish, Jack held up an applicator tube of medi-gel. "Bunch of dead Cerberus bastards out there now. Had to kill a few myself to get this, so you better not waste my time by dying on me now. Lay back."

Miranda did as she was ordered and laid back onto the couch as Jack came over to her side. "You know how to…"

"Yeah, yeah, I know how it works." Jack said as she began to clean the wound with a damp cloth she had apparently also salvaged.

With her life literally in Jack's hands Miranda decided to do away with her stoicism for at least a moment. "Wasn't sure you'd come back for me," she admitted.

Jack's eyes drifted to Miranda's pale face but she said nothing.

"I'm sure I've given you plenty of reasons not to," Miranda continued.

"The way I see it, we're in this together." Jack replied as she lined the applicator up with the edge of the open wound.

Miranda's body tensed as the cold gel hit her tender flesh. The medi-gel stung terribly as it fizzled and closed the gaping injury in her stomach, but she gritted her teeth and bore it. Pain was good. It was the numbing that meant death was near.

"Besides, you got this covering my ass. You might be a bitch, cheerleader, but I won't let another person die because of me. Not even you."

Miranda couldn't fight back the tears in her eyes that time. "Thank you, Jack." How many of the people she knew would've come back for her? Hell, most of them would have stuck around just to watch her die. It was comforting to know there was at least one person who cared enough to keep her breathing, whatever her reasons.

"You're...you're different," Jack suddenly said as she finished sealing the wound up.

"Different?"

"From what I remember, I mean. Got me thinking on the way up here that maybe...fuck, I don't know, maybe I got you wrong back on the Normandy."

Miranda shook her head. "You didn't."

"Maybe not." Jack agreed. "But back in the prison, you…. Shit… I'm no good at crap like this. I guess what I want to say is, I know you're not like the Cerberus assholes on this planet."

Miranda could only offered a weak smile in response while the medi-gel's painkillers began to course through her bloodstream. The initial agony was passing, but now her head felt even heavier than before.

"I know I lost control back there," Jack admitted as she tried her best to wash the blood off of Miranda's torso with the wet cloth. "I almost got us killed… almost got you killed. I lost my shit and I shouldn't have. I guess you were right before, about there being more to me signing up for this bullshit. The last few months have been fucked. I thought everything was supposed to get better after Shepard killed the Reapers but instead it's just gone to shit."

"Trust me, Jack, I know how you feel."

"No. You really don't."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Miranda tried to keep the edge out of her voice. As much pain as she was in, Jack had sounded worse somehow. Flat and hollow. Miranda knew that feeling all too well, but it was strange hearing it come from beneath the convict's usual shield of rage and contempt.

Jack put down the now-red cloth and backed away, settling into a chair near the couch. She looked smaller in the moonlight, and when she spoke again, it was surprisingly quiet. "Why the hell not? I mean, you already spilled your guts to me. You really wanna know why I volunteered for this shit show?"

"To get revenge on Cerberus?" That's what she'd assumed ever since the mission began, but Miranda was starting to suspect there was more to this story than she knew. She was too woozy to put the pieces together herself, though, lightheaded from blood loss and the effects of the medi-gel.

Jack snorted. "Yeah, they're a bunch of fucking animals and they've gotta be stopped. But they're not why I came here to die."

"To die?"

"I mean, you said it before, right? We're not coming back from this shit. And maybe that's what we deserve."

"Hey," Miranda objected. "You helped us take down the Collectors. To save the galaxy. That has to pay whatever debts you think you owe."

"The ones I had back then, maybe. That shit was about survival at least…" Her voice trailed off, and when she spoke again, it was filled with bitterness. "I've got new ones now. Guess I needed a new suicide mission to clear 'em out."

"What happened?"

"I got them killed, cheerleader. All of them." Her anger was coming back to the surface. Miranda wished Jack was furious at Cerberus, or the Collectors, or even at her. But her rage was directed at herself, and somehow that was more terrifying.

"Who are we talking about, Jack?" she asked, afraid of what the answer was going to be.

"Who do you think?" Jack was screaming now, her voice almost deafening in the otherwise silent office building. "The only people I had. Those kids from Grissom who were dumb enough to trust me. They're all fucking dead and it's my fault."

"Jack…" Without thinking about it, Miranda reached out and put her hand on the convict's knee. There was no objection to the gesture, and so she left it there. "I at least know you well enough to know you'd have never wanted that. Whatever happened to those students wasn't your fault."

"What does it matter what I wanted? I made my choice, and they're all dead because of it." Jack fell silent for a moment, but then she seemed to realize that her story didn't actually explain anything, because she continued.

"On Earth, we were assigned to this detachment of turian marines. Real tough guys, or at least they thought they were. We were supposed to hold the left flank of some ridge for a tank division that was covering the Alliance's approach to that beam thing, but the Reapers… Christ, there were so many of them. The Ravagers broke the line, and then the Brutes started tearing the turians to pieces. The kids wanted to head to the front, to try and bail out the turians and push the Reapers back. I told them we're just supposed to be doing support, but…"

She bowed her head. "They were so fucking stupid. They thought they could make a difference, that they could save the day. But I was the one who said yes. It was my call. I let them charge into that hell knowing what would happen. They put up a good fight… for a minute or two. Pretty soon the Reapers started to tear them apart. Once they broke through their barriers... I couldn't save them, couldn't do anything but watch them die. I killed more than I could count, but they just kept coming."

Jack's fists clenched tightly as she fell back in her seat. Miranda searched for something to say but came up empty and before long, the convict continued her tale. "You ever actually look into someone's eyes when they died? Rodriguez was the last one to fall. She managed to take down a Brute but it got a chunk out of her too. When I tried to pull her into cover, her fucking guts were spilling all over me. I lied to her, told her she'd be okay, that she did good. It didn't mean shit. She couldn't even speak with all the blood she was puking up and all I could do was look into her eyes… she was so fucking scared, Miranda. No matter what I do, I can't get the look on her face out of my head. The rest of the students...hell, I couldn't even identify half of them afterwards. I was the last one left standing, but it was just a matter of time before they got me too. So I figured, what the hell? Wasn't like I didn't deserve it after all the shit I'd pulled... I wanted them to do it, to fucking end it for me. Seemed all poetic and shit."

The pain had finally subsided enough for Miranda to sit back up. Her bleary vision had improved as well, giving her a clear view of the devastation on Jack's face. "And then what happened?" she asked.

"Fucking Shepard happened. Your goddamn ex-boy scout fired the Crucible and blew them all to hell. Everything those kids died for… none of it mattered. The ridges, the tanks, all of it didn't mean a damn thing, because 5 minutes after my kids died for them, the war was over." Tears were streaming down Jack's face, ugly, messy things that she'd been holding inside ever since that day. "I should've protected them, Miranda. Or at least died with them. The least I can do is die here. I owe them that much."

"You really believe that?" Miranda asked. "That they'd want you to get yourself killed here?"

"What's it matter? It's not like there's anyone left who'd give a shit if I got what's coming to me."

"That can't be true."

Unwilling to respond, Jack swivelled around in her chair, staring out the window at the night sky instead. She said nothing but Miranda could tell she was listening for a change.

"What happened was the Reapers' fault, not yours. And it wasn't for nothing. Whatever the logistics, your students died protecting the galaxy."

"A lot of fucking good it did. Look at this planet, cheerleader. At all the messed up shit that's happened here. Does the galaxy seem saved to you?"

"We're still alive, Jack. That has to count for something. Things might be terrible right now, but we have to believe they can get better someday." Miranda realized the irony in her playing the voice of hope. She knew Jack's pain all too well. After everything they had both fought for, this was where they had ended up. And yet, she continued. "I might not have known your students but if they cared about you like you cared about them, I know they'd want you to keep going."

Jack suddenly rose to her feet. "Why the hell should I?" she demanded. "What's next for people like us, Miranda? How do we get better?"

The urge to tell a comforting lie was there, but Jack deserved better than that from her. "I don't know."

"That's what I thought. There's no happy ending for us, Miranda. All that matters is finishing Cerberus. Nobody gives a shit if I make it out or not anyway. I've been alone my whole damn life, and I was a fucking idiot to think I'd die any different."

"You're wrong."

Jack turned around, finally meeting Miranda's eyes. "I would care if you didn't make it, Jack." The convict stared her down, undoubtedly searching for the ulterior motive behind the operative's words. "You're not alone. Perhaps that should count for something."

After a long pause, Jack responded. "I can't believe I'm saying this, cheerleader, but I guess it does."

For the briefest moment the two women shared a smile before Jack turned away once more.

Notes- Sorry for the delay. Hope you enjoyed the chapter and will share your thoughts with us in the reviews! Happy Holidays!