Reflections

Miranda watched as Shepard headed to the infirmary. From what she could see through the windows, the room was occupied by a group of varied alien soldiers including a Geth and Batarian. An unusual combination to say the least. She made a mental note to check in with Chakwas at some point in the future. Miranda had a lot of respect for the aged doctor, who had proven herself beyond competent on multiple occasions. Miranda was looking forward to working with her again. But that would have to wait. Right now, other issues needed to be dealt with.

She turned left and headed down the port side of the ship, towards the bow and the entrance to her old office. She was not a fan of the subdued lighting. The Alliance were clearly intent on giving their marines eye strain, and it deadened the mood of the entire ship, making it feel like a crypt.

Her office door slid open as smoothly as it ever had, revealing the utterly unfamiliar interior. Liara was standing in front of a giant wall of monitors, typing at a small computer. Miranda took a step backwards as glowing white VI drone drifted up and scanned her.

"Unfamiliar presence detected, Miss T'soni. Would you like me to inform security."

"No. Thank you, Glyph." The Asari answered. "Hello Miranda." The greeting sounded warm enough, though she didn't look away from her console. "It's good to see you."

"Likewise." Miranda replied, staring at the enormous bank of monitors. "I can't say I like what you've done with my office…"

"My apologies." Liara said, glancing along the length of the room. The bed still lay at the far end, but the walls had been removed, as had Miranda's old desk. In their place was a vast array of computers and other electronics.

"I needed the space." The Asari said, "This room was large enough and…unoccupied. If it makes you any better, John looked very crestfallen the first time he walked in here."

"Did he"

"I think he was really hoping he'd be able to reassemble his old crew." The Asari told her, typing furiously on her keyboard. "I know you were after your sister, but it would have done him a lot of good had you been here."

"Well I'm here now…" Miranda said, a shade coldly.

"Yes you are." Liara said. "And what was it you required? Forgive me, but I'm rather busy. Not that I wouldn't love to talk, of course, but…not at this very moment."

"I'm here because…" Miranda hesitated. Her cheeks flushed, but she plunged onwards. "Because I need a job. I know how rumour spreads, and how things work on starships, and I refuse to be solely defined as John Shepard's girlfriend. I came here to take over his recovery, but that isn't a full-time occupation, and what happens after he's recovered? You're the executive officer, and I was hoping you could find a place…"

"I'm not, actually." Liara said. "The Normandy has no official XO. I'm just using the office."

"No executive officer?" Miranda frowned. "The Alliance just went along with it? They're usually very strict about their command layers."

"Garrus and I would take over whenever John needed a break." Liara tapped her Omnitool and the door slid shut, sealing the two women in together. Miranda moved further into the Asari's office and leaned against a warm server bank.

The Asari glanced conspiratorially at the closed door. "Truthfully, and I would never say this in front of the crew, I don't think John Shepard considers this to be an Alliance ship. Admiral Hackett would say otherwise of course, but Shepard is a council Spectre, and he can bend the rules any way he pleases. We have no executive officer."

"Why?"

"Perhaps we were in too much of a hurry for him to bother filling out a full roster. Perhaps he had enough people second-guessing him outside this ship." The Asari smiled. "Perhaps he kept the post open hoping you would fill it…"

"Probably a combination of all three." Miranda observed quietly.

Liara nodded. "I think XO would be an excellent fit for you, and I think that Shepard would back you. Your experience would be of great benefit to him, to the mission, and to the crew… provided you keep your views on the alliance to yourself."

"My views-"

"Are justifiable, and you have every right to hold them." The Asari replied smoothly. "But you're dealing with Alliance navy personnel. People cut from the cloth of Ashley Williams, and David Anderson. Arrogance, especially towards the Alliance, would be disastrous. Your Cerberus background is a black mark from the start. John would defend you, of course, but he would risk his own authority doing it."

"You have advice?" Miranda asked.

For the first time since their conversation had begun, Liara actually stepped away from her terminal to face her guest in full. She was frowning, though clearly amused. "The first time I ever worked with you, you would have refused to take any advice. Given or not."

"A lot has changed." The former Operative told her.

"Clearly." Liara scratched her forehead, thinking hard. "John is soft on his crew."

"I know."

"We needed that during the Reaper war." The Asari elaborated. "It helped morale no end to ease up on regulations a little. People knew how to do their jobs, and they knew said jobs needed to be done. Keeping the hard line would only have stressed them out more.

"But they've gotten too comfortable. Study up on your alliance regulations and take a hard line. Whether or not you want to keep quiet about your background is your decision. It might be useful to talk to Admiral Hackett and have a rank assigned. I have no doubt he'd fast track you, given your experience, and the reality of our situation."

Deadpanned, Liara added "Also be warned, you may have to provide character references. They only want the best."

"Well I once worked with Commander Shepard on a mission of vital importance to the preservation of our species.." Miranda replied with a slight smile. "He seemed satisfied with my performance."

"That should about do it." Liara replied, matching Miranda's smile with one of her own. "Just try not to phrase it quite that way. At least not in front of joker."

Miranda stepped out of Shepard's bathroom and grabbed a towel to dry herself off. She had done what she could with her hair. It was mostly dry, but his blow-dryer really wasn't suited to her extravagant brunette locks. As it was, her hair was slightly damp, but passable, and she was too tired to do anything more with it. Moving John had been a taxing endeavor and she was glad the day was winding to a close.

She gathered his robe around herself and took a seat in the chair beside his bed, not quite tired enough to sleep yet. Shepard was already in there, staring up through the skylight. He was sitting upright, propped up against the headboard. His expression was gloomy and meditative. He emerged from his remembrances long enough to give her a gentle smile. "I was thinking about the Citadel." He said. "Trying to piece together what happened after I got to the beam."

"You don't remember?"

"Oh, I remember." He muttered angrily. His eyes glazed over again. "It just doesn't make sense."

"What happened?"

"We ran into the Illusive Man first." He said.

"We?" she asked sharply, walking over and taking a seat on the chair beside his bed.

"Anderson and I." he sighed, staring in to space, his eyes glazed over.

A pregnant silence fell upon the room. Miranda cleared her throat nervously. "And what was he like, John?"

"Are you sure you want to hear it?" Shepard asked. Miranda had spent her entire adult life under the tutelage of the Illusive Man. There was no way she wouldn't be affected by news of his passing. He had been a father figure to her. A mentor. Everything to her that David Anderson had been to Shepard. Everything and more.

John had wondered in the early days whether or not there hadn't been a physical aspect to their relationship. He suspected it. It made sense considering what little he actually knew of her past. But he wasn't about to ask her. It didn't particularly bother him, either. That chapter of her life, had it ever been one, was closed and had been for some time.

"The worst." She replied heavily. "I'm not made of glass."

"He had implanted himself with Reaper tech." John said. "he was… half husk. Not even really human anymore. Indoctrinated. Could barely think for himself."

She stared thoughtfully at the fishtank. "Why would he do that? When I worked for him, he knew enough to keep all reaper tech away from Chronos station. He didn't want to risk the nerve center of Cerberus being indoctrinated."

"Well he changed."

"Yes he did. He had boundaries once, you know. Standards. Ten years ago he kept a hard line. He'd cross it sometimes. Frequently, even. But always for justifiable reasons. And he'd always have safeguards in place to make sure he didn't go too far, or lose sight of the original objectives."

"He came back at the end." John said. "We had to talk him out of killing us. Remind him of what his original goals were. Show him just how out of touch he had become."

"Controlling the reapers was the wrong move." She said firmly. "The old Cerberus would have regarded them as a threat, and done our best to put them down."

"I saw some videos on Chronos Station…" John said quietly. "About Project Lazarus, and setting things up for my return."

"Mmmhmm?"

"Miranda?"

She looked at him.

"How much of it was a lie?" he inquired. "Everyone was relatively friendly. They all sounded… genuine. How much of it was a lie? How much was covered up?"

"Honestly?" she asked, "Nearly all of it. Everyone had been given strict orders to wear a smile. Jacob was honest with you. Crewman Rolston never actually had a family. Kelly Chambers was actually…" She trailed off awkwardly.

"Yes?" he asked grimly.

"She was one of our more… subtle agents. Specialized in political espionage. Specifically the Honeytrap."

"Ah."

Miranda snorted. "The poor woman thought she was actually getting somewhere when you invited her up to dinner."

John frowned slightly. "I'm pretty sure you and I kissed a few days later."

"Yes." Miranda smiled. "That kind of put an end to her plans."

"Don't take this the wrong way, Miranda, but I'm surprised he didn't put you in charge of… that."

"Would you honestly have trusted me at all if I'd made any real moves towards it?" Miranda demanded. "You would have seen right through me. I'm actually amazed you trusted me enough to make a move yourself."

"I didn't really trust you." John confessed. "Not really. Not until the Collector base."

Miranda frowned. "Then why were you…?"

"Flirting with you was like… tap-dancing down the edge of a razorblade." Shepard said carefully. "One that got sharper and sharper the further you went. I figured eventually I was going to get cut but I couldn't stop. I wanted to see how far you'd let me take it. And how bad the damage would be when it eventually happened…but it never did, and here we are."

"Here we are." She agreed, watching him carefully. "John, you should know that by the end of that mission, every single member of the crew was on your side. We respected you. We learned the hard way just how much aliens had to offer… and that we didn't always have to take the hard line to get what we needed. You opened up a lot of eyes. Including mine."

"I wish I could have opened the Illusive Man's." John shook his head. "He would have been one of my most useful allies."

"How did he die, exactly?"

"Suicide. He realized he had been indoctrinated and damaged beyond repair." John said heavily. "His last act was to clear the way and let Anderson and I do our jobs."

Miranda let out a long sigh. "At least he ended it himself…"

"He had enough control." Shepard affirmed. "He chose his own end. Not many people in this universe have the willpower to fight Reaper indoctrination. I respect him for that. I'm just sorry it ended that way. He would have been… useful."

She smiled slightly. "I don't think he could ask for higher praise than that. Not from Captain Shepard."

John nodded. "After he died, I thought that was the end of it. I wish you could have seen it, Miranda. We were sitting there at the very base of the Citadel. Earth was right in front of us. It was beautiful."

"I'm sure it was."

"Anderson died there. He'd taken a bullet in his chest and god knows what else…"

"My condolences."

"I'm not all that sad about it, honestly." John told her. "He died honorably enough. Calmly enough. And he died thinking the Crucible was going to fire. Thinking that we'd won. It was a good death. But then the crucible didn't fire." John grimaced. "That's where it all goes foggy. I remember reaching for the console…"

He died away into silence, scouring his own memory for the missing pieces, and glaring into space.

"Rumors say you talked the Reapers into leaving us alone…" she prompted after a few minutes. She had to admit, she was somewhat apprehensive about hearing the truth of the matter, but Shepard needed a confidant, and Garrus was no longer around. She rose to her feet and discarded her robe, slipping in between the sheets to rest beside him.

"I talked to their creator." He murmured, staring hard at the fishtank. "The Reapers are run from an advanced V.I. program on the citadel…"

"That makes sense, actually. It might explain the keepers' behavior."

"I know. But… Christ,. Miranda, it took the form of the kid!"

She frowned. "What kid?"

John opened and closed his mouth a couple of times, staring at her. "There was… a kid. Back on earth when the Normandy escaped. He lived in the building below mine. Spent his free time in the yard flying a model ship around." Shepard's voice had gone quiet, and he had a pained expression. "I found him hiding in a vent during our escape from earth. Last thing I saw was his evac shuttle getting blown up by a destroyer. Then four months later I wake up on a platform in the crucible and the damned thing is walking up to me. It looked like him."

Miranda tried to think of something comforting to say. Were she Tali, or Liara, she'd have the perfect response, but Miranda had never been very good at comforting others. She decided not to speak at all and instead simply rested her head against his shoulder. He quietly returned the gesture.

"So what did you say to it?" she asked.

"Not much." The Spectre admitted. "I was pretty beaten up. It did most of the talking. I found out why the Reapers exist in the first place. They were created to prevent synthetics from destroying organics."

She took a moment to mull this over. "How, exactly?"

"Every fifty-thousand years they harvest any civilizations advanced enough to create A.I."

"That's…that's stupid." She said.

"I know."

"I mean it!" she said, her indignation building, "That's a short-term, band-aid solution to problem which doesn't even exist, if empirical evidence is to be accepted!"

"Yeah…" said John awkwardly. "…the empirical evidence being EDI and the Geth?"

"Of course." Miranda snapped, "And I assume the Reapers themselves haven't yet risen up against their creator?"

John chuckled. "I hadn't even thought of that."

"It's a logical fallacy." She explained angrily. "An appeal to probability extending into an illicit negative. Synthetics have killed organics therefore all synthetics will kill organics. That's the appeal to probability. Just because it happened to him, doesn't mean it will inevitably happen to everyone else."

"And the illicit negative?"

"Organics will create synthetic life. Said synthetic life will destroy all organics. Therefore destroying organics first is the only thing preventing the created synthetic life from destroying all organics. It's wrong because we know one of his initial premises contains an appeal to probability. Destroying organics first is not the only thing preventing synthetic life from destroying all organics. Not in all cases. Not in this one. An illicit negative. How could anyone smart enough to create a self-sustaining system like the Reaper Cycle not see that?"

This was met by an awkward silence as John tried to work his way through the argument. He wasn't a stupid man by any means, but the speed at which she'd thrown out the argument had left him reeling. She continued ranting, failing to notice his confusion. "Anyway, even if he were right, you don't fix a hole in the goddamned roof by simply putting down buckets wherever the water's pouring through!"

"I know."

"I mean, sure, you'll have a dry floor at the end of the day, but it's so much more effective to simply tackle the problem directly! The problem here is apparently synthetics. If they'd wiped out the Geth four or five years ago, no one would have batted an eye! In fact we probably would have thanked them."

"I know, Miri."

She chewed her lip furiously, brow creased as she thought the problem through. "God, you wouldn't even have to kill them! The Reapers were clearly capable of reprogramming them! Wouldn't it have been simpler just to slip in a piece of code which said: Do Not Kill Organics? Then they could come and check every so often to make sure it was still there, and still active. And why didn't they just tell us the truth? We know how powerful they are. They could have simply rolled in and told us not to experiment with synthetic life. We would have been forced to obey. Any race which disobeyed would get wiped out. It's harsh, but not nearly as harsh as the Reaper cycle."

"Preaching to the choir, Miranda."

"I just wish the catalyst had worked…" she said, "I wish it had just destroyed them…"

"It told me outright that I had the option to destroy them." He replied. "To simply shut them all down."

"Why would they offer you that solution?" she almost wailed in frustration. "A species apparently obsessed with the preservation of organic life, and by extension, their own cycle? Why would they offer you that?" She hesitated for a split second and added, "And why didn't you take it?"

"It would have destroyed the mass relays. All of them."

She fell into a deathly silence, considering the ramifications.

"The victory fleet would have been stranded here." Shepard said hollowly. "I'm not even sure there's enough supplies for the people on earth to take care of themselves, never mind hordes of hungry aliens…"

"Galactic civilization destroyed." She said, thinking the results through. "Billions of people all over the galaxy stranded without supplies…never to see their families again. That's if anyone survived the relay's explosion." she grinned teasingly, "John Shepard: Second worst war criminal in Galactic History."

"Second?"

"The first being whoever created the Reapers in the first place." She replied sourly.

"I might have picked it." John said, "But I didn't know if you were in the system. And I didn't want to cut either one of us off from the rest of the galaxy…"

She placed a hand on his cheek and pulled him to the side to give him a tender kiss. She laid her head on his shoulder, and they stared up through the skylight above his bed, watching the green light trails the Normandy created as it soared through space.

"I was in the system." She said quietly. "But my sister wasn't. She's on Rannoch right now. Left Hackett with a few of the crucible's scientists." she paused, "Have you told Hackett any of this?"

"No."

"What did you tell him?"

"I made up something about chaos and control." John sighed. "I can't tell him the truth. I'm not even sure he'd believe me. You're the only one. And EDI is listening in, I suppose."

Miranda propped herself up on an elbow. "EDI?"

There was no response.

"EDI?"

"EDI?" John echoed her, forcing himself to rise up further from his reclined position. The move caused his entire chest to ache horribly.

Miranda slipped out of the bed and walked, naked, across the floor. Shepard watched her ascend the short steps up to the AI's manual interface console, her soft curves accented by the light of the fishtank. She reached down and pressed the intercom button. "EDI?"

"Yes, Miss Lawson?" the AI replied, the blue holographic orb appearing in the shallow, closeted space, lighting up Miranda's face and upper body.

"You weren't responding."

"I shut off my sensors. I've learned much about human behavior. I felt that you and Shepard deserved some privacy. If it were Jeff and I, I would have desired the same thing." EDI's voice echoed through the loft. "If you wish to reach me, I can hear you in the elevator, or you can simply access my console."

"Oh." John could hear the surprise in Miranda's voice. "Thank you. We appreciate the thought."

"I can resume monitoring Captain Shepard's cabin if…" EDI began.

"No, that's alright. Thank you. Have a good night, EDI."

"You too Miss Lawson. Captain Shepard, congratulations on the promotion."

"Thank you EDI." John called out.

Miranda shut the console down and stepped backwards thoughtfully. She took a few reflective steps back towards the bed and halted at the top of the steps, arms folded. They smiled at each other.

"Damned A.I.!" she cursed sardonically, shaking her head.

"I know," he responded with flamboyant sarcasm. "I don't know why we put up with them. We really ought to wipe out organic life to make sure we won't have to bother with them…"

"There was another topic I wanted to ask you about…" she said, descending the steps and making her way back to the bed.

"Yeah?" he asked, sliding himself back down to the prone position.

"Well… as I understand it, the Normandy has no Executive Officer."

"She doesn't." Shepard raised an eyebrow and gave her an audacious smirk. "You interested."

"If the position is open, Commander." She purred, slipping back under the sheets.

Shepard sighed. "The truth is that I could use the help." He grinned at her. "I can't imagine having to file all those reports myself."

"Well, thank you for that." She replied, "You could be a little less snide."

"Sorry. I would really appreciate the help, though." He shook his head and readjusted his position so that he was lying flat out on the bed. "Everything that happened in the past few months was touch and go. We hit the ground running and just kept picking up speed. Nothing we did followed any regulations. There were no written reports, no real rules. Just reactions. Liara and Garrus and Ash would take up the slack whenever I needed a rest."

"Whenever you worked yourself to the point of exhaustion, you mean."

John nodded. He wrapped a hand around her waist and shut his eyes. He felt her slide up to him, shifting her hips slightly to get comfortable. Sleep was catching up to him, he knew. Slowly but surely. "The Normandy's mine, Miranda. And after all she's been through, I can't imagine just handing that position to some random Alliance officer. Not when you're available."

"So that's a 'yes' then?"

"Of course it's a yes. We'll have to get you an alliance uniform." He said again, a shade mournful.

"Oh, I have no doubt we could pull out the old one sometimes… for old time's sake." She offered.

This is actually going much faster than I thought it would. I haven't had it this easy since Modus Operandi.