A/N: So as you know, I'm not usually one to toot my own horn too loudly, but I think this one came out pretty good. Indeed, I daresay it's my best work since Chapter 4. If you agree, then you should drop a thank-you-note to Caracal22, who has been an awesome fan, mentor, critique-er, and generally fantastic human-type-person. You should also go and check out their truly excellent story, 22 Sinchi, which wins All The Praise from me. I also want to extend an extra thank you, because they agreed to be my "pre-reviewer" for the month of June, and I don't think this particular chapter would be even close to the level it is at now without their guidance, insight and inspiration.
Also, it was growing so quickly that I actually had to break it up into two parts, lest I start scraping into the truly ridiculous realms of 16K+ word chapters.
A quick side note: I'm working on a couple of other one shots at the moment, so that may make Part Two a little late. One of them is a smutty Shepard/Traynor bit so..yeah..sorry THAT'S potentially holding up work on my main story ;-)
"Shepard…my people…we believe that a place, or a military unit, or a historical event…create Spirits, and these Spirits can influence and inspire the living, for years to come. You Humans have a similar concept, at least in the military; esprit de corps, I believe you call it. Some others of your kind also refer to it as...damashii." - Garrus Vakarian
In her mind's eye, Omega itself was a great beast, ever slouching towards Bethlehem; roughly hewn and coarse in texture, its soul dark red with black veins shot through, its air impure - despite the sterile tang imparted by the ancient and massive reprocessors - hung heavy with the dust of ages, of hidden secrets, treachery upon treachery, broken hopes and shattered dreams. But it was also exciting, and tantalizing and seductive, in the way that some terrible, beautiful force of nature could be; destructive and absolutely gorgeous at the same time, like a volcano, a tornado, or a raging forest fire.
Fitting enough, then, that it had been the most ideal burial ground for her "party girl" days, her last great debauched huzzah when she turned 25. To have left that spirit, that aspect of herself to color the place in it's own way...if not forever more, than certainly for a good long while, and let it mingle with all the other untold stories of excess, death, passion, hatred, lust, greed...
And that, Shepard realized, was Omega's biggest problem. Biggest for her, at any rate. Everything she had left behind...was still there, waiting for her whenever she returned. Waiting to try and bring out the worst in her, to tempt her, to wheedle her into indulgence and revelry. To slip back into her mortal coil, like a hungry ghost trying to make its way back to their favorite haunting ground from whence they had previously been cast out, to whisper, and coax and addict like a lover that one knew was the sort of person you should absolutely be running away from, not falling into bed with despite your best judgement.
There were only two people who ever stayed on Omega, for the long haul: the dominated and the dominating. And even those at the top, those who stayed long enough, ended up being a bit of both.
However else Holly felt about Aria T'Loak, Omega's Pirate Queen was definitely...if not a good, than at least an appropriate ruler for the place. She kept the beast in check without letting it get the best of her in the long run. She curbed the worst of it's influences, sanded the most egregious of its sharp corners, hiding her iron fist in an aesthetically pleasing velvet glove. She kept it as the sort of place that the Galaxy sadly needed, a pressure valve for it's darker, more sinister elements to let loose...contained and isolated just enough so that the "nice" people of the Galaxy didn't freak out and demand that it be scourged to dust. Aria was Omega's Dominatrix, black leather boot pressed down on the neck, leash held tight, the Mistress demanding that the otherwise untamed stallion come to heel...
Damnit! Shepard REALLY needed to stay the fuck away from Omega, for a good long while, until she was in a better place, personally. It was just a matter of time...but clearly that time was not now.
And once she had finally made her hasty departure from the station, it had not taken Shepard terribly long to feel the inherent, instinctive "correctness" of the action, a palpable relief spreading through the fiber of her being, like an irritating rock stuck in the shoe being removed at long last.
And once she had finally had a chance to talk with Liara, to know that she was still alright, once she could see the look of relief on her face, once she had finally had a chance to pour out what was hanging so heavy in her heart...that only intensified the feeling of it, like a fresh gust of air blowing into a firepit, hot and cleansing.
Spread out on her bed, in the cabin on her ship, a sense of peace and security began to cultivate itself. Though the Modesty Blaise still held for her something of an aura of sterility, the kind that everything clean and new and not-yet-fully-known carried, she was quickly "breaking it in", like a comfortable pair of shoes, or a new home that one immediately falls in love with.
It had taken the Normandy barely 4 days - an unbelievably short amount of time - to meet her at the border of the Attican Traverse and the Terminus Systems after Hackett had confirmed receipt of her transmission, and forwarded along the set of coordinates; it seemed that the Admiral's boasting of a new sort of top secret drive core technology had panned out.
In days leading up to that rendezvous, Shepard had to admit that she rather enjoyed the time by herself; to be certain, she still desperately missed Liara, but it had been weeks...months, maybe even over a year, since she had long stretches of time to just be...herself. Alone and defined by no one else, no other relationship or situation. Just her and her shiny new Asari spaceship. Those past few days had gone by in a gentle, unhurried haze of catching up on reading fluff magazines and working on new ship models. But a large chunk of that time had also been spent on a most important task: putting her own mark on the Modesty Blaise, to turn it from some otherwise soulless, high tech goodie that was randomly tossed at her as a signup bonus into her own personal faster-than-light sanctum sanctorum.
The first thing that needed changing was the color scheme; everything was white, and where it wasn't white, it was blue...and where it wasn't blue, it was some vague purple-blue-whitish combo. It made sense of course, in that it was a very Asari aesthetic, but Shepard found herself missing the gunmetal blues, blacks and greys and the muted lights of her old cabin on the Normandy. Fortunately, the walls of the living spaces on the Modesty B - as she had begun to affectionately refer to it - were impregnated with a high-quality hybrid liquid crystal/organic light-emitting diode layer, which allowed her to easily adjust the color of the walls, and even the texture to a limited degree. There were some electronic tools and styluses that let her add fine details, different stripes of red, blue and black, patterns, and other color schemes to the walls; in a fit of pique, she added in a simulated "aquarium" that took up half of the wall facing her bed, complete with virtual fish. God, she hated taking care of the damn things, but she had to admit she DID like collecting the little suckers and watching them swim around.
After 3 or 4 days, she was pretty damn happy with the end product: darker, calmer, more restful, more resonant with something deep inside of her. The ceiling didn't have the "skylight" as before, so she programmed a section of it to project the appropriate view. She whooped and hollered for a long minute, dancing with abandon in her underwear when she realized she could make the walls and ceiling of the entire cabin scintillate with lights and sparkle with colored patterns in response to playing music, and THAT was when she had to admit that this Asari technology for "reprogrammable personal spaces" was the goddamn tops.
There was large shelf, albeit temporary for now, for her to put her new model collection on;she was going to need to purchase an actual display case for them the next time to pulled into dock. Really, when it was all over, Holly did have to stand back and admire just how close to the "feel" of her old quarters she had managed to recreate. Oh, certainly it didn't have the sharp, angular lines of before, and lacked the "sunken pit" effect of the old place, but the blending of Systems Alliance color aesthetic with Asari organic curving interior design made for a fitting combination, an outward reflection of the woman she seemed to have become. Internally, a voice inside chided her for trying to simply duplicate the look and feel of an old location, as if she should be moving ahead and creating something new out of whole cloth. The rest of her told that voice to go totally fuck itself; that there was nothing wrong in hanging on to the past, the good bits. The parts that made you a stronger, better person.
She flopped down, once again, onto the bed, and gazed up at the projected view on the ceiling, displaying the corruscating blue-shift effect of the mass effect field in transit. Outside of the cabin, where she had yet to make her mark, she could feel the sterility and a...lack-of-lived-in character-and-soul, swirling about the door, like a cold fog unable to pass the threshold of her cabin door. But here, now, where she could revel in the fruits of the past few days labor, she felt deeply at peace, memories of the past on the Normandy rushing to her unbidden, of better times, especially the ones where Liara was there with her.
She'd get there eventually, making her mark on the rest of the ship. She already built up some nice memories with Feron there. It was just a matter of time.
God, she hoped they let her keep this ship forever. After saving the goddamn Galaxy, it was the least the Asari could do for her. She already had to give back her last baby, and at least right here, at the present moment, after having just sunk so much time and so much of herself into customizing even just this one area, she was pretty damn sure she couldn't bring herself to do it again.
Shepard had to admit to a curiously ambivalent feeling of excitement and dread, as she paused at the outer hatchway of her ship, fingers hovering over the control pad that would unseal the airlock and let her out into the hangar bay on the Normandy. Mentally, she flashed back to the first time she ever came back to Detroit after getting through boot camp; walking through the old streets, finding them just as decayed and decrepit as before. Well no...that wasn't entirely fair, there were a few signs, here and there, that perhaps things were starting to improve. A few urban redevelopment projects, scattered almost as if by random happenstance, a smattering of new businesses. Someone with money seemed to be going very specifically out of their way to make 8 Mile habitable again, and even Gross Pointe threatened to project a cheery aura once more. In all of it, there was a sense of something long sleeping desperately trying to reawaken.
Had that always been there? Was she too inured in her own bitter youth, too wrapped up in trying to simply survive, and too angry at the world because of it, to have noticed? She had no desire to see any of the Furies again, completely resisting all temptations to try and track any of them down, staying mostly away from the old neighborhoods she knew, at least during the night time. Even her "triumphant return" to the old recruiting office, which was the closest thing she had to a real home in Detroit...she was so overwhelmed with the distinct notion of how life there had continued to go by without her, and that she was now somehow a woman apart from that world.
In Detroit, it made sense, and was easier to accept; it was definitely time to move on, and while she could always visit, there was simply no point in continuing on there. She had bigger and better things to experience, the next great chapters of her life. Indeed, the situation here was quite similar. But with one major difference...
...this was the Normandy.
Her first command. She had lived here, and she had died here, and she had led others to new lives and to eventual ends.. She had fallen in love here, with so many different people, in so many different ways. Her greatest triumphs and lowest failures had taken place, all on this stage.
The Normandy had been her world, hanging alone and fragile in the void, and she, it's undisputed Mistress and Commander. But she gave that up, handed her baby back to someone else's care. And that was the most important element...it might look the same, and it might have many of the same people...but it was entirely under someone elses dominion now. Their decisions, their presence, and their influence would begin to color the ship anew. Change the inherent feel of the place. The spirit of what she and others left behind, what had developed and permeated through it, the result of their actions and experiences, would be inexorably overwritten, mutated, transformed. The perfect Normandy of her previous years, in her minds eye, was dying. But it was also being reborn as something else. So perhaps it was a good thing that she got one last chance to see the the ship now, before it became something much more difficult to recognize in the future.
Holly made a mental note to get in touch with Garrus soon. She realized that as a Turian, he'd probably understand what she was going through at this moment better than most.
She sighed heavily, and couldn't help but smile to herself as she mused:
"Once more unto the breach, dear friends..."
Unable to pause at the threshold further, she stabbed the control pad, letting the outer hatch unseal, and slide back. Swallowing down a lump of nervousness that had been welling up in her sternum, she stepped out onto the wheeled stair platform that had been moved into position...and into a round of thunderous applause.
It seemed the entire ship had come, simply to pay homage to their former commanding officer one last time. There were new folks around as well, ones who had never served under her, or along side her, but shot through that mass of The New was The Old; faces that meant the world to her. She actually managed to catch Cortez's eye for just a moment, and he nodded once, giving a playful salute. The glint of the light off EDI was impossible to miss, and predictably enough Joker was right next to her side...as it should be. Traynor, however, was missing from the assembled crew, as were a few others...but she figured that the ship still needed to be run, and she might have not been able to get off duty. That, or she had transferred off ship, and Shepard hadn't found out yet. The old engineering crew was missing as well...perhaps they were stuck with maintaining this new drive core Hackett had told her about? She'd catch up with them soon enough.
And at the head of it all stood an imposing figure...the new Captain, by the obvious rank insignia on his shoulder. He his skin was dark, frame heavily muscled, his figure cut like hewn obsidian, clearly of full-blooded African descent. His head was completely clean-shaven, and only a slight patch of hair under his lower lip remained on his face. His uniform was meticulously neat, but his bearing suggested someone who did it more out of fastidious pride and care, as opposed to simply having a stick up his ass about decorum - but then again, that was such a fine line, when one thought about it. While he didn't wear an outright scowl on his face, he seemed to come off as a rather...stern individual.
"Must be having a fun time whipping the crew into his desired shape, given the somewhat lax shop I ran."
As she drank in the moment, the outpouring of support, and finally spotting the "Welcome Back, Shepard!" banner that had been hastily thrown up over the back wall, by the elevator, she fought back tears, and the instinctive sense that she had made a horrible mistake leaving the Systems Alliance, that she needed to make the appropriate calls, and put everything back the way they had been. It passed quickly, and Shepard recognized it for what it was: strong but simple nostalgia.
The details she took in, as she looked over the bay from her elevated vantage point, seemed particularly sharp. Did the Hangar always smell like this, or had something changed? The character of the metallic tang had subtly shifted, the spectrum of the lights seemed a little more on the blue end of things. And had they always had such big observation windows from the upper deck? How did she miss these things in the past?
"Because I was looking at it through different eyes back then. Not in a bad way...just...different."
Suddenly, she made a play of looking around with a quizzical expression on her face. After about 10 seconds, she pointed to herself, tilted her head, and spoke, when the din finally died out.
"Oh, I'm sorry, was that all for me? I thought someone IMPORTANT just came on board, and I couldn't see them."
There was the predictable explosion of laughter in response. She couldn't resist cracking wise a bit...she had only recently come to realize it was a bit of how she kept herself from being overwhelmed by emotional intensity at times like this, playing things off, acting a bit of the fool.
Someone, possibly Cortez, maybe Joker, called out "Speech!". The Captain turned his head slightly, frowning just a touch.
Leaning forward against the railing of the stairway platform at the top, she rolled her eyes heavily. "Oh Jesus, come on...you know guys? I just came back because I left my toothbrush behind, so don't go reading too much into this." Another wave of laughter, and Shepard started again, once it had died down, her voice even and heartfelt now.
"No, but seriously...thank you. I am...words fail me, how it is to see you all, like this, after all these months." She felt the smile dawning wide on her lips, despite herself. "I know things have been a little weird lately...and well..hell..after everything we've went through, change was always going to see a little disjointing. But really, it's so...fantastic to be back. If just for a little bit."
She paused. "Especially since I'm not the bitch in charge anymore."
She laughed, and a few people nodded. The Captain shifted a bit at this. Shepard had intentionally throw that line out there, not only to remind the crew...but more importantly herself.
"Not my ship anymore. And that man has big, big toes he doesn't need me stepping all over."
She made her way down the stairs, shaking hands, and exchanging hugs and promises to come and catch up, over the next few days she was slated to be on-board. Joker was especially adamant.
"Hey Shepard. So you're going to celebrate your deep and abiding personal friendship with the best pilot in the Fleet by letting him onto your shiny new ship, right? I have ALWAYS wanted to get a closer look at one of those Asari personal transports."
She laughed "Sure. And I might even let you fly it."
His eyes lit up, and hugged her; she embraced him in return, gently as she dare. "Oh Colonel, You've brought joy to this incredibly handsome and insanely witty old soul."
It took her the better part of 20 minutes before she finally made her way to the Captain, glancing up a bit, seeing as he had at least a good 2 or 3 inches on her.
She saluted, and he returned it in a crisp, well-practiced fashion. "Permission to come on board, Captain?"
At this, he did finally crack something resembling a smile. He spoke, in a voice that suggested that while his English was superb, it was not his mother tongue. She imagined it was probably Swahili, but just by dint of that being the only African language she could think of.
"Permission granted, Colonel Shepard. Welcome to the Normandy. Captain Benyamin Uhuru. A pleasure to meet you at last."
They shook hands, and Holly tried her absolute best not to wince at the strength of his grip, glad for the extra padding the build in gloves of her Commando uniform provided.
"Hmmmm. Name sounds familiar. I think I remember reading it in one of Anderson's reports. You...stayed on Earth with him, didn't you?"
Captain Uhuru nodded sharply, "Yes, I helped him with the resistance, overseeing the fighting from Egypt."
Holly sighed softly. "Hell of a thing, Captain. Thank you...for everything you did during those dark months."
He simply gave a single, faint nod, and said "If you'll just follow me, we'll get you set up in your temporary quarters. I've assigned Lieutenant Cortez as your liaison here in Engineering. If there is any maintenance or repairs that your ship may require, please feel free to put in a request with him."
He turned sharply, and began to walk towards the elevator, Holly in tow right behind him. Once the elevator doors closed, Holly decided to clear the air, determined to get the situation resolved, and on the right foot.
"Thank you, Captain. I appreciate your hospitality. And...maybe I'm reading too much into things...but I know how I would feel if Admiral Anderson were still with us, and came back to visit the ship. You don't need me to tell you that I know this isn't my show to run anymore. But if I start stepping on your toes, just kindly yank me back. Or not so kindly, I can take it." She cracked a wry smile, once more.
Uhuru gave a heavy sigh, paused, and after a few long seconds, turned to regard Shepard, ignoring the doors of the elevator as they opened and closed, but reaching over to press the hold button, to keep the elevator from moving for the moment.
He tilted his head over and down to regard her, the rest of his body remaining perfectly still. "You're right Colonel...I most certainly do not need you to tell me that." He held the stern look down at her for a moment, his voice soft, yet deadly serious. But it slowly began to melt away into an expression that, while not fitting most people's description of the word "friendly", seemed far less intimidating.
"But thank you for saying something. I appreciate that you understand the...tone and tenor of all of this. Because while it might be somewhat similar, as you say, if it was David Anderson coming back while you were in command...it is, at the same time, a very different thing as well.. He...ah...did not leave quite the mark on this ship and it's crew...not like you did."
The part of her that wanted to instinctively defend David Anderson in all things began to fire up, but she gently pushed it to the side; she didn't need to practice false modesty on this. She knew herself well enough to know that yes, she did cast a rather wide shadow over the history of this ship thus far, and that having to somehow live up to her legend -or some might say infamy, depending on who you asked- was not an easy task for anyone.
He let the doors open again, and they walked out...and it was apparently he was leading her to the same cargo bay that Grunt, and then Javik had occupied, in days past. Testing the limits of the thawing ground, Shepard asked. "Settling in well then? I have no worries that the crew would give all of their best to the captain of the Normandy. ANY captain, whomever that might.
He paused once again, at the door to the bay, what was to be her quarters, and nodded once. "Yes. They are a fine crew. I've had to...retrain them a bit, reestablish some of the protocols and decorum that you were, shall we say, a bit lax with. No offense, Colonel."
"None taken, whatsoever." She wasn't sure if he was trying to make a dig at her. Not that there was much to take umbrage at; she was well-known for running a more "casual in feel" ship compared to many other captains, but that just went with her command style. The one or two times she had to dress someone down, it just made the impact felt that much more deeply. Ultimately, she decided to take it in the spirit of him merely making an observation, and giving an answer to her question.
As they stepped into the temporary quarters, he did add, his tone softening once again. "Actually, they are some of the best that I've had a chance to command thus far. Even Flight Lieutenant Moreau."
Holly couldn't help but give a snort and start to chuckle at this. "Yeah Joker...I mean...Jeff. Is a real character. Feel free to turn the hose on him, as needed. I imagine you shouldn't need to more than, oh..3...4 times tops. A week."
The Captain hmmmed softly in the back of his throat, and continued "For whatever issues there may be with how you ran the ship, you seemed...to bring out the best in everyone, and they have continued on with that tradition. You should be proud of that achievement, if nothing else. I know I would be."
Shepard couldn't help but smile again, softly. Something told her that Benyamin Uhuru and she were never going to become friends per se, but she was relieved that it seemed he wasn't going to be needlessly antagonizing her for the whole trip, either.
"So, as a courtesy, Colonel, you'll have almost the full run of the ship. Minus the Captains Quarters of course." He did soften that with a nearly imperceptible grin. "But I must inform you that Engineering is completely off limits. As you are aware, there have been some...drive modifications that have been made, which are of a highly classified nature."
Shepard nodded "Of course, Captain. I understand completely. Although...um...are you just talking about the drive room, and the core itself? I was hoping to go down into the lower Engineering deck, just through the antechamber...
He gave her an intensely curious look. "Might I ask why?"
"Oh...just someone I want to...visit with...one last time."
"I'm not aware of anyone assigned to that space. It's merely a utility section."
Shepard struggled for a moment, as she decided how best to respond to that. "They...aren't there anymore. But the spirit still lingers."
The look on Uhuru's face made it obvious he had no idea what she was talking about...but it didn't seem he was in the mood to argue about it or interrogate her further. "As there are posted guards by the actual drive room doors, I don't...see that what you ask should be a problem."
Nodding appreciatively, she started to look around. "Thanks. Much obliged."
The room itself was rather...spartan, for lack of a better word. Not that it was ever lavishly decorated in the past, although Javik had do some rather...oddly appealing things with the place during his stay. It looked like the bed from where Liara had set up shop the last time she was here had been moved down for her. Holly couldn't help but wonder if the sheets still smelled like her, still smelled like them, together. She was sure that the gesture was completely unintended, but she had to admit it helped her feel much more at home.
There was also a desk and communications terminal set on the other corner. Someone, perhaps jokingly, had set up a small end table with a fishbowl and a goldfish swimming lazily around it; clearly it was something that the Captain had not known about until now, as he glared at the detail. Beyond that, it was simply the dark, black and grey rectangular room that had always originally intended to hold cargo. And now, she was simply the next "strange and colorful character" being housed here.
"If you'll excuse me, Colonel Shepard, I must return to my duties. Welcome aboard, once again. There will be a formal dinner tonight at 1830 hours. I will...understand...if you don't have appropriate attire."
"Oh, I'm sure I can scrounge something up. Thank you, Captain, I'll see you then."
Shepard waited until the doors had fully closed before heavily rolling her eyes. So it turns out that he WAS one of "those Captains", heavy on decorum and structure. She had served under one or two of his kind in the past. Still, he seemed to be a good enough man, in general.
"He better be. The Normandy's an extraordinary ship, and she deserves an extraordinary commander. Going to be pissed if it turns out that this was just a political appointment, like with Armitage and the Council."
She had to concede that in the end, she was going to be a little bit jealous of whomever the next CO was on the ship; she should just give him the benefit of the doubt until he gave her cause to feel different.
She flopped herself heavily down onto the bed, causing it to give a bit of a squeak, and sighed. This room..this was always the...curious place. The room of the strange and the alien. First Grunt, the tank born Krogan, the vision of a "better, more noble Krogan species" dreamt up by Warlord Okeer. Grunt, the man-child apart, in a way, from his people, and ever working to become integrated with them, and gain their acceptance. And then Javik...the last Prothean. No matter how many times she tried to wrap her brain around it, Shepard simply couldn't imagine how she would feel if she were in his position. To be the last Human in all the Universe; worse yet, to have had her people turned into soldiers for the Reapers. The adaptability and aplomb that Javik had ultimately shown, despite his gruff demeanor, had been nothing short of breathtaking. It did her heart good to see that he had been slowly loosening up, so to speak, now that the War, and with it the Reaper threat, had passed. He had once referred to himself an avatar of Vengeance...and she was glad to see that with that purpose fulfilled, he wasn't acting like someone who had been cast adrift and was now aimless.
She wished Javik was here now. He had implied that he could psychometrically sense "old presence" in a room...perhaps a scientific way of explaining what Garrus believed in, how places and things could have a "spirit".
And for a moment, she could imagine what it must have felt like, for all of them. This room, a sanctum, but not an entirely pleasant place to be. And outside, a strange, disconcerting universe, straining against the doors like the rushing currents of the ocean, kept back. It felt like being in some sort of pocket, a kind of bubble, isolated from the rest of the world.. And in that sense, it also felt like a bit of a cage, a place where people came to gawk at The Other.
Suddenly Shepard felt a pang of guilt in her gut, for the number of times that she had insisted on barging in and checking up on them, the pair of them both. On the other hand, she had to think that Grunt was doing as well as he was...thriving even, because Mama BattleMaster was there to teach him if not right from wrong, then not-so-terribly-wrong from actual-wrong. And as much as she thought Javik merely...tolerated her, perhaps those visits were, for him, a way to slowly acclimate to a universe that was foreign to him in so many critical ways.
Like some sort of emotional and mental decompression chamber then, was that it? It made sense...Shepard needed to re-acclimate back to dealing primarily with her own kind as well. She wondered then, that she was now here, in this particular part of the ship; it seemed to be too terribly convenient, too destined by fate, when she could have just as easily ended up where Diana and Zaeed had been. Could it not be said that in her own way, she was a woman apart from her own people, alienated in a sense, just as the other occupants of this room once had been? When the entire Galaxy wants to lay claim to someone as a citizen...does that person really have any place that they truly belong, anymore?
She leaned back on the bed for a moment, and then smiled, tracing her fingertips over the soft, plain cotton sheets, flashes of images from a few midnight trysts in the past running through her mind in remembrance.
And that's when she realized she always had that, at least.
She always belonged to Liara.
It didn't take Holly more than 15 minutes to walk over some essentials from the Modesty Blaise to her temporary quarters. Truth be told, she would have been much more comfortable staying in her own quarters, on her own ship. It seemed a shame to keep it empty, given the vast majority of the hangar bay it was taking up. On the other hand, not staying with the ship proper for the long haul during her stay was bound to elicit a few murmurs and idle speculation, especially from the newer crew members. Besides, for all she knew, she might never get a chance to see the Normandy again, and she didn't want to miss a moment.
She started to make her way up to the Bridge deck, having just confirmed with the ships computer that Traynor was indeed still on board and part of the crew. As she rode the lift up, she heard an odd, high pitched cycling whine of a sound, almost like a mass effect drive core working beyond what was considered normal maximum output. It was followed by an announcement coming over the intercom:
"This is Captain Uhuru. We will be jumping to enhanced drive mode momentarily. Brace yourself for transitional jolting, in 10 seconds"
Transitional jolting? What the fuck did that mea...
...and then there was a sudden lurch forward, "jolt" being a terribly apt description for the effect. It was enough to lift Holly off her feet, like a giant, invisible hand picking her up and smooshing her back against the rear wall of the elevator, causing a rather loud thump to sound and then prompting a yelp of surprise from her. The acceleration lasted for a good ten seconds, leaving her unable to depart from the elevator, even when the doors finally opened. That problem was soon resolved when the ship gave a loud shuddering bang, and then another high pitched whine as the inertial dampeners struggled to adjust to the new load; the end result being that Shepard was thrown out from the elevator and sprawled onto the floor face first, skidding slightly and coming to a stop at the bottom end of the small rampway that lead to the command dais. She opened one eye, glancing upward at the Captain, and a younger officer at the comm terminal next to him, her black hair pulled back in a severe bun.
Grumbling darkly to herself, Shepard rose, attempting to nonchalantly dust herself off. Physically, she was fine, but her pride was going to need to be rushed to the intensive care unit. Uhuru looked down at her, and spoke matter-of-factly.
"Did you not hear my announcement...Colonel?"
"Oh I heard it fine. I felt it even more. Of course, if someone had explained to me what the hell a "transitional jolt" was, I would have grabbed for the railing.
He quirked a single brow, a staid expression of vague curiosity crossing over his face. Turning his attention to the comm officer, he asked "Lieutenant Smelders, transmit the latest copy of the preparations protocol with regards to enhanced drive usage to Colonel Shepard's Omni, ASAP."
"Sorry, Sir, but...the standing order not to release any information about the enhanced core..?"
Uhuru looked upwards for a moment, shaking his head slightly. "For God's sake Lieutenant, "hold on tight for 30 seconds." is hardly classified information." He punctuated the exasperated response with a rebuking frown; however else he might have personally felt about Shepard, she had been, at one time, an Admiral in the SAAF and more importantly, CO of the ship. It was clear he was displeased over Shepard being made to look somewhat foolish over this.
She murmured a quick apology, and Holly's omni-tool flashed in response to the data transmission. It was by this point that she finally realized just how much the ship seemed to be constantly jittering and bumping, like an airship caught in turbulence. As she made her way back towards the old war room, she overheard the Captain call down to Engineering on the comm.
"Engineering, this is the Bridge. Do you have an ETA on when the resonance imbalance issue will be resolved?"
"Johnston here. Sorry Captain, she's proving slipperier that anticipated. Give us a few minutes, and we should have some improvement at the very least."
Shepard frowned to herself lightly as she walked away. Definitely not a crew member she was familiar with before, especially in Engineering. It suddenly occurred to her that if the SAAF was testing some new super-secret drive, they could have easily replaced the entire Engineering team, at least for this leg of the mission. That was probably driving poor Adams nuts at the moment; the Normandy had been as much his baby, in terms of the engines, as it had been for her.
Still, it galled her a bit. She kept having to remind herself that it wasn't her ship, not anymore. That the man perched up on the command dais, handing down orders from on high was not some ill-tempered imposter or pretender, but the legitimate commanding officer of a ship that once...was under hers. Emphasis on once, she kept trying to tell herself. SHE was the one who walked away from this, SHE was the one who resigned her commission. It wasn't fair to expect that the Normandy was going to somehow remain perfectly frozen in time, a unchanging testament to the majestic tenure of Holliandra Shepard; there were plenty of other people who had loved the Normandy before she set foot on board. And she hoped there would be plenty of others who would love her, well into the future.
Still, when she looked around, at the familiar, elongated horseshoe arch of the deck, the scattered crew, many of them old, familiar faces poking away at their various stations combined with seeing someone else up in the Big Chair, she couldn't help but feel rubbed the wrong way, like the sensation of drinking lemonade when you were expecting milk in the glass.
It wasn't that she had any particular qualms about Uhuru's competency, although she hadn't seen much of him at all to have a solid judgement. She realized that she'd probably feel this way to some extent or another no matter what, even if someone she had a deep and abiding friendship with, like Hackett, was up there.
It was jealously, plain and simple. Like watching a girl, the one that SHE broke up with, starting to date again. Or the Mother, for whom, in her eyes, none of her child's romantic partners were ever good enough for them.
The dark clouds continued to form over Shepard's head as she made her way into the war room, which, after all this time, was still filled with banks of computer displays, and dominated by the holotank in the middle of it all. It was a dark mood suddenly and rapidly lifted the moment she saw Traynor; or rather, Traynor's firm, pert behind, waving in the air.
Samantha was bent low at the hips, wedged between two consoles bolted to the deck, and attempting to make some sort of adjustment or repairs. She was humming along happily to some sort of tune Shepard was unfamiliar with, something with a vaguely catchy, poppy beat, dancing along as she did, which in her current state simply meant swaying her hips and bottom in a rather appealing fashion.
Holly sighed to herself, very quietly, as she appraised the comm officer once more. She had to admit that there was still clearly some sort of...tension, a spark, between them. It was far more than just the fact that Traynor was also hopelessly into women; Allers, for instance, Holly had once found out through an odd set of circumstances, swung both ways, and yet she never found the reporter all that appealing.
It was a similar mutual attraction to what she had felt with Kelly Chambers, to the point of almost following up with her on it, at a time Holly was still trying to figure out exactly how she felt about Liara after Cerberus brought her back from death.
Hell, if it hadn't been for Liara, who knows...it might very well have been Traynor. Although Shepard couldn't help but wonder how long a relationship with her, at least at that point in time, would have really lasted. When she first met Samantha, she had been a bit of a breathless puppy dog, transparently beaming out her interest, to the point where Holly had felt like a cad, teasing her by offering her the use of the shower in her cabin, and then not following up on the other woman's semi-unspoken invitation to join her.
But over the past year or more, during and since the end of the War, she had seen Traynor become more and more of her own woman, more self-confident and assured. Less likely to be content to let herself be defined simply as "The Woman Dating Shepard." Because by that same token, whomever Liara was, she was far, FAR more than simply "Shepard's Wife." And that was what Holly wanted, more than anything else, out of a partner.
"Hi there Comman...er..sorry..Colonel!".
A male blond comm engineer - damnit, why couldn't she remember the name? - passed by, greeting her casually as he headed off to another part of the ship. She simply nodded, smiling softly and waving in return.
Traynor however, was startled, jerking up and banging the back of her head on a metal casing.
"God...damnit! Ow! Damn- it! Oh...What...the...bloody He...Shepard?!"
Holly raised her hand up, waggling the tips of her fingers by way of casually greeting the other woman. "Specialist. Hiii. How's the communications game these days?"
Traynor did not answer, not at first, not for a good long minute. She eyes simply devoured Holly, clad as she was in her Commando leathers. She leaned back against the console, gawking slightly, jaw hanging open just a touch. "Oh...God. Wow...oow. Just...wow." She shook her head, blinked her eyes, smiling hazily, forgetting herself for the moment.
Holly couldn't resist posing, just a tiny bit, twisting this way and that, trying to emphasize the soft 'creak' of new leather, all while attempting to make it look like it wasn't anything she was doing intentionally. She then laughed, bemused at the effect it was having.
Samantha finally straightened up, her cheeks coloring with a dark blush. "Oh! Ah...it's...um...wow. It's Lieutenant now, actually. I finally got a commission...uh...I got it. Last month. That's right. And wow..my gosh, don't you look fit? In that uniform."
Suddenly pulling her into a hug, Shepard smiled wide, patting her hard on the back "Hey! That's fantastic! You definitely earned it...Lieutenant." She then snorted, and swatted slightly behind her, and in a teasing tone of voice said. "Hands above the waist, Traynor."
"Oh...was I? Ahem! Yes...well...er...hey!" Realization was beginning to dawn on Samantha. "Just how long were you standing there anyhow...Colonel? Hmmm!?"
"Ah. Well. I had to stop and take in the sights, you know. I don't get to...enjoy the view, as often as I like."
Certainly not lately.
A pang twitched in her heart, and she suddenly found herself missing Liara, despite, or more accurately, because of all the flirting going on at the moment.
Rolling her eyes and then shaking her head, Traynor turned away for a moment and started to gather up her tools. And then suddenly frozen, looking mortified.
"Oh my Gosh! You're here! I mean...you're actually here! Right now!"
"That, or I'm a fantastically detailed simulation..."
"No! No..I mean...oh God, I forgot! That they were all down in the hangar, to greet you. I'm so...so... sorry. I've been trying to work the kinks out of this bank of processors all morning, and I must have just...totally zoned out."
Holly began to gently and playfully poke Traynor in her sides, repeatedly. "Un. Acceptable! I expect snap tooooo...Looooo-ten-ANT. So now you have to pay the terrible, terrible price!"
Traynor gave her head a slight tilt, her shoulders a bit of an inviting twist. "Oh yes?"
"Yeah, you have to get me lunch in the Mess Hall."
"That sounds more like a terrible punishment for you."
"Wow...it's that bad now, huh?"
"You have no idea."
Once they settled down at one of the tables on the Crew Deck, Shepard appraised her bowl of "stew" critically. "I do believe the food quality has made a precipitous drop downward since I was last here."
"Oh yes. Captain Uhuru thought you were spoiling us all, I'm sure. So now it's all standard issue military cuisine, although I have to admit, we do get some pretty fancy bits and ends during those formal dress dinners he seems so fond of, once a month. Still...I'd rather we get consistently decent quality food, than this...up and down." She poked experimentally at something that the cook swore blind was raspberry cobbler.
"Yeah well, do cut him some slack. Nobody knows it, but I was actually sponging credits from my personal Spectre operating account to afford the upgraded chow. Something he definitely lacks." She shoveled a spoonful of stew into her mouth, chewed, a look of increasing dismay blooming on her face as she powered through.
"Oh. Shit. This is just...I really did spoil you kids, didn't I?" Shepard put her spoon down for a moment, wiping her mouth off gently with a nearby napkin. "Well...I was convinced we were all flying dead people so...I figure you might as well have a good meal in your bellies, as often as possible." She sipped her coffee, which, while reconstituted to within an inch of it's life, was actual, good-old fashioned Earth coffee, and not that damn Elcor crap that she had been tormented with for the past few weeks.
"Should have seen the days this was a Cerberus ship, though. It was champagne and lobster most nights. He was one of Human history's greatest monsters, but goddamn if the Illusive Man didn't know how to stock the cupboard."
Traynor looked at Shepard, mouth agape. "Really now?"
"Oh fuck no, I'm just shitting you. Believe me, I tried to pull a few fast ones, but Miranda...God I swear, that woman must have gotten sexually aroused by writing these painfully detailed expense reports."
Traynor burst out laughing at this, covering her eyes for a few seconds, before trying a bite of her cobbler...and then quickly giving up.
"Tomorrow, we do lunch on my ship, alright?"
"You mean that fantastically gorgeous, top-of-the-line spaceship that the Asari just GAVE you? That ship? Oh yes, please, do twist my arm, Colonel."
"Well...you must be getting your fill of all things Asari lately, right? I mean...I could have sworn I saw you and Cosira at my wedding. She seemed pretty sweet on you..."
"Ooooh. Yes, ah. I'm...afraid that didn't work out."
Holly couldn't say she was terribly surprised. Still, she made the appropriately sympathetic clucking noises.
"Really? That's a damn shame. What happened?"
"Oh well, I mean...physically, we were...amazing. Fantastic. Superb. I mean, the sex...oh my God, Shepard, The. Sex! I think I now understand why you and Liara are so terrible, any time you both are in the same room together. This one time? We took a trip to Illium, and I don't think we got out of the hotel room more than...once? Twice maybe. And one of those times was just a trip to a...ah...um...specialty shop."
"Sympatico has a warehouse outlet shop on Illium, don't they?"
"I know, right? What a fantastic coincidence!"
Shepard laughed once again, taking a pull of her coffee. "Alright, I'll bite. How come it didn't work out? I mean, I'll admit, it was a bit of an odd pairing."
"Certainly you must know? About her background? Her biggest problem?"
"Right, you mean the fact that she..."
"...has never once had a committed relationship."
"...right. That's right. I wasn't going to say 'kills people for money, except not ALWAYS for money'. At all." The last bit of that statement being conveniently mumbled..
Traynor didn't miss a beat. "Not once. I mean, I appreciate a wandering eye, and I'm...well...I can be talked into creative bedroom arrangements. I ah...you know what I mean? But I also want the Dream. Kids. Dogs. A white picket fence. And Cosira...she's not...'Dream' material. You know?"
"Ah. Well. Sorry. But you had fun at least? You were happy with it, for the most part?"
"Oh yes. Mostly. If nothing else, it got me thinking about my options, what I really want out of life. And to be perfectly honest...I'm thinking of transferring off the Normandy. It wasn't really were I started, being on a starship I mean, and to be quite frank, it's not where I want to stay. There's...an Alliance R&D facility opening up on Thessia. In Armali, of all places, actually. So I figure...hey. You know. If nothing else, my dating prospects suddenly open up by several orders of magnitude. And we'll be neighbors! I guess?"
Shepard leaned back, laughing low, and nodding. "No kidding. I swear, I'm amazed half of the Human lesbian population hasn't already packed up the old Interstellar U-Haul and tried to all show up at the Asari's front door at once."
Traynor brightened up, leaning in conspiratorially "Oh! Wouldn't that be amazing? We could form our own little ex-pat Republic. A private Amazon nation of sorts."
Holly bit down on her lip for a moment, and then chuckled "You've clearly spent too much time thinking this through already."
"What? A girl can dream, can't she? Kids, dogs, a white picket fence, and supreme executive power over my own private nation of women?"
Suddenly, the ship began to lurch and shudder once more. Almost everyone in the mess hall started to hang on to their seats, or the side of the table. Plates fell off tables, smashing as they hit the ground. Silverware clattered down, following, and various drinks were spilled. Just as Shepard began to wonder if something was going terribly wrong, the ship started to quiet down, back towards the more constant background rumble of before.
"Wow...Jesus. Traynor, is it always this bad, with this drive they're testing?"
Samantha's expression darkened somewhat, frowning. She looked around for a moment, and then leaned in, to whisper slightly.
"It's always quite bad...but I think it's getting worse. We pushed ourselves hard to make it for the pickup. I'm not a drive core engineer, but I'm not fully convinced we discharged as well as we should have. We had to make do with a nearby gas giant. Not quite the same thing as landing on a planet, or making it to a proper discharge facility."
"They're really going nuts on trying to keep this under wraps, aren't they?" Holly thought back to the stern looking Lieutenant on the Bridge, who seemed to take such issue with keeping anything about the drive systems wrapped up that she couldn't even get it through her head to send her a memo entitled "If The Ship Starts A Rockin', Hold On For Dear Life."
Samantha simply nodded. "Frankly, all this cloak and dagger stuff? It's a very big part of the reason why I want to transfer. The rumor is that they're turning the Normandy into a test platform, for all these wild and exotic ideas they were developing for the war, and didn't get a chance to put out into the field. Bleeding edge tech is one thing, but I'd rather not...be on board when something eventually goes wrong. And they act like we can't figure out what's going on...when people ask how fast we're really going, they won't give us any solid figures. But any idiot who can compute doppler shift equations in their head, and take a few stellar fixes here and there can piece it together."
She leaned in and very quietly whispered "I think we're flying in excess of 95 to 100 light years per day."
Shepard swallowed back a cold lump of fear in her throat. And in that moment, the Normandy suddenly went from being an old, comfortable home to a screaming deathtrap.
When she found her voice again, she softly said "I..ah. Wow. Well...I don't blame you. For wanting to transfer that is. I'll um...not that I have a lot of pull in that direction, but I'll see what I can do to help make it happen."
Smiling very brightly at first, and then looking down at the chronograph on her wrist, Traynor suddenly frowned "Oh. I'm sorry, I was supposed to go back on duty 3 minutes ago. I better snap to, before they write me up. Again." She sighed softly, rolled her eyes and smiled. "I guess I'll see you at dinner tonight, if nothing else?"
"Yeah, you got it. I better go and freshen up, try and put together something classy for that. Good to see you as always, Samantha"
Without first thinking about it, Shepard reached out, and gave the other woman's hand a bit of an affectionate squeeze.
Traynor rose, smiled down, blushed fiercely, and then headed off without another word.
Holly squeezed her eyes tightly, rubbing the bridge of her nose, trying desperately to banish improper thoughts running through her head. Like the ones of Traynor showing up at her quarters in the middle of the night, wearing nothing but a black silk teddy.
"Ah God...stay good, Holly. Stay good." she whispered to herself. It was clear that without Liara around, she was starting to go a bit...stir crazy, to say the least.
As her gaze lingered on Traynor's departing backside, the ship gave another brief rumble. Shaking her head, she hated to admit it to herself...but the more Shepard saw of the Normandy...this Normandy...the less it felt like home, and more like a strange and twisted parody thereof.