"IT'S A TRAP!"
"Kenneth Donnelly! What have I told you about quoting science fi- wait, what?"
The deck alarm never lied. Either that or this was Joker's most tasteless prank yet. The Engine Room filled up with flashing blood-red light and the ship shook violently. A hideous, metallic cry blared through the speakers, disintegrating into a muffled crackle before going silent. The noises that followed were just as unnerving; Gabby and Ken picked up a heated yet mostly incoherent exchange between their Helmsman and Commander.
"…done fast, Joker!"
"Can't get…system overload…back online!"
Gabby's terminal flashed, flickered and died with a feeble whine.
"Dammit!" she growled, rushing to Kenneth's side. "Ken, what the hell?"
Kenneth's face had turned white; his jawbone was trembling in suppressed panic and determined concentration. His fingers flew in a skilful blur over his keyboard as the ship continued to shudder.
"Whole ship of theirs just tore our firewalls a new one!" he gasped, trying to reroute backup power to the deck. "This Collector technology, it's…" he trailed off, shaking his head.
The alarm's pitch dropped and its flashing slowed, plunging them into momentary stretches of darkness.
"How's power?" Gabby said.
"It's fucked."
"For how long?"
He frowned, and through gritted teeth said, "Not now Gab!"
Gabby slammed a fist into the railing in front of them. Nobody on the ship had been okay with this endeavour, and even Shepard's sharp tongue couldn't extract any meaningful details from the Illusive Man about it. There were many things too good to be true about a perfectly disabled yet intact Collector ship floating undiscovered through space so soon after the end of their shore leave on Ilium, so easy to track, so far outside the intel of the turians' reinforcements or Terminus organisations.
Gabby and Ken were even less fond of Tali's insistence that she go along with Shepard into the heart of the ship. They had come to like the quarian in more than a professional way, and did not look forward to the idea of continuing such a mission without her innovative leadership or warm reassurances.
The only upside to their situation was the absence of Jack, who had just been toppled midway through a glass of Johnny Walker Black at the bar in Kasumi's room.
EDI spoke over the still-blaring alarm. Even the cool neutrality of her own voice had been infused with an intensified edge, almost bordering on panic.
"Engineers Daniels and Donnelly, the overload you just experienced was…" Her voice faded away into incomprehensible static. "I am currently fighting Collector firewalls in over eight thousand nodes and am taxed to capacity. You will need to restore all functions to your stations manually and prepare for evasive manoeuvres."
Joker activated the intercom, beginning his message to them with an exhausted sigh. "Guys, the Collector ship's only just started powering up! Brace yourselves, if they get their weapons online-"
"They won't!" Kenneth shouted, face still white and fingers still fumbling. "I hope…"
The oppressive screech of the alarm died down and was soon replaced by the far more reassuring whirr of the Engine Room returning to readiness.
Gabby dashed back to her own terminal, which was still on the blink. "Why didn't yours short-circuit?" she demanded, glaring at him.
Kenneth grinned and laughed madly, eyes still on his work. "Power takes priority over propulsion, Gab. I've been telling you that for years. EDI only let non-critical systems get overload-"
"Since when is propulsion non-critical?"
"Take it up with her if you don't like it!" he growled, trying to recall three passwords at once.
"Fine!"
They hadn't been able to test the Thanix Cannon yet, and preferred it if their new armour went unnoticed.
Joker spoke again. "Okay, okay…" he sounded flustered, "EDI's sent Shepard the coordinates for shuttle extraction, it's up to the team for now – no Kelly there's nothing else I can do! – so Kenneth, make sure everything's working down there for Gabby." He snickered. "Also, restore full power to her terminal!"
Once again, whooping and (more carefully executed) high-fives came through the speaker. Gabby and Ken reached for the intercom's button to shut it down, but their hands touched. They drew back again, faces redder than the deck had been moments ago.
"Come on guys!" Matthews said through the intercom as the shaking slowed, "not even a 'just in case we die' quickie?"
"Shut up!"Gabby hissed.
"How about a kiss then?" said Joker.
"Joker, there are better things to be a joker about," said Gabby angrily. "Why don't I tell everybody how we ended up powering the air-freshener down here?"
"I'll be good," said the Helmsman straight away.
Despite the teasing, circumstance forced them to keep all available communicative lines open, and for the next few minutes Gabby and Ken listened intently to the fighting; wincing at every explosion, husk scream, and the chilling voice of Harbinger.
Eventually the ship began to groan and shake again, and the engineers heard the gunshots intensify.
"Shuttle's moving," said Kenneth when the signal arrived.
"Fusion plant?" said Gabby, feeling dizzy from the tides of numbers her eyes had been following.
"Fusion plant's stable," said Kenneth. "Thrusters?"
"Ready," she replied. "Kinetic barriers?"
"Crap. Tali had better survive this. New armour or not, I want those things upgraded."
"We're out of time, Commander! We have to go!" Joker yelled. "Gabby! Ken! Their weapons are online!"
Gabby found she had been clenching her teeth. Kenneth fought to control his breathing.
"Strap in people," said Joker. "We're gonna make them work for it this time."
Gabby and Ken leapt forwards to grip the steel railing as the SR-2 gathered speed, still buffeted by powerful shockwaves emanating from the Collector vessel. According to their terminals, the Normandy had just avoided a massive particle beam by only a few feet.
"Ooh, not good!" Kenneth groaned, his teeth chattering from the ship's bumpy course.
"What is it?" said Gabby, struggling to hold on.
Kenneth put one hand on his terminal, using the other to maintain his balance. "Check the thrusters," he instructed.
Gabby looked down. "They're…failing! What the hell are we gonna do now?"
"I can't dodge this guy forever, EDI, get us the hell out outta here!" Joker cried as another particle beam from the pursuing ship came perilously close.
"Specify a destination, Mr Moreau."
The ship lurched once more. "Anywhere that's not here!" he responded. "And Gabby, Ken, why aren't we moving faster?"
"Not my problem!" Gabby retorted. She turned to her colleague. "Kenneth, where's that power?"
"Hold on!" he said through gritted teeth. "It's hard doing this with only one hand."
Joker sniggered.
"Shut up you!"
"Guys," said the Commander as he joined Joker's side. "We need to be at full power, now."
Kenneth made a whiny, frustrated noise. "I'm giving it all she's-"
"KENNETH," Gabby screamed, "DON'T YOU DARE COMPLETE THAT SENTENCE!"
Kenneth threw her one more disdainful look before his frantic work was done. "There," he breathed, forgetting the unstable floor beneath him and leaning back.
"Engaging mass effect core," said EDI.
Kenneth's relief was so great he forgot to hold on as the ship hit the nearest mass relay with the Collector still hot on the trail, firing repeatedly. The Normandy gave its strongest tremor yet and he flew backwards, head smacking the floor.
"Ken!" Gabby exclaimed. She rushed over, also forgetting the instability of their surroundings, and fell on top of him. Their faces almost collided, even though she was able to thrust her hands out in front of her.
"Hello there," he said with a dazed smile.
"Hi," she gasped breathlessly.
Moments later, the ship had stilled, and the deck's functions were returning to normal.
"Well, looks like two-nil to us," said Kenneth. "I'd say the Collectors are running out of lives."
"Yeah," she said, looking into his eyes.
He smirked. "You can get off me now, I think."
Gabby half-laughed and tried to get up, but a tightness seemed to have enclosed around her hands. "Oh no…Ken…" She'd fallen so fast, her fingers had gone through the floor grating beneath. "Ken, I can't move!"
His smirk vanished. "What?How've you managed to-"
"My fingers are stuck, help!" She tried to pull them out, but they were in far past the knuckle.
"Okay," Kenneth breathed. Their position was taking its toll on his body, especially below the waist. Gabby's constant writhing and moaning wasn't doing him any favours either. "Gab, hold still! I'll see if I can…wiggle out from under you."
"Okay okay okay!" She stopped moving her arms and hips, feeling her own share of aroused panic.
"Right then," Kenneth muttered, "I just have to do it a bit slower…"
He sat up so his mouth brushed the crook of her neck. Gabby breathed in sharply at the sensation.
Then without warning, a hideous pain shot through Kenneth's left ankle. "AAAAH!"
"What, what?" Gabby squeaked. His arms were around her, and his growl into her ear had sent a surge of adrenaline through her.
"I think…I think my ankle's sprained! I must've busted it when I went down."
"Wouldn't you have felt it?" she hissed.
"I was a bit distracted, what with the perilous mission and you falling on me!"
"This is the last time I show you any concern when injured!" she said. "And we need get up before Jack comes back!"
Kenneth tried wiggling free a second time, but with his ankle in such a state it proved impossible. He fell back again, now trying desperately to get in touch with his genitals through telepathy.
Don't…you…fucking…DARE, he thought. Maybe if I can just…angle my hips to one side. No, she'll notice!
They heard the soft hiss of the elevator door outside. Gabby's head dropped onto Kenneth's shoulder. "Please let it be Tali," she groaned.
The door to their left opened, and in came Hawthorne. Their heads flew up and turned to him.
"Hey guys, Shepard sent me down to check up on y-" He spotted them. "Oh my god!"
"Help us!" Gabby shouted before the taunting could begin. "Help us right now goddamitt!"
Hawthorne's mouth was sagging open, his eyes widened and shone with shocked hilarity. "Bu…but…what?"
"We're stuck, you bloody arsehole!" Kenneth barked. "Pull Gabby off me!"
"Sure you don't want me to pull you out of her?" he asked with a glowing smile.
"Hawthorne," Gabby said in a dangerously low voice, "if you pull me up, I promise I won't kick your ass for that remark."
"What am I supposed to do?" he said, still right on the edge of laughter.
"Go to my room," Kenneth said. "Get the toolbox, we'll take it from there."
Hawthorne rushed off, releasing his laughter the moment he was out of sight; he wasn't out of earshot.
A bright red Gabby looked Kenneth dead in the eye. "Toolbox? What are you trying to pull?"
"Your fingers? Out of the grating?" he drawled with a smirk that made her as furious as she was aroused.
"Uuugh! I want to hit you so much right now!" she screeched.
Kenneth held back his head-butting quip, as she would most likely miss its humour and interpret it as a command.
Wow,he thought when taking a daring look into her eyes. Angry, flustered Gabby is straddling me. Probably shouldn't mention that I had this dream only last week, only we were right in front of the Drive Core.
"What's taking Tali so long?" said Gabby after several horribly awkward seconds. "Heck, I'd take Jack at this point."
"Really?"
"YES!"
Spittle rained down on his face. "Steady on!" he protested, "don't get excited!"
"Kenneth, being on top of you isn't quite enough to get me excited."
"What's that supposed to mea-" Kenneth stopped, aghast. Gabby was smirking. "Did you just…did you just quote you-know-what at me?"
"Yes." There was madness in her face; Kenneth had never seen her blush harder. "Who knows, maybe I'm getting used to it."
Hawthorne then created a large distraction from this thrilling moment by re-entering the room without a toolbox.
Kenneth turned to him. "Where's the-"
"Smile!" Hawthorne switched his omni-tool's camera on.
"FUCK YOU!" Gabby and Ken roared in unison.
Normandy SR-2, Deck 3, Medical Bay – Later that day
The door opened and a sheepish-looking Gabby stepped in, wringing her stiff, bandaged fingers.
"Hey," she murmured.
"Hey," said Kenneth from his padded chair, leaning to one side so his propped-up foot didn't obscure her.
"How's the ankle?" she asked.
Kenneth shrugged. "Long as I keep still tonight and cautious at work, it'll be okay. How are the fingers?"
It turned out Gabby's fingers had been badly lacerated by the accident, and medi-gel reserves were thin; most went to Tali following a nasty suit puncture aboard the vessel. Dr Chakwas had treated Gabby's wounds 'the old-fashioned way,' slowing the healing process by days, even weeks.
"They'll be fine. I can still use my terminal, but making a fist to use on your face or any other body part I consider appropriate will have to wait a while."
He snickered, albeit nervously.
Gabby only smiled at him, and her tone softened. "Hey I'm just kidding." She pulled another chair close to his side and leaned in. "I'm sorry I yelled at you down there. Before the mission, during the mission…after – you know what, I'll just apologise for all of it."
Kenneth put an arm around her, keeping his eyes fixed on a ceiling light so she wouldn't notice his blush. The post-mission atmosphere – though always an emotional affair – had been even crazier this time. A giggling Patel and Rolston had pried Gabby's trapped fingers free using engine lubricant under the hateful glare of Jack, Kelly had aggravated a bullet wound in Shepard's ribcage with an almighty hug and Hawthorne had sent his prized picture to the remaining crew with original captions while Dr Chakwas had tended to Tali, meaning the injured engineers needed to wait a while, refusing to speak to one another as they did.
"Tell me. Do the references bother you that much Gabby?"
She rested her head on his shoulder. "Nah. I'm just used to complaining. And you're a great muse for that. Like target practice."
"This is your Helmsman speaking: the Thanix Cannon test starts in less than a minute!" Joker declared to the ship. "Our maimed engineers might want to pay attention, and no; I'm not referring to you Tali. Joker out."
"Sweet!" said Gabby, who forgot her injuries and worsened the pain by rubbing her hands together excitedly.
"Gabby, help me up!" Kenneth thundered with joy in his eyes. "Time for a joke that doesn't suck."
When back on his feet (with Gabby standing by, should he fall) Kenneth cleared his throat and drew himself up to his full height. "Now witness the firepower of this fully armed and operational Thanix Ca- hey!"
Like the alarm earlier, Gabby and Ken's omni-tools fired up and flashed red. All aboard heard the unmistakeable, tremendous whooshof their new weapon. Joker either wasn't listening in on the Med Bay any more or hadn't bothered waiting for Kenneth.
"They didn't even let me do the 'fire at will Commander' part!" he whined.
Gabby touched his arm as they settled back into their chairs. "Oh well, maybe next time, Ken."
"What next time? When?"
"I dunno. When are we next due to test insane, semi-legal, cutting edge weaponry in the Terminus Systems?"
"When…Zaeed takes Grunt to Omega to get him laid?"
Gabby snorted, slapped a hand over her mouth and broke into shudders, letting the occasional squeak out.
"What?" he said, giving her a sidelong look. "No punch in the arm with your good hand, or disapproving 'Kenneth' this time? Bugger me: those drugs must be working wonders."
"Those were standard painkillers, Kenneth, nothing more." She turned to him, chin propped on his shoulder. "Maybe you're just funny. Ever considered that?"
Kenneth's vision was fixated on the ceiling again. "I might have, once or twice…but I've got a pretty harsh critic, it seems."
Gabby gasped. "Never!Who is she?"
"Didn't say it was a she, did I Gabby?"
Her mind flashed back to his comment on 'female energy.' "No; you most certainly did not say it was a she," Gabby said perhaps a little too sharply.
Kenneth shifted from discomfort and cast another nervous sidelong look in her direction. What had he done to upset her now?
"How did you come to think it is a she, then?" he asked.
"Oh…no reason."
He sighed. "Guess not."
Silence again. Kenneth tightened his grip, and the two of them were soon in that familiar position; the one that had brightened so many days and nights on Ilium; his strong, reassuring grip and her sweet scent; her head on his shoulder and his hand on her waist; both of their bodies warm and grateful.
"This critic," Gabby said under her breath, "she sounds like a real bitch."
Kenneth stiffened and his grip tightened further. "Oh, I wouldn't say that!" he exclaimed. "Granted…she can really test my patience sometimes but, I don't know what I'd do without her."
Gabby kissed his shoulder. "I think she should show you more appreciation, I really do. And I don't think she knows what she'd do without you either."
"Hmmm."
Kenneth turned his head and looked straight into Gabby's tired eyes, intense and unblinking. They were almost nose-to-nose. A strange chill passed through both of them; the likes of which had not been felt for over two and a half years, even their first night in Nos Astra hadn't felt so intimate. They thought of the Perugia's broken and burning Engine Room, and what they could have shared that night. There was no Captain Marlowe on the SR-2. There were no regs against fraternising in Cerberus. The Med Bay was silent, save for the soft hum of its machinery. What was holding them back?
"Gabby?"
"Yeah?"
"Why do we fight all day and then…do this all night, and then fight all day again?"
"I've stopped trying to understand human behaviour, despite the fact that I've been one my whole life," she said, ending with a little yawn that bumped her top lip against his.
"So…we can just play the 'it's a suicide mission and we'll be as nuts as we want to' card?"
"Mm hmm," she mumbled. "Works for everything else, doesn't it? And it's not as if ourbehaviour has been the craziest. Miranda's actually started smiling."
"I'm still in shock!"
"And I hear Jacob took Kasumi up on one of her offers recently!"
"Oh yeah? Which one? She strikes me as the kinky type."
Gabby leaned in closer, until their foreheads were touching. They were speaking in the softest of whispers. Everything around seemed to melt away. "According to scuttlebutt – which can be a good thing sometimes, I guess – she claims expertise in massage-"
"Oooh!" said Kenneth.
"-and said he looked a little tense."
"Was this after he got that message about his dad?" Kenneth asked.
Gabby furrowed her brow. "Yeah, I think so. Damn, no wonder he was down."
Kenneth gulped; he hadn't meant to lower the mood. "So," he hastily added. "Do you she'll grant him a…happy ending?"
Gabby's eyebrows went up, and her lips curved into a suggestive smile. "It isn't a stretch of the imagination."
"Don't you just love it when people live up to ethnic stereotypes?"
"Sure do, my foul-mouthed, whiskey-swilling friend."
Kenneth tried to laugh, but they had run out of reasons to prolong the inevitable: and nothing in dark space or through the Omega-4 Relay could have frightened him more.
Well, truth be told there was something that frightened him more: and that was spending every day until he died wondering how much better life could have been if they had shared it together.
"Gabby," he whispered. "With all that's been going on and all that's definitely going to happen, no turning back…what the hell are we waiting for?"
Gabby's breathing slowed and deepened. Not even the pain in her torn-up fingers existed any more. There was nothing but his eyes, his close body…their memories and her unquenchable desires…
Her eyes snapped shut.
I'm so afraid.
She pulled away.
I can't.
She leapt to her feet and started for the door.
"Gabby?" He spoke with the voice of a wounded man. She turned and saw a shocked and infuriated Kenneth confined to his chair yet still trying to pursue her.
"Don't you run again!" he begged. "Don't do this to us!"
"Me?" she cried. There were no tears. There was only the cold fear she had not felt since the Perugia. "You ran too, Kenneth! We were both so stupid that day!"
"I KNOW!" he bellowed. "Gabby please! I want us to put it right. I want to look at that gift from you and not think about the worst mistake we ever made! We were stupid for so long, but then on Ilium I realised something, and so did you-"
She cut him off with a hysterical shake of the head. "No Ken: we're stupid because we allowed ourselves to get so close! We know how dangerous the mission is, and the fact that surviving this one means we graduate to even riskier ones. Our enemies-"
"We can beat the Collectors!"
"And then what, Kenneth?" There would be no permanent prevention of the Reapers' attack.
Kenneth could only stare at her.
"I want this as much as you Kenneth," she continued as their hearts broke in unison. "I've wanted this for so many years! But the thought of…"
She saw the bodies: endless in number, floating through the lavender nebula before Sovereigns remains. How would she be able to carry on if he joined them? Why should she subject him to the same crippling grief?
"I'm sorry! I'm so, so sorry but…I just can't stand it!"
Gabby fled. To Kenneth, the closing door might as well have belonged to a prison cell, sealing him in with his misery.