I don't own Mass Effect. My original characters are sort-of mine.. feel free to use them just note that I made them. And if they die, make sure it's awesome.


Chapter 5: The Recovery

I let out a quiet hiss of pain when the I-Sec medic shoved the needle into my shoulder, but it honestly wasn't nearly as bad as getting my arm shoved back into place had been. Or my elbow for that matter.

"This will keep the pain and swelling down, and should prevent any long term damage."

"Thanks." Cold liquid flooded down my arm and across my chest, and it nearly made my sag in relief. Getting a dislocated arm fixed without painkillers was an experience I never wanted to go through again. "How long do I have to keep the sling on?"

The medic gave a little shrug, her purple skin practically shining in the light. "At least a week, preferably longer. But given what little I know about you and your friends here, I'll go ahead and tell you that anything less than four or five days and you'll risk damaging your ligaments, even with the injection I just gave you."

I winced slightly. Given what she knew was right, and she probably didn't even know all of it. "I'll keep that in mind."

She made a quiet sound before packing up her things and heading back outside, which regrettably left me rather alone in the hallway, with no real idea of what was even happening anymore.

Nyn, having grabbed Chen and Marn, had left me and Trena behind to chase after Chacksin with Vasir. I'd wanted to go with, my arm in pieces or not, but she'd told me in no uncertain terms that I would be more of a hindrance than a help and that I needed to stay. Given that she'd just seen the body of the man she treated as her actual father, I couldn't really blame her for snapping at me. Or for sprinting for her aircar and flying off after him.

Shuffling a bit, I kicked half of a fallen assault rifle aside before settling in on top of my armor. Or what was left of it. It had gotten shot to hell even before I'd bailed, and then being used for cover in addition to that had left it more memory than exoskeleton. Chen and I had actually been pretty lucky in that regard, a few more exchanges would have probably been enough for the back plates to fall off entirely.

Of course, we were pretty much the only one's who'd had any luck at all.

I hadn't really known Yrrich all that well. He'd been sick with some kind of persistent flu from before I'd even come to the enclave. From all accounts he'd been a pretty typical sniper though. Quiet, withdrawn, and a bit cold.. but damned effective at what he did. From what I-Sec had managed to piece together, he'd lasted longer than most of his team, setting up at the end of a hall and blowing mercs apart as they came until they simply overwhelmed him and his partner.

Doc V'Rae had been a bit odd, and you definitely never wanted to mess with her in her own domain. But she'd still gotten me immunizations and supplements without asking questions about why I didn't even have the basics done.

And her and scales screaming at each other was always good for a laugh..

Our traitor had turned out to be Thareus, to neither I nor Trena's surprise. In hindsight, his and the other Turian's all being willing to join had been a bit too convenient. Still, we had no idea why a former slave, and he definitely had all the markings of one, would be willing to accept payment from the people who'd tortured him to betray people willing to help him. And given that V'Rae had literally melted his brains with warpfire, I doubted we'd ever really know.

Maybe Aethyta or the Vasirs can find something..

But.. there was the one loss that made the rest look pale in comparison. Which was a shitty thing to think, given that their lives had been ended as brutally as his, but that I couldn't' stop myself from thinking all the same.

Dammit Xerol.. you couldn't just stay safe in the conference room, you had to help defend your house.

Logically, I knew there was no sense in blaming him. It was his mansion, his fortress, his home. He hadn't liked staying out of it the last time it had been attacked, and that had been when we had a small army ready to defend it. We'd been down to the dregs, to the point where even Trena, limping around as she was, had been out shooting.

But with him gone... I honestly had no fucking idea what we were going to do now. Sure, I'd really only known the guy for a few months, but he'd been... well, our leader. More than just the boss, he'd been the one calling the shots, sticking his neck out in personal meetings with Sederis, organizing everything we'd needed to take the fight to the gang and the mercenaries. He'd let me and Trena live in his mansion when our apartments weren't safe anymore, had given me all the parts I'd needed to get my exoskeleton up and running..

Let you stay with Nynsi.

And now he was gone. Killed by his own fucking brother, who'd somehow managed to slip out right under Vasir's nose. Assuming he'd ever even been there, and hadn't just been speaking through one of his people's radios.

And wouldn't that just piss Nyn off more.. off on a car chase against someone who isn't even him.

"Hey ape."

"Scales." I groaned as she broke my thoughts, glancing behind me to see her carefully limping through the wreckage. "What's the word?"

She gave the barest of Asari shrugs, "I-Sec still cleaning this shit up. Useless tits. Aethyta's on her way, think she's pissed enough to pull Vasir's cruiser from orbit and tear it apart herself."

"That would be a sight." A hand patted the metal. "Come on, still good to sit on, if nothing else."

"Even the wayward waves find shore. You'll get it running again." There was a long groan, her battered cane shaking slightly as she lowered herself to sit beside me. "I'll help. Perfect chance to rip that bitch's shit apart to make this thing dance."

"Still would have flat feet."

"Mmm." Hands pulled her lighter and pipe from her belt and started to work with both of them. "Go ahead ape, say what you want. Doesn't take a mind counselor to see you're drowning."

I waved a hand through the first few puffs, "All this.. for what? We've basically lost at this point, haven't we? I mean.. we won.. but talk about a Pyrrhic victory. Xerol was the only one keeping everything going forwards. Nyn might be able to manage things.. but what's left to manage? Us? Marn and Chen? It took less than a week for practically everyone we know to get killed. Even if we get Chacksin-"

"Which we fucking will."

"-which we fucking will, what the hell do we do next?"

She blew out a long stream of gray smoke before responding. "I don't fucking know Cieran, all right? I've known him since.. damn. Since before he was exiled. Knew his goddess-damned father, his grandfather slept with a friend of mine. Even ran guns with his great-grandmother through the Terminus. Never thought I'd see the end of his line like this."

My eyes narrowed. "There's still Nyn."

"She's not reproducing." The pipe was pulled from her mouth as she waved it irritably. "Goddess ape. You've all but built breakwaters around her you've staked your claim so fucking publicly. And she's done the same goddess-damned thing. Much pressure as she'll feel to she knows you'd never stand for it."

I winced slightly.

"Don't fucking do that. Take this as an example or some shit. Take happiness were you get it."

"Yeah." A hand ran through my now shoulder length hair, drawing winces as I hit tangles. "Seriously though.."

"I was serious. We kill the asshole that killed our friend, rip his eyes out or whatever the hell it is Batarians do to people that deserve to suffer, and then we all go get as blind drunk as Aethyta can manage for us." She took a long drag from her pipe, seemingly to calm herself. "Then.. then we decide what in the deeps we're doing."

Tugging my hand free, I sighed again. "Yeah. Maybe go back to running your shop."

"Would be weird." her head turned as she looked around the wrecked palace. "That shop was my escape from.. well, the maelstrom my life was before. But now?"

"Drag Ghai in there and ravish her on your desk until she pops out a kid for you."

There was a strangled sound as she inhaled wrong, and I had to slap her on the back as she coughed. "Goddess ape. That's the kind of shit I'm supposed to say, not you."

"Yeah well," I waved a hand at everything around us. "You were saying about happiness."

She nodded slowly, "Yeah. Damn. I almost sounded like a matriarch didn't I? I'm too fucking young for that."

I shrugged, the usual banter doing a little to relieve the general depression of the situation. "I have a hard time picturing you as a matriarch. Still. You'd probably still be more fun to hang around with than most of them sound."

She chuckled quietly, puffs of smoke escaping as she did. "I sure as fuck hope so."

"Not sure how I feel about being included in a list like that kid," A new voice joined us, boots crunching on fallen masonry and wood from the décor. "but glad to see you're still alive at least."

"Aethyta." Trena waved a hand in a vaguely welcoming gesture. "'bout time you showed up."

Liara's mother walked into sight, as heavily armed and armored as I'd seen her when she got back from Omega. Not that there was anyone around left to fight, but it was still reassuring to see her like that.

"I already fired the girls responsible for tracking your comms. Useless little birds couldn't even match a standard Salarian hacking override or track a half million going into I-Sec accounts."

I grunted, glad that at least had been taken care of. "Any idea how the insider got through Xerol's checks?"

She glowered, wrinkles appearing a bit as she did so. "No. His bank his clean. So are the last quarters he had. Other slaves all made it pretty damn clear he wanted his revenge. Nothing even in his messages."

"Figures." The sigh pushed some of Trena's smoke away from me. "Wasn't hopeful but why not."

"So. He's really gone then?"

One of my hands waved vaguely towards the conference room. "Vasir, the Spectre, had her medic confirm it before she raced off to chase Chacksin. He took four heavy rounds to the chest, even with as diverse as their organs are that was apparently enough."

"Athame's ass. This has gone from bad to worse for you kids."

Trena gave a quiet chuckle as my lips pulled into a wry smile, "Story of my very short life Matriarch."

"Told you to not to call me that. What's your plan now?"

"Plan?" my companion gave her a frank stare. "Our friends are mostly dead or crippled, what passed for our army is gone, oh, and the fourth generation of a family I fucking liked is laying dead over there. Our plan is to fucking murder his brother."

If Aethyta had had eyebrows I'm sure one would have gone up. "And you plan to do that while sitting on that wreck?"

We both glared at her.

"Look kid, T'laria. Get your asses to sleep if you aren't doing anything productive. You look worse than what a goddess sent blood tide dragged in, and that's hard to do." Dark eyes flicked between us. "I'm not going anywhere. Where's the girl?"

"Chasing after the Suns with Vasir." And the lack of communication was increasingly becoming worrying. Losing Xerol was bad enough. Losing him and Nynsi in the same day?

Don't you dare fucking die Nyn..

"Vasir will take care of her. And if she doesn't, I'll rip her frills off for you."

Not that that would matter even a little bit to me if Nyn didn't come back, but I still nodded thankfully for the sentiment.

"Right. Get moving then. I'll see what in the deeps is going on here."

Trena sighed as Aethyta moved away, already flagging down a luckless I-Sec agent and laying into the poor girl for information. "Given that my room is full of bullet holes, I don't suppose little Shaaryak has a couch I can use?"

"Probably more comfortable than your beds was." I let out a long groan at how much effort it took me to get up. Everything spun slightly for a long moment, which gave me time to wonder just how strong the painkillers I'd been given were. I'd felt fine sitting there, but standing.. my head practically throbbed as the drugs rushed through my system. "Woah.."

Extinguishing her pipe, she shook her head at me as I wobbled. "Athame's tits ape, what did they give you?"

"Not sure." I admitted, reaching out to put a hand on her shoulder, which was prettty much all that was keeping me upright. But on the flip-side, it left me mentally checked out to the point where I stopped thinking about.. well, everything. Which was sort of a plus.

"Come on then. Let's get you into her bed."

It was about twice as difficult as you can imagine for us to move. She was hardly in better shape, and we were basically sharing her cane as we limped along. Stops occurred frequently as either she needed to catch her breath, or I needed to stabilize myself to stop from simply tipping over. Thankfully for our health, if not our pride, a pair of I-Sec officers took pity on us before we'd made it halfway down the hall. Setting aside the Blue Sun weaponry they'd been collecting, they simply used biotics to lift us up and float us along.

If it weren't for the crackling ozone and the bizarre wrenching sensations of the lift, I'd have probably managed to pass out as we glided through the air. As it was, I was mostly trying not to puke on Trena as she muttered oaths under breath at being biotically manhandled like this.

Still, we reached our destination without incident, which was probably more than we cold have managed on our own. I thanked the officers, and tried to hit Trena when she didn't.

"We could have made it on our own ape."

I made a show of rolling my eyes, "Yeah. We were making such good progress. I'm sure we'd have made it sometime before tomorrow morning."

She muttered something uncomplimentary about my parentage, but chortled when I flipped her off in response.

"Been here for months and Little Shaaryak has never let me in here."

I grunted, focusing on the keypad intently as I punched in the security code. "That's because she doesn't like you much."

"It's mutual. Stuck up frigid bitch."

The doors clicked and swung open slightly, and the two of us stumbled into the living area. "Just don't start anything. Please. I don't want to have to break you two apart while I have an arm in a sling."

"I thought human males enjoyed seeing women fight." Tired eyes glanced around the room. "Not bad though, not nearly as overdone as I'd have thought. She didn't inherit that from Xerol at least."

I winced at the mention of his name, and then firmly shoved those emotions back into their box before slamming the lid shut and tossing it into my hind-brain. "I don't think she actually used this room much until I started living here."

She grunted, limping towards the couch. "She didn't really do much before you did either. Bounced from position to position, trying to find her bloody place. Not that her own kind were much help. Even here they don't care much for their women having that much authority. Chauvinistic four eyed male assholes. Only thing she's done that I like about her, not put up with their bullshit."

My lips curled slightly as I staggered towards the bedroom doors. "See? Common ground. Now find some more."

"Whatever ape. Goddess..." there was a very long moan as she laid down. "..please tell me you bought this magnificent thing."

"Sorry. All Nyn."

"Don't you dare breath a word of what I just said then." She let out an almost sexual sound of pleasure as she settled in, grabbing at the thick blanket I'd draped over the back for comfort's sake. "Keep your gun on you ape."

"I'm not a kid scales." I flicked the lights off and reset the rooms security before setting the blinds to close. Once the room was mostly dark, I flicked the switch to close the bedroom's doors behind me. "Tomorrow.."

"We get ready to hunt that fucker down if Vasir and little Shaaryak didn't already." A blue hand waved vaguely, "Get your ass to bed ape."

"Enjoy the couch scales." The doors clicked shut before I could hear her reply, which was probably for the best.

Only early afternoon or not, I was fully intending on not waking up until either Nyn came back, Aethyta woke me, or the next sunrise. As it was, it felt like I'd barely spent five minutes her wonderfully soft bed before it started to move, the motions jerking me awake.

"Cieran, it's just me." a strong hand grabbed my forearm as I started to scramble for my gun. I couldn't really see anything in the dark, but the earthy spices of Nyn's lips met mine a few moments later. "It's me."

"Nyn... did you?"

There was a quiet growl before her hand left me, and the sounds of her angrily tearing her armor off reached my ears. "He wasn't in the car. Two Batarians, both in Blue Sun armor, but neither of them was Chacksin. Vasir interrogated both of them with one of her underlings, some human mercenary. Apparently he was never even there, just speaking over their headsets."

I let out a long sigh, reaching up to rub the sleep out of my eyes with my functioning arm. "Are you... stupid question, of course you're not all right."

"No." Breath seethed between her teeth. "And I won't be until I have his corpse at my feet."

"I'm not going to argue with this plan." My eyes, a bit adjusted to the darkness, watched as she tossed her breastplate aside. "Trena and I are going to get to work on my armor first thing."

"How long?"

I winced. "I don't know. If it was just me, I'd say over a month. With her helping, maybe less, but neither of us is at our best right now."

"I'll bring in people from the junkyards." Her boots slammed into a table with far more force than was necessary. "You'll need to triple check any work they do, but I want you to be ready by the end of the week."

"That's.. ambitious." Even with plenty of mechanically skilled people helping it would be a pain, especially since Trena and I would have to constantly be looking over their shoulders to make sure there wasn't a repeat of the last time that I'd let someone else work on it. And even with their help, there wasn't anyway I was letting anyone touch the OS, which would need a lot of work if we were going to include any of Yi'ren's armor into the systems.

Her posture tightened with anger, and I didn't need to see her hands to know that they were curled into fists. "Cieran. He killed Xerol. I'm going to rip his eyes out and crush them in front of him one at a time. Even if the First Pillar didn't demand retribution for what he'd done, I would still dedicate everything I have to it. Either he dies or I do. There is no other option."

"No." My eyes narrowed as I fought to situp, my own emotions banishing the remnants of the painkillers and sleep. "Those aren't your options. There aren't options. He dies. You live. Period. End of story."

"Ciearn.." her voice was low.

"Nyn." I cut her off, "No. If you get to kill him all up close and personal, fine. He's an asshole who probably deserves worse. But if the only thing we can do is have Vasir blast his hideout from orbit with her damn cruiser, we do that and then dig his body out to make sure. I'm not letting you throw yourself into some suicide mission. We've.." I had to suck in a long breath against the pain that had started up again, both physically and mentally. "..dammit Nyn. We've lost almost everything. I'm not losing you."

"Cieran.." her head cocked slightly to one side, her dark eyes briefly reflecting the low light from the window. ".. as much as I appreciate it, this is hardly the best time to tell me that you're in love with me."

My mouth opened. Then shut. Then opened again. "I.. didn't say.."

"You didn't have to." the bed shifted again as she crawled into it, a warm hand gently pushing me back down. "Not with the exact words. I believe the emotion was quite clear. I.. swear by the Pillars that I won't seek death in this."

"Thank you.."

Her lips pressed against my cheek. "Thank you my strange, human Harath'krem."

I let out a groan as my shoulder throbbed, closely followed by my elbow. Her right hand slid across my chest to gently brush against my arm, fingers trailing across my shirt and onto my skin. "Thank you for which part.. caring? Not wanting to see you dead? Wanting to kill Chacksin for you?"

There was a dry chuckle before another kiss found my neck. "All of them at once." Her lips were very warm as she brushed them against my skin again. "And for falling in love with me, of course."

"I.." my skin flushed a bit. "Nyn.."

"Cieran." her hand left me, briefly, before fingers found my chin and firmly turned me so that her four eyes could stare into my pair. "I do not want to think right now. Not about what happened today. Not about what will happen tomorrow. Understand?"

"I understand, Tarath'shan." Leaning my neck up a bit, I pressed my lips against hers for a long moment before pulling back. "Although my arm is a bit of a problem."

Her teeth gleamed briefly in the low lighting. "I do not believe it to be insurmountable. Do you?"

I shivered as her warm body pressed closer against mine, reminding just how very muscled and curved it was. "No.. but Nyn.."

There was a growl as she shifted, her heavy form swiftly straddling me as she stared downwards. "What part about not wanting to think did you not understand?"

My lips twitched. "You said this wasn't the best time to admit to being in love with you."

"It isn't." her shoulders rose and fell as her head tilted to the right, both of her hands falling to start carefully tugging my shirt up. "But given our situation, I suppose there may not be a better time."

That morbid though almost was enough to ruin the mood, and might have entirely if she hadn't leaned down and firmly pressed our lips together. My good arm moved up to wrap around her waist, and for a few long moments I was simply able to enjoy the feel of her body against mine as our mouths and tongues moved with each others.

Breaking apart for air a few moments later, I breathed out a quiet sigh. "So. Apparently I'm in love with a high caste Batarian woman."

"You are." leaning back, she very gently began to remove my shirt, careful not to put any strain on my arm. "Though that sounds better than a Batarian head of family being in love with a human mechanic."

For some reason, just hearing her say that made my heart beat just a bit faster, and did more than all of the lust and arousal to push the depression of the day away. My clothing was barely out of the way before I'd grabbed her by the neck and yanked her back down. Her startled exclamation shifted quickly into a quiet moan as our kiss resumed.

And for the rest of the night at least, we didn't think about what had happened, who we had lost, and what we were going to have to do because of them.


Next up is Chapter 6: The Sister

So.. this chapter came out a lot faster than I thought, mostly because writing is turning increasingly into my refuge from everything else that's happening in my life. Not going into details, but things aren't exactly going well in either my work or personal life. But in good news, that means that another chapter is done five days early.

This one is a bit back and forth between the angst and depression of everything that had just happened mixed with the mild happiness of Cieran and Nynsi finally admitting things openly with one another. Of course, given that there's still seven chapters to go, they were probably smart to go ahead and admit it before things turn up worse. Which they might.

I'm also making a bit more effort to vary up people's dialogue, to make it more clear what species they are just by what they say and how they say it. Trena is a bit of an outlier thanks to her, shall we say, colorful language, but I'm hoping to put in more phrases and sayings that make everyone sound a little less anglo-american.

Please read and review, criticism is welcome, flames not so much, as usual. Reviews are my lifeblood as a writer.. every-time my email goes off with a review it makes me want to write more, so please take the time to leave one. Guests can leave them as well, and it only takes a minute, so please. Even if it's as simple as "I enjoyed it, please continue."

Thanks, Kat


Review Responses:

MEEKVERSEFAN2.0Yup. Waffled a bit on his death.. but in the end, just felt like it had to happen.

Ari989 → They did keep checking, or at least, Xerol did, but it seems that didn't matter much. Though whether that was Thareus just being that good at lying or Chacksin influencing things, we'll see, maybe. As to where they go from here.. preferably straight to the part where Chacksin dies. :)

cmitts93 → Glad to see you kept going, and thanks for the compliments :). Batarian culture is explored a bit in this story, but I'll probably try and go much more in depth moving forwards and into AR-2 as their situation changes.

Toothless is best → Yeah.. I'm going to miss writing Xerol.