***** Author's Note *****

Thank you all so much for the amazing comments on the last couple chapters. It's such a pivotal thing for this romance, I was VERY nervous. I'm so glad you loved it. Comments feed my soul!


"Sidonis wasn't just another member of my team."

Shepard is a genius. She knew that I needed to talk but that it was going to be hard, so she got me naked, rode my cock expertly, and let me cum inside her. And now I'm far more relaxed than I was, even though we still need to talk.

It probably helps that Shepard just agreed to marry me, and now when I hold her hand, I get to watch the ring on her finger sparkle. She's going to be my wife. There's nothing I can't say. She's here, and she always will be.

"Sidonis and I were close," I tell her honestly.

It's hard to talk about him, especially if I'm talking about him in a way that's positive. It's hard to remember who he was to me at a time without letting the hate that had me running wild on the Citadel last week take over. Just the mention of his name makes me want to rage, my temperature rising. So I focus on Shepard's hand in mine, the ring sparkling, and her naked body pressed against my side. And I can breathe again.

"He knew about you. That I was bonded to you. He figured out...pheromones, it stands out if you know someone else who's bonded." I shake it off and focus instead of giving myself the out of explaining that to Shepard. "It was easier to let him support me through it since he figured it out. I talked to Devon about you, of course, but humans..."

"We can't really grasp the entirety of bonding," Shepard finishes. I look up at her, and she smiles softly. "It's true, I don't take offense to it. So long as you know that I love you as hard as human physiology allows."

"I know." I lift my head and kiss her briefly. I want to use that as a distraction too, but she deserves more. "Sidonis understood it. He got how much of me was lost when you were, he understood why I was always such a fucking wreck, and he tried to help me not feel so awful about it. So, I...trusted him. I let him in. If anyone else on the team had betrayed us, it would have hurt like hell. I mean, I lost them all, and I loved them all. But from Sidonis it was so much more...personal."

I don't realize that I started crying while saying it until Shepard wipes away a tear that's escaped onto my cheek. "I didn't know Turians actually cried. That's probably stupid but...I'm guilty of believing stereotypes about all Turians being perfect soldiers."

"Don't blame yourself, we very intentionally perpetuate those stereotypes," I assure her, squeezing her hand a little. "And I don't cry, thank you very much. Last time was about my mom. I'm not pleased you've made me this emotional, Shepard."

"I've been crying for like a week, so I really don't feel for you all."

I laugh and she smiles into it when she kisses me again, but it still hurts a little. "I am sorry I made you cry," I offer, lifting my other hand to caress her spine.

"I'm sorry I made you cry, too. And I'm sorry I didn't push you to talk before we went." She shakes her head, looking at her ring. "I should have pushed it, but I didn't want you to be mad at me. I prioritized us being happy short term, and I shouldn't have. It never should have come down to you having to decide in the moment, to you..."

"With my crosshairs on your back? Yeah, that's not an image I will ever be able to forget. And not one I want to repeat if we can avoid it, please."

"Yes, please," she agrees wholeheartedly.

I take a breath, knowing that there's more to say and reminding myself that I can say anything. She agreed to marry me, the future of our babies is in a lab downstairs...I can say anything.

"Sidonis was right, you know," I admit. "He told you that I would have left them if you came back before. They were important to me, our mission on Omega was important to me, but...if you'd come back at any point, I would have ditched all of it for you. You mattered so much more to me than anything else, even when you were..."

"Dead." This time, I don't like when she finishes my thought. "Eventually, I think we should both be able to say that without it being such an issue."

"I think eventually is going to need to be a very long time from now."

"I think you're right. Good thing we have a long time to work on it together, right?" She kisses me, lingering against my mouth. "You felt guilty about telling me that you would have left them for me?" I take a breath and nod. It's probably for the best that it's out there, though. Maybe. Depending on her reaction. "I feel guilty because in the last week I realized that if it came down to you and literally the entire universe...I would choose you."

"Are we bad people?"

"I think it's that we are people," she replies, shrugging a little. "You're not a perfect soldier, I'm not only Commander Shepard. We're people...people in love who want futures outside of only our mission and our jobs. If I'm being honest...I don't see anything wrong with that. Especially since once we do save the universe, as far as I'm concerned, we need to cash in on some favors we've earned."

"Hackett alone owes you like four years off," I quip, earning a laugh from her. "So...you're not judging me for that? And you understand why I...freaked out a little more than I should have about Sidonis?"

"I understand. And all that really matters to me is that you told me. You're finally talking to me about Omega. Maybe I should have proposed to you awhile ago," Shepard teases, shaking our joined hands to bring my attention back to the ring.

I laugh and roll my eyes. "I'm glad you didn't steal my thunder. I, uh...even asked for your hand."

"What? Wha...who did you even ask?"

"Your parents, Shepard, that's human tradition, right? So who did I ask?"

"Chakwas knew you were going to propose?!" she demands, her voice escalating several octaves. "And Anderson, too? And they didn't tell me?"

"Tali and Joker too, actually. They helped me with the ring, so you know who to blame if you don't like it."

Shepard scoffs and sits up, the sheet falling around her waist and exposing her breasts. Her perfect, fantastic, incredibly arousing breasts. She continues speaking, I know she does, but she's not actually mad and her breasts are...yeah, we're done talking about this.


Garrus tackles me back onto the mattress, yanking the blanket the rest of the way off of me. I squeak out his name in a half-hearted protest, and he swallows it in a kiss that tingles all the way down to my toes. "You deserved to be surprised by it," he tells me between kisses. "And now you deserve to be a very luck Turian's very well-fucked fiance."

"Oh, well...I suppose that's okay then."

His head pops up and Garrus gives me a dark look. "Okay? It's okay? I'll show you okay."

Before I can protest or tease him or do anything else, Garrus's teeth come down sharp on my nipple. Arousal hits me like a tsunami, sweeping right to my core, at the same time that my biotics come to life to defend from the pain and create a surge in my spine. Garrus growls, that spark moving through him too, and instead of soothing the sting, he keeps it up.

Garrus is all talons and teeth, deadly sex and hot touches, and it feels like seconds before I'm overwhelmed and panting and ready to beg for him. His tongue is exactly what I need, especially with his talent. He's a man possessed, devouring me, and all I have to do is lay back and take it.

Until I hear the doors open.

Garrus hears it just a split second before me, and I startle both from the door and from him shouting, "What the fuck, Jack?" Fortunately, Garrus has the good sense to yank the blankets back up over my body, and then grabs a pillow to cover his erection.

"Wow, I see you two made up," Jack drawls, strolling casually into our quarters like she's not well aware of what we're doing. Even if she hadn't walked in during the middle of it, I couldn't hide the way I'm panting or sweating, the fresh marks all over me, or how heavily Garrus is breathing. Except then she stops short. "Wait. Is this break up sex? Did you fucking morons - "

"No!" we both snap. "We did not break up, that was never on the fucking table, what the hell are you doing here?" Garrus demands. I like hearing him say that it was never on the table, still a little vulnerable now even with a ring on. Garrus is far less vulnerable and much more intimate, though. But right now he's enormously annoyed.

"I need you," Jack replies, her shoulders falling. And it's like the air gets let out of the room in an instant, all the arousal and tension remaining are gone. The only thing left is concern.
Jack just said three words I never thought I'd hear from her.

"What's wrong?" I ask, sitting forward and holding the blanket up at my chest.

"Are you okay?" Garrus follows up, getting out of the bed with the pillow strategically placed. He moves to our closet, grabs a shirt, and turns to toss it to me while Jack starts to pace.

"You know I have a history with Cerberus," Jack begins. I duck under the blanket to pull my shirt on while Garrus sneaks back under the blanket, still covering himself with the pillow. It doesn't hide much, especially when he winces. "You know how far back it goes?"

"You know I don't make a habit of reading my crew's files, Jack," I remind her. She offered to share what she found with me, and I turned it down easily. That's weird, that's not how I operate. I'd hate to think how someone would treat me if they only went off my records and files.

Actually, I know how that would go. Kaidan Alenko.

"I'll listen to anything you have to say," I tell her. And I hope she knows I mean it, but I know that Garrus being here will help her. They're close enough that any trust I'm lacking with Jack because I'm her commander, Garrus makes up for.

"Your boss, the Illusive Man? Never seen him before, but Cerberus raised me. First thing I remember is my cell door in a Cerberus base."

"Spirits." Garrus throws the pillow and blanket aside, naked but not hard, and yanks on a pair of pants. He moves to the end of the bed and sits, closer to Jack. There if she needs him. He's the best man I know.

"They did experiments. Drugged me. Tortured me. Whatever chance I had to be normal, they stole it by trying to turn me into some super-biotic. The doctors...the other kids...every one of them hated me. They let me suffer."

My stomach churns especially because she just said this so calmly. I've always suspected Jack's abilities aren't natural, much like Miranda's and mine. But this...this is sickening. And Jack is just...so...calm.

"Jack, I didn't know. I had no idea."

She pauses to look at me. "I know that. I know you wouldn't let that shit slide, and that's why I'm here now."

I nod, grateful that she knows I am not going to side with Cerberus on this one. This is disgusting. "What did they hope to gain by torturing a little girl?"

"It was something about pain breaking down mental barriers, and how it might clear the way for more biotic power." She scoffs and shakes it off, but it's completely shallow. It's a lie. She's not casual about this at all. "I'm sure there was a payoff due at some point, but I wasn't going to see it. I was wired up in a cell."

"Torture, just to see if they could make a stronger biotic?" Garrus demands. "What the fuck is that?"

"Wasn't in a position to ask," Jack notes. "All I know is, a little girl crying in a cell, begging for the pain to stop..."

Garrus reaches out and catches her hand, tugging Jack down onto the bed. He pulls her under his arm, turning her so that she's facing the middle of the bed. Jack resists the affection for about half a second, and then she melts into Garrus's side.

"There were other children in the base?" I ask.

"I didn't know much about them," she answers, voice lower. "I was kept separate. They hated me, just like everyone else there. When I broke out, I had to fight through them all. I showed them, but there's a loose end I need to deal with."

"Broke out?" Garrus echoes, raising his brow.

"There was some kind of emergency, and I made a break for it. The other kids came out of their cells and attacked me. So did the guards." She shakes her head, hands clenching into fists. "I just killed everything in my way and ran. Guess my biotics had developed faster than they thought. I managed to get a shuttle off the ground. Drifted until a freighter picked me up. The crew used me, then sold me. That's my uplifting escape story."

Monster is the only one of us who manages a coherent response. He's clawed his way up the blanket and onto the bed, then runs to Jack and jumps into her lap. Petting the kitten works the same magic he always does, relaxing her immediately.

"Jack, you're absolutely certain Cerberus was running the facility? I mean, I'm ready to jump ship for this but - "

She scoffs at me. "We cannot jump ship. I've worked for Cerberus for too long for it all to be for nothing when the Reapers come in and wreck us."

"Fair enough," I allow with a laugh.

"Besides, I was a kid but I wasn't dumb. I know how to listen. It was Cerberus," she presses. "Don't care how far down the chain it was." She scoffs and shakes her head. "They thought they were so clever. Turns out, mess with someone's head enough, and you can turn a scared kid into an all-powerful bitch. Fucking idiots."

Garrus leans down to press his forehead against the side of Jack's head. He closes his eyes and exhales slowly, his hand fisting in the blanket. He's barely holding it together, and I know Jack can tell when she leans into the touch. She looks so tiny in his arms. It makes all of this feel worse. She's so small, still just a kid.

"Okay, well I'm gonna put on pants and then I'm calling the Illusive Man," I tell them. "Maybe we can't jump ship but he'd better have some answers."

"He'll just deny everything," Jack notes, surprisingly logical. "That's not what I'm after anyway."

"Then tell us what you do need, Jack," Garrus says, looking down at her. I nod, throwing my hat in with his. Always.

Jack shakes her head a little. "I found the coordinates in your files. I want to go to the Teltin facility on Praga, where they tortured and drugged me." She leans forward, her intensity growing. "I want to go to the center of the place, my cell. I want to deploy a big fucking bomb. And I want to watch from orbit when it goes."

That...is not what I was expecting.

"I...that could be jumping ship," I note. "We could derail this whole mission if Cerberus sees us as attacking them."

"The files say it was shut down after my escape," Jack tells me. "It's been abandoned for years. They going to care if I blow up a garbage dump?"

It's an empty facility. It's not an asset to Cerberus, so they can't be pissed about a loss. It's not going to hurt this mission, and allowing a place like that to stand feels gross. It is gross. And now that Jack knows where to find it, there is no way she's going to be able to rest.

We have to do this for her.

"I'll set a course for Pragia," I tell her with a firm nod.

"I can almost definitely help you find the things to build a big enough bomb right here on the ship, in the kitchen," Garrus chimes in. I give him a look and Garrus shrugs. "You knew I was a wildcard when you signed on for this."

"And now I'm signed on for life," I laugh, my heart skipping at the sight of the ring again.

"Oh, you finally found your balls and did it, huh, Big Bird?" Jack teases, throwing her elbow back into him.

"Oh, shit," Garrus breathes, dropping his head because he knows exactly what is coming. I grab a pillow from behind me and throw it at the Turian who told yet another person that he was going to propose to me who was not me. "I needed moral support!"

Jack snorts. "No, he was chicken shit. Told me all this stuff about how humans don't bond and if you fall in love with someone else someday and his dick is big but the ego doesn't make up for all his flaws and blah blah blah."

I'm cackling in a very un-commander like way that I cannot control and don't want to, falling to my back with laughter by the time she's done. I hear plates smack flesh and then the reverse. "I have never said anything to you about my dick. And the rest of it is true but you're the worst."

"Oh, none of it is true, and you both suck. Jack has to be last to find out if we ever get pregnant, that's the punishment for both of you. Now, Jack, go gear up."

"She means get out until we're at least slightly less naked," Garrus stage whispers, earning another pillow to his face. But it does get Jack going. She doesn't exactly thank us, but I would be concerned about her mental state if she did. And it leaves me alone with Garrus when he has that look on his face.

"We have a mission now," I warn him, shifting away and toward the headboard even though we both know I don't really want to get away from him.

Garrus gives me a predatory grin and growls, then crawls to me over the bed, every bit the alpha predator coming at me. My heart starts to race with adrenaline and fear even as arousal surges through me, throbbing between my legs. "I had a mission before," he purrs, grabbing an ankle and yanking me toward him as my back hits the headboard.

"We can't now!" I protest, kicking my leg out from his grip. Or trying to. Garrus growls and pins my ankles, then yanks hard enough that I'm pulled right underneath him. "Garrus!"

"Mm that's right, baby," he murmurs, running his hand over my chest and up to my throat. He grips hard enough that my head tilts back, and my heart seizes for a second when I think I can't breathe. "I want you screaming my name."

He shoves my shirt up until it's over my face, and then pins my hands down above my head with one of his. I'm blind, held down, totally at his mercy.

Garrus's face is at my ear, his breath hot and heavy. "You have a safe word," he whispers. "And I have you."

And then I'm screaming when Garrus shoves his fingers inside me, taking me hard and fast. His palm presses mercilessly into my clit while he fucks me with his fingers and growls into my ear. "So fucking tight. I love your cunt."

I love when he's an animal, when he makes me feel like meat. I love when he controls me.

"Don't cum," he warns.

I hate when he does that.

Garrus doesn't give me a chance to argue before his cock is filling me, my legs up over one of his shoulders while he pounds inside me, his quad slapping off my ass. I scream and he growls, biting into my shoulder. The pain makes everything more intense, makes me want to cum for him and around him and on him over and over.

But I won't. I can't. He said not to, and so I won't. Damn but I need to.

"Oh, please," I murmur. "I need to cum sir, please."

"Yeah, beg me for it, my love," he rips into my throat, holding me completely immobile while he fucks me relentlessly.

And I do. I fall into a pathetic puddle of horny sobs and needy begging, while he uses an expert knowledge of my body to drive me while. He puts me right on the edge and commands that I stay there, he controls me and overwhelms me. "Garrus, sir...please let me. Let me cum for you."

"Shepard," he groans. "I wanna mark you so bad, baby, you have no idea. I want nothing more than to mark you as mine forever." He presses his mouth to space where my neck and my shoulder meet, where I'll have his mark, and I can't breathe. "Tell me. I need to hear you say it."

"I love you," I tell him immediately, honestly, firmly. "I love you, you can mark me. I want your mark, oh, Garrus!"

"Cum for me," he breathes, nuzzling me. "Cum, let me feel you cum."

It comes so hard, so intensely that I feel like I'm gonna pass out. I can't see straight until the orgasm releases me, the only thing I'm aware of is Garrus's teeth in my throat and his seed exploding inside me. His teeth stay until we've both been released from orgasms, and I can't help a pained cry when he releases me. "Sorry, sorry," he breathes, releasing my legs and licking the bite gently. "Promise it won't hurt so bad when I mark you, and I'll get you Medi-Gel for this."

"No," I moan, tugging my hands and face free and holding onto him, unwilling to let him go. I press his head to my chest and wrapping my legs around his waist even though they're shaking and throbbing a little. "Don't go anywhere. And I like when you scar me up."

Garrus moans this time. "I like it, too. If you were a Turian, they would all fade and no one would notice but with your soft skin..." He turns his head to kiss my chest, then nuzzles. "You're all marked up. It's like I'm all over you." He tilts his hips a little, making me gasp when his cock presses against the front of my body. "And inside you." Another kiss, and then he looks up at me. "And I love you, too."

"Oh, I am never gonna get tired of hearing that." He laughs and drops his head again, huffing out a heavy breath. "Have you gotten as little sleep over the last week as I have?"

"Spirits, next to none. And today has been..."

"The most emotionally draining day possible? Good and bad? Yeah. Yeah, it has." I shift a little, pulling him closer and resting more comfortably on the pillows. God, we have a great bed. "Hey, EDI? How long to Pragia?"

"Two hours," the AI responds quickly.

"Oh, thank God, let's take a nap."

Garrus laughs. "Best idea I've heard in a long time." We both moan as he shifts out of me, still hard, and I wait while Garrus heads to the bathroom. He returns cleaned up and with a warm cloth for me. He hands it over and then walks to the dresser and I appreciate that he understands intimacy has its limits while I clean myself up. But when he returns, he's holding out a pair of panties but doesn't give them to me. "Shirt off, and I'll let you have these."

"You don't just want me completely naked?"

"Oh, I always just want you completely naked, but you don't prefer sleeping without panties. So I at least want you topless."

"Fair enough." I sit up and toss my shirt, accepting my panties after. "But you aren't putting anything on, are you?"

"Of course not. I like being completely naked around you as much as I like you completely naked." We laugh and Garrus crawls into bed again, still an alpha and always predatory, but less aggressive now. Exhausted. And it's a feeling I share.

Garrus and I roll to face one another, our hands joining between us. He brushes a curl between my ear and tugs the lobe. I run my fingers over his clan markings. "It's going to be such an honor to be your mate, Elle," he whispers. I smile and lean in, bumping my forehead against his.

"I don't want to get married until after the Collectors and the Reapers are taken care of," I tell him. He frowns a little, but lets me continue. "And I don't want to start preparing for babies until then either. I just...I need it off my plate, off my mind, you know? It's always the first thing I think about in any situation, and I hate that."

"Of course it is, Shepard, it's the weight of the universe on your shoulders," he breathes, shaking his head. "Everything is being threatened, sometimes it's hard to think about anything else."

I nod, grateful that he deals with the same. It's weird when other things are also a priority with a mission like this hanging over you as a black cloud. I'm engaged to the love of my life, and I'm wondering if I should try to marry him before or after the lethal forces coming to take humans are dealt with or maybe the ones that are going to kill us all.

"I'm...I can't say that I agree," he admits. "I would prefer to at least marry you before...just in case. But I see your point, and I accept it. I'm good with the call."

"Thank you. I don't want to get married because 'just in case,' you know?"

"I know."

"And you're...you'll wait?" It's a hard question to ask. Ring on my finger or no, Garrus is hard to earn. He deserves to be earned. He deserves someone who can -

Garrus laughs and kisses me. "Baby, I can see your wheels turning from out here. Stop it." He kisses me again. "I'm here with you. I'm on your team, on your six. I know the stakes. And beyond that...Shepard, it's your career. I know what I signed on for, I know who I'm marrying."

"My career and prioritizing it over you is what happened to us the first time." Just saying it makes me feel sick. Selfish.

"You prioritize me, Shepard, I know that," he murmurs, brushes my hair back. "You offered to move to the Citadel with me if I went back into Spectre training. To put your career on hold and live on the Citadel for six months. Did you mean it?"

"Of course I meant it! You know I meant it."

He smiles softly. "I do know you meant it, and that's how I know you do prioritize me. I'm going to marry you, and I will marry you the moment we're ready. As soon as we can sleep at night knowing the universe is safe."

"You're gonna have to teach me how to always say the charming thing, Vakarian," I tease him, cuddling closer and wrapping my arms around his neck. "Maybe you can grope me during those lessons, too."

"Oh, my pleasure, Commander," he breathes, running his hands down my spine to cup my ass. "You're gonna marry me, right?"

A smile stretches across my face that makes me feel like I could walk on water. "Yeah. I'm gonna marry you."

"Then we're good. There's nothing else to worry about."

We move toward each other at the same time for a kiss. It's slow, lingering, and I never want to pull away. I only do because a nap is important. Because the mission is important, and it's allowed to be. I can have both.

And right now, I can have a nap in my fiance's arms.


Pragia is gross. It's bad in a lot of ways, not the least of which being the fact that it's a common base for drug runners, weapons smugglers, pirates, and terrorists. A number of shuttles on Omega were coming and going from this planet, but I've never seen it before.

And now that I've seen it, I know what's most disgusting about it.

The planet is completely overrun by vegetation. They call it 'hypergrowth' from some mutated plant species. The place is a jungle to the extreme, and it's the most disgustingly humid place I've ever been. I instantly hate Pragia, even just with the view from the shuttle.

"I forgot how much I hate this place," Jack notes, staring out the window as we near the base. "See the landing pad? Has to be on the roof, or the vegetation would overgrow it in a few hours."

"Gross. This planet is gross."

Shepard laughs. "No jungle planets for our future home or honeymoon, got it." I wink, and she rewards me with a sweet little giggle. She's playing with her ring finger, her new ring sitting under her combat gloves. It's fitted for wear with the glove, but I'm sure it'll feel odd for a little while. So long as she continues smiling when she stares at it, I'm happy.

"You two have gotten even more disgusting," Jack groans, her tone mostly playful and very sarcastic. "Sitting here making goo-goo eyes, you at the ring and him at you. Gross. More gross than the jungle."

Shepard's head snaps up, and she grins at me. "You're over there staring at me? God, get a life big guy."

"I have a thing for redheads in armor," I quip. "And you." I smack Jack in the back of the head, gentle since she's bald and I'm armored. "Quit tattling on me, freak."

They both laugh, and then they laugh harder when I roll my eyes at them. The overhead chime saves me, EDI clicking in, "Shepard, I am picking up thermal signatures everywhere, except at your landing zone," the AI tells us.

"Something's distorting the sensors," she breathes, her tone instantly exhausted. And I know exactly what she's thinking.

"This was a secret Cerberus facility," I note, well aware that we can't exactly trust that organization. Especially not now, not that they probably know we're here and with Jack.
Jack scoffs. "Yeah, they build their equipment to last. Assholes."

My gut is screaming at me that this is a Cerberus trap. My instincts know that something is wrong here, very wrong. There is almost always something wrong when the Illusive Man and Cerberus are involved. It's bad enough when usually they're threatening Shepard, but now it's Jack too. Two of the people who mean most to me in the universe.

I can feel my heart start to skip, and I don't want to bail or screw this whole thing up. "EDI...tell me that this isn't a trap."

Jack and Shepard both turn to look at me, but neither of them objects.

"I had the same concern," EDI says, and it comes out like an absolute confession. EDI is supposed to work for Cerberus, not against them. "I reviewed several channels. I am confident that this is not a trap. I...I will not let that happen again."

"EDI, that was not your fault in the first place," Shepard says firmly. "And if you say this isn't a trap, we trust you."

"Right," I chime in quickly. I don't want EDI to think I asked for any reason other than I doubt Cerberus. It's about them, not EDI.

"Thank you."

Another chime, and EDI is gone.

"It was a mistake coming back here," Jack mutters, looking out the window. Her foot is starting to bounce, she's white knuckling the seat. She looks ready to run.

"Get a hold of yourself," Shepard said, just as firmly. She leans forward, searching for and finding Jack's gaze. "It'll be okay. You're not doing this on your own."

Jack inhales sharply and then lets it out slow. She nods once, her back straightening. "I'm fine. Okay. Let's get on the ground."

Shepard looks to me, and I nod. Jack will be okay. She's gonna go through hell in there today and she'll be even more traumatized than usual for a while, but she'll get through it. Jack has people who love her now. And I'm standing in her corner. I'm not failing anyone else.

The shuttle lands on the roof. It's pouring rain, dark, and the air is so thick it fogs the windows of the shuttle. I get out first, as soon as the shuttle doors open. I want to make sure there are no threats, but we're alone. The building is dark and dilapidated; that's a good sign.

Shepard jumps out behind me, and she leans into my side. "She needs you," she whispers.

I turn back and find Jack hesitating at the edge of the shuttle door. "Hey, freak," I call her. Jack blinks and looks down at me, first my eyes and the hand I'm offering her before looking back up at my eyes. "You do this, and then you move on. Let's go."

"Yeah," she breathes softly, looking away. And then Jack comes back into herself, gives a nod, and sounds much more like herself when she growls, "I don't need help getting out of a shuttle, bird."
She jumps down and punches me hard in the shoulder, then whips out her shotgun and joins Shepard to enter the building. Shepard is grinning, obviously pleased, and she gives me an approving nod before pulling out her pistol. That gun is damn sexy on her and even hotter in the rain.

"Let's get in there and plant the bomb in my cell," Jack says, raising her voice so we can hear her over the storm. "I want to watch this place burn."

"Works for me. Let's get in there." Shepard lets Jack lead us into the building, and I stay on Shepard's six, moving down a brief flight of stairs that takes us inside a door that was broken open at some point and remains open now.

The facility is an absolute mess. It's overgrown outside, plants are coming up through the floors and creeping through the walls, and the lights are flickering. It's a miracle they're on at all.

Everything is filthy, and the place looks like a warzone. Equipment has been broken and thrown around, walls and the floor have blood on them...

And Jack got out alive. A born survivor.

The first room that we walk into is fairly nondescript. It's hard to tell exactly what this used to be. Ahead, one wall is covered in windows that looks into another room, and there's a long hallway. At one end of the room are a bunch of containers, some dented and broken.

"I never saw this room, but I think they brought new kids here in those containers," Jack tells us. "They were messed up, but alive. Usually."

Those are boxes. Storage containers. They brought kids here like storage.

"This is unbelievable," I mutter. And the sooner we get out of here the better.

At the end of the hall, a flight of stairs sends us down and into a room with vegetation that doesn't belong there. A log is still working, and I play it. Someone in a uniform that is familiar now as Cerberus Security pops up on the holodisplay.

"The Illusive Man required operation logs again," he begins. "He's getting suspicious. When we get results, he won't care what we did. But if he knew..." The guy shakes his head. "He won't find out."

The log cuts off there. And it's not what I was expecting. They were hiding something about this place from the Illusive Man. So how much did he know? How much is it even possible to hide from him? What did he allow?

"It sounds like this facility went rouge," I say, mostly thinking out loud.

"I don't buy it. He didn't say what they were hiding from the Illusive Man." Jack is right. And any operation that lets something like happen is broken anyway.

We follow Jack through a door and end up in what looks like a large central space. There are literal trees growing in the room, as well as pathways through and around the room. It seems like they intentionally kept things off the floor, thanks to this hellhole planet.

"I remember escaping this room," Jack says, almost casually. "Fighting here. I saw sunlight through the cracks in the ceiling. Only a half-dead guard between me and freedom." She grins. "He was begging for his life."

Shepard gives me a look, and all I can do is shrug. I have no idea what to say. No, Jack's responses aren't normal, they're responses of a traumatized kid, but...they are Jack. And I know Shepard feels the same way about it. The line between helping her and changing her feels hard to find.

We move down into the center of the room, the lower level, and start to explore. But it's short-lived when halfway through the room, we stumble across a small group of Varren. We surprise them as much as they surprise us, and then they're all dead in a matter of seconds.

"Thank God you got her the cat," Jack quips, already grinning at Shepard. "She doesn't try to take stray Varren home anymore."

"Hey, you love my kitten and you know it," Shepard snaps playfully, pointing a gloved finger at Jack - and it's a very rude finger.

They shove one another, fooling around, and it helps ease some of the pain of this place. We continue forward to the end of the room and find a bunch of barriers thrown around that look like they were formed into a circle at some point. In the middle, there are old bloodstains on the floor.

"Oh, no." The words escape me even before my mind catches up and it clicks.

"This...this looks like an arena," Shepard breathes, her voice as low and terrified as I feel and sound. It's an arena.

Jack nods, confirming it. "That's right. They used to stage fights here, pit me against other kids." She moves into the center of the ring and my instincts scream at me to yank her back out of there, to protect her from something like that. "I loved it. Only time I was ever out of my cell."

"What could they possibly have wanted to learn or study from this?" I demand. I stop fighting those instincts and pull Jack outside the barriers. It means nothing, I know that, but I don't care. She deserves someone to protect her.

"Hell if I know," Jack answers casually, shrugging. "Maybe that's how they got their kicks. I never understood anything that happened here." It doesn't phase her as much, and I look to Shepard to see if I've lost my mind, but she has a hand on her stomach. I can tell she's pale too, and I know she hates this.

"How often did they do this?" Shepard manages, clearing her throat.

Again, Jack shrugs. She's so fucking casual about this, it's driving me while. "I was in a cell my whole life. Sometimes they took me out and made me fight. Filled me with drugs. Other stuff. Time gets funny in a cell."

"Yeah," she murmurs, actually laughing a little. "I remember that, too."

"What the fuck is there to laugh about?" I don't realize that I raised my voice about it until they both startle and gawk up at me. Shit. "I...look, not here, okay? I get you both have dealt with your trauma but I...I can't listen to it here. And especially not from both of you. Please."

"Hey, easy big guy," Shepard breathes, pressing her hand to my chest and stepping closer. "Alright, no more joking about it. Promise."

"God, Big Bird, grow a quad," Jack quips, rolling her eyes. She turns away from me, though, and I know Jack well enough to know her signs. Jack feels bad for making me upset, so she can't look at me. And I make us both feel better by kicking her in the shin hard enough that I'm sure she feels it through her armor.

Shepard catches my gaze and waits. She wants me to let her know I'm okay, and I take a breath to make sure I really am before nodding. Shepard grins and returns the nod, then returns the kick to my shin to support Jack.

We turn back to the work at hand, and it's hard to ignore all the blood on the floor. Especially while Jack is scraping a piece out of one stain with her boot. "Jack, did other kids die in these fights?" Shepard asks.

"I was a kid, filled with drugs. I got shocked when I hesitated, they flooded me with narcotics when I was attacked."

That explains a lot. "They were conditioning you for violence."

Jack nods at me. "I still get warm feelings during a fight." She's not smiling now. I don't think she's as casual about this. Her life was over before it ever started.

Shepard spits, "What the hell was wrong with these people?"

"I don't know. Does it matter now?"

Jack is right, and I nod. Shepard agrees and says, "Let's keep moving. Sooner we're done with this place, the better we'll all feel."

We proceed through the door at the end of the room, dreaming the horrors that might be awaiting us. It's raining in this hallway, and we have to climb around and over debris. The hall only gives us one direction and we take it, finding another console. This time, it gives us a full-body holodisplay of a Cerberus Security Officer.

"Security Officer Zemkl, Teltin Facility," the guy begins. He's breathing rapidly and his voice is raised. "The subjects are out of their cells! They're tearing the place up! Zero's going to get loose. I need permission to terminate. I repeat, permission to terminate."

A different security officer pops up, evidently in charge. "All subjects beside Zero are expendable. Keep Jack alive!"

"Understood," the first responds. "I'll begin the - "

Jack smacks the console, much harder than she needs to, and turns off the log. "That's not right!" she shouts. "I broke out when my guards disappeared. I started that riot."

"Things might have happened that you didn't see," Shepard notes.

"The other kids attacked me. The guards attacked me. The automated systems attacked me. That doesn't leave lots of room for interpretation."

I start to open my mouth but hesitate, unsure if this is worth it. What does pushing her to see another angle get? Is it important, does it matter? Shepard catches my eye and I see her mind turning over the same thoughts. We nod at each other simultaneously, and I thank the spirits for the millionth time that we're always on the same page.

In this case, it benefits Jack, too. We can agree that it's not important for Jack to get anything from here except closure, and that's not going to come by dissecting that day. Jack is our only agenda today. She needs to move on.

I know the feeling.

We continue through the building, through a door and down a set of stairs. Halfway down is a landing, a Varren, and a door. A dead Varren, and it was killed recently. So much that the blood under it is still wet.

"This place is supposed to be empty. Who the fuck shot that Varren?" Jack demands, apparently also on my page today. "It's a fresh kill."

"We'll figure it out," Shepard says. She's more concerned than she's letting on, but the Varren isn't giving us answers, so I follow her through the door to our left. It opens into a stairwell down, and the door in the bottom leads us into a large room. There are a few crates around but not much else.

And then I catch movement. I see the insignia a second before the first bullet comes flying. "Blood Pack," I warn as we all dive for cover.

"What the fuck?" Shepard and Jack ask at the same time. I have no answers, but I do have guns, and we start taking out the Vorcha. It doesn't take long; Vorcha are too impulsive and reckless for a well-trained and methodical team to need long to take them out. Thank God we don't have a team full of Jacks, Grunts, or Zaeeds.

When they're cleared out, Jack draws our attention to an old sign on the wall. This is a morgue. For all the sense that makes.

"This was a small facility," Shepard mutters. "Why did they need a morgue?"

Just thinking about it makes me angrier than I already was. "Because some sick son of a bitch killed a lot of kids with these experiments. And then checked his work."

"Yeah, well," Jack growls. "I had the worst of it, and I made it out alive."

"Too much of a psycho to die," I tell her, shoving her away from me by her face. She smirks, but she doesn't laugh. She should have laughed. This place is weighing on her. "We need to get out of here."

Shepard agrees and orders us to push forward, so we proceed. I can feel Shepard's stress, I can tell that she's crawling out of her skin more and more by the minute. But I can't focus on her because beyond the literal bomb we're carrying, Jack is ticking and her fuse is short.

When she starts punching walls randomly, I get annoyed. When she puts her fist through one, I reach my limit and grab her arm. "Stop," I tell her firmly, not playing this time. "Stop it and talk to me or I will drag you right back to that shuttle. You cannot keep going like this."

"Let go," she snaps, scowling and yanking her arm away. I let her go but I don't move. Shepard takes a step back and looks away, trying to give us some space without calling it out, but Jack notices and says, "No, don't, it's..."

"Jack." She looks up at me, eyes blazing but it's not anger. I know her anger, and this is not her anger.

She deflates, shoulders falling. "It's weird being back here. I feel like...I'm pissed off. I'm a dangerous bitch. But then I'm a little girl again. Shit, it's complicated. Let's just go plant that bomb."
I can see the 'please' in her eyes, but I don't need it. I'd do anything for Jack. Including walk her into hell and plant this bomb.

We keep at it, continuing through a facility, but halfway down another flight of steps, a Blood Pack Trooper pops out to start shooting at us. I'm leading at the moment and it's for the best since I needed someone to shoot right then. I'm almost sad the little fucker only takes one bullet.

"Nice," Jack praises, smiling a little more genuinely now.

We reach a set of doors that leads into a hallway, rooms on either side. Cells. There are a lot of them. Each room has a bunk bed or a small cot, a toilet, a sink, and some have a desk. After wiping out the Varren in the hallways, we explore some of the rooms. But only because Jack wants to. This is the very last thing I want to be doing.

Shepard takes my hand. I can tell she's squeezing even though our armor. I feel it, even if not in my hand.

"I hate this," I whisper, letting Jack go a room ahead of us. "When I see this, I understand why you feel the need to take in strays all over the universe. How do we...I want to make this stop."

"It did stop," Shepard presses. "Not in the way it should have, but it did stop. It's over. We have to be able to leave our pasts behind."

And now I wish she wasn't holding my hand. "This isn't about me. Dont - "

"Isn't it?" She looks up at me, and then walks away. Instantly I want her holding my hand again. Damn her.

I shake my head and focus because this is not about me, and follow Jack's lead through the doors at the end of the hall. It opens onto an elevated platform which moves around the edge of the room, and in the center of the room a tree is growing. A literal tree. This planet is the worst.

Jack walks away from us, toward the wall at the end of the room that is one long mirror. She cocks her head at it. "This...it's a two-way mirror? My cell is on the other side. I could see all the kids out here. I screamed at them for hours, and they always ignored me."

She shakes it off and leads us the rest of the way around the room, through a door. It leads into what promises to be my least favorite room so far. There are exam tables, and that definitely cannot be good. Bad people suck, bad doctors...yikes.

"I must have come through here when I broke out, but I don't remember it," Jack notes, looking around.

"Probably for the best," Shepard replies. "This is a bad place."

I head for the console and start playing it. This time, it's a bald guy who is wearing a uniform I've seen on other Cerberus scientists.

"Scientist Entry T054, Teltin facility." He sounds bored. "The latest iteration of PergNim went poorly. Subjects One, Four, and Six died. No biotic change among the survivors. We lowered core temperatures of surviving subjects, but no biotically beneficial reactions occurred. As a side effect, all subjects died. So, we'll not try that on Zero." He sighs deeply, and then I realize he's exhausted more than bored. I hope our supply of biotic-potential subjects holds up. We are going through them fast."

"This is bullshit!" Jack shouts. "They weren't experimenting on the other children for my safety!"

"Jack, you cannot help what they did to anyone else," Shepard tells her.

"No, you don't get it, Shepard," Jack protests, shaking her head. "I survived this place because I was tougher than the rest. That's who I am."

Shepard takes Jack by the shoulders and turns the tiny biotic around to face her, looking her right in the eye. "Find strength in it," she says, almost like it's an order even though the Commander mask is down. "You move on, harder and tougher."

"Yeah. Yeah, you're right." Jack nods, pulling it together. She looks at me and frowns. "You look like you're gonna throw up."

"I'm not," I scoff. "But I don't know how to take calling a child's death a side effect. That's...I can't take that."

Jack smirks now. "It's worse for you guys now because you want babies. You have mommy and daddy brain for everything involving kids, you always will. Changes everything." She barks out a humorless laugh and adds, "Unless you work for Cerberus, apparently."

I know immediately she's right. Shepard and I have to have a conversation about when we're going to start trying to have a baby, I know we've both had baby on our brains for a while now, and being in a place where kids suffered and were tortured...it all feels a little more real. Jack is right. When you want to be parents, things with kids change. I wasn't ready for this change.
Daddy brain. I guess time will tell if that's a good thing or not.

Shepard recovers before I do and walks to the other security console. She hacks in like a pro, at least that makes me smile, and starts the log. The same bald scientist returns. He's in a panic.

"It's all fallen to pieces," the scientist says. "The subjects are rampaging, and Zero is loose. We're shutting Teltin down. What a disaster. We'll infiltrate and piggyback onto the Alliance's Ascension program. Hopefully that will..." The scientist looks off screen, frowning, and calls, "Who are..."

We watch absolute terror come over his face, and I know before he says anything else what's happening off screen.

"Zero!" he screams. "Wait!" There's a flash, and then the log goes dark. He's dead, and we can see the blood stain on the wall behind the console. That's where Jack - Zero - killed him.

"Shepard, they started up somewhere else!" Jack shouts, grabbing Shepard by the arm. She doesn't care about the scientist, but she's scared for other kids like her.

"No, Jack," Shepard breathes, taking Jack's hand. "Ascension is an Alliance program, it's a school for biotic kids. I know people who have come from it and worked with them. It's a good program, it's not this."

Jack nods but inhales sharply, still shakes. She walks away from us a little. "A lot of this...isn't the way I remember it."

"There was a lot going on."

"And you were a kid," I chime in.

"I was dumb," Jack retorts. "I keep my eyes open now, and I always shoot first." I open my mouth, and I hear Shepard start to speak, but Jack throws her hand up to silence us. "Yeah, yeah, mushy blah blah I know. We're getting close to my cell. The place I came from. Let's keep going."

We let it go, follow her lead, and push through the building. We end up in another warehouse space, this one with Blood Pack Vorcha and Krogan who are not hiding. They're spread around the room on two levels and heavily armed, so they have several advantages. I don't like it.

"Let's get in there and blow 'em all out," Jack growls.

"Let's not," I counter. "We're way out numbered. Is there another way in? Another way to your cell."

Jack scoffs. "Pussy."

"I don't want - "

"Stop it," Shepard cuts in. "They've already seen us, and they aren't shooting. Let's go in there prepared but calm and work our way through. Understood?"

"Aye, Commander," I answer quickly, instinctively.

"A grenade would be faster, but fine," Jack allows. It's the closest to an affirmation as anyone can expect from Jack.

We walk into the room, my finger on the trigger of my rifle, and I'm close on Shepard's six. My rightful place. At the far end of the room is an impressively large and well armored Krogan, talking on a comm. We can only hear his side, but he's not trying to keep that private.

"Hey, Aresh, it's Kureck. Yeah, the intruders are here. You want them dead, we have to talk creds. You promised us lots of salvage, but this place is a waste." He pauses in his pacing, staring down at us. "Fine, we'll put 'em down. And then I'm coming in there, and we're going to talk salvage."

He ends the call and Shepard motions around. "What are you doing here?"

"First, we're going to kill you. Then, we'll see."

Okay, no negotiations with this one. He makes the first shot, effectively giving me the permission I'd need from Shepard to fire, and we all take cover. There are a lot of them, and with the upper level plus two open rooms on either side of us, the Blood Pack has clear advantages. It makes the first hard, but not impossible.

I'm starting to see a shift in the tide when the Krogan, Kureck, makes a move. He's closing in on Shepard, and her attention is drawn elsewhere. He raises his shotgun, and my heart nearly seizes.

I do the only thing I can think of and lift a crate, launching it across the room and right into the Krogan. He stumbles back and before he can recover, I launch myself into him. We get into it, hand to hand, brutal and fast. He's a Krogan and fast for a Krogan so Kureck gets in several good hits, one square on the injured side of my face that has me seeing stars.

But I'm a Turian, I'm faster, and I have the added motivation of knowing that he could kill Shepard and Jack if I don't win this fight. And this son of a bitch had a shotgun aimed at my girl. I am not going down here.

I feel the Krogan's face crunch under a punch, and then I throw my head into his, and Krogan goes down hard. Out cold. I unload a bullet in his face to make sure his regeneration days are over, and he stays out. Part of me wants to unload an entire clip, to rage out and destroy him. But one bullet is enough, and I turn back to the battle.

Of course, Shepard and Jack have wrapped up the rest of the battle already. Works for me.

"Damn, Garrus!" Jack cheers, throwing her hands up in victory. "That was badass!"

I don't have a chance to react to that before Shepard storms over and smacks me right across the face. At least it's the uninjured side of my face but damn. "You don't do reckless shit like that anymore," she snaps, pointing her finger in my face. "You...do not."

And then before I can react to that, Shepard yanks me down by the carapace and kisses me - hard. My head spins even more than it did from the Krogan's punch, and then she's gone before I can return the kiss.

"That was badass," she murmurs. "And insanely sexy. Do it again, and I'll kill you."

"I have no idea what's going on and whether I'm in trouble or not," I admit, shaking my head. "And my whole face hurts."

Shepard and Jack laugh, both of them rolling their eyes at me. All I can do is laugh with them and hold my jaw, hoping the thing doesn't take any more damage today. We all have to sober quickly, though, because we're not done.

"Only room left is my old cell," Jack tells us. "Whoever Aresh is, he's in there. I want to plant the bomb in there anyway. Might as well do it on his corpse."

Hard to argue, so we head in that direction. The room is empty when we first walk in, and I scan quickly. He's hiding behind a cabinet, and I motion toward it with the scope of my rifle.

Shepard nods and calls, "Come out. We know you're in here."

A tall, thin human comes out from behind the cabinet. He has his hands up but he doesn't look terrified. You'd expect a guy staring at three guns to be terrified. This one actually smiles.

"Who the hell are you?" Jack demands.

"My name is Aresh, and you're breaking into my home," he says calmly. And then he grins at Jack. "I know you, Subject Zero. So many years have passed, and I thought I was the only survivor."

"Her name is Jack." It comes out in more a growl than I actually intend.

"And how the hell do you know her?" Shepard demands, practically growling herself.

Aresh continues talking directly to Jack. "We all knew your face, Jack. They inflicted horrors on us so their experiment wouldn't kill you. You were the question, and I'm still looking for the answer."

"Why did you come back here?" Shepard asks.

"I hired these mercs and came back almost a solar year ago," Aresh informs us. "We're rebuilding it, piece by piece. I'm going to find out what they knew - how to unlock true biotic potential in humans. I'm restarting the Teltin facility."

He turns away, staring at a damaged and dirty wall like he's seeing something truly grand instead of a dilapidated facility. "It will be...beautiful."

"I wanted a hole in the ground, he's trying to justify what happened by using it!" Jack snaps, stepping forward to bring her pistol even closer to him. Aresh doesn't seem intimidated; clearly there is something wrong with him. But really this lack of reaction seems like the least of our concerns.

"You would do the same thing to new kids?" I demand. "Wasn't this forced on you?"

"Some were bought from poor families on Earth or kidnapped from colonies," Aresh tells us. "Most ended up here the way I did: Batarian pirates. They did such horrible things to us. They must have had good reasons."

"There's no reason good enough," I snap.

Jack throws her other arm - the one not aiming a gun at Aresh - up. "Are you nuts? You lived it!"

Shepard holds up a hand, trying to calm both of us. It's a testament to the strength of her leadership that we both settle down. At least a little anyway. "This place was like a prison. How did you get out?"

"We all attacked at once as they were taking us to the lab." I glance quickly at Jack to make sure she doesn't freak at that; it's not what she thought happened. "They would have put us down, but then Jack got loose. When I came to, it was over - the guards, the scientists, and the kids were all dead." He looks at Jack. "And you were gone."

"I stopped it, all of it," Jack retorts. "Maybe the other kids did have it bad, but what you're doing is just messed."

"Everything we went through must have been worth something!" he screeches. The moment he starts talking at that pitch, he's got my rifle on him, too. I'm not gonna wait for a guy this unstable to lose it.

"Jack..." Shepard shakes her head. "Jack, we can blow the place up, but that still leaves him. What do we do with another you?"

"Just leave me here," Aresh groans, throwing up his hands. "This is where I belong."

"Fuck that!" Jack makes her move in an instant, blasting him with her biotics. It brings Aresh hard to his knees and keeps him frozen there. Jack then moves behind him, leveling her pistol at the back of his head.

And I want her to shoot. He deserves it, she deserves revenge. I want her to fire the gun and remove the question and...even as I think it, I know that's wrong.

"Jack, he's trapped in his past," Shepard breathes, her voice in that low tone she uses when she's trying to calm me down. "You need to move on from yours."

"He wants to restart this place. He needs to die!"

Shepard shakes her head. "He's crazy, Jack, and he's never going to restart this facility. You have to let it go. Your past doesn't have to control you."

I can just about feel her talking to me, even though she's not looking at me. I know she's thinking about me, I just know it. And I know she's right. Damn, I hate that.

But she's right. And Jack is suffering.

I step closer to her and let her see me lower my rifle. "I get it, Jack. I've...been here. I thought I had to do this, blow up my past to get away from it. But..."

I really wish I didn't have to say this in front of Shepard. It's my pride speaking, I know that, but I'm a weak man.

"You know who I went hunting down," I tell Jack. "But now I know if I'd killed Sidonis, it would have fucked me up. I would have ended up like this guy." I point at Aresh and let him see my distaste. "This guys has been owned by his past. We don't have to be like that. Jack...don't end up like this."

She scowls at me but hesitates, her hand shaking on the pistol. We wait, trusting her. Making it her choice. Maybe Shepard learned something from the whole Sidonis fiasco, too.

"Fuck!" Jack shouts. She lowers her pistol and releases him from the biotic hold. Aresh falls forward, catching himself on his hands. "Get out of here! Go!"

Aresh doesn't ask questions. He leaps to his feet and runs out of the room as fast as he can.

"He's not worth chasing," Jack growls at his back. "None of it is."

I clap my hand on her shoulder. "Let's plant our bomb and get out of here."

Jack nods and takes a breath. "Yeah, I...can I get a minute? I wanna...look around I guess."

She's obviously uncomfortable in the space, but I get it. She's here for closure, and she wants to get more of it. It's not a big ask for us either. We'd do more for Jack than just wait around while she looks at a small room.

"We'll give you some space," Shepard offers. She catches my eye and motions me out of the door. Jack nods, so I feel confident following Shepard into the hall.

"This place sucks," I groan, leaning heavily against one of the walls - after checking to make sure I won't lean against a blood stain. Shepard comes up in front of me, her hands moving to my hips. There's something heavy behind her eyes, and I think it's being in a place where kids were held captive, until she dodges my gaze. "Hey." I cup her chin and pull her to look up at me. "What's wrong?"

"I...didn't actually believe you," she says with a wince. "I thought you said that you forgave me and you wanted to forgive me but...you didn't really. Until you told Jack that you got why I stopped you."

I laugh, especially because she looks so guilty about it. "I'm not great at forgiveness, so that's pretty fair. Between Vido Santiago and Aresh...I've seen enough of what it's like to be taken over by the past and revenge." I turn and plant my hands at either side of her head. "You saved me. Again."

She grins, her cheeks lighting up in the perfect pink shade. "And you love me."

"Oh, I really do." I lean down and capture her lips briefly, pulling away only because I hear Jack coming but lingering long enough to whisper, "I can't wait to get you naked later."

Jack doesn't hear Shepard's little whimper, and she looks much more put together now. "I'm good. Let's do it."

I nod and leave Shepard in the hall so she doesn't have to participate in this part of it. She can have plausible deniability about the bomb this way, blame it on the rogue Turian vigilante and the biotic wild card. The Illusive Man probably doesn't need reason to hate us anyway.

Shepard doesn't ask questions when we come back out, and she lets Jack lead us to the shuttle. The pilot knows to let us know when we're at a safe distance, but Jack is antsy the moment we get into our seats, flipping the bomb trigger open and close over and over and over.

Jack looks up, and I see the decision in her mind the moment she makes it. I grab Shepard and yank her into my chest at the exact same time Jack presses the button. The force of the bomb rocks the shuttle violently and I hold steady to absorb the blow instead of having Shepard end up on the floor.

"Damn it, Jack," I mutter when the pilot gets us steady again. She just shrugs and looks out the window. I recognize the set of her shoulders; she doesn't want to talk anymore, doesn't want to debrief. She's done. I can accept that, and I can definitely understand it. I threw a fit for a week so...

Jack disappears right back down to engineering when we get back to the ship. Shepard pauses with her hand over the panel to choose a floor, asking silently where I want her to go. I answer by pulling her into my arms instead, and Shepard comes willingly, melting against me even in her armor. Of course, I also start unclipping the locks on her armor immediately, instantly desperate to touch her.

"Remember when you told me you wanted to get completely naked and ride me while I wear my armor?" She moans, knees going weak. "Well, I'm sorry, but you can't have that." Shepard tenses with confusion, and I lift her with her legs around my waist as soon as the doors open. "You're gonna have to ride me with that ring on."

Shepard squeals, the sound pure joy, and she kisses me hard. It makes my heart skip even as my dick leaps to life. As soon as we get in, we're both in a rush to get her naked. I've become an expert in getting her armor off in a hurry, but I love that Shepard is rushing just as much. It means a lot that she wants me just as much when I spent a year chasing her around. Those days are over, and now Shepard is practically tackling me to the couch.

"Fuck, baby," I growl, shifting one leg up on the couch for both of us to have some leverage. "Eager?"

She grins and crawls between my legs, keeping eye contact while bringing her mouth down to my cock. Her pink tongue swirls around the head, standing in sharp contrast to the blue of my shaft. Her red locks fall forward, draping down over part of her face, and I brush it back so I can get a good look at her. She is somehow even more beautiful than usual with my dick in her mouth.

Shepard releases me with a lovely little pop and crawls over my body, grabbing my cock and hovering over me. We both moan when she brushes me against her folds, soft and hot and wet. I rock against her and she moans, body trembling. I take hold of her hips in my armored hands, simultaneously wishing I could feel her skin and loving how fragile she feels in my hands right now. We move together, our bodies meeting, and Shepard plants her hands on my chest for leverage to rock and grind against me.

Her eyes track all over me and she smirks. "I love how strong you look," she murmurs, breaths coming hard and heavy. "You've turned me on in your armor for years. Always wanted this."

"You waited too long to ask," I tell her, rocking up into her. "You can have anything you want from me. Anything."

Shepard groans, dropping her chin to her chest, and shifts her hands on my chest. We both hear the clink of her ring hitting the metal of my armor, and her head pops up. She smiles at the ring and then meets my gaze, her eyes blazing. "You were right. This is even better with the ring on."

She doesn't hold back, fucking me hard so that her ass bounces with a perfect smack off my armor. I thrust up into her and watch the orgasm overcome her, Shepard's cheeks and chest glowing before her head drops back and she cries out my name, my most favorite way to hear that word. Before she comes down, I shift forward and bring her down onto the couch. Her knees meet her shoulders and I lean over her, letting go of my own control and pounding into her until the room spins around me and stars explode.

I ease back, letting her legs down, but Shepard is on me in a flash. "I'm not done." And then she tackles me right to the floor. I have no complaints, especially not when she sinks down on my cock again. She rides me hard, hips rocking and her breasts bouncing and oh Spirits. I give her control and she relishes it, taking pieces off my armor slowly, keeping me from feeling her the way I want to and driving me wild. She makes me cum and then rides my face and I never, ever want to let her go.

Shepard collapses onto the floor beside me, both of us panting and the cool air in the room actually feeling good instead of freezing my cold blooded ass. "That was exactly how I wanted that to go," she breathes, stretching her arms out over her head.

"I'm so glad. Worth it...but I cannot lay on this floor for another second," I laugh, sitting up and hitting the armor piece I had to use as a pillow away resentfully.

"Sorry," she offers, sitting up on her elbows. "I didn't think about your carapace when I got you down there."

I shrug and smirk. "I don't think about your knees when I put you on them in the shower, so we're even."

Shepard laughs and throws a pillow from the couch at my face. "A shower actually sounds really good. This was a day."

"Spirits, a disaster," I agree. "But Jack got what she needed from it in the end. I think."

"Yeah. I think she did. And you gave me what I needed so..."

This time the pillow gets launched at her, but I don't waste more time on the floor. This beautiful woman just offered me a shower with her, and I'm not ever going to say no to that. Today was hell, and I plan to spend a lot of time breaking it down with Jack later, but for now I need time with Shepard. We spent a week apart, and whether or not breaking up was on the table, things felt really fragile. I need to reconnect with her.

I'm going to marry this woman, I'm going to bond with her, and I'm going to be with her for the rest of our lives. But I'm never going to take that for granted. I'll make sure Shepard knows exactly how much she means to me and how much I care.

I've screwed up everything my whole life. But not this. This is too important. I'll do my best to deserve her.