It used to be that Tali could never hear Nicole Shepard coming.

But no matter how quiet her footsteps were, that was nothing compared to the fog of silence that misted through the Normandy around her. Even the quiet, murmuring discussions of Shadow Broker and ex-Cerberus agents faded to absolute, crypt-like quiet when Shepard was on deck. As far as Tali could tell, Miranda co-ordinated with Joker for most of the actual running on the ship, operating on Liara's orders. That made sense, in a way—Tali, who had gone all her life while being constantly aware of the presence of a Captain, had always thought that Shepard had come rather uneasily into the role. It wasn't that she couldn't lead. Rather, Shepard reminded her of a man who had been a temporary Captain on the Rayya. He'd done the job well, and everyone had been shocked when he'd resigned and returned to Engineering. But apparently the job had made him miserable, no matter how many people wanted him to stay on as Captain.

Tali wondered, if Shepard could choose, what sort of life she might have led. She was an incredible fighter—a more honest part of herself amended, an incredible killer. But unlike the soldiers Tali had known, Shepard never seemed to enjoy it.

"You wanted to see me?"

The appearance behind her didn't startle her the way it once might have. The ship had gone so quiet that the only thing she could hear was the hum of the Normandy's machinery. The engineers—a pair of ex-Cerberus members who had stayed with the Normandy and joined the Brokerage—had made themselves absent. Apparently, their new job roles hadn't deprived them of a healthy fear of the Red Dragon.

"Yes, Shepard." Tali was standing at an engineering terminal, her eyes sliding over readouts she'd checked a dozen times over. It was more to give her brain something to do than anything else. Daniels and Donelley—the engineers—were good at their jobs. They were helped by EDI, who stood in for the normal ship VI systems and monitoring. The Normandy, despite the abhorrent heat burden of its stealth drive and the additional strain of all the cutting edge tech that Liara's Brokerage had installed, was one of the most smoothly running ships Tali had ever been on. Any software or hardware issues were diagnosed and dealt with before they ever became a problem. Daniels had practically been beaming when she'd been praising all the help they had from EDI with the ship systems.

"If this is about EDI—"

"It is. But please, listen to me, Shepard." Tali's voice was calm. Measured. She couldn't let Nicole think she was just an irrational quarian with an axe to grind. "I know what you must think—that I'm just mapping quarian anxieties about the geth onto EDI. I'm not. I know my field, Shepard. And I know the risks AI pose."

"I know." Shepard's voice was flat, but not really angry. That was just how Shepard sounded. It had been terrifying, before Tali had gotten to know her. Shepard walked beside her and leaned against a railing overlooking the Normandy's drive core shell. Her scar gave no sign that it had ever been glowing, or inflamed. She shook her head, looking down at the panel. "I know, Tali. I'm not dismissing your concerns. I have them, too."

"Then why are you allowing that—" Tali exhaled, and corrected herself. She couldn't let emotion bleed into her voice. Not when so much depended on it. "Then why is the AI still on the ship? Help me understand, Shepard."

Shepard looked at her, and for the first time in her life, Tali realized just how human she was. Nicole Shepard, Red Dragon, Saviour of the Citadel, was one of the most singularly unassailable people Tali had ever met. She had watched Shepard kill a krogan with nothing but a knife. She had seen the vid of Shepard killing Tela Vasir, one of the oldest and deadliest Spectres.

But like a ship's Captain, the burden she bore to buy all that strength was tremendous. Tali thought she could see that, now. It was in the way Shepard looked at her. Coolly, calmly, evaluating—but also with measured regret in those eyes, like she saw a gulf between them that would never be crossed. A gulf between her and everyone else.

Nicole looked back to the drive core.

"Tali, do you want to know the first thing I thought when I met you?"

"That some punk kid had very nearly gotten herself killed?" Tali asked, trying, unsuccessfully, to lighten the mood. Shepard had a very grim sort of smile.

"No. I thought that the quarantine seals in the elbows of your model of suit were weaker than normal. That I could rupture them with my knife, or by twisting your arm. You would then be panicked, at which point it would be trivial to snap your neck. Or shoot you. Or—" Shepard inhaled sharply. "—well, the sequence varies after that."

"Shepard, I—"

Nicole held up a hand.

"Just now. When you moved towards me—you were trying to comfort me or seek an empathising response. Jab to ribs, break left arm, smash face-mask with elbow. I'm strong enough to break a quarian helmet, now." Shepard didn't look from the core. She was hardly moving at all. "It is always there, Tali. Always. It was what I was built to do. And I don't just mean the training. They rewrote my DNA, they brought me back from the dead with a cloak in my spine … everything in me is made to kill. There have been so many times—I should have killed Jack when I first met her. Should have sold Grunt to the Illusive Man or any number of wannabe warlords. I should have murdered those engineers, because they were on the ship during the transition and they pose a greater risk than new Broker engineers would. Should have encouraged Garrus to murder this guy who wronged him, so it would entrench him in our mission psychologically, because he would need guidance, guidance I could use to make him a more effective tool. I know all those things, Tali. I can't tell myself the voice in my head saying them is wrong. It's not. It's dispassionate, and it's good at what it does." Finally, Shepard turned to look at her. Her expression was as inscrutable as ever—even for a human—but Tali thought she could see something like pleading there, all the same. "But all of those things involve me and my big fucking brain writing all those people off. And Tali, I get it. I really do, I—everything in me says to junk the AI and space the blue box. But if I start deciding who's a person and who's not, then I'm not Nicole Shepard anymore. I'm subject Twelve. And I know that must seem irrational, and stupid to you. But I can't do it."

"Shepard—that's not you. I know it isn't," Tali said. She felt as though some massive, dark creature were lurking in the room with them. She'd never expected Shepard to tell her those things—certainly never expected to see her looking so vulnerable. Even as she looked so strong.

"I was close, Tali. I was really goddamn close, when Cerberus brought me back. I—I did things I'm not proud of. Things that make me feel sick. I tortured this batarian. Tarak. He's the one who shot Garrus," Nicole added, almost as an afterthought. As though she wanted there to be no doubt that she wasn't saying it as an excuse. "There wasn't even any good reason. I was angry. And alone. And I had a head full of ways to hurt him. So I did. Tali—if I deserve a chance, so does EDI. So does anyone who wants to try. I have to believe that, and if that means you don't trust my judgement, or you don't want to see my face anymore, then so be it. But I wanted you to know."

The beast was lurking around them, now, enveloping them in its claws. The grief of her father's death, the shock of the Admiralty's accusations were still haunting her, and now she felt this horrible thing between her and a woman who she had admired, and idolized, and mourned as a hero too good for the world. Tali approached Shepard, carefully, trying to ignore the squirming fear she felt as she remembered how her friend had described how casually she could kill her.

"Shepard. I trust you. And—I am sorry. I won't pretend that I think having an AI onboard this ship is safe. But I understand. And for you—for you I'll work with it."

"Her." That response came to Shepard so automatically that it was almost alarming. But Tali couldn't help but smile, privately and beneath her suit, the way you would as a child who hadn't yet been taught how to share your feelings with others. Shepard might have some horrible things bouncing around in her head, but there were some good things, too. The reason Tali had trusted her in the first place, all those years ago on the Citadel, was that she somehow knew that Nicole Shepard cared about people.

"Sorry, Shepard. You're right. I'll work with her." For a moment, Tali wondered if the AI was eavesdropping on them. It occurred to her that the Shadow Broker's right-hand woman would probably have ways to avoid being listened to. And if this AI really was Shepard's friend, maybe it—she—would understand Shepard's right to privacy. Tali had to hope that was true. She looked back towards the drive core, pulsing softly with faint, blue light. "There is a belief among my people, Shepard. That no one understands home the way we do. That no one can understand that which they have not lost."

"That's a beautiful idea," Shepard said. For a long time, they stayed there, listening to the hum of the ship's drive, to the quiet, gentle sounds of the machinery that had not fled in Shepard's wake.

xXx

The last time Jack had seen this many morons getting ready to die, she'd been in a cult. But she also wasn't stupid enough to ignore the Russian with the burn scars who told her to be ready in the Hangar in five, on "the Dragon's orders."

Yeah, could've guessed the last part, Vlad. Jack had almost wanted to say it out loud, too, but something about that old Broker buttonman made her hold her tongue. Like Shepard and the drell that quietly stalked the ship, he didn't talk a big game. You learned to watch the people like that.

The fucking krogan, on the other hand….

"Finally! Ha-ha, we get to fight!" The krogan waved his arms in the air like he was at a concert, very nearly knocking into Shepard's turian, who was busy tinkering with his sniper rifle on a workbench.

"Save the enthusiasm for the enemy, kiddo," Garrus said wryly. Jack rolled her eyes. Like they were going on a fucking picnic.

Aside from herself, Vakarian, and the krogan, there was also the salarian doctor—two shit tastes that tasted shit together—and the drell in the Hangar. The doctor and the assassin were standing far away from the rest of their merry little band, and both of them were kitted out to kill. They were sharing polite chitchat about weapon specs or something suitably sinister. Interestingly enough, both of them were wearing lightweight hardsuits. The drell's helmet was slung under one arm casually, and it had the disturbing effect of completely lacking any kind of face panel; it appeared as solid black ceramic.

Spooky.

Jack, for her part, was lounging on a crate of spare ammunition for the Mako, flipping a small poker chip through her fingers. She couldn't remember where she'd gotten it—somewhere on Illium—but it was made of a pleasantly smooth plastic marked only by little divots around the rim. It was black and red, and had a pale-yellow marker at its centre, along with a character that probably indicated whatever casino Jack had taken it from.

Shit, did I go to any casinos on Illium? She stopped playing with the poker chip and looked at it. She had no idea where it was from. She could probably scan it with her omnitool, but now that she thought about it, she liked not knowing better.

The elevator hummed as someone came down to the Hangar bay—Jack turned, expecting to see the queen dragon herself, but instead it was just Miranda. Once upon a time the bitch hadn't worn an individual article of clothing that didn't have the bumblebee logo splattered everywhere, but she'd apparently gone in for a full wardrobe rehaul during her vacation on Illium. She was wearing a red jacket of some sleek, reflective material that closed over the chest, outlined in black trim. Her pants clung tightly to her too-perfect legs, in black-and-gold entwined fibres that bristled with the texture of combat mesh stylized to the level of high fashion. As though to punctuate the point, she had a machine pistol slung in a holster clinging to her left leg. It appeared she had managed to resist the urge to embroider the Broker logo on the breast where she once would have worn the Cerberus emblem.

You can change your skin, but you're still a three-headed bitch, Jack thought, glaring at the perfect, beautiful, absolutely full of shit woman walking down into the Hangar from the elevator.

"The Dragon will be coming shortly," Miranda announced, clasping her hands behind her back and standing to one side by the Kodiak, as though she were politely waiting for the fucking company chair to start a board meeting.

"So, had a fun long weekend?" Jack asked, unable to resist. Miranda glanced at her out of the corner of her eye, a frown tugging at the edge of her lips.

"Yes, Jack. Fortunately, I was able to charter a private vessel to link in with the Normandy en route to the Migrant Fleet."

"Wonder what our fearless leader thinks about your little siesta?" Jack mused, flipping the casino chip in the air as Miranda tried to ignore her.

"It was her idea, as a matter of fact," Miranda said acidly. Jack grinned and bit back any number of jokes about enjoying the asari. Jack liked pushing Miranda's buttons, but she wasn't about to do it by slagging off their murderous boss who could turn invisible at will.

"Her idea for you to board the mystery ship in nothing but your new jacket?" Jack drawled. Miranda's lips were pressed so tightly together that Jack could almost hear the clenching of those perfect teeth. The elevator started to hum again.

"I will not be a member of the away team. Though I'm sure you'll miss my company," Miranda said. She was a little too obviously annoyed for the sarcasm to land, which Jack was about to pounce on before the elevator ground to a halt and opened again.

This time, it was the Dragon. The Dragon, the quarian, and the asari fucker wearing a hologram that made it look like black smoke was trailing down her face. Jack hadn't bumped into that one on the ship very much, but that wasn't out of the ordinary for the Broker's killers. Still, there was something about the way that whatever-her-name-was moved that made Jack think it was all an act. Or at least some of it. She didn't have the murderer's grace that came so easily to Thane and the Dragon.

Or maybe that was just because she was an asari. Jack hadn't had much to do with the condescending blue pricks, but that was mostly because the mercenary and gang circles she'd trafficked in tended to be the kind that needed a biotic. You didn't need a biotic if you already had some three-hundred year old gangster bowling down security mechs with shockwaves.

"That's right," the Dragon said, as she descended the steps down towards them all. She was in her full armour, with that wiry mask clinging to her face, unspooled from the eyepatch she wore. A flash of irritation passed over those pale features, and the Dragon added, "Kasumi, would you uncloak, already?"

"Party pooper." The goddamn ninja-thief sparkled into existence on the hood of the Mako, and old habit had Jack's hands slapping to the shotgun buckled behind her waist before her brain had any input on the matter. She tried to hide the motion by adjusting in her seat and kicking further up onto the ammunication crate, snarling as the edge of adrenaline bled into silence. The poker chip she'd been tossing up and down had been suspended in a miniature stasis-field—must've been a reflex. She dismissed the field and caught the poker chip, slipping it into one of the pockets of her jacket.

"Neat trick," Jack grunted, too aware that she was trying to save face. She didn't think anyone had noticed her going for her gun. Except maybe the drell. His eyes didn't linger in any one spot for long, but his gaze passed over her longer than she liked.

"Enough," Shepard snapped. Jack could see that she had her own sniper rifle on her back, as well as the pistol at her side and her shotgun at her waist. But she was also carrying a pair of massive armaments in her hands; she slung one over her shoulder, and held out the other to Grunt, who walked forward eagerly. "Grunt, this is an ML-77. You know how to use one." Those rocket launchers had to weigh something like twenty kilograms, but Shepard held it with one hand as though it were a paperweight.

"Mmhmm," Grunt nodded, picking up the weapon and cradling it with the kind of affection you'd usually reserve for a kitten. "The tank knew about this."

"Good. We don't know what kind of resistance we're going to run into, so I want heavy weapons with both teams."

"Both teams?" Vakarian asked, tilting his head quizzically. Jack noticed the quarian girl had already started to drift towards him. She wondered if that was just their shared history on the Normandy, original flavour, or if there was something else there. Well, if there was, at least the DNA strands matched.

"Both teams." Shepard strode over to the head of their group and summoned something on her omni-tool, immediately projecting a huge, holographic figure over the hangar. It looked for all the world like a big, dead cuttlefish—like the thing that had tried to blow up the Citadel nearly three years ago. "This ship is orbiting Mnemosyne. According to our intel, it's been sitting there for millions of years."

"How? At such close distance it should have long ago fallen into the gravity well." It was the drell who asked, sounding genuinely curious. He was studying the overgrown squid projection like it was an exhibit in a museum. Shepard nodded, as though she'd expected the question. Well, she probably had. Jack had used her new Broker omnitool to check out what was publicly available about Thane. He'd been raised as an assassin, just like Shepard had. No wonder they got along so well.

"It's generating a tremendously powerful mass effect field to keep it in stable orbit. We think it must be some sort of automatic defence mechanism—though it's possible that it's being maintained by the Collectors, or the geth. Our primary objective is the quarian ship, the Alarei." Shepard spun the diagram around and zoomed in, on a sleek, ovular vessel that was docked with what appeared to be a hole in the ship's side. There was some sort of pipework or tubing connecting it to the big dead ship. "We know that the Alarei came to this ship, under geth control, over a week ago. We've also been able to uncover the activity of a Cerberus cell here, as well." Although Shepard was speaking to them in a perfectly standard military "stand here and shoot there" voice, the look she was levelling at that hologram said more about murder than most thrillers. "We don't know what kind of resistance to expect, but we have been able to model the interior of the ship with a set of pingers."

"Pingers?" Jack asked. She received half a dozen stares and rolled her eyes. "Sorry, pals, I must have skipped military hardware 101."

"Sensory probes. Deploy a combination of sonar burst and molecular density ping technology," the salarian said, speaking at about mach seven and with absolutely zero prompting. Fucking scientists. Jack raised an eyebrow.

"So why the fuck don't we know what kind of resistance to expect if we've had probes scanning Big Ugly's nether regions?" Jack asked, waving a hand at the hologram. The quarian snorted a short laugh, but Shepard ignored her.

"Because pingers aren't subtle. Any standard military omnitool can pick up the audio frequency and mask the user. Point is, we have a map. It's not a map I'd rely on if my life depended on it, but it gives us a starting point. There's a hull breach here, about a kilometer downship from the Alarei. We're pretty sure there are hollow passages, corridors we can use to reach the Alarei. However, there's also a Cerberus installation, here, roughly in the opposite direction." Shepard pointed to a large chamber, which was studded with blocky, rectangular shapes. Prefabs. Those Jack had seen before. "We need to investigate both the geth and Cerberus sites and get any data we can. That's why we're splitting in two teams. Tali, Dr. Solus, Jack, and myself will go to the Alarei. Garrus, you'll lead the secondary team hitting Cerberus. So Operative Nyxis, Grunt, Thane, and Kasumi, you're on the Cerberus installation. I don't need to tell you to follow Garrus's orders as you would my own." There was a distinctly uncomfortable silence as Grunt looked like he wanted to say something about being put under a turian's command, but the big krogan kid decided better against it.

Jack, meanwhile, was trying to figure out why Shepard was taking her. Unless she didn't trust Jack to work with Vakarian.

I meanfair. I wouldn't trust me, either.

"Now, all of you listen. Closely. This next part is important." Shepard angled her head and touched a button at the side of her mask, and it began receding back into her eyepatch. Once that was done, she took the eyepatch off, and looked around at all of them. Though her scar hadn't started its lightshow trick, red light was glimmering dangerously behind the green of her left eye. "This ship—it's not just a ship. The ship that attacked the Citadel wasn't just a geth dreadnought, it was an AI called Sovereign. Tali and Garrus were there, too, so I hope they'll back me up on this." She glanced at her two friends; Garrus stood ramrod straight and nodded solemnly, while Tali inclined her head respectfully. "The ship is a Reaper. Part of a race of ancient killing machines that wiped out the Protheans, and countless other races before that. Saren wasn't some mastermind or geth collaborator. He was a Reaper puppet, controlled by Sovereign. We have good reason to believe the Collectors are like Saren—puppets, fully controlled by what are probably the most powerful entities in the Milky Way. I don't know if this dead Reaper can indoctrinate organics the way a live one did, but by going onboard, we're all taking that risk. I don't particularly care if you believe me when I say we are, but you're going to act like every second on that ship endangers your mind. Understood?"

"Yes, Shepard," Garrus said, prompting a chorus of mismatched agreements from the others. Not like the military uniformity that Shepard would've grown up with. Jack grinned.

"You got it, boss Dragon." Jack gave a little salute. She couldn't tell if Shepard was amused or annoyed.

"Just call me Shepard."

"Thought we were pretending we didn't know your secret identity?"

Shepard rolled her eyes and went back to her hologram. Shepard, unlike Miranda, was pretty resistant to a little light needling. Another side effect of their shared past. Only Jack had left that psychological conditioning shit behind long ago, while Shepard still used it. Jack didn't know which of them was the bigger idiot.

"Kasumi and Nyxis are familiar with Cerberus data protocol, so they'll be handling the data in the Cerberus installations. Garrus, get Kasumi and Nyxis to those prefabs and make sure they're able to extract every data point of information in there."

"Understood, Shepard," Garrus said, nodding again. Shepard now turned to her.

"Jack, you and I are responsible for keeping Dr. Solus and Tali safe. You ever fought geth before?"

"No, but I'm a quick study," Jack said, grinning despite herself. "You know how it is in Cerberus training programmes. We get taught to handle all kinds of shit."

Shepard's eyes narrowed, just enough that Jack found herself wondering if she'd gone a step too far. But she wouldn't show it, not in front of all these fuckers who thought they were better than her. Jack leaned back against her crate, fishing the poker chip out of her pocket.

"That's right. You had combat regimens against VI suites?" Shepard's words triggered a cascade of memories in Jack's mind. Mechs toppling and bursting into flame like men made of matchsticks. A co-ordinated hive of drones, adapting and learning as she launched new biotic attacks. At the time she'd been sure that they'd somehow found an actual AI. But apparently VI combat sims did a pretty good impression. Jack blinked the memories back, and nodded. "You'll find the geth are similar. Remember, we're there to protect Dr. Solus and Tali."

Yeah, like the murderous salarian doctor and the quarian combat engineer needed protecting. But whatever.

"Tali will be our data extraction expert, and Dr. Solus, if we should find anyone still alive in there, I want you ready to help them."

"Naturally. Will bring medical applicators, spare medigel, and quarian antibiotic solutions." Solus said, in his rapid staccato delivery that, if Jack was entirely honest, was somehow quite soothing. Tali, meanwhile, looked surprised, or at least as surprised as a quarian could look.

"Shepard—" the quarian started, but Shepard cut her off.

"We don't know your father's dead, Tali. Not for sure. If there's a chance—if there's any chance—then Mordin can save him."

Something very sweet and tender and blah blah passed between Shepard and Tali, which Jack was sure bespoke a long and trusted history, or whatever. Tali reached out and Shepard laid a hand on the quarian's shoulder, and the quarian nodded gratefully.

Touching.

"While we're gone, Miranda has command of the Normandy. We'll be approaching in the Kodiak, and docking at the breach I've highlighted here. We can't assume that Cerberus will have developed an atmosphere inside, so I want full suit seals. That includes you, Jack—there's a hardsuit in the Kodiak that I want you in. Kasumi, your get-up includes an environment seal, yes?"

"Yep. Don't want anyone getting a hand on the money-maker, after all," Kasumi said, swapping her emoji for a stylized, blushing woman's face framed with curling blonde hair. Jack rolled her eyes.

"And your kinetic barriers are military grade," Shepard said. It wasn't a question. Kasumi nodded. "EDI. How long until we're in range for shuttle transit to the Reaper?"

EDI's holoform appeared beneath the projected image of the Reaper. Jack personally thought it was wild that they were trusting an AI while trying to stop a bunch of super-machines, but she was pretty sure she didn't get a vote on the plan to save the galaxy.

"Ten minutes, Shepard."

"All right. Everyone get ready, and be careful. If any of you die on that ship, I'll have Miranda bring you back just so I can kill you again myself."

xXx

As the rest of them were busy checking their gear or going over mission parameters with Vakarian, Jack had holed herself away in the Kodiak. She'd found the hardsuit and had managed to pull on the under-armour mesh and work her way into the greaves, when Shepard clambered into the shuttle behind her.

"Christ almighty but this thing rides in the fuckin' crotch." Jack gestured to illustrate. To her surprise, Shepard grinned. "Don't see why I can't just wear an ox-pack or something."

"I wasn't kidding about the Reaper indoctrination, Jack. You don't want to have exposed skin on that ship."

"So where's your helmet, then?" Jack asked, jerking her head in Shepard's direction. The taller woman stared at her hard, before her gaze relaxed a hair from "murder queen" to "confrontational."

"Can't wear them. Cybernetics beneath my skin get scrambled if there's too much pressure around my skull. Wearing the helmet to board the Flotilla nearly had my face splitting in half. Trust me, I'm as thrilled about it as I sound." Shepard always sounded more or less like she was ready to pull someone's brain out through their ears, so Jack took her word for it. "Struggling with the torso?"

Jack hesitated. She'd already pulled off her jacket, and stuffed it in the storage locker on the Kodiak. She figured it would be there when she got back, if some geth didn't blow a hole in her head.

"Yeah."

"Let me help."

Jack studied Shepard. She was pretty sure the woman wasn't coming onto her, and she had some damn sensitive alarm bells about that kind of shit after all she'd been through.

"All right."

Shepard approached, and Jack couldn't help but stiffen as such a large, dangerous person came within hitting distance. Still, Shepard was surprisingly delicate as she helped Jack shrug into the ungainly ceramic plates.

"You like helpin' pretty girls like me into their armour, huh, Shepard?" Jack knew she was quite literally poking a dragon in the eye, but she couldn't help it. To her surprise, Shepard raised an eyebrow and yanked a strap tight on the chestplate. Ow.

"Only when they're such good conversation," Shepard said dryly.

"Wanted to tell you something," Jack murmured, as Shepard helped her pull on the unfamiliar pieces of armour. In the dim light of the Kodiak, Shepard's left eye was glowing faintly, casting everything in a faint red light.

"I'm all ears."

"Wanted to say thanks. For taking me on." Why the fuck had she said that? Shepard helped her pull on the last of the plates for her forearms. Shepard's face was a hard one to read at the best of times, but she nodded. Seemed to understand.

Understand what?

"Well. There's just the two of us that I know of. Who escaped. Makes sense we should stick together." Shepard clapped Jack on the shoulder, with enough force that it nearly buckled her knees. Jack felt the old instinct to violence surging, but she also had enough wherewithal to press it down. She didn't think Shepard had intended to rattle Jack's bones.

"Yeah." Jack's throat was suddenly dry. All of a sudden, she found there were questions she wanted to ask. Questions she couldn't really ask anyone else. Like—did Shepard still wake up at noises as quiet as a pin drop? Did she still savour every meal, because she didn't know if food would be withdrawn as punishment the next day? Did she still catch herself, fucking years later, when she was out shopping to buy a new jacket, thinking that the Facility Admins wouldn't approve of that kind of outerwear? Did she still wake up in a cold sweat, and did she have to bury herself in fury and strength to remind herself that she wasn't there anymore, that she had gotten out, that—

I guess I wanted to ask if you're fucking haunted, too.

Shepard was still looking at her, and something passed between them. The two of them with the mismatched eyes and the history of Cerberus's sins stamped into their brainstems. Yeah. Shepard knew. Jack cleared her throat and stood up abruptly. Shepard stepped back, giving Jack the nice large personal space bubble that they both knew they both needed.

"So. There's a bunch of alien spaceships out there who want to wipe out humanity?"

Shepard nodded, those killer's eyes as cool as ever. Just like the training said to be.

"More or less."

"Well. To be honest, half of humanity deserves it, but … never tried being a fuckin' superhero, before. Might be fun." Shepard actually laughed, and shook her head.

"Trust me. It's not."