The whole shuttle rattled as Joker forced it through the turbulence surrounding the Shadowbroker's ship. Garrus held onto the bench beneath him with one hand, other claws clenched around his rifle. The shaking made his teeth ache and the shuttle groaned as metal twisted and strained.
The enemy vessel lacked appreciable anti-ship weapons - the storm was its armour and shield - but while it had a shuttle bay, Shepard had guessed that it would be heavily guarded. Better to slip in the back.
So here they were, about to land on the ship's hull in the middle of a storm.
He flicked his mandibles under his helmet and sighed theatrically. "You drag me to the nicest parts of the galaxy, Shepard."
Her face was hidden behind her visor, but her voice was tinged with mild amusement when she tilted her head to look at him, "I'm broadening your horizons, Vakarian."
"That's not what I'd call Tarith…"
"Hey, I only drag you places for one or two days. Can't tell me the Hierarchy didn't make you sit on a shitty base somewhere for a couple of months…"
"I suppose, but you definitely go for quality of shittiness."
Across from him, Liara smiled under her clear visor. "Some things don't change."
"What?" Shepard said mildly, "Vakarian being a pain in my ass?"
"You'd be lost without my wit and impeccable shooting, and you know it." The truth was, he hadn't been that close to Shepard back on the SR1, not like Ashley and Kaidan and even Wrex. A lot had changed.
Including Liara, who had been quiet and steely-eyed the entire journey to Hagalaz. She'd always been quiet, but...well, the Eden Prime War and the long two years after Alchera had changed them all. Perhaps that was part of why Shepard was so angry with Liara. An easy target for all of Shepard's frustration with a galaxy that had moved on without her.
"One day," she began, but was cut off by Joker's voice from the cockpit.
"Five klicks out from LZ, Commander."
"Copy. Everyone, check your seals and magboots!"
Here we go. He double checked his suit and boots. It'd be just embarrassing to float off the ship.
"Expect resistance once they realise we're here," Shepard said calmly, "we need to move fast."
Across the troop bay, Liara was checking her carbine for the fourth time. Her blue eyes were hard and determined. Garrus hoped they could get Feron out safely, but he'd seen hostages used as bargaining chips or killed far too many times.
The shuttle shuddered as Joker brought her down carefully, fighting the winds into a hover. As soon as metal kissed metal, the pilot shouted back to them, "Go, go, go!"
The shuttle door peeled back and Garrus' ears were filled with the roaring of the storm. Lightning flashed every so often around them, striking the lightning rod devices sticking up from the hull in intervals.
Spirits. Still, Garrus propelled himself out and the shuttle.
The feel of his magboots sticking to the metallic hull was reassuring - but that was about it. Immediately he was buffeted by wind that tore at his webbing, screaming outside his helmet. He gritted his teeth and pushed forward to one of the protrusions out of the hull, resting his rifle against it. Outside of a perfectly good spaceship or not, someone had to pull security.
The shuttle lifted off with a flare of blue thrusters. The lightning that darted out of the dark, roiling clouds was blinding. It struck the shuttle at its midpoint with a clap of thunder - and for a moment Garrus held his breath, but after a brief wobble, the shuttle righted itself and continued its ascent. It was soon swallowed by the storm.
"Push forward," Shepard ordered over their helmet comms - the noise made it impossible to hear normal shouting, "watch your footing."
It would be all too easy to slip and fall off the top of the ship if you were unlucky to lose contact with both magboots. He and Shepard had considered tethers and jump packs, but both had been discounted. Tethers would slow them down enough that they'd be easy pickings for the Shadowbroker's mercenaries and jump packs wouldn't mean a damn thing in this storm.
He edged forward, fighting through the gale with his rifle - a flicker of movement. He snapped the muzzle up. A flash of a blue-purple drone.
"We've got maintenance drones," Garrus announced.
"Take 'em out, they'll have cameras," Shepard called back.
Immediately he squeezed the trigger. The drone sparked and dropped out of view.
"Move, move, move, they're gonna know we're here soon enough!"
Garrus took point, finding Jack on his left and Grunt on his right as the two teams separated to make a parallel advance. They inched across the groaning, rain-slick hull. Little light from the perpetually setting sun cut through the thick, grey storm clouds, so he had his night vision filter on. Everything was coated in sheens of green, split every so often by lightning strikes, leaving specks behind.
At least the ship had a metal outer hull. A lot of warships had ceramic armoured plating, which would have funnelled them where the support beams were.
He clambered up and over a section of jutting hull - and came face to face with a mercenary patrol.
In a few split seconds he recognised three pieces of information in quick succession. There were four of them, one of them an asari in heavy armour. He was alone on this side. If he tried to climb back over, he wouldn't make it before they lit him up.
He was the first to recover from the surprise.
"Contact!" He grabbed a tech grenade from his belt and primed it in one movement, and then tossed it down at the asari's feet. It went off in a crackle of electricity and his suit computer beeped a warning inside his helmet as his shields shattered. But so did the shields of the entire mercenary patrol.
One of the black-armoured mercenaries - a turian - raised his rifle and squeezed the trigger. Garrus threw himself to the side, but all the air in his lungs was punched out of his lungs as a round hit him in the side. He staggered and fell.
In the next moment the turian's head exploded and another mercenary was tossed up, up - and disappeared into the clouds.
Jack and Grunt.
Faceplate pressed to the deck, Garrus gasped for air and forced himself to his hands and knees. Up, get up. His suit readout showed the plates as orange - damaged but nothing had penetrated the ballistic weave. His armour had held. He was fine. Just had to convince his own, shaking body of it.
There was a thunderclap of sound - audible even over the shrieking of wind - and the asari crashed into Grunt, surrounded by blue light. The biotic impact forced even the massive krogan to take a step back - but then he fired his shotgun at point blank range into her chest.
The last mercenary made a run for it, but by then Garrus was back on his feet. The merc stumbled and fell, two bullets in the back of his head.
Rather than helping Garrus, Grunt and Jack pushed forward. That was their job as two of the squad's heaviest hitters. Keep the pressure up, make sure Miranda or Mordin could get to any casualties.
For his part, Garrus waved Mordin off when the salarian appeared beside him. "I'm fine. Didn't even crack a plate."
He was all too familiar with that sensation, thanks to the Battle of the Citadel.
This was why he should let Grunt take point.
Mordin nodded and reported over the radio to Shepard. From the flash of gunfire to their right, the other team had run into their own firefight. "Six, no casualties. Can continue moving, over."
"Copy. Keep pushing for the airlock, over."
Shepard's voice was tense. Far tenser than she usually was in combat. His mandibles drew together in concern. Was the other team in trouble?
Garrus keyed his own mike. "Do you require assistance with your contact, over?"
"Negative. We have it handled, over."
"Copy. Pushing for the airlock. One out."
He inhaled deeply to make sure he had his breath back and followed Jack and Grunt.
The squad regrouped at the airlock and Jacob took a moment to breathe in, put a fresh heatsink into his carbine, and be glad they'd all made it through the storm and mercenaries. Being out of the storm was a helluva relief, even if the grey corridors of the Shadowbroker's ship were almost claustrophobic.
Man, he'd hate living here. He almost felt sorry for the mercenaries.
If they hadn't fired a rocket at the squad as they'd breached the airlock. Good thing Grunt had been on point. The shrapnel had pinged him a couple of times, but the krogan looked barely worse for wear and had refused even medigel. Anyone else would be down for the count.
"Bravo, hold the airlock. Alpha, with me." Shepard announced. There was an unusual harshness to her voice, a rasp to her breathing, but her face was hidden behind her helmet visor. "EDI, can you gain access to the ship's systems?"
"Negative. The local security network is air gapped. You will need to find a terminal connected to the network so I can take control."
"Roger that."
Shepard waved them forward. Grunt and Jack took point, Jacob and Garrus close behind, with Shepard, Tali and Liara behind them.
Jacob glanced over at the turian - and at the cracked armoured plate over his side. It had been partially pulverised, but he said nothing. If Vakarian couldn't keep up, he would've said something to Shepard.
A crackle of gunfire around the corner - Jacob lengthened his steps and came around with his rifle up. Grunt slammed his armoured shoulder into a mercenary with bone-cracking force - the human dropped his gun and clawed uselessly at the krogan's tree trunk of an arm. Beyond him, three mercenaries were retreating in the face of violently lashing biotic fields courtesy of Jack. Made Jacob's teeth hurt.
One was caught by the edge of one of the biotic attacks and was flung off his feet. Jack finished him off with a blast of her shotgun. Grunt laughed and let the now still corpse of his most recent victim drop.
Those two scared him sometimes, if he was honest.
"Left, left, left!" Garrus called out and Jacob spun, hearing a door hissing open - only for his vision to blot out white, his ears full of awful ringing -
He couldn't see, he couldn't fucking see-
When his vision slowly came back, he was on his hands and knees, Garrus was leaning against the wall, and they were both surrounded by the purple bubble of a barrier. Liara T'Soni stood between them, hands raised and her face a picture of calm concentration under her clear visor.
"Thanks," Jacob croaked, picking himself up. Liara nodded to him.
"You two okay?" Shepard ducked out of the doorway the Shadowbroker's mercenaries had flashbanged him from. Her gauntlets were dripping with blood, human red and turian blue.
He managed a thumbs up.
"Good news, I think this is some kind of security office. Hold security while Tali patches EDI into their systems."
"Roger that," he wanted to rub his head, but he was wearing a damn helmet. He lifted his rifle and joined Jack at the nearest corner in the corridor to post up. He shot her a look. "Gonna leave any for the rest of us?"
She smiled wolfishly. "You can complain when you're not getting knocked on your ass, boy scout."
"Ouch."
"EDI has downloaded the ship's schematics," Liara announced as she and Tali emerged from the security office behind them, "If we take the ladder down to the next deck and then head aft, we'll find the cells. And...Feron."
Hopefully. If the Shadowbroker wasn't keeping him to be a hostage - or hadn't dumped the poor bastard out the airlock already.
Jacob had never really liked Feron from the brief moments he'd met him, back when Miranda had put Liara on the trail of Shepard's body. He seemed shifty, untrustworthy. And what, he'd been a triple agent? But he'd sacrificed himself to let Liara escape with Shepard. If he was alive, Jacob would help get him out.
"I'll go first," Jack announced when they reached the ladder, and without waiting for an answer, she jumped down into the well, surrounded by the blue fire of her corona. Shepard just chuckled and waved for the rest of them to follow her. By the time Jacob climbed down the ladder, there were two dead mercs at Jack's feet.
"I have located Feron's cell. Uploading it to your omnitools. Be advised, I have detected a system with a large power draw within the cell."
"A mech? Defences?" Garrus asked.
"Perhaps. I am unable to ascertain its exact nature at this time. Be on your guard."
They emerged into another corridor - and this time through glass windows, they could see into Feron's 'cell'. The drell was encased in a torture chair of some kind, electrodes attached to his limbs and either side of his head. He was asleep or unconscious, his head lolled back. It was clear he was in a bad way - his scales were pale and discoloured, cracked in some places, burned in other places.
Jesus Christ. No one deserved this kind of bullshit.
"Feron!" Liara dashed forward, headed for what looked like the controls.
Out of the corner of his eye, Jacob saw a flash of movement. Metal. A gun, an armoured arm, the muzzle pointed at Liara's head. He moved, slashing out an arm. A flash of biotic energy erupted forward and slammed the mercenary into the wall. He was on him in a moment, slamming the shotgun's muzzle into his chest.
They were close enough that Jacob could see the whites of his eyes, the rictus of a face twisted in anger and fear. He pulled the trigger. The mercenary choked wetly and slid down the wall, leaving a smear of blood behind.
"Thank you," Liara told him as Jacob stepped back from the dying mercenary.
"Just returning the favour," he said, but she was already focused on Feron again.
The drell blinked slowly and then focused on the asari's face. "Liara?"
He sounded halfway between awe and disbelief.
"We're going to get you out of here," the asari promised. "Tali?"
Jacob took up a post by one of the doorways. Not the most defensible place.
Tali's voice was apologetic, "The controls are sensitive. Any tampering while we don't know how exactly how to disarm it and we could-"
"Fry my brain," Feron broke in. "You'll have to cut the power to get me out."
"So we find a power junction," Shepard surmised.
"It's hardlined into the central operations centre," Feron said weakly, "Bastard is paranoid. Didn't want to risk any of his people getting paid off to help me."
"Why do to such an effort?" Garrus asked, "What do you know?"
Feron chuckled darkly, "Wasn't about...what I knew. Just wanted me to suffer for betraying me."
Shepard's voice was controlled fury when she spoke, "We'll get you out."
"Commander Shepard. You're looking better than the last time I saw you."
"I'd hope so. We'll turn off the power, just sit tight."
"Not like I have much of a choice," the drell said dryly.
"Tali, Jacob. Stay with Feron. I don't trust the Shadowbroker not to send some of his hired guns to kill Feron here."
"Aye aye, ma'am." Jacob agreed, moving closer to the drell's cell. Shitty place to defend, but they could probably use the half-wall.
"If they press you too hard, call Miranda for reinforcements."
"Got it."
"Liara," Feron called to the asari, "he'll be expecting you. Waiting for you. I was the bait, you have to know that."
"I know, Feron. But that won't save him."
They'd made it to the door leading to central operations when the corridor filled with gunfire. Bullets ricocheted off the floor, buried themselves in the ceiling in a cascade of sparks. Liara yelped as Shepard grabbed her by the arm and yanked her back behind the corner they'd just come around.
"Fuck," Shepard said, with some frustration. Even Jack was shortly forced back, even her barrier struggling with the sheer amount of fire being poured down the corridor.
"There's a fuckin' lot of 'em, boss," Jack announced, over the whine of machinegun fire.
"A final protective position," Shepard said grimly. "He's pulled the rest of his guys here."
"What do we do?" Liara asked, "We're so close!" They were so close. All the long months, all the blood shed - for this moment. By the Goddess, she wouldn't be stopped by a handful of mercenaries, not now.
"That machinegunner has to reload at some point," Shepard tilted her helmeted head to look at Garrus. "Once they do, I want you three pouring as much fire down that hallway as you can. Keep them off Liara and I so we can get through that door. We can handle one man - you keep the rest of them at bay."
"Understood," Garrus said, his voice calm and professional. He picked a grenade out of his webbing.
The volume of fire being sent their way lessened, the machinegun cutting out.
"Now!"
The three other squadmates stepped forward, throwing their own hailstorm of fire and grenades down the hallway. Liara darted across the gap to the door, fumbling to apply the hacking program to get it open while Shepard turned and fired at the dark figures only ten metres or so from them.
"Liara, hurry up!" Shepard called in between shots.
"I'm going as fast as I can! I've never broken into the Shadowbroker's base before! Well - not this one."
Shepard lashed out a hand, biotic energy thudding down the hallway. Someone screamed.
"We're through," she shouted as the door lock clicked over to green. Shepard nearly slammed into her back as they both stumbled through.
"Close it behind us," Shepard said tersely, slamming a new heatsink into her rifle.
When she was done, the gunfire was muffled through the steel. She straightened, tightening her grip on her SMG. Her hands were sweating beneath her gloves. She was so close.
This corridor was long and dim as the rest, but the door at the end was unlocked. They took up positions either side of the doorway, nodded to each other and then Shepard keyed it open. They stormed in side-by-side, guns raised.
"What the fuck," Shepard breathed.
The room was roughly circular, full of terminals, communication equipment, servers and walls of monitors.
But behind the desk was the enemy she'd pursued for two years. A mountain of shoulders like boulders, horns and far too many sharp teeth in a triangle of a mouth. A Revenant machinegun sat on the desk in front of his folded hands, big as shovels.
A yagh. Now that was unexpected.
"Here for the drell?" the Shadowbroker asked, in a deep, rumbling voice, "Reckless, even for you, Commander."
"I prefer determined, as Vasir found out," Shepard said grimly.
"She was expendable. All her death cost me was time."
"Expendable?" Liara demanded, "Like Feron?"
"Feron betrayed me. He knew the consequences. Now he is simply paying the price for his actions. But your interruption is of no consequence. Those you have killed are replaceable, and several of your crew have profitable bounties on their heads - plenty enough to recompense me."
He was almost - banal in his evil. In his practical discounting of lives and suffering like numbers in a spreadsheet. Liara gritted her teeth. "You're not ruining anymore lives."
"Nowhere left to run," Shepard observed. It wasn't like her to talk with someone she intended to kill if there was no point to negotiations - was she buying time?
A normal man they could handle together, but a yagh?
Grunt's feet thudded against the decking as he barrelled towards 'central operations'. The whole corridor echoed with the sounds of battle - gunfire, raised voices, the sound of impacts that made the ship shudder. He grinned, tasting the fire of battle fury rising in him.
Need back-up, Shepard had sent over the text comm channel, guy's a bit bigger than I was expecting.
The room he burst into was half torn apart. Wires spluttered, some of the monitors broken and hanging down, support pillars splintered like broken bones.
And there, their enemy. Bigger than even Urdnot Wrex, roaring and surrounded by the blue glow of a shield, machinegun somehow dwarfed by giant paws of hands. Grunt saw it raise that gun to aim at his battlemaster. Shepard's helmet visor was cracked and her armoured body was wreathed in blue fire.
He lowered his head and charged. He slammed into the Shadowbroker with an audible thump, the impact reverberating through his entire body, forcing the creature back two steps. Two steps! His charges could and had killed.
A tree trunk of an arm came around and struck him, hard, in the chest. Grunt was thrown back, back hitting one of the still remaining pillars - which promptly gave way when struck by one hundred and sixty-five kilograms of pure krogan and added armour. He went sprawling, shotgun spinning away.
Shepard appeared in a flash of blue-black, punching it right in the chin hard enough to force it back a step and then ducking the responding blow from a giant hand. Grunt laughed, and grabbed his shotgun again, firing it once, twice. The flechettes deflected off the Shadowbroker's shields and ricocheted into the ceiling.
As it turned to him, T'Soni popped up in the other corner, firing her SMG into its back. It turned with a snarl.
Shepard ducked down beside him. She was breathing hard. "I need you to distract him for me."
"I'll keep his attention alright," he slotted in a new heatsink and threw himself forward with a challenging bellow. The Shadowbroker turned from hunting the asari and fired a burst of machinegun fire at him.
Fight smart. Even you can't win by being bigger and stronger all the time, that was what Shepard had told him when they were training before the mission through the Omega-4 Relay.
Fight smart. This time he was the distraction, not the killing blow. He tossed himself to the side and behind a splintered pillar. The bullets punched through the deck plating with a sound like a can being punctured. He popped around the other side, firing his Claymore. The Shadowbroker turned, bearing dozens and dozens of sharp teeth.
Not as many as the Thresher Maw had had. Ha!
"Now, Liara!" Shepard shouted. T'Soni biotically floated a long, jagged strut of metal, torn free from the support pillars. And then, with a flick of her wrist, she propelled it across the room like a thrown spear.
The Shadowbroker turned, but it struck him in the chest and bit deep. He roared in disbelief and fury, blood flowing down his side in rivulets. He reached for the metal strut to pull it out.
Grunt snarled. No, you don't. He grabbed that huge arm and pulled it away. By Vaul, but he was strong. It took all of Grunt's strength to pin him.
Footsteps - Shepard, grim-faced under her cracked visor. She wrapped gauntleted hands around the strut and pushed it deeper. A close-fought, desperate battle to the death, down to fists and improvised weapons, like something out of an ancient myth, when krogan had killed each other with spears and rocks.
Finally the Shadowbroker slumped to the decking, even his great strength depleted by the metal that impaled his chest through. T'Soni pressed her SMG to the back of the Shadowbroker's head and pulled the trigger, cutting off the gurgling breaths.
Shepard stepped away and pressed a hand to her helmet.
"What was that?" Grunt asked, rising and retrieving his shotgun. It was important to know the enemies you killed.
"He was a yagh," T'Soni said quietly.
"Grunt," Shepard called to him, "gather the squad together and search the ship. I want to know if there's any mercenary survivors left."
"I'm going to cycle the power off," Shepard told her, "Tali knows to pull him out as soon as it goes off."
Liara nodded. She felt numb. She'd thought she'd feel - more? Better? Two years of her life had led to this moment.
The lights - and all the panels and computer equipment in the room - went out, plunging the room into darkness except for the orange glow of Shepard's omnitool. Liara could smell the metallic stench of blood.
The lights flickered back on.
And one by one, the panels began to flash, each with a voice demanding the attention of a man who could no longer answer.
"-we had a momentary connection failure, confirm status?"
"Are we still online?"
She closed her eyes, breathed in. Opened them and stepped forward. It wasn't truly much of a decision, was it? The Shadowbroker had the reach of intelligence agencies, had infiltrated governments and militaries and criminal organisations, had wealth and assets in the billions of credits. All of this could be lost in minutes if she didn't act. All of it could be used in the coming war against the Reapers.
She reached forward and brought up an audio input, complete with voice disguiser. "This is the Shadowbroker. The situation is under control. We experienced a power fluctuation while upgrading hardware. It disrupted communications momentarily. However, we are now back online. Resume normal procedures. I want a status report on all operations within the next solar day. Shadowbroker out."
Running footsteps behind her.
"Easy," Shepard called out, and when she turned, it was Feron, gun in hand, standing in the doorway. Something in her chest squeezed at the sight of him.
"Goddess of oceans, it's you," he breathed, "but...how?"
"Well," she said uncertainly, glancing between Feron and Shepard, who had her arms crossed across her chest, "everyone who saw him in person is dead, and the equipment was easy to sue, so…"
"Is taking over as the new Shadowbroker really a good idea?" Shepard asked. Her face was blank.
"His contacts, his resources - they could really help us. Help you. I can give you...I can…" The tears were unexpected, welling up uncontrollably. She turned away, pressing her palms to her face. Two years. Two years of mourning Shepard and Feron both. Convinced she'd left them both to their enemies. And hadn't she?
"I think I'm...going to go sit down somewhere and enjoy not having electrodes attached to me," Feron said, a little awkwardly.
"See Mordin Solus, the salarian on my team," Shepard said, the words almost automatic, rote. Looking after a teammate, "He'll help with any health issues from what that bastard did to you."
"Thanks…"
A hand landed on her shoulder and she turned to see Shepard's face, freed from her helmet. The blow that had cracked her visor had split her lip. But she was alive, and real.
"It's over," Liara whispered, "it's finally over."
Shepard stepped forward and pulled her into a hug. For a moment, Liara let herself sink into it. Hard planes of armour or not, this was her friend - and the first hug she'd had for far too long.
Even if part of her thought maybe SHepard was hugging her because she thought Liara needed it, more so than her really wanting to do it.
She stepped back and wiped her face. "I spent two years mourning you and Feron, and now I have both of you back." That was the spark of joy, now, sitting in her chest, warming her after the ice of Alchera and two lonely years seeking vengeance. "Let's...see what we've got."
Shepard leaned against the desk, dark, guarded eyes scanning the screens.
It would take time for Liara to learn the yagh's systems, but already she could see alerts for key events across the galaxy. Right there - an alert for a massing pirate fleet for an attack on outer Alliance colonies. She would need to discreetly alert Admiral Hackett.
"Are you sure?" Shepard asked, breaking the silence between them.
"I came here for Feron, but is it wrong that part of me wants this? I can turn this into something good."
"You'll have to make some tough decisions," the human woman's voice was flat, "sometimes there'll be no good choices. Sometimes you'll have to send people to their deaths. Sometimes you won't know the consequences when you make the decision. It'll be hard to live with."
"I know," she said softly. "But the Reapers are coming. The war is coming. That is my purpose as Shadowbroker. I know that you will do everything you can, but I also know that you can't fight this war alone. You need help. Let me help you."
Shepard let out a breath. "I don't think this is my decision to make, Liara. If this is what you want…"
"It is."
Shepard nodded. "So long as you know that this is going to be a burden."
A burden. Yes. A heavy one. Millions, billions of lives depending on her decisions. The burden Shepard had carried since they'd named her Spectre. A burden that had come close to breaking the strongest person Liara knew.
Or had it? Shepard had seemed stronger in 2183. Stronger, surrounded by the structure of the Systems Alliance, by brave people she trusted, by her friends. And Ashley Williams.
Cerberus had nearly broken her. They had trapped her with her own sense of duty.
"I'm sorry," Liara told her.
Shepard raised her head, "What?"
"I was so fixated on getting you back," Liara admitted, "I didn't think of what it would do to you. What Cerberus would do to you."
Shepard smiled without humour, "I could've walked away. Handed myself into Anderson."
"Not when people's lives were at stake. The Illusive Man knew that. But you're free of them now-"
"Am I?" Shepard asked sharply, balling her fists at her sides, "I told Anderson I wanted to come home and he told me I couldn't, because the AIA think I'm a traitor and want to arrest me! Half the people I love think I'm crazy, an imposter or a traitor! The only people on my side are my crew, and I can't even pay them."
"Shepard-"
Shepard sagged against the desk. "I'm sorry."
"You have nothing to apologise for, Shepard. As I said, I am sorry. I failed to understand what you've been through, what I contributed to. I hope one day you'll be able to forgive me."
"I might need some time," Shepard said quietly.
"I'm an asari. Time is one thing I can give you." And that comment about paying her crew - "I may have a solution for paying your crew as well. The Shadowbroker is very wealthy. I can finance your ship's operations, no strings attached. And whatever information we can find in this network is yours."
Shepard fumbled at the latches of her armour. Her gauntlets and helmet were laid on her coffee table.
Her body felt like one big bruise, inside and out. That yagh had hit like a fucking truck, especially after the battering storm outside and then - then the conversation with Liara. She'd wanted an apology and it had felt something like catharsis, but.
But.
She'd been trying not to think about it. Not being able to go home. The time she'd lost.
"Fuck." Her hands felt numb, clumsy and that damned shoulder was locking up.
"Shepard?" Miranda's voice drifted from her door.
"Come in," she said, looking up.
"Are you alright?" Miranda stopped at the top of the stairs.
Shepard shrugged dismissively. "I'm fine."
She was always fine, right? She was the commander, the woman worth billions. The walking dead.
"Your hands are shaking," Miranda observed.
Shepard curled them into fists by her side. "It's just - spacewalks aren't much fun these days. It's stupid."
"It's not stupid."
"I don't even remember," Alchera. Dying. She spun around, pacing between the coffee table and that stupidly huge fish tank.
Then a hand pressed to the N7 on her chest plate and she stopped dead.
"It's not stupid," Miranda repeated, firmer this time, her blue eyes narrowed. "Now, sit down and let me help you."
Shepard let herself be led back to the couch and sat there as Miranda undid the latches. When had their mistrust and bickering turned to quiet understanding? When had she become comfortable enough to let a terrorist sit with her while she was vulnerable?
Well, that wasn't fair. Former terrorist. Miranda Lawson had walked away from Cerberus after all.
"Raise your arms."
"I can't," she admitted quietly, "My shoulder keeps locking up."
Miranda gave her a mild look of reproach. "You should have told me. I can adjust the settings for you, see if that helps."
"Adjust the…"
"That arm is mostly cybernetic," Miranda said, frowning slightly, "I did give Chakwas the records…"
"I didn't want to know," Shepard admitted.
"Ignoring something doesn't make it go away." Miranda pulled the torso segment of her armour up and over her head.
"I know that, it's just…"
"It was too much." The other woman set the armour beside her helmet with a dull click of ceramic.
"Yeah."
Between the two of them they soon had all of Shepard's armour piled onto the coffee table, leaving her in the undersuit, all the med monitors disconnected. It was a bad habit not to clean and put it away immediately, but Shepard was drained enough not to care. Plus, she wasn't in the Navy anymore. No privates to teach bad habits or superiors to yell at her about it.
"Well," Miranda said briskly, "I can have a look at your shoulder if you'd like."
"Maybe tomorrow," she murmured. She was going to strip out of her undersuit and collapse into bed as soon as Miranda was gone. "Thanks. Never thanked you for putting me back together."
"Not like anyone asked your permission for any of this. And I'm sorry. You deserve better than all this."
Shepard let her head loll to the side to look at Miranda. "Do I?"
She'd had choices. Choices that had led her to this position.
Miranda reached over and touched the back of her hand. Her voice was firm. "You do." After a moment she took her hand back. "I used to think you were infuriating and naive."
Shepard huffed a laugh at that.
"But I was wrong. You're still infuriating half the time, but you're not naive. You're just...a good person stuck in a difficult position. A position I helped put you in."
"You also saved my life," Shepard murmured.
Miranda looked away, something close to shame flashing across her face. "It was my job."
"...yeah." Shepard leant back on the couch and rolled her shoulders, wincing at the knot of pain in her back.
"I'll ask you again. Are you okay, Shepard?"
Shepard made a soft, choked noise. "No. No, I'm not. I just want to go home."
It came out far too plaintive, raw.
Miranda reached over and pulled her into a hug. For a moment they were both stiff, awkward. Then it softened, Shepard pressing her face into Miranda's shoulder and one of Miranda's hands rubbing circles into her sore back, the other pressed to the back of her head. After a moment the other woman shifted and pressed a kiss to her forehead. Soft, warm.
Shepard had needed this. Something that didn't hurt.