"What's happening?"
"Oh, my God!"
"Hurry up! Get them open!"
"Proteolytic agent. Very fast-acting. Must also break down -"
"Just do it, damn it!"
Miranda jerked awake, heart hammering, still feeling the sludge that had been Kelly Chambers splashing over her skin. She lay motionless, teeth clenched until the nausea had passed and she realized that it had not been her own cry that had woken her.
"Evan?" She rolled over, found Shepard sitting up, skin ashen beneath the tan. "What's wrong?" She reached out, but the commander moved away from her hand.
"You fell." Her voice was flat, green eyes haunted. "I couldn't hold on." She lifted her hand, staring at it. "I felt your hand slipping. I heard you scream, and you were gone."
"No." Miranda sat up, angling herself into Shepard's field of view. "I'm right here. That was just a nightmare. You caught me. I'm right here."
"For now." Shepard huddled into herself, still not looking at Miranda. "But sooner or later, I won't be fast enough, strong enough, smart enough ... and you'll be gone, too. It always happens. Mindoir. Akuze. Virmire. People die, they move on … everyone leaves. You should leave, too, before I get you killed."
She always felt she had to protect me from herself, push me away. She'll try to do the same to you. Don't let her ... please.
"I'm not going anywhere," she said firmly, putting her hand on Evan's cheek, forcing the commander to look at her, then bringing their lips together. For a long moment, there was no response; then Shepard's lips softened, parted … then pulled away.
"Don't," Evan pleaded softly, but Miranda pushed forward again, pressing Shepard onto her back and crawling on top of her.
"You started this, Evan," she said fiercely, "and I'm not walking away!" She tried to lower her head for another kiss, but Shepard's fingers tangled in her hair, the grip just shy of painful.
"This is what you want?" Shepard demanded, green eyes hard, fingers tightening until Miranda winced. "Is it?"
"I want you," Miranda replied, rocking her hips against Evan's belly, letting her feel the wetness that had started as soon as the other woman touched her. "I'm alive, I'm real, and I want you now. Take me hard, take me gently, but take me, damn it!"
She was expecting an aggressive response, but Shepard's eyes softened and her fingers relaxed, massaging Miranda's scalp. The caress of lips against her neck was gentle, the warm brush of a tongue almost delicate, teasing her flesh in careful touches, and Miranda tipped her head back and closed her eyes, abandoning herself to sensation. Slow kisses danced over her skin as fingers stroked a path over her shoulders, down her back, following the curve of her hips out, then curling lightly against her thighs, guiding her forward.
She let herself be moved, shivering as Evan's mouth maintained contact, trailing a heated path over her chest, between her breasts – pausing long enough to tease each nipple to tingling attention – then over her belly. She opened her eyes, staring down as her knees pressed into the mattress on either side of Shepard's head, strong hands steadying her hips and green eyes watching her, dark with hunger.
"Evan -" she began, then gasped as Shepard lifted her head and her tongue made a slow sweep through the slick folds.
"God!" She pitched forward, one hand gripping the headboard to hold herself upright as Evan went to work. Slow licks alternated unpredictably with flickering touches, circling her clit until she was shuddering, then dipping lower, teasing at her entrance before plunging deep, thrusting and swirling. Her free hand curled tight into Evan's hair, anchoring herself as that talented tongue drove her crazy, low growls thrumming deliciously against sensitized flesh.
One of Shepard's hands remained on Miranda's hip; the other slipped downward and inward, and fingers replaced the thrusting tongue, curling deeper, harder, as Evan's mouth returned to her clit, sucking it between her teeth, tongue flicking against it.
"Evan, yes, yes, yes!" She chanted the word over and over, blessedly mindless with pleasure, with need, the day's horror and terror pushed away by the onslaught, hips rocking in an increasingly frantic cadence as she felt it building, building...
She stiffened and screamed, back arching as she shattered. Instantly, the fingers withdrew, gripping her hip, and Evan's mouth was back on her, tongue lapping, drinking hungrily as she bucked and shuddered through her orgasm.
She slumped forward, spent, felt Evan sliding from between her legs, drawing her down, stretching out alongside her. She turned her head, found Evan watching her, looking tender and almost insufferably smug. Hooking a hand behind Shepard's neck, she pulled her in, kissing her deeply, tasting herself with a satisfied groan.
"I needed that," she murmured when they parted.
"Yup," Shepard agreed, stretching lazily, fingers tracing slow patterns over her belly.
Miranda eyed her curiously. "I wasn't doing much for you." A deficiency that she intended to remedy as soon as possible.
"Are you kidding?" Evan snorted. "Getting off is easy. I could do that myself. But making you come, making you scream, drinking you in, feeling you." She nuzzled into Miranda's neck. "That was what I needed." She was silent for a long moment before adding softly, "One second slower. That's all it would have taken, and I would have missed you."
"Stop that," Miranda told her firmly, turning in her arms until they faced each other, forcing Shepard to look at her. "The lives we lead are decided in seconds, millimeters, and sometimes by blind chance. Do you have any idea how many times I saw a shot from a Collector's weapon just miss you? Seventeen. I counted. We can let the what-ifs and maybes drive us insane, or we can hold on to what we have and take life as it comes."
Shepard nodded, but her eyes told a different story. "Losing someone under my command is bad enough, but..." she trailed off, closed her eyes. "I'm not used to being afraid. Not like this. I always push people away when they get too close."
"And I never let them get close in the first place," Miranda replied. God, what a pair they made. "Christ, Evan, you think I'm not afraid? I've just thrown everything that I devoted my life to out the window!" She could feel the panic that had been gnawing at her hours earlier starting to nibble away at her composure again. Without Cerberus, without Ori to protect, who was she?
Shepard regarded her intently, green eyes focused again. "You have got to be the dumbest genius I've ever met," she murmured. "You threw Cerberus and the Illusive Man out the window. That doesn't invalidate the things you've been fighting for, because those things aren't what they're fighting for now, if they ever were. You are an incredible woman, who has accomplished some amazing things...and don't even start about your father." A finger was placed over her lips as her mouth opened. "He gave you the genetic package, but what you've chosen to do with it is what matters. That's what makes you who you are. That's what's important."
Miranda let out a slow breath, wanting to believe. Even when their relationship had been more adversarial, Shepard had never understood how it felt to know that you had been created, engineered for a specific purpose. How utterly dehumanizing it felt sometimes. It was a feeling that the Illusive Man had sometimes seemed to deliberately foster, with his speeches about how Miranda was a prime example of humanity's potential. Evan had been the first to look past the engineered perfection and see her. "That's ... going to take some time to accept," she said, kissing the tip of the finger over her lips, then brushing her tongue against it, seeing green eyes darken with desire.
"We've got time," Evan declared, starting to pull her close again, but Miranda took control, moving on top of the soldier again. There would be time later to think, to try to accept Shepard's words into her personal paradigm. Right now, she just wanted to feel, wanted this.
"I seem to recall you expressing a lack of interest in your own orgasm, Commander," she said, letting her fingertips glide down Evan's arms, then up to lightly circle her nipples, watching them tighten at the contact. "Would you care to wager on whether or not I can change your mind?"
Shepard laughed softly, her own hands beginning to roam, eyes alight with hunger and an affection that made Miranda's chest tighten with a sweet ache of response. "Why bet on a sure thing?" she asked, arching willingly into Miranda's touch.