It was like Joker was trying to kill her. That, or was trying to make her kill everyone else.
Somehow, in his verbal battles with EDI, he'd managed to malfunction the docking port of the Normandy so here they were, trapped in the decontamination bay, waiting for the door to goddamn open.
Anya wouldn't mind it too much, if she wasn't trapped in here with the angriest biotic she'd ever met, Jacob "I don't sleep with subordinates" Taylor, and Barbie Tits herself.
Her bizarre, natural leader charisma normally meant she got along with everyone she ever met, but this new crew really was testing her. Zaeed was always way too sketchy, but otherwise kept to himself. Miranda was always judgmental and prying into her private life. Jacob was too friendly, and even though she was pretty sure it wasn't romantic, it made her uncomfortable. Mordin always rambled in science garble, and while she found it endearing, her soldier brain could barely keep up. The only team-members she really related to were the Odd Couple in the cockpit and the heavily drugged turian in med-bay.
And the new gal, Jack? She was something else. From the second their eyes met, she looked ready to tear Anya's throat out with her teeth.
The dossier made it clear Jack had been through shit, and that the heavy biotic had gripes about Cerberus, but she didn't expect shit to be this bad.
If those doors didn't open soon, she was pretty sure someone was going to crush skulls. It was an awkward day to be the only non-biotic in the room. If she went haywire, she had no barrier to protect her.
Jack was the first to pierce the silence. "I'm working my own damn way through the dumb fact that I'm willingly putting myself on a Cerberus hell-ship, but why in the fuck did you bring your Cerberus operatives, Shepard? You said you read my fucking file, right?"
Tipping her head back, Shepard was kinda hoping it'd roll off. It was preferable to the tense air in here. "I figured bringing a merc to a prison was a bad idea, and our scientist was busy synthesizing something. I apologize for their existence."
"Apology will only be accepted if I get to kill them."
"Absolutely not."
Across from her she could tell Miranda was getting testy. Her body was relatively still, but her arms and legs were crossing, like the more she wound herself up the better shot she'd have of pushing the frustration down.
"Pity. It's kinda badass to rip people in half."
But that seemed enough to push her over. Cutting her blue eyes at Jack, Miranda stood up and said, "Shouldn't you be thankful you're not rotting in that prison cell anymore?"
Anya knew whatever Miranda said wouldn't go over well, but from the way Jack's lips had turned and her face looked like it goddamned curdled, it was worse than expected. "Ah yeah, so fucking thankful to go from a prison that at least knows its bullshit to a prison that's going to try to bullshit me that its not."
"The Normandy's not-"
"The choice was get on your ship or blow the fuck up. Where are the real options there?"
While she wanted to step in between them, she was already pretty over this squabbling the last half hour of the mission. She just wanted to get out of this damn scenario.
But, then she remembered that she was the Commander of this vessel and it wasn't really a choice. No matter how annoying they were being, these three were part of her team now. Made her fucking miss Wrex and Ashley's bickering, because they actually listened to each other, even when they were being assholes. That was a tragic truth to accept, missing Ash's problematic, systematic racism issues. Everyone was prickly here with no remorse.
Just as she leaned forward to tell the two to shut the fuck up, Jacob stood up and tried to walk over to Miranda. "Miri, you're just tired-"
When he got close, she slapped his hand away. "Don't "Miri" me or tell me what I'm feeling. It's none of your business."
Okay, Shepard was generally a romantic idiot, but she understood that kind of exchange. That was the kind where two people once were on "Miri" terms and now they weren't.
Ready to toss a pistol, Anya accepted she couldn't just lean forward. She had to stand. Honestly, she was so over it she even pulled her pistol out of her holster and held it in her fist, hoping to make a point. "Every irritiable biotic in this room, please sit the fuck down and shut up. If you need to work out your issues, we can all do that privately in one-on-one conversations. But bickering like you're about to blow us out of this airlock is unhelpful and slightly too much of a threat for me not to take seriously. So if you'd all like to keep your place on this ship, and you left eyeballs, please keep it together. At least until the door opens."
As if on cue, the metal slid away from each other, revealing a wide-eyed Engineer Donelly. Anya was pretty sure he wasn't liking the sight of everyone standing and her gun out. And there was a fair shot he heard every word of her angry speech. Anya had to admit, she pitied the guy. She didn't want to be forced to deal with them either. Sighing, she holstered and gestured towards the exit. "Great timing. Please all leave."
Miranda and Jacob seemed tense as they walked out, but Anya grabbed Jack's arm as she walked by. The woman jerked her arm away like the Commander was a fucking spider. Rolling her eyes, Anya said, "You come with me. We're heading somewhere particular first."
"What, taking me to the fucking dressing room so that I can get on my cute little Cerberus slacks? You can fuck off if you think you're getting me in a uniform."
"One, those are gross and I wouldn't make anyone wear them. Two, no. We're heading to get you checked up." Shepard was practically speed-walking to the elevator. There were way too many elements she had to handle here, so she needed to get Jack dropped off to deal with a more personal one. One that insisted she didn't like prying.
Jack glared at Shepard ushered them into the elevator. "You do know that just because I was at a prison I wasn't infested with space tics or whatever, right? Asshole wanted to sell me, of course he kept the merchandise in decent condition."
"Stop acting so suspicious. It's just a routine check-up; every newcomer gets it. You're not special." As they walked up to med-bay, Anya added, "But don't worry, I'll make sure that Chakwas gives you an extra dose of genuine human kindness so you really lose your goddamn mind."
Even though she frowned, Jack did look less irritated than before. "I guess that's not totally sinister."
"Thank you. I'll be back in a little while, so don't blow up my med-bay, please."
"Now that you asked, I have to blow it up." Anya didn't have the fucking brain cells to deal with Jack's snark. She just glared and the biotic changed her tune, "Okay fine, I won't."
"Good."
After she watched Jack walk through the door, she caught a peek at the still comatose patient past her. Chakwas said she'd be able to wake up Garrus any day now, with everything all healed.
God, what a fucking story she'd have for him once he finally got up. This ship was a roller coaster. She only picked up a couple dossiers and she already had a bigger team than ever before, and she still had more to recruit.
But his absence wasn't the focus right now, even if it kept her up at night. He'd be back soon enough to keep her sane. Instead, she had a liaison to deal with.
Walking across the crew deck, she knocked on Miranda's door. Anya was pretty over being in her gear and kinda wished she'd stop back in her room for sweats, but honestly this couldn't wait. She might chicken out if she wasn't fuming about it.
Behind the metal, she heard, "Come in." Anya walked through the opening door and Miranda was already at her desk, writing up some report. Damn woman was thorough, she had to admit. And worse, she kinda respected it. Without looking up, Miranda continued, "Shepard, I'd figure you'd come by. For our new recruit I was thinking she could stay-"
"I didn't come here to talk about Jack."
Miranda's fingers stopped whirring around her keyboard and instead she looked up. "You aren't?"
"No." Cracking her knuckles, Anya inhaled and then said it as plainly as she could, "Miranda, what the hell went on between you and Jacob?" The second she asked, Miranda's face managed to pale even more than normal. Bingo. Some shit happened between them at some point. Before Miranda could even open her mouth, Shepard sat down across from her and put her hands together. "And more importantly, after going all "don't compromise the mission for feelings" on me, why did you choose to not share your own personal relationship?"
"Jacob and I aren't together. It's purely professional."
"For you, maybe." She saw that look of heartbreak and longing in Jacob's eyes; at the very least he missed "Miri", whatever the hell happened with them. Anya said, "I'm just saying it's a bit hypocritical and I don't appreciate it. It's not fair to hold me to a higher standard than you do yourself."
Those damned eyebrows furrowed at her as Miranda crossed her arms. Anya didn't want to know how many times she'd have to see that look over the course of the mission. "With all due respect Shepard, I have to hold you to a higher standard. I spent the last two years putting you back together, and we did it so you could save the galaxy. Nothing can get in the way of that mission."
Anya wasn't taking the bullshit. This time, she wasn't fresh off of exhaustion and panic over her best friend. This time, she was Commander motherfucking Shepard and she was sick of the members of this ship running amok. It was time for her to fill the role she was always meant to fill.
Placing her hands on Miranda's desk, she looked directly into those pretty blue eyes and started talking, "That was lovely and condescending, but you said you'd let me do things my way. And you want to know how I did things last mission? By getting personal. That's why my team trusted me so much and how we ended up changing things." On that personal note, Anya was way too aware that staying a stranger to her team wasn't helping things. With a beleaguered sigh, she said, "Also, just please actually work out whatever the hell is going on with Jacob, okay? Because I've received the heart-eyed looks and been the pathetic puppy-eyed person myself, and they both only keep happening if nobody deals with it."
Across from her, Miranda looked suddenly vulnerable, like there was something she wasn't saying here. Remembering there was a difference between Kaidan's persistence and outright stalking, she added, "But if he won't get over himself, I'll kick him off the ship for you. You do need to grow a pair, but if he's just harassing you that's not fair."
When Miranda looked up at her, she looked surprised and a little caught off guard. "T-Thank you, Shepard."
"I hope you know I didn't mean for this to turn supportive. I came in here fully pissed."
"I gathered from the body language." With a laugh, annoyingly perfect as always, Miranda drummed her fingers on her desk like she was running a million files through her head. After a few seconds, she finally seemed to have decided what she wanted to say. "For what it's worth, I am sorry for prying. Maybe I have a hard time trusting people to have the right intentions, so I assume any relationship is a distraction. But that's on me, not you."
Anya nodded, surprised herself with Miranda's candor. "I appreciate the humbleness. You're not quite what I expected from Cerberus, and I still hate your boss' guts, but you're pretty okay."
"I'll take it as a compliment."Raising a single, angular eyebrow, Miranda asked, "Anything else?"
"Good job on not killing Jack. She's... prickly. Don't worry about placing her, I'll figure it out for-" Just then, there was a crash across the hall. Between her rage and panic, Shepard's voice jumped an octave. She swore to God... "For fuck's sake."
Anything going on with Miranda was forgotten. All Anya could think about was Chakwas and Garrus in med-bay with the unstable biotic, and how it was her damn fault she left them alone with her. If she hurt them-
Rushing over to med-bay, Shepard entered and saw an entire shelf thrown into the wall, leaving a sizable dent. Across the room was Chakwas and Jack, one looking a little rattled and Jack just had her arms crossed like a petulant child. She threw her hands up, exasperated. "The hell? I gave you one job."
Chakwas chimed in, "To give her credit, I did ask her to hand me the medi-gel so I could test out how her biotics were they're still adjusting to freedom."
"Christ." Rubbing her temple, Shepard tried to breathe away the anger. Constantly fighting with Jack wasn't going to solve any of the tension, so she needed to calm down. But the fact Garrus' sleeping face was about a foot from the wall dent made "calm" a little hard. "Just be careful. And if you hurt the patient over there, you get the airlock, got it?"
Jack groaned and said, "Fine. Sheesh what stick do you have up your ass?"
"You don't even want to talk about sticks up asses with me." Anya just had to keep her eyes off Garrus and she'd keep her cool. If she thought about him too much, things would get a little messy. And Jack's existence on this ship was already messy.
So, when she got to talking, she was probably a little too loud and aggressive. Fuck it. Gesturing to Jack, she said, "Now get it together, we're going on a goddamned tour of the ship so we can find a suitable room for you!"
"Uh.. Thanks?"
"You're. God. Damn. Welcome." Pausing by the elevator, she said, "But first I have to change my pants and to get this fucking bun gone. This day has been too stressful for either of those things to still be on my body. I need sweats to survive."
"I thought perfect Alliance soldier types didn't do loose hair or sweats."
"Well, that's not me. So get used to it."
Waiting in her doorway, Jack actually had this smirk on, where she looked somewhat pleased, but also annoyed that she felt any interest. To be honest, Anya kinda liked it. The biotic said, "Angry hot Cerberus operatives, disgruntled ex-Alliance heroes, and a surprisingly cool old lady doctor?" Anya changed into her sweats and pulled out her hair. Thank god. Sweet release. Sticking her hands in her pockets she walked them both back to the elevator. Jack gave her a once over, like she was some bizarre, completely alien person. "Maybe this ship won't be the worst thing that's happened to me."
When Anya thought of Garrus, she still wished the big guy was up and keeping her company in the madness. And maybe this wasn't an easy crew to get along with, not like her first one. But there were bright spots, in surprised, awkward liaisons and smirking ex-cons.
Taking a deep breath in, Anya accepted this crew would never be like her old one. They didn't have to be, though. She met Jack's eyes slightly above her and smiled. "You know what? Same."
Now all she needed was Garrus to wake up and she could really get this bizarre new band of misfits going. The "dynamic duo", as Joker called them, would lead this suicide squad in style.
Well, assuming their talk when he woke up went well.
Anya hoped it would.
/
I am so excited to share next chapter! My guys, it is wayyyy too long (as is the chapter after it) but we're about to hit a really exciting turning point in Garrus and Anya's relationship.
Preview: The next chapter is named The Lobsters. I am very proud of that title on many levels haha
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