Jane's brow furrowed. Her mind slowed down and she focused on her own internal thoughts. And Miranda was right. She'd been thinking, and thus speaking, in French. If Jacob had an Alliance-standard translator, all he would hear was accented English, or whatever language he had it set to. Depending on the quality of the translator, there might have been a delay between when she opened her mouth and he heard her speech, but higher end tech could reduce that to fractions of a second thanks to Salarian-inspired VI.

"You're right…" Jane said, and she consciously made herself say it in English.

She herself knew English fluently, so her translator wasn't set to render English into French. In the modern age, people often had the habit of ignoring and no longer noticing lip-sync issues, being so accustomed to voices and mouth movements not lining up. Combined with the general urgency of the situation, and neither she nor Jacob could be blamed for not noticing the little things.

Miranda looked at her like she was expecting an explanation. Jane initially didn't have one. Then it hit her.

"I think I might know why—"

"Well I would love to hear it," Miranda interrupted.

Jane narrowed her eyes. "Then stop cutting me off." A sigh. "I've been having flashbacks since I woke up. To my childhood on Mindoir. Had a particularly vivid one right as I met up with Jacob."

"I'm not sure I follow," the man in question said.

"I grew up speaking French at home, and Arabic at the mosque. I learned English at school and became fluent when I enlisted. When I used to get traumatic episodes, flashbacks to what happened in the raid, I'd often be speaking French when I came out of them. Arabic too, on occasion." Jane frowned. "I haven't had a flashback in years though. Other than the odd nightmare, my post-traumatic stress was well managed before I d- Before I woke up."

"Wouldn't that have been on your file?" Miranda asked.

"Not when my doctor agreed to keep it off the record. She was sympathetic; I agreed to regular visits and she agreed to keep it quiet. The Alliance would have kicked me out if it was reported. She knew what it was like to want revenge." Karin had watched Shanxi burn, after all. Even as a doctor, she had an old pistol with notches in the grip for every "skullface," she'd managed to take out during the occupation and liberation. "If you want to track her down and interview her, you can. She can vouch that not only did she treat it, but my condition was perfectly manageable by the time I ever set foot on the Normandy."

Miranda stroked her chin. "Most likely it's a result of your resurrection. Perhaps your brain is still adjusting, cognitive functions having to reactivate after being stagnant. That could, theoretically, result in old memories being revisited anew. Like waking from a coma. There's… well there are numerous things we need to test to see if that's correct. Brain scans, bloodwork, psychological profiling, medical treatments."

It was Jacob's turn to cut in. "Nothing that should interfere with missions."

"We don't know that."

"Well I do," Jane said.

These bastards sure love talking like I'm not here. Treating me like I'm still their lab rat.

"I know my limitations. What's happening now is nothing compared to my first years enlisted. Not even as bad as when I hit Torfan. If I could get the job done then, I can do it now." It struck her that maybe, just maybe, leveraging her flashbacks as a way to get out of working for Cerberus was a better idea. But her pride refused. Besides, she at least wanted to know their reasonings.

Miranda was not happy. But that wasn't Jane's problem.

The first stop for Jane at yet another top secret space station was not to see Miranda boss. Instead it was to the bathroom. The scientist, who in some regards was now her creator, was less than impressed by Jane's uncouth "I gotta piss." But she had directed the commander to the appropriate room regardless.

She had hoped to take a moment alone, splash her face, maybe slap herself until she woke up from whatever dream she was living. Instead Jane entered the bathroom and looked into the mirror, and a monster stared back.

The red glow emanating onto the young doctor. It had seemed odd at the time. But so many other things had.

It was my face. My fucking face!

The scars on her face were deep gouges. On the left it wasn't so horrid, a few lines on her brow, along the natural creases of her forehead, a mark on the cheek. But the right? It looked like someone had smashed a window with a bat, and her flesh was the window. From within the fissures game a warm red glow. The same glow was in her eyes, hot coals within what should have been the empty void of her pupils.

"Frankenstein's monster," she said out loud. It had been an exaggeration before. Now it was a declaration of fact. She had been pieces of dead flesh, now put together, sewn up. But all the technology and shortcuts used to claw her from the Fire (for surely her sins were too great for Jannah) were almost literally bursting her at the seams. How much of her was even still living tissue? Was she just a machine with a cloak of skin and hair stapled over it, like one of Joker's old Earth films?

Jane looked down at her hands, and found herself overanalyzing the skin on them. Did it seem more shiny than before? Or maybe less? More like rubber, less like skin? The nails seemed too well manicured; perhaps they were acrylic. Or maybe Miranda would do Jane's nails as she lied comatose, once she had finished doing her own of course. Neither idea was calming.

Might be a good thing. My nails were always a pain to do.

Jane's chest heaved as she strangled a cry in her chest. She wasn't one to cry often. The last time had been for Ashley. That had been but a single tear.

Here I am, fighting a full blown sob over my own fate. Over coming back from the dead. How pathetic.

A memory jumped at her then. Uncle Ahmed had been standing at the front gate of their farm. His task had been to watch the children at play. Jane, Jeanne then, had been chasing her friends, Camille and Ismaïl. Jeanne tripped, and smacked her head on a stone. The cut it left was small but bright with blood. As she tried to get up, dazed, she heard a sob followed by laughter. Camille had grown scared that Jeanne had been badly hurt once she saw the blood. Ismaïl, certain his friend was fine, mocked his sister's tears.

Uncle Ahmed had stormed over. Once he checked that Jeanne's cut was superficial, he scolded his son with a frown. "A hard heart, gamin, is the root of misery. Don't mock your sisters tears. Tears are a mercy that Allah has placed in the essence of His servants," Ahemd had told him, quoting scripture with as much ease as the imam. "What is more human than to cry? You bark laughter at her like a dog, while she shows compassion for Jeanne."

What is more human than to cry?

She'd buried Mindoir. Her time there had been long forgotten for so many years. It wasn't a truly significant memory. Ismaïl never really learned the lesson his father was trying to teach, and Camille had been and was afterwards an oversensitive girl, crying over the smallest things. And Uncle Ahmed was being a hypocrite, as he was ever a stoic and proudly so. He hadn't even been using the quote correctly. Mohammed had been speaking of crying over the profound, not from fear.

In total, it was memory that had a hundred twins, and Jane was sure many of them were far more impactful. But Uncle Ahmed's words, his particular words, rang in her mind again and again.

What is more human than to cry?

Jane stopped fighting it. She let her chest shudder, let two hot tears roll down her face, which were forced to maneuver around the warm gouges below her eyes. It wasn't an opening of the floodgates. She quickly clamped down again. The tears were wiped away, her breathing put back under control. Partly it was habit snapling back in, partly she just knew it wasn't the time or place. It was just letting steam out of a rattling pipe, just for a moment. But it made the weight on her shoulders just a little lighter.

She let out a shaky sigh and looked at herself again. Despite the scars, she still looked like Jane Shepard. Though drowned by light, her irises were the same emerald, her hair the same fiery red that made every girl in basic demand proof it wasn't dyed. Jane ran a hand through said hair to try and relax, nails digging in as she self-soothed in a familiar way.

But something struck her then. First, her nails on her scalp felt less satisfying. That wasn't so bad. Less reactive nerves on her scalp weren't the end of the world. A new scalp could even mean less dandruff, if she was lucky. But her hair was also perfectly smooth. Perfectly. Unless Miranda had some wonder conditioner she had massaged into Jane's hair moments before the robots went insane, that wasn't right. Several firefights, running across warehouses and labs until her lungs burned, the ionizing shock of shields regenerating. There was no way her hair wouldn't have become a mess of kinks and knots and frizz and grime. It was one thing for it to fall in a way that seemed clean and orderly, especially when she had been fighting on a station. Stations were naturally frigid, unlike the sweat-inducing environment of a planet. But to actually be fairly clean and orderly?

A jolt of panic hit her gut. Jane grabbed a single hair from the front of her head, wrapping it around one finger. With a tug, she yanked it from the root. Her lip quivered, just for a moment, as she activated her omni-tool, finding the chemical analysis app. Usually she never used such scientific tools for her own use. Normally she'd just scan whatever she was told to for someone else to breakdown. But for this she had to know.

"Scan." she commanded, holding out her hair like a piece of offensive matter. She begged for it to read back "Keratin - 100%" and let her just have that much. Instead the display took its time, before spitting out a list. Keratin, yes. But also silicone, acrylonitrile, and polyethylene-terephthalate. The hair on her head was barely more than a wig sutured on. Another sob racked her as she choked it down, but it was not out of sorrow or self-pity. It was a cry of anger, and again Jane let two tears seep out.

Screaming was what she wanted to do. Maybe punching. First of the mirror, then of Miranda. But the rage faded swiftly. Jane had never considered herself vain, and while she was attached to her hair, Project Lazarus had probably done the best it could. Jane took a breath as she rationalized. The sting of losing the one thing about herself she truly knew was beautiful was still there, but she stopped directing the rage out. There was no point.

Still, as she looked up in the mirror, she just saw a reanimated corpse with a wig. That was what she was. She just had to accept it.

"When I finally have time alone, I'll cry it out," she promised, speaking aloud to herself. "I'm still human by that much…"

Garrus didn't like what he was seeing. "Is this right? Garm had LOKIs manning his turf?"

Monteague just nodded, and pulled at his goatee. Weaver spoke for him. It was a habit of hers. "We fuckin' saw 'em ourselves. Whole of Arishi Block. Not one single Vorcha or Krogan in sight."

That didn't make any sense to Garrus. His mandibles gave a small flutter as a bad feeling crept into his gut. Garm hated mechs. He thought they were borderline useless, nothing compared to a trained, all organic thug. Even if that thug was a Vorcha. To use them meant he needed his men away from the frontlines of his territory. Even then, Garm definitely wouldn't buy mechs in bulk.

"Vortash," Garrus called, his voice ringing across the room, "You still have a backdoor into the Eclipse servers?"

"The fuck do you think?" the batarian growled back.

"Good. Check their financial records. Anything for a rental of mechs?"

"One second… Alright, looks like they did. Pretty large payments for 'mechanized private security teams'."

"Who from?"

"Definitely Blood Pack. I recognize the routing numbers. This one here is definitely one of Garm's off-station accounts. Same one he used to pay that krogan 'art' dealer."

Melenis scoffed. "Only Garm would have the ego to get a cast of his own dick and quad."

That got Monteague chuckling. "Still made it the funniest fucking thing when Vakarian beat the dealer with it."

"I think I asked back then, but I'll ask again; does that count as having given Garm a handjob by proxy, commander?"

Garrus rolled his eyes, a human and asari habit he had picked up from living amongst so many on Omega. "Vortash?"

"What?"

"Is it enough mechs to patrol Garm's turf in Arishi Block."

"Fuck no."

"Hmm, well th—"

"It's enough to patrol his entire territory on Omega."

That made the vigilante commander stop short. "If that's true… then he must be planning a full blown assault. Those men wouldn't just be shipped off-world for a job."

Weaver frowned. "Fuck… Fuck, you think he's fuckin' coming for us?"

Melenis weighed in. "When we dipped Jentha's transmissions last week, we all thought Tarak was mobilizing against us too. Nothing happened."

It was Sensat who answered her, right as Garrus had opened his mouth. The Salarian had been so busy working on his grenades no one had really noticed him. Which was fine; better that no one bother him when he was handling delicate explosives. "Or they delayed once they found out Garm was planning on it too."

Everyone was still. Blood Pack and Blue Suns? Hitting them with everything they had? It wasn't a comforting thought.

Sidonis entered the room a moment later. "What did I miss?" he asked.

"Blood Pack, Blue Suns. Might be working together to throw an army at us," Melenis replied in a clipped tone. She had yet to forgive Sidonis after their last row.

"We have that confirmed?" he asked, suddenly rather nervous. Garrus didn't blame him. Sidonis had a coward's heart. That wasn't necessarily a bad thing, especially when it was combined with an idealistic brain and a touch of hero worship. Sidonis believed in Garrus, desperately at times. And once backed into a corner, no one was more dangerous than a coward.

"Garm is renting enough Eclipse mechs to cover his territory. Meaning he's gathering his men. We already believed Tarak was planning a hunt for us."

"B-but, Tarak never came!"

"No, but he might have just been waiting for Garm," Monteague added.

"Look, guys, this all sounds like speculation! We can't know yet. Plus we're fortified! I don't think we should obsess over this. Not when there are people in need of saving."

Garrus frowned at how quickly Sidonis had dismissed the threat. It seemed a touch foolish. But… "You're right. Garm and Tarak together, apart, or not at all. That's secondary to our mission. We will make Omega better."

"Aye, commander," Monteague said, snapping a salute. The others followed, and Garrus felt a pang of sorrow in his heart. His mission wasn't about saving the galaxy, it was saving one station. But he would dedicate himself to that mission. His mind, body, and spirit. He owed her that much.

"Sidonis, you messaged earlier that you got a tip on a weapons shipment?" Garrus then said, turning to the lankier turian.

"Yeah, yeah. Could be a Suns purchase, but I'm thinking it might be a new dealer trying to set up shop. Do you want to head out together?"

"No. I can take care of it myself, I think. You get some rest. Melenis? You're in command while I'm gone."

"Understood. Be safe, Vakarian."

Garrus walked to the weapons rack, holstering his guns on his back. He would complete his mission. There was a tide of evil coming closer and closer. But he would endure. He would make Omega safe. Then, one day, it could at least serve as a safe haven, or a forward base, once the Reapers began creeping in. Maybe he couldn't win the war, not like Shepard could have. But he would ensure the galaxy clung to life, if only for a little longer.

[A/N]: Special thanks to my few reviewers. My posting will likely always be sporadic, but your support does wonders for my motivation to write! Notes on this chapter, Jannah is the Islamic term for Heaven, as well as Eden. There are many poetic names for Hell in Islam, but many have a common theme: the Fire, Blazing Fire, the Blaze. So yes, Shepard is certain she was going to spend considerable amount of time in Hell. Credit to my girlfriend for the idea of Jane falling apart over her hair.