A/N: NGL this chapter feels sloppy (write at 3am, no beta reading, final destination). Also no big reader response thing this chapter, because I may have something special planned for when I hit 1k favs.

1-21

Well Who am I to Keep you Down?

Shepard had stood there in the well deck, looking at JD, two of the Normandy's monsters between them. And yet she looked through them.

The man had responded to a rank not his own, and far removed from when that would've been for him.

Interesting.

"Carry on." She said with her command, and she turned away, back into the elevator, raising herself up, leaving behind the bloody and the unknown.

JD had been frozen solid about, a mistake written in his face as he had shared a grim look with Mai, only to return to behind the Mako and bide his time.

Tali, Liara, Garrus, they had been frozen solid that entire time. Only at the very end, after all had been said and done and they had been safe to move, had Liara reached her hand up and realized droplets of blood from the fight had gotten on her face. She looked, and stared, at the deep human blood on her fingers, and realized that day that even machines could bleed.

They hadn't even stopped their own bleeding as the mats were put asides, the floor rubbed down by them. To see Mai and Wrex on their knees, washing the floor of themselves with rags, it was a sight to behold that day. A day of sights upon sights.

Metal on fabric, wet fabric, it was like a violin string, pulled against by a bow for an uncomfortable amount of time. Hitman, in the shadows, finally emerged to bear witness.

"Good fight."

"Mm." Mai rattled to Wrex quietly. He had been smiling with his skewed face. What an odd look.

It was a good fight. She felt it had been. Should she be smiling as well?

They had still been bleeding, separately, but it was no matter. They had picked themselves up, on their knees, cleaning as they were told.

"Hitman?" Emerson had quietly called for his Marines, and they answered. "Let's uh, let's give the lady a little help."

Mai had stopped her scrubbing, her head locked up with Emerson's. He froze. "No. Commander's orders."

"It's-" Emerson stumbled. "It would be more expedient for us to at least try-"

"No, sergeant." Mai had rattled out, and that was that. Even in something as diminutive as scrubbing the deck, she would take it, as far as she could, alone. That was how she worked best. The soapy water and the cleaning alcohol had burned wounds, her senses ablaze with the burn, but she had stayed absolutely silent as the sponges and rags turned red and they were discarded into a bucket meant for the Mako's oil.

Wrex hadn't been the one to get Mai onto her knees in submission.

Shepard had been. More than that she had made both of them.

Soldiers followed orders.

"Don't take her, please, she's my daughter! Take me instead!"

A nightmare that echoed. Shepard's dreams were of her failures and of the Protheans. Of Reaping and a metal apocalypse. This she knew. But there was something else there now. Something just beyond the waters of her mind that was cast off. The only thing that remained had been the pleading she had to repeat on her own lips in her mind.

Riding up the elevator, Shepard had known of that horror: the mother's plight, and it echoed in her like a bell, from heart to head to-

Shepard had clutched her stomach, a wince of pain. She was good at beating them down, but shrapnel from that last grenade had opened some tears long faded away. Chakwas had reached out to help, but Shepard shook her head.

"It's fine, Doc. It's just, the leftovers from… a long time ago." Chakwas understood. She was the only one of the Normandy to know what Shepard spoke about. Even she as a Doctor hadn't felt, personally, what Shepard had gone through. "I should go."

With that Shepard had bid Chakwas good day as she felt her midsection numb out and she continued upstairs into comms. The crew had been pale, having seen that fight below.

"She fought him to a standstill! What the fuck?"

"I thought- I didn't think she was worth squat outside of her armor but…"

"I've served for twenty years and I've never seen anything like that."

Whispers and conversation of a fight that moved mountains. It only fueled Shepard as she made her way into the comms room and spoke her clearance codes.

The way Mai fought, just by her own standards, it was beyond anything she had ever seen in that universe. It was like watching the physical manifestation of force fight. It was a fight that had no reason to be fought, and no reason to be survived, and yet Mai and Wrex were still ready to go.

She herself was an N7. It would be ignorant of her to not admit that she herself had been one of Humanity's best fighters. It was that level she operated on and what Humanity called of her. Though what she saw, that was something else entirely. The pure capability that Mai had yet to shown was hinted that very day, and it made Shepard look for the truth.

The comm room was sealed, the ship's VI denoted that everything that was to be said and discussed in it was classified.

"Computer. Put me through to the Kilimanjaro, and request Admiral Hackett."

It didn't take long. The Normandy had been a few days out and due to rendezvous with the Kilimanjaro and its battlegroup over Altis anyway, however Shepard had meant to ask something else now instead of her usual check up with the brass. She had been a favorite, and the ire, of the Admiralty. As much of a figure as she was anyone who disagreed with her had been always held to a certain type of scrutiny.

Admiral Hackett had been one of Shepard's greatest advocated amongst the Admiralty.

"Commander Shepard." Hackett's hologram had come to life, and he had been, as she had always known him to be, in his blue uniform. "You requested comms with me?"

Shepard had nodded. She wasn't exactly in the appropriate dress to address the Alliance's chief naval admiral, however she existed both inside and outside of the Alliance. Though again there was no formality to be had with what she was going to ask.

"Admiral. I have an inquiry that, if it goes above Captain Anderson's head, must land at your feet."

The great secrets of the Alliance had come in two parts:

The first had been the true nature of the Covenant; kept because, if their genocidal secret was revealed, the Council would press down on them with a scrutiny that would quash any benefit that might've come from Alliance and Covenant cooperation.

The second had been of two people.

A Spartan, and an ODST.

Shepard had her way with secrets. The first one she ever looked over, the one that had made her acquainted with Cerberus, started out very much like this: a phone call.

Hackett had hoped he was going to get warning, that Shepard would've gone through more people, but she always aimed high. He had adjusted himself in his quarters, standing on his own comm unit, getting ready for the storm.

"Well, Commander, go ahead."

"I have on my crew two Naval liaisons. Special forces. A Master Chief Petty Officer Mai Gul, and a Master Chief Petty Officer Jon Durante. Not from my program." There it was, out in the open. Hackett's face had become stone. "They're good soldiers. Some of the best." Hackett's expression lightened; Shepard noticed. "However, they're not predisposed to speak of themselves."

There was a silence as Hackett nodded. He thought he had time.

"Is there an issue with this, Commander?"

Shepard tightened her jaw, nodding. "This mission. It's like nothing we've done before. And it's because of me. The men and women onboard this ship deserve something a little more… Human, than what is usually called for in this service. I want to know them. To let them know that I will take care of them."

Of course, the Admiralty was keeping track of her. Officers and admirals reached out to her for years to see if she could help. Almost every single one had their prayers answered.

"You know, one day Shepard, you're gonna be in charge of a cruiser, or a dreadnaught, and you're gonna have to realize you can't touch base with every single one of the crew like you do. I've read your reports, and, by God, you really try to know them."

Harris had been an up and coming star in the Urban Combat Championship leagues, he had dropped instead to fight for Humanity amongst the stars with his machine gun.

Bannon had been running from her third marriage.

Loke and Tali were becoming fast friends. Cut from the same cloth perhaps if their casual conversations were anything to go by: very similar, that is. If anything, Tali preferred to spar with Loke, and the Marine had agreed.

Emerson had been always shooting for the top, but falling just short. Not because he couldn't make it, but because he realized it would put him next to the likes of herself or Ryder. He, more than anyone, knew what the galaxy did to people like them.

Forty-five crew members.

Forty-five people she knew.

Forty-three stories down.

It was those two remaining that were glaring at her.

"I have that chance now Admiral. So I'm going to do it."

"Hm. And what do you know of them now?"

JD was a smoker, grew up on Earth, like her. West Virginia. Tried to save as many lives as he could as an SOF operator in his profession. He was quiet. A man of action. He slept a lot. Used a language moved to antiquity by the rise of VIs and computing technology. Was part of some sort of special program along with-

Mai Gul. Orphan. Spaceborne. She didn't know sign language; that's why she was being taught. Quiet as well, said nothing more than what she needed to. Complained about nothing, did everything that was asked of her. She was not a personality. She was an asset in the highest sense, and Shepard hadn't realized that someone like that could exist beneath her brutality.

Shepard didn't want to define her by attachment to someone else, and yet, that was a part of her two master chiefs.

Mai had, she had dared to use the word, cared for JD deeply. That was her perception of them.

How did she know that? For all of Mai's omniscience on the battlefield, for how she operated, she only regarded two constraints, two considerations in how she did. They were not forced upon her, could not be forced upon her, they were her choice: The constraint of orders, and then JD. She always kept the man in her regard.

Shepard had told Hackett all of this, and yet it wasn't enough. "I know what it's like to be underneath black ink, Admiral. And yet… they seem oppressed of themselves… I don't remember ever coming across classified info that went down to who those people were."

"In their case, Commander, it's needed."

"But why?" Shepard had been short of a snap at Hackett. "I know what mission I'm on, Admiral. But what about them?"

"Their tasking is to support you."

Shepard had followed up so fast, she betrayed herself. "Then what's so special about them?"

Hackett sucked in some breath. "Commander. There are people in this life you will never truly understand. Chief Gul and Chief Durante are of that nature for a reason. They are assets. You have understand the pure tactical and political nature of their existence confides in them that, and they know it as well."

Political?

Nothing ventured, nothing gained. She had stared down admirals before, stared down entire battlefields. She knew who she was now.

"Admiral, respectfully. I have to invoke my status as a Spectre in regards to Chief Gul and Chief Durante. I deserve to know who my crew are, and I expect a full brief when I arrive on Altis."

Shepard had almost been sure the hologram had frozen as she sucked in her chest to say that. Hackett's eyes widened, silent. It was a silent unbecoming of him, and yet, one that Shepard knew all too well. She had hit a strain. People always assumed the shape of her, her role in their lives. That went all the way to Hackett.

"Is that your decision, Commander Shepard?"

She had killed those that the world might've thought as innocent. Her resolve, her dare, had been that much. She knew how low she could go and come out. "Yes, sir."

Hackett looked down at his feet as he nodded. "Very well."

There was only but one question, one command, one thought in her mind that she would never ask. Everything else was free game to her.

"Is that all, Commander?"

Her stomach was tight in pain, but she knew how to deal with it as she saluted the Admiral. "I should go."

And she did, bowing out, returning to her quarters that day, a little side quest in her mind put there: What's so special about the Chiefs?

Staring up at the ceiling, she had run her thumbs over her knuckles, and thought of the secrets that surrounded her.

Mai had been black and blue all over, a handful of days after. Wrex's face had been bent askew but he hadn't minded, even as his jaw seemed a bit looser than usual.

"Ghoul."

"Wrex."

Was the only thing that the two had said to each other since that fight, the limping they had all walked with now shared. He had kept up his part of the deal and not relented his information which he saw witness too, but, more than enough, JD had spilled some sort of the beans anyway. He was quieter now, in the days since, avoiding eye contact with Shepard as she did her rounds.

"Are you okay, Master Chief?" Shepard had asked JD directly, having caught him eating lunch on the crew deck with Chakwas, comparing battlefield medicine notes.

"Yes ma'am." Was all he answered.

Wrex and Mai had been the ones to perform aid on each other. All very rudimentary stuff: The way Mai had picked out pieces of his scales she had punched into him, or the way that Wrex stitched her leg shut. Respect. There was respect to each other. Not one of earned respect, not one of honor, but that of knowledge. Mai had been humbled, at the very least. It was the worst a fight had gone for her in years. Perhaps in a real battlefield thing would've been different, but this was the closest they would've probably gotten.

Not like it mattered.

Chief Adams had stood over the two as they held magnetic grips. "You two, I'm gonna need official metrics on your punches, because what the hell."

Wrex and Mai had taken many punches to the floor in the fight, dents in each place they landed had remained, only to be popped back out by a magnet converted by Tali.

"Classified." Mai had rattled out as they finished up. She still hadn't been in her techsuit, now just in her duty uniform.

Without it, she seemed different. The appearance of her, without the trappings of her armor, her suits, this was the most Human she had been in a while.

All JD could do was watch from afar, losing himself in his memory leaning against the Mako.

He admired the Spartans, long ago. It was a rumor that many of the best ODSTs became Spartans. Now he knew that had been a lie, put down the wire like so many battlefield stories, but back then, and still in some fashion, he admired the champions of Humanity in the war.

If he could die so one of them could live on, to survive, to win the war, he wouldn't have minded.

If he could die for Mai-

"Are you okay, JD?"

With a face, bruised to all hell, and one eye of hers nearly buried by the enflamed, purple flesh of a black eye, she had been the one asking that. She was finished, and Wrex had retired to his dark corner of the well deck. They hadn't talked so directly since the fight.

Another ship boarding, this time less lethal, another stop on a planet for the Normandy to discharge. The busy missions that Shepard had amused them with; promising they were all going toward the fight with Saren. The regular and routine had taken people's minds off a lot of the peculiarities of serving on the Normandy on the way to Altis.

JD had straightened his mouth, and that was all Mai needed. He was fine. (Better now that she had asked.)

He shook his head. "Better than you. Don't worry about me."

"JD." She said again.

He looked at her.

Mai had looked so different, battered and hurt.

The image of Mai in his mind had been revealed, the one that he had taken without his own conscious knowledge:

Her lips were always curled upward, almost as if pouting. A mean resting bitch face if he had ever known one, and perhaps part of the Spartan curriculum. It was no wonder it had taken him this long to reckon he had been able to look at her and not look away. She had an oblong face, and her hair, now grown out in its darkest black, chocolate hues, framed it neatly on both sides. She was unused to having it that long, a rather poor ponytail made by her in the back, a rubber band holding it all together. Thinner eyebrows always seeming to curved down made her eyes only so much fiercer.

That was the very first organic thing he had ever seen of her: her eyes. Electric blue. The blue that burned. It hadn't been natural; he knew that at least.

"JD?" She caught him looking at her. Did she really look that bad?

"Oh uh. Nothing." He scrambled. "Don't want to put Shepard off of us, is all. Sorry." He apologized, clumsily.

"Mm." She let slip from her throat. She wasn't disappointed. Not in him. She knew indoctrination and to be addressed was something that went bone deep. She went up, tracing the blackened oval around her eye. "If… anything, I would be the one doing it… Can I have…?"

She didn't need to finish. Up from his collar: her necklace. She almost jumped at him with her hands to seize it back, but she settled herself, letting JD take it off and, gingerly, place it back into her hands.

"Thank you."

"Of course."

They stood there, in front of each other, moments passing by, ease and calm.

Mai had very rarely ever felt the grain of her necklace, not with her fingers, her pads. It felt warm, it felt familiar. It felt like it was hers.

How do I know that?

Spartans were assets, property. Nothing belonged to them. They belonged to the UNSC; to their masters.

"Hey uh… Been a hot minute." JD sputtered out, and he had shifted to move, back behind the Mako, to her cot and their lockers, away from view. He didn't need to say anything else; she knew. It was as natural as it came at this point.

She looked so different, without the skin of a Spartan. Sliding her necklace back into her neckline JD had looked away. It was hard to feel anything particularly carnal when it came to Mai. He was a red-blooded male, same as most ODSTs. A few, choice encounters asides, he had preferred the female form as much as anyone. Though Mai, her figure was still different. He had seen her naked within the first days of meeting her (and many times after that). The scars, it marked her as much as it marked his memory. The herculean visage of her was all covered with scar tissue and muscles which screamed at him as unnatural. To think of anything deeper, it was impossible.

She was a Spartan, and all that that had meant.

She slid down onto her cot, sitting, as JD pulled up a crate.

Eye level. A rarity, and something she allowed with him.

"Are you okay, Mai?" JD had pressed the question back on her earnestly. Mai didn't know how to answer, opening her mouth, a slightly puffed lip biting into her teeth as she decided to simply look at her own biometrics with her omni.

"I am condition green." She decided. "I am… okay." She parroted.

She did not look like it at all, and yet she was. What a privilege, what a horror.

JD had only remembered that there had been an idea, put forth over the wire: Spartans never died. Back then he knew himself it was some sort of morale boosting propaganda, and yet, seeing Mai, here, now, he wondered if it was true. He wondered what really could kill a Spartan.

The silence between them was always comforting. Many times, JD would be obliged to nap, to fall asleep in her presence. That was her safety that she provided, however there was a tension in the air and they both felt it. Things they needed to talk about, futures they needed to face. So many things and they weren't the best at it.

It was a surprise to even herself that Mai stepped first in talking. It had been on her mind since she had first seen JD gun down a Human.

"Have you gotten used to it? JD?"

"Hm?"

"Killi-" Mai stopped herself. "Fighting, other humans."

A few away missions already JD would have to take down other humans. In the heat of battle, of course he was fine. But it was the after: seeing their bodies, knowing that he had been the one to put them in the ground. Mercenaries, pirates, all sorts of unsavory types. Manpower during the war with the Covenant was always so emphasized. Survival to fight another day, except in the most extreme cases, was emphasized. Humanity could only speed up so many generations to die, and even he, at 26 years old, was old. To kill other humans felt so wrong to him for the wrong reasons: in regards to the war they left. He didn't even want to confront the other part of it; the moral part of it.

"I wish I didn't know that it's… the same as killing Covenant."

Mai had nodded urgently. So he did understand. "I don't like it. I never did." She spoke. So many dead from Feros. All from her. Headshots, like clockwork. She didn't like it, but she was good at it. More than good. Perfection in her craft. Not an ounce of irony in her voice.

"It was Humanity's normal once, wasn't it?" He mused, head hung back, looking at a now familiar ceiling. "Killing each other..."

He wanted a smoke, he really did, but he couldn't bring himself to.

"Normal." Mai said so quietly, she reached up, feeling a bang of her black hair, disparaging its length, trying to distract herself. "What is a normal life for you, JD?"

Oh. JD's head moved forward, looking at her in earnest as opposed to leaning on cold steel. "Why do you ask?"

"I would like to know." She said promptly.

To know what JD wanted. To know what a normal life was. To know what she could not.

She said it so softly, it was unlike her.

What was a normal life?

"It's an apartment for me." JD started like that at least. "Not on a planet. I'm uh, not really used to planetside. It's also uh… coffee. Every morning. Just because I want it. Not because I need it."

It's a bed that could fit him four times over. It's sheets like the ones he gave Mai. It's a kitchen and homecooked meals. A fridge with his mother's cooking. Neighbors that didn't mourn for lost family. A war that never was. It's cigarettes, over the balcony, looking up at the stars. Quiet days where he didn't have to worry about his gear. Reading. Maybe reading. Weeks where he didn't need to open his mouth except to maybe say hello to his mailman.

Maybe it's teaching more people about ASL. As a hobby? Perhaps.

Vacations somedays to when he did want to go meet real dirt, and real air, see blue sky above where he didn't drop out of.

A partner. To share it with.

Friends.

A place in the world where no one would bother him.

Mai had sat quietly, listening to him get lost in thoughts he didn't know he verbalized. JD was quiet. And she liked that. Marines that acted, not talked, were always her preference. But JD's silence was more to her. He didn't need to speak to communicate to her, and yet… speech was not lost from him. He spoke to her because she would listen.

She listened, and she didn't understand.

"A normal life, Mai. What is it for you?"

A war that would never end. Where she fought against Humanity's enemies to the very end. A place where her death meant something.

That was her normal.

"There will be Covenant on Altis." A fact two of them had to heavily contend with. "My normal is to kill them all."

"I know." JD had looked away from her. It wasn't an I know of empathy; it was pure understanding. It had been his normal once too. Mai understood this. "They're different now."

"That's not true." Her intensity rose, like an accusation, electric blue eyes burning into JD.

"It has to be." He squinted away, to the floor, to a pile of ash from a cigarette he'd yet to dust away.

"How do you know that." She asked with such expectation, such harm promised.

He did have an answer though. It was clear as day. "It's because we are different now."

It was an uncomfortable truth in both their minds. They were not the people they would be if they stayed in their universe. Was that right?

Mai thought about it, and the most glaring change she knew had been of JD, and even her. As grating as she was to accept by order and by courtesy forced upon her: they were acquaintances with aliens. For JD, it was more.

"How'd you do it?" She ground through her teeth.

"Hm?" JD saw the edge.

"With… Garrus and Tali. You became familiar of them very easily." She stopped herself before admitting. "Friendly."

Tali was present today, having just come back from an away mission where the Geth were present. She was giddy, holding her hands up to her chest as she and Loke spoke about something or another, their forms bouncing in a shared laugh as Tali was among company with Hitman. Garrus was catching some shut eye for his own break. He had been helping Hitman attend to their weapons, albeit after having spent a late-night last night with JD. They spoke of their fathers and their mothers, of the big case that almost split their unions and the pain imparted on them as children.

"It helps that they're… not humanoid," JD started, not knowing where to start. "I mean, I guess Tali is but you know what I mean." Mai stared at him with a blank face. She didn't. "Tali was very easy. She's friendly, she's spunky. She reminds me of, I dunno, the nerdy girl back in high school. We're friends. I can be friends with her. She's, they're-, they're not like totally different from us."

"I don't know what you mean, JD." Mai had put so much stone, almost aggravation in her voice that JD paused, trying to impart knowledge from a base she never had.

He found something though. Something he thought privately when he and Garrus spoke to each other at night so naturally. "Tali could be Human. Liara could be Human. Garrus could be Human. Imagine if they weren't their races. Imagine if they were… me. My body."

Mai tilted her head, "But they aren't Human."

What did it mean to be Human?

It was a question far beyond him to answer, and yet Mai needed to know. "It's just something you know, Mai. It's something I don't think-"

"I wouldn't know?"

JD cringed, but it was the truth. She never grew up. She never became Human. She was made.

He couldn't move, couldn't nod or affirm, because he didn't want that shame of confirming still, after so long. He could talk though.

"For Garrus:" He looked at his table where he often kept to himself. He was on the Marine side of the Well Deck, but he weathered it well. He was as strong and as acclimated as they came and JD had been thankful it had been him there, to be a Turian and be in Shepard's crew. "I understand him. He knows what it was like to grow up like I did. We share something, and that is so affirming. I call it Human, but it's a common experience that we have. That we share."

Share. That word. It stung on Mai's mind.

"But what about us?" It was heavy in impropriety, quiet and barely said with her voice, coming from within her. "What do we share JD?"

It was a horrible question. One that spoke to a question beyond who they were as individuals. It was a question of Spartanhood.

They didn't even share the same blood and bones.

No answer came from JD.

He opened his mouth, raised his hands to sign, but nothing could come, nothing could be said, or signed. Because there was no answer they could find easily. The only thing they shared overtly was a definition so common: They were Human.

They knew, and for perhaps one of the first times in her life, Mai knew tragedy in her heart.

His mother, JD remembered his mother, unable to sign her way to her son's heart in moments where he needed it. He reached out to Mai's hand, slowly, looking away, and touched upon it, sitting in a fist on her knee. She had unfurled it by reaction, feeling skin on skin contact she had not felt in years. Nothing in her years of training and combat experience made her know what to do as JD slid his own hand, for a moment, into her palm, thumb moving across the back, holding her. Somehow their hands had been the same size, JD had recalled immediately as he became conscious of what he was doing. Emulating his mother, his right hand was in her own right hand. He hadn't clasped it entirely, but instead gotten deep enough to simply apply pressure, running his thumb across her knuckles once, twice, three times before drawing away.

She liked doing that: rubbing her knuckles when she was anxious.

Mai had held her breath the entire time, beating back the urge to squeeze back. It was the fear of breaking his hand. JD saw no danger however as he had drawn back, looked at her again, and breathed out as if nothing had happened.

The warmth of his hand, his fingers, were ghosted now on her own palm, and she curled it up toward her, looking with her eyes for this magic he left. It wasn't the same as fighting people, the feel of flesh as she ripped and teared. It was certainly not like Wrex. This was JD touching her. Skin on skin.

Starved.

The word in her mind for what she felt.

Touch starved.

JD had made a fist over his chest, almost as if mirroring what she had been doing, but had moved it in a cycle twice.

I'M SORRY.

Sorry for not knowing, for not feeling, as you do. That's what he hoped was imparted.

If it was, Mai didn't need it. Not from him, of all people. There were things she would never understand about people, but she could understand JD, and that was enough for now.

"JD. Would you like to practice?"

She had, with a face, broken and bruised, had looked at him with a comfortableness. A comfortableness that broke his heart. Despite the hurt, she tried. She tried to smile, and in trying, she did for him.

Mai had wanted to try. For him. She always did, no matter what he had presented her with.

He had never seen her smile before.

"I'd like that, Mai. I'd like that." He nodded to himself, and she had settled in front of him on her cot as she always did. "Let's work on declaratives…"

"Well well well," The alluring Asari had looked him up and down as her Batarian guard did a sweep with his omni of them. It wouldn't matter. The weapons they had wouldn't register as them. "Who knew that something called the Covenant would have its heretics."

Kaal Roth had chittered a bit, hearing that word she used. He knew religion. He had been to High Charity, he had taken part in the holy sermons and seen the divine machines of the Forerunners. He was impressed then, but the Gods of his galaxy were not here.

The Demons had come, sure, but he knew what Demons lay in wait to be discovered. He knew, and he was spared. He called that, as he had flown from Virmire, a testament to faith.

With the Covenant, he had never met the gods, the Forerunners.

Here had very much met God, and it had made him a believer. Not a follower however.

Aria T'Loak had been the figure of worship here on that rock and he stood before her.

A former mining station, now turned into a city in the stars. The Humans knew it as Omega. Kaal preferred the Krogan translation: land of opportunity.

It wasn't the first time in that last week he had stood before something of worship. In that electronically loud bar, its patrons nonethewiser to those above them, Kaal Roth made his case.

"There's a saying that a Human had. I don't know if he existed here," he started, arms crossed and shield projector faced out toward her Batarian guard. It hadn't been activated, but it was better safe than sorry. "Money degrades all gods, and turns them into commodities. I know what I'll pray to."

Her guards had been more focused on the two Hunters that had been his main show of force, the squad of Jackals that had also come came with weapons that the galaxy had barely seen yet. It was a thing of magic that kinetic barriers had been so cheap, easily extracted from the Quarians they stole the ship from. They hadn't been harder to kill in their entire lives.

Harder to kill enough that they had come to this bar, where they were pointed to, and went head on with who was in charge. That was the lease on life that Kaal and his band of "heretics" felt. If they went back to Altis, they would've been labeled as such by straying from the path.

That path led them to an Asari, drenched in a darkness that was not of color, but of being. The neon lights of this club did nothing to illuminate her.

A lot of leather on her. Kaal wonder how much it costed. "I'm entertaining you tonight because, obviously, you're new here. Newer here than anyone who has ever stepped foot on Omega. That doesn't buy you long however. Speak."

"Right to business. I like that." He flared his omni. "I'm looking for a place to bring more like me over. The way this galaxy is going, I feel like we're going to need it."

Aria had been indifferent, crossing her legs as she looked over her shoulder at the Asari dancers in their cages. "We see a lot of Quarian ships out here, nowadays. They're probing the Veil, trying to gauge the Geth. We keep track of them, so, let me just say that your approach vector into this system was… interesting."

"Is it now?" Kaal had tipped his head up. Aria had offered him a seat on that elongated couch, reaching to the side of the lounge. He obliged. "These Mass Effect drives are often a limiting factor. We're not used to them."

"Oh don't play coy. I've got a dozen Spectres around my finger and the picture that's been painted for me says you're in the background. Are you?"

He stood before God, and all that it asked of him was who he had been, and where he came from. He gave it, and it let him go. "It wouldn't be good for my life expectancy if I was."

"Hmph… You know the galaxy has a bounty on Saren. If you knew where he was, you might be obliged to call it in."

"I have no idea who that is." Kaal spoke with as much brevity he could muster. Not that it was the truth, but because he had to say it. He did not know Saren, because if he did, he was about to be so much more important than he could handle. Jackals like him weren't meant for that.

Aria was reflective, the color of red bouncing off the smooth skin of her face, her lip gloss, like shimmering glass. She looked off and away into her club, reminiscing. "Saren. I know him. As a younger Spectre he found his place among this part of the galaxy, killing so, so many. Sometimes for me, sometimes against my interests, but he was never someone to be trifled with. If he didn't mess with you… that means something. And if you screwed him over, well, it wouldn't be in my benefit to harbor you, if that's what you're looking for."

"We're all dead eventually." Kaal sneered. "And in any case, we're not hiding from no one. Jackals like me, we know when to fight, when to deal."

"Oh my. So much spunk for someone who is barely cunt level with me." Each word from her was a confusing cloak of Asari seduction and cold-blooded ruthlessness. "Tell me about the Jackals then."

Kaal adjusted some of his whiskers. "We're a pragmatic people. Put a price tag on it, and that's how we'll decide whether or not we do something. It's built into our bones."

"Including breaking off from the Covenant?"

Kaal had picked at some of his talons, glancing at the Hunters that came with him. They were like statues. "Not the first time. And the Covenant isn't what it used to be. At least here."

Skeptical. Then again Aria had always been skeptical. Anyone who lived as long as her had been. "Right, right… interdimensional refugees you all are. And you're fine settling right back into merc work?"

"If you've got the right price… and this place, Omega, it feels right."

It was like a mirror image of High Charity, painted a different scheme. Not the holy city, but rather unholy. He had checked the translation in his omni tool. For his people, it had translated as the virgin seas.

"You're soldiers?"

Kaal's shield was very well used, he flashing his emitter, chromed and shiny. "Humanity put up a fight."

"Humanity?"

"Not yours."

"Oh."

"Maybe you'll know one day, but hey, many of my men, they're veterans, same as me. We've burned planets."

Veterans were a dime a dozen on Omega, especially those of the persuasion of Kaal and his band, however those veterans, inversely, were not Kaal and his band. Just the two Hunters as she was told, they were like none she had ever seen. They were not individuals, they were weapons. She had heard of what happened on Altis, and seen what kind of fighting had happened. Alliance forces were beat to a pulp before communications were normalized. No one knew or would understand how these Covenant-types would fight in a one to one fight, however Aria was a betting woman, thinking about her domain.

"The lower decks. That's… let's just say my grasp around it isn't as tight as it is here. I've been meaning to reaffirm, and, well, what better way to remind people what station there are by the presence of a new outpost manned by some enforcers."

Staking a claim. "Does sound like an idea."

They spoke a frank language, they understood each other by the basis of power and territory. She waved a hand up, giving an order. "You're on your own on how you do it, but whatever you do, it's in my name. Remember that."

That was that. He got what he needed. Kaal had hopped off the couch, rallying his Jackals down in the bar and the Hunters with a ping on their omnis. "Of course. I'll always remember who cuts me my check."

"Hm?" Aria cocked her head. It wasn't through the translator.

"A Human expression. I learned their language before I ever came to this galaxy."

"Well, just make sure you learn mine."

"Of course, what're the fundamentals?"

"There's just one rule. It's really easy to follow if you're smart."

"And what would that be?"

Omega was her holy place. She was its empress. "Don't fuck with Aria."

For as much of a smirk as he could put on, Kaal had done so. "Everyone else free game then?"

Aria returned it.

He woke up as men of action sometimes do: With a kick to his side.

JD's eyes flew open as a pained sound erupted from his throat in a burst, he turning over immediately to Garrus simply at his console apathetic in watching Emerson a little roughly toe tap the man's ribs. To be fair he was used to getting waken up like this. He had dozed off by the Mako's service console, having been lulled to Garrus's typing on the Mako's diagnostics panel. ("They've gotta name this thing after me at some point JD.")

The dimmed lights, the fact that none of the usual deck crew was around… It was the night cycle on the Normandy. Behind him through the Mako he could faintly hear Mai's breathing. She was sleeping.

The shock trooper looked up to an almost plain clothed Emerson, just a simple undershirt that the Marines often wore beneath their BDU. To be fair he was wearing the same. Away missions with Shepard had been scarce for the full Marine team. No need to bring out the full guns when a small fireteam could suffice. Still many volunteered if they could. JD felt it. No one wanted to be in the well deck too long, ever since the fight.

A spare locker had been turned over on the floor by the Marine's side, used as a table as a circle of half a dozen men and women surrounded it. "Black jack. Interested?" Emerson posed, then even looking over to Garrus. "You too, Vakarian."

Garrus had looked at his running calibrations for the Mako's main gun. Whoever the Alliance tech was that was in charge of factory testing was certainly slacking. "What's the pot?"

"Credits. Shore leave shit. Same as usual. You two in?"

"What's black jack?" Garrus asked, deadpanned, half still busy with the diagnostics.

"A way for me to steal money from my men fair and square." Emerson said frankly.

JD and Garrus had shared a gaze, and a nod. Why not.

Emerson pocketed his hands after offering a grip down to JD. He had taken it, rising him up as the last two players were drawn away to Hitman's corner of the well deck. "We're due for a place called Noveria. Corporate colony. Rather boring if you ask me, but chances are there's some real luxury shit over there."

It was still odd for JD, traveling on a starship without the pretense of going to war. The galaxy was, relatively, at peace. There was conflict, yes, but there was no frontline, no overbearing presence of an enemy. He was simply traveling, on a journey, bagging goons beneath moons.

Hitman's corner, musty as usual, but for JD that was par for the course. He himself probably didn't smell any better. The sonic fresheners of the sleeper pods could only do so much. Even UNSC ships had showers. But that was the peculiarities of the Normandy. He had no reference for standard ships of the line.

It was a Marine's corner, truly. Out of reg accommodations, out of reg people, but Shepard was a Marine herself, she let it fly for the sake of late-night casualness.

"Durante." Bannon had been there, toothbrush in her mouth as she spat in a water bottle.

"JD is fine."

"Whatever you say spook." Harris had been there. No chair could be there as they sat in a school circle. A full table tonight. Ten now. Seating was provided even for Garrus and JD though, as abrasive as Hitman was.

A weapon locker was shared between Garrus and JD for seating.

"Here's my big idea." Annel had been in the middle of a conversation as she continued speaking after greeting the shock trooper and the Turian. "We go back to using bullets. Powder and casings and shit." She gestured back to Shepard's sniper rifle above Hitman's lockers, hoisted for decoration the same as her bear rug in the crew deck.

It had a name now: Bear.

It took several weeks for that one.

Emerson had cleared his nose, going into his pack and drawing the cards for tonight, thinking about it. "Go medieval on their asses?"

"Well yeah. They won't expect it. I mean, I think Wrex's shotgun uses shells or something. Our armor? Our barriers? They're over tuned for standard issue. Something slow and big like, I dunno, a fifty cal? Is that big?"

The M6 SOCOM pistol, JD had known it was a 12.7 cartridge. Fifty caliber by an American metric. Depending on the bullet itself it could cut right through even Elite armor and out the other side. Collateral damage had necessitated standard issue ammunition to be APHE: Armor-piercing, high explosive. He had seen enough Grunt heads pop with it.

Bannon interjected. "Remember Altis? The Covenant? Their weapons were mostly energy based. Some hard projectiles. Can hardly remember seeing barriers melt like that."

That's right. JD had been suddenly, intimately aware. Hitman, with Ryder, had been on the ground on Altis. They had fought the Covenant.

Maybe they weren't so bad.

"Just a matter of tuning." Emerson spoke. "We should be getting readouts on Covenant weapon metrics soon. I don't know how we couldn't have that info now, seeing as they're squatting on Altis."

"What's your take on the Covenant?" JD spoke out loud. He couldn't bear it any longer, hands clasped between his legs as he sat. "Honest."

Nutt, a demolitions expert with Hitman, had rolled his bearded face around once, considering. A teacher from Earth once. The most educated. "I'm not quite sure how we're supposed to feel about a transdimensional union of aliens. A religious sect at that."

"Well that and they shot at us." Harris recalled.

"Yeah," Nutt relented, patting down some grenades still attached to his duty belt. "I'm no fuckin' liberal pansy like Lieutenant Alenko, bless his optimism about other races, and no offense Vakarian, but no group fights like they did without having been in the shit at some point."

"Their documents did say that they were in a protracted war against heretics." Emerson pointed out.

The information packet sent from the Covenant had been as much of a beautiful farse to JD and Mai as anything, and yet, it revealed so much. Biological profiles, typical appearances, naming conventions and cultural notes, along with operation of Covenant society, it was a great reference to truly understand what the Covenant was that the two UNSC soldiers didn't exactly know how to process. They didn't know what to do with the fact that Engineers, Huragok in proper terms, were a race of biological super computers. They didn't know what to do with what a female Sangheili looked like or the organization of the Jiralhanae clans.

More than that, they didn't know what to do with the explanation of the Forerunners.

All around Hitman, the reception to the Covenant had been, at best, just as their feelings to JD and Mai. At worst, just more Batarians or Krogan.

"I don't trust them. Not one bit. They shouldn't be on Altis." JD had finally let spit. "We should've bombed them out."

Garrus to his side had seen JD avoid his gaze, looking at his hands. His mandibles had flicked, once or twice. He knew that tone. Knew that tone from Humans who believed in a certain kind of supremacy. It was hatred, run deep.

Bannon cracked a smirk. "Well, well, there's something about the way you said that, Durante-"

"JD."

"JD… That scores you some points."

"Yeah?" JD tilted his head up to look at Bannon as she spoke, across the "table".

She held her cheek with a hand, callouses on her finger from trigger time. JD had the same. "It's the strong and silent types that you've gotta look out for. Now throw in."

"Now wait," Garrus raised his talon. "I still don't know how to play."

JD had huffed through his nose, tapping his elbow. "You've calibrated the Mako's gun five times already since dinner. You'll pick it up quick."

Garrus did pick it up quick.

"Let me get this straight, just so I know you Humans aren't taking it out on this poor Turian." About a half an hour in and a few rounds already blown through. "We get two cards from the dealer, one face up, one face down to keep the table guessing. Our goal is to get closest to 21, or get 21. If you go over you bust. On each go around we can ask for a card to get us closer."

"And I thought you Turians were hard to teach."

"Ah shut up Harris." Annel had been particularly sour after losing a hand herself on the draw, bringing her legs up to her chest as her curly red hair was let out momentarily, she running a hand through it. She was about down 500 credits. "I remember you gushing about Vakarian when he improved the Mako's shocks. God knows Shepard can't drive worth shit."

"Oh I'm blushing." Garrus's sardonic snark was always appreciated. "I need something to blush about when I'm down 1200." JD preferred black jack, which was why he himself was down a smooth 200. There was something else on Garrus's tongue, and this was much of an opportunity to jump on it. "You guys are rough with me. I know… but I have to ask. Is it because I'm a Turian, or just the ribbing?"

Hitman had tensed up, Emerson had tensed up, and that had meant something. JD knew Emerson at this point; pegged him for the type of Marine he was. The Marine who always completed the mission: a by the books badass. And yet even he had paused.

"Maybe at first. We, of all people, don't take to you Turians well, but that's just how it is around the Marines, I'm sure you understand."

"Hmph."

"But… God damn, Vakarian. You're more Human than some of us."

Where they sat had been where Mai and Wrex had fought days ago, and the marks were still there beneath their feet and in the air around them.

Garrus cleared his throat, agreeing when he inferred who he was compared to. "Chief Gul, she put up quite a fight… There's uh, something to be respected about it."

Everyone had tensed up, talking about Mai. As if she would be summoned by utterance or mention. She cast her shadow, and only by being near them, did JD know that there had been one. A frown on his face formed, but he couldn't afford to now. He needed a poker face.

"Mm. Here we go again."

Marco Favero was Hitman's engineer. Marco usually. Spaniard with all the slick looks of the best of hunks. Problem was he spoke with an Irish accent. "You're feckin' takin' us for a ride, Kay."

Kay was Emerson's nickname, his first name being Kristian. The K was special.

"Free to get off at any point." Emerson dealt out cards as usual, the flick of paper being put down soothing, if not sore at this point. Emerson was up about 3000.

King and a three. JD had looked over his cards. Sounds like a hit.

"Mm. Fuck this." Bannon had joined Annel's sourness, giving away her ghost. She wore her heart on her sleeve and out her mouth. Impulsive.

"Is that a give?" Garrus cocked his head. "I think it's a give."

Bannon growled. She was always very verbal. "Mm. You're lucky you've got a nice voice, Vakarian. Otherwise I'd tell you to shut up." She ground out. "Fold."

"It's the pleasing harmonics along with our translators. Don't take it like she wants to fuck you." Harris had tiredly said, big palm covering the bottom of his face as he looked at his cards. A seven showing.

Garrus could only make a point by just humming flatly. It was what JD imagined what an actual dog whistle sounded like, albeit not as painful, sitting right next to Garrus.

"Mmm. Think I'm wet." Nutt had been full of sarcasm, not too disturbed with his cards. Ace showing. "Keep doing it Vakarian."

Garrus shook his head as he looked as his cards, he dealt last. Ace showing as well. "My voice, my voice. Spirits, what is it about it."

"It fits your personality. Unlike JD." Emerson pointed out. "Hit?"

JD nodded. A card was flipped his way. Another three.

Fuck.

He almost ignored the comment. "Huh?"

"Stand?"

"What? No. Hit."

Another card. Another three.

What the hell.

"Stand… But what do you mean?"

Emerson had ignored JD as he went around, dealing cards, taking names. It was a massacre like whenever Hitman was on the ground.

"Hit." Harris had called.

"Your ass." Emerson breathed out, disappointed. Another Ace.

Two aces shown? Not good for Harris. "God damn. Hit." Ten. "You rig this shit every time."

"Not a cheater, Brian…. Vakarian, stand?"

Garrus had let slip the targeting apparatus on his head for a moment, looking at his hidden card with fresh eyes. "Hit me… With a card that is."

"Of course."

Jack. JD was out, and he had rolled his eyes.

"21. Read it and weep." Victory was in Garrus's voice. Prematurely showing.

"Nah uh uh." Emerson wagged a finger, flipping his cards. He had a queen showing himself. Heavy face card round. An ace himself was drawn and the entire "table" groaned. "21 as well. Push. This one didn't happen."

"What?" Garrus blinked not understanding.

Emerson explained. "Dealer gets a 21 along with someone else it nullifies the round. At least how we do it."

A mandible flared, annoyed. "You're cock sure you could."

"I count cards, Vakarian."

"Hmph."

"What do you mean, sergeant? My voice doesn't fit me?" JD returned to his subject, but Emerson hadn't explained. Bannon did. All of Hitman generally spoke for each other.

"You've gotta sorta whispy voice. Almost as if you're not putting enough air in each word. Yet you look like any regular operator, 'hun. Handsome and rugged, yet it looks like you've got a sensitive side." She winked at him, he grimaced back.

"Eh. I just don't think he's the type we expect to talk." Harris followed up. "Not really an insult, by the way. You just seem like, I dunno, the focused type."

"I bet he plays an instrument. Like some turbo nerd." A Hitman had called out, motioning back to what Garrus had warned him prior. It was from Feros. A would-be weapon from one of the colonist, seized instead. A guitar, dark wooded, properly strung. "I mean he does, you told us Vakarian."

JD and Garrus locked eyes. JD could only be a little annoyed.

"Yeah. I can."

"Got a story at least?" Nutt pressed on as he ran a hand through his beard, popping his omni to check a news article from the net in the downtime from playing. "Played off to your highschool sweetheart for prom? Your father taught you? Had an earworm one summer?"

"Nah. No. Self-taught… My mother. She would hold the guitar while I played. Good vibrations and all that. And well, if it made Mom happy, I'd do it."

Those words came easy. Like they did talking to Mai. It'd been a long time since he had said some of his story to Marines like him. Why tell when they'd be most likely dead in the month?

Old habits died hard, and Hitman, for all their grit toward them, were Human still.

"Play something, yeah?" Bannon had gotten up, seizing the guitar leaning on a locker, bringing it over. He cringed seeing her grab it by the neck, palm in the strings. "I used to be a singer. Did a Summer touring. I have quite a pair."

"A pair?" Garrus was confused. Tali had been going over the wonderful Human female trait of physical sexual features with him and her language had referred to the chest as "pairs".

"Lungs, Vakarians. I got jack shit for tits. Harris has a bigger cup size than me."

"Fuck off."

"Now can you play?" Bannon made her way to JD, offering, basically pushing the guitar into his lap. Something in his body had made it so the old synapses fired, and he held it like he had known to as a kid. The last time he had seen his guitar was the last day he had been on Luna, over half a decade ago.

Holding the laminated wood, he had felt closer to home than he had in a long time. Garrus shifted off, giving JD room for the neck.

"I uh, I ain't got a pick. I don't do fingerstyle." He answered, trying to weasel his way out. He never could in anything he did.

The distinctive sound of a pistol being vented was heard. Nutt had reached for his gun while no one was looking, pulling back the mechanism, reaching into what was the mini-rail gun's equivalent of its chamber. There, a shard of metal. Thin as paper almost. Deadly as a bullet however. Gun shot wounds were so clean in this universe JD could only be morbidly impressed. "Marco?" Nutt called out.

"Yep." The engineer had popped his omni, a mini blade emanating from his wrist as the pencil sized shard was cut down to an approximation of a pick. "This should do?"

JD was handed it across. Cold, hard tungsten. Shepard had bought ammo for the crew, custom made. The best for the Geth, and yet, in a pinch, could be brought to bear against organics. Not that the type of metal being put through the head mattered that is. For the Geth however, it mattered.

Feeling it over his fingers, between his right index and thumb, yeah, it could work.

"I don't do improv." Hitman took enjoyment in seeing JD squirm, though there was a base hint of curiosity, Bannon raising her hand to settle them. Her face had gotten soft, her green eyes erasing the visage of a tough soldier.

"Let me start then, yeah? I think you can catch on." Bannon had said with her trademark, fierce smirk, and yet it softened as she drank some water, clearing her throat, closing her eyes and laying herself back, getting into the mood.

Sergeant Lisa Bannon. Marine Raider. Hitman Team. A woman lost among the stars, fighting because it made her feel alive. It was something to do, and something she could be told to do with absolute heading. She knew what she was doing in her life and that was enough. In all honesty, JD knew the type. He was the same. It was why he joined the UNSC.

Now here you go again

You say you want your freedom

Well, who am I to keep you down?

A young joy sprang in JD's heart. He too used to be a teenage heart throb. When life was simpler, when life was his town and school and his friends and crushes and youth. He was 26 now. That was only ten years ago, and yet it was a lifetime ago.

He was glad Stevie still survived in this universe, because he knew her very well.

It's only right that you should

Play the way you feel it

But listen carefully

To the sound of your loneliness

This life had changed him. JD knew in his bones as he was surrounded by the warmth of squad members and friends. A privilege he had long since discarded for the safety and sanity of isolation in the midst of a losing war. He was no longer lonely. Not in this life. If there was tragedy in the distance, he paid no mind to it as his fingers felt the familiar prick of metal strings deliver rhythm and peace to match the Dreams spoken into music that night. Bannon's voice was perfectly lyrical, ethereal, despite how people had heard her in battle. It turns out people were deeper than what they did.

Like a heartbeat drives you mad

In the stillness of remembering what you had

And what you lost

And what you had

And what you lost

In the corner, a Spartan wakes. She is aching and in pain, but the sound she comes to in soothes her. Quietly gathering herself, putting asides her blanket, now wrapped over her in all of its guilty comfort, she peers around the Mako.

Mai had looked from her shadows, awake now, unfamiliar with what was happening. Unfamiliar as a Spartan, but familiar as Mai. New Jerusalem, as a child. Vagrants like her that made money playing the guitar as JD did. She remembered their lonely tunes as they traded talent for pennies.

She wished, long ago, that she could have a talent that would've helped her mother from their poverty.

As she was a child, she was captive to the sound of music as a spell came over her, and she felt rain on her mind's eye.

JD smelled like rain.

Thunder only happens when it's rainin'

Players only love you when they're playin'

Say women, they will come and they will go

When the rain washes you clean, you'll know

You'll know

Garrus knew what it was like to have a sister. He had one, of course. Solana. He loved her very much, albeit never really reached out as much as he needed to. Work at C-Sec was always busy, and now? Here? It would've put them both in danger if he reached out.

It was okay, momentarily, however. Tali had stirred awake from his own cot, sleepily drifting toward Garrus as he sat, entranced by the homely music. When Tali had realized that it had been JD playing, she too had been captivated, dreamily. Still tired however, she sat next to Garrus, only to lazily intertwine her arm in his as she leaned on him to continue sleeping, just a little bit.

Tali was the little sister that Garrus remembered of Solana. The life that Solana had found herself in: as in one beneath their father, had been hard, rough, coarse. As a brother, he had been there for her. Tali was much the same.

She was the ship's little sister, cared for with such delicate touches that it painted them all as hypocrites.

In the end, she still came out with them on missions. She still was becoming a soldier because of them. She had killed in their name, and hers.

Tonight though, she needed a little warmth, and Vakarian would do as he simply patted her arm as he had done as an older brother, so long ago.

Now here I go again

I see the crystal visions

I keep my visions to myself

It's only me who wants to wrap around your dreams

And have you any dreams you'd like to sell?

Dreams of loneliness

Liara, she is on the crew deck at the mess table, a lamp given to her as she goes over notes, and notes, and more notes. Kaiden is with her, if only for Liara to bounce ideas off of him. Ideas of the apocalypse, of Shepard, of the Reapers and Saren. Liara she is trying to solve this crusade of the rogue spectre before Shepard has to deal with him.

"There has to be a reason. The Reapers can't be a literal deity." She says. In one data pad there's another report almost unrelated. It's about the Covenant.

It's about their Forerunners.

"We can't be forced to kill God." Kaiden almost mistakes Liara's statement as begging. Until he realizes that it is, and his eyes widen as a picture is painted about the Reapers. "I can't."

Her life's work was turned on its head, and for all her years looking into the past, she realizes the future is fast approaching.

There was a saying amongst Humans: God was in their heaven, and all was right in the world.

God had left heaven, and it was coming for all of them.

Like a heartbeat drives you mad

In the stillness of remembering what you had

And what you lost

And what you had

Ooh, what you lost

There are nights for Shepard that are harder than most. Not because of her visions. Not because of the wars she fought in Justice's name. There are nights that are hard for Shepard, like tonight, as she curls up in her bed and dreams of a life she couldn't take to. She balls her blanket, grasping it, fetal position, and holds it to her stomach as she rubs her thumb over her knuckles for reasons she can't understand.

And she cries silently as the pressure of a billion lives reminds her that she needs rest, and not to worry about herself.

Thunder only happens when it's rainin'

Players only love you when they're playin'

Women, they will come and they will go

When the rain washes you clean, you'll know

Oh, thunder only happens when it's rainin'

Players only love you when they're playin'

Say women, they will come and they will go

When the rain washes you clean, you'll know

You'll know

You will know

Oh, you'll know

The echo of guitar and voice is there, barely. The good harmonics belonged to JD and Bannon that night, in between rounds of black jack.

It was Garrus that began to clap slowly first. "Bravo."

And it followed, it rolled, Bannon gesturing for JD to stand up and take a bow, and he did. All JD could give his panted, happy breaths in return, unable to say anything as the clapping died down, and all eyes were drawn across somewhere else. Confused, momentarily, JD had realized they were all looking across the bay at Mai.

Her eyes were the eyes of a wolf, always stalking their pray. That's what everyone but JD felt as everyone shrunk down. Mai hadn't cared, and didn't notice, locking those eyes with him.

A beat, a moment, a lifetime. A guitar in his hands and not a weapon, a look of normality on his face. He was a young man. Mai saw a young man in JD's place and she felt content.

It was a common mistake: the way she pressed her finger tips against herself, then to cross her arms over her heart and then pointing at him. He really shouldn't have thought anything of it, as it was an easy way to confuse saying "I like that." He knew he had made the mistake when he first learned it, so it was no surprise that Mai had emulated.

She earnestly wanted to compliment JD on his performance.

What instead Mai had signed was the sign for

I LOVE YOU.

"Chief Gul, Chief Durante? Here for the show?"

Shepard had been at the cockpit with Joker in the middle of FTL, moments away from exiting. The final hop into Altis was at hand with its relay. Shepard had called for general quarters and a suit up. Something which the two chiefs were more than happy to oblige by. The Covenant were near.

"Aye ma'am." JD had nodded, his SMG across his chest by sling. Mai had been silent, arms crossed, her form assumed again as Spartan, armor and all.

"So the Normandy has some more refit? This seems rather sudden, Commander." Joker had made the comment as the FTL tunnel beamed around the windows. "I thought my baby was complete and whole."

Shepard shook her head as she adjusted her armor. "I thought so too, but apparently we've got something more."

"Whatever. Last time I was here I didn't have all that much time to sight see."

"You been to Altis?" Shepard had asked, and the two chiefs had felt the same rock in their stomach.

"Ahh, once before, Commander. It's ancient history at this point."

JD and Mai didn't know what to expect, slipping out of FTL into Altis. A Covenant fleet in Quarian skin? That was the worst-case scenario. They expected a return to their normal, and they weren't quite sure if they could play the same part.

Mai had been silent when the final jump to Altis was taken, biding her time. If she saw another Elite… She didn't know what she'd do, and that bothered her. She had her orders but she was still a Spartan. She was made to kill Covenant.

"Oop. Room for one more?" It was Tali, sliding by Mai into the cockpit.

Shepard had nearly been on Joker's back with his seat, she turning around to Tali with an excited "Of course!".

The reason had been obvious.

It was almost the same as the chiefs. Tali had in no small part to her own vocal opinion been skeptical, and even detested the idea of the Covenant, and how easy the Quarian people accepted them all based on a crazy coincidence. A coincidence of astronomy:

This galaxy was the same. Eden Prime had been Harvest. Rannoch was Sanghelios. Earth had been Earth. And yet all the Gods were missing. All the heavens were different. Angels and Demons were present where they had no place; misplaced amongst stars.

"Entering Altis's system now. All hands, prepare for heavy traffic." Joker announced over the PA.

Feeling the slow shift in her fleet, Mai had braced herself.

It was not something to be braced about.

A detail overload. A thousand points of information summed up across so many spectrums of context held by different people.

Altis was a shimmering blue globe which painted the entire system its aqua light, and when the Normandy emerged, the silhouettes of the Milky Way's largest fleet appeared to rival the stars in number. Like a giant cloud of chaos, Altis was in the Normandy's range immediately as the once secluded colony had traffic that rivaled Illium. Thousands of ships, and in between them: purple and magenta shapes. JD and Mai had tensed, even seeing it through the Normandy's piloting screens. It hadn't been a bad dream. The Covenant was still here in this galaxy.

Concentrated above the main colony on the oceanic world, the Alliance Fleet fifth stayed in position as silver Council ships intermingled. Perhaps the spread would've been more dispersed if Quarian ships hadn't been constantly breaking or entering orbit. This was still an Alliance colony, but just at a glance, Shepard knew who was in control. It was hard not to be impressed.

In another life, Tali'Zorah nar Rayya would've returned to the Migrant Fleet a hero and be christened Tali'Zorah vas Neema nar Rayya. The offerings of Geth data to the fleet, the fact that she would've been among those that saved the galaxy from the Reapers at the Citadel, it was a destiny unfulfilled here.

In this life Tali'Zorah nar Rayya, over the human colony of Altis, returned home to wage war.

"Commander Shepard," Tali turned away from the vast Migrant Fleet in the Normandy's view as it approached to Shepard, and she nodded, listening. Joker had been going through typical ATC checks, hailing the Alliance channels, identifying the Normandy and Shepard had arrived. "May I identify the Normandy for the Migrant Fleet as well?"

Shepard had considered for a moment. The Normandy had no business with the Migrant Fleet, but, the idea of having it identified for any future contact, it might've been a worthy idea. "Planning on jumping ship, Tali?" Secretly Shepard hoped Tali did. For her sake.

The Quarian shook her head immediately. "I'm with you, Shepard. But… This is my home."

The first time Shepard returned to Earth, she felt born again. Perhaps that was what Tali was feeling she assumed. So, she let it pass, nodding.

With a flick of her omni-tool, keying into the Normandy's comms, Tali had it.

"This is Tali'Zorah nar Rayya, onboard the Alliance ship Normandy. I'd like to register the Normandy as a kiannu-phar mal mercer." There were terms that even translators could not decipher, when used in certain contexts. This was one such time.

A garbled radio message, bouncing off traffic that was so heavy over Altis, had finally come through.

"Tali'Zorah nar Rayya. Verify."

With that, Tali spoke her people's scripture:

"After time adrift among open stars, along tides of light and through shoals of dust, I will return to where I began."