A/N: Sorry for the delay. Life and all that. But hey! ME trilogy remaster is announced! Let's celebrate with some non-canon stuff!

A heavy body landed on her. Sam let out a cry and tried to get away, kicking and flailing.

"Ow, what the fuck?!"

It was Bray.

"Oh, thank God," Sam sighed, going still so he could get up. He yanked on her arm and she was on her feet next to him, her helmet suddenly in her hand.

"Put this on and stop taking it off!" Bray gruffed. "We need to move!"

Sam did as instructed, snapping the helmet into place even as she ran to Sarah's side. She could see nothing; the biotic light had gone dark. But she could hear something scuttling around, and the look of that hulking monster would be burned on her retinas for all time.

Beth, injured and haggard, nonetheless stood over her downed daughters, the point of her pistol following the shuffling in the dark.

Sam and Bray stood beside her.

{We have shields, you don't,} Bray said to Beth. {Get them moving!}

Beth nodded and turned, moving to her daughters and Finn.

After a moment, Sam's suit picked up Beth's voice, piping the voice in through its speakers. {We're ready, let's go!}

{Get us out of here,} Bray said to Sam. {Somewhere that thing can't follow.}

Blue light shined in Sam's periphery, and she turned, pistol following her gaze. A blue biotic ball of light came her way, and she screamed and jumped to the side. She rolled, finding her feet again, and began to run.

"I can't plot a course while being chased!" she shouted after an eternal minute of running. "But I recognize where we are! We came this way!"

{Good enough!} Bray shouted. {I'm at the rear. Keep moving!}

Sam was once again grateful for the jogging she'd been doing since she became involved with Ashley. Thanks to that new habit, she could lead a haggard band of civilians – her family-to-be – through the dark tunnels of Omega, nothing lighting her way but her pistol's flashlight.

If you'd asked me twelve hours ago what I'd be doing right now, this most-assuredly would not have been my answer.

A rifle fired and a shriek sounded.

{This thing doesn't like bullets, but it doesn't die!} Bray shouted over the comms.

Blue light passed Sam, and then something exploded next to her, throwing her off her feet once more. Her helmet hit hard on the floor, but thanks to Bray making sure she had the helmet in the first place, her head remained intact. She silently swore not to take it off again until she was back on the Normandy.

Sam struggled to find her feet, but something was wrong. She couldn't quite figure out which way was up, and she was sliding, and then suddenly she was floating.

No. Not floating.

Falling.

She screamed, then grunted as she hit something metallic in the dark. The wind was knocked out of her. As she tried to breathe, she was vaguely aware of something snapping and sizzling in her helmet. Silence surrounded her like a tangible thing, thick and close and oppressive.

My radio shorted, she realized, fighting both her own lungs and the panic that knowledge brought with it.

Above her somewhere was her family and Bray facing off against a monster.

Shit. Shit shit shit.

Sam focused on her breath for a few seconds and managed to get it under control. Next, she shined her light around, finding a railing not far away. She reached for it and pulled herself to her feet. Both ankles and a wrist were locked, but she felt no pain – more thanks for this armor. She turned off her light, knowing it would not reach far enough anyway, and just stared up at the walkway she'd fallen from, trying to get some information on what was going on.

Patterned spots of dim blue light shone on both sides of where she'd fall from, perhaps twenty feet apart. The monster she'd seen earlier had been outlined in that kind of light, like bioluminescent fish. The fish-monsters had her family surrounded on either side, the only way out being the fall Sam had taken. Bray's light moved frantically, then suddenly went dark, at the same time as one of the sequences of blue light.

Sam wasn't sure what to do. She couldn't see well, couldn't hear anything, couldn't save the day with her communications or tech skills, and she was too far away for Beth, Lynn, Abby, and Sarah to even know she was okay.

She was truly and most royally fucked.

What the bloody hell was she supposed to do?!

An assault rifle suddenly flew down at her, landing five feet away. Sam's heart fell into her gut, knowing that it had been Bray's, but her indecision melted away. She scrambled for the rifle, lifted it to her shoulder, took aim for the brightest point of blue light. Compensating for the distance, she aimed and squeezed the trigger over and over again until the clip overheated and jettisoned itself.

Then all was still and dark.

Sam popped in a new heat sink. "Is everyone all right up there?!" she called.

Pointless. My helmet isn't working. If they hear me, I'll never hear them.

… I really hope the reason is the dead comms.

What if they're all dead?

I don't want to think about that.

Welp. Better go find out, Sammy.

Sam sighed, turned her light back on, and began to look for a way back up to the walkway she'd fallen from. She had to hurry. Those probably weren't the only monsters in the area.

It took Samantha ten minutes to find an emergency ladder up to the walkway. When she reached the top, though, she nearly shit herself. Hands came out of the dark, grabbing her, pulling her up. Her light revealed that it was Sarah and Lynn, however, so she stopped resisting and let them help her.

They were clearly talking, but she couldn't hear them.

"My helmet!" she shouted. "The earpiece shorted! I can't hear anything!"

Sarah nodded, then reached for Sam's belt pouch again. Medigel. Of course. Someone's hurt.

Sarah disappeared from Sam's side. Sam followed, turning the safety on the rifle and then using its light to shine on the scene.

It was Bray. He was bleeding heavily from his side, but he was alive. Sam practically melted in relief and rushed to his side, reaching for her helmet so she could hear something.

"I said not to take that off," he gruffed as she lifted the helmet, but the fight had clearly gone out of him.

Sam smiled. "I just need to fix the earpiece, and then I won't take it off again. It saved my life down there." Sam paused, looking up at him. "What happened?"

"He ran at one of those monsters and took it down with a belt knife!" Abby said, a little breathless, clearly impressed.

"She helped," Bray said, gesturing to Beth, who still clutched her pistol in a tight grip.

Sam put a hand on his arm. "Thank you for saving my family," she said gently. "And me."

"Yeah, yeah. I just don't want Aria and Shepard all over me," he gruffed again, pushing them away so he could get to his feet. "Give me my gun back."

Sam happily handed it over, then turned to her helmet. A quick scan with her omnitool showed her the problem, and she did a rough patch-job of some soldering inside the housing for the machinery of the radio. Snapping the helmet back into place, she was pleased to continue to hear Bray talking to Beth.

{What was that thing?} he was asking.

{We don't know,} Beth answered. {Some mercenaries freed us and some other prisoners a few hours ago. But then one of those monsters attacked. The soldiers died. So did the other prisoners, except Finn, here.}

{We ran,} Lynn said, holding onto Finn's hand. Finn let her, eventually taking shelter in the woman's arms.

Poor kid, Sam thought. Probably lost everything. Damn this war.

{Ran until we could hide. Got attacked. That's when Mom was hurt. We hid again, but it was only a matter of time. We knew we were being tracked.}

"So you sent Finn for help?" Sam asked.

Sarah side-eyed Finn. {Brat went running without anyone else. We wouldn't send a kid for help on their own, Sam. Jesus.}

Sam held up her hands. "All right, all right. Well, you're safe now. For the moment. Let's get out of here. Those forcefields were clearly holding these things in. I need to link into a power bank to boost my omnitool's comms so I can find Shepard and warn her."

Bray limped in front of her. {I know where we are. I'll take it from here.}

Sam nodded. "All right. I'll take up the rear."

They set off, hoping and praying to not see another of those monsters.

Emerging into the light elicited an audible sigh of relief from everyone.

Sam blinked a bit at the brightness as she stepped away from the access tunnel. Her vision cleared, and she looked around.

The world was chaos and death. Cerberus and civilian bodies littered the streets. In the distance, Sam could hear fighting. The light of an explosion shined behind a tall building.

{What the hell happened?!} Sarah said at Sam's side.

"Aria," Sam said. "She rallied everyone, civilians included, to fight off Cerberus right before our bunker was attacked. They must have listened."

{That's irresponsible,} Sarah muttered.

"I agree. But I also would never live here," Sam said.

{The people who choose to live here know what they're getting into,} Bray said. {And most of them are hardly blameless on their own. Let's go.)

"I need to connect to the network," Sam said.

{I know a place. Follow me.}

Sam obeyed, following Bray through the streets away from the fighting. The body count fell as they walked, but it never eased completely.

Ten minutes later, they entered a high-rise building. "What's here?" Sam asked after they traversed several flights of stairs.

Bray grunted as he held his omnitool up to a nondescript door. {This is where I live,} he said. Then he opened the door to reveal a tidy studio apartment.

Sam walked in. "Wow."

{What?}

"I don't know, Bray. I think I wasn't expecting such tidiness."

He grunted. {Terminal's over there.}

Samantha smirked at the look on his face – somewhere between pride and embarrassment – and hurried to the terminal.

She was worried at first that the connection here would be powered down with all the fighting, but it wasn't. In fact, it was a hell of a lot more powerful than what one might typically find in a residential domicile.

Probably because he works for Aria, Sammy.

Good point.

Sam used the terminal to boost her omnitool's signal, and within seconds she had an open comm link.

"Commander Shepard, come in," she said.

She was treated to the sound of grunting and fighting in her ear. {Sam! Thank God you're okay! What the fuck happened?! Nearly shit my pants when you disappeared.}

"It's a long story, Commander, but Bray and I are safe. I wasn't linked to you before the bunker was attacked, so I had to wait until I had a terminal to boost my signal." Sam entered some commands into her omnitool. "We're linked now, though. I can only communicate with you, but we won't need the signal-boost anymore."

{Good work. We got the forcefields down. But it let adjutants out.}

"Adjutants?"

{Mutated biotic monstrosities.}

Sam shivered. "So that's what they're called."

{Meet some, did you?}

"Yes."

{I'm impressed you guys are still alive. Those fuckers are hard to kill.}

"Yes, well, as much as I'm enjoying this chat..."

{Right. Nyreen disappeared but is probably wreaking havoc on her own somewhere. We're headed for Afterlife.}

"That's where the general is, right?"

{Yep. Everyone free to is converging there.} Shepard paused, breathing hard for a moment, before she spoke again. {You want in on this one, Traynor? Sounds like they bashed you around a bit. How about some payback?}

Sam looked up at her companions: Bray limping through his apartment; Beth sitting on a couch and looking absolutely relieved to be off her feet; Sarah and her sisters already raiding his kitchen and feeding Finn, who was eating like they'd never seen food before. Cerberus had done this. Sam had helped save them, but Cerberus had gotten them here, created those monsters who had hurt them.

"Oorah, Commander," Sam said after a moment.

Shepard whooped. {That's the spirit! Go help hold the line, we'll be there as soon as we can.}