Outlier
Summary: They'd done it. They'd defeated the Reapers and achieved synthesis. But the universe is a strange place when you're a being of both organic and synthetic origins. Never mind that in that final act atop the Citadel, Jane should have died. But no. Here she was, alive, in some galaxy far, far away.
Disclaimer: I don't own Star Wars or Mass Effect.
Chapter One: Synthesis
Word Count: 1,555
The green light was blinding in its intensity.
Something twisted, popped and shattered, something intrinsically changed. Shepard staggered two steps to the left and found herself falling through space.
It was unfortunate.
Because the last time she'd entered an atmosphere at terminal velocity in nothing but her bio suite, she'd died.
Except that she wasn't in her bio suite this time and she was freezing and burning and she couldn't breathe.
She gasped for air, tasting nothing, cells imploding in the vacuum and then somehow whirling and sparking as they regenerated over and over and over again and how was her brain not swelling against her skull like an over ripe melon because she was drowning, suffocating in the reality of her memories -NIgHtMarEs- brought to life, but that same something, that changed thing within her, absently noted her trajectory and suggested she angle her body just so.
Her limbs seized for a moment, then complied, and Shepard found herself once again swallowing back panic at the unwilling, or perhaps instinctive, action.
What the hell was happening?
Fire ignited the thin air around her form from the force of her entry, warnings flashing across her visor (or was it her eyes? She couldn't tell...) in an inarticulate jumble.
An unfamiliar planet rose up before her, red-gold and shifting, the ground approaching (or was she?) before she hit the surface with a bone breaking boom, sand flying in a plume of dust that rose like a storm cloud in the heated air.
Shepard groaned, unmoving and face first on the crystallized earth.
Something whirled and whined as her pulverized ribs clicked and her spine snapped into place.
She felt humming beneath her skin, a live wire of activity, flowing, tumbling, crawling like bugs through her veins.
What is this?
Where was she?
But most importantly: why wasn't she dead?
An eternity passed before she flipped over, super headed sand-turned-glass crunching beneath her weight as she flopped gracelessly onto her back in the center of her jagged crater trail.
She stared at the unfamiliar starlit sky; glowing eyes unseeing. There had been the crucible. She had been on the Citadel, arguing with an insane millennia old AI out to get her and everyone else in the universe and then-
Fuck.
What did synthesis even mean?
And can you give her a fucking second to think it over before you light up the fucking galaxy?!
Shepard breathed.
That something buzzed.
The world shifted on axis as She. Saw. Everything.
Lines of color, strands of DNA, flickers of ones and zeros. Numbers and languages and symbols of meaning converged and-
Commander Jane Shepard of the SR-2 SSV Normandy, Council Spectre, Butcher of Torfan and Earthborn street rat-
-finally passed out.
She wakes to the mother of all sand storms flaying her face raw.
She can't see and when she breathes, the particles grate inside her lungs, blood welling from her mouth in response to the irritant.
That same humming responds, but quieter now, a slow knocking in her bones. Overhead, the wind howls, dumping tones of waspish sand on her body.
Glass crystals flake from what was left of her tattered biosuite as she stands up, legs wobbly and limbs suspiciously unresponsive.
Shepard stumbles and falls, glass shredding the unprotected skin of her palms. Blood leaks from the jagged cuts, clumping sand in the wounds. Her exposed skin chafes something fierce.
She stands again, stumbles, then snaps her hands up in a biotic barrier. The stillness is sudden, the abrupt change threatening to upend her, but she holds her ground.
Then she walks, ignoring the skittering in her brain, the harshness of her breathing and the pounding of her skull.
The buildings come out of nowhere -squat colorless things- and Shepard only stops because she runs into a door. She slumps against it, palming some sort of console. It beeps and flashes red for an instant, but moments later Shepard falls through a sudden opening.
She hears a feminine gasp, feels the door try to close against her legs, and promptly passes out again.
On a strange bed, beneath coarse, tasteless sheets, Shepard stares down at her stripped self.
She can see the bones of her ribs beneath her skin, the tendons that run along the outside of her hands. Her legs shake when she tries to lift them, arms thin and pale, hips gaunt. She looks starved.
But of course. Her body had cannibalized itself. She'd dropped from orbit like a hunk of space rock, burst organs and broken every bone in her body. Then lived. Somehow.
Shepard looks up as a strange woman enters the room, young face worn, hands rough from use. There is a metal collar around her neck, the barest hint of a protruding abdomen.
The stranger releases a sharp breath as their gaze lock.
A pause.
"I thought you were dead."
Shepard's eyes narrow at the unfamiliar language. Her thoughts recalibrate, connect, reach consensus.
"So did I."
The woman kneels carefully near the bed, earthen water-filled bowl in one hand, frayed rag in the other. A tanned hand raises the damp cloth to Shepard's face, wiping gently at her raw and cracked skin. Shepard allows it.
"My name is Shmi." The woman says.
Shepard thinks for a moment, eyes trailing over the simple room, the antiquated technology and the enslaved woman with a lazy predators' grace.
She decides.
"I am Jane."
Then she smiles, lips cracking, red liquid trailing down her chin.
Shmi smiles back, even as her hands dip to clean up the mess.
It takes her months of self therapy to walk and move like a civilian, months to be able to lift anything more than a sand covered boot. But she is just in time to hold the baby, a little boy, a miracle child.
Little Annie stares up at her with his solemn baby blues, Shmi fretting when the tracker slides in beneath his new skin. He doesn't make a sound, doesn't blink.
The blue winged alien huffs rudely, gesturing for his minions to finish.
Shepard looks up at him and smiles a smile with too many teeth.
He winces, hiding his unease with bluster, but Shepard sees the hand of the brute restraining Shmi and she makes a point to remember.
The humming in her blood, nanites of flesh and code, writhe.
She looks down at the babe, rocking gently.
"Don't worry, sweet thing. Aunties' got you."
And if the synthetics in her eyes flash red?
Shmi never minds and Watto makes himself scarce.
The old HoloNet computer whirls and Shepard's eyes shutter with light as she learns.
A tiny hand tugs at her pant leg, small blond head curled against her knee. Anakin, curious thing that he is, adds yet another question to the hundreds he's already asked.
"What are you doing Auntie?"
Shepard blinks and lifts her hand from the strange key board. The computers' light sputters and goes out.
Her head cocks as she looks down, short scarlet locks shifting with the movement. Her lips purse and the boy waits, eager but quiet, as she expects of him.
She hums along to a song only she can hear.
"Listening."
The hardware is ancient, the software a joke and the security measures lacking to the point of nonexistence. The technology of this universe is, in a word... primitive.
Somewhere, a bug-eyed alien crustacean is laughing at her.
Her omni-tool is a boon during those years of rehabilitation, the fabrication a blessing of modern science. That it has melded to the skin of her left wrist, just as much a part of her as her eyes and just as important, hardly fazes her anymore.
It's better to keep some things close, after all, and away from sticky little fingers.
She leaves in the fourth year.
Vanishing earlier had been a viable option, but Shepard had decided to be selfish for once, enjoying the harsh, but relatively ordinary existence as she recovered, helping with odd jobs and learning the people. But stretching the rations could only go so far, and with a growing child underfoot and that old wanderlust pricking, it was simply time to move on.
There is an attempt at wailing and gnashing of teeth, but one swift look at her unmoving face is enough to quell the small creature. He hides his face in his mother's skirts, pouting, and the woman indulges him.
Shepard's tongue clicks in reproof. "You spoil him too much."
Shmi meets Shepard's pointed gaze.
"I can afford him some freedom."
Shepard understands, though she does not agree. Instead, she offers a sardonic shrug and rolled eyes.
"Yes, feed the wild beast."
A petulant whine sounds. "Auntie!" Then quietly, one brilliant blue eye peeking out, "You're really leaving?"
"Umhm…" Jane hums absently, no longer awed by the three-year-old's advanced articulation. Damn genius child. Finishing with her boot strap and then rising to wrap a threadbare bit of cloth around her head, she tuts. "I need to find work."
"… why?"
A thoughtful pause.
"Someone has to buy you and your mother."
Shepard turns smartly from his wide-eyed gaping, waving languidly over a strong curving shoulder.
"I'll see you in a year, Shmi."
"Be careful, Jane."
A flash of grinning teeth before her makeshift visor comes down.
"Where's the fun in that?"
