A/N: Thank you for thirteen followers! Welcome new readers! Sorry for the wait, life's hectic.


Jeff's stare was hardened to stone and his hands posted entwined in wait as he sat across his small two person table from her. And Mercy watched him back before flicking her gaze to EDI's spherical light form and around the room.

"I like what you've done with the place." It almost looked like a storage compartment, with very little space dedicated to him. So perhaps it was more an ice breaker than an actually enjoyable space. Unfortunately it landed flat, and Joker leaned back and crossed his arms.

Her brow pursed, "Joker?"

"Why are you here?" His tone was immediately accusatory, and it reminded her of when he'd vented his frustration at being powerless to help her stress levels skyrocketing during the Reaper War.

"Well, I rebuilt the Normandy, she needs a pilot for my mission…"

"... are you kidding me? Like, actually saying that to me right now?" His tone grew increasingly heated like a whistling kettle. "You know you really have some nerve turning up here. Pretending to be the Commander, is this some kind of joke to you?"

"Pretending?" Was all Mercy could fit in to trigger a rapid fire response from him.

"Commander Shepard died so that I could be born. You said that. We all heard it, your big statement to the galaxy." He threw his arms up. "So don't come in here, and act like you're my friend." His hard tone wobbled on the word friend, and it stirred a flicker of regret and sympathy for him that passed by like a splash of chaotic red paint on a perfect portrait with not a stroke out of place.

She looked down at the tabletop as Jeff abruptly stood up, his chair legs screeching on the metal floor. "I— She did die, physically, as an individual." She spoke carefully, and gently, "but I'm not dead. I did not exist before her, and I am in her exact image, all her memories are mine."

"She'd never side with the Reapers!" He cut her off, and slammed his palms on the table, Mercy visibly winced as his hand and wrist fractured and he withdrew to cradle them close to himself with a reserved curse, hiding his pain behind his already established anger.

"Jeff…" EDI sounded the closest she could to concerned, and he dismissed her worries with a resigned,

"I got it, I got it, I'll bandage them." In a tone that was much more fond and endearing. Mercy left her hands resting on the table and stared at them as Joker patched himself up. Knowing he would be further angered if she tried to help him in this state.

"I had no choice…" she attempted to bargain with his anger with gentle words of explanation.

"Yeah right. She would have found a way to destroy the Reapers. None of this should have happened." He tied the first bandage off with his teeth and clumsy strategic looping, and started on the second. "The Commander wouldn't have…"

"There was a way." Mercy interjected as her brain rabbled through that fabled day when she confronted the starchild, raising her voice and lifting her head, "but the sacrifice… it would have been too great." She stood up sharply with a shuffle of her seat and she came closer, looking into his eyes with hers. "Joker, the cost was too high."

"What could have possibly been too much to save the galaxy?"

"It would have wiped out all the synthetics." Mercy gestured pointedly to EDI, "I promised you I would keep her safe, Moreau."

"Don't pin this decision on me!" he raised his voice back and Mercy met it.

"I'm not, but obviously it was not as simple as just picking which robots get to die!" Mercy turned away from him. "Of course I told everyone I died Joker, because I did. I sacrificed my human body, my individuality to take on an incomprehensible galactic role because I was so damn tired of throwing others into the fire for the sake of winning a war."

Whipping back around Mercy almost stormed right back to him, "I met the starchild, the voice of the Reapers, and I understood them. I just needed them to understand and listen to me in return. So I achieved that."

But she saw the unconvinced mistrust in her once unshakeable friend. And she shook her head in resignation.

"fine, you can stay here and be stuck in this pit of resentment and denial. But the Leviathans are mobilising as we speak and spiriting away thralls by the thousands and I don't plan to let whatever they're planning come to fruition."

"Commander." EDI spoke up before Mercy could see herself out. And she paused to hear her out, but didn't turn around.

"... Thank you. For choosing to protect me, and the Geth."

Despite EDI's monotonous audio, Mercy felt genuine warmth from her words, and side eyed her over her shoulder, cracking a brief smile in return, before opening the door.

Prue shrugged off leaning her elbows on the porch railing to catch up when Mercy power walked down onto the lawn, Ryker in tow. "How did it go?" Prue asked, and her brow furrowed in confusion when Mercy shook her head,

"They're not coming."

"Did you tell them the part where we've got a galactic-wide threat on our hands?" Ryker almost snorted in disbelief at the answer, and looked even more incredulous when it was clear that Mercy wasn't joking.

"We're gonna stick around a bit, let's split up and see if we can't help this town." Mercy stuck to the leading pace, as was her job, "this changes nothing."

"Hear that, Mary?" Ryker called back to the marauder approaching them. "Got anyone that needs the shit kicked out of them?"

"I'm sure if we head back... we will find people in need. We … struggle out here."

Mary was correct, but it was not an easy task to coax the residents in town out of hiding, so it took the three splitting up to be more approachable.

Ryker quite possibly looked the most intimidating out of them with how flippantly he handled his shotgun as he strolled the alleys and streets. But he did overhear two husks, a father figure and a son figure arguing about a problem and how to fix it.

"I can't just keep getting Gerald to keep sending us chickens if you're just gonna get them all killed again."

"It's those damn varrens, Cody! I'm tryna build a coop for them but they tore the last one to pieces like anteaters with their teeth…"

"Well ask me again when you got one that'll work." And Ryker flashed his pearly whites to the older husk as the younger, Cody, walked away. At least this side detour sounded like some fun.

"Can I help you?" The husk noticed his staring and shifted uncomfortably. Clearly concerned Ryker was going to pick a fight with him.

"Need a professional killer to take care of those varren for ya?" He leaned his N7 Crusader against his shoulder. "Avenge your chickens? Destroy the coop's opposition in the name of humanity?"

Prue under Mary's lead found herself in a factory serving as a squatter's den of reaperfied families making a life for themselves in tiny sections of floor with a blanket and lantern. A stuffed toy or puzzle for the lucky ones.

They all relaxed at Mary's accompanying Prue, and she guessed Mary the Marauder was something of a Mayor-figure for the reapers living in Tiptree.

She was however taken offguard by the presence of a human little boy wrapped in a soft yellow blanket. She abandoned Mary to her conversation with another marauder, to kneel near the boy.

"Hey, where're your parents?" She asked the question, but was scared of what the answer would be.

"I don't know… they said they'd be back after fishing yesterday." The child was at first very reluctant to answer, but nervousness at separation from his family eventually overrode his distrust for Prue.

Prue's expression softened, even if her bionic hawk-sharp eyes did not reflect emotions, the movements of her brow and lips more than made up for it. "I'm sure they're just catching a lotta fish. Want me to go tell them to hurry back?"

The child's eyes were dark brown and glistening, enough to melt Prue's disposition somewhat, it reminded her of Kolyat years ago, alone and vulnerable…

Finally he nodded timidly, and Prue straightened up, "can you tell me where they said they went to go fishing?"

Mercy's omni-tool worked the screws holding Mary's elbow joint in place until she could detach her forearm completely and examine the warped mechanisms while the reaperfied woman who was once a Turian sat patiently on a crate, feeling no pain from the processes being done unto her body part.

"Who were you, before?" Mercy asked using the bond between them that was once used to control and influence, what was called indoctrination that had caused suffering and chaos among the ranks in the throes of war. Turned to much more mediocre and humble purposes like communicating with reapers who could not audibly do so very well, in this case.

Silence was the answer at first, and Mercy presumed she would not get an answer and politely didn't intend to pry any further, but Mary surprised her with a response. "I was a soldier, I was born on… Digeris." Her metallic mandibles twitched just a tiny bit, but that was the most expression Mercy had seen from her directly.

"During the war, I was aiming and firing a very big thanix cannon. Aboard a… cruiser that I cannot remember the name of. I served most of my time on that ship and I… cannot remember its name. I usually don't try to think about it now…"

She touched her face very slowly with her attached hand, while Mercy took apart the compromised joint hardware. "I don't think about it usually, because remembering… how I became this… it's painful."

"Did any of your family live through the war?" Mercy asked gently aloud, hoping for some kind of uplifting silver lining, something to have made all of Mary's pain a worthy sacrifice in the end.

"My… wife. She survived but… she had mourned me when my platoon were all presumed dead when our ship was overrun on the ground… while the ship was getting repaired. We were defeated, and… whoever I was, died there. She agrees with this sentiment."

Mercy started carefully bending the pieces into the correct shape she knew from her Reaper collective intelligence, with her synthetic body's strength. "I'm sorry, Mary." Was the only sincere feeling Mercy felt in this moment.

"Hm. Her name, the me who died. I can't remember it either, but it started with Mur… so Mr. Moreau named me Mary."

"Has he been here long?"

"Yes, before we were placed here away from organic colonies. He and his synthetic partner. He is not violent to us but… I see confliction in his eyes when he looks into ours."

"The Reapers have left deep wounds in the world," Mercy murmured.

"... deep wounds in the world." Mary agreed aloud as Mercy roughly twisted the joint back securely on Mary's arm with a scrape and a click to lock it in place.

"I'm sorry, that this was forced upon you." Mercy spoke solemnly to the marauder before her as she tested her mended arm in slow flexes, reaching to touch Mercy's elbow with her other arm to form a connection silently.

Her optics blue and piercing as she shared her memories with her, of others from her crew, reaperfied. The moments that they gained their suppressed selves back after the pulse. Confused and rebooting.

Mercy saw as if in person, one take a gun to his own head, feeling as if he had a temporary opportunity to save the ground forces around him from himself, pulling the trigger multiple times.

Others, standing there, empty, confused, mortified, violated. Some staggered in hysteric stupor. A husk fell to his knees to weep. Mary trying to calm a terrified civilian, dropping her gun, holding her hands up in surrender as the mother clutched her son close to her in her cornered hole covered in dust from the destruction.

Mary looking down at her hands and feeling violently ill and horrified, screaming, screaming so loudly, running away. Mercy moved her arm away from Mary to sever the link and halt the memories, the glyphs in her blue eyes spinning at her processors at work.

"We will… never have peace, again. Because of what… we are." Nonetheless, despite her words Mary dipped her head respectfully to excuse herself, a whistling breeze fluttering her skirt poetically in the shadowy shantytown.

Mercy clutched her elbows and averted her eyes. These actions, the fate of Mary and others like her, they were like this because of the consciousnesses that now follow her. Harbinger and their likes, so many of them having committed so many atrocities that none of these victims would see justice done to. No closure. No reason or purpose for their suffering.

She wished she had been faster, gotten into this position sooner. So many less would have been taken…

"Prue, Ryker, rendezvous at the town square, we're leaving." She ordered over the comm link after a considerable silence.

When the two caught up to her, Ryker was soaked head to toe in Varren blood with a confiscated meaty leg propped against his shoulder that Mercy presumed he intended to eat on the ship. And Prue was holding a little stuffed bunny toy.

When Mercy raised a brow at them, Ryker happily did not elaborate and strutted a few steps up the ramp in ready. Prue stuffed the toy in a pants pocket out of sight. "One of the kids gave it to me when I found their mom." She muttered in explanation before grabbing Mercy's arm.

"You sure you wanna leave?"

"We could always kidnap the pilot." Ryker shrugged and Mercy shook her head.

"He gave us our answer."

The ship started to whirr up to life as Mercy transmitted the signals to the Keepers on board and the three started making their way up the ramp.

"Commander-!"

Mercy paused at the voice muffled by the sound of the Normandy waking up. Looking over her shoulder, her expression admittedly lighting up bit upon seeing Jeff Moreau limping their way holding up an arm to wave them over.

"He was just playing hard to get, then." Ryker chuckled as the three powerwalked back down the ramp to meet Joker half way.

"Joker?" Mercy prompted him, visibly surprised that he was here.

"Listen. I've been your pilot for this entire adventure with the Reapers and Cerberus and Saren and every other pain in the ass in the galaxy. And I have to find out from my girlfriend's mobile scans you have a Keeper doing my job?" Mercy opened her mouth to respond but Jeff continued as her brow cocked at his haste.

"I mean, really? A Keeper's gonna fly the Normandy, huh? Yeah cuz that's gonna go well and totally not gonna shoot you in the ass when shit hits the fan." His gaze shifted behind them. To the ship he was so fond of, and Mercy saw a piece of longing in his eyes, to be back in the pilot's seat.

"And just because you're a creepy reaper abomination of a thing now. It still doesn't mean I'm not gonna fly this ship and find those cuttlefish freaks and stop them from reasserting themselves at the top of the foodchain when literally no one voted for that. It's already still on its back wiggling it's legs in the air from you messing up the system by existing…"

Eyebrow very high, Mercy glanced to Prue and Ryker slowly one after the other, but they were barely following either.

"What I'm saying is…" he sighed, "count me in. And also help me re-upload my girlfriend into the ship."