"I'm impressed. What are the odds that shot would catch you straight through a suit seam and shatter the joint like that?" Chakwas laid the Commander's left arm back on the cot. "I need to put you under to rebuild your elbow, then I'll need to print you a cast." That got her attention. Shepard yanked her eyes off of Garrus's miserable form to raise her eyebrows and gape at the Doctor.

"Oh Commander, it will barely be a week of wearing it. You'll be fine, now lay back, let's get it over with." The Doctor lowered her cot flat.

"Fucking Zaeed," she mumbled.

That was the last thing she remembered before she awoke sometime later. Chakwas was there with a glass of water. "You know the drill. Take it easy for a few minutes, Commander, then you are free to go." She smiled and leaned a hip against her bed. Shepard lifted her arm to inspect the 90 degree angled lattice structure of the cast, then turned her eyes back over to the now erected partition between her cot and Garrus's.

"You should speak with him. I've never seen two people need each other more than you two right now." The Doctor crossed her arms. Shepard blinked at her a few times, brows furrowed.

"Commander, you aren't the only one getting skinnier and not sleeping." Chakwas gave her a pointed look and disappeared behind the partition to return to her desk.

Shepard spent a few good minutes laying until the room stopped spinning before standing up to wobble over to the Turian's bed. When she passed the divider, she saw that he had been sitting up.

He jumped up to his feet as soon as he saw her. "Shepard."

She motioned for him to sit before collapsing onto the bottom half of his cot. He still stood, shuffling nervously on his feet. "Garrus, please. I'm not going to bite you."

"Yeah… not with those little flat teeth." His voice was still reedy and single toned. He perched on the very edge of the bed. Through the turian fatigues he was wearing, Garrus looked obviously thinner. Had she really not noticed? She tried to remember the last time she saw him outside of his hard suit - not since the night after Omega. He had an IV in one arm and a look of abject misery on his face. As they sat silently, she wasn't sure where to start, and apparently neither was he.

"What's happened to us, Garrus?" She whispered.

He made that odd keening sound in his chest, but it was hollow without his subvocals. "I happened, Shepard. Sorry doesn't even begin to cover how destroyed I am over letting you down." He bent to put both elbows on his knees and drape his head in both hands.

"Hm, yeah. I got shot and betrayed by Zaeed. Might not have gotten shot at least if you'd been there." She held up her cast encased arm.

He jerked his head up. "Zaeed shot you? He isn't still on this ship, is he?"

"He didn't shoot me, just led to it. He's still here, on my goodwill only. He'll redeem himself from that little transgression or find the airlock."

Garrus crushed his eyes closed and turned away from her. "You could say the same about me." He hung his head.

She wasn't sure how to reply to that, so again they sat in silence while Shepard watched a bead of perspiration travel down his neck. "Garrus, will you talk to me? Please?"

"You read that letter from Butler's wife. I'm sure you already know."

"That's not the same."

He sighed. "Somehow… me knowing how much of a failure I am and others knowing how much of a failure I am… none of it is as bad as you knowing."

She couldn't understand this hesitation, like she would space him over a bad decision. Didn't he know her history? The rest of the galaxy did. "I would be the last person to judge you. You know that."

"I know you wouldn't, and that's even worse. You should judge me. You were the first Human Specter. We beat Sovereign. You took Torfan." His voice was a whisper.

"I was successful, but I got a hell of a lot of people killed along the way. I'm not some gold standard. I couldn't save Jenkins, Nihlus, or Ash. I sacrificed all those lives on Torfan because I felt it was worth it to hunt down every Batarian on that shit hole." Her voice dropped. "I've got people killed, even before Torfan. Don't idolize me, Garrus. You've always been a better person than me." Shepard pulled her knees up to her chest.

"You wouldn't say that if you had known that I broke my promise to you even before they had your funeral. . I dropped out of Specter training." He buried his face in his hands. "The things they said pissed me off - they played it off as a Geth attack! No one would listen, and I couldn't take the bureaucratic bullshit after a few months. I went home for awhile, but my father was insufferable, and I was useless. C-Sec had so many targets escape to Omega during my time there, so I just thought, why not? At least there I can do some good. Anywhere I pointed my gun would kill a criminal," he leaned back. "A whole station full of thugs, kicking the helpless. So, I formed my squad to kick back."

Shephard's eyebrows raised, and he could see the thought she had.

"No. We weren't mercenaries. At least, no one was paying us. We made our money taking down slavers, pirates, or gangs that went too far." He blew out a breath. "We weren't in it to get rich, we were in it to make those bastards think twice before murdering someone in the streets."

"Doesn't sound like you made any friends with the gangs."

He huffed a laugh. "I got three seperate merc groups to work together to take me down. Chellick would be impressed."

"So how'd you piss them off?"

"It was simple. We'd hit their shipments, disrupt their activities. Get under their skin, make them angry. Then they'd come charging right into our well prepared kill zone. Crossfire and snipers, clean and surgical. They never stood a chance."

"How'd you form your team?"

"Same way you did. You prove you can get things done, and people join up. Mercs who wanted to atone, security consultants tired of playing by the rules. I gave them hope." He spread his arms out, then after a beat, curled in on himself. "And now they are dead. Shows what I know."

"Tell me about them," she murmured into her knees.

He looked towards the ceiling. "There were twelve of us. Former military operatives, C-Sec agents, the usual. I had a Salarian explosives expert. Pretty sure he spent time in the special tasks group." His good mandible pulled up. "My tech expert was a Batarian, believe it or not. Wasn't the friendliest guy, but he could hack any system ever built."

"How did the gangs find them?"

He turned to fix her with his thousand yard stare. "It was my own damn fault, Shepard. One of my people betrayed me. A Turian named Sidonis. He drew me away just before they attacked my squad, then disappeared. Everyone except me is dead because of him. And because I didn't see it coming," he lamented. Suddenly, he stood. "I lost my whole team because of Sidonis. One day, I'll find him - preferrably with a bullet," he spoke with a growl.

"Have you asked Liara to see what she can find?"

"Not… yet… it didn't seem like the right time to ask when we were on Illium." He exhaled and sat.

Shepard nodded. "I'll send her a message." The silence stole over them again. She leaned her shoulder into his side. "I can't sleep because of the guilt either. I understand how these things go. I've… had to detox in the past. I get it."

"This isn't like me, but the nightmares are... intense. I just wanted to feel numb, so I take a barbiturate. But for missions I need to stay alert, so I take a stim before. Round and round. Don't worry Shepard. I was trying to cut back even before this." He curled an arm around her shoulders.

"You weren't trying to kill yourself?" The question hung heavily in the air between the two friends.

Garrus's mandible was moving, but his face was inscrutable to her. Frustrating after all their time together. "No. I admit, when you found me on Omega, I thought that would be the best way and time to go. But I was more resigned to it than working towards it. This time, I just wanted to not remember their dead bodies for a few hours."

"This is going to sound selfish coming from someone who already died, but... don't leave me, Garrus."

"Heh. Yeah, it does sound pretty selfish. But I don't intend to."


A week had passed. For most of that time, the Normandy had been mining or parked in Nos Astra for the retrofits Tali had requested. Shepard spent her time sparring with Thane, working out with Jacob, running drills with Grunt, and practicing biotics with Jack and now Samara. She had been beginning to feel stronger before Zaeed's shitty little detour - so babying a bum arm through her usual routines was a disheartening setback. But the arm being out of commission somehow made focusing on her biotic pulls much easier, and with her two teachers, Shepard was starting to be more capable in the biotic department. Jack and Samara were a surprisingly effective duo who married patience and temperance with explosive strength. She'd given up entirely on the sleeping pills, choosing to deal with sleep disturbances in favor of keeping calories inside her body. That decision alone made a noticeable difference in her biotic strength.

Dr. Chakwas had just removed the elbow cast, and, as always the first day back with no duty restrictions had her insides buzzing with adrenalin. The lift swished open and Shepard stepped out into a crowd of first-shift crewmen in the cargo bay. She halted to take in the chattering.

"What's going on?" She spoke over the din.

They quieted, and Ken stepped forward. "We just thought, with you being back to having two arms again, we would celebrate with a little...friendly...wager." The engineer wriggled his eyebrows.

"Ken, you need to stick to Skyllian," she smirked.

Past the crowd, Thane stood looking bewildered. Jack's yelling at Grunt from somewhere in the tote maze they'd set up on the other side of the bay echoed around.

"Aw, come on Commander. You wouldn't purposefully lose your pilot his money, would you?" Joker called from the back. She parted the crewmen as she walked up to where he sat on a crate.

"Purposefully? That depends. What's the bet?"

Ken answered again. "Who'd win in hand-to-hand, you or Thane?"

She sighed. "And all of you are in on this?"

The little group murmured, and Kelly's voice poked through. "Yeah and we came to oogle too. Its not fair you keep all the hunks to yourself!"

"Chambers, please. You realize I spend my time down here getting my ass kicked. And kicked some more, trying to get back into my handsome soldier physique. This isn't a hot and heavy episode of whatever Agape and Aliens thing you are watching."

"It's Fleet and Flotilla, and you might like it, Shepard. Garrus does," an accented voice called out.

The Commander rolled her eyes. "Not you too, Tali. You are supposed to be on my side here."

"There's no harm in looking." She swore the Quarian was smiling under that helmet.

"Is Gabby the only one on duty watching the engineers and the retrofits?" Both Tali and Ken looked away. "Jesus Christ," she murmured.

"Come on Shep, don't be a killjoy. It's for morale." Kasumi startled her, uncloaking right by her ear.

"Okay okay fine, just this one time." The group cheered as she walked over to Thane, who, in his typical joggers, was already eliciting squeals from a portion of the crowd.

He fixed her with his inky black stare. "Shepard?"

"The crew want to wager on our sparring. They are probably looking forward to some soft core porn."

He blinked a few times. "What?"

"Ehhh… just...listen." She unzipped her N7 hoodie and dropped it on the ground, revealing both her sports bra and leggings-covered rear-end. That set off a round of hooting and hollering from the crewmen.

"Oh. I… see. And you are okay with this?" He was studying her face.

"Well, we can just do what we always do. I suppose giving the flight crew a ground team show every now and then isn't a bad idea. Build their confidence for the mission. Tim already contacted me about getting that IFF, he's had a Cerberus team looking into it for awhile. We are close." She flashed white teeth at him. "So kick my ass, Krios!"

The corners of his lips turned up in response, and she waltzed out into the middle of the mats, shaking out her left arm and bending it about over her head. It still felt stiff. Oh, Jacob had shown up too. Good, he would witness the fruits of his efforts in training her.

"Hey Joker, what are my odds?"

"Not great Commander. Thane's got you three to one."

She walked over to where her pilot was sitting. He was way too easy to mess with. "So, it sounds like I need a good luck kiss then." He didn't get enough time to move, just enough to widen his eyes before she grabbed his face with both hands and planted a dramatic, wet, kiss on his cheek.

"Eughck! Commander! Please! I'd like to have at least some dignity with this crew, Jesus!" He tore his hat off and rubbed his face into the sleeve of his fatigues.

"It was you that started that pool, wasn't it? Accept your punishment." Shepard smirked.

Ken rushed forward. "Oooh, Commander it was me, I started it! And I am so great at good luck kisses!"

The crewmen rumbled with laughter, and a multitude of hands patted both her and Ken on the back. Thane cfelt a barb of jealousy as he watched her interact with her crew. For someone who had spent so much of his life alone, it was fascinating and a bit painful how easily her comradery came. Eventually, she extracated herself from the little group and moved to the middle of the mats.

"Are you ready Krios?"

"If you are, Shepard."

The two figures circled each other for a bit, the Commander throwing out half hearted jabs, feeling out what kind of mood he was in. Krios usually had some trick or another he liked to spring on her during their sessions. Tricks that tended to end painfully for her. He dashed, a blur of metallic green and a flash of red. She barely escaped him - scale slid across sweat slicked skin, and the crowd was raucous with cheers for them both. God, he was fast - it never ceased to amaze her, and send a little shiver of excitement into her stomach. If this was him with Keprals, imagining him in his ferocious younger prime REALLY got her blood pumping. She smiled as they traded lunges.

Garrus's whole carapace was squeezing in on him. Every muscle in his body hurt from days of shaking, sweating, puking, and laying on hard infirmary beds. He was on the upswing from the pain pills and up on his feet at least. Even if everything was sore. He'd come down here to maybe stretch some of the stiffness out of his limbs but was surprised to be accosted by the noise of about thirty crewmen in the cargo bay. He skirted the wall behind them, content to keep the attention off of himself. With his height, he could see over their heads and watch Shepard and Thane circle each other. She feinted to the left but whirled around behind the Drell, striking out with the heel of her hand to his back.

Huh. He'd seen her in battle hundreds of times, but never in melee that didn't end within milliseconds at the end of her omni-blade. Thane curved out of her reach and managed to hook his foot behind hers. She slammed to the ground with a yelp that made a growl tear out of his keel. His eyes darted around in embarrassment. Thank the Spirits the Humans were so deaf, that was at least one silver lining to Turian life on a Human vessel. Thane brought a knee down hard that she managed to roll backwards and away from. They were serious. How did she roll like that without crushing her own head with her body? He hoped she'd do it again so he could maybe catch the trick.

The two bodies locked into a trading of deflections and footwork. Krios reached to grapple her around her middle, but she bent backwards, hands on the floor in a perfect arch. Her legs spun gracefully in the air and she contorted to plant her feet on the ground before lifting her torso up from that impossible angle. Garrus let his mandible drop open. What in the hell was that?! Thane must have thought the same because he fell forwards without the expected mass of her body there and rolled to his feet. The crewmen clapped and hollered.

Meanwhile, Garrus spent the next few minutes of their fight trying to sort out why that move sent a bolt of inexcusable desire straight to his groin plates. Spirits, there was no lying to himself about that one. He snorted - as if his dreams of late had been excusable either.

Shepard was caught off guard as she stumbled backwards from a flurry of punches from the assassin. He struck out a wide kick that should have caught her right in her middle - but the Commander dropped to the mat, legs askew in splits. Garrus didn't even get a second to enjoy that enticing display of flexibility before she shot up to hook a foot behind Krios's head to drag him to the ground. She didn't miss the opportunity to jump on his back and pin him. Unfortunately, his longer arms and legs prevented that, and he rolled them, straddling her hips and pinning her arms to her sides. There was groaning and booing from the crew that was drowned out by the revelry of the rest. The sniper saw some credit chits change hands while Shepard was laying there, chest heaving. Every now and then it surprised him how similar his kind and Humans were. If he closed his eyes and turned off his translator he could be on a Turian ship, watching a sparring match.

Thane leaned over her with a smug smile in place that caused an unheeded and unwanted growl to start back up in Garrus's chest. Shepard twisted suddenly and got both of the tops of her feet criss crossed over his neck, before rocking forwards and wedging him between her and the ground. She knelt with his right arm wrapped inside her legs. He struggled to bend his other arm back to try and get a grip on her for a few seconds before tapping on the mat twice. Another uncomfortable jolt heated Garrus, but his mandible pulled up into a grin. That'a girl. There was a chorus of groaning and more credits changed hands.

"Fuck yeah Shepard, kick his ass!" Jack's voice rang out over all the others.


Meals in the mess were much quieter with the crew on shore leave on Illium. Another five days had gone by, and Skyllian had resumed in the lounge with Ken and Gabby, along with drinking with Jack, Tali, and Kasumi. Shepard and Zaeed had even found a way around to being comfortable in each other's presence again. Just when things seemed right for the first time since her death, that's when she received an email from Hackett. They'd all be reeaaaal grateful if she would rendezvous with an Alliance ship to pick up a memorial to place on Alchera. She read through the message again. Seriously? Shepard stood from her desk and walked down the steps to pace the length of her room. This was the first she'd heard from Admiral Hackett at all since she came back. For a few minutes, she contemplated taking Tali or Garrus with her… but if there was even a chance of some sort of… breakdown… it was better to go it alone. "Joker?"

"Yeah Commander?"

"Set course for Alchera once the crew returns from shore leave."

"Commander?"

"Hackett wants me to place a memorial for the SR1 crew at the wreckage. An Alliance ship will be in system to bring it to us."

"And you're okay with that?"

"I don't know. At least it's not as likely to be vandalized as the one on Torfan. But I want to see if I can collect any tags."

"Roger….Commander."


The arguing of the original remaining members of the SR1 was the only tip off that anything was amiss. Vakarian had been in the med bay more frequently, that much Thane knew. Their voices carried out of the infirmary and through the mess. Jack sat silently on one of the tables, her feet in a chair. Thane stopped mid trek to watch what was happening inside the clinic. Somehow it triggered unease in him.

Joker jumped up off of a cot with surprising speed and got right in the sitting Turian's space. "God dammit Garrus, don't make me break my hand on your fucking face! See reason!"

Garrus stood to his full imposing height and picked the smaller man up by a fistful of his shirt. "Stop expecting me to fix your mistakes, Moreau!"

The pilot flinched as if he had been hit. Dr. Chakwas and Tali both squeezed in between the two men. Garrus let him down and Chakwas fussed over Joker. Both women were speaking, but Thane couldn't hear more than their murmuring. Tali was gesturing wildly, whatever she was saying caused the Turian to sit back down and drop his head into his hand.

Miranda had come out of her office now and was standing with her arms folded just next to the kitchen.

"I've never heard Joker or bird boy raise their voices before." Jack's speech caught Thane off guard.

The dread that had settled in his stomach was growing with each passing second the atmosphere grew darker on the crew deck. "Where is Shepard?"

"She's planet side on Alchera," Miranda answered.

His confusion must have been clear as Jack was looking at him like she pitied him. That just made his insides grow colder.

"Alchera is where she died," the biotic murmured.

"The Alliance asked her to put a memorial up at the wreckage site," Miranda finished.

"She went down alone?" He croaked.

Jack nodded.

"How long has she been gone?"

Miranda pulled up her omni-tool. "About six hours."

Just as she spoke, the Commander rounded the corner from the lift and strode into the room. She was wearing just her usual chest covering and a pair of shorts, but her skin was an angry red, as if she had just ripped her undersuit off with no care at all for her own flesh. Her eyes landed on Miranda, and she made a beeline for her. From behind her back she produced something black and red, slamming it down on the table closest to her XO. The noise made Jack flinch and quieted the raised voices from the med bay. It was a helmet. She stood with one hand on the top of it, staring down her XO. The crew deck was hushed. Garrus, Tali, and Joker emerged from the infirmary. A tinkling sound caught Thane's attention, and he peered down. In her other hand she held the chains of Human military tags. He felt his heart constrict painfully for her.

Finally, she murmured. "You might want to scrape out whatever is left in there, Miranda. I think that will explain why something seems like it's missing here." She pointed at her head. "And I think you know what I'm talking about." She blew out a long breath while Miranda stared at her, stoney faced. "Whatever. Too late now, I've got messages to write." She turned and locked eyes with Joker. "Set course for the rescue beacon of the Hugo-Gernsback that Jacob has provided."

"Yes, Commander," he replied.

She made her way back to the lift. The only sound on the deck came from the jangling of the dog tags. The doors of the lift closed, and then there was silence.

It was some time before Tali breathed out. "Keelah, it's her helmet."


"Is everything alright? The water has been on for a long-" Thane's gravelly voice yanked her bodily from a whirlwind of thoughts.

Shepard's brain struggled to comprehend the meaning of the words her translator had so diligently provided to her. She snapped her eyes closed against the sudden harsh lighting of the bathroom.

"Shepard? What are you doing?!" The urgency of his tone caused her to drag her lids open again.

"What?" she asked, confused. What had she just been thinking about? She was in the bathroom on the crew deck? Where had Thane come from?

Before the Commander gathered her wits to react, a hand closed around her bicep, yanking her out from under the spray of the shower head.

"Hey!" Had she said that right? Her tongue seemed slow. She squinted at the Drells silhouette.

"Siha, you're scalding yourself!" He whirled and hit the controls. The water didn't turn off, and he spat something in his native language that didn't translate, something harsh - a curse? Before whipping out his omni-tool and holding it up to the shower interface. A few taps later, and the water cut off. For a few moments, the dripping fixture echoed in the bathroom.

Thane spun back around to face her. She blinked rapidly against the glare of the lights he had turned on as he entered. Her skin was seared an angry, splotchy red where she had been under the shower head. He regarded her carefully, wishing he knew more about Human anatomy - that color couldn't mean anything good. She stood perfectly still, arms lax at her sides, with a confused look, like he'd just ruined her vacation instead of finding her attempting bodily harm.

His expression rubbed her the wrong way immediately. Judgement? Pity? Both were insulting.

He reached out an emerald hand and laid it gingerly on her arm. "Siha, wha-"

As soon as his palm touched her she flinched away, skidding on wet feet across the metal floors. He had to stop himself from grabbing her out of the fall. She righted herself, chest heaving.

"I'm fine. The water in my quarters wasn't warm enough. Alchera is frozen, you know?" Honestly? She didn't have a memory on how or why she got here. Snatches of Saren's face revolved through the darkness of her memories, along with a fist full of dog tags and a gut clenching hissing noise that burned through her thoughts. Fuck, she was really loosing it.

They both knew it was a shaky excuse as they looked at each other. The water temperature across the ship had to be the same, and suit heaters existed - there's no way she could have withstood Alchera's temperatures without one working. She had never experienced the planet's whipping gale on her flesh, not even for a second - not while alive at least. Now she knew that she had lain on its surface. Where she should still be, with her soldiers. She squeezed her eyes closed, willing away the images so conjured behind her lids. She'd found some of her crew had survived the Normandy's crash and walked out of the wreckage, just to die feet away in Alchera's harsh atmosphere. Snow covered, frozen corpses were stark in the crisp white snow banks that drifted around the shattered hull of their ship. She'd crawled over her own men and women, wading through drifts to excavate as many tags as she could, but suspected more resided at the bottom of the ravine the SR1 had landed near, or up on the cliffs surrounding the ship that were too tall for her to scale without equipment.

She needed to breathe. Shepard sucked in deep gulps of air, trying to calm herself as imposter syndrome blanketed and muted everything else spinning in her head. She wasn't the person who laid on that planet. Which meant, what the fuck was she? Did Cerberus possess the technology to implant the actual Commander Shepard's memories into a clone - or worse, a Reaper machine?

Thane took a step towards her, the motion abruptly cutting short her internal warring. "We should get you to the infirmary." His brow ridge furrowed deeply as he watched her.

She must have looked absolutely insane, buck naked and dripping water all over the floor of the crew bath. "No, no its fine, I'm not hurt. You need to get out of here, its… humid" She spun to find her clothes laying in a pile near the door. Thank god.

The Commander hurriedly threw her hoodie over herself. "I've… I've got to finish writing emails to the families." She glanced over her shoulder at the assassin before tearing out of the bathroom.


Something wasn't right. Thane sighed, unable to tear his eyes away from her form. Well, it was more accurate to say something hadn't been right since the moment he'd met her. A puzzling revelation considering he'd known the Commander for mere months, as he didn't have the time the Turian had had with her so he couldn't really judge what was right or wrong with nothing else to compare it to. But his scales crawled when she moved.

Anytime she moved.

On the ship or in battle, just a breath from her put him on edge. There were a few likely explanations for his incapability of ignoring her. One, she'd been a sign, someone dropped into his life in his darkest moments, pushing him when he'd all but given up. Two, she needed him. Well, she'd asked for his help… and over the weeks following the breadth of that help had morphed. And three, well three was something he didn't want to admit to. Not now. It was far too late afterall. Keprals had never seemed like anything more than a just punishment he accepted, gladly even. But, watching her slight back rise and fall, it was much more the curse most had described it. Why had the gods waited until now to bring them together? What was the purpose? He'd wasted so many years in battle sleep - years of better physical fitness in the earlier stages of his disease.

Thane closed his eyes in the dark of the cargo bay. No, he wouldn't let himself suffer remorse like that again. She stirred, the soft rustling of her clothing against the folded training mat tore him from a precipice of thoughts he didn't want to traverse.

Why did she avoid her cabin so often? Clearly there was more at play here than the difficulty of eliminating the Collector threat. Why had he found her in the crew bathrooms earlier in the night cycle? Thane blew out another breath and sat on the mats she had her head propped on. Shepard whimpered quietly in her sleep and it clicked. Watching someone drown in a substance he couldn't even see, much less hope to combat, was why his unease was so pronounced.


"Uhh, Commander? Jack and Miranda are… in the middle of a disagreement. Can you head them off before they tear out a bulkhead?" Joker's jovial voice echoed in the cargo bay.

Shepard groaned and shakily lowered herself from the apex of the push up. "I'll deal with it."

"Thanks Commander. Take pictures!" The pilot shut the com line.

She laid there for a moment. Did the children really need to fight when Momma needed some quality R&R and maybe a shrink? Shepard snorted to herself.

The soldier let loose a long sigh as she pushed herself off the floor.

"You okay Commander?" Jacob spoke.

"Yeah yeah, just annoyed. I'll be back in a few."

Minutes later, Shepard rounded the wall of the elevator and found the two biotic women had swept chairs up from the tables. Miranda was using a few as shields, spinning them around herself with her biotics, and Jack was launching the pieces of furniture at the operative. Dr. Chakwas and Gardner were standing off to the side, looking beside themselves.

"I will smear the walls with you BITCH!" Jack screeched.

The Commander really needed to get Samara to teach her that shield thing. Instead, she settled for a charge. Shepard tore across the room in a blue streak, smashing into one of the hovering chairs, sending it sailing into the wall with a crash. She touched down between both women.

"That is ENOUGH! Knock it off, both of you!" she boomed.

Jack took a step back, but began pacing. She stopped to point an accusatory finger at the unflapped brunette. "The cheerleader won't admit that what Cerberus did to me was wrong!

Miranda folded her arms. "It wasn't Cerberus, not really. Though clearly you were a mistake." The venom in her voice was indisputable despite her cool exterior.

"Fuck you! You have no idea what they put me through!" Jack stepped forward again, her fists aglow. Shepard stepped into her, blocking line of sight to the operative.

"She's completely unstable Shepard, she is jeopardizing this whole mission!" Lawson hissed.

"You both know what we are up against and this is how you act?! If we even survive this mission, you can tear each other apart for all I fucking care, but on MY ship you will obey. Save your anger for the Collectors!" the N7 barked.

Surprisingly it was Miranda who furrowed her brow and opened her mouth like she was going to say something. Shepard pinned her with an icy look. Luckily, she thought better of it and shut it.

Jack took another step back. "Fine Shepard. I'll make sure she lives just so I can rip her apart myself." The biotic turned on one foot and stomped off towards the lift.

Once the boot-falls diminished, she spun to her XO. "Miri, Jesus." The Commander blew out a breath. "I expect this from her, but you? You realize that out of everyone you've probably ever met, that girl has the closest story to your own, right? Only hers is that much more horrible. Can't you wrestle up a modicum of empathy or patience?"

"As long as she does her job, we'll be fine, Shepard." Miranda turned to stalk back to her office.

The soldier rolled her eyes. "Fucking children. The least they could have done was pick up these damn chairs," she grumbled and bent to right one of the plastic seats.