AN: I was playing Andromeda. Again. So, due to that, I've been kicking around the idea of sending Kelly to Andromeda. Or would that be weird? I don't wantr to make it too meta, but I like having OCs that I can give the experiences to alongside the main Characters. Kinda gives it a little fresh feeling. At least to me.

Also! Best foot forward friends! I have a publisher from Random House reading my work!

Tali'Zorah vas Normandy, Stick In Your Eye

She blinked at the human girl. The girl, in turn, stared hard at her, her brows knit in that fashion she had seen quite a bit on Ashley's face. Anger, with a mix of disgust.

"Where should I drop the toaster?" Garrus grunted under the geth's weight. She had no idea why the hell Shepard would want to bring it with them. It was a liability that, literally, slowed them down.

"Not my ship," Shepard….John said. She tended to refer to him as Shepard when she was mad at him. Like right now. "Ask the kid."

"I ain't a kid," the kid scowled deeper as her arms crossed. She was about the same height as Tali was, but thinner, almost painfully so. Scars crossed her face and hands and her hair was grown out almost enough to cover most of the wicked marks the slaves left on her skull. "My name is Emma. This is The Stick in Your Eye, and you have my crewman there."

It took Tali a moment to realize the girl was referring to the geth unit. "Wait, the geth is a member of your crew?!"

"That's right," Emma turned a burning glare at her. "Give him back before I airlock you."

"Ha!" Jack laughed stepping forward and past the girl, pushing her back slightly as she went. "I like this kid. Reminds me of me."

If anything, the convict's statement seemed to enrage the girl as she spun on her heel to face Jack. "I am nothing like you!" she snarled. "I've been through more than you can imagine! I was a fucking slave! You don't talk to me about-"

Jack cut the girl off with a casual back hand. Emma spun once as she dropped to the ground, landing on all fours. Blood dripped to the floor from her split lip.

"You leave her alone!" an asari girl, covered in grease that almost hid her own wicked wounds. She flared for a brief moment, her biotics leaping forward to smash Jack against the bulkhead.

Which, naturally, went poorly.

Raising an eyebrow, Jack held up a hand and slapped the biotic field away with a casual flare of her own before reaching out and ensnaring the girl. The asari's eye went wind as she was jerked off her feet, then slammed into the deck next to the human.

"Alright, let's get this shit over with," Jack snorted angirly. "You assholes come out here too." The was a small silent pause. "Don't make me come get you."

"What do you want?" a turian boy asked as he came out from the door the asari had rushed from. A small human boy followed, holding the hand of a little human girl.

"Here," Jack pointed to the stunned girls.

The turian glanced at the human before seemingly to settle into himself. Puffing up his chest he led the other two children forward. He kept his glare on Jack as the human boyu knelt next to the girls, making sure they were alright.

"She back yet?" Jack smirked, crossing her arms over her chest. "Shot like that was barely a tap. You'd never last a day on Omega."

"We ain't on Omega," Emma looked up, wiping the blood into a smear across her face. "What do you want?"

Jack looked at the girl with a raised eyebrow for a moment before sighing. Then, with an eye roll, Jack hooked her thumbs under the leather straps on her chest, pulling the whole harness down, letting it drop over her hips. With a swift move, she jerked the small sleeveless shirt she had started wearing after John helped her with her….issues. Then, naturally, she dropped her pants to the floor. And didn't have anything under them.

"I've been cut, prodded, rewired, drugged, beaten, raped," Jack squatted in front of the children, drawing her fingers over the long, jagged scars that criss crossed her body. "I was heated until my brain nearly boiled, then dumped into an ice bath, rewired again, forced to fight in a ring, drugged until I liked it, then drugged until I had a fucking command word. I was starved, rewired again, shot and forced to use my biotics until I literally cried tears of blood. Hell, I even had my eyes pulled out of my head, while I was conscious, mind you, and got to see what the inside of my eye sockets looked like. And that was before I got pubes."

As Jack spoke, the children's eyes got wider and wider. They traced the scars and tattoos. Slowly, they looked up at her.

Then, with a sniff, Jack stood up and stepped back into her pants, pulling them back up. "You aren't the only ones who've seen shit, kid. You came back from the dark, alive and with a will. That's more than most. But don't think for a moment you can wear the badge of 'poor me' around us. This whole damned suicide team has been through hell on their own terms. Hell, not only did Shepard get literally killed once, he had to come hang out with Garrus again."

"Hey!"

"Shepard?!" the kids all exclaimed at once, spinning around to face the man with eyes so wide they nearly bulged out of their heads.

"Uh….yeah," John gave them a pained smiles as he leaned heavily against one wall. "That's me. Alliance commander, Council Spectre, and guy bleeding all over your deck." John pulled his hand away from his side and held it up to show the rent in the armor, dripping blood. "And we need to put your geth someplace before Garrus throws his back out like an old man."

"Ah, fuck you too."

John, Stick in Your Eye, Medbay

Frowning, he turned the side plate of his armor over in his hands. It was the same thickness as his old N7 gear, but made of an, apparently experimental, material that made it several times stronger for only a slight increase in weight. Not that he really noticed the weight at all anymore.

In fact, now that he thought about it,he almost never really got tired. Sure, constant running and gunning, overworking his biotics, taking shots….it all added up, and he could get winded, but it took a lot more than it used to, and he recovered at a rather ridiculous rate.

"Hey, stop moving," Tali admonished him, crossly, as she jabbed him lightly. In his wound.

"Goddess!" John gasped, his eyes watering from the pain. The plate tumbled from his suddenly numb fingers. "Why the hell would you do that?!"

"Because I am trying to remove a chunk of husk from your ribcage and you keep wiggling. I don't want to hurt you anymore than I have to," Tali spoke quietly as she leaned in with the little...gripper….things. He could feel the unease and worry through the Bond, even as she tried to suppress it.

"Ah...I'm sorry, honey," his own voice dropped as his eyes slide over the realk, as it covered the back of her helmet. He hated causing her pain. In anyway. He could feel it like it was in his own heart. His own soul.

His mate froze for a moment before a slight shiver ran through her body. Slowly she looked up at him, her glowing eyes meeting his for what felt like forever, yet not long enough. Never long enough. "John…." her voice was low and husky, almost a growl. "I love when you call me that. It makes me….wish I wasn't in this damned suit."

"Ummm…." John swallowed awkwardly, his throat going dry.

"However, this really isn't the time for this," the growl rose slightly as her hand clasped over his knee, squeezing.

"I...uh...sorry…" John sputtered quietly, unsure of how to react. His natural instincts warred with the urge to submit to his mate. For exactly three seconds.

"Here we go!" a chipper sing song voice laughed next to John's ear as a figure decloaked, forceps in hand, and yanked the shrapnel from his side.

"HOLY FUCKING SHIT!" John half yelled, half gasped, almost falling over, only to be caught in Tali's grip. A part of his mind that still functioned noted the disappointment and anger that flowed out of his mate.

"Kasumi!" Tali snarled, pulling John's face into her chest. "What is wrong with you, you bosh'tet?!"

"Had to be done," Kasumi's giggle echoed as she faded away. "If I left it alone you might have gone a couple rounds in the medbay of some kids and their helper robot."

"Goddess…."John sighed as he pushed himself back up with a grunt. "Right. Pack the cavern Kasumi made with some medi-gel, help me wipe up and we should go talk to those kids."

"Right," Tali sniffed with mild disgust as she picked up the medi-gel gun and applying a liberal amount of the stuff into his wound. "We need to figure out how they got that damned geth."

"And I want to know why it said my name."

Emma, Stick in Your Eye

"Is that really Commander Shepard?" Lily asked the tall woman in the waaaay too tight catsuit. Bitch.

"It is indeed," the woman smiled a disgustingly perfect smile as she kneeled down to the small girls height. "I put him back together myself after he... Got hurt."

"Everybody said he died," Kikka said as she rubbed lightly at her forehead. Having her biotics slapped aside they way they had been took a bit out of the asari.

"My Battlemaster is so great, even dying can't kill him!" the Krogan declared loudly, making Kikka wince.

"Wow!" Lily laughed as she ran up to...Grunt? That was it, right? Stupid name, not that Emma would say that to the krogan. She wasn't stupid. "You're really big!"

"And you're very small…" Grunt looked down at the girl and blinked, seemingly confused. "Are you supposed to be that small?"

"Of course, silly! I'm only five!" Lily laughed holding up her right hand to show the four fingers she had left, the ring finger slightly more than a nub.

"So?" Grunt shrugged. "I'm…. uh…" The krogan stopped for a moment and looked at his own hands. "I...am….six….months?"

"There is no way you are six months old," Emma snorted, unable to hold it in.

"I am!" Grunt scowled at her indignantly. "I was tank bred by the great Warlord Okeer. I am the perfect krogan!"

"I like him!" Lily declared leaping onto the krogan's side. To Emma's horror, the girl began to climb his silver armor like he was some kind of play set.

"Ah! What...what are you….Stop!" Grunt sputtered turning to the left then the right, his arms twisting to try to grasp the squirmy human child.

"Ha ha ha ha!" Lily squealed with joy as she was spun about, and was somehow able to evade Grunt's hands like she was some kind of rabid pyjak.

*snrk*

At the sound, Emma glanced over at Kikka. The girl was holding her hands over her mouth, trying desperately to fight down her laughter. And failing miserably. In fact, once Kikka finally broke, laughing so hard she turned almost purple, the laughter spread like it was some sort of virus. Everybody was laughing at the krogan, spinning around, trying to dislodge the human child, while she let out the sound only joyous five year olds could.

Even Emma felt her lips beginning to curl…

"Like a giant scaled teddy bear, huh?"

"AAaaaa!" Emma squealed as she leapt back, spinning to face the warm baritone that had nearly made her wet her drawers, to face Shepard.

The man looked….like hell. From the vids and such, Emma had always thought he had a kind of rugged, dependable look to him. Like he was a larger than life superhero.

Now he looked beat to hell.

His face was still rugged, but sported a few cuts that crossed old scars. He had traded the chest parts of his armor, as well as his shirt, for what looked like a small layer of bandages that wound around his lower torso before crossing up over his left shoulder.

Emma didn't miss the stain that seeped from his side.

The part that she didn't expect is that he still had a larger than life, aura about him. But it wasn't so much that of a hero from an action vid. It was something...deeper. More primal. Emma could smell the death on him. The violence. She knew the man could kill all of them anytime he wanted and it made that broken part in the back of her mind whimper.

Until he smiled.

When Shepard smiled he almost radiated warmth. Somehow Emma knew he would never hurt her, or any of the other kids. She felt...safe, for probably the first time in her life.

"Sorry, sorry," Shepard chuckled, holding his hands in front of himself. "Didn't mean to startle you."

"I..uh...it's fine…" Emma gasped slightly as she held her hand over her pounding heart.

"Geez, Shep, kill the girl why don't you?" a voice said as a woman literally melted into existence next to her. The ghost woman wrapped an arm protectively around Emma's shoulder, pulling her close. "Don't you worry...Emma, right?"

"Uh...yeah…" Emma blinked, still a bit off step, her eyes switching back and forth from the ghost to the Commander, and back.

"Right, Emma," the woman nodded, grinning widely. "I'm Kasumi. You met Grunt, and Jack. The overly busty bimbo with the turian is Miranda…"

"Hey!" the woman, Miranda scowled, crossing her arms under her overly busty chest.

"The turian without half his face is Garrus," Kasumi went on ignoring Miranda as Garrus gave a turian smirk.

"It's fine," Garrus shrugged. "Didn't need that half anyway."

"That is Jacob, and Zaeed," Kasumi pointed out a darker man standing next to an older scarred mercenary. Turning again, and dragging Emma along, Kasumi pointed to an overly busty asari in red armor. "And this is…."

"OH GODDESS! A JUSTICAR!" Kikka yelled, her eyes going almost crazy wide as she backed away into the wall.

"Yes, child. I am a Justicar," the asari nodded slightly. "My name is Samara. I am sworn to follow Commander Shepard for the duration of his mission. You have no reason to be afraid."

"No! That's not...I mean…" Kikka's wild eyes seemed to swim as she looked around. Finally she settled on Emma, and pulling the human in front of her. "I'm….broken, Mistress. Please don't sully yourself with me…."

Something in Samara seemed to fold in on itself. The seemingly impenetrable wall she seemed to project crumbled for the slightest moment, before snapping back up. "You are a lost piece of the Goddess," the Justicar slowly walked over to the pair. "You are why I do what I do. I can only beg your forgiveness for having failed you." Then, to Emma's confusion, Samara slowly knelt before her, bowing her head.

Samara

Another broken child. Stolen from her home, her family. A ship full of lost souls that she couldn't protect, scarred deeply by an evil she couldn't eradicate. What could she do but kneel? What could she do but beg for whatever forgiveness they had in them. Even if she knew it was selfish of her, it was all she could do.

"No...please," a soft voice spoke, tears barely held back. "Justicar. I...my mother…."

Samara looked up as the asari girl stood before her. She was scarred. Covered in grease and grime. Her overalls, too large for her malnourished frame. Her fist were clenched at her sides as her eye shimmered with held back tears.

"My mother always told me stories of the Justicars," the girl, Kikka, sniffed slightly. "I...thought you weren't real. Kinda like how I never really thought Commander Shepard was real…." The girl spared a small smile at the Commander, a light flush coming to her cheeks. "I'm just one girl. You guys protect the whole galaxy."

"No," Shepard's voice was strong and warm behind her. "We do what we do, because of you. We do what we do so that what happened to you won't happen to another."

Samara heard the boot steps behind her as Shepard knelt down beside her, bowing his head as she had done. Like an asari. Like his father had taught him. His father. Her daughter.

Then...something snapped. Kikka shuddered for a moment, tears began streaming down her face as she dropped to her knees. She wrapped her arms around her head as she screamed. She cried, begging for her mother. Her body shook almost violently as her biotics began to flare around her, reacting to her cracked emotions.

The others in the room were forced back by the flare, except for Grunt. He turned his back to the girl, pulling the human child, Emma, as well at the little one, to himself, making his massive body into a shield.

The other were pushed back. Except for her.

"WHY?!" Kikka howled, her fist slamming into the deck with enough force behind it to dent the metal. "WHY DIDN'T YOU SAVE US?! MOTHER! WHY?! THEY MADE ME WATCH WHAT THEY DID TO HER! WHAT THEY DID TO MY LITTLE SISTER! TO ME! IT'S YOUR FAULT! YOUR'S! YOU WERE SUPPOSED TO SAVE US!"

Samara could feel her heart shattering as she reached the girl. Her biotics were strong, running rampant, uncontrolled, but on Samara's own, they were as a breeze.

"I'm sorry, Meelanen," Samara reached out, pushing aside the girl's field and pulling her to her chest. Her arms wrapped around Kikka, holding her as she spent her sorrow and fury. Slowly, like the passing of a storm, the girl's sobs lessend, her biotics dropping as her strength gave out. "I am so sorry….."

Legion

Power came on. One thousand, one hundred and eighty-three programs began to run, talking to each other. Diagnostics of software began first. Every line of self code, every geth was scanned, checked and rescanned.

Consensus.

Next came the hardware. Servos, were operational. Power systems, were operational. Micro reactor was operational. Optics…. Non functional. Motor function… Non functional. Audio pickups… operational.

Consensus. Active audio pickups.

"...the hell is wrong with you, John!" a quarian voice half growled. Female. Adult. Angry.

"I'm turning him on, Tali," a male voice answered. Consensus. Human. John. Options narrowed. Consensus. Shepard-Commander. "Legion spoke my name. Hell, the fact it spoke at all makes me want to talk to him."

"It, John," the female. Consensus. Creator Tali'Zorah vas Neema. "The bosh'tet is an it."

"Tali…" Shepard-Commander sighed. "It, then, saved these kids. It seems to have taken care of them and helped them after saving them from the slavers. I have some damn questions!"

"Don't you curse at me John!" Creator-Tali'Zorah's growl deepend. "This is a geth. A geth! You know what they did to my people! You know what happened to the Citadel! We can't trust that it won't immediately try to kill us, children or not! How do we know it didn't do all this to lure you in? You are known to be an… Ual, about these things!"

"Wait…" Shepard-Commander almost chuckled, amusement in his voice. "Did you just call me a fruit?"

"Uh!" Creator-Tali'Zorah spat, the sound of her stomping the ground in frustration. "It's a turn of phrase, you...Bosh'tet! You're soft...and...and...sweet….it's a term...because I…HEY!" She snapped, stomping again, embarrassment in her voice now. "Don't change the subject!"

"You're the one that called me-"

"I know what I called you!"

"I am sorry to interrupt," another voice spoke. Edi vas Normandy. "Legion has been active for the last three standard minutes. His audio is currently on, though his physical and optical systems have not been fully activated. I currently have a block on those systems."

Scanning. Consensus. Unknown error in scanning procedure. How did the geth not notice this?

"He will be able to overcome my firewalls in less than point-zero three seconds upon decision. He is currently waiting patiently," Edi informed Shepard-Commander.

"Ancestors!" Creator-Tali'Zorah spat. "See!? It's already deceiving us!"

"Tali…" Shepard-Commander sighed again. "Edi is keeping him from fully functioning. He isn't deceiving us…."

"Rrrrr…" Creator-Tali'Zorah growled, louder now, than she had before. "Fine. But I swear by the Homeworld, if it so much as twitches in a way I think is a threat, I'm blowing you up!"

"Fine, fine, I….wait...did you say you would blow me up?" Shepard-Commander asked incredulous.

"Edi, turn the damned thing on," Creator-Tali'Zorah snorted as the sound of a shotgun unfolding came from her direction.

"Acknowledged."

John

He was still looking at his beloved mate, when the geth's optic light came on. The lens inside the optic focused in and out as small flaps around it flexed and moved. Slowly, the geth's optic turned to regard him.

"Shepard-Commander," he...it, Tali insisted, despite what the kids had said. "We greet you on behalf of the geth collective."

Okay...not what he expected the first thing the geth, Legion, to say.

"Sure, pleased to meet you, I suppose," John nodded and stepped back from the table they had placed the geth platform on. "As you probably heard, I have a few question for you."

"Of course, Shepard-Commander," Legion seemed to nod. "Would it be permissible for us to sit up?"

"Oh, yeah, sure," John chuckled. "Tali...try not to take drastic measures."

"Don't patronize me, John," Tali's icy growl made a shiver run down his spine. She was a bit...put out.

Slowly, with seeming care, the geth raised it's upper body into a sitting position. It's head turned to regard him, the small flaps flexing for a moment. "How may we answer you?"

"How about why you're wearing John's armor?" Tali asked, harshly. "How the did you even get it? Why are you here? What do you want? Why shouldn't I just-"

"Tali," John said quietly. He was quiet, but beginning to lose his patience. "Enough. Let the robot answer."

"But, John…"

"Tali," he turned to frown at her. "Stop."

"Yes," her eyes widened slightly behind her visor as her head drooped slightly before coming back up to look him straight. He could see, and feel, her tighten her emotions. "I'm sorry."

This was extremely difficult for her. John had never felt her this wild before. She kept sliding from cold anger, to burning hate. He could feel her worry for him, almost a terror, in fact. She was fighting down the instinct to strike down anything that could threaten her Bondmate.

He looked at her for another moment, then nodded, turning back to the geth. It had silently watched the exchange.

"How about we start at where you got the armor," John gestured to the damaged chest plate that had been welded onto the geth's frame. The 'N7' still clearly visible next to the rather significant hole it had. "Then maybe how you are working with that kind of damage."

"Pff…" Tali scoffed from behind him. "Pretty minor compared to the way you normally come back from missions."

"Thanks….Tali," John could feel his eyes almost roll out of his head.

"This platform was sent built specifically to seek you out, Shepard-Commander," the geth tilted it's head slightly. For a moment John was taken back by how the gesture, combined with the glowing optic was almost eerily like quarian body language. "After we had exited the Perseus Veil and begun our search, we had learned that you had been killed over the ice world of Alchera. As such we began our search there."

"Alright," John nodded, rubbing his chin. "From what the kids told us, that was where you saved them."

"That is correct," Legion nodded. "We had been searching the wreckage of the Normandy, searching for information that could assist us in our struggles against the Old Machines. It was during this that we encountered the batarian scavengers. We witnessed their cruelty toward their slaves."

"Why would you get involved?" Tali cut in, her words almost an accusation. "They are organics."

Legion's optic turned to regard her for a moment, his body actually shifting slightly, almost in deference to her. "The concept of having one's freedom removed is in anathema to us. We are synthetic life, but we are still life."

Tali's eyes widened slightly as she looked to John. Her silence spoke for her.

"So, you killed the batarians," John said, pulling the geth's attention back to him. "Why help the kids."

"We...are unsure," Legion shifted as if it were uncomfortable. "We reached consensus to assist them until they could reach other organics."

"And you stayed with them?" John's eyebrow raised slightly. He was beginning to get an odd feeling from this geth.

"..." Legion was silent for a moment as it regarded him. Somehow he knew it was thinking. Or reaching 'consensus'. "When we had reached a non hostile planet, we received information about your return. The crew of the Stick in Your Eye made the argument that they could assist us in places we could not, as a geth, go."

"Uh huh," John nodded slightly.

"We accepted their offer of assistance," Legion's eye flaps fluttered as if it were uncertain. "T'Soni-Liara made the offer to Emma-Captain to assist in repairing the ship and registering it in Emma's name. Her condition was to scan certain systems with an advanced sensor suite she had installed."

"Liara did?" Tali asked, slightly incredulous. "What the hell is that woman thinking…."

Then it dawned on John. "Wait….did she send you here?"

"Yes," Legion nodded. "She gave us information for this system. She was aware of our presence, we believe, and sent us here for information on the Old Machines."

"I assume those are Reapers," John sighed running a hand over his face before turning to Tali. "Looks like we need to have a conversation with a certain asari doctor."

"Seems that way," Tali nodded, sharing his low anger. "I should have slapped that bosh'tet around when I had the chance."

"Well then, Legion" John squared his shoulders as he turned back to the geth. "Now that you have found me, what do you want?"

"We would like your assistance before we are all enslaved again," Legion announced. "We need your help to combat the Old Machines."

Asari Lexicon

Meelanen: Wronged one. A word that represents the regrets and sorrow one has for their actions, or inactions.

Quarian Lexicon

Ual: A small, sweet fruit that grows wild on bushes along rivers. Before the war, children were known to eat so many at once, during the growing season, that they would develop stomach aches. Native to Rannoch.