Ch. 23: Losing Control
Garrus
There was a knock on my door, and I looked up. Sidonis.
"You're back," I said, relieved. "Everything went to plan?"
"As well as it could. A few of the boys got some bumps and bruises, but nothing major. Everyone is in house," Sidonis reported.
"Good. Good," I replied, turning my attention back to the blueprints I was studying.
"Is that our new operation?" Sidonis asked.
My eyes flickered up, surprised Sidonis hadn't left yet. He didn't usually enjoy the planning aspect of our missions, even though he'd helped me form the team in the first place.
"Yes," I answered. "Beats me how we're going to pull it off though. The security detail is solid. They're learning."
Sidonis grimaced down at a map. "It feels like we're getting nothing done. They're like weeds: popping up tenfold the moment we pull one out."
"That's why we work slowly, hitting the operation first. We take their money, their supplies, and then we kill the leaders and anyone else we can. That way anyone hoping to replace them has to start with nothing. These new groups forming are inexperienced and underfunded so long as we keep their shipments from arriving. They'll go down easily enough when we have the time."
"You think it's time for one of the big three?" Sidonis asked.
I hummed an acknowledgement. "It's risky. But the Suns, Eclipse, and Blood Pack are a threat to the everyday citizens living here. We're finally prepared enough to start taking them on."
"Maybe we should consider doing more than just killing them," Sidonis suggested, grey eyes flashing.
I straightened in my seat, turning in the chair to face the other turian. "Like what, exactly?"
"I just think the punishment should fit the crime. Like that sex trafficking ring. They didn't deserve the easy death they got," Sidonis asserted.
"We kill to save lives," I reminded him. "We hunt criminals to give others a better life. Not to turn into the people we're hunting."
Sidonis stared at me for a long moment before nodding, eyes dropping for just a second more to the plans scattered across my desk. The room darkened, and I looked around in confusion.
"My punishment fit my crime," Sidonis stated. I started, gripping the edge of the desk in horror when I realized there was a bleeding hole growing in the middle of his forehead. "I betrayed you. Out of nowhere. You had no reason to think I was drawing you to a trap. So you did the same to me." He turned so I could see the massive hole in the back of his head where the shot had exited. "I never knew the shot was coming. I died alone."
"You deserved it," I growled. "Our team was slaughtered."
The room shifted until I was no longer in my office, no longer sitting behind a desk. I was back in my old hideout, and I stared at the neat arrangement of ten bodies laid out across the living room floor. They were covered in white sheets, all but the tenth. The last body oozed out bright blue blood, and when I reached to pull the material down, blood soaked into my boots and pooled between my toes. I gagged, staring down into Sidonis' grey eyes.
A hand landed on my shoulder.
"Ready to go?" Shepard asked. Her mouth thinned with impatience.
"It's almost like we never even happened," Sidonis growled bitterly, eyes once again alight with life.
I woke in a cold sweat, tumbling out of the trappings of my thin blankets and onto the chilled, metal floor. I stared up at the ceiling and hoped that the view of grating and wires would replace that of Sidonis blinking up at me. It didn't.
I raised my arm to check the time on my omni-tool and sighed. It was almost morning. Too close to breakfast to go to sleep, but not late enough to leave the safety of my doors: to face the talk that Shepard kept trying to force me to have.
"Can it wait for a bit? I'm in the middle of some calibrations," I had deflected yesterday and the day before. I didn't even bother to use a different excuse when she came back three hours later. Technically, I didn't need to. I was doing some calibrations on the guns. The same calibrations. Over and over. They were the most well calibrated guns ever to exist on a frigate.
Still. I enjoyed Shepard's persistent hovering more than Tali's silence. There were no jokes, no 'I told you so's. She seemed...disappointed, and that made my guilt razor sharp, cutting through my stomach.
That guilt only multiplied in the face of my newest dream and the reminder that I was the only one left. All of that work, two years of turning my team into something worthwhile, and now they were all dead. I'd killed them. Maybe I hadn't been holding the gun for the the other nine, but I'd convinced them to take a risk on me. I'd told them we could make a difference.
I'd changed their lives, but the last two years were already fading to blurry memories in my head, outshined by the brightness of saving the galaxy with Shepard for a second time. She was like a sun pulling others into her orbit and casting shadows on the space behind them, the things that they were before they met her.
Shame gnawed at my gut, and hatred closed my throat. I hated that I could forget them so easily. I hated that my actions had gotten them killed. I hated Sidonis for making me kill him. A small part of me even hated Shepard for letting me.
We kill to save lives, my own words came back to taunt me, not to turn into the people we're hunting.
Sidonis hadn't been a threat to anyone. I slammed a fist against the floor, and it bounced heavily at my side, the pain radiating through my fingers and into my wrist. I flexed my hand and hissed.
He still deserved it. He did.
A ringing from my omni-tool startled me, and I looked down to see an incoming call lit up on my wrist. I squinted at it. Getting calls through with Cerberus monitoring everything was really difficult.
"Solana?" I asked in surprise.
"Hey, big brother! I heard you might need a chat," Solana preambled. She winked a rose colored eye at me, the markings on her cheek stretching with the motion.
"I didn't realize Shepard had your omni-address," I said slowly.
The smile slid off Solana's face. "She was worried. Don't be angry."
"I'm not angry," I replied.
Solana laughed. "You're angry," she insisted before growing serious, her mandibles pressed tight to her face. "Did he deserve it? The person you're upset about."
I dropped my eyes. "I'm not sure."
"Shepard said he betrayed you, Garrus. Not even Father would fault you for going after him. You know what loyalty means to a true turian," Solana reminded me.
It was my turn to laugh now, a sharp bark that was swallowed by the hum of machines in the battery. I was never a very good turian; I'd said it plenty of times by now.
"I know; I know," Solana continued, rolling her eyes. "I, um, called for another reason, too." She cleared her throat with uncharacteristic shyness "There's been a marital arrangement made for me. I thought you'd like to know."
My stomach sank, twisting as I tried to keep my reaction from my face, but her announcement was a reminder of the duties I hadn't shouldered. Turians were forbidden from very little. I could do drugs, practice a human religion, or even take a mistress or two—all things frowned upon by many other species—so long as I didn't neglect my responsibilities or prevent someone else from completing theirs. And while I hadn't been neglecting my responsibilities to the Hierarchy—I was helping Shepard save the galaxy, after all—I was of an age where I was considered lacking in my duty to my family. I'd neither married nor had children.
"That's...great, Sol," I answered.
My sister snorted. "You hate it; don't lie. But the negotiations are with the Victus family. They're respectable and want the Vakarian name to give them more weight in the Hierarchy. I've heard nice things about Tarquin; he's certainly calmer than his father, at least."
"He's also well known for his preference in men," I added.
She gave a dismissive wave of her fingers. "So we have kids, and we'll both take up a mistress. No one marries for love anymore," she scolded.
"I guess I just don't understand why Dad wouldn't…"
Solana cut me off before I could finish. "Wouldn't arrange something for you first?" she asked. Then she huffed out a sigh. "Because no matter your disagreements, he doesn't want to see you unhappy. That's all anyone in this family has wanted." She paused, closing her mouth and then taking a deep breath to start again. "That's all I wanted to call and say really. You could slaughter an entire station on your mission with Shepard, and we wouldn't care. Kill for the cause, right?"
"It's 'die for the cause,' I corrected.
She waved her hand again. "Semantics. What I'm saying is I want my brother there to be the witness for my marriage contract. Just come home, Garrus," she said earnestly.
Emotion welled up and tightened my throat, and Solana respectfully turned away. I set my jaw and cleared my throat.
"I'll try," I promised.
"And bring whatever extra money you've got lying around because, shit, I don't even want to know how you paid for Mom's stuff," Solana added.
"Goodbye, Solana," I gritted out, and she smirked at me until I rolled my eyes "And, uh, thanks for calling."
"Anytime, brother."
She disconnected with a click, and I let my arm fall to my side again. The call had certainly made me feel something. Not better, per se, but less worthless. I pushed myself off the floor.
I wandered into the mess as it was just about time for the ground team's breakfast to be served. The tables were empty, however. One, because only those chosen by Jack to go on her mission would be bothered to get up this early, and two, because I was still earlier than everyone else.
Everyone but Dr. Chakwas. She held up a hand in greeting, running a scan of me with her omni-tool before I even had a chance to say hello. The elevator dinged its arrival and deposited Shepard and Miranda, though Shepard was too occupied staring at her companion to notice us yet. Miranda placed a hand on Shepard's arm to stop her, gesturing to something on the datapad she was reading off of, and Shepard never pushed her away, much to my surprise. I waited for Shepard to notice the hand—and she did—but she gave only passing consideration to Miranda's fingers pressed to her forearm until the other woman took them away herself, walking forward again and still talking.
"Strange how things change," Chakwas observed, stepping close to me as we watched Shepard and Miranda walk together on the other side of the mess. I nodded to the doctor, humming in response. Chakwas chuckled, and I glanced at her. "You know she came storming into my bedroom a couple nights ago, ranting about how she was going to quit. Let someone else deal with 'all the headstrong idiots' on this ship."
I grinned. "What did you say?"
"Oh, I didn't say anything," Chakwas replied, raising an eyebrow. "She used to come and say the same thing at least once a month before…" She trailed off, but I knew what she was referring to: Shepard's death. "She never means it."
"How can you be so sure?" I asked. That long conversation with Shepard had remained fresh in my mind. That she didn't know why she was doing this. It wouldn't be much of a stretch for her to really want to leave.
I followed Chakwas' eyes to where Shepard and Miranda had settled at one of the tables, two steaming coffees between them and a plate of food to each. I could hear Miranda now, still discussing something to do with cybernetics and a surgery they had planned for later today. Miranda took a sip from her coffee, and Shepard leaned over to tuck a fallen strand of black hair behind her ear. Miranda didn't so much as stutter in her continued explanation, and I eyed the two curiously.
"Because she cares," Chakwas answered finally. "Likely more than she wishes. Something the two of you have in common, I imagine."
Shepard eventually looked up, her face brightening when she saw me, and I instantly felt guilty for the resentment I'd been harboring. It wasn't really her fault I had nothing to show for two years of effort. It wasn't really her fault that she and her crazy missions had taken over my life, that I'd willingly submitted to them.
I didn't understand how I could both love and resent one person so much. Or why it had only just begun to bother me now.
I offered Shepard a weak wave, and the smile that had started to grow on her face wavered.
"It was a mistake to come here, Shepard," Jack bemoaned, scuffing her heels against the ground.
Our team was already on the landing pad—the only part of the building safe from the choking vegetation of Pragia's surface—and Shepard looked irritated on a mission for the first time. Not with Jack, I thought, but with the situation. Her eyes landed on the small Cerberus symbol on the entrance door, and if possible, her body got even stiffer.
"It's going to be fine, Jack," Shepard assured her, the calmness of her voice in opposition to the stress I could see in her body.
I hazarded a glance, too, at Miranda, expecting to see her icy indifference, but instead, her eyes darted around the landing pad, never settling in one place as they touched on every detail around us. Not that there was much to be interested in. The building we perched on was remarkably intact concrete constricted with trees, vines, and bushes with wide leaves, though not wide enough to catch the rain pouring down on our heads. The shuttle had pushed a gap in the overgrowth to get to the landing area, giving full license for the rain to flood in.
I leaned over to dump the water pooling the the scooped out section of the armor around my neck and glared at Shepard when she snickered off to the side.
"You know, this is one thing I missed about the first Normandy. We actually went to places that had real weather, not space stations or bombed wastelands," I commented.
"That's what you choose to be nostalgic about? The times I made us slog through mud, snow, and ice for resources?" Shepard replied. None of us wore helmets, so I could see her sarcastic arch of an eyebrow. It eased some of the tension in my chest from this morning.
"This is why I ensured the new Normandy would be fully equipped with scavenging probes. Time spent on acquiring resources has been greatly decreased," Miranda added.
Shepard turned in her direction, and I was sure she noticed the same thing as me: that while the rest of us had exited the shuttle and quickly scouted the landing pad, Miranda had remained in the doorway, not a drop on her gleaming black armor. Shepard snorted, and her breath blew harsh into the hot, damp air.
"Heavens forbid you get in some mud, Princess," Shepard said dryly. Miranda frowned.
"Are we just gonna stand around here or what? Let's go already," Jack demanded.
Shepard acquiesced with a wave of her hand forward but crossed her arms and leaned back on her right leg as she looked pointedly in Miranda's direction. In fact, all three of us stared at her. I'd admit I was relishing a chance to see the Cerberus operative a little less polished than usual, but Miranda rolled her eyes and activated a biotic barrier around herself before stepping primly from the cover of the shuttle and walking towards the door. I gave a hum of disappointment, though, granted, it wasn't at a level the humans with me could hear.
"You know, I'm not sure why I never thought of that," Shepard mused as I fell into step next to her.
I leaned over to rid my suit of water again. "Or why you never offered it to your friends," I muttered to Shepard's smirk. "But I suppose there's a reason why she's the brains of the operation."
Shepard's punch hit me square in the shoulder. "You take that back," she demanded.
"Never," I declared, resisting the childish urge to stick my tongue out.
We took one step inside the abandoned Cerberus facility, and our flicker of humor died, leaving my mouth feeling dry and my throat parched. Jack was uncharacteristically quiet behind Shepard and me while Miranda was a few paces in front, surveying the dirty room with detached interest.
"I was never in this room," Jack said eventually. "I think they brought the new kids in through here."
I followed her eyes to the small crates and shuddered. All that time I spent hunting criminals on Omega when I could have been tracking down shit like this. But I'd been vain, taking on the big mercenary groups like that because I enjoyed needling them. If I'd taken on projects like this, continued to track people like Dr. Saleon or whichever sick asshole ran this facility, maybe I would have made a difference. Maybe I would mean something outside of Shepard's shadow.
Almost as if my resentment had lashed out physically, Shepard turned to look at me, green eyes burning with questions. I turned away.
Jack knocked her shoulder against Miranda's as she took the lead, jaw tight as she faced the next door and ignored Miranda's retaliatory sneer. The door screeched open on rusted tracks, and Jack led us down a ramp. There was a console at the bottom near the next door.
"Security checkpoint," Miranda offered. "Standard throughout all Cerberus facilities. It may still have surveillance footage."
Shepard nodded and walked forward to link EDI in through her omni-tool. "Mine away, EDI. Find what you can."
"The system was wiped the morning before the shutdown of the facility," EDI revealed. "However, it was not done properly, and data can still be retrieved. Also, it is worth noting that the kill switch—implemented to wipe all data in the event of a compromised facility—was disabled remotely the morning of the attack."
"The morning before the shutdown?" I asked. "How could they possibly have known?"
"This is bullshit," Jack spat. "I started the riot that got me out of here. It wasn't preplanned."
"Something isn't adding up here," Shepard stated.
I looked at Miranda, who had gone very very still.
Miranda
I'm never wrong, Jacob. I thought you would've learned that by now. I'd said that back on Lazarus Station. I'd believed the words when I said them because when it came to work, I didn't make mistakes. However, in every other aspect of my life...well, there was a reason every relationship I'd ever had had crashed and burned so spectacularly.
I'd been wholly mistaken about my fight with Shepard. She'd showed up at my door three hours and seventeen minutes into my anxious staring at a dark ceiling, hovering in the open doorway until I pulled back the covers and rolled to my side of the bed. Shepard had crossed the space wearily, sighing as she arranged the sheets around herself, and whispered a quiet 'sorry' before rolling to face away from me.
It was mildly tense the next day—things always were with Shepard—but coffee still appeared on my desk before breakfast, and when evening came, there was a seat left open at Shepard's left hand, her right already occupied by Garrus. I was at a loss for what it meant, probably because somewhere along the way Shepard had become less work and more personal. And I was bloody awful at personal.
However—great as Shepard's attempts were to ignore any confrontation that she couldn't shoot her way out of—I could feel the tension rear its head again as the shuttle touched down on Pragia, the moment there was a Cerberus logo visible. Shepard kept her distance from me as we moved through the facility, and her face stayed even and unreadable even as we passed crates Jack said children had been transported in.
We should have been in to place the bomb and out to blow it up in what I anticipated to be an hour maximum—less if Jack remained unemotional. I was sure she only requested me for her mission to prove her point about Cerberus, but I was calm, detached. This place was a rogue cell, nothing more, and certainly not operating under the sanction of the real Cerberus.
Still, I'd told Shepard of my unease when I'd first read Jack's file, and that hadn't abated once I appeared here in person. There was something about the name, something about the project that hung at the edge of my memory. It had probably been mentioned in passing at some point or another, hardly important, but it bothered me all the same.
It bothered me even more once EDI analyzed the security console. The kill switch was disabled remotely the morning of the attack. Disabling the kill switch was the first thing I did when coming for an evaluation, just in case. Usually, if a project was underperforming, I would suggest a change in leadership. The current cell leader would either transfer to a project better suited for them or take the demotion under the new leader. Other times, if the leader were doing something questionable and had disobeyed their mission's directives...well, Cerberus didn't offer severance packages, which was why I disabled the kill switch in case they got any ideas.
Time of shutdown was logged as the year 2170. I would have been twenty, close to five years into my time with Cerberus. I would have been running evaluations by that time; it was entirely possible that...No, I shoved the thought from my head. My name wasn't on the file, and I would have remembered a place like this.
A sinking sort of dread stirred, coiled and lazy, at the bottom of my stomach, building until it was the right time to strike. There was no possible way I had been here, yet I knew there was something that I was missing.
I followed the team into the next room. It was a wide space, and I could imagine the slick paint and clean lines that would have been there. The now broken and scattered tables would have lined up perpendicular to the wall, and the floors would have gleamed. It would have looked much like every other standard research facility I'd visited during my work with Cerberus, but this was the first time I shuddered when I saw the faded Cerberus logo stenciled on the far wall.
Jack slowed as we got closer to some sort of makeshift area, running her fingers along the top of one of the concrete dividers that were arranged into a ring. I cringed at the sound of her mesh and ceramic gloves dragging against the rough surface and the way she flexed her hand awkwardly afterward. I couldn't tell whether it was from memories or the novelty of wearing armor for the first time on a mission. Perhaps Shepard would know, but I hesitated to ask, even over a private comm link.
Surely, they thought I didn't care, and so did I until I stared at old bloodstains still crusted on the tile of the arena floor. Until I heard Jack speak of how the scientists pit her against the other students, the same students that had been shipped to the facility in crates and experimented on. If they survived the experiments, they met their end at the hands of a violent, drugged child. Jack grinned when she spoke of the narcotics they used to condition her to enjoy killing, and the dread in my stomach mingled with mild nausea at the flash of teeth in her smile—at the realization of so many dozens of abused children beaten bloody and killed a meter from where I now stood. Jack had been trained to smile at that.
Then her eyes drifted over to me, and I saw the smile flicker and fade. Jack looked down at the bloodstain I'd been staring at, and when she glared at me again, I saw once again how young, how small she was. The sharp, unlined planes of her face twisted into a scowl at my staring, but she couldn't know that, in this broken place, she looked more like a scared teenager than the violent woman who'd been fighting with me on the ship. I pushed away any pity that might have come with that thought. Jack wouldn't welcome it, especially from me.
"Just the lab now and then my cell," Jack growled, leading us away from the arena and down a hallway studded on either sides with rooms barely larger than a standard closet. I glanced in one to see a broken bunk bed and pressed my lips together with a tight jaw.
I smelled the antiseptic long before the door to the lab opened. It was my imagination, certainly; the chemicals should be long faded, but still, the cloying scent lingered in the air around me, harsh against the back of my throat. A chair was poised proudly in the center of the lab. The metal restraints still hung off the armrests, and a nearby instrument tray gleamed silver with still clean tools. The ghosts of restraints tightened on my own wrists, and I skirted around the area while the others spoke, nearing the computer terminal instead of dealing with the thought of how similar I was to the rogue lab experiment stomping around in front of me.
The orb-like projection of EDI appeared on the computer console once I pressed my omni to it.
"I have completed the restoration of all retrievable data," EDI announced.
"Forget it, Cheerleader," Jack demanded. "There's nothing there I want to hear. I know what happened in this place. Now I'm going to destroy it." She stared at me with piercing, dark eyes. "I hope those Cerberus fuckers see the flames and realize I'm coming for them."
"There could be something useful," Shepard pushed. "Something that would explain how they knew to wipe the data."
Jack scowled over at Shepard, her twisted lips the same color as the bloodstains on the walls. Finally, she crossed her arms and nodded.
"There are only a few items of note. Playing audio log 1054," EDI provided.
"The latest iteration of PergNim went poorly. Subject One, Four, and Six died. No biotic change among the survivors. We lowered core temperatures of surviving subjects, but no biotically beneficial changes occurred. As a side effect, all subjects died. So we'll not try that on Zero.
Hopefully our supply of biotic potential candidates holds."
Lowering core temperatures as part of an experiment? Distasteful and unnecessary. Computer simulations were now so advanced that live experimentation was rendered almost redundant, only used in the very final stages of a new drug or procedure. That was how I was able to use new techniques and drugs on Shepard's reconstruction without long clinical trials and research. Going back to old fashioned methods was careless. It was unnecessary. It was cruel.
"He's lying," Jack exclaimed. "They weren't experimenting on the other kids to keep me safe. This wasn't because of me. I survived this place because I was stronger than them."
"It only makes sense to keep your main test subject alive," I commented. "The others would have been expendable."
"This isn't your fault, Jack. You can't change what they chose to do," Shepard said, holding up a hand to stop Jack before she could respond to me. "Anything else, EDI?"
"There is–" for a moment it almost sounded like EDI was hesitant, but that was ridiculous because EDI was a machine– "one other file that may be relevant. Some of the security footage was still intact."
Two figures showed on the projection, one wearing the distinct shape of a lab coat. The other man stopped the scientist with a touch to the shoulder.
"I got that file you asked for. From my contact in admin. We've been slotted for evaluation," he said quietly.
The eyebrows of the scientist furrowed down. "Not as bad as it could be. They're worried about Subject Zero's stability, but I'm sure we can persuade her to cooperate for the visit."
"What a pleasant man," Garrus deadpanned darkly while Jack scowled openly at the projection.
"Does it say who they're sending?" the scientist continued. "I hope it's Operative Thorne again. He was a complete pushover last time."
"I hadn't read that far yet. Looks like it's…" the man trailed off as his eyes scanned something on the datapad he held. His next words came out in a croak. "...Operative Lawson."
Even on projection, the scientist's face went visibly pale while I struggled to keep mine even. This was why I had a bad feeling about the facility: because I remembered it being mentioned when I'd inquired about my next mission.
I'd been told I would be sent to Pragia because the cell was underperforming, not because they were disobeying. The Illusive Man said the subject they were using couldn't be controlled, that she wouldn't follow orders. Nothing about her being a child. Nothing about experiments on other children. But then this facility had been shut down, and it wasn't mentioned to me again.
The dread in my stomach boiled with the sickening conclusion: the Illusive Man had known what they were doing and condoned it. Teltin Facility was well and truly Cerberus, the organization that should have been advancing the cause of humanity not—I looked again at the chair and restraints—needlessly destroying it.
"Pack your things. We leave tonight; tell only who you must," the scientist ordered on the projection. He typed something into his omni-tool and cursed, looking at the other man. "We may already be too late."
Three pairs of suspicious eyes blinked at me in the light of the console.
"You said you weren't involved in this cell," Shepard stated.
"I wasn't," I defended. "I was never sent here. They likely sent someone else once the children destroyed the facility."
"They were afraid of you," Jack growled quietly. "Why? What would you have done when you got here?"
We locked eyes, and I surprised myself with the venom in my voice. "I would have killed them all."
Was that why the Illusive Man sent me without all the information? I would have assumed the facility had been disobeying orders. I would have 'cleaned up' the entire cell. My reaction was so very predictable.
"I don't believe you," Jack spat. "You're just like them. You wouldn't have done a thing, and you sure as fuck wouldn't have protected me."
I scoffed, dry in the back of my throat. It felt better to be angry with her than to pity her, to see how wrong I was. To consider how things might have changed if I'd followed up with that changed mission instead of letting it drop. It was easier to hate her than to admit my own fault, to admit that I'd dedicated years of my life to an organization that could be so wrong.
"I would have sent you for rehabilitation. You're obviously a mistake, but it's possible you could have been a useful one."
Biotics rippled up Jack's arms. "I'm going to smear the walls with you, bitch!"
"I'd like to see you try," I challenged, lips twitching up in a sneer.
Jack was predictable when she was angry, and I'd spent hours evaluating her fighting style in order to best use her in the field. So when she threw her first warp, I caught it with one of my own, and they sparked off each other, exploding to throw us both backwards. My knee slammed against the ground, and I hissed as I pushed to my feet, throwing my arms forward to break Jack's shockwave to either side of me.
Jack skated forward on biotics and slammed a fist into my face before I had a chance to block. I tasted blood in my mouth as Jack shook her hand out triumphantly, and I lunged while she was still smiling and sank a blow into her stomach. She doubled over, even with part of the impact taken from the light armor she wore, and glared up at me in a sneer of pain and anger while her biotics reignited.
Jack kicked out but I caught it, that is, until she fused my hands to her shin with biotics and slammed her foot down, bringing me with it. I hit the ground hard but still managed to bring my arms up in time to block her from wrapping her hands around my throat. I threw an elbow into her face and flipped our positions, only pausing when I saw Jack's eyes go wide. Distinct reddish violet ribbons had sprouted to weave around my body, waiting for me to send them out.
Shepard's hand gripped my arm roughly and pulled me off Jack. I glared up at her from my new position on the ground. I only wanted to kick Jack's face in, not kill her: I wasn't going to actually use reave.
"That's enough," Shepard ordered. "Is it out of your system yet?"
Jack jerked her head side to side in a 'no' and scrambled towards me once before before a biotic pulse from Shepard staggered her back.
"Good," Shepard said decidedly. She looked down at me. "Miranda, have the shuttle pilot take you back to the ship."
"Shepard, I–"
"That wasn't a suggestion," she said coldly.
Garrus appeared next to Shepard and offered a hand down to me. "I'll go back with her," Garrus said to my surprise, helping me to my feet. "EDI has already scanned this place and there's no one here. You don't need me either."
Shepard stared at him for a moment. "Whatever you want, Garrus," Shepard acquiesced, turning her back on us to join Jack.
The pilot looked at Garrus and me oddly when we requested to return without Shepard but was smart enough not to ask questions as Garrus and I stared at each other in an awkward silence. I stripped out of my armor quickly, storing it in one of the provided shuttle lockers to be retrieved later, and sighed when my skin finally began to cool. That planet had been the worst kind of hot and humid. Then I poked at my rapidly swelling lip with a sigh.
"That was stupid," Garrus said finally, looking comfortable in his armor despite the heat, which I envied. "Were you trying to pick a fight?"
"I—that place…" I trailed off into silence and cursed my incoherence. I raised my hand to the Cerberus logo on my uniform, nails hooking into the edge of the embroidery like I might be able to rip it off before looking straight into the turian's eyes. "I should have done more."
Garrus made a sympathetic choking noise in his throat, his face taking on a pinched look as he dropped his gaze to the floor of the shuttle.
"We all should have. The Alliance knew. The Council knew. But they never put any serious effort towards stopping Cerberus so long as they stayed mostly out of the way. I spent two years on Omega. Wasted my time with criminals that were never going to go away when I could have–" He looked up at me– "I could have done more too."
I curled my hands into tense fists as silence draped over us again, the shuttle rattling as it ascended into the atmosphere. Garrus stirred a few times, glancing over at me, but settled back into the quiet every time.
"Why did you ask to come back with me?" I asked him.
Garrus' gaze was sharp. "I know we don't have much in common, Miranda, but we're teammates. And teammates means that when one of us is sent back to the ship in shame, they don't go alone."
I gave a dry laugh. "Does this sort of thing happen often with Shepard?"
"I can't even tell you how many times Kaidan was sent back, left to 'guard our backs,' or sent on scouting missions because he couldn't learn to stop contradicting Shepard's orders," Garrus admitted with a laugh. "Poor guy."
"You mean Lieutenant Alenko?" I confirmed, stomach dropping slightly. "You're drawing comparisons between me and the soldier Shepard notoriously disliked? The man she sacrificed on Virmire?" I grimaced. "Wonderful."
Garrus' mandibles flicked out in shock before he laughed deep from his belly. "Kaidan. He was a good man; I miss him." Garrus shook his head, a touch of sorrow to his eyes. "But, anyway, this isn't even close to the same situation."
"It's not?" I asked.
There was something in the turian's cutting blue gaze that made me tense. Garrus shook his head and clasped his hands to his knees with a shrewd look.
"I saw you come off the elevator with Shepard this morning."
My teeth ground down as my head jerked back. That didn't have to mean anything; I could have been meeting with Shepard for any number of reasons. I thought back to this morning. I'd been apprehensive because of the mission, surprised that Jack had requested me, but also frustrated because the last minute request threw off my preparation time for the surgery I'd scheduled for Shepard this evening. I did not, however, remember us acting inappropriately, so perhaps Garrus was simply making assumptions about why I was in Shepard's cabin.
I straightened, preparing my lie, when Garrus held up a hand. "Please, I don't know exactly what's going on, and, honestly, I don't want to. I was just making my point: it's not the same situation."
I let out the breath I held and nodded, relieved when I felt the shuttle rumble under my hands where they were clutching the edge of the seat. We were finally approaching the cargo bay.
"One thing I've learned about Shepard, though," Garrus continued. He paused as the shuttle touched down safely and the whirr of machinery began to wind down. "She can be really oblivious about certain things unless you spell it out for her."
So perhaps the turian had guessed more than I thought. I tried even harder to remember what had happened this morning. I'd talked about the surgery, had to force myself to concentrate because Shepard was unusually tactile: brushing her fingers against mine when she handed me my coffee, tucking my hair back for me, the way she sat as close as she could without touching me.
Oh. Well, of course he's misunderstood. Shepard was simply more comfortable with me now that we shared a bed. In fact, I'd found research that showed the benefits of sleeping with a partner, including improved stress and anxiety levels, and close quarters was bound to end in some sort of trust between us. It didn't mean Shepard had those kinds of feelings for me.
"Like how she has no idea that you're angry with her," I pointed out, sidestepping his insinuations.
Garrus scoffed at me and stood to open the shuttle door.
"Yes, just like that," he agreed.
We exited the shuttle together but both stopped to listen when the shuttle comm crackled to life behind us.
"We're ready for pickup," Shepard said to the pilot. Then before she shut the comm off I heard, "Jack stop playing with that detonator for fucks' sake. You're going to accidentally blow us up."
The comm clicked off, and Garrus and I shared a silent look of worried amusement. The pilot checked over his shoulder to ensure we were off before hitting a button to close the shuttle door. He threw a salute that I saw through the front windshield as the vehicle lifted off.
Garrus and I stepped safely behind the environmental shield before the cargo doors opened to the open vacuum of space.
"I'll wait here for them," I stated, scouting a crate for me to perch on.
"Are you sure that's a good idea?"
I raised an eyebrow at him, at the question like he thought that I was going to run from this. I absolutely refused to. I should have done more before, but that didn't stop me from still doing something now. I may have been wrong but I was not afraid. Even if I did despise that tattooed miscreant.
"Shepard'll find me anyway. Might as well not get comfortable in my office," I replied.
Garrus smirked. "You know her well. I'll just get out of the way then."
"Coward," I muttered under my breath.
I heard Garrus chuckle as he got onto the elevator.
I sat and studied my nails. I rehearsed what I was going to say, but it all felt contrived, hollow. More so when I looked down at my uniform and still saw the Cerberus logo sitting there, not torn off like I'd wished to do on the shuttle.
So when the shuttle reappeared and Jack and Shepard exited it, both warily watching me approach, only two words came out of my mouth. Or three if you counted the contraction.
"I'm sorry."
It was the only sentence I'd rehearsed that sounded meaningful, but said out loud, it wasn't enough, especially as Shepard's eyes widened almost comically at the sound. The commander made a valiant effort towards saying nothing, however, and crossed to a bench to start stripping out of her armor after grabbing pants and her hoodie to put over her tight underarmor suit. I pulled my attention away from her and looked straight at Jack—a woman not much older than my sister who had gone through hell in a Cerberus facility that was now hopefully a smoldering ruin.
"You are a mistake–" Jack's fists curled, but I continued before she could move– "a grave mistake in judgement on the part of Cerberus. Teltin facility never should have existed."
A ghost of a thought followed that I didn't say aloud: Cerberus never should have existed.
"I'm sure an apology means nothing from me. But for now, I'm the highest ranking Cerberus officer on this ship–" and likely the only one she'll ever meet that she doesn't kill outright– "and it was wrong. What they did to you. So, I'm sorry."
I thought I'd been doing good, working for the betterment of humanity, but now I couldn't recall one instance where Cerberus had made a significant positive influence. I'd overlooked the horrible things I was asked to do because the end result was hidden under 'the greater good.'
Making sacrifices for the greater good was one thing. What Cerberus was doing was something else entirely.
However, leaving Cerberus was more than quitting a job; it was quitting a life, and the Illusive Man would be sure to send agents after me, once he learned. He might even send Kai Leng. I shuddered at the thought. I'd known when I'd signed on that it would be for life, had welcomed the certainty and direction that the commitment had provided. Now it was a chain on my ankle, yanking tight.
"I really just wanted to punch you in the face again, Cheerleader. And you couldn't even give me that," Jack growled.
She spun on her heel and prowled off, shoulders slightly slumped, taking the shortcut to her space in Engineering instead of bothering with the elevator. Shepard approached me slowly.
"The words 'I'm sorry' just crossed your lips. Twice," Shepard observed. Her eyebrows furrowed. "And neither one was directed at me."
I scoffed at her with a roll of my eyes and walked to hit the button that would call the elevator.
"Hey, I was joking," Shepard protested jogging up behind me and slipped into the elevator before the doors could close.
"You sent me back to the ship," I pointed out, staring at the numbers as they indicated we were changing decks. I was still angry. At her, at the Illusive Man, at myself.
"Well, you were a bit out of control, so I think that was warranted," Shepard said.
The doors opened with a ding, and I was one step through the door when Shepard reached for my wrist.
"Where are you going?" she asked.
"My office," I answered sharply. "Where else?"
Shepard looked taken aback, hurt flashing across her face as she dropped her hold on my wrist. I made to continue but shot a hand out to hold the door when I heard her sigh. I closed my eyes briefly.
"You may come with me if you wish," I offered.
She did, following me through the doors of my office and shutting them behind us. I walked around my desk, glanced to my left, and caught sight of my reflection in the bathroom mirror. I saw the way my hair was slightly ruffled, my lip slightly swollen. I also saw the damning Cerberus symbol sitting right over my heart, but this time I wasn't on a shuttle with Garrus or in the middle of the cargo bay.
I ripped my uniform top over my head and heard Shepard give a startled squeak behind me. I tossed the garment to the ground, not bothering to put it in the hamper where I would have usually, and riffled through my closet to find something—anything—else to wear that wouldn't mark me as Cerberus. Not today. Not anymore.
"Miranda…"
"You're ecstatic, I'm sure," I interrupted dryly. "How long have you been waiting to tell me 'I told you so'?"
"I never thought it would happen, actually. Definitely never imagined you apologizing to Jack," Shepard admitted. She sighed at my glare and stopped my frantic search through my closet—that had basically nothing in it, I might add—by grabbing my hand like it was nothing, like this was just something we did now. My heart squeezed at the same time she squeezed my fingers. "Look, I know I've been very vocal about my dislike of Cerberus. But I don't blame you. You were trying to get away from your father and…"
"Don't you dare," I stopped her. Her eyebrows shot up at my tone, and I jerked my hand away so hard that Shepard's arm flung out awkwardly as she tried to hold on. "I am not some victim. You don't get to use my past to justify this. My father hurt me, Shepard, but he didn't break me. I'm my own person, and I make my own choices." I sucked in a shuddering breath. "I chose this."
"Miranda." This time the way she said my name was better, had lost that broken, pitying tone she'd started with. "I wasn't trying to…" She stopped, her nose wrinkling in frustration "You have to admit it influenced you."
I acquiesced with a slight nod. "Of course my upbringing influenced me. But if anything, it should have warned me away. I made my bed," I muttered angrily, using the old saying. "Now I have to lie in it."
"Well," Shepard said with a grin, eyes darting to the bed we both stood by. "At least you won't be sleeping in it alone."
The joke fell slightly flat, but I still breathed out in something akin to a laugh. Still, it wasn't enough to dislodge my darkened disposition as I sank to a seat on my bed.
"I have to leave Cerberus," I said, almost in a whisper, looking up through my lashes as the smile slid off Shepard's face, replaced by concern. But she shouldn't be. Not really. I'd already decided to leave, had been keeping one foot out of the door since the incident with my father. I suppose this was simply a needed last push.
Shepard pressed her lips together and began unzipping the front of her N7 hoodie. She shrugged it off leaving her in the thin, body hugging material of her underarmor suit. My eyes were drawn to the way it stretched across her stomach with the movement, and when I looked up, Shepard was smirking at me. She held the jacket out towards me, going so far as to guide one of my arms into the proper slot when I didn't take it from her.
When it was on, Shepard zipped the jacket for me and smoothed the material along my shoulders. I raised an eyebrow.
"What exactly does this accomplish? Simply giving me a new logo doesn't change things," I remarked.
"For one, I'm much more focused when you're wearing a top," Shepard answered. I flushed at the look in her eyes before shaking it off, reminding myself not to read into things. She sat down next to me, her knee brushing briefly against mine. "You said like to know where you fit, where your place is. You like labels. So I'm letting you have mine," Shepard continued. "Look, this doesn't change our mission. And we can work out everything else later, because with me—us," she corrected, waving around to the rest of the ship, "—is where you belong. This is your place."
I took a deep breath through my nose, fighting the emotion that was threatening to close my throat and keep me from responding. But even when I managed, my voice was still hoarse.
"Thank you, Shepard."
The corners of her eyes crinkled as she smiled, and my heart fluttered in response. Then Shepard placed her arms behind herself on the bed and pushed backwards to hop fully on the bed, settling herself on the pillows. Shepard reached into one of the pockets on her pants and tossed me a protein bar, then patted the place on the bed next to her.
"Eat that," she ordered. "And come on."
She patted the bed again.
"Shepard, it's barely past noon," I stated. I looked at my computer. "I still have...I should…"
"We are going to relax. Well, mostly you, because at some point, I have to go check in on Jack. But until then, I am going to read and you are going to do something besides work next to me," she said. "One afternoon of rest. It's what people do. Or so I've heard."
I begrudgingly crawled onto my spot next to her and laid down, tearing open the protein bar once I was sure that Shepard had given me one of the fruity ones and not a chocolate covered one. I took a bite and stared at the ceiling while I chewed, though much as I tried, I couldn't find this doing nothing as any sort of relaxing. I started reviewing my plan for Shepard's surgery later instead, and after a few minutes, Shepard laughed.
"I can practically feel you thinking from here," Shepard teased with a roll of her eyes.
Shepard reached in the bedside table to grab a datapad like the one she was reading on before tossing it to land on my stomach. I gasped at the impact and frowned up to where she was propped up on pillows. But then Shepard's fingers found their way into my hair, scratching against my scalp, and I closed my eyes and shivered.
It was moments like this that I wondered if she knew the effect she had on me, these small touches that were becoming more common since we'd begun occupying the same bed. I wondered if she knew that my heart was racing and my face felt hot. Against all reason, I wondered if she did it on purpose.
I opened my eyes to see Shepard's emerald ones already staring down at me. She quickly looked back at her book.
"I feel ridiculous," I declared.
Shepard chuckled, then murmured lowly, "Welcome to the Normandy, Lawson."
Funny how I didn't mind my last name when she said it like that.
Just kiss already, for fucks' sake.
Hope everyone likes the update! I know a lot of you were probably expecting there to be a lot more blowback after that last fight between Shepard and Miranda, but I thought this was a little more true to the characters. My Shepard is volatile, but she's come a long way with Miranda, too far to instantly turn on her over a little spat. Besides, who needs pride when it keeps you from sleeping next to Miranda Lawson?
Garrus, too, is being taken in a direction I didn't originally expect to write. I just don't see him as feeling overly guilty about Sidonis, but I do see him feeling like shit that he has very little to show for two years of work. And here his best friend was risen from the dead to save the galaxy. Anyone would be a little jealous.
I would love to hear what you all think! Even short comments are great!