Williams had changed. Her hair was no longer tied into an efficient bun, but loose about her shoulders. Her uniform was a brilliant Alliance blue with a single gold stripe on the shoulders. She wore a bit more makeup. But her eyes hadn't changed a bit. She still glared at Miranda like she wanted to dissect her while she was still alive. Without anesthesia.
"She's going to be our doctor? With all due respect, ma'am, have you lost your mind?"
Shepard rested her hand on the briefing console, and her eyebrows knit together in frustration. "We need the best. I'll vouch for Lawson's medical ability. And I'm hoping she can lead us to intel on Cerberus operations."
"Are we so sure she's former Cerberus? She could be a spy or a mole. Like Eva Corré. She could have been said here to assassinate Victus."
How nice to know the Alliance was still paranoid while being utterly incapable of focusing on the genuine threat. "If I were on an assassination mission, I'd have been sent after a dalatrass. Turian succession is entirely too clear and orderly for assassination to be an effective disruption tactic. And the next in the line of succession is Garrus' father. Do you really think Cerberus wants to contend with him after his son died because of the mission we recruited him for? I assure you, unless the Illusive Man has become stupid as well as insane, it's in Cerberus' best interest to keep your precious primarch alive."
Shepard glared at her. "Not helping, Lawson." She turned back to Williams. "We need all the help we can get, and Miranda's had plenty of opportunities to stab me in the back both before and after I left Cerberus."
"I'm not saying we shouldn't let her help. Just that letting the supposed medical genius of a group of mad scientists work on the ship might not be the smartest idea. If she wants to help, take her to a secure facility and let AIA debrief her."
"If you think for one second I'm going to spend this war locked up…"
"Easy. I'm afraid you're stuck with Lawson as CMO." Shepard straightened and took a step back. Miranda knew what that meant. The discussion was over. Apparently Williams knew it too because she sighed and put her hands behind her back.
"Understood." She glared at Miranda. "I don't know why the commander trusts you. If it were me, I'd toss you in the holding cells. Just to be on the safe side. But she's letting you have run of the ship. Don't you dare abuse that trust. If you do, the Reapers will be the least of your problems. Am I clear?"
Miranda nodded. "Perfectly, Lieutenant. Now, if you'll excuse me, I do need to get set up."
"I'll walk you," Shepard said. "Give you the tour."
Miranda opened her mouth to protest, but thought better of it. She had precious few allies here, and Shepard was a friendly face. At the very least, her presence would make the crew think twice about any retribution they might want to visit on Miranda for Cerberus' crimes.
The Normandy was dark, and the emergency lights and consoles gave the command deck an unearthly glow. Crewmen manned their stations. An outside observer would have said that nothing had changed except the uniforms, but Miranda knew better. Her crew had been mostly ex-Alliance, but protocol had been given only a cursory nod. Hadley and Matthews had teased each other about visits to the Consort or consoled each other when they lost family to the Collectors. These servicemen were grim and silent. The Alliance was more serious than she remembered. Or the war had drained what warmth and humor they possessed. Or they were just barely restraining themselves from murdering Miranda. Pick one.
Shepard walked in front of her with easy confidence. Every strand of blonde hair was perfectly in place, and her uniform was as gleaming as ever. If either the war or her diagnosis weighed on her shoulders, she didn't show it. Maybe that was the secret to her remarkable ability to lead. Soldiers followed her into hell because she showed no fear of it. The Alliance's knight in powered armor.
Miranda wasn't sure how she felt about that. Certainly she didn't want Shepard crying into her jumpsuit like a blubbering fool. But Shepard was as human as anyone. Her dedication to the mission had allowed Miranda to respect her even when she didn't like her, but it wouldn't do anyone any good for Shepard to have a nervous breakdown. Miranda wished she would have punched the wall or swore or done something to reassure her that she wasn't merely bottling up whatever she might be feeling. Watching Shepard's preternatural confidence and charm now was like waiting for a bomb to drop.
"About the intel thing, I don't suppose you have some smoking gun on Cerberus. The location of their base of operations so we can cripple them in a single glorious battle that will be remembered forever?"
Miranda shook her head. "I've been to Cronos Station, but I couldn't tell you where it was beyond being in the Horsehead Nebula. The station's mobile, and the Illusive Man has relocated after anyone who isn't part of the on-station staff leaves."
"Lawson, the fact that there actually is a main base of operations we can cripple is more than I knew this morning. For all I knew, Cerberus was completely decentralized with the Illusive Man giving the orders from wherever he happens to be at the time." She smiled the charming smile that had made people like Kelly loyal to her instead of Cerberus. "See? You're helping. It'll be like looking for a needle in a haystack, but I'll see if I can get Hackett to dispatch recon probes to the nebula."
"That would be a highly inefficient use of Alliance resources," EDI piped up. "Given the size of the cluster and the relatively low heat emissions of any space station compared to a star, I calculate the probability of discovering the Illusive Man's location without further data to be less than .001%"
Miranda looked around for EDI's holographic interface, but didn't find it. "I'm surprised the Alliance didn't deactivate you. At least there's one thing that hasn't changed on this bloody ship."
Shepard gave her an odd look, as if she was torn between laughter and terror. "Er, about that. EDI has a body now."
"What?" She'd accepted even a shackled EDI with reluctance. Her origin as the Hannibal training VI had always been in the back of Miranda's mind. The knowledge that the heretic geth had chosen to follow Sovereign because of a math error had made her even more uneasy. By all means, use the AI, but never lose sight of the fact that it was one line of code away from turning on its creator. And now EDI was ambulatory as well as unshackled?
Shepard briefly outlined the events of the Mars mission. "We're still getting used to it, especially Ash, but EDI's proven to be invaluable. Since Mordin and Tali are who-knows where, she's taken over as technical specialist groundside."
"And there are other perks, too," Joker said. "No offense, Miranda, but you've got competition in the 'filling out a catsuit' department now."
"I am right here, Jeff."
Miranda rolled her eyes. "Well, at least some things never change."
"Daniels and Donnelly were granted pardons and leave to serve on the Normandy, so you will be seeing some familiar faces." Shepard stepped into the elevator and motioned for Miranda to follow her. "Liara's more or less moved the entire Shadow Broker network to the XO office, so I'm afraid you won't be able to get your old quarters back. And due to your…history, I don't think bunking you with the crew is a great idea."
"Meaning you're afraid of retaliation because of my past with Cerberus. I told you this was a stupid idea."
"A lot less stupid than me being bedridden or worse. Besides, we have an embedded civilian reporter. You'll be bunking with her. I think she's looking forward to grilling you, to be honest."
"A rep—I think Lieutenant Williams must be right. Even if most of my work didn't touch on things classified by the Alliance, Council, or both, I'm not going to bare my soul for the galaxy to see." Even if this reporter could be persuaded not to ask about Cerberus, there would be questions about her private life. And Miranda was even less willing to answer those.
"Just give her the patented Icy Lawson Stare—yes, that one—and you'll be fine. I have veto power over all her segments, so nothing is getting off the ship without my say so." Her lips thinned into a tight line. "I'm trusting you with my life. You can trust me with your privacy."
Miranda swallowed. She would never get used to Shepard's remarkable talent for swinging between casual humor and solemnity seemingly at the drop of a hat. A kind physician would have told Shepard that everything was going to be all right. Miranda had never been kind. She had learned to be good—to fight for something higher than her own ego—but kindness and gentleness were Oriana's birthright, not hers. Henry had taught her to be brutal: brutally honest, brutally efficient, and brutally determined. That was all she could offer Shepard.
"And here we are," Shepard said, when they'd arrived at the engineering deck. "Zaeed's old quarters are surprisingly comfortable, or so Allers tells me."
Miranda had only dim memories of how the room had looked during her first tour. Allers had transformed one wall into a miniature photo gallery similar to what Miranda had seen in the Citadel docks. A camera drone lay powered off in one corner. Another housed a desk and computer. Two single beds stood at opposite ends of the room.
A woman sat on one of those beds. She was beautiful in a faintly tawdry way, with her excessive makeup and white tank top. It would have been easy to dismiss her as a bimbo who had gotten her job because of her chest size and what appeared to be significant plastic surgery. Her eyes, though, were penetrating and intelligent. And complete idiots weren't allowed the kind of security clearance it would take to be an embedded reporter in the first place. A kindred spirit perhaps? A woman who knew the power of the right clothes and the right look, but lacked the meticulous genetic engineering to use them fully without assistance? Better to be cautious, at least for now.
The woman rose. "Diana Allers, Alliance News Network." She held out a hand. "And you must be the famous Miranda Lawson."
Miranda shot Shepard a look. "What exactly did you tell her about me?"
"The commander? Not much, except that you were going to be the one patching up anyone who decided they wanted to go out in a blaze of glory against the Reapers and that the two of you had served together before. The juicy bits came from the engineers and Joker."
Lovely. "I prefer to remain as circumspect as possible."
Allers sighed. "I guess that means I'll have to wait a bit for that exclusive interview."
No, you'll have to wait forever. "Yes."
"I'll let you get set up. I'll see you in the med bay later. I think I might've sprained my wrist dealing with one of the crazy hanar's guards. I want to take a look at it."
Miranda was torn between groaning and rolling her eyes. If Shepard really did hope to keep her condition secret from her crew, she would have to become better at lying.
"So," Allers said when they were alone. "I haven't had a roommate since college. This ought to be fun. Or it will drive us both crazy. Alice was a popular girl, but she sure as hell wasn't a celebrity."
"Neither am I. As I told you, I prefer to remain as circumspect as possible. It's considered a virtue in my line of work."
"Your line of work. Nice and cryptic. One of those juicy bits I mentioned was that you were XO when this was a Cerberus ship. Though how Henry Lawson's daughter became a Cerberus officer is what I don't understand."
Miranda went rigid. "How did you know I was Henry's daughter?"
"Besides the last name?" Allers smirked. "I cut my teeth in a Bekenstein newsroom. Interviewed him a few times when he came to the planet to negotiate a takeover of Milgrom Pharmaceutical. You have his eyes. And his scowl." She sobered slightly. "And he saved my life. My father died of Huntington's when I was little—"
"—And your mother paid through the nose to make sure you didn't have the gene. I assure you my father's only motive for developing his therapies was money, power, and glory."
"The three things that motivate ninety-nine percent of the human race."
"Indeed." But ninety-nine percent of the human race doesn't abort dozens of embryos because they would grow up to be nearsighted or cause another to collapse from exhaustion. If I told you what kind of man my father really was, showed you the scar from the surgery that gave me my biotics, what kind of story would you make of that? Or would he buy your silence the way he bought everyone else's?
It was going to be a long tour.
"I got you a present," Shepard said conversationally, her anxiety almost completely masked. If it wasn't for the nervous tapping of her foot she might have fooled even Miranda. "Least I could do considering. I figured my chances of getting you into an actual Alliance uniform were pretty much nil, so... "
She reached into her pocket and pulled out a small badge. The emblem of the Alliance in blue and gold. "Welcome to the Normandy, Ms. Lawson. Again. I should probably say something about hell freezing over while we're here."
Miranda took the badge from her and stared at it. The symbol of everything she had fought for and against. The Alliance fought for humanity, but it was bureaucratic, fearful, and far too fond of appeasing governments mainly concerned with maintaining the status quo. They had pushed for conformity instead of excellence. They had quietly looked the other way while Cerberus did their dirty work but had thrown Shepard to the wolves when she became politically inconvenient. And yet, they weren't the ones indoctrinating their own troops.
The universe had truly gone insane.
She shoved the badge into a desk drawer. "I'm here because you asked me. Don't expect me to repaint my side of the room in blue anytime soon."
"Wouldn't dream of it, Lawson," she said with a smile. "But I appreciate it."
They looked at each other. Shepard wasn't beautiful or even attractive in the conventional sense. Her nose was too large, and her jaw was too prominent. Her eyes were an unremarkable shade of gray. She wasn't especially tall or short. Nothing physically remarkable about her at all. And yet, this was the woman who had forced her and eleven other people, some of whom hated each other, to work as a team. She had led a suicide mission and gotten the entire noncombat crew and over half the ground team out alive. Miranda, for all her gifts, had only been able to watch and marvel.
It would have given Henry a seizure.
Perhaps it was the intensity, that clear overpowering sense of purpose that had allowed her to live when others died and to slay Reapers. And perhaps, just perhaps, you could absorb a bit of that alchemy if you stayed near her long enough. Or she would do one of her impossible things for you. Reunite you with your sister and convince you that the two of you could have a relationship. And now, Shepard was ill. Death would take years, but the decay would rob her of the ability to fight long before that. She would gradually grow clumsy as her coordination deteriorated. Dementia would set in. She would eventually require full-time care, unable to feed or dress herself. Shepard would be nothing more than a dying ember waiting for her final extinguishing.
No. No. I won't let you. You're mine. I built you. It will not end like this. Miranda had given two years of her life to resurrect Shepard. Lazarus was her crowning achievement. Shepard was the proof that even death could be conquered. No Reaper-addled scientist would destroy her. Miranda would use every ounce of brilliance Henry had given her to make it so. Shepard had performed a miracle for her. It was time to return the favor.
Shepard's hand brushed hers. It wasn't a squeeze or caress, just skin touching skin as they stood beside each other. Shepard's hand was hard and callused from a lifetime of holding a gun. And yet, Shepard had been the first person to touch her kindly in months. Her friends had either vanished or been indoctrinated. Physical release via anonymous sex was too risky. And dating had never worked out for her even when the world wasn't ending. So Miranda basked in these small intimacies and tried not to wish for more.
"So, er, about my treatment?"
Right. Treatment. "I thought I might start you on coryphyzyne…"
Most of the drugs used are fictional, but Shepard's biotics-induced neural decay is based on Huntington's Disease, albeit a drastically simplified version.