ACT II
Chapter Ten
Seven months could really change a person. Clara Johnson was no exception to this.
Clara didn't know the exact day she stopped thinking about Tito. Clara couldn't even give you a rough estimate, but if she had to give some vague pinpoint in time, she would say it was about 5 months in, around the time they took out an Eclipse merc squad that was attempting to assassinate a Hanar diplomat. Clara never got the dirty details, didn't really want them, but the fight had been brutal. 5 Asari commandos against herself, Boreas, and Meriones while Nihlus broke into their system and sweeped for any pertinent information. They'd found a lot – a long trail of information that never quite touched Cerberus but got them pretty damn close a few times. The work load was awful, the violence grew with every strike, and Clara…
Clara was desensitizing. She remembered looking out on bodies of dead mercenaries and feeling nothing – the thought that she had been behind the bullet that shattered through their skull and vaporized their brain didn't even make her flinch. It was just another job and they were just another piece of scum. It was her job to take them out. It was her duty, as a crew member of the Actium, to clear a path for her teammates and make sure every damn one came back alive.
When she realized it the first time she had a panic attack. She'd locked herself in her room during dinner while everyone else celebrated another hard-won victory and showered till her skin was raw.
Eventually, she got over it. And now she was here.
"Get down!" she screamed, grabbing the lip of Creion's armor and forcing him back behind cover. He made it just in time, the rocket whizzing overhead and colliding with a crate filled with red sand. She cursed angrily, Turian and Spanish slipping from her tongue in a strange hybrid language, and an instant later the duo were making a dash for new cover a safe distance away from the quickly spreading substance.
Her shields took several bad hits on the way, but she got into cover with still half left and not a single dint in her – finally – personalized paint job. Creion peeped over the top of the crate, quick eyes scanning over the still-able targets, and quickly sank back down.
"Thirteen on our left, seven on our right," he murmured. "Meriones and Boreas are coming in from the south, they'll be here in approximately 3 minutes."
Clara sighed, her heart thundering in her chest – for once, due to adrenaline and not fear. "So, we provide a distraction, they come in from behind, and Nihlus continues forward into the labs?" she asked.
"Exactly," he agreed. He gave her a wide, turian grin. "Hold on to your plates."
Clara could barely get out her retort ("I don't have –") when Creion uncurled, assault rifle aimed and unloading on the lurking Cerberus soldiers. Clara growled and followed his lead, letting his barrage take down their shields while her single shots took them down – first breaching their armor, then penetrating their various vital organs. Return fire started up and the duo once again found themselves crouching behind cover, breathing heavily.
"Where are Boreas and Meriones?" Nihlus snapped over the comm., making Clara roll her eyes.
"Good ol' Nihlus," she murmured kindly while Creion responded with a quick update. Nihlus growled – she could tell it was one of those full growls that included subharmonics just loud enough to notice, because her translator flipped out for a moment.
"I can't keep my back clear," he warned. "Get ready."
Clara panicked, "Get ready? Get ready for what?!"
Her answer came a second later when familiar black-and-red armor burst onto the scene, sprinting headlong into the fire. Clara screamed, a mixture of aggravation and shock and horror, and pulled herself from cover to fire at the suddenly distracted Cerberus agents. Her panic didn't last long – she watched with wide eyes as the door behind the operatives crashed in with a bright biotic blast. The operatives turned to evaluate the newest threat, but barely even had time to switch their aim before the combined shotgun blasts of Boreas and Meriones shattered their shields and crushed their armor in quick bursts. When their shotguns overheated Clara stepped in with her pistol, hitting them from behind and again distracting them as her squadmates quickly and efficiently switched weapons. Boreas tossed a group of three aside with a powerful biotic warp, their bodies slamming into the wall with audible crunches.
Clara spotted the tail end of Nihlus as he scrambled into the next room, and an instant later she was following after him. The rest of the squad covered her back, Boreas tossing up a barrier to deflect the few shots that were fired after her while Meroines pistol whipped one cocky agent who thought he could beat the female in hand to hand.
Poor bastard. If Creion was the weapons specialist on board, then Meriones was the hand-to-hand god. Clara didn't even think Nihlus could consistently beat her in a spar.
She slid into the room and didn't even spare a glance at the human corpse in the chair at the desk, head lolling back while his chest was soaked in blood. Nihlus stood beside it, focused intently on the computer. Clara quickly moved up beside him, watching as he hacked through the firewalls like a pro.
"Check the safes on the wall," he ordered, not even looking up. "Be careful for traps."
The image of Sherlock inputting the code to Irene Adler's safe only to wind up avoiding a bullet flashed through her mind. Caution pushed her to stand at an angle from the safe while she raised her omni-tool and began the grueling process of hacking through Cerberus' firewals.
In the months since their first successful strike against Cerberus they had taken down several other minor outposts – none of them occupied by Miranda Lawson, thankfully. Each drop was more difficult than the last. Cerberus started recognizing the patterns, started preparing, and soon simple infiltration missions turned into all out war. Atrides had nearly died last drop.
Clara wondered if it would have been worth it, if he had. Nihlus seemed to think it was.
This specific station was packed with military personnel, and Clara was quickly starting to realize a pattern between the outposts they ransacked. Some would be littered with scientists, so many that Clara even wondered if they had any guards at all. Others would be almost purely military, so heavily fortified that she couldn't even hope to get through security on her own without some sort of heavy artillery. Like a rocket launcher.
And then there were the rare, but there, third variety of Cerberus facility: the ones that leaked political corruption out the wazoo. Those always had a nice balance between science and security, with a healthy dose of political and financial nonsense to fill the divide. Those were, by far, the most difficult outposts to dispose of. You take down security only to find yourself cornered by a well trained troop of operatives and visa versa. Taking into consideration the heavily fortified security systems and the well-armed troops, this was one of those stations.
Clara didn't really believe in coincidences – not after the year she had spent in this universe. She only wished she could figure out why the pattern was there in the first place.
"Opening the safe," she cautioned Nihlus, and with a careful hand, she pulled the door open. Nothing happened. She glanced in and saw a stack of credits, enough to make her eyes widen, and a single file. She hesitated before pulling the file out first. The credits shifted from their place, and when nothing happened she contented herself with the revelation that there really wasn't anything in there waiting to bite her hand off.
She poured the credits into a pouch and headed to the desk to pass the spectre the file. He grabbed it with a nod of thanks before sliding it under his armor. People rarely kept things on paper, and when they did it was because it had hand-written notes they didn't want getting picked up from unwanted eyes (i.e. The Shadow Broker). That meant whatever was in there was important.
"Firewalls are down," Nihlus reported, glancing up as the rest of their team entered the small office. "Hostiles?"
"Neutralized," Creion responded. "Only minor injuries."
"Excellent," Nihlu scanned over the screen, watching as data transferred from the computer and into the OSD. Lord, that was a lot. Clara's heart tightened. Maybe this was it?
"Transfer complete," a mechanized voice said.
Nihlus quickly ejected the OSD, glancing at his team before nodding. "We're only halfway through. Now we have to get back out. Atrides, Astyanax, and Ajax are waiting for us in docking bay D-28. Approximately fifty hostiles are between us."
"So, shoot our way out?" Clara asked. "Again?"
He nodded, "Shoot your way out. I'm taking the information and going trough the ventilation – Lycia is keeping an eye on the levels and redirecting the flow to make sure I don't bake. If she messages you and asks you to do something, you damn well better do it or else you'll find yourselves lacking one spectre and a commanding officer. Then you'll all have to listen to Nestor."
There was an audible groan, and Nihlus' mandibles fluttered in amusement. "You're no sunshine, Kryik, but if Nestor takes over I think we all may just follow after you." Meriones said dryly. Even Boreas seemed to agree with the sentiment, though even after seven months Clara still couldn't read his face. She didn't think anyone could, actually.
"Right, lets move!" Nihlus barked, and despite his tone Clara could see the humor in his eyes. "We've got 20 minutes before the Hierarchy blows the station out of orbit, we need to be back on the ship before then."
The team dispersed without another word, and while Clara tailed after the group Nihlus diverged and made his way to the nearest ventilation shaft. Her mind flashed to 2185, to the Collector home world, and she prayed that Lycia wasn't having an off day.
…
They made it back to the ship with five minutes to spare, and it took only two minute for them to break out the wine and gather in the observation deck to watch as a large turian dreadnaught blasted the station as promised, bits of metal scattering through space. The cheer that went through the ship was enough to make Clara's bones shake.
"Good job today, Johnson," Boreas said shortly, keeping firmly away from the alcohol. He claimed it interfered with his biotics, that he preferred to meditate as a means of celebration, but whenever they did achieve something like today he made a point to mingle with the rest of the crew. Clara was certain she would never get used to seeing him out of his onyx armor, not matter how much time she spent with him.
"Couldn't have don't it without you," she countered with a kind smile. "You and Meriones saved the day."
"If we had been faster, we wouldn't have had to," he deftly pointed out. Clara resisted the urge to sigh – that was Boreas. The thief of joy. He seemed to pick up on her mood regardless, and nodded towards the more populated half of the observation deck. She didn't need telling twice – she wished him a good night, knowing the likelihood of seeing him before he disappeared completely was slim to none.
"Clara!" Atrides called, and with a startled laugh she realized he was already half way to happy town. The boy was young, barely out of boot camp, but he was good with a gun and even better with big guns. But, the fact is he was young, and this was his first real cruise. She was willing to bet that his first drunken celebration had been on this very ship.
Needless to say, she didn't expect him to last much longer. Nihlus would shuffle him off to bed before he got plastered enough to attempt flirting with Lycia again.
"Clare-bear!" Atrides crooned, mandibles fluttering in a mixture of amusement and confusion. "You…are kind hot for a human."
"Whoa there, stud," she drawled, reaching out to steady him. "Calm down. I'm human, remember? And you have told me on many, many occasions that you don't find my 'fringe' or my waist particularly appealing."
He scoffed, "Please, that was before I saw you kill a guy and use his body to prop open a security door."
Clara winced at the memory – the door was closing fast, and he was a big guy with thick armor. She'd kicked him under the quickly closing door and the armor was strong enough to buy her the seconds she needed to slide through to safety. Her feet had barely cleared the ground before the door sawed him in half. She was just glad he was already dead – that was a level of brutality she didn't think she could deal with, even now.
"Well, Atrides, as flattered as I am, I have to remind you that I –"
Her response was cut off by a yell as Atrides spotted something – Clara had no idea what, but apparently it was magical enough for him to abandon her mid stride and attempt to tackle it. Clara shook her head and moved on.
The night passed slowly, and even as she drank glass after glass of levo-dextro wine it seemed as if it would never end. The more she drank, the more relaxed she became, and after years away small slivers of her southern heritage started shining through in her accent. She stumbled around from person to person, laughing at drunken recollections of earlier battles and very blatantly correcting any flawed recounts that gave the teller a little more cred than was actually deserved. Needless to say, Creion protested within a few stories.
"No more, Clara!" he cried, the loudest he had ever been outside of a mission, and pushed her away from the small group. "Let me tell my stories in peace!"
"Y'alls stories are lies!" Clara yelled back, squealing slightly as she lost her footing. "You are a liar! You, sir, are a no good…nogooder!"
"I don't care!" Creion protested, and gave her a last shove. She stumbled completely then, tripping right into the chest of their commanding officer. She smiled up at him, using his offered hand to right herself as Creion returned to his attempts at wooing the ever aloof Meriones (who, as far as Clara could tell, had absolutely no interest in the poor man).
"Well, hello there, Officer Kryik," she said, offering Nihlus a sloppy salute. "It's good ta see you removed the stick from your ass ta join us."
Nihlus chuckled, his mandibles lax and his eyes soft. That was enough to tell her that he was just as drunk as the rest of them. It made her feel a little better, knowing that even their CO was relaxing tonight. Hell, after all the shit they went through to take down that base, he deserved a chance to chillax. They all did.
"Clara. Glad to see you are as insubordinate as ever," he retorted. Clara wondered how he didn't stumble over any of his words. Maybe he just had more practice. She offered him a toothy grin.
"Please, you know you love me," she said. "And I would hardly consider myself insuba – insuborday – that. If anyone deserves that, it's Creion."
Nihlus chuckled again, "You do have a point. I can't think of a time where he hasn't disagreed with me."
"See? Insubordination!" she crowed. She realized she was still leaning on him for support and pulled back to attempt to regain some dignity, and her footing. She over corrected, stumbling away, and it was only Nihlus' quick reflexes that kept her from busting her ass. She doubted she would have felt it – if anything, she probably would have just laid there and laughed her ass off along with everyone else.
"One of these days, I'm gonna be the one savin' you," she said. Nihlus quirked a browplate.
"Oh really?" he asked. "I suppose I should consider myself honored, then?"
Clara gave a very enthusiastic nod. "Yes, you should! I only save the people I like!" She hesitated. "Well. An' the people I don't like. Because I really just don't like watching people sad, an' even if I don't like the person other people get sad because the person I don't like is dead, an' now that I have the chance to change all that-"
"Whoa, Clara, wait. Calm down, deep breast – breaths – and please stop talking," Nihlus interrupted, placing his hands firmly on her shoulders. She couldn't tell if it was to keep her steady, or to keep himself. "You are talking too fast and I am no where near sober enough to decode you."
She sighed, rolling her eyes. "The point is, I'm gonna save ya this time. No one is going to die if I have my way of it. And I will. I always have my way." She winked, and in her drunken state she thought it was a rather smooth move. In truth, it was more like a sloppy blinking session. Nihlus didn't seem to care either way.
"No, I'm drunk!" she protested with a laugh, mentally cheering at her ability to make obscure references no one understood in this universe even when drunk. She made a mental note to rewatch Starship when she made it back to her universe – oh, or maybe that still existed in this world? If it did, she was certain that called for a marathon of A Very Potter Musical.
"Exactly. You need to rest. Humans need more rest than us," he continued, completely unaware that her mind was already spiraling onto a tangent. She actually didn't realize he was talking until he said her name a few times.
"Right, sorry, you were saying, Captain Crunch?" she asked, forcefully steadying herself and trying her best to meet his gaze head on. They stared at each other for a few moments, each trying to gather themselves, before promptly breaking into peals of laughter. Clara, at calling Nihlus Captain Crunch, and Nihlus…well, she didn't know why he was laughing, but she doubted it was because she called him Captain Crunch.
"No, no, you're right though," Clara said, patting his chest. "I need ta sleep. I…am drunk. An' tomorrow I will be sober and extreeedingly upset with myself. Because. Hydration and, food, and hangovers."
He looked at her. "Did you just combine exceedingly and extremely?"
Another impromptu staring contest. This time, neither of them laughed. Clara blinked first, completely forgetting that they were even having a staring contest, and Nihlus nodded. "Right. Sleep. Where do you sleep again?"
Clara hesitated. "Um. The – crew quarters. With Meriones. In separate bunks." She felt the need to clarify.
"There's no elevator there – can you walk there?" he asked. He finally removed his hands from her shoulders – how long had they been there? – and Clara attempted to walk. She made it two steps before she stumbled and found herself heading towards the ground. Nihlus reacted as quickly as he could, managing to stop her before her whole body hit the ground. Her ankle still stung though, and it was with a groan that she realized she'd managed to twist it.
"That would be a negative, Ghost Rider," she said. She attempted to stand, only to nearly take another fall. "God dammit, now I really cain't walk," she groaned.
Before she could complain any further Nihlus hefted her up in his arms, carrying her from the party and making his way towards the stairs with every intent on depositing her in her bed and then rejoining the celebrations.
Her eyes began drifting shut with the rocking of his body, and even though the trip down the steps wasn't exactly the most pleasant of ventures, it could have been exponentially worse. She could have tried walking downstairs by herself. They hadn't even reached the bottom of the steps before she found herself very soundly asleep in Nihlus' arms.
…
Clara groaned, twisting in her sheets as she shoved her head under her pillow, a sad attempt at blocking out the artificial light that quickly filled the room. Her head throbbed, more than she could ever remember it hurting before, and judging by the gurgling of her stomach any attempts at moving was going to end badly for her. Especially jumping off the top bunk.
She breathed in deep, an attempt to sooth the aches in her body, and froze.
This…was not her bed. And…where were her pants?
She shifted slightly, barely moving, and froze when her foot pressed against a plated leg – equally bare. She didn't dare move any closer, instead opting to slowly inch her foot away and cautiously remove the pillow.
There, sleeping next to her, was a turian. A very naked turian.
Her stomach bottomed out, and she felt like she was going to be sick – and not because of the alcohol.
She was in a separate crew quarters from her own – she could see Boreas, asleep in his own bunk, and Creion asleep above him. Clara swallowed and slowly got out of bed, praying to every god she could think of that her bedpartner was asleep. She searched the room, pulling on her clothes. Any hope that nothing had happened vanished when she saw her panties strewn over the top of a lamp. Her cheeks flushed as she pulled them down, shoving them into her pants pocket.
Suitably dressed, she found no other reason to avoid seeing who she had stumbled into bed with the previous night. She turned hesitantly, peeking at the face of whoever she had accosted in the night.
Grey plates, so similar to Aetius' own shade, and white markings that mirrored his almost exactly. Sober, she had never noticed the similarities between the two, but now Atrides looked entirely too familiar.
A quick scan told her she'd left nothing behind. An instant later she slid through the door, her boots clutched to her chest. She didn't dare linger, running straight to her room to gather her shower supplies. Meriones was awake at her desk, and when she turned to investigate Clara refused to meet her eyes.
"Someone had a good night," her roommate said dryly.
"I don't want to talk about it," Clara muttered, pulling fresh clothes from her drawers.
Meriones shrugged, turning her attention back to her datapad without another question. Clara was, not for the first time, intensely grateful for her roommates more reserved nature. Clara could barely admit what had happened to herself, let alone someone else.
She escaped to the shower, turning on the water as hot as was allowed and forcing herself under the painful stream. Her skin was pink when she emerged, a combination of the scalding heat and the fierce scrubbing she had subjected it too. No matter how much soap she used she still felt dirty.
Meriones was gone when she returned to her room, and it was with a start that she realized it was breakfast. Everyone would be wandering out of their rooms, save those who still couldn't walk straight, looking for some sort of relief from the rolling of their stomachs. Clara didn't dare leave, waiting until she was certain that the crew had finished its migration before she headed to the one place that was almost guaranteed to be empty.
…
Clara stared out over the observation deck, watching with a certain sense of trepidation as space slowly moved around them. It was dark, deep, fathomless, completely and totally…terrifying. But, it gave perspective to things. Made her realize her problems probably weren't all that major in comparison to the thousands of millions of billions of trillions of lives that existed throughout the universe. Her problems weren't that bad.
She sighed, pressing her hand to her forehead and tried to beat back the guilt that was still gnawing at her stomach. Her problems may not have been bad in comparison to all the shit that was going on in the universe, but she'd be damned if they weren't painful. Her omni-tool beeped and a glance at it made her stomach twist even more. It was Aelia, asking her if everything was okay. Asking why she hadn't checked in. Telling her that Tito was the same – stable, but no signs of change.
She wanted to respond fully, to pour her heart out to the younger woman and just share the weight. She didn't. She typed out a terse response (because anything more would just undo another band that held the chaos of her mind in place) and went offline. She couldn't talk to her right now. Not after last night.
The mere thought just took the knife of guilt in her chest and twisted it, until she thought she was going to be ill. She hadn't eaten since last night, and she should have – all the drinking, the lack of food, the lack of sleep…
She didn't move. She kept staring out into space, hoping maybe the darkness would just suck the emotions out of her, because surely feeling nothing was better than sitting here letting guilt swallow her whole. The longer she stared out into the abyss, the more she remembered about last night. Each revelation only served to worsen her guilt. She was used to the guilt that came with killing, she could deal with that brand of regret. This, though…this wasn't something she could forgive herself for. She knew Tito would forgive her for killing, especially considering who they were after, but would he forgive her for this? Could he?
"Clara?" Lycia's voice broke through her revere, forcing her to turn and look at her friend with a false smile.
"Hey, Lyc, what's up?" she asked, forcefully adding some pep to her tone.
Lycia didn't look fooled – her mandibles flickered in concern. "You've not eaten all day, and I know enough about human physiology to know that you feel like crap. You drank way too much."
"Believe me, I know," she murmured, sighing and running her fingers through her hair. "I know I should, I just." She sighed again, falling back into her seat with an air of defeat. "Any chance I could get you to bring me some food?" she asked, half because she wanted to be left alone and half because she knew she needed food if she wanted to ease the remnants of her hangover.
"Already expected you'd ask," Lycia said, holding up two trays and stepping forward, taking a place by her on the bench. Clara smiled, and that damn knife of guilt dug deeper.
"You didn't have to," she said.
Lycia shrugged. "I know I don't like to eat alone when I'm sad."
"And who says I'm sad?"
Lycia outright scoffed at that, tossing her friend a look. "Please. I may not be totally in tune with human body language, but we've been on the same ship for almost ten months now. I know you're body language. You're sad – upset, worried, guilty, whatever – you're one of those. And I don't know what you did that makes you feel like you need to hide yourself away, but everyone here cares about you."
"Except for Nestor," Clara quipped weakly, and Lycia smiled softly.
"Except for Nestor," She agreed. "The point is, Clara, that you can talk to someone. I like to think you can talk to me."
Clara sighed, picking at her food and trying to find some words to offer, something she could say to explain without actually explaining. Except, nothing was happening. No words would come except for the glaringly obvious, the ones that made her headache worse and made that damn knife twist deeper.
"I made a mistake last night," she murmured.
"What, did you drink some dextro wine on accident?"
Clara shook her head and sat her tray at her side to run her hands down her face, bracing her elbows on her knees and holding herself up. "I don't remember most of last night. But what I do remember…"
She couldn't finish. Lycia waited patiently for a moment, no doubt hoping that Clara would finish on her own, but when no sign came she spoke. "I don't know what happened to you past 3 AM – you and Nihlus vanished before anyone could think twice."
Clara considered responding, she considered pushing aside the guilt and the strange choking sensation that made speaking inordinately difficult. And as much as she probably should talk about it, as much as logic said talking would help, she couldn't bring herself to talk about it. Saying it out loud to someone else made it real, and even though it wasn't healthy she just wanted to pretend it hadn't happened.
Finally she settled for shaking her head, keeping her lips firmly sealed. Lycia seemed to understand, offering her a comforting hand. It didn't make her feel any better, but it was enough. For now.
…
A/N: I've gone back and forth on whether I wanted to post this chapter. And I'm still not completely comfortable with it, but, you've waited long enough.
Reasoning behind having this happen:
1) Clara is human. She makes mistakes. She's not perfect. I want to keep it that way.
2) Clara fucks up. Up until now things have been going really hella smoothly, and this is a wrench that wont hinder the plot but it will.
3) Clara has about a years worth of stress and emotions built up inside of her and she's a roiling mass of emotions right now. When you're emotional you don't think straight, and especially not when you're drunk.
4) ~character development~. This is primarily a character-driven story, and while I did put a lot of effort into the plot, the characters are central to that. I like putting my characters through realistic wringers to see what they come out like on the other side.
So, Clara is going to have some internal issues going on until we hit Act III, when she gets over it and also has a chance to atone. Also, at that point, she has a few more important things to think over. Act II is relatively calm in comparison to Act I and Act III, but it's still important. And there are still a good handful of battles, no worries. I'm not skimping on substance just to get from point A to point B, though I'm also not trying to overload this with shittons of information that you, honestly, don't need.
Again, thanks to everyone who has stuck through this long.
Lots of Love;
B.E. Nomads.