4: Instinct
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"Bringing the Krogan for study makes sense, but I have concerns about waking it."
"Yeah, you've said that a few times now." Jacob pointed out exasperatedly. Miranda scowled, turning to face Shepard who had just entered the room.
"You have some worries Lawson?" she asked amusedly. Of course she did. Miranda always had concerns. It was likely harder to find a time when the Operative wasn't calculating variables and plotting possible outcomes to every action Shepard made. Miranda sensed the laughter in the woman's voice and hated that she was becoming so damn predictable around her.
"A normal Krogan is dangerous. This one was created and likely educated by a madman." She hoped logic was enough to get through to the redhead, but from past experience, she knew she may as well have been bashing her head off a concrete wall for all the good it would do her.
"So were you, but I haven't kicked your ass out of the airlock… yet." The Commander smiled her infuriating half smile and it made Miranda want to smear the walls with her and turn the gorgeous face that Jacob was currently mooning at into a caved in mess. Instead, her impenetrable mask faltered before she could help it and she slipped enough to let Shepard see that the offhanded comment about her father had hurt.
Damnit. And damn her.
She attempted to cover it up as quickly as possible, but it was too late. The Commander's face softened as she turned to ask Jacob to excuse them, to which he replied with a sharp salute, and exited the room with haste.
Miranda watched him go with a certain desperation, not wanting to be left alone with this woman she didn't recognise - the one that seemed to surface at the most arbitrary of times with a caring gesture and kind eyes. As much as Miranda hated being predictable around Shepard, she hated the other woman even more for being the complete opposite; a mystery.
"Look I understand your trepidation. But you can't deny that you and Grunt share a lot of similarities."
Miranda huffed. She could deny all she wanted.
"The difference is, I didn't wake up one day a fully grown Krogan with whatever homicidal interests a madman had implanted in my brain. We can't just dive right into this Shepard, he's a complete unknown."
"I know. Don't you find that exciting?" The redhead bounced, a childlike glee shining innocently in her eyes at the very thought of waking up a possibly brutal killer Krogan with daddy issues. Miranda stared with a furrowed brow, uncomprehending.
"No, and it amazes me that you do."
Shepard grinned, an honest and heart-warming grin that was so completely different from the arrogant smirk she usually saw from the other woman.
"Face it Lawson, I amaze you all the time." She winked, with a familiar mischievous twinkle returning to her eyes.
Well Shepard's back. Miranda thought with a roll of the eyes. That didn't last long.
"I can't believe I didn't see that coming."
Shepard laughed. "You must be getting slow."
"It's likely that spending so much time with you has been killing brain cells if I actually believed you could hold a serious conversation for more than five minutes."
"Maybe. But hey it's not your fault you just can't stay away from me." Shepard's vexatious smirk made a dazzling return and Miranda had to take deep breaths just to control herself long enough to avoid punching her CO. Refusing to rise to the bait, she shook her head with a sigh, as if trying to shake away all remnants of a strange and overly confusing series of events.
"I still advise you to avoid waking the Krogan, but as I know, you seem dead set on ignoring any advice I may give, so just… try not to get yourself killed Commander."
She turned towards the exit, hearing Victoria's melodic laughter reverberate through the room as the doors swung open.
"I knew you cared."
Miranda could have remarked something about a four billion dollar credit investment, but it would have been sung to an already old tune. Instead, she just kept walking all the way to her office, seating herself in her chair, fully intent on beginning her report on their most recent mission on Korlus.
The report however seemed suddenly impossible to write, her words stopping blank every time she documented their meeting with Okeer. It was then that Shepard had first transformed into this stranger that she couldn't understand, placing a hand on her shoulder considerately. It had forced her to consider that perhaps she had evaluated Shepard incorrectly, and she hated being wrong. Mistakes were not the norm for the Cerberus woman.
Just thinking about the incident was confusing, reliving the moment in her best attempt to figure out what had been going through the other woman's head. But it was no use. She was no better at understanding Shepard on Korlus than she had been in that room not an hour ago. The more she thought about it, the more she couldn't work it out. The hand, the soft expression, the gleam in her eyes…
Shaking her head, she stood from her chair, abandoning the report for a lost cause, at least for the moment. She was far too busy working on her new assignment, figuring Victoria Shepard out. She was still her project after all, a two year long project that she thought she'd had understood inside out. Alas, it seemed that the living breathing legacy that was Commander Shepard was a great deal more difficult to control and comprehend than a deceased one.
Miranda Lawson did not deal in ambiguities; she dealt in cold, hard fact. Without it, she felt lost. For now, Shepard was a mystery, but the Cerberus Operative had yet to come across a mystery that she couldn't solve. Shepard would be no different, and once she had the woman pegged, dealing with her would be far easier and she could get on with her job in peace.
Her first order of business was to find her.
Almost instantly however that proved to be a problem, finding the Commander's Cabin void of any life but a shy hamster – the colourful array of fish that should have brightened the room were floating dead atop the water in their tank. Of course, Miranda was unsurprised that the woman couldn't look after her pets. She could barely look after herself.
Her second stop was the CIC, but as the elevator doors slid open it was clear that this too was lacking any sign of the fiery Commander. There was a redhead there however, in the form of Kelly Chambers, greeting smile only faltering for a second when she noticed the footsteps approaching belonged to the XO. Miranda was unaffected however – she was used to it.
"Miss Chambers, do you know where the Commander is?"
"She went into the armoury a while ago with the mysterious Miss Keane. I do hope she's okay, she's had a very hard few days and she seems so-"
"Did she see the files?" Miranda cut in rudely. She wasn't prepared to listen to Kelly wax philosophical about the beauty of humanity and love and everything else that seemed to go along with her usual rainbows and bunnies outlook. Kelly looked slightly put off, but did well to hide it for the most part, trying to be as polite as possible with the intimidating woman before her.
"She did. She's still fragile right now, but I think she's coming round. She took it well considering."
Miranda simply nodded professionally and turned on her heel towards the armoury. She was greeted by an awed silence, as three figures sat in the glow of the passing stars. Jacob was sat beside Shepard, closest to the door, eyes firmly tracing the outline of Shepard's face, illuminated by the whirring light from the huge window. Miranda knew that Jacob was aware of Shepard's sexual tendencies. He had been there when she'd collected all the files on her, conducted all the research into her character. He had to know his chances of wooing her were next to non-existent. Even Miranda herself, the object of the woman's absolute hate, stood a better chance of ending up in bed with her - and that was about as likely as them surviving their suicide mission.
Still, she could understand his staring, especially in that particular moment. The Commander looked different; her hair was loose from its braid and falling in graceful waves past her shoulders, framing her face perfectly. Her skin looked soft and smooth in the radiant light, and her whole demeanour was as gentle and soft as it had been when she had comforted Miranda on Korlus, only this time, her hand was on Alex's shoulder, her warm smile directed at her.
Suddenly, as if she could sense her eyes upon her, she looked back to the doorway where Miranda stood, and the soft smile she had been sporting was replaced with the arrogance she usually regarded her XO with.
"Lawson, just the person I wanted to see."
"I find that hard to believe." Miranda said with a hand on hip.
"Then I've gotta work on my lying." Shepard gave a crooked grin, but it wasn't malicious in its intent. Miranda was learning ever quickly that insulting someone was Shepard's favourite form of humour, regardless of the truth behind it. In this case, after her most recent wonderings, the raven haired woman was unsure of what to make of the redhead's words. In the end, she almost had to fight back a smile. Almost. It was more of an unwanted spasm that she had managed, for the most part to keep under control. When Shepard's eyes lit up however, she realised she had not been entirely successful.
"Shepard, we need to talk." She hoped a change of subject would restore the natural order of things. She was Miranda Lawson after all, she couldn't just go around smiling all unselectively. Shepard might start to get the wrong idea and actually think her jokes were funny. Then she would never stop.
"Actually, I'm a little busy at the minute." She nodded her head back at Alex, who was still staring out into space with eyes as wide and starry as what lay beyond the windowpane. She was awestruck, absolutely and completely, as if seeing the stars for the first time. In her mind, she almost was.
"I could probably use your help though." Shepard admitted.
"Well those are words I never thought I'd hear come out of your mouth Commander."
"Yeah don't get used to it. But, I thought we could do some training with our recruit here." She pointed a thumb at the blonde, who's attention had quickly snapped away from the window.
"Wait, what?" a panic-stricken expression crossed her face. "I so did not sign on for that. Look at me, I have noddle arms!" She waved an admittedly thin arm vigorously for emphasis as worry seeped into the grey of her eyes. Shepard just laughed, shrugging off the short, fitted leather jacket she had bought at the Citadel and customised with a white alliance logo on the sleeve. Miranda suspected it was done mostly just to piss her off, in rebellion for giving her a wardrobe full of Cerberus marked attire.
In fact one of the first things she had done was re-stock her wardrobe with knee high boots, formfitting pants and a variety of blue tops that were certain to annoy every Cerberus loyal on board. Since the Illusive Man however had seen fit to fill the Normandy with ex-Alliance crew members and Shepard idolisers, it was mostly just Miranda that had complained.
"All the more reason for you to get practicing again. Besides, your noodle arms didn't stop you from taking out that guard back on purgatory." She grinned, already beginning her stretches.
Jacob's eyes very suddenly fixed decidedly lower than the face, the tight blue tank that the woman sported helping make every stretch slightly more risqué than it was probably meant. Though knowing Victoria Shepard, it wasn't all that unrealistic that the taut tops and equally painted on black bottom half were designed specifically to catch the wandering eye of all. In that way, she was like Miranda - a woman who was aware of her body and was perfectly capable of using it to her advantage.
Regardless, the redhead seemed remarkably oblivious at that moment in time, avidly focused on her stretching and continually prompting Alex to follow suit. The blonde complied, if half-heartedly, still looking back at the other two figures in the room with obvious apprehension.
"Okay, I say we start with some shooting practice first. You were an SMG kinda girl last time I checked, right?"
Alex just blinked at her blankly.
"Right, you have no idea… we'll try with that first anyway I guess. Trust me, you'll love this." She tossed the Shuriken at the younger woman, who caught it awkwardly, a horrified expression on her face. Shrinking away from the gun, Alex eyed it distrustfully making it clear that she obviously did not love it, regardless of Victoria's promises.
Miranda would have laughed, if it were in her nature to do so. It wasn't however, and so she just watched with a raised brow, silently amused by the blonde's clumsy and rather clueless approach to the handling of a gun. Shepard had set up a variety of human and alien target boards against the furthest wall, all decorated with a multitude of angry drawn on faces, sharp teeth and squinting eyes. The fact that the Commander had actually taken the time to do something so trivial with the galaxy at stake didn't surprise her, but she still found it hard to contain the roll of the eyes that was desperate to rear its head. She was doing it far too often around Shepard, almost everything the woman did required such an action – eventually it would become obsolete.
"Alright, just aim and shoot, like you did back on Purgatory." Shepard urged. Alex just gave her a defeated expression.
"I told you, I don't know how I did that."
"Yes you do. You were in the Reds. You've been shooting guns and getting into trouble since you were a kid."
"I know." Or at least that's what the files had said. Born in New Sylan, joined the Reds – an anti-alien street gang – after the death of her brother at the age of thirteen, killed countless aliens, became their personal assassin at twenty one, killed countless humans…
As much as she didn't like it, if anyone should know how to hold a gun it was her. Or the old her at least. But after reading what she'd read in the files, she wasn't sure she liked the old her all that much. And she certainly didn't want to become like her.
Regardless, at the expectant look in Victoria's familiar green eyes, she stretched out her arm, pointing the gun at the ridiculous face of the most alien looking board she could find and squeezed the trigger.
The sound made her jump, as did the force shaking her hand. Dark scuffs dotted the furthest wall and ceiling regularly in a large radius where her bullets had impacted, making it rather obvious that whatever had overcome her back on Purgatory was nowhere near present then.
Jacob barely supressed his laugh, and even Miranda had to concur that she found it just as shocking that the woman before them was the same woman that had been entrusted as the Red's go-to girl for alien assassination and political sabotage in their ever expanding interplanetary pro-human campaign. It was hard to believe that she was capable of even holding a gun correctly at all.
Alex barked out a sigh of frustration.
"I can't do this."
"Yes you can. You've already done it once." Shepard reassured her, using that same gentle tone that Miranda found so foreign on the redhead's tongue.
"And I still have no idea how I did it! I didn't think about it, it just happened!"
"Then don't think about it." Miranda cut in. "Obviously, as damaged as your brain is, your body still remembers how to fight. Sometimes instinct is the best weapon we have." And clearly, the woman's instincts were still sharp, which was a wonder, considering just how muddled her mind had become in its drug addled state. Though all trace of any drugs had long since disappeared from her system, and the worst of the withdrawal having been battled through on the prison ship, the effects on her body were still clear.
Miranda eyed the length of scar tissue along the woman's arm, thin and discoloured.
The blonde could feel the cold, judging eyes on her and shrunk away nervously, crossing her arms. It felt strange, to suffer judgement for something she couldn't even remember doing, in a life that didn't even feel like her own. But she was coming to accept that it was only because she had chosen to become involved with drugs in the first place that she had become the confused and delusional amnesiac she was.
"That's easier said than done." She mumbled, suddenly feeling very uncomfortable in her own skin. Her grey eyes flickered to meet Shepard's, searching for a rescue. What she found was steel, cold and unsympathetic.
"If you can't do this, we have no further use for you."
"What?"
Shepard just stared her down with a blank expression that caused icy tendrils of fear to creep out from her very core and clench around her heart.
"The galaxy is at stake here, and we have no use for a stumbling wreck of a drug addict ruining our mission."
Alex was horror-struck, her whole body rigid. This wasn't her Tori. This wasn't her best friend. She briefly looked back to Miranda, whose gaze was even colder. Her body was perfectly motionless, her expression like death itself.
"There's too much riding on this. We can't afford any loose ends." Victoria reached for the pistol always holstered at her waist. "I'm sorry." She swung it up, preparing to place it inches from her best friend's head, right between the eyes.
In a second however, her arm was twisted, the gun was out of her grasp and a sharp elbow had been delivered to her chin.
Alex stood, eyeing the redhead with both anger and surprise, as the pistol in her hand was planted firmly against the other woman's chest. And inexplicably, Shepard just smiled right back at her, as if she wasn't being held at gunpoint by a madwoman.
"And there you have it. Instinct. See, it's not so hard is it." She just laughed at the shock on the blonde's face, before disarming her in one fluid motion, so fast Alex barely even saw it happen. Re-holstering the pistol, Shepard patted her roughly on the back with a grin.
"Now rinse and repeat, only on those boards down there okay? Just let it come to you, you already know how to do it." And with that, she signalled with a wink at Jacob to take over and turned to leave with Miranda in tow, all the while Alex stared after them as they disappeared with the same stunned expression.
She'd been played. And she'd been played well.
Allowing herself a little disbelieving chuckle, she shook her head and turned on the target with a renewed confidence.
Victoria Eris Nemain Shepard; that was the woman she knew. It was nice to know that no matter how much she didn't know herself anymore, Tori hadn't changed.
XIXIXIXIXIXIX
"So, you said you wanted to talk?" Shepard queried as the two women exited the elevator into her cabin.
"Yes." Miranda followed her in. "I suppose I just wanted to clear the air a little. It's obvious we don't exactly get along, but I don't believe that should be any reason that we can't work together effectively."
"I agree." Shepard nodded earnestly as she sat herself back on her lounger.
Miranda was slightly surprised she hadn't received some kind of smartass remark, but was instead presented with a sensibility that she had thought a myth up until that moment.
"In fact, I must say I'm rather surprised at how smoothly this has all gone so far-"
"Your faith in me is astounding." Shepard remarked drolly, forcing a genuine laugh from the Operative before she could catch herself. Victoria marvelled at the sound of it.
"Was that laughter I just heard? Or are your gears just malfunctioning?"
Miranda managed to contain her amusement this time to a mild smile. "I'm quite capable of laughter Commander. Perhaps if your wit matched your arrogance I would have some reason to do it."
"Really? And here I thought Cerberus must have taken your sense of humour the same time they cut out your heart."
The two women eyed each other haughtily in challenge, a pause as they weighed each other up.
"I'm aware your relations with Cerberus in the past have been… less than stellar. But I'm hoping that with enough time on this operation, you'll come to see that our organisation has humanities best interests at heart. Protecting those interests are our one and only purpose."
Shepard sighed.
"Look if you're going to try and sell me on Cerberus, I'm not interested. Besides, I don't hate you 'cause you're Cerberus. I hate you 'cause you're a bitch." She smirked, but there was little venom in her voice.
Miranda was beginning to get a feel for when the other woman was trying to offend for her own entertainment, and when she meant what she said. In this case however, it was no doubt a combination of both.
"And it has nothing at all due to your encounters with the organisation I work for on Akuze or Binthu?"
Shepard's posture stiffened, visibly shifting in her chair.
"I don't want to talk about Akuze."
"Shepard it was-"
"I said I don't want to talk about it!" Her tone was final, and the ferocity in her eyes even more so.
The temperature in the room seemed to drop considerably, the shift in the atmosphere having left the women in an uncomfortable silence as the Commander stood, running a hand through her hair. She paced towards her desk, looking for something to take her mind off the unpleasant memories the turn in the conversation had resurfaced.
It was a long and painful few minutes before she spoke again.
"Oh, not again!" Shepard groaned as she noticed the colourful array of dead fish floating atop the water in the corner of the room, stroking the glass of her fish tank wistfully, her movements however, still rigid. "Why does this keep happening?"
"As crazy as it seems Shepard, you may actually have to feed them every once in a while if you expect them to live past a week."
"Well what about you Miss Cerberus? Spent hundreds of billions of credits on this ship and you couldn't afford to add an auto-feeder for the fish tank?" Shepard replied, annoyed.
"So I'm to blame for you not being able to look after your pets?" The Cerberus Operative was beginning to wonder if the Shepard she was facing now was even the same entity as the sensible more reasonable Shepard that appeared on occasion, or if she had some kind of dissociative identity disorder that she hadn't been made aware of.
"Obviously."
"Believe it or not Shepard, Cerberus actually had more important things to do things on our list of priorities. Rebuilding you for example. As you can understand, I was a little busy." Miranda's hand tightened on her hip in frustration. She had never met anyone so singularly vexing or unpredictable as the flame haired commander before her.
Shepard's eyes briefly flickered over that same hip, before meeting the icy gaze of her XO once more. "And here I thought someone as perfect as you claim to be would be capable of multi-tasking."
The comment shouldn't have stung Miranda – she'd had the word 'perfect' thrown back in her face more than a few times – but it did.
"I never claimed to be perfect, but I'm certainly better than you."
"So that's why you spent two years bringing me back to save all your assess?" Shepard shot back arrogantly.
"You'd have to speak with the Illusive Man to answer that one, because if you ask me it was a bloody waste of time. A petulant child with a temper has no business in Command."
Where the temperature had once felt icy, it seemed to have skyrocketed in a matter of seconds. The room was hot, ready to erupt in flames at any second as their eyes burned into each other with a venomous hate. Miranda felt a familiar searing within her that always signified the nigh irresistible urge to hurt the other woman. It made her fists and jaw clench, her muscles tense in strain just to hold herself back from losing control.
No matter what, Miranda Lawson was always in control.
The look in Shepard's eyes showed that she was clearly fighting a similar urge. There was an animalistic hunger in her eyes that resembled a predator closing in on its prey, hunting silently in the moment before the beast leaps upon its quarry and closed its jaws around the fragile neck.
Snap.
It looked like Shepard was ready to do just that.
"Tori, I was wondering if we could-"
The two women finally broke their stare, looking up at their intruder as she stood awkwardly by the elevator doors.
"Sorry, I didn't realise you had company." Alex murmured apologetically, but she didn't turn to leave; she looked too scared to move at all.
"It's alright Alex, Miss Lawson was just leaving."
The two women resumed glaring at each other for a tense moment, before the raven haired Operative finally stalked briskly out of the room, catching Alex's gaze briefly as she passed.
Alex shuddered as the elevator doors came hissing to a close.
"She scares me." The blonde muttered dryly, though completely serious. Seeing the worst of Miranda's glare was enough to make anyone believe that if she stared at the sun too long with those eyes, it would freeze over.
Shepard finally allowed her shoulders to relax with a shuddery laugh, a tumult of emotions still coursing through her veins.
"Who Miranda? Please, she's a gentle flower."
"Sure. One of those carnivorous ones most likely."
Shepard grinned again. She'd forgotten how good it was to be around Alex, how close they had been before it had all gone to hell; as similar as sisters and twice as close.
"Come on. Let's not let mean old Miranda spoil our day. What was it you wanted to talk to me about?" Shepard slung herself back onto her couch, lying back and resting her arms beneath her head.
Alex suddenly became apprehensive, wringing her hands like she had always done when she was nervous about something.
"I uh… I want to know about my past. My real past, I mean. The one I don't remember."
Shepard frowned. "You saw it in the files."
"I know. I just want to hear it from you." There was a pregnant pause between her speech as the grey of her eyes clouded over. "I want to know how you could leave me, after you'd promised that you never would."
Hey guys! Sorry for the wait being a little longer than usual. The other chapters I'd had pre-written so I could upload them at regular intervals, whereas from here on out I'll be writing them from scratch after every post and sadly, I'm quite a slow writer. Regardless, I promise to try and never leave it too long between chapters.*Pinkie swears*.
Anyway, sorry not much happened that chapter. Mostly just tried to flesh out the relationships between the characters a little and the next update will likely be similar, just with more familiar faces from the crew. Hope you liked it anyway and as always I'd really appreciate some feedback, good or bad (just keep it constructive please).
Also, once again a quick thank you to my little sister Jordyn for proof reading.