5: Holding On

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A soft, rhythmic thudding was all there was to break the silence of the Commander's cabin. It had been silent since Alex had stormed out the same way Miranda had, and it occurred to Shepard, as she threw the ball in her hand at the wall once again, that she had a growing track record for simply pissing everyone off. Most of the time, she conceded, it was her intention to annoy.

But not with Alex, not this time.

Despite all her efforts, it seemed that she had managed to alienate her regardless. She wanted to blame it on Miranda - the woman riled her far more than she should have right to - but she knew that she had hurt her friend a long time before that; back on Earth, where she'd left her to fend for herself. She'd promised her after Nathan died that she would always be there to look to out for her.

But she left.

Alex remembered that at least. Only partially, but even then it should have been a good sign. And sure enough, Shepard was happy for the progress, but less so when it meant her friend hated her for it.

Heaving a deep sigh, the redhead sat up on her bed, letting the ball bounce from the wall once more and drop to the floor with a weak thump. Her shoulders always seemed so weighed down these days.

The moment she had first woken, staring straight into the endless blue of Miranda's eyes, nothing had made sense. She panicked, wanting to reach out and touch the beauty before her, to make sure it was real. To make sure everything was real, and that it wasn't all some kind of ill-defined dream. It had felt like a lifetime since anything was that real. The panic had soothed, more drugs pumping into her system, and Miranda had taken her hand.

Shepard had gripped that hand for all she was worth. It was a lifeline, the only link she had found back into reality through a haze of darkness and unclear dreams that stretched infinitely behind her. She didn't want to go back there, and held tightly to Miranda as if it would stop her falling back into space. The other woman hadn't seemed to mind. She'd appeared softer then, surrounded by a glowing white and smiling tenderly down at her. Everything was calm and dream-like, and it was the last time she'd felt peace.

The second time she'd awoken, everything had been different.

Thrust straight back into a world of gunfire and chaos, and the weight of an entire galaxy resting on her back and hers alone. She had no lifeline this time, and had no need of one. She wasn't the scared woman she had been on that operating table, but Commander Shepard reborn; survivor of Akuze, saviour of the Citadel, first human Spectre.

She didn't need anyone.

So why did she feel so bad?

"Shepard, the Illusive Man wishes to speak with you." EDI's voice chimed throughout the room, forcing another irritated sigh from Shepard's lips.

"Yeah, well tell TIM he can go screw himself!"

"He stated that it was urgent Commander."

Shepard growled, kicking the soft ball across the room on her way toward the elevator. She was thankful at least for the fact that the comm-room was on the Command Deck. That way she ran less chance of bumping into a pissed off Miranda, or an even angrier Alex, who still maintained residence in the Med Bay – it seemed she and Doctor Chakwas had struck up an alliance of sorts - where she could stay sealed away from the crew's more unfamiliar members, while allowing her to keep a watchful eye on them through the window.

The elevator doors peeled open annoyingly slowly, which only made Shepard groan and kick the door – hurting her foot in the process.

"Son of a-" she stopped herself when she saw Kelly watching amusedly from her terminal, and resorted to a quiet grumble before stalking off to the Comm-room. Pressing the button on the panel, the orange scanners flickered into life in a column around the redhead, until the Normandy faded from view and she was presented with the Illusive Man, taking a drag from yet another cigarette.

"This better be good Timmy, I was in the middle of something." Sulking definitely constituted as something, she reasoned. She hadn't said it had been anything important anyway.

"Oh it is, believe me." He assured confidently, resting his cigarette. "Shepard, I think we have them. Horizon, one of our colonies in the terminus systems just went silent. If it isn't under attack it soon will be."

"Oh. That is pretty urgent."

"We agree on something at least. Has Mordin delivered the countermeasure for the seeker swarms?"

Shepard thought that it was strange how he managed to make even his simplest of queries always sound like a demand.

"Not yet."

"Let's hope he works well under pressure." He brought his cigarette to his lips, inhaling deeply before continuing. "There's something else you should know." He paused again, and Shepard rolled her eyes restlessly. She was sure he did it for dramatic effect more than anything else. "One of your former crew, Ashley Williams; she's stationed on Horizon."

Shepard's head snapped up at once, her heart feeling for a second as if it had shuddered to a stop.

Ash?

"What? Ash…" Shepard swallowed her surprise, and the familiarity with which she said her name. It's been two years. She reminded herself. "Williams is Alliance. What's she doing out in the Terminus Systems?"

"Officially it's an outreach programme to improve Alliance relations with the colony… but they're up to something. And if they sent Chief Williams, it must be big. Perhaps you should take it up with her." He spoke casually, but there was something about his tone that grated on Shepard's already thin nerves.

She especially didn't like the way he was eyeing her, as if evaluating her reaction, sizing her up. He knew that mentioning Ashley would be like a slap to the face, and he was watching to see the finger marks appear.

"I'll be sure to." She eyed him narrowly back. "Send the co-ordinates, I'm ready to move." And with that, she turned on her heel and strode off, finding herself back in her cabin as quickly as the elevators would allow. In the past, slow elevators had been a God-send; or so Ashley had managed to mumble between kisses. But that was a lifetime ago, and Ashley was no longer there.

"Lock the door EDI." Shepard grumbled, slumping down in the chair by her desk.

"Done, Commander" EDI's voice chimed back and Shepard breathed a sigh of relief. Later, when they were closer to the planet, she'd have to check with Mordin about the countermeasure, but that was later. For now, she just wanted to be alone.

Eyes flickering to the picture on her desk, she felt a shuddering in her heart as Ashley's penetrating gaze stared back at her. It was in that moment the fact that she would be meeting that gaze for real once again, for the first time in two years, really struck her. In so many ways, it didn't feel like two years at all. It was like two months since she had last seen the chief, remembering perfectly the love and worry in the woman's gaze as she saluted to her CO a final time, rushing off to help with the evacuation.

Why didn't I tell her I loved her? Why didn't I grab her and kiss her like it would be the last time, like I was about to run off and do something stupid like get myself killed?

Shepard sighed, turning the picture to face the other way. The gaze was beginning to be too much, but she couldn't quite bring herself to take it from her desk. Not yet. Not until she'd seen her again. Not until they'd had chance to talk.

XIXIXIXIXIXIXIXIXIXIXIXIXIX

Miranda shook her head. She felt like she should be surprised, but the emotion wouldn't come. She simply wasn't. Shepard waking the Krogan was possibly the least surprising thing the infuriating woman had done since Miranda had met her.

And despite Miranda's reservations, his awakening had gone completely according to plan. Shepard's plan at least.

The brunette had always had serious doubts as to whether Shepard planned anything at all. Everything she did seemed completely spontaneous and severely under thought out. Yet somehow, it still all worked out regardless. She was beginning to concede that perhaps, the redhead knew exactly what she was doing the whole time, that the devil may care attitude and her constantly throwing caution to the wind was simply an act the other woman played very well.

It was entirely possible that they were in fact more similar than the redhead would ever like to admit. That secretly, the Commander planned every little last detail of her day just as meticulously as Miranda did herself.

"You're kidding right?" Alex laughed, taking a moment from her shooting to turn to Miranda, unsure if she was serious or not.

"Hardly." Miranda replied tersely. She didn't 'kid'.

Alex barked another bitter laugh, turning back towards the targets and refocusing her Shuriken. "Please, Tori doesn't plan a damn thing. She's just the luckiest damn bitch on the planet… uh, in the galaxy. Whatever."

"Impossible. No-one's that lucky."

"Sorry lady-" Miranda shot her a venomous glare. "I mean, Miranda. I uh… Operative… damn it, what was it again?" Alex mumbled nervously under the raven haired woman's intimidating glower. People just called her Ice Queen or The Cerberus Bitch behind her back – if most people were Jack - and Alex was certainly not going to say that to her face.

The blonde had only been down to the depths of the ship on one occasion, following her argument with Victoria. It had been a harrowing experience to say the least, running into the bald woman for the first time. There weren't many people willing to seek her out, and it was easy to see why.

"The fuck do you want?" had been her only greeting as she hesitantly crept down the stairs and it had been enough to make her want to sprint back up them and never look back. She knew what the other's had said about 'Subject Zero'. That she was extremely dangerous, volatile to the worst degree. A psychopath who had been residing in the same maximum security prison ship she herself had been in, and for good reason apparently.

But it was for exactly that reason Alex had been desperate enough to seek the woman out in the first place. Purgatory had been her home - unbeknownst to even herself - for an indeterminate amount of time. Though Alex would have named it Hell, she supposed Purgatory was apt enough of a description for the inescapable nightmare of her mind.

She had been warned about Jack, who even on her short time aboard the ship had already gained a name for herself as someone to be wary around. Despite the coarse language and the occasional threat, the convict had surprisingly seemed hospitable enough to Alex. When she thought about it, it occurred to her that the same whispers that surrounded Jack likely followed her own name too among her shipmates.

After all, who wouldn't be wary of a potentially insane, ex drug-addicted and xenophobic gang member?

Alex rolled her eyes at the thought, bringing her back to the present. Miranda was still staring her down impatiently, making the blonde quickly divert her gaze back to the targets at the end of the armoury, now riddled with holes.

"Lawson. That was it; Operative Lawson." She said as the name came back to her, with no small amount of relief. "Sorry, I've never been good with names, y'know?"

"It seems to me you're not very adept with memory of any sort." The Cerberus woman sniped back. To her surprise, Alex just laughed.

"You got me there." Her eyes had a spark of amusement to them that seemed to have been lost to her in this strange new life. "But some things are coming back to me."

"So I see. Your aim has improved at least."

"Well it certainly couldn't have gotten any worse." She smirked. "But other things are coming back too. I remember… earth. Some of it anyway. It's kinda foggy."

Miranda eyed the woman with revelation. "That's a good sign. I'm sure Shepard was pleased."

"Not when the only thing I know for certain is that left me behind. Just ditched me and walked away without taking one damn look back. I mean sure, from what I hear I was in way over my head with a whole load of bad stuff, but you don't just walk away from a friend like that." Alex shook her head angrily, before letting a round loose on the unsuspecting human target against the far wall. The stupid smile and wonky eyes that had adorned its face became a series of gaping holes.

"At least with your memory returning you can rest assured that you're not insane."

"Can I though? I mean yeah, I was high as a damn rocket-ship for years, and suffered some kinda wicked bad come down in that cell; going cold turkey's bound to make you a little messed up. But creating a whole fantasy life? Forgetting my real one? That's gotta mean a couple screws got knocked loose somewhere right?" She tapped the side of her head for emphasis. "Even then, I'm still not sure I'm totally convinced about all this anyway."

Miranda frowned. "You said your memories were returning."

"Sure. But how do I know they're real. For all I know, I'm sat in some mental hospital somewhere back home, rocking back and forth while some nurse wipes the drool off my chin. If you say I managed to make up some elaborate fantasy and a whole shit ton of memories for myself, it's just as possible that you're not real, and the part that I'm making up is the aliens and fucking spaceships. I mean come on, which would you believe?"

A telling silence hung in the air as Miranda considered the question.

Originally, she had only travelled up to the Command Deck to take audience with the Illusive Man on the status of their mission so far. After her argument with Shepard she perhaps had been slightly more harsh than necessary when indicating the Commander's progress, but maintained that it was entirely the darned woman's own fault for being so utterly maddening at every opportunity.

It was as if every time she gained a step with her, the Commander threw her back another ten and it made her want to scream. Miranda Lawson had never been anything if not completely controlled and calm. But that was most likely because she had never quite encountered someone so wholly frustrating as the immature, contemptuous and significantly impulsive redhead that continued to confound her at every turn.

She had never come quite so close to losing control, and she hated it.

It was as she had left the Comm room in a silent rage that she had heard the news of the Krogan.

"Can you believe it; a lab grown Krogan… called Grunt!" Hadley had exclaimed, instantly alerting Miranda to the situation.

"I know. It's so cool! I wonder how Shepard got him to help us." Mathews' voice was filled with a certain amount of awe as he spoke of Shepard, no doubt picturing some heroic victory of words or weapon that she had used to win over the beast. Miranda rolled her eyes.

"Knowing Shepard, I bet it involved guns. Or explosions!" Hadley replied.

"That's stupid. How would the Commander use explosions to win over a Krogan?"

"I don't know. Krogans like explosions right?"

"I don't know. Why don't you go ask him?"

Miranda had pinched the bridge of her nose, shaking her head. She was sure she wouldn't explode herself from all the stress the redheaded Commander was putting her under if she just remembered to keep breathing. She cursed the woman's name, adamant that she'd throw her out of the airlock – credit investment be damned - if she ended up with even a single grey hair.

It was once regaining her cool and calm centre that her theory of Shepard's planning had formulated, just begging her to investigate the possibility. Upon hearing the shooting in the armoury, she had concluded that the best possible course of action would be to use the sources at her disposal, one of which being an ex-best friend that was perfect for mining information from but for the severe amnesia and overall identity confusion. She had decided to make the most of it regardless, and strolled right in to question the blonde about Shepard's psyche.

Now somehow, after having had her theory shot down, she had managed to find her way into some kind of existential debate about reality with an undecided lunatic. She struggled to see how her day could get any worse.

"I'd believe what it was most logical to believe." She answered finally. Tired of the turn the conversation had taken, she stalked off toward the door, passing Jacob who gave her a cursory nod on her way out.

"Wait."

She stopped, but didn't turn, unwilling to be dragged back once again into the mire of uncertainty that had surrounded the amnesiac since she'd first arrived on the ship.

"I never finished what I was saying before did I? About Shepard?"

Miranda did however turn then, Shepard's name beckoning her with all the mystery that surrounded it, and her growing need to find its solution.

"No. You didn't." she answered curtly, trying to hide the desperation for knowledge from her tone, but unable completely to keep it from seeping through.

Her eyes gave her away, Alex thought, and the language her body spoke upon hearing that name. The Operative was clearly fascinated by the Commander. She also vehemently disliked her; that much was obvious from the intense stare-down the blonde had witnessed earlier. Regardless, as much as she tried she could not hide the intrigue she felt at discovering all there was to know about the woman that had her so on edge. Her project, even now.

Alex grinned internally. As angry as she was at Tori, she had to admit to a certain amusement at the familiar emotions she could see in the brunette's body language. She had seen it a thousand times herself, had even gone through it.

In either universe Alex could remember, in both of her lives, she knew one thing for certain: Tori had always had a way of captivating people. People could love her, or hate her, they could desire her or despise her, and they could even want her dead… but no matter what, each of them would be enthralled by her, obsessed in their own little way. She was the indomitable enigma, the victorious conqueror of hearts and heads alike, and even Miranda Lawson, the cold and pragmatic woman that she seemed to be, was not immune.

Alex's felt the smile begin to tug at her lips, unable to supress it any longer.

Miranda simply frowned once again, feeling wary of the other woman's silence. She felt even more uncomfortable under the blonde's unfathomable smiling gaze, and was thankful when she finally broke the silence.

"Shepard doesn't plan. She's way too impulsive for that. But she is smart."

Miranda looked a little incredulous, despite having seen Shepard's IQ rating during her reconstruction. So far, she had been shown little from the woman to support such a high number.

"I guess in that way, she's always been a leader. She's good at all that split second decision crap. She goes with her gut, and it's usually right, and like I said before, she does have a damn whole lot of luck on her side too. That never hurts."

Nodding, Miranda turned once again, digesting the information she'd been given as she exited the armoury. Perhaps she was right, and Shepard was as intelligent as her records suggested, far smarter than Miranda had originally given her credit for. It was the only plausible explanation for the success of the missions so far, for the way things just kept working out in the Commander's favour.

Despite the evidence, she still found it hard to swallow. It was difficult to see the other woman as anything but a charging bull, attacking at full speed with devastating effect, but with absolutely no thought behind it whatsoever.

As if to prove her right, Miranda was knocked backwards the second the elevator doors slid open, only to look up and see the bright green eyes that had been plaguing her nightmares for weeks.

For a second, those same green eyes seemed to soften, Shepard's expression apologetic as she looked down at the fallen Cerberus Operative. The second passed however, as did the expression, disappearing as quickly as it had arrived. In its place a self-satisfied smirk formed on her full lips.

"What are you doing down there Lawson?" Her smirk developed into the shit-eating grin that made something boil within Miranda to the point of wanting to burst.

Huffing angrily, the brunette pushed herself off the floor, coming face to face with the slightly taller woman. She only had an inch on her, if that, but made sure to use it to her full advantage, leaning slightly to emphasise the gap.

"I apologise Commander. I didn't realise I hadn't fully restored your eyesight. Perhaps you should see Doctor Chakwas for a check-up."

"So she has to fix your shoddy work? A little unfair don't you think?"

Miranda seethed as Shepard brushed past her, heading straight for the cockpit. The Cerberus woman's head told her to leave it, to just walk away and forget the incident. She wanted so desperately to be the bigger person.

Her wounded pride however, wouldn't allow it. Something about Shepard seemed to continually drag her down to the redhead's level and she hated herself for it, but she was compelled to follow, as childish as it was. She wasn't about to let the woman think she had one up on her.

"Or perhaps you're just too clumsy and careless to watch where you're going. It's no wonder you end up in the med bay so often, being so bloody inept."

"Maybe I wouldn't be injured so often if someone on my team could concentrate for five minutes on shooting the enemy instead of checking to see if her hair is still perfectly in place." Shepard shot back, annoyed.

It was childish, and they both knew it. They sounded more like a couple of school children than grown adults, let alone those in positions of authority in a professional working environment. Yet neither could stop until they reached Joker, who swung round in his chair with a wolfish grin on his face.

"Ladies, ladies, if you really want to settle your differences, I suggest wrestling. Mud wrestling. Or hey! I could bring oils… Ow!" He recoiled with a hand to the side of his head where Shepard had flicked him. "Okay, jeeze, it was just a suggestion. No need to get all Kung Fu Commander on me." He rubbed the spot gently. "Great, that's gonna bruise."

"Suck it up soldier, or we'll arm wrestle next."

"Yeah, yeah, make fun of the cripple. Real sensitive. You know one of these days, I'm gonna break an arm, and then you'll be sorry. It'll be all 'oh no, now Joker's gone, who's going to fly the ship? I knew I should have appreciated him more.' And when it happens, you can't say I didn't warn you."

"Actually Jeff, I would be quite capable of flying the ship should it be necessary." EDI's voice sounded throughout the cockpit, taking the wind from beneath the wings of Joker's rant, and stealing every ounce of his thunder. Joker just muttered under his breath about the old Normandy and the good old days when she didn't have an annoying voice to interrupt him.

Shepard just shook her head fondly. "What's our ETA for Horizon?"

"Just another half hour to go Commander."

Shepard nodded firmly, a resolute look in her eye that spoke volumes.

She was thinking of the mission, of the enemies they'd have to face. She was thinking of the reapers, and the colony and the galaxy that rested on her.

She was thinking of Ashley Williams.

Miranda followed Shepard from the cockpit confidently, already considering every possible outcome from their mission. The most interesting factor was no doubt going to be the presence of the Commander's old flame. Miranda was much looking forward to seeing how her reunion with Shepard would go, now that the latter was working for Cerberus.

"Are there any extra mission parameters you wish to go over Commander?"

"That won't be necessary."

"Excuse me?" Miranda was shocked. Shepard always had something to say about the mission, even if it was something as simple as 'don't get dead'. Instead, she just glanced back at her formally and for a brief moment, seemed as if she wasn't going to speak at all.

When she did, her tone was more serious than any she had ever used before, and it made Miranda freeze.

"You're not coming."

AN: Firstly, I'd like to seriously thank everyone for their fantastic feedback so far. I really appreciate hearing what you think.

Second, sorry about the wait. My hands won't type and my brain won't form the words if they're not inspired and I've been so bogged down by college work, inspiration's been pretty hard to come by. In that respect, I apologize if this chapter comes across as a little iffy, I had to force it in some respects because I felt awful for leaving it so long. Let me know what you think.