Revelations

TLADOCS

Dawn sighed, rubbing her palms on her thighs in an attempt to chase away the edge of panic making her nerves feel like a live wire. Leaving the bathroom, she glanced over her shoulder at Garrus and smiled when he gave her a sharp nod of his head.

"So, have you been serving with Shepard long?" The awkwardness of obvious discomfort in Jane V.'s voice almost made Dawn cringe for the other woman.

Making their way back down the stairs, she found Jane V. and Garrus V. still sitting where she left them.

"No, not long. A few months, I suppose." Thane glanced up at Dawn and Garrus as they crossed back over to the couches, his expression unreadable, but the weight of his gaze like a gentle caress over her soul. "She … recruited me on Illium."

She felt the eyes of the other two on her as she sat down, taking a seat next to Thane once more. Garrus remained standing, leaning against the wall next to the couch, undoubtedly prepared to act if things got out of hand. It felt good—right—to have him there at her six. It's where he belonged; always. Even if she knew he was just as prepared to protect her as to stop her if things went awry.

Garrus V.'s gaze felt heavy and imposing, watching her every move as if he'd make her tell him everything he wanted to know by sheer force of will. Jane V., on the other hand, seemed to relax a little with Dawn's return, her posture shifting, visibly slinking down as she leaned against her husband's side.

Dawn cleared her throat and leaned forward, resting her elbows on her knees, threading her fingers together. "So, uh," she said, stalling another couple of heartbeats by glancing at her two lovers before turning her gaze back to the familiar-strangers sitting on her couch, "there's something I'm going to tell the two of you. It's, ah, unusual, and maybe difficult to believe, but I think it's probably best to put all of my cards on the table here."

Jane V. arched an eyebrow and glanced at her husband. They shared a look, and with a flick of his mandible, Garrus V. nodded.

Turning his attention back to Dawn, he said, "I think the saying is, we're all ears."

His wife chuckled, tilting her glass up to take a swallow. Shifting her weight a little, she pulled herself up straighter. "If it's big enough for a serious talk in the shitter, than it'd be stupid not to hear it."

Dawn forced a chuckle, the false sound like shattering glass to her ears, and she winced. "Yeah, well, bear with me. This isn't exactly easy to talk about." She licked her lips, buying herself a few seconds to try and put order to the chaos in her mind. Glancing at her hands, she locked her gaze there, not wanting to see the looks of disbelief and judgement on the couple's faces. "A few years ago, ah, well around the time Anderson called me to join the Normandy's crew, some strange things started happening with me."

Jane seemed to settle in the back of Dawn's mind, curiosity and anticipation building into gentle waves, lapping at Dawn's consciousness.

Dawn sucked in a deep breath and shook her head, glancing at Garrus. "Fuck, no, I'm sorry. I'm going to need a shitload more rum if I'm going to do this."

He flicked his mandibles at her but didn't say anything, so she topped off her glass and knocked back half of it in one swallow.

Trapping the glass between her hands, hanging on to it for dear life, she dared a glance at the other turian and his wife before she continued. "I started knowing things about people I didn't have any reason to know, being familiar with people and places I'd never seen before. Doing things without having to think about it, like I'd already done it before hundreds of times." She paused, taking another drink from her glass. "At first I thought maybe it had something to do with the prothean beacon on Eden Prime. But then things started being less vague and more … vivid." She glanced at Thane, remembering what it felt like to look at Nassana Dantius sitting in the middle of a Citadel bar, yet have a vision of the drell dropping from the ceiling to kill the asari and her men in the middle of an office building across the galaxy.

Jane V. huffed, a light, humorless laugh drawing Dawn's attention back to her. "You're shitting us?"

Dawn took another swallow from her glass and shook her head. "I wish I was." She filled her glass again. "I don't suppose any of this sounds familiar to you?"

"No." Jane V. sighed and leaned forward, refilling her own glass. "So … what? You can tell the future or something?"

"Um, well, not exactly. Not since I started changing things." Dawn pressed her fingers to her brow, kneading the tight, thin muscles just below the surface and closed her eyes. "Liara—" She stopped, licking her lips and sucking in a deep, shuddering breath. She sighed, feeling Thane's supportive hand press between her shoulder blades. "Liara joined with me to try and decipher the images from the prothean beacon and found something else while inside my head. It didn't make sense to her, so she came to my room a few days later and told me about this 'veil' she'd noticed. Said she'd passed through it before she even really felt its presence, and then she got waylaid with the images from the beacon so the veil slipped her mind, but she wanted to join with me again to try and make sense of what she'd found."

"She gave us the first real stroke of hope we'd felt in so long," Jane whispered as Dawn's memories filtered to the surface, weaker and less defined than those Jane often showed her, but with good reason: it only happened once.

Jane V. watched Dawn with wide, green eyes, taking increasingly frequent sips from her glass. Garrus V. remained passive, his face an expressionless mask, but Dawn knew he weighed her every word, probably gauging her biometric readouts, too. She took a second to glance at her own Garrus, unsurprised to find him watching the other two like a hawk.

"So, I let her do her thing and everything seemed fine until it felt like my brain might explode and I heard voices screaming … in my head." She took a deep breath and shook her head. "I know this sounds insane. Really, I do."

Garrus cleared his throat, and she glanced up at him. He lifted a brow ridge, his mandibles flared in question, and she shook her head. He didn't have to speak for her to know he was asking if she needed him to step in. Her story, though, she needed to be the one to tell it—as much as she could, anyway.

"Liara somehow managed to jar something loose … to tear through the veil, I suppose, but it knocked me on my ass." Dawn took another drink. "I came to a day and a half later with the galaxy's worst hangover."

"I didn't realize at the time we were causing you actual damage." Jane stirred, a light sensation of regret seeping through their link before she stamped it out. "But it was our best chance—our only chance—to be heard."

"I know," Dawn thought, "It wasn't so bad. We've all had worse. Hell, I think it hurt Liara worse than it did me in the grand scheme of things."

Tears started to well up in her eyes, but she sniffed, chasing them away. "The whole thing left Liara a weeping mess. She blamed herself, of course. For awhile, things stayed pretty quiet in my head, except for this occasional buzzing sound—like a swarm of insects—but Dr. Chakwas kept me in the med bay while she called in an asari specialist in human psychology." She trailed off, going over the series of events again and again in her head, trying to make sure she got it all right.

"Then what happened." The soft, stunned tone of the other woman snapped Dawn out of her rumination.

Blinking, Dawn glanced up, her gaze shifting between the entrapped, wide-eyed stare of Jane V. and the still stoic, expressionless face of her husband. Dawn took a deep breath and drained her glass again. "I had a … dream, or I guess it was really memories happening in a dream." She put her glass down and scrubbed her hands over her face. "Fucking Christ this is a lot harder than it should be."

"It's because you're letting it get too personal," Jane offered.

"Maybe you should just skip ahead." Garrus flicked his mandibles when she looked at him, concern crystal clear in his blue eyes. "Summarize things."

She swallowed and nodded. "Uh, so, the buzzing I'd been hearing started fading in and out, shifting into voices every now and then … like trying to tune a station on a comm with heavy traffic or one of those old radios on Earth. Dr. Tulina ended up joining with me and created this, sort of, safe zone in my head where we talked in peace, without the buzzing, and reviewed the experiences I'd been having. We discovered, ultimately, the voices are definitely not from the beacon—and I'm not like psychic or telepathic or anything like that." She cleared her throat. "Long story short? I've got about a thousand dead people trapped in my head. Not just, you know, random dead people, but other Shepards."

"Not a thousand anymore."

Dawn glanced up, finding everyone staring at her. The expressions varied, of course, but all eyes were solidly on her. Jane V.'s mouth hung agape, and after a second, she downed the rest of her drink.

Garrus V. hummed. "And what makes you think you're not just crazy and believe you have others in your head?"

A low, warning growl came from behind Dawn and off to the side. She looked over her shoulder, intending to wave Garrus off, but a returning growl issued from the other turian jerked her attention back to him. Jane V. flung out an arm, her palm slapping against her husband's unarmored chest, and she huffed, rolling her eyes.

Dawn thought about the question for a moment and took a deep breath. "In twenty-one eighty-six, the reapers hit. Palaven will be one of the first to be swarmed with reapers. Primarch Fedorian will die, and on Menae, Adrien Victus will take his place."

Jane V. raised an eyebrow, surprise etched into the features of her face as she glanced at her husband. "She's got you there. Ready to hear her out?"

The older turian rumbled, resting his free arm on the side of the couch. "For now."

Dawn actually felt a little relieved; with the hard part already out of the way, the rest might be a little easier. She held up a finger while she gathered her thoughts. "Although it was difficult at first, through meditation, I began to be able to tune in on the voices—well, one voice," she said with a snort, "Jane Shepard."

"The Jane Shepard."

"Oh, shut up," Dawn thought, suppressing a snort of laughter when she picked up the sense of a smug, playful smile from Jane.

She leaned forward, resting her elbows on her knees. "I learned she's been trapped in some sort of cycle. Basically, she joined the Normandy—in twenty-one eighty-three, fought the geth and Saren, destroyed Sovereign, got killed by the collectors," she kept talking, despite the increasing look of alarm on Jane V.'s face, the other woman's eyebrows rising higher and higher, "resurrected by Cerberus, fought the collectors, destroyed their baby-human-reaper, got locked up for all her efforts because she destroyed the Alpha relay trying to buy the galaxy time to prepare for the war, got called on to save the galaxy's ass when the reapers showed up, rallied the troops, fought through the final push on Earth, and then died on the Citadel using the Crucible …." She let out an exhausted breath, letting the room soak in everything she just said.

Jane V. fidgeted with the knee of her pants, tugging blindly at a loose thread before abandoning the task. She stared into her glass, seemingly lost in her own thoughts—or perhaps nightmares—as she rolled the tumbler back and forth between her hands. Dawn knew no matter what differences the other woman might've experienced, some of it—hell, most of it even—sounded like a summary of those same few years of her own life.

Dawn stood, moving past Garrus as he tried to reach for her. She'd found her momentum and she wasn't ready to give it up yet. Pacing the floor in front of her bed, she raked a hand through her hair and continued. "And then she woke up again, in some other sorry son-of-a-bitch's head on the day that Commander Shepard reported to the Normandy. Jane watched, screaming to be heard while this other Shepard lived through pretty much the exact same shit before dying on the Citadel. The two of the then woke up in the next Shepard's head. So on and so on." She glanced at Jane V. "They've been living the same handful of years over and over again." She stopped, spinning on her heel to look at the couple, needing to know they felt the weight of her words.

"And … did you do anything with it?" Jane V. asked, her words hesitant as she glared at her tumbler. "You said something about changing things."

Dawn took a deep breath and scrubbed her hands over her face before plopping down on the bed behind her. "I've been changing every gods damned thing I can because I know … I know in every fiber of my being, if I don't find a way to break this cycle, I'm going to die on the Citadel and then wake up just one more crazy, broken, terrified voice in some other poor soul's head." She glanced up at the ceiling, the shutters tightly closed against the void, and for a moment, she felt trapped by them and thought about opening them. Instead, she stood again and resumed her pacing, chewing on the inside of her cheek. "When I died over Alchera … it's a choice I made."

With anger seething through her voice, Jane V. jumped up from the couch, glaring at Dawn when she asked, "And you thought, what? That'd make fighting easier?"

Dawn stopped, turning to face the other woman, locking Jane V.'s fiery gaze in place with her own. "No one said it was my first choice. I tried to think of another way to both stay alive and make sure I'd be in a position to fight the collectors when the time came. For fuck's sake, I even tried to reach out to Cerberus, hoping I might work something out with the Illusive Man that didn't involve me having to die first."

Jane V. sat her glass down on the table, her hands clenching into fists at her side. "There's always another way, even if you have to pull it out of your ass."

"Who the fuck does she think she's talking to?" Ire, thick and hot, poured through the link between Jane and Dawn. "Yeah, it sucked, but you did what you needed to do to save lives. You're a marine, it's who we are, it's what we do. We fucking signed on for this kind of thing. And, you had every reason to believe it wasn't permanent!"

Dawn stared at Jane V. a moment longer, feeling the roar of blood pounding through her veins and bit back the urge to knock the older woman on her ass. Sucking in a slow breath through her nose, one side of her mouth ticked up in a half smile. "I get you've been through hell, Jane V. Really, I do. But I strongly suggest you remember who's ship you're on and just who the hell you're talking to before you decide to do something real stupid here." She cocked an eyebrow. "Pull another one of those options out of your ass and stand down."

Jane V. let out a heavy exhale and rubbed her temples. "Fine. Fine …."

"Is that how she survived the war? Being too weak to make the hard calls?" Jane snorted, the derisive sound as rough as sandpaper against Dawn's mind. "Shit, I wouldn't be surprised if she didn't even use the Crucible herself."

Dawn took a slow breath and thought, "Okay, Jane. Enough, let's move on. This isn't helping."

Jane V. returned to her seat on the couch next to her husband and upended the bottle of rum, pouring the last of it into her glass. Garrus V. made a move for it, trying to take the tumbler from her, but she pulled it out of his reach. He let her be, watching her for a moment before turning his gaze back to Dawn.

Dawn looked between the two of them for a moment, her gaze finally settling on the older turian—clearly the more level-headed and sober of the two—when she asked, "Are we good? Should I continue?"

Garrus V. glanced at his wife, watching her as she focused on drinking a third of her rum in one swallow. Apparently satisfied with what he saw, he turned back to Dawn and nodded once.

"Good." Dawn kept her gaze on the couple, not really wanting to risk looking at her own Garrus as she continued; not wanting to see the pain she knew she'd find in his eyes. After a moment, she started talking again, keeping her words soft and measured. "Like I said, I tried finding other options, but nothing I thought of satisfied, and I kept coming up empty handed. I already knew the Council and the Alliance both refuse to look into the collector attacks, and it wasn't like I could really go to either of them and ask for help with something that handn't even happened yet—or at least not enough to be on anyone's radar."

She started pacing again, slower though, and less frantic. "Time was running short. I reached out to Cerberus, tried to set up a meeting with the Illusive Man, but I was ignored. So yes, I sucked it up and put humanity before myself. I marched to my death over Alchera, knowing full well where I was headed. I made Garrus promise to not to stop me, and made Liara promise to find me and deliver me to Cerberus. Because it's always Liara."

Dawn returned to the table, her gaze never really leaving Jane V. for more than a heartbeat at a time, and picked up her glass from the table. She downed the rest of her rum and glanced at the empty bottle, considering raiding her cabinet for the bottle of vodka she kept on hand for Jack. "But Liara died." Her voice sounded far more hollow and broken than she intended.

Jane V. tensed, clenching her eyes shut, her hands trembling. Her husband covered one of her hands with his own, wrapping his fingers around hers.

She swallowed. "Why?" she asked, her voice raw with sadness.

Dawn's shoulders sagged, and she pursed her lips. Leaning down to put the tumbler on the table, she let it drop the last half inch, glass clinking against glass. "I don't know. Because I changed something somewhere along the line … and it resulted in her death. Maybe it was because I took a few seconds longer with her as the Normandy was being attacked, but the escape pod she fled on—along with Ashley, Dr. Tulina, and a few other crew members—got hit by a blast." She couldn't help herself, she glanced at Garrus, throwing herself on the blade by allowing herself to see the pain and ice in his eyes. "It left Garrus to find me himself … take me to Cerberus."

"And the whole thing broke him."

"He's not broken, damn it!" Dawn's thoughts were filled with a snarl of mixed emotions as she snapped at Jane. "He can be different from the Garrus you knew and not be broken. Okay, yeah, it changed him. He's a little colder, harder around the edges, and he's dealing with some shit, but that's life, Jane. Things affect people and it changes them."

Jane V. sighed, downing the rest of her rum before setting the glass down hard on the table. Running a hand through her hair, her brow creased in frustration. "It never fucking ends …."

Dawn let out a soft, sarcastic snort and shook her head. "No, it doesn't. For me maybe quite literally." She cleared her throat. "So, why do I believe I'm not just crazy?" She glanced at Garrus V., her eyebrows arched. "Because time and time again, I know things I otherwise have absolutely no reason to know, and I've been able to use this information to affect other people's lives. To affect change in the whole galaxy. I can hear Jane—the one in my head," she amended, glancing at his wife, "as clearly as I can anyone else now, but it came at a cost for her and the others. They stayed conscious—becoming even more in tune, if you will—as I died, and they felt every single thing Miranda and Wilson did to bring my charred corpse back to life. I know what crazy is, I hear it from her every day now." Dawn paused, holding up a hand. "Excuse me, I better correct myself before I get an ear full. Things were especially rough for her in the beginning, after I woke up in the Lazarus Project facility. Now, some days are worse than others."

"Do you …" Jane V.'s slurred voice interrupted Dawn's rambling, drawing her attention back to Jane V. "What do you dream?" Her gaze searched Dawn, something desperate lurking just under the surface.

Dawn shook her head, confused by the question. "Mostly things from their lives. Being different versions of me—sometimes even different men—going through the same hell over and over again. Fighting the same fights against geth, thugs, mercenaries, collectors, Cerberus." She waved her hand a little. "The reapers. But also … falling in love with people, building lasting friendships, and learning to let go when I can't save everyone." She shrugged, feeling a little helpless, clearly not having the answers the other woman sought. "I think it's more them dreaming than me, but it feels just as real."

"Fuck," Jane V. whispered, letting go of her husband's hand and leaned over her knees.

"Is she … what's she doing?"

Dawn licked her lips, ignoring Jane's question. Instead, she stayed focused on Jane V., sensing something important there, something the other woman dealt with that might … just might, if she got damn lucky, help things make sense. "EDI's been working with Legion and Mordin, and they seem to think it's possible—they're not sure, but it's possible, when Jane activated the Crucible, it triggered some sort of tear in the fabric of reality between parallel universes." She licked her lips again, fighting to keep her tone even. "But you lived through it. You're not … you're not a voice in my head … and you don't have voices in yours … so maybe you're not really connected to this thing, but there might still be some way we can help each other." Dawn sat down next to Thane, sliding her hand over his knee as she gripped the leather of his pants, using him to anchor herself. "Tell me about your dreams? Please?"

"I see a world blanketed in fog." Jane V. kept her voice hushed, barely even a whisper as she clenched her hands between her knees. "A world of the dead." She lifted a hand, waving it in Thane's direction before tucking it back between her knees, never lifting her head to meet anyone's gaze.

"You mean—the others start having reoccurring dreams after the reapers attack Earth. A forest filled with fog and whispers of the dead," she said, glancing at Thane and squeezing his leg. "Thane, Mordin, Ashley or Kaidan, maybe Wrex if things went really bad on Virmire? Sometimes others. Ghostly figures who seem to stay just out of reach … and a little boy they saw on Earth. Is that what you mean?"

"Dennis. His name was Dennis." Jane V. shrugged, just barely a tick of her shoulders.

Jane hummed in the back of Dawn's mind, mulling the name over. "We never knew … never got the chance to ask."

Jane V. continued, her voice barely above a whisper, but somehow deafening in the stillness of the room. "And I don't know about after the reapers attacking. I was trapped there ever since I … died." She paused, seeming to trudge through her emotions to find the words. "I'm in my memories, towns I've been to, buildings from my past." She frowned. "And it's empty, filled with a fog that seemed to be alive, choking me. And," she said, her gaze turning to linger on Thane. "And shadows of the dead."

Thane dipped his head and gently cleared his throat. "If you're finding my presence here … too burdensome for you, I can take my leave."

"Yeah, no." She rubbed her neck, and her husband reached out, caressing her back as she turned her gaze to her feet. "Sorry. Still a bit of an adjustment for me."

"You needn't apologize." Thane took Dawn's hand when she reached for him. "I'm certain the man you knew would be honored to have you carry him in your memories." He glanced at her as he brushed his thumb over her knuckles.

Dawn sat back against the couch, glancing over at Garrus when he finally decided to sit down next to her again. He put his hand on her knee and squeezed a little, but didn't say anything. Leaning into his side, she closed her eyes, letting herself feel the swirl of emotions coming from the horde of Shepards. She watched as Jane raced through the available memories, searching for something matching Jane V.'s descriptions.

"It's not here, Dawn. I'm sorry. None of us experienced this, unless it's in one of the ones you absorbed, but I think I'd remember something so different. I looked anyway, but it's just not here," said Jane before hesitating. "I don't think she can help us, not with this, at least."

"I'm sorry," Dawn finally said, the sound of defeat in her own voice making her want to cringe. "We've never experienced those dreams."

Jane V. nodded and sighed as she leaned back, her head tilted up to the ceiling. "I'm not surprised. By the sounds of it, there are quite a few differences between us."

Parable

Jane could hear a forced calm within Dawn's shallow breaths, knowing the effort well enough from her own times of trying to keep from falling apart at the seams. Hell, she'd already had her very own outburst, no thanks to the rum in her system, so she couldn't expect the same not to happen in return from the other Shepard.

Shepards, apparently.

"I'd really like to explore those differences, as much as you're comfortable." At Dawn's words, Jane lowered her head to look at the trio across from her and felt a sort of envy. Sure, Dawn was fucked up, but the other two? They still hadn't seen the horrors of the war yet. "I think there's a chance something you tell me might help me break this cycle I'm in." Good luck learning anything from my mistakes, lady. "Help me live through the war, too."

Jane held back her dry laugh.

Live through it? Hell, even we barely managed that. Lost a good few pieces of our bodies too.

Then there's my friends, my family, that I lost because I fucked up over and over.

With Jane's delayed response, Dawn continued, serious in her tone, but with a hint of desperation in her eyes as she looked solely at Jane. "Or maybe… help me make sure I stay dead."

Jane gave a slight nod to the look in the woman's violet eyes. Soldier to soldier, this needed to end, that look said; to hell with what the others thought. She, too, wanted to just be over with the damn war at many times, be done with the fucked up shit afterward, and she couldn't really imagine being through it over multiple times as different people. She wasn't sure it'd do anything, but she could try.

At Dawn's side, Thane turned to look over the woman, and Jane figured if the situation was the same as her own reality, he of all people would understand the serenity in death. Dawn's Garrus, however, definitely didn't like the thought, growling, but she didn't look to him or acknowledge his protest. Probably for the best considering Jane knew the Vakarians well enough to know that conversation wouldn't end well. Different realities or not, she'd seen enough of this Garrus to know that he could be just as stubborn as her own mate.

Drumming her fingers on her knee and hearing the slight thunk of them against the metal of her artificial leg beneath her pants, she looked to her husband. "I… uh… well. We already know the Leviathan thing is different. A lot." She returned her gaze to the trio, looking between Dawn and Garrus, then Dawn and Thane. "Did anyone go down with you?"

"No, there's just one barely working diving mech there." Dawn shook her head as Jane looked to her mate with a shrug at the question in his eyes of why something small like that would be different. "But instead of just one showing up to greet me like they did with Jane and the others, or even just the three total that usually show their ugly mugs… it's like they called every fucking one they knew to come to the party. They were everywhere. I don't even know how many. They knew something was wrong with me the second their minds touched mine. They could feel Jane and the others."

"Right. Well, the mech that we found was a mining mech, two person. One to work the hands and the other the feet or something like that." Jane lifted her hand from her knee and shrugged before dropping it and looking to Garrus to take his hand. "This idiot wanted to join me." She looked back to Dawn. "Needless to say, the dive wasn't the worst thing to happen to us out there. Sure, we didn't see a shit ton of them, but whichever one we did see fucked us up." Unsure how to tell the story accurately, Jane wrinkled her nose and hummed in thought. "Shit, it's hard to put it."

"It connected us," Her husband provided, unhelpfully, and Jane looked to him in exasperation.

Thanks, that was helpful and definitely says what I had at the tip of my tongue.

Dawn glanced between the two, finally settling on Garrus, which was good, because Jane still had no clue how to explain without jumbling up the specifics which she usually just ignores in exchange for action. "Connected you? Like, what? Psychically?"

Jane couldn't help the snort and smirk. "No, we can do that all on our own."

Her mate flicked his unscarred mandible down at her before turning to a confused Dawn, her brow raised. "She's talking sex." He shook his head before squeezing Jane's hand, his thumb caressing the back of her knuckles.

"What the hell does a psychic connection have to do with sex? For fuck's sake, thank the gods neither of those two can hear my thoughts while we're screwing." She glanced at Thane and grinned slightly. "Ah, making love."

Thane merely chuckled softly and shook his head, giving Jane a pang of sadness. She tended to get a similar reaction from her crude jokes. Sure, not in a sexual way with the man, but it was often fun to live with such a diverse crew, to get different reactions to her very different means of command. She looked between the two lovers as the sounds of whispers engulfed her, but a gentle tug at her hand drew her back from that void.

"Right…" She cleared her throat and shook it off. "Yeah, sorry. Rum talking and making an idiot out of me. Been awhile since I, technically, got into a contest of seeing who can drink the most out of a bottle."

"We were having a contest? How come no one told me?" Dawn smirked, lifting a brow, and Jane huffed a soft laugh before frowning. She was downing rum like it was water for various reasons, one of those being a dead man still watching her with eyes that almost seemed empty in the oh so wrong and dim light.

How many times did those eyes stare at me through the fog? How many times did his ghost whisper for me to join him and the others, to convince me that it'd have been easier to just give up? How many times do they continue to haunt me?

Rubbing a scuff on her pant leg, she became serious. "Yeah. They did something when they got into our heads. It was like they connected us to talk to us at one time. I saw him and he saw me as they used some mind trick to pick out faces of people we knew to threaten and insult us."

"They always do that." Dawn waved her hand a little at her own head. "The mind fuck thing. Using people you've seen, generally speaking the faces of their thralls, to project themselves into our heads. They used the Council for me. I think they were trying to impose the idea of authority," she said before snorting in amusement, and Jane, too held back her own opinion on the Council, "because I made them nervous. We - we made them nervous."

Her husband pulled his mandibles close to his face. "They first tried to use their victims, but when we were defiant, they used our own images against us. They tried to break us by showing us they could take control of us or tried to force us to submit through intense pain." He growled low and squeezed Jane's hand again. "But joining us only weakened their chance to control us."

"It also left us with some fucked up side effects," Jane added as she rubbed at the phantom pain in a knee that didn't exist, still feeling the effects of the shock from the limbs' removal. "I can hear him in my head sometimes."

"Not all the time? So, you can control it?" Dawn glanced to her Garrus at her opposite side and tapped her temple. "Can you imagine being wired into this hot mess?"

Her - what is he to her, technically? Weird calling him her Garrus… - Garrus chuffed and reached out to graze a knuckle over the same spot Dawn had just tapped. "If it'd help, I think I'd manage."

Boy… wonder what they'd say if they found out the same way we did. Nearly shit myself suddenly hearing Garrus' voice in my head, can't imagine that on top of what Dawn already hears.

She shrugged and lifted the corner of her mouth in an unconvincing smile of confidence. "Yes?"

"No," her husband corrected. His mandibles quivered at his jaw before he explained. "It usually happens during high stress situations. Combat, usually."

"And it wasn't too fun learning about it the first time." She smiled at her mate and bumped her shoulder to his side. "And it gives him a chance to yell at me about my tactics even in my own head." Looking back to the trio, she cleared her throat and tried for a more professional tone. Public shows of affection in front of other worldly copies of Garrus and Thane was starting to get awkward, so she decided to keep it on the downlow. "Anyway, yeah. They left us connected and messed with our heads. Left us with this weird… well." Fidgeting, she wondered how to put it without sounding like a vid. "I can… control things."

"Control things?" The younger Garrus - no, that doesn't quite work either. Damn - flared his mandibles.

Jane barely heard Thane, and would probably have missed his soft words if not for looking his way in time to see his lips move. "Fascinating," he said with a whisper of breath, as if not wanting to interrupt the conversation. Dawn, though, included him as she rubbed her hand over his knee before turning it in offer to him. He took it, lifted it to his lips, and kissed it tenderly.

Funny how alike they all are, and how so much like Garrus he is to be questioning every step of the way. Can't say the same for Thane's public shows of affection, but I can picture it given the situation. God, I feel even more out of place, like I'm a voyeur here. And not in a fun, let's do this again way.

She chuckled under her breath before her thoughts could start to wonder - don't want to drunkenly fall down that rabbit hole - and looked up to her husband with a warm smile. Even if they didn't show it in the moment to these - let's face it - strangers, she knew their own shows of affection all over their own universe proved how sappy their own love life was. She couldn't blame Dawn for expressing it on her own damn ship, in her own damn cabin.

So long as the clothes stay on… Don't really want to see Thane in that light. I know his son, for crying out loud. I want to look him in the eyes when we get back without thinking 'hey, funny story. I know how your dad looks naked!'

...If we get back...

"Yeah," Jane said forcefully, trying to steer her mind back to the task at hand. "I don't know how to really explain it without actually doing it to someone." She lifted her hand and let a darker form of biotics wrap around her hand, forming into a tighter orb of energy. "I tried to throw a pull at someone and, out of nowhere, they started fighting their own people." Huffing a humorless laugh, she let the energy flicker before flowing over her hand again. "May have overcharged it sometimes on accident and blew someone's brains out."

"Sounds like the Dominate Morinth uses." Dawn was quiet a moment, her eyes unfocusing for a moment. "Uh," she sighed, "there were a few Shepards who decided to let Morinth kill Samara and took Morinth onboard instead. That probably shouldn't leave this room." Considering the mess that could bring out, Jane nodded in agreement. "A few of the others were able to do what you're talking about too," Dawn said, lifting her brows and tilting her head at the energy dancing over Jane's hand. "But I can't say it looked anything like that."

"Heh, yeah. Don't really know why I get that from the Leviathan. Maybe those assholes rubbed off on me." Cutting off the flow of energy, the biotic orb in her palm dissipated and she looked to her mate. "Do you want to tell them about yourself?"

Garrus shrugged with a low chuckle. "It's nothing..."

Jane didn't quite hear what he said, noticing that Dawn, too, had become restless. Just around the point in their conversation earlier about meeting the Leviathan, she had begun to notice Dawn rubbing at her head more frequently. She seemed to be shifting around in her seat enough to be getting her male company's attentions and concern. Both could easily be explained from the rum, as Jane, too often built up a headache from drinking too much too fast. It also explained the look of needing to take a piss, for self-explanatory reasons. What is didn't explain, though, was the growing frequency of these movements and discomfort without anyone doing more than a comforting touch or glance her way.

Something suddenly seemed very wrong when Jane considers the whole picture.

Glancing to her mate, she blinked and looks between the group. "Sorry, what?"

Garrus looked her over, trying to read her, and she fought not to look over to Dawn, giving him any reason to go back into detective mode. It wasn't really the time nor the place to start probing, especially when something very obvious was happening between the trio as the men's attentions to Dawn grew from providing a caring presence in a time of need to an attempt to try and soothe a child on the verge of a meltdown - as Jane knew all too well from her own little monsters back home. She tried not to look too closely at the duo's constantly moving touches, from a hand resting on Dawn's knee to rubbing her back as the other abandons her hand to stroke her hair, lest she make her suspicions of what's not being said known.

Her husband's cold blue eyes didn't miss her fleeting look, however, and followed her eyes to take in the sight of the trio that left her with the weary look she was sure was on her face. Of course he'd had caught it long before Jane ever did, but her own reactions must have made him kick into action. He'd always been suspicious of people, always watching, but never moving into dealing with it unless whatever in question was bad enough to get her own attention.

He flicked a mandible at the sight before rumbling and saying something in that older turian dialect. Sure, she knew some of it, and could translate pretty well, but only when he talked slower. This was definitely not one of those times, however, and she missed the exacts of what he said. There was a 'we' and a 'be', but hell if that helped her understand a damn thing.

Dawn raised her eyebrows over towards Jane's husband - at least she's not in a complete breakdown… yet - before glancing between the two turians. "Oh, that's just not fair," she said, any kind of real weight to her words lost in her obvious pain.

When the other Garrus responded with something in that same dialect, Dawn glared and he chuckled as he shook his head. Trying to understand enough to explain what they're saying to the other Shepard, Jane managed to catch 'her' and 'there', but, again, nothing useful.

"Okay, stop it, that's not allowed." Dawn groused, lifting her head to glare first at her own Garrus before shifting that stern stare to Jane's husband.

At that admonishment, Jane couldn't help but chuckle and looked to her mate. "See? I'm not the only one who hates that."

Thane glanced between the two turians before tightening his grip on Dawn's hand to draw her attention. "I believe Mr. Vakarian is only expressing concern for you… or perhaps because of you, siha. If I'm not mistaken, Jane is being particularly bothersome to you at the moment, and it's beginning to show." Garrus, on the other hand, gave Thane an exasperated look over Dawn's shoulders, obviously not too keen on his and his older counterpart's secret being revealed.

Jane nodded slightly, hoping to catch Dawn's eyes. "I think maybe you might need a break?"

An easy out, to have the other Shepard be the one to end the conversation, but, really, Jane was having quite the difficulty keeping her thoughts on the present the longer she stuck around the dead man in the room. The more he spoke, the stronger her nightmares became as they clawed at her, trying to drag her down into her hell. Her husband, too, saw in her the changes and moved much like Dawn's partners. His attempts were just as obvious as the duo's as he wrapped his arm around her shoulders to hold her closer as he purred against her temple in a display of affection he normally wouldn't throw around in the company of people still very much strangers. Last thing they all needed was two women breaking out into a panicked state with two equally protective turians in the same room.

Dawn smiled ruefully, and Jane got her answer even before seeing the woman shake her head. "It probably won't help. She has … her moments. Right now, it's a bitchy moment. Technically, I'm supposed to be letting her speak - acting as her voice - to others that know of her existence. Dr Chakwas thinks it'll help to stabilize her, and it does help some, but trust me, no one wants to hear the crazy coming from her right now."

"Guessing she's not too happy about you being with a Shepard that's not in your head?"

"That about sums it up."

Jane sighed and leaned back in the cushions of the couch, rubbing her forehead with her hand. "So… I guess you want to know more? Go ahead, ask away."

But really don't because, dammit, this is getting hard to do.

There was a pause, in which Garrus purred and caressed her hand with his thumb, before Dawn spoke again. "It can wait, if you're getting tired."

"Honestly?" She dropped her eyes back to the group. "I'm not tired so much as… as I think I need some more alcohol."

"I can do that, but … Jack might decide she hates us later." Dawn chuckled softly. "Thoughts on vodka?"

"I'm already too drunk to care." Jane shrugged and Dawn stood, heading towards her bed.

"She won't be as pissed if we drink it straight from the bottle." A clinking came from her direction as she shuffled through the liquor cabinet. "Your call, but according to Jack," her Garrus joined in as they both said, "glasses are for pussies."

Jane laughed. Good to hear Jack was friendly enough with Dawn to insult her drinking methods. She couldn't deny that having the prickly woman around wasn't, in it's own way, exciting and an experience all in itself. To see that this Garrus not only got along, but was fucking Jack didn't surprise her so much as it became interesting. Her own, husband, after all, didn't tend to grow a bond strong enough to know Jack's drinking habits - let alone get in the crazy biotic's pants.

Then again, Garrus was a bit too drugged up most of the time during that mission while Jack was aboard to really 'converse' with any of the crew.

After a moment, Dawn returned with a large bottle of the clear alcohol. Sitting down, she offered the bottle in question and Jane took it, popping off the cap and tossing it onto the table with a clink. "Did Ash ever tell you the Williams' tradition?"

"About Armistice Day?"

Jane took a large drink before grunting in the negative and offering the bottle back. As Dawn downed her own drink, Jane explained it as Ash once told her. "So, according to her, there's this long standing tradition in her family. I think it's not just for military members, but I can't remember exactly." She drummed her fingers against the false ache in her leg before shrugging. "Fuck it, that doesn't matter." She took the offered bottle again. "The Williams will buy the cheapest, most disgusting alcohol in the joint and everyone, everyone, has to take a shot of it before any other drinking can commence."

She downed a long gulp before watching both hers and Dawn's Garrus down their drinks almost in tandem. She'd have laughed if not for leaning halfway over the table to hand the bottle back over to Dawn. Thane, on the other hand - and ever the gentleman - still nursed his first drink when even the two turians poured themselves another.

Dawn stood, bottle to her lips as she drank again. Swallowing, she stepped around Thane's legs and came to sit beside Jane so they could share the bottle without having to topple over their drinking partners. Hands free, Dawn leaned down, untied her boot laces before pulling them loose enough to kick off in some random direction across the room.

"I didn't really spend much time talking to Ashley. We didn't see eye to eye on a lot of things." Jane snorted in understanding at that, swallowing her gulp of vodka before offering Dawn the bottle back. Dawn drank and shrugged as she swallowed. "Things got a little less tense after I broke her nose."

The younger Garrus chuckled at the apparent memory as Jane laughed, wishing she'd done the same to her own Ashley Williams in the beginning.

"But we were never very close. She was with some of the others, though." She tapped her head to explain and Jane hummed in understanding, watching Dawn take another drink before handing over the bottle. "Some of the men had a thing with her, even."

Jane snorted as her husband clicked in disbelief. "Right, because I bet some of them were okay with the whole 'can't tell the animals from the aliens' thing." She shrugged and took a big gulp before waving the bottle around as she talked, very careful not to spill any in her exclamation. "Damn! I wish I had punched her instead of cussing her out. Or, I know, made out with my turian husband." She jostled Garrus a bit before offering the bottle back to Dawn. "She'd probably have shit a brick then."

Dawn lifted her shoulder in a half shrug. "Those other Shepards weren't all as awesome as I am, clearly. But yeah, I have memories of being with her as a man. Trust me, not the most pleasant moments. I'm all for women, but Ashley… well, physically she was attractive but I couldn't really get past her xenophobia in the beginning. I know if she'd lived, though, she wouldn't be quite so bad about it now." She glanced towards her Garrus. "The aliens eventually rubbed off on her." She took a somber drink before saying, "I didn't punch her over that, though." Pulling her feet up to the couch, Dawn wrapped her arms around her knees. "Gods, how long have you two been married?"

It was her husband that answered, setting his half empty tumbler on his knee. "If you're using our timeline, then eight years."

Jane nodded and looked to Dawn. "We married in '82."

Dawn's mouth hung open and Jane had to grab the bottle for fear that Dawn would drop it in her shock. The woman looked between Jane and her husband a few times before she snapped her attention to her own Garrus, even though her response seemed directed at Jane. "When did… how… I never met him any earlier than during his investigation into Saren… I don't." She winced and pressed her fingers to her forehead. "I don't."

Dawn stood, almost stumbling and falling over the low table. "Fuck." Her clenched eyes opened as she took in Jane and her mate once more before turning to Thane, fear in her eyes.

"Shepard," EDI's voice filled the cabin and Jane set the bottle down, sure that some shitstorm was forming. "Your biometric scans are indicating that Jane may be attempting to take over. Do you require assistance?"

"I-" Dawn's skin was paler than normal, a drastic change from the slightly flushed appearance of being pleasantly drunk, and she trembled all over, shaking from head to toe.

Thane immediately opened a vial he must have pulled from his jacket, unleashing a foul smell as he ghosted it under Dawn's nose, but it didn't seem to do… whatever it was supposed to do besides make Jane's stomach churn. Dawn swatted Thane's hand - and the vial within it - out of her way, but Garrus was quick to jab a needle into her arm, injecting her with whatever it held.

Almost instantly, Dawn went lax, passing out. Thane caught her collapsing form as Garrus turned to Jane and her husband. She knew that look well enough to hold her hands up in clear sign she meant no harm as she slowly stood to get the hell out of the combat zone. Hell, she even stepped back to give Thane room to set Dawn down.

"Well, I know when our welcome has worn out." Jane cleared her throat at the sudden tension in the air from the younger Garrus and - though che couldn't see him - the responding attitude coming from her own, now standing mate at her back. "I wish you guys well, and let her know I hope she feels better, but, let's face it, I'm useless in here."

"Tali and Kal's quarters have been made ready for you, Mrs. Vakarian." EDI helpfully - good to know she's just as helpful and aware as our own - offered before addressing the others. "I've notified Dr. Chakwas, she is on her way."

Jane nodded in understanding and assurance to the other two that they were leaving. Backing away, she let Garrus take her back as she turned and headed for the door, barely hearing the lyric sound of turian being spoken at her back. Outside of the cabin, she released a breath and waited for the lift to come up with the doctor so they could take it down.

"Boy, what a fucked up situation we've found ourselves in."

"You said that when we faced giant murderous machines." Her husband provided and she glared over her shoulder at him as the lift reached this level.

As the doors swung open, Jane and her husband stood out of Chakwas' way to let her rush into the captain's cabin, a medical tote in hand. "I think we should leave them be. EDI? Is there anyone else who needs the lift for the… incident?"

"Miranda and Mordin have also been notified, but use of the elevator is still available. This event is not cataloged as an emergency."

"I meant more out of courtesy to whoever needs to get up here, but thanks," she said as she followed her mate into the lift. Once in, she hit the command for the crew deck. "Fucked up, indeed."