2nd May 2188 – Crucible Pulse + 19 months

Update 21/09/2013

Shepard awoke with a jolt at the sudden noise in the bedroom. He searched around for the source until he realised it was coming from his omni-tool on the bed.

"Who the bloody hell is calling you at three in the morning?" Miranda spoke up from next to him, and she sighed as Elizabeth began to cry in the cot next to the bed. "Great, now Lizzie's up."

By now Shepard had his omni-tool in hand and he realised who the caller was.

"Sorry Miri, I have to take this."

"Well do it downstairs, I'll get her back off to sleep."

He nodded, taking the omni-tool and sliding it onto his arm as he got up from the bed. He crossed the room and closed the door, making sure he was already halfway down from the top floor and out of earshot before accepting the call.

"Valern, what do you want?"

"Shepard, my apologies for disturbing so late at night but I have important news."

He raised an eyebrow as he reached the first floor, rounding the spiral staircase once more to go down to the ground floor. "What is it?"

"The encrypted data that you recovered at the Cerberus base a couple of months ago, we've cracked it." Valern stated.

"Really?" Shepard cocked his head. "That took a while."

"Yes, the encryption was very strong."

Shepard reached the bottom of the stairs, heading over to the study. He shut the door behind him and settled in his office chair behind the desk. "Well, what's on there?"

"A lot of the data was irrelevant or all ready known to us," Shepard sighed as Valern continued. "But we have found the location of another new Cerberus base, the same N7 team has already been dispatched to secure it."

"And I have to go?"

"Well, you are investigating this situation rather than Miss Lawson."

"Do the rest of the Council know?"

"They have been informed as well."

"Right," Shepard sighed again. "Where is the base?"

"Grosalgen, in the Acheron system of the Styx Theta cluster," Shepard pulled up a data file on the planet on the terminal on his desk as Valern continued to speak. "It's an enigmatic ice and rock world, thin CO2 and ethane atmosphere with a very low temperature."

"Yeah, I can see," He examined a few of the pictures of the planet before turning back to his omni-tool. "They like ice planets, don't they?"

"It's an unremarkable world, deserted and unimportant. It's easier for them to evade detection."

"Did the team get the jump on them this time?"

"Unfortunately not, though at least we did not lose any men this time around."

"Good, is it the same set up as last time? Meet Bau at the SPECTRE offices?" Valern nodded. "Right, I'll leave soon."

"Good Councillor," Valern paused before turning off. "Thank you for this."

The feed on the omni-tool switched off, leaving Shepard alone in the study staring at the pictures on his terminal. He sighed again, dropping his head and shaking it. Secretly he had been hoping that the data wouldn't yield anything of note. He knew that was selfish, a rogue Cerberus cell could be very dangerous, but he had hoped he could forget about the whole day. And that he would never need to lie to Miranda again.

Slowly he got up, trudging out of the study and up the stairs to the bedroom. Miranda had settled Elizabeth in her cot and was sat up in bed with a puzzled expression.

"What's up?"

"I'm sorry Miri, I've got to go to the Citadel," He walked over to the bed, sitting down next to her. "Council business."

"Really?" Miranda moaned. "Are you sure you have to go?"

He nodded. "Yeah, sorry."

"Anything important?"

"It's about relations with the Terminus Systems," Shepard felt guilty as he delivered the lie, and he made sure to be watching Elizabeth as he spoke rather than Miranda. "It's becoming a bit dodgy apparently."

"And I thought we were going to have a nice day together," Miranda leaned forwards, wrapping her arms around his torso from behind. "Have some us time, you know?"

"I know, I'm sorry."

"Hey, I'm proud of you though. What with all you are doing for the Council," Miranda pressed a kiss to his cheek from behind. "You're doing really well, I know you didn't really want to be on it in the first place."

"Yeah," Shepard placed his hand over Miranda's on his chest, lightly stroking it. "I suppose I better get going."

"I suppose you should," Miranda dropped her tone to a rather suggestive one. "Want company in that shower?"

"Hmm?" Shepard turned his head to give her grin. "That'd be nice."

Miranda grinned, jumping off the bed and pulling him with her. She led him into the shower with a devilish grin, though not before flicking on the baby monitor with a lazy gesture on the way out.

XXXXXXXX

Shepard caught up on some of his missed sleep on the long shuttle ride out to the Styx Theta Cluster, but it wasn't long until Bau was waking him up. They stepped out into the bitterly cold temperatures, fully suited up and armed, scanning the area around them for the entrance.

The base was built into the side of a mountain, steel steps leading up to the circular entrance doors. A trio of other shuttles were next to them, and once again a pair of Krogan flanked the entrance . They climbed the steps and passed through the doors, Shepard giving a nod to one of the guards as they passed. Beyond the doors was a pipe-like tunnel, about ten metres in length with another door at the end. They passed through the second door and were greeted by Grunt.

"Battlemaster."

Shepard removed his helmet, giving a smile in return. "Grunt, fancy bumping into you again."

The Krogan chuckled. "It's becoming a habit right?"

"So, let's take a look around."

"Right," Grunt led them through another door into a large chamber. The same group of technicians were over at a large server bank on the far side running various tests. "Well there's this large room here, and through that door is an armoury and what looks like a gym or training area."

"Great, thanks Grunt."

Shepard walked over to the server banks, receiving a mixed series of salutes and greetings. Bau approached the Quarian amongst them, opening up his omni-tool.

"Good to see you again Kael," Shepard watched the two shake hands. "Do you have anything?"

"Similar to last time, heavily encrypted data," The Quarian pressed a few buttons on his tablet computer that was connected to the server, showing them a chart. "The difference is that this mainframe has an awful lot more data, about a hundred times more than the last base."

"Good," Shepard nodded. "Means we may have more to trace this lot with."

"Yeah, that's what we reckoned," The Quarian pointed over to the armoury Grunt had mentioned. "If you're looking for physical traces I'd recommend starting in there, there's a lot more in this base than the last."

"Right, thanks," Shepard turned to Bau. "Let's go."

They headed off into the armoury, taking a good look around. It looked a lot more promising to Shepard, for a start there were actually weapons lined up in the storage racks. Bau noted these as well.

"Hmm, weapons?" Bau smiled. "That's good, they can be dusted for prints and possibly traced. I have lists of all weapons bought and manufactured by Cerberus in the last few years, I'll have a look at their serial numbers."

"Good plan, we may have something there."

Bau nodded and headed over to the racks, carefully removing a Harrier off the lowest rack with gloved hands and carefully inspecting it. After a few seconds he found the ID mark, he opened his omni-tool and began to run a search in his data for a match. Shepard left him to it and headed over to the gym like area in the other side of the room.

The floor was padded out with a blue lino type material, similar to the hand to hand training areas used in Alliance facilities. A variety of training machines, including a punch bag, treadmill, and a series of weights, were lined up against one wall. Shepard went over to take a closer look at them, but his eyes were drawn to a discoloured patch on the mat. He knelt down to it, running a diagnostic program on his omni-tool. He grinned as he got his results in.

"Bau, I've got blood here," Shepard pressed a few buttons, setting a search for any matching DNA in Cerberus' personnel database recovered from Chronos station. A few seconds passed, and then there was a ping. Shepard read off the record to the Salarian. "And there's a match, Adrian Newings. He was a commando but then underwent the Centurion program during the war. He served in Petrovsky's forces that attacked Omega, but he escaped the station with a couple of squads – I didn't know any of them got out alive. He's labelled as 'redeployed' to reserve forces."

"That was rather forgiving of The Illusive Man," Bau narrowed his eyes at the data in front of him. "I've got his prints on a pistol over here as well, though that first rifle belonged to an assault trooper, Jesse Landing. He was part of another cell, serving out in the Terminus Systems but on the other side to Omega."

"Strange," Shepard looked up the records of Bau's assault trooper, comparing it with the centurion's record. "They have never served together, despite both being in Cerberus for several years. They were in completely different sectors of service for their entire careers."

"Yet they have both been here together," Bau rubbed his chin. "And I think we will find traces of other personnel in the same circumstances, I think this is a rather ramshackle force we are after."

"Maybe Cerberus have a new command after all?" Shepard stood back up again, glancing around the room. "Perhaps they're consolidating what forces they have left, might just be these are their only available, loyal, and surviving troops?"

"Possible, but no one has come across any structure to Cerberus' post war operations as of yet. So far all of the cells that have been uncovered seem to have been out for themselves, in hiding for their own protection rather than any overall plan."

"Then they have a lack of oversight, they aren't being directed," Shepard furrowed his brows as his brain thought in circles. Of course, this is where Miranda would have found the answer if she had been involved. "So perhaps they are all out for themselves like the other cells, except this is just a group of personnel that happened to band together for safety?"

"That is possible," Bau nodded. "But we will know more if we can find traces of other Cerberus staff here."

"Right."

XXXXXXXX

Miranda peered over the top of her book onto the floor of the living room, checking Elizabeth for the umpteenth time. The baby seemed pretty happy, lying on the floor on her baby mat underneath a mobile given to them by Oriana. It featured a number of colourful planets, and Elizabeth enjoyed watching them spin around. And to whack them every now and then.

She returned to her book. It was a draft copy of Liara's book, 'Journeys with a Prothean', and had been given to Miranda for analysis and review. She had been pretty sure it wouldn't need more than a couple of small modifications as Liara was a very thorough worker, and Miranda had been happy to say yes. She had been more than intrigued to learn from Javik, he hadn't been exactly forthcoming to many people beyond Liara and Shepard when she had spoken to him.

Miranda was about to make a note when she heard a buzzing from the study next door, signalling an incoming communication. She grabbed the remote for the vid-screen and accepted the call through it, placing the book down next to her on the sofa. A few seconds of static was followed by the image of Hannah Shepard appearing on the screen, a view of part of the Oriziba's bridge visible behind her.

The woman smiled kindly. "Miranda."

"Hi Hannah," Miranda greeted her with a smile of her own. "How's things?"

"Actually they're very good, I have some news for you."

"Oh? Do tell."

"Well, you remember I said that I wanted to be a bigger part of your lives, of Lizzie's?" Miranda nodded. "I've left the Alliance, I finish and retire officially today."

"Today? That's really soon," Miranda raised an eyebrow. "Are you sure you want to do this so quickly?"

"Yes, quite frankly I've had enough of this," Hannah corrected herself quickly. "Not of commanding a ship, I love having a ship, I mean of the Alliance and it's politics. I can't stand being on the Admiralty board, they want me to be on their side all of the time, to try and influence John on the Council, and I just can't do that."

"Can't you just resign the Admiralty post?"

"Yes but I've had enough of this entirely. I want something more for my life now," Hannah frowned. "And I don't know how much respect I would receive for stepping down."

"It's disgusting Hannah, a lifetime of dedicated service and you don't feel that you could stick to doing what you enjoy and excel at because of a lack of support from your comrades," Miranda snorted. "Not to mention the fact that you're responsible for their 'galactic saviour', have any of them thought about that fact?"

"To be fair Steven has tried to sort all this out, to some degree of success. He's secured me a rather lucrative retirement package, and has seen that I receive all of the fancy crap when I leave," Hannah cocked her head. "Though I'm not sure how bad it would be if I stayed on, maybe I'm making something out of nothing."

"Maybe, I just think it's wrong that you feel actually feel that way – regardless of whatever would happen."

"I see what you mean."

"Still, it is great that you're going to be seeing more of us," Miranda bent down to retrieve Elizabeth off the floor, picking her up and holding her in a way to have full view of the vid-screen. "Say hello to granny Lizzie."

The baby squealed happily, prompting both women to laugh.

"Hello Lizzie," Hannah's face broke out into a huge grin at the sight of her granddaughter. "God Miranda, she looks so like you it's unbelievable."

"I know, John's freaking out a bit."

Hannah narrowed her eyes. "Where is my son by the way? I couldn't get hold of him."

"Citadel, Council stuff apparently. We got a call at about three this morning."

"What?" Hannah looked shocked. "Why are they working him this hard? It's obscene."

"I think it'll calm down soon enough, especially once things are hitting a proper degree of normalcy after the war," Miranda looked down at Lizzie who had preceded to grab hold of one of her thumbs with both hands. "The economy is getting there, as is the repairs of essential buildings and services in the cities on most of the Council worlds. Of course ther... Lizzie! Let go!"

Hannah laughed as Miranda struggled to free her thumb from her daughters surprisingly tight grasp. Eventually she succeeded, prompting another squeal from the baby. She looked back at the vid-screen with a resigned expression.

"Anyway, where are you heading now?"

"Actually I am on my way back to Sol on the Oriziba, my final journey as captain," Hannah smiled, though Miranda could actually pick up a trace of nervousness there. "I have the paperwork to do at HQ on the Citadel and then I'm free."

"Hmm, do you want to stay at ours tonight then? John can bring you back to Earth when he's done," Miranda had a better idea. "Actually no, we'll go up to the Citadel and meet you. We can all wait for him to finish together."

"That sounds like a good idea, how about if I head over to your apartment on Silversun when I'm done?"

"That's a plan."

"Well, I'll see you later then," Hannah smiled. "Love you both!"

Miranda stuttered before replying, she just couldn't get used to hearing that from anyone other than John and Oriana. "Uh, yeah. See you later."

Hannah gave her a reproachful look. "Something wrong?"

"No, it's just..." Miranda sighed. "Yeah, we love you too."

"That's better," Hannah gave her another kind smile. "You'll get the hang of this family malarkey, I promise."

Miranda smiled back as the feed terminated, sitting back down on the sofa. She was glad of how genuinely nice a person Hannah was, and the fact that she had accepted Miranda as John's partner. Not that it would have stopped them from being together, but it felt nice to be appreciated.

She looked back down at Elizabeth, giving her a wide smile.

"So, shall we give daddy a nice surprise at work?"

The baby replied with one of her wide smiles, copying the exact expression that Miranda gave her. As a little test Miranda changed her expression, furrowing her brows in concentration. Elizabeth copied her once again, causing Miranda to chuckle.

"Well you are picking this stuff up quickly, but can you do this?"

Miranda raised an eyebrow, giving Elizabeth her cockiest expression. To her surprise Elizabeth did the same, raising her right eyebrow with a lopsided grin. Miranda raised the other eyebrow in surprise, even that was copied.

"Wow, I wasn't expecting that," Miranda tapped Elizabeth on the nose. "But, that is my look all right? I am the master of the eyebrow, I coined it!"

Elizabeth squealed in return, flailing her arms.

"Well I suppose you could give daddy that look as well, maybe we could synchronise? That'd freak him out," Miranda smirked. "Now, lets get you ready for a trip to space."

XXXXXXXX

"So, we've got a whole bunch of guys who have, according to Chronos Station's records, never worked in a cell together," Shepard scratched his head, looking at Bau in the pilots seat next to him. "Why are they all together? Was it an order, or is it by chance? And should my head hurt this badly from all this theorising?"

"I am not sure about all of those things – including your head. We are definitely missing something major, and I am concerned that Cerberus could be re-organising itself," Bau sighed and shook his head. "We have a considerable amount of evidence compared to previous experiences with Cerberus over the years, yet we are no closer to succeeding in capturing this bunch."

"I know, it's...sorry, hang on a sec," Shepard brought his arm up, his buzzing omni-tool displaying Miranda's caller ID. Shepard selected the answer button, but only as an audio call rather than vid-call. "Hey Miri."

"Hey," There was a pause. "How come you answered audio only?"

"Oh," Shepard paused himself, as he racked his brains for an excuse. "I was just copying some data over from my omni-tool into my terminal manually, should be reasonably quick. I should be home in under an hour."

"You're working in your office?"

"Yeah."

"Well where?" It was then that Shepard noticed the change in Miranda's tone, one with a hint of suspicion. "Because I'm sitting in your office chair, and I can't see you anywhere."

Shepard's mouth dropped and his brain went into overdrive. For the first time in a while, he began to panic. "Miri, I can explain."

"Oh yeah? Then where are you?"

"I'm on my way back, just twenty minutes from the Citadel."

"You mean you aren't even on the Citadel?" He could hear the shock in her voice. "You better have a bloody good reason Shepard."

"It's Council..."

"Save it," She cut him off sharply. "I'm going back to the flat to meet your mother, come there and explain."

"I...Right," Shepard sighed. "I love you."

"Yep." Miranda cut the channel.

Shepard leaned back into his chair, pinching his nose and sighing.

"Fuck."

"That didn't sound good," Bau gave Shepard a sympathetic look. "Anything I can do?"

"No, not really," Shepard corrected himself. "Well if she doesn't believe what I've been doing and thinks I'm seeing someone else or something ridiculous like that than you may have to give me an alibi."

"I can do that."

He sighed again. "This is exactly what I wanted to avoid. Can you head to Silversun Strip when we get to the Citadel?"

"Of course."

The remainder of the flight passed slowly for Shepard. It was almost torturing slow, as he ran through various scenarios in his head. He had literally no idea how she was going to react, but Miranda had every right to be annoyed with him. Lying was one thing she detested the most, after all she had been lied to for most of her life. She had taken a great risk in trusting him, and one of the things he had always promised her was to be truthful. Yet here he was.

He was almost twitching by the time the shuttle touched down on the Strip, giving a quick goodbye to Bau and jumping out of the shuttle. He impatiently ascended in the elevator and ran to the front door of the flat, darting straight through it.

Miranda was seated on the sofa next to his mother and she stood up as he entered, turning to face him.

"Miri I..."

She interrupted him straight away, with a shocked expression. "You promised you wouldn't."

"What?"

"You said you wouldn't go back into service."

It was then that he realised what she was talking about. In his panicked state he had completely forgotten to remove his armour and weapons.

"No it's not like that," He took a couple of steps towards her with outstretched arms. To his horror, she took a couple back away from him. "I've not been in service, I've been..."

"Get out."

Miranda spoke so quietly that Shepard barely caught the words. His jaw dropped, and he had no idea what to say to make her listen.

"Miri, please.."

"No Shepard," Miranda looked pointedly away from him. "I can't do this now, just get out."

He stood stock still, unable to move. He looked over at his mother who shook her head sadly at him, he couldn't see Elizabeth. Shepard looked back over to Miranda, swallowing before nodding his head in a resigned manner. Slowly he backed out of the room, turning away and out of the door.

XXXXXXXX

Miranda had regretted her reaction almost instantly. She had stood rooted in place as her brain slowly processed what had just occurred, staying still for almost a minute. Then she had turned to face Hannah who had a sympathetic expression.

"I overreacted, didn't I?" She had been replied with a sad nod from Hannah. "Can you look after Lizzie? I'll get him back."

Now it was forty minutes later and Miranda still hadn't found him. She had been to the SPECTRE offices first, going across the corridor to his own office a few minutes later. He had been at neither, so she had moved down into his favourite areas of the Presidium but he was still no where to be seen. Miranda wasn't planning to go into the wards at this time of night though, and resigned to having to call him. She had wanted to find him and speak in person, she shouldn't have been so dramatic with him and she knew it. She should have heard him out, like any normal partner would have done for their paramour.

Miranda was about to call his omni-tool when she had a sudden idea of where he was. She hailed a cab next to a bank and jumped in, setting the navigation computer to the Silversun Strip.

Upon arriving she headed down the Strip to the casino, going up the stairs to the top floor bar. As she had suspected he was indeed sat on a barstool, though now out of his armour and back in his customary jeans and t-shirt. Miranda walked up to him slowly, taking a seat next to him.

"Miri?" He was looking at her with pleading eyes.

"I thought you'd be here," She looked down at the glass of liquor in his hands, she presumed a glass of whisky. "How many have you had?"

"This is my second, honestly," He stared down at the glass. "Didn't particularly feel like getting completely hammered."

"Where is your armour?"

"Bau hadn't left, I dumped it in his shuttle before he went."

He made to drink his liquor but Miranda grabbed the glass with her biotics, pulling it into her grasp. She handed it straight over to the barman.

"He doesn't need it," She looked back at his dejected expression, narrowing her eyes at him. "Come on, we need to talk."

With that she stood up and walked away, without saying anything else. A few seconds later she heard the scraping noise of a bar stool being moved, followed by footsteps as Shepard hurried to catch up with her.

They walked back to the flat in silence, passing through the crowds with relative ease. That was mainly because people recognised the pair, as was now per usual, and stepped aside respectfully. Luckily the whispers that had once followed them around had receded, now replaced by wondrous expressions and wide smiles. It was still a little odd, but a lot easier to deal with.

As they stepped into the flat Hannah stood up to meet them with Elizabeth in her arms, a relieved smile on her face.

"Shall I take Elizabeth out and leave you two to talk?"

"Thanks Hannah."

Hannah walked over to the door, placing Elizabeth carefully into her pram and taking her off without another word. Miranda walked over to the fireplace, Shepard following her. She turned to talk, and they both ended up talking at the same time.

"Miri," - "Shepard,"

Miranda seized the opportunity to speak before he did.

"You lied to me about where you were today," She made sure to put on her coldest of tones, something she hadn't used for a while. "I don't like being lied to."

Shepard opened his mouth but closed it again, pinching the bridge of his nose.

"And I've been lied to by many people, but you are the one I thought would never do that to me."

"Never without a reason!" He looked up at her with pleading eyes, she turned away from him to avoid locking with them. "Honestly."

Miranda turned around and hissed back at him. "Well what am I supposed to think when you lie about your whereabouts and then turn up at home in full armour?"

"Can I please explain? Just hear me out," Shepard scratched the back of his neck. "Then you can decide what you want to do."

"Yes, fine." She nodded slowly, and he appeared slightly more at ease as she did so. Shepard sat down on the sofa, leaving space for Miranda next to him. Really she desperately wanted to jump into his arms, to ignore everything else and pretend nothing had happened. But she couldn't back down now, not until she had the whole story. And she hoped that it was something she could forgive, she didn't want to be throwing their relationship away over nothing. Not when he was so special to her.

"I've not been fighting at all, neither have I been in service for the Alliance," Shepard ran a hand through his hair, giving him a slightly dishevelled look. "I've been on the trail of a Cerberus team or cell, I was at a base of theirs today with Jondam Bau."

"Cerberus?" Miranda raised an eyebrow.

"You remember when I went to the first Council meeting after Lizzie was born?" Miranda nodded. "Well there had been a discovery, of something on the planet Nirvana."

Miranda nodded again. "That's in the Utopian system."

"Yeah. A team was sent down but they never reported back, so the Council sent an N7 special operations team led by Grunt in response," Miranda began to pace as she listened, listening intently so to not miss a detail. "They found a Cerberus facility there, and the bodies of the team. There were no enemies there though, the place was empty and cleaned out except for a little amount of encrypted data and one or two bits of equipment."

"Wait, hang on a second," Miranda stopped pacing, looking up at him. "There was nothing in The Illusive Man's files about a base on that planet."

"Exactly, and the Council were concerned because of it. I went along to the base on that day with Jondam Bau to start an investigation," Shepard quickly added more. "It was relatively safe but I had weapons and armour just in case."

"You mean you were doing this back then?" Miranda was aghast. "You've kept this from me for this long?"

"It's been killing me Miri, I hated lying to you."

She spread her arms in exasperation, raising both of her eyebrows. "Why did you even go though? I don't understand, they have dozens of SPECTRES."

"Because..." Shepard looked down, speaking really quietly. "The Council wanted you to go."

That surprised her. "What?"

"You have a detailed knowledge of Cerberus' procedures, they wondered if you could find anything there."

"Why didn't you tell me this?" Miranda realised she had raised her voice so she dropped it, tyring to lower her aggression. "And why did you go instead?"

"I was worried, in case it was a trap," Shepard finally met her eyes with his own. "I didn't want you to get hurt, so I said I'd go instead."

It was then that Miranda finally realised why he had gone behind her back. She couldn't stop herself from almost diving into his arms, settling next to him and wrapping arms around his torso. She couldn't be angry with him now, not now she knew. To be honest he had been a little out of sorts for the past few weeks, and this explained that.

"This is about Sanctuary, isn't it?" He nodded. "Oh, John."

"I'm so sorry, I should have told you. I should have given you the opportunity to go if you wanted, it was safe after all, and it was wrong of me to make the decision for you," Shepard spoke rapidly, and Miranda could feel his heart hammering underneath his ribcage. "Don't leave me, I would never lie about anything to you again, I didn't want to in the first place anyway. And Lizzie needs you as well, I couldn't..."

"Shh," Miranda silenced him with a gentle squeeze. "I'm not going anywhere, not now I know what's going on. You really should have told me, but I can understand why you didn't."

He nodded.

"But I wouldn't have gone, I know how much you would have worried. And I would have worried about you if I had of known as well," Miranda pressed a light kiss to his cheek. "And Lizzie needs you as well as she needs me, how would I raised her without you?"

"That's what was going through my mind."

There was a few moments of silence before Miranda continued.

"I'm sorry for overreacting, it was immature of me," She sighed. "I just saw your armour and panicked, I should have known you wouldn't go back on you word."

"I would never do that, I promised you before and I'll stick to it."

She rubbed his back lightly. "So, where were you today then?"

"Another base that we got from the encrypted data at the first one, on Grosalgen in the Styx Theta cluster."

"Again, that doesn't ring a bell."

"I know, it wasn't on the list either."

"Hmm," Miranda paused. "Did you find anything there?"

"Some weapons, some different DNA, that sort of thing."

Miranda stayed silent for a second, considering how to phrase what she was thinking. "John, can you promise me something else?"

"Anything."

"Be careful, really careful," She pulled back to study him. "No matter how disorganised this group seems to be, don't trust that it isn't a trap. Anyone from Cerberus is dangerous, it could be a breadcrumb trail."

"I know, the thought crossed my mind as well," He gave her a small smile in return. "But of course I'll be careful, if you're happy with me continuing this investigation that is."

"You've started it so you should finish it, and if you need a hand I can help."

"OK."

Miranda leaned back into him again, allowing his arms to wrap around her again. She sighed as she rested her head on his chest.

"You know, that's our first proper fight?"

"Suppose it is, and I don't want many more," Miranda looked up at him. "What happens now though?"

"Well," Shepard gave her a suggestive grin. "We could have crazy awesome make up sex."

"Hmm," Miranda purred playfully. "I'm not sure you're quite off the hook yet."

"What about a deal?" Shepard grinned again. "If I please you, I'm out the doghouse."

Miranda grinned. "It had better be the best sex ever for that to happen."

"Oh, it will be," He grinned in return, picking Miranda up in his arms and hauling her off the sofa. He walked her across the room but stopped half way. "You know, I really am sorry."

Miranda cupped his face with a hand, smiling kindly. "I know."