A perfect man never does anything that requires an apology. As you can probably guess, there has never been a perfect man.

- Benjamin Wrigley, Human Comedian

Miranda didn't like Commander Shepard. She decided this with some force very shortly after meeting him.

Part of this was pure frustration on her part. The goal of the Lazarus project had been to bring Shepard back whole, unchanged, the same insolent grinning shit-head she'd seen on the vids a hundred times over the years. She'd never liked him, even when she didn't know him. He showed too many teeth when he smiled, he dyed his hair electric red like a bloody teenager, and every inch of him just exuded the kind of overly-masculine military confidence she found so repellent.

Everyone else in the galaxy loved him, even the Illusive Man seemed amused by the video of him socking an obnoxious reporter in the eye. Miranda had just been disgusted.

But it was Shepard, not Cerberus who saved the galaxy from Sovereign and discovered the Reaper threat. They were supposed to be the keepers of humanity, the ones who met those who would threaten them at the gates and destroyed them but this joke of a jarhead had done more in a couple weeks than they had in the course of their existence.

So Miranda was forced to adjust her opinion of him. It made it easier when she was assigned to Lazarus and told to bring him back. She had done her best. She had performed a dangerous miracle of science and brought him back from the dead.

He was not the same. And Miranda hated him for it.

She'd read the reports, his service record, the secret files hacked out of Alliance computers. Trinidad, no middle name provided, Shepard, human street rat turned war hero. He was deadly with his sniper rifle, currently ranking ninth overall among all Alliance soldiers. They installed mechanical eyes with better sights then most civilian grade rifles, reinforced the joints through his arms and shoulders so he could hold the gun steadier, streamlined his cardiovascular system so he could drop his breathing to a whisper as he shot. Better bones, better muscles, a heart that could beat two hundred years without a whisper. The science that hooked his new eardrums to his brain was so complex even she had some trouble understanding it, but it made them sensitive as a cats. One moment he could strain and hear the patter of mouse feet in another room, the next they could dial down and suppress a close range missile detonation. The year they had spent on his brain had been estimated to raise his I.Q by twenty points, which made it higher than hers.

They had done all of this to make him better, more himself. All their psychological profiles of him had suggested that was the way he would react to it. Shepard had been torn from violence and thrown into more all his life. His records from Basic and Calypso Technical Academy were a mixture of genius and chaos. He'd served more cumulative detention than anyone in his year, over six hundred hours of punitive duties and two suspensions. Destruction of school property, a mass of alcohol violations, misuse of military hardware and software, this wasn't a man who sat around nursing his wounds. This was a man who lived life on reflex.

Everything they had suggested this was so.

But Shepard came back dark and silent, so cold it was a little frightening. The Lazarus Project was a failure, SHE was a failure. His scars had become unexpectedly bad, the flesh peeling back over strips of cybernetic circuits until it looked like his face was laced with fire. It made it impossible to look at him without remembering what she'd done to him, and when he looked at her she knew that he was remembering that too.

And he hated her for it.

It was an awkward dynamic to say the least.

It had made asking for his help one of the most difficult things she had ever done. She hadn't really expected him to help her, she wouldn't have helped him with any of his personal matters. She would have sent him off to see Vakarian, he hadn't made any secret that he considered the Turian to be his real right hand. Vakarian had been assigned to duties that should have been hers after being on the ship for two weeks. Shepard reassigned her to increased information gathering hours. The Illusive Man didn't say anything about it so Miranda bit back her fury and buckled down to her task. She couldn't help but notice it kept her in her office most of the day.

They spoke mostly through terminal to terminal messages. When she wanted to see him she'd informed Chambers like she was leaving a note with a secretary.

She hadn't expected him to help her, but he had. They had gone smashing through the eclipse like the hammer of god, Shepard had apparently adapted to his new body a little better. He was a demon in charcoal armour, the N7 stripe like a slash of blood up his arm. He kept her at ten, while Vakarian covered his six. The two of them fought together like they had been born to do it, they barely spoke, which left Shepard plenty of time to direct her. Fighting with him was like dancing, she had never met anyone who understood and adapted to the battlefield with such simple, elegant instinct.

And then... in the port...

The tears had dried on her face in the elevator ride. Shepard didn't say anything to her until it reached the city centre. There, he put a hand on her shoulder and gestured for Vakarian to give them a moment.

"I need to say something to you, Lawson, and it's not going to be easy for me."

"Shepard, I mean Commander, you don't have to-"

"I'm sorry," Shepard interrupted her. His mechanical eyes were disconcerting, a blush of orange in the centre of a jet-black iris.

Miranda blinked.

"Pardon me?"

"I'm sorry, Lawson. All this time since I came back I've been angry at you for what you did to me. I've been carrying it around like a cross and blaming you for every bloody footstep. I... I was wrong. You didn't do this to me, the Collectors did. I should have been angry at the Collectors and the Reapers, not at you." He smiled sheepishly. It was the first time she had ever seen him smile and she found it much less repellent than she remembered. "They managed to get two years of my life, but they tried to steal it all. You gave it back to me. You gave me the chance to do what I need to do. I was angry at the wrong person, and I'm sorry."

Miranda blinked at him again, this was the last thing she would have expected from him and her usually agile mind was having trouble processing everything.

"Are you feeling like yourself?" She asked after realizing she had to come up with something to break the silence.

"More every day," his smile broadened into a grin. "Are we good?"

She felt herself smile, almost against her will.

"Yeah, we're good Shepard." She paused. "I'm sorry too."

"Great. Let's skip the intimate hug and get to recruiting that assassin okay?"

She laughed and he grinned at her. The two of them collected Vakarian and hailed a cab, and for the first time since setting eyes on Commander Shepard she didn't feel like an outsider.

We must make every effort to supplement our faith with virtue, our virtue with knowledge, our knowledge with godliness, and our godliness with compassion. Above and beyond that, we must master all things with self-control.

- Part Six of the Justicar Code, the Garden, 1:5-7

"Samara," he hesitated by the door. The Justicar had a serenity to her that he hated to disturb despite her gracious acceptance of his interruptions.

"Shepard," the ambient biotic energy surrounding her faded as she came out of her meditation and she uncrossed her legs. "Can I be of assistance in some way?"

Her face was as friendly as it ever got, a small smile, a little animation in her cool eyes. There was coldness there, but it didn't disgust him like her daughters had. Morinth's eyes held the tumultuous, black cold of death. Samara's was controlled. Like every other part of her, the chill in her amazing blue eyes was perfectly, completely controlled every moment of the day or night.

"I don't want to interrupt you," he said cautiously, still hovering by the door.

"I do not mind," she said, pushing herself to her feet and turning to face him.

Her freshly painted armour glittered like coal in the harsh white light. Shepard could still smell the paint and sealant on it and he tried not to grimace at the assault on his senses.

"I have a request," he began slowly, feeling out the conversation before he committed to it. After Omega and everything that had happened there he wasn't sure how he felt about the Justicar or how she might feel about him.

"I am ready to fulfill any request you might make of me," she said, her voice demure. She was referring to her oath of course. Her smile had faded, replaced by her usual professional seriousness.

"It's... personal in nature," he said, still cautious. He studied her, trying to read a reaction, but Samara gave him nothing. He realized how frustrating it must be for other people when he put his stone face on and tried to talk to them.

"I see. Is it not something that Garrus or Tali could help you with?" A hint of curiosity lingered around her eyes as she took in his apprehension. "My understanding was that you were close with them."

"I... I am," Shepard admitted. It felt strange to say it. "But this isn't something either of them have any experience with."

"I understand," she turned away from him and seated herself again. "Please, sit down."

"On the floor?"

"Yes."

He frowned, but did as he was bid, taking a seat across from her and bending his legs so he could rest his folded arms on his knees. They looked at each other for a moment as Shepard struggled with what he wanted to say, how he wanted to ask this question. He wasn't accustomed to asking for help from anyone and certainly not from people he didn't know well.

"You are worried about what happened with Morinth," Samara said as though he had explained himself already. "It is to be expected, Shepard. If Morinth was easy to resist she wouldn't have been such a successful killer."

He envied her composure. She could talk about their mission to destroy her daughter without a flicker of anything in her clear blue eyes. Unlike Shepard, who always felt like he was on the brink of unleashing everything that was hiding behind his stony facade, Samara was perfectly in control of everything.

"Yes," he admitted. "I don't... I don't even like women, but she had me twisted around her little finger."

"Asari are not women," Samara reminded him.

"Yes, I know," Shepard rolled his eyes, "but she still wasn't exactly my type. I go for tall, dark and handsome, not small, blue and skinny. Also, I think breasts are weird."

"I understand."

"I'm a soldier, I'm used to taking orders and before that I was... I wasn't really in charge of my own life. But even in my darkest hours I've never completely forgotten who I am before. I've never..." He trailed off and rubbed his fingers through his dark hair, breaking eye contact and sighing, a gesture that wracked his entire body.

"Been out of control," Samara finished for him. "I have been alive a very long time Shepard, and I have seen that look before."

"What look?" He asked, immediately taking control of his face and reforming his usual neutral expression.

"Fear and anger. Fear because you worry that someone else might be able to do that to you again and anger because of the fear. It is the normal response," that almost sounded like it was supposed to be comforting. It was hard to imagine this woman as a mother.

"I'm not afraid," he said softly, not sure if that was a lie or not. "But I don't like being out of control, especially not like that."

Samara watched him. He had the feeling she was learning more from this conversation than he was, but that wouldn't have been difficult for her. He entertained the idea of making an excuse and fleeing the scene before it got any worse, but he'd come here for a reason and running would put him in the same cold situation he'd been in for the last few days.

"Why are you here, Shepard?"

"I want you to teach me to meditate," he admitted. "I want the control that you have."

Samara's eyes widened in surprise, and he could have sworn her mouth almost fell open. It was the most genuine expression he had ever seen on her face and it was enough to bring a small smile to his lips.

"I studied the Justicar Code for fifteen years before began to learn to meditate as I do now," she said sternly. "It is not something that someone picks up flippantly to reassure themselves."

"I've read the Justicar Code," he said.

"It requires memorization to be effective," she corrected herself.

"I memorized it too. Text and data is easy for me," he shrugged, "I'm pretty smart."

"Being smart has nothing to do with it," Samara said, but she looked less severe. There was a pause and Shepard could almost read the thoughts twisting around each other behind her eyes. "Or at least, almost nothing. Can you recite the first three lines of the three thousand and eleventh sura?"

"Self control is not taught. It is the burden of every soul to find it within, to nurture it with their own water and warm it with their own sun until it blossoms into the flower whose nectar may poison bitterness, prejudice and fear. When this has happened you have become a triumphant soul," Shepard recited, trying not to look too smug with himself. Memorization was easy for him, he hadn't lied about that, but the Justicar Code was damn long.

"There you have it then," Samara did not look as impressed with him as he was with himself.

"But doesn't the Code also say that its practise is what makes the water of the soul flow sweetly and the sun shine with purity?" He asked shrewdly. "I paid attention while I was memorizing it."

She looked marginally more impressed, but still far from convinced.

"Are you interested in becoming a Justicar, Shepard?" She asked.

"Hardly. I don't think that get-up would have the same effect if I tried to put it on."

Samara cupped her hand over her mouth and coughed discreetly into it, avoiding his eyes. It sounded suspiciously like a laugh at the end and she cleared her throat before she would look at him again. Her eyes were less inscrutable. He could see mirth lingering there, and around the corners of her usually placid lips.

"Perhaps Thane would help you with this. His meditations are religious in nature, I believe, but he has great respect for you."

"Are you saying you don't?" Shepard asked, cocking an eyebrow at her.

She looked disconcerted.

"The Justicar Code and its practises is not something I have ever tried to teach anyone, certainly not a human. It is concerned with stillness and reflection, with finding the calm space in the centre of the spinning, shifting kaleidoscope of the universe. This is contrary to the way that humans live their lives, always moving, always trying to be a part of everything," she shook her head, "your kind is not suited to this practise, Shepard. This is a difference that is neither good nor bad, it is simply the nature of your species."

"Humans meditate to," he informed her.

"Not as the Asari do," she argued.

"Look... I would ask Thane, but he's got his own issues to work out right now," Shepard shook his head. "It's you or nobody. I don't want you to school me in the Code, or bend me into a meditation superman overnight, Samara. I just... I need some help," he had to force the last of that through his clenched teeth. It wasn't something he was accustomed to saying, but he said it again with more force. "I need you to help me."

"You have put me in a difficult position, Shepard."

"We're all in a difficult position, Samara, and no one more than me."

"I suppose I cannot argue with that."

They looked at each other.

"Cross your legs Shepard, and try to straighten your spine," she settled back into her meditative posture, her hands resting on her knees. "Copy my posture and close your eyes."