A/N: Beware the shmexy!

"Tell Joker to start his run the moment we hit atmo," Shepard ordered, even as she lay back on the bio-bed. "I want nothing to be left of that wreck but dust."

"Yes, ma'am," Jacob replied.

"Then tell him to set fire to the dust."

"Yes, ma'am."

"Joker will handle it," Miranda said tersely, a hand pressing momentarily against Shepard's shoulder. "Lay still."

"How's David?"

"Dr. Chakwas and Dr. Solus have him well in hand," Miranda replied.

Shepard felt fingers slide into hers. "Everything is being taken care of," Liara said gently. "Let Miranda do her work."

Shepard clung to the hand in hers and did her best to just be still. It was strange, feeling that her eyes were open, knowing there was light all around her, but seeing nothing but thick and ceaseless black.

She could faintly smell Miranda's perfume as the woman bent close. She could hear the tiniest hum of the medical scanner, fancied she could even feel a faint warm tingle as it swept over her body, taking measurements of everything down to the molecular level.

She kept hold of that warm hand in hers, trying not to fidget. It seemed forever had passed before Miranda spoke again.

"Well, David and that rogue AI did a number on you, that's for sure," she said. She sounded pissed, and Shepard imagined she was none too pleased that someone else's radically ambitious and morally reprehensible project had damaged hers.

Stop that. Miranda doesn't think of you as just a project any more, and you know it. Yeah, she's probably a little pissed that her multi-trillion credit work has been damaged but…she's also probably pissed that her friend was hurt.

"David did what he did in a bid to protect us," Shepard said. "If he hadn't managed to link up with my cybernetics, it's a cinch the AI would have done so…and likely we'd all be dead now."

"Hmm," Miranda said with reluctant agreement. "Well, the good news is, beyond a few micro tears and some minor heat damage to the finer capillaries and fibers throughout your body, your muscular system came through the cybernetic hacking with flying colors. The remaining nanites are more or less undamaged though it does seem as though you lost a few million to the artificially generated heat of foreign control."

"What about her eyesight?" Liara ventured. Shepard felt the hand in hers squeeze a little more tightly.

"Well, that's another story," Miranda replied. "Shepard, you have nearly twelve times the amount of nanites clustered in your optic nerves and retinas than you should have. The increased numbers were probably necessary to allow the foreign programs to 'see'. Vision is a tricky process even at the best of times, requiring finer work to be efficient, as opposed to the effort it takes for mere large muscle movement. It explains why your eyes started to glow. Unfortunately when the nanites started to overheat…well. Such delicate tissues are not made to withstand drastic fluctuations in temperature. Couple that with the actual luminescence which was much like shining a laser directly into her eyes…or in this case, out of them…and the damage was fairly swift and completely irreparable."

"Irreparable…" Liara murmured, and Shepard felt her fingers tighten. She gave another reassuring squeeze in return.

"Oh, don't worry. She'll see again," Miranda stated. "Just not with those eyes. Her retinas are detached and burned over most of their surface. Her optic nerves are completely fried. She's even showing signs of heat scarring as far as her outer cornea."

"So what are we looking at?" Shepard asked, then mentally winced at the unintended irony of her words. If Miranda noticed she did not mention it, her voice perfectly clinical.

"Well, it will take several weeks to clone another healthy pair of your own eyes," she stated. "In the mean time I can put in full cybernetic implants but even those will take twenty four hours to be fully calibrated and ready for implantation."

"So I'm blind until tomorrow," Shepard asked.

"No…what I can do is adjust the nanites clustered in the vision and hearing centers of your brain to sync in full tandem. You'll have to wear a squealer on your collar, of course, but the ultrasonic pulses it sends out will be received by your ear and translated by the nanites to produce vision. Much like the echo-location of a dolphin. It will probably be a little annoying. You'll only see in pulses, of course, and it will only be black and white…kind of like walking around with a strobe light constantly going off, but you'll be able to function."

"How long will it take?"

"About an hour for me to calibrate the nanites. Five minutes to attach the squealer and adjust its settings. You'll have to lie still, and I want to treat that burn on your chest first."

"May I stay?" Liara asked the Australian.

"Sure, I don't see why not," Miranda replied. As she stepped away to get the necessary tools to link up to the nanites' control systems, Shepard felt her hand lifted before a soft kiss landed on her knuckles. She smiled slightly, turning her head toward where Liara was.

"You ok?"

"Yes," Liara murmured. "Though it seems you exist only to continuously scare the life out of me."

"Tianlán…"

"I know. Taking risks and throwing yourself into the fire…that is who you are, and it will never change. I would not want it to change, not really. It is part of the reason I…well, it is what makes you, you."

"Makes me dashing and charming enough to sweep a young asari maid off her feet, right?" Shepard teased.

"Perhaps," Liara hedged gently. "I just…"

"I know," Shepard murmured. "Hey, I promised to come back, didn't I? I'll always come back."

"Thank you…"

Miranda returned a moment later, the pair falling to silence though their hands remained entwined.

"It was smart thinking on Tali's part…using her omni-tool's power discharge to restart your heart," Miranda commented as she carefully treated the burn. "You might end up with a little bit of scarring though…part of the burn is nearly third degree."

"Aww," Shepard pouted with fake indignation. "Not a scar…not on my pretty lily white skin…"

"Your skin is not even close to lily white," Miranda snorted a chuckle.

"No, but it is pretty."

"Stop," Liara giggled, shaking her head.

"Yes, it is. I do good work after all," Miranda said dryly, and Shepard smirked.

Finishing with the burn, Miranda settled down in a chair, preparing her nanite interface. "You will have to hold fairly still for this, Shepard."

"Can I talk?" the commander asked.

"Sure, just don't turn your head any if you can help it."

"Did you see how David is doing?"

"He's in surgery," Miranda replied, setting to work. "They're removing the connection implants, repairing the physical damage. Both Mordin and Helen are confident they'll be able to undo the damage but it will take time. Joker is starting his strafing run within the next few minutes."

"Does it bother you that I want that wreck taken out?"

"No," Miranda told her. "While it would be ideal to have an intact geth subject for research ,with the units on that wreck now being active it would cost more lives trying to secure one than it would be worth…and for no guaranteed benefit. Better they're destroyed."

Shepard resisted the urge to nod, not wanting to interfere with Miranda's work, and simply stared upward with her unseeing eyes.

After a moment of silence, she heard Miranda clear her throat a little.

"Something on your mind, Lawson?" Del asked.

"Actually, to be completely honest…yes. I have been curious about something for a very long time and I suppose now that I have you as more or less a captive audience…"

"Oh? Curious about me? I thought you knew everything there is to know about me," she teased.

"I probably know more about you than you do yourself, Shepard," Miranda retorted. "At least…on some subjects. There is one mystery I haven't been able to solve, however…not even after two years of research."

"What's that?"

"Well, if it's not too personal…where did you get your name?"

"My name?" Shepard blinked.

"Yes," Miranda replied. "Your parents were unlikely to have named you and even if they had, your birth was never officially registered. Their last name was Torrfield, yet yours is Shepard. I figure it's possible you simply named yourself but you have expressed time and again a dislike for both your first and middle names…a strange happenstance if you had picked them, don't you think?"

Shepard's already unfocused eyes went even more distant. Liara noticed and gently gave her hand another squeeze. "Del…?"

"I didn't mean to bring up something painful," Miranda stated. "It's really none of my business, I was just puzzled by it…"

"It's all right," Shepard replied. "It's…I just haven't thought about it in so long. It's kind of a strange story."

"We have an hour," Liara pointed out. She knew the tale, of course…in somewhat vague terms. She had learned it from the melds, but she was curious to hear it described in Shepard's own words.

"True," Shepard said, then took a deep breath. "Well, it all started with chocolate, truth be told…"

New York Subway System

Curt Orendorff listened to the fading rumble of the Broadway train and the flutter of litter that stirred up in its wake, and sighed. He could spend weeks cleaning the platform until it sparkled, and yet somehow the train always managed to spread garbage all over it again…as if it shed old cigarette butts and wadded wrappers like a dog shed its fur.

"Something wrong, Jeff?"

Curt couldn't help the smile. For ten years, the old man had been coming to the 15th street station at seven am precisely, Monday through Saturday. He sat on the same bench, positioned so the warm air from one of the outflow vents spilled over him, tag-teaming with his dusty old coat to keep his arthritis in check no matter how frigid the weather. He would open up his lap console display and read the news feeds and sip his coffee for exactly one hour, until the eight am train for Newark pulled in to the station.

They shared a friendly enough banter, he and the old man. Fellow had to be a hundred and twenty if he was a day but he was still working…at least, Curt assumed where he went every day save Sunday was work. They never talked too much of personal things, keeping their chats light. However, though he had reminded the old man a thousand times his name was actually Curt…the fellow insisted on calling him 'Jeff'.

"Just lamenting the breeding practices of refuse and filth," Curt answered with a smirk. "How are your old bones doing this morning?"

"Oh, not too bad, not too bad," came the answer. Watery blue eyes lost in a map of wrinkles flickered back down to the newsfeed hovering holographically over his lap. "Looks like colony futures are up again."

"Good news," Curt commented, guiding his hover-sweeper over the new layer of filth that had been strewn around. For the moment, the platform was more or less empty of any save them, though in twenty minutes the crowds would start gathering for the Newark train. "You got family out on the colonies, don't you?"

"Grandson," the man snorted. "Goddamn little punk, thinks he's a pioneer."

Even given his words, his affection and pride came through. Curt knew better. The old man complained about everything having to do with his grandkid, but one didn't have to look too closely to see the adoration that was truly there.

"Kids think they know everything don't they?" Curt humored. The old man snorted, continuing to read his news and sip his coffee.

Curt focused on his work, but every few moments he could hear the old man mumbling to himself. It puzzled him a little…fellow was old but he was still sharp as a tack. He'd never heard him talk to himself before.

Glancing over curiously he saw nothing amiss, just him there with his newsfeed, reading intently and occasionally mumbling this word or that.

Maybe his eyesight is getting worse. Didn't he have new opticals put in a few years back?

With a shrug of his big shoulders, he continued cleaning up until the crowd grew too much. Parking his sweeper he took a break, fetching his own cup of coffee as he heard the warning horn for the Newark train. As it drew into the station and the crowds started to file onboard, he watched the old man close down his newsfeed and rise.

Then a confused frown wrinkled Curt's brow. The old man reached into his jacket pocket and withdrew a chocolate bar. Carefully, almost meticulously, he set it on the back of the bench, then turned and joined the remnants of the mass of bodies moving onto the train. Just before he boarded he saw Curt staring at him, and waved.

"Have a good day, Jeff!" he called.

"Uh…you too, Mr. Shepard!" Curt called back. The old man vanished into the train, and the doors slid closed, the warning horn blaring a moment before it slid out of the station…shedding litter once more all over the platform.

"Huh," Curt shook his head, finishing off his coffee even as he glanced back at the now empty bench…just in time to see a little hand slid back into the heating vent, the chocolate bar tightly clasped in its fingers.

Scooting rapidly back through the vent, the little girl reached the distant junction and tucked her knees up to her chest, turning the thick chocolate bar over in her grimy fingers before tearing open the wrapper. Taking a huge bite the moment the confection was bare her eyes rolled back in bliss, cheeks bulging. As fast as she ate, the heat of the vent still had time to soften the chocolate enough that by the time the last chunk vanished into her mouth, her lips and fingers were coated in melted brown.

Uttering happy grunts, the child licked the silver inner wrapper clean with desperate sweeps of her tongue, at times even sucking the foil into her mouth until every iota of sweet was gone from it. Then she tossed it aside, and set to licking her fingers.

"Today tha tempa'ture will reach fiffy two dagrees in Manhattan," she sing-songed to herself as she licked. "Tha Mets zero-gee team claim-ed full vicory ovah-"

"Hello?"

The voice echoed through the vent, startling her. In a heartbeat she was on her hands and knees, staring wide-eyed along the shaft toward the vent she had left only a few minutes before. A face darkened it, the voice recognizable as that of the man that swept the platform.

"Hello?" he called again. "Hey, it's all right. I don't want to hurt you. Can you come out?"

The girl's wide brown eyes stared over cheeks grimy with sweat, dirt, and smears of chocolate. A breath later, she was gone.

"Hello?" Curt tried again. He could not see very well into the vent but thought he could make out a distant shape. A heartbeat later it almost seemed to vanish, and he sighed.

Kids. He knew they lived in these vents. Not many…but they were there. Small orphans, the children of the homeless, seeking out the warmth, the security. Some were nearly feral.

Every once in a while the workers in the subway system caught one as they emerged to raid the garbage cans. If they could detain them they turned them over to Child Services. On rarer, more sadder occasions they ended up taking a tiny body off the hover-track system, another little life claimed by the barreling trains.

Over the next two years he saw the same scenario played out over and over again. The old man took up his usual spot, read his usual newsfeeds with the occasional mumble, and when he departed he invariably left a chocolate bar on the back of the bench. Curt found if he glanced away for so much as an instant, the bar would completely vanish. It was only rarely he was able to catch sight of the tiny hand that reached out and snagged it.

The girl was eleven and the vents were growing smaller. Edging her way forward on elbows she reached the grate just at the same moment that the old man sat down.

"Good morning," he murmured.

She said nothing, her dark brown eyes intent as he opened his newsfeed. The projector sitting on his lap, the holographic display hovered at his eye level…and just below hers.

"Looks like the Mets won again," he commented.

She grinned, squinting at the words scrolling past. "Corporal Derek Octavuss-"

"Octavius," he corrected gently.

"Octavius was post…posthumously awarded the Medal of Valor for his actions in saving the lives of four of his fellow crew mates."

"Very good."

She grinned, continuing to read the articles over his shoulder, occasionally being corrected when she couldn't quite get a word right. Just before his usual train arrived he switched over to a comic feed. He liked hearing her giggle at the cartoons. Her stomach sank almost sadly when she heard the approaching of his train whistle.

"Time for me to go, my friend," he murmured to her as he rose. As was usual, his knotted fingers moved into his jacket and he withdrew a bar of chocolate, setting it just within reach on the back of the bench. As he started away to join those boarding, the girl cleared her throat. For the first time in their strange little relationship, she called after him.

"Thank you!"

He paused, looking back at the vent. Through the mesh, his watery blue eyes met hers, and ever so slightly, he nodded, a smile appearing. Then he was gone, shuffling off toward the Newark train.

Unclasping the vent her hand snaked out and grabbed the bar of chocolate as she heard the janitor call after the old man with a final "Have a good day, Mr. Shepard!"

Normandy, Present Day

Silence reigned for a moment, before Liara tentatively spoke. "He taught you how to read."

"Yeah," Shepard replied. "I had been looking over his shoulder for weeks before he knew I was there, trying to make sense of the writing. I was determined to figure it out myself though of course…I really had no idea how to even begin to make sense of the letters and symbols. One day I guess my frustration got the better of me and he heard me in the vent, talking to myself as I struggled to solve this unbreakable mystery. He…started to read out loud to me. Would point at the words to help me follow along and after a few days I would start trying to sound out ones I recognized. He'd correct me if I got it wrong. Sometimes he'd tell me stories about his family…what they were doing. He had a grandson out on a colony. He had two sons, one of which had passed away. He had to explain that to me…I didn't know what passed away meant. He mentioned once that he wished he had a daughter, because 'boys only see such a narrow view, black and white and sometimes gray. Girls got to see all the colors'. After a while, he started leaving me the chocolate bars. Most days, it was the only food I had."

"He never called Child Services? Never tried to get you out of the vent, get you some help?" Miranda asked.

"Oh, I don't know if he called them or not. They came through on occasion. There were several orphans that lived in the subways. But what were they going to do? They couldn't come in the vents after us, and short of trapping us like wild animals…which, believe it or not, they actually did do on occasion…their hands were tied. I think he knew if he tried to talk me out I would be gone. The janitor tried a couple of times and once I nearly stopped coming back, because of it. Living in fear is a hard thing…it is especially hard if you're just a child."

"And his name was Shepard," Liara murmured.

"Yeah. Never knew his first name. He was always just Mr. Shepard. He was the first nice person I ever actually talked to. The first person that made me realize that there was more out in life than just a selfish scrabble for survival. That was a Monday, the last time I saw him, when I said thank you. I came back on Tuesday, and on Wednesday, but he didn't show up. On Thursday I saw a chocolate bar sitting on the back of the bench but no sign of Mr. Shepard. After I picked it up and took it back in the vent, the janitor came over and talked to me through the grate again. He didn't try and coax me out this time, he just said, 'I'm sorry, but Mr. Shepard passed away in Newark on Monday night. I saw it in the obituaries.'"

Shepard blinked, her unseeing eyes still fixed on the ceiling. "I never went back to that vent."

She felt Liara's grip on her hand tighten again, and fought the urge to shrug. "He was old," Shepard said after a moment. "He is my first good memory…him and that chocolate, and I think that would make him proud…being a good memory, I mean. It just seemed like thanking him all over again, I suppose…using his name."

"That explains your last name," Miranda commented after a moment of silence. "What about your first, and your middle?"

Shepard grimaced, then chuckled. "Stupid fucking luck. First time I got arrested was for stealing some pizza down near the botanical gardens in Central Park. Wasn't even good pizza. Blue Shirt nabbed me…big fucker. Hand went clear around my arm without even stretching. He did a ident scan but of course I didn't have an ident, so he demanded my name. Shook me so hard my teeth rattled and I was terrified beyond belief. Kicked him four times in the shins but couldn't get away. There are bad stories about the Blue Shirts among the homeless in New York. Some said that they took kids off the streets but instead of putting them in the system they sold them to black market slavers. I was afraid he was either going to kill me or ship me off to be some rich asshole's new sex toy. So when he shook me again I told him my name was Shepard.

"His partner had shown up by then…just as big and just as much of an asshole. He put in the search for the last name and demanded my first name. Of course, I didn't have one but, you know…no one misses the homeless and especially not the nameless ones. I was so frantic at that point I blurted out the first thing that came to mind."

She smirked. "Remember I said this was by the botanical gardens? They had a huge sign advertising a rare species of tree that had just been introduced. I caught sight of that sign just before I blurted out what it read…and I ended up tagged with that stupid goddamn ident for the rest of my life."

Her eyes rolled over toward Liara. "You should see pictures of it though. Ugly fucking tree. The Silver Delilah Spruce…looks like a goddamn toilet brush. My fucking luck."

"Ok, sit up easy," Miranda urged, Liara's hand on Shepard's back as she moved up into a sit. She felt the Australian fiddling at her collar. "Ok. I'm going to switch the squealer on. You may have some initial dizziness, but there shouldn't be any pain."

"Gotcha. Hit me."

There was a click, and then suddenly an image seemed to flash in front of her eyes. She knew it wasn't really happening that way, the visual center being stimulated directly, but it was hard to mesh seeing via some other means than the natural.

Barely a heartbeat passed before the image flashed again, then again. Miranda was right, it was like a strobe light in a dark room. Everything was the black and white of an infrared scanner but she could make out most details. Waving her hand around in front of her face a moment, enjoying the effect, she then turned her head and looked at Liara, grinning as she reached up and touched her face.

"You are still the most beautiful thing I have ever seen."

Her fingers as graceful as any painter, Navis almost seemed to make the bottle float as she lifted it and tipped it once again to Sydney's glass, filling it for the fourth time before refreshing her own. "It is not really this drell that is upsetting you," she stated, setting the bottle down.

"Isn't it?" Sydney asked bitterly. Her blonde hair hung in curtains around her face, and she brushed it back with irritation, knocking back half of the booze without even tasting it.

"No, I do not think so," the asari replied. "Had the batarians not hired him to kill young Mr. Blumenthal, they would simply have hired someone else. Theirs was the mind, his was simply the hand."

"Yeah, that's the excuse that fucker made too," Sydney glowered. "Sometimes you gotta take responsibility for the shit you sow, Deeds. His finger squeezed the goddamn trigger, no one else's."

"This is not why you are angry," the asari pressed. Leaning back elegantly in her seat, one arm draped over the back as casually as if she were at any elite resort or restaurant, she held her drink up to her lips and regarded the blonde human over the rim of the glass. "You are not mad that Carl died."

"Oh, please share with me your wisdom, Matriarch," the human said bitterly.

"I do not have to be a Matriarch to know what is in your heart, Syd," Navis said calmly. "You are not angry that Carl died. He was crude, ignorant, selfish, stupid and dangerous to all those around him. He made his own bed and he paid the price for his own sins. You are angry because this all made you feel helpless."

Sydney scowled, swirling the remnants of her drink around in her glass. Navis tilted her head slightly.

"You failed, that is what it comes down to. You were not all-seeing or all-knowing enough to predict that bullet. You were not fast enough to catch his assassin and you failed to track him down after over a year. It is not that this Thane killed him, it is that this Thane ended up trying your skills to the limits and for the first time in your life…you failed at something."

Sydney drained the glass and slapped it down onto the table, before rising. The tank top she wore did not hide the cording of her muscles beneath the tattoos that lined her back as she lifted her arms, threading her hands behind her neck and lowering her head.

"You are angry because I speak the truth?" Navis asked. When Sydney said nothing, Navis set her glass aside and got to her feet. Unfastening her black velvet jacket, she slipped it off and draped it neatly over the back of her chair. Beneath it she wore a silk wrap shirt, its tailoring and fabric every bit as perfect and expensive as her other clothing. Navis might be a pureblood, but her family was one of the richest on Thessia, and she showed no shame in displaying it.

Stepping over behind Sydney she reached up and took her wrists, firmly forcing the hands to part and drawing her arms down to her sides as she stood, her front flush with the blonde's back.

"What are you doing?" Sydney grumped, but Navis noticed she did not fight her.

"Truth should never upset you, my friend," Navis murmured in her ear. "In this galaxy, there are always those faster, stronger, more skilled. This is what drives us forward…this is the meaning of our existence. To push ourselves, to grow. If we are defeated, we only lose if we do not learn from the defeat."

Sydney felt goose-bumps rise over her arms at every stir of Navis's breath over her ear. The other woman was still holding her wrists down at her sides, but not so firmly that Sydney could not easily break away from her.

She's telling the truth, you know she is. You are angry because he one-upped you, nothing more. You spent eighteen months running blind through the galaxy seeking vengeance…not for Carl, but for your own wounded pride. God, does she have to stand so close?

"Did you read that out of a fortune cookie?" Sydney asked wryly. Navis's lips were hovering so close to her ear, she could feel it when the woman smiled.

"Earth humor, how droll," she cooed. "Some of us are just smart, Sydney."

"As opposed to the rest of us," Sydney chuckled.

"Oh, I think you are intelligent enough…" Navis murmured, and the lightest press of her lips came against the side of Sydney's neck. She released the human woman's wrists, her hands taking her waist instead.

"Wh-what are you doing?" Sydney asked softly.

"As I said, you are intelligent enough…what does it feel like?"

"You're…drunk…"Sydney muttered, her eyes fluttering closed despite herself as the asari planted another soft kiss on the side of her neck.

"No," Navis smiled. "I am sober…you are drunk. I am merely taking advantage of the fact."

This struck Sydney as supremely funny and she laughed, hearing the asari's answering chuckle in her ear as her arms slid around her waist. "It has been too long since I have heard that sound," Navis lamented.

"Well, if you didn't stay away so much," Sydney chided gently.

"The price of fame and fortune, my dear…though it is tiring being in constant demand the galaxy wide…having to dodge or indulge my legions of adoring fans-"

"Indulge?" Sydney huffed, turning to face the asari, who looked like butter wouldn't melt in her mouth.

"Of course," Navis replied with a smile. "You can only fight them off so long before they simply insist upon ravishing you-"

"Oh really?" Sydney gaped, then shoved the asari lightly backward. Catching her thighs on the back of the chair the blonde had occupied only a few minutes before, Navis sat down. Sydney's omni-tool ignited as she remotely locked the door, then skinned off her tank top and threw it aside. Straddling the asari's lap she dipped her lips in close to Navis's and smiled. "Let me remind you why I'm better than all of them combined, Deeds."

"I am prepared to be amazed," Navis cooed.

"Less talking," Sydney murmured before dipping in for a kiss. "More ravishing…"