Miranda helped Shepard back to the Normandy and felt a slight shift when they approached the airlock as Shepard stood a little straighter. She glanced at her, the colour had returned to her face, her breathing was coming easier and she was in fact walking on her own.
"So when do I get to check your back pockets?" Shepard asked cheekily, she had thoroughly enjoyed the feel of Miranda pressed up against her, the strength of her arm around her waist, the subtle scent of her shampoo...
Miranda rolled her eyes and released Shepard, stepping away from her and for a moment there was the tiniest little pang of regret at the loss of warmth, it was quickly quashed under the realization that Shepard was standing there grinning at her with no support required. Scowling she gestured to the ship, "Get your arse to Chakwas, Shepard." she growled and strode into the airlock.
Shepard grinned as her eyes flicked over Miranda's physique, "Hmm see what you mean, no room for anything else in those back pockets... wait, what back pockets? I can't see..." she was stopped mid sentence as Miranda turned with deliberate slowness.
Miranda clicked her fingers at rear level then gestured to her eyes, "Eyes up here Shepard." she commanded her firmly.
Shepard looked up with a smirk, "Hmm there's good to, you really do have..."
Miranda cut her off again, "I'm glad you're feeling better Shepard. Now focus on the mission, not my assets." she growled, stepping aside and motioning for Shepard to go ahead of her as clearly leading Shepard was going to cause issues at the moment.
Shepard mock saluted, "Yes ma'am."
Miranda scowled as Shepard's usual swagger returned and she sauntered into the airlock ahead of her. Damn that woman was infuriating!
They didn't speak as they headed to the lift.
Kelly bit back her concern at the sight of Shepard so bloodied as she seemed to be walking alright and neither Garrus nor Miranda looked worried for her. "Commander, when you're ready you've got some messages." she informed the woman as she passed.
Shepard nodded to her, "Thanks Kelly, I'll get to them up in the Loft."
Kelly noted the additional huskiness and figured something must have happened to her throat, she was very curious about what but was not going to ask with Miranda glaring at her like that. Instead she cleared her throat and returned her attention to her console.
Garrus left the pair to clean up his weapons in the armoury leaving them alone in the lift.
Shepard glanced at Miranda, "After I've seen Chakwas I'm going to clean up. Did you want to talk before or after I see Aria?" she asked amiably.
"After, when we're on route to our next destination. We've been on Omega too long." Miranda sniffed in distaste.
"Yeah, no arguments there. That place reeks, I swear it gets in everything." Shepard agreed with a light hearted smile.
Miranda looked to Shepard pointedly, "I'll be coming with you when you see Aria. I don't trust her alone with you." she asserted before Shepard could even think of leaving her behind.
Shepard was amused, "Oh? Feeling a little possessive are we?"
Miranda stiffened and her eyes narrowed, "It's my job to keep you alive and make sure you succeed. After your last visit with Aria it's clear you need backup or she will get in your head. You didn't get out of that stasis field until I boosted your biotics."
Shepard frowned slightly, "That was you?"
The lift doors opened but neither moved to leave just yet.
"Yes it was Shepard. You're not seeing her without me." Miranda asserted firmly before striding out.
Shepard watched her for a moment. The end of that particular dance with Aria was a little hazy but she definitely remembered a warm, soothing touch that had reached through the cutting glass shards of Aria's biotics. That touch had been just enough for her to exert herself to throw Aria off. Shaking her head slightly she followed Miranda to the medbay.
Chakwas looked up with a concerned frown, "What did you do?" she asked quickly, examining Shepard with her critical medical eye.
"Had a drink at Afterlife's underground. Little more bite to it than expected." Shepard scowled, "Bloody Batarians, he poisoned my drink and stood there grinning at me when I started convulsing." she smirked, "Shot him between the eyes before Miranda dragged my arse out of there and I passed out." she explained as she automatically went to one of the beds and began taking off the chest piece of her armour.
Miranda had gone straight to the medicine cabinet knowing exactly what was needed.
"How're you feeling now?" Chakwas was scanning her as she talked and got out of her armour.
"Like I've been king hit in the abs by a krogan." Shepard admitted, sitting on the bed now that the upper half of her armour was removed.
Chakwas was flicking through the scanner results with a thoughtful 'hmm'. She was brushed aside, much to her displeasure, by Miranda who was clipping a module into an injector.
"Should have known not to order a drink from a Batarian." Shepard muttered under her breath.
"I would say not all Batarian's are out to kill you, but if your statistics are anything to go by then it would be a safe assumption that they are." Miranda pressed the injector against Shepard's neck.
Shepard winced but made no comment on the shot, "They attack human worlds then get all 'she's a racist murderer' when I lead the retaliation strike ordered by the Alliance. Hypocritical cowards." she growled darkly.
Both Miranda and Chakwas wisely refrained from any comment on that regard.
Miranda turned to Chakwas, "I gave her a Hetatophin-A antitoxin shot after boosting her immune and digestive responses as well as purging her stomach contents in the field to flush the toxin as quickly as possible from her system." she explained.
"Wait, I threw up?" Shepard interjected, mortified at that revelation.
"It was necessary, would you prefer an injury to your pride or to be dead?" Miranda shot back quickly.
"Is that a trick question?" Shepard shot back just as fast.
"You'd rather be dead than have thrown up while unconscious in a side alley that could hardly have been considered public with only two people present?" Miranda crossed her arms and levelled Shepard with an intense glare.
Shepard blushed and looked away, she'd most definitely have preferred for Miranda not to have seen her like that. Damn Batarians.
"Let Chakwas examine you then have EDI alert me when you're ready to go." Miranda ordered her assertively before turning and striding out of the medbay.
Shepard sighed, "Examine away Doc."
Chakwas did so, not quite sure how to interpret what had just happened. Shepard very rarely followed orders when it came to medical matters without a very firm hand yet here she was sitting quietly and without complaint. She did not begrudge Miranda administering the antitoxin as with things like that time was a crucial component and Miranda had rebuilt Shepard after all. After having put two years of highly intensive work into a subject she could understand some possessiveness over Shepard in regards to medical matters. So when it came to the Commander she was walking a very fine line between letting Miranda take the reins and ensuring those reins didn't mean Shepard was somehow manipulated or handicapped by anything Cerberus related. There were also things about Shepard'a physiology that now baffled her, changes that had been brought about by Cerberus and differences that had been exacerbated by them but she had already begun to notice before the destruction of the first Normandy. Commander Stephanie Shepard was a very unique young woman.
Miranda and Garrus both joined Shepard as she went to meet with Aria having showered and washed the blood from her armour. Looking at her now you couldn't tell than an hour ago she'd nearly died from poisoning. However she was behaving decidedly uncomfortable around Miranda.
Aria took one look between Shepard and Lawson and smirked, "Lovers tiff?" her grin widened as both women just about snarled at her.
"Not in the mood T'loak, you owe me." Shepard growled, being pissed off was a good cover for not wanting to join with her 'privately' so she definitely portrayed the look even though she wasn't annoyed she was embarrassed.
Aria motioned for her to sit, "My sources tell me Patriarch's kraant handled the assassins. Funny, I didn't know he had one." she became the cool Queen of Omega again.
"Well either your sources suck or are misinformed, which still sucks come to think about it." Shepard shrugged, sitting as directed.
"It's not what I asked but you got the job done." she picked up a datapad from the small table beside her lounge and tossed it over. "Here's your payment. A cache of resources I no longer need."
"Or can't get your hands on? What's the catch?" Shepard frowned as she looked at the data skeptically.
"No catch. I don't need them. Simple as that." Aria shrugged as though it was no big deal. "So why did you pose as his kraant?"
"You think I have the time to go play hide and seek with a fucking ugly krogan? It was simpler and quicker to just hunt down the fools and kill them, not that I had to look far." with that she rose to her feet, "I'll give you this warning once. Any Collectors come calling, kill them. That plague was of their doing and was supposed to hit the whole of Omega."
Aria snapped to her feet like a snake, her eyes narrow and seething, "So why weren't humans affected?" she demanded.
"Do I look like a fucking Collector?" Shepard snapped back at her, "The Collectors paid the vorcha to release the plague which is why it was able to be quarantined because the vorcha are so brainless. If they'd paid someone more intelligent," she took a step forward, her body somehow seeming larger and far more dominant, "you'd all be dead."
Aria's eyes widened at that prospect.
"I recommend you get in touch with Mordin's clinic and give them whatever they need to synthesize enough cure to run through the stations environmental system but keep it quiet or the Collectors will just alter the disease and you'll be back to square one. Dead." She stepped back, "You remember Garm don't you."
Aria scowled, he was one of the more powerful battlemasters of the Blood Pack, he was in charge of their operations on Omega, "Of course."
Shepard activated her omni-tool, she transferred the image of Garm to Aria's omni-tool. "Should I hear that humans are being targeted again what I left behind of Garm and those fools who thought it was a good idea to hunt humans will be nothing compared to what I'll do to you."
Garms shattered body sprang to life on Aria's omni-tool. Aria's eyes narrowed slightly until she made sense of the image, the smashed in face that was little more than a crater, how deeply the battlemaster was embedded in the wall...
"Keep your people in line Aria." Shepard warned with a curt nod before turning to walk away.
"You think you can threaten me?" Aria snarled, her biotics flaring.
Shepard flared her own and quickly sidestepped a biotic throw that hit one of Aria's goons instead. She lashed out her hand and wrapped Aria in a stasis field. Never before had she overtly dominated Aria but now, now she did.
Aria struggled but couldn't escape the grip of the humans biotics much to her shock and dismay.
Shepard turned back to her slowly, her eyes blazing with both red cybernetics of rage and the energy of her biotics, it was surreal, inhuman.
"I am Omega!" Aria yelled at her fiercely defiant.
Shepard made a fist.
Aria's eyes boggled as the stasis field began to crush her hard and fast. She bit her lip to stop herself from screaming but Shepard was unrelenting and crushed harder.
Aria's scream ripped through the club and everyone looked up at the dais she ruled from.
Shepard released her enough that she could breathe and listen, "Omega existed before you. It will exist after you. You are the Queen bitch because I allow it. I have even tolerated your 'don't fuck with Aria' rule. Your arrogance is required to keep Omega in line but it's also blinded you to the fact that I am not to be trifled with. You look at me and see a short lived human curiosity. You know there's something different about me which is why you've been trying to get in my head." Shepard's voice was devoid of all emotion and tone and it was that lack of anything that was far more terrifying than if she'd been spitting fire.
None of Aria's goons dared open fire as the turian and other human woman had taken up position between them and the woman's biotic shield let them know in no uncertain terms she could crush them with a thought. Aria didn't use asari in her private guard, only turians and batarians and the batarians were already terrified shitless of Shepard.
"That difference within me is what makes me far stronger than you will ever be. Do not fuck with me or the humans on Omega or I will make what an ardat-yakshi does to your nervous system feel like foreplay." Now that threat she snarled before crushing Aria once more until she passed out from pain and lack of oxygen.
No one dared get in the way of the Spectre as she sauntered out.
"Are you sure that was smart?" Garrus whispered to her.
"Nope but I'm sick of her trying to rape me." Shepard grunted in return.
"Oh so flat out trying to kill you is a better idea." Garrus muttered.
Shepard scoffed, "Aria is nothing Garrus, she's replaceable." was all she would say on the matter while still on Omega. She wasn't going to tell him just yet that she'd intentionally provoked the asari for just that purpose.
So things wrapped up on Omega... I know this one was a bit shorter than the last few but thought the next scene needed a chapter in its own right.
Coming up next the much anticipated confrontation between Seph and Miri... well the second one really but this one just might address some of those underlying issues between the two... ;)