The blinds to the med bay had been shut, the door locked, no access allowed except with Karin's explicit permission. Shepard had been kicked out after they'd carried Garrus in; she'd been hovering too much in her concern over the turian, and she was getting in the doctor's way.
So she sat in a chair outside the med bay door, her armor in a pile by her feet, her clothes and hands and hair stained with Garrus' blue blood, the smell of copper strong in her nose. She felt numb. It had been such a shock to discover that Archangel was in fact Garrus…and to think that if they had waited, if she hadn't prioritized acquiring a sniper in an effort to replace him, he might have died alone up in that warehouse.
Garrus had been through a lot in the last two years, that much was evident. He had looked so tired when they'd found him, so much of the light in his eyes gone, though she'd seen a spark of it when he looked at her. What had he done with himself? How had he gotten into such a situation?
The blast from the gunship had torn his right side to pieces. When they'd rolled him over after the gunship had been taken care of, they'd seen the gory extent of his injuries. Half of his face had been blown off, the muscle and bone exposed. His armor had been blown apart as well, leaving his neck and part of his chest in a similar state to his face. If he survived this, no matter what the doctor did for him, he would have scars for the rest of his life.
She sat there for hours, staring off into space, waiting for any word from the doctor. After a while, Joker came down to check on her.
"Hey, commander," he said, trying to catch a glimpse into the med bay between the blinds. "How are you holding up?"
Shepard rubbed her eyes. "I don't know. How do I look?"
"Like hell," He replied honestly. "He'll make it through. He's a tough bird."
"I hope so," she sighed. "I was so happy we'd found him and then…if he doesn't make it…" She didn't want to think about it. She needed Garrus more than anyone else on her former squad. He was her best friend, her confidant…her lover. He had to make it through so that she could make it through what she had to do.
"Maybe you should go get cleaned up," Joker suggested. "Garrus will still be here when you're done."
"No. I won't leave until I hear that he's okay."
"Well, can I get you anything at least? Some water? A snack?"
"I'm okay, Joker," she smiled weakly. "Thank you though."
He patted her shoulder and left her to attend to the ship. After a while, Shepard began nodding off, unable to keep her eyes open, the fatigue hitting her after all they had been through. She wasn't sure how long she slept, but eventually, a gentle shake awoke her.
"Commander." Karin was in front of her. "You can come in and see him now."
"How long was it?" Shepard asked, rubbing the sleep from her eyes and following the doctor into the med bay.
"It's been about ten hours since you brought him in. Thankfully, Cerberus has outfitted us with top of the line medical supplies. We were able to apply fast-acting tissue-regeneration gel and some cybernetics to most of his wounds, but the scars will remain, unfortunately," the doctor explained.
"But he'll be okay?"
"Yes, I expect him to make a full recovery."
Shepard hugged her before she could even think about what she was doing. "Thank you, Karin."
"Come on and have a look." She patted Shepard's back and led her over to the bed where Garrus lay.
He was naked, a blanket draped over his mid-section more out of human politeness than any real need for it; his lower plates covered up all of his parts. His eyes were closed, his head tilted onto its left side, exposing the mangled skin on his face. Shepard traced her hand gently over the skin. It was already healed, thanks in large part to the advanced medicine Karin had mentioned. Tendrils of skin and muscle fused together in pink and blue-tinged scars across his mandible and down his neck to his shoulder and the very top of his chest.
"Garrus…" she sighed.
"Hey may come to," Karin said. "But he's been given a lot of medication, so he may be a little bit…out of it."
Shepard stroked his fringe gently. He looked so peaceful with his eyes closed. She was eternally grateful he had survived the blast. It felt selfish to think it, but she couldn't have imagined life without him, though he had survived two long years without her.
His eyes fluttered open and he looked up at her. "Shepard? Is this heaven?" he croaked.
"No, Garrus, you're in the med bay. You're alive. And so am I." She kissed his forehead.
He leaned up suddenly, grabbed her arms, pulled her against him, and dragged his tongue across her neck. "Shepard," he moaned.
She backed up, alarmed. "Garrus! Karin is here with us."
"I told you he might be a little out of it," the doctor laughed.
Garrus fell back on the bed and closed his eyes.
"Is he all right?" Shepard asked.
"He's fine. Why don't you go and clean yourself up and rest, commander? I can come and get you if he wakes up again. I promise he'll be all right."
Shepard nodded. She was tired. And eager to clean the blood off of her. Now that she had been assured that Garrus was okay, she could tend to herself. She hugged the doctor one more time, then exited the med bay. Almost as soon as she was out on the crew deck again, she heard a voice calling for her.
"Commander, could we talk for a minute?" Miranda stood by the doorway into her cabin.
Shepard sighed. She didn't want to talk to anyone just then. She wanted to clean herself off and sleep for ten straight days. Some things on the Normandy never changed, she supposed; there would always be someone who needed her attention.
She crossed the room and followed Miranda into the cabin. The front part of the cabin had been made into an office, with a set of chairs by the window and a desk on the opposite wall. Behind it lay Miranda's bed and personal effects.
Miranda sat down behind the desk.
"How is the turian?" She asked.
"He'll be okay," Shepard told her.
"Shepard, I'd like you to be completely honest with me. Your relationship with Vakarian. It's clearly not platonic."
Shepard took a moment to process what she was saying. She was too exhausted to lie, and there didn't seem to be a point. Most of the old crew wasn't here anymore. They weren't with the Alliance anymore either. Who cared who knew? It seemed so insignificant now.
"No, it's not," she agreed. "Before I died, Garrus and I…were intimate," she shrugged. "Why does it matter?"
Miranda did a poor job of concealing her disgust at the thought, her face contorted in a way that almost made her unattractive. Almost.
"I want to be sure that you aren't distracted from the mission, Shepard. There's a lot at stake. I don't need you getting sloppy because emotions are involved."
Shepard clenched her fists. "First of all, emotions are what separate us from the Reapers. Second of all, I don't let my personal life interfere with my job, but Garrus is my best friend and I'll be damned if I'm going to sit around pretending I don't care whether he lives or dies. When we're out on the battlefield, our relationship doesn't matter. So until it becomes a problem that affects my ability to fire a gun, you can keep your nose out of it."
"As long as we understand each other," Miranda said.
"Are we done here?"
"Yes, commander."
Shepard stormed off, taking the elevator up to her cabin and running the shower as hot as it would go. She pulled her clothes off, tossing them in a pile on the floor and climbing into the enormous shower, jets streaming water from all sides. She stood for a while, letting the scalding water drip down her body, taking rivulets of blue blood along with it. When she started to scrub it away, the floor became saturated with it, spinning slowly down the drain. It took her ages to clean all the blood from her body, and her hair was another problem entirely. It took several applications of shampoo, and several times poking her head out to look in the mirror, before she had rid herself entirely of Garrus' blood.
Exhausted, clean, and warm, she fell onto her bed in nothing but a tank top and her underwear and passed out almost as soon as her head hit the pillow.
Garrus was still asleep when Shepard awoke some time later. She realized she would have to get on with other tasks while he slept, or they might stall in space outside of Omega for another week. She directed Joker to return to the station. It would be better to check out the other two potential recruits without Garrus; EDI had reported that the scientific expert, a salarian by the name of Solus, was currently operating a clinic in a quarantined area with a plague that seemed to affect non-humans only. It wouldn't be a mission she could bring Garrus along for, so she may as well take care of it before he was awake.
Miranda seemed pleased when Shepard told her they would move forward with recruiting. The truth was, there was some selfishness in Shepard's decision. The salarian they were after was a doctor and an explosions expert. She couldn't really think of someone more suited to tend to the special needs of a turian who had just had half his face blasted off. Not that she didn't trust Karin, because she did, but extra hands could never hurt.
She stayed with Garrus in the med bay until the ship could return to Omega. They had spent nearly a day taxiing an hour outside of the city on the off chance that the merc groups had followed them out. When Shepard gave the word to return, EDI reported that the local merc groups widely believed Archangel to be dead, and shouldn't be a problem for the docked ship while they were away.
Unfortunately, it seemed someone was after them, because as soon as they docked, Shepard received a call from Joker over the ship's intercom.
"Uh, commander? You should probably get up here."
"What is it, Joker?"
"There's someone banging on the door to the airlock and firing off a gun…"
She was already geared up and ready to go, realizing how close they were to the station, so she hurried up from the med bay to the bridge.
She could hear the commotion before she could see it, just as Joker had described. Someone outside was swearing and shooting a gun and pounding on the door.
"I know you're in there, Shepard!" A gruff, unfamiliar voice sounded.
Shepard drew her gun and pointed it at the door.
"Open the airlock, Joker."
"Commander, I don't know if that's a great idea…" the pilot shrunk back.
"Open it!"
He obeyed, pressing a button that allowed the airlock to swing open. The man on the other side fell forward into the ship. He had been preparing to slam his fist down on the door again, not anticipating that the door might actually open. Shepard kept her gun trained on him.
"Commander Shepard," he greeted her, pushing himself to his feet.
He was older, probably in his late fifties, made older by the rough life he had led, evident in the lines on his face; a large, crescent shaped scar wrapped itself from his right eyebrow down to the bottom of his nose; his right eye had been replaced with something cybernetic that gave it a glazed over appearance.
"Do I…know you?" Shepard asked, gun still trained on the man.
"Zaeed Massani," he offered his hand. She didn't take it. She remembered the man's dossier: a veteran mercenary, moving from station to station and planet to planet collecting bounties, the exact kind of scum she might expect to find on Omega. He had been the one she'd been most concerned about taking on. The Illusive Man had already paid his bounty, but hired help could turn quickly in the thick of things.
"You mind telling me what you're doing battering my ship, Massani?" she asked.
"I got my payment. Just finished my last bounty and heard you'd landed."
"I decide who comes on this ship. Or did the Illusive Man not tell you to wait for me to come to you?"
By that point, Miranda and Jacob had arrived on the bridge to see what the commotion was about.
"Who's this?" Miranda asked.
"The merc from one of the dossiers," Shepard answered.
"Well what do you have your gun trained on him for, Shepard? Let him in."
"Yeah, Shepard," Zaeed grinned. Some of his teeth were missing. "Let me in. You know, you're a prettier sight than you look on the news. Nicer still for coming back from the dead."
Shepard holstered her gun and slammed her fist into Zaeed's stomach, knocking him to the ground. She put her boot on his chest.
"Really, commander, the dramatics," Miranda muttered.
"You come on my ship, you answer to me, understood?" she asked the merc.
"I've got no qualms with you," Zaeed spat. "I get half my pay now and half when the mission's finished. That incentive enough for you, darling?"
Shepard put more pressure in her step. "Did I stutter?"
Zaeed coughed. "Understood. But I en't calling you commander." Shepard stepped off of him and he climbed back up to his feet, unfazed. "Good. Now where's my bunk?"
Kelly had joined the group. She rushed over to the mercenary's side, hoping to be helpful. Shepard didn't imagine Kelly was the type of person Zaeed liked dealing with.
"You'll find ample space below deck, Mr. Massani…"
"Mr. Massani," he scoffed. "Don't call me that. I'll find a place myself if it's just the same," he looked around the ship and whistled. "Beats the hell out of the last vessel I was on. You don't mind if I help myself to the bar, do you, Shepard? Off duty and all."
Shepard stared at him as he disappeared into the elevator.
"The Illusive Man ensures me that he can be trusted," Miranda said. She didn't sound very sure of herself as she said it. "He's a well-known merc. Ruthless, but with years of expertise to bring to the team."
"If he causes any problems, he's gone. I don't care how much the Illusive Man paid for him," Shepard growled. "I don't like people like that on my ship." Wrex had been enough of a loose cannon and he seemed tame compared to Zaeed. She was fairly convinced the merc could have taken on a krogan hand to hand if he had to.
"You're not…uh…you're not gonna leave us here with him are you?" Joker asked.
"Do not worry, Mr. Moreau. I will protect you." EDI said. Shepard thought she sensed sarcasm in the machine's voice, but thought that was impossible.
Joker frowned at the AI and looked back at Shepard. "Seriously, commander."
"You'll be fine, Joker. He's just going to get drunk and pass out somewhere. There are other crew members who know how to handle a gun. We need to go find this professor in the quarantine zone. Then we never have to come back to this trash heap of a station."
"Counting down the seconds, commander!" Joker yelled after them as Shepard, Miranda, and Jacob left the ship.
Shepard thought she had almost gotten the smell of Omega off of her and now they were back. It was convenient to have three pick-ups on the same station, even more convenient that one of them had been Garrus: the galaxy was smaller than it seemed. All the same, she would be happy if she never had to set foot on the station again. It was the very opposite of the Citadel in every respect. She'd always known places like Omega existed, but she'd been lucky enough to never be exposed to them.
They wound their way through the station, directed at some points by EDI, who was accessing maps remotely to guide them to where they needed to be. Miranda praised the AI as the best thing Cerberus had done, "Besides bringing you back, Shepard."
Shepard wasn't convinced. She still didn't trust it. She'd spent too much time fighting geth to welcome a new AI in with open arms.
The quarantine zone was near a village of tenement slums on the east side of the station, but access to the area was closed off, guarded by a turian with a large gun and bright red clan markings.
"We need to get through to see Dr. Solus," Shepard told the turian.
"Good for you," the turian shrugged. "It's a quarantine zone. No one's allowed in or out."
"I understand the plague doesn't affect humans. So you've got no reason to keep me out, do you?" Shepard crossed her arms.
"First of all, lady, the Blue Suns are running amok down there. They're not too happy since Mordin Solus moved in. Bad for the business of looting and killing if there's a doctor going around patching people up and formulating a cure. And the vorcha aren't affected either, so they've been running rampant. Just because the plague can't affect you don't mean you wouldn't be walking into a death trap," the turian shrugged.
"I think it's pretty evident I can take care of myself. You heard of Archangel? I'm the one who took him out," she lied.
The turian rolled his eyes. "Sure you did. Everyone knows the Blue Suns took care of him. Nice try though."
"We might have to find a different way in, Shepard," Miranda suggested.
She wasn't going to give up. "What have you got to lose letting us in? You're just standing here and you're going to keep standing here. Worst case scenario we die down there. Doesn't affect you," She told him.
The turian seemed to ponder it for a minute. "Fine, I'll tell the guards inside to stand down, but it's your funeral, lady. Good joke about Archangel too," he laughed. "If you really did take him down, you wouldn't be stupid enough to go running back into Blue Suns territory."
He opened the door into the quarantine zone and let them in, still laughing as he closed it behind them.
"Smooth talking, Shepard," Jacob complimented her.
"I've been told I'm persuasive," she shrugged.
"Sometimes it's faster to be persuasive with a gun," Miranda suggested.
"There's no reason to threaten people without cause. The turian was doing his job."
The entrance into the quarantine zone led down into more slums. The buildings inside were just like the rest of the trash heap that was Omega, poorly constructed and added on to time and time again, ascending up into the smoggy sky past their view. The sounds of sickness could be heard all around as they made their way through the streets. Bodies lay dead and rotting in front of homes, windows had been busted open and businesses looted, those who still lived shuffled past, coughing up blood as they went.
"This is horrible," Jacob said. "What could have done this?"
"It's got to be some sort of biological weapon if it's affecting so many species at once," Miranda shook her head.
So far, the woman had shown few signs of emotion, but Shepard thought she saw a hint of sadness and pity in her eyes now. It was hard to see the death all around them and not feel sorry for these people. Most of them were poor, unable to leave the lives they led here, and now they were trapped inside, left to die, no one besides the professor working on a cure.
The guards down in the quarantine zone were more turians, masks on in a vain effort to protect themselves from the plague. They let them pass, watching them go with envy. Shepard wondered if the other species thought humans had created the plague. She wasn't sure if humans might have, come to think of it. It was suspicious that only humans were immune.
All they encountered at every turn was more death. She despised the scum that had used the plague as an opportunity to loot the entire sector, stealing from the dead, or those that had evacuated in time. Some joy it would be to survive the plague and return home to find all your most priceless possessions had been taken; as if blowing off half of Garrus' face hadn't made her hate the Blue Suns enough.
As if her thoughts had been projecting out into the open, when they turned down a road, drawing closer to the clinic per EDI's instructions, they were met with gunfire and the sight of blue and white armor.
Shepard ducked behind a storefront counter and fired off a few shots at some approaching turians in Blue Suns armor, distracting them while Miranda and Jacob used their biotics to take on the batarians behind them. There weren't more than ten of the mercs total, but they were heavily armed and not afraid to waste thermal clips trying to take them down.
The turians dispensed with, Shepard went after the batarians with her squad mates. She had no qualms with killing the likes of the Blue Suns, and she was full of pent up anger after what had happened to Garrus. When her thermal clip was spent, she gave up replacing it and ran into the fray; the batarians clipped her shields as she went. Using her omni-blade, she stabbed the first batarian, taking advantage of a gap in his armor along his ribcage, then slit the second one's throat. They both fell to the ground, blood spraying from their bodies and spattering across her armor. Another batarian pointed his gun at her and fired at point blank range, utterly depleting her shields. She stabbed him between the eyes in retaliation.
By the time Miranda and Jacob reached her, she was covered in blood and panting for breath, the rage slowly draining from her body. Killing the mercs wouldn't undo what had happened to Garrus, but it still made her feel better, adrenaline coursing through her veins now.
"Damn, Shepard," Jacob said. "You went full berserker on them."
Shepard wiped some blood from her face. "I just acted on instinct."
"It was reckless," Miranda chided. She thrust a thermal clip at Shepard. "Next time, use your gun."
"I thought I was the one calling the shots."
"And I thought we agreed you wouldn't let your emotions affect your performance in battle."
Shepard had no good response to this, so she plowed ahead, following EDI's directions until they reached the clinic. It was heavily barricaded and three humans stood guard outside of it, guns raised.
"What do you want?" one of them demanded.
Shepard held her hands up. "We're here to see Dr. Solus."
"He's a busy man."
"We're here to help," Shepard insisted.
The guards looked at each other and lowered their guns. "You can go in. But no funny business. We have mechs to deal with anyone stupid enough to use their guns inside."
"Understood."
The three of them entered the clinic in a hurry; they didn't want to give the guards an excuse to change their mind.
Inside, it was surprisingly clean and sterile, with a well-ventilated air system that helped wash away some of the rank smell that seemed to linger around the rest of the city. Sick patients of almost every race sat around the lobby, waiting for a chance to see the doctor; coughs and sneezes issued from every direction.
One of the medical attendants directed them back to a room where they could find the salarian, thanking them for whatever help they could provide.
The professor in question was hunched over a table examining some tools. His skin was orange, but white with age around his mouth and horns, his right horn had been shortened significantly through some past injury, scars marring the top of it.
"Mordin Solus?" Shepard asked.
The doctor looked up at them. "Hm. Don't recognize you. Too well-armed for refugees. No mercenary uniforms. Quarantine still in effect. Here for something else. Vorcha? Crew to clean them out? Unlikely. Vorcha a symptom, not a cause. The plague? Investigating possible use as bio-weapon? No. Too many guns, not enough data equipment. No. Could be…"
"Professor," Shepard interrupted. He had been speaking so rapidly she could barely take in what he was saying before he jumped to the next thought. Her interruption seemed to jar him from his train of thought. "I'm here for you," she told him.
"No. Too busy. Plague clinic necessary. Can't leave," he shook his head.
"My name is Commander Shepard." She spoke very slowly, perhaps to compensate for his rapid-fire speech. "I have a very important mission I'm on and I need your expertise."
"Mission? What mission. Shepard? Hm. Name's familiar. Thought you were dead. Armor not Alliance make. Who are you working with? Hiding something? No. But…"
"I'm with Cerberus," she decided the salarian was far too smart to try and trick him with lies.
"Cerberus. Hm. Interesting. Usually work with humans. Why enlist salarian aid?" Mordin asked.
Listening to him talk was exhausting. Miranda tapped her foot impatiently behind Shepard, growing more agitated the faster Mordin spoke.
"Have you heard of the Collectors?" Shepard asked. "Whole colonies of humans have been disappearing and we think they're behind it. We're trying to stop them, but it's going to take a lot more than just me to bring them down."
"Collectors?" Mordin tapped his chin. "Interesting. Plague is engineered. Collectors one of few groups with sufficient technology to design it. Hm. Our goals may be similar." He seemed amenable to coming along, but Shepard's hopes of a quick exit were soon dashed. "Must stop plague first. Have a cure. Need to distribute it at environmental control center. Problem though. Vorcha guarding it," he paused for the longest amount of time she'd heard so far. "Need to kill vorcha."
"I'll help you distribute it," Shepard promised without hesitation. As much as she wanted to get off Omega, and as much as she would have liked to sweep the professor out of there as quickly as possible, the idea of leaving so many to die with no hope for a cure was more than she could bear.
"Excellent. Here, take the cure," he handed her a small vial. "Environmental control center a few blocks north of here. Vorcha heavily armed. Take out Vorcha, distribute cure through ventilation systems. Terminal on site. Will be on comm link to give direction."
Shepard placed the vial safely within a zippered pouch beneath her armor.
"We've got no time to waste, then. Let's go," she beckoned Miranda and Jacob to follow her.
"You didn't even take a pause to consider helping him," Miranda said, incredulous. "Half of the people dying down here are criminals."
"I'm not God, Miranda. I don't get to judge who lives and dies when I don't even know them. If someone deserves it, I mean really deserves it, then I kill them without dwelling on it. But as soon as you relegate an entire sector of people to die because of what you think they might be, you lose a little bit of your soul. I've seen the kind of people who would kill so indiscriminately," she thought of Saren, kneeling in front of them in the Concil chambers, the horrible sound of his sobs echoing around them. "I never want to be that person."
"He's not going to leave without curing the plague anyway," Jacob pointed out. "We might as well do some good while we're here."
Miranda didn't respond. Apart from EDI's directions issuing over the comm link, their trip to the environmental control center was spent in complete silence, guns at the ready for any incoming vorcha.
Shepard, like plenty of other people, wasn't fond of the vorcha. They were a primitive race, barely able to use developed speech, with a great fondness for battle. They would fight over anything and everything and attacked ships that passed through their territory indiscriminately. In Council space, vorcha were few and far between, mostly restricted to the Terminus systems, where they seemed to thrive. She had encountered them on only a few occasions, but it had been enough. She tried to be sympathetic to differences between races, but the vorcha had no sympathy: only a lust for blood.
The environmental control center was a massive room with high, arching ceilings, that housed the ventilation system for Omega's lower slums. It was a smart idea on Mordin's part: distribute the cure through the air, just as the plague had been introduced, that way no one could avoid inhaling it. It was a fast solution to a huge problem.
Unfortunately, just as Mordin had promised, there were scores of vorcha patrolling the room, heavily armed, with poorly fitting armor to protect them. Vorcha weren't exactly skilled craftsmen, and few armories made protection fitted to their strange, short bodies.
There was no sneaking up on the masses surrounding the room. As soon as they entered, they were prime targets, the door opening into the center of the room. It was all they could do to duck behind cover, huddled together, and work their way from the inside out.
The vorcha wasted to no time in swarming, with shouts of "Kiiiill! Humans! You die!"
Shepard and Jacob shot at the incoming creatures, no room for error as they rushed them. Each shot had to be a kill shot, because one wrong move and they would be overcome. A group of vorcha were clustered above them on a balcony, raining bullets down. Miranda put up a barrier to keep their shields up, only dropping it when the vorcha above them had to reload, at which point she would throw a few of them from the balcony with her biotics.
This new squad might not have been as efficient as Shepard's old one, but under such a high stress situation, she found they worked pretty well together. She still would have appreciated Garrus' help in the moment, but she and Jacob were making pretty good work of the vorcha, who continued to throw themselves at them despite the bodies slowly piling up around them.
Eventually, they had cleared out enough of the foul things to stand and take more of them on directly. Miranda went to work clearing off the balcony while Shepard and Jacob took out some of the heftier vorcha, who were rushing at them with flamethrowers in hand; one of the flamethrowers clipped Shepard's shields before she managed to take down the vorcha that was holding it.
By some miracle, they managed to clear the room, leaving masses of dead vorcha in their wake, the floor, and their armor, covered in blood. Shepard hurried to the ventilation system and brought Mordin up on the comm link.
"Professor, we're at the vent shaft. What do we do now?"
"Place half of contents from vial in each shaft," Mordin's voice sounded quickly on the other end. "Go to terminal. See it?"
Shepard found the interface for the ventilation system a few feet away from the shafts. She handed the vial containing the cure to Miranda, who moved quickly to distribute the contents between the shafts.
"I'm at the terminal now," Shepard said.
"Start up vent program. Should be big green button. Hard to miss. Press button, fans will start."
"That simple?" Shepard asked.
"That simple." Mordin confirmed.
When Miranda had placed the cure, Shepard hit the green button on the terminal and the ventilation system sucked the powdery substance up into the shaft to be distributed across the sector.
"It's done," Shepard answered.
"Very good. Then I will join you. Could use a break. Sick people sometimes depressing. People will be happy to have cure. Meet back at med clinic. Will finish things up here," Mordin said.
"Well done, Shepard," Miranda said, surprising her with a pat on the shoulder.
"Thanks, but I would have died in here without your help." She cleared her throat. "I'm sorry if I've been…rude to you. You'll forgive me if I still don't quite trust the intentions of Cerberus. I want this squad to be effective, so let's try to start off on a new note."
"Forget about it, Shepard," Miranda shrugged. "We're here to help you. Period. I can't promise we'll be best friends, but I'll do my best to get along with the others. Even the aliens."
It was the best Shepard could hope for at the moment. They shook hands and Jacob smiled and, if only for a moment, she thought there might be something there worth trusting. She shook the thought from her head as they headed back toward the clinic. She was tired. And ready to get off of that damn space station.