I own nothing.

Captain's Personal Log: Nubian Expanse, Dakka System, Pragia
Catharsis

We stood side by side in front of the plate glass, one-way window in Jack's former cell. "Do you honestly think you're the only person on the ship Cerberus has fucked over?" I asked quietly. Garrus stood on my other side, and Tali was behind us somewhere in the room, trying to coax data out of the decaying circuits of the facility's intranet.

"Kiss my ass, Shepard!" She snarled at me. "You have no idea what I went through here! They abused and tortured me and they fucking enjoyed it!"

"Yeah, well," suddenly I felt indescribably tired and incandescently angry at the same time. "Life's a bitch, sister." I wasn't going to lose it. I wasn't going to lose it.

"I ain't your sister, Shepard! Don't you dare compare yourself to me with your shiny Alliance rank and your pretty armor!"

"Not until you fucking listen!" I snarled back. I kept hold of the threads of my temper. I would not lash out at her, I would not. She was still the child locked in this room, trembling in fear and anger. Unlike me, killing her tormentors hadn't freed her. She was still imprisoned. Lashing out wouldn't help that. "Do you honestly think you're the only one in the galaxy with a shitty childhood? I was whored out by own father. First for his own uses, then for his buddies'. Then he decided to get creative and make a profit. You know why?" I turned to face her, taking the band out of my hair that held it in its messy bun, and held up a handful, watching her great, dark eyes follow my movement to stare at the golden blond curls in my palm. "This. This is why. I was traded around for cigarettes, red sand, liquor and sometimes even food." I threaded my hands through its length and let it fall down my back. There was no way I was going to be able to put it back up. "A natural blonde growing up in the slums of Earth was a target. I was a trophy. And then you know what happened?" Jack shook her head, her eyes wide, suddenly freezing in place, staring over my shoulder and then back at me. "I had enough. I killed him. My own father. I hit him with the first biotic pulse I'd ever summoned and threw him against the kitchen counter and broke his neck." My mouth twisted wryly. "I was eight."

Jack stared at me, arms crossed over her chest. "Impressive story. Am I supposed to feel sorry for you, Shepard?"

"No, Jack," I snarled back, the rein on my temper fraying. "You're supposed to stop the goddamned pity party and fucking listen!" I crossed my arms, mirroring her posture. I didn't actually care that Garrus was still behind me, at least, I thought he was still behind me, I hadn't heard him leave. I took a deep breath and calmed myself. When I began again, my voice was under control and back to dispassion. "I refused to be used again, just like you. When the Tenth Street Reds took me in, I killed the first jackass that suggested I earn my place on my back. I shot him in the head with a stolen pistol. It was easy after that," I shrugged. "I let my anger take over and just killed whoever tried to start anything with me. I was scrawny, tiny and sociopathic. I eventually killed myself up the ranks of the Reds, until I was the second in command. Then we were set up. I wouldn't find out for 15 years that Cerberus was behind that particular incident." Actually, I'd found out when I looked at the files I'd turned over to her. Cerberus had apparently been fucking with my life before they'd gotten their hands on me. Gave new meaning that phrase, "Over my dead body." She slumped against the wall, looking down at her boots, pretending not to listen. But she was glancing at me out of the corner of her eye, probably involuntarily. Didn't matter, she was going to listen. She was going to learn why I hated Cerberus more than she could ever fathom.

"The judge didn't give me a choice. As a biotic, it wasn't prison for me. It was the Alliance Academy. They had nothing on me for the people I killed, and I wasn't going to admit to them. It had been them or me, after all." Jack's head turned slightly, her dark eyes locked on mine, finally just listening.

"I worked my ass off in that academy. It was a prison, for me. I didn't understand them. Bunch of rich kids that got in on their parents' dime or with a Senator's backing. I was the delinquent. I knew math, I'd learned everything I could get my hands on while I was with the Reds, so I kept up. But it wasn't until graduation and my first unit that I actually felt like I belonged somewhere." Jack snorted. I knew what she meant. At the time, belonging somewhere was a foreign concept.

I shrugged. "I was with that unit for two years. I started as their second lieutenant. I paid attention. Listened to the Chiefs. That's what they were there for, they'd tell me, keeping second louies alive." I laughed quietly, remembering Hicks. Remembering that slightly respectful, yet superior attitude most senior NCOs adopted around junior officers. And then, a near-physical memory of his rough-skinned hands gently stroking my bare arm, the contrast of his dark skin against my neon-paleness stark. I wrenched myself back to the present before the old pain could flare up again. There would be time to salute my dead when I was done here. It was Jack's turn to bury her dead, even if what she was burying was the little girl that hid under that desk and cried for someone to love her. "I was up for Commander in my next promotion, finishing my tour as a staff lieutenant."

I smiled, welcoming that old pain, thinking of my unit, because it meant they weren't forgotten. I refused to think about not seeing them while I was dead. And I still shied away from the deeper pain of Hicks. "I can see their faces, still, you know. LtC Bishop; Second LT Hudson, Operations Chief Hicks, Gunnery Chief Vasquez, Corporals Toombs, Gorman, Apone, Privates Drake, Wierzbowski, Dietrich, Spunkmeyer, Ferro, Crowe, …" I wasn't even seeing her any more. I was seeing the planet we'd touched down on. A jungle world, supposedly completely uninhabited by sentient life. The stench of thick vegetation and rich soil and heavy ozone. Pragia had briefly reminded me of it when we'd touched down. I'd gotten past the point where that memory brought me to my knees, though. But it would never leave me and never truly stop hurting. "We were supposed to be looking for colonists that had disappeared off the grid. I never knew why they needed a platoon of fifty marines to babysit some colonists whose communications unit was probably just broken. We camped, expecting to look further for the colonists in the morning. We weren't expecting trouble."

Jack's narrowed. "What the fuck does this have to do with anything, Shepard?" I ignored the question. Either she'd get the point, or not. I'd bet she would, there was a first class mind behind the anger and violence.

"Dusk hit and so did the thresher maws. That's what they seemed like, anyway. Giant crop threshers that tore up the ground. Maws that ate everything. There were dozens of them. We know now they don't travel in packs. So, in hindsight, that was the first clue something was off about this.

"The sounds from the sentries alerted us first." What was that? Alpha, report in! Echo, where the fuck are you? Command, This is Delta! We've lost... "Then gunfire and the communicators sparked to life, and we all heard our brothers in arms screaming and then the worst part was when the screams were cut off or died to a choking gurgle. Bishop started spouting orders. The wrong ones, he'd lost it." I say again, lay down a suppressive fire and hold your ground! "He got more of us killed," I wasn't even looking at Jack any more. I struggled to avoid being drowned in the memories, but it was a losing battle. Blood, gunfire, Running, heart pounding. Shouting for Hicks. "The few of us that were in the middle of the camp: me, Hicks, Hudson, Vasquez, Gorman, Toombs, and Dietrich formed up around each other and when Bishop suddenly stopped giving orders, I gave the order to evacuate," MARINES! We are leaving!I'd shouted. "We headed for the transport, trying to gather everyone we could in the darkness, in the chaos. Hicks kept Hudson from panicking and Vasquez had my six, Gorman and Dietrich were had their weapons out and hot. But you know, those fucking things aren't phased by bullets. The camp had caught on fire by then. Ordnance exploding and burning, lighting up the night, killing more marines, the lucky ones. Toombs disappeared, a maw popped up behind us and grabbed Gorman first. I met Hicks' eyes and they reminded me I had more people than just Gorman to take care of. I threw a Warp field at the worm and it dropped back under ground and we ran hell for leather to the transport. Something grabbed Vasquez, but we managed to beat it off, but her leg was shattered. She fell behind to cover us, to give us time.

"One by one we were picked off, the earth erupting beneath our feet in the dark. They picked us off one. By. One. Only Hicks and I made it to the transport. He all but threw me in, and turned to try to help him up, but before he got even a foot on the deck, he was yanked away. Two of those maws grabbed him and tore him," my voice broke, the tears I'd been holding back fell, "in half. A third hit the transport so hard, it dented the side and bent one of the wings. But I got that thing into the air, maws reaching up to try to grab me. I managed to circle the camp once, the floodlight showing me the destruction. I was looking for survivors. I thought I saw movement on the ground and swooped in a bit lower, hoping I could help, but the damaged wing couldn't handle it. The transport shuddered and I lost altitude. I was only a good enough pilot to crash land on the nearby rocks instead of back into the thresher nest. I bounced around the cabin as the plane rolled several times. They found me two days later, broken ribs, two broken legs, a broken collar bone and a severe concussion.

"Bishop was a grandfather, his first granddaughter had just been born. Vasquez had just come back from maternity leave, she left her son to grow up never knowing her. Apone had a little sister he was raising after their parents died. Hicks' girlfriend had just found out she was pregnant. They were going to get married at the first opportunity. Two more weeks and he'd have been out, starting a family." My voice broke, despite my best efforts, on "married."

"There are more important things than vengeance, Jack. Cerberus cost both of us a great deal." Jack stared at me, her dark eyes wide.

"Then why are you working with them, Shepard?" Jack asked, her voice actually subdued.

"No one else will help me stop the greater evil." I could still feel the tears running down my cheeks. I still didn't bother wiping them. My reward for my unit dying had been induction into N7 training.

I turned and saw that Garrus was still there behind me, I felt the blood drain out of my face. I couldn't look at him, I didn't want to see the pity in his eyes, or the condemnation for my criminal past. After all, if not for the Alliance, I might have been one of those mercs on Omega or this little girl slumped against the walls of a run down Cerberus facility with her CO yelling at her. Wordlessly, I turned and headed out of the building, knowing by the sound of boots on the metal plating that my team followed. When we got to the shuttle, I handed Jack the detonator. Her big eyes widened in surprise and she looked at me uncertainly.

"I didn't think you were going to let me do it."

I let Tali and Garrus climb into the shuttle before I responded. "I got to kill the bastards who tormented me. The only one still living is The Illusive Man. You blow this joint, he'll be all you have left to track down, too." And I had. Not only had I killed my father, but every Cerberus cell I'd wiped out during the hunt for Saren had been a memorial to my unit.

She looked down at the detonator in her hand, flipping the top open and closed. "Not the only one, Shepard. Some of them left to keep doing this shit."

I nodded, "And with those files Tali downloaded and the stuff on that disk you're still working on, they'll get theirs. I'll see to it. The only one that won't be brought down by this is that blue eyed bastard." I leaned down to look the smaller woman in the eyes, my hair falling into my face. "And you and I can put a bullet in his brain ourselves when the time comes. Until then, he has his uses." Jack's eyes shown coldly and she hopped into the shuttle ahead of me.

The shuttle would have survived any explosive charge we planted, but she needed to do it when she was ready. I was prepared to tell the pilots to circle till she let me know. I watched her. She looked everywhere but at me or Tali or Garrus, I could almost see the wheels turning in her head. Then her shoulders went back, and her head snapped up. When she met my eyes, I pounded on the cockpit door to warn the pilots. We could withstand the blast, didn't mean it'd be fun to fly through.

When we got to the ship Jack just pushed past us to head for her hole in the hold. Garrus paused at the gangway and looked at me like he wanted to say something. I gave him an unblinking stare, daring him to comment, he knew I'd been a criminal in the past, just not to the extent I'd just revealed. I didn't want to hear it. Not now, not on myship. He opened his mouth and closed it, turned on his heel and walked away. When I got to the elevator, I finally noticed Tali had followed me, I took a moment to wipe at my eyes, realizing I'd walked through my entire CIC with tear tracks on my cheeks. I tried not to smear my mascara further. "How's the makeup?" I asked Tali.

"A total loss, Meghan," she put her hand on my arm. She didn't use my given name often, but I appreciated it now. "You were Hicks' girlfriend, weren't you?" Tali asked, her voice carefully neutral.

"The crash caused a miscarriage," I told her, my voice small. Even after all this time, that still hurt like hell. Hurt worse than losing the unit. Hurt worse than Horizon, losing Kaidan. Hurt worse than Ashley. It hurt worse than dying. It hurt worse than being alive again. Cerberus had cost me two men I loved and a child. What else would they demand?

"Are you all right?"

I nodded, "Nothing a hot shower and a vacation on a tropical beach with scantily clad, muscular men serving me drinks and catering to my every whim won't cure."

She gave a short laugh, "We make it through the Relay and I'll join you."

I looked over at her, grinning, "It's a date then." I leaned against the elevator wall, closing my eyes. On Ontarom, Toombs pointed a gun at a scientist, fired. In slow motion, I watched him turn the gun on himself and fire a round into his brain pan.

I was the only survivor of Akuze.

A/N: It occurred to me after posting that I should mention that yes, the Colonial Marines made a brief appearance and suffered the same fate that their Aliens counterparts did. James Cameron rocks, Titanic and Avatar notwithstanding.