A/N: My longest running fic and it's still being updated, though the end is in sight. As always, I'm just borrowing Bioware's toys, though I hope I'm giving them back in better condition than when I borrowed them.

Captain's Personal Log: Doppelganger

Of course, Garrus objected again to my going out solo.

"I'm not going to be alone, you ass. You're going to be on a nice comfy sniper perch with a good clean view of all the windows. And Samara will be right outside the apartment."

I could tell he was visibly restraining himself from making an exasperated sound. "And what if, when it finally comes down to it, she chooses her daughter over you? Stranger things have happened."

I rolled my eyes. "Garrus, she's been hunting her daughter for four centuries and became a warrior monk to track her. I think her resolve is pretty set."

"Just... watch your back, Shepard."

"That's why I'm bringing you along."

I put on the short leather dress Kasumi had given me and the heels that went with it. Feet used to combat boots should never be shoved into high heels. I left my long hair down at Samara's suggestion. I tried not to let discomfort show when more than a few sets of eyes followed me on my entrance. Looking is not going to hurt you, moron, I told myself. The club had been smoky and smelly. The stench of illegal substances, the scent of fear, arousal, predation and decadence. I moved through the smoky atmosphere of the club, alert, watchful. It was scary how fast I could fall back into that walk. The walk that I'd learned to adopt while I was in the gang. It was loose at the hips and balanced forward on the balls of my feet. I'd picked it up watching the prostitutes in the gang and used it to disarm anyone I'd been sent to kill. After all, it matched my looks, not my profession. I felt eyes on me, watching me. Human, asari, even a few turian. I wanted a shower.

But then, Morinth found me. I clung to the gun bunny attitude as if it were armor and I walked past her predator's gaze, resisting the near instinct level to remove the threat, remove it now! She lounged on one of the heavily cushioned sofas, surveying the club like a spider watches her web. She approached me with the certainty that I couldn't refuse. And I didn't. After all, bait never refuses the trap.

Her apartment smelled like sandalwood and lavender. I suppose it was an attempt at relaxing whoever she dragged back to her lair. Both scents had the opposite effect on me. Sandalwood reminded me of the scent my father used to spray around the house to hide the stench of the red sand he had stashed. Lavender reminded me of the shrink's office I'd spent too much time in after Akuze. While Morinth fussed around "getting more comfortable," I wandered the open floor plan looking at her trophies. Because that's what they were. I shivered. I remembered the Consort. She'd been gentle, diffident. Liara had held only the promise of what could happen. I doubted Morinth would be either.

After getting "comfortable" in what looked liked the same dominatrix gear she'd had on at the club, she sat down on her expensive leather couch and patted the seat next to her. I arched an eyebrow at her imperiousness, but figured it was time to get this thing over with. Hopefully, both Garrus and Samara were in position. I resisted the urge to wipe my damp palms on my leather dress.

I met the asari's eyes, eyes as blank as the void. The void that still, even now, called to me. I felt the hard couch's cool leather warm up beneath my rear end. Her S&M leather fetish gear gleaming in the dim lighting, she draped her legs over me in an attempt to be sexy, but I recognized it as a subtle form of restraint. My skin felt slick with my cold sweat, my dog tags icy where they were tucked into my bodice. I felt my heart pound in my ears, my blood rushing to meet her challenge. All I saw were the black eyes of infinity as I felt like the top of my head lifted off and everything I was was being pulled into the Ardat-Yakshi. A siren song of oblivion, calling my name. I felt a tug on my mind. Aggressive, hungry where Liara and Shiala had been gentle and respectful.

The thought of Liara brought me back to the hunt for Saren. Flashes of the fight with him on Virmire: a strong, leathery hand gripping my throat, booted, clawed feet splashing in the water, a klaxon sounding. My fist connecting to the tough metallic hide on the disbarred Spectre's face and he dropped me on my ass. Another turian face, with blue markings, kind silver-blue eyes, helping me to my feet one handed, shooting at the fleeing ex-Spectre with the other.

A helmet removed, the same turian face, exhausted. Three-fingered hands trembling with fatigue.

Kind brown eyes, angry words on Horizon, betrayal, treason… loved…. Blackness called, no pain. No care. No fighting. Rest. Nothingness. I felt myself slipping. Sliding into her, joining her. She gasped, breathing deeply, her face lifted to upward in an unholy benediction that was still beautiful and terrible. I slid further.

No! Must fight! The turian, scared now, his silver-blue eyes cold, glaring at the person he thought was his friend as the human man, the man I thought I loved, walked away from me. Morinth's eyes filled my vision again, pulling on me. Oblivion, rest... no more fighting. I can lay down my weapon for good. I don't have to save the galaxy again.

Memories shoved back. Cheekplates flaring as the gentle eyes looked down at me, angry. Angry on my behalf. "He had no right to talk to you like that."

Strong, clawed hands carding through my long hair, electric shocks down my spine, rumbling voice, tightening low in my abdomen. He wasn't human, how could he even make me feel this way?

"Look into my eyes, and tell me you want me. Tell me you'll kill for me. Anything I want." The voice was hypnotic, wrong. It wasn't the voice I wanted to hear. The five-fingered hands, effeminate, slender, petting my hair like she owned me. Fingers tangling in my curls. So different from the last person to touch me like that. But her eyes, they offered peace. Peace in nothing-ness. Peace in oblivion. No pain, there. No struggle. A sigh. A burden lifted. She'd fight. She'd do it for me.

"I'll be here if you need me." The bass rumble as if two voices merged into one. Silver-green-blue eyes staring into mine. Rocket impact, no! Can't lose him!

Garrus!

A little girl stared into a mirror, the sharp slash of scissors cutting golden locks close to the scalp. "I am better than this. No one will fight for me. I fight for myself."

A rag doll, forgotten, muddy, the warm cardamom scent of the colony heavy in the air. No children. Where are the children? Who will fight for them?

A utilitarian apartment, metal and plastic. What the government gave, the sulphur stench of Red Sand and sandalwood. Blood streak down the metal cabinets to where his head lay on the slick tile floor, sightless blue eyes staring at me, blood pooling around his yellow hair. Throw the scissors at him as I walk by, cold air on my scalp. I will fight.

Fuck oblivion.

I blinked, the apartment with its petty luxuries coming back into focus. I inhaled deeply as if I'd been holding my breath for an hour underwater. I met the asari's void-deep eyes, and said, "Don't count on it."

Her fear was immediate, palpable. Eyes widened as terror infused her as she powered up her biotic field and then her mother rushed in. I stepped aside as mother confronted daughter, feeling ill at their hatred for one another. Or rather, Morinth's hatred for Samara and Samara's icy resignation to the fact that her murderous daughter had to die. The addict demanded my assistance. But there was no way I was going to grant it. I'd had too much experience with addicts in the past. They weren't to be trusted.

I chose the mother over the daughter. Theirs had been a conflict to last centuries, and I was merely the means by which it ended. Morinth had been an unconscionable murderer, slaying talented men and women before their prime, a parasite. I glanced at her corpse, however, and felt a shiver of sympathy. All she'd wanted was to live. It was all I wanted, too. Blue blood, three fingered hands clutching a rifle.Having been liberated recently from that dark night, I understood - though the void still had its seductions, I denied its call.

I waited while Samara collected herself. Her proud back bent in grief over her daughter. What would that be like, I wondered. To love someone like that? But to know it was doomed?I sat next to her and merely tried to simply wait out her silent grief with her, until her head came back up and her shoulders went back and her spine straightened. "We'll give her a funeral," I told the Justicar. "No one deserves to be an unmourned corpse on a shithole like Omega."

She looked wordlessly at her daughter's body and nodded once. "Thank you, Shepard."

"I'll wait till our people get here. Go ahead back to the ship. She won't be alone. I promise." The proud woman nodded once more and walked out of her daughter's apartment.

Garrus joined me in the apartment after she left. He walked over to stand behind me where I stood looking out the window onto the slums of Omega.

He waited quietly behind me. I turned around and we stared at each other, his mandibles working as if he wanted to say something. Instead, all he did was pull me into a hug made awkward by the wide cowl of his new armor. I lay my head on his shoulder, one arm around his waist. I brought the other up to touch his scarred side, feeling bandages and cybernetics under my fingertips, moving until I found him. One of his hands rested in the small of my back, the other stroked my hair as if to reclaim it from Morinth's unwanted attentions.

After a moment, I leaned back to look at him, putting the hand that wasn't on his face on his shoulder. "That was a lot closer than I'd have liked," I admitted.

I felt his hand spasm on my lower back, "Don't tell me that. Just lie to me for once and tell me a mission went off without a hitch, would you?" he requested. The hand on my hair slid down to join the other.

I barked a laugh. "Is that what you really want?"

He didn't laugh, he looked away in the direction of the corpse on the floor, "How close was it?"

Should I tell him? Tell him it was him that got me through? That allowed me to fight? That helped me push back? I pulled his face back to me. "You helped me."

His eyes widened and his mandibles flared in disbelief. "Somehow, I doubt that."

He really wasn't going to make it easy, was he? I finally noticed how he was holding me against him, my pelvis flush against his armored one and my torso following the curve of his chest. I felt the small circles his fingers were absently tracing on my back and realized I actually wanted him to touch me. I wondered if Garrus was as clueless as he seemed. Standing here, looking up at him, I realized I'd been unconsciously flirting with him for quite some time. But I had no idea when I'd actually started. I pulled away from him. Now was not the time with a corpse cooling over in the corner. "I promise, you helped. Let's go home," I grinned and winked at him, "Archangel." A few crewmen in black utilities with the gold patch on their sleeves showed up in the doorway. I nodded at them and pointed their way to Samara's daughter.

He sighed, and followed me from the apartment, leaving our crewmen to their morbid job. "You are never going to let me live that down, are you?"

"Hell, no."

Back on the Normandy, I changed back into the Cerberus tunic and pants but left my hair down. It was a pain to put up when it was dry anyway. I needed a shower after Morinth - I could still smell sandalwood and lavender on my hair which didn't help my mood - but I wanted to check on Samara, first. And avoid thinking about Garrus.

I was relieved, and a little disturbed, by how well Samara was dealing with the death of her daughter. Before I left though, she said, "Shepard?" I walked back around to kneel in front of her.

She was sitting in her meditative position, prepared to go back to it, but apparently had one last thing to tell me. "What's up, Samara?" I prompted the square-jawed asari.

"Garrus is a good man," her blue eyes were steady on me.

Puzzled, I said, "I know." Oh, shit. I do not want to deal with this. Not yet.

"Good men are hard to find," the ancient being in front of me said.

This was from a member of a species that had no men. "And hard men are good to find. What's your point?" I let a little of frustration at her cryptic-ness into my voice.

"Just this. We are going in to near certain death, Shepard. Perhaps you should make sure things are settled between the two of you?"

I pinched the bridge of my nose, "Samara, Garrus and I are friends. And we're pretty good with that."

She allowed herself a small smile, "I've seen a lot of things in my long life, Shepard. Two people who were actually friends don't look at each other like you two do. He allowed you to resist Morinth, didn't he?"

I covered my face with my hand. "Yes."

"Good. I chose correctly then. If I hadn't asked you, I'd have had to ask Officer Vakarian," she stated calmly.

"Wait. Why?" I asked, sitting up straighter.

"An ardat-yakshi cannot entrap a mind that has another focus, it... aids a victim's willpower. Love or a deep friendship makes it almost impossible for her to entrap another. A mission or an obsession also works. I was trading on either your desire to see this mission through or your feelings for the turian to free you from her trap."

I stared at her. "Why didn't you tell me this before?"

She looked at me as if I were slow, "Because in preparing you in that way, I would have failed you. You had to find the strength in yourself to resist her. Telling you to focus on something would have tipped your hand against her and she could work around it."

"Um, thank you for telling me, now, I guess."

"You're welcome, Shepard." Her eyes lit up with that eerie glow and the ball of energy she meditated upon sprang into being between her hands. I knew a dismissal when I saw one.

I stood outside the observation deck momentarily at a loss. There was nothing immediately blowing up. No one needed rescuing at this very second. And for once, no one was trying to kill me. I did, however, have a bottle of expensive brandy to deliver to Doc Chakwas. I shouldn't drink, at all. At least not more than the two drinks I normally allowed myself.

I came back down from my quarters, bottle in hand, and surprised Doc Chakwas. "I have a present for you, Doc!"

About an hour later, after our final toast ("To the people we care for!" "May we never take them for granted!"), I blinked blearily at the half-empty bottle of brandy as Karin stumbled away from her desk to "take a short nap. Really, just want to rest my eyes." I stood up and had to hold on to the back of my chair when the deck threatened to rush up to hit me in the face.

"Never take them for granted." Right. Can't take him for granted. Last thing I want to do. I stepped out of the medbay and glanced around. For once, I was glad Gardner was not in the kitchen and no one was in the mess. I could stumble, no... walk verycarefully, to the main battery.

It didn't even occur to me I might wake him up till I opened the door to his blue armored back. He spun to look at me. "Shepard, need me for something?"

Disoriented, I leaned against the door as it cycled closed behind me. "Have you got a minute?" I made sure to enunciate.

His eyebrow ridges went up and he crossed his arms. "Sure. I was just killing time anyway. Trying to unwind a bit."

"Tightly wound." I giggled. I shook my head and immediately regretted it when the room spun. "Sorry." I carefully walked over to the crate and sat down.

He watched me, unable to keep the amusement out of his voice. "Whatever comes after us, I know you'll get the job done."

I blinked up at him. "Not gonna take you for granted. Couldn't do this without you."

He shrugged and leaned on his console. "Sure you could. Just not as stylishly."

I stood up a little too fast and grabbed the railing. "No. Not without you. Need you to walk into hell with me."

"Are you feeling all right, Shepard?"

I rubbed my forehead and sat back down. "Gotta get ready for Collectors. Blow off steam." Why aren't the words coming out the way I want them to?

"You certainly don't prepare for high-risk operations the way turians do."

"How - how do they prepare?"

The picture he painted of his time in the military sounded efficiently brutal. No wonder he'd been okay with us sparring. My eyes widened when he nonchalantly told me about this scout with whom he'd worked out stress once. In more ways than one. I shook my head again, attempting to clear it. I put my hand to my head. "I shouldn't have drank so much with Chakwas."

"So you are drunk." He sounded smug.

"Not completely. But I'm really not used to drinking any more." And I really hoped I could climb back out of the bottle after this, too. "And I only intended to have a couple. But we started toasting people we knew. Telling stories." I grinned, "None quite so interesting as relieving tension with a scout, though. Testing your reach and her flexibility?"

He laughed. "I'm not sure I'd want to know those stories about Dr. Chakwas."

"I wouldn't either." I laughed, feeling better. "Seriously, though... I didn't know you were in the habit of one-night stands."

He cleared his throat and rubbed the back of his neck. "Not a lot of time for dating when you're a cop or a vigilante."

I nodded. "I know the feeling. I just don't get to exercise that option much."

"Really? Why not?"

"I'm the commander, Garrus. And I've been rather infamous since Akuze. I generally scare the hell out of people."

He grinned, his cheekplates widening. "They've clearly not seen you shoot."

"Hey, not everyone likes to keep things at a distance."

"I didn't know you liked to get up close and personal with husks, Shepard. Something I should know?"

I laughed. "That's joke's reaching. Even for you." I stood up and stepped closer, grinning up at him.

"You're just not flexible enough to appreciate it."

I snorted. "That's not what you said the last time we sparred."

"I think you were hallucinating after my last punch."

"That wasn't a punch. That more like a swing and a miss."

He laughed and shook his head. "You cheated."

"I did not!"

"Yes, you did."

"Clearly, you're so stressed out, you're still hallucinating. You should talk to that commander of yours about letting you blow off some steam."

"I should, should I? What would she suggest as a release?"

"Well, like you said, there's more than one way to work off stress."

He leaned against his console again. "And what would that be?" He laughed. "I didn't think you'd want to spar in your current condition."

And before I could stop myself, the words tumbled out of my mouth. "What if skipped right to that tie-breaker? We could, uh, test your reach... and my flexibility." I resisted the urge to slap my hand over my mouth. My heart pounded in my chest. I crossed my arms and leaned back on one leg to hide the fact that I was terrified of his response. I honestly didn't know what I wanted him to answer, though.

He froze for a minute, then blinked at me. "I didn't know you had a weakness for men with scars." He shrugged. "Well, why the hell not? There's nobody in this galaxy I respect more than you."

"That's hardly a ringing endorsement, Garrus." The adrenaline from the sheer terror that just flooded my system cleared out most of the alcohol induced fog. What had I done?

The turian smiled again. "As long as you're sure this isn't the alcohol talking."

I stared at him for a minute. The way I kept thinking of his hands in my hair. The way I kept trying to touch him. Yeah, this was Garrus, but clearly, some part of me had already taken this step a long time ago. "I'm sure." I swallowed around the lump in my chest. "I'm absolutely certain."

He nodded, then, his eyes steady on mine and I cursed my inability to read his more subtle expressions. What the hell was he thinking?Was he just humoring me?"If we can figure out a way to make it work, then yeah, definitely."

I held his eyes as I walked past and reached up to cup the bandaged side of his face, gently. His hand rose to cup mine, briefly, and his uninjured cheekplate fluttered at me as if he wanted to say something more. When he didn't, I pulled my hand away and turned and walked out of the main battery as fast as my shaking legs would carry me.