[ME2] An Intimate Understanding (F!Shepard/Miranda, Mature)

[wallwalker]

De-anoning on Yuletide fic.

Title: An Intimate Understanding
Author: Wallwalker
Fandom: ME2
Rating: Mature
Characters: FemShep/Miranda, Jacob, Garrus
Word Count: 8055
Content Notes: Spoilers for the whole game.
Notes: For hederahelix for YT - I'll add some more notes to the end.

"I figured I'd find you in here, Miranda."

She didn't turn around. She knew Jacob's voice, anyway. "I'm doing my job, Jacob. Where else would I be?" she asked, a bit harsher than she'd intended, as she looked down at the figures. It was vital statistics, that day, the very basics. Best to start there and make sure everything was covered.

She didn't have to hear the sigh to know it was there, either. "I know how dedicated you are. You don't have to remind me. But this is starting to look like something else."

"Really," she said. She'd heard all of this before. "What would that be? Excellence? An exceptional performance of my duties?"

"Obsession," he shot back. "That's what this looks like to me."

She sighed to herself as she examined an image of the almost-late Lt. Commander Ana Shepard, the last official image taken before the destruction of the Normandy. Wide snub nose, close-cropped bleach-blonde hair, brown eyes only a shade or two darker than her skin... her lips were the only really jarring point about her face, Miranda thought, and only because they were far too thin and colorless.

Well, she corrected herself after a moment, that wasn't entirely true. She had several scars, and some of them were quite alarming. One thin eyebrow was broken by a long, jagged slice that ran up onto her forehead. There was one vertical mark on her right cheek and two on her left, and a nick on her chin. She'd clearly been through more than one ordeal. But the Lazarus process would take care of the scars, if her projections were correct; it would regrow her face completely, along with the rest of her body. She'd be as unmarked as she would have been if she'd lived a perfectly quiet life. Maybe she should fix the lips, too. It would be a simple procedure, and she was sure Shepard would appreciate it....

Then again, maybe not. Maybe Shepard would appreciate being asked about that, before any highly visible modifications were made. She'd have to give it some time.

Jacob cleared his throat, reminding her of his continued presence. She finally looked up from the picture, still keeping her eyes fixed forward. "The Illusive Man's directions were very clear. I need to bring her back, and I can't do that if I don't have an intimate understanding of the woman I'm bringing back, can I?"

"Maybe not, but this seems... excessive."

She did turn to look at him then, because she hated it when he held back, and he damn well knew it. "Say what you were going to say, Jacob," she said, and her voice was quiet but there was steel in it.

"Fine," he said. He met her eyes, then, and his gaze was... not hostile, but at the very least confrontational. Terribly inappropriate behavior for a subordinate, but then... she thought that she'd known Jacob Taylor long enough to dispense with some of the formalities, at least in private. But he didn't usually behave this way. "This is creepy as Hell, Miranda. You're practically stalking her, and she isn't even alive to stalk."

"Well," she said, only half-joking, "that does make my job easier." She pulled up another file. "Go check with Wilson. I've sent him some preliminary data. And I'll need you to go over some data I just sent you on her biotic profile and combat abilities. I know you're not a researcher, but I could still use your input."

"Yes, Ma'am."

She turned away before she could watch him salute. Jacob might be difficult at times, but at least he knew a dismissal when he heard one, thank goodness. It wasn't that she didn't value his input, at times. But he was too easily swayed by emotional considerations, too apt to take things personally. He'd never admit it, of course, but she could see it in his eyes, behind his careful mask of dutiful obedience.

What he didn't understand was that there was absolutely no emotional component to her study of Commander Shepard. Of course there wasn't - how could there be? Her mission was far too important to let something like that get in the way.

---

For the most part there had been no surprises in Shepard's behavior, or anything else about her. Save for the scars, which had been an unfortunate side-effect that she hoped would heal over time, she looked exactly like the old Shepard, before she'd been in the battles that had marked her. Her hair was even perfect, the color-treatment flawless; it would grow in bleached, the way that Shepard had wanted it from the beginning.

Her skills were still perfect. She had passed her tests with flying colors, exactly as Miranda had anticipated, retaining that noble streak that she'd noted on her personality profile. The few bits of conditioning, the ones that had been necessary to prepare her for the major changes in military technology that had happened as she'd slept, had taken brilliantly, and with little psychological difficulty. It was almost perfect.

But, as always, it was the "almost" that disturbed Miranda the most. There were a few idiosyncrasies in Shepard's behavior - nothing major, nothing that she could point to and declare as evidence of a failure. But a few strange things were popping up, and Miranda couldn't be sure that they were intentional. She didn't think they were important, at least, although she hoped that this wasn't going to be one of the times that she was wrong.

To be specific, nothing in Shepard's profile had prepared Miranda for her behavior towards those fish. It bordered almost on an obsession.

It had bemused Miranda nearly from the beginning, ever since she had come back from her first postmortem visit to the Presidium with a blue-scaled skald fish in tow. She had acted very casual about the whole thing, had almost seemed nonchalant about the fact that she was carrying a plastic cube with a fish the size of her hand inside.

The aquarium took up an entire wall of her cabin. It had largely been an aesthetic decision, for what it was worth; Miranda didn't fully understand why the team that had designed the Normandy had done what they had done. It hadn't had any sort of practical purpose, and as much as she appreciated the designers' work, she had failed to understand why they had spent time installing an obviously cosmetic detail.

She certainly hadn't expected Shepard to use it. Every detail, every bit of information, every past decision and order had led to the same conclusion. Shepard was a practical woman; she'd survived impossible odds because she didn't concern herself too much with frivolities, because she did what she had to do to survive. But it was growing increasingly hard to reconcile that sort of bare-bones practicality with the images she'd seen over surveillance images she saw of Shepard taking care of those fish, watching them swim around in the tank, constantly buying new plants.

It was an odd quirk, especially considering that she'd never seen anything about a particular concern for animals in any of Shepard's files. And Miranda had been over those files over and over again, had spent countless hours. There had been nothing about fish, or any sorts of animals, in her psychological evaluations. If anything, she hadn't seemed to care about physical possessions of any sort, had treated them with disdain. Which made sense, considering that for most of her life she'd grown up without them. But at the time, Miranda hadn't thought it was anything more than that.

---

The fish had been odd enough. Miranda hadn't been prepared for the hamster.

"I never saw the point of animals like those," Garrus had said matter-of-factly, after Miranda had finished her debriefing and had started to go back to her office. Jacob had accompanied them to the Citadel that time; Miranda had been busy with paperwork and administrative details. She'd had every confidence that they could handle the job, and the turian had come back apparently a lot less concerned about the one who'd once betrayed him, so she supposed that they had done their jobs well enough. "They're too small to play with properly, let alone defend their masters."

Jacob had cleared his throat and looked away, clearly embarrassed. Shepard had just looked bemused.

Miranda, for some strange reason, had been curious. "Animals like what?" she had asked, brow furrowing slightly. "More fish, Shepard?"

"Not exactly." Shepard had almost looked sheepish. "It's being delivered... here. I'll just show you." She activated her omni-tool and pulled up an image, a small furry creature, running in place on a wheel.

Miranda raised an eyebrow. "A hamster?" she asked. "On the Citadel? That couldn't have come cheap."

"It was reasonable," Shepard said with a fluid shrug.

"Earthborn fauna in Citadel space is never reasonably priced," she answered. "There are Alliance-mandated markups. The taxes for export alone are ridiculous."

"It was reasonable enough. And it was from my personal fund, not the mission's." Her stare wasn't hostile, but it was blank and unaffected. There was nothing there, nothing that she could see... which meant that she was hiding something, because no one had that good of a poker face unless they were trying to hide.

"It wasn't an accusation, Shepard," Miranda said, quickly. "I apologize."

She knew that Jacob was probably doing his best not to stare. Miranda wasn't usually one for apologies over trivial manners, and he knew it. She knew it too, but... well. She'd worked too hard over Shepard, she told herself, to antagonize her over something so trivial as a hamster. Even if the hamster was probably an expensive conceit at best, and at worst a drain of credits that could be used to fund their operation.

Shepard didn't say anything. "That'll be all," she said, nodding as she turned away. Miranda thought she saw an odd twist about her mouth, but she couldn't be sure.

---

Miranda was with Shepard the next time that her particularly odd quirk appeared again.

She was well aware that Shepard was most likely under stress. She had just finished a particularly tense conversation with Liara T'Soni - Shepard had said little about the conversation, for which Miranda had not been present, out of... something she wasn't entirely clear on, really. Maybe it was because of the memory of Horizon, the conversation that she had unexpectedly been privy to between Shepard and Alenko, the anger and betrayal. It had been uncomfortable for her, and uncomfortably familiar.

Coming back to Illium was already uncomfortable enough for her. All she ever thought about when she was there was the possibility that her sister might find her. If Shepard hadn't directly asked her to come planetside, she never would have agreed to it.

At least now things were calm. Soon they'd need to investigate the dossiers that Shepard had asked T'Soni about, but for now they were standing at a souvenir kiosk, and Shepard was examining holographic displays of large, flat, blue fish, swimming through the water like sheets. After a while Shepard nodded, as if to herself, and punched in the order as Miranda watched, adding a notation to have them delivered to the Normandy as soon as possible.

Behind her she heard Garrus grumble. "You buy an awful lot of those, Shepard," he said, shaking his head. "I have to wonder, what are you planning to do with them? It seems like a waste of money to me, unless you're planning to eat them." It wasn't the first time that Miranda had heard a turian express their race's own special brand of utilitarianism, although given Garrus's profile, it was just as likely that he was joking.

Shepard's lips twitched, as if she wanted to laugh. Maybe it was a joke after all. Miranda could not afford to assume that, though.

"Shepard," she said to her sometime later, on the taxi to the police station. "You've surprised me."

Garrus, who by all appearances was listening to some sort of angry turian music, didn't seem to be paying attention as Shepard turned to face her. It was difficult to tell what she was thinking through the visor of her helmet; why she insisted wearing that even on safe environments, Miranda didn't fully know. Something about the illusion of security, perhaps; it would make sense, after some of the horrors she'd survived. "What do you mean?"

"I had no idea that you were such an animal lover."

Shepard turned away. "Yeah," she said, but her tone of voice was wrong. "Something like that."

Miranda recognized that tone. She would revisit this subject later, once they were finished on Illium. For now, thought, she could tell easily enough that further prodding would be fruitless. Shepard was freezing out any further conversation.

Some people would have backed off. But Miranda wasn't one of those people; she filed the conversation away. One way or another, they would finish it later.

--

Sometimes, Miranda thought that she had spent half of her life immersed in Shepard's life, her psychology and history. She had studied it, spent hours trying to decypher it; she had the feeling that everything about this woman was there, that she just wasn't reading between the right lines. There was a reason, she thought with a smile, that Jacob had thought she was obsessed, after a few months' work with the Lazarus Cell.

It would have been easier if so much of Shepard's path hadn't been somewhat obscured by her circumstances. There were gaps between the orphanage records and the juvenile crime reports - long periods of times during which she had fallen entirely off of the grid. Pretty impressive, considering how hard it was to fall out of sight back on Earth. Miranda had had to work damn hard at it.

Shepard had been fortunate, as well. She had been on the streets at a young age; most girls didn't last very long. The ones who did generally ended up with pimps that essentially owned them. But Shepard had been good at other things - she'd been excellent at disabling various locks and alarm systems, and once she'd been old enough to scam a pair of cheap L1s her biotics had developed quickly.

She'd ended up in the dubious care of the Tenth Street Reds, and they'd kept her safe. They'd been her family, in a lot of ways. Which made her decision to defy and threaten one of her old "brothers" on the Citadel stand out - clearly she didn't allow sentimental attachments to influence her decisions. It had been a wise choice, from what Miranda had seen of the politics involved; the friend had asked him to save a gang member who'd to poison medical supplies for a turian colony. Releasing him could've led to a a major interspecies incident, Spectre or not.

That was one possible explanation out. Sentimentality was obviously not one of Shepard's weaknesses. She was a practical woman, and really, practicality didn't mix well with keeping a menagerie of pets, especially expensive ones like that hamster.

Miranda sighed and switched views on her viewscreen, called up a feed from the bugs in Shepard's office. Shepard was playing with the hamster again in that feed, lifting it carefully out of the cage and gingerly placing it into a little plastic ball. The little creature took off almost as soon as it touched the floor, wobbling around as it leaped, and Shepard was smiling as she watched it play.

It was hard to imagine a hardened gang member laughing at the sight of a hamster in a little plastic ball. It remained a mystery, and Miranda was in equal parts frustrated and intrigued.

---

It was after a particularly long and involved mission that Miranda had ventured to say anything else about Shepard's pets. Her aquarium was considerably more populated by that point, and she'd started branching out as well - a handful of turtles, and a number of aquatic plants. Any fish fancier would've been impressed by her tenacity.

Miranda had accompanied Shepard to her quarters that time, and Shepard hadn't objected, perhaps because of her growing preoccupation. "That's an impressive collection," she said, delicately.

"Is it?" Shepard said as she checked the console, and her expression turned visibly relieved. "Good, they're fine," she said, under her breath. Then she looked back at Miranda. "Sorry. Is it impressive? I don't know much about it."

"Very. But I'm getting the impression that caring for them is starting to weigh on your mind, Commander," she ventured. "Yeoman Chambers is an animal lover, you know. I'm sure that if you asked her nicely she would help you take care of the fish, and the hamster. That would ease your mind somewhat, wouldn't it?"

Shepard had paused as she entered the food codes, a long and complicated sequence of buttons. Her lips had quirked into an odd sort of half-smile as she'd finished and turned back to Miranda. "I don't think it would," she said. "It's a nice thought, but I'd rather take care of this myself."

"Is it that important to you? They're only fish."

"No, they're not. I mean, I...." She stopped, turned away, the conversation seemingly over for a minute. Then Miranda watched her shoulders shake slightly with laughter. "What the hell," she said, turning back. "I haven't told anyone this before, and I wasn't going to start, but I think you might understand."

"What do you mean?" Miranda asked, puzzled. "It seems like a small thing."

"That's the problem." Shepard sighed and sat down on the table of the comm room, running her fingers over her shorn, bleached hair. "You know where I grew up, and what kind of people I grew up with. And the big things aren't a huge deal, because you expect them to stick with you, you know? Things like not having enough to eat, or having to do things most people would call you scum for doing just to survive. And yeah, those things definitely do stick. But there were a lot of other things, small things, and no one really talks about those."

"Something to do with animals?"

"Yeah. Kind of." Shepard rubbed her arms, looking and sounding less like the hero and savior of humanity and more like a frightened twelve-year-old girl again. "Where I lived, there weren't many comforts. And you couldn't trust people, not really. You could make them owe you, and then you could sort of trust that they'd do what you wanted them to do, but no one ever really wanted to be your friend. No person did, anyway.

"But there were animals, sometimes. I can't really call 'em pets because they didn't belong to anybody. They were dogs and cats, mostly - tame enough to tolerate us but wild enough to take care of themselves when we couldn't feed 'em. Not that we didn't try - we'd do what we could to keep 'em warm in the winter and gave them scraps when we had a few to spare..." She smiled a bit more. "I liked the big dogs the best, I think. The big furry ones, you saw them once in a while. Friendlier than cats, and they didn't bark as much as little dogs. And they weren't picky about what they ate. I'd feed them as much as I could when they came, and they'd stick around, protect our squats. They'd snuggle up with us and keep us warm. After a while we didn't even care about the fleas."

Her voice had changed too. That hadn't escaped Miranda's notice. Talking about it must have been very difficult. Miranda remembered talking about Oriana, about how hard it had been to admit that things weren't under her control anymore, that she needed help. She couldn't bring herself to say anything... she just nodded, encouraging her to continue.

"It didn't last, though. Never did. They always disappeared. It was harder when we found them later. Usually they were sick, or it was too cold, or...." She trailed off, took a deep, ragged breath. Miranda found that she was in full agreement, that her own eyes were tearing up just a bit - what was it about animals, she wondered in a moment of self-depreciation, that made even the most practical of humans into such maudlin creatures?

"It was easier," Shepard continued, "when they just vanished. I mean, you still knew, deep down, what might have happened to them. But it was easier to think that maybe they just found another warm place to sleep. Or maybe they were really lucky, and they're back with their family in some nice warm compartment somewhere. I mean, maybe I didn't want that for myself - they felt like cages to me. But I thought those animals deserved the safe place to sleep."

And you didn't? she wanted to say, gently. She wasn't sure that they were ready for that conversation, though.

"Hm. Anyway." She shook her head, as if to clear it, then looked back up at Miranda. Her brown eyes were softer now, although she had set her jaw. "I have reports that I need to take care of," she said. "Will you excuse me, Miranda?"

Miranda nodded. She knew about Shepard's reports, and knew that not all of them went to the Illusive Man. Not directly, anyway. "Of course," she said.

She wanted to say more - leaving without saying something didn't seem quite right - but nothing would seem to come. But she did look over her shoulder at Shepard, just before the elevators closed. The commander wasn't crying, but she did have a distant look in her eyes as she stared at her fish, lost in thought.

---

Things had gotten easier after that. Shepard had been more distant than before, as if nervous that Miranda would use the moment of vulnerability against her. And she had to admit, the thought had crossed her mind, the way that it always did; the more advantages she had over the people around her, the better off she typically was.

She'd resisted the urge. It was more important to earn Shepard's trust, that time. And Shepard had relaxed... and gradually their conversations were moving away from business, all the time. Not with any sort of speed, but gradually. It was a start.

There were still so many questions that she wanted to ask, that she hadn't had the opportunity. Personal questions, questions she wasn't quite comfortable asking in a professional capacity, because with Shepard's skills it didn't matter. Things that she had wanted to find out for herself, if only she could.

She wanted most of all to know why Shepard had waited so long to join the military. True, she'd enlisted at eighteen, and that was the age at which most soldiers were eligible. But thanks to a clause that had been written for teenagers with no legal guardians, she had been eligible two years before... and she had had the offer made to her, thanks to her biotic capability and her already-impressive technical skill. Why, Miranda had wondered, had she not leaped at the chance to take it? Why had she chosen to stay on the streets, and had only enlisted when she'd found herself a legal adult? It was easy enough to guess why she'd finally chosen to join the military - at age eighteen any crime she committed would have had her tried as an adult, and the penalties would have been harsher than before. Why had she lived on the streets when she'd had other choices? Why hadn't she tried to escape from that life, the way that Miranda finally had?

It was funny, in a way, Miranda thought. The two of them - Ana Shepard and Miranda Lawson - had lived on Earth at the same time for many years, and they couldn't have come from more different backgrounds. One of them had been spoiled, with any material things she ever wanted given to her, but with all of her freedoms and her very self demanded in return; she had fought to get away as soon as she could, with bullets when it had become necessary. The other had been poor and frightened, living on the streets and under the dubious protection of a dangerous gang, with almost nothing to call her own... but she'd stayed there, as long as she could.

Maybe, she admitted to herself after a particularly long night of poring over files, Miranda wasn't the best person to try and understand Shepard's point of view. Maybe she just couldn't understand.

That didn't mean she didn't want to try.

---

They were boxed in.

"Mech factories are not on the 'fun to fight through' list," Garrus casually said on his throat mic. His tone was light - for a turian, anyway, as light as they ever were - but there was absolutely no humor about the situation. His new armor had a few breaches; it was nothing as bad as the last one, and nothing that couldn't be easily fixed. A direct blast from a YMIR would do that. "Just in case you wondered."

"I'll remember that," Shepard said wryly. "Next time I'll see about doing this in an antique shop."

"Sounds good. Make sure it's extra classy."

Miranda didn't join in the banter, and frankly she was very tempted to snap at them both. Only her own preoccupation, and the awareness that this was well within the profile for both Garrus and Shepard, kept her silent. She preoccupied herself by sending an electromagnetic pulse at the nearest mech, stripping it of its shields.

Garrrus obviously wasn't paying as little attention as she'd feared, since as soon as she saw the field flicker away she saw an AP round smash its way through its primary computer. The thing went down in a jumble of metal, just before the flicker of biotic energy lifted it up and tossed it at the two that were shuffling up behind it.

"We've got to get to the control room," Shepard said over the comm as she switched to her Locust. Her specialized technical shielding fields flickered to life. "They can surround us here. Garrus, ready the concussives and cover us. Miranda, let's clear a path."

"Understood," she said, slamming a fresh heat sink into her Carnifex and inwardly revving up her biotics. Next mech they ran into was going to be introduced to a particularly powerful distortion field in short order. Thank goodness those things didn't all seem to have had their shielding modules installed yet.

Everyone was mostly quiet after that, save for Shepard's occasional orders and a few status reports. Miranda couldn't help but be relieved, although the relief was tinged with something else, something very much like jealousy. That sort of effortless camaderie... she didn't think she'd ever had that sort of relationship with anyone.

Granted, she'd never actually wanted it before. Dealing with other people had been less a pleasure and more a necessary evil, unless she was actually in charge. But this felt different, somehow... something essential, something she needed to understand in order to understood how Shepard's mind worked.

---

The second breakthrough, if such it could be called, happened - appropriately enough - just before another landing on Illium, as Shepard was accompanying her to meet her contact about her sister. Miranda had been surprised with how quickly Shepard had agreed to it, honestly; she'd expected at least some protest about how much time it would require. But she'd nodded and said that they would go immediately, and there they were, almost there.

"Thank you for this, Shepard," she said in low voices, as the two of them waited for the ship to finish the overly-complicated Illium docking procedures. "My sister is important to me. I can't let her go through what I went through."

Shepard had nodded. "If I had a sister, I would've wanted the same thing," she said, her eyes fixed on some distant star.

"I suppose I don't have to ask if life was difficult for you, back on Earth."Shepard snorted. "No. You don't. I wouldn't have wanted to force anyone I cared about to live it."

Miranda lowered her voice. Was this the time? She was about to find out, she supposed. "If that's true," she asked, very quietly, "then why did it take you so long to leave Earth?"

Shepard's twitch was visible, if barely, and she relaxed almost immediately. She knew that Miranda had access to her life history. Surely she wasn't so naive as to think that she wouldn't have read it. "That's different, she said, rubbing at a place on her face where the old scars had once been. "It was my home. I was free there. That meant something."

"Free to cheat and steal, and nearly starve to death," Miranda said. "You were very talented, even then. You deserved better."

"You don't understand." Shepard frowned, still not looking back at her. "I knew what the military would mean. Orders, structure, a life that wasn't mine. On the streets I was free. I liked being free. That's why I didn't leave it until I had to leave." She closed her eyes. "You understand what that's like, right? Wanting to be free?"

Miranda could only sigh, nodding her head. Yes. She knew exactly what that was like. Shepard probably knew quite a bit about her, as well. "After a while, it's the only thing that matters."

"Yeah. That's right," she said, rubbing her arm. "You want to know what I miss most about the old life? I miss my old scars. They meant something."

"What? Pain?" Miranda said, taken somewhat aback. She had been injured more than a few times, but her faster-than-normal healing factor had kept the scars from forming. "You don't seem the sort to hold on to that sort of thing."

"It wasn't just the pain. It was the lessons I learned. Pain fades, but the scars are good reminders. The real ones, anyway." She smiled thinly. All of her smiles seemed somehow sardonic, Miranda thought. It was those thin, colorless lips of hers. She'd never gotten around to asking if she had wanted them improved. "The ones that taught me what not to do on the streets if I wanted the people around me to respect me, and the ones I got when I got careless during battles, those were real. The ones that were on my face weren't. I'm glad they're gone."

"Shepard, I -"

But whatever foolish thing she had been about to say was interrupted by Joker on the intercom, telling them that Illium was finally ready to let them dock and they were lucky that they hadn't ended up having to pay for it. She didn't know whether to bless the man or curse him as she and Shepard walked toward the airlock. Jacob would be waiting for them, and he was getting antsy enough as it was - they still hadn't investigated the Hugo Gernsback's distress signal, and she could tell it was weighing on his mind. Best not to keep him waiting any further.

---

Miranda's head spun as she read the private message that Oriana had sent to Shepard, especially the postscript.

She hadn't expected Shepard to push her to introduce herself to her sister. Not at the time, anyway; in retrospect it made perfect sense, given her talk about how important family was and how she would've done the same thing for hers. She'd even tried to keep her from killing her old best friend, despite... what he'd done. Miranda couldn't even think about it without her blood boiling, both over what Niket had done and over the way that asari bitch had shot him like he was nothing.

Maybe she was a hypocrite. But she figured that after what she'd been through, she had a right to be.

Her door opened. She looked up to see Shepard standing there. "Miranda," she said, nodding slightly.

"Shepard. Come in." Miranda smiled at her, and for once it felt genuine. "Thank you again. For everything."

"Don't mention it. If you hadn't said hello to her you would've regretted it. I know how it goes." She smiled thinly as she sat down. "Always treat family as if today could be the last day you saw them."

"Is that how you lived?"

"Heh." She snorted. "For a long time. The Reds were the closest thing to family I had. It was hard, you know, turning my back on them."

"On the Citadel?"

"That was the first time they knew it. But it happened long before that." Shepard was holding something, Miranda realized then - it took her a while to notice that it was Blue Nepenthe, a certain sort of liquor that Illium exported. The bottle wasn't opened, and as soon as Shepard seemed to realize that Miranda was looking at it she put it on the table. "Drink?"

"In a moment, perhaps." She smiled at the offer, though. It was supposed to be very good liquor. Neither she nor Shepard would ever be able to be intoxicated for terribly long, so she didn't see an issue with imbibing, sometimes. "What were you saying?"

"I turned my back on them as soon as I left Earth. I just couldn't remember that life and still be tied to the Reds while still being in the military. It's like living in two different worlds at the same time. Just can't be done." She closed her eyes. "Not to say I didn't miss them, especially at first, but it's easier now. They've changed and I don't think I like it."

"So did you." Miranda produced two shot glasses from her desk and filled one of them, pushing it to Shepard.

"Yeah. Guess I did." She took the shot quickly, pressed a hand to her temple. Strong stuff, clearly, for her to feel it at all. "Ever since... ever since that time everybody remembers me for."

Akuze, she meant. Miranda fought down another surge of misplaced guilt. "I suppose that being near death really does -"

She was interrupted by an odd, snorting laugh. "Please," she said, shaking her head. "That is such a damned cliche." The look she was giving Miranda was odd, though, strangely intense, like she wanted to say something else. But before the tension could break, she took a deep breath, shook her head. "No. It wasn't that. It was the attention."

"I don't understand," Miranda said, pouring another shot for Shepard and a first for herself.

"You've never thought about it? How much bullshit it is, putting me up on a damn pedestal just for surviving? I didn't do anything any of those other men and women couldn't have done if they'd been lucky enough to get away. I had the same training that they did. But because I was a lucky bitch, everyone started saying that I was amazing. Hell, only reason I got made Spectre was because they thought I was some kind of amazing soldier, but I wasn't. I just knew how to run away." She took her shot. "So I figured, damn it, if I was going to get that kind of bull for the rest of my life, I'd start doin' something to earn it."

"Yes," Miranda said, taking another drink. She thought of her own genes, her own so-called perfection, and how hard it was to do anything that lived up to it. She thought that maybe she understood Shepard better than she'd imagined. "It's the same with me."

Shepard lifted her glass in a silent salute. "I know."

They drank the rest of the bottle in silence, Shepard outdoing Miranda two-to-one in shots... but then, Miranda's metabolism might be good, but it wasn't cybernetically enhanced the way that Shepard's was. No surprise, really.

Somehow, even before the booze was flushed out of her system, she managed to keep herself from talking about Akuze. She wanted to - it was on the tip of her tongue the entire time - but she fought it down, afraid to risk what they had at that moment, together.

---

The ship felt colder, emptier, without the crew aboard. Miranda was used to tripping over a uniform or two when she walked through the hallways, nodding at the occasional salute from the ex-Alliance men and women that they had managed to recruit. But now there was nothing, and the place was nearly empty. If EDI hadn't had her programming upgrade, there was no way they could've gotten it to Omega.

Miranda tried not to think about the advanced ramification of having an advanced AI with no safeguards on the ship. She tried not to wonder if, once they got the crew back - if they could get them back, if they were still alive - she would be willing to give up control of the ship, if she would judge them as being necessary. She said that they were her crewmates, but she had no reason to trust her, yet.

They were going to the relay now. Shepard had been unwilling to wait, and Miranda was grateful. The Normandy should never feel so empty. Besides, she'd chosen most of those men and women herself, and it was one thing to lose them in battle, but those people? They'd never even had a chance.

They'd be at the Omega-4 Relay in less than two hours, now. She needed to check with Shepard before they got there, if only to ease her own mind.

The door opened for her, and Miranda walked in - only to stare as she saw the wreckage of what had been Shepard's immaculately-kept quarters and office. Furniture was everywhere, and some of it was broken. Cloth and armor lay scattered on the floor, half-concealing datapads and empty bottles. Really, about the only things that had been untouched by the apparent rampage was the hamster cage and the aquarium.

"Shepard?" she called, walking further into the room.

"Here," she said, her voice quiet and far too lucid.

Miranda walked around and found her curled up on the ground, remnants of a biotic field flashing around her skull. She looked up at Miranda with cold brown eyes as she approached. "Are you all right?" Miranda asked. "Did the Collectors do this?"

Shepard mutely shook her head and stood up. "It's catching up to me," she said. "I'll deal with it. But there's something else I need to deal with, too. Before it... before this goes any further."

Before what goes any further? she thought. "Of course, Shepard. I'm at your disposal." She took a few steps back, though, despite herself.

"You've been saying that," Shepard said. "But I've been hoping..." She shook her head. "I need you to tell me something, Miranda. I've been waiting for a long time."

"About what?" she asked, but she felt the dread growing in her chest, and she was very much aware of her own amps, her own omni-tool on her wrist. She'd never seen Shepard that angry before.

"I need you to tell me about Akuze."

For a moment, she froze. She knew the official line, the one that they'd told her. She knew the truth, and she knew what the Illusive Man had told her to say if this situation were to arise, and she knew very well that they differed in several key respects. But being knowledgeable and being prepared were two different things, and she'd known that for a long time, but never better than at that moment.

Shepard had noticed. She must have noticed, but she kept talking as if she hadn't. "I know Cerberus was responsible," she said. "I met... someone who knew. Someone else who survived. All that time they were talking about me being the only survivor, and how strong I must have been. But they were wrong, at least until he shot himself in the head." She snorted with laughter. "I'm a fraud, Miranda. It could've easily been him on the Normandy and me in that lab facility with acid in my veins. Why the hell would Cerberus even do that? What was the damn point?"

Miranda took a step back before she spoke. She wasn't afraid, she told herself. She just needed better footing. "I don't know why they did it," she said. "I know why they said they did it. They said they were testing Alliance response to alien threats. But they didn't have to do it. They didn't have to go that far."

"They didn't have to, but they did," Shepard said, advancing slowly. "So why?"

"Because...." She took another step, then another, until she felt her back against the aquarium. "Damn it, I don't know," she finally said. "I don't know why they'd send humans into an ambush and then torture the survivor they could catch. It's... that goes beyond acceptable losses -"

"They weren't losses, Miranda." Shepard's voice was still deceptively quiet. "They were lives. I still remember their names. I still see their faces sometimes."

"I... I'm sorry, Shepard. I really am." She resisted the urge to close her eyes; the last thing she needed to do at that moment was back down. "I had nothing to do with it, I promise you. I was busy studying biotech when that happened, and if I had been in any sort of position to protest, I would have. Those operations are what makes humanity distrust the people who are trying to help them."

"You believe that," she said, quietly, stopping a few feet away.

"I know it," Miranda said back. "I've talked to the Illusive Man. I know how he thinks."

"Do you? I wonder, sometimes." Shepard slumped, then, suddenly looking very tired. "I wonder about a lot of things. But... you believe it. And that means something. Something about you, if nothing else..."

"Shepard."

She went on as if Miranda hadn't spoken. "I'm such a fraud, aren't I? All this time I'm the only survivor, except that I'm really not. People on the vids they made after I died, they talk about how I overcame all of this bad shit to become the first Spectre. But all I did was cheat and steal and lie until I had to make a choice, and then get lucky. I made stupid choices and left a good woman behind to die in a nuke blast, when I'd promised we'd all leave the planet together." She took a deep, shaky breath. "And even now I have people like... like Cerberus. Telling me that I'm still special."

"You are," Miranda said. "You've accomplished so much. Look at those, not at what you failed to do."

"Yeah." She looked back up at Miranda then, with those tired brown eyes. "You know what it's like. Judging you based on things you didn't control. Luck, genetics, whatever, it's all the same. You know."

Miranda nodded. She tried to speak, but her voice cracked, and she found that she couldn't.

"I'm... glad. I'm glad that you believe that. Even if it means you're wrong in the end, because I wanted so badly to... to trust you." It was Shepard who closed the distance, taking quick steps as she spoke, who pressed her hands on either side of Miranda's shoulders, against the aquarium wall. "I'm glad," she said again, and then she leaned in to kiss her, and Miranda closed her eyes and kissed her back.

The first time was fierce and violent, a sudden storm that had been waiting for the right conditions; Miranda was sure she tasted blood by the time they finished. The second was gentler, calmer, and she was being pushed up against the wall of that bloody aquarium and they were probably scaring the fish as their hands went everywhere, and she didn't care. Those fish had it good enough; they could tolerate it.

Somehow they ended up on the bed, after a while - somehow they both made it there without letting go of each other or tripping over anything on the floor - and soon enough they were next to each other, stripped from their respective uniforms, Miranda's flawless white skin bright against where Shepard had once proudly born her scars. She knew where they had all been, traced the sites of a few of them with her fingertips. She had known Shepard's anatomy intimately, although really, she'd never imagined that she ever would in a literal sense. Or maybe she had, and she hadn't let herself admit it. It was remarkably easy, under those circumstances, to lose track of time.

Miranda wasn't sure how much time they had left by the time they were both exhausted, although she thought perhaps a half-hour. She looked at Shepard as she rested, and was more than a bit pleased to see that she was almost smiling. "Shepard?" she said, feeling a bit odd. She knew her first name, of course, but calling her Ana when she'd known her as Shepard all that time, and without any sort of permission, felt as though it would be breaking some sort of rule.

"Hm?" She seemed relaxed, almost smiling.

"If we survive this mission, and we fight off the Reapers, what do you want?"

"Mmm. You'll laugh if I tell you."

"No, I won't. I promise."

"Okay, fine." Shepard rolled over and faced her. "I don't know where I want to go. I don't think it matters. All I know is I want somewhere quiet, and I want a dog. A big dog. Hell, a whole ranch full of big dogs."

"So that you can take care of them," she said.

"Yeah. Maybe they'll be dogs people abandoned. Dogs that were living without anyone to care for 'em. I just... maybe I wanna give something back, you know?"

"Mmm." Miranda turned and wrapped an arm around her supple waist. "That doesn't sound ridiculous at all."

"Doesn't it? The great Commander Shepard, first human Spectre, retiring on a little colony somewhere and running a dog farm. That doesn't sound a little bit silly?"

"No. It sounds like it suits you."

Shepard leaned in and kissed her, lightly, one more time. "Thanks, Miranda."

"No... thank you."

Soon enough, Shepard was asleep, and Miranda found herself drifting off too. She knew very well that there wasn't much time, but it was all right. EDI would wake them up when it was time.

---

They were alive.

Miranda could scarcely believe any of it. They were alive, and they were out of the Core, and they'd blown the base behind them. They'd destroyed it, even though the Illusive Man had ordered Shepard not to.

Shepard had decided differently. And Miranda had stood by her. By the commander, not the Illusive Man.

Her fingers strayed to the Cerberus insignia on her uniform. She didn't deserve to wear it anymore, she thought. She'd defied a direct order, and she still couldn't bring herself to believe that it had been wrong. She'd seen reports on what indoctrination could do, and Shepard had seen worse than reports. And she couldn't do anything but trust Shepard... especially after Shepard had trusted her in return.

The doors opened. Shepard was standing there. "How are you holding up, Miranda?" she said as they closed behind her.

"Fine," she said, automatically. "A bit intimidated."

Shepard nodded. "It's always hard to give up structure. Like I did, when I was a kid. But sometimes the freedom's worth it, especially when what you're leaving is worse."

"Hm. I hadn't thought about it that way," she said. "Although... it's a bit different, I'd say. Considering that I still have you."

"Of course you do." Shepard smiled. "Come on. I don't know about you but I could use a drink."

Miranda smiled. "More Nepenthe?" she said.

"Not yet - later, I hope. But I think that we can talk Chakwas into sharing some of her private stock. She owes me one." She reached out and squeezed Miranda's arm, briefly but tenderly. "You up for it?"

"Of course." Miranda smiled. "After what we've been through, I'd follow you anywhere."

The smile on her face was real, that time, just before she leaned in for another kiss, and Miranda couldn't bring herself to worry about what was going to happen, not for that moment. She was free, and she wasn't alone, and she wasn't going to let it go to waste.

Author's Notes:

On the whole, I think that this is one of the few fics this year that turned out pretty much as I planned it. I certainly had a lot of fun writing it.

My recipient flattered me especially by saying that zie liked the Shepard I had made here - she isn't one of the ones I've played in the game, although I did load up the first ME and create a face so that I'd know how it looked with a bit of running around in-game. (She's a Sentinel, if you're curious.) And I tried to make her background particularly important - especially the Sole Survivor part of it, because really, if there's one thing I needed to touch on for this fic, it was the idea that Cerberus - and Miranda by extension, in Shepard's mind - would've been responsible for getting Shepard's squad killed on Akuze. I really wanted to see that mentioned in the fic, especially after the game more or less overlooked it. I don't know if I did as good of a job as I could have on that confrontation, but I hope it worked. (I actually switched the order of scenes around a bit there, since I actually had planned to write that scene early on, but I figured it would work better as the climax of the piece - they've started having feelings for each other, but Shepard NEEDS an answer about that before she can really trust her. I think it's better that way.)

I'm much obliged to Dear (Not Just) Urban Fantasy Author by kaigou - it helped me figure out a bit of what Shepard's mentality would be like, given her background (although I doubt that I got it completely right. I did my very best, though.) It also gave me the idea of Shepard's big thing being that she needs to take good care of animals. I imagined her looking at those fish and that hamster in their little shops and thinking, these are terrible conditions, I have to do better. She'd never be an animal hoarder; she'd get as many as she could take care of, and then take good care of them. I don't know if she'd live long enough to have that dog ranch, but hey, a woman can dream.

At any rate I'm very glad that my recipient liked it! I wasn't able to find much about zir fannish history before I had to start writing this - I like to know a little bit just to know what people like - so I went into it based essentially on the signup and Dear Writer letter. It seemed to work, and I'm glad for that! I do wish I'd had more time to polish it, and to expand the ending, but on the whole this turned out more or less as I'd hoped.

(Also, fun fact - the Space Hamster on the Citadel costs 9200 credits before discounts. That's more expensive than Life Support Webbing and most of the armor upgrades, and far more expensive than any fish. So yes, they really do cost quite a bit.)