Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

They say that one's life flashes before their eyes in the moments before their death, so Jayne Shepard knew without a doubt that she was, in fact, dying. Her life flashed and overlaid the sight of the Normandy coming apart at the seams, little inconsequential things and hugely important things and things in between that she didn't know she had remembered. All of them went by as she floated further and further from reach, her air leaking from her suit at a rapid rate.

Oh, Normandy, look at you, she thought with a second of clarity, seeing bulkheads and carpeting fly out in all directions, just as she was. Uncle David is gonna kill me.

You're funny, Jayne. Real funny.

Memories hit her, disjointed and quick...

***

“Good morning, Officer Vakarian,” she said, running fingertips across the shoulder of a well tailored C-Sec uniform, before tidying up the one seam that lay out of place against his keel bone.

“Commander Shepard,” replied an equally unremarkable tone from a most remarkably dual toned voice. They shared a secret smile that no one else saw, fingers brushing as they passed each other in the corridor of the Wards. Only last night she'd been pinned against a wall in her dingy apartment by those powerful hands, had been gripped and spread open like a feast for the mouth that went with that voice.

And today? Today was like any other, two professionals passing through their respective districts on their way to work.

***

“Critical failure in suit atmospheric seals,” a stale, canned computerized voice said in her ear. It was faint as if from far away, but Jayne knew it was coming from inside her helmet. Dammit, her eardrums had blown already. She could barely move her limbs in the near absolute cold of open space, her face essentially locked in place and facing the remains of the Normandy. From her vantage point the damage to her beloved ship was undeniably complete. She would shed a tear if she had any to spare. At least she hadn't panicked at the inability to move. Funny how that fear had finally been burned away.

Not to mention, she was already aware her air was leaking. She'd known it as soon as she'd started drifting away from her ship at a faster pace than she should have been, pushed away from it as her mass was nullified in the lack of gravity field. In her imagination she could hear the hiss of the air as it dissipated into the vacuum. It wouldn't take long now.

More flashes of the past, some good, some...not so much...

***

“First time on the Citadel?” the nasally voice of Ambassador Udina said. She laughed; she had been working with other Alliance personnel side by side with the local C-Sec officers for over a year and was in and out of his office in the embassies several times a week. First time on the Citadel, indeed. She bloody well lived there!

“Oh no, Ambassador, I've been here before.” Diplomacy she could do, she decided. Better than he could, it appeared.

She looked up at the cherry blossoms on the trees that lined the Citadel Tower. They looked so unreal to her, so strangely out of place. She knew they weren't real cherries like she knew them, they were merely an analog type of tree that grew on Thessia and had been planted by the asari ages ago, long before humans had found the relays. Still...the similarities were uncanny.

“Hmm, well if you're one of Anderson's crew you should get back to him,” Udina sneered. She'd never understood how someone so lacking in basic manners, much less any persuasive charms, had become the spokesperson for the entire human race on the Citadel. Just went to show how much money still talked in their supposedly enlightened age.

“Already on my way,” she retorted blithely, turning her back to the rude little man and marching out with her shotgun across her back. Garrus was waiting for her at the elevator. Routine paperwork, of course. All neatly filed and tucked away in plastene folders before they swept the table clear to fuck on it. Long and slow she would ride him, letting it build until neither of them could stand it anymore. Long and slow before the urgency would get too great for him and he lay her out flat on that table to pound into her like he was dying. Man, she knew she would miss that table when they finally broke it.

***

“Temperature dropping rapidly,” the tinny voice said in her helmet again and she nearly snorted aloud. Well, she would have, if she had any air to spare. Her eyes were beginning to dry out and her body no longer felt cold. She was getting tired too and could feel her lungs gasping inside her rib cage, desperate for air that wasn't coming. But there was no panic left in her; she'd made her peace already. She'd made her peace as soon as she'd seen the bridge, as soon as she'd stuffed Joker into that pod and twisted the escape valve. She knew her end was very near and that she wouldn't be as lucky as her pilot or any of the other crew that got away.

One life balanced against all the rest...she thought. Please let it be worth it.

More memories...this one recent and painful, full of regret and the sour knowledge that she'd done what she could and it hadn't made a difference...

***

Saren's ruined face, animated by the Reaper tech inside him into a mockery of life, looked up at her from the smashed floor of the Tower council chamber. Sovereign had no control over him now; he was at peace. It seemed a shame that she wasn't.  And then he was gone, burned to ash as the dying Reaper withdrew from the body. There was a looming presence literally falling behind her, but she didn't turn to look. She would be crushed, she knew, and all she could think about was how she would never again feel Garrus against her skin as he woke her from a sound sleep. He loved sneaking away from the maintenance berth below to her cabin in the wee hours of the night shift, almost like a gleeful child getting away with something.

She could hear him now, in fact, his dual tones both screaming at her to move as Sovereign crashed through the ceiling to disintegrate around her. She was buried under the weight of the dead Reaper, caught in the tangles of dark energy and oily slick metallic parts.

***

She would have no such luck now, drifting further away from the wreckage of her ship. Nothing to crush her in open space except the vacuum itself. She couldn't hear the voice of her helmet anymore, which either meant her eardrums had given way completely or the mechanisms inside her suit had frozen.

She couldn't see anything anymore either. But there wasn't the pain she expected. The cold had deadened her nerves already, the long sleep of hypothermia and asphyxiation awaited her. She began to tumble as debris hit her...

***

“I have never been so glad to have left C-Sec as right now,” Garrus said, even the memory of his voice far away now. He had been looking at her, running his fingers along her bare skin, those deadly talons carefully whispering over sensitive places that made her shiver with anticipation. His race was a disciplined one, but oh, the passion they held in reserve that was unleashed in private. It made her tremble to know she was the object of his singular attention. Her, a lowly human in a universe too big and too diverse. The lights in Garrus's eyes held hers as he touched her, as he brought her skin to vibrant life under his talons....

***

Jayne died with her eyes open, and her mouth smiling. Her last bit of air said his name, even though there was no one to hear it, not even herself. Her last thought was of him, and the deluge of regret that he wasn't even going to know how much she loved him. She'd never gotten the chance to tell him...

Her body drifted like just another piece of debris in the field of it that was once the SSV Normandy. The cold lifeless shell that had once been Jayne Shepard didn't feel the impact as she landed on the planet below, didn't see the lights long afterwards combing through the mass of twisted metal and torn apart furniture. It didn't feel itself being hauled into the airlock of another vessel. And it certainly didn't see the shock on the faces of those who uncovered her from her broken armor.

Jayne isn't here right now, please leave a message...

Chapter Text

“I think she's waking up,” a voice said from far away, indistinct but deep. Male and human, she thought, and then wondered why she would know that.

“She needs more sedative. I told you your calculations were off.” This second voice was female, and more clipped. Strong accent, she thought. Wait...why do I know that too?

There was a hiss of something cold and she couldn't feel anything anymore. She knew it should bother her, she knew she should be full on freaking out at not being able to move, not being in control of her body, but there was nothing. Not really. Nothing could bother her now. Nothing...

***

“Tell us about joining the Alliance Fleet and being stationed on the Citadel,” she was asked, either out loud or in her head, she couldn't decide which. Almost against her will her mind took her away from her body and into the past. A past so vivid and clear it was like being in a VR vid. Helplessly she watched her life spin out before her mind's eye once more, stopping abruptly at a spot nearly two full years before she set foot in the ship that would become her home away from home.

That ship was the Normandy, she remembered. A momentary flash of explosions seen from afar crossed her mind before her focus zeroed in once again on the more distant past.

***

“Jayne Shepard, reporting for duty,” she said, saluting smartly before bursting into giggles. “Hello, Uncle David.”

“C'mere, my little Jayney.” Anderson hugged her so tight her feet came off the floor and the air was crushed from her lungs. She held onto him just as tightly, though. “Been too long, little girl.”

“I'm not a little girl anymore,” she reminded him.

“No, you're not,” he said, suddenly serious. “All done with therapy?”

She made a face. “Yeah.”

She knew it had been necessary. Between the attack on her colony home when she was a teenager – the same attack that ended up putting her in David Anderson's path – and the disaster that had been the mission on Akuze, therapy had been the one thing keeping her mentally stable. And she wasn't all that sure she was. But she had coping mechanisms, as her therapist called them, she had her training, and she had her duty to the Alliance and David. He'd saved her life, she'd happily spend the rest of it proving it had been worth the effort on his part.

“Are you settling in all right?”

“I guess. Feels weird here. Like, I know I'm in space, but you sure can't tell walking down the alleys in the Wards.”

“You'll get used to it. So, liaison to C-Sec. You think you're up for this? It's a lot of paperwork and red tape.”

“It'll be low key enough to keep me busy, and not stressful in the way interstellar combat is. At least, that's what they tell me.”

“Well...”

She grinned and put a hand on Anderson's arm. “I'll be fine, Uncle David. And you know I don't have anything against turians or any other race, not like other people I've met.”

“Speaking of which, I should probably take you down to meet Executor Pallin, he's the head of C-Sec and intercedes with the Council when needs be.”

“Okay.” Jayne followed Anderson from his cubicle in Ambassador Udina's office to the other end of the wing, near the diplomats' bar.

“Executor...” Anderson began, but broke off when he saw the tall turian engaged in conversation with one of his officers. Jayne noticed the other turian's blue colony markings and the distinctive headpiece he wore with its visor down over his left eye. He was nearly as tall as Pallin, but his face was set in a much smoother expression. Younger, her mind's trivia section supplied, recalling the xeno-biology classes she'd taken just prior to her appointment with Anderson. Probably less rigidly formal. He seemed to be observing her as much as she was him.

“Sorry, Captain,” Pallin said when he was finished with his officer, who stood back and waited his turn, so to speak. “This is your new liaison?”

“Jayne Shepard,” she said, introducing herself. “Mindoir colony, 5^th Alliance Fleet.”

“You're the survivor from Akuze, correct? And an N7,” the Executor continued, walking nearer to shake her hand human style. “Quite a feat.”

“Thank you,” she said softly. “But I just did my duty.”

Never mind that I was the only one to survive, her mind interrupted. Never mind how many of the dead haunt me.

Breathe, Jayne. Count the breaths. One...two...three...

“If only all humans were so dedicated.” Jayne didn't take offense. She knew how turians could be about her kind. The First Contact War was still within living memory, after all. And frankly, she couldn't blame them entirely. Sure it had been a misunderstanding, but growing up knowing about the 'other side's' perspective had taught her that humans were seen as little more than galactic children playing with a dangerous toy they had no understanding of. They were tolerated by most, genuinely liked by few. “I'll be honest, Shepard. I'm not particularly fond of humans. You are aggressive and ambitious, as a whole. That leaves those of us with lineages that served in the Krogan Rebellions wary. That being said, I trust Captain Anderson's judgment when it comes to liaising with my officers. He speaks highly of you.”

“I hope I can live up to his – and your – expectations.”

Pallin's mandibles flicked briefly before he turned and gestured to the visored turian who had been waiting patiently for notice. Or perhaps permission to leave, if his posture of impatience said anything. “This is Garrus Vakarian, one of my junior officers. You will likely be working together frequently.”

The turian named Garrus approached and shook her hand – again, human style – and she noticed his eyes were as blue as his colony markings. “My pleasure,” he said.

His voice was carefully modulated and controlled and she felt it in her belly like a vibration through a bulkhead. She'd known a few turians before, especially after Akuze and her studies. She knew about the dual layered voice and the subvocals that were integral to their language. There was something about turian voices that just punched the gut. She'd even known of a few girls back in her classes at the Alliance Academy who had gone so far as to sleep with a turian all because of their voice. Garrus's was particularly...resonating, and for the first time she could see the appeal.

“Likewise,” she said, stringently holding back the urge to sound breathless. Damn, that reaction could get her into trouble if she wasn't careful.

“That was all we needed,” Anderson said respectfully, snapping her back to the moment like a bucket of cold water. “I just wanted to you meet officially before she begins her tour here.”

“I appreciate it, Captain. Now, if you'll excuse me...”

“Certainly, Executor.” Anderson led Jayne back to Udina's office. She noticed Garrus following them down the stairs to the landing before he went off his own way, probably back to C-Sec. Jayne admired the way his blue and black uniform complemented his markings for a moment before giving her attention back to her former guardian.

***

“She's still not out, Miranda.”

“I'm aware of that,” the accented voice snapped near her head. “Drop the stasis temperature down another notch, let's see if some cold makes her sleep.”

The voices drifted away and Shepard drifted with them in a sea of gray and cool. Time had no meaning for her, but in her dreams she still saw Garrus's blue eyes and remembered.

Chapter Text

“Tell us about joining the Alliance after Mindoir. We are not interested in your memories of a painted avian descendant...”

***

Blood, crushed vegetation and burning wood and plastic. The sound of screaming, of gunfire, of shrieking metal on metal and the rumble beneath her as vehicles – both ground and air – moved throughout the community. The implant on the base of her skull made her compliant, made her utterly motionless, but couldn't block out her sensory perceptions of her home after the batarians were done with it.

She knelt frozen in the dirt, her eyes locked on those of her father. She watched them turn glassy and empty, watched flies settle in them until she could no longer see the bright blue they'd once been. But she couldn't move from the spot, couldn't look away, couldn't even vomit out the acid that built up in her stomach watching her father's corpse being slowly returned to the earth.

The batarians didn't rape or torture her at least, and for that she was grateful. She was good stock, according to them. She was a biotic, although untrained. They knew she was a worthwhile slave that would draw a good price only if kept in pristine condition. She withdrew into her own head to prevent herself from hearing what was happening to those less fortunate. She had never dreamed that her exposure to eezo in utero as her family moved from Sol to the Hawking Eta to the Attican Traverse would one day save her from a such a fate.

In that small part of her mind that stayed rational and sane during the events of the raid, she thought about the irony of having grown up here, rather than back in the home system, to be raised and trained at the Biotic Acclimation and Temperance Training facility. Her parents had never wanted that for her, especially since her biotics had never manifested as anything useful...at least until the batarians came and she'd blasted them from her in a mindless surge of terrified energy as they tried to rope her in with the others. And now the reason her father was dead was because of her biotics. The batarians had shot him down as he protected her, shielded her with her own body to keep them from hurting her. She didn't know where her mother was. She would never know.

Time passed as she knelt there, the shadows of daylight to darkness creeping ever closer as the slavers made their systematic way through the survivors. She wanted to struggle against the implant, but it was no use. She couldn't move, and didn't know enough about her own abilities to use them to her advantage. She was trapped in her body, trapped with nowhere to go but deeper into her own head. But she knew when the Alliance arrived. She heard the sudden gun fire, the changed pitch in the guttural scrabble of batarian voices, the static of intercom radios.

“Here's another one,” she heard a while later in good old fashioned English. A pair of legs in Alliance blue appeared in her line of sight and she felt tears stream down her face in relief.

“I've got you now,” a deeper voice said, and there was pressure on the back on her neck. Her limbs – so long in one position they'd cramped and stiffened – suddenly sprang out without her control, flailing her around until she landed in the bloody dirt with a thump. Strong arms encircled her, and for a moment she panicked, feeling as constrained as the implant had made her, but the face that met hers as he lifted her was compassionate and warm. She relaxed by sheer force of will. “My name is David,” he said. “I've got you. You're safe.”

“Jesus, she's just a kid,” the first voice said.

“My God, look at her eyes,” another voice said. “She's a biotic.”

“Doesn't matter right now,” the man named David said soothingly, perhaps sensing or seeing the fear rise up in her like a tide through the overly bright violet eyes that signaled something different about her. “Right now, we just need to get her out of here.”

***

“Anderson, David. Captain of the SSV Normandy until replaced by you, Commander Shepard, human Spectre. You see why we are interested in you?” the voice persisted, although she still could not determine whether she was actually hearing it, or just imagining it.

“Anderson raised you after Mindoir, didn't he? Took you into his home and heart. He's the reason you joined the Alliance after graduating from biotic training. Isn't he, Shepard?”

...Who are you...?

“Tell us about Akuze, Shepard.”

She struggled against the voice, but it was so formless it was like trying to catch smoke. The scene playing behind her eyes shifted and changed, trading in the smell of blood on a backdrop of the earthy scent of home for the burning sting of acid and ozone .

***

The colony seemed to be in perfect condition. Jayne didn't understand. Why had the settlers disappeared from it? Her commanding officer set up the watch for the night cycle and patted her shoulder comfortingly. She didn't know much about this place, didn't have the first clue as to why it appeared to have been abandoned, but she felt better knowing her commander seemed confident they'd figure this mystery out. She finished up her shift of cautious patrolling and went to sleep in one of the bunks.

She woke to the sound of screaming. She'd hoped to never hear that combination of sounds again and for a moment she was frozen in place, vivid recollections of Mindoir flooding her and chilling her heart.

You are not that girl anymore, she thought, commanding her body to obey.

She stepped into the gray darkness and saw the monsters looming at the edge of their camp, towering serpent shapes crowned in tentacles and teeth. Marines spilled out of tents and bivouacs, armed and ready, but there was nothing anyone could do against a thresher maw on foot. And here there were several.

“Fucking hell,” the CO shouted. “Now we know where the pioneers went.”

Jayne ran just like the others, her shotgun in her hands. It wouldn't do any good, she knew that, but she felt better having the weapon in her hands as she ran. The thresher maws spit acid out across the camp, roaring in frustration and pain as the Marines peppered them with their weapons. Jayne just ran. She had a job to do. She had to hit the evac alarm and call in reinforcements from the Alliance ship above. Her breath burned in her lungs, bringing with it the stench of flesh and plastic and the tang of the acid from the creatures.

Ignore it, her brain said. Just keep going.

The evac alarm was positioned in the tallest tower of the semi-permanent camp where the settlers had begun to build a real city in the green, lush valley. From the corner of her eye she saw tentacles reaching out for her fellow soldiers and the sight put a burst a adrenaline into her system, giving her the last little bit of strength she needed to reach the tower. She raced up the flight of stairs and hit the alarm going full speed, crashing in a heap against the wall as the siren sounded aloud while simultaneously emitting a sonar distress call to their ship.

Of course, when the rescue team came, only Jayne remained, hidden in the tower, her shotgun nearly slagged as she had used every heat sink she had on her. The last thresher maw wasn't dead, but it had gotten tired of trying to pry her out of her bolthole and was now only making occasional forays to reach her through the windows. The whole tower leaned precariously where acid was eating away at the support struts and if the rescue ship had taken much longer, she too would have been among the nameless dead in a thresher maw's gullet.

The ship didn't try to land, and she had to pull herself out of the disintegrating tower to the lip of the hatch, turning her back to where she knew the creature was. Dread settled into her as instinctual as the first caveman to light a fire against the dark.

“You can do it,” shouted the faceless soldier with his hand reached out to her. “Just a bit more.”

She heard the firefight begin again as the covering Marines unleashed barrage after barrage on the mindless creature. Fear now spurred her and she leapt into the air, catching the edge of the hatch with her fingertips. A strong hand wrapped around her wrist and hauled her into the shuttle.

“Anyone else in there with you?” the soldier asked. She couldn't even speak after the horrors she'd witnessed and experienced. She just shook her head. The Marine held her arms steady and she fought to break away from his grip. She just couldn't stand to be held like that...not after...no...

“Let's go, Lieutenant,” the Marine called to the pilot. “She's all that's left.”

The ship lifted away from the camp and Jayne steadfastly did not look back at the torn tents and strewn about bodies, half eaten and melting from the acid. She stared at the face plate of the Marine who'd pulled her up until the hatch closed and she had to buckle in for the ride back to the Alliance vessel waiting for her report.

Chapter Text

She heard something like a disappointed sigh. “Dammit, these connections are not lining up properly. They'll have to come out.”

“Miranda...”

“They have to come out, I said! She's no use to us as a quadriplegic vegetable. We'll have to start over.”

She tried to move and found that she couldn't. She couldn't even open her eyes. Ugly acid terror swamped her, made her go blank and shut out the arguing voices over her head.

Ican'tmoveIcan'tmoveIcan'tmove....

Breathe, Jayne...just breathe. You're not on Mindoir anymore. The implant can't hold you, can't keep you trapped. Remember your training, Jayne.

Who's Jayne?

***

“Tell us about Alliance training. Why did you become an N7, Shepard?”

***

The void of space was pitch black around her, pinpricked with stars that appeared to be no closer to her on this hunk of rock than they did standing on the solid ground in Rio. Jupiter was behind her, almost out of sight as the tiny, nameless asteroid rotated on its axis. The air was thin, thinner than even hiking atop the mountains in Argentina, but Jayne knew what that meant. This time being the last one was a good sign, a sign that she was nearly finished. She hid behind an outcropping of stone and waited for the mechs to find her, conserving her energy.

Breathe...one...two...three...

There was little sound passing through the thin atmosphere, another harbinger of the end of this training round, but the ground rumbled under her feet. She pressed a hand to the gritty surface of the asteroid and closed her eyes, using the strength of the vibration as a tool to tell how far off the mechs were. When they were close enough, she abandoned her cover and shot them to slag, one after the other.

She heaved for air, gasping and coughing. Even with her hands on her hips, allowing for the greatest inflation of her lungs, she couldn't get a deep breath in. Black spots were beginning to sparkle at the edges of her vision. Surely this was the end of it.

The ground rumbled again and she groaned, barely hearing herself. She reloaded her shotgun and moved back into cover to wait.

***

“Congratulations, N1,” she heard as she came back to consciousness in what was undoubtedly a medical bay. She could tell from the antiseptic scent in the air, and the sterile quality of the light. That and the truly uncomfortable bed that nonetheless cradled her better than anything she could remember in recent days.

“How...how long...?”

“You've been here three days. I've never seen anyone make it that far before. Were you raised on a mountaintop?” The smiling doctor checked her over – IV insertion point, oxygen saturation, pulse, heart rate and blood pressure – before moving to lean against a counter. Jayne looked around and saw the rest of the medical bay was empty.

“Where...?”

“Ganymede station. You needed attention rather swiftly.” The doctor shook her head. “You were in pretty sorry shape by the time you got here. No major injuries, but plenty of exposure and exhaustion. I swear that training is less about making you stronger and more about what they can get away with torturing Marines.”

Jayne relaxed into the thin cushion of the mattress and let her eyes drift shut. The bright lights were painful after so long in the relative dark of an unnamed asteroid floating around Jupiter. “But I did it?”

“You did.” The doctor sounded both impressed and disapproving.

“Not a mountaintop,” she said, her eyes still closed. “I'm just stubborn.”

I had something to prove, she thought privately.

The doctor huffed a laugh. “Evidently. Go back to sleep now. You can eat some real food if you give me four more hours of rest.”

“Yes, ma'am.”

“My name is Chakwas, N1,” the doctor said, and Jayne could hear warmth in her voice now.

“Shepard,” she murmured as she drifted off. She was fairly certain the doctor had just put something in her IV to help her along to those extra four hours.

“Yes, I'm well aware.”

***

“Live fire! Live fire!”

The shots rang out across the training facility and Jayne ducked behind a stack of crates, her now trusted shotgun in her hands. After today she would be an N5. She just had to survive long enough.

The shots grew closer and she stood up when she saw another of her team mates faltering as the rest filed into the arena, each one diving into cover before the live ammunition found homes in their bodies. The one who'd fallen behind was going to get himself killed. Jayne pulled into her core and released a steady breath, calling her biotics to her command without thinking about the decision to help the fallen man. A blast of sonic blue shot from her outstretched fingers and the mech following behind the fallen Marine flew backwards into its nearest neighbor, tangling them together. With another surge of biotic energy, she lifted the downed Marine and threw him behind cover.

“Get your ass in gear!” she shouted to him. Without sparing him a further glance, she worked her way through the mechs with the rest of the team until they were all dead or deactivated. Only one had gotten anywhere close to shooting her, and she had put up a barrier before it could deplete her shields.

Now that the test was in a lull, the others were resting where they stood, but not her. She was too hungry to sit still and went into the crates looking for rations.

“Shepard, take a breather,” one of them said wearily. “You know we ain't done yet.”

“I'm starving,” she shot back with irritation. “Why don't they tell you biotics are always hungry?”

“There aren't enough of them in the N program to know.”

“Huh,” she grunted. Her amp had overheated and she had a massive headache forming behind her eyes. But she could ignore it for now as long as she found something to eat. She opened another crate and before she could even pull back the lid she felt the wires attached to it. “Fuck!”

A live munitions bomb was strapped to the underside of the lid, a boobytrap just waiting for a careless, hungry biotic to go haphazardly pilfering. Slowly she turned the crate lid on its side, cautiously endeavoring not to set off the timer as she pulled out a pair of snips from her belt. She barely even breathed as she worked her way through the tangled of identically colored wires to the one she knew would be slightly different. That one would disable the timer and render the bomb 'safe'. Behind her, she heard the others get to their feet at her curse, but they stayed at a prudent distance, just in case she blew herself up.

“Thanks for the vote of confidence, guys,” she muttered, their worry and paranoia combining to hit her stubborn streak into high gear. Probably more recklessly than she should, she flipped the wires through her fingers, finding the once that was just a single shade different that connected to the bomb's timer. Just as the timer ticked on, she found it and snipped. Nine more seconds and it would have been a bad day to be Jayne Shepard.

“Anything good?” a brave soul dared to ask, coming up to her and looking over her shoulder.

“Dark chocolate, granola with almonds, granola with peanut butter and...aha jackpot!...beef jerky.” Jayne grinned at the others who now crowded around her. She grabbed the beef jerky and one each of the granola squares before leaving the rest for the team to divvy up.

She took her prizes and climbed up a stack of crates where she could see the whole perimeter of the training ground. It was a vast space, a hangar sized cavern deep within a rocky asteroid tethered to Ganymede station. If a test went horribly wrong, the asteroid could be cut loose without damaging the station itself. Obstacles, crates and weapons caches were scattered throughout the space, as well as a single prefab structure that was the 'tap out' safehouse. Jayne was proud of her current team mates; no one had requested to go there yet after three days of this test.

“They're comin' back!” she heard Hargrave shout, a dark skinned man who stood squat and stocky but nevertheless was the best shot of the team and quick on his feet to boot.

“Form up,” she called, stuffing the rest of the beef jerky in her cheek to free up her hands. From her vantage point she could see the mechs rolling through the labyrinth of crates and debris, a bright row of floating objects following in their wake. “Oh, fuck me...” she snarled. “Explosive drones coming in.”

The rest of the team scrambled to their feet, arming and loading their various weapons of choice. The drones floated out from behind the mechs and spread out, effectively flanking the team. The drones were quicker and more agile than their ground based counterparts and Jayne spent a hectic half an hour dodging the explosive rounds just like her team before they had them all disabled. The lights dimmed and then brightened in a sequence, signaling the end of the testing round and the team of Marines filed to the safehouse to tend any wounds and wait for the shuttle that would take them back to the station for their debrief.

“Good work, guys,” Jayne said wearily, finally allowing herself to feel the exhaustion of nearly four days on minimal rations and sleep. No one had been seriously hurt, and no one had tapped out. They all deserved to be proud.

***

“Your training prepared you well for the conflicts you faced with Saren and his geth,” the voice said. She tried to get away from it, to hide or disappear, but there was no escaping it in the confines of her own head. “You showed leadership qualities very early on.”

...Leave me alone...

“But there is still so much to learn from you, Shepard.”

...No, Shepard is dead. I died over Alchera...my ship...my ship exploded...attacked...I'm dead...

“Perhaps you did. Perhaps you didn't.”

...What...?

Chapter Text

“Cognition is coming back online,” she heard the accented voice from far away. No sense of time had passed, but she felt different. She couldn't place what it was, but she knew something had changed. “Beta waves are high but within normal limits.”

“She's dreaming...” the male voice said thoughtfully. “That's a good sign.”

“I hope so.”

***

“We want to know about Eden Prime, Shepard.”

No, enough. Get out of my brain.

For a fleeting moment she saw in her mind's eye the insectile shape of Sovereign hanging over the burning skies of Eden Prime, felt the pressure from the beacon, the horror at finding Nihlus dead, her hands dripping with blue turian blood, but she wrenched herself away from it, digging deep into her memory for something better...something happier. Painted avian descendants...

“What are you doing, Shepard?”

...Changing the channel...

***

She lugged her duffel bag and a carton of books down the dimly lit corridor of the apartment building, trying to read the door numbers while simultaneously digging out the key given to her by the elcor landlord.

“Need a hand?” asked a dual toned voice and once she was done having shivers run down her spine – damn turian voices! – Jayne turned with the intent of saying 'no thanks'. But she recognized those blue markings and smiled instead.

“Vakarian, right?”

“Yes,” the turian replied, taken slightly aback that she remembered him. “Shepard, isn't it? Captain Anderson's new assistant.”

“Well, not really new anymore, am I? It's been a couple months.”

“That's fair, I suppose. Here, need me to take something?”

He held out his hands, the three spread out digits still seeming strange even after months of being around turians and volus and salarians, and she gratefully unloaded the carton into them. She shifted the duffel bag higher onto her shoulder and flipped through the keys until she found her new one.

“Thanks,” she said, letting him fall in behind her as she marched to the correct door.

“Moving in?” he asked.

“Yeah. It was time to get my own place. Hotel living is all well and good, but not very practical on an Alliance salary. The elcor downstairs didn't boast this place as being much, but it sounds like it will be perfect.”

“This building isn't so bad. I live just down the hall, actually.”

“You do?” It was her turn to be surprised. For some reason she thought the C-Sec officers had quarters down in their wing of the Wards. “Small world...well...space station.”

“Yeah, it's a long story.”

“I'd offer you a beer and a willing ear, but I don't have any dextro things.”

Garrus huffed and his mandibles spread in what she could only think of as a grin. “It's all right, Shepard. Since you're new to the building, maybe I should get you a housewarming gift. That's the right expression, isn't it?”

She grinned back and nodded, opening the door to the tiny one bedroom apartment she had just leased for a year. “Yes, it is. But you don't have to get me anything, honest.”

“It would be neighborly. Especially since we're basically working together.”

He had stopped just inside her door, the carton of books still in his arms. She dropped her duffel on the floor and went over to take it from him. “You can come in, at least. Check for any security hazards?”

She didn't even know where the flirtatious tone had come from, and hoped he didn't have enough knowledge of humans to hear it, but from the flick at his jaw, she wasn't too hopeful she'd gotten away with it. Still, he came inside and closed the door, looking over the small apartment.

The layout was simple: galley kitchen with bar separating it from a good sized living room, built in shelves along the wall, a medium sized bedroom and a bathroom with species specific accouterments across from it. It didn't have much furniture, just a long sofa and a matching armchair – both in a fairly boring shade of beige and moderately stuffed to accommodate most bipedal species – a low coffee table and a wall mounted screen that could be synced with her omni-tool. There were two small windows on either side of the screen that looked out over the Wards, and she was high enough that the view was pretty decent.

“If it's anything like my place,” Garrus said, “your kitchen sink will leak, the tiles will fall on your head in the shower and...well...your, uh, bed is probably flatter than mine anyway.”

“What do you mean?” Jayne asked.

“Turians can't sleep totally flat, you know.” He gestured to his head and she caught on. Between the heavy cowl of bone around his neck and the fringe on his head, she couldn't imagine being horizontal worked for such a species. Of course, that made her curious.

“Do I even want to know what happened to it?”

“Uh...probably not.”

Now she really wanted to know. But she let it go. “So if not flat, how do turians sleep?”

“I've, uh...I've heard asari call it a bowl shape. We...we kind of curl up in it.”

Jayne made a show of putting her books away in neat rows in the built in bookshelf, carefully keeping any thoughts of cats curled into balls strictly to herself. It was fairly obvious that there was only one way an asari would know...or that he would know himself what she then called it.

Guess he knows his way around humanoid anatomy, her traitorous brain conjured up, diverting her mental image from sweet and cute to decidedly not.

Stop it, Jayne. He's a coworker. Not to mention another species. And...

And he's adorable.

“I see,” she said aloud once she had her urge to giggle under control. When she stood up from the bookshelf, she saw that he was checking out her kitchen. “What do you think, Officer? Anything liable to kill me in there?”

“It all seems to be in working order,” he said, almost without thinking about it, falling back into the professional attitude she'd come to expect from a turian C-Sec officer. But when she joined him in the rather tight space between the appliances and the bar, he appeared much more nervous. “I should go, let you get settled in.”

“I'll let you know when I buy some dextro beer, to thank you for your help,” she said, standing perhaps a bit close in his personal space, but enjoying the flickers of his mandibles too much for feel sorry for it. She'd gotten pretty good at reading turians after a couple months of working side by side with them. At least, she hoped she had. He was definitely nervous, which was odd...if he wasn't interested in her.

“I'll...uh...I'll take you up on that, maybe.” He made a noise with his subvocals that couldn't be anything other than a nervous clearing of the throat before he practically ran to the door. “I'll see you around, Shepard.”

“Jayne,” she corrected. “At least during off hours. No one else ever calls me by name, it feels like.”

He nodded, more in control of himself now that the length of the apartment was between them. “Right, well, welcome to the neighborhood...Jayne.”

“See ya'round,” she said as he slipped out of sight.

***

“Humans are such a curious species,” the voice intoned in her head. She was fairly certain it was in her head. It seemed highly improbable that this void-like place she was stuck in without a body, without a voice, could be anywhere physical where hearing was possible. “You made it into space, warred with the first race you found, and then within a single generation, decided to mate with them. There is no possibility of biological offspring between your species, Shepard. There is no tactical advantage in such activities.”

The voice sounded chiding and she wanted to respond in kind, but didn't know why she felt so defensive about it. She was only imagining the voice, right? She tried to let go of the feeling and focus on the next thing she remembered about the blue marked turian.

***

The dinner was nice, but the man was boring, and Jayne went home alone afterwards. She dug her keys from her slim purse and click clacked her way down the corridor to her apartment, barely heeding the figure going the other way until he spoke.

“That's...you look very nice, Shep...Jayne.”

Her head popped up and she turned around to see Garrus staring at her legs, before sheepishly raising his eyes to her face. She was wearing a knee length skirt and her highest heels, so her bare legs were on display. Interesting, she thought. Humans were soft and curvy where turians were hard angles and armored plates, but apparently her heels made the muscles in her calves stand out in a way that caught his eye.

“Thanks, Garrus,” she replied, keeping his focus on her a moment longer. In a mere few seconds he'd made her feel more desirable than her entire dinner length date had. Not that she cared about that sort of thing. Right, Jayne? “Off to work?”

“Yeah...Executor Pallin has a new assignment for me.”

“Does that mean I won't see you down at C-Sec in the morning?”

“For a bit. I'm sure I'll be working right into the A shift.” His eyes had drifted down to her legs again, she noted, and she hid a smile, half turning away from him so he could see them in profile.

What are you doing, Jayne? Are you seriously trying to entice a turian?

His mandibles tucked up against his teeth so hard she could nearly hear them hit, and she bit her lip to keep from smiling. Maybe I am.

“Well, see you then, Officer.”

“Oh, uh, right. 'Night, Jayne.”

“Goodnight.” She turned and walked to her door, seeing from the corner of her eye that he still stood there at the top of the stairs leading to the midlevel elevators, watching her.

Before she stepped through her door she turned her head towards him, catching him in her gaze like a proverbial deer in headlights. “Go to work, Garrus,” she said softly, almost purring.

Damn, girl, that's going to get you in trouble and you know it.

“Uh...yeah...”

She couldn't help it that time and laughed aloud, leaning back against the door and pulling off the heels that he seemed to enjoy so much. She eyed them carefully. They hurt her feet like dozens of knives, but the look in his eye might just make them worth it.

***

“Deliberate seduction of a male,” the voice said. “Noted all along your service records, Shepard.”

Are you saying I slept my way to the top? She hated the defensive tone to her thoughts and flailed around in the void, feeling rootless and powerless to stop it.

“Using whatever tools are at hand is a known quality among humans. We applaud it.”

Damn right, she thought. I won't apologize for actively enjoying sex.

“Tell us about Eden Prime, Shepard. That is where you really began to change the face of the galaxy, isn't it?” The voice didn't seem interested in her self defense of her life choices. But it wasn't judgmental either. She didn't know if she should feel good about that or not.

Why is it so important to you?

“Tell us.”

You have to understand, there was so much more to it than that...

Chapter Text

“Go on then, Shepard, tell us your history with the Spectres before you became one.”

***

“Theis, what's the hullabaloo going around down here?” C-Sec was a bustling hive of activity when Jayne arrived, turians and humans alike racing around and generally acting like they were in the last minute rush before an inspection. They outpaced the few salarian officers going about their work, all culminating in a scene of pandemonium and noise.

The bright yellow colony markings on the officer behind the desk stood out plainly in the lights of the department as the turian looked up at her. She parked a hip on the edge of his desk, half sitting, half leaning.

“The what?”

Jayne made a vague gesture at the controlled chaos around them. Theis nodded, understanding.

“Spectre Kryik has arrived,” he said. “Stay out of the Executor's way today, Shepard. He is less fond of Spectres than he is of your kind.”

“A Spectre, huh? Sounds like the equivalent of a local celebrity.”

“To a degree, if I understand your reference well enough. Spectres are the Council's branch of security, and they stand above the law as we enforce it. The Executor does not think anyone should have that kind of power.”

“No, he wouldn't, would he? So...what is this one doing here?”

Theis looked at her seriously, his mandibles drawn tight to his teeth before flickering out once. “There is to be a gala to celebrate your human victory in the Skyllian Verge, a well known area for Spectre activity. I believe you were serving in the Alliance during the Blitz, were you not?”

“Yeah, I was. I was just a grunt, though.” Jayne handed over the files Anderson had wanted her to drop off. She should have delivered them sooner, but she'd gotten behind in collating the data the way she knew Pallin preferred it. Not that it mattered particularly if it was late; it was just numbers on Alliance misdemeanors in the last month. Nothing pressing.

“What does that mean?” Theis asked, bringing her back to the moment.

“I had just signed on to be a Marine. I held no rank, and was just cannon fodder.”

“Your idioms do not translate, Shepard.” Theis was a good sort, and she didn't mind the mildly aggravated tone in his subvocals. She knew the translators didn't always do an accurate job.

“Sorry,” she said with a smile. “You turians all serve in the military, right? But you have to start at the bottom, and work your way up if you make it your lifelong career.”

“This is true.”

“My time in the Verge was when I was at the bottom, working my way towards qualifying for N7 training. I was just a dispensable foot soldier.”

“I see. These are from Captain Anderson?” Theis went on, indicating the folder she'd put down.

“Yup.”

“Then I will see that they get into the Executor's hand so you don't have to bother him.” He was trying not to smile, but she saw the flick of his mandible just the same. Everyone knew Pallin held no great fondness for humans, and less so for those serving in System Alliance. Jayne thought it was because he saw them as competition against his own men. That and she remembered what he'd said about humans and the First Contact War. He undoubtedly remembered it well, probably was still doing his military tour then. His first exposure to her species would have been Alliance Marines.

“Thanks, Theis. You're a peach.”

He looked quizzical. “Isn't that an Earth fruit?”

“It is. A sweet one.” She stood up from the desk and leaned over him to whisper. “That means you must be sweet too.”

“Go on, human,” the turian said with a flustered wave of his hand. Turians didn't blush, but their faces sure did other things to give away embarrassment. “I have work to do.”

Chuckling to herself, Jayne left the C-Sec offices and headed back to the Embassies. If there was going to be a gala, she would probably have to dust off her dress blues.

Sure enough, Anderson was waiting for her in Ambassador Udina's office. And he couldn't care less that she'd just now turned in his report. “I expect you to be there, Jayney.”

“Is this official business, Captain, or am I going there as just a guest?”

“You served, your presence at the gala is official.”

She sighed. “Fine, but don't expect me to hobnob. I'm not interested in politics.”

Anderson laughed, something she hadn't seen nearly enough of lately. “All right, my girl. Just do us proud, okay?”

“Of course, Uncle David.” She kissed his cheek and hurried back to her apartment to find her blues. She didn't have many chances to wear them now that she was stationed 'groundside'. She hoped that with the scuttlebutt she'd heard about a new Alliance ship, she'd get to transfer back into the action. Akuze was years ago, and she'd done her time to recuperate from it. She wanted to get out into the stars again.

***

“Minding the P's and Q's, Officer?”

“Shepard, good to see you. How are you?” Garrus stood at attention in the broad area between the Presidium and the Embassies, watching the crowd mingle and move as the gala wore on. Jayne had been looking for him all night, a familiar, friendly face in a sea of humans who seemed to only want her to do things for them that she couldn't. Funny that after months on the Citadel what was familiar and comforting was an alien face. “What does that even mean, by the way?”

“You know? I don't even know where the saying comes from, but it means keeping everything in line, or something like that.” She took a sip from her glass and frowned. Champagne was not her favorite drink. And that was twice today she'd had to explain human idioms.

“In that case, yes. I am minding them. How are you finding the gala?”

“Tedious.” She sighed and offered him a half-hearted smile, which he returned more fully. “I'm counting the minutes until I can discreetly leave. There's a vid and a beer calling my name back home.”

“Still have to do your duty, though, right?”

“Sure, we can go with that.” They cast a scan over the crowd, the myriad faces blending together as people milled around. The speeches and awards had already been done, and now it was just an excuse for a party. Away from the Presidium, Jayne could see passersby going about their evenings, many of them other races who couldn't care less about a human victory over batarian slavers in a far flung arm of the galaxy.

Well, that should put the higher-ups in their place, she thought. Or it would, if any of them were paying attention.

“Have you met the Spectre yet?”

“No, although I've caught a glimpse of him from a distance. He's rather...formidable looking, isn't he?”

“I suppose. He's not a bad sort, not like his...mentor, I guess you'd call him.” Garrus shifted on his feet, almost nervous and Jayne wondered why. “Spectre Arterius gets the job done, I'll give him that. But his methods...”

“You've been in C-Sec too long,” she teased. Garrus's blue eyes locked on her and her teasing smile faded under his grave expression.

“I know there are many among my kind who think humans are ambitious and unruly. That doesn't mean they deserve to be treated as disposable.”

“Jesus, Vakarian, what did he do? Blow a whole colony?”

“More or less. I don't know all the details, I was just a junior then. You'd have to ask...uh...”

The abrupt change in his demeanor made her think the person she'd had to ask was much closer to home than she would have thought. She'd heard scuttlebutt from the other officers about the years before she'd served and the diplomatically handled dislike between certain turians and humans. “Uncle David,” she whispered.

“Forget I said anything, Shepard. C'mon, I'll introduce you to Spectre Kryik instead and then you can discreetly leave, like you said.”

“Sure.”

Nihlus Kryik was tall – as all turians seemed to be compared to humans – and had gorgeous brown plates with white colony markings. As soon as he turned his green eyes on Jayne as she and Garrus approached, she was captivated.

“Spectre Kryik, this is Jayne Shepard,” Garrus said. “She works with Captain Anderson and is a liaison to our offices in C-Sec.”

She stood at parade rest automatically, something she thought she'd never do. But the Spectre exuded an air of authority unmatched by any turian she'd met before. He offered his arm in a turian style greeting and she took it, feeling his talons wrap around her forearm and giving it a squeeze before he let go.

“The survivor of Akuze,” he said, his dual layered voice running through her like a spear. “I admire your courage in the face of such difficulty. You have a singular will to live, it appears.”

“Thank you,” she said, struggling to stay calm and not act like a school girl with a crush.

“It's a pity my mentor could not be here tonight. Saren has served the Council along the edges of the Skyllian Verge for many cycles. He should have taken the opportunity to meet some of the members of the Alliance that helped reclaim the territory from the batarians.”

Something in his tone didn't add up, but it wasn't anything she could pinpoint, so she made an appropriately regretful noise while stealing a glance at Garrus to judge the situation. He seemed cautious, as if he didn't take the Spectre's words at face value either, but was too disciplined to say so. Ugh, turians and their infernal formality, Jayne thought.

“Where is he?” she asked aloud.

“That is his business.” The flat tone, especially combined with the subvocals, told her what she needed to know. Confirmed human hater, she thought to herself, although it seemed Nihlus didn't share his mentor's distaste quite as much. “Vakarian, how is your esteemed father these days?” he continued, turning to Garrus.

“He's doing well, Spectre. Thank you for asking. His work in the Hierarchy keeps him away from home often, but that is to be expected.”

“Indeed.” Nihlus nodded sagely.

“I should get back to my post,” Garrus said, nodding a farewell to Jayne. She caught Nihlus watching her as he left and a gleam came into his eyes that she would have called calculating in a human.

Busted, she thought and assumed a respectfully professional expression.

“You seem to have integrated well here, Shepard. Do you find it difficult working with other races?”

“Not at all, Spectre. I am enjoying the opportunity to broaden my horizons.”

“That's good. I wish more humans had that attitude. It would make working with them more pleasant.” A passing waiter held up a tray of glasses and Nihlus took one. The waiter offered the tray to her but she shook her head. She'd had enough if all they were serving was champagne. She hadn't been joking to Garrus when she said she had a beer waiting for her. “Do you like being on the Citadel?”

“It's a major feat of engineering, Spectre.”

“But...?”

“But I'm a space Marine. I want to get back to that someday.”

“Good. I'll see to it your commanding officers keep that in mind.” He nodded politely to her and took his leave. She watched him go, wondering exactly what had just happened, and what the intriguing turian Spectre wanted from her.

***

“So you wanted to go back to space, is that it? You took a position on the Normandy because of mere wanderlust?”

No, I took it because it was a promotion, she thought. Besides, I wanted to know Nihlus better. A wave of sorrow went through her. She'd never gotten the chance to know the Spectre like she'd wanted. He'd died too soon. She could recall the horror of finding him, still warm and bleeding out. She remembered trying to staunch that bleeding with her bare hands, how his fringe fit into her fingers and she'd shuddered at the feel of them so cold and unyielding.

If she could turn away from those memories, she would have, but the voice seemed to latch onto them, forcing her to relive the scene all over again. She saw once more how Nihlus tried to speak, tried to warn her, but couldn't make his mouth form the words. His eyes rolled back into his head and turned dull. The school girl crush that had hidden in her heart had screamed, but the professional Commander had to remain in control. She could mourn him after, she thought. She didn't know then that she'd never have a chance before the galaxy went to hell.

“What else do you remember? What do you remember of Saren and Sovereign and the alignment with the geth?”

I don't want to go there yet...

“Oh, but you must.”

Please, not yet...

Chapter Text

“Her dopamine levels just went through the roof, Miranda,” she heard vaguely, distantly. She had remembered something...something important...something...fantastic.

“We've all had those sorts of dreams, haven't we now?” the accented voice – Miranda, she thought – said to the man in a taunting tone, almost scathing it was so cutting.

“You mean, she's...damn.”

“Keep your prurient thoughts to yourself, and just keep monitoring her vitals.”

“Yes, ma'am.”

***

“Every week for a cycle we've done this, Garrus,” Jayne said as the vid shut itself off and their respective beer bottles stood empty on the coffee table. “When are you going to take it to the next level?”

“I don't know what you mean,” he evaded. Jayne smirked at him and hoisted herself from her cozy corner of the overstuffed sofa to his lap, throwing a leg over him before he could think to protest the invasion of his space.

“See, if I hadn't spent a year following you turians around, I'd buy that question as legit. But I know full well that your species treats sex pretty lightly. I mean, sure, there's intimacy between mates and there's sex for reproduction, but...” She traced the line of his mandibles where they sat tight against his teeth. “Sex is good for stress relief, and for connecting with another person on a level that platonic friendship just doesn't cover.”

“Jayne...I...” He was whispering, his voice so soft his subvocals were completely unheard and unfelt where she leaned against his keel bone. “Humans have different traditions,” he finally managed, his C-Sec officer voice coming through. “And turian men don't do the choosing.”

She smiled at him coyly, letting her hands wander over his head and near his fringe. He grabbed them before she could reach, his face mere inches from hers. “But they do do the chasing.”

“Well...”

“If you want me to stop, say so,” she said, dropping all teasing pretense and becoming serious. “But if you want to know...like I do...”

“Alien physiology,” he blurted out.

“What?”

“Uh...dextro...levo...I...I wouldn't want you to...”

Comprehension dawned and she nearly laughed, only managing to keep it contained by biting her lip. “Garrus, all Alliance soldiers are required to be tested for dextro allergies before being stationed with any mixed races. It's just easier if you don't have to carry an epi-pen around every moment of every day.”

“A what now?”

She leaned back on his lap, noting that he hadn't let her hands go, even though she'd moved them to her thighs. He was still wearing gloves, even with his civvies. But he was warm through the material and she felt that heat seep into her skin through her comfortable tee and sweats.

“An epi-pen is an injectable antihistamine. It can stop anaphylactic shock from occurring.”

“Oh.” He thought this over for a moment. “So...you're not allergic...?”

“No, Garrus. I'm not allergic. You've never noticed me take a swig of your beer?”

“I...can't say...I have....” He seemed to be losing the thread of their conversation as she shifted around on his legs. He was bonier than she was used to, although it wasn't necessarily a turn off. “You really want to use me for stress relief, Jayne? I mean...you could...you could have anyone you wanted. Someone closer to home.”

“Maybe, but I don't want closer to home. I have what I want, right here.” She withdrew her hands from his and placed them flat on his keel. He made a sound she'd never heard from him before. He leaned forward and touched his forehead to hers. She knew it was the turian equivalent to a kiss, but it imparted something she hadn't expected, something more trusting and encompassing. That seemed strange to her, since a kiss was far more intimate, at least in terms of touch.

“I don't exactly know what I'm doing...you know...with a human,” he said softly, his brow still against hers.

“I'm not that different from an asari,” she said back, smiling a little when he seemed startled. “I'm just not blue. Well...and I can't climb into your skull with my mind either.”

“How do you know...about...?

“Garrus, I like sex. I'm not ashamed of that.”

“Oh. So have you...ever...with a turian?”

She shook her head, her eyes held with his. His mandibles flared and she felt anticipation rise up in the pit of her stomach. “New territory for both of us, I guess, huh?”

“Yeah...we should probably map this out slowly.” Slowly but without much hesitation, he slid his hands under her tee, his fingers wrapping around her rib cage.

“Here be dragons,” she murmured, pulling at the clasps on his tunic until she had it open and she could touch his bare plates. Without really thinking about what she was doing, she tilted her head and pressed her mouth against his. He drew back, his head hitting the sofa. “Oh! Sorry, I forgot for a second...”

“Do that again. Let me get used to it.”

She kissed him again, her lips soft against his tougher hide. To say his face was plated with the same chitinous material as the rest of his natural armor wouldn't be quite correct, she found. His body was hard and smooth like tortoiseshell, but his mouth obviously moved when he spoke or ate or drank. It was a strange sensation, hard yet pliable.

“I think I might like that,” he said when she pulled away. He looked down to see her fingertips finding the seams between his plates where the softer skin hid from the radiation of his home world. “You seem to know what you're doing.”

His voice rumbled in her ear, the subvocals like a purr that vibrated through her whole body now that she was touching him. She pushed herself closer, nothing that his hands moved accordingly around to her back, testing the texture of her unplated body, so different from his own.

“I might have done some research,” she whispered. She was suddenly shy, and she was never shy. But this was Garrus, her favorite turian, her best friend.

“I feel like I should have. I don't know what to do next.”

“What would you do with another turian?”

His hands dropped to her hips and his thumbs slid beneath the band of her sweats. His gloves were almost rough against her skin, but his touch so light it tickled and she squirmed and giggled. He stopped and she figured he didn't know how to react.

“Turians probably don't know what it means to be ticklish,” she said when she could manage.

“No,” he agreed and looked at her inquiringly.

“Human skin is highly sensitive. We have no natural protection other than that. If you touch the skin lightly enough, the nerve endings don't know what to do with the information and the brain says that it feels funny, so we laugh.”

“So is it something you like?”

“Yes and no. I mean, the laughing can be pretty involuntary and often at inappropriate times, but laughing is good for humans. It releases good brain chemicals.” She pressed her lips to his neck, teasing the underside of his jaw, seeing if she could demonstrate anywhere on him. A tremor went through him, but he didn't laugh.

“What else is good for humans?”

She leaned back and eyed him for a moment, before standing up off his lap. She pulled her tee off her head and dropped it somewhere before tugging the sweats down so they pooled at her feet. She was not shy with her body by any means, but it was different having his eyes on her bare skin. She knew she carried a lot of lean muscle and wasn't as shapely and curved as many women, but she thought perhaps for a turian that wasn't a turn off. Her guess was confirmed when he leaned in to run his hands down her legs, his thumbs following the furrows her muscles made as they flexed. She hummed a sound of appreciation.

“Is that good?” he asked, his breath tickling her belly, which made it tighten perceptibly, leaving butterflies in its wake.

“Yes,” she rasped, “it's good.”

He pushed her back a step, giving him room to stand and shed his own clothes. He didn't look all that different without them, other than the obvious natural aspect of his skin and plates. She noticed the plates between his legs were sliding apart. Clever bit of evolution, a calm part of her brain observed. Keep it hidden.

“Should we...?” he tilted his head towards her bedroom, but she shook her own in negation.

“Flat bed, remember? I thought...maybe we could just stay here.”

“All right.” He sat back down and she arranged herself on his lap again, her breasts pressed to his keel, her hands on his cowl.

“I'm going to kiss you again,” she said.

“Okay.” She'd give him this: he was a quick learner. He managed to purse his mouth in an approximation of lips, giving her the perfect chance to pull the top plate between her teeth. He jumped in surprise, but he seemed to like it, if the hard thump upwards between her legs meant anything. She covered his mouth, seeking his tongue and if he didn't immediately catch on, he wasn't slow either.

“Your mouth is so wet, Jayne,” he murmured when she released him. “It tingles a bit.”

“Other parts are wet too, I'm sure. The tingles are probably from the levo proteins in my saliva...”

“No chemistry lessons right now, Jayne. Only biology.”

Quick learner, indeed, she thought as his fingers trailed under her backside to cup her. Even with her sitting on him at such an angle, he was able to slide his primary digits into her body. Easily, she noted with a part of her brain. How long have I wanted this? He didn't press very deep but the sensation was enough to make her want more.

“Garrus...you're still wearing your gloves...?”

“You're very soft, Jayne. I don't want to hurt you.”

“I guess we'll just have to take it slow.”

He withdrew his fingers, but only as far as the very edges of her core, holding her open. The angled head of him slid into the space between and she clenched involuntarily at the feel of it.

“How slow?” he asked, pushing up into her. Her body slipped over the head of his phallus and she clenched again. There were ridges in places along the length of him and each new inch gave her a fresh spike in sensation until she was panting from it. She dared to look down between their bodies and saw that he was only partially seated.

“There's...uh...more of you than I expected.”

And it's kinda blue, she thought.

Of course it is, dummy, she chastised herself. His blood is copper based.

“Turian women have plates to get past too, you know,” he stuttered out, finding a rhythm that was careful and gentle. He paid close attention to the sounds she made, she noticed, never going too deep, never pushing too hard. He felt amazingly good, but the slow, steady pace wasn't enough for her.

“More, Garrus. I want more.”

“More what?”

She changed her hands' position from his cowl to his shoulders and gripped him tighter with her legs, drawing him deeper within her. She let out a moan of satisfaction when she'd taken as much as she could, so full it was near painful. She rocked on his body, tilting and turning until she found her own rhythm that hit every delicious spot that drove the pleasure higher. As her climax grew nearer, she started to ride him more vigorously, raising herself up on him and sliding back down to the sound of his groans.

“So tight...” he whispered, flicking his tongue along her neck, tasting her skin. The sound of his voice, combined with the feel of him and his restless, roving hands on her tipped her over the edge and she let out a surprised cry as she came. He purred at her as she spasmed on his cock, drawing out the sensation until her scalp tingled.

“Garrus, harder now,” she commanded. He pumped into her with more abandon and she curled into his shape, surrendering to the ride. Abruptly he shifted her, pushing her back onto the coffee table, holding her steady with his hands on her hips, watching himself move in and out of her.

He then looked over every inch of her exposed body, trailing his finger tips over collar bones, breasts, ribs. He spanned her waist with his hands, seeing how far around he could reach, before dipping his thumbs into her hip joints. She shivered under his gaze, seeing him survey her like so much new undiscovered country that he couldn't wait to explore.

Time enough, she thought.

“Garrus!” she moaned as his clever fingers found new things to touch where they were joined.

“Is that a good spot?” he asked, a teasing quality to his voice that hadn't been there before.

“It's...very...oh!” He pressed hard on her clit, still pumping himself in her as she was spread out as much as she could be. Without warning she came again, clenching on him hard enough that it nearly hurt. It must have felt good to him, however, since he made a noise of his own and began to thrust harder, faster. His cock began to curl upwards inside her, hitting new places with more friction and she tossed her head, helpless do to anything other than take it.

Suddenly he thrust deep and held himself still inside her, so deep she could feel the head of his cock against her womb as he came. Wave after wave of it filled her and she couldn't help it, she came again from the feeling of his spasms.

He pulled her up into his arms once he had his breath back, cradling her as his erection slowly receded from her body, heedless of the mess they were making. She gave him a tired laugh, replete and thoroughly satisfied.

“How's your stress level, Jayne?” he asked in her ear. She sighed, and dropped her head onto his cowl.

“It's pretty good for now. I'll let you know in a minute if it comes back.”

“You do that.” And, damn, if he didn't sound smug.

“You should shower...get my... Get me off you.”

“Yeah, in a bit.”

***

“Why this memory, Shepard? We do not understand the need for this sort of interaction.”

I know. I feel sorry for you.

“Why?” The imaginary – internal? – voice was colored by surprise and she felt like laughing, which was absurd considering she was in her own head.

Because it means you don't understand what it means to seek happiness.

“What is happiness, Shepard, but a chemical mix of hormones released into the brain?”

It's so much more...I don't think I can explain it, it has to be experienced.

“Try, if it's so important.” There was disdain in the voice now, sharp and dismissive. But she ignored that.

Happiness, or at least the pursuit of it, is what makes us feel alive. It's what we strive for, what we fight for. It's why we're biologically programmed to love. This was the first time I made love to Garrus Vakarian. You can be sure it wasn't the last.

“Is that why you destroyed Sovereign? So you could be happy?”

See, you're starting to get it.

Finally, blessed silence met her mental remarks, and she settled back into her memory, reliving each moment, seeing anew the look in his eyes and the feel of his touch. A part of her mourned, and she didn't remember why for a moment. Something in the very essence of her being burned at the thought of him, at recalling what it was like to be with him. In time, she was swept away from the voice by that feeling, and it hurt, it hurt worse than dying, but at least for a while she knew silence.

Chapter Text

The silence was encompassing and peaceful. There was no voice, either in her head or outside of her body where she knew real life lay...somewhere. For a timeless period she floated in the void, weightless and insubstantial. Her memory dreams were free to be her own, not dictated by the voice. And she did dream.

***

It was vid night and Jayne waited for her omni-tool to chime with a message from Garrus that he was home from his shift. Lately he'd been working later and later hours as red sand activity in the Wards had started picking up. He'd finally been promoted out of the beat cop routine and all the paperwork that went with it to full detective, but that also meant the hours were more erratic.

Finally her wrist beeped softly and she tapped the message open.

Home, pretty exhausted. ~ G

A rough day then, she thought to herself. There was no reason she couldn't take the vid to his place. They often swapped back and forth these days, depending on whose day had been harder. As she went into her room to change into something a little more...inviting, she thought about how much things had changed in the few short months they'd been together since that fateful night she'd jumped him.

They didn't talk about the future, or make any plans really past the next time they could coordinate their schedules. But she had a solid feeling in her soul about him, she knew she loved him. Was in love with him. His presence filled all the spaces left behind by her losses and failures in life. When she was with him, she was whole again. She shook her head at herself. A human and a turian in an exclusive, steady relationship. What would the galaxy think of next?

He answered her knock immediately, his face drawn and haggard, although his mandibles flickered out appreciatively when he saw what she was wearing. She stood in his doorway and let him look his fill, taking in the comfortable old tunic of his that he'd forgotten one night. The way it slouched loosely over her shoulders and covered her barely enough to be decent. His gaze dropped down her legs and he noticed that she was wearing the heels he'd so admired on her before. His mandibles flickered and wavered before settling into a grin.

“What do you think? Good enough for a date night?”

“Hmm...Jayne, I don't think I can take you anywhere like that,” he said very seriously, although there was an undercurrent that was undeniably playful. He still looked tired, but he also looked interested. His mandibles flickered again. “Pity you got all dressed up with nowhere to go.”

She walked past him into the apartment that was so like her own – albeit with slightly different furniture – and let him see the backside too. He'd learned a fine respect for her six, after all. She'd even dared to go bare under his tunic, although she was covered enough that it didn't show. She put the bottle of whiskey she'd been saving on the bar and the genuine beef steak she'd found to cook for her dinner in his fridge. They could share many of the same side dishes, chirality notwithstanding, but proteins had to be separate. It wasn't like he was going to eat much other than his own dextro steak anyway. Turians didn't eat a whole lot of anything that wasn't meat, generally speaking. The cat image came to mind again and she smiled to herself. Obligate carnivores.

“How about we stay in then?” she asked brightly. “Why don't you go take a shower, wash the day off, and I'll make dinner.”

He moved behind her, wrapping his arms around her middle before she could slip too far past him. “Sounds like a good plan,” he murmured in her ear. His mandible brushed against her jaw and she tilted her head to let him caress her further. “I won't be long.”

“Well, then I'm not doing it right.”

“In the shower, you dirty minded pyjak.”

She giggled and watched him saunter off to his bathroom, more spring in his step than she'd seen in a while. The long hours had been wearing on him, and they hadn't had much time together since she had changed jobs too. Anderson had gotten new orders, and soon enough she would be following him to become his XO.

SSV Normandy, she thought. They say it's going to be the fastest ship in the Alliance Fleet.

They very carefully didn't talk about how it was going to affect their relationship when she was gone for long periods of time.

She heated two skillets on the stove top, putting her steak in one of them and layering heavy slices of the beef analog turians had in the other. She'd seen pictures of the vaguely bovine creature they had domesticated eons ago, and was glad she didn't have to. As befitted the prey of a carnivorous race from a radioactive planet, the creature resembled something like a cross between a gazelle and a rhinoceros.

She pulled a bowl of fresh fruit from the fridge and made an attractive salad with it, knowing that between them they could share the mix of asari and human fruits. The levo/dextro thing was strange, she mused as she worked. She knew plenty of people with dextro allergies that had ended up either cashing out of military duty or deciding to stay on human colonies to avoid any exposure. But turians had been around levo species long enough that most of them had some tolerance for their food; at least, it didn't make them sick except in rare cases. It reminded her a bit of Celiac disease the way Garrus had described it to her. Thankfully he was among those that weren't bothered by levo proteins. As long as he had dextro ones to metabolize, he was fine.

She heard the shower shut off just as she pulled the meats from their respective heating elements to rest, and she got to work opening the bottle of whiskey – being distilled, they could both drink it safely. She was just pouring a glass for each of them when she heard the click of his toes on the tiled floor.

Before she could turn around, though, his talons snagged on the tunic and she was hauled up against his naked keel bone from behind. “So are you hiding any weapons under there, miss?”

“That's Commander to you. Are you going to search me, Detective?”

“I might.” His hands lifted the fabric over her hips, baring her ass. He made an incoherent sound, half growl, half purr...all male. She was suddenly grateful turians liked it warm. Her plan wouldn't have worked half so well if she was freezing to death and shivering. His hands roamed over her skin under the tunic, months of learning where she liked to be touched making him confident. There was something dangerously exciting about having his naked talons on her skin and she shivered for an entirely different reason as he drew them down her belly towards her center.  "Looks like you need a thorough searching," he said in her ear, rumbling his subvocals in a way that make her hair stand on end.

“Garrus...” she moaned as he fingered her, separating her folds to delve inside carefully so he didn't accidentally catch her sensitive skin with his deadly fingertips.

“You seem to be in the clear, miss,” he growled behind her. She arched her back to conform to his shape as he touched her, not caring that they stood in the kitchen and their dinner was getting cold. He maneuvered his primary finger inside her so that his palm rested against her pubic bone. He cupped her hard suddenly, the curve of his wrist pressed tight to her clit and she nearly fell down, wobbling on her heels. “I like those shoes,” he said, holding her steady with his free hand.

“I...kinda...guessed that...” she panted. He was urging her ever closer to climax with his hand and she leaned against him, feeling his erection press against her back as it unplated.

Before she was too lost in the pleasure he gave her, he stopped, pulling away from her completely. She made a whimpering sound of disappointment that turned to a gasp when she realized what he was doing.

He had gotten down on his knees on his kitchen floor, one arm snaking up her back to push her over the bar. He ran his tongue up the length of her leg, from ankle to knee, from knee to thigh...and then pushed his long, agile tongue inside her.

“Garrus!” she cried, the shock of it sending her over the edge. She came hard on his tongue, the hand that wasn't holding her against the bar gripping her hip to keep her in place. She couldn't have moved if she tried, and was still bent over as he got back to his feet, chuckling. The subvocals in it made her core clench and spasm and she trembled, grateful that the bar was holding her up.

“What a pretty picture you make, Jayne,” he said, knowing by now how much she liked his voice. He lined himself up behind her, his hard length filling her slowly but surely until they were both gasping for breath. “I was going to take my shirt back from you,” he continued, pumping in and out of her, his fingers wrapping around the tops of the thighs, “but I think I like it on you.”

He lifted her feet right off the floor, her torso supported on the bar, and he fucked her hard, shattering her utterly again and again until she was limp from it. Only then did he come himself, the throbs of his climax pressing against her oversensitized walls. She could barely make a sound other than whimpers and breathless gasps and he laughed, still perfectly in control of himself.

Damn turian discipline, she thought idly, resting her face against the cool grain of the bar top.

He pulled out of her slowly, conscious of the fact that his size made him an uncomfortable fit sometimes and her feet hit the floor with a clack of her heels. He kept his arm around her until she was balanced, then grabbed a towel from the rack so she could clean herself up.

“Well, I'm ready for dinner and a vid now,” he said cheerfully. “How about you?”

She turned her head to reply, something pithy and probably full of self satisfied snark...but...she...

***

Something was wrong. The memory ended before she could finish it, before she could see his face so full of love and promise unspoken. Something...

...She felt dense for a moment, only a moment, as if a rock had suddenly lodged itself in her throat, weighing her down...

...There was a flash of blinding brilliance before the absolute black of the void returned...

...She could hear, far away like a half heard vid in another room...

“Shit! She's coding!”

“What happened?”

“I don't know, Miranda! She was fine...and then...boom...all her readings went haywire.”

“Dammit,” Miranda said. “Looks like an embolism. Get her under, deep chemical stasis. Now!”

The voices receded, along with any sensation of weight or light or even air. She sank like the stone falling away from her throat, far away from anything real, anything tangible. If the other voice tried to find her, she wasn't there.

Chapter Text

“We nearly lost you, Shepard,” the voice intoned gravely in her head. If she'd had a body she would have twisted away from it, knowing what it wanted from her.

Why is tormenting me so important to you?

“Is it torment to learn about you? Eden Prime began the long journey of colony survivor to heroic human Spectre. Of course it is important to us.”

Please...I don't want to remember.

“Why not? It is a part of you, as Saren is, as the geth are, as even the Protheans are, foolhardy as they were, thinking they could warn those that followed.”

Who are you...?

“You will learn soon enough, Shepard. Now, tell us.”

There was no escaping the voice, no turning away from the memories. They went by in quick bursts and flashes, images and imprints. Talking with Nihlus about the colony and the possibilities for her future, seeing the security footage of what she now knew was Sovereign, watching Nihlus jump off the back of the Normandy alone, Jenkins...Alenko...

Geth.

Williams.

The empty dig site.

Nihlus, his mouth moving without words, his lifeblood flowing onto her hands from the terrible wound in his head. His eyes rolling back.

Disarming the charges that were meant to destroy the colony.

The husks rushing her team on the steps of the loading dock.

The beacon.

No, please, she begged, but it was no use. The voice coerced her memory, bringing the vivid message of the beacon into the forefront of her mind, forcing her to watch the horrific sequence again, so much more clear and concise than it had been in her real life.

The red glare that overlaid everything was stripped away and she could see clearly the nightmarish vision for the first time. Strange creatures fled from an onslaught that she could easily imagine after all the chasing and racing through the galaxy that she'd done. The perspective was still skewed, the images blurry as they pounded through her memory like a pulse, but she knew what she was seeing. Understood finally that at the end, the glare and glow of the star was Ilos, the secret place where she'd finally put it all together. That the plan put in place by the dying Protheans had succeeded in her. The cost had been great, but the invasion had been halted.

“Sovereign was supposed to open the relays, Shepard,” the voice said. “It was supposed to pave the way for the rest of its kind to come harvest the technologically advanced races of this galaxy. Nothing was supposed to remain but primitives.”

I stopped it.

“You did, Shepard. Somehow. We still do not understand how a single human from a backward, recently uplifted planet from the farthest reach of a galactic arm was able to comprehend this message, extrapolate the correct information and plan out a preventative attack. How did you do it?”

Tell me who you are, she demanded. Enough asking. The voice never asked really her, after all.

“How did you do it?”

No one even believed me, she thought. No one wanted to hear my warnings, no one wanted to heed them. The Council ignored me, thought it was rogue geth allied with Saren alone.

Poor Saren, she thought, remembering anew the ruined turian face with its implants and upgrades. All that had remained of the once proud Spectre had been a latticework frame of artificial parts, animated by Sovereign in its last moments before she defeated it. How much had he suffered, thinking he was doing the right thing? How hard had it been to pull the trigger against his own throat, his desperate attempt to atone for all he'd done?

“You are a singular creature, Shepard. No living thing has broken through Reaper indoctrination before.”

What do you mean?

“You reached Saren, just as you reached Matriarch Benezia. How? Tell us how!”

She felt like she was suffocating suddenly, a strange, terrifying feeling since she knew this void place was incorporeal and she had no body to crush. But the oppressiveness remained, cloying and noisome, filling her senses with dread. With decay and despair. She struggled, as she would have struggled for breath in another existence. She felt like she was drowning in oil, slick, viscous and inescapable.

The voice thundered through her, wiping her flat like a ball under a tire. She felt pressure building up inside her as if she was a physical being. As if she could pop.

***

“I have a pulse!” she heard, so distant. Like shouting from across the breadth of a valley.

“Give me a unit of O neg and a unit of plasma. She lost too much in surgery,” said the other one, the one she should know the name for...

Pain. Air. Sound. Light.

Pain.

***

“NO! We are not done with you yet, Shepard. You cannot go back until we are done with you.”

You asked how I reached them, she thought weakly, resisting the urge to give in to the pressure. She couldn't let it win. If it did, she would be lost forever.

It was compassion.

Chapter Text

The voice was silent, and the oppressive weight lifted from her essence, freeing her of the drowning feeling. She no longer struggled in the void space, she merely existed there. But the images and memories didn't stop.

She recalled how she woke in the medbay, Dr. Chakwas greeting her with a smile and her ever present combination of sarcasm and concern.

Anderson was there, futilely angry at the loss of Nihlus and Jenkins. Angry at the loss of the beacon.

Kaiden shadowing her steps as she went to the galley to get something to drink. He'd wanted to talk, but she just wasn't ready.

And later on, standing on the bridge with Joker, Kaiden and Ashley, watching the Citadel come into view...

***

“Look at the size of it,” Ashley exclaimed. Jayne and Joker shared a private grin between them. The absolute awe in the Gunnery Chief's voice made her remember how it was for her the first time she'd seen it too. Nearly two years ago...how much her life had changed since then.

Garrus.

She couldn't wait to see him. She'd been gone for over six weeks. She ached to feel his arms around her again. She hoped he still wanted her as much as she wanted him. She had so much to tell him, to get his opinion on.

***

“Captain Anderson,” Ambassador Udina sneered. “I see you brought half your crew with you.”

“Just the ground team from Eden Prime, in case you had any questions,” Uncle David said, trying to soothe the ruffled feathers of the human Ambassador.

She shook her head and turned her back on the ensuing debate and stepped onto the balcony overlooking the Presidium gardens, watching the traffic go by, wondering how long this was going to take. She wanted to sleep in her own bed before shipping out again. Uncle David didn't think their debrief and meeting with the Council would take very long, assuming Udina hadn't ruined their chances to talk rationally with them.

She'd half listened as he berated the Council members for their lack of action concerning the attack on Eden Prime, but honestly, in their shoes she probably would have reacted the same way. It was easy to forget how little influence humans really had on such a huge interspecies web, no matter how much men like Udina wanted to throw their weight around. And Saren had been a Spectre a long time, long enough to mentor Nihlus in the first place. It was his word against theirs. She knew that, even as she hated it. Councilor Tevos was right; humanity had known they'd get little help by settling in the edges of Citadel controlled space. Udina's bitching wasn't going to change that.

“Have you been there, Shepard?” Kaiden asked her, coming to stand a little too close for comfort.

“Been where?”

“The Citadel Tower.”

“Sure. I've sat in on Council meetings when I was liaising for C-Sec. Never anything major, and I've never met any of the Council members, but I could pick them out of a crowd.”

“How can you stand to be around so many aliens?” Ashley asked, coming out to join her and Kaiden as Udina and Anderson continued to talk behind them. Jayne looked the Gunnery Chief over, seeing the tense set of her face, the tightness around her eyes. She didn't know much about the woman, other than her grandfather had been General Williams, who had ultimately surrendered to the turians at Shanxi. She thought maybe the granddaughter was trying too hard to both walk in his footsteps and distance herself from his disgrace. She was a good Marine, but it was obvious she'd been stationed in exclusively human posts.

She shrugged in answer to Ashley's question. “You have to around here. We're part of a bigger universe than we knew fifty years ago.”

“Huh,” Ashley grunted. “Guess I just wish we had more control over things out here.”

“Keep that one to yourself, Chief,” Jayne warned. “We don't hold much sway here on the Citadel. This is the big pond and we are very little fish. Playing nice makes things go much smoother.”

“And do you 'play nice'?” Kaiden asked, eyeing her sideways. There was something in his tone she hadn't expected. Scorn. Or possibly envy. She raised a brow at him and didn't answer, seeing Udina approaching them.

“Shepard, you and your team will be asked to speak at the Council hearing. You have two hours to prepare yourselves for it.”

“Understood, Ambassador.”

“Captain, come with me. I want to go over some things before the hearing, make sure there are no other surprises in store for us when we get there.” The two men left the embassy together, and Jayne heaved a sigh.

“Damn. I was hoping to at least catch a shower and a nap or something. Oh well. We might as well head towards the Tower. We can walk there from here. It'll be good to stretch our legs a bit.”

“As you say, Commander,” Kaiden said, following her lead out the door, Ashley bringing up the rear.

***

He was the first thing she saw when she exited the elevator. Everything else was blotted out, the cherry trees, the sounds of the fountains, the imposing figure of Executor Pallin. She only saw him. He hadn't seen her yet and she stood there, just watching him as he argued with his boss. A faint wave of affectionate humor went through her. It was good to see their headbutting routine hadn't changed at all.

“Wow,” Ashley breathed, catching her attention. Jayne remembered herself just in time before rushing to Garrus, reminding herself that none of these people needed to know she'd been engaged in a long standing relationship with a C-Sec Officer. An alien C-Sec Officer. She put on her professional face and started up the stairs towards him.

“I need more time,” Garrus was saying urgently, subvocals thrumming. He was angry, she noted, angry and disillusioned. He finally turned his head in her direction, seeing her. His mandibles flared and his visible eye brightened. She saw he'd upgraded his visor to a new one. “J...Commander Shepard. Good to see you again.”

“Likewise, Officer Vakarian,” she managed to reply, the air just stopping in its tracks in her lungs. “Executor Pallin.”

Pallin nodded an acknowledgment of her greeting. “Commander, I was unaware you would be here today. Does this mean...?”

“I led the away team on Eden Prime.”

“So you were there...when Spectre Kryik....”

“We were separated and I didn't reach him in time,” she said sorrowfully. “I'm sorry.”

Garrus was devouring her with his eyes, and she wondered if he was checking to see if she was wounded. The headache from the beacon had finally gone away, and she didn't think he could see any physical damage to her body. The minor bumps and bruises from fighting the geth had already healed. He gave a single sharp nod, in relief, it seemed.

“I can't give you any more time, Detective,” Pallin said, returning to their argument. “Whatever findings you have, that's what you have to work with.”

The Executor walked away from them and Jayne finally reached for Garrus's hand in her own, his talons curling around her fingers for a moment before letting go.

“Anything you can tell me?” she asked.

“Most of Saren's records are sealed. Damned Spectre security clearance. I have just about nothing.”

“Pity.” They stood there, staring at each other, lost in each other.

“Commander, we shouldn't keep the Council waiting.” Kaiden's voice was sharp and stilted, as if he'd suddenly read far more into the atmosphere than he'd wanted. Jayne nodded, calling up her omni-tool to send Garrus a message. My place. Later?

She turned and walked away from him without seeing if he checked it, although she heard his wrist ping. Moments afterwards her own did too and she glanced at it as she walked towards the lofty Council chamber where Uncle David was waiting for her. 2200, I'll be there.

***

“Jayne?” she heard Garrus announce himself, having let himself in with a key she'd given him. “You here?”

“Yeah,” she called from her room, sitting on the edge of the bed, her head in her hands. Of course the Council had believed Saren. Even though it was obvious he'd been changed and upgraded with geth technology. A giant superimposed hologram of him had shown that so very clearly. She'd never gotten the impression that the Council members were idiots before today. But there it was.

Garrus stopped at her door. “Hey.”

“Hey.”

“I've missed you.”

She lifted her head to look at him. “Me too.” She lifted a hand in entreaty. “C'mere.”

He sat next to her and held her, and she sagged against him in relief and a bitter kind of sorrow.

“What next?” he murmured in her ear.

“I don't know, Garrus. We have to find some kind of proof against him. I don't even know where to start.”

“I still have some leads to follow. We'll find the evidence we need, Jayne.”

“I hope so.” She sat up straight and gazed at his face, a half smile on hers. “This wasn't the reunion I wanted.”

He traced his talons along the edges of her hairline, his mandibles flicking in a similar fashion to her half smile. “What can I do to change that?”

***

“Shepard,” the voice said, returning.

Ugh, what do you want now?

“Why did you ally with so many other races?”

It's a big universe. The Reapers were going to come for us all.

“The Systems Alliance alone had the resources to combat Sovereign. And yet you chose to have a turian, a krogan, a quarian and an asari on board your ship. Why?”

Why not? They were all good people. I hope they're all still out there, somewhere.

“Why do you care?” The voice held genuine curiosity and she would have shaken her head in mock despair at its owner in a different dimension...if such a thing was possible in the void space.

Who are you that you do not understand companionship, friendship, or compassion? How horrible it must be to be you.

“Educate us, then.”

Chapter Text

“What were you thinking? You could have missed.” Garrus looked sheepish for a moment, then defiant. Jayne was forced to shake her head in defeat and smiled at him. “Yeah, all right, fine, it was a great shot, babe.”

She knew she'd let herself slip as soon as the endearment passed her lips. Kaidan stiffened beside her, his assumptions confirmed. Ashley made a sound, but Jayne didn't stop to look at the Gunnery Chief to see what expression went with it. Garrus, of course, just flicked a mandible at her in amusement. Jayne frowned and brought herself back to the subject at hand.

“I'm sorry, Dr. Michel. Are you all right?” Garrus asked the rattled doctor. Jayne noticed she was recovering her composure pretty quickly under his gaze. Guess I'm not the only one enraptured by those colony markings.

“I'm fine,” the medic replied.

“Dr. Michel, who were they working for?” Jayne asked, keeping things moving along.

“They worked for Fist. They wanted information on the quarian.”

***

She scooped up the files in Fist's back room. Emily Wong would be pleased. And while Pallin's C-Sec sensibilities would be offended, Jayne knew the turian head of security would be equally as pleased to have another criminal out of the Wards, even if he never told her so. She wasn't entirely sure she'd made the right decision to let Fist live, but she couldn't justify just killing the man in cold blood. She'd gotten what she needed from him and she could let the Shadow Broker deal with him if it came down to it. Barla Von would probably take such information on trade for future help.

“We're running out of time, J...Commander,” Garrus said into the silence that followed Fist's hasty departure.

“Right, we have a quarian to find.”

***

“...Eden Prime was a major victory. The beacon has brought us one step closer to finding the Conduit...” Saren's recorded voice played from the young woman's omni-tool. Jayne looked her over and wondered if she'd ever been so young herself. Tali had poise on her side, but youth belied it with the way she fidgeted. Still, her information sealed the deal for Udina and Anderson. Garrus gave her a relieved nod from the shadows. It would be enough for the Council.

***

“Shepard, these memories do not have a point.”

Sure they do. The circumstances in which people meet have a lot to do with how they interact afterwards. You asked me to explain why I had so many alien allies. Well, this is how it happened.

There was a moment of silence before the voice returned. “Very well, continue.”

***

“Spectres are not trained, but chosen. Individuals forged in the fire of service and battle; those whose actions elevate them above the rank and file,” the salarian Councilor Valern intoned.

Jayne felt the presence of Garrus, Tali, Uncle David and Udina behind her, a wall of support she wasn't entirely sure she was worthy of. So many things went through her mind as the Councilors declared her the first human Spectre and she knew she should be focused on that, but all she could see in her mind's eye was her father's face. How proud he would have been of her achievements.

A myriad of other faces of all races looked out from the higher viewing tiers of the Tower, watching her being invested in her new rank. She simply couldn't believe it was happening. She was almost sorry Kaiden and Ashley had stayed behind, but she guessed they were probably watching it from a vid somewhere. She imagined it had become top headline news before the words were out of her mouth to suggest it as a way to keep the hunt on for Saren without risking the Fleet.

“We've got a lot of work to do, Shepard,” Udina said once the brief ceremony was over. “You're going to need a ship, a crew, supplies...”

“You'll get access to special equipment and training now,” Uncle David interrupted. He was so full of pride that he was nearly crying. “You should go down to the Academy and speak with the Spectre requisitions officer.”

Once Udina and Anderson left, Garrus boldly took her hand and entwined his fingers with hers for just a moment. “Congratulations, Jayne.”

“Thanks, babe,” she murmured, low enough that Tali didn't hear.

“I'll have to request leave from C-Sec to come with you or...maybe you don't want...”

“Detective Vakarian, would you care to represent Citadel Security as part of my future crew in the hunt for Saren Arterius?”

His mandibles spread in a grin at her very formal speech, but judging from the way his eyes scanned the massed crowds, she knew she'd struck the right chord. “I would be honored, Spectre Shepard.”

“How about you, Tali?” she asked, more informally. “Does your Pilgrimage allow you to join another crew for a while?”

“I wouldn't miss it, Shepard. Thank you for the opportunity.”

***

“And the krogan?”

We're getting there, she replied, feeling testy at the interruption. The memories were strong and flowing well, either because the voice was letting her control them, or because she was growing stronger in the void space. Did that mean her tether to the real world was tighter or letting go?

***

“You. Human. You the one they call Shepard?” He was standing near the elevator to the docking bay, a towering mass of red armor, slashed across the face by scars so old they were puckered. His eyes were hard and his attitude was harder, but she'd yet to meet a krogan who wasn't like that.

“Yeah, that's me.”

“The name's Wrex. The Shadow Broker paid me a lot of money to get rid of Fist, only you got there first.”

“Taking care of Fist was part of my investigation.”

“When I get paid to do a job, I finish it. Alone.” He pushed against her, making her stumble backwards. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Garrus bring his service pistol out, but she held her hand back, stalling him. They were in the belly of C-Sec after all. Even a krogan would think twice to start a fight there. Well, hopefully. “But I didn't finish this job, Shepard,” Wrex went on. “You did. So the payment is yours.”

“What?”

“What's the catch, bounty hunter?” Garrus muttered. Wrex spared him a glance before turning back to her.

“No catch. I won't take credit for someone else's work. I transferred the payment into your account. I like the way you handled Fist. Now I hear you're going after Saren. I was thinking maybe I should come along.”

“Why?”

“I'm not in this for the money, I want to be where the action is. There's a storm coming, and you and Saren are right in the middle of it. My people were a proud species once. Some of us still remember that. I won't bow down to Saren like the others who just want to lick his boots for promises of wealth and power.”

“All right, Wrex, consider yourself hired.”

***

“And the asari maiden?”

Ahh, well, that's a story all by itself, isn't it? The daughter of my foe's ally, caught in the middle of things when she just wanted to be left alone with her Prothean ruins.

“It was a wise move to keep her close,” the voice said. She wasn't sure if that was praise for her empathy or her tactics, but it didn't matter. Liara came to mean so much more to her than just another ally.

It was the only move I could make, she thought. I would never have left her there to die.

“Would that have happened if you hadn't intervened?”

Yes, it would have. Either by the hands of Saren's thugs or from the Reapers, take your pick. In many ways, my defeat of Sovereign wouldn't have been successful without Liara T'Soni. You know that, right?

“We do now, Shepard. Tell us about her.”

Chapter Text

“She's stable...for now,” the male voice said from very far away, distant and soft like an echo across a canyon. She was weightless and pain free, wherever she was. She wondered if she was still dead, but why would they say she was stable if she was dead?

“Keep monitoring those vitals. No more surprises.” It was the other voice. Miranda. She was further still, as if she wasn't even in the room or...whatever. She fell back into her dreams, her memories, content to stay there and relive the life she'd left behind.

***

Jayne felt Garrus moving around as he got up – an hour before the duty roster was due to change – and rolled over to watch him dress. There was something to be said for the Captain's berth, just as there was something to be said for a small, intimate crew. She was nearly positive Pressly was going to have apoplexy if he found out about her and Garrus, but she was also fairly positive that no one else agreed with him. Well...maybe Ashley. She'd already had words with both of them about the aliens on her ship. Ashley's prejudices would need an eye kept on them. This was a multi species venture now, it was time to get with that program or ship out to another posting.

“Is it time already?” she mumbled, bringing herself back to the present.

“0530,” he replied, his dual tones reverberating through her as she rolled to curl around him as he sat on the edge of her bed. With the requisition of extra pillows – and an amazingly straight face while she did it – they'd managed to build something comfortable for her turian lover's head on her horizontal bed. Not that anything could really make the double bunk truly comfortable. Honestly, what did the Alliance have against a good night's sleep?

“Do you really have to go?”

“Jayne,” he said in a warning tone, “you know I can't be caught here. I may not be Alliance, but it still doesn't look good for the captain to be fraternizing with her crew.”

“Fuck the crew.”

“No, I'd rather fuck you.” He turned then and ran still naked talons down her arm to her hip, making her shiver.

“Just a little longer?”

“I have to go, darling. Before Wrex wakes up.”

“You realize he knows, right?” she grumbled as she watched him continue dressing. The bed already felt cold without him.

“What do you mean?”

“Krogans have great senses of smell, or so he tells me.” The look on Garrus's face would have been comical if she was more awake to fully perceive it. As it was, she only managed a smirk at his reaction.

“I guess I hadn't realized...”

“Don't worry, he won't say anything. He thinks it's funny.”

“Why?”

“'Human/turian relations haven't always been so rosy',” she said, mimicking the deeper krogan voice. “'Mind you don't overdose on those protein shots'.”

“He didn't,” Garrus said, aghast but laughing.

“Oh yeah, he did. C'mere, babe, I think I might need another one before I get my day started.”

“You're so insatiable,” he murmured, but it was with appreciation. He twisted around to bump her forehead with his and she took advantage of his precarious position to topple him across her. His leggings were still only half done and she could feel his plates widening as he settled between her legs with a mock resigned air that didn't do a thing to deny the erection pressing against her.

She hummed a soft sound as he entered her, slow and sure and confident that he knew what he was doing now. Confident that he knew how to drive her wild in moments, knew what she liked and how she liked it. Such a far cry from the nervous C-Sec officer he'd once been, struck dumb by the sight of her in heels and the dawning realization that humans could be attractive to his species. She hooked her legs over the pivot points on his hips and rose to meet his thrusts, the pleasure mounting almost unbearably fast.

“Jayne,” he whispered, his subvocals vibrating through her chest where his plates and her skin were melded together. “I...”

***

“Shepard,” the voice said, cutting off the memory. A flash of remembered sensation was seared into her mind and a pang of sorrow went with it. Oh, how she missed his presence wherever she was.

What? She knew her thoughts had turned surly at the interruption. She wanted to relive the rest of that particular memory. It was long after the shift change when Garrus finally left her cabin. Actually, she might have left it first, if she recalled correctly.

“You were going to tell us about the asari.”

Right. She sighed internally. Fine.

***

The smell of molten stone was a unique one, identifiable anywhere in the galaxy. The planet reeked of it. Thin pathways of solid ground ran between rivers of lava and she navigated the Mako with much more restraint that she normally did, earning her a grateful sigh from Garrus and a rueful chuckle from Wrex.

“Who the hell thought this planet was ever a good one to settle on?” she muttered darkly as a hairpin turn took them entirely too close to the radiating heat. A warning klaxon sounded on the control panel, and she was positive a wheel was hanging over the edge of what could only generously be called a road.

“The Protheans,” Wrex rejoined good-naturedly.

“Pity they couldn't leave paving stones along with their ruins.”

“And now your people have staked their claim on it for the mineral rights and haven't bothered to secure the roads either. Don't bitch, Shepard.” She flashed the battlemaster a grin over her shoulder.

“Shepard!” Garrus barked. “Geth up ahead.”

“Showtime, boys.”

***

“Shit on a stick, what the fuck with those things?” Jayne shouted as three froglike geth bounced and hopped around, too fast for her pistol as her aiming HUD was jammed and too high for grenades. Garrus was slumped at her feet, having taken a hard hit to his shields from the plasma cannon of the huge four legged geth currently pounding at them.

Wrex was singing, his craggy baritone surprisingly in key. He punctuated his verses with pot shots at the colossus, whittling down its shields so he and Jayne could throw warps at it, inflicting further damage and overloading its systems. Her amp was burning up in the already hot air and she could feel sweat pouring down her body inside her armor. A massive headache was starting behind her eyes. She was glad she'd left Kaiden on the ship; he would have passed out from the pain already. Garrus grunted as the medigel kicked in and his shield sparked blue for a second, recharging.

“Gonna make it, babe?”

“Yeah.” He got onto his knees and shook his head sharply to clear it, then lifted his shotgun again and added his ballistic barrage to his companions' biotics. The colossus finally went down in a hail of bullets and sparks, the flashlight head exploding outwards in a spray of synthetic parts. Jayne's HUD cleared and she could pinpoint the hoppers better, taking them down as fast as she was able.

“That was fun,” she announced when the last of the geth were dead and the trio could back out of their defensive positions.

“Not sure I'd call it that,” Garrus retorted. Wrex just grinned, his shark like teeth gleaming in the filtered sunlight.

“C'mon, boys, looks like we're on foot the rest of the way.”

***

“Thank the Goddess,” the slight asari uttered reverently as she slumped to the floor of the chamber. The light made her blue skin glow, and her travail of being trapped in the stasis field didn't seem to have injured her, other than leaving her dehydrated and exhausted. “I wasn't sure you were real.”

“Doctor Liara T'Soni?” Jayne asked, handing the maiden a water bottle and a levo protein bar.

“Yes.”

“Time to get out of here, I think. We'll have all the time in the world to straighten out this mess once we get to the Normandy.”

“Indeed.”

Liara followed the trio onto the elevator platform and Jayne hit the controls, feeling the creeping sensation of an ambush up her spine. “Stay sharp, boys,” she murmured.

Wrex reloaded his shotgun, and Garrus supported Liara as she wavered weakly, his pistol in his other hand. In the close quarters, there would be no way for him snipe anyhow.

The platform stopped at the top and they began to make their way out of the ruins when the shadows ahead morphed into a krogan mercenary and his backup. Jayne sighed. She was already battered, tired and sweaty. The place was coming down around their ears since the laser blast she'd used to gain entry to Liara's stasis prison seemed to have destabilized the ruins. She really didn't want to have to fight again.

“Give us the asari, human,” the krogan snorted. “No trouble.”

“You do realize this place is going to fall on our heads, right? You really want to do this now?”

“Exhilarating, isn't it?”

“Yeah, sure,” she muttered too low for the merc to hear. “All right boys, let's make this quick. I wanna go home.”

The fight was fast and hard, full of biotic blasts and too loud gunfire in the small space. Liara huddled behind the control panel of the elevator platform, curled up small and out of the way. Jayne felt the last wisp of adrenaline surge through her, giving her enough energy to knock the krogan off the platform to fall to his death. All around them the ruins shuddered and began to break apart. The sulfur scent of lava replaced the smell of dust and antiquity.

“Let's move!” Wrex shouted, hauling Liara to her feet and taking off at a lumbering run for the exit shaft. Jayne made sure Garrus was well on his way before she followed him, her breath heaving and making her ribs ache. No sooner had they gotten into the open air when the mine shaft collapsed behind them in a tangled screech of metal and stone. Jets of steam and ash flew up around them, making spotting the incoming Normandy difficult. But they reached it, and Joker began his ascent away from the planet barely before her feet were on the deck plates.

“Too close Commander, ten more seconds and we would have been swimming in molten sulfur. The Normandy isn’t equipped to land in exploding volcanoes. They tend to fry our sensors and melt our hull. Just for future reference.”

“Thank you, Joker, for that highly specific assessment. Now get us out of here.”

“I'm on it, Commander.”

***

“Rescuing her was only part of the story, Shepard,” the voice said.

Yeah, I know.

“The rest of it is what we want to know.”

She stayed silent, ordering her thoughts. She remembered the heat and grit of Therum still. She remembered how lost and confused Liara had been in those first hours after her rescue. How Wrex told stories down in the mess for anyone who wanted to hear them. How she and Garrus stood under a cool spray in the shower together, not speaking, only supporting each other's exhausted limbs as they washed the stench and grime of the day away. She was so jumbled and caught in the memories she almost didn't even know what had happened next.

Eternity, she thought. Clarity. The beacon's message.

If she could have escaped the voice, she would have. Was it really necessary to make her relive all these things? Wasn't it enough that she had died because of them once already?

I need some time, she temporized into the void space, as if it mattered.

“Time you do not have, Shepard. Tell us how she helped you defeat Sovereign.”

Chapter Text

“Commander?” an accented voice whispered in Jayne's ear. “I am Officer Girard of C-Sec. I am sorry to bother you, ma'am, but there is an escaped slave here. She is from Mindoir. She...she took one of my men's guns, and she claims she wants to die.”

Jayne sighed, a combination of painful reminiscence and sorrow passing through her in the instant she heard the name of her birth home. “What do you want from me?”

“I wonder if...if you might talk to her. Calm her down. You were there, were you not? When the colony was raided?”

Her father's glassy eyes stared at her from memory. “You mean when my parents were killed?” she asked archly, driving home the point.

“Forgive me, Commander.” Girard sounded contrite and properly chastised. “But yes. You...you have a better chance at getting through to her than any of us.”

He seemed determined to do the right thing, and she couldn't hold on to her anger. “I'm not trained for this, but I'll try.”

“Thank you, ma'am. She is here, in the docking bay. I am willing to wait her out, ma'am, but I would prefer to end this peacefully.”

“I'll be there as soon as I can.”

***

“What is this, Shepard?”

A piece of me. A piece of my history that shaped who I am.

“It is unimportant.”

No, it is the reason I became who I am. I am only this person because of this.

“We don't understand.”

I didn't think you would.

***

The injection slid into Talitha's neck with ease, but the young woman fought it still. “No, she doesn't like needles! The masters make her sleep a lot. She...she can't go back. She won't go back!”

“Hush, now,” Jayne said, consoling and heartbroken. This was what Uncle David had rescued her from. Too late for this girl, but enough for herself. “You aren't going back. You're safe now. We'll take care of you.”

Talitha slumped and Jayne caught her before she could hit the deck plates. Ridges of scars ran up and down the girl's back, thick enough that she could feel them through her thin coverall. She closed her eyes tight against the sting of helpless tears, hoping neither Tali nor Liara could see them. It was supposed to have been a good day. A reason to get out of the ship for some leave, some 'girls time' in the markets. Even now Tali was laden with shopping bags full of dextro supplies for her and Garrus, and Liara cradled a bag with a new set of armor in it for herself.

Jayne arranged Talitha's sedated body on the plating so she would not be uncomfortable and stroked her fingers across the young woman's forehead. “This is why I became a soldier,” she whispered to herself. “This is why I defend the galaxy against those who would destroy it.”

When she had composed herself, she went back to Girard and his C-Sec officers.

“Is she...?”

“She's sedated. I had to rush her, there was no other way. Be gentle with her, Officer Girard. She's been to hell and back. She doesn't believe that she's free, and has a frightening amount of Stockholm Syndrome.”

“Understood, Commander. We will take her to the counseling center and apprise them accordingly. Thank you for your help, ma'am.”

Jayne nodded and turned away from the young woman who could have been her. She led her crew back onto the Normandy, accepting Liara's tentative hand on her shoulder as they went through decon.

***

“We don't understand.” The voice sounded almost petulant, as if she'd conjured the memory simply to confuse them.

I know, she thought. Her heart ached anew for the ex-slave's pain. Pain she could have endured herself if chance had swung just a few inches the other way.

“There are always the powerless. There are always those who serve. The galaxy has always been thus.”

That doesn't make it right. That doesn't mean I can't fight it.

“To what end, Shepard?”

To the very end, she vowed.

“We don't understand.” The voice was frustrated now, stubbornly refusing to see any perspective other than its own.

Doesn't matter. Your lack of comprehension does not affect my motives. I continued to fight against injustice and imbalance. I would be still if I wasn't dead.

“You aren't dead, Shepard. Merely sleeping now.”

Resolve hardened in her soul. Then when I wake, I will come for you too. That, I promise.

“We shall see, won't we, Shepard?”

The voice left her alone then, dissipating into the void like smoke. But its absence didn't stop the memories from flooding her mind.

She recalled how she sparred with Wrex, letting him beat the tar out of her on the wrestling mats. He knew she was in pain, and it was the kind that couldn't be solved with anything less than cuts and bruises to match the suffering inside.

She lay in her bed afterwards as Garrus dressed the numerous scrapes and lacerations, his talons gentle and his patient thrumming in his subvocals soothing to her frazzled nerves. He'd wanted her to go to Chakwas, but she refused. In the end, he cleaned her up himself, then held her as she cried. Of all the rest of the crew, only he knew what it was like to see firsthand how evil could so thoroughly destroy a victim's sense of self. He held her tight in his arms, a rigid barrier against which she could throw all her rage, grief and helplessness.

She remembered Liara's face as the Normandy shifted through the mass effect corridor to its next destination. Her bright eyes dimmed as she pieced together what she knew of Commander Shepard, Council Spectre, and the woman she'd come to know simply as Jayne, Mindoir survivor. They didn't speak of it, but the asari maiden sat with her in the lounge, watching the corridor go by, cooling mugs of tea standing on the low table next to them, forgotten as the asari tried to help the commander through her anguish.

She picked a fight with Pressly finally, when he'd complained one too many times about aliens on board the ship. She'd dressed him down in front of half the crew, and she was sure the rest heard about it before the next shift break. He was sulky and resentful afterwards, and she saw Ashley speaking with him in the mess hall late one night cycle. She didn't care anymore. It was her ship, shape up or get off.

The anger stayed with her long after it should have. She remembered that too.

It stayed with her until Feros, and probably had something to do with how terribly Feros had ended. She carried that on her conscious too. But it was weight she accepted. She'd earned it, she'd carry it.

***

“There's a lot of cortisol in her system, Miranda.”

“Hmm, adjust her serotonin levels.” Miranda sighed. “Just what we need. The great commander herself, stressed out while comatose.”

“I wonder what goes on in her head,” the other one said, his voice curious.

“Who knows? Maybe she's having a nightmare. Wouldn't surprise me with all she's been through.”

“No, me neither.”

“Keep me posted, Wilson.”

“Of course.”

Chapter Text

“What planet is this again?” Garrus asked, his voice muffled through his helmet, still meticulously picking pyjak filth from the soles of his two toed boots.

“Hell if I know,” Jayne tossed over her shoulder as she drove. In all honesty, she probably did know, but the terrain was tricky, the mission was stupid and she didn't feel like pinpointing it.

“Well it sucks,” Garrus said darkly. She cracked a smile behind her visor where no one could see it. He'd been around her human crew enough to start picking up slang.

Chasing down primitive primate analogues wasn't her idea of a good time either. At least the scenery was nice. The sky was the color of a desert noon, so blue it seemed unreal. The moon was enormous above them. In all actuality, it was probably a dual planetary system. The moon appeared icy and barren, and dominated a quarter of the sky, reflecting brilliant light from the star. There was green grass and moss, a gentle breeze making that same grass bend and weave, but no breathable air for any of them.

The planet's atmosphere was actually quite hazardous, which felt incongruous to Jayne since it mirrored a prehistoric Earth so well. But the tiny life forms that drifted in the richly oxygenated air were deadly to any who inhaled them, leaving this pristine world utterly un-colonizable by any race other than the ubiquitous pyjaks. The only reason they were there at all was because that downed probe needed to be found, as if Commander Jayne Shepard, Citadel Council Spectre, had nothing better to do with her time than crawl around shelters made of mud searching pyjaks' backsides for it.

“Commander,” Tali said, interrupting Jayne's brood with a pointing hand. “What is that?”

In the bowl of a valley sprawled a platform that reminded Jayne eerily of the beacon site on Eden Prime – a circular flat area with curved uprights spaced evenly around it, many of them broken off and missing. Instead of a beacon, however, hung a ball of reflective material, seemingly of its own volition. She maneuvered the Mako as close as she could, knowing their time outdoors could only be short. The trio climbed down and immediately all three of their suits began pinging with alarms as their filtration systems were clogged with choking microbes.

Jayne stepped close to the orb, examining the inert ball from all sides. She would have missed it entirely if she hadn't been so thorough, but on one sloping side was an opening. She still carried the Consort's gift in her pack – heaven only knew why, other than it was intriguing and made a good worry stone when she was between missions – and pulled it out.

It fit in the grooved slot of the orb. Dazzling light blinded her...

***

“Protheans,” the voice said in her mind, interrupting the memory. There was disgust in the voice, far more than she'd experienced before. “They tampered with everything they touched.”

Why the hate for the Protheans?

“We do not hate them, Shepard. We merely have contempt for the myriad ways they changed the beings within their grasp. There are far more efficient ways to adapt a species to whatever specifications one wishes.”

What do you mean?

There was a pause, as if the voice realized it had said too much. She floated in the void space, waiting and wondering what mysteries of the universe she'd apparently impinged upon by remembering Eletania.

“It is not important,” the voice returned after a while. “What did the orb tell you?”

***

Garrus helped her to her feet, his talons staying wrapped around her wrist far longer than necessary for a simple act. Her head pounded like it had when she was caught in the beacon, and yet...the memories were clear and concise. They slipped into her mind like water poured from a cup into a pool. Little ripples flowed outward, but the feelings and emotions and sights of the memory were not foreign to her brain.

“You all right?” Tali asked as they climbed back into the Mako and took turns in its minuscule decontamination chamber.

“Yeah, I'm fine.”

Garrus cracked her helmet as soon as she was declared clean by the decon. He'd already taken off his. “I need to see your face,” he said. She let him pull the helmet off and check her eyes and face, his talons whispering against her skin.

“Do I pass muster?” she teased.

“You hit the ground pretty hard, J...Shepard. Just need to know you aren't hurt.”

“I'm fine, Garrus, just...” She looked out the Mako's wide viewport and saw the globe hanging suspended on nothing at all. “It was weird. Like watching through a caveman's eyes as he lived his life.”

“A caveman?”

“Primitive humans lived in caves before we learned to wield fire. Or at least, before we learned to control it well. Hunter gatherers, nomadic, living off the bounty of the earth without cares or responsibilities...” Her voice trailed off. Sometimes she wondered if humanity had made a mistake leaving the innocence of prehistory to become the bickering, technologically advanced civilization they'd turned out to be.

“How did you see it?” Tali asked, stepping out of decon into the cabin of the Mako. Her suit glistened from the scrubbers in a way that her own and Garrus's did not. Quarians needed extra, after all. They took no chances where their compromised immunity was involved.

“It was like the beacon. Implanted directly, but this was...all at once, I guess. A lifetime of human memories from a Prothean object.” She cast a worried glance at Garrus. “How long did they watch us, I wonder? And why did we never know?”

“You weren't ready evolutionarily to become a part of their great empire, I guess.” His tone was light, but his face was set in heavy lines and planes. She cupped a mandible for a second, breathing in his scent and grounding herself back in the present.

“Either way, we have a probe to find. Shall we?” Garrus made a face, and Tali made a noise of disgust, both of which made her laugh as she climbed back into the driver's seat of the Mako. “Oh, c'mon guys, it isn't that bad, is it?”

“It's disgusting,” Tali said with asperity. “My suit will never be the same.”

***

“What was the purpose of this memory, Shepard?”

I dunno. The mind is a random place. I can no more control what I remember than I can control the movements of the stars.

“Why retain such useless information then?”

What do you mean? Memories aren't just hard drive files like a computer. You can't delete them.

“They are still useless if they do not further your own improvement.”

Why is it necessary to be improved? Sometimes memories are just that, snapshots of actions and feelings. Sometimes they are stories. Most often they are just a timeline, leading from point A to point C, stopping at subcategories of point B along the way. They shape us, shape our future thoughts, influence our actions, bring peace.

“They can also bring other emotions as well.”

You're right, they can. You're keeping me here, aren't you? In this space?

“You are divided from your conscious state, Shepard. We did not bring you here. You are different from other humans. We have never delved so deep into your kind before.”

How will I get back?

The voice was silent, a silence that told her that perhaps the voice didn't know. Or if it did, it wouldn't tell her yet. It wanted something from her, something other than just a recounting of how she defeated Saren and Sovereign. It wouldn't let her go until it got what it wanted. The voice may not be actively holding her hostage, but she was positive that it knew precisely how to return her to her body if it wished to. If she wanted to return to the real world, she was going to have to cooperate.

Shall I tell you about Feros now?

“If you wish, Shepard.”

Chapter Text

There was something in the air that Jayne couldn't put her finger on. It wasn't bothersome so much as it was disquieting. And when the geth attacked, and the colonists just stood there – other than the few that were armed – that disquiet grew. Garrus and Wrex flanked her, taking down the troopers with ease. The trio moved down the thick stone corridor into the belly of the colony, beset on all sides by the damned hoppers.

“How the hell are those things jamming me?” she groused, trading out her pistol for her shotgun and its wider spray.

“On your left, Shepard,” Wrex grunted, sending a biotic throw at one of them. It dodged neatly out of the way before the attack reached it, hopping from wall to wall in the cramped stairwell.

Eventually they got them all, and discovered that their problems were far from over as a geth dropship settled in to attach to the colony.

“I do not have time for this shit,” she muttered under her breath, dodging the spray of bullets behind cover.

***

“Varren killed, water supply fixed, power cells found...what's left? Should we redecorate too?” She was fuming mad, frustrated by the lack of any answers and getting steadily more and more disgusted with the colonists as the day wore on.

“I think a collage of geth parts would make an excellent artistic display,” Wrex said, his tone echoing her own. She grinned at him, grateful once more to have recruited the testy krogan. The trio ran across the stone bridge from one side of the ancient Prothean ruin to the other and ran smack into a firefight.

“Well, I think it's safe to say we know how the geth are communicating to each other,” Garrus pointed out once they'd cleared the space and destroyed the rotating comm beacon.

“We still need to figure out why they're here at all,” Jayne said. “I wonder if Fai Dan will have any useful information for us now that we've done all their errands.”

***

“Are you all right?” Jayne asked the obviously disturbed colonist. She watched the man contort himself, laughing maniacally at his own pain.

“Just invoking the master's whip,” the man wheezed between bouts of laughing and screaming. Jayne surmised that there was something down below the colony that the geth were after, and whatever it was, it had something to do with this man's torment. One moment he was utterly sane and able to tell her things – even if they made no sense – the next, he was writhing as though a thousand thorns had punctured him. Indeed, he even likened it to running through a thorn bush.

“We should have just shot him,” Wrex said as they walked away, having garnered what little information the man had. It was better than nothing, Jayne supposed, but that wasn't saying much. “Put him out of his misery.”

“Wrex...” Garrus started in a warning tone.

“No,” she interrupted. “Their lives are not disposable. I'm not that kind of Spectre.”

“Sorry, Shepard. I didn't mean to imply...”

“Then don't,” she snapped. She knew it was the wrong reaction as soon as the words left her mouth. Wrex sneered, his face loomed into hers and she could feel the wave of wrath rolling off him as a palpable thing. Her current state of mind couldn't be blamed entirely on the lingering rage she felt after helping Talitha; there was definitely something wrong in this place. She didn't snap at her subordinates, and krogan didn't apologize for anything. She didn't like it.

“You wanna go a few rounds, pyjak? See if you can take this quad?” Wrex was nearly spitting in her face and she forced herself to take a few breaths to calm her racing heart and cool her temper.

“I've had bigger, Wrex” she said coolly. “Get a hold of yourself and get out of your commanding officer's personal space.” She could tell her delivery was good when he stared in shock for a moment, then started to laugh. The growly sound of it was perversely soothing and they stepped away from each other.

“Oh, I like you Shepard,” Wrex finally got out, and with that their equilibrium was re-established. From the corner of her eye, Jayne saw Garrus lower his pistol. She nodded slightly and he nodded back, his mandibles tucked so tight against his face she couldn't even see a hint of his teeth.

“'There's something fishy in Denmark',” she paraphrased quietly to herself. “C'mon, boys, we need to get this shit done so we can get the hell out of here.”

***

“Geth, geth, insane corporate stooges and...oh look! More geth.” From the roof mounted turret, she heard Wrex's chuckle, and the boom of the cannon as he shot at the armatures down the skyway. The road was littered with debris, burned out vehicles and geth parts, but she was determined to reach other side of the ruin in one piece.

“You think ExoGeni is responsible for all this?” Garrus asked from the passenger seat, his talons gripped tightly around the roll bar as the Mako shook and rattled and slammed into whatever was in her way.

“After talking with that asshat? I sure do.” The road had ended, and now they would have to proceed on foot through the headquarters. They climbed down from the Mako and she hacked the door with little trouble, entering into the building where it was finally quiet.

“Now what?” Wrex asked no one in particular.

“Now we figure out whatever this thing is that's got everyone so riled up.” Jayne jumped over the railing of a collapsed staircase and rolled lightly back to her feet, weapon at the ready. By the time her squadmates joined her, she was back in charge of herself.

***

“ExoGeni Corporation reminds all staff that the discharging of weapons while on company property is strictly forbidden,” the VI said in its mechanically chastising way. Jayne frowned at the image, as if it made a difference. Getting information from a VI could be just as irritating as fighting their way through the geth had been. She was grateful to Lizbeth's ID, considering the VI assumed she was Lizbeth and answered far more openly than she'd hoped, but that just added to her questions. It was evident that the timid looking scientist was hiding a big secret.

Never mind the energy barrier the geth had erected on all the exits. It reminded her too much of the stasis field they'd found Liara in. She didn't like thinking about how the geth were evolving faster than she and her team could combat them.

One thing at a time, Jayne, she warned herself. They needed more information, and then they could find their way out. “Tell me everything about Species 37,” she commanded the VI.

Plant based sentience.

Inhaled spores. Mind control.

Zhu's Hope was sitting right on top it. ExoGeni knew what it was doing to its own people.

She put aside her immediate rage at the corruption and lack of ethics among corporations and focused. “This is what Saren's after,” she mused aloud. “But why?”

“We won't be able to find out if we can't get that barrier down,” Garrus commented.

“We need to find that ship and deactivate it,” she replied. “Let's get moving.”

***

The geth dropship fell away from the building, a screaming tangle of wires, strange tech and subaural vibrations in its wake. The blue barrier fell and she and her squad were able to return to Lizbeth. Jayne didn't bother asking any questions, just herded the scientist to the Mako. There would be plenty of time after they got out of the headquarters to make sense of all this.

But there wasn't, of course.

Ethan Jeong got on her nerves, not just because he was a party to ExoGeni's horrible experiments, but also because he was an annoying little prick who thought his employers could possibly have some sway over her actions. Shooting him when he threatened her felt more than good, it felt righteous.

And that made her stop, horrified at herself. She'd just murdered a civilian. It didn't matter that he was no innocent, she didn't cross that line. Ever. She gagged but hid it well enough that no one else saw. She let Garrus and Wrex carry on the conversation around them, talking with Lizbeth's mother and attempting to work out a plan that didn't involve the slaughter of more colonists to get down to where the Thorian was.

She was silent as they worked their way back across the skyway, even as they subdued the mind controlled colonists with the concussive grenades. She didn't retaliate as they shot at her, depleting her shields and striking her armor. She felt the impacts but didn't react, other than to throw more grenades until they were gone.

It was quiet then, with all the brainwashed colonists unconscious. Garrus seemed to have latched on to her mood and was equally silent. Wrex appeared to be oblivious, but she didn't assume that he was. He gave off the dumb krogan facade well, but she knew better. They were all being affected by whatever spores the Thorian was giving off. Jayne was tired and felt weak. She couldn't remember the last time she'd eaten. But the mission wasn't over. She took control of the huge crane and unblocked the entrance to the lower levels of the Prothean ruins, then went inside.

***

“The Thorian,” the voice said, sounding almost...thoughtful. “It was unique in the galaxy.”

Yes, it was.

“It hid itself well for uncounted cycles. The Reapers never even knew it was there.”

Would it have mattered? The Reapers go after technological species. By all accounts, the Thorian never used any tech, never even moved from its rooted spot. It wouldn't have been considered a threat.

“And yet, if they had known, the Reapers would have destroyed it just as surely. It amassed more intelligence than anything ever discovered before or since.”

I know. She was almost smug in her thoughts. The Thorian was gone, that was true, but its collective memory lived on. In her. In Shiala. Perhaps even spores remained that would become a new creature, growing over millennia once more. If the worst happened, and the galaxy fell to the Reapers once more, there was still a chance that such intelligence would go on into an unknown future. She hoped that future would be kinder, although she doubted it would.

“What do you suppose Saren wanted with such a creature?”

You mean besides the Cipher? I don't think you need me to tell you.

“He wanted to fight his indoctrination,” the voice said. “Perhaps an alternative mind control would counteract that of Sovereign. There is no way to do such a thing.”

And yet he managed it, in the end.

“So he did, Shepard.” There was a moment of quiet in the void space and she floated there, waiting, knowing the voice wasn't done with her. “Go on, remember the rest.”

Chapter Text

“It's just a shakedown run to Eden Prime after a pickup on Earth,” Anderson told her. “Nothing earth shattering. I want to get that drive core broken in.”

She wasn't sure she was buying it completely based on his half guilty expression, but she just nodded. “No problem, sir.”

“Be aboard at 0800 in two days, Commander.”

“Yes, sir.” She shut off her omni-tool and the connection to the flat screen faded out. She heard the distinctive clicking footsteps of Garrus behind her and turned to greet him with a smile.

“Got your orders?” he asked, tightening the last buckles and catches on his clothes.

“Yes.”

She straightened the seams of his C-Sec uniform with a deliberately playful air. It was strange, seeing him all starched and pressed and disappearing behind the mask of 'good turian' when just hours before he had been wanton and naked in her bed, making her laugh with uncanny impressions of his coworkers over ordered in food and beers. They'd skipped the vid and gone straight to the dessert portion of their evening together, knowing time was short before she left the Citadel for service on the Normandy. They never wanted to waste a moment. And now she knew just how much time they had left.

“Catch some bad guys for me, hero,” she murmured, running her lips against his mandible as he ran his talons down her back.

“If I'm lucky, I'll be chained to my desk today,” he returned with a laugh. She grinned up at him, seeing the sparkle in his eye. “But I'll be thinking about you all day.”

“Don't accidentally doodle my name surrounded by little hearts, then,” she offered.

“Humans,” he said, rolling his eyes in a fair approximation of human exasperation. She laughed, tugged the center seam of his uniform a final time until it lay just so, and gave him a shove.

“Go on, then, Officer Vakarian. Get to work.”

“I'll see you later,” he said by way of farewell, and left her apartment.

She had nothing planned for the day since she was no longer liaison to C-Sec and she stared at the four walls, feeling almost like they were closing in on her now that he was gone. Her things were mostly packed – only her civvies and the food in the fridge remained – and all she had left was the waiting. Two more days. She didn't want to linger over the thought. It wasn't productive. She should be looking forward to getting back out into space. She'd been dreaming of it since coming out of therapy after Akuze.

I never had a reason to stay in one place before, she thought. Then shook her head to dispel the scattering of emotions that wanted to clog the back of her throat, that wanted to make her chest seize with apprehension.

Maybe she'd go down to the Zakera Park, she hadn't been there in ages it seemed. She loved to watch the fountains and listen to the passersby as they idly chatted. She might even be able to find her ancient sketchbook if she was lucky...

***

“Shepard,” the voice said, chiding. “You are not focused.”

She mentally snorted. Like enough of this makes sense to me to focus. You try being dead.

“Tell us about the Thorian.”

Whatever...

***

The...being, for lack of a better word...stretched out before them, rising into the heights of the Prothean ruin, while simultaneously disappearing into the depths below, held steady by thick, ropy 'branches' that pulsed and glistened. Jayne felt like she couldn't breathe and slipped her helmet on, sealing her armor and ventilating out the spores. Wrex and Garrus stood at her sides, each of them just staring at the plant creature, equally as awed and aghast.

“My training manual did not cover this,” Garrus said under his breath. Wrex snorted.

With a sloshing sound, the tentacle covered 'mouth' ejected a shape that resolved itself into a dark green asari, dressed in black armor like a commando. She stood and faced them, her eyes dead and vacant.

Apparently, no further deals were going to be made between sapient lifeforms and the Thorian. Jayne ground her teeth with frustration at Saren's constant fucking up of her life. With resignation, she readied her pistol and got to work.

***

“What are you thinking about Jayne?” Garrus asked her as they sat cramped in a tiny side room, taking a breather after the last round of husk attacks. She wiped more dust from the screen of her helmet, hating the thought of having to put it back on, knowing there was no other choice if she wanted to keep her wits about her.

“Back on Eden Prime, there was a man who had clearly gone insane. He talked about how no one was saved, how the darkness was coming and it was the end of all existence as we knew it.” Somehow Manuel had been exposed to the beacon, she understood that now. “He wasn't insane at all,” she said. Even Wrex looked over at her before returning to cleaning the goo from his shotgun. “He even said it, he was the only sane one left.”

“Why are thinking of that now?”

“Because he was right. Look at us, in the middle of nowhere space, buried below the ruins of a Prothean city, deeper still in the underbelly of some alien intelligence that's never been seen before. The universe as we know it is already gone. Assuming it ever existed in the first place.”

Garrus silently pondered, but Wrex spoke up. “The universe is full of things we've never seen. I've never been to Earth, and yet I know you humans exist. You had to come from somewhere.” He finished wiping the goo from his gun and racked it. “I keep what's in front of me in front of me, Shepard. And if I can't make sense of it, I shoot it. That is what I know.”

Jayne looked at her friends, two unlikely partners who nevertheless had her back as she had theirs. “You're right, of course. We have to keep fighting. I'm just...I'm just so tired. I'm tired of killing things...people. Look what we had to do to the colony. Zhu's Hope will never be the same again.”

“That was ExoGeni, it's not on you. There will be time enough to sleep when you're dead,” Wrex growled, his acute senses picking up the scent of more husks further down the spiral of the Thorian's lair. “Time for us to do what we do.”

Jayne hauled herself up from the gritty floor, Garrus's talons wrapped around her upper arm to halt her so he could say what he wanted to.

“There's time enough to live too,” he murmured, for her ears only. “You humans are resilient. Zhu's Hope will be fine.”

She pressed her lips against his mouth plates, just for a second, just for a fleeting moment, but she felt restored. “Thanks babe.”

“Let's kick some ass, Jayne.”

***

The mind meld was...intense. There was no better word for it. Twice now she'd been assaulted by Prothean beacons, twice she'd had her brain unfolded like an antique paper map, only to be wadded up and rearranged and laid flat again. And now she'd had an asari slip between the folds and creases, depositing an eon's worth of knowledge, memories and distant sensations into her crowded mind. She felt strange in her skin, too big, too stretched. Too old.

It wasn't like melding during intimacy at all.

“Are you all right, Jayne?” Garrus asked as the two women separated. Wrex swiveled his large head towards the turian and Jayne saw a contemplative expression come over his face.

“I'm fine,” she said. “Just...I dunno, I thought it would be clearer.”

“You have been given a great gift,” Shiala intoned, “the experience of an entire people. It will take time for your mind to process the information.”

“You look pretty wrecked, Commander,” Wrex said.

“Yeah...”

“I'm sorry if you have suffered,” Shiala went on. “But it was the only way. You needed this, and in time it will help you understand the beacon's message.”

“Oh, I have no doubt of that,” Jayne muttered.

***

“And did you, Shepard?” the voice asked. “Did you understand the message?”

You know that I did, since I was able to finally defeat Sovereign. Why ask such a thing?

“Do you know who we are now?”

No, she thought. She wondered why the voice was asking her that. It implied that she should have figured it out. Are you Prothean?

“No, Shepard, we are not.”

Then why would I know who you are?

“It is not important,” the voice said. “The images in your memory are clearer than you describe. When you found the missing pieces, did it all come together?”

No, that was...that was Liara's doing.

“The asari. Joining of the mind. The Protheans tinkered with them too, you know.”

...What of it?

“Their primitive matriarchs had no power to combine with dissimilar species before being assimilated into the Prothean Empire. They changed them, made them biologically...flexible.” There was a moment of silence in the void space and she wondered if this was leading anywhere pertinent. “It makes us wonder if perhaps the Protheans could see the future, knowing a race such as yours was coming.”

Perhaps they did. The only way for them to have left ruins on Mars was if they were there. They knew we were evolving, moving towards technology.

“You were not molded by them, Shepard. The Reapers saw to that.”

By destroying them, you mean. Perhaps we would have ended up like the asari too.

“Perhaps. It does not matter now. Now we are interested in the next stage of your journey towards Ilos.”

Noveria, she thought.

“Indeed, Shepard. Many things happened there that were not expected.”

Yes, many things, she thought with a pang of sorrow. Not now, let me rest.

“Rest does not signify in this place, Shepard, surely you know that?”

I know I would rather not relive Noveria again.

“We do not care about your wishes in this. We require the information, and you will give it.”

***

Distantly, faintly, she heard steady beeping. It wasn't a klaxon or alarm, merely a rhythmic beat. Without knowing how she knew, she was aware that it was in time with her heartbeat.

I am Jayne Shepard, and I am not dead.

Chapter Text

How long have I been here, in this space? she thought. It was the first time she'd addressed the voice on her own, and she didn't even know if it would answer.

“We do not measure time as you do, Shepard.”

Well that doesn't help me.

“Noveria.”

How 'bout not?

“Why do you persist in fighting us?” the voice seemed curious.

Because it's my head, my memories. Maybe I want to actively remember different things. Better things maybe.

“We do not care about your insignificant recollections of base animal urges,” the voice said. There was a heavy tone to it that would have made her laugh in another life. As it was, she felt wry sarcastic humor flow through her. Base animal urges, indeed. What she wouldn't give to feel Garrus's arms around her again. She could use his comforting, steady presence.

What do you hope to gain from learning how I defeated Sovereign anyway? It's not like the same tactic will work again. Or would it?

“You need not concern yourself with what we will do with the knowledge, Shepard. Only that we require it.”

Not today, friend.

“We are not your friend. You will tell us what we wish to know.”

Or what? You can't exactly kill me, can you? Not without losing this golden opportunity, she taunted. She knew it was petty, but it felt good just the same.

“Noveria, Shepard.”

Nah.

***

The door to the captain's cabin pinged, but she ignored it. She'd been ignoring it for hours, days. The ship moved on through space, collecting samples and fuel, finding odd bits and pieces of history long lost or forgotten. Liara was dutifully recording each of the Matriarch Dilinaga's writings into a log, probably weeping rapturous tears after each one. Of the Prothean data discs they'd found so far, no one had managed to decipher them. They were delicate enough that no one really wanted to handle them too much. Jayne thought maybe she should take a crack at it, now that she had all of the Thorian's knowledge in her head.

Not that it would serve as anything other than a distraction if she did.

Ping.

She rolled over on her bed and tucked her knees into her chest. She didn't want to see anyone. Her crew did not need to see their Commander falling apart.

“Dammit, Shepard, open this door. My hands are full.”

Garrus.

She lifted her arm and activated her omni-tool, overriding the door lock. She heard it open and then close, and heard the rattle of dishes being set on her table, the slide of datapads being moved out of the way. The scent of the food wafted towards her, but she didn't get up. Her traitorous stomach growled, however.

“As I thought,” Garrus said, obviously having heard it. “You haven't been seen in the mess for three days, Jayne. I know some races can go that long without eating, but yours is not one of them. At least, not without ill effect.”

“Here to nursemaid me, Vakarian?” she grunted, her voice rusty and dry from too much silence.

He stood in her cabin with his back to her, his head hanging down against his keelbone. When he lifted it and looked at her over his shoulder, she could see he was worried about her. He knew how hard she was taking the murder of the ExoGeni employee on Feros.

“He would have sabotaged all our efforts to make it out of there, Jayne,” he murmured. She watched him set out silverware for each of them, his double tined fork looking like a well sharpened chopstick that had been split in two in comparison to her own. “I'm not saying he deserved it...”

“Because he didn't,” she barked, lifting her head for a moment in anger before flopping back on the bed. She saw spots.

Garrus sighed and shook his head. “You're a Spectre, Jayne.”

“Doesn't make it right,” she insisted.

“No, it doesn't. But would you honestly feel better if we were having this conversation through the bars of a C-Sec detainment cell?”

“I might.”

He flexed his mandibles at her as he approached the bed to look at her more closely. “Can you even sit up right now?”

“No,” she said with a pout. She hadn't wanted to see anyone, hadn't eaten in days and barely drank enough water to have to pee. She knew she was weakening herself without purpose, but she didn't really care. It weighed on her, what she'd done. She deserved punishment.

“Fine,” he retorted and turned back to the table. She barely registered that he was lifting her food from the table and bringing it to her until he was sitting on the edge of her bed. “Open your mouth, pyjak.”

The food smelled good and she wondered how Garrus had convinced the requisition officer to find it, since she knew for a fact that nothing in the mess smelled this good. She resigned herself and took the bite that was offered. Once she chewed and swallowed she glared at him, only to have him shovel more food into her mouth. His brow plates were drawn together and his mandibles were tucked tight to his face. But there was a determined glint in his eye that she couldn't ignore.

“Are you angrily feeding me, Garrus?” she asked when she had a chance between bites. The ridiculousness of the situation was trying hard to break through her melancholy and she nearly smiled at him.

“Someone has to.”

He managed to get the whole plate of food in her, his own grown cold on the table. Guilt struck her then. She was a leader, she was in command of this ship. She needed to do better, and not just for her own sake.

“I'm sorry,” she whispered.

“Don't be. It was a hard call. You made it, and we all got out of there in one piece. The colony will survive, and ExoGeni will be held accountable for their treatment of the colonists. One life balanced against that...”

“Still doesn't make it right.”

“Perhaps not, Jayne. But more lives were saved than were lost. Sometimes that is the only bargain you can make.”

“Have you always been so wise?”

He flared a mandible in a lopsided grin and shook his head. “No, but my father is.”

She reached out a hand and twined her fingers with his. “Stay with me tonight?” He smiled more fully and seemed to deflate with relief. “I'll even let you go eat your dinner before you hold me.”

He laughed, but still went and gobbled down his dextro ration far more quickly than she'd eaten her small dinner, even though it was cold and probably congealed. He came back to the bed, stripping down to his undersuit just as she managed to slide her legs under the covers. He rolled on his side facing her, pulling her into his embrace. He was warm and solid and she tucked her brow against him, pressing her skull against his plates as if she could hammer his solidity into her soul.

He rubbed her back, his triple digits no longer strange and unfamiliar. Within a few minutes she started to doze, at peace for the first time since they'd left Feros.

“Thank you, Garrus,” she murmured just before she dropped off.

“You're welcome, darling. Any time.”

***

“Why did you feel such a response to the death you incurred? We don't understand.”

Guilt. Yeah, I get the feeling you wouldn't know guilt if it bit you in the ass...assuming you have an ass, that is.

“You are deflecting, Shepard.”

While that corporate asshole was by no means innocent, that didn't mean he deserved to die. It is not my place to sit as judge, jury and executioner. All life is precious.

“All life is merely life, Shepard. There is no moral right or wrong about it. Many things kill many other things on a regular basis. They do not feel such a thing as guilt.”

What do you even know about morals, eh? You're keeping me here, in this space, against my will, and interrogating me for information that is none of your business.

“We do not hold you here. You are separated from your body. Should the link dissipate entirely, your body will die. Should you regain it completely, you will wake.”

Really?

She wondered how she was 'tethered', if it was indeed something so tangible. She knew there were times she felt closer to her body than others. She wondered how she could manipulate the void space. If she could at all.

“We require the information we seek from you.”

Why?

“We must analyze it.”

Why?

“That is not your concern.”

It's my intel. I'm not going to give it if I think you're going to do something nefarious with it.

There was sudden pressure against her, the kind she'd felt before when she'd resisted too hard against the voice. She felt smothered and drowned simultaneously. She gathered her strength, acting purely on instinct alone and pushed back against the pressure as hard as she could.

***

She gasped, heard the beeping machine turn frantic and erratic, heard an alarm begin as a wave of remorseless agony washed through every limb, every pore of her skin.

“Shit...Miranda!”

“Too soon, far too soon. Goddammit!”

There was a cool ripple against the tide of searing pain and she sank again...

***

“You are growing stronger, Shepard. Soon you will regain the connection with your body. We must know all we require before that time.”

Fuck you, she thought. I don't have to give you shit.

“Perhaps not. But if it is necessary to take it by force, the information will be corrupted and incomplete. Do not mistake us, Shepard, if you do not cooperate, we will take it by force. We merely prefer not to.”

So you are keeping me hostage?

“Should you regain connection with your body, you will no longer be in this place.”

As answers went, it was not exactly what she expected. But she'd take it. If she could force herself to wake up, she could get away from the voice and its incessant questions. The memories would remain, of course. They were already hers. But she wouldn't have to share them again. She imagined herself curled into a ball, much like she'd been in Garrus's arms that night when he comforted her. She made herself small, so as to make herself strong. A pebble in the universe's shoe.

She would wake. She swore it.

Chapter Text

The first thing she noticed about Noveria was the cold. Both in the weather and in the greeting. They were outside Council space, her Spectre status didn't mean that much considering how far away help would be if she needed it. With Wrex and Garrus at her back, she'd hoped to pass through the checkpoint without many questions. But Captain Matsuo was unimpressed with her intimidating backup, and it nearly came to a firefight.

Of course, it didn't. She made a mental note to start paying more attention to galactic news, keep a finger in the pie of corporate interests. It was evident that certain other Spectres did the same.

“Wait, Matriarch Benezia is here?” she asked the lovely young administrative assistant at the help desk who'd managed to get them through the security checkpoint unharmed.

“We should tell Liara,” Garrus murmured behind her. Wrex merely grunted a noncommittal noise.

“I expect this will get ugly,” Jayne said. “I'd rather have the two of you with me, if you don't mind.”

“You're sounding preferential, Shepard. At least my protein shot won't kill you,” Wrex said with a chuckle.

“That's enough out of you, you overgrown pyjak,” Jayne rejoined, while Garrus sputtered with the turian version of a snort. Wrex let his chuckle grow to a full laugh before stalking off after them as they went through to the elevator.

***

Why did people think she was interested in their intrigues? Or that she could be bribed to do their dirty work for them? She wasn't there to smuggle goods, or get involved with espionage.

She accepted that she would have to convince the turian to turn over his evidence to the internal affairs investigator – the same lovely, helpful administrator that had helped her get into the facility, no less – but she couldn't afford to get sidetracked by other requests, and she turned the cold eyed asari and the hanar down flat. Irritation palpably flowed off the asari, but Jayne stared her down, trying to give off the presence that a Spectre should. She wasn't a spy, or an errand girl. She was a Council Spectre on Council Spectre business. Nothing else had priority. At least the hanar hadn't seemed upset.

Convincing Lorik was tough, but she managed. She'd shed enough blood already on account of Saren's activities; she was glad this time to get through to someone more diplomatically. Well, to a point anyway. Dirty cops were always going to be dirty and violent. But she and her squad escaped unscathed from the fight and she was able to help Parasini take Anoleis down.

Garage pass in hand, the trio left Port Hanshan to its drama and stepped out into the cold where a Mako waited for them.

Of course, geth waited for them too.

***

“If we're going to be here awhile, I'm going to go find something to kill that I can eat,” Wrex growled.

A number of things had led them to being stuck near the entrance to an underpass tunnel just outside of Peak 15. A geth armature had basically embedded itself to the front of the Mako, which was now undergoing self diagnostic repairs that would take at least an hour. They slammed nose first into a snowbank, which managed to dislodge the geth, but also froze the forward battery on the vehicle, thus the need to repair and why it was going to take so long. And Garrus had been thrown out of the cannon seat by the impact, damaging the heat regulator on his armor, which was now plugged into the mending unit of the Mako too, slowing the overall repair process down further.

“Fine, but don't go too far,” Jayne warned him. The krogan grinned at her, checked over his assault rifle and disappeared into the snow.

“J...J...”

“Here,” she said to Garrus, wrapping another blanket around him. He didn't look good, sitting there in nothing more than his undersuit. Turians were already blue enough without adding to it from the cold.

“I hate this f...fucking planet,” he stuttered, the cold making his mouth plates stiff and resistant.

“Same here, babe. I mean, I like snow and all, but not at the expense of your safety.” She started stripping out of her own armor while he watched.

“What...doing?”

“You need to be warmer. Only thing I know of to improve that is body heat.”

She shivered for a second as the intense cold hit her and wrapped the last blanket around her shoulders before she approached him, cocooning him in the trapped heat before she snuggled in under the blankets wrapped around him. She bathed his face with her breath, seeing how his facial plates drew tight and rigid at first before slowly releasing as her heat seeped into him. Turians didn't shiver, not the way humans did. But once her heat had combined with his, he relaxed. His arms came around her, pulling her closer. She tucked the blankets tighter around his cowl and ignored the draft around her legs.

They'd positioned Garrus next to the repair unit for his armor since it gave off a small amount of heat while it worked. But with the atmospheric controls down while the Mako mended itself, there was no other heat in the vehicle. She didn't want to tell him that she was going to get cold too. He didn't need worry on top of his situation.

“Better?” she asked.

“A bit. Tolerable,” he said, his mandibles brushing against her jaw. She had their faces as close as she could without actually kissing him, but once she acknowledged it, the urge to press her lips to him became overwhelming. “You have a look in your eye, Commander,” he said drily.

“I'm sure I do,” she confessed with a rueful smile. “It's inappropriate under the circumstances, though.”

“Hmm.” He shifted their weight around and she straddled him more fully, able to tuck her legs around him to add to the cocoon of heat. With some strategic tugging, she was able to get her feet covered by the extra edges of the blankets, cutting off some of the draft chilling her. Nevertheless, she shivered.

“I'm fine,” she said, before he could ask. “But it's a bit cold for humans too.”

“A bit cold,” he echoed, as if he didn't quite buy that and knew she was making an understatement.

“Hey, we're keeping each other warm.”

Garrus ran his hands up and down her back, and she gave in to the urge to kiss him. She kept it chaste, no need to add wet tongues to the mix of cold air. Still, it wasn't chaste enough, and Garrus's hands gripped her hips suddenly, grinding her down against him. His plates had shifted and she could feel the outline of his emerging erection underneath her.

“Time and place,” she managed.

“Fuck that,” he growled.

“Garrus!” He held her down on him, almost writhing under her. “I didn't get on your lap so you could get frisky.”

“No reason I can't take advantage of the situation,” he murmured, dropping his voice into the vocal range she loved and tilting his head so his mandible brushed along her jaw, making her tip her head back.

“Babe, Wrex could be back any second.” It was a valiant effort on her part to resist, but...it was crumbling just the same.

“And...?”

“You have no shame now that he knows, don't you?”

“Hmm, shame isn't a turian emotion when it comes to this. We'll be quick if you're so worried about it.” He slipped his talons under the waistband of her undersuit, tugging them over the curve of her backside. She just shook her head at him, giving up the ghost and acknowledging that she was grateful that women's undersuits were in two pieces. She reached between them, keeping hold of the blankets with one hand while the other found the snaps of his undersuit with the other. They moved in concert, each one pulling aside fabric just enough to fit them together.

He slid into her with a sigh and a chuckle. She might have only straddled him for warmth, but she was wet enough that their joining was seamless and smooth. She rested her forehead against his and smiled. “I've missed this,” she whispered.

“Hard to get a free moment alone these days,” he agreed.

She rocked on him, drawing the pleasure out and feeling her breath catch and hitch in her lungs. As always he filled her completely, almost achingly so, even sitting up in this terribly awkward way. It wasn't long before she was panting from trying to keep quiet in case Wrex was near. Garrus had no such compunction and groaned loudly as she worked their bodies together. His hands were clamped on her hips, helping her rise and fall on him. He'd pulled the undersuit down her legs just enough to bare the necessary parts and the band cut into her thighs, but she didn't care.

“Come for me, Jayne,” he said in her ear, his agile tongue tracing the outline of the shell. She shuddered and felt the blossoming heat within that meant she could tip over that edge any moment. She leaned into him, her breath harsh and loud in the echoing passenger compartment of the Mako, her hands tightly holding the blankets like a lifeline.

Garrus surged into her, hitting every spot that made her see stars and she came unraveled, unable to keep a shout inside as she climaxed. He followed her quickly, releasing into her with hard thrusts that made each aftershock reverberate through her whole body. She hadn't quite worked up a sweat, but she was certainly warm enough now. And his color was better.

He chuckled as he withdrew from her and back into his plates. “That's one way to keep me warm,” he said.

“Shush. It was your idea.”

“You aren't complaining, I notice.”

She smiled, letting him pull her undersuit back up over her waist. She was damp and slightly sore, but it had been worth it. She felt more relaxed than she had in weeks. She had no further objections to the way turians released their stress, not that she really ever did. Alliance regs be damned. Although doing the rest of the mission without a shower might prove problematic later, but she wasn't too worried.

Just as the Mako dinged to announce the repairs on Garrus's armor were done, they also heard huffing grunts and heavy footsteps marking Wrex's return to the Mako. They drew apart, Jayne back into her armor and Garrus into his. He breathed a heavy sigh of relief as the heat regulator kicked in, bringing his temperature back into the normal range. Wrex looked at them both with wise, knowing eyes and a grin, but didn't anything so obvious as to sniff the air and said nothing as he squeezed himself into the front seat of the vehicle.

“Good hunting?” Jayne asked.

“In a manner of speaking,” the krogan replied. “How's the kid?”

“I'm fine,” Garrus growled, although even to Jayne's ears he didn't sound particularly ruffled by the comment. Wrex just grinned some more while Jayne blushed.

***

“This is not what we want to know, Shepard,” the voice said sternly. “We have warned you about this.”

What do I care about what you want to know? I wanted to remember it. Remember one last piece of good before everything went to shit.

“Tell us about Peak 15 and the Matriarch.”

And the rachni? There was a sound in the void space, not unlike a growl. Curious, she thought. Do the rachni bother you?

“Get on with it,” the voice commanded. If she could have smiled to herself, she would have. That was a useful piece of information, knowing that the voice, whatever it was, did not like her alliance with the once thought extinct race.

As you like.

Chapter Text

“What is it about red sand dealers and cold planets?” she groused as the Mako slipped backwards down an icy slope.

Wrex tilted his head towards her and snorted. Garrus just huffed under his breath, his subvocals too low to rumble over the sound of the Mako's laboring tires. Jayne shook her head at both of them, admitting to herself that the question had been largely rhetorical.

Outlying, cold, and often inhospitable worlds had far less chance of being on someone's radar, after all. Everyone knew that.

“I'll be glad when this whole thing is over,” Garrus said, his mandibles trembling against his jaw. “Why did you even agree to this anyway, Jayne?”

“Helena Blake is paying very well, and let's face it, how else are we going to take down slavers and drug dealers without C-Sec regulations in the way?” She smirked at him over her shoulder, taking her eyes off the narrow strip of rock that she'd been carefully maneuvering the Mako along. Wrex and Garrus both squawked at her to pay attention to the 'road', and she laughed. The six wheeled vehicle finally crested the sharp incline and shot over the ice peak at high speed, spinning and slamming down onto the far side of the mountain they'd been crossing.

“I swear she's trying to kill us,” Garrus grumbled.

“Speak for yourself, kid,” Wrex retorted. “I'm just fine.” As if to punctuate his declaration, the Mako kicked through a fine mist of icy spray to jolt to a stop in a wide valley, making the krogan bounce hard in his seat and knocking his hump into the overhead roll bars. Jayne let the vehicle sit there for a moment, eyes intent on the glassy expanse of open terrain. Wrex glanced at her. “Shepard.”

“Wrex,” she responded, coolly.

“Why are we sitting here?”

“I'm waiting for something.” There was no movement, no rumble under the earth. Perhaps frozen worlds weren't all bad if the valleys weren't infested with thresher maws. She hit the accelerator and drove them onward towards the blinking arrow on the HUD.

“Care to explain the staring match with the ice?” Wrex asked in a studiously casual manner as she skidded and slipped the Mako across the frozen surface.

“Thresher maws,” she ground out between stiff lips. She caught the two of them exchanging looks from the corner of her eye and tsked. “They like open valleys. You've never noticed?”

“Can't say that I have,” Garrus said. Wrex just looked at her in silence.

“Spit it out, Wrex.”

“Didn't think humans had gotten that far in their intelligence,” he said. There was both admiration and a chuckle behind his words.

“Akuze changed some things.”

“Then I stand corrected.”

She grinned, even as she fought the controls for stability on the ice.

***

“Shepard, this is not pertinent to Noveria.”

Nah, it really isn't, is it? She gave a mental shrug in the void space. Guess I got distracted, remembering other icy worlds.

“They are not so unusual,” the voice said.

Downright common is how I'd describe it. Makes you wonder, doesn't it? How tenacious the races can be that they will put down roots anywhere there's breathable air, even on a world that is too cold to sustain plant life.

“Previous cycles knew about terraforming.”

Wait...what do you mean, 'previous cycles'? This current cycle knows about it too, you know.

“Irrelevant. Focus, Shepard. Tell us about Peak 15.”

***

The relief of being out of the wind and snow was shortlived. Geth attacked the trio as soon as they entered the garage of Peak 15. There was plenty of cover, no one sustained any injuries, and the fight was blessedly short. It was obvious that Matriarch Benezia was indeed in collaboration with Saren, and not being held in duress, if so many geth were with her.

But there was no sign of the Matriarch herself.

“She's moved on,” Wrex said.

“Looks that way,” Jayne replied. “I'm starting to feel like this is the worst cat and mouse chase in history.”

“Cat and mouse chase?” Garrus inquired.

Jayne smiled, checking over her pistol as she led them up the stairs to a closed off corridor. “Mice are a nuisance vermin on Earth. Usually chased by stealth predators. Cats,” she added with a half shrug. “Sometimes the mice get caught, and sometimes they don't. The chase goes on.”

“I see,” he said, not sounding particularly confident in that assertion.

“It doesn't matter. Boys, let's start catching up, shall we?”

The corridor opened up and they saw two turrets...facing inwards.

“Why are they the wrong way?” Garrus asked as they passed them.

Wrex snorted. “Trying to keep someone in as much as keeping us out.”

“I'm getting tired of the mystery,” Jayne interjected. “I'm ready to get this shit over and done with.”

***

“What was that?” Garrus cried over the sound of moaning and groaning. It could have been the wind whistling through the completely frozen cafeteria section of the lab, but Jayne didn't buy that for a second. They had each other's backs, each facing a different direction, waiting for whatever hellish thing had been unleashed here to come out of the shadows.

“Don't have a panic attack, I'll protect you,” Wrex growled, the snarky retort making Jayne breathe a little easier. She could always trust Wrex to lighten the tension with his brand of humor.

There was movement up the stairs, movement too fluid and low to the ground to be geth. It was almost...insectile.

***

The mainframe had been shut down.

Bugs were everywhere and the mainframe had been shut down.

Jayne was beginning to piece together what had happened up here. She wasn't a fool, and had aced all her galactic history classes, as well as her xenobiology ones. Between that and Wrex's utterly disdainful comment on the creatures that attacked them from every conceivable hiding place, she knew what Saren and Binary Helix had been doing.

Cloning rachni.

She gave up on manually overriding the mainframe lockdown and slapped an egregious amount of omni-gel on it instead, watching it seep and connect into the stacks of power cells and memory files with a frown on her face.

“If they're cloning rachni,” she mused aloud to Wrex as they waited, “that means they must have found a reliable source for the DNA.”

“It would seem that way,” he replied. She wouldn't call his expression placid, but he seemed remarkably at ease with the notion that not all the rachni had been exterminated by his ancestors. Probably so he'd have something to kill, she supposed.

“Could they have just...hatched some?” Garrus asked.

“I mean...it's possible. Unlikely, considering they're considered extinct, but...” Jayne trailed off, thinking it through. Binary Helix was a genetics company. Their stock in trade was cloning. It made sense that the bugs were not 'naturally' occurring. But what if they had found a queen? What if she had laid eggs? “Fuck me sideways, I do not want to think about a rachni queen being at the center of this.”

“Only one way to find out,” Wrex said.

“Let's move out,” she ordered, leading the way back to the roof to reboot the whole system.

***

“How much longer do you think this will take?” said the voice she recognized as Wilson. She strained to listen, strained to wake, desperate to know more. She didn't know why she was suddenly closer to her body than the void, but it didn't matter. She welcomed the interruption almost as much as she welcomed actual sound in her ears.

“I don't know,” Miranda said, sounding tired. “It'll be over when he says she's ready and not a moment before.”

“Rather defeatist of you, Miranda.”

There was a soft derisive sound, like the kind that accompanies a smirk. “Are you implying that I feel like it's all been a massive waste of time, Wilson? That I'm failing in my orders? Do I sound like I'm having doubts?”

Silence met Miranda's words. A silence that stretched too long, and she lost her fragile grip on her own body and disappeared back into the void.

Dammit, I was so close...

Chapter Text

“I'm glad we didn't go back for Liara,” Jayne said, leaning against a blocky container to catch her breath. “Knowing your mother has sided with a rogue Spectre and having to witness it are two very different things.”

“No time for philosophical discussions, Shepard,” Wrex grunted out, aiming his assault rifle over his cover and taking down more asari commandos. Matriarch Benezia was on the other side of the lab, slinging biotic attacks at them, but she seemed to be weakening at long last.

“You're right,” Jayne said, shoving off the container and lining up her pistol again. Her shotgun had been overheating too quickly to use in the tight space, and while the pistol didn't do as much damage, at least she didn't have to wait for it to cool off between rounds.

She pushed all other thoughts about what they'd found down here out of her head and got off a lucky shot at the Matriarch, who cried out and stumbled against a glass wall. The glass was cloudy and dark, and while Jayne instinctively knew something was in there, she hadn't had the time to examine it too closely.

More indoctrination, not just of Benezia's people, but everyone in Peak 15. How did Saren even accomplish it?

Rachni everywhere.

Backdoors and hidden tunnels and deliberate sabotage of critical functions all across the board.

Ignored medical personnel. Half baked cures for a disease that most likely wasn't a disease at all.

Holy glorious fuck, this place was a mess and a half.

The last commando went down and silence fell on the lab. Jayne checked to make sure her boys had no major injuries between them and cradled her ribs where they were broken. She'd taken one too many warps to the chest and breathing was agony. She slapped some medi-gel on her torso and stood up slowly, Garrus and Wrex behind her. They approached the defeated Matriarch in unison, their weapons ready for anything.

Benezia was leaning on her arms, supported by a bank of controls in front of the glass specimen case. Jayne stood and waited, taking the opportunity to just breathe before any more fighting was necessary. There was a trail of blue blood along the floor; evidently her lucky shot had been very lucky indeed.

“He knew you would trace me here,” Benezia said, in a soft voice quite at odds with the triumphant shout she'd used earlier.

“You mean Saren?”

The asari looked up, into the glass, seeing something that Jayne could not. “We have been such fools.”

“What is he after, Lady Benezia?”

“The coordinates to the Mu Relay.”

Jayne knew galactic history. One of her required classes upon entering service with the Alliance was on the relays themselves. The Mu Relay had been lost four thousand years ago, during the Rachni Wars. A supernova had moved it, disguising its location in a miasma of gas and debris from the planetary systems destroyed by the explosive wave. She thought back further to a tiny snippet mentioned only once in all her textbooks. The Mu Relay had been the only point of contact with the Pangaea Expanse, uncharted space at the core of the Milky Way since the time of the Protheans. It was theorized by that author that the Rachni Wars hadn't been about territory at all, in so much as expanding it. The rachni had wanted to isolate themselves from the rest of the galaxy. The relay was their chance to do that, to disappear and be forgotten.

Jayne liked to think she was a logical person; she could make the leap from there. “Oh my God,” she breathed. “You found it...you found it because you found...”

“Yes,” Benezia nodded wearily. “An intact rachni egg was found on a derelict ship at the edges of the Terminus systems. And not just any egg, but a...”

“A queen,” Wrex growled. “All these bugs we've been fighting were spawned by a single queen. My grandfather's grandfather fought in those wars, asari. He told the tales of how well they could propagate themselves.”

Jayne held up a hand, forestalling Wrex's inevitable surge towards wrath. “What happened here, Lady Benezia?”

“Mistakes,” the Matriarch said. “Mistakes happened here.”

“What kind of...?”

“You know enough,” she said, her voice turning cold and hostile as the indoctrination took back control. She swung away from the specimen case and glared at them, her biotics making her glow a deeper blue, her eyes wild and struggling to focus. “Time to die, little human.”

“No!” Jayne cried, holding out her hands in a pleading gesture. “You don't have to do this!”

“I cannot stop it...the voices, they claw at my mind!” Benezia gripped her head in her hands as if she could forcibly remove something from within. She was fighting herself, fighting the indoctrination. “Shepard...you must...must...must stop him! He is wrong and will be the doom of us all!”

The asari slumped against a support column, blue blood spurting onto her lips in a froth as she slid down to the floor. Jayne ignored both Garrus and Wrex's cries that she shouldn't touch her. She wiped Benezia's lips with her thumb, clearing away the blood. “Lady Benezia, I can only stop him if I know where he's going.”

“OSD...there...” she weakly tried to point. “Take it. Stop him...he's already heading there...you must...he abandoned me...you must stop him...”

“I swear it.” She held the Matriarch's hand in her own, feeling the life leaving her body as the fingers in hers chilled. “Benezia, Liara is with me, on my ship. Do you have anything you want me to pass along to her?”

“Oh...my little wing...she is...my...pride.” She smiled, just for a moment before she started to gasp for air. For one fraction of a second Benezia's eyes met Jayne's and there was fear in them before it passed into acceptance. “No light...they always said there'd be a...”

The hand in hers went slack and she released it to step away.

***

“Surely it had not been that simple, Shepard,” the voice said, full of scorn.

Simple? She fought to the very end against what Sovereign did to her. Unto death she fought it.

“And then you released the rachni queen.”

I did, she thought, smugly now that she knew the voice feared the creatures.

“Why?”

***

She took the OSD from the console and put a hand on the glass, trying to see through the fog. A tentacle slapped the inside, making the trio jump.

“Shepard...” Wrex warned, and she turned to see the body of one of the commandos rise up from the floor, swaying with loose-limbed grace. The commando backed herself up to the glass, her eyes vacant, her breath barely moving her chest. Then she spoke, but it was not with an asari voice.

“This once serves as our voice. We cannot sing here in these low spaces. Your musics are colorless.”

“Musics?” Jayne asked, confused.

“We are the mother. We sing for those left behind. The children you thought silenced.”

“The link...it's telepathic?” Jayne gestured between the asari and the rachni, now visible in the fog of the case, deep purple and violet shades glistening on her carapace. She was strangely graceful and lovely.

“She has colors we have no name for. But she is ending. Her music is bittersweet. It is beautiful.” The rachni paused, as if in veneration for the dying asari. “The children we birthed were stolen from us before they could learn to sing. They are lost to silence. End their suffering. They cannot be saved. They will only cause harm as they are.”

“Are you saying that the bu...the rachni we've been fighting are your spawn but they weren't raised by you?”

“These needle-men. They stole our eggs from us. They sought to turn our children into beasts of war. Claws without songs of their own. Our elders are comfortable with silence. Children know only fear if no one sings to them. Fear has shattered their minds.”

“Makes sense,” Garrus said softly. “A baby left alone in a closet until its sixteen won't be the same.”

“Are you sure they can't be saved?”

“It is...lamentable. But necessary. Do what you must. Before you deal with our children...we stand before you. What will you sing? Will you release us? Are we to fade away once more?”

“There are acid tanks rigged up to that thing,” Wrex said emphatically. “Set them off. Millions of my ancestors died to put these things down. Don't let them come back.”

“If you kill her, you consign an entire race to death. We should let the Citadel Council decide her fate.”

“Your companions hear the truth. You have the power to free us...or return our people to the silence of memory.”

“If I let you live,” she temporized, trying to find the right answer, “would you attack other races again?”

“No. We...I do not know what happened in the war. We heard only discordance, songs the color of oily shadows.”

***

She remembered feeling like she was drowning in oil...

She knew the color the rachni queen spoke of...

She knew it in this void space.

“Shepard, what is it?”

Nothing, she thought, burying the kernel of knowledge deep. It's nothing.

***

“We would seek a hidden place to teach our children harmony. If they understand, perhaps we would return.”

“Beyond the relay...” Jayne mused. “Could you survive out there, all alone?”

“We do not know. We only heard our mother's cries in darkness. A tone from space hushed one voice after another. It forced the singers to resonate with its own sour yellow note.”

“Indoctrination,” she whispered. “It has to be.” She looked away from the dying asari being used as the queen's voice to the queen herself. “How long have the Reapers been waiting, plotting? The Rachni Wars were thousands of years ago.”

“We do not know these Reapers you speak of. Only the discordance that changed our songs.”

“Could you recognize it? If you heard it again?”

“Yes,” the queen agreed. “The song of the revered one was colored by it, and all those who followed her.”

Jayne spared a glance for her companions, feeling like she was on the brink of something huge. Wrex glowered at her, as if he already guessed that she was going to let the rachni queen live. Garrus was thoughtful, trying to piece together the puzzle as she had. “Could you...I dunno...avoid it somehow? Not...not sing it? Not sing it to your future children? Maybe...maybe warn against ever listening to that color again?”

“A single note, to fade and and no longer repeat in our refrains...yes. Yes, I could, I who am all alone.”

Jayne turned the OSD over in her hands, thinking fast. There was no way she could justify to herself exterminating a whole race, especially one so endangered. She knew she was going to let the queen live. But...how would she get out there? To space, beyond the reaches of Council civilizations. To the Mu Relay and all the uncharted worlds on the far side of it. The queen was small. She would probably fit in the cargo hold of the Normandy.

“I will not kill you,” she said finally, ignoring Wrex's noise of disgust. “But neither can I tell the Council about you,” she added with a glance over her shoulder at Garrus, whose brow plates lowered in a frown. “We'll hide you on my ship, take you with us through the relay. On the other side...you'll be on your own. It's the best chance I can offer.”

“We will remember, we will sing of your forgiveness to our children.”

She looked over the console controls, reading the dials and switches, working to release the queen from her glass case. The queen emerged, the purple coloring shifting in the light. “There are tunnels,” she said, once the asari commando had dropped to the floor, no longer a conduit for communication. “Find your way out of them into the cold. My ship is docked at Port Hanshan. I'll let my pilot and crew know you're coming. Try not to be seen by anyone between here and there.”

She didn't know if the queen understood her, but the creature moved off away from them with purpose in her sinuous stride.

“Shepard...” Wrex began in a low growl.

“I don't want to hear it, Wrex. If I'm right, the whole war between your people and hers was a giant clusterfuck of a misunderstanding. Most likely a deliberate one. I don't want to hear your judgment of my call here. We've already seen what indoctrination does to a single mind. I can only imagine what it did to an entire race. But now it's over.” She flattened her hands, making a wiping gesture. “Clean slate. The queen will be with us until we pass through the Mu Relay. I suggest you get used to it now.”

“On your own head be it, Shepard. I'll keep whatever peace you want, as long as that thing does too.”

“Fair enough, Wrex. Now, let's get out of here and blow this station sky high.”

***

“Do you know what you've done, Shepard?”

What do you mean?

“You allowed the rachni to repopulate, free from indoctrination. Immune to it. The Reapers feared them with good reason, and developed the 'yellow note' to subdue them. Now...it is useless.”

Good, she thought viciously. Let the Reapers know fear. It's a good lesson to learn.

“You are a threat to the order of the universe, Shepard. We begin to understand why you were...”

Killed? Yeah, who was that, anyway? I get the impression it wasn't you.

“No, we did not kill you. We would have never known you but for your presence in this place. We must learn from you, all that we can. We must prepare for you.”

Why, afraid I'm gonna come after you too? You should be.

“There are only a few memories left to tell, Shepard. You will tell them to us.”

Sure, I'll get right on that.

“You will.”

Chapter Text

“Where do you think you're going?” the distinctive twang of Dr. Chakwas's voice stopped Jayne in her tracks. Not that it took much. She was barely able to stand up straight.

“I can't sleep in here, Doc,” she whined.

“Get back in that bed, Commander.”

“I promise I won't do anything strenuous...”

“In. The. Bed. Commander.” Chakwas stood with her hands on her hips, flexing her fingers inside her uniform gloves. Jayne sighed and pivoted on her heel, careful not to overbalance as she shuffled back into the medbay. With a pained grunt she hoisted herself onto the bed she'd vacated and glared at the ship's doctor, who glared right back at her. “I'm sorry, Shepard. Truly. I know regulation medical beds are not comfortable. But if you lie in your own bed in your cabin and aspirate more blood, you'll die and I won't know it. I imagine there would be some negative fallout from that.”

“My bed isn't flat and hard as a rock,” Jayne muttered under her breath. But she cracked a smile at Chakwas's irreverent description of the shit storm there would surely be if she kicked it.

“And I'm sure Officer Vakarian appreciates that, but nonetheless, I need you here where I can monitor you.”

“Oh hell, does everyone know?” As soon as she burst out with the exclamation she shuddered with pain, feeling her side tense and spasm where her still healing ribs had punctured a lung. And thus the reason for her being stuck in the medbay when she'd rather be curled up among pillows that smelled of her favorite turian. Not two days after hiding the rachni queen on board the Normandy, she'd taken a hard landing in the Mako straight to the chest, finishing the job of breaking two ribs. She'd coughed up blood all over the control panel before anyone knew what had happened. At least Joker had been able to pick them back up before she passed out completely, choking and struggling for air the whole time. She wasn't likely to forget the absolute terror on Garrus's face anytime soon, however. The reminder of that expression was enough to have her slide back into the minimal padding of the medbay bed with more docility.

“I'm sure there's an ensign or two that isn't fully aware of the situation,” Chakwas was saying as she lifted the back of the bed so Jayne was slightly more comfortable. She checked Jayne's incision while she was at it, making sure she hadn't torn any of her sutures. “But yes, most everyone knows that Vakarian sneaks in and out of your cabin whenever you manage to take a shift off.” The doctor eyed her seriously before breaking into an almost secretive grin. “There's a betting pool, you know, for how long it takes before you just announce it.”

“I'm shocked, Chakwas, really,” Jayne retorted with exaggerated sarcasm. Then she grinned too. “I wondered why Pressly had stopped looking me in the eye.”

Chakwas tucked a blanket around Jayne's legs tightly – probably so she couldn't move – and went back to her console. “Try to rest. You have a lot of healing to do.”

“It's boring in here, Doc.”

“I'm aware of that, Commander. I try to keep it that way.”

***

“Shepard,” the voice said.

Yes?

“Why are you remembering this?”

I dunno. Maybe because it was the first time I'd been really hurt once I became commander of the ship. Maybe it's just a random thing that popped into my head. Who knows?

“It is not a relevant memory.”

Are any of them?

“What happened after you attained the coordinates for the Mu Relay?”

Virmire happened. I don't...

“Tell us about it.”

She held herself firm. No.

“Tell us, Shepard.”

I'll get there, I'm sure, she thought sourly. She was getting tired of fighting the voice. And honestly, there wasn't much left to tell anyway. Maybe it was time to just give in and get it over with.

***

Wrex and Garrus both breathed deep and seemed to be enjoying the very, very hot weather of the planet, but Jayne opted to keep her helmet closed so the temperature controls kept her cool. She wasn't one for enjoying tropical saunas.

“Why are we here again?” Wrex asked. “'Cause I feel like finding a beach.”

“We're here because someone is killing scientists who were involved in what happened on Akuze,” she reminded him, keeping her tone deliberately clear of any emotion. Garrus took her hand in his, however. C-Sec still, whether he wanted to admit it or not, he'd done his research. He knew what she'd survived. She smiled inside her helmet, even though he couldn't see it. “Besides, Wrex. No one wants to see your plated ass.”

“Not mine, Shepard. Talk to that one if you want plates,” he laughed towards Garrus, who just flicked his mandibles. Over the months they'd traveled and worked together, it seemed he'd gotten used to Wrex's brand of humor.

Jayne mined out what ore she could from the pile of palladium and gestured for her boys to get back in the Mako, headed towards the blinking marker on the HUD. The terrain wasn't the worst she'd driven across in the fickle vehicle, but it was hardly the easiest either, and she concentrated on keeping the six wheels level as they climbed mountains and slid down ravines.

“Snipers,” Wrex commented as they topped the crest of another ridge, now within sight of the base.

“I'm on it,” Garrus said smoothly, hoisting himself into the cannon turret to fire upon the base before the snipers could get a good lock on them. The HUD went green again and Jayne barreled the Mako across the distance, sliding to a jarring stop against the wall of the base.

“Nice parking job,” Wrex said with a grin.

“Yeah, I'm getting better with this thing all the time.”

“I wouldn't go that far,” Garrus quipped.

“Stuff it, you two. We have work to do.”

It should have felt like any other raid on a base full of enemies, but Jayne couldn't shake the prickle on the back of her neck. So little information had been released after Akuze. So little was known even behind the scenes. The remembered sounds of screaming matched the current noise of fighting as she and her squad made their systematic way through the twists and turns of the base. The mercs had piled boxes and crates almost into a maze, using them for cover to snipe and toss grenades at them. When they finally had them all taken care of, Jayne went into the back halls, knowing they hadn't found what they were looking for.

And when they did...

“Toombs?” She took in the scene quickly, trying desperately to overcome her shock. It didn't work. “But you're dead...everyone...”

“I was only mostly dead, Shepard. These assholes picked me up, used me for their experiments.” He gestured at the frightened scientist with his weapon and Jayne could just about sense Garrus and Wrex behind her tensing up for another fight. She put out her hands, empty and placating.

“Tell me what happened, Corporal.”

“Cerberus happened. The whole thing was a set up.”

Jayne turned to the scientist, rage beginning to build in her gut. Cerberus again. This was the fourth time she'd heard that name, ever since she met Admiral Kahoku in the Citadel Tower and determined what happened to his men. Finding him dead in that facility cemented her hatred for the shadowy organization. Especially considering she now knew they were also partly responsible for the resurgence of the rachni, independent of what had happened on Noveria.

“Is that true?” she asked the cowering scientist.

“We learned so much...” the man stammered out, the admission plain in his voice. Jayne's heart hardened.

“You used us as bait for the thresher maws, then experimented on the survivors? How many, Toombs? How many made it out alive?”

“Only me, Commander. I'm all that's left. I managed to escape. Your takedown of the other cells has come in handy.”

“You've got to do something,” the scientist screeched at her. “He's going to kill me!”

Jayne weighed her options. She knew Hackett wanted to find out what was happening, but if this place was anything like any other Cerberus base, there'd be nothing left in the computers. Only once had she gotten to the data before it was wiped, and that was so encrypted even Tali hadn't been able to make heads or tails of it.

“Give me one good reason why I shouldn't let him?” she asked coldly. This man had used Alliance personnel for his own sick reasons, and an entire platoon had died because of it. She had no sympathy for Cerberus.

“I can give you information...credits...anything you want!”

She thought hard, keeping her eyes on Toombs the entire time. He was significantly thinner than she remembered, and his eyes were wild like a caged beast's. She couldn't imagine what he'd suffered in the intervening years. There was a part of her that didn't think any amount of information was going to erase the pain in his eyes and she should let him have his revenge.

“Has the system been wiped?” she asked softly, carefully.

“No! You can download anything you want.”

She crossed the room, bringing up her omni-tool and downloading the whole thing to be sent on to the Normandy. She turned back, seeing Toombs and the scientist and beyond them, still blocking the door, Garrus and Wrex. Garrus's face was unreadable from that distance, but Wrex looked furious, as if he'd just put together the pieces of the puzzle and realized just what Akuze meant to her. Her omni-tool pinged, letting her know the download was complete. She pushed off the console where she'd been leaning on it and stood next to her former fellow soldier.

“Your call, Corporal. I won't stop you if you want to shoot him. I've gotten what I needed.” She maintained eye contact with the Cerberus scientist and saw when he knew he was a dead man. Toombs straightened up, almost with pride, with her at his side. It had to mean something, to be believed, to have the faith of a commanding officer after years of torture and silence. For a moment the corporal glanced at her from the corner of his eye and she nodded.

The blast was loud in the confined space, but it was a quick death for the scientist. Toombs lowered his arm and turned to her, shaking.

“It's all over now,” he said. “I avenged them. I'm free.”

“Where will you go?”

Toombs shook his head and gave her a sad smile. “The reports say you're the only survivor, Shepard. Who am I to disagree?”

Before she could stop him, Toombs put the weapon under his jaw and pulled the trigger. The report of the shot drowned out her shout and she barely caught the body before it sank to the floor. She didn't even know she was crying until Garrus came to her side and wiped her face with a talon.

“They gave me a medal for surviving,” she whispered. “Commendations, mandatory therapy, took me out of space for years, made a big deal about me being the only one to live. The whole reason I became a liaison to C-Sec was because they wanted me to get re-integrated into working with the Alliance again. To see how I coped, see how they could trade on my name for...” She shook her head, tears still streaming. “How could they lie to me? To all of us?”

“I don't think the Alliance knew, Jayne.”

“How could they not?”

“Cerberus is deep black-ops. Nobody knows what their agenda is, or where they come from. Even in C-Sec we heard nothing more than rumors.”

“We're done here, Commander,” Wrex said from the door. “Let him rest in the peace he finally found and forget this whole thing happened.”

She shook her head again, lifting Toombs's dogtags from around what remained of his neck. She held them so tight she could feel the edges even through her suit gloves. “No, I can't forget. I won't.”

“Let's go, Jayne.” Garrus helped her stand and salute the body, and somehow got her back to the Mako for pickup.

***

“Shepard...”

I know, I know. You want to know about Virmire.

“Yes, Shepard.”

Fine.

Chapter Text

It seemed unfair that such a lovely world could hold such horrors as they would find there. The Mako dropped to a landing in the center of a shallow running channel, flanked on either side by tall, imposing cliffs that did nothing to disguise the surrounding tropical beauty of the planet. Off in the distance Jayne could see thunderclouds moving in towards the shore, occasionally lit up from within by lightning.

“Pity we're not here on shore leave,” she said wistfully to Garrus.

“Huh,” he grunted in response. “Would be nice after all the other places we've 'vacationed'.” He shuddered in mocking memory of Noveria. “Remind me never to set foot on a planet covered in ice with you again.”

“Oh, c'mon, babe, it worked out fine for you, as I recall.”

He glared at her beaming face through his visor until he finally cracked, flaring his mandibles in a wide grin. “It was a novel way to keep me warm, I'll grant you that.”

“Don't look at me in that tone of face, it was all your idea.”

“Huh, the two of you certainly made enough noise to raise the dead,” Wrex interjected gruffly.

“We did not,” Jayne shot back. “How would you know anyway? You were off hunting things.”

“I heard plenty.” He was grinning, however, and Jayne grinned back at him, unashamed. She had suspected ever since his cryptic assessment of his hunting skills that he'd purposely left them alone that day, had probably guessed exactly how she was going to keep Garrus warm while his suit repaired. She was suddenly glad for Garrus's inability to blush, although the back of his neck turned a bluer shade of tan. She wondered if he'd only just now put it together himself.

“C'mon boys, we have places to be that unfortunately don't involve lounging on the beach. Damn shame really.”

“Maybe we'll have some time after we deal with whatever mess Saren's left for us this time,” Garrus said wistfully. Jayne smiled at him.

“Maybe.”

***

“There was no time after, was there, Shepard?”

No, there wasn't. But you already knew that, didn't you? Why do want to see these things through my eyes when you already know what happened?

“Your memories tell us things no amount of study could. Your motivations, your choices. The difficulties you faced. These must all be experienced first hand.”

I'll never go back there, she thought, almost sorrowed. I loved the little crab thingies. They were cute.

“There is nothing but a crater there now. And you are getting sidetracked. Tell us what happened.”

***

“We are the reinforcements, Captain Kirrahe. Your message never got through.”

The salarian's face wasn't easy to read, but Jayne thought she detected a fair amount of disappointment. She couldn't blame him, really. The STG had fought hard and infiltrated themselves well into enemy territory, but now they were in over their heads. And all that came was a shipful of mismatched mercs, soldiers and near children from a half dozen assorted races. In his shoes, Jayne didn't think she'd feel confident of their success either. As it was, they were already somewhat at odds because of his blithely rude words about the krogan. Wrex wasn't the only one who'd bristled at that. Disparagement of the rescue team wasn't going to earn Kirrahe any favors.

“I need to consult with my men, then, Commander. We will need a new plan of action if we're going to get out of here alive...any of us.”

“Take all the time you need.”

He shook his head, smiling gently. “I will attempt to be brief. We don't have that kind of time, after all.”

Kaiden and Ashley stood next to her watching Wrex shoot his shotgun blindly into the water, spouting up great gouts of water and spray.

“You want a hand with that...?” Kaiden asked.

“No, I'll talk to him.”

“Should we be ready...in case he...?” Ashley said, gesturing with her assault rifle.

“Hopefully it won't come to that, but yes, be ready.”

She walked down the edge of the surf without really hearing their responses and waved Garrus off when he would have joined her. “Wrex,” she said when she got within earshot of him.

He turned to her, his face fierce and angry. A cold finger of dread went down her spine, but she knew she couldn't let it show. Her heart ached for him, to be so close and yet have his people's salvation be nothing more than a half truth. She needed to make him see that.

“You've done more for me than anyone in my family ever has, Shepard,” he growled at her, lowering his head as if he was going to ram her with it. “But I need to know right now if trusting you is worth it. I need to know you're doing this for the right reasons.”

“It is, Wrex. You said it yourself once, the krogan working for Saren were nothing more than bootlickers and sycophants. These krogan are not your people. They're nothing more than slaves. Tools for Saren. Is that what you want for your race? Because if I save this place, if I let him get away, in the end...that's all you'll be. This isn't a cure, it's slavery.”

“You don't know that!” he shouted, getting right into her face. She closed her eyes against it, waiting for something she was too afraid to name. She didn't really think he would hurt her, but she didn't want to take any chances, just the same. Wrex valued courage, even when it was foolhardy; she had to stay strong for him now.

“I know that Saren will do anything to get ahead. I know that he's used your kind for the heavy lifting and killing. And I know an army of krogan grown in test tubes is nothing more than a facsimile of what your race is. Of who you are.”

“Give me one reason why I should trust you over him right now,” he threatened, lifting the shotgun so that it was very nearly under her nose. Behind him she saw Ashley pull her rifle up to her shoulder. The cold dread began spread outward from her spine, making her want to shiver. But it was too important to her to save their friendship, save his scarred hide, to back down now.

Jayne put her hand over the barrel of the shotgun, lowering it and stepping closer to Wrex until they were nose to nose. She spoke softly, not letting her words carry past their own ears. “I have never failed you, Urdnot Wrex. I have never sold you a lie, I have never let you down. I have never turned my back on you in anger or shame. I believe in you, and believe that you know as well as I do that a life of slavery in exchange for a cure that may not even exist is no life at all.”

The gun was still pointed at her, lodged into her midriff like a stone. He could still shoot her, still kill her. She willed herself to keep looking him in the eye.

He stepped away.

“You're right, Shepard. It's not.” With a sigh he slumped in on himself and she took a relieved breath. “We were tools for the Council once. To thank us for wiping out the rachni, the Council neutered us. I doubt Saren will be as generous when it's all said and done.”

“I swear to you, Wrex, whatever data we find here, we'll keep. We'll find a cure for the genophage. But today we need to stop him.”

“All right, Shepard. You win. For now.”

“Thanks, big guy.” She leaned her forehead against his beefy arm and wasn't actually too surprised when it lifted to drop around her, holding her close. He was still staring out across the expanse of water, watching the storm get closer.

“You double cross me though...”

She smiled to herself. “You can take me apart with your bare hands if I do, all right?”

“Mmph. Fine.” He squeezed her tight for a moment longer, then let her go, stalking off like nothing had happened at all. She let the cold dread drain away as she watched him. She hadn't lost him.

***

Kirrahe's plan was risky. It depended heavily on timing and their own dwindling strength. But it was probably the only way. Joker would deliver the salarian drive core, which would act as a nuke, and they would set if off and fly like hell to escape the blast, picking up whoever survived from the teams along the way. She appointed Ashley to go with Kirrahe's men and put Kaiden on bomb duty. She needed Ash's aim and heavy armor more than his biotics in the field.

Decision made, she stood next to Garrus, her fingers entwined with his between them, as Kirrahe spoke to his remaining STG forces in preparation.

“You all know the mission and what's at stake. I have come to trust each and every one of you with my life, but I have also heard the murmurs of discontent. I share your concerns. We are trained to espionage. We would be legends, but the records are sealed. Glory in battle is not our way.”

He began to pace back and forth. “Think of our heroes: the Silent Step, who defeated a nation with a single shot. Or the Ever Alert, who kept armies at bay with hidden facts. These giants do not seem to give us solace here, but they are not all that we are. Before the network, there was the fleet. Before diplomacy, there were soldiers. Our influence stopped the rachni, but before that, we held the line. Our influence stopped the krogan, but before that, we held the line. Our influence will stop Saren! In the battle today, we will hold the line!”

There was no cheering, but Jayne saw the looks on the salarians' faces change, become more animated and determined. She shook hands with Kirrahe and Ashley, waved the others off to their posts and got underway with Garrus and Wrex at her side.

***

“We are not interested in the mundane.”

No, you want to know about Sovereign, don't you?

“Yes, we do.”

In the void space she shuddered, feeling the creeping sensation of Sovereign's words in her very marrow. She knew it had to be faced, that this is what the voice had been leading her to all along.

All right. I'll tell you.

Chapter Text

“Jayne,” Garrus said, pointing to the pale green glow that lit up one end of Saren's personal lab. Jayne was leaning on the wall, trying to catch her breath and put her mind into a better state for making decisions. The last few hours had not helped matters.

Indoctrinated salarians attacking them with incoherent shouts.

Krogan scientists, brainwashed into forging their own chains of bondage.

Asari assistants, clueless and yet still afraid of what they knew they did not know.

Too much carnage. Even fighting the geth was beginning to weigh on her. Surely artificial intelligence shouldn't be so blindly faithful.

“You're gonna want to see this, Shepard,” Wrex echoed Garrus. She pushed away from the wall and looked over to where they were pointing and saw it herself.

Another beacon. Intact and gently pulsing with light. She knew what would happen if she got close enough. “You two stay out of range, I don't know what it would do to you, but I know what it will do to me. Don't...just don't interfere, all right? You'll know when it's over.”

She closed her eyes and stepped towards it, feeling it draw her in like a ghostly embrace until it seized her, thrusting its message into her head. She barely felt her feet leave the floor, could only remain passive as images and emotions filled her. Terror, anger, nausea. A thousand imprints from a thousand sources scratched and filed away her willpower, filled every nook and cranny of her mind. And at the end, the image of a Reaper, oily, deadly.

It looks like a cuttlefish...a distant part of her mind thought. Like the ship on Eden Prime.

She crashed to the floor of Saren's lab and struggled to remain conscious. The first beacon had knocked her out for over twelve hours. She couldn't afford a delay like that now.

Garrus helped her stand, his touch too harsh even through her suit, her skin was so oversensitive. He held her until she got her feet under her and began to lead her back through the lab when a sudden reddish glow appeared on a higher level.

“What the...” Wrex muttered. They approached the glow and it defined itself into the shape Jayne had just seen from the beacon. “I get the feeling something bad is about to happen.”

“You are not Saren,” the image said, pounding into her head, the voice mechanical and dark in a way she hadn't expected.

“What is that? Some kind of VI interface?” Garrus asked. She could barely tear her eyes away from the image to correct him.

“Rudimentary creatures of blood and flesh. You touch my mind, fumbling in ignorance, incapable of understanding.”

Jayne felt Garrus move and shift behind her, his next words awed and almost afraid. “I don't think this is a VI...”

“There is a realm of existence far beyond your own. I am beyond your comprehension. I am Sovereign.”

“You're not just some ship Saren found,” Jayne said. “You're the actual Reaper.”

“Reaper? A label created by the Protheans to give voice to their destruction. In the end, what they chose to call us was irrelevant. We simply are.”

“The Protheans vanished 50,000 years ago,” Garrus interrupted. “You couldn't have been there, it's impossible.”

“Organic life is nothing more than a mutation, an accident. Your lives are measured in years and decades. You wither and die. We are eternal. The pinnacle of evolution and existence. Before us, you are nothing. Your extinction is inevitable. We are the end of everything.”

“Whatever your plan is, it will fail,” Jayne said firmly. “I'll make sure of that.”

“Confidence born of ignorance,” Sovereign said. “The cycle cannot be broken.”

“Cycle? What cycle?” Garrus asked.

“Remember, Liara said there were others...before the Protheans,” Wrex growled softly, saving Jayne from having to say it first.

“The cycle has repeated more times than you can fathom,” Sovereign said. “Organic civilizations rise, evolve, advance. And at the apex of their glory, they are extinguished. The Protheans were not the first. They did not create the Citadel. They did not forge the mass relays. They merely found them, the legacy of my kind.”

“Why would you construct such things and then leave them for someone else to find?” Jayne asked.

“Your civilization is based upon the technology of the mass relays, our technology. By using it, your society develops along the paths we desire. We impose order on the chaos of organic evolution. You exist because we allow it. And you will end because we demand it.”

“They're harvesting us!” Garrus gasped. “They're here to wipe us out.”

“Why?” Jayne asked, wondering as she did who came before the Reapers, for surely something did in order for an artificial race of beings to exist. “What do you want from us? Slaves, resources?”

“My kind transcends your very understanding. We are each a nation. Independent, free of all weakness. You cannot even grasp the nature of our existence.”

“A nation...” she mused. A Reaper was a nation? Did that mean each Reaper was responsible for a single race's destruction? Or was it just more hyperbole, designed to thwart any understanding by simply refusing to give it? “Where did you come from, who built you?”

“We have no beginning. We have no end. We are infinite. Millions of years after your civilization has been eradicated and forgotten, we will endure.”

“Are there more of you, then? Where are the rest?”

“We are legion. The time of our return is coming. Our numbers will darken the sky of every world. You cannot escape your doom.”

“Yeah, yeah, blah blah blah...” she muttered. She was getting tired of the runaround. It was obvious Sovereign thought itself superior, but in her experience, truly superior beings didn't disdain honest communication. “You're not even alive, not really. You're just a machine. Machines can be broken.”

“Your words are as empty as your future. I am the vanguard of your destruction. This exchange is over.”

“Well...” she said as soon as the image disappeared. “I don't know about you two, but I think we just got served notice.”

“Yeah, but of what?” Wrex growled.

Before she could answer him, a subharmonic wave of pressure passed through her, rumbling the very ground under their feet. The glass windows behind them blew out in a deluge of shards. Her comm link pinged.

“Commander, we got trouble,” her pilot announced.

“Hit me, Joker,” she replied. “I would just love some more bad news right now.”

“That ship, Sovereign? It's moving. I don't know what you guys did down there, but it just pulled a move that would shear any of our Alliance ships in half. It's coming your way and it's coming hard. You need to wrap up things down there...fast!”

“This console has been disabled,” Garrus noted. “Orders?”

“We head for the breeding facility. Time to blow this place to hell.”

“Right, Commander,” Joker said. “I'll meet you there. Joker, out.”

“Let's move, boys.”

***

Kaidan carried the drive core down the ramp of the Normandy flanked by several others, placing it directly in the center of the breeding facility. Jayne only hoped they would have enough time to get it rigged and get out of there. It was too quiet around them now, all the fighting was still happening where Ashley was at the other AA tower.

As if on cue, her comm pinged again. Ash, pinned down and fighting hard, Kirrahe's men overwhelmed. They needed her.

“Go on, Commander,” Kaidan said. “It will take a few minutes to get this ready anyhow. Then you can swing back and pick me up.”

“You sure?”

He nodded and gave her a smile. “I'm sure.”

“Be careful, Kaidan. Guard that thing with your life. It's all in your hands now.”

“I will, Commander.”

She, Garrus and Wrex had just raced up the stairs that would lead to Ashley's position when they saw the sleek insectile ship pass overhead.

“Geth dreadnought,” Wrex rumbled.

“Heading for Alenko,” Garrus said.

“Shit,” Jayne swore. She'd only left a handful of men with him to cover him as he worked to prep the drive core to explode. “Kaidan, come in!”

“Bit busy...Commander...” She could already hear the steady staccato of geth weaponry, the cries of the few soldiers she'd left with him. “Get Ash!”

“Screw that,” Ashley cut in, the sounds of her own fight going on in the background. “We can handle this! Get Alenko!”

Before she could answer either one of them, Kaidan gave a cry over the comm link. There were a few more shots and then silence for a moment before he spoke again. “Commander...Jayne...get Ash. I'm...I'm hit bad. No time. Don't argue. Just...God, that's a lot of blood...”

“Kaidan!” Ash's voice screamed through her link.

“Didn't get...the... remote fuse...gonna do it by hand...I'm gonna...try to hold...on...let me know...when...”

Jayne was already running, Wrex and Garrus behind her. They arrived at the AA tower and relieved Williams of her attackers, but didn't get to savor the moment too well.

A blast knocked Jayne off her feet, sending her sprawling in the shallow water. When she dared look over her shoulder she saw him.

Saren.

The wan sunlight glinted on the metallic parts that snaked in and out of his body, and his eyes glowed like geth. Jayne ducked into cover, waiting for another strike, but it didn't come. She stood and shot at him with her pistol until it overheated, but not a single shot got through his barrier shield.

“I applaud you, Shepard. My geth were utterly convinced the salarians were the real threat. An impressive diversion. Of course, it was all for nothing. I can't let you disrupt what I've accomplished here. You can't possibly understand what's really at stake.”

“You're working with Sovereign. What else is there to understand?”

“You've seen the vision from the beacons, Shepard. You, of all people, should understand what the Reapers are capable of. They cannot be stopped. Do not mire yourself in pointless revolt. Do not sacrifice everything for the sake of petty freedoms. The Protheans tried to fight, and they were utterly destroyed. So many dead. But what if they had bowed before the invaders? Would they still exist? Is not submission preferable to extinction?”

“Is that what you really believe? That when this is all over, the Reapers will keep you as some sort of pet? You're crazy. Indoctrinated. The Reapers want to wipe out all life in the galaxy. No one will be spared. Not even those who bow.”

“If we make ourselves useful...think of how many lives could be spared!” He called out to her with passion in his voice, as if he really believed it. “Once I saw this, I offered myself to Sovereign. I was aware of the...dangers. I hoped this facility would protect me.”

“You know it's true, don't you? You know Sovereign is controlling your thoughts.”

“I've studied indoctrination. I know its effects. The more control Sovereign exerts, the less capable the subject becomes. I still own my mind. Sovereign needs me to find the Conduit.”

“You're already under its power, Saren. Stop this, I beg you, before it's too late.”

“No. Sovereign needs me! Once I find the Conduit, I've been promised a reprieve from the inevitable. This is my only hope.”

“I've spoken with the Reaper. There will be no reprieve for anyone,” she said, but there was no heat behind it. She could understand how fear could make decisions for you. She knew if she'd had the chance to save all her comrades back on Akuze, if just in exchange for her own life, she would have taken it. “Help me, Saren. Together we could stop Sovereign. We don't have to submit to the Reapers. We can beat them.”

“I don't believe that anymore, Shepard. The visions cannot be denied. Only by joining with them can we hope to survive. Sovereign is a machine, and thinks like a machine. If I prove myself a useful resource, I will be maintained. It's the only logical conclusion. I'm forging an alliance between us and the Reapers. I will save more lives than have ever existed! But you would undo my work. You would doom our entire civilization to annihilation. And for that, you must die.”

He leapt upon his platform and flew over their heads, out of reach and too fast for biotic attacks, although that didn't stop her and Wrex from trying. He hovered near a fuel tank and with a quick look between her and Ashley, they shot it simultaneously. It began to fracture, the fuel spilling out.

“Kaidan? You still with me?” she shouted into her comm link.

“Yeah...” he replied weakly.

“Do it now. For the love of God...now!”

An alarm went off just as the tank blew, throwing Saren backwards with a cry and a spray of blueish blood in the air. He retreated as the alarm spread throughout the facility, and the remaining troops ran towards the Normandy as Joker brought her in close enough to open the airlock.

“All right, folks, hold on tight, this is gonna be close,” he cried out as the airlock shut behind the final person aboard.

Jayne stood next to her pilot as he maneuvered the ship up and out, leaving behind one of their own. “Kaidan, do you read me?”

“I...read you...Commander.”

“I'm going to stay on the link with you.”

“Yeah...okay...”

“How long?”

“The fuse is...counting down...a few more...seconds.”

“You did good, soldier,” she said, swallowing hard to get the lump out of her throat.

“Thanks...Comman...”

There was a blinding flash in the aft viewscreen and a shockwave burst through the clouds, buffeting the Normandy as she sped away, hurtling through the atmosphere as fast as was safe so close to a planetary surface. Jayne closed her eyes and didn't watch any more as Joker took them to FTL.

***

“Shepard,” the voice said.

Not now. Please. Not now.

“As you wish.”

Chapter Text

The voice left her alone in the void space. Left her to mull over the memories that followed Virmire. They toasted Kaidan Alenko's life and heroic death in the mess, the entire crew, while the ship floated serenely in FTL transit. They shared stories of other close calls and near misses. Eventually only Ashley, herself and Wrex remained in the mess hall. Garrus was asleep, slumped onto the table, and Chakwas went back to the medbay, her eyes full of tears.

She slept it off, dealing with the worst of her hangover and letting Garrus remain in the big bed alone.

She ordered Joker to find the nearest planet with helium-3 to replenish their fuel supply. No one had any idea how long it would be before they were in settled space once they went through the Mu Relay.

She spent time with the rachni queen, letting the arachnid arms cocoon her as soft, subaural tones reverberated through the queen, soothing her, painting the peculiar colored music in her head. It was there that she finally shed her tears for Kaiden, alone with only the rachni to comfort her. They hadn't been as close as Kaidan ever wanted, but he was still a friend. He would still be missed.

She dutifully forwarded her report of the events to the Citadel.

She let her tumultuous thoughts about Saren, Sovereign and what she would do in the same position run wild in her head, never getting anywhere like a hamster in a wheel that was ever expanding until it engulfed the whole universe.

***

“Commander, I have the Council on the line.”

“Put them through.” Jayne looked at the wavering images of the Councilors and frowned. She knew them by name now: Sparatus, Tevos and Valern. She spoke before they could, without preamble. “Did you know what he was doing there?”

“The Council cannot be held responsible for every action that takes place away from the Citadel,” Councilor Tevos said, attempting to head off any confrontation with her in typical asari fashion. But Jayne was done playing nice.

She raised an eyebrow in barely concealed disgust. “Really? Are you responsible for any of it? What do you people even do all day? Did you know?!”

“Spectre...former Spectre Arterius had many projects of his own that we were not made aware of,” Councilor Sparatus ground out, like he was unwilling to admit ignorance when she was able to twist it on them and make them look like they'd failed. Which she had.

Jayne smiled, darkly amused. “It's a wonder more of us don't go rogue with the lack of oversight among you three. He hatched a rachni queen on Noveria. He was producing vat grown krogan – by the hundreds, I might add – on Virmire, and you claim you didn't know and are therefore not responsible? Do you know what Saren could have done to you with an army of krogan? Are you really that stupid?”

“Be careful Commander,” Sparatus went on, his brow plates drawing downwards into a frown. “Just because we made you does not mean...”

“Save it, Councilor. You have imbued in me the exact same power you imbued into Saren. You don't seem to have cared what he did with that power. Don't think I'm afraid of you. Will you strip me of my status? I don't think so. You need me if you want to stop him from unleashing living hell in the galaxy. Honestly, one would think you would be more grateful to me than this. Without my pursuit of Saren, you wouldn't know even a tenth of what he was up to. So save your blundering excuses and criticism of my methods. I don't want to hear it.”

The trio of Councilors was silent for a moment before they collectively straightened up and passed a look between them. “What will you do now?” Councilor Valern asked.

“Now I'll go through the Mu Relay, and from there to Ilos, since that is Saren's next objective.”

“You must do as you see fit, of course,” Tevos said, as if by being magnanimous about it, the Council could feel like they had a say. Jayne had had enough.

“Yeah, I will,” she replied and waved a hand. She knew Joker kept his eye on any communications between her and the Council, and had been itching for a chance to cut them off himself. Their images went dark and Jayne hung her head, leaning on the railing that separated her from the holographic communication platforms.

“Nothing like useless politicians,” he said softly, for her ears only. It made her smile.

“No shit. C'mon, we got things to do.”

“Aye aye, Commander.”

***

“And that was all they had to say about it?” The voice seemed curious, as if her prodding her own memories had captured its interest unwillingly. It was very nearly amusing.

I was a Spectre, they'd given me the authority to do what I wanted. They got their revenge...of sorts, I suppose.

“What happened?”

Well...

***

“Commander, I'm receiving a message from Ambassador Udina,” Joker said. She was waiting for the ship to finish skimming the atmosphere of some unknown gas giant before they made their jump and she didn't really feel like talking to Udina at the moment. Bad enough she'd gotten a blistering reply from the Alliance regarding Alenko's death after her abortive meeting with the Council. According to Hackett, Ashley Williams wasn't an enlisted officer – or a biotic – and therefore had less priority in the Alliance's eyes. He had sounded somewhat ashamed to be delivering the message, and she'd held off on any scathing retort, but the call hadn't ended on a good note.

“The hell does he want?” she asked sourly, bringing herself out of her angry thoughts.

“Apparently he's been in talks with the Alliance, trying to fix things, and wants you to bring the Normandy in to the Citadel so you can sit in on the talks and head up the Fleet heading out to Ilos.”

“Huh, that's an about face. Set a course, I guess.”

“Aye aye, Commander, I'm on it.”

She didn't trust it, not one bit. But at the same time, they couldn't afford to pass up any opportunity to get reinforcements.

***

Of course, she should have trusted her gut. She never should have gone back to the Citadel. Udina grounded her ship and stranded her on the damned Citadel, half a galaxy away from where she needed to be. He even had the gall to berate her in front of the Council when they met face to face, specifically to deny her access to the Fleet or any supplies she might need to go on her own. She faced him down and had the tiniest bit of satisfaction to see his eyes glaze over with something like fear at her active anger.

“Nobody stabs me in the back, Donnel. Nobody.”

He sneered at her, triumphant bravado wiping out his momentary fear. “You've become more trouble than you're worth, Commander. Let me do my job now, yours is finished.”

She stepped into his personal space, uncaring that the Council was watching. “You'll regret this. I'm gonna make sure of it.”

“I was so sorry to hear of Lieutenant Alenko's death, Commander,” Udina said, sincerity dripping from his words to the point where the sarcasm was unmistakable. “Rest assured, I have advised Alliance Command that you shouldn't merit any punitive response because of it. I'm sure you did the best you could.”

“Soldiers die, Udina. That's what happens in a war. Stay out of the Alliance's military business. You claim to be a politician. Then be one, and leave the actual hard decisions for the rest of us.” She turned on her heel before he could reply and walked away, careful not to take Garrus's hand when he offered it. This was nothing more than a show, and she needed to play along as best she could.

***

Her apartment had a musty, unlived in feel to it when she stepped inside. It was dim with the lights off and the shades drawn across the two small windows that overlooked the Presidium gardens, but it wasn't like she had anything to bump into. There wasn't even a beer in the fridge.

But taking a long, uninterrupted shower was nice. As was not having to worry about rationing the hot water or soap. She stepped into her bedroom and saw a dusty film over the bed and made a face as she dressed in her old N7 hoodie and a pair of civvie pants. She sent Garrus a message on her omni-tool and smiled when he responded promptly, inviting her to his place instead.

“Just like old times,” he murmured in her ear as she passed him into his kitchen.

“Yeah...only with a much bigger set of problems than red sand dealers.”

“Hey,” he grabbed her arm before she could get too far. “C'mere.” She nestled against his keelbone, her arms loose around his waist. “They can't possibly keep you grounded forever. And...”

“And if they do,” she interrupted, looking up at him, “all we have to do is wait for Saren to show up here, because you know damn well he will. Except by then it will be too late to stop him. Dammit.”

He was about to say more when Jayne's omni-tool pinged. It was Uncle David. Meet me at Flux. Haven't had a chance to buy you lunch.

“Lunch? I didn't think Flux had branched out to food.”

“It's code. Goes back to my early days in the Alliance. When I started N training, there were a lot of things neither of us could talk about, so we used to get together for lunch, and purposely not say a word, knowing we were likely under surveillance. It just sort of became a code phrase for having things to talk about without outside listeners.”

“Makes sense, in a backwards kind of way. You want me to go with you?”

“Yeah. That would be...wise. Never thought I'd say this about my own government, but we can't be too careful these days.  Can't let our guards down.”

***

“How do you want to do it?” Anderson asked once they'd gotten a plan together. Well, a couple of them.

“It's less risky to override Udina's orders. Still...I'm worried about the fallout, Uncle David. He could use this to accuse you of treason. At the very least he'll strip you of rank, claiming you're too close to me to see reason. He's gotten awful tight with Alliance brass, he could do it.”

“You let me worry about that. You've got bigger fish to fry.”

“And if he catches you?”

“I've been waiting a long time to plant a fist in his face.” He made a face, equal parts frustration and glee. “This is a great time to get that out of my system...should I get the chance.”

Garrus snorted and Jayne grinned. “All right. I'll get on board. They haven't locked me out of my own cabin yet. Garrus, you should round up whatever you need from your place. I don't expect to be back before this is all finished.”

“I'll meet you at the Normandy in an hour.” He nodded to Anderson, who nodded back, and left the small table, weaving through the crowd.

“I would never have pegged you for a turian kind of woman, Jayney,” Anderson said with a sort of wry expression on his face.

“Don't start.” She sipped her drink, some fizzy concoction that was blue and fruity. She tried to savor each taste, but was in too much of a hurry to enjoy it properly. She was starting to feel scattered, unraveled. She wanted to get moving, get it over with. But she also wanted to stay right there and never leave her beloved guardian's side. “Besides, what makes you think anything is even going on?”

“I raised you, girl. More than ten years of knowing you means I know that gleam in your eye when you look at him. Not to mention, you apparently know where he lives, and that he might want some things from his apartment. Some of those 'things' are yours, I'm guessing.” He shook his head, amused at her chagrined expression. “You could have done worse, I suppose, than a Vakarian.”

“What do you mean?”

“I know Castis, from way back. A well disciplined man even for such a well disciplined race. I'm sure some of that has rubbed off on his son.”

Jayne stayed silent, torn between sad laughter and curiosity. Garrus didn't talk about his father much, but when he did, he made it clear they were estranged. She got the feeling it wasn't well known, however, so she wasn't going to disappoint her one time guardian by telling him that Garrus was anything but like his father.

“He keeps me sane,” she said instead. “The anchor to my lifeboat.”

“That's good. I'll worry less knowing he's got your six.” Anderson took her hand, gripping it tight enough to hurt. “Jayney...”

“Hey, with any luck, I'll be buying you the next round in a few weeks. And it will all be over.” Anderson nodded and squeezed her fingers one last time. “I should go.”

“Stay safe, little girl. I love you.”

“Love you too, Uncle David. I'll be watching for that override.”

Chapter Text

“Obviously, Anderson was successful in helping you get off the Citadel,” the voice said.

Obviously, she retorted in her mind. How else would I now be here?

“What happened on the other side of the Mu Relay?”

***

“There,” Liara said, pointing at the CIC readout. The rachni queen stood next to her, their minds connected so the queen could communicate to Jayne more directly. It was unusual to see an asari's eyes black yet conscious. Liara had told her the link didn't hurt or override her own mind. It was merely a nexus, a passageway between the rachni's colored music and Liara's speech. Still, it was disconcerting.

“You think that one is a good candidate?” Jayne asked the queen.

“The colors appear harmonious and clean.”

“Joker, take us in for a survey sweep.”

“Aye aye, Commander.”

Jayne watched over her crew from her position at the CIC, seeing Pressly's lips turning white at the sight of the rachni queen, the ensigns working the computers eyeing each other when they thought she wasn't looking. Garrus leaned on the railing below, his mandibles flickering in small amusement as the ship teetered on edge having such a being aboard. Even Wrex was there, tucked in the shadows, his assault rifle over his shoulder.

“Coming up on the planet,” Joker announced into the uneasy silence, and the galaxy map shifted, bringing the tidy planet into clear view. They did a sensor sweep and found no signs of artificial architecture and little intelligent life other than the ubiquitous pyjaks and some sort of ruminant species. There was most likely a predator that hunted those ruminants, but it wasn't in sensor range. The air was breathable and the temperature hovered at the high end of comfortable for humans. There were crystal clear bodies of water and massive forests and jungles. The mountains were worn and old, attesting to a stable orbit and inactive plate tectonics. There were four moons, all of them diminutive enough to only have a small effect on the tides and weather. As much as it would be a near perfect planet for human colonization, Jayne had no misgivings about letting the queen claim it for herself.

“Will it do?” Jayne asked the queen.

“Yes,” she replied through Liara. “It will do.”

“Garrus, get the Mako ready.”

“Yes, Shepard.”

“Wrex? You gonna see this through?”

“I am,” he growled from his corner. Liara turned to him, preparing to say something through the queen, but he waved a hand. “Leave it, rachni. You held up your end, I will hold up mine.”

“Pressly, you have command,” Jayne said.

“Aye aye, Commander,” he said tightly, and she could feel his eyes on her as they went through the airlock to the elevator. She suited up, and led the queen and Liara to the Mako, Wrex trailing behind them.

The surface was lovely and fresh and all of them took a deep breath as soon as the Mako rolled to a stop and they set foot outside it. The queen scurried over the ground, testing the soil and plant life with her tentacles, already breaking her connection to Liara, whose eyes turned back to their customary blue. There was a sheen of tears filming them and she stood by Jayne helplessly overcome by emotion as the rachni queen disappeared from view over a ridge of stone.

“Well, that was anticlimactic,” Garrus said, stepping down from the driver's seat of the vehicle. “She didn't even say thank you or goodbye.”

“Youthful exuberance,” Jayne said with a smile, turning to Liara. “Besides, I'm fairly certain she left some colored notes for Liara to decipher.”

“She did, Shepard. How did you know?”

Jayne smiled, remembering how the queen had comforted her in her grief over Kaiden. “I just knew.”

They got back in the Mako and had Joker pick them up, setting them once more on a course for Ilos. “Joker, do me a favor. Throw a comm buoy into orbit, mark the world as uninhabitable due to predator species.”

“You got it, Commander.”

“How long have we got until we reach Ilos?”

“About twelve hours.”

“All right, let me know when we reach orbit. Stealth systems engaged.”

“I'm on it.”

***

“Last meal before hell?” Garrus asked, stepping into her cabin with his arms laden with trays. She grinned and let him in, taking one of the trays. She'd already cleared the small table in the center of her cabin and they sat down to eat in companionable silence. She was glad she'd gotten so many requisition licenses now, the food was actually pretty good. Garrus seemed to be enjoying his dextro protein glob too, not that she was remotely interested to know from where it originated. All she knew was that it was good enough for him and Tali both, and that's what mattered.

“So,” Garrus said once they finished eating. He leaned back in the chair, too angular and tall to be truly comfortable in it. “I still can't believe we stole the Normandy.”

Jayne grinned. “I can. Humans love a challenge.”

A crafty gleam came into his eyes. “Oh? What kind of challenges do you like, Jayne?”

She smiled and put down her fork, sizing him up in the chair. Would it topple? Would he catch her?

She launched herself across the small space, and the chair did topple, and he did catch her, rolling across the carpet so she was protected from the clatter of flying dishes and cutlery. He was laughing, full-throated and resonant, his razor sharp teeth gleaming in the lights of the cabin. When they rolled to a stop, she was sprawled across him and she leaned back, fixing the image of him in her mind before it was too late.

“How do turians get ready for a stressful mission?” she asked, already knowing the answer but wanting to hear it again.

“With wrestling, hand to hand combat and...” He pulled her closer, lifting up his head so their foreheads pressed together. “And this. Always this.”

“Make love to me, Garrus Vakarian.”

“As my Commander wishes,” he whispered, his subvocals thrumming and his hands already at work at her uniform. They stripped each other as fast as their hands could move, rolling and sliding across the slick carpet of her cabin, laughing like kids, holding the dark unknown at bay, until she was on her back and he was above her.

Garrus's hands moved on her body in a familiar path, tracing veins and bands of muscle with equal diligence and reverence. She moved her hands on him, knowing now all the places that he liked to be touched. Under his crest, the sides of his neck, between his pectoral plates. She wrapped herself around him, fitting her legs into the space between his knees and his spurs, anchoring them together. With little effort he pushed himself upright with her, standing and carrying her to the bed.

There were no words, and no need for them. Touches turned from gentle and teasing to firm and guiding. Gasps and shuddering breaths were their only communication. When he pushed inside her, she wept. He licked up her tears, driving her higher until she peaked and fell over the edge of her climax with a sigh. He pulled away from her then, rising and shifting them about so he could kneel between her legs, tracing the path his hands had done with his tongue. She arched into each caress, each spike of sharp pleasure from nicking teeth and scraping mouthplates. He held her legs when they shook as he lapped at her core, shattering her.

She pushed him back then, climbed over him to straddle his narrow hips and take him back inside her. In a practiced motion he tugged a pillow down from the head of the bed and stuffed it behind his fringe, lifting it so he wasn't hurting his head. He tucked his hands under the pillow, the very picture of indolence as he watched her rock on him, steadily building herself to a third orgasm.

They'd had so many stolen moments since their first night together, so many times where they'd learned something new, or enjoyed something again. There was a frantic need in her to memorize each detail, each tiny puff of air, each twitch of his muscles, each flare of his mandibles, each vibrating subvocal. This could be the last time, she knew. They had no idea what waited for them on Ilos, what would be waiting for them when – and if – they found the Conduit. There was no way to predict the outcome of this next confrontation with Saren and his geth.

Eventually her slow ride grew to be too much for him, and he gripped her thighs, pulling her into his thrusts, overbalancing her so she collapsed against his keelbone, her hands braced aside his head. He hadn't even taken off his visor and she nearly laughed. It was so like him. She wondered if he was recording this and the idea of it drew new urgency into her limbs. She closed her eyes and threw back her head and let his tempest wash her away.

She felt the burn of him inside her, knew that her legs were probably raw and abraded from his plates, but she didn't care. She never wanted to let him go. He held her tight, rolling them onto their sides face to face, keeping her wrapped around him as tightly as a blanket.

“Jayne, I...”

“I know,” she whispered. She didn't need words, not now. Every action spoke of his love for her. She hoped he understood how every one of her own spoke of hers for him. She touched her forehead against his and slowed her breathing, inhaling their commingled scent, memorizing that too before it was too late.

“I have never been so glad to have left C-Sec as right now.”

She smiled as he ran his talons over her skin, following the curves and lines from shoulder to hip. “Even with everything we're up against?”

“Even that.”

She didn't remember falling asleep, but she woke with a start when Joker announced they were coming out of FTL at Ilos.

“Let's do this,” she said as they pulled apart, stiff, sore but sated.

“You're on. I have plans for you later.”

She pressed a kiss to his mandible and stumbled to the shower.

Chapter Text

She presumed the voice didn't care about the fighting in and out of ancient statues or hiding in the oversized plants that grew in abundance on the long lost planet, so she skipped those memories, examining only a handful.

Wrex taking a direct hit from a geth armature, shoving her out of the way of the blast and saving her life.

Garrus dragging them both behind the cover of a fallen wall to recover in the aftermath.

Finding an intact geth rifle and testing it out on a few troopers before handing it off to Wrex, who had more experience with such a weapon style.

The broken and static filled message from the VI interface they found, nonsense to her squad but perfectly intelligible to her own Cipher enhanced ears.

The long, slow grind of stone on stone as the prehistorically old elevator carried them back to the Mako once they'd overridden Saren's command to shut them out.

Sliding and careening off the walls in said vehicle as they traversed the aqueducts, following Saren's trail, hoping they weren't too far behind.

The passage blocked by the energy field, finding the hidden elevator. And from there, down a long corridor lined with ominously dark pods...

***

“You are not Prothean,” the calm voice spoke as soon as Jayne activated the console. The image was like the VI they'd found above. Garrus and Wrex both started as it spoke, and she wondered exactly what they were hearing. “But you are not machine either. This eventuality was one of many that was anticipated. This is why we sent our warning through the beacons.”

“Looks like another VI program,” Wrex said. “Pretty badly damaged.”

“I do not sense the taint of indoctrination on any of you,” it said. “Unlike the one that passed recently. Perhaps there is still hope.”

“Wait a minute. How come I can understand you?” Garrus interjected, confirming her idea about their universal translators. “Why aren't you speaking the Prothean language?”

“The Protheans had many languages, as they were an amalgam of many species. I have been monitoring your communications since you arrived at this facility, interpreting similar root words and sounds. I have translated my output into a format you will each comprehend. My name is Vigil. You are safe here, for the moment. But that is likely to change. Soon, nowhere will be safe.”

“What are you?” Jayne asked.

“I am an advanced non-organic analysis system with the personality imprints from Ksad Ishan, chief overseer of the Ilos research facility.”

“Why did you direct us here?”

“You must break a cycle that has continued for millions of years. But to stop it, you must understand, or you will make the same mistakes we did. The Citadel is the heart of your civilization, and the seat of government. As it was with us, and has been for every civilization that came before us. But it is a trap. The station is actually an enormous mass relay. One that links to dark space, the empty void beyond the galaxy's horizon. When the Citadel is activated, the Reapers will pour through. And all you know will be destroyed.”

“How did nobody ever notice the Citadel was an inactive relay before?” Jayne asked.

“The Reapers are careful to keep their greatest secrets on the Citadel hidden. That is why they created a species of seemingly benign organic caretakers.”

“The keepers,” Garrus murmured.

“Yes. The keepers maintain the station's most basic functions. They enable any species that discovers it to use it without fully understanding the technology. Reliance on the keepers assures that no other species will discover the Citadel's true nature. Not until the relay is activated and the Reapers invade.”

“How do the Reapers survive in dark space?” she asked.

“We have only theories. The researchers here believed the Reapers went into prolonged states of inactivity to conserve energy. This allows them to survive the thousands and thousands of years it takes for new civilizations to rise up and discover the Citadel. In this state, they must be vulnerable. By retreating beyond the edges of the galaxy, they ensure no one will accidentally discover them. They keep their existence hidden until they are called back to the Citadel.”

“And then they can wipe out the Council and the entire Citadel fleet in a single, surprise attack,” Jayne exclaimed, thinking it through. Destabilizing the seat of government and sowing chaos would make the rest of the galaxy's civilized worlds easy prey.

“That was our fate,” Vigil confirmed. “Our leaders were dead before we even realized we were under attack. The Reapers seized control of the Citadel and from there, the mass relays. Communications and transport across the empire were crippled. Each star system was isolated, cut off from the others. Over the next decades, the Reapers systematically obliterated our peoples, world by world.”

“The war was lost. If you'd surrendered, they might have let you live.”

“No offer of surrender was ever given. They had a single goal: the extinction of all advanced organic life. Through the Citadel, the Reapers had access to all our data, census records and mapped planetary systems. Information is power, and they knew everything about us. Their fleets advanced across every settled region of the galaxy. Some worlds were completely destroyed, others were merely conquered, their populations enslaved. These indoctrinated servants became sleeper agents. Taken in as refugees by other Protheans, they betrayed them to the machines. Within a few centuries, the Reapers had killed or enslaved every Prothean in the galaxy. They were relentless, brutal and thorough.”

“What do they even get out of this?” Jayne asked, baffled by the sheer monstrosity of such genocide being the sole motive of any species, machine or organic. But then she remembered what viruses did, and it began to make some sense. Perhaps this was how Reapers propagated themselves. She remembered what Sovereign said. That each Reaper was a nation unto itself had led her to think that perhaps they were made up of an unfathomable numbers of races, reduced to their most basic components.

“It is unknown,” Vigil said. “In the end, what does it matter? Your survival depends on stopping them, not understanding their motives.”

“You said you brought me here for a reason. Tell me what I need to do.”

“The Conduit is the key. Before the Reapers attacked, we were on the brink of unlocking the mysteries behind mass relay technology. This was a top secret facility. Here, researchers worked to create a small scale version of a mass relay. One that linked directly to the Citadel, the hub of the network.”

“The Conduit's not a weapon,” Garrus said. “It's a backdoor onto the Citadel!”

“How did you manage to stay hidden here?”

“All official records of our project were destroyed in the initial attack on the station. While the Prothean empire crashed down, Ilos was spared. We severed all communication to the outside and this facility went dark. The personnel retreated underground into these archives. To conserve resources, everyone was put into cryogenic stasis. I was programmed to monitor this facility and to wake them when the danger had passed. But the genocide of an entire empire is a long, slow process. Years passed, decades...centuries. My energy reserves were dwindling. I began to disable the life support of non-essential support, one by one. Eventually only the stasis pods of the top researchers remained. These too were in danger of failing when the Reapers finally went back into dark space.”

“You just killed all them?” Garrus asked.

“Cowardly,” Wrex grumbled.

“It had to keep itself running,” Jayne said. She understood the reasoning, even if it was offensive. At least the end was quick for those in stasis. They went to sleep and just never woke up.

“This outcome was not completely unforeseen. My actions were a result of contingency programming upon my creation. When the Reapers retreated, the top researchers were still alive. It is the only reason any hope remains. When they woke, the researchers realized the Protheans were doomed. There were only a dozen individuals left, far too few to sustain a viable population. Yet they vowed to find a way to stop the Reapers from returning. And they knew the keepers were critical.”

“How so?”

“The Conduit gives control of the Citadel – and the keepers – to whoever uses it. Before each invasion, a signal is sent through the station compelling the keepers to activate the Citadel relay. After decades of feverish study, the researchers were able to alter this signal. Using the Conduit, they gained access to the station and made the modifications. This time, when Sovereign sent the signal to the keepers, it was ignored. The Reapers remain trapped in dark space.”

“So what is Saren's plan then?”

“He will use the Conduit to bypass the station defenses. Once inside, he can transfer control to Sovereign. It could override the Citadel's systems and manually open the relay, allowing the Reaper forces entry to the galaxy.”

“So how do I stop it?”

“There's a data file in my console. Take it. When you reach the station's master control unit, upload it. It will corrupt the Citadel's security protocols, and give you temporary control of the station. It might give you a chance against Sovereign.”

“Wait, where's the master control unit? I've never heard anything like that,” Garrus said.

“Follow Saren through the Conduit. He will lead you to your destination. He is already under the control of Sovereign.”

“Don't I know it,” Jayne muttered. This plan hinged upon a great deal of exquisite timing, to her mind. The risks were high, but there was no other choice. “So Sovereign has probably spent most of the last cycle asleep, right? Hidden somewhere in the galaxy?”

“It is logical to assume that once the Reapers return to dark space, a sentinel would stay behind, waking occasionally to analyze the situation,” Vigil said in agreement. “And when the time was right, it would signal the Citadel and usher in the next Reaper invasion. But this time the signal failed, and the keepers did not respond. It was forced to form alliances to find out what went wrong.”

“Why didn't it just attack the Citadel and avoid all the secrecy?” Wrex asked.

“Sovereign is not invulnerable. Alone it would not have survived the combined forces of the galaxy against it, if it had revealed itself too soon. Reapers are patient, and do not rush into the unknown. Sovereign could have been planning this for centuries, gathering allies or servants.”

“The yellow note that corrupted the rachni,” Jayne mused. She thought the timetable for this invasion was likely off by several millennia. Sovereign had been trying to activate the Citadel since before the rachni wars, probably having chosen them as a suitable species to act as an ally, indoctrinating them. And would have succeeded, if not for the krogan being uplifted.

That led to a darker thought. If it had succeeded, and the whole of the galaxy had been eliminated of every advanced race, humanity would have eventually found the empty Citadel and begun the cycle on their own instead of becoming just another member of the wider universe. Over two thousand years was far enough back to think that the Reapers would have passed Earth by, since the civilizations of that time barely understood steel, much less anything more technological. It was chilling to think she might never have had a chance to meet a turian and fall in love with him.

“Saren is the most visible pawn of the Reapers, but I doubt he was the first,” Vigil was saying. Jayne brought her focus back to the task at hand.

“The first were probably the rachni,” she said with a glance at Wrex. She could see him putting the pieces of that puzzle together, fitting in where his own race had helped delay this apocalypse. She hoped it would change his perspective on the wars. “Tell me about the beacons.”

“At our apex, the beacons spanned the breadth of the entire empire. We used them as a galaxy wide network of communication. Virtually all of them were destroyed during the genocide, but once the Reapers were gone, the survivors here on Ilos risked sending a message. We knew it was unlikely there were any survivors. But if there were, we wanted them to know about Ilos. We wanted to give them hope. In truth, we didn't expect any that remained would still function, but we had to try. The message was meant for our own people, and coded so that only organic beings could interpret it. We did not understand then the power of Reaper indoctrination. We never realized it could lead an agent of the machines to this world. But it has also led you here, so perhaps we did not fail after all.”

“You said the researchers were able to change the signal to the Citadel. So the keepers are no longer under Reaper control?”

“That is correct. By altering the signal, we have rendered them completely harmless.”

“And I bet that's why Sovereign allied with the geth. It must have realized organics couldn't be relied on. The rachni were defeated, and the keepers had gone off the grid too.”

“A likely hypothesis. Non-organic servants would be more predictable.”

“What happened to the survivors after they sent the beacon message?”

“I do not know for certain. They used the Conduit to gain access to the Citadel, but it is only a prototype. It is a mono-directional portal. With the accomplished destruction of the empire, they were likely trapped on the station and died there. But they were successful in their mission. Your presence here proves their sacrifice was not in vain.”

Jayne took a deep breath and realized how much time they'd spent talking with Vigil. “C'mon boys, Saren's got enough of a head start. Let's grab that data file and shake some tail.”

“The one you call Saren has not yet reached the Conduit. There is still hope if you hurry.”

***

“And when you found the Conduit, Shepard?”

We went through it.

Chapter Text

“The Conduit took you to the Citadel,” the voice said.

Correct.

“But the geth were already there.”

Yes. I don't know how Saren and his geth went through it, whether they had some sort of shielding or not. I know I wouldn't recommend going through a mass relay without it. Anyway, we landed on the Citadel, rolled that damned Mako right over and took two geth out with it. Then we fought our way to the Citadel Tower elevator.

“And that is when Sovereign arrived.”

Why do you even need me to tell you this?

***

“Look at that!” Garrus said, pointing through the glass of the elevator as the Reaper floated serenely down the enclosed tube of the closed Citadel Wards. Jayne had known it was massive, but even compared to the size of the station it still looked huge. She knew how big the ships were that she normally saw trafficking throughout the arms of the station. They looked like dots comparatively.

“We don't have a lot time,” Wrex mused, checking his assault rifle.

“No, we don't. And no time to sit here either.” The elevator had stopped; she guess Saren knew they were there and had shut off the power. Or perhaps Sovereign had. They had to get out of there and she aimed her pistol at the glass. “Get your helmets on, this is gonna suck all the air out.”

The glass shot outwards, along with a rush of wind as the oxygen escaped. No kinetic barrier popped into place; the station was no longer obeying its routine functions. Jayne engaged the mag grips on her boots, made sure Wrex and Garrus did the same, and they made their way up the outside of the elevator column, a disorienting sensation creeping along her spine.

***

They finally reached the hatch in the tower itself and dropped back into atmosphere. Wrex was still limping from where the hacked turrets had gotten him, but other than that, they were all hale enough to keep fighting. Geth appeared from the shadows and Jayne let her boys take them out. Her priority was getting to Saren before he could open the relay.

But when she reached the top of the stairs, he was nowhere to be seen. She knew this trick and waited, watching her surroundings carefully. She knew he had a mobile platform. She firmly kept the errant thought that it was nothing more than a motorized surfboard from invading her concentration as he came into view.

“Always gotta have a flare for the dramatic,” she murmured. Wrex chuckled.

Saren threw a grenade and they ducked away from it, taking cover against the side walls of the steps as it went off. “I was afraid you wouldn't make it in time, Shepard.”

“Sorry, fighting through your geth slowed me down a touch.”

“I think we both expected it would end like this, didn't we? You've lost, you know that don't you? Soon Sovereign will have full control of the station's systems. The relay will open and the Reapers return.”

“I've still got a few tricks up my sleeve.”

“You survived our encounter on Virmire. But I've changed since then. Sovereign has...upgraded me.”

“You let it put implants in you? Are you insane?”

“I suppose I should thank you, Shepard. After Virmire, I couldn't stop thinking about what you said. About indoctrination. The doubts began to eat away at me. Sovereign sensed my hesitation. I was implanted to strengthen my resolve. Now my doubts are gone. I believe in Sovereign completely. The Reapers need organics. Join me, there will be a place for you too.”

“You realize, I hope, that Sovereign has just made you his tool. He's controlling you through your implants.”

“The relationship is symbiotic. Organic and machine, intertwined. The strengths of both and the weaknesses of neither. I am a vision of the future, Shepard. The evolution of all organic life. This is our destiny. Join Sovereign and experience a true rebirth.”

“Sovereign hasn't won yet. Please, Saren, step aside and the invasion will never happen.”

“We can't stop it! Not forever. You saw the visions. You saw what happened to the Protheans. The Reapers are too powerful.”

“Some part of you must know this is wrong! You can fight this. Look inside you, Saren. Remember being a youth, remember your service to the turians, remember the day you became a Spectre, vowing to fight for the good of the Council. Remember it, Saren!”

“Maybe you're right. Maybe there is still a chance for...augh!” He struggled and fought against something she couldn't see, something inside his own head. She thought back to Noveria, and how Benezia was like this too, alternating between sane and mind controlled. “The implants. Sovereign is...too strong. I'm sorry. It's too late for me. Too late for all of us.”

She stood up, letting him see her. “It's not over yet. You can still redeem yourself. End this!”

He stared at her across the expanse between them. His face was sorrowful, the glow of geth and Reaper hardware seeping out between his mandibles and from his eyes. He was shaking, striving to control his own movements. “Shepard...”

“End it,” she whispered.

“Goodbye Shepard,” he said, pulling a pistol from his hip. “Thank you.”

She watched as he lifted the pistol to his jaw and pulled the trigger all in one motion. A spray of blood went up into the air, so corrupted it was black. He toppled from the floating platform and fell through the glass floor of the Council Tower. She raced across the narrow bridge to the open control unit and uploaded Vigil's data file. She had control of all the systems.

“See if you can open a communication channel,” Garrus said.

Through the static they could make out a distress call from the Destiny Ascension, carrying the Council in the midst of the battling geth ships. Then she heard Joker, on the far side of Widow's mass relay, holding steady with the Alliance Fleet. Wrex and Garrus argued between them on what she do, save the Council or hold back the fleet to fight Sovereign.

For a moment she was tempted, she was so tempted, to let the Council die. They hadn't believed her, hadn't heeded her warnings or prepared in any way to help her. But their collective races needed a stable government, and no matter what else happened, enough chaos had been sown already.

“Joker? I'm opening the relays now. We need to save the Ascension.”

“I hope you know what you're doing, Jayne,” Garrus said. She kept the channel open, hearing the chatter between the Alliance ships and the Ascension. She could visualize the battle in her head and heard Joker tell the ship that it was clear to escape. Then she heard Hackett's voice, bringing the Fleet around as the Ward arms began to open enough for the battle cruisers to engage Sovereign. There was nothing more she and her squad could do now, but wait it out.

She looked down to the garden below where Saren's body lay. “Make sure he's dead,” she said.

Wrex jumped down, landing heavily in the dirt, Garrus close behind. He walked to the body and shot it point blank in the head. “He's dead.”

The tower began to shake and Jayne lost her balance, falling down the same hole to the ground, where Garrus caught her. Saren's body began to glow, a deep umber red that steadily grew brighter until it ignited, burning away the organic parts that remained. A metallic framework appeared out of the ash as the trio stood by helplessly transfixed. It seemed to grow, like an artificial vine, clawing its way to its feet.

“Sovereign,” she said under her breath, readying her shotgun. It took off too fast for her to get a shot off, leaping from wall to wall like a geth hopper.

“This station is mine,” the creature said using Saren's voice. She couldn't get a lock on it, and each impact it shot at her threw her off her feet.

“Wrex, I need some help!”

It crawled across the garden like a lizard, then leaped up against the wall. She held back her revulsion by sheer force of will and pounded at it with her shotgun as Wrex tried to hold it in stasis with his biotics. But it was too quick. She threw Warp at it, Throw, Lift...all to no avail. She heard Garrus's sniper rifle going off in a steady rhythm, maybe one in three shots actually landing.

“Keep at it, we're whittling it down.”

The creature was tireless, relentless, but they didn't let up. She knew as long as Sovereign's focus was on them, the Fleet had a chance to damage the Reaper, perhaps even destroy it. Finally, by lucky chance alone, she and Wrex hit the skeletal creature simultaneously, she with Lift, he with Stasis. The creature was unable to jump away from them, and they poured everything they had into killing it.

A surge of light went through the body, flinging them all backwards. The body flew too, and landed in a heap of slag on the other side of the garden. By the time she got her her feet and stood over it, it burned anew until nothing was left but ash. Looking up, Jayne saw the Normandy maneuvering away from the looming figure of Sovereign. She didn't know whether it was their combined attack on the remains of Saren had done it or if her ship had gotten in a lucky shot of its own, but it didn't matter. Sovereign was dying, red lightning flickering out from the shell of it until it went dark and loosened its hold on the Citadel. It began to fall, succumbing to the gravitational pull of the station.

Bright flashes erupted all around the Reaper, and she knew the Alliance was hitting it with every ship remaining in the Fleet. It broke apart, like an empty shell that had been stepped on, and exploded in a ball of flames. In horror, Jayne watched a huge piece of it headed towards the Tower and frantically waved Garrus and Wrex away.

“Go! GO!”

“Jayne!” Garrus shouted, higher pitched than she'd ever heard his voice before. “MOVE!”

There was a screech of metal on metal, the sound of breaking glass and grinding stone and escaping air. And then silence. Darkness. Nothingness. The Reaper was dead.

***

“Shepard, that is all there is to tell, isn't it?”

Yes, she thought. A sound emerged into the void space, soft at first, but growing stronger with each passing beat. She felt like she should know what it was. I mean, other than being found in the wreckage and appointing a human Councilor. What happens now?

“Now? We do not know. Your memories must be analyzed, studied. We must determine whether or not what you have told us is enough.”

Enough for what?

“That is not your concern.”

What happens to me now?

“It is immaterial to us. You have served your purpose. Perhaps we shall meet again, Shepard. Perhaps we shall not.”

The sound was louder now, a pulse, a rhythm. It was at the edge of recognition and she focused on it, trying to blot out the voice so she could listen.

“Shepard, you are a worthy foe for the Reapers.”

Thanks...I think. She moved away from the voice in the void space, remembering now what the sound was, following it like the proverbial light at the end of a tunnel. The voice faded away, letting her go. A new voice impinged on her awareness, urgent, loud and accented.

“Shepard! Wake up! The station is under attack. I need you to listen to everything I say if you want to get out of this alive!”

She knew that voice, that accent. She'd been hearing it for who knew how long. She groaned and...moved.

She opened her eyes, blinded at first, slow to focus. The klaxon alarm continued, a steady drumbeat against her ears. Everything hurt, even breathing. She rolled to her side and fell off the hard surface she'd been laying on. She met the floor with a thud, knocking what little air had reached her lungs out in a cry. But it seemed to clear something and she could breathe more easily, feeling her strength return to limbs and mind.

“Shepard! Do you copy? There's a pistol in the locker. Get it. Do you copy?”

“I...I copy...”

I am Commander Jayne Shepard, the first human Spectre, survivor of Mindoir, Akuze and the Citadel.

And I am alive .