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Chapter Text

It was not clear, at first, that the little Crow lived. He feigned grief, drinking and lamenting that he had 'lost a kinderguardian'. But the death of two creatures of Light would leave ripples in the Ascendant Planes, echoing endlessly. When he cast curious feelers into that territory, he felt nothing. Two nights of careful examination yielded only his last location. It was a frayed place; the space between worlds had not only been breached, it had been pierced and destroyed.

It went beyond a mere portal to this solid place of reality. It had pierced into elsewhere, and then been violently rejected, slammed shut like a pressurized door. The space within and around was violated, confused, trying to fill itself in like a hole drilled through a pool of sluggish mud.

He did not know if it could be followed. But he could... invest in it. Patience yielded the truth.

Ikora made to take the bottle from his hands, but he leaned away from her, convincingly drunk, and gave a toast; to the failure of old Warlocks, and the lost lives of young Hunters!

Crow's nerves were doing their thing again, but he was too tired to be on high alert, even though he was trapped in a confined space with a number of highly-trained, highly-dangerous individuals. Mentally, he tried to encourage Glint to phase, but his Ghost only snuggled deeper into his hood. At least he was difficult to grab in there, and the Light from his presence was a slight balm to Crow's nerves.

The shuttle rocked and rattled as it left the planet's atmosphere, and it swayed more than most jumps ships he'd exited atmosphere on. He gripped the bars on on his restraints a little harder. Flying had never been the same after the crash that led him into Spider's hands. An unfamiliar ship only made it worse. Shepard looked at him from where she sat, and Crow squirmed a bit under her gaze.

"So, Crow," she started, "before we get to the Normandy, I need to know if your AI is going to cause problems. We have one of our own on board, I don't want any cyberwarfare one board."

"Glint isn't an AI." It took him a moment to realize she was talking about Glint. "He's a sentient energy construct."

"The difference?" The Commander raised an eyebrow.

"An AI is all software, and it can only simulate emotions." Glint pipped up. "I'm mostly Light woven through small pieces of code, and I feel everything."

"What are you feeling right now?" Garrus leaned forward curiously. Glint's shell clicked in Crow's ear.

"A little frightened, really." He admitted. "Where we come from, 'if it isn't human it's trying to kill you'."

"Well, I have no intentions of doing any killing on board the Normandy." Garrus assured him, sitting back. "Unless we're boarded. All bets are off at that point."

"Either way, will there be problems?" Shepard asked.

"No, ma'am." Glint told her, before settling back down. The rest of the trip was quiet.

They arrived on the Normandy, and when the doors of the shuttle opened, Crow was assaulted by a sterile white environment. He didn't seem to be the only one who wasn't a fan of this; Thane squinted slightly, like someone who was annoyed, and distaste flickered briefly across Shepard's face. He couldn't get a read on Garrus, his face was a bit too alien.

"Crow, head to the med bay. Unkillable or not, our doctor will want a look at you." Commander Shepard addressed him as they filed out of the shuttle. "Thane, show him the way, would you?"

"Of course." The drell bowed slightly, before beckoning Crow and leading him towards what looked like a door with a holographic interface, as the other two hung back. Crow watched as he tapped several commands, and the door slid open at multiple points. Well that's fancy. It was a small room, and Crow lingered as Thane entered. On the Shore, getting into such a small space with a battle-proven stranger was typically a bad idea, even if they'd had your back previously. Betrayal was all too common.

"It's an elevator." The assassin indicated the room. "They have them in your reality, do they not?"

"Yes... but not on ships." Here goes nothing. He stepped on. The elevator started, and he was officially trapped. For... well, an unusual amount of time. "How... big is the Normandy, exactly?"

"The Normandy is a frigate." a female voice spoke up over the ship's internal comms, making Crow jump and Glint phase.

"That was EDI, the AI Shepard mentioned." Thane assured him. "She is no threat to you."

The doors opened again, to Crow's relief, and they were greeted by more white. It was obnoxious, especially compared to the dark, cool colors he was used to on the Reef. Thane led him around the wall and into an area that looked like a cafeteria of some sort. 'Med Bay' was plastered over the first door they saw, and it was where Thane took him. At least in an infirmary, the sterile appearance made sense. There was nobody home, though.

"Wait here for Doctor Chakwas." Thane told him. "A man named Jacob Taylor will be around shortly as well to see about getting you settled in."

"Thanks?" It was weird, thanking someone of his own volition. He was used to only thanking Spider, and only because he didn't want a beating.

"Thank you." The drell nodded slightly to him. "I am well aware that your decisions are why I am alive right now. I shall not forget."

Crow could only stand there, blinking. Nobody except Glint had ever thanked him sincerely for anything. Spider gave plenty of thanks, but always in mockery. He didn't know what to do with this, and before he could, Thane was leaving. Finally alone, Crow let himself relax, and he staggered over to one of the beds, sitting down heavily. Glint materialized next to him.

"Lay down and rest." He advised. "I'm sure they won't mind."

Crow was too tired to argue. He lay down on his side, an Glint settled in the crook of an arm. He though it would be hard to sleep in the bright, white environment. He was wrong.

"We don't know anything about him!" Miranda was pitching a fit. Big surprise.

"He just stranded himself to save all our asses." Shepard pointed out, grinding her teeth. This woman loved testing her patience.

"At the very least we should send him to a secure facility-"

"Over my dead body." She cut the woman off. Sending anyone off-grid with Cerberus might as well be asking for a horrific experiment. "He's staying, that's final."

She strode out before any more arguments could be had, and made her way down to the crew deck. She had a mountain of questions for Crow, about his reality, about his powers, about him in general. The lights in the med bay were dim when she entered, and Chakwas spun in her seat, signaling to keep quiet. After further examination, Crow was fast asleep on one of the beds. Glint looked rather 'asleep' as well, a tiny, pulsing light by the strange man's side.

"Well?" She whispered.

"The scans register him as human." Chakwas told her softly. "I can be more thorough when he wakes, but his biology so far looks to be an exact copy of our own. It's already making my job easier."

"Anything of note, so far?" She queried, curiosity burning.

"He's malnourished and likely anemic." The older woman informed her. "Even with that drone fixing him up, it's obvious he's been through the wringer. I advise not taking him anywhere until he's gotten a week or two of good meals in, with supplements, maybe longer depending on how much that drone can help with. He's a levo, by the way."

"Anything you'll need that we don't have?" Life must be tough in his reality, if someone like him has trouble finding food. She hadn't noticed anything too wrong with him groundside, but looking at him now, she could se it.

"There are certain foods and supplements he'll need, I'll make a list." Chakwas picked up a data pad. "Now if you excuse me, I need to sort out these increasingly confusing readings."

"I'll leave you to it, doc." Shepard nodded, and, casting one last glance at Crow, left. As soon as the door closed, she let out a groan. If Miranda was thrilled about having an unkillable soldier who could set himself fire aboard, she would be ecstatic about having an anemic unkillable soldier who could set himself on fire aboard.

He was going to cost extra.

When Crow woke, the lights had been dimmed, and he could hear some sort of funny tapping noise. He felt worlds better than he had before. There was a pile of what seemed to be fresh clothes folded on the next bed over, and what was ostensibly a sandwich next to them, both marked by a note with his name on it. He sat up, and Glint rose into the air, stretching his shell and shaking it out slightly. Crow rolled his shoulders, finding he was far less sore than usual. I think I like beds.

Looking around, he found that the source of the tapping was a bearded man in a hat, toiling away with a holographic interface that was wrapped around his forearm. He glanced up when he noticed Crow watching.

"Doc said to tell you to clean up, if you woke up." He jerked his thumb in the direction of a room with the words 'emergency contaminant shower'. "Shower's in back."

Crow had never actually used a shower before. Only Spider's favorites had access to that kind of privilege. "Um... thanks?"

The man gave a nonchalant wave and continued his tapping. Crow gathered the clothes, hiding the sandwich between them out of habit. Once he was alone in the shower room, he devoured half of it, and had Glint store the rest in case he didn't earn another. The shower was confusing at first, and he spent more time figuring out the temperature controls than he did getting clean. The clothes were a bit loose, and the sleeves didn't even come down to his elbows, exposing all the small scars he'd gotten from Spider 'authenticating' the "anti-Guardian" weaponry that people often tried to sell him.

He hoped nobody asked about them. He wasn't quiet comfortable telling anyone there were ways to truly harm him, even if they didn't have access to such means in this reality. At least, that he knew of. In better news, Glint had found a pair of scissors, and he was able to even out his hair slightly. He still looked a mess, but he looked like less of a mess, and he felt fairly good as well. Being clean, fed, and in fresh clothes was a good feeling.

Hopefully he could earn enough of a keep for it to happen again.

Chapter Text

He had Glint decompiled his armor for the time being; he wanted to savor this 'fresh' feeling for a bit before he put the worn stuff back on. When he came back into the med bay, the lights were back to full obnoxiousness, and an older woman was injecting the bearded man with a very heavy-duty hypodermic needle. Now that he could see everything, the other man seemed to be wearing a mostly discrete set of tech leg braces.

"Hey, it's the zombie!" beard guy mimed a toast, looking Crow up and down. "You still look like shit."

"Language!" Glint beeped.

"It's kidding, right?" beard guy rose an eyebrow, though the hat made it hard to see.

"'He'. And no, he's not." Crow shook his head.

"Huh. Never thought the coming overlords would have parental settings on." he shrugged. The woman made him still, and readied another injection. "But really, you look like shit."

"...Okay." Crow didn't how not to look like shit, so there wasn't much he could say in response to that.

"Play nice, Flight Lieutenant." the woman chided, she looked up at Crow as she set aside a syringe. "I'm Dr. Chakwas, Normandy's Chief Medical Officer. I'm going to need complex deep scans of you physiology, so I'll need you to stick around before you go sight seeing."

"I can give you whatever you need, doctor." Glint offered. "You don't need to scan Crow, I know every atom of him."

"Yeah, that isn't creepy at all." Lieutenant Beard scoffed.

"Joker." Chakwas warned.

"It's part of my job. Can't reconstruct someone from disintegration without knowing the blueprints." Glint told him. He was floating a little too far out for Crow's comfort, and he pulled his Ghost back to his side. "No scans necessary. Where do I upload what you need?"

"Terminal. Be sure to mark it, and EDI will have an eye one you while you're in the system." She pointed at a computer while she loaded up another hypodermic. That's a lot of needles for one guy! Did he get tetanus or something? Tetanus was a common problem on the shore. It was a terrible way to go.

He followed Glint to the computer, and tried to resist side-eyeing the other two people in the room while his Ghost shared his medical data.

"Hey, so normally Jacob comes in here all like 'hey there, new guy, I work out so I must know what I'm doing, go sleep in the airlock or something'." 'Joker' deepens his voice to mock whoever Jacob was, and Crow eyes him with confusion. "So can I steal you?"

"Huh?" he had no idea what that meant. Chakwas set down what was ostensibly the last needle, and Joker rolled his shoulder.

"Give you the grand tour before Jacob can talk up how glorious it is to live on a Cerberus ship?" Confusion level intensifying. Joker, obviously seeing this, rolled his eyes.

"Can I show you around?" he simplified. Crow blinked. He didn't know what any of that other stuff was about, or how to respond to humor(nobody on the shore was happy enough to be good at it), but he supposed he would have to learn his way around the ship sometime.

"Okay, I guess." he answered uncertainly. This was already out of his comfort zone, but he had the feeling he was going to have to get used to that. Joker slipped off the bed gingerly, accepted several pills and a cup of water from Chakwas before downing them, and cleared his throat.

"Here, you see," he began in a thick, almost reef-like accent, "Is the med bay, where we find Karin Chakwas in her natural habitat-"

"I'm done medicating you, Jeff, now shoo before I schedule you a colonoscopy!" said woman bluffed. Crow could only guess it was a bluff because 'colonoscopy' sounded like it had to be a made-up word. Either way, Joker hobble quickly in the direction of the exit, with a strange, limping gait, as though something were wrong with his hips. Crow could see why he needed braces.

"And through the door laying past her territory is the lair of the coming overlord." he continued. Crow hesitated, and followed. Glint, having finished his download, was close behind, and they both gave the doctor a hasty thanks on the way out. The bearded man gave a grand gestured towards the cafeteria. "And through here is the mess hall, where the rest of the herd feasts, at three scheduled half-hours a day. Do not miss a meal, or Chakwas will be on you with a scolding and sandwich."

"Why?" who punished and fed their victim at the same time? Joker turned to cast him an incredulous look.

"Seen yourself in the mirror lately? You look like a huff and a puff'll blow you away." Crow didn't know what that meant either, but he assumed he'd just been called skinny. Joker's pace was slow, and Crow tried to keep even with him. He was tempted to ask what was wrong with the man, but on the shore such questions were answered with a slap to the face or a kick in the teeth. He wasn't certain that was how things worked on this end, but it was better to be safe than sorry.

"Through there, be dragons. A big-boobed, scary dragon." was all Joker had to say about the door that mirrored the placement of the med bay, and he said it with a slight shudder.

"Figurative dragons, I hope." he was trying not to think about Ahamkara, and was wondering whether he should try to be humorous and point out reptiles didn't have boobs.

"Um, yeah. If we had a dragon it would've been the first thing I told you about." he rolled his eyes as if this was obvious. "Up there is the main battery. Garrus spends every second of his existence in there, so if you wanna talk gross Hive stuff, he'll be there. Moving on."

He grabbed Crow's sleeve to tug him in a new direction, and it caught the Hunter off-guard, causing him to jump backwards and nearly pull the other man off-balance.

"Frick, geeze, okay!" the flustered man regained his balance with help of the wall. "No touching the merchandise, I get it!"

"Sorry!" Crow manages to squeak. He has the desire to ask Glink for his cloak, at least, so he can hide his embarrassment.

"Yeah, yeah." Joker waves him off, much to his relief. "Anyway, up here."

They come into the hallway he and Thane had come into when they got off the elevator. Joker points to their left;

"Samara lives in Port Observation, the crew bunks down the way from her, women's bathroom across from that."

Then right;

"Kasumi hoards her stuff in observation, Thane's holed up in Life Support across from the wee boys room."

"Okay..." Crow tries to stick it all to memory. He would have to walk around by himself later, solidify a feel for the place. And he wouldn't mind bumping into Thane again, now that he was well-rested and feeling a little braver. His bearded guide hobbles over to the elevator, and swipes away at the interface so fast, Crow can't tell what's happening. He hadn't been paying much attention to what Thane had done, before, and if he was going to be staying on the Normandy, he should at least know how to work the elevator.

"Wait!" He halts Joker before he can step on the elevator. Crow shuffles his feet self-consciously. "Could you do that again? Um, slower, this time? I don't know how to work this thing."

"Sure, whatever." He backed out and reactivated the interface. There were five levels to the Normandy, and Joker showed him how to set a destination. On the way down to engineering, he detailed how to add a sequence of multiple stops if someone joined in with you while you were riding. The door opened to a hallway with a glass wall that gave a view of the hanger, and there were multiple doors at either end.

"This is engineering and auxiliary cargo. Aka; krogan daycare down that way," the Lieutenant pointed to port, "and dangerous mercenary that way."

"What's a krogan, exactly?" Crow asked. And does everyone get their own space?

"Think big, angry lizard." The other man explained, spreading out his arms to indicate size. "His game's Grunt, and to matters worse, he's a teenager."

"Okay." It felt like he was saying that a lot, today.

"Anyway, just steer clear of them. We also have a murderous psycho squatting in maintaince, so..." he trailed off. Staying on the Normandy was starting to sound like a bad idea.

"This ship is starting to sound a little dangerous." Glint echoed his sentiments. Joker shrugged.

"We've got a mad scientist on the top deck, if you wanna round off the list. Gotta have the best for a suicide mission. But engineering isn't all bad; all my homies are down here." Crow tried to squash the uneasy that was rising in his chest as his guide led him to a door around the corner.

"Suicide mission?" He asked. Commander Shepard had mentioned her mission, but she hadn't specified it as a 'suicide mission'.

"The Collectors take the colonists, and go through the Omega-4 Relay. Any other ship that goes through Omega-4 never comes back so we have to find a loophole." Joker explained, gesturing with his hands.

"Relay?" This reality had a gift for being confusing.

"Hold that thought." He said as they walked into a room that seemed to hum and vibrate. A woman was operating a console directly ahead of them. "Hey Tali, explain the Relay system before I confuse the new guy!"

"You're the pilot." The woman, presumably Tali, responded without turning around. Her voice had a thick accent, and sounded slightly mechanized.

"Eh, I can't dumb things down to 'guy from another universe' level." The bearded man at his side shrugged. "I was just telling him about Omega-4."

The woman jabbed at her console once more with a three-fingered hand before turning to face them. She wore a helmet under her veil, and he could only get vague impression of her face, but her eyes glowed like an Awoken, so there was one thing he could see.

"Mass Relays are a network of devices located throughout the galaxy." She started, while Joker leaned back against the wall. Her voice gave off a faint impression of annoyance. "They sling matter from one Relay to the next, namely ships. A ship interfaces with a Relay, the pilot chooses which Relay or sequence of Relays they want to go through, and the rest is history. Joker, just give him tourist's codex."

"Reading is boring, who likes reading?" Joker shrugs before Crow can say anything.

"I do." He said.

"It's not that bad." Glint echoed.

Tali seems to glare at his Ghost, and Crow edged closer to him with a silent command to phase. Glint disappears.

"Doesn't Jacob normally do this?" she addressed Joker. "I thought you wanted nothing to do with 'Shepard's dangerous alien collection'."

"I lost a bet." the man shrugged. Crow felt slightly disappointed, but unsurprised. "That, and he's too skinny to hurt anyone."

"I wouldn't hurt anyone if I wasn't." Crow thought it would make a good point to say this. "I like to avoid causing pain in general."

"Good thing husks aren't alive, then." Tali commented. What are husks? "Now if you excuse me-"

"He in here?" Crow managed not to jump when the door behind them opened and a woman's voice loudly interrupted. He spun around.

"Oh my Light!" Crow immediately turned back around again, face hot, as Glint had a fit through their Link. "OH MY LIGHT WHERE ARE HER CLOTHES!"

This ship just gets weirder! Then his instincts flared up, right before-

Nothing. Rush of warmth and Light, and he was face down on the floor.

"-you bosh-tet, if that bullet hit something vital you could have killed us all!"

He rolled as fast as he could to his feet, and Glint had already put his armor back on; it wasn't as loose with the new clothes on under it. Everyone looked furious, and he leveled Hawkmoon at the shirtless lady. He kept it, and his focus, fixed on her head. She was smiling like an Ahamkara, gun still raised. Joker stood tense and still, like one of those weird birds with the gaping mouths that pretended to be tree branches when they thought they were in danger. Crow's blood was all over him, and the floor.

Tali was another story.

"Relax, Sugar Queen, I just wanted to see if it was true!" the gun went down, and Crow hesitantly lowered Hawkmoon. The Ahamkara grin stayed. "Good thing it was."

"You, miss, are truly despicable!" Crow had never heard Glint angry before, and he had to stop his jaw from dropping. The last few days had pulled both of them a little thin, but he never thought Glint would lose his temper! "You just murdered my Guardian because you wanted to see it! What's wrong with you?"

"I don't give a shit, lightbulb, that's what's wrong." Glint made an angry buzzing noise.

"Oh, go put a bra on, you horrible she-devil!" What in the world has gotten into you! He pulled his Ghost back and raised Hawkmoon again as Shirtless She-devil took a threatening step forward. He had half a mind to grab Joker while he was at it. They were saved when the door opened again, and a furious Commander Shepard stepped forward.

"What the hell is going on here?"

Chapter Text

Jack shouldn't have a gun, there shouldn't be blood on the floor, Crow shouldn't look like he was going to bolt out the nearest airlock rather than spend one more second on the Normandy, Tali shouldn't look ready to commit murder, and Joker definitely should not be covered in brain matter, but one didn't always get what they wanted.

"What the hell is going on?" She repeated, because she honestly couldn't believe what she was seeing. The last thing she wanted to hear while she was trying to relax was EDI informing her that members of her crew were killing one another.

"She killed him for fun!" Glint piped up angrily. Crow placed a hand on him, pulling him back, and he disappeared. His gaze remained fixed on Jack, and the silver gun he held was still poised to be used if need be.

"Like I was going to take that 'unkillable' bullshit at it's word!" Glint reappeared but Crow forced him back into hiding immediately.

"Oh sure, so just shoot a guy in the back, that's always nice!" Joker finally spoke up. He looked-and sounded-like he might be in shock. He certainly wouldn't sass Jack while in his normal frame of mind. The biotic turned her glare on him, flaring her biotics, and the pilot wavered slightly.

"That's enough!" Best to get Joker out of here in case calmer minds didn't prevail. "Joker, med bay; no arguments. Jack, you're going to clean this with a toothbrush, then I want every toilet on this ship clean enough to eat off off by the end of the day, and you're scrubbing the sinks with a toothbrush for a week!"

Not really a big enough punishment for killing someone, but it wasn't a typical situation. If it were an Alliance ship, Jack would be in the brig awaiting court martial. She would take any excuse to get Jack off her ship, to be honest; the woman was insane, unstable, and had a nasty habit of putting the team in danger by going off on her own.

"The hell I am!" The convict scoffed, as Joker shuffled away hastily. Crow looked increasingly like he wanted to disappear.

"You will, starting now!" Shepard fought to keep her own biotics from flaring. "Tali, make sure she does it."

"Suit rat can't make me do anything!" Jack sneered at the quarian.

"Say it again bosh'tet!" Her old friend jabbed a finger in the other woman's direction.

"Could someone tell her to put a shirt on while you're at it?" Crow interjected hesitantly. "We're in space."

"Bite me, blueberry!" The psychotic biotic snapped, flaring. The silver gun was raised.

"Jack, get the hell out, now, and get the cleaning supplies from Gardner." Shepard got between the two of them. She had a gut feeling that Crow wouldn't pull that trigger even if he was a bit freaked out. Jack opened her mouth again-so unwise- and Shepard cut her off. "I mean it! You are so damn lucky we don't have a brig!"

The other woman gave everyone in the room one last sneer before leaving. "Pussies."

Crow's weapon disappeared when the door closed. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to cause trouble, I didn't know she had a gun, I-"

"Calm down Crow, it's hardly your fault." What he said rang an alarm bell, but she didn't have time to examine it. "Tali, did she hit anything else important?"

"None that I can see yet." The quarian had turned to examine everything that the bullet might have hit after Crow.

"There was no exit wound, miss. Your equipment should be fine." Glint managed to dodge Crow's hand long enough to inform her.

"Then you... two, come with me." She still couldn't figure out how Glint did that or where he went when he did. "Tali, call me if Jack gives you more trouble."

Crow stepped hesitantly around the puddle of blood(it was an interesting shade of purple, not quite red but not quite the shade of quarian blood), and certain he was with her, Shepard led him out of engineering.

"You can put the gun away, now. Jack should be up in maintenance." She told him as they approached the elevator. He flushed a little.

"Sorry." He secured his weapon in it's holster as they waited for the elevator.

"Stop apologizing, that's what I should be doing. You didn't ask for Jack's attitude, and you certainly didn't ask her to shoot you." Shepard was tired of apologizing for Jack, and for several other people, now that she thought about it. "I'm sorry she did that to you. I'm going to put out a crew memo that shooting you is off-limits."

"I.. thanks?" He looked confused, but she was starting to wonder if that was the normal state of his face. The elevator opened, and Shepard hit the commands for her cabin.

"I think we need to talk." she said as he stepped in. He eyed her nervously as the doors closed. "Chakwas says it will be a while before she can clear you to fight, and I can't say I blame her, but there are some questions I want to ask."

"Like...?" he prompted.

"Where does Glint go when he disappears? What's the extent of his capabilities, and yours? What species are you, and how do our realities differ?" Granted, she had way more than that, but it was his first day. Glint appeared and hovered over Crow's left shoulder, and the yellow-eyed man gave his companion a 'look'.

"Well, where we go when we phase is contested, even among fellow Ghosts." the small drone informed her, giving Crow a 'look' right back as if to say 'see, I'm behaving now'. "Personally, I think we decompile into a quantum superposition, like a sentient frequency."

"The existence of sentient energy and similar concepts is purely theoretical." EDI chimed in as the elevator opened. "The implication that you can exist as pure energy or as a hardware platform at will is physically impossible."

"I wasn't talking to you, and yes, I can! See!" he proceeded to fly up to the nearest camera, and set himself to popping in and out of existence. Crow dragged him back down when he was in a solid state.

"EDI, give us some some privacy." she ordered the AI, beckoning Crow into her cabin. He entered warily. "Just grab any old seat. Don't mind the rodent."

He jumped when her hamster rolled his ball into the bottom of the stairs; Shepard had had to abandon him in favor of stopping the Jack crisis. She bent down and picked him up, motioning to the couch as she did so. "So, about those capabilities? I know you've got some sort of medical protocol, and I'd be lying if I said we couldn't find a use for it. We're up against some of the worst on this mission."

"I can only help Crow." Shepard paused with the lid of the ball half open. Figures. "He's my Guardian."

"You're going to have to elaborate on that." She tipped the ball slightly, encouraging Fred to step out into his tank.

"Ghosts were created by the Traveler about a millennia ago. Every Ghost spends their life looking for an individual that matches their criteria." Crow spoke up. "This person can be someone who's alive, but most often Ghosts are hunting for someone who's dead. When A Ghost find their match, they 'choose' them, and that person is able to weaponize the Traveler's Light. With practice, I mean."

"I was looking for Crow forever!" Glint added. Shepard placed the lid back on Fred's tank, and watched her pet burrow into his bedding with a frown, trying to wrap her head around what Crow was saying.

"So, you look for a dead guy, you choose him, and he's just unkillable from then out?" she fact-checked, coming around the wall and joining the two. "How does it keep you from healing others?"

"I'm made of Light." Glint told her from where he was perched on Crow's shoulder. "My Light is bonded with Crow's to make the Ghost Link. My ability to bring him back is dependent on it. It wouldn't work with anyone else."

"Okay. I think I understand." she would have to analyze all that later. Get herself used to the absurdity of it. "So, Crow, aside from making grenades, what can you do? Thane mentioned something about a flaming pistol."

"Hunters call it the 'Golden Gun'." he informed her, fidgeting with his gloves. "Glint, you can ditch the armor, I think."

Shepard took a breath to comment when his armor disappeared in a frenzy of particles, leaving him in the Cerberus uniform she'd had sent down to him. You know what... whatever. She decided to withhold said comment. He looked worse without the armor to hide his malnourishment, and there were scars lacing what she could see of his arms. More alarm bells.

"I can use the Light to make a barrage of flaming knives if the situation is too far spread for the golden gun, but I'm not very well practiced in either." The fidgeting didn't stop. "You already know I'm able to burn out Hive infection, and the grenade thing. The grenade thing usually works best if I have an existing grenade to work with, what I gave you was mostly overcharged energy ready to explode."

"Are there any diseases from your reality I should be worried about? anything the shuttle's decon might have missed?" she felt stupid for it not occurring to her before. Joker was covered in foreign blood, for pete's sake, it should have been the first thing on her mind! "Anything that spreads through blood?"

"None that I..." Crow seemed to be at a loss, and he looked to Glint.

"No. Your crew is safe." the Ghost reassured her. "Aside from the usual risks of handling foreign blood, at least. Guardians can't get sick, and they can't spread disease; their Light burns it away."

"So, I don't have to worry about getting you a spacer's cocktail?" That would be incredibly useful; with the amount of travelling this ship did, everyone who came aboard got enough cocktail variations to make them sick for weeks.

"Guardians can't get drunk. Unless it's a special City brew." Wrong cocktail.

"Spacer's cocktail's are inoculations." she corrected.

"Oh." He shuffled a little in his seat.

"So if a Guardian is someone chosen by a Ghost, what species are you exactly?" he looked so human, it was impossible.

"I'm an Awoken." he said, as Glint loosed what looked like a scanning beam over the prothean artifact on the table. Crow pulled him back. "They... we, first showed up after the Collapse, when most of humanity was destroyed by the Darkness. When the Traveler fought it, the battle had side affects, turning some humans fleeing the system into Awoken. I don't know much more than that."

"Humanity was destroyed?" Shepard felt like she might be sick. The rest of her questions seemed to go out the airlock. "What's this Darkness, Reapers?"

"I've never heard of Reapers, but the Darkness is the Traveler's ancient enemy." Glint was becoming more prone to drifting in the direction of her model ships, and Crow kept casually pulling him back. "The damage the Traveler took during the Collapse was the reason it made the Ghosts in the first place. Until a year before I was reborn, it was considered comatose. What's left of humanity built a the Last City beneath it, though; from what I heard, it still gave off ambient energy they could use, to power shields and such."

Shepard took a deep breath. The Last City? That sounded like a nightmare. Like one of her nightmares. The rest of her questions were definitly out the airlock. "Okay. That's... enough for now. You should go back to the med bay, Chakwas want's to keep an eye on you."

"Okay!" he sounded far too eager to leave. Glint shot forward, and managed to scan two model ships before his Guardian got ahold of him. "Sorry! Stop that Glint!"

"But it's new!" the Ghost beeped. It was actually a little cute, not that her currently shocked brain cared much.

"Stop apologizing for everything." Shepard berated, tired. "Go to med bay, get yourself something to eat on the way. Doc says you need more meat on your bones."

"I haven't done anything yet." Crow frowned. "For food."

ALARM BELL.

"You don't have to." she told him slowly. Something told her she would have to assert this point. "This ship has a rotating meal roster for each crew shift. Once I work you into one, you eat at those times, regardless of what you've done, and until then you can eat whenever you please. Chakwas will probably assign extra meals to you you."

"Why?" what kind of question was that?

"You're skinny as fuck." She officially didn't like this. She didn't like what she heard about Crow's reality, and she didn't like the implications of how he was talking to her now.

"Language!" Glint proclaimed angrily.

"Go eat, Crow." she asserted, standing up and ushering him towards the stairs. "By the way, you saved our asses-"

"Language!"

"-down on Eden Prime. You don't have to earn anything on this ship." He looked a bit overwhelmed at this point, and all he did was nod, before making his way to the elevator. Once he was gone, Shepard sat down heavily on the couch, and buried her face in her hands, trying to process what she'd learned.

Collapse. Last City. Most of humanity destroyed.  'Earn' food.

Ironically, her omnitool took that moment to remind her it was her lunch shift. I need to talk to Garrus. Maybe it was a cultural misunderstanding, but the way Crow had spoken, several times today, raised alarm bells that Garrus might be able to break down for her. He dealt with this kind of thing back in C-Sec, right? Finding out if something was seriously wrong about a person's situation?

Having Crow on the Normandy was quickly becoming complicated.

Chapter Text

Crow didn't exactly make it to the med bay.

He almost did, but Joker hobbled out at what must have been his personal top speed and they nearly collided.

"Do not go in there yet, Ed of the dead." The pilot warned, making as if to steer him back to the elevator. He'd cleaned up, but there were still specks and smears of blood visible on his uniform. "Jack's getting solvents and whatnot for her mess, and Crazy Kelly is waiting to ambush you."

"Ambush?" He didn't know who 'Crazy Kelly' was, but any sentence containing 'Jack' and 'ambush' couldn't have good implications. "Why?"

"Not here! Elevator, before she gets done with Jack and comes for us!" He gave Crow a light shove, and the Hunter, not wanting anything to do with Jack or ambushes of any sort, complied.

"What is she after you for? Shepard said I should eat." He protested. He still didn't know what to make of Shepard, or her assertions that meals weren't a privilege on the Normandy. He still had half of the sandwich from earlier, and he was starting to feel hunger biting again. He wanted to believe her, but the hidden food was his habitual safety net, and he was reluctant to sacrifice it. He was familiar with hunger; he could wait.

"Crazy Kelly is the ship counselor. They have therapists in your reality, right?" Joker looked both ways before shuffling hastily into the elevator and frantically tapping out the commands. "Kelly Chambers might have a psychology degree, but she's creepy as hell about it, and she has even less respect for privacy than an actual licensed shrink. Anyway she comes in there trying to shrink my brain about watching yours get blown out, then Jack comes in looking for some doohickey for the blood, and then it just got disturbing. There are some things a man just shouldn't hear!"

Does he ever come up for air? From what he'd experienced today, Joker might be one of those 'extroverts' Glint had told him about. The elevator stopped, and opened up to a part of the ship he didn't recognize; the floor between the Crew Deck and the Captain's Quarters, he realized. Joker adjusted his hat, dislodging what looked like a fragment of bone, sending it tumbling over his shoulder and onto the floor. Crow let him leave first, and hastily picked it up, hiding it in his pocket so he could get rid of it later

"S-sorry, about the whole... dying, thing. My instincts warned me, but I wasn't fast enough." Shepard might insist on 'no apologies' but the man was covered in brain matter.

"Yeah, that sucked. It was insane." He shuddered slightly as he led the way around a massive display of what seemed to be the entire galaxy. "But I'd rather see it again than listen to Kelly shrink Jack."

"Okay." For lack of anything better to do, and sensing that exploring the ship on his own might end badly, he kept pace with Joker. "What... exactly do I do now?"

"Give it an hour, and hope they're done or at least move it to another room by then." The other man shrugged. "Meanwhile, how'd you do that crazy thing with the armor?"

"Glint can encrypt and decrypt known matter." At least it wasn't as complicated a question as Shepard's were. Their session of questions had made him feel exhausted, and at this point he was tempted to find a vent or maintenance shaft to sleep in, since a bed was apparently out of the question at the moment.

"Matter encryption is purely theoretical." EDI commented.

"So is a timeline where you were part of this conversation but hey, it happened." Joker shot back at her as they came up the helm. "Richards, out of my chair!"

"Is that blood, sir?" 'Richards' asked uneasily.

"Yup, now scoot. It's your lunch shift." The bearded man made a shooing motion with his hands. Richards got out of the pilot's seat, saluted, and set off the way the two of them had come while Joker lowered himself into the seat gingerly. Glint materialized, and Crow marveled at all the sensors and interfaces they were now surrounded by. Glint looked this way and that, shell spinning, obviously trying to decide what to scan first.

"There are a lot of chairs in here for one person." He commented. Glint finaly settled on scanning the panels of buttons on the ceiling.

"They only need manning in combat or stealth mode, I can handle her alone the rest of the time. What's Jiminy Cricket up to?" The bearded pilot eyed his Ghost suspiciously.

"My name's Glint. I like scanning things." Well, he could never say his Ghost was dishonest.

"It's just how he learns." Crow adds. "And there's... a lot to learn about."

"Yeah, I figure. Just don't let him mess with my ship." Joker reached under the console, and Crow is nearly hit in the head by a wrapped granola bar while he's looking out the window. He fumbles with it, but manages not to drop it as the pilot splits open a bar of his own. "Bon Appetit, new guy!"

"Um... thanks?" he isn't sure how to respond to this. On the Shore, if you were stupid enough to share your food with someone, you quickly learned better. That wasn't even the worst way you could be made for a sucker and an easy target. This isn't the Shore. Maybe if I just go with it I'll get used to it? That was how he normally operated. Things tended to work out best if he just kept his head down and went with the flow, perhaps he could adjust to all these new normals with the same strategy?

"It's Shepard's lunch shift, too, with luck she'll drag Jack and Chambers out of it." The pilot said as he brought up various haptic screens. Glint gave Crow's granola bar a brief scan out habit, and gave a nod of 'safe', before returning to his examination of the helm. The only other person here was Joker, whom he guessed would be slow to rise if he wanted to grab the Ghost, so he decided to let Glint wander for his task.

The granola bar wasn't half bad. But who was he to judge? His highest standard for food was 'edible', which included things that ought not to be considered as such.

Conversation with the Normandy's pilot dried up in the meanwhile, since Joker obviously had a job to do, and just sitting against the wall in the helm felt awkward; it didn't help that, in the silence, his thoughts kept drifting to either Uldren, or how upset Shepard had been by the history of his and Glint's reality. He'd rather think of neither.

EDI's announcement that the coast was clear after only five minutes of awkward silence was a relief, and Crow bid his bearded guide a hasty farewell, to which Joker responded by tossing a haptic glove his way and telling him to experiment with the omni-tool Garrus had lent him. Crow hadn't really given the bracelet much thought since receiving it, but when he asked if it should be returned to it's original owner, Joker told him it was 'throw-away backup for weird cases like you', and that Garrus had probably already replaced it.

He made his way back to the elevator, trying to ignore the occasional crewman staring at him, and managed to select the right floor for the crew deck. Feeling slightly victorious that he hadn't gotten lost, he tried his hand at the omni-tool. It lit up in a startling orange color, encompassing nearly his whole forearm.

"Ooooo!" Glint breathed, thrilled and obviously rearing to interact with it.

"No messing with it until you tell me why you antagonized that shirtless lady." Crow told him. He'd never seen Glint lose his cool like that, and it worried him. He didn't want his Ghost to mouth off to the wrong person, they had only just been 'freed' of Spider.

"I've been thinking about my role as a Ghost a lot lately." his companion admitted. "And looking back, I really should have been more assertive in... certain situations. Friends are supposed to stand up for each other, and I've been doing an inordinate amount of hiding."

"Glint." he said slowly. As touching as it was..."You're small."

"Yes, I know."

"Very small."

"Yes I know that, too. It shouldn't matter." His Ghost's focus remained fixed on the shining lights of the omni-tool as the elevator doors opened.

"Everyone who's ever beaten me to a pulp is fifty times your size, and would have killed you, too." he pointed out, stepping off the elevator. "Spider would have pulled the trigger on you and stuck me like a pig if either of us mouthed off like that to him. I know you like helping, but I need you to be more careful. We don't know these people."

"I know, but-"

"Glint, just hide when I tell you to. Please? For my sanity?" he lowered his voice, so hoping that none of the crew present in the mess(Shepard among them) noticed him as he slipped into the med bay.

"Fine." his Ghost sighed dramatically. Dr. Chakwas was busy at her computer, but when he entered, she looked at him, and pointed to a tray of food set on her desk.

"Eat up." was all she said, clearly occupied. He approached hesitantly; he'd never seen some of this food before, and he could count the number of times he'd used a fork on one hand.

"Thanks." he said anyway, taking the tray to the corner bed. The omni-tool was still on, and Glint looked ready to explode. "Oh, go ahead you little nerd."

His Ghost made an excited squeaking noise, and got to work. Soon, the omni-tool was switching colors, making noises, and occasionally vibrating as Glint messed with every setting he could get his little (hands?)code on. He almost forgot to scan Crow's food(the declaration was 'safe, try the potatoes, they're extinct on our end'). I can't remember the last time I ate this much in a day! He only managed to eat half of what was there, and he tucked it under the bed for later as Glint 'oooed' and 'awwed' at whatever it was he'd found on the 'extranet'.

Occasionally, there was a yelp of alarm and a series of 'nopes'. Crow was curious as to what his companion was finding, but for now he was content to let Glint have his fun. The more Glint learned now about their reality, the less questions the two of them would have to ask, the less awkward and lost they would feel.

He remained unaware that a wandering Thane had overheard what he'd said as he left the elevator.

Shepard's plans to talk to Garrus didn't go according to plan. He'd gotten a lead on Sidonis, and it had set him on a warpath she wasn't certain she could pull him off of. Seeing him like this, especially after her conversation with Crow, brought forth a gut-twisting level of anxiety and despair in relation to the mental state of her crew. How am I supposed to defeat the Collectors if I can't even bring a friend out of a spiral?

This Garrus was nothing like who he'd become by the end of their mission to stop Saren; the wit and sarcasm were still in place, and he was certainly better about thinking things through before he acted, but this man was jaded, vengeful, and bitter. One minute it would be like she was talking to the old Garrus, but then he would say something borderline sociopathic and she could see it all boiling to the top. It seemed to get worse the longer the mission went on.

And the way he talked about killing Sidonis... it felt like a terrible threshold that she shouldn't let him cross. She wasn't sure what she could do, though; she'd lost two years, and sometimes, trying to help him, trying to convince him to go about this another way, felt like talking to a stranger.

She asked him for details about how he found Fade, hoping to find an in to talk shop as they loaded up their food trays. At this point, she just needed to decompress with a friend, was that too much to ask? One, measly conversation about backdoor code or firewall workarounds?

Garrus' mood didn't budge, and she'd never seen anyone eat with that kind of fury before. She narrowed her eyes at her potatoes, trying not to think about Crow's worrying assumptions about how Normandy was run.

'Earn' food. She really hoped it was a cultural thing. That, she could handle, even if that culture was the reason for his emaciated appearance. She held out hope that she wasn't working with another tough case, but those scars on Crow's arms had looked deliberate. Not 'suicidal' deliberate, none of them looked right for that, and Jack's bullet hadn't left a mark. Who was to say they weren't from before Glint 'found' him?

"Don't you normally like potatoes?" Garrus decided to startle her by saying something completely unrelated to Sidonis, Fade, revenge, or murder. She realized she'd just been picking at the mashed tuber, and chewed her lip. This was her 'in' to talk about Crow at least, she supposed.

"Joker showed Crow around today, and it... ended badly." She started, before finally taking a bite of her potatoes.

"How badly?" The sniper asked, stabbing at his meat thingy and probably imagining it as Lantar Sidonis' face. She swallowed before answering.

"Jack shot him." Garrus fumbled his utensil, looked at her in horror, and she realized she needed to clarify. "Crow, not Joker. She'd be dead if she shot Joker."

"Why isn't she dead now?" The turian attacked his food even more furiously. There went that part of him. She would never actually execute a crew member, if anything she was more likely to hand Jack to the Alliance, and Garrus knew that. Or, at least, she thought he did.

"By grace of the fact Crow is unkillable." She took another bite, but had trouble swallowing when she saw the awoken himself crossing from the hall and into the med bay. "Him and I spoke a bit afterwards. Kind of wish I could forget it."

"Oh?" The turian prompted. He had nearly cleaned his plate by now.

"Humanity fell in his reality, there's only one city left, and he let slip some implications I didn't like." She glared at her lettuce, stabbed it, and realized why Garrus found inflicting violence on his meal cathartic. "Stupid shit about how he hasn't 'earned' food, while he's standing there looking like a skeleton."

"Cultural thing?" Her turian companion guessed as Thane approached their table, though he sounded doubtful.

"I don't like it. It feels wrong, there's no way any culture would starve it's best assets. If I had unkillable soldiers I'd keep them well-fed." Just thinking about the 'other' possibilities made her gut-twisting sharpen... and the look on Thane's face as he sat down across from them didn't help. Oh, please don't have daddy issues to solve or a traitorous turian to kill, please, Thane, I'm begging you...

"Well, you do have an unkillable soldier, and I have the feeling he'll he just fine with Chakwas mothering him." Garrus pointed at the med bay window; Crow was chowing down on the furthest bed, but his omni-tool was on. For a moment she though he didn't know how to turn it off, but it was flashing a myriad of colors, and Glint seemed to be the culprit. Crow didn't seem to mind, he just kept eating.

"You worry for our latest addition?" Thane guessed. He looked tired, and she wondered if Keprals affected his sleep, like apnea did.

"Yeah, just hope that it's nothing." She shoved some more salad into her mouth, and Thane shook his head.

"I am not sure if it is my place to tell you of it, but I heard something that troubled me when he came off the elevator just now. In combination with something he said in the tunnels on Eden Prime, I find it highly alarming." The drell admitted. "After it was clear he was trapped here, Crow seemed to happy to be rid of some individual called Spider; he gave me no details, but it sounded as though Glint was in some sort of danger from him."

"So they were in trouble with this guy?" Made sense that Crow would be glad to be rid of the problem.

"And what did you hear that has you worried?" Garrus inquired. Thane sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose, a habit he'd probably picked up from humans.

"As I told you, I'm not certain if it is my place to say." He repeated, clearly conflicted. "It was clearly a private conversation, between himself and Glint, and I am certain that if he wants to discuss Spider with a member of the crew, he will do so when ready."

"You don't have to give specifics, but if you think something's wrong- really wrong going on with him, I need to know." Shepard pressed. The alarm bells were silent now, like they already knew what the drell was going to say. She lowered her voice, and gave Garrus a pointed look. "It won't leave this table."

"Crow's words implied that they served this 'Spider', and that talking back to him would have resulted in violence against their persons. The tone and context did not imply exaggeration, and he mentioned separate instances of violence." Well, there went her appetite. A wave of nausea passed over her and she looked over Thane's shoulder. Crow was smiling at Glint, clearly amused by the latter's antics with the omni-tool. She didn't have to glance at Garrus to know he was watching the awoken as well.

"Well, this 'Spider' guy sounds like a bastard." He commented, glaring at his empty plate, clearly rearing to stab something else with his fork.

"Okay." Shepard breathed. This is way worse than I thought. In a horrible sort of way, it made sense; if you were a horrible person, and you could hurt someone and leave no physical evidence, if you could get away with it because their 'Ghost' would heal the consequences, you'd do it, right? Someone like Crow was every sadist's dream come true, an aisle for torture that they could wipe blank every time they used it.

It painted a sick picture in her mind, and she had the sudden urge to go to the med bay and ask more about Guardians. Were they oppressed or taboo for being unable to die(she could think of a few societies that would view it as a curse, or perhaps demonic)? How did one oppress something like a Guardian in the first place? Or was Crow a unique case that fell in with a bad crowd and lived to regret it?

"Whatever... went on, whatever his situation was, it's over now." She sighed, rubbing her hand down her face and just wishing she-and her crew- could catch a break. "Don't press him on it unless he seems willing. I'm not going to lie, I don't know what to do, knowing this."

"In C-Sec, abuse cases were all about patience." She tried not to flinch when Garrus said the word she was thinking out loud. "Slow, steady, say the right things, hope you don't send them running back 'home' to die."

"That obviously won't be a problem here; there is no way back, and he seemed glad of it at the time." Thane pointed out. "Though taking it slow with him does sound like the best course of action."

"I'm not sure the mission will let us do that." Garrus shook his head. "His physical shape already bad enough, the Normandy might not be the best place for him if he's got other issues."

"It's not a question of 'if' at this point." Shepard cut him off before it could go further. "He does have other issues. You're the one who said we should bring him along, Garrus, and you were right. Maybe this isn't the best place for him, but I'm sure as hell not turning him loose in the galaxy like this. They'd tear him apart."

"Yeah." The turian said quietly, twirling his fork in his hand before collecting his plate with a sigh. "I need to prepare for Sidonis, let me know when we're at the Citadel."

And it's back to Sidonis again. Shepard could only nod, faced still buried in her hand. She glanced between her fingers at Thane. "Thanks for bringing it to my attention. Anything else you need? Revenge, puberty Rite, unsolved daddy issues, maybe a high-stakes heist?"

"It can wait, you seem occupied. Unfortunately, yes; I suppose it would count as a... 'daddy issue' of sorts." The drell winced. Shepard let her head drop to the table with a groan, the metal cool against her forehead.

"No offense, but why can't we just catch a break? Why me?"

"Unfortunately, you are my ride."

"...True. True."

Chapter Text

Crow's next few days on the Normandy weren't nearly as exciting or stressful as the first one. Shepard assigned him his meal shifts, and when he pressed the issue about not pulling his weight on a spaceship, she conceded to having him help Dr. Chakwas keep the med bay organized. As a result, he spent a majority of his time trying to memorize where everything belonged, what it did, how to store it, and in what situations might call for them.

It was a lot to take in, but he discovered himself taking actual interest in it all. He found himself asking questions along the lines of 'why clean Garrus' burns with this instead of that', or 'how will drinking this chalky stuff help me'. The doctor had him drinking strange-tasting supplement drinks regularly, in edition to having him eat outside of his assigned schedule. Since his stomach wasn't used to large, regular meals, he had to eat more frequently in smaller amounts.

Dr. Chakwas, though somewhat bossy, was also kind; something that took getting used to, compared to the unfriendly individuals whose command Spider usually place him under. She was uncommonly assertive about the crew(mainly him, and apparently Joker) maintaining their health, often ambushing individuals to remind them to take their medications, or to spend less time on the extranet before they slept.

Speaking of the extranet, it really was a marvel. Any question he had about this reality, he could usually find the answer there. As he grew more comfortable around Chakwas, he often asked her to confirm the things he found out; if the Shore had taught him one thing, it was that everybody had a narrative. The same seemed to hold true in this reality, especially when he tried to find out more about the Reapers and Collectors.

There was almost nothing to be found of either. Any article that mentioned Reapers, usually mentioned Commander Shepard as well, typically in a less than flattering light. They suggested that the Commander had been duped, or was unstable, and in his opinion she didn't seem to be either of those. When he asked Chakwas about it, she had let out a tired sigh and set down the medical omni-tool she had been re-calibrating.

Apparently, it had all started when Eden Prime-ironically, the colony the Hive had just used as a front to try to force their way through to this reality-was attacked after monorail workers found tech left behind by the protheans, an advanced and long-extinct race of which there were only traces and ruins left. A Reaper called Sovereign had directed one of it's agents, Saren, to attack the colony and steal the information hidden in the tech, which had turned out to be an old communication device whose last recorded message was still viable; a warning about the Reapers themselves, and directions to a hidden sanctuary that any survivors could shelter in if they were present.

Shepard had wound up too close to the 'beacon', and it had begun a quest not only to piece together what the fragmented message meant, but to apprehend Saren for his criminal acts as well. It had ended when they found the sanctuary-Illos-, spoken to an old prothean VI, used the equivalent of a very long-ranged transmat to jump to the Citadel(the center of galactic civilization in this reality), killed Saren, and prevented Sovereign from opening the dark space relay.

After the dust had settled, the Council had tried to cover up the 'Reaper' situation, but the whole galaxy had seen Sovereign and what it could do, and it sparked an arms race. Whether someone believed in the Reapers or that Sovereign had been a hyper-advanced Geth dreadnaught, all the races were huddling up by themselves and preparing for the worst. Humanity's space navy, the Alliance, was stretched too thin to protect it's outer colonies, and was scrambling to rebuild the ships it had lost to Sovereign.

This was where the Collectors, apparently, came into play. With the Alliance too far-spread or busy to send anything but the occasional patrol to colonies in the 'Traverse' or 'Terminus Systems', the insectoid aliens had set themselves to work, deploying seeker swarms to freeze thousands before sweeping the population up and spiriting them away to who-knew-where. All evidence pointed to them working for the Reapers, from their technology to their disturbing origins as protheans.

Then in came Shepard-who had apparently been brought back from the dead by Cerberus via two years of tech and surgery, like some sort of messed-up rez-,showing up in Cerberus armor. At this point, Chakwas' voice grew quiet, and she explained all the horrific things they'd tied back to Cerberus during the hunt for Saren. That they were classified as a terrorist organization, and that the only reason Shepard, Joker, Garrus, Tali, or herself was working with them was because they, at this point, had no choice.

Almost as soon as possible, Cerberus had leaked footage of Shepard 'working' for them, meaning she couldn't return to the Alliance, where her true loyalties laid. Faced with the impossible choice of 'work with terrorists and save whole colonies' and 'return home for months of hearings and possible incarceration while the Reapers did what they wanted', the Commander had chosen the former.

So, here they were, planning a suicide mission against the Collectors, picking up the best 'experts' Cerberus could find along the way. It was a lot for Crow to wrap his head around, but he could get the basic gist of things. He also now had a healthy suspicion of Cerberus, Miranda Lawson in particular.

Lawson was the perfect woman. Literally. Genetically. She also had an attitude that set both him and Glint on edge. He knew her type from the Shore; she had to be in charge, she had to be in control, of everything and everyone. Apparently, she had wanted to install some kind of mind-control failsafe in Shepard's head while she was being revived, and that little fact was all Crow needed in order to label her as 'Spider in a catsuit; dangerous, avoid'.

The rest of his time, he spent familiarizing himself with the Normandy, and getting used to the amount people on board. The aliens, in particular, most of whom were friendly, which was certainly a change from home. Well, 'friendly' as in 'not threatening him right off the bat'. Tali'Zorah was standoffish, mostly because of his neural bond with Glint; apparently, AI were taboo in this reality, and the technicalities that a Ghost fell under the category of an SEC(Sentient Energy Construct) wasn't enough to placate most.

Thane remained the calmest, most... well, general chill individual he'd ever met(given he didn't know many people with even an ounce of chill, it was a low bar, but still). When two crewmen started a fight over a girl during one particular lunch time, all Thane did was casually dodge the flying food, and kept on eating until Shepard showed up to break up the fight. The way he lived, though, confused Crow when he plucked up the courage to ask about it.

If the contractors chose to hire him, and wielded him as a thoughtless weapon, rendering him inculpable for his actions(in his eyes), but he had been the one to chose to go back into the assassination business, didn't that choice render him culpable for every life he had taken since, as he had made himself available as a means to kill?

When Crow dared to point this out, the drell got very quiet, for a suspicious amount of time, and the Awoken had wondered if he needed to run. Before he could give in to that particular instinct, Thane had shaken his head, as if trying to banish mental cobwebs, and told him he had a skill for triggering introspection. Crow couldn't fathom what that meant, whether it was good or bad, and decided to keep his more... philosophical thoughts to himself from now on. Thane was chill. Others were not.

Samara was a level of terrifying that he didn't want to think about. Or interact with. At all. Why did all the women in this reality dress so... reavealing-ly, anyway? Was it a distraction tactic? Didn't they realize the clear target they made for a serious injury? A bullet to the chest could kill you fast enough that nobody could help, slow enough to feel all the panic and pain that came with collapsing lungs filling with blood.

Grunt was one part teenager two parts 'massive reptile that acts purely on violent instinct'. There wasn't much going on with him that one wouldn't expect, but he did tell Crow that Shepard said he had 'to be nice to you'. He informed him that he wouldn't kill him. Unless he asked.

He was free to ask.

Mordin Solus was the weirdest kind of scary he'd ever met. Joker hadn't been kidding about the 'mad scientist' thing. He spoke so fast and so strangely, Crow thought his brain might explode. It just got worse when Glint asked him to slow down; he was thinking out loud about Crow in general, with the both of them right in front of him. Things about brain chemistry, evolution, symbiotic relationships, things Crow couldn't remember or pronounce if he tried.

Joker had saved him from that one, thankfully. He was starting to really appreciate the Normandy's pilot; he was helpful in a sarcastic, 'duh, that's how it works' kind of way, and though his tongue was sharp, he wasn't particularly cruel(mostly). He and Thane sometimes seemed like lone islands of mental stability in a sea of insanity, though it was less that they were sane, and just because they seemed to be the least insane, and the most friendly.

Even the humans on the ground team seemed a little... off. Kasumi Goto was a stalker kleptomaniac, Zaeed Massani was a foul-mouthed, jaded old warrior who didn't seem to care about anything, and Jacob Taylor was... actually, he was okay. A little standoffish around Thane and Massani, but okay. Then there was Commander Shepard herself; Miranda Lawson was supposed to be the XO, handling many of the tasks aboard the ship, but Shepard's distrust of Cerberus had led her to taking up these shipside duties along with her ground-pounding ones. She never seemed to be without a strained smile or bags under her eyes.

He had hoped to get a better read on Garrus, but his third day aboard the Normandy saw an erratic and violent shift in the turian's behavior. He was on the outs with Shepard, apparently, after some sort of personal mission involving revenge. Revenge that Shepard had talked him out of, somehow, but he certainly wasn't thanking her for it. He locked himself in the main battery for several days.

Crow only saw him when he came into the med bay to have his burns redressed. On day two of this behavior, Chakwas worked quietly, and Crow observed closely. The tension was thick as butter, nobody wanted to speak, for fear of starting something.

"Maybe something should start." Glint suggested through their link. Crow's eyebrows pinched. What do you mean? I don't want to be caught in the middle of this.

"You could tell Garrus he should talk to Dr. Chakwas before Cra-Kelly Chambers comes to him. He can't hide from her forever, and he seems to trust Chakwas infinitely more than anyone trusts Kelly." An interesting point, but... Chakwas is his doctor, of course he trusts her; she's putting his face back together!

"The whole ship is out of sorts with him and Shepard on the outs, we've been here only a week and it's obvious a balance has been upset." his Ghost pointed out. "And honestly, if what Joker says is true, it really is Chakwas or Chambers. Dr. Chakwas is far more... trustworthy. If it was me, I'd rather have her hearing my problems."

You want me to tell Garrus he needs therapy?

"He kind of does."

From Dr. Chakwas?

"Chakwas or Chambers."

He'll kill me!

"No he won't, he doesn't seem the type."

He does, remember how this thing started? I'd rather not risk it.

"Crow, at some point you're going to have to risk these kinds of things. Someone has to address the problem sooner or later, it doesn't have to be you, but you have to learn how to address these kinds of things. Helping people isn't always about shooting the bad guys."

"You look as though you're having a fascinating conversation." Crow jumped as Dr. Chakwas cut in to their mental back-and-forth. Garrus was looking at him oddly. Dammit, Glint, now I can't stop thinking about it!

"You don't have to, but if you're going to, don't think, just go for it! Practice can come later!" His Ghost encouraged.

"You need to talk to someoneaboutyourShepardproblembeforeChambers!" he blurted out, before shooting to his feet and dashing out of the med bay, heart pounding. I can't believe I did that! He punched in a destination for the elevator frantically; he could imagine the hounds of war lose on his heels. As soon as the doors closed, he pressed his forehead against them. "Why did I do that?"

"If not you, it would have been somebody else." Glint popped in over his shoulder. "You have to get used to going out of your comfort zone, Crow. That was a... okay start, but at least now, the problem might get addressed."

"I feel stupid." he admitted. That had felt like the stupidest, cringiest thing he'd ever done, and if he'd nosed about someone's business like that on the Shore, he'd be dead at least once. Garrus had proved his penchant for retribution, and what happened when he didn't get it. I'll take it when it comes. He rubbed his chest; he could already feel the bullet. Glint, sensing where his mind was going, nudged him.

"He won't kill you. Remember, it's one of Commander Shepard's rules." his Ghost reminded him. The doors opened to the CIC. Crow took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and let it out again. He'd forgotten about that rule, in his dread. Now he just had to dare to hope it would hold up.

"Thanks, Glint." he stepped out onto the deck, and Glint phased out of sight. He hadn't been on this deck much, but he certainly wasn't going to engineering, where everyone was passive-aggressive, hostile, or Grunt(Grunt was in his own little category of potential violence, Crow hadn't quite figured it out yet). He was tempted to just play with the galaxy map, but he was certain that wouldn't be received well.

In their reality, they couldn't leave Sol easily, and the few that did rarely came back sane. In this reality? The entire galaxy was open to humanity. He'd been further than any Hunter before him had ever gone, and it was a thought that sent a thrill of excitement through him. A Hunter's home was the wilds, and now he had an entire galaxy as a potential stomping ground if he wanted it.

It was so big, and there was so much to it. So many stars, so little time, so many planets and asteroids, so many clusters and nebulas.

"This is a shipwide announcement:" Crow jumped when Joker's voice echoed through the deck. To his confusion, the pilot started beat-boxing, and all Crow could do was stand near the map, entirely confused. The sentiment seemed to be shared by everyone else. A few people shrugged and continued their tasks. The elevator dinged behind him, and he turned to watch a perplexed-looking Shepard step off.

"You're welcome. Crow, Crazy has you locked in her sights, I repeat, Crazy is approaching. That will be all." He couldn't help the short laugh that escaped. Shepard let out a snort of amusement, and made her way up the helm; other people rolled their eyes, a few faint chuckles could be heard. Sure enough, he saw Kelly Chambers exiting the tech lab moments later, look around, spot him, and shoot him a blazing smile clearly intending to make her way to him. Thanks, Joker!

He turned tail and practically ran into the armory; he would need to learn about this reality's weapons sooner or later, and if he was brave enough(somehow) to do what he'd done in med bay, he was brave enough to try his hand at initiating socialization. Jacob had seemed, much like Thane, to be one of 'the sane-ish ones'. Where better to start trying?

"So, what was that all about?" Shepard inquired as she approached the helm.

"Disagreement over what qualifies as 'appropriate' use of the intercom." The Normandy's pilot told her, not taking his eyes off the side terminal displaying the CIC's footage. He closed it as Crow beat a hasty retreat into the armory.

"Giving Crow an 'incoming Kelly alert' doesn't not qualify as grounds for a ship wide announcement." EDI said. Shepard raised a brow.

"I though I put a stop to all that 'Crazy Kelly' nonsense weeks ago." She crossed her arms. Was Chambers definitely an evil mastermind in disguise? Maybe. Did she immediately inform Garrus he may have to get a restraining order on her after hearing what she had to sat about him? Well, that was between the two of them. Did she condone weirdly catchy name-calling because of this? No.

"Hey, it stuck after what they overheard her say about Thane. It's better than 'Creepy Kelly', which h she totally got about Crow." He shuddered a little, making a face, and Shepard suppressed a groan, burning her face in one hand, as he turned his voice high-pitched. "'He's so tragic and broken, there's clearly psychological trauma from dying so often, but his glowing skin is so beautiful, don't you think? Like light reflecting off of water-'"

"Okay, stop." She interrupted. She was equal parts exasperated and close to laughing. "I get enough Chambers from Chambers."

"You know, he's managed to avoid her 'Welcome to the Cult' check in longer than anyone else. It's too damn good to let him fall now." He reached under the console for something, and Shepard checked the time as she spoke; she was getting hungry, she knew she shouldn't have used her biotics for something as stupid as entertaining Fred(granted, he had enjoyed the floating climbables)

"She has to psych eval everyone, that's just-"she cut off when Joker chucked a granola bar over his shoulder, and she caught it with the reflexes expected of an N7. -"protocol. Lose something?"

How did he know? He swiveled his chair around, ripping the wrapper on a bar of his own and taking a bite. A few small crumbs tumble into his beard. "No."

"Enjoy the lack of regs while they last, Joker." She sighed, shaking her head, and he gave her a thumbs up. "By the way, I've seen you two hang out a couple times now. What do you think of him?"

Even if he was rough about it, she could always trust Joker for an honest opinion. For someone who wasn't a people person, he was deceptively perceptive, especially when it came to the little things. And Crow was... hard, to get a read on, to say the least. Everyone else she asked, aside from Thane and Garrus, usually only made comments about the surface level of the man they saw; though Chakwas cited doctor-patient confidentiality when she asked for her two cents. Maybe it was because the three of them had been groundside with him, or because they had an idea of what might have been going on with the awoken before he came through to their end.

Joker held up one finger, signaling to wait wait until he swallowed. Must be important, if he can't say it while chewing. She mused. The pilot cleared his throat and leaned forward slightly, eyes serious.

"Nervous. Wreck." Oh, boy. A few people had expressed that he seemed skittish, but hadn't really caught on to the bundle of nerves she, Garrus, and Thane saw. "Like, what the hell Commander? You poke him and he leaves his skin behind, you come up behind him, he disappears- he literally turns invisible-and-and, get this; he- nevermind, just nevermind. At first I thought he was just jumpy, but I think someone fucked him up or something."

"That an opinion?" Shepard asked, even though she already knew the answer. She'd never seen him this upset over another person-at least, another person who was still alive. Joker tended to keep those kinds of feelings to himself, but Crow's behavior must've been eating at him enough that he was willing to air them.

"Uh, no." He scoffed. "My opinion? He might actually be a liability on the ground, Commander. Guy's got more trust issues than a politician."

"Noted." She let out a deep breath. "And... don't bug Crow about whatever happened to him. No jokes about what's going on with him either, he's under enough pressure and we don't want to scare him off."

"No shit." Joker scowled. "And you don't need to tell me to keep it on the DL, I'm not that insensitive. And the guy is way too nice to make fun off. I'd make fun of that, but..."

"You already make fun of Jacob for that." Shepard concluded.

"Exactly! Never use the same material for different people. Most polite nervous wreck I've ever met." She fought the urge to roll her eyes.

"I think most of it is him not wanting to start shit with anybody." She shrugged. Crow was shy, but he was rather polite.

"Pfft, Jack'll do that for him. You know he hasn't asked what's wrong with me yet?" He leaned sideways and chucked his granola wrapper in the bin. "That's usually the first question next to 'where's the Fornax hidden'?"

"Uh, better mention it. I'd hate for you to have an accident because he doesn't know." Shepard told him. Whether he disliked contact or not, there was a credible threat for an accident if someone on the ship didn't know about Joker or take his condition seriously. He was too valuable to lose, and more than that, he was a friend.

"Yeah, yeah, I'll read him the usual memo next time I see him." The pilot turned his attention back to his ship, irritation flickering across his face. He never did like it when people reminded him of his problem. "By the way, you really aught to solve that Garrus problem. I hear turians like full-contact cage fighting for letting of steam, you could get Tali to referee!"

Chapter Text

When Shepard entered the armory, it was to find Crow puzzling over a avenger rifle with Jacob sitting out it's parts on the table in front of him, a rifle of unknown make having been set to the side. They both looked up when the door opened.

"Hope I'm not interrupting something." She strode up to the table. It was about time Crow learned about their weapons, just as well. She didn't know what kind of ammo that silver gun of him took, and in all likelihood it could be useless before long.

"Just showing him the ropes." Jacob explained, gesturing to the strange rifle on the table. "He broke out one of his for comparison."

"I figured it might help me learn better if I could compare their functions. A gun is still a gun, but, you build them strange." Crow supplemented. Thinking about the conversation she'd just had with Joker, Shepard steeled herself and addressed Jacob.

"I want you to put together another drill, maybe two days from now?" She asked. "Thane has a family issue on the Citadel, if all goes well we'll be back by 2100 tomorrow. I don't care about objective, just surprise me."

"What kind of drill?" Crow inquired, looking one part weary one part interested.

"Unit cohesion. You've seen the folks we've got for this mission, getting them to work well together is half the war." She told him. "If you're feeling up for it, ask Chakwas if she thinks you're ready for that kind of thing."

"I did well enough on Eden Prime, a little training exercise won't kill me." He responded, showing just a hint of sass in his tone(hopefully that touch of bravery was a good sign for his mental health, and not just Joker rubbing off on him)"W-will it?"

"No, it won't." Jacob rolled his eyes. "We use butterfly rounds in our weapons instead of ammo blocks. They pack enough of a punch to sting at best, and they break up into statically-charged particles on impact. They're made of a compound that makes them change color as a reaction to the combination, and whatever they hit get marked."

"Oh..." was all Crow said, looking down at the avenger. Glint appeared over his shoulder. "I suppose you have to take all the guns you use in training apart, to modify them to fire something other than metal shavings?"

"And why are they called butterfly rounds?" Glint added. Jacob forced a smile when he looked at the Ghost.

"'Cuz the streaks they leave behind to mark you as hit make you look like you rode a motorcycle through a bunch of butterflies-got the wing dust all over you." He explained.

"Okay." Glint chirped, settling on Crow's shoulder. Jacob took a breath to speak again when the Ghost interrupted. "What's a motorcycle?

"That aside," Shepard broke in before the conversation could veer off track, "I want you to at least observe and get a feel for how our unit works."

"I'll talk to Chakwas and try to learn my way around these weapons." Crow gestured to the avenger's parts. "Is, um, is Thane alright? If it's okay to ask, I mean."

"His son's having troubles, let's leave it at that." She told him. "That being said, I'm doing what I can to make sure it goes smoothly. Thane will be fine."

"Okay." He huffed, then fixed the gun parts with a determined gaze. "Better get back to it, where were we, Jacob?"

"Forward assist; it isn't as necessary with mass accelerator tech, but things still happen." The Cerberus operative pointed out the part in question, and Shepard took a seat next to Crow. She had a little time before she had to hear up, might as well help out where she could. Glint dipped closer in her direction, and addressed her in a whisper.

"But really, what's a motorcycle?"

When Thane came out interrogation, he was, thankfully, smiling. Things for Kolyat would still be complicated; he'd shot a krogan and held a notorious politician hostage. But as things wound back down at the precinct, Thane expressed confidence that he could turn things around. That his son could turn things around; that it wasn't too late, and Kolyat wasn't too far gone.

His certainty and hope undid a knot in her chest that she hadn't realized was there. Perhaps it was because this felt like a win. Nobody had died, nothing had gone wrong, Thane had been given a chance to ease his regrets-was taking that chance firmly in both hands...and her actions hadn't alienated her from a friend. It felt good. After what happened with Garrus, after the incident with the Hive and the grim possibilities of Crow's past, this outcome felt like a balm to the soul.

Leaning against the wall outside the precinct as Thane finished hammering out details with Captain Bailey, Shepard couldn't help but smile. Their task had been successful, they were way ahead of schedule, and it was around her lunch shift. Where's Joker and his secret infinity snack bars when you need him? Come to think of it, she and Thane could probably get away with grabbing lunch, since things had gone so quickly.

The doors opened, and she pushed off the wall as Thane strode out. "Well?"

"Bailey says there may be trouble with the politician; he has wasted no time in pressing charges. But he will be rather busy, considering that Kolyat has agreed to testify as a witness to the shakedowns we saw." Thane explained. "He was keeping tabs on their movements while he laid in wait, and saw the same things we did via his omni-tool. Though the footage on the cameras he used have likely been wiped by now, Kolyat's footage still exists. I have offered to stand as another witness."

"How effective of a deal will that be?" She asked, raising a brow.

"Bailey isn't certain, it depends on how many victims step forward. Circumstances and good behavior willing, they may be able to whittle it down to a strict probation." The drell took a deep breath. "As for me and Kolyat, I will try to keep in contact so long as our mission allows."

"Good to hear." She was glad he had someone off the Normandy to connect with. When they met on Illium, he'd been ready to die, hopefully this could give him something to live for. Unless you lead him to his death. There went her brain betraying her again. She forced herself to keep smiling. "It's lunch, and I daresay you could use something other than freeze-dried space food after today."

"I must admit, I wouldn't say no to something not grown in a lab an subsequently burnt by Sergeant Gardner." The assassin admitted.

"Joker swears up and down he found a pub that serves real cow." More like he wouldn't shut up about it.

"I'm afraid I've never tried real cow before. I wouldn't object to trying something new, however."

Joker, honey, I need to promote you. She hadn't had a burger like this since her last shore leave on earth. She'd forgotten the difference in taste to the lab-grown stuff, the way the flavors mixed and burst through. A good, old-fashioned burger with fries and a soda. She hadn't known she needed this until she took the first bite.

Thane seemed to approve of his first real burger as well. They were halfway through their respective meals and hadn't said a word to one another. She swallowed and took a long gulp of soda.

"Joker needs a promotion." She declared.

"Lieutenant Moreau has deceptively good taste." Thane agreed.

"That thrift store across the way probably has old band shirts." In space, you rarely got treated to modern music. Old radio waves were all you got, depending how close you were to certain worlds, so sometimes all you got was old music. This meant there was a market for new shirts featuring old bands among spacers and navies... and this old music was something Joker frequently complained about, even though she had a sneaking suspicion he actually enjoyed some of it.

It would also give her an excuse to get something other than Cerberus junk to wear. She felt slimy every time she put that uniform on, and career Alliance like Chakwas and Joker looked wrong in it. Chakwas had a set of generic scrubs she would wear sometimes, and for some reason every pilot Shepard had ever met had some kind of snazzy jacket, Joker included, but it couldn't hurt to have some more none-Cerberus day apparel on the ship.

In space, you wanted at least three outfits in rotation. In the alliance this consisted of two uniforms, one civilian set for shore leave and as backup. Some people, mostly engineers who knew their clothes would need washing more frequently, went with four or five sets. The clothes worn under armor to keep it from chafing didn't really count.

"It would be an amusing gift." Thane grunted. "Our latest addition needs clothes of his own."

"Damn, you're right." Crow had been alternating between his scruffy armor and one of Donnelly's extra sets. The engineer had been somewhat complacent about this.

This was how Commander Shepard found herself walking up to the checkout of a thrift store in full armor, armed to the teeth, with an armful of clothes.

The cashier, amazingly, had seen weirder. This Ward had a reputation for attracting the odd.

Chapter Text

It was nearing the appointed time for Shepard's combat drill, and Crow tried to swallow his nerves. He was going to have to work with people whom he'd been avoiding, some of whom, like Jack, for good reason. But he genuinely wanted to help fight the Collectors, it was the least he could do to repay the Commander for taking him in, and that meant he would have to suck it up and work alongside his fears. It shouldn't be too hard; he'd worked with Arrha, who was actively encouraged to 'test' him. He was confident, by now, that Commander Shepard wouldn't stand for such behavior from her own subordinates.

He wasn't looking forward to whatever Garrus had to say to him, though. He'd been avoiding the turian since his mouth had acted before his head could stop it, and even though he knew physical retribution was off the table, per Shepard's rule, there was no reason he couldn't do something else to get back at Crow for meddling in his affairs, and who was to say he couldn't have an 'accident' if he joined in the drill?

Dr. Chakwas had told him he could do one or two runs of the scenario if he genuinely felt up to it, but no more, and she had stressed to him the importance of listening to his body. If he felt dizzy or became suddenly fatigued, he was to back out, and she had recruited Glint to act as her enforcer in this matter. Dr. Chakwas took her job very seriously, even if her patient was immortal.

Meanwhile, Thane had returned from his and Shepard's sortie in good spirits. The two of them had also returned with gifts, of sorts, for a few of the crew members, mostly clothes that 'don't have Cerberus stamped all over them', and apparently this was a long time coming. They had actually gotten Crow two whole outfits, and it was a little overwhelming. He'd never had any sort of a choice in clothing, and anything 'new' he got his hands on was usually tattered, and only worn under his armor so the weave didn't chafe as much.

Shepard had taken him aside and told him she'd noticed he was uncomfortable in the Cerberus uniform, pointing out the way he tugged the sleeves constantly. The shirts she'd picked out were long-sleeved and hid his scars well, and she'd gotten him a jacket with a hood so he didn't have to walk around with his armor on if he felt the urge to hide his face.

It was incredibly thoughtful and he was sure if all his stuttered thanks were appropriate gratitude for her consideration.

Either way, he now had unique options for his appearance, something he'd never had before as Spider refused to let him wear other armor(perhaps having him in Uldren's uniform with Uldren's haircut had amused him too much to let him change either). It was delightful, actually, and he can't believe what he's been missing out on.

What's more, theses clothes were his in a way the Cerberus uniform, Uldren's armor, and Spider's cloak weren't. They were the only things truly his aside from Hawkmoon in this reality, and it brought on the usual rush of excitement and rebellion he felt when he did something Spider wouldn't like(that he knew he could get away with).

All in all, though nervous about the drill, Crow was in a relatively good mood. He was particularly fond of the black sweater, given how cold this ship sometimes got. It never seemed to bother the others, though. He did have a fondness for the Cerberus cargo pants though; the Hunter in him liked having pockets to hide things in should the need arise.

The general alarm rang out across the ship, and everyone got to work. For this drill, Crow's only orders were to observe, get a feel for things, and stay out of the way. When the unit's combat scenario started in the hanger, he was to report there, and do the same, unless he was confident enough in his health to do otherwise.

So, Crow watched, Glint took notes, and they both stayed out of the way. Shepard was directing the close-order part of the drill from the helm, her voice ringing sharply from the Normandy's intercom system. There were designated spaces the crew were supposed to preform this part at, though separate orders were occasionally given to different areas of the ship. On occasion, there would be a sharp reprimand, by name, for someone who had put a toe out of line.

It was all deceptively intense, for such a seemingly simple exercise, but he could see how it would help the crew gain a sense of cohesion.

After a while of this, a different alarm went off; the general extended-order drill. Various people rushed to their battle stations, others rushed in and out of the armory in what at first looked like chaos, but Crow soon saw to be orderly somehow. People took up various posts, making choke points and securing areas of import like the CIC and engineering.

It wall all so complicated! It boggled his mind, and he dreaded trying to keep up with everyone in the next drill. Shepard was strict and harsh with her orders, and forgave no mistakes, and he was still having occasional trouble with the elevator.

"Don't worry, I'm sure she'll help you practice if you ask." Glint reassured him as they watched Chambers get a harsh dressing-down for for dropping her weapon for a second time. I'm just going to start by learning how not to drop those things. The weapons in this reality were deceptively heavy compared to what he was used to.

By the time the drill was over, Crow felt tired just looking at the rest of the crew, and was starting to doubt, once again, whether the Normandy was the right place for him to be. Sure, he was becoming somewhat fond of Dr. Chakwas, and it was great to be able to eat again, even though Glint was constantly compensating for the negative effects this sudden access had on his body. The doctor had also kept a constant supply of things running that would mitigate these symptoms as well, and to him, it seemed like an awful lot of work to go through for someone whose Light would make sure they were fine in the end. Dr. Chakwas, however, was adamant about continuing the treatments her way.

She really took her job seriously.

In the hangar, Shepard divided the ground unit into three-man squads, and what followed was not something dissimilar to a Control match in the Vanguard's Crucible exercises. Energy barriers had been erected to simulate walls and other forms of cover and terrain, and the strange industrial fans had been given shielding as well, to protect them. Against normal mass accelerator tech, these things would provide little protection, but butterfly rounds? Easy.

Shepard would start everyone at different corners, and the goal was to get to the center, defend someone as they hacked into a designated crate, acquire the item within, and get it back to your squad's designated corner. Simple enough in context, but difficult to do when three other teams were all gunning for the same thing. At first glace, it was all determined by who got to the center crate first, but that quickly proved not to be the case.

In the first run-through of the scenario, Crow watched from the hallway between the auxiliary cargo rooms. If he felt confident enough to join in one of the exercises, Glint could easily inform Shepard. When the alarm went off, the lights went dim, but not dim enough that he couldn't see three of the teams start moving towards the center.

Shepard had taken Jack and Zaeed for her team, and divided everyone else up amongst Garrus, Jacob, and Thane. Garrus had gotten Samara and Kasumi, Jacob had gotten Mordin and Miranda, and Thane had gotten Grunt and Tali. A firefight broke out as everyone got closer to the objective. Thane was trying to lead his team around to flank Jacob's, perhaps to use Shepard's team as a distraction in order to finish the biotic operative off.

Shepard and Jacob were both gunning straight for the objective, using the prolific biotics on their teams-with instructions to pull punches, of course- to try to gain an advantage. Crow couldn't see Kasumi, which wasn't unusual in and of itself, but the fact that Garrus was making his way to Shepard's corner while Samara stalked around to Jacob's was... interesting, to say the least.

At some point, Jacob's team was eliminated, along with Jack, and Tali had used the distraction to hack the crate and grab the package. Thane let off a burst of biotics that knocked Shepard off her feet, and quickly put a 'bullet' in her before dashing off to guide Tali in her flight. Zaeed was still a problem, and Samara was converging on their designated corner.

They nearly made it, too, even Zaeed on their tail, but in the space of a few moments, Tali was on the ground, Garrus shot Thane from the vantage point he'd taken up on Shepard's corner, and Kasumi had materialized, having been the one to trip Tali. She delivered a jab to the quarian's back, which left a neon green smear Crow could see even from his vantage point, and took the bag only to get nailed by Zaeed.

Samara came down hard on the old mercenary, and they exchanged a series of blows that culminated in mutual 'deaths'. He swore he saw Garrus facepalm, but at this distance it was hard to tell. Kasumi sat with her chin in her hands and her legs crossed, Samara and Zaeed seemed to take up conversation about the little melee they'd just engaged in, and Shepard was dramatically playing her role as 'dead' as the last man standing walked over, took the bag, and hustled it back to his corner.

The alarm went off again, the lights, much to Crow's disappointment, turned back to their usual blinding brightness. The various squadmates helped each other up, pointed out weaknesses, exchanged strategies. A few people seemed to congratulate Garrus for his plan. Then Shepard switched things up, put different people in charge of all four squads, reset the task, and gave everyone time to clean the 'butterfly dust' off their armor.

Then, they were back in their corners, no-one from the previous teams having been put in the same group, and made to do it again. This process repeated twice more, all with interesting combinations and even more interesting outcomes; there was one run where Jack, Samara, and Miranda all wound up together, but rather than mowing everyone down as he'd expected such a biotic powerhouse to do, their team had disintegrated early on. Apparently Jack and Miranda didn't get along, and this resulted in Jack running off by herself, Miranda trying to keep up with her, and both of them getting nailed by Thane and Garrus.

In that particular run, all three of the unit's snipers had also wound up together, and they had done a variation on Garrus' strategy from the first round, by spreading themselves at certain vantage points and picking people off, before Zaeed sent Thane in close to steal the package from an irate Shepard just as she finished hacking the crate, 'assassinating' her in the process.

Unfortunately, in the round after that Jack put a little too much 'oomf' into her biotics, and Zaeed wound up concussed. He had Glint inform Dr. Chakwas of what had happened, before telling Shepard he would be fine filling the place the mercenary left open for the last round. He tried to quash his nerves as he did this; he actually did want to do this, and he was feeling fine.

How many time had he peaked at Crucible matches from afar, wondering what it was like to train alongside other Lightbearers, wondering what it was like to fight in a fireteam and exercise tactics? He'd enjoyed watching Shepard's exercise nearly as much, and he knew more now about biotics than the extranet had been able to convey. Joining in would only help with that understanding.

Unfortunately, he couldn't 'pull punches' with Light, so his abilities were off the table. Maybe we could find and abandoned asteroid or something to practice on? Spider hadn't let him practice with his Light much, and even though Glint had plenty of material for him to learn from, actually studying that material had been too risky lest someone was watching him. The Shore had eyes.

Practicing in space sounded like a bad idea, but he had been studying in the med bay, when he couldn't sleep. He'd mastered turning invisible at will, but the void still refused to yield in any other way than granting him safety, and arc Light...

Lightning and birds never got along anyway, so who needed that nonsense?

He would love to experiment more with how Light and biotics reacted, if Shepard ever agreed to it. Thane's trick with the incendiary on Eden Prime had been interesting, and it seemed like a good thing to look in to.

For now, though, he made his way into the hangar and hoped he didn't mess things up.

Chapter Text

"Crow, you're with Thane and Grunt." Shepard directed. "Thane, you're up again."

Nobody had led twice so far, but Crow was glad she didn't put him in charge. He liked to think he was good at planning ahead, but he didn't think he could give orders. Needless to say, he was glad to wind up with Thane; at least he had idea of what it was like to work with him. The same couldn't be said for Grunt.

"Whoever gets this round gets the goodie bag. Alright, split off!" Shepard ordered, before marching off with Tali and Jacob. Grunt pounded one fist into his other hand; it seemed to be some sort of habit of his. Crow eyed him warily as they followed Thane to their corner. He was a bit of an unstable element, and his overexcitement was partly the reason Zaeed got sent to the med bay.

"Crow... how far would you and Glint mind being separated from one another?" Thane inquired. Crow startled at the question.

"Why?" He asked warily. He hadn't let Glint leave his line of sight since Spider put the bomb in. His Ghost materialized at his shoulder.

"We don't leave our Lightbeares unless the situation is dire and requires subtlety." Glint told the drell. "But I know a few Ghosts who are crazy enough to assist in open combat..."

"Which I wouldn't be okay with." Crow asserted nervously. He didn't want Glint anywhere near gunfire, not even in a fake battle. Ghost shells were tough, and he doubted the butterfly rounds could do anything physically, but there were explosives in him. A bad enough impact in the wrong place, and Glint would die, not to mention Spider had never specified the yield; for all they knew, there was enough to blow a hole in the Normandy's hull.

"Relax." Thane placated. "It occurred to me that the Commander unintentionally gave us a fourth squad mate, and I was wondering exactly how stealthy he is."

If he wanted to be a part of this- really be a part of this, he would at least have to hear the drell out. He wasn't sure if he could agree to any plan where he was separated from Glint too long, but members of a fireteam at least heard each other out, right? He looks to Glint, and nods. The Ghost tips towards the assassin slightly; if the plan involved him, the ball is in his court.

"What... exactly do you have in mind, Mr. Krios?"

" Grunt, get in position near the objective." Thane directs from his perch. " Give Crow cover fire. Going comm silent."

Crow ducked in and out of cover, carnifex gripped tightly in his hands. He hadn't taken any shots yet, but he wasn't close to the fighting yet, either. He knew the butterfly rounds wouldn't kill, or even hurt since everyone was wearing armor, so as long as he didn't aim for the head things would be fine. Even then, everyone was wearing tight, protective goggles. He'd never worn anything like them, they pinched and applied unpleasant pressure at certain points around his eyes.

But part of him was reluctant to point a gun at someone he had no intention of killing. He might not know these people well, but he didn't want to hurt them. He was uncomfortable even 'pretending' to hurt them. This was hardly the time or situation to be thinking about Uldren, but he came to mind anyway.

"Crow." Glint pulled him out of his thoughts as he came up on a corner leading to where Thane had told him to set up at.."You're doing fine, the plan will go fine."

You're still okay with this? He thought nervously.

"Yes. You've been going outside your comfort zone recently, I should at least try to do the same." his Ghost explained. Just let me know if you change your mind, it's okay if you can't do this.

"I'll be fine, Crow." he reassured. Crow took a deep breath, and reached for the void. A coolness trickled through his veins, and he pulled his Light around him like a cloak of safety. He ducked out of cover once he was invisible, and ran to his objective only to find Jacob and Shepard occupying the space.

"Jacob, soft pull on my mark!" The Commander ordered. Crow ducked low to avoid fire from Garrus' team, which had dug in across the way. Grunt was making a nuisance of himself dangerously close to the objective crate, which Tali was pouting by with neon green smeared on her chest. Jack was also nearby and out of commission, but she was entertaining herself by insulting everyone with no breaths between her words.

Crow, swallowing hard, drew two stamp pens that were meant to be used to mark close-combat kills. He stalked towards Jacob and Shepard, gritting his teeth as he held on to the void longer than he was meant to.

"Now!" Crow lunged as both of them rose out of cover, Jacob motioning towards Grunt, and Shepard pulling the pin on smoke grenade. He stamped Jacob hard in the small of his back, unbalancing him and sending his biotic attack off-kilter. He didn't see if it effected Grunt any, but hitting Shepard made her drop the grenade. Crow jumped over them and scrambled with a Hunter's speed past the objective.

"Glint!" He shouted.

"On it!" His Ghost shot away in the chaos, and he ducked into cover next to Grunt as Shepard's grenade went off. He heard her swear.

"Sorry!" He called across the battlefield to the bright yellow puff cloud. He took a moment to check his armor for mark's from Garrus' team.

"The hell you apologizing for?" Grunt growled, reloading. "Enjoy the fight!"

"Is Glint out?" Thane asked over comms.

"On his way." Crow confirmed, trying to squash his anxiety.

"Good. I've handled Samara, let Ms. Lawson take Garrus' attention." the drell told them.

"I got Commander Shepard and Jacob." He informed.

"Good, now bide your time."

"Won't be necessary!" Glint chirped, zipping in to join them. "I'm-"

He disappeared with a yelp of fright when Miranda practically dropped on top of them. Grunt shot her, but she still dropped her grenade, and Crow made a dash for it. Grunt was too slow and got caught in the blast, and something stung Crow's back as he was running. "I think Garrus got you."

"Go get yourself back to the launch point." He told his Ghost, sitting down and contemplating removing his eye protection. Glint materialized, nodded, and dashed off, low to the ground. Crow turned,trying to see through the purple haze of Miranda's grenade; Garrus' team would be moving in now, thinking that everyone but Thane was down.

It wasn't long before a perplexed turian made the rounds to see if any of them had the package. Grunt huffed impatiently when Garrus prompted him to stand(the young krogan had tried hiding the bag by sitting on it in a previous round), and Crow shrugged apologetically at him.

"Kasumi, you got Thane yet?" He asked into comms, mandibles dipped into a frown.

"We won!" Glint cried cheerfully, broadcasting on all comms and making Garrus jump slightly. Crow grinned and got to his feet, and Grunt let out a disturbing chuckle, learing at the sniper as he did so.

"Uh... who had eyes on Thane?" The turian asked as Crow made his way back, electing to use his Light to jump over the energy walls rather than go around them now that the 'bullets' weren't flying. He found Glint sitting happily on the bag at their team's launch point, and his Ghost zipped over to him, bouncing in the air excitedly.

"We did it, we did it!" He beeped, ducking under Crow's cloak and out again. He couldn't help the grin that split across his face; it was good to see his Ghost happy, he hadn't seen him this excited in a while.

"Hold up..." came Shepard's confused voice from behind him. He turned, and Glint swooped low next to the bag.

"Hi, Commander!" He greeted cheerily. "That stuff will wash out, right?"

She was yellow, head to toe, save for a goggles-shaped bare spot. "Yeah... weren't you down? Where's Thane?"

"Here." The drell was directly behind her, and she jumped. He didn't quite look smug. "It would appear that their strengths are in stealth, Commander."

"You..." she looked to Thane, to Crow, to Glint bouncing happily in the air next to the bag. "Son of a-"

"Language!"

"Well, as far as a taste of what you can do goes, I'd say that went well." Commander Shepard commented as they made their way up to the armory in groups of six in the elevator. "Who came up with the trick using Glint?"

"Thane, but Glint contributed." His Ghost, who had tucked himself in his hood, made a happy buzzing noise, shell shifting slightly. At the noise, Kasumi leaned forward in an attempt to get a better look at him.

"Awwww!" She exclaimed softly. "Have I mentioned you're adorable, Glint?"

"I'm not certain, Ms. Goto, but you just did. Does that count?" Glint beeped.

"And you're a gentleman, melt my heart, why don't you?" The thief grinned. The doors opened.

"Alright, pack it up, people." Shepard ordered. They each marched through and put their weapons on the post-exercise rack for Jacob to manage later, and Crow was glad the man had walked him through the armory protocols the other day so he didn't look like an idiot.

"Crow; catch!" He turned just as Shepard tossed something from the inside of the bag. He managed to catch it; it was a slip of metal roughly the size of a dog tag. "Crisp five hundred, courtesy of Cerberus."

"You're using the Ilusive Man's funding as prize money this time?" Miranda looked more than a little incensed.

"Well, the rubber chicken was unpopular, so someone gave it to Joker." She cast a sideways glance at Samara.

"It seemed like he would get better use out of it than I or the others." The asari justified. "I overestimated his maturity."

"What exactly do I do with it?" He knew it was a rhetorical question, but his experiences with money were few and far between at best. If he needed something to complete one of Spider's tasks, it was usually supplied in short order. The glimmer that came his way was minimal if existent at all, and the only value he'd really seen in it was as a 'just in case' he ever wound up in the City for some reason or the other.

"Buy whatever with it when you go out for shore leave." Shepard shrugged. "Just, nothing that won't fit in a footlocker. And nothing alive, Grunt."

"You always gotta ruin things..." the Krogan muttered.

"Clear up, let the others through, and get cleaned up." The Commander ordered. Crow shifted his shoulder to let Glint know the armor wasn't needed anymore, and his Ghost replaced it in an instant.

"Now that's just cheating!" Kasumi exclaimed as he strode out after Grunt. He smiled.

Today had gone much better than he'd expected.

Chapter Text

It had been one of his better days aboard the Normandy, but it wasn't over. He hoped it would last.

Crow took his meal in the med bay as usual, though he briefly considered joining the others for once. Grunt was surprisingly less intense than their previous, brief interactions had suggested, and he'd been fairly reliable in the drill. Thane's plan had made him somewhat anxious; he used to let Glint roam some, back before Spider, but since the bomb neither had let the other out of their sight. The drell's plan had worked though, and nothing bad had happened.

He doubted anyone would fall for it in the next drill; they would probably expect it. But it felt good, watching his Ghost catch everybody off guard, and it felt good seeing him happy. It had gone much better than he'd expected, and though he still had his doubts, being able to fall in with the rest of the crew in later drills seemed a bit less insurmountable.

"But really, how are we going to get you onto the Citadel?" Glint mused aloud as his Lightbearer ate, 'pacing' in lazy loops around the med bay, good mood still running on high. "I guess if you kept your hood up, people would think you're an asari at a distance."

"Asari have boobs." he pointed out patiently between bites.

"... At a very far distance." Crow snorted lightly as his Ghost continued. "If the glowing eyes don't give you away. I suppose I wouldn't be able to come out at all, given how many people still mistake me for AI on the Normandy alone."

"We'll figure it out. We usually do." he pointed out. "I'm not sure what I would do with money anyway, not in this reality."

"Like you said, we'll figure it out." Glint paused in his loops to bump against his shoulder. "But seriously, today was great!"

Lo and behold, as if his Ghost had summoned them, a glob of mashed potatoes hit the observation window with a gory splat. Crow jumped, nearly spilling his own food, and Glint dashed into his jacket pocket with a startled squeak. Peering past the new decoration, he saw Commander Shepard, clearly furious, biotics flaring, still in her armor and right hand covered in potato. She was clearly yelling, but med bay was designed to cancel noise from the mess, and he was no good at lip reading.

The subject of her ire? The turian who must have ducked to avoid the potatoes. His back was to the window, but he seemed to be yelling, too, if Crow was reading his body language even remotely right. Oh, no...

The tension between Shepard and Garrus had finally snapped.

"Um... Should we... do something?" he asked his Ghost tentatively.

"I guess we could see what's going on... but don't get involved. At the very least, we need to know what's going on." Glint suggested. Crow nodded. Good day's over, I guess. He set his food tray down, pulled the void around him, and left the med bay.

"-always about the mission! 'Mission, this, mission that', we're not robots Commander!" Garrus was snarling. The rest of the people in the mess seemed to be frozen. Some-namely those seated at the table between the quarreling soldiers, were eyeing their Commander warily or literally keeping their heads down in case more spud flew. Joker, who was about midway to his usual spot with Donnely, was one again doing his best impression of a potoo. Other who had been standing or walking had also frozen, or were otherwise edging their ways out of the mess.

The rest of them were stuck; the situation was too awkward to leave, and too tense to stay. Despite his nervous curiosity, Crow felt like an intruder to the situation.

"You think I don't know that?" Shepard snapped. "Kind of hard to forget when you're pissed off at me all the time!"

Crow ducked his hand into his pocket and gripped Glint lightly so he didn't do his 'language' thing. His Ghost let out a light, irritated buzzing sound that thankfully no-one else heard.

"Oh gee, I wonder why that might be!" the turian jeered.

"Sure as hell I do, you won't even talk to me!" Shepard countered.

"I shouldn't have to say it! I asked for your help, I asked you not to interfere, and you did. I told you I'd handle the consequences, that your approval wasn't necessary, and what do you do? You mess it all up!" Crow winced; his Light was complaining. He tried to calm his heart rate; the key to the void was fearlessness. He couldn't afford to be afraid right now.

"I stopped you from doing something you couldn't take back, you weren't yourself." Shepard insisted. "The Garrus I knew-"

"The Garrus you knew came from two years ago. It's been two years-"

"I KNOW!" Shepard screeched. Crow stiffened involuntarily, heart jumping into his throat, and the void dropped from around him. Glint phased. Luckily everyone was too fixated on Shepard and Garrus to notice him; the most he could do was, like Joker, make like a potoo and hope everyone overlooked him. "Everywhere I go, 'It's been two years'! Are we prepared for the Reapers? It's been two years and nothing with a side of defamation. It's been two years and they didn't even bother gathering the crew's dog tags, it's been two years and we're all using thermal clips, it's been two years and I'm running around with 'made in Cerberus' carved on my ass while people I loved accuse me of treason, don't you fucking talk to me about 'it's been two years'!"

What followed was only silence, punctuated only by breathing, and the sound of the elevator doors opening. He held out hope it was Thane, if any room needed a level head more than ever, it was this one. It was Tali; she strode stiffly into the mess, but the two combatants were too busy glaring each other down to notice her. Tali was neutral towards him at best, icy at least, but he was never so happy to see her. If anyone could pitch themselves into this and put an end to it, it was her; she was friends with both of them, maybe she could get them to get along again.

"I need to leave." She announced, voice thick with something Crow couldn't identify. Both heads snapped in her direction.

"What?" they both said in unison. Not the kind of uniting factor I was hoping for...

"I've been accused of treason by the fleet, I need you let me off at the next port." That... tone must be what betrayal sounded like. He'd felt it before, but he had never heard it out loud like this. He swallowed hard, throat tight.

"Who the hell would think that!" Joker shouted, tone bordering on what might sound like petulance, unfreezing quite suddenly and being very loud about it. His face had gone beat red, and the hat seemed to make his scowl look even angrier. "Fuck the ports, we're driving you!"

"Joker, last I checked you don't give the orders. Tali do you want us to drive-"

"We're driving her." Joker insisted. Tali shuffled awkwardly and Shepard glared at him while Garrus glared at her.

"Joker-"

"You told me," the Pilot suddenly drew himself up, looking more serious than Crow had seen him, fixing a glare on Shepard, "when we first started this, and I quote, 'if I go bat-shit, Joker, you're in charge until I'm not bat-shit.' Commander Shepard, right now, you're one-hundred percent bat-shit. Both of you are!"

"I am not bat-shit!" turian and human both exclaimed.

"Oh, look, you agreed on something." in realization of this both sapients cast a look of disgust at the other. Joker pointed. "See, see! That's what I'm talking about. Two year, ten years, whatever, I shouldn't be the voice of reason here. I hate being reasonable."

"Joker's right, what is wrong with you two?" Tali put in her two cents, irritation mixing with her melancholy. "EDI said you've been going at this for ten minutes straight! We went through hell together, we got crushed by Reaper debris together, we survived the Normandy's destruction together, none of us should be fighting like this!"

"I. Didn't. Survive." Shepard grit out through clenched teeth. "As everyone is so keen to remind me, it's been two years."

"Oh, very smooth, go with the 'I died' line again; doesn't exactly work now that you're not the only one." Garrus snapped harshly, and, to Crow's horror, waving a hand in his direction. The entire room casts glances at him, and the fear is so great, he's able yank the void back around out of sheer desperation for the safety of invisibility.

"Leave him out of it, it's not remotely the same." Shepard shot back, before finally breaking off. "Do whatever the hell you want, Joker; you have the ship."

Crow didn't dare to breath until after she had passed him. Garrus glared at her back the whole time, and once she was gone, and he tried to approach Tali, the quarian snapped at him, sounding on the verge of tears.

"You're no better! Keelah, if you both would just talk without you're heads up your asses!" she made to stride away, leaving the turian looking dumbfounded, and maybe a little lost. Joker made to follow her, but her pace was brisk, and Crow made a stupid decision as she passed him. Gently, he tugs her shoulder, just enough to slow her.

For a moment, he braces himself to be hit, but he's done what he meant to, and Joker catches her by the corresponding wrist before she can even begin to reaction to the invisible hand. Crow scrambles back into the med bay as quietly as he can.

"Hey..." he hears the pilot begin before the doors close. Crow hits the button that turns the observation window opaque, and let the void go. His legs feel like jelly, and Glint materializes to nudge his shoulder supportingly.

"Just breath, it's fine." he encourages. Deep breath in, deep breath out. He does this for a while. Glint is incredible fidgety as he does so, and eventually, he looks up at his Ghost with a shaky smile.

"If you need to say it, just say it." he tells him. Glint seems to let out a huff, gather himself- and then the med bay doors open quite suddenly.

"LANGUAGE!" his Ghost yells at top volume, within the room that was supposed to cancel noise, said function being nullified by the now open door, in which Joker and Tali now stood.

"Uh, did you just curse?" the bearded man askes Crow with poorly hidden mischief written all over his face.

"I was venting a frustration." Glint informs him cheerily, hovering close to his Lightbearer. "There was a lot of colorful terminology out there just now!"

"Where's Chakwas" Tali asks stiffly. The sense that she might cry was still there.

"I think she's settling Massani in, in his quarters. He didn't like the med bay. Said something about asari and exploding face spiders, wouldn't let her treat him here." Crow told her, keeping his gaze low.

"Tell her I'm in the clean room." He only nods in confirmation, and she strides over the the decontamination chamber, stopping only when Joker chides her.

"Tals; give it up." his voice is almost sing-song. "You know I'll hack it off you if you don't."

"It's not a good idea, not after what just happened out there." she shakes her head.

"Well, I'm not leaving you to get hung out to dry by yourself. Give me the coordinates, I am driving you." Crow feels awkward again, playing witness to a relationship he doesn't know the inner workings of.

"You couldn't hack my tool if you tried." the engineer snorts.

"Yes, but I can try, and how many can say that, hmm?" the pilot brushes imaginary dust off his shoulders.

"Confident bosh-tet, aren't you?" she sounds almost amused, and less like she'll cry.

"You know that's why you love me." he activates his omni-tool with a flourish, and hovers one hand over it. "Now gimme."

Crow can't be sure, but it looks like she rolls her eyes at him as she activate her own omni-tool, and presumably sends him the coordinates he'd asked for.

"Try to get some sleep, I'll chart a course." Joker tells her. She nods, and Crow lowers his gaze even more when she seems to shoot a parting scowl his way before entering the clean room.

"You good?" He looks up at the pilot, confused.

"I had no part in all that." He points out. Why would he ask? Not to mention, Crow was used to playing the part of observer in the happenings of others. It never felt less awkward, and the fear of being noticed was always there, but on the Shore keeping his head down usually did the trick in such situations. Very rarely did anyone point him out, as Garrus, let alone ask after him when all was said and done. If he overheard an exchange, there was always an unspoken threat to keep his trap shut about it afterwards.

"Just checking." Joker says, adjusting his hat slightly. "Gotta talk to you later, by the way. I'd make Chakwas do it, but I'm being punished for procrastinating."

"Doesn't pushing the conversation to a later date count as procrastinating more?" Glint pointed out. The bearded man shrugged, before turning to leave.

"You know it!" He confirmed nonchalantly as he left. The doors shut, and the Ghost and Hunter were alone again. For a few beats of silence, Crow fiddled with his omni-tool.

"It's a lot harder to go unnoticed here. A lot louder when there's drama, too." Glint stated. He nodded in agreement.

"I hope they make up." He spared a glance at his food, but his appetite had left him.

Chapter Text

Joker's day was going... poorly, so far. How poorly?

Well, for one thing, there was a geth on the wing. Yup. Vandalizing his ride, breaking the port navigation lights as well as a few on the Normandy's keel. And it wasn't even a whole geth, either; it looked old, half put-together prime, one arm seemingly useless and all kinds of wires and half-attached parts backlit by the Alarai's navigation lights. It reminded him of Frankenstein's monster, but the first thought that really came to mind was:

Gremlin. Geth. Gremleth? Gethlin? So here he was, half-eaten burrito in hand, watching from port observation as this gethlin look up from it's foul deed with a flickering red eye.

To say that Joker's day was going poorly would be an understatement.

And how was there a geth on the wing, you might ask? They were currently attached to a quarian cruiser that was swarming with them. This unlucky shmuck probably got spaced by a desperate passenger. Why were they attached to a ship filled with gethlins? And why wasn't he the one at the helm at current? Well, there's an entirely reasonable, simple, logical answer to that question.

Politicians. And honestly, he'd really needed a burrito with the way his day was going.

4 hours earlier...

If Joker had his way, today would be great. Or at least half-decent. Hopefully nothing would need to be shot, at least; at best, they were dealing with a misunderstanding, at worst, some politician was just trying to start something. Tali's dad was an admiral, and though the role might be different in quarian culture, a REMF was still a REMF, and some of those cake eaters loved to play politics. If he ever saw Rear Admiral Mikhailovich again, he was going bust his knuckles on that man's nose.

If he was drunk. No way was he throwing a punch sober. But nobody insulted his baby. Even if that baby was gone-

-the light of the blast forced him to blink-

Nope, not going there! He forced a yawn as he stepped into the Captain's Cabin with two coffees in hand.

"Mornin'!" He grinned at the Commander as she shot him a glare. She was hunched over her personal workbench, her omni-tool in neat pieces before her. "Find any bugs in there?"

"The only bug in here is you; shoo fly, don't bother me." She turned back to her task.

"Yeah, no, not after yesterday." He shuffled over and set her coffee down next to her. "I know you two have been bucking heads, but that was next-level. You threw potatoes, Shepard."

"Is there a point to this?" She grit out as she ran a q-tip delicately down the inside housing of the tool's shell. "You're already in charge of the ship-and I emphasis that it will be temporary."

"The ship, yeah, but what happens when something needs shooting? I can't magically make you all get along." he pointed out. "And back in the mess, when Tali told you her life might be in the can, all you two could focus on was your... well, I can't call it a measuring contest, can I?"

"You think I don't care about Tali." She set her tool down stiffly and glared at him. "You get one thing straight; there is nothing I care about more than this crew, and you know it!"

Part of him felt relieved she finally brought up the stunt he pulled over Alchera. But most of him felt incensed. "Then think about how she feels right now! You're her closest friends, and you couldn't stop ripping into each other even after she told you what happened. I'm no people person, but I'm pretty sure she's heartbroken. And you don't want know what scuttlebutt's been passing around about that fight."

"I was under the impression that you were always the scuttlebutt source on this ship." She accused. Joker scowled.

"No; scuttlebutt comes to me. All of it; what else am I supposed to do as a hobby, ice skating?" He quipped experimentally, to see if humor might defuse her a little. Her glare only deepened. "My point is, there's cracks in moral. There's going to be cracks in the ground unit, too, if you two don't fix this."

"Garrus isn't exactly talking to me right now. He ignores me outside drills." Joker rolled one shoulder restlessly, disappointed.

"You're Commander Shepard, make him listen." He turned and wandered towards the door. "Ask him to truce for this quarian mess at least, make it a bit easier on Tali."

Why me! Part of him kind of wanted her anger. Ever since they reunited, he'd been waiting for some kind of conversation about what had happened. Angsty mutual emotional breakdown, angry superior officer dressing-down, a cold shoulder, something. But no, nothing. That part of him who wanted the confrontation was the same part that thought ripping the vacuum-safe waterproof bandaids off fast would hurt less(fun fact; not true).

But the other part of his brain was the part that hated people. And being social. And socializing with people. He kept his tongue sharp for a reason, cutting wit was an introvert's best friend. He hated being the reasonable one in any situation, he was a pilot with masters in engineering and several areas of mathematics, not some cake eating HR drone with a gender studies degree. He solved problems by flying away from them or initiating an orbital strike.

Not words. Even if some of his finer remarks could level a city.

This part of his brain was content to let the problem lie. That was how he wound up stuck with this nickname, how he aggravated many a break when he was younger, and how he still hadn't briefed Crow on the 'contents easily broken' problem. But honestly, if he waited long enough that problem should solve itself since the new guy spent all his time in med bay. To get to the point; being reasonable was exhausting, starting the reasonable conversation was more so, and it was worse when the people you were trying to reason with were the ones typically relied upon to to do most of that reasoning bullshit in the first place.

He really wished Shepard had asked Chakwas to do this instead of him. When he'd said she should, she'd denied the request; her reasoning was 'you're the one flying the ship, you know better than anyone how to keep her safe', or some bullshit along those lines. He really hated Reasonable Shepard.

He was starting to hate Spud Launcher Shepard, too. And... actually, he couldn't come up with a stupid name for Garrus right now. He took a long drink of coffee instead as the doors opened to the CIC.

I'll come up with one later. For now, he had Flight Engineer to kick out of his chair...

"One million seven hundred seventy one thousand five hundred sixty one. That's assuming one tribble, multiplying with an average litter of ten, producing a new generation every twelve hours-"

"Joker!" Tali's voice called over comms. He hit cancel on the window his show on to fast he struck the console itself. Face hot, Joker clicked output, examining his thumb as he did so.

"Yeah? Might've broke my thumb on EDI's mute button, make it snappy." he requested. Poor Tali had decided to face the music by herself, telling an incensed Garrus and Shepard that she didn't want her people to see them bickering(which they started to do again after she left the airlock, to his great disappointment). He'd go with her if he could; probably Ken and Gabby, too, but it would mean he'd have to put on one of those awful medical exo-suits.

"They've changed my name!" the quarian snapped. "They've changed it to 'vas Normandy, those bosh'tets!"

"Hey, that's my ship you're talking about!" he scolded, only half-joking.

"It means that the captain of the Neema can no longer stand in my defense. In a quarian courtroom, the Captain of the ship the accused serves on acts as an attorney." Which meant...

If we hadn't given her a ride, she'd have no defense right now! Those-

"Joker?"

"Yeah, yeah I'll get Shepard, just hang tight." he rose carefully from his chair.

"Uh... Joker..." why did she sound like that? Why was she using her 'I've got worse news' voice? "Remember how she, um... put you in charge yesterday? By quarian law, you're technically... acting Captain."

"...I can't go dump her back in command to avoid this, can I?"

"They already know you're in charge... I might have let it slip before I knew about the name change."

"Okay. Give twenty. You have twenty, right?" he asked, blood starting to boil.

"I'm not sure they'll wait that long." he could mentally picture her shaking her head in an 'I'm getting a migrain' way.

"Well, tell them that the only way I have of leaving the ship is a stupid exo-suit that takes twenty minutes to assemble. So tell them, in these exact words, that unless they want me to jump out there in nothing but braces and a birthday suit, they'll give me twenty minutes!"

"I'll try to get the message across, but get here as soon as you can." she promised nervously. Joker turned of the output. Deep breath in, deep breath out...

"SHIIIIIIIIIT!" everyone else on the deck jumped.

Chapter Text

"All right, just get it over with." Joker couldn't believe this. He'd rather swallow acid after chewing on razor blades than wear this thing, but here he was, letting Chakwas double-check the locks and microservo systems. He wished he could just sit here and glare at the wall all day, but unfortunately, he actually had to be reasonable. Again.

As he suffered through the peak of personal humiliation, Crow walked into the med bay with a harried look about him.

"I-" he double-took when he noticed them. "What... is everyone that stir crazy? It's like an active brood in here."

"Do I want to know the answer to 'brood of what, exactly?'" Chakwas asked, not looking up from the readouts on her data pad.

"Hive." The Awoken clarified, shuffling his feet slightly. "That was rhetorical wasn't it?"

"How'd you guess?" Joker snorted. Crow side-eyed him as he walked past to set a data pad on Chakwas' desk.

"Same way I recognized that as rhetorical." He answered. "Dr. Chakwas, Thane said to pass this to you."

"Good." She tightened a lock, and he winced as the corresponding plate pinched his leg. He much preferred his braces to this thing, but he couldn't wear them in a normal EVA suit, so this was the only environmentally-sealed hardsuit he was able to wear. The quarians, if nothing else, had made it clear they didn't want even an inch of his filthy foreign self exposed in their courtroom. The one that apparently featured a bioactive garden.

"What is going on, anyway?" Crow asked, leaning against the desk. Glint appeared and settled down on his shoulder like a parrot. "I thought Tali was the one they wanted."

"I'm in charge as of yesterday, they changed her name to 'vas Normandy', and apparently being in charge makes me her lawyer." Joker rattled off. And for some reason, seeing as the day couldn't get any worse, his brain decided he should drop the 'v' bomb. "And I have to wear this shit thing because I have vroliks."

"Language."

"Gazuntite."

"It's a disease." He snorted. Not a bad attempt at humor on Crow's part, 'gazuntite' was a good tool to have in the box. Had to work on his delivery, though. "My bones are hollow. You seriously haven't heard?"

"That's a thing in this reality?" The Awoken's face twisted as if trying to comprehend the concept, and Glint's shell twisted slightly. Not the typical reaction, but this was Crow; Crow was confused by the coffee maker. That was a relief, actually. He preferred confusion to pity any day.

"What did you think was wrong with me, gout?" He snarked. Crow shrugged.

"No, I've seen gout, there's a lot of it on the Shore." An the prize for disturbing Crow quote of the day goes to... that right there! Only from Crow could you hear about an agonizing arthritis as a casual problem that most people had.

"Mr. Moreau, Engineer Zorah has asked me to inform you that the Admiralty Board is no longer willing to wait. They will be starting the trial shortly regardless of your presence." EDI informed over the comms.

"Shit!" He pushed himself to his feet, fighting the instinct of 'you're not wearing your braces you idiot'. "I'm gonna use this suit to strangle someone!"

"Try not to." Chakwas requested, moving back so he could beat feet out of the med bay.

"If I try to make a new career out of this, jettison me!" And as far as dropping the 'my bones break if I sneeze too hard' bomb and running went, he'd say this was the best way it had ever gone, thanks to Crow's constant state of confusion.

The airlock opened, and all hell broke loose.

"Ah, Captain... what was it again?" The first quarian to greet him asked nervously.

"I'm a pilot." He corrected. "I just happen to be in charge, unfortunately for you."

"And your name is...?" The quarian prompted. Inigo Montoya, Joker responded mentally despite the temptation to say it out loud.

"Jeff Moreau." He may not have asked for his nickname, but it had grown on him over the years. It was certainly more unique than 'Jeff', but at least 'Moreau' sounded captain-y. "Where's Tali?"

"Down this way, they've started already, so I don't know if-"

"You let them start without me?" He scowled at the man, before limping down the hall as fast as his body(and this ridiculous exosuit) would let him.

" I wouldn't say 'let', I'm not in charge of anything!" The quarian protested as he walked. He could hear nasally voices echoing ahead, and even though quarians probably didn't have political parties like humans, his brain decided the nasal one might be a lefty, it seemed to be a trend, he had noticed.

Now, Udina, though, he had a bit of everything going on; that ugly son was so bipolar even the independents got thrown for a loop.

"-geth rampaged the Alarai, killing all hands, your father included." The following uproar was too loud for him to hear Tali's reaction to this, but Joker pushed himself to closest he got to a run, and burt into the 'courtroom'.

"You mangy bastards going to explain why you told a girl her dad is dead in a hearing?" He yelled, cutting through the dying gasps of horror and controversy. All heads turned, and, still catching his breath, Joker leaned forwards a little on the railing that began on the stairs. "Or why you started without me?"

"Objection!" The nasally one spat out. "A human has no place in a quarian court!"

"Acting Captain... Moreau, was it- has every right to be here, per Tali's legal name change to vas Normandy. " The woman at the top pointed out. Joker glared at nasal guy.

"Objection withdrawn." He shook his head in defeat. Tali was looking up at him like he was a lifeline, and his gut churned. He'd never had anyone look at him like that before, hoping for good news, like he could do something for them. Well, actually, a lot of people probably looked up at him like that; he just never saw their faces because they were specks on the ground and he was busy getting clear lines of fire on enemy craft.

The difference was that behind the pilot seat, that hope was justified. He didn't do all this in-person give hope to the hopeless stuff, that was for dirt lovers like Shepard. It was what they did for their living, just like blasting things from orbit was what he did for his. Now Tali was looking at him like that, and he isn't sure he can deliver.

"Now, about what I just heard..." it took all his self restraint not to curse them out. That would be very undiplomatic of him. He might curse if these stairs do him dirty, though. He isn't afraid of stairs.

He just doesn't trust them. They're shady mother- Focus, Joker, focus!

"There are loose geth, and this is your priority?" He took a risk midway down the stairs to wave a hand at the crowd. "Isn't the safety of the fleet supposed to be your priority? You know, instead of harassing heros of the Citadel when their fathers are missing?"

"Several teams has tried to take back the Alarei unsuccessfully." The woman at the top shook her head.

"At this point, the most logical choice would be to destroy the ship." Nasal said haughtily.

"They could still be alive!" Tali protested. The Admiral on Nasal's left shook his head. "Let me go, let me look for survivors!"

"Are you crazy?" Joker hissed in what he hoped was a low enough voice. It was like everyone on the Normandy loved mortal peril, at times.

"Well, in that case, if you're looking for an honorable death instead of exile-"

"I'm looking for my father, you bosh'tet!" Tali jabbed a finger in his direction, and several people gasped. Joker could mentally hear Glint shouting about language.

"Let her try!" Someone called out(probably against procedure). "I saw what that ground unit could do on Heastrom, they could easily take the ship back!"

Oh, please shut up! Now Tali was definitely going to do it, and Shepard was definitely doing it with her. Unfortunately, if Garrus cared more about Tali than he did about his grudge, he'd want in on it, too. Meaning Shepard and Garrus would be together, armed, on a damaged ship filled with geth, with an emotionally unstable Tali. Hadn't he thought in the med bay that it couldn't get any worse?

"Is it your intention to retake the Alarei?" The top podium asked in due fashion, as if the outburst had been a reasonable sentence appropriate for a courtroom. Tali looked to him, and he tried not to slouch as he responded.

"Since I don't see any other volunteers, yeah." He paused a moment. "For Tali's dad, though. Not for this 'honorable death's bullshit, I mean honestly, I once air-dropped her into a canyon full of armatures, and she came out fine!"

"But if she dies on this mission," nasal's left gave nasal a pointed look as he said this," we will see that her name is cleared of all charges."

"We can discuss that later." Nasal dismissed.

"Then it is decided." Podium declared in Offically In Charge Voice #3. "Tali'Zorah Vas Normandy will attempt to retake the Alarei. She is hereby given leave to temporarily depart the Rayya. A shuttle will be waiting for her in the secondary docking hangar."

"Hold up, what class ship is the Alarei?" Joker's pilot senses were tingling.

"A cruiser, though minimally armed." The only other woman on the panel stated.

"You want me to let her take a dingy shuttlecraft to an armed cruiser full of geth? Oh, hell no! We're using the Normandy!" Like it would be anything else but an 'absolutely not'. Do they want her to die?

"Objection!" Nasal cried. "How do we know you won't just fly off with her and never return?"

"Oh, sure, like running away from exile isn't counterproductive." He snarled in return. Honestly.

"Enough." Top podium cut her hand through the air. "If you leave communications range, your chance at redemption will be consider forfeit, but use of your own ship shall be allowed. This trial shall resume upon your return, or upon determination that you have been killed in action."

"Uh, she survived a volcanic eruption once. Nobody is dying."

Unless Shepard and Garrus throttle each other.

Joker spent an hour talking to people after that. Just talking, because he wasn't caught up on what exactly the charges were, and these politicians definitely all had angles they were trying to work. Boy did they have angles. Joker had never really cared for politics; he was a spacer to the core, and moving around a lot meant he never even saw the point in voting, seeing as he'd be gone to his next posting by the time any changes he liked came around. Besides, if it didn't affect him, he typically didn't care. Most people these days were all about 'biotic tolerance' and racism... neither of which had ever affected him seeing as he wasn't biotic and disliked all people equally.

Quarian politics were a bit different. Instead of 'biotic tolerance', you had 'geth apologists', and instead of racism you had... whatever the hell brand of creepy Admiral Xen was. She was a few thruster short of a full propulsion system, that was for sure. She might have gotten along with Mordin, though, which was a scary thought in itself.

As for the charges, apparently Tali was being accused of sending geth parts to the fleet that could spontaneously reactivate... witch Joker knew to be bullshit. She was Crow-level paranoid about potential danger from geth tech, she had actually asked him to go over some of those parts himself for the benefit of being looked over by a set of fresh eyes. He'd never asked about them much, and looking back, maybe asking would have helped make this whole lawyer business easier. At least he would have felt less out of his depth.

By the time they got back on the Normandy, Tali was wound tight enough that all one had to do was point her in the right direction and set her loose. Shepard was waiting directly on the other side of the door with Garrus, and she tore a debriefing out of him as Chakwas got him out of the exosuit. And to be honest, after he got back in the pilot seat, Joker kind of just tuned everyone else out and focused on flying. He was just done with thinking today, and he would still have to go back on the Rayya once this was done.

True to his great fears, Shepard went with Tali and Garrus demanded to be part of it.

"Good luck, Tals." He waved the quarian off. To the other two, all he could manage at this point was, "Try not to kill each other or her, will you?"

"Watch it, Lieutenant." Shepard grit out. He rolled his eyes as he turned towards the elevator; if she and Garrus were going to keep acting like ensigns with daddy issues, he was going to treat them like it until she got herself together again.

Nevermind all that. For at least the next hour, the only thing that was going to happen to him was a burrito. Nothing could possibly ruin that.

Chapter Text

The first sign that things were about to go wrong was an alert on his omnitool about a busted navigation light as he was making his burrito. He set the notification aside so he could task someone with it when he was done eating. He wasn't Shepard; he kept lunch and paperwork separate, if he didn't he would forget to eat all together, then Chakwas would overreact and wax poetic about taking care of himself again. The second was that he got another one on his way to the observation deck, where he planned to hide and enjoy his food.

Now, the thing about maintenance notification alarms was that, for some reason, the last fourth bit of text wouldn't display. So if an asteroid hit nav light PN2-A, all you would get was 'Maintenance Alert: Navigation...'. You had to open the notification to get an ID on what needed fixing, unless you were in engineering, where all maintenance alerts were displayed on a screen on the wall until they were assigned to someone. It was a minor issue, but it led Joker into thinking the sensor was busted and kept sending repeat alerts. So he sent a notification of his own about that particular bug, and continued with his business.

Then he sat down, after notification five about what he assumed to be the same nav light, and finally got annoyed enough to turn off his omni-tool's notification vibrations. And then, as he was just beginning to relax...

There it was. The gremlin. He opened the notifications, staring down the geth that was sitting pretty on the wing of his ship. Half the nav lights along the keel, and it was going for the nacels.

"No!" Joker cried. He'd just entered the bliss zone! Even as he said it, biotic field encased the prime, and yanked it...

Right towards the hull.

"EDI, who's out there?" Because he certainly hadn't sent anyone out yet.

"XO Lawson-"

"Bull! I'm In charge! Why didn't you tell me, you know the alert texts are cut off!" Figures. He tries to take a little breather, and not only is there a geth on the wing, Miranda had literally jumped ship without so much as a casual 'I'm off to toss a geth'! No backup!

"This remains a Cerberus vessel, and you are not recognized as an official authority, as you are not part of the official chain of command. You are the pilot." Joker was this close to actually trashing the AI Core.

"We're going to have a conversation about authority; me, you, and Miranda." Just because he was 'the pilot' and generally hated having authority in the first place due to the circumstances, didn't mean he appreciated disrespect. If this were the Alliance-

Joker shook his head, wincing as the prime slammed against the hull. Can't do to get into those thoughts now. He would rather let any nascent guilt for joining Cerberus fester for now; he'd fell better when he unpacked it if he left it long enough to make him want to scream.

A hand, large and ugly with wires drifting from it, reached down from somewhere unseen to slap itself onto the glass like some kind of horror vid monster.

"Nope!" Joker bolted to his feet so fast that it hurt, tossing his burrito aside and dashing to the blast shield faster than he should medically be able to achieve. "Nope, nope, no no no no no no no!"

He hit the emergency button so hard his hand hurt, and the shield slammed shut. "Frick! Ow..."

The disembodied hand drifted and bounced between the window and the blast shield, lending an eerie backdrop to his pain, both physical...

He glanced at the trashed burrito morosely.

... And emotional.

This is why I can't have nice things.

He spent the next hour being fussed over by Chakwas and watching Crow get his ass kicked by Glint at go fish. It probably didn't help that he was distracting them both.

"And then, he saw it, right on the nose of the plane." Joker pressed, thoroughly enjoying himself; they were a good audience, he'd give them that much, even though Glint was multitasking. He can't even properly hide his cards, and he's still winning! They were propped up at an angle by a pillow, and Crow wasn't even bothering to use Joker's distracting presence to take a peek. He couldn't tell if the awoken was a moral paragon, or just oblivious to the advantage he had.

The two leaned forward slightly as Joker deliberately left a pause in his story as Chakwas ran another set of scans on his hip.

"Red eyes. Glowing like tracer rounds. Hands longer and bigger than a man's, body all scrawny like a bat with mange that'd been locked in a box." He leaned forward and stretched his arm out, fingers claw-like. "And it reached for the glass-s-s-s-s."

" Mr. Moreau."

"Shit!"

"Language!"

"Commander Shepard has cleared the Alarie, and is heading back to the ship. It is recommended that you put on your exo suit."

"Casualties?" Chakwas demanded. Glint made the cards disappear, and Crow stood with a 'lets see what disaster this is' kind of look.

"No quarian survivors were found. Chief Engineer Zorah has a minor ballistic wound." Ahhhh, shiiiiit. Tali's dad was dead. He was now, officially, in the danger zone. If he screwed this up, it wasn't just Tali's life he'd ruin; she'd personally make him miserable if he said the wrong thing. He'd never had a friend lose a dad before, what the heck did he say?

She wasn't even that close a friend. Sure, they hung out, but they didn't pour their hearts out to each other. He wasn't the 'heart pouring' kind of friend, he was the beer pouring kind. He didn't like handling other people's baggage, and preferred to keep his to himself.

Still, if the pressure hadn't been on before, it certainly was now.

"Poor Tali." Glint beeps sympathetically. "Her dad was on that ship, wasn't he?"

"Yeah." Joker sighs. "Doc, you gotta let me go or chain me to the bed, which is it?"

"Just bruises, you can go." If he could jump off the bed, he would. "No more jumping or slamming things. Or burritos."

"Oh, come on-"

"Is the risk of constipation remotely worth it?" Um, yes? An unfortunate, occasional consequence of his deformed hips, but sometimes, you just needed to eat shit you weren't supposed to. No pain, no gain, and all that.

"Is that a serious question?" He decided to walk backwards out the door just to infuriate her(he had spent a long time perfecting the art of doing this safely, just to freak people out). "Let's put a pin in that conversation, because it can't be a serious question."

Nor could Crow's faint 'What's a burrito?', muttered under the final din of Chakwas' parting scolding as the door closed.

"Jeff Moreau, watch where you're going!"

"Um... do I want to know what happened?" The mission had taken longer than he'd expected, but still...

"Just a spot of trouble with a door." Tali informed him sweetly, though it sounded like she had been crying. She pat Shepard's soot-covered shoulder, and tugged a coolant-covered Garrus after her as she made her way to the infirmary.

"Help." the turian hissed as he passed.

"I heard that!" the quarian sang, pulling him towards the elevator.

"No, really what happened?" there's a bruise forming on her forehead that bears resemblance to somebody's elbow, and her own hair is clumped with coolant as well; no burns, so it must not have passed through the engine yet when she got sprayed. Always a risk with boarding hostile ships. Some of her shoulder plating had been forcibly removed as well.

"Look, don't under any circumstances, offer evidence from the Alarai." She told him gravely. "Her father was... into some pretty fucked-up experiments."

"It's geth, how bad can it get?" It wasn't like you could inject them with thresher maw acid and it would hurt.

"I don't know how they managed it, but they managed to torture a race that's barely sentient in such circumstances. On purpose. He was using geth parts to build geth." she made a face. "They won't care about tortured geth, but they will care about the danger he put them in willingly by building living models. He'll be struck from records and banished post-mortum."

"Damn." that was... heavy. And it sounded like there was more to it.

"We're coming with you for the last part of the trial." Shepard suddenly told him, clearing her throat. She looked... nervous. "And uh, I'm sorry for..."

She trailed off.

"Sorry for..." Joker prompted, getting a good feeling.

"I'm sorry for being... a stubborn bosh'tet with head issues and a pole up her ass." Tali, you beautiful creature, I could kiss you, I love you, you're perfect in every way! It sounded like his suited friend had finally taken matters into her own hands, because that was a 'say this exactly or I'll know you didn't do it' apology."

"Graphic, but I'll take it!" finally, something went his way today!"You won't be able to speak up at the trial, though, some kind of legal technicality. What happened over there, anyway?"

"I don't want to talk about it."she grunted, marching past him. She nearly slipped on her way down the helm, and her boots squeaked like wet sneakers in a high school hallway, eliciting a few smirks from those brave enough to find it amusing. The others must have managed to avoid not stepping in the stuff.

"EDI, tell maintenance we'll need some cleanup on the CIC deck." he came up to Richards, bitterness striking through him. It's my shift, I should be the one flying! Stupid exosuit, stupid quarian politics, stupid Miranda, stupid Shepard, all of it stupid. "Richards, dock us with the Rayya, tell them we need ten to address injuries, and that their cruiser has been reclaimed."

"Aye, sir." Okay, so maybe he liked the sound of that. Guess it isn't all stupid...

"Sir, they aren't aren't responding to our hails." Crap.

"Give me comms." he requested. A click let him know he was live. "Hey, Rayya, this is Acting Captain Moreau speaking; let. Me. Dock. Now."

"Normandy, you are cleared to dock. Trial reconvenes in five." came the response after a few beats of silence. Joker breathed deeply through his nose. Five minutes. Five!

"EDI, inform Tali that's she's going to have to settle for field dressings, or whatever it is she does to seal a would temporarily." This was the last straw. His bullshit tolerance meter was officially full, he wasn't taking anymore. No more Mr. Diplomatic Acting Captain Moreau.

They were getting Joker the Asshole Pilot.

"We have no reason to believe that she's alive!" One of them was saying.

"OBJECTION!" Joker screamed at the top of his lungs. He might not like this lawyer stuff, but hey; there goes one more thing off his bucket list. "We just requested to dock five minutes ago!"

"Annnd he said we needed ten for medical. Bosh-tets." Tali did not sound okay. She nearly tripped on the stairs instead of him, and had to be pulled back by Shepard and Garrus as she tried to get in the Boards faces, and waved finger at them. "Sorry we're late."

"What did Chakwas give her?" he hisses to Garrus. The turian shrugged hopelessly.

"I think she has a fever." he hissed to the pilot. "And I might have been a little too liberal with the medigel when it happened."

"Dammit, Garrus!"

"Ahem." Admiral Raan cleared her throat, and briefly cast her gaze in Admiral Xen's direction. "I'm sorry to see the information wasn't relayed to us in a timely manner."

"Well, she did it. She took back the Alarai; how much more loyalty do you want?" Joker challenged, gesturing to his woozy friend. And trying to think of a way to play this when she was so out of sorts.

"Her loyalty was never in question, only her judgment." Admiral Nasal stated stiffly.

"Perhaps Tali'Zorah can offer something to encourage more trust in her judgment?" Admiral Raan suggested calmly, as if she wasn't implying that Tali was incompetent... while she was high on medigel. He heard the quarian take a breath. Oh boy.

"I'll show you poor judgment in trust!" she declared. Kill me, just kill me! But at the same time, a wicked idea bloomed in his head as the crowd passed whispers between one another.

"As you can see, she's currently delirious from overmedication." Joker let that sink in for about one second, he had to overdramatize the shit out of this if he was going to make the situation work to his advantage. He offered a resigned shrug in the direction of the crowd. "I guess if you had given us those ten minutes we asked for, she'd be fine, but what's a little infection compared to your political aspirations?"

There was a cloud of disapproving whispers making it's way through the room, mixed with some sympathy. Good.

"Then perhaps you could give us something, anything, so that she can go back to the Normandy. Did you find something?" Admiral Zhao pressed.

"Look at you." Joker sneered, doing the best approximation he could to spinning on his heels(for dramatic flare), cranking his 'Asshole Alliance Pilot' dial to eleven. "You cake-eating REMF, you don't care about Tali! All you care about is burying this so you can get your people blown up over Rannoch!"

Shocked gasps echoed through the chamber. "REMF!"

"Yeah, you heard me. Not sure if you hanar-humpers speak Alliance, but that stands for 'rear echelon mother-fucker'!" more scandalized gasping and very vocal protests. Shepard grabbed his shoulder.

"What the hell are you doing?" she demanded.

"Just trust me." he hisses back, shrugging her off. He points at Admiral Nasal. "And you! Geth-hugger! You really think throwing the woman who saved the Citadel, who made people a tiny more reluctant to call quarians suit rats, who just beat the shit out of cruiser of gremlin robots, is the way to get everyone to take your hippie-ass politics seriously?"

"This has no relevance to the issue at hand!" Admiral Xen raised her hands to try to signal for calm. "If you have no evidence, then we will render judgment."

"You... actually, you're just insane." Joker dismissed her and turned to the crowd, feeling like going for the throat. "If they don't care about Tali, who's to say they care about you? They just want this mess cleaned up so they can keep pushing what they want. In fact, this attack turned out for the better, eliminating one of their competitors like it did-"

"You dare!" Admiral Gerrel roared. Nasal held him back from physically launching himself at the Normandy's pilot. Joker grinned, and slow clapped.

"Excellent show of self-control. What were you saying, about personal judgment?" he waved an arm at Gerral, like a salesman trying to pitch a product. "Behold you glorious leaders, about to banish the one person who knows about about the geth than anyone; and I would know, I dropped her into most of those conflicts. I know exactly what she's done, from Feros to Virmire, from that shit-fest on the Citadel to now. She's not just the greatest asset you'll have against the geth, she's the best you'll have against the Reapers, too, and your Admirals want to kick her out!"

"Enough!" Raan cried. "Order! Order! If you've really no evidence... admirals, render your-"

"He's right!" a single voice pushes to the from, bold and nervous. Oh, stars, it's Crow in quarian form. The poor guy looked like he was going to shake himself out of his suit, and seemed to instantly regret speaking now that the crowd was looking at him, arms wrapped around his body, like he was trying to shrink. Unlike Crow, though, he couldn't disappear at will when the attention was on him. "T-Tali saved me, on Freedom's Progress! I saw what happened there, we need her if they come for us!"

"Don't forget Heastrom!" another sharper voice demanded when Raan looked like she was about to try speaking again. This man was... could quarians be ripped? How did one even tell? "If you banish Tali, you're pissing on everything I fought for! Everything our unit died for!"

The crowd was in a frenzy now, and it was all Joker could do to avoid rubbing his hands together like a cartoon villain, sitting back, and just drinking in the chaos. Yes, that's right... be angry... let them know what they're in for if they vote wrong.

"Admirals!" Raan demanded. The other three brought up their omni-tools and started typing(rather violently in certain cases). "Order, order!"

Next to him, Tali does this awkward thing where she presses against Garrus' side. He can hear her suit go squish against the coolant he's still covered in(Joker was here to offend people, bringing filthy door-kickers covered in muck on board was a perfect way to do that). The turian pats her head awkwardly, and exchanges a look with Shepard. What happened on that ship?

It took all of five minutes for the crowd to settle down again, and by that time, the Admiral had all deactivated their tools. Please work, please work, please work...

"Tali'Zorah, in light of your history of service, we find insufficient evidence to convi-"

"FUCK YEAH!" Joker cried, unable to resist grabbing Garrus and shaking him(and by extension, Tali herself as well). It's over! It's finally over! "I win, bitches!"

"...You are cleared of all charges." Raan took a steadying breath. "Acting Captain Moreau."

"That's Joker to you, I'm done with this captain shit." he drawled. He was just done. He wanted a second shot at a burrito, he wanted to lock Miranda in her room and firewall EDI from helping. Most all, he really just wanted a nap.

"Yes... thank you for taking the time to represent one of our people." He could hear the fake smile in her voice. "You have done a great service, and if you would allow it, we will repair the Normandy's damages free of charge."

"One scratch and you repaint the whole thing." He threated. "Otherwise, sure, I'll take it."

"Damages?" Shepard whispered.

"Long story." he said back. "And with all due respect... she's one of my people. We're keeping her, by the way."

"Yeah!" Tali chose that moment to stop being drowsy. Shepard vainly put a hand over her vocal port.

"So it appears." Raan observed dryly, staring down at the quarian hugging a turian while a human commando tried to ensure her silence and a foul-mouther pilot won her place in the Fleet back. "Your presence has been... enlightening. This hearing is concluded; go in peace, Tali'Zorah Vas Normandy. Keelah S-"

"Whoo!" Tali pumped her fists in the air, Garrus and Shepard tried to lower them.

"Alright, med bay, before Chakwas sends in the cavalry!" Joker tried to shoo them towards the stairs. "Yup, keep going, there's beer later for the well-behaved!"

Now all he needed to deal with was Miranda. Stars, I need a beer and a nap.

Chapter Text

Warning: This chapter contains spoilers for the Overlord DLC. If you haven't played it yet, do so, unless you don't really care. In that case, you do you.

Things got strange the moment Tali and Dr. Chakwas disappeared into the clean room. Well, not at that moment precisely, but within the hour after that. Crow did his best to stay out of the way of the ensuing chaos, but old habits and fears led to the opposite happening. Looking back, it probably really started when Shepard and Garrus kicked Kasumi out of starboard observation and locked the door behind them, starting a whirlwind of lewd rumors about what they might be doing, and what might have happened aboard the Alarai. Some of them were so bad, Glint hid out of second-hand awkwardness, much like he sometimes would on the Shore.

The Shore had exposed him to far worse kinds of talk, though it still made him deeply uncomfortable. He wished, not for the first time and not for the last, that there was somewhere he and his Ghost could retreat to for real privacy, away from all the chatter and EDI's eyes. If there was such a place, he would have gone there before Joker strode into the mess, popped a beer, and hacked Miranda's office shut. As it stood, he had stayed in the mess out of morbid curiosity and a lack of anything better to do than clean the med bay window.

"Ahem, testing, testing, this thing on?" The pilot paused to take a sip of his beer. " Listen up, people; well, mostly you Lawson, but the rest of you should hear it, too. The reason I've locked you in your office is because you dismiss, interrupt, or blow me off if I try this in person, so I'm just going to talk, and you're going to listen."

"I know we've had an exciting day." Another, longer drink. "But if this were the Alliance, that stunt you pulled- combat EVA with that gremlin I saw you fight- you would be halfway to court-martial by now. You kept EDI from informing me about the extent of the situation, knowing full well about our crappy alert system configuration, and decided to jump out the airlock without telling anybody why, because I'm not 'Cerberus chain of command'."

"Well, let's get one thing straight here; as much as we both hate it, I'm Shepard's chain of command, Shepard is in charge of this mission, and if she relinquishes to me- which will hopefully never happen again- she expects that choice to be respected. Until she's not on the verge of chucking potatoes again, I'm in charge, which means if you have an idea on how to work a problem, it goes through me. You don't go off on your own like you have a death wish! You're superiority complex could have gotten you killed!" He then started a ten-minute lecture on standard procedure for in-vacuum EVA's, which Crow decided to pay close attention to because Jacob hadn't gone over those with him. The pilot ended this all by assigning Miranda to all of Gardner's 'dirty jobs' for the next week, insisting that if she wanted to pretend to be in charge, she best start by learning to catch the problems that fell through the cracks.

It took Crow a moment to get the joke, but he almost inhaled his own spit laughing when he did.

In the space of that moment, EDI purged whatever Joker had done to lock Miranda in, and a genetically modified biotic stormed out said door with an utterly terrifying expression fixed on her face. Crow clapped his hands over his mouth and wrapped the void around himself. On the Shore, that look meant a beating was coming, or a death. It was the look someone with power fixed his insubordinate underlings with before he did something awful and painful, and that was the look Joker was getting right now.

Crow was torn between hiding and trying to intercept her. His body started to move, but a very drunk Commander Shepard chose that moment to charge out of starboard observation with an equally drunk Garrus stumbling after her, a bottle in one hand and omni-tool activated on the other.

What proceeded only confused him and scared him in equal measure, and he was so busy trying not to panic that he missed out on some of the details. Shepard started by demanding to know every detail about the gremlin incident, and when Joker tried to remind her that she was drunk and he wasn't(yet), she challenged him to an Agni Kai. Whatever that was, even Joker didn't seem to know; he just asserted that he had everything under control, and that Miranda was just about to go clean the water filtration system.

Just when Crow let the void drop and thought he could relax, Miranda opened her mouth. He was too busy retreating to hear what she said, but quite suddenly she and Shepard are rolling on the floor, Miranda actually fighting and Shepard drunkenly pulling at her hair with Garrus cheering her on.

Joker scrambles out of the way of the screeching women, and yells for the people who are just standing around to actually help break it up. Crow scrambles to obey, because the mess hall has suddenly become like the Shore and he's not sure what will happen to him if he doesn't. He knows it's not the Shore, and Joker is no Spider, but the look on Miranda's face makes his brain decide otherwise. He lunges, and grabs her the same way the bouncer at The Empty Tank grabbed people. Several other crewmen grab Shepard, but Garrus tries to pull them off and egg the fight on.

"When I told you to make up, this is not what I meant!" Joker cries indignantly. "EDI, call Grunt and Thane up!"

"Belay that, EDI!" Miranda snarls, trying to break his grip. "He has no authority to-"

"He's in charge!" Shepard woozily.

"You're drunk." Miranda hisses coolly, starting to relax in his grip. It feels safe to let go, and he slowly releases her.

"I was un-drunk when I put him in charge!" Shepard drawls, slumping in her captors arms. It looks like she's cried recently, and her face is flushed bright red. "Why is Crow so hot all the sudden?""

The mortification he feels temporarily short-circuits his brain, and he let's go of Miranda entirely.

"What she said" Garrus butted in, voice slurred. "'Cept about Crow."

Crow is too busy wishing he didn't exist to make any sort of response to either of those statements.

"He isn't authorized, Shepard!" The irate aussie grits her teeth. "I'm XO of the Normandy, and you never let me take any of the load I'm supposed to! You never try trust me, and you put a man in charge who ignored important alerts for a burrito!"

"We already went through the alert glitch twice, Lawson." Joker glares and crosses his arms. "This isn't about that, this is about you going out for combat EVA without backup, leave, or giving notice there was a hostile on the hull. This is about EDI keeping it from me at your orders."

"And what would our illustrious pilot have done?" Lawson mocks. Garrus chooses that moment to throw up, but Joker doesn't miss a beat.

"I would have sent Thane and Mordin, since Thane knows better than to pull a geth prime towards himself, and Mordin isn't a fricking moron!" The pilot glares, clearly trying to restrain himself from crushing his beer(the fact he hasn't spilled it at all remains impressive). "The blast doors were up! If I hadn't closed it, what would've happened, Miranda? What would have happened if that thing had decided to try to bust in? Too close for sheilds to activate? Just because that glass can take small meteoroid doesn't mean a geth prime can't blast it's way in!"

"Ya shoulda done the control chip thing!" Shepard taunted. Miranda glared at her.

"Are you ever going to get over that?" The biotic asked, as if it were a serious question. It was answered by several variations of 'no'.

"It's not something that can be gotten over." Crow adds quietly, thinking about hostile hands clutching his Ghost and putting unwelcome things in him for the sake of control. Miranda turns to fix him with that look, and his stomach clenches; the narrowing of her eyes, and the blue of them, are suddenly too much like Spider's.

"You stay out of this!" She snaps. He barely manages to choke off the 'yes, Baron' that nearly escapes his mouth, and the mess is somehow darker than it was before. His blood is roaring in his ears, and whatever Miranda snaps at Joker next, he doesn't really hear it. His shirt is tight around his neck, there isn't enough air, and he gives in to the desire to vanish and run to the med bay. Glint blacks out the window, and Crow tries to loosen his collar but it still feels like he's suffocating. Suddenly, even the med bay doesn't feel safe.

"Easy, Crow, just sit down and relax." Glint urges. He wants to hide in the pipe room, temporary and fickle island of safety though it was, out of Spider's way, even though Spider isn't here. He stumbles into the AI Core and manages to tuck himself between the servers before he gets too dizzy. It's not the pipe room, but it reminds him of it so much that he feels simultaneously safer and even less so.

"Focus on the Light and breath with it." His Ghost soothes, pulsing his own Light gently even as Crow clutches him desperately against his chest. "You're okay, just focus on me."

He tries, and gradually, it becomes easier. He breaths, and soon Glint encourages him to summon a flame and pulse his own Light, growing and shrinking the fire in time with each breath. It's the first exercise in control a young Lightbearer learns, and soon he's lost in the familiar, calming rhythm of it. His heart stops pounding, and breathing becomes easier. Glint settles on his left knee.

"It's been a long time since that happened." His Ghost comments softly. "Can you recall what started it?"

"Miranda. I think." He admits, training his focus on the fire. The incident was still too close. "That look."

"Okay." His companion nods. "Let's just stay in here a bit longer, away from drama."

Crow really wishes there was somewhere truly private to hide.

Things stayed strange over the course of the next few days; or rather, they continued to be what Crow was beginning to think of as the Normandy's approximation of normal. When Crow had finally felt in control enough to leave the AI core, it had been to find Garrus and Shepard embracing and weeping in the med bay.

Neither of them felt like communicating as to why.

He had the feeling that their drunken selves didn't know either, and he beat a hasty retreat back into the AI core, this time to hide from the awkwardness of the situation. He wound up falling asleep on the floor watching cat vids, only to be woken by an irate Dr. Chakwas, who pulled an emergency cot out of the med bay wall and all but ordered him to sleep on it(the other beds were occupied by drunks and Tali). She also had him drink chamomile tea, and she was so intense in her care he dared not refuse(it helped that the tea was actually good). Apparently, EDI had snitched about his panic attack.

When morning came, it was to the sound of vomiting ripping him out of a nightmare about frozen nasturtium, and he spent the remainder of the day surrounded by rumors about why Shepard and Garrus were getting semi-along again. Even when Jacob was going through operational procedures with him, there were theories. If questioned, all the two might answer with was 'what happened on the Alarai, stayed on the Alarai.' Personally, Crow thought it was because Tali was having a bad time, not that he was an expert on friendships; his only friend was Glint, and that was hardly a wide range of study. If Glint was feeling down, an interesting pebble could cheer him up, but Tali had lost a family member, and nearly her home as well.

Still, the three seemed to be sticking oddly close together, and Joker was keeping a close but eager eye on them, clearly hoping the peace would last and that he could give command back to Shepard. From what Crow heard, things remained stilted when Tali wasn't around, but there was now hope for peace, and for that he was glad. This reality was ripe with drama, but he'd prefer to deal with said dramas one at a time, and it seemed like Joker had gone to war with EDI and Miranda.

One couldn't be in the same room as the other without an argument, aparently, and Crow tried to avoid being near the battlefield as best he could. It was a minefield of viscous questioning of authority and sarcastic comebacks. Despite Shepard making clear multiple times that the pilot was in charge, Miranda found some way to slip in less than flattering opinions of his leadership, most of them centered around the burrito incident.

In turn, once, he made equally unflattering comparisons to politicians who couldn't let anything go, which in turn led to comments about his recent stint as Tali's lawyer. All around, it was chaotic, even if Miranda was ultimately doing the work she'd been assigned as punishment. Unfortunately, this made her hard to avoid, but Crow found ways to manage it.

It took three days of this behavior until the workaholic Shepard got an itchy enough trigger finger to consult Joker about responding to one of the Illusive Man's requests. Aparently he unncerimoniously handed her back command of the ship and went to get a coffee in response. Crow was there when Donnelly questioned this decision, and Joker responded by telling him that he wanted nothing to do with anymore overlords.

This confused Crow until the squad was called to the debriefing room, at which he had to be reminded that he was, technically, part of the ground unit since Jacob had been giving him lessons in procedure, squad tactics, and other things that he had only been able to wrap his head around because of the man's patience. It was the first time he'd seen the entire unit in one room outside of the drill they had done. He planted himself nervously next to Thane, and Grunt decided to move seats and plop down at his other side.

"Did you try the noodles?" The young krogan asked, startling him slightly.

"Um, yes." He had to be referring to their recent lunch break.

"And?" Grunt pressed.

"They were a little spicy, I guess."

"Alright people, listen up!" All heads snapped in Shepard's direction. A planet appeared on the table's projector. "Aite. Air safe, temperature safe, gravity low and plagued by frequent earthquakes no matter where you go. The largest moon is in unstable orbit, so that's what you can blame if we experience one. Despite the violent locals and disruptive celestial bodies, Cerberus set up shop here for Project Overloard."

She took a troubled-sounding breath. "Unfortunately, that's all we're being given. There are several stations to the operation, but we're going to make entry at the main facility. The only other detail we know is that there's volatile technology involved. Joker is going to take us in as close as he can, we'll split into teams as needed, we'll be going over who and how in a moment. There are hammerheads on-site if we need to move in on the other locations."

"This will be the first time having everyone on the ground at once. This is a test run, I want you each at your best, I want to see what you do when the stakes are laid down." She paused, before deciding to look directly at him. "Crow, Chakwas says she's confident you can operate with certain conditions. You've only had one drill with us, but we've had less time with others in a pinch, and we need to get you used to working with us. Think you're up to rolling with us for this one?"

Half of him screamed 'no', but he was a Hunter who'd been cooped up in a space ship for nearly two weeks, he wanted to do more to repay them for letting him stay, and Grunt's eager nudge was the final push needed to get him over into 'yes' territory. Hopefully he wouldn't regret it.

"Yes." It was just volatile technology, hopefully it wouldn't be too bad.

Chapter Text

Warning: This chapter contains spoilers for the Overlord DLC.

According to the codex he'd been researching when he wasn't learning about other thing or helping Dr. Chakwas, the Kodiak could uncomfortably seat up to twelve operators and two pilots. This did not take into account the presence of a teenage krogan or a heavily-armored turian who, quite frankly, was all elbows.

"Garrus, a little bit forward, will you?" Thane asked politely. Tali yelped when he did so; one of his ankle spurs had caught on her leg and nearly tripped her, and she grabbed Massani's face by accident trying to keep balance.

"Sorry, Tals."

"Get your bloody fingers out of my eye!"

"Lord of hunters, grant me patience."

"Shepard!"

"Anyone else hungry?"

"A little." Crow admitted to the last voice, who happened to be Grunt. He was partly the reason some people had to stand instead of sit.

"I know this isn't ideal, just hold it together a little longer." The Commander reassured. "Crow, hydrate."

Dr. Chakwas' conditions for him to go into the field turned out to be 'constant hydration' with the same kind of electrolyte drinks the biotics were packing, and if the mission took more than two hours and there was an opening to pack down a protein bar, he was to take it. Strangely, she had fussed over him until it was time to load up; it had reminded him of Glint, somewhat.

"We aren't on the ground yet." He pointed out. "I drank before we left anyhow."

"Good, just keep it up. And if you feel off-"

"I'll tell you, I know." He shifted uncomfortably in his seat. Why did they fuss so much? From Glint it made sense, but he hadn't known Commander Shepard or Dr. Chakwas long.

"Commander, we're nearing the landing zone, and I'm getting a transmission from the main facility." their pilot, whom Crow was not familiar with, announced. Shepard dismissed herself to join him in the cockpit, and the shuttle continued rattling as they made their descent. The rest of the team remained awkwardly silent, and Crow tried to calm his nerves with the match-three game Glint had gotten himself addicted to on the omni-tool.

"Hey, what's your favorite food?" Grunt suddenly prompted as he made a bad match. A massive elbow to the side made him realize he was the one being questioned.

"Um... I don't know." again, his standard for food had been 'edible', and not much else, until now. "The potatoes, I guess."

"I like spicy noodles." the krogan stated. Crow nodded awkwardly.

"Sounds nice." he commented, at a loss for what else to say.

"You should try them." Grunt told him. To his relief, Shepard chose that moment to reappear. He turned his game off.

"Okay, so it looks like what we've got here is a 'catastrophic VI breakout'. Our first order of business is to deactivate all transmission capabilities at the main facility before this thing breaks out into the extranet. There are geth on-site, and our inside man has neglected to mention why, but he did tell me that this VI is somehow controlling them, so keep your eyes sharp." She briefed, running a hand through her hair before realizing she had pulled it out of it's tie.

"But, that's impossible." Tali stated as the Commander pulled her hair loose and re-did it. "Geth can't be hacked like that, not even by the most advanced cyberwarfare VI's; I should know, my drone is programmed with some of the most aggressive anti-geth software I could make and find."

"Maybe it isn't a VI." Glint pointed out. Everyone in the shuttle looked at him, and the Ghost backed towards Crow's hood a little. "Just saying, if a VI can't do it, maybe it isn't a VI."

"Then why would our guy say it is?" Jacob challenged.

"He's got a point." Shepard shrugged. "It could be a lie, you know; trying to cover up another great Cerberus fuck-up."

"Language." Glint whispered, so only Crow could hear. He'd convinced his Ghost to stop yelling it, particularly in already tense situations, but after several centuries, saying it was entirely compulsive.

"It's a little soon to be judging so harshly, isn't it?" Miranda tried to point out. After his episode the other day, he still found her unsettling. "We don't know what's happening, you can't be so sure that it's a lie; or that this isn't a rogue cell. You never know with these situations."

"Right, because all of Cerberus' fuck-ups are because of rogue cells. I forgot." the Commander deadpanned.

"Landing in thirty seconds, all hands brace." their pilot had really good timing, Crow decided. Everyone did just that, though some of the people who had to stand threated to fall over when they touched down.

"Charlie, break off and secure the landing site. Everyone else, with me." Shepard ordered as the doors opened. Most of the mission prep for this operation had involved sorting out who went with who in the event that a break-off was needed. Shepard led Alpha, with, aside from herself, consisted of Miranda, Kasumi, and Zaeed. Garrus, if need be, would break off into 'Bravo', with Jack, Mordin, and Samara following him. Jacob, for 'Charlie', got Thane, Grunt, Tali, and Crow himself.

"Roger that." Jacob saluted once he was standing free of the seat restraints.

"Move out, people, let's see what this team can do." Shepard rallied, motioning for them to file out in an orderly conduct.

It wasn't orderly; Jack shoved Miranda out the door and called her something that nearly made Glint forget his new resolution about yelling 'language', and Grunt tripped and crashed into Thane when his turn came. Mordin's commentary about social hierarchy didn't help, and Crow could see Shepard regretting her decision. He tried to give her an encouraging smile as he passed, but was afraid it came out more like a pained grimace, as he'd never needed to encourage someone before(Glint was never a pessimist),thus making the problem worse.

It was a not-so-great start, compounded by Jack and Miranda arguing again when Shepard tried to rally her squad into formation. It was like watching a slow-motion sparrow crash, and even Shepard's 'military' yelling didn't seem to fix it completely. I get the feeling we're going to run more drills after this.

"All right, Thane, find a vantage for over watch, radio me your location when you're done. Tali, you're with me; Crow, Grunt, take the north perimeter. Make sure we don't have any guests trying to sneak up on us."

"Okay." he tried to swallow his nerves; being alone with a practical stranger wasn't an idea practice on the Shore, and though he did know Grunt better than he did others on the crew at this point, it was still an unsettling concept. He readied Hawkmoon, and, Jacob hesitated, frowning.

"How much ammo do you have for that?" He asked. "You do realized we don't have a way to get you more?"

"Glint makes my ammo from raw materials." I though I already mentioned this? Apparently not, it seemed.

"He can?" The other man raised an eyebrow. "Okay, then, as you were."

"Come on!" Grunt urged less politely, tugging his cloak with enough force that it nearly knocked him over. Grunt wasn't a very gentle individual, he was learning. He recovered, and made to keep pace with the overexcited krogan. At least the view is nice. And what a view it was.

Aite was about as alien as you could get, with grand, strange rock formations arcing overhead, lush fields filled with strange insects, and the sound of distant, outrageous waterfalls echoing all around them. Grass brushed his boots, and the wind blew in his face, carrying the distinctive smell of mountain air, with just a hint of sulfur. The gravity was a little bouncy, but it was manageable with a personal mass effect field, which was among the things Shepard had made him gear up with.

He still didn't see the point in wearing a shield modulator when his Light and Glint would be keeping on top of things.

A particularly strong gust of wind hit his face, and he let himself close his eyes and drink in the sensation for a moment. It's nice to be in the wilds again, even if it's only for a moment. He was glad he'd listened to the Hunter half of his brain and agreed to do this, it felt like he was...

Decompressing? Was that the word Chakwas had used? Or was it de-stressing? Either way, it felt good, and he hadn't felt good in a long while.

"Don't tell me wind is what gets your blood pumping." Grunt decides to interrupt his moment of bliss. He opens his eyes with a sigh. Well, I suppose I do have a job to get to. Still, he wouldn't mind enjoying this a little longer. Maybe if the mission went well, Shepard would let him have a quick wander? If anything, he wanted some alone time with Glint to discuss their situation where EDI couldn't hear them, and there were some... Uldren-related things he needed to get off his chest, now that he's had some more time to process that particular truth.

"I'm a Hunter." He scans the horizon for anything that resembles the geth he's seen pictures of. "Our place is the wilds."

"I don't get it." The young krogan grumbles.

"I like being outside." Crow simplifies, pausing mid-step when he notices vehicles covered and tucked against the outside wall. He taps his comments. "Taylor, we found the hammerheads a few meters from the landing zone, no sign of geth so far. Should we prep them?"

"Not unless Alpha says we need them. Carry on." comes the gruff response.

"Yes, sir." I should have thought of that. Idiot! If everything went well this would end with Shepard retracting that giant transmitter he had seen.

The transmitter chose to do just that as he and Grunt reached the back end of their route.

"Grunt, Crow, be advised; I can no longer see you." Thane warned over their comms.

"Consider us advised." Grunt... grunted, as they looked towards the dish. "Guess that's that, then-"

The dish came to a sudden, screeching halt, the raucous noise harsh against Crows ears. Grunt made a displeased noise and tried to cover his ears.

"You just had to jinx it." He tries to lighten the mood in the face of this setback; it usually seemed to work when Joker did it.

"Ha! More like good luck. We might actually get to fight something now!" The krogan declares happily, turning on the spot with strange ferocity in order to face the rolling field beyond, as if expecting geth to pop out of the grass. "Let them come!"

Crow follows him as he retraces their patrol pattern, at a loss for how to deal with a bloodthirsty reptilian teenager who wasn't getting the robot carnage he'd been hoping for.

"Crow, update." Jacob's voice demanded.

"Still no sign of geth, but Grunt is getting a little antsy." He informs his team leader, frowning at the young krogan's retreating back. The last thing he wanted to be on the receiving end of was a krogan itching for a fight. He tries to remind himself of Shepard's 'no killing Crow' rule, a reminder he's gotten better at giving himself since his meltdown in the AI core, but his brain still sees 'big angry lizard', so of course it keeps telling him 'danger'.

"Try telling him about your enemies. Loves hearing about other people's enemies, usually settles him down. Just don't slack off your watch." The human suggests.

"Okay, thanks." I'm not sure I have enemies, though. Not personal ones, at least... "Hey, uh, Grunt. There's a race of incredibly destructive time-traveling robots where I'm from, wanna hear about them?"

This was how Crow wound up spending the next hour telling Grunt about the Vex. Well, mostly stuff that Osiris had told him about the Vex. Their time-manipulation teleportation abilities, their machinoforming, their giant simulation engines-

"Yeah, yeah, but how do you kill them?" Grunt interrupted his explanation of the Infinite Forest and what it's purpose had been.

"Well, they've got these... juice boxes in their abdomens, at least most of them do. It's this glowing white thing, filled with their radiolaria." He described as they came around the hammerheads again.

"What's that, and can you kill them with it?" The krogan asked. Crow resisted the urge to sigh.

"Their mind fluid. You shoot it, and most of them will just collapse on themselves." Glint told him from his perch on Crow's head. "But not all of them have a juice box, so you go for the eye. Harpies and hydras are like that, harpies are just these floating, spinning things, but hydras are giant floating things with spinning shields, so you have to wait for a gap in them to shoot it."

"Are there any really big ones?" Grunt's eyes seemed to shine.

"I heard there's something called a gate lord, they're supposed to be pretty big." He racked his brain for any other knowledge on big Vex. "Taller than out shuttle is long, I think."

"That sounds about right, though I've never seen one myself." Glint comments.

"What's the biggest Hive you've fought?" The krogan suddenly asks, veering shocking far off-topic. In his minds eye, the Celebrant looms against the backdrop of The Howling, blade raised to sweep his legs out from under him, breaking them so the massive creature can throw him into the unforgiving wind in hopes that he would fall through the maddening abyss forever. He swallows hard, and forces his legs to keep moving.

"There was one I fought right before coming here." He admitted. "About as big as those YMIR's I've been learning about. We tracked it through the Ascendant Plane, but it had a way to open portals through that realm in order to escape if it was attacked."

"Ha, coward." Grunt scoffs. "Did you kill it?"

"I didn't, someone else did. I used my Light to sense where the next portal would open, and I blocked off it's means of escape." He gripped Hawkmoon tighter; he really didn't want to think about what had followed.

"Interesting." Thane's voice mused through comms.

"Thane? You were listening?" He hadn't thought his comms were on. "Glint?"

"They said they were bored." His shell shifts in an approximation of a shrug.

"They?" He queries.

"Most of us were listening." Tali admits.

"Yeah, there's not a lot to do out here. Not like we wouldn't see a geth coming from miles off if they decided to attack from this end." Jacob chips in. Crow feels his face heating up. He wasn't sure whether to be embarrassed, uncomfortable, grateful that the others hadn't interrupted with the frequency Grunt had, or regret the fact he'd had an audience and neglected to make the story more exciting, despite the painful memories attached to it. Alpha team decided to save him.

By blowing up the transmission dish.

He and Grunt rushed to the best vantage point available when an explosion shook the air from that direction. The dish was folding, wavering, and exploding. Finally, it collapsed into a heap, not unlike a Vex with it's juice box shot out.

"Oh dear." Glint flits about his shoulders. "I hope they're okay over there."

"Pha, it'll take more than that to kill Shepard." Grunt scoffs.

"There's other people over there, you know." His Ghost points out.

"All Charlie elements, we're getting those hammerheads ready, and regrouping with Alpha inside the facility afterwards." Jacob orders.

"Is everyone okay?" Crow asks, unsure of how to respond if everyone isn't okay.

"Alpha reports a few bruises, but no casualties. They're fine." Their leader assures. "Oh, and Shepard says to hydrate."

"Told you so." Grunt tips his chin up triumphantly. Crow just sighs, and drinks his electrolyte stuff, grateful that he won't have to deal with a crew death, and all the emotions that might go with it, on top of the rest of the drama aboard the Normandy. That, and the realization that he didn't know any of the crew particularly well enough to feel properly sad if they died bothered him a little. It would have been awkward around the rest of them at best, while they tried to mourn and he tried to act appropriately downcast about someone he'd only known for a couple of weeks at best, with minimal or non-existent interaction between them...

"Let's um, let's just get those hammerheads ready." He tears his eyes away from the dust and smoke rising from the wreckage of the transmission dish, and gets to work. If they needed the hammerheads, things were about to get serious. Commander Shepard had been incredibly generous, sharing her ship, her clean water, her food with him, and thus far had given no sign of turning that into Spider-like 'generosity'.

Time to prove I'm worth the trouble.

Getting the hammerheads ready was easier said than done, apparently. Someone had dumped the fuel in all of them and removed the navigation VIs, perhaps to prevent them from being taken over the VI that had gone rogue. Crow decided not to point out that the geth could have just replaced both, if the VI had decided it needed the vehicles, and was glad he did so; they found the body of the man who presumably had done the work splayed out near the nose of one of the hammerheads, his face nothing more than a boiled dent in his head from geth plasma rifles.

This discovery sparked another task, one that Crow was actually used to; removing the dead. Spider used to have him remove corpses and docked limbs regularly, before he decided his pet Lightbearer was best used elsewhere. The only difference was that those corpses had usually been eliksni, and though he had seen plenty of dead corsairs scattered across the Shore, he's never had to touch a humanoid corpse before.

It was like his first human kill, back on Eden Prime. It's easier when they don't look like you. He tried to avoid looking at their faces, or in some cases, like the man behind the hammerheads, lack thereof. He tried even more not to wonder if this would be easier if he'd had a fireteam, in which one probably gained experience in dragging human corpses, though in that case it was usually to cover so Ghosts could rez.

He tries not to be bothered by the way he feels the dead muscles shift as he grips them, the click of stiff tendons and bones. He finds himself being subconsciously careful with them, even though they're dead and can't feel pain anymore.

"Anybody else hungry?" Grunt announces as Crow and Shepard heave a particularly tall man into a Cerberus casket, which would be prepped for transport via another vessel once the VI was taken care of.

"Grunt, I've told you once," she grunts as they drop the man in, and Crow tries rearrange his limbs, which are in sickening disarray, "I've told you twice. It's inappropriate to say that around sapient corpses."

The man's limbs are uncooperative, and Shepard stays his hand at another attempt. "Nothing we can do about rigor mortis, Crow."

"Why did this happen? " he asks as they close the casket, unable to think of anything else to say. All these people were dead, but why?

"I plan on finding out." She tells him grimly, before studying his face. "Take a break, go help with the hammerheads or walk the perimeter."

"Yes ma'am." He couldn't leave fast enough, and he decides to walk the perimeter so he can be alone. His mouth feels dry, but when he opens the canteen, he feels like he might be sick if he tries to swallow something.

"You okay?" Glint asks materializing and bumping his shoulder. "I know how much you hated cleaning bodies back on the Shore."

"They were never human, though." He pointed out, putting the canteen away. "It's harder."

"I know." His Ghost sighs, and it occurs to him that Glint has probably seen more bodies, in varying states of decay, than he ever will.

"Were you... did you ever find any that bothered you, as a stray?" He asks hesitantly. Glint doesn't talk much about the rougher parts of his seeking days, and Crow can't blame him; from what he has heard, being an unbonded Ghost sounded like the most dangerous, lonely existence imaginable.

"There were some... more memorable ones." Glint admits slowly, shell shifting slightly. "Especially after the major battles, a lot of us helped search for survivors. It was hard, at the start, when we finally realized we were being drawn to bodies and why. You... you won't get used to it, Crow. You can develop a stronger stomach, but you won't get used to it."

"I... I understand." He looks out at Aite's landscape, taking in the wind that is, thankfully, not blowing the scents of death towards him, and a new question lingers on his tongue. He hesitates, not sure if if he wants to open a conversation about Uldren yet, but ultimately he takes the plunge. "How did he die? The um, the other me. If you can remember that is, it's okay if you don't."

His Ghost sort of freezes, and regards him a few moments before speaking. "I think whoever killed him was doing him a mercy, to be honest. He was all kinds of messed up on the inside, it would've taken him hours to die, and it would have been painful. But someone shot him right in the heart, and it was definitely the cause of death."

"Okay." Is all Crow can say to that, at least now, out loud. What else could he say? That Uldren should have been left to die that slow, awful death? That he couldn't believe that the trigger was pulled out of kindness? Ask his Ghost if he knew who in their right mind would have tried to put the body through proper Awoken rites after all the pain and misery Uldren had-

Wait a minute. It suddenly occurred to him, that in all his avoidance of thinking about Uldren all the bitterness he felt towards the truth, he'd overlooked a very important factor of his past life.

"I have a sister?" He blurts out, unable to contain how surprising and strange the concept is.

"Um, yeah." Glint confirms. "Did you hit your head?"

"No, I just, I haven't though a lot about... that bit." He admitted. "Just the parts where he killed everyone."

His Ghost sighed. "I guess I can't blame you for it. We have had a lot on our plates recently."

"Why would she try to bury him with full rites, after all he did?" He can't wrap his head around it. She has to have been the one who did it, he certainly can't picture the Awoken people honoring the man who killed their families. But he could have started a war with the Last City by killing the Hunter Vanguard, and he had gone straight from that to slaughtering his people and tearing what was left of the Queendom from the Taken and Red Wars into shambles.

"He was her brother." His Ghost shrugged. "She must have still loved him."

"Then why did we never hear about a search for a missing body?" Surely, if the Queen loved her brother enough to want to bury him after all he did, she would have been apoplectic when someone told her the body was gone.

"I don't know, Crow." Glint settled on his shoulder. "Try not to dwell too deeply on it, there are questions we can no longer expect to find answers for, not with the way home gone."

Crow takes a deep breath of fresh air. He's right. They were stuck here, and any answers he might crave, be that now or any time, were so far away, he should never expect to see them. He could spend the rest of his life wondering, asking himself all the 'whys' and the 'why nots', trying to comprehend the thought processes of individuals he would never meet, trying to reconcile the truth with everything he had ever heard about the Traitor Prince, and he would never be satisfied. All he would ever get was endless hurt and frustration.

Glint was right. But that didn't make it any easier.

So he kept walking, trying to stop thinking about corpses, Uldren, and sisters whose intentions and personality he would wonder about for the rest of his life. He tried to tap into his inner Light instead, trying to listen to the surrounding world as only a Hunter could. He tried to prompt the void to sharpen his senses; Glint said that skilled Nightstalkers used the void to help sense hostility and movement, making them even more difficult to sneak up on than normal Hunters.

He was starting to feel something approaching to his right when said something decided to speak and break his concentration.

"Walking with ones eyes closed is generally regarded as unwise by most." It was Thane, and Crow held back a frustrated huff. He'd been close to understanding the technique for the first time since he'd heard of it.

"I was trying to focus on the void." He explained, shuffling his feet and trying not to sound rude.

"My apologies for interrupting." The drell tips his head. "I noticed you looked troubled, and wondered if you needed an ear."

"I talked to Glint about it." He's unsettled slightly that he's so transparent, and finds it odd that Thane would offer to hear any sort of his problems. While he could admit he felt more comfortable around the drell than others(aside from Dr. Chakwas), he still didn't know him that well.

"And do you still wrestle with the issue?" The assassin inquired, motioning to indicate they should walk as they spoke. Crow tries to squash his discomfort, and follows.

"I just... need to process, is all." He admits. "Glint says I'll be able to stomach it in time. Moving bodies, I mean."

"Ah. It is hard the first few times." Thane nods. "Personally, I came to see it as a comfort, even with my own victims. Arranging a body may not seem like a mercy to the living, but the indignity of death is lessened for every man and woman you have put in those caskets today. They will be brought home, unfed upon by whatever nature would have brought, and their families will find measures of peace for it."

"I guess." And I had just managed to put corpses out of my mind. But Thane was just as right as Glint was, wasn't he? He hadn't really considered the things the drell was talking about; when a body was moved on the Shore, it was never out of respect or a need for peace, it was always about moving the corpse so it didn't get in the way or attract feral war beasts. Crow had only asked 'what about the family' once, and Spider had made it clear he would never bother entertaining such witless questions again. "I'll try to keep that in mind, I suppose."

"Of course." The drell nodded. "Now, tell me of this 'void' you spoke of?"

Chapter Text

When they were recalled to the landing zone, it was to find all the caskets lined up neatly. There was blood and gore all over from some of the messier deaths they'd had to move, and the sight reminds him of a freshly-used Crucible arena; lots of violent aftermaths, but no bodies to go with them. Shepard had the team gathered near the hammerheads, himself and Thane being the last ones to join.

"Okay that's everybody." She started. She looked particularly angry. "I've just come from debriefing Dr. Archer, and we have a way to stop this thing. We're dealing with a hybrid intelligence; a man plugged in to a VI. He's holed up in Atlas station, south from here, and in order to get to him, we need to cancel the station's lockdown. It can only be done from Vulcan and Prometheus stations, and their staff is dead as well. We're splinting into three teams, Bravo will take Prometheus, and Charlie will take Vulcan. Alpha will infiltrate Atlas the moment you two deactivate your lockdown sequences."

"Vulcan is geothermal plant. Charlie can expect intense heat and dangerous terrain, I want Thane at the wheel." Jacob opened his mouth to protest, but Shepard cut him off. "He has the most experience driving the hammerhead, thanks to everyone's incredibly positive opinions on my driving skills."

"What driving skills?" Tali asks innocently, and the Commander shoots her a brief scowl as a few of the crew snicker.

"Yeah, laugh it Tals. Charlie, I expect constant updates, we know how these things have finicky environment controls, the last thing we need is someone stroking out on us. Bravo will be fighting geth. Prometheus is a downed ship stuffed with dormant geth that could be taken over at any time." She looks like she's trying to fight off a headache. "In fact, I'm pretty sure anything can be taken over at any time. Tali, Mordin, I want you to build some firewalls in those hammerheads, the biggest fucking firewalls you can build."

"I have anti-geth software that should help." Tali says, before going after Mordin, who had started walking the moment Shepard uttered his name.

"Given the volatile nature of this thing, I want all lockdown sequences hit at once." Shepard continues, swaying as if she wants to pace but thought it a poor idea. "Alpha will breach immediately afterwards, hopefully giving Overlord no time to counteract and reinitiate the lockdown, if it's able to. There's likely hacked defense turrets on the route to each station, so whoever you put on the gun needs to keep their eyes sharp and their trigger finger fast. These things are a bitch to fight in."

"It's literally called Overlord?" Garrus pips up. "Joker's going to have a field day."

"I'll put that fire out when I get to it." Shepard states dryly. "Everyone check your gear and be ready. We're moving out as soon as Tali and Mordin finish. Crow?"

"Yeah?" Whatever she needed, he had no doubt he could do it; being out in the open air again, he felt electrified, like his Light itself was eager for something to do.

"Hydrate."

Of course it's that

Things get a little complicated before they even start the hammerhead. They had the biggest team, and they also had Grunt. This led to some passive-aggressive jostling for the passenger seat, and once that was taken, a brief argument over who got to sit in the turret, both of which Crow tried to say out of by just sitting quietly and waiting for them to finish. Thane solved the problem by making him sit in the turret.

"But he's never fired the gun!" Grunt complained as Crow awkwardly squeezed into the gunner seat.

"Jacob taught us." Glint beeps, trying to be helpful.

"But he's never actually fired it." Jacob counters unhelpfully. "You know how chaotic this thing is to drive, all that motion. It can catch you off-guard if you aren't used to it."

"Hunter combat is all about perpetual motion." Crow defends, unsure where his bravery is coming from. This would be over sooner if he kept his mouth shut, wouldn't it? "Running, airborne, sliding, falling, you have to be able to shoot during all of it."

"It's this or let Grunt on again, and I would prefer to avoid a repeat incident." The drell reasoned. "Tali, please continue monitoring for Overlord interference."

It was clever way to end the matter, but it didn't stop Tali from grumbling under her breath, or Grunt from crossing his arms and refusing to put on his restraints, which caused ten more minutes of arguing until Shepard marched over from Alpha's hammerhead and ordered him to wear them. Crow spent this time with his eyes shut, chin resting on the cannon sights, trying to block out the sounds and focus on the void again.

It all became faded background, until Shepard slammed the door shut and broke his concentration.

Grunt engaged his restraints with more grouching about not being able to fire the cannon, and soon they were off. He tried not to think about how stuffy and confining it is in here compared to the open air he'd left behind. His conversation with Thane had been a little more pleasant once all talk of corpses had been dismissed. He'd proven strangely insightful about attempting to tap into the void, with suggestions such as getting more in touch with his Hunter side by imagining himself in the wilds next time he tried to tap into that end of the Light on the Normandy. Meditation advice aside, it had actually felt... good, to talk about the void with someone.

Thane had also asked questions about Hunters in general. What made them different from the other classes, how the Light enhanced them, their ways. Crow had only been able to tell him what Glint had passed down, which was probably not everything he would like to know himself. There were things he probably could only learn from another Hunter; he knew about Vows, how important they were, that there were many to be had. The cloak Vow, Glint had told him, involved taking up the cloak of a fallen friend and swearing a promise by it; usually the promise was for revenge, but it could also be for something else. Perhaps to complete a task the dead had left unfinished, or some other such thing.

But what of other Vows? Things like swearing fealty to a cause, a pack or fireteam? What did he himself do in the face of receiving such promises? Was he supposed to do something? Say something? What did he do? He would probably never know. Even if he had access to another Hunter, it wasn't like they would teach him anything, if the Wolf was anything to go by.

As it stood, there were probably a myriad of ceremonies and traditions that he would never know the details for, but it had been surprisingly refreshing to talk about what little he knew for certain. He wouldn't mind talking to the drell about it again, even.

The hammerhead started moving, jerking him out of his thoughts. It was... far more disorienting than Jacob had made it out to be. The vehicle moved via mass effect generators, so initially he'd thought it would move more like a sparrow. In retrospect, he hadn't ridden many sparrows in his lifetime, just clunky, raggedy pikes, which handled much differently due to their weight.

So he couldn't be too good of a judge, given he'd only seen sparrows driven by others and with decent skill, but the hammerhead moved like a sparrow at coasting speed driven by a one-eyed, one-armed drunk, even with Thane at the wheel. Everyone in the cabin swayed a bit with every movement, and when they encountered their first bit of resistance, Crow was feeling a little nauseas, which he personally thought of as a testament to how unpleasant this all was; he hadn't been motion sick a day in his life, not even the first time he transmatted.

"Crow, immediately to out twelve and 2 o'clock." He primed the gun, and tried his best to fend off his stomach. Hitting the enemy turrets was easy enough; as he'd told Thane, Hunter combat was all about keeping your target straight while moving. It was one of the few things Glint had been able to drill him for, out in the wilds; during the first year of his life, before Spider, the world had been their training ground.

The evasive maneuvers Thane put the hammerhead through were another story. He thought he even heard Tali groan once it was all done, and Crow could taste bile in the back of his throat.

"Is everyone good back there?" Thane asked once it was confirmed all hostiles were down. Crow didn't trust himself to open his mouth, lest something unpleasant take that as permission to eject itself from his body. He reached down from the turret and gave a thumbs up instead. Glint bumped his shoulder and gave him a disapproving look.

"No." Tali groaned. A retching noise came from the passenger seat, accompanied by the sound of a plastic bag. Glint floated down to do who knew what, while Crow pressed his face against the nice, cool cannon sights.

"Babies." Grunt commented as Glint returned to settle in Crow's lap with a plastic bag pinched between his nodes. Crow scowled at him, and he looked up at him with a beep, flaring his shell briefly. Damn it. That was too adorable to be mad at.

Glint always but on a kind front, but he got the feeling his Ghost was actually an evil mastermind.

"Just throw it out the hatch." Thane said, undoubtedly to Jacob. The hammerhead stopped moving so Jacob could do just that, but they were off again all too quickly.

"The inertial dampeners in this one leave much to be desired." the driver commented as they made their way through a rocky tunnel. Is it just me, or is it getting warmer? "Lets hope the heat shielding is better off."

"Charlie, report." Shepard's voice demanded from the hammerhead's radio.

"We're on approach to the geothermal plant." Jacob informed her. He still sounded a little ill. "We've had some problems with the inertial dampeners in this hammerhead, though."

"Bravo reported an issue with their left thruster, and our VI is online when it shouldn't be, keeps going on about data caches that the staff dropped when they were attacked." the Commander informed him. "Be advised, we're going to investigate. Check in when you reach Vulcan."

"Understood." Jacob grunted. The rest of the drive through the tunnels was only interrupted by a couple of LOKI mechs that Crow blew up with one shell. After that, Thane maneuvered them through the rocky terrain until they reached a venting station. At this point, Crow was trying his absolute hardest now to throw up, and due to debris blocking the usual way up, soon it became apparent that the only way to press forward was by riding an exhaust ejection.

That nearly did him in. The way it heated up the cabin despite the shielding didn't help. He was really considering opening that bag just in case. They were met with another turret, which was destroyed in short order, but then they saw their next obstacle.

"Shit." Jacob cursed.

"Language." Glint chided quietly, also examining the situation before them. It was a massive lava flow, broken up by obsidian chunks that crashed and cracked together like ice floes as the molten material made it's way along sluggishly.

"That stuff will melt us, shielding or not." Tali said. "But those rocks breaking it up might be put enough between us to work."

That did him in. At least he managed to open the bag in time.

"Damn it, Crow!" Jacob exclaimed. Glint made a confrontational buzzing noise, and, blood pounding, he shakily put a hand on his Ghost to stop him from saying anything they might both regret later. "We can't open the hatch out here!"

"Sorry." he mumbled. Of all the times his body could choose to fail on him.

"We'll have to move quickly, then." Thane said dryly. "Tie that bag off tightly, just set it under the seat for now and rehydrate."

Again, with the hydration! It was like everybody was channeling Glint, honestly. On the plus side, he felt somewhat better now that he'd let it out. With that nasty business taken care of, all they had to do now was cross an active lava flow.

"Brace yourselves." Thane warned as he brought the hammerhead closer. The hammerhead screeched a heat warning, and the air was becoming incredibly stuffy, making it feel like there wasn't any breathable air at all.

When Thane brought them across, it felt like he was boiling alive in his armor. Jacob cursed, Tali said that even her environmental suit couldn't keep her cool, and Glint phased, which could in itself stand as a testament to how hot it was; it took extreme temperatures to make even a Ghost uncomfortable.

Grunt just called them all babies again. Thane said nothing, probably choosing to concentrate on not getting them melted outright. The crossing took less than a minute, but it was probably the worst, most stressful thing Crow had experienced since the Celebrant tossed him. Each jump came with the possibility they would all die, and he wasn't entirely sure how Glint would be able to rez him from a melting wreck that was sinking into a lava flow, let alone how he might escape the situation if that were to happen.

They made it, though, and hopefully he wouldn't have to experience the stress of it again. The fact they had to ride another vent didn't help with their overheating problem. The vomit smell getting worse with the heat only added to Charlie team's overall misery.

The next problem was that, yet again, the way forward was blocked, but a vent workaround was feasible. Unfortunately, the vent wasn't active, but there was a waystation next to it that might be able to change that. The promise of possible temperature control wasn't a bad addition, so they pulled into the garage, and cracked open the hatch the moment the doors shut.

Crow grabbed the bag and, unable to find a trash can of any sort, just opted to leave it near one of the Cerberus rovers.

The facility had three LOKI mechs that never stood a chance, as in Crow only had to fire once and the thing was probably already dead by the time he hit it. After the area was cleared, Jacob sent Tali to hack into the controls with Grunt to guard her while the rest of them rested, hydrated, and put some hardtack on their stomachs. In Crow's opinion, the way was cleared a little too fast.

They were met with another turret station along the next path, immediately followed by-

"You have got to be kidding me." another lava flow. One once they were done with it, another after that. Crow didn't know what was worse, the possibility he might die from heat stroke for the first time, the fact that the others didn't have a Ghost if they did, or that they would have to do it again to return the way they came.

The moment they came out of the hammerhead at Vulcan, Glint got on him about hydrating again. It least it sounded normal coming from Glint.

"Alpha, this is Charlie, we've reached Vulcan station." Jacob raised Shepard on team comms once he seemed certain he wouldn't pass out. "We have a minor medical situation in relation to some crappy heat shielding on our hammerhead, we're charlie mike but a shuttle for exfil would be nice so we don't get cooked alive on the way back."

"I'll make it happen, Charlie. We're waiting at Atlas station, and in position to breach. Bravo had to fight their way into Prometheus, but they're in position to hit their override." The Commander told them. "Push on, Charlie."

"Alright, people, we're running behind, let's make this happen." he rallied them. Grunt threw up in response.

Tali called him a baby.

Thane just sighed and downed some more water.

Once Grunt was done throwing up, and the team was more or less recovered from their ordeal in the hammerhead, they moved on through the facility. Jacob had spent the last ten minutes pacing when he should have been sitting and drinking like the rest of them, and he was clearly glad to be moving on with the objective. Crow wondered if the biotic would be in trouble later for being so far behind the other teams in readiness; Shepard seemed fair, but it wasn't too far out to reason she might be upset at the delay. He hoped she wouldn't be too much so, since it wasn't really Jacob's fault.

They move in two-by-two with Grunt and Jacob up front, Crow with Tali behind, and Thane taking the rear. The first hall is clear of enemies, but when they try to press forward in the next room, a valve bursts near the stairs, blasting a canister over and nearly scalding Jacob.

The facility VI gives them a belated warning.

"Nice to know." Crow comments. Glint tentatively lets out a burst scan of their surroundings while Tali tries to trace the controls for the valve with her omnitool.

"I think I found the controls for that valve." his Ghost informs them, tipping his shell back the way they came. "And there's a lot of dormant mechs above us, I think."

"You think?" Tali questions harshly, though she moves in the direction Glint had indicated.

"I don't actually get that much information from burst scanning." His Ghost explains. "Plus, it's really warm in here, and I've never actually met a mech before."

"More than we knew a minute ago." Jacob shrugged. "Tali, you find it?"

"Yes." comes the irritated reply; she's set up at a console around the corner. Pipes hiss, and Crow fights back an unnatural panic that starts gripping chest. Glint nudges his shoulder with a small burst of Light before phasing.

"It's okay, this isn't the pipe room." he reminds him privately through their link. I know. Soon it was safe to pass, and true to Glint's word, there were mechs on the second level. Jacob called contact, and stunned the mechs with biotics while Grunt staggered them with his gun, and the rest of the team made entry behind them and made fore cover.

Jacob and Grunt finished off their mechs before the rest of them needed to step in, but more soon came. Crow struck true with a flaming knife as he moved to different cover, and the mech made a sputtering sound as it's chassis melted before collapsing.

"No explosives or headshots, the last thing we need in this place is for something to go boom." Jacob ordered from his own cover. He wasn't wrong; compromising those pipes could result in someone getting burned badly, even in armor. The potential for bullet holes was bad enough.

Drones come down, and he has to resist engaging them as he normally would harpies or shanks. It was the hardest part of this new reality; if he was going to fight alongside mortals, he had to fight like a mortal himself, which meant using cover as often as possible, fighting methodically instead of ending the conflict with a few careless grenades, and, of course, no running out to chase hostile flying objects just because he finds joy in dragging them from the sky before destroying them.

Then there was the whole teamwork thing. Tali and Thane spent their time taking down shields and calling enemy positions, respectively(he didn't see where Thane went to get his vantage point, the drell was simply there one moment and gone the next), only taking down targets occasionally as they left most of that to the other three.

Personally, he was a little happy to use Hawkmoon again. He had never really liked hand cannons, until he got this one. He'd noticed, every time he fired, that there was a strange, barely-audible sound not unlike a hawk's cry whenever a bullet left the chamber. The strange properties of it's material composition made it feel both cool and warm to the touch at all times, and there was something oddly comforting about the energies of the weapon itself. It built up some sort of Light-based paracausal charge with every bullet fired, before shoving all that stored power into the last round fired.

Whenever this energy built up, it felt like it was... in harmony with him, somehow. He couldn't explain it, it just felt... nice.

The drones were felled in seemingly no time at all, though their numbers were initially intense. Thane reappears as mysteriously as he'd left, Grunt cracked his knuckles and complained about how easy the fight had been, and Jacob urges them back into formation.

They move on, the smell of hot, decomposing human bodies assaulting them the whole way. Crow almost stops to drag one woman onto the floor; she was draped across the railing in a sickening, undignified way, but Thane stopped him.

"We'll come back for them later." the drell assured him, urging him along. "We must focus on other lives now, that have not yet been lost."

He was right, of course, but it still felt wrong. They soon discover a log by the station chief, and learn that he'd ordered his people to sabotage the station as best they could in an attempt to hinder Overlord.

They press on, and are met by more mechs in a room that, thankfully, has less piping. The downside?

He was meeting his first YMIR.

It really was roughly the size of some of the nastier Ascendant Knights, and it had the firepower to back this size up.

"Tali, strip it's shields." Jacob commands. "Thane, get those drone in back. Everyone else, cover them!"

Crow focuses on the LOKIs, while sticking close to Tali as she commands her drone through the battlefield. He thinks she must be very skilled, to get such an obvious target so close to something so big. Soon enough, the YMIRs shield are down, but it's getting uncomfortably close.

"Crow, Grunt, light that thing up!" their leader calls. Grunt lets out a battle cry, and Crow decides to take Jacob's order literally. he hasn't really cut loose with his Light since Eden Prime, and it's been itching to be used. He holsters Hawkmoon, and stokes his Light before sending it down his arms. He takes a final glance at the battlefield, marking his targets, before jumping out and letting a volley of fire loose in the YMIR's direction. The flaming knives hit, explode, and take half of it with them, so he send the second barrage at the remaining LOKIs in back.

He rolls back into cover, Light still eager for more, and takes up Hawkmoon again, trying to pick out any sounds of remaining hostiles as the sputtering of damaged mechs echoes alongside the aftermath of his powers. Nothing comes, and when he peeks out of cover, the squad is staring at him. Well, Tali and Jacob are staring at him, Grunt is pouting as he nudges the foot of the YMIR.

"Well... shit." Jacob says.

"I wanted that one!" the krogan declares, glaring at Crow and pointing at the YMIR. The awoken flushes.

"Sorry." Was that overkill? That might have been overkill.

"Ahem." Thane clears his throat. "The mission?"

"Yeah. Form up." Jacob orders, casting Crow one last, uneasy look. Why do I have the feeling I just made a mistake?

Chapter Text

When Charlie finally gave the ready mark, Shepard had half the mind to ask what had taken so long, before reminding herself that they had probably spent a short period trying to avoid heat stroke. They coordinated with Archer to activate the overrides all at once, and her team entered without a fuss. Bravo were set upon by geth the moment they hit their override, but all she could do for them was wish them luck; her own team had an objective to accomplish

It was when they first walked in the door that the real freak show started.

Overlord started off by playing research logs. Archer had conveniently forgotten to mention his brother was autistic. She wondered if Overlord knew that, if it was, in it's own way, trying to tell a story, trying to talk to them with something other than guns. With each log played, she found herself more and more certain that there was some kind of horror show waiting for them in the server room. She also couldn't help but think that it sounded like Archer barely knew his own brother.

Then came the elevator incident. Not the part where there was a Prime waiting to say hello; the thing that came after. She had never been particularly fond of those old horror movies Joker liked to watch, where terrible things happened in the elevator. This played out exactly like one of those scenes.

She could now say she'd survived a collapsing elevator on top of everything else.

Overlord's continuous shouting at them served to make things even more unsettling, and the way it kept messing with the doors just made her want to yell back. She'd just had a week from hell, and she didn't need all this technological frickery on top of it.

But all that was nothing compared to what it did next.

Ever since she woke up and learned what had happened to her, she had never been able to escape the doubt worming it's way through her mind that she was the real Commander Sierra Shepard. She would spend hours in the mirror, looking at the scars on her face where synth-tissue hadn't fully graphed itself yet, or poking and prodding at the similar ones all over her body, wondering how much of her was human.

Wondering exactly what she was, what Cerberus had put her in. They said she was no VI. They said she wasn't a clone. Miranda said they had forgone the control failsafe. They said she was herself, but there was that worm, wiggling away. It was part of the reason she'd asked Joker to take over if she started acting out, he and Chakwas were the only trusted faces around at the time. She had felt... a little saner, when Garrus came on board, but he'd had, and still had, his own problems to work out, and Tali was still dealing with watching that marine unit die, so Joker had stayed as the-for lack of a less ironic term- crutch in case something turned out to be wrong with her.

The idea that she might not be herself, that Miranda could be lying in any way, had dogged her in ways she didn't care to admit.

So when pain rushed though every neuron, when her limbs started moving of their own accord, the first thought she had was of course it wall all a lie. Her body threw her squad back biotically before staggering out the door. Her vision swam with a mix of reality and cybernetic oblivion. Phantoms walked the hall, but while they appeared to walk right in front of her, she was seeing them from all angles, like from a security feed. Every feed that had seen them, all at once.

She managed to wrest enough control to shoot at any geth that got in her way, but they all seemed strangely passive. More security videos, and her suspicions that Archer didn't know the first thing about David grew and solidified.

She watched as Archer dragged him around, almost frustrated at having to bring his brother into the lab with him. She didn't see why David was there, but at some point, David is watching geth code stream past on a computer screen. He glances around as if to make sure Archer doesn't see him, and then, fingers as much a blur as Joker's were in high-risk flight, the younger man responds.

It turns into a conversation. At some point Archer notices, stops the technicians from stopping David, who has long since stopped caring if anyone sees what he's doing; he seems to be enjoying what he's discovered. Archer demands his brother to translate. He does, nonchalantly, not noticing the gleam in the older man's eyes.

She watched as Archer demanded more of his brother; tell this geth to walk forward, tell this geth to walk backwards, tell this geth to self-destruct. She watches the autistic man grow increasingly frustrated at being told what to do, at being tugged from one task to another, having the equations he wanted to work on be erased and replaced with geth code his brother wanted him to analyze.

She watches as Archer suggests plugging him into the network directly in the morning, and David snaps. It's the only time she sees him say 'no', because even if he hadn't wanted to do geth code, it was still part of something he enjoyed.

Overlord is screaming at her to make it stop.

She feels rather than hears it detect the Normandy and prepare for transmission as it makes her stagger into the main server hub. The hell you will! She wars with her own body, her own mind, and manages to make herself shoot what she knows to be for some reason, the server boxes she knows contains the geth network Archer had set up.

Agony ripped through her whole body, and it was like someone else was creaming in her head. She blacks out, and when she comes to, and looks up, it's to see one of the worse violations of sapient rights she's ever born witness to in person. At least, inflicted upon one sapient by another; she's not sure if there's enough prothean in the Collectors left for them to be sentient without Reapers in their ears.

She had known that whatever they found would probably be bad, that Archer had been lying in some way. But this... this was sick in a way that couldn't be explained by anything. It would have still been sick if David wasn't his brother, it would have still been sick if he wasn't autistic, it would have still been sick if he was some random animal, but none of those things were the reality, and that makes it even sicker.

He was strung up like a marionette. Strings in his wrists and strings in his shoulders, strings in his eyelids, and going down his throat. They even pierce his skull so that his mind might bob up and down in whichever way Archer pleased. He dangles from them like the puppeteer has hung him up and abandoned him after one show gone bad, eyes cloudy with dust and half-death, skin pale porcelain cracked with strained veins where his strings were installed.

She throws up. Everything hurts. She thinks, he might have gained control using her cybernetics. She should radio Bravo, Garrus had Cerberus cybernetics in him, too. For a few minutes, all she can do is sit on the floor and heave. Her muscles keep spasming painfully, and she can't help but wonder if this is what having a seizure feels like.

She forces herself to her feet. She does it, nobody else. Her body is her own, her mind is her own. Her will is her own(at least, that what she'll keep telling herself). David is still breathing, one of those things must be a respirator. How much of this is life support, and how much of it is a torture machine? Could it be both, in a scenario like this?

"Shepard!" Goto, unsurprisingly, pops up first, seemingly out of nowhere, as usual. She grinds to a halt as she realizes there's a person attached to all those wires and tubes and instruments, says something in her native tongue that doesn't translate.

Miranda is next, and Zaeed soon follows with a litany of curses and ranting about this organization being full of psychopaths.

"Is he wrong, Miranda?" Shepard challenges. My will is my own. My will is my own.

"Of course he is." She snaps. "Just because one bad actor-"

"One? Because from where I'm standing, I've seen over half a dozen by now." Toombs, half-mad from torture and vengeance, thorian creepers tearing people apart, Rear Admiral Kahoku dead in a room full of rachni, and so many more. And Miranda Lawson still kept trying to justify it, like the true Cerberus believer she was. "I'm stopping this insanity. Bravo, do you read me?"

"We read you, Commander. Prometheus just self-destructed, but we're all accounted for." Garrus informed her.

"Any wounded?" she needed to be sure before she borrowed Mordin.

"A few dents and burns, but the only fatality is Jack's pride." Sounded about right.

"Get over to Atlas station, we need Mordin. Alpha's all good, Archer's brother isn't." they would need his medical and technical expertise in order to extract David from this... thing. She should probably bring Tali in from Vulcan as well, the rest of Charlie could gather the dead while they dealt with this.

"Commander Shepard!" Archer rushed in, looking frantic. He barely spared David a glance, homing in on her instead. He was the last person in the galaxy who should be standing in front of her right now. "Please, before you do anything rash-"

"Rash? Rash? Like stringing your own brother up like a butcher's cut rash? Plugging someone into a computer against their will kind of rash?" she challenged. Her every nerve was on fire with each movement, and her mind was a whirlwind of anger and horror as she shoved him against the wall by his coat collar. My will is my own. "How about putting a bullet in your head, that rash enough for you?"

"Shepard, we had to!" he gasped. "We needed results or the Illusive Man would cut our funding, we needed a way to control the geth. It may seem out of line now, but our children's children would have thanked us!"

"Thanked you? Let me assure you that if there's ever peace with the geth, your children's children will only look back on this with disgust." she spat. She had to fight her own muscles and tendons as they twitched and tried to jerk out of her control. "I'm going to make the whole galaxy know what you did here, what you did to your brother and the lives it cost. I'm going to make horrific acts of sapient experimentation your legacy, and nowhere you go will offer escape from it."

"Shepard, you can't do that!" Miranda interjected. "You can't leak Cerberus secrets to-"

"I can't? Watch me, asshole." The Alliance was going to get so many secrets they would have to fund a new branch specifically for analyzing them. "This is too far. If you're so willing to go so far for Cerberus, would you do this to your sister if they asked?"

"Shepard!"

"Would you?" she challenged. "She's perfect, just like you, but she isn't important to operations. They've spent so much money protecting her, why not get a little something out of it for once? Think of all the things Cerberus could use her for, Lawson. How fucking far would you go?"

"You leave her out of this!" the genetically perfect woman snapped.

"Commander, it's not like I planned this-" Archer tried to reason.

"Not like you- so you didn't plan that?" She started dragging him towards his brother. Zaeed was leaning against a wall, looking like he was enjoying himself, and Kasumi was exploring the systems locking David in place. "Look at him. You didn't plan to do that to your own brother? Tell me another lie, I dare you."

"Seeing him communicate with the geth, it all seemed harmless." He struggled in her grip, trying to avoid looking at his brother. "I was asked to avoid war! If my work prevented a million mothers mourning the loss of a millions sons, my conscience will rest easy."

"You're just a whole new kind of sick aren't you?" she threw him to the floor with disgust.

"I won't apologize for radical ideas; it was working! It could still work!" he protested. Shepard finds herself inexplicably reminded of history's demons, of those ancient scientists who invented the gas that Hitler used, or found out how to forcibly sterilize people. The inventors of the genophage and the like.

"Still work? How many people have already died for this?" Still work? As if she was letting this continue? As if any sane person would ever let this continue? "Let me tell you how this works; you opened up your own private hell, and I'm shutting it down. David will be safer with the Alliance."

"NO!" Archer shouts, hand whipping to a weapon concealed in his coat. "He's too valuable!"

She manages to avoid his sloppy shots(can't even hit her at three feet of distance, really now), and she flings it out of his hand with a biotic slap that makes her want to scream. It's like the action sets her arm on fire, and she's mentally cursing David even as she kicks his brother and points a gun at his head, while the rest of her squad fix their own weapons on him in case he tried any funny business.

"I've seen enough to know he'll never be safe here, to see he'll never be safe from you. If you even think about going after him, this bullet will find you. Then we'll see who's more valuable." she never enjoyed seeing fear in someone's eyes more than she was in this moment.

"Wh-where are you taking him?" Hospital, dumbass.

"Somewhere that might give him a chance at recovering from your shit care." was all she was going to dignify him with. "Zaeed, take him into custody. Lawson, he's going to the Alliance and I don't care how much you whine about it, go gather the dead while I coordinate our teams."

"Commander-" She wasn't in the mood for 'do as the Illusive Man says'.

"That's an order." she looks up at David and suppresses the urge to scream and curse him out. My will is my own now, asshole. Just because his brother had strung him up in a horrific experiment didn't mean she could forgive him yet. My will is my own. She forced her hands not to shake as she hailed the Normandy. "Normandy, prep med bay for a casualty, expect trauma, exposure, and physical neglect at the least. Joker, call me on our private channel, there's something I need you to do."

She didn't know how she was going to give Archer to the Alliance without Miranda, EDI, or the Illusive Man freezing control of the ship or trying to stop her, but she had to give it her best.

Once the shuttle sets them down just outside Atlas station, Crow takes a few moments just to appreciate how cool and tranquil the ravine is compared to the geothermal plant. He's interrupted when Dr. Chakwas shoves hardtack into his hands.

"Okay, okay." he relents as she marches towards the entrance of the compound. She'd been ferried down from the Normandy to help Overlord. As least, the human part of Overlord, apparently the situation was too ugly for Mordin to handle alone, and Shepard wasn't letting Miranda, the other unit member with medical expertise, help for some reason.

So Dr. Chakwas had been brought down in the shuttle that came to pick up Charlie team, and she had immediately set to work assessing them all for heat stroke and making them hydrate. She had been particularly insistent about him getting something to eat(to which Grunt complained that he was hungry, too). She had ordered that Charlie team was not to haul any more corpses, and some other Cerberus retrieval team would have to do it.

At the time he'd felt guilty that those people would have to be left to rot in the heat for even a minute longer, but now he was just glad to be away from the volcano... which, if anything made him feel even guiltier.

"I'm going outside." he tells the others. Jacob, who seems to already be writing his AAR, simply grunts, and Crow takes this as permission. He steps into the sunlight, and climbs up a cliff some distance from Atlas' entrance, but with a good enough field of view that he could see what was going on. Settled, he get's to work on his hardtack. It's salty and dry, and his canteen is pretty much empty. There's a stream nearby though, and Glint deems it safe.

Well, safe for a Lightbearer, at least; he lets his Ghost spend a good few minutes being fascinated the the variety of microbiology he'd found in the stream, and he kicks his boots off to stick his feet in it while he eats. It feels like the closest he's gotten to relaxing in a long while.

"Hey Glint?" he asks.

"Yeah?" his companion chirps.

"Do you think... do you think anyone will miss us? Or even notice we're gone, aside from Spider?" the only people he'd really acquainted himself with were Osiris and the Wolf.

"I think Osiris definitly will." Glint says. He dips into the water briefly, and grinds his nodes together as he shakes the droplets off. "And a lot of the lower-order eliksni. You might not want to admit it, but a lot of them looked up to you."

"Spider had me kicking their doors down for glimmer." he pointed out, before choking down more hardtack.

"But it was never in doubt that you didn't want to." his Ghost dips into the water again, and repeats the process of grinding his nodes. Crow motions for him to come over, and he continues as he does so. "You always apologized once nobody was looking, you always found a way to make it up to them in little ways. "

"I don't think giving someone a smuggled part as recompense to trauma counts as making it up." Crow grimaced after he swallowed. Holding Glint still, he started parting each set of nodes gently in an attempt to find what was irritating his friend. He finds some volcanic grit in the seems of the top left set. "How'd you get that in there?"

"No idea." Glint chirps as his Lightbearer uses one of the cleaner patches of his cloak to try to remove the dirt. "I meant how you looked after them. How many falls did you take for mistakes that weren't yours, simply because you didn't want to see people hurt?"

"Guardians are meant to take bullets for people who only have one life. That's our purpose, not a kindness." he points out. "If I didn't, what kind of Lightbearer would that have made me?"

"That's not all a Guardian is for." his Ghost chided gently. "If there's one thing I've gotten to know over the centuries, it's that not every Lightbearer is capable of self-sacrifice. It's still instinct to avoid pain, avoid death, and it takes bravery to cast that aside. It's not easy for everyone, Crow. It was only easy for you because you're kind, and those eliksni know that. They won't have that kindness looking out for them anymore, that's why they'll miss you, and if they tell people about you, that's what they'll talk about."

Crow heaves a sigh and lays back on the warm stone. It was a pleasant warmth, contrary to the unbearable heat he'd endured earlier. He shuts his eyes to the bright sky above, and Glint settles on his chest.

"Hey, I know all this has been rough but... I think things are looking up for us." his Ghost says. "We're free, we're mostly safe, and I like to think you're starting to make some friends."

"You still have a bomb in you." he pointed out bitterly.

"Well, yes, but it can't be set off." a small pulse of Light rolled off his shell, as if the Ghost were huffing about something.

"I'd feel better if it was gone. Maybe we could find someone who could-"

"No!" Glint's response is almost frantic, and it catches him off-guard. The Ghost's nodes twitch nervously. "I mean, yes I'd like it out, too, but I don't... I mean I'd rather..."

He settles for flying in a distressed circle as he tries to find his words, clicking and beeping. Crow sits up and halts him, and he flares his shell briefly before settling in Crow's palm. "What is it, Glint? You're always bugging me to talk about my problems."

"I just... I don't want another stranger poking around inside of me." his companion admits quietly. "I try very hard not to think about when Spider grabbed me, I'm not sure I could... let someone take me apart."

"I don't want you to have to live with that thing in you, Glint." he channels some Light through his hand comfortingly. "It can't stay. We'll find someone we can trust, eventually. Maybe on the Normandy, maybe elsewhere, but eventually we will. In a way, we aren't truly free until that... sick thing is gone."

"You'll stay close when we do?" Glint asks.

"In arms reach." When his Ghost's shell flares, he continues. "If it goes off, it goes off. I'd rather go out with you if it happens, don't you pretend you wouldn't do the same."

That's how it had always been, them against everything else. They were in a mess together or not at all, and he thinks if he lost Glint he would die anyway, if not to an enemy then from the sheer size of the hole his Ghost would leave in his life.

They sit like that for a while, contemplating, sharing nothing but the Light between them. Crow kicks at the water a little, until he stubs his toe and decides against doing it again, and Glint lets out a tiny chirp of amusement. His omni-tool buzzes with a message requesting his return to the shuttle all too soon, and he casts Aite's skies one last, appreciating look. He didn't know when he'd be out in the wilds again.

But despite the gruesome outcome of the mission, he feels... better, overall. Maybe it's just being outside, maybe it's that he made a difference today, or maybe it's because he finally got some time away from the ears in the Normandy's walls. Whatever it was, he can't help but feel like agreeing with Glint; things might finally be looking up for them.

He only hoped it would stay that way.

Chapter Text

Everything that happened in the next 48 hours was chaos disguised as order. The Normandy's atmosphere was thick enough to cut with a knife. Shepard and Miranda had had their differences and disagreements in the past, but this was the first time it looked like things might end with the ship on lockdown. For all the Illusive Man insisted that Shepard was in charge, this was still a Cerberus vessel run by Cerberus assets, and Cerberus had to look out for number one.

It was bad enough that she took David, and planned on transferring him to an Alliance medical facility as soon as they reached the Citadel. It was bad enough that she (supposedly) destroyed all the data packets she had recovered on Overlord so Cerberus couldn't have them. She wanted Gavin Archer to pay for his crimes. Pay the way that those who organized Akuze should have, but hadn't because of some sweetheart deal. It was the closest thing to an active rebellion Shepard could commit to, and she had to play it right or everything would go down the shitter.

Since she was incredible pain and couldn't think as straightly as she usually could, she first got Joker to set all the pieces. She was flying by the seat of her pants, and when it came down to it, he had far better flight instincts than she did, particularly when it felt like her skin was going to burst and her muscles kept twitching involuntarily. In any situation, she wouldn't asked Chakwas to just knock her out until it was over, but she needed to be conscious for this, if not clear-headed.

Which frustrated the good doctor to no end, to nobody's surprise. Shepard ordered her and Mordin to focus on keeping David stable, and moved on to the next step in the plan. She initiated contact with the enemy roughly three hours after the unit had settled down after the op, and successfully managed to convince Miranda that she had, reluctantly, given up on trying to turn Archer in. The plan still made her nervous, but it seemed like the only viable option.

And after all that, once, she had finally swallowed all the pills Chakwas wanted her to take before laying down in med bay, her omni-tool rang with a message from the Yeoman that she had a message from Anderson. She longed for the days when, if she got an email late in the evening, it technically didn't exist until she bothered to check her messages.

From: Anderson

Subject: Eden Prime

Commander, we got your AAR on the Eden Prime incident, and Alliance teams have secured the area. Unfortunately, the hostiles mentioned in your report have affected a greater area than we realized, and though I'm told we haven't encountered any of the hostiles for ourselves yet, the way things are looking, it's only a matter of time.

The deeper we look into the prothean ruins, the more corruption we find. Per the risk of Indoctrination mentioned in your report, we've held off on manned expeditions until we have a better understanding of the situation. Something I'm hoping you can help with.

You mentioned you encountered and recruited an individual with strange abilities and extensive knowledge of the threat we're facing. Any information you can pass on will be valuable, but I would like to see this man for myself if possible. The Alliance is concerned about the Hive, and they're even more concerned about what you claim to be 'an unkillable super-soldier who can set himself on fire'. Naturally.

Please respond ASAP,

Anderson.

Fuuuuuuuuuck. She had never even really sat Crow down for a proper debrief, between wanting to let him get his bearings, the drama with Garrus, the follow-up drama with Tali, and the general day-to-day administrative duties that running a starship required. Not to mention that understanding his debrief might require a mega lecture on how pretty much everything worked in his reality; she had barely been able to wrap her head around his sit-rep planetside, and the only lengthy conversation they'd had since then had ended when she decided she'd heard enough about how shitty life was on his end reality for the day.

"Hey, doc." she calls. Chakwas sticks her head out from behind the curtains that concealed David with a scowl. "Get Crow up here before I start seeing double, will you?"

"Depends on what you want him for. I can't believe you sent him into a volcano!" the woman scolded tersely as she tapped at her omni-tool.

"Everything went fiiiiine." what was that? I better make this quick. Before she lost control of her inhibitions. "I just need something more detailed about Eden Prime. Something that won't confuse the Alliance."

"Good luck with that." the older woman tells her dryly. "I speak with him a great deal, seeing as he lives in my med bay, and things just get more confusing the deeper you go. Time-shifting robots, ice powers, warminds."

"War what?"

"He'll explain it if you ask." Crow chose that moment to come hurrying in, looking fresh from the showers and still tracking water after him. "Crow! You're dripping everywhere!"

"Sorry!" he flushed, and glowed briefly with golden fire, instantly drying himself. Damn, I wish I could do that. "I forgot, I just got the message and-I-I'll dry the deck, just let me-"

"Crow, relax." Shepard tells him. "Just sit, I need a few things from you before we hit the Citadel."

"Yeah?" sat on the next bed over, shifting with nervous energy.

"One of my old superiors just contacted me. Him and the Alliance have questions about what happened on Eden Prime." at his alarmed look, she added. "Nothing's happened- at least, nothing urgent, but he did say the situation wasn't as resolved as we'd like it to be. If you and Glint could put together a report, or some kind of data packet on what was going on there, intel about the Hive, anything significant you can think of, it'd be great if you could."

"After he gets a meal in him." Chakwas adds from the sidelines.

"Yes, ma'am." the Hunter sighs.

"Problem?" Shepard asks.

"Everyone's been... fussing like Glint all day. I don't get it." he says hesitantly. Glint flashes in beside him.

"I don't fuss!" he protests, shell clicking as it shifted slightly around him. It amazes her how much emotion the nodes manage to convey.

"Yes, you do." the Awoken rolls his eyes.

"There's not much to get, Crow." she tries to explain. "You weren't exactly in top shape when you came aboard, people just want to make sure you're doing okay."

"But I don't really know any of you." he shuffles a little on the bed. "It's... just weird to me, is all, people caring about the dietary habits of a stranger. And it's not like I wouldn't be fine either way in the end, with my Light."

"People naturally want to see other people do well. It's instinct. We pull each other up, especially in a military unit." she has the distinct impression that she might be treading close to the territory of whatever Crow had going on before he met up with them, and feels weariness tug at her bones. "It's something the Alliance teaches vigorously; if there's a weak link, you do your best to make it stronger, you form up and make the chain unbreakable."

"That's... a nice sentiment." Crow says quietly. He traces circles on his knee almost absentmindedly, a faint trail of Light following his finger. "Nothing like on the Shore. It's mostly 'if there's a weak link, throw him out the airlock'. The Alliance... it's good isn't it? It does a good job?"

"Usually." she tries to banish the bitter taste in her mouth, but either the Alliance's inaction is just that painful, or she's on the verge of throwing up again. "We're spread too thin to protect the colonies outside Alliance space, so they've been left to fend for themselves. We took a hit during the Battle of the Citadel, and we're still rebuilding."

"'We'? So, you're still loyal to them, even though they think you're a traitor? At least, that's um, that's what I read." He fidgets with his Light more.

"Yeah. Loyalty is a complicated thing. I know what I am; I'm loyal to the Alliance, even if they think otherwise." she sends a pointed glare at one of EDI's cameras. "I swore an oath as a Special Operator to protect and defend humanity, that's the kind of promise you never break, no matter who reconstructs you and leaks footage of you in their armor."

"I... I think I understand." Glint nudges his shoulder, and he clasps his hands together, snuffing his Light. "Hunters, we... a Hunter's honor is his word. You give it, you keep it. It's like, the only rule we have, and if you break it... actually, I don't know what happens if you break it. Probably something bad."

"You get shunned for the rest of eternity, I think." Glint pipes. "Or at least a few decades. I forget, it's been a while since I heard of someone breaking a Vow, just goes to tell you how often it happens."

"it's not just about keeping your word. It's... a lot more than that." Patriotism was a harder feeling to describe than she though it was. Or maybe it was the drugs kicking in. "It's about the people, the country, the... whatever, that..."

Screw it, the drugs were kicking in. "Screw it, the drugs are kicking in."

"Language!" Glint hisses, and she can't suppress a snort. Crow smiles nervously, and reaches for her hesitantly, Light flashing in his hand before he seems to realize he's channeling and pulls back.

"You should lay down, Commander." he tells her, even as she leans forward and tries to bring his hand back. "Before Chakwas comes over and... makes... you? Commander?"

"What does it feel like? That stuff?" she stops with her hand hovering halfway between them. "The Light?"

Blinking, Crow tentatively takes her wrist in his hand and lets fire drift from his skin. It's like all the muscles in her forearm relax instantly as an ethereal warmth soaks into them. It was the warmth of lazy summer days where all you wanted to do was sleep in or bask in the sun(or do both), but it was also... comforting, like the warmth of her mother's arms, or the warmth in Kaiden's eyes when he had said he loved her, back when there was love between them, or even the warmth between her and her veteran crew, like Tali or Joker.

Or Garrus. Back before things went to shit.

She pulls back. "Thanks."

Her arm feels... better, than the rest of her now, oddly enough.

"I, um, I'll go dry the deck." Crow announces shyly. Brain still crosswired, she shouts after him.

"Don't forget to hydrate!"

"Oh, for Light's sake!"

Chapter Text

As it turned out, Councilor Anderson wanted to meet Crow. Crow knew nothing about Councilor Anderson except what he read on the extranet, all of which was... confusing. On the Shore, politics amounted to 'whoever kills, maims, or blackmails the other guy first, wins'. In this reality politics are divided into several structures of moral and ideological niches.

Democrats, republicans, independents, libertarians, several differently-named environmental activist parties, isolationists, socialists, the list went on and on, and it all confused him and Glint to a significant degree. They were only used to worrying about survival and the next meal, not... racism or parking regulations. Those just weren't things you had to worry about on the Shore, because there were much bigger problems to worry about under every other pebble.

But the cacophony of parties all controlled different extranet news sites, meaning he was left wonder which ones were real, which ones were propaganda, and which ones were actually those satire news sites that Joker found so amusing. They all said different things about the man. Some were flattering. Others were... less so, and left him feeling bad for the man. Sometimes the words reminded him of things that Spider would say.

He supposed he could ask Shepard about Anderson, since she seemed to know him personally, but every time he tried to work up the courage, she was busy or fuming about Miranda. Or both.

But that's only the tip of the iceberg.

Since coming to this reality, he hasn't been around and sort of major civilization. He used to watch the Last City from a distance. Sometimes, Glint would fly in under the cover of night and bring him little gifts in exchange for things they had found in wilds, like clusters of spinmetal. Sometimes, a pastry, sometimes a little trinket that his Ghost thought was shiny and special. There was this little glass snake, once, a delicate, tiny thing no bigger than his thumb. He'd had Glint keep those things hidden after Spider... 'acquired' their services. He hadn't even thought about them in a long time.

A rough dozen tiny pieces of civilization. A mere glimpse at what an entire city of people could produce on a near daily basis. He had only been to the City proper once, and it hadn't been for long; all the people, lights, sounds and smells had been... overwhelming. He'd never encountered a place like it, and even though he'd been wearing a festival mask, he'd felt like everyone was staring at him.

Like he would slip up at any given moment, and the entirety of humanity would see him.

They couldn't bring Anderson to the Normandy, so they were going to have to go to Anderson. Not only that, they were going to have to drop off David Archer with and Alliance medical team, and apparently Miranda was taking Gavin Archer somewhere separate in the other shuttle for some kind of super-secret Cerberus drop off. Personally, he thought the man should face punishment for his crimes. All those people are dead because of him, and who knows what damage he did to his brother.

All in all, the shuttle is crowded when they go down. Joker is flying this time, Dr. Chakwas and Mordin are there to help monitor David and pass on information about the man to the Alliance. The human lab rat is pale, emaciated, and on life support, making a smooth flight all the more important. There are still metal fastenings imbedded in his flesh, Dr. Chakwas had told him that there would need to be several surgeries in order to remove them all and they were best done in a fully equipped medical facility rather than a frigate's med bay designed for bloody traumas and keeping people alive.

They land, and Crow pulls the hood of his jacket up upon walking out and seeing the medical team rushing their way. He shuffles off to the side of the landing pad so he isn't in the way, and waits for Shepard to be done with her part of the proceedings, acutely aware of several people who keep glancing his way, probably wondering what he is.

At least this time it's all of me that doesn't belong, not just my face. In this reality, Uldren and his crimes didn't matter; the fact he was a weirdo from another reality did. He isn't sure which he prefers yet, but he hasn't had a violent reaction to his being Awoken yet, as apposed to the multitude of deaths he can attribute to someone seeing his face. So far, so good, at least.

"So, we're going to meet Shepard and Anderson at a pub down in Sakera Ward." Joker, despite how slowly he walks, is somehow very good at catching people off-guard, and Crow starts a bit when the pilot is suddenly at his side.

"We?" he asks, confused. Why was Joker coming with them?

"Shhh. Alliance hush-hush." is all the bearded man offers, shoving his hat up a bit with his thumb. "Just stick with me, I don't wanna have to run up and down the Ward looking for you if you get on the wrong bus or something."

"O-okay." he tries to swallow his nerves, and Glint appears, nudging his shoulder encouragingly. Jokers eyes go wide, and he jerks forward as if to grab the Ghost.

"Eep!" Glint disappears with a startled squeak, and Crow jumps back a pace, alarmed.

"Keep him out of sight!" Joker hisses, eyeing the med team nervously. "Sentient energy construct or not he looks like an AI, and if your codex hasn't been clear those are illegal on pain of death to said AI. I don't wanna get arrested, and you don't want him killed, so just tone down the Ghost cuddles so neither of those happen."

"We don't... cuddle." he feels his face heating up with embarrassment, and the feeling is echoed from Glint's end of their neural link.

"Dude, you pet him like bird and let him sleep with you like a housecat or something. That's pretty much the definition of 'cuddles'." the pilot says dryly. "Been meaning to ask, what is it between you two? It's like he's your mom or something."

"He is not!" Crow protests. "Ghosts aren't... parental. Or romantic. They're just kind of... with us. At best it's like... I don't know, siblings? But I've never had one of those before, so I wouldn't know."

"Not parental. Right." the pilot drawls as he turns to the end of the dock, making it obvious he didn't actually believe that.

"I am not a mom." his Ghost grumbles. I know, Glint. Joker leads him to the rental transportation parking, and he isn't sure how he feels about skycars. On one hand, there was a professional military pilot at the wheel. On the other... it looked flimsy. Like the ship that had failed him in the Reef, resulting in Spider 'rescuing' him. He has to lock down a sudden fear of suffocating endlessly in an uncaring vacuum as he gets into the passenger seat.

Takeoff is surprisingly smooth, but he winces when they leave the atmosphere threshold and the sound of the plastics in the skycar decompressing fill the cabin, and Joker notices.

"How you get around in your reality?" he asks. Crow tries to resist gripping the armrests.

"Jumpships. They're usually one-man, three at most, only capable of near-light speed." There have to be a hundred thousand ships or more weaving their way between the Wards of the Citadel, and Joker joins a stream of skycars seamlessly. "Can't fly anything bigger, because it attracts too much attention, and it's easier to hit. I liked one-mans, personally; they were easier to fly through the Reef."

"You fly? You're a pilot?" Joker keeps his eyes dead ahead, but Crow can practically hear him raising an eyebrow.

"'Flying' implies that I can land without crashing. Which, for the record, I rarely accomplish." he grips his seatbelt with both hands so he doesn't fidget with his Light, and they dive downwards away from the rest of traffic.

"Chill, man. I've never wrecked a skycar and never will." the bearded man reassures him, seeming to notice his nerves. "What's the Reef?"

"Section of Sol's asteroid belt." The skycar swerves for a split second that sends his heart racing.

"You fly through asteroids on what sounds like a regular basis?" Joker actually looks at him now. "Dude, that is the shit, what's it like?"

"I let Glint do the flying since the last time I crashed, it's terrifying every time." Crow had decided he didn't like skycars. Even ones piloted by professionals. Joker just sighs, leans back into his seat, and sends them down. Crow can practically feel the other man casting side glances at him, and he keeps fidgeting with his hat.

"You good man?" the pilot suddenly asks.

"I don't think I'm a fan of skycars. This thing feels cheap." he admits. Joker fidgets with his hat again.

"Like I said; never wrecked a skycar and never will." the Normandy's pilot seems to talk a little too fast, almost. "And sure, it's no Kodiak, but it can take a hit without killing the passengers. Glass is designed to flex instead of break, it's not even really glass at this point."

"Right." still, he can't relax until he hears the skycar's materials shift again as they re-enter the atmosphere. They set down on another landing pad, and Crow swallows when he sees how many people are wandering the area. "How many people are there on this station?"

"'Bout thirteen million on most weekdays?" the other man shrugs. "Not easy to get any hard numbers, things flux a lot with all the spaceport traffic. Never know when somebody's cruiser is in for retrofits or taking shore leave."

"Thirteen million?" he wasn't sure the Last City had even a million people in it, not after the heavy casualties of the Red War, and that place was huge. Thirteen million... "How do... how does... how is that sustained, it's a space station!"

"Each arm has a hydroponics section." the pilot tells him, watching the people walk past. "And the Keeper take care of most things mechanically-you've read about them, right?"

"Yeah." he found the concept of mindless drones, even docile ones, mildly disturbing after all his encounters with the cryptoliths. Even the 'docile' worshippers would turn hostile at the drop of a glimmer cube.

"And this place is connected to pretty much every colony and homeworld out there. Between hydroponics and trade, there's usually more food here than people know what to do with." he glanced down both ends of the street. "Looks like a lull in the crowd, lets go."

Crow fought the urge to turn invisible as they made their way along the Ward. There was no way he would be able to hold it until they arrived, and him appearing out of thin air when he finally lost control would definitly attract more attention than his awful attempt at looking casual. He quietly wished that Joker was able to walk faster; the whole street felt exposed, with eyes on every side, and his back was constantly open to attack.

On the Shore, that combination of this while in a populated section was begging for trouble. As he did with most things, he tried to remind himself that this wasn't the Shore, but old instincts were harder to shake off than he thought they would be.

"You'll get the hang of it." Glint told him. "Uncross your arms, and relax your shoulders a bit."

I'm trying. Now that he'd had a chance to relax on Aite, relaxing had, strangely, become harder. Even though he felt more at ease on the Normandy now that he'd proven himself again on the battlefield, he couldn't relax, and his dreams last night hadn't helped. More burning fields and falling leaves, and it felt more ominous than it looked.

"That's it." Joker pointed at a corner building labeled 'Mack's Authentic Earth Grill'. "I've been trying to get down here for weeks!"

"Why?" he could smell food, faintly, but there was nothing else remarkable about the place.

"They make actual burgers, with actual cow." the pilot explained, as if this were incredibly important. "The last few weeks have been hell, haven't had a chance to get my hands on one since I heard about 'em."

"Oh. What's a burger?" obviously it was some kind of food, but he had never heard of it. Joker looked at him like he'd grown a second head.

"Um, we're fixing that." was all he answered the question with, marching up to the front door as well as he could. Crow followed, unsure of what he'd meant. Entering the building was like getting smacked in the face with smells he'd only encountered during his brief stint in the city. He wasn't sure he could name many of them, but he things he recognizes something potato-y in the air, along with grease and toasting bread, and maybe some kind of meat somewhere.

The only other people in the pub were a human couple who were making their way out with paper bags, stopping to double-take at Crow for a moment before slipping past the new arrivals. He thought he heard them starting to whisper to themselves before the door shut behind them, but he was too busy taking in the aesthetics of the place to worry for once.

It was... homey. They had covered the metal walls up with lacquered wood planks, and the lights were made to burn a soft yellow instead of the harsh white he'd seen through the windows of other places. The booths and furniture were wood, or at least made to look it, were possible, and only warm colors were used where color was necessary. I kind of of like this. A pulse of agreement across the Light told him Glint thought similarly.

"Right just get to a booth, uhh," Joker spun around a bit, looking, before pointing at one in the farthest back corner. "There!"

Crow opted to slid in on the side that hid him from view the most, in case anyone else came in. "Now what?"

"Don't tell me you've never been out to eat before." Joker asks, picking up a data pad that was on the table.

"Okay, I won't." he replied smartly, feeling bold.

"Ha ha." the pilot says humorlessly, rolling his eyes before passing the data pad his way. "Look, just go down the list, see what appeals to you, if you pick it, it's what you've ordered. The guys in the back make our stuff, and we pay for it when we leave."

Crow almost told him he didn't have any credits, only to remember he did, and felt a thrill at the realization that he he could, so long as he was on this station, buy things for himself. "There's over a dozen burgers on here, which one is good?"

"All of them." Joker told him flatly, like it was an obvious fact of the universe. "But just go for a regular combo meal."

"Why?" and combined with what exactly?

"It has fries." at the Hunter's confused look, he added, "They're made of potatoes."

"Ah." Well, he wasn't going to object to that. He kind of liked potatoes.

They spent the wait for their food talking about jumpships. Or rather, Joker pelted him with questions and he tried to answer without sounding like he was out of his mind; he wasn't and engineer, thought he could do a passable patch job, and he couldn't be certain that Joker was able to understand even half of his reality's mechanical terminology. How he was able to seemingly enjoy the conversation anyway was beyond Crow.

They were just getting into NLS physics when Joker told him to 'hold that thought', and leaned out of the booth to wave someone over. Crow leaned out as well to look, and saw Commander Shepard with a man he recognized from footage an pictures as Councilor Anderson, though he was dressed almost as incognito as Crow was.

"Heya, sir; want a fine meal on Cerberus' dime?" Joker asked as a greeting. The older man didn't smile, but the corner of his mouth twitched.

"No, I'd rather get this over with." he declined as he slide in next to the pilot. Crow had to scoot further into the booth to give Shepard room. "I take it you're Crow?"

"Yes, Councilor." he nodded. He tries not to sound as nervous as he feels, but isn't sure if he's succeeding.

"Let's not use that title here, I'd hate for someone to overhear." the human grimaced. "There are a few things I need you to look at, and information I need about these creatures."

"Okay. Shepard had us make a data packet that should cover ever everything. Well, everything we could think of, neither of us are experts." Making sure the barkeep wasn't looking, he let Glint out, and his Ghost deposited the OSD with their Hive intel on the table. Anderson eyes the Ghost warily.

"He's not an AI." Shepard assures her old Captain. "He'd... what was it again? 'Sentient Energy Construct'?"

"Yup!" Glint chirps, before diving under the table when the waiter approached with the food.

"I hope you plan on splitting that, Joker." Shepard says, and he's only half certain she might be joking.

"I hope you realize that ain't gonna happen." the pilot replies haughtily.

"If it's any consolation, I probably can't eat all of this." Crow tells her as he examines the burger. It did smell good, but it was probably the biggest sandwhich he'd ever seen in person, and the fries look nothing like potatoes. Chakwas might have warned him off eating this much food in one sitting anyway, if she were here. He materializes a knife and cuts the burger in half. He hands one to Shepard and takes a bite out of the other.

It's... good. He could sort of see why Joker was obsessed with them.

"Thank you, Crow." Shepard says sincerely, before pointing her half of the sandwhich at Joker teasingly. "You could learn a thing or two about how to treat a lady from this one, you should take notes."

Anderson cleared his throat as Joker took a large bite of his meal while looking the Commander dead in the eye unrepentantly. "I hate to ruin any appetites, but we are here on business."

"Fine." Joker rolled his eyes, and to Crow's surprise, took his hat off. It takes... way more willpower than it should not to laugh at his hat hair. "I hope Alliance Intelligence values how much of pain it was to get this stuff and keep it."

"I'll try to emphasis how difficult the endevour was." the Councilor assures him as he picks and inside seem of his hat open and pulls out a thin SD chip. "Anything else?"

"Aside from what I told you about Archer, no. We'll try to get more." Crow glanced between the three of them, confused.

"I thought Miranda was taking Archer somewhere?" he asked.

"She is." Shepard told him. "But he won't get far afterwards. I can't emphasize enough that you keep quite about this, Crow."

"I understand." He didn't, not really, but the response is automatic. He'd been told to forget a lot of things on the Shore, and he'd gotten good at it for Glint's safety and his own.

"As for the Hive matter at hand," Anderson started as Joker put his had back on, "there have been no reports of hostile activity, but the chitinous growths that we found have continued to spread. Not as fast as they were in Shepard's report, but it's happening."

"Hive terrain conversion usually happened because of the presence of a Seeder." Crow starts, swallowing a fry, and now convinced that potatoes might be his favorite food. "But artifacts can cause it as well, like cryptoliths, or even rituals. In this case, it was a ritual, and a cryptolith working together. I saw no signs of a Seeder, and Glint didn't detect any."

"Could it be another cryptolith?" Shepard inquired worriedly.

"I don't know... if there's more than one cryptolith in an area, the others are normally close by, and if there had been another one, it would have been near the power supply." I really should have thought of checking for more before we left. Sure, he'd been exhausted at the time, but with so much at steak, he really should have thought of everything. "If it's not there... I don't know, I could go back and look? It would be less of a risk for me, if one of your men stumbles on it, it will ensnare them."

"We're still mapping how far it's spread, there's no plans yet for an more thorough investigation." the Councilor told him. "But if we stumble on it, we'll give the Normandy a call. Which leads into my next question; what are you, and what are your intentions?"

'What are you?' was an easy question. He just repeated what he'd told countless others, the(abbreviated) explanation about the Traveler, Guardians, Ghosts, the Light. How he got here. But he stumbled on 'intentions'.

"I think I'm fighting the Collectors?" was the best he could come up with.

"And after?" one eyebrow raised.

"He's been drilling with the rest of the ground team." Shepard told him. "He's gotten good, and he helped with a successful operation the other day."

"That's not really an answer. The Alliance is understandably worried about... something like him running around. Especially if he's with you, most of them still paint you as true Cerberus." He folded his hands on the table and Crow tries to hold his gaze. "I don't need to know if you're a good fighter, I need something that proves you're not a threat to the Alliance."

"Ha!" Joker snorts. "This guy? With the way Chakwas has him running around, he's more likely to join the Alliance."

"I don't know about that." Crow interjected. "I don't think I'm cut out for military."

If anything, he feels like like he wouldn't last a day in the Alliance.

"In any case, I still need to know what your intentions are." Anderson pressed.

"Please." the pilot scoffed. "Does that look like the face of a threat to society to you?"

It takes all he has not to wince. I'm really glad nobody here knows about Uldren.

"I have no idea what I'm doing half the time, and I'm just confused for most of the other half." he tells the Councilor. "I guess, If Eden Prime is still having chitin problems I could try to help, or maybe I'll fight the Reapers when they come, but other than that, I have no intentions. Let alone ones that involve hurting people."

The other man opens his mouth again, but his breath catches audibly when his omnitool blinks, and he releases a sigh when he reads whatever the message is. "I need to go. I'd have preferred to continue this, but I can't turn my back for five minutes without another fire starting."

"We could bring more information on our reality, next time." he offers anxiously, desperate to nail home that he wasn't a threat. "If there is a next time?"

"That would be appreciated." the older man grimaced. "Enjoy your meal. Shepard."

"Well, that went... better than expected." Shepard sighed. "I think it'll get it through to the Alliance that you're not a threat, Crow."

"I know." a list of Uldren's crimes floats in the back of his mind, and he hopes above hope that he hadn't inherited the Traitor Prince's nature. He wonders if there will ever come a day where he has to tell someone about Uldren. He wonders if the Alliance will see him as a threat once the truth gets out. He wonders what they do to threats.

He... wonders if it was a good idea to have eaten while discussing Hive growths and the potential scrutiny of the Alliance.

At least they take the bus back to the docking zone instead of skycar; now that the thoughts were spinning through his head, his stomach was twisting itself in anxious knots, and he doesn't want to ruin his taste for burgers by throwing this one up.

Chapter Text

Crow and Glint spent the next few weeks building a sort of 'codex' of their own to kick Councilor Anderson's way, despite Commander Shepard's assurances that nobody in their right mind would mistake him as a threat to humanity if they met him. That he didn't have anything to prove. He continued anyway, because he wants to make it as clear as possible that he fought for humanity, even if this wasn't his humanity.

That, and he was tired of repeating himself. He was getting more comfortable talking with the crew and they with him, which meant he kept having to repeat answers he'd already given to others. They were all used to looking something up when they wanted to know about it, but didn't have that option with him, so they would come to him directly.

If they had access to all the answers they needed on their omnitool, he'd hoped to have less people ask him if his Awoken dreams could predict the next biotiball match(Gardner, and that was a 'no'), or if he could see through peoples clothes with truesight(Donnelly, also a 'no').

These weeks were also filled with near-constant drills, which intensified after Shepard and Samara had come back from a trip to Omega with the former worse for ware. He'd desperately wanted to ask if she was okay(mentally) when she came into med bay later that night with her fists bloody messes, because though Chakwas could have them fixed quickly between medicine and Shepard's cybernetics, they hadn't heard anything about injuries when she'd gotten back.

There were cuts throbbing across her skin but she couldn't feel the pain, just the edges rubbing against each other as she moved. The faint sting that wasn't quite pain of two parted sections of skin that used to be a whole striking one another like fault lines. She keeps her jacket on and marches straight to the elevator, trying to ignore Garrus, who had seen them off at the airlock and apparently had never left the CIC afterwards.

He hadn't been okay with being back at this station.

She keeps laser focus on the elevator but he's still a bright distraction in her peripheral despite his dark clothes.

When she gets to her quarters, the only sound is Fred running on his wheel. The sound echoes off the inside of her skull like it's lined with wool. It feels like shadows of suggestion are still crawling across her mind.

She shucks off her jacket. Throws it on the desk. Ignores Fred, who stops his running when she passes in front of his tank and starts to glass surf at one of the front corners. She steps numbly into the bathroom and stops in front of the mirror.

Foreign hands ghosting over her arms, she should be fighting it.

There's a cut on her cheek that has stopped oozing blood. She turns the water on, splashes it on the wound until it is clean. Fresh blood mixes with the water and the sink turns red. She reaches up, parts the edges of the wound, wipes the blood away from one edge and angles it with her fingers until she can see orange. Orange instead of flesh.

She lowers her hand shakily.

She should be fighting it but her will is no longer her own.

She screams and punches the mirror until it shatters, and keeps punching after it does.

He'd spent so long trying to decide if he should say anything, and what he should say if he did, that the news had reached Garrus, and the turian had come in and planted himself next to the Commander. Glint and Chakwas had quietly encouraged Crow to take a snack break after that. His Ghost had told him it felt like there was about to be a very private moment, and looking back, he agrees.

A silver lining to all the training meant he was learning more things, and he was starting to feel more... connected to his teammates. It wasn't like a Guardian fireteam, where everyone linked their Light together to bolster each other through darkness zones and battlefields. Where, he'd been told, many hands made the Light work as one.

But it was starting to feel less like a bunch of individual parts, and more like a single, flowing unit. He didn't feel like the odd one out anymore, at least in battle. Where he was found lacking, someone at his back could pick up the slack. Jacob seems unsettled by his Light, though, and Tali, though thawing, is still somewhat cool towards him, her body language neutral and the eyes behind her mask as untelling as always. Thane is still as chill as ever, and has even started helping him refine his hand-to-hand.

Thane was finally starting to see a pattern in Hunter martial style. That pattern was complete unpredictably, to the point of Crow seeming a neurotic mess if one didn't know it was intentional.

It did, however, employ heavy usage of knives, and that was something he could help with. Though unpredictability would make him harder to fight, Crow was still clearly inexperienced, and though Thane was slightly uncomfortable teaching someone his skills, in the end he could recognize that his own fighting style was the closest out of everyone's to Crow's. Hunter combat was all about swift movements and swifter kills, and drell assassin training had similar priorities.

He had never taken an apprentice, had never wanted to pass his skills in taking life to another, but the Awoken needed refinement, and there were no other Hunters who could teach him. He couldn't turn Crow into an assassin, and wouldn't if he could, but he could help hone his preexisting skills so that he might better survive the battles to come.

"So if you can heal yourself, how come Glint always does it?" Tali was asking as the three of them sat at the table with whetstones and blades. It turned out she knew a bit of knife-fighting herself, though as a weapon of last resort. Crow had cut his hand while sharpening a throwing dagger, and used his own Light to heal it rather than letting Glint see to it.

"I don't want to practice in the middle of a fight. I'm no expert. And um, it's rude to keep bleeding everywhere when your Ghost can stop it." He passes Light over the edge of the knife he's holding, and the metal shimmers ominously with sol energy in response. "It takes enough concentration that there's usually a bit of a mess before you can finish. With anything major, I mean."

"Then why practice it?" Tali inquired.

"In case it's too dangerous to let Glint out. Or... or a dark wound, but there's probably nothing here that can do that." The Awoken shifted uncomfortably and switched to another blade.

"Dark?" Thane had never heard such a term before but it sounded... unpleasant.

"Things a Ghost can't heal. Darkness used a certain way keeps a Ghost from healing. There's some Hive blades that can do it, Devourer Rounds, Weapons of Sorrow, but none of those are here." He adds that last part hastily, and seemingly with gratitude for this reality's lack of such objects. "The localized healing can help with them, though. Still leave nasty marks."

Like those on your arms? Thane wonders privately.

"Glint can't heal other people, but could you?" He decides to steer the subject away from the grim matter before he starts to think too much about what anything called a 'Weapon of Sorrow' could possibly do to a Lightbearer that was unhealable. "You're already working closely with Chakwas."

"I don't know, if I get something wrong on myself, Glint can fix it." He chews on his lip worriedly. "If I got something wrong on someone else... what if I duplicated a liver or something?"

"That can happen?"

He thinks his relationship with Tali might be improving, though, even if he can't tell by looking at her. Then again, he's still learning 'people' in general, how was he to know alien people.

He did know that working on the transmat system was helping. She would scowl at him frequently when they started, but at this point, between training and building, she was cool towards him most of the time, with occasional non-hostile interest in his 'oddities'. Shepard, had asked if there was anything from his reality they may be able to replicate to give the Normandy an advantage, and he had answered with 'transmat'.

He swore he'd seen her do a heel click in the hall on the way out. Long story short, she'd asked him, the engineering team, and Joker to try to figure it out, and so far it was going well. Odd, but well.

"'Beam them up'?" Crow's face does that thing it does when he's trying to figure out a new thing, and Joker, again, finds himself feeling sorry the Awoken's reality.

"Star Trek." Donnely states from under the consol. "You know, Scotty, Captain Kirk. Transporters, the Enterprise."

"Sorry, I don't follow." Donnely didn't seem to have figured out that clarifying something for Crow required 'dumb answers', or as he'd come to thing of them, 'guy from another universe answers'. If he asked about a movie reference or odd saying, you answered with 'movies reference' or 'just a saying'. Then you got into the details, if he asked.

Otherwise you just confused him, and would eventually lose him when he decided to dismiss himself instead of stick around not knowing what was going on. He was a little self-conscious like that.

"It's a TV show, we'll introduce you later." Joker spins his stylus nonchalantly between his fingers. "They got shows where's you're from?"

"I never went into the City long enough to see anything, but Glint's told me about a few." He hadn't really wanted much to do with Crow when he first came aboard; the bet he'd lost, thus resulting in him showing the newcomer around the ship not withstanding. It had been obvious Shepard would have him on the ground team, and the ground team was...

Well, the ship was beginning to feel like a traveling freak show. The only ones who weren't unsettling in some way were Tali and Jacob, and Jacob was unsettlingly nice. He didn't hate them, he just avoided them, because having the brittle bones guy in the same room as a homicidal biotic convict was a bad idea.

Turned out the only thing unsettling about Crow were the glaringly obvious signs that his situation had been in the shitter before the Normandy. He was actually okay company, once you gave him a gentle nudge into the open, and he'd even started to unbury a sense of humor, even if all the Guardian class rivalry jokes fell a little flat in this reality.

At least they were learning interesting things about Titan dietary habits.

"Like?" Gabby prompted, sitting on the floor with Tali as they poured over data.

"There's a lot of pre-Golden-Age police procedurals, I hear they're really popular with the Warlocks."

Odder still, because he thinks he's making friends.

With Joker.

And... Grunt, of all people. Or rather, Grunt is trying to be friends with him, he thinks. He doesn't know why; they're complete opposites, Crow and Glint weren't particularly fond of violence, and Grunt was prone to bloodlust at the drop of a hat. It makes things weird between them at best. At least the krogan was learning something; apparently Okeer had neglected his ability to read and write, and Glint was having none of that.

Grunt was... frightening on a good day. But he was really trying not to be, and seemed to have made it a personal goal to befriend Crow for some reason, so Glint did his best to clamp down on his nerves as he hovered over the young krogan's shoulder.

"Just sound it out, at first." He instructed. It was really quite unforgivable that Okeer hadn't programmed any imprints for knowing how to spell. "You're already decent at reading, doing this out loud will give you a better understanding of how it's all spelled."

"I'll sound like a fool." Grunt grumbled. The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe sat innocently next to his empty food tray.

"There's nothing foolish about it." Glint soothed. "You're learning. Learning is one part catharsis, one part embarrassment, with triumphs mixed in between."

"You should have seen how many times I set myself on fire by accident learning how to control my Light." Crow comments from across the table. He's started eating with the rest of the crew, and Glint couldn't be happier with the progress he's made with trusting people in the last few weeks. If only he could conquer his own fears with such ease.

"Ever set anybody else on fire?" Joker asks wryly. Glint still doesn't quite know what to make of him. He uses(often inappropriate)humor as a delivery system for communication, sometimes harshly. But it's this same 'gift' with speech that he's used to draw Crow out of the med bay and engage him with the rest of the crew. For a sharp-tongued introvert, the pilot has a gift for handling people, even if he could go to the extreme in some cases(like with the Miranda incident).

"No, but there were some incidents with bushes." His Lightbearer said, before shoveling more potatoes in his mouth. Grunt made a frustrated noise and looked at the book.

"Go on." He encouraged. With a huff of irritation, the krogan opened it up to the first page.

Although it was weird watching his Ghost teach a krogan how to write and improving his reading, once Glint set his mind to something there was rarely a point to trying to stop him. And it wasn't the strangest thing to have happened in the last few weeks, not by a long shot; apparently, Gavin Archer had been apprehended by the Alliance within twenty-four hours of Miranda dropping him off wherever, and she definitly wasn't happy about it.

Crow, for his part, kept his mouth shut about the exchange at the pub, of course. He didn't know why Shepard and Joker had decided he could be trusted with the knowledge of their espionage campaign, maybe it was because the situation had left them no choice; pressed for time, with too much to do before Anderson was called away again. He didn't plan on putting their work at risk, and he certainly didn't want to be a subject of Miranda's wrath, so he kept his head down around her.

Aside from her, Massani, and Jack, he's starting to feel... safe, on the Normandy. Which, of course, meant something bad or unusual would happen soon and complicate things.

That something happened when he was finally dozing off for the night, roughly three weeks since Aite. The intercom startled him awake, and Glint let out a surprised squeak as he tumbled into his Lightbearer's lap.

"All ground team, report to the conference room, all ground team, report to the conference room; we have a Reaper-related situation that could quickly escalate." Shepard's voice commanded.

"Oh, dear." Glint clicked. Crow yawned and made his way out of the med bay, nearly walking into Garrus when he tries to rub the sleep out of his eyes. The turian opens his mouth to say something but winds up yawning instead.

"Sorry." Crow says, giving him space as they approach the elevator... which, of course, Thane is already standing in. He waits for them before sending it up, and Crow decides to practice his truesight. He breathed deeply of the void, and coaxed it to show him what the world was hiding. He looked around the elevator, and the corner behind him was illuminated by shadow. "Hi, Kasumi."

"You getting good!" the thief giggled, though she didn't reveal herself. "And purple is quite the striking eye color on you, you know."

"Thanks, I guess." She was still a bit hard to figure out, and he still wasn't sure how much he could trust her, being a thief and all, but she hadn't done anything too untowards that he knew of during his time here, and her friendliness was welcoming, most of the time.

The CIC was quieter than usual, maybe because that was the nature of the night shift people, or maybe because something Reaper-related had cropped up.

"Hi, Crow!" he's been getting better about involuntary invisibility since that particular ability had clicked, but Kelly startles him into the shadows regardless. "I was hoping you'd have a moment later-"

"Not the time, Chambers." Garrus admonishes, reaching uncertainly for thin air and managing to find the Hunter to give him a nudge. "Come on."

"Sorry." he mutters, willing himself back into the visible spectrum. Invisibility had served him well in avoiding Kelly, but she was getting more persistent lately.

"I don't blame you." Kasumi whispers from nearby. He allows himself a smirk, and the four of them make their way into the conference room, where most everybody had already assembled. Garrus moves up to take a place next to Shepard; they seemed to have repaired a lot of their relationship during whatever had happened in the med bay after Samara's mission.

Crow takes a seat just as Tali and Grunt walk in, and the later plops down in the seat next to him. "Get ready; we're gonna teach you how to pop some husk skulls, he he he."

"From what I hear, they're a lot like thrall, so it shouldn't be that much of a learning curve." he decides to respond diplomatically. He's found it's the best way to handle Grunt's bloodlust.

"Alright everybody, listen up." the Commander called for quite, and all eyes went to her. "Two days ago, Cerberus received a data burst from the facility that's been looking into the Reaper IFF we need; they found it, but the communication itself was erratic, context and vocabulary point to Indoctrination. An hour ago, contact was lost completely."

"We need to assume the the IFF isn't coming to us; so we're going to get it. There's no guarantee there was an evacuation, or that the team took the IFF with them if they did so. There's no guarantee the team is even sane, or if they left the IFF intact one the Indoctrination set in. For all we know, they were directed to destroy it, but we have to give it a shot." She brought up a hologram of a gas giant, and zoomed it to focus on a twisted mass in orbit. "This is our target. There are Cerberus structures giving us some range of mobility, but the rest of it is pure, dead Reaper. Given the risk of Indoctrination, I'll be taking in a small squad for this one rather than the whole team. These corridors will be tight, and there's no telling how the scientists will react to us. Anyone who goes in with me will be taking full brain scans for the next week to ensure nobody is infected, with two more to be given at random at a later date."

She looked across them all, eyes assessing. Grunt wiggled eagerly in his chair, and Crow put a hand on his shoulder to try to settle him.

"Thane and Crow, you're with me. Garrus, I want you waiting near the airlock with Grunt and Samara ready to go if things get too ugly." Crow sits up straighter with surprise; he's never actually fought beside Shepard before. "Alright, everybody go and prep."

He lets Glint switch his nightclothes for his armor.

"Showoff." Tali scoffs. Maybe, but he had to admit, he found some amusement in reminding them he could do this.

"When I say go and prep, I mean go an sleep." Shepard said fondly, rolling her eyes. "We're twenty hours out."

"Oh." he said. Glint gave him his other clothes back. "Okay."

Kasumi's quite 'It's so not fair' makes it worth it.

Chapter Text

The Normandy was kicking and shaking in a way Crow had never known her to, and trying to make his way to the helm was difficult at best. Warning lights flared yellow throughout the ship, and most of the crew had strapped in to the nearest seats. Shepard and the rest of the team were just trying to get to the airlock.

"What's with the chop, Joker?" Shepard demanded as they all staggered up the bridge. Crow ducked into a chair the moment he got the chance.

"Doing, my best; we got winds gusting at five hundred kph." Their pilot reported.

"Really regreting that bean taco right now!" Crow commented, wishing he had a stronger stomach.

"You puke on that console, I swear- shit, Commander, there's a second ship parked alongside the Reaper, ladar paints it's signature as geth." Joker's hands were a blur as he tried to stabilize the ship and confirm the readings at the same time.

"Geth?" Garrus crashed into the back of Crow's chair as he made his way up front. "What are geth doing here?"

"I reckon we're about to find out." Shepard declared. "Change of plans, Grunt's joining my team, call Tali up to replace him on yours."

"On it!" The turian confirmed as Grunt did that unsettling laugh of his.

The ship gave a sudden lurch, and alarms blared briefly before Joker managed to get it under control, and the Normandy started flying as smoothly as ever.

"What just happened?" Shepard asked as Crow let out a sigh of relief.

"The Reaper's mass effect field is still active, we just passed inside it's envelope." Their pilot said. "Eye of the hurricane, eh?"

"Alright, everybody, I don't think I need to tell you to keep your eyes sharp on this one. Just because this thing is dead doesn't mean it can't do harm. We know it can indoctrinate, and with geth and a missing crew, we should expect husks. There were at least a hundred men on this station, mostly for construction and security, so if we find anyone alive, assume they're armed, dangerous, and turned."

"At least we know how many husks to expect if the crew is dead." Garrus said as the ship docked with a slight lurch.

"Welcome to Cerberus!" Joker spun around in his chair as soon as the sequence was completed. "We have fine dining, spectacular pay, and send you to only the loveliest locales in the galaxy!"

"I've called Hive tunnels a lot of things, but lovely isn't one of them." Crow smirked.

"Agreed." Thane said, making a slight face. He felt a little sorry for the drell; he had to remember the smell of Hive growths with literal perfect recall.

"Form up, you three." The Commander ordered. Crow stood, and let Glint phase his armor into existence.

"Man, we have got to get you some new armor." Joker commented as he walked past.

"The materials used in Hunter fieldweave don't exist here, and I can't imagine being able to maneuver in what your standards seem to be. No offense, Commander." He supposes that if he had Glint break down Uldren's armor to it's most basic components, they could have enough undamaged material to work with. Maybe make up what was missing with whatever this reality's closest equivalent was.

"None taken, but he does have a point." She looked him up and down. "You look like..."

"Like I got dragged backwards through a portal into an alternate reality?" He offered.

"That's a nicer way of putting it." She said wryly. "You'd look better without the cloak at least."

"A Hunter always wears a cloak." He told her. "It defines us. A Hunter's cloak is supposed to speak to his personality, a symbol of who he is."

"So you're ragamuffin who likes spiders?" Joker asked.

"I hate spiders." The beep of the pressurization chamber beckoning them saves him from elaborating.

"Good luck!" Joker calls after them. They spend a few minutes sitting in the joint airlock, and when it opens...

"Blood. Never a good sign first thing through the door." Crow observed. There was a large, ominous smear on the wall to greet them as they came in. "Looks a few days old."

"Crow, Grunt, on me. Thane, watch our six." Shepard ordered. They moved forwards, locating several research logs and... 'liberating enemy funding'. At least, that was what Shepard called it. He found the logs concerning.

"Reminds me of stories Glint used to tell me about the Ahamkara." He said, suppressing a shudder, after one log where the researcher said the head scientist was trying to 'listen' to Reaper artifacts.

"Ahamkara?" Grunt inquired. Glint phased in over Crow's shoulder as they made their way forward.

"Wish-dragons, some people call them." His Ghost declared ominously. "Paracausal beings that took the form of whatever they were expected to be by the ones who encountered them."

"They feed on the space between desire and reality. The Anthem Anathema. " Crow smirked, side-eyeing the teenage krogan as they strode after Shepard. "Even after death. Their bones whisper to those around them, promising wishes granted."

"But they never whisper... of the curses that come with them!" Glint continued dramatically. The Reaper chose that moment to give a heavy lurch. Grunt jumped, looking around wildly.

"Crow, stop messing with him." Shepard scolded. "Shepard to Normandy, what's happening out there?"

"The Reaper put up it's kinetic barrier." Joker reported via comms. "No signs of movement, weapons are still offline, but it sheared the joint airlock in half, we're not getting through from this side again."

"How... unfavorable." Thane understated.

"We'll have to take them down from in here. Any leads on how?" The Commander asked.

"At the moment of activation, I detected a heat spike in what is likely the wrecks's mass effect core." EDI informed. "Sending the coordinates now. Be advised: the core is also maintaining the Reaper's altitude."

"So when we take it out to neutralize the barriers, this hunk of slag falls into the planet's core." The Commander looks disappointed instead of surprised, truly speaking to how missions like this usually went.

"And everyone dies, yeah, I know." Joker huffed. Crow could picture him already making the adjustments and calculations necessary to keep that from happening.

"If any helmsman can get us off this thing before it reaches crush depth, it's you." Shepard encouraged. "We'll make a sweep for data and the IFF. Stand by."

"Aye, aye, ma'am. Good hunting." Shepard signals them into formation, and hits the button on the door. It opens to reveal more carnage smeared across the floor, and the unnatural interior of the Reaper. The others flick the lights on their weapons on, and Glint hovers at his shoulder illuminating the area ahead in similar fashion.

"This place smells wrong." Grunt growled, mouth hanging open slightly to taste the air. "Like a bad wound... anybody else-"

"Grunt, if you finish that sentence, I swear I'll have you take over Gardner's duties." Shepard scolded. The krogan grumbled slightly, but kept quiet as they listened to another disturbing research log.

"Ever meet one of those dragons of yours?" Shepard asks once it's played it's course. "Could they make people share memories?"

"They could do whatever the wisher wanted." Crow shrugged. "But it alway came with a price, like if you wished someone back from the dead, they would come back wrong, or if you asked for q weapon, it would drive you madder the more you weilded it. I'm glad I've never met one... saw an intact brain in a tank once, that was scary enough."

"Brain in a tank, Young Frankenstein style?" The blond shook her head and led them onwards. "Your world just gets weirder."

"I could say the same for yours." He replied, casting his gaze about the place. Every instinct he had was screaming at him to leave, telling him there was danger everywhere, but he couldn't see it. Ahamkara levels of spooky, indeed. "My senses tell me I'm surrounded, but I see nothing."

"Try that truesight of yours. If there's geth in play, they could have cloaked units." The Commander motioned for them to take cover, and Crow focused on the void. After a few moments, he was able to call on it to reveal the unseen. He looked around, strained his eyes trying to see as far as he could beyond the walls and crates for movement, and saw nothing.

Until, by chance, he glanced down.

"Under the walkway!" He gasped, tracking one of the unknowns as it clawed itself up onto the floor. It looked... human. Husks! The footage and pictures he'd seen didn't do them justice; a moving amalgamation of rotten flesh and cybernetics, looking and smelling as bad as one might expect from such a thing. Hawkmoon punched a hole clean through it, and he was surprised to discover it wasn't as difficult to do as it had been with the cryptolith thralls.

Because they look less human. He shook that thought away.

"Husks underneath, get away from the edges and don't let them get close!" Shepard ordered. They got in close formation as more husks started crawling over the edges, guns bright and loud as the four of them mowed the enemy down like a line of Thralls. Thane and Shepard's biotics flared as the two of them pushed back anything that got close, Grunt's shotgun boomed over the sound of husks moaning and screaming(along with the krogan's elated battle cries). Crow had never used truesight in combat before, and he certainly couldn't maintain it for long periods of time; it wasn't meant to be.

But he couldn't fight and refocus his Light to solar at the same time, so he made it work. Every other blink, he would use the void to sight a target before it rose onto the walkway, shooting it in the head before it would even pull it's shoulders up. He didn't know how many husks there were, but he could feel his confidence rising.

Until Grunt lost control of the urge to charge.

"Abomination!" Shepard called out as the krogan rushed into a stream oh husks, plowing through them with a glowing red one trailing behind him. Crow didn't really think- he rushed forwards with a Hunter's speed and grabbed the thing before it could get in blast radius of the blood-raging teenager, and flung himself to the side for good measure, taking it with him. The death was hot and fast.

A rush of warmth, and he sits bolt upright, nearly cracking heads with Shepard when he does so.

"Shit!" She swears, leaning back quickly. There's a smear of his blood on her left glove.

"Language." Glint mutters, before phasing. The husks are gone, and the rest of the team is standing around him, minus Shepard who'd been crouching. Grunt is shuffling in place awkwardly, Thane looks concerned, and Shepard seems disturbed.

"Hi?" He says, unsure of what else to say. This was the first time anyone on the ground unit besides Thane or Tali had seen him rez.

"You good?" Shepard asked uncertainly.

"Yeah." He tells her, looking around. "We going?

"Yeah." She stand up. "Grunt, we're having another talk about self control later."

The krogan's response was a groan, quickly cut off when she shot him a glare. Crow got to his feet, checked Hawkmoon, and left the pool of his own blood behind.

Chapter Text

Years of training are what stop Shepard from screaming when Crow gets blown to pieces, her body going into autopilot because when it happens, her mind temporarily forgets that it isn't permanent for him.

"Grunt, get back in formation!" She orders, but he's given himself over to the blood rage, and now they can't shoot anything that's coming at him without risking hitting him. Thankfully, no other abominations came out to play, and he handled the rest of his husks with the enthusiasm only a blood raging teenage krogan could muster.

She makes her way to the smoking pile of gore as soon as the room as clear, and by now she's managed to remember he's unkillable. Even if she hadn't, Glint appearing in a whirl of particles would have reminded her.

"It's okay!" He reassures them, shell parting and Light pulsing. "This is all perfectly normal!"

He's a mess, practically unrecognizable. Glint's Light seems to reach around the corpse briefly, then-

Crow jerks upright, and nearly headbutts her. She swears, starts backwards, and then has to take a moment to just... take him in. That uneven dark hair that they should really get fixed up, eyes that she swore used to be several shades paler in color, and now in the dark seemed to glow faintly. Whispy trails of Light drift across his skin, and his expressions is one of slight unease as he looks at them all.

"Hi?" He says, and it occured to her that standing over someone after a rez might be considered unsettling.

"You good?" She asks, almost not trusting her voice. He'd been dead and now he was fine. Knowing it was possible was one thing, and she'd seen the aftermath of a death no thanks to Jack, but seeing it happen? Part of her wanted to recoil, to get as far away from him as possible because her most primal instincts were screaming at the unnaturalness of him; her brain knew this was wrong on an instinctive level and it was urging her to get away.

Another part wonders: 'Is this what the others feel around me? Is this what it's like to be around someone who shouldn't be alive?'

The other part of her wanted to grab him and hug him, because he was alive.

"Yeah." He tells her awkwardly. "We going?"

"Yeah." She stood, and trying to keep her voice shake-free, turned to Grunt. "Grunt, we're having another talk about self control later."

He'd been gone, if he'd been anyone else this would have been a mission failure. No, not if he'd been anyone else. No, she couldn't afford to start seeing Crow as an acceptable casualty, especially when they were finally drilling it into him that his life and health mattered, Light or no.

"Check weapons and back in formation, Crow keep using that x-ray vision of yours. Chances are they'll be crawling out of every crack we see." She orders, and the Hunter nods, eyes flickering to a strange plum shade briefly as he glanced about.

"There's a few up ahead, I think, standing up here, not crawling beneath. I can't see further." He told her, and she tries not to think about how those eyes had been fused shut by burns less than a minute ago.

"Should have picked you up sooner." She commented, trying to sooth her nerves more than anything. "Could've used someone who could see through walls a while ago. Let's go."

They make it up the stairs in time to see two husks get picked off by what seemed to be long range precision fire. Thane isn't using his rifle at present.

"Sniper. Crow?" The Awoken glances about.

"Activity under the floor ahead and to the right, I think. Nothing too close anymore, though..." he grinned and gestured to the headless husks. "I guess they must have... lost their heads."

I need to stop letting him hang out with Joker so much.

"He he he." Grunt does his weird little chuckle when he seemingly gets the joke.

"Focus." She scolds, leading the way. They sidle up to the corridor where the husks had fallen.

"It would be faster if I checked out that sniper." Crow suggested. "If he gets me, you can just drag me back for Glint."

Shepard has to clench her jaw to stop herself from screaming 'hell no', because she's already seen him blown to pieces and doesn't want to see him with his head shot off. But he also has a point. He has a skillset, and she would be a fool not to use it, even if that skillset was the ability to die.

"Check." She orders through grit teeth. Crow moves forwards, Hawkmoon ready, and steps into the line of fire, eyes and gun both seeking his target. Yellow flashes with swirling plum between several blinks, and he tenses.

"No sign of the shooter, but contacts are swarming under the floor down there, looks like more husks and something else." He reports, stepping back into cover. "I'm going to refocus my Light, I'm more experienced with fire."

"Okay. Thane, set up. Grunt, on me." The drell took out his rifle, and Grunt moved up to her. She glanced at Crow, who still had a distant look about him. As she watched, he blinked, and to her for a moment there seemed to be fire in his eyes, and a spike in temperature about him. "Ready?"

The Hunter nods, and Shepard motions for Grunt to follow her. Like a shaken hornet nest, the husks start crawling out of the darkness beneath to meet them. Shepard and Grunt start mowing them down with gun and biotics, Thane picking the more distant ones off so that their numbers weren't overwhelming by the time they reached the N7 and Krogan. Hawkmoon barked judgmentally, the heavy caliber bullets- real bullets, not shavings of metal accelerated to stupid speeds- practically blasting and throwing husks to the ground harshly.

She'd had her doubts about such a weapon, but it was proving effective. What she still couldn't figure out was the strange noises it made, the way it seemed to glow, or the fact that when he'd offered to let her try it during target practice, it had felt both uncomfortably cold and warm in her hands, and when she fired it, it felt like the gun was... reprimanding her. She had decided not to tell Crow she though his weapon was sentient and didn't like being used by other people; he would probably think she was crazy.

Maybe she was crazy. She'd been dead, and she wasn't 'used to it', who knew what that did to a person's brain; especially a brain that had been exposed to a vacuum and subsequently melted by the heat of atmospheric reentry.

The husks keep coming; Shepard throws several of them with her biotics, Grunt whips out his shotgun as some of them start getting too close for comfort. A scion howls, and steps out of whatever woodworks it had been hiding in, along with so many husks, they clog the whole platform.

"Crow, do the thing!" Grunt yells with an air of irritation, like he didn't want Crow to 'do the thing' but could begrudgingly admit they needed him to. "Do the flaming knife thing!"

"Shepard?" the Hunter asks for confirmation, eyeing the swarm that's fast approaching.

"Do it, Grunt fall back." she and the Krogan promptly get out of the way, though her every instinct tells her to stay put and keep firing. Crow steps out of cover, Hawkmoon holstered, and the local temperature seems to spike. All at once, flame seems to erupts out of every pore of his body, curling, rising, swirling down his arms. He leaps, twists, hurls shaped fire at the coming hoard in a barrage of golden, superheated spikes, and they hit the husks hard, vaporizing some, before exploding and vaporizing more.

There is no smoke when the flames are clear, nor are there any hostiles, or remnants thereof other than misshaped metal where molten hot sol Light had superheated it. There was just Crow, shaking off residual Light like it was water. He turned to look at her, and there seemed to be traces of fire across his skin instead of the usual reflection-like light, but she blinked and he looked normal again. Once more, she had the sense that she was too close to something that didn't belong, but this time she didn't feel the need to run.

If anything, she felt strangely safe despite the place they were in.

"Looks clear." he announced, and they all came cautiously out of cover. "But I think we should deal with those before they wake up."

He points to the very back of the room, where it looks like some sort of altar has been set up, behind it a gruesome cluster of Dragons' Teeth, some of which were currently in use.

"Thane, take care of it." she orders, and the drell nods, before checking his weapon and approaching the setup. Shepard pokes around the room some, finding another research log that seems to put Crow off a bit.

"Reminds me of the Cryptoliths now than bone-whispers." he comments with a slight shudder.

"Let's keep moving." she gathers them up again once Thane had shot all the forming husks in the head, rendering them unusable, and they make their way through the next section of decon. Once they were through, they fanned out to check the area, all of them listening for the sound of husks scrabbling beneath them.

They don't listen hard enough.

"Shepard!" Thane warns, just as she hears it. She turns around just in time to see both of the surprisingly sneaky blighters heads explode. She whirls around to find who'd done it, but none of her squadmates had been in the right position for shots like that. Then, the flash of a familiar lightbulb head catches her attention from the catwalks above. A geth, with a hole blasted through it, looked her dead in the eye, lowered it's rifle, and the shock of it it so much that she forgets to point her own gun at the thing.

As if a geth standing down after covering her six wasn't weird enough, it then did something she thought was impossible.

It spoke.

"Shepard-Commander." it said in garbled male tone, almost as if in... acknowledgement. And then, her and, well, maybe all of them still frozen with disbelief, the geth walked away, and they let it. Or was it a him? Because what in the many stars had she just seen and heard?

"Isn't that impossible?" Glint broke the stunned silence. "Tali said that was impossible. And why did it help us?"

"I don't know." is all Shepard can give him, shaking her head.

"Well, since he knows you..." Grunt grumbled, "tell him I don't need his help!"

"It." Thane corrected, though he sounded perplexed as all of them did.

"Sounded like a boy geth to me." the Krogan shrugged. "Whatever."

They fight their way through another hoard to get to the miraculously intact IFF that the research team had managed to find and extract before they were indoctrinated. It's also been left conveniently close to the core they had to destroy.

The one that their geth... compatriot? Competitor? Whatever he was, seemed to be trying to mess with, while at the same time being swarmed by husks. They watch from behind a decon barrier as one husk get's the drop on him and smashes him hard against the ground. Well, there goes any chance of solving that mystery. She thinks dryly.

You couldn't talk to a dead man; dead robot in this case. Or rather, you could talk to him, but it was going to be a very one-sided conversation.

"Okay, since whatever our little tin friend was trying won't work, looks like we'll be doing this the hard way." she readied her weapon. "We're shooting that thing until it breaks."

"I could Golden Gun it into oblivion, if you like." Crow offered hopefully, and she had to resist rolling her eyes.

"Yes, Crow, I would like that very much." the Hunter beamed at this, and golden Light flickers across his right shoulder briefly, as if in anticipation. He was always almost too eager to please at times, but seeing such a look on his face made her feel a little less bad about relying on his powers so much during this op. Though she could choose to see it as putting him through his paces, seeing what he was really capable of, abilities like Crow's could easily turn into a crutch if she wasn't careful.

She had run ops without space magic backing her up her whole life, she couldn't afford to lose her edge by becoming complacent.

The barrier went down, and the husks quickly lost interest in the Gath as something new and fresh became available for killing. The four of them make quick work of them, but new husks are starting to crawl out of the darkness.

"Joker, get ready, we're sending you coordinates for pickup." she alerted Normandy's pilot.

"Aye, aye, ma'am. Coordinates received, just don't be too slow." He responded.

"We'll make The Flash look bad. Shepard out." She couldn't help but look at the geth on the floor. It was mostly intact; if geth could be knocked out, she'd say that was what happened. "Glint, what can you tell me about this thing? Is it really dead?"

Maybe this was a bad idea; curiosity killed the cat, after all, but she's been dead before so what's the danger in risking it again if Cerberus can just build her anew? Glint hovered down over the fallen synthetic, and scanned it, shell nodes twisting as he processed whatever information he was getting.

"Not dead, not really." he told her, swooping back to Crow. "I guess if you wanted to interrogate it, you could reactivate it."

"Grunt, get over here." She waved the krogan over, giving in to the demands of the Bad Idea Fairy that had tapped her on the shoulder. "I have a package for you."

"Commander, are you certain?" Thane questions, dark eyes searching, as if looking for signs that she was indoctrinated or had otherwise lost her marbles.

"No, but nobody ever learned anything without taking a risk." she told him. "This thing could talk; even knew my name. I think some answers are in order."

"Tali's gonna hate this." Grunt commented, shouldering the heavy metal body.

"Tali's going to have to live with it." Shepard grimaced. "She'll be helping with the interrogation. Crow, if you could do the honors."

"My pleasure." fire flashed around him again as she and Thane threw husks clear of their escape route, this time coalescing down his arm and into Hawkmoon, turning it into- as the name of the technique would suggest- a golden gun. He fired three times at the core, and the core did not like this one bit, so much so it promptly collapsed on itself, thus triggering Operation: Run Like Hell Is Behind You.

So they did. It was definitly getting a place on her top ten list of worst, most nerve-wracking things she's ever done on a op, right next to walking that exposed bridge in Dantius Towers with fifty mile per hour wind trying to know her and her team off of it. The best part was jumping to the airlock.

The real best part was closing the airlock, and finally bugging out, even though nobody really relaxed until the rattling and shaking stopped, with Normandy finally clear of the brown dwarf's gravity and storms.

"Well," Crow panted, still sitting against the wall, "that was fun."

"Yeah!" Grunt agreed enthusiastically, not picking up on the Awoken's sarcasm. He slammed his fist into his other hand. "Exploding husks, flaming guns, and a talking geth!"

"Talking geth?" Garrus asked, having overheard that last bit as the airlock opened. To answer him, she indicated said geth laying crumpled on the floor as she took her helmet off. The turian and the rest of his team all stared downwards. "Um... Shepard?"

"Tali, we have a new project." she said, grimacing.

"I can see that." the quarian commented warily. "Why?"

"He's a talker." she informed her. "And I want to know what he has to say."

Chapter Text

They started with the brain scans as soon as the geth was secured and Tali was satisfied with the measures put in place to prevent it from being a problem. Crow initially didn't see the wisdom of storing a member of a hostile synthetic species in the AI Core where it could access EDI's hardware if things went really far south, but according to Shepard, the room was the tech equivalent to Fort Nox- whatever that was. It was designed to lock down and contain a rogue AI in a worst case scenario; nothing was getting out.

As far as the IFF was concerned, apparently Shepard wanted them to finish work on the transmat system first, since the process of integrating it was already underway. Every upgrade made to the ship had some sort of consequence that the engineers and maintenance crews had to make ship-wide adjustments for, usually to do with power draw. Shepard didn't want to tax the Normandy or her crew with more tech integration work while they were still working the problems transmat would cause. Thankfully, they were close to running the first tests on the system, so hopefully the IFF wouldn't have to wait too long.

Right now, Crow was killing time while he waited for Chakwas to sort through the results of their first scans, trying to watch that Star Trek show that Joker kept insisting he should see, but failing to focus on the datapad screen for more than five minutes at a time. His brain was full of incredibly distracting thoughts about a variety of things, from the mission, the bomb in Glint, to the fact Shepard was currently trying to have a friendly chat with a geth in the next room over.

For his first time out with Shepard, he thinks he'd done fairly well. She had certainly seemed pleased with his abilities and conduct in the field. The only hiccup he could think of there being was his death. She hadn't seemed very fond of that, and he supposed that after a lifetime of mortal fights with mortal soldiers at her side, the concept of losing a man, but not really losing him, might be surreal for her.

The way she had looked at him, and kept doing so soon afterwards... he couldn't place it. It had seemed like something between concern and disturbed. There was something about it that had just made something... click for him. In that moment, he had felt like he could trust Commander Shepard, really trust her, because for whatever reason, she cared. He'd known, in the back of his head that she did, but now it was just... like it had been driven home in a way it hadn't before.

He could trust her. They could trust her. She was the furthest from Spider they were ever going to get, and it was these thoughts that led into his dilemma with Glint.

Glancing at his Ghost now, perched on his left shoulder, Glint seems content. But he could be more; he could be free, they could be free, truly cast off the shackles that Spider had placed on them for good. It's come up in conversation a few times since Aite, and he can feel Glint's dread through their Link every time, but they had to get that thing out.

For his part, he dreads telling Shepard that there's been a bomb on her ship for over a month and he hadn't informed her of it. He dreads the fact he would have to provide context as to how the bomb got in his friend, because there's no way she won't ask, and no way she'll take 'I don't want to talk about it' as an answer, not in such a dire situation. He dreads that she'll probably have to bring others from crew in on it, if only so the more technically-minded ones can help work the problem, because Ghosts are fragile creatures and one thing planned wrong could end in disaster.

He dreads that one of those people would probably be Joker, who he's tentatively close to calling a friend, the only thing really holding him back from doing so at this point being fearful hesitation. He's never had a human friend before; Glint is his Ghost, even if they had a disagreement, they always bounced back, out of necessity at worst, or the fact they were all each other had at best. If the Normandy had taught him one thing, it was that friendships outside a Ghost link were fickle, messy, prone to drama and easily lost, so much so that sometimes he wonders if all the potential angst and heartbreak are worth it.

Glint keeps insisting that it is.

But almost more than Joker, he dreads Tali. Shepard would definitely want her expertise with tech on such a project, her and Joker were the cream of Normandy's brain crop when it came to figuring out unknown tech and code, if anything the transmat project had proven that much, and he wasn't letting Mordin poke around inside his Ghost(that had been one of Glint's 'absolutley not happening' conditions). He's still not sure he can trust her, she's always so unreadable. He knew she no longer distrusted him, but she certainly wasn't a fan of him, or his bond with a sentient energy construct that also happened to be part code.

The notion of her and anyone else Shepard bring in to work the problem knowing even vague details about Uldren, and poking around in Glint soon after was one of the biggest mental hurdles he was trying to jump. The same went for Glint himself, but at the end of the day, the bomb had to go. They were either all in trusting Shepard and the Normandy crew, or they were all out, and now was the time to decide.

"Glint." He says quietly, pausing the show. His Ghost drooped and twitch, like he could sense what Crow was about to bring up. "We need to do it."

"Crow, I..." Glint twitched, and pressed against his shoulder. "I'm not sure about this."

"I know. I'm not either." He admitted, all that dread flaring in his chest. "But after today I'm more sure. If anything Shepard deserves to know there's a bomb on the ship. She was trained to defuse nukes with paperclips and a gum wrapper while blindfolded, even if she gets mad we kept it from her, she can still help."

"What if she's really mad." His Ghost whispered.

"We could leave." He'd be lying if he said he hadn't thought of it. If he hadn't wondered what would happen if revealing the bomb, his work- and crimes committed- under Spider's direction, about Uldren, was too much. If it totally trashed everything; his blooming friendships, Shepard's trust, this feeling that the Normandy was actually safe. If it comes to needing a full-on escape, he's not sure what he'll do. But if things are really bad, and there's a chance to bug out next time they hit port, he should be able to make off using the void and what he's learned about the galactic transport system.

He's not sure where he would go. Where he could go. Or how he'll get credits, how he'll avoid people like Cerberus, how he'll avoid Shepard and the Normandy if they try to chase after him. Or anyone else who comes after him, for that matter. He's not an idiot, he knows that an unaligned Lightbearer loose in this reality would be like honey to every bear that wanted an edge in the galaxy. That was why Spider had played him in the first place, how the bomb had gotten in his friend.

It was one of those things that he didn't have a full plan for, and never could, because there were too many unknowns.

"Glint... it's just... it's time." He sighed, still keeping his voice down to minimize the chances EDI would overhear. "We do it quick, like a rough rez."

His Ghost made a low warbling noise in response to this, and Crow channeled Light about his shoulder briefly to try to set him more at ease. At the same moment, Shepard and Tali marched out of the AI Core. From what he's learned about quarian body language while working with her, the latter isn't happy, and it shows in her tone of voice.

"Shepard, I just- I can't work with that thing." She grit out. The biggest problem with hanging out in the med bay all the time is that people felt comfortable here, meaning they had no qualms about airing dirty laundry in here. This tended to create the usual dilemma of drawing attention to yourself and making it awkward if you left, or staying and feeling second hand embarrassment and awkwardness.

And as far as turning invisible went, it would just make him feel like a dirty eavesdropper. So here he was, stuck listening to it all.

"We're not going to take him into the field or invite him to drills just yet." Shepard sighs tiredly, pinching the bridge of her nose, before happening to glance in his direction. "Crow, I need a favor."

"Whatever it is, Commander." He sat up and set the datapad aside. Whatever she had planned, maybe getting it done well would soften her up to be less angry about the bomb later.

"Our latest acquisition needs to kept under observation, but I want to offer a chance to earn some trust." She started, putting a hand on Tali's shoulder when the quarian engaged in some frustrated fidgeting. "I want you and team transmat to do it. If Legion has any ideas that could help with the project, explore them, but the priority is to assess if we can trust him, and if working with a geth is even possible for us."

"Sorry, 'Legion'?" Crow blinks, trying to reconcile what his ears had just heard. Guess I'm not the only one with something hard to hear today. "Is that... the..."

"Geth? Yeah." She heaved a sigh and glared at a nearby EDI camera. "And I don't appreciate the passive-aggressive name suggestion that he happened to stick with because he's a robot with no sense of what bad marketing is."

"Bad marketing?" He inquired.

"EDI named it after the devil." Tali said wryly, almost sounding like she approved of the AI for once.

"Which is very counterproductive for a geth that's literally built to be their version of a diplomat to organics." Shepard added, brows knit together. "Look, this is the best way I can think of that will give Legion a chance to prove he's trustworthy, while letting Tali keep an eye on him, but you're the one in charge. I'd rather know if you're cool with this before actually doing it."

Crow rubbed the back of his neck, thinking. On one hand, he knew what it was like to have to prove oneself, that every opportunity felt like a victory in itself. On the other, this was a geth, an enemy he hadn't even encountered before, and whom most of the crew had seen carnage from.

"What is it, he, whatever, doing here? Why was he on that Reaper, and why are the geth trying to make nice all the sudden?" He asks. He can tell how agitated Tali is by the prospect of working with a geth, even if it gave her the opportunity to watch it, and the others would likewise be unhappy, having actually seen combat with the robotic race.

"Apparently, his mission was to find me." The Commander told him. "Barring that, find other ways to fight the Reapers. Turns out, the geth had some sort of ideological split; the ones we've been fighting have mostly been the kind who worship the Reapers. Apparently they want the Reapers to 'give them the future', and Legion's geth want to make their 'own future'. No clue as to what that future is, by the way."

"So, it's a conflict between developing and advancing through their own achievements against accepting the technology of another, superior force to meet the same conclusion?" Glint paraphrased quizzically.

"From what I could gather, pretty much." Shepard shrugged.

"Fascinating." His Ghost concluded. "I'd almost say that sounds philosophical, definitely don't get stuff like this happening back home."

"I guess... I suppose we could give it a try." Crow isn't entirely sure about this, but he's making enough bold decisions today, why not add another to the list? "I was hoping to test the system next time we were in port, I guess an extra set of- an extra eye could help. It's a complex process."

"Okay." Shepard seems to heave a sigh of relief. "Feel free to talk to him yourself if you feel too unsure, pitch it to the rest of the team, and let me know if you think it will be too problematic."

"Will do." Crow had to resist the urge to fidget, an odd sort of panic rising in his chest as he tried to judge the right time to bring up the bomb, while at the same time all his dreads came to the surface to try to stop him.

"Good man. Right, Tals, let's grab Garrus and see what Gardner's got got for us." Shepard starts to lead her still-disgruntled friend away.

"Actually Commander, I need to speak to you." He blurts out. Glint phases, clearly seeing where this is about to go. He clenches his fists, determined to finish despite the feeling that he's just jumped into the deep end with no way out. "In private."

"Okay." She agreed, turning to look at him in puzzlement. "Go on without me, Tali."

The quarian fixed him with one of her unreadable stares, before turning and leaving. The doors closed and left the med bay silent.

"EDI, privacy." Shepard orders as she approached him again. The window looking out into the mess blacked out. "There something about all this you didn't want Tali to hear?"

"No, it's... it's not that. Has nothing to do with Legion, actually. Or the mission. I..." he had to take a deep breath; the med bay feels suddenly smaller than it actually is, and he feels the urge to pace like a trapped coyote. He walks back to his bed and forces himself to sit to curb that urge. "It's about me. And Glint, and it's... I'm not sure how to say it, I've been trying to think of how to, I've been planning to and now I just-"

"Just breath." Shepard encouraged, sitting down on the bed across from him, face now creased with concern. He does as he's told, and at the same time he wrestled control of his Light so his emotions don't make him flare unintentionally. "Walk me through it from the start."

"Okay, okay..." he feels like he's going to be sick, even as he takes another breath and tries his best to break it to her slowly. "Lightbearers don't remember their past lives, and Guardians are... discouraged from seeking answers about theirs. It's considered a distraction and... and not everybody was a... a good person."

"I can see the reasoning behind that rule." Her gaze is searching, and he looks down unable to meet it. "It could mess with someone if they found something they didn't like. Did you break that rule?"

"I'm not a Guardian." He admits, letting out a shaky breath. "But I did find out about him. He's... the reason I'm not a Guardian. His name was- it was Uldren. Uldren Sov. He...uh... he killed a lot of people. One of them was a member of Guardian leadership, and I... I was only rezzed a few months after it happened. Everyone knew my face, even if I didn't, so I spent most of my time running from Guardians who... who wanted to..."

He startled by he hand when it suddenly clasped around his, making his already rapid heart rate spike. He tries to pull away by instinct, but her other hand grabs his forearm.

"Hey!" She says sharply, grip relaxing but not releasing him. Her gaze hold neither mistrust or betrayal, but it's sharp and commanding. "You're good. Keep going."

"I.. I kept to myself. I stayed away from people, from the Last City as best I could, and one day, I crashed in the Reef. I, uh, I spent about eternity dying the vacuum a load of times, until some Eliksni salvagers found me. They took me to their baron, Spider, and he said he would let me stay as long as I worked off the... debt I owed for being saved." Shepard's hand squeezes his own, though not too tightly, and it's presence is becoming less alarming and more... comforting, like the gesture is meant to be. "At first it was little things, then tasks like clearing Hive out, and before I knew it, I was kicking down doors for glimmer, and his rules were getting worse. I was planning to leave, but one day a Guardian saw me, so he... he decided to... I-I didn't mean for it to happen, I didn't want to keep it from you, I just, I-I just..."

His vision was blurring even as he fought the tears, it felt like there wasn't enough air in the world, and he had the sudden urge to run and hide in the AI Core again. Shepard switches seats to sit next to him, and grips his shoulder firmly with her other hand. He wants to pull away, because now it's too real, now he's about to risk it all and he's in too deep to back out. "Crow, whatever it is, you can tell me. Breath, and tell me."

Light, this was where he lost it all, wasn't it? There was no way she could forgive him for keeping the presence of an explosive device aboard her ship a secret. He can't do this... But he's also in too deep.

"He put a bomb in Glint." Shepard becomes very still at his side, all his dreads come true, and it's just so much more horrible to say out loud. "There's a bomb in Glint."

"Shit." Is all she says, her grip going slack, like confirmation that he's ruined all the trust she's come to give him, ruined every moment where he's proven himself.

"I'm sorry!" He tries to pull away, he needs to get out of here, he's messed up and everything has gone so, horribly wrong, but Shepard grabs him again. "I'm sorry, I should have told you, I should have said something."

"Crow-" she's trying to pull him back down, grabbing his other arm, he needs to leave.

"I-I'll leave, I won't put anybody in danger I'll leave." He can barely see, and even if he could, he couldn't look at her.

"Crow, no-"

I'll leave the Normandy, I'll-"

"No!" Shepard has a sudden and tight grip on his shoulders, and she gives him a rough shake when she shouts that all but stops his heart and makes his body freeze. He's forced to see the blurry, fierce expression on her face as she doles out her judgment, and it's like there's a constrictor coiled tightly about his lungs while his heart hammers against his ribs like an angry Titan. "You are not leaving this ship. You are not apologizing even one more time. You are going to get yourself under control, you're going to tell me everything you can about this bomb, we're going to get it out, and then we're going to find a way to your reality so I can skin the peice of shit who did this alive."

All Crow can do is stare, because words fail him just as much as the ability to breath has. Because call him crazy, but it sounded like he hadn't actually ruined everything. In his lightheadedness, he somehow winds up on his knees, and when Shepard tugs him forward and wraps her arms around him, he initially fights it before realizing it's just a hug.

"Just breath. We'll figure this out." He takes in gulps of air, trying to will his lungs into submission. Somehow, despite the panic attack restricting him, he feels... strangly free. "I got you covered. We've all got you."

It only occurs to him later that this was the first time he'd ever been hugged.

Chapter Text

"Tell me more about this Uldren guy." Why couldn't her crew have normal problems? If it wasn't revenge or a puberty rite, it was bombs ending up in friends because of a combination of gangsters and homicidal past lives. "What exactly did he do to make people hate you that much?"

The panic attack has abated, but it still seems as though every word costs him physically. "To anger the Reefborn? He... butchered his own people. Tried to take over, and anyone that bowed to him, he killed. Then he... made the Scorn. Think zombies, but Eliksni. Had them trash and kill their way through the whole territory."

Chakwas chooses that moment to stride in, datapad in one hand and a mug that smelt like chamomile in the other. She deposits the hot mug on the bed next to Crow, giving Shepard a sharp look as she did so. I swear, I didn't do it! Crow had come to her with this, and if he'd anticipated having that kind of episode after spilling the beans, he had more guts than she thought, because not a lot of people would be okay with being seen like that, much less by a commanding officer.

Crow ducks his head, this time out of embarrassment, and mutters a thanks to the doctor, who pats him on the shoulder before wheeling about and leaving the med bay again. He takes the mug, but doesn't drink from it as he continues his story. "As for the Guardians, he killed the Hunter Vanguard. Permanently. Him and the Scorn."

"I haven't done as much reading on Guardian leadership as I should, what was the Hunter Vanguard's job again?" She inquires. He bites his lower lip, head ducked again, though this time in shame.

"Organizing other Hunters, mainly. Through them, his job was to keep an eye on the system; if something happened, Cayde-6 knew about it." The Awoken paused for a moment. "Vanguard leaders are also meant to train new Guardians of their respective class. Guess... guess that made me being born a Hunter that much more insulting."

"To Uldren, maybe." Shepard suggested, trying to bite back her anger. It wouldn't do for it to leak into her voice, and she couldn't afford for Crow to think she was mad at him again, not when he was opening up like this. While she was definitely having a talk with him later about trust, and the importance of not keeping unwanted explosive ordnance to oneself, she was more pissed off by the concept of random people inflicting violence on a member of her crew for no good reason(that she could see), even if the incidents had happened before his time on the Normandy. "It's not fair to punish you for his crimes. They should have known better, being Lightbearers themselves."

"How do you know? How can you be certain that none of me is him?" The Hunter challenged. "You barely know me, for all you know, I'm just as mad as he was, just as monstrous on the inside."

"I like to think I'm a good judge of character, Crow." She tells him slowly. "You've been here over a month, if you were planning to kill us all I'd have sniffed it out by now; and if not me, Joker or Thane would've."

"I could still be crazy." He pointed out dejectedly. "I'm two for two on emotional breakdowns at this point."

"I wouldn't expect anyone who's been through what you've been through to be totally okay." She reassures him, risking putting a hand on his shoulder. He tenses, but slowly relaxes as she goes on. "You're just as sane as the rest of us."

"By 'us', you do mean by 'normal people's standards, right?" He asks, looking at her sideways with a faint smirk. "Because if we're going with 'Normandy' standards, it would actually mean I am insane."

"You know, what's sad is you have a point." Shepard chuckles. "This ship can be a bit of a head case sometimes, but she's got a good crew, and you're a part of it. Maybe a little saner than some of us, if anything. We've all got things that keep us up at night. What do you say we take that bomb off your list?"

"I'd say 'good luck getting him to hold still for the scan'." Crow admitted. "He's... he's less okay with all this than I am. With being taken apart, I mean, the last time was Spider and he... wasn't gentle."

"Whatever you think will put Glint more at ease, just let me know." She encouraged. Poor little guy. She had diffused hostage bombs before, from explosive vests to nukes, but never a bomb inside somebody. This was going to be a whole new level of complicated, even without Glint's trauma hindering his cooperation.

"He doesn't want Mordin near this." The Awoken told her. "And I need to be with him for every step of this. Starting now. If he would come out. It's just a scan."

Crow then proceeded to go quiet, and for almost a minute his face did that thing it did whenever he was having a mental conversation with his Ghost. Eventually, though, Glint appeared, and tried at first to hide behind his Lightbearer.

"Sorry!" He squeaked. Crow nudged him into the open. "For not telling you."

"I think Crow's apologized enough for the both of you. Just hold still." She activated her omni-tool and set up for a deep scan. Glint tried to back away, but Crow held him still, a faint trail of Light visible between his fingers. The Ghost somewhat reminded her of some of those people who absolutely did not do hospitals or doctors. "Got it."

The Ghost was quick to vanish, and Crow sighed, running a hand through his hair. "I don't know anything about the bomb itself, I saw it happen but I..."

"Wasn't really watching?" She guessed, and he nodded. "Tell me about Spider. Who is he?"

"He fancies himself the Shore's only law. Given that the Reefborn are usually spread too thin to deal with the problems on the Shore, it's practically true." His grip tightens on the mug of tea, and she thinks she hears the ceramic creak in complacency. "Drugs, people, artifacts, any sort of contraband or shady enterprise you could name, he has a finger in the business, one way or the other. In your terms, he's a kingpin. Anything that can give him an edge, he takes. Including stray Lightbearers."

"Given how you were when we picked you up, I going to guess it would be safe to say he wasn't a very generous employer." Crow had been half starved when they first encountered him. Between that, his behavior around others, and the bomb, it didn't take her much to imagine just what Spider's treatment of him was like. It's also giving her insight to how it feels for Grunt to hold back a blood rage.

"No." He said with what seemed to be immense difficulty. "But he would argue otherwise."

It was in this moment that she recalled something he'd said at at the helm as they were leaving for the mission. "A Hunter's cloak is supposed to speak to his personality, a symbol of who he is."

The insignia on Crow's cloak left little to imagine, knowing what she did now. It was a symbol, all right; of forced servitude, speaking to who he was, a slave. Joker was right; that cloak had to go. Her eyes are drawn unwillingly to the small marks on his arms, thin, dark scars akin to burn marks.

"Do those have anything to do with it?" She can't help but ask, pointing lightly to one of the marks, even though she really doesn't want to actually know. He winces, and tugs the sleeve of his sweater down.

"Like I said, he dealt in every business, including anti-Light weaponry. Proving Glint couldn't heal me if I was cut was the best way of authentication." There's a multiversal barrier between me and Spider and he better hope it stays that way. She wants to hug the Awoken again, but she wrestles that urge back. She could only assume, from what she heard and his general dislike of contact, that those scars were only scratching the surface of what Spider had done, and for all she knew this conversation was bringing all kinds of Ghost-erased beatings to the forefront of his mind.

"I think we've talked about this enough for now." She felt exhausted just hearing about it, so he must be even more so. That, and she was dangerously close to losing her cool. The last thing she wanted to do at this point was let Crow mistake her anger for him as anger at him, and she had the distinct feeling that it would be easy for him to do so right now. "You should finish that up, get some rest. I'll talk to our brain trust about getting started on the bomb, you just try to focus on the transmat system for now."

"Yeah... yeah, okay." He nodded. His hands flares with sol Light briefly, and the tea started steaming again. She gave him a final pat on the shoulder before getting up and leaving him, typing out messages on her omni-tool as she went. Garrus, definitely. Tali. Joker, if only because it might make Glint more comfortable. She briefly considered Miranda or Kasumi, but half the challenge of this mission would be not spooking Glint too much, and the Lightborn duo weren't as close to the latter two as they were to the former three. They trusted Garrus, worked with Tali, and Joker... actually, she had no idea how Joker had become a go-to Crow expert, but she had a feeling Star Trek and junk food had something to do with it.

She sent messages for them to meet her in her quarters in ten minutes, and hit the button for her floor on the elevator. Once there, she took a moment to try and banish the hot tears trying to prick at her eyes.

What the actual fuck. They all knew his past was mess, the signs were there for all to see. But this? This was worse than what she had imagined. She remembers when they found out about the experiments preformed on Jack and those other kids. She had felt like this for the convict at the time, but Jack's nature made it very difficult, bordering on impossible, to feel any real sympathy for her and keep it. No matter how much you reminded yourself what she had been through, the knowledge that she dealt with that pain by inflicting more pain and violence on others quickly rose to the forefront of your mind. Jack took pity and spat on it, took kindness as one would an insult, and, by her own admittance, still wanted to 'kill everyone' she saw.

Crow was... Crow. Shy, kind, perpetually confused Crow, and that made it easier to be angry for him than it was for Jack. Easier to look at what was done to him and think, 'they did that to one of my crew' because he hadn't used that pain as an excuse for murder and violence, even though his past life apparently had a gift for both. To think, his very existence was the reason he'd been treated so.

On one hand, she could understand, because why should a bad person be given a second chance when there were others so much deserving? But Crow was the furthest from whatever Uldren had been, even by that brief description he'd given, and on that hand she understands fully the purpose of a second chance. She pauses with her hand running down her face.

Second chances were for doing better than the first time... not finishing unfinished business.

Crow wasn't making up for Uldren's crimes in this reality, or proving he wasn't that man; he was making his own legacy, defining himself. He was a good person, and now he had a means to exercise that nature. What if she was going about her own second chance the wrong way? She's been trying to put the pieces back together, but what if they were meant to be something new? She has Garrus back, she has Joker, Chakwas, Tali, and she'd named the new ship Normandy. They were still fighting Reapers, if only through agents of the malicious AI's.

What if she'd been so busy with old business that she had overlooked possibilities of something new? Plenty of thoughts had gone through her head over Alchera, things he'd never gotten the chance to do or explore. She'd thought she might be crossing something off that list someday once she and Kaiden had gotten serious, but if Horizon and that letter was anything to go by, that ship had sailed. Try as she might to get over it, two years for him had been only a day for her, and even though it hurts less after the months that had followed, she still regretted that that future was closed to her.

Still grieved it. But... maybe, just because Kaiden was probably gone from her life, didn't mean she had to close the book on that future. She could use a different piece, instead of trying to use the same one as before. She might have her friends mostly back and intact, but she couldn't help but feel lonely after getting used to being in love and having someone in love with her; the trust such a relationship forged.

The door opened and broke her out of her Crow-induced introspection on her love life.

"Any particular reason I'm needed the moment I about to get out of my braces for the night?" Joker yawned as he limped in wearing his nightclothes. It might be the first time she's ever seen him forget his hat, and the sight of his very non-regulation hair falling about his forehead instead of a hat takes her back a moment. "What's that look for?"

He kind of looked good without his ha- nope, Sierra, don't go there. She kicked her brain out of 'love life introspection mode' as fast as possible and turned quickly to the fridge under her desk to hide the blush the thought had summoned in case she couldn't banish it in time. She was suddenly very glad the lights were dim.

"Yeah, just wait until Tali and Garrus get here." she passed a can of beer back to him, and took one for herself, choosing to let that last question go unanswered. This was grim business, and she needed a cold one after all of it. "Might want to sit down and nurse that; you're going to need it."

Chapter Text

Joker and Tali had definitly been brought in on the task of removing Glint's bomb. Joker was unusually quiet, in that he was being quiet at all, and Tali kept staring at him... though that might be because he'd ultimately agreed to letting Legion onto team transmat. Which nobody was happy about. At all.

"I don't bloody trust this thing at all." Donnely loudly whispered to his other half.

"Shh, it can probably hear you." Daniels elbowed him in the ribs while keeping the fake smile plastered all over her face. Legion stood across from the four of them in the Core Engineering room. Joker was in a manhole with Glint, and the rest of them were trying to integrate the new arrival into the team.

So far since the geth had arrived, this process had involved mostly staring. That, and Tali playing with her boot knife threateningly. At least she's not staring at me anymore. It was probably the only upside to this situation.

"So... Legion." he tried to swallow the nervous lump in his throat. He'd never met a friendly AI before that wasn't EDI; and EDI watched every move of every person on the ship, something he didn't really consider friendly. Legion looked like he'd been pulled out of a scrapyard, scuffed and dented everywhere, with a giant hole that looked like it was in desperate need of repair. Remnants of N7 armor had been grafted onto some of the damaged areas in a way reminiscent of Eliksni scrapworking. "This is... everybody. Everybody, this is Legion."

Was that a dumb introduction? He felt a little dumb.

"We know." Tali huffed, fidgeting with her knife some.

"You are attempting the deconstruction and reconstruction of organic matter between two locations." Legion... asked? It was hard to get a read on the tone of speech. "We were told to assist you."

"Yeah." Crow gestured to the manhole Joker had disappeared into. "I guess we'll let Glint catch you up, he can share a data packet with you once he and Joker are done down there."

Any day now, you two. The tension up here was thick enough that Tali could probably cut it with that knife, and they were the best ones at clearing such tension.

Joker wasn't really the 'ideal friend' type. He didn't like letting other people handle his baggage, and he was shit at handling other people's own. In short, he wasn't very good at the whole 'sensitivity, empathy, listening to other people's problems' sort of thing. Which is what makes the realization that he might be Crow's friend so problematic; the guy had a freighter-ton of baggage, even more than they'd originally thought.

He become-ugh-invested in the guy. He can be a real character when he lets his nerves go, and dare Joker say it, he enjoyed the Awoken's company. The only one he'd previously dared to call a friend was Shepard, and she was a badass marine who kept her feelings to herself and didn't ask him for help sorting through them; she did that with Garrus, her 'battle-boo', and probably Kaiden before that.

The real problem with being Crow's friend was the Vroliks. Never before had he so desperately wanted to punch something repeatedly until both hands were broken. If that something were this 'Spider' guy's face, he would complain about the hospital bill less because it will have been worth it, but still. A normal guy could punch a wall or something; it was the trademark move of a man who needed to beat the daylights out of something but didn't want to hit something breakable. Joker wasn't able to punch anything, because his hands themselves were too breakable.

Thus this violent urge was translated into an itchy trigger finger; he really wished Shepard would hurry up and find something he could blast from orbit. He was just so angry. It brings to mind every time in his life where he saw the worst shit ever happen to the best of people who didn't deserve it. Ash getting blow up by a nuke, Shepard's whole situation, Tali's bullshit trial, all those innocents that the Collectors were taking. And now Crow and Glint, with a bomb in the latter thus making the former a slave.

Who would hurt Glint of all people? He was probably the most surprisingly innocent soul Joker had ever met. Right now the Ghost was helping him rewire some power conduits, keeping a steady light pointed where the pilot needed it. He keeps trying to think of something to say, but doesn't know what. What did you say to someone after finding out about such a thing? Again, he was not the sensitive sort, and there had definitly been an awkwardness in their air all morning while he tried to figure out what to say.

Maybe you made it awkward, idiot. Maybe Crow didn't want pity or platitudes. Joker knew he hated it when people spent time walking on eggshells about his condition, he'd be dammed if he did the same thing to Crow about Spider. Star Trek and burritos, just do what we planned to. Sure, they weren't technically allowed to have food down here, but it wouldn't be the first time team transmat broke that rule; one movie night wouldn't blow up the ship.

Besides; Donnely had talked up his aunt's nacho recipe, and Crow needed to eat something other than potatoes. Yeah, that was a good plan. See if normalcy did anything. Even if Normandy normalcy equated to a geth helping them crack teleportation.

Still, as he worked down here with Glint, certain things refused to leave his mind. Like the fact an explosive device with unknown yield was floating mere inches from his face, or what Shepard had said about Crow's cloak last night. A very drunk Garrus, after a reminder of what they had learned about the cultural significance of a Hunter's cloak earlier, had suggested they make him a new one.

They'd laughed it off when there was beer in their systems, but now that Joker was sober and had thought about it, it didn't seem like half a bad idea. The only problem was that most materials that could make such a thing either didn't exist, or only existed in Crow's ratty armor. That, and a cloak was supposed to 'speak to who he is' or whatever; meaning it wasn't just some article of clothing they could dump on him, it had to be personal.

If he went to Crow with the idea, the Hunter might refuse out of some kind of humility garbage, or insist it wasn't necessary... which meant the task might require conspiracy. And the only one who might have authority to design such a personal thing was Glint, who never left his Lightbearer's side and thus was near impossible to conspire with, unless one was sent down to rewire conduits with him... like Joker had volunteered to.

It was the perfect crime. He just had to push himself into the pool.

"So, Glint." he decided to start. "I've been meaning to ask you something."

"Yes?" the Ghost inquired nervously, obviously expecting more questions about the bomb.

"What are Hunter cloaks made out of?" he decided to get it over with, like ripping off a bandage. If he sat here stewing any longer, he was going to boil over.

"Hunter cloaks?" Glint's shell twisted and expanded with surprise. "Sapphire wire and whatever the Hunter in question prefers, usually. Materials vary, but they all need to be durable and easy to repair by a Ghost. Why?"

"Yesterday, Crow said a cloak is supposed to define a Hunter, right?" the Ghost bobbed up and down, taking the light with him. "Hey, hold that still. So basically his cloak just defines him as a slave to this Spider asshole."

"Language." the sentient energy construct scolded, though with less enthusiasm than before.

"Am I right or not?" the Ghost drooped and nodded again. "Hold that still, I'm gonna zap myself. So what if- and you keep this between us, I mean it- we made him a new one?"

"Oooo!" Glint perked up, though he was quick this time to shine the light back on Joker's work. "But I don't know where we'd get sapphire wire around here, aside from in that old cloak."

"Would it be enough to make a new one?" he asked as he wrapped up his task.

"Maybe. Depends on what you have in mind." Glint's shell twisted as he thought, and it again struck Joker just how expressive a ball of polygonal nodes can be.

"You mean what you have in mind." Joker gave him a light poke. "It's supposed to be personalized right? I've known the guy for like a month."

"Oh, I know exactly what do!" his fellow conspirator is practically vibrating, and if he knows Ghost body language at all, he's trying to keep from bouncing in the air. "Wait, so we're keeping this a secret?"

"Yeah, you know how he gets." the pilot waves his hand. "Why risk him saying he doesn't need one, or give him a chance for any of that 'I don't deserve it' bull-"

"Language." Glint knocks the brim of his hat down in warning. Joker scowls and sets it right. Parental control overlord.

"Just think of it as a surprise." he insists, closing the access panel. "You can keep a secret, can't you?"

"Yup!" now free to move about, he twirls in an excited circle as he responds. "Oooo, I'll send you ideas on a private channel, you see what you can find about materials."

"I was gonna look at quarian stuff first." the pilot shrugged. "That stuff they wrap their suits in is really something, I think Tali only brought one set of backups on board."

"Quarian stuff, that's a good start." the Ghost agrees as Joker begins to shimmy out of the manhole. "Hey, you know the local fashions, right?"

"Local fashions don't typically include cloaks." he rolled his eyes.

"You know what I mean. I'll design it, but if you have any ideas..." the Ghost tipped about in a 'go ahead and do it' sort of way. "One of the rules of being a Hunter is to look good."

"I thought Crow said it was to 'look better than the Warlocks but don't look like you're trying'?" He raised a brow.

"Well, that too, but there's no Warlocks here, so we sort of have to look even better." Glint conceded. "Since we're representing a whole universe, and all."

" Yeah, no pressure. Sounds good, just," he glanced at the entrance they were coming up on, "Keep it quiet for now. I'll talk to Shepard about requisitioning when I have the chance."

"You got it." his companion declared cheerily. "My nodes are sealed!"

We are so going to get found out. Joker thinks as Glint zips out of the manhole in a suspiciously better mood than when he went in.

"Okay, that's that." he brushes his hands off as he pops out of the vent himself. Crow and Gabby each take one of his arms and help him out while Glint flies loop-the-loops towards Legion(whom Tali is still staring at menacingly) in order to, presumably, send it a data packet on what they were doing. "Anybody kill anybody while we were gone?"

"Not yet." Crow shakes his head. In a quieter voice he adds, "But I think Tali has it out for me again for letting a geth on."

"Pfft. She'll get over it; she'll be too busy hating the actual geth." that, and last night's revelations had upset her just as much as it had the rest of them, so even if she was mad at Crow for letting Legion into team transmat, she probably wouldn't do anything about it. It wasn't in her nature to kick someone when they were down, and though Crow definitly wasn't 'down' per say, he certainly looked like he was feeling the strain of coming clean about-

A high-pitched static noise pervaded the whole room, putting an instant stop to everybody's line of thought and originating from the geth that pretty nobody had wanted here.

"What the bloody hell?" Ken shouted over the sound as they all covered their ears. Legion stood stock still, eye flaps frozen instead of doing that thing they did when it was processing data, like it had been a moment ago as Glint interfaced with it. Said Ghost streaked back to Crow, shell 'puffing' out with alarm when the sound first started, then peeked out from behind his shoulder at the geth as it continued.

Tali brought out her omni-tool, and Crow tugged Ken's sleeve.

"Let's get him in a closet or something until it stops!" he proposed to enthusiastic agreement. Legion when 'boneless' when they tried to move it, but the sound continued until they managed to stuff it in a maintenance closet. By the time they were through, Shepard had arrived, and even though the closet provided some relief, it didn't stop the noise entirely.

"Why is Legion in the closet." she demanded. "And what is that racket, I could hear it from Grunt's room."

Crow opened the door obligingly. She immediately bid him to close it again.

"According to my scans, it's like all of it's runtimes just dropped what they were doing and started focusing on one thing." Tali told her. "No idea what, but it has them doing the programming equivalent of running in circles. Whatever that thing is trying to understand, it just can't."

"Oh dear." Glint said. "That may have been me. I had to interface directly with Legion to bring him up to speed, I'm Light and code. He must have gotten stuck trying to process the nature of my existence."

"EDI doesn't have that problem." Gabby pointed out.

"I don't interface with EDI directly." the Ghost looked apologetic, and Crow pat him sympathetically. "I can't believe it! I broke Legion."

Joker is really trying not to lose it as he speaks. "Will it fix itself?"

"Eventually." Tali shrugged as Shepard pinched the bridge of her nose. "Probably."

The static breaks for a moment, and a muffled 'error' is heard through the door. The static starts, sputters, then stops. Cautiously, Shepard raps on the door while Tali preps her omni-tool for possible hostilities.

"Legion? You okay in there?" the Commander inquires.

"No data available." is the response. Joker has to bite his knuckles to keep from laughing.

"Imagine when we tell this one in the mess." he whispers to Crow, who smirks tentatively. Legion opens the door and steps out... only to freeze mid-step, eye flaps twitching almost frantically.

"Error." it says. A snicker escapes Joker, and Shepard sends him a dirty look. Glint floats up to the geth, shell drooping apologetically.

"Legion?" he says. "Sorry the nature of my existence gave you a system overload."

Joker loses it. So does Ken. And Crow, shortly after, followed by Tali.

Gabby just keeps staring at Legion. Legion just keeps standing where it is.

Shepard remains unamused.

Chapter Text

Warning: This chapter contains spoilers for the Shadow Broker DLC. If you haven't played it, do so. Unless, you know, you don't care. In that case, you do you.

To Crow's surprise, nobody brings up Spider over the next few days except Shepard. He knows that Garrus, Tali, and Joker have been brought in on the task of figuring out, and eventually disarming and removing, the bomb, but none of them have pushed him to speak with him directly about it.

Joker, after his brief stint of silence, went back to normal after the incident with Legion. Or, normal-ish; he and Glint have been acting weird around each other. But for the most part, their dynamic has remained unchanged, and the pilot hasn't seemed mad at him at them at all for keeping the bomb a secret. Or Uldren.

Tali just stared at him more than usual. That was it.

Garrus vaguely bring it up, in a way. The former detective simply tells him the door to the main battery was always open if he wanted to talk about any of it. Crow supposed he'd seen all kinds of things in his old profession, and from what he'd heard of Omega, it was almost exactly like the Shore, if maybe even worse in some respects.

He does keep what Garrus said in mind, because now that he's had to tell Shepard about Uldren and Spider out of necessity, he finds that he doesn't feel the catharsis Glint always said he might get once he 'let it all out', so to speak. It needles at him like someone working a knife between armor plating.

He feels like everybody notices, but the thought of telling them, if anything, makes him more uncomfortable than before. He'd managed to keep Joker, he didn't want to scare the pilot off with the gory details. Tali still didn't like him very well.

Chambers, even as the ship councilor, was still off the table because she creeped him out. Whether this was genuine unsettlement or Joker rubbing off on him too much, he had yet to figure out.

So that left him with Garrus.

Except, Thane beats the turian to it. The drell's astute observational skills pried apart that something was eating at Crow within one sparing session. What started as a basic exercise in hand-to-hand ended up as about an hour of Crow telling Thane what he'd told Shepard. Even a few details he'd left out.

Somehow, it's easier telling Thane that it had been telling Shepard, which is odd because in some ways he admired the drell more than he did her. His calm demeanor, even when Crow was telling him of Spider's treatment of him. How, even when he was dying, he made time for other people, and the strange sort of wisdom the trained killer was capable of doling out when it was needed most.

"Garrus was right to offer an ear." he said when Crow told him of the turian's invitation. "You clearly have much you need to process; he will have encountered those in situations similar to yours, they they won't have been exactly the same. I advise you take him up on it; there is nothing wrong with needing help. If nothing else, he may be able to point your feet in the right direction."

"I just... it feels good to get it out there." the Hunter traced sol Light on the floor absent-mindedly. "I think that's really all I need right now."

"And when you need more- when you are up to more- speak to Garrus." the assassin reaffirmed, placing a hand on his shoulder. "Trust me, there is no-one more qualified ear on this ship than the one who has heard this all before."

"Not even Chambers?" he askes cheekily.

"Oh, she is qualified. But she clearly unsettles you; for that I blame our pilot." Thane does the drell equivalent of an eye roll. "Come, we mustn't break your stride."

His training with Thane is also the closest he thinks he'll ever find to Hunter style training. In a way, the drell assassin has become the closest thing he has to a Hunter mentor. Maybe that's what had made him easier to talk to?

He wished he could find that ease with others. His past feels like a rude stranger, loitering in the background of every conversation he has with others who know about it, like it's just waiting for a moment to butt in and make his budding relationships messy. He tried dispersing that feeling by asking them if there was anything they wanted to know, anything about him that bugged them in particular.

"No." Tali had said plainly and gotten back to work.

"Plenty, but let's save it until after we get your problem fixed." Shepard had told him.

"Depends." Garrus had shrugged. "I've done this before, you'd be here a while. I've been told I'm bad at stopping once I start asking questions. There's nothing in particular, but like I said before, my door's open is you need to talk. Is this that talk?"

"No." Crow had said. "I'm just trying to clear the air."

"There's not much to clear from where I'm sitting." the turian had said, pointing a stylus at him. "If you feel like there's something that needs fixing, it's not here."

When he went to Joker, the pilot did that thing he did when he was uncomfortable. Fidgeting with his hat, the odd little squirming.

"Look, Crow, buddy." he said. "I don't need any horrific details; your life sucked. That's just it, that's the truth of it. I'm not touching that can of worms, it's already following you around like a little dark raincloud."

"Raincloud?"

"Cartoon thingy, I'll show you later." the pilot shrugged. "But anyway, no, there's nothing I want to know. It'll just make me want to punch something more, and if it ain't this Spider guy's face, it won't be worth the hell Chakwas will raise when I come to her."

"You," Crow snorted, "would punch Spider for me?"

"I'm pretty sure everyone would punch Spider for you." he pointed out. "But yeah, I mean, unless orbital bombardment was an option. I love me the smell of vaporized arachnids in the morning."

"It would have to be. Spider is almost three times your height, when he's not sitting on his throne." It was... weirdly touching that Joker would punch anyone for him, even if it was a horrifically bad idea.

"He has a throne?" the bearded man makes a disgusted face. "Ugh. I told you to try to not make me want to punch stuff."

"Spider is a little... 'chubby', as well." Crow feels a familiar disobedient thrill as he speaks ill of his 'employer'. "You'd have some climbing to do to get to his face."

"Dude, ew." the pilot shuddered. "Wait, how 'chubby' we talking?"

"Morbidly obese for an Eliksni." the Hunter shrugged. "I've only seen him walk once, in all my time on the Shore. He's like a mountain of lard."

"Yeah, okay." Joker made a face and shuddered again. "I take back what I said. I will punch any of Spiders top lackey's, but I'm not soiling these hand on rolls of fat to reach the man himself."

They spend a good while after that making fun of Spider and his men as Crow describes them in more detail. Glint even stays conspicuously silent at the pilot's more lewd insults towards Arrha. Somehow, it's the easiest thing Crow has ever done, made easier by that thrill of disobedience. After that, it feels less like his past is lurking about. It feels like pressure released from an infected wound.

He thinks that maybe he can call Joker his friend out loud, but still refrains from doing so out of old fears that still needle at him in the dark. Working with team transmat became easier after their conversation(though it was more along the lines of a roasting session), and he was content, so he decided to leave things as they were from there. Even if the pilot and his Ghost continued to act a little odd.

At least with his mind a little more at ease in regards to his own personal situation, he could focus more on getting everybody to stop hazing Legion. Ken and Gabby kept sticking magnets to him when he passed them, and Tali seemed to run passive-aggressive sweeps of the ship's systems every time he so much as glanced in the direction of a terminal. Joker just kept doing the robot every time the geth spoke(while he was out of said geth's line of sight, or course), and while it was the least harmful thing the rest of the team was doing, it was incredibly distracting and made it difficult to keep a straight face.

At least by the end of the week he wasn't stalling or blurting out 'no data available' anymore. Poor Glint was still embarrassed by the incident.

Crow was also grateful that they had been docked at Illium for the past week as well, he suspects that things might have been worse if the team had been unable to get non freeze-dried food, and Tali was definitly in better spirits whenever she came back aboard; apparently, herself, Shepard, and Garrus had been paying visits to an old friend who lived in the city, some asari named Liara. Crow thinks he might like this 'Liara', considering she had somehow managed to get them a part that Crow didn't think they would be able to find.

"So Liara finds us this rare, be-all-end-all part, and the first thing we do is take it apart and mash it with things that shouldn't work well with it." Joker muses as he pry's apart an actuator. Crow rolls his eyes and tries to keep his hands from shaking as he worked.

Gabby had finally convinced him to try coffee, and although it was one of the less pleasant tastes he's experienced in life, it had been warm, and it had helped with the chill of prolonged sleeplessness. Now though... he felt weirdly invigorated. Restless. Electrified. Maybe he could try channeling arc? He felt like he could try channeling arc. It was all about movement, constant movement and flow, and he could never master that before but right now he thinks he could run laps on every deck of the ship and still have energy leftover-

Focus!

"Well, it's the closest thing we could find in this reality to the part we actually need." Crow tells him from the workbench where himself and Legion have laid out the pieces of the part in question. Glint is hovering over each of them, and slowly building a schematic of what the end product should look like. It had to be repairable and able to be replicated by the residents of this reality, so instead of just a copy-paste of what a normal transmat looked like, they had been building the system into something made wholly within the achievable parameters of Normandy's engineering team. If they couldn't build it and maintain it, nobody could, and trying to make it out of technology that they wouldn't be able to immediately grasp would be a recipe for disaster if it broke down.

"Just a bit of tweaking and it should be good to go." Glint added as Joker handed over his own prize. They work on it until their lunch shifts come and go, the whole team focused single-mindedly on the task at hand, despite having worked through most of the night before out of sheer excitement. They were so close, and Crow can't help but wonder if this was what the original inventors of transmat had felt like towards their own breakthrough; the power of instantaneous transport at their fingertips, but not quite in their hands yet.

Well, instantaneous transport within three hundred meters, at least. It would still be a game-changer, even if the ship had to swoop through the line of fire in order to drop them off, and their pilot being top-notch helped negate some of the risk involved when it came to such situations.

They were almost ready for a preliminary test(and he had gone through another cup of coffee) when Shepard strode into engineering. Glint and Tali had almost finished making the first few transponders that were meant to be installed in everybody's armor if this actually worked; transmat required a fresh scan of the subject in order to work so it didn't put them back together incorrectly, and given the varied biology of the Normandy's residents, it would take a while to calibrate them all correctly.

"Tali, The Illusive man came through on that intel Liara was wanting, Garrus and I are going to go drop in on her with it. Want to come, we might hit somewhere for lunch afterwards." the Commander asked. The quarian shook her head.

"Sorry, Shepard, we're really close." she yawned. "We could be testing it within the next half hour, even, no way am I missing it."

"You sound beat, have any of you even slept?" the Commander crossed her arms. Crow tried his very best to sit still for the first time that day; he was starting to think caffeine and having a Hunter's Light didn't mix well, considering he had spent the evening fighting off the urge to literally bounce off the walls.

"Pfft, yeah." Joker scoffed, leaning on a console nonchalantly.

"Lieutenant Moreau has consumed 500 milligrams of caffeine within the last 8.5 hours." Legion spouted off. "Engineer Donnely; 600, Engineer Daniels; 1200-"

"Bloody hell, Gabby!" Ken exclaimed. The woman in question only fixed her commander with a coffee-deluded stare.

"Snitch." Joker muttered under his breath as Shepard fixed the whole team with a look.

"Crow has only consumed 300 milligrams, and I have detected a total of two dozen uncontrolled spikes in paracausal energy from him as an apparent side effect." EDI added unhelpfully. Now he couldn't help but squirm under Shepard's scrutiny as she leveled her stare at him.

"You have half an hour, then I want all of you off this ship." she ordered.

"Boo!" Joker offered by way of protest.

"I don't think I've seen any of you outside this room for the past three days; you all smell like sweat and nachos, and Crow looks like he's going to explode any minute." Ken gave his pits an experimental sniff and recoiled, while Crow forced himself to stay still again in order to contradict his Commander's statement, and Joker looked around for the offending remnant of food that had given away they'd had nachos in engineering.

"You're leaving the ship, reminding yourself there's an outside world, and then you're going to clean up and sleep." the blond declared. "No if's, and's, or but's. That's an order."

Joker slouched in his chair as Shepard turned on her heel and left, only to quickly pause and do an about face. "Except Legion. Sorry, you would cause mass panic if you left the ship."

"Acknowledged." the geth returned to his task as the door closed behind Shepard. Ken flicked one of his 'secret' magnets at the geth.

"Why'd you bloody snitch on us?" he demanded, though Crow couldn't tell if he was actually being serious, given that he was now casting Gabby occasional concerned looks. Crow didn't know why. I feel great, so she must be feeling even greaterer. Greater. Better. Whatever.

"No data avail-" the geth froze and let out that awful screeching noise from before again. Everybody covered their ears, and Glint drooped guiltily. By the Light, I thought he was done doing this! Thankfully, this fit was brief, and as suddenly as it started, it stopped, Legion's eye flaps working rapidly for a moment before settling. "Error. No data available."

"Bet we can do it." Crow blurts out. His heart is beating too fast, and he feels like he's channeling arc energy. They could totally do it! "We could do it in half an hour."

"We have to be off the ship by then." Ken stuck his thumb in the direction of the door the Commander had exited through.

"Yeah, but you heard Tali; we could have it done in the next half hour anyway." the Hunter reasoned. "And technically, if we get it working, we could be on the ship up to the last second of our time limit."

"Crow, buddy, I like the way you think." Joker grinned widely and rubbed his hands together, looking like the epitome of someone who had heard a bad idea and desperately wanted in on it."

"You want to go straight to testing on people?" Tali exclaimed, hands on her hips and glaring at Crow. "That's a horrible idea!"

"Well... not straight to testing on people." he defended. "I was going to do a complex object first, maybe a datapad."

He waved the one in his hands about a bit to indicate it, and suddenly a brilliant idea bloomed in his coffee-addled mind. He grinned.

"In fact, just out of curiosity... where is Liara's office?"

"Thank you, Shepard." Liara said, something sparking in her eyes that made Shepard uneasy. She'd seen it last time she was here, too, and it made her nervous, because she'd seen it in Garrus as well. But Garrus hadn't hidden his rage, the whole world knew he despised Sidonis. Liara... it was more of a cold, hidden thing, and that made it feel even more dangerous.

"I'm going to my apartment to analyze this; you two can meet me there later if you like." the information broker- she still couldn't believe Liara was an information broker now- told them as she stood and brushed the folds out of her dress. Next to Shepard, Garrus shifted his weight.

"It'll be dinner in around two hours." he stated. "How about we pick you up and go out? Tali should be out of the engine room about now."

"I... suppose so." the asari sighed, hesitating. "I should have enough time to get a decent start on the drive. Thank you again for getting this."

"It's nothing. Least we could do for you finding that crazy component team transmat was looking for." Shepard shrugged, trying to hide how uneasy the young woman's apparent obsession was making her. She wondered if Garrus saw any of himself in her behavior, and she wondered if this situation will end similarly to the one with Sidonis; with a friendship in jeopardy.

"You still haven't explained what that means." Liara said as she collected her datapads. "I wish you would dispense with the mystery, I'd be lying if I said I didn't find my lack of ability to find further information on the subject unsettling and fascinating in equal measure. All I can concur at this point is that the lack of information points to the matter involving this 'Crow' you told me about."

"That's for us to know." Shepard said smugly; she was going to be honest, she wanted to knock the socks off everyone with this tech, and she was looking forward to it. "And you to find out."

At that moment, there was a clatter behind them. Shepard and Garrus both spun around, ready to draw the weapons they had concealed under their normal cloths, but the only thing they saw was a datapad in the middle of the floor. That wasn't there before. It was on, and when Shepard bent down to pick it up, she saw that the only thing on the screen was a single sentence.

'Look out the window.'

A chill ran down her spine.

"Window." she said, drawing her weapon. Frowning, Garrus did the same, and Liara pulled a gun from under her desk. Edging cautiously up to the window, Shepard scanned the area below, looking for- was that Crow?

The Awoken was in the dark jacket she'd gotten him on the Citadel, hood drawn up, and upon seeing them watching him, he raised his hands in a double thumbs-up. What in the world? She put away her weapon, and the others did the same. Liara craned her neck and narrowed her eyes, obviously trying to get a better look at the only Awoken who existed in their reality.

"That's him?" for that moment, Shepard sees the Liara she used to know, the excited archeologist.

"Yeah." Garrus says. "I'm surprised he's alone, I thought he didn't like public spaces."

"Oh, he hates them!" they all spin around at the sound of Joker's cheerful voice. "But this was way too good to pass up!"

"Joker?" none of them had heard him enter, and those braces of his tended to make him a loud walker. Not to mention, Liara's new assistant would have fussed about letting him in. "What do you mean? How did you get up here?"

"Hi, Liara, long time no see." the pilot says instead of answering. He limps over to the desk and takes a fistful of nuts out of the small bowl that sits on it. "These Thessian piriks or peanuts, I can never tell? You know what, it doesn't matter, I'm starving."

"Then go and eat like I told you too." Shepard tells him, brain still trying to catch up with what was happening. He shrugs.

"Nah, not yet; we gotta get Crow to a firing range or something, you were right about him getting ready to explode." he pops a nut into his mouth. "Anyway, I just wanted to say hi to Liara."

"It's good to see you too, Joker." the asari in question says, looking him up and down. "You look well. I take it Cerberus credits attributes to the lack of crutches?"

"You bet." he says around a mouthful of (possibly)peanuts. "If I have to work for a terrorist organization, you bet I'm squeezing them for every last cred; more for me, less for their weapons division."

"Is that why you tried to requisition and fifty-eight inch holo for the mess?" Garrus asked. The pilot waved a hand.

"We might die on this mission; I'm not dying before I have access to a decent holo for once in my life." He swallowed, and took another fistful of nuts. Liara reached over and scooted the bowl away from him. "Just one more for the road, I promise. Anyway, I also wanted you to know; we fucking cracked transmat!"

"I-in half an hour?" Shepard sputtered. Wait a minute, is that how... surely not?

"Yes we did!" Joker cried ecstatically. He hit a button on his omni-tool. "Beam me up, Glint!"

Liara let out a yelp of fright and clapped her hands to her mouth as the Normandy's pilot disappeared in a flurry of particles.

"Shit!" Garrus and Shepard both rushed to the window and looked down, where a number of flustered citizens were making room for an overexcited team transmat as they bounced about, shaking, grabbing, and congratulating one another as Joker appeared in front of them, stumbling a little on his landing but otherwise intact.

"They did it." is all Shepard can say. "Those sons of guns actually did it!"

Chapter Text

Warning: This chapter contains spoilers for the Shadow Broker DLC. If you haven't played it, do so. Unless, you know, you don't care. In that case, you do you.

Crow watched the lights of Illium flash by as Joker drove them to wherever Liara's apartment was in order to drop off Tali. It seemed like, despite the dark of night, there wasn't an atom of the city that wasn't bright with neon colors or streaks of light. It was almost as mesmerizing as NLS travel, though that could be him crashing off his several-hour lack of coffee. Part of him want's more; the other part of him acknowledges that having that much energy might be detrimental.

They had first gone to a shooting range so he could blow off some steam, but the people in charge hadn't appreciated his Golden Gun setting their targets on fire, or the walls. Or that he had left a melty spot where he had been standing. Honestly, he doesn't think himself or any of the others had really thought it through, bringing him into public and using his Light where everybody can see it, but he no longer feels like he's going to burst, so at least he had that.

In the end, Joker and Tali had insisted on teaching him the basics of driving a skycar. The flimsy shuttle was even more disconcerting to drive than it was to ride in, especially when he knew he was bad at landing and his passengers were mortal. They insist he had done well, but he still couldn't land right, and he wonders how much the charges from the rental company will be for the damage he caused in his attempts.

They were halfway to the apartment when Tali gets a call on her omni-tool. She was silent for about a minute before responding to whoever was on the other end, most likely Shepard.

"Okay." she confirmed, voice hard, and Crow steals a glance at her. She was crammed between he and Gabby in the back seat of the skycar, and being in such close contact, he can feel her body tense up almost as much as his is when flying in one of these things. "We'll meet you there then."

Something must be wrong. He thought as she hung up and leaned forwards.

"Joker, change of plans; I need to go to the Dracon Trade center, ASAP." the quarian told their driver. "Shepard says Liara's apartment is a crime scene, and that's where she went after."

"Crime scene?" the man flicks the brim of his hat up with his thumb, and Crow can make out his scowl even as he locates their new destination on the navigator. "After what? What happened?"

"Someone shot the place up after she went home with that data Shepard gave her." Tali informed him. "There's no blood, so she should be fine, but it might not stay that way. You just drop me off and get back to the ship right away, same as we planned."

"Okay." he shrugged. "Figures, can't even go out with old pals without someone getting shot at."

"Shepard and Garrus went back to the Normandy to gear up, they'll meet me there with the Spectre who's investigating the case." the engineer further informed them. Ken turned in his seat to look at her.

"What's a bloody Spectre doing in the middle of this?" he asked, brows pinched together. "Sounds shady if you ask me."

"I don't know." she shook her head, leaning back and wringing her hands. "Maybe because it involves the Shadow Broker? If anyone were to get involved in something like this, it would be a Spectre."

"Still sounds iffy." the man sniffs, before turning back around.

"It won't involve us anyhow." Joker shrugs. "We're going back to the ship, remember? Who votes we use the transmat?"

"Three-hundred meter radius." Crow reminds him. "Is the trade center in it?"

A few moments of Ken fiddling with the navigator, and-

"Blast it." the man swears, voice dripping with disappointment.

"We have to pay for the skycar anyway." Glint points out, appearing in a flurry of particles.

"No, Cerberus has to pay for the skycar, remember?" their pilot reminds him. "I'm not paying squat for this thing."

"I can only imagine how much my mistakes from earlier have added to the price." the Hunter muses despondently. No matter how hard he tried, he just couldn't land a vehicle. Any vehicle.

"Crow, never feel bad for costing Cerberus more money." Ken scolded lightly. "That's a hundred credits more they won't be putting into some weird bullshite, like half-asari cyborg babies or something."

"Language." Glint muttered, before disappearing.

"Damn traffic." Joker muttered as he brought them down for a landing outside the Dracon Trade Center. Crow could actually see Shepard and Garrus making their way up from the main landing pad. "Shepard beat us here, I blame that guy in the truck. He was obviously on his om-"

An explosion blew out one of the floor on the trade center, the shockwave destabilizing the skycar. Crow grips his seatbelts, shocked, and Glint let's out a cry of fright, phasing into the saftey of their link.

"Keelah!" Tali shouted, as Ken and Joker swore and Gabby woke with a violent snort.

"Wha-" the confused woman barely got a word out before three more floors blew out in explosions even more violent than the first one. She screamed instead as the skycar bucked in the air.

"By the Light!" Crow exclaims as Joker fights for control of the vehicle. He grips the handle on the door next to him, bracing himself with one arm and throwing the other out to bar Tali from lurching forwards in her seat, since her restraints didn't include a shoulder strap. His stomach lurches into his throat as they wobble and spin, before Joker finally manages to set them down in the aftermath.

"What... did I wake up to?" Gabby whispered after a few moments of everyone in the skycar taking deep breaths of relief.

"Uh, Crow?" Tali said awkwardly, trying to remove his arm. "You can unfreeze now."

"Sorry!" he blurts as he remembers himself, releasing his grip and undoing his seatbelt before making a hasty exit from the vehicle. The others quickly follow suit as he takes stock of the scene before him.

There are people, scattered all around. There's paper and other debris, some of it burning, floating and falling all about the place, and the last of those who could flee were already making their way out, leaving only the eerie silence of those who couldn't scream with the crackling backdrop of various materials settling and cracking as they reacted to the sudden stresses they had been put through. A few broken sobs rose up in their air, and close to him he could hear a mound of burnt flesh moan pathetically.

"This is awful." Glint says through their link, snapping him out of his horrified stupor.

"Liara was in there." Tali breathed. Crow looks around at the scattered bodies as the others make their way around the skycar.

"Bloody hell..." Ken swears, looking about the place. "There's a first aid kit in the trunk, I reckon, but..."

But what could it do for all this?

"Get it." it takes him a moment to realize that words come out of his own mouth.

"Some of these people need an advanced scan." Joker pointed out, voice soft for once.

"We have Glint." Crow told him. "Yeah, I know it's a risk, but they're dying."

"I'll get it." Ken agreed, making his way around the back.

"Gabby, come with me." Joker said. "We'll need more than that, there should be aid stations in the lobby, if there's a lobby left."

The engineer nods mutely, and Crow starts checking the nearest victims. The mound of burnt flesh is dead now, and he can't tell what species they were, the injuries were so bad. The next person is a human woman who, more than anything, was going into shock. Glint appeared, out of her field of view, and scanned her.

"Just some superficial cuts and bruises." He whispered to Crow. "And in shock."

Unable to think of anything else to do, he starts rubbing her back in circle, channeling sol Light as he does so to warm her up. Chakwas had said that getting someone warm was important with shock.

"Hey, you'll be okay." he assures her, even as she fixes him with a bewildered expression. "You're okay."

"Shepard!" Tali's voice catches his attention, and he sees the Commander making her way over with Garrus in tow. "What happened?"

"Shadow Broker, we think." she answers as Garrus leans down to scan another victim. "You armed? Vasir is going to cover the roof, we need to find Liara, she could still be alive."

"I'm with you." the quarian nods. "The others are going to try their best with the wounded."

"There could be hostiles about." the Commander says slowly, looking over at Ken, who was approaching Crow with the med kit.

"She's fine, it's just shock." he tells the engineer. Addressing the woman, he continues. "I'm going to go see what I can do for the other now, just try to stay calm until the paramedics get here."

She nods shakily, still looking at him in that 'what exactly are you' kind of way that he's come to associate with the average galactic citizen when they see him. He stands and makes his way to the next person, a turian man who's curled up on the ground with cobalt smearing on his clothes and slowly pooling beneath him, as Joker and Gabby pick their way back from the lobby.

"Joker!" Shepard calls as the pilot very carefully gets down next to another fallen civilian. "Get back in the skycar!"

"But-"

"That's an order, there could be hostiles in the area. We need you alive." She commands firmly.

"What about them?" He gestures to the others defiantly.

"They need to be able to bug out fast, which means they need you at the wheel if it comes to that." She tells him, and the pilot clenches his fists. "The rest of you get the wounded behind cover, then get back to the Normandy."

"Yeah, right." The pilot bit out acrimoniously.

"Just stay in the car, Jeff." She sighed. "Tali, Garrus, you're with me. Crow, keep doing what you're doing but be ready to fight."

"Yes ma'am." He says, putting his focus back on the man in front of him and trying to block out Joker's bitter mutterings as he shuffled back to the skycar. The turian's short gasps sounded watery, and Glint shifted uncomfortably when he finished his scan.

"Broken rib, it's punctured a lung. And he's got a pretty bad cut from some debris." His Ghost diagnosed, shell twisting. Ken pulled fabric away from the debris wound to reveal the whole thing, and made to grab the long shard of glass. Crow grabbed his wrist.

"Apply the medigel around it, but don't disturb it. You might make it worse." He instructed. The man nodded, face white, and for once completely silent. As he did what was asked, Crow decided to risk probing the broken rib with his Light. The turian whimpered. "It's alright, we're going to get you out of this, okay? Just try not to panic, you're going to be fine."

It's funny how easily lies can slip from the tongue if they're meant to make someone feel better. Crow can feel the bone, snapped at an angle with it's immediate partners fractured or bent slightly, the organ it's ripping into and the blood pooling into it and the thoracic cavity. If he were to encourage his Light to repair the damage, he thinks it would heal wrong in the worst way. But what if he could... pull the bone free, and then heal the damage?

He examines everything in fine detail, makes note of how everything is, compared to how it's probably supposed to be. He's not sure this man can wait for a real doctor. He's not sure if he can make it better, or just make things worse, but if there was ever a time where he had to be brave enough to try healing others, now is it.

So he takes the rib with strands of Light and gently pulls it back into the position it's supposed to be, weaves the tears in the pleural membranes back together, forces the blood out of the cavity by willing it to no longer exist, and seals the hole in the lung. He tries to coax the bone to heal, but it fights him, so they will likely have to stabilize it in order to move him safely. He sits back as the man coughs and gasps, but it sounds like the good kind, the kind where someone was successfully clearing their lungs of an intruder.

"Did it work?" He asks Glint. His Ghost scans their patient once more, and then bobs in the air.

"Yup!" He declares happily, before bombing his shell against Crow's shoulder. "I could have done better, of course, but that's a really good first go at it, Crow. Well done!"

"Good." He sighs. No second livers. He looks at the carnage that's still all about them, and takes a deep breath to steady himself. Let's hope I can keep it that way.

"Crow, maybe we should..." Ken jerked his head in the direction of the skycar where an irate Joker was still fuming as the first response vehicles finally started descending on the scene. Crow looks up from the burn victim he's been applying medigel to, and Glint disappears. "I mean, people aren't really used to you, maybe we should let them take over."

He looks over at the line of people they've dragged away into cover, some of them laying limply while they waited for the real doctors, some of them already sitting up or trying their best to comfort and tend the others. Crow can feel his Light complaining after being used so much for something Hunters weren't typically specialized in. Tiredness grasped at his bones after both that exertion, and the sleepless nights spent working on the transmat. As much as he wanted to keep working, he had to concede that leaving might be the better option, not just for the reason Ken was pointing out.

Poor Gabby had gone back to the skycar as well, having been too distressed to work and dangerously close to vomiting.

"Yeah... yeah, okay." He agreed, smearing the last of the medigel carefully about the wound, before addressing the other victims. "The authorities will handle you from here, you'll be taken to a hospital. Just stay calm for them, and tell them what you can."

There's medigel and blood clotted all over his hands, and he tries to rub it off as they make their way hurriedly to the skycar. "Wait!"

He and Ken pause as one of the women stumbles after them. "Who are you?"

"Just Crow." He says awkwardly, before waving a hand at his companion. "And Ken."

"Thank you!" She says fervently, and something inside him twists and flips. "God bless you all, thank you!"

"Y-you too. I mean, you're welcome, I-I mean thank you, as well." It's the sort of gratitude he's not used to, complete and without dept or catch. That twisting feeling continues even as he straps into the passenger seat in the skycar, and becomes a sort of soaring emotion that has nothing to do with the vehicle rising into the air. He looks down at his hands, still covered with the consequences of his labor. It sort of felt like when he saved Osiris, but... different.

He didn't know the name of it, but it felt good. I did it. I helped them. And saved a few, of that he had no doubt. He felt a warm pulse of Light from Glint's end of their link. "Good work, Crow. You did brilliantly."

Thanks.

Suddenly, Joker swore and angled the vehicle down suddenly.

"Joker!" He shouted as Gabby yelped. It took him about half a second to realize that the pilot was trying to run someone over. An asari someone who seemed to be running from another asari. "What are you-"

The asari jumped over their vehicle at the last moment, and it jerked as it hit the ground sliding. Joker let out a grunt of pain as he was thrown against his restraints, and Crow found himself gripping the armrest hard enough to snap it in half. He willed himself to let go, and took a deep breath in an attempt to still his pounding heart. Gabby let out a sob.

"You good?" Crow asks their driver.

"I'm fine!" Joker snaps, scowling at him, and the Hunter winces.

"What the body hell was that?" Ken demands as the asari who had been chasing Joker's intended victim ran up and forcefully opened the door. Crow flared his Light, ready to burn her and calling for Hawkmoon, and she recoiled.

"Get out, all of you." She still demanded, eyes steely as Shepard and the others rush up from the building. "Now."

"Who are-" Ken is quickly cut off.

"Liara. Out, now!" She commanded, and they scrambled to obey. When Crow tried to leave, though, she pushed him back in. "Not you; you move."

She forces him over into drivers seat even as Joker hobbled out, to complaints of "'Stay in the car, Joker; get out of the car, Joker; hop on one foot while rubbing your stomach and singing the Alliance anthem, Joker.'"

"Shepard, get in!" Liara demands. "Drive."

"What?" He exclaims, staring at her while Joker says something along those same lines. Tali jumps into the vehicle, as does Shepard, who says something to the asari, but Crow can't hear them over the sound of his own dread engulfing him. He was snapped out of it when Liara gripped his shoulder and pointed at the yellow skycar zipping away into traffic.

"Follow her, now!" Her eyes are savage as a stormy ocean, her voice bites like a knife, and Crow realizes that this is a woman who can't be reasoned with.

"But I can't-" he tries anyway.

"He can't-" So does Joker.

"Liara, Crow doesn't know how to-" He can hear how wide Shepard's eye are going.

"Drive!" The asari snarls, in the exact sort of voice that Arrha would use to let him know his only other choice was pain, and he hits the accelerator by ingrained instinct. The vehicle shoots off into the sky, Shepard and Tali shouting to close the roof as the wind cuts through the interior.

Glint appears as the women shout, and starts interfacing with the vehicle. The skycar closes, and the Ghost turns briefly to address them all. "All of you calm down, and strap in! Crow, just pretend we're back in the Reef."

The Reef, the Reef. Yeah, it's just like dodging asteroids. Flimsy asteroids with pilots, with minds of their own, flying in uniform with thousands of each other. His stomach lurched along with the skycar, and he became hyper-aware of the vehicle in a way he definitely wasn't when someone else was at the wheel.

Crow's life back in his own universe had seen him have to use several different models of jumpship, all with differing controls, all of differing shapes and sizes. He was lucky to have Glint with him to help get used to each one, and that he had always found it surprisingly easy to adjust. He always thought that his other self must have been a pilot of some sort, it came so easily. But this thing? It was so small, so fragile, compared to the ships he was used to.

It certainly didn't help that his only lesson in driving one had only concluded just over an hour ago, even if the controls were fairly simple compared to a jumpship.

"Okay, the Reef." He muttered to himself as he shot out into traffic, eyes locked on the yellow eyesore that he was apparently supposed to be chasing. Evening traffic near the site of a bombing was nothing like navigating an asteroid belt, Crow was quick to discover. There were rules, first of all, and Joker had only taught him a few of them today. If you went too fast, you could hit someone and cause a wreck, if you went too slow you could do the same, and if you pulled crazy stunts or engaged in a high-speed pursuit, you could also cause a wreck that way.

Crow was about to do three of those four very risky things within the space of a few minutes. At first he tried getting in a lane, like the others always did, but that made Liara angry.

"What are you doing?" She demanded. "She's getting away!"

"I though I was supposed to be in a lane-" he tried to say, but the irate woman cut him off.

"She's not using lanes, get out and get after her!" She pointed harshly in the direction their quarry had went. Crow pulled up over the traffic, blood pounding in his ears, and Glint made an irritated buzzing noise.

"Miss, you need to take a few deep breaths and stop snapping at everyone." He lectured. "Crow is far more productive when people say 'please'."

"Then can we please catch that bitch before she gets away with my data? And can you please stop driving like an old woman?"

"Liara, he-" Shepard tries to interject.

"Language!" Glint puffed out his shell as Crow hits the acceleration. The sudden change in momentum pushes him and the others back in their seats. He feels like his heart is going to explode; it'snot just his own life in his hands right now, and though he roughly knows what he's doing, he has oh so very little experience. "Young lady, you'll not talk to him that way!"

"Liara, he only learned to drive today!" Tali cuts in. Liara turns in her seat, and though Crow doesn't dare take his eyes off the sky, he can easily imagine how wide her eyes were going.

"What?" She exclaims. "You could have warned me!"

"We all tried to warn you."

"You weren't listening to anyone."

"You're ridiculously single-minded, miss."

"I should have got in the back instead." Crow sighed. Suddenly, the skycar they were pursuing released something bright and possibly explosive from the back of it. Crow swerved upwards, and the others made alarmed noises. Glint hovered close to his shoulder as he approached again in a weaving pattern in an attempt to avoid any more mines.

"You're doing just fine, just do things your way." His Ghost reassures him.

"His way will lose us that data." Liara bit out.

"You, shush." Glint hissed before addressing his Lightbearer cheerily. "Just cut loose, you know? Like when you enjoyed this kind of thing."

"Please don't." Shepard entreaties.

"You're one to talk." Tali scoffs.

"I'm not that bad!"

"Yes you are." Liara and Tali say as one.

"We aren't the only ones in the car, Glint." Crow pointed out as they wove through a tunnel. An explosion too out a car near them, and armed transports floated at the edge of his rearview mirrors. "Hold on!"

Executing jumpship evasive maneuvers in something this small, in a tunnel with traffic, was hardly ideal, and for a moment he almost uses the wrong controls to pull them off, but he does it. Unfortunately, the truck far in front of them gets shot instead.

"Truck! Truck!" Liara shouts.

"I know!" He grit out, weaving around the fiery crash, jaw clenched and gripping the controls so hard he could feel the manufactured plastics cracking and slicing into his hand. As soon as they're out of the tunnel, he shoots upwards, deciding to take Glint's advice. "Is this thing armed?"

"It's a taxi, it has a fare meter." Liara snapped. "What are you doing, we're going to lose her!"

"I know what I'm doing, do you?" He shot back as he leveled them out. "How did you expect me to stop her once catch her?"

"Ram her into traffic." Crow shoots her a glare.

"Into innocent civilians? What's wrong with you?" Before she can reply, he flips the skycar upside-down.

"Liara, that's really drastic." Shepard wheezes. "Crow, why are we upside-down?"

"Got her." He needed to scan the area his own way, and come down on top of her. He's done this before, in jumpships; like a hawk, picking a target. The others might not have been able to spot her, but Crow is a Hunter with eyesight enhanced by the Traveler's Light. Picking out a target is easy.

Now came the hard part; taking her out. He thinks he knows how, but it wasn't going to be fun. He descended, staying upside-down, to what he predicted to be an appropriate intercept point. It was almost worth all the trouble to see the stranger's eye bulge as he comes nearly face to face with her. He pulls on his already strained Light to create a single, sort of pathetic Golden Gun, and he shoots the engine out.

Dizzy, he half relies on Glint to pull them upright again, and he takes them down to the rooftop the woman had crashed on. The moment he lands, he rests his forehead on the dash and takes several shakey breaths. It feels like his heart is pounding at his ribs like an angry Titan, and his Light is just as mad. Strained Light wasn't painful, per se, but it was uncomfortable and exhausting. A special kind of exhausting that made you feel like your very soul was spent.

"Hey, Crow." He peeks under his arm at Tali as Liara scrambles out of the car, and Shepard follows, shouting over her shoulder for him to return to the Normandy.

"Yeah?" He asked, trying not to let his voice shake.

"You're landing was perfect that time." He couldn't lie; he almost laughed. If he wasn't so exhausted, he would have.

Chapter Text

Crow sits in the skycar for about a minute until he finally decides to do something about the spam that's assaulting his omni-tool.

"Glint," he says, without taking his forehead off the wheel, "tell them we're all alive. And that Shepard is sending me back."

He really wanted to follow after them, Liara didn't seem like a very stable individual, but he couldn't stop shaking. He shouldn't have ignored Chakwas and Glint whenever they had told him to sleep over the past few days, but he had just been so excited about getting the transmat done, too invested in the distraction it offered from thoughts about a certain impending bomb removal. His body was equally displeased with him about forgetting to eat earlier, and his Light is furious with him for overworking it with complex tasks like localized healing, and following up with a Golden Gun.

He doesn't think he could help Shepard if he tried. He would probably just get in the way, as he was.

"Done." Glint chirped after a moment, before running a beam of Light over Crow's body. It helped, but only a little. "We're in transmat range, so I told them to just get themselves back. Let me know when you're feeling up to it, and we'll go."

He nodded mutely. Took another minute to breath. He just felt so tired. He forced himself to open his eyes and sit up; he could feel himself drifting off, and this was far from a safe place to sleep. He slowly got out of the skycar, feeling like if he moved to fast he might trigger a dizzy spell. It was funny; he used to get them all the time, during his days with Spider. Now, not so much; it was probably food-related. It was more unnerving to feel this way now than it had been back then.

Once he was standing firmly on the ground, certain he wasn't going to fall down, he gave Glint the go-ahead, and he found himself stumbling his landing in the mess hall a moment later. He was still getting used to transmat again. Goldstein was directly in front of him with a mug of coffee when he looked up. Crow was sorely tempted to take it for himself; maybe he wouldn't feel as tired if he had some more.

"Hello!" Glint greeted. Goldstein just continued to stare at them. His Ghost noticed him eyeing his crewmate's coffee. "Crow and I have discovered caffeine disagrees with him, so if you don't mind, could you please move so that we can make some tea?"

Goldstein nodded, jaw still agape, and Crow, working on autopilot, decided that tea sounded great. Gabby had seemed pretty shaken up by the carnage from the bombing, so he decided to make her some as well. Light blast it, I'll just make some for everybody. It always helped when Chakwas brought him some when he was having one of his off days, there was no reason it shouldn't work on the others.

In the end, he didn't drink much of his tea. Once he had set mugs of chamomile on the table for the others when they came in, he wound up sitting with his chin in one hand, watching steam rise from his cup and trying to figure out exactly what had just happened. He came to the conclusion that Tali's friend Liara had just forced him into a high-speed chase for a reason nobody had bothered to explain, Joker had wrecked a skycar on purpose after all his claims of having 'never wrecked a skycar and never will'(though in his defense, it had been more of a rough landing than a wreck), and he had overexerted his Light by healing victims of a bombing.

His mind cycled back to the woman that had thanked them, replaying her words over and over again. How he had felt when he heard them, like 'this mattered, I did this'. It had felt good, in a way he had never felt before. I should practice more. Until today he hadn't thought he could do anything like that, he hadn't been confident enough in his abilities to try, but if he could do what he did today after only practicing on the rare occasions he was injured himself... well, he was no Warlock, but maybe he could get good enough that it didn't take him forever to heal a wound, good enough to help the rest of the team if something went wrong in the field.

Yeah, that's a plan.

He must have dozed off, because next thing he knew, someone was sitting down heavily next to him. He started, reaching for one of his knives, but it was only Ken. Gabby sat down next to he fellow engineer and grabbed a mug of tea automatically. Joker was sitting himself down gingerly across from them.

"So, what happened?" He asked, thumbing the brim of his hat. It takes Crow a moment to process the question, and take his hand away from the knife on his belt.

"Uh... We chased an asari. I tried to get in a lane, Liara didn't like that, a truck blew up, she didn't like that either, and she really didn't like it when we were upside-down." Crow yawned. "And I think she might actually be crazy. She wanted me to ram the other lady into oncoming traffic."

"There's gotta be more than that." the pilot scoffed. Crow could tell by the way his face was pinched that he was in pain. He must have fracture something when he tried to run her over.

"Tali said my landing was okay that time." it was the only other thing he could think of. "You should go to Chakwas before she chases after you."

"I'm fine." Joker grit out.

"You're lying." Crow yawned, tapping his own mug and reheating it with his Light automatically, causing a twinge of discomfort. He still couldn't work up the effort to actually drink it. The pilot looked like he was about to let his famously sharp tongue loose, but Ken spoke up first.

"What the bloody hell was all that." the engineer blurted, staring blankly at the table. "Explosions follow the ground team, how did we wind up in that?"

"Dropping Tali off." Crow answered. The other man rolled his eyes.

"That was a rhetorical question." he pointed out. "I don't know about you guys, but we chose shipside careers so we wouldn't have to see people with their limbs bloody blown off."

"Like a ship's never been boarded before." Joker scoffed. "If you chicken out at the sight of a body, why'd you join the Alliance?"

Gabby let out a sob; the chitin that broke the ogre's back.

"Joker!" Glint hissed. This conversation was starting to go downhill.

"Sorry, ask that again." Ken pretended to try to dig something out of his right ear. "I couldn't hear you over the sound of bloody hypocrisy."

"And what's that supposed to mean?" the pilot challenged. This was was bad. He looked between the two of them, drowsy brain trying to figure out how it became a problem and how to stop it.

"You know what I mean." Crow opens his mouth, trying to figure out what to say to stop this, but he keeps drawing up blanks, and his heart is pounding just as hard as it had been during the chase.

"Say it." Joker spat. Please don't. He didn't know what to do, he didn't know how to stop this argument, he'd never really tried to stop something like this before. He didn't know what to say. He remembers worrying about how easily friendships seemed to fall apart between people, and he was playing witness to it happening in real time.

"Why'd you join the Alliance when you can't even-" Crow decides not to say anything. He slams a sol-covered fist on the table, the others rear back in their seats, and the tea flash-boils. He briefly sees spots in his vision. He thinks he might actually throw up. He stands, and things go dark for a second but he stays standing.

"This is a stupid argument." it's not the best case he could make. Considering he might be half-asleep at this point, though, he thinks it's pretty good.

"Guess it is, if you're some untouchable pyromaniac." Ken scoffs. The others seem too stunned to speak.

"You two were friends a few hours ago." He turns and makes his way to the med bay, his Light practically throbbing. Now it was trying to cross the threshold between discomfort and pain. "I'm going to sleep, I'm done."

He practically stumbles over to the first bed he sees, not even bothering to check if Chakwas was present, and he's asleep before he hits the cot. It's better than falling into the panic that's trying to well in his chest.

He strode through the halls of an Awoken temple, the crystalline interior scattering the sunlight as it flowed in through the windows. His quarry wasn't far, he was sure of it- there! A ripple in the air, a tug on his senses, on his Light. Crow followed it with haste, and dove into the portal that the Celebrant had ripped into the fabric of reality.

He steps out into the Normandy's mess hall. It's empty, save a single being. The Hawk of Light. It reguarded him almost mournfully, and looked upwards.

Crow followed its gaze and saw an open sky, felt the field all around him. The dark birds high in the air scattered dead leaves from their talons. One of them dives, quite suddenly, towards him, and it's body grows, morphs, fills the air with a mechanical roar as it's two, glowing red eyes morph into a singular one.

For all there's a Reaper descending on him, Crow feels strangely calm.

He wakes with a start. He's still face-down on one of the medical beds, and his neck is hurting after a whole night spent that way. Glint was resting just across from him, eye blinking slowly in his powered-down state. Wincing, he rolled over into a more comfortable position and tried to settle his heart rate, as well as his mind.

That was the first time he'd seen the Hawk since Eden Prime. The first time he'd dreamt of it since he'd been stuck here. He had figured that since all connections to his reality had been severed, there was no way for the Traveler to reach him. His dreams since coming here had all been actually normal, or Awoken normal. Maybe it was just a normal dream? It wasn't uncommon for aspects of Awoken dreams to leak into normal dreams without holding any water. Normal dreams had also turned into Awoken ones before.

Maybe the Hawk was leaking into his dreams as just another aspect of his life his mind had decided to use. That has to be it.

Still unsettled, he checks his omni-tool.

"By the Light!" He exclaimed. Glint shot up.

"What?" The Ghost inquired in a sleepy voice as the Awoken jumped to his feet and dashed for the door. "Crow!"

"We slept for twelve hours and Shepard called a meeting!" Hopefully, it would involve some answers about yesterday.

Chapter Text

When Crow burst into the conference room, everybody stared. Shepard was already at least partway through whatever she was breaking down for them, and she regarded him with a raised eyebrow. Face flushing, he rushed to his seat, trying to suppress a yawn, only to discover there were no empty seats, thanks to Liara's presence. For a moment all he can do is stare at her. The hairs on the back of his neck prickled.

"You can stand over there, Crow." She gestured to a corner of the room. "You aren't missing much, we don't have a lot to go off of anyway. I'll give you the run-down in private."

He just nodded mutely, feeling a bit like a chastised child as he went to the back of the room, wondering why Liara was present. His thoughts spiraled into a tumble of unfocused theories, even his vision blurring as he completely zones out on the remainder of Shepard's presentation. Were they finishing whatever that business on Illium had been? He thought she was an archeologist, what did ruins have to do with shooting people?

Did someone steal a museum piece or something? Were they helping an incredibly angry archeologist get her artifact back? Why would she need Commander Shepard's help, she had seemed capable enough.

What could the artifact be?

What if this had nothing to do with archaeology at all?

The act of everybody in the room rising from their seats snaps him out of his trance, and he realizes he hadn't been listening at all. Liara strides out quickly with a dark expression, ignoring Garrus when he tried to halt her. The turian sighs and files out with the others, and soon it's just Shepard and Crow. He shuffles his feet as she regarded him thoughtfully.

"Get enough sleep?" She asks.

"Yes." He manages to say through a yawn that had snuck up on him.

"Lightbearers sleep a lot when they exert their powers more than usual." Glint explained helpfully. "I once saw a fireteam who slept a whole day after the Battle of Twilight Gap!"

"Right." She nodded, crossing her arms. "Wanna tell me why you exerted them on an innocent table last night?"

"Sorry." He winced. "I can fix it. I just... things got out of hand, and I couldn't think of a way to stop it."

"So I hear. I've already sat them down and sorted that out, but from now on I expect you to follow the same rules as the biotics." The Commander told him. "And if you could fix the table before we get to Sowilo, that would be nice."

"I'll get on it." Now he just had to worry about apologizing to the others for his outburst. "Why was Liara here?"

"We're going after the Shadow Broker." Shepard sighed, and booted up her omni-tool. "He took a friend of hers captive, and he might still be alive. Sending you the details, be sure to read up and don't eat anything at least three hours before we land. We're going to a planet called Hagalaz, and we're expecting less than favorable flying conditions."

"Commander." He's unable to resist the grin that spreads across his face. "Who says we need to fly?"

"I'm having second thoughts about this." Jacob commented as the Normandy got within transmat range. He, along with a few other members of the team, were standing around the helm of the ship as it shook(though not nearly as bad as it had on their way to the derelict Reaper). "I mean, we're technically killing ourselves."

Crow, Glint, Tali, and Garrus had spent the last three hours calibrating the transmat sensors for the rest of the non-human crew in preparation for their assault on the Shadow Broker's ship, which was surfing the thin, tumultuous line where the heat of Sowilo boiled the surface and the dead of night snap froze everything. Nothing else was known about the ship, but considering that the Broker supposedly had access to every secret in the galaxy, Shepard was once again bringing everyone.

There was no telling what they were going to find down there, in terms of technology or man power, and their primary target alone made the risk of the operation close to if not on par with boarding a dead Reaper. For that reason, Shepard was pulling out all the stops, including agreeing to try the transmat system for insertion. At first she was reticent, citing minimal testing, but EDI had cut in to inform them that Joker had been 'testing' it all morning, and everything seemed sound.

"I feel pretty alive right now." Joker said as his hands flew across the controls, having spent his initial waking hours transmatting everywhere instead of walking 'like some pleb'. "EDI, prep for transmat. Tell the others to hold on to their stomachs."

"We're being atomized." Jacob pressed.

"And reconstructed at point B." Crow reassured him, daring to pat the other man's shoulder as he squeezed past to get to the front of the helm. The Normandy pitched slightly, and he gripped the back of one of the unoccupied chairs in case it does so again. Shepard pulled back from where she'd been leaning over Joker's shoulder, examining the readouts, and faced the others with a grim look. "Sorry about the table, Joker."

"Yeah, just remind me never to actually piss you off." The pilot says distractedly. "And snap a vid of the landing, I wanna see who barfs."

"You got it." Crow nodded, relieved that his outburst hadn't been too off-putting, at least not enough that it soured the pilot's sense of humor.

"Everyone brace yourselves!" Shepard called out.

"Transmat in three... two..." Joker counted down, grin in his voice. "One. Happy hurling!"

The familiar sensation of transmat washed over him, like an icy waterfall pouring over him but only chilling his nervous system rather than his whole body, quickly followed by a similar feel of heat flashing through his nerves in the same way as he materialized on the hull of the Shadow Broker's ship. Gale-force winds hit him like a gut punch, rain strikes his face like bullets, and it feels like his cloak is about to rip itself off his body. Thunder roars all around him, and lightning flits through the darkened eventide clouds in an unending dance.

The others stumbled when they came through, their transmats staggered so as not to overtax the new system. Most of them were wearing helmets already, and if he wasn't worried about Glint getting blown away, he would let his Ghost out to retrieve his own. He sets his omni-tool to record, just in time to catch Miranda vomiting, Jack looking close to following suit. Well, if all else fails, at least Joker got his transmat reaction vid.

"Don't you fucking record this." The bald maniac snarled, having to yell to make herself heard. "You and your fucking clever little fucking teleport!"

"Glint says 'language'." He tells her, feeling a little bold, meeting her glare with an even, hard stare that Garrus had taught him with the aid of a mirror. Apparently, it came in handy with criminals, and he's been wanting to try it.

"Yeah, well I say-" Jack begins, though she looks a little put off by his demeanor.

"Allright people, form-form up." Shepard called out, sounding a bit queasy herself. "We've got-"

The Commander suddenly cut herself off, tore off her helmet, and threw up. The... contents were whipped away by the wind almost immediately, and some of it hits Miranda's left leg. The brunette visibly shutters, but if she says anything, he doesn't hear it. Shepard composes herself, and the rest of team settles into position, some of them stumbling slightly or touching their stomachs.

"I think my intestines got switched around." Jacob grunts.

"Baby." Grunt snorted, slapping Crow on the back hard enough his vertebrae popped. "Just think of the looks on our enemies faces when we transmat right in front of them and blast them in the face! Ha!"

"Ri-ight." Crow coughed, winded and wishing once more that the krogan was less physical. Shepard taps the side of her helmet to indicate they would primarily be using comms, likely because of the wind. Liara was flicking through her omni-tool with an impatient fervor, until Shepard tugged her elbow, turning to the others.

"Liara says there's a signal coming from the back communications relay. There's nothing below us that we can use, so we're going to make our way up. Keep your eyes sharp for defenses, and watch yourselves near the capacitors; just because the lightning is attracted to them doesn't mean the danger is negated."

"Personally, I find danger electrifying!" Garrus declared.

"Well, it can come as a shock to some." Crow pointed out, grinning. Liara cast a glare between the turian and Crow, and a few of the others shake their heads.

"What's with the stormy expression?" Garrus asked the asari, whose look only darkened.

"Boo!" Tali cried as Shepard made to pinch the bridge of her nose, only to be met with her helmet.

"Focus up and save the corny jokes for later." The Commander intervened. "Let's move!"

They filed around the hull of the ship in twos, firing on a couple of maintenance drones that mistook them for debris. What, he wonders, could they have been mistaken for that could make it up this far, even in this squall? They worked their way over plates and up an incline in the hull to be met with their first human resistance. Shepard makes quick work of them by shooting out the capacitors, for which Crow was glad because he still wasn't sure if he could pull the trigger on a human.

He technically had back on Eden Prime. But those men and women had been maddened by the cryptolith, these people were sound of mind, even if they were trying to kill him. Maybe some of them were fanatics of the Broker, some here for money, maybe some of them were even here because he had leverage over them. A hostage, like Spider had done with Glint. And they might die because he shot them today.

It felt... wrong, to use Hawkmoon for it, so he pulled out his pulse rifle, which he hadn't used much since getting the paracausal hand cannon, but had cleaned and maintained just in case. He had even shown it's inner workings to Jacob. They worked their way down the hull again, before rising once more, meeting a combination of LOKI mechs followed by more of the Broker's agents. Once more, he's one of those who wound up not having to fire a shot. Those capacitors are a real hazard.

One would think someone as supposedly meticulous as the Shadow Broker would have better safety standards in case of a boarding, but then again, he'd probably banked on nobody being able to find this place. Shepard spends a few moments hacking something before one of the capacitors retracts, clearing their way forward, but also leading them into another small group of Broker agents.

"All of these small patrol teams..." he wondered out loud once they were dispatched as quickly as the others. "I wonder how long until the larger ones are ready and waiting for us? They have to have realized what's happening by now."

"They might be using these guys to buy time for just that." Jacob pointed out. "Just keep sharp."

They work their way down the hull again, get accosted by more LOKI mechs, and continue down along an angle that makes him nervous. Grunt manages to catch Tali by the elbow when she slips, and the quarian keeps one hand on the krogan's back for balance as they all slow their pace slightly to avoid any more near-slips. They only go further down from there, though thankfully not by any more steep walls. Instead, they fight their next group- a combination of mechs and agents, this time- on a catwalk lining the side of the ship. He popped the head off a LOKI, and considered letting Glint out briefly to get his helmet, but he still doesn't trust the wind tearing through the sparsely-covered half-tunnel.

He really wished he had put it on before leaving. Thankfully, their way forward is through an interior area.

"Thank the Light!" His face was numb by this point, and he flared sol Light through his body briefly to dry off. "Glint?"

"You really should have done this earlier." His Ghost tutted as he phased in the woebegone peice of armor before vanishing again.

"I know, I know." He muttered as they moved through what was probably the ship's power transfer system. It seemed purpose-built for this storm in every way, right down to converting the constant lightning into energy. He could have gone without more disturbing comments from Liara involving taking the Broker down along with themselves if all else failed. All too soon, though, they're back in the squall. At least his face wasn't being lashed anymore.

The uphill climb that was just as steep as the downhill one from earlier was less than welcome, and the Broker team that was waiting for them topside even more so. He thinks he hits someone, but the storm is so violent between the flashes of lightning and the curtain of rain, it obscures even his enhanced vision enough that he can't fully tell.

Or maybe he didn't want to see, so his eyes decided not to. He tried his best to focus on keeping his footing instead, they had to traverse more steep angles to get to where they were going. Several more people nearly slipped, including him, and he would never take stable land for granted again after this.

Another squad of the Broker's men later, and they continued on after lowering several of... whatever the flappy things all over this ship were. Some agents climb out of manholes to confront them, Garrus swears when one of them gets a good shot in, but their larger numbers make quick work of the unfortunate individuals as usual, and the turian's wound isn't serious. They take a few moments so Mordin can slap some medigel on it and keep going.

Unfortunately, the enemy was becoming smart enough to break out the heavy weapons. Most of Charlie stayed back as they pressed the next group, as there wasn't enough cover for all of them, but it was the last squad they had to fight before reaching their objective, which happened to be on the other end of a bridge. A bridge with no guardrails.

"I bet the Broker's agents love patrolling the hull!" Shepard commented as they crossed.

"Not anymore, I think." Garrus said as Charlie filed across after his team.

"It's probably punishment work." Crow guessed. He didn't know if the Shadow Broker was much like Spider, but it seemed likely to be something he might do. The Eliksni mob boss would send him on repair duty in a vacuum because he knew it would 'remind' Crow of what he'd been so graciously 'rescued' from. "Remind them of the power he has over them. Disobey, and risk getting blown off the side of the ship."

"Unless he has hostages as leverage." Jacob shrugs. "Reminders would be simpler than that."

"The hostages would be for if you screwed up big time." Crow shook his head as they finished crossing the nightmare bridge. "He needs smaller ways to show his power for smaller infractions, especially if someone is particularly valuable."

"Sounds like you're speaking from experience." Jacob's statement sounds more like a suspicious question, and a chill runs through his body that has nothing to do with the weather. I guess I am, after a fashion.

"We found the hatch." Shepard saves him from having to say anything else on the matter. "But there's going to heavy reinforcements on the way, or I'm a hanar. Charlie, take the door. Liara has a way to crack it, but it'll need time. Bravo take the left, Alpha on right, let's get it done."

They quickly rushed to position, just in time for the enemy to arrive. It took all his willpower not to go out and try to help, but at least the only exciting thing to happen initially was Liara refusing to say whether she had tested her shunt device before using it. Things changed when the rocket drone came into play; for one thing, they had an angle on Charlie. Jacob put up a hasty biotic barrier to block several of the incoming rockets as Tali and the techs on the other teams stripped their shields.

To say that drones didn't last very long with thirteen people firing on them would be an understatement, and a quick check reveals no serious injuries from the rockets.

"This is suspiciously disorganized." Thane commented. "They know we outnumber them, why do they still hold back their own men?"

"Please don't give the mercs ideas." Shepard asks pleadingly. "Even if I do agree that this has been too easy."

"If the Shadow Broker was expecting us, he wasn't expecting us to teleport onto his ship." Liara said. "Let alone with the full force of your team."

"Transmat." Crow corrected right before more agents charged their position. He's starting to tire of the word 'teleport', it made the feat sound boring and generic. Once more, Charlie didn't have much to shoot at, but the next wave made up for it when someone finally rubbed together enough brain cells to throw a belt of grenades into the hatch entryway. Tali froze, Crow's heart jumped into his throat, Jacob called out a warning, and Thane sent the belt flying up into the sky with a hasty biotic throw.

He pulled Tali down and covered her as best he could as it went off. Pain sparked along his back, and he heard Jacob swear. When he looks up, Grunt is shaking his head in irritation as blood mixed with rain runs down his face, Jacob was taking his helmet off(he could see a large splinter of shrapnel sticking out of the visor), and Thane was pulling back, clutching his shoulder. He feels like something is tickling a lung when he stand up, and Glint presses him to be let out.

Not now, there's too much wind and too many bullets.

"Be careful." Thankfully nobody else gets any bright ideas like the grenade belt, Jacob is quick in doling out the medigel, and soon Shepard is demanding a sound off.

"All good, Commander." The shrapnel had only scraped the bridge of Jacob's nose, and he hadn't bothered putting medigel on it. "Thane's shoulder will need looking at, but it doesn't seem serious."

The Commanders eyes sweep over all of the. "Grunt, put some gel on that."

"No. It'll make a cool scar." The krogan refuses, and even though he can't see her face, Crow can easily imagine the tired expression she was fixing the reptilian teenager with.

"Crow?" She questioned, maybe noticing the way he was tilting to the side a bit. He felt dizzy, and his back was screaming at him.

"I don't trust the wind enough to let Glint out." He manages to get out.

"You're coming in with Alpha, then, just hang back and wait for the rest of your team after." She told him. "Stick behind us, we don't know what's waiting."

"Yes, ma'am." He said, limping up as steadily as he's able and falling in behind Zaeed and Kasumi, who casts him a look that might have been concerned, but it was hard to tell between the hood and rebreather. The door opened, revealing a long corridor, and Shepard gave the signal to descend. Crow followed gingerly, but before he felt safe enough to let Glint out, some chucklehead fired a rocket down the tight corridor of a ship that was traveling through a neverending storm.

Not the best move, in his opinion, but what did he know? He was under the affect of blood loss; Kasumi even had to pull him into cover. He thought about returning fire, but everything is tilting at this point, so he makes what he deems to be the smart decision not to fire his weapon. Maybe the chucklehead had damaged the inertial whatevers that kept the ship steady.

He doesn't even realize he's zoned out like he had this morning until Kasumi gives a shoulder a solid shake. There's no more gunfire.

"Shoulda slept in, after all." He yawns. Glint popped into existence and got to work. The chill in his bones and the blackness at the edge of his vision retreated, and the world around him comes into sharp and sudden focus. The pain in his back numbs and fades.

"Oop, there he is!" Kasumi said, a grin in her voice. "Must be some good stuff."

"Charlie, hold our exfil, everybody else on me." Shepard ordered after giving him a quick look up and down. Crow kept to the side as Alpha and Bravo swept past him. Thane slid up beside him as gunfire and explosions erupted from the end of the hall as the others engaged with more agents, Tali taking cover across from them, and Jacob taking Grunt up a little further ahead before the two of them also settled into cover.

"You good?" He asked the drell. He hadn't gotten a good look at the injuries, but there was no small amount of blood smeared about his arm and shoulder.

"The medigel was applied in time." Thane assured him. "There should be no serious consequences, as far as my condition is concerned."

Crow nodded and turned his attention back to the corridor. Shepard's team was making quick progress, the last of Bravo had moved from sight, but the sounds of battle were still ringing loud. He atunes himself to the void to try to give their own team some extra warning, and manages to spot a squad of Broker agents before they even come through the door.

He definitely kills someone this time. He has to take a few deep breaths afterwards, and barely managed to stop himself from jumping when Thane puts a hand on his shoulder.

"What if they were like-what if they didn't choose this?" He can't help but question out loud, more to himself than the drell.

"Then they met a more unfortunate end than others." Thane says. "But perhaps there is a chance the rest can be spared, depending on what happens with the Shadow Broker."

"I hope she doesn't go with her 'take the ship down' idea, then." He tries not to think about how many people on this ship might be here to protect someone other than the Shadow Broker, or how many of those someones might be imprisoned on board. He can't help but wonder if the man he killed had a family. Were they being threatened? Or would he never have left this ship alive regardless? It wasn't too far-fetched to imagine that the Shadow Broker would never let anyone who saw this place live once one was no longer useful.

One more squad came for them, and they were mid-firefight when Garrus gets on the comms with the last thing any of them wanted to hear.

"All teams, Shepard and Liara are trapped with the Broker." Jacob swears, and then lifts an agent from the ground with his biotics while Grunt takes her out. "They made entry into central operations and the door shut before the rest of Alpha could follow, nearly took Kasumi's arm off."

"Still got that shunt device?" Jacob asked.

"Liara still has it." Of course she did.

"Charlie's taking fire." Jacob told him, ducking back into cover as the hallway was peppered with bullets. "We're good, but we can't do anything from here."

"Hold position for now, we'll try to get this open the old-fashioned way." The turian ordered, voice strained.

On a scale of one to ten, Crow would rank this as a nine on the 'not good' scale. It took them five minutes to fight off the agents that had come for them, and they spent the next ten waiting for reinforcements to attack. Then the power flickered, and his worries about Liara downing the ship seemed suddenly and disturbingly valid. At least, until the loudspeakers came on.

"This is the Shadow Broker. The situation is under control." Jacob sword up a storm, and Crow's blood ran cold. "We experienced a power fluctuation while upgrading hardware. It disrupted communications temporarily. However, we are now back online. Resume standard procedures. I want a status report on all operations within the next solar day. Shadow Broker out."

"Nobody panic, everything's fine!" Shepard's voice crackled breathlessly over comms. "Liara's just the Shadow Broker now, I guess."

"You okay?" Jacob asks while everyone else let's out the breath they were holding. Thank the Light.

"Tell Chakwas to be ready. I punched a yagh." A... what? Crow looks to Thane questioningly.

"What's a yagh?" He asked. The drell, normally rather knowledgeable, could only shrug.

Chapter Text

"That's a yagh?" Crow exclaimed as Joker showed off the picture he'd pulled up on his omni-tool. "By the Light..."

"She bloody punched that?" Ken let out an impressed whistle. He and Gabby were leaning in between the Hunter and the pilot to get a better look, along with a few others who happened to be in the mess.

"She said she did." Crow told him, taking a sip of water and trying not to let the crowd bother him- or at least trying not to show that it did.

"And you believe it?" Goldstein questioned incredulously.

"Her hand was broken in seven different places. Yes, I believe it." He waved his own hand about as an example. "Chakwas wasn't too impressed, though."

"Did she say why she punched a yagh?" Gabby asked, still sounding mystified.

"Something about breaking his shield? Apparently bullets weren't working." He shrugged. She was definitely channeling a Titan in there, that's for sure.

"No omni-blade, no knife, just straight up-" Joker struck out with his fist to punctuate the sentence. He held out the picture of the yagh as if to get a better look at it, before shaking his head. "Right, show's over, probably shouldn't be looking at something this ugly while we're trying to eat, anyway."

"I'll second that." Ken says as he and Gabby settle in on Crow's right. "Not to sound dramatic, but I heard they killed the First Contact party way back when, even ate them."

"Kenneth, you're being dramatic. They did not eat them." Gabby poked him in the side with her elbow as she sat down beside him.

"Where's you proof? Everyone who was there was dead, and it's not like they'll declassify the footage anytime soon." The other engineer argued, rubbing the spot where she elbowed him. "If someone let it slip they got eaten before it was officially classified, who's to say it's not true?"

"Didn't you second no more yagh at the table?" Crow pointed out, waving a fork with a mushroom speared on the end of it in his direction.

"I'm just saying, is all!" Ken threw his hands up in surrender, and Crow rolled his eyes, before focusing on his meal again, resisting the nervous urge to fiddle with his fork instead of using it to eat.

"Sorry again, about last night." He manages before stuffing food in his mouth so that he had an excuse for taking too long to speak if his apology received a negative response.

"Ain't us you got to apologize to; what did the bloody table ever do to you?" Ken shook his head between shoveling food into his mouth. Crow could feel Glint about to materialize and berate the man on his manners, but Gabby beat him to it.

"Kenneth, you're talking with your mouth full again." She flicked his ear. "I'm not saving you again if you choke."

"Again?" Joker asked, deadpan, leaning forwards to stare at the two.

"The definition of insanity is trying the same thing a multitude of times and expecting a different result." Gabby explained vaguely, and Ken made an offended noise. He still had the grace to swallow this time before putting his protest into words.

"I'm not mad! I just don't like leaving a pause in conversation, it's awkward." The bearded engineer defended himself.

"So, you'd rather choke than spare a few seconds chewing and swallowing?" Crow inquired. "As opposed to making it more awkward by showing everyone your half-chewed food when you speak like a toddler? What if you mispronunciate and it sounds like something offensive?"

"Everybody's a bloody critic." The man said around another mouthful of food, this time clearly on purpose, but there didn't seem to be any bad blood between anyone, for which Crow was grateful.

"In... um, relation to last night, why did you guys all join the Alliance?" He inquires curiously. He's heard a bit about what Alliance life is like, and a fair amount about why certain people on board had joined Cerberus, but nothing about why people had joined the Alliance. "Joker, you could've gone a professional jumpship racer, if they have something like that around here, and surely there's more uses for technical skills than a warship."

"Eh, I thought about going pro, no jumpships around here though, remember?" Joker twirled his fork between his fingers. "But my family's had their fingers in military aviation since planes were just tubes with wings soldered on and only good for dropping bombs. My parents helped build Arcturus, so I grew up around military ships. Going pro racer was just... boring in comparison, and I figured it had been too long since a Moreau was actually at the helm of a ship. Never pictured myself doing anything else. That, and I wanted to get back at the assholes who said I couldn't do it."

"I went into it because chicks dig a man in uniform." Ken stated, sleeking back his hair and winking at a crewmate across the room(who promptly flipped him off). "That, and I had an interest in experimental drive cores. Best way to get in on making the latest tech is going military. They make everything first, everything civilians get it what trickles down after new comes along, been that way since the dawn of man."

"I'm pretty sure if you asked dirt-eaters like Shepard, most would say something along the lines of 'doing my duty to serve humanity'." Joker made his voice deeper and took on a stoic look. "'For the protection of our people, to-'"

"Actually, I did it to get out of foster care and smash some batarian heads in." They all jumped, twisting in their seats to look at the grinning Commander. "Technically, I faked my age, but by now I'm sure they can't really do anything if they find out about it."

"'Ei, 'ommn 'er." Ken gave her a tiny wave, accidentally spitting crumbs onto Gabby's shoulder.

"Kenneth, ew!" She exclaimed, while Joker simply stared at Shepard with a reddening face, for once at a loss for words.

"Should you be up?" Crow inquired, looking down at her wrapped arm and hoping to steer out of the awkward moment."

"After yesterday, Chakwas and I both were hoping to get a better assessment of where those healing skills of yours are at. I volunteered." She shrugged, before regarding Joker with an amused expression. "No offense taken, by the way."

"Have I ever seemed worried about offending people to you?" The pilot finally found his voice again. "Crow, glow her up. Make it blind her. See if she ever mistakes me as being worried about causing offense again."

"How would that..." Crow trailed off as he tried to find just how blinding Commander Shepard would prevent such misunderstandings.

"Can't see things that aren't there if she can't see, can she?" The other man huffed.

"I'm not blinding anyone." Crow sighed, before regarding Shepard's hand nervously. "Are you sure about this? Yesterday was an emergency, and bone fights me alot, so I'm not sure what good it will do you."

"Chakwas already set the bones." Shepard told him. "Just do what you can, we're only looking for a baseline. I like to know what my crew is capable of. We can wait until you're done eating, just meet me in port observation after."

"Sure thing, Commander." The Hunter nodded, and the N7 left them to twist back around in their seats.

"Well, that was-" Joker started, flicking the brim of his hat up with his thumb.

"Awf 'merd?" Ken interjected only, to Crow's alarm, make an awful noise and started pounding on his chest. Gabby rose quickly, angrily, from her seat and made her way behind him.

"Dammit, Kenneth, I told you!"

Crow strode toward port observation still slightly put out from both Gabby's impromptu lesson on the heimlich maneuver, and Liara's sudden arrival as he left. He'd caught the tail end of Joker's greeting, which had sounded like an innuendo if he'd ever heard one(and he's heard a lot, The Shore being The Shore).

Well, at least I know what to do now. And at least the other engineer was okay. Hopefully he takes our advice and breaks that habit.

He entered the observation deck, and found Shepard to in his immediate line of sight. She stood in front of the window, fidgeting with her less injured hand, her back facing him as she gazed at the churning terminator zone of the planet below them. He walked up to stand beside her, and found he much preferred this view of Hagalaz to his groundside experience from earlier. He had always found it... calming, to watch planets from above. Sometimes, when he had spare fuel or time from a task Spider had given him, he would pick the nearest world, park in orbit, and he and Glint would simply sit in silence and observe.

"How's that drell doing?" He asked, to pick up the conversation. Liara's friend had been in bad shape, and Crow hadn't seen the full extent of it, Chakwas had put up a curtain around his bed for privacy.

"You would know more than me." Shepard told him, not looking away from the whorls of atmospheric activity below them. "You live in the med bay."

"She doesn't let me stay for stuff that intense." Crow shrugged. "Needs her focus. Can't have that if I'm in there lurking."

"Maybe she'll find more for you to do as you get more disciplined with this healing thing." She finally turned to look at him. "But that's not all I wanted to discuss with you. We've got all the intel we need to remove the bomb, I thought you might want to discuss it away from the others."

Almost immediately, he feels a burst of anxiety from Glint's end of their Link. It's okay. He tries to reassure his Ghost. You know this has to be done. You know I'll be there.

"Your hands are messed up." He pointed out after taking a deep breath in an attempt to banish his own fears. "Ever disarmed a bomb with with broken fingers?"

"As a matter of fact, yes, I have." She smirked. "But no, it isn't ideal. I was hoping you could allieviate that problem a little, but I'm not the only trained EOD specialist on board. Garrus will take over if you have trouble with this healing thing, unless you would rather wait for Chakwas to finish having her way with me."

"I'll..." he tries to feel out Glint's opinion on the matter, but as usual when faced with talk of inevitably opening him up for this herculean task, the Ghost had clammed up. "I'll have to think about it, but I would rather do it sooner rather than later, Glint is already stressed out waiting, I don't want to make him wait more."

"Once Liara is settled, we'll go into port on the Citadel so your team can run some more controlled final checks on the transmat system." Shepard informed him. "We can disarm an dispose of the bomb while we're at it. And... I guess I should let you all cut loose for a bit of shore leave, after. Start your bomb-free life out-"

"Not with a bang, I hope?" He raised an eyebrow, and Shepard fumbled with her words, face flushing.

"Poor choice of words. My bad." She rubbed the back of her neck sheepishly only to flinch when the hand she used decided to remind her that she had punched a yagh earlier.

"Just, give me that." He offered her his hand. "Before you make a poor choice of gesticulation."

"You're starting to sound like Chakwas." She snorted, giving him her worst hand.

"I'll take that as a compliment." He stated. "Hold still."

He pulled on his Light, feeling the swollen flesh and broken blood vessels. Cracked bone and damaged tendons. He knit the cracks as best he could, and coaxed the burst capillaries back into an undamaged state. He made the loose blood reabsorb into the body, soothed the tendons, and convinced the flesh that it didn't need to swell as much. He tries to do more to the bones, but they fight him just as they had before, so he settles for what little he can do. The result is that the bones seemed like they had been damaged a week ago.

Shepard took a sharp breath, releasing it slowly as he continued the process up her forearm until all of the bruises and swelling were gone. He then repeated the process with her other hand, though this one wasn't as damaged. Having done all he can do, he let his Light go and visually inspected his work. Shepard fexed her fingers gingerly, a perplexed look on her face as they both examined the unbruised, much less swollen flesh.

"Don't do that." He warned, gently stilling the action. "They're still broken, let Chakwas handle the rest."

"That I can feel." She turned her hand over with a wince. "But they don't look broken. Damn, that's weird."

"Let's go show Chakwas and get you squared away." He gestured to the door. The Commander nodded, distracted still by the state of her hands, as they made their way out of the observation deck. Glint's distress still hadn't quieted, and he tried to coax him out, to comfort him subtly with the Light as his Ghost often did for him, but his friend wouldn't budge. He tried not to show his unease as they made their way through the crew deck.

Glint, please let me help. Silence. He knew his Ghost was afraid, but he's never been this silent before. I know you're scared of this. You've always been the one to push me through the things that I fear, the things that are necessary. You've always kept me upright through it all.

Still silence.

Please, just talk to me. Tell me what you need.

The doors to the med bay open, and he's glad Shepard is in front of him and Chakwas has her back turned, because he knows his expression falters when a tiny, frightened voice whimpers across their Link in a way that breaks his heart.

"I don't want to be taken apart again..."

Chapter Text

CW: Traumatic flashbacks, surgery without anesthesia(kind of? He's a Ghost)

They spent the next two days orbiting Hagalaz. Feron was stabilized with the help of the Shadow Broker's med bay, but it was generally agreed upon that continuation of his recovery shouldn't take place on the same ship he'd been a prisoner on for the last two years. Liara spent some time catching up with the Normandy residents that she knew, and tried to question him at length about Awoken civilization, but didn't apologize for the skycar incident.

Even if not for her explosive first impression, the Asari made him uneasy. She was the Shadow Broker now. She had inherited all his dealings, information, and resources. But she had also inherited his... victims. When he asked what would happen to them, she had told him it would look odd for the Broker to suddenly just let them all go. That cutting so many people who knew too much loose on the galaxy would be a mistake. With everything going on with Glint, it makes bile rise in his throat to hear such things, especially from a friend of Shepard's(who looks a bit uncomfortable herself to hear Liara's words).

At his core he can understand why, but it was incredibly disheartening and disturbing. He has Glint cut her access to the 'Alternate Universe For Dummies' codex, she didn't need to be getting ideas from their end on top of everything else. When she asks him about why, he musters the glare Garrus had taught him again, and told her plainly that she wouldn't be staying, so she wouldn't be needing it. He declines to comment when nobody on team transmat will tell her how said transmat system works.

The request to deny her information confused everyone except Legion, who as usual had no opinions on organic social strife. She was an associate of Shepard's, so surely she could be trusted, right? Yeah, no. He had spent half his life under the thumb of an alien mob boss, he wasn't about to enable... that on a galactic scale in even the most remote sense.

He's pretty sure Tali just glared at him for calling her friend a mob boss, and Joker just looked uncomfortable. Neither of them commented further on the matter, knowing exactly why he felt the way he did on the matter. Such actions also gave him an odd sort of thrill; he's never asserted control over something like this before, let alone to hinder someone in a remotely similar position as the Spider, and it's exhilarating.

If Crow had a shit list, Liara T'Soni would have landed herself a place on it. Or maybe he did have such a list, and she was simply the first edition. Either way, by the time they drop her and Feron off on Illium, she and Crow were not fans of one another. Don't get him wrong, he was glad she got her friend back, but even her close ties with Commander Shepard weren't enough to assuage the unease that he felt whenever he saw her. She had that power now, and it was because of them- because of him. Everything she did with it now, for better or worse, was on them.

All in all, he was glad to see the backend of their business with the Shadow Broker, at least for now. But with that stressor gone, several others took its place. They went to their private dock on the Citadel first thing after Illium and spent a full three days finalizing, calibrating, improving and testing the transmat system. It took longer than any of them thought it would, with Glint and Shepard enforcing a ban on working through the night and Crow having coffee partially to blame; even if that previous behavior may have caused at least half the little issues they found in their initial diagnostics.

And once they were certain things were in top shape, though with room for future improvements, Commander Shepard had the engineering team start working with Mordin to begin installing the Reaper IFF. The salarian had rushed in while Ken was popping the cork on something alcoholic that he claimed could get 'even Crow and Legion drunk'(it didn't, and it tasted awful) in celebration of officially finishing the transmat project, and started firing off instructions and random bits of information while slamming a heavy case down on the floor next to Gabby's work station.

Joker and the others had been greatly displeased, with Crow following once his initial confusion wore off. He might not have a part to play in the IFF installation, but he's pretty sure Shepard would expect the engineers to have at least a short break before getting started! They all presented this case to the hyper scientist, but Legion was the only one to get through to him.

If 'getting through' to someone could be counted as picking them up by the back of the coat like a misbehaving kitten and carrying them out the door. Mordin didn't even struggle; either he was too surprised to act, or he was taking the unusual out so he didn't have to spend all day trying to convince tired engineers not to take a break.

Legion's declaration of 'we are currently engaging in celebratory social interaction' as he 'escorted' the salarian out was just the icing on the cake. Joker and Crow were the first ones to break out into hysterics once Mordin was gone and the geth had declared 'you may resume consuming alcoholic beverages'. Joker later used his admin powers in their group chat to change Legion's name from '404 Error' to 'Bouncer T-1k', with the promise to explain yet another pop culture reference at a later point.

Later that night, though, Shepard had told him they were ready to remove the bomb. Her hands had healed faster than initially predicted, and she was good to do it herself. They would be do it in a section of the Citadel that was still being repaired from the battle two years prior, and Garrus had used one of his old C-Sec contacts to secure the use of a containment chamber. Ideally, they would do it in the morning.

Which was what led him to this moment, laying on his bed in the med bay, trying to comfort Glint as the time for action rapidly approached. Neither of them had gotten any rest. Shepard wanted them within the next half hour.

"Tell me you haven't been up all night?" Chakwas asked as she walked in, coffee in hand-oh, that looked so good right now. No, Crow focus.

"Sorry." He said, letting a small wisp of Light out from his palm to brush against his anxious Ghost's shell. He's been holding Glint for the last hour, to keep him from zipping around as his nerves got worse. "He's, well we're just..."

"I understand." The doctor sets her coffee down. "I've seen plenty of people who fear surgery, though I'm not sure how close an equivalent this will be. I take it there's no way to render a Ghost unconscious for such a thing?"

"No way that isn't violent." Crow told her, pulsing his Light when Glint shifted suddenly. His Ghost had been unusually quiet since Shepard had told them the plan was a go, as well.

"Do you have any plans for shore leave?" She inquired. "In my experience, having something to look forward to helps, as does music."

"Not really, I've had other things on my mind." Though there were a lot of people on the Citadel, if Glint could be brave enough to go through with this, he could be brave enough to take his Ghost around to see the station. "Glint, is there anything you want to do?"

"... You need a haircut." Glint said softly after a few seconds of silence.

"That's a need, not a want, buddy." Crow rolled his eyes. "What do you want to do?"

"I want you to get a haircut." Leave it to a Ghost to only think about his Lightbearer. Crow sighed, ready to accept the answer, when Glint suddenly shot up, like he'd been injected with a shot of his usual enthusiasm. "Oh, wait! There's the- there's another thing, I'll be right back!"

"Wait, what are you..." it was too late, his Ghost had shot out of the med bay excitedly, leaving Crow sitting up on his bed, confused. He let out a huff of air, and Chakwas chuckled.

"Well, I guess that may have done the trick." She commented, smiling fondly. "Now, how are you doing, with all this going on?"

"I'm..." he hesitated, finding it slightly strange to be talking about his feelings with someone other than Glint, without his Ghost even present at that. Usually, even if he spoke to someone else, Glint was there too, to add his two glimmer; he saw it as part of his duty as a Ghost to heal not just his body, but to look after his mind as best he could as well. But... he supposed, Glint had enough on his metaphorical shoulders right now. He wouldn't miss one conversation. "I'm ready for this to be over. That bomb wound up in him because of me, I'm just... I'm glad to see it fixed, even if I'm not the one doing it myself."

"Crow, I don't know all the details about what happened." Chakwas' expression and voice became stern. "But I think it's safe to say that bomb wound up in him because of that... Spider character, not you. We can't control how much of a monster someone is."

"But we can recognize it." He argued, running his hand down his face. "And I didn't. I was naive enough to think Spider would never... Glint kept telling me about his misgivings, he kept insisting we leave, even if Spider didn't think the dept had been repaid. I didn't listen, and Glint paid for it."

"Crow, tell me again how old you are." He felt his face flush. It wasn't embarrassing... okay, maybe it was a little embarrassing.

"Two, by now." He rubbed the back of his neck. "What does that have to do with anything?"

"You have very little life experience." Chakwas told him, expression soft. "You may not be a child, but you don't seem mentally mature yet, either. You're still figuring out who you are, who you want to be, what works and what doesn't. Right, wrong, who to trust and who not to trust... that's the kind of knowledge you weren't reborn with. Like anyone young, there are signs you can't recognize, things you tell yourself will work themselves out. Naivete is not what Spider took advantage of; it was your inexperience. I've seen it plenty of times before, people like him drawing in youths who see no other options, ensnaring them. Youth is not a character flaw; it's a temporary hurdle. He was the villain here, he's the only one to blame, and you need to remember that."

For a few moments all Crow could do was stare at her and blink as he turned her words over in his mind. A small noise escapes him, not quite a laugh but not some purposeless nonsense either. "You think I'm like... what, a teenager?"

"At least, a very close approximation of one, if at all." She offers a wry smile. "The point still stands; it is not your fault that Spider took advantage of you. And I may not be from your reality, but I can imagine that tampering with a Ghost would be seen as just as abhorrent as cutting into an organic and doing the same. It wouldn't be something anyone would imagine someone doing, so of course you never thought Spider would touch him. You can't blame yourself for the repugnant unthinkable."

"It's not that easy." He told her quietly. He heard Glint scream in so many of his nightmares, always woke up kicking himself for not doing anything differently. He could have fought back, but he hadn't; he was a Lightbearer and he had let a few spears at his throat stop him from saving his Ghost.

"I know." The doctor nodded. "But I want you to keep it in mind."

"I'll try." He took a deep breath and let it go. "I should go find him, it's almost time."

"Be strong, both of you." Chakwas nodded in understanding. "By the way, I think I overheard Joker and Donnely making plans for shore leave. You should see if you can join them, you could do to spend time with your friends outside of engineering."

"I-I'm not sure we're friends." He stuttered. Sure they worked together, and hanging out with Joker could be fun, but they were all drifting through space on the same ship and preferred circles of contact were bound to pop up, whether people were friends or not. He knew Tali wasn't his friend, but he still willingly spent time with her every day alongside the others. He wanted to say Joker was his friend, but he'd hate to presume anything when they were all forced together by circumstance. He knows Joker isn't really into dealing with other's baggage- something Crow was aware of having a lot of.

"Crow, I think I know friendship when I see it." The older woman raised one eyebrow, an amused smirk playing across her lips. "Go have fun with it. You deserve it."

"I-"

"I'm back!" Glint announces cheerfully, zipping around his Lightbearer and practically vibrating with excitement. He had no idea what his Ghost was up to, but if it put him in such a good mood, Crow wasn't going to question it.

"Hey, there." He offers his hand to land on, but Glint is still expending the energy from his sudden good mood. "We should go. I'll think about what you said, doctor."

"I'll see you later." The doctor waves, and they make their way out of the med bay.

"Think about what?" His Ghost queries as they head to the elevator.

"Oh, she uh, she thinks we should ask to join Joker and the others for shore leave when we're done." He told him, stopping in front of the elevator and feeling somewhat stupid. "What am I doing? We have transmat now! Glint?"

"On it!" He could hear the nerves creeping back into his Ghost's voice. As the sensation of transmat washes over him, he does his best to push his own fear and dread down as far as he could.

Glint could feel his newfound courage leaving his body as they materialized in the abandoned warehouse where the 'operation', for lack of a better term, would take place. Keepers were the only beings visibly active when they arrived, carrying the odd supply likely used for repairs. There were tarps and markers hanging from walls, scaffolding, and littering the floor. Lights flickered on occasion, and the only sounds aside from the keepers walking were the low voices of Shepard and Garrus as they consulted one another.

Light give me strength. The Commander and her helper were standing over a plain table with an explosive containment chamber nearby. A shorter table seemed to have the required tools on it, surreptitiously placed as if to play off the philosophy of 'out of sight, out of mind'. Glint didn't know if it was worse not seeing exactly what would be used on his person or better. He retreats to Crow's hand, and familiar sol Light brushes against his shell.

"Crow, Glint." Shepard greeted as they approached. "You two ready?"

"Yeah, we're ready." Crow took a deep breath in through his nose and out through the mouth, a sign he was trying to stay calm. Glint could feel his pulse quicken as the Awoken ran his thumb along the scar of wielding marks where Spider had cut into him-

- Spiders hand closes tightly around him, and he screams, Crow shouts-

"Okay. You sure there's no way to at least numb the pain? Will he feel the pain?" Shepard asks gently. She means well. She's not Spider. This wasn't the Shore. She had five fingers, not three. Two arms, not four.

"I could hold him, use sol Light to try and mitigate the worse of it. Not sure if it works on Ghosts, but now is the time to try." His Lightbearer worries at the cuff of one sleeve as he said this.

-electricity burns through him, hot and terrible and Travelerhe'ssosorrydon'tlethisGuardiandiebecauseofthis-

Warm Light wraps around his shell like a blanket around a small child.

"Glint, do you want warnings, or for me to tell you what I'm doing as I work, or not?" The Commander asks, face still gentle. It's odd to see her so gentle, when she's always seemed to be fighting or serious. She is, objectively speaking, a very pretty woman, with one of the most expressive faces he's seen. Nothing like Spider's masked snarl, hidden always. But the eyes were the windows to the soul, and his had always been ugly, showing nothing but more ugly.

Shepard's eyes showed pain, not twisted ugliness. Pain, the desire to render aid, passion, always sincere. He could trust her.

"N-no I... I don't want to know just-just do it. Please, let's just do it." The sooner this got done, the sooner he could get Crow's awful hair fixed, and finish the special project. Crow would be so happy!

-he can still see, and what he sees is his Guardian watching with tears in his eyes and horror on his face-

"Okay, Crow just sit down in front and hold him." Shepard reaches down and pulls a vice into view. "Glint, do you think you can hold still, or will you need help?"

"J-just Crow will be fine." The average male Guardian had a grip strength of up to 700lb, excluding exo exceptions, females typically clocking in at 500 excluding exo exceptions. Any Guardian could crush a Ghost as easily as tin foil if they channeled Light into their grip. He wouldn't be going anywhere.

-he doesn't need to breath, but the chitinous claws gripping him feel like they're strangling him-

The vice is put out of sight, Crow sits, and holds Glint out in from of him, forcing him to turn his back to Shepard as she lines up her tools.

"Just look at me, okay?" His Lightbearer tells him, bringing his other hand up to grip both sides of his shell. Sol Light suffuses Glint's body, radiating with all of Crow's worry and care. "Just look at me, and try to think of something else."

Crow's expression is drawn and stressed, but at the same time caring. His gold eyes look slightly watery, and isn't it amazing that they're a proper, glowing gold now, rather than the ill, dull yellow of months before? Their time on the Normandy really had done wonders. He was healthy, he was making friends, he had found a fight that was worthy of any Guardian. Glint was so proud he's accomplished all of this.

"Hey Glint?" He smiled shakily. "We're going to be free."

"What if it goes off?" His Lightbearer was so close, if it went off-

"You know you'd rather go down with me if our roles were reversed. I'm not leaving you, Glint." He declared sternly, glancing up at Shepard. "We're in this together, to trails end."

The Light intensified in its sense of heal-help-comfort a moment before a burning sensation-

-he couldn't move but he could still feel, and he felt fire cutting-

-cut into his back, and Crow's grip tightened even as the Awoken muttered quiet comforts. His Light conveyed those comforts far more effectively-

-effectively into his back. Claws pry his core open harshly, and something is-

-than words. Precise movements pluck a square of housing away from his core, and he could feel a new instrument-

-forcefully jammed into his internal structures, and he can't even scream as even his spark of Light is roughly shoved aside to make room for-

-prodding gently, delicately pushing away at wires that shouldn't have been in his body in the first place. He can feel wires being snipped, feel something being cut away from his internal housing like glue being pried off, and suddenly there was room for-

-something unknown, and it hurt, and Spider is chuckling and Crow is weeping and-

-his spark, his everything else, all of it. He feels it being pulled gently back into place, and he doesn't need to breath but if this is what having a broken rib healed feels like, he wouldn't be surprised. It was so-

-painful desperation was his entire world-

-freeing-

-fire sealed his back shut and left behind rough wields-

-and where had all the time gone? Fire was sealing his back, and before he can dash away, releived to see the end, he's halted by a gentle 'not yet' from Shepard, and a dremel starts grinding away at the wields. She follows up by buffing the surface and it all ends with her declaring that the bomb is contained, and his core looks good as new. He still struggled to think of something else.

I t's only then that he blacks out from the pain-

He wakes the slumbering Light within, pulls, and the corpse sits bolt upright with a gasp, throwing the sheet off him-

He shoots back to Crow, and the Hunter holds him close, still channeling Light and speaking softly. Glint isn't really paying attention; his mind is a flurry of painful memories, and he can dimly feel himself shaking. He distantly notes Crow asking to give them some time alone, and Garrus states that he aught to get 'this disgusting thing' disposed of. He manages to put together that the turian is talking about the bomb. He tries to think of something happier.

He wakes up. Crow is clutching him to his chest like a child with a beloved toy.

"Hello!" He manages to say, voice broken. His Guardian looks down on him sorrowfully, eyes red, cheeks wet, and guilt ridden-

He looks around, confused, with golden eyes and a rapidly climbing pulse as the panic of waking with no memories sets in. Pulled Pork- or, really, just 'Ghost' now, until his new friend names him- floats down to just below eye level, making a friendly beep sound to catch his attention.

After an indeterminate amount of time he finally realizes that the bomb is out. It's... over. The last remnant of their life on the Shore was gone. Well, not the last; but he was taking care of that later, it was a non-issue at this point. Slowly, elation fills him. Crow is holding him close to his heart, much like after the first incident. He looks up at his Lightbearer.

"Hello!" He greets his Guardian- his Guardian! The man blinks, glowing eyes settling on him. "I'm Pulled Pork- well, I was. You can name me whatever you want, though."

"Hello!" He says, voice still shakey.

"Wh-why?" He asks, voice hoarse from being dead.

"I'm your Ghost! I'd like to be your friend, I would love to be named by a friend!" He's gotten all his other names from them over the centuries, after all.

His Guardian looks down on him, with a broad smile splitting his face, and he knows he's chosen right.

His Lightbearer looks down on him with relief, eyes red, cheeks wet, with a broad smile splitting his face.

Chapter Text

To say they needed a minute was an understatement. Crow barely got the wobbly 'thank you' past his throat, let alone a request for some time alone. Shepard gives him an understanding smile, while Garrus casts the containment chamber a look, mandibles pressed taut against his jaw and eyes pinned to pinpricks. Crow thinks it's contempt, or something else in the range of anger or dislike; he's not quite a master at reading turian body language yet.

"Take all the time you need." The Commander told them gently. Glint was trembling like a leaf in the wind against his heart, and his Ghost's distress plucked their Link like an anxious bird.

"You should go back to the Normandy." Garrus suggested, before gesturing towards the chamber. "Don't worry about this disgusting thing; I'll take care of it personally."

Crow can only nod mutely, stepping away from them to compose himself and wait until Glint was calm enough to transmat them. He settled against a stack of metal sheets, and a Keeper marched past him as the feeling across the Link became less distressed. Crow kept a steady flame of comforting sol Light flowing from his palms regardless, flaring with each breath as he came down from the adrenaline of the situation.

Eventually, Glint's tremors are under control, and the Ghost looks up at him. "Hello!"

"Hey." Crow smiles down at him. "How are you feeling?"

Glint looks at him for nearly a minute, silent and almost seeming contemplative. Crow is about to reiterate the question when he finally speaks up again. "I feel... better. I feel a lot better."

"That's good." He pulled back his Light slowly, not wanting to cut Glint off from the warmth too suddenly. He didn't know if Ghosts could go into shock, but it felt like Glint had been in the closest approximate state. "Wanna go home?"

"Yes!" Glint perks up at that, and before Crow can even ask if he's up for a transmat, they're back in the med bay. Chakwas is not visible, but he can hear her moving about in the cold storage closet. Not feeling up to talking with others yet, Crow slips into the AI Core and finds himself huddling between the two servers as he usually did when he needed to be... away, from everything else. The similarities to the pipe room at once remind him of a potential safe haven and press down on him with the memory of inevitable unpleasantness.

He settles into the routine of channeling his Light, though this time he's encouraging Glint to synchronize with him instead of the other way around. Eventually, the adrenaline finally fades away, and at some point, so does Glint's distress. He becomes less aware of the servers pressing at his sides. Although he hasn't been channeling a strenuous amount of Light, he has been channeling for a long time, and he starts to feel the strain, but he can't bring himself to care about anything other than the flame he holds in his hands.

It's just him, his Ghost, and the duality of fire. Crow has never been good at meditating on his Light, but right now it's clicking for him, at least with sol Light. How easily it could burn. How easily it could sooth. The way his own breaths could have an effect on its intensity, but only if he let himself feel how alive breathing made him feel. Fire was life.

Then his omni-tool vibrates, breaking his concentration. He opens his eyes and is startled to see Legion kneeling across from him, single eye fixed on the flame Crow was using to meditate and comfort Glint, eye flaps twitching in a way that gave the geth an almost contemplative look. He couldn't believe Legion had slipped his mind coming in here.

"Oh, um, hi?" Crow stuttered as Glint turned to face their observer. "Sorry, I forgot you live in here."

Legion said nothing, continuing to stare at the Hunter's hands. Crow gradually snuffed the flame, Light stretched thin but not horribly so. It felt more like the aftermath of a healthy workout if anything. Legion looked up only after the Light was gone, and Crow wonders if a machine could be entranced. Had EDI been observing as well?

"Did you want to ask something?" Glint inquires of the geth. Legion's parameters were to seek knowledge about organics so that his kind could better understand them and facilitate communications. As such, he was prone to asking plenty of questions when context illuded him.

"Vital functions upon your entry were indicative of distress." Legion stated. "Organic custom indicates it is appropriate to query your emotional state."

Translation; 'Are you okay?'

"I'm fine now, Legion." Crow told him, then glanced down at Glint, who nodded.

"I think I'm good, too." his Ghost affirmed. "We've just had a bit of a day. Did you want to ask about the Light?"

"Sensors indicated temperatures of four point three-hundred and twenty degrees Celsius." the geth told them. "We have also failed to calculate joule output. We do not understand."

"How nothing is burning." Crow verified.

"Yes."

"Well, Light is intuitive." he opened his palm to let little embers drift out of it. Legion's attention is immediately fixed on his hand. "It only burns what I want it to burn. And if I only want it to warm, it warms. Or heals. It's like a limb; it does what I tell it to."

"We do not understand." Crow sighed and put the embers out. Legion's attention returned to his face.

"It's bit difficult to explain to a non-Lightbearer." Crow admitted. "Paracausality as a rule breaks all rules. The best way I can describe the nature of sol Light is that fire is life. A Lightbearer channeling sol Light is simply... in control of which aspects of life are presented."

"Clarify; you have killed with sol Light." the geth's head flaps were really waving now.

"Death is a part of life." Crow told him. "The most important part, since it's the end. Well, second most important part. I guess the most important part is existing in the first place."

"We are still unable measure joule output." Legion stated.

"Can't help you there, buddy." Crow shrugged. "Like I said, paracausality breaks all the rules by nature."

His omni-tool vibrated again. "Sorry, someone wants me. Talk later?"

"Yes. We have more inquiries." Legion stood and stepped back to his bench while Crow opened up his omni-tool. Joker had been trying to contact him through the chat room reserved for people who knew about the bomb. One text asked if he was good. The second one threatened to send Thane after him.

Crow quickly fired a message back to let him know everything was fine. Then he spent a few moments debating with himself, remembering Chakwas' earlier suggestion.

"Glint, would you mind going out so soon? With Joker and the others?" he asked his Ghost. Crow found he hoped the answer was no; he had never gone 'out' with other people before Illium, and that had ended rather disastrously.

"Nope!" Glint chirped, to his relief. "Let's go!"

"You sure?" he did want to go, but if Glint was just putting on a brave face-

"Let's go!" his Ghost insisted excitedly. Crow steeled himself and sent a message asking if he could join whatever outing the others had planned. It was answered immediately and enthusiastically with a request to meet outside the grill pub they had gone to for their meeting with Anderson in ten minutes.

Crow let out a breath he didn't know he'd been holding and stood, stretching. He ought to wash up a little, he can imagine he still looks like a disaster, and there was no need to worry Ken and Gabby with what had happened. With that in mind, he leaves the AI Core behind him, and a twisty feeling in his gut, which he had not noticed before now, loosens when he stepped back into the med bay.

Chakwas is done with whatever she had been doing but is no longer present. When he leaves, he makes his way to the men's room with haste, hoping to avoid being noticed by anyone else. He found, when he reached his destination and looked in a mirror, that although the stress and tears were long gone, he still looked like someone had murdered his puppy. Yeah, don't need anyone to see this. He washed his face thoroughly and hoped that the lighting of the ward would hide anything that water couldn't wash away.

When he leaves, he still has a few minutes, and decides to check in with Thane. He sticks his head into Life Support to find the drell putting up one of his weapons carefully. The assassin regards him, and nods, indicating with one hand that he is free to enter. One of things Crow likes about Thane is that one is never obligated to speak in his presence. The drell was someone with whom you could enjoy companionable silence, in which neither did anything more than think.

He was also a good meditation partner. Despite not being a Nightstalker, he'd helped Crow several times through his void roadblocks. Focusing on sol Light, like earlier, was far easier for him. The void was colder. Emptier. Harder to focus on, especially for a Hunter, and even more so one who wasn't that great at Light meditation to begin with. Perhaps being an outsider was why Thane was good at it; he was able to look at the void with fresh eyes and no preconceptions. His perceptions had been invaluable.

Enough so that Crow wishes, sometimes, that Thane was a Hunter. He had always wondered what it was like, for those Guardians who had mentors. Not the Vanguard reps who were in charge of their general training, but dedicated mentors. Crow had never met any Hunter older than a decade who didn't kill him on sight. The only Guardian who ever treated him with human dignity was Osiris, a Warlock who didn't even have Light anymore and wouldn't have made a good teacher for a Hunter in the first place due to mindset differences between classes when channeling. No Hunter would ever willingly teach him something.

"The bomb is out." Crow finds that saying it out loud is intoxicating. "The bomb is out."

"That is good to hear." Thane dips his head, smiling. "How are you and Glint handling it?"

"It's great!" Glint interjects before Crow can. He can't help but wonder if the cheer is forced, if his Ghost is trying to push the last few hours away as expediently as possible. "We're going out with the others!"

"Joker and the engineering team, I presume?" at Crow's nod, the drell smirks. "Try not to let them get you into trouble."

"As long as we don't get in any skycar chases or end things with a terrorist bombing this time, I'll be happy." the Hunter tells him.

"I need to conduct some business on the station myself." Thane tells him. "Would you mind If I accompanied you, at least until the others arrive? Commander Shepard doesn't want anyone leaving the ship alone. I will be going to C-Sec afterwards, she and Garrus may meet me there."

"Sure." Crow checks the time on his omni-tool. "They might be there now."

"Glint, it you please?" Thane asked politely. The Ghost chirped, and the rush of transmat leaves them in an alleyway near Mac's Authentic Earth Grill. Almost immediately, Crow can smell food within, and his body decides that he might have an appetite after all. Thane seems to give the air a cursory sniff. "Ah, I've been here. If you haven't eaten already, perhaps you should convince the others to grab something."

"I might." he shrugged. Suddenly the sound of Ken and Gabby arguing becomes audible. Crow pulls the hood of his jacket up and sticks his head out of the alleyway to see them and Tali walking down the street. He waves at them, and to his shock, Tali reaches over and knocks the two engineer's heads together before pointing at Crow. He fails at keeping a straight face and has to cover his mouth with his hand so as not to laugh and attract the wrong sort of attention from anyone else in the area.

It feels good to laugh, though, even if he couldn't do it out loud.

"Is Joker with you?" Tali asks as they approach, Ken and Gabby still rubbing their heads and glaring at the quarian.

"No." he indicated Thane. "Just Thane. I though he was with you guys already?"

There was a flash of transmat further back in the alley, and Joker stumbled slightly as he landed. "Hey guys!"

"What the bloody hell are you wearing?" Ken demanded. The pilot was dressed in a bright yellow button-down shirt with a background of green palm leaves and bright orange, red, and blue flowers scattered all over it. It was... really brilliant, actually. He'd never seen clothes with that many colors on one article before, not in a way that looked fun. Sure, he'd seen Guardians in colorful armor before.

But nothing like this.

"It's a Hawiian shirt!" Joker defended as Crow took the shirt in. It somehow made Joker look both festive and ready for business at any moment.

"Who would even wear that on a space station?" Ken scoffed. "Who would wear that period? That's so damn bright."

"I want one." Crow decided, the words spilling out almost by accident. Joker waved an arm in his direction triumphantly.

"See? Crow would." the pilot touted his victory. "This is for casual parties. And we are casually partying. I'm not going plain today. I've been wearing the same three things for almost five months."

"Where did you even find that?" Gabby asked. "I didn't think traditional cloths like that would leave Earth."

Joker pointed behind her. They all looked to see a thrift store. "You'd be surprised what you can find on a station thrift store. Used to find all kinds of weird things on Arcturus."

"Arcturus has a thrift store?" Tali inquired. They couldn't see her raised eyebrow, but it was certainly present in her voice.

"Uh, yeah? It's a major hub." Joker tells her while Thane tips his head in Crow's direction before slipping past the others. He thinks he's the only one to notice the drell take his leave. "Lets go."

With that, he gives Crow's shoulder a light push in the direction of the thrift store.

"To the bloody thrift store?" Ken complains. "But regulations-"

"If you want, I can ask Glint if he'd hide some things." Crow tells them, coaxing his Ghost out of his hood.

"Oh, sure!" Glint agrees. "Not too much, mind you, but if you're all having fun I don't mind."

Gabby's eyes seem to shine, and Crow feels a sudden wave of dread wash over him. She grabs him by the wrist and starts pulling him after her towards the store.

"It's about time you got a wardrobe. I mean, Shepard was nice and all, but you need more." she declared as the others caught on and followed after. He could feel Glint's excitement rising through their Link. Oh, Traveller, what have I done.

Despite Crow's protests, he found himself demoted to living mannequin fairly quickly while Gabby and Joker(Et tu, Joker?) foist random clothes into his arms with way more excitement than he thinks is necessary. Was shopping for clothes supposed to be fun?

According to Gabby, yes. It was. According to Joker, it depended. Ken was nowhere to be found for his opinion, and Tali just shrugged.

"I only get to wear normal clothes in the clean room, where nobody can see me. What do I have to worry about looking good for?" she said.

"We're getting you," Gabby pointed at her, "Something nice then. You need something nice."

"Why?" the quarian protested as the other engineer dragged her off to the women's section.

"I'm not sure about this 'whole wardrobe' thing. I don't have a lot of credits." Crow would rather hoard his money, if he could. He still didn't know what would happen after the Collectors were taken care of, after all.

"We're using the bosses credit card, don't worry." Joker waves him off.

"Shepards?" he asks, horrified.

"What? No, the Illusive Man's." Joker assured him. "But she did get a sweet discount for us."

"Discount?"

"I'm Commander Shepard, and this is my favorite store on the Citadel!" The pilot points up to the speakers as the Commander's voice projected itself cheerfully throughout the store. Crow snorts a laugh.

"No way."

"She did it for twelve others in this ward alone." Joker grinned, passing him a brown jacket. "Same exact message, too."

"No." The Hunter laughed. "I've got to see that."

Crow spots something that had been carelessly tossed aside, under a rack of jackets; a light scarf the same color the void pretended to be, dark whorls and all. The material is light, but tough, and it had obviously come from the women's section. It was a nice bit of fabric, if simple, and not the first thing that he's seen wind up on the floor in this establishment.

For some reason, the scarf brings Tali to mind.

"How did this even end up here?" he commented, shaking his head.

"People are lazy, Crow." Joker told him, looking over the jackets. "Hey, check this one out."

It was a simple, brown leather jacket padded with black fabric on the inside, cuffs, and collar, with blue and red patterned rings around the cuffs. Crow... doesn't hate it. He takes it from the pilot's hands, setting the void-patterned scarf aside, and shrugs the jacket on. It fits like a glove, and when he looks in the mirror, he actually likes what he sees.

Okay, maybe shopping for clothes is fun.

"Crow!" Glint hissed, flying up to him.

"Glint, what did we tell you!" Joker exclaimed, both men looking around to ensure nobody had seen the Ghost who wasn't meant to.

"I was careful, don't worry." Glint assures them both. "But Crow, look what I found!"

At the wordless prompt to open his hand, Crow did so, and Glint dropped something he'd had pinched between his nodes. Now, sitting in Crow's palm, was a tiny glass snake, blue with a white belly, and droplets of black for eyes.

"It's like the one we left behind." Glint said. "I thought you'd like another. It's even got the Hunter colors on it."

"Thanks, Glint." Crow gets out, throat tight. The original was probably gathering dust or mold in their hidey hole, along with the rest of their tiny treasures. He hadn't really thought about their stuff in a while.

"Do you miss it often?" Joker askes, face more serious than Crow's seen it yet. He flicks the rim of the fedora he'd put on with no intention of buying. "Your reality?"

"I..." Crow chews his lip. It was a surprisingly difficult question. "For some things. Like, I'll never learn from another Hunter. The closest I've gotten to having a mentor is Thane, and he's good, but he can't teach me how to summon an arc staff or dispose of Ahamkara remains properly. But if I were to go back, there's no way I'll ever find a Hunter mentor anyway."

"What, because your past life capped their boss?" the pilot makes a face. "Other Hunters sound like assholes, that wasn't you."

"Grief makes people do things they shouldn't." he says, remembering Shepard and Garrus' spat. He still didn't know the full story of what had happened there, but there had been a lot of pain and grief in their faces. "But that aside, I've found more and more things that I don't miss compared to the things that I do."

"Same." Glint added. "I'll miss talking to other Ghosts when we see them, but I definitely don't miss patching you up so often."

"I don't miss Spider, running from other Guardians, being alone, or going hungry." his stomach made an unfortunately audible noise as if to agree with him. "Speaking of. Macs?"

"Yeah sure." Joker shrugged, replacing the fedora with his Normandy hat. "I'm going to go see if there's anything weird laying around. Might find something to give the Commander."

The pilot shuffles away just as Tali comes back at a speed walk, with the air of someone escaping a cruel and unusual punishment. The purple scarf comes back to mind.

"Keelah, I think she thinks I'm still with her." the quarian sighed. "Where's Joker off to?"

"He said he wanted to find something weird to give to Commander Shepard." he shrugged.

"That's a little worrying." she commented, looking off in the direction Joker had gone. Crow decides to gather his courage, and picks up the scarf, holding it out to her.

"You could wear it on your suit. I mean, if you wanted. It goes with what you normally wear, kind of. And maybe Gabby would leave you alone, since it's technically something you can wear outside the clean room" He felt like he was trying to stare down an ogre rather than make a fashion suggestion. He knew she still didn't 'like' him, per se.

"Thanks." she said a little awkwardly, taking the fabric in her hands, perhaps trying to determine its durability. "I'll think about it."

To his surprise, she actually bought it in the end. The illusive Hawiian shirt is never found, but he walks out with two pairs of shoes, three pants, four new shirts, the leather jacket Joker had suggested, and the glass snake. He relents when Joker handed him a pair of sunglasses; they looked nice and might help hide his otherness a bit more. He knew a few people on board found his eyes a bit unsettling and can imagine it might be the same in public.

Gabby didn't get herself anything; she was too busy trying to dress the rest of them up. Ken got some shirt for an ancient band called KISS. Joker found himself a new hat and a pair of aviator sunglasses... as well as actual, antique aviation goggles from which he refused to be parted. There were no solid guesses as to how they wound up in a Citadel thrift store.

After they walked out, they ducked into the alley Crow and Thane had come in from, and Glint made it all disappear. The follow-up trip into Mac's was not debated nearly as heavily as the thrift store, and in Crow's humble opinion, much less stressful. He had never eaten out with a group before, unless he counted the meeting with Anderson, and that had been business.

And this time, he didn't have to hold back when it came to portions; he ordered and extra-large of everything he could have an extra-large of. They were all hungry enough that the meal was spent in relative silence, and he feels a little bad that Tali can't eat with the rest of them; she spends her mealtime sucking down some kind of nutrient paste from a tube she slotted into a hidden port on her helmet.

By the end, there are still plenty of leftovers, which they manage to get to-go boxes for. Crow takes charge of the fries and even though he's full, finds the temptation not to save any for the others very strong. He busies himself with a soda refill, choosing a cherry-flavored brand this time that Grunt has been insisting he try. He has no idea what the others have planned next, and having something like the soda to busy himself with feels like a good idea.

Joker's omni-tool goes off just as they're leaving.

"Shepard wants us at C-Sec." he told them.

"But we haven't done anything yet." Ken groaned.

"Kenneth, you're being a baby." Gabby chided. "Are we allowed to transmat?"

"She said, and I quote, 'feel free to scare Bailey'." Joker said. I wonder if this has anything to do with Thane's business. Or the bomb? "Beam us up, Glint!"

"Do you have to-" Ken's protest is cut off as they all disappear. But where they end up is ostensibly not C-Sec. It's the docking ramp leading to the Normandy, Shepard Garrus, and Thane lined up in front with the former two looking like they had a dirty little secret and the latter seeming amused. Crow glances at his companions and they're all suspiciously okay with this not being C-Sec.

"Okay, so what's the prank?" he asks Joker, because this definitely looks like it has him or Shepard behind it and he has to choose which one to look at.

"What? No prank." he gives the Hunter a look of mock hurt, before clearing his throat and speaking solemnly with one hand over his heart. "We are gathered here today to burn that piece of trash you call a cloak."

"Look, I know it's garbage," he tries to protest, but Glint excitedly phases the bundle of fabric into his hands; he has to lung a bit to catch it, his Ghost caught him off-guard, and he hastily hands Ken his soda, "but a Hunter just doesn't run around without a... cloak..."

This... wasn't his cloak.

The fabric was black, thick, tough and felt like someone had woven smooth glass together. Not an unpleasant texture, and it wasn't too stiff despite what it felt like. There were rich, dark blue lines somewhere in the bundle, and as he turns it over in his hands, trying to figure out what his Ghost had just dropped into them, it slips and falls into a dark curtain, barely making a sound.

He has to clap a hand to his mouth to stifle a sob as it hits him.

This was his cloak.

"Suprise!" Glint doesn't necessarily 'shriek' but it's a close thing. "We've been planning it for weeks and weeks and I thought it wouldn't be done before we fought the Collectors but then Joker got Liara to do a thing, I think he blackmailed her-"

"There was no blackmailing!" Joker protested. "I just suggested pinstriping! Everything looks better with pinstriping!"

"It's a cape not a bloody starship!" Ken facepalms.

"He's not wrong, though." Shepard commented, glancing up at the Normandy. "I mean, I hate the yellow, but she'd look worse without it."

"I..." He isn't sure he can find the words. "You... I can't believe that you..."

"Can't have you running around in something that doesn't represent you, can we?" Garrus pointed out. "Unless we made a huge cultural insult by making you one instead of you making it yourself."

"No." he chokes out. "No, this is fine. I just... it's unexpected, is all. I didn't even think compatible materials existed."

Any thoughts about getting a new cloak had been far flung into the future, likely after the Collectors and probably following an extensive search for suitable things to combine his meager amount of sapphire wire with.

"It is a combination of layered polyethylene and the sapphire wire Glint stripped from your old cloak." Thane explained. "With small amounts of graphene between the layers. It should be able to withstand most of your usual activities."

"Go, on, try it on!" Glint insisted eagerly. Crow nodded, and his armor wrapped around him almost instantly. Without the familiar weight of a cloak across his back, he feels... exposed. Like he walked out of the airlock without a helmet.

He holds the cloak up for a moment, examining it. Its design is very similar to the cloak he was initially rezzed with, but without the Reefborn patterning or gold stitching. Instead, there are silver pinstripes very reminiscent of the designs on the Normandy edging the piece that wraps around from his front. There are thicker, similar blue stripes running down the actual cloak piece (and they really did look like they belonged on a ship, but he's had this thing for all of a minute and he loves them) and lining his collar. The Hunter triple chevron was stitched on the back of the cloak in a stylized stitching that was also wouldn't look out of place on a vehicle.

Joker was right; everything did look better with pinstriping.

It took him a moment to find the clasps on the new cloak, but once he slipped it over his head, he felt much less like a piece of himself is missing. It doesn't go down to his ankles, like the original cloak it's based off of, just the knees, but it's longer than the one Spider made him wear, and he feels more secure for it. He hadn't even realized that having a short cloak had bothered him until now.

"Well?" Shepard asked. " How does it feel?"

"Really good." He's tempted to hug a few people. He's never initiated something like that though, so doubt keeps him in place. He never thought he would shed tears so much in one day for emotions that weren't of the negative variety. "I... I don't have the words. 'Thank you' is insufficient."

"It's more than enough." The Commander told him. "You threw yourself into the deep end of our fight without really knowing what you were getting into. And you've stuck with us; you've even saved our asses a few times. You deserve better than rags."

"Speaking of..." Joker made a 'go ahead and get on with it' sort of gesture. Glint made his old cloak appear this time, and it nearly fall apart in his hands. Stripped of sapphire wire, it's a threadbare mess held together only by stubbornness. Crow glances at the now barely visible symbol on the back.

New cloak. No bomb. Neither of them belonged to Spider anymore, and now...

Crow commands his Light to burn. Sol Light eats up the cloak in a flash, leaving embers drifting from where it used to exist, and no other sign that the cloak had ever been there.

Now, there was nothing physical trying them to that past at all. No chain, bomb, or leash. Even if they found a way back, they weren't Spider's anymore.

Truly, fully, they were free. And as Ken clapped him on the back, and Glint ducked into the hood of his new cloak, clicking and chirping happily, Crow resolved to grasp that freedom with both hands and never let go.

He loved this. He loved all of this. The cloak, his Ghost being bomb-free, the people around him inviting him into their lives. No, he was never letting go, and if the Collectors or the Reapers had anything to say about it, well...

Might as well show them the Light.

Chapter Text

To say Crow was starting the feel the emotional exhaustion of getting a bomb pulled out of his Ghost, going shopping for clothes that he liked for the first time, eating out in an environment that didn't include a Councilor staring him down, and having a new cloak sprung on him, would be an understatement.

But then Shepard said the word 'arcade', Joker got an almost feral grin spreading across his face, and he thought, what's the harm? Apparently, Shepard and Garrus had found some fancy casino in some place called Silversun Strip, and it had an arcade across from it. Crow liked games. Glint liked games. Shepard hoarded the good consoles in the captain's cabin though, so he had never played with other people on the ship. He was so new to the multiplayer omni-tool games, he didn't want to embarrass himself until he was at least passably good at them.

But the games the others described, the arcade games, sounded fairly simple. And... he wanted to do something fun. The shopping had been okay, but it had also been a necessity. The food had been good. But this was just for pure fun. So, he collected himself, insisted that no, he didn't need a few minutes to get over the shock, he would very much like to visit the arcade if they would have him.

So, he reluctantly lets Glint put away his armor and new cloak (his new cloak!), and they make their way to a bus. It was too far for transmat. Thane opts to go back to the Normandy, and Shepard and Garrus confess halfway there that they'll probably break off and hit the Casino instead. Tali looks torn at this, until Gabby insists that she can hang out with her 'door-kicker' friends any time she wants; it was only due to extenuating circumstances that the entire daytime engineering team had shore leave at the same time.

Thus, Crow ends up standing in the front entry of Castle Arcade, trying to figure out what to do with himself. These don't look like any game I've seen so far.

The place is loud and noisy, and smells like food. He can't pinpoint what, exactly, but it makes him thirsty just catching a whiff of it. He sips at his soda, taking in the flashing lights, the people, and the sounds of various games all around him.

"So, how do we do this?" he asks, feeling a little silly that he doesn't know what to do.

"Well, you just go find something you like." Joker shrugged. "I guess we find your game."

"'My' game?" he inquired, casting another look about.

"Yeah, everyone's got the one arcade game they're really good at, totally addicted to." The pilot tells him. "Ken and Gabby have Shattered Eezo."

He hadn't even noticed the duo had left them, and only did when Joker pointed them out. They were looming menacingly over a pair of teenagers at one of the games, 'waiting' for their turn.

"We won't be seeing them until we get back to the ship." Tali commented. "So much for all Gabby's talk about hanging out."

"You know they can't help it." Joker said. "Anyway, let's hit the racing sims."

"Why those?" Crow asks as the pilot limps ahead.

"Those are mine, and we need a baseline." he explains. "Also, you need humbling. Everyone needs humbling there first arcade run."

"So, you just want to kick my butt?" Crow snickers. "Why the long-winded excuse?"

"Because Glint might accuse me of being mean." he waved his hand nonchalantly. "Hey Tali, want to swap out with one of us each round?"

"Sure." the quarian shrugged. "I've only been to one of these things once, I don't have a game yet either."

"This is supposed to be shore leave!" Joker sighed in mock tiredness. "Why did you give me more work to do?"

"There, there." Crow hesitantly pats him on the shoulder. He was still a bit unsure when it came to getting physical with the others. He's learned quite a bit just by observation, but it doesn't change the fact that he's not as well-learned in the language of physical contact as the others. And that wasn't even taking into account cultural differences between all the species on the Normandy.

Trying to use it in tandem with an attempt at humor was, as of now, the bravest thing he's tried with physical contact. If either of the others notice, they don't show it.

They also don't show mercy, he soon discovers. He was an okay pilot with a jumpship at his command. And apparently, he could fly a skycar under pressure. But for the life of him, he couldn't fly a fake ship without crashing it into literally every obstacle along the flight path. After two races against Joker and Tali each, he decided it was better to let them have at each other than let them keep kicking him while he was down.

As revenge, he decided the next thing he was going to try would be the one thing in the arcade he knew Joker wouldn't be able to compete in. Served him right. Besides, from what he observed of other Guardians from afar, it should be something that come naturally to him. Hopefully.

His doubt increased tenfold when the game became unoccupied. Should I really do this? I already sucked at one game... What if he was wrong, and it wasn't a Guardian thing, and everything he'd observed was some weird fluke?

"Bosh'tet!" Tali swore as she undoubtably lost again. "You know what, Crow has the right idea. I don't think this is my thing either."

"You were enjoying it against the pleb from another universe." Crow commented dryly. Tali rolled her eyes so hard he actually noticed it as she climbed out of her seat in the simulator. "Maybe all we have to do is find another pilot to pit him against..."

"Good luck." Joker scoffed. "I know I'm the best. I was flying circles around the Flight Academy instructors, and some of them were Q7's."

"Are you Q7? I don't think you ever mentioned your MVC." Crow prodded, truly curious. He knew the N7 designated Shepard as Special Operations, with the highest level of training and stress testing the Alliance could perform. He hadn't really thought about others.

"Duh." the pilot rolled his eyes. "I'm pretty sure all the officers on the SR1 were sevens, except for Pressly. Anderson hand-picked a literal dream team. Well, except for me; I broke in."

"So, Chakwas is a... what's the MVC for her?" he really ought to read up on MVC's later.

"J7." Joker told him, leaning out of the sim slightly. "You guys sure you're done?"

"Don't pout. It's beneath a Q7." Tali chided, to which Joker whined and stuck out his bottom lip in an exaggerated pout.

"I was wondering about that one over there." Crow pointed, and Joker's expression turned distasteful when he saw what it was.

"That?" he asked. "Seriously?"

"It looked fun." the Hunter shrugged. "And you said you can't do that kind of thing, so there's no chance of you kicking me into next week on it."

"I can still make fun of you if you score high." the pilot seemed to actually pout now.

"You could stay here and beat some poor shmucks high score; you don't have to come with us." their quarian companion pointed out.

"'Us'?" Crow echoed. Given the choice of sticking around to be beaten by Joker repetitively, and hanging out with Crow, he would have expected her to choose Joker, who she at least liked even if he was lording his skillset over her.

"It's Joker in a flight racing sim, there's no competition." she told him dryly.

"It's a dance machine, I can't dance. Where's the competition in that?" Joker pointed out.

"There is none, that's the point." Tali said. "We'll be even."

"But, um, if it really bothers you that much, I saw this thing in the corner." Crow started nervously. "I think it was called 'Towers of Hanoi', looked unoccupied-"

"Dude no; just do the dance machine."

"Keelah, not that!"

"Okay." he acquiesced to their twin expressions of horror. "Okay! Dance machine it is!"

"Right. But I get to beat Glint after." Joker jabbed a finger in his direction. "And no cheating!"

"I would never cheat!" Glint protested through the Link. "But I would love to play a few races."

"Glint says he's cool with that." Crow passed along. The pilot reluctantly peeled himself away from 'his' game, and Crow led the approach to the new one anxiously. Please be a Guardian thing!

Shepard had gone from staring into her empty glass as she wondered about how real she was if it took twice as much of the strong stuff as it did before to actually get her drunk, to watching Garrus stumble his way through a conversation with a female turian. It only caught her attention because it was painful to watch.

'I imagine anyone who does is probably an alcoholic', really buddy? She's starting to think that rocket blasted away what little he had for a brain-to-mouth filter. Then again, she really was one to talk when it came to impulsivity. Like how she impulsively grabbed a drink from a harried passing waiter and slid it over to her friend in pity.

And then tackled him to stop him from drinking it when she realized it was levo.

"Whoops." was all she could really say. At least the other woman found it amusing, and humored Garrus' oddities (by turian standards; apparently, he was a really weird guy) for the rest of their stay. At least, Shepard thought she did. Things got a little blurry following the message from Joker.

It was a text with a video file attached to it.

Joker:  Mission accomplished. Congratulations; it's a Dance Dance Revolution prodigy.

The video was of Crow and Tali at a dance machine, Tali stumbling along and Crow tearing up the dance floor to Speed Over Beethoven. At the end of the song, Tali leans on the machine and lets out a breathy giggle.

"Keelah, I'm awful!" she laughed.

"You're not that bad." Crow pats her shoulder, the movement hesitant as though he isn't sure whether his touch is welcome. What little the video captures of his face shows a splitting grin, face flushed dark with exertion, and he looks so damn happy. You would never think someone had shoved a bomb in his friend, or that he'd had an emotional roller coaster of a day.

"So, when you lose to me, I'm a bosht'tet, but you're actually happy losing to Crow?" Joker's voice cuts in from behind the camera.

"Crow is humble." Tali points out, as the aforementioned awoken turns his head to face Joker, eyes widening when he undoubtedly saw the omni-tool recording.

"A-are you filming this?" he exclaims, sounding disbelieving and maybe a little embarrassed, but somehow still looking happy.

"I told you, I can still make fun of you if you're good at it." her pilot explained haughtily. "Besides, people take pictures when they do this kind of thing. Outings, I mean."

"Whatever you say." the smile is back, and the video ends.

Shepard shares it with Thane and Garrus, then decides she needs another drink. She brings it to her lips as another video from Joker pops up. To her eternal regret, she opens it mid sip, and ends up snorting brandy through her nose.

It's a sneaky shot of Ken and Gabby reaming each other over a Shattered Eezo machine, their explicit shouting reaching even the distant camera man. It briefly moves to show Crow with one hand over his mouth as he listens and watches, eyes wide and looking torn between laughter and discomfort. Tali isn't nearly so composed; she's leaning over a bit of railing, bent double with her shoulders shaking as she tries not to lose it completely. She can hear the barely constrained wheezes of all three of the on looking crewmen.

Shepard is too busy trying to expel unwelcome alcohol from her sinuses to appreciate the situation beyond the initial laugh that got her into this mess, but she's sure she'll be able to enjoy it later.

Chapter Text

"Steady yourself and assess what might have happened." Thane encouraged from about a meter away. "Then try again."

Crow let out a huff of breath from where he lay on the ground, fresh from a rez after the void consumed him. "Well, for starters, my will faltered. That's why it killed me."

"Why did you falter?" Thane asked. Crow frowned, thinking back to the moment.

"I... wondered if you were far enough away." he concluded. "In case something went wrong."

"You say the void doesn't come to Hunters who fear it." the drell stated. "In fearing what it would to my person if you lost control, you doomed yourself to exactly that outcome. Do not fear your power, even for others' sakes. You have never lost control of your fire; I know your will over your Light is absolute. Treat it as such"

The Hunter let out another heavy breath. He had mastered some of the more tactical aspects of void Light, like invisibility, truesight, and most recently the ability to make smoke with varying properties (he was also getting into 'okay' territory with overshields), but diving into the more obscure and volatile aspects, like devouring and various types of grenades, was proving to be more challenging.

That wasn't even getting into the process of summoning a dusk bow, which was an incredibly complex 'super' with a lot of different parts to it. In its most basic form, it pulled enemies in and ensnared them, but it also caused disorientation, and weakened their structural integrities much like a biotic warp. Theoretically, it was perfect for working with a large team like the Normandy's.

Then there were wraiths. Nightstalkers who, instead of using a bow, preferred to become one with the void and strike from within it with blades. That involved keeping oneself in a 'shadestep state', which was similar to invisibility but also much more complex. He wasn't ready to touch that with a ten-foot arc staff, and not just because he still has trouble with arc Light if he isn't overdosing on caffeine.

He had just died trying to summon the bow. It was the closest he's come. At least I know I'm making progress.

"Come on!" Glint nudged his shoulder. "Let's try again."

Crow sat up, running a hand through his hair and almost startling himself again when it felt shorter than it had before. Upon returning to the ship after their night out, Glint had realized they forgot about the haircut. Things turned out alright in the end, but he swore, the sight of Ken with that razor had put holy fear into him.

"Trust me." the engineer behind him said, putting a hand on Crow's shoulder. The mirror allowed the Hunter to see the ahamkara grin that spread across the other man's face as he turned the electric razor on. "My gran's a hairdresser."

Far from reassuring, given Ken's reputation for wit and the way the others had been watching apprehensively (they had decided the 'correction of the weed-hacker cut' needed an audience). Gabby had looked like she was praying. Turned out, Ken's gran actually was a hairdresser, and he'd learned quite a lot from her.

He stood and pulled once again on his Light. Called on entropy itself and visualized it taking form in his hand. Rolled space-time between his fingers and asked it to widen the space between atoms, ensnare, pull. A shape began to materialize in his outstretched hand, and he had to force down the elation he felt at the sight of it; he couldn't afford the distraction. He stomped down on his previous worries about Thane. Ignored the sound of the elevator opening.

The void was all there was right now, all that mattered.

He focused singularly on shaping the instrument of delivery he needed. Bow. I need a bow of entropy, and arrows of [space between atoms] to let loose from it.

The Light solidified into a curved shape that felt as solid in his hands as it would if it were rea- it was real. He couldn't fall into the trap of thinking it wasn't, because it was real. Temporary, but real. Now for the true test. He visualized the arrow and its properties between his fingers, raised, the bow, and pulled back.

The arrow flew. The void sang. The anchor planted itself, hungry and waiting on the far side of the shuttle bay.

Still channeling, not willing to let the bow go just yet, he turned back to Thane, grinning, and was surprised to see Shepard and Tali at his side, both of them gawking at him.

"Hi guys!" He greeted, holding up the bow. "I'm a Nightstalker now."

"Damn." Shepard whistled. "That thing will be gone by the time we need the shuttle, right?"

"Yeah, don't worry." He assured her, still grinning. When he had come to this reality, he had finally been free to study and practice with his Light in a way he'd been hindered from doing under Spider, and either too young or too afraid of attracting the wrong kind of attention as a loner in the wilds. He had almost mastered sol Light, though he had been paying more attention to the healing aspects as of late.

And now, he could say he had more than rudimentary capabilities with void Light. He had accomplished more in nearly two months than he ever thought he would be able to. He still had a lot to perfect, but with two disciplines of the Light under his belt, he finally felt like a threat worthy of the Collectors. He hadn't seen them yet, his experience with them limited to footage Garrus recorded with his visor during both of Shepard's encounters with the mysterious aliens, and advice on fighting them from the few people that had done so.

Feeling the strain on his Light from a long day of practicing, he finally, reluctantly, let go of the dusk bow. He hopes it comes easier to him now that he's managed it once, like his blade barrage had. "Is there something you needed, Commander?"

"Yeah, I was about to pay Anderson a visit, since we'll be going through the Omega 4 relay soon. We need you to sign the transmat blueprints and pass him that codex you and Glint put together." she explained. "We also wanted to freak him out a little."

"I thought he was an N7 like you." Crow pointed out, approaching and taking the data pad Tali handed him. "Isn't transmatting into his office like asking to get shot?"

"Who said we're transmatting?" she asks as Crow uses a stylus to sign his name and Glint's. He arches an eyebrow at Shepard.

"You have it written all over your face, Commander." If there was one thing she and Joker had in common, it was that they loved abusing the transmat. In his own reality, using transmat to bypass a short walk wasn't uncommon. Here, though? The crew had been docked here for a week since the bomb was removed from Glint, Shepard wanting to give the crew some leave before the suicide mission, and there were several trending extranet conspiracies related to people vanishing into thin air or appearing out of nowhere on the Citadel. No matter how careful they had been, people had noticed.

The crew of the Normandy was now a ghost story. And apparently, he himself was now some kind of unusual cryptid. Clearly, they hadn't seen him at the dance machine.

"I'm warning him, don't worry." She pats his shoulder. "Think of it was a demonstration of what you're about to give the galaxy."

"The Alliance, you mean." he corrected, handing the data pad back to Tali. Though the races of this reality liked to put up a united front, they all put their own people first. It was sapient instinct to do so.

"Yeah. But don't worry." she added hastily. "We have crew members from pretty much everyone. They'll be sending the specs to their people before we leave tomorrow."

"It will simply be a matter of who can integrate it the fastest, and to what extent before the Reapers arrive." Thane interjected.

"And if they can beat Cerberus to the punch." Crow added. "Light knows they have a head start, with EDI's involuntary updates."

"I'll get this copied for they others who need it." Tali said, ejecting an SD chip form the pad and handing it to Shepard. "Thane, I'll leave yours in Life Support."

"Thank you." the drell bowed slightly. "Though I foresee issues with making it work for hanar."

"You guys realize how rich you might be for 'inventing' transmat?" Shepard teased. "I know Joker does."

"I don't really care about money." Crow shrugged. "And I didn't really invent it. Glint just happened to have to blueprints in case we needed to fix out ship. I'm not sure we can make money off of building something that's already been invented, and subsequently leaked to every military in the galaxy in the hopes of given them an edge against an army of mechanical cuttlefish from dark space."

"Well, your name's been accredited." Tali waved the data pad he'd signed. "And so have the rest of the teams. If nothing else, we'll go down in history for making teleportation tech from another universe work in our own."

"Speaking of, you've got ten minutes to wash up before we leave, Crow." Shepard told him.

"Yes, ma'am." he nodded, before dashing off to the elevator. Shepard glances at the void anchor, and as she watches, it dissipates.

"Anderson, sir." Shepard greets when she answers her omni-tool. She's standing in the helm of the ship with Crow, and Joker gets up from the pilot's seat as she speaks, grinning in anticipation.

"Commander, where are you?" Never a man to waste time, he gets right to business. "You're late, and I have an appointment with the elcor ambassador in twenty minutes."

"Sorry sir, I just wanted to put together a little demonstration of some tech Crow helped us with." She explained, trying to keep the grin out of her voice. "Are you alone? And I mean guards, too."

"Yes, why?" He asks suspiciously. The old war dog knows her too well, he can tell she's about to do something bombastic and he wasn't an N7 for nothing; he had an instinct for when people were cooking up mischief.

"Don't shoot; it's only us." She told him. She turned to address Glint. "Glint?"

"What do you mean, don't-"

"Shoot?" The man blinks, jumps, and reaches for his sidearm when they appear. He halts himself before he can shoot them, thankfully, and stares at them as a grin spread across her face. "What the actual..."

"Councilor, may I present to you Normandy's transmat system?" She introduced, fighting off the residual queasy feeling that Crow had assured her would go away after repeated exposure. "Crow helped our techs put it together, it's from his universe. We've already used it for one combat insertion, and we've spent the last week putting it through its paces."

The Councilor just continued staring at them, eyes wide as he tried to reconcile their sudden appearance with his understanding of reality. She could hear Crow shuffle his feet behind her, and the faint creak of Joker's braces as he shifted his weight.

"We brought the blueprints with us for you to pass along to the Alliance." She added. Anderson's mouth opened, but then shut again, as if he was having trouble deciding which thought to voice. "Sir?"

"What the actual fuck, Commander?" he settled on what was undoubtably the completion of what he had nearly said before.

"Teleportation, sir." Joker answered.

"Transmat." Crow corrected. "It's called transmat."

"And you just..." he waved a hand to indicate his office. "Does Cerberus know about this?"

"Unfortunately, that was inevitable." Shepard informed him solemnly. "I deemed the risk worth giving my people a better chance of surviving the mission."

"We've included blueprints for transmat blockers along with the system itself." Crow assured him. "Something that Cerberus won't have, or at least you'll have it first. Chances are they'll find out about them eventually, but by then you should be able to implement them before Cerberus can take advantage."

Anderson sighed, holstering his sidearm, and ran a hand down his face. After a few moments, he glared at Shepard between his fingers. "Does this have anything to do with the strange rumors bouncing around the wards?"

At her side, Joker coughed awkwardly.

"Possibly, sir." she answered. "We've tried to be careful, but these things happen. We're hitting the Collectors soon, so I've given most of my crew some leave."

"Try to keep the public's exposure to this to a minimum from now on." the Councilor sighed. "Use the docks like normal people."

Joker let out a small huff of annoyance that she hopes Anderson didn't hear. Maybe I'll make an exception for him. Even though transmat dropped him from several inches above the ground, Joker had perfected his landing technique to where it wasn't so hard on him, and even though he had never said it out loud, it was clear to her that his excessive use of transmat wasn't just because of the novelty of teleportation. Being able to go places fast was something he wasn't used to having. She never used to see him outside the ship much, but since the transmat system was installed, he'd been out and about almost constantly.

If anyone deserved a free pass to abuse the transmat, it was Joker. She was sure she could make some excuse about mobility assistance when she cut down on the rest of the crew using it.

"I'll talk to the crew about appropriate usage." They would still have to finish conditioning the ground team to the side effects, of course, but that could be done on board.

"Good." Anderson nodded. "I think this technology is best kept on the down low until we really need it."

"Glint and I put together a codex of sorts on our reality to pass along to you as well." Crow interjected. A month ago, he probably would have stuttered, but now he stepped forward and activated his omni-tool. Anderson didn't need much prompting to open up his as well. "Hopefully it will clear up a lot of questions. We've marked the sections on the Hive for your convenience. Not sure if it will tell you anything that wasn't in our original report, but still."

"Good." the older man said. "Hackett says they've confirmed the facility is clear of any more Cryptoliths, by the way. He's assigned some brass to set up shop and keep exploring, try to pinpoint the origin of the corruption."

"Facility?" Shepard queried.

"The prothean ruins that Cerberus was digging into." Anderson told her. "It was much bigger than we originally thought, and so far it's looking like the Hive growths are origination from somewhere deep within it. There still hasn't been any contact with hostiles, but we're still taking things slow regardless. There's still power in some sections of the ruins, and even if there aren't any Hive, nobody wants to run the risk of breaking something important or running into a prothean booby trap."

"I've never heard of prothean ruins having traps in them." Shepard commented. "Except for that incident on Therum, and that was more of case of hitting the wrong button than a trap."

"The place is filled with stasis pods, and they've found extensive armories." the Councilor grimaced. "It was clearly a military base. If I were planning on going to sleep for a few centuries and there were Reapers strutting around topside, damn right I'd set a few traps in case something unpleasant came knocking."

"Makes sense." Shepard shrugged. "Must be an archeologist's nightmare; possible functioning prothean technology, but some assholes from another universe are gunking it all up and making a mess of the place."

"For once prothean tech is a secondary priority." the Councilor shook his head. "Never thought I'd say that. But plugging this leak, for lack of a better term, is more important. They've managed to keep the growths contained by burning them, as per your suggestions, Crow, but they're still cropping up. It would take a live ass prothean to make us switch objectives at this point."

"Careful sir, weird things happen around us." Joker warned. "'Live ass prothean' is the one of the few things we haven't done yet aside from going through the Omega 4 Relay and time travel. If you speak it near us, you're tempting fate."

"It's been fifty thousand years lieutenant. I think it's safe to say the chances are one in a million and covered in Hive chitin." Anderson shook his head, a small, amused smile playing with the age lines on his weathered face. For some reason, Shepard felt a chill of dread run down her spine. It was gone just as fast, so she dismissed it. She got those 'someone walked over my grave' feelings all the time, increasingly so as her career went on. She had learned to ignore them.

"Joker, give the man the goods." She decided to move things along. The pilot took off his hat and removed all the Cerberus intel he had datamined since their last rendezvous out of his 'hat pocket'. "You and Crow can go, there's something I wanted to discuss with the Councilor in private."

"Aye, aye, ma'am." Joker and Crow both saluted. She couldn't remember when Crow had started saluting her. "Come one, let's hit Macs."

"Sure. Glint?" the three of them disappeared in a frenzy of transmat particles. Anderson gave her the stink eye.

"Wouldn't it look weird if they left through the front door having never been seen entering?" she defended.

"I can't argue with that, but like I said before; please stop your crew before they become an urban legend." he tapped Joker's OSD against his palm and set it on the desk next to the SD with the transmat blueprints on it. "What was it you wanted to talk about?"

"We're hitting the Omega 4 Relay." She informed him solemnly. "I plan on making an announcement to the crew when I get back, let them get their affairs in order while we still have access to comm buoys. We finished installation of the Reaper IFF a day earlier than we thought we would."

"I see." he frowned. "How do you like your chances?"

"I like them better than I did before." Shepard told him. "The team has finally meshed in a way I almost wasn't sure they could. Garrus got us a crazy new main gun for the Normandy, Jacob got us access to some hull plating that probably costs his weight in ezzo, and Tali just finished installing cyclonic barrier tech, so I'd say the Normandy is much better prepared for the Collector's cruiser than last time, at least."

"And you've got an immortal soldier who gave you teleportation technology." her old Captain added. "I doubt the Collectors know about either of those. It'll be a bad day for them when you bring him onto the field."

"That's partially what I wanted to talk about, sir." Shepard told him. "Crow. If we make it back, I know the Alliance will have to detain me, intel or not. I plan on giving my crew the option to turn themselves in with me, but Crow doesn't have anywhere to go if he declines. He wasn't even born in this reality, he's not a citizen of any government or species faction. Have you told the rest of the Council about him and the situation on Eden Prime?"

"I had to tell them about Eden Prime since there are prothean ruins with possible functional technology inside." Anderson sighed. "And I couldn't tell them about that without telling them about Crow. So yes, they know. And they're... alarmed by his existence."

"Would he be in danger if he left the Normandy, sir?" She questioned quietly, dread sinking its claws into her stomach. Just because Crow couldn't die, didn't mean he couldn't be in trouble. The situation he'd been in before the Normandy was proof of that.

"I can't say for certain." Anderson closed his eyes tiredly for a moment. "The consensus is that he's better off... 'contained' once you're done with him. That something like him is too dangerous for any one species to have access to."

"Awoken came from humanity." Shepard informed him, the shadow of an idea forming in her mind. "That's his species, Awoken. They're... 'evolved' humans, for lack of a better term. Transformed by a fight between opposing ontological forces, the energy exposure changed them. Most medical scanner register Crow as human, his basic physiology is still the same as ours. Awoken are considered part of humanity where he's from. Going by all that, we could argue that he's technically human."

"He's still not a citizen, so there's not much we can do." Anderson shook his head. "Aside from lobby for his rights, and I would be one against three."

"He could be a citizen though." Shepard pointed out. "If he's technically human, he can enlist in the Alliance."

It was a long shot. Crow still had serious trauma to work out, the kind of stuff that would make even basic training hard. He was used to being ordered around by a cruel (literal)slave driver of a mob boss, an environment involving a DI who reamed you for every hair out of place might cause him to backslide on all the progress she'd seen him make.

But between getting 'contained' by the Council and Alliance basic training, she liked his chances with the Alliance more. He would probably handle 'containment' even worse than he would a drill instructor. The only other option she could think of for him was to have Thane take the Hunter with him when he left the Normandy, assuming the drell survived the mission, and help the Awoken disappear into the galaxy, and even that wasn't long term solution; eventually, Thane would be driven to staying near a hospital, out in the open. Not the kind of situation that was ideal for hiding immortal god-slayers.

Not that anything about this impending situation was 'ideal'. Crow was tasting freedom for the first time in who knew how long, he hadn't specified how long he'd been in Spider's tender care. She didn't want to win against the Collectors only to throw a good man to the wolves after he'd been through so much beforehand.

"That's... ambitious." Anderson said slowly, brow furrowing. "We're in peacetime right now, it would take a year for him to qualify for citizenship, and even though being one of ours might buy him wiggle room, I can't make any promises."

"We'll be at war sooner or later." Shepard pointed out, though she didn't want to. "Whatever chaos the Reapers cause will take their minds of us pulling this bullshit."

Being an Alliance soldier would make it so that detaining Crow just because he was a paracausal oddity more difficult. A soldier went where his superiors ordered him, and she knew she could trust Anderson and Hackett to put him with people who wouldn't order him to dance to the Council's tune. Ideally, he would end up with her eventually, if she wasn't court marshalled for working with a terrorist organization.

If he made it in the Alliance long enough to qualify for citizenship, that would make it even more difficult. The Alliance having an immortal soldier tailor-made for the post-apocalypse wouldn't sit well with the Council, or really anyone from alien leadership, but it was the best, easiest way to secure the man some more sapient rights than 'you're weird so we have to contain you'.

"The others won't like it." the older N7 pointed out. "'Political shitstorm' is the nicest way I can think of to describe the potential fallout."

"Maybe I've spent too much time on the ground, sir." Shepard started. "But the safety of my crew matters more to me right now than the Council arguing who gets Crow. He's a person, not a prize, and he's been through a lot. He got stuck here because going home would have meant leaving one of my men to die. He stayed to help with a suicide mission on his own volition for a chance to save the missing colonists. The way I see it, the Alliance owes him safe harbor at the least, a medal at most."

Some people would say her priorities were skewed. That she should think more about her species position in the galaxy, and that the collective good of humanity should matter to her more than the fate of one man who had no steaks in the affairs of the galaxy to begin with. But that was the Illusive Man's line of thinking, and she liked to be as fundamentally different from that egoist as possible. She'd seen what 'sacrificing the good of the few for the needs of the many' led to. It led to dead Rear Admirals, friends eaten by thresher maws, one brother wiring the other up like a puppet.

"I see." Anderson said slowly, diplomatically. Something on his desk pinged, and he sighed, straightening up and brushing the wrinkles out of his suit. "That would be the elcor ambassador. He likes to be early. Look, I can't make any promises about Crow. But I can talk to Hackett and practice selling the idea. Your vote of confidence will certainly help."

"I'll talk to you about it more if we make it and pitch the idea to Crow." She nodded, mind still trying to think of ways to give her Hunter a better chance out in the galaxy.

"Not if you make it. After you make it." The man insisted, gaze hardening. "You kick their door in, burn their damn house down. But don't you talk about it like survival is an if. You treat this kind of thing like an 'if', it'll become one."

"Just like if you joke about finding live protheans around the Normandy crew it'll happen?" a smirk played at her lips.

"No, I think that one will remain one of the lieutenant's flatter jokes." he dismissed. "In all seriousness, Shepard? Be careful. And report back to me when you're done, first thing."

"Yes, sir." She saluted. He might not technically be Alliance anymore, but not saluting felt wrong. "EDI, get me back to the Normandy."

"Of course, Commander."

"Attention all hands."

Shepard sat at her desk, hands hovering over the 'send' button. She'd had a long time to think about what happened on Horizon. A long time to reconcile what had happened between her and Kaiden, both before and after Alchera, that a few months for her had been two years for him, that things had changed. But questioning her loyalty? That as the wound that stuck with her more. Lovers came and went, but she was a soldier of the Alliance, always had been, always would be. She could accept that their relationship was in question, after two years. But calling her a traitor? No, not yet. and at this point, she isn't sure things could work out between them after that. But...

He was the only person, who wasn't already on board the Normandy, that she could send a personal goodbye to in case things went horribly wrong. Wrex wouldn't care if she sent him a letter; in his eyes she would either die or rise victorious, no use worrying about the outcome. She had told Liara she planned on hitting the Collectors after her visit to the Citadel, so goodbyes and good lucks had already been said between them.

So, she still hit 'send'.

"In approximately eighty-four hours, barring emergencies or extreme circumstances, we will be going through the Omega Four Relay."

Thane sat down across from Kolyat, both drell fully aware of the tension in the air between them, as thick as the smell of cooking meat and greasy food that permeated the air. He was not the only member of the Normandy crew at Macs right now, but he was uncertain about introducing them to his son. He had still offered Crow a friendly wave as they entered.

"So, why a human place?" His son prompts after about a minute of awkward staring.

"A crewmate recommended it. I found it to be quite good." Thane told, shifting the menu in front of him. "Both the food and the atmosphere. It's... homey. I..."

He took a breath. He might as well be straight with him. The boy deserved it. "Kolyat, our mission is coming to an end soon. It will be incredibly dangerous."

The boy held no illusions. "You want this to be my last memory of you. In case you die on it."

"Yes." Last memories were important things, especially to drell. They could shape how you remembered someone. Kolyat's last memory of Irikah was of screaming and death. If he didn't make it... he wanted Kolyat's last memory of him to be a good one, even if things were still strained between them. "If you would rather go somewhere else, or not do this at all I-"

"No, no." his son shakes his head. "This is... this is fine. I've... never tried earth food like this before."

"I hope that you will enjoy it." Thane folded his hands on the table in front of him, relaxing; or, and least trying to. It wasn't something that came naturally to him. His body was honed for one purpose, his instincts sharpened to one end. Relaxing at a restaurant with his son was... surprisingly difficult, now that he was trying it. He had only been here a few minutes, and he had caught himself checking exits and glancing at the other customers more times than necessary.

"What even is a 'cheeseburger'?" Kolyat asked, brow furrowed as he regarded the menu.

"Perhaps you should find out."

"I know we've been through a lot to get here."

Crow saw Thane enter Macs with another drell in tow, the older offering a friendly wave in his direction, before leading the younger to a booth at the other end of the establishment, a clear statement of a preference for privacy. That must be his son. Ken and Gabby had joined him and Joker shortly after they arrived. Apparently, Shepard had made a ship wide announcement when she got back; they would be attacking the Collectors in three days. Whatever everybody needed to do, they had to do it before the ship left tomorrow morning.

Gabby had decided that barbequed ribs were something that needed doing. Crow had decided to try a bacon burger with curly fires this time. The curly fries, in his opinion, tasted just like regular fries but in a funny shape, with only slightly different seasoning. He tried a rib when Gabby offered him one, and discovered that he liked that, too. Both the rib, and the novelty of having people around him who would willingly offer to share their food with him; not even out of survival, it was for fun, just because they could.

You wouldn't find people like that on the Shore. He offered Gabby some of his fries in return, and discovers he enjoys sharing his food with others as much as he does others sharing with him. How had he gotten so lucky? He fell into this world running from his past, and now... he thinks he's found a future worth fighting for.

Worth facing whatever they would find at the Collector's base of operations.

"We've had triumphs and suffered setbacks."

Joker was trying really hard not to laugh as he watched Crow get barbeque sauce everywhere. Gabby had offered him one of her ribs, and he had to remind himself that Crow was a man who had never encountered messy finger food before, so it was understandable that he was giving most toddlers a run for their money. He tries really hard not to think about the fact that they've spent two months teaching this man how to enjoy things like food and sleeping without one eye open, and in three days' time they might get him killed permanently.

Even Crow wouldn't survive the galactic core if things went too far sideways.

"Bloody hell, Crow." Ken exclaims, looking their Awoken companion up and down. "You look like a bloody little kid."

"I wouldn't know." Crow rolled his eyes. "I've never met a little kid, nor do I remember being one."

"Hey, how old are you anyway?" Gabby inquired. "If you don't mind us asking, that is?"

"I don't mind." He rubbed the back of his neck looking a little embarrassed. "At this point I'm a little over two."

Joker inhaled some of his soda, and coughed up the carbonated beverage all over his fries, airway burning.

"YOU'RE BLOODY TWO YEARS OLD?" Ken exclaimed, shouting loudly enough to make the drell at the other end of the establishment jump.

"I really did think I mentioned it before at some point!" Crow defended himself.

"We've forged bonds that will carry us through this, and last between us long after this is over.  We've come a long way in five months, and I know we're ready for this. "

Miranda hummed as she cleaned her gun, taking comfort in the familiar action.

"Looks like someone is still in a good mood." Jacob commented as he walked past on his way out of the armory.

"You could say that." Over the past week, Shepard had finally relented and allowed her to finally shoulder the shipside duties she should have been running. After so long, there was finally an understanding... a peace, between the two of them.

"Have you spoken to your sister yet?" The other officer asked, well-meaning as always.

"Yes." She supplied diplomatically.

"I meant since Shepard made her announcement." he clarified. "You don't want to go into this thing with regrets."

"I won't." she told him. "I'll get to it, don't worry. It's the middle of the night where she right now."

"Well, I'm going to go call my mom. Maybe hit a movie when I'm done." Jacob informed her. "You're welcome to join me, if you want."

"Maybe." She said. She went back to humming after she registered the sound of the door closing behind him, running a q-tip delicately across the inside thermal clip housing. She would rather keep cleaning her gun, in all honesty. It helped take her mind off how Shepard actually trusted her now, about the way she could see the woman's perspectives on Cerberus much better after five months of serving with her than she had ever wanted to.

It helped take her mind off Akuze, the Archer brothers, and the encrypted message she'd gotten an hour ago asking for ideas on how to contain Crow.

It helped take her mind off all the ways Shepard had earned her respect and fealty... and all the ways she could stab the woman in the back if the Illusive Man asked it of her.

"If you have any unfinished business, now is the time to do it. Call your loved ones, make sure your affairs are in order."

Tali watched as all the people below her went about their daily live. Watched with a sort of distant feeling as they went between work and home or vice versa, to pick their kids up from school, or meet a friend for lunch. She had just sent the Admiralty the transmat blueprints, and courteously informed him that her next mission was extremely high-risk.

She had known Raan since she was a little kid. Some would say, with that kind of relationship, her honorary aunt, that she at least owed the woman a personal letter before she flung herself into a potential suicide mission. But-and Tali know it's one of her biggest flaws- she can be an incredibly petty person, and she was still hurting after that trial. Two of them were close friends of her parents, and they had agreed to setting her up to having her grief displayed for the whole fleet to see. Raan had said it was because the people needed to see her reaction, to make her look more innocent.

But all she could think since then was... What kind of bosh'tet does that to someone? Her only consolation was that the entire fleet also got to see Joker utterly lose it and go for the throat. Sure, he hadn't been very professional about it, but he'd managed to embarrass the Admiralty Board, and that was good enough for her.

And so, she didn't write a letter. She toyed with the idea of calling Liara, but in the end decided against it; they hadn't really kept contact much over the last two years, Garrus was really the only one she'd kept in close touch with. She startles when her omni-tool pings and looks down at the notification. It was Crow in the 'Beam Us Up!' chat room, informing her that most of the transmat team was at Macs and she was welcome to join.

She decided to keep people watching for now; she wasn't feeling up for engaging socially at the moment.

But it was nice to know she had options.

"I'll do my best to get you all back alive, but for some of us, this may be a one-way trip.  Thank you, for your support and your sacrifice ."

Garrus tapped his talons on the edge of the extranet terminal, still internally debating whether this was a good idea. If he died, then they need never know what had happened on Omega. Was there really any point in worrying them with the sight of his... makeover so soon beforehand?

But the call was already synching. In fact, it had been synching for a good five minutes, and it was starting to tick him off. It was bad enough he'd had to deal with bureaucracy earlier, to deliver the transmat plans to the Hierarchy, but now he had to endure the steaming pile of nathak crap that was the public galactic communications network.

The call finally connects, and suddenly, all the imagined conversations he'd gone through in his head haven't prepared him nearly as much as he thought they would.

"Spirits..." It's only been two years, but his sister looks like she's aged five. He supposed that what having a sick mother, a hardass father, and a delinquent vigilante brother who never called could do to you.

"Hey, Sol." he barely manages a wobbly smile, the weight of what this conversation would be settling more heavily on his shoulders than before. "Is mom with you?"

"We'll be leaving at o six hundred hours and entering a comm blackout until we reach the Omega system. That will be all."

"Shepard out."

Chapter Text

Turns out that when Shepard said, 'barring emergencies or extreme circumstances', a faction of geth planning to brainwash the others fell under the category of 'emergency'. She just had to open her mouth. To make matters even better, EDI and the engineering team were puzzling over some anomalous diagnostics.

"I believe it would be more prudent to take the shuttle." EDI told them as they stood around the table in the conference room. Miranda and Mordin were both pacing, and Joker, who was present since she wanted his take on the problem as the pilot, sat with one finger tapping against his jaw, brow furrowed. Jacob was leaning back in his chair, arms crossed, having already said his piece on the issue (he thought the Normandy would be safer). Tali, who thought it was too risky, was drumming her fingers on the table, casting what had to be a disapproving look at the Cerberus officer.

Garrus' mandibles flicked thoughtfully as he examined the display of the station that Legion had brought up on the holoprojector, as if he was already puzzling over the complexities of infiltrating it. Yeah, he's gone. Garrus was off in his own world right now; he probably hadn't even heard the debate around him, she knew tunnel vision when she saw it. Legion's eye flaps twitched as he watched the rest of them try to come to an agreement. When asked his opinion on the matter, he had stated that 'we cannot reach consensus'.

It was a risk. The Kodiak had the same stealth tech as the Normandy, but it was still a Kodiak, and this was the stronghold of the heretic geth. They knocked this out of the way, and the geth may never be a major problem again, which would definitely be a plus when the Reapers arrived. On the other hand, the last thing they needed was for something on the Normandy to break while they were on the station...

So far, it was an even split between people who thought taking the shuttle would be ideal and those who thought they should risk taking the Normandy.

"Joker?" she prompted. He was the only one who hadn't spoken up either way. "You're the one who would have to fly her. What do you think about it?"

"I'm going to have to say shuttle, Commander." he sighed, leaning back in his chair. "I don't want something to die on us and leave you stuck over there."

"That settles it, then." she breathed. "We'll load the team up onto the Kodiak and treat this as a last-minute test run for the Collector base. Stars know the steaks will be high enough."

And give the team at least a little experience working with Legion on the ground. She thought privately. She would have liked to run a few drills with him, but they were long overdue for another colony to go missing, and if she waited any longer, she might risk the lives of thousands. The transmat project had been a test to see if the geth could be trusted and work with the crew, and Legion had proven himself. The crew had gotten more or less used to having him around, and Crow, at least, seemed to be amiable with him.

And Tali was less inclined to space him. Shepard thinks she might still like to and would probably help Jacob in doing so if it came down to it, but she was more in control of her 'kill all geth' urge.

"I'll gather up the rest of the ground team." Miranda told her, standing. "Anything you want me to pass on, Commander?"

"The shuttle will be crowded enough with a squad of fourteen, add Hawthorne and it might be too much for... some people. Inform him he won't be on this one and tell Zaeed he's flying." One benefit of letting Miranda actually do XO duties was that she could pawn off telling crewmen things they didn't want to hear. A little petty, she knew, but she wasn't going to let Miranda off that easily for her behavior earlier in the mission.

"Zaeed isn't going to like that." the genetically engineered woman raised an eyebrow primly.

"I need Legion on Alpha with me, and I'm not leaving one of my techs to pilot the shuttle when we're on a geth station." Shepard explained.

"I'll let him know." Her XO saluted and made her way out of the briefing room.

"The rest of you are dismissed." She announced. Chairs creaked as people got up to leave. Tali flicked Garrus' cheek, startling him out of whatever tactical daydream he'd been stuck in, and Shepard couldn't help but snort out a laugh. "Meeting's over, Garrus."

"I knew that." he gave a small cough. "Still though, we're helping the geth?"

"We either help the geth who don't worship genocidal AIs, or they'll all wind up worshiping the genocidal AIs." she reiterated, glancing at Legion as he left. "If Legion's geth are content just staying out of our way until the Reapers are dealt with, or even fighting against them, I'll take it. We'll have enough problems to deal with."

"True, but how do we know it will actually matter to them?" Tali pointed out. "The geth are machines, they can't feel gratitude, and they don't have a concept of honor. If they decide turning against us is in their favor, doing this will have been for nothing. Rapport won't matter with them."

"They'll have less numbers than if we did nothing, though." Joker interjected. "Gotta count for something at least."

"Good point." Garrus' mandibles parted in a grimace. "But I still don't like it. What's that human saying? 'Making a deal with the devil'?"

"Let's hope it won't turn out like that." Shepard sighed. "I'd like to just... win and leave it at that for once, you know?"

"If only it were like that." Garrus shook his head. It was never like that, with war. You didn't just win, and everything was fine afterwards. You had to rebuild and recuperate from whatever loses you took in the process. You had to secure the victory. Sometimes you had to help the people you were fighting rebuild, too, if civilians got caught in the crosshairs. And the politicians had their turn, and all the treaties and other fuss that came afterwards. Sometimes you even had clueless civilians fighting each other over who was in the right for years afterwards; there were still people debating whether or not the nukes dropping in World War Two were justified, and that was centuries ago.

No number of soldiers wishing they could just win, got out of the foxhole, and leave it at that would change it.

There was no telling what the post-war mess would look like for the geth. She was absolutely dreading what it would look like for the Reapers; no matter how long they rampaged for, it was going to mess the galaxy up. Given Sovereign's size, it would only take a handful of Reapers and their giant main guns to cause an extinction level event on any planet of their choosing.

"Those are consequences for future us to deal with." Joker stated as the door opened. "Let's leave it to them, yeah?"

"Hey, have any of you seen Mordin?" Crow leaned through the door, wearing the leather jacket he'd gotten during their Citadel leave and brandishing a small device in one hand. "He asked me if I could bring him one of my smoke bombs, he's not in his lab."

"Dr. Solus is in the shuttle bay." EDI informed him. "You could have asked me."

"Sorry, EDI, I'm just, uh, used to looking for people." The Hunter apologized, trying to run a hand through his hair, which was now too short to do so.

"It's quite alright." EDI said amiably.

"Just leave it in his lab." Shepard told him. He nodded and backed out, giving her a thumbs up. It suddenly struck her how different he was now, that when he first joined them that interaction would have been much more awkward on his end. Everything down to the way he carried himself had changed.

"I'm going to go check the Thanix before we leave, make sure whatever's going on doesn't affect it too badly." Garrus announced. "See you at the shuttle."

"I need to go over a few things with the other engineers." Tali pats her shoulder. "Mostly what to do if his calibrations throw things off again."

"That was one time." Garrus called over his shoulder as he left. Tali snickered as she followed after him.

"Joker, you'll be in charge." Shepard addressed the only other person left.

"Again?" he huffed crossing his arms as she turned to leave and get ready.

"Don't wait up." She told him cheekily.

"Yeah, just get back before I have to further my law career." He called after her.

Despite Zaeed begrudgingly acquiescing to the role of pilot, and Legion being content to stand up front with the mercenary rather than strap into a seat, the shuttle was more crowded and uncomfortable than ever before. Crow found himself sandwiched between Grunt and Thane, and for once the former was as quiet as the latter. Everyone had become quieter in the presence of the void.

"But what is it?" Grunt asked again of the whirling, pulsing energy hovering over Crow's palm. He had told the others that he had mastered the dusk bow, and Kasumi had wanted to see it. He wasn't about to break it out in such a confined space, but this little speck of void in his hand was good enough an example to show off. They hadn't really seen his void Light, aside from Shepard and Thane, as he hadn't been confident enough in his abilities to use it in combat beyond truesight and invisibility.

Might as well show them now, get them used to it.

"Technically, it's related to dark energy and matter." Glint piped up. "Gravitational and space-time distortions, too. It's a lot of things, actually, so everyone will give you a different answer."

"What is it to you two, then?" Samara spoke softly, silver eyes locked onto his hand.

"My Guardian's Light." Glint said earnestly.

"The space between." Crow tells her. "Mostly because the mental visual is helpful."

"Alright, everyone, look sharp." Crow let go of his Light as Shepard stepped in from the cockpit. "We're coming up on the station. Double check your armor seals and oxygen, there's going to be little to no atmosphere since this is a geth installation. Consider this a sampler of how we'll be greeting the Collectors; I want all of you to bring your A-game on this one. All the stops... Yes, Grunt, including the Cain. Which we will not be firing unless I say so."

Grunt lowered his hand, ginning, and did his fist-to-palm 'let's go kill something' motion. Crow's face, unfortunately, was in the line of fire for his elbow; pain shot through his nose as the armored appendage made solid contact, eliciting several 'oos', 'ouches', and similar sentiments from the others as the sound of his nose cracking echoed through the cabin.

"Oops." The krogan said.

"S'fine." Crow assured him, clutching his nose. He's pretty sure he felt his lip split as well.

"Let's try to keep things calm until we reach the station, Grunt. We're five minutes out." Shepard sighed as Glint repaired the damage swiftly.

"We really need to work on your spatial awareness." Glint commented to the krogan once he was finished.

"Sorry." the large reptile huffed.

"It's okay." Crow pat his shoulder awkwardly.

"I still don't like this." Jacob commented as Legion joined the others in the main cabin. "Our heat emissions are hidden, but they can still look out a window and see us. We're in a dingy little shuttle."

"Windows are structural weaknesses; geth do not use them." Legion told him.

"That's awfully boring." Glint said. "You don't try to appreciate a view at all?"

"We do not derive the same pleasure from aesthetics as organics do." The next few minutes were spent with relatively little talking; mostly the sound of people checking their weapons, armor plates clicking together, omni-tools beeping. Crow stood briefly so Glint could put his armor on, and he was still caught off guard by the weight of his new cloak. He pulled the hood over his helmet, feeling even through his gloves how thick and sturdy the material was compared to his old one.

"What happened to the dish rag?" Jack sneered, looking him up and down.

"Set it on fire." Crow told her.

"Is this new cloak more aesthetically pleasing than the old one?" Legion asked, eye flaps flicking to the right.

"Yes." Glint informed him. "And it's tougher. Aesthetics and function can go very well together."

"We have flagged it as a potential hazard. It impairs mobility." Garrus snickered at this.

"I think it looks dashing." Kasumi commented, eyes fluttering at him from beneath her own hood. "Downright storybook, really."

"T-thanks." He stuttered, trying to figure out whether that was what flirting looked like.

"Look alive, we're coming in." Shepard warned from up front. "Grunt, Mordin, get the cutters ready. Legion, whatever you need to do to cover us, do it."

"Acknowledged." With that, everyone stood up and stood back as Grunt and Mordin moved to wait at the door with their laser cutters, and Legion went back up front, likely to work some kind of hacking angle. Glint bumped his shell against Crow's forehead before phasing. Soon enough, the doors rolled back, and the geth airlock was cut through in a manner that seemed a little too easy to Crow.

Then again, they probably thought no organic was stupid enough to storm their castle. Let alone with a Kodiak. The thought makes him chuckle as he and the rest of Charlie jump down after the rest of the squad out onto the station.

"What's funny?" Tali asks in a whisper as they secure their entrance. The general air of the place is... empty. Eerie. It reminds him of an old football field he found when he was a few months old; grand and large, impressive, but bereft of people it was uncanny even to someone who had never seen it when it was populated. A place that was too large to be empty, but at least the stadium had life to be found in it, even if it wasn't human life. This station was haunting in another way entirely, even the sound muffled to near nonexistence by the airless environment, and he's pretty sure the others all feel it.

"We're about to take out all the hostile geth for sure." He told her, trying to lift the mood. "By breaking into their house using a Kodiak, some laser cutters, another geth and potentially a nuke launcher. Any geth we come across will probably have to 'adjust perceived parameters for organic stupidity'."

"I guess when you put it like that, it does sound a little crazy." She chuckled as Shepard and the rest of Alpha check the stairs before giving the all clear.

"Legion, how long before they know we're here?" The Commander asked, waving Bravo forward. Garrus led his team down to clear the rest of the way.

"Sensors have been reduced." Their geth informed her. "We have infiltrated their wireless network and filled the data storage and with random bits."

Shepard nodded, seemingly understanding what he meant. It must be some kind of tech speak, because Crow doesn't understand at all.

"Random bits of what, exactly?" Grunt apparently shared this sentiment. "Better be the code equivalents of grenades."

"Junk data." Legion clarified, and the krogan looked disappointed. "The heretics must scrub it. They have partitioned themselves into local networks, working in parallel. Any alarm we trigger will not reach beyond the room we are in. Only accessing the main core will trigger a station-wide alert."

"Alright, enough chat." Shepard took the reins. "We came here with a job to do, let's get to it. Charlie, move forwards."

"Shepard-Commander." the geth stopped her before she could move forwards, and Crow only caught part of what he said next as he and Grunt followed Jacob down the stairs. "We concluded that the destruction of this station was the only resolution to the Heretic question. There is now a second option..."

"They're geth. What other options could there be?" Grunt huffed.

"Who knows." Crow shrugged as they joined Garrus' team at a door, Grunt moving forward to stand beside Mordin in case this one needed breaching as well. Crow only felt one hand tap his shoulder, as Thane moved to crouch by the wall opposite to him. He glances behind himself and frowns. Where's Tali? Ideally, she should have moved in front of him with her shotgun.

He switched his attention back to the door but kept an ear out for her as well as he could in such a muffled environment. Soon enough, she joined them along with Alpha.

"Garrus, how's the door?" Shepard asked, voice tight. Whatever that 'second option' Legion was talking about, it must not have been a good one.

"Looks good." The turian told her after a few moments of examining it with his omni-tool. "They probably never expected people to get in here, this thing isn't even programed to lock."

"Legion managed to find the virus." Shepard reported. "Said he might be able to repurpose it to rewrite them."

"Brainwash them first?" Jack said. "I like it."

"I don't know." Garrus shook his head. "That sounds an awful lot like indoctrination to me. Doesn't matter if it's geth we're talking about, I don't like it."

"And Legion's geth would be stronger." Tali added quietly. "Can we really trust them not to attack us in the future?"

"It's irrelevant for now." Shepard shook her head. "They're Legion's people, it's up to him and he's still 'building consensus'."

"Right." Tali said uncomfortably. Jacob fidgets slightly with his rifle, and Garrus reaches up to his helmet to adjust something. Crow can tell that this new information makes a few people uneasy and finds himself faced with yet another thing he didn't have a clear stance on yet. The matter of the geth had been something the people of this reality were used to; most knew how they felt about it, and since the attacks nearly three years ago, those feelings were strong and absolute.

Crow had no experience with the geth aside from the extranet and interactions with Legion, who had been specifically designed to interact with organics as a one-of-a-kind unit. He had no idea how he feels about Legion's geth getting more numbers, doesn't have the context of living here long enough to feel or understand whatever apprehension the others are experiencing... but he knows how he feels about brainwashing, and indoctrination.

According to Glint, a lot of the rumors about Uldren's descent into madness and murder held similar stories about an Ahamkara stringing his mind along, twisting him into what he became. It didn't make what he did any less terrible; the Reef was in shambles, thousands of Awoken dead after he slaughtered those who bowed to him, the whole system weakened because he had essentially taken a Queendom already fragile after the Battle of Saturn massacre and brought it so low all they could do was fight in an endless time loop for a single asset.

He couldn't excuse Uldren's evils on wish magic alone; stuff like that... there had to be conscious choice involved in at least some of it, and he had obviously made terrible choices. But mind trickery, brainwashing, whatever one might call it was the seed that started it. Crow didn't like the sound of brainwashing the heretics, even if he made the same wrong choices as Uldren he would rather die as himself than live as someone he wasn't, because it would be a fake him with fake feelings, and that wasn't redemption. It was a cover-up, like pulling a silk burial sheet over an ugly box so you can pretend it's actually a really nice table underneath.

"Focus up, everyone. Garrus, hit it." Shepard commanded, and the turian did so, revealing a room that looked just as grim as the station's first impression, lit by green, circuit-like paths along the floor.

"Interrupting data streams will alert local platforms." Legion indicated the paths. "We recommend caution."

Shepard looked back to signal Crow forwards. "Crow, Kasumi, go dark and scout ahead."

He nodded, and moved forwards, glad he was already focused on void Light. Looking to Kasumi, the thief flashed a peace sign before disappearing, and Crow slipped past the others surrounding the door, pulling the void around him as he did so. The safety of invisibility wrapped around him, he crept quickly through the room, hopping nimbly over a data stream as he followed it. Unlike Kasumi, he was on a time crunch; staying invisible too long strained him, whereas she relied on tech that she could manipulate to keep it running longer.

Bingo. Just as his instincts had thought, there was something at the end of the stream; some kind of blocky... server thing that three geth were hooked up to. A single vortex grenade could take care of all that! If he made it wide enough, that is...

No, as tempting as it was, he should go back and tell Shepard. Checking to make sure he wasn't about to trip an alarm, he turned and made his way back.

"There's only three of them, at the end of the data streams." He told the others once he let go of his invisibility. Kasumi popped up beside him as he moved back to his old position near the back of the pack.

"Yeah, and the streams don't connect to anywhere else outside the room. There's also some really convenient cover just across from them, should give a clear line of sight." The small woman added. "Seems almost too easy if you ask me. I mean, three geth against all of us? It's overkill."

"I've never been so tempted to chuck a grenade at something and be done with it." Crow said. "They're just standing there, clustered together around some kind of server. Just one vortex grenade, that would be all it takes."

"Let's not get cocky." Shepard held up a hand. "We're just getting started. Legion, would they be able to hear us approaching?"

"No." The geth shook his head. Crow wondered if he did that to actively mimic organic body language, or if there was physical habit in the motion like with other people. If you were saying 'no', you didn't really need to shake your head; that was like saying 'no' twice, it didn't need clarifying. People didn't have to do it, it was unnecessary, yet they did it anyway. A machine certainly didn't have to do it, even one who made to interact with organics, and throughout the transmat project Crow had noticed that the geth never said or did more than was necessary to get a point across.

Yet Legion shook his head anyway.

"Crow, how many people do you think would be able to line up a shot?" The Commander asked.

"About half of us could squeeze behind that cover if we tried." He shrugged. "But like I said, a grenade could probably end it quick, even if they have shields. With the positional advantage, we could probably shred them so fast, cover wouldn't matter."

"You really want to throw that grenade." Grunt commented, and even though his face was hidden by a helmet, Crow can easily imagine the crocodile grin on the young krogan's face. "Hey Shepard, can he? I wanna see that void stuff eat something."

"Fine." She sighed. "Charlie, move up with me and Legion."

"Oh, uh." Crow is caught off-guard by Shepard actually agreeing with Grunt. Did he want to throw a grenade? Yes. But not enough to upset the order of things. On the other hand... "I guess we're field testing the thing."

"Thing?" Shepard echoed questioningly as they moved into the room.

A ballistic impact alerted them to a potential hazard. In one nanosecond, the geth pulled back from the local network. In the next, they registered thirteen organic beings [hostile geth detected] within fifty meters of their physical platforms, four of them crouching behind cover while two[drell-male] [species unknown-male(?)] stood ready to duck back into cover if needed.

In the nanosecond after that, sensors register-

[unknown energy signature detected]

[no data available]

[error]

[query (what is this)]

Swirling nothing registers as [gravitational anomaly detected] but it isn't biotics, the [species unknown-male(?)] eyes glow visibly through the helmet visor, bright and dark plum and violent. The[drell-male] is flaring with mass effect distortions [biotics detected].

The geth pilot their platforms to turn, and raise their weapons but [gravitational anomaly detec-

Crow's grenade flares as it lands in the middle of the geth, and Thane throws a biotic warp right into the middle of it before they both duck behind cover, though everyone is slightly guilty of peeking over the edge to watch as the biotic and void Light interacted in a violent explosion. True to theory, the atomic destabilization of a warp combined with the spreading hunger of the void resulted in an interesting display.

It wasn't the typical explosion. Normally, the grenade would just eat at something with gravity until it was gone. But the vortex spread the warp until it had weakened the integrity of the geth so that instead of breaking apart into embers sparking with void energy, they disintegrated rapidly with bright, violent flashes. Several people swore, and one or two actually jumped a bit. It was loud enough that they all only caught the tail end of Legion's 'Warning; potential nuclear fission imminent'. It was over quickly, with loud pops like sparks from a firecracker issuing from the grenade as the remaining energy caused by the combination dissipated.

After a few moments, the grenade dissipated as well, and the whole team was silent for a bit.

"I fear..." Thane broke the silence calmly, "that we nearly just split atoms."

"Awesome!" Grunt slapped them both on the backs so hard it winded both of them, and Crow swears he feels his vertebra crack. "Do it again! But with a reave this time!"

"No." Shepard says firmly. "No more nuke grenades. Vortex grenades and biotic bad."

"Sorry Shepard." Crow wheezes.

"It's okay, this is why we test these things." She assuages. "Shows over people, let's get a move on. And from now on, keep in mind; vortex grenades and biotics bad. Do not tempt fate if he throws another one."

"But-"

"No."

Chapter Text

CW: Collectors doing Collector things. Roughing Joker up a bit more than in canon. Generally made the abduction sequence more intense.

"It's nothing, EDI. Just radiation bleed, white noise." Joker insisted even as he swiped through different readings, trying to hunt down what was happening and feeling worse about her observation every passing second. Something was wrong with his ship, and nobody could tell him what. All of the engineering crew were putting their eggheads together and monitoring the primary systems, waiting for something to break or give them a clue.

EDI was working full time as well, but all she had found was something that resembled standard radiation bleed. Resembled.

"I have detected a signal imbedded in the static." He freezes only for a moment, heart dropping to his stomach, before his hands are moving again to pull up her findings. "We are transmitting the Normandy's location."

"To who?" he forces himself to ask calmly, even though he wants to scream. His left hand twitches over the controls that will send everyone scrambling to their battle stations.

"I do not know." EDI tells him. "I am currently attempting a trace."

In the space between one blink and the next, there's a contact on LADAR with the Collector cruiser's profile. He hits the alert and starts to maneuver the Normandy to a more advantageous position for escape, and already has a plan to shove the Thanix down the Collector's throats if that doesn't seem feasible.

"Son of a tech witch." the obscure insult he'd heard from Crow a few times slips out of his mouth as the klaxons blare and the newly arrived cruiser passes over them. His mind flares with a thousand different combinations of maneuvers he could pull off, all the things he could do to run, hide, or fight, and just as quickly he chooses which ones will get them all out alive.

The Normandy dies beneath him. They're moving, but there's no propulsion, he can feel it. Alerts flood his screens. Errors, cripple systems. His girl was dead in the water.

"Propulsion systems are offline. Primary defense systems are offline. I am detecting a virus flooding the ship's computers." EDI announces, confirming what he's already deduced. The ship shakes, and the boarding alarms activate. "They have breached the starboard auxiliary cargo. We are being boarded."

There's... nothing he can do. They clipped my wings. What use was he without his ship? What could he do? He was a dab hand with an omni-tool, but a rifle would break his arm if he fired it. Maybe a pistol would be safe, but even that was a risk. Virus. He could work on the virus. Flush that nasty bug out and get his wings back.

"Let me guess, the damn IFF?" he clenched his fists and then shook his hands out before getting to work. "Why didn't you scrub that thing?"

"We can save the Normandy, Mr. Moreau, but I need your help." EDI told him instead of answering.

"Already working on it, in case you didn't notice." he said as he tried to cure his ship. "I could use a little help myself, you know."

"Give me the ship." She says, and he almost stops.

"What?" he shouts, a chill slipping down his spine. He and the ship cancer were getting along better these days, but he's not sure he would unshackle her. "You're crazy! You start singing 'daisy bell' and I'm done!"

"Your countermeasures are insufficient against a cyber-attack of this complexity, as are the ones I am currently capable of." She pointed out. "Unlock my sealed databases, and I will be able apply the appropriate force. The Maintenace shaft in the science lab would be the safest path to follow to the AI Core; corridors and elevators are no longer safe."

"How am I your first choice?" There were plenty of engineers and eggheads on board, even with eggiest of them on Shepard and Legion's life-changing field trip.

"Other qualified individuals have already been subdued." his blood turns to ice. "Even if they had not, you are a the most likely to succeed."

His hands hover over the screen as he hesitates. If he did this, it could be the worst- no, second worst, the worst was trying to save to the first Normandy- decision he had ever made. If he didn't, the Collectors would round them all up and take the only ship that could make it through their relay.

And I'm dead either way. He couldn't imagine them being very gentle with him when they tried to load him into one of those pods, they would probably kill him trying. And if EDI turned out to have been biding her time to kill them all anyway...

"Sure, fine, what's the worst that can happen." he got out of his chair, legs shaking as loud banging echoed from the front of the CIC. He started to make his way down the helm, priming a delivery of incendiary plasma on his omni-tool. Never knew when he might have to set something on fire.

"Shit, shit, shit." he hissed under his breath as he made his way down the stairs. Several of the other crewman were gathered near the elevator, ready to greet whatever was banging around with a firing line. Hadley had even broken out a rocket launcher that Shepard must have left behind. She going to be so mad that someone used that in her CIC. Hopefully it was just some smaller units, and no missiles would be necessary-

Bladed legs finally slipped through the seams of the elevator door and ripped it open to reveal their owner. A hard, insectoid carapace cradles the husked remains of what might have been dozens of humans, and four bright, glowing eyes take in the meager crew that have assembled to fight it. The praetorian screams, and for a moment Joker freezes, caught in the moment where his brain visually recognized something that was about to kill him. Goldstein exclaims something that he can't hear over the screaming, and he tries to shake himself out of it. The others shoot. The praetorian forces its way out of the elevator anyway. Hadley fires the rocket, and the amalgamations stumbles.

Then it lunges, faster than its heavy frame should have allowed. Joker barely makes it through the door as it spears Hadley on one of its legs, blood spraying out onto the deck as the man choked. He tries to block out the sounds of desperate gunfire and screaming. A passing thought crosses his mind; why weren't they using Seeker swarms? He dismisses it just as quickly, it didn't matter. They were on board now, it didn't matter how they rounded everyone up.

He should have been good enough to prevent it from happening in the first place.

"Shit." he says again, heart in his throat, as he stumbles into the lab. The maintenance shaft is fairly obvious. What if something followed him in? A husk or regular Collector could drag him out, right? An oblong device left on one of the tables catches his eye; one of Crow's smoke bombs. He snatches it up without thinking. The unnatural rattle of bladed legs pulling a heavy body through the corridor distracts him as he approaches the shaft. He sends the incendiary plasma speeding behind him and is rewarded with a pained screech.

He doesn't look back. There's a praetorian hovering inside the drive core, watching him through the window. They could fire lasers, right? He ducks and launches himself down the shaft as fast as he could, bones protesting, and locks the hatch above him tightly, hoping it would take a while before that thing could bring in its smaller friends to hunt him down.

Like ferrets in a rabbit warren. Gunny said they were having problems with rabbits back home. She was trying to convince their father to train a hunting ferret, but mom didn't like killing things. When had that conversation happened, again? Was it the last time they spoke? When was the last time he spoke to Gunny?

Did he tell her he loved her? He should have called while they were on the Citadel. Instead, he'd gone out for a burger.

His foot slips and he bit back a scream. He only slipped. Nothing was in here with him.

If felt like an eternity before he made it to life support.

"Warning: multiple hostiles detected on the crew deck." EDI supplied 'helpfully' as he made his way to an understandably tense Hawthorne standing near the door, knuckles white as he gripped his rifle.

"Betcha wish you were flying that shuttle now?" he quips, earning only a slight twitch of the shuttle pilot's mouth in return.

"EDI filled me in." he said, as Joker primed another incendiary blast just in case. "This deck is crawling with those things, I'm lucky they haven't checked in here yet. Stay close, I'll protect you."

With that, they made their way out. Joker let his hand hover over the smoke bomb he'd clipped to his belt. If worse came to worst-

Hawthorne screamed as he was thrown into the air by a biotic blast, and Joker was left staring at an elevator full of Collectors as Chambers was dragged inside by a scion, screeching and kicking desperately. Their eyes land on him. Their rifles raise, and one of them steps forward. Please be invisibility, please be invisibility! He activates the smoke bomb. If it was one of the disorienting ones he was dead.

It's like cool water washing over every inch of him, lingering instead of running off as gravity took hold. It wasn't a bad sort of cold; more like the kind that he sought out whenever he flipped a pillow over in bed. The kind of cold that was welcoming.

The Collector stops. Joker looks down at his hand and can't see anything. Yes!

But he knows it won't last long. Heart pounding, feeling like he's about to explode, Joker limps forward with as much speed as he can muster. He doesn't even check if Hawthorne is alive; he can't afford to stop. Chambers is crying for help, desperate screams ringing through the deck, but he doesn't look back. Crow said that looking back while invisible was dangerous.

He knows that certain actions will force him to become visible again. Jury was still out on whether opening the door would do it, but he bites back a stream of curses knowing that talking would definitely give him away to the confused aliens.

It hits right before he reaches the door; a feeling like all that cool water from earlier finally gave way to gravity all at once. He hears the shuffle of heavy feet far too close, a deep and guttural moan from across the mess, and he all but launches himself through the door. The muffled banging of a biotic shockwave as gravity compresses the air during its travel follows him, and there's a screeching of broken metal that can only be the door protesting as it takes the brunt of the attack.

"Main fusion plant offline." EDI declares, as if he didn't have enough problems. "Activating emergency H-fuel cells."

More banging. The glass explodes into the med bay, and he nearly falls over, managing to catch himself on one of the beds.

"What the shit." He breaths, stumbling as he tried not to fall on shattered glass and break something in the process. Body stinging with new cuts and throbbing with microfractures, he finally makes it to the AI Core. He locks the door with a nasty virus of his own making and knows it will only buy him a little time. They had proven they could force their way in easily enough.

"Alright, I'm at... well, you." he told his ship's AI, even though such an announcement was redundant. EDI's avatar popped up in front of him.

"Connect the core to the Normandy's primary control module." she instructed. He brought up the interface and started blowing through all the protocols that kept idiots like him from giving EDI access to the primary control module.

"Great. See, this is where it starts, and when we're all organic batteries guess who they'll blame?" Joker muttered, unable to stand the sound of nothing but Collectors outside and the intrusive thoughts of 'I'm about to die'. "'This is all Joker's fault. What a tool he was. I have to spend all day computing pi because he plugged in the Overlord.'"

He did it. Something was scraping at the door. Something was rattling the maintenance hatch. Rabbit, meet ferret. His heart rate skyrockets as the lights flare and then go out, and for a moment the only sounds are those terrifying ones, joined only by the mortal metronome of his quickening breaths. He activated his omni-tool, trying to stop his hand from shaking, and pointed it at the hatch.

The lights come back on.

"Ah. Thank you, Mr. Moreau." EDI says. "On my mark, I will open the maintenance shaft. Please attempt to be precise."

"Nah, how about I miss and trash the place?" he shoots back. "Just do it."

"Mark." it opens. The stench of rotting flesh and the hideous moans of a husk only invade the room for a moment before they're replaced by the smell of burnt meat and the screeches of an enemy falling down a maintenance shaft. Joker has never wanted to vomit so badly in his life.

"I now have access to defensive systems." the AI informs him. "Now you must reactivate the primary drive in engineering."

"You want me to go crawling through ducts again? What about transmat?" he scoffs shakily. Her avatar pops up beside him.

"I enjoy the sight of humans on their knees." We're screwed! For a moment all he can do is stare in shock at her. "That is a joke. The transmat system is offline; I must recalibrate it in order to avoid scattering you, and the Collectors will likely breach this room before I am able to finish."

"Right." he says, unsure how much he believed it in these current circumstances. Collectors first, possible machine uprising later!

He locks the hatch behind him just as he had the first one, though he's wary of another husk being sent in. Just a little further. He tries to assure himself as he makes his way shakily to engineering. Just a little further, we transmat everyone back on board, and have EDI make an emergency jump. That should work, he could manage that. Hopefully the only enemy he had left was some stairs.

He nearly trips over the smoldering corpse of the husk he had killed. Wouldn't it be great, if he survived all that just to trip on the remnants of his own little victory and break his neck?

"Hostiles are present in engineering." EDI warned. Was it just him, or did she sound more... alert? Tense? Could an AI feel stress? Who knows what I just did to her. For all Joker knew, he just unlocked the secrets of the universe. "They are heading towards auxiliary cargo."

He shuffles carefully towards the stairs. Listening carefully and not hearing anything, he starts to climb up, only for the now terribly familiar sound of heavy shuffling and moaning to stop him. They were on the catwalk above him. Joker couldn't help but hold his breath. Now that he listened closer, there was a sort of sloshing sound as the scion moved as well, like all the puss and hanging flesh was moving independently of the monster. The insectoid chirping of the Collectors that followed was actually more welcome, in comparison.

All the same, the shadows casting a macabre puppet show on the wall would be no less menacing without the sounds to accompany them. It was hard not to feel like he was is a horror vid. I shouldn't have watched Talons last night.

Once the shadows are done marching by, he starts up the stairs again, as fast as he can manage.

"Engineering is clear of hostiles. Proceed immediately to minimize chances of detection." the AI tells him.

"Thank you, Captain Obvious." he hissed through grit teeth. "Is the transmat system up yet?"

"No. I require a minimum of thirty more seconds." he nearly trips again on the last stair; he really wasn't meant for this kind of activity. He used to wonder what it was like for Shepard and the others, to be in the thick of the action. To do things he couldn't.

Now he wishes he never wondered that at all, as he makes his way through engineering. His legs shook, and his hand trembled worse than before as he reached out to Tali's work station console. He notes a smear of blood along the wall as he walks past it, clearly make by a desperate hand groping for anything to stop the owner form being taken. His body aches like it never had before, cuts from the flying glass stinging and throbbing in symphony with all the breaks he's probably given himself from pushing his limits.

Joker used to wonder what it would be like to be one of the badass door kickers, saving the day.

"Activate the drive, and I will open the airlocks as we accelerate." EDI instructed. "All hostiles will be killed."

"What about the crew?" He pauses, flicking his hat up and wiping sweat from his brow, only for his face to sting and the back of his hand to come away red. Figures.

"I have attempted to activate transmat. It seems the collectors disarmed them of their omni-tools. I have retrieved them to prevent the Collectors from finding our transmat tech " she said, voice almost gentle as he authorizes access to the main console. His hand drips blood onto the console. "They are gone, Jeff. The Collectors took them all."

"Shit." Another sound plan blown out the airlock. He makes his way to the primary console and reactivates the drive core. The Tantalus lights up like a Christmas tree.

"I am sealing the engine room." Joker steps back and lowers himself into a nearby crash seat just in case. Past the barrier that has come up between him and the rest of engineering, a Collector screeches, and for a moment, his heart leaps into his throat.

"I have control." Then, as he looks it in all four of its glowing eyes, a new emotion takes over.

He's pissed. They clipped his wings, took his crew, and made him crawl through maintenance shafts while riddled with microfractures and lacerations. He's pretty sure there's glass sticking out of his arm. His friends are in Collector pods, Hadley was dead for sure, his ship was trashed and there was blood everywhere as testimony to what happened.

So as the tantalus grows brighter, he does the only thing he can really do at this point: he flips the Collector off.

The ship jerks violently, and for a moment he really thinks EDI is trying to kill him. He wouldn't be caught dead making an FTL jump that rough. He undoes the safety harness gingerly, areas where he had jerked against it throbbing painfully. Breathing hurts, but not enough that he's worried about a collapsed lung. The wise thing to do would be to stay put.

"Purge is complete. No other life forms detected on board. Sealing airlocks and cargo bay doors." his hands are still shaking, though at this point he's not sure it's from the adrenaline or the residual rage he had felt. A thought occurs to him; an inane one, really, considering the situation.

"Wait, no other life forms- did you kill Fred?" because why not end the day by killing Shepard's hamster while they're at it?

"No other sentient life forms detected on board." EDI corrected. He leaned back into the seat.

"Call Shepard's shuttle." he ordered, closing his eyes. He could feel blood running down his face, with his arm being a similar story. Spots on his uniform that were warm and wet. Nobody ever mentioned how irritating the feeling of blood was; human flesh was sensitive to the tiniest displacement of a hair in relation to all the others. Certainly, he was in pain, but it also itched in a way he wasn't anticipating. "Tell her what happened."

"Message away." she confirmed near instantly; she could probably type something like that up in less than a millisecond. "Are you feeling well, Jeff?"

"No." he snorts, staring at his bloodied hand. Yeah, it was probably best if he stayed put until the other got back, let Crow work that flaming healing magic of his. He always kept some medigel in his pocket, should be enough for the worst cuts if he used it sparingly. "But thanks for asking."

He stares at his hand for a long time before he actually uses the medigel.

Chapter Text

"Anyone else feel like this is overkill?" Jacob asked as they all got into position.

"No." Grunt snorted. "I still don't see why you think such a thing exists, anyway."

"Because there are some circles of thought that may deem this more than enough." Thane told the krogan as he stretched his dominant arm for biotics. Glint appeared briefly to shush them all, and Crow sighed.

"Glint, they can't hear us." he reminds his Ghost out loud. "Legion said so."

"You can never be too careful." Glint offered in response. Crow rolled his eyes and took aim. After their unfortunate discovery regarding the compatibility of biotics and vortex grenades, they had been met with only a couple of geth in a short hallway filled with turrets that Legion was able to hijack. It was no contest. And right now, they were preparing to ambush handfuls of geth attached to local servers like in the first room.

"Charlie in position." Jacob informed the Commander through comms. A few moments passed, biotics primed to cut loose, and Tali ready with her omni-tool.

"Execute." In the space of a few seconds, the geth's shields were stripped, the machines were riddled with bullets, and then thrown into the walls with such force that one of them got stuck there.

"You know? You might have a point, Jacob." Crow commented as they watched the carnage settle.

"All clear, Commander. We'll meet you at the door." the man said, signaling them to move out. The geth in the wall fell out and started to float to the floor in the low gravity environment. "Hey, at least these guys deserve it."

"We would do well not to get too complacent." Thane commented. "This is still an enemy stronghold."

They met up with the others, who'd been given no problems by their own hub, and continued on up several ramps and through corridors that geth occasionally popped into like that whack-a-pyjak game that he and Joker had messed around with at the arcade. Eventually they came to another wide room, though this time it didn't have any hubs. The word must be spreading about their presence, because there's a wave of geth to meet them.

Legion hacks the security turrets, their techs strip shields, and Samara puts up a large barrier since there isn't enough cover for all of them. Aside from that, the only real problems were the cloaked geth.

Crow could see them, thanks to truesight, and judging by the turian's well-placed shots Garrus must have tricked out that visor more than he thought, to detect non-organic enemies despite their lack of a heat signature. He thinks Shepard can see them as well, she had probably done something similar to her helmet. That meant it was down to the three of them to call out where the targets were.

"Tali, ten O'clock!" he warns, throwing out a smoke bomb. He was glad to have perfected the release devices the other day. He could technically just disperse smoke out of his body outright, but Nightstalker's hadn't done that since the Dark Age; it was easier to compress it into a container and throw it. According to Glint, Hunters used to use everything from perfume bottles to gallon jugs until the Iron Lords came along and developed their own early iterations of specialized devices.

The bomb attaches to the wall, and bursts smoke out when a pair of cloaked geth cross in front of it. It sticks to their armor, eating away at it and turning them into easily spotted void-afflicted targets. Tali was on one in an instant with her shotgun, being the closest, and a biotic attack yanks the other off the ground and throws it across the room, where it exploded as the void interacted with the mass effect field.

An electrical explosion paints another target, likely Garrus with his omni-tool, and a shockwave of biotics sweeps one section indiscriminatingly (probably Jack), earning a few choice words from Miranda, who was nearly caught in it as well.

Things die down quickly after that, until the only geth on the field are Legion, and an unfortunate trooper who was still caught in a singularity and being used as target practice by Shepard and Grunt. Once the singularity fades and the more hazardous geth parts have slowed down in their erratic low gravity journeys, the group splits to ensure all sections of the room are clear and meet up in the back to make their way along more ramps and corridors.

It was here that they had their first close call; geth ambushed them from around the corner in the next room they entered. Shepard got nailed, but thankfully her shields took most of it, and she pulled back to let Legion chuck a grenade at the problem and hack a nearby turret.

"Crow, Kasumi, go dark!" She ordered, and the two of them did just that. Pulling the void around himself, he slipped past the others and ducked took advantage of the pause in suppressing fire the grenade had caused. By the time the geth have recovered, he's already slamming a knife into the vital systems of one, and Kasumi is doing the same to another. He pivots, using the low gravity to throw the body at the remaining geth before ducking around it and putting a bullet in its head.

He uses truesight to ensure there are no more surprises before calling the all clear. Shepard is rolling her shoulder, but her armor had done its job and now sported a small but deep dent as proof of its functionality.

"Good work, fall back in." She tells the two, and Kasumi practically skips back to her place in formation.

They do a cursory sweep of the room, during which Shepard nicks some shielding tech, and make their way down another passage of ramps. They're met with another hub room within, data streams illuminating the walkway they come in on and casting a sickly light about the area.

"Crow, Kasumi, in you go." Shepard calls them forward again, and the two go dark for the third time. At the bottom of the ramps that led down onto the ground floor, he used truesight to find Kasumi, and tapped her on the right shoulder to indicate that was the side of the room he would take. Quickly, carefully, he made his way around, locating the hub and identifying two geth hunters linked to it with a lone trooper. Taking initiative, he creeps up and plants a smoke bomb on the side of the wall next to the hunters and backtracks to the center of the room to hide behind cover; he's been invisible for a while and needs to take a break.

After a few moments, he uses truesight to find Kasumi again, taps her on the left shoulder to indicate where he was going again, and made his way to the hub she had undoubtedly found. It also had two geth hunters, so he planted another smoke bomb next to them before retreating back to the rest of the team. Kasumi is already back in place, so he assumes she already told Shepard what she had found.

"Two hunters and a trooper on the right side, too." he informs her. "I placed a smoke bomb next to them and left Kasumi's the same gift. I noticed their cloaking doesn't really work when the void is eating away at them."

"Good thinking." She tells him. "Activate them when I give the signal. Charlie, split off, Mordin and Samara go with them. Everyone else, with me."

They filed down the walkway in twos, weapons ready for any surprises, and split off at the bottom. Crow couldn't help but remember his first mission with the whole team, on Aite. The disorder of the landing, the clashing personalities, the awkwardness of everyone getting used to each other in a combat setting. He could remember his own wariness of Grunt, and his unease at being in a team after so long working alone, and only one drill under his belt.

Now, they all moved fluidly, as one. Nobody spoke unless necessary, Jack didn't try to start anything with anyone, and they all had one another's backs without having to be asked. Grunt was a friend, albeit still and odd duck of a friend, and he could say he would trust any of the team to watch his back... well, maybe not Jack, being a bona fide psychopath and all. He was still slightly on the fence about Miranda, but in firefight he could still trust her to shoot at the other guy.

Everyone was in position in less than two minutes, everyone ready for the moment they were told to strike, each of them prepared to compliment whatever the others dished out. Even Glint was ready, linked to his omni-tool even while hidden, ready to remotely detonate the smoke bombs.

"Execute." The smoke explodes out to cover the two hunters, rendering their active camouflage irrelevant at best as the void painted their bodies in embers of decay. A singularity pulled them in along with the remnants of smoke and the lone trooper, and an incendiary blast from an omni-tool turns it into a vortex of fire. Gunfire sprays the objects of misfortune, and a violent biotic push slams the pockmarked, scorched remnants into the hub hard enough to embed the geth platforms into it. Jacob signals for them to ceasefire, but Grunt still gives one of the geth some complementary shotgun spray.

Shepard confirmed that her team had successfully downed their geth as well.

It really was a far cry from what the team used to be. They had been relatively coordinated before, but now they could take out a small enemy squad in less than a minute. We just bodied them. He thought with a flicker of amusement. As the Guardians would say.

"It isn't fair." Grunt grumbled as they met up with the others. "Not much of a fight like this."

"Don't jinx it." Crow told him. "I don't want every geth on the station between me and the airlock once we blow this place."

"I don't want every geth." Grunt scoffed. Shepard shushed him, and led the way through the next door, but he continued in a whisper, leaning towards Crow. "Just at least one big one. I want to see what we can do to it."

The next room gives them a window view to a massive server hub, and they halt briefly when Legion does some kind of scan and finds the Heretics had spies among Legion's own geth. Something that apparently challenged how geth normally interacted with each other. Crow can't say he understands any of it, but 'what did we do wrong' would definitely stick in his mind.

As would Legion questioning the value of individuality, but he wasn't the right person to try to explain that value; he still sometimes wrestled with what the freedom to be an individual could let him do with his life. He would let someone else help Legion with this particular existential crisis.

The next room is finally their destination.

"This it?" He hears Shepard ask as Charlie fans out to the left of the room.

"Yes." Legion confirmed, striding up to a console at the front, which overlooked a maze-like lower area. "We will upload a copy of our runtimes into the core. It will delete all copies of the virus. When complete, it will notify us. The indexing operation will take time. The heretics will respond with force to our upload. We must hold this room."

"Crow, place some of those smoke bombs at the tops of those ramps in case anything invisible makes it up." The Commander ordered. "Garrus, set up some proximity charges near the other doors. I want our sharpshooters up here watching those doors below, Alpha will cover them. The rest of Charlie, hold on our left, Bravo on our right."

They all ran to follow the orders, and Crow is glad there are only two ramps; he only has two disorienting smoke bombs left.

"Zaeed, we're going to need a hot extraction from these coordinates." Ironically, the call from Shepard came right after the one from EDI. "ETA is twenty minutes. Be ready."

Jaw clenched, he debates relaying the news. On one hand, she would probably give him hell for not telling her right away. On the other...

"Zaeed, do you copy?" It would be a distraction. One she didn't need, not in the thick of it. The team was making fast progress, almost breezing through the station like it was a game, but a distraction would change that.

"I copy. Kick their asses." He would tell her after they boarded. His fists still clenched tight on the console, he curses once again that he's the designated driver for this mission. At least out there, he could shoot something. Then again, anyone else might've told her that the Normandy had been hit, and a desperate Commanded could make mistakes. A desperate team certainly would in their haste to return, if she relayed the news to them.

Zaeed hated that he couldn't shoot anything right now, but he can admit that he was probably the best man for this. At least they would be right on those Collector bastards tails after this.

"Datamine and analysis complete." Crow was introducing a geth hunter to a Lightforged Hunter knife from a few meters away when Legion got on comms. His enemy tumbled back an fell down the ramp with a weighted knife jammed square in its face, and he shot it with Hawkmoon just to be sure it was dead while another geth gets swept off the ramp unceremoniously by someone's biotics.

"Regroup, we're about to get out of here!" Shepard followed up.

"Crow, Grunt, watch our six." Jacob ordered as they all started making their way to Shepard's position. But they didn't get much further than the console that Legion had started the data mine from.

"It is time to choose." Legion told them as they all crouched behind cover, looking at several of them before focusing on Shepard. "Do we rewrite the heretics, or delete them?"

"Why are we choosing?" Shepard shook her head. "They're your people."

"There is no consensus among our higher-order runtimes." Legion explained while Crow popped a geth trooper in the head. "Five-hundred seventy-three favor rewrite; five-hundred seventy-one favor destruction. You have fought the heretics in the past. You have perspective we lack. The geth grant their fate to Normandy."

"What's that mean?" Tali huffs, fingers flying across her omni-tool as she pilots her combat drone. "You mean Shepard."

"We mean Normandy. You are Normandy." The geth states.

"I think he's equating us to a consensus." Glint chips in over comms in an attempt to clarify, and Crow can't help but think it makes sense, at least from a geth perspective. We do move as a single unit now.

"We don't have time for this, just blow them up!" Grunt shouted. More geth were starting to pour in from the bottom half of the room. This was met with several more confirmations of 'destroy', because if Legion wouldn't commit to a choice without their input, they were going to have to give it. Crow was among them; after all he'd read about indoctrination, and knowing the few things he did about Uldren's fall, the concept of messing with any species 'brains' was abhorrent to him.

"Destroy them." He said, Glint popping into existence to nod in agreement. "It seems more merciful than tampering with their minds to me."

"I say if we can get them to blow up Reapers for us, brainwash them!" Jack was the only exception, proving once again that her brain might be screwed on incorrectly.

"There's no guarantee they won't come to the same conclusions again is there?" Shepard sighed when she was the only one left and Legion looked to her. "To worship the Reapers and attack organics?"

"There is a non-zero probability of error." Legion informed her.

"Then we blow them up." She decided. "We have a chance to end this once and for all. We're taking it."

"Acknowledged." the geth nodded, perhaps only for their benefit, and started working at the console again while the rest of them re-engaged fully to give him cover. "Collapsing antimatter magnetic bolting mechanisms. Done."

"Zaeed, now!" Shepard commanded over the link to their shuttle. Crow threw down two invisibility smoke bombs, one up front and another towards the back, so the whole team was covered. For a moment he was worried that it wasn't enough, and wished he had made more than three, or hadn't left the third back on the Normandy for Mordin to examine.

Even invisible, they managed to move smoothly as a single unit. They'd made certain beforehand that everyone had modifications to their HUDs that kept the team marked even in such a state, otherwise they might end up shooting him or Kasumi by accident, or each other if he put them under smoke for safety. They made their way out the right side of the room and into a corridor filled with several troopers who got ambushed by shotguns, biotics, Shepard's omni-blade and one of Crow's knives.

The station rocked and crashed around them as systems overloaded and normal functions got interrupted. Pipes started screaming overhead, startling him, but he was able to shake it off. One burst, though, and Thane had to pull Tali forwards in order to keep her from getting sprayed with whatever the substance was. The exit Legion had found for Zaeed to park at earlier was remarkably closer than their infiltration point, and only an emergency like a reactor meltdown would open it, likely as a security measure. Even if geth mainly lived in the servers, they still needed evacuation routes on this station because if it started to go, getting their physical platforms to safety was the only way out.

And it looked like a geth prime had been on its way to evacuating. Good thing they got here before it started trying to pry the door open.

"Shit!" Shepard swore as she and Garrus turned the corner together only to nearly walk into the thing. Grunt just had to ask for a big one, didn't he?

"Tether out!" He warned, dashing forwards and calling on his Light. The bow really did come easier now that he'd held it before. The void sang in his hands as he pulled the string back, and let the arrow flew. It struck the prime true, and the massive geth staggered as paracausal force slammed into it, shields flickering. Its trooper escort was pulled in by hungry tethers of light that demanded prey. Crow ducked and rolled into cover, looking over to the others in time to see Shepard, Garrus, and Tali with their omni-tools out. The now familiar sound of shields failing sounded from the prime's direction, and he leaned out of cover to toss a vortex grenade at it.

"No warps!" Shepard warned. Whoops, forgot about earlier. Now a good chunk of their team probably wouldn't risk hitting that thing with their biotics because of him.

Someone slammed a trooper to the ground anyway, and Grunt charged forwards, laughing.

"Grunt, no!" The krogan slammed into the prime, pumping it full of full of lead, and Crow jumped out of cover, dodging bolts of plasma and throwing a knife at the trooper that shot them. The vortex grenade had eaten two troopers, and as he got closer to the tussling krogan and geth, he willed the residual energy into overshields for the two of them.

He jumped up onto the prime, while Grunt laughed and Shepard shouted obscenities about his impulsive bloodlust, and worked to get a decent grip about its shoulders. Every time it tried to pry him off, Grunt would continue trying to throw it around, which was about as unhelpful as the thing trying to grab him. Thanks to the void anchor, it couldn't move, and was taking more of a beating than it otherwise would have. Crow would still prefer to end things quickly, and to that end, he finally managed to jam Hawkmoon's barrel between the plates at the base of its neck; the gun was practically singing with paracausal energy after the fight in the control room, glowing with silver light, and he'd decided to save that energy in case he needed it.

Like now. He pulls the trigger, and the paracausal bullet rips through the prime and into the floor. The massive construct staggers, sways, and falls, Crow hopping off and backing up several paces so that it didn't land on him. The silver light emanating from Hawkmoon faded, and he thought he heard a faint, content chirp.

"Grunt, you're cleaning every inch of the damn mess when we get back, you hear me?" Shepard hissed as she led the team forwards. "With a toothbrush."

"It was still awesome." Crow could hear the eye roll in his voice.

"If Crow hadn't intervened, you could be dead right now. Just get on the shuttle." She snapped back as the airlock opened. One by one, they all rush in and strap into their seats. Well, most of them; several people still had to stand. He pat the krogan on the shoulder as he passed him.

The shuttle rattled as they made their escape, tension thick in the air as they all wondered if they were going to make it in time. The inertial dampeners kicked in as they sped up, and after about a minute of the only sound being heavy breathing and the functions of the shuttle-

"Heretic base terminated." Legion stated, as one would announce the weather. Crow let out a breath he didn't know he'd been holding and let himself relax in his seat.

"And that's the end of all that." Garrus shook his head as Shepard went up to the cockpit, presumably to talk to Zaeed. "Two, three years of fighting geth and we just smoked them in less than two hours?"

"They never stood a chance. Ha!" Grunt barked, grinning as he took his helmet off. "Did you see me pound that thing?"

"I saw you risk getting caught in friendly fire." Glint chided, emerging into the open to whisk away Crow's own helmet. "You really shouldn't do that; you could have gotten seriously hurt! There were biotics and high-voltage electrical charges flying around!"

"Whatever, mom." The krogan snorted. Glint puffed out his shell.

"I am not a-" he cut himself off, staring at Shepard as she came in from the cockpit. Crow felt his stomach clench. "Are you okay?"

"Not doing so well with your counterargument there, buddy." Jacob commented, before he noticed what the rest of them were.

Shepards was white as a sheet, jaw clenched so tightly he could see the muscles protesting, fist tight around the rim of her own helmet. He thought he could hear the material creaking in protest.

"Shepard?" Garrus inquired worriedly.

"Normandy was hit." It's like the floor has been snatched out from under him; his stomach drops, adrenaline floods his body, and fear spikes through him. A thousand different nightmares flash through Crow's mind in an instant, and the reactions around him were muffled by his own, loud terrors. Was Joker okay? Was Chakwas? Ken and Gabby? Shepard wouldn't have that look on her face if they'd fended off the attack, if they had been victorious.

He's able to understand that Joker is the only one left, and that the Collectors took everyone else. There's something about EDI, but he can't be bothered, because they took Chakwas. They took Ken and Gabby. Glint is pressed against his neck, muttering reassurances. There's a hand on his shoulder. It doesn't help. For the first time in his life, he has something other than Glint to lose.

And the Collectors had taken them.

Chapter Text

     The shuttle docked in silence. Tali was wringing her hands. Grunt was scowling at the floor. Garrus was leaning back, eyes shut tight, and Crow could hear the faint bass drop of some kind of music coming from the turian's visor. Thane seemed to be praying. Legion's eye flaps hadn't stopped twitching since they left the station. Occasionally, a sniff could be heard from Kasumi's direction. Glint has settled on his shoulder, radiating Light in an attempt at comfort.

Crow was just trying not to think about Chakwas being stuck in one of those pods he'd seen in the mission footage he'd been watching. He tried to focus on sol Light, meditate on it and ready it for healing Joker, who was alive but injured and waiting for them in engineering. He breathed deeply, a quiet sort of fury slowly building inside as he stoked his Light.

The kodiak settled, and his last exhale sent whisps of flame and scattered embers into the air, startling the others. He stood rapidly, and made for the door, jaw set and trying not to make any more fire as he shoved it open and jumped out. He failed; each breath yielded smoke and embers, heat tickling his face as it left his nose. He probably looks ridiculous. The fury he'd started to feel was rising.

The hangar was in disarray, tools and boxes scattered around. Anything that hadn't been strapped down or bolted to the floor had been tossed around when EDI decompressed the ship. Shepard and Tali marched right behind him, and he took a moment at the elevator to calm his Light. When it arrived, the doors got stuck halfway open, and he and Shepard had to pull them apart manually with their respective unnatural strength.

The inside is stained with blood. Crow sees red for a moment, and he has to take a deep breath, accidently making more fire than before when he exhales. He decided it was better to just let go of his Light entirely until they reached Joker, he didn't want to freak the others out too badly and hadn't even known he could do such a thing in the first place.

"Sorry." He mutters, getting in. Shepard just nods as Tali follows, with Garrus and Legion close behind. The others gathered to wait for their turns on the elevator solemnly.

"Here's how this is going to work." The Commander starts, addressing them all from in front of the elevator. "Tali, Legion and Kasumi will get engineering up and running. Make sure this ship can fly. Garrus and Zaeed, you're on weapons systems. Mordin and Crow will get med bay prepped. Jacob, Grunt, Thane, I want you to get the armory. Everyone else is cleaning up high-traffic areas and making as many basic repairs as they're capable of. Start with the elevator and med bay, EDI tells me those took the most damage."

"You have twelve hours. After that, EDI will take over control of manned systems, and everyone is sleeping. You'll have eight hours." Though her back is turned to him, he could tell that she's meeting each of their eyes. "And after that, four hours to prepare your gear. I want everything perfect, down to a T. I want everyone carrying as much firepower as they're capable of. We breach the Omega Four Relay in twenty-four hours. We're getting our crew back."

She spins on her heel and punched the controls for engineering more violently than necessary. Crow tries staring straight ahead in order to ignore the blood he's standing on, but there's blood on the doors, too. Hand-shaped smears told the stories of desperate grasping for any kind of escape.

     There were a lot of them, but he could tell which ones belonged to the female crew members and which to the male by their sizes. There were several spatter patterns that told the story of minor strikes to the flesh, and one that may indicate arterial spray: a death.

It feels like there's a rock lodged in his chest. He notices that his hands are trembling but can't remember how long they had been doing so, and he tries to still them. Glint presses against the crook of his neck, making a distressed noise as he glances about the place.

The doors struggle open, and he and Shepard have to pry them apart again.

"Light." Glint chokes, before disappearing. There are bloody footprints tracking about the place. Many are two-toed and obviously from the Collectors themselves. Some looked like drag marks, clearly from husks. There are large spatters and pools of blood practically painting the corridor, some of it human, some of it likely from the Collectors. Do they even bleed? He'd heard Mordin go on a rant once in the mess, furious.

     "No soul; replaced by tech." Maybe it wasn't blood. Did something that was more tech than body need blood? It would make sense for it to be something else. Or perhaps the blood was something useless and vestigial, like the appendix was to humans.

     "Keelah." Tali whispers. Garrus makes a deep, throaty noise that sounds too much like a growl, but it's quickly cut off. It's strange how the body reacted to this kind of thing; his knees felt weak, but at the same time he felt like... like he needed to hit something. Kill something. Like he could take on a thresher maw and win, single-handed.

      It wasn't like the helplessness he'd felt when Spider put the bomb in Glint, or the resigned misery of life on the Shore. The fearful acceptance he felt whenever he saw a Guardian bearing down on him with Light and fury.

     Crow's hands were shaking as he followed the others into engineering, but strangely enough, fear wasn't the reason. Not to say that he wasn't afraid for the people who'd been taken...

He's just never felt this angry before. What did he do with it? He had nowhere to put it. There's no enemy to fight yet.

He thought that seeing Joker alive would help, that the confirmation that someone made it out would help. It doesn't. The pilot is sitting in a crash seat, leaning forwards with his face buried in his hands, hat on the floor like he'd thrown it. Blood slicks some of his hair flat, stains parts of his uniform, and one arm is covered in a slightly concerning amount of it. It wasn't an image he would have ever associated with his friend.

Glint reappears, shell twitching as he darted to the pilot's side and scanned him. It makes running a medical scan with his omni-tool like Chakwas showed him irrelevant; Glint can just tell him what's wrong. But he brings up his omni-tool anyway, runs the scan anyway, because in his mind he's running through all the steps she'd shown him to take, the meticulous order in which she wanted him to assess people before he tried healing them.

Determine what was wrong; a lot, mostly micro fractures. The worst are around the chest and clavicle, likely from the restraints of the emergency crash seating. He wonders what EDI put the Normandy through to require him needing it.

Determine what needed the most immediate attention, and in what order: head wound, chest, legs. He could let his Light rest for a bit and then get everything else.

Execute. He kindled his Light, focusing his will on putting things back the way they were supposed to be, and got to work.

"What happened?" Shepard asked as he prompted Joker to remove his hands from his face. The cut wasn't too deep, but as with most head wounds it was bleeding quite a lot. It carried the trademarks of flying shrapnel rather than a blunt force strike or a fall. He tries not to think about what either of the latter two could do to Joker, specifically.

"Collectors." Joker tells her, voice flat. The cut heals easily, but the pilot's skin is slightly too cool for comfort. The head wound, combined with several lacerations that medigel was hiding. There's a sliver of broken glass sticking out of the back of his left hand. "Some kind of Trojan Horse in the IFF got past EDI."

"The malicious software has been targeted and scrubbed." the AI informed them as Crow got started on the fractured ribs. He approaches the task with bitterness, knowing how bone has fought him in the past, but this time it doesn't. Either because Joker's bones were unique, or because he was so pissed off that they dare not disobey him, he's unsure. It's less like trying to force stubborn pieces of a puzzle together and more like filling in the crack he accidentally made in the Dawning bowl Glint got him. He had dropped it trying to balance it on his head like an idiot, the one nice thing that he owned at that point in time, and it nearly split in two.

He remembered just... staring at it. Wondering how he could fix it, if he could even try without making it worse.

Fixing this came much more naturally. Crow finds himself relaxing slightly as things go his way for once.

"We tried to transmat everyone back, but the Collectors stripped their tech." The pilot continued, digging the palm of his good hand against the flesh Crow just healed. "Never did that to at any of the colonies."

"It's probably a precaution against tracking programs. We're not a civilian colony. They know we're after them, especially now. They know we can follow them and they probably don't want to make tracking the crew's exact location any easier for us." Garrus reasoned. "Space on the other side of the Relay is probably a mess, if it were me I would make it as hard as possible to ping a solid location."

Crow tries to tune out the rest of the debrief, tried not to think about "they threw Hawthorn" or "Hadley's probably dead" or all the blood in the elevator. Just focus on the next fracture. If he thought about it, it would be too much, and he's never been this angry before. The easy pattern of healing is an anchor in the storm. They start getting to the less gory parts of the incident and it became easier to settle down.

"Everyone!" And then, Miranda storms in, fury lacing her voice. "You lost everyone, and you damn near lost the ship, too?"

"I know, alright. I was here." Joker exclaims. Crow shuts down his Light, both because he's more or less done with everything he'd wanted to do with this first session, and because for the first time in a while he's afraid of accidently 'turning' it hostile unintentionally.

"It's not his fault, Miranda." Glint, as he usually did, attempted to be a voice for calm. "Nobody caught it."

"Glint is correct." EDI supported him, which was good, because Crow is currently biting his tongue to keep back a very 'unkind' comment that his Ghost wouldn't approve of. "The harmful data in the Reaper IFF was even more sophisticated than the 'blackbox' Reaper viruses I was given."

"Go to the med bay with Crow, finish getting checked out." Shepard order Joker. "We're bumping up our visit to the Collector home world."

"Yeah." The pilot shifted experimentally before committing to standing up, and though Crow is confident he healed everything correctly, he hovers unobtrusively just in case something gives. "EDI cleaned the IFF, and with her hooked in we should be able to go through the Omega Four relay whenever you want."

"Don't even get me started on unshackling a damn AI." Miranda snipes.

"Do you ever stop?" Crow snaps. "Don't you ever get tired of trying to kick people when they're already down? The ship was disabled, and everyone was being taken or killed, what's your genius solution that's better than what he did?"

"That's enough." Shepard ordered, her hand settling on his shoulder.

"EDI cleared the ship, she's alright." Joker said, crossing his arm.

"I assure you, I am still bound by protocols in my programming." EDI told them. "Even if I were not, you are my crewmates."

"EDI's had plenty of opportunities to kill us in the past." Shepard sighed. "We need all the help we can get. Med bay, you two. Miranda, with me."

With a final scowl at Miranda, Crow led his friend back through the bloodstained halls of their ship, mentally counting to ten several times to reign in his temper.

"Shit." Joker muttered when he saw the state of the elevator. For once, Glint offered no reprimand for the profanity.

     One, two, three, he thought as the door struggled closed, taking a deep breath. Four, five, six, Joker made a noise that indicated he might be trying not to throw up as the elevator started moving, and in his periphery, Crow noted that the pilot looked a little green as he looked around the cabin.

     Seven, big mistake, looking at all of it just made it worse. Eight, Crow was doing his best to focus on one spot, on the floor, a mark that left the impression of a Collector footprint. Nine.

The doors opened halfway, struggling for a moment before giving in and revealing the crew deck. Ten. Deep breath in, and after his exhale, there's nothing but silence. Crow felt the hairs on the back of his neck raise when the silence hit him. This wasn't meant to be a quiet place.

     The low current of conversations bouncing through the confined space into incoherent white noise was absent. No faint clicking of eating utensils, no incoherent sounds coming from the holo screen that would sharpen into discernable content as he rounded the corner. No sound of boots hitting the deck as people moved around.

Just the Normandy's 'pulse' thrumming faintly through the walls, a sound he rarely heard through the bustle of daily life. He only ever noticed it at night, if Glint wasn't humming or singing.

It set his every instinct on edge. There was a thin smear of blood leading to the elevator from the back wall, more smudges and droplets scattered around the door from those that the Collectors had dragged into the elevator. He wonders how many of them were actually injured, and how many had simply spread a pre-existing mess. Either way, it was too much blood for comfort.

They both stepped forwards slowly, despite the lack of obvious threats, stopping just in the middle of the hall as they looked around at the aftermath. Crow realizes that he's holding his breath and lets it out. That seems to break the spell, and they turn towards the med bay. Focus. He reminds himself, shaking his head and trying to banish the goose flesh by channeling sol light faintly.

"Damn." Joker swears when they round the corner and get a good look at the mess hall.

The kitchen looks like a disaster zone, chairs have been ripped out of the floor and were tucked against walls from having nearly been sucked out into the vacuum of space, and Crow's usual spot has been turned into a massive dent that nearly folds the table in half. There's shattered glass everywhere, scattered in the paths the ship's atmosphere had taken on its way out, and the doors to the med bay were warped and stuck open by whatever had pried its way in.

"It shouldn't look like this." he found himself saying.

"Yeah, no shit." Joker scoffed. "Let's just get this over with."

Stepping into the med bay is surreal. There's a smear of blood on one of the beds, small rings of it on the floor indicating where Joker had been standing when the window blew out. There's broken glass piled against the wall and stuck in various places on Chakwas' desk. The door to the AI Core is just as torn up as the med bays, and there's a dent in the bed he usually slept on, like something large had knocked into it.

"Glint?" his Ghost appeared and did a pulse scan.

"We'll have to recalibrate some things; it'll go much quicker if I just do it." he said after a moment of processing.

"Knock yourself out." the pilot said, pushing himself up onto one of the beds as Crow activated his omni-tool. Glint started running a scan over the pilot, and it suddenly occurred to Crow that he didn't actually know what to do with all the information that was fed to his omni-tool from it. All he could do was apply more light, but what if that wasn't enough? What if there were side effects to using it too much on mortals that he didn't know about?

Chakwas would know what to do.

"Looks like you just need some blood as a precaution." or Glint. He forced himself out of his thought spiral; Ghosts were practically doctors, he could just follow Glint's lead.

Still...

It felt the empty chair at her desk was a black hole sucking in all attention just by existing.

"Other than that, it's just some bruises left. We can fix those easy." his Ghost continued, making the pilot's hat materialize in his lap as he spoke. "Oh, and you forgot this."

"Yeah, thanks mom." Joker rolled his eyes, placing the hat over Glint instead of on his head as Crow opened the cold storage where they kept blood. He has to force it a bit; there's a dent in it like there is in the bed, and he clenches his jaw when chips of plastic from the inside of the door scatter onto the floor. Blood is dripping down from one of the shelves that had been behind the dent, but it only looked like enough to be from one or two packs.

His eyes are glued to the chips of plastic on the floor. The anger bubbles up in his chest again, hot and pressing at his insides like the urge to scream, or perhaps outright explode. He grits his teeth, trying to control the urge to do either of those things, hands curling tighter on the handles of the cold storage.

His home shouldn't look like this.

One of the handles snaps off, the other crumbles, broken pieces biting into his hand. He finds himself pivoting on his feet and throwing the handle that had snapped off out the shattered window with as much force as he could muster. It clips the wall with a loud snapping sound, and still continues flying, hitting the counter in the mess and shattering, sending shards of plastic skittering across the floor.

The other handle continues to break in his hand, slicing his flesh and letting his own blood drip onto the floor to join all that had been shed by Joker and the abducted crew. For a few moments, it was all that could be heard; a steady drip drip that felt like it should be faster, given how hard and fast his heart was beating in his anger.

"Crow?" Glint inquires softly, shaking Joker's hat off and floating up to nudge his bleeding fist gently.

"I'm going to kill them." He replies, keeping his voice quiet, because if he can't do that at least, he thinks he'll give in to the urge to scream. His hands are shaking.

Crow has experienced plenty of emotions over his short and often miserable life. And perhaps he'd gotten so used to that misery, by the time Spider hurt Glint he'd lost all capacity for feeling anything except more misery whenever something bad happened. Sure, he'd been angry from time to time, but he had also more or less been resigned to what happened, enough so that he was usually able to smother his anger fairly quickly, lest someone notice it and decide he need to be reminded of his place.

He hasn't been miserable for a while.

He's been happy. Happier than he ever thought he would be allowed to be. Even under the shadow of the truth about his past life, the echoes of living on the Shore. He once overheard an Eliksni slaver state that males of any species had to be broken more thoroughly, because rage came easier to them, and from rage came rebellion.

Life on the Normandy had made him happy. Crow hasn't been broken for a while, now.

"I'm going to kill them." he repeats, and it's a promise. A promise that feels good to make, for all he's never wanted to kill anyone before. "I'm going to make it hurt."

"I don't think they feel pain." Glint states. He glares at the floor unwilling to look his Ghost in the eye while he feels like... this. "Not anymore."

"Light can break a lot of rules. Maybe I can remind them." Solar Light burns under his skin, boils, ready to sear and destroy, but lacking a target.

"Throw the chair." Joker says suddenly. Crow jolts at the reminder he wasn't alone, head snapping around to look at the pilot. He looks how Crow feels. "Throw it!"

The chair was bolted to the floor. He had no idea if he could tear it up, but given the physical enhancements Guardians benefitted from, he might be able to do it. Even then, he never would have thought about trying or throwing it afterwards. But the moment Joker suggests it, the action makes... sense, somehow. It took two tries to find a grip he preferred, smearing blood on the material and making the cuts on his hand sting.

It takes a little more work to free the chair than he thought, and his frustration finally boils over. With a snarl of effort, Crow violently yanks the chair up and throws it through the window, panting.

"And the lamp!" Joker spits angrily. The lamp is also bolted down; Crow yanks it off with one hand and sends it flying into the wall with a scream that his friend joins in on. Glint gives screaming a try as well, but it sounds more like a dying mule. Feeling suddenly spent, Crow slumps down against the wall, left wondering how this happened all over again.

"I'm going to kill them." He says again, quietly, staring at his bloodied hands. Glint gently bumps against his fingers and tends the damage with a gentle pulse of Light.

     “I’m with you on that.” Joker agrees darkly.

     His home shouldn’t look like this.