There were faces in the dark, and they had no love for her. In the gloom under the old fruit trees she hid, curled tight with her legs against her chest and her arms over her head. She kept her eyes squeezed shut, terrified to open them, terrified of what waited beyond in the orchard, the rolling gray fields and across the face of the terrible, merciless mountain. She knew if she were to open her eyes the dream would begin, as it had a hundred nights before and would a hundred nights again. They say when a person realizes they are dreaming they should wake up or, better yet, seize control of the dream and bend the world to their whims. If she had such control she could fight the encroaching terrors away, or simply spread her tiny, childish hands to the sky and let the wind carry her up and away.

She would have liked that. When she finally lifted her head and fluttered one eye open for a peek she knew there was no fighting the ghosts and the air stayed stagnant and still in the gloomy gray air. She struggled to her feet, her naked thirteen year old body as frail as the dry dead grass between her toes, her feet still glued firmly to the earth. She was trapped, and as she cried out in terror and panic the ghosts found her.

The orchards of Mindoir had been her favourite place in the world once, ripe and fragrant in the planet's endless summer. She could climb with the best of them, keeping pace with her long limbed elder brothers Mehul and Ishayu. Little Nirek still needed a hand to reach the first branch, but once they had hoisted him up the four of them could lose themselves in the sweet green canopy for hours, playing hide and seek among the leaves and picking fresh plums, apples, pears or pomegranates straight off the branches to eat while their feet dangled in the open air. They could peek through the branches, down at the busy streets of the village or up to the magnificent face of the mountain they had named Kanvar, the Prince.

In the waking world her memories of Mindoir were as sweet as the fresh fruit she had once picked there, warm and innocent as a summer morning. In her dream the orchard was a dead world, the trees blackened, raking the sky sharp as tiger claws, and even the lowest branches on the smallest trees hung well above her desperate hands. The grass was waist length, gray as the boiling sky overhead and if she moved it cut deep across her thighs and belly, so she did not move at all. She stood in the dead glade and stared, up at the menacing peaks of the mountain in the north.

Her father once told her that mountains were sacred, and that the Prince was there to look after their village. But the mountain seemed bleak to her now, an immense weight that put pressure on the very air until it was a struggle to breathe. The sky around it was a gray as everything else in the half-world of her sleeping mind. It rumbled like a great tiger, seeking the taste of her blood.

"Abhaya." The first call came, lurching out of the hot, suffocating air. The sky rumbled on overhead, dark as a bruise. "Abhaya, Abhaya, Abhaya."

The name struck her as foreign, even alien; it had been so long since she heard it. She was not sure that anyone living even knew it. It belonged to the army of wailing, begging wraiths that was coming for her, out of the shadows between trees and the clusters of devil grass that grew in the fields beyond. They wore the faces of the long dead, and shuffled toward her with halting, dragging steps, screaming her name as they reached out with cold, dead fingers. She took a single step and had to stop, the grass leaving deep, bleeding cuts across her knees. The red of her blood was the only colour left in the world.

It was her parents, their soft featured, loving faces transformed before her eyes into masks of suffering. A bullet had entered her mother's cheek, tearing the flesh and scoring deep burns around the hole. It had shattered her teeth as well, so that when she opened her mouth and wailed the jagged pieces gnashed and sawed. Blood ran down over her torn lips and splashed the rags that still covered her mostly naked body. Someone had torn her sari almost entirely off, and bitten her breasts until they turned black and blue. Something had struck her father at the temple, caving in his forehead and forcing one of his warm brown eyes out of its socket. It hung down on his cheek, swinging on the end of withered pink string. Somehow, it seemed worse to see him looking so much more as he had in life when he stretched his hands out and called her name in that terrible voice, full of pain and death and suffering.

"Abhaya." They wailed together, transforming the name they had given her with love into a dirge of pain and grief. "Abhaya, Abhaya, Abhaya."

Her brothers followed, crying thick rivers of dark blood in place of tears as they clustered around her. Every touch of their fingers scored deep gashes down her thin arms, across her chest and back until she was bleeding from a dozen fresh wounds. They sucked the blood from their fingers between moans and continued calling her name, mindlessly, as she cried and struggled to escape the cutting grass forgotten, everything forgotten beyond the need to be away from this hell among the quiet trees that had once been so beautiful and precious. She screamed at herself, this is a dream, but it made no difference. The ghosts remained and when she tried to speak they did not hear, only continued clawing, pulling and wailing her name in their sad, lost voices.

"Abhaya, Abhaya, Abhaya."

The others were coming, as they always did, little boys and girls from her years on the streets in the Terminus System, their hard little faces coloured in bruises. Charlaine, Tyzon, Rek, Mathieu, humans and turians and little asari with elderly eyes, their mouths twisted into snarls as they spoke her name with anger instead of sadness. These were her victims, beaten black and blue and bloody for food, water, places to sleep and self defence. She had killed them, or just watched them die, and now they came to taste her blood, crawling out of the rotten depths of her darkest nightmare.

There was Bines and Forlorn, Humphries, Godfrey, Louis and Garland with the chalky dust of Akuze still clinging to their boots and armour. They were so young, she could feel herself weeping at the sight of their strong bodies blasted into bloody shreds, their smooth, immaculate faces turning black and swelling up, tongues jutting, eyes turning black and blind as the blood vessels burst within them. Had she ever been young like them? She looked down at her cut, bleeding body as they joined the throngs pressing in around her and shook her head, wondering. It did not seem possible that she could have ever been as young and as full of stupid fire as they had been.

And then Kaidan, his face surrounded by a halo of dark hair that burnt with a hard white flame and threw no heat. His dark eyes melted, turned to jelly and poured down his face in scalding streams as he lunged and wrapped his powerful arms around her in a crushing iron embrace. Burnt by the bomb on Virmire, his skin blackened and turned split, his lips curled back over his even white teeth as he held her close, muscle melting away, catching fire and burning to ash. What she would have given to have him hold her once, now his touch did nothing but fill her mind with fear and the stench of burning flesh. He clutched her tighter and howled her name, his voice so hard and full of pain it brought tears to her eyes, hot, sharp and stinging. He had only ever called her 'Shepard' in life, but now he joined the others in the dark chorus, "Abhaya, Abhaya, Abhaya."

The rest had no faces, and no names. Soldiers that died at her commands, or as a result of her actions at least, appearing as shapeless black masks on top of featureless Alliance armour. They chanted her name in soft, undulating voices, grasping at her while she broke down and began to scream. As they fell at her feet and drank the blood pouring down her skin from the ragged ribbons of her torn flesh, she screamed and screamed and screamed.

Then came the legion, the thousand faces of those she had killed not through negligence, or savagery, or sacrifice but because she was a soldier and killing was what she was meant to do. Batarians, turians, asari, salarians and humans, pirates, mercenaries, smugglers, drug dealers, murderers, villains and fiends, they poured down the face of the mountain and between the trees in endless waves, all of them wailing and screaming her name. Kaidan's spectre was nothing but a skeleton now, black and dry, crumbling to dust as his grip just continued to grow tighter, until she could draw no more air and she started to choke.

She looked up at the mountain again as her eyes started growing dim, and the slopes were covered with a sea of writhing bodies, each one moving unerringly toward her. She was the centre of this world of the dead, they fought each other in the height of their need to tear her to pieces and lick the blood from their gray, rotting fingers. Through it all she gasped, sobbing, barely fighting now, and accomplishing absolutely nothing. All around her the spectres cried her name, the sheer number of voices drowning out the rest of the world until there was nothing but the sound of her name, twisted by hate and made into an accusation.

"ABHAYA, ABHAYA, ABHAYA."

She had no air left for screaming, or whimpering or even struggling. She was fighting not for freedom, but for another minute of life, a heartbeat, a moment. The darkness was coming, the true darkness, and she opened herself to it, willing it to pour into her, fill her up and carry her away. She wanted to die, she realized, anything was better than enduring another moment of this.

The rain started to fall from the boiling gray sky and she looked down, watching all colour leak out of her skin, her hair darken and turn brittle, her blood go thick and stagnant as swamp water. She was dying. All she had to do was stop fighting and let the terrible darkness of her shadow world consume her. All she had to do was give up.

She woke sweating in her bed, with the glitter of the wards shining through her skylight like a sea of purple stars. There was a moment where she still could not breathe, her eyes stinging from the sheen of cold sweat, her entire body burning with the aftermath of the dream. It had been a nightmare. Only a nightmare, she had forgotten that at some point during her mindless terror among the ghosts of her past. Even in the warmth of her quarters her dreams lingered, a bitter chill in the depths of her muscles. Her lungs hurt. She could taste salt on her lips. Her face seemed to be wet.

"Shepard?" EDI's voice rang through the still air of her quarters as Shepard forced herself up with her right arm, cradling the left in her lap as the still healing shoulder ached sharply. The white orb of light that symbolized EDI flickered at its terminal, as if with concern. "Should I summon the doctor?"

"No." Shepard rasped, her throat raw. "No doctor. I was just... just dreaming."

"You were screaming." The AI informed her placidly.

"I said I was fine," Shepard snapped, pushing herself off the bed onto wobbly legs. She lifted her arm and rotated her shoulder, urging blood to the injured joint. The movement made her fingers tingle with pin and needle sensations as she made her way to the bathroom. "Tell Miranda I want to see her in," she squeezed her eyes closed and tried to think clearly, "half an hour."

EDI paused, her physical manifestation continuing to flicker slightly as processors fired somewhere two decks below.

"As you wish," she said finally, and the orb of white light vanished. Without her silvery lights and the fish tanks pitched dim for the evening cycle her quarters were lit almost entirely by the crimson light of the nebula overhead. She lifted her hands and watched the waves of light wash over them, until they were as red as they had been in her dreams. Shuddering, she made her way to the bathroom to wash the stink of terrified sweat off her golden brown skin.

The hot shower did surprisingly little to warm her blood, and she emerged from the stall shivering in clouds of steam. As she dried her hair with a coarse towel she poked her head out of the bathroom and glanced at the time displayed on her desk, sighing as she realized she had slept the entire day away. With no purpose to strive for, her mind drifted without direction and she spent her days going up and down through the wards, winding pointless circles or just staring listlessly at her computer wondering what to do next. In the end she always slept, for hours beyond what was necessary. Sighing again, she ducked back into the bathroom to brush her hair and scrub her face.

As she applied the few traces of makeup, liner and shadow around her eyes and a touch of blush on the apples of her cheeks, she examined her own reflection, turning her head slightly to the side to get herself in profile. The person across from her moved when she did, when she raised her toothbrush to her mouth the mirror woman did so as well, every movement a perfect mime of her own but she was still a stranger.

It was not just the absence of her crowfeet, or the lack of the gray hairs that had begun showing at each temple. It was not the way her breasts had been toned up, the natural sag and stretch pulled in until she was perky and fresh as she had been in her twenties. Even the scars, which were extensive, were manageable as long as she did not try to show too much skin. Those were the most obvious differences, but in the end they mattered the least. Everything was so different in this body; the only thing that looked familiar to her anymore was her nose, narrow and slightly off-centre, with a prominent boney hook from from countless breaks.

Her cheeks had been round and full throughout most of her life and were sunken and gaunt now, her features grown sharp with tension. Even though the wrinkles around her eyes had been smoothed away while she slept they seemed heavy with the abiding exhaustion that hung heavy as lead in every bone. Her long, curly dark hair had hung to her waist, but something in her long slumber had turned it brittle silver-white and now when it grew past a couple of inches it simply broke off when she brushed it. The light hair was not flattering, it leeched the colour from her skin and made her look all the more wane and sickly. She looked like a walking corpse, which was appropriate she supposed, and it was almost impossible to see any hint of the woman she had been in the haggard, suffering creature who stared back at her out of the mirror.

And then there were the scars.

Vicious things, webbed over her face and forehead, down her neck, across her shoulders, down her back to her waist and then down her legs to her ankles. Naked from her shower every angry inch of them was exposed and she stepped back to get a better look at them. Terrible gashes as thick as her pinky travelled from navel to shoulder blade, intersecting and dividing at random, twisting into knots of pink seams split open over glowing cybernetic muscle implants. Her upper arms were wreathed in lines so jagged they resembled tribal tattoos. Her hips were criss-crossed with thin, exact surgical scars, as was her spinal column and every joint. They fanned out in a pretty pattern across the tops of her feet and the backs of her hands. There was a scar as thick as her wrist that went from the back of her knee all the way up to the small of her back. Every line glowed brilliant, unearthly orange and she sighed as she left the bathroom to avoid looking at the only thing that made her feel more alien than her glowing scars.

Once wide and bright, the colour of liquid chocolate flecked with gold, her eyes had been the lovely centrepiece of her sweet, round face. But that was before. Before the pressure of suffocation had burst the delicate blood vessels and cold had frozen them in her sockets.

Miranda had hand-designed mechanical replacements, lenses and lights installed inside globes of cloned collagen and elastic fibre. In normal light they could almost pass as entirely human if a little too bright and a little too sharp. In dim light they transformed, tiny lights flared to life, lenses pivoted on hinges thin as a human hair, until they reflected every hint of light available. They made her night vision as crisp and clear as any cat's. It also made them look blank, lifeless, disks of pure orange fire, demonic, like nothing human. When they focused on something she could feel the lenses grind and shift, not a painful sensation but when they adjusted themselves to her brightly lit quarters the feeling was enough to send a cold shiver down her spine.

Resolving to ignore her discomfort with her appearance, she was a soldier after all and soldiers did not fuss over scars and wrinkles, she fished out a pair of plain gray military underwear and one of her usual shapeless jumpsuits. She was just getting herself zipped in when her cabin door slid open behind her followed by the clipped ring of high heels on steel. Shepard turned, opening her mouth to speak and was immediately struck dumb by the dark haired femme fatale, who was still putting in one of her silver earrings.

Miranda was wearing a dark violet dress made out of some sort of rippling silk, accented at the waist with curls of silver thread embroidery. It was cut just above her knees and hugged her hips and thighs provocatively. The daring v-neck was held at the base by a silver broach in the shape of a lion's head with flecks of glittering amethyst for eyes. The same purple stones decorated her at throat, wrist and finger. All in all she was ravishing, dressed to kill, and staring at Shepard's jumpsuit with tight-lipped scepticism.

"Tell me you aren't planning on wearing that out tonight." She said, one eyebrow cocked in disbelief. Shepard glanced down at the uniform, looking for a stray mustard stain or fraying hem and finding nothing amiss. It was the same thing she wore every day, black cotton with elastic at the waist to give it a vaguely human shape and snug straps holding it closed at wrist and ankle. Thick pads of carbonized rubber swaddled vulnerable joints and she had her heavy combat boots out, the only things that really fit comfortably on her feet any longer. At the moment she was the exact opposite of ravishing.

"What's happening tonight?" She asked, a frown drawing her eyebrows down over her fierce beak of a nose. She found that any information not directly to related the Reapers and their imminent arrival slipped out of her mind at a shameful rate, in one ear and out the other. She shuffled papers and data pads around on her desk, hunting for the pad that contained her day-to-day schedule. It was hopeless struggle, one she quickly abandoned. Geniuses might work in organized chaos, but Shepard's desk was just a terrible mess. "Did you make me another appointment?"

Miranda made a frustrated sound at the back of her throat and put her hands on her hips. When she pursed her lips and her dark blue eyes burned with angry fire Shepard could have sworn that the other woman was the one in charge. She resisted the urge to strike a salute and instead focused on looking bashful and a little bit ashamed, all the better to spur Miranda past the disapproving stage to the point where she would actually reveal what was going on.

"It's the party tonight, Shepard." Every word was laced with exasperation. "You promised me you wouldn't forget. You swore."

"I didn't forget," Shepard insisted, shambling down to her living area and collapsing onto her couch and crossing her ankle over her knee. She wanted to slap herself for forgetting. "I mean, not right away. I got the room and the bar set up, made sure there would be lots of privacy, security, I even went and looked at the decorations. Everything is all set up, I just forgot when it stopped being important. Go get drunk and have fun, we'll talk when you've slept off your hangover."

Miranda did not move a muscle. It was a terrible omen.

"No," she said, steel in her voice. Shepard knew the other woman well enough to recognize when she had made a decision. She felt her stomach clench in terrible anticipation, she already knew what was coming. "You are going to that party Shepard, if I have to drag you there by your hair. And you will drink and dance and stumble around, if you have to do it all with a gun to your head."

"I don't have anything to wear." She tried, shifting uncomfortably. There was no reasoning with Miranda when she got that look, and Shepard had always been glad not to have that look directed at her. Shepard squirmed under the heat of the other woman's glare, and shot to her feet as Miranda took a step toward her.

"You can borrow something of mine." The dark haired woman countered, as they circled each other around the narrow coffee table.

"The day I fit my ass in your pants is the day I teach Grunt to dance ballet." Shepard snorted, very amused at the idea she could wedge herself in to any of Miranda's skin-tight getups.

"I know just the thing for you; it'll bring out the colour of your hair and fit your ass just fine. Trust me." There was an angry snap to the other woman's step now, dark energy licking up the curves of her smooth white legs and the folds of her silken dress. "Now stop stalling or we're going to be late."

"I'm no good at parties." She tried another tactic as Miranda attempted to dart around the corner of the table and grab her arm. She scrambled away, up the shallow set of stairs that connected her living area with her office. Miranda was wearing a pair of dangerously high heels, the strappy, sexy kind often referred to as 'fuck me pumps', but they did not seem to be doing much to slow her down. She chased Shepard up the stairs as the commander considered making a run for the elevator. "I never know what to say, and I made every awkward situation a hundred times more awkward. I'll just kill everyone's buzz."

"You're a hero Shepard. You could slur, spill your drink and splatter puke down everyone's front and they would probably thank you for the honour of your company." Her eyes blazed as she cut off the escape route to the door, cornering Shepard between her bathroom and her crowded desk. "Except Jack, and Zaeed, and probably Grunt." She paused for a moment, her lips turning white they were pressed together so hard. "You're still going."

"But Miranda-" She began, her voice creeping to a range that was suspiciously akin to whining.

"No buts!" Miranda insisted, slicing the air with one hand as the other seized her by the arm and gave her a little push toward the door. "If you want to keep these people loyal without offering them competitive wages or job security you better be ready to make inspiring appearances and get close to them. At times like this they need to believe that you really know them, and that you really care."

"I do care." Shepard insisted as she was ushered into the elevator. "But how is getting drunk and making a fool of myself going to convince people I'm a great leader, worthy of following? I've had plenty of excellent CO's who never puked on me."

"Everyone drinks too much and makes a fool of themselves sometimes," Miranda sniffed as she punched the button for the Crew Deck. She was on high alert, lest the commander attempt to escape to the engineering deck. She need not have worried; Shepard had more or less accepted her fate at this point. "And everyone knows you're a great leader. Now you need to prove how much of a human being you are."

The cheery ding of the elevator arriving at its intended floor did nothing to lighten the sudden sombre mood that had descended upon her. She could admit, at a grudgingly reasonable level, that what Miranda was saying made sense. She gave the other woman a searching look, trying to decode the fierce set of her shoulders and the dark spark smouldering in her eyes. If someone had told her a month ago that Miranda would be arguing to keep her in command of a warship they had stolen from Cerberus she would have died laughing.

"Take that thing off." Miranda ordered, when the doors to her office had slid closed behind them. She went to her drawers and pulled a couple of them open, rummaging through bright slips of silk and cotton.

"Oh Miranda, I always thought our first time would be more tender than that." Shepard chided as she grabbed the zipper of her jumpsuit and tugged it down to her waist. Miranda took one look at the gray cotton underwear she was wearing and dug to the bottom of her drawer, tossing her a set of black lingerie with the tags still attached.

"Shut up. Put those on while I find a shirt for you." She ordered, and Shepard obeyed with military instinct, stripping naked and pulling on the frilly underwear. The bra was a nightmare of wire and lace; it pushed her breasts up and together, giving her a long, gratuitous line of golden cleavage. She glanced the full length mirror hanging on the wall and had to give the other woman credit. The bra pinched and scraped her skin something fierce, but it made her look pretty alright, even with the scars.

Miranda threw a pair of black pants at her next, and Shepard kicked her feet into them without being told. She discovered they were leather and they laced up the front with a tangle of silver cord rather than the infinitely simpler fly. She had to exhale until her stomach and lungs ached sharply so she could get them done up properly. The shirt Miranda chose for her was silver as well, with thick straps that covered most of the scarring across her shoulders. It also did not have any sleeves, so the thick scars on her upper arms glittered, a splash of ruddy orange against her monotone elegance. Miranda had a solution for that too, a light, fluttering cashmere sweater that wrapped around her waist and tied at the hip. Next was a pair of leather pumps, half a size too small for her feet but mercifully lower than Miranda's own towering heels. A thin silver chain was looped around her neck, and a thick bracelet found its way onto her wrist, engraved with flowers, each petal a flake of polished jet.

Miranda paused, laying one finger against her chin and she looked her commanding officer up and down with a critical eye. Finally, she nodded with approval. "You clean up alright, Shepard." She commented, taking her at the elbow and pulling her back toward the elevator. She paused for only a moment, to spritz them both with a vanilla and jasmine perfume from a fancy crystal bottle on her night stand.

"I guess I should technically say thank you." Shepard said, as the elevator inched its way up to the Command Deck.

Miranda checked her makeup in a compact mirror, dabbing a little extra blush on the apples of her cheeks. The sideways look she shot her commander was lean and decidedly unhappy. She turned back to the mirror, wiping a stray smear of mascara away. "You could say thank you," she said after a moment, "if you felt like it. I would be happy to let you cloister yourself in that room and forget all about us, but no one is going to follow me across the galaxy with nothing but a noble cause and handful of promises as payment."

Shepard felt her eyes soften, as much as chips of glass and metal wire could soften, as guilt sunk its cold claws into her stomach and gave a harsh pull. She had been acting irresponsibly, shutting herself up and sleeping the hours away when she should have been putting in face time or lending a hand to the rebuilding of the Normandy. She shifted uncomfortably and rubbed the back of her neck as the borrowed shoes pinched her toes mercilessly.

"Sorry," Shepard said after a moment, "I know I haven't been at my best. It's just… it's just…" Her words seemed to stick in her throat, growing heavy and awkward as she tried to articulate the frustration and exhaustion that she had been attempting to cope with the past three and a half weeks, while the Normandy was hammered and screwed back together all around her.

The doors slid open as they arrived on the Command Deck, cutting her explanation short as a wave of noise broke over them. A small crowd had gathered around the galaxy map, everyone dressed to the nines and ready for a night on the town. Every station was empty as everyone aboard had been excused for the wildly anticipated victory celebration. Half the crew milled about outside the elevator, and every one of them turned to look at Shepard as she stepped out of the elevator feeling naked and cold. Whistles and appreciative shouts came from the swarm of happy faces assembled around them and she felt a tiny bit of her apprehension relax.

"Damn Shepard." Jacob appeared suddenly at her elbow as she headed for the airlock. He was wearing stylish gray pants and brightly coloured dress shirt without a tie, the first three buttons left open to reveal the first slopes of his perfectly muscled chest. "I wasn't even counting on you to show."

"Miranda reminded me that I have responsibilities." She put on a smile, which required only a little bit of effort and shrugged in a way that she hoped would come off as carefree. "And tonight I chose to believe that those responsibilities lie hidden at the bottom of a bottle of bourbon."

Jacob laughed as they reached the rapid transit terminal and piled into the waiting vehicle. Miranda's tight skirt and heels combo making her exit from the cab twenty minutes later so undignified that Shepard had to dart into the club ahead of them, muffling her laughter into her hand. Jacob stayed to give her a supportive hand, his poker face much more solid than hers. As she made her way to the back, offering her thumb to the guard with the print scanner who stood outside the VIP room she caught snatches of raucous laughter escaping from behind the heavy wooden door. The guard waved her through and someone pulled the door open for her from the other side, releasing a blast of body heat and conversation. The room was already full of crew members taking advantage of the opportunity to get stinking drunk on top-shelf liquor for free.

"Shepard!" Her name cut the confusing jumble of noise, making her jump and almost stumble in her unfamiliar heels. She turned just far enough to catch sight of Grunt before he made contact, his arms curling around her like bands of steel, crushing her flat against his chest. Her feet kicked ineffectually around his knees as she gasped for breath. "They said you weren't coming, that you were too busy working, but I knew you would."

"Oh." Shepard managed, knowing she should be flattered by the krogan's unwavering faith in her, but unable to think beyond a sudden, desperate need for oxygen. Grunt was crushing her harder against his chest by the second, her lungs flattening as she squeaked for breath.

"A good battlemaster always shares victory with their soldiers." The alcohol clinging to his breath was potent as a slap to the face, and she could feel the neck of a bottle digging into the small of her back as he tightened his hold on her. "They didn't believe me, but here you are."

"Grunt, it's not that I don't appreciate the sentiment," she squeaked, "but I… can't breathe."

"What? Oh." He dumped her back on her feet, letting go so suddenly that she almost went down on her knees right there. As she teetered, trying to regain her stability he laughed and slapped one huge hand against her shoulder, sending her crashing to the floor. The sight of her gasping for air at his feet just made him laugh harder. "Are you drunk already Shepard? I bet you are! Somebody get Shepard a glass of ryncol, she needs to keep her buzz going!"

She pushed herself up to her hands and knees as the bar tender gave the young krogan dubious looks. She was busy trying to get a handle on her mounting fury when a scaly green hand appeared in the air before her, shimmering in the dim light. She looked up into a pair of black eyes and a fine-boned face twisted into an expression of pure bemusement.

Thane helped her to his feet, something she found she needed while her feet were encased uselessly in the leather pumps Miranda had foisted on her. Her brief flirtation with the idea that dressing up and going out could be fun was thoroughly over. She wanted a shotgun and a knife, so she could shoot Grunt in the face and take his head plates as a trophy. The krogan was busy gulping from his bottle of ryncol, but when he finished he held it out to her expectantly.

"Perhaps Zaeed would care to join you for a drink?" Thane offered quietly as she dusted herself off. Getting her guts torn up by alien liquor was not high on her to-do list. He indicated the private table where the weathered mercenary was talking to Jack, completely oblivious to the altercation taking place at the door. Grunt burped in response, and lumbered off on unsteady feet.

"Thanks," she said, keeping her voice pitched low as crew members streamed through the door behind them. Thane drew her out of the flow of foot traffic, toward the massive semi-circular bar and its massive backlit shelves packed full of liquor. Jacob had beaten them to it, and he glided past them with a tray full of shots, heading for where Miranda was talking to a crew member in a pretty red dress. "I never know how to handle drunk people."

"It is a subtle art," Thane said solemnly, "generally I find it best to pretend they really are stupid as the alcohol makes them seem." He watched her adjust her borrowed clothing, attempting to pick hair and dust off the sleeves of her sweater. "Are you well?"

"Well enough," she assured him, "krogan affection hits like a sack of hammers."

They moved slowly across the empty dance floor as she rubbed at her aching ribs. The crew was not quite drunk enough to get the dancing started. They stood in small conversational groups, or sat in the comfortable leather booths nailed to the surrounding walls. There was a moment of silence, as they reached the bar and Shepard climbed awkwardly onto one of the high stools, her heels making even that unaccountably difficult. Thane extended a hand to help her, but she waved it away after a moment. Wearing high heels might make her a lady, but damned if she was going to act like one.

"What can I get you two?" The turian working the bar asked, his mandible vibrating in a friendly manner as they made themselves comfortable. Shepard crossed her legs as she thought, readjusting the folds of her sweater as she glanced at the hundreds of bottles lined up behind him. She did not recognize a single one.

"Bourbon," she said after a moment, "two fingers, straight up." When in doubt, she went with the tried and true. She had been drinking bourbon since she was sixteen.

"Quoaky." Thane placed his own order as the bar tender pulled a glass tumbler from below the bar and set it in front of her on a folded napkin. "Poured over mattat leaves and crushed ice."

Shepard turned the napkin over in her hand. It was blood red; it matched the table clothes and the huge alien flowers being used as centre pieces. She glanced around at the red and black streamers hanging from the ceiling, the red lights spinning across the dance floor, the red shimmer of the granite bar top under her hand. The TRIUMPH package certainly had a solid colour scheme going. She watched as the turian poured a generous two fingers of clear, amber liquor into her glass from a bottle labelled with nothing but four stylized roses and a very good year. She inhaled the smell of oak and strong drink as the tender produced another tumbler, packing the bottom of it with bright violet leaves.

"Is that a drell alcohol?" She asked with interest, as the tender ground a mortar around the glass three times and piled crushed ice on top. She reached for a bowl of snacks before she realized they were labelled 'dextro'. Thane nudged a safe bowl toward her with one elbow as the tender poured a stream of tropical blue liquid into the glass. The smell was warm and intoxicating, heavy with alien scents that she had no names for.

"Asari." He answered. "But drell like to drink it with mattat, a spice we brought with us from Rakhana." The deep purple juices of the mattat swirled at the bottom of his glass as he lifted it off the bar, mingling prettily with the brilliant, shimmering blue of the quoaky.

"It looks good," she commented, "but let me guess, it'll rape my liver and cut up my stomach if I try it?" Alien liquor had this terrible habit of killing humans who drank it.

"Not at all," Thane assured her holding out the glass, "it's quite palatable to humans, actually. You can try some if you like." The quoaky was served cold and she could see beads of perspiration already running down the sides of the tumbler. Her mouth watered and she shrugged, nudging her own glass in his direction as she accepted his. They both drank.

"Oh my." Shepard breathed, and took another long sip. The juice and alcohol were almost fully mixed now, turning the drink a dusky shade of violet. The choking sweetness of the quoaky was tempered by the sharp spice of the mattat juice. As she lowered the glass again her lips and nose began to tingle, as though she had just bitten into a fresh ginger root. She savoured the rich, deep aroma of the cocktail before she passed it back to its original owner. "It's delicious."

"I wish I could say the same about your bourbon." He replied pleasantly. "It tastes like old wood and burnt toast to me."

"Oh, it's like that for everyone. Bourbon is an acquired taste," she assured him as she drained what was left in the bottom of the glass. She grinned at the puzzled expression on his face, the glass frozen half way to his lips as he pondered that statement.

"I see." He said, in the 'humans are crazy' tone she heard so much. She laughed openly, feeling the spreading warmth of the alcohol loosening some of the knots social anxiety had tied in her stomach. She signalled to the tender with her empty glass and he whisked it away under the bar with one hand, while the other found a clean replacement.

"Another?" He asked smoothly. Shepard considered for a moment and shook her head.

"Nah, gimme one of those co-aki things." She said as Thane downed what was left in his glass and nodded when the tender asked if he would like a refill. When he moved to stow the bottle back on the shelf Shepard waved him off. It was not too large, and if she was going to be a dutiful soldier and follow Miranda's 'get drunk and puke on everyone' plan she needed to get some serious drinking done.

"I meant to thank you." He said, after the bar tender had moved away, leaving them with a little glass jar of extra leaves as well as the tall, slim bottle of asari alcohol. She raised a questioning eyebrow at him and he nodded to her tender shoulder. "How is your arm?"

"What are you talking about the dislocation?" She asked, rotating her shoulder in broad circles to demonstrate how well-healed it was. It only stung a little bit, and she was pretty sure she managed to hide that from Thane. "Good as new. A dislocation is nothing; if you'd torn my rotator cuff, now then you'd owe me some thank you's."

Thinking back on the lair of the human reaper still had the power to make Shepard sick to her stomach. Her memories of the collector ship were dark, chaotic things full of the ozone and burnt-flesh stink of the colossal monstrosity. She barely remembered fighting it, though Miranda assured her she had run out of clips and thrown her pistol at the damn thing. She did remember Thane, slipping backwards over the platform as it slowly ground sideways over the great pit where the reaper burned with an oily red flame. She did not remember throwing herself after him, only the slither of polished steel under her belly, the outline of his hand stretching out to her, five feet away, then two, then one, and then the touch of his fingers before she lost her grip and he went sliding away again, over the edge. She did not remember reaching over the edge for him, but she remembered the pain, stabbing up her arm, exploding into her shoulder as the jerk of his weight wrenched the joint from its socket. Her fingers around his had not even twitched; they were a ring of steel until she pulled him to the (relative) safety of the stabilizing platform.

She realized he was shaking his head as he pulled something from the pocket of his jacket, holding it out to her. It was an envelope, she realized after a moment, made from thick, cream-coloured paper. She felt it experimentally, and found something about the size of a pea at one corner.

"I don't know human customs very well," he admitted, "but among the drell it is customary to exchange gifts when one wishes to thank another. Thank you, Shepard. For saving my life and for what you did for Kolyat."

"Oh. That's very generous of you, Thane." She looked down at the envelope in her hand, suddenly uneasy. She would have hated the idea of a human team mate spending any money on her, but she did not want to offend him so she tore the end of the envelope open with one finger. "If I was being polite by the standards of human culture I would tell you that this wasn't necessary. But… thank you."

She tilted the envelope to the side and a thin metal chain slithered out into her waiting hand. She held it up, letting it catch the light and sparkle in her hands. The metal gleamed with a curious green tint, and there was a charm, a little round gemstone that shone brilliant, fiery orange. It was the same shade as her eyes, she realized, and her scars.

"It's beautiful." She said, as she turned the tiny stone over in her palm and watched the light dance over its surface. It looked like a piece of a star, like it should be hot to the touch instead of as pleasantly cool as it was.

"The chain is green silver from Rakhana." Thane told her, watching as she pulled it over her head. "The gem is called an 'Eye of Arashu' one of my people's precious stones. The drell no longer visit our planet, save for religious pilgrimage, but there are those who have mined what beauty it has left to offer." He nodded his approval as she tucked the tiny orange stone into her shirt. The chain was so long that it hung down between her breasts. "The Eye should rest beside your heart," he explained, "so that you will always be granted the clear sight of the goddess of the just."

"I don't know what to say." She confessed, suddenly uncomfortable. She could not recall ever having received something that was half as beautiful. Even Cerberus' 'gift' of a second chance at life had come with a wealth of bitter consequences and strings attached. The stone glimmering between the curves of her breasts was untainted by any such unhappiness, it was just a drop of beauty in a galaxy that kept getting uglier every day.

"Then say nothing." Thane replied. "Nothing is needed. It is a small token compared to all you have given me."

He raised his glass to her and she smiled, lifting her own in response. They both drank, draining the tumblers down the dregs. The mattat was so strong it made her eyes water, but she refilled both their glasses from the bottle on the table and they drank again, talking about small, unimportant things. He was enjoying 'Death in the Afternoon', the book she had lent him last week and she was almost finished the 'The Two Horizons', the poetry collection he had lent her in return. They drank more, and Shepard found herself laughing openly as her head began to swim, her vision clouding. Even Thane was less stoic than usual, smiling broadly and leaning against the bar on his elbows as she told him about the time she had totally right-hooked that smug reporter.

"Shepard!" She almost did not hear her name, it was pick anything out of the steadily mounting wall of noise the crew was producing as they grew steadily more drunk. It was hard to miss the sudden appearance of a thickly muscled arm around her neck, pulling her firmly against Jacob's side. He was feeling merry, already much merrier than her, and almost dragged her off the stool as he grinned at her. "I've been looking for you."

"Not very hard, I guess." Shepard commented as she reached for her half-finished drink. The bottle of quoaky was half gone, and she could not remember if this was her fourth or fifth glass. A bad sign. "I've been sitting right here all night."

"Well, come have a drink with us." The lieutenant insisted as he threw his arm out in a sweeping gesture that encompassed the entire club. "Krios can't keep you to himself all night."

"As much as I might wish it were otherwise, Mr. Taylor is correct." Thane admitted. He extended one hand as she attempted to get off the stool, which seemed to have become two miles high. After a moment of hesitation she took it, and let him help her to the ground. Her head was actively swimming now, her vision wavering a little bit and she grabbed hold of Jacob's arm to steady herself.

"Thanks again, Thane. Enjoy your night." She gestured for him to have free reign of the bottle of quoaky and he smiled at her in response, draining what was left in his glass. She thought she could feel his eyes on her as she stumbled away, arm in arm with Jacob, but when she glanced back over her shoulder he was just pouring himself another drink.

The booth Jacob had claimed for himself was piled high with empty shot glasses, tumblers and a couple delicate wine carafes, all of them bone dry. Kelly was reclining with her head cushioned on Kenneth's lap, her brown silk dress hiked up far enough to expose most of her freckled thighs. Gabriella was fussing over her constant companions' hair, pushing the lazy red curls out of his eyes.

"Look what I found." Jacob said, though Shepard could not be sure if he meant her or the bottle of tequila that he popped down in the centre of the table. The forest of salt shakers and lime peels scattered across the table said that they had downed at least one bottle already.

"Shepard," Kelly cried, extending two slender white hands in her direction. "I fell down, but neither of these assholes will help me up. You'll help me, won't you?"

Shepard laughed, happy to collapse back into a steady seat. She grasped the drunken woman's hands and hauled her upright, where she teetered for a moment before slumping back against her commander. She laughed breathlessly and clawed at a few shot glasses, trying to get them lined up properly in front of them. "I knew I could count on you," she confided happily, "you're my hero."

"Yeah, yeah Kelly." Gabriella cut in, licking the back of her hand and salting it liberally. She passed the salt shaker to Kenneth, who seemed to be having a difficult time dragging his eyes away from the long tracks of milky white skin still being exposed by Kelly's skirt. "Less kiss-assing, more shot pouring."

"You wish you could kiss this ass Gabby." Shepard shot back, not even thinking about how wildly inappropriate that was. Quoaky inspired a light headed, euphoric drunk that was more like the high one got from really good marijuana or salarian gorba berries. She was still mostly lucid, but she felt incredibly mellow and friendly. Her companions laughed, which was a good sign.

"A few more shots and that might be true," Gabriella replied glibly, "but I won't know for sure until Kelly pours the damn things."

Kelly managed to pour the shots, only spilling a little bit, as Jacob passed her a salt shaker. She hesitated, a few vague memories of tequila-soaked nights in command school surfacing. She sighed and shrugged after a moment, salting her hand anyway. This was supposed to be a night of liberation and freedom from usual restrictions.

I'm going to regret this. She thought, before she licked the salt off her hand and lifted the shot glass to her lips. She had to grit her teeth against the fierce sting of the tequila, sucking hard on the lime wedge Kelly passed her. The taste of it was completely overpowering, and the alcohol went straight to her head with the force of a bag full of bricks.

"Oh Jesus," she swore quietly, muffling her quiet coughing into her hand. "I forgot how much tequila fucks me up."

"It's supposed to," Jacob laughed and threw his ravaged peel at her. She tried to slap it out of the air and missed completely; it struck her in the forehead and tumbled down between her breasts. He rocked with laughter as he leant forward and refilled the glass in front of her. "Take another."

"God have mercy," she tried to wave him away, "I can't."

Jacob grinned and downed it himself with no problem, to hoots of laughter and support from their drinking partners. He was still grinning as a few tears pushed their way past his thick lashes and trickled down his cheeks. He laughed and reached for another lime wedge. "Finally, something that someone can do better than Shepard."

"Oh, whatever Taylor," she scoffed. If she had been a bit more sober she probably would have recognized the transparency of his clumsy reverse-psychology or caught the glint in his eye that bespoke mischief. She had been able to drink men twice her size under the table in command school and keep going with no problem, swigging cheap tequila straight out of the bottle with no lime or salt in sight. "You wish you could keep pace with me."

"That's a lot of talk for someone who could barely stomach a single shot." He replied, raising one eyebrow at her. "You've gotten all soft, Shepard."

"Shut your mouth and pour me a shot," she replied, "in fact, pour me two." He decision was met with a roar of approval as she shook a generous amount of salt over the back of her hand. She accepted the two shots and downed them back to back, grimacing at the taste, before she reached for another slice of lime. Her head swam, and kept right on swimming as Jacob pulled her through another five rounds.

She managed to escape with the flimsy pretence of needing to use the bathroom while Jacob went for more tequila. The world was lurching underfoot and she did her best not to stumble as she picked her way past tables packed with crew members engaged in a whole spectrum of drinking games, some of which she had never even seen before. A few people had made their way on to the dance floor, most of them still clutching drinks in one hand. She made sure to avoid them, since being coerced into dancing was the last thing in the world she wanted. She caught a whisper of familiar laughter and turned, realizing that she had been standing unsteadily just a foot and a half away from the booth that Garrus and Tali were sharing along with the bottle of foamy dextro alcohol.

"Shepard," Tali greeted her, the mechanized purr of her voice decidedly sober and cautious, "you're..."

"Shitfaced." Shepard supplied helpfully. "Totally fucking shitfaced." She collapsed into the booth beside Garrus, careful to avoid toppling into his lap like Kelly and Donnely. She had a feeling that if she went down now she would have just as much trouble sitting up again.

"Impressively so," Garrus confirmed, laughing. The metal casing on the right side of his face shimmered in the reddish light and she leaned heavily against the table. All attempts to make the world stop turning slowly around her, to organize her scattered thoughts into workable concepts, to force herself to act in a more dignified and sober fashion completely failed. In the end, she just smiled at the two of them.

"I love you guys." She confessed, pulling her legs up against her chest and wrapping her arms around them. "I don't want to talk about anything serious. I just want to be with you."

They talked about vids, teasing Garrus mercilessly for his love of Vaenia, the new salarian councillor and his worship of the turian jerk, Samara's armour and made wild estimates regarding the dollar amount of the alcohol that everyone was knocking back. Shepard was willing to bet she had scored a major deal on the open bar setup. By the time they had begun to run out of entertaining conversation topics and Shepard pushed herself up to a standing position she was measurably more sober. At this point she was less 'shitfaced' and more 'hammered' or even 'plastered'. She tipped an imaginary hat at her two companions, who were just reaching the bottom of their bottle.

"Take advantage of the bar, you two." She ordered, drawing her face up into a scowl that made both of them laugh. "I paid for it, so you better be slobbering drunk next time I see you or you'll both be pulling sanitation duties until I stop being offended."

"A terrifying threat," Tali replied. It was impossible to garner the slightest hint of emotion from her, her luminous white eyes shining bright as ever behind the opaque glass of her helmet. There seemed to be the slightest hitch to her voice, the first traces of drunkenness, but it was almost impossible to tell.

"I do hate sanitation." Garrus confirmed, slamming back what was left in his glass. The turian was just as impartial as the quarian at the moment, but Shepard was willing to bet that was just because he was not actually drunk at all. At least not yet. "I guess we'd better be faithful and obedient soldiers."

"That's what I like to hear," Shepard slurred, "I'm going to see to it someone gives you a medal Vakarian." She punched him lightly on his armoured forearm and took her leave, tossing a salute over her shoulder at them as Garrus leaned forward to refill Tali's glass. He said something the commander could not hear and the high, tinkling notes of quarian laughter followed her around the dance floor to the next occupied booth. Zaeed looked up as she approached, taking in the wobbling steps and uncharacteristic slouch without expression. Jack grinned, scooting over a few inches to make room for her.

"What are you drinking?" She asked, as she took the seat, feeling her toe strike something huge and sedentary underneath the table. When she lifted the cloth she found Grunt passed out, snoring quietly, with his bottle of ryncol still clutched in one massive hand.

"Baxurz." Jack replied, giving her glass a nudge in Shepard's direction. She exchanged a devilish look with Zaeed, her usually hard, angry face flushed, her eyes glittering. "It's batarian. Try it."

She regretted it the moment she did, but Jack and Zaeed were clearly anticipating that so she forced herself to down it. It was ten times as bitter as anything she had ever tasted before, thick as oil and it burned with a painful intensity. She drained the glass and set it calmly back down in front of Jack, forcing her roiling stomach to remain in where it was. At the moment it felt like it was trying to climb back up her throat. Zaeed and Jack waited for a moment, clearly expecting a sudden spray of vomit. When it did not appear Jack laughed and slumped back in her seat with her hands folded over her stomach.

"Not bad." Shepard rasped, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand.

"It tastes like garbage water," Jack replied, "but it gets the job done. I don't think I've seen anyone down baxurz like that. At least, no one who lived through the night."

"It's a little like ryncol," Zaeed chimed in, his broad face splitting into a grin. "Too much'll cut your stomach up at the same time as it kills your brain. I was drinking baxurz on Omega once-"

"Shut the fuck up old man," Jack cut in, "no one wants to hear you ramble." They glared at each other for a moment and Sober Shepard hoped she was not going to have to play referee for her crew members again. Drunken Shepard was actually kind of interested in who would win if the two of them went head to head. The two of them continued to glare at each other, their lips twitching as they resisted the urge to smile.

Well, fuck, DrunkenShepard thought glumly. I should probably go puke this up or something. But fuck them, I won't give them the satisfaction of being right. If I puke blood and die, that'll show these bastards.

Sober Shepard, hidden deep underneath the tequila and baxurz, thought that there was something faulty with that reasoning, but nobody was listening to her at the moment. She leaned back in the booth, tearing her eyes away from the ceiling. She was beginning to see double, two mouths grinning at her out of Jacks face, four pairs of eyes studying her as she attempted to force her eyes to work properly.

"I feel fine." She lied.

"You won't for long, daft bitch." Zaeed assured her. She chose to ignore that, and turned to Jack instead.

"I didn't think you'd be here," she said trying to sound completely sober. She was not sure how well she succeeded, but the other woman did not start laughing immediately so she figured she was in the clear. "I just mean... you laughed at me when I asked you if you wanted to come."

"Well you didn't mention the whole 'open bar' part of it when you asked me." Jack shot back. She gave the commander a rough shove on the shoulder that sent her reeling. The tattooed woman rocked with laughter, raising her glass to her lips and taking a tiny sip of the clear hard alcohol. "Free booze would get me to the cheerleaders wedding shower. And to her funeral three days later."

Shepard disguised her chuckled with the back of her hand, while Zaeed laughed outright. Sober Shepard was extremely disappointed in her, and reminded her that eventually she would need to deal with the Jack/Miranda thing before there were any impromptu beheadings in the mess hall. Those were thoughts six hundred times more complex than what she was capable of at the moment. She eyed the bottle suspiciously as Zaeed offered her another drink.

"I don't think that's a good idea." She said finally, waving his hand away. "I'm mixing liquor like a motherfucker all ready."

"I saw," Jack commented. She sounded like she was impressed, which made Drunken Shepard very proud. If her iron liver could impress Jack then she must be doing something right. Or wrong. Or... whatever. "I never guess you could be so liberated."

"Speaking of liberated-" Zaeed began.

"I told you to shut the fuck up." Jack cut him off again, grinning wildly across the table at him. They glared at each other for a long moment and Shepard shifted uncomfortably. It was not that she did not like Jack, she did, and even Zaeed had his own sort of abrasive charm but the two of them together were charging the air with sinister energy. Being plastered was not helping either. She looked between the two of them as their eye contact lengthened and their glares melted down into dangerous smiles.

"I'm ah... going to go over... there." She said, pointing in a vague direction. Now that she had finally clued in to it the sexual tension between them was thick enough to cut with a knife. She sidled out of the booth and remembered why one of the cardinal rules of alcohol was to drink standing up. She nearly fell over sideways as the world pitched and shifted under her heels. She steadied herself with one hand on the table top as the two of them smirked at her.

Jack gave her a look that said 'finally' and lifted a hand in the same general direction. "Have fun with that." She said, her eyes smouldering as she turned back to Zaeed. The two of them were circling each other like lions, neither wanting to strike first but both of them desperate to make the kill.

"Yeah. Well. I just wanted to say... thanks for almost dying, it was a big help." Shepard said, before scampering away, carefully skirting the dance floor and avoiding any eye contact with those engaged on it. She saw Miranda and Jacob together, both holding glasses of something she could not identify. It appeared that Miranda had graduated from wine to something harder, and her dancing gave credence to the notion.

Shepard bit her lip and glanced at the door, wondering if she could make her escape while the jailor was occupied. She had made an appearance, she had gotten exactly as drunk as recommended and she was hoping that she could avoid the whole dancing thing.

"Shepard."

She gave a little screech and jumped as Thane melted out of the shadows of the booth she had been leaning on. He caught her by the elbow as she teetered dangerously in her ungainly shoes. She ended up leaning against him, laughing breathlessly. The world was spinning in slow circles around her head, her limbs felt loose and watery as they curled around him for support.

"You're very cool." She said, running her hand up his arm.

His grass-green skin was rough when she ran her hand up his arm and smooth, almost silky, when she ran it back down. His shirt was pushed up to his elbows and she could see where the black scales that ran along his forearms splintered into jagged stripes and disappeared under the light cloth. All of him, the skin against her hand, the solid bulk of covered muscle pressed against her, was pleasantly cool to the touch. He smelled good, a mixture of spices too exotic to recognize, and being so close made her nose tingle when she inhaled.

She really knew she was drunk now, if there had ever been a question of it. Touchy-feely was not a term anyone used to describe her, yet here she was running her hand up and down Thane's arm, leaning close against him, thinking about how good he smelled.

Luckily, Thane seemed to have finished off the bottle of quoaky for her and did not mind her overly familiar ministrations. On the contrary, he raised one hand and brushed her cheek with the pads of his fingers.

"And you are very hot." He commented softly. His eyes were inscrutable pools of shadow that drank the light from the air. She gazed up into them as his fingers lingered, sliding up along the curve of her jaw to her hairline. "Burning hot."

She could see herself reflected in his eyes and realized with dismay that the dim light had activated the mechanics of her eyes. They were glowing, hot and orange, bright as two fiery coins.

Thane did not seem to mind as he touched a single silver curl before dropping his hand. The innocent gestures suddenly felt intimate enough to bring a splash of colour to her cheeks, but she could not seem to break the eye contact that was holding them together. She realized that she was pressed up against his chest, her arms still gripping him rather tightly. She could feel his breath on her face, warm with the scent of quoaky and mattat.

"Will you walk me back to the ship?" Shepard asked suddenly. She dropped her arms and shifted her weight back on her heels, but did not move away from him. In any other circumstance, she might be uncomfortable with the invasion of her cherished personal space, but she found herself wanting to be alone with him. She liked her time alone with Thane, even when she was sober and sitting across a table from him, talking about Ernest Hemingway or the drell poet he liked, Lorath Atheta. "I need some air, and dancing doesn't suit me."

"Of course, Shepard." He said politely, and seemed to shake himself before he finally stepped away from her. She could see him deliberately avoid her eyes as he held out one elbow for her.

Something about stepping out of armour and uniform had transformed her suddenly into a woman, and everyone was eager to treat her like one. It probably should have annoyed her, but she was grateful for a solid arm in the turbulence of her drunken world. She glanced around the room once more as they made their way to the door.

Jacob was whispering something in Miranda's ear and she was looking absolutely sultry as she whispered back. A few other dancers had paired off and were exchanging promising looks. Zaeed and Jack were gone from their booth, where Grunt was still snoozing under the table. Shepard would have worried, but part of the VIP room price was a guarantee that they would see all overly inebriated patrons safely home.

Tali's laughter could be heard over even the din of the music as Garrus said something while refilling her glass. She was glad the two of them had loosened up as much as she had, and felt suspicion rising as she caught the way Garrus' mandibles kept twitching when he looked at the young quarian. She made a drunken mental note to berate him mercilessly later.

For now, they moved through the door and Thane gently nudged the patrons of the main bar away. A moment later, they emerged into the constant, artificial neon light of the wards. She took a few deep breaths, attempting to sober herself.

"Are you well, Shepard?" Thane asked. He was drunk, she knew, but not nearly as drunk as she was.

Shepard nodded, swallowing hard and forcing the worst of the haze away from the corners of her vision. It worked, at least somewhat, and she cleared her throat. Her mouth made the decision before her brain even realized considering it, "It's Jane."

"I'm sorry?" He asked, sounding politely confused. He always did everything politely, and she felt her forehead crease as they moved forward into the crowds of shoppers and partygoers that crowded the wide boulevards of the ward.

"My name. It's Jane. You still have to call me Commander or Shepard or whatever during missions and all, but for now it's Jane." She was not sure why she was telling him that. It was probably the work of Drunken Shepard.

"Jane." Thane said slowly, tasting the name as though it were exotic and new instead of the definition of plain. "I like that. It is much more musical than Shepard. Or Commander."

She had to laugh. She had never thought she would hear someone call her fake name musical.

"What does it mean?" He asked, as they continued to move through the crowds.

It was hard to ignore the stares from those who recognized her as the Savior of the Citadel or the Butcher of Torfan. It was impossible to ignore the twenty-foot tall image of her face that flashed above the ward as a Citadel journalist report that she had been spotted 'carousing' with her 'wild crew of misfits' at Dark Star. She just laughed again, shaking her head, too full of liquid bliss to be bothered by the attention.

"Jane? It means 'gods grace'." She explained as the reporter made a disapproving face and clucked her tongue. The stern noise boomed across the wards, and Shepard thought it sounded ridiculous, like a giant chicken. She laughed again. "What about Thane? Humans use that name too, did you know? It means 'landholder'." Shepard had spent enough sleepless nights pouring through old books to pick up a few odd facts. She had only remembered the thing about the human name Thane because it struck her as a funny coincidence.

"Among the drell, Thane means 'one who watches'. I have always thought it to be a funny sort of coincidence."

"Really?" Shepard asked, bemused. "You're so serious. I didn't think you found anything funny. I don't think I've ever heard you laugh." She wracked her brain for a moment and came up with nothing but a rare smile on his part. Even Zaeed was jollier, when the humour was dark and at least a little bit violent. She thought about her statement and winced when she realized how judgmental it sounded - as though he were some emotionless automaton. "Sorry. I just mean that you don't exactly wear your feelings on your sleeve."

"It's true." He said, sounding blessedly unoffended. She was not entirely sure she could find her way back to the ship if he left her here, and she did not fancy the idea of the pretty blond journalist who read the morning news showcasing her limping drunk through the back alleys and making another chicken sound over the loud speakers. "Drell are a stoic race, by most standards, and I am more disciplined then most. It was part of my training."

His voice dipped low when he mentioned his training and they came to a long staircase that descended toward the docking terminal. Shepard regarded the stairs with a suspicious eye before looking at her feet crammed in the tiny, uncomfortable shoes. After a moment she heeled out of them, stretching her reddened toes gratefully. Thane raised a single scaly brow and she returned his look with one of clear challenge, daring him to say anything about it. He chose not to pursue it and took her arm again after she had scooped up the borrowed shoes, carrying them in the crook of her elbow.

He cleared his throat as cautiously as she picked her careful, drunken way down the stairs as though she were descending a treacherous mountain side. "I wondered about those. I know many human women wear them but..." His voice trailed off as though he was struggling to find a polite way to say something he thought might be impolite.

"But I'm not exactly feminine." Shepard supplied for him.

"No, it is not that." Thane said, sounding thoughtful. "You are beautiful, and very female. But... not like Miranda is. You are more solid, grounded, stable." He paused, glancing sideways at her as she struggled to contain her snorting laughter by folding her hand over her mouth. "If I've offended you, I apologize."

"God no." Shepard laughed. "What kind of woman gets offended when a handsome man calls her beautiful? I'm just not used to being complimented on more than my shooting and smashing skills."

"I feel sorry for those who see nothing else worth complimenting in you." Thane said, sounding so serious that Shepard stopped laughing and glanced over at him. He was pointedly avoiding her eyes again, staring ahead at the Citadel's security checkpoint.

She mulled their conversation over and decided that they were definitely flirting, if only in the awkward, uncomfortable way two completely unsocial people could manage to flirt. She was not sure how she felt about that revelation. Drunken Shepard, who swore too much and laughed at Jack's jokes, was egging her on mercilessly and Sober Shepard was too far gone to do anything about it.

"How would you compliment me then?" She asked as a grid of blue light swept over them, scanning clothes, underwear and DNA for anything unusual. After a moment the door slid open and they continued their slow pilgrimage back to the ship.

Thane was quiet until they were out of earshot from the guard, he merely looked at her with his fathomless dark eyes. "Ask me that again when both of us are more sober."

"Can't think of any appropriate examples?" Shepard laughed, punching in the authorization code at the airlock. The door slid open and she took a few steps before she realized he was no longer beside her. She turned to see him still standing at the door, looking at her. His eyes were not quite so inscrutable now, and she was not sure how she should feel about what she could see reflected in their black depths. Drunken Shepard was drawing attention to the heat building in the pit of her stomach, but even her alcohol-fueled influence could not convince her to act on that. She might be drunk, but self-control was not something she surrendered easily.

"No." Thane said, breaking the quiet of her thoughts. His voice was soft, she had to lean forward a little to hear him clearly. "I can't. Not at the moment at least, feeling the heat coming off you, seeing you dressed like that."

She could not help it, heat flooded her cheeks and Shepard turned away. She was acutely self-conscious, and that seemed to snap Thane out of whatever fog he had been trapped in. He looked off to the side and scratched at one of the heavy, solid scales of his forehead, taking a tiny step forward so the chamber could seal and the decontamination lasers initialize. There was a long, heavy moment of silence.

"I didn't mean..." He began, clearly embarrassed. Shepard cut him off with a wave of her hand.

"When we're both more sober." She smiled at him, meeting his eyes for only a second before she had to look away again. Caught in this tiny room with him, with the sudden explosion of physical tension between them, it was getting harder and harder to ignore Drunken Shepard's urges and the spreading heat in her belly. She had to though, since jumping team members and having enthusiastic interspecies sex in the decon room was generally frowned on.

"As you say." Thane agreed.

The tension in the air relaxed, though it was far from disappearing, and Shepard swallowed hard. She had to concentrate on smothering her burning libido and quashing the dirty thoughts that kept flittering up, complete, vivid fantasies of exactly what those stripes of dark scales looked like on his biceps, or his chest, or lower down...

Shepard shook herself as a bell dinged, signaling the end of decontamination. She had sobered up quite a bit it seemed, during the walk and the decon. She could almost see straight, and when she walked the world did not pitch and shift quite so violently as it did before. She could feel the first traces of the monstrous hangover that would be disabling her by morning, a dull pounding that slid back and forth between her temples. She picked her way over to the elevator, suddenly wanting nothing more than a cold shower and her soft bed to sprawl in. With this much liquor in her system she might even manage a dreamless night. It did not happen often, but she cherished the occasional eight hours of complete blackness.

Thane followed her quietly to the elevator and stood with his hands folded behind his back. Shepard leaned heavily against one of the rails, flexing her sore toes against the steel floors. They had gotten very cold, but there was no way she was going to force those heels back on.

"I hope you sleep well, Jane." Thane said softly, as the elevator opened onto the silent third floor.

She desperately wanted to step out of that elevator, follow him to Life Support and that little military cot he had pushed into one corner, but she merely bit her tongue and nodded at him.

He hesitated for a moment, torn. Grasping her hand in his, he bent at the waist and laid a gentle kiss on the inside of her wrist, where her pulse throbbed under the golden skin. After a moment he straightened, and stepped out of the small space.

As the doors slid closed behind her Shepard resolved to read up on drell customs and meanings. Tomorrow. Or whenever this looming hangover worked itself out. She stifled a yawn with the back of her hand as the elevator climbed to her quarters and caught the subtle, lingering scent of his skin there. His lips had been as pleasantly cool as the rest of him against her heated skin.

She took that cold shower almost the moment she arrived, leaving a trail of clothes from the door to her shower stall. As she stood under the frigid water, she felt some of her warm ardour melt away, but not enough to make her truly comfortable. When she stepped out, she shivered and took a moment to look at herself in the mirror again. The scars were still there, the unpleasant pale hair, the inhuman eyes. Maybe those things did not bother Thane. As she turned in a circle, she imagined herself a rag doll, shredded pieces sewn roughly together, as though by a clumsy child. Sighing, she dried herself off and pulled on some gray shorts and a white tank top before collapsing into bed. It did not take her long to fall asleep.

As her body lay among the soft sheets, the iron skies of Mindoir rumbled in her mind, heavy with the promise of rain.