Summary: A series of interludes between Miranda and Shepard. Even Commanders need a place to decompress.
Pairings: F!Shepard/Liara, F!Shepard/Miranda
Warnings: Some spoilers. This goes all the way to the LotSB, so if you haven't beaten the game, it's spoiled.
Author's Note: I planned on this being much shorter than it became. Of course, I came up with the plot at some point between the ten minutes before I went to bed last night and the ten minutes after I woke up this morning. Changes were inevitable. I hope you enjoy. Please review - they make my world turn.

The Nth Time
by wayfaringpanda

The first time it happened, Miranda didn't known what to do.

The hiss of the door, and she'd looked up to see the Commander there. The woman had been running full tilt for days, scrambling across Omega and the galaxy at large in her desperate attempt to get a competent team together. Scars were still vivid on her face, and occasionally, when no one was looking, she stretched her muscles and joints as if they ached something fierce. Miranda would never admit it, but she was a bit impressed with the woman's drive.

But now the Commander seemed like she was barely hanging on. Perhaps to the others, she seemed only a bit tired, but Miranda had spent two years rebuilding this body. She knew every inch of it, every synapse, every piece of tech welded to each body part. This was as close as Shepard was ever going to get to collapsing on her feet.

"Commander," Miranda said, keeping her tone neutral. "What can I do for you?"

"I'll let you work," Shepard responded. To Miranda's surprise, the woman walked right around her desk and into the operative's living area. Before she could say anything, the Commander had walked into her personal head and shut it.

After a moment, Miranda turned back to her computer. Perhaps, she mused, the Commander had simply lost track and been unable to make it to the nearest facility. But she couldn't even let herself get away with that for more than a nanosecond. It was too ridiculous of an idea to imagine Commander Shepard, of all people, having an 'accident'. Unless something had gone wrong during Project Lazarus.

She immediately pulled up the relevant files, quickly checking Wilson's notes on the Commander's biological functions. He may have been a traitor, but his work was still solid. Nothing looked out of the ordinary, and it all seemed to match up with what she remembered.

Miranda glanced at the time. Shepard had been in there for almost ten minutes. She stood, and walked to the door. Her hand paused an inch from the pad, though, and after a moment she dropped it and walked back to her terminal.

"EDI," she said quietly, calling up the ship's AI.

"What can I do for you, Operative Lawson?" the AI responded.

"Commander Shepard is currently located in my private facilities. I need you to verify that she does not require any medical assistance."

There was a slight pause. "Commander Shepard does not require any medical assistance, Operative Lawson."

"There's nothing wrong with her?" Miranda asked, glancing back to the door.

"I ran a quick medical scan," EDI responded. "She is under no duress. In fact, she appears to be sleeping."

Miranda blinked. "Excuse me?"

"Correction," EDI said quickly. "She appears to have awoken, and is preparing to exit. Will that be all, Operative Lawson?"

"Yes." She quickly shut the link, settling herself back down at the terminal as the sound of a door opening reached her. Glancing up as the Commander walked by, she noticed that it appeared as if Shepard had gotten a solid eight hours of sleep, instead of what could not have been more than fifteen minutes.

"Miranda," Shepard said, giving a small wave of her hand as she walked out the door.

"Shepard," Miranda responded. She allowed herself a full minute of contemplation on what the hell had just happened, before releasing a small sigh and going back to work.

The third time it happened, Miranda went to Dr. Chakwas.

It had been nearly a month. The second time, Miranda had been far too busy to actually worry about what was going on, and had in fact forgotten the Commander was in there until she had walked out again fifteen minutes later, once again looking refreshed and ready for another couple weeks of nonstop hell.

When she'd next had time, however, she'd taken a few measures. One of which was to ensure that, in fact, the if the Commander were to place a lock on it, Miranda would be the only person with override capabilities. It had turned out to already be the cases, as not only was Miranda the leading Cerberus officer and the XO, it was also her private head. Another was to make some minor modifications to the door, allowing her to open it manually to minimize the noise made. EDI had pointed out to her that this structurally weakened the seals of the door. Miranda had responded that if it came to whether or not the bathroom could be sealed, they were all dead anyway.

When Shepard had walked in and blown past her desk again, Miranda had waited a full five minutes before getting to her feet. Padding softly to the door, she eased it open a few inches, just enough to allow her to look inside.

Commander Shepard was sitting on the floor, back propped against the wall, knees bent an arms wrapped loosely around her torso. Her head was resting against the edge of the shower stall, and her breathing was slow and shallow. She started to twitch as Miranda looked, so the door was quickly eased shut again.

Miranda watched the Commander leave a few minutes later, her nap shorter than usual, her step not quite as buoyant as the previous time. Obviously Miranda had woken her, despite the precautions taken. As soon as she deemed it safe, Miranda walked out and headed to the one person she thought might be able to help her.

"Dr. Chakwas," Miranda greeted, giving a genuine smile to the older woman. The doctor was one of the few crew-members who didn't irritate her within the first thirty seconds of conversation. In fact, they had on a rare occasion gotten into the finer points of biology and medicine, and she actually enjoyed those talks. "I have a... problem, possibly. I hope you can help."

"Of course, my dear," the doctor said with a smile, gesturing to the seat across from her. "What can I do for you?"

"It's about Commander Shepard," Miranda said. "I don't know how else to say this, so I'm just going to come out with it. She's been, on the rare occasion, coming into my quarters to take naps in my head."

Dr. Chakwas blinked. "Excuse me?"

"She's sleeping on my bathroom floor," Miranda clarified, her confusion and frustration leaking slightly into her tone. "She doesn't say anything, just nods hello, goes in, and comes back out fifteen minutes later."

"She hasn't mentioned any illness," Dr. Chakwas mused, brow furrowed.

Miranda sighed. "She's not ill, according to EDI. She's just... napping."

The doctor stared off into space, thinking on it. "Does it seem to be helping?" she finally asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Well, yes," Miranda admitted. "She comes out looking like she's just had a full nights sleep. I just don't understand why she doesn't do it in her quarters. I know she sleeps there."

"Does she?" the doctor countered. "I know that, like yourself, she had several terminals in her cabin. Have you checked to see how much time she spends on them?"

"EDI?" Miranda queried.

"Commander Shepard spends 82.36 percent of her time in her quarters on the various terminals. Of the other 17.64 percent, only half is spent with the lights off."

Dr. Chakwas gave a short chuckle. "That sounds like the Commander. She never slept much on the SR-1 either." She tapped her fingers on the desk. "In fact, she used to visit medical often." She shook her head at the look on Miranda's face. "Not because she was sick. She would visit the asari, Liara. I wouldn't even hear them talk. Shepard would simply enter, and then leave shortly afterwards.

"One time, I walked in there to get something. She and Liara were on the floor. Not cuddling. For the most part, mission first for the Commander. They were just sitting, leaning against each other. Shepard was sleeping, and Liara just met my gaze. I quickly left."

"I don't understand," Miranda said, practically grinding her teeth. "Why?"

The doctor gave a shrug. "Maybe she just feels comfortable with you."

Her eyes widened slightly. "The same way she does with Liara?" It was fairly common knowledge that Shepard and Liara had indeed gotten together before the final battle with Sovereign, although the asari had refused to confirm that fact two years ago.

"I can't answer that," Dr. Chakwas said. "Although I believe her to be the faithful type."

Miranda hummed softly at that. "Not an issue on my end," she said briskly before standing. "Thank you, doctor. This has been... as informative as I can hope, I suspect."

Laughing, the doctor waved her out.

The seventh time it happened, Miranda found herself scared.

Miranda had not been sorry to see Illium go. As nice as it was, it left her skin crawling. As a senior member of Cerberus, she knew some of the things they had done were questionable at best, and downright horrific at their worst. It was all for the greater good, however. She firmly believed that. But the things that were legal on Illium were just there to line people's pockets. There was no higher goal.

She had been with Shepard when they had gone to see Liara. It had not surprised her that Liara pretended that Miranda did not exist. What had was how, after the initial kiss, the asari had grown cold towards Shepard. She knew a fair amount of what Liara had gone through in the past two years. A large part of it was directly because of Cerberus. But given what Liara had done to give the Commander a second chance, it was honestly shocking to see how she was treating her.

When Shepard had entered her quarters, Miranda had barely glanced up at first. It had been a long layover on Illium, and certainly no easy time of it for any of them. Shepard was due a catnap. But Miranda had been forced to look again when she noticed the tears that had started to stream down the Commander's face as soon as the door to her quarters had hissed shut.

So as Shepard had walked past, Miranda followed without consciously making the decision to do so. When Shepard entered the head, she didn't close the door, just sank to her usual position. She leaned her head back, and in front of Miranda's eyes seemed to pass out. The only sign otherwise was the steady flow of tears.

It seemed like she debated it forever, but later she would admit that it had taken practically no time at all for Miranda to ease herself into the space, which incidentally was not really meant to hold more than one person. She slowly sank to the floor next to the Commander, bodies touching slightly due to the space limitation.

They sat like that for an unknown length of time. Shepard continued to sleep, or pretend to, and Miranda watched her from the corner of her eye.

"When I was back on Earth," Shepard suddenly said, not bothering to move at all. "I had a hard time falling in with a crew. My parents were both killed in the First Contact War serving on an exploratory vessel. My grandmother looked after me, but she died when I was still very young. I used to hide in abandoned houses, but that wasn't always the safest, and I ran into... trouble. More often than I would like."

"Eventually, I fell in with another kid. Ben. He was a few years older than me, and treated me like his little sister. We used to look out for each other. He was better at picking houses than me, and he taught me that the safest place to be in a house was the bathroom."

Shepard paused for a moment, than gave a small laugh. "It wouldn't work on any other world than Earth. But so much was deemed 'historical', which meant no one wanted to live in it and no one was allowed to tear it down. Old Earth bathrooms had smaller windows, usually, but still large enough for two kids to get out of. Even more important, bathroom windows were the only ones you couldn't see into from the outside, and were often guarded against electronic surveillance. We would take turns standing watch. It was the longest stretch of time I ever had of getting solid sleep on a fairly regular basis."

Giving a sigh, the Commander opened her eyes, looking at Miranda. "He ended up getting killed one night while he was standing watch for me. Some thugs broke in, got rough. He managed to stop them from getting in to the bathroom while I crawled out the window. When he tried to follow, they grabbed his ankle and pulled him back. Unfortunately, the window decided to drop at just the wrong moment, and caught him in the back of the head. They snapped Ben's neck."

Miranda thought about responding, but something told her that Shepard wasn't done. After a moment, the Commander continued.

"I joined the Tenth Street Reds a few days later. They were gender blind, unlike some of the gangs, and they appreciated my hacking abilities. Turned out all those years of breaking into house security systems upped my game. I worked my way up the ladder. I never led the Reds, but I made myself indispensable. Took me two years, but I finally was able to get enough favors owed." She gave a short laugh. "I had the Reds track down the bastards who killed Ben. I had them beaten, tortured, then dropped in the middle of a river. Only one managed to swim to shore without drowning."

"Why are you telling me this?" Miranda finally asked, slightly fascinated. Nothing she had ever read on Shepard had hinted at this. It helped to clarify how a woman who seemed insufferably good had managed to conduct the Torfan mission in the way she had.

"I don't know," Shepard replied with a slight smile. "Maybe to apologize for always stealing your head. It's the cleanest one on the ship - believe me, I've checked."

"Shepard, if I had a problem with you stealing my facilities, I would certainly have informed you."

That made the Commander laugh. "I suppose you're right." She hauled herself to her feet, then helped Miranda stand. Shepard glanced in the mirror quickly, then grimaced. She quickly splashed some cold water on her face.

Miranda handed her a towel, then led the way back out of the cramped space. She went back to her desk. Still standing, she eyed the Commander.

"Commander," she said, and was shocked to hear the tentativeness in her voice.

"I'll let you work," Shepard responded. "You know," she added as she turned to leave. "There hasn't been too many people I've been known to trust with guarding the bathroom door."

Before Miranda could respond, the Commander was gone. If she sat down rather heavily, and if she spent a very long time staring after the woman, no one knew it but her.

And probably EDI, but she trusted the AI wouldn't say anything, because no one would ever think to ask. Maybe she should make sure of that.

The ninth time it happened, Miranda decided that she could ask questions.

Dr. Chakwas had pointed it out a week prior. "It's strange," the doctor had said. "One of the first upgrades Commander Shepard had done to the Normandy was the Dermal Regeneration unit. It has multiple uses, of course, but I specifically mentioned in my original message that it would be capable of healing her remaining scars."

The Commander had never used it. The scars did seem to be slowly healing, but it was unusual that something that could be accomplished so easily would be consistently bypassed.

So when Shepard had entered her quarters seeming somewhat less exhausted than she normally did, Miranda had once again followed her into the head. The two sank down again, side by side. Miranda used her omni-tool to do some minor work while the Commander slept.

"What's up?" Shepard asked fifteen minutes later. It was damn impressive how accurate her internal clock was.

"Why don't you heal your scars?" Miranda asked. She raised one hand, as if to trace the line down one cheek, but stopped. After a moment, she lowered it again. "We've had the capability for months now."

Shepard laughed. "Would you believe me if I told you I'm too busy?" She ran a hand over her face. "I did a quick check. Because of the cybernetics Cerberus put in me, it would take almost a full day for me to heal these completely. I don't have that kind of time. They'll heal eventually."

"Shepard," Miranda said firmly. "We spend 90 percent of our time traveling, and 10 percent doing. Surely you can find the time while we're galavanting around the galaxy."

The Commander raised one eyebrow. "Do you ever find yourself with 24 hours off? Even when we're just 'galavanting'?"

A pause. "Point taken."

"Besides," Shepard said, leaning her head back again. "You took all my old war wounds away. Got to have something for the ladies to coo over."

Miranda found herself chuckling. "Indeed. I'm sure Liara loves to see them."

Shepard grew quiet, and Miranda felt like kicking herself. A very rare occurrence.

"I don't know," Shepard finally responded. "She never minded the old ones. I haven't seen her enough to know if she minds the new."

Miranda knew that the two times they'd been back to Illium, Shepard had gone to see the asari. While the Commander had not returned in tears either time, apparently nothing good had happened either. "Is she still looking for the Shadow Broker?"

"Yeah," Shepard breathed. "If I wasn't a trusting person, I'd be jealous."

The twelfth time it happened, Miranda didn't say anything.

Shepard didn't say anything either.

They simply sat, side by side. Miranda worked on her omni-tool, and Shepard slept.

Neither commented on the fact that instead of leaning her head against the shower, Shepard leant it against Miranda's shoulder.

The eighteenth time it happened, Miranda found she wouldn't lie.

Shepard didn't close her eyes when she sat down. Instead, she studied Miranda. After a few minutes, when it became apparent that the Commander wasn't planning on sleeping like usual, Miranda stopped working and turned to look at her.

"Commander. What can I do for you?"

"Did you tell the Illusive Man about Liara hunting for the Shadow Broker?"

"No," Miranda responded instantly. "I did not." She turned back to her omni-tool, studiously ignoring the piercing gaze she was receiving.

After a few minutes, she felt Shepard shift slightly, turning her body more towards Miranda.

"Miranda. Did you ask the Illusive Man to help Liara find the Shadow Broker?"

"No," she responded, almost as quickly as before. "I did not."

The tension in that tiny facility could have been cut with butter knife.

"Miranda."

Giving a small sigh, she looked up to meet Shepard's gaze. "Yes, Shepard?"

"Did you tell the Illusive Man to help me help Liara find the Shadow Broker?"

"Yes." Miranda held the other woman's eyes with her own, seeking a reaction. She didn't know what she was looking for, or even why she wanted it.

Shepard gave her nothing. No tightening of the eyes, no exhalation of breath, not so much as a single muscle twitch. Miranda knew Shepard's body more thoroughly than anyone else, more so than Shepard did herself. She could not read anything.

Eventually, Shepard broke the contact. She leaned her head back and closed her eyes. She didn't sleep.

Miranda didn't work.

The last time it happened, Miranda almost didn't follow.

It seemed like they would never be able to recover from their trip through the Omega 4 relay. Against all odds, against everything, they had done it. They had gone in, gotten the truth, blown the base, and returned home. Even more surprising was that no one had died. Miranda still hadn't quite dealt with her sudden decision to "quit" Cerberus, but she certainly wasn't going to go back. Things had changed too much. She had changed too much.

She hadn't decided if she liked that or not yet.

Now they were headed back to Illium. They finally had the time to go after the Shadow Broker, using the intel the Illusive Man had sent before their... falling out. The ship had been repaired in record time, especially for Omega. Mostly due to the large amount of creds Miranda had managed to take with her as a severance package. The crew was glad to be off Omega and back to the relative calm of traveling through the galaxy.

Shepard walked in practically oozing nervous energy. She seemed as if she could last forever, practically bouncing on the balls of her feet as she walked. The last thing she should have needed was a nap, but she walked past Miranda's desk.

It was almost five minutes later before Miranda followed. She couldn't seem to bring herself to leave her terminal. She couldn't stay away forever, though, so in the end she staggered to her feet and walked over to the head. She was practically graceless as she slumped down next to the Commander.

It was the bravest thing she'd ever done, laying her head on Shepard's shoulder. When the Commander's arm snaked around her waist, she felt the burn of tears in her eyes. Miranda wasn't brave enough for that, though.

"I love her," Shepard said quietly, and it sounded as if it were her heart that was breaking.

"I know," Miranda replied quietly, calmly, her voice as neutral as the day they met.

She knew fifteen minutes came and went, but neither of them moved. Time seemed to stretch on forever as they waited.

"Commander, we're an hour out from Illium," Joker's voice came over the comm system.

It was Miranda who moved first, untangling herself from Shepard and standing. She was pleased to see in the mirror that her eyes were not puffy, her makeup still perfect, although her hair was a bit mussed. She started to head back to her terminal when she felt a hand wrap around her arm and pull.

The kiss was fierce. Lips, tongues, hands, all enmeshed and grasping and screaming need. Their bodies pressed together, so tightly it made it even harder to breath. Shepard's hand wound into her hair, pulling slightly. A nip of her teeth caused Miranda to moan.

She pushed Shepard away, gasping for air. She spun around and walked quickly to her terminal, sitting and pulling up her work. Swallowing a few times, Miranda finally managed to speak.

"There's a lot to do, Shepard. Maybe another time."

She didn't watch the Commander walk out the door. She couldn't have seen, anyway. She had something in her eyes.

fin