Cara Fanning was a young woman, and she considered herself to be the luckiest person in creation. She had just gotten an Omni Tool for her fourteenth birthday. Omni Tools were rare here, and her parents had surprised her with one because she was a hard worker and had a real impact on the harvest. Their farm in Mindoir Colony was idyllic, most of the inhabitants called the settlement Sanctuary. Her parents had told her that they had moved out here to escape industrialization, fell in love with the planet, fell in love with the future here. The colony was able to produce so much food that they could feed themselves easily and sell the rest to the Alliance, sell dextro crops to the Hierarchy, take items in trade, their needs low. Mindoir was an experiment that had worked well, so her parents had said. Take hard work, faith and a perfect climate and they could do so much.

Her parents had told her that there was a dream of idealism, but it was reliant on science, circumstance and hard work. The soil could grow dextro and levo, could support both crops, had no insect life or predators that would impinge on the crops, and therefore they were able to revert to human labor to grow them. Maintenance was a great deal less than it might be on Earth, fuel costs kept low with enthusiastic colonists wanting to get their hands into soil, away from complications of higher tech lifestyles.

She knew shortly after accessing her Omni Tool that the version she had was seemingly old and needed to be upgraded, but that just endeared it to her. She murmured "I'm young, you're old, we're going to get along fine." She tried to think of a name for her. Her Omni Tool was definitely a her, and she customized the light to a soft peach. Not needing to reach terribly far, she named her Omni Tool Georgia.

Her parents had decided her curiosity was growing beyond their ability to teach her, she needed access to libraries beyond the extensive one in their settlement, the generous one in their own home. Cara enjoyed the feel of books, but the sense of information flowing to her, flowing through her with the gift of Georgia was a real joy, a new joy. Her parents wanted her to know all of her options, think about who she wanted to be when she grew up. Cara imagined herself staying on Mindoir…but maybe she'd visit the Citadel. Maybe she'd see a Prothean museum on Thessia. Maybe she'd learn about all the crops possible, levo and dextro, see the worlds, come home to stay in the enveloping community and deliberate pace of the seasons of Sanctuary.

There was a woman, Silvie, in Sanctuary who had studied the religions of the galaxy, and Cara joined her several nights a week, as did others in the community, to discuss spiritual and religious themes. Cara learned some of the mysteries of Drell sand script and respected the purposely impenetrable traditions of the Drell people, appreciating the beauty of their art, realizing that not all secrets would belong to her, but she could respectfully share what was offered. She learned of the Hanar Enkindlers and their reverence of the Protheans. Their religion seemed somewhat heavy to Cara's heart, but she appreciated the devotion to something solid, something left behind, something given new significance without the original context. She learned of the Thessian Goddess and marveled at the art and literature of the Asari, who seemed to be in charge of most things. She learned of Turian devotion to ancestors and the idea of the generation of Spirits through action and intent. Silvie taught her about Salarian dedication to discovery, the intricacies and flow of that.

That subject led her to scientific principles, to Richard Feynman, to philosophies that discussed internal and external bias, personal responsibility for choices, ethics and…

And there was so much to read she would never be able to read it all, but she was going to try.

In her studies about Feynman a small fact finally explained something about herself to herself.

Richard Feynman had Grapheme-color synesthesia. She looked up his accounts, the accounts of other people. A quote from him "When I see equations, I see the letters in colors – I don't know why. As I'm talking, I see vague pictures of Bessel Functions from Jahnke and Emde's book, with light-tan j's, slightly violet-bluish n's, and dark brown x's flying around. And I wonder what the hell it must look like to the students."

Feynman had made up his own mathematical notation, but had been unable to propagate it, possibly because it was cued to his mind specifically, and although it was a perfect tool for him…

That was such a beautiful idea, and Cara fell lightning bolt in love with how strange and wonderful the human mind was.

Cara had synesthesia, now she knew it was a real thing. One of her heroes had experienced it, had built an internal world with color and depth that only he was able to experience because of how his mind worked.

It wasn't the first base board in her internal cathedral, but it was solid and sure, shared finally, named and placed. She began to see synesthesia in some religious contexts. Couldn't seeing auras or even halos be a form of synesthesia? Impressions of character portrayed the same way Feynman saw brown wherever there was an x? The brown did not exist…except in his mind, but it was a clue, a marker.

Cara had her own code, her own constellation of indicators that happened in her mind. She had impressions of people. She did not…exactly see auras, but she got lightning bolt moments, times where something or someone seemed to vibrate, or glow, especially notable in the way her curiosity could light on something and she could become instantly obsessed, projecting an irresistible trail of bread crumbs, the joy of finding a new idea urging her on again to the next.

Georgia allowed her to build her quiet faith in herself, in the mysteries of things, in the vibration and glow nobody else saw. She learned about all the histories of all the worlds, wars and peace and art and literature, people and ideas.

She was the luckiest person in the galaxy, to have her opportunities to learn.

She learned that religion and science had in the past in several places been seen as opponents, but others had managed to blend them, and the thoughts were beautiful, ethereal, or lightning bolt searing.

When her mother called her down to her birthday dinner she thanked her parents effusively…again…for their gift.

Her father kissed the top of her red hair, which they all shared. He looked down at her with bright green eyes, which they also shared. "You're welcome, Lal. You've earned it. Wish we could get you more, but if I know you, you'll make better use of that thing than anybody else with the newest version."

Lal was short for Lalique, a form of Earth art glass. Her father said she was always transparent, ethereal and catching the light.

However, they were farmers, and her mother reminded her that being made of artistic glass was a lovely thing, but getting dirty was necessary and cleaning up even more so. Cara's mother taught her forms of martial arts for the beauty and exercise of it. Many of the more stylistic forms had been created when owning weapons was forbidden. It was a reminder that someone forced into ignorance need never stay there, given ingenuity and will.

Cara smiled at the spread of some of her favorite foods and said her version of Grace, not affiliated with any religion in particular "I give thanks for Sanctuary, for the opportunities we've been granted, for the choices we've made. I give thanks for another year of life, for my family, for this community where I can learn, where we can make a better life. We have been granted seed and harvest, and the harvest has followed the seed so often that we have not needed faith. If I have a wish, it is that new seed be given to those who need it, all the faith required, a whole body for hard work and a vision for the future."

Her mother said "Seconded. Pass the bread!"

oOoOoOoOoOo

For her fifteenth birthday, Silvie promised personal sessions to Cara. Silvie and Cara began more explorations of religious and spiritual traditions, sharing more of their personal styles. Silvie was an excellent teacher of religion, but she considered herself to be more spiritual. "Cara, I am afraid that when religions become too solid, too unbending, no matter where they started, they can become tools of dogmatic enforcement. Studying religion can be about learning what mistakes have already been made with some of the greater ideas of our forebears. There seems to be no idea that cannot be twisted. When a religion values something, even if that thing is as pure as valuing family, it can be twisted into deifying that value. Once a value becomes infinite…divine…then the defense of that value can be taken up with infinite action. Then it falls prey to more mundane motivations, greed, fear and violence masquerading as righteousness. That is when horrors become justified. That's when people die for religion. Even the Asari, who are advanced, still stigmatize "pure blood" birth. Yes, occasionally it creates what is called an Ardat-Yakshi, but there is nothing inherently genetically flawed about being pure blood to an Asari. The odds of being Ardat-Yakshi are the same as any other harmful genetic condition. Asari wouldn't exist at all if they hadn't been pure blood for millennia. But now after contact with other species it is philosophically opposed, therefore it is socially opposed, blaming pure bloods for something they have no control over, stigmatizing them. Thus religion becomes social practice. It seems no society escapes this, though some to a greater extent than others."

Cara asked "We're trying to escape it here in Sanctuary, though."

Silvie said carefully "This is a young community, very idealistic, and we come from an affluent source. Remember we wouldn't be able to live here idyllically without the support of an industrialized culture. It's a bit like Marie Antoinette dressing like a shepherdess."

A new story. Cara loved these.

Silvie continued "Marie Antoinette was a young queen of France. She had every indulgence and lived in Versailles, an extravagant palace. Still, with that, she had the Hameau de la Reine – The Queen's Hamlet, built. She'd travel there, commune with her cultured and manicured version of nature, dress as a shepherdess."

Cara kept up with this on her Omni Tool, bookmarking passages and articles and pictures to look into later, as she always did with Silvie's discourse.

Silvie knew she'd do her own reading so she concluded "We have all the medical, technical and spiritual tools we could need. We are really here to grow things because not only do we have everything we need, but we also know that progress will continue without us, as we indulge in some retro relaxation by choice. It's a privilege. It's not nobility, or at least it isn't noble unless we do some good with it. We make lots of money and we feed people, so that's good. But in this story, we are the Queen and the Citadel is Versailles. With distance also there's division, and even some humans think this colony resembles a cult. Not everyone understands why someone would live a slower life, why we wouldn't indulge in alcohol or drugs, why we stay separate. I worry sometimes that we've made ourselves too vulnerable physically and philosophically here."

Cara read up a lot on sheep, Versailles, royalty, revolution, cults…

Best. Birthday. Ever.

oOoOoOoOoOo

For her sixteenth birthday, Cara had been given a kitten by Vasili, a young man her age who had been trying to get her attention and pull her away from her books and had not quite managed. Cara enjoyed Vasili as a friend, but unless conversation was about something…Cara was the worst.

Cara's mother said she'd get better at it. "Just talk to people like you talk to us."

Cara had said with some exasperation "Mom…you're smart. Not everyone else is."

Cara's dad had laughed and said "It's okay, Lal. You need someone as smart as you are and that's not going to be easy. Vasili likes you. That means he's at least got some sense. What are you going to name this ball of fluff?"

Cara looked down at the little orange striped kitten, apparently a stowaway pregnant cat on an Alliance freighter had kittens in the engine room. Who let the cat on or whether or not the cat let itself on was a mystery, with Vasili the beneficiary, who had offered to take two kittens off their hands. He kept one and gave one to Cara.

Cara rolled her eyes and said "It was awful, Dad. I just said thank you, stared and then did the social equivalent of sprinting away."

Her father had said "Yeah, too bad he doesn't know how to discuss astrophysics."

Cara wished someone would discuss astrophysics with her, certainly, but that wasn't the kitten's fault. She said "I'll name the kitten George Ellery Hale."

Her mother had laughed "That's an ambitious name. Look on the bright side, Cara, the kitten's going to be good, quiet company while you study for hours."

Her father said "And hours."

Cara, smiled, adjusted the sleep fluff ball and said to it quietly "And hoooours. C'mon, Hale. Time to download some upgrades to the Omni Tool that my magnificent parents got for me."

Her father winked "We're cool like that."

oOoOoOoOoOo

It had been a few weeks since Hale had been given as a gift, and Cara was trying to figure out whether or not Hale was going to manage to be an outside cat or not. He chewed on everything, and she didn't know if he would have a dextro allergy.

Due to there being no insect life…or much life at all, he also didn't have much to chase, so Cara brought him out to patches of ground that were mostly stone, watched carefully as he attempted to gnaw his way through the tough native plant life. It took him a while, kept him busy and seemed to do him no harm.

She brought little bits of crumpled paper for him to chase. She'd throw one and he'd bolt after it. Eventually he learned that was the most fun he was going to have, so he was smart enough to learn to bring them back to her. He was somewhat grudging and offended by having to do this, so she ignored his efforts and didn't try to praise him. They both pretended the little balls of paper just teleported back to her. They spent several companionable hours this way a day, Hale exploring, gnawing and nudging at her to notice that there were a few neglected balls of paper that required her attention if she got too involved in study.

She'd found a new passion for theater. New upgrades to this Omni Tool gave her not only access to text libraries and lectures, but more Extranet entertainment options and she was burning her way through everything from Elcor Shakespeare to Blasto. It had been a revelation. While Hale was growing up she'd been able to talk to Vasili, actually talk to him, and not about astrophysics. She was able to thank him for Hale, smile and ask him about his own kitten, about what interested him. It was a milestone of achievement there, and she owed it to Georgia's upgrades and theater.

It terrified the hell out of her, way out of anything considered comfort or zone…but she'd work on it.

Talking to people about something she was interested in was the easiest thing, but making up something to talk about…exhausting.

So she tried to lead conversation to someone volunteering a topic, and then listening.

She didn't have to be herself with other people. She could be someone else, someone with a script, someone who was not painfully curious. That was her main problem with people…she wanted to interrupt everything they said, ask more questions, all the time more questions. She wanted to ask Vasili where his name came from, where did his parents come from on Earth, what did he think…well…what did he think about everything?

Most often though with some of her favorite subjects, she'd get a blink and a "I don't know anything about that…"

People seemed to move slowly compared to the speed her brain wanted to barrel through, and she tried to adopt a more comfortable persona - comfortable for them, not her - smoothed herself out, clamped down on her curiosity and listened.

It wasn't lying, exactly, it was…accommodating. She was going to be an accommodating person, learn about patience. Not everybody lived in a world of super-saturated knowledge, synesthesia brightening the worlds.

She could always look forward to being alone, retreat back to the flow of curiosity and knowledge sparking, making new connections in her mind.

Hale had also given her a new idea. There weren't too many animals on Mindoir, maybe she'd change that. No livestock. Sanctuary was essentially vegetarian, ate what they produced. But pets would be nice. Veterinary medicine sounded interesting. She'd at least like to know how to reverse a potential dextro allergy in a cat.

A ship seemed to be coming in for a landing, but she didn't recognize it. It didn't look like an Alliance or Hierarchy vessel. She took a quick picture of the vessel, did an image search.

Batarian.

She read the word with a sizzling freeze along her spine. Batarian. A style of ship associated with Batarian slavers. Bright red warnings. Wanted.

Her parents didn't have Omni Tools. She couldn't let them know. She was half a mile out. The Batarians would be into Sanctuary proper before she could get back to warn anybody.

Think, Cara.

She gathered up Hale, who wasn't quite done with one particular paper ball and resented being picked up in the middle of his important mission. She bundled him up under her shirt, his claws digging into her skin, her hand supporting him and making sure he didn't fall, didn't get away.

Think.

She did have an Omni Tool, and she could do something. There were Extranet contact frequencies she could attempt. Links for contact regarding the vessel's wanted status. She tried, more and more frustrated, because they were all message services, she could not speak to a real person. She still left several urgent messages "This is Cara Fanning, reporting that Mindoir Colony is under attack by Batarian slavers." She forwarded the picture of the ship.

There should be Alliance vessels nearby, this was the Attican Traverse, not the Terminus systems, but there were Batarians…there were Batarians here.

Think.

She was a sixteen year old girl with a kitten, a few balls of paper and an Omni Tool named Georgia.

Her immediate thought was of her family, bringing her father's voice to her head "Lal, I am going to tell you to hide. Don't you…dare…put your life in danger. Hide. Now. Don't come out until the Alliance gets here."

She thought of her mother's voice "Cara, be smart. Don't kid yourself that a need to do something, anything, would be brave. We're your parents. It's our job to die before you. Remember what I've taught you. Do not let ignorance get you killed."

Hale's claws dug in deeper as he scrabbled against her hold.

Cara swallowed, hard, and chose not to hide, but neither was she going to march into the center of town.

She knew how to shoot a gun, her mother had made sure of it. But what happened if Batarians heard a gun?

She began a paced loped run back to town that she knew would not wear her out or wear her down, her mind spinning possibilities and probabilities.

As she got closer she heard so many gunshots that if she'd had a gun, it would have been indistinguishable. Screams. Smoke. Fire. A second freighter had landed, larger. Enough to hold colonists and the contents of stasis silos.

The terrain was too open. She had no safe approach vector. It was daylight and despite rising smoke visibility was clear. She could not get to her house. She was on the far side of the settlement, as close as she could get in this light.

Screams. Smoke. Fire.

She helplessly watched from behind an outcropping of exposed stone as the people of Sanctuary were systematically herded from their homes, some shot and left to choke on blood, some kicked to death.

Horrible things.

She knew the history of the Batarians, their spiritual beliefs, the rivalry between Batarians and humans. She had read about it, seen previous colonies destroyed. It had seemed like the past, like all other conflicts that had been something she could learn about.

She heard her parents' voices as they would really speak to her. She heard her own voice in honest evaluation. She was still a sixteen year old girl who could not even control a small cat, blood slowly drying, dripping as he formed new furrows with his claws.

She looked often to the skies, hoping to see an Alliance vehicle. All she saw was spreading smoke.

Her parents' voices chanted in her head, the smartest people she knew. "Do not leave cover, Lal. Save yourself. You're smart enough to know how this would go. You could kill a few Batarians, maybe, and then inspire them to murder more inhabitants in revenge."

"Cara. You can't make this better. Please don't make it worse. Don't throw your life away, don't die with us. We need you to live."

She waited for a glow, for a vibration, for a path, as the descending dark spread over Sanctuary, and she imagined rescues, the Alliance storming in and taking back what was theirs.

This was the true difference between Religion and Spirituality. She had never prayed to a God or a Goddess, she'd learned about how people created them, imagined them. Perhaps if she believed in Fate with a capital letter, she'd have a vibration, a glow, a calling. Instead she just had an unusual mind. Right now a helpless mind. A useless mind.

Her only tool was despair, and it was a shield, and the shield was made of solid stone. Maybe her parents' voices were her Fate.

When it was hours into full dark she managed to pick her way carefully to the far side of Sanctuary, the home she had known one of the smoking wrecks that added fuel-flame bursts and electronic pops to the cloud of smoke.

The Batarians had passed through this section, had taken or killed humans. The silos that were not on fire were being emptied into the cruiser.

She saw her mother's body first, her father not far away. The frame of the home had burned, but there was a cellar, and the floor had not been flammable. Battered but not burned bodies. Three dead Batarian bodies were in the same room, having been lined up, probably by the Batarians that had overwhelmed her parents. But for the hair and remnants of clothing she might not have been able to identify them, their bodies still scorched from heat and falling debris, shot and defiled, faces ruined. No eyes to close. She imagined they had fought back to back, but had been separated after death by the same hands that had killed them and then lined up Batarian bodies in haphazard respect, but still leaving them behind to burn. She hoped they had been touching when they died, as they had been touching as they lived.

She heard her father's voice in her head urge "Lal…you can't stay here. We love you. Get food and water, get a blanket and go. Forget what you see here, remember how we love you. We need you to live."

She heard her mother's voice "Cara…you're so smart. You can only save yourself now. They don't know about you, they know about everyone else. Get out, get away, wait for the Alliance. Remember what I've taught you. You need to use your mind. Cry for us later. Don't make a sound now. Go. Hide."

Blood dripped down her chest and tears dripped down her face, smoke stinging.

She listened to her parents as she always had, first dragging their bodies together and putting their hands together. They were cold and bloody and spoke to her urgently.

She had a bundle of food, water, a blanket, cat food in short minutes from the cellar, and then she was back in the impenetrable dark behind more shielded stone. She got Hale food and water, though she didn't let him out of her hands, which he resented. She got more than a few bites and scratches, which she ignored and he repeated until he got tired and fell asleep.

She did not sleep, watching lazy spirals of smoke that seemed uncaringly whimsical when they were at a distance and no longer in her eyes, in her nose.

She cried for her parents because it was now later. It was always going to be later.

She remembered Marie Antoinette did ultimately meet the guillotine. She wondered what happened to Silvie.

Something horrible. Something brave.

She thought of someone Silvie had spoken about, Kahlil Gibran, and remembered him saying "Often times I have hated in self defense. If I were stronger I would not have used such a weapon."

Silvie had spoken of hate often as insidious, cruel, giving oneself over to it the end of the heart, the end of hope.

My parents wouldn't want me to hate. Silvie would not have wanted me to hate.

I won't let them undo me as they've undone your lives. Your spirits are what will survive today. They can't kill that.

Hours and days passed from the almost poetic viewpoint she'd cultivated, smoke curls and speaking spirits, caring for a kitten as light changed, eating and drinking with him. Through the long vigil the Batarians left, setting everything remaining on fire, empty silos, empty houses, piles of bodies, fields.

She was still awake when Alliance ships landed. Far too late to save anybody but her. She waited two hours, watched and was sure there were no lingering Batarians, after Alliance troops had cleared the remaining smoking structures.

She walked toward the Alliance ship slowly, on the most visible trajectory, a captive kitten shredding fabric between her and her skin, one hand in the air in surrender. She doubted she'd be mistaken for a Batarian.

She spoke a moment of Grace to Batarian souls that had died, Batarian souls that had been driven to predation and murder, their bodies mixed in with the human souls whose bodies she knew, who she had named over and over in the past days.

She heard a harsh voice from behind a building "No automated warnings, no defense, that's what you get when you join a fucking cult."

Cara didn't flinch, didn't hate, didn't turn toward the voice, didn't see a face.

Finally it happened, the synesthesia redundant and seemingly trite, her eyes passed back to the Alliance cruiser backlit inside her head.

So the Alliance wasn't just here to save the day, it was important to her, would be important. She'd hear that voice honestly too, surprise not managing to shift the oppressive grief.

A woman in uniform intercepted her "Are you injured? What's your name?"

Cara answered calmly "I'm not injured, or not from the Batarians. Just a frightened cat. I'm bleeding but he didn't mean it. My name's" She made a split second decision, the name also backlit in her head, distinct, the result of days of watching smoke, of her mother telling her to hide, her father telling her to forget what she saw there "…Lal Shepard."

oOoOoOoOoOo

The Alliance found no records of Lal Shepard at the Mindoir Colony, but neither could they link her up to Cara Fanning, because she only had a paper birth certificate filed.

To her silent repetitions of the name Lal Shepard she was given new identification, dropped off at a station/school and allowed to keep Hale with her.

She cultivated a stony silence, which had worked when asked about what she was doing on Mindoir, what had happened. She had given her account honestly of what she had seen, but not who she had seen or why it had mattered. She cultivated a blank expression.

She was a cadet. People stopped asking her about Mindoir, because she never answered a question about it unless it was in general terms. She'd heard enough grumblings about cults and ignorance to know that the Alliance seemed to blame every member of Mindoir for being there at all. She escaped having to defend herself from that particular condemnation because she was young, had a kitten and a stony silence. She remembered every moment, but she wouldn't relay it.

She was too raw to listen to any lecture about cults or idealistic people.

She listened. She listened to the attitudes of the cadets and the instructors around her, as though she were watching theater. It was as foreign to her experience as Elcor Midsummer Night's Dream.

In fact the Elcor habit of speech helped her as a template in the military.

Irinia, her roommate, was a font of example and constant questions "Shepard, what the hell…you never eat the meat."

Lal looked at Irinia and saw a few opportunities. She wasn't about to say "Because it would make me throw up, I have never eaten meat. I will never eat meat. It was important to my parents, it's important to me."

That sounded…cultish, didn't it?

Instead she answered in Irinia's rough patois, making her voice sound harsher and more judgmental "Is that what it is? Meat? Hard to tell. You want it, it's yours." She implied that she had standards.

Irinia hadn't asked twice, and eventually got in the habit of spearing the offensive lengths off her plate as Lal tilted them toward her. Worked for them both.

She enjoyed the classes. She was already well read, well educated, breezed through. Her mother's training in hand to hand and weapons use gave her a status boost. Mutters about quiet and soft disappeared once she was ranked.

She got in the habit of taking a gun with her back into the woods, seemingly for target practice, brushing off anybody that wanted to go with her.

She'd find a nice quiet spot, read on Georgia and play with Hale, who had gotten good at holding still under bulky jackets when given enough incentive. He at least was happy with the introduction of meat to his diet.

She did what she'd done for a lifetime. She did what she was told, soaked up information and local culture like a sponge, and began to navigate it with a flair for Elcor theater and fitting in.

If she longed for quiet, nobody knew it. Nobody knew much of anything about her because of her fitting stony silence, Irinia's hand-me-down attitude and Hale's love for teleporting paper balls and chicken.

oOoOoOoOoOo

She had never questioned the vibrating reality of the Alliance cruiser, and with no family and no real dreams of her own, being in a group of highly armed individuals willing to train her was perfectly fine. She was grateful.

She'd read up on human attitudes toward the Mindoir colony, ranging from outrage to condescension, and moved on to address the perception of "cult" throughout history. Cult seemed to mean "Not My Religion" to most, and was prone to attack because it was a minority. Some had been truly dangerous, some benign, many crushed by public opinion.

So she learned about public opinion and made a study of it. She read up on military heroes. Beyond that she soaked in tactics and wartime strategy with unending thirst, each new way to solve a problem with lives on the line lighting up her brain.

Military careers could save lives. They could and had saved lots of lives, including hers, so that was where she'd head.

Maybe someday she'd still visit Thessia, or the Citadel, but for now…for now she'd stay on top of the rankings, polish her Elcor Military Style and see what happened.

oOoOoOoOoOo

What happened was Elysium, six years later.

Shepard had begun to think she actually had a talent for veterinary skills. Maybe not medicine, but certainly psychological profile. So many people she met in the military seemed to need an alpha to follow. Although her animal experience had mostly involved one mostly ornery cat, she'd heard the word "Alpha" enough in her training to adopt the idea that military people were conditioned to follow an alpha, and that if she wanted to be followed she would have to be one.

It worked.

It was occasionally disappointing that it worked, that people could be treated like dogs…but so many people responded to it that Elcor Veterinarian was a template she could use with most people. Then there was stone faced refusal. Those two ideas got her far.

She had been on shore leave on Elysium when the Skyllian Blitz was launched.

She hadn't been, as she had told people, learning new weapons techniques and training with a local sensei. She'd been baking.

Keeping up her badass image took a great deal of work, and she knew it was necessary. She didn't think that people would follow her if they knew she had a tendency to cry, could be brought low by kitten face and enjoyed baking as much as she did. She could never indulge on base, so for her vacation she'd found a place that had a shooting range, a local fighting tradition, and a pastry chef willing to instruct her for a week.

Bliss.

She never had warmed up to eating meat, though she had discovered a love for cream, eggs and chocolate.

Hale had developed such a love for these things that Shepard had left him in a bakery a few years back on Earth during a similar shore leave. She visited when she could, but after training and having no stable point to leave him, it had to be done.

She had cried for a week (never witnessed) but she had known it was the best for him.

Crème brulee was a perfect food. She was sure Hale agreed.

She got regular updates and video conferences with Hale, where she made faces and made noises suitable for a child, which he mostly ignored, but sometimes licked the camera, which thrilled her.

Her baby was happy.

On Elysium she had seen and heard the variety of ships landing from the open-air café where she was enjoying a competitor's pastry, and she had called it in, gotten to the local military base, yelled like hell at quite a few people to get their asses in gear, Veterinary style, and had defended Elysium.

She had saved a lot of lives. She had repelled a lot of Batarians.

She was hooked on this whole saving lives thing. Her parents would be proud. She heard their voices often. She celebrated with more pastry and a video conference, where she told Hale the whole story, did the voices and startled him with the descriptions of explosions. He was entranced, then went to go chase something.

oOoOoOoOoOo

She was good at being a badass. Strategically she was gifted, a mimic of military success in strategy and personality, good at adapting to circumstances and recalling historical solutions to some of the same military problems that occurred over and over in mundane warfare.

It was years before she had the privacy of her own command, but when she did it, she vowed to keep her cabin absolutely private. She was well into gathering her team on the Normandy, determined to save more lives, find out the threat, utilize her best options.

She was a growling, wise-cracking alpha who managed to recruit…actually he demanded…Garrus demanded and she went along with him. Meeting him had triggered that vibrating emphasis in her head, something that had still never steered her wrong. She considered Garrus to be Important. She just didn't know how yet. She'd watch. She'd listen. She'd figure it out. He was a growling, military, earnest Turian who seemed to think he wasn't all that Turian but he was exactly like other Turians she'd met.

It had to be a Turian thing that happened the same way humans happened. Groups that were very close to each other, but who disagreed on something silly, seemed to think they were divided by oceans when really it was about half an inch to everyone else.

Possibly C-Sec filled out its reports with the wrong type of pen, not a Palaven pen, and that was unacceptable. She did not imply this to Garrus, but listened carefully to him saying that he didn't like rules as he followed every single rule she gave him.

She saw an excellent sniper. Would come in handy.

Also…she thought…a nice guy. An actual nice guy. She wouldn't out him.

Wrex required an Alpha. Ashley required an Alpha.

Tali required someone to listen to her tell stories, and Lal was fascinated, still maintaining her incurious neutral pose, but delighted by researching Quarian culture in her spare time, actively having to bite her tongue when Tali was around to keep from gushing questions.

Kaidan…Lal ran away. Yes, she ran away, and felt just fine doing it. It seemed Kaidan Was Attracted to her and that was…no. Absolutely not. No fraternizing, no thank you.

Fortunately commanders could do that. It was not called "running away" it was called "not having time or interest and it's against regs" and she could do that. Not only could she do that, but it was expected, and he was Alliance enough to accept it.

Everything she'd ever learned about sex or attraction had been a massive and resounding 'nope' and it was not hard to keep it that way in the isolation of command in the middle of becoming the first human Spectre.

Everything was going fine, military wise, straight up until Liara offered to Embrace Eternity…

Lal was so interested in how it would affect finding Saren that she did not realize…at all…that she was inviting an Asari into her head.

The same head where she made smoochy faces at Hale.

The same head where brownies tended to show up inexplicably in refrigerators, unlabeled, until they disappeared and nobody ever asked who had put them there, everyone assuming they'd stolen a brownie.

Still, she'd baked a brownie and people had eaten them and how could brownies be wrong? She took advantage of the ethically negotiable zone that was an Alliance refrigerator.

The look of shock on Liara's face as she broke contact.

Oh…oh. Oh my career. Oh…my career on Liara's face. Lal flared her eyes and tried to take in Liara's panic and shock.

Oh, it's bad. That's bad. Oh.

Lal barked out "Professor T'Soni and I are going to discuss the beacon. I need everyone else sharp and ready to go tomorrow."

There was nothing for tomorrow and people looked a little uncomfortable, but began to clear out.

Oh. Oh.

I need a swear word.

I don't swear.

You swear like a soldier.

Yeah, when it's Elcor Commander time. Now I'm looking at Knowing Asari.

Oh.

She and Liara locked eyes until the door closed behind a curiously-looking-back Garrus.

Lal imagined they were all conferring about what this mysterious tomorrow thing would be.

Depending on Liara's reaction it might be "Commander spaced based on critical loss of confidence."

The smile on Liara's face spread slowly and Lal's eyes closed as Liara said "You…like to bake?"

Normally Lal would growl and threaten, but Liara would know better. Lal's eyebrows drew together and she said "Please…please…please…oh…please, don't tell anybody."