Shepard felt a million times better once Horizon was growing ever more distant behind the Normandy.

The remaining colonists had been grateful for their efforts to help them recover after the attack, most of them anyway, but there was only so much a frigate could do. It didn’t help that Ashley and the remaining Alliance soldiers had been lurking around corners waiting for the entire crew to suddenly drop a facade and take over the colony.

The Spectre was tempted to ask Revan to pretend to do just that, especially after she and Jack went at it in a no holds barred spar that nearly leveled a couple buildings near the perimeter of the colony. The Sith Lord had demonstrated to everyone that not only could she stand toe-to-toe with the powerful human biotic, she also had much more control over her abilities that allowed her to toss the ex-Convict around until she was unable to use her Biotics anymore.

Jack was still in the infirmary recovering from implant overload.

Shepard had also noticed that the tattooed woman had been oddly introspective after the spar, obviously Revan had said something that had the other woman thinking. Hopefully it wasn’t a sign that Jack was gearing up for another confrontation against the Sith Lord. Shepard wasn’t sure she wanted to risk either one of them in a training accident. Not when they had no idea when the next mission would come in.

With that worry niggling at the back of her mind, Shepard finished changing into her casual wear and took the elevator back to the CIC deck. The shower she had taken after Horizon had been heavenly, but there was still plenty to do before she could really take a break for the day.

One of those things, unfortunately, was seeing the Ship’s Counselor and seeing if any issues had popped up in the reports that she needed to handle.

“I finished looking over the preliminary reports, Commander.” Yeoman Chambers greeted once Shepard tracked her down. “What you all did was amazing.”

The honest awe in the younger woman’s voice was amusing to hear. Partially because Shepard was getting really used to these FUBAR situations, this one in particular brought back memories of the Thorian and the colonists on Feros, and partially because it was nice to hear someone appreciating the hard work her team put in without the undertone of bitterness that they hadn’t gotten there sooner. Shepard didn’t blame the colonists for their attitude, they had all lost friends today, but the Spectre couldn’t help but feel the weight of their expectations to find the missing colonists herself. She had already seen one email come through her terminal from one of them asking her to relay any news she could.

“The reports did mention Ashley Williams was there. How did that go?” the other redhead asked in a neutral tone.

And there was one conversation topic Shepard would be avoiding for a long while.

“Some things were said, we both have very different views on current events, and I don’t think we’re going to be on each other's Christmas card list this year. Let’s just leave it at that.” Shepard said in a tone that told Kelly to leave it alone.

“I understand.” Chambers said tactfully and changed the subject. “Anyways there are some things that I feel as the Ship’s Counselor should be brought to your attention.” Shepard raised an eyebrow at the yeoman, nonverbally prompting her to go on. “Miranda seems to be bothered by something but no one seems to be able to tell by what. If someone asks, she simply says it isn’t urgent for now. More importantly, I feel like Revan might be accumulating too much stress due to her circumstances. She doesn’t seem to do much to relax and her outburst on Horizon has me concerned…”

“Her outburst on Horizon?” Shepard asked. “From what I know Revan was perfectly in control the whole time.”

Chambers shifted uncomfortably and brought up a file on her terminal before transferring it to Shepard’s Omnitool.

“I agree with you that during the mission itself Revan showed remarkable stability in a highly stressful situation. But her confrontation with Chief Williams after your own conversation has me worried about her emotional state, and she does seem to respect you…”

“I’m surprised Revan submitted a recording of this to Cerberus.” Shepard commented absently as she read over the transcript of the conversation between her fellow Squad Leader and her ex-teammate, a chaotic mix of emotions roiling in her gut at the ferocity Revan had defended her.

“Oh, no. Revan didn’t submit this.” Chambers instantly denied. “Operative Lawson submitted it with the concern that it might lead to some strained relationships between the Normandy and the Alliance. Well, more strained that is.”

“Hmm.” Shepard hummed, only half paying attention to the yeoman.

Instead she was replaying the moments after the meeting with Ashley in her head and realizing Revan had a habit of poking her head into other people’s problems like with Jack’s anger issues or Shepard’s own issues with her appearance or meeting her old teammate. Yet, no one really seemed to try and connect with the Galactic Traveler beyond being polite.

Shepard decided that maybe it was time to change that…

...right after she talked to Miranda.

-o-

The talk with her XO went...Shepard was hesitant to say well because the black haired Cerberus officer was clearly distracted by something, however she assured her that it wasn’t an issue just yet.

Shepard could only extend an offer to listen if Miranda needed help in the end, but she did accomplish her goal of finding more about the VI research outpost TIM mentioned. From the files her XO had given her ‘Project Overlord’ was an attempt to communicate with the Geth in a way that organics could follow by creating a VI to act as an intermediary. Organics could make a request and then leave the VI to actually negotiate the deal with the synthetic race.

It was the kind of research that was hilariously illegal in Citadel Space so Shepard wasn’t surprised that Cerberus had a hand in it. Thankfully it seemed rather tame compared to most Cerberus experiments she had run across.

Afterall there was little even Cerberus could do that could fuck up ‘create a program to talk to someone better’.

The project had apparently stalled lately and Cerberus was likely hoping Revan could give them a breakthrough, but Shepard was more interested in giving the Sith Lord time to unwind.

Now she just had to present it in a way Revan would actually accept.

-o-

“You want me to take a vacation… in the middle of a mission.” Revan’s voice was about as dry as any desert you’d care to name.

Shepard winced. That had definitely not been the correct approach.

“Nnnooo,” she drew out. “I thought we could use a break after the mess on Horizon and Aite seemed like a nice place to relax for a bit.”

Revan huffed, clearly not believing the Spectre for an instant but she did at least seem to appreciate the thought behind it.

“I don’t disagree that the team could use some downtime,” the Sith Lord started. “But I think we should focus on finishing recruiting for the ground teams. We already know most of the people recommended to us don’t seem to stay in safe corners of the galaxy, I’d hate to lose one because we arrived after they got themselves in trouble.”

Shepard thought about the several close calls they had had even with the recruits they knew the locations of and had to agree. If they had delayed for any of them, except for maybe Jack and Kasumi, the person they were hoping to recruit would’ve probably died. Maybe it would be better to finish going through those dossiers sooner than later. That probably meant heading for Illium though, since it was the only solid lead she had at the moment.

“You should also take some time to visit Jack.” Revan commented. “The events on Horizon have her surprisingly shaken. I’ve already had a chat with her, but she might benefit from another human’s point of view.”

Shepard blinked. Jack was out of the infirmary? That was good news. Although if the resident empath was telling her she needed a talking to maybe it wasn’t as good as she hoped.

“I should go.” She decided. Leaving whatever issue Jack had for later sounded like a good way to wake up and find half the ship torn to pieces if it wasn’t taken care of. At least Shepard could trust Revan to handle her own issues for a day while she focused on the problem children in her crew. “Although I wasn’t kidding, take some time to unwind.” She half-ordered, not that she felt like the Sith would listen to her if she didn’t feel like it.

As she expected, Revan made a vague noise and returned to reading the tech manual she had been focusing on when Shepard first walked in, not even pretending like she was going to stop working until she had mastered the technology around her to her satisfaction.

-o-

Finding Jack was rarely hard on the Normandy. If she was in the common spaces, you would only need to follow the cursing. For all other times, she was usually hiding out under Engineering about as far away from people as she could get.

Shepard had come by a few times to check in on the ex-convict, sometimes to find out what she was thinking, sometimes to make sure she wasn’t going to blow up the Normandy. Sure enough, Jack was hiding out in her usual spot but this time instead of hunting through the Cerberus databases like the last few times Shepard had been down here, the tattooed woman was staring a hole through a bulkhead. At least she was until Shepard got closer.

“Hey.” not the most enthusiastic of greetings but at least Jack didn’t seem to be about to do something violent.

“Jack, what are you up to?” Shepard returned.

“Still checking out your ship. Wouldn’t mind putting her through her paces when you're not around.”

Shepard’s face hardened. Revan might’ve warned her Jack was off balance emotionally, but NO ONE was taking her ship without permission. “See, you say things like that and people might get the wrong idea and feel they need to deal with you.”

Jack scoffed, retreating to the far end of her hidey-hole. “Try it,” she said in what seemed like reflex than any real challenge. “Anyways, relax. Joyriding doesn’t have the thrill it used to.”

“That so?”

“I’ve been around. Ran with gangs, wiped out some gangs, joined a cult,” she listed then smirked a little. “Kept the haircut.” the smirk fell away as quick as it came, “I learned how to survive and not be a victim.”

Shepard wasn’t surprised by most of that. The last time they had talked Jack had told her that she had escaped a Cerberus facility as a child. With no background and the organisation looking to get her back it made sense that she gravitated towards criminals. They didn’t tend to look past what you brought to the table. The cult thing was unexpected though.

“Can’t really see you joining a cult.” Shepard admitted. “Don’t those tend to have a lot of rules?”

“I was looking for answers. Drugs and sex and going to a better place. A better place...right.” Jack mumbled the last part bitterly but Shepard still heard her. “It was all about money. They wanted to take a colony, shake the suckers down to fund their spread. And guess who was their ace in the hole?” she snorted moodily. “They were just like the rest. Didn’t give one shit about me.”

Shepard could guess what happened to the cult given the past tense and at the same time she felt her understanding of Jack shifting. Until now she was pretty convinced Jack was unrepentant about the crimes she had committed and after a few more questions it was clear the ex-convict really didn’t care about the murder and mayhem she caused but when Shepard asked if she should care Jack’s denial came just a bit too fast to be genuine. Maybe she was projecting on feelings that weren’t there but Shepard got the idea that Jack genuinely wanted a place to belong without being exploited for her abilities, something she demonstrated how highly she valued after she shared a story about destroying a space station by crashing it into a moon in retaliation for the destruction of an outlaw colony she had joined for a time.

Of course Shepard wasn’t about to mistake Jack for some fragile flower looking for a home. The Biotic had a killer’s edge that would make short work of anyone who was stupid enough to think that. Still…

“You must have met some good people too.” the Commander pressed, curious how Jack would take that.

“Everybody wants something. And because of that everyone has an angle. Most of those ‘good people’ are just looking for a way to make themselves feel better about some shit. They act like they want to help when everybody’s lookin, but give them enough of a reason and they’ll sell your ass to anyone asking for a couple credits.”

That had all the flags of a deeply personal incident Shepard wasn’t going to poke at, at the moment.

“What about Revan? She seems intent on helping you out.” Of course ‘helping Jack out’ consisted of Revan deliberately provoking Jack just to crush her with one of her weird Force powers or more recently throwing the Biotic around until she couldn’t move.

“The Ice Queen? She isn’t that fucking hard to figure out. I piss her off.”

What? Some of Shepard’s surprise at the unexpected answer must have shown on her face because Jack huffed in amusement before continuing.

“Yeah, she doesn’t like seeing ‘someone of my level of power thrashing around like a blind Rancor’ whatever the fuck that means. But apparently me being the biggest biotic bitch around isn’t good enough for her. I need to know how to use it, too.”

“And you’re okay with that?” Shepard asked skeptically.

“Fuck yeah, do you know how many times I haven’t been able to just blast someone with my biotics? Once, and I got fucking lucky the Asari bitch decided to gloat or I would’ve been dead. Then the Ice Queen comes along and decides to show me a bunch of kickass tricks for free? No way am I turning that shit down for now.”

Shepard found it kind of funny that despite Jack’s general attitude of ‘everyone is going to try using me for my biotics’ that attitude didn’t seem to apply to the Sith Lord. Maybe it was because Revan was the first person Jack had come across, fought, and then been completely dismissed by after being beaten that made the ex-convict think Revan wasn’t looking to leverage her for her power, maybe it was something else. The best part was, Jack didn’t seem to even realise it.

She shook her head and got ready to leave. She needed to go talk to Revan about freaking her out with vague comments.

“Hey, Shepard.” Jack called out as the commander turned her back. “No one’s ever asked me about this shit. It’s strange to talk about. So fuck you, and thanks for asking.” The appreciation in Jack’s voice took any possible sting out of her words.

-o-

A few days later the Normandy was on approach to Illium, chasing the last known location of an Asari specialist Cerberus had marked as a potential recruit. Given that the Asari in question never seemed to stay in one spot for very long, Shepard was hoping they were still on the planet and this wasn’t the beginning of a chase across space.

She was just finishing up lunch and preparing to continue going over some emails that had come in and familiarising herself with the planet they were about to land on when Miranda of all people cornered her in the mess and requested her for a meeting in the XO’s Office.

Seeing how tense her XO was at the request, Shepard had no issues following along.

“So what’s going on?” Shepard asked as the door closed behind her.

The black haired Cerberus officer took a steadying breath and closed her eyes.

“Shepard, I find myself in the unpleasant position of asking for your help.” Miranda said reluctantly. “I don’t like discussing personal matters...but this is important.”

It must have been for Miranda of all people to lower herself to asking for help. Of course the Commander wasn’t about to start joking, not when her XO seemed so flustered by whatever this was.

“Miranda, you’re one of my crew.” Shepard said seriously. “What’s on your mind?”

Miranda took another deep breath and began to explain…