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Shepard is having a perfectly passable day before Kasumi rings her. As good as she can have these days; fewer forms to fill, her scars don’t itch too much. A lull while they head off to refuel has given her the day to herself. And then she gets the text: can we chat for a second?
When she walks into the observation deck, Kasumi doesn’t look up from her notes. The atmosphere is so different here. Shepard’s spent the past decade on Alliance vessels, she can’t bring herself to get familiar with the lack of formality.
“Shepard, I wanted to talk to you about Bekenstein.”
She takes a seat on the far end of the couch. “How’s the planning going?”
“Well, there’s one more thing.”
“Hmm?”
“The thing is, Shepard, it’s a high class event.” Kasumi stops then, looking at her. She has this habit of stopping short, letting others fill in the gaps. Combined with the fact that any attempts to learn about her personal life are turned right back around to the asker, she’s still a mystery to Shepard. She lives completely in the present.
It would be a relief, Shepard thinks, to be as unknowable as Kasumi.
“You don’t think I’m high class?” she asks, tilting her head.
“If I’m going to struggle to fit in there—”
“You’re wanted in multiple federations,” Shepard argues. Kasumi leans back, her arms crossed.
“I just think we would both benefit from having someone else there. Someone like Miranda.”
Shepard presses her lips together. “Someone like Miranda, or Miranda? Don’t beat around the bush.”
“Right, your father was a teacher,” she mutters. Briefly, Shepard startles. It still unsettles her how much Kasumi knows of her, of everyone. “She’s very classy. And obviously she’s good at going undercover.”
Miranda. A party with Miranda. Hours of small talk with Miranda.
“It’s your mission," she finds herself saying. “If you want Miranda…”
“I do.”
Shepard sits there, breathing low and slow and hoping Kasumi can’t tell she’s—well, she doesn’t know what. Affected. Like she’s some character in an old Earth novel. Affected. Like it’s a sickness.
“Then I’ll go clear her calendar,” she says.
Miranda knows she’s there before she even knocks. “Come in,” she calls, and Shepard jumps.
“There’s something freakish about you.”
“You’re loud, Shepard.” Miranda clicks a key on her keyboard and glances up. “No one else on this ship walks like that.”
“What, you couldn’t fix that while you were at it?”
She narrows her eyes just a bit. Lately she hasn’t been engaging with Shepard on this. Which she finds rich.
Ever since she kissed her—tried to kiss her—god, but she fucked it all up.
It’s Kasumi. She wants you to come to Bekenstein.
“You think I would know about all that?”
“Yes,” Shepard says slowly, unsure. But Miranda smiles.
“Well.” She flexes the fingers of her hand, then lays them down on the desk. “We’ll go shopping, then.”
“It’s a date.” Shepard says it and freezes, but Miranda seems unfazed. With only a little frustration, she leaves.
They go to the Sunset Strip. Shepard’s only been here a handful of times, to try to unwind on layovers. Usually at the 24 hour ramen booth, when she stumbles off the shuttle full of exhaustion and a hankering for something with a pool of oil covering the top. She eyes it longingly as they head to their third boutique, where she and Miranda gather another armful of dresses to try. Miranda always has a comment: too bright, too busy. Until Shepard tries on a simple black dress and she’s quiet.
“What shoes will you wear?” Miranda asks.
“Kasumi has shoes.” She tilts her head, unsure if she likes the bit of glitter down the side.
“You really do need me,” she sighs. “EDI said you were a 10.”
“Many have said I’m a ten,” she volleys back, stupidly. Miranda does not laugh at this, though Shepard can not keep her grin to herself.
“You have big feet,” Miranda says instead, which seems to take all the air out of the room. “But I grabbed you a pair. They’re not too tall.”
“I can walk in heels.”
“Right,” she replies in a tone of voice that does not contain any faith at all. “But they’re not too tall.”
Shepard bites back her sigh and takes the box from Miranda. “Do I want to know how much these cost?” she asks, lifting off the cover.
“Do they fit?”
“Hold on a second,” she mutters.
She slips her feet into them. They’re closed-toe pumps, so obviously Miranda was confident. The choice leaves no room for error, but they do fit. Shepard clenches her jaw.
“Yeah, they’re okay,” she says.
“Stand up.”
Bossy.
“They fit differently when you stand, so stand,” Miranda explains slowly. Not for the first time, Shepard notes that she is wonderful at pretending to have patience.
She turns face to face with Miranda, a little taller than her now. Just a little; the heels aren’t too high, she’s right. Miranda looks her over.
“Happy with your work?” Her eyes flick back up to Shepard’s.
“Of course.” She steps back, though there’s not too much room to go in the cramped dressing room.
“I read it in an article. The footwear should balance the dress, adding a touch of interest without drawing too much focus.”
“What, are you quoting that?”
“From the article,” she says, reaching out to straighten Shepard’s sleeve. Her skin prickles in goosebumps.
“Huh,” she drawls. Miranda’s hand stills against her shoulder. “You’re kind of a nerd, huh?”
She drops her arm and Shepard laughs. “You know, this might not be the one. Let’s keep looking.”
Shepard bites her tongue.
Shepard’s just barely gotten her dress on when the knock comes at the door. Miranda’s still in her crew uniform.
“You’re not ready yet?”
“I get dressed last,” she says. She leans back against Shepard’s desk, her hand brushing against one of her models. She glances down at it, before picking up the little ship. “I didn’t know you liked these.”
“That wasn’t in my file?”
Miranda sets the ship down without a word, unimpressed.
“I could use some help with my dress,” Shepard says.
Miranda’s cool hands catch against her skin, soft and uncalloused, as she reaches for the zipper and tugs it up. It is the slow slink of metal and their breathing that fills the room, and for a moment, Shepard swears she feels the ghost of her lips at her ear, a stray touch at her neck.
“I was an engineer,” she blurts out. “Am. An engineer. I made a lot of models in school.”
She smooths her hand over Shepard’s shoulders. Kindly, she doesn’t point out whether she was aware of this fact or not. The models give her something to focus on, something familiar.
“It’s nice,” she says softly.
She looks at herself in the mirror. It’s a deep blue, electric. A little dated, but it has a high neck and one strap that stretches behind her neck. Shepard used to have hair down to the middle of her back. Of course she always had to pin it up, but she was vain about it as a child, even when she was writing her degree. She used to twirl it around her finger whenever she thought, until her teacher told her it made her look vapid. Now of course she’s lost it all, cut off with the surgeries. At first, stupid as it was, she worried it might never grow back, but it’s begun to come in soft curls around her ears, the nape of her neck.
Miranda, of course, has the most gorgeous hair. She’s jealous of it. Wants to twist her hand in it and tug gently, play with it, and then she’s seized by the thought of doing that while she kisses Miranda senseless.
It’s like she’s trapped in a nightmare.
“Do—do you want help with your makeup?”
Miranda blinks.
“Unless you weren’t planning to wear—I mean you don’t need to—“
“Yes,” Miranda says, in the tone of someone humoring a small child. “You can help.”
“I have a steady hand,” she says, plaintive. “You’ve seen me shoot.”
Like a game of chicken, the two of them come face to face, leaned into each other. She can feel Miranda’s breath soft against the edge of her hand. She drags the edge of her pen against the line of her lashes. It is a relief that she can’t look at her. Shepard gets to see the sharp shadows across her face, the fullness of her mouth.
“I’ve never done this,” she says once Shepard finishes up her left eye.
“Hmm?”
“All this… fun stuff.” She waves a hand in the air. “Dressing up and going out and just—having friends.”
“You think we’re friends?”
“It should be so simple,” she mutters. Shepard starts on her other eye.
“Well, prom is overrated,” she tells her. “Too much sweat and too many hormones.” Miranda hums lightly. The two of them proceed in silence.
“You have a crush on anyone?” she asks as she finishes. And Miranda seems to startle.
“Shepard,” she sighs.
“This is girl talk! See, it’s not so great after all.” Miranda presses her lips together in a thin line. Shepard squints her eyes “Let me see? You might have smudged it.”
“I got it,” she says quickly, standing up. “Thank you.” Shepard lets it go.
On the way to Bekenstein, they sit on opposite sides of the shuttle. Shepard cannot help but notice that Miranda’s eyeliner is just a little crooked, lifting away from the edge of her eye. She had flinched, then.
“For now, focus on not drawing Hock’s attention,” Kasumi says. Shepard turns her attention back to her and to the mission at hand. They have spent the hovercar ride being grilled on every bit of the mission, every detail of her alter ego, until Shepard has been replaced with Allison Gunn. “I’ll need some time to scope out his security. You and Miranda can settle in, try to get to know the guests.”
“You’ve told us so much already, Kasumi. What else it there to learn?” The woman rolls her eyes but a pleased smile twists her lips. “Are you nervous?”
“No,” she says easily. “If I’ve done my job, there’s nothing to be nervous about.”
Shepard smiles, wry. If only she could think like that.
“It’s true,” Miranda says. “An ounce of prevention, a pound of cure.”
“Even you can’t plan for everything,” Shepard rebuts. Miranda looks over at her.
“No one’s perfect, Shepard.”
She’s wearing a black dress, something simple, with shoes to match. The effect is that she looks like an ancient photo, not a hint of color to her save for the deep red of her lips. She’s never seen Miranda blush. She doesn’t know if she’s capable of it. There’s a string of pearls draped across her collarbone. It glints in the low light of the car. Shepard is about to ask if they’re real when Kasumi leans forward.
“That’s it,” she says. Shepard startles, but Kasumi’s leaning against the window. “Filthy rich bastard,” she laughs. Shepard leans over to peer down through the window. The mansion sprawls over most of the island, glass and steel. Shepard doesn’t feel impressed, she just feels nervous. Someone has to be.
Kasumi flicks on her cloak right as the valet pops open the hovercar door. Now or never, she thinks, and she follows Miranda out.
Safe on the balcony, Shepard rounds the corner to lean against the cool glass wall and downs another glass of water. She never hated Alliance events. Sure, she wasn’t always comfortable, but she enjoyed the chance to play at being normal for a bit. And there, she was never so out of place. There was always someone in the military, someone working for an engineering contractor.
No one here knows her, obviously. But on top of it, Kasumi has invented a character Shepard struggles to become. Allison Gunn has an advanced art degree from a top institution in the North American Federation. As a young girl she enjoyed skiing and won several regional competitions. Shepard didn’t know what snow looked like until she was nineteen. And every time she turns to check on Miranda the woman is absorbed in a conversation like she was born for it.
“Tired of chitchat?” She turns around and finds Miranda lingering in the doorway of the balcony. Speak of the devil and all that.
“I still can’t go anywhere without you keeping an eye on me, huh?”
“Old habits,” Miranda says, though there’s not as much heat to it as there used to be. “I needed some air, that senator keeps making eyes at me.”
“Which one?” she asks sharply.
“Are you jealous?”
She looks at Miranda just a bit too long. “If it’s the one I’m thinking of, I needed a shower after talking to him.” She shudders. “How do you manage it? Keeping a conversation never used to be this hard.”
“It’s not like I did anything to you,” Miranda says. Shepard opens her mouth to argue. She didn’t mean anything of the sort. For once. “You’re just out of practice.”
“Maybe I never was any good at this. But you didn’t answer my question.”
“People love to talk about themselves.” She traces her nail, freshly painted, along the balcony rail. “I just listen.”
“So that’s why I barely know a thing about you?” she tilts her head, glancing back at the party. The sun’ll set soon, things will only get more rowdy.
“You’re no exception, Shepard.” She gives Miranda a look of disbelief, but the woman is looking down at her wrist, the faintest hint of a smile on her lips.
“All right, so it’s my turn to listen.” She steps closer and Miranda looks up. “Tell me something about yourself.”
“What do you want to know?”
She rolls her eyes. “Anything, Miranda. Anything you want.”
She’s silent, still, long enough that Shepard is beginning to lose patients. “People love to talk about themselves,” she repeats. “I learned that from my father.”
Shepard stands there, waiting for her to go on, but she doesn’t. Waiting, as if it’s a puzzle for Shepard to unravel. Miranda’s like that, a puzzle, something for Shepard to tease apart in her mind when she’s trying to fall asleep. Miranda’s only mentioned her father a few times, always briefly. The most she was able to get off her was after Illium, and only because she was so rattled. Shepard watched her close back up as they travelled back to the ship, and by the time they were on the Normandy she knew she had lost her chance.
“Dad of the Year, huh?”
Miranda smiles then, and unclasps her necklace. Shepard is disappointed for only a second before she drapes the pearls around her own neck, warmed from her skin, and fastens the clasp.
“They look so lovely on you,” she says, and Shepard flushes down to her collarbones.
“I should…”
“You should go,” Miranda says quietly, a cryptic smile on her lips.
“I should check in with Kasumi.” She’s gotten distracted. The two of them are still right by the entrance, they’ve been spending too much time together. Someone will have noticed. All those worries, creeping back over her, while Miranda is infuriatingly implacable.
“Pardon me, dear, but might I steal this lovely lady from you?” Shepard glances over, startled. Damn, she’s off her game. Didn’t even see the guy sidle up.
“Be my guest,” she responds, as if Miranda is hers to lend out at all. It rewards her with a petty sense of satisfaction to watch her walk away for a dance, all in the hopes that Shepard might calm herself for a moment or two. Steadily not thinking about what it would be like to have her in her own arms, soft and warm and—
Pull it together, she thinks. It takes her a moment to realize it’s not her own voice, but Kasumi’s, repeating herself.
“Come in, Shepard. There’s a voice lock.” Kasumi’s voice crackles back to life in her ear. “Can you put it together?” Her heart is in her ears. Kasumi has to fight for a spot there amongst the rush of blood.
“Yeah,” she says, her voice rough. “I can.”
It all seems too easy, until it doesn’t. Until Hock finds them, corners them, lures them out where they can’t hide. Her, Miranda, Kasumi, surprisingly in sync with each other.
It used to annoy her, how easily she and Miranda fit together when they fought. Impressing upon her that she had been studied, that Miranda was inside her head, inside her body. Now it’s Miranda at her back, over her shoulder, everywhere she needs her. But it’s mighty convenient. Shepard used to feel that she had been forced to trust Miranda. She doesn’t know when it mellowed into something more real.
Out of the corner of her eye, she sees the shuttle circling. She tries to catch Miranda’s eye, but the woman is focused on another merc across the helicopter pad. Shepard hears Kasumi in her ear, insistent. She bolts, grabs Miranda’s arm, and runs.
The two of them collapse onto the floor of the car. The adrenaline crashes through her. Miranda stumbles in after her. Shepard closes her eyes for a second before she rolls over, pushing herself up onto her side.
“What were you thinking, Miranda? We were all clear to go.”
“We needed to clear the threat, Shepard. You know what happens when—.”
“The job doesn’t have to be perfect, it just has to be done,” she spits out. She leans her head against the bench seat, swallowing down the hot air of the cabin. Until Miranda touches one hand to Shepard’s thigh, and briefly, her mind goes blank.
She needs her. The thought needles at her. Despite herself, Shepard is a romantic. Love is one of the most beautiful things she can think of. Her parents loved each other in a way that frightened her. She’s been in love twice, maybe two and a half if she counts it differently. Never before has it made her feel like this, like she has the flu, like absolute shit. So obviously, this is not love. Like a terrible logic puzzle.
“You’re bleeding,” Miranda says, and Shepard snaps back to herself. She glances down to her leg.
“Shit,” she mutters, reaching down to prod at the wound, but Miranda grabs her hand and holds it away.
“I’ll clean it. I might have to mix up a dose of your immunosuppressant. It looks like you tore one of the grafts.” A brief wave of nausea comes over her.
Her hand falls to the console as Kasumi quickly pulls herself down from the tiny pilot’s cabin.
“Fantastic job, ladies,” the thief says.
“Don’t get too excited. I still need to get myself out of this thing,” Shepard says, and when Kasumi stretches up to check the supplies over their heads, she casts a glance toward Miranda, who finally exhibits the faintest trace of a blush.
“Meet me in the medbay,” Miranda tells her once they dock, her tone brokering no argument. And so Shepard pulls herself up onto one of the cots and waits, her head sinking into the sparse pillow. She reviews the events of the day, her mind always falling back to the faint imprint of Miranda’s glove on her thigh, the weight of the pearls around her neck. Still around her neck but she’s too tired to touch them.
Shepard wakes to Miranda gently shaking her shoulder. For a moment she has a horrible deja vu wash over her, a dread that tugs at her stomach. Blue eyes staring down at her and a curtain of dark hair and everything far too strange.
“I got tired,” she admits after a moment, her tongue heavy.
“It took longer than I thought.” Miranda’s version of an apology, she supposes. “We can go down to your quarters. It’s not a sterile procedure.”
After settling Shepard on the bed, she quietly sets down the vial, uncaps the syringe. Deftly, she tucks the cap under her thumb and guides the needle into the vial, puncturing the seal. She inverts the glass and draws down the plunger. Liquid rushes into the chamber. She’s half expecting a countdown, but Miranda slips the needle in and pushes down without a word. Of course. She leans back against the headboard and watches Miranda as she snaps on the cap and slips it into her sharps bucket.
Maybe it’s the cocktail racing through her. But she wants something to happen. That’s all. Miranda’s eyeliner has smudged under her lashes. Shepard doesn’t want to tell her, wants to hold onto this little bit of softness, imperfection.
“You fit in so well,” she says. “At the party.”
“I’m a blank slate, Shepard. I can be whatever they want me to be.”
“You don’t believe that, do you?”
“Shepard,” she says, and she stills. “What exactly are you saying?”
She lets her eyes drift over her face.
“You don’t make anything easy, do you?”
She takes a deep breath. Lifts her hand to Miranda’s hair and twists one lock around her finger. Miranda watches her, stonefaced. And Shepard loses her nerve.
“I—” She sighs. “It was stupid.” She stands up on her shaking legs and goes to take off her jewelry. She fumbles with the necklace. It’s so quiet she swears she can hear every little clink of the chain. Shepard has just found purchase on the clasp when she hears Miranda’s voice.
“Leave it on,” she says. Shepard glances at the mirror. Miranda is staring at her, a little crease between her brows. Then she parts her lips, just a bit. If it weren’t Miranda, Shepard would think she was embarrassed.
She raises her eyebrows. She’s embarrassed though, and she tells Miranda to sit on the bed. She turns away.
“Shepard, please.”
“What?”
Miranda’s sitting there, looking like every word will cost her something precious. “Can I help you with your dress?”
She stops and looks at her, really looks. Her hair, still shiny and smooth. Her skin, shining even in the haphazard light of her bedroom. Her long legs, perfectly balanced.
“No,” she says. She shrugs herself out of it and drops the fabric to the floor.
When Miranda looks at her, has looked at her before, it's always been clinical. There’s a tinge of that even now, as she disrobes fully, but somewhere along the way Shepard has grown to like it. Or if not like it, then grown to need it. She wouldn’t know what to do without it.
She takes a step back. “You’ve already seen it all, haven’t you?”
“Shepard, just come here.”
“Please,” she laughs, “if this is a joke, just tell me now.”
Miranda looks at her, the little crease between her brows persistent. Shepard wants so badly to kiss her. “You’re the one who always tells me I can’t take a joke.”
She takes her time undressing Miranda. She unzips her jacket, tugs her dress off her shoulders, down her hips. She’s wearing simple underwear. She tugs her toward her, slipping one hand inside the cup of her bra and pressing her lips to the curve of her neck.
After a moment, she grabs the dress off the floor to drape it over the chair. Miranda laughs softly.
“It’s a nice dress,” she says, but it’s a weak defense. Her heartbeat is loud in her ears. And then Shepard is lying on the bed, naked save for the string of pearls draped across her skin.
Miranda skates her fingers along the curve of Shepard’s waist. So faint she nearly doesn’t feel them save for the pebbling of her skin in their wake. She’s consumed by the image of Miranda’s body bent over hers, the cut of the knife, metal glinting under hard fluorescent light, steel retractors spreading her skin, and a thin sheen of desire that coats the whole thing. She’s shaking, she thinks, and she holds Miranda a little tighter.
“Touch me,” she says, “like you mean it.” She rolls them both over and kisses Miranda until she’s limp underneath her. “Like that.”
Miranda looks at her like she can peer inside her mind. Right now Shepard doesn’t have it in her to be ashamed of what she’d see there. Miranda’s thumb traces against her hip, pressing circles into the bone.
“How long?” Miranda asks.
“That’s not fair.”
“How long?” Miranda seems to be on the verge of something. Like a dog with her eyes on a treat. She’s split open. How did Shepard ever think she was untouchable? She doesn’t know if she’s stretching herself to see it there, the want. She wants to see it so much.
“I don’t know how long,” she says. “All I know is I’ve been waiting for you to catch up,” she sighs against her mouth. She presses her fingers to the seam of her underwear, pushes into her until the fabric is damp, until Miranda rocks against her hand and sighs into her mouth. A perfect little sigh. It’s the sweetest sound in the world. She made her, perfect Miranda, lose control like that. Allison Gunn can go fuck herself.
“Shepard.” Miranda’s mouth is pressed against the curve of her neck, her breath warm and wet. When she says her name it sounds like a question. One she asks over and over as Shepard drags her fingers through the wetness between her legs, teasing her to the edge. “Fucking hell, Shepard,” she groans, and she laughs, finally speeding up, adding just a little more pressure, until Miranda’s thighs tighten around her hand and she slumps into Shepard’s lap.
She presses her thighs together to quell the pulsing between her legs, but she gets a moment of relief before Miranda’s pressing her back against the bed. Powerful, almost desperate. DId she do that? Miranda lowers her mouth to the hollow of her throat, right above the pearls, and Shepard’s heart skitters. She can’t help but wonder already when the shine will wear off. And then she tries to take a page from Kasumi’s book, not to worry before it’s time, because Miranda’s mouth is hot on her breast, hot and almost desperate, and for the first time, Shepard is grateful she knows her body this well.