The Normandy SR-2: 2185

A moan escaped her lips and her toes curled as the wave of pleasure began to slowly build in her core. She didn't believe in heaven but there were few other words adequate to describe what she was feeling.

The man lay on top of her, her fingers digging into the muscles of his shoulders as she threw her head back and cried out. To a woman like Miranda Lawson, love was a childish idea. A foolish notion created to inspire hope in the lonesome. She used to tell herself it was insignificant, that she required no one else to be content with her place in the universe, to know where she belonged. Yet now, with her lover staring so tenderly into her light eyes, her body wrapped around his, Miranda realized how wrong she'd been.

She cared for this man in a way she'd never cared for another partner. Most of her romantic experiences had been brief and shockingly dull affairs, largely devoid of real feelings. Shepard was different.

The commander was a good man, one who'd helped her see herself as more than just a tool to be used by others. The woman he'd first met had been a painfully isolated and bitter individual who'd never known what true kindness and warmth could feel like. A woman abused by her father, who'd done terrible things in the service of an organization she'd once believed in for a sister she didn't actually know.

That woman was gone now. Miranda wrapped her legs around Shepard's waist as he stiffened, holding him close as she let out a fierce cry. Her body fell lax to the mattress beneath her a moment later, followed swiftly by Shepard, the commander taking care to brush aside the strands of dark hair that sweat had glued to her brow.

Miranda gasped for breath as her brilliant mind attempted to wrap itself around the improbability of her current situation. They had survived the Omega Four Relay and defeated the Collectors. The commander was everything she was promised and more, and at the moment, all she could do was stare at him. Unsure of how to explain all that she felt, the operative simply let her eyes speak for her until Shepard said something she wasn't ready for.

The commander stared out of the viewport above them as he spoke. "Miranda...I love you."

She still didn't know what to say.

Earth: 2186

A crack of thunder sounded in the distance as a light rain fell from above. The crowd was eerily still as the water danced on the mahogany coffin that was displayed before them. At the center of the stage where the casket lay stood an old admiral who had no place making a speech about the deceased to his closest friends.

"Though we are gathered here today to mourn, we should also celebrate. Celebrate because the man whom we have come to bury was worthy of it. Commander Shepard exemplified much of what was best in the Alliance, in humanity, indeed in all sentient life, and though we are made less by his loss, his sacrifice has ensured a future for all of his, one that we should rejoice in."

As the admiral continued his eulogy, Miranda Lawson's face remained impassive. All around her, people were sobbing and wailing, even many of the hardened warriors who had fought beside Shepard. Liara and Joker, Samantha and Grunt: they all showed their grief on their faces. Yet Miranda's eyes were dry and not a sound escaped her lips.

She took a heavy swallow as she looked down to her lap and the omni-cuffs locked in position around her wrists. The restraints had begun to chafe her skin and their ever-present glow made sure everyone who laid eyes on her knew she was a prisoner. She paid it as little mind as she could. There were far more important things here.

"We should celebrate the man, celebrate the hero whom without our lives and indeed our entire civilization would not exist."

Celebrate? What is there to celebrate? Miranda wondered. Shepard was gone along with far too many members of the Normandy's crew. Billions upon billions more were dead all across the galaxy, entire planets were in ruin, some destroyed so thoroughly they would probably never recover.

Miranda shook her head, trying to clear it of such thoughts. In spite of the devastation, the Reapers at least were gone, and it wouldn't do to dishonor all Shepard had done by forgetting that fact. Her blue eyes snapped back up to the stage and she forced herself to continue listening to the eulogy as she stared at the coffin of the man she had loved.

Above the open casket was a glorious display created from hundreds of flowers and a large portrait of the commander sat above the man's burned N7 armor. In spite of the dire straits the Earth remained in, no expense had been spared for the funeral of humanity's greatest hero.

He's really gone; she thought. So many months spent circumventing nature to bring Shepard back to life, more months spent fighting by his side, and still more worrying over him, and after it all Shepard was dead, for good this time. Even if Miranda wasn't displaying her sorrow at that fact so openly it didn't mean she wasn't grieving and as the coffin began to be lowered into the ground, she found it hard to focus on anything else.

Still, she never looked away. No matter how things had ended between them, Miranda had left a piece of her heart with the commander, and he deserved better than to have died just when his burdens should have been laid down.

When the last of the dirt had been piled atop Shepard's coffin, the assembled crowd began to migrate back towards the large tent that had been erected in the middle of the remains of the Vancouver park where the Alliance had decided to bury their hero. Few of the other attendees paid her any mind. Once, she had been an important woman but now, it was hard not to feel like one of those relics the Protheans had left behind, someone who's time had passed.

She wasn't entirely ignored though. When Miranda rose from her seat and made her way down the center aisle towards the commander's grave many of the people she passed glared at her, hatred vivid in their eyes. With the Reapers gone, Cerberus was the only enemy left to blame for the wretched state of much of the galaxy and she was one of the most visible remnants of the Illusive Man's once-mighty organization.

Even among the old crew of the Normandy there was scant comfort to be found. Jack, of course, had always hated her, while Samara regard her a little more than a criminal to be brought to justice. Grunt and Kasumi had no complaint with her, but they were not friends either, merely people she had worked with for a time. Far too many of the rest were dead: Zaeed, killed at the Collector Base; Mordin, giving his life to cure the Genophage; Thane, who fell defending the Salarian Councilor from Kai Leng; Legion, shot by Tali on Rannoch… And of course, her only real friend in the crew, Jacob, had lost his life in the last battle here on Earth. Now, he was buried with his beloved Brynne and promptly forgotten by everyone except Miranda.

As for the other survivors of her time aboard the SR-2, they had other priorities. Ashley Williams was doing her best to remain composed, but there was no mistaking the pain on her face. Garrus had his arm around the marine's shoulder, and much of the rest of the original Normandy's crew were clustered around her as well, offering what comfort they could. The turian looked up as Miranda reached the edge of the grave, but aside from his brief nod, the group didn't acknowledge her presence.

The rain began to pick up as they stood there, heavy drops soaking Miranda's face as she stared down into the grave. "I'm sorry, Shepard," she whispered.

"What are you doing here?"

She spun at the anguished question, and found herself looking at the same Spectre she'd been observing earlier, familiar anger accompanying the heartbreak in Ashley's eyes. Much of the rest of the crew looked uncomfortable, but they said nothing as the two women faced each other.

Miranda did her best to remain stoic as she replied. "I came to pay my respects."

"And now you have." She could see a whirl of emotions playing across Ashley's face, hurt and grief and resentment all mixing together in those four words. Unlike most of the people here, the Spectre's ire had little to do with Miranda's past ties to Cerberus. Shepard had broken both of their hearts, and even if the operative's pain was fresher, she knew Ashley's had never entirely faded.

There was a defiant edge to Miranda's voice when she replied. "I have every right to be here."

"Doesn't mean I have to like it. Besides, I think you've done quite enough already."

"Lt. Williams, I…"

Ashley held up a hand, and Miranda could see fresh tears starting to overwhelm her anger. "Don't. Just leave. Please."

Miranda thought about saying something more but in the end, restraint won the day. In spite of her pain over his choice of Ashley, she wasn't going to dishonor Shepard's memory by fighting with his lover at his funeral.

She cast one last look into the commander's grave before striding back down the aisle in silence. There was nothing more for her here, and so she simply went to rejoin the stone-faced marines who were assigned to guard her.

"We're leaving." Miranda said to the soldiers as if she had any control over them. "Take me back to lock-up."

At least I can get some bloody privacy there.

The larger of the two men snorted. "Change of plans. Admiral Harris wants to speak with you at HQ."

"About what?"

The other marine reached out and grabbed his prisoner harshly by the arm, yanking her in the the direction of their skycar. "Doesn't matter to me."

The ride to the Alliance's main headquarters, located in what passed for the intact part of downtown Vancouver, had been long and silent. The two marines the navy had assigned to guard her in the brief moments she was allowed out of her cell were dumb muscle who'd glared at her with the same expression everyone else shot her way but said nothing. Miranda never would've thought she could miss the lustful looks that had once been most people's first reaction to her, but there it was.

They'd deposited her in a waiting room outside of Admiral Harris' office. The beige walls and uncomfortable couch of the repurposed office building were, she suspected, a preview of an unpleasant meeting to come. Running through its possible causes, she came up with little positive. The only comforting thought she could find was that it probably wasn't worth an admiral's time just to tell her she was going to rot in a cell for the rest of her life.

Lost in thought, she barely noticed at first the increasing number of Alliance personnel who'd begun to funnel into the waiting area. Soon enough though, the crowd had gathered around her, but despite an ugly energy to the crowd, her guards didn't seem interested.

"You know who this is?" The apparent leader of the bunch was a bald major with a scar over his right eye that looked like it might have come from a Husk's claws. Or a Phantom's sword. "This here's the Illusive Man's favorite bitch. I heard about it on the vids. They say Miranda Lawson was that blue eyed fuck's right hand woman. Or am I mistaken?"

Miranda narrowed her eyes into menacing slits. "Piss off."

"Looks like she's kept her Cerberus charm, too. You have any idea what your little organization cost us?"

A haggard private with dark, haunted eyes set into her sunken face chimed in next. "My whole damn unit was killed by Cerberus!"

"My wife and daughter were slaughtered at Sanctuary by those animals!", an older man snarled, as half a dozen more soldiers began to voice their own horror stories.

"Sanctuary." The leader repeated the word like a curse, cutting off the rest of the crowd. "Way I hear it, Miranda's daddy ran that horror show himself. Apple didn't fall too far from the tree I reckon."

"I am nothing like my father!" She regretted the outburst as soon as it left her lips. She shouldn't have let them get a rise out of her but her father was a sore spot, especially since she'd been the one to kill him.

"Hope you enjoy the Alliance's hospitality while it lasts, Lawson. Before long, we'll have you strung up next to your Cerberus friends and if the navy doesn't have the balls to do it themselves, I'm sure there will be plenty of people who will be more than happy to help out." The man leaned in close, cupping his hand under Miranda's chin, and the hate she saw in his eyes left little doubt that he was among them.

"Get your hands off me."

Her voice was a low hiss, but he was either too stupid or too arrogant to read the menace in it. "Or what?"

In a flash, Miranda wiped the satisfied grin off his face when she jabbed her cuffed hands upwards. Her open palm collided with the man's nose, a crunch leaving no doubt that she'd broken the bone. He reeled backwards and let out a shrill cry as he collapsed onto his ass. The rest of the mob sprang into action, ready to tear Miranda limb from limb, but at last her guards started doing their job. The two marines surrounded her, shoving the angry crowd back, but as the struggle intensified a harsh voice cut through the noise.

"Stand down!"

The room fell silent and the Alliance soldiers all snapped a salute to the tall man wearing dress blues who'd appeared in the office doorway.

"What the hell is going on here?", the admiral barked. "Guards, detain these men and keep them in lock-up until I know what to do with them."

"But sir!", the man with the broken nose protested, "It was the Cerberus woman's fault-"

"Another word, soldier and you'll be court martialed faster than you can blink. This woman is an Alliance prisoner and she will be treated as such." The admiral turned back to Miranda's guards. "Get these men out of my sight."

As the angry mob was led out of the room, Miranda finally was able to get a good look at the man. He was handsome in a mature way. His black hair had started to go grey at the temples and his chin was nearly statuesque. With perfect posture, he gestured for Miranda to enter his office.

"I'm Admiral Harris. Please take a seat, Ms. Lawson."

"Thank you." Miranda settled into the chair in front of the desk while the admiral did the same with the one behind it.

"That was unacceptable. You have my apologies on behalf of the Alliance." Lawson only nodded and he continued. "I imagine that's not the first time that's happened."

As he spoke, she could feel his gaze turning to the faded bruise over her eye. "I'm used to it."

"You have to see things from their point of view. The Reapers are gone and they don't have anyone left to hate but Cerberus. The Illusive Man might be dead but there's still hundreds of Cerberus operatives unaccounted for….thousands perhaps. There's still so much we don't know about the extent of the organization."

"Is that why I'm here? You want information?"

"No. Officially, Cerberus is the least of the Alliance's concerns. Honestly, everything is a fucking mess right now. There's so much reconstruction to be done it'll take us decades to get back to even half of what we used to be. Our losses were staggering, far worse they would could have ever prepared for, and with Hackett still MIA, the brass is in shambles. We're stretched far too thin to worry about Cerberus stragglers and holdouts."

"Officially." Miranda suspected there was a "but" coming.

The Admiral gave her a small smile. "You catch on quickly. The reports said you were exceptionally smart."

"Perhaps you should get to the reason I was brought here." She knew she shouldn't be rude to the man given her circumstances, but after the day she'd had, it was hard to give a damn.

Admiral Harris took a deep breath. "I'll be blunt, Ms. Lawson. I'm probably the last friend you've got right now. Most of the galaxy wants nothing more than to see all of Cerberus' heads on spikes, much of the navy's brass included. I won't sugarcoat it, there's been talk about prosecuting you for war crimes."

"Me? You know as well as I do that I left Cerberus at the same time that Shepard did. I supported the war effort and I surrendered myself to the Alliance willingly once it was over!"

Harris threw up his hands. "I know. If were up to me you'd be out of those cuffs already." He pointed to the restraints around Miranda's wrists. "But the fact is Shepard is gone and the Alliance needs to take into account how people feel about this situation. Are you a student of history, Ms. Lawson?"

Miranda nodded.

"I am too and with the way the winds are blowing, we're well on our way to a new Red Scare. People are already dragging folks they think were part of Cerberus out of their homes and...well...the reality is you're the biggest Cerberus asset we have in custody. Serving aboard the Normandy also makes you the most famous. The brass isn't above throwing you to the wolves to placate the people."

"Is that why I'm here then? So you can apologize for executing me?"

"I don't want to see you executed, Lawson. I've read all of Shepard's reports and in my book, you're a damned hero. But nobody else sees it that way. You're here because I'm going to give you a chance to change that. I have a mission for you. Something the Alliance can't officially acknowledge and will outright deny if it goes to shit. What I'm about to tell you can't leave this room, understood?"

"I know how to keep a secret, Admiral."

"The Illusive Man is dead….but Cerberus isn't. Are you familiar with the planet Typhon?"

"Somewhat. It was home to a Cerberus military installation but I never saw the base myself."

"Typhon used to be the Alliance's pet project. A perfectly habitable world in the Traverse that the Council gifted to humanity. We put billions of credits into turning it into a symbol of humanity's willingness to accept the other species. Before the Reapers, hit millions of civilians of all different races lived in the capital city. The population was primarily human of course, but still, the Alliance used Typhon as it's little media darling. Little did we know that Cerberus had been building up a base there right under our noses."

"To my knowledge the Typhon base was used to train Cerberus' infantry prior to the switch to indoctrinated troops."

"I see. Do you know how many men would have been on the base when the Reaper's invaded?"

Miranda shrugged. "Thousands probably."

Harris sighed and ran a hand through his hair. "I was afraid you'd say that."

A bad feeling was starting to brew in Miranda's gut. "You said Cerberus isn't dead. Explain."

"We lost contact with Typhon a week after the invasion. It got hit hard by the Reapers and we hadn't heard anything after that. At first, we just assumed they'd wiped it out completely."

"Until?"

"Until last week. An Alliance scouting patrol in the Traverse picked up a ship full of turians. It turns out they were fleeing from Typhon and what were able to gather from them is… rather unsettling. The Cerberus forces stationed there have seized control over the entire planet and it's population. We don't know what their numbers are but we know that any force capable of holding down a planet, even a colony world, is enough to cause us problems, especially in our current state. The brass is concerned that given enough time Cerberus will be able to piece itself back together and...who knows? Overthrow the Alliance? Launch another war?"

"You must know more than that."

Harris nodded. "The Cerberus forces are being lead by a man named Anthony Ford. Are you familiar with him?"

Miranda let the name sink in for a moment before nodding. "I do. He was the Illusive Man's second most important military advisor after Oleg Petrovsky. An ex-Alliance general I believe."

"You knew him well?"

"Not exactly. However the Illusive Man did order me to perform surgery on Ford a few years before I served on the Normandy. He had a severe heart murmur, so I replaced his heart with a synthetic replacement I developed. It saved his life. That was the last I ever saw of him."

"Well, apparently he's recovered quite well. The turians told us that Ford has the entire planet under his thumb and we're willing to bet he's Cerberus' only remaining head."

"You said you have a mission for me, Admiral."

"Cut off the head." Harris said. "The Alliance can't spare the men to retake Typhon, especially given how much we still don't know. We'd have no idea what we'd be sending our boys into there and frankly we're not willing to risk what few forces we still have."

"But you're willing to risk me. You want me to go to Typhon and kill Ford for you."

"Exactly." Harris said. "I won't lie, It's probably a suicide mission. But if you pull this off, if you can stop these bastards once and for all...I can guarantee you'll be pardoned for all past crimes and we'll make sure the whole galaxy knows you're the woman who finished off Cerberus."

Miranda didn't even need to think about it. What else was there for her? Rotting in a cell until the Alliance tried her for her past crimes or until the people of Earth dragged her out of that cell and lynched her in the street? She was as good as dead no matter what that way.

"Perfect." Miranda said, allowing herself a bit of gallows humor. "I do love a good suicide mission."

"There's one more thing. The Alliance doesn't want to send off one of our prisoners entirely without supervision. We need someone to ensure that once you're set free you'll still complete the mission instead of disappearing into the shadows. But like I said, we're not willing to spare too many people on this. Thankfully we found someone who seems to have a vested interest in stopping Cerberus. Someone I believe you already know."

Miranda furrowed her brow, trying to guess what that meant. "Who?"

The Admiral's omni-tool lit up as he opened a line of communication. "Is she here, Lt. Marcus?"

"Yes, sir."

"Good. Send her in."

Moments later, the door to the office slid open behind Miranda and before she could turn around to greet her new Alliance sanctioned guardian, the woman spoke.

"Fuck… Just looking at you, cheerleader, I'm regretting agreeing to this already."

Miranda spun around and her eyes widened at the sight of Jack leaning up against the doorframe with her arms crossed. The biotic wore a tattered Alliance uniform that she had strategically cut up to display as much of her tattooed skin as possible. She'd changed her hair too, cutting off her ponytail and slicking back the longer hair on top of her head.

The hatred in her eyes had stayed the same though, and Miranda failed to stifle a distraught, "Jack?!", before turning back to the admiral. "Surely, there must be someone else you can send."

"Aww what's a matter, princess? You too much of a pussy to work with me?"

"There's nobody else," Admiral Harris informed her. "Jack volunteered. This is the deal, Ms. Lawson. Either you agree to go into Jack's custody or you remain in ours."

"Say that again." Jack sounded much too eager for Miranda's taste. "The Cerberus cheerleader is gonna be under my command?"

"As an officer of the Alliance… yes, you will be in command of this mission."

Jack's grin didn't make Miranda any more comfortable. "I take it back. I don't regret this at all."

"There's no time to think about it. Either you're in now or this doesn't happen at all. So what do you say, Lawson?"

Miranda gritted her teeth as she stared at Jack's smirking face. "I'm in." she said. Just when I thought I'd hit bottom...

Notes- Thank you for reading! This is another collaboration between me and Revan's Mask. If you haven't already read our Dragon Age collab "The Seeker and the Nightingale" you can check it out on their profile. This is a completely separate universe than Rise of the Asari (Next chapter for Rise is coming either today or tomorrow) this is gonna be a mini-series exploring the galaxy post low ems Destroy ending. You can look forward to all kinds of Jack and Miri goodness ;)

Please feel free to share your thoughts in the reviews! We'd love to see what you thought.