A/N - Australian / British standard English. There is a good chance of reading the following: lots of profanity, characters drinking, typos, and bad grammar at times.
Proofreading and editing suggestions provided by OhDave1. Any mistakes are still mine.
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Shepard protects a close friend from political shenanigans.
*****
For the first time that I could remember, most of my squad was staying out of my way. The only one who seemed confident enough to come close to me was Garrus. We were a few hours out of Aite with a young man being cared for in the med-bay by Doctor Chakwas and Mordin. Everyone on the ship was now aware of what we'd found on Aite.
Georgia stated in the shuttle on the way back to the
Normandy
that she was done with Cerberus after what we'd found. She would see out the mission and that would be it. She'd pack her things Jack was left as upset as I'd ever seen her. No anger. No fury. Genuine tears at the sight of the young man effectively being tortured by his own brother.
As for Miranda, I hadn't seen her since we had returned to the ship. I'd managed to rein in my anger when it came to talking to the Illusive Man about what we found. But as much as Georgia stated that she was done with Cerberus once we had defeated the Collectors, I'd now learned more than enough to know that Cerberus were as bad as Ashley had suggested on Horizon what felt like eons ago.
I'd already been in touch with Major Anderson on the Citadel. He patched me through to Admiral Hackett, and after explaining everything that we'd found, it was suggested that we take David Archer to Jon Grissom Academy. He would get the best of care there as his brother, Doctor Gavin Archer, had suggested that his younger brother was positively brilliant.
Garrus sat opposite me in the mess, looking up from a datapad to see the bottle of liquor. "Notice how absolutely no one is around you right now, Shepard?"
"Yeah, I know."
"If you'd shot him in the head, no one would have blamed you either."
"I wanted to. Trust me, I wanted to. But I wanted him to spend the rest of his life living with the guilt... While looking in the mirror and seeing the scars that I left on his face."
He poured two generous pours and handed me a glass. "Georgia was rather vocal about it. You know what though? I don't think it's going to take much more for Miranda to follow you out the door, Shepard. There was absolutely no way that she could justify what happened, and Archer... Well, he pretty much confirmed that his boss was aware of everything going on."
"I'll talk to Miranda later though I'm not sure there's much I could say."
We sipped at a couple of drinks, just shooting the shit, and I'll admit that spending time with a good friend did have me feeling better. He had me chuckling with a couple of old stories from his time at C-Sec on the Citadel and even managed to remember one or two from when he was on Omega. I think dealing with Sidonis had helped him remember the good work that he'd been doing there.
It was late in the evening by the time we agreed that it was probably best to head to bed. We'd both enjoyed quite a few drinks. Given that I wasn't much of a drinker, I was certainly feeling it. Garrus stumbled towards the front batteries as that's when he slept. I staggered towards Miranda's bedroom, the door open and I walked inside.
Her room was dark except for the lamps providing faint illumination to either side of her bed. I could see the outline of her body under the sheets.
"Miranda?"
"I'm awake, Shepard. I can't sleep," she replied.
Sitting down next to her, I could see the pile of tissues on the nightstand. In that moment, I knew it would only take a nudge for Miranda to walk away. She'd seen too much. Learned too much. And despite the fact that the Illusive Man had hired her because of her brilliance, she understood that he simply didn't care about anyone except himself and his goals.
"Guessing it's been a bad day for most of us," I whispered, running my hand up and down her bare upper arm.
"I wanted to shoot him, Shepard. I stood there, watching you bash his face in, and I was happy that you were doing it. Because I wanted to put him against the wall and shoot him. Who does that to their own brother?"
"That's why we're taking him to Grissom Academy. Anderson has already been in touch with the woman who runs it. Someone by the name of Kahlee Sanders is in charge. Hopefully she won't freak out when a Cerberus vessel appears on their systems."
"I sometimes don't know how you still do it, Shepard."
"What do you mean?"
"Working for... him... After everything that I've learned, I can only thank you even more that you didn't just wake up and start blasting."
"If I'd done that, I would have missed out on a wonderful woman in Georgia, and a simply incredibly woman in you, Miss Lawson." I leaned down and kissed her cheek. "And remember, you are nothing like them. You are better. I've seen it in you."
I heard her sniff, and she chuckled. "Have you been drinking, Shepard?"
"Garrus was trying to cheer me up. It worked. We had a good laugh." I kissed her cheek again and asked, "Want me to stay?"
"Please," she whispered.
Snuggling up against her once I was undressed, I felt her shuffle to get comfortable and I was pleased to hear her lightly snoring within a few minutes. I didn't wake as early as always and my mouth felt dry. Miranda woke up as I was getting dressed, giving me a crooked smile before she got up and joined me out in the mess. We checked on David, thankful that he was sleeping. Chakwas sensed that we were there and woke up. She gave us a quiet update.
