Tag: femShep

FemShep/Miranda – Ceremony

I actually wrote this a while back, but now seems a good time to post it.

FemShep/Miranda, post-ME3 AUish, sort of awkwardly dancing around their feelings for each other as Miranda helps a still recovering Shepard get dressed for a memorial/commendation ceremony.

———————–

“Walk me through this again.”

Miranda did her best not to smile at Shepard’s anxiety. “It’s a commendation ceremony, part of an on-going series of remembrance ceremonies that the various government remnants have be staging. And since the <i>Normandy</i> has returned and you can walk on your own now…” She paused as Shepard’s gaze flickered to cane leaning against her bed, then amended, “Mostly on your own. The Alliance brass decided now was as good a time as any, and the others seem to have agreed. You’re receiving several awards, even if the physical medals may not be available at the moment.” She decided not to warn Shepard about the promotion the Commander would also be receiving.

Shepard ran her hands over her face. “I’m guessing you didn’t tell them I haven’t quite gotten the hang of dressing myself yet.”

“You’re getting there, Shepard.” Miranda stepped over to Shepard’s dress blues and started laying the garments out on the bed. “But you do need a little help, so we’d better get started.”

She held the uniform’s blue knit shirt out to Shepard, who took it with a sigh. Miranda knew this wasn’t easy for Shepard, and she expected her to drag her feet getting dressed, even without the added difficulty of not having quite the strength back to do so on her own. She watched Shepard struggle with the shirt for a few moments before easing it the rest of the way on for her; Shepard wouldn’t meet her eyes, but that was hardly surprising. Shepard managed her socks on her own. The trousers were easy enough to pull up, but fastening them eluded her.

“Here.” Miranda’s hands brushed Shepard’s as she took over. She was very aware of just how close she was to Shepard at the moment, and keenly aware of where her hands were. Shepard’s sharp intake of breath when Miranda had taken over seemed to say that she was also keenly aware of where Miranda’s hands were.

Miranda glanced up at Shepard in time to catch the Commander wetting her lips. Their eyes locked for a moment before Shepard cleared her throat.

“Thanks.” Shepard’s voice was almost its usual pitch now, but a little of the rasp remained. “They, um, don’t seem to be going to stay in the right place. Guess I lost more weight than I thought.”

Letting go of Shepard’s trousers, Miranda opened a small box that contained blue braces almost the same color as the uniform’s shirt. “These ought to do the trick. I expected things wouldn’t fit exactly as expected.”

Shepard chuckled softly. “Guess you really thought of everything.”

Miranda rolled her eyes and set about attaching the braces to Shepard’s trousers. Which once again put her extremely close to Shepard, who once again seemed to find it basically as distracting as Miranda did. Once the braces were in place, Miranda helped Shepard into her uniform jacket, which proved more of an ordeal than either had expected.

She let Shepard sit down for a moment and got a cool, damp cloth. She wiped it gently across Shepard’s brow, clearing away the beads of sweat that had sprung up. Shepard sighed and leaned against the cloth. Miranda wanted to give Shepard something for the pain she’d just reawakened, but she was fairly sure that Shepard wanted to go through the ceremony without drugs in her system. Miranda wasn’t sure how well that would go; she knew Shepard was still in more pain than she’d let on. She sighed and set the cloth aside, then brushed the hair away from Shepard’s forehead before helping her stand again to finish closing the clasps on her uniform.

The jacket, like the trousers, clearly stated that Shepard still had a ways to go in recovering. But Miranda had to admit that the Commander did look good in uniform.

“There.” Miranda nodded at her handiwork. “Off you go, Commander. I’ll see you later.”

Shepard grabbed her cane and shook her head as she headed for the door. “If I survive this…”

Miranda had no doubt that she would, even if it was likely to be more than a little painful.

Tiny fic thing about how Shepard decides to handle losing her scars after Cerberus brings her back, and how Dr. Chakwas reacts to Shepard’s decision.

“I needed this, doc.”

Somehow, Chakwas thinks, the bloody towel pressed diagonally across Shepard’s face takes years off. Looking at Shepard now, she sees the twenty-three-year-old whose dogged tenacity brought her through the ordeals of Akuze. She sees the sixteen-year-old farm girl who lost everything she’d ever known when the batarians attacked Mindoir.

But as she eases the towel away from Shepard’s face, the years and the hardships and the toil come rushing back. All the terrible weight of knowing the truth about something and having so very few believe you. The weight of losing two years after going down with the ship. And the weight no one had thought of, the weight of losing all the scars you’d gained along the way that reminded you it was all real.

Shepard glances up at her, as if expecting reproach or judgement. Chakwas examines the Commander’s handiwork without a word. The cut went through Shepard’s right eyebrow, across the bridge of her nose, and down into her cheek. It was a near perfect tracing of the scar that had been there before Shepard’s death.

“Well, Commander. I suppose I should clean you up and stitch this up for you.” Shepard wants a scar. Chakwas isn’t going to judge her for that. And seeing the tension go out of the Commander’s face and shoulders is enough of a reward.

femShep x Miranda fic stuff

So. One of my femSheps has turned into the femShep I ship with ALL the human lady LIs (the one’s that count for Paramour; Allers is not her type and does not count). Started off shipping her with Ash, then Jack, then Samantha.

And then I got hit hard with post-ME3 shipping her with Miranda. Which is a bucket full of working through a lot of things, and only works post-ME3 (with some AUing of ME2, as it requires that Miranda survive the final part of the Suicide Mission after telling TIM to shove it and she quits Cerberus, even after Shepard told her in no uncertain terms to get off Jack’s back) after Shepard has seen Miranda actively fighting against Cerberus (even if a large part of that was mostly fighting against her dad).

Because this Shepard is an Akuze survivor, and her issues with Cerberus only ever went up. But after ME3, things are…different. Cerberus is mostly, if not totally, destroyed (for all we know, at least).

Anyway. On to some fic bits that are pavement on the road to a ‘ship.

“She was, um, adamant about not allowing us to do anything that would minimize or completely eliminate scarring. If she hadn’t been so badly injured, we’d probably have had to sedate her to get any work done on her face at all.”

Miranda stared at the audio communication panel. That certainly sounded like the sort of reaction Shepard would have. She remembered the distress that being reconstructed without her previous scars had caused the Commander. Shepard had miraculously survived the firing of the Crucible; if she pulled through the surgeries to come, there was no reason to begrudge her a few physical imperfections.

“Have your notes on Commander Shepard’s condition ready for my inspection when I arrive, doctor.”

“Yes, Ms. Lawson.”

Miranda took a deep breath. She knew more than anyone about putting Shepard back together. She just hadn’t expected to be doing it again, or under less than ideal conditions.

———

Shepard’s first thought was how dry her mouth felt. The second was that she was still alive, somehow, after everything that had happened. By rights, she shouldn’t be. She certainly hadn’t expected to live.

She expected she was in some field hospital somewhere in London. She could tell through her eyelids that there was light coming from somewhere in the room, and that made her hesitant about opening her eyes just yet.

“Shepard?”

The voice startled her. Shepard opened her eyes, blinking until the person who’d spoken shifted into her line of sight, mercifully blocking some of the light. She gazed up into familiar blue eyes and sighed.

“Miranda.” Talking was harder than she’d expected, and the name came out as a barely audible rasp. Shepard closed her eyes again and swallowed against the dryness in her throat. “You’re…making a habit of this.”

“And you’ve continued your habit of near-death experiences, Shepard.” There was a surprising amount of relief in Miranda’s voice, despite her choice of words. “I’ll see if an orderly can find you some ice-chips. Don’t try to talk any more just yet. The Alliance brass would flay me if I let you tire yourself out so soon after regaining consciousness.”

Shepard replied with a faint grunt. She had questions, so many questions, but she wasn’t sure she had the strength to hear the answers just yet.

———

Rebuilding Shepard for the second time was a very different process from the first. There was more of Shepard to work with, true, but Miranda had fewer resources at her disposal. Resources that had to be shared with thousands. And more than a few people were still hesitant about working with ex-Cerberus personal, despite the role that former Cerberus scientists–and Miranda herself–had played in defeating the Reapers. It was frustrating.

The second rebuild was also complicated by Shepard herself. A conscious, or at least occasionally conscious, patient was different from a comatose one. Miranda felt lucky that Shepard was, for the most part, content to restrict conversation to inquiries about the Normandy. The only problem with that was the uncomfortable twinge she felt every time she told Shepard that there was no news. Watching a spark flare in those ridiculously green eyes every time Shepard asked, only to see it fade every time there was nothing to say hurt more than Miranda was willing to admit, even to herself.

The only other topic Shepard showed an open interest in was in keeping any scars resulting from from her injuries or the surgeries that followed them.

“Shepard–” She’d turned to walk away, only to have Shepard clutch her hand. For someone recovering from massive injuries, Shepard’s grip was surprisingly strong. Perhaps it was the desperation.

“I need this, Miranda. That’s all I’m asking. Don’t take them away from me this time.” The intensity of her gaze made Miranda uncomfortable; it also gave her the chilling impression that Shepard would actually do everything in her power to put back any scars Miranda tried to take away.

“All right, Shepard. I’ll make a note of it in your files.” The tension went out of Shepard’s grip, and her hand slipped down to rest at her side. Miranda took a relieved breath as Shepard’s eyes closed.

“Thanks, Miranda.”

———

She didn’t ask Miranda or the doctors how long she’d been unconscious or how long it had been since the Crucible had fired. She couldn’t do anything about anything while she was stuck in a bed, and she couldn’t handle any new demons. Not just yet.

Shepard had too many questions running through her mind as it was. The Normandy’s whereabouts. EDI’s status. The Geth’s status. The thing that had claimed to be the Catalyst had said the Crucible would destroy all synthetics, but it had seemed too sympathetic toward the Reapers for her to trust it completely. She had to cling to the hope that the Catalyst had lied. Otherwise, she had the deaths of an entire race on her head, in addition to the lives of all the Battarians in the Bahak system. She’d have to live with whatever happened, but she wasn’t ready to deal with that guilt yet, if it existed.

She wondered, too, if Anderson’s body had been recovered. She hoped it had; he deserved a decent burial and a hero’s funeral.

Shepard swallowed hard and pressed the button to administrate another dose of painkillers. The pain was worse than she let on; she knew that there would be many, many other soldiers who needed whatever medication was available. She’d get through the pain. Hopefully without an addiction to painkillers.

———

Miranda had seen Shepard have nightmares through the SR2’s surveillance system, but that did not prove adequate preparation for being in Shepard’s room during one. It certainly didn’t prepare her for the unexpected desire to reassure Shepard that whatever it was she saw in the dream, it wasn’t happening now, and she wasn’t alone.

Shepard clung to her like a drowning person. Miranda held her close, stroking her hair and gently rubbing a non-bandaged portion of the Commander’s back. She didn’t say anything; she didn’t really no what to say in this sort of situation, and she suspected that platitudes would sound hollow.

Gradually, Shepard’s breathing slowed and her grip loosened. She pulled away a little and looked at Miranda. It was a complicated look. Confusion, remnants of fear, embarrassment, and what Miranda was fairly sure was a flicker of resentment. Resentment for what? Being there to witness this? Or for being tangentially responsible, at least in Shepard’s mind, for what the nightmare had been about?

But instead of pulling away entirely, as she expected, Shepard sagged against her, her head resting on Miranda’s shoulder. Shepard’s breath was warm against her skin.

“I’m…not used to waking up like…that…with company.” Shepard’s voice was still lower than usual, raspy from lack of regular use.

———

Shepard hadn’t awakened from a nightmare with anyone in the room with her since being hospitalized after Akuze. She wasn’t sure how she felt about Miranda being the first person to be there. But she hadn’t seen judgement in the other woman’s eyes, just uncertainty and concern. Having Miranda there did seem to have warded off the horrible, aching feeling of being alone that waking up from the dreams had always brought with it before.

Leaning against Miranda felt surprisingly reassuring. It was strange, being the one to depend on someone else after being the one in charge for so long. Being the one who had to be strong. Now the war was over, and she herself was one of the people and places that had to be rebuilt. Having to let other people do the work because she physically couldn’t yet…that was hard. At least Miranda had experience in that. And she wasn’t a stranger.

She took a shaking breath and sighed. “Thanks for being here, Miranda.”

Short drabble-y fic thing.

Because I have ME3 feels of multiple kinds and I needed to get some of them down so that I can be halfway functional doing other things.

So. Here is a tiny femShep/Ashley fic set during the time Ash was in the hospital.

“I’m just talking out loud. I don’t need you to answer. I doubt there’s anything you could say to convince me.”

Those words kept coming back to Shepard as she sat by Ashley’s bed in Huerta Memorial. She wanted a chance to show Ash she hadn’t changed, to prove she was still the same Shepard Ash had served with on the SR1. But then Mars happened, and now Shepard worried that she might not have that chance. The doctors said things had gone well, that Ash would probably pull through just fine. She wished she could have put more bullets into that robot than she had. She couldn’t lose Ash. Not like this.

Shepard took a deep breath. “I know you can’t hear me, but I wanted to say I’m here. There’s a lot to do, but I’ll drop by every chance I get.” She ran a thumb over the spine of the book resting on her lap. “Picked you up something, for once you wake up. Tennyson. Actual paper and leather book. Good condition, too.”

It was hard to look at Ash’s face. The swelling and the bruises reminded Shepard that she’d let Ash down, just when she wanted so badly not to. “I’m sorry I didn’t stop that thing. I should have. I could have. I don’t know what I’d do if…” If I’d lost you.

She loved Ash. She hadn’t told her back when they were chasing Saren. She hadn’t wanted to risk their friendship or the mission. When the Normandy got hit, Shepard had almost said something. At the last second, she’d decided that if she didn’t make it through, it’d be better for Ash if she didn’t know. And then on Horizon…well. On Horizon she wondered how much worse things would have gone if she had told Ash before.

And now the universe was burning down around their ears.

“I love you, Ashley Williams. It can’t hurt either of us when you can’t hear me say it.”