I don't even know. It started out as something completely different.

Don't hate me? Please?

She wasn't supposed to be here. She wasn't supposed to be anywhere near here. Damn the Alliance. Damn her father.

Damn Shepard.

Miranda moved quickly from where she was crouched behind a low wall, and rolled into position beside a crumbling staircase. She could just spot the front line. They were holding, but much more and they'd have to fall back or break. The shuttle she'd been in had gone down, taken out by a Reaver that Miranda had thought looked bored – if cybernetic Rachni constructs could look bored – when she'd finally taken the thing out. They'd been less than a thousand yards from the line, but the intervening space had been crawling with Mauraders and husks. If there was one thing Miranda hated more than losing, it was husks. They got up too close for your gun or biotics to be of any use, and hung on for dear life no matter what you did to them.

There had been two other survivors in the crash at first. She'd never discovered their names, and it bothered her that it bothered her that she hadn't. They were on the far side of London from Hammer, where the largest ground forces for both sides were gathering, but the Reapers apparently had soldiers to spare. The first guy, a young turian, probably no more than sixteen – goddamned aliens sending their children out to die – had been taken down by a Brute when they'd had to cross a large intersection. None of them had seen it, it had simply broken down a wall at the far side of the road and charged them. It had slammed the kid into a wall, and Miranda had heard his shield fail. The brute had backed up, but before the kid could get out of the way or Miranda could draw its attention, the damn thing had stepped on him. Sick.

The other had been a human female, perhaps a year or two younger than Shepard. She'd been swarmed by husks just ten yards back. Miranda had been able to hear her screaming long after she'd killed off the husks and seen her torn and abused body. Frankly, Miranda didn't much care anymore if she made it to the bright lights no more than a short run from her current location. Nothing she could do could help Shepard. It was up to the Commander now, and if Miranda died here, well, so be it.

Then she saw Jack.

The biotic was almost dancing through the Reaper ground forces. Cannibals exploded, husks floated, caught in singularities before a well placed warp tore them to pieces. Miranda had thought the Cerberus experiment had been back with her students, tucked safely away from the main battle. Apparently, though, Jack had had other plans.

She was making a difference though. Where minutes before Miranda had seen a line about to fail, now the soldiers were regrouping and pushing the abominations back. The sight gave Miranda a strange feeling of hope and she made herself move forward. She couldn't be beaten out by that tattooed freak.

There was a large open parkland between her and the relative safety of the soldiers. She crouched behind a crashed hover-car and made a quick check of the area. It seemed clear. She stood up, taking a step back, ready to run.

Her back hit something solid, and a second later her head seemed ready to explode as a shrill cry echoed through the night. She turned, eyes going wide at the sight of the Banshee standing behind her. It's face was peeled back in a sick defilement of a grin, and it shrieked again as Miranda raised her weapon. There was no way she could take it out alone. She heard the sound of people yelling, figured the soldiers must have seen her, and aimed. She'd go out fighting.

The Banshee's arm reached out before she fired a single shot. It went in just under her ribcage, and exploded out her back, just barely missing the spine. Miranda choked on the blood that welled up in her throat as the Banshee brought her close and screamed at her again.

And then the world went dark.

# # #

Consciousness was elusive. It danced, tantalizingly close, but failed to catch hold. Miranda swam in the void between asleep and awake, a place where the pain disappeared and there was nothing but darkness.

She liked it here.

It was fitting.

She was fairly certain that she was dead. She could remember the scream of a Banshee as she stepped into it, and then nothing. Which, logically, meant she was dead. She wasn't entirely sure that she should be able to reason like that if she was dead though.

"What the f- friggin' hell, I saved her life! If I want to f-, if I want to go in there I damn well can!"

If she was dead then she was in hell, because that sounded remarkably like Jack, only with less swearing. Why? Why couldn't she be free of the proof of her own failure even in death? She'd trusted Cerberus, given her life to them, and the entire time they were doing things...things like they had done to Subject Zero. Apparently there was a God. And apparently He didn't like Miranda much.

Consciousness loomed a little closer, and Miranda shied away from it. She was not awake. She was dead. Her ghost, or whatever it was that was hearing all this, heard the door close. There was a scrape of metal.

"Fuck, cheerleader. I mean, I knew you were fucking stupid, but I never guessed you'd go and try to take on a Banshee single-handed. Had to save your sorry ass. Almost died, ya know? So if you fucking kick the bucket, I will haunt your ghost. I'm not kidding. I. Will. Haunt. Your. Fucking. Ghost." Metal scraping again. A hand on her arm. "Oh, and Shepard kicked the Reapers asses. Thought you'd like to know. Idiot's in critical condition. Goddamned..." The voice continued, but it was mumbling now.

The door opened.

Closed.

Miranda sank back into oblivion.

# # #

There was something in her throat. Miranda gagged against it as she came awake, instinctively fighting the intrusion.

"She's awake!" That from a young man, by the sound of the voice. She struggled to open her eyes but when she did everything was a blur.

"Fu- Finally. I swear, Cheerleader, you put me through hell. And stop choking on the tube in your throat. You're going to make me throw up listening to you."

Still in hell then. Where Jack seemed intent on hanging around her bed. She would have sighed, but the tube prevented it. She glared at the flesh-colored blur she assumed was Jack.

"Alright, dearie, calm down. I need you to relax, I'm going to take the tube out. Don't try to talk." A soft voice. A blue blur to her other side. She blinked, and her eyes came slightly more into focus. An asari, wearing nursing scrubs was leaning over her, pulling the horrid thing from her mouth. She coughed as it came free. She hurt all over. There was a pressure on her chest.

She tried to ask what her condition was, how they had saved her, but it came out as a garbled, dry hack.

"Shut it, Cheerleader. You look like you were impaled by Banshee. Oh, wait, you f-. You were."

"You will behave," the asari said, "or I will have to ask you to leave. Why don't you make yourself useful and get her some water?"

There was a derisive snort and Miranda turned. There was Jack, as scantily clad as ever, a young man, little more than a teenager, a step behind her. She glared as best she could, but moving her face at all hurt. She couldn't understand why being stabbed in the stomach would make the muscles in her face ache, but it did, and she let her face relax.

Jack laughed at her. When she was better she was going to kick the woman in the gut, and sing while doing it. Still, she filled a plastic cup with water and even bothered to toss a straw into it. The hollow tube of plastic bobbed on the water's surface, looking like it would tumble out of the cup before Jack gave it's bent neck a tap and it sank.

She held the cup in front of Miranda with a haughty glare. "Get better, cheerleader. I'd hate all my work to be for nothing."

# # #

Miranda had been awake for two weeks. Her chest still hurt, and they were still pumping oxygen up her nose, and she was certain she did not look like the perfect specimen of humanity that she supposedly was, but she was alive.

And she'd been Jack free for the last week.

The former criminal turned teacher had stopped by every day that first week she'd been awake. Sometimes with a student or two in tow, most of the time alone. She'd come in, stand by the door, make some sarcastic remark that the pain in her gut kept Miranda from responding to, before stalking out the door in a huff. As if Miranda had done something wrong by being silent.

She honestly didn't get it.

She poked at the plateful of rehydrated eggs on her plate and scowled. It had stopped hurting to do that after a couple of days. She had heard that hospital food on Earth was better than it was anywhere else in the galaxy. Perhaps that was only by comparison, because this was far worse than anything she'd ever eaten. And she'd eaten some fairly horrible things over the years.

She didn't look up as the door opened. The vampiric nurse was probably back to take more blood. She moved the eggs around on the plate. It kind of looked like she'd eaten them now.

"Daddy never teach you to clean your plate?"

"I'd rather you not mention my father." He was dead. Oriana was safe. Still, hearing Jack talk about him stung.

"Fine. Bitch." She tossed a bag at the bed, and Miranda almost fumbled it. It was greasy, the white bag slightly wet. It smelled like heaven.

"What is this crap, Jack? Trying to poison me?"

The other woman snorted, "If I wanted you dead, I'd have let the Banshee keep you." She began unbuttoning the shirt she was wearing.

"What are you doing?" Seriously? She was going to strip? In a hospital? The woman was crazier that Miranda had originally thought.

Jack dropped her shirt down to her elbows, she was wearing nothing beneath it, her skin a collection of tattoos. She turned, exposing her back to Miranda. "See what that fucker did to me? While I was saving your ass? You owe me, Cerberus."

There was an angry red scar marring Jack's left shoulder. The tattoos there were mangled, puckered where new, ink free skin was beginning to grow. Miranda winced at the sight. The scar on her stomach, and it's twin on her back, were bad, but somehow Jack's looked worse as the wound distorted the images inked on her shoulder. "I have not been with Cerberus for a long time, Jack. If you thought of anyone but yourself for more than five minutes you'd know that."

"Don't you tell me what I care about! I saved your damn life. I should have let the Banshee have you for breakfast! I risked my students for you! Don't you fucking dare, Cheerleader."

She hadn't known that. Jack made a point of always telling her that she'd saved her life. She hadn't known she'd brought her students with her. Rather than admitting her own lack of knowledge though, she opened the bag Jack had given her.

The largest, greasiest, most disgusting looking collection of eggs and fried pork sat inside. Her mouth watered at the smell, and despite the fact that the eggs were combined with bits of peppers and cheese so it looked a bit like vomit, Miranda quickly tore the bag open and began eating.

"Mm dish ist zo goo," she said around a forkfull of eggs. She closed her eyes, savoring the taste of something that actually had a taste.

Jack rolled her eyes. "Thought you might like some real food. I do think of people other than myself once in a while Cerberus. You can just stuff it." She glared as she stalked out of the room.

Miranda wasn't sure what to think.

# # #

The Normandy returned to Earth space right around the time Miranda found that she could sit up all day without getting winded. It was also about the time that Jack stopped bringing her students around. She had a decidedly filthier mouth when they weren't there, but from the time the Normandy showed up again Jack wouldn't say a word as she silently straddled one of the plastic chairs in Miranda's room. She'd bring her food, on occasion, and brought news. But beyond an occasional interesting news story, Jack didn't speak a word. She glared, from her place on the chair. She'd sit, sometimes for hours, and refused to make conversation no matter how hard Miranda tried.

And though she hated to admit it, she did try.

At first it was simply because the silence was uncomfortable. Jack made the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end in the best of times, and being bed ridden wasn't what she would call being at her best. After awhile though, the silences became comfortable. She noticed, once, that they had sat for almost two hours, and she hadn't felt the need to speak once. That was when she started trying to force the conversation again. She wanted Jack angry. She wanted to rail at her, to shout, to scream.

To hate.

Jack refused to take her bait though, and just smiled, almost kindly, and left whenever she tried.

# # #

Dr. Chakwas was the first of the Normandy crew to visit her. The ship had only been on Earth a few days when the doctor had stopped in. She'd grumbled and complained, and in the end had changed over half of Miranda's treatment. By the following morning, though, Miranda was feeling better than she had since before the London attack.

Ken and Gabby stopped by, briefly. She had personally recruited them, and though Miranda wouldn't say that she had any friends, she had felt responsible for the pair being detained when Shepard had turned the Normandy in. It was nice to see them.

Garrus came by with Joker. The human pilot was a wreck. Something had happened to EDI, and by extension his ship. Still, they both smiled and joked with her, friendly. She didn't understand why. They'd been polite to her in the past, certainly, but that was because of her reports back to the Illusive Man, surely. Joker had looked so distraught, though, she hadn't wanted to bring it p.

Tali showed up, alone, the day after Garrus and Joker. She was apparently seeing the turian, which Miranda didn't find at all surprising. What she did find surprising was that the quarian seemed so open with her. So willing to talk.

"Anyway, Liara won't leave the Commander's side. She mentioned wanting to come see you."

"Probably a purely professional visit," Miranda replied. The T'Soni she'd met on Illium was not the same young woman who had dropped off Shepard's body two years earlier. She was harder, colder. But still loved the human commander more than her own life. If she wanted to see Miranda, it was probably to see if Project Lazarus could be reinstated to bring her lover back from the cusp of death.

"Not at all. Shepard's not completely out of the woods, but Liara had hopes for a full recovery. I think she wants to thank you, honestly. For bringing Shepard back. For putting in the implants that probably kept the Commander from dying when the Citadel exploded. I would like to do the same."

Miranda rolled her eyes. Tali's naïvety was refreshing. It reminded her of Oriana. "Well, I hope Shepard does get better. The Commander deserves to be a hero."

Tali grunted. "So...I heard Jack's been hanging around here lately." The quarians hadn't had Rannoch back long enough for her helmet was gone, but Miranda had served with Tali long enough to know a smirk when she heard one.

"I can't get rid of her. Why do you care?"

"I'm quarian? We gossip? And I would like to think that I'm your friend. I hated you, once, but you really aren't so bad when you stop putting yourself on a pedestal."

"It was everyone else that did that."

"Even Jack?"

"I don't want to talk about Jack."

"I would think that maybe Jack wants to talk about you. Liara got more than one desperate call for someone to come make sure you were okay after everything. They might not be directly traceable, but she's not a normal information broker either."

"Jack can go jump out an airlock for all I care." That wasn't true. She missed Jack when she wasn't around, and hated herself for it. The woman had sidled into her life under false pretenses. It wasn't right, and it wasn't fair.

"Maybe you should talk to her. She's calmed down quite a bit since she began teaching."

Tali got up and left. She left Miranda with her own thoughts, and those were something Miranda had never been terribly fond of.

# # #

She had never had a place of her own before. First, she had lived with her father. He had lavished her with gifts, but had refused even a door to her room. No privacy, nothing that was hers. When she'd left, she had taken nothing but the clothes on her back. With Cerberus, though it was by choice, it was much the same. They assigned a room, a bunk, a locker. She was a puppet. A well-loved puppet. She owned nothing.

Then she'd gone on the run during the war, and since it had been over she'd been sitting in a hospital.

This place was hers. If she left, she could take the furniture. Admittedly, said furniture consisted of one secondhand over stuffed leather chair and a mattress with mix-matched box spring. It was more than she'd ever had of her own. She sank into the chair with a grateful sigh. Her chest didn't hurt quite as often as it used to, but standing for any length of time winded her.

She needed to get groceries. She should probably see if there was someplace she could get more furniture. The alien fleets had left the week before, as soon as the relays were operating well enough for them to jump out and have a general idea of where they'd end up, and most of the planet was back to functioning on some basic level. It surprised her that nearly six months had passed since the end of the war. She was finally free of the hospital, after four months of strict physical therapy and more than a few set backs. Two months of unconsciousness.

She stood up slowly, wincing as the puckered scar on her back pulled. She leaned against the window. Her window. People were working down below. The streets and main areas of the city had been cleaned up, but it would be years went completely back to normal for the people of Earth.

She hadn't seen Jack in a week.

She would not admit that it worried her. She'd disappeared like that before. And she didn't care anyway. Jack was an annoying, self-centered profane waste of flesh. But, she had been there when Miranda had been at her worst. She'd been the one constant since the war.

No.

Miranda had never needed anyone before. She didn't need anyone now. And certainly not Jack.

The door bell rang. Speak of the devil, and he shall appear.

Jack was back to her pants and not-quite-covering-enough-to-be-decent leather straps.

"I heard you got kicked out, cheerleader."

"They discharged me, yes. Why are you here?"

"You owe me. I saved your fucking life."

Miranda glared at her, but stepped out of the way for Jack to answer. She didn't think about the fact that she felt just a little better now that the former convict was here. "I survived. You do not, what was it you said? Have to haunt my ghost? Isn't that enough?"

All the color seemed to drain from Jack's face, even from the tattoos. "How much did you fucking hear?" she growled, her biotics flaring. Miranda reached out for her own. They'd been here once before, she thought. But Shepard was still in a coma and wouldn't be around to break them up this time.

"Enough." Miranda didn't know what Jack had said that could get this response, but she wasn't about to back down. This place was hers. She could say whatever she wanted. She stood defiantly as Jack leaned forward into her personal space.

"And you...you never said a fucking thing? You let me come by, every goddamned day. I fucking hate you, Cerberus." With a flick of her wrist the few odds and ends Miranda had picked up on her way over here – some canned goods, a book – went flying.

"Good, I hate you too."

With a yell, Jack sent a wave of biotic energy at the chair. It crashed against the wall and broke. It smashed into a dozen pieces. Miranda tried not to jump and the sound, and was fairly certain she succeeded. She turned to look at it, then turned back to Jack. She'd liked that chair. It was ugly and uncomfortable, but it was hers. She pushed Jack, following the shove of her biotics with her body. She stalked forward, angrier than she'd been in a very long time. She pinned the other woman to the wall. Though smaller, Jack was stronger physically and biotically, but she hardly fought her.

Jack looked up at her, a small frown creasing her brow. She didn't look afraid. Or even angry. She looked...sad.

Gasping, wondering how the hell they'd come to this point, Miranda rolled her eyes and started to move back. She didn't need this. She didn't need to be manipulated by Jack, or all people.

So what if she was always there. So what if she'd made sure the doctors had treated her right, and the nurses hadn't talked back to her. So what if she she was the first person Miranda thought about when waking up, and the last before she went to sleep? She didn't need it. She turned and walked away.

Or at least, that was her intention.

She found herself kissing Jack instead, and to her surprise? Discomfort? Pleasure? She found Jack kissing her back.

# # #

Six months earlier

Jack straddled the back of the chair, looking down at the unconscious woman. She didn't know why she'd called her students out from behind the relative safety of the soldiers. Didn't know why she'd risked everything to come and rescue Miranda of all people from a Banshee.

She didn't like many people. Cerberus sympathizers least of all. But after everything. Every. Damn. Thing. After everything she'd found herself liking Miranda. Well before they'd come to blows she'd seen something in her, something that perhaps Commander Shepard had pointed out, or maybe just something that she'd seen herself and wouldn't admit to. Whatever it was, she'd found herself with a grudging respect. And even they'd fought, for all she'd claimed she wanted the woman dead, what she'd really wanted was for her to acknowledge her as a person.

She'd wanted Miranda, period.

God, that was so fucking stupid.

She put a hand on Miranda's arm. It was stupid, but it's not like she could hear her now anyway.

"Fuck, cheerleader. I mean, I knew you were fucking stupid, but I never guessed you'd go and try and take on a Banshee single-handed. Had to save your sorry ass. Almost died, ya know? So if you fucking kick the bucket, I will haunt your ghost. I'm not kidding. I. Will. Haunt. Your. Fucking. Ghost. Oh, and Shepard kicked the Reapers asses. Thought you'd like to know. Idiot's in critical condition. Goddamned..." she sighed, got up. "Look," she mumbled, "I'm not saying I fucking love you, alright? I don't. Love is stupid. It's weak. But I like you, alright? So, don't fucking die. Just, get better or something, alright? Shit. I'm an idiot. I just, I'd like us to start over, alright? Without Cerberus and all our fucking daddy hangups and shit, okay? Just, whatever."

She got up.

She left.