OMEGA – AFTERLIFE

Aria really did have a ridiculously comfortable couch. Shepard had always been rather fond of Afterlife, if she ignored the one visit when she had been poisoned by a racist bartender she could even say it was one of the few places in the galaxy that she regularly enjoyed visiting. That bartender had not been trying to kill her, personally, after all. That in itself was a rarity. Something Shepard found endearing about Omega was that here when people tried to kill her it was very rarely personal, whereas everywhere else it almost always was.

Shepard found herself absently nodding her head with the beat of the music, and Aria shot her an amused look from her seat on the couch across from Shepard in her personal booth. The asari folded one leg over the other and leaned back, somehow managing to look relaxed and yet a second away from dangerous at the same time.

"The music is designed to be infectious," Aria commented. "You really should experience the lowest levels of the club; I can recommend several red sand dealers to enhance the experience."

"Better than the VIP section?" Shepard asked, curious.

A smirk slowly spread across Aria's face. "Each level has something… different to offer."

"I'd take you up on your offer of meeting those red sand dealers, but I'm afraid I would enjoy the experience a lot more than they would."

Aria rolled her eyes. "You're painfully noble sometimes, Shepard," the pirate queen informed her. The asari met her eyes. "Take this mess the Alliance is in with the batarians right now, for instance. It doesn't take a salarian to figure out why your crew is drinking themselves stupid in my club right now."

Shepard leaned forward, her elbows on her knees. She had worn her only dress to the club and the material made a god-awful squeak as she shifted position on Aria's leather couch. Shepard shot a meaningful look at Aria's bouncers Anto and Grizz, standing guard down the stairs from them but well within earshot.

Aria sighed and dismissed the two with an wave of her hand. "I can never decide if you're a pain in my ass or a welcome amusement, Shepard," Aria said.

"Some of my crew will be staying here on Omega," Shepard replied. "I would appreciate if you would provide transport for those who want it, and look out for those who don't."

Aria considered this. She got to her feet and looked out the large window of her private booth, down at the dancers below and possibly at where some of Shepard's crew were currently drinking and partying. She spoke, still looking out at her club. "If you turn yourself in to the Alliance, you will be locked away by your politicians because you are inconvenient," she said.

"I know," Shepard's voice was hard.

Aria turned her head to look at the human soldier. "I've never known anyone noble to live a long life."

Shepard grinned. "Good thing dying is already checked off of my to-do list."

Aria looked back out the window. "Which of your people?" she asked, her tone becoming business-like.

"The Justicar Samara, Mordin, the geth Legion, the biotic Jack, and Zaeed Massani. As for their plans, I expect they will tell you the specifics of where they want to go," Shepard explained.

"You've helped me in the past, and I don't want to rule out the possibility of your help in the future…assuming you don't die a noble death in an Alliance prison. I'll take care of this." Aria seemed to catch sight of something interesting below them in the club, because she hesitated before continuing in a more insinuating tone, "What about Archangel? He's not returning to Omega?"

Shepard's throat tightened and she stood up from the couch. "No," she choked. "He's not."

As Shepard made her way down the stairs to leave, Aria called after her, "Shepard, your excruciating sense of nobility might make you a pain in the ass but I'm…fond of you, for also being a source of amusement. You should really unwind before you throw yourself on your sword. Archangel always seemed incredibly skilled at keeping you relaxed." Aria's teasing laughter followed Shepard until she exited the booth and Shepard was grateful for the music drowning it out.

"What did the pirate queen say?" Samara asked. It was only a moment after Shepard had left Aria that Samara had found her. The Justicar had clearly not been drinking with the rest of the crew. She appeared to be on edge in the club, her eyes darted from shadowy booth to dark corner, hunting for injustice.

"She agreed," Shepard told her. "You're free to stay, or to ask her for transport to anywhere you'd like to go."

Samara tore her eyes away from a particularly dangerous looking individual to meet Shepard's. The asari took one of Shepard's brown hands in her two blue ones. "I would prefer to say goodbye elsewhere, if you do not object," she suggested.

Shepard glanced around but did not catch sight of any of her crew in the immediate area. "Of course, Samara," she agreed.

The asari smiled one of her sad smiles, Shepard always thought it was easiest to realize how old Samara was when she smiled. You could see the years weighing on every happy moment behind her eyes. Samara led Shepard out of the club, past the line of people waiting to get in. The Justicar considered their surroundings and seemed to reject them, opting to lead Shepard through Omega's dirty and crowded docks until they reached the secluded area where they had docked the Normandy.

"We boarding?" Shepard asked.

Samara spared a glance for the Normandy's bay door. "No," she said eventually. "I think perhaps it is best if I do not get back on. It would make leaving all the harder."

Shepard was touched by the depth of emotion in the asari's voice. Samara spent a long moment examining the Normandy before she returned her gaze to Shepard. "It has been so long since I have had a friend, I'm afraid I've forgotten how to say goodbye."

"You said your goodbyes once," Shepard reminded her. "Before the Collector Base."

Samara nodded slightly. "I did not truly expect us to survive," she said. "I should have known you would succeed." Once again the asari gripped Shepard's hand. "You are a rare soul, Shepard. When the Reapers come for us, you need only call for me and I will aid you."

Shepard exhaled. "I'm scared," she admitted in small voice, her eyes on their entwined hands. "I'm scared to turn myself in."

Samara squeezed her hand. "It is a frightening thing, to do what is right and just when others do not," she said. "But you are a warrior, Shepard. No cage can hold you. Only your fear will ever hold you back." Samara surprized Shepard then, by pressing her lips to the human woman's forehead in a motherly gesture.

"Thank you for everything," Shepard whispered.

"I have faith in you, Shepard," Samara replied.

Shepard found Zaeed on her way back to Afterlife. He was taking a piss outside club, to the disdain of the people waiting in line to get in. "Oh, fuck off!" he shouted, aiming a wildly inappropriate gesture in the vague direction of the complaints. He stumbled in Shepard's direction and grinned at the sight of her. "Shepard!" he enthused.

"Having fun, Zaeed?" she asked.

He reached her side and wrapped an arm around her bare shoulders, draping a fair amount of his weight onto her with the motion. "Some pisshead eclipse merc challenged me to a drinking contest. Twerp was still wet behind the ears. I told him I'd been drinking with Commander Fucking Shepard and to come back when he'd had Ryncol burn through his liver."

"I see," Shepard said.

Zaeed's head slumped to rest on her shoulder, affording him a view of the cleavage on display from her dress. "Have I ever told you I like this dress?" Zaeed mumbled.

"My dress?" Shepard repeated, searching about for somewhere to set him down. She remembered the benches in the hallway just inside the club and nodded at the bouncer who allowed her past, dragging the half-conscious Zaeed with her.

"I think you're beautiful, Shhhepard…" She really couldn't hear him at this point, it was just incoherent whispers that became snores.

She led him to an empty bench and gently sat down with him. The mercenary snored on her shoulder, muttering in his sleep about goddamn sons of bitches. Shepard could not help but smile.

Her stomach flipped over when Garrus entered the hallway on his way out of the club. He stopped in his tracks at the sight of her and Zaeed on the bench. He approached them slowly, and she recognized the spark of curiosity in his eyes.

"What happened?" he asked her.

"If I understood correctly, he put a young eclipse merc in his place with a drinking contest," Shepard explained. "Where were you going?"

"Oh," Garrus glanced away. "I was going back to the ship," he admitted uncomfortably.

"Oh," Shepard echoed, her chest tight.

Garrus met her eyes, the blue was unusually sad. "I could take him back with me," he offered. "He can sleep it off before we leave."

"Sure," Shepard agreed in a hollow voice.

Garrus extricated Zaeed from Shepard, causing an increase in the mercenary's mumbled cursing. Shepard noticed Garrus avoided touching her, or even looking too closely at her bare skin.

"Be careful," Shepard whispered as Garrus hefted Zaeed over his own shoulder. "Archangel," she added.

Garrus spared her a glance before he began to leave. "Of course, Shepard," he said.

Mordin accosted her when she stepped foot back inside Afterlife. "Shepard," he declared, "assume everything went well with Aria?"

She nodded, making her way towards the nearest bar with Mordin trailing after her. "You're clear to stay here or leave whenever you want to," she told him.

"Excellent. Can check on clinic. Possibly contact STG. Reaper threat imminent," he explained rapidly.

Shepard ordered a drink with a wave of her hand and said to Mordin, "Hopefully somebody does something about the imminent Reapers."

Her Ryncol arrived and she downed it. Mordin considered her. "Best candidate will be in prison," he pointed out.

"You already gave me your opinion on this, Mordin," she said.

"Always a chance someone might listen to reason if repeated enough," the salarian informed her. He inhaled sharply. "Sadly, most people too stubborn." A second later he added a soft addendum, "Particularly humans."

Shepard chucked as she ordered another drink. "Mordin, did you just call me stubborn and stupid?"

He grinned conspiratorially. "Always a chance you might listen."

She laughed.

When Mordin left, Shepard wandered down to the lower level looking for her friends. She found Jack dancing on a table. "SHEPARD!" the tattooed woman yelled, grabbing Shepard's hand and pulling her up onto the table with her.

The table was definitely too small for the both of them, especially with the enthusiastic dancing Jack was doing to the faster-paced lower level music. "Well, come on!" Jack encouraged. "Fucking dance!"

Shepard tried her best in the limited space and quickly managed to hit Jack in the face with her elbow. Jack shoved Shepard off of the table with a laugh.

"Cat fight!" someone in the crowd yelled.

"FIGHT! FIGHT! FIGHT! FIGHT!" became the chant picked up by the rest.

Jack leapt off the table and offered Shepard a hand, pulling her up. "What do you think?" she asked, brown eyes sparkling. "Want to have some fun?" She allowed a slight glow of her biotics to crackle blue across her arms and chest.

Shepard looked around at Aria's bar and the shouting crowd. "I really don't think we should destroy the bar of the woman who just agreed to shelter you, or transport you wherever you want to go," she said.

Jack sighed. "You're no fun, Shepard." She made her way towards the bar and one of the crowd, a drunk turian with brown plates and white tattoos, got in Jack's way.

"We told you to fight!" he snapped.

Jack rolled her eyes at Shepard and shoved the guy out of her way. He raised his hand to try and hit her and before he knew what was happening Jack had hit him and several others with a shockwave, sending them flying into the booths. Jack cracked her knuckles and smiled at Shepard. "Looks like we're wrecking the bar, after all."

"It's not wrecked yet," Shepard said reasonably just as someone jumped her from behind and entire lower bar erupted into a brawl.

"I WILL DESTROY YOU!" Jack shouted, launching biotic attacks at anyone who even looked at her until half of the occupants of the bar were soaring through the air.

"YOU CAN STILL STOP!" Shepard yelled, refraining from biotic use and only punching anyone who touched her, which generally knocked them out cold.

What could only have been five minutes later, everyone other than Jack and Shepard was out cold, either punched out by Shepard, or knocked out from the impact of being thrown into the walls or furniture repeatedly by Jack.

"I'll miss this when you're in prison," Jack commented, stepping over several unconscious krogan to grab a bottle of alcohol off the bar. The bartender, who had hidden when the brawl started, did not try and stop her.

"Somehow I expect you'll keep doing this while I'm in prison," Shepard replied.

Jack took a swig of the bottle and passed it to Shepard. "I mean…probably, but it won't be as fun without you trying to talk everyone out of it."

Shepard sighed.

After the fight, and after apologizing profusely to Aria for the property damage which apparently happened all the time in the lower levels anyway, Shepard gave up on trying to find the rest of her friends in the other levels of the club. She was tired, sore and a little drunk, though with her constitution the buzz would likely wear off by the time she made it back to the Normandy. Shepard walked alone through the gritty space station, eyes catching on blood stains of various colours and…other bodily fluids. More than anywhere else she had been, Omega reminded her of the over-crowded and crime filled city she had grown up in on earth. The only real difference was Aria, back home you never knew which gang leader had managed to claim control that week.

The light cycle of Omega was always set to simulate evening, never day, so Shepard had absolutely no concept of what time it was or how many hours she had spent in Afterlife. She could check her omni-tool, but there was something freeing in not knowing how much time she had left. Not knowing how many hours before she would leave the space station behind, and several of her close friends behind with it.

"Arrgh! Kiiill it! Set it on fiiire! Watch it burn!" a vorcha hissed from a nearby ally. With a sigh, Shepard turned in the direction of the voice. Whatever the vorcha intended to set on fire, it was a safe bet that it did not deserve it. She could have sworn dealing with vorcha on Omega was Captain Gavorn's job, not hers. But she had never been able to walk past someone being attacked.

Five vorcha were together down the ally, surrounding someone or something she could not see. A bright light turned in her direction and the vorcha looked at her in unison. "Human! Leave!" the vorcha with the flame-thrower, the one in danger of setting the fire, screeched at her.

"This none of your concern!" one added. "Our toy! We found!"

"Shepard-Commander," Legion spoke her name and she realized the source of the light. "Help us."

"Legion's not a toy," she told the vorcha. "Leave or I'll tell Captain Gavorn about your flame-thrower."

The vorcha hissed at her in unison, though they backed away from Legion. "We found!" one of them insisted again. "Ours!"

Shepard allowed her biotics to crackle across her skin. "You should really run while you can," she threatened them softly.

The leader made several angry noises at her and muttered something to the others that her translator could not follow before barking at her, "We leave! Tell Captain Gavorn we listen! No fiiiires!"

"Sure, of course. No fires," Shepard agreed. She had no intention of speaking to Captain Gavorn so he would be in no danger of hearing about the vorcha or their flame-thrower.

The vorcha melted away into the shadows of the alleys and Shepard approached Legion. "What happened to you?" she asked. "Aren't you an infiltration unit?"

Legion's flashlight shutter fluttered as it did sometimes when he had to think for more than a second before replying to what she asked him. "EDI explained the purpose of this visit was socialization. The vorcha responded with aggression when approached."

It took Shepard several seconds to process this answer as well. "You wanted to socialize with the vorcha? How did you get that idea?"

His light flickered and then a recording began to play of a conversation from what seemed to be earlier in the evening:

"Geth communicate through consensus. Socialization is an organic construct we are unfamiliar with."

"Why don't you go chat up a fucking vorcha, eh? They'll chat your bloody flashlight off." Zaeed added into his drink something Legion had clearly not heard, "Or shoot it."

Shepard sighed. "Zaeed was being sarcastic," she told Legion.

The geth tilted its head. "Sarcasm is another organic construct."

"In the future, you probably shouldn't go to Zaeed for advice," Shepard suggested.

"We could not find you to ask, Shepard-Commander," Legion said.

Shepard swallowed. "Right. Well, let's go back to the Normandy, alright?"

Legion followed Shepard out of the alley and through the streets of Omega. "I got permission for you to stay here, or to go wherever you need to," Shepard explained.

"To geth space," Legion added.

Shepard looked at it. "If that is what you want."

"We must help other geth," Legion said. "As Shepard-Commander must help other organics."

"I want to help everyone," Shepard said firmly. "Geth too."

"We know. That is why the old machines fear you."

The Normandy was eerily quiet. Shepard had never known it to be so empty, not even when the crew had been kidnapped. She supposed it was expected when you gave the entire crew permission for shore leave for the evening to go to a club, that most of them would take advantage.

Shepard nodded at the few remaining crew as she passed their stations. They saluted with more fervor than she had ever experienced. The survivors of the Collector Base had come to view her with a near frightening amount of respect and loyalty. She suspected the few who had not taken the night off had simply wanted to prove to her they were worth it. To be honest, with EDI unshackled most of their jobs were no longer necessary but she didn't have the heart to tell them.

"Don't work too hard," she told Hadley.

He spared a tired smile for her before continuing to pore over his console. "The organic crew is less efficient at tasks than EDI," Legion commented as they neared the elevator.

EDI popped up into existence as Shepard called the elevator. "I enjoy sharing my work," she said. "It makes the crew happy."

"It is inefficient," Legion insisted.

Shepard interrupted the argument which would never have gone anywhere, saying to EDI, "Would you mind subtly helping Hadley with whatever he's working on?"

"Of course, Shepard," she agreed, disappearing.

"Shepard-Commander…" Legion began.

"Legion, if you're going to say something about how I should just get rid of my organic crew and let EDI do everything, how about you don't say it and pretend you did?"

The elevator arrived and they stepped on in silence. As they descended to the crew deck Legion finally said, "Hadley-Crewman was overwhelmed by his task. Shepard-Commander assigned EDI to lighten his burden and increase efficiency."

"Yes," Shepard agreed.

"Geth share burdens too," Legion commented as the elevator doors opened and they stepped off.

Shepard escorted Legion towards the med bay and stopped in her tracks when she spotted Zaeed, passed out face-down on top of the dining area table. Garrus exited the med bay, medi gel in hand. He too stopped at the sight of them.

"He, uh, didn't make it all the way back," Garrus explained. He noticed her eyes on the medi-gel. "Oh, he fell and hit his head. It's bleeding."

He crossed over to the table and rolled Zaeed onto his back, then applied the medi-gel to the man's blood-soaked forehead. "I didn't expect you back so soon," Garrus said as he worked.

"Jack and I destroyed a section of the bar and I felt it was time to leave," Shepard replied.

Garrus nodded, unsurprised at the news of Jack destroying anything. He glanced up at Legion, then quickly away again. "I have some things I need to get done," he said. He stood up and began to make his way towards the main battery.

Shepard had not followed him the last time he had run away like this. She had been giving him his space, giving him time to process this. Being patient. Mature. Noble, even.

Well, screw that.

"I need to talk to Garrus, Legion," she told the geth. She did not wait for a reply before chasing her lover into his hide-out.

Garrus spun around when she opened the door. His eyes were wary when he caught sight of her. "Can it wait for a bit?" he began. "I'm—"

"No," she cut him off, shoving him back against his terminal, her body pressed against his.

She was happily surprized when he responded by tearing off her dress.