Mass Effect is the property of Bioware.

Fourteen

Garrus clambered up onto the transport platform, then extended a hand and helped Tali up behind him. "Well...here we go again."

"I don't think anything more needs to be said, really," Shepard announced, addressing the gathered squad beneath the platform. "All of you know what's expected of you, and I hope you know how proud you've made me. We've made it this far, and...well, I only need you to hold out a little while longer, and we'll blow this base and get back home." He turned and hit a switch on the pedestal behind him, starting the platform's mass effect generators; it lifted off with a lurch and began to drift down into the belly of the Collector base. The Commander fired off a salute, his two closest friends backing him as always, and called out in farewell: "We'll be back! I promise!"

From her vantage point next to Thane, Jack couldn't help but scoff a bit as she watched the 'power trio' fly off. "Promises," she muttered. "A promise and fifty creds'll get you a shiny new heatsink."

"That's not necessarily true, siha," the assassin argued, laying a hand on her bare shoulder. "Perhaps you've been let down by others, but have you known me to break my promises?"

Jack mused over that for a long moment, then walked wordlessly back to the door, where the rest of the team had been setting up fortifications. Miranda had taken charge in the absence of both Shepard and Garrus, and for once, nobody was bothering to question her authority. "Finish getting that barricade up," she ordered, watching Grunt push a discarded row of terminals in front of the door. "I checked the lock already; it shorted out from the forced entry, so we won't be able to bar the door conventionally. Jacob, any luck on the other door?"

Across the room, Jacob looked up from the haptic interface panel he'd been pecking at. "I've got it locked," he answered. "If the Collectors want in, they'll have to hack the connection or bring in some serious firepower."

"We should be so lucky," their de facto leader responded, brushing an errant strand of hair behind one ear. "Take up some defensive positions, people. We'll have Collector reinforcements headed this way before long."

Deciding to do exactly that, Jack (with Thane in tow) meandered over behind an overturned guardrail and crouched behind it, leaning on the edge of the improvised barricade. Behind her, Samara rested against the wall, clutching a heavy pistol with white-knuckled fervor. Swift application of medigel had saved the Justicar from an untimely end, but she'd lost enough blood to drop most people; even now, she swayed from time to time, and Jack suspected she had passed out at least once while they had prepared the defenses.

"...No," the convict blurted abruptly as they waited for the inevitable Collector charge. "No, you haven't. You've been good to me, Thane. You showed me there's still shit worth seeing out there, things to live for besides myself. And you're right, you've stayed by me. Just about everybody else cut and run or stabbed me in the back by this point...but not you." Checking the heat gauge on her shotgun, she loaded a new clip into its underside. "You're still here. I respect that; hell, maybe I even trust you a little. That's not something I'm just gonna up and forget."

Thane smiled. "I appreciate that." He set his rifle down atop the barricade, adjusting the sights with the casual fastidiousness of a professional. "You, in turn, have done much for me as well. Through you, I've had a second chance to connect with my family, and I've learned that perhaps, even in these waning hours, life is not as grave as I've always made it out to be." Turning slightly, he lay a hand on Jack's shoulder. "Thank you for that, Jack. I look forward to the rest of our time together."

Despite herself, a tiny, rueful smile crept onto her face. "Yeah. Me too."

"You should smile more often, siha," Thane mused, mirroring her expression. "It makes you-"

They were interrupted by a rustling noise behind them. "Do you think," Samara asked, keeping herself sitting upright with obvious effort, "that we could perhaps have this conversation another time?"

A moment of silence went by, and then Thane dutifully turned back towards the door. Jack glared. "Think I liked you better when you were bleedin' out on the floor," she growled, and followed the drell's lead.

They didn't have to wait long for trouble to come knocking...literally, in this case, as something began steadily crashing against the other side of the door less than five minutes later. Of the seven squad members remaining, six focused their attentions on the shuddering expanse of metal across the room from them; the other (Miranda) turned to conduct a final sweep of the area and make sure everything was in place. "Get ready!" she called. "We've got activity at the door."

The pounding noise quickly increased in volume as the team trained their weapons on the door, which began to sag inward from the force of so many unseen blows. The steel began to reach its breaking point, with spiderweb-shaped cracks appearing all over its center, and Jack could feel sweat beginning to bead on her brow. Whatever kind of weapon the Collectors had, they were getting through the door quickly with it...

"Let 'em come!" Grunt had evidently run out of patience; he was standing up and brandishing his shotgun at the door. "Their toys didn't save them from our strike team, and they won't help them take this room! When they-"

"Shh!" Miranda hissed, holding up a hand. The krogan quieted down (amazingly), and Jack strained to listen along with the rest of the group and hear whatever it was that their leader had picked up on. Sure enough, there was a dull whine lingering in between the repeated impacts on the door. Listening a little more closely, Jack was finally able to put her finger on the noise. It was a moan-no, moans, plural. A whole host of empty, synthesized moans.

Husks.

There had to be a ton of them out there, maybe hundreds, if they were proving capable of tearing the door down this quickly. Miranda kept her cool nicely, but there was no doubt in Jack's mind that the other woman was frantically improvising inside as she barked orders. "Keep picking them off as they come through!" she shouted to the rest of the squad. "If we can get a chokepoint established, they don't stand a chance."

Jack grinned. As if they stood a chance in the first place. Husks were mindless and fragile.

Not fragile enough, though, to be useless against the door, because a hole burst through the sheet of metal a second later and a horde of slavering blue forms began loping out at predatory speeds, heading straight for the set of improvised barricades housing the squad.

"Here they come!" cried Jacob. He pumped his shotgun and scored first blood with a burst of incendiary double-aught rounds that took the entire upper body clear off the husk at the front of the pack. That seemed to be as good a signal to open fire as any, and the entire team opened up, raining death on the shambling hordes as fast as they could get through the door breach. Shards of crystallized flesh scattered all over the entrance as the husks fell apart under their concentrated onslaught. Even Samara had risen to her feet behind Thane and was picking off the creatures with carefully-aimed shots from her pistol.

From the way he laughed as he filled the husks with shotgun rounds, Grunt was having the time of his life. "A massacre!" he roared with glee. "We'll climb out of here on their corpses!"

"Don't get overconfident," Miranda shouted back to him. "We've got a ways to go yet."

"Like shooting fish in a goddamned barrel!" Zaeed interjected. "I'm up for 'going a ways' if it's this easy-"

With a screech of rending metal, the door on the opposite side of the room split down the middle, and a second wave of husks began to swarm through.

Thane was the first to call attention to it. "Our flank is breached!" he announced, and redirected his fire over to that end of the room. Jack and Samara joined him, but the three of them alone weren't quite enough to stem the tide, and with their firepower lost from the main salvo, the original stream of husks began to gain ground as well. The creatures charged straight towards the squad, mouths gaping and arms reaching out greedily...

Miranda swore. "Oh, hell! Incoming! Brace for CQC!"

The words were barely out of her mouth before the husks swept into their midst.

One rule that Jack lived by was that with all her guns and biotics, if a fight had devolved into close-quarters combat, something had gone horribly wrong along the way. One did not win a fight with fists, knives, or similar implements so much as one survived it, accepting that you were going to take hits along the way. That was the case at the moment; she disintegrated the first three of the incoming husks with a short-range shockwave, ducked a swing from the next, and sent it packing with a biotically-empowered roundhouse punch to the jaw, but the subsequent two manage to scratch up her shoulder with their claws before being crunched into a fine powder when she threw them into Samara's singularity. The Justicar's barrier was holding up well, keeping her injured body from any further damage, so Jack decided to focus on her own problems for a moment-which was good, as between her and Thane were four more husks, barely kept at bay with the drell's martial arts and-

"This is KROGAAAAAN!"

Ah, make that no more husks, as Grunt had barreled straight through the pack with his crest leading the way. Three of the beasts were knocked aside and shattered on the ground like broken toys, and the fourth actually managed to hang onto Grunt's forehead, clawing and biting, until the krogan lifted it over his head and brought its spine down over his knee, folding it in half with a mighty crunch.

Jacob and Miranda were back to back in the center of the room, holding their own against a wave of husks that shattered against gunshots and biotic deflections; to their right, Zaeed's trusty flamethrower was mopping up a separate pack of husks, none of whom were intelligent enough to go around the cloud of burning fuel instead of simply rushing into it. All in all, Jack figured, they were holding the line nicely, despite the unexpected husk-rush. Things could probably be going worse.

Roughly thirty seconds later, and ten seconds after Jack remembered that thinking such things usually boded ominously, things began to go worse.

The white-hot arc of a continuous laser splattered on the side of their barricade, and Jack dove behind it for cover, taking the spot forcibly from its previous occupant (a husk) with a blast of her shotgun. She caught a glimpse of the Praetorian descending behind the door, and then it charged forth into the room and began unleashing the payload from its massive laser cannon on the rest of the room, shredding husks and scenery alike. Peering from behind her cover, Jack could see Zaeed unsling his flamethrower and begin taking shots at the fused mass of husks that made up the creature with an assault rifle. Samara did likewise with her pistol, but the Praetorian reared back with a dozen simultaneous shrieks.

"It's going for a strafing run!" Jacob shouted. "Evasive action!"

Unfortunately, Samara was right out in the open, and in no condition to run for cover. Thane hurried to her side to drag her behind the barricade, but it didn't look like they were going to make it before the laser swept over them. A surge of adrenaline rose in Jack's chest; she could see Thane carrying the Justicar towards cover as the Praetorian's weapon surged towards them, and in that moment, she decided that, for once in her life, doing something selfless didn't sound like such a dumb idea.

"Hey asshole!" The shockwave she launched at it did nothing to actually damage the Praetorian...but what it did do was hit it in the side, spinning it a hundred and eighty degrees away from Samara and Thane. This meant that the laser jerked away from them, in the opposite direction it had previously been racing. Awesome.

Unfortunately, it also meant that the beam was now racing towards Jack.

She had just enough time to get out a started "...ah, fuck" and dive for cover before the Praetorian's attack blew out the row of terminals next to her. The force of the explosion drove the convict into the ground slightly harder than she'd expected, and she ended up thwacking the side of her head against the hard floor of the Collector station. The world blurred around Jack, then faded into a peaceful darkness as she blacked out.

"...pinned down at the entrance and taking heavy fire from a Praetorian."

"Copy that. Fall back to the Normandy ASAP; I'm setting a bomb in the core."

Jack blinked with confusion as the world swirled in a haze about her. She was propped against one of the barricades, and from the sounds in the background the Praetorian was still attacking. Raising her hand, the convict touched the side of her head; it came away sticky, warm, and red. Well, she was bleeding lightly, but she was still alive, and holed up with...

"Roger. We'll extract as soon as this thing's down." Miranda clicked her comm off and resumed taking shots at the hovering construct.

Wait, what? Miranda Lawson, the Cerberus cheerleader, had pulled her ass out of the fire?

This would not do. This would not do at all. Jack was not about to be indebted to her, not under any circumstances. She grabbed her shotgun and held onto the nearby barricade, dragging herself upright and nearly stumbling into Miranda, who blinked with surprise. "Oh," the other woman exclaimed. "You're up. The others are across the room, but we're cut off by that bloody Praetorian."

The aforementioned monster chose that moment to concentrate its attack on their position. Sparks flew from the end of the barricade as the laser bore down on it, blocking Jack from getting across to the others-at least, until Miranda pulled up a biotic shield and stepped out of cover, blocking the beam with the force of willpower alone. "Get going!" she shouted, straining against the Praetorian's might. "I've got you covered!"

Jack took a step towards the group on the other side of the chamber. She could see Thane with the rest of them, pouring rounds into the construct as its attention was distracted. All she had to do was make a run for him...

"...would not do at all," whispered a voice in her head, and she knew it was right.

Determined not to owe the cheerleader for anything, Jack extended her hands and added a wave of her own biotic energy to the shield. Her muscles tensed as some of the strain transferred from Miranda to her, but the two of them sharing it was significantly easier than one trying to hold the barrier alone.

"Likewise," she smirked. "Now fuckin' go already!"

Without another word, the two women charged across the chamber, vaulting an overturned barricade and keeping the shield up all the way. Although the Praetorian bore down on them, keeping its laser trained direction between the two, the barrier held up all the way back to the main group, where Jack caught a rustle of movement out of the corner of her eye. It was Thane, with Jacob close behind; the pair dashed wordlessly towards their position and threw their biotics into the shield, pushing back against the beam.

"Push it back!" Jacob bellowed over the beam's thunderous roar. "One...two...three...heave!"

As one, all four of them shoved hard against the Praetorian's assault; the construct staggered in the air and wobbled backwards, but the beam continued to bore into their improvised shield with every passing moment. Although Jack could hear the sounds of gunfire behind her (Grunt, Samara, and Zaeed were presumably unloading everything they had on the Praetorian's carapace), the enemy showed no signs of dropping before their shield did. All four of the biotics were exhausted, and it was showing as the barrier flickered and grew dim. Soon, it would drop altogether, and then-

BLAM.

A chunk blew off the Praetorian's side, causing the construct to swerve wildly in the air. Its attack fizzled out altogether as it swiveled to find its assailant.

BLAM.

The second shot struck home right in the center mass and blew the Praetorian's insides straight out its back. Bits of husk scattered all over the ground as it spiraled out of control, plummeting downwards and crashing into a barricade in a smoking heap. Its cybernetics-riddled form gave a final twitch, and then lay still.

"...What just happened?" Miranda exclaimed, bewildered. All eyes in the room followed the direction the shots had come from, and turning towards the door, they beheld their savior...

"A secure pathway to the egress point has been cleared," Legion announced. "All hostiles eliminated. We advise retreating to the Normandy immediately, as the destruction of the station is imminent." The geth racked its Widow antimaterial rifle, ejecting the glowing heatsink onto the floor.

"Addendum: Do not fuck with us."

A moment of stunned silence went by, and then Jack did the most reasonable thing possible: she burst into laughter.

And although she kept reminding herself to focus on the mission, all the way back to the ship, even as she attempted to help Thane carry Samara through the tunnels, Jack could hardly see straight, given how hard she was laughing at what Legion had apparently learned about organic interaction from her. Thankfully, Jacob and Zaeed joined in about halfway through, and by the time they'd reached the ship most of the group, with the exception of Samara (whom Jack was fairly sure never laughed at anything, ever) and Thane (who nonetheless was holding back a smirk), was just barely capable of standing upright as they hurried up the gangplank.

"Excellent!" Mordin exclaimed, hurrying up to them. "Just returned from medbay. Have treated crew; found no significant health risks and-"

He paused to look around the squad.

"...Have missed something. Joke, yes? Probably not ideal time, but always appreciate situational humor." The salarian snapped his fingers eight times in six seconds. "Spill! Wish to hear punchline."

Yeah, it was turning out to be a pretty good day after all.

Two Days Later

'Mission accomplished'. Jack had never heard a sweeter phrase, with the possible exception of 'oh god, please don't, I can pay you'.

The Collector base was dust, and against all odds, Shepard, Tali, and Garrus had come running out to the Normandy as the walls collapsed around them, giving the mission a no-casualty record-not at all what Jack had been expecting. She had to give the Commander some credit: he'd put a hell of a team together, considering they'd been able to come out of this with only a few injuries and no deaths.

Two days had passed since the SR-2 had come screaming back through the Omega-4 Relay, and most of the squad was currently on shore leave, in light of the fact that (while there were apparently preparations to be made, as Shepard claimed the Reaper problem was anything but over) they had been through hell in the last few months and could do with a weekend off. Although they were no longer officially aligned with Cerberus (a thought that made Jack a little happier about having the Commander on her side), Miranda and Jacob had resigned their positions in the interest of staying on board the Normandy. Zaeed had likewise agreed to stick around when Shepard offered a salary out of his personal funds, and Samara had granted an extension to her oath. Overall, it looked like everybody would be sticking together from here on out.

Everyone, that is, except Thane and Jack.

"I understand," Shepard said with a nod. "I imagine I'd want to do the same in your place, and you've both earned it. Thank you both for helping me."

"It was an honor, Commander," replied Thane. He shook the younger man's hand firmly, with his other arm still firmly around Jack's waist. "Thank you, in turn, for giving me the chance to make something of the time I have left."

Jack grinned at Shepard, and he returned the favor with a knowing chuckle. "So long, Jack. We've had a hell of a time, huh?"

"Yeah." The convict skipped over any formalities and simply punched him in the arm. "Look, um. When, uh..." She glanced over at Thane, her smile faltering a bit, and finally rephrased the sentence. "When you want me back, just...give me a few days to get it together, and let me know, okay? I still owe you one for all of this."

There was a glimmer of understanding in Shepard's eyes. "You've got all the time you want, Jack," he assured her. "I'll contact you in...probably a year or so. Take your time."

Jack nodded. "Thanks." With that, the two turned and strode down the hallway and into the elevator. As the doors closed in front of them, Jack called out, "Oh, and if you fuck the quarian, don't bareback it, dumbass. She'll get sick and die."

She had the satisfaction of seeing the Commander's face turn bright red in the instant before the elevator began descending.

Goodbyes went swiftly.

"Take it easy, kid," Zaeed groused, ruffling Jack's scalp with a hand. "Maybe I'll see you around, huh?" Next to him and Grunt, the holo was prominently displaying Blasto the hanar, surrounded by weapon-brandishing salarians.

"Give it up, Blasto," ordered the salarian general. "We're taking the bioweapon and there's nothing the Council can do, so you may as well surrender. You can't take us all at once."

"On the contrary," the hanar replied. "This one thinks that you're a bunch of unenkindled nerds."

Jack smirked at the holo. "Yeah. Maybe you will. See you round, Massani. Grunt."

"Jack," the krogan acknowledged with a nod.

Across the ship, Thane bowed politely. "It's been an honor, Samara."

"Likewise," the Justicar answered, her expression softening into a rare smile. "I...cannot say that my social skills have been anything approaching passable, considering the centuries I've spent alone, but I'd like to thank you for tolerating me nonetheless. You've been a good friend, Thane."

"As have you." He cautiously stepped forward and pulled Samara into a tentative hug. It was formal and stiff, but the intentions on both ends were sincere enough. "Please, take care of yourself."

"I will." The shark eyes studied him intently, but without the predatory gleam he was accustomed to. "In time, I think, the pain will subside...yes. In time." The asari's gaze fell. "Time is more precious a commodity to some than others, I suppose."

Thane shook his head. "I'm grateful for what I have left, and I intend to make the most of it. I suggest you do the same, in your own way."

Samara's eyes met his once more, and she nodded. "You are a good man, Thane. Farewell."

The sun was just beginning to set over Nos Astra when they met at the Normandy's gangplank. All goodbyes had been said, and there was nothing left to do now but go their own way.

"So," Jack said with a wide, playful grin. "Goin' my way, hitman?"

"I believe I am," Thane answered. He couldn't quite suppress the contented smile that spread over his face. "The apartment is in the lower district of Nos Astra...it's still leased out for another three months. I wasn't sure how long I'd be after Ms. Dantius."

She nodded. "Sounds like a plan, then. Let's get going."

They crossed down to the platform together, hand in hand, and stepped forward into the future and whatever it held for them. For better or for worse, when the inevitable came, they'd face it together, mutually grounded, unshakeable, rock steady.

EPILOGUE

It was a nice apartment complex, all things considered. Jack supposed you could afford to live well in polite society, on an assassin's pay. She watched as Thane inserted his keycard and, sure enough, the light over the lock flickered a welcoming green.

"I know we talked about it, and...I'm as cool with it as I'm going to get," she murmured, pressing up against the drell from behind and wrapping an arm around him. "But dammit, Thane, I wish we had more time."

His chuckle vibrated deep in his back, sending little shivers through her head as she leaned against him, and the convict was distantly aware of Thane stroking the arm in front of him. "I'm aware, siha. And so do I. But for the next few months..." He opened the door to the apartment and took a gentle step forward, pulling her along with him. "...we have all the time in the world."

The door closed behind them. It was silent for approximately three seconds, and then-

"Oh good, you're back!" chirped a voice in the darkness. "I was starting to wonder if-"

Chaos ensued for the next few seconds. Jack and Thane simultaneously pulled their pistols, falling all over each other (and drawing an indignant growl from Jack) in their attempts to get their weapons drawn and pointed at the mysterious intruder.

"Whoa, whoa! Don't shoot!" the voice exclaimed with alarm. "Don't, it's me!"

Thane fumbled for the light switch, and illuminated the apartment to reveal a familiar hooded form seated on their couch. He blinked once, twice, as if processing the situation. "...Kasumi?"

"In the flesh!" the thief announced cheerfully. "Sorry to just drop in like this..."

"The fuck are you doing in here?" Jack yelled, not quite ready to stop brandishing her weapon. Her attempts to raise it were foiled by a quick movement of Thane's arm, but the pistol nonetheless remained in her hand.

"...Right. About that..." Kasumi scratched at the back of her head, kicking at the carpet lightly. "Um...look, I know this is sudden, but there was this heist on Bekenstein three days ago. I don't know if you heard of it; you're busy people, after all, but-well, that was me. And it didn't go quite as planned, and I kind of need to be hiding until it blows over, so..."

She attempted her best placating smile, which fell rather flat before Jack and Thane's deeply unamused expressions.

"...Can I stay with you two for a while?"

THE END

A/N: And so, we come to the conclusion of Rock Steady. What a long, strange trip it's been, from doing what was going to be a two-or-three-parter based on...well, really what was basically a dare, to a full-fledged story. As I mentioned in some of the earlier author's notes, everything about this was experimental. I'm a predominantly action-oriented person and here I was delving into romance (although I did manage to throw in the occasional gratuitous action scene. I hope you guys didn't mind! :P) So I'd like to say that this experiment has been a resounding success for me in that I have had a BLAST writing it. It's challenged me in new and interesting ways and I feel that in many ways I've improved both my skill and my mindset while writing it.

As a great philosopher once said, thanks is given everyday but especially this day as the warriors give me the intensity to deliver the power at Survivor Series IT IS GOING TO BE A WAAAAAR. To put it somewhat more succinctly, there are quite a few people I'd like to thank, and they are as follows.

Shynarala, for challenging me to "take the strangest pairing you can think of in the ME2 cast and try to make it work". I don't think you had this in mind, and I know I sure as hell didn't. I didn't even like the pairing at first, but as time has gone on, I think I've warmed up to it a lot more. Thanks for giving me that head start.

The Neck Snap Appreciation Society (NSAS), for essentially keeping me going on this thing. You ladies (and guy, in Rad's case) are awesome. I really don't know if I'd ever have finished this thing without you. Special thanks to InevitableTaxes, the love of my life. (ilu bee :D)

IccaRa/ghost.713, AssaultSloth, BetaReject, spamhead80, and Katerina Kintari for letting me bounce ideas off them and for always providing useful insight on how to write a story whenever I talked to them. I hope to someday be half as good a writer as the five of you are. Much love.

Bioware for making my second-favorite video game series (Legacy of Kain is my favorite but I don't think I could imitate the dialogue nearly well enough, haha).

The ME LJ Comm for their support. Thanks to everybody who recommended me; when I came by one day and saw that I had, for lack of a better word, fans, I didn't know what to say! It's really humbling to know that people enjoy my work, and you guys have made it a joy to work on.

Jack fans for liking Jack, because solidarity! (Sometimes I wonder if we saw eye to eye on pretty much anything in this, but I appreciate the feedback from all of the Jackolytes.)

Lastly, and most importantly, everybody who read, favorited, reviewed, subscribed, whatever. All of you are, more than anything else, what kept me going when I wondered if I should just give up on trying to put certain scenes into words. I have been amazed by the response this story got, and never in a thousand years would I have expected the kind of support you've shown me. Thank you, from the bottom of my heart. You're wonderful, and you're awesome.