#connection / smokedanced ( shepard & tenth doctor )

[anderwhohn]

@smokedanced asked: Send ✗ for my muses reaction to being grabbed by the front of their shirt/collar and kissed hard on the mouth / no context ten for izzy

With the space station's artificial gravity restored, Isabela closes the access panel before untethering herself from the console before standing back up. Working on ship systems in zero gravity was always an interesting experience, but as she turns to the Doctor to figure out what their next move should be, she finds herself hauled closer to him and...

The kiss catches her completely offguard, emerald eyes widening before a blush rapidly heats her freckled cheeks as a faint whimper is pulled from her, her own hands finding purchase on the Doctor's arms to keep herself on her feet. Before she can even begin to fully make sense of what's happening, the kiss is broken and she's left staring up at him in a slight daze before she's able to recollect herself in any sense.

"I, uh..." she starts, and falters, her blush deepening as she lets go of him with one hand to brush her fingers over her lips in shocked disbelief. "Well, umm... Can't say that's ever happened when I've restored failed systems before," she murmurs with a quiet laugh, watching him still with clear uncertainty as to what to think.

Licking her lips anxiously, she glances away, though doesn't move from his personal space, one hand still gripping tightly to his arm even as she looks around Engineering. "So... Life support's online, as is artificial grav now," she notes as casually as she can manage. "Any other systems I should check?"

A wry smirk tugs at one corner of her lips as she can't help herself as she continues, "Especially if that's my reward for fixing things. Quite effective motivation, really..."

[anderwhohn]

Scoffing in frustration as she crosses her arms, she glares at him still despite every base instinct telling her to get the hell away from him for her own survival. "Being afraid is what's kept my ass alive all these years," she notes bitterly, though the bitterness doesn't seem to be towards him, at least not directly. "Between N7 training, thresher maws, slavers, krogan mercs, asari commandos, geth, rachni, whatever the hell that thorian creature was - fucking sentient plants - and it's mutated thralls, mad scientists, husks…"

A humourless laugh escapes her as she admits, "Get in fucking line if you want me to be intimidated despite that fear. I've gone up against a sentient starship the size of a fucking skyscraper that threatened galactic extinction and won. It takes more than someone being from a longer lived species to phase me."

"Hell, one of my best friends is a thousand and something year old krogan. So don't think you're so special for outliving my species. We've only known of the other galactic species for not even a full 30 years. First contact was when I was only three years old. This isn't anything new to me."

Some of the fight seems to have left her, at least, as she takes a more hesitant step closer again. "You ask me to trust you at all on anything, but let me tell you, Doctor… I don't trust anyone that I don't call a friend. My crew are my closest friends, my family even. I trust them with my life, just as they trust me with theirs. There's only a small handful of them that I trust implicitly, and nearly every one of that few aren't human. Besides my pilot and my doctor, both of whom are human, I trust a turian, a quarian, and a krogan the most on this ship above anyone else in the entire galaxy…"

Emerald eyes watch him closely, head tilting slightly as she looks up at him curiously. "Do you know how many people told me I should be afraid or at least wary of them? And now, I trust them with not only my life, but the lives of my crew as well. Fuck, I mean Wrex literally held me at gunpoint while we argued at one point, and I refused to back down because I trusted him. I had to calm him down for his own safety from some of the more xenophobic human crew who were prepared to take him out if I didn't."

"So don't think my being human - or you not being one yourself - is going to change anything. Sure, I might not ever be able to know you as well as someone who lives even half your age could, but that doesn't mean I won't try where I can. I didn't know hardly anything about krogan, turians, or quarians when I brought Wrex, Garrus, and Tali onboard, and I don't know everything I even should - gods know we have plenty of interspecies miscommunications at times - but honestly, most of what I did know was wrong thanks to human bias that was taught to me, so…"

Shrugging, she offers him a hint of a wry smile. "You get exclusive rights on controlling the narrative here. It's not like I can look up anything on your species in the codex database. But don't give me that bullshit about you killing people as if that will scare me away. I'd go insane myself if I worried about things like that, with how things went while chasing Saren throughout the galaxy."

"So suck it up, buttercup. You're stuck dealing me now. I don't expect to know you like you know yourself, or someone who lives as long as you could know you. I've got maybe another 120 years in me, if I'm lucky to survive that long. But you already said you're hanging around, so I need to know I can count on you when it matters, and… well… If Wrex, of all people, can call me a friend, despite how the majority of the galaxy treats his people, then I'd say you might as well accept it now that I'm not going to give up on trying to know you and to be your friend just because you tell me to, Doctor."

“And you think I am?” she snaps back at him, stepping closer herself until they’re toe-to-toe with one another, glaring up at him in challenge with what some would wrongly call fearlessness. The truth can be seen in her eyes, even as she refuses to back down, refuses to run from this man that looks human yet isn’t - she’s fucking terrified, yet that reckless determination to never back down from a fight keeps her where she is in the face of the danger.

“I’m an engineer. I never wanted to join a fucking gang when I was a kid, but I had to in order to survive. Just like I had to join the military to get out of that shithole and not be killed in some stupid turf war. I was sneaky and stealthy out of necessity, so the Alliance trained me for infiltration, spy work, sniping - but I just wanted to work on ships and tech like my mom. If I weren’t fucking too good at my damn job, the Brass would have had me discharged years ago from my disciplinary file alone. Hell, when they saw a chance to make me someone else’s problem while still benefiting them, they took it and threw me to the Council as a Spectre candidate.”

Without thinking, she jabs him in the chest with her finger as she continues, “You think I haven’t fucking murdered people? There were over 10,000 people - including the Council for the entire fucking galaxy’s central government - on the Destiny Ascension when a fucking Fleet Admiral told me to make the call whether his fleet should come to their rescue or focus on the damn Reaper. It was on my order that the Fifth Fleet ignored their distress call. I murdered 10,000 people, to save countless lives in the galaxy, because if Sovereign succeeded, more ships like it would have come pouring through and killed everyone, and that would have been on me.”

“And because of people like Udina, my name is practically scum to nearly every other species in the galaxy, because humans have essentially staged a coup to take over on the Citadel, taking charge of the Council and Citadel Security, and grabbing every bit of power that they can. And because Hackett was all too willing to throw me to the varren, I’m the one to blame for it because it’s known that I was the one who made that call.”

Staring up at him, fear and rage and desperation fighting for dominance in her gaze as she continues to meet his, she admits, “And if it comes down to it in this fucking war against the Reapers? If I had to murder my entire species to save the lives of every other sapient species in the galaxy? I. Would. Fucking. Do it. Without hesitation.”

[anderwhohn]

@smokedanced asked: ❝You don’t know me. Stop pretending like you do.❞ / ten for izzy, maybe in context of her being able to tell he's seen war/been a soldier

Emerald eyes narrow as she eyes the Doctor, though she tries to not take offence at his obvious-to-her defensiveness. She knows what it's like - she'd been that way herself immediately after Akuze, and if it hadn't been for her realising how much worse of a hell she'd have been put through had she not masked it enough to satisfy the Brass that she was 'fine', she would have been medically discharged.

Having seen first hand how poorly the Alliance handles their former soldiers with PTSD like with Major Kyle, she knows had she completely lost it herself, some other N7 could have been sent to essentially put her down like Hackett had likely intended for her to, but she was able to talk the Major into surrendering peacefully and forced the Alliance to hold up their end of the bargain promised when anyone enlists. The longer she either served or even continued to work at all with the Alliance, the more she saw through their lies and deceptions. They weren't really the 'good guys' most people liked to believe them to be.

"I lost 50 men on Akuze," she notes quietly, grateful at least that this whole… disagreement with them was happening somewhere private, away from the crew. The last thing she needs is the Alliance crew hearing her expressing her doubts in the leadership they still answer to, even if as a Spectre, she now answers mostly to herself and otherwise only the Council when she bothers to listen to them. "My entire unit, wiped out in under an hour. We had been sent to investigate a colony after it had gone dark, only when we arrived, no one was there. Not a single man, woman, or child - it was as though they'd all just got up in the middle of their day and vanished…"

She levels a serious look on him, the haunting memories of that day darkening her gaze. "We set up camp on a large flat area of land nearby, planning to expand the search the next morning. But morning never came, not when the thresher maws hit our camp in the middle of the night. I… I was the only one to make it out of there alive. Or, at least, I had thought so at the time - I learned years later there had been one other survivor, a man named Toombs, who had survived, but was taken captive by the scientists behind the whole ordeal to be experimented on…"

A flash of rage flits through her eyes at that as she sneers, "So don't fucking tell me I don't know you. I don't have to know what you've been through - we've all got our fucking ghosts that haunt us - but you don't get those ghosts without losing people time and time and time again, without wilfully sacrificing tens of thousands of people here, so billions can survive there, or without doing things that everyone else will forever condemn you for even if you did what you had to in order to save a whole fucking galaxy!"

[anderwhohn]

While a look of scepticism does cross her features, it only seems to apply to his supposedly not trying to impress her, because the moment he starts explaining his theory of what has happened to the Normandy and her crew, Shepard stills, listening intently with a thoughtful frown tugging at her lips.

"So… a wormhole?" she asks, cocking her head to the side at the thought. It… sort of makes sense, though there's a notable tension about her at the idea. "There are theories - have been for centuries, through multiple species' histories even, regarding the existence of alternate universes and whether or not extradimensional travel is even possible. Most of it's usually been brushed off as sci-fi…"

She sighs wearily, leaning back in her chair as she pinches the bridge of her nose to try to ward off the building tension headache. "Spirits, this is going to be hell to explain to the majority of the crew… Though if what you say is true, then my largest concern is the variances between this universe and ours, because I have two non-humans onboard who are dextro-amino, who cannot survive on the food the rest of us can eat."

"Human, asari, and krogan can all eat the same foods as each other, but cannot eat turian and quarian foods, and the same is true in reverse. Plus quarians have to have everything sterilised, which is why we have a steriliser onboard, but if it breaks, and we don't have the suitable parts to repair it before we can get home…"

Dread fills her at the thought of just how dangerous this could be, though she makes an admirable effort at not panicking - she's been through worse, and right now, her crew needs her to stay focused. She can panic once they're safely back home again.

"Joker," she calls out as she straitens back up, glancing at the Doctor even as she addresses her pilot. "Have Garrus grab one of the Codex datapads and an omnitool - if we don't have a spare one, give my authorisation for him to buy one on my account from our requisitions officer for our guest. And don't speak a word of what's been discussed to anyone."

"Aye aye, Commander," Joker responds over the room's PA speakers. "Though I think it's safe to say this tour has officially gone FUBAR."

A genuine laugh escapes her at that, nodding as she agrees, "That it has. But hey, if there was ever any doubt of your being the best damn pilot in the galaxy, I think you've just made it to the best damn pilot in the whole universe, if not two now. I doubt many could have got us through in one piece, so good job. Shepard out."

Turning her attention back to the Doctor then, she notes, "Garrus Vakarian is one of our dextro crew - the turian, to be exact. Tali'Zorah nar Rayya is the quarian - she's in Engineering. The Codex will save some time getting you caught up to speed on our universe, and the omnitool will make things easier all around so long as you're aboard the Normandy, considering I doubt that we'll just be able to turn our ship around and go back exactly the same way we came…"

anderwhohn.​

Within the relative privacy of the comms room - as private as it can get, knowing Joker’s probably eavesdropping since she didn’t order him not to - she activates her omnitool, waving it at the doorlock which turns red.

“The door will only open from the inside without my override, so that should keep any of the crew out. Especially if any of my ground team tries to show up regardless of orders,” she notes before wandering over toward the center chair, taking her seat even as she gestures in invitation for him to sit wherever he’s most comfortable.

There’s a weariness about her as she leans forward, elbows resting on her knees with her hands clasped at her chin as she thinks, emerald green eyes watching their new guest with a mixture of trepidation and curiosity.

“I’ll be upfront with you, Doctor. Just because I didn’t shoot you on sight doesn’t mean I trust you. You’re an unknown, and that ship of yours is unlike anything we’ve seen before. And given that we’ve seen a lot of things unlike anything we’ve seen before on this damn tour, including a giant genocidal cuddlefish of a starship…”

She sighs, shaking her head at the thought - that way leads to more headaches from the damn prothean visions if she’s not careful. “I have bigger problems to deal with than some hotshot pulling a fancy stunt to board my ship without permission.”

Mischief sparkles in her eyes at that as she looks at him, raising a single brow in silent challenge as she notes, “My own pilot stole this very ship - the best in the whole damn fleet - to prove he was the pilot for the job before I was even assigned as the ship��s commander, so if you want to impress me, you’re going to have to up your game.”

“Now, you say you want to help. And I want to believe you, even if I do doubt you want nothing in return, but I’m willing to ignore that for now. My crew may be a bit jumpy, but just a couple weeks ago, we kept an indoctrinated turian from opening the relays to let in a race of sentient starships hellbent on destroying all organic life in the galaxy, so you’ll have to forgive them.”

“Everyone’s a bit on edge still, especially when the Council has us on shit missions to keep us out of the way now that the celebrations are over so they can ignore the fact that we only stopped one Reaper and there’s no telling how many more of them there are out there in dark space beyond the edges of the galaxy…”

It’s more than she really should tell him - she saw in her Spectre emails that everything regarding the Reapers have been marked classified - but at this point, over half of the galaxy believes her to be crazy as it is. What’s one more? But with the seriousness in her gaze as she watches him closely, she’s clearly waiting to see just how he’s going to react to the truth.

He notes that she is subtly letting him know she hasn’t locked him in, only locked her crew out. Deliberate consideration or not, it gives her points. Not that a locked door would stop him, and she probably knows this too, seeing how he entered her ship.

The Doctor takes a seat where he can face her the easiest.

He quirks a smile at the anecdote of the pilot.    ❝ I wasn’t trying to impress you. ❞    Maybe he was, a little, even if in a spiteful manner.

His expression goes back to serious as he listens to her explain the situation. What he already practically knew is now definitely confirmed: this ship came from a parallel universe. An indoctrinated turian, a Reaper? It is probably best keep it to himself that the TARDIS is sentient, right now. A turian… it’s not a species he’s familiar with. Meanwhile, Reaper sounds like, well. A big bad, if the name says anything.

People just don’t tend to believe it when something as unintuitive as what’s happened here is true. People get scared. People lash out in fear.

He frowns for a long time, trying to actually think about how to even begin to explain it.    ❝ I… have a theory about what happened to you, ❞    he starts, slowly, locking eyes with her.    ❝ You’re not going to like it. You’re not going to believe me, even, and I get it  ⸺  why should you? I’m a stranger. But you said what happened to your ship was akin to going through a, a relay? Yet not quite, and you end up in the middle of nowhere. I know this universe pretty well. I’m not saying I don’t run into surprises… obviously. ❞    He smiles a little, nodding towards her and then at their surroundings in general.    ❝ But I know enough to know when something doesn’t fit. You speak about events and species as if they’re common knowledge, that I’ve never heard of. Your ship, your tech, it’s… all wrong, too. Bits and pieces from different eras of human history, stuff that shouldn’t even exist. You speak about mass relays for long distance space travel as if you were speaking about taking a bus, yet I have never come across one. Can I guess how, theoretically speaking, one would work? Sure. But… ❞

He doesn’t expect her to believe him, but she’s obviously smart, and there’s a chance she will give him the benefit of the doubt, at least.    ❝ Think about it. You went through something. What if that something wasn’t a relay, what if it was a tear in the fabric of reality? You’ve never seen anything like my ship before, either. ❞    Not that most of the universe has, but that’s irrelevant.    ❝ I don’t know what a Reaper is. I don’t even know what a turian is. I have no context for your Council to understand what you’re talking about. I think you’ve crossed from one universe to another. ❞    Who knows, maybe the multiverse theory is more popular among human science in her home as opposed to here.

[anderwhohn]

"And you think I am?" she snaps back at him, stepping closer herself until they're toe-to-toe with one another, glaring up at him in challenge with what some would wrongly call fearlessness. The truth can be seen in her eyes, even as she refuses to back down, refuses to run from this man that looks human yet isn't - she's fucking terrified, yet that reckless determination to never back down from a fight keeps her where she is in the face of the danger.

"I'm an engineer. I never wanted to join a fucking gang when I was a kid, but I had to in order to survive. Just like I had to join the military to get out of that shithole and not be killed in some stupid turf war. I was sneaky and stealthy out of necessity, so the Alliance trained me for infiltration, spy work, sniping - but I just wanted to work on ships and tech like my mom. If I weren't fucking too good at my damn job, the Brass would have had me discharged years ago from my disciplinary file alone. Hell, when they saw a chance to make me someone else's problem while still benefiting them, they took it and threw me to the Council as a Spectre candidate."

Without thinking, she jabs him in the chest with her finger as she continues, "You think I haven't fucking murdered people? There were over 10,000 people - including the Council for the entire fucking galaxy's central government - on the Destiny Ascension when a fucking Fleet Admiral told me to make the call whether his fleet should come to their rescue or focus on the damn Reaper. It was on my order that the Fifth Fleet ignored their distress call. I murdered 10,000 people, to save countless lives in the galaxy, because if Sovereign succeeded, more ships like it would have come pouring through and killed everyone, and that would have been on me."

"And because of people like Udina, my name is practically scum to nearly every other species in the galaxy, because humans have essentially staged a coup to take over on the Citadel, taking charge of the Council and Citadel Security, and grabbing every bit of power that they can. And because Hackett was all too willing to throw me to the varren, I'm the one to blame for it because it's known that I was the one who made that call."

Staring up at him, fear and rage and desperation fighting for dominance in her gaze as she continues to meet his, she admits, "And if it comes down to it in this fucking war against the Reapers? If I had to murder my entire species to save the lives of every other sapient species in the galaxy? I. Would. Fucking. Do it. Without hesitation."

anderwhohn.​

@smokedanced asked: ❝You don’t know me. Stop pretending like you do.❞ / ten for izzy, maybe in context of her being able to tell he’s seen war/been a soldier

Emerald eyes narrow as she eyes the Doctor, though she tries to not take offence at his obvious-to-her defensiveness. She knows what it’s like - she’d been that way herself immediately after Akuze, and if it hadn’t been for her realising how much worse of a hell she’d have been put through had she not masked it enough to satisfy the Brass that she was ‘fine’, she would have been medically discharged.

Having seen first hand how poorly the Alliance handles their former soldiers with PTSD like with Major Kyle, she knows had she completely lost it herself, some other N7 could have been sent to essentially put her down like Hackett had likely intended for her to, but she was able to talk the Major into surrendering peacefully and forced the Alliance to hold up their end of the bargain promised when anyone enlists. The longer she either served or even continued to work at all with the Alliance, the more she saw through their lies and deceptions. They weren’t really the 'good guys’ most people liked to believe them to be.

“I lost 50 men on Akuze,” she notes quietly, grateful at least that this whole… disagreement with them was happening somewhere private, away from the crew. The last thing she needs is the Alliance crew hearing her expressing her doubts in the leadership they still answer to, even if as a Spectre, she now answers mostly to herself and otherwise only the Council when she bothers to listen to them. “My entire unit, wiped out in under an hour. We had been sent to investigate a colony after it had gone dark, only when we arrived, no one was there. Not a single man, woman, or child - it was as though they’d all just got up in the middle of their day and vanished…”

She levels a serious look on him, the haunting memories of that day darkening her gaze. “We set up camp on a large flat area of land nearby, planning to expand the search the next morning. But morning never came, not when the thresher maws hit our camp in the middle of the night. I… I was the only one to make it out of there alive. Or, at least, I had thought so at the time - I learned years later there had been one other survivor, a man named Toombs, who had survived, but was taken captive by the scientists behind the whole ordeal to be experimented on…”

A flash of rage flits through her eyes at that as she sneers, “So don’t fucking tell me I don’t know you. I don’t have to know what you’ve been through - we’ve all got our fucking ghosts that haunt us - but you don’t get those ghosts without losing people time and time and time again, without wilfully sacrificing tens of thousands of people here, so billions can survive there, or without doing things that everyone else will forever condemn you for even if you did what you had to in order to save a whole fucking galaxy!”

He feels for her, he really does. Knows he shouldn’t let himself behave this way, shouldn’t get defensive, argumentative, shouldn’t  lash out.  Not to someone who doesn’t deserve his bullshit. But it’s one thing to know it and another wholly to control himself.

The Doctor shakes his head, laughs darkly. When he faces her he’s not wearing his usual mask  ⸺  not pretending to be young, not pretending to be carefree  ⸺  his eyes are depleted of all emotion, just raw pain vaguely echoing the empty space that is his very being.    ❝ It’s not the same. You have no idea what it’s like to be me. ❞

He doesn’t mean for it to sound  dismissive of her pain.  It’s not a contest of who’s gone through worse. Pain like that, what he’s been through, and what she’s been through, it’s not comparable. You can’t measure it in neat little units.

But it is different.

It’s different.

❝ I am not a soldier, ❞    he says, putting emphasis on every single word.    ❝ I am not. I never was supposed to be. I never wanted to be. And I’m sorry, I am, for what you’ve been through. And I’m not saying it’s less pain. But it’s not the same. We’re not the same. You look at me and you think you know me, but you couldn’t come near scratching the surface. ❞    He keeps himself hidden well enough, but it’s not even just that. How could anyone not his kind truly know him, even if he tried to lay himsel bare in front of them?

He can’t stand it, can’t stand the compassion he catches her looking at him with, at times. He’d rather alienate her. Rather have her know the truth than… than this.

Stepping closer, he goes on,    ❝ You have no idea who I am. What I am. Do you know how many names I’ve acquired, along the near-millenium I’ve been alive? Because I’ve lost count. They say  death follows wherever I go,  and they’re right. ‘The Killer of His Own Kind’? I murdered my own people. All of them. Children… ❞    He trails off without meaning to, unable to get more words out, barely able to breathe. The children on Gallifrey that day. He counts their numbers on sleepless nights, still. He didn’t sacrifice or lose people, he murdered them. The cause doesn’t matter. That the whole of time and space was in danger does not matter. He made that choice. And they’re all dead. Because of him. And what if there had been another way?

[anderwhohn]

"Wait, wha--" Shepard starts, surprised - and somewhat bemused - by this Doctor's audacity, but before she can even figure out what he's talking about, the strange ship hanging in space in front of the Normandy starts to disappear.

"What the shit?!" Joker immediately sets to running every scan he can think of even without an order from the commander, anticipating the command before she needs to give it. But even as he's working to try to make sense of what they're seeing, something even stranger starts happening behind them.

The noise is loud, and with it comes a strong wind, alerting everyone in the CIC and throwing the ship's sensors into red alert as people start scrambling to battle stations. A few feet from where Shepard stands at the helm, even as she turns toward the airlock to face the source of the commotion, that same blue box materializes in the limited space the corridor has to offer.

Dozens of assault rifles and pistols are instantly pointed at the intruder, even as Shepard herself simply crosses her arms over her chest, one brow raised in curious speculation as she waits patiently until the doors open and the Doctor makes an appearance.

It's only when she hears one of the deck crew starting to get antsy and too close to potentially firing without the order to do so, does she turn her gaze away from him to bellow out in the same manner of any number of strict drill sergeants, "Everyone, stand down! That's an order!"

Dozens of replies of 'aye, aye, Commander!' come back to her instantly, even though some of the marines look hesitant at following it until she glares them into compliance. Once she's only met with looks of wary uncertainty as no one yet gets back to their tasks, she orders sharply, "Get back to work, people! I need status reports on every one of the ship's systems ASAP! I'll deal with our guest."

She doesn't even watch them this time, a clear sign that she's pissed off enough that any failure on her crew's part will be met with disciplinary measures as soon as she has the time to handle it, though she barely acknowledges Joker's "Uh oh. Commander Hard-Ass is on deck," coming from the cockpit, even if it does bring a smirk to her lips as she shakes her head.

"Joker, shut down the alarms and call for an 'all clear' on the lower levels. Make sure Williams and Wrex aren't getting ready to storm the castle."

The pilot snorts in amusement, even as he offers a quick, 'aye, aye, ma'am,' as he turns his attention to the Normandy's controls, the klaxon falling silent as standard lighting is restored, the ship's VI announcing the 'all clear' before Joker himself relays the order for all hands to stand down and return to their duties.

Turning her focus back on the new arrival, that same bemused smirk plays at her lips as she addresses him far more calmly, "You know, usually people wait for a ship's captain to give permission to board before letting themselves in if they don't want to be met as an obvious threat."

Her gaze flicks from him to the blue box, her brow furrowing in thought. There's no doubt in her mind that his ship has some far superior technology, if it could literally move itself within space to get inside the Normandy without damaging the hull. If this man wanted them dead, surely he wouldn't have come aboard first.

With a weary sigh, she uncrosses her arms before nodding in the direction of the CIC and the comms room. "The debriefing room is on the far end of this level, if you'll join me? This isn't a conversation that needs to be had on the bridge."

anderwhohn.​

“Ah, of course. The Terminus is a prime sightseeing destination. I’m sure Citadel Tourism will agree,” Joker mutters, his eyes narrowing suspiciously at the strange ship ahead of them. It doesn’t even look like a ship - barely looks like an escape pod, but even he can’t quite make sense of what the scans are throwing back at him regarding the vessel. At least they know someone’s alive in that thing…

Isabela rolls her eyes at her pilot, barely biting back the laugh that wants to escape her as she taps the bill of his hat in mock admonishment. “I’d almost say he sounds like a civilian, but yeah… I don’t trust this either,” she murmurs to him before signalling to open their channel again.

Turning her attention back to the comms, and the Doctor on the other channel, she offers, “I’m an agent of the Special Tactics and Reconnaissance branch of the Citadel, on business for the Citadel Council. My crew and I were investigating an anomaly in the Phoenix Massing cluster before… I honestly don’t know what happened. It looked similar to a standard mass relay corridor, but the readings were off the charts during transit…”

She frowns then, leaning more on the back of Joker’s chair as she considers the situation. “But if it had been something from a relay, the effects would have been a mass-free corridor of space-time between the relays, not… whatever the hell that was that left us scrambling to keep our systems online…”

Seeing no other options, and the fact that this may be the friendliest person they meet - and at least so far they haven’t been fired on, which is a bonus in his favour in her point of view - she sighs as she admits, “Listen, Doctor… Whatever it is, it took us from one side of the galaxy to the other in a span of time that is theoretically impossible, and it left us dead in the water after our fuel reserves ran out, as did our emergency resources that we quick converted in transit.”

“I have a mixed species crew aboard my ship, and not everyone can eat the same foods or use the same medicines. The safety of my crew is my top priority right now. So whatever it is you want in exchange for fuel and aid, consider it yours…”

The only thing that sounds familiar about this  ⸺  well…  actually, not a whole lot sounds familiar about this. The Doctor frowns to himself as he listens to her speak  ⸺  she knows her tech, knows her science, he has to give her that. The trouble is, the mechanics of it all sound valid. But  mass relay corridors?  Mass-free corridors of spacetime? Yes, possible, easily within the laws of physics, but she’s talking about it as if such things were common means of travel. That… that is a concept, not a bus stop…

It looked similar to a standard mass-relay corridor… Corridors…

He has a terrible feeling about this. Everything is wrong, out of place, out of time; a corridor… Is there a hole in the fabric of reality? Did this ship come from a parallel universe? No. That doesn’t just happen… well, any more than mass-free corridors of space-time just happen… Ah, he doesn’t like this. Parallel universes… Not good at all. If he falls into one, his TARDIS will most likely leave him stranded. Still, he wants to help. No question about that.

❝ Isabela, was it? ���    he asks, for the moment ignoring that she is a soldier. This is bigger than his distaste. Mmmm… He probably shouldn’t voice his suspicions, not yet; he’s fairly sure, now, himself, but that’s not something people will just readily accept. He needs to get everyone out of here, safe, first.    ❝ Isabela, listen to me. You’re telling me you’re in danger, that your crew’s in danger; I don’t need anything in exchange of help. I can evacuate you, easy. All of you. Hypothetically speaking, if I were to show up at your vessel, would you mind not having someone shoot me dead? Great, ta. ❞

He doesn’t wait for a response. Doesn’t particularly want to argue about whether it’s possible or not for him to get past her ship’s defenses and just materialise at a corridor, somewhere. Easier to apologise than to ask for permission…

He sets the TARDIS in motion, having momentary joy in imagining them watching him vanish in their cams, the Old Girl purring her take-off sounds.

And he materialises right there at the cockpit. The TARDIS shields are up, so he isn’t actually worried about weapons, even expects a gun or ten pointed at him as he creaks the doors open and peeks out.    ❝ Hello. Hi. Thought we might as well speak face to face. ❞

[anderwhohn]

"Ah, of course. The Terminus is a prime sightseeing destination. I'm sure Citadel Tourism will agree," Joker mutters, his eyes narrowing suspiciously at the strange ship ahead of them. It doesn't even look like a ship - barely looks like an escape pod, but even he can't quite make sense of what the scans are throwing back at him regarding the vessel. At least they know someone's alive in that thing...

Isabela rolls her eyes at her pilot, barely biting back the laugh that wants to escape her as she taps the bill of his hat in mock admonishment. "I'd almost say he sounds like a civilian, but yeah... I don't trust this either," she murmurs to him before signalling to open their channel again.

Turning her attention back to the comms, and the Doctor on the other channel, she offers, "I'm an agent of the Special Tactics and Reconnaissance branch of the Citadel, on business for the Citadel Council. My crew and I were investigating an anomaly in the Phoenix Massing cluster before... I honestly don't know what happened. It looked similar to a standard mass relay corridor, but the readings were off the charts during transit..."

She frowns then, leaning more on the back of Joker's chair as she considers the situation. "But if it had been something from a relay, the effects would have been a mass-free corridor of space-time between the relays, not... whatever the hell that was that left us scrambling to keep our systems online..."

Seeing no other options, and the fact that this may be the friendliest person they meet - and at least so far they haven't been fired on, which is a bonus in his favour in her point of view - she sighs as she admits, "Listen, Doctor... Whatever it is, it took us from one side of the galaxy to the other in a span of time that is theoretically impossible, and it left us dead in the water after our fuel reserves ran out, as did our emergency resources that we quick converted in transit."

"I have a mixed species crew aboard my ship, and not everyone can eat the same foods or use the same medicines. The safety of my crew is my top priority right now. So whatever it is you want in exchange for fuel and aid, consider it yours..."

anderwhohn.​

“Open a comms channel, Joker.” At the pilot’s signal, she leans a bit closer against the back of his chair, eyes fixed on the ship through the forward viewports. “This is Commander Isabela Shepard of the SSV Normandy.”

The Normandy has sustained considerable systems damage from an unknown source in the Phoenix Massing cluster, though hull integrity was holding, even if their shields were down by nearly half. Frowning at the memory of what looked like a distorted mass effect tunnel between relays, and still queasy from the desperate manoeuvres Joker had had to pull while everyone else strapped in and held on the best they could until they came through to the other side of the anomaly, there’s only one thing she’s certain of right now…

If they are where she and Joker think they are - just outside of the Nemean Abyss, toeing the line between the Attican Traverse and the Terminus Systems; and too far from any of the relay clusters to get the hell out of there, given their lack of fuel thanks to travelling through the anomaly - then they may be in huge trouble. The Abyss isn’t known for being friendly to most humans, and certainly not humans with ties to the Alliance or the Council, and the Normandy’s got both covered.

“Unknown vessel, please identify yourself and state your intentions.”

The TARDIS alerted him to it: he’s uncertain whether the anomaly was just on large enough scale that the Old Girl had no choice but to pick it up or if the ship is just acting up, trying to kick him out after brooding for too long. Either way…

A spaceship is not what the Doctor expected to find. It’s too simple, mundane. What’s so special about a random spaceship? It is pretty deep space, and the crew might be in trouble unless they are very highly advanced, which, judging by the view of the ship… Well, he can’t quite place it, actually. Human tech, but not any kind of human tech he’s familiar with. Hmmm.

This is Commander Isabela Shepard of the SSV Normandy. Unknown vessel, please identify yourself and state your intentions.

Ah.

He takes his time, peering at the strange ship from his monitors, before establishing a connection and responding.    ❝ Hello, ❞    he says, tone purposefully friendlier than hers, in a manufactured way,    ❝ this is the Doctor speaking. My ship picked up an anomaly at these coordinates. My intentions? I was curious. Mostly sightseeing. What about your intentions, Commander? ❞

There’s something off about this, too, something other than it being a military ship. Something he can’t quite put his finger on, yet. Why is it always soldiers? He doesn’t want to poke his nose into this. Of course, he already has. There is no way he will turn back now, especially when he’s unsure whether this crew needs his help or not. Can it ever be something fun?