#like. from what we can infer it was after this point that jack had told his parents he was bringing another man up to wyoming with him to

[nopeferatu]

[herondalesbooklover]

Acftl spoilers

After a few days of shook, I am finally able to pour my heart out about it. So be aware I will give spoilers. This is TOO LONG, grab popcorn if you want to.

Okay... Honestly I feel kinda underwhealmed, but not about the book, about people's reactions to it. And I have to say that seeing the reviews all over social media screaming how dissapointed they were ruined completely my experience with it.

I loved the book, in my point of view it was exactly what it should have been, and it is clearly something Stephanie would write. My problem relies in the fact that I could not take away the word dissapointed of my brain while reading since I started seeing people in my timeline saying it. Like I don't think I enjoyed it as much as I would have if hadn't seen those comments everywhere.

I do think some things should have been more explicit to the reader, but overall it wasn't really necessary. For example, most people are dissapointed because it wasn't explictly stated the reason why Jacks ate apples, but it was honestly easy to infer. Also, Stephanie, as I have realized, is not the type of writer that will tell the reader every detail, she likes to let things in the open, and that is not lazy writing as I have seen so many people comment. We need to remember that this serie is like a fairy tale, and most time fairy tales leave things open, so readers can infer, it is part of the magic. Moreover, from the first book we were warned that stories in the North are cursed and that most details of the stories are either lost or can be wrong, Jacks and Eva's story is a northern tale which is why there are things we are not going to be told, and we are going to have to infer from what we have.

I also disagree when people say that there was no big love confession on Jacks behalf. The WHOLE BOOK was Jacks' love confession, every action, every thought, every look showed Jacks love, and Evangeline knew that. From the moment she gained her memories back, she knew that Jacks loved her, she just needed him to stop fearing his love, and let her in.

I love what we had. It was perfect. The perfect conclusion to a magnificent fairy tale. Stephanie's writing was beautiful and magical, and it was everything it should have been. We, as readers, got too invested in theories that probably were not Stephanie's style of writing. The only thing I would have added is one more Jacks POV at the beginning to show us his reaction to Evangeline's memory lost and to know how he found the letter. ALSO, I would have deleted one of Apollo's POV.

If you have got this far, what are your thoughts?

[itsevanffsbutspam]

one day i woke up feeling dizzy. ridiculously dizzy, for my standards, and i know my body can get real fucked up sometimes so that's saying something. breathing deeply or doing jumping jacks or running in place didn't help. biking to uni didn't help either, even though that should theoretically raise my blood pressure and heart rate. i did everything i could think of, and considering i wasn't registered with the local gp yet, after day five (!!) of persistent dizziness that was enough to make me feel like i could keel over at any moment, i finally bit the bullet and did what people were telling me to do; i went to the closest gp center for an emergency (spoed, it doesn't translate well) consultation.

the hours for those are from 17:00 onwards into the night, and during weekends; like, the hours that regular practices don't take patients. i went, waited until 17:00 exactly to go in. there was one guy in the same situation as me (had a problem (i think it was a broken leg), wasn't registered with a gp either, so he came here for a checkup). his friend was also there but that was just moral support. he was the only person aside from me in the waiting room the entire time i was there.

i told the lady at the desk what was going on, gave her my social security number, and she directed me to wait. i did, i think i got called in around 15 minutes after i sat down. went in for some tests, and everything came back fine. hemoglobin was fine, heart was fine, blood pressure was on the low end, 95 over 60 i think. something like that. they were extremely nice and understanding; the doctor attending to me was someone in training and her mentor, so i think that helped with them treating me like a person. they told me they'd talk about it and let me know if they thought i needed to see an actual gp, and i agreed, so back to the waiting room i went.

about 10ish minutes later i got called in by a gp, a man, who sat me down and asked what was going on. i explained everything again, and he told me he'd do some tests; blood pressure, hemoglobin, et cetera. at that point i thought i'd gone to the wrong doctor and misheard my name or something, so i told him i'd already had those tests done. he said 'huh' and scrolled down on his computer. turns out this guy hadn't even looked through the file they'd given him about me! great start.

he asked me some followup questions, to which my answers were all pretty much 'everything seems normal', and as we went on he got visibly annoyed. i'm autistic so it has to be visible if i can fucking see it, right, i'm shit at inferring those things. great sign. we did some neurological tests to see if my brain fucked up, and it hadn't, thank god, which made me relieved that i wasn't possibly dying or whatever. my main concern and such.

this guy sat me down, and then proceeded to tell me that i really shouldn't be there if it isn't an emergency. the implication was that i was 1. bothering him, and 2. that i was taking up the space of people who really needed it.

i can't really explain to you what i felt in that moment, but i am still really proud of myself for grinning and bearing it. but let me recap the situation i was in.

i had been feeling dizzy enough that i was having trouble standing for FIVE DAYS STRAIGHT. i had consulted the site for the nhs and friends and family, all of whom told me to go to the doctor, and so i, after five days of nonstop dizziness, mustered up the courage to go.

there was ONE person aside from me in the waiting room who was being treated already when i got called back.

the women who tested me earlier were the ones who chose to refer me to that gp. they made that decision based on what they considered necessary. if i'd been fine, they would have told me to go home and i would have gladly gone.

i was at the time not registered with a gp in the area. i told them this. i'm fairly sure my registered gp's location being on the other side of the country was visible on my file. i would have had to travel three and a half hours alone with a potential serious problem to reach a doctor, and then i would have had to wait a week or more for an appointment anyway.

i was not in the ER. there is an ER in that building but i was most decidedly not in the emergency room. i was in the off-hours gp center, which is by definition not an emergency room. for emergencies you call 112. for non-emergencies but things that can't be delayed several days you call the off-hours gp center. that is where i went. i checked. twice.

i always thought that it was a good thing to go to the doctor and find there's nothing seriously wrong with you, instead of not going and getting serious complications later. so why was it that this guy treated me like a burden and insinuated i was taking up space that, let's be real, wasn't being used anyway? all because i didn't have a real enough problem, in his mind, to warrant being there?

i could have been directed to go home twice before then; at the reception, and after the preliminary tests, but both people thought my symptoms were serious enough to warrant a further check right then and there. so why was i being told that i wasn't meant to be there?

i eventually did register with the local gp a few weeks later, and that took almost three weeks to complete. then i went and got an appointment, and on the site it takes almost two months to get one, but if you call it still takes---you guessed it---a full week. a month of delay in care when i can barely walk or stand straight is, let's be honest, time i'm not comfortable wasting. so i ask again. why the fuck was i being treated like i wasn't meant to be there?

this isn't the only time i've been dismissed out of pocket because my situation wasn't severe enough, or wasn't connected to a serious underlying problem even though it impaired my normal function, and i'm not the only person this has happened to. it's genuinely come to a point where i have to start defending myself before i go to the doctor, so i have arguments why i'm allowed to be there ready to go just in case this particular gp decides i'm not sick enough to warrant care, again.

i wait two weeks before going to a doctor, instead of going right away and inevitably being told 'come back in two weeks and see if you still have the issue'. i don't even go to the doctor that much, maybe twice a year at most (not counting follow-ups), but i've come to expect it. how fucking sad is that? i have to defend my right to get healthcare from the people giving it to me. and i pay to be able to access healthcare!

i get that this is better than some people have it, etc etc, but i'm not okay with calling this state of things acceptable. not at all.

but seriously, what was i meant to do? perform neurological exams on myself? test my own hemoglobin at home? measure my own blood pressure with a blood pressure meter i don't have? travel 100 miles by train and bus with a condition that could put me at risk of harm in the process just to see a gp who'd tell me to wait another week anyway? piss off.

[alexiethymia]

Jeanne Theories (but more like questions)

A dump for all my questions and theories about Jeanne. In the manga, the third chapter is named after her (Chapter 1 is Vanitas, while Chapter 2 is Noe). Arguably, you could say she’s the third most important character. Among all of the main characters, her past seems to be the one we know least about. This actually ties to my questions relating to vampires and their ages. 

I am a bit confused about how aging works with vampires and how that reflects physically. We have Noe and Dominique who are chronologically the same age as Vanitas. Assuming nothing goes wrong, human Vanitas would die of old age (except we know that isn’t the case), while Noe and Dominique would look physically the same how many years later. Jeanne’s age wasn’t intentionally revealed because I think it ties in with the plot, but we know she’s centuries older than the main cast. She’s been with Ruthven since before the betrayal, and grew up with Chloe. This is where it gets confusing for me. Chloe became a vampire at four, but physically stopped aging at eleven years old. Jean Jaques was also a hidden vampire changed by Babel but he ended up growing and looking older than Chloe (at least physically). Same with Jeanne. She and Chloe met when Jeanne was younger than her, but Jeanne grew up to look like a young woman. I’m curious as to the difference as to why it was only Chloe who stopped growing physically at around eleven years old, although she’s older than Ruthven.

Jeanne’s link to Luna of the Blue Moon

I don’t think the line above is a throw-away line. Jeanne was of Ruthven’s time, and we find out that Luna had also seen her, specifically during the time of the Great War. She left that big of an impact on Luna that they would retell the story to Vanitas (and I presume Mikhail too), which had that much of impact on him as well.

They removed this context from the anime which makes it as if Vanitas heard of Jeanne through stories, except we know from the manga that it was more personal since he heard it from Luna. 

Why exactly did Luna have admiration towards Jeanne? Was it because she was slaughtering Vampires of the Red Moon? But contrary to the rumors, recent chapters would show us that Luna didn’t seem to be a vengeful entity or hold ill-will toward Vampires of the Red Moon. 

Luna was also probably the reason why Vanitas felt an initial connection with Jeanne. Like with his hourglass earring, the name, the book, the gloves, etc., despite their complicated past, Vanitas seems to be (consciously or unconsciously) maintaining a link with Luna. 

Jeanne’s Slumber (possible connections with Sleeping Beauty)

Why was it necessary for Jeanne to sleep all this time? And why did she have to wake up now, at this exact moment in time? What exact thing does Ruthven need to use her for, and for what purpose? Because let’s admit it, Lord Ruthven is shady af. 

It’s also ironic how Jeanne reads Sleeping Beauty and places Vanitas in the princess’ position, when she has more in common with the fairytale. Having to sleep for a hundred years, her mark is that of a rose with thorns evoking the imagery of ‘Briar Rose’ and the spindle, while her epithet ‘Hellfire Witch’ evokes imagery of the evil fairy who could turn into a dragon and breathe fire (admittedly I may be focusing on the Disney version too much). 

We know she’s named after Jeanne d’Arc, a martyr who was burnt at the stake (please, please, let this not be foreshadowing of how she dies) hence the connection to her epithet ‘Hellfire Witch’, but even disregarding how vampires (and perhaps humans as well?) have true names, Vanitas says she was ‘bestowed’ a saintly name. We know she was adopted, and we don’t know the circumstances of her birth which are shrouded in mystery, but could Ruthven have been the one to grant the name ‘Jeanne’ to her? 

If not for the fact that we already had Florifel and Eglantine in the first chapter, I would have thought Jeanne’s true name and malnomen if she gets one later would be connected to the fairy tale of Sleeping Beauty. 

Jeanne’s Malady

The vampires in Vanitas no Carte are different from the stereotypical portrayals of vampires, except for one - Jeanne. Jeanne has that uncontrollable desire to drink blood, and yet as of now, doesn’t appear to be a curse bearer. Based on her patchy memories, we can infer it was Ruthven who made her like this, is the one to supply her with her sketchy medicine, all the while forcing her to swear not to talk about it.

Is she in the same predicament as Loki, Luca’s older brother, forced to have the symptoms of a curse bearer and yet being prevented from being cured, by Ruthven? For what greater purpose? Why is it necessary for Loki to be a curse bearer? And more intriguing than that, why is he consenting to it? It all relates to the Queen somehow, something which no one is privy to except the Oriflamme Family. 

Sleeping Lions

Who could Marquis Machina be referring to? Everyone in the Oriflamme family, and by extension Jeanne, have connections with the imagery of lions and fire (they seem to have an elemental affinity like how Luca displayed, except that Ruthven’s is black fire, which makes me wonder what color Loki’s flames would be if ever). Jeanne can’t seem to manipulate the World Formula like Ruthven and Veronica though. The flames come out of her gauntlet, Carpe Diem. 

In relation to that, I think Misha’s patron is Marquis Machina. In the same way, Marquis Machina built Carpe Diem for Jeanne, I think he built Misha’s hand and dog for him. I mean Marquis Machina doesn’t seem to be working with Ruthven and Charlatan. His pieces seem to be the kin of the Blue Moon (Vanitas and Misha), the dhams, and the De Sade family. It could also be that the De Sade have their own agenda and are just using Marquis Machina or it’s just a mutual beneficial arrangement. If so, an eventually power struggle is bound to break out, possibly between the De Sade and the Oriflamme families, and poor Jeanne will be caught in the middle. Where then does the Shapeless One play into this? Perhaps a third faction? A silent observer? A loyalist to the queen? There’s still too little information to theorize. 

Who could the Sleeping Lion Marquis Machina wants to see wake up be? 

Jeanne, Faustina, Luna, and Naenia

It could just be a stylistic thing, but the long flowing light colored hair seem to be common among all of them. 

In relation to Pandora Hearts and its themes of will and what measure is a person, what if the Jeanne that we know now is just a consciousness inhabiting a body (kind of like Oz and Jack), specifically the queen’s body to be exact. It would certainly be foreshadowing to when she says ‘promise to kill me when I’m no longer myself anymore’.

Alternatively, the current Jeanne we know may just be a vessel or a golem to house the Queen whose body has deteriorated. It certainly would explain why she was treated as a doll even in her earliest memories. ‘Jeanne’ isn’t supposed to exist. 

Although it’s a long shot, since Ruthven has connections with Charlatan, and by extension Dr. Moreau, could ‘No. 70′ have been Jeanne? Again like I said, it’s a long shot. I think it’s likelier that No. 70 is a character we haven’t been introduced to yet. 

Jeanne’s Parents

This is a Mochizuki work. Of course, there’s got to be something to it. Why exactly did they side with the humans so suddenly in the war? What horrible thing did the vampires do to have over a thousand of their kind turn against them? And yet the way it reads, rather than betray Ruthven, I think Jeanne’s parents along with all of the vampires who were slaughtered were sacrificial pawns. Maybe I’m just really biased against Ruthven, but I think he was the one to lead the rebellion of his students, and like Chloe, although he presents himself to be an ally of the current Vampire Monarchy, perhaps he’s just biding his time to get revenge for his students. In working with Charlatan, it’s vampires who he’s harming.

What greater purpose could he have in wanting to assassinate his own nephew or ally himself with a known vampire extermination unit of the Chasseurs (Gano and his ilk) or in killing so many vampires by having their true names corrupted? 

Face to face with Noe, we see in their meeting that Noe says the exact same words Ruthven told Chloe when he was younger. Noe reminds Ruthven of his students, while Ruthven reminds Noe of his teacher. I’m not really sure where I’m going with this, but it seems like the Ruthven of now scorns his past self’s moderate and progressive ideals of vampires and humans living in harmony. He speaks of our side, your side, and Noe having to choose one or the other. And yet all of his collective actions at this point have served not to protect but rather harm vampire kind, which puts him in direct opposition to Vanitas who wants to save vampires. 

In relation to Jeanne, there will be a boiling point. She’s loyal to Luca and she’s loyal to Ruthven. She’s incredibly fond of Dominique. As of now, she also loves Vanitas. And yet down the line, inevitably Luca and Ruthven will be on opposing sides, so I am curious to see how the betrayals and conflicting loyalties will play out. 

[verobatto]

Destiel Chronicles

Vol. CX

It was a love story from the very beginning.

The Destiel Reunion after the Possession

(14x03)

Hi there! Another volume from season 14, this time this meta will be Dean centric because season 14 was plenty Dean centric. And episode 3 showed us the demage Michael left on Dean. It also talked about the Destiel reunion after the Possession.

As I said in my previous volume, season 14 is the one I started writing meta, so this will be a resume of it and some new addition in retrospective.

You can find my two metas about 14x03 here and here.

The after Possession damage

I remember when I saw Dean in this episode 'The Scar's it was as if I was looking a semiology book of Psychiatry.

First of all because Dean was acting erratic, anxious, always in alert.

"I've never seen Dean in so bad shape. The anxiety was evidently exposed, and the partial lost of memories and the flahsbacks (...) he's weak, as Kaia noticed, mentally weak... "

I wrote this in one of my metas, and as I said in the previous volume, we will have here another reading of Dean's thoughts. This time by Kaia.

(Remember this is the episode in which Dean asks willingly to Castiel to get inside his head. Subtextually, to Dean, Castiel is the only one he allows to go deep inside his thoughts. It's based in trust and love.)

But let's check AU!Kaia and Dean dialogue:

Kaia: You’re no different from him. Threats, violence anything to get what you want.

Dean: I am nothing like him.

Kaia is reading Dean's fears here. Treating him like an angry killer. All his toxicity is exposed at Kaia's reading.

Kaia: Yeah you are: you always have been!

(...)

Sam: Wait a second: you’re a dreamwalker, too? Your powers, they connected you.

Kaia: Our whole lives, what she saw, I saw. I know where it comes from your anger, your impatience: it's fear. You’re scared and you’re weak

The fact that this while scene was linked to the scene in which Jack and CAS discovered how to save a young girl from a spell. Graphically releasing her by breaking an amulet, is foreshadowing Dean self release from his second Possession. Kaia saying 'what she saw I saw' is practically giving a clue about Michael spying them through Dean's eyes.

So anxiety and depression cohabitate in Dean after Possession.

"Did you see how Dean was like running all the time? He didn't listen to Sam or Jody, he needed to do things quickly. Running here, there, it doesn't matter, bc he was running from himself, and to find and kill Michael was just an excuse."

That was the image of Dean I got from this episode. Then, this dialogue in the car whit Sam in which he describes how it was to be possesed.

He mentions "drowning" that was his desperate battle to conquer his own thoughts and own body. We'll have a lot of recallings to this word throughout the season 14, a lot of monsters representing AU!Michael and his own toxicity trying to drowning him.

Gif set credit @itsokaysammy

Purity and Purge

Before jumping into my idea of what it meant that cold reunion (cold because it didn't have a hug) I wanna talk a little more about how Michael brought the Purgatory into season 14 as a prelude to episode 15x09, but mostly, as a symbolic representation of what being posseses meant to Dean too.

"I was expecting Michael to be the new Purgatory exposure in this season, an opportunity for Dean to bring back the purity from his heart, as he did in Purgatory, the place where he realized he was in love of his best friend.. (sighing)."

This definitely happened and had his conclusion in season 15 with 15x09.

But, the purity of the heart Dean will expose throughout this season wasn't the purity Michael wanted to bring to Earth.

"We could confuse purity with basic Instincts when we talk about monsters. Bc basic Instincts are pure, indeed, there's no contamination in what the monsters wants: hunt, eat, survive. Like animals."

This is directly related to the idea of PURGE Michael wanted for the world. And it also was showed in Dean's behavior in the woods when he was searching for Michael. Basics instincts an animal would use to find his prey. Dean was in basic hunter mode.

The Destiel Reunion

The Destieo reunion had a bittersweet taste.

First of all, when Castiel arrived to the scene, a dramatic music started to play. This is usually used to point out at a romantic couple playing the scene. And because it was specifically played when Castiel arrived and Dean and him exchanged weird looks, it's obvious it was there to show the audience HELLO, THIS IS A REUNION OF LOVERS.

Gif set @jacktwistfan

Until now, everything was sweet, Dean is really happy to see Castiel. He looks as if he was breathing for the first time. His face is showing relief and his heart eyesbfor the angel are out of control. 'There you are. The love of my life.'

And Cas, well, remember when I said he was more emotional?

He smiles at him. Like... Very happy but then... Dean's face turned into... Recrimination.

Cas: I’m sorry. I wanted to be there, but we feared that Michael would sense my presence.

Dean: Sam told me. Ain’t no thing.

Gif set credit @cath-avery

Dean is mad at Cas, because Castiel didn't go to rescue him. Even knowing it could be bad for the plan, deep inside , Dean wanted to see CAS in that barn. That's why their looks. Castiel csn see this perfectly. He even explains this to him. I didn't want to see this but then in episode 14x04 (the next meta) I will explain why Dean was feeling sad, one of the causes was he was feeling Castiel didn't pay attention to him. The 'jealousy' starts to burn (yes, Dean was kind of jealouse of Jack because Castiel spends now more time with him) and this will end up with their break up at the end of the season when Jack will be the one killing Mary accidentally.

Dean being mad with Cas could be the cause of why we didn't have a hug. But also, because Dean felt dirty and ashamed, his mind had been ripped by Michael. Maybe he felt too dirt to go Cas a hug.

Now... Let's jump to the sexual innuendo scene...

There's a huge parallel between this episode and 4x01 in which Dean realized he had a hand print on his left shoulder. Here, Dean noticed the scar in his right shoulder and uncovered in the same way he did in 4x01. I called this Michael's mark vs Destiel mark. And is a blatant representation of why Michael couldn't possesed Dean's vessel completely. And mostly because the scar looked like two phalanxes. As if it was trying to complete a handprint. But he couldn't, because Dean is already taken by Castiel. If this is not romantic trope, I don't know how to call it.

And now... Dean asking Castiel to get inside his head, as an act of trust, marking a foreshadow for 14x10, when Castiel and Sam will enter in his mind.

Dean: Cas, c’mon hit me.

But this will end up being a scene with sexual innuendo, mostly because Misha and Jensen acting choices...

Gif credit @faramaiofnerdwoodforest

Dean's face if one of whom just had the orgasm of his life. His face after realize the sensation that that intrusion by Castiel had made him feel is showing he is aware they just had had an experience. It was OBVIOUSLY very exciting. He even tries to compose himself a little, feeling ashamed, but collecting his hands together towards his own chest. His left eyelid drops a little, just after experienced a very amount of... well... Sensations. It looks as if Dean ejaculated after having great sex with his angel.

This was fanservice, thank you Lord Berens.

To Conclude:

This episode showed us a very bittersweet Destieo reunion. I infer it was because Dean was mad at CAS for not being in the barn to rescue him.

It also had a Destiel sex scene, their first time... 🤣

But it spoke too about the amount of psychiatric damage AUMichsel left on Dean.

Hope you liked this meta, see you in the next one.

Tagging @gneisscastiel @emblue-sparks @magnificent-winged-beast @weird-dorky-little-d @michyribeiro @maleansu @legendary-destiel @a-bit-of-influence @thatwitchydestielfan @misha-moose-dean-burger-lover @lykanyouko @evvvissticante @savannadarkbaby @dea-stiel @mybonsai1976 @anarchiana @angelwithashotgunandtrenchcoat @trashblackrainbow @mishtho @dancingtuesdaymorning @feathered-castiel @bre95611 @zoerayne2426 @justmeand-myinsight @that-one-fandom-chick @proccastinate @studio-hatter @pepevons @poorreputation @mrsaquaman187 @dizzypinwheel @jawnlockwinchester @dwstiel @ladygon @shippsblog @la-random-fangirl @lets-try-this-again-please @mychemicalobsession514 @destiel-shipper-11

@shadows-and-padlocked-hearts @mishtho @dancingtuesdaymorning @nerditoutwithbooks @mikennacac73 @justmeand-myinsight @idontwantpeopletoknowmyname @teddybeardoctor @pepevons @helevetica @dizzypinwheel @horsez2002 @qanelyytha

@destielle @spnsmile @shippsblog @robot-feels @superlock-in-the-tardis @superduckbatrebel @belacoded @madronasky @anon-non2 @cea1996 @lisafu02 @asphodelesauvage @deancasgirl777

If you wanna be added or removed from this list just let me know.

If you wanna read the previous metas from season 14 here you have the link: CIX

Buenos Aires, April 25th 2021 4:25 PM

[afni-fics]

In Hindsight: Chapter 7: In the Present... Lie in Ruins

In Hindsight: Chapter 7: In the Present... Lie in Ruins by C_R_Scott Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Tim Drake/Tam Fox, Jack Drake/Janet Drake, Janet Drake & Tim Drake, Jack Drake & Tim Drake, Lucius Fox/Tanya Fox, Tim Drake & Tam Fox Characters: Tim Drake, Tam Fox, Janet Drake, Jack Drake, Lucius Fox, Bruce Wayne, Alfred Pennyworth Additional Tags: Tim Drake-centric, Family Drama, Family Secrets, Family Feels, Childhood Friends, Childhood Trauma, Childhood Memories, Childhood Sweethearts, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Implied/Referenced Domestic Violence, Good Parent Janet Drake, Bad Parent Jack Drake, no beta we die like robins, Bruce Wayne Tries to Be a Good Parent

Previous Chapter | Masterlist | Next Chapter

Story Summary: What if Tim Drake was originally raised by his maternal grandmother for the first eight years of his life due to "circumstances" involving his biological parents? What if Tim's grandmother was also the next door neighbor and occasional sitter for Lucius Fox's family?

Chapter Summary: Jack Drake had lied to Tim about his grandmother's death. However, Jack is also dead himself. Tim attempts to cope with the aftermath of learning the truth of what his father had done. Fortunately, he is not alone.

...

"Jack lied."

Lucius's words were stuck in Bruce's head as Alfred drove him into Gotham City from the Manor. They kept repeating themselves over and over and over again. After about ten minutes of focused brooding, Bruce finally voiced the question he knew he couldn't run away from.

"How did I miss this?"

From the driver's seat, Alfred glanced at Bruce via the rear-view mirror. "You had no way of knowing."

"I should have known."

"How?" Alfred's brow furrowed. "Tim didn't even know? His fa--" The old man choked on the word with a grimace, as if he'd bitten into a piece of bitter melon. He huffed irritably before continuing. "--Jack lied to him for years, and gave none of us any reason to suspect anything coming out of his mouth was false."

Bruce shook his head as he pulled out his phone and scrolled through his contacts before selecting one. After three rings, the line finally connected.

"You do know it's not even noon, right?" Barbara Gordon grumbled. "What could you possibly want at this ungodly time of the morning?"

"It's about Tim."

There was moment of pause. When Barbara spoke, drowsiness had been replaced with concern in her tone. "What's wrong? Is he alright? Is he having a delayed reaction to the new Fear Toxin?"

Bruce hesitated before answering, making a quick mental note to double check Tim's bloodwork as soon as he could. If Tim was suffering a delayed Fear Toxin reaction on top of everything else, that could further complicate his son's compromised emotional state. 

"It's not about the Fear Toxin, though that could be exacerbating the situation in the background," Bruce said finally. "I need you to do some digging into Tim's family history."

"You're asking me to investigate Tim? Why? What's going on?"

"Tim was never an orphan."

"WHAT?!" 

"We just discovered today he has a living maternal grandmother," Bruce explained. "But for whatever reason Jack Drake lied to Tim and his mother eight years ago and told them both she was dead. From what I've been told, his grandmother was supposed to have had full custody of him back then. Then she got hospitalized. When she was finally well enough to be released, Jack had managed to sever all ties between her and Tim."

"Jesus Christ," Barbara breathed out softly. "Does Tim kno-- Never mind, of course he knows otherwise you wouldn't be asking me to do the investigating. Is he with you now?"

"I'm going to his place in the city with Alfred to check on him. Tracker says he's stationary at the Nest."

"What do you need me to do?"

"Do a deep dive into the history between Tim's parents and his grandmother. Her name is Susan Klein. We need to learn what exactly triggered the original custody arrangement, as well as how Jack managed to take custody away from Susan and hide the fact that she was alive from both Tim and his mother. I also want to know why the hell the courts and CPS didn't get involved back then to return Tim to his grandmother, especially after Jack died."

"You also want to find the rest of Jack's skeletons," Barbara inferred. "Because if Jack lied about something this big to his own son--"

"--What else did he lie about?--"

"--And how much damage could this do to Tim if it's brought to light?" Bruce could hear Barbara indulge in a weary sigh. "Holy shit... Ok... Ok... Ok... Give me an hour to get a shower, coffee, and food. Then I'll start digging. This is all cold case kinda stuff, so it's not going anywhere. Keep me posted if you pick up any new leads from Tim."

"Thanks Barbara."

"Oh, by the way... Who else knows about this?"

"Alfred, Lucius, and Tam."

"Alright. I'll keep this on the down low from the rest of the fam until you can check on Tim. Take care of him, Bruce."

"I will."

With the call ended, Bruce leaned back and closed his eyes. What was he going to find when they finally got the Nest?  He didn't have to wait long. About ten minutes later, Bruce and Alfred found themselves being led through Tim's home by a deeply concerned Tamara Fox.

 ...

Three months and twenty-eight days.

That's how long it took for Tim to travel around the US and the world, investigate multiple archaeological sites, survive the Council of Spiders, cripple the League of Assassins, save the girl, and return home with proof of his adopted father being alive. So much mileage, blood, and lives lost had gone into the journey to recover Bruce Wayne from the time stream Darkseid had sent him into.

Nineteen minutes and thirty-nine seconds.

That's all the time it took for Tim to find evidence his grandmother was alive and well and still living in the same house she always had for the past fifty years. He didn't have to leave Gotham. He didn't even have to leave his workstation. All the information was at his fingertips online. All the evidence pointed at the conclusion that his grandmother (and the truth) had always been just a few keystrokes away.

But that couldn't be right. If that was right, that meant his father lied to him and his mother. Jack Drake wouldn't have done that. So it had to be wrong. Tim just couldn't figure out how the evidence was wrong.

"Recognized: Tamara Fox. Alpha-Zero-Two. Entrance: Garage."

"Recognized: Verified Guest. Alpha-Zero-Two-Dash-Zero-One. Entrance: Garage."

"Recognized: Verified Guest. Alpha-Zero-Two-Dash-Zero-Two. Entrance: Garage."

The voice of Tim's AI security matrix echoed through the cavernous space of Tim's brand new "Nest", the hidden vigilante base of operations tucked behind his renovated theater home. The young man barely acknowledged the announcements, though, as he sat motionless at his workstation with his elbows propped up on the desk and his face buried in his hands. Slowly, his hands shifted, sliding down his face over closed eyes to linger over his nose and mouth. Tim drew in a breath through his nose and tried to release it slowly through his mouth. Despite his attempt at control, his breath shuddered audibly as he exhaled. Desperately, he squeezed his eyes shut tighter and shifted his hands to press against them. The adjustment exposed his mouth pressed into a grim, trembling line as he struggled to keep any sound from escaping.

Despite his best efforts, a thin trickle of moisture escaped his hands and coursed down his cheek. 

Tim heard the hidden door that connected the Nest to his living room slide open, and blindly identified the footsteps of three people walking into his inner sanctum. One of them he was certain was Tam, and he had his suspicions about the other two.

However, in order to confirm them, he would have had to remove his hands and open his eyes...

...and he was not ready to do that just yet.

 ...

The moment Bruce laid eyes on Tim, he felt his heart ache at the sight before him. There was his son, sitting alone at his workstation, and everything in his body language was silently crying out with shock and dismay. 

For a brief few seconds, Bruce froze. His mind was a panicked jumble. What could he do?! What could he say?! How was he going to fix this?! 

Then Tim slowly lifted his head from his hands, and he when he looked over at Bruce, the older man's breath got stuck in his throat. His normally confident and unwavering teenager looked so dazed and hurt and utterly lost. 

"B?"

A single letter, barely whispered, partly a question, but mostly a plea, was all it took. Bruce's feet were no longer rooted to the floor, and he quickly closed the distance between himself and his son, because his boy had called out to him.

Tim rose to his feet as he saw Bruce approach, and he let himself be wrapped up in his adopted father's arms. Bruce could feel Tim lean into him, could feel the anxious tension in every muscle in his son's back as the boy buried his face into his chest. 

"I'm here, Tim," Bruce murmured as soothingly as he could as he stroked Tim's hair. "It's going to be ok."

"I... I don't know what I'm doing wrong," Tim whispered mournfully.

"Wrong?"

"Dad said she died. He wouldn't have lied about that. He couldn't have." Unconsciously, Tim's hand fisted into Bruce's shirt, as if he were hanging on for dear life. "But Lucius says she's alive... Been alive this entire time. And the evidence..." 

As more words spilled out from his boy's mouth, Bruce heart broke at the brittle desperation in Tim's voice.

"I have to be missing something. I'm doing something wrong. I'm making a mistake somewhere and I don't know what it is." Tim drew in a shuddering breath. "Or maybe it's the Fear Toxin. An after effect? Maybe it's making me hallucinate? Mis-hear... Misinterpret things?" He turned his head from Bruce's chest and gazed uneasily at the workstation monitors. "Maybe I'm just seeing things? Maybe I'm just losing my mind?"

The fact that Tim's voice took on a hopeful edge at the thought of going crazy sent a stab of deep concern through Bruce. A quick glance at the workstation monitors showed him all the evidence Tim had dug up on his own since leaving Wayne Tower. A lump rose to his throat. When he spoke, he could barely force his own voice above a hoarse whisper. 

"You're not hallucinating, Tim. I... I can see the evidence myself."

Tim's eyes widened at the screens, then he shut them tightly before shaking his head. "No... No no no no no..."

"Mr. Wayne?"

Bruce glanced over to Tamara, who looked close to tears herself, but was managing to just barely hold herself together. She had one arm wrapped around herself and the other held her cell phone. He could see Lucius's name on the screen as the current active call. 

"Yes?"

Tam swallowed hard before answering. "My dad's on the line. I told him we found Tim. He... He's with Nana... Tim's grandma... right now."

Bruce felt Tim freeze in his arms. He felt his own heart stutter as well. 

"She... would like to speak with Tim, if he's able. She understands though if he's too overwhelmed right now."

Tim turned his gaze to Tam's phone, his red-rimmed blue eyes wide and warring between longing and dread.

Bruce stroked Tim's back. "You... don't have to if you don't want to," he murmured. "We can wait until you feel better... Until we figure things out on this side."

For several seconds, there was nothing but tense silence in the air. Bruce could practically see the gears turning and grinding in Tim's mind. He could see the war play out on his son's face as he struggled to make a decision. Then, finally, Tim uneasily reached out and offered an open hand to Tam.

Tam nodded and raised the phone to her own ear first. "I'm handing my phone to Tim now." Then, she carefully gave Tim the cell, watching as he wrapped his fingers about the edges of the device and raised it to his own ear. 

"H-Hello?"

Though he was still holding Tim closely, Bruce wasn't close enough to hear much of other end of the call. He could tell it was a woman's voice, but couldn't make out most of the words. But he could see his son. He watched, helpless, as after a moment Tim's eyes filled immediately with tears and spilled over onto his cheeks. One short anguished sob escaped him before he used his other hand to clamp his mouth shut. Though it stifled the sounds, Bruce could still see and feel the sobs wracking his boy's entire frame. 

As Bruce held him tighter, he could hear the tone of the woman's voice shift to something so soothing and maternal that his own heart ached along with his son's. It had the desired effect of calming Tim enough so that the could finally find his voice once more. 

"I love you, too, Nana," he whimpered softly. Then, he stretched out his hand and gave the phone back to Tam, who was in tears herself as she took it back. 

Once his hands were free and the phone was pressed again to Tam's ear as she spoke with her father, Tim crumpled to the floor as he burst into tears once more, this time without restraint. Bruce followed him down to control his fall and let his son cried brokenheartedly against him.

"He lied," Tim keened between sobs. "He lied... He lied... He lied..."

Tears coursed down Bruce's face as he watched his son come apart at the seams. He felt a hand on his shoulder and looked up to see Alfred gazing at him with love, sorrow, and tear-filled eyes as well. Though long dead, Jack Drake had broken their beloved boy's heart, and they would be damned if they didn't do their best to put the pieces back together again and make things right for everyone involved.

...

Author's Notes:

Author's Note: This was a challenging chapter to write. I hope I did Tim's breakdown justice. Things will, hopefully, start looking up for him from this point onward for a bit.

As for the length of time I put down as Tim's search for Bruce during the origin Red Robin run, this was just a wild guess on my part. In the comics, there was a map on a page in the first issue showing a map with pins on where he had previously investigated. Based on that, I estimated he had been travelling nonstop for at least several months before being intercepted by Ra's and getting dragged into the League and Council drama along with Tam.

#tim drake#tam fox#tim/tam#red robin#fanfiction#wip#rr: in hindsight#batfam#batfamily#lucius fox#bruce wayne

[12timetraveler]

Mysterious Woman

So I got to write for not one, but two secret santas this year and I had a blast writing them.

This piece is for @smithandrogers, featuring their OC Elaine North and F!reader. (I hope this is what you meant when you asked for Elaine content)

I had a lot of fun researching Elaine (reading their story) and I really loved writing this.

@rdr-secret-santa

You’d been awestruck the moment you first saw her after John had brought her back to camp, only for her to run and be dragged back by Arthur. Even dirty, tired, and mussed up, she was still beautiful. Dark black hair and tan skin that, to you, looked like amber as the light of the campfire glowed over her skin. A scar over her eye that only made her more beautiful and mysterious. Elaine drew the attention of everyone who saw her, man or woman. 

As the days had gone on, Elain almost grew more mysterious, not less. Apparently she spoke practically every language in existence, was part of some organization, or rather she used to be but now was on the run. She talked often about her travels, places you’d heard of but honestly had kind of believed were make-believe. She had a sword for gods sake. This woman was something you’d never seen before, and you were smitten. 

Neither Arthur nor John had kept quiet in their praises of her fighting skills. The fact that they even admitted that they were pretty much useless compared to them only furthered the mystery of the woman. 

You had it bad for her, you knew. Numerous times one of the other girls had caught you staring at her from across the camp. If only they knew how many times you’d caught yourself doing it and looked away before anyone else noticed. 

Your infatuation was only made worse by her present. She’d brought something back from Saint Denis for all the girls. You’d simply asked for a new hat, seeing as yours was falling apart. You expected just a simple straw hat of some kind. You were speechless when you saw what she’d gotten you. 

The hat was beautiful, wide brimmed to keep the sun off your face, but not massive like the ladies of the big cities would wear. You weren’t sure of the style. Maybe gambler or cutter or... well you didn’t know hats well enough to know the style. But it was suitable for your lifestyle, good for working and riding. Tucked in the band around it was a small accessory. You recognized the handy work of the local trapper. Not only had she bought you a hat, but she’d gone and bought you a beautiful hat accessory as well.

“I knew that would compliment your lovely face,” She said, smiling as you reverently put the hat on your head. It fit perfectly. You felt yourself flush, and you smiled at her, still unable to form words. The two of you stood there in silence as you gaped, trying to form some sort of words. 

“Come on now,” Abigail said in a motherly voice, barely hiding her amusement. “What do we say when someone does something nice for you?” She encouraged. The other girls giggled. 

“Th-thank you, Miss North,” You stammered. Elaine gave you a beautiful smile, and you thought you might faint. 

“You’re welcome,” She said. “But please, I’ve told you, call me Elaine.” 

“R-right. Thank you, Elaine.” You said, fingering the brim of your hat. Elaine smiled. As she turned to leave, to hand out the rest of her presents from Saint Denis, her fingers brushed against yours. 

Wait... could she... did she like you too? She had gone to all this extra trouble for you after all. Yes, she bought others gifts. But it seemed she’d gone out of her way to get you something you’d treasure. And that smile she’d given you... and the way her fingers brushed yours...

No. It had to be wishful thinking. Elaine was beautiful and mysterious and strong and intelligent. She’d never go for some country outlaw girl like you. Not when she could have any man in the world at her beck and call. 

But still, you couldn’t shake the thought that maybe, just maybe, she put a little more thought into your gift than the other ladies. The rest of the day you couldn’t get her out of your mind as you scrubbed Sean’s suspiciously stained undergarments. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~

A few days later, you miraculously found yourself with some free time on your hands. There weren’t many chores that needed doing, and even Mrs. Grimshaw had to admit that she was just giving you busy work at this point. She eventually relented and gave you ladies the rest of the day to yourselves. 

The other girls had convinced John and Lenny to accompany them and Jack into town for a day out of camp. You’d elected to stay behind, more than ready to just have a peaceful, lazy day. You lounged under a tree, watching the clouds above and fiddling with grass, straw, dandelions, whatever your fingers idly found. 

It was nice to let your mind just turn off and watch the clouds roll by, day dreaming about a peaceful life for you all, where you could stay free, but maybe find a more legal way to do so. Dutch always talked of such grand plans. You hoped whatever they involved, you could one day get off of laundry duty. You’d run away from home to avoid becoming a housewife, but you sure as shit felt like one most days. 

Maybe you could raise horses, train them, show them. Or maybe you’d have a little garden, growing herbs galore. Maybe you’d tan pelts and sell them. You weren’t sure. You had a sinking suspicion that if you all did manage to find your little quiet corner of the world, you’d likely end up in the kitchen cooking like you were now. But it was nice to imagine at least. 

You were pulled from your daydreams by your name being called from across camp. You propped yourself up on your elbows, and your heart stopped when you saw Elaine striding toward you, her high-waisted trousers making her legs look deliciously long, an elegant, confident sway to her hips...

“You busy?” She asked as she approached. You shook your head. 

“We got all our chores done early today. Most of the others went off into town but I decided to stay behind and relax,” You said. 

“Would you like to go out riding with me?” She asked. You glanced around, wondering where Arthur was. He was usually the one to go riding with her. You saw him sitting in his tent. Why wasn’t she asking him? You pulled your attention back to Elaine, not wanting to look a gift horse in the mouth. 

“Sure,” You said, putting your hat back on and pulling yourself to your feet, brushing your skirt off. “We going on a job or somethin’ like that?” 

“Something like that,” She said vaguely, smiling at you. “Come on. Saddle up.” She said. You paused. 

“Oh...” You hesitated. “I don’t have a horse,” You said quietly. Your horse had been your best friend for some years now. But you’d loaned him to Jenny for the Blackwater heist, and he’d died when she had. You hadn’t had the money, nor the heart to replace him. 

“I’m sorry,” Elaine said gently, clearly reading your somber expression. You shook it off, giving her what you hoped was a reassuring smile.

“It was just a horse,” You tried to brush it off, though you could see Elaine didn’t buy into it. “I’ll see if I can borrow someone else's.” 

“Why don’t you just ride with me?” Elaine suggested. “Ontario’s certainly big enough to carry both of us.” She pointed out. You smiled and nodded. 

“Okay,” you said, mood lightening some at the prospect of riding with Elaine, arms wrapped around her waist, pressed up against her strong back...

“Come on then,” She said. The two of you walked side-by-side to where Ontario was grazing alongside the other horses. He whickered when he saw the two of you approaching. You’d seen him be stubborn, but you knew he was just a big softy. You pulled out a sugar cube from your satchel and fed it to him. He whuffed over your hand in gratitude. 

Elaine launched herself into the saddle, then steered Ontario up alongside a rock, so that you could pull yourself onto his rear. Once you were settled on his rump, hands resting respectfully on Elaine’s waist (despite you wanting to wrap them around her tightly,) Elaine pushed Ontario into a smooth canter out of camp. 

The two of you followed the trail down towards the river. Elaine took a left, following the river toward the lake. The two of you rode in friendly silence for a little ways, just enjoying the sounds of nature. 

“So, what’s this job?” You asked as you rounded a corner and the lake came into view. 

“Oh, I never said there was a job,” Elaine teased. “You inferred that on your own. I simply asked if you wanted to go out on a ride with me.” 

“Then what are we doing out here?” You asked, a slight laugh in your voice. 

“What, I can’t just want to spend time with a pretty lady?” Elaine flirted back. You breath caught in your throat. Before you could respond, a harsh laugh caught your attention. Ahead of you, a wagon lay blocking the trail. Two men in green bandanas stood on either side of it. O’Driscolls.

“Lookie here, gents,” One of the men laughed, “A couple of wee mouses. Now we can have some fun,” His Irish accent made the words sound pretty, but the meaning sent shivers up your spine. You glanced to your left, then your right. More O’Driscolls on either side. You were surrounded. 

“Off the horse, ladies,” Another man called, waving his gun at you. Elaine turned her head to look at you and nodded. You trusted her. If she was half as good as John and Arthur said she was, you weren’t in any danger. You weren’t exactly damsel in distress material either. 

You slowly slipped off the horse, allowing yourself to stumble and fall to one knee. You quickly pulled your secret weapon from your boot, hiding up your coat sleeve without anyone noticing. The nearest O’Driscoll grabbed your arm and pulled you to your feet, holding you close to stop you from getting away. He reeked of shitty moonshine and body odor, and you had to stop yourself from gagging. 

“Hey, I know who you are,” One of the O’Driscolls called as Elaine dismounted. “You’re that Van der Linde girl everyone’s kickin’ such a fuss up over.” 

“You’re a Van der Linde mouse, huh?” The man crooned in your ear. “Well that means we can have some extra fun.” He murmured. 

“What can I do for you Gentlemen?” Elaine asked. She glanced around. “And I use that term lightly.” The man who seemed to be in charge barked a laugh. 

“You think you’re in any position to be making smart-ass remarks?” He asked, “‘specially when Seamus is becoming so... familiar with your friend there?” The man holding you had wrapped an arm around your middle and was sniffing your hair. Elaine’s expression darkened when she saw that. You gave her what you hoped was a reassuring look. You could stand men being creepy for a minute, so long as she got you both out of this alive. Elaine seemed to get the message. 

“That’s better, little mouse,” The man sneered, stepping toward Elaine. “Wouldn’t want your friend to get hurt now, would you? You see, Colm wants you brought to him. Dead or alive he doesn’t really care. But he has no interest in one of Van der Linde’s whores. Your friend could go with minimal damage.” the man holding you chuckled in your ear, and you grit your teeth. Yeah. Minimal damage. You sincerely doubted it. 

“So...” Elaine hesitated. “I go with you, and she walks free?” she asked. 

“Free as a bird. She can flit back to Dutch and his boys, ready to whore another day.” He said. Elaine turned back to look at you, eyes narrowing slightly. You nodded ever so slightly. You were both ready to jump into action. You were just waiting for her move. 

“Well, how can I refuse such an offer?” Elaine asked, stepping toward the man. He grinned and reached for her hand. She grabbed his wrist and swung him down into the dirt. You heard his nose crack as it broke, and he went limp as he fell unconscious immediately. 

You spun in your captors grasp, knife slipping from your sleeve into your hand. You lifted your arm and brought the knife down on the mans neck, twisting to make sure you hit your target. You were greeted with a stream of blood when you removed your knife. Perfect. 

You sprinted into the trees, knowing that armed with only knives, you were a sitting duck if you couldn’t get something to cover your back. You slid in the dirt, back slamming against a large boulder as you turned to face the road. 

The O’Driscolls had recovered from their original shock, and were engaged in a firefight with Elaine, who had ducked behind the wagon that was blocking the road. You pulled a throwing knife from your other boot and with a flick of your wrist, downed one of the O’Driscolls. You may not be the best gunslinger in the world, but you were damn good with your knives. You downed two more before something tackled you from the left, pinning you to the forest floor. 

Another slimy O’Driscoll towered over you, holding you down. You squirmed underneath him, trying desperately to throw off his balance, but he stayed steady, holding you firmly in place. You didn’t like the way he was grinning at you one bit, and the hand that was holding your shoulder came to your neck, fingers ready to squeeze. 

With a scream of rage you brought your knife up, stabbing blindly. Your arm jarred as your knife stopped suddenly, knife getting stuck in one of the man’s ribs. He let out a cry of pain, but didn’t let you go, resting his weight on your neck. You coughed and gasped as you felt your airway beginning to constrict, but before he could start to do any real damage, he collapsed on top of you. 

You lay beneath the man, panting, unsure of what had happened. You were aware of warm blood trickling over your shoulder. It was then that you caught a glimpse of the bullet wound on the side of his head. Someone’d shot him.

With a grunt, you rolled him off of you, sitting up. You could still hear at least two gunshots, so Elaine was still fighting with some of the O’Driscolls, but you didn’t doubt it was her who’d saved your life, though you couldn’t quite spot her or the assailants. 

You grabbed your knife and tugged, finally pulling it free from where it was stuck in the man’s ribs before ducking behind a tree. You saw one of the O’Driscolls that was fighting Elaine perched behind a crate, facing away from you, toward the wagon. Grabbing your last throwing knife, you tossed it at his head, hitting your mark perfectly. 

There was one last shot from Elaine, then silence. You waited, still behind that tree. But it seemed the fighting was over. You heard Elaine call your name, and you breathed a sigh of relief that she was okay. 

“I’m here. I’m okay,” you called, stepping out from behind the tree. You located the three men who had died by your throwing knives and retrieved them. Elaine came around the side of the wagon. Her face paled as she took in your appearance, and she hurried over to you. 

“Oh my god, where are you hurt?” She asked worriedly, looking you over. You glanced down at your blood-soaked dress. 

“Oh. It’s not mine,” You assured her. “I’m fine. Just some scrapes and bruises.” Elaine bit her lip, not quite looking convinced. 

“Come on. Let’s get out of here and get cleaned up.” She suggested, whistling for Ontario. She pushed you up onto his rump before climbing up in front of you and galloping away. 

~~~~~~~~~~~

You rode down to the lakeside, hidden from the road by the trees. Elaine had dragged you out into the water, helping you scrub away the blood. As it washed away, it became clear that you were right, and none of the blood was yours. Elaine seemed to deflate with relief. You felt a warm feeling your stomach at the thought that she’d been so worried for you. 

Once you’d washed the blood from your skin, and as much as you could from your dress, the two of you had gone to shore to dry off. You carefully cleaned your knife as you did. 

"Where'd you get that?" Elaine asked, looking at the knife in your hands. 

"Family heirloom. Supposed to go to my brother but I stole it when I left home."

"No, I mean where were you hiding it?" 

"Oh. My boot." You said, drying it off and lifting the hem of your skirt. Tucked into your boot was a little sheath for the dagger. You slipped it back in. "I've got some throwing knives in the other boot," you said, turning and showing her the bundle of throwing knives. "And a hunting knife in my garter." You added, lifting up your skirt to show Elaine the holstered hunting knife tucked into your garter. Elaine whistled.

"You are full of surprises, aren't you?" She chuckled. You felt your face heat up. You shrugged, quickly looking away to hide your blush.

"Guess I learned a few times, better to keep armed than be caught without." You chuckled. You glanced over at Elaine to find her staring at you. “What, you thought I’d run with the infamous Van der Linde gang and not know how to fight?” You laughed. She shook her head. 

“No. I knew you all likely had secret strengths like that,” She said. “I’m just glad I got to witness you in action.” She said. “You’re really good with your knives. I saw you down those men.” 

“Well, that one man would have had me if you hadn’t shot him,” You said, fiddling with your skirt, unused to praise. “Thanks for that, by the way. I’d probably be dead if it weren’t for you.” She was quiet for a moment. 

“Well we can’t have that,” She said. You jumped in surprise, but didn’t pull away when you felt her fingers come up to your cheek, pushing a stray hair out of your face. You glanced over at her, giving her a shy smile. She grinned back, tilting her head slightly to admire you better. 

“N-no I suppose not,” You stammered. “I very much enjoy being alive.” What the hell were you even saying?! How did this woman turn you to mush so quickly. With her... muscular arms and warm eyes and plump lips. Lips that were slowly moving closer to yours. Or were yours moving closer to hers? 

You sucked in a breath through your nose as your lips met hers, automatically melting into the kiss. You weren’t entirely sure you weren’t dreaming, or dead and in heaven, but you weren’t going to question it, or ruin it. You were here, on the beach with Elaine, looking over the lake as the sun touched the mountains to your right. 

Elaine’s hand came up to cup your face, and you scooted closer, fingers carding through her beautiful dark hair as you leaned closer, kissing her more eagerly, sloppily. Elaine’s lips kept a calm pace, gently reining you in some, and the kiss once again returned to something sweet and soft. 

Elaine was a mysterious woman, that was for sure. But when she kissed you, one mystery became perfectly clear. Elaine North was just as sweet on you as you were on her. And fuck if that didn’t feel good.

[idjitlili]

Fili x reader

Summary:

Imagine being in one of the cells in Thranduils dungeon, only for fili to be put in the same cell.

Warnings: mention of parents potentially death( not confirmed) , slight nudity.

Word count:1952

Who were you exactly? You don’t really know, you weren’t from this world. As a child you loved pirates of the Caribbean, so much that when you turned 17 , your parents took you on a real pirate ship.

No pirates of course , and it actually sailed , it was great until something went wrong.

You could swim of course , how could you want to be on the waters without knowing how to . once the ship went down something dragged you by the leg , pulled you into the water , I guess like the kraken does. Anyways everything went black, and you woke up in a forest ,which you later found out was called Mirkwood.

You got surrounded by spiders , and I mean not house spiders but like cow sized. It was disgustANG. Yet you didn’t have to worry about the spiders for long , when a bunch of long haired dudes shot them dead ,with arrows. But you did worry about them after , they dragged you up asked you who you were, which they didn’t believe.

A blond man, with weird shaped ears , began to question you once you was on your feet.

“Who are you ,human?” He basically spat , disgusted.

“Uhh..y/n ma’am.” You had answered, slowly , confused to where you were and who these people were,where were your parents?

“You should not speak to the prince of Mirkwood like that.” A ginger women , spoke sharply, You hate her already , you had thought.

“The prince of where? Who are you people? Where are my parents?” You asked desperately.

“We are not people , we are elves mortal, how would we know where they were you are the one trespassing.” The blond elf that looked like Orlando bloom ,spat.

“Hey will turner , you tell me , I woke up here , last thing I remember was being in a sinking ship.”

“You are weeks away from the sea, you are lying.”

“I am not , now tell me where I am.” You shouted angrily.

“We are taking to you to the king now.”

You were then dragged away to king thranduil.

Let’s just say Thranduil is a cold hearted man , you ended up in a cell. So that leads you to present time.

Did I mention you dressed up as captain jack sparrow for the ship ride. Well yeah you did.

You sit against the stone wall , with your hat over your eyes, leaning on the bridge of your nose. Sleeping, that’s all you could really do in here. That was until the lock of you cell was unlocked ; you heard steps of heavy boots walk into the cell. Then the cell was locked again. You lift up your hat , to see this muscular blond man , with long locks , and braids in his Moustache. He was cute.

It was strange he was Put In a cell with you, you had noticed that men and women were separated,when put in cells. For obvious reasons, you decided the reason why he was put with you was because you had dressed like male pirate. Still confused you, your shirt was a v cut low like jacks they could see that you weren’t male. You weren’t a over weight male dude with man tits.

God You hope he wasn’t a rapist or a serial killer.

“Hey” you spoke quietly to the blond man, as he sat from the wall across from you.

“Hi, “ he replies back, looking you o v er.

“ are you a Corsair?” He asks after viewing your clothing.

You had no idea what they hell that was,

“ what’s that?”

“ a sea raider, my lady.” Oh so he knew you was a woman, it’s not that hard.

“Oh you mean a pirate. No I am not, I don’t even know where I am. You don’t have to call me my lady, it’s just y/n” he scrunches his face up with confusion, not b hearing the term pirate before.

“Alright..y/n. You are in Mirkwood, the land of the elves. I am fili.” He spoke confidently.

“I thought elves were made up , but then I saw their ears. I have never heard of Mirkwood before.”

“Where are you from then, I thought everyone knew of elves.” He suspected you were from far away.

“Y/c (your county) “ you spoke to fili.

“I have never heard of that, where about is that in middle earth.”

It was strange you had never met this man , and you were telling him these things freely, what about stranger danger. Well he’s not a stranger because you know his name.

“Middle earth? What are you on about. It’s just earth.” You had never been this confused in your whole life.

You go on to explain how you had ended up in Mirkwood forest , and they had just thrown you into a cell. Fili was very confused be assured you that he knew someone a wizard that would be able to help you. He also called Thranduil a cocksucker. He told you about Thranduils hatred for dwarves and you asked how he knew and it turns he was one. But he was tall so you never thought anything before then, you just thought he was human. He had even told you that he was travelling with a company and his uncle thorin was going to reclaim his throne , from a dragon or something. Which they had a hobbit for bugling.

“ so those clothes aren’t something you would normally wear?” He questions you cocking his left eyebrow up.

“Oh no , if I wore these all the time people would question my sanity.”

“ ooh well I like them. “ he smiles at you.

“Thank you sir fili, I like your Moustache braids.”

“Thank you miss y/n. Lets hope we get out of here.” He grins again, looking at the door briefly.

“Wait you are taking me with you?”

“Did you think I would get out and leave you who was wrongfully imprisoned.” He laughs.

“Thank you, I see that you are kind man ,sorry dwarf. “ before you can say anything more fili’s dwarven friends shouts begin.

Fili gets up to look , he turns back to you smirking , holding out a hand for you to take which you do and he pulls you to you feet. He was a strong dude that was sure. The cell clicks to infer it is unlocked by a even shorter man , that must be the hobbit , Bilbo. You and Fili walk out the cell, the hobbit looks at you confused.

“Fili , who is this?” He questions.

“Iy/n, uh I am not a sailor.” You speak to the hobbit and a rather strong man that stood next to him , he looked majestic. That must be his uncle.

“Thorin we must take her with us, she isn’t from this world I am sure of it. Please.”

Thorin scoffs, “how can you trust her?” Before you can say anything Bilbo says we must leave now. While you had run down the stairs , a dark haired dwarf had caught up with me and fili , who had ahold of my hand all the way down the stairs.

“Who is the this lovely lady, brother?” Ah yes filis brother what a charmer.

“Y/ n” you spoke , as you approached the wine cellar. Bilbo forced us to go to the barrels and to get into them.

“I am kili, Fili’s brother, at your service.” He replies bowing and grabbing your free hand bringing it up to his lips, kissing it softly.

You mock jack sparrows bow , after he let go of your hand. You smirk. Fili pulls you with him to a barrel, “do you want to share, I fear that we be in danger out there , once we leave.” You nod at his question.

“Kili will you help her in?”

Fili gets into the barrel at the top of the row, and kili lifts you so you are able to slide in the barrel as well.

“Thank you kili.” You smile at the dwarf. He smiles at you , and gets in his own barrel.

Without barely any warning Bilbo tells everyone to hold tight , and suddenly you are all thrown into a river. The water soaks you , you lift your hat off putting it in the barrel safely. You look around to see the Orlando elf and his ginger bitch friend following you, as well as these creatures, Fili called orcs. They were ugly.

“Fili hold my legs.” (Sorry I put that in the kili one too.) he does as yo u stand in between Filis legs , somehow.

Looking at the elves you speak loudly ,

“Remember this as the day as the day you almost caught captain Jack sparrow.” You smirk , placing two fingers straight to your head , and farewelling the elves.

Only to your surprise you are soaked with water when an dead orc falls into the water. Soaking your shirt, making your shirt very see through, however you didn’t notice this. The guards had taken your jacket away. Douchebags.

You sit back down, in the barrel waiting for you reach land. Too bad you thought damn , my bra is visible bye the v line so I’ll wear no bra. Sad mistake.

“I guess the water thing is what I get for being cocky.” You laugh, as does fili wrapping his arm around you to secure you.

Let’s just say , Kili does get shot because Fili lifts you into the air so you could reach the lever , opening the gate. Haha fuck that orc, we are smart.

Quickly you all reach shore and get out of the barrels, walking onto the shore.

“Well that was fun.” You speak suddenly In your waist coat and hat in hand.

“Uh miss y/n..” spoke kili , his face red, looks away from you , trying not embarrass you.

“Yes...?” You are beyond confused at this point.

You see fili walking up to , removing his coat,putting the coat on your shoulders,Pulling it around your front and doing up the middle button. He whispers in your ear “your shirt was wet, and see through.”

You now were beet red looking at the dwarf, “oh god, did everyone see?”You mentally curse yourself.

“no just kili , the rest were too busy emptying their boots.” You sigh I reveal stil haunting thoughts, that these men had seen your assets , no one had other than family and that was when you was younger.

“Thank you.” You smile at the shorter man.

“You are welcome, not that I didn’t like what I saw.” He smirks at you.

“Oh .. do you want to trade by any chance?”

He laughs at you,if only you knew what he was going to be doing in his free time next.

(Boy city boyyyyyss)

“ pleaseeeee , has your left nipple ever bled before , mine has! I accidently scratched it and it hurt for days.” He was now shocked at your words.

“Really?”

“Yes my dude.”

In lesss than minutes you are on the barge with fili he has hold of your hand resurringly, maybe you don’t want to go home. The chances of your parents of being alive was slim, but you had a chance of a life here, if you wanted you could dress up as a jack anyday.

Unknowingly to you that wouldn’t be the last time fili would see your mellons. You sure in hell don’t let azog take him away from you. He was one good piece of treasure. Not all treasure is silver and gold,mate.

[postmodernmulticoloredcloak]

What are your thoughts about how Dean's being treated in the narrative this season? I was excited starting out but so far, I've just been disappointed by how he just seems superfluous to the plot. And I don't understand why the writers seem to be taking shots at him in almost every episode. The Achilles' heel thing, putting responsibility for the rift on his shoulders (while Cas' part is handwaved away), Garth's snub in naming his children, his undisputed claim that Sam is better than him (1)

at everything, Fortuna’s insult…it’s just a lot. Maybe it wouldn’t be so jarring if Dean wasn’t the only character being consistently treated like that. To be fair, it hasn’t been all bad. I’ve liked some of his character development (although I find his new tendency to not voice his dissenting opinion a little worrisome, given his natural intuition) and there have been some awesome scenes like standing up to Chuck. But I just don’t know…(2)

Thank you for this ask! I think it’s an interesting thing to explore. I have been feeling a little iffy about some things this season, too, so I want to use this opportunity to sort through my own thoughts. It’s gonna get long so I’ll put a read more…

Let’s start from the easy part. 15x11: I don’t think that Fortuna was genuine when she made that comment about Dean, and we’re not supposed to take the beach read comment as a reliable perspective. All she does is a sort of test to read them; she lets both Dean and Sam win a match against her at first, as a sort of test but also as a trick to make her opponent confident and make him play again. Except that Dean’s second match is against a very talented player, and he wins not because he’s lucky, but because he’s genuinely skilled. He proves that his skills at pool - a shorthand for his skills in general, which they had been doubting of, wondering whether it was all Chuck - are real. 

Could skills beat luck? Probably not when luck is the goddess of luck herself, but I wonder whether Fortuna picked Sam as her opponent when stakes got high instead of Dean because she wanted to play against the less skilled of the two. I think that she’s playing them on and also off the pool table, and Dean realizes this when she goes “this one could be interesting”, you can tell from his reaction that he’s like “hey that’s a trick to play with the less skilled one of us” but Sam takes the bait. She also pretends to fall for Sam’s trick of distracting her by making her talk, just to reveal she can win whenever she wants to when the stakes are final. From what we’ve seen of her, I think we can infer that her modus operandi is to make people confident, so they’ll play again, higher the stakes, and then lose, not necessarily against her, just against someone, and lose their luck - she plays first with Dean when she doesn’t know who he is, and I assume it’s a common trick - let the newcomer win to stroke his confidence. (In gambling, the idea is to give players smalls wins to make them gamble more, and lose more.)

So, the narrative doesn’t give us any reason to believe that Dean isn’t right when he says that he is better than Sam at pool, and the point of the “beach read” comment is that he is not a beach read. Fortuna is supposed to be an unreliable narrator at that point, because she’s testing them. In fact, at the end, she rewards them on the ground of being “heroes”, which invalidates her previous statement, be it genuine or not.

Also consider that “sexy but skimmable” i.e. a pretty idiot, is the sort of taunt that Dean has received often in his life. If Fortuna is truly skilled at reading people, then she picks exactly something that has a history for Dean, and also something that has a history for Sam, i.e. that he’s more “interesting” (smart, skilled, whatever) than his brother. Coincidence?

That he’s pretty but otherwise worthless is something Dean has internalized by being told, not necessarily in words, over and over in his life. That reminded me of John’s old hunter friend who was like “didn’t you grow up pretty” and “if your father could see you now”. It took Dean a long time (and with plenty of fallbacks) to realize he’s more than a pretty face who follows orders. On the other hand, that he’s a more interesting “read” to Dean’s “beach read” is something Sam’s always had in his mind (he was the one who questioned the orders while Dean acted as John’s faithful little dog…) and it took him a long time, and some big blows to his own ego, to get out of that mindset.

So I don’t think it’s random that Fortuna goes for, you know, down with Dean and up with Sam, so to speak.

Dean’s statement that Sam is better than him at everything except pool - I read that as a very parental thing. It’s a very parent thing: telling your child that they’re proud of them for surpassing you. It should be the goal of a parent, you know, that your child is a better person than you - and a parent being like, you’ve become more skilled than me at my skills (except this one non-fundamental thing I can still kick your ass at :p) and I am proud of you, is a common trope.

So I read that as a small but very strong Dean-as-Sam’s-parent moment. Recently Sam also mentioned out loud that Dean raised him, so the writing team has not dropped this very important piece of characterization.

15x10. I think that the point is that Garth is Dean’s friend first and foremost. He doesn’t name his kids after his friends plural, he names his kids after the most important people for his friend singular. That’s how I read it at least. It’s weird because Dean hears one twin is named after Sam and assumes the two siblings are named after the two siblings, and the dissonance between his expectation and reality is what makes the humor. Also… Garth and Dean are a “who knows maybe in another life” kind of duo, you know…? They have a chemistry. Garth is Dean’s type, once you go past the appearances, and judging from Garth’s choice in wife, Dean’s pretty much his type too. You don’t name a child after that kind of person in your life.

Also, from a extra-diegetic perspective, Dean’s mirror is Gertie (from the name Gertrude meaning “strong spear/spear of strength”), the girl, because he’s always aligned with the feminine.

15x09. Now, this is the episode I’ve struggled the most with. Not sure if the problem is the episode itself, or the fact that the episode came after a season of the fandom acting a certain way towards Dean and Cas and their conflict, and that colored the episode a certain tint for me.

I’m kind of suspending judgement as I wait to see how the rest of the season goes and how Dean and Cas’ relationship develops, but my fear is that the narrative never really allows Dean to have emotions, so to speak, nor addresses Cas’ side of the issue(s). 15x09 itself is telling of a certain problem - Dean is experiencing certain emotions and going through a certain thing with Cas, but bam something happens that makes him terrified that he’s lost Cas again, and that forces him to scrap what he was going through. I’m not sure I’m explaining myself well here but bear with me.

He doesn’t get to sort through his emotions, he just goes in emergency mode again and the emergency just gives a yank to his emotions. I suppose the intent was “situation makes Dean realize he doesn’t want to lose Cas/he was wrong at making Cas the emotional scapegoat of his anger” but I don’t think it really worked. Dean was grieving and experiencing one of the most severe traumatic things in his life (actually, multiple at the same time). There’s no “right” or “wrong” in his emotions. I’m not saying that grief/trauma gives you a free card to be mean to others but… I mean, it does?? I think we’ve sort of created a culture of yelling “that’s abusive!!” at what are normal human experiences and expect that a person should act “properly” at all times. There’s a refrain of “x experience explains the behavior of y but doesn’t justify it!” which, sure, is valid with certain kinds of behavior, but there’s a whole jumble of normal human experiences in between “good” behavior and unjustifiable behavior.

Maybe I’m just culturally Catholic to the core, but all this pressure on Dean to beg for forgiveness for being harsh to Cas feels… iffy to me.

I guess I see forgiveness a bit differently, too, because I don’t think forgiveness - and especially when and how quickly you get there - is a choice. If Dean wasn’t emotionally ready to forgive Cas and open up emotionally to him again, then making him feel guilty for not being quick enough to get there is not exactly my idea of a healthy process.

Then there’s the “you didn’t stop me”, which, I get the whole thing behind it - Cas’ deepest fear is that Dean doesn’t care if he leaves, Dean’s deepest fear is that Cas is better off if he leaves, so, draaaama~~. But Dean has a history of people leaving him and feeling he can’t (isn’t worth) ask them to stay instead. Sure, it’s good drama. But I’m not sure that the narrative is allowing the space for understanding that Dean needs the emotional security of feeling like he’s worth to ask to stay just like Cas needs the emotional security of feeling like he has a place where he belongs and isn’t just a guest.

Again, I think it would be unfair to draw judgement of a narrative that is ongoing, and I hope that my fears are unfounded and the narrative will address what I wish it addresses! Of course with a little less than half a season still to go, emotional conflicts and character development can’t be wrapped up yet.

Another point you bring up is Dean’s reluctance to express his dissenting opinion. I do not think we have a pattern yet - his acceptance of Sam’s decision not to trap Chuck was intended, I guess, as a moment of growth in the sense that he acknowledged that Sam is a grown adult capable of drawing his judgement and make informed decisions, so he trusts Sam’s judgement and doesn’t drill him with questions. We still have to see how they all react to Jack’s revelation about Billie’s plan, so I would say to wait and see about that. Dean’s face at the end is not a “well this is excellent news” face, nor is Sam’s (who is framed after Jack talks about getting stronger, which is something Sam has a history with). Considering this season brought Lilith back, I’m sure they haven’t forgotten about Sam’s demon blood arc... I do wonder if Dean will avoid getting too confrontational with Cas, though. We’ll see.

Now, you say that he seems “superfluous to the plot”. I would normally say, well of course he’s superfluous to the plot, he’s the protagonist, he’s the one that reacts to the plot that happens around him. But I understand this is not the kind of answer you’re looking for. Honestly, I might be wrong, but I think that the first roughly-half of the season is the Male Part. The second part of the season should be the Female Part. In the first part, Chuck is rampant, Billie’s plan is dormant, Amara is minding her business and not being relevant to the plot, the plot is Sam-heavy, Rowena dies and reverts to playing a game of power, Mary is dead, Eileen is a piece played by Chuck. Now, with Billie’s plan being put in motion (although I don’t believe that’s the endgame or a Good Thing™ in unquestioning terms, but it’s still Death entering the game), I think a new phase should start. Dean confronting Chuck was already a start, and also how they got some support from a female deity that expressed negative opinions about Chuck -- I think that we’ve entered the second part of the season, and things are going to change. I’m looking forward to see what will be Amara’s role in all of this... especially considering that’s inextricably related to Dean’s role.

Feel free to ask for any clarification or addition or argument!!

[hoodie-lover]

My Multiverse Ask Event! #3

“UT sans why do you refuse to fight the human until they are level 19 in genocide route?”

“Because it is the only time it matters. Any other time I don’t have to worry about the world ending. If you were trapped in a world where nothing, almost nothing, you do matters, why do something that doesn’t matter? And I must say, the look on their face when I launched my first attack, and their faces afterwards, were worth it.” Sans said, smiling at the memory of their shocked face.

“Flowey if the human genocides you are aware they won't hesitate to kill you right? ps why not just pop up from the ground in the room with the human souls and take them?”

“I know. But I like watching everyone die, it’s funny as they try to stop an unstoppable threat, how they sacrifice themselves and whatnot. And if the human can beat Sans, Undyne, and slaughter almost every monster of all, why would the souls be able to do anything? Sure I could flee, but I am the Prince of the Underground, I’m going down with my ship.” Flowey said, his face appearing to be a mix of Asriel and his own before morphing back as he chuckled a sinister giggle.

“Frisk so your saying that your next reset will be a genocide if so is it because your possesses by chara or because your a bad person. ps if your possesed by chara during genocide why kill flowey knowing he is asriel? pps do you even make it to the surface after genocide?” “Chara is only there to make me remember my crimes, kill Asgore, and Flowey. And I’m not really a bad person per say, I’m just a kid having fun! And why would I return to the surface? The Underground is more fun. Asriel is dead, Flowey is someone new, and Flowey is pathetic.” Frisk said, smiling. “To all skeletons when you eat food where does it go? do you even have a stomach?” “We only eat magic-based foods so it is instantly absorbed. It just disperses and helps heal and stuff.” Papyrus said, making hand gestures to help explain it. “Error, when are you guys going to start looking for who Error once was? We can help! We know multiple versions of Error and many versions of his backstory to draw reference from. I'd start with G̵͈͇̙͖̰͇̠̥̱͍̅̿͌̀̋̄͛̇̽̒̄̿̄̑̈́̾͊̔̉̄͒̕ȩ̸̛̠̗͓̗̃̈́̏́͆̓̃̅̎͊̾̃̐͐̍̍͘͜n̸̢̢̛̲̬͎̱̘͍͎̗̯̘̭͉̦̓͗̓̓͂̀̈́̀͜͠͝͝ơ̵̢̗̼̳̥̞̱̺̭̠̅̐̐̾̽͋̋͐́̍͊̈́̈́͘͠. Trust me.” “What? We didn’t hear what you said.” Error stated, sipping some hot chocolate. Mini marshmallows danced on the surface. “Well, since you apparently can’t say who to start with, I guess we have no where to start from.” “How about we look at the timelines? Talk to the voices and see how long Error was there and what timelines had separated before and after then.” Horror said and Nightmare shrugged. “Sure.” In the Creator Realm, Maxie, Zack, Beatrice, Jana, and Jack were listening. “We all know it’s Geno right?” Maxie said and they nodded. “How about we drag this out? Make them suffer!” Jack said, and for once, Zack agreed. “It would be funny, just as long as they learn the truth eventually.” Zack said, earning a sadistic grin from Maxie. “Yay! I wonder if we can get some help in leading them astray?” Maxie said, calling over to the group asking the questions. “Wanna help us drag this out?” She asked. “UT sans when are you going to tell papyrus about resets?” “I already know. Though I have asked Sans the same question many many times.” Papyrus said, giving Sans a dirty look. Sans had come back from his sentry station for lunch. “You’d forget! Just because you know doesn’t mean you’ll remember. I’d figured out it was possible while looking through scans and other old work I look through every day. Plus knowledge of the multiverse helps.” Sans said, “I actually did tell you once, but it crushed your spirit. I didn’t want you to lose what made you, you. and I had a support group so I wasn’t handling it alone like I used to.” Sans said, Papyrus sighed in response. “UT sans how do you manage to put 29 hot dogs on a person's head and why not 30 hot dogs?” “Why not 28?” Sans said, and Papyrus groaned. “Ok ok I think we have embarrassed the boys enough, for now.... Dream any stories from your brothers past he would rather his boys not know about?” “YES!” Dream cried out and Nightmare tried to silence his brother, but he was tackled, bound, and gagged on the ground before he could make a sound. Everyone listened to Dream intently. “Nightmare, in the early days of our village’s founding, had a girlfriend.” Dream said, Nightmare thrashed on the ground as everyone gasped “Who?” Cross asked, eyes wide as he heard Chara snicker and make faces at Nightmare. “I don’t remember her, we didn’t really talk all that much, but what I do know is that,” Dream donned the smuggest and most evil smirk as he gave his brother a wicked glance, a twisted smile on his face. “Nightmare, lost his virginity to her.” Dream said and everyone went nuts. “Did he top?” Horror asked, and Killer laughed. “Was she a virgin too?” Dust cried out, looking at his struggling father. “She wasn’t, and I think he bottomed based on what he told me.” Dream said, genuinely puzzled. “So, how old were you?” Error asked, Dream thought about it. “We didn’t know at the time, as far as we’re aware, right now, we’re about 1200 years old, and the village was around for about 1,000 years, but she was about a young adult, maybe 20 or so.” Dream said, looking at his brother for confirmation. Tears were streaming down Nightmare’s face and Dream took pity on his sibling. “There, there, I only have one more to tell.” Dream said, picking up Nightmare and placing him on his lap as he cuddled him. “What’s the story?” Fresh asked, he was mostly silent but he was curious. “Nightmare’s first time drunk.” Dream said, and Nightmare froze as he tried to run away. “Nope.” Dream said, keeping Nightmare in place easily. “One day, I was given a present by someone, I don’t remember who they were. Nightmare girlfriend, Lily was her name, had long passed away by this point. They broke up but remained friends. It was a bottle of whisky, hardcore whisky.” Dream said, “Like Blue’s signature drink spiker.” Dream said and Blue gasped. “I do not spike drinks!” Blue said, huffing. “Sure.” Dream said, rolling his eyes as he continued. “Anyway, I wanted to share the gift with Nightmare, as I always did. I even broke apart, remade and regifted presents I recieved to Nightmare to make him feel better. So we drank the entire thing, Nightmare having most of it.” Dream said, clearly embarrassed. “If we had known, that night would have ended differently.” Dream told them. “Nightmare ended up singing a random song at the top of his lungs at the top of the tree. I was about to pass out most of the time. We never got drunk again, the hangover was bad.” “Ok back to embarrassing the boys, on a scale of 1 to 10 how cute is Error? this is for anyone that wants to weigh in on the Error cuteness scale. Also does he have glasses in this multi-verse and do they up his cuteness? Sorry Error you are my favorite!” “10.” Everyone said they had by this point released Nightmare. “I do have glasses, Nightmare gave them to me soon after they learned how bad my eyesight was, but I began to wear contacts when I started fighting with them.” Error said. “They were bigger and red versions of Harry Potter’s glasses, and they increase his cuteness to a solid twenty-six out of ten.” Cross said, smiling as Error blushed. “Oh I saw someone else mention how we know of many different Errors. I gotta say most of the Errors I have seen have been tortured horribly and are left in a pretty bad state. Are you sure you want to know where you came from? You can't ever go back to what you were before, and I don't want you to get hurt Error.” “I know. But, I want to know my story, I know I can’t go back, I know I have a Papyrus, Toriel, Alphys, Undyne, and all. But I never thought about it, and with the revelation that I’m an alternate timeline, I can dive a bit deeper. I know these people, and Killer, Horror, and Dust can help me. They know what it’s like.” Error said, “And I’m not asking to know about what you have put other me’s through, I can infer what you’ve done to them.” Error said, glaring. “Frisk, what do you think about the humans from other AU?s” “AUs? Do you mean, alternate universes? I was involved with many fandoms, so I know the term. Papyrus broke script last time, and Sans was acting odd a few years ago. Interesting. I must thank you, if I’m right, then I might be able to see my own handiwork again.” Frisk said. “Frisk, have you encountered Gaster yet? ps do you even know who Gaster is?” “I know who he is. Though he always disappears before I can say a word to him.” “Stretch, my tall orange jerk. How did you take the news that not only did Ink lie when he said the dark sanses took blue, but Ink was actually the one to take him and do some pretty bad things to our sweet little blueberry? What about when Ink had Dream hurt blue to keep him crashing? And how are taking Blue being more like Error now?” “I was mad, I wanted to kill him with my own hands. I let myself be fooled, and I can’t even blame myself half the time! I was just so powerless. I’m glad he’s dead.” Stretch said, grumbling as he blew out a puff of smoke. “I was ready to dust Dream right then and there, but Blue held me back. And the yellow squirt’s apology was overwhelming. I could barely go a day without a text or in-person apology, and when he finally earned my lack of distrust, we haven’t talked since aside from the occasional ‘hello’. And Blue had it worse.” “It took awhile for me to get used to Blue’s glitching. Sometimes he crashed and rebooted, those were scary and they still are. Error helped Blue and I adjust, helping us figure out Blue’s glitching triggers. Stress being a big one. I’m grateful for his help, though I may not like him.” Stretch said, lighting another cigarette. “And now the most important question ever asked... Who wants to join the Error protection squad? I'll make badges!” “ME!” Blue cried out, eyes glowing big and blue as he smiled. “Don’t forget about us!” Cross said and Error sighed as he buried himself in his outfit as everyone announced how they would join. “It’s ok Error. I’d defend you, but I don’t need a badge.” Dream said and Error smiled, he was glad his family would defend him. He felt safe, and he felt loved. “What is the worst timeline or version of this universe any of you have ever experienced? I mean, this is a multiverse. What are the darkest reaches of it?” “Aside from our own personal trauma, I think it was one of those torture AUs.” Nightmare said, and Cross snapped his fingers, realizing what Nightmare meant. “Yeah, where the people exist only to be beaten and broken, no hope, no dreams, no reason and will to live. There’s also HorrorLustFell.” Cross said and everyone shuddered. “‘Nough said.” Dust announced and everyone nodded. “Frisk you know a genocide is technically impossible because you never kill annoying dog ps what do you think of annoying dog?” “The annoying dog doesn’t count, and I never get to Alphys or the people she evacuated either. And the dog is cute, I want to cuddle them.” Frisk said, their face looking like an innocent child’s instead of a mass murderer.

Formatting is off because of glitching in my word processor. I have it fixed.

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[mittensmorgul]

Look, I know you've covered this already but I just want to reiterate how AWESOME it is that several lines and scenes of s14 were deliberately drawing our attention to the in‐betweens, to the fact that these guys have lives outside of what we seen and that they have significant moments in those off screen lives. I just fricking *love* that.

Hi hi! I know you sent this like a week ago, but I really wanted to have time to sit down and detail all the moments in s14 where they’ve used this device before replying– both for the sake of completeness in demonstrating just how critical they’ve made these “in between” spaces to the overall narrative, as well as for my own general reference purposes. :P

I’ll start by saying that the show has done this on some level from the start. I mean, the entire series begins with a cold open in 1983 before jumping 22 years into the future to begin in the “present day” of October, 2005. We begin our introduction to the story of Supernatural immediately aware that there’s already a metric fuckton of backstory we’re due to have filled in, and we’re primed to begin looking for more pieces to flesh out that history from the moment the first scene airs.

*clenches fist* STORYTELLING

I’m currently in mid-late s7 in my eternal rewatch, and even s7 uses this device MULTIPLE times. I mean, s6 does this, as well, immediately informing us that a year has passed since the events of 5.22, and gradually filling in the missing events from that gap, using Sam’s soullessness and then post-re-ensoulening amnesia about his soulless time, him “scratching the wall” and beginning to piece his own memories together, as one entry point into this “filling in the blanks of the past for full understanding of the present” storytelling device. The other major expression of this device in s6 is Castiel’s story throughout the season, which doesn’t truly begin to fill in all the blanks and answer all the questions until episode TWENTY.

(I am not defending this storytelling choice, because in s6 it served as a metaphorical “punishment,” which is still so skeevy I struggle to watch the season as a whole… in Gamble Era, characters are “punished” for remembering their past– Sam for his guilt over what he did while soulless, and eventually Cas for his hubris in believing he could devour the souls of purgatory without consequences… and again, what I get from Gamble Era overall is an unkindness to all the characters… this Erasure of Identity. For years now, I’ve read this exchange from 6.09 as a bit of an indictment of the story of that era by Ben Edlund:

SAM: So you’re saying having a soul equals suffering.DEAN: Yes, that’s exactly what I’m saying.SAM: Like, the million times you almost called Lisa. So you’re saying suffering is a good thing.DEAN: I’m saying it’s the only game in town.

but back to the point)

S7 employed this technique in really in-your-face obvious ways, showing us time skips with little montages that cover several weeks in a matter of less than a minute, during which we’re shown the tone of the events of the “missing time” and are being told directly how to fill in those blanks:

7.01 shows this montage through Dean repairing Baby while receiving occasional updates on Sam’s recovery and Cas’s Godstiel rampage.

7.03 gives us a montage of Dean’s healing leg while he’s relegated to the sofa in the cabin watching tv… weeks elapse like this before the action picks up again.

7.10 uses flashbacks as Bobby lays dying to directly show us a fuller snapshot of who he is as a character, and why he’s been so important to Sam and Dean as their adoptive father figure

7.11 uses another “weeks pass” montage to show us Sam and Dean’s grief and their respective ways of handling Bobby’s loss

7.17 uses another flashback montage as Castiel literally rebuilds his identity from these moments… can’t really be more anvilicious than this about the import of filling in the narrative gaps…

But over the years, this has evolved in the narrative from these blatantly obvious tells to something we’re being low-level reminded of in nearly every episode through a constant implicit assumption that these characters have lives outside of what we see on The Magic Rectangle for 42 minutes a week. The show’s gone from literally subtitling these scenes and telling us exactly what we’re seeing to requiring our assumption that all we need to learn how to fill in the blanks is to assume these are actually real people who casually reference things we never knew before from their own lives and assume we know all the characters well enough by now to correctly fill in the blanks they so casually point out to us, or even expand on vast swaths of otherwise “missing time” from what we actively see of their lives from an otherwise minor comment made in passing…

Gosh, ain’t it nice when writers assume their audience is actually intelligent, considerate, engaged, and caring like this? Honestly in this day and age of GOTCHA! oneupsmanship, of authors attempting to demonstrate their intellectual superiority over their audience, it’s rather refreshing.

One more thing before we jump right into s14. Dabb and Company have been “educating” us on how to read these subtextual instructions for years now. We had the Mixtape Revelation in 12.19 that idiotically devolved into fandom arguments over what a mixtape itself was intended to symbolize, with people arguing that the thing itself had no inherent romantic implications (which… wow… but people be dumb sometimes…). I’d argue that regardless of what anyone has convinced themselves the gift meant symbolically (or didn’t mean symbolically for people with their heads shoved so far up their butts they actually made that argument in a public forum with a straight face and actually got mad about folks who actually know better…), what it meant NARRATIVELY was that the original gifting of the tape was something that had happened in the past, that we-the-audience previously had no knowledge of this particular interaction between Dean and Cas, and were being SPECIFICALLY TOLD that even though WE DID NOT SEE IT HAPPEN ON SCREEN, it absolutely, definitely, CANONICALLY ACTUALLY HAPPENED regardless of that fact.

Not only did that unseen exchange canonically happen, it was discussed by Dean and Cas in a casual fashion, as if it was simply one moment in a past filled with moments just like it. In a season where the episodes leading up to this one were filled with comments about Dean and Cas calling each other regularly (conversations that we never see, yet are informed casually happen constantly offscreen), and Dean’s increasing distress over NOT being able to reach Cas for several episodes, it’s impossible NOT to draw the conclusion that this lack of communication is HIGHLY IRREGULAR and therefore SOMETHING WE SHOULD ALL BE CONCERNED ABOUT. We didn’t need to *see* all of this to apply this fact far more broadly to the entire narrative, and understand there were massive gaps between what they could show us in 42 minutes a week versus what the baseline background life is for all of these characters in those between-times.

They doubled down on this in s13, specifically in 13.06, both with the “Dean and Cas regularly watch movies together” comments AND in the casual knowledge Cas shares with Jack about Dean’s sleeping and coffee drinking habits. It’s not just these isolated facts that we’re supposed to take away from these sorts of exchanges, but what they mean in the larger context of their off-camera interactions and relationship as a whole.

So that said, let’s move on to s14, where this has honestly evolved to the next level. The rest of this is going under a cut for now, because the totality of this post is something like 7700 words...

14.01, Stranger in a Strange Land:

The season begins with a montage of Dinkle’s actions over a period of weeks, talking to different people and asking what they want. We don’t see every one of these conversations, but we can extrapolate out from the ones we DO see and infer how all of those experiences guide his subsequent actions (as well as Dean’s subsequent emotional and psychological state later down the road).

But we’re shown one more of those conversations INDIRECTLY, from an offhand comment of another character, where we’re both reminded of Dinkle’s little conversations, AND reminded that they don’t constitute the sum total of those conversations. There is much we haven’t seen (and will NOT see, because this scene renders any additional on-screen time to cover the tone and content of those conversations superfluous and redundant), and yet we still understand the importance and gravity of Dinkle’s entire occupation during those missing weeks:

Kip:You see, recently, I had a revelation. You know, somebody asked me what it was that I wanted. And I realized that after 600 years as a demon walking the planet, destroying, drinking, defiling – you know, the Three D’s – I didn’t know. So, I sat back, and I gave it a good think, and I realized exactly what I wanted.Castiel: And what is it?Kip: Everything.

We also see this from the other side of the narrative– through the progression of events occurring at the Bunker in Dean’s absence. Sam’s despair is conveyed not only in dialogue in his conversation with Mary, it’s conveyed through just how poorly he’s looking after his own wellbeing, not shaving (visual confirmation of his mindset informing us of what his life’s been like over the previous weeks), not eating or sleeping (we’re told, and believe because of how he’s presenting himself, but also emotionally informs us of how he’s been affected by his ordeal), while simultaneously having stepped up to lead the army of AU Hunters– i.e. people from a world where war against Michael has been their lives for more than a decade, and are literally bringing that experience to THIS world, metaphorically going back to the start of their own battle to a world where Michael is only BEGINNING to enact that war on this world, who now have the experience of having survived that war and the knowledge gained while having fought against it, but also a chance to stop it before it can be allowed to start again. Or that is the hope, you know?

We’re also seeing Jack struggle with guilt, with adapting to life without the magical powers he’d been born with, and being forced to confront what is truly important to him, and what his own humanity means to him.

We’re subtly being reminded of VAST quantities of canon upon which the current character developments are resting.

14.02, Gods and Monsters:

There’s a lot of “backtracing” through character arcs in this one, which I’m gonna boil down to the general themes:

Jack seeking out his familial history, seeking out Kelly Kline’s parents to make a personal connection to his mother’s past in order to better understand himself now

Cas relating parts of his own past to Jack (falling and becoming human, not mourning the past he can’t change but finding strength in himself regardless of his current circumstance, and to have patience while his circumstance will change in future) (aside to remind folks that this setup at the beginning of the season is entirely about subverting his words through his own actions throughout the season… with 14.14 being the massive turning point again for both Jack and Cas)

Nick’s setup of beginning to fill in the blanks from his own life after a decade of having lost everything to his possession by Lucifer. He’s got a lot of catching up to do, and a heck of a lot of blanks to fill.

the absolute knowledge that the show is 100% aware of how they’ve trained us to look at the narrative this deeply, using character mirrors, foreshadowing, parallels, etc., and that they’re keen to use this power against us. And it’s up to us to understand the difference between “things being presented to us for the purposes of subversion” and “things being presented to us to fill in narrative blanks.” Like the entirety of Dinkle’s conversations with both Dean and Lydia the vampire. Heck I’m already down to bullet points and I’m gonna need to extrapolate on this one… *sighs*

Let’s start simple, with a couple of quotes:

Michael: Why do you think I dumped your brothers and sisters in plain sight? Why do you think I let you escape?Lydia: You let me escape?Michael: Rule number 1 – you can’t have a trap without bait. That brings us to rule number 2, which says once the trap has been sprung, you don’t need the bait anymore.

and

Dean: Get… out!Michael: I don’t think so.Dean: You can’t!Michael: Oh, but I can. Because, see… I own you. So hang on and enjoy the ride.

Because the first defines and contextualizes the second… Do I really need to elaborate? No? Oh good, then we can move on!

14.03, The Scar:

Again, using the trope of amnesia and memory recovery to illustrate the emotional and psychological impact of “missing time,” if not the entirety of the content of that missing gap. In addition, to Dean recovering his memories and demonstrating his reaction to his own lost time, the two respective cases of the week (Darth Kaia, learning how she came to this universe, and everything she’s endured at Dinkle’s hands also informing further the information we learned in 14.01, and in the bunker Jack and Cas helping heal Lora of a witch’s curse that was literally stealing time from her in the form of her own life energy).

I love demonstrating how “filling narrative gaps from the past” is not only built into the inherent structure of the narrative like this, it’s also the entire purpose of all the character development we’re witnessing, as well as setting the foundation of the entire story going forward.

We had that in spades from Jody, putting in plain words what we all saw happening in 13.10:

Jody: They have a right to know but I can’t. I promised Claire human cases are mine, but anything “monstery” I’d loop her in: this. God. Claire’s been doing so good. I mean anything connected to Kaia, she’s a powder keg. First loves strikes quick, and then to lose it like that. Wow, you two are having a time of it.

Confirming the subtext of Claire and Kaia’s relationship, while simultaneously informing us of what Jody, Claire, et al’s lives have been like since then, filling in a huge narrative gap with just a few innocuous comments. But there’s one more example from within the span of this episode:

Sam: Okay, look, I’m just saying… you said you let Michael in, then, bang you’re back in a blink. But for me? You were gone for weeks. I didn’t know if you were alive. I just need you to talk to me, to slow down so I can catch up.

Sam, defining the narrative gap and begging for information to fill it with. And then at the end of the episode, he gets an answer, but it’s nothing like what he expected or hoped for:

Dean: And it wasn’t a blink, being possessed. I make it sound like that, but it wasn’t. I don’t remember most of what Michael did with me because I was underwater, drowning, and that I remember. I felt every second of it – clawing, fighting for air. I thought I could make it out, but I couldn’t. I wasn’t strong enough. And now he’s gone and he’s out there putting an army of monsters together and he’s hurting people. And its all on me, man. I said yes. It’s my fault.

And it’s still not really an answer.

14.04, Mint Condition:

Narrative gap reshuffle yahtzee. I’m just gonna give a few links to meta already written for this one, because it’s about the journey, and being informed enough to pay attention to all the sights along the roadside as we go:

https://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/179792849870/when-in-doubt-sing-mittensmorgul-i

https://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/181790806615/questions-and-their-empty-spaces

https://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/179742780230/mittens-help-dean-says-he-loves-hatchet-man

https://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/179734411135/i-love-there-wasnt-any-acknowledgement-about-dean

https://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/179724128520/stuarts-my-best-friend-we-watch-movies-and-eat

(gotta throw in at least one destiel reference…)

https://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/179700702490/hey-mittens-just-wondering-if-you-could-help-me

And because this reading list is already getting long, I just want to use this post to point out how the use of narrative mirrors informs our understanding of those one-off characters through our established understanding of the main characters, enabling those mirror characters to serve their function in the story. Davy was not subtle with pointing that out in this episode, and it’s an essential tool in understanding the bigger picture of the narrative. But it’s also a device in filling narrative gaps by recognizing and applying the subtextual lessons being demonstrated:

https://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/179695858820/a-few-observations-on-the-mirror-characters

So this isn’t just about individual lines at this point, but an entire narrative shift that the writers spent the entire first half of s14 laying out for us through these sorts of storytelling lessons hidden just under the surface of the story itself. Brilliant.

Basically, if you’re NOT making these connections and using your brain to flesh out the entire world pointed at in the narrative gaps, you don’t really have a hope of understanding the bigger story.

14.05, Nightmare Logic:

Aah, the superpowered djinn, 3D walking metaphor for filling in gaps from the past to find wholeness in the present. Also, one of Michael’s “monster traps” he laid out in order to lure in and kill unwary hunters, which he believed (and the monsters themselves believed) made them more powerful, but in reality became the vehicle through which the Winchesters were eventually able to gain the upper hand… they survived the encounter and walked away with new knowledge about both themselves AND Michael’s bigger plans that had been evading them before this episode.

Information fills narrative gaps.

The djinn itself has been “enhanced” from djinn we’ve seen in the past, able to create its illusions in reality rather than only within its victims own minds. What was imaginary becomes tangible. Subtext becomes text.

We also get AU!Bobby’s backstory, which demonstrates that this alternate version of Bobby is really nothing like our original version, and the sum of his life experiences have made him who he is.

We also get another “zombie” reference, which the more I think back on this entire season (and Jack’s long obsession with zombies in general) is an interesting metaphor for this sort of viewing, not engaging with the deeper text and instead shuffling across it without looking deeper. Because pretty much every time someone suggested the monster could be a zombie, it’s definitively shown to be something much more complex once they begin to dig for answers.

(we also have Dean discussing his past, his relationship with his father, and talking about how setting that baggage aside and living in the present, and for the future, is something he’s worked long and hard to achieve for himself. And we’ve seen some of that journey for him, but this was a huge step for him, which will become profoundly more evident in 14.10 and 14.13)

14.06, Optimism:

Oh, we wanted zombie references? Well, alrighty, have some zombie references! Via the entirely self-deluded MotW character, masquerading as a person with a sad backstory of being “unlucky in love” while all the while she’s a necromancer who murdered and resurrected her boyfriend as a mindless zombie she enacts a brutal game with for her own personal pleasure: luring in suitors and letting her zombie boyfriend kill and eat them. Worst honey trap ever.

Speaking of honey, the other MotW is a fly dude who couldn’t find love among his species and exiled himself to live alone among a pile of rotting corpses of his victims. I mean… ew.

But back to our necromancer, who is a lonely librarian, who is surrounded by stories and laments that people in her town aren’t interested in stories. All the while she’s not engaging with her own reality, and has decided that her own version of the story is an accurate reflection of reality (while the rest of us shake our heads in horror because whoa no hon…)

We also learn AU!Charlie’s backstory, with the constant reminders that what Sam keeps mistaking on the surface level for “his Charlie” IS NOT HER. Man, I feel that feel, AU!Charlie.

Jack: What's 'courting?'Dean: It's what you do before you start dating.Jack: Oh, and that's the thing you do before the sex.Wanda: Sometimes you just have the sex.

Yes, Wanda. Sometimes you skip all the courting, all the emotional and interpersonal stuff, and just go right to the sex. But then you tend to just walk away after without any sort of deeper connection having been made. One night stands are fine, but they’re very different things from deep interpersonal relationships.

You can absolutely engage with Supernatural like a one night stand. The story’s fun on the surface, but ultimately the courting is what provides the deep payoff.

14.07, Unhuman Nature:

We get back to the twisted story of Nick, and his quest to understand himself. He’s filling in more of those horrific gaps in his history and getting closer to the Worst Possible Conclusions about himself. He ENJOYED being Lucifer’s vessel, and wants that feeling of power back, even if it wasn’t HIS power, just being the vehicle for that power is enough for him, more important to him than even discovering the truth about himself. At the bottom of himself, he’s just an empty douchebag-shaped vessel for pure evil.

What a fucking delight >.>

Nurse: Uh-huh. Family medical history? Let's start with the father.Dean: He's dead.Nurse: Cause of death?Castiel: He was stabbed through the heart, and he exploded.Dean: Okay, you know what? We don't have time for this. All right, he's sick. His name is Jack Kline. His father exploded. There, you've got all the basics. Now what does he need to do to see a doctor?

Well that simplified the whole “filling in the backstory through the narrative negative spaces” thing in this episode, didn’t it?

Jack: Since I've been alive, everyone assumed that I would be this special 'person' who goes on forever. Only now it looks like forever might be a couple of weeks, so--Dean: We don't know that.Jack: What I do know is I'm done being special. Before my life is over, I want to live it. I just want a chance to get a tan or see a hockey game... get a parking ticket... get bored... and when it's all over -- die.

I mean, isn’t that what all of TFW kind of wants? They want to not be “special.” They want the universe to stop picking on them specifically. They want to just live their lives until they’re done.

Jack: You once told me you and your father did the exact same thing. It was your happiest memory of him.Dean: I didn't say that.Jack: It was how you said it. I could tell. I guess my point is that if I don't make it... The stuff I'd miss -- it wouldn't be things like Tahiti. Or the Taj Mahal. I'd miss more time with you. I'm getting that life isn't all these big, amazing moments. It's time together that matters. Like this.Dean: Well, who'd have thought hanging out with me would make you sentimental?

Dude. Dean. Everyone thought this. You are the king of “family is the most important thing in the universe without which I am nothing.” Talk about Jack filling in that particular blank for you.

14.08, Byzantium:

Aka that one where we discover something important to Jack in his own Heaven-- and it’s literally a missing scene from 13.06 and their road trip to Dodge City where they stop for burgers. UNPROBLEMATIC FAMILY BONDING IS JACK’S HEAVEN. And it also fills in a past narrative gap, specifically from an episode that was structured around filling in narrative gaps. WE’RE THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS, PEOPLE.

We also have the return of Lily Sunder, now grown old since she’d completed her revenge quest against Ishim and the other angels who’d wronged her (including Cas, who literally killed Ishim FOR her). Talk about filling in a lifetime worth of gaps, and her literal near-lack of a soul she “fills in” through one final sacrifice made of love, which earns her redemption and entrance to Heaven.

I mean… those narrative gaps are looking pretty important here right about now.

Also, what’s that other big gap I haven’t mentioned yet? Oh, right! A villain literally known as “The Empty.” I’m sure that’s not meta relevant to the importance of the narrative empty spaces at all...

14.09, The Spear.

Sequel to The Scar (since the spear is what left Dean with the scar in the first place, so we’re back on our Dinkle nonsense again). There’s a lot of blank-filling going on in this episode.

Remember Garth? Well, as he’s reintroduced in this episode it appears as if he’s gone over to the Dark Side, but of course we learn he’s actually there as a deep cover agent for the Winchesters. This tells us they’ve been keeping in close touch with Garth all this time, despite us not having seen him on screen in ages. (FIVE YEARS!)

Remember Ketch? Well, he’s also doing deep cover agency stuff for the Winchesters, but with a level of incompetence that reminds us all that he’s still not one of the good guys, no matter how hard he’s trying, he’s still… falling a bit short. But at least they’re still keeping contact with him. And BOTH of these characters appearing after a while offscreen reminds us that TFW truly aren’t alone in the world, and they DO have this network of people (at varying degrees of competence still ranging from typical bumbling civvie to TFW themselves).

This entire episode was also a massive reference to Die Hard. Just… it was Die Hard: Supernatural. And we know Dean has referenced this movie endlessly. But the funniest thing: Die Hard isn’t actually referenced ONE SINGLE TIME in text in this episode. Nobody points out the similarities between the situation at the Hitomi Plaza at Christmas with Die Hard. Narrative negative space ftw.

And then we have the reveal that Michael had somehow left a “secret back door” open into Dean, and was able to just jump right back into him when it was convenient to do so. I.e., when he was losing the fight to Dean. He had a cheat code at the ready, because his possession of Dean had been operating on cheat code rules since the start in 13.23. His entire possession of Dean was a violation of the “standard rules of angel possession.” Consent of the vessel being primary. Even BAD consent has been enough in the past-- tricking the vessel into saying yes, backing them into a corner. I mean, remember s5 and the horrors Zachariah was willing to go to in order to secure Dean’s yes? Not even manipulation here with this version of Michael. Even if the face of Dean’s abject rejection of his possession, he refused to vacate the premises. Which is an interesting narrative blank to fill in, yes? Angels may have these rules, but for some reason-- is it Michael’s supreme power? Is it the fact Dean is his “destined vessel?” is it a factor of this Michael being from an alternate universe that might operate on different rules? Is it a factor of Dean’s own lack of conviction in his demand that Michael get out? Whatever it is… it is interesting.

We also catch up with Darth Kaia, who after months of balking at the notion, hands over her spear to Dean with the promise that he’ll return it after he kills Michael. It would solve her ongoing problems with the monsters Michael had been relentlessly sending after her. But he also promises to help her find her way back to her own universe. And now we don’t even know if any of that is possible… (aside to say that I’m now crying over the loss of Wayward again, and I feel this lack of resolution here is a damn pointed statement on that from Bobo.)

14.10, Nihilism.

Nihilism being a descriptor of Michael’s basic personality, in this case.

The most long-term relevant narrative negative spaces in this episode are Sam and Cas venturing into Dean’s mind, and literally using what they know about Dean to find where Michael had locked him away. They literally rely on their knowledge of who he is as a person as a map to find him, and then as a codex to actually get through to him and break him out of the illusion Michael had trapped him in. And then they all turn around and weaponize all of that to lock Michael away in Dean’s mind fridge.

Metaphors, anyone?

Meanwhile, Michael literally insists he’s telling everyone the truth about how Dean really feels about them, but it’s all… ALL OF IT… a manipulation and a lie.

(aside to admit that at this point I have been working on this post on and off for the last 12 hours, can barely remember what the point of it even was, and regret everything. I think we were supposed to be discussing Narrative References To Stuff That Happens On Screen, but at this point, that is so deeply intertwined with the narrative structure as a whole that I’m having trouble separating out textual references to offscreen stuff from the actual content of the story as a whole… yes this is already approaching 5k words at this point, and no I don’t care anymore :P)

14.11, Damaged Goods.

Dean is given information (that we have not yet seen) by Billie (again, offscreen) about “the only way to save the universe.”

Disclaimer to note that we STILL haven’t seen exactly what Billie showed Dean in her magical destiny book… which fact in itself can be open to myriad interpretations, because canon itself has shifted from this point in the canonical timeline to what we have actually witnessed unfold, which fundamentally differs between what Billie told Dean and what actually transpired on screen.

This… is major.

Also, Nick, and the effective end of his story… or is it? He’s finally got his personal backstory filled in, and turns out he was just a dick all along! Surprise! Because his “truth” never actually mattered to him. It was all a lie he told himself from the very first moment he was ever introduced on screen back in 5.01. He was never a good person who’d been used by Lucifer and manipulated into doing terrible things. He was always just a bad person who’d been looking for an excuse to do terrible things. Lucifer was just his excuse.

Dean fills in some horrific bits of their childhood for Mary through the metaphor of Winchester Surprise. Apparently delicious to Dean, but yikes… stuff like that’s really not healthy…

14.12, Prophet and Loss:

So, Donatello might not be as brain dead as previously believed! Let’s fill in that backstory, through a broken prophet who can’t be fully realized because Donatello’s technically not dead, so the new guy is getting a distorted message because Donatello’s interrupting the signal.

Dean asked Sam not to tell Cas about his Drama Coffin plan, but of course Sam had immediately told Cas about his drama coffin plan anyway…

CAS: Sam. Maybe if I spoke with Dean…SAM: It wouldn’t matter. Believe me, I-I I’ve never seen him like this. He won’t listen to me. H-He just – No. If we don’t find some way… Dean’s gone.

But then just a little while later, when Dean talks to Cas and learns that Cas knows his entire dumbass plan:

DEAN: Really?SAM: Dean, it’s Cas. I had to tell him.

Well, some time in the previous few hours, when Sam hasn’t been trapped in the car with Dean (which we know he has been canonically), Sam’s first priority was calling Cas to tell him about Dean’s plan. Like… duh… 

14.13, Lebanon:

I love this episode on every possible level. It drops us at the climax of a hunt and just trusts us to understand what’s going on. Someone has been murdered for their collection of supernatural artifacts, and it’s been traced to this shop, where the owner trades in dangerous artifacts… all of that happened offscreen, yet we understand the context if not the specific case itself. Beautiful.

Then we have the cursed pearl that apparently grants a wish. Dean uses it to theoretically wish that Michael was out of his head. In monkey’s paw fashion, instead of just granting the wish through the simplest means, the wish actually attempts to rewrite history (this is the sort of thing that differentiates a “cursed object” from a “magical cure”) in order to remove the root infiltration of Michael into Dean’s life… by literally bringing John Winchester into the present time from 2003, removing him from the entire timeline to this point and changing EVERYTHING.

Talk about filling a narrative negative space. Cas doesn’t know them, Dean never went to Hell. Hell, Dean never even went to collect Sam from Stanford. NOTHING from the entire history of the series as we know it actually happened AT ALL.

D:

At least we got to see Zachariah get stabbed again. Sam deserved a turn, you know? :’)

But we also have the other half of the episode-- the case in Lebanon, and seeing the Winchesters through the eyes of the locals. Talk about a HUGE reminder of the things that happen offscreen. They go to the post office, the local shops, and have a weird reputation around town, despite most of the townsfolk accepting their brand of weirdness. It’s… weirdly refreshing, seeing how they’ve gone from “hunters of urban legends” in s1 to “actual urban legends themselves” in s14. The power of storytelling at its finest.

In this case, so many personal blanks were filled in for Mary, Sam, and Dean just by being able to share a single family dinner with John in the aftermath of everything else. In the end, Sam and Dean CHOSE their own lives, and smashed the pearl with John’s blessing, putting everything back the way it was. The most powerful line in this entire episode, to me:

John: Dean. I, uh -- I never meant for this.Dean: Dad, we pulled you here.John: No, son. My fight. It was supposed to end with me, with Yellow Eyes. But now you -- you are a grown man, and I am incredibly proud of you. I guess that I had hoped, eventually, you would... get yourself a normal life, a peaceful life, a family.Dean: I have a family.

HE HAS A FAMILY. :’)

It might not be what John ever imagined for him. Or even what Mary wanted for him when she rejected the hunting life the first time around. But it’s the family Dean earned for himself. The one he CHOSE for himself. And he wouldn’t trade it for anything-- not even for the family he was born into, or a white picket fence he used to think he should have.

And then after this… everything changes… again…

14.14, Ouroboros:

Right. That one where everything changed. Where everything from Billie’s Books of Certain Prophecy to Jack’s soul to Dean’s certainty about… pretty much everything… went up in a swirling whirlpool of burning grace.

Yes, the episode where they burned the spiral narrative structure and were clearly beginning the inevitable run toward endgame. I mean it had been hinted at as a possibility before this, and 14.13 was certainly a product of the inevitability of endgame, but this episode sealed the deal.

They could’ve technically still gotten away with 14.13 as a one-off product of “very special 300th episode” and still continued down the narrative spiral that they’ve been circling for years now, but in retrospect from beyond the rest of s14, this was the official burn point.

So the story shifts radically in very fundamental ways from this point on, and reference to the past become… different. But what happens offscreen in the context of these episodes going forward takes on so much more weight as a result. We’re now “living in the present” with these characters.

We have Sam’s relationship with Rowena, which has clearly developed to the point of casual intimacy. Rowena confronts Sam in ways we’ve never seen before, demonstrating a confidence in their interactions DESPITE Billie’s assertion that Sam will be the one to “kill” her. That has strangely given her a sense of… comfort… with Sam, that’s demonstrated in the fact that they work together through this entire case-- paired off much the way Dean and Cas are.

Again, like in 14.06 and 14.13, we’re dropped into the middle of their case, and only informed that they’ve been tracing this monster through numerous other towns in this episode, requiring us to extrapolate out their entire hunt from discovering there might be a case, to the point where they’ve even brought Rowena onboard to help give them an advantage of a monster that had repeatedly eluded them.

The monster itself has an advantage in that it can literally see the future and escape before they catch him, until they discover the huge gaping hole in what it can actually see-- Cas and Jack are literally invisible to it. He can’t see THEM coming, specifically. The importance of actually reading what we DON’T see. Because if the monster hadn’t been so confident in what it COULD see, he would’ve understood that he was missing a critical piece of information-- the door literally shut itself in his vision of the future and he didn’t bother to stop and question WHY. And it was his downfall.

The narrative is telling us that missing this key gap-filling information is effectively our downfall as viewers.

14.15, Peace of Mind:

Hooray, we’re back to simple “missing scene” levels of text to latch on to, and I don’t have to swim through the whole of the narrative structure to make a comment. Wheeee! (sorry it’s been like 14 hours since I started writing this reply and I’ve achieved Peak Mental Exhaustion for it) :P

Let’s reflect on how all of the characters managed to delude themselves in this episode, and simultaneously approach their own personal concerns without actually talking to each other directly… and then instead focus on this exchange:

Dean: Oh. Hey! How was Arkansas?Sam: Arkansas was, uh It was weird.Dean: Heard you wore a cardigan.Castiel: Yeah, I told him about the cardigan.Sam: Great. Thanks.Dean: And the wife. He said you were, uh, really happy.

Yep. Proof again of offscreen communication happening, in a way I can yell and point at without having to write paragraphs to explain and defend. :P Aah, just like the simpler days of our past… which hey, is also a narrative theme of this episode! Nostalgia!

14.16, Don’t Go In The Woods:

Or, that one where we discuss why we don’t share everything with the general public, while Jack… behaves poorly with the general public, and then hides that fact from Sam and Dean. Also, we have this confirmation of offscreen conversation:

SAM: You got it. I'll grab Cas.DEAN: Mm. He actually left.SAM: What?DEAN: Early this morning.SAM: Why?DEAN: I don't know. Something about being cooped up in the bunker for a few weeks. We all need to stretch our legs. I get it.

Dean… had a whole conversation with Cas… and didn’t even mention it until Sam specifically asked about Cas. Stuff happened offscreen… big important stuff… and we’re only getting a peek at it now. Not only that-- because this will be VITAL to remember two episodes down the road-- they have been cooped up in the bunker “for a few weeks.” In 14.15 ONE EPISODE EARLIER, Dean complained to Sam that he’d been driving them literally from case to case without a break:

Sam: (Sam was in the map room flashing back to Maggie and the other hunters dying. He looked sad as he went to the kitchen) Found us a case. Arkansas.Dean: We've just done three back-to-back Hunts. I need some rest. At least a night. We both do.Sam: Yeah, well I'm leaving in ten.Dean: Like I said, not good.Castiel: Maybe I should go with him. And you can stay with Jack.

So the events of 14.16 are clearly after a hiatus of several weeks. Again, things have happened offscreen, and we’re only learning about them in the absolute most casual statement-in-passing sorts of ways, but these tiny references are pretty earth-shattering.

14.17, Game Night:

The timeline isn’t concrete, but I’ve written in several places that I believe 14.16, and 14.17 flow one into the other, just based on these subtextual sorts of cues-- Dean’s statement in 14.16 that Cas had been feeling cooped up after several weeks in the bunker, the fact that Cas had only LEFT the bunker at the beginning of 14.16 and we only see him reach his destination of talking with Anael now in 14.17  (and how long do we REALLY think it took him to find her and convince her to meet with him? Especially when the events of 14.17 take place over about 36 hours before bleeding directly into 14.18…). So this timeline that I’ve understood presupposes the gap of “several weeks” of being cooped up in the bunker to have elapsed between 14.15 and 14.16 as suddenly resolved itself into all of them willing to spend time in the bunker as a family… except for Cas, who’s on an as-yet unspecified mission.

This episode reinforces those missing scenes, through showing us the very different mission Cas is on, finally addressing the seriousness of Jack’s condition, but also paralleled through Mary’s growing suspicions of Jack that she’ll be unable to ignore by the end of the episode…

Jack even addresses this “but in that scene you didn’t see play out, this important thing happened!” IN TEXT, TO MARY:

Mary: If Sam and Dean saw what you did, they would be as worried as I am.Jack: Are you gonna tell them?Mary: You need help, we'll help you. We're your family.Jack: You can't.Mary: We care about you, Jack.

And now the things that happen offscreen have been lampshaded as being CRITICAL to understanding the whole of the story. And the divide between the two can be fatal...

14.18, Absence.

Literally, the title itself is telling us to be aware of what’s missing.

But we finally get the payoff on the “missing information” about those several weeks spent cooped up in the bunker-- Sam was literally not there. It was Dean and Cas, alone with Jack.

Sam: You know, after Maggie and the other hunters died... I just left. Just dumped Jack on Cas and left.

That happened in 14.14. The other hunters dying. But we KNOW that Sam had not left on his own at that time. He’d dragged Dean and Cas and Jack on three consecutive hunts in the aftermath of that to avoid going back to the bunker, in the run up to 14.15. THIS was the payoff of that “cooped up for weeks” comment in 14.16… because SAM hadn’t been cooped up with them. He’d dumped Jack on everyone and run off on his own after 14.15…

But this episode doesn’t stop there. It takes each character individually and pushes them through memories of the past, of Mary specifically, but those memories do so much narrative heavy lifting I can’t even begin to yell about them here. I’ll just link a post:

https://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/184195342200/you-know-when-deans-turns-around-after-that

Wait, I found that post while looking for the one I’d set to to find, but it’s in my Narrative Negative Space tag, so yay? Bonus. This is the one I’d meant to find:

https://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/184144189665/drsilverfish-mittensmorgul-mittensmorgul

There. My best thing from s14. And I’ll leave this episode at that.

Oh, and with the reminder that if Dean and Cas had truly still been at odds over Mary’s death, then Dean would not have brought Cas to Mary’s funeral pyre. Period. 

14.19, Jack in the Box.

Aka that one we’d all figured out what the big plot thing was just by the on-the-nose nature of the title, months before it aired.

At least the drama coffin got blowed up good?

14.20, Moriah:

The most meta meta to have ever meta’d. There’s not much happening offscreen in this one aside from the entire setup and premise of the episode as a whole. Again, we’re dropped into a hunt and expected to understand the setup, the legwork that’s already been done. We learn that Dean has been in touch with Cas, but they’re investigating different avenues. We see Chuck FINALLY answer Cas’s prayer for help from 14.17, but Chuck’s idea of “help” isn’t helpful in the least.

We understand the fundamental nature of the extent of the personal little lies Sam and Dean tell each other (Thanks for that one, Jack!), and therefore are being asked to reassess which comments from their past were the full, honest truth, and which were the comfortable performance they put on to maintain their own projected self-identities.

And whoa.

It’s now 3 am, and I’ve been working on this post on and off for the last 16 hours. And I am tired, and officially out of mental steam to keep thinking about it. So I’m gonna post it. All 7700 words of it. I hope this helps... :P

[cruddyborderlandstheories]

mystery punk girl

alright fellas i gotta make sure i don’t embarrass myself this time, we got like, stakes and shit now. SO *breaks fingers* let’s make a masterpost of theories

aka i heard someone was interested in some mystery punk girl theories and decided to collect all the one’s i’ve gotten so far

tl;dr: mystery punk girl could literally be anything/anyone. we go over a few theories, notably ones that paint her as a younger sibling to the Calypso twins (Tyreen = First Sister). we also have one where she is a fraternal twin to Ava and mirrors Troy as the non-Siren-twin of a relationship. we also talk about why she hasn’t been getting a lot of cultist worship, like maybe she’s gone missing, or died. also that she may betray the twins (if! she was ever on their side to begin with! 👀) because her color scheme is one of a friend and tbh the twins seem suuuper close and she doesn’t seem to be getting any recognition from the cult.

from the numskull pin page, also where we learned she’s listed as ‘Punk Girl’

so to get to the point, the most obvious theory is that mystery masked girl is the younger (est?) sibling to the twins.

when mouthpiece talks in the beginning of the HBC demo, he calls Tyreen the ‘first sister’. I mention that in a post here (during my live post spamming of the event lol)

it’s mostly interesting because when you refer to someone as ‘the first’, usually the second part of that is what you’re referring to. 

@sugar-high-viking​ brought this to my attention as well when the pins dropped, and also made a great point that she might be either a half-sibling (different colored hair), OR, to tie into my atlas theory about the twins, a similar experiment, but not blood-related (that part is in the notes of said post, i copied it here for easier reading)

which i adore because atlas twins is my favorite theory that’s probably never going to happen. (also hi if you’re reading this, sorry for the tag! i wanted to give credit because that was brilliant)

we do have a biiiit more stuff to go over.

take the mask of mayhem (yes im still working on that analysis, i promise!! i do like a facet a day if im not working on other stuff)

the whole backdrop thing feels to me like an order of importance.

we have the God Queen at the very top and in the middle. 

on her left is the vault hunters, who of course are going to have a prominent role in the story.

on her right is Troy, her right-hand man (ala the cosplay guide) 

and below Troy we have Mystery Punk Girl. can i call her MPG? i feel like i’m allowed to call her MPG

So her and Troy are about the same level as the Vault Hunters.

We can’t really infer that Tyreen is the oldest sibling (First Sister, with Troy possibly being the Second Brother? Or, Troy is the First Brother, Tyreen is the First Sister, and MPG is the Second Sister. i’d imagine the latter is correct because the former would have to use First Sibling to be correct) but we can guess that things on top are ordered in terms of importance.

And considering we haven’t seen NPG in ANY promo material or trailers yet? yeah i imagine she’s not shown off like the twins are, which would explain her lower level. now if that’s because she’s too important for them to be flashy with her, or if because they don’t think she’s worthy, or they want to protect her, or whatever, I wouldn’t be able to say.

Furthermore, we can also guess she’s not in an Angel-type situation. It’s heavily implied Ava is the Siren successor to Maya (but not officially stated). We know she has feathers on her outfit, but as I found out a bit ago, those (likely) aren’t meant to represent the wings that Tyreen and Lilith have on the MoM. They’re part of the clothing some cultists wear (possibly to emulate her looks like they do with Troy and Tyreen).

pictures for proof:

again, none of this is proven, as Ava nor Maya have wings on the MoM, but it is interesting to note. Also, if Ava does end up being a Siren (say her tattoos take a while to grow big enough for us to see, or they appear after her powers come in, fixing the Angel w/ no tattoos on jack’s desk “plot hole” we see in tps) then there’s no way for Punk Girl to have been a Siren.

unless.

ohohohoh...

okay, we know for a fact Troy’s red tattoos aren’t there because of Lilith. 

As of right now, we have officially sourced stuff showing him with his red tattoos during the HBC (on the hologram), which we’ve proven takes place before the Sanc-III scene where Lilith gets her powers stolen.

there are plenty of theories as to why he’s got those tattoos then: because the twins were conjoined, they got the powers from a vault (the one shown on the walls of the HBC), they were experiments, they were experiments because they were conjoined twins, they’re fake Sirens, fake Sirens due to the experiments, etc, etc. i could go on for ages, but im not gonna, cause we’re not here for this.

im going to take the ‘the twins were conjoined’ theory and run with it for a secco. we had that interview where paul sage said at one point either in the development cycle OR in the timeline (the wording is not clear), the twins were conjoined twins. We’ve also seen that the spanish (i believe!) translation of the Calypso Twins yields the version that says they’re conjoined, not just normal twins. so we’re going to hope it’s the right theory.

we know there can only be 6 sirens in the universe. if tyreen was chosen but was still conjoined with her brother, it’s possible he could’ve been messed up by the magic or advanced tech or whatever it is that picks Sirens, and that’s where the red tattoos come from.

So what if MPG is the same way? twin to Ava, ended up not being the one who got the Siren power, rebelled and joined the CoV in hopes of getting her own powers, maybe even to get Tyreen to heal her since it’s possible having a twin with Siren powers can cause an affliction to the other twin. 

It’d be really interesting if the two were abandoned at a young age and it ended up being that Ava was picked up by the Order of the Impending Storm and MPG wasn’t, as Ava was a Siren (like Maya) and MPG wasn’t, so she turns to the cult for help/support/whatever and the twins take a shine to her and basically adopt her as their little sibling. 

(awww maaan i still gotta do my Maya masterpost. hmmm so much to do, so little time...)

tho, that’s 100% unfounded and me spitballing into the void. mostly cause i think she’s gonna end up looking a lot older in game than she does in the MoM. though, in defense, she is titled ‘Punk Girl’, not ‘ Punk Lady’ or ‘Punk Woman’ or whatever. so there’s that, and it seems wild they’d be introducing 2 young girls around the same age and NOT have them be related in some way. even if they’re just storyline parallels to each other (Ava having everything because she’s a Siren and MPG not)

A better theory, is that she’s the 3rd leader/sibling/figurehead of the cult. The game revolves around the number 3, it’s even acknowledged in universe.

cover art of a high-ranking cultist (the one with the rakk wings on the MoM, im assuming)

which is referenced in actual in-game art

we see it in the background of the behind closed doors intro

and i imagine there must be an in-universe reason for this very important cultist (TM) to be signalling the number three, right?

there’s certainly more than 3 Vaults. More than 3 opened at the time too. 

3 pieces to the Vault Map? but the twins got that in its entirety. no reason to look for all three parts.

once lily gets her powers removed, there are 3 Sirens in play (that we know are 100% confirmed atm) Tyreen, Maya, Amara.

yeah, i think the most reasonable answer is that the number 3 is tied to the cult in some way.

while i find it hard to believe she’s something as prominent in the cult as a third figurehead (lack of statues, posters, acknowledge at all whatsoever), i could 100% see her being a third sibling, however.

So why isn’t she being worshipped like the twins? Maybe they’re keeping her out of the light for a reason. 

Maybe she’s sick, like Troy, but Ty can’t heal her right away for some reason, or she picked Troy over her or smth (we’re told troy is the smart one, afterall, maybe Ty decided to pick the sibling she’d get the most use out of. or the one she’s closer to, being twins and all). 

I had that dumb theory that Tyreen is Demeter (Troy is Demophon) and MPG is Persephone, taken away by the Vaults/Eridians/whatever in the twins’ attempt to heal her and either it locked her away somewhere, or it killed her. (Her being sick could also explain the ventilator she’s wearing, but i have another theory about that in just a secco.) And her being missing/dead is part of the reason Tyreen and Troy are trying to get the ultimate power, they’re trying to bring her back to life/heal her. And it could explain why she isn’t being referenced at all in most worship art, maybe the twins banned it or whatever. but if she is sick, i wonder why she wasn’t just miraculously healed by the Guardians (the Watcher specifically?) like whatsherface in TPS.

She could also be something like their secret weapon, maybe she has knowledge about something we don’t yet- be it warp travel, eridium testing, Sirens, Vaults, Eridians, etc, that’s giving the twins the better edge. Eridium testing could explain the ventilator, plus we see a giant waterfall of somethin’ glowing purple and i would bet it’s slag/eridium. 

plus you know im a strong believer of my ‘the twins are using the chemical sludge of elpis to give their followers superpowers’ theory. i mean, if they actually are teleporting the moon (and NOT blowing it up), then it could almost make sense if they want their source of superjuice near their new base of operations/vault/whatever. mostly because we haven’t yet seen Ty give anyone Lily’s powers. As far as we know right now, she’s the sole holder of Lilith’s powers. at the very least, they’re mutating them with eridium/slag. but i wanna believe! so maybe MPG is their way of doing that. giving them insider knowledge of the chemical sludge on the moon, doing tests on it, subjecting the cultists to it, etc. We do see the big boy cultist smack dab in the middle of the mask with rakk wings, which are kind of a corruption of the angel wings we see the Sirens have. and since the Lost Legion Eternal basically have knockoff Siren/Guardian powers due to the chemical sludge on elpis, it would make sense.

she COULD also be our way into the cult. we know nothing about the gal, maybe she’s going to provide us a way to get insider knowledge. im sure whatever the twins post they’re fine with their cultists seeing, so we’d need someone higher up in the proverbial ladder to give us the good info. i do think it’s interesting she does not match the Twins’ colorscheme at ALL. she’s gray and black, yeah, but she’s also pink and orange (yellow?). 

compare these two

to this:

it seems off that, if we are to consider them a unit, their colors clash so hard. (seriously, red and pink? oh my god!) I could almost see it as their way of hinting that she’s not 100% conforming to the twins.

I could also kinda see her being jealous of the relationship her older siblings have, how they’re so close because they’re twins and they share this bond over the Siren tattoos/starting a cult together. I could see her betraying them at some point because she’s sick of being pushed into the background. the pink and orange is a nice color combo compared to the reds and blacks. she certainly looks designed to be a friend.

anyway, that’s all i wrote today. im kinda tied, might add onto this later as i keep wrackin’ my brain trying to think of more theories.

[the-wonder-duo]

Random Ass Update #3

This one is dedicated to all you shits that can’t read. 

A tsunami rocked the West coast. In light of the ongoing investigation into InvisaInk’s death, we decided that it’d be best if Deku went alone to aid with recovery efforts. 

Thousands died. Recovery efforts are still ongoing.

 If you’ve got the means, you oughta donate to the Japan Relief and Recovery Fund. 

I stayed in the East. 

Answered some shit questions between patrols. Told you fucks about Deku’s questionable taste in music. 

PSA: I’m better than Deku at everything. 

Deku kept in touch while he was in the Nagano through audio logs and holocalls. 

There were sightings of someone that might’ve looked like me. At the time, I dismissed it as bullshit. 

Explosions rocked the streets of Hosu. The cause was not determined. 

Get your conspiracy theory asses off my blog. 

I was arrested after an attack in Hosu; Okane Trust & Banking Company had been robbed in an explosive attack. 

The Hero Police Force  released a statement revealed that on-site video surveillance captured footage of me at the scene, though the security system experienced technical difficulties only moments later. 

Sweat and hair analysis also placed me at the scene. 

Deku came back— even though I told him to stay in the East. Even though he was supposed to stick to the West to help tsunami victims. 

There were protests. I guess some of you lot aren’t complete dickheads, after all. 

Thanks. 

I was drugged with Quirk suppressants. Standard procedure for those that’re being detained. 

My body didn’t react that well to ‘em. 

Footage of the bank robbery was leaked.

Deku compiled evidence to prove that I was innocent. 

When presenting his argument to the detectives who were in charge of the investigation, Deku was dismissed without any consideration. 

Asshole discovered that I was gonna be transferred to a maximum security prison even though I hadn’t even been arrested in any official capacity. Hadn’t even been charged of any crimes. 

Idiot broke me out of jail. 

Words don’t even begin to express what I felt. 

That idiot has so much going for him, you know? Wouldn’t have partnered up with him if he weren’t a damn good hero. He lives to help others. Dunno if he could live without it. 

And that could’ve been the end of it. Right there. 

He would’ve given it up. Thrown it all away. 

For me. 

You’re an idiot, Deku. 

We were pursued by Pros and police, but we managed to make it to the sewers. Since we’d spent weeks combing through them, we knew them pretty well. 

Took refuge in an undocumented Quirk shelter. 

Deku’d scheduled a leak of information to be posted onto the blog before he’d left. To tell everyone that he could of what had really happened, and to show why I wasn’t guilty of the crimes that I’d been accused of. 

Here’s the gist of what he wrote: 

I’m sure that the people who were responsible for kidnapping Kacchan are those who are responsible for InvisaInk, and do not say that without backing. The proof is in the visual evidence that has already been uploaded online by multiple sources; I suspect that the footage that was sent to me last night will be uploaded before long, as well. 

Most would say that those leaked stills that show an apparent Kacchan robbing a bank appear to be wrong, somehow. And those conclusions would be correct. 

There’s the obvious— the haircut, for one, which doesn’t at all match was Kacchan is currently sporting —but then there’s the more subtle (for those who don’t know Kacchan as well as I do, anyways). 

The imposter in the video is a mirror image of the actual Bakugou Katsuki.

 Upon reviewing some of the footage taken by crowd’s phones that day in the park— the day the fake InvisaInk confronted the both of us—I can see now that that InvisaInk was a mirror image of the actual InvisaInk, as well; for those that want obvious proof, I suggest slowing the video down to a fourth of it’s usual speed and pausing as InvisaInk lifts his gun to Kacchan’s head— you can see the visible outline of InvisaInk’s tattoo as his shirt sleeves rides up— on his left arm. 

The actual InvisaInk’s tattoo was located on his right arm. 

A closer examination of each of their features has further proved that this person is, in fact, able to create mirror images of their target— given what they’ve known to have taken from both Kacchan and InvisaInk, I can only infer that they use bone marrow to supply this transformation with the aid of their Quirk. 

This also shows why the YouTube video uploaded of the fake InvisaInk’s spiel had actually seemed to be right for both Kacchan and I— before the video had been uploaded, the murderers had actually edited and flipped the footage, so that the person being displayed was on the correct side again.

 And yes, I did say murderers— because I believe this to be the work of not just one person, but at least two. Further inspection of the sight of the bank blast and an analysis of the explosion has proven that yes, while Kacchan’s actual sweat had ignited the ensuring explosion, it had blown the wall upon from inside the bank— he hadn’t entered from the outside, as witnesses and the footage depict of the alleged “Ground Zero.” 

I have come to the conclusion that the second accomplice is one that harvests body parts in order to gain use of that target’s Quirk; for InvisaInk, the murderers harvested his skin, and for Kacchan— his hands. 

The same hands that were taken from him months ago. During his kidnapping— which had been so similar to that of InvisaInk’s. 

Chillingly, a closer look at footage captured at the Charity Smash event depicts a person that looks eerily similar to InvisaInk— with the exception of his height, his hair, and his features. In fact, his skin seems to be the only startling match— a comparison shows that the freckles on this man’s face exactly match those of InvisaInk’s. 

‘Course it wasn’t me. 

I’d never pull a stunt like that. 

I’m a goddamn hero. 

Anyways, some numbskull who’d just been released from their own interrogation actually managed to snap a pic of Deku breaking me out of there. 

Didn’t cower in the sewers, though. 

We found the fuckers that were responsible for what had happened. 

Had some help from another Pro Hero, Earphone Jack. 

Deku kept more of a level head than I did, admittedly. 

I dunno. I guess it was harder than I ever would’ve imagined it’d be. Keeping my cool. When the sick bastards that skinned InvisaInk alive were right in front of me. 

Chased ‘em to a crowded street, police got involved, caught the murderers, and gave ourselves up.

Seems like they might’ve been two of Backlash’s lackeys, but in all goddamn honesty, they seem like a pair of those Anti-Quirk Liberation League nutjob extremists. ‘Least, they seem that way to me. 

Toga Akane was one of ‘em. Sister of Toga Himiko, who gained some fame from working as member of the League of Villains some years back. 

She’s in possession of a Quirk that allows her to become a mirror image of anyone who’s bone marrow she consumes. 

Claims she hates her sister. That people like her are the scum of the Earth. That people like herself are scum of the Earth. That people like them ought not to exist, and that their actions— and more importantly, their Quirks —are proof of that. 

Says that she did it for the greater good. Part of a way of showing once and for all that Quirks ought to be eliminated— part of a way to show us all how they ruin lives. 

The Anti-Quirk Liberation League won’t claim her. Say that they don’t associate themselves with common criminals, and that they’re horrified and repulsed by her actions. 

Last I heard, she’s attempted suicide at least twice since the beginning of her imprisonment.

The other murderer was Hada Dorobō. Possessed an undocumented Quirk that snatches the abilities of other Quirks through imbibing body parts conducive to the utilization of other Quirks. 

Appears that the sick bastard can only snatch one Quirk at a time; if he tries to take on another, the body part that he stole rots off of him. 

Deku and I were released after Lead Detective Naomasa discovered that the secretary to the Senior Commissioner had been, essentially, brainwashing most of the force via email. Had a Quirk that affected perception through written word. 

It’s been confirmed that the Senior Commissioner was bribed to ignore these criminal acts, and both of ‘em have been arrested. S’why the force had been acting so unreliably recently.

 Originally, we were given a week of house arrest and ‘till the first of June of suspension, but that was changed to house arrest ‘till the first a few days ago. 

After the first, we’ll be allowed to work as Pro Heroes again. 

So we’ve been sitting around the house ‘till then. 

Answered some more questions. 

Deku revealed that he’s come across a Quirk that allowed the wielder’s dick to function like a compass. Pointed towards what the user really wanted, apparently. 

I think that Deku’s a gullible dumbass and that it was just a boner. 

Deku doesn’t wanna be the number one hero anymore. 

He wants to be the best hero. 

A great hero. 

Fuck you, Deku. 

There’s been some fallout. Apparently you can’t just break outta jail and expect to be considered a shining example of heroism by everyone. 

Who would’ve imagined that. 

I don’t give a damn what you have to say about it. Yeah, breaking me out was a stupid move, and yeah, it could’ve been so much worse, but you know what? Deku’s still a hero in my eyes. 

In case you’ve lived under a rock for the past decade, you ought to know that the leader of the League of Villains is dead. 

My biggest rival made a comeback.

Played some games. 

One of ‘em was perverted as hell. Our publicist is a real piece of work, putting that crap together. 

Truth or Dare ended with a naked Deku in my bed. 

Deku worried too damn much about it. 

It’s fine. Fucking weird, and awkward, and yeah, I was pissed that he pulled something like that just ‘cause he thought he could get some info that I wouldn’t hand over to him on a silver platter, but the fuck got too caught up in that. 

Culminated in Deku putting himself into a slump. 

Asshole told me that it’d be best if we didn’t share a bed for now. 

Informed him of how goddamn stupid he is. 

And then I told him to come to bed. 

For better or for worse, we’re a team. 

Shitnerd’s just gonna have to accept it. 

We’re not fucking. 

And we’re more than ready to go back to work already. 

[coffeebooksorme]

Heart of Iron by Ashley Poston review

GOODREAD’S SYNOPSIS:  Seventeen-year-old Ana is a scoundrel by nurture and an outlaw by nature. Found as a child drifting through space with a sentient android called D09, Ana was saved by a fearsome space captain and the grizzled crew she now calls family. But D09—one of the last remaining illegal Metals—has been glitching, and Ana will stop at nothing to find a way to fix him. Ana’s desperate effort to save D09 leads her on a quest to steal the coordinates to a lost ship that could offer all the answers. But at the last moment, a spoiled Ironblood boy beats Ana to her prize. He has his own reasons for taking the coordinates, and he doesn’t care what he’ll sacrifice to keep them. When everything goes wrong, she and the Ironblood end up as fugitives on the run. Now their entire kingdom is after them—and the coordinates—and not everyone wants them captured alive. What they find in a lost corner of the universe will change all their lives—and unearth dangerous secrets. But when a darkness from Ana’s past returns, she must face an impossible choice: does she protect a kingdom that wants her dead or save the Metal boy she loves?

Sci-Fi Anastasia retelling in space? Count me in! I mean, c’mon, just from that one sentence alone and the synopsis, this book sounds like it would be awesome! Unfortunately, this book was just not my cup of tea. At 461 pages, this book was way too long and crammed full of stuff that either didn’t matter to the story, was left to shove into the last 100 or so pages, or wasn’t done well at all, IMO.

The book is told from four different perspectives: Anna, D09, Robb, and Jax. I enjoyed D09 and Jax’s POV’s the most but the other two were boring and felt like they dragged on and on despite the fact that POVs quite often shifted after only 4 or 5 pages. For me, that quick of a shift leaves much to be desired in connecting with the characters and actually, y’know, caring about the characters.

The rest will be put under a cut cause I’m about to get spoilery!

Ana, our long lost princess, is completely and totally in love with D09, the robot who’s been her protector for as long as she can remember. Not only was that way too weird for me to get into but the backstory given to D09 made it squick me the hell out. Apparently he’s a computer program mixed with the personality of the son of our books Rasputin. Also, there was a part that inferred that he was childhood friends with Ana’s father. EXCUSE ME, WHAT!? So, you’re telling me that not only is D09, aka Di, a robot, but he’s a robot infused with the personality of a guy that is old enough to be her father? Ew, no. Hard pass on that one, folks.

Robb is Ana’s cousin and...I’m having a hard time really even explaining his point to this story. He buys coordinates that lead our motley crew to a long lost fleet (how does one lose a fleet of ships?!) that leads to the ‘metal’ that inevitably turns into D09′s new body (which also looks exactly like Rasputin’s son) and helps unfurl one hell of a hidden history. See, even just trying to explain his point in this book gets convoluted and over done. Short of being part of a gay couple (which was rushed and really developed out of nowhere) he didn’t really hold any sort of significance to the book at all.

Jax is my favorite. He’s the pirate ships pilot and a Solani, which is a race of people that can apparently read someones stars aka a jacked up palm reader. He’s funny, he’s caring, he’s badass, and he’s got a super secret history that we barely touched upon in the story. I would’ve much rather had a book about him, his people, and his story than this travesty of a retelling. He’s the last of his kind that can read someones stars and apparently doing so takes time off your life span. He’s by far the most intriguing character and we barely touched the tip of the iceberg with him.

THERE WAS FAR TOO MUCH GOING ON IN THIS STORY AND I FELT LIKE I DIDN’T READ ANYTHING!

A Goddess based religion that Ana is the long lost Goddess reincarnated to save the people from ‘The Great Dark’

A plague that decimated the people until Rasputin (that’s not his name but I’m calling him that) decided to use the corpses personalities to help boost his robots because the robots weren’t good enough without some sort of emotional connection. Oh, he did this because he’s a sycophant who wanted an army to help fight The Great Dark.

A henchwoman who’s the leader of the HIVE’d metals (a malware program that glitched against its maker Rasputin) that wants to take over the kingdom

Magical powers of the Solani that were barely explained

Loads of death that had no point whatsoever other than shock value

Honestly, this book would have been way better had Ashley ended it with the twist of all the metals being the corpses from the plague. That would have been a good enough ending to leave readers clamoring for more. But no, we had to blunder on for another hundred and sum pages in the story for D09 (Di) to be HIVE’d and crowned the next Emperor of the kingdom while our merry band of survivors jet off into space to lick their wounds and make a plan to help take the kingdom back.

Oh, lemme not forget that it had an Iron Throne, an evil mother who wanted her abusive jackass son as Emperor (coughCerseicough), and lightswords that were described an awful lot like lightsabers. Someone’s obviously a fan of Game of Thrones and Star Wars. The similarities were too on point for me with certain things and rather than feel like a fun homage they felt like cheap knock off’s.

The only good things about this book were Jax, the gay/lesbian representation, the disability representation, and the plot twist of the metals. Everything else bogged down the story. As much as I would like to know more about Jax, I will not be continuing on with this series.

[badgersprite]

Fic: Desiderata (2/?)

Chapter Title: Aftermath

Fandom: Mass Effect

Characters: Miranda, Samara, Oriana, Jacob

Pairing: Miranda/Samara slow burn, strangers to friends to lovers

Story Rating: R

Warnings: Some graphic imagery people may find disturbing, allusions to past child abuse, references to character death.

Chapter Summary: In 2185, Samara joins the crew of the Normandy, and Miranda doesn’t waste time in evaluating her new squadmate. However, Samara soon picks up on the fact that Miranda is distracted by more personal concerns. In 2186, Miranda wakes up to confront the stark reality that awaits her after the war, including the extent of the injuries she suffered in the shuttle crash, and the question of whether anyone else from the Normandy survived.

Author’s Note: From this point on, the story is essentially going to alternate between the present (post-ME3) and ME2, with a few other flashbacks to various relevant points in Miranda’s life interspersed for good measure. Just to clear up any possible confusion, every single Miranda/Samara flashback is taking place in chronological order. All good? No worries!

*     *     *

A day never went by that Miranda didn’t update The Illusive Man on their status. It was essential that he was kept informed of all material facts at all times. That included any weaknesses Miranda observed in Shepard’s team.

Stopping the Collectors was paramount. Preventing more humans from disappearing was too important to be compromised by anyone. They had to remain on track no matter the cost. Hence, it fell to Miranda to identify whether the very individuals they were recruiting could potentially imperil that.

Fortunately, it seemed their latest acquisition’s integration with the crew was progressing smoothly so far. But that didn’t make her exempt from scrutiny.

Miranda distractedly typed on her datapad as she entered the Starboard Observation Deck, scarcely taking notice of Samara, who sat in the centre of the room with her legs folded beneath her, bathed in a blue biotic glow.

“Jacob told me you’d requested a room with a view,” Miranda said as the doors closed behind her, without raising her head. No thought was spared for whether she might be interrupting Samara’s meditation. That didn’t matter, and it wasn’t her job to care. “I assume this will suffice.”

“Yes,” Samara answered, content. “It is peaceful here.”

“Soundproof walls, for the library,” Miranda offhandedly explained, wishing her room shared the same insulation. Being right next to the mess hall meant she was frequently disturbed by chatter and ambient noise. Genetically enhanced hearing had its drawbacks. “But that’s not pertinent to why I’m here; I’ve nearly finished my mission report to The Illusive Man.”

“You work quickly,” Samara noted, her radiant aura flickering under the light. A shade over three hours had passed since they brought her aboard.

“I work to my ability,” Miranda brushed her comment aside.

In truth, she was running later than she would have liked. Her ordinary routine had been disrupted when she was ordered to sickbay to ensure she wasn’t suffering side-effects from Minagen X3 exposure at the Eclipse hideout.

“I just have a few questions to ask you,” Miranda continued, intent on making up lost time. “Have you seen Kelly Chambers and Doctor Chakwas?”

“Yes, both of them, separately,” said Samara.

“Good.” Miranda checked that off. She would chase them up for their preliminary assessments shortly. By now, they both knew the tight schedule Miranda preferred to operate under, so she didn’t expect they would keep her waiting long. “Do you have any issues working with Cerberus?”

“No,” Samara replied, as still as a statue

“You’re sure?” Miranda pressed, her tone conveying her mild scepticism. Cerberus had been branded a terrorist organisation. She wasn’t familiar with the Justicars and their beliefs but she doubted they looked fondly upon such things.

“I am aware that Cerberus is reputed to have engaged in criminal activity. However, rumours are not evidence. I intend to judge your organisation for myself, not based upon the word of others,” was Samara’s serene response.

“That makes you more reasonable than most,” Miranda remarked. Finally, someone who talked sense.

“Even if I do observe such accounts to be true, it will not interfere. Defending humanity from the Collectors is a noble cause. I could not have allowed myself to join you if my presence could place your mission in jeopardy,” Samara assured her, electing to address Miranda’s justifiable misgivings in their entirety. “I have sworn an oath to Commander Shepard. I am bound to her decisions, and must carry out her orders until I am released from her service.”

“Even if her orders violate your Code?” Miranda queried with an astute quirk of her brow, suspecting that risk factor couldn’t be dismissed out of hand.

“…Yes,” Samara answered without inflection, though her hesitation did not evade Miranda’s shrewd perception. She left that item unmarked, not convinced that she could rely on Samara to remain loyal if such circumstances arose.

“You’re aware that the team we’ve assembled consists of several criminals – assassins, mercenaries, thieves, whatever Jack is,” Miranda commented with casual disregard. She’d long since grown accustomed to the fact that criminal background was one area in which Cerberus didn’t discriminate, though she certainly wouldn’t have complained if they chose to be a little more discerning in future. “If you’re going to work with us, we can’t have any problems.”

“You are asking whether I might pose a danger to those persons, or if I would be tempted to kill them if provoked,” Samara inferred, having anticipated that inquiry. Miranda’s silence confirmed her intent. “I will not.”

“That makes one of us,” Miranda muttered under her breath. They tested her patience sometimes. Samara did not react, maintaining her perfect posture. “Unless you have anything to disclose, that’s all I had to cover.”

“Not at this time. If I become aware of any matter that may affect the mission, you have my word that I will inform you at once,” Samara vowed.

“Glad to hear it,” Miranda approved, holding her to that.

For a woman who had been willing to massacre her way out of a police station a few hours ago, Miranda had to admit Samara was surprisingly easy to deal with. She’d displaced Thane as the quickest, most painless interview to date.

“Do not hesitate to come to me if there is anything else you require,” Samara cordially continued, never changing her tranquil tone of voice. “You will not be imposing. It has been many years since I have worked in concert with others. I would be pleased to lend my assistance wherever I can.”

“I...appreciate that,” Miranda thanked her, an act that did not come naturally to her. She was not in the habit of expressing gratitude; it was a rarity aboard this ship that anyone warranted it. “But I’ve taken up enough of your time. I’ll leave you to it,” said Miranda, her focus already shifting to the dozen other tasks she had on her plate that she planned on finishing by the end of the day.

“I beg your pardon,” Samara spoke up when Miranda turned to exit, prompting her to pause and glance over her shoulder. “I do not believe you ever told me your name,” Samara pointed out, unoffended by the oversight.

Miranda blinked, quickly scouring her memory before realising that Samara wasn’t lying; she couldn’t remember introducing herself at any point. “Miranda Lawson. Operator of the Lazarus Cell,” she remedied her omission.

“Miranda,” Samara gave a respectful nod of her head, bidding her farewell.

Sensing the conversation was at an end, Miranda returned to her office, paying no attention to anyone else as she passed through the crew deck. She sat down at her desk, transferring her draft report from her datapad to her laptop.

Only one section remained to be finished: Miranda’s personal evaluation of Samara. That involved recording her overall opinion of Samara as a prospective teammate, and disclosing to The Illusive Man whether she perceived any risk factors that might make her a liability in certain circumstances.

Miranda revisited their short conversation, replaying it in her mind as she pondered her analysis. Her fingers rapped rhythmically on the desk, contemplating the sole unresolved question on her checklist.

Could she count on Samara not to stab them all in the back if they failed to adhere to her Code, even if violating it was necessary to save human lives? Nobody else on the ship knew what her Code entailed. It was entirely possible they could break it unwittingly, and that Samara might be compelled to take action against them for even the most innocuous of breaches.

However, Miranda wasn’t about to waste The Illusive Man’s time with baseless speculation. It didn’t assist him to be told of a hypothetical scenario which he had surely already foreseen. That wasn’t why he sought Miranda’s judgement.

Anyone could threaten the mission in theory. What he needed to know was whether that danger existed in reality. And did it? For the first time, Miranda wasn’t sure one way or the other. All she had to go on was Samara’s word, given her own observations of the woman were limited up to that point.

Samara had said that Shepard’s orders took priority over her Code when it came to stopping the Collectors. Normally, Miranda was predisposed towards caution, since it was better to be safe than wind up dead, but, in this case, she didn’t detect any deceit in Samara’s assurances of fealty. She didn’t strike her as a liar, nor as someone who lacked the insight to predict her own behaviour.

After a brief pause, Miranda reached her conclusion: ‘There is no indication that Samara’s subservience to the Justicar Code places our operations in jeopardy or compromises her in the field. I have no concerns about working with her.’

Comfortable with that answer, Miranda allowed her mind to wander as she jotted down a concise closing paragraph. It wasn’t often that she gave her companions aboard the Normandy a second thought, beyond their contributions to the mission. Not even Shepard. But Miranda had to admit, having someone like Samara aboard the ship was a refreshing change of pace.

Frankly Miranda wasn’t used to people being so cooperative with her. It was rare that her instructions weren’t met with some form of antagonism. And, unlike Thane, who was equally polite, Samara didn’t ask irrelevant questions or provide ambiguous answers when a simple yes or no would have sufficed.

Needless to say, Miranda was an excellent judge of character. She trusted her instincts. And, when it came to Samara, her first impressions were largely positive. And why wouldn’t they have been?

Samara was intelligent, composed and rational. Focused. Disciplined. Humble. Courteous. Restrained. Temperate. Dedicated, self-sufficient and competent, with nearly a millennia from which to draw wisdom and insight. And, unlike some asari, she didn’t come off as smug or condescending when interacting with other species. Nothing about her demeanour struck Miranda as false or insincere.

Miranda could respect a woman like that. Those were the sorts of qualities she would have liked to have seen in more of her teammates, given the option.

As if to drive home the point, her reflections were immediately shattered by raucous laughter outside her door. Miranda’s jaw tensed at the nuisance, the latest in a long line of repeated incidents. Her tolerance wore thin. She got up and stepped out into the mess hall to see what the fuss was about.

Several crew were hanging around the table, including Garrus, Donnelly and Joker. Judging from one of the gestures she saw, they seemed to be trading raunchy anecdotes. Miranda folded her arms across her chest, annoyed.

“Am I the only one who does any work around here?” she asked, cutting through the conversation like a knife, attracting several stares. “What are you doing? Why are you all sitting around making arses of yourselves like human colonists aren’t being abducted as we speak?”

“It’s called dinner, Miranda. Have you heard of it?” Garrus wryly remarked. It was hard to tell with turians, but he seemed to be smirking. “Some of us even require it to live. Maybe you don’t.”

“You can’t eat while you work?” said Miranda, ignoring his jibes. That was what she did, and she didn’t make a commotion doing it.

“Actually, no, I can’t,” Joker replied, gingerly adjusting himself in his chair to sit more casually. “EDI would lock me out of flight controls if I worked through a mandatory break. She says it ‘affects my performance.’”

“I just worked my third eighteen hour shift this week,” Donnelly pointed out, mildly intimidated though he was by Miranda. “Err, not that I’m complaining.”

Miranda rolled her eyes, recognising that she couldn’t kick them out, even if they were being disruptive. “Fine. Take your break. But if any of you are still here at one minute past the hour, I’m writing you up,” she warned them, making certain they knew she was serious before returning to her office.

“You know, she’s been on so many field missions lately, I almost forgot what a massive bitch she is,” Joker muttered in an aside.

“Did you also forget water is wet?” was Garrus’s reply, eliciting chuckles.

Miranda didn’t care, sighing in irritation and running a hand through her hair when the door closed. Why couldn’t everyone on this ship do her a favour and collectively agree to never talk again? It wasn’t like it would be any great loss.

Come to think of it, maybe Miranda did have good cause to go back to the Starboard Observation Deck sooner rather than later. If nothing else, at least it was quiet there, and she could probably rely on Samara to keep it that way.

Besides, anything Samara had to say would surely be vastly more interesting than the drivel that most people on this ship had to offer, even if that wasn’t a particularly high threshold to exceed.

*     *     *

“There's no time! We have to get her to the OR!”

Movement.

Miranda's head spun. Groggy. Flat on her back. Racing. Surrounded. People.

She couldn't open her eyes. Couldn’t breathe. Could barely hear. She tried to tell them, but her lips didn't move. Couldn’t speak. Couldn't ask for help.

Or, maybe she did, but the ringing blocked it out.

“We need intravenous antibiotics, stat. And someone get the ultrasound. We've got to get this medi-gel off.”

Where was she? What was happening?

Confusion clouded her thoughts, faint echoes of memory stirring to the surface. Desperation. Desolation. A crash. A crater. A glow. A glimmer of hope.

Samara. Where was Samara?

“Shit. Her pulse is dropping. We're losing her again.”

The world was creeping further and further into darkness. Slipping away. Diminishing. Fading. Waxing and waning like the phases of the moon, or the ebb and flow of the tide. Threatening to surrender her to eternal silence.

Kuh-hhhhh.

What was that noise?

Kuh-hhhhh.

Her ear was still ringing. Loud. So loud that what little else she could hear sounded like it had been crushed beneath the deepest trenches of the ocean.

But she detected speech. Muffled. Scarcely intelligible.

Kuh-hhhhh.

“We may have been too late. Her system is on the verge of shutting down. Even with a full course of antibiotics, I can't promise her body can fight it off.”

Kuh-hhhhh.

“You don't know her. She’s no ordinary person.”

Kuh-hhhhh.

That voice. Who was he?

Kuh-hhhhh.

“You’ve seen the state we’re in. We don’t have enough resources to spare. We have to make the hard choices. Even if we do keep treating her, her chances of survival are...maybe ten percent, at best. Think of how many other lives—”

“Don’t you dare talk about other lives like they’re already worth more than hers! She’s alive right now, and you’re willing to write her off like she’s as good as dead over a one in ten? No way. You can’t give up on her like that!”

Kuh-hhhhh.

Recognition seemed to dance past the edges of her fingertips. Miranda tried to reach for it, but it eluded her grasp. She fell under the waves, swallowed beneath the surface, adrift, stranded on the sea of shadow.

Kuh-hhhhh.

She couldn’t tell if she was awake or asleep. Everything faded in and out like half-remembered dreams. A million faint drops would coalesce into one constant stream of noise, rushing by so fast that she couldn’t keep up, and yet it seemed to be frozen in place, making it appear as though no time was passing at all.

Kuh-hhhhh.

Her mind filled with fragmented visions that just as swiftly scattered into dust and vanished into thin air. Collectors. Cerberus. The Normandy. The Citadel. Shepard. Her father. Oriana. Niket. Jacob. Samara. The war.

Her entire life. Her past. Her future. Everything she ever could have been.

Memories. Fantasies. Reality. She couldn't distinguish one from the other.

Kuh-hhhhh.

Faces leered at her in the mists. Her team. The ghosts of their demise.

She relived it all in gruesome detail, watching the people she’d led to Earth perish under her command. Unable to intervene. Cursed to lament everything she could have done differently. Powerless to put right her mistakes.

Bright eyes turned to ash, incinerated in flames. Skulls exploded under sniper fire. Flesh and bone burst like grapes beneath rampaging brutes. Viscera poured from gaping holes where banshees impaled their victims, lifting them off the ground, ripping their jaws clean off their skulls while they screamed.

Kuh-hhhhh.

“Ms Lawson! Stop! Don’t leave me!”

She turned and looked back, realising a member of her crew had fallen behind, tripped up by the debris, but it was too late. Husks descended on her like a pack of wild dogs, clawing her limb from limb. They literally tore her apart.

Her harrowing howls marred Miranda’s very soul, emblazoned on her conscience like a branding iron. The ringing in her ear grew louder.

Kuh-hhhhh.

“Help me...” the wounded soldier begged her, clutching at her with the last of his strength, strapped into his seat. “Please. Please help me. Please.”

“I can’t. I’m sorry,” she told him, knowing it was futile.

“You could have saved me,” he mumbled, his throat gurgling as his hand clamped down on her wrist. His skin began to rot, every inch of his tissue withering and decomposing. Maggots crawled from his eye sockets, wriggling down to his thin, desiccated lips. “You just left me there. Why didn’t you help?”

Miranda had no answer for him.

Kuh-hhhhh.

Kuh-hhhhh.

“Goddess, heed my prayer.” Miranda emerged from her daze, roused by a familiar presence. “Do not call her to your embrace. Not yet. Not now.”

Miranda felt a tender touch on her left arm, below her shoulder. She tried to stir by flexing the tips of her fingers but to no avail. She couldn't move her hand.

Was this real?

Why couldn't she feel her fingers?

Kuh-hhhhh.

“I came to Earth expecting that you had chosen this to be where I met my end, as the rest of my order met theirs on Thessia. Yet here I stand, unscathed, while Miranda...” Samara’s breath faltered, unable to say it. “I do not understand.”

Kuh-hhhhh.

Miranda heard her speak, yet she could barely comprehend the words that left Samara’s lips. It was as if language held no meaning, or she had forgotten how to make sense of it. Her mind felt so heavy inside her head.

Kuh-hhhhh.

“I beseech you: if you must take a life, take mine. I offer it freely, if it would spare hers. My life for her life. My years for her years. Please. For my many sins, I deserve none of your mercy. But...Goddess, if you would grant me any wish, I beg of you, do not take her. She is young, and has so much...”

Samara's voice faltered. Her words failed her. Her hand was trembling.

Kuh-hhhhh.

Miranda tried to take a breath to tell her it was okay, but couldn’t. She couldn’t even swallow. Her throat hurt. Her limbs felt as heavy as lead.

Kuh-hhhhh.

“Why do you do this? For centuries, I have asked you, and yet you never answer my prayers. Why am I spared? Why do you punish those who least deserve it when I am right here? Why do I survive while all around me perish?”

Kuh-hhhhh.

“My daughters. My bondmate. My Order. My friends. So many innocents. They all suffered for my failure. Yet I linger on. Weak. Weary. And for what purpose?”

Kuh-hhhhh.

“It should have been me...It always should have been me...”

Miranda didn’t hear Samara utter anything more.

Her awareness dissipated into the aether, until it was altogether gone. And yet, when it returned, it felt like only the merest blip of a moment had passed.

Kuh-hhhhh.

That strange sound stirred at the fringes of her consciousness.

Kuh-hhhhh.

What on Earth was that? And why wouldn’t it go away?

Kuh-hhhhh.

No. No, this wasn’t right. She couldn’t sleep. She couldn’t lie there like this.

Kuh-hhhhh.

It all came back to her at once. The shuttle crash. The pilot. The wasteland that stretched on forever, toying with her like a predator toyed with its prey.

Kuh-hhhhh.

Hopelessness. Despair. Death loomed over her, an ever-present spectre, taunting her with the imminence of her own impending doom.

Kuh-hhhhh.

There was no escape. No food. No water. No rest. No relief from the pain.

She wouldn’t last another day. Not like this.

Kuh-hhhhh.

Adrenaline coursed through her veins, compelling her not to submit. Not yet. Not now. Not after she had come so far in her desperate fight for survival.

Kuh-hhhhh.

She had to find help. Fast. She would die if she didn’t keep moving. Enough bodies littered the streets to emblazon that harsh fact on her nightmares.

Kuh-hhhhh.

She tried to raise her arm, to no avail. Her cheek twitched, contorting in discomfort. “Nnngh.” Her throat tightened on an obstruction. Was she choking?

Kuh-hhhhh. Kuh-hhhhh.

Instinctively, she resisted, aching to remove the blockage from her windpipe, but her body wouldn’t respond. When her head shifted, it felt like the whole planet collided with the moon, sending her equilibrium spiralling into orbit, unable to gain a sense of balance, of which way was up and which was down.

Kuh-hhhhh.   Kuh-hhhhh.   Kuh-hhhhh.

Panic mounted in her chest, her heart rate spiking, immobilised, paralysed, unable to break free from what felt like a ten tonne weight on top of her.

Why couldn’t she move? Why couldn’t she breathe?

Kuh-hhhhh. Kuh-hhhhh.   Kuh-hhhhh.

“Easy, Miranda,” a voice came to her. A man’s voice. Familiar. Comforting. Someone gently gripped her right hand, as if in a promise that she wasn’t alone. “Take your time. You don’t have to wake up yet.”

“Mmnh....” Her fingers tensed. She couldn’t open her eyelids.

Kuh-hhhhh. Kuh-hhhhh.

“It’s alright,” her nameless vigilant assured her, sensing her distress. “Don’t worry about anything. You’re safe now. And you’re going to be okay.”

Strangely, when he said it with such softness, she believed him.

Kuh-hhhhh.

“I’m right here,” he whispered to her, almost too quiet to hear beneath the ringing that lingered unrelenting in her ear. His thumb stroked the back of her hand. “And I’ll be by your side when you wake up later. I promise.”

Tentative though she was, she allowed her body to relax and sink into the clouds, trusting that someone was watching over her, and wouldn’t let her go.

Kuh-hhhhh.

A sense of peace emanated from her core, chasing away the restlessness.

And then all was still.

Until...

Kuh-hhhhh.

Light.

White light.

Kuh-hhhhh.

Why was it so bright?

Kuh-hhhhh.

Kuh-hhhhh.

Kuh-hhhhh.

That noise was back, but it was fainter now.

Kuh-hhhhh.

Her right eye fluttered open. An indistinguishable haze filled her sight.

Kuh-hhhhh.

She blinked, and blinked again, the blur above her gradually coming into focus.

Kuh-hhhhh.

A ceiling. White walls chipped and degraded, but intact. Beams of sunlight filtered in though a window, maybe ten feet away. It was dim and dull, but it hurt to be met with the rays. Miranda groaned and avoided looking that way until her vision adjusted, keeping her head squarely tilted to the right.

After being on the run from Cerberus, assessing her surroundings was an instinct. It didn't matter that Miranda's skull was pounding; her addled mind figured out exactly where she was almost as soon as she took it in.

She was in a hospital. That didn't take a genius to deduce. A quick glance confirmed that other patients shared this makeshift medical ward. There were eight, including her, crammed into the one room.

There was a drip hooked into her arm, and something was covering her left eye.

Kuh-hhhhh.

Ah. That explained the sound. Three patients had ventilators beside their beds.

Not everyone was comatose, though. She made eye-contact with the patient directly across from her, but he rolled onto his side and went back to sleep, ignoring her. Apparently he wasn’t in the mood to answer her queries.

Miranda wasn't intubated, but there was something attached to her nose. A nasal cannula? A quick touch confirmed her suspicion as correct. Why did she need one of those? She wasn't having any trouble breathing.

She winced, cobwebs and a pulsing headache preventing her mind from operating at full speed as she tried to piece together what had happened. She couldn't remember, or differentiate the memories from the dreams.

Ugh. What time was it? And what day? She couldn't see a clock anywhere.

Miranda attempted to get up, but the only response from her nervous system was pain, which forced her to abandon that idea before she had moved more than a few muscles. Every bone in her body hurt. Some worse than others.

Then it dawned on her.

Visions returned to her in a flood. Her last waking moments emerged from the fog. She remembered Samara gathering her in her arms, rescuing her, like something out of a fantasy.

Miranda inhaled sharply. There was no way that could have been real. The odds of Samara finding her were a million to one. Smaller, actually. But there Miranda lay, in a hospital bed. How could she explain that, if not by Samara’s intervention? By all rights, she should have been dead.

Come to think of it, how was she alive?

Miranda glanced down, keen to evaluate her condition. She hadn't been able to properly examine any of her injuries after the crash, much less tend to them. Still, she was under no illusions about how serious her wounds had been. She didn't imagine the damage to her limbs had miraculously healed overnight.

Her right arm was fine, hooked into a drip and a heart monitor. She couldn't see either of her legs well enough for her liking, what with both of them covered by the blanket, which was a little frustrating. But they seemed okay.

Her left arm was...

Miranda’s eye widened, and her mouth went dry.

She didn't have a left arm. Not anymore. It was cut off above the elbow.

...Oh.

Shaking off her shock, Miranda tried to inspect the amputation site, but her shoulder ached too much to raise even that reduced weight off the bed. The stump at the end of her bicep was wrapped up in a dressing. There were some slight blood stains on the bandages. Leakage. Seepage, from the stitches.

Huh. Well...this was new.

Once she got over her initial stunned reaction, Miranda had to confess that this outcome wasn’t unexpected, given the mangled state her arm had been in before she lost consciousness. It had gone too many days without treatment. For the rest of her injures, it was much harder to predict how bad they might be.

She couldn't hear out of her left ear, or see out of her left eye. A definitive diagnosis as to why would have been preferable. In light of her missing limb, Miranda was braced for the worst. God, her face stung on that side, though.

She reached up to touch her brow, wincing when her fingers met gauze. It covered her eye, her ear, her cheek down to her mouth. That was discouraging.

If there was one thing Miranda detested, it was feeling powerless – like she wasn't in control, and couldn’t do anything to seize it. Being in the dark about the status of her own body? Yeah, that amounted to being out of her comfort zone.

She didn't know a damn thing about where she was or how she'd gotten there or how many days had passed. All she could remember was Samara's voice, and the shape of her silhouette above her as she lifted Miranda up out of the crater.

Was it true? Had Samara really discovered Miranda's broken body? Or was that encounter nothing more than a figment of her imagination as she lay exhausted, on the verge of death? They’d spent a lot of time together on the Normandy, more than any of the others knew. If Miranda was going to conjure up false visions of a saviour, Samara would have been a leading candidate.

Either way, the only thing Miranda was sure of was that she had to get out of that bed as fast as possible. Other mysteries could wait. She had to get back out there. She had to know what kind of world she'd awoken to, and find out if anyone else from the Normandy had escaped the battle with their lives.

Shepard. Jacob. Samara. Everyone. Anyone.

Miranda tensed, her throat tightening on mounting bile and dread.

When they stood together for that photo in Shepard’s apartment, Miranda knew chances were slim that she would live to take another. At most, only a scant few of those faces would remain after the dust settled. It was simple maths.

Miranda had come to Earth certain that she wouldn’t be counted among the lucky ones. It was too much to expect that they’d win, let alone survive. She’d accepted her death long before she ever set foot on the battlefield.

Yet there she was, on the other side of the vanishing point. So many things that should have killed her...somehow hadn’t. She was still here.

But what about the others?

If Miranda was alive, despite the odds, did that mean...?

No. She couldn’t be the only one left. She’d already lost her whole team. She couldn’t go through that again. Not with them. She just...She just couldn’t.

Suddenly, a shadow at the foot of her bed caught her attention.

Miranda turned her head, causing the figure to jump, startled by her movement. A medic stood there, a hand to her heart. Miranda hadn’t heard her enter, thanks to the constant piercing tinnitus that resonated in her right ear.

“Oh, I’m so sorry. I didn’t realise you were awake,” said the woman, calming her nerves after that surprise. Miranda scanned the stranger, gauging her. She didn't look like a doctor or nurse, nor a member of the military. A volunteer? “Can you hear me?” the medic asked. A fair question, if she’d been out for a while.

“Yes,” Miranda answered, trailing into a cough. Her voice sounded different, unfamiliar to her. Raspy. Scratchy. Her throat was sore, which indicated a tube must have been inserted recently. It wasn't pleasant. She cleared away the discomfort before continuing. “But you’ll have to speak up. My ear’s ringing.”

It was good to hear herself say that, even if her left side did seem deaf as a post. At least her mental faculties were more intact than her body.

“Wonderful. I'll go and fetch the—“

“Before you say anything else, I need information. Don't interrupt me. Just tell me what I want to know. And keep it concise,” Miranda commanded brusquely, despite her fatigue slowing her speech, determined to gain insight into her current circumstances. That was where Miranda was in her element.

“Uh...okay?” the medic stammered, evidently compelled to comply. Even confined to a hospital bed, Miranda possessed that air of authority that prompted obedience. Good to know she hadn't lost that trait.

“We're still in London, correct?” Miranda ventured, believing it safe to assume they wouldn’t have flown her elsewhere.

“Yes. You're in St. Mary's,” the medic confirmed.

“St...What...?” Miranda wondered if she’d misheard. Bloody hell. Just how short of a distance had she covered in her efforts to crawl away from the crash site?

The medic nodded. “Given the high number of casualties, our first step was to occupy the centre of London and reopen as many medical facilities as we could. For the most part our efforts have paid off.”

“The most part?” Miranda sharply echoed. That was a faint endorsement.

The woman sighed. “In truth, most hospitals are in ruins. The majority of people who need help are out on the street in field hospitals because we're short of beds. But you were a high priority patient. So it’s...lucky you were so unlucky.”

Miranda chose not to respond to that. “How long have I been here?”

“A week, I believe,” the young woman replied. “You've made a remarkable recovery. Given how poorly you were when you arrived...well, the average person who came to us in your condition would have been out far longer,” she said, oblivious to the guarded expression her words elicited.

The average person would have been dead. But Miranda wasn’t average.

Her genetic code gave her the edge. It always did. There was no mistaking that it was the sole reason she had withstood her wounds. Her father’s perpetual legacy. It made it hard to process the appropriate reaction. She couldn’t feel proud, since she couldn’t take credit for it. So was she supposed to feel guilty that other people didn’t have the same undeserved advantages? She didn’t.

Perhaps that ambivalence was why Miranda couldn’t find it in her to form any particular emotional response to her survival at all. Not happy. Not sad.

She didn’t feel anything. It just...

It was what it was.

“Yes, that’s right, your chart says you've been here for eight nights, Ms Lawson,” the medic continued. “I remember when they brought you in. Even a few minutes later and you would have...” She trailed off, evidently reconsidering whether it was wise to disclose that to a patient who might find that news distressing. “All I can say is thank God Justicar Samara found you when she did.”

At her name, Miranda froze.

“What?” she spoke breathlessly, not daring to believe it.

“Justicar Samara,” the woman eagerly repeated. “She's incredible. Her efforts to look for survivors out beyond where anyone else dares to tread have been tireless. Dozens of people owe their lives to her. Hundreds, even.”

“...Including me,” Miranda quietly acknowledged. The medic didn’t address that, but it was etched on her face that that was beyond dispute. "Where is she?”

“Out there, as always,” the medic told her, gesturing to the window, and the destruction beyond. “She said her Code demands that she must not rest while she is capable of averting the suffering of innocents. Or words to that effect.”

A relieved smile slowly unfurled across Miranda’s lips, all lingering incredulity evaporating. Yep. That was definitely Samara.

Miranda was a woman of facts, not emotions, but words couldn’t describe how she felt then, rendered speechless to realise that it hadn’t been a dream. It was confirmed. Samara was alive. Miranda wasn't alone.

Honestly, that meant far more to her than her own survival ever would. It wasn’t even close. Miranda couldn’t be happy for own sake. But for Samara? For her friend? Bloody oath, she could. And she was. No confusion. No ambivalence.

“Don't feel too bad that she’s not here,” a warm voice followed from the doorway. She recognised it instantly. Miranda would have sworn her heart stopped when she heard him, only to start again when she spied him standing in the corridor, watching her contentedly. “She stayed as long as she could."

The sheer gratitude that coursed through her veins at the sight of him was beyond compare, almost beyond comprehension. “Jacob...”

He flicked his fingers at her, halfway between a wave and a salute. “Hey.”

In that moment, she was glad that she had never been the most expressive individual. Were she any different, Miranda didn't imagine her response to seeing Jacob there unharmed would have been in any way dignified.

“It's okay. You don't have to say anything,” Jacob assured her.

“Right,” Miranda murmured through the gravel in her throat. He didn't need to hear it because Jacob already knew. Everything she felt now was no doubt exactly what he’d experienced when the doctors told him Miranda was going to make it.

Words weren't essential. They couldn't tell each other anything they didn't already understand. And Jacob knew Miranda better than to permit redundancy.

“Ugh. My face hurts,” Miranda half-groaned, recovering the wherewithal to speak, briefly touching her bandage between her cheekbone and her eye.

Jacob snorted as he stepped inside. “Yeah, you think?”

Miranda sent him a feigned glare as he approached. In retrospect, it was probably best to try not to smile until her burns healed a bit. “Could you leave us?” she addressed the medic. She and Jacob had a lot to discuss. Privately.

“Um, now that you're awake, I should call the doctor in to see you.” Aside from getting a full update on her health, waking up likely meant they would be keen to shuttle Miranda out of there as soon as they could manage it. After all, the medic had made it plain that they needed every available bed they could get.

“Don't worry about that,” Jacob said, casually folding his arms across his chest. “I won't be in your way for very long, I promise. Just give us thirty minutes to catch up. That's all we need.” Miranda nodded, silently vouching for that. Perhaps some people would have wanted longer, but half an hour would suffice.

Jacob and Miranda had been friends for...was it coming up on four years now? Perhaps that wasn’t significant to an ordinary person, but that was the longest continuous bond Miranda had formed with anyone, by quite a large margin.

He wouldn't sugarcoat the truth or tiptoe around the facts. Not for Miranda. He understood her like few others did, if any. No matter what she asked him and no matter how hard the reality was to confront, she knew she would get an answer she could trust. For that reason, Jacob was exactly the right person to field her myriad questions, and there was no one she'd rather hear it from.

“Well, alright,” the medic acquiesced, not cruel enough to deprive them of their reunion. Friendly faces were a rare thing following the devastation the Reapers had left in their wake. It was only humane to grant them this small solace.

The medic stepped out into the hallway, leaving the two of them alone. Well, aside from the other patients. But Miranda didn't care if they eavesdropped.

“So what happened to you?” Jacob ventured first, taking up a seat on the right side of Miranda's bed, which was closest to the door. It must have plagued his mind ever since Samara found her out in the wasteland.

“I got caught in a shuttle crash. The Reaper guarding the Conduit shot us out of the sky,” Miranda calmly filled in the blanks, piecing together the seconds before the explosion. “If it had hit us straight on, I doubt I'd be here. Luckily, it just grazed the pilot's side. Her body must have shielded me from the blast.” Miranda paused, glancing down at her left arm. “Well, not all of it, obviously.”

Jacob chose not to indulge that remark. “I'm going to take a wild guess and say your landing didn't go too smoothly either.”

“Can't say. Wasn't conscious,” Miranda spoke frankly, forcing herself to sit partially upright, resting her back against the headboard. Sore as she was, even that minor adjustment hurt. Jacob knew her too well to bother offering assistance, correctly anticipating that she would have refused. “Given how the shuttle looked when I woke up, I'd say that's an understatement.”

“I can imagine,” Jacob mumbled, plainly drawing his own conclusions about the severity of the crash. The proof was permanently scarred into Miranda’s flesh. “How in the hell did you survive out there for days in the state you were in?”

“With great difficulty,” Miranda muttered, gingerly clutching her shoulder.

Jacob shook his head at her in amazement, not quite ready to laugh but managing to summon a small smile. “Somebody should have warned the Reapers it takes more than that to keep Miranda Lawson down.”

“Not much more,” Miranda conceded. This had nearly been enough.

“Yeah, but you made it. Who cares about anything else?” he said, resting his hand on her uninjured shoulder. And he was right, she supposed.

There was nothing to gain from fixating on how close she’d come to death, or on why so many others had been slain while she hadn’t. What mattered was that she'd pulled through. Now, she had to focus on more pressing concerns.

For starters... “...What happened?” Miranda asked him, keen to unravel the many facets of the recent past that remained totally shrouded to her. “How did it end? I was knocked out; I didn't see anything but the aftermath.”

“I don't know for sure. Nobody does. I'll tell you everything I've heard, though.” Jacob leaned forward in his seat, tenting his fingers together. “The Reapers were destroyed, right down to the last husk. I bet you figured that out days ago. But it wasn't without a cost.” He took a deep breath before reluctantly expanding on that ominous statement. “Something went wrong; the Crucible backfired.”

“Backfired?” Miranda repeated, arching the eyebrow that wasn't covered in gauze at his ambiguity. Jacob’s gaze was evasive. “Tell me,” she urged.

He shook his head, his expression grim. He looked tired. Resigned, even.

“There was this...explosion of energy from the Citadel. Pretty much any ships that couldn't get out of Earth's orbit in time got annihilated. And on the ground? I saw entire buildings obliterated, like that.” He snapped his fingers to illustrate what he’d witnessed. “Hell, people too. When the wave hit, they just...disintegrated. All we find are their shadows. Sometimes not even that.”

“I don't understand,” Miranda interjected, struggling to wrap her head around this. “I wasn’t that far from the Conduit. We were all right below the Crucible. If it caused that level of destruction, how is it that any of us survived?”

“Don't ask me; you're the smart one.” Jacob shrugged.

“I was being rhetorical, but you seriously can’t even volunteer a theory?” Miranda retorted, not particularly impressed by his blase response.

“I don’t know. It only seemed to get people who were out in the open. Maybe it's because you were sheltered by the shuttle, maybe not. But we didn’t...” Jacob hesitated, his posture drooping, staring at his feet. “Nobody thought anyone was left after that. Not where you were. Not when we saw whole buildings fry.”

Miranda regarded him strangely, not sure what he was getting at.

“Samara was the only one who looked for people that close to ground zero. For a while, anyway,” Jacob elaborated, audibly regretting his role in that. “It wasn’t until she started bringing back survivors that our rescue teams joined her.”

A shiver ran down Miranda’s spine. “You mean me?”

“Nah, you weren’t the first she found.” Jacob lifted his head, grateful for Samara’s persistence in the face of scepticism. “But it makes me wonder how many people died because nobody listened to her. Because you could have been one of them,” he finished, remorse glinting in his eyes, blaming himself for having written Miranda off when she was out there on her own that entire time.

Miranda swallowed pensively. So that was why she had crawled for so long without any sign of another living soul. No shuttles. No tanks. No voices.

If not for Samara, nobody would have come for her.

Miranda already knew she owed Samara her life, but it made her wonder. Maybe it wasn’t coincidence that she had stumbled upon her. Samara would never have searched for her to the detriment of anyone else, of course, but maybe she had deliberately concentrated on scouring the areas near where Miranda was last seen, committed to either finding her, or else confirming her demise.

That was the sort of thing friends did for one another, wasn’t it?

“That doesn’t answer my question, though,” Miranda pointed out, staying focused. “A shockwave that powerful should have killed everyone in London. Surely somebody can explain why we aren’t all a pile of ash right now?”

“No, they can’t, and I don’t care,” he countered, his tone taking Miranda aback. “We're stretching ourselves thin enough as it is. We can’t even begin to count the dead, much less figure out why some died and others didn't. Scientists can debate it and get their PhDs off the back of it later, I guess. But I don't give a rat's ass. Not when I'm still pulling the corpses out of the mud.”

“Fair point,” Miranda acknowledged. They were in crisis. Their cycle had nearly ended, and they were all who were left to pick up the pieces. There were crucial priorities to contend with before they could ponder more abstract issues.

“Sorry. You had every right to ask. I'm just...” Jacob trailed off, shaken by the horrific events he'd been exposed to over the past fortnight. He soon elected to get back to business rather than ruminate on it. “Most of our galactic forces were wiped out, but we have a lot of folks stranded here from every species. Well, every species except the geth,” he corrected himself. “There are no geth.”

Miranda’s brow creased. “No geth?” He didn't say, 'All the geth are dead,' or 'We haven't found any geth.' Jacob's exact words were, 'There are no geth.'

No ships. No platforms. No programs. Nothing.

“How does an entire species cease to exist?” Miranda asked, baffled by the sweeping implication. “You're telling me they've been...what, erased?”

“Yeah, that about covers it,” Jacob matter-of-factly confirmed. “Whatever the Crucible did to the Reapers must have taken them out as well,” he reasoned, though it was clearly speculation on his part. “Shame, too. You know I was never the biggest fan of the geth, given my experiences, but we could have used them. I mean, they can work non-stop and they don't tire or get sick or need to eat.”

“But the Reapers are gone,” Miranda pressed.

“All of them. For sure,” he gave his word.

At that, Miranda dared to release some of her tension, relaxing against the wall behind her. Perhaps it was harsh to deem the loss of the geth insignificant but, when it came to stopping the Reapers, no sacrifice was too extreme.

If one species had to die in order to preserve the fate of every other species that would ever come to exist in this galaxy, then that was a price that had to be paid. Even if that meant wiping out humanity, Miranda would have said the same thing. They all knew that peace would come at a grave cost, if it would come at all. What mattered now was protecting those who had prevailed.

“Good,” Miranda said, bolstered by the knowledge that they were safe from any further cosmic threat. “With the Reapers exterminated, we should see an influx of aid from the other homeworlds. Yes, they have their own problems, but they can afford to send it. There are survivors from every Council race here; they have an obligation to provide disaster relief, if not for us then for them.”

“Miranda...” Jacob sombrely cut her off, looking her square in the eye, bearing a heavy burden. “The Crucible didn't just destroy the Reapers and the geth. It also destroyed the mass relays. They have no way of getting to us.”

His answer made Miranda's blood run cold. The mass relays? No. That couldn’t be right. Oriana was on Horizon, thousands of light years from Earth. Without the mass relays, how would Miranda ever get there? How could they...?

Oh, God. If the mass relays had been destroyed, then...

“Jacob. The Alpha relay...” Miranda felt her heart pounding, the most horrible thought imaginable stirring chaos in her mind. “When the asteroid hit it, it took out an entire system. If the Crucible did that to every other relay—“

“No. That didn't happen,” he assured her, firmly quashing her fears.

“How do you know?” she challenged through gritted teeth.

“Because we’ve received messages from other systems through the comm buoys, though the network is shot to shit so bandwidth is extremely limited. By all accounts, only ships that were very close to the mass relays when they blew apart were destroyed. Your sister should be fine,” he told her.

Miranda ran her hand through her hair amid a heavy sigh, willing an unshed tear not to trickle from her eye. If all but a few ships were intact then that meant Oriana shouldn't have been in any danger. For that, she was infinitely thankful.

Nothing was more terrifying to her than the prospect of life without Oriana.

“Hey, it's okay.” Jacob clutched her right arm in reassurance. “I know. Believe me, I do,” he murmured, fully grasping what she was going through.

Of course, Miranda thought. Jacob had a child on the way. A child who, without the mass relays to bridge those colossal distances, Jacob might never get to see, or speak to, or hold in his arms. This must have been killing him.

If only they'd spent more time perfecting the Crucible, gathering more intel—

Miranda stopped, regaining her wits before grief got the better of her composure. Facts first. Feelings could wait. Now was not the time to let paralysis set in.

“What about the others?” Miranda spoke up, her tone professional, endeavouring to leave her fear of being separated from her sister temporarily to one side. “Samara's alive. I know that much.” Miranda counted her blessings on that, thinking back on their conversations on the Normandy, and the rapport that had evolved between them. “How is she? Does she seem alright to you?”

“If I was half as strong as she was, I’d be doing good. Nothing bends her. Nothing breaks her,” Jacob said, admiring her for that. Miranda gave a short nod. It meant a lot to know Samara was okay, not just physically but emotionally, to the extent that anyone could be given what they’d endured.

“Did she say when she’ll be back?” Miranda wondered, eager to see her. Not only was Samara her closest friend from the Normandy apart from Jacob, but she owed Samara her life. That was a debt that could never be repaid.

“No, she never mentioned. Both of us are always coming and going without notice. I haven't bumped into her in a few days, though,” Jacob nonchalantly answered, unable to give specifics. Miranda's features twinged beneath her bandages. “Don't take that as a bad sign. It just means she's busy rescuing people.”

That response wasn't sufficient to dismiss Miranda's apprehension, but she chose not to dwell on it. Maybe Jacob was right; maybe Samara had been visiting her bedside every day, just at times when Jacob wasn’t around.

“Have you found anyone else?” Miranda asked.

“From our crew? No.” He shook his head. “I mean, there's Wrex from the original Normandy. He's keeping the krogan in line. And, uh, you know...I can't confirm anything, because I haven't heard from her, but I have to figure Kasumi's fine. She never got anywhere near the fight. She just worked on the Crucible. Other than that, everyone else we know is MIA for the time being.”

“But no confirmed deaths?” Miranda noted, inferring as much.

“We haven't found any bodies. Or, if we have, we haven't identified them.” Jacob's voice didn't betray it, but Miranda could tell he was keeping the faith that the others would turn up alive. Maybe he hadn't believed it before, but Miranda's survival appeared to have rekindled his hope for the best.

“...Alright, then.” Miranda nodded, not so heartless as to deny him that small mercy, even if she knew it wasn’t realistic. With anyone else, she would have been brutally honest, but she cared about Jacob too much.

Besides, Earth was a big planet, and there were thousands of ships strewn throughout the solar system. Other members of their old crew could be out there, living on stored food and water, too far away to have made contact. Not all of them, of course. But one or two, maybe. That was better than zero.

...Great, now Miranda was starting to fool herself into becoming a bloody blind optimist too. False hope didn't suit her.

“Yeah, well, that's half the story, anyway.” Jacob muttered humourlessly, earning a curious glance from Miranda. “When I say everyone is MIA, that’s...You should know, Admiral Hackett confirmed that Commander Shepard was in the Crucible when it fired. Right at the centre of the blast. Admiral Anderson too.”

“Makes sense,” said Miranda. "I always thought that, if anyone was going to stop the Reapers, Shepard would be the one to do it. That’s what she does.”

“I know. That’s not why I’m telling you.” The sobriety on his face spoke volumes. She hadn't been awake when the wave of destruction devastated the city. She hadn't seen what he had. “Believe me, I don't say this lightly: there is no way anybody could have survived being on the Citadel when it went off.”

“Isn’t that what you thought about me too?” Miranda pointed out. “Shepard has accomplished things nobody thought she could before. She can’t...”

Jacob didn’t argue with her. He didn’t have to. His stark silence said it all.

The gravity of the situation rapidly sank in. Jacob wasn’t lying.

Miranda’s stomach churned, triggering a sharp pain in her chest. So, Shepard was gone. That was...difficult to comprehend, despite the fact that Miranda knew firsthand that Shepard's life could be snuffed out as easily as anyone else's.

Shepard had died once before. So why didn't the possibility of that happening again seem real? It wasn't a surprise. It wasn't unexpected. But it felt wrong.

Shepard was dead. Miranda couldn't help but feel like the universe had been fundamentally and irrevocably diminished. Yet the Earth was spinning normally. Life went on. The sun rose and fell as if nothing had been lost. But it had.

People like Shepard were...

No. There were no other people like Shepard.

“I'm afraid that's not all.” Jacob clasped his hands together, prepared to deliver more bad news. Miranda signalled for him to go on. Things could hardly get any worse than what he’d already told her, could they? “The Normandy is lost.”

Miranda paled. “Lost?” she said, struck to the core by his admission.

Miranda was as far from sentimental as could be, but it didn't seem possible. Miranda had gone into the fight expecting to die, and she had absolutely believed that every last member of the crew would willingly make the same sacrifice if it came to that. But to lose the ship hurt more than she'd anticipated.

And then there was EDI.

People often talked about ships as if they had a mind of their own. The Normandy actually did. Miranda had never previously believed that an AI should be considered a person, but EDI was the counterargument that had altered that view. Irrespective of any abstract concepts of what constituted ‘life’, EDI was unique – an individual unlike anyone else, before or since.

After everything the Normandy had steered them through during the suicide mission, this was how it ended? It wasn’t fair. And what about Joker? What about Garrus? Liara? Tali? Chakwas? Daniels? Donnelly? Adams? Traynor? Vega? Cortez? Losing EDI was bad enough, but everyone stationed aboard—

“Lost as in lost,” Jacob intervened, sensing she had assumed the worst. “We have no idea where it is, and we haven't heard a peep. They've just...vanished,” he said, not sure what to make of that. “No wreckage, no bodies that we know of. But we lost all communication with it after the Crucible fired.”

“What?” Miranda's one-eyed stare narrowed in abject confusion. “They're linked to Hackett’s ship by quantum entanglement. If the Normandy exists at any point in the universe and has power, they should be capable of sending messages.”

“Yeah, but they aren't, though.” Jacob reiterated, stumped for an explanation. “I don't know what else to tell you. Until we hear otherwise, that's the situation.”

That didn’t exactly lend itself to a positive interpretation. Either the Normandy had been destroyed, or it was too damaged to function, which was as good as a death sentence unless they’d landed on Earth. There was nothing to say where they might have ended up, or if anyone would ever discover the wreckage.

“What about me?” Miranda asked at last, unafraid to broach that grisly subject. Gingerly, she pushed herself forward into a proper sitting position, wincing as she did so, adjusting to only having one arm with which to balance her weight.

“Take it easy; you just woke up,” Jacob noted, respecting her space, but keeping watch in case she was expecting too much from herself too fast.

“I can manage,” Miranda assured him somewhat stonily, resenting her frailty. She hated being sidelined, which made being injured an inconvenient state of affairs. The sooner she bounced back and could go contribute something useful, the better. Jacob was glad to see she hadn't changed.  “How am I?”

“You weren't doing so hot when Samara brought you in,” Jacob admitted, a shadow momentarily flickering across his features. “Nothing the docs couldn't handle, though. They patched you up nicely.”

Miranda fixed him with a stern look. “Jacob, you do realise that I have, in fact, noticed my arm is missing?” she deadpanned, unimpressed by his efforts to soften the blow. “I have tinnitus in one ear, I'm deaf in the other, and half my face hurts like hell. Don’t coddle me; save your understatement for someone else.”

Jacob chuckled at her scolding. Of course Miranda didn't need to be comforted. She wanted to hear the full extent of the damage she'd sustained in the crash, and her prognosis for how quickly she would recuperate.

“Well, your face hurts because you suffered some nasty burns there, plus minor ones to other parts of your body. But you knew that,” Jacob straightforwardly began, aware that Miranda would rather be slapped hard by reality than patronised. “Could have been a lot worse, but your eye wasn't so lucky.”

“I probably should have mentioned, I think I got shot there at one stage,” Miranda casually chimed in, as if they were discussing the weather.

“That must be why it couldn't be saved. They had to remove it.” Miranda nodded, perfectly fine with that. “You haven't got much of an ear on that side either. A lot of the outer cartilage was burned off, and your eardrum was perforated. I'm guessing that's the ear you meant when you said you're deaf on one side.”

“Sorry, can you repeat that?” Miranda facetiously cupped her intact ear.

Jacob snorted, lightly punching her in the arm. “Fuck off. I’m just going to assume I always need to talk to you from the right from now on.”

“At least I finally know what my good side is. It was always a curse being so symmetrical,” Miranda dryly quipped, unfazed. Jacob smirked, glad to see she was taking it in stride. He probably hadn't expected anything different.

“You tore your rotator cuff in your left shoulder. That'll take some healing,” Jacob continued, listing off everything he could remember. “As for the rest of the arm, well...the problem was, by the time they got to it, infection had already set in. Your arm was basically dead below the elbow. Amputation was the only course.”

“I anticipated that,” Miranda acknowledged. "I could have lost a lot more.”

"Yeah, you could. But your forearm got twisted around so much that it had virtually detached from your body. That might have been what saved you,” Jacob postulated. “Anyway, it's not going to hinder you in the long run. You know how far cybernetic limbs have come in the last couple of years.”

“Not by choice, but Kai Leng was quite eager to acquaint me with his enhancements. But prosthetics can wait,” Miranda filled in on his behalf. With Earth in disarray and countless casualties, that wasn't a priority. “Keep going,” Miranda encouraged, not forgetting that there was more. She wanted a full report, from head to toe. “How are my legs?”

“Better than the rest of you,” Jacob summarised. “Your right one is fine, but your left knee is busted – torn ligaments, stuff like that. Problem is, that falls under the 'elective' category. Hopefully, the worst of it will heal up by itself. But, put it this way, I wouldn't make plans to start wearing heels again any time soon.”

“Slap a pair of crutches on me and I'll be right as rain,” Miranda practically scoffed as she spoke. A busted knee barely warranted mentioning after all of that. “Well, one crutch,” Miranda belatedly added.

Jacob’s expression shifted, like he couldn’t decide whether to be amused or bemused. “This isn’t a criticism, but...you’re processing all of this way too well.”

“Why shouldn’t I? It’s not like I can change what happened to me,” Miranda noted with a nonchalant shrug, perplexed by the implication that her reaction ought to be otherwise. “Besides, disability and disfigurement are hardly the end of the world. They’re a fact of life that have formed part of the human experience for as long as there have been humans. There’s no need to be melodramatic.”

“Maybe not, but I think you owe me an apology for snapping at me before. You're the one brushing off these injuries like they're nothing,” Jacob commented, crossing his arms, not that he was shocked by her hypocrisy.

“They are nothing. I’m fine,” Miranda insisted.

“Whatever you say, Two-Face,” Jacob countered.

Miranda dismissively rolled her eye. “Okay, so my left side isn't what it used to be. So what? I'll cope. Other than what you've already told me, what else is there to keep me here? Superficial cuts and burns?”

All levity fell from Jacob's face, his complexion turning pale grey.

“What?” Miranda prompted at his stark silence, beginning to grow annoyed.

“...Miranda, you had sepsis,” Jacob solemnly revealed, his features deadly serious. He swallowed, finding it hard to confront those stomach-churning memories. “You’re recovering, but you...You nearly went into organ failure.”

His words were strikingly bleak, and his directness left Miranda appropriately chastened. She hadn't realised it was that dire. For the first time, Miranda grasped just how terrified Jacob had been that he was going to watch her die.

“Samara told me you’d stopped breathing when she got you to the paramedics,” Jacob went on, dodging her gaze, no longer able to deny how close he’d come to burying his best friend. “Any slower, and it might have been too late to resuscitate you. Hell, even after you got out of surgery, you were so far gone that the doctors were going to take you off life support, until Samara stepped in.”

Miranda creased her brow. “Stepped in how?” she asked in a hoarse whisper, suddenly remembering the bitter taste of ash and dust in her throat.

“She said, if they stopped your treatment, they would be sentencing you to certain death. Her Code would consider that attempted murder, and she would be compelled to prevent it, by any means,” he recounted, oblivious to the bewildered look that befell Miranda. “I made sure they knew she wasn’t joking.”

Miranda glanced aside, troubled. Her insight into Samara’s Code was limited, but...threatening doctors didn’t sound like something she would do. Then again, Samara would never act other than in strict accordance with the Code, much less misrepresent it. Maybe Miranda had misjudged its tenets.

“That’s three,” Miranda softly muttered, prompting Jacob to utter a confused hum, not following her. “Three things Samara did to save my life.”

“Yeah, well, you ever scare me like that again and you’re gonna answer to my left hook,” he warned, with the kind of tone that only came from a genuine bond. “Seriously, the way you stress me out can't be good for my heart.”

“Really? Mine's fine,” Miranda remarked, tilting her head at the monitor as proof.

“One of these days you're going to be the one worrying about me. And when that day comes, you're going to be – what would you call it? – a blubbering wreck,” he playfully teased her, imitating her accent, poorly.

“First off, that was cockney; that’s not even close to how I sound. And, secondly, I don't think 'blubbering' is in my genetic sequence,” she replied.

“Liar.” Jacob wore a knowing smirk, wagging a finger at her. “I was there on Illium, when Shepard talked you into meeting your little sister.”

“Clearly you're an unreliable witness,” Miranda persisted with a mock huff. “I recall being perfectly composed that entire time.”

“Your concussion must have been worse than I thought. Looks like your memory isn't quite as sharp as it used to be,” he joked, tapping her lightly on the head. “Excuse me, nurse, the patient is exhibiting signs of delusional thinking—“

“Get out of it.” Miranda swiftly swatted his hand away. “On second thought, Jacob, I can guarantee that I won't be a blubbering wreck if you end up on an operating table because, at this rate, I'm going to be the one who put you there.”

Jacob snickered. “I’d deserve it, too, but it’d be worth it.”

Miranda tried to feign vexation, but she couldn’t. Having Jacob’s company made a world of difference in these dark times. Their relationship had never been simple, especially after they broke up, but after all they'd been through together they were practically family, with all the ups and downs that entailed.

As a consequence of her upbringing, companionship was exceptionally rare for Miranda. In thirty-six years, there were no more than five people with whom Miranda could say she had formed any kind of intimate personal connection: Niket, Jacob, Shepard, Oriana, and Samara. That two of them were alive and on Earth with her meant far more than she would have thought up until a year ago.

And yet, there was one absence that could not be so easily overcome. The most important person of all. Even the other four combined could never fill that aching hole. Not through any fault of their own, but because they weren't her.

Her sister – her genetic twin.

She couldn't banish the thought of Oriana, stranded out there on Horizon. With the mass relays gone and the comms down, the colony must have descended into total panic. It set her teeth on edge to imagine what she was going through.

Fear. Confusion. Grief. Mourning.

“Jacob...” Miranda sat forward, a horrible heartache swelling inside her, making her nauseous. But she couldn’t let herself faint. “Does Oriana know I’m alive?”

“I sent a message to her as soon as Samara found you, but public email service isn't a priority. Military and diplomatic channels take precedence when it comes to bandwidth. We're trying as hard as we can, but...” He trailed off.

There had been no progress. They were no closer to contacting the people they loved. And he couldn't tell her when that was likely to change.

Suddenly, the vast distances of the galaxy had become so much greater.

It had barely been a month since Miranda had wrapped her arms around Oriana outside the spaceport on Horizon, letting her thumb gently graze across her forehead, brushing stray strands of hair out of her sister’s eyes as she told her that this wasn’t goodbye. Was that the last time she would ever hold her?

With the Extranet crippled, there was no guarantee Miranda could get through to her. Even if she could, who knew how long it would take to reach Oriana?

Until they knew the answer to that question, time would be her prison. Through all her crushing isolation, Oriana could only sit there, held captive by the clock, waiting day after day for a call that may never come. And it was Miranda's fault.

Even if they lived another two hundred years, they might never set foot on the same ground again. If the mass relays couldn't be fixed, then they would never get to start that new life together that Miranda had dreamed of for so long.

“I lied to her, Jacob,” Miranda murmured. Vacant. Distant. “I promised I’d come back to her. But I was lying.” She shook her head, tumultuous emotions stirring inside her. “Our father killed her adoptive family. I'm all she has. I knew that. And I left her. I only just found her, and now it's possible I’ll never see her again.”

Jacob put his arms around her, letting her head fall on his shoulder. Miranda didn't cry. She almost never did, and this was no exception. But she felt a tightening in her chest that wouldn't go away. The guilt was suffocating.

“You aren't the only one breaking promises,” he said, perching on the edge of the bed beside her. “It's fitting. My father was gone for ten years. Longer, actually. He was never the most present guy, even when he was around. After I saw what he'd become, I swore...Well, no, I didn't swear not to be like him; I knew I wasn't. How could anybody be like that? Except here I am.”

“Jacob, don't say that,” Miranda protested, pulling away. How could he even think that? “You're nothing like your father. Not what he became.”

“Why not? I might be away from Brynn and our child a damn sight more than ten years,” he pointed out, gesturing at his surroundings indicatively. “I'm abandoning them, just like he abandoned me.”

“Your circumstances are somewhat different from his,” Miranda noted. Sympathy wasn't a trait she possessed in any great abundance, but she did demonstrate it occasionally. This was one of those moments. “You’re not your father and I’m not mine. He was a manipulative criminal. You’re not. He could have activated that beacon at any time if he wanted to come home. You can't.”

“Doesn't change the fact that I chose to leave. I knew I was risking a lot coming here to fight the Reapers, but I chose to be here instead of with them. Maybe I shouldn't have,” Jacob confessed his doubts, getting up and moving away from her bedside, his hands perched on his hips as he chastised himself.

“You don't mean that.” Miranda sat forward to try and catch him by the sleeve, but he stepped out of her reach, refusing to be consoled.

“I'm not sure what I mean,” he shot back, unable to distinguish between fleeting manifestations of grief and what he really believed. “You made the same choice. Are you telling me that you're certain it was the right one? If you could rewind time, would you still say that coming here to fight the Reapers was worth leaving Oriana behind? Is that how really you feel?”

“...I can't ask myself that. Not yet,” Miranda quietly conceded, a rare glimmer of vulnerability. “I’ve lost a lot to this battle, Jacob. Not just what you can see.” She glanced aside, not ready to talk about watching her team die. “Call it cowardice, but I'm not keen to examine the issue only to decide it was a mistake.”

“No, you're right.” Jacob sighed, regretting the tone he’d taken with Miranda then. “We are where we are. We're stuck here, and we can't change that. Beating ourselves up won't get us any closer to our families.”

“Would that it could,” said Miranda, her fingers combing through her hair. She and Jacob, they really were in the same boat, weren't they?

She wouldn't wish these regrets upon her worst enemy, much less her best friend, but that was out of their control. Jacob couldn't stem his pain, nor Miranda hers. They had both been separated from their only family, possibly for good.

If their grief was going to consume each of them, at least they could endure it together, sharing the load. Perhaps the despair wouldn't hurt so much if they faced it side by side. Or maybe carrying each other’s burdens on top of their own would make it hurt twice as much. But hey, misery loved company.

*     *     *

There was a rumour on the Normandy that Miranda never stopped working, but to perform basic necessities like sleeping and showering. Anyone who claimed to have witnessed her out of her office for anything other than a strictly functional purpose was assumed to be lying, or delusional.

While Miranda did nothing to dissuade the myth, there was one person who could have attested to the contrary: Samara.

Apparently nobody else noticed that, over the past several days, it was becoming increasingly common for Miranda to find herself wandering over to the Normandy's Starboard Observation Deck when she was finished for the day, or in the rare moments when she forced herself to take a break, or when she knew intellectually that she needed to sleep but couldn't convince her body to do it.

Why not? Miranda could hardly relax in her office, with her desk right there, judging her for not working while the bustle from the kitchen and mess hall filtered through her walls. She had to do something with her spare time, what little she had of it, and she wasn’t exactly inundated with myriad options.

The ability to be social was one trait her father had not instilled her with. In fact, he’d actively discouraged it. As a consequence, Miranda had grown accustomed to solitude and she never saw the purpose of rectifying that. Most people weren't worth her time, and giving them the benefit of the doubt usually proved that, if flotation devices ran on intelligent thoughts, theirs would sink like lead.

She doubted the Normandy’s crew would be surprised to learn that ‘mingling’ with them was something Miranda would typically only have done if forced at gunpoint – even then giving some weight to the merits of the bullet. She loathed idle chit chat, and almost everyone on this ship got on her nerves. Even the ones who didn’t began to grate if they lingered too long.

But Samara? She was the exception.

Unlike the others, Samara never forced her into a conversation. She was content to meditate undisturbed by Miranda's presence. She never felt obligated to fill the tranquil silence with superfluous small talk. They had spoken when the mood struck, of course, but it was never an essential requirement.

She could drift in and out when she wished. Samara wouldn't question her, or demand a reason. There were no expectations. Miranda could just exist, even more comfortably than in her own quarters, which was a welcome change.

Not to mention that Miranda quickly grew to appreciate why Samara had chosen this room as her sanctuary. She was right; it was peaceful. The view across the vast expanses of the cosmos compelled one to a contemplative mood. It was quite relaxing to sit back on the lounge with a cocktail in her hand and slip into introspection, gazing out at passing stars, planets and nebulae.

On that particular night, sleep eluded Miranda for another reason, and she sought harbour there again. It was late. Much later than any prior visit. Only a skeleton crew was awake to operate the Normandy's basic systems.

Miranda had opted to bring her work with her, burying herself in tasks she ordinarily would have finished hours ago, since she thought the pristine silence might help her concentrate and...distract from other things. Her typing didn’t seem to bother Samara, taking the absence of any objection as tacit consent.

In truth, Miranda was barely paying attention to her screen. Alas, taking refuge there wasn’t calming her nerves. Then again, what would?

She'd heard word that Oriana’s location had been compromised. Her father knew where she was, and he would stop at nothing to recover his lost investment. Luckily, Cerberus caught wind of the breach and had arranged to move Oriana out of harm’s way. But Miranda was tense nevertheless.

How the hell had he managed to track her down? On Illium, of all places? This didn't add up. She'd been so careful. But she supposed it was too late to worry about what she’d done wrong. All that mattered now was keeping him at bay.

That was why she had to be there. She had to ensure the transfer went without incident. She had to oversee it in person to make absolutely sure any risk to Oriana was quashed. She wouldn’t be able to stop fretting about her until she knew her sister was out of her father’s reach. 

If her father got his hands on Oriana...No. Miranda would sooner die than let that happen. She would never fail Oriana like that. She would never forgive herself.

That was why nothing could be left to chance.

“Ah, fuck me dead,” Miranda cursed under her breath in frustration, realising she'd made a critical mistake in her work. An uncharacteristic lapse. Again.

Samara blinked. “What?” She turned her head in confusion once her words registered, the first time Miranda had seen her trance involuntarily disrupted.

“It's a...saying where I'm from. Don't worry about it.” Miranda waved her off. She hadn’t thought Samara was listening but evidently that harsh whisper directed at herself had not been so quiet as to escape detection.

Samara's mildly bewildered expression did not fade immediately, but she chose not to question that, regaining her poise and returning to her meditation.

Miranda hastened to proofread her analysis for more errors. It was no mystery why she'd faltered, preoccupied by her fears for Oriana’s safety that dominated her mind. And her mounting stream of mistakes only added to her stress.

This didn't bode well for the mission. Miranda couldn’t afford to be inattentive when Oriana was in imminent danger. If she was missing things now, what chance did she have of being in a better frame of mind tomorrow, operating on no sleep?

It was stupid. She shouldn't have been anxious. It was a simple relocation. Cerberus were already one step ahead of Henry Lawson. They knew he was planning to abduct her, and they would have made the necessary preparations to avoid him and his agents. Everything was going to be fine.

But what if it wasn't?

“Miranda...” At the sound of her name, she glanced up to find that Samara’s glow had faded, her energy dispersed. “Would you care to join me?”

“Join you?” Miranda echoed, unsure what she meant.

“In meditation,” Samara clarified, indicating a spot on the floor next to her. She seemed to have picked up on Miranda's unusually troubled countenance, despite how closely she guarded her thoughts.

“Why?” Miranda arched an eyebrow. “What purpose would that serve?”

“There are several benefits,” Samara calmly replied, unoffended by Miranda's curt response. “It may help you focus, providing you with a means to channel extraneous energy, which will aid in sharpening your mind.”

“Is that why you do it?” Miranda asked. When she wasn’t in the field with Shepard, Samara's entire life aboard the Normandy seemed to revolve around her meditation. It was only sensible to wonder what she gained from it.

“Not primarily, no,” Samara admitted, “But I did not expect you would find spiritual enlightenment to be a compelling motivation.”

“You thought correctly,” Miranda acknowledged. But, despite her misgivings, Samara did have a point; there were practical reasons for attempting it.

Miranda couldn't afford to not be thinking straight tomorrow. Snowing herself in with work was failing horribly, and at this rate she certainly wouldn’t be getting any sleep that night. Perhaps Samara’s meditation exercises would settle her down enough to alter her anxious mental state, like a form of self-hypnosis.

“...Sure, why not?” Miranda unenthusiastically acquiesced, moving to sit beside Samara, who seemed pleasantly surprised by that her suggestion had been heeded. Miranda didn’t think it was polite to announce that she was only giving in because she had no better ideas. “I have to warn you, this probably isn't going to work. The ability to switch off my thoughts was not programmed into me.”

“Thought is distinct from mindfulness,” Samara advised. “The goal of meditation is not to cease the former, but to obtain the clarity that allows the latter to flourish. And, if this does not come naturally to you, perhaps that is an indication that you would benefit more than most from learning the technique.”

Miranda didn't lose her scepticism, but she couldn't argue with that.

“If you're willing to teach me, I'm willing to try.” Miranda straightened her back, emulating Samara's cross-legged position.

Samara re-adopted her perfect posture, enveloped by a luminescent shroud. “Clear your mind and let your biotics flow through you. Sustaining them will assist in ridding you of distractions. I choose to do so by forming a ball of biotic energy, but perhaps you would prefer to levitate a small object to begin.”

“No. I can do it,” Miranda assured her. Her biotics weren't as powerful as Samara's but, in theory, she was capable of all the same feats.

Miranda surrounded herself with a comparatively faint biotic field, enhancing her senses, forming a tight sphere of energy between her palms, confident in her ability to hold it together. She soon understood what Samara meant; it took a great deal of willpower to sit stone still while keeping her biotics simultaneously charged and reined in. She couldn't afford to let her thoughts wander too far.

“Wait until your mind has quietened,” Samara continued when Miranda had stabilised her energies. “Then, you can shift your consciousness away from the physical, and reflect on that which has true meaning to you.”

Miranda's brow subtly twitched. She knew what had meaning to her, because there was only one thing that ever had: protecting Oriana.

She had sacrificed so much to get Oriana far away from her father, and she would do it a million times over in a heartbeat. She pictured Oriana confined to that gilded cage, forced to endure echoes of the same abuse Miranda had suffered at their father’s hands. Emotional. Psychological. Sometimes physical.

Miranda was never allowed to be a child. Not allowed to cry. Not allowed be frightened or angry. Some of her earliest memories involved her father’s endless dissatisfaction that his ideal creation hadn’t been born free of those innate emotional responses. Over the years, he’d set about drilling them out of her with ruthless efficiency, until they almost completely ceased to exist within her.

It wasn't like it was any better if she smiled or laughed. Whenever Miranda found something that brought her a shred of joy, her father would sneer at her, accuse it of being frivolous and take it away, denying her anything that he hadn't granted her or given her his express permission to partake in.

She’d never been held. Never been hugged. Any emotion Miranda expressed, she was punished for and taught to suppress, because it displeased him.

Her father never wanted her to develop her own feelings. She was simply meant to be an obedient machine, with no likes or dislikes that he had not instilled in her. In his twisted view, she was his property, right down to her very thoughts.

Miranda existed solely to be an instrument of his will. His restrictive rules and rigorous training were all designed to mould her into fulfilling his vision of a perfect clone who would parrot his beliefs and perpetuate his legacy. Vanity had compelled him to create her, because it was the closest he could come to influencing the future by ensuring his ambition continued after his death.

That Miranda was not a mindless vessel primed to be filled with her father's beliefs was surely his greatest disappointment. For the longest time, Miranda had thought that must have been why he'd decided Miranda had outlived her usefulness and elected to grow another. But, of course, discovering her infertility made it obvious that discarding her had always been his intention.

A replacement for a failed prototype. That was what Oriana was created to be. That was her purpose in his grand designs. Nothing more, nothing less.

Miranda imagined Oriana following the path their father had planned, being tormented by him until she became what he wanted her to be – exactly what Oriana could have been had Miranda not seen through his deception in time to escape with her. Barely less of a puppet than the Collectors.

Even if he didn't manage to brainwash her to bring her to heel, Miranda knew precisely what living under her father's relentless control could do to a person. He would take everything that was beautiful about Oriana and crush it because, to him, those qualities would be flaws. He would savagely punish failure and never reward success, because perfection was the minimum he expected.

Nothing Oriana did would ever be good enough for him. He would criticise every single thing she did, forcing her to adhere to his strict, often arbitrary demands until he finally erased every shred of her identity.

If she had grown up like that, there was no guarantee Oriana would have survived. Maybe she would have failed even earlier than Miranda. Not that the outcome would have been much better if she managed to achieve her father’s goals.

Instead of the happy, vibrant young woman that Miranda had seen in the limited glimpses she allowed herself from afar, her father would have raised Oriana to be cold, aloof, detached. He would have kept her isolated, friendless, deprived of social bonds, permanently hindering her ability to communicate with others, relate to them, or form normal emotional responses to interpersonal situations.

Just like he’d already done to Miranda.

All of a sudden, Miranda's bubble of energy burst, throwing her off-balance, though she instinctively stuck her arms out behind her and caught herself before she fell. The small blast didn't rouse Samara from her trance. It was almost like she'd expected the premature detonation.

Miranda cleared her throat, trying to regain some dignity. “I did warn you,” she uttered, disgruntled with her ongoing propensity towards failure as of late.

“It is alright. You saw something you do not wish to confront; something you cannot accept,” Samara stated, understanding why Miranda lost focus. “I will not ask you to discuss it. Your thoughts are your own. But learning to meditate on that with which you are not currently at peace rather than resisting it may aid you in attaining harmony. That is, if you choose to pursue it, as I have.”

Miranda sighed. She wasn't so sure she wanted to stare in the proverbial mirror any longer than she had. That part of her life was years ago, and it didn't accomplish anything to dig up the past. She couldn't afford to when such critical tasks were at hand. It would only disrupt the mission

Letting such things run rampant through her psyche when she had long since moved on with her life was irrational and, given her position as second-in-command aboard the ship, irresponsible. There was no sense dwelling on it.

“This isn't the best time,” Miranda declined. She was never going to be able to clear her head while her concern for Oriana dominated her subconscious. “After tomorrow, maybe. I might be in a better place. We'll see.”

Samara considered her response, but took Miranda at her word, believing it wasn't a mere excuse. She gave Miranda too much credit, because it was.

“If it would interest you, perhaps I could instruct you in the use of some of my biotic abilities,” Samara offered, maintaining her field with no strain whatsoever. She made it look effortless. If Miranda were pettier, she might have envied her composure. Instead, she admired it. “I do not know if we will have time to develop them to a combat-effective state. However—”

“I’m not averse to that idea,” said Miranda, “Though I can’t make any solid time commitments.” The jury may have been out on meditation, but taking the opportunity to improve her biotics was an objectively sensible decision.

The Collectors had nearly killed Miranda on Horizon. Shepard and Mordin too. Given what they were up against, she would have been foolish not to accept. And, considering that Samara was, so far, the only person on this ship whose company never vexed her, spending more time with her to gain the benefit of her biotic expertise wasn’t an unpleasant prospect.

“Very well. I look forward to it,” Samara sincerely replied, leaving it at that.

Miranda didn't realise it at the time, but that was when their friendship truly began.

*     *     *

“Jacob…” Miranda said warningly, her one-eyed stare unwavering.

“Miranda, no,” he steadfastly refused.

“Hand me the box, Jacob,” she commanded, holding out her arm expectantly.

“Look, I brought you a change of clothes and a crutch like you asked me to because I thought it would make you more comfortable here. But I am not going to help you escape, Miranda,” he told her, keeping a tight grip on the box. “You’re leaving this hospital when you’re good and ready. Not a moment sooner.”

“Good thing I heal fast, then,” Miranda remarked, smirking. “Besides, escape makes it sound like they have the authority to keep me here. I prefer to think of it as discharging myself.” Jacob was unamused. “Come on. This bed is uncomfortable, anyway. And the combination of boredom and tinnitus might actually drive me to strangle someone if I have to stay here another night.”

“Miranda, you can’t even handle food in your stomach yet. The only thing they’ve been able to give you to eat these past two days is…” Jacob trailed off, pointing at the untouched bowl beside her bed. “I mean, I can’t even call that soup. It’s water with flavouring. And you’ve still thrown up every single time you’ve eaten.”

“I’ve been lying here staring at the ceiling for over a week while they pump me full of morphine, sedatives and antibiotics. Lo and behold, they all cause nausea,” Miranda dismissively explained, brushing that off.

“Why do you hate being here so much?” Jacob asked, at a loss.

“Because I have nothing to do except lie here listening to my ear ring!” Miranda snapped, on the verge of losing her mind. “They won’t even let me walk to the bathroom under my own power. It's six metres away! But instead I have to press a button and call a nurse to take me there in a wheelchair like I’m a bloody dementia patient,” she grumbled, detesting that lack of autonomy.

“You don’t understand the concept of being sick, do you?” Jacob commented, unable to fathom that someone so intelligent was so staunchly committed to wilful ignorance when it came to her own limitations. “You’re not over your sepsis yet. If you were well enough to be outside, you wouldn’t be in hospital.”

“I’m more qualified than any of these doctors to declare myself fit,” Miranda retorted with an irritated huff, not at all entertained by his opposition.

“Not from any accredited university,” Jacob pointed out, earning a glare.

“Everyone who brought someone back from the dead raise your hand,” said Miranda, doing exactly that, confidently cocking her head. “How many people with a legitimate medical degree can say that?”

“Alright. Fine. Jesus.” Jacob sighed, reluctantly surrendering the box.

“He didn’t raise the dead; he rose from the dead. But I appreciate the comparison,” said Miranda, incredibly satisfied with herself, examining her fresh clothes. It wasn’t anything fancy, just some black pants, a grey t-shirt and some boots, but she supposed she couldn’t be choosy. Casual would suffice.

“This isn’t funny, and neither are you,” Jacob protested as Miranda carefully shifted her legs over the edge of the bed, removing the cannula from her nose and the sensors from her chest, which wasn’t easy with the drip still hooked into her arm. “You are nowhere near ready to get involved in post-war operations.”

“I’m injured, I’m not bloody useless,” Miranda insisted with an irritable scoff. “You need my help. You know you do. I’m not going to spend all my time confined to a bed like a vegetable just because I have one arm, one eye, one ear and a limp. That’s ridiculous,” she said, shaking her head at the absurdity.

Miranda possessed enough self-awareness to concede her cold-hearted reputation was not wholly undeserved, but she didn't require a great deal of empathy to recognise that there were countless others out there worse off than she was – people whose survival hung by a thread while vital resources, life-saving drugs and medical personnel were far too scarce to cope with demand.

The reality was that Miranda was not at death's door, and that meant she should no longer be a priority patient. Frankly, she wouldn't have had it any other way. Even one-eyed and one-armed, she could make a difference. She didn’t plan on hanging around waiting for non-urgent care before taking action.

Jacob paused, moving over to crouch beside Miranda, his fingers tented together. She peered at him, briefly halting her sensor-removal, annoyed.

“What?” she asked.

“Miranda, you need to admit you have a problem,” Jacob counselled her, putting his hand atop hers. “You are a workaholic; you are addicted to work,” he informed her, staging an intervention. “Seek treatment.”

“Have you ever noticed that it’s only humans who talk about people doing their jobs too well like it’s a problem?” Miranda observed, intrigued by that nonsensical mindset. “That’s what’s holding us back as a species,” she astutely declared, returning to the business of peeling off the last of the nodes.

She couldn’t stand this hospital. Every time Jacob left her alone, she grew restless. She couldn’t relax because there was nothing to distract her from the constant ringing in her ear. It was driving her insane. She needed something to do – something to take her mind off it. Anything. Or at least anything other than the memories of her dead team, or her misery at being separated from Oriana.

If Samara had come and visited her, that might have helped. But she hadn’t. Nobody had seen Samara in nearly two weeks, which was...well, Miranda was sure she’d have a good explanation for that when she ran into her.

Jacob stared at her, evidently realising that he didn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell of stopping her. Once Miranda’s mind was set on a particular goal, she was virtually impossible to deter, even when said goal was contrary to reason.

“…You are literally the worst person I’ve ever met. And the only reason I’m still helping you is because I know you’re just going to climb out that window if I don’t, and I refuse to be responsible for you plummeting to your death,” he acquiesced at long last, gently taking hold of her wrist and extracting the drip and cannula from her arm, which she obviously couldn’t do on her own.

“You’re a good friend, Jacob,” said Miranda, her lips curling into a slight smile, glad he’d been persuaded to offer his assistance.

“If by ‘friend’ you mean 'accomplice’,” he remarked disapprovingly.

“Stop whinging and help me get changed,” she instructed.

He handed her some underwear, which she slid on, followed by pants, cautious not to aggravate her knee in the process. After that, she took off her hospital gown and gingerly pulled the t-shirt over her head, cautious of her amputated arm. The last thing she needed was to show Jacob she was in any pain.

“If you get stuck, I’m leaving you that way,” Jacob stated.

“I won’t get stuck,” Miranda insisted, wishing he would stop complaining so much. And, sure enough, she didn’t, guiding her stump through the sleeve while putting as little pressure on her torn rotator cuff as possible. That done, she slipped her right arm through and rolled down the hem of the shirt to cover her torso. A thought occurred to her. “Jacob, hand me your jacket."

“What for?” he asked, suspicious.

“Look, I know I’m not the only amputee walking around at the moment, but I’d rather not attract attention,” Miranda pointed out. On top of the limp and the facial bandage, she didn’t want to make it too obvious she hadn’t been cleared to check out yet. The more she could disguise it, the better.

Jacob cooperated, draping his jacket over her shoulders, concealing her missing arm, and buttoning the collar around her neck to stop it from falling off. Once she zipped up her boots, she was all dressed and good to go. She flexed her fingers on the handle of her crutch, tucking it beneath her shoulder.

“You ready?” Jacob asked, standing back, letting her do this by herself.

“Won’t know until I try,” Miranda said, hiding her hesitancy.

Despite what Jacob may have thought, Miranda wasn’t being rash or foolish. This would be her first attempt to walk in over a fortnight. Neither leg had been able to properly support her weight by the time Samara found her. She could only hope that she had recovered enough to manage this.

She got up, leaning on both her right leg and her crutch for balance. It felt odd, finally standing upright again. But that had been the easy part. Tentatively, she moved her left foot, readying her crutch for the act of taking a step.

Her left knee flared with pain, threatening to buckle. The shock of it prompted her to shift her weight back to her right foot as quickly as possible, overbalancing in the process. Fortunately, Jacob reached out to catch her by the shoulder, allowing her to lean on him as she regained her footing.

“Agh. I think I did that wrong,” Miranda hissed through clenched teeth, willing the ache in her knee to subside before her second attempt.

“This your first time using one of these?” Jacob asked out of curiosity.

“No. I just haven’t walked in over two weeks,” Miranda spoke sharply, frustrated with herself, and running low on patience. “Give me a minute.”

“I don’t suppose this will convince you to change your mind about staying here?” said Jacob, doubtfully. Jacob had seen her get beaten and tortured before. She hadn’t looked vulnerable then. She didn’t look it now.

“Not a chance,” she replied, refusing to be defeated by a god damn sore knee. “My grand escape might just be…slower than I’d planned.”

“I thought you said this wasn’t an escape,” he said, detecting the contradiction.

“Plans change,” Miranda quipped.

Jacob snorted. “Just so we’re clear, you owe me big time on this,” he told her, putting an arm around Miranda’s waist to steady her, although she didn’t require his assistance for more than a few shaky steps before she got the hang of it, after which point he let her carry on unaided. “No, seriously. I’m talking, 'indebted to me for the rest of your life’ kind of big.”

“Yes, extort the disabled woman,” Miranda remarked, rolling her eye as they came to the doorway. “You really want to do that, Jacob?”

“When it’s you, definitely,” he happily confirmed.

Miranda frowned. But, alas, she lacked alternatives. “Alright, fine. I accept your terms,” she surrendered, grimacing slightly as she shuffled forward. “Now show me the quickest way out of here, and fill me in on what I should know.”

“About London?” Jacob asked.

“That’d be a start.”

*      *      *

The doors to the Observation Deck slid open with a soft hiss. “Miranda,” Samara greeted her arrival, not needing to turn to confirm her identity.

“Good evening, Samara,” Miranda responded, her tone abnormally upbeat.

Evidently, it didn’t go unnoticed. “It would appear that what I have heard is true,” Samara deduced. Miranda tilted her head. “You spoke to your sister.”

Miranda snorted as she stepped inside. “Nothing can stay private on this ship, can it? Let me guess: Kasumi told you?” Samara's silence served as tacit confirmation. Miranda exhaled, unable to be mad about it. “It wasn’t planned. I always thought it would be selfish to interfere in her life. But then Shepard took me aside and said maybe it isn’t so wrong for Oriana to know she has a sister who loves her."

“And was Shepard correct?” Samara asked.

Miranda couldn’t fight off a smirk. “She can be.” The hint of a smile on Samara’s lips betrayed that she was pleased with that news. “Oddly enough, I don't think Oriana was even surprised when I walked up and told her who I was.”

“She shares your intelligence,” Samara noted, not shocked to hear that. “You have watched over her all her life. With such an astute mind, I do not expect she would have failed to perceive the evidence that she was not alone.”

“Nor do I. I don't think much gets past her.” Miranda chuckled under her breath, amused to discover that her sister's cheery demeanour belied a cunning wit no less incisive than her own. “We're alike in many ways. Identical twins often are, I suppose. But, at the same time, she's absolutely nothing like me.”

Miranda approached the window, gazing out at the stars as she replayed her conversation with Oriana in her head. Her skin still tingled, mesmerised by how it had felt to hold Oriana in her embrace for the first time in nineteen years. She could scarcely believe that this wasn’t a dream – that nothing was going to pop her bubble and prove her stolen shard of joy to be ephemeral.

“Oriana's just...she’s an amazing person,” Miranda all but gushed. “She's kind-hearted and funny, and I'm neither of those things. Which is good, because it means everything I did for her was right, despite what Niket said.”

“You mean keeping her away from your father?” Samara surmised.

At the mention of him, Miranda tensed imperceptibly. It was then that she remembered her place, coming to her senses and realising how much she was divulging to a colleague she'd known for less than a month.

“What am I doing?” Miranda shook her head at herself, conscious of how foolish she must have appeared in that moment. “I apologise. I shouldn’t be commandeering your time blathering on about my personal life.”

“You commandeered nothing,” Samara assured her, letting her biotic field fade. “It was freely given.”

Miranda didn't know if that was sincerity or courtesy. Nevertheless, she couldn't help but feel that to behave so casually with a work colleague bordered on inappropriate. Miranda was there to do a job. The Illusive Man expected her to be professional, and, more importantly, she expected it of herself.

“Look, I appreciate you helping me clear my head yesterday, but I'm not here to gain anyone's sympathy with some big sob story about my childhood,” Miranda spoke frankly. “Everyone has problems. I deal with mine on my own.”

“As you should, and as we all must,” Samara affirmed, respecting her independent streak for the admirable quality it was. “However, it is not folly to speak truthfully about oneself, nor is it selfish to accept advice when it is offered voluntarily, though I will refrain from doing so if you do not wish to hear it.”

“I didn't say that.” Miranda frowned, not wishing to create that impression. She enjoyed Samara’s company, and she didn't intend to carelessly toss it aside. “I’m just aware you have better things to do than listen to me talk your ear off. It's not why you're here. I'll go to Kelly Chambers if I want a therapy session.”

“Have you spoken with her about this?” Samara asked, curious.

“No, not yet,” Miranda answered. Frankly, she didn't like going to see Kelly, even though it was compulsory to do so when events warranted it. Events such as reuniting with a long lost sister and watching an old friend die in front of her.

It was hard to trust that a grown adult could be that bubbly and optimistic without hiding some kind of ulterior motive. Her relentless cheerfulness rubbed Miranda the wrong way. But as long as Kelly gave the tick of approval that Miranda was competent to perform her duties then it was fine, she supposed.

“Will you write to The Illusive Man about today’s events?” Samara inquired.

“I always do. I report everything to him,” Miranda confirmed. Up to and including the contents of everyone’s mail. But that wasn’t to be publicised.

“I am aware,” Samara acknowledged, accustomed to Miranda’s routine, given how often she brought her work over. “For reasons that may soon become apparent, I will be speaking with Ms Chambers shortly. Will you be including my subsequent psychological evaluation in your correspondence to The Illusive Man?”

“Yes, and I sent him your first one after you came aboard,” Miranda stated the obvious, seeing no reason to deny that fact. There was no boundary she wouldn’t cross when it came to keeping The Illusive Man informed as to the strengths and weaknesses of his team. “Is that an issue?”

“It is not,” Samara replied, unperturbed. “You are obliged to carry out your duties, and you would fulfil them even were I to object, as I would mine. As you should.”

“Good,” said Miranda, glad to hear Samara appreciated what it meant to have responsibilities, unlike most of the other people Shepard had recruited. Every time Miranda did her job, they seemed to interpret it as an act of malice.

“I do not believe I ever properly thanked you for your assistance, on the day we met,” Samara continued, arising from the floor and moving to stand beside Miranda, her posture tall and upright, hands clasped behind her back.

“For helping you find the name of that ship? I can't claim much credit,” Miranda admitted. It wasn't humility, just reality. “Shepard makes those choices. My role is to ensure her decisions are carried out successfully, and to give counsel that perhaps isn't heeded as often as it ought to be. But I can't complain. Commander Shepard has proven to be an effective leader, by any measure.”

“Indeed. And the information she uncovered with your aid has been invaluable.” Miranda looked at Samara then, but there was no joy or righteous determination in her expression. “I have tracked the Demeter’s course. The criminal I have been hunting for the past four hundred years disembarked on Omega. I intend to inform Ms Chambers of this shortly, and Commander Shepard.”

“But you’re telling me first?” Miranda noted, somewhat surprised by that. Nobody ever told her anything first. Even Jacob didn’t always seem to fully trust what she’d do with the information.

“I gave you my word that I would bring it to your attention immediately if I became aware of any matter that may affect the mission, or my role in it,” Samara reminded her. Needless to say, Miranda remembered that conversation clearly. “I do not give my word without intending to keep it.”

“Huh. I didn’t think you meant that so literally but...thank you. I appreciate it,” said Miranda, impressed. Samara was nothing if not principled. She’d long since proven that Miranda’s initial instinct to show faith in her was well-placed. “I could pass this on, if you wanted,” she offered, since it would save Samara the trouble.

“No,” Samara politely refused, her speech devoid of inflection. Almost...hollow. “This is something I must discuss in person.”

“If you insist,” Miranda accepted that, even if she did find Samara's solemnity incongruous. That being said, Samara’s reasons for taking her pursuit so seriously were none of Miranda's business. She didn't need to interfere.

She was a Justicar, after all. Maybe they were always like this.

“Since we’re on the subject, there’s something I still haven’t managed to figure out about that day: would you really have killed Detective Anaya if we hadn’t secured your release?” Miranda asked, finding it eerie to ponder that the serene woman before her was capable of resorting to such extremes without remorse.

“Yes,” Samara answered plainly, as if that should have been self-evident, making eye-contact with Miranda. “Would you not be compelled to do the same if you were detained, thereby preventing you from obtaining crucial information concerning the Collectors, or from saving your sister from your father?”

Miranda arched an eyebrow. Was that a rhetorical question? “If there was no efficient alternative, yes. I would do whatever was necessary to escape. Of course I would.” Except, unlike Samara, she wouldn't have given them a day.

“Then you understand why I could not have done otherwise, though I would deeply regret each life I was forced to end. In those circumstances, to be merciful would be misguided. To deviate from The Code would tacitly permit a grave injustice,” Samara explained. Rational, not emotional. Much like Miranda.

“I guess that's my next question; what constitutes grave injustice according to your Code?” Miranda inquired, folding her arms across her chest, gauging Samara. Even though they'd spoken several times, she ultimately knew very little about her and the strict way of life she adhered to. “You remember that Eclipse mercenary Shepard let go – against my judgement, I might add. Would you have killed Detective Anaya if you were hunting her?”

“No. In most situations where pursuing a criminal would cause an innocent to come to harm, I would be required to break pursuit to save the innocent,” Samara told her, much to Miranda’s approval. It was a relief to hear that The Code was amenable to reason on that account. “Do not mistake my candour for ease; if ever I must resort to taking an innocent life, know that it is because the consequences of failing to do so would cause many more to be slain.”

“Is one, lone criminal that dangerous?” Miranda wondered aloud, inclined to be sceptical. After all, if she was some sort of terrorist or mass murderer, her reputation would have preceded her.

“Yes. This one is.” A faint shadow of sadness crept into Samara’s tone. Her gaze dipped, her eyes avoiding Miranda's once more. “Had I cowed in the face of my duty, the innumerable deaths that may have followed would be my responsibility, to an even greater extent than they already are.”

“What do you mean?” said Miranda, intrigued by her strange choice of words. What cause did Samara have to blame herself for the actions of another?

Samara remained silent for a long, heavy moment, visibly struggling with her thoughts, and whether or not to speak them. Eventually, she did.

“There is a rare condition, affecting only pure-blooded asari like myself, known as Ardat-Yakshi Syndrome,” Samara began, without facing her. “It manifests at maturity, rendering its sufferers unable to meld without fatally attacking the nervous systems of their partners. This experience is intoxicating – more addictive than any narcotic. Once an Ardat-Yakshi has tasted that euphoria, she inevitably craves it above all else, and will stop at nothing to attain it. She seeks out more victims to mate with, ensnaring their minds, feeding on them like prey.”

“How come I've never heard of this?” Miranda asked, perplexed. Surely this phenomenon would have been well-documented.

“That is no accident. Asari rarely speak of it, even among our own kind. Because of the danger they pose, Ardat-Yakshi are isolated from society. As such, the chances of encountering a rogue are negligible,” Samara replied, her tone unchanging. “Nevertheless, if other species were to become aware that there are even a minute number of asari who will murder any and all who meld with them, one could only begin to imagine the fear and hostility that would engender.”

“That's hardly a consolation for the people who get drained dry. I mean, these asari are sexual predators, in every possible sense. Their potential victims can't protect themselves from something like that without knowing the risk exists. Yet you make it sound like you condone this secrecy,” Miranda inferred, taken aback by that. She would have expected better from Samara.

“What I do or do not condone is irrelevant,” Samara responded, continuing to stare ahead, avoiding Miranda’s direct line of sight. “What I described is merely the prevailing view.”

“I see.” Miranda withdrew her objection, dropping the issue. It wasn't fair to blame Samara for the attitudes of other asari. After all, Samara seemed determined to ensure this wasn't swept under the rug, and that innocent people were protected, regardless of their species or what corner of the galaxy they were in. “So, the criminal you're hunting is an Ardat-Yakshi?”

“Yes,” Samara removed any doubt.

“You said you’ve pursued her for four hundred years. How many people has she killed?” Miranda asked, intrigued to learn more about Samara’s quarry.

“I cannot answer that question. However, if I provided you with a conservative estimate, the number would be so high that you would swear I was deceiving you,” Samara stated, her melancholy eyes remaining firm as she spoke.

Miranda knew better than to suspect Samara of exaggerating. It had already become abundantly clear that speaking falsely was counter to her nature.

“Only pure-blooded asari can have this disease,” Miranda recalled, glancing aside as rather a grim prospect occurred to her, one that might have explained why Samara took this hunt so personally. “Are you an Ardat-Yakshi?”

“No, I am not.” Samara shook her head. Miranda unconsciously relaxed a tiny bit. Not because she would have thought any differently of Samara if she did have such a condition, given that she obviously wasn't a danger to anyone who didn't deserve it, but— “However, I am a carrier of the syndrome.”

“A carrier?” Miranda echoed, blinking as the puzzle pieces swiftly fell into place. “She's your daughter,” Miranda voiced her abrupt realisation aloud.

“That is correct,” Samara regretfully confessed, letting her head dip slightly, her features reflected in the window against the vast, cold void beyond.

“...Oh,” was all Miranda could utter in reply. Not that she was particularly shocked, she was just...blank. She didn't know what to say. How did people normally react to being confronted with a private revelation of that nature?

“You are the first person I have shared this with aboard this ship,” Samara continued, saving Miranda from having to stitch together an appropriate choice of words at that news. “I would prefer that this remain between us, until such time as I can explain my circumstances to Commander Shepard. It is crucial to me that she appreciates why I can not afford to delay.”

“Of course. You don't even need to ask,” Miranda assured her. It went without saying that this story wasn't hers to divulge. “Nobody will hear about this from me without your consent.” Not even The Illusive Man, Miranda added internally.

“I thank you for that, most sincerely,” said Samara, genuinely grateful that Miranda took her confidence seriously. “Take heart in the fact that you will not have to keep your silence for very long. This matter is of the utmost urgency.”

“Yes, I gathered that,” Miranda responded, certain Samara would not abide any needless delay. Every moment she waited was giving her daughter another opportunity to snatch an unsuspecting life away. “I still have to finish my report about what happened on Illium today. If you'd rather speak to Yeoman Chambers right away, I can put off my appointment until after you’ve seen her.”

“Very well.” Samara bowed her head, an indication that she would take advantage of that offer. With that, Miranda turned to head towards the door, prepared to leave Samara in peace.

“Miranda?” Samara stopped her, prompting her to glance back over her shoulder. Samara’s upright stance remained unchanged from the first moment she had adopted it. “Do you feel as though I have wasted your time by telling you this?”

“No,” Miranda replied without hesitation, her crinkled brow betraying her confusion that Samara even felt the need to ask that. Of course she didn’t.

“Then I ask you: why would you presume my feelings would be any different when our roles are reversed?” said Samara, a perceptive spark twinkling in the reflection of her sage stare. Maybe that was just a glimmer of starlight.

Miranda blinked, Samara's meaning swiftly sinking in. “...Apparently they're not.”

“Indeed.” Samara elegantly drew back from the window and folded her legs beneath her, resuming her meditation. “Farewell, Miranda. May we speak again.”

Miranda didn't really know what to make of that, departing the room in silence. Suffice it to say, she was still rather stunned to think about how much that conversation challenged her preconceived notions about Samara – notions Miranda hadn’t even known she had, consciously or otherwise.

In truth, she’d never really asked herself those questions about Samara’s past – what her background was, what motivated her to become a Justicar, whether she had a family or children. Miranda hadn’t pondered it because she hadn’t thought the answers were pertinent to the mission. But maybe they were. And, more so, maybe it no longer mattered if they weren’t.

Clearly, there was a hell of a lot more going on beneath Samara's cool exterior than Miranda had previously contemplated. And perhaps Miranda was doing her a disservice by not endeavouring to get to know that side of her better.

*     *     *

[denimwrites-archive]

Special Nights & Snowball Fights

Prompt: Request by Melon Anon - “Can I get some female reader x Race from Newsies plz? No specifics, have fun w/ it please”

Fandom: Newsies (2017)

Pairing: Racetrack Higgins X Female Reader

Summary: When the power goes out in the middle of the night, and the wood stove isn’t running, Race knows just what to do to make the night special. And the subsequent next day in the snow.

Word Count: 1,736

Warnings: A tiny bit of language? And some historical inaccuracy?

A/N: I kind of made this winter themed? Also I haven’t seen the 1992 movie so I don’t really know if the newsies had a woodstove but I thought it seemed likely they would, so I put that. Also I know that New York had streetlights in the 1880s, but I kind of inferred that houses had electricity which wasn’t really commonly the case until the 1930s.

~~~

Winters in New York were cold to say the least. After a day of selling with the chilly wind keeping you awake, you were more than happy to go back to the lodge where it was warm and comfortable. The woodstove was at the center of the main lodge room, and there were plenty of blankets that assured none of the newsies would freeze.

However the same didn’t apply during the day. Sure you all had plenty of layers, but that didn’t stop the cold from seeping into your bones, or the frostbite that burned at your fingertips. But selling had to be done if there would be food to eat, and wood to put in said woodstove. It was a joint effort. Everyone would give some of their money to buy cords of wood. It was commonly referred to it as the ‘warmth tax’ which was an honest name.

One of the people who Finch bought wood from though, was not as decent. He was terrified when he came back to the lodging house to find that the wood he had paid for had not been delivered. As he tried to explain how the deal went down with all of the newsies watching him expectantly, he felt so guilty. You had comforted him and made sure that the newsies knew that he couldn’t have known it was going to happen.

After many grumblings, the newsies started passing out blankets and paired up so stay as warm as possible until enough money could be saved up for another cord of wood. Which also meant that the warmth tax would probably go up. Finch still seemed to be torn up over the blunder, but the newsies did forgive him, and he ended up bunking with Albert to keep warm. They seemed resigned to their fate of sharing beds, but they already knew that they’d risk freezing if they didn’t conserve body heat from past experience.

As you were grabbing more blankets from the closet you felt arms wrap around your waist. You looked behind you to see Race behind you, giving you a smirk. “How’s my bunk buddy doing?” he asked giving you a quick peck on the cheek before giving you a squeeze.

“I’m alright, but we could use some more blankets,” you replied, gesturing to some on one of the taller shelves. Race scoffed and reached up, grabbing the edge of a stack and pulling them down into his arms.

As you reach to grab them out of his hands, he lifts them over his head and asks with a cocky smile, “What’ll you give me for them?” You let out a huff and roll your eyes. He looks at you expectantly, but as you’re about to answer Specs plucks them out of Race’s outstretched arms with a shake of his head. You can’t help but laugh at the look on Race’s face as Specs walks away, his eyes wide and mouth open.

He lets out a grumble before turning back to you. You smirk and brush past him, “I guess you aren’t getting anything then.” You hear more grumbling from behind you, but you ignore him and go back to helping the other newsies. After everything is distributed and you start to settle in for the night you can’t help but shiver at the chill that creeps up your spine.

Race once again comes up behind you and this time spins you so you’re facing him before pulling you close. As your face presses into his chest, you can’t help but lean into his warm body. He leads you to his bed by the window and you get comfy under the covers. Soon enough you’re fast asleep in his arms, safe and warm.

That doesn’t last very long, however, when you feel someone shaking you awake. You grumble, and attempt to turn over, but whoever it was was relentless. Letting out a sigh, you blearily wipe at your eyes until the culprit comes into focus: Racetrack Higgins. “Race, what the hell? It’s still night, the bell hasn’t rung yet.” Ready to settle back into his chest you glare at him as he shakes you again. “What?” you ask.

He puts a finger to his lips, motioning for you to be quiet. You let out a sigh but nod your head. Grabbing your hand with a smile, he starts to pull you out of bed. That’s where you start to draw the line. Refusing to get out of bed despite his pleading look, he takes one of the blankets and wraps it tightly around you, pulling you up before you have time to protest more. He drags you over to the window and you can’t help but gasp at the sight.

The normally lit city is completely dark. At first you look at Race in a panic, but he just points up at the sky. Furrowing your brow, you’re about to ask him how he can be so calm when the city apparently didn’t have any power, but then you glance up and can’t help but stare. Without the lights of the city, you can see stars in the sky. The moon is full and bright as it shines over New York, illuminating the rooftops and giving a surreal glow to the outside.

Turning to Race you can’t help but smile at him. He gives you a loving look and gives you a kiss on the temple as you just stand there and take in the sight. Seeing stars in New York was something special in and of itself, but you were with the boy you loved. And as you watched it became even better when the skies decided to open up and snow started falling. The moon lit up the tiny flakes causing the night to make you think it came straight out of a carol.

Despite being in his arms and still wrapped in a blanket, you couldn’t help the shiver that crept up your back. At your shaking, Race gave you another kiss before pulling you back into bed. “Sorry for waking you up doll, I just thought you might appreciate the view since it finally rivaled your beauty for once,” he said, nuzzling into you. Letting out a hum, you flop into a comfortable position as close to him as possible, basking in his body heat.

“I definitely did, and it means that there’ll be one hell of a headline.” You can’t help the giggle that escapes you and Race gives a quiet chuckle as well. You mumble out a soft, “Goodnight,” before once again falling asleep. It isn’t long before the morning bell is ringing and you get up to face another chilly day. None of the newsies look like they slept well, but no one needs serious thawing out, which is better than what you expected.

As you bundle up and prepare to head out you take a glance out the window only to see a blanket of white. You grab Race’s arm as he walks by and you point outside. His eyes light up as he realizes what this means. Giving you a smirk he whispers his plan in your ear, and you eagerly nod. When the rest of the newsies are finally ready to head down to the circulation desk, you march down as a solid mass, trying to conserve as much heat as you could as you brave the cold and snow covered streets.

Waiting outside of the gate for the headline, impatiently glaring at the still blank chalkboard, Race breaks away from the group. A few of the guys watch him with slight interest, but almost everyone is looking at him when a snowball comes barrelling towards the group from his direction. The playful grin on his face is enough for you all to know he did it, but when you take a few steps back and make as snowball aiming it at the group as well, that’s when it’s every man for himself.

Laughing as the boys scramble for a clear swatch of snow to start building their ammunition, you group up with Race. You compact the snow and hand the ammo to Race as he launches them at anyone who dares come too close. You see Jack get nailed in the face, and Albert has snow all over his back. Distracted by all of your friends around you, you don’t notice Race grabbing a hand of snow and dropping it onto your head. Letting out a squeal, you whirl on him with a shocked look on your face.

That look soon morphs into a dangerous glare, and Race stops laughing immediately. He gives you an apologetic shrug before you start chasing him around the square. You’re screaming at him as he keeps just out of reach. The other newsies turn and watch you two squabble as you finally grab the back of Race’s jacket, pulling him to the ground. You’re both out of breath, and the smiles on your faces are almost painful with how big they are.

Leaning down for a kiss, you ignore the groans from the still watching newsies. You vaguely hear Jack call out, “Get a room!” but are too lost in the taste of Race and the chill from the snow to really care. You’re interrupted by the gate opening and the excited calls of the newsies about the headline. Helping Race up and brushing snow off of him, you get in line. Upon seeing the title of today’s paper you can’t hold in your smirk as you glance at Race. ‘Power Outage Affects Thousands On Coldest Night On Record’

He shakes his head and pulls you close, kissing you as you mumble, “I told you so.” By the time you get your papers, the streets are starting to become alive with people, and you start selling the paper. Most people stop to buy it only for the main title, but the other stories inside actually aren’t that bad either.

By the end of the day everyone has sold more papers than they expected to and are able to chip in for a few pieces of wood that would last for part of the week. Sure it wasn’t the best, and you would still have to preserve heat, but you weren’t complaining since it meant more time with Race. And probably more snowball fights. Who wouldn’t want that?

Tag List:   @helplesshansen