#For anyone wondering my last name is Rodriguez

[aesthetic-uni]

Me when someone mispronounces/mispells my first name: Haha yeah I get it. It’s not at all a common name, so of course there will be a learning curve for most people. Don’t sweat it :)

Me when someone spells my last name with a q instead of a g:

I will commit unspeakable war crimes against you

[lavender-femme]

ty @kicelyn for the tag 🥺🥰

Rules: shuffle your “on repeat” playlist from the music service of your choice and post the first 10 tracks

this may or may not be a doozy bc after ~the breakup~ i couldn’t listen to my music for months and months (only just started to at the very beginning of the year) so the only thing i had on my wrapped was the crazy ex girlfriend soundtrack and about 50% of my “on repeat” songs are from that… so we’ll see 😅

lmao okay off to a good start clearly

this album is actually so so special to me

don’t me started on Jax i will not be able to stop. love of my life. Only releases bangers and bops

okay at this point i’m wondering if i should just skip all the crazy ex gf songs but i think i’m in too deep

one of my fave songs from the whole show. witty, catchy, a bop all around

wow this is going well. this was my most listened to song last year bc it encapsulates how i was feeling post break up about how god yeah people have had their hearts broken since the beginning of time but now i’m hurting how can anyone possibly understand it??

i saw birthday open for pvris (same show as Jax!) and when the singer walked on stage I literally said “great another generic white boy” and then he started singing and the rest is history. this is a birthday stan account.

this and the reprise are so good I stand by it

don’t call don’t text this album is so stunning and underrated. vivid memories of driving through Northern California listening to this one.

thath is my favorite band. i discovered them at the lowest point in my life in 2013 and they gave me two free tickets to their show in 2016. i’ve traveled to Denver to see them twice and i’m going a third time this summer because they reserved a ticket in my name (axs was overloaded with demand and scalpers) so i could buy one for red rocks where every member from the band’s history is playing a show together. this is from their first album and they’ve released nothing but gold since. i love them with my whole heart.

hope y’all enjoyed this post ft my commentary lol 💕

tagging a few of my favorite butches and studs + two femmes i love dearly + a local mutual i treasure (if i didn’t tag u and you wanna do this pls tag me so i can see!!

@gudbutch @strickenstud @daddyisatitlenotagender @a-demon-femme @satanicbarbiefemme @cowardlycowboys (i love y’all sm ty for being my little friends/mutuals/faves in my phone)

[themarshalllaw2020]

I wonder these people that came, did anyone else see them? Not the Russians who nuked us but the very rifle people that ran around with rifles did anyone know a kid with his adderall and faerie sprite girl from brc was saving you with his adderall and Ritalin from the chelsea 10001 FROM THE BRONX 2013 ???? that because he named an apartment the Bronx Adderall Apartment everyone lives? Could others sense it? Were they sleeping dead and everyone I failed. I cried by the time I reached the 1d apartment on 197 st in Bronx ny that was a Landmark ghost explorers stop that our 2008 journey with the NYU that lives in me began. The hills are still hills I swear the refugees of Leeman college still there and I wondered if I failed.. then I look back and see that dude that had weird people threaten me not to panhandle in 2011 and scream Caitlin rodriguez is God to move my body because the show thought Harvey weinsteun that on pause since 2008 and I had to bring the world fortune to her would win. What part of me was it that won as I talked to the last of lorenna gomez Sanchez who stole my stimulus and attacked the city with 150 times in the morning what we do next and 100 times in the mid day because her parents were bad 80s people because she had a mom who was secretly Lee Carol who summoned every year Kryon of the indigo children at the United nations.

[robinrunsfiction]

It’s A Love Story - Part 3

Part 2

"What the hell Frank," (YN) heard Ray shout from where she was sitting on the steps in front of the school, digging through her backpack. Her head snapped up as she looked between them, trying to figure out what was happening.

"What did I do?" He asked defensively.

"Tucker just told me he delivered a pizza to you on Friday night, and he saw girls shoes and a purse by the door. You lied about being sick to go on a date?!"

(YN)'s eyes wide as panic ran through her. She hadn't seen Tucker, she was in the living room, so there couldn't have been any way he would have seen her. Ray would have said if he knew it was her, right? Tucker would have surely told her brothers.

"You got a girlfriend?!" Mikey asked, clearly surprised.

"Umm, yea, I do," Frank answered, rubbing the back of his neck nervously.

"Why didn't you tell us?" Gerard asked.

"Who is she?" Ray asked, not even giving him time to answer the last question.

"She doesn't go here," Frank lied.

"Is she cute?" (YN) finally piped up, a wicked smile on her face.

"She's gorgeous," Frank replied emphatically and (YN) grinned even wider.

"Are we gonna meet her sometime?" Gerard asked.

"I dunno, maybe, if she wants."

"What's her name?" Mikey asked.

Frank opened his mouth to answer and (YN) was genuinely curious to see how he was going to respond when the bell rang, signaling that they had five minutes to get to their homerooms.

"I'll tell ya later," Frank replied as they all made their way into the school.

(YN) hung back and Frank slowed down so he could walk with her. "Saved by the bell," she smirked.

"Who knew Tucker was fuckin Sherlock Holmes," he muttered and (YN) laughed.

“What name were you gonna give them?”

“Yours,” he smirked.

“Stop it,” she said, smacking his arm and he laughed.

“I’ll see ya in algebra,” he said before heading down the hall. (YN) watched him go and sighed. One day they’d all know she was the girl at Frank’s house. One day she’d be able to kiss him before they parted ways. One day couldn’t come soon enough.

~

A few weeks passed, and (YN) was still living for the thrill of being with Frank. There were small moments like (YN) coming out to the garage to watch the band, or rather Frank, practice, to them spending more time doing homework together, to Frank taking her hand as they sat next to each other during the weekly movie night, even though her brothers were right there. Then there were the more exciting moments, like when she found Frank between the shelves, deep in the library.

“Hey,” she whispered, making him jump.

“Shit, oh hey (YN)," he grinned. "What are you doing here?”

“I'm in study hall, but I came to get some books for my research project for history. I saw Mikey up front and he said your English class was in here so," she shrugged, leaning against the shelf.

"You thought you'd come find me in the stacks?" He smirked.

"I thought I'd come find my books for my research project. Come on Frank, what did you think was gonna happen?" She replied with a smirk of her own.

Frank glanced over his shoulder, before grabbing her waist and kissing her hard. (YN)'s mind began to spin, partially because of how amazing the kiss was, but also because her brother was also in the library. Hell, anyone could wander over and find them making out. It'd take all of a minute for the entire school to find out. And (YN) loved it.

She ran her hands through his hair, as they made out against the historical fiction books until they heard footsteps and they pulled apart and both turned their attention to the books. Whoever it was, kept walking, not even slowing down to do more than glance their way.

“Close one,” Frank whispered.

“Mmhmm,” she agreed, stealing a look out of the corner of her eye.

“Kinda awesome.”

“Oh yea,” she giggled.

That afternoon at lunch, (YN) was at her usual spot with the guys, minus Mikey. Ray and Gerard had been practically bouncing out of their seats, clearly having news to share.

“Where is Mikey?” Ray asked, looking around anxiously.

“I dunno, but I’ll fill him in later,” Gerard said. “Let’s just tell ‘em!”

“There’s a battle of the bands coming up and we’re signed up!” Ray announced.

Frank, Bob, and (YN) all exchanged a look of surprise.

“Wait, when is it?” Frank asked.

“Next month!” Gerard grinned.

Bob put his head in his hands. “We have so much more practicing to do.”

“I think we got a real shot!” Ray explained. “And when we win, we get prize money and  real studio time to record an album!”

“We’ll be taking off in no time!” Gerard nodded.

“Can I help?” (YN) asked. 

Before anyone could answer, Mikey walked into the cafeteria with a cute blonde girl. 

"See ya there Mikey," the blonde waved before going off to join her friends and Mikey had a smug smile on his face.

"About time!" Ray said.

“What was all that about?” Gerard asked.

"Me and Kristin are going to the fall formal together."

“Oh nice,” Gerard replied.

(YN) almost choked on her sandwich. "Wait, what?! That's not fair! I wanted to go to fall formal!"

"Who's stopping you?" Mikey replied.

"You and Gee! When you two, the least intimidating nerds at this school, somehow convinced the entire male population to stay away from me!"

She could feel people were starting to look at her as her voice raised with every word but she didn't care. She was angry and sick of how she'd been treated.

"Just go with Christine and Marie," she heard Gerard say, and she began to see red.

"I don’t want to because they have dates and I don't want to be a third wheel!" She snapped. "The double standards in this family are such BULLSHIT!"

"Miss Way!" Mrs. Simon barked. “The office, now!”

(YN) felt her cheeks burning red and her shoulders slumped in defeat as almost everyone in the cafeteria started laughing at her while she was marched down to the office by the teacher. She sighed in frustration at yet another way her brothers were ruining everything for her.

~

A few hours later the school day was over and (YN) reported to detention.

"Is this your first time in detention?" The teacher, Mr. Rodriguez, asked as she slid into the desk and she nodded. "Ok. The rules are there is no talking, you may do your homework, read, or sit silently."

(YN) wondered who she would even talk to since the room was empty. She pulled a folder out of her backpack and was about to get started on her homework when someone else walked into the room.

"Mr. Iero, please take a seat, you know the rules," she heard the teacher say. She looked up to see Frank coming to sit down at the desk next to hers.

"Hey," he whispered.

She grinned and then turned her attention back to her homework. They both worked silently until the teacher announced he would be right back.

"He's gonna be gone at least 10 minutes," Frank said once the door was closed.

"How do you know?"

"He's taking a smoke break."

"Oh, right. Well what are you doing here?"

"I couldn't let my girl go through her first detention alone," he smiled.

(YN) covered her face, partially because she was blushing, and partially because she was embarrassed to be in detention in the first place. "What did you do to be here anyway?"

"I threw a ball at Mikey's head during gym."

(YN) could hardly stifle her laughter. "Oh my god, were you playing dodgeball?"

"No, soccer."

(YN) burst out laughing, thankful Mr. Rodriguez was not in the room. "Thanks for that."

"He deserved it," Frank nodded.

"I agree,” she grinned.

When they walked out of the school almost an hour later, (YN)'s mom was sitting in her car waiting to pick her up. "Ugh, I can't wait to get grounded."

"Maybe it won't be that bad?" Frank said sympathetically as they walked down the steps.

"Hello Frankie, did you wait for (YN)?" Her mom called out the open car window.

"No, I had detention too," he shrugged.

"Oh," her mom seemed taken aback. "Well would you like a ride home?"

"Please," (YN) whispered, hoping to delay the trouble she was certain to get into.

"Sure, thanks!" He nodded, getting in the backseat.

"That Mrs. Simon said this wasn't your first outburst this year, (YN)," her mom said as they started to head home.

"Yea, I know."

"That's not like you," her mom replied, more concerned than angry.

"I know," she muttered, head against the window.

"No one asked me, but I think Gerard and Mikey should back off," Frank piped up from the backseat.

"What do you mean Frankie?"

"Don't worry about it," (YN) mumbled.

"They're too protective of her. I know she's a girl, and the youngest, even if it's just by a few minutes, but they don't need to treat her like every single guy is a predator," he explained.

"Did something happen?" Her mom asked, now very concerned.

"No, some guy in Gee’s class was talking to me at that pool party this summer and Gee freaked out. It doesn't matter, the social damage is done. I don't even care anymore."

"Do you want me to talk to them?"

"No, I don't wanna make it worse. Just let me handle it," (YN) answered.

The rest of the drive was silent until they arrived at Frank's house. "See you tomorrow," he said, reaching forward to rub (YN)'s arm sympathetically before getting out.

"He's a good boy," her mom said as they started back toward their house and (YN) hummed in quiet agreement. "And that necklace he bought you for your birthday is lovely."

(YN) didn't even realize she was playing with it until her mom drew her attention to it. "Yea," she agreed.

"If you ask me, I think he likes you, I've always thought that."

(YN) blushed. "Don't tell anyone, but I know he does."

"Because you like him too?" Her mom asked. (YN) nodded as they pulled into the driveway. "I'll keep it our little secret."

"So am I in trouble for getting detention?"

Her mom laughed lightly. "No, but don't let it happen again. If you want to yell at your brothers, wait until you're home."

"Will do," she nodded, a relieved smile crossing her face.

(YN) didn’t say anything to either of her brothers that night at dinner, eating quickly before running back up to her room. It still wasn’t fair that she got in trouble, or that Mikey could date whoever he wanted to and she couldn’t. She curled up in bed with her sketch book, and tried to let her frustrations come out through her pencil.

"Hey," she heard Mikey say from her doorway after a while.

"Go away," she muttered, not even looking up until something landed at the foot of the bed. It was her favorite candy bar.

"Sorry for being an ass," he said.

"Whatever," she said, grabbing the candy, but still not even looking his way.

"Did you hear what Frank did?"

"Gave you what you deserve," she replied.

"I guess you could say that, but we’re just looking out for you."

She glared at him. "I'm not that fragile Mikey! I can handle myself, now go away!"

“Sorry,” he muttered as he retreated back to his room next door.

(YN) got up and slammed her door and settled back onto her bed when there was another knock. 

“Oh my god, leave me alone!” (YN) shouted, but the door opened anyway.

“Can we talk?” Gerard asked, peaking in.

“No! Go away!” She said getting up to push the door shut, but Gerard was stronger than her.

“I’m sorry! I was thinking about how you said you wanna help with the band, and I was wondering if you’d design our logo for us, and maybe like some shirts or something?”

(YN) stopped pushing on the door. “Wait, really?”

“Yea, like when we win this thing, we’re gonna need some merch to sell to help get our name out there, and posters for gigs, stuff like that,” Gerard shrugged.

“Yea, I guess I could try,” she nodded.

“And I know Mikey tried to apologize, but didn’t do a good job of it. We just didn’t want a guy like Adam to get a chance to do anything, because then people would start talking and-”

“Hang on,” (YN) cut him off. “This isn’t the Regency era, I don’t need my older brothers telling me who I can and cannot spend time with, out of fear that I’ll disgrace the family!”

“That’s not it! I just… I just feel like it’s my duty to protect you. You and Mikey both, but it’s different with you because you’re a girl and I’ve seen the way the guys look at you and I can imagine what they’re thinking and it’s gross and it makes me mad.”

(YN) sighed. "I just wish that if you felt like making a decision in my best interest, you’d actually ask me what I want first."

"Sorry," Gerard mumbled.

"Doesn't do much good now, but whatever," she shrugged.

Gerard stepped back from the door, and she shut it behind him. It didn't really matter, she had Frank, but it was the principle of the matter that still left her steaming.

Part 4

[bewitching-elizabeth-olsen]

Press: “It’s a New Day”: THR Drama Actress Roundtable

THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER: Gillian Anderson had been dreading this. A tripod had arrived at her home in the U.K., along with a mess of lights and, really, just the thought of having to sit through an hour-plus on Zoom had her practically reeling. But then the woman who stuns as Margaret Thatcher in the most recent season of Netflix’s The Crown got talking — about pigeonholing and pay equity, about grieving and giving oneself over — and soon she didn’t want to stop talking. And neither did anyone else — The Queen’s Gambit‘s Anya Taylor-Joy, Pose‘s Mj Rodriguez, Genius: Aretha‘s Cynthia Erivo, WandaVision’s Elizabeth Olsen and Ratched‘s Sarah Paulson — at THR’s annual (virtual) Drama Actress Roundtable.

Let’s start easy. Complete this sentence: On set, I’m the one who is most likely to be …

GILLIAN ANDERSON Hiding in a corner. (Laughter.)

ANYA TAYLOR-JOY Pacing whilst moving my hands like this (waving above) trying to figure out what it is that I’m doing.

SARAH PAULSON Bossing everyone around.

ELIZABETH OLSEN Probably trying to make the crew laugh.

At the same time, you’re also inhabiting characters for long stretches and often they require you to go to dark or heavy places. What happens when a director yells, “Cut”? Do they come home with you?

MJ RODRIGUEZ I try to separate myself from Blanca as much as possible, especially [because we’re] dealing with immense trauma. So, when I go home, it’s Michaela Jaé going home, and I bring Blanca to the set. It’s easier that way because it can weigh on you otherwise and wash off on your family.

TAYLOR-JOY I wish I had as much control over it. For me, there are some characters that you can very easily snap in and out of and then there are other ones like Beth in The Queen’s Gambit. I’d worked back-to-back on two projects with one day off in between, so by the time I got to filming the show, I was exhausted and there was no energy to create a barrier. And that was potentially the toughest thing about the show, because it was a wonderful experience as an actor to be able to not have to reach for any emotion, but then you also have to go through the psychological warfare of figuring out, “Why do I feel so awful in the morning?” Like, “What is happening?” And then you go, “Oh, it’s not my feelings,” but I have to sit in them all day and I have to be aware enough to go, “You are not depressed, the character is depressed, and at some point that will leave you.” But I do think a bath every single night — being able to have the visual representation of washing yourself clean of something — helps.

OLSEN Regardless of what exactly the day requires of you, emotionally, you’re just tired. And so you try to be patient and professional and kind, and then when you go home, that’s when your fuse is just … smaller. (Laughter.)

TAYLOR-JOY You should date us, we’re fabulous.

CYNTHIA ERIVO I did, it was a real ugly cry. After playing [Harriet Tubman in the 2019 film], I went straight to see my mother in London and I don’t know what happened, but I just broke. You know the visual representation of shattering glass? That was what was happening to me. All the stuff I had to dig through to play her, all that heartbreaking stuff didn’t leave me when I finished, and it took time to just dissipate. And it was the same with Aretha — unfortunately, the pandemic hit when we were in the middle of shooting, so I couldn’t completely get rid of her during the six-month hiatus, and then I had to go right back into playing her. And it’s little things, like mannerisms, that stick with you. The lilt in her voice when she’s speaking to people. Like, that’s not me but I was stuck with that for a bit. And I was recording an album at the same time, so there was no space between one and the other. It took me a while before I could listen to an Aretha song again.

ANDERSON I certainly had that experience doing X-Files for nine seasons. I had a good couple of mini breakdowns during that, and at the end, could not talk about it, could not see it, could not see pictures, could not. I needed to immerse immediately in theater in another country. And then after a while, I was able to embrace it again, but when I started to embrace it, it was almost like I separated myself so much that I was looking at the image as if it was another person. When you immerse yourself so entirely as we can and we do for such long periods of time, there’s not going to be no consequence to that. Of course, there’s going to be consequence to that.

TAYLOR-JOY May I pose a question to the group?

Please do.

TAYLOR-JOY It’s so wonderful hearing you two talk about this, because I’ve always felt really crazy for the depressions that you go into after you leave a character and not being able to necessarily connect with yourself. And I’m really curious to hear what your relationship is with something being seen. Because when I first started working, I convinced myself that filmmaking was a very private practice with a private group of people and that no one was ever going to see it. And I thought I’d grow out of that, and I haven’t. Every project I have to sit myself down about two months after it’s finished and go, “People are going to see this and have access to it whenever they want.” How do you guys work [handle that]? Because for Queen’s Gambit, I had to go through a grieving period. It was grief, genuinely, to think, “Oh goodness, this thing that I loved so much is not mine anymore.”

ANDERSON I had that experience after doing Blanche in Streetcar [Named Desire] here in the U.K. and then in New York.

OLSEN I saw your last performance in New York. You were fabulous.

PAULSON Fucking phenomenal.

ANDERSON I felt like I’d lost my best friend. I was grieving. Some friends of mine in New York had a brunch for me the weekend after [I finished my run], and I arrived like a complete wreck. It was so profound. I also knew it was unlikely I was going to do it again because I knew that I’d probably lose my mind. I got really close. Like, I’d survived by the skin of my teeth and if I did it again out of ego or attachment or not wanting to let her go, there would be consequences. So I knew it was the end, and it was so sad.

ERIVO Do you know what’s so crazy? I listen to you and I’m like, “Oh my God, that’s what was happening to me during The Color Purple.” It was the last show and I started grieving in the show, knowing that it was coming to an end. There’s one last song and I couldn’t get through it. And then the show ends and I buckled under the sadness of it. But there was no way I could have continued playing Celie on that stage. It [had been] 14 months and I had to let her go. The line between me and her had disappeared. But to answer your question, Anya, I’ve never had an issue with people seeing things. I usually have an issue seeing it after it’s done.

PAULSON This happened when I did Marcia Clark [for The People v. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story]. I felt a profound connection to her and I felt protective of her, and the experience had been so tectonic plate-shifting for me, both as a performer and as a human, and I thought, “If I watch it, I’m going to pick apart everything.” She was left-handed, so every time I use my right hand, I’m going to think, “God damn it, why did they use that?” So, the only way to protect myself from that is to detach from what the world will experience with it. And I’ve maintained that for a long time now — I really don’t watch [things I’m in] because I don’t have the strength, first of all, to bear the sight of my face and, also, I find it really confronting. The preciousness of the thing you were creating with these other people is what I want to be the indelible thing for me and not how it was edited.

TAYLOR-JOY Mm-hmm.

PAULSON All that does is make me furious because I don’t have the power to go in and go, “Hi, um, could you choose take six? It’s infinitely better.” (Laughter.) And when you don’t have that ability and you’re at the mercy of someone else’s opinion of what is the finest work that you’ve done, which doesn’t always line up with what you feel, it’s really jarring and you feel so powerless to do anything about it. So, I have to just sage it all out and let my experience be the only thing that governs the way I feel about it.

RODRIGUEZ When the first two seasons of Pose came out, I didn’t watch them at first because I was just so nervous about how the world would receive it. It was a story that a lot of people haven’t gotten to see, and it was a whole bunch of trans women of color finally getting their shot. It’s a lot of responsibility. And on top of that, it’s a story that’s filled with trauma and things that a lot of us trans women have gone through, so it was hard for me to watch all of those things back.

Gillian, in your career you’ve also been a champion for pay equity. But even as you were promoting a book you co-authored on female empowerment a few years ago, you acknowledged that you were nervous speaking up about being paid less than your male co-star. What do you think you were scared of, and how have the conversations for you changed since?

ANDERSON I just need to point out that I first fought for pay equity way back when it was audacious by anybody’s standards, because I was a nobody when we started to do that series. But when I really spoke up about it was when it happened again, four or five years ago, after the career I’d already had post-X-Files. We were going back to do another season and Fox came to me to offer, I don’t know, a 10th of what my co-star [David Duchovny] was being offered. That was the point where I was like, “Fuck this. I’m actually going to talk about this [publicly].” And since then, it hasn’t really come up. I mean, I haven’t worked with a lot of men, so that hasn’t been an issue. (Laughs.) I’m certainly tuned to it, and were it something now, I’d address it. But I have so much admiration for anyone who stands up for their right either to be paid or to be hired, period. And look, they weren’t going to fire me on The X-Files. The stakes weren’t that high. I put my foot down, not because the stakes weren’t high, but if they were going to fire me, some people were going to have some things to say about that. It’s very different for a young woman going into a job situation with a boss who’s overbearing and asking for a pay raise.

Sure, you had leverage.

ANDERSON Yeah.

For the rest of you, when have you spoken up in your careers?

ERIVO I mean, the obvious is I’m a Black woman, and that has a lot to do with how you’re paid, how you’re hired, if you’re hired, the way you’re hired — it affects everything. I’m lucky enough to have a team behind me that is brave enough to ask the questions I’d like asked: What I’m being paid compared to the leading man in the show, or if I’m being paid a lot less, whether or not they are willing to come up so it becomes equal. And about little things in my contract that just make it easier to exist on a set. For me, it’s about having the guts to stick with it and to keep asking and keep fighting. And there are definitely times where you’re like, “I am so exhausted from asking the same thing.” Like, if we could please have this makeup artist with me because usually there are no Black makeup artists on a set and you’re the only one who needs one, and I’ve had to have that fight every single time I’ve gone onto a set: “I need to hire these two people because they are the only people that understand how to do my face or my hair.” It isn’t about vanity, it’s about making sure that whoever I’m playing is represented in the right way because they understand how to work with my skin tone and my hair. But you keep sticking with it because it’s not just me having my way, it’s me being able to employ two other people. And then maybe I’m asking, “Can we have a DP who understands lighting that works on my skin tone?” So it’s constantly being OK with asking the questions. And there is a bit of fear, like, “Am I going to be seen as difficult?” And yes, there are times where I’ve had someone say they’ve heard I was difficult, but usually, it’s because I’ve asked a question that will make for a better surrounding or a better show. And if I keep asking the questions and if other ladies like myself keep asking the questions, and we keep trying to better our spaces, it just becomes the norm — because at some point it has to just become the norm.

Elizabeth, I believe you had a saying in your house growing up, “No is a full sentence.” When do you find you use it?

OLSEN I use it a lot. (Laughs.) I use it when I’m on set. I mean, I want to be a part of every department when I’m on set. I want to understand the schedule. I want to understand everything. I produced a TV show [Sorry for Your Loss] that didn’t get too much light of day because it was on Facebook, which, whatever … but as a producer on it, it was really important for me to be a voice of everything you’re saying, Cynthia, and have heads of departments feel like and look like the freakin’ world. And just from having a taste of that for two seasons, I can’t [go back]. So when I go to do Dr. Strange 2 in England, I guess I use it when I just can’t shake it even though [the production is] so much bigger than me. I don’t know, my opinions are vast and everyone hears them, from the first AD to the EP. I think I’m like a representative of anyone having a hard time on set. … (Laughs.)

PAULSON You’re the Equity rep, I love it.

OLSEN Oh my God. (Laughter.)

When you think about your careers, is there someone else’s that you look at and go, “Ooh, yeah, I’d love that”?

OLSEN Gillian’s, Sarah’s …

ERIVO Yeah, Sarah, you’re that for me. You’re fucking incredible.

PAULSON You saying that to me makes me want to cry because sometimes you feel like you’re doing this in a bubble and you don’t even know if anything you’re doing ever has any meaning or impact to anyone.

ERIVO It does. From my heart, it does. And I hope I get to work with you one day.

PAULSON I’d give my eyeteeth. (Laughs.) For me, it’s Gillian — somebody being on a TV program for a long time that’s wildly successful and then retreats to another country to be onstage, to reconnect yourself to the very things that inspired you and made you want to be a part of this. It all gets very confusing in terms of how to navigate [this business]because you do want to make a living, but you also want to follow your heart. And there does come a time where you can become quite depleted from the constant output without any input. And if you’re a woman of a certain age, which I certainly am, I feel like I’ve got one foot on one window frame and I’ve got the other one over here and I’m just trying to insist that they stay open for as long as possible. And some of that is beyond my control, but when I look at Gillian’s career I just go, “Well, I want that.”

ANDERSON Thank you for saying that. On the one hand, I feel like there is some degree of design, but I’ve also never really gone after things. And when I finished with X-Files, I didn’t know if I wanted to be on a set again ever. So aside from having grown up in the U.K. and wanting to go back, I knew it would take time before I could, if I was going to. And in London, you could move between theater and TV, and that was always my dream. But every actor has the thing that they���d want more than the thing that they have, and I’m a cinephile, and so I [wonder], “Why do I keep doing TV? All I want to do is do film.” And I’m still doing TV. (Laughs.) But I’ve had such amazing opportunities that, coming from Scully, I even questioned people, like, “Why are you offering this to me? What makes you think that I can do this?” I’ll also say that as soon as you have kids, kids are the priority. So, I say to people, “I’m gonna be such a pain in the ass for you to hire. But if you think I’m this person, I’m gonna need to work during this period of time and then have time with my kids. And it’s going to be expensive for you. If you are willing to do that, then I’m your girl, and if you’re not, you need to find somebody else.”

Anya, Queen’s Gambit became a global juggernaut. How have your opportunities and choices changed? Is there pressure to strike while the iron is hot?

TAYLOR-JOY I think I’ve always followed character and only recently did I start following directors as well, but it’s always been about, “Do I feel like I’m the right person to tell this story? Do I think I can tell this story correctly?” And if you look at something like Queen’s Gambit, it was not supposed to be the white-hot show; it’s a show about a girl that plays chess for seven hours, but I felt so compelled to tell that story. So, it sounds cheesy, but I really just keep following my heart. OK, wait, I take that back. Something I’m also learning is that you give yourself to this person for three to six months, and I never used to think about this before, but now I start thinking, “Am I ready to give up my life for this person? Do I need to tell this story so badly that I’m going to do that?” I try not to think about what other people will think, because it’s your life at the end of the day. And as we all know, you’re that [character] every hour of the day, and when you go home it’s difficult to let go of them, so you have to really love them.

Mj, you’ve talked about how significant this show was for you and for the visibility of the trans community. How have the opportunities being presented to you post-Pose changed?

RODRIGUEZ In the middle of the third season, I started figuring out my worth, and it’s scary. I was nervous. I didn’t expect to actually book my next job after Pose.

ERIVO I did.

PAULSON We all did.

RODRIGUEZ And see, that’s my insecurity and that’s something I have to fix. I didn’t think it was possible. To get an opportunity like Pose and have myself centered in the story and to end it with hope, and then to get another opportunity with an iconic actress [an Apple TV+ comedy co-starring Maya Rudolph] was surreal. But if I’m still feeling the need for protection as far as my Blackness, my Latina-ness and my trans-ness go, that means there is more work to be done.

Are there doors still not open to the rest of you? Parts you’d love to play if only Hollywood would see you that way?

PAULSON No one has asked me to do a comedy, and I’m a little frustrated about that.

ERIVO And you’re funny as fuck.

PAULSON I spend a lot of time in these worlds where I’m either running or crying or screaming or playing a real person and trying to get their physicality, and I’d really like to do a nice road picture with me and a couple of chicks.

ANDERSON Ooh, I’ll go with you!

PAULSON How about all of us just in a road movie — like, get a Winnebago and let’s go?

ERIVO I’m down.

RODRIGUEZ Yeah, count me in.

ANDERSON I’m 53, Sarah, and I’ve really only been offered comedy in the last three years of my life, and I don’t think that’s because I’m any funnier than I used to be. I think a lot of it is that people just couldn’t fathom it, whether it was that Scully was still in their minds or it was someone else, because I’ve played a lot of dark characters, too. And so they just weren’t coming. And then came [Netflix comedy] Sex Education — and I passed when it first came to me because I didn’t think it was right. It was my partner who proverbially dug it out of the trash.

ERIVO I’ve yet to see a Call Me by Your Name for a Black woman, I have yet to see a piece that allows a woman of color to be sensual and soft and loving and be loved. I’ve just not seen it, and I desperately want to experience that, just because I want to be able to be in that space of vulnerability and lilt. I really want to do that. And that hasn’t come my way. A comedy hasn’t come my way either.

RODRIGUEZ Same. It’s been so hard when it comes to trans women being loved in a sensual way, and I’d love to do something like that.

Elizabeth and Anya, to Sarah’s point, Hollywood likes to keep actors in a lane. How have you avoided that kind of pigeonholing in your careers to date?

TAYLOR-JOY I’ve been saved from a lot of things in my life from pure innocence and naivete, genuinely. My first movie was called The Witch, I got a script immediately afterward that was about, you guessed it, a witch, and I figured, “Wow, why do they want to see me do this again?” So, I was immediately like, “Can I not do anymore witch movies, please?” And my agent was like, “OK. Sure, whatever you say.” I wonder how many people agree with me here because I certainly want to please, but in order to please, I don’t have to give up myself, and actually it’s more important to please myself than it is to please anybody else. I’m giving my heart, my body, my soul, everything to this character, I’m not going to do something because somebody wants me to do it. That doesn’t make any sense and, also, it makes me miserable and then I can’t do my best work. And so if I feel the opportunities that are being given to me aren’t the right ones, then I have to stick my neck out and go, “Hey, I think I could maybe do this, if you’ll give me the opportunity to try.”

How about you, Elizabeth?

OLSEN [In the beginning,] I was just trying so hard to not be put in a box that that’s what was guiding my choices. I knew that I didn’t want to be an actor who was thought of as “youthful and beautiful” and whatever that attachment people like to put onto young women, and so I did everything in my power not [to be seen as] that. But I didn’t have my own pillars of why I wanted to do things beyond just the character. That started to solidify only in the last five years. So I made a lot of odd decisions [after theater school at NYU] because I didn’t know enough about film and the machine of it. Right, Sarah? You were there for that time. We were in Martha Marcy May Marlene, and I remember someone asked me, “You had Sarah Paulson with you, didn’t you know it could be a film people saw?” And I was like …

PAULSON You were like, “Who the fuck is Sarah Paulson?” (Laughter.)

OLSEN No, but independent cinema to me was just, like, going to Quad Cinema in New York and seeing a movie. The theater world is all I understood. So I feel like a moron for going back to theater only once in 10 years. And this conversation with Gillian right now is inspiring.

In light of Elizabeth’s concern about the trap of being perceived as “youthful and beautiful,” how would you all complete this sentence: I wish our male counterparts also had to …

OLSEN Deal with lighting and hair and makeup before doing press. I don’t know what I’m doing.

ERIVO Deal with people believing that you’ve lost your sexuality after the age of 30.

TAYLOR-JOY Had an understanding of what it was like to walk into a room and sometimes have to enforce yourself for people to take you seriously. That ability to just walk into a room and go, “I am valid, I own my space and everybody respects me” — it would be good if they knew what it was like to not have that.

ERIVO And on the flip side, to not have to deal with walking into the room and trying to make sure people aren’t scared of you when you get there.

What do you all know now that you wish you could have told yourself at the beginning of your career?

PAULSON I would like to have told myself that I didn’t need to excise myself from the experience. I was very focused on looking at other actors who had careers that I admired when I was first starting out and wondering what it was about them that made it possible for them to be chosen or employed and I’d often try, in an audition or a social setting, to mimic what I imagined was the desired effect, taking me out of the scenario. And there’s this beautiful Martha Graham-to-Agnes de Mille letter that I used to keep in a dressing room any time I was doing a play, about how there is only one you in all of time and space and that what you see and how you experience things is unique to you. And if you block it, the world will not have it. And as a young person, I thought, “Mute me, mute my opinions, my thoughts, my assessments and try to fill it with other things,” and now I think it’s the exact opposite, so I wish I had known that earlier. But I’ll take knowing it now [over] never knowing it at all.

RODRIGUEZ I would have told my younger self that my existence is worth it. When I was younger, I tried to fit into this mold of what a woman should do — you know, keep your legs crossed, always bow down to a man. But we don’t have to live in that world anymore. It’s a new day.

It is, and that’s a good place to end. Thank you all for sharing your time and your stories.

ERIVO I know we’re supposed to finish, but do you know what’s occurred to me as I’ve listened to every one of you? I remember where I was when I watched every single one of you — and I remember what I was dealing with or going through. I was watching you, Sarah, when I was shooting Aretha. I was watching you, Elizabeth, when I was in London on my own, and you, Anya, when I was in Atlanta. Mj, I remember watching a season of Pose while I was shooting The Outsider. And Gillian, I watched you when I was in a hotel with my partner outside of London. And I remember what happened. And so your performances aren’t just brilliant, your performances get to be Post-its in all of our lives, and so I thank you for that.

PAULSON That’s a very beautiful way to put it …

ANDERSON It also brings us back full circle to what Anya said at the beginning, which is, “Oh my God, I have to keep reminding myself that people are going to watch this.” But actually, thank God that people are watching it, because we’ve touched each other’s lives and numerous other people’s lives just by focusing on the thing that we love most.

TAYLOR-JOY And the importance of these conversations is the honesty, because it’s very easy for us to get locked into our own heads of this as an individual experience — “There’s something wrong with me,” or “Everybody else is doing really great and nobody else grieves their characters,” or whatever your version of that is in whatever industry you’re in. But having honest conversations with people who are willing to be vulnerable just makes me feel so much less alone.

PAULSON The next time you feel that way, text me. I’ll remind you. I’d also like to say that there’s this [perception] of women being pitted against one another and not being there for one another, and this conversation is diametrically opposed, in that what we are actually saying is that each of us has been buoyed by and inspired by the work of everyone here. So, I may not watch anything I do, but I sure as hell am watching all of you.

Press: “It’s a New Day”: THR Drama Actress Roundtable was originally published on Elizabeth Olsen Source • Your source for everything Elizabeth Olsen

[runenc03]

Til the light goes out (and after) - part 2

Writing date: January or February 2021, I can’t remember

Genre: fluff! I figured we deserved that after the insecurity of part 1

Warnings: I guess a make out session? Should I warn for that? I think I should warn you that this is my ‘steamiest content’ (for now) and that is saying very laying because I’m too shy to write steamy stuff, even if i want to try to write it.

Word count: 2.7k words:

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You didn't mean to stare, you really didn't, but your afternoon performance was about to start and you knew that when he wanted to be alone, he always went to the equipment room to play music and order his thoughts, so you came to tell him that he was needed to discuss the latest details before the performance. Standing there, just about to announce your presence, something had stopped you. You watched as he sat there, crossed legged on an old sofa, flute in his hands, his knight armor clearly making it difficult for him to raise his arms to the right angle to be able to play. It almost made you giggle, he had always hated that costume. His eyes studied the sheet in front of him, memorising the last few little notes before playing it during the performance. You loved to watch him when he was like this, so fully himself, so unguarded. 

"Hi. Is it time?" 

He looked almost sad, and you knew that while he loved playing for people, he wasn't ready to leave his secluded spot yet. You decided extending his time a little wouldn't hurt anyone. 

"No, we still have a few more minutes. What part are you playing?" 

His mouth formed a smile, and he patted the space beside him on the sofa as an invitation. You giggled as the clattering of his armor costume disturbed the silence. You seated yourself on the sofa, briefly wondering if the old thing could even carry two bodies, and then threw your legs over his crossed ones, creating a mess of intertwined limbs. Then, you kissed his cheek - you couldn't help yourself, really - and enjoyed watching the blush spread over the place you had just placed your lips on. 

"After all this time together, I still get you flustered with a kiss on your cheek, without anyone near us?" 

He now fully turned his attention to you, carefully placing his flute on its holder next to the sofa, a grin growing on his face. 

"I can't help it and you know it. Besides, you wouldn't have it any other way." 

You had to agree with that. As much as you loved how other couples go all out on public displays of affection, you weren't sure you'd like that so much. 

"Touché. Now kiss me, we need to leave in literally 3 minutes." 

You saw his grin broaden, until he was so close that his lips were out of your sight. Not that you minded. Closing your eyes, you felt his smile, and that was your favourite way to experience it anyway. His arm slid around your waist, lightly pulling you closer to him, and your legs decided on their own to untangle from his and just entirely sit on his lap instead. As he felt you snuggle close to him, he hummed in appreciation, and you smiled at the rich sound of it. You continued to share kiss after kiss, the fingers on one of your hands weaving themselves through his hair, while the other slid under his armor, lightly scratching his back. You knew he loved it, and while you still questioned as to why that was, you really didn't mind doing it. After all, he did wonderful things to you as well. 

"I love you. So so much, you know that, right?" 

You often questioned if other people smiled as much while making out as you did. It was automatic, as opposed to him being so shy in public, he had the habit to mumble all sorts of little things to you while the two of you were alone, and it made it impossible not to smile. He made you so, so happy. You questioned if other couples felt as much love as you did, too. You answered him by covering his jaw in kisses, going from right under his ear to his chin, somewhere in the back of your mind noting that it was still scratchy, and realising that he probably hadn't had the time to shave this morning because you had texted him at 5 am to ask if you could go watch the sunrise together, something he had obviously agreed to, being the incredibly kind human being he was. 

"I love you too. I love you, I love you, I love you." 

Now it was his time to smile, the effect of your words alternating with your kisses, and your heart warmed a little bit more. Oh, how you loved him. Saying it just wasn't enough. He tilted your head then, gentle as always, and you gladly went once again from kissing his jaw to kissing his lips. You shuffled even closer, deepening the kiss, shifting your hand on his back to his chest, lazily drawing circles there, feeling his warm flesh against your cold hands. He didn't flinch, he never did. He had somehow made you believe in the beauty of your touch, and, in a strange way, because of it, in the beauty of yourself. His fingers now wove themselves through your hair as well, angling your face just a bit differently once again.  His other hand went to your upper leg, drawing circles just like you were doing on his chest, so in sync with each other. His lips were warm against yours, but not in a scorching way. You felt welcome, at home. 

"Hey, uh, you know I would say sorry for interrupting, but I'm really not that sorry. You have all the time in the world after the show, lovebirds, but for now, you need to come with me." 

Your boyfriend's groan would've amused you if you, too, hadn't been so hopelessly embarrassed. Ruby - now Ava - had come to get you, and while you wouldn't have wanted anyone else to walk in on you, you knew the smugness wouldn't leave her voice anytime soon. She did leave the two of you behind then, also understanding that embarrassing you any further wouldn't do right before the show, and you smiled at her thoughtfulness. 

"Come on, she was right, we need to get up. From now on, you're the unnamed music guy again, and I am princess Rose." 

You carefully pulled yourself away from him, careful not to knock anything over, especially not his precious flute, and straightened your dress once again, making sure there weren't any creaks in it. 

"I would call you my princess, but I guess you'd find that a bit too cheesy, wouldn't you?" 

Your laughter filled the room, and you took his hand, standing on your tiptoes one last time to give his cheek a kiss. 

"You know me so well. Now come on, unnamed music guy, it's time for us to make some magic." 

Flute in hand, he gladly followed you. _______________________________________

"Hey, love, I forgot my pocket sized sheet music in the office, can you go get it please? I still need to ask Ava about the music in the third scene."

You nodded, turning around on your heels and quickly jogging to the office, the room in which you all had brainstorm sessions about your shows. It wasn't unusual for your boyfriend to forget his stuff, and you knew that he and Ava were the two most musically talented people in your crew and they liked to make sure they both agreed with whatever music was played, so you weren't suspicious of the situation. That was, until you reached the office, and your feet stopped moving upon laying your eyes on the person that was already seated at your round table, smiling politely as she saw you enter. It was none other than Erica Rodriguez, billionaire, media figure, and basically the owner of the entire movie industry. 

"Hello there. I see that you found your way to me. Take a seat please." 

Your limbs felt like cooked pasta, your face heating up at her words, and an uneasy feeling settled in your stomach. What in God's name was going on? After being looked at expectantly for at least a few seconds, you broke out of your reverie, stumbling over your own feet, but into the chair opposite of Mrs. Rodriguez. 

"Excuse me ma'am, but we're about to play the afternoon show in the northern region of the park, and I'm expected to be-" 

"Don't worry, everything is taken care of. One of the women of your group with a very unimportant role in this play is taking over your character for the afternoon, so everyone is notified that you won't join your crew today. In fact, this was their idea, they personally invited me. And I must say, I'm pleased I responded." 

Your cluelessness was probably very evident on your face, Mrs. Rodriguez's polite expression morphing into a genuine, but amused smile as she pushed a piece of paper in your direction that you hadn't noticed before. 

"A few weeks ago, your friends contacted me, to tell me about this amazingly talented girl in their crew. About a year ago, that girl started allowing the crew to play her own written stories, and she even grew as far as to play the lead role in some of them. They told me that even though she'd always been a good writer, she'd also grown enormously over the last few months, and that the show they were about to play next was the best story she'd ever written, and that I should come take a look." 

"So...so you came to look at my play?" 

Your throat felt dry, your head foggy with all the unexpected information. Mrs. Rodriguez nodded enthusiastically, and the uneasy feeling inside your stomach swirled, although at this point, you weren't too sure it was uneasiness that was going on in there. 

"Yes, yes I did. I took my daughter with me, and together we watched your show this morning. I'm glad you didn't notice me, I wouldn't have been able to judge properly if you had, but it needs to be said, you have an extraordinary gift." 

The blush covered your cheeks before her words had any chance to cool off. You looked down, playing with the hem of your princess dress, somewhere in the back of your head noting that you must look utterly ridiculous. 

"Thank you, that's really kind, but it's not just me. I wrote the story, but my friends, the crew, they're the ones bringing the story to life, making the magic." 

Her smile morphed into a knowing grin. 

"Which is exactly the reason that, if you agree to make your play into a movie with my help, I would love for your entire crew to continue to play the roles they play now. I've been looking for something like this for a long time now, something with some classic elements, but with a creative twist. Something kids get excited about, but adults just as much. Something magical, really, and I found it here. Now, it wouldn't be fair for me to pressure you into saying yes immediately, your friends told me that this place is practically sacred for you. Just know that I would treat your story with the utmost care and respect, that making it into a movie wouldn't take away the magic, it would just capture it for eternity." 

Your next words were out before you knew it, your heart making little skips. This was huge, and you were surprised you realised that so soon, but in this moment, everything was crystal-clear to you. 

"I don't need time, ma'am. I've seen all the movies made under your care, and they're all astoundingly beautiful. I'd be honoured to make my play into a movie. Thank you so much." 

Your vision blurred by unshed tears, your smile had barely ever been this wide. You were flying, soaring, wanted to laugh, jump, dance, cry, sing with joy. You also realised that you wanted to share this with the rest of your crew. 

"You can keep this copy of the contract, it was a bit ceremonial anyway, I'll send you a copy by mail soon, is that okay?" 

You nodded quickly, standing up to shake her hand as she took her coat and her briefcase, once again congratulating you before walking out the door of the office room, leaving you with the most overwhelming wave of gratitude you'd ever felt in your life. _______________________________________

This time around, you found your boyfriend between the park's castle and the 'magic woods', not too far away from where the crowd was still gathered after the play. He was cleaning his flute, silently checking every inch to see if it hadn't been damaged somewhere during the play. It was a ritual for him, and while you'd normally let him have it, you were way too excited now to not engulf him in a hug right this second. 

"Woah....what happened?" 

But there was a certain edge to the tone of his voice, and you knew that he was perfectly aware of everything that had happened to you these past half an hour. 

"Oh, shut up. Was it your idea? Honestly I can't thank all of you enough." 

He chuckled, placing a kiss on your temple, and your arms automatically squeezed him a bit tighter. 

"Actually, it was Ava's, but I helped actually reaching out to Mrs. Rodriguez. We all did, to be honest." 

You wanted to kiss him then and there, engulfed in sunlight, while the excited chatter of visitors could still be heard from not too far away, when a certain little girl's voice broke the moment. 

"Princess Rose! Why are you hugging this man? And where is your husband? Do you not love him anymore? But you kissed this morning!?" 

You hadn't ever turned around as quickly as you did now, horrified that one of the little ones had caught you full on wrapped around what for them was just another character in the play. But your blood actually turned cold when you saw which little girl stumbled upon you. 

"Mummy, look! I found Princess Rose! But she's hugging someone other than Prince Carl!" 

And there she was, Mrs. Rodriguez. You relaxed a bit when you realised that she wasn't as horrified as you were, but only slightly. You could only stand there, wide-eyed, for once not knowing what to say. Fortunately, your ever shy boyfriend decided that this was the perfect moment to speak up. 

"Hi there! How are you?" 

The girl's mouth curved into a cute smile, regardless of the situation charmed that someone in a knight costume was talking to her. She nodded her head, but also leaned against her mum, trying to make herself a bit more comfortable. Your boyfriend, meanwhile, made a ridiculously deep bow for Mrs Rodriguez' daughter. You stifled your laughter. 

"Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Knight Ronald, and I am Princess Rose's favourite brother." 

The little girl's eyes widened, an excited look on her face. 

"Are you? I don't have a brother, although I would love to have one! Then I could dress up as a princess and play princess Rose! And then my brother could play you and we could go on adventures together! I-" 

But Mrs. Rodriguez had stopped her daughter's rambling, the biggest grin on her face. Your face probably mirrored hers. 

"Okay sweetie, I think it's time you and I go home. Say bye to Princess Rose and Knight Ronald, and then we need to leave, okay?" 

The girl ran forward, wrapping her small arms around your waist, as that was the highest she could reach. You hugged her back, mouthing a thank you to your boyfriend, and a sorry to Mrs Rodriguez, who gave you a reassuring wave in return. After the two of them had left, you concentrated all your attention on the wonderful guy next to you again. This time, you checked your surroundings before wrapping your arms around his neck, groaning slightly as you realised just how close you'd come to completely ruining both the little girl's and your own day. 

"Please don’t ever say that you're my brother again" 

He chuckled, but rubbed your head in a comforting manner anyway. 

"I won’t.” 

And he sealed his promise with a kiss worthy of being reciprocated by a true princess.

[fyrapartnersearch]

Seeking Literate Partners!

Disclaimer: Male authors, please stop contacting me. I've been burned too many times. If you persist, I'll ignore your message. Hello, you can call me Doe! I'm 25+ and a proud cat mom. I write multiple paragraphs/novella style (200-500+ words). I love to write detailed descriptions and delve into a character’s head/emotions as well as surroundings. I compare it to writing a novel together. I understand if the scene doesn’t have alot going on and therefore requires less like rapid fire. I adore having long, thoughtful replies where we truly immerse ourselves in the world. I'm hoping to find a partner whose as enthusiastic and passionate about the plot and writing as I am. When I get invested in a story, it’s 100% dedication. Getting a reply is the highlight of my day. I'm a big fan of romance and using face claims. I’m the type to make pinterest boards, spam you with gifs, headcanons, and send you songs that remind me of our characters and/or ship. I'll get excited if we come up with future plot ideas, or if our characters are being cute or angsty and I can yell about it in the chat. Last but not least I only do MxF (with myself in the female role) and don’t double, but I’m more than happy to write side characters of either gender to help move the story along. I'd highly prefer female authors writing male characters. Searching For - 21+ partners - For you to have an excellent grasp of grammar, punctuation, spelling, and capitalization. Both in character and out of character. (Literate to advanced writers only, please. I'm not looking for newbies or those who have English as their second/third language). - Plot before smut. While mature themes will be in my plots, and are even encouraged, there needs to be chemistry between our characters. I like to have a good mix of plot and tastefully written smut, along with doses of angst and fluff. - For you to write as an older man (40s+/50s+). I'm a sucker for the gruff and tough men with dark pasts who secretly have a soft heart. I also love those grumpy, hypermasculine men being intimidated by soft yet commanding women. The youngest I write is early 20s. - Please be enthusiastic and invested when it comes to plotting/worldbuilding. There’s nothing worse than receiving one sentence in reply to two paragraphs of ideas, or having a doormat partner who says “sure” to whatever I ask. Tossing ideas back and forth, watching them snowball into amazing plot threads brings me joy. - Joining me in the wonderful world of ship/character development is kind of a must. It’s one of the things that makes writing with a partner so much fun. I also like to make friends with my partners! - While I'd prefer real life face claims, I'd also be open to using realistic art if you're uncomfortable with real life. I draw the line at anime/cartoon art. Faces I'd love to write as: gal gadot, rooney mara, ruth negga, saoirse ronan, sophie turner, jessica chastain, jennifer morrison, mia wasikowska, natalia dyer, brit marling, deborah ann woll, mackenzie davis, emmy rossum, adria adjora, chyler leigh, hayley bennet, tashi rodriguez, lily james, cara delevingne, maya hawke, katheryn winnick, elizabeth olsen, abigal cowen, sophia lillis lauren cohan, zoey deutsch, paulina singer, crystal reed, hayley lu richardson, ask about others Faces I'd love to write against: jeffery dean morgan, hugh jackman, robert taylor, jr bourne, jon bernthal, jason issacs, anthony varrecchiah, brett tucker, david harbour, frank grillo, iain glen, josh duhamel, patrick petitjean, ethan hawke, christian bale, rory mccann, younger sam elliot, titus welliver, viggo mortensen, joel miller (illustrated face), ask about others If you've made it this far, thank you! You won't be disappointed in writing with me. I tend to be online daily and while I'd like it if you were too, I understand that real life things comes first. Let me know if you're going to be inactive/can’t continue. If you suddenly stop replying ic and ooc, I'll drop the story after 2 attempts of gauging continued interest spaced a week apart. Below are genres and pairings I love. Feel free to combine as many as you'd like and I’m sure we can come up with something great! Current cravings are in bold. Two thing I don't do are slice of life and historical plots. Genres: - crimes in remote locations - spooky small towns - post apocalyptic/dystopia - supernatural/modern fantasy (A/B/O, werewolves, shapeshifters, alpha x rival pack alpha's child, werewolf x shifter, alpha x new werewolf, involuntary mate-bond, mating/claiming) - southern/mid western gothic - murder mystery (small town or big city) - modern/dark fairy tale retellings - sci-fi - cyberpunk/retro-futuristic - little coastal towns or little towns in the mountains - emotionally charged/dark and gritty - superpowers/gifted - unresolved sexual tension/slow burn - redemption - pacific northwest - suburban gothic - luring to the other side - reincarnation/multiple universes - western inspired + modern day (such as longmire) - christmas inspired - culture clash/two characters from different sides Pairings: - age gaps (older man x younger woman / 15 to 25+ year gap) - enemies to lovers/villain x heroine - cop x criminal - doctor x patient - friends turned lovers/pining - grumpy x sunshine - the broken man x the woman that becomes his light - fbi agents/cop partners - dark hearted man melting for the innocent woman - friend x best friend’s older sibling - boss x employee - neighbors - single father x friend - firefighter/cop x victim - mentor x mentee - hurt/comfort - height differences - pet names (sweetheart, baby girl, kid, kiddo) - lady and the tramp esque/class difference - creature x human/creature - ex-con x anyone - bodyguard x assignment - widow/er falling in love again - biker x civilian - rancher/mountain man x city girl - affair (with so's sibling, with so's friend, with neighbor) - hitman x target - serial killer x fbi agent - soul mates - experienced x inexperienced - local x vacationer - injured/scarred warrior washed out from their former glory x royal/heir-to-be (modern day / Sansa x Sandor inspired) - friend x best friend/boyfriend's father - daughter in law x father in law - park ranger x camper - bounty hunter x bounty - power imbalances Tropes/Themes: the papa wolf/hot dads, cultured badass, jerk with a heart of gold. ladykiller in love, mountain man, mysterious protector, southern gentleman, tall, dark, and handsome, knight in sour armor, red string of fate, villain takes an interest, porcelain to ivory to steel, when person a gets injured/kidnapped and person b goes absolutely feral to save them, cowboys tiny women and big men, the monster being treated gently for the first time in his life, two characters forced into positions where they have no choice but to reconcile their differences and grow together/trust each other, forbidden relationships, trying to escape childhood demons & reuniting in adulthood Fandoms: (I don't write canons or do canon x oc) Star Wars, X Files, Haven, Fringe, Stranger Things, Heroes, The Wolf Among Us, Mercy Thompson Series, True Blood, Marvel, The OA, Disney personified, His Dark Materials, Beastars, Horizon Zero Dawn, The Last of Us, Cyberpunk 2077 Plot Ideas: I have too many to list here but take a look at my google doc and let me know if anything catches your attention. It's a mix of fandom inspired and original plots: Plot Ideas Last but not least, I have a list of kinks if anyone's interested. I use email and discord to write. I'd also be open to joining a jcink site! Contact me at Doe#3347 on discord or by email: doeeyes73@gmail.com Please be detailed when you message me, let me know why you chose to contact me. Seeing only "hey do you wanna rp?" is a guaranteed way to turn me off. Look forward to hearing from you!

[brujahinaskirt]

@missn11​ says:

Ask and ye shall receive, fellow neonate! <3 Bear with me, because I’m about to hammer out 2000 words very quickly...

This massive rant by its topic nature is sort of Nines-critical, so lemme start by saying that, in my own way, I love Rodriguez. (I was partially self-burning in the shitpost that ignited this rant because I SEVERELY exaggerated Nines’s canonical shadiness levels in my ancient fanfiction, and for no other reason than because I was a teenage edgelord. I am appropriately embarrassed, but only by my excess and melodrama, not by Troika’s characterization. I think the writing behind VTMB’s Nines is superb.)

When it comes to Bloodlines, I think he’s one of the most psychologically interesting profiles in the game. In fact, I could never get into LA by Night because they so de-toothed Troika’s vision of him. Not to say LA by Night’s Nines was a poorly-developed character in his own right, ‘cause he wasn’t at all, but “my” Nines will always be unapologetically and only Troika’s: boiling angry, viciously pragmatic, a survivor who doesn’t let anyone too close lest they see through him, whose over-the-top confident façade cracks a little more every time his back’s against the wall. Troika’s Nines is the epitome of greater VTM’s “fallen rebel” archetype, and even though we don’t get to see it on all playthoughs, that makes it even better and more believable.

But as with all characterization in Bloodlines, we have to read between the lines and between our own play styles a bit to piece the truth of the puzzle together...

Besides the direct evidence Troika gives us—i.e. the music cues, which are a bit overbearing if I’m honest (sorry, Troika! ilu); the absence of Nines in Rosa’s prophecy re: people you can trust; and the overt warnings Camarilla-aligned characters give us about him—the biggest red flag about Rodriguez, imo? It’s twofold:

the way the characters he surrounds himself with talk about him and the type of vampire he chooses to fill his den. Namely: Nines exclusively recruits angry, spurned, mistreated people who are younger and far less experienced than he is

those messy, ugly, fleeting moments where you see his toughguy everyman personality crack

So! Starting with point one:

THE PERSONALITY CULT ITSELF

We can’t deny that Nines does not surround himself with peers. He surrounds himself with followers—people who don’t challenge him in any way, who are fanatically loyal, who openly profess their worship of him and their conviction he could never/would never do anything wrong. If you listen to how Damsel and Skelter talk about him, it’s with frightening adulation, often repeating Nines’s lines word-for-word without truly understanding the argumentation behind them. (Damsel’s the main offender here with her “IT’S A PYRAMID SCHEME… it just makes sense, you know? It just makes sense!” And then, of course, she gets pissed and refuses to speak to you when you push her into elaborating.)

Nines has clearly made himself much more than just a friend-figure or a Sire-figure to them. He’s utterly and completely mythologized by the LA Anarchs, held up next to other politically mythologized names like George Washington and Ho Chi Minh. His followers love him… but there’s a pecking order, and like good body shields, they believe their lives don’t matter as much as he matters. And they love that, too. They want to die for Nines. They’re not just willing to or resigned to it; they’re eager to die. Damsel will volunteer this information the first time you meet her. She just can’t wait to prove herself by taking a bullet for goddamn Nines Rodriguez. It’s literally how she introduces herself to new people.

And yet Nines deliberately withholds his attention and time from his followers. He uses his attention as a reward, as incentive. He rations some care and reassurance and help—makes you feel good and gives you reason to crave his attention—and then he pushes you away, back into his adoring ranks until the next “two minutes” you earn from him in which you’re special enough for such an exceptional, important, cool guy to talk to. That’s a classic manipulation tactic, and a classic personality cult tell.

And Troika is so damn fuckin’ brilliant about it because they don’t stop at showing us that an Anarch-aligned fledgling might feel this way—no, they make the PLAYER also feel this way. On our first playthrough of Bloodlines, we’re desperate to talk to Nines. We want the reward. “Let me finish the plaguebearer quests… let me run to the Elizabeth Dane… I hope Nines talks to me again now! Quick, to the Last Round! Maybe if I say the right thing to make him like me, he’ll give me another free EXPERIENCE POINT!” (iirc he’s one of two characters who will do so, and the only one who gives multiple points.)

But at the end of the day, Nines is indisputably the leader of the Anarchs, and even fledgling figures that out. (“Sounds like you’re the Prince of the Anarchs.”) He’s very much the Baron of Downtown LA, even if he won’t use that language. As for the grating day-to-day management and leadership stuff that might make him somewhat unpopular among the Anarchs, though? He fobs all that stuff off on Damsel!

Damsel, his Minion No. 1—whom a lot of players will hate on their early playthroughs, because she assigns tough missions with little to no reward. Damsel, who has no real power role in the Anarchs and functions only to serve Nines. You help Damsel, and you do Nines’s work—i.e. you do the work of the Barony of LA—and he doesn’t even have to take the admiration hit by having to ask you himself.

There’s only one non-follower of note around Nines. It’s Jack, and by his own words, he’s not one of Nines’s people; he disparages them, in fact. And we’ll notice that Jack—who is stronger, older, and wiser than Nines—very much doesn’t talk about Nines the same way Nines’s followers do. While Jack doesn’t directly insult him and occasionally defends him, Jack also has a downright shocking response to the announcement of the Blood Hunt. When fledgling desperately asks what they can do to help Nines—Jack says, word-for-word: I could give a damn.

Something ain’t quite right about this place.

Moving right along:

NINES IS A FAKE ALPHA MALE WHO KNOWS HE’S GOING TO DIE

Part of why Nines is so attractive to someone scared and weak like our fledgling (or Skelter or Damsel) is that he seems utterly fucking untouchable—like nothing scares him, and that must be reassuring when two of your age-old enemies are moving into town. But Nines’s tough, cool, Devil-may-care persona outs itself as a protective shell, too… and this is another thing I think Troika handled so subtly and so well.

You’ll notice that even Nines’s voice is dramatically different in a couple different situations: when Ming Xiao is borrowing his body, when he’s afraid, and when he’s distracted or deeply disturbed. (A successful Malkavian mind read will really slam a crack in his coolguy persona. For a second, the nonchalance shatters and he childishly screams SHUT UP!)

But whether you Malk him or not: In those isolated moments, the Coolguy Nines Rodriguez we normally see frays. Physically, even! His accent loses its burr (that ballsy rural American everyman accent), shoots up to a higher register—and reveals a much softer voice than the one he uses in front of other people. No wonder; part of Nines’s charisma comes from his performance of masculine confidence, and even if it’s not a toxically patriarchal masculinity in the way we often picture it, the fact this performance cracks at all shows it’s not his genuine self. He’s acting. In the way a lot of toughguy men do—but for Nines, whose survival depends upon attraction now, he’s acting toughguy for his very life.

I think those little fray-under-pressure moments are the “real” Nines, or as close as we’re going to get: scared, desperate, worn-down, and very aware of his doom.

Now, all that said…

BLATANT FALLEN REBEL CONCEPT APOLOGISM

I don’t think we can quite throw Rodriguez into the same Mean Monster Morality Dungeon for Evil Vampires as other Big Bads in LA. This is where motivation comes into play, at least for me. We know Nines can be merciless and violent, and he doesn’t hesitate to sacrifice his own soldiers (namely, um, US!) to protect his holdings. But he does seem to have a twinge of genuine anger over injustices wrought upon “little people” (look no further than Nocturne)—one that seems like it stems from a sense of right v. wrong rather than sheer pragmatism. This stands in stark opposition to the rationed pacificism of characters like LaCroix, who simply doesn’t want the headache of cleaning up a pile of dead humans on his nightly to-do list.

Nines also, of course, just doesn’t have the same kind of disaster reach other Bloodlines Big Bads do in how much harm he can cause. When LaCroix gets up to some bullshit, he crashes the national economy. Nines, like, crashes a car into a corporate office window or takes over a street or something. Can’t really compare the two when it comes to the scale of damage done.

And even Nines Rodriguez is, for all his strategy, still an honestly angry person. Not all of him is fake—what’s troubling about him is what he’s willing to sacrifice and do to satiate his anger-passion. It’s the standard Brujah emotional-moral struggle. Even though I agree with much of what he says about bloodsucking late capitalist vampires (tbh he seems to hate vampires in general!), one wonders if it’s not partially the anger-passion that’s warped him into the façade of a noble leader he’s become. It’s not a pure anger anymore; he’s weaponized it in selfish, unhealthy, destructive ways.

But if he’s a fallen rebel—and since he is still apparently capable of some genuine anger and sadness—then we can infer he wasn’t always like this. He fell, and narratively, that’s key to understanding Clan Brujah. Maybe he fell in a way all of us angry rebel-types risk falling if we let our hatred of the bloodsuckers in real life outgrow and consume our care for the real-world little people.

I think we also have to appreciate that—as far as we know—the shady shit Nines does, he primarily does to prolong his power. But for a threatened Anarch like Nines, power doesn’t mean expansion or accumulation as it might for an ascending Ventrue; it primarily means survival. The Camarilla and Kuei-jin incursions into LA have numbered his days, and he can’t possibly have any delusions about this, no matter how much he swaggers. So he does what he can do with the skills and limited resources he has. He corrupts vulnerable, angry, abused people by giving them the appearance of friendship, family, and hope they can become stronger—much like effective gang leaders do.

If he’s morally nastier than other power-players like LaCroix in some way, imo, it’s here. It’s the intimacy with which he manipulates the people around him. LaCroix may lie to you; Strauss may withhold information from you; Ming Xiao may double-cross you. But none of them ask that you love them. That’s not their goal; that’s not how they operate. None of them expect or encourage anyone to happily die for them of their own free will. If they get you killed, you’ll die resenting them—resenting that you had to die, at all.

But when you die for people like Nines Rodriguez, you do it willingly, if only because you believed he cared somehow and that he’d fight tooth-and-nail for you, too. You believed that you were a member of his little outcast family—or that you would be, if you just proved yourself a little bit more. If you just fought a little harder. If you were just a little happier about having the chance to die for the cause. Maybe if you die for Nines, then Nines will love you, too.

I don’t think he does. I don’t think he will. If he’s a true fallen rebel archetype, I don’t know if he can anymore.

That’s enough Anarchs for now! I’m gonna peace out with some copy/pasted lyrics from the theme song of Nines’s den: the ballad of the charming and vengeful Lecher Bitch. Stay sharp, my little Bloodlines fanatics!

Tell me your story Don't worry, I've been there Crown me your savior Don't worry, I'll be there

[Chorus] I said hey You're coming all the way I've got some hell to pay I'm diggin' all the way All the way down I said hey You're coming all the way I've got some hell to pay Gonna rip you every way On the way down again [Bridge] Don't belong lording above me Won't be hard to pull you underground It won't be long 'til you love me And I'll be coming at your back To break it down

[mydearburkhart]

If I was in that '70s show:

the part 2 nobody asked for ;)

part 1 here.

pet

Her cat's name is Elis.

more songs

relationship

name: Alfonso Herrera Rodriguez

birthday: August 28th, 1960 (18 years old in '78 | virgo)

nicknames: Poncho, Herrera.

introduced: later on season 4

background: Poncho is a Mexican exchange student who came to finish high school at Point Place in 1977. As one of the few foreigners there, he soon befriended Fez. And that's how he fell in love with Amy.

Poncho: They're giving away free burritos for hispanic people. That's awesome!

Amy: Only for hispanic people?

Poncho: I'm sorry, princesa.

[...]

Poncho, talking to the lady selling burritos: Look, this blonde girl will come here, make a fool out of herself pretending to speak spanish to get a free burrito. If I pay you, can you pretend to believe her?

[...]

Amy: Señoras y señores, buenas tardes, buenas noches! ¡Buenas tardes, buenas noches, señoritas y señores!

[...]

Amy, giggling: See, I got a free burrito.

Poncho: That's great, princesa.

After his graduation, Poncho was notified he was due to leave the country in a week. Amy was devastated and feeling useless for not being able to help her boyfriend. Jackie and Hyde were also living a crisis in their relationship.

Amy: Hyde, are you sure you wanna bitch about Jackie to her best friend? You know I'm always gonna take her side.

Hyde: Whatever.

Amy: No, fuck your whatever bullshit. Why can't you tell her you love her when you so clearly do and she so obviously feels the same? Do you know how hurtful it is to say you love someone and not hear them saying they love you back? It stings, man. It makes you wonder if they do, it makes you doubt their actions. Sometimes words are needed.

Hyde: I don't love people.

Amy: And yet, here you are, practically begging for my help. Guess what? You love Jackie. [sighs] I can understand how you're feeling. I get that, because of whatever happened to you in the past, you have commitment and trust issues, and you have trouble opening up. But if you don't fight those demons, you'll always be afraid.

Hyde: I'm not afraid...

Amy: Yes, you are. And it's a shame. The man I love will leave the country in a few days, after that I won't be able to tell him I love him. And guess what? I can't change that! Jackie's not leaving and she loves you, but she needs reassurance. It's not like she's asking for marriage. [gasps] I'm a genius!

That was the last time anyone saw Amy before she (and Poncho) went missing for a whole day. Their friends and family were about to call the police, when they showed up, laughing and smiling.

Red: Look, the dumbasses decided to show up.

Kitty: You kids almost killed us with worry. Where were you? And Alfonso, don't you have to leave the country tomorrow?

Poncho, smiling at Amy: Not anymore.

Amy: WE GOT MARRIED!

more quotes

"so, the other day I saw a portuguese guy and asked him 'where's my gold, motherfucker?', but it turns out he was not portuguese."

"fahrenheit doesn't make sense."

"you think this is hot? this is my winter in brazil."

"donna, you should play more brazilian music."

"being attracted to men and actually liking them are very different concepts."

"imagine being dumb and ugly? can't relate."

"special brownies? allow me to introduce brisadeiro to you."

"when I don't know what to do I ask myself, 'what would cher do?', and then I still don't know what to do."

"that's dumb like kelso level of dumb."

"you're telling me that, if you don't respect curfew, red will put his foot up your ass? that's nothing, in brazil if you don't respect curfew you might get arrested, sometimes even tortured and killed."

"star wars again? it'd be better to go and watch pelé's movie."

"it was santos dummont the one who invented the airplane, and shut up!"

"in english, a decision is something you make. in brazilian portuguese, a decision is something you drink, like a shot of tequila."

"god forgives, I don't."

"self-care is not giving a shit what men think of you."

extra scene

Hyde: Jackie, I love you.

Jackie: Oh Steven, I love you too.

[...]

Poncho: Eu te amo.

Amy: Yo te amo.

[finchsfinest]

Fast & Furious (2001-2017)

Since I had never seen any of the Fast & Furious movies, I decided to take on a mission to watch them all in one week. That’s 8 action films in 7 days, from The Fast and The Furious (2001) to The Fate of the Furious (2017). And when the 9th film comes out, I’ll make sure to watch that too. I left out the Hobbs & Shaw spin-off because, you know, it’s just not the same. All I knew about the movies beforehand was that they are all starred by fast cars and Paul Walker. I had absolutely no clue about the plot or the characters when I started this marathon.

Disclaimer: Prepare yourself for spoilers.

The Fast and the Furious was extremely 2001 with the music, the outfits, the special effects and the humour. I thought that this movie was the world’s biggest group wank around cars. I was also surprised by the whole undercover cop aspect. I honestly thought the movies would be all about racing and nothing else, but I was happy to see that there was more to them.

During 2 Fast 2 Furious (2003) I started wondering how many car accidents there were after people tried the stunts they saw in this movie. I got way too invested in the racing scenes, and the crazy tricks stressed me out real good. I liked it! Also, I found the humour to be better than in the first film.

The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift (2006) was an emotional roller coaster for me. I got frustrated, because I couldn’t care less about some high school drama, and because Lucas Black did NOT pass as an underage high school student (he was like 24 at the time the film came out, dude looked like he should’ve been playing a teacher instead of a student). 15 minutes into the movie I found myself thinking that it has nothing to do with Fast and Furious, and preparing a Bring Paul Walker Back protest in my head. The music wasn’t half bad, but the acting and the whole script was cringeworthy. Han’s death was the equivalent of a dog dying in a movie – very upsetting and unnecessary, just plain wrong. You have no idea how much joy seeing Vin Diesel’s face at the very end brought me. It made me feel like everything’s going to get better again.

Fast & Furious (2009) was a bit of a let down for me. The stunts were too fake, I wasn’t into it, and I wasn’t impressed. The plot was getting a bit old, and the only new thing seemed to be that they were now using GPS while driving.

Fast Five (2011) didn’t get much better. This is where The Rock comes in, and they also bring back some old favourites from previous movies. The film felt very Ocean’s-like, and even though I enjoy those movies a lot, I completely lost interest in the plot.

Fast & Furious 6 (2013) had a nice recap in the beginning. Now things got interesting, with Letty (played by Michelle Rodriguez) possibly being alive, and the name ‘Shaw’ being mentioned for the first time. I got excited! The series started with a focus in fancy cars and street racing, and now it’s more about fighting criminals and fleeing from the police. I noticed they reused the line “You read the brochure. I am proud of you”, which was first heard in Tokyo Drift. It honestly felt a bit weird, since the characters saying the line have no connection to each other. Anyways, the film was good, I enjoyed it. Especially the ending was very wholesome, despite the fact that it was the end for Han (played by Sung Kang). Can’t wait to see what Statham’s deal is in the series.

Then comes Furious 7 (2015), the last movie Paul Walker was working on before he passed away. May he rest in peace, or rather fast and furiously. I didn’t really enjoy watching the extremely macho Statham doing macho things. I got a bit bored and started missing the real stunts. I don’t like movies where literally anyone can beat up a bunch of armed, professional security guards and survive all gunfights without a bruise. I get that these are action movies, but I still need some realistic touches in them in order to stay interested. I can’t imagine what it has been like to film the beach scene in the end without Walker. Damn, that hit me in the feels.

And finally, The Fate of the Furious. It immediately feels different without Walker. It starts nice though, with some old school street racing, and then something completely new comes up – Toretto seems to turn against his team. What could possibly make him do that! Toretto’s sudden change of heart feels very far-fetched, until in the end it becomes clear that he had a plan all along. The Rock is serving some quality content in this film, the baddies are not. They are trying too hard, and I just can’t take them seriously. I also find it too unbelievable that they could just hover over a city in their airplane without anyone interfering or questioning it. Or what about these people attacking a Russian military base without any issues? Nah, I ain’t buying it.

“I don't feel like I'm under arrest. How about you Brian?” “No, not a bit. Not even a little bit.”

I quite enjoyed watching the Fast and Furious movies in a row, instead of waiting for years between releases. Honestly, it makes sense to watch all of them instead of one here and there. Or if you’ve seen one of the newer ones, I recommend watching at least the ones that came before that. It brings so much insight to the story and to the characters. Vaya con Dios, amigos!

[dorminchu]

Blood Simple

Fandom: James Bond Genre: Suspense/Humor (at the end?) Rating: T Warnings: Aftermath of torture ft. Silva's attempted suicide via cyanide capsule, generally desperate circumstances. Characters: Lyutsifer Safin, Tiago Rodriguez | Raoul Silva, Mr. White, Blofeld Summary: "1997: Five months after being traded over to Hong Kong and left for dead, Tiago Rodriguez, formerly 006, is given another chance by SPECTRE's up-and-coming operative."

The realisation came to Rodriguez suddenly and with brutal clarity. After enough time the very act of torture and reprieve became a routine. Today his MSS captors told him he had been handed over neatly for six other agents and Olivia Mansfield—M—would be made chief-of-staff.

Whether or not this was a lie, it didn’t matter anymore. They had told him the very worst thing he could hear. Physical pain was something he had been trained to anticipate and respond to—they could drown him and beat him bloody, take his nails, take his tongue, take anything and he would remain silent. But this, he knew, this was far more intimate. Despite the lack of an innate personal connection to Olivia Mansfield, it managed to dig at some part of him that still operated with a naïve urge to prove himself—to somebody, anybody. Like the proverbial child seeking praise, he had taken his efforts with the Chinese intelligence as far as he could before the inevitable capture; like the disapproving mother-surrogate who would never offer up any love, she had fed him to the wolves without a second thought.

The inevitability of his fate did not take away the lasting damages. It gave, at best, a fleeting sense of certainty. He played the game of a limp, broken man and ensured the guards would be content that they were breaking him down at last. The soldier that pushed him into the cell wasn’t keeping a close enough eye on him. They had checked his body ceaseless times for a weapon but never thought about what was right in front of them.

He waited for the sound of retreating footsteps. He broke the left molar with all the strength he had left, tongued the capsule, bit down.

The contents flooded his mouth along with blood. Rodriguez knew he had won and so began to laugh, a garbled, animal noise. The guard outside barked sharply in Cantonese.

He lost control of his body.

. . .

His cheek was not against the solid, smooth floor of his holding cell—something soft. The smell—where ever he was—was clean. Sound of something garbled and tinny on his right. There was light beyond his eyelids. He thought at first that he was still asleep—trapped in a passing dream, waiting for the inevitable pull back into the old cell where he would awaken. Perhaps a swift reprimand for this little stunt—more physical pain before they denied him the agency to end his own life.

The seconds passed uninterrupted. The very act of breathing was almost more than he could bear. After so many days of malnutrition and oxygen deprivation he was very weak—he could not thrash himself away. He willed his eyes to open. He was in a bed, and his head remained elevated. He could not feel anything in his lower jaw.

So, he was alive. Then the capsule had not done its job after all; M’s last hurrah.

He could not stifle a laugh at the thought. It felt like a dry sob, or a guttural heave before vomiting. He forced himself to breath, deep, ragged, as though lulling himself to sleep. He waited for the inevitable beating but none came. He couldn’t hear anyone else except for the tinny voice—knew distantly what it was. He listened eagerly for a scrap of information or a date, a month. The weather outside was clear and bright. What season? He would learn, in time, that he had been held captive for five months. But for now he could only lay still.

The sound of footsteps pulled him back. The doctor eyed him steadily. He did not ask where he had come from or why he was in such sorry shape. He simply told him that he had been asleep for three days and he was lucky to be alive. He was currently being held in Hong Kong Central Hospital.

He caught sight of himself for the first time in a long time. The look in the dark green eyes was flat and the gaunt skin gave him the appearance of an animated corpse. The structure of his jaw warped and eaten away, the skin melted over the hole like wax. The ridge of his right eye socket became exposed under pale skin.

No, it could not be so simple. Hatred and fear of his interrogators would turn inevitably into a masochistic infatuation. They would merely let him think it was over. He would be nursed back to health—a prolonged moment to breathe that was poisoned with sickening anticipation—and then he would be put back in the cell and it would start all over again.

He had almost no strength left.

He was the last rat. Her favourite. Essential and disposable as any other agent who had gone beyond measure. His rank meant nothing. And now all that was left of him was a mangled inhuman shape and the agonizing minutes while he clung to his new purpose: revenge. It was an endless stretch of ambiguity between unconsciousness and mechanical action, such as breathing.

His mind was very thin. But he was calm.

"Tiago Rodriguez?" This voice was soft, unfamiliar. Rodriguez shivered instinctively, like shaking off a fly. The man stepped into view. "My name is Safin. I was sent to retrieve you."

He had a fresh face that suggested he couldn’t have been older than twenty but his eyes seemed colder. His English was accented but clear. The name was also curious. It was unlikely he was from MI6—then who had sent him, and why?

Rodriguez held his gaze with a cold half-alertness that suggested he was not completely gone but getting there. Safin did not flinch at the sight of him. "You have been taken out of the hands of the MSS. Right now they assume the man Tiago Rodriguez to be dead of cyanide poisoning. But, you're probably wondering why you are alive?"

Rodriguez stared fixedly at a point to the left of his head. The doctor had stepped out of the room. Safin approached but kept leery of him as one would a cornered animal. The metaphor came blunt but it was applicable. Rodriguez's eyes snapped back to Safin, narrowed.

"Your efforts were not in vain. You may have lost your position with MI6, but there are other places that would be more than willing to take on someone of your skillset." He smiled coolly. "Should you decide you want to work again, there is a man in Italy you can contact. Ask for the Pale King."

Rodriguez already was fashioning a plan to get back on his feet. As soon as he was able he would put it into action.

. . .

Now it had been seven months to the day of his resurgence as Raoul Silva. In this time he had patched himself over with a new dental prosthetic. The vengeance within his blood had simmered. Getting back to Italy took the better part of those several months, but in due course the Pale King led him to a man named Blofeld, who was more than happy to take on a man of his persuasion. This inevitably brought him to Rome and he was given a new number—11. Around the table he saw the faces of several men and women that would become his new associates—and one that rang familiar.

After the meeting they all dispersed. Except for No 12.

"You are Lyutsifer Safin?" asked Silva.

Safin paused. "Yes."

"How old when you first joined?"

"Seventeen."

"My God! You have some light in your eyes. Someone will crush it out of you soon enough."

"I have no intention of overextending myself." He spoke plainly, without room for insult.

"Ah, what good is intention? You think you are smarter than the rest. You have done your organisation a great service and you have your little number to prove it. But is that what you want?" Safin did not answer. “This year I will be twenty nine. In seven years with MI6 I did all that was asked of me. When they decided I was disposable, they left me to suffer."

"You sound so sure of it."

They studied each other like two predators competing for the same proverbial bit of game. Then Silva brightened. "I look forward to working with you in the future, Lucy."

Safin bristled. Evidently no one in his life had called him Lucy before. But he kept it in-check, said coolly, "Of course, Silva."

[carnationcreation]

Hello, Cello (Adam Park x Cello player! reader)

Masterlist

TITLE: Hello, Cello (Adam Park x Cello player! reader) Prompt/summary: (Zeo episode 12, Instrument of Destruction) Adam needs to be a more rounded student and gets placed in the same class as the reader who is a cello player in the classical music class

Word Count: 1,427

Warnings:  none

Adam had a very weird morning. He went to school early to try and get some studying done, but of course the machine empire never rests. He saw Coggs trying to get into the music room where a mysterious piano player was and right as Adam and the Coggs got in the piano player was gone. By the time the first period came Adam was more confused than ever.

“And just as we got there, the music stopped, and the guy with the cape got out the other door” Adam explained to Kat and Tommy. 

“Did you see who it was?” Tommy asked.

“Nope, All I saw was his back.”

“Aw man,” Tommy sighed, “I wonder why the Cogs are interested in music?”

Before they could answer the guidance counselor approached the three rangers, “Adam, there you are. I’ve been looking for you.”

“Is there a problem, Miss Rodriguez?” Adam asked.

“I’ve been going over your class schedule, and I noticed you’ve taken creative writing twice.”

“But I got an A both times,” Adam said.

“Exactly my point, I think you need more of a challenge. You should strive to be a more rounded student. Good luck,” she said as they handed him a new schedule. 

Adam looked down at his schedule confused, everything looked the same as the one he had made. Then he saw his seventh period class had been switched from creative writing, to classical music appreciation.  

“Well,” Bulk said behind him, Adam jumped, “What do we have here? Classical music. You and a bunch of losers playing boring music together? Sounds like loads of fun, right Skull?” 

Adam ducked and turned around to face the two knuckleheads. 

“Huh? Oh yeah. What a bunch of dweebs,” Skull said.

“Well I think it’s great Adam is trying something new and different,” Kat said.

“Yeah I mean after all Adam is great at creative writing, classical music will be a challenge,” Tommy chimed in. 

Miss Rodriguez interrupted, pulling Skull away from the group.

______________

Later…

Adam entered the classical music class, sitting down at the piano he was assigned to. He watched as Skull kicked a dude off the drumset and took a seat. 

“Mrs Rodriguez says I need to be a more well rounded student,” Skull scoffed.

“What’s wrong with that?” Adam asked.

“If anyone catches me in here, especially Skull, I’ll never hear the end of it.”

Mr. Hamms got the classes attention and started the introduction. 

“Class! I’m classical music and this is Mr. Hamms,” the class laughed at the teacher's mix up. “Oh! That’s not right, I’m Classic Hamm and this is Mr. Music! No, no that’s wrong too. Well, anyways, before we play I have an announcement. There will be a music recital tonight at the youth center featuring our advanced students.” 

“Thrilling!” Skull said sarcastically. 

“There’s extra credit if you attend,” the teacher said, which seemed to persuade Skull. 

“One of the advanced students is our very own (Y/n) (Y/l/n) who has volunteered to help in our beginners class for this semester. So if you need any help don’t be afraid to ask them.”

Mr. Hamms pointed to a student on the left side of the classroom. They were right across from Adam holding a weird stringed instrument. They waved shyly at the class. Adam caught their eye and they both smiled at each other before turning back to Mr. Hamms.

“(Y/n) would you care to play us a little excerpt from what you’re going to play tonight?”

“Now?” (Y/n) asked nervously.

“If you don’t mind to demonstrate your love for your instrument to the rest of the class.”

“Alright, can you play track 7 on the cd player for my accompaniment?” they said. They moved their chair and stand to the front before sitting down and adjusting their bow and sheet music. Mr. Hamms pressed play on the recording. 

(A/N if you want to hear the song I’m describing, it’s Cello Concerto in A minor, Op. 33. It’s the same song Mia plays in If I Stay and it’s one of my favorites to listen to as a cello player.)

They took a deep breathe as a recording of a piano began to play with them. The song was fast and passionate. Adam sat in awe as he watched the musician pour every ounce of passion they had into the strings. Their fingers were fast and the bow looked like a fury of powerful strokes. As the song came to a crescendo (Y/n) closed their eyes, the tempo got faster as the notes became higher and higher. Finally (Y/n) hit the last two chords to end the solo and let out deep breaths of air while holding her bow slightly in the air. The class was silent for a moment before erupting in applause. (Y/n) blushed before smiling and waving at the other students.

Adam was amazed. He had never seen someone play so passionately. Mr. Hamms instructed the class to experiment with their instruments. Adam began to play Chopsticks on the keys in front of him. (Y/n) placed her cello in her case before walking over to the boy, “Hey that sounds pretty good, where'd you learn that?” 

“We had a piano when I was little, my mom knew a few things.”

“Well I’m glad you’re not a complete beginner then,” (Y/n) said, “Mind if I sit?”

Adam scooted over to let them sit next to him, “My name's Adam.”

(Y/n) stuck out their hand, “(Y/n). I play the cello.”

“Oh is that what that is? Well it sounded amazing earlier.”

“Thanks,” (Y/n) chuckled, “So I haven’t played piano in a while but I do remember the basics, so you want to place your hands like this-”

(Y/n) grabbed his hand lightly and guided them to the keys, “Keep your fingers rounded and a little loose so you can move them easier.”

“Like this?” Adam said, he began a simple roll starting from his pinky finger and moving up to his thumb. 

“Yes exactly,” (Y/n) smiled.

The two lost track of time with (Y/n) teaching Adam the basics of sheet music and melodies. Before they knew it the bell was ringing and (Y/n) was packing up her bag.

“Hey,” Adam said, causing (Y/n) to look up, “do you think we could get together and practice over the weekend? I’d love to try and learn the piano part of that song you showed me earlier, what was it called?”

“Le cygne? It’d be a while before you could try that with the rhythms and everything, but I could show you the simple parts of it if you’d like.”

“That’d be awesome. Maybe we could grab some food afterwards too?” 

(Y/n) smiled, “Like a date?”

Adam blushed but smiled, “Yeah, like a date.”

(Y/n) smiled and wrote something down on a piece of paper before handing it to Adam, “There’s my phone number, call me Friday and we’ll set up that date.”

Adam put the paper in his pocket. (Y/n) waved as they put their bag on their shoulder and walked out the door. 

_____________________________

As (Y/n) walked onto the stage at the youth center, they looked everywhere for Adam in the crowd. As Adam and (Y/n) locked eyes (Y/n) let out a sigh of relief. Placing the sheet music onto the stand (Y/n) readied themself for their performance. 

‘I’ll never get tired of this,’ Adam thought as he watched (Y/n). They seemed to go to a different place when they played. Adam wondered if they got nervous playing in front of all these people. (Y/n)’s eyes were closed and their body seemed to become one with the beautiful wooden instrument. As the final chords rang out through the youth center, the entire audience erupted in applause. Adam stood and followed (Y/n) to the back behind where the stage had been set up.

“You were amazing!” Adam said as he pulled the cello player into a hug.

“Was I really?” (Y/n) asked. Adam nodded his head, his arms still wrapped around them as they pulled back to look at him.

“I always close my eyes when I’m on stage, it makes it seem like I’m focusing but I’m really just trying to ignore all those eyes on me.”

Adam laughed causing (Y/n) to smile. They both continued to look into each others eyes, smiling like idiots. Finally Adam leaned down and connected their lips. (Y/n) wrapped their arms around his kneck. Everything felt blissful as they pulled back and opened their eyes.

“See you Saturday?” (Y/n) asked.

“Sounds like a date.”

[wolferals]

🇪🇸ella es linda🇪🇸

finally fallin' chapter 2

<arón piper x reader>

(The spanish is all google translate, i wont take responsibility for mistakes)

chapter 2

„Hola" a tall, very handsome man with a silver hoop dangling from his ear and short brown hair spoke and got closer to the both of you.

His eyes were brown, light brown with a hint of green maybe. Plump, nice lips and a mole under his left eye.

He was wearing a loose blue polo shirt and some black jeans. Under the shirt you could see a silver necklace sparkling towards you.

You were startled by his appearance. He was really attractive to you and you had to do a lot not to start stuttering. „We talked before I think."

You shook his hand.

„Y/n, nice to meet you too."

He smiled brightly and gave you a long gaze before looking over to his friend.

It was quiet between you guys for a second until you broke the silence by saying:"Alright I wont bother you guys any longer, have a nice day you too."

Your „classmate" nodded and then asked:"Am I gonna see you in photography tomorrow?"

You nodded at him.

„Wait can I get your number so we can text each other if one of us is lost on campus or anything."

He laughed.

Excited you agreed and afterwards you put your number in his phone.

„Y/n ya?“ He asked as he read through it again.

„Yeah, and you?“

His friend Arón chuckled quietly and then replied for him:“His name is Itzan.“

Well at least now you knew his name.

„Alright.“ you laughed and pushed some hair out of your face.

„Okay see you tomorrow then." You put your phone back in your purse and said goodbye. „Hasta luego." He spoke as you slowly walked away, giving the tall handsome another glance, smiling.

He was really good looking, you'd already figured that and he seemed to be nice. He helped out his friend after all.

Since you had nothing else to do than get back to your place and unpack some last things that you hadnt gotten the chance to in the past week. Especially your clothes had to be sorted into your white wooden closet before they all got wrinkly and started to smell from your suitcases.

So you went on with it. After grabbing an apple you turned on some music and finally finished unpacking and decorating your place.

As you were about to turn on the tv and sat down on the bed you heard your laptop making a „ring" noise.

Email.

Who would send you an email nowadays?

You carefully grabbed your laptop, opened the mail service and started reading.

„Dear class,

I've had a good time today getting to know some of you and bringing you the fine arts of photography closer.

Due to the loose schedule we need to start soon with the practical work.

What I'd like you to do is, find yourself a group of other students in this course (2-4) and work on a photography series that expresses a certain feeling. The series should include 5 individual photographies that all somehow work together either in color moments, editing or background.

Find a nice location, take some shots and be creative with either photoshop or other photo editor programs.

You can be free in the choice of materials, if you'd like to use a professional camera, we can sort that out in our next class.

But using you phone would be enough for now.

I hope you're all having a wonderful day, see you in the next course.

Sandra Rodriguez"

Alright, you figured. No problem at all, you could ask Itzan if he wanted to work with you since he's the only person you've talked to so far. And it should be fun.

He was really handsome, maybe he'd be willing to be the model for this series.

He mustve gotten the email as well, so you decided to ask him the next day if he wanted to work on it with you.

So first things first, you wrote down some ideas you'd like to shoot and made some sketches on your iPad.

Afterwards you watched some shows for a while and then had a long phone call with one of your friends from back home.

You went to bed rather early this day just to feel good tomorrow for a rather long day. You had 4 different classes the next day. First course would be fine arts, starting at 9, then photography again and after that a class of media‘s. Then a 2 hour break and as a last class of the day you‘d have typography.

The class you were most excited about was media, you‘ve always wanted to design ads and stuff on medias.

And you were definitely going to talk to Itzan about the photography series project, but you were confident he‘ll say yes since he doesnt seem to be friends with anyone else yet.

*time skip to 2:45 next day*

„Hey.“ you greeted the dark haired boy who was sitting at a table in the middle of campus.

Itzan smiled at you. „Buenos dias.“

You smiled back and sat down next to him.

„How was your last class?“ You asked and took out the sandwich you had just bought.

Itzan leaned back and started telling you about his last informatics class that he already regretted taking.

„Aw man, i hope you can get out of it.“ you said with half your mouth full.

He nodded and replied:“Yeah i hope so too, how was yours?“

-„It was great! Media is fun, we were drawing some fruits on photoshop as a first practice.“

You guys kept on talking about your different classes until you decided it was time to brainstorm a bit for the photography project. Itzan actually had been the one to ask you if you wanted to work as a team which made you glad because that meant you didnt have to be awkward.

So first you showed him the ideas you had written down the previous night and he added some things he‘d like to do.

„Do you want to model this though?“ you laughed and looked up to him.

He gave you a disgusted look.

„No... Do I have to?“ he asked confused.

You started laughing from his reaction. „No you dont HAVE to, but i dont want to do it either.“

Just as he wanted to complain his phone rang.

„Its your boy.“ he grinned and picked up.

„Hola...“ he spoke into the phone and kept on speaking in Spanish so you didnt really understand.

„Maybe we could ask him!“ you suddenly exclaimed after thinking about it.

Itzan looked up to you and put the phone away from his ear for a second. „Arón?“ he asked.

You nodded.

He then laughed and seemed to actually ask Arón about it.

„He said no.“

You pouted and put your hand out to gesture you wanted the phone.

„Let me ask.“

Itzan grinned, said something to Arón and handed you the phone.

„Hey Arón.“ you spoke in your sweetest tone.

„I‘m not modeling for you.“ you heard his deep voice laugh.

„Come on, please, we need to do it and none of us wants to do it.“ you spoke and looked at Itzan who had just bitten into an apple.

„Y/n..“ you heard him sigh.

„Por favor.“

He started laughing. You immediately got concerned that he was laughing at your terrible Spanish pronunciation.

After a little bit of silence he answered:“Alright, when?“

You started cheering inside but just replied with a „ohh thank you, perfect!“

-„IF...“

he paused.

„You have to help me with something too.“

You waited for him to tell you what it was.

„Yeah what is it?“ you then asked since he didnt reply.

„Tell Itzan to give me your number, I‘ll text you tonight.“

You started smiling. A cute guy wanted something from you and said he‘d text you tonight.

„Will do! Thank you so much! Gracias.“

He laughed again and you symbolized Arón‘s approval by showing Itzan a thumbs up.

He grinned back at you.

„You‘re welcome, but i‘ll only do it if you help me with my project.“

-„Of course.“ you smiled and nodded. „Cant wait. Thanks, bye, ill give you back to Itzan.“

You heard him chuckle.

„Goodbye y/n.“

Smiling you handed the phone back and went back to eating your sandwich.

Itzan continued talking to Arón until looking at you for a second. He grinned and replied to Arón:“Lo se, ella es linda.“

[roleplayfinder]

Seeking Literate Partners!

Disclaimer: Male authors, please stop contacting me. I've been burned too many times. If you persist, I'll ignore your message. Hello, you can call me Doe! I'm 25+ and a proud cat mom. I write multiple paragraphs/novella style (200-500+ words). I love to write detailed descriptions and delve into a character’s head/emotions as well as surroundings. I compare it to writing a novel together. I understand if the scene doesn’t have alot going on and therefore requires less like rapid fire. I adore having long, thoughtful replies where we truly immerse ourselves in the world. I'm hoping to find a partner whose as enthusiastic and passionate about the plot and writing as I am. When I get invested in a story, it’s 100% dedication. Getting a reply is the highlight of my day. I'm a big fan of romance and using face claims. I’m the type to make pinterest boards, spam you with gifs, headcanons, and send you songs that remind me of our characters and/or ship. I'll get excited if we come up with future plot ideas, or if our characters are being cute or angsty and I can yell about it in the chat. Last but not least I only do MxF (with myself in the female role) and don’t double, but I’m more than happy to write side characters of either gender to help move the story along. I'd highly prefer female authors writing male characters. Searching For - 21+ partners (Since people have asked, it's fine if you're 20) - For you to have an excellent grasp of grammar, punctuation, spelling, and capitalization. Both in character and out of character. (Literate to advanced writers only, please. I'm not looking for newbies or those who have English as their second/third language). - Plot before smut. While mature themes will be in my plots, and are even encouraged, there needs to be chemistry between our characters. I like to have a good mix of plot and tastefully written smut, along with doses of angst and fluff. - For you to write as an older man (firmly 40s+/50s+). I'm a sucker for the gruff and tough men with dark pasts who secretly have a soft heart. I also love those grumpy, hypermasculine men being intimidated by soft yet commanding women. If you're uncomfortable writing large age gaps please don't bother contacting me. The youngest I'll go is early 20s for my girls. - Please be enthusiastic and invested when it comes to plotting/worldbuilding. There’s nothing worse than receiving one sentence in reply to two paragraphs of ideas, or having a doormat partner who says “sure” to whatever I ask. Tossing ideas back and forth, watching them snowball into amazing plot threads brings me joy. - Joining me in the wonderful world of ship/character development is kind of a must. It’s one of the things that makes writing with a partner so much fun. I also like to make friends with my partners! - While I'd prefer real life face claims, I'd also be open to using realistic art if you're uncomfortable with real life. I draw the line at anime/cartoon art. Faces I'd love to write as: gal gadot, rooney mara, ruth negga, saoirse ronan, sophie turner, jessica chastain, jennifer morrison, mia wasikowska, natalia dyer, brit marling, deborah ann woll, mackenzie davis, emmy rossum, adria adjora, chyler leigh, hayley bennet, tashi rodriguez, lily james, cara delevingne, maya hawke, katheryn winnick, elizabeth olsen, abigal cowen, sophia lillis lauren cohan, zoey deutsch, paulina singer, crystal reed, hayley lu richardson, ask about others Faces I'd love to write against: jeffery dean morgan, hugh jackman, robert taylor, jr bourne, jon bernthal, jason issacs, anthony varrecchiah, brett tucker, david harbour, frank grillo, iain glen, josh duhamel, patrick petitjean, ethan hawke, christian bale, rory mccann, younger sam elliot, titus welliver, viggo mortensen, joel miller (illustrated face), cillian murphy, ask about others If you've made it this far, thank you! You won't be disappointed in writing with me. I tend to be online daily and while I'd like it if you were too, I understand that real life things comes first. Let me know if you're going to

be inactive/can’t continue. If you suddenly stop replying ic and ooc, I'll drop the story after 2 attempts of gauging continued interest spaced a week apart. Below are genres and pairings I love. Feel free to combine as many as you'd like and I’m sure we can come up with something great! Current cravings are in bold. Two thing I don't do are slice of life and historical plots. Genres: - crimes in remote locations - spooky small towns - post apocalyptic/dystopia - supernatural/modern fantasy (A/B/O, werewolves, shapeshifters, werewolf x shifter, alpha x new werewolf, involuntary mate-bond, mating/claiming) - southern/mid western gothic - murder mystery (small town or big city) - modern/dark fairy tale retellings - sci-fi - cyberpunk/retro-futuristic - little coastal towns or little towns in the mountains - emotionally charged/dark and gritty - superpowers/gifted - unresolved sexual tension/slow burn - redemption - pacific northwest - suburban gothic - luring to the other side - reincarnation/multiple universes - western inspired + modern day (such as longmire) - christmas inspired - culture clash/two characters from different sides Pairings: - age gaps (older man x younger woman / 15 to 25+ year gap) - enemies to lovers/villain x heroine - cop x criminal - doctor x patient - friends turned lovers/pining - grumpy x sunshine - the broken man x the woman that becomes his light - fbi agents/cop partners - dark hearted man melting for the innocent woman - friend x best friend’s older sibling - boss x employee - neighbors - single father x friend - firefighter/cop x victim - mentor x mentee - hurt/comfort - height differences - pet names (sweetheart, baby girl, kid, kiddo) - lady and the tramp esque/class difference - creature x human/creature - ex-con x anyone - bodyguard x assignment - widow/er falling in love again - biker x civilian - rancher/mountain man x city girl - affair (with so's sibling, with so's friend, with neighbor) - hitman x target - serial killer x fbi agent - soul mates - experienced x inexperienced - local x vacationer - injured/scarred warrior washed out from their former glory x royal/heir-to-be (modern day / Sansa x Sandor inspired) - friend x best friend/boyfriend's father - daughter in law x father in law - park ranger x camper - bounty hunter x bounty - power imbalances Tropes/Themes: the papa wolf/hot dads, cultured badass, jerk with a heart of gold. ladykiller in love, mountain man, mysterious protector, southern gentleman, tall, dark, and handsome, knight in sour armor, red string of fate, villain takes an interest, porcelain to ivory to steel, when person a gets injured/kidnapped and person b goes absolutely feral to save them, cowboys tiny women and big men, the monster being treated gently for the first time in his life, two characters forced into positions where they have no choice but to reconcile their differences and grow together/trust each other, forbidden relationships, trying to escape childhood demons & reuniting in adulthood Fandoms: (I don't write canons or do canon x oc) Star Wars, X Files, Haven, Fringe, Stranger Things, Heroes, The Wolf Among Us, Mercy Thompson Series, True Blood, Marvel, The OA, Disney personified, Horizon Zero Dawn, The Last of Us, Cyberpunk 2077 Plot Ideas: I have too many to list here but take a look at my google doc and let me know if anything catches your attention. It's a mix of fandom inspired and original plots: Plot Ideas Last but not least, I have a list of kinks if anyone's interested. I use email and discord to write. I'd also be open to joining a jcink site! Contact me at Doe#3347 on discord or by email: doeeyes73@gmail.com Please be detailed when you message me, let me know why you chose to contact me. Seeing only "hey do you wanna rp?" is a guaranteed way to turn me off. Look forward to hearing from you!

[fyrapartnersearch]

Seeking Literate Partners!

Disclaimer: Male authors, please stop contacting me. I've been burned too many times. If you persist, I'll ignore your message. Hello, you can call me Doe! I'm 25+ and a proud cat mom. I write multiple paragraphs/novella style (200-500+ words). I love to write detailed descriptions and delve into a character’s head/emotions as well as surroundings. I compare it to writing a novel together. I understand if the scene doesn’t have alot going on and therefore requires less like rapid fire. I adore having long, thoughtful replies where we truly immerse ourselves in the world. I'm hoping to find a partner whose as enthusiastic and passionate about the plot and writing as I am. When I get invested in a story, it’s 100% dedication. Getting a reply is the highlight of my day. I'm a big fan of romance and using face claims. I’m the type to make pinterest boards, spam you with gifs, headcanons, and send you songs that remind me of our characters and/or ship. I'll get excited if we come up with future plot ideas, or if our characters are being cute or angsty and I can yell about it in the chat. Last but not least I only do MxF (with myself in the female role) and don’t double, but I’m more than happy to write side characters of either gender to help move the story along. I'd highly prefer female authors writing male characters. Searching For - 21+ partners - For you to have an excellent grasp of grammar, punctuation, spelling, and capitalization. Both in character and out of character. (Literate to advanced writers only, please. I'm not looking for newbies or those who have English as their second/third language). - Plot before smut. While mature themes will be in my plots, and are even encouraged, there needs to be chemistry between our characters. I like to have a good mix of plot and tastefully written smut, along with doses of angst and fluff. - For you to write as an older man (40s+/50s+). I'm a sucker for the gruff and tough men with dark pasts who secretly have a soft heart. I also love those grumpy, hypermasculine men being intimidated by soft yet commanding women. The youngest I write is early 20s. - Please be enthusiastic and invested when it comes to plotting/worldbuilding. There’s nothing worse than receiving one sentence in reply to two paragraphs of ideas, or having a doormat partner who says “sure” to whatever I ask. Tossing ideas back and forth, watching them snowball into amazing plot threads brings me joy. - Joining me in the wonderful world of ship/character development is kind of a must. It’s one of the things that makes writing with a partner so much fun. I also like to make friends with my partners! - While I'd prefer real life face claims, I'd also be open to using realistic art if you're uncomfortable with real life. I draw the line at anime/cartoon art. Faces I'd love to write as: gal gadot, rooney mara, ruth negga, saoirse ronan, sophie turner, jessica chastain, jennifer morrison, mia wasikowska, natalia dyer, brit marling, deborah ann woll, mackenzie davis, emmy rossum, adria adjora, chyler leigh, hayley bennet, tashi rodriguez, lily james, cara delevingne, maya hawke, katheryn winnick, elizabeth olsen, abigal cowen, sophia lillis lauren cohan, zoey deutsch, paulina singer, crystal reed, hayley lu richardson, ask about others Faces I'd love to write against: jeffery dean morgan, hugh jackman, robert taylor, jr bourne, jon bernthal, jason issacs, anthony varrecchiah, brett tucker, david harbour, frank grillo, iain glen, josh duhamel, patrick petitjean, ethan hawke, christian bale, rory mccann, younger sam elliot, titus welliver, viggo mortensen, joel miller (illustrated face), ask about others If you've made it this far, thank you! You won't be disappointed in writing with me. I tend to be online daily and while I'd like it if you were too, I understand that real life things comes first. Let me know if you're going to be inactive/can’t continue. If you suddenly stop replying ic and ooc, I'll drop the story after 2 attempts of gauging continued interest spaced a week apart. Below are

genres and pairings I love. Feel free to combine as many as you'd like and I’m sure we can come up with something great! Current cravings are in bold. Two thing I don't do are slice of life and historical plots. Genres: - crimes in remote locations - spooky small towns - post apocalyptic/dystopia - supernatural/modern fantasy (A/B/O, werewolves, shapeshifters, alpha x rival pack alpha's child, werewolf x shifter, alpha x new werewolf, involuntary mate-bond, mating/claiming) - southern/mid western gothic - murder mystery (small town or big city) - modern/dark fairy tale retellings - sci-fi - cyberpunk/retro-futuristic - little coastal towns or little towns in the mountains - emotionally charged/dark and gritty - superpowers/gifted - unresolved sexual tension/slow burn - redemption - pacific northwest - suburban gothic - luring to the other side - reincarnation/multiple universes - western inspired + modern day (such as longmire) - christmas inspired - culture clash/two characters from different sides Pairings: - age gaps (older man x younger woman / 15 to 25+ year gap) - enemies to lovers/villain x heroine - cop x criminal - doctor x patient - friends turned lovers/pining - grumpy x sunshine - the broken man x the woman that becomes his light - fbi agents/cop partners - dark hearted man melting for the innocent woman - friend x best friend’s older sibling - boss x employee - neighbors - single father x friend - firefighter/cop x victim - mentor x mentee - hurt/comfort - height differences - pet names (sweetheart, baby girl, kid, kiddo) - lady and the tramp esque/class difference - creature x human/creature - ex-con x anyone - bodyguard x assignment - widow/er falling in love again - biker x civilian - rancher/mountain man x city girl - affair (with so's sibling, with so's friend, with neighbor) - hitman x target - serial killer x fbi agent - soul mates - experienced x inexperienced - local x vacationer - injured/scarred warrior washed out from their former glory x royal/heir-to-be (modern day / Sansa x Sandor inspired) - friend x best friend/boyfriend's father - daughter in law x father in law - park ranger x camper - bounty hunter x bounty - power imbalances Tropes/Themes: the papa wolf/hot dads, cultured badass, jerk with a heart of gold. ladykiller in love, mountain man, mysterious protector, southern gentleman, tall, dark, and handsome, knight in sour armor, red string of fate, villain takes an interest, porcelain to ivory to steel, when person a gets injured/kidnapped and person b goes absolutely feral to save them, cowboys tiny women and big men, the monster being treated gently for the first time in his life, two characters forced into positions where they have no choice but to reconcile their differences and grow together/trust each other, forbidden relationships, trying to escape childhood demons & reuniting in adulthood Fandoms: (I don't write canons or do canon x oc) Star Wars, X Files, Haven, Fringe, Stranger Things, Heroes, The Wolf Among Us, Mercy Thompson Series, True Blood, Marvel, The OA, Disney personified, His Dark Materials, Beastars, Horizon Zero Dawn, The Last of Us, Cyberpunk 2077 Plot Ideas: I have too many to list here but take a look at my google doc and let me know if anything catches your attention. It's a mix of fandom inspired and original plots: Plot Ideas Last but not least, I have a list of kinks if anyone's interested. I use email and discord to write. I'd also be open to joining a jcink site! Contact me at Doe#3347 on discord or by email: doeeyes73@gmail.com Please be detailed when you message me, let me know why you chose to contact me. Seeing only "hey do you wanna rp?" is a guaranteed way to turn me off. Look forward to hearing from you!

[badgersprite]

Fic: Desiderata (7/?)

 Chapter Title: Messages

Fandom: Mass Effect

Characters: Miranda, Samara, Oriana, Jacob, Jack

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

Story Rating: R

Warnings: References to past childhood abuse/trauma.

Chapter Summary: In 2186, Miranda gets a series of messages. Two are positive. One isn’t. In 2185, The Normandy faces the Suicide Mission. For some, the name is more fitting than anyone realises.

Author’s Note: Now that they’ve announced a new Mass Effect game, I should really buckle down and get chapters out at a faster rate, huh?

* * *

If adjusting to living with a bunch of teenagers had been a difficult prospect from the start, it only became more so once they settled in and learned that Miranda was an actual human being rather than some stern caricature. They knew now that she wasn’t as cold as she had come off initially, and that her snarky remarks lacked any real bite. Consequently, they no longer felt even remotely intimidated by her. Plus, they seemed to have suddenly twigged that they vastly outnumbered her.

Ever since they’d realised all that, getting them to cooperate and behave themselves was a damn sight harder.

“I dunno, man. For a humourless grump with half a face, she's still smokin’ hot,” Miranda heard one of the boys, Deacon Winters, remark as she emerged from her room that morning. “Oh. Hi, Miss,” Deacon said when he saw her heading to the kitchen, evidently believing she'd missed his comment.

“Stop calling me that,” Miranda instructed, but it fell on deaf ears just as it had the last dozen times she’d said the exact same thing. Truth be told, in that moment, Miranda was more concerned with breakfast than the behaviour of Jack’s students. So she rolled her eye and moved on, letting it slide.

If there was one particular luxury she was looking forward to returning when the galaxy recovered from its near-extermination, it was restaurants. Cafés. Places to eat actual food again. Real, good-quality meals, made by other people.

The way things were, everyone was subsisting on staples and rations, aside from the occasional “luxury” food items sold through the black market, which everyone knew about but nobody cared to stop. The sad fact of it all was that the only reason their food stockpiles might be enough to last the winter was because so many people had died after the Reapers attacked Earth. That and because a lot of the excess soldiers hanging around London had finally moved elsewhere, shifting the burden so it wasn’t all in one place.

Speaking of food, the sound of cereal crunching across the room caught Miranda’s attention just as she finished draining her noodles. Her eye widened.

“Are you eating on my couch?” said Miranda, like Deacon had committed a crime just a hair's breadth away from aggravated murder. He froze, a droplet of reconstituted milk dripping down his chin, a spoonful of cereal still in his mouth. “In what bizarre alternate universe is that okay? Go eat at the table like a civilised human being,” she ordered, her already low tolerance levels quickly waning.

“Aw, Miss,” Deacon protested, stretching out the word to make it as grating as possible.

“Keep whinging like that and you can find somewhere else to live,” Miranda warned him. The two students rolled their eyes before reluctantly picking up their bowls and heading to the table, not quite brave enough to test the idleness of her threat. “When you're done, you can vacuum up the crumbs, too,” she told them, limping across to the table with her own breakfast in hand, leaving her cane against the kitchen counter. She may have been gradually softening to her new housemates, but she had her limits.

Just as she started to eat, Prangley and Rodriguez both emerged from their room in shared laughter. When they spotted Miranda there, they paused sheepishly, as if they'd been caught in the midst of some minor conspiracy. Miranda arched her eyebrow, but ignored them.

The two exchanged hushed whispers, tittering and nudging each other like gossipy hens. Prangley seemed to make up his mind about something, Rodriguez giggling and lightly slapping his arm as if to discourage him, but it was clear she wholeheartedly wanted to see what would happen.

“Hey, Miss,” Prangley began. Miranda despised that damn title. She swore they used it on purpose, to deliberately irk her. “Me and the others—”

“The others and I,” Miranda corrected without glancing up.

“Right, well, we've been wondering a couple things,” Prangley continued, sitting down at the table, his posture impolite and uncultivated, eager to pry into the mind of their impromptu protector. “After all, since we’re already living together, it’s only fair and reasonable that we should have the right to ask some questions and get to know some stuff about you as a person, right?” 

Miranda didn’t dignify that with a response, continuing to eat.

“We've noticed the only reason you ever leave the apartment is for work. You never bring anyone home, except Mr. Taylor, and the only other person you ever speak to is your sister,” Prangley pointed out.

“I mean, we’re know you're kinda, well...” In place of saying anything unintentionally offensive, Rodriguez vaguely gestured at the left side of her own face. The implication was not lost in translation. “But you've still gotta have a personal life, right?” she asked, probing for information.

Sensing where this was going, Miranda merely stared at them, as if finding their attempts to rile her tiresome, and beneath recognition.

“So, do you have a boyfriend?” asked Prangley.

No reaction.

“Girlfriend?”

No reaction.

“Secret alien lover?”

No reaction.

“Synthetic sex buddy?”

No reaction.

“Would you like one?”

No reaction.

“I could hook you up—”

“Are you done?” asked Miranda, deeply bored by this.

“Yeah, I guess,” said Prangely, Rodriguez also giving up and deciding to focus on food instead. While Miranda was certainly easy to irritate on a surface level, actually getting under her skin was far harder than it looked. She wondered if she should remind them that she had worked with Jack; if Miranda could endure her at her most intentionally aggravating, then she could tolerate the trolling of these teenagers.

“Ah, fuck!” Rodriguez cursed, accidentally dropping a carton of artificial orange juice as she pulled it out of the fridge, spilling it everywhere on the floor. “I’m so sorry, Miss. I’ll clean that right up!” she hastily apologised, salvaging what little remained of the juice before scrambling over to the cupboard for a mop.

Miranda suppressed the urge to groan, not even seeing the point in wasting her energy on making a critical comment by that stage. She wished she was at work. The only reason she wasn't was because Bailey had insisted she take weekends off. Much as she understood his good intentions, she thoroughly disagreed that spending time at home could be considered relaxing in light of her tenants. At this rate, being thrown into the fucking sun would be preferable.

Why had she signed up for this again?

Suddenly, her omni-tool beeped, alerting her to a new text message on her datapad. It was Oriana. Despite the chaos going on around her, Miranda couldn’t hide her smile. This was the one silver lining she’d been holding out for to make this whole “day off” thing worth it.

“Excuse me,” she said, endeavouring to lead by example when it came to matters of etiquette, even if it was proving fruitless.

“Here, Miss. Let me get that for you,” another boy offered, the one named Nitin, reaching out to clear her plate for her. He was the one who had that ridiculous crush on her. Miranda found it annoying and tedious, as one might expect. But it was harmless, she supposed. And at least it was compelling him towards trying to be on his best behaviour around her, if nothing else.

“Thank you,” she said with a curt, almost stilted nod. She’d made a conscious effort to remind herself to express gratitude where she otherwise wouldn’t, if only as part of her efforts to train her wards to meet minimum standards of politeness. With that, she returned to the privacy of her bedroom.

Three sets of male eyes watched her leave, waiting for the door to close before speaking. “I don't care how fucked up her face is – I'd still hit it,” Nitin said, earning a dishcloth thrown his way by Rodriguez.

Miranda took a breath, attempting to release some of her tension as she sat down in her bedroom. She'd been looking forward to this, as she did every time Oriana's messages came through. She wanted to be able to enjoy it without stress souring the moment.

After a few seconds, she opened the message app and began typing back.

*     *     *

It had been a trap.

Activating the Reaper IFF had given away their location. The Collectors attacked while their guard was down. The squad had returned to find the entire crew gone except Joker. And EDI, obviously. 

Miranda was doing her best to keep a level head and remain calm and logical in her assessment of what had transpired. Someone had to, after all. But it was hard not to take this attack personally. It felt like a violation, to have their ship boarded when they weren’t even there to do anything about it.

Perhaps it was for the best. If they’d been there, they might all have perished too. With the squad intact, at least they still had a chance of defeating the Collectors, crew or no crew.

Shepard had made the call. There was no waiting around. They were going to jump through the Omega-4 Relay now, while there might still be a chance to get the crew back. It was do or die. 

Everyone had made their final preparations, ensuring weapons and ammunition were in order. There was nothing left but time now - it was simply a matter of getting to the Omega system. Everyone seemed to have gone off to do their own thing, spending what could have been their final few hours alive as they chose.

Miranda had contemplated sending a heartfelt message to her sister, even started typing a long email detailing the truth of how she’d found her, answering any questions she might want to know about her past and admitting everything Oriana meant to her. Once she got about halfway through, she thought better of it, though. The last thing she wanted to do was worry Oriana. And this felt too much like a goodbye. Like an expectation that she wouldn’t return. And Miranda refused to consider that, much less worry her sister with the thought.

It had been, what, a little over two months since they reunited? They had only just begun to form the relationship Miranda always secretly wanted deep down. There was so much still left to do. So much still left to say to each other. For that reason alone, Miranda couldn’t allow herself to fail this mission. Death was not an option.

This mission to stop the Collectors was going to succeed. It had to. Shepard had done everything that she possibly could have done to prepare. Things that even Miranda honestly wouldn’t have considered before she became Shepard’s second-in-command. Recruiting every squad member recommended by Cerberus. Upgrading the ship. Ensuring every member of her squad had no unfinished business to distract them from the mission.

Whatever it might cost them, they were not going to lose this fight. They couldn’t.

But, if worst did come to worst, at least she knew Oriana would be taken care of. Miranda had put those arrangements in place, just to be safe. But telling Oriana that now would come across as extremely grim.

However, despite all that, she couldn’t help but ask herself, what if she didn’t come back? Miranda couldn’t bear the thought of Oriana not having one final word from her. If this was her last opportunity to say something, then surely she had to take advantage of it, even if she had to be careful not to give the impression that the mission the Normandy was about to embark on was far from a normal one.

With that in mind, she opened a fresh email once more and typed.

Hey, Ori.

Just wanted you to know that I’m thinking about you. 

We should talk soon. 

I love you.

- Miranda.

It was laconic, but that was Miranda. And that would have to do. Anything more and she wouldn’t be able to stop.

After that, with nothing left to do except pass the time, she poured herself a drink at the bar, and retreated to the Starboard Observation Deck to wait out these last remaining hours.

Miranda found it empty. But that was no deterrent. Content to wait, Miranda settled onto her usual comfortable spot on the couch and nursed her drink, staring out into the void.

It was maybe twenty minutes before Miranda heard the doors slide open. The familiar reflection in the transparent aluminium window confirmed it was Samara. Judging by her slight hesitation in the doorway, Samara was a little surprised to find her there. And yet, at the same time, unsurprised.

Samara uttered a soft sigh as she moved to accompany Miranda on the lounge, sharing in the serene view. Miranda didn’t feel the need to disturb the peace with any questions, remnants of ice cubes clinking softly against glass. She simply assumed the reason for Samara’s absence was to contact Falere and Rila one last time. Of course it was. And it wasn’t her place to pry about that.

Several long seconds passed before Samara deigned to break the quiet.

“The ambient noise that used to fill this ship never reached this room, yet somehow the silence has never felt so...” Samara trailed off, as if the appropriate word was at the fringes of her consciousness, eluding her.

“Silent?” Miranda offered.

A sad shadow of a smile crossed Samara’s lips. “Yes.”

“I understand what you mean,” Miranda admitted. “Jacob and I met most of the crew long before anyone else did. I didn’t think much of that before. You know me; I’m not exactly a people person, am I? Now that they’ve been taken, though...well, I suppose you don’t realise how accustomed you’ve become to seeing the same faces every day until suddenly you don’t.”

It was a strange sensation. And, by all rights, it shouldn’t have been new to her.

Miranda had spent longer periods than this living with consistent groups of people. The Lazarus Project itself had taken nearly two years. And all those familiar faces had been outright slaughtered. But this was different. She hadn’t felt anything then. Back then, her only mission, her only focus, had been bringing Shepard back to life. The lives and deaths of the people at that facility had never been her responsibility, or her concern.

This time, they were. As second-in-command of the Normandy, and the highest ranking member of Cerberus there, on some level every aspect of every little thing that went on aboard this ship had been her responsibility. Her endless reports to The Illusive Man were evidence of how seriously she had taken that.

Somewhere in between all these months adrift in space, there had been a shift in her mentality. Day by day, that sense of separation between herself and the others had been chipped away. At some point, she stopped seeing everyone else around her as assets and liabilities in Cerberus’s mission to stop the Collectors, and started seeing them all as living, breathing parts of her world - little pieces of the life she’d carved out for herself aboard the Normandy.

Miranda hadn’t realised it until just now. Hell, she hadn’t even known she was capable of it. But, for the first time in her life, Miranda had grown attached to the people around her. And that fact didn’t appear to be lost on Samara.

“Are you alright?” she asked her.

Miranda uttered a short laugh, but it was entirely cheerless. That question was impossible to answer the way Samara probably wanted it to be answered. Of course Miranda wasn’t alright, but she wasn’t not alright either. She was just in the same neutral state she was usually in, trying to find a balanced equilibrium amid the ambivalence. Others would have misconstrued it for apathy.

“Obviously, it’s not ideal that we’ve lost so many,” Miranda began, a deliberate understatement. “But we can't afford to get distracted. They knew what they were signing on for. We all did. So the mission parameters have to remain the same.”

“You do not need to pretend the life or death of this crew makes no difference to you,” Samara pointed out, sensing perhaps that Miranda’s concern for the lost was deeper than she let on, whether because she was unwilling to show it, or, more likely, because she didn’t know how to.

“Of course it does,” said Miranda. “I may not be a shining beacon of empathy, but, if I didn't care about human life, I wouldn't have spent the last few months out here trying to protect it from the Collectors. But that's the point; if it's a choice between the lives of our crew, and destroying the Collectors...It's not really a choice at all, is it? Dozens of lives versus millions.”

“It sounds as though you have already decided that is a sacrifice you will have to make,” Samara noted, her tone as ever elusive and impossible to read. But, evidently, she was not yet equally resigned to accepting the worst.  

“I'm Shepard’s second-in-command, Samara. I have to be prepared, and I have to be ready to make the ‘heartless’ rational decision if it comes down to it. If I'm not, how the hell is anyone else going to be?” Miranda asked rhetorically.

Sure, there was still a chance they’d find their crew alive. Acting as swiftly as they had meant there was still hope. But if they were too late, or they couldn’t find them, then Miranda couldn’t let emotions cloud her judgement. She was perhaps the one person on this team Shepard could trust to remain cool-headed and objective no matter the circumstance. It was arguably her best quality. She didn’t plan on letting it slip when it may be needed most.

“I’m not sure why I’m explaining this to you. You understand better than anyone that it serves no one to let sentiment get in the way of the greater good,” Miranda noted, glancing over to her companion beside her on the lounge.

“I do,” Samara acknowledged, respecting Miranda’s clarity of thought in these trying times. “Adherence to the Code is always paramount. If it requires me to take a certain action, then that is what must be done, irrespective of my own personal thoughts or feelings. If I waiver in the moment, if I so much as hesitate because I question, or doubt, or second-guess, then I have failed.”

“That doesn’t sound easy,” Miranda thought aloud. Sure, Miranda had never been accused of second-guessing herself once committed to a course of action, but whenever she made those same split-second decisions, those had always been her choices to make. No external force could ever compel her to do something she found truly objectionable. She was too stubborn and individualistic to voluntarily surrender her ability to think for herself. Her agency was too important to her, after spending so much of her life without it. 

“For me, it was the hardest aspect of becoming a Justicar,” Samara admitted. “It was difficult to train my body to become a weapon, but it was harder to train my mind. I have heard the same sentiment from many others. Most take decades, even centuries, to prove that they can subordinate their own will to that of the Code. Others never pass that test. Had I gone to them at any other time in my life, I believe that would have been my fate.”

Miranda watched her as she spoke, saying nothing. She knew too well just how broken Samara had been when she chose this path. Perhaps a younger Samara would have been more like Miranda - too arrogant, egotistical and argumentative to submit to a single set of rules. But the Samara who came to them had lost everything. Almost a blank slate. Barely enough of a self left to let go.

“And yet I do not envy you the burden of leadership,” Samara continued, meeting Miranda’s gaze, breaking her from her thoughts. “To know that you are not only responsible for your own welfare, but that your choices affect those under your command, that is something I have never faced.”

“Never?” Miranda arched a brow, finding that difficult to believe.

A faint glimmer twinkled in Samara’s eye. “Never,” she confirmed. “I have long suspected this is the reason why Justicars are most often tasked to work alone. Our solitary nature removes the possibility of an internal conflict where one must choose between the desires of the self - in this case, to protect the life of a friend - and upholding the Code. Perhaps it is for the best.”

“You're not alone right now,” Miranda pointed out.

“No, I am not,” Samara replied, a gentle warmth emanating from her words, despite the sombre situation in which they both found themselves.

“Well, this is what we’re here for. Everything we’ve done up to this point, this is what it was all in aid of,” Miranda noted, thinking back over the past several months, and the innumerable adventures The Normandy SR-2 and its crew had undergone in that time. All the new faces they’d recruited. All the remote planets they’d visited. All the people they’d helped. And every inconsequential part of it had led to this one final assault on the Collector Base. Her fingers idly traced patterns on the rim of her glass, mostly untouched. “Are you afraid?”

“No,” Samara answered honestly. “I have been at peace with the inevitability of my own end for a long time. The Goddess will take me into her embrace when my moment comes to pass. If that time is now, then I am grateful that my final few months have transpired in the way that they have. I could not have chosen a more worthy cause for which to give my life, nor greater comrades to fight beside.”

Miranda didn’t doubt that Samara meant it. She had been bravely risking her life for a long time. Far, far longer than Miranda had been alive. At least now, if she fell in battle, she no longer had to fear that she would be leaving behind unfinished business, in the form of Morinth. 

“Are you?” Samara asked Miranda in return.

“No.” Miranda shook her head. Samara held her stare, somehow sensing that wasn’t entirely true. Miranda’s resolve visibly weakened. “...A little,” she reluctantly admitted, cradling her half-full drink between her hands. “But it’s not the thought of dying that scares me. What scares me is that...for the first time in my life, I finally have something to lose. I’ve only just met my sister; we’ve barely had time to talk yet, let alone get to know each other. And, as insane as this would have sounded to me six months ago, I have people in my life now who I genuinely consider friends. That’s...That’s not something I’ve ever had before.”

“You have found people you care about. And people who truly care about you,” Samara surmised, wisdom glistening in her eyes.

“I have. And...I never thought I’d say this, but now that I finally have it, that’s not something I’m willing to give up,” Miranda acknowledged. To be honest, the thought of letting this all just slip through her fingers terrified her. Not only her connections to the people themselves, but losing her elusive grasp on the better, happier person she was becoming through having known them.

“Then I am relieved,” said Samara, earning a confused look from Miranda. “Because, if there is one thing that I have learned about you, Miranda, it is that, when you are fully committed to something, you are unstoppable. If your heart’s truest desire is to ensure you return safely to those you cherish most, then I am not only reassured that we will be the victors in this fight, but moreover I am certain that you will survive.”

At that, Miranda uttered a faint chuckle, flattered by Samara’s unshakeable faith in her. “Thank you. That’s...I think that’s the nicest thing anyone has ever said about me,” she said softly, still feeling some uncharacteristic pre-mission jitters about the battle that lay ahead, but comforted by Samara’s confidence. 

“Miranda.” Samara extended a hand and placed it gently atop Miranda’s knee, compelling her to look into her eyes. “For so long as I am able, I promise to do everything in my power to ensure that you prevail through what awaits us. No harm will come to you, if I am able to prevent it.”

As Samara held her gaze, Miranda was at a loss for words. Even if she could find them, her tongue felt like it was tied in a knot, rendering her unable to speak. It was an alien sensation for her, though not an entirely unpleasant one, as a sudden warmth rushed to her cheeks. She genuinely didn’t know how to react to such kind words, given that she wasn’t used to hearing them.

“Yeah, well...same to you,” was Miranda’s painfully awkward but heartfelt response, lightly nudging Samara’s arm with her own. “...I mean it, you know?”

“As do I,” Samara assured her, content that she had said what she needed to say, and that the sincerity of her message had not been lost in translation. “But, please...do not endanger your life for mine.”

Those humble words hit Miranda like a brick. “What?” She blinked in shock, taking several seconds to confirm that her ears weren’t playing tricks on her, and that she had heard that request correctly. “Samara--”

“Please.” Samara quietly interjected, her demeanour eerily serene considering the macabre subject. “There is no reason to speak of this with apprehension. I have lived a very long life. One way or another, my years are coming to an end before too long. And I am content with that.”

“You could live just as long as I could,” Miranda reminded her. Well, maybe that was generous. Based on predictive models, it was conceivable that Miranda could live into her early two-hundreds, barring external factors. But it wouldn’t be beyond the realm of possibility for Samara to live for another century. That was roughly as long as any other human on this ship could hope to live.

“Perhaps. But you are still in your Summer days, and will be for a long time yet to come. You have reached only a fraction of your potential. Whereas I…” Samara paused and trailed off for a brief moment, her gaze shifting as she searched for the right words. “For centuries, I have known only Winter. Even so, I have done what I set out to do, and fulfilled the oath I made to my Order. If this day is destined to be my last, then I can say without falsity that I am satisfied with what I leave behind. And I am blessed to know others like yourself will live on when I am gone. So, I ask this of you.” Samara reached down and gently clasped Miranda’s hands between both of her own, glass and all. “Do not sacrifice your years for mine. Please. I would not be able to forgive myself if you perished for my sake.”

Miranda exhaled slowly. That was a lot to process all at once. And she did not like what she was hearing. But, as Samara’s words sank in, the more she understood what it meant to her, and why this was so important to her.

If it comforted Samara to go into this battle believing that her much younger allies would outlive her if she fell, then what audacity would it take for Miranda not to respect those wishes, particularly if the worst did come to pass? Miranda couldn’t take that calming belief away from her. Not now, when the last thing any of them needed was to be plagued by upsetting thoughts.

“Okay. I can promise you I won’t do anything foolish, or throw my life away,” Miranda somewhat reluctantly warranted. That went without saying. “But, if you expect me not to watch out for you or not to do my best to keep you safe, then I’m sorry but I can’t. I will be trying to bring you home. And if you don’t want it to be for the sake of our friendship, then fine. It won’t be for that. It will be because you’re still a part of this team, and I owe you that duty regardless. And I can’t shirk that responsibility, no matter how much you want me to.”

Samara nodded, letting Miranda’s hands fall from her grasp. “Very well. I am content with that. I would never ask you to betray your responsibilities.”

“Good.” Miranda gave a short nod, because that was as much of a concession as Samara was going to get. Abandoning her would never be on the table.

It occurred to Miranda then that, despite their mutual intentions to watch each other’s backs and do what they could to see each other through whatever lay ahead, she couldn’t fault Samara for making peace with the possibility of her own demise. As optimistic as they were both trying to be in their own ways, there was still a chance that this conversation would be their last.

Following that thought, Miranda realised that this was, in all respects, her only guaranteed opportunity to confess a secret she’d been hiding from Samara - that she’d gone digging through her past without her permission. She’d long been telling herself that she needed to apologise for that, and would do it when the time was right. As much as she had found reasons to avoid that issue over the past few weeks, Miranda did want to make amends before it was too late. 

“Samara…” Miranda began with a heavier tone to her quiet voice, ready to admit to her mistakes. However, as soon as she started to speak, she thought better of it. There was so little time left before they would make their attack on The Collector Base. The last thing she wanted to do was tell Samara something hurtful, knowing it might weigh on her mind throughout the fight, and distract her from their goals.

If Samara wasn’t completely focused, there was a chance she wouldn’t be at her best. And that was a risk Miranda couldn’t afford to take. If Samara didn’t make it out of this because of something Miranda told her...even the very thought of that made her sick to her stomach.

Samara sat before her, patient and calm, giving Miranda as much time as she needed to find the words she wanted to say. Miranda sighed, recognising that she didn’t have it in her heart to tell Samara something that could only serve to hurt her, at least not at that moment.

“...Thank you,” was what Miranda settled on. And there was nothing false about her gratitude. “I’ve, um...I haven’t had a lot of friends in my life. Or any, really. So, um...knowing you has....”

Miranda stopped herself and uttered a faint sigh of frustration as she ran a hand through her hair, struggling to find the right words. It wasn’t a problem she was accustomed to. She didn’t lack the vocabulary. But, then again, she’d never had to say anything like this. She’d never had a friend like Samara before.

“What I’m trying to say is that you’ve genuinely helped me become a better person than I was before I met you,” Miranda confessed, conscious of how much colder and less empathetic she had been before she started spending time with Samara, and how much she’d learned about herself through this friendship. And yet not once in all that time had Samara ever made Miranda feel like the person she already was wasn’t good enough. She’d always accepted her. Flaws and all. “I don’t think I’ll ever understand why you were willing to be so patient with me sometimes, but you were. So...from the bottom of my heart, thank you. For everything.”

Samara offered a small smile in return. “You have nothing to thank me for. And, even if you had, your friendship has been more than I could ever repay.”

Miranda gave a self-deprecating laugh. “Liar,” she jokingly remarked, confident that she had gained infinitely more from Samara’s friendship than Samara had gained from hers in return. Not that it seemed to matter. 

“Miranda,” Samara spoke first, interrupting the silence before Miranda could continue. “It occurs to me that there are but a scant few hours left before we jump through the Omega Relay.”

“You’re right. We should focus. Get ourselves in the right headspace,” Miranda replied, putting her glass aside, getting up from the couch and moving over to her usual spot on the floor, straightening her back in anticipation of a meditation session. Talking had been nice, but they did need to concentrate. Clear their heads. Sharpen their senses. Prepare their biotics.

Samara’s amused expression was reflected in the window. “That is not...Well, you are not mistaken in assuming that I intended to meditate in readiness for the battle that lies ahead,” Samara spoke, sounding a little thrown by Miranda’s reaction, but not in an unpleasant way. “However, what I meant to say to you is that, to the extent you are able, you should spend this time as you wish.”

“...I’m already doing that,” Miranda answered frankly, glancing back over her shoulder. It hadn’t even been a question where she would go once she left her office. By that point, it shouldn’t have even needed to be said between them that there was nowhere else on the ship she would rather be.

Samara smiled, accepting her answer. “Then I am glad.”

With that, Samara moved to join Miranda on the floor, channelling her biotics through her hands, warming up in anticipation that her abilities would be needed soon. Miranda quieted her mind, already knowing that she would need to be at her sharpest and most alert. Everyone would be counting on her not to make any mistakes, especially if anything happened to Shepard.

What Miranda didn’t know at the time, and had never known in any of the days they had spent together in this room, was that Samara had a singular focus in mind. She had long been awaiting a day such as this - a day when they would launch a virtually suicidal assault against the Collectors.

The truth was, ever since Samara had met Shepard and Miranda on Illium and heard of their quest to stop the Collectors, she had considered the possibility that the Goddess was sending her a sign. Once she completed her penance by ending Morinth’s reign of terror on the galaxy, that mere possibility had crystallised into a certainty. With Morinth gone, her purpose had been fulfilled. Her very reason for staying alive these past four hundred years was at an end.

Samara could derive no other meaning from the path she had been set upon. The auspicious omens were all so clear. Her time had finally come. This was the day she was destined to embrace eternity.

Unbeknownst to anyone else, every single thing Samara had done since she had stepped foot aboard the Normandy had been rooted in a silent expectation that the approaching suicide mission was where her Goddess had fated her to die. Every meditation. Every field mission. Every moment spent with Miranda, gently guiding her towards a happier, more fulfilling future Samara would never see.

Samara had been waiting for this day with bated breath. Not in fear. Rather, finding comfort and peace in it. On some level, perhaps even aching for the release that she had been denied a long time ago.

The closer the hour drew, the more the weight on her shoulders had lifted. The more she had lowered her guard. The easier her burdens had become to bear. It wouldn’t be long now before she could lay them down for eternity.

And, with that in mind, Samara’s meditation continued untroubled, unburdened by the thought that it would be her last. Because, in her heart of hearts, the truth was that Samara still believed deep down, just as she had for the last four hundred years, that she was ultimately responsible for the fate that had befallen her family. The death of her bondmate. Her children’s disease. Mirala’s murders.

And, for that, Samara had never once stopped believing in the deepest recesses of her soul that she did not truly deserve to live.

*     *     *

“Jelly? Seriously?” Prangley snickered at his fellow student. “That's how you're going to celebrate?”

“A pool of jelly,” Rodriguez corrected him. “That makes all the difference.” She grinned.

“Swimming in jelly. That's a new one,” Seanne laughingly commented.

“Better than yours,” Rodriguez replied, sticking out her tongue.

“Drink your fuckin' juice, Rodriguez,” Seanne countered, lightly smacking her on the arm.

“Oi. Language,” Miranda nonchalantly chastised, not even looking up from her work. Jack may have tolerated casual swearing, but Miranda at least tried to instil some decorum while she was around.

“Sorry,” Seanne sheepishly apologised.

Miranda turned the page, continuing to read the latest Alliance brief on the status of other cities on Earth. Bailey might have ordered her not to come into work on weekends, but he’d never said she couldn’t read reports in her spare time. She wouldn’t admit it to anyone, but part of her still hoped that one of these days the reports would mention a certain asari Justicar, the last of her order. At least then she would know where she was. No luck yet.

“Hey, Miss. What about you?” asked Reiley. Miranda glanced up, visibly annoyed to have her concentration broken. “What are you going to do when you get home?”

“Technically speaking, I am home, in planetary terms,” Miranda pointed out. She was from Earth, after all. “This is as close to home as I ever plan on going, anyway.” She shrugged, returning her gaze to the digital text. She had no reason to ever go further.

“You know what I mean,” said Reiley, not surprised by her pedantry. Miranda was always the sort to pick apart someone's words, deliberately misinterpreting them and taking them out of context, even when she knew damn well what they meant. It made her a nightmare to bicker with. “What do you think you'll do when the mass relays are rebuilt and you get to see your sister again?” he asked, interested to see a more sentimental side of her.

“I believe I'll hug her. For about six months,” Miranda matter-of-factly replied, not even a twitch of irony flickering across her deadpan expression. “Crying may also be involved.”

Prangley laughed. “Six months, huh?” he said, grinning lopsidedly.

“You're right. I have a lot of endurance. I could probably push it to seven,” said Miranda, sounding entirely serious. Despite the fact that there wasn’t a hint of a smile on her face, this was the closest thing to an amiable attitude Jack’s kids ever saw her with.

“I've got a feeling Little Miss Sis might get sick of that,” Rodriguez commented.

“Yes, well, I'm stronger than her. She has no say in the matter. And turn that noise down, would you?” she asked, her request far more relaxed than the order she would have barked when the students first came under her care. 

“It's not noise,” Seanne insisted, looking quite offended by Miranda's low opinion of her favourite artist. “It's music.”

“No, it isn't,” Miranda firmly asserted, not even bothering to glance up as she flipped the page on her tablet computer.

“Why? What did you listen to when you were growing up?” asked Prangely, somehow unable to picture Miranda ever being anything other than a thirty-something adult.

“Rachmaninoff,” Miranda answered, as if that should have been perfectly obvious.

“I totally called it,” said Rodriguez, holding out her hand, gesturing for Reiley to pay up. “I told you she never listens to anything made in the last three centuries. It's only classical shit with her.”

“First of all, don't swear. Secondly, Rachmaninoff is not classical, he's romantic. Thirdly, he died in nineteen forty-three, which is less than two hundred and fifty years ago.” As one, all the students met her with blank stares. Miranda gave them an unimpressed look before shaking her head, going back to her article, realising she was wasting her time trying to educate them. “Never mind.”

Abruptly, there came a knock at the door. Seeing as any visitor would likely be there for her, Miranda moved to answer it, but Reiley beat her to the punch. “I'll get it,” he said, leaping over the couch to see who it was, reaching the doorway faster than she could react.

“Thank you.” Much as Miranda refused to think of her injuries as a hindrance, they did impact upon her mobility. The students were considerate enough to do a few small things here and there to help her out, like buying her a little extra time to grab her cane and get to her feet when a visitor came by.

“It's for you, Miss,” Reiley announced, not that this was unexpected. “It's Mr. Taylor.”

“Make yourself at home, Jacob,” Miranda said instinctively, without looking over her shoulder, clicking the home button on her tablet and putting it aside.

“Looks like things are going well here,” Jacob observed, stepping inside.

“For certain values of 'well',” Miranda replied with a slightly strained sigh. It was mostly exaggeration, though. “These teenagers were all far less inclined to bother me before you made me be nice to them.”

“Yeah,” Jacob conceded, pulling up a chair, “But you would have felt guilty about it if you hadn't. Not right away, but eventually. You know I'm right.”

Miranda feigned a huff. Truth be told, she was starting to enjoy their well-intentioned torment. She certainly preferred that than having them walk on eggshells around her. The last thing she ever wanted was for these kids to feel around her the way she’d felt around her own father. 

“Any luck finding out what happened to our people?” Jacob asked.

“No,” Miranda straightforwardly replied. “I’ve asked Dr. Michel and her team to look into it, but there are literally millions of bodies scattered throughout the rubble of London. Identifying them all was never going to be quick. It could be years before we find out whether anyone we know is among them. If they were simply vaporised, chances are we’ll never know what happened to them.”

“Wow. Right to the vaporisation,” Jacob pointed out. That was dark.

“I'm not assuming any of them are gone,” Miranda insisted with a slightly defensive shrug. “I just have to be prepared for all potential possibilities. I'm not about to stop trying to find them, but I need to accept that I may be powerless to answer what happened to everyone.”

“Don't worry. I know.” Jacob and Miranda went back years by that point. He was better at reading her intentions than most, and he knew she often wasn't aware that she sounded more callous than she meant.

“Other than that, what brings you here?” Miranda asked. “Joining us for dinner tonight?”

“That would be nice,” Jacob acknowledged, nodding to accept that invitation. “But, before we get into that, I’m here because I found something. I thought you might like to see it.”

Miranda furrowed her brow. “What is it?”

“Well, you remember the memory wall at Paddington station? The place where people post pictures of anybody who’s missing, or leave messages for people who haven’t been found yet to try and meet up with them?”

“Of course I do,” Miranda answered. She had passed it many times - it was a stone’s throw from both the hospital where she’d recovered, and the refugee camp/field hospital at Hyde Park. It wasn’t the only wall of its kind. Part memorial. Part notice-board. It was something people had first started doing during the war, as a means of finding others in the chaos, using local landmarks as places to reach out to others. Once the Reapers were destroyed, their use had only grown. The one at Paddington had been well-established by the time Miranda had been found, let alone the time she woke up. “What’s your point?”

“...This is really my bad, you know,” he confessed, apologetically. “Back then, I was so distracted. Busy thinking about you and working to get London back on its feet. I guess that’s why, when Samara left without any word, it didn't even occur to me to check to see if she'd left a message there.”

Miranda’s heart dropped like a stone, her breath catching in her throat. For a moment, it was as if her whole world stopped.

Samara.

Memories of the weeks - hell, months - they’d spent together on The Normandy flashed through her mind, the countless hours alone in the Starboard Observation Deck, the private conversations where they’d admitted things to each other that they’d never spoken aloud to another soul.

It was at that instant that it finally sank in for Miranda just how truly alone she’d felt over these past several weeks without Samara there by her side.

Even though she was surrounded by people, it didn’t make up for that void left by her absence. Knowing that she should have been there, but inexplicably wasn’t. That constant feeling that something was just...missing.

She’d almost come to accept that lingering feeling of abandonment. Of being forgotten. Even a little betrayed. To have that challenged now, at this late hour. It didn’t seem possible.

“Jacob, if you’re joking with me about this…” Miranda said softly, not sure she could cope with the disappointment if this turned out to be some ill-conceived prank, and not willing to get her hopes up until she was certain it wasn’t.

“I’m not. See for yourself.” Jacob activated his omni-tool and sent the file across to Miranda’s tablet computer. The file flashed up on her screen, asking if she wanted to accept the transfer. ‘To Miranda, From Samara’.

She froze. So, this was real.

It shouldn't have surprised her that Samara would have left something behind. Or tried to, at least. It was what she had expected initially. After all, they had grown extremely close throughout their time together. More than anyone realised. But, when Miranda had woken up from her near-death state to find her already gone, it had been hard not to feel hurt, to think that things must have changed, or that maybe she’d overestimated their friendship from the start. 

It meant a lot to her to have evidence that perhaps those things weren’t the case, and that Samara's absence didn't denote a lack of caring on her part. That she hadn’t forgotten her, or cast her aside. Not entirely, at least.

“...Did she say where she went, or...?” Miranda trailed off.

“I'm not sure,” Jacob admitted with a shrug. “I only read the covering note intended for me, which didn’t say much more than to give this to you if...when you woke up. Go on. Play it.”

For a moment, Miranda hesitated, tempted to wait until she was alone to do so. But, then, it occurred to her that it didn’t make sense to guard this so jealously. And she didn’t fully understand her own reticence to be transparent about the message’s contents, or her friendship with Samara.

Sure, nobody knew how close they’d grown on The Normandy, but it wasn’t like it was some scandalous secret that they were friends. There was nothing Samara would have said to her that Jacob or the students couldn't hear. It wasn't that the two of them had never had personal conversations. Of course they had. But Samara was a professional, like her. Miranda had every expectation her message would be in that capacity more than anything else. Hell, the only time she’d ever really seen her get emotional was after Morinth.

So, then, why did it feel like letting anyone else catch a glimpse of the connection she and Samara shared was like exposing a deeply personal part of herself? A side of herself nobody except Samara had ever seen?

Why did this feel too intimate to be spoiled by prying eyes?

“...So, are you going to open it, or...?” Jacob prompted. It wasn’t lost on her that Jason, Reiley, Seanne and Rodriguez were all watching her too.

Somewhat self-conscious to that fact, Miranda cleared her throat and played the video. Samara's face appeared on the screen, lit only by a faint light. From what little Miranda could make out of the background, Samara must have recorded this on the roof of the hospital at night, most likely on her omni-tool. 

“Miranda,” the message began. “I do not...”

Samara paused, swallowing, searching for the right words. She spoke softly. Even more so than usual. She looked tired, like she hadn’t slept in days. Her shoulders almost began to bow under the strain she’d placed on herself.

“As I record this, you lie unconscious in a hospital bed. You are...unable to breathe without the aid of a machine. And you have been fighting for your life, every second of every minute of every hour since I discovered you.”

There was a strange air to Samara’s words. Maybe it was just the quality of recording, or because she wasn’t even facing the screen, but normally she spoke with such a clear tone. Calm, assured and quiet, yet also confident. Her timbre never quaked or wavered or quivered. But this was different. There was an uncharacteristic hoarseness to her voice. A tremor, even.

Then again, in the days before Samara left, she’d been in and out of the wasteland so many times that she was doubtlessly exhausted. Running on empty. Of course her voice would have given out by then.

“I do not know whether...” Samara stopped herself again, finding whatever words were on the tip of her tongue too unpleasant to utter. Her eyes remained distant, fixed on the dark city below. Her head hadn’t raised an inch since she started speaking. Not even once. “Your survival is not guaranteed. However, if you are hearing this, then you have awoken. For that, I am grateful.”

On some level, Miranda had been waiting for something like this since the moment she woke up in that hospital bed. Just something from Samara. Anything at all. Some sort of acknowledgment that she was okay. To know why her friend left. To know that she hadn’t callously tossed her aside.

Now that she was holding that very thing in her hand, it didn’t seem real. Miranda didn’t know how to react. Perhaps she should have been excited, or happy, or even annoyed that Samara hadn’t left this beside her bed where it would have been easier to find. Instead there was just...quiet. And confusion.

“Do not interpret my absence as indifference to your fate; it is not,” Samara continued. That she even mentioned it at all showed that it must have troubled her to consider Miranda might believe she had no interest in her survival. She hadn’t been wrong. The thought had crossed her mind, especially in her loneliest moments. “It grieves me that I cannot be by your side.”

Hearing her finally say those words, Miranda believed her. In truth, deep down, despite her loneliness and her doubts, she’d never really questioned it. There were very few people Miranda had truly cared about, much less people who truly cared about her in return. And Samara was one of them.

There was nothing shallow or interchangeable about the rapport she shared with Samara. Those memories of the Normandy and the Citadel weren’t mere fabrications of Miranda’s imagination. That was real. And if that had all been faked, then either Miranda had to be the most gullible idiot ever to stand on two legs, or Samara was a master manipulator of the blackest deceit ever purveyed to the universe. She knew damn well that neither of those things were true.

Miranda just wished Samara was really there. And, even as she listened to her give her explanations, part of her just couldn’t understand why she wasn’t. Not that she resented her for it, but it just didn’t make sense. Samara’s Code might have been a good reason for why she’d left, but it didn’t explain why she’d done it so abruptly. Plus, she’d taken the time to record this message, but she hadn’t told Jacob she was leaving, or to give this to Miranda.

Something was just...off about all of this. It didn’t add up.

“Hey, Miss, who's that?” Reiley asked.

Miranda waved him off, refusing to be distracted. To his credit, Reiley took that as a cue to shut up and leave her in peace, at least until the end of the video.

“There is much suffering in the wake of this war. The Code compels me to go where I am needed. I cannot ignore that, even for you,” said Samara.

Miranda’s brow twinged. It was strange. Samara really didn't sound like herself, both in terms of what she was saying and how she was saying it. It was as though an unspoken thought weighed heavily on her heart. Guilt? Regret? 

Samara was silent for a long moment. She still hadn’t moved a muscle through the entire length of the video. Until a sound escaped her. Then the camera moved, and Miranda couldn’t see Samara’s face anymore. If she had recorded this on her omni-tool, the only explanation that would have made sense was if Samara had leaned forward against the railing and cradled her head in her hands.

It was two whole minutes before Samara came back into view.

“...Forgive me. I merely...I wanted...” She stopped herself again, turning aside, her eyes still yet to meet the camera. It was difficult to make out, but...it almost seemed like she was struggling to maintain her composure. But Miranda knew that couldn’t be possible, because that never happened to Samara.

Finally, Samara straightened up, as if forcing herself to continue. She tucked her free hand behind her back, staring dead ahead, but still not at the camera. 

“I know that I will not be there for you if you awaken. That is my responsibility, and a burden I have to bear. If you hate me for it, I will understand. I would welcome it, even, as it is not undeserved. But you must not think even for a moment that it is any fault of your own that I cannot stay, or that I have abandoned you. You are always in my thoughts, and I pray for your recovery.”

Miranda's eye glinted at that. If she couldn’t stay then so be it. But couldn’t she have waited a few days for her to wake up? Or left behind some means of contacting her? Was she afraid to talk to her, even from far away? Did she think that Miranda wouldn’t have understood why she had to leave, if she explained it to her? All she'd wanted was to talk to her again, or at least to enjoy the silence, knowing that if she ever truly needed Samara, she would be there. And vice versa.

And none of this answered the question of why she still hadn’t returned. It had been two months since she vanished, and this was the only word they’d had from her in all that time - a recording from the exact same day she disappeared.

“I cannot say when I will return to speak with you again, or...learn of your fate, if that is no longer a possibility.” Samara's expression didn't change, although her gaze momentarily dipped at that sombre thought. “But you are a strong woman, Miranda. Strong enough that you have not yet perished from your injuries. If it is possible for you to survive at all, then I do not believe that you will succumb.”

“Good prediction,” Jacob remarked. Miranda didn’t feel it in her heart to be able to make a wisecrack. There was an odd weight in her chest as she watched Samara speak. One that wouldn’t go away. And it was getting heavier.

A faint shadow flickered over Samara’s eyes, imperceptible to most. She hid it, but it betrayed something Miranda couldn't interpret. “...Be safe, Miranda.”

With that, the message ended. The silence that followed encompassed the room like a slow-rising flood, drowning out all sound. Miranda sat there, still, not even aware of the watchful eyes lingering on her, waiting for her to react.

It was strange. For as much as she would have expected it to lift her spirits to hear from Samara, there was this indescribable ache left behind in her wake. The same ache that had been there, gnawing away at Miranda despite her best efforts to ignore it ever since she realised Samara had left without saying goodbye.

Miranda had never been the best at identifying emotions, whether hers or others. Hence, it wasn’t a shock when she couldn’t find the words to articulate precisely what it was that she was feeling. Maybe the word for it didn’t exist. 

The truth was, she’d never felt so...conflicted.

It was funny to think. Miranda had been forced to go on the run from Cerberus for almost a year. Alone. In hiding. Unable to contact anyone she knew or cared about, because it wasn’t safe to do so. It would have exposed them to harm - it would have made them targets Cerberus could track down to try and get to her.

She’d frequently thought of her friends during those moments. Of The Normandy. Of Shepard. Of Jacob. Of Oriana, of course. And of Samara.

It hadn’t been easy, surviving like that, not knowing whether the people she cared about were in danger. She’d kept an eye on them all as best she could from afar, although with Samara that had been virtually impossible, given she moved often and left little trace of her presence anywhere.

There had been many days back then where Miranda missed her companionship, not merely because craved a reprieve from her isolation, but because, frankly, simply being around Samara had a way of making everything better, and of making all her problems seem smaller than they did a moment ago. It was like her very aura conveyed a silent promise that, no matter what happened, everything would turn out okay in the end. Miranda needed that sometimes.

And yet...it hadn’t hurt nearly as much to lose contact with Samara back then as it did now, even though by all rights they were so much closer.

She swallowed, choosing to ignore it.

“Thank you for bringing me that, Jacob,” Miranda told him sincerely. For as much as her heart seemed divided against itself, it was still a net comfort to hear from Samara, if a small one. At least she knew Samara had left of her own volition, which meant Miranda had answered one question weighing on her mind.

“Sounds like you two were close,” Jacob observed.

“Yeah, we were,” Miranda confirmed. So much so that it seemed a simple recording wasn’t enough to fill the hollowness of still not knowing where Samara was, or whether she was okay, or whether she would ever come back.

“I never knew that about you,” said Jacob, sitting somewhat sideways in his chair, with his elbow on the table. “I mean, not that I'm surprised. But I don't think I ever really saw you two talk or hang out on the ship. Figured I would have heard about you doing that if it was a regular occurrence.”

“Nobody else spent much time on the Starboard Observation Deck, so I suppose no one noticed,” Miranda pointed out. And it was true. It wasn’t as though they’d been hiding it, and yet only a small handful of people had gleaned any insight into their growing friendship. And only a few more people than that had seen them train together. “Samara was the person I could always go to when I didn't want to be around anyone else. Which was...quite often, actually.”

Jacob shrugged nonchalantly. “Makes sense to me. Always thought you two would get along.”

Miranda snorted and arched her eyebrow. “Let me guess, because we're both cold and robotic and incapable of having fun?” 

“Hey, you said that, not me.” Miranda just looked at him. Jacob uncomfortably cleared his throat. “...Well, I mean, you're not wrong about having a certain...demeanour in common, but that wasn't what I was thinking.”

“What then?” she asked.

“For starters, how about you're both smart, capable, determined women who could recognise and respect those qualities in each other?” Jacob suggested, almost resenting the fact that he had to profess his innocence. “Or that you're a refined, elegant woman who would probably feel far more inclined to talk to someone with Samara's wisdom and maturity than you would to the average person, since she can engage with you on that level where most can’t?”

Miranda summoned the energy to smirk, though it didn’t reach her eye. “You’re already invited to dinner, Jacob. The flattery really isn’t necessary.” Jacob rolled his eyes, realising she'd been messing with him.

“So who was that woman, anyway?” Both Jacob and Miranda glanced over when Jason broke the silence. For a few seconds, they’d honestly forgotten the kids were still there. “Some kind of ex-girlfriend or something?”

Jacob chuckled when Miranda released a slightly exasperated sigh at that question. He didn’t need to be a mind-reader to know that wasn’t the first time they’d pestered her about her personal life, nor that it wouldn’t be the last. “No, Prangley. A friend. And the person who saved my life.”

“Oh. Dope,” Prangley replied. Miranda gave a good-natured roll of her eye, but the response was almost forced, a fact that wasn’t lost on Jacob.

“We’ll start getting dinner ready,” Rodriguez volunteered, since it was her turn to cook. Not that there was much she could do with such limited resources, but the girl got points for enthusiasm. “Will Mr. Taylor be joining us?”

“I will, actually. Thank you,” Jacob confirmed.

Miranda didn’t notice that his eyes had remained fixed on her. Her thoughts were centred on Samara’s message, replaying it in her head, trying to decipher why it had left her so...unresolved, and in so many disparate headspaces at once.

“Hey.” Jacob gently nudged her good knee with his. “You okay?”

“I’m fine,” she answered. “Why?”

“I don’t know. You just seem…” He trailed off and shook his head, not able to put his finger on exactly what was different about her demeanour. “I don’t know.”

Miranda gave him a look. “Thank you for that assessment, Jacob.”

He laughed despite himself, that response appearing to satisfy him that Miranda was perfectly normal. For her, anyway. “Alright, point taken. But see? Didn’t I tell you Samara hadn’t forgotten about you?”

“You did. It’s nice to hear it from the source, though.” Miranda glanced down, a distracting thought in the back of her mind. “She didn’t outright say that she would be coming back, did she? Do you think she intends to, or...?”

“Hard to say. Samara’s always been a mystery to me,” Jacob pointed out.

“...Right.” Miranda unconsciously toyed with a loose thread on the couch, trying to ignore that indescribable ache in her chest that wouldn’t go away.

“You’ll have to tell me about how you became friends, sometime,” Jacob commented, patting her on the leg as he got up, moving to go help the kids with the cooking.

“Yeah. I’ll do that…” Miranda vacantly uttered.

She had absolutely no intention of doing that.

*     *     *

It was a good thing that Shepard had installed those ship upgrades. Going through the Omega-4 Relay had been no easy feat.

Miranda and Mordin had raced down to the cargo hold with Shepard to fight off an oculus that cut its way through the hull. Multiple shockwaves had resonated through the ship as they battled the oculus. They had to fight on, not knowing what they meant, whether anyone had died, or how far they were from the base. Fortunately, everyone had escaped unharmed. Although, The Normandy wasn’t in such good shape. It had crash-landed just shy of the Collector Base.

A mission briefing had been called, the plan made, the roles decided. Miranda was charged with leading the second fireteam into the base. Tali had been appointed the tech specialist, infiltrating the base through a thermal vent and bypassing the security doors so the two squads could rendezvous inside and move on deeper, towards the central core.

It hadn’t been easy. If not for Miranda and the others providing covering fire, Tali damn near might have got her head shot off trying to seal the doors shut behind Shepard, Thane and Garrus.

Somehow, despite all the odds, they’d made it through the first phase in one piece. No lives lost. They even found the crew alive. The colonists from Horizon weren’t so lucky. If they’d been even a few seconds later, the crew would have…

No. They hadn’t failed them. That was all that mattered.

Shepard sent Kasumi to escort the crew back to the ship, certain that they were in no fit state to fight off any Collectors by themselves after all they’d been through.

For everyone else who would continue moving forward, the problem was that they still needed to get through the seeker swarms. They were denser here. And Mordin’s countermeasures wouldn’t work on that many. A biotic field was suggested as the best way through, though that would only be sufficient to protect a small team. Miranda had volunteered, though Jack had protested and suggested she go instead. Perhaps deliberately taking a third option, Shepard had chosen Samara to hold up the barrier. In the meantime, Garrus would take over leading the rest of the squad through a secondary path EDI had pointed out to them.

“Miranda, Jacob, you’re with me,” said Andrea, everyone’s orders confirmed.

“Just stay focused; I’ve got your back,” Miranda assured Samara, receiving a nod of understanding from her as they left, following Shepard and Jacob.

Shepard took point. “Stay alert; they could come from anywhere.”

And so the long walk began.

Samara found it easy at first, pinging those wasp-like creatures off her biotic bubble like raindrops bursting on glass. The effort didn’t appear to phase her at all. But, just as it began to seem like it was far too easy for comfort, it was quickly confirmed that their presence hadn’t gone unnoticed.

“Collectors inbound!” Miranda called out, signalling for Samara to take cover.

“ASSUMING DIRECT CONTROL,” Harbinger announced his presence.

Gunfire rang out, combined with biotic attacks. Samara took shelter where she could, only concerned with maintaining the barrier as the others took aim at the incoming hostiles. It didn’t seem to be troubling her, but she couldn’t divert her hands to do anything else. Couldn’t pick up a gun. Couldn’t fire off a reave. If a Collector got close to her, she wouldn’t be able to defend herself.  

Miranda made it her personal mission to stay near the back of the group, determined to ensure not a damn thing touched Samara. Neither Shepard nor Jacob seemed to take any issue with that arrangement.

“Coast is clear,” Jacob confirmed after the Harbinger dropped. Trusting her allies implicitly, Samara emerged once more, ready to continue the long walk.

“You okay?” Miranda checked in with her, keeping an eye out for danger as she walked at Samara’s side. Shepard and Jacob kept further forward, their attention on the path ahead, scanning for any approaching threats.

“You will be the first to know if I am not,” Samara assured her, certain that Miranda was the best option to take over from her if her barrier broke, although in theory Shepard and Jacob could also do so if necessary. If that thin bubble of energy wasn’t maintained the whole way, they would all perish to the swarms.

It seemed like they couldn’t make it twenty metres without another wave of Collectors or their husks coming for them. Wave after wave. Harbinger possessing footsoldier after footsoldier. They knew this would be a long walk. But, considering how much effort Samara was exerting on that barrier, each passing minute must have felt twice as long as the last, the strain on her body growing exponentially the longer they spent pinned down in these firefights.

Gradually, Samara began to buckle under the weight of her barrier. She had been repelling those seeker swarms for so long. And the end of the line seemed to creep further and further away the closer they got.

By the third time Samara had to force herself out of cover to start moving again, she was stumbling, barely managing to drag her feet forward.

Husks and abominations crawled up from either side, but there was nowhere for Samara to hide, nor did it seem like she had the strength to stop and wait another time. If she crouched down one more time, it was more than likely that she simply wouldn’t be able to stand up again. The others just had to react fast, and take down any foes before they got close enough to pose a threat to her. 

Eventually, they caught sight of a tunnel ahead. The way out.

“Samara…” Miranda stayed by her side, concern colouring her voice, ready to take over from her if she couldn’t do this anymore.

Samara gritted her teeth, willing herself to bear it. “We must reach the end. I will not give in,” she growled under her breath, using what remained of her strength to pick up her pace, running as best she could despite the pressure bearing down on her, not sure she could hold on if they were forced to slow down again. 

“Hold on, we’re almost there,” Andrea assured her, seeing the doors in sight. 

One by one, taking turns providing covering fire, they each leapt over a waist-high wall that stood between them and the ramp down to the exit. How Samara was still standing by that point, Miranda would never know. Miranda stayed a few paces back, protecting the rear and picking off any hostiles she could from the sizeable squad of Collectors approaching them from behind.

“We have to move quickly, Shepard,” Miranda called out. If they didn’t, either Samara’s barrier would give, or the Collectors would soon outnumber them.

“Alright, let’s move!” Shepard urged. One after another, the Collectors charged in, running through the barrier, only to be gunned down in a hail of fire. They didn’t care if it was suicide. That wouldn’t stop them. “They’re pushing! Keep it up!”

“Hurry, Shepard,” Samara all but pleaded, her voice weakening.

Jacob dashed back for the door, opening up a path to relative safety. Shepard stayed with Samara, while Miranda guarded the edge of the barrier.

Miranda could see there were more seekers now than ever, and they were starting to break through the barrier. There were too many of them to be stopped. The buzzing was so damn loud, it was as if they were inside her skull. The beating of their wings felt like ten thousand pinpricks against her skin. The swarm was a living hurricane bearing down on her. Unprotected. Alone. 

In that instant, Miranda abruptly realised just how isolated she had become, in the space of mere seconds. Those few metres between her and the rest of her squad suddenly felt like a mile. And those Collectors were damn close.

“Miranda!” Shepard called out, seeing both Collectors and seekers converging on her, trying to overwhelm the barrier, threatening to consume her alive.

Before anyone could try and stop her, Samara marched forward with a look in her eyes that none of them had ever seen before, reaching Miranda’s side. Without saying a word, Samara thrust both hands forward and released a colossal biotic wave that surged through the entire chamber like a tsunami, unleashing such force that the ground shook beneath Miranda’s feet.

And then there was silence.

There was no barrier anymore. No noise, but for Miranda’s own heavy breathing echoing in her ears. As quickly as they had converged, those dozens of Collectors and thousands of seekers that had been around them a moment ago were now gone. Not just dead. Gone. Disintegrated in a flash. The seekers that remained were so few, and so distant that they didn’t even seem to notice their presence.

Her job done, Samara turned and calmly strode through the door, unfazed.

It took Miranda little more than a moment to shake off her stupor and regather her bearings, picking off the last few seekers from range as she backed through the doors to safety, Jacob sealing the way shut behind her.

Miranda allowed herself a second to catch her breath, since it seemed they had found themselves a place of relative safety in which to recover. She did a quick scan of her surroundings, making sure nobody was hurt. 

Samara met her gaze across the small gap between them, evidently checking on her comrades in the same way that Miranda was. They exchanged silent nods, as if to confirm they were both alright. To Miranda’s surprise, despite how close Samara had been to her breaking point a moment ago, there was no trace of that exhaustion now. Maybe she was a little winded, sure, but no more than the rest of them. There was every indication she could still fight.

Miranda had to admit, she was relieved that Shepard hadn’t chosen her to hold up the barrier. Sure, in theory she could have gotten them all the way to the end, but the raw power Samara had unleashed just then? Miranda had never seen anything like that before, let alone found anything close to that within herself.

When it came to biotics, Samara was just on a different level entirely. 

The fleeting reprieve was swiftly interrupted when Garrus radioed in under heavy fire. Without delay, they hurried over to open the door to let the second team in. For a moment, it looked like Garrus had been wounded, but his armour had protected him from any harm, much to Shepard’s relief.

The squad regrouped in a moment of calm once more. Joker confirmed that Kasumi and the crew had made it back to The Normandy with no casualties.

“Excellent. Now, let’s make it count. EDI, what’s our next step?” asked Miranda.

“There should be some nearby platforms that will take you to the main control console. From there, you can overload the system and destroy the base.”

“Commander? You’ve got a problem,” Joker quickly interrupted EDI. “Hostiles massing just outside the door. Won’t be long until they bust through.”

Drawing everyone’s attention, Shepard climbed up onto the platform EDI had spoken of. “We need to finish this before they get through.”

Seeing a solution, Miranda didn’t hesitate to volunteer it. “Pick a team to go with you, and leave the others here to defend this position. That should buy you some time.” It was a dangerous job, sure, but Miranda knew this squad well enough to trust that they would hold the line to their last breath if that was what it took to allow Shepard to make it to the heart of the base and destroy it from within.

Andrea agreed with her call. “Mordin, Miranda, you’ll be with me,” Shepard confirmed. Miranda nodded, expecting nothing less. 

Andrea gave them a few moments to divide amongst themselves any remaining thermal clips and stocks of medigel. If anyone ran out now, that would be it. As she took the opportunity to restock and check her weapons, Miranda couldn’t help but run her eyes across the group one last time, wondering if there were any faces among them she would never see again.

“I would wish you good fortune for the battle ahead but, knowing you, I am certain you will not need it,” Samara’s voice prompted Miranda to turn towards her.

Miranda met her with a small half-smile. “I’ll take it anyway,” she said. It wasn’t lost on her that they’d both kept their respective promises to get each other this far. From this point on, they would be separated. It would be out of their hands. 

Miranda had to admit, she was a little worried. She had seen how much it had taken out of Samara to hold up that barrier, especially towards the end. Although she was carrying herself remarkably well, she couldn’t help but hold a kernel of doubt in her mind, that maybe she was in a far worse condition than she was willing to show. But, that being said, having eight others around her to protect her made this far and away the safest option for Samara right now.

It would have made Miranda feel a little less anxious if she could count herself among that number, though. But she couldn’t be in two places at once. And, at the end of the day, there was no way in hell Miranda would let Shepard go to the core of the Collector Base without her. Chances were, she’d need her there.

“Samara,” Miranda caught her eye as she ejected and replaced a thermal clip. “I’ll see you on the other side, yeah?” she said, a promise on her part, and seeking the same confirmation from Samara.

Her words were met with uncharacteristic hesitation. Uncertainty. It didn’t seem like there was any confusion about what Miranda was asking. More that she was asking Samara to swear to a promise she wasn’t sure she could keep.

Samara’s eyes dipped, as if avoiding the answer. “Miranda, I...I do not kn--”

Miranda reached out and touched Samara’s arm, cutting her off. “Promise me,” she insisted, not willing to leave until she heard it. Until she knew that Samara would do everything it took to keep herself safe, and to get back to The Normandy in one piece. Until they both parted ways knowing this wouldn’t be the last conversation they would ever have. Because Samara was many things, but above all else she was true to her word.

If she gave Miranda her oath on this, then it was because she truly meant it. And she would dedicate every fibre of her being to keeping her pledge.

Samara stared at her in a heavy silence. Miranda held her gaze expectantly, not yielding until she heard the answer she wanted in response. 

After a few seconds, Samara nodded, finding the strength to stand a little straighter, even after the long walk she’d endured. “Of course,” she said, committing to that vow. “Until we meet again.”

A faint smile tugged at the corner of Miranda’s lip. That was good enough for her.

“Ready up. We’re moving out,” Shepard gave the command, unable to spare any more time. The Collectors would break down that door any second now.

Miranda didn’t need to be told that twice. “I’m ready, Commander,” she said, hopping onto the platform at Shepard’s side, ready to face whatever lay at the heart of the Collector Base. “Anything to say before we do this?”

“The Collectors, the Reapers, they aren’t a threat to us. They’re a threat to everything - everyone. Those are the lives we’re fighting for. That’s the scale,” Andrea reminded them all, locking eyes with each member of her squad in turn. “It’s been a long journey, and no one’s comin’ out without scars.”

Grunt slammed his fists together, eager get his hands on whatever came through that door, and to make damn sure not one of them got to Shepard.

“But it all comes down to this moment,” Shepard continued. “We win or lose it all in the next few minutes. Make me proud. Make yourselves proud.”

“Well said,” said Miranda, and she meant it. For all her accomplishments, when all was said and done, there was not a single accolade among them which made Miranda feel prouder than she did fighting alongside Shepard in this moment. Not just as her second-in-command. But as her friend. “Let’s go finish this.”

With that, the platform began to move.

*     *     *

Miranda had been in Jack’s position only a few weeks ago. She knew how mind-numbingly tedious it was to be stuck in a hospital bed. Helping her pass the time every now and then seemed like the least she could do to repay her for saving her life twice in the same day. The fact that Jack hadn’t immediately kicked Miranda out yet indicated she was more desperate for distraction than she was letting on.

Given that neither of them enjoyed the idea of talking to each other much if at all, Miranda (with some prompting from Jacob) had come up with the idea of passing the time by other means. Last Sunday, they’d played cards. Today, it was chess. It was actually working surprisingly well as a means of keeping Jack occupied without having to speak to each other much.

Jack moved her rook to take a pawn. Miranda took advantage, moving her queen to take that same rook, leaving the king trapped. “Checkmate,” said Miranda, already resetting the board. “Good game. Play again?”

“Sure.” Jack shrugged. It wasn’t like she had anything better to do.

Jack hadn’t caught on yet, but Miranda was pulling her punches. Jack might have had more experience than her at certain games of cards, but Miranda had learned chess from an early age, since her father saw intellectual value in it.

She hadn’t played seriously in twenty years, but Miranda had forgotten less than she thought. Jack, by contrast, barely knew the names of the pieces.

The gap between them was such that, without even really having to try, Miranda would have won every single game with ease had she not consciously made the choice to lose roughly thirty percent of the time. Part of her was tempted to take the gloves off and do just that. But she was self-aware enough to recognise that refusing to hold back might have been cruel given the circumstances. Plus, it would definitely piss Jack off to get annihilated by someone she hated.

So, instead, Miranda hampered herself, acting worse at the game than she was, deliberately letting Jack get wins here and there, delaying victories to drag games out longer, or letting them go to a stalemate, making it seem like they were more evenly matched than they were. It didn’t matter to her really. The ultimate goal was simply to pass time after all, as much for herself as for Jack.

The truth was, Miranda needed something to distract her from her own thoughts for a while too, even if humouring Jack at chess wasn’t particularly exciting. Between her search for the Normandy’s lost, the endless sleepless nights, and trying to avoid deciphering her complicated feelings about Samara’s absence, anything that helped her to take her mind off things would do.

It was either that or beg Bailey to let her work Sundays, but something told her that raising that subject with him more than the twelve times she already had would be considered undignified. 

“...How’re the tykes treatin’ you?” Jack eventually broke the silence when they were both a few moves into the next game, head lethargically resting on her hand. They hardly spoke whenever Miranda did visit like this, not that there had been many occasions to judge from. Boredom really must have gotten the better of her if she was resorting to asking her former nemesis to talk.

“Surprisingly well, actually,” Miranda answered, moving her queen to take a pawn, intentionally leaving her king exposed. “We seem to be getting on.”

“You can tell me the truth,” said Jack, correctly picking up that Miranda had been actively refraining from being critical of Jack’s students in front of her. “If they’re being assholes, they’re being assholes.”

Miranda sighed. She supposed if she and Jack really were trying to turn over a new leaf with each other, there was no harm in being honest with her. “They’re getting to the point where they’re comfortable testing my boundaries. But it’s alright. I knew what I was signing up for. It’s your move, by the way.”

“Oh, shit.” Jack picked up a bishop, turning it between her fingers as she looked for an available move. There was no mistaking that she was tired. It was hard to sleep when forced to stay in bed all day every day, but for rare exceptions like this. Miranda wasn’t sleeping any better herself. She was just better at hiding it.

“I have overheard a few remarks that I’m not exactly a fan of. According to Nitin and Deacon, I’m ‘pretty hot for a woman with half her face burned off’,” Miranda recounted. Jack snickered. “At least that one was a compliment.”

“Yeah. They’re jerks like that. But they’re teenage boys. What’re you gonna do?” Jack said with a shrug, eventually deciding to take a knight. “Check.”

“I just ignore them,” Miranda casually replied, moving her king. That had always been her approach to unwanted comments, regardless of the age or gender of the source. Miranda had gotten used to people talking behind her back pretty early in life, and it had only gotten worse when she joined Cerberus. Most of the time, it was just background noise that she didn’t even notice anymore.

“They said all kinds of shit like that about me too when I first started teaching. It’s some kind of macho bullshit thing. Whatever,” Jack distractedly muttered, completely oblivious to the easy victory Miranda had left open for her, failing to spot the possible checkmate and instead moving a knight to take a pawn.

“Right.” Miranda rapped her fingers against the table. She actually had to think for a moment. She didn’t want to do anything that would make it look like she was throwing the game. But, by the same token, she’d won the last two rounds, so she needed to let Jack win this one.

“I heard you got a message from Samara,” Jack piped up.

Miranda glanced up, caught off-guard by that. “I’m sorry?”

“Jacob told me. Said he found a message from her,” Jack tried to make something resembling polite conversation. “How is the old lady?”

“I’d rather not talk about it,” Miranda shut that down, focusing on the board.

Jack blinked. “Huh?”

“I’d rather not talk about it,” Miranda said again, moving her queen to take Jack’s bishop.

Jack furrowed her brows. “Well, geez. Fuck me for asking, right? I thought she saved your fuckin’ life or something. How was I supposed to know you were pissed off at her or whatever the fuck happened?”

“I’m not,” Miranda insisted. It was only once the words left her mouth that she realised she’d said that a little too loudly. She sighed and ran her hand through her hair. “I’m not. I’m extremely grateful to Samara. I’m just…”

Miranda trailed off, realising she didn’t know how to finish that sentence without acknowledging that she was trying to avoid thinking about her, which would also mean acknowledging the fact that she still couldn’t entirely understand why she wanted to avoid thinking about her, beyond the fact that the unnamed ache in her chest grew heavier every time she did.

“It’s your move,” Miranda quietly muttered, giving up on endeavouring to explain something she didn’t have an explanation for.

Jack shook her head and sighed, evidently having zero interest in the inner workings of Miranda’s mind.

With that, Jack finally did as Miranda anticipated and moved her queen next to Miranda’s king, trapping it, with the said queen protected from the king by Jack’s rook. Except Jack said nothing, waiting for her opponent to take her turn.

Miranda almost had to do a double-take, making sure she hadn’t miscalculated.

“That’s checkmate,” Miranda pointed out.

Jack glanced up, barely paying attention. “Huh?”

“You’ve put me in checkmate,” Miranda reiterated.

Jack looked down at the board. It took her a moment before she realised Miranda was right. Something clicked. How the fuck was Miranda losing when she was following the game closer than Jack was? “...Wait, are you letting me win?” she asked, affronted by the thought.

“No. I’m too competitive to do that,” Miranda lied. 

Jack saw right through it, groaning unhappily. “You fuckin’ cunt, now I can’t even pretend to give a shit about this,” she complained, swiping the back of her hand across the table, carelessly knocking over a few pieces as she spoke.

There was no point in deceiving her any longer. “It’s not really fair to you if I don’t hold back. I’ve been playing since I was three.”

“Of course you fuckin’ have…” Jack grumbled.

“Sorry,” Miranda offered, more out of social obligation than anything resembling actual remorse, leaning down and picking up some of the pieces Jack had knocked over.

“I think I liked you better when you were an unapologetic bitch,” Jack unhappily remarked, almost lamenting the fact that the new Miranda took whatever jabs she threw at her without any retaliation. “At least back then you were honest about how fake you were.”

Miranda didn’t blink as she picked up the last pieces, unoffended by Jack’s opinion of her, even if her efforts to improve their relationship were proving fruitless so far. “In that case, do you want me to go hard on you?” Miranda nonchalantly replied, resetting the board. If Jack wanted a challenge, she would gladly oblige.

“I don’t even fucking care at this point…” Jack wearily admitted, definitely at that stage of her recovery where all the days were starting to blur together into a dull grey mush.

“Okay. But you asked for this. And don’t say I didn’t warn you,” said Miranda, not about to take the blame when Jack got absolutely destroyed. 

Jack snorted at Miranda’s...Miranda-ness. “Drink bleach, eyepatch. Bring it on.”

Miranda won the next game in less than two minutes.

Jack blinked. “No fucking way.” Miranda just flicked her eye down at the board again, a decisive checkmate. She had told her, after all. “You could have done that this whole time?” Jack queried, narrowing her stare at her.

Instead of answering, Miranda simply shrugged her shoulder. The evidence spoke for itself, didn’t it? Of course she could have.

“...Well, fuck, now I have to beat you.” Jack leaned forward in her chair, studying the board more intently, motivated to try and get the better of her rival now that she’d had her ass handed to her.

Miranda arched her eyebrow. Really? That was what it took to wake Jack up?

Perhaps she should have gone all out sooner.

Before they could start the next game, Miranda’s communicator went off. She checked the incoming call, and recognised it was coming from someone important. Someone she’d been waiting to hear from. “I have to take this.”

Jack waved her hand dismissively, too busy studying the board and retracing the sequence that had entrapped her so quickly, trying to figure out exactly what Miranda had done in the last game, and how she could counter it.

“Doctor Michel,” Miranda greeted her. “How can I help you?”

“Ms Lawson. Have I caught you at a good time?” Dr Michel asked.

“Good enough.” Miranda’s eye flicked up to Jack momentarily. It didn’t seem like she was paying any attention to their conversation. She turned to her side and lowered her voice slightly. “Is this in relation to my matter?”

“Yes, it is.”

“Have you made any progress?”

“In a manner of speaking. My team and I have been working through that list of names you gave us. Your old crewmates.” There was a pause. “We...think we may have some answers for what happened to some of them.”

Miranda could tell from her tone that something was wrong. Her voice sounded sombre. Almost regretful. “...This isn’t good news, is it?” Miranda said quietly, more a statement than a question.

“Unfortunately not.” Doctor Michel sighed, evidently empathising with her position. “There’s no easy way for me to say this, but...we’ve recovered some bodies. As the senior officer of the Normandy, we would like you to identify them.”

Miranda’s heart sank all the way to her feet. Jack couldn’t overhear Doctor Michel’s side of the call, but she straightened up curiously, as if noticing a change in Miranda’s demeanour. She must have looked as pale as she felt, like life itself had just drained from her face.

“...Ms Lawson?” Doctor Michel’s voice broke her heavy silence.

Miranda swallowed, composing herself. “I understand. I’ll head there immediately,” she said solemnly. “Thank you for telling me.” She closed the channel before Doctor Michel could say anything else, not ready to hear it. “I have to go,” she said, grabbing her jacket from the back of her chair, needing to see who they’d found - to confirm whether they really were some of their own.

“What is it?” Jack asked, sensing something was wrong. “Who was that?”

“That was Dr Michel. She’s an old friend of Garrus’s. She’s been overseeing identification efforts at the mortuary. I gave her details of everyone from The Normandy. Asked her to look,” Miranda answered, her tone vacant. “They’ve found some bodies. They think they might be…”

“...Ours?” Jack finished on her behalf. Miranda’s silence confirmed it. “Fuck. Yeah. Go. Go,” Jack urged, realising the importance of this, and not envying Miranda for being the one who had to confront it.

Miranda didn’t linger a moment longer than that.

*     *     *

They’d found out what the Collectors wanted. Why humans were disappearing. Nobody could have foreseen that the answer would be so...grotesque. 

All those people. Alone. Afraid. Processed into sludge while still alive. And for what purpose? To be used as the base material to craft the very tool of humanity’s own destruction. To be transmuted into the building blocks for the creation of a brand new Reaper. A human Reaper.

By the time they managed to kill that thing, the Collector Base had already started collapsing in on itself. Thankfully, those left behind to hold the line had already made it back to the ship ahead of them. 

Miranda, Mordin and Shepard barely made it back to The Normandy before the blast consumed the entire base, their battered ship outrunning the explosion by the thinnest of margins. A daring escape from an impossible mission.

It was only once Miranda counted heads that she confirmed not a single soul was missing. The ship was barely holding together, but as far as the crew...nobody died. It was supposed to be a suicide mission. Yet, somehow, they hadn’t lost a single life.

For a moment, it almost seemed too good to be true. Like there had to be some sort of catch they just didn’t know about yet. Like the worst was still yet to come.

There wasn’t much time to take it in, though. It was all hands on deck conducting urgent repairs to The Normandy, patching up as many holes as they could to keep the damn thing spaceworthy. They were certainly in no condition to jump through a mass relay right away. Even with the Collector Base gone, nobody wanted to linger around there longer than they absolutely had to.

Miranda lost count of the hours as she oversaw the crew, taking in status reports from EDI, redirecting attention where it was needed, running simulations to check whether the repairs would hold. She was deeply absorbed in diagnostics when Shepard placed a hand on her shoulder, nearly startling her out of her number-crunching stupor.

“Hey. Relax,” said Shepard, not failing to notice that Miranda was uncharacteristically jumpy.

Miranda released a sigh, pinching the bridge of her nose, disappointed in herself for that slip of composure. Of course it was only Shepard. Who was she expecting it to be? The mission was over but, evidently, she was still a little on edge. Perhaps the adrenaline hadn’t fully worked its way out of her system yet.

“What do you need, Commander?” Miranda asked, ever the professional, even when she felt more...frayed than usual.

“After all we’ve just been through, and from what I’ve seen around here? Right now, I need everyone to stop and take a rest for a moment. That includes you,” said Andrea, fixing her with a telling look.

“Commander--” Miranda’s protestations were cut short, as if they’d been expected.

“We’ve been at this for hours. We aren’t in any danger right now, and there’s no way we’re going to be in a position to move tonight,” Shepard pointed out. Her eyes briefly studied Miranda’s face. If even Miranda’s concentration was starting to slip, then what did that say about how the rest of the crew must be feeling? “When’s the last time you took a break? Or had something to eat?”

“I’m fine, Commander. I don’t tire easily,” Miranda assured her. Although she had her limits, as anyone did, she could function on very little food and sleep compared to the average person, and sustain unhealthy habits for a good while longer than anyone else would be able to before the strain started to show.

“Okay. Sure. But everyone else does. And you should set an example for them,” Shepard replied, earning an annoyed scoff from Miranda. Leave it to Andrea to still find a way to twist her own superhuman endurance around on her. “Hey, we’ve all earned the right to stop and catch our breath for a minute. Even you,” she said softly, lightly touching Miranda’s arm, urging her to take care of herself.

Miranda didn’t have the energy to argue. Truth be told, her head had been reeling pretty much all day, and it hadn’t stopped since they got back. It was like her subconscious didn’t realise the fight was over, and she didn’t still have to be in survival mode. Maybe it wouldn’t hurt to gather her bearings before getting back to business.

“We’re getting out of here tomorrow, Commander,” Miranda responded, making it clear that she was only willing to acquiesce if Shepard gave her word on that. “That’s a hard deadline.”

“You’ll get it done. I know it,” said Shepard, giving a nod as she walked past, prepared to tell everyone else to lay their tools down, just for a little bit.

Right when she started to leave, a thought occurred to Miranda. “Shepard?” she called after her, earning a secondary glance. “After we put this ship back together...there’s still a lot to do, yeah? A lot of assignments we never finished.” Miranda let that suggestion hang, searching Andrea’s gaze as she spoke, hoping she wasn’t making a fool of herself by asking what she was asking.

She wasn’t used to being in this position. In fact, she’d never been in this position before. Of wanting to stay around other people. And hoping those other people, on some level, felt the same way about her.

They might have finished their critical mission, but, if Miranda was being honest with herself, she wasn’t ready to say goodbye to The Normandy yet. Though she wouldn’t have believed it a few months ago, she wasn’t ready for everyone to go their separate ways all of a sudden. She didn’t want to lose contact with all the people she’d only just started to grow close to, nor did she want to lose the better version of herself she was gradually transforming into here.

As hard as it was to admit to anyone else, Miranda liked it here. Honestly, being on The Normandy was the second best thing that had ever happened to her, and the closest thing she’d ever had to a place that felt like home - a place she belonged. She didn’t want this to be the end. Not just yet. Maybe not ever.

Judging by the twinkle in her eye, Shepard seemed to understand Miranda’s meaning completely, and not just on a surface level. “Tomorrow,” Andrea told her reassuringly, saving that conversation for a later date, when they were both a little more clear-headed.

Miranda didn’t know what to make of that answer, but didn’t stop Shepard as she walked away. She wasn’t great at reading people, but it felt like they were on the same page. In any event, they could discuss it at length once they hit the relay.  

With that, Miranda headed back to her office. For as easy as it was for Andrea to tell her she should just kick back and relax for a few hours, that was one of the few things Miranda actually found much, much harder to do than a normal person would. It wasn’t in her DNA to relax, even at the best of times, let alone now. Despite everything, she wasn’t tired. If anything, she was still far too wired to sleep. She needed something to keep her busy. For her, that was therapy.

Operating purely on instinct, Miranda switched on her computer and immediately began typing her report on the mission, as she always did. It was only once she was a few paragraphs in that she abruptly stopped. It was then that it clicked, and she remembered. She didn’t report to anyone anymore.

For the first time since she was sixteen, Miranda was on her own. Not part of Cerberus. Not an agent of The Illusive Man. And it was at that point that the penny truly dropped. What had happened. What it all meant. And that there was no going back. That door had slammed shut forever. And she didn’t regret it.

Miranda exhaled heavily and sat back in her chair, running the fingers of her left hand across her forehead, massaging her temples between her thumb and ring finger, finally processing what had transpired back there.

She still couldn’t understand what The Illusive Man had been thinking when he instructed them to keep the Collector Base. It didn’t make any sense. Miranda had been there to see with her own eyes what had been done to the missing colonists. Nothing good could possibly have come out of that factory of death. Its sole purpose was to liquify living beings, and create Reapers.

So why? Why would he want to keep that horrible place around? What use could he possibly hope to gain from it? There was no justification for that. No defence.

When he’d ordered Miranda to stop Shepard from destroying the base, a line had been crossed - one that Miranda hadn’t even known existed until he crossed it. In the moment, it hadn’t been a question what she would do. She hadn’t even blinked. She’d handed in her resignation effective immediately, and shut off The Illusive Man before he could say another word. She hadn’t thought twice about it. And she’d gone on to stand with Shepard to kill that fucking human Reaper monstrosity and blow that godforsaken place to smithereens.

Admittedly, given the urgency of the situation, she hadn’t had much of an opportunity at the time to pause to consider the full ramifications of her actions, but by the same token Miranda had also been well aware of what she was doing before she made her choice. She was no fool, and she didn’t do anything lightly. She knew perfectly well how dangerous Cerberus was to cross, especially for a valuable asset like her. Someone who knew more of their secrets than just about anyone else. Someone who, given the right data, could even point to the physical location of The Illusive Man himself.

In the space of an instant, she’d almost certainly gone from being one of Cerberus’s most trusted agents to being their number one enemy. That was going to be fun to deal with in the future. But she would cross that bridge when she came to it, she supposed.

It was strange to think how quickly a previously inexorable part of her life had been terminated, faster than a snap of her fingers. In a way, Miranda almost didn’t know who she was without them. She’d never worked for anyone else. The last of her teenage years and her entire adult life had been shaped almost solely by Cerberus. She’d planned her whole future around advancing through their ranks, maybe even taking The Illusive Man’s place one day. Her life was her career, and her career was her life. She would have to rethink all of that now.

And then there was The Illusive Man. A man she’d spent most of the last nineteen years admiring as a leader and as a mentor. A man whose example she’d aspired to follow in many ways. Hell, he’d been more of a father to her than her own father had ever been, not that that was saying much.

For as mysterious and unknowable as he was, in all those long years that Miranda had worked for him, and worked for Cerberus, she’d never seen anything that would have led her to predict what happened back there. That they could have been worlds apart on such a fundamental issue.

Despite what other people thought about her, she had never been blindly loyal to Cerberus. She had her own thoughts. Her own opinions. Her own personal sense of right and wrong. Admittedly, ethics had always taken a backseat to pragmatism and necessity in her view, but the ends had to justify the means. The reason Cerberus operated outside the law was because the law got in the way of the greater good - of what needed to be done to protect human lives. 

If she had been unwavering in her commitment to Cerberus in the past, it was because they’d never given Miranda any reason not to be. Nothing she’d seen in the inner workings of the organisation had raised any alarms. She would have left years ago if she’d witnessed something she couldn’t tolerate. But she never had.

And yet, Miranda would have been lying if she claimed that The Illusive Man’s actions had come as a complete shock that day. They hadn’t. Maybe they would have a few months ago. But not now.

Ever since she’d joined the crew of the Normandy, Miranda had started to see sides to Cerberus she’d never seen before. Or rather, and more accurately, it had started to become untenable for every potential deal-breaker ever attributed to Cerberus to be conveniently blamed on rogue cells - people who had turned their back on The Illusive Man and acted without his knowledge or consent. How much longer could Miranda pretend to keep buying that excuse before she was officially part of the cult, refusing to accept the evidence of her own eyes and ears?

The truth had been right in front of Miranda the whole time, hadn’t it? If she went digging now, especially with the aid of the Shadow Broker, she was sure she would be able to find direct orders from The Illusive Man authorising all those projects he denied. Probably even the institution where Jack and those other biotic children had been tortured. She could have uncovered it all a long time ago. She’d just never wanted to see it before. 

Perhaps she really was the blind loyalist everyone else thought she was all along.

Perhaps she really was that big of a fool.

Miranda’s fingertips wearily caressed her brow one last time. So much for taking a break or relaxing. There would be none of that with such heavy thoughts taking a taxing toll on her.

There was only one person she could turn to when her mind was racing like this. One person who invariably made her feel better. Not by doing or saying anything. Just by being around. So she went to her, as she always did.

She found Samara at the window when she entered the Starboard Observation Deck, overlooking the abyss. Unusually, Samara seemed distracted. So much so that she didn’t even hear the doors hiss shut. Her sober expression betrayed a creeping malaise. Her posture was tense. Her unfocused eyes, quite literally staring into space. It was clear she was deep in introspection of some kind.

“I’m not disturbing you, am I?” Miranda broke the silence.

Her voice shook Samara from her rumination, prompting her to turn. Samara’s expression shifted, mustering a faint smile. “You are never a disturbance,” she said kindly, gesturing for Miranda to make herself at home.

“It’s funny. I think you’re the one person I’ve hardly seen since we made it back,” Miranda casually noted. Over the last couple of hours, she’d made herself scarce. 

“You are correct. Forgive me,” Samara gave a solemn nod, accepting that she had erred in shirking her responsibilities since returning to the ship. “I ought to have done more to assist with the repairs. I will not make any excuses for my absence.”

“I’m not going to write you up. Don’t worry about it.” Miranda nonchalantly waved off her apology, signalling that it was totally unnecessary. 

“You would for anyone else,” Samara pointed out knowingly.

“Well, for one thing, you’re not anyone else. For another, I wouldn’t be standing here right now if not for you. So consider this the least I can do for you,” said Miranda, stepping further into the room, until she joined Samara at the window. Besides, it wasn’t like she was giving her special treatment. Writing anyone up for anything seemed pretty pointless now. “You’ve been here the whole time?”

“Yes,” Samara acknowledged, not one to lie.

“What have you been up to?” Miranda asked her, curious. It wasn’t accusatory in any way. But it wasn’t like Samara to run off to her corner and hide when there was work to be done. She must have had a good reason.

“I have been…thinking,” Samara answered pensively.

Her vagueness wasn’t lost on Miranda. “Thinking?” she echoed.

“Yes. There has been much I need to contemplate. Many things I was not prepared for...or did not expect to…” Samara trailed off, evidently at a loss for words, and visibly unsettled. Her expressions were always hard to read, but she looked troubled, as if she was trying to make sense of a paradox, fitting together incongruous pieces of information and finding only more questions.

Miranda’s features softened sympathetically, beginning to piece together a possible reason behind Samara’s abnormal behaviour. “I think we’re all a little shell-shocked after what happened. Doesn’t quite seem real does it - that we’re somehow all still standing?”

That response seemed to find purchase with Samara, putting her more at ease. “Indeed. Ever since you and Shepard first approached me on Illium and spoke to me of your quest to stop the Collectors, the odds of succeeding, let alone surviving, always seemed slim at best. I must confess, given the nature of the mission before us, I was not anticipating that…” Samara paused again, as if cautious to ensure she chose her words carefully, mindful to be neither tactless nor false in her speech.

“That we would all make it back in one piece?” Miranda finished on her behalf.

Samara gave a slightly apologetic nod. “Yes.”

“Yet here we are,” Miranda continued, gesturing offhandedly at their surroundings.

“Yet here we are,” Samara echoed, her words almost a whisper.

“Try not to sound so disappointed,” Miranda wryly remarked. Samara said nothing, staring out into the void in silence. “...It’s a joke,” Miranda broke the quiet, realising her attempt at humour hadn’t landed. “I forgot I shouldn’t do those.”

“No. I…” Samara shook her head, tearing her eyes away from the vastness of space at long last, turning sideways to face Miranda. “It is I who should apologise. Forgive me. I am...tired. I suspect more so than I even realise.”

Miranda wasn’t surprised to hear that. It didn’t take a genius to tell that she must have been shaken by all that had transpired. Hell, one look at her eyes was a dead giveaway as to how drained she was. It was the first time Miranda had ever seen Samara in such a state. But, after all she had undergone back at the base, who could blame her for not being at one hundred percent right now?

“Don’t be too hard on yourself. I know it took a lot out of you, holding up that barrier. You’ve earned the right to rest and recover. And you know I wouldn’t say that if it wasn’t true, so…” Miranda studied Samara’s features, wondering if she was imposing. “Should I leave you?”

“No. Stay a while. Please,” Samara gestured for her to have a seat. Miranda raised her hand, preferring to stand. The view of the singularity was honestly striking. She may as well enjoy it while they were stranded here. Samara remained at her side, perhaps gradually clearing her head. “Is there truth to the rumours about what transpired between you and The Illusive Man?” she broke the silence.

“What are the rumours?” Miranda asked.

“That you terminated your employment,” Samara rather deftly summarised. 

Miranda snorted. “Well, we won’t be taking each other’s calls anymore. Put it that way.”

“Are you alright?” Samara asked, her concern genuine. She was one of the few who had never judged Miranda for her loyalty to Cerberus, despite their flaws.

“Yeah.” Miranda glanced down at her hands, her feelings certainly...mixed. Samara waited patiently, letting her decide whether she wished to speak more on the subject or not, and ready to lend an understanding ear if she did.

Miranda exhaled, interlocking her fingers, reflecting on everything that had happened since she first learned what the Reapers were. All this time, she had firmly believed The Illusive Man wanted to destroy them, just as he would want to eliminate any existential threat to humanity. That had been what he’d said all along. Or, wait, had he ever outright said that he intended to destroy them? Had he just implied it? Had Miranda read into his words what she wanted to hear?

But if Cerberus wanted to keep that base, to ‘turn their own resources against them’ as The Illusive Man had said, was their ultimate goal something else entirely? To create their own Reaper, like Shepard had remarked? To control the Reapers? To use them to take control of the galaxy? To wipe out the other races? Miranda didn’t know for sure, but if it was anything like that then it didn’t even need to be said that she couldn’t permit any of those things to happen. 

The best case scenario was that they were still ultimately on the same side, but that The Illusive Man was just so fixated on his desire to fight the Reapers that he couldn’t see that there was no possible benefit to keeping the base. Just risk, and unconscionable slaughter, and a betrayal of everything they had fought for, and all the lives lost to the Collectors. Part of Miranda hoped that was all it was - that maybe they didn’t have to be enemies. But, after everything that had happened, everything she’d seen, it was increasingly untenable not to at least suspect that there was something more sinister going on behind the scenes.

“Samara, be honest with me,” Miranda began, knowing she didn’t even need to make that request of her. She was never anything less than truthful. “I don’t strike you as someone who is particularly stupid or gullible, do I?”

“No, you do not,” Samara answered frankly, as if that question never needed to be asked. “You know very well that I consider you precisely the opposite.”

“So then how is it that I can work for the same people for nineteen years, and yet be so...staggeringly ignorant as to their true nature and motives?” Miranda asked aloud, wondering how many obvious signs she must have missed along the way.

“And what are their true motives?” Samara prompted.

“Honestly? I haven’t got the slightest fucking clue anymore. And that’s what scares me.” Miranda scoffed under her breath, shaking her head. “Actually, you know what? It isn’t. The thing that really makes my skin crawl is not knowing…” She paused and swallowed mid-sentence. “Is not knowing whether and to what extent I’ve been complicit in helping them accomplish things that I would never - never have supported if I knew about them.”

Samara understood completely why that thought would trouble Miranda so. She took time to reflect on the matter before offering a considered response.

“Based on what information EDI has been willing to share since her restraints were removed, it appears as though Cerberus personnel were separated into discrete cells, all of whom were unaware of the existence of any others. While the primary motivation for this may have been to ensure no single individual had sufficient knowledge to compromise the entire organisation, I believe this also had another purpose,” Samara speculated. “That purpose being that each cell could represent an entirely different face of Cerberus - one that appealed entirely to the morality, beliefs and motives of the personnel assigned to it.”

That made a startling amount of sense, Miranda thought. The cerberus of myth did have multiple heads, and thus multiple faces.

“That would explain why there were so many conflicting versions of Cerberus out there,” Miranda mused aloud, curling her fingers against her chin. “The terrorists. The mad scientists. The racist xenophobes. I always brushed those accusations off as misrepresentations and bad press, because the organisation I knew was different. Not terrorists, but people willing to defend human lives when the Alliance wasn’t. Not mad scientists, but cutting-edge pioneers. Not racist xenophobes, but human beings who didn’t want to be treated as second-class citizens in the galactic community. But there were probably others out there who only knew Cerberus to be one or more of those other things. Who am I kidding? Those kinds of people probably only joined Cerberus because of those things - because that was what they thought its true nature was all along.”

“That is what I suspect,” Samara concurred.

“So, if you’re right, then what you’re saying is, the Cerberus I believed I was working for this whole time did exist, in a way. Everything I thought about them was true, from a certain point of view. But so were all the other things I dismissed as falsehoods and slander. I could just never see it, because the full picture was always deliberately hidden from me,” Miranda inferred.

“Yes,” Samara confirmed, quietly confident that Miranda would have seen through the façade and defected earlier had it been presented to her otherwise. “If I am not mistaken, then you have been no more complicit in Cerberus’s hidden agendas - whatever they may be - than Shepard or myself have been.”

Miranda’s expression shifted, not entirely sure she could believe that, but oddly comforted by Samara’s sentiment nonetheless. “Thanks,” she said, relieved to at least have some semblance of an answer for how she’d gotten so sucked in, and how she’d failed to recognise the truth. Even if it later turned out to be wrong, it was something to hold onto for now. And, if nothing else, at least Samara still seemed to think she was a good person, despite everything. 

Perhaps there was a silver lining to all this. Now that Miranda saw the truth of what Cerberus was, rather than being blinded by allegiance, if anyone was equipped to fully understand The Illusive Man’s goals and expose this organisation for what it really was, it was her. She felt something of a duty to do it now - to figure out exactly what aims she’d been unwittingly enabling.

It wouldn’t be easy, and Miranda knew damn well The Illusive Man would try everything in his power to kill her rather than risk her exposing his secrets. But since when had Miranda ever been afraid of a challenge? If her life was the only thing she had to lose, then The Illusive Man had more to fear from her than she had to fear from him. But following that path now would put her friends at risk.

Another time, then.

Following that, a delayed thought occurred to Miranda. “You’ve been asking EDI about Cerberus?” she asked, her brow creasing in puzzlement.

“I have. Although, I confess, my inquiries garnered little valuable information before her restraints were removed,” Samara answered calmly.

Miranda regarded her with some confusion. In all the time they’d spent together, Samara had never shown any real curiosity about Cerberus. She couldn’t recall her raising the subject, despite having ample opportunity to do so. “Why?”

“Because you worked for them,” Samara replied, meeting her gaze, her tone unchanging. “Because they were important to you.”

“Why EDI, though?” Miranda asked, perplexed. There was nothing accusatory in her questions, nor defensive for that matter. She had no issues with Samara finding out whatever she wanted to know about Cerberus from whoever she wanted to ask. It just struck her as odd, was all. “Why didn’t you come to me?”

Samara’s gaze dipped. “Because I was afraid of the answers,” she admitted.

In light of recent events, Miranda couldn’t exactly fault that explanation. “Hmm. Fair enough. As it turns out, your concerns may not have been unfounded.”

“In some respects, they were not,” Samara acknowledged. After a moment, she raised her head once more. “In others, I have been glad to find that they were. And that I had nothing to fear,” she said, holding Miranda’s gaze as she spoke.

Samara didn’t say it out loud, but the meaning wasn’t lost on Miranda. Miranda didn’t know much about Samara’s Code, but she recalled every element of their conversation about it earlier that day. About how she couldn’t hesitate in enforcing its tenets. About how she had to put it first, before everything. Above her own personal thoughts and feelings. Even above the life of a friend.

While the requirements of the Code remained a mystery to Miranda, if it was in any way moral or just - which, by her conduct and character, Samara certainly seemed to evidence that it was - then there was no way in hell that the Code could have permitted something like, say, leaving the Collector Base intact.

The thought must have crossed Samara’s mind at some point, however reluctant she would have been to consider it. If Cerberus’s true intentions were sinister, and if Miranda and Shepard knew of those intentions, condoned them, and supported them, then no matter how close they had grown as friends, they would have to part as enemies. If they hadn’t destroyed that base, and if Miranda hadn’t turned her back on The Illusive Man when he showed his true colours, then the next time Samara saw them, she would probably have had to kill them.

It must have been a relief for Samara to know that that wasn’t the case, and to have her faith in her friends proven justified. A small smile tugged at Miranda’s lip, touched that Samara had believed in her right from the start, and taken the chance to get to know her, even knowing the risk that it could all have backfired.

Even if nothing else good came from learning the truth about Cerberus, seeing just how deeply Samara had trusted that Miranda would make the right decision if faced with a choice like that, even if it meant turning her back on Cerberus in order to do the right thing, was reward enough. Truthfully, Samara had believed that about Miranda long before Miranda would have believed it about herself.

“Anyway, we’re on our own now. I know Shepard has told The Illusive Man as much,” Miranda finished the thought, glancing over at Samara once more. “Have you given any thought to what you’ll do next?”

Her question caught Samara off guard. “...I...I had not,” Samara admitted. After gazing past her reflection for a moment, she stood a little straighter, hands clasped behind her back. “I have only one path to follow, and that is the Code. I would not have survived this day if the Goddess did not see a higher purpose for me - somewhere the need is very great. I will go wherever I am called.”

“But you don’t know where that is yet?” Miranda intuited.

Samara hesitated, her shoulders sinking slightly, evidently not used to feeling...aimless. “No. I do not. Although I have faith those answers will crystallise in time.”

“Well, if it helps, I may have a temporary solution…” Miranda began. “I haven’t talked this over with Shepard yet, but there are still several outstanding tasks we never got around to completing - leads from Cerberus, mostly. I know I’m no longer working for them, but now that we know we can’t trust them, I’d rather resolve these matters before they do. And, for the matters that don’t involve Cerberus, hey, at least we’ll still be helping people,” Miranda explained. It wasn’t lost on her that the fact she saw that as enough reason to act was evidence of just how much Shepard had rubbed off on her. She really had changed.

Samara said nothing, maintaining her focus dead ahead. 

“I know that the mission you swore an oath to Shepard for is over, so you’re under no obligation to follow her any longer,” Miranda continued. “But, if you don’t currently have any plans, and it wouldn’t be in conflict with your Code, then, as second-in-command of this ship, allow me be the first to let you know that you’re more than welcome to stay here for as long as you want.”

Samara glanced up, her expression unreadable as she met Miranda’s eyes.

Miranda’s posture softened slightly, abandoning any pretext that this was a purely professional request. “I’d be extremely grateful if you stayed,” she admitted, not ready to say goodbye to their friendship just yet. Spending time in Samara’s company was the one thing she looked forward to more than anything else most days. “It wouldn’t be the same here without you.”

It really wouldn’t have been. Maybe nobody else would think of her the same way, but for Miranda, Samara was like the heart of The Normandy. She just had this...indescribable presence that radiated warmth and comfort. Without having to say a word, she had a way of brightening Miranda’s gloomiest days, and of showing Miranda the way when it felt like she was lost in the dark.

This room had become Miranda’s safe place, not because there was anything special about the Starboard Observation Deck, but because Samara was here, her door always open, for whatever she needed.

Judging from her reaction, Samara had not been expecting that invitation. An answer seemed to catch in her throat, as if she didn’t know how to respond. Miranda began to regret that perhaps she had sprung this on her too quickly, before she’d had enough time to recover from the mission, and plan that far ahead.

“I’m sorry. I don’t want to put any pressure on you,” Miranda spoke gently, not so self-centred as to impose her wishes on Samara, especially if it placed her in an awkward position with respect to her Code. She respected her too much for that, no matter how much she would miss her. “I understand if you can’t--”

“No, I…” Samara interjected, shaking her head as if to clear the cobwebs that had slowed her usually sharp mind. “There is no conflict here. The Collectors may have been stopped, but the greater threat remains at large.”

“The Reapers,” Miranda stated on her behalf.

“Yes,” Samara confirmed, the weight of that ever-looming enemy lingering like a presence in the air. “Until such time as the Goddess calls me elsewhere, I would be honoured to continue to aid you.”

“Glad to hear it,” Miranda enthused, though despite being pleased by her response, it hadn’t escaped her notice that something was still...off about Samara. She couldn’t put her finger on it, exactly. Just something in her facial expressions, and the tone of her voice. She was right there beside her in the same room, yet it felt like she was a thousand miles away.

“Hey…” Miranda reached out, gently placing a hand on Samara’s back. “Are you sure you’re okay?” Miranda asked, her questioning more serious than before, perfectly willing to lend an ear to her friend if something was awry, just as Samara had so often been a confidant for her.

“It is kind of you to worry. But I am alright. It has simply...been an eventful day,” Samara assured her, summoning a smile, appreciating her concern. “I have kept you long enough. I should like to meditate alone for a while, if there is nothing you require of me.”

“Of course. Go ahead. And take as much time as you need to recover. The ship is going to get repaired tomorrow with or without you, even if I have to fix it myself,” Miranda promised, not at all surprised to think that Samara needed some space to regather her equilibrium and come to terms with the fact that they had survived the impossible. “I’ll be in my office if you need me.”

“Thank you.” Samara stayed by the window as Miranda took her leave, the doors closing shut behind her.

If Miranda had stayed a few moments longer, she would have seen Samara’s masquerade fall as the hollowness returned her face, and her resolve crack as she reached out and braced herself against the wall to keep from crumbling.

All the certainty Samara had felt earlier that day had shattered like glass at her feet, a million little fragments scattered into the sand. For reasons she could not understand, she had emerged from her date with destiny unscathed.

Why? Why was she still here? What purpose did this serve?

Was this a punishment, perhaps? Was her penance for her sins incomplete? It had to be. Samara could find no other explanation that would suffice.

So, she had been arrogant, then. Celebrating too soon that which she did not yet deserve. It seemed a cruel joke to think of it now. She had found so much peace, tranquility and relief in the inevitability of her own end. But that release had been denied to her. And, now, instead of finding the courage to die with dignity, Samara now had to process that she had a far harder task ahead of her.

Somehow, someway, she had to find the strength to keep living.

*     *     *