Body & Soul

Kink Meme fill - original prompt at http://masseffectkink.livejournal.com/3083.html?thread=6299659#t6299659

* * *

"Keelah," Tali breathed as she turned the corner. The light on the end of her shotgun illuminated the darkened hallway in front of their party, stretching out to show twisted and bloody remains.



"Fucking batarians," Jack said. "Whatever's in this place, they must want it pretty badly."



Jane Shepard nodded, trying to hold back her anger at the gruesome sight in front of them. A few hours ago, Liara had sent the Normandy a message, asking them to check in on the research facility on Lohanaker. Several of her associates from her days of researching Prothean artifacts worked there, she explained, but the facility had suddenly gone dark, shortly after sending out a distress call mentioning incoming batarian ships.



And now they knew why. Jane dreaded the thought of telling Liara about this, and wondered how many of her friends were among the unarmed asari that lay sprawled across the floor in bloody heaps.



"Miranda," Jane said, struggling to keep her voice even and calm. "Any sign of the attackers?"



"No motion or life signs detected within 50 feet," replied Shepard's XO in her thick Australian accent. "They must have moved on to another section of the facility."



"It doesn't make any sense, Shepard," Tali said, kneeling down to gently shut the eyelids of one of the dead archaeologists. Her tone was caustic as she spoke. "Asari slaves fetch such a high price in the Terminus Systems, after all. They could have easily captured these woman and made more credits than they'd know how to spend. Why slaughter them?"



Shepard frowned, distant memories of screams and gunfire from Mindoir echoing in her mind. She was well practiced at blocking out such thoughts, however, and her mind soon returned to the mission. "Whatever brought the batarians here must have been bigger than a slave run."



"Commander!" Miranda raised her voice. "I'm reading motion!"



"Where?" Shepard asked, and as soon as Miranda provided the answer, she and the rest of the team proceeded down the hallway, weapons at the ready.



* * *



It was supposed to be an easy first mission. A bunch of asari egg-heads studying rocks out in the middle of nowhere suddenly drop off the radar, just check in and make sure everything was five by five. Even if the distress call was correct, and batarians had attacked, how many could there be?



"Should have brought back-up," muttered newly minted Spectre Ashley Williams, as she watched the security footage on the monitor in front of her. In the footage, at least eight batarians moved slowly and methodically down the hallway, shooting screaming women in the back as they went.



It was too big for her, Ashley knew this immediately. She should call for a team, somebody to back her up. But would they even be able to make it in time? If the batarians were still here, it was only a matter of time before they found her. No, as frightening as the prospect was, she was on her own for this.



She remembered Eden Prime, her team cut down around her, that utter certainty that she was going to die. Horizon, and feeling herself being frozen in place by the Collectors, watching as they flew away with the helpless colonists. Shepard wouldn't be here to bail her ass out this time. No, all she had to rely on was herse...



"Don't move!" cried out a voice behind her, and after getting over the initial surprise, Ash had to fight the urge to laugh. It was fucking uncanny.

* * *



"Ash?" Shepard said, lowering her pistol and gawking at the armored female in front of her. Her hair was out of the tight bun she normally wore it in, instead hanging loosely to her shoulders. It looked good, although Shepard wouldn't dare say something like that to Ash's face.



"Just can't get out of the habit of running into you, can I?" Ashley said, and although her tone seemed friendly, there was a slightly bitter undercurrent to it. "So, still marching to the Illusive Man's orders?"



Shepard didn't let the pain show in her face. Apparently, the anger and hurt Ash had shown on Horizon hadn't dampened in the months since. "I'm not working with Cerberus anymore, Ash."



"Really?" Ash said, nodding toward Miranda. "You still seem to be keeping the same company as the last time we met."



Miranda narrowed her eyes at Ashley. "I'm following Shepard now, Lieutenant."



This brought a scoff from Jack. "Yeah, right. Once a Cerberus bitch, always a Cerberus bitch."



Tali quickly interjected herself into the tense conversation. "Ash, trust us, we're working on our own now. Liara sent us to check on her friends, and we found this slaughter instead. We're thinking it was batarians."



Ashley pressed a button and restarted the security video she had been watching. "Whatever they came here for," she said, "they aren't messing around."



Shepard watched the video, her face grave. "Ash, you shouldn't have come by yourself. You need a team for something like this."



"I can handle myself, Shepard," Ash said, trying her best to hide the lie in her tone. "I don't always need you to swoop in and save the day, you know."



"Still, Ash, we're here, and we can help. Don't let the past drive you to do something stupid."



Ashley stared at the ground, and finally let out a frustrated grunt. "Fine. I could use the manpower to cover the whole facility, anyway. If we're going to find these batarians before they clear out of here, we'll need to split up."



"Agreed," Shepard said. "Tali, go with Ash. Jack, you're with Miranda."



"The fuck you..." Jack started to blurt out, but the look Shepard gave her said in no uncertain terms that this was not the time to piss her off. "Fine, fine."



Tali turned her masked face to Shepard. "What about you?"



"I'll head out on my own," Shepard said. "If I see any sign of the batarians, I'll radio you all right away. Same goes for everybody else, you understand?"



The rest of the women nodded, and they left the security room and went in different directions.



* * *



God, she hated every second of having to be around this bitch. Jack watched the cheerleader strut her way down the hallway in front of her, her jumpsuit clinging to that perfect little ass of hers. Little Miss Perfect Genes, acting like she was so superior to everyone all the time, while still whining about how her life was just so hard. "Ooh, I'm just too sexy, and my tits are so big that it's all the boys care about! What a hell my life is!"



For a split second, Jack pictured herself raising her shotgun, taking the cheerleader off guard and putting a slug right in the back of her head. "The batarians snuck up on us," she would say to Shepard, putting just the slightest trace of a sob in her voice. "Just when I was starting to like her, too."



But no, Shepard was too smart for that. She'd never get away with it. So Jack kept playing the good soldier, searching the facility alongside her bitterest rival, visions of Miranda's misery her only solace.

* * *



Shepard headed north through the facility on her own, her mind whirling as she went. After Horizon, it had been a long time since she had managed to put Ashley out of her head, and now here she was again, and all the memories were flooding back to her.



It had been just after the Council had sided against her and taken the Normandy away from her. Her only chance of stopping Saren yanked from her hands, Shepard had wanted to scream as she forced herself through the chore of packing her gear from her personal locker. The risks they had taken, Kaidan's death... all of it had been for nothing.



Somebody walked in behind her. "I hate being right," Ashley said, and Shepard had let out a frustrated laugh. Before she knew it, Shepard was spilling out all of her frustrations at their situation. The stoic, take-charge commander went away for a while, replaced by the very human woman underneath. And after listening to her vent her feelings out, Ashley had calmly assured her commanding officer that she believed in her, and trusted that she would figure out a way from them to succeed.



Up to that moment, Shepard had been ready to give up. But seeing Ashley's faith in her, her trust that Shepard would find a way to be the hero and save the day, it filled her with a confidence she didn't imagine herself capable of.



Ashley had reached out a hand to help Shepard to her feet, but Shepard stumbled slightly on the way up, and found herself right next to the surprised Gunnery Chief.



And since that day, Shepard had spent countless hours wondering if she had imagined that moment of hesitation on Ash's face as Shepard had leaned in. That split second of acceptance in her eyes that Shepard could have sworn was there as she had moved in for a kiss.



But it didn't matter. Ashley had been gentle about it, assuring her that if she had been into women, that Shepard would be her first choice. They had parted awkwardly, and from then on Shepard kept herself focused on the mission. Saren first, and then all the missions that followed. Forcing herself to forget what had happened, to put aside whatever pointless feelings she had for Ash and keep her mind focused on more important things.



But now, even in the midst of such danger, seeing Ash again was taking all of Shepard’s attempts to suppress her feelings, and blowing them away into dust.



* * *



"Ash, what's going on between you and Shepard?" Tali finally worked up the nerve to ask. The question seemed to hit Ash like a jolt of electricity.



"Let's talk about it later," Ashley said, not looking back at the quarian as she swept her assault rifle across the darkened hallway. "Shouldn't be talking right now with enemies in the area."



This only silenced Tali for a moment, however. "We found something past the Omega 4 relay. Something that Cerberus wanted desperately, to use against the Reapers and their other enemies. But Shepard destroyed it rather than let it get into Cerberus hands. She's not working with them, Ash, you can trust her."



"Look, Tali, I don't want to talk about this right now," Ash insisted.



Tali sighed, remembering how Shepard had been after Horizon, Ash's harsh words still ringing in her ears. On the shuttle ride back, Tali had to force herself not to reach out to her commander, take the woman who'd led her through so much danger and death unscathed and hold her tight, tell her how she felt about...



Her thoughts were interrupted by the distant sound of an explosion. She jerked to look at Ash, who nodded. The two of them quickened their pace toward the sound, Ash getting on her radio to let the rest of the team know.



After several minutes of running, they reached a left turn in the hallway, puffs of smoke drifting from around the corner. Ash planted her back against the wall and glanced around to see two batarians arguing with each other.

"Dammit," said one, staring at the scorched door in front of them. "That's three now! There's no damn way we're getting through this door with these bombs!"



"We'd damn well better," the other one snapped. "Boss says the artifact is in there. We don't get this open, he's gonna have our heads."



Ash held a hand up to Tali, telling her to wait, as the two batarians kept talking. "What the hell is this thing supposed to be, anyway?"



"No clue. Boss just said some merchants who did a supply drop here said the asari bitches were keeping it under tight security, and that it must be some sort of powerful weapon or something. Said nobody was even supposed to go in this room without the highest security clearance."



"We've only got a few more charges left," the first batarian said. "Should we wire up another one?"



"Yeah, and make it quick. Boss'll be back before too long, and..."



"Go," Ash hissed, and she and Tali spun out from the corner to point their weapons. "Freeze!" she called out. "Make one move and you're dead!"



Batarians being the idiots they were, of course one of them went for his gun. The concentrated fire of the two weapons made short work of him, but the other one, instead of grabbing his gun, placed a hand to his neck.



"Enemies at the artifact room!" he yelled into his radio. "Backup, send backu..." were his last words before Tali's shotgun blast struck him in the chest.



"Shit," Ashley said, hearing the distant sounds of boots in the distance. They wouldn't be able to run, and there was no cover at all in the hallway; they'd be sitting ducks against a larger force.



There was only one place where they had a shot. Looking past the bodies, Ashley saw the blackened security door. "Tali, I hope you're still as good with locks as you were two years ago," she said.



"Better," Tali said, getting to work on the locked door, as the sound of the charging batarian forces grew slowly louder.



* * *



"Shepard, you and your people better get to the east corridor double-time, or we're dead meat," said Ashley's voice through the radio. Shepard was already sprinting down the hallway.



"Miranda?" Shepard said into her radio.



"We're on our way, Shepard," said Miranda's voice. "We're closer than you to their location, we should get there first."



Jack's smirking tone chimed in. "Hurry up, Shepard, or there won't be any squints left for ya."



Shepard cut the connection and kept running.



"Dammit, Ashley," Shepard thought to herself. "So many times I've kept you alive, don't let this be the time I fail."



* * *



"Almost there," Tali said, her three fingers flying across her omnitool. "Should be... dammit!"



"What?" Ashley said. The sound of charging batarians couldn't have been more than fifty feet away.



"I damaged the lock," Tali said, her tone frustrated.



"So we can't get in?" Ashley said, and as if in response, the door slid open.



As the two of them dashed inside the room, Tali hit more buttons on the glowing hologram across her wrist, and the door slid shut. "I can lock the door again, but it won't be nearly as secure as it was before. Any decent tech will be able to hack it in a matter of minutes."



"Well, at least it gives us some time to find some cover," Ash said, getting her bearings on the room they had entered.



It was like the other rooms in the facility, white and austere, filled with a bunch of instruments Ash couldn't even guess at the purpose of. But the defining feature of the room stood in the center.



"What... is that?" Tali breathed, their dire situation momentarily forgotten.



It reminded Ash a bit of the Prothean beacon they had encountered on Eden Prime, although much smaller, only about five feet tall. The same unnatural glow and hum, however, emanated from the strange artifact. The more she stared at it, the harder she found it to look away.



"It's... so beautiful," Tali breathed, and oddly enough, Ash couldn't help but agree. Even though it didn't seem all that remarkable at first, something about it was compelling her to step toward it. Shepard, the batarians, everything was forgotten except this unknown device in front of her.

At the last minute, Ashley remembered Kaidan, stepping up to the Prothean beacon just as the two of them were now. This thought broke the spell of the device, and Ash turned to grab Tali by the shoulders.



"Tali, don't..." Ash said, just as the humming sound grew louder, and the light filled the room. Ash felt herself falling to the ground, and then everything was black.



* * *



Miranda and Jack came in behind the batarians, just as they were about to open the security door at the end of the hallway. The enemies' numbers were superior, but without any cover they didn't stand much of a chance against the combined force of the two biotics’s abilities and guns. Jack held the last enemy suspended in the air for several seconds, a silent taunt on her face as she sent a shotgun blast between his two pairs of eyes.



Once the enemy was defeated, it didn't take long for Miranda to get the security door open. "Tali!" she cried out as she saw her teammate collapsed on the floor inside the room. Kneeling down, she shook the quarian's shoulders. "Tali, are you okay?"



"Fine, I guess," came a voice from behind her, and Miranda looked around in confusion. Ashley was sitting up, rubbing at her head. "What happened, I was..." Ashley's voice caught in her throat as she saw Jack walk past her, shuffling toward the Prothean device as if hypnotized. "Wait, stop!"



Moving away from Tali, Miranda ran toward Jack, her hand gripping Jack's wrist.



"Let go!" Jack exclaimed. "It's mine, I'm not going to let..." Her angry retort was cut off by the sound of the device flaring up again.