Chapter Text
That night, long after the safe house had gone quiet, Zaeed’s omni-tool pulsed once against his wrist.
Unknown contact — 00268774
“you awake?” – S
He stared at the message for a moment before replying.
“Aye. Can’t sleep?”
“no… just thinking. mind talking?”
He didn’t hesitate.
“Come.”
The door slid open with a soft mechanical sigh.
She stood there armorless. outlined by the dim corridor light… the same way she had looked the first time he ever saw her on that dust-choked farm years ago.
She stepped inside.
“The batarian,” she muttered, pacing once across the room, restless energy barely contained. “He’s been lurking outside for the last hour. I don’t trust him. Something feels… off. I’ve got a bad feeling, but I can’t pin it down.”
Zaeed didn’t answer. He just watched her.
“What?” she demanded. “You’ve been looking at me like that all day.”
Silence.
“I told you when we met, didn’t I?” she continued “I hate pity. Don’t pity me. If I’m living this life, it’s because I chose it. So why do you keep staring like that? Are you surprised I made it this far?”
“God damn. No. Not even close.” A faint breath left him. “I taught you how to hold a weapon… and now they rank you at my level. That’s more than impressive.”
A pause.
“But… John… this isn’t what he would’ve wanted—”
“Well too bad.” Her voice cut “In case you forgot — John is dead. His ideas, his dreams… all dead. I’ve survived battlefields on Tuchanka without medi-gel. I’ve lived through things that would’ve broken most people.”
She looked away briefly.
“You knew me when I was just a foolish girl. A brat. I was…”
She stopped.
Zaeed tilted his head slightly.
“You were…? Go on.”
Her throat worked once. Then she forced the words out.
“I had a crush. Like any stupid teenager. On this strange man who showed up on her dirty farm. She’d played around with boys before… but boys bored her. This man… he was large, dark… interesting to talk to.”
Silence settled between them again.
He looked at her. really looked… those eyes were still the same. Still honest when they turned toward him.
Slowly, he lifted a hand and placed it at the back of her neck.
Then he kissed her.
It wasn’t gentle, but it wasn’t rough either. Just inevitable. Like something that had been waiting years for permission.
When they pulled apart, breath mingling, her lips barely brushed his again as she muttered—
“Fucking pussy kiss me like you mean it.”
A rough chuckle left him, low and warm.
“Yes, ma’am.”
His hands found her waist and lifted her effortlessly. Her legs wrapped around him without hesitation, instinct guiding both of them. He set her down against the nearest table, and this time the kiss was deeper, hungrier, Her fingers moved to his armor, searching for clasps, for seams, for anything that would let her pull him closer still.
They peeled off the heavy plates together, piece by piece, her breaths coming in sharp, needy gasps. The sounds she made, soft whimpers turning to urgent pleas, fueled his hunger, pulling him closer until nothing separated them but sweat-slicked air. Unable to resist, he slid one calloused palm down her back and grabbed a firm handful of her plump arse, squeezing the soft flesh as she arched into his touch.
With deliberate slowness, he carried her to the bed and settled her onto the sheets, both of them finally bare. Zaeed paused, his scarred eyes drinking in the sight of her, every inch of her body a masterpiece of temptation. She was perfect like this. He climbed over her, pinning her wrists above her head with one hand while the other roamed freely, savoring the moment.
“I bet that Quarian boy doesn't make you this eager,' he growled,
“Jealous, Massani?' she shot back, her tone teasing even as her hips bucked against his hand.
“Pfft, like hell” he snorted, leaning in to nip at her earlobe. “I bet you love it, don't you? Getting me all riled up, making me burn when he acts like you're his. You said it yourself—you want a man, not some pup.”
He moved with careful intent, every touch deliberate. His free hand wrapped around her throat, not squeezing, just holding her in place as he claimed her mouth again. Then he trailed lower, thumb brushing her hardened nipple before pinching it lightly, drawing a gasp from her lips. She couldn't stay quiet; moans spilling out like music, each one stoking the ache in his groin. His cock throbbed, thick and rigid against her thigh, pre-cum beading at the tip as he pressed closer.
Zaeed shifted down her body, his lips ghosting over her abdomen in tender kisses, tasting the salt of her skin. He glanced up, locking eyes with her, the raw need in her gaze mirroring his own, before crawling back up to capture her mouth in a searing kiss. Their lips met hot and wet, tongues sliding together in a messy, urgent dance.
Her legs hooked around his trim waist, pulling him flush against her core. He cupped her face with both hands now, thumbs stroking her cheeks as he aligned himself. The first thrust was slow, deliberate, his thick cock stretching her pussy inch by inch until he was buried deep. She clenched around him, walls fluttering with the intrusion, and he groaned into her mouth.
“There, that's my girl,” he murmured against her lips, starting a rhythm of deep, measured strokes that made her body jolt with each one. “Let me hear it. Call my name as I fuck you.”
“Zaeed... Zaeed,” she cried out, her voice breaking on his name, nails digging into his shoulders as he picked up the pace.
He drove into her harder now, the bed creaking under them, his hips snapping forward to grind against her clit with every plunge. Sweat dripped from his brow onto her chest, mixing with the sheen on her skin, nipples grazing his chest hair, sending sparks through both of them. Zaeed released her face to brace one arm beside her head, the other sliding down to hitch her leg higher on his waist, opening her up for even deeper penetration.
“Fuck, you're tight as a fist,” he rasped, feeling her inner muscles grip him like a vice, milking his length as he pounded relentlessly. Her moans grew louder, a symphony of desperation that urged him on. He leaned down to suck a nipple into his mouth, teeth grazing the sensitive peak while his fingers found her clit, rubbing firm circles that made her back arch off the mattress. “Relax for me sweetheart”
She writhed beneath him, chasing the building pressure, her hands roaming his back, tracing the scars, then flipping her onto her stomach in one fluid motion, his cock slipping out just long enough to position her on all fours. Gripping her hips, he slammed back in from behind, the new angle hitting that spot inside her that made stars burst behind her eyelids. His balls slapped against her with each thrust, the wet sounds of their joining filling the room alongside her cries.
“That's it, take it all,” he commanded, one hand tangling in her hair to pull her head back gently, exposing her neck.With a guttural roar, he buried himself deep one last time, cock pulsing as he came, hot spurts of cum filling her up. He collapsed over her, both panting, bodies entwined in the afterglow. But even as their breaths slowed, his hand stayed possessive on her hip,
For a while silence.
His tattooed arm pulled her closer, “I can never guess what’s on your mind sweetheart,” he murmured.
She rested her chin lightly against his chest, voice quieter now.
“Dance. I still have never danced.”
A small pause. “Also… I just hope your girlfriend doesn’t ruin the plan tomorrow if she finds out.”
He exhaled slowly.
He wanted to tell her, really tell her, that he had meant to dance that day. That he had walked half the valley looking for flowers first, something worth placing in her hands. That he had been on his way back when the sky turned to fire.
But the words stayed buried.
“That ain’t my girlfriend,” he said instead. “We’ve stuck together for a few jobs…”
He hesitated.
It wasn’t the whole truth. Not even close. And for a moment he almost corrected himself; almost said everything. But the moment slipped past.
Not yet.
She stared up at the ceiling, “We always seem to be running out of time…”
“We don’t have to,” he said quietly. “Come with me.”
She lifted her head, confused. “What?”
“I’ve been working out a retirement plan for a while now. After this… I’ve got one last job lined up. We could go to Elysium. Or Bekenstein. Or Eden Prime. Somewhere quiet. Somewhere clean. And there will be dance, of course”
She slowly pushed herself halfway upright, turning to really look at him.
“I…” Her breath faltered. “No…”
Her hands covered her face as if trying to hold back something she didn’t fully understand.
The thought felt alien. Normal nights, among normal humans, pretending to be normal, with normal children and a normal peaceful death?
And yet… Somewhere deep inside her chest, It sounded beautiful.
“Oh, Zaeed… we’re two people without time, it's meant to” A faint, sad smile touched her lips. “Maybe… after tomorrow… we’ll see.”
She leaned forward and kissed his brow. Tenderly As if he might shatter if she held his face too tightly; like fragile glass she had found again after believing it lost forever.
And for once… he didn’t move. He just let her hold him there.
T-minus 00:03:00
Zaeed lay prone inside the skeletal frame of the maintenance tower, rifle anchored along a rusted support beam. Below him stretched the exhaust grid, layered walkways, drone corridors, sensor pylons rotating in clean, predictable arcs.
His breathing was slow. Even. Through his scope, he watched the ventilation shutters.
Waiting for the cycle.
In his ear, Zulo’s voice came calm.
“Security rotation shift begins in twelve seconds. I am initiating infiltration handshake.”
Lines of code poured across the vault’s digital architecture, each encryption layer peeling open by fractions “Connection stable,” Zulo murmured. “Mapping algorithmic drift… stand by.”
Sol crouched near the breach corridor, back pressed against reinforced alloy plating. Above the primary vault door, the asari hovered slightly off the ground, biotic energy folding inward around her hands “Shield envelope stable. Awaiting key reset.”
Far below, hidden in the lower transit channel, the batarian sat inside the cloaked extraction craft. All he had to do… was wait.
Ventilation shutters opened.
Zaeed fired three suppressed shots, each round punching through drone optic clusters before their scan sweep completed. Sparks flared. Machinery dropped lifelessly from their patrol routes.
“No alarms,” he muttered.
“Key rotation in five… four… three…”
Zulo’s voice sharpened.
“Beginning recursive intrusion loop — do not interrupt connection.”
Security architecture shifted “I am inside the cycle.”
The asari’s eyes flared faint blue.
“Key reset window opening… now.”
Her biotics detonated inward, warping the kinetic shield envelope just enough to destabilize its cohesion.
“Three seconds,” she whispered.
Sol moved.
Mag-lock override engaged.
The vault door parted just wide enough to slip through.
Inside — the core chamber glowed cold white.
Suspended in containment: a crystalline data mass pulsing with layered energy “Objective visual confirmed,” Sol said quietly.
She stepped forward, detached the containment locks, and secured the core into a shielded carrier unit.
“Objective secured.”
For one perfect, impossible moment…
Everything had worked.
Then Zulo spoke again.
But this time… his voice wasn’t calm.
“…That’s strange.”
Sol froze mid-turn.
“What is?”
“I am detecting—”
His connection cut.
The vault alarms screamed to life. Every light turned red. Every corridor sealed.
Defense drones powered on simultaneously.
Zaeed’s voice snapped through comms.
“We’ve been burned.”
Sol’s heart race.
She turned toward the extraction channel feed, just in time to see the cloaked transport decloak… already moving away.
Leaving.
Without them.
Silence hit the team like vacuum exposure.
Then chaos.
Defense drones flooded the corridor. They were together, at least
Zulo’s voice, furious. “He transmitted our authentication signatures to vault command! He used my intrusion loop as access validation!”
The asari cursed, biotic field snapping outward to deflect incoming fire. Zaeed reloaded with brutal calm. “The batarian”}
Sol tightened her grip on the core carrier, pulse gone cold and focused.
“Dammit… new plan.”
Above them, a drone exploded under Zaeed’s rifle fire, fragments clattering across the metal floor.
“We can still—” Zulo began
A single gunshot cracked through him. His helmet depressurized with a sharp hiss — atmosphere venting in a violent white plume. He collapsed, lifeless, For a moment… the battle noise seemed distant.
Sol stared. Her mind refused to process what her eyes were seeing.
Zaeed stood there. Rifle still raised. Expression unchanged.
Her heart didn’t race.
It dropped.
She searched his face, desperate for explanation, denial, anything.
Tristana spoke first, “I told you the batarian suspected something! If he ran for it, we were exposed — and now this?!”
“If he checked the malware trail, he would’ve seen it was us,” Zaeed snapped back, voice iron-hard. “I had to.”
Around them, alarms screamed. Red light strobed. Drones screamed through the air.
“You better start explaining, Massani.”
A beat.
“I need the core,” he said. “In exchange for information. With the Shadow Broker.” His jaw tightened. “I’ve got unfinished business… with an old friend.”
“I knew it,” she breathed, then louder, shaking with rage — “I fucking knew it”
She shoved him hard in the chest. Again. and again, furious impact like an angry child trying to break something larger than herself.
Her hand snapped across his face in a sharp slap that echoed even through the alarms.
That one made him move.
He caught her wrist, firm, not hurting, just stopping the next blow before it landed. Then in one smooth motion, he hauled her over his shoulder.
“C’mon, sweetheart.”
“Put me the fuck down!!”
“I said c’mon. It’ll be fine. Dead men don’t talk. This went to shit but we can still get out. We can’t stay here, but I’ll explain everything.”
“I’M NOT FUCKING LISTENING—”
“Years ago,” he pushed on anyway, voice tight with urgency, “I started a private security company with Vido Santiago—”
“I DON’T CARE!”
Another explosion rocked the corridor.
Tristana surged ahead, blasting drones aside with biotic bursts, carving a path toward an open balcony access point. Emergency blast doors had jammed halfway, just enough space to force through.
Cold Omega air howled in through the breach.
Tristana reached the balcony edge first, scanning the transit lanes below. “Alright,” she called over her shoulder, voice edged with impatience, “you and your girlfriend better settle this quick, Zaeed.”
He lowered Sol to her feet — but his hands stayed locked on her shoulders, firm, grounding, almost desperate.
“Sol, you have to listen to me!”
“A normal life, Massani…” she said, voice breaking around the words. “How could we? Killing good men in cold blood—”
The wind surged across the balcony, hot and metallic, yet for one impossible second it felt like the wind of Mindoir. Dry. Endless. Carrying dust and memory with it.
“God damn it, woman,” he snapped, frustration tearing through him, “you should know by now. it’s business!”
“C’mon!” Tristana shouted. “We don’t have time!”
Sol’s fingers tightened around the core carrier. Then slowly… she pushed it into his hands.
“Get your information,” she said quietly. “Take it.” Her eyes met his. “Go. I stay.”
Something inside his chest twisted hard enough to hurt.
Tristana’s voice cut in
“I warned you, Zaeed. No loose ends.”
The shot came without hesitation.
Sol’s body jerked as the round tore into her abdomen — the force knocking the air from her lungs as she collapsed backward onto the metal floor.
Zaeed didn’t think.
His gun was already up. He fired once, clean, precise. Tristana’s head snapped back. Her body dropped instantly, lifeless before she even hit the ground.
Silence crashed in, broken only by alarms and wind.
Sol lay crumpled, blood spreading dark beneath her.
“No. No no no no—”
He dropped beside her, hands shaking as he lifted her head, pressing desperately against the wound, trying to hold warmth inside her that was already slipping away.
“Stay with me… Sol, stay with me—”
The shuttle roared into position overhead, landing thrusters blasting heat and debris across the balcony.
He lifted her, careful, frantic, refusing to feel how limp she’d become, and stumbled into the shuttle.
He never let go of her.
Her eyes looked at him, smiling faintly “I knew you'd be the death of me”
They reached the drop point, a medical dock operating off the books, no questions asked as long as credits cleared.
Medics rushed forward the moment the shuttle doors opened.
“Severe internal trauma—”
“Massive blood loss—”
“Get her on the table now!—”
Hands pulled her from him.
He resisted for half a second, instinct; pure and animal, before letting go. They disappeared through sealed surgical doors.
The corridor fell silent.
Zaeed stood there. Minutes passed. Or hours. He didn’t know.
Didn’t sit.
The surgical doors opened with a soft hydraulic sigh.
A medic stepped out.
“...She didn’t make it.”
Silence.
Zaeed blinked once.
Then he smiled.
A small one at first — crooked, disbelieving, like he had just heard the worst punchline ever told.
“…Right,” he murmured.
A breath left him — something between a laugh and a choke.
“Right… yeah… good one…”
until something inside him finally cracked.
The nearest table went over first.
Metal slammed against the floor hard enough to echo through the corridor.
Another followed.
Then another.
Equipment shattered. Instruments scattered. A medical tray hit the wall and burst into pieces. He didn’t shout at first, just moved, violently, blindly, wrecking anything his hands could reach like destruction might rewind time if he did enough of it.
A roar torn straight from somewhere deep and ruined inside his chest.
No one tried to stop him.
Eventually… He stood there in the wreckage, shoulders heaving, hands trembling, staring at nothing.
A voice behind him spoke carefully.
“The Shadow Broker wants to see you.”
“You delivered the core. Coordinates for Vido Santiago’s hideout have been transmitted to your omni-tool. Not a clean operation… but a completed one.”
A pause.
“Zaeed Massani… you may go.”
They returned her body to him wrapped in sterile white polymer. He carried her himself.
Mindoir looked smaller than he remembered.
Quieter.
The wind still moved the same, long dry currents sweeping dust across the hills in endless motion. The land hadn’t healed. He chose a place overlooking the old settlement ruins; where the farm once stood. Where the hills stretched wide enough to see the horizon bend.
He dug the grave alone.
When the earth was ready… he lowered her down carefully.
Wind moved through dry grass.
His jaw tightened.
When it was done, he marked the spot with a simple metal plate, hammered into the ground by hand.
Solana Shepard
Hours, maybe days after. Sitting down. Legs stretched out. Coat unmoving except for the slow lift of his breathing. In one hand, a bottle of Earth whiskey. Good stuff. Expensive.
Then a voice.
Threaded through the air like silk pulled slowly between fingers.
“Zaeed…”
He froze.
The voice came again; closer now, drifting around him rather than toward him.
“Oh, Zaeed…”
The way she said his name, almost amused… almost tender… almost accusing.
He closed his eyes once. He could almost feel fabric brushing his arm.
Almost feel a head leaning near his shoulder.
“Look at me.”
Zaeed’s brow tightened. “…No. It can’t be.”
“How?...” A long breath “Talk to me… wicked woman.”
The air shifted, amused.
“Dead men do not talk, now do they, Zaeed?”
His head snapped slightly toward the empty dark, jaw tight, eyes burning with something that was not quite grief anymore… something more desperate than that.
“You said I killed you,” he rasped. “Haunt me, then…! Be with me always. Take any form, drive me mad!”
“I shall.”
Warmth wrapped around him “You are part of me… as I am part of you… and shall always be. Till the sun of Earth perishes… and the Milky Way is nothing but drifting dust…”
The warmth began to thin, stretching… dissolving… becoming everywhere and nowhere at once.
“I will return to you… sooner than you think.”
A pause.
So faint it almost didn’t exist—
“…Farewell, Zaeed Massani.”
The warmth vanished.
Finally, his chest rose in one slow breath.
“…Yeah,” he muttered into the night. “You always did have the last word.”
He was back on Omega; waiting for his contact, killing time the only way he knew how: tracking a fugitive through rusted corridors. Then the voice came.
“Zaeed Massani?”
“I’m Commander Shepard.”
He turned.
The resemblance struck him like a blow to the chest, sudden, breathless, wrong. Not similar.
Identical. Horribly identical.