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Hallowed Truth	By : Spiritwolf71 Category: +M through R > Mass Effect Views: 3767 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: Mass Effect and its world is owned by Bioware, I make no profit from this tale.

Chapter List
- 18
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It had been quite a while since Lanie had woken up on the ground, the last time she remembered sleeping in a sleeping bag under the stairs was during her N6 training. Before that she had done so on many occasions, but since that training her job had taken her in all sorts of new directions and this was the first time out in the fresh air.
The night had not been the easiest with the slightly damp grass under them. She had built a bit of a lean to as well as placed several leaves and branches under them to help keep them dry, but they were outdoors and they had limited supplies and they were only planning a few hours rest. She had actually not planned to sleep at all, but at some point while she watched Sam sleep, running her hands through her hair, she had drifted off.
Her dreams had certainly not been kind to her, she had dreamt that she was being tortured and had nightmares about her limbs being tied to four horses and those horses being sent each in their own direction. I accompanied many dreams in which she was convicted, wrongly, of treason and hung, or beheaded or drawn and quartered.
She had never really had nightmares; she always figured that was because she lived in one and she rarely had dreams and when she did it was even rarer that she would remember them. On this early morning though she woke screaming swatting at her stomach as she struggled to get the bucket of rats off before the finished eating through her flesh to her stomach. She still had tears in her eyes as she had been screaming as their sharp little teeth and claws ripped away at her skin. She had kicked out and brought herself into a crouched position, waking Sam from her own slumber.
“Lanie?” she asked as her own eye squinted through the sun to the Marine. Lanie looked to her but the pain didn’t seem to go away, as a matter of fact a good portion of her body felt as though it was on fire and the worse of the burning pain came from her thighs.
“Holy shit,” Lanie answered, which confused Sam even more. She ran a shaking hand through her hair to get it out of her face. She struggled to her feet, feeling as though she had run a marathon she had not remembered.
“Are you ok, Lanie?” Sam was getting worried.
“Just some nightmares, but damn, I am sore all over,” she said trying to stretch through the pain. “God.”
“Maybe it was the coldish ground?” Sam asked, “What kind of nightmares?”
The black haired woman stood and moved over to Lanie filled with concerned. The warrior was slightly pale and shaking and the hissing and wincing she was doing was slightly disturbing.
“I feel like someone was pulling me apart,”
“What kind of dreams were you having?”
Lanie still did not answer that question as Lanie now started to walk, her legs slightly bent but at awkward angles, suddenly she realised what was happening and started to giggle, trying desperately to stop herself. She lost it though when Lanie turned and glared at her.
“Oh, Lanie,” she said her accent even thicker as she laughed, “You’ve never been on a horse before have you?”
“No,” was Lanie’s terse reply, “hence the reason you had to give me pointers. Was there something you forgot to tell me?”
Sam was trying desperately to stop laughing, especially since it was pretty much at her friends expense but her giggles continued as Lanie walked around in a half squat. “Stop that,” she managed to get out. She couldn’t stop laughing as long as Lanie was making those faces and moving around.
“Oh, some humanitarian you are. You going to laugh at me all day?”
“No, it’s,” she took a deep breath that was interrupted by a giggle then another until she was somewhat settled. “I should have warned you that you’d be using muscles that you usually don’t and with the rhythm the horse make and the rhythm your body makes that you may be sore.”
“Sore?” Lanie raised a brow, “Not a wonder I kept dreaming that I was being tortured, because I was.”
“Well, no,” Sam looked over to where the horses were tethered, “the torture comes when you get back on the horse actually.”
“Oh,” Lanie groaned and looked over to the horse she had been riding. It looked back to her as if nothing was out of the ordinary. “Maybe we’ll walk for a bit, get my legs going, work off this burning pain before we get back on them.”
Sam giggled some more then bit her lip to stop, “Maybe that would be a good idea, if we didn’t need to get going I could massage them for you,” she hinted, Lanie smiled.
“I’ll hold you up on that offer,” the marine smiled through the pain and began to pack up the little camp. She could not help but wonder why anyone would ride a horse if it brought so much pain the first time. However it was obvious that with repeated riding one’s body grew accustom to it. She just wasn’t sure there would be repeated ridings of a horse for her. She was not much of a planet person anyway and there were no horses in space or on stations, none that she had seen anyway.
“We should be in Quesnel by mid-day?” Sam asked.
“Yeah, then we can grab a car or something and finally get back to Vancouver. We really can’t so anything running around the bush like this, and I think I would rather sit in a car then on a horse,” Lanie said honestly. Sam moved up behind her and smiled, massaging her hip area.
“And I would be happy to help you recover from the horrible horse ride,” she said with a smile. Lanie leaned against her slightly.
“I’ll take you up on that offer when were in Vancouver, after I deal with Gary.” She sighed as she looked to the horses. “You better get them ready before I change my mind.”
It was quite for a long moment as Sam finished up with the first saddle. “What are you going to do with him?” Sam asked. Lanie looked to her for a long time and stepped over to help her with the second saddle.
“Don’t ask me that Sam, you don’t want to know the answer.” She said lowly as she secured the saddle as Sam instructed. Sam nodded and let the subject drop for now. It was a reminder of how much she really didn’t know about Lanie and her past. She knew what the news had said but it was less than in depth. All she really knew was Lanie had escaped the Batarians and then left Cerberus after bombing some laboratory. Everything in between was still completely unknown to her.
The last few weeks had sent both of them through a whole range of emotions but Sam knew she was safe with Lanie. She trusted to the woman with her life but she did not know what Lanie was truly capable of when it came to protecting what was her. What she would do when he back was against the wall. She knew the woman had been through a world of pain but seemed to somehow persevere and overcome. Sam was completely in awe of her for that. But there was sadness as well, deep down that she kept to herself. Every now and then Sam could see it in her eyes, on rare occasions but she did hide it well.
They finished up with the horses and Sam mounted hers first and smiled as she looked at Lanie. The proud marine was holding the saddle properly for the mount but it was obvious she was putting off getting back in the saddle.
“It’s just a few more hours,” Sam said with a smile.
“Do you have any idea of how sore I am?” Lanie asked.
“Oh, don’t be a baby, you’ve been through worse, N6 remember, from what I understand that training is certainly not a walk in the park.”
Lanie smiled up to her, “you know, you’re accent is very sexy some times.”
“Yeah, ok enough get in the saddle you chicken.”
Lanie chuckled to herself and lifted herself up and into the saddle her legs screaming out at her as she did. “God, whose idea was horses?”
“I do believe you came up with the idea when we spotted them at the farm yesterday. Oh look horses, they will cut our travel time, and those were your exact words.”

“Yeah, sometimes I make stupid decisions.” She winced as they headed out the rocking movement in the saddle aggravating the soreness in her thighs and other areas she had not realized that hurt. “Oh my god, if I ever mention horseback riding after this just shoot me in the head.”

She was numb, from the waist down she was numb and her back was aching something awful. The enthusiasm and awe at seeing the world from atop a horse was completely gone and now she was cursing the fact that she had even thought that. She knew, that given time, she would eventually not have pain when riding horses but she really could not think that far ahead. She tried hard not to think about it and instead let her mind wander.
She looked up into the sky and could not help but think of two years ago when it was filled with Reaper and she and her unit were fighting for their lives and the lives of everyone in the universe. It had been a different time and now it was almost like a dream. Every race had come together and worked and fought together to defeat the Reapers and they had won. Or Shepard had won depending on who one spoke to. Shepard might have been the one who sacrificed herself and activated the catalyst but millions of others also gave their lives for the cause.
She could not help but think of everything she had learned about the monoliths, like indoctrination and having ones consciousness loaded into the Reapers. She often wondered what that was like living in a greater consciousness. Were people aware of what was happening, of the wars or were they blissfully unaware, living out a dream existence inside of some matrix? Was it a better place, a happy place where there were no slaves or pain? Not that she believed in what the Reapers were doing, they needed to be annihilated, but sometimes she could only wonder. Sometimes she thought that forgetting her past and living in some made up happy world would be nice.
She could not help but wonder where Charlotte was now.
“You have that lost in thought look in your eyes again,” Sam said moving beside her and looking to her.
“Yeah, I’m trying to forget I’m being tortured,” Lanie said with a smile but looked back up to the sky. “Sam do you think that those people that were processed for the Reaper, do you think they were conscious that they were part of the creatures. Do you ever wonder if the Reapers gave them their own little happy and peaceful worlds to live in? I mean by killing the Reapers we killed billions of conscious people. Or did we save them from a life of hell, a life of watching these creatures annihilate billions.”
“Are you asking me about the Reapers in general or about what I think of the afterlife?” Sam said
“I don’t know.”
“Do you believe in god, Lanie?”
“I don’t know. I really don’t know anything about God, my mom was never a church goer, and there was only one church on Mindore that I can think of. We never spoke of it and I have never really thought about it, you?”
“Oh yes, my parents were devout, we went to church every week and participated in all sort of activities. Everyone has their own thoughts on the afterlife. I believe it is a better place, a happy place. Why are you asking?”
“Well, I don’t know.” Lanie grew quiet.
“Are you thinking about Charlotte?”
“When I found out I was pregnant I was devastated, I almost gave her up. My life was not one that was conducive to having a child. I wasn’t even sure I wanted to bring live into this Universe where there were people that had little to no regard for life.” she paused, “My mother convinced me it was the right thing to do that we could be a family and we were. She told me that I would see things differently when I had the child. She was right, I knew that the moment I held Charlotte in my arms, the first time I felt her tiny hand on my face,” she swallowed back her emotion and took a second to gain control of it. “It was hard, with my job and all. There were times when I was gone for a week or two, but I always thought of her. When the war started we were all recalled from the Citadel to return to Earth. I hated leaving but I always figured the Citadel was the safest place. It was so far away from the devastation on Earth and Palavin and Thessia.”
“What did you do on Earth, during the war?” Sam asked.
“I was in charge of a strike team. I had two Asari Commandos, a Krogan, some Turians and a handful of humans. We were in charge of strategic espionage.”
“Funny, you being in charge of Aliens when you hate them.”
“No, I don’t hate them, not really. I like the Asari and the Krogan, at least the ones I worked with, couldn’t ask for anyone better at you back. Don’t really like the Batarians though, don’t think I’ll ever get over that.”
“So you went to Earth and you Mother watched Lotte?”
Lanie shifted, “Yeah, like I said I figured it was so far removed from the war that we would stop the reapers before they got there. I never had any doubt we would stop the Reapers.”
“It must have been shock when the Citadel appeared close to Earth.”
Lanie was quiet for a long time, “They told me they were looking for my family but I didn’t hold a lot of hope. Karma is a fickle friend, and we never really truly got along. I prepared for the worse and when it happened, it still killed a part of me.”
“I’m sorry, Lanie, I can’t even imagine how one gets over something like that,” Sam said, almost tempted to tell Lanie about Gary’s daughter. She did not want to bring the woman false hope. She wanted to be one hundred percent sure before she told Lanie.
“You don’t,” Lanie whispered.
“But you went on.”
“I figured that I would do my job, all the nasty things that I do so that millions of others would not have to. It was the only purpose I could find.”
“That’s something,” Sam said for the lack of anything else to say.” Lanie looked back to her for a long time.
“But it was not enough,” Lanie whispered as they continued on. “During the war I found this antique gun set, it was an old Smith and Wesson model 21, a forty four special, beautiful engraved walnut grip. It was in a leather case, red velvet interior and six bullets. It was still in working order. For the longest time after the war, when I would wake in the morning, I would retrieve the gun and place one bullet in it.” She paused and took a quick glance at Sam then stared at the trail ahead of her. “I would spin the cylinder and place it to my head and pull the trigger.”
“Lanie, no,” the words escaped Sam’s lips before she could stop them; she could not even fathom what she was telling her.
“Hundreds of times I’ve done this but it seemed as though I was not supposed to die.”
Sam looked to the woman in shock, she had learned a lot about Lanie over the last little while and this surprised her. The woman had been through so much and Sam had been amazed at how well rounded she seemed. She simply could not envision her Lanie doing this. Lanie reminded her of Commander Shepard at times, in her relentless pursuit of goal. Lanie had never really shown any signs of PTSD until now and Sam could not help but feel a little bit worried. “But you don’t do it anymore.”
Lanie turned back to face Sam. “The last time I did it, I hit the bullet. I heard the difference in the click,” Lanie chuckled slightly, almost in a haunted way; Sam shivered and reached over and rested a hand on her knee. “I took the bullet out and it had hit the primer but there was a defect and it didn’t fire. I took this as a signed, Sam, that maybe there was something out there that I was supposed to live for. A week later,” Lanie closed her eyes feeling the moisture build up and struggled to control herself, “you stumbled into my life, or I guess it would be more accurate that I stumbled into your life.”
Sam really had no idea what to say. Even as Lanie had told her story Sam was refusing to believe it. She could understand why the woman was so despondent but she would never have ever thought Lanie would have tried to kill herself. Now that she thought about it, it did make sense, she had only one happy thing in her life and even that had been ripped away from her. Then she realized what Lanie was saying and she looked to the other woman, for the first time seeing her being human and not some super warrior that Sam’s romantic vision had kept telling her. It was in that moment that Sam realized that she loved this strong but vulnerable human being riding beside her and that she truly wanted to make Lanie’s life better.
She stopped the horsed and looked over to Lanie and took her hand. “We will make things better for you,” she said, “I promise.” She was going to tell Lanie right there, let her know what she thought about Gary’s daughter; let her have some hope in her life. Even though it had to be confirmed Sam was more than confident her findings were correct. She reached up and caressed Lanie’s cheek. Lanie leaned towards her “I…”
The gunshot was thunderous and the barrier on Lanie’s armour flared reveling that she had actually been hit. Lanie spun around sharply as her horse took offence to the sudden noise. It reared up in fear and Lanie almost fell off.
“Holy shit,” she heard the Marine shout and it was followed by a rather explicit string of words she had never heard strung together before and before she could even help the woman, the horse was running.
“Sam!”
Sam’s eyes widened as she felt bullets hitting her own barrier and she set her horse into motion after Lanie. Neither of the horses was trained for combat of any kind but Sam knew how to control her horse, not like Lanie who she could tell was simply holding on for dear life. That did not last long though as the horse jumped a fallen tree and unceremoniously threw Lanie to the ground. Sam caught up to her and held down a hand.
“Come on,” she called as Lanie came to a sitting position. Her nose was bleeding slightly.
“No way, I’m never getting on a horse again,” Lanie said slowly getting to her feet. She wiped her nose with her hand and looked at the blood. “They are horrible pain inducing creatures. We go on foot from now on,” she said and even though she did not stomp her foot to the ground Sam could see her doing so. She knew that Lanie would never get on a horse again. A few more bullets hit the fallen tree behind Lanie. Sam sighed and climbed off the horse and sent it on its own direction.
Lanie grabbed her hand and they slipped unto the tree and ran.
“We’d go faster on a horse,” Sam said.
“I think that horse was trying to kill me,” Lanie said and turned sharply moving towards the thicker forest area, taking a second to look back and spot at least two soldiers trying to catch up and shoot at the same time. It was probably the only thing saving them, that and the armour and omni’s they had stolen. It didn’t matter though barriers would not last forever.
“Keep moving,” Lanie said as they headed down a slight incline and the tree grew thicker. At least they would have a bit more shelter. Her legs were screaming at her to stop moving and her shoulder ached slightly but she did not have time to think about any injuries she might have incurred when thrown from the horse.
As quickly as the forest thickened it began to thin and they were going to come upon a river, Lanie remembered it from the map she had looked at in the morning. She wasn’t sure she wanted to go that way but it did go right close to town and it passed a farm or two as well. She turned them sharply as the area began to get rocky and then she skidded to a complete halt and felt Sam slam into her, not expecting the sudden stop. They fell to the ground and Lanie scrambled quickly to her feet as the growl reached her ears.
“Bear,” she stated as the large brown mass looked to them for the longest moment. She decided that she was probably going to die today, if not by horse or bullet then by large bear. It was a horrible morning. She felt Sam’s hands gripping her arm as they both processed this new turn of events.
There next course of action was determined for them as the bear decided that it took offence to their sudden evasion of its privacy and raised up. “Shit, run,” she called turning quickly and pushing Sam back in the direction they just came from.
If they had been running fast before they encountered the large bear they were now racing, literally. Lanie’s thought frantically, having really no idea what to do except try and shoot the thing, not that she wanted to, it was a beautiful creature, but she was much more concern with Sam’s safety than anything.
Running back the way they came they almost clashed with the Alliance soldier that had been chasing them. The men, who now numbered four, seemed shock to see them clear some tree and run straight at them. One of them gathered his wits enough to raise his rifle and take aim as they ran by. Lanie felt his bullets hit her barrier and then she heard a scream as the soldier now realized what was happening.
“Lanie,” Sam said slowing slightly, Lanie pushed her forward.
“Just keep moving,” the Marine said hearing the screaming and the shooting behind her. She took a peek herself as the bear took it upon itself to take its anger out of the soldiers that were trying to hurt it. They continued to run until Lanie could not hear the scream or the shots anymore and they slowed and even stopped to finally regain their breath. Lanie fell to the ground and felt her chest finally returning to normal and she felt a giggle come to her lips, a giggle that made the way for laughter. Sam looked at her as if she was crazy.
“Do you have any idea of how close we were to being killed?” she said and then started laughing.
“And you find that funny?”
Lanie continued to laugh, unable to stop herself now. She had not laughed like this in some time as she thought of the look on the Soldiers faces as they broke through the clearing and ran right at them. She could only imagine the looks on their faces when the bear appeared, or the looks on her and Sam’s face. Just thinking about it brought more laughter to her lips. Sam could not help but smile as Lanie curled into a ball, holding her stomach as she laughed. A few seconds later and Sam was laughing herself, more at Lanie though then the situation.
“Oh my god, it hurts,” Lanie said trying to stop, wiping tears from her eyes. She felt as though her sides were going to split open she was laughing so hard. It was even more fun to watch her try and stop laughing only to laugh harder.
“Ok, need to get moving now Lanie, encase any of them survive,” Sam said holding out her hand then helping the laughing woman up. Lanie had tears streaming down her cheeks and was bright red. She actually looked adorable. The marine took a deep breath but ended up laughing some more before she finally began to settle down. Sam could not help but grin the whole time.
“Whew,” Lanie said taking another deep breath and finally getting herself under control, she pulled out the canteen and took a long drink. “Wow, I, that was,” she giggled and then bit her lip. Sam kissed her on the cheek and then took her hand.
“You are an amazing person Lt. Alana Flynn, don’t let anyone ever tell you different.”
Lanie smiled to her, “Thank you Sam, for letting me stumble into your life,” She returned Sam’s kiss but softly on the lips and only for a second, not giving Sam time to respond. “Now, I know where we are and by lunch we should be on the road, in a car, where there is no bouncing and numb thighs.”
Sam gave her a wicked smile, “Oh I don’t know about that, a bouncing car just might be fun,” she toyed as they began to walk towards their destination.
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Hallowed Truth