Disclaimer: I own nothing, I make no money.
Author's Note: This Mass Effect piece will deal with Shepard's romances with Kaidan, Thane and Garrus throughout the games, at different levels and times of her life, weaving around each other. Love is hardly ever clean and pretty, so the relationships will bleed into each other when emotions get tangled. Which they are VERY likely to do here, because I love angst with a fierce passion that should probably be diagnosed. So unfortunately, as much as I adore Thane, that means he won't be seen until I get into the second game. Expect DLC content to be included. All the important men in Shepard's life with be involved with this story as well, and for the sake of style and scene and because I LOVE them, other characters will of course be featured. Please enjoy.
Sheparding Men
Chapter One: The Blank Space Between Stars
"Our lives are never lived rightly unless they are lived urgently, powerfully, lived with faces turned toward the sun." - A war-battered Shepard learns about love from the different men in her life. Memory. Passion. Constancy. These are the gifts they gave her.
There are six things Commander Shepard believes to be absolute.
One. It never ends. Don't expect a reprieve. Don't expect that sweet breath of relief. Don't ever expect closure. What seems to end will always begin anew, what starts will never finish, and the eternity we claim we are seeking is already here. We are in it now. This shuddering, brutal, exhilarating mess of emotion and reaction and breath, this short-lived, vibrant life. This tangle of souls, this meeting of hearts. This stubborn, thrilling universe doesn't know how to die. Don't ever think it's over. It never ends.
Two. There are people that come into your life that are never destined to stay. It is not wrong. It is not a mistake. They are meant to be momentary and fleeting and sometimes shattering. They are no less important. Their role is never diminished. It is not wrong.
Three. Instinct. Listen to it. Use it. Die by it if it calls to you. But never question what every fiber of your being is screaming at you to feel.
Four. Caffeine. And heat sinks. These are the pillars of the soldier's religion.
Five. When the damage is done and the blood is drawn, you must walk away. There is no changing the kill. There is no wishing back of life. Treasure it. Support it. Endure it. But when it is snuffed by your hands, there is no help in wallowing. There is too much to be done and too much to be seen and too much to be felt to keep looking for blood on your hands. It will wash. And you will weep. And you will learn to forgive but never forget. You must feel every kill. But you must never be every kill. There will be none of you left if you cannot learn to walk away when the bodies hit the floor. They are gone. You are not.
Six. It all matters. Every word, every action, every thought. Every day is Doomsday. Every breath we take is one closer to death. Every second is a slow dying. Every move we make must be with the knowledge that even the slightest ripple will be felt in some tremble of the universe. Some distant trace of our touch will be known. Some far-off life may shudder at our imprint. Our lives are never lived rightly unless they are lived urgently, powerfully, lived with faces turned toward the sun. We can act with nothing less than the best of us. It all matters.
There are six things Commander Shepard believes to be absolute. Everything else is transient.
Kaidan Alenko is shorter than Shepard expects. When she meets him aboard the Normandy after Anderson's introduction, she finds his salute stiff and practiced and yet whole-hearted. There is the slight quirk of his lip as he looks at her, the firm, graceful lilt of his voice when he answers "Commander".
Her nod is quick and lifted and Anderson has already made his way across the command deck when she pulls her gaze from the Lieutenant. She is already moving to Anderson when he calls her. She feels Kaidan's lingering gaze.
"God, you'd think they'd get some decent chow with the money they blew on this ship."
Shepard's voice is unexpected, sure and without hesitation, but Kaidan is the only one within earshot. He glances up, sees the Commander fiddling with her fork in the pseudo-pasta and laughing. There is no one else at their table, and Kaidan is several seats away. He looks around for a second, and then finds his voice.
"Well, you know the Alliance. Corners had to be cut somewhere."
Shepard looks up at him, almost surprised at his answer. Command for her has been anything but casual conversation. The sudden sound of his voice is warm and familiar and sounds like Earth to her. She smiles without realizing.
Her eyes are a greenish brown and almond-shaped and Kaidan swears he can see the ocean when she smiles. He looks back down to his own plate.
"I guess I should be glad it wasn't our pay."
Shepard's answer is light and offered without expectation. Kaidan looks up to find her cradling her chin in her palm, her arm resting with elbow atop the table.
There is something easy and smooth and yet challenging in her gaze. She does not turn her stare from him. He looks at her from across the length of the table. "Well, I suppose I'd get the cut first so I think you're in the clear, Commander."
She smiles at him and puts her fork down. Somehow they move several seats closer, their words trade themselves across the table and a half hour has passed before Shepard announces the end of her meal and stands to leave the mess hall.
Kaidan's salute is still stiff, still practiced, but there is something comforting about his smirk this time. She turns from him and Kaidan finds he watches the spot where she stood long after she has left.
Eden Prime is overrun and hollowed and burning when the Normandy breaks through the atmosphere. Shepard checks her Mantis sniper rifle, holstering a few extra rounds along her ammo belt, watching Jenkins and Alenko suit up as they follow her toward the airlock. Anderson briefs them quickly. She is already looking to the ground. She is already gauging the distance between the alien ship and the dig site, already reminding herself of the dead marine bodies she knows she will walk past on her way to the beacon. She is already preparing for dog-tag collection.
The heavy click of her reload sounds in the airlock and Kaidan is asking Anderson about survivors. She wants to tell him. She wants to be harsh and quick and sharp in her interruption, wants to mock him for his belief in any survivors. But she knows that look. Her mouth stays closed. And she nods silently when Anderson simply deflects it with a repeat of the beacon's importance.
Shepard wonders if Kaidan has ever held his hands to a dying man's wound. She wonders if he's ever whispered a useless "It'll be okay" into a soldier's face while his hands held the shaking, bleeding chest of a marine. She wonders if he's ever seen death in the face of a friend.
He nods silently, and when Shepard signals their move as the Normandy descends, she cannot see his face when he turns his gaze from hers.
"Shit! On your three!" Shepard shouts to Kaidan quickly as she swings her arm toward the oncoming geth, her omni-tool glowing and whirling as she sends an Incinerate in the synthetic's direction. Kaidan ducks with barely enough time but the geth is staggered enough for Kaidan to pop off a few rounds and blow the geth to parts and pieces.
Shepard cannot help the blinding grin that graces her features at the synthetic's stuttering and then collapsing demise. Kaidan whips back to Shepard. "Dammit, Commander, warn me before you decide to blow some explosive tech my way."
Shepard raises a brow just as Kaidan remembers himself and swallows thickly, waiting. But Shepard is having too much fun and the sudden whizzing of bullets past her ear pulls her attention from Kaidan. She drops quickly behind the cover of a jutting rock, Kaidan following suit beside her. She pulls the reload on her rifle and turns to Kaidan, her eyes bright, body thrumming in anticipation and Kaidan is suddenly struck by the sight of her.
"Ready to dance?" Shepard's question is almost a laugh, her arm already glowing with the light of her omni-tool. He hears Ashley's shotgun several feet away. Before he can answer, Shepard is already raising herself from cover, her fingers deft and calculated against her trigger, her eyes shifting sharply through the field ahead of them. Kaidan follows without thought. He finds his body moving to hers of its own volition.
Shepard throws Kaidan aside. It is instinctual and sudden and she has only a moment to catch her footing before her mind is splitting with images, the shrill, tearing sound of the beacon flooding her ears. There are only seconds and images and the quick, jerky fluttering of her eyelashes under the thrall before she is blown back and unconscious. She cannot even feel Kaidan's hands as they frantically turn her over.
Nihlus is dead. Saren is gone rogue. Visions of bloody metal and flesh and light. And geth. Shepard sits atop the med-bay table and rubs a weary hand down her face. She does not even know how to begin feeling about this.
They're running around the Citadel for almost three hours before Shepard runs into one Urdnot Wrex. His form is caught in her periphery when she exits the C-Sec elevator and her muscles instantly tense, her senses heightened but she does not stop walking toward the corridor. Her fingers itch for the comfort of her pistol in her hand and she must run through fuzzy krogan anatomy in her head to remember where both hearts are located. She has never known a krogan except at the barrel end of her gun. She does not know this behemoth. She doesn't intend to make friends. She's here for information. And she will never underestimate the greed of a bounty hunter.
Wrex turns his head at the sight of her moving toward him and the C-Sec officers. He waves the security off dismissively and a laugh rumbles in his throat. His red eyes find Shepard's own greenish-brown ones and she stops when the hulking form of him is turned fully to her. She leaves five feet between them. Kaidan and Ashley are silent behind her.
"You Shepard?" His voice is a deep roll along his throat and his lip curls as the words leave his mouth. The faint glint of teeth is visible for a moment before what appears to stand for a frown pulls at his mouth.
Shepard cocks her head and watches his relaxed, nonchalant lean. His Carnifex heavy pistol is secured to its holster and there is an ease in his stance that speaks volumes of the threat level he gauges from her. She smirks softly, because she knows he's aware of her own wariness, aware of what body language says between them. She resists the urge to cross her arms over her chest. "Guilty. I heard you know a little something about a nosy quarian. Wrex is it?" She holds a hand up to point at him, her other moving to rest on her hip.
The curl of his lip twitches minutely. "I know a lot of things, human. Your quarian included. Ever heard of a thug named Fist?" His red eyes appraise her silently.
Shepard sighs and shrugs her shoulders. "I'm Alliance. Been space-bound for months now and I couldn't tell you back-alley shiftster from drunken retired C-Sec on this station. But", Shepard pauses and raises a finger in the air, her smile breaking confidently free, "I can hit anything between the eyes and I don't stop at 'please' so if you're up for a little fieldtrip with the humans, hows about me make a deal?"
Wrex raises one brow and cannot decide whether to be amused or annoyed by this tiny human in front of him. But her eyes are bright and excited and he hasn't shot anything in days so he rolls his eyes in response, waving a hand for them to follow him.
Shepaard claps her hands in front of her and rubs them eagerly. "Finally, someone who doesn't want me to drop off their packages or save their mother for a bit of goddamned information."
Wrex is shaking his head as they follow behind him and the beginning of a laugh rumbles in his chest. "Come on, pink thing."
When Shepard watches Garrus jump from behind cover and fire a shot into the head of the thug not six inches from Dr. Michel, her first thought is "Damn." The thug is down before Dr. Michel can even finish her scream, her face splattered with the blossom of blood and Shepard and Ashley dispatch the remaining hired guns quickly. Ashley sounds out a harsh disapproval to Garrus, noting "Dr. Michel's head for Christ's sake", but Shepard ignores it when she sees Garrus' stuttered apology for the doctor before she assuages his worry.
Shepard had been unimpressed when she first met the turian a few hours ago just before the first failed Council hearing, and she let his dead-end investigation become her own estimation of the officer himself. He had the motivation but no results. Tucking an errant dark curl behind her ear, she looks behind her and catches sight of the bullet hole Garrus had sent splitting through a man's skull.
Turning back, Shepard locks eyes with him as Dr. Michel finishes her confession about the wounded quarian and she watches his mandibles flex momentarily, his eyes shifting between hers before he nods silently and turns to leave with them.
Shepard sees a man who not only lines up his sight but, most importantly, takes the shot when he needs to take the shot.
She remembers the name Garrus Vakarian.
First Human Spectre. It takes her a moment to realize she has a turian and a quarian beside her for the ceremony and the thought brings an ironic chuckle to her lips. Udina is frowning so deeply behind her she swears she can hear his face breaking from where she stands. The ceremony is short and sudden and she feels her skin tingling beneath her armor. She doesn't know why. She can hear the voices sharp and slick and heated all around the chamber. She turns to walk back, blinking in mild confusion and unpreparedness. Anderson's approving pat along her back jerk her from the unexpected haze of the heavy moment. Shepard puts a light hand to her chest and looks up at the faces lining the balconies above. None of these faces anchor her with the gravity of this instant, this line out of a history book. She thinks maybe it should feel greater than it does. But she can only think of the dead dock workers burning in the fires of Eden Prime. She vows to do better. Looking ahead to the walkway, she catches Kaidan's eyes as he stands several feet back. They are crinkled in a proud smile and his face looks warm and soft. It makes her yearn for Earth.
She wishes her parents were here.
"And this Dr. T'Soni is supposed to help us?"
"Keywords here being 'supposed to'." Shepard answers, air-quotes and all, to Kaidan's question. She begins to pull her dark curls up onto her head and fasten her hair into a bun.
"Ma'am, do we know anything about T'Soni's relationship with her mother? Can we be sure she's not already working for Benezia?" Ashley is sitting forward with her elbows resting along her knees.
"Who knows. That's why we have guns, Williams: that precious, game-changing advantage." She answers, her eyebrows lifting quickly with her smile.
Kaidan smirks at the Commander and watches her.
"Besides," Wrex joins in, "asari live for millennia. Chances are they haven't even spoken in decades."
Tali flexes her fingers in her lap. "Just because you're not a family man, Wrex, doesn't mean it doesn't hold sway over others. We should go in assuming an enemy of T'Soni, and work from there."
"I'm sorry, is this where you count yourself as Normandy crew?" Ashley cuts in quickly, "Because last I checked we were full up on voices."
Kaidan shoots a warning glance to Ashley but Shepard's voice reaches the Gunnery Chief first. "Stand down, Williams. I don't brook that kind of talk on my ship." Her eyes are firm on Ashley, her jaw tight in disapproval and it is the look in her eye rather than the harsh tone of her voice that has Ashley licking her lips in regret and turning her gaze to the floor.
"Ma'am, yes, ma'am!" She swallows thickly.
Tali bristles in her seat slightly and Shepard sighs, pushing off from her lean on the communication terminal. "Ready your weapons. If T'Soni isn't a threat, there will certainly be geth looking for her. And I didn't kill nearly enough on Eden Prime. Dismissed."
Everyone files out wordlessly and Shepard finds her eyes following Kaidan leave the room. She taps the comm. link behind her. "Joker, ETA."
"This is your pilot speaking, reporting a smooth and even descent at seven minutes. Thanks for flying Normandy air and enjoy your day."
Shepard can't help the smile that tugs at her lips as she walks from the room, shaking her head.
"Really, Wrex?" Garrus' laugh is cut off quickly by his groan of pain as he pushes himself up from the floor of the damaged lift. Wrex is grumbling and rolling over to get his hands beneath him so he can push himself up.
"I'm an eight hundred pound krogan. What'd you think was going to happen?" Wrex is dusting off his armor in the rubble of the downed elevator, his shields flickering back to full strength and Garrus is laughing again as he plants the butt of his Mantis in the rock and pushes himself to a standing position.
"Soddy workmanship, that's what it is," Wrex growls under his breath, pulling his shotgun from its sling to glance ahead at the walkway winding into the ruin just ahead. He looks at the pathway suspiciously.
"Garrus! Wrex! You guys good down there?" Shepard's voice reverberates against the stone and Garrus looks up to find Shepard trying to scale down the almost three floors of cavern rock they had fallen in the rickety elevator once Wrex stepped in and employed violence against the old, broken controls.
"Yeah, all clear. Just a broken ego, I think." Garrus leans back against the rock as Shepard makes her way down.
Wrex turns to the turian frowning, his eyes narrowed.
Shepard crawls over the ruined top carriage of the elevator and plops down on the floor in front of them, her boots sending a cloud of dust and sand into the air. "Good," she answers, pulling her own Mantis from its carrier on her back, "Because I've only got three packs of medi-gel and, considering your brilliant entrance into the ruins likely alerted any geth within a fifty mile radius to our presence, I'm thinking we might want to save them for the inevitable bullet wounds we'll be receiving on this one."
She shoots a sharp look to the both of them and Garrus raises his hands into the air. "What? I'm not the one who went blood rage on the controls." But his excuse is laced with barely held in laughter and Shepard finds a smirk tugging at her lips behind her helmet anyway.
Wrex begins to creep around the wobbling metal pathway leading toward the mysterious blue force field around the Therum ruins. "Maybe they should build these things better then."
Shepard can't help the sudden guffaw that leaves her mouth before she pulls her lip in at the krogan's look. Her shoulders shake in barely held in mirth. "These are fifty thousand year old ruins, Wrex. What'd you expect, a handicapped ramp?"
"Watch it Shepard, I still haven't decided if I like you yet." But Wrex is still moving forward and watching the path and the fact that he does not need to look back to know that Shepard is covering him is all she needs to see.
Garrus mock gasps behind Shepard and lights up his omni-tool to pull some readings from the upcoming ruin. "Wait, you mean I'm not the only one?"
"Alright, boys, eyes forward. We can discuss my charming personality back on the Normandy." She puts a hand to Wrex's shoulder and he stops, eyeing her. She puts two fingers to her ear and then points them toward the path that veers off right behind the rock face. She watches Wrex and Garrus nod in unison and then pulls the heavy, comforting reload of her Mantis in her hand. She moves up and knows they are right behind her.
The tearing pain wakes her until she finds herself screaming into her sheets. She is flushed with sweat, her heart beat throbbing in her ears and her nails have cut half-moons into her palms as they clench in the sheets. She wakes gasping sweet, filtered, vacuumed air in the captain's cabin of their dreadnaught, the cold, still dark of space touching the glass above her bed. She twists her gaze, breathing heavily into the sheets, until she can watch the whizzing of space and light and gas giants past her window, until she can blink the hot tears away and focus on the blinding galaxy across the glass.
Shepard breathes quietly in her cabin for several long minutes, slowly coming down, before she checks her clock to find 03:16 and then leaves for the mess hall.
Shepard is sitting Indian style on one of the benches in the mess hall, a heavy sweatshirt pulled against her chest, her back resting against the table ledge, when Kaidan finds her. She is looking out one of the side shutter panels with retractable planes, her fingers bunched in the material of her sweatshirt, her face tilted to the derk empty abyss streaming past the window and there is only the light of passing stars to illuminate the outline of her figure.
"Commander?" Kaidan's voice is soft and hesitant, and he clears his throat in embarrassment, repeating louder "Commander", when she does not turn. The streaming stars outside pass silver against her skin.
Kaidan is standing beside the bench when she blinks and turns to him, swallowing heavily. He sees the sweat on her forehead, sees her flushed cheeks and heavy eyelids. "Commander, should I call Chakwas?" But he is already moving toward the med-bay when Shepard's hand reaches out and grasps his to halt him. Her touch is sudden and hot and intoxicating in a way that makes Kaidan still at the intake of breath upon the feel of her skin. It is so small, and so innocent, and she is not even aware of her affect that Kaidan is hesitant to lose the simple sensation that comes with the skin of her palm against his arm. It scares even him.
She seems to notice his surprise at her unexplained silence and informal touch and smiles softly at him, releasing his hand and instead patting the seat next to her. "That won't be necessary, Lieutenant. It's just the vision. I think the mind meld with Liara just made it resurface."
Kaidan slowly lowers himself to the seat and feels the chill of space beyond the glass before them. He looks out at the whizzing planets and stars as they glide through the cosmos. He sets the e-pad he had in his other hand against the tabletop and pulls one leg up on the bench, turning his head to watch her better. "Does it hurt?" He is surprised at the ease at which his words come. He thinks he shouldn't be talking this way with her. But there is something about her in the dim light of the passing galaxy that keeps him still and soft and silver beside her.
Shepard runs a hand through her tangled black curls, whirling the hair around one hand to knot it in a thick bun. A loose strand falls against her cheek and Kaidan is almost transfixed enough to actually reach out and brush it back. But he catches himself in time, swallows thickly instead and watches her in the faded slanted beams from the window.
She shakes her head slightly. "Not anymore. It's mostly passed. I just felt a bit cramped in my quarters when it first woke me. Needed a bit more open space." She furrows her brow slightly as she looks back at the tabletop behind them and catches sight of the e-pad he had placed atop it. "What about you?"
Kaidan follows her gaze to the e-pad and picks it back up, scrolling through files slowly. "Oh, I just – my shift starts at 0500 and I usually take this time to write to family. It's usually quiet and deserted so it gets me time to think. The view from the opened shutters usually gets me started on a good note. And it's a solid start to the day. It reminds me why I'm on this ship and on this mission. I'm here for them. Writing keeps them more present to me."
Shepard purses her lips slightly. "Am I intruding on that?"
Kaidan stumbles through words that should be easy. "No, you're not – it's completely fine, it's not like you're – no, you're fine. Huh," he laughs, somewhat awkwardly and with nervously licked lips, his body turning from her to stand. "I'm just going to grab a cup of joe first."
"Kaidan."
The sound of his name on her lips stops him, and he is silent in his stare of her, his hands clutching the e-pad between his fingers. "Commander?" He curses himself for the quake in his voice.
But she does not let on that she hears. She only looks at the cold dark window. "Why is this view so enticing to you?"
For a moment Kaidan is afraid she has seen his heavy stares this whole time, has caught him sneaking glances across the mess when they share meal time. And then he remembers himself and releases that hastily held breath and realizes she's speaking of space behind the glass. He licks his lips, searching for a response. "I guess it's that romantic frontier idealism in me," he laughs softly. "Mom and Dad always used to go on about the stars to me. About all the worlds and planets out there. How the stars aren't quite so out of reach. There's something magical about space, I think." He finds his hands in the pockets of his sweats, his shoulders shrugging nonchalantly.
Shepard looks at him and smiles lightly, and Kaidan recognizes that same glint in her eye he sees when they're facing down the barrels of guns, when they're running through platoons of geth in exhilarating explosions of biotic and tech power, their bodies screaming in exhaustion and pushing and straining and running further, their hands trembling with force and sensation. That glow of destructive creation behind her eyes, that breathless moment between bullets and reload, that rush that fills her whole body with vibrance.
Her smile drops slowly, so quietly you would have never known it was there in the first place. "I don't…remember too much about my parents. But I do remember what my mother always told me about space. It's…really the reason I joined the Alliance. You know, it wasn't the stars that fascinated her. She always said that it was the blank space between stars that excited her."
Kaidan cocks his head in question and Shepard turns her face to look back out the glass. It is dark and chill and quiet. The silver is soft upon her face.
"It's where just about anything could happen. She would say that the stars are already there, the planets are already formed, the worlds are already built. But that dark space, that blank, unknown, lost distance between the stars, that's where the real magic happens. That's where all the possibilities lie. That's where we have the ability to be creators. It may be terrifying and new and unlike anything we've seen but it is the empty places between the light that grant us the chance to do more, to seek more, to be more."
Shepard turns her green gaze to Kaidan and he finds his breath caught somewhere between his chest and the galaxy outside swirling like uninhibited opportunity, splashing light and dust and heat into balls of creation.
Shepard pushes herself slowly from the bench and walks to the shutter, places her hand against the cool, thick glass and feels the magic swirl beneath her touch. She closes her eyes and breathes in. This feeling is absolute. She can almost taste the cosmos dancing on her tongue. This world of risk and chance and gamble, this possibility of creation, this open road before her, this faulting light and beautiful dark, this everything and nothing all at once. This is what she was made for.
She keeps one hand to the window, flicks her gaze to Kaidan, and feels the touch of the unkown against her palm.
Kaidan cannot take his eyes from her.