A/N: So, guys, here's a new Mass Effect story. This one is centered around ME2 with Shepard romancing an original male character I've created. This is new for me since I don't usually do original characters, but I've already done stories with Kaidan as the romance, and I don't want to sound like I'm repeating myself, sooo... yepp, here we are. Hope that's okay :D Please let me know what you think! Kinda nervous.
Anyway, a few things you should know:
-Shepard is a custom face, with longer-ish dark brown/almost black hair and bright blue eyes, and the usual facial hair he has in ME3. He's also an engineer.
-Earthborn, Ruthless background. As well as random shit I decide to make up.
-There are going to be of mistakes. Deal with it. I haven't read the books, or the comics, or even really looked online at info. I'm going by what I've seen in the gameplay, and even then, I haven't seen everything because my TV has terrible picture and it makes the words on emails and everything really tiny, so I can't read any messages or intel reports or anything. Especially in the second game; it's just too small. So I know nothing that's in those messages. Sorry.
-There's past MShenko from first game.
-The original character is my creation. He's not gonna be perfect, but I hope he's at least tolerable?
-I'll try to follow the ME2 plot with dialogue and stuff but I am not agonizing over it again. So I'm gonna make some shit up at some points. Deal with it ;)
-I plan on doing a continuation ME3 story.
I think that's about it? Hmm. If I think of more I'll let you know. Anyway... please let me know how it sounds?
Chapter length: 6812
Begin!
Ruin
By Muffy the Dough Slayer
Warnings: Slash pairing; typical ME violence and language; some renegade options; foul language; trust issues; bad writing... you know, the usual. If that's not your glass of pineapple juice, return to the fridge and try again.
Chapter 1 – Feels a Lot Like Falling
"Shepard!"
Joker's voice is loud, desperate. In his mind's eye he can picture the outstretched hand, picture those wide eyes as his pilot calls out to him as the laser rips through the Normandy yet again. The explosion flings Shepard away from the ship, damaging his suit. The next one flings him further away, into the silence of space. A second later all he knows is he can't breathe, and while he can't hear the hiss of his oxygen escaping from his damaged suit, he can feel it, feel the coldness of space seeping in, little tendrils of fear in his mind.
It's been a long time since he was afraid. Not since he was a little kid on Earth, before he got roped into joining a gang. There was no place for fear, then. No place for anything except survival, so he did what he had to do. He had regrets, of course, but he didn't dwell on them because he wouldn't change anything he'd done.
He was scared when he was little. But joining the Alliance… being on Torfan… making those hard choices on Virmire, and then battling Sovereign and Saren… there was no time for fear. It never even factored in, and instead he relished in the thrill of the battle, his old gang instincts reigniting. Fight or die. Do you want to live, or do you want to be crushed by someone bigger than you?
I want to live.
The thought brings him back to his current situation.
He's been choked before, even run out of air on some planet, but suffocating in space is different. Space is a massive vacuum, dark and empty. There is no air. His lungs push, deflate, attempt to expand as he struggles to draw in what little remains of his rapidly dwindling oxygen. In his mind he takes stock of the damage, attempts to reach for the damaged part of his suit but his fingers only press lightly against it before scraping away as he floats ever closer to the planet below them.
Gravity can always be a problem in space, but this is the first time he's had to worry about gravity pulling him down rather than the lack of gravity around the exterior of a ship.
Time slows, stills, stops. He's trapped in this moment. He can't see anymore; everything's gone dark. His chest aches, his heart stutters, and he can feel it stop. Can feel everything stop as his lungs push, deflate, expand all in one. He's paralyzed before the end. Paralyzed and aware of his fate.
He tries to find acceptance, but this doesn't seem fair.
I stopped… Saren…
He stopped Saren and Sovereign, stopped the return of the Reapers, at least for the time being. Is this really how he's meant to die, after surviving that?
Not fair…
And then time continues, and his lungs feel like they're exploding.
The end is both quick and yet lasts an eternity, and he can feel every second of it.
And then there's blessed darkness.
"Shepard!"
"Shepard."
The voices mix and mingle until they are the same twisted voice, male and female. Consciousness slithers through his mind like a lazy snake, prodded into action but still preferring sleep rather than movement.
Someone's talking to him. Telling him to get up and move because the base is under attack. There's this haze in his mind he can't quite move through, even as he opens his eyes. Everything's falling apart around him, crackling, semi-destroyed. It's only years of training that he automatically responds to the orders he's given, and picks up the gun and a thermal clip, moving through the base on legs he can't quite feel.
His body is heavy, jelly beneath his weight. Each step leaves pins and needles shooting through his bones and muscles, but gradually it disperses. Feeling returns after he shoots a few mechs, after he's finishing vaulting over overturned desks and boxes, and ducking in and out of cover.
The lady's voice cuts out. The voice is familiar, he has to admit, though he's not particularly sure why. As he moves, body on autopilot, he struggles to remember where he is, and why he's here. He has no memory of this place. He's never been here before. His head hurts, this deep ache he can't describe. He feels it in his bones, not just his mind. It's this deep, throbbing sensation which feels like it's eating his soul, and yet it's not entirely painful. It's more numbing than anything.
"Shepard!"
Joker's voice is still present in his mind, like he heard it yesterday. In fact, the last thing he remembers is the Normandy. They were under attack by a strange ship which sensed them even though they were supposed to be cloaked. It was fast and large, lethal and brutal. Joker refused to leave so he went up to get him personally. At the time, he felt semi-guilty about how harshly he gripped Joker's arm to drag him away from the pilot's chair, but he had bigger things to worry about. Now he just wonders where his crew is, if they made it off the ship.
If anyone is still alive.
Of course they are, he tells himself. After all, he's okay, and he can remember…
Remember choking, gasping, dying…
I died.
When Benezia died, she seemed shocked to find there was no light at the end of the tunnel. She said she'd been told there was a light when one died.
If that's true, Shepard's with her – he didn't see it, either. All he knows is there was a haze, a dark one, and then nothing. He can't call it black, he can't call it white or gray or anything. It's nothing. One minute he saw the back of his eyelids, saw darkness when he opened his eyes, felt the pressure building, and then the next, there was nothing.
Just as he had no memory entering into life, he slipped away just as quietly.
And now he's here, and he has no idea what's happening.
He comes across a dark-skinned man firing at some mechs across the way. The guy is shocked to see him up and moving around, and mentions something about rebuilding him for two years. He doesn't like that term – rebuilding. Like he's a machine.
His movements are certainly a little more robotic, but he blames that on stress, and soreness. He just woke up, his head hurt, and his body felt so heavy. It has nothing to do with the fact he was rebuilt.
He fights at Jacob's side. Jacob is a biotic; Shepard's seen plenty of them. Kaidan Alenko was a biotic. Is a biotic. Somehow he can't fathom Kaidan being dead. Can't fathom any of his crew being dead.
"If they knew I was alive," he says to Jacob, "they'd come back."
At least… he thinks they would. Some of them, maybe? He hopes.
He and Kaidan shared a special bond. It was quick but burned brightly, cut down when their ship was attacked. He can still hear himself ordering Kaidan off the ship, into an escape pod, while he went after Joker. Stubborn pilot refused to leave, thought he could still save the ship. His efforts were admirable, but foolish. The ship was long gone. They could rebuild the ship – not the crew.
Thinking about Kaidan makes his head hurt worse. Thinking about any of them, and the possibility of their death, makes bile rise in his throat, so he shoves those thoughts aside. In a battle, he can't be distracted by petty things like feelings and emotions. They conflict with the situation at hand. There is no time for such nonsense.
They find a doctor who has been hurt. Using medi-gel is like riding a bike – the movements are automatic and swift. It's something he'll never forget. With a wave of his omni-tool, the soft orange flash of it somehow soothingly familiar to him, the doctor is healed and they're on the move again. More enemies stand in their way. Each mech reminds him of the geth, reminds him of hunting down Saren. Thinking of this only reminds him of the fact his entire crew might be dead.
He decides not to think at all.
Act, don't react.
Do, don't think.
He can do this.
N7 training was all about this. The best of the best. No time for distractions. Lives are always at stake.
The doctor is killed by a woman in white. She has long black hair and these intense blue eyes. She is strikingly familiar, even as she's shooting the doctor. He drops to the ground, dead, and in the back of his mind he knows he should care, but he's turned off all emotions at the moment. The only thing important is survival.
She's the one he remembers, though, not the doctor. He remembers waking, very briefly, and feeling overly lightheaded. His pulse wouldn't stop racing, and he couldn't catch his breath. She caught his hand but he couldn't feel it, only see it through the fuzziness his vision provided. All too soon it ended, and he slipped away again.
He mentions this to her. She says her name is Miranda, and they can discuss things later. Right now they need to get off the ship. He glances down at the dead man, knowing he shouldn't trust these people. They have given him no reason to trust them, and a lot of reasons to push them away. He's naturally untrusting; it comes from growing up alone on Earth, in the streets as part of a gang. Trust is an illusion; people always want something. There's always a price to every 'loyalty'. He's not sure he's willing to pay the price for safe passage out of here, but he goes with them anyway, because the alternative is to rot away here, waiting for death.
He can still feel himself floating, thrown away from his broken ship. He can still see the planet below him, so massive and beautiful, and yet tragically too close. He's never really been afraid of death, sometimes even welcomed it, but now all he can think about is the pain of his body shutting down. All he can feel is his eyes burning, the pressure building, the chill of his oxygen leaving through his damaged suit, his lungs struggling to work, his heart stuttering to a stop…
And he can't breathe. It takes several blinks before he collects himself and focuses on Jacob and Miranda. They are watching him, asking him questions. They mention Virmire, and how Ashley Williams died. He's angry, then, because he didn't want to let her die. She'd been nice enough, and was a good soldier. She died admirably, but she didn't deserve to die. Picking Kaidan over her was hard, and in the end he only chose Kaidan because Kaidan had to set off the bomb, and needed protection while doing so. Also, Kaidan was closer, and they didn't have a lot of time. Backtracking through familiar territory seemed easier than trekking through the unknown, as terrible as it sounds.
They ask him about Anderson. He's an admiral now, though he apparently isn't particularly fond of his new job. Shepard only recommended him because he knew Anderson was right for the job, even if he didn't think so. It was better than Udina being in office; the guy wanted it too much. If you want something too much, bad things happen. It's better to get what you don't want, because getting what you want can be…
Kaidan flashes through his mind. Alone in the captain's cabin before they went to Ilos and to the Mu Relay, ultimately ending up at the Citadel for the final battle against Sovereign and Saren. On some level, he wanted Kaidan. He got him. And now he's not sure what to do, because everyone might be dead.
He's lost people before. It's a part of life. Without loss you can't cherish the things, the people, you have. Without the negative in life you can't appreciate the good. He knows this. And yet this knowledge doesn't seem like enough.
The questions stop, thankfully, and they arrive at another base. Miranda seems rather harsh. He finds it odd, considering she'd attempted to help him both just now, and when he woke up before. She spent two years piecing him back together, apparently; now she acts like she hates him. He has more important things to worry about than her personality problems. She's with Cerberus, anyway.
Cerberus… Shepard remembers disliking them. Of course, in the beginning, he dislikes everyone. He hated Anderson when he first saw him. Cerberus, though… he remembers they were involved in a lot of bad things, like scientists running tests on poor humans like Toombs, torturing him for years. They were involved in a lot of other things as well. His natural distrust is well-founded this time.
He has never heard of the Illusive Man. Maybe he has, but he doesn't remember. He figures after getting spaced, he's allowed to forget a few things. To his knowledge, though, the Illusive Man is a mystery. He doesn't speak to him in person, but even in this holographic image, he can there's something amiss about this guy. Those eyes are too bright, even when he's not actually standing in front of him. He sounds so sure of himself, like he has all the answers and only needs Shepard to confirm and verify them. A part of Shepard wants to trust him.
Trust is, again, a fickle bitch.
He wants answers from the Illusive Man. If trust is how he gets the answers…
He'll play along for now.
He asks about the Normandy. Almost everyone survived, he's told. It loosens that knot in his stomach, and he can breathe again. He hadn't been on the best of terms with everyone, and he hadn't always talked to them very much, but they were still his crew. He'd been taught to always protect them. Failure wasn't an option.
From there he's told to go to Freedom's Progress, a human colony in the Traverse. He agrees only because he must if he wants more answers. If he doesn't find something to convince him Cerberus is right and the Illusive Man is telling the truth, he's free to leave. Or, at least, that's what he's been told.
Trust, again…
Jacob is a gun for hire, just as he said to the Illusive Man. Miranda… he's not sure what to think of her as they gear up and take a small shuttle to Freedom's Progress. He's not sure what to think of either of them, but at least Jacob lets people know when he's wary of them. He seems nice enough, Shepard supposes. He doesn't completely trust the Illusive Man, even if he is working for Cerberus. Miranda, on the other hand… she seems convinced the Illusive Man is right, and waffles between being semi-friendly with Shepard while she talks about saving his life, and outright being rude to him when he tries to talk to her.
It's a rollercoaster of emotions he's not prepared to handle right now.
Freedom's Progress is empty. He's been told human colonies are going missing, but this is ridiculous. It's crazy. Jacob comments how it looks like everyone just got up and walked away in the middle of dinner. That is what it looks like, but they all know better. There's no blood or signs of struggle, but this many people don't just get up and disappear. Something happened.
Something bad.
He's always trusted his gut. It was the best weapon there was in the gangs. Guns could fail you, misfire or jam or run out of ammo. Instincts, though… instincts were honed skills you grew up with. They aided you, grew to help you. They are trustworthy.
Shepard always goes with his gut. His instincts.
Right now his gut is telling him the Illusive Man is right.
Fuck.
He doesn't want to work with Cerberus.
But he can't, in good conscience, do nothing about these disappearances. If the Alliance isn't going to do anything, then he has to do something.
Anderson.
He'll have to get in contact with Anderson if he wants answers about the Alliance. If he wants their help.
"If they knew I was alive, they'd come back."
He meant what he said. He hopes it's true.
Trust took a while, but fighting against such a large threat threw them all together quickly. It was either trust someone to have your back, or die in a firefight. Given those options, he couldn't fight becoming friends with his crew. Getting to know them, letting them know a few things about himself.
He takes in a breath as they continue through the empty 'ghost town'. The silence is the worst part, he thinks. It's too quiet but the silence is so loud, ringing in his ears, forming a knot in his stomach. Colonies shouldn't be this quiet. It's like Eden Prime all over again, except every there got killed. He saw bodies, saw husks.
Now…
Now everyone's just gone missing.
They enter a building. A few quarians are there, turning to face him with guns drawn. Instinct has him bringing up his gun in return, as Miranda and Jacob do the same next to him. He's then greeted by a familiar face, or rather, familiar suit.
"Shepard? Is that… you're alive?" Tali asks, obviously in shock. He doesn't need to see her face to know her eyes are wide, or that her mouth is probably hanging open. Her voice is as hopeful as it is shocked.
Tali. Relief is a coolant against the hot ball in his stomach.
"Cerberus rebuilt me, Tali," he says, sighing. "In return they asked me to investigate these attacks on human colonies."
"You'll pardon us for not taking you at your word, Cerberus," a quarian Tali called Prazza says, still aiming a gun at them. Shepard's irritation rises. He's already had a long, confusing day; this is just making his headache worse. The numbness in the ache is wearing off, giving way to full-on pain. It's distracting, but not enough to quell the anger beginning to burn through him.
"We're well within our rights to investigate attacks on a human colony," Miranda says, folding her arms over her chest. "I'd like to know what the quarians are doing here."
Shepard has to admit, that's a good question. They should have no reason to be here.
Unless they caused this…
No, he tells himself. Tali would never do something like that. She's been so innocent ever since he met her; she couldn't do something like this.
Again, though, trust…
Fickle.
"Weapons down, Prazza," Tali says, annoyed as she looks at the quarian who still aims a gun at the trio. "Whatever's going on here, I don't think we need another fight." She looks back at Shepard. "One of our people was here on Pilgrimage. His name was Veetor. We came to find him."
Pilgrimage…
It's been a while, but he remembers what that is now, and knows it's important to quarians. Tali herself was on her Pilgrimage when they found her and she joined his crew. But this seemed like an odd place for a Pilgrimage.
"Isn't that a little strange?" he asks. "A quarian visiting a remote human colony?"
"Quarians can choose where they go on Pilgrimage," Tali tells him. "Veetor liked the idea of helping a small settlement. He was always… nervous in crowds."
"She means," Prazza says, "that he was unstable. Combine that with damage to his suit's CO2 scrubbers and an infection from and open air exposure, and he's likely delirious."
Great.
"When he saw us landing," Tali says, facing him again, "he hid in a warehouse on the far side of town. We suspect he also programmed the mechs to attack anything that moved."
Yep. Great.
"Veetor's the only one who can tell us what happened," Shepard sighs. "We should work together to find him."
Miranda sighs behind him, obviously not in favor of the idea, but he can deal with her later. Right now… it would be nice to have someone he trusts on his team. For the time being, anyway. He knows Tali is probably busy with the fleet. It's been two years for her, only a day to him.
They say time flies, but this is crazy.
"Good idea," Tali says with a small nod. "You'll need two teams to get past the drones anyway."
"Now we're working with Cerberus?" Prazza asks incredulously.
Yeah… I don't like him.
"No, Prazza," Tali says, obviously irritated, "you're working for me. If you can't follow orders, go wait on the ship."
Shepard fights the urge to smile. Tali in charge is a far cry from when they first met. It's not bad, though.
"Head for the warehouse through the center of the colony. We'll circle around the far side and draw off some of the drones to clear you a path."
"Make sure to keep in radio contact," Shepard reminds her. Just like old times.
Just like yesterday…
He closes his eyes and sighs as Tali and her team leave. Time flies. Really, really flies.
He takes a breath, opens his eyes, and leads his own team toward the warehouse through the center of the colony, as instructed.
A few hours later he's back at the Cerberus base, heading down to talk to the Illusive Man again. They managed to get to Veetor, but Prazza decided to disobey orders and got himself and his men killed. Shepard watched it happen. There was nothing he could do for him, or for his men.
Tali took Veetor back to the Fleet, and said she couldn't join Shepard. At least not right now. He understands, of course. He knew she would say no, but he made the offer anyway. For old time's sake. For yesterday's sake.
Yesterday…
The Illusive Man appears before him in a faint blue outline, the image crackling here and there.
They speak about Freedom's Progress, and about how they have different methods.
"You ever think about playing nice once in a while?" Shepard asks.
"Diplomacy is great when it works, but difficult when everyone already perceives you as a threat."
He has a point.
"But more importantly," the Illusive Man continues, "you confirmed the Collectors are behind the abductions."
Collectors. He's never heard of them before, but they are making entire human colonies disappear. It seems likely they might be working for the Reapers. Either way, they're bad news.
"Why do I get the feeling you knew about them already," he mutters.
"I had my suspicions," the Illusive Man says with a nod, "but needed proof. The Collectors are enigmatic at best. They periodically travel the Terminus Systems, looking to gather seemingly unimportant items or specimens. Usually in exchange for their technology. When their transactions are complete, they disappear as quickly as they arrived, back beyond the unmapped Omega 4 Relay."
Omega 4 Relay…
It's familiar. No ship has ever returned from there. Too many unknowns.
"Until now," he continues, "we've had no evidence of direct aggression by the Collectors."
All of this is really giving him a migraine. Maybe this is how Kaidan feels with the L2 implant. He's thankful that, as an engineer, he doesn't have to worry about that kind of stuff. Still, headaches are a bitch.
"Any ideas on why they've shifted their focus to humans?" Shepard asks, pinching at the bridge of his nose. He can feel the pain right behind his eyes.
"If they're agents for the Reapers, it could be any number of reasons. Obviously humanity played a huge role in Sovereign's destruction. That might have been enough to draw their attention. What really concerns me is why they bother abducting the colonists. Once the humans are paralyzed, why not just kill them?"
He has a point.
Yep. Definitely a migraine.
Fuck.
"You're holding something back. How do you know the Reapers are involved?"
"The patterns are there, buried in the data," the Illusive Man answers. "The Council and the Alliance want to believe the Reaper threat died with Sovereign. You and I know better. I won't wait until the Reapers are on the march. We need to take the fight to them."
"If this a war, I'll need an army," he says. "Or a really good team."
A really good team.
Unmapped Omega 4 Relay…
Suicide mission, his mind supplies.
Yep. Great.
"I've already compiled a list of soldiers, scientists, and mercenaries. You'll get dossiers on the best of them. Finding them and convincing them to work with you could be challenging, but you're a natural leader."
Perfect.
"I'll continue to track the Collectors," the Illusive Man continues. "When they make their next appearance, I'll notify you and your team. Be ready."
"Keep your list," he sighs, shaking his head. "I want people I trust. The ones who stopped me stop Saren and the geth."
"That was two years ago, Commander. Most of them have moved on, or their allegiances have changed."
Changed…?
"Where's Kaidan Alenko?"
Kaidan would be on his side, he was sure. They were friends. Co-workers.
More…
"He's still with the Alliance," the Illusive Man tells him. "Promoted, I believe. His file is surprisingly well classified."
Hmm… strange…
But at least he's doing well for himself.
"Where's Garrus Vakarian?"
He and Garrus were pretty tight after stopping Saren. He found it easy to get along with the turian. They had similar interests.
"The turian disappeared a few months after you were declared dead. Even we haven't been able to locate him."
That's strange.
It doesn't seem like Garrus to just vanish.
"Where's Urdnot Wrex?"
"He returned to Tuchanka and he hasn't gone off-world in over a year. He's trying to unite the krogan clans."
Shepard sighed, shoulders slouching a little.
So… old team is a no-go, then.
"Okay, I get it. They're not available."
"You're a leader, Shepard. You'll get who you need."
Might as well make the most of it.
He can't just let humans keep disappearing, after all. He'll have to work with the people the Illusive Man has chosen.
It doesn't quite sit well with him, but it's been a long day, and his head hurts. He's ready to sleep for another two years.
"You worry about the Collectors. I'll make sure my team's ready."
"Good. Two things before you go," the Illusive Man says, causing him to frown.
Great. He's throwing more stuff at me.
He's not sure how much more he can take right now. He just wants to lay down. Forever.
"First, head to Omega and find Mordin Solus. He's a brilliant salarian scientist. Our intelligence suggests he may know how to counteract the Collectors' paralyzing seeker swarms."
"Sounds good," he sighs. "What else?"
Just let me sleep, dammit.
"I found a pilot I think you might like. I hear he's one of the best."
Shepard frowns, confused, until the door behind him opens. He turns to find a familiar face looking at him. Joker looks the same as always, but walks a little straighter, stands a little higher. There's this faint half-smile on his face as their eyes meet. Shepard can still hear his voice in his head. Hears it like it was yesterday, because to him, it was.
"Just like old times, huh?" Joker asks, but there's this slight shakiness to his voice.
It washes away a bit of the memory of Joker calling for him when he died. Only slightly. Very, very slightly. And his head still hurts.
They walk out of that room and down a long hallway. Shepard's still shocked Joker's here, someone he can trust.
"I can't believe it's you, Joker," he finds himself saying, headache be damned.
"Look who's talking," Joker says back. "I watched you get spaced."
"I got lucky," Shepard tells him, "with a lot of strings attached. How'd you get here?"
"It all fell apart without you, Commander. Everything you stirred up, the Council just wanted it gone. Team was broken up, records sealed, and I was grounded. The Alliance took away the one thing that mattered to me. Hell yeah I joined Cerberus."
"You really trust the Illusive Man?" Shepard asks as they round a corner.
"I don't trust anyone who makes more than I do," Joker says, and Shepard smirks because it's finally something familiar, Joker's humor. "But they aren't all bad. Saved your life, let me fly. And then there's this."
This?
"They only told me last night."
They're looking through a window now, and Shepard can't quite believe what he's seeing.
"Just needs a name."
Joker shows him their new ship which they name the Normandy SR-2.
Shepard's still trying to process everything as they get onto the ship and start to settle in. In his mind, yesterday he as on the SSV Normandy SR-1 with his crew. Today he's surrounded by strangers, it's two years in the future, and this new Normandy has an AI called EDI.
All of this information is a little overwhelming.
It feels a lot like falling.
He doesn't see his face until they're leaving the Cerberus base, heading toward Omega to pick up Mordin Solus, and the Archangel is there as well. He's been running around the ship so far, attempting to talk to everyone and get a sense of who is around him. They think it's because he wants to be friendly; it's actually more of the 'know thy enemy' thing than anything else. He doesn't trust any of these people; they're all strangers to him, except Joker. And Dr. Chakwas.
Dr. Chakwas is a welcome sight. She's the one who shows him his face, the red scars and the reddish glow to his usually blue eyes. His face is a ruined canvas. He can only stare at his reflection, stare at the horror of it all. He was never a vain person, but this is… wrong. His face shouldn't look like this, he knows. He feels… like a zombie somehow, half healed and half… open.
He chucks the mirror at the wall. The sight of it shattering doesn't leave him feeling anything. Perhaps that should be a sign something is wrong, but at the moment he doesn't care. Dr. Chakwas calls out for him as he leaves the med bay, but he ignores her.
Everyone's been staring at him. He thought it was because he 'returned from the dead'. But now he knows otherwise. They have been staring at the scars. Staring at his face. Judging him.
He's not vain, but this…
In all honesty, he's not even sure why he's angry. Maybe because no one mentioned it. Then again, no one mentioned it. Maybe no one cared about the odd scars. They didn't bother him; they weren't sore, or itchy, they were just there.
Deal with it, he told himself.
This was when he decided to look for other scars on his body.
He had a multitude of them he collected over the years, both from childhood and after he joined the Alliance when he was eighteen. As he strips in his new captain's cabin – even though he's never made the rank of captain – he finds himself staring at smooth, untarnished skin, save for the ones on his face. Everything else seems to healed. A clean slate.
Except he doesn't feel clean.
The scars made him human.
His body has nothing left of that anymore.
He's not sure what to think. Exhaustion tugs at him. His head is burning.
He's heading toward the bed before he knows he's moving. His feet trip over the small step leading toward the bed, and he topples into the softness of his pillows. He knows it's been years since he's slept in a bed, or, hell, slept at all, but to him it feels only like a day. One very long, very confusing day.
But the day's finally over.
And he can sleep for a few hours before they reach Omega.
Drifting off to sleep feels even more like falling. Like he's floating… above a planet…
He hasn't had nightmares in a long time. Not since childhood. He's always made sure he's too tired to dream. He will sleep when his body demands it, and his mind is too exhausted for any thoughts or dreams to emerge. He was exhausted when he went to sleep, and still he dreamed.
It's Joker's voice that snaps him out of his nightmare, leaving him sitting up, breathless and sweaty. Joker tells him they will be arriving at Omega in twenty minutes, if there's anything he needs to do before they go.
He thanks his pilot and scrubs a hand over his face. He got a few hours of sleep, and he'd been asleep for two years, but his eyelids are heavy with grit. His heart returns to a normal rhythm, thoughts of falling dispersing.
He's never been afraid of heights or falling, and he's not going to start now.
This will pass, eventually.
He's the great Commander Shepard, after all. He can't be having nightmares about something as simple as falling.
He shakes it off and heads toward his new bathroom. The old Captain's Cabin never had one of these. It's a nice touch, but unnecessary. Then again, he doesn't really want the crew to see him like this. It's bad enough he has these scars; they don't need to see him shaken from a nightmare.
Pathetic.
He heads toward his private terminal in his room after he's done using the bathroom and splashing water over his face, checking for new messages.
From: Councilor Anderson
On the off chance the rumors are true and you actually are alive, I need you to come and talk to me on the Citadel. A lot has changed in the last two years. You put me on the Council, and it's only fair that you be allowed to speak for yourself about what we've been hearing.
He stares at the message for a long time. Explain what they've been hearing. He just woke up and he has to explain himself? To Anderson? To the Council? He sacrificed a lot of humans to save the Council. He didn't do it lightly. He didn't even do it for the right reasons. He did it because he might need their help in this war one day, and better to have them owe him a favor.
Now they want him to explain himself. For what? Being revived? As if he had any say in the matter!
He scrubs a hand across his face, sighing. He's too irritated to respond to Anderson right now. If he decides to go to the Citadel, he'll deal with him then. Right now… he just can't deal with this.
He scrolls through the other messages. One about a mercenary he can track down; the other about a thief. He's collecting a mercenary and a thief for his team. He can't help but feel this is the wrong course of action. How is he supposed to be able to trust any of these people? Or earn their trust in return? Mercenaries are just hired guns, but worse than what Jacob is. They don't care who they kill. Jacob's doing this for what he thinks is the right reason. That makes all the difference.
And a thief…
He already has enough to worry about without adding a thief to that list.
Lingering here won't help, though. He scrolls through the messages again.
Normandy Crash Site Located.
His body freezes, then, spine snapping taut. He's not sure he's even breathing for a long moment, before he manages to regain clarity. He's not floating over a planet anymore; he's not gasping for air that's not there. He's fine. The Normandy was a ship, not a person, and not him. He has no reason to feel this way over a dead ship.
It was his ship, and he loves ships and technology, but even so, it's nothing to get worked up over. He knew the ship was dead. All he's going to find at the crash site are memories of a life killed two years ago.
He ignores that message for now.
Right now he needs to focus on finding Mordin Solus, and beginning to form his team and a way to take down the Collectors.
Recruiting Mordin Solus is… easier than he thought. The scientist agrees to help them if they help him disperse a cure for the plague. They succeed, and he joins them without protest.
He knows he should get the mercenary and Archangel while he's there, but he figures his team needs rest. They can regroup later today, or tomorrow. He's been moving nonstop since he woke up at that Cerberus base; a little relaxation might help. Then again, the Collectors are taking human colonies; there might not be time to rest.
Or not.
He's honestly not sure of anything at this point.
He spends a lot of time alone in his cabin on the upper deck of the ship. There's a large fish tank as a wall but there's nothing in it. It's just water glistening in the light of the room. It's a nice room, large and equipped with a bed, couch, and desk for all of his needs, even a bathroom and shower. It's more than the old Normandy had.
There's a picture of Kaidan on his desk. He barely glanced at it before, too tired to think about much of anything, but now he picks it up and looks it over. He remembers this being on his desk on the first Normandy, after he and Kaidan got together. He wonders, briefly, how Cerberus got their hands on this picture but finds he's oddly grateful. Grateful for the reminder of what he had, and yet also angry. Because it's only been a few days for him – two years for everyone else.
The Illusive Man said they moved on, his old crew. Tali certainly did. Kaidan must have as well. He's not sure what to think about this, so he pushes it away and puts Kaidan's picture back down. Maybe when this is over, he'll see where he stands with Kaidan. Until then, he has a job to do.
He opens up a few of his messages, ignoring the one from Anderson, and the one regarding the Normandy's crash site. There's a message from the Illusive Man.
From: Illusive Man
Shepard, it might interest you to know I have found another potential asset for your crew. I can't find much about him, but he might prove useful. Go to the Citadel and look for a human named Kiyo Montoya. He should be found in C-Sec. Ask for Bailey, he should know where he is. Good luck.
Great. Another message telling him to go to the Citadel.
I'll go there when I'm damn well ready.
Going there means seeing Anderson and the Council, and attempting to 'explain himself. What is there to explain? The fact he just woke up and he's being accused of being a traitor? How is he going to explain his actions when he was unconscious for two years? Or, rather, dead. Face the facts, he tells himself. He died. How he is alive now is a miracle, but thinking about it doesn't help. He's not sure he wants to know how Cerberus made this happen.
He pushes to his feet. He needs to get out of this room.
Mordin is hyperactive, to put it nicely. It's a quick walk to the tech area, where Mordin's set up shop and has already started looking for a way to counteract the paralyzing agents of the 'swarm' the Collectors are using. He also has some ideas for some ship upgrades, which is a good idea since they are going to ultimately attempt to go through the unmapped Omega 4 Relay. They will need all the help they can get to make it through there in one piece and even have a prayer of coming out alive.
This is a suicide mission.
It's not the first time he's thought this since he woke up, but it's the first time it really hits him. Indecision rushes through him. Is he doing the right thing? Is the crew well informed? Do they know this is probably a suicide mission, and they probably won't make it back out alive? They must know, he tells himself, because they weren't forced to come here, they decided to on their own. They can leave at any time if they feel like it. He won't force anyone to stay.
Not for the first time, he misses his old crew.
Dying wasn't his decision.
The fact he might have been brought back only to die again…
It, too, feels a lot like falling.
A/N: And there's that first chapter :D Hope it sounds okay, please let me know! Thanks for reading and please review!
~Muffy the Dough Slayer~