i'm not even playing me3 right now i just restarted me2 and i haven't even recruited mordin yet what am i doing why am i giving myself these feels
i won't even rewatch his death scene so i probably screwed things up beyond what i intentionally changed
It takes her a second to realize what he's doing, and when it does her stomach turns into a rock and suddenly she can't breathe.
Not that it was much of a surprise, really; she'd had a bad feeling about this mission from the start. Someone was going to die today, she just hadn't been sure who, and so she had shoved the premonition to the back of her mind and stubbornly ignored it.
Shows what she knew.
And so she dashes into the crumbling tower after him, into the Shroud, hot tears pricking at her eyes as she chokes out his name. She's lost too many people and she won't lose any more, not when they've come this far. Kaidan, Miranda, Kelly, Ken, Gabby, and so many others, too many others...
Call her selfish, but Shepard doesn't think she'd be able to stand another death.
When he turns around, his strange, dark eyes widen for barely a second, and then his face eases into that warm, familiar smile and it almost breaks her heart. Maybe it had, and she just didn't realize it.
"You can't," she pleads, snatching up his three-fingered hand in hers. Their armor knocks together loudly, even over the fire and the sirens and the worrying creaking of the Shroud. "We were going to fight the Reapers, you have to stay, we can't do it without you-"
She knows she's babbling like a child and her face is wet with tears and sweat beneath her helmet, but Mordin still keeps that patient little smile. It seems almost practiced in its effortlessness, and if she looked a little closer she might have been able to see the strain beneath it. "Shepard," he says, but she either doesn't hear or is too far to care.
"I don't even know what songs you know! And Garrus keeps getting this weird look when children are mentioned- who's going to try and talk me through that, if you're not there?"
Carefully, he extracts his hands from hers and her mouth snaps shut, staring up at him with wide, wet eyes from behind her visor. She's never really noticed how tall he was before now; he'd always been hunched over a datapad or microscope or pacing to quickly for her to really pay attention.
"Will be fine," he says firmly, seemingly completely at peace with his impending demise. "Can do more good here than in a lab, Shepard."
And she reaches out for him as he heads toward the elevator, her hand shaking. "Why?" she asks feebly, and there's so many questions in that one word, but he knows exactly which one she meant.
"Had to be me," he says matter-of-factly as the glass shuts behind him. She speaks the last words with him. "Someone else might have gotten it wrong."