Warning: violent imagery, disturbing imagery
Drifting. Helpless. She watched the Normandy disintegrate in flares of orange and white, unable to make a sound as the air was sucked from her lungs. Ice crystals, sharp as razors, formed in her throat, in her lungs, slicing through tissue. She struggled. She was dy-
There had been bravery in his voice, conviction and acceptance, but that hadn't made it any easier. Neither had the knowledge that his death had been instantaneous. Kaidan was go-
It had only been thirty minutes, the longest thirty minutes of her life, but they were already down to half strength. The maws trilled to each other, excited by this feast of rich flesh. She was wounded; the side of her face, sticky with blood, throbbed in time with her heartbeat. Her CO had been the last to go. He'd screamed at her to save him before he was set upon by a maw and swallowed who-
The sun shone, cheery and bright, in a perfectly clear, perfectly forget-me-not blue sky. The grass was green and lush, the air warm and sultry. The day had started out so beautifully… She clutched her sister's hand, not stopping despite the ache in her lungs and the burning in her legs, not turning despite the gunfire and screaming behind her. Then her sister was suddenly an anchor, dragging her down as she fell, the abrupt halt of motion nearly pulled her arm from its socket. She hadn't been ready for her sister to fall. Her face struck the ground and she tasted blood. Dazed, she struggled onto her knees. They couldn't stop. They had to get up. She turned, reaching for her sister's hand, and the little girl's name died before it even left her throat. One glassy hazel eye peered up at her. The other was gone, obliterated by the bullet that had bored through her sister's sku-
Betty Shepard sputtered; the flailing of her limbs jerked her out of her slumber and she bolted upright in bed. Her shirt clung to her, soaked in sweat, and there was a sour taste on her tongue, like bile. The glowing clock beside her bed told her it was just after three in the morning. She kicked the covers off and was heading for the door when she stopped dead in her tracks. Right. She was under house arrest, locked in her room after 2200 hours.
The woman turned on her heel and walked over to the windows. Snowflakes were drifting lazily passed the dark glass, promising cold, fresh air. But the windows didn't open, she discovered. The Alliance didn't want their detainees jumping to their deaths. Shepard paced the room, stomach churning, beads of sweat rolled down the back of her neck. Panic, the need to get out, welled up inside her. She glanced at her comm, debated calling her watchdog, and dismissed the idea. He was the last person she wanted to see right now. Shepard ran her fingers through her tangled hair, still staring at the comm. She had to get out of here. Now. The woman hesitated a moment more, then called the only person she could think of.
The comm's screen blinked on, revealing Anderson wearing blue and white striped pyjamas, and looking groggy. He passed one hand over his face, "Shepard?"
The woman could feel the cords in her neck standing out. She spoke in a tight, hoarse voice that she hardly recognized as her own. "Sir, I need to get out of here. Now."
The sleepiness cleared from Anderson's eyes, giving away to alertness and concern, "I'll be right down."
The comm blinked off and Shepard crossed the room, quickly putting on her boots and tying the laces into sloppy bows with trembling fingers. Donning a grey zip-up over her tank top, she paced back and forth in front of the door like a caged animal.
Anderson showed up ten minutes later, still wearing his pyjamas along with a dark blue dressing gown and scuffed slippers. He moved swiftly aside as Shepard blew passed him.
"I need to be outside."
The man nodded, "We'll go up to the roof."
Alliance HQ was no different from the many buildings that encircled it, having a rooftop garden that provided greenery in a city that had very little of it. At the height of summer, it was a popular place to have lunch. Now, in the dead of winter, in the middle of the night, it was utterly deserted and covered in an ever-deepening layer of snow. Some of the bare, scraggly trees had Christmas lights twisted in their branches, but they hadn't been hooked up and the trees were dark. Light in the garden was provided by the cheery glow in the windows of surrounding buildings.
Shepard stood in the middle of the garden, gulping in breaths of freezing air. She shivered, more from adrenaline than the cold. The panic was slowly but surely leaving her body, being expelled with every breath of air. Anderson stood some distance away with his arms folded over his chest, looking down at the sea of city lights below.
"You don't have to stand out here with me," Shepard said, pulling up her hood as she came to stand beside him.
"I know," Anderson replied. He didn't move, and a little smile quirked the corner of Shepard's mouth. "Here," he removed a battered pack of cigarettes and a lighter from the pocket of his dressing gown, "figured you'd need one of these."
"Thanks. Haven't had one of these in… six years, probably." Shepard took a cigarette from the pack and stuck it between her lips, lighting it up.
"Only been a few weeks for me," Anderson said, removing one as well then leaning toward Shepard so she could light it for him.
"Guess that's my fault," she said, smirking a little.
"Pretty much," Anderson teased.
Their brief laughter tapered off into silence. Shepard flicked the ash from her cigarette, watching the snowflakes drift passed her vision, but not really seeing them. The drone of passing skycars just barely registered in her mind.
"I was- I di-," she said, exhaling smoke out through her nose. Anderson was silent, but Shepard knew he was listening. "And you know the thing that shocked me the most wasn't the fact that I'd been gone for two years… or that my tattoos had been obliterated." Unconsciously, her fingers brushed against her inner right forearm, the place where her most cherished tattoo had once existed. "It was seeing myself in the mirror for the first time since I d— I made it off Akuze alive, but I was still pretty ripped up. I had a hole the size of a fucking golf ball in my cheek. Three of the guys on the rescue transport lost their chow at the sight of me. And even after all those surgeries I had a goddamn crater in my face." She flicked her cigarette butt away and it landed in a drift of snow, snuffing out with a brief hissing sound. "When I looked in the mirror, when I saw my face whole and smooth again, it was like… having a stranger looking back at me. I wondered if I was really me. I saw that same look on your face when I came to the Presidium. You were wondering if I was really who I said I was."
Anderson mulled this over, taking a long pull on his cigarette. Somewhere in the distance, a car horn blared. Snow settled on Shepard's nose and in her eyelashes, and she irritably brushed it away.
"I admit that seeing… the new you was a shock at first, but as your enemies have learned, you're not so easy to wipe out. It didn't take me long to see that it was still you, Shepard – no matter how you looked on the outside." He extinguished his cigarette stub on the lid of a nearby garbage bin.
"So, not a clone and not an AI who thinks it's Shepard?" she asked, only somewhat jokingly.
Anderson shook his head sharply, "Never. You can't clone everything, and no AI could ever mimic your life, your experiences, your spirit – you're you. Trust me… Betty."
Her throat contracted and Shepard nodded, her mouth twisting a little, "Thank-you, sir - Anderson."
"Ready to head back inside?"
"I-" She almost told him, almost confessed that she'd been dreaming about her sister's death again, after not dreaming about it for so long. But instead she buried it down deep, along with the other unpleasant thoughts she never wanted to think about again. "-Yeah, let's go."