A Broken Frame, Chapter 1

Commander Jane Shepard sat in her cabin, watching the fish in the tank swim about with their colorful fins rippling lazily in the faint artificial current. As she watched, a piece of synthetic coral floated to the surface, and the dye was slowly turning the water purple. Shepard made a mental note to remind Kelly about that later.

As she slowly let her mind clear, Shepard became aware of an incessant tapping noise coming from the table. She looked down and realized she was drumming on the reinforced plastic. Slowly, very deliberately, she allowed her hand to go limp. The tapping stopped.

Then Shepard got up and went over to her terminal. She had a feeling that it would be empty, but she was still holding onto that little hope that Kaidan had sent her another message. As she approached the desk, her feet crunched over broken glass.

Shepard looked down again. The little holoframe on her desk had apparently been upset in the Collector mission, and it lay in pieces on the floor. She picked it up and winced as a shard of glass sliced into her hand. Kaidan's face still flickered feebly in the display, but there was no question now that the frame was ruined. Shepard threw the pieces away and held her bloody palm under the cool water from the sink, watching numbly as blood streamed from the gash in her hand into the drain. It felt like her life, slowly oozing out of her and sinking into God-knows-where. This apathy scared Shepard a little. Why was she thinking like this? She should be jubilant that the Collectors had been crushed. There was the apprehension of what the Illusive Man would do with their base, but shouldn't she be feeling less like a zombie and more like a human being?

Jane racked her brains to think of what might help her, already knowing the answer. But somehow she couldn't grasp her fingers around it. What would be the point of going back to the Citadel on a potential wild goose chase? And why, pray, did she want to see Kaidan again when he'd made it clear that he'd moved on? That she'd moved on?

Well, she'd almost moved on.

"Jacob!" she screamed. "Jacob!"

For a split second their eyes met. Shepard could still see him, scrabbling for purchase on the smooth platform. It did no good. The fact was that they were falling, and soon Shepard, Jacob, and Zaeed would be following the human-Reaper to its death.

Shepard opened her mouth to scream as Jacob disappeared over the edge, but suddenly he was hanging from her grip on his arm. She met his eyes again. Suddenly she was back in the present. With a single effort, she pulled him up.

A shadow appeared over the three of them. Shepard looked up to see another platform flying towards them and the world went black.

Shepard resisted the urge to cry over Jacob Taylor. He'd died a hero. He'd died quickly, painlessly—she hoped. And yet…

Shepard didn't know what she had felt, standing over the coffin of the man she'd tried to love. She didn't know if she'd felt anything. It scared her, this lack of feeling. Maybe the Collectors had taken more than her life. Maybe they'd taken her consciousness away, too.

Jacob, Jack, Samara—those were only the fighters who had met their demise on the Collector base. Thousands more had died on that piece of Reaper technology. Maybe that was part of the reason why Shepard had decided to leave it for Cerberus, so they could get proper burials. These people, whoever they once were, deserved proper sendoffs.

Jane's hand started to feel numb. Good, she thought. Just like the rest of her. But then she pulled her hand from the water and stared at herself in the mirror.

The cybernetics were gone. Doctor Chakwas' tech had made sure of that. But she still felt like her face was laced with glowing orange scars. Her short brown hair was disheveled from nights of chaotic sleep. Her blue eyes were clouded with tiredness and pain.

It was a while before Jane became aware of someone standing behind her. She turned around and found herself staring at Yeoman Chambers.

"Are you all right, Commander?" she asked. "You haven't left the cabin since we returned from the Collector base. Is there anything you want to talk about?"

It took a few seconds for Shepard to remember that Kelly also served as the Normandy's incognito shrink. She shook her head.

"No, but thanks for the offer. I just need…to think, I guess."

Kelly nodded, but Shepard knew she didn't buy the story. She turned and left the bathroom, leaving Kelly standing alone as she went down to the second deck. She needed to do something, soon, or she would go crazy.