Psychicfiredemoness: Alright…taking a break from my usual fandom, and genre, to write a Mass Effect one-shot in celebration of ME2 coming out on Tuesday. Well, I don't own a thing, hope you enjoy.
Reasons
It should have been me down there Commander!
Ashley's voice rang out over and over again in Shepard's head; she just couldn't shake it, nor could she shake the guilt over Kaidan's death. The death she had caused by leaving him down on Virmire with the nuke.
She heaved a sigh and sat up from her bed. The events after boarding the Normandy played back in her mind for the hundredth time. There had been pain and she had given reasons to her choice regarding Lieutenant Alenko. Her reasons had all been lies.
Though Shepard had become more and more attached to him she hadn't been able to leave Ashley down there when the nuke went off. Ashley had something Kaidan did not, and if he did he didn't mention it; she had a family. Shepard remembered what that was like, to have a family. But that was before she was a Spectre, before the Blitz and even before the Alliance had saved her from Mindoir.
"Mindoir," she repeated aloud. Just the utter made her chest tighten as she remembered that day; the sounds of gunfire and screaming and the acrid smell of burning flesh seemed so fresh even now.
No, she couldn't have let Ashley be sacrificed, even if she had lost someone she was coming to love. She refused to put the Williams' family though that, she was just one person and the pain of loss had almost been too much to bear, she couldn't imagine an entire family in that much pain, and from what Ashley had told her the Williams girls were closer than the entire Shepard family had ever been.
"I'm sorry Kaidan," Shepard said quietly. She lowered her face to her hands and cried only a few tears; when the mission was over she would grieve properly for him, it was the least he deserved from her.
"Commander, we're coming into the Citadel," Joker said over the intercom.
End
Psychic: And there is my attempt, hopefully a couple of you enjoyed it.