posted originally on the Archive of Our Own at /works/836782.
do you ever just get to the point where you look at a fic and think "i literally can do nothing more with this"
that is basically what happened here.
She is three years old, watching a sun roll by through the visor of an atmo helmet. She is twenty nine years old, burning above Alchera. She is nine on break from school, lashing out at her mother's subordinate and hurling him twenty feet with her biotics. She is twenty three, scrabbling across the dirt of Akuze, and she is thirty calling the mother of the thresher maws on Tuchanka. The fear is relentless, in the half-shadowed place where she walks. There are half-grown daisies that sprout teeth and burning abacuses and a child that runs just out of reach.
She is a scrappy ten year old with a broken arm wandering empty cobblestone paths. Sheis distantly certain that somewhere there is a way out and that she had been trying to find out, but here there is no one wanting anything. There is only stone turning to sand. She watches the surf for the time it takes the sun overhead to explode and die, aware only that the seashells are bright in the water.
She walks into the water. It's cool on her feet.
The window is open.
The woman in the bed is restrained at the wrist with very loose loops of cloth, just enough to keep her restless hands from pulling on the IV in her elbow. The most she has moved on her own in two years is no more than fidgeting her fingers. She doesn't look dead or asleep, just slack-faced and pale. The breeze comes in the window. Her hair moves.
Shepard sneezes and opens her eyes.
The young nurse beside the bed, idly arranging chrysanthemums in a little vase. Shepard squeezes her fingers into fists and stretches them out again, inhaling sharply through her nose. The nurse turns at the blanket crinkling and freezes at Shepard's tiny struggles to move.
"Oh, Christ," the nurse says. Shepard stops moving, unconscious, but responds when the nurse touches her foot. The doctor is not impressed; he wants to see it for himself. Shepard clearly says, "Don't do that" nearly a month later and the doctor nearly shits his pants in surprise.
"Hold up two fingers," he says. Shepard doesn't open her eyes, but she lifts an entire hand.
"Christ," the doctor says.
"Shut up," Shepard groans, and then she's asleep again.
"It's incredible," the doctor says to Hannah Shepard, hours later when he's managed to bluster through Alliance terminal wait lines with judicious use of the name Shepard. "Your daughter is awake. She's responsive. It's an incredible loop, it's like fireworks going off."
Hannah Shepard's face on the screen shows no emotion, but that's the quality of the picture at work. She nods tightly.
"I'll be there," she says. Alliance Command respects Hannah Shepard and her daughter-as they well fucking should, she thinks-and the request for a week's leave is cleared in less than three weeks. It's an absurdly short turnover period, but no less than Hannah expected.
Nora opens her eyes, but she can't see anything; she thinks it's not too different from the last time she woke up from the dead, but then can't muster the memories the thought is connected to. There are voices overhead, both familiar in different ways; one she has heard recently, and the other not since another memory she can't find, but the half-forgotten voice makes noises that almost sound like Shepard could understand them if she tried enough. She floats instead, closely examining discarded objects and a distant skyline. There is a dirt path that goes as far as the galaxy, and a closet off to the right full of anti-materiel rifles, and an orange tent.
"Do you know why you're here?" Hannah Shepard says. Nora rolls around, like a lazy kid in a pool.
"Yeah. I've been kidnapped."
Hannah looks entirely baffled. Shepard wonders if it's because she's floating and people don't float. She stops floating, but Hannah still looks baffled.
"There was an accident."
Shepard nods. That sounds about right, even if the size and shape of the accident seem a lot bigger.
"Can you look at me, baby?"
Shepard opens her eyes and becomes a person again, and then opens her eyes for real. A woman is bent over in a chair, forearms resting on the bed rail.
"Five finger poultry," Shepard says dizzily. "Oleander floating castles, three cups of coffee."
"Do you know your name?"
Shepard pulls gently on the restraints, taking in the circumference of her wrists.
"Sh," she manages, but stops in confusion at the sound of her voice. It's high and reedy like a little girl. After a moment she realizes the man by the door is expecting an answer, and continues, "Shepard."
"And your first name?"
With supernatural effort, Shepard drags the name "Nora" out.
"Who," she manages. "This? Bedlam. Chakwas?"
"You're in the hospital," the man says. The woman takes Shepard's hand and doesn't speak, but the strain on her face is obvious. "What do you remember?"
"Beachhead landing," Shepard says ponderously, groaning. "Mine."
"The Normandy?" the woman offers. Shepard looks at her closely, squinting to focus her eyesight. Mother, she thinks, and curls her fingers limply around her mother's.
"Yeah," Shepard says hoarsely. "Normandy. Space...squid?"
"You killed them all," her mother says. Shepard relaxes, and goes off to hunt down her guns. She killed all the Reapers, like she was Death itself, and it's immensely satisfying to think about. She can't remember much of anything else, but she knows she shot a lot of things. There must be more things around here to shoot.
Shepard has questions: why am I here, why am I tied down, where is my ship? She finds the closet again. Under all the AMRs is a pistol, which she takes, checking carefully to see if the safety is on before examining it. She doesn't remember learning to take a gun apart and inspect the parts, but she does it with the ease of long practice. Soon enough the pistol is stripped and then rebuilt and Shepard is staring at a painting of cornflowers and knows she was dreaming.
"Projectile," she says fiercely to the nurse who comes in at lunchtime, startling him so badly that he drops his tray. "Five finger handhold to the head."
"You can't have a gun," the nurse says after several minutes of trying to figure out what Shepard is saying. It took several increasingly frustrating attempts to get the point across; she has the same words as everyone else, but apparently everyone else isn't receiving the right words.
"E.T." Shepard says insistently, reluctantly accepting that she won't get a gun. The nurse unties her hands at least, and she can roll enough to look out the window. "E.T."
"I don't understand," the nurse says. "I'm sorry. You're not making sense."
"Phone home!"
"I don't-"
"I said my mother," Shepard says viciously.
The nurse still doesn't understand, but Hannah comes in that afternoon anyway. Now that she stays awake for a few hours at a time, Shepard is moved to rehab. Her mother is back to active duty, but the terminals are easier to use than a phone, and her mother answers email promptly, even the one-line questions about shifty memories.
Her first word was "no"; she has friends, but they're all busy and Hannah will pass on that Shepard is awake; yes, Shepard is kind of a big deal in the world outside the rehab center, that's why everyone knows who she is but not the other way around, but the clinic is top of the lists in discretion and patient protection; yes, she has alien friends; yes, she defeated the Reapers.
Rehab is, in Shepard's uninformed opinion, one of the worst things she has ever experienced. She says this to the doctors and doesn't understand why they laugh sadly. It's different than her time in the navy. Here the schedule chafes because nothing seems to have any purpose, nothing is making a difference, she's still angry and confused and broken. She's about as functional as a newborn, but there's a lingering frustration that says she should be able to do better than slurring and wheelchairs. There are things she can do that don't make sense-how rapidly she improves or declines, her weight, her biotics, her nightmares. It never seems like there's a precedent for anything. Boredom is torture. Shepard knows, on the same level that she knows her mother and her reflection, that she's the kind of person that can only enjoy herself when she's on the run. She craves constant stimulation like a tetchy six year old.
For a week and a half, Shepard does nothing but puzzles and word matching games on a tablet. She has all the time in the world for it, and her verbal ability climbs up sharply. It's barely better than nothing, having to repave her mental highways and constantly backup and restart. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and hot versus cold and oranges don't cut paper, that's scissors. It's ultimately humiliating.
The ultrasounds and x-rays show Shepard is physically well enough to start PT. She can't remember the names of her squadmates or the first ship she lived on, but Shepard can do hamstring stretches and balance boards and stand upright when tightly gripping the parallel bars. It takes weeks even to get to that point; Shepard's never weighed less in her life, but her cybernetics are heavy and her biotics are unpredictable, so when she pushes herself onto all fours she's liable to continue through the motion and keel over.
"Why?" Shepard demands at breakfast. "Here."
"You're in rehab because you compromised seventy percent of your spine before your coma," Dr Sarkazy says patiently. "I know we aren't Huerta, but this is the best care you can get without a six month trip across the relays."
"Thorn," she says. "Spine, I mean."
"Your aphasia is improving," Sarkazy says. "You'll see a counselor for it soon, I promise. I'm waiting for your implant to stabilize. You're still pretty rattled up there, aren't you?"
"Children's toy," Shepard snorts. "Snake."
"Apt, not asp."
"Right."
"Well? Is there anything else you want to ask before you start your day?"
Sarkazy is a sanctimonious prick, Shepard decides, and likes the words even if she's not entirely sure what they mean. It's like being a child.
"No more throwaway underwear," she says. "Not question. The...opposite."
"Diapers. Alright. If you think you're ready."
Shepard snorts. "Adult."
"Alright. As you like, Shepard. Ultimately, your recovery is going to come down to how much you're willing to fight."
Shepard lifts her eyebrows and drinks her soup with a straw. She's fought before.
"Scar tissue breaking up," PT says when she bends her knee and it snaps. Shepard swears at the top of her lungs.
"I can sit up and feed myself," Shepard says to her mother, slow and careful and deliberate. She feels a bit like a first grader hunting for approval, but the doctor seemed satisfied enough that she's managed that much in a month. "I can stand. Tomorrow I'm going to take a step and probably break my leg."
"I'm not a fan of Cerberus, but they did an excellent job with you."
"What did Cerberus do with me?"
"You can't remember?"
"Not yet. No one will tell me. And I can't look myself up."
Hannah sighs. She looks, suddenly, like she's facing the end of the world again.
"There are reasons for that. Things you should know for yourself before you find them by accident. It's...probably safer that you haven't quite figured out a lot of what happened to you. You...had some awful experiences during the war, Nora. Worse than most of us."
"I know I died," Shepard says on a gamble. It takes her three times as long as it should to say it, but it's worth the effort for her mother's reaction, and then the triumph goes stale when Hannah sighs exhaustedly.
"You did. Almost five years ago now. This is...difficult to talk about."
"Plain difficult to talk," Shepard says humorlessly. "I want this to be over with. I want to...to heat food and chew it. I want my ship."
"You've been discharged, I can tell you that much."
"Mom..."
"It really is good to hear that again." Hannah smiles. "I'm sorry, kid. I love you and I want to keep you around. You died on me twice. If I give you an extranet comm address, do you promise you'll contact it for me?"
"Who?"
"A couple of your old squadmates set up a chatroom. They've been waiting for you to be able to make sense."
"I can talk fine!"
"Yes, yes, okay. But they miss you. Maybe as much as I did. Maybe more, in some cases. Will you at least go in and say hello?"
"Alright!"
"Okay. I love you."
"I love you too."
Shepard touches her omnitool, sent with the regards of the crew of the SSV Orizaba. The omnitool is another thing that has familiar actions associated with it, but there's nothing to hack here and no one is sending her emails but her mother. After a little trouble, she finds the comm, and types in the address easily. Letters are easier to grasp than words, and letters make words when they're typed. Typing is so much easier than speaking.
NORA SHEPARD has entered: [chat room] at 1100 LOCAL STANDARD TIME
TZ [1101]: Shepard? Is that
TZ You're awake?
NS[[1101]: yes
TZ: It's Tali!
NS: yes
Am I imagining things, or did you become a dragon?
NS: dragon
?
TZ: I mean parrot. Probably.
NS: no
TZ: Is it easier to just say yes and no?
NS: yes
TS: My, what a change. You're usually so full of words.
NS: hilarious
TS: I was hoping you'd also forgotten you didn't think I'm funny.
NS: sometimes do
TS: Forget?
NS: funny
TZ: Oh.
NS: what you want me to do
NS: find you a standup
TZ: I don't know what that is.
NS: comedian
NS: maybe just earth
TZ: I imagine it is. Are you bored?
NS: always
No guns?
NS: no
TZ: That's barbaric. How long have you been awake and nothing's blown up?
NS: yes
NS three months
TZ: Not as long as the last time you didn't bother to tell anyone. Small mercies. Like Christmas.
NS: yes
TZ: Do you want me to send you some things to read until you blow something up by accident?
NS: yes
TZ: You have to read them.
NS: yes ok
TZ sent : [purposely unnamed file, no cheating shepard]
NS: thanks
TZ: I have to go shout at idiots until they listen to me, so finish that and tell me what you think.
NS: idiots
TZ: Admirals.
NS: shout
TZ: Learned it from the best.
NS: the best
TZ: Are you
Fishing
For compliments? Is that the word?
NS: yes
both
TZ: I see. Yes, I learned that from you.
NS: ok
bye tali
They tell her it is unlikely that she'll ever fully regain control of all her motor functions, that she'll likely never walk or talk the same and that she'll need some kind of feeding tube for the next few years. Shepard is sloppily feeding herself within two weeks, spilling more out of the bowl with her shaky hands than she gets into her mouth. When they sedate her to put the feeding tube back in she rips it out and retches until the pinch is gone. She wants nothing to do with this medical coddling the doctors are calling rehabilitation. It's pointless when she can remember how things are supposed to be done. It might take her forty five minutes to do a thirty second task, but she gets it done under her own power, and she's practicing fine motor control again within the month.
"You're facing a year to four years of physical therapy," the doctors say, Sarkazy and White and Chandara.
"Six months," Shepard says grimly. It happens, if only because when she grips the crutches tightly and drags a thigh forward, her cybernetics will carry the motion forward into a step. Cerberus did a lot of terrible things, but they did an excellent job with Shepard's physical framework. The enhancements make a vast difference: if she stops breathing from neural damage, her lungs keep moving on their own like CPR until she breaths again. Most of the brain damage repaired itself while she was in the coma-Cerberus enhancement at it again-along with all physical evidence of whatever almost killed her for real this time. It means there's a lot of blank tissue to build back up, but it's not four months after waking up before Shepard can haul herself the twelve steps from door to window without wheezing like a marathon runner. Seven months has her breaking up scar tissue and easing into stretches.
Shepard is constantly exhausted and sore. She has patches of dry skin, which are really the least of her problems right now but they're itchy and annoying and she focuses on them when she should be hunting down her crosswords.
"You're going to burn yourself out," Sarkazy says, thin-lipped. His expression reminds Shepard of Mordin, and then she can't find the face to the name. "I'm beginning to wonder if it would have been easier to take you off the ventilator, Shepard. I can't imagine the last two years will have been worth it if you die right out of the gate from walking too hard."
"Ace," Shepard grunts, pulling her knees tightly to her chest and wriggling at the discomfort of bending scar tissue. "I mean. A-okay. I am."
"You slept for thirty seven hours unmedicated."
"Burning midnight oil," she says, swinging her knees to the side while keeping her back flat to the floor. Low in her spine a vertebrae clicks satisfyingly. "Fell behind. Catching up."
"It's no good pushing yourself if it ends in a backslide."
"Savior, right?"
"Yes, I imagine you know that much."
"Candle burnt at both ends," she says, pausing to inhale heavily and adjust her shoulder position. "Can't-unstoppable. Can do that, can do this."
"Shepard, would you mind holding still while you're talking to me?"
Shepard gives Sarkazy an innocent look, swinging her knees to her other side.
"Sorry," she says, clearly lying. "It helps me concentrate."
"You're showing difficulty multitasking, clearly," Sarkazy says, like he's checking off things on a clipboard. "Can you listen to a radio and talk? Walk and talk?"
Shepard lays out flat on her back, thinning her mouth in irritation.
"Here," she says. "I'll just become a turtle. That is obviously all I need to fix what's wrong with me. Thank you for the advice, doctor."
She barks laughter at the look on Sarkazy's face. He leaves her alone after that, so it was worth it to stop even though it takes five minutes of frenzied wriggling to get off her back.
"Mom," Shepard says that night, when she's managed to wheedle and complain her way into terminal time. "Did I have-someone?"
"What do you mean?" Hannah asks, speaking quickly. There is a lot of leeway for the Rear Admiral mother of the savior of the galaxy, but there are things to be doing and she can only snatch a few moments at a time.
"A...boyfriend or something? I think I did."
"You had-" Hannah glances to the side, swearing, and hovers her hand over the off button. "I've got to go, kid. I'll see if I can get someone to hook you up with a video feed."
"Bye," Shepard says, tucking her mouth as she cuts the call. There was someone, she knows it, can feel the adoration vividly. There's a name-Vakarian-and teeth, but there's nothing else. She watches her omnitool for some time, once again considering hacking into the extranet, but dismisses the idea on realization that she wouldn't believe anything without knowing it first. There are a couple of ancient magazines in the cafeteria, actual paper since the clinic doesn't allow extranet access, well-thumbed and occasionally damp, with photos of a younger, muscular Shepard. Current Shepard is a lumbering, awkward beast. Previous Shepard was well-muscled and well-armed, confident and strong.
Her omnitool blips with the bright tinkling noise of an incoming video call. Curious and starved for communication, she opens the window and is only somewhat surprised to see an alien on the other side.
"Well," she says. "You know, I'd almost convinced myself aliens weren't real."
"Shepard?"
The alien's voice strikes a chord of familiarity the same way that Hannah and the Normandy had, deep and intrinsic. A possession, almost, a thing to be cherished and taken care of. Her responsibility.
"Are you Vakarian?" Shepard demands.
"In a manner of speaking," he says. "Although I'd say once you've gotten past third-uh, is that the right one?-base you've earned the right to call me Garrus."
"Garrus," Shepard repeats. "Oh, good, I know who you are."
"I hope so."
"No, you don't understand, there are a lot of things that I don't remember. Brain damage."
"It's never stopped you before. It'll come back to you."
"Before?"
"Hmm," Garrus says. It has an interesting double-tone to it. "You really didn't know about the various hard knocks to the head you've taken?"
"No. I mean, I tripped down the stairs earlier."
"I've seen you charge a krogan and knock it to the ground with nothing on your head but a helmet."
"Impressive," Shepard says.
"That was what I said."
Shepard watches Garrus for a moment, familiarizing herself with him. She's already fond of him, although she isn't sure if that's Previous Shepard or Current Shepard. It's possible he'll be an easier nut to crack than her mother or the doctors, if he's already impressed with what she did.
"What are the Reapers?" she asks.
"Sentient starships from beyond the relays," he rattles off. "You killed them all. You know, nothing too major."
Shepard pauses. She hadn't expected that.
"What happened to me?" Shepard says at last, watching Garrus closely. "I don't remember a thing. I barely know who you are. Why am I in the hospital?"
"You should be in a wheelchair, from what I know about humans," he says hoarsely; over the rehab center's awful connection, the flanging in his voice is blunt and obtrusive.
"That's not what I asked you."
"Really, it's not-"
"Garrus, please, no one will tell me anything and it's driving me in circles," Shepard says desperately. "I'm about to hack my way out of here and jump off a building."
"You died," he says. Shepard inhales through her nose.
"You died," he says again. "From what I understand, it was brief this time-I guess even death isn't willing to mess with you, Shepard. Your heart started up again, but you didn't wake up."
He shrugs. She wants to crawl through the screen or scream.
"I thought that people were saying I died as a metaphor."
"They might have been. It was literal, too, though."
"I was in a coma for two years," Shepard says. "Why didn't any of you come to see me? If I'm so important why is the only person I've seen in seven months my mother?"
Garrus looks back over his shoulder-it's a little awkward looking, not quite human, not quite alien, like he picked it up from someone. 'Should I tell her?' he's asking, and then 'Well, yeah, it's Nora, but is it a good idea?" Evidently whoever it is agrees that it is, because he faces Shepard again.
"It's because when you died you destroyed the relays, too. Hearsay has it some of them work to a degree, but the Normandy got kicked out into black space. It's taken us this long to get her going again. Joker thinks it's going to be another year at least before we're in human space-you would not believe how slow FTL seems."
"Christ," Shepard says. "Oh, Christ, I'm sorry."
"Well, if you did it on purpose we're going to have words when I get there," he says.
"I don't think you can prosecute someone if they're unaware of the crime," Shepard says, wanting to make a joke of it before it's too late.
"I'm sure I can think of ways to balance the scales," Garrus drawls, then snaps his mandibles flat to his jaw. "Oh, damn, sorry, you're. You're still. Right."
"I'm just going to," Shepard pauses and drinks from her water bottle, determined to keep drinking until he changes the subject. The moment draws out uncomfortably long. Shepard coughs out water, swiping at her nose as she sets the bottle back down.
"Oh, that didn't help at all," she groans. She rolls one shoulder, watching Garrus shift uncomfortably while she tries sort out her emotions. It's a minor side effect of the aphasia. She knows the feeling, but the name is gone, and with the name is what to do with it. It's a bit anger, she thinks, and possibly regret, and dulled grief.
"You all lied to me," Shepard says after a moment. She hears more than sees Garrus crack; he folds in a little, sighs too loudly. Turians don't sigh to show emotion.
"We left you behind," he says. It sounds like he's repeating something he's overheard. "Joker's taken a little longer to get over it. He'll want to talk to you himself about that, but it's about the size of the thing. We goddamn left you behind, Shepard. Can you blame a guy for wanting to pretend for a while?"
"No," she says. "But I can blame you for not telling me sooner. And I can blame you for coddling me."
"It wasn't coddling."
"So it was entirely for your own sake?" Shepard demands. More than anything, more than grief and hurt, she wants to see him flinch. She wants to see him give in and talk when no one else will. Give an inch and take a mile, but he doesn't.
"Yes, it was." He sighs again, noisy and forced. "I'll have to talk to you again later. The comms don't stay online for long and this is pushing it."
She flips the screen off without saying goodbye, feeling like a cold wind is tornadoing in her stomach. It wasn't anywhere near as satisfying as she'd expected and worse, she still wants to draw blood. Shepard loves Garrus; at least, she knows she did at one point, and she can see why, but she isn't the Shepard she was, and it's going to take more than a few conversations to remember the Shepard she was. How much of her even remains? Is the Savior of the Citadel and Destroyer of the Reapers anywhere inside of Shepard's cracking scar tissue and aimless fury? She thinks, again, of rebirth and dying. If a soul is reincarnated, what remains of it?
Shepard wonders if a person can wear thin like an old blanket. Joker, she remembers Joker, loud and laughing in the cockpit with EDI, laughing and nervous turning down her half-serious proposition; her crew. Her responsibility. Old habits die hard even after death, apparently. Shepard hunts down Joker's extranet address, piggybacking off of Garrus' signal, and hits the call button before she can chicken out. It's only her pilot, not a sentient starship from dark space beyond the relays.
"How long?" she demands of Joker the moment he answers the voice-only call.
"Shepard?"
"How long were you all going to lie to me?"
"Commander, I left you behind again," Joker says. His voice cracks.
"I told you to go!"
"I didn't have to listen!"
Shepard hangs up before one of them starts to cry. They're grown fucking adults and at least one of them can act like it. She still sort of wants to cry, although she gets the sense that this is not a common Shepard reaction to things.
"What the hell," Shepard shrieks, quiet time be damned. Out of sheer frustration she gives in and laboriously hacks her way to the extranet through the rehab center's firewalls. It takes the better part of five hours squinting at her omnitool, but Shepard is rewarded with shoddy video of herself running pell-mell at a Reaper, shoving Garrus and EDI onto the Normandy. In the last few seconds of one video, she sees the small black-and-red figure of her armor blasted aside with a noise like thunder and the video fizzles into static. Shepard looks at Harbinger again, struck by the familiarity of it, wondering how she knows the name when she doesn't know her birthdate sometimes. She has to hunch over with her head between her knees when she pictures the Citadel. Anderson.
"Oh, god," Shepard says. "Anderson. Anderson. Shit."
She hates the Normandy for a split second with every fibre of her being; Garrus wasn't there, he doesn't understand, Anderson is dead, the bodies were slumped like toys, and raw aching grief finally surfaces and Shepard remembers everything. Shepard shrieks once, violently, at the top of her lungs, and kicks the doorpost gently with the inside of her foot.
"I'm dismissing myself," Shepard says the moment the doctor comes to investigate her apparent psychotic break. "I mean it, I'm leaving, I'll lose my mind if I'm here for another minute."
"You've got to wait twenty four hours for the paperwork to clear."
"That's acceptable."
Shepard paces for most of the next twelve hours. It's good practice for her gait, still awkward and rollicking like a seasick ship, and it's easier to think about the Catalyst when she's moving. Christ, an AI pretending to be a child. She can't imagine that any of it really happened, but she knows it did. She won't deny things that were forgotten for so long. A clone, for God's sake, how ridiculous. She won't sleep, but consents to grimly shoveling a bowl of noodles down her throat.
Morning comes slowly. It hasn't been twenty four hours, but Shepard harasses and wheedles and promises her way out of the clinic. She says her mother is coming. She says she'll take her prescriptions to get filled. She says yes, of course, she has a place to go.
Shepard stands on the street of the megatropolis in a poorly-fitted button down and pants, staring up at the sky. The sun is up and the sky is clear. Birds chatter from speakers.
"Excuse me," she says to the first person that passes. "Do you know if there are any crocodiles?"
"Commander Shepard?" the woman wants to know, looking baffled. "Aren't you in a coma?"
"Yes," Shepard says patiently. "As a matter of fact, I am, and this is a hallucination. But I want to know about the crocodiles, if you don't mind?"
"Right," she says. "Yes, of course. You're fucking with me."
"Yes, well done. You've solved the mystery."
"Right-" the woman looks down at her omnitool, eyebrows pulled into a deep V. "-uh, I think there are. There's a zoo somewhere back east I think? Look, um, Commander, do you want a cup of coffee or a sweater or something? It's kind of cold."
Shepard purses her lips, considering. "Sure. Where to?"
"Right here," the woman says, jerking her head to the side. "I mean inside this door. I'm on my way to work but I don't think my boss will be too angry that I'm late when I have Commander Shepard with me."
Mildly suspicious, Shepard follows the woman into the tiny coffee shop. There are posters on the walls and tile on the floor; it's all quite reassuringly normal. There's another woman behind the counter, sleeves rolled up and a cup in one hand.
"Marta, you're late," the other woman says mildly. Marta shrugs off her jacket, hanging it up on a hook, and passes Shepard an enormous wooly sweater from under the counter. Shepard pulls it on, itching her elbow, and looks down at herself. The sweater is big enough to fit a hanar in.
"Yes, but look, do you know who this is?"
The woman surveys Shepard briefly.
"No."
"Commander Shepard."
Shepard grins obligingly, the same face she always makes for cameras and recruiting posters and al-Jilani. The woman jerks upright.
"You don't goddamn say. Marta, go bring the water hot, we've got a frigging guest."
Several cups later, Shepard sits at the counter, a grim set to her mouth as she goes about lifting a cup of tea to her mouth. The liquid pitches and yaws, scattering hot droplets everywhere, making Shepard a little seasick by the time she gets any of it down.
"Listen, girl, you find what you're going to do now and you do it," Hero says gamely, several hours later. Marta's boss is the brusque kind of woman that gives the impression of being much older. Hero's a woman after Shepard's own heart. It's not like she has anywhere else to be.
"Goddamn," Shepard says, banging the side of her fist off the kiosk. She's a little tipsy, Marta and Hero a little-to-a-lot, and she can't get the coding to line up right in a three dimensional axis. "I'm just. I have very localized interests, alright. I can shoot a gun and punch a krogan to death and I was born in space. I don't think I can apply that skillset to much."
"From what I seen you don't have much to say, am I right?"
"What? No, of course not. I talk about everything."
"Not opinion wise, girl, verbal wise."
"Politically savvy, bossy big mouth seeks life purpose," Shepard says, mulling over a block of code before shutting the kiosk down entirely and returning to the never-ending process of sucking up tea through a straw without spilling. "Must be tolerant of verbal frailties and jumpy trigger finger."
"Maybe you should find something to do in space. Aren't you a Spectre or whatever?"
"I don't totally remember what happened about that, but it makes me want to die," Shepard says darkly. "I really am not interested in the idea of returning to active duty. Or whatever. I want to see what it's like to stay in one place for more than a year and a half."
"So do that," Marta says enthusiastically. "Tell everyone you're awake and then no one will be worried and you can just live for the rest of your life."
"Living has a certain appeal," Shepard says thoughtfully, though she has to pause between words to get her train of thought straight. "Maybe I'll retire for real. I'm not even active service, you know?"
"We know," Hero says sagely, tapping the back of her wrist like her omnitool is lit up. Shepard floats her teacup around her head, reaching for the fine control of her biotics she'd once had. It can't be that hard to find it again. Muscle memory doesn't just disappear. The teacup goes winging away to the opposite wall anyway. The hard plastic doesn't shatter, but it does dent the wall.
"I'm going to be completely average," Shepard says, determined. "For as long as it's feasible, anyway. I'm surprised your floor didn't collapse when I sat."
Life comes surprisingly easy to Shepard. She doesn't go out much, too disturbed by open sky and ground at her feet, but sits in Marta and Hero's handkerchief backyard and squints at the sun. She rakes with her biotics, feeling like a high schooler skipping class. She whips small objects at targets and then curves them back around so they don't shatter, trying to catch them in her hands. Eventually she takes to hurling herself off of stairs and curving herself to the ground. She hits hard the first two dozen times but after that she doesn't sprain an ankle anymore and calls it a win.
One foot after another, Shepard thinks. She talks now and then on the comms with her crew, she gives interviews to strictly vetted reporters, she screams herself hoarse at Alliance brass. She drinks cold tea and, while her sleep needs to be medicated for the nightmares, she sleeps for ten hour blocks at a time. Her muscles shape up long and lean, her body forms up healthy again.
Shepard's main delight over these months is grocery shopping: comparing labels, clipping coupons (they're nearly all digital, but she likes to print them out and handle them), but then things start exploding again and Shepard is honestly terrible at all things domestic. She crashes the lawn mower-it hovers, it should handle like the Mako, and unfortunately for everyone it does-and crashes a bicycle. The bicycle doesn't handle like the Mako, but she tricks it out with a dozen dubiously legal lights and flashing bits and when it crashes it explodes. Shepard doesn't go out much after that. Traumatic head injuries and possible brain damage are really nothing new at this point in her life.
"I feel like I'm hatching," Shepard says as she lifts boxes. Moving is a stressful business. Since Marta took a long fall off a short ledge during the war and never fully recovered and the boxes are heavier than Hero, Shepard is the one doing all the heavy lifting. It's all real labor, too, because her biotics are liable to launch things away like they got shot off a rail gun. The apartment is too small for three. With the cafe booming thanks to celebrity endorsement, there's enough credits going spare that a tall, narrow house crammed into the mouth of an alley could be located and bought up front.
"The only thing I want is to be treated like more of a human being and less of a monster," Shepard says, gesturing to Hero with her glass of wine. She's never been much a fan of wine, but even three years into reconstruction a lot of things are scarce and when Marta found a 2099 vintage in the basement of the shop, Shepard wasn't about to pass up alcohol. She isn't sure if it's supposed to taste good yet. She's optimistic that it will eventually. They're celebrating the new house, just the three of them rattling around in the tunnel-ish hallways.
It is generally not considered a good idea to startle a woman who is capable of taking a person's head clean off their shoulders with a punch, but Marta shoulders her way into the room without so much as a wave and holds her hands out triumphantly to her side.
"Tada," she says. "I don't care what you were talking about. Look at my surprise."
Shepard obliges, as she was asked so nicely. Her wine nearly ends up on the floor, caught at the last minute with a singularity. Her face ends up jammed uncomfortably into the crook of Kaidan's neck armor.
"Goddamn," she says top of her lungs and directly into his ear, only a little on purpose. "You're back, oh shit, you're all back, aren't you?"
"Kind of," Kaidan says, but he's laughing and hugging back with one arm and waving in with the other. In quick succession Shepard is reunited with her human crew only, from Joker to Chakwas to the wheezy woman that cleans the payload tubes.
"Quarantine," Kaidan explains when Shepard asks where everyone else is. There are nearly seventy people jammed into Marta, Hero, and Shepard's small house, spilling onto the sidewalks and sharing laps. Hero is having the time of her life playing hostess. Marta looks dazed with the glory of her surprise. Shepard keeps trying to swallow the lump in her throat before it turns into some kind of feeling, but it's too late, she's crying again.
"God, Nora," he says, laughing harder, and now Shepard is laughing and crying at the same time and choking on it.
"Life is incredible," Marta shouts. Shepard swings her glass up.
"I'll drink to that."
"You'll drink to anything," Kaidan says fondly.
"I'll drink to that too," Shepard says, and if there's a merry glint in her eyes no one says anything about it. It wouldn't do to ruin Shepard's determined misery. She drinks as promised and whirls back around to sit with Kaidan on the couch. She's missed him, nearly as much as Garrus. He consents easily enough to squashing into the same cushion.
"Remember that night on the Citadel?" Shepard whispers. Kaidan curls his fingers around her hand; it's not like when he was in love with her, no trembling hands and clammy grips. His palm is warm and dry on her skin. "When we were all-"
"Happy," Kaidan offers, then, "Laughing and drunk, anyway."
"Yeah, I don't think I've been happy in half a decade," Shepard says with a bark of laughter. "Since before we were heroes," Kaidan offers. He doesn't laugh exactly, just makes a quiet hah noise. "Since before you could accidently turn a cup of coffee into an IED and take over a small country by trying to crack a joke to the leader."
"My jokes aren't that bad."
"No, they're not bad, they're so terrible that they're frightening."
"Oh, come on, you dick," Shepard says. "How many times do I have to die before my own crew respects me?"
"Shepard, can we not joke about that-"
"Yeah, sorry," she says. She's not sorry at all, but he's looking sad again.
"What's going to happen to me?" she muses instead of saying something like 'haha yeah that time I was dead, that was probably harder for you than me'.
"You're going to do whatever what you want to," Kaidan says, letting Shepard put her chin on his shoulder. It seems like she never gets to touch anyone these days. "Your hair is getting too long."
"Oh, I know," Shepard mutters, touching the mutinous length of hair that dared to grow below her chin. There's nearly a foot and a half of brilliant red hair knotted at the base of her neck. "It's just-I'm not that Shepard anymore."
"You haven't been that Shepard in a long time."
"Yeah, you know, dying a couple times can do that to a woman," Shepard says, then wants to bite her tongue off. This happens every time she talks to Kaidan. This time she's sorry; she wants to apologize, but his jaw is locked into place like it's glass, like if he says something he's going to break. She isn't going to be the one to make him say anything. She doesn't apologize.
"I guess you've had a lot of close calls," he says after a little bit. Shepard pulls back from his shoulder, takes her wine glass from its slow orbit around her head, and offers it to him.
"Yeah, but so have you."
"Who's like us?" Kaidan asks grandly, taking the wine glass and drinking. They pass it back and forth until the few sips left are gone.
"Damn few, and they're all dead," Shepard says just as theatrically. "Here's to us."
"God bless," Kaidan murmurs.
"Did you ever think we'd make it to be old soldiers, Kaidan?" Shepard leans back, crossing one leg over the other. The party is getting louder around them. She doesn't hear any of it. "I mean, look at me. Died like six goddamn times, retired, and only then found out I'm honest to god awful at civilian life. I blew up a grocery cart. They banned me from the store. I'm a fucking hero and they banned me from the store."
"I really don't like talking about this," Kaidan says, but reluctantly adds, "I didn't think any of us would live to see the other side, so I guess we made good progress."
"Progress," Shepard says with a snort. "Adjustment. I tried to clean the kitchen and used the fridge to barricade the door."
"Life," Kaidan sighs. "It just keeps on going."
"Is it living if you're so scared that you can't do anything?" Shepard wonders. "Because I don't think anyone really survived the war. I think we're all dead inside and too stupid to act like it."
"You can't pretend the war didn't happen, but you can live like it didn't. That's victory, Shepard. The disruption isn't permanent."
"I can't live like it didn't, Kaidan. I was lucky to live at all. You can't cross a river without getting wet, okay, I have a tattoo that says Best Ass In The Galaxy and I don't know where it came from, and if I live like the war didn't happen then I'm living like I never had the Normandy."
"Just try it, Shepard. It's a way to move on."
"I've moved on plenty." She sighs. "Okay, okay. I'll-try. I'm not promising more than that. But I'll try."
It's not as easy as it sounds, at the same time that it's the easiest thing she's ever done. Shepard gets a killer sunburn, red as Mars, that keeps her inside fuming for six weeks and refusing to do yard work, but she doesn't sit in the hammock and scream at Anderson. She gets her limp corrected, but she goes on marathon-length runs until her hips are aching and she's bedbound for three days. Concessions and acceptance are not things that come easily to Shepard. She's used to getting her own way. This is not what Shepard wants. She remains determined to grieve and punish herself until she's earned the right to stop; there's Thessia to atone for, Tuchanka, Mordin, Legion and Rannoch, for all the millions that died while she fucked around with her fish instead of going to Earth, for leaving Earth instead of staying to fight. For all the friends that didn't make it to the other side. For all the friends that did, but ended up stranded hundreds of lightyears from home.
Her alien crew remains in quarantine for some time, with no signs that they'll be out any time soon. Earth, still pulling herself up by the bootstraps, is mostly populated these days by the overly paranoid and the deeply traumatized. They are understandably uncomfortable around aliens, even the famous ones, even the ones that fought for them. Shepard takes a month and a half to talk herself into going to see them. She comes through the poor man's airlock and immediately turns around and goes back out. Garrus and Tali had both seen her. Javik probably had as well, but he's less inclined to send Shepard angry messages because he doesn't like to type. Liara is long gone, off to do Shadow Broker business. God knows how she got out.
She stands outside the airlock, looking in through the glass. She can't bring herself to go back in. Tali reaches out to touch the window. Shepard reaches out to touch Tali's hand. After a few minutes Shepard goes through the airlock again and begins the process of amends. Here is where she begins to learn that love is neither created nor destroyed, and here is the fiercest loyalty in the galaxy, attached to Shepard; here is what really matters. Joker is there the second time, and Kasumi eventually, and Kaidan and Zaeed and soon it's all of them, almost, dreaming and talking and no one is dead. They're just-not there.
Skyllian Five and friends like Vakarian, Alenko,T'soni, Zorah, Moreau; figuring out what to say once goodbye's over and done with; no one can party like the crew of the Normandy; these are all the things Shepard rediscovers. She reconsiders her stance on living, decides maybe it's too hard to be miserable all the time when Wrex is bringing all his kids into Earth orbit just to say hi.
"You look different," Garrus says. They're alone for once, somehow, by the grace of god and the Shadow Broker's excellent grasp of diversionary tactics. There's a sniper rifle jamming Shepard's leg up at a bizarre, uncomfortable angle. There's a turian pushing the rest of Shepard at bizarre, uncomfortable angles. She's never been happier to be in a closet in her life.
"Yeah, it's-my-there was a lot of surgery, I guess," she says. They're speaking quietly. You can never be sure if there's someone outside the door, tactical cloak or not. Vega can move real quietly. There's no such thing as privacy with the whole crew around. "We kinda match now, anyway."
"Yeah, but I look rugged, you just look like you lost a knife fight with a hanar."
Shepard snickers and leans her forehead against Garrus'. They haven't talked about that first conversation. If Shepard has her way, they're never going to.
Earth apparently declines to ever let the crew out of quarantine onto the planet. Shepard says fuck that, packs her things, says goodbye to Marta and Hero, and takes off into the black with Garrus. It's time to start looking for the epilogue to the destruction. They spend a few weeks with Javik and Liara and Feron (Shepard doesn't want to know the details), then Vega and Cortez on Eden Prime. They spend a couple months on Rannoch building, clean honest labour that doesn't involve any murdering whatsoever. Noveria, with Kaidan and heavy thick jackets for a while and busting up crime rings on Illium with Samara. That doesn't last three days before Garrus is done. Jack and her students, Miranda and her sister. No one is alone, even Joker. EDI kept a backup in a Faraday cage, not fully functional without the Reaper code but getting there, getting real close. Even EDI will be back someday, and Shepard is more heartened by that than anything.
Travel takes them to Eden Prime again, and they end at the same place it started. Shepard buys a house, with low ceilings and lines-of-sight clear across the plain.
"Do you ever want kids?" Shepard asks one day when she's sprawled comfortably across Garrus' lap and most of the couch, preferring as always to take up as much space as possible. The sun is high in the window, making the room pleasantly just too warm.
"I did say something to that effect on Earth, you know."
"Yeah," Shepard says, "but I mean when we're not facing extinction and we can have long discussions about things other than dying. Do you still want kids?"
"Yeah, of course. I think they're great. And..."
Garrus trails off. Shepard is occasionally allergic to emotions, and she's flightier than ever now, and he doesn't want to say that having kids might make it easier to keep her around. He's not the kind of guy to trap a woman with an unwanted family.
"And?"
"I think it would be nice to have people we can finally impress with our war stories."
"Liar," Shepard says fondly. "Because I was looking at sperm donor websites, don't ask me why, and I found a very handsome man with eyes the same color as yours. I figured it was worth a shot to ask."
"Well, if you want them, and I want them..."
"Yes, but are you okay with human kids?"
"It's not like we can adopt a turian baby. And I sure as hell can't give birth."
"Maybe the Hierarchy will change their mind," Shepard says, resting her head on his shoulder. "Someday, anyway."
"Maybe."
The sperm donor is duly contacted through the website, an appointment is set up, and within the year Shepard is fractious and even round at her elbows. They discuss names for hours on end, trying to find a compromise between wildly different cultures. What one likes the other won't because it doesn't sound like a baby's name.
"Nora's daughter Noa?" Shepard asks in disbelief. "You would do that to your own poor baby?"
"I admit, it's a little unfortunate," Garrus says, scowling good-naturedly. "I wasn't thinking of you as anything but Shepard. Frankly, I don't think I've ever called you anything else."
She thinks about this for a moment, and then several more.
"Once. When I called you after I woke up."
They both shift awkwardly, Shepard lurching around her stomach. Those were the worst days, the first two years after the coma.
"Virginia?" she offers after the silence.
"What about something turian? Something you can pronounce, I mean," he says with a smile. "Nona?"
"Valerie sounds a little turian."
"Are there variations on that? It sounds familiar."
"I have a great-aunt named Valeria, Valerian?," Shepard says absently, flicking a page over in her magazine. "Named for a genus of moth. Or the flower. I never got a clear answer on that. She was pretty close to my mom, you might have heard the name."
"I like Valerian," Garrus muses. "Valria sounds a little less human than either, though."
Shepard looks at Garrus over the magazine, eyes crinkled.
"If we name the poor kid after a flower, why not Sunflower or Chrysanthemum?"
"Those are both terrible names."
"My first roommate on Arcturus was named Chrysanthemum," Shepard says, laughing. "I'm not even kidding. She planned to change it before she got her tags, but I don't know if she ever did. Maybe I'll look her up and tell her I named a baby after her."
"We are not naming Val Chrysanthemum."
"Ah, I see you've gotten attached to a nickname."
"It's easy," he says with an awkward looking shrug.
"What do you think about Jasmine, then?"
"I don't mind it."
"But you don't like it?"
"I'm not familiar with human names, Shepard. Just keep tossing them at me."
"Jas is an easy nickname too."
"I like Jas."
"I do too," Shepard says, twisting to the side as she sets her magazine down and rests her head on Garrus' shoulder. He starts a little, surprised, and tentatively leans against her hair.
"So Jasmine then?" she asks.
"Yeah," he says, enjoying being able to be near Shepard without a gun drawn. It's an experience that has become increasingly common since the Normandy reached human space, but he doesn't think the pleasure will ever diminish. She's such a bloodthirsty woman. It's nice when he can get her to knit or nap.
Shepard doesn't enjoy pregnancy. She's the kind of woman that swells up like a pufferfish at the slightest provocation. Her hormones are utterly ridiculous, and her nightmares are worse than ever. Infant Asshole, as she comes to be called by her foul-mouthed mother, doesn't seem to stop moving for the entire nine months, and is especially determined to pummel her mother's kidneys into submission like they're the Reapers. Shepard gets a migraine the moment she's vertical longer than six minutes. Crabby and irritable, she's recommended for bedrest by Chakwas halfway through and spends her time obsessively knitting. Garrus gets a sweater; so do everyone from Rear Admiral Shepard to Joker to the small boy next door. One morning Shepard wants a dog, and then when Garrus brings it up again she blanches, pukes down his front, and tells him that now is a bad time to start listening.
Jasmine Edith Shepard Vakarian howls her way into the world at 836 pm. There's blood and water, heroes' daughter coming in the same way her parents live. Shepard's a little impressed by the poetry of it, when she's not woozy on medication and stitches.
Jas is as theatrical and dramatic as a baby and a toddler as she was as a fetus. She is, apparently, a great deal like her grandmother at that age: Shepard's brutal charm with a toddler's unchecked volume is a potent combination . Jas demands, at any given moment, to be the center of attention. This is very much at odds with Shepard's own need to be the center of attention, but it works out well when mother and daughter are left alone to admire each other. Garrus feels left out until Jas can talk and then pointedly demands his presence several times a day. She's a good girl, and a smart girl, and she learns to walk late but learns to talk early. No one is surprised.
"Babies," she says at one point, well past her third birthday but still content to talk like a baby when it gets the reaction she wants. "Mama can have more."
Shepard's been considering it for a while, between ingrained social expectation and an unexamined possibility that she might want more kids because she likes being a mother. She likes having things expected of her and being needed.
"Sure mama can," Shepard says, swinging Jas up onto her side without even a wince. "But it depends if daddy wants them too, remember."
Shepard pauses in the doorway to the living room, surveying the chaos wrought by a small child with a destructive streak a mile wide. It's impressive.
"Sure daddy wants them," Jas says, parroting Shepard's phrasing. "Said so."
"Mama will have to talk to daddy about it," Shepard says, turning a slow circle. Her control of her biotics is finer than ever, even before the coma. She can float Jas around behind her as she tosses toys into their buckets. Singularities were not entirely meant for rocking a cradle and barriers were not perhaps intended to block baby puke, but Shepard is too pragmatic not to use her resources in all possible situations. Jas is past the age where she needs these things; Shepard likes being able to go on mother's forums and tell everyone what's what with biotic motherhood.
Garrus is deeply pleased by the idea of more children. He has a human wife and a human daughter; what's a human son, with all of that? The difference with this second pregnancy is that for much of it, Shepard takes shuttles back and forth between Eden Prime, Earth, and the Destiny Ascension. The Normandy doesn't take her everywhere, but Joker is glad to anytime they're nearby. The Councilors are glad to have Shepard around on advisory status, even if she's grouchy and poor-tempered.
Henry is an even fussier baby than Jas was, incredibly enough. He has a severe seizure soon after birth. He's diagnosed with eezo nodules, like Jas was, but his don't stop causing problems. He stays in the hospital for most of his first year, surgery after surgery after medication. Henry comes home sleepy and silent and drugged to the gills. Shepard alternately fusses and abandons the three of them for days at a time; Garrus struggles to understand, but he's resentful, can't help it; Jas makes no attempt at understanding and blames the baby. Jas is incandescently furious every time Shepard leaves. She always returns, though, burnt clean empty with the endless universe in her distant gaze.
"I'm not meant to stay in one place like this," Shepard says at three am while she rocks Henry overhead and paces at a frantic speed. "I don't know what to do, Garrus, god, I love you so much and I don't ever want to leave you but I feel so trapped here."
"Is it the kids?"
Shepard looks so stricken that Garrus immediately regrets asking.
"God, no," she hisses, jouncing Henry a little by accident. He hiccups but doesn't protest. "It's not the kids and it's not you. You're all mine, how could you ever even think that? I just feel like a sitting duck staying in one place for so long."
"Shepard," he says, reaching to touch her on the arm. "Shepard, come here."
She consents to being held. Shepard has never liked concessions and the hug feels like one. Henry whines a little. Shepard rocks him harder. Despite the baby's lack of buoyancy, the game is great fun for him and he stops whining.
"I'll try harder," Shepard says, pressing her forehead to Garrus' carapace. When she rolls over in the morning, Jas has taken Garrus' place, her long red braid slipping loose and sticking to her mother's mouth.
"Ack," Shepard says, and, "Gross. Good morning."
"Morning, mama," Jas yawns. She's missing two teeth now. "I been awake for hours but Daddy were annoyed when I made noise, so I came in here."
"What time is it?"
"Almost-" Jas rolls, checks the clock, rolls back, confidently says, "May."
"The time, baby, not the month."
"Good morning!" Garrus says, irritatingly cheerful despite the hollering baby in the sling on his back. "It's almost ten. You don't want to miss pancakes, do you?"
"You can't even eat them," Shepard says.
"Oh, well," he says, gesturing out of the room. "I guess you have to eat all of them, then."
"You're awful," Shepard tells him, knuckling Jas affectionately on the top of her head and getting to her feet. She checks to make sure she's wearing some kind of clothing, deems sweatpants sufficient for Garrus, a toddler, and a five year old, and shuffles into the kitchen. There are, as promised, pancakes, and fruit. Jas immediately tears into a peach, pulling off pieces with her teeth and reaching over her father to press the pieces into Henry's mouth. Henry eats the half-chewed peach pieces with enthusiasm. She won't touch the pancakes, in a display of pickiness Shepard is very familiar with from her own childhood, but Shepard is more than pleased to eat ten pancakes by herself. Biotics have a legendary caloric intake, and her cybernetics are impressive in their own right. Sometimes she's surprised she ever has time to do anything besides eat.
Jas eats another peach before Shepard is finished with the pancakes. Shepard wonders again if her daughter is a latent biotic. She inhales sugar at a normal kid's pace, but then she'll come back and devour a loaf of bread and six cups of water before tearing around the backyard hooting like a gibbon.
Shepard looks out the window. The sun is shining.
of course, nothing is this easy, and this literally turned into a ten k overview that's since been expanded into more tiny fics so you can look for that soon