Disclaimer: I don't own Bioware or their characters. This is simply my expression of my love for it.
"Kaidan!"
"No Jane, my name is Kaylee. Do you remember me?"
"Do I want to dismember you? No of course not, why would I want to do that to you Kaidan?"
"…I'll take that as a no then." The nurse attendant sighed, dropping her daily attempt at making a break through with the aged woman. It didn't work yesterday, it certainly hadn't worked the day before that and it wasn't going to work today either. It was a mystery why she still bothered, since everyone knew the old war hero had lost all her marbles years ago.
Not that the woman ever had that many marbles to account for in the first place.
"Ashley your looking more tanned than usual. Did you go on holiday?"
"No Shepard it not Ashley, it's-"
"-Jamaica eh? Oh the raccoons there are very friendly." Liara sighed, quite unsure of what to do. When the nurse had mentioned that her old Commander and Hero of the entire galaxy had gone a little…loopy, Liara didn't expect that to be such a big understatement.
"Do you remember that time on Eden Prime, when there was that glowing green zapping pole?"
"The beacon?"
"-That's what I said! Aren't you listening?!" Liara quickly shut up after that, fearing for her own life. So, Shepard merrily continued on with her story. "And when we found that thing it went ZAAAP so then Kaidan was all WHOOSH and then I was all like NOOOO but then I saved him and everyone was like OMFG YAY!" She clapped her hands gleefully in appreciation for herself, dribbling slightly as she did.
"Yeah…Fun times." Liara said, laughing timidly as she watched the Commander pouring apple juice onto her wheelchair.
"Commander She-"
"AHHHHHH! IS THAT THING TALKING?!"
"Commander calm down, it is only-"
"KILL IT, KILL IT! I DON'T LIKE IT! IT WANTS TO EAT ME!" Javik sighed, picked up his present and headed to the door without anymore hesitation.
"Uh…Nurse?" She looked up from her work to see a Turian staring at her. What was his name? Oh yes, Garrus Vakarian. A visitor for the old Commander. He seemed nice enough.
But why was he here? Wait.
He was here visiting the Commander, meaning that if something had gone wrong it had gone wrong because of the Commander. The Nurse Attendants eyes widened considerably as the reality hit her.
Oh no - what has she done this time?
"Is there a problem ?" She said, barely keeping the panic out of her voice. If that woman's escaped into the ventilation systems again, then I'm really in for it from the boss.
"Well…it's only a slight problem."
"The Commander hasn't broken into the ventilation has she?" The Turian shook his head, to which she sighed loudly with relief. At least that was one less problem she had to deal with today, although that meant the Commander was doing something else. And when that old woman was doing something, it was never good…
"It's just a small matter of…hunger, I suppose."
"You suppose?"
"Well I just can't get her to stop trying to eat her foot." The nurse attendant was out of her seat in an instant, reaching under her desk for the tranquilizer gun that was labelled 'Warning: For use on Commander Shepard ONLY'.
Well, it wasn't a normal day without having to use this thing at least once.
- Doctor Jamieson? -
"Yes Nurse?" The doctor asked, looking up from his latest magazine issue of 'Terry: The galactic space Muffin'.
- The Commander's been shoving crayons up her nose again. -
He sighed, regretfully putting down his comic. "Send her up right away."
"It's nice to see you again Lola." The old woman in front of him smiled kindly, making him ever wonder what Garrus and Liara had been talking about when they mentioned Shepard going crazy in her old age.
"I like rice." Hold that previous thought. What was she going on about? By the looks on her face; she didn't really know either.
"No no no, I said it's nice to see you again."
"I'm a lice that's called ben?" He groaned. This wasn't exactly crazy, but it wasn't far off from turning him insane.
"No - It's NICE to SEE you AGAIN."
"The ice comes from Spain?"
"No."
"The price of some grain?"
"NO."
"The fish slice drove the train?" What? That didn't even rhyme!
"No Shepard. I said; ITS NICE TO SEE YOU AGAIN!"
"…Well there's no need to shout about it." Slowly, he buried his face in his hands and began to sob. This was going to be one, long painful conversation.
" , we cannot allow the Commander to have food unsupervised."
"But why?" The Turian asked, clearly genuinely confused. That was understandable, it wasn't as if the evidence proving why was spread everywhere around the Commanders room, especially on her walls. Of course not. She was sure it hadn't taken at least a month of rigorous scrubbing to get all the turkey bits and pieces of solidified jelly and turnip entirely off of the walls.
She shivered. Never again...
"Trust me . Shepard is a big fan of home re-decoration, but I for one definitely am not."
"...Oh." He said, giving her and understanding and conspirital look.
"Yeah."
Joker would pretend that the Commander was acting normal. Because they were friends, and that's what friends did for each other. It didn't matter that the old woman in front of him may be brushing her hair with a pineapple, because she was his friend and so it didn't matter to him what she chose to brush her hair with.
Nope, the Commander was still the same super awesome hero he remembered her to be. Just because she now wore a kilt and sang really bad self-made folk songs didn't make her any less awesome. And her bagpipe playing skills weren't really that bad...
So she liked to eat kiwi's with ketchup and burnt gherkins, what did that matter? Nothing, that's what.
"Hey Granddad!" He turned, remembering that Shepard had given him that name as a joke. Yeah…a joke. Funny.
"Need something Shepard?"
"I think there are vampires eating my feet, can you smell them for me?" Without warning the Commander shoved her bare, wrinkly feet in his face, making sure that he couldn't escape from her feet's somewhat killer grasp.
Yup, definitely still the same old Shepard.
"Do I eat ointment?"
"NO I SAID DO YOU NEED THE TOILET!"
"Why do you keep shouting?!"
Ring ring…
"Oh, hey there Miranda. How are things?"
- Fine…I suppose. - Garrus frowned. Was something wrong? Was someone in danger? Were the reapers back? When he relayed all of these suggestions (and more) to the woman, he was scared to find that it was apparently even worse.
"Well, what is it then?" He asked, almost too scared to speak.
- Shepard broke out of her mental hospital - It was at that point the two screamed like little girls singing in a synchronised choir. He would have preferred to have the reapers return.
Jack sat in custody, thoroughly pleased with herself. So what she that was in jail, it certainly was the first or last time that it would happen. And it had been worth it.
"Jack." Standing in front of her stood all of the remaining Normandy crew. None of them looked pleased, except for Joker (though he wasn't even looking in the right direction at this point).
"Come to visit me guys?"
"-You broke Shepard out of her mental hospital?" She shrugged, not seeing why everyone was taking this hilarity so seriously.
"Oh come on, those peoples faces when she ran into the supermarket naked was PRICELESS."
Tali walked out from Shepard's room, with a bunch of popped balloons, a toy lion missing it's head and a blue face. Literally. It seemed that someone had drawn a face on her environmental suit in blue crayon. As the Quarian walked wordlessly past her, the Nurse attendant didn't even have to guess who she had been visiting.
"It's not going to get any better, is it?" Kaidan was shocked at those words. They had all known for a long while now that Shepard was deteriorating, and that she would never even be aware of it happening to her. So to hear her coming to this realisation almost brought tears back into his eyes.
"No Shepard, I wish it was." A moment of silence fell as Shepard slowly stood up, all the while staring at her feet.
Then, she promptly grabbed her bowl of soup and threw it against the nearest wall (that was already heavily food splattered).
"NURSE BRING ME SOME PIE! THIS SOUP WILL NEVER GET ANY BETTER!" Kaidan sighed, burying his head in his hands. At least ignorance was bliss...
...Right?
Author's Note.
I don't really have anything to say about this...enjoy? Hahahaha.