Chapter One: Barometer
"Thanks, Crewman," Mackenzie Shepard threw over her shoulder as she waited for the shuttle door to open. The shuttle was finally back at the Normandy after a long afternoon spent on the Horizon colony. Shepard was worn out, angry, and hurt. The shuttle ride back to the Normandy had been dead silent - Garrus stared at the wall straight ahead of him while Miranda fiddled with her pistol nervously. Shepard had spent the entire trip looking out the window, watching as the colony receded into blackness as they ascended.
The shuttle's door slowly began to rise. Shepard jumped down onto the deck, then turned to look at her weary companions. Neither one of them spoke and the tension was palpable as they stood uneasily next to the shuttle. "Nice job today, team. Miranda, I'd like to see your report on my desk by tomorrow morning. Garrus, I need you working on those weapon upgrades we discussed a few days ago. They should be put into place immediately. We were way too underpowered today."
"Aye aye, Commander." Miranda nodded as she brushed by her. Shepard nodded at Garrus, who still needed to unload their heavier firepower from the shuttle, and turned to go.
"Shepard...." Garrus took a step towards her. "Are you-" He stopped.
Mackenzie didn't turn around as her emotions got the better of her. "Garrus, I appreciate the notion, but...stop."
"Yes, Commander." He said quietly, as her back retreated quickly out of the shuttle bay.
Shepard knew the Illusive Man would be expecting her to contact him, but she needed a moment to regroup. And a shower. For not the first time since taking command of the rebuilt Normandy, Shepard was grateful for her private deck and bathroom. She shed her sticky, smudged armor before gratefully turning the shower to the hottest water setting and sagging down against the wall to the floor. The water poured around her as she yanked her hair out of its squashed bun and took a long, deep breath of quickly rising hot steam.
Kaidan. Perhaps she should have tried harder to reach him, pushed The Illusive Man for more information regarding her old crew, somehow circumvented Anderson's stonewalling. But what good would it have done? She leaned her head back against the wall of the shower. Having a girlfriend come back from the dead to save the galaxy wasn't exactly a common occurrence - clearly, she couldn't be too upset over Kaidan's reaction. She couldn't imagine herself remaining calm if the roles had been reversed. No, her reaction would have been even worse. He had every right to act surprised, frustrated, and confused. Just as she had every right to feel hurt and torn down by his reaction.
What was the scientific principal her father often quoted to her, attempting to inspire his only child to have just the slightest glimmer of interest in his scientific experiments? "Newton said: Each action has an equal and opposite reaction." And so it went. Cerberus's action of bringing Shepard back to life spurred an equal and opposite reaction from the people she'd been closest to. Coming back to life was the exact opposite of dying, wasn't it? No, the reaction couldn't have been less painful or less abrasive.
This realization did little to dull the pain in Shepard's chest over Kaidan's response. In the long four weeks since she had been brought back, Shepard had thought of him often. There wasn't anyone part of her new crew she trusted like Kaidan - no one to go to when she needed a sounding board, a distraction when politics got in the way, an easy conversation to remind her why she committed to the mission. Ever since that first night back on a strange, unfamiliar Cerberus space station, she had wondered how the last two years had treated him. Her musings were never happy, as much as she hoped he had been able to move on and accept her untimely demise.
The brief time they had shared - stolen moments during the hunt for Saren, the night before Ilos, a few fleeting weeks spent on shore leave back on Earth - was the strongest link Shepard felt to her past life, past crew, past body. During moments when she doubted all of the cybernetic implants and lab-grown organs had been 100% successful at bringing her back from the dead, Shepard thought of Kaidan. Even if she was breathing, her heart beating, her feet walking, it sometimes wasn't enough to convince her she was still living. The emotional response his image and associated memories predicated in her acted as a constant monitoring system - yes, she still felt it. Yes, she was still alive. Yes, this is how she had felt before. Yes, she was the same.
She would force herself to remember the good times, the quiet moments spent in conversation just outside the old Normandy's mess. She would remind herself of their constant argument over who was a better Mako driver. She would remember how the night before Ilos cemented her decision to somehow make it work. She would recall the pleasant and care-free weeks they had spent together on Earth right after the Citadel attack - winding their way through northern Canada and into Alaska, exploring beaches untouched by a rapidly growing population, watching Northern Lights dance in the night sky as satellites and shuttles zoomed in between them.
Hot tears sprung to Shepard's eyes and she closed them tightly, wrapping her arms around her knees. She had managed to hold it together so well since being brought out of stasis in the middle of a station attack - Shepard was good at autopilot, doing the things that needed doing, getting the things done that needed to get done. Years of training, mental discipline, quick reflexes - all of these things had combined into her own hearty form of survival mode. Up until being spaced, Shepard had been pretty good at staying alive - isn't that when Anderson had told her once? That part of being as good of an officer as she was came from her uncanny ability to live? Nihlus had told her it was even an admirable trait, and one Shepard seemed to have mastered. Even when she was killed, she survived.
Now, however, emotion, longing, and misery quelled any survival tactics. Tears slid down her face, mingling with the hot water. She tried to rein them in, but with little success. For several long moments, she gasped for air between sobs. Finally, she felt her body relax, all of the frustration suddenly spent.
The reunion hadn't gone any better than it could have, not when Kaidan refused to understand her position. "I'm an Alliance soldier, through and through."
Caught between a rock and a hard place in those early few days, Shepard had challenged herself over and over to come up with a different plan. She had always thought the same of herself - even after being made a Spectre. She had still been part of the Alliance military and didn't hesitate, on some occasions, to make decisions based on her Alliance loyalty before the Council's own interests. The shock, the disgust, the disbelief Kaidan had expressed about her working for Cerberus struck something deep within her. Until then, Mackenzie had managed to keep her personal feelings of the organization separate from the mission at hand. But the judging from the only person she vehemently wished understood her unique position was too much. He was right, perhaps - maybe there was another way to defeat the Reapers? More she could have done or said to the Alliance and the Council to get them to understand? Shepard was famous - surely, if needed, she could rouse the troops and get the public on her side. Would any of those efforts been worth it? To what end should she have exhausted alternative options? As much as she hated admitting it, The Illusive Man had been right, at least in one regard. This mission, this duty, it was hers. And hers alone. She would be foolish to turn away the resources, expertise, and support she had been given, even if the person extending their hand had been her enemy.
"The enemy of my enemy is my friend." She didn't like it. Of course, she wished there was another option, a different path.
Shepard stood then, forcing herself reclaim her countenance. She reached for shampoo and began scrubbing vigorously at her scalp. The only thing to do was to move forward, to do her job, and hope. Mackenzie had always been hopeful - at least, before she had been killed. Hope was something that had sustained her through many hard times, dark nights, long periods of depressing silence. She would not lose hope that one day, maybe even one day soon, he would understand the choices she had been forced to make, the actions she would be forced to do. In the meantime, Shepard would do as she had done since she awoke on the operating table, staring at the metal ceiling of a Cerberus space station. She would do her duty, continue the mission, with the memories of Kaidan and her feelings about him tucked far within her, continually acting as her barometer for her humanity, her constant source of goodness.