Author's Note: Spoilers up to and including Virmire. Shepard x Alenko, shadows of Joker x Ashley. This piece stands on its own, though there are a few references to Regulations. Thanks for the warm welcome, everyone!
"Ulysses" by Alfred Tennyson.
Mass Effect and associated characters are property of Bioware.
Valediction
Shepard's boots thud against the metal floor as she makes her way toward the bridge, OSD in hand. She's never believed in sneaking up on her crew, though she manages to startle Alenko every time no matter how heavy her footfalls; one of her COs on Elysium used to make a point of scaring as many people as possible during barracks check and it had always pissed her off, hearing all the privates stutter and fumble over themselves. That CO was dead now, too- took a bullet to the chest during the Blitz.
Soldiers die.
It echoes in her head with every footfall. She knows it, in the abstract, but it's other people's soldiers, not hers. Not Williams. Her fists clench, her throat closes. Joker turns in his chair and nods at her approach.
"Something you need, Commander?" His voice is subdued, lacking the mockery she's come to expect. Shepard shakes her head and holds up the OSD, labeled "Joker" in Ash's sprawling handwriting.
"This was in Ash's locker. I found a few of them as I was-" she swallows, fights the lump rising in her throat back down where it belongs- "going through her things. I assume it's for you. Couldn't tell you what's on it, but I think she wanted you to see it… whatever it is."
It's mostly a lie, anyway. (She'd only played the file for the first few seconds. Once the recording started, it was clear as daylight it was meant for him and not about him, and she'd ripped it out of the terminal like it was about to explode.)
She holds out the unit; Joker hesitates a moment, then extends his hand to take it.
"Um- thanks, Commander. I'll take a look at it in a minute." He stares down at it- almost like he can't quite figure out what it is, Shepard thinks- then shifts his gaze back to the screen.
"Joker…"
He turns, barely, to look at her.
"How are you holding up?"
A shrug, a pause. "Holding, Commander. I switched the Normandy over to…" he forces the word out, like a bad taste in his mouth, "autopilot, for a few. Gonna hit the head, so if you hear a crack and a scream, call Dr. Chakwas." The corners of his mouth edge upward, if just barely.
Shepard nods, turns, and makes it a few steps down the corridor before she hears the click of the OSD slotting in. She fights the urge to pause and listen- one foot in front of the other, Shepard. It's not that hard- until Ashley's voice hits her ears. She runs the rest of the way to the stairs.
She has been talking for ten minutes and Joker couldn't have repeated a single word she's said, but he stares at the monitor like it's the end of the world- beautiful and complicated and catastrophic and completely incomprehensible and recognized far too late to do a single fucking thing about it.
"Anyway, this recording stuff… it's sentimental crap, I know, but my dad used to do this for all of us when he went on missions. Just in case, right? I stole the camera from Requisitions. Don't tell Shepard."
He has one hand pressed against the screen as the movie plays, as though she might solidify there and he could pull her through if he were fast enough.
"And Joker…" Ashley stops, looks off-camera and back again. "Thank you for everything. But do me one last favor, okay? Play me out properly- none of that Alliance Anthem stuff." She hums the first notes of an old song, paired three and three, low and soft. She shudders; the picture jumps. "You know what I mean. Man, this is weird."
He agrees wholeheartedly.
"I, um- I can't think of anything else that I didn't say already, so... keep an eye on everyone for me. Goodbye, Joker." One last smile. The monitor goes dark.
He rewinds and leaves the screen paused on her smile, just before the recording ends. The clock reads 1900- her duty shift would be ending now. It's as good a time as any. A few keystrokes on the console locate the song in the system. All comm channels open, check. Volume up, check.
The screen blurs in his vision as he starts the file.
"Goodbye, Ash." He would have done anything for her. All she'd needed to do was ask.
It's shift change and the mess is crowded; Shepard ignores the stares from the assembled crew as she sprints down the stairs and around the corner toward her cabin. The door is slow as always and she has to fight the urge to tap her foot impatiently. Her nerves are stretched taut, now, humming in time with the pulse of the engine- no, not quite in time. There is no harmony in her shaking hands.
The door slides closed behind her as she steps into the room. She can see the two remaining OSDs on her desk, outlined like tiny monoliths in the blue half-light. Shepard hasn't quite mustered the courage to give the lieutenant the one marked for him- at least, she figures the one scrawled "LT" must be for Alenko just as hers is marked "Skipper." The way he looked at her in the debriefing, half gratitude and half accusation, weighs on her like the mariner's albatross; she's not sure which half will win in the long run and she's scared to find out.
Kaidan or Ash. She'd have sooner chosen between losing her eyes or her hands. Two different kinds of pain, but in the end you're crippled either way.
Before she can convince herself against it, she takes the device in hand and slots it into the terminal, then perches on the edge of the desk as the recording starts. There Ash is, as she always was- hair back, barefaced (Shepard still allows herself the indulgence of cosmetics, the one trace of vanity she retained when she enlisted).
"Hey, Skipper."
Oh, Ash.
"So if you're watching this, I've... um, rejoined the 212." Ash gives a wry little smile. "I hope everyone else made it through. I've re-recorded this three or four times since I've been with you on the Normandy- no sense in wasting OSDs, and I got through all the other big missions just fine. With any luck I'll be recording over this one in a few days. If not, well..." she shrugs. "My number was up a long time ago. Did I do something suitably heroic, at least? We've been making up for Shanxi for years, us Williamses, and I told Dad before he died that I'd fix that someday."
More than suitably heroic, Ash- but I should be pinning a medal on you, not sending it home to your family.
"Anyway, speaking of my dad... remember the poem I used to record for him every year? This version's for you, Commander- thanks for keeping me around. It's been a hell of a trip, but I don't regret a thing. We'll see each other again someday."
I understand, Commander. I don't regret a thing. She grips the edge of the desk tighter as the cadence of Ash's voice changes; Ash's shoulders straighten a little, and she begins again.
"It little profits that an idle king,
By this still hearth, among these barren crags..."
Ash's gaze is somewhere else, now; neither toward or away from the camera, Shepard thinks, but toward the memory of a grave on Amaterasu and words long since committed to mind.
She cannot remember ever having heard the beginning of the poem before, but after a few lines she recognizes the work. Without meaning to, she joins her voice with Ash's- her whisper and the chief's strong alto in synchrony, one final time.
"I cannot rest from travel; I will drink
Life to the lees. All times I have enjoy'd
Greatly, have suffer'd greatly, both with those
That loved me, and alone..."
The overhead comms click on with their usual muted hum; Shepard glances at the clock. 1900. Probably the shift change announcement. Wait... no. Something else.
Three notes on a bugle. Slow, measured, the last lingering in the air-
No no nonono
Her hands tremble so violently she loses her balanced position and her feet touch back onto the floor. The door to her cabin is solid and yet she can nearly feel, rather than hear, the chairs slamming backwards in the mess outside. She staggers, fumbles with the door panel, clings to the frame as she stares out into the mess; every soldier in the room stands at attention, hand to forehead in a motion as familiar to her after eleven years as turning on the lights. Behind her, the recording continues but she cannot hear it beneath the pounding of her heartbeat in her ears.
Three more notes.
Taps. She is here, in the mess hall of the Normandy; she is on Elysium in front of a long row of flag-draped coffins; she is at the memorial service for the Mindoir raids (Grandfather Brewer had served in the Marines, before the whole family moved to the colonies); she is handing a folded flag to Corporal Jenkins' mother on Eden Prime. Thirteen years of loss in twenty-four notes.
There is not enough air left in the Normandy, it seems, to fill her lungs.
The room blurs a little more with each shuddering breath; inexplicably, the floor begins to rise toward her in a way that floors really oughtn't to do. For the second time in a week, Shepard braces for impact. For the second time in a week, it never comes- instead, a rush of footsteps and too-familiar hands suddenly around her waist and chest, hauling her to her feet.
"Come on, Commander. Let's get you into a chair." From the tone of his voice, Kaidan appears completely oblivious to the fact that he has both arms around his CO in full sight of half the crew. Her pulse flutters like hummingbird wings.
One of his hands still rests on her back as he walks with her into her cabin. Shepard slumps into the desk chair and fixes her gaze on the console, where Ashley's image still fills the screen. The comms click off; Ash's voice remains.
"Tho' much is taken, much abides; and tho'
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are,--
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
Goodbye, skipper."
The console goes dark and the room is silent for a long moment.
"Commander, what was that?" He sounds concerned, at least; she remains staring at the screen, deliberately avoiding him.
"It's called a panic attack, Lieutenant." Elbows on the desk, she rests her head in her hands.
"No, I know that- I had those once or twice at Brain Camp, before I got 'acclimated.' The screen, I mean." Out of the corner of her eye, she sees him gesturing toward the console.
"Ah. Tennyson, I think."
"Damn it, Shepard! You know what I mean." Kaidan crosses the room in two steps and hits the door panel, hard; she starts away from the desk at the sound of the impact. The door slides closed.
"I do not have to explain myself to you, Lieutenant Alenko." The words come tumbling out almost before she can think them. That's not what he's asking you, Shepard. She exhales, fast and forceful, and the spite leaves her body with her breath. "Shit. I'm sorry, Kaidan. The last thing I need to do right now is pull rank on you."
A shadow cuts across his face, hiding his expression. "No, ma'am, you don't have to tell me anything. But I'd hoped that you might want to."
She nods. "Ash made a few recordings at some point before the mission- she didn't explain why, but apparently it's something she'd been doing for some time. Things she wanted to make sure that we heard, I guess... yours is on the desk, here. I was going to give it to you earlier, but-" she shrugs. "I thought you might need some breathing room."
"I..." he leaves the thought hanging there, unuttered. "Commander, you said before that you couldn't leave me behind. Did you mean that?"
Shepard picks up the last OSD and walks across the cabin until she is near enough to reach his hand. Before he can react, she lifts it to chest height, places the device in his palm, and folds his fingers closed across it. "We're here and she isn't, Kaidan. I don't know how else to tell you how much I meant it."
He swallows. "No, I- ah. I should go." He takes a step back; she lets her hand drop.
"Dismissed, Lieutenant."
She waits until the door closes before the tears begin to fall.
Kaidan waits until the mess is empty to load the OSD, and even then he plays the sound through his headset. There is nothing extraordinary in the recording, initially- a few reminiscences, a few thank-yous, a last goodbye. He is almost disappointed, in a way, when it ends. Shepard's reaction to her own copy- the look in her eyes, the spitefulness that spurred his own anger- were so unlike her that he was expecting some grand revelation in his own.
But then, he reflects, she and Ash were close. He had always been so focused on Shepard that Ash commanded his attention only on the battlefield, when his hardsuit's sensors registered she'd been injured or needed backup. He moves to pull the device from the console, then pauses as the screen flickers back to life.
It's Ash again, but this time out of uniform; he's seen her in these clothes before, he thinks, but can't remember where.
"Alright, LT. This is an addendum to all that crap I said before. I'm gonna be honest 'cause I'm really goddamn drunk and like I said, if you're watching this it means I'm dead and you're not so you can't write me up for insubordination." She slurs the words, barely holding the camera steady.
Now he remembers. Shore leave, the night before they left for Virmire.
"First of all, you dance like a girl. Work on that. Second, I saw that little move you pulled on Shepard."
Damn. He hadn't thought anyone had noticed.
"I hope you both made it through whatever happened to me- you better take care of her. We're all she's got, and I saw the look she was giving you, too... she likes you, in case you haven't figured that out yet." Ash's eyes lose focus for a moment; she shakes her head.
He knows- he can still feel her hand on his. His fingers curl, reflexively.
" …'cause I swear to God, Alenko, if you hurt her I will fly my ass down from Valhalla or wherever it is I end up and break both your legs." She pauses. "Sir."
The console goes dark again, this time for good. Kaidan doesn't notice.
He laughs until he can no longer breathe.
Goodbye, Ash.