"We don't have time for this, Shepard!"

Jane nodded, fighting the painful twist in her stomach as the drone of the Geth ship drowned out almost all other sound. Garrus shifted where he stood, but didn't add to his previous statement. He'd challenged her enough simply by snapping at her to hurry.

And he was right.

They didn't have time for this, for her to stand there and debate who would live and who would die. Virmire had turned into a hell she could never have foreseen, and now she had to choose which hell her life would turn into. Closing her eyes, she saw Kaidan's secret little smile behind her lids, exactly as it had been in her dreams and their stolen moments together.

And the recollection took time they didn't have. Garrus was right. There was no time.

Straightening slightly, she spoke into her comm in harsh tones. "Williams. Radio Joker and tell him to meet us at the bomb site."

She heard Ash's shocked intake of breath. "Yes, Commander. I-"

Kaidan's voice overrode hers. "It's the right choice, and you know it, Ash!"

"I'm sorry, Kaidan," Jane whispered. "I had to make a choice."

A nearby explosion drowned out most of his response, but she heard his last words before the radio disconnected: "I don't regret a thing."

With dry eyes, she turned back to the elevator that would take her to the bomb upon which so much depended. The tears would come later.

The tears always came later.

.~^~.

They had not yet come when Ash found her staring at the screen of the terminal in her quarters - the luxury of being Commander of the Normandy. Jane had dismissed Ash following the debriefing before the soldier had been able to talk about what had gone down, but Jane knew her friend well enough by now to know that the woman would not let the issue rest.

"What is it, Lieutenant? I'm kinda busy here." It was a patent lie, but there were other benefits to being the CO.

"Why, Commander?"

Jane's mouth twitched in spite of... well, everything. Ash and subtle tend to be mutually exclusive. Caring, yes - the soldier they'd picked up in Eden Prime had proven to have a large, if selective, heart and a compassion that emerged at unexpected times. But subtle? Never. Still, Jane wasn't prepared for the question, and she definitely wasn't ready for the answer. Surging out of her chair and planting herself directly in front of the soldier, she grated, "Are you questioning the orders of your CO, Lieutenant?"

"No, ma'am." Ash didn't back down, just as stubborn as Jane. "I'm questioning the decision of a friend."

A bit taken aback by the words, Jane's eyes narrowed as she glared at the other woman. "You're out of line, Williams. In fact, you're dangerously close to insubordination."

"Then charge me and get it over with, ma'am, but answer the damn question. Why did you choose me over Kaidan?" She reached out and laid a hand on Jane's shoulder, squeezing tightly. "You know I listen to the scuttlebutt around the ship. I keep my eyes open. I watched you two on our recon missions, even though you were pretty good and keeping it locked down. So, why?"

Jane knocked Ash's hand off and backed away, denying the sting behind her eyes. "That is none of your concern."

"Now that ain't right, ma'am. Jane." Ash exhaled in frustration. "Shepard. Listen, I know what he meant to you, what you meant to him. You know I'm a soldier, a damn good one. I would have taken that mission to its end, you know that."

"It was my decision. End of discussion." Jane turned abruptly and sat down in her chair again. "I know it was a hard mission, Ash. Take some time to yourself. Ilos won't be easy either, and I'll need you in top form."

"Shepard, I'm not dropping this." The woman knelt next to her, again putting her hand on Jane's arm. "Please. I know I'm not... you know, the offer-you-a-shoulder type, but I know that I'm not going to sleep well for a while. I can't imagine what it will be like for you. I'm a soldier worried about her CO, but I'm also a friend." Her voice dropped in volume, dark eyes clouded with worry. "You already have enough nightmares from your past. Why give yourself more?"

Jane's breath hitched. Those words were truer than Ash knew. She'd tried to take a nap on Chakwas' orders, and hadn't lasted beyond ten minutes before surging out of sleep with Kaidan's bloodied face screaming in her head. She turned her head away from Ash for a moment, then reached over to the small locker sitting on top of the desk and opened it. Silently, she took what was inside and held it out to Ash.

The book was removed from her hand and she heard Ash open it up slowly. "I... I don't understand, Shepard. I thought you didn't believe in this... religious hokum."

"Diplomatic enough not to repeat what I actually said, Williams?" It hadn't been a pleasant conversation, though it had, oddly enough, been the start of them really getting to know each other. She knew that Ash had her own family already, but the competent, no-nonsense soldier had come to represent Jane's lost parents and siblings in an odd way that she hadn't even realized until the possibility had arisen that she might lose Ash. Finally Jane turned and looked down at the small Bible in Ash's hands. "It's the only thing I have left of my mother. Of anyone in my family, really. She kept it in a small metal box, so it survived when-" She shrugged. They'd talked about what had happened to her family already, and she didn't really want to remember another loss just then. "I've had it ever since."

Ash leafed through the pages slowly, pausing only to trace a finger over the handwritten notes that were in the margins. "There's a lot of arguing going on here." She glanced up, an amused look in her eyes. "Your writing, I take it?"

With a nod, Jane felt a corner of her mouth turn up. "You know me. If I ever do stand in Heaven, I'll have that damn book in my hand and start asking God each and every question I've ever come up with." The stinging returned to the back of her eyes. "And some others I haven't written down yet." She swore a bit more colorfully as her fingers rubbed her eyes. "Not that I'll be there."

"Because it doesn't exist?" Ash asked quietly, setting the book down on the desk. "Or because you won't go to Heaven?"

"Both." Leaving her hand over her eyes, she took a deep breath. "Neither. I don't know."

"Why did you save me, Shepard? I'm sorry I keep asking, but I have to know. I already felt like I was walking in dead man's shoes because of Jenkins, you know that." She paused, and Jane felt a hand again seek her out. "Why Kaidan's too?"

"Kaidan- I- I think I... I could have loved him. Maybe I did love him. I don't know." The words were forced out, the pain they left behind raw and chaotic. "I've never felt like that before, so I wouldn't know if it was... forever, or just until he transferred to another ship. But a sister... I've lost a sister before, Ash. I couldn't- I can't-" A tremor shook her body as her throat closed up, preventing any further words. Her hand remained where it was, shutting out the light and the world, trapping her in the darkness behind it.

She heard Ash stand, then felt arms wrap around her. Ash's mouth settled next to Jane's ear as she began to murmur soft, soothing words:

"Remember me when I am gone away,
Gone far away into the silent land:
When you can no more hold me by the hand,
Nor I half turn to go yet turning stay."

"Rossetti," Jane managed to whisper past the tightness in her throat. "Christina Rossetti." It was a game they'd played once she'd discovered Ash's secret love of poetry, to quote from one and have the other woman guess the author. Jane had studied so much poetry and literature while recovering from the attack that had wiped out her colony that she'd never been found lacking an answer, but now... now her photographic memory called up the rest of the poem. Despite her efforts to control herself, tears started to squeeze past her eyelids as she joined in with the recitation.

"Remember me when no more day by day
You tell me of our future that you planned:
Only remember me; you understand
It will be late to counsel then or pray."

Ash's hands smoothed over Jane's hair as the tears began to leak out between her fingers, but neither of them faltered as they continued the poem.

"Yet if you should forget me for a while
And afterwards remember, do not grieve:
For if the darkness and corruption leave
A vestige of the thoughts that once I had,
Better by far you should forget and smile
Than that you should remember and be sad."

The words faded into the distant hum of the Normandy's engines. For a long, stretched-out moment, they remained as they were, and then Jane turned and embraced Ash, the loss she'd denied as long as she could finally escaping in heaving sobs which shook her tough yet slender frame. For a few minutes, she allowed herself the weakness of grief, allowed herself to forget about Reapers and Protheans and Saren, and simply allowed herself to say goodbye.

When her shoulders finally stopped shaking, she took a deep breath and sat back. "Thank you," she said hoarsely.

Ash smiled and put a hand on her friend's shoulder. "Any time. Isn't that what sisters are for?"