Title: Dulce Et Decorum Est
Author: shattered
Rating: K/K
Summery: Sheppard reflects on Virmire and Eden Prime, and the deaths of those under one's command.
Disclaimer: BioWare and Microsoft own Mass Effect and everything form it all that's mine here are the words.
AN: Female Sheppard War Hero, Colonist, Paragon. I put a time span of about three and a half months on the whole mission, from Eden Prime to the end of the attack on the Citadel, Virmire I set at about three months in.
"Dulce et decorum est..."
She'd enlisted at eighteen, was now nearly thirty and before three months ago she'd never lost a soldier under her command. Which is not to say that she hadn't lost people, during the Blitz, against impossible odds, she'd lost a lot, but they were civilians, not soldiers, not men and women trained to fight. Not young and full of promise, like Jenkins. Not capable and eager, like Ashley. The very idea of losing personnel was galling, and the ways they had died so frustrating. Jenkins, with his shields and armor torn through before she and Kaiden could even get a fix on what was shooting at him. Ashley dead because she'd had to choose... and she'd chosen Kaiden, because she'd done what any commander would have and taken the officer over the NCO. Because she'd taken the would-be-lover over the friend. But no even just thinking that felt wrong, because the choice had had nothing to do with her feelings for either of them and everything to do with training and the mission. Damn it all anyway.
It eased her mind a little, knowing that, Ash's death was still a load of shit, and having to choose between them an even bigger one but... it wasn't her fault. She keeps repeating it, an endless refrain in the back of her mind, the melody for Jenkins now with a harmony for Ash, hoping that eventually she'll actually believe it. So far, no dice. It's worse though she has to contact Williams' family, her mother and her sisters, and tell them that Ash's never coming home, that there isn't even a body to bury because it was blown into radioactive dust by the bomb Ashley herself had set and died to ensure would go off. She understands now how Admiral Kohaku had felt, and is ashamed at her relief that Jenkins' family died on Eden Prime as well, she'd never had to make the call to them. But Jenkins' had been a relative stranger, she'd known him less than a week before Eden Prime. Ashley was a friend, was her sister-in-arms, it was... she didn't know if she could do this--
"Commander, I have the communications channel to Valhalla Colony." Joker's voice echoed slightly in the room. "Patching it through."
"Mrs. Williams? This is Commander Sheppard. I'm afraid I have some bad news about your daughter, Ashley."
"...Pro patria mori."
The End
AN: The rest of the conversation can be up to your imaginations. Oh, and I just picked a place for the colony where Ashley's mother lives. The title, first and last lines come from a poem by a British soldier during WWI, Wilfred Owen died in March of 1918 before the war was over and before his poem could be published, intended in 19191 but ended up in 1920. The first line reads "It is sweet and fitting ..." "... To die for one's country." and his use of the line is a quotation of a Roman Poet named Horace. How Horace used it, I am not certain. I know that Owen's use of the line is satirical and in essence I'm using it out of context, so if you've read the poem or are going to read it now, keep that in mind.