Right, ME2, and the famous "Shepard gets spaced" scene. Let's see what I can do with this... In which Shepard finally "gets it" - too late. This is a bit of a mirror to Her Words - same subject, Shoker style. Some misery for you...
Can stand on its own, but is intended as part of a series, the other parts comprising: Observation & Engineering, John, The Sound Of Silence, Oblivious, and Solace.
Loved And Lost
"Better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all." ~ William Shakespeare
He doesn't know when it stopped being friendship.
He knows perfectly well when he admitted it to himself - when it happened? He's not so sure.
It's ridiculous, he thinks, as he strides along another of the Normandy's seemingly endless grey corridors. He's human - he's seen the way she's been treated, seen the way she's reacted; for the first time ever, he has felt more than a little ashamed of his species. She would never feel that way about a human.
Would she?
The touches, the nervousness, the... no. This is just...
She's on her pilgrimage, anyway - he's the first human she's met that has actually treated her as an equal; that does not mean -
He shakes his head, and snaps back to being "Commander Shepard" - or, at least, tries to. Hard when half your mind is on wondering what your resident quarian's smile looks like.
Joker's grumbling something about being shafted by the Alliance - while they all know that it's true, that these geth patrols are pointless, no-one else is actually saying it.
Sovereign's gone. Their work here is done. So, medals, and statues and whatever else the Council can throw at them, right?
No. Nothing. Which is what Joker is saying. "We get one ounce of recognition for all the shit we've been through? No. Nuh-uh. No-thing."
Walking to the pilot's chair, he can't help but laugh. "Y'know, considering we've pretty much just saved the galaxy, your cynicism is impressive."
The pilot turns to him. "Nah, just realism. I mean - "
Shepard hears a shout from behind him, realising something's shown up on the screens, and crosses over to take a look. He has the thought at the exact same time Joker does.
"That's not the geth!"
This is said a few seconds before a laser beam that is way beyond the scope of any of the geth's technology shreds part of the ship.
He's running half-on-autopilot, trying not to panic, grabbing a breather suit just in case, running to the escape pods. He worries for the crew, but it's Tali that he panics about - the officer in him reasons it out, knowing he should wait by the escape pods, that he'll see everyone that makes it out that way. The man is screaming at him to go and get her, get her before something awful happens...
It's only when he starts having to push his way through frayed pipes that he realises his ship is falling apart around him. His ship - some obstinate part of him would have once called it Anderson's, but after all he and this ship have been through together, how can he?
He's just zipping up the suit when Ashley tells him about Joker - the proud, stubborn idiot is determined to go down with his ship.
He makes her get into a pod before running to the cockpit; his patience is frayed to the point of being non-existent. He hates the fact that a small part of him doesn't even care he's broken his pilot's arm.
The crew, the crew... He lets out his first "shit!" in about three weeks, and something in him breaks when he sees Pressley's body. He keeps moving, though, because what else can he do?
He has no family. His friends are all in the escape pods. So the only thing he is thinking of, as he starts falling quickly, far, far too quickly for comfort towards an icy planet he doubts he can name, is the quarian engineer whose life he saved what seems so long ago.
She'll never know, and, as he finally loses hope, he figures that is a good thing. He isn't sure he believes Shakespeare.
After all, you can't mourn what you never had.