She stared at it, not really even seeing it anymore. Two years, and she had almost no memory of her time spent in the coma, or worse, while being rebuild by Cerberus. To Shepard, it wasn't two years. It had been hours, at least it felt that way, since she'd woken up beside him. She ran her thumb over the picture one more time, the stream of tears renewing their viggor as they rolled endlessly down her freckled cheeks.
She was Shepard. She wasn't supposed to be weak, heartbroken. Those were things girls did, squishy females with no strength and no drive to survive. She wasn't this person, sobbing endlessly over a man. Yet, there she was, holding his picture, like some weak little mouse. She wasn't just sad. She was angry, too. Angry at herself, angry at all that lost time... and angry at him.
Kaidan Alenko had been her strength when they'd fought Saren and the Reaper. She, they, had saved the Citadel, saved the council. She loved him, and he loved her in return. Even when she thought it was hopeless, he'd reminded her exactly who she was. She was Commander Shepard, and he loved her. It had been all she needed to keep her going.
After everything that had happened, the alliance had sent the Normandy out to hunt for Geth. An act that had brought her to the brink of death, but not before she had ordered Kaidan to take the crew and go. He had argued, but orders were orders, especially when your lover was your commanding officer. Kaidan had gotten everyone out. Shepard got Joker out... but she died, or at least that's what Jacob told her when she'd finally awoken two years later.
Two years. It was a hard concept to wrap your head around, and Shepard still hadn't quite gotten there. She'd been coping. There were more important things to do then dwell on the fact that she'd been DEAD. The new Normandy, the new crew, it was all new and she could handle new. She was a Spectre after all. Change and new were just part of the job.
Everything kept moving, time wouldn't stand still. It didn't stand still when Ash had given her life so they could stop Saren, It hadn't stood still while she was being rebuilt, and it wasn't going to stand still while she coped with her death. Time wasn't forgiving, even with the loss of things that reminded her that she was still human, still a woman.
She gained new crew members, to replace the ones no longer available to her. No more Kaidan, no more sweet Tali or kind Liara. No more friendly teasing from Wrex. Garrus was gone as well, vanished completely off the grid. Just one more sign of the years that were nothing but a black, empty space of lost changes kept coming, and she rolled with them. She was Shepard, after all.
One by one, she built a new crew. The Illusive Man sent her a list of people that were, supposedly, the best. Shepard already knew who the best were, but there wasn't enough time to argue. Shepard did what she had to do, to get the mission done.
The first two to join her felt, wrong. They were like pale replacements of her friends. Two humans to replace the two humans on her first ground crew. Miranda and Jacob. They were capable, but they weren't Ashley and Kaidan. Even if she didn't tell them, Shepard felt like a traitor, taking these two on her crew.
Miranda was the Illusive man's plant. She was perfectly bitchy. Shepard didn't like her and sure as hell didn't trust her. Jacob was alright, even a bit cute. He wasn't Kaidan though, and Sheperd did her very best to dislike him. The prisoner, Jack, was as crazy a bitch as Sheperd had ever met. She liked Jack, though Shepard would never tell her that. Then there was Grunt. Grunt was no Wrex, but Krogen were preeeety much exactly the same. The Dr. was alright, for a Selarian.
Her biggest surprise, and the one thing that had anchored her in reality, was Garrus. When the Normandy had been destroyed, he'd gone back to C-Sect. When that didn't pan out, he'd vanished, heading to Terminus space to be a vigilante. On Omega, they'd called him Archangel. After saving his rear from three separate merc bands trying to kill him, he happily joined her mission, giving Sheperd the feeling that maybe time hadn't betrayed her so very utterly.
How very wrong Shepard was, and Shepard hated to be wrong. Horizon was supposed to be a rescue mission. The Illusive Man had lured the Collectors there so she and her crew could stop them, learn something.. anything. Of course, he didn't tell her that. He'd said it was vigilance that had alerted him to the issue.
She, Garrus, and Jack fought through waves of bug-like collectors. They watched as their general managed direct control over his drone-worker-things. Then, the found the frozen people, and understood how they had taken whole planets of people with out anyone noticing or struggling.
They ran into a mechanic, locked inside a bunker. He told them what had happened, told them that it must have been the Alliance's fault, since they'd sent their forces to install giant turrets to defend them. This mechanic told her that he was there. Shepard didn't want to believe he was still there though. The idea that he could have been frozen, placed in a pod. It was to much for her. He must have left. There hadn't been any sign of Alliance shops when they'd landed. She couldn't dwell on it, there were collectors to kill and colonists to save.
She pushed it out of her mind, and pushed forward with the mission. They'd reactivated the turrets, fought off waves of Collectors and Husks. Shepard did what she always did, she saved the day. When that was all done, the mechanic had come out, screaming at her as the Collector ship got away. She'd apologized, there wasn't anything more that she could do at the moment. It felt like failure. Shepard hated failure.
His voice replayed in her head, as she stared at his picture. "Commander Shepard, Captain of the Normandy, The first human Spectre, Savior of the Citadel. You're in the presence of a legend, Delen... and a ghost."
The sheer impact of his voice, of his face, sent her reeling. Reeling, for Shepard, anyway. She'd never been very good at emotional stuff, so while her heart was shattering into a million pieces, she didn't even so much as blink. Although, when he embraced her, she returned the gesture, holding on to his form tightly. He smelled like the Kaidan she remembered, felt the same in her arms.
It had taken him a few moments, but the impact of Shepard being alive wore off. It was quickly replaced with his anger. "Why didn't you contact me, I thought you were dead! We all did!" She admitted that she'd tried, that she technically was dead. He was furious.
"... I loved you!" She tried to explain, that it hadn't been two years for her. It was like yesterday. She wanted him to understand why she was working with Cerberus, asked him to join her..
He'd called her a traitor, and walked away. So much for love, right? No, that wasn't fair. He'd lived those two years believing her dead. No one had told him. Even she hadn't pushed when Councilor Anderson said he was doing something Top Secret. Such is the way of the military. She'd convinced herself she would just wait and when she was able, she'd contact him.
Anderson. That son'of'a'bitch had set her up. He sent Kaidan there to see if the rumors were true about her and Cerberus. He could have just asked! She was only working with Cerberus because someone needed to do something, and the Council and the Alliance would have wrapped her up in so much red tape she'd be shitting it for years to come.
The memory of Kaidan's last words tore through her one more time. The whole thing was bullshit. Cerberus should have just left her dead. The Alliance shouldn't have sent her on a wild goose chase. Kaidan should have trusted her!
Angrily, she flung the picture across her quarters. It bounced harmlessly off the wall and landed on her bed. She ran shaky fingers through her blonde hair. She wiped the tears out of her eyes. They kept flowing, betraying her. Tear ducts were evil things. They could always betray you when you least expected it. At least they'd waited till she was alone to overflow. She needed to keep a strong face for the rest of her team.
Garrus would understand, even if the tears themselves would scare the shit out of him. The rest of them? Shepard doubted very much that they would be able to get why she'd be so upset. Just an Alliance soldier. What's the big deal? Right? No, they'd never understand why seeing him, why him calling her a traitor and turning his back on her when she needed him would bring about such emotion from her.
She was Shepard. Shepard didn't do emotion. Shepard saved worlds and sacrificed lives to save the council. Shepard killed rogue Spectres and Reapers. Shepard didn't cry, or love, or break protocol.
She stood, walking away from her desk. She picked up the picture one more time, and brought it to her lips. Then, she pressed it to her chest, and sighed. It didn't matter if he didn't feel that way for her anymore. It hadn't been two years for her. She loved him still. She set the image of Kaidan back on her desk, next to her personal terminal.
"I'll make you proud of me again, Kaiden. You'll see."
Mass Effect, and all characters, even Fem!Shep, are property of Bioware. They're nice enough to let me play their game, and use their product for creativity. *heart*