Aerie was only a few months old during the Reaper War twenty years prior. Too young to remember the destruction, when all her life she had spent in the rebuilding. Too young to remember the time of when the reapers were enemies and not guardians. Too young to remember what life was like before the green light, when all their lives had changed from the molecular level.
Her earliest memories are that of a firefight. Unfamiliar ships clashed with the reapers over an unfamiliar planet. Her vision was sluggish as her eyes traced the cannon shots. This she pins on the haziness of an old memory. But she remembers the pain, clear as day. There was a hole in her side, and she pressed a hand over the wound even though it hurt to do so, and she wonders why she did.
Aerie remembers looking over and seeing a man, whom she regarded with both respect and familial affection, shoulders slumped from either exhaustion or from whatever the red blood leaked out of. He spoke with a considerable effort, his voice strained:
"You did good, child. You did good. I'm proud of you."
Pride and anguish and peace and a sense of completion, a feeling of we've finally won always accompany those words. Of course she doesn't remember why or how. The man's name eludes her, and it tortures her whenever she remembers him. She can't remember what happened after that, the next memories being the obscure ones of her early childhood.
Even though it was her earliest memory, it was the one that never faded or lost itself in her mind. Aerie could not, for the life of her, remember what she ate for dinner three days ago. But she could remember the pain, the anguish, the pride and the completion as if it were a fresh wound, not an old scar she kept on picking at.
She asked her family about the memory several times. Inquired as to why she had been hurt and where she had been and who was that man? They had all waved her off, called her memory a dream. But it was not a dream, and she knew because it held a quality of realness that only memories had.
One innocent, innocuous day, Aerie received a message from an agent of a Dr. T'Soni. It was an invitation, a promise of answers in the form of a ticket and a signature.
She took the offer because she was tired of feeling like a stranger in her own memories.
"Anderson, his name is Captain Anderson," says a young human male, almost yelling above the din of the crowd. "I shot him just before. Not because I wanted to, the Illusive Man and the reapers made me."
Aerie nods. "I listened to him die," she half-shouts back.
"I'm sorry."
An asari approaches them from the side. "You two talking about Anderson?" They nod, and she continues. "About the time he decides to stay on earth?"
Aerie shakes her head. "That was a different time. He's dying-well, he dies in mine."
The asari frowns in sympathy. "I see. You got the very last look at him. Treasure it."
"I will."
The whine of a microphone draws all their attention, a hush falling over the enormous motley crowd. A turian stands on the platform, blue armor glinting in the tired afternoon sunlight. Several people call out a familiar moniker: Garrus Vakarian.
His mandibles briefly flare in a smirk. "Anybody here remember the time I almost died?"
A dozen voices yell out, offering times and details.
He laughs. "I guess I almost died pretty often. Why don't we start from the very beginning then?"
Piece by piece, she is rebuilt.
Childhood comes first, disproportionately brief, then the military training. Special detail is placed on Elysium, and their chests puff up with pride at the title of war hero. Time slips away as the people get lost in the memories. The sun is setting when someone mentions the Normandy, a top-rank stealth ship on a routine shakedown run.
Eden Prime, Feros, Noveria, Virmire, Ilos, and countless others are confessed unto the night. There was sorrow on Virmire, and collective wonder on Ilos. Remorse at not being able to save the rogue Spectre.
The Normandy was under attack. They were spaced. They died. They were revived. Action and conflict served as a rude awakening. Also, a search to assemble a team capable of destroying the Collectors. Garrus Vakarian listened on as they retold his near-death experience. He laughed. "I hadn't realized Miranda was so annoyed that I bled all over the shuttle." They laughed too.
The Collectors were defeated with no casualties, they noted with pride in both themselves and their crew. They turned themselves into the Alliance, who ignored their warnings until six months later, when living proof arrived. Thus began a scramble for the solution.
There were markedly more highs and lows. Like the happiness and relief when they found Garrus on Menae, worried but otherwise unharmed. Tears streamed during the losses. Mordin dead. Thane dead. Legion dead. Thessia lost. Light began to flood the horizon when Kai Leng was finally killed. They cheered. After, came Earth and solemn goodbyes. Then a bright beam. Her turn came not long after, and she finally understood.
Aerie felt herself drift as she described her memory. Heads bowed in sadness and respect for Anderson. She concluded with his last words and the lightness in her head as the pain became too much.
The story continues, to her surprise. They wake up in a strange place, with a strange being addressing them. They are given three choices, but of course they know the answer.
When the last person speaks, detailing their jump and the way it felt to be deconstructed at the atomic level, no one finds that they oppose the decision. Some doubts perhaps, but no one calls for anything different. There were some gaps where either the memories had faded or the carriers were not present, but the effect is still the same. She's here.
Soon the crowd returns to its usual hum. Aerie can see familiar people, faces immortalized by countless vids and extranet articles. James Vega, older but no worse for wear, joking with a group of asari who ask him about 'Lola'. Dr. Liara T'soni, and her husband, the last prothean, share drinks with an elderly drell woman. She can hear snippets of a beacon and a vision. A krogan asks Tali'Zorah vas Rannoch about her house.
Perhaps there are others she cannot see as well. The crowd is large, made up of hundreds of people, capable of obscuring many forms. Vakarian taps on the microphone to get their attention. The crowd falls silent.
His mandibles flare in a grin, sad but victorious. "It's good to have you back, Shepard."
Inspired by a scene in Unwind by Neil Shusterman, where a bunch of people are brought together in remembrance for the boy they received either an organ or a body part from. I read the book a long time ago, but I always remember that scene...