Angels Wept
"I Climb, I Slip, I Fall,
Reaching for your hands,
But I lay here all alone,
Sweating all your blood.
If I could find out how
To make you listen now,
Because I'm starving for you here,
With my undying love."
Until Tomorrow, Paramore
Ashley
Ashley Williams stepped out of the elevator on the SSV Normandy while tying her hair into a regulation bun. She hadn't been able to sleep, but at two thirty six in the morning AST, there was only so much to occupy her time. After cleaning her guns again, and re-organizing her locker, she had resigned to go to the mess. No one would be up anyway and maybe a glass of milk would help her sleep.
She wasn't sure how milk and sleep were correlated, but after a restless evening like hers, she was willing to try anything.
What she didn't expect was to turn the corner and see Commander Shepard.
Ashley froze. At first, out of fear of being caught. The crew was on a strict sleep schedule to keep everyone at their most energized. She wasn't supposed to be wandering the mess in the middle of the night. She felt her body freeze a second time at the thought of how strange it was to see Shepard by herself. If the commander was out of her quarters a crew of at least three people at a time would be circling her, bombarding her with status reports, mission logs, and supply orders. Ashley remained still and silent as she realized where the commander was standing.
Shepard stood by the offensive flickering screen of Lieutenant Alenko's service station. She was unmoving, looking at the screen, yet past it, as if lost in some memory of a conversation or a touch or a… feeling that had occurred there. Her arms were crossed, but not in her usual form of attitude or defiance, but in a sad, slack grip across her abdomen, as if she felt sick or cold. Her shoulders were slumped; the long lines of her body had curved and broken free of their usual stern and unyielding form as if years of harsh winter and hard labor had washed upon Shepard's spry personality.
The commander didn't turn, but Ashley knew Shepard sensed that she was there.
Ashley stood in confusion on how to act for a long moment. To see such a powerful form in a crumpled existence was humbling. And based on how Shepard was gazing lovingly into the air that had once been breathed by the sweet lieutenant, Ashley didn't need to ask Shepard to know what she was thinking about.
Williams debated with herself on whether or not she should leave Shepard to her silent vigil of grief, or go over and talk to her. Ashley knew she needed a friend, but she wasn't sure she was the particular friend Shepard would want to talk to.
Either way, Ashley found herself shuffling quietly to Shepard's side. Even if she didn't want to talk, sometimes just knowing someone was ready to, made a difference.
As Ashley had predicted, the commander didn't say anything. On closer inspection she noticed large puffy lids around moist eyes, a slightly quivering lip and a spent tissue in a tight fist. Ashley begged for words to come to her, but instead she took position three feet behind and to the right of the commander.
Whole minutes passed. The only sound was a small sniffle coming from Shepard once every twenty or thirty seconds. Overtime, Shepard's body became a shaking and shivering mass even as Ashley watched her. Ashley reached out a tentative hand and placed it on Shepard's trembling shoulder, and was rewarded with a real sob.
Taking Shepard's admission of tears as permission, Ashley grabbed her friend by the arms and turned Shepard to her. Ash encased Shepard's unsteady shoulders in her arms. She wasn't thinking; she was just acting. Ash and Shepard were friends, and despite whatever turmoil the two were going through over the loss of their third member, they had to help each other.
"I miss him." Shepard said in a watery tone so uncharacteristic, Ashley knew it was a phrase- and a tone- that she was very sacred to witness. The very crack in Shepard's voice told Ash it was the first time Shepard had said the words out loud.
"So goddamned much." Shepard's pained voice finished.
In the months that had followed Alenko's tragic death on Virmire, the commander and Ash had spent excessive time trying to avoid talking about it. Even now, with Saren dead and Sovereign gone, the pain was still an unspoken understanding.
"I know." Ashley said, trying her best to soothe the commander.
Shepard pulled herself from Ashley's hug and turned to the flickering console. Either on purpose or out of weakness Shepard sunk to the floor in front of the station, leaning her head on the edge of the screen and punching the unyielding steel underneath with a cry of exasperation.
"I made the right choice." Shepard said to the floor.
Ashley joined her on the floor and held the hand that had punched the console. "There is no right choice for something like that."
"No, I mean I did." Shepard had her eyes closed as salty trails leaked down her cheek.
"If I had saved Kaidan…" She paused for a body racking breath, "I would wonder every day for the rest of my life if I had done it simply for the selfish reason... that I loved him."
Ashley hadn't expected the word 'love' to enter the conversation. Shepard and Kaidan had only known each other for a short while… but now that Williams could see the results of such an untimely death, and the way Shepard said his name, she knew nothing but 'love' could describe what Shepard had felt. What her… and Kaidan, had felt.
"It would've destroyed us both in the end." Shepard said weakly, her fingers tracing the bottom edge of the orange monitor.
Ashley felt her first tear assault her cheek as she realized the pain that Shepard was in. She found herself wondering deep in her heart what Kaidan's last thoughts had been, if he could talk to Shepard now, what he would say to her.
Ashley scooted closer and grabbed a tighter grip on Shepard's hand. She wasn't with her commander any longer. She was with a young woman who was desperately in love.
To Shepard, dying is not the ultimate sacrifice, letting someone you love die, is. And just as with Romeo's Juliet and all the other females, of all the races, in the history of the galaxy who had lost their lovers to the cruel and unmerciful claws of fate, the angels wept with her.