Original prompt: "Ashley has always had a complicated relationship with faith, but as the war drags on it's clear it has to be all or nothing where Shepard is concerned.
Show me Ashley coming to grips with her belief that Shepard can get them through this, as well as reconciling the horror of the Reapers with her own faith. And Shepard letting her mask crack enough to remind Ashley that she is only human, after all."
If this were some romantic prose, Ashley would be musing on how sleeping next to her girlfriend feels just the same as it did the last time they shared a bed, almost three years ago. There's a few issues with that, though. Firstly, this is real life, not romantic prose; secondly, it feels a lot different; and thirdly, Shepard's not actually lying next to her. The other side of the bed is cold, and she can hear labored breaths coming from the other side of the bathroom door.
Thick socks (a soldier's small luxury) at least block out the chill of the floor, if not the hum of the engines beneath her feet as she feels her way across the cabin. Shepard is slumped bonelessly in one corner, like a rag doll tossed onto a shelf.
"Skipper?"
The commander cracks her eyes open, squinting at the doorway. "Hey," she mumbles. "Bad dreams get you, too?"
Somewhere in the back of her mind, Ash knows she shouldn't be as surprised as she is. Nightmares are a side effect of the job, after all, and Shepard doesn't get enough sleep to begin with. It might just be this lighting, but the dark circles under her eyes are starting to look like bruises.
No point beating around the bush. "You look pretty bad."
That earns her a dry chuckle. "Blunt as ever," Shepard mumbles, putting her head down on her knees. "'M fine. Just on the rag…you know how it is."
It takes a bit of doing to position herself so she can press the back of her hand to Shepard's forehead, but she manages. "You're running hot."
"Maybe you're just cold. Said I'm fine."
If they could bottle stubbornness, this woman's supply would power the Crucible. Ashley keeps herself from rolling her eyes. "Feel okay to get up?"
"Should be." Her hand is cold and clammy when it grabs the lieutenant-commander's offered one.
The main cabin is still set to overnight lighting, and Ash squints into the darkness for about ten seconds before mentally shaking her head. Navigating Shepard's cabin on the SR-1 without visual cues was possible, but compared to this one, it was the size of a postage stamp - and with less furniture to bump into, too.
"EDI?" she calls to the ceiling. "Little light, pretty please?"
The lights switch to a quarter brightness - silently, which Ashley considers a plus. Nothing against AIs, but this one wears the same body as the thing that slammed her head against a shuttletwice, which tends to color a person's reaction. If that makes her a technophobe, so be it.
Not the time for worrying about that. With a little cooperation from the commander, they maneuver enough to deposit Shepard on the couch, letting her sink into the cushions. Her body glistens with sweat, the fish tank's light turning her skin strange colors. It's gonna take some doing to get her anywhere close to going back to sleep.
"You have a washcloth?"
Shepard opens her eyes, jerks her head in a vague direction over Ash's shoulder. "Bathroom sink."
At least this cabin's kept neater than the last one was. For one thing, it's actually possible to find stuff. Ashley wets the cloth under the faucet and wrings it out; when Shepard presses it to the back of her neck, the commander sighs in relief at blessed cold.
"If you wanna go back to bed…" She slumps against the couch, trailing off.
This time, Ashley does roll her eyes. "Right. So you can get up and keep working yourself half to death?"
Feigning irritation, Shepard raises one eyebrow. "Undermining your CO's plans is usually cause for a write-up, you know."
Ashley snorts. "To be a fly on the wall when the Admiral reads that disciplinary report."
"Smartass." The commander smiles, just a little, when Ash flops down next to her. They curl into one another, and actually, it's hard to ignore the thought that this doesn't feel any different than it did three years ago. Shepard's small, and they fit into each other as easily as pieces of a jigsaw. Cuddled up like this, it would be so easy to put everything else out of her mind, to meditate on the sounds of their breathing and the faint chitter of the space hamster.
Without moving, Shepard asks, "You still pray?"
"Yeah. Why? You want me to, now?" When they were chasing Saren, the commander said once she didn't believe in dogma, but she's died and come back. Who knows how that changes someone's beliefs?
"If it'll make you feel better." Shepard shrugs, pushing her sweaty hair out of her eyes. "Or if you think it'll do anything."
Ashley manages a wry smile. "Be a pretty small God who couldn't break a fever."
With a sigh, Shepard shifts the washcloth to her forehead. "You ever think God makes mistakes, too? And maybe he's just doing his best, like the rest of us down here?"
It hurts just imagining the size of the can of worms Ash would be opening if she answered that honestly. Instead, she makes a noncommittal sound and nudges the other woman. "You ever consider having this conversation at a more reasonable hour?"
"A few times." Shepard waves it off, turning to stare straight into her eyes. "Remember I asked you once about Mindoir? Don't you think any part of that could've been a mistake?"
"If you're asking whether you should've died, the answer is no. Hell no." The words sound clipped, like a bullet leaving a gun - but dammit, there are some places Ashley isn't letting this conversation go, tonight or any night.
"I meant the fucking colony raid, Ash," Shepard snaps, pinching the bridge of her nose. "You know what one of the soldiers on that patrol said when I asked him why it was happening? 'Maybe it was to make you stronger.' " She waves her hands around in mockery of a salute. "Yeah, my family and friends and all those other people, dead or worse, just to be pawns in the life of a goddamn sixteen-year-old, oh, but remember God loves everyone equally! Is that what you believe?"
It's not Commander Shepard talking, it's the wounded, broken teenager under that scar tissue. A lapse in tact can be forgiven.
"No. That's not gospel, it's using religion as an excuse not to think." Ash stretches out her legs in front of her as well as she can without jostling either of them. "I don't pretend to know the reason for everything."
The commander scowls up at her. "When the 212 died on Eden Prime, was that God's plan?"
Ashley stiffens. "That isn't - "
"Yes or no, Williams?"
Ash sucks in a breath, makes herself hold it as she counts back from ten silently. "Skipper. We're not doing this. If you're trying to get me to throw a punch, you need to straight-up ask me to spar."
She can see the other woman melt slowly into the couch, transforming from angry teenager back into military leader. "No," she mutters finally. "I'm being an ass. Sorry."
"It happens." One hand has picked up a rhythm, rubbing Shepard's back in large, slow circles. She doesn't fully realize it's even happening until the redhead adjusts her position.
"Hey, for what it's worth," Ashley hears herself say, "Sarah has the same questions you do. Once the war started and Thomas died, she asked me over and over why a loving God would do that."
Shepard rubs her eyes, sitting up straighter. "What'd you tell her? I mean…how can God throw people under the bus like that?"
The lieutenant-commander hums tunelessly, pretending she didn't charge into this conversation without any idea where it was going. Her words are too halting to make it fluid, though, even to her own ears. "'Give me faith - to trust, if not to know; with quiet mind in all things Thee to find, and, child-like, go where Thou wouldst have me go.'"
Shepard raises her eyebrows. "Who was that?"
"Dunkerley. Not my usual stuff, but yeah."
"Pretty." She folds her legs underneath her. "Doesn't answer the question, though. How can people just be tossed aside like that? Like they don't matter?"
I don't know, Ash doesn't say. I wish I did. "Skipper, you know all about the greater good. People get sacrificed for that, even civilians. Part of this is just trusting everything comes together in the end."
Shepard presses her lips together. "You can know something and not understand it." The unspoken, "Remember Virmire?" hangs in the air between them. All the arguments-slash-discussions about why Kaidan had to die, and how one person could be chosen over another...finding any feeling of resolution there was a long road. The logic-based part of Ash had known there was no way they could have all made it out, but it hadn't made the emotion-based part understand why she was still breathing and the LT was dead.
After a long silence, Ashley nuzzles a kiss against her CO's forehead, tone softer than it was before. "I don't - like I said, I don't pretend to have an answer to everything. You asked if I still pray. I ask for God's plan to keep working - that's most of it."
"Well, don't." There's a fierceness in Shepard's eyes. "Pray for us to win this damn war."
"Skipper - "
No. She cuts herself off. When there are things you can't admit to yourself, they don't make it into fully formed thoughts, let alone spoken words. Too much of a half-baked idea, especially given these circumstances.
The priests and youth group leaders and mentors always said that it was risky to ask God for a direct outcome, that mortal beings couldn't understand what was best on the grand scale of the universe, and that by being upset when you got a "no," you could be ignoring the good that had come of it. That things couldn't go right sometimes if they didn't go wrong other times.
After Alchera, it'd made her want to spit. Double that after Horizon. Both times, she'd doubted. Both times, she'd gone on praying anyway. When you got a "no," it could either make your faith stronger or shake it.
Pretty big "or." Hard not to hate it. When making a request of God, ask either for something that will definitely happen, or for the vague. Keep things strong.
Lying to yourself again, Williams.
I know. It happens.
The pattern of Shepard's breathing has gone deep and even again while Ash's been thinking, saving her from answering. Probably better that way, to let sleeping dogs (and sleeping commanders) lie, and table certain conversations indefinitely.
Ignorance is bliss, right?
She runs her fingers up Shepard's arm, tangling them in red hair. Lips moving soundlessly, she prays for the fever to break.
A/N: The quoted lines are from "Faith" by William Arthur Dunkerley.