"The people always have some champion whom they set over them and nurse into greatness. … This and no other is the root from which a tyrant springs; when he first appears he is a protector." - Plato.
Luna Defense Perimeter, Earth - October 11, 2186 - Two weeks after the Crucible Event.
Space was a curious place. It was like an ocean...filled with possibilities, blanketed with improbabilities, and utterly unfathomable to those inexperienced with exploring it. Some humans called space the 'final frontier'. The turians called it the 'unending void'. The asari's sacred religious texts, now long forgotten or ignored, referred to it as the 'place where the goddess Athame believes we must go'. Regardless of the species, everybody had accepted a universal fact: at some point, they must explore that dark horizon from which their planet lies within. None of them knew what they'd find, and perhaps none of them even knew the other existed.
But none of them could possibly fathom the monsters that waited in the dark space.
A race of sentient starships, known as the Reapers to the prothean and asari cycles, the Dark Song Destroyers to the rachni, the Death's Army to the inusannon, and countless other names by many others throughout galactic history, were once an enemy to be feared. Unknowable. Seemingly inconquerable. In a realm of intelligence far beyond their own. They mastered the stars, shaped them to their will, and waited patiently for 50,000 years before brutally, mercilessly and meticulously obliterating alien civilizations at the apex of their greatness. Even humanity and the many other races it shared the galaxy with, was no exception to the Reapers' foolproof plans for repeated galactic holocausts. But one factor had changed the outcome. One human had managed to rise to the occassion, and defeat an enemy that, for billions of years, had been undefeatable.
That man was Lieutenant Commander Jonathan Brandon Shepard. The Lion of Elysium, Hero of the Citadel, Destroyer of the Collectors, Bane of the Reapers...and Savior of the Galaxy. Just two weeks before, the man had led the greatest military alliance in galactic history, numbering in the tens of thousands of warships and the millions in ground troops, to lead a desperate final assault to retake Earth, use their superweapon (the Crucible) and destroy the Reapers once and for all. Many had called it a suicide mission. The last defiant act of civilization. A final gunshot before the eventual bleed out. Nobody had expected success. In fact, everybody had gone knowing, believing, that this was the end. That the galaxy was finished, and the neverending cycles of galactic genocide would continue for a billion years more.
But against all odds, against every single piece of mathematics and pre-planned military strategy, the man had done it. It didn't matter how he did it, or why, or how he was driven enough to do it after being beaten, bloodied, bashed, slashed, torn and blasted...what mattered was that he had. The Crucible had fired, its seemingly ubiquitous and all encompassing ray of death spreading from planet to planet, system by system, cluster by cluster, like wildfire. Within days...the Crucible's work was complete.
And the Reapers were dead. The monsters had stuttered and perished, defeated by the organics they deemed to be inferior and beneath them: an irony that was not lost, not forgotten, by those who had fought hard to stay alive in this brutal, nearly year-long war of attrition.
And for the first time in galactic history...space was quiet. Not the kind of quiet you'd expect from actual sound of course, as sound didn't travel in space conventionally, but the kind of quiet that came with the lack of ships engaging each other in CQB. For the first time, not a single ship fired its weapons. Not a single ship fired upon another. There was just...silence.
In that silence, in the space around a little blue ball called Earth, the homeworld of the human race, a ship blinked back into existence, the warping of the area around it rippling through the area like a drop of water hitting a puddle, but quickly receding and vanishing. The ship's engines blared, stuttering pathetically as the wounded warship carefully, but with the grace only the most skilled pilot could perform, limped into the system, making its way towards the blue ball. A ship, whose name bares the namesake of a similar battle under similar circumstances in human history, whose importance to the war effort wasn't just pivotal...it inarguably changed the tide.
The ship didn't remain silent for long.
"This is SSV Normandy SR-2 to any other surviving UGC warships in the vicinity, please respond if you're out there, over," came the usually cocky and cynical voice of probably the best pilot in not just the Alliance navy, but any galaxy's naval force. He shifted his cap uneasily, scratching at his side burns idly while his fingers tapped with the terribly hidden restraint of somebody trying not to show their impatience. Sighing, Flight Lieutenant Jeff Moreau, or 'Joker' as he had been both appropriately and sardonically nicknamed, shifted in his seat just a little, to look to the seat on his immediate right, where his co-pilot would usually be seated.
As he had expected, there was no sign of change. EDI was still where she had been during the entire flight back to Earth, the AI's mechanized body using its motorized fingers to swipe aside and examine the holographic screens infront of her at a speed no organic, no matter how intelligent or resourceful, could hope to match. Data and information was absorbed within seconds by the AI, allowing Joker to take his attention away from the fact that the Normandy was essentially limping across a battlefield with both its legs broken and with the equivalent of punctured lungs. Suffice to say, the magnificient warship was in no position to be taking anybody else on in sustained combat, although Joker doubted such combat would be necessary at this point.
The ship was barely holding together. Admiral Hackett had ordered practically the entirety of Victory Sword to evacuate the system once word was received that the Crucible would be firing: considering they had no idea what they were toying with, the Admiral was understandably reluctant to hang around to find out what. Everybody agred with the sentiment, because before you knew it, half their remaining forces had disengaged and withdrawn. Unfortunately, the Normandy was a tad more reluctant...and for good reason.
Its commanding officer wasn't onboard. Because he was on the Citadel, firing the Crucible. And everybody was pretty sure he wouldn't survive the blast.
The entire crew had been divided, but it had been Garrus Vakarian, to their surprise, who had given the order for them to withdraw. Garrus, not just the XO of the ship, but one of the best friends of the commander...perhaps not just a friend, but a man considered to be a brother. Hearing him give the order...it had sounded final. The crew had accepted the inevitable at that point, and Joker had, albeit reluctantly, withdrawn.
Except one.
Joker closed his eyes, taking a deep breath through his lungs and groaning as he did so, his heavily bruised rib cage protesting against the strain of taking in air. He tried to shut out the memory of the screaming, the verbal barrage of hatred thrown at him, and how terrible he had felt when that hatred and screaming had degenerated into...defeated sobbing. How the woman, turned from raging banshee of hate and anger, had collapsed onto the floor, crawled into a ball, and cried her eyes out until no tears were left. But Joker remembered what she had mumbled as Garrus picked her up and took her to the medbay. He remembered that well. How could he not?
"You left him to die...how could you? How could you...?"
And she was right. He had left their CO, their commander, to die. They all had. The man who would have given their life for each and every one of them...the man who had, for all intents and purposes, saved all of galactic civilization.
And he had been left to die, alone, cold and wounded on a space station in orbit over Earth, while his crewmates, his friends, turned tail...and ran.
Frustrated by the memory, and still having not received a response, Joker almost jabbed his thumb against the comms again, unable to contain his impatience for much longer, "I repeat, this is SSV Normandy SR-2 to any vessels within the vicinity capable of receiving and responding to this message. If you can hear this, say something, anything...I don't care if you sing the entire 'Amy the Martian' song at full bore, but...give me something. Anything. We'll be waiting, Normandy out."
Joker sat back forcibly, once again feeling the stab of pain in his gut as his ribs protested. He wanted to thrash around in anger, but knew that doing so would just cause his already brittle body to the point of snapping. Even EDI, who he hoped hadn't noticed, had observed his behaviour, and was now stopping her current duties to turn and address him.
"Jeff, you seem irritated."
Her statement of the obvious only infuriated him more. Rubbing the bridge of his nose, he snorted, "Oh gee, thanks EDI. Next time I see Kelly, I'll tell her we've got a new shrink onboard. She can literally tell me my emotions so I don't have to realize them for myself."
Silence for a moment, and then EDI swivelled in her chair, turning to face him, having obviously seen right through his crudely structured joke, "Jeff, you are not to blame for leaving Shepard behind. We did all we could."
He gave a bitter chuckle, the pilot sitting up to look at her, finding himself unable to help a smile, despite the utter lack of warmth or humor behind it, "Did we? Garrus told us to withdraw, so we did. We didn't even consider the idea of actually finding Shepard before hopping out of the system."
EDI, just as always, failed to see the point, "That would have been mathematically impossible to pull off. The time required to reach the Citadel, locate Shepard, extract him safely, and then perform an FTL in-system jump to an unspecified location would have taken 5.4 minutes longer than what it actually took us to leave. That's exactly 5.35 minutes longer than permissable. 5.35 minutes before we can complete the task, the Crucible has already fired, thus making any-"
"Missing the point, EDI!" he cut off, not wanting to hear anymore of it...because he knew she was right. There really was nothing they could have done, but knowing that didn't make him feel better. It made him feel worse, "The point is, we could have done something, anything...we didn't even consider a rescue. We just...we just left."
"And you think you're the only one who doesn't regret every second of it?"
Joker didn't need to turn around to identify who the flanged, calm and collected voice who had spoken belonged to. He just shook his head, "Never said I was the only one. I just wish...something. We could have-"
"Enough," the voice ordered, Joker feeling a presence suddenly right behind him, confirmed by the sound of a three-fingered, taloned hand grasping the back of his leathered seat, the creak of leather being squeezed tightly underneath talons designed to tear away flesh heard distinctly throughout the cockpit. Joker didn't bother to look up at the turian as he spoke, "I'll hear no more of it. All we can do right now is get our ship some help. Tali and EDI did all they could to get this ship up and off Eden Prime, but its barely holding together."
"Thanks boss," Joker jabbed sarcastically, swiping lazily away at the lingering interface, bringing up the communications system with a flex of his hand, the sound measurement flatlining at the lack of received soundwaves, "Well, would you look at that. Looks like nobody's come to bite. We tossed a fishing line into an empty pond, boss." With Shepard gone, and Garrus as XO, that made the turian the commander of the ship. Joker didn't hate Garrus, far from it, but it was hardly the same as having Shepard giving the orders. It just felt...wrong.
Garrus remained unwavering, shaking his head, "Give it a moment. There's got to be survivors nearby, or at least ships that got the same idea as us."
They watched as the Normandy drifted by the two kilometer long carcass of a motionless Sovereign-class Reaper. The behemoth, its body in the shape reminiscent of a crayfish, glided lazily through space, its gargantuan legs not making any movement at all, and its internal systems completely fried or offline. The Crucible had reduced the mighty dreadnought to a lifeless husk...a fate befitting of the monsters who had turned entire families into just as lifeless creatures and cannon fodder.
"That's right Harby, suck it," Joker mumbled under his breath as the dead Reaper passed by, "Gigantic piece of shit. I hope he cried as that field hit him...that would have been a sight to see."
"Reapers could not cry," EDI stated, never failing to completely render witty dialogue down into a rugged logically inclined paste.
Joker, entirely unsurprised by this contradiction, just shrugged, "That's what dreams are for, EDI. Guess I'll just pretend he cried then. I hope the bastard choked on it. I hope they all did."
"Amen," Garrus muttered.
Joker raised an eyebrow at that, craning his head to look up at the turian, "Where did you pick up on that word? Didn't think I'd hear a turian saying that."
Garrus just shrugged, apparently finding no issue with saying what was obviously, to a human at least, a contextually religious term, "Heard Shepard say it a lot when agreeing with something I said. Didn't take a genius to figure out what it meant."
"Fair enough," Joker replied, falling silent. The mention of Shepard had put them all in a somber mood once more, the entire cockpit falling into the same, dull quiet that had surrounded them outside the ship, the only sound being the humming of the ship's engines, which were louder than normal due to the enormous strain placed on the vessel's superstructure.
Suddenly, out of the blue, Garrus spoke up, "Tali wants to take a team to the Citadel."
Joker didn't know how to respond to that at first. He opened his mouth to return with a witty remark, but decided now wasn't the time, nor the place. Gritting his teeth and licking his lips, he draped one arm lazily off the side of his right armrest, "Let me guess...Shepard?"
"Yeah," the turian replied in kind, mandibles twitching ever so slightly: something turians did when they were pondering something. Their equivalent of an eyebrow twitch for humans, "I never really believed she had...recovered. Bottled it up maybe, that much was obvious, but moved on? You saw how she was when we left...devastated doesn't even begin to describe it."
He just rolled his eyes, "She practically yelled my ear off, tried to tear me out of the seat to gain control of the seat, and then told me what a cowardly piece of shit I was for abandoning our captain. So yeah, to say Tali took Shepard's...death...pretty hard, is a big fucking understatement, Garrus. Thank you so much. I feel like the air has been cleared s-"
"Okay, I get it. You're testy," the turian interrupted, Joker quicky realizing he had almost descended into a rant. Sighing, the pilot just clamped his mouth shut, afraid to say anything else lest he really hit a nerve he shouldn't, "And I understand Tali's position. Shepard and her...they were inseperable. What did you call them? A 'power couple'? What even is that, by the way?"
"Just another silly human metaphor," he dismissively riposted, waving for the turian to continue.
"Right," the turian just shook his head, "So yeah...its safe to say those two would die in battle together if it came to it. Hell, just trying to convince Tali to leave due to her injuries was an effort in restraint. She fought so bloody hard to follow him...despite what he said. To learn Shepard was dead, or that we left him behind..." he looked down at Joker mournfully, "My point is, don't feel guilty for carrying out an order I gave you. Its me who deserves Tali's ire, not you."
"Is this the part where I say 'just following orders'?" Joker snapped, glaring up at the turian, "Oh, save me the bullshit. This is the Normandy. We didn't just follow orders on this ship...we followed results. And those results died on the Citadel."
"Tali thinks there's a chance he's still alive," Garrus admitted.
Joker nodded, albeit slowly, "I want to believe there's a chance too, but...damn it, Garrus. What are the chances? Have you taken into account that Tali's in that phase of grief where she's in denial? You saw how she was at the memorial. She took that nameplate, snapped it on her leg, and then ran off back to the cabin to sulk for a few hours. Then when she came back, she insisted on doing nothing, and I mean nothing, else but working on the ship. EDI's caught her working overtime six times. Six. Four of those times, she didn't even sleep. She just kept working...Gardner even had to cut her off from the stims, because she was taking so many just to stay awake. And even after she was forced to take a nap...she only napped for a few hours, and she did it in the engine room. Hell, I don't think she's visited the captain's quarters once since that incident."
Garrus chose this moment to construct his response very carefully, knowing that the topic of Shepard was a particularly bitter one, "I want nothing more than to find out Shepard's alive. And if he's not, we can at least find his body and give it the burial it deserves. We all owe that to him...and Tali? She...she deserves closure. And she deserves the chance to find out if her neh'sah is still alive."
Joker frowned, "That a quarian word? Don't think I've ever heard it."
"Tali's mentioned it a few times..." Garrus wandered off mentally, his tone now far more worn and defeated, like he was finally accepting the reality that was bearing on them: that Shepard, this time, might be gone for good, and he was stuck in the uneviable position of consoling his grieving girlfriend, a woman who had felt betrayed by her own crew, and who hated herself for having not tried harder to help the man she loved, "...even heard Shepard say it once...when he was drunk. He forgot he was talking to me. Searched up the term and found out what it means."
Joker closed his eyes, not sure he wanted the answer, but asking anyway, "What does it mean?"
Garrus hesitated for a moment, then sighed, "Literally? 'My soul'."
"Fuck," Joker breathed, rubbing his face, finding his jaw tight and beard itchier than normal. He wanted nothing more than to crawl back to that moment in time, tell Hackett to go to hell, and to race to the Citadel and pick up their commander...if not for them, but so at least their resident quarian engineer, usually so full of spunk, unbridled confidence and energy, would smile again. For now, it was like she was a completely different person. Withdrawn, prone to anger, constantly slouched. All the energy had been sapped from her.
And it was beginning to have an effect on the crew. Tali's lack of morale was dragging down the morale of the rest of her crew. It was infectious. Utterly contagious. And what was worse, is that Tali didn't seem to care. She had thrown herself completely into the task of repairing the Normandy and making her spaceworthy again, to the point of ignoring everyone else, neglecting her own needs, and driving herself to the point of sleep deprivation and dehydration. She was a walking time bomb.
But at least now she had a purpose. It was clear that destroying that nameplate had been Tali's way of saying: he's not dead. She was determined to prove that. She would not stop until she found him.
Thing is, what scared the crew was...what if Shepard was dead?
What would happen to Tali then?
As if answering their thoughts, the Citadel came into the Normandy's view. The station looked like a floating mausoleum, the station's outstretched arms bent and shattered, its usual grace splintered and broken. Debris clouded around the wards, collecting in groups to surround the orbiting area. The vicinity around the docking ring, where the Crucible was still hanging on like a mosquito draining the blood of its subject, was charred and leaking atmosphere, having been at the ground zero of the superweapon's firing apparatus.
All in all, the chances of Shepard having survived that seemed very slim.
Joker almost jumped when a voice came through his terminal, sounding distinctly asari, "This is...ARW Hierophant Dawn...ometers off your...stern. Susta...mage. Trying to contact...forces in your area. Can...assist?"
Having pieced together most of what the asari responder was trying to say, and knowing the Hierophant Dawn must have been an Ascension-class dreadnought based on how it was named, Garrus quickly responded, "This is Acting Commander Garrus Vakarian of the SSV Normandy SR-2, responding. We read you Hierophant. We are unable to render assistance at this time, but keep trying to reach friendly forces. If you can get your ship to the Citadel, we may be able to trade personnel and supplies until help arrives. Normandy out."
"Well, somebody finally bit. Good," Joker stated after a moment, eyes now focused on the screen fully after finally getting a response. They weren't alone in their survival, it seemed.
"Just keep listening. I'm going to take a ground team to the Citadel so we can find Shepard," Garrus declared, his hand leaving Joker's seat as he turned to head down the flight deck.
He was stopped when Joker turned around, twisting his seat so he firmly faced the turian, "Garrus," he began, causing the turian to stop and, after a moment, turn to face the pilot.
"Yes, Joker?"
Gulping, the pilot spoke, finding his voice somewhat shaky, although he didn't know why, "Watch her. I'm no shrink, but you don't need a Kelly to figure out she's fragile at the moment. All it will take is failing to find Shepard, or finding his lifeless body...before she...well, snaps."
The turian's expression was usually unreadable. But at this moment, nobody could miss the look of sadness and sheer grief in the turian's eyes that was only being kept at bay because the crew needed him. He was only calm and collected because it's what Shepard would be at a time like this, and the crew needed someone to show that, even if it was just an emulation. The turian nodded solemnly, "I will. Ship's yours until we get back. I..." he stuttered for a moment, but shook his head, turning to continue his walk down the flight deck, "...I hope we come back with him."
Watching the turian depart for the elevator, Joker turned in his chair to look back out at the empty space, barely feeling one of EDI's hands as it reached over and slightly patted his. He just looked straight at the Citadel, finding his eyesight taken up by nothing but that.
In that moment, six seconds after he had begun to stare mindlessly at the Citadel, his vision fogging up as his eyesight zoned out, he knew why he had been so shaky.
He was scared. Not for himself. Not for Garrus. Not even for EDI or the crew. But for Tali.
He silently prayed they found Shepard in one piece.
Council Chambers, The Citadel - October 11, 2186 - 45 minutes later.
"John!" a desperate voice called out, echoing across the vast empty space filled with rubble and debris, the detritus that remained from the firing of the gigantic superweapon that loomed over them nearby. The voiced carried for what seemed like miles, echoing across every inch of the battered facility, carrying with it the shrill tone of its desperate plea for an answer.
None was forthcoming.
Almost tripping on a piece of jutting rebar, the quarian engineer known as Tali'Zorah vas Normandy carefully and tentatively stepped down the artificial slope created by the destruction around her, three toed feet guiding her form gently down the slippery mini cliff. But the quarian was hardly paying her attention. All of it was focused on one goal, and one goal only.
Finding her neh'sah. By whatever means necessary.
Finding purchase at the end of the slope, she felt she had left a reasonable amount of time pass by after her first call out, and quickly yelled out again, drawing upon every inch of energy she had left...which wasn't much, considering her near comatose state the past two weeks.
"John, answer me! John! Are you alive out there!?" she cried, her throat raw and dry from the constant yelling. They had been going at this for half an hour now, and they had come up with nothing. In the beginning, they had stuck together, but as their searching grew more desperate, they had reluctantly seperated into smaller groups, and eventually, off by themselves. The entire squad had volunteered to aid in the search of their commander, each and every one of them owing him for one thing or another. They were indebted to help him. So when they had agreed to go alone to cover more ground, no complaints had arisen.
Although Tali had a distinct feeling she had played a part in their decision to remain silent as well. Especially if Garrus shadowing her was any indication.
She wasn't foolish or naive. She knew what effect her behaviour had on the crew, and how it must have made the crew feel. She remembered in detail the vitriol she had spewed at Joker, and how badly she had wanted to apologize for the unacceptable behaviour afterwards. She remembered snapping Shepard's nameplate in half at the memorial, and how she had effectively been spitting on everybody else's grief simply because she was so enraptured in her own. And she knew that Garrus, one of her best friends, was worried about her. Not just worried...seriously concerned.
She had caught the glimpses he'd thrown her. He was afraid how she would react...react to what, she wasn't sure. Not finding Shepard? Finding him dead? Finding him alive? She must have been extremely unpredictable at that moment...her next actions completely unknown. Her grief had driven her to the point of killing herself. Not in the traditional sense of suicide, but by working herself non-stop to the point of awarding nobody else the time of day. She had barely eaten, slept, drank anything, or talked to a single soul other than herself for almost two weeks. Her only companion had been her memories. Specifically, memories of John.
Please answer...I need you to answer. I don't know what I'll...I'll do if you don't. No, you have to be alive...you always had a contingency. Keelah, you even came back from the dead once more...you could do it again. I've watched you stare down a Reaper and punch a yahg to death. If anybody could survive this, its you. Please...please, please, please...
Come back to me...don't leave me...
Her search continued. But she wasn't alone.
A loud bark could be heard to her right, and the quarian turned her to head to behold her unusual and unexpected companion. If anybody had asked her twelve years ago if she would have taken a varren as a pet, she would have laughed them onto their pilgrimages early for even asking such a silly question. And yet here she was, watching a varren, the giant fishdog-looking animal, wandering through the ruins, sniffing and occassionally barking as he too continued the search for his lost owner.
"Urz!" Tali called out, getting the varren's attention as its head twisted around, tongue hanging out as it panted, to the sound of the quarian's familiar accented voice, "Over here, boy! Come on, come on!"
The varren, Urz, willingly complied, trotting down from its position to jog over to her. The varren barked at her, although it wasn't actively hostile in nature and Tali wasn't at all afraid of it. She kneeled down, scratching the underside of the beast's chin as she did. Shepard had been approached by Ratch, one of Wrex's krogan mechanics, just before leaving Tuchanka about taking Urz on as a pet, as the varren had apparently created some kind of bond with Shepard, effectively rendering them inseperable. Shepard, to her bafflement, had accepted to take Urz onto a warship, and had left him in the hangar bay. Urz had quickly taken a liking to Tali too, although it was likely because she would make it her task to come down as often as possible to feed him treats, play fetch with him and scratch his back. Eventually, Urz must have founded a bond with her too, because he had been at her bedside as she recovered from the battle on Earth, and had snuck onto the shuttle somehow before departing to find Shepard.
In a way, both Tali and Urz were bonded in that they had one mutual goal in mind: find Shepard. The two had held onto that mission for the past half hour, using it to fuel their state of mind, more so for Tali than the varren. If she succumbed to despair, she knew she'd never recover.
I have to find him...I must. He's here somewhere. I know it. He wouldn't just leave me...
Standing up, hand trailing along the varren's chin as she did, Tali turned away and continued her journey once more, shouting his name again, and once again listening to it echo across the surrounding area. She was again answered by silence, but she didn't stop. She kept yelling. Shouting. Pleading. She didn't have a choice.
She had all but forgotten the fact that Garrus was behind her. She had forgotten about Urz, the crew, even her own body...she had phased it out of her psyche. It wasn't important. All that mattered was getting to him, by any means.
Please answer me, you bosh'tet...you've got to build me a house...
"John!" she practically screamed, her legs beginning to feel weak and wobbly. She knew what was happening, but was hopeless to stop it. Her refusal to give into reality was beginning to break down, revealing her vulnerable core underneath. Despair crept into her mind, pulling her down to the ground with the weight of a starship. Her voice was weak now, barely able to keep up with the enormous exertion she was placing on her vocal cords.
"Please John..." she whispered, finally giving in and collapsing to her knees, hands splayed out infront of her to arrest her fall. Sitting up, she felt a single tear streak down her cheek as she felt her breathing constrict and her injuries begin to flare up once more. Two weeks wasn't near enough for the scars she carried from the Battle of London to fully heal, and their discontent with how she drove her body was beginning to make itself known, "...don't do this to me...you promised...you can't be dead...I need you...please, answer me..."
Each word was a new stab of agony, and she finally broke as her lips begin to quiver and more tears joined the first in soaking her light grey cheeks. Her entire body followed suit, shuddering violently as the first sob pushed past her last defenses, and erupted past her lips. More followed, and she found herself closing her eyes and beginning to silently weep.
He was gone.
His head is pounding. He can't think. He can't move. He can just barely breathe.
Commander Shepard was, one could say, was resting idly in a state between dead and alive. He even felt like death, every single inch of his body radiating pain and agony that was so unimaginable, that he was beginning to wonder if his ability to feel it had been stripped away from him. There was simply no way to describe how he felt.
But the physical pain only made up half of the affliction upon him.
It wasn't fair. The universe liked to play cruel tricks, it seemed. Shepard had everything. He had a crew who would fight and die for him, a feeling of which was mutual. He was a galactically recognized icon. He had an excellent ship. And most important of all, he had a significant other. Tali.
He breathed in deeply at the thought of her, and immediately regretted it. The dusty air and ozone filled his lungs immediately, leaving him a wheezing mess, his throat tender from the violent ejections of air. Oh god...Tali...
Brief flashes of events that had passed lapsed in his mind, focused on the battle that led up to where he was now. Their fighting through London's blistered and war torn streets. Their mad dash to the Beam. The sheer terror he felt watching a capsizing Mako explode near his two best friends, injuring them. His seemingly final goodbye to his quarian lover, tears streaking down his face as her last words to him echoed in his mind.
"Come back to me..."
The look of her beautiful face, smiling down at him as she descended to kiss him passionately, the taste of her lips and feel of her skin against the last memory he clung unto as the Crucible fired, bathing him in intense radiation and heat, a final testament to what would have been, should have been, his ultimate sacrifice.
How she must feel right now, thinking he was dead. Not knowing that she was wrong, but would soon be right, as he slowly died, alone and pinned under an untold amount of steel sheeting and cracked concrete. The brought him sadness, realizing that everything he had wanted to tell her, everything he had wanted to do with her...the very reason he had fought so hard to destroy the Reapers in the first place...all of it was for nought. It was over. He was finished. He was going to die...alone.
And knowing Tali, she would blame herself.
He briefly entertained the illusion that he had heard someone calling out to him, but dismissed it almost immediately. He could have sworn he heard his first name being used, and only Tali and his mother ever called him that: the former was either dead or fleeing the system, and the latter was...probably doing the exact same thing. So no, it couldn't be. Not here. Not now. His mind was just playing tricks on him. Giving him a faint glimmer of hope, as it always seemed to do.
No. Tali gave me that hope. And now she's not here. I sent her away...to safety.
He heard the name shouted again, but as he began to close his eyes, black tendrils creeping up along his vision, they shot open again, the sound being much closer than it was before, and more distinct...for instance, he was able to pick up on the accent. It sounded distinctly electronic, like it was being modulated through a helmet, and had a slight Russian sounding twang to it.
No...it can't be...
...Tali?
Hope filled him once more, even if ever so slight. The darkness was repelled for the moment.
If it was, he had to try. He had to get their attention.
"T..." he groaned, his throat so badly dried out that his vocal cords were struggling to raise his voice to a reasonable octave, words barely leaving his lips at a whisper. But he couldn't give up. He had to get Tali's attention, or he would die. The pain he felt was unbearable, and his body just wanted to slip into the sweet, permanent coma that death provided, relieving him of his plight. But the one person who was worth suffering through all that pain for was calling to him, and he needed to get her attention. To let her know he was alive.
Even if he was going insane...he'd rather hang onto a sliver of hope than none at all, however delusional.
"T...a...l...i..." he gasped, still unable to raise his voice sufficiently. It was no use. There was no way she was going to be able to hear him at this rate, and if he didn't get her attention soon, she would pass right by him obliviously and he will have died knowing he failed her.
He moved to raise one arm, ignoring the jolt of pain his tormented limb assailed him with, but was scarcely able to raise it more than two inches before it bumped up against a fallen steel beam, which was draped across his abdomen and had him pinned. Regardless, he curled his fingers into a fist slowly and gradually, and did the loudest thing he could.
He knocked.
Twice more. Thrice. Four more times. Then five. Each was more faint than the last as he heard Tali's voice getting fainter, the commander likely so deep or so well hidden under the debris that the sound simply wasn't carrying enough to be heard. As she got further away, his knocks got weaker and subsided, reality quickly setting in as his arm slumped in defeat.
That's it...its over. After all I've been through...this is how it ends.
He tried to make his final moments as sweet as possible. He closed his eyes, welcoming the darkness into his vision, as he summoned the only thought that brought him peace. He felt a slight smile grace his lips as he remembered that final night he shared with Tali among the sheets, laughing and moaning, comforting and pleasuring each other. Holding each other, and making love to each other. It was one of his sweetest memories, and it was one he could quite happily die to.
Then, the weirdest sound was heard.
Barking. Directly above him.
His eyes slowly pulled themselves open, reluctantly pulled away from the sweet memory he was ready to get lost in as the life left his body. Streaks of blood dripped into his eyes, but he blinked rapidly to clear them, only now beginning to notice the crusted blood on his cheeks and forehead as his hearing slowly returned to focus on the new sound assaulting his ears.
But then it was accompanied, once again, by the most saccharine sound he wished to hear.
"What is it, Urz!? What have you found!?"
Urz. Varren. My varren. Urz...URZ!
You beautiful varren! You beautiful, magnificient little fish dog!
Shepard would never have thought he'd be thanking a varren for saving his life...but here he was.
"Keelah...Garrus, Javik! Get over here, now! I think Urz has found him!" Tali shouted, summoning her nearby companions. It wasn't long before Shepard could hear the pitter patter of footsteps above him, his crew no doubt running to the rescue, as he had always done for them. He allowed himself the patience of sitting tight and waiting as piece after piece of debris was carefully and intrinsically removed, bringing him closer and closer to freedom. It was only then he noticed how stale the air had become, lungs heaving and wheezing in a mighty effort to draw upon as much oxygen as possible to keep him awake, the man not ready to die from something as little as hypoxia when he was so close to being rescued. He willed himself to stay awake. He had to.
For her.
I'm coming back, dear. Just like you asked.
He groaned pathetically as the last piece of debris barring him from the outside world was lifted from his stomach, the steel beam carried in a field of sizzling green biotic energy as it was effortlessly lifted away and let go, the green substance snapping out of existence and allowing the steel beam to crash to the ground away from them. He breathed in as fresh air rushed into his lungs, but his smashed ribcage reminded him just how bad an idea that kneejerk reaction was.
"Spirits..."
Craning his head, Shepard could see Garrus, along with the majority of the crew, now standing around him in a semi-circle, looking down at him with mixtures of awe, concern and triumph.
There was a blur at the edge of his vision, and he turned around just in time for a long, red appendage to drag its way across his face, globs of saliva running down his face and causing the remaining wet blood to drip from his face and onto the ground. He allowed himself a moment to laugh, grinning as he did, even if the action itself brought intense agony to every square inch of his body, "Nice to see you too, Urz."
The varren just barked happily, and licked him again.
Another blur, this one purple, was a far more warming sight, a pair of long, slender arms wrapping themselves around his broad torso, hooded and helmeted head tucking itself under his chin and embracing him so tightly he thought his remaining bones might break. It took him a second to realize she was whispering something, and that his ears were initally having trouble picking it up.
"You're alive, you're alive, you're alive, you're alive..."
On and on she said, eventually falling into silence as she held him, beginning to rock back and forth soothingly, hand reaching up and running through his slightly singed, but still cropped, black hair. He found the tendrils of sleep creeping up on him again, but this time he felt safe giving into its embrace.
Tali was here. He wasn't alone anymore. His crew was with him, Urz had essentially saved him, and he was back in the arms of the one person he would tear through an entire galaxy to protect. And as he slumped and gave into his need to surrender to her comforting embrace, he felt at peace. He wasn't going to die. And even if he did, he wouldn't be alone.
With this in mind, Commander Shepard closed his eyes again, the darkness finally forcing the Savior of the Galaxy into a much needed rest.
A/N:
What you see as Flashpoint being delayed was actually me working on an entirely new story. Yeah, didn't see that coming, did you?
Yeah, I wanted to try something different. I was getting a bit fed up with the slow progress of FABT, and Flashpoint prompts, while fun to write, lacked a plot I could get really invested into, not to mention really have fun with. So here I am, with a new story. Welcome to Equilibrium: Crusader.
This won't be what you're used to. No 30k chapters. Story won't be longer than 40 chapters. Both of these things don't necessarily mean more frequent updates, but it does mean the likelihood of them coming out sooner, rather than later, is dramatically increased.
For this story, I'm taking a few notes out of Rob Sears' book, and then some. While this story will still be quite dark (make no mistake, this won't be a fluff-filled joyride), there will be enough intrigue and loveable character interactions to keep you all satisfied. While the focus of this story is undoubtably on Shepard and Tali, this does not mean the rest of the squad and crew will remain on the sidelines. You'll see.
I'll say no more, for I don't want to spoil it. But I hope you enjoy this latest story of mine. There's more to come. :)
Oh, and speaking of taking notes from Rob Sears' book...how about music recommendations?
Tali's Search for Shepard: "Der Krieg Ist Aus" by Stephan Zacharias from the film Downfall (Der Untergang).
Shepard Saved: "Arrival (Luck)" by Martin O'Donnell and Michael Salvatori from the game Halo 3 (0:55 to 2:42).