Scattered Glasses, Broken Mirrors

Commander Victorianna Shepard was sitting in the couch of her small apartment,in the Alliance HQ building in Vancouver. Her thumb was stuck in the remote control of the television, changing channels nervously, while a glass of red wine accompanied her loneliness. It was sometime after midnight but she denied to go to bed. Sleeping became an odd torture for the past 5 months now.

After disposing the remote on the other side of the white sofa, she took sometime to admire Vancouver's view from the large window,next to the couch. She saw the cosmopolitan city sunk in light, bathed in laughter and happiness. Shepard's eyes got caught of a couple crossing the street, a bunch of college girls laughing. A joyful picture which made Shepard smile slightly and feel melancholic simultaneously.

While everyone else lived into a blessed ignorance, she was burdened with a message which no one seemed to understand. The greatest threat in the history of galaxy was approaching again, she fuckin' knew it, but was unable to do something by just sitting in a golden cage. Shepard felt her heart shudder and ache. The Reapers weren't the only thing in her mind. A certain someone haunted her mind for the last few nights.

I thought we had something, Shepard. Something real...I...I loved you...

When her mind flashed back on his words on Horizon, an odd knot took place in her stomach. She looked at the glass of wine left in the corner of the table. She felt her cheeks hot as a trail of hundred tears run their way down her face. He loved wine, and especially red wine. The containment of the glass had a dark reddish color and a strong scent of pure grapes and alcohol.

You betrayed the Alliance...

Vicky inhaled and exhaled as her emotions got drawn in her warm tears. When she woke up in that goddamn cell in that Cerberus lab, her first thought was he. Is he alive? Where was he? But nothing mattered at that moment, because she was thrown into action in an strange FTL speed. Even when she saw him on Horizon, she gulped all her hurt by his razor-like words, trying to stay focused on her purpose. But when she was all alone, during these endless nights at Normandy's copied ship, she let everything go. She cried, she bled and allowed all the hurt flow outside her veins and be transformed into smashed objects, screams and never-shed tears.

You betray me...

In an instant moment, Victorianna lost control of her biotics. Her enraged,biotically loaded look fell on the glass. The cracking sound of it created a sense of break-down, like she was relating to the glass. As the catastrophic sound penetrated her ears,she watched as the glass fell into hundreds of sharp pieces and the wine slid down like a blast from the table on the floor. Tiny drops found their place into her bare feet,as her tears found a place to finally rest. The room got caught in the wine's hypnotic smell and Victorianna rushed into the bathroom.

Opening the sink, Shepard took a handful of clean water and forcefully threw it on her face. Her wet hands slid into her hair and her head stayed bowed down,as her red stings covered the sides of her face. When she bought her head straight up again and took a look in the mirror, she saw the reflection of a man. Her eyes widened in surprise and terror. He was haunting her. It was the final hit for her. The inhuman scream coming straight from her lungs made her biotics rebel even more. The corners of the mirror started to get cracks expanding to its center. Violently and rushfully, the rectangular mirror on the wall became a mess of small tiny cracks, like her insides. However as her swollen violet eyes saw the mirror again, Kaidan's reflection was looking at her. She couldn't figure out if he was smiling or not. But she could sense something in the air,like an aura, something ghostly soft,a touch. Only his hands had that kind of touch, that made her shudder and feel complete like a woman. Shepard was hallucinating. Ugly ghosts of something long labored and lost.

A knock on the door interrupted her balancing trip into sanity and paranoia. It was her landing back to reality, back to her self every one came to know, to Commander Shepard. Victorianna felt her boundaries breaking beyond patience. That small knock on the door could be her return back to sanity. After quickly wiping her tears away and adjusting her N7 jacket into an more formal appearance, she approached the door without answering. The someone behind the door knocked again and again, but she was hesitant to answer. Her fear came true...

"Shepard, I know you are in, please open the door..." Kaidan spoke from the outside. Shepard covered her mouth with her hands. She wanted to scream and the tries she put in charge in order not to do so were over human.

Shepard approached the door again. Her fingers slightly touched the metal material of it. Kaidan knocked and knocked and knocked without response. He knew that she was in, that she was avoiding him. She was right to do so. He couldn't blame her. He inhaled robustly.

"Listen, Vicky. I know what happened on Horizon..."he couldn't go on. It was awkward for both.

Instead he did something he could regret for the rest of his life. He stepped behind and left. The courage he thought he summed up wasn't enough.

Victorianna heard his footsteps fading away. Turning her back against the door,she slid herself down and started sobbing once again.

This has to end sooner or later. I love you. And I'm sure you do too...

In the meanwhile,Kaidan stopped at the end of the hall.

I'm sorry. I love you. And I'm sure you do too...