This is a bit of AU/Fix It fic, whatever you would like to call it. It is slightly different than the version that I posted on tumblr. I needed some happy in my life so this came about. It was partially inspired by Here I Dreamt I Was An Architect by The Decemberists, they are amazing and I highly recommend listening to it. Thanks for stopping by. I own nothing as always.
She thinks that it should be easier to focus on the pain.
The gunshot wounds, tatters in the flesh, burns and hurt in places she didn't think could hurt. Focusing on the pain was only a distraction from what had gone wrong, every decision and hesitation that had led her to this very spot. Anderson, dead. Illusive Man, well he was dead too. For all she knew everyone was gone and here she was. It was Mindoir all over again and if she had only been…what? Faster, stronger, better? The silence around her quickened the creeping thoughts that were taking over her most basic needs. Stay awake, stay alive.
But this old friend has an order for you.
Hands on her knees she swayed for a moment while slowly working air back into her body. Breathing in, and out, blood from the heart flooding out of her body. She listened to the creature in front of her recite the events that had brought her here like it had hardly mattered. Another drop in the proverbial shit storm that was this universe. Touching her knees reminds her that this really happening, brings her wandering mind back to her body.
Focus Shep.
It had all started with a lie. One simple lie by some backwater colony kid and here she was. Shepard's head was swimming with all of the lights around her. She had front row seats to the destruction, watching ships float by before turning in to brilliant points of light. It was placid, almost enough to make her forget about what was really going on. A sharp pain brought it all back. How did one choose the fate of every living thing? They hadn't told her to expect anything like this in basic and even her training to become N7 was focused more on a glorious death than the possibility that she might end up here. This was not in her manual of likely scenarios and how to escape.
Ruthless calculus.
"You have choice. More than you deserve. The fact that you are standing here, the first organic ever proves it. But it also proves my solution won't work anymore."
She drew in another breath tasting blood. How much had she lost?
"So now what?" Hair and sweat filled her mouth and she wiped it away before following the child as best she could. Words continued to pour from the light that formed its mouth; she continued to mutter responses closing her eyes she wondered if she would be able to open them again.
"There is another solution. Synthesis."
"To do what exactly?"
Could this be it? She worked on focusing on the third beam of light directly ahead of her. She was prepared to die, but she wouldn't take anyone else down with her if she could help it. Isn't that why she had sent him back? Without even properly telling him, no, Shepard had missed her chance and now he would never know. But he would survive. All of them would, the Geth and EDI. It would be okay this time. Maybe she wouldn't fuck this up. Was it this straightforward? Her vision blurred, she blinked and scrubbed her hand over to clear the fading light around the edges.
"It is the ideal situation."
Go out there and give them hell. You were born to do this.
And so Shepard ran. Everything forgotten as she fell into the beam of light that would lead to salvation for those who were still alive. A bigger jump than the one she had made into the Normandy as the collector ship fell part, and a longer fall than when she had climbed onto the roof of her family's home. Slipping before she had gathered enough courage to begin climbing back down. She could feel the burning of her body give way to tingling, a sharp numbing feeling working its way over her entire body. Unraveling like a skein of fine yarn Shepard continued her descent into the light.
Audio feedback was the first to return. It was so quiet on top of the crucible, and in the light she had imagined she could her herself being pulled apart. Now there was a low buzz, growing a bit louder before holding steady. The light was brighter too. Shepard closed her eyes again and took a deep breath, breathing was easier now, and there was also a smell. A smell? She opened her eyes and heard the bright chime of a bell. Her arms automatically lifted her hands in front of her to grab at something. They hit a smooth metal surface.
"Order up!" A voice bellowed from somewhere off to her left. News feed alert caught her attention and she turned her head to watch. Just another citizen update, nothing special Shepard's mind supplied. Slowly her memories of the last battle, the catalyst and her death began intertwining with new truths. This was the Citadel and here in the wards, this was her job. This is her life and it doesn't feel like its ending one minute at a time.
No I'm a soldier. I was a soldier, I lied about my age and I enlisted. After the attack.
Her memories were running parallel to the new information she was processing. In this new life there was no batarian attack, no N7 training, no Normandy. At least no Normandy that she was a part of. Shepard's hand changed course to wipe her face, a few tears managed to fall before she cleared them away. Why was she crying? It felt like there was a hole in her heart that was trying to close and that didn't make any sense to her, did it? There was no time for tears; there was an order ready and a customer waiting. A job to be done. This she could do, she was good at being busy. Her thoughts reminded her that she liked this job and it had only gotten better the last few months. She grabbed the tray in front of her, meat and thick cut roots in a sauce of garum and a cup of kaff. Standard turian lunch fare. It's midweek again and a smile pulls at her face.
Shepard walks down the row of booths, through a small section of tables right in the middle to the back corner. The one with a good view of the door and most of the kitchen as well. She sets the plate down mindful of the mess of data pads. Already she has picked up the strange turian cup and replaced it with the fresh batch she brought with her. The first cup she had brought was emptied, the second only sipped at, but she knew the third would be needed.
"More kaff, nice and hot too."
The turian pulls away from the pad he is looking at and moves over to the food now in front of him. His nasal plates shift as he takes a small sniff and rumbled a bit. She watches as his shoulders roll back and he adjusts his position on the bench seat straightening himself up.
"Am I really that predictable?" He turns his blue eyes on her and lifts his mandible in a half smile. His visor is running all sorts of different data so that to her it obscures his face, but he can see her just fine. Without waiting of her to reply he takes a long drink before tucking in to his lunch. His break is almost over and if he wants to make it through the rest of his shift he needs a full stomach.
"You have been sitting in my section for a few months now." She leans over and straightens a chair on the table behind her with a free hand, "Anything else I can get you, Officer?" Shepard puts both hands underneath the tray, her feet are set in a wide stance but she resists the urge to place one of those hands on her waist. The answer is usually no because he's already started eating at this point, but today is different.
"Not today, Waitress." His talons are flexing on the table and she hasn't been here very long but she feels at ease around turians and he looks like he wants to say something else. She's watched him come in nearly every week, at first it was with other members of C-Sec and they sat wherever there was an empty space. Lately he's been walking in alone and he's claimed this booth for his own. She had seen the others and if she didn't know any better she would have thought he was planning his breaks to avoid them. Not that it was any of her business but Liminau; the asari she shared her shifts with had mentioned it. Then she couldn't stop thinking about it every time she brought the other officers their orders.
"It's Meroka. I do have a name tag." A little bit of hair falls around her face when she nods her head down towards her shoulder and she turns to walk away.
"It's Garrus, I don't have a name tag. It wouldn't really fit. You know, with the uniform." He's gesturing to himself and with three-fingered hands running up and down from table to top of his cowl.
"No it probably wouldn't," Meroka is really smiling now, her earlier tears forgotten and now it feels good to just talk with this officer, Garrus she reminds herself and as it repeats in her head it feels comfortable. She likes the sound of it.
"Well I'll be back to check on you then." She readjusts the tray and has her attention turned back to the kitchen when he makes a noise that sounds suspiciously like a cluck before he speaks again.
"I uh, pulled a patrol tonight in the area." Garrus stacks a data pad on top of another, pushing them away from his plate, "I'll come by for another cup of kaff, so save a cup for me." He brings a talon to the edge of his plate, turning it slightly, fidgeting.
Before Shepard can process that properly she is already saying something about only working until about nineteen hundred and she has to watch him deflate a little, sinking just a fraction of an inch into the back rest of his seat. There's a familiar pain of missing an opportunity that is literally right in front of her face and she is rushing to get it back.
"But if you're in the area I might see you on my way home."
His mandibles click softly against his face and she hopes she has said the right thing. Needs to know that it was right.
"I'll be in the middle of some patrolling," His confidence returns before her eyes, "But yeah. Definitely." He finishes by draping one arm around the back of the booth and tilting his head to the side. The look he is giving her is cutting; he is collected again and is just so cool that it's warming her cheeks.
"I'll see you around Garrus." Meroka does walk away then, leaving him to his meal. Her face is now definitely hot and hurts from smiling so much, she looks down at the floor her entire way back to the kitchen where she picks up another order. The cook gives her a reprimanding look, but Limanau gives her a knowing smile and bumps her hip with her own as she walks by.
This may not have been what she thought her life would be when she bought a ticket off of Mindoir, but for the first time she really feels like she's found a home. She takes a deep breath, touching the place on her collar bone above her tag Meroka knows that this is real. She starts preparing another round of orders on her tray before the need to look to the back of the restaurant takes over. A flash of blue quickly turns to the window and away from her as she catches Garrus looking at her.
Focus Shep.
The end of her shift couldn't come soon enough.