[Author's Note: As with all my Mass Effect 3-era stories, this one follows my headcanon that Thane was cured of Kepral's Syndrome between games, and thus survived the events of Priority: Citadel II to rejoin the Normandy's crew. — kylenne]
The holding areas of the Citadel's docks represented the true measure of war, to Shepard. The lines at immigration processing stretched further and further across the docks, every corner filled with ever more people. Shellshocked civilians carrying their entire lives in knapsacks huddled around vid screens and public extranet terminals. Batarian children slept on benches alongside their human counterparts, turians at their wits' end shouted obscenities at C-Sec officers whose hands were figuratively tied, and the wounded—walking and otherwise—wandered the cargo bays in a daze, searching for answers to questions they didn't even know.
It was a scene that grew more desperate each time Shepard came down there: a wretched sea of humanity—and every other species—with no end in sight. Yet she felt almost compelled to see it every time the Normandy returned to the Citadel, whether it was on specific war-related business or just to restock supplies. She wasn't entirely sure why. Maybe she just needed a reminder of what she was fighting for.
The most poignant sign of the war's toll on the galaxy was the Memorial Wall. The first time she'd come here, it was a mere smattering of missing persons posters and holos with hastily scribbled contact information beneath. Since then, it had grown exponentially, to the point where there was very little wall left visible beneath the outpouring of grief and love. Walls like this had sprung up all over the Wards over the past few months, but this was the original one—the one that every refugee, every soldier, every citizen seemed drawn to.
Shepard watched in silent reverence as they filed to the wall, young and old, asari, salarian, hanar, volus, turian. Some wept, some left flowers, LEDs, or candles at the enormous shrine beneath the holos and posters. Some stayed only for a moment, others lingered with their faces held in their hands.
Maybe this, too, was why Shepard had to come to this refugee camp. Through battle-hardened and weary eyes, she saw the ghost of a sixteen-year-old girl in a tattered prom dress, wounded in body and spirit. The invisible scars were the deepest, and they ached again with the pain she thought long buried on Arcturus Station. It seemed like a lifetime ago...at least, it used to. Now, everywhere she turned, she saw that pain reflected in the restless souls crammed in these overburdened shelters. And when she saw it, she didn't feel like the storied war hero, the great Spectre who saved the Citadel, humanity's best and brightest star. She felt like that sixteen-year-old kid again—lost and silent, trembling and afraid, staring into a future that held little but uncertainty and overwhelming sorrow.
Shepard understood their suffering perhaps better than anyone else, because this was the past that forged her into the woman she became. The story of the lost, of the indigent, the refugee, was one etched into her heart, because it was her story too. So she made this pilgrimage each time, in some small gesture of solidarity that even she didn't entirely understand.
On this particular occasion, she was not alone among the Normandy's crew. She walked over to the solitary drell garbed in black and silver, his hands folded and head bowed in prayer. It was something she herself had done more than once at that wall, but it warmed her heart to see him there. His sense of compassion seemed limitless, and it reminded her again of why she loved him so. He completed his quiet prayer, and bowed with his hands over his heart.
"Mind if I join you?" Shepard said, as she stood beside him in front of the wall.
"You needn't ask, siha," Thane said warmly. He reached down and gently grasped her hand. "We are of like mind, it seems. As usual."
"Yeah," Shepard agreed, squeezing his hand. "What was your prayer about? If you don't mind me asking, that is."
Thane gazed out over the faces on the wall, his brow furrowed. "That those who are lost may be found, and that those who have gone to the sea did so quickly and without pain," he said softly. "That Kalahira give comfort to those who have gone, and Arashu preserve those who remain on the shore."
"May they never hunger or thirst," Shepard said, almost reflexively. She frowned then, her nose crinkled into a sheepish expression. "I probably should've left an offering, but I'm not sure the dead would appreciate a half-eaten energy bar. Mama might come back herself to kick my ass for that."
Thane chuckled softly at that, and turned to stare at her with his head tilted slightly in curiosity. "Is that why you always come here?"
Shepard turned around, looking out at the huddled masses of people gathered around the docks. "I was a refugee once, a long time ago. I know what it's like to be cold, tired, and scared on some space station light years away from the only home you've ever known, with just the clothes on your back. Maybe a half-eaten energy bar if you're lucky."
"Siha," Thane breathed, squeezing her hand.
"It's the kind of thing that stays with you, even if you can grow past it and move on with your life. I became a soldier because I didn't want anyone else to go through what I did. Now the whole damn galaxy is."
"It isn't your fault, Imani," he said pointedly.
"Maybe you're right. But that doesn't mean it doesn't hurt just the same. I might not have your memory, but some things never go away for us entirely, even as humans. I thought it did, but-"
The sentence was caught in her throat, as Thane reached up to gently stroke her cheek. He always had a way of cutting right through those feelings. "Siha, it doesn't make you weak to feel this way. You're doing everything you can to help them. You've already saved countless lives. Few would have survived to reach a place of shelter if not for your efforts, and when this is over, they'll be able to begin their lives anew as you once did. They have a future, and there is hope, even if it might prove difficult to find when despair seems far closer at hand. I, too, have these things because of you."
Shepard was quiet for a long moment, and then sighed again. "I saw a human girl back there at the security desk. She couldn't have been much older than I was back then. She kept telling the C-Sec officer that her parents were coming. They're not coming, Thane. Nobody's coming for her. How do you tell a kid that?" She swallowed hard, forcing down the lump in her throat, and steadied herself. "Nobody came for me. No one told me that'd be the case, either…but I knew. And I still know how it feels to be alone like that. That's one of those things that never leaves you, perfect memory or not."
Thane leaned in close, the faint green irises within his dark eyes visible in the artificial sunlight. "You are never alone, Imani Shepard," he said fiercely, his voice as full of conviction as it had ever been. "You will never have to feel that way again."
Shepard's heart melted, and her unspoken fears and sadness faded away in the face of his words, of his conviction and certainty. She knew he was telling the truth every time he looked into her eyes with that kind of selfless devotion. Wordlessly, she wrapped her arms around him, and kissed him soundly in gratitude.
"Damn right, you won't."
The new, flanged voice moved Shepard to glance toward its source; there was Garrus, leaning casually against a nearby pillar.
Shepard closed her eyes, and laughed softly in spite of herself. "Just how long have you been standing there, Garrus?"
"Long enough," Garrus answered, a mocking hand on his hip. "Can't turn my back on him for a second; it's pretty sad how shameless he is."
Thane smiled faintly at him, as he slipped an arm around Shepard's waist. "Can you blame me, ash'er?"
"C'mon boys. There's plenty of me to go around," she laughed.
Garrus pushed off the pillar to join them, and rested a hand on her shoulder. His tone turned serious when he spoke again. "He's right, though. You're not that kid anymore, and you haven't been for a long, long time. I've got your back, Imani. For as long as you want me. Because I damn sure want you." Garrus squeezed her shoulder, and what tension was left there unknotted and melted away. "But if you do ever find yourself alone again," he went on, "I'll come for you. The same way you did for me. I promise."
"As do I," Thane said.
Shepard didn't know what to say; for once in her life, she was left genuinely speechless. Garrus never needed to say things like this, because he'd proven it in a thousand ways ever since they met, before they ever fell in love. He'd always been by her side during the toughest of times, the most hopeless of fights. He'd believed in her when hardly anyone else did, and even when it became harder and harder for her to believe in herself and keep up the brave front, his faith in her never wavered. He made it clear without words every day, but that fact didn't mean it was any less moving to hear him say so.
It was remarkable to Shepard, at moments like these when she really stopped to think about it, that she had inspired such unconditional love and support. It was a rare thing to find in one person, and Shepard was lucky enough to have it twice over. Even more remarkable was the way it had deepened and grown over time, and only seemed to get stronger the darker her life seemed to get.
She really never had to be alone again. She had something to fight for, even beyond the tremendous sense of responsibility she felt for the billions of lives placed in her care, beyond those faces on countless walls and the multitudes of Imani Shepards of every species imaginable who all clung to each other within these cargo bays for shelter and protection.
For the first time since the war began, and maybe even for the first time since she put on an Alliance uniform, she realized that she had a home that wasn't a cramped barracks in Arcturus Station, or a starship. Garrus and Thane were her home.
"We should probably get going," Shepard said, gently pulling away from them both. "I want to see if Liara's got any more intel on what the Migrant Fleet's up to."
As she walked away towards the main elevator, Thane followed closely behind, but Garrus went toward the Memorial Wall first. He reached into a small storage compartment in his hard suit, and without ceremony, placed a sealed bottle of turian ale on the shelf next to the holo of a fallen Alliance soldier.