Her Words
Bloody hell, I've ended up writing Shoker again! To echo this Shepard, how - ?
Anyway, this is a companion piece to Three Words and Coffee - they're not required reading, but since this is really Three Words from Shepard's POV and a direct sequel to it, I really do recommend reading that fic.
If you read the other two Shoker pieces (see above) thank you so much for sticking with it this far - and it isn't over yet!
Thanks to N.Q Wilder, who suggested re-using Three Words' last line - when they did, this idea appeared in my mind.
T for language, misery and (sort-of) character death.
How the hell did this happen? Head in her hands, she wonders. A junior officer. And that junior officer, too...
Most of all, she wonders: why the hell, when she took down a reaper, for fuck's sake, couldn't she be brave enough to tell a guy she loved him until she was dying?
The crew are asleep, she is alone in her quarters, and, for once, she has some time to sit and bask in the memories, so she does...
A ship, gleaming in the sun so that she has to shield her eyes from it - the Normandy SR1. Captain Anderson giving her an unneeded nod of encouragement as she steps onto the ship where she will be second-in-command. Most of the crew are already assembled. She catches a few words of their conversations - some are in awe of her military past. She grits her teeth; if they'd been on that damned planet, in hell, they wouldn't sound so excited.
However, one conversation catches her attention, if simply because she's sure it can't actually be happening: A low whistle, and a muttered comment, not quite quiet enough to escape her ears. "That's our Commander?"
She sneaks a look over her shoulder to take a look at the offending party - two guys, one in an Alliance baseball cap, the other with carefully gelled hair, seem to be... no, they can't, surely they don't have the gall - but yes, they are. They're staring quite openly. Wait: she follows the one with the cap's eyes with her own, and... yes, they seem to be trained on her backside. He doesn't seem to realise she's caught him out.
When Joker basically attacks her over him having Vrolik's, her first reaction is to be pissed off that he assumes she'll judge him for it. As much as he tries to avoid doing it in front of other people, she has seen him using crutches, and it hasn't made him seem any less able, or, well, attractive to her... Shit! How the hell did that word pop into her head? Friends can find each other vaguely attractive, though - it doesn't mean anything. After all, the first time they met, he was staring at her ass...
The thought of him being bullied in flight school, however, provokes an undeniable twinge of pity, and she comes to realise that it explains more than Joker himself would care to admit.
She realises that her feelings are more than friendship... hmm, she's not sure now, but it might be a little while after her Spectre promotion. When she starts calling him "Jeff". She's wanted to for a while, thinking that "Joker" started off as a teasing nickname, and, well... she doesn't want to seem like she's giving him shit, too.
The first time she says it, it's a slip of the tongue, but she can't miss the half-smile that slides onto his face. "Remembered my name, huh?" He turns round, pulling the brim of his cap up, rather than down, for once, and gives her an actual smile, not a smirk. It's then that she realises that his eyes are green - and that, combined with the grin, jolts her in a way that nothing has for a long time. In a way that just doesn't happen with her friends.
The final memory, the one she goes over most often in her mind, is not the most pleasant, but it is certainly the most important.
Though she does not remember death itself, she remembers much before it: Ordering Ashley to run; the ship that has been her home, burning, now a skeleton engulfed in flames - unfamiliar, treacherous, hostile where it should be comfortable.
She realises that Jeff isn't with the evacuees, and everything inside her is yelling, let him be alive... She doesn't know what she'll do if he isn't - her caustic, pain-in-the-ass anchor, the one that holds her steady through the worst and the best of times and drags her back down to the ground when she's on an adrenaline high, fresh from a mission, stupid, sweaty and bloody. Rarely unkindly, though. He rarely ever hurts her with his words, almost like he's being careful, knowing that underneath the brashness, her feelings are glass. The thought makes her breath hitch, and makes her wonder... no -
She remembers looking up to see the vastness of empty space, stepping past the empty seats, the trailing wires, trying not to notice the two bodies practically at her feet, trying to ignore the fact her heart's pounding like it wants to burst out of her chest, concentrating on breathing slowly, steadily, not using up her oxygen...
She sees him, and, managing to break through his proud, going-down-with-the-ship idiocy, grabs him. Even understanding that time is of the essence, she hates herself for the damage she knows she's done to his arm.
The moment, the one that makes her close her eyes and curse when she remembers it, is the moment she knows she won't make it to the escape pod. There is a sinking feeling - her heart, she thinks. Her life doesn't flash before her eyes. She sees his face, burnt into her brain even now, knows he's begging her, but ignores it. There is no chance. Delaying the escape pod will just endanger a member of her crew, she tells herself, even though she knows he is much, much more than that to her. At least he's making it out of here alive. She tells herself that's what's important, tells herself not to cry for things she won't have - life, him...
All this, in the blink of an eye. The human mind is an amazing thing.
She tells herself that there's no humiliation, no anything, after death, for that's what she believes, and she finally blurts out what she's wanted to tell him for months. The "I love you" is so soft that it's almost a whisper - it's all she can manage - but she swears, just for a moment, from the expression on his face, that he hears her. She's being stupid, of course, and she's being even more stupid when, in the moment before she's spaced, him yelling her name echoing in her ears, she swears she sees tears in his eyes. Everything sensible, everything that thinks she knows him, tells her that it must only be her panicked, deluded imagination.
In the moment oxygen comes hissing out of her helmet, and she prays it will be quick, her only other thought is this:
She must have imagined it.