A/N: For those who are wondering, this story is an AU. Both male and female Shepard are present. Both Kaidan and Ashley survived Virmire (this will be explained upon request and/or whenever I decide to get my own ME story off the ground). FemShep is the "real" Commander Shepard (i.e. she's the hero of ME2 and ME3 even though both she and MShep are the heroes of ME1.
That's probably all the background that you're going to need to understand this.
Song inspiration from "My Immortal" by Evanescence. Mass Effect and all its characters, places, plots, etc. belong to BioWare. These two interpretations of Shepard belong to me. No copyright infringement intended and I'm not making a profit off of this.
Wrex is in denial.
He's not sure how he feels about what happened. The krogan has never been one for huge emotional reactions to… well, anything. So having something like this - the death of the first person in over a century who he allowed himself to trust - thrust upon him is difficult to deal with.
He says nothing at Shepard's memorial service, instead vying to glare up at the speaker as he drones on about Shepard's achievements. A sneer pulls at the krogan's scaly lips at the sound of the man's bland words. Why the hell are they letting this idiot speak about the commander? He never knew her - he can't speak for her. He has no right to speak for her.
He grows angrier as the service wears on. Eventually - after how long he isn't sure - he snaps and storms out.
A week later, he's offered a job. It's nothing too major - his employer just wants him to take out some conman who swindled him - but credits are credits, and he can't just sit back on his butt just because his frie- associate just died. So he takes it, and he finished it without any trouble… but it doesn't give him the same level of satisfaction that it used to. All he feels as the man drops his credits into his hand is an unfamiliar emptiness.
So he takes another job, and then another, and another, hoping to find some sense of the fulfillment in his work. But each target eliminated, each credit chit dropped into his hand, makes him feel more and more hollow. No matter how hard he fights, no matter how many jobs he finishes, he just feels empty. Without purpose.
Two-and-a-half months of this continue until Wrex finally gives up and admits to himself that mercenary work just isn't enough for it. Loath as he is to accept it, he greatly prefers fighting towards a goal over bounty hunting. And though he'll eat his own foot before he ever says it out loud, Wrex misses Shepard.
He misses her a lot.
Fighting beside her gave him purpose, creating the illusion that he was a real krogan, not the washed-out, credit-grabbing bounty hunter that he is. And he misses it. There's a piece of him - a very large piece, actually - that longs for those days to come back.
He's not content being a gun for hire anymore.
The next day, Wrex hops onto the first shuttle that he can find and takes off into the stars.
"Where to?" the pilot, a badly scarred batarian, asks as Wrex counts out the credit chits into his outstretched palm.
"Tuchunka," he replies gruffly. The batarian does not seem even remotely surprised by this response. Nodding, he excuses himself and ducks back into the cockpit to prime the shuttle for launch.
As Wrex glances out the sides of the shuttle, he catches sight of a human figure standing a short distance away. Her dark, scarred arms are crossed over her chest and one eyebrow is raised at him. A shock of shaggy red hair hangs in front of her two mischievous bright blue eyes. Her lips are split in a wry grin.
When she opens her mouth, it sounds like she's standing right next to him even though she appears to be out of earshot. "So long, Wrex."
A feral grin spreads across his reptilian face at the sound of those words. As the sides of the shuttle close, Wrex leans back and chuckles. That old farewell passes his lips for the last time.
"Shepard."
So… whaddaya think? Wrex is one of the most difficult characters in this trilogy to write (albeit he's also one of the most fun…). I would like to know if you think I did him justice. I think that I did, but it never hurts to get a second opinion.
For future reference, chapter order goes like this; 1. Wrex; 2. Tali; 3. Joker; 4. Liara; 5. Garrus; 6. Ashley; 7. Lucas (MShep); 8. Kaidan.
I also might do a chapter about FemShep's reaction to dying if enough people are interested.
Please leave a review if you can.
NOTE: Chapter updates are not set. I have "Tali" and "Joker" done and I'm currently working on "Liara" but nothing is set in stone, plus I have three other projects that I'm working on alongside this one, so… yeah. Don't expect any regularity.