Author's Note: This piece spawned from my personal headcanon that Shepard and Anderson had an almost father-daughter relationship and knew each other before the events of Mass Effect. With that in mind, you can probably imagine how I felt during the Crucible scene. I've taken some liberties with the end of the game (because I still don't fully understand it) so it may not follow the lore- sorry in advance. I guess there's spoilers for the end of Mass Effect 3- you have been warned.
Bioware owns the characters.
I'm Proud of You
Amongst the rubble of what once was the city of London, a woman stirs. Ragged, pained breaths break the silence that hangs over the battlefield like an angry cloud; the gunfire and groans of the Reapers now long gone. The woman struggles against her concrete confinements to the best of her abilities with a dislocated shoulder and broken forearm, grunting hoarsely from the pain. She doesn't know how she got here, doesn't remember what transpired in the time between reaching the beam and the destruction of the Reapers, but she does not care. Not now. With one last push and stab of searing pain, the rubble falls to the side and she can sit up. Her back protests against the action, but her lungs cry out in relief; free from the crushing weight of the rock slab. Unburdened by the wreckage, she surveys the scene around her.
The city was in a poor state even before the Crucible was activated, but giant Reaper corpses now litter the streets, giving London the foreboding atmosphere that would be better suited to a graveyard than a social hub. Perhaps that is what it has come to in this state of disarray; the final resting place for the sentient machines hell bent on wiping out organic life. The woman knows it's not just Earth that looks like this, and the thought is bitter in her mouth. Up above the sky is clogged with smoke, making the simple act of identifying the time of day impossible. "At least it's not raining," she thinks; all too familiar with the weather tendencies of this planet. A brief chuckle escapes her lips. Gutter humour always was her coping mechanism. She can't recall the last time she felt the rain in her face, letting the droplets drip down her skin in the way she did so many times as a child on Earth, and she misses it. This graveyard was her home, and a part of her thinks it will be her resting place too.
Her eyes latch onto something lying crumpled on the edge of her peripheral vision. They're blurred and watery from the dense smoke, but the outline of the object is recognisable even in her current state. Corpse. It is when she goes to crawl forward that she notices the way her armour clings to her skin; a melted fusion of flesh and ablative ceramic. The identifiable stripe down the right arm is long gone, yet the blood stains left over almost cruelly resemble it in mocking humour. Before this day, she wore the armour like she did her name; with pride. Commander Jane Shepard. But out here, with nothing more than injuries and a set of mangled dog tags to call her own, she isn't Shepard. She's merely a woman. Anonymous. A corpse among thousands. Pushing the thoughts aside and swallowing the pain, she edges closer to the form on battered knees. Her fingers grasp the armoured shoulder of the figure. With a pull, the body rolls to face her, and the sudden wave of remembrance and nausea hits her like a bullet. "Anderson?"
"Shep, run!" The teenager in question sprinted through the streets, red hair whipping her face with every paranoid turn of her head. Finch was falling behind, but she knew the rules. Save yourself first, worry about others later. Human instinct, apparently. The drugs runs often went awry; rival gangs were known to sabotage the trips and take the Red Sand or profits for themselves. Sometimes, it was what had to be done to survive on this planet. That night, however, wasn't just a simple sabotage. As two teenagers desperate for the credits needed to escape the hellhole they grew up in, Shepard and Finch had taken the job, only to find out much too late that it was a set up. Now they were running through the grimy back alleys of New York with bullets ricocheting off the walls.
Another glance behind her showed that Finch was no longer following her, and the unwelcome feeling of guilt seeped into her gut. Silently praying under ragged breaths to whatever god existed that he'd managed to find a place to hide in time, the girl raced forward, her lungs burning. Finch never was the fastest kid out of them all. Distracted and paranoid, she failed to notice the figure ahead of her until she had already ploughed into it, ending up sprawled out on the pavement. The dim light provided by the gaudy neon lighting of the nearby clubs revealed the figure to be a man dressed in an immaculate military uniform. A hand appeared in front of her face and, gripping it in her own, she was hoisted up onto her feet again. "What's your name, girl?" He spoke with an air of authority; one that commanded respect.
"Shepard."
He chuckled. "Somehow I doubt that's your first name."
"Why do you care anyway?" The girl's eyes narrowed. Letting anyone get close to you in this place meant ultimately setting yourself up to get hurt.
"I'm not going to harm you." The man stepped back, raising his hands in a mock gesture of surrender. After a moment of surreptitiously inspecting the way her hoodie hung off her shoulders and how the jeans were held up by a belt cinched tighter than an ambassador's sense of humour, he spoke again. "How old are you?"
"Fifteen." Shouts erupted from the alley she had previously ran down and her body tensed; something that did not go unnoticed by the soldier.
"Are you in danger?" No response. "Shepard please, I can help you if you are. I'm Lieut-"
She cut him off. "I need to get out of here…" Contemplating her options, the girl grabbed the soldier's arm and dragged him as best as her lithe form could manage into the shadows. The thugs came into view soon after and, after deeming the alleyway deserted, stumbled back the way they came, the recognisable aurora of Red Sand's biotic side effects illuminating every one of them. Satisfied that the close was clear, the girl stood and pulled her companion back out into the open. The girl's shoulders went rigid with a new wave of panic after realising that a military recruit was now aware that she was dealing with drugs, and at the age of fifteen, no less. However, the soldier's next words eased her frets.
"I'm Lieutenant David Anderson of the Alliance. How about we get something to eat? You look starved."
The briefest of smiles broke on her gaunt face. "Alright… I'm Jane. Jane Shepard."
A desperate finger placed against Anderson's neck confirms her fears; he's gone. His armour, like her own, is burnt beyond recognition; a black charred mess from the flames of the explosion that engulfed the Citadel. Unwelcome memories remind her that she was the one to put the bullet in his side, the screaming in her ears telling her that she is the reason he died. A choked sob escapes her throat. She does not cry; she can't. The tears are long gone. She feels sick. There's blood on her hands, both figuratively and physically, and the lull of unconsciousness becomes too tempting to deny.
Although they died days ago, the screams of her comrades rang in her ears even in the medical bay of the Alliance vessel several FTL jumps away from the colony. A whole platoon wiped out. One survivor. Herself. The thresher maws' acid burnt her skin, the uneven terrain contorted her ankles in her bid to escape, yet she felt nothing but a draining sense of numbness. The marines who found her commented on how lucky she was, but is knowing that the men and women you swore to protect died while you lived considered lucky? She doubted it. The doors of the med bay slid open and her arm ached at the thought of another injection. "Lieutenant." Her head snapped up at the sound of her title to see Anderson walk into the room. At his dismissal, the doctor stepped outside to give them some privacy.
"I filed my report, Sir." She coughed, "That should tell you everything you need to know."
Anderson smiled sadly. "That's not why I'm here. I wanted to talk to you, Shepard."
"Well, forgive me if I'm not in a very talkative mood."
"Jane…"
"I thought we agreed not to call me that."
"Shepard please just hear me out. The admirals are concerned about you, but Hackett's prepared to give you a few more days to get your thoughts together before they render their judgement. The therapist seems to think you're improving."
She looked incredulous. "Get my thoughts together? My entire team died down there, and I get branded mentally unfit for duty, like it's my own damn fault? I watched them die!" Her voice had progressed to a shout, marking the return of the stern voice of Lieutenant Shepard. Then suddenly, as if someone had taken a pin to a balloon, her anger dissipated, only to be replaced with sadness. Her head fell into her hands. "I failed them Anderson- all of them. If I had just…"
A comforting arm around her shoulder breaks her line of thought. "It's not your fault. Don't ever think that." Closing her eyes, she surrendered herself to her emotions and let her head fall against his shoulder. It was the closest thing she'd ever had to paternal love, and she's be damned if she were to lose that, too.
The woman wakes in a shuttle, still clutching Anderson's corpse; the soldiers that found her obviously unable to pry the dead admiral from her arms. They call her Shepard, but that's not her name anymore. There's no need for a shepherd without its flock. Useless. Looking down in an attempt to avoid the questioning gazes of the shuttle's other passengers, she glimpses Anderson's face in the dim light. The lines of stress that had littered his face since this war began had faded, leaving behind a look of peacefulness that she almost envied. There's a gentle tap on her shoulder and she turns to meet the sympathetic face of Coates, his expression showing signs of underlying worry despite his best efforts to conceal it. Putting on a brave face. Isn't that what she's done all along? The façade will crack soon, along with everything else. "You need to let go, Commander." The voice is muffled as though she's underwater; drowning, her mind adds. She grips Anderson closer. "You need medical attention- you have to let go. Please." Strong arms wrap around her own and she's dragged, albeit carefully, backwards and away from the man she'd looked up to as a father. Futile kicks serve only to keep Coates' reinforcements away from her, and strangled cries leave her mouth. She's sobbing now, real tears, as if all of today's events have finally caught up with her wrecked body. Commander Shepard never cried, but she's not Shepard anymore.
"I can get Kaidan in, if it would help." Anderson had been called down to her confinement 'cell' in the early hours of the morning, after a visibly shaken guard had reported that their prisoner had threatened to demonstrate her newfound biotic abilities on him if he refused. He had laughed, then headed down to the Alliance headquarters. Shepard always had a way with words. Her nightmares had returned, and being cooped up didn't help. She needed some ounce of familiarity, so there he was.
She smiled sadly in response. "I'm probably the last person he wants to see right now."
"I know I may act as though I was oblivious to what happened between you two on the original Normandy, but I can read you like a book, Shepard. I've had a fair bit of practise over the years." Another smile. "And put it this way; if he didn't want to see you, why is he prowling around the headquarters waiting for a chance to bump into you after your hearings?"
"I don't think I've really earned any visiting hours, do you?"
"A fair point." Anderson chuckled. "In all seriousness Shepard, threatening guards with biotics isn't a way to win you any favours with the judges. How did you even gain them- was it something Cerberus did?"
"It's… Complicated. I'd rather not talk about it." She ran a hand through her cropped hair; military regulations apparently applied to detained soldiers too. "Let's just say I lost more than I gained." The reality of the situation was much more than that, but neither spoke of it. A comforting hand was placed on her back, and for the first time since she'd woken up shaking and covered in sweat, she felt a sense of calm.
"The nightmares will go away, Shepard. Don't lose hope just yet."
The first two months after the Reaper War pass by in a medicine-induced blur, where the only things that register in the woman's mind are pain and loss. Pristine hospital walls box her in and she wishes for the strength to snap the medical red tape tying her to the bed, yet she has none to gather. She wants to scream at the doctors, to beg to be left alone and finally embrace her end, but her throat betrays her. A cracked voice can't command anyone, so they ignore her pleas to help the other patients instead of herself. The self-confidence a successful military career had built up has been shattered, leaving behind a woman who sees herself as no more than a waste of resources; there's no need for a war hero in peace time. The nurses whisper when they think she can't hear them, but she can. They think she's insane; finally caving under the pressure and responsibility that was placed on her shoulders at the start of the war. Only Hackett has the gall to vehemently deny the notion and stand by her side. His presence helps more than she ever lets on.
They eventually let her go, deeming her healthy enough to no longer be a risk to herself or those around her. Hackett directs her to an apartment in a neighbouring area and is kind enough to entertain her requests of being left alone, albeit to a certain extent. She knows he still hovers, waiting for her to do something that would prove his statement about needing supervision to be correct, but she's beyond caring; his presence, although intrusive, is the last bit of comfort she has left. The apartment is a modest one, situated a short walk away from the hospital she had been cooped up in for as long as she can recollect. The walls of the building surround her, making it impossible for her to fall apart like the last irritating strips of tape on a collapsing cardboard box. The single window in the cramped room offers an unobstructed view of the place she last saw the Normandy; the last place she saw him. The place she let him go. The memories are like a toxic bile that burns her throat to the point of tears, so she buries them deep down once more. The blinds are swiftly shut and she never experiences the urge to open them again.
Night soon becomes a time for her thoughts to wander to unwanted places. The nightmares return in full force to plague her subconscious mind, not that they ever truly went away. She watches her teammates, her family, burn before her very eyes and is unable to do anything but look upon the scene in horror. Each night she awakes screaming and shaking, only to find that the one person who could bring her back down to earth is no longer beside her. She knew the war would take its toll on everyone- her foolish idealism had died long before she left Earth all those years ago- but the pain is still fresh. Each phantasm opens an old wound, like stitches tearing the battered skin they cling to, leaving scars in their wake. She bleeds silently, alone in the dark with her demons, and for the first time in her life, she wishes for an end.
The Normandy's gone. You can't be the Commander of a ship that is not there. She is not Jane Shepard anymore; not even a woman. She is a mere shell of what she used to be. A ghost. Anonymous. And for once, she is content to be so.