The lump in her throat was getting increasingly harder to swallow.
Keplar's Syndrome?
Her big brown eyes watched his plush lips move and form words that she couldn't - or maybe wouldn't - understand. There emhad/em to have been something she could do. Shepard understood that there was no known cure for Thane's condition, but she couldn't accept the inevitable result of this beautiful, complex being's life being snuffed out far sooner than a Drell's natural life expectancy. Mordin was the best Salarian scientist in (probably) the entire galaxy, and even he hadn't expressed much positivity in regard to a cure.
But he didn't say there was no hope for one.
"Siha?" Thane's voice was like gravel across silk as he called to her. Normally, her attention would have been drawn immediately to this affectionate term for her, but Shepard's mind was anywhere but there, in that room, learning that this man had accepted his fate to die.
"Shepard?" One of his hands cautiously slid across the table between them to caress her hands that had begun to turn white from clenching her fists so tightly. Thane's hand was so warm against her cold, shaking fists. Her eyes left his lips and followed the length of his arm toward her until their sight landed upon his large hand resting atop her smaller one, his fused middle fingers rubbing soft circles into the back of her fist. For the first time, since she had sat down to chat with him, she looked up and into his huge black and dark green eyes. A pang of guilt struck her gut so suddenly that she nearly lost her breath
He's worried for me. For me.
Shepard had never been an emotional woman - not after what happened to her family back on Mindoir - so these were new feelings. She had felt affection toward others, even had a few flings, but those felt like a distant dream compared to what she was feeling for the person in front of her. Every word held new meaning, every touch felt like fire across her skin - these emotions.. They were too strong for her to ignore.
How long had it been since she last shed a tear? Shepard couldn't remember what it felt like to be seized by any stronger emotion than rage or fear - and she had been put into many situations to cause her skin to crawl with the electricity of adrenaline. When it came down to it, it was Shepard's nature to fight until the end - abandoning her feelings of… was it love? Whatever it was, Shepard knew she would have to see it through until what end may come
A sad smile tugged at the corner of her lips as she looked at him. She could see the way his brow furrowed, and she could see the way his lips silently moved, wanting to tell her that things would be alright, that there was no reason to worry or be sad… but he wouldn't. Thane would never lie. Thane would never lie.