Disclaimer - I'm not affiliated with BioWare, don't have any claim to the Mass Effect universe or its characters, and don't receive any compensation for writing this. Yadda, yadda, yadda.
A/N: This follows the Mosaic Project. I suggest reading the Prologue first, but it's designed to be a series of stand-alone vignettes so it isn't really necessary for continuity's sake. Shep is a Colonist, War Hero, Vanguard, and Paragon … not that any of this necessarily comes to play in this installment.
The nightmares were more frequent now, hounding him with the relentless ferocity of a message that could not be ignored. Shepard felt as if he should be used to them by now, though he knew it was not the sort of thing to which one became accustomed: visions of the destruction of civilization, of the end times, of that which he knew to be arriving any moment.
I am Atlas.
It was not her burden. She knew the truth as well as he, but the trials and weights of messenger escaped her still. She slept heavily, her only motion the soft rise and fall of her chest as light pants fell from her mouth.
He envied her.
She was still party to the blissful listlessness of youth; though but few years her senior, he felt the gap in ages spanned decades. His father had once said that responsibility had a way of aging a man far beyond his days. The strands of gray speckling his dark head bore proof of that. He bore the weight of humanity, of their fates, of their futures. And he alone bore the nightly reminder of what was to come should his responsibility be ignored.
"Your calling is bigger than you."
Shepard rolled over to meet her eyes. The gaze was intense and purposeful, bearing down on him through the darkness of the room. Her statement had been true, but it was not something he wanted to acknowledge – not now, not yet. Even Atlas had been limited to bearing the weight of one world; he could not bear hers now.
Running his hand through his short-cropped hair, he smirked and sidled closer. "Do you have to wear your hair in that bun all the time, Williams? I like it when it's down."
She snorted, brushing her hair behind her ears at its mention. "The bun is standard issue, Skipper," she retorted, carefully arching a brow. "Besides, do you really want me to draw attention? Think you can handle the competition?"
"What makes you think you'd draw attention?" he whispered, quickly reaching forward to grip her hips and press her body to his.
Ashley hissed, raising a hand to his chest. "You're better than this, Skipper. At least try to be creative when you want to change the subject. Still can't sleep? It's the beacon again, isn't it? It makes me nervous when you're tossing and turning – wakes me up."
I am Prometheus.
He had hurt those he'd never wanted to. Her stories, confessed in dimly lit rooms in the stillness of early morning came to him on those nights. The nightmares grew more frequent; the nightmares had long since outstripped their original material.
"Stop pacing!" Joker had snapped, turning in his chair. "You're making me nervous."
"And that didn't make you nervous?" Ashley had shrieked, pointing at the tentacle shuddering through shards of glass, buried halfway through the broken ceiling of the Council's chambers. "You know they're down there!"
The pilot had snorted, his mouth pressed into a thin line. "He's Shepard, he'll be fine. He always is somehow."
She had stopped her movements abruptly, turning away from the man. She had said 'they' – Joker had replied with 'he.' What did the others suspect, and what her behavior confirm now?
Did they suspect, as she did now, why she had been asked to stay behind?
She had looked down at the video feed, straining to identify forms through the static. Two standing, staring at a pile of rubble …
Tali's face had been unreadable through the mask, though the distance of the camera and interference on the line would have prevented Ashley from knowing anything had she not worn it. But the stance, the attention, someone shaking a head? Anderson's weighted pause …
She had looked away and pulled at the fabric of her uniform, forcing herself to swallow away the tightness squeezing at her throat.
He would be fine.
He was fine.
There was no use in dwelling on an end to something not yet allowed to begin.
"See?" The smugness of Joker's tone had proved oddly reassuring.
Ashley had lifted her eyes to the screen once more, a third shadowy outline appearing from the wreckage. Shepard.
She had told him of the deep gasps that tore from her chest in that moment, as if she had been allowed to cast off a weight she had borne without fully knowing it was there.
And in its telling, she had transferred the weight to him.
In his dreams, it was her story, though he never stirred from the rubble. Some nights, as he awoke, he wished he never had. Death would have allowed him rest, allowed him deep, dreamless sleep. For in that sleep of death what dreams may come? Nothing, save for the sweetness of silence, for that which, he became increasingly convinced, he would not be allowed in life.
Shepard alone could transcend the bounds of death, the chains that held the mortals to their fate. He paced the realms of the Gods.
He had always returned.
He grew aware that one day he would not.
Like Prometheus, champion of humanity against the Gods, he had been chained and bound to live and die more than his due. For what sins did he pay penance now? He had plenty.
The nightmares were more frequent now, and they knew no bounds in subject. Like a storm kicking across a plain, so did his nightly terrors disturb the dust of memory. He now wished for the violence of the past, of the deaths of strangers, of the alien race extinguished centuries before. But instead the vultures sent to peck at him chose newer, deeper scars – more painful and precious flesh.
He was not more than a boy when death came to the first time. He stared the intruders down as the others crouched and trembled beside him. He had been, to remember it, overcome with calm. At the time, he had recognized it as the resignation of his fate; years later, he recognized it as the first time he cheated the fate that had been meant for him. As the hammer of God would spark across Vulcan's forge, so had the burning blue lightning sparked deep across sinew and vein, burst forth from every pore to drown those around him in a crackling, electric ocean.
Convention held a murderer's hands were red with blood, stained with some damned spot as a reminder of what had been done. Shepard's hands had been blue. There was no other light in the cellar save for the sickly illumination radiating from his body, save for the errant flecks that danced between quivering fingers. There was no stain upon him, but he felt the mark of Cain as they looked at him.
"Burned," the Lieutenant whispered, his eyes wide. "It's like the kid ..." His voice trailed off.
The Commander pressed her lips together, turning to face him. Though her face was steely, her voice wavered. "How long have you had that implant? It must be malfunctioning, or something, for this to happen." She paused, air hissing through her teeth as her boot kicked at dusty cellar floor. "It was a Batarian raid, kid," she added quietly. "No one here thinks you meant to kill them too. It was probably your implant. L2? Always had problems."
They think that I'm disgusting. No - they're afraid of me, he realized.
He had no words, no reassurances for her.
I am the glowing one.
He was filled with something as foreign as it was strange and powerful - and he reveled in it.
Their uniforms were made darker by the reflected light still streaming from his pores. He had felled his enemies with inhuman force. He was a terrible god amongst men.
I am blue, as dark as you.
Your clothes are made of me, and I am made of you.
Mother, father – know this to be true: I am not like you.
"Shepard!"
He tensed, startled by the sharpness of the bark. Ashley held him at the shoulders, straddling his waist. Blue lightning licked across the domed ceiling overhead, its reflection streaming across her tanned skin and dark hair. He was back on the SR-2, though the burdens had never released him - holding him as tightly as she held him now.
"It is the beacon again, isn't it?" She demanded, pressing a cool hand to his forehead as the other relaxed its grip. "You can't – It's driving you mad, Shepard," she whispered, lowering her head as she met his eyes. "It was a long time ago. There was nothing," she paused, wrinkling her nose, "nothing that you could've done. Hell, Skipper, humanity wasn't even around then. You can't … you can't. You can't let this get to you. Maybe this is what Saren, what the Reapers wanted all along. You're not alone in this, Shepard, and you can't …"
He lifted a hand to cup her cheek, forcing a small, crooked smile.
"You're right, Ash," he lied quietly. "I can't let the beacon get to me like this, I know."
What she didn't know had never hurt her. Some burdens could not be unloaded. "We're in this together, Ash - you and me."
I am Atlas. I am Prometheus. I am not like you.