Doubts and Heartaches: From the Ashes
Despite the Illusive Man's intent suggestion that she hit Omega right away and find Dr. Solus, Shepard chose to visit the Normandy's crash site first. She couldn't move forward if she was stuck in the past. It surprised her, how chill and barren the planet was and how undisturbed the wreckage for the Normandy had been. Didn't they send a search party? Wouldn't the Alliance have scoured the wreck for survivors? And if so, wouldn't they have already collected their soldiers' lost dog tags? Two years the Normandy lay untouched, written off… forgotten. Had she been forgotten too?
Shepard placed her broken N7 helmet down and sat in the chair at the desk. Sighing, she emptied the dog tags onto the desktop. She pulled one out of the pile and read the name, Raymond Tanaka . His face flashed in her mind, a tall dark haired man that worked in engineering with Adams. She shook her head sadly, while pulling out another, Caroline Grenado. Young and fresh out of the academy, she worked in decryption up on the bridge. The next tag belonged to Carlton Tucks, a quiet soldier who worked on the Mako's maintenance. Did their families know they were gone? Were all these soldiers just missing in action or were they declared dead after the survivors were rescued, like she had been?
She read through the tags. Abishek Pakti, Silas Crosby, Talitha Draven, and her sister Rosamund Draven. Their dog tags weighed heavily in her hand, their faces just flashes of distant memories. People she barely knew, soldiers who depending on her to lead them. Some of these men and women risked being court-martialed when she commandeered the Normandy. Orden Laflamme, Mandira Rahmann, Alexei Dubyansky, Harvey Gladstone, Hector Emerson, Addison Chase, Jamin Bakari, Helen Lowe, Germeen Barrett, Amina Waaberi. These were the servicemen she couldn't save.
Slowly she rubbed the raised lettering on the tags, each letter pounded out by a massive machine, each soldier forged in countless hours of grueling training. Robert Felawa, Shepard remembered him and his partner, Monica Negulesco. The investigators assigned to assess the crew's loyalty and capability status, mostly just a formality to satisfy parliament. Shepard remembered planning with Kaidan in the mess one afternoon, what they would do once the AIA Agents had left. Now those internal affairs agents were dead. Marcus Greico, the Normandy's cook, she recalled he'd made ration pancakes the morning of the attack. Charles Pressly, her old XO. Pressly had insisted she take a longer break to sneak in some time with Kaidan, not even an hour before the Normandy was destoryed. She clenched the tags in her hand.
The tears wouldn't come and she punished herself in her mind for that. How could she not cry for the soldiers lost while on her watch? They were her men! Her women! She was supposed to protect them! She was their Commander! Shepard threw her helmet at the wall, it hit and rolled back toward her, reaching her feet. The visor looked up at her and she collapsed forward, burying her head in her hands. Still no tears. She cursed at herself for that. She looked down in through the broken visor and slowly picked up the helmet, staring at it. Of everyone that had died, she survived.
Two years. The thought haunted her. How could she have been gone for two years? Nothing but meat and tubes… Jacob Taylor's voice echoed in her mind. Shepard tried to wrap her mind around it. She clenched her fist, feeling that strange awkwardness. When she had woken up, she couldn't quite place why. Now she knew. Flexing her arm, she could almost feel each cybernetic bone. Her entire right arm… not hers. Her left leg, not hers. Half of her ribs, parts of her back, her entire left hand up to at least her elbow, all not her anymore. In fact, most of her felt… Shepard shook her head. What was she then, if she wasn't her anymore?
Joker seemed to think she was fine. Treated her even better than when they served on the SR1. Shepard was sure that was simply because he was so glad to have her back, or maybe he was just happy to be flying again. Then Tali had said it was definitely her. Shepard recalled that feeling of relief when her quarian friend had announced that much. She felt a tiny bit of that doubt etch away as Tali trusted her, talked to her, worked with her. Shepard wished she could have talked to more of them. Garrus, Wrex, Liara…. Kaidan. She sighed, looking at her helmet. Shepard clutched it tighter in her hands and stared at cracks in the visor, her reflection broken, just like she was. Who am I now?
The Illusive Man wanted you exactly as you were, Miranda's frank admission echoed in her mind. What better way for Cerberus to control her than to make her believe they didn't control her. What if Cerberus really had implanted her with some sort of control device? Shepard didn't feel controlled in anyway. In fact, she felt just the opposite. She felt more lost than ever. Without the Alliance, without the people she had come to trust and care for, who was she? What was she if she wasn't an Alliance soldier? Was she a terrorist now? A rogue Spectre like Saren just thinking she was doing the right thing? Wasn't Saren only doing what he thought would save organics from the reapers? Was she any better at this point? She had to believe she was or she might just go crazy.
Doubt itched at her though. She hated feeling like this: the not knowing. Then there was the Illusive Man himself. If he had implanted her with some sort of control device, why was he working so hard to convince her to help him? He appealed to her inherent nature to serve and protect. Help humanity, he touted. It was an obvious ploy to get her to cooperate, yet it worked. She couldn't turn her back on these people, on her people. Cerberus was wrong to do a lot of other things, but this… Shepard had to believe that what she was doing was right. And the Illusive Man seemed to know just what to say to get her to help. He wouldn't go through all that trouble if he could force her to do what he wanted with a flip of a switch, right?
She gently put the helmet back on her desk. It watched over the dog tags scattered there. She noted sadly that it had been her job to watch over them once, and she failed.
"How do you deal with losing soldiers under your command?" Kaidan's words after Ash's death echoed back to her. He'd never lost anyone. Not until Jenkins at least. And then on the Normandy he'd not only lost Jenkins, but Ash as well. When Shepard thought about it, technically, he'd lost her too. Was that her fault? Did death just follow her wherever she went?
"I promise to do better by them next time," Shepard told him. It was the truth and it was a lie. The truth was that she did promise them that. She promised it to herself, every time. The lie was that she dealt with it. Mostly she had to harden herself, not get close to her soldiers. And she had done a damn good job of it until serving on the Normandy. She wanted to tell Kaidan that now, wanted to be wrapped in his arms and confess all the things she couldn't do, all the things she wasn't strong enough to see through. I couldn't save them, she whispered. I can't even cry for them.
It felt like they'd only had that conversation a few months ago. The pain from Ash's death was still slightly fresh, made even more so by visiting the remains of the Normandy. She couldn't believe she'd been in a coma for two whole years. Wasn't she just talking with Kaidan about how they couldn't break regs with the AIA on board a few weeks ago? Wasn't Garrus teasing Tali about her avoiding her pilgrimage to get in a few more shots at the geth a week before? Joker giving Pressly a hard time, Wrex teaching Garrus more tactics…How could it have been two years ago? Did any of her crew know she was alive? Did they care?
To Tali, Shepard's sudden appearance was a surprise. Maybe none of them knew she was alive. If they did, would they come back? She had been so sure they would when she woke up but after the Illusive Man told her how they had all moved on, she had doubted it a little. Then when Tali told her she couldn't… Shepard's heart dropped. They wereher crew. But she'd been gone. She'd abandoned them. For two entire years, it seemed. How could she even ask them back after leaving them for so long? It's not your fault, she told herself. But then, whose fault was it? Should she have woken up? Why didn't she wake up sooner?
I thought you were still a work in progress. Jacob's comment made her wonder. She wasn't just in a coma and her injuries were extensive, but would that really take two years for her to heal? Shepard shook her head. What injury would take two years to heal? Plus all of the strange pieces of data recordings she found while floundering on that space station. Billions of credits sunk into Project Lazarus, just to bring her back? Back out of a coma? Back from the dead? She scoffed at that. No doctor, no matter how good, could bring someone back from the dead, right? Dead was dead, end of story.
She glanced at the dog tags. Why her? So she was the Commander of the Normandy. She led the team that took down Saren, helped take down Sovereign. It's not like she did it by herself. There was an entire crew, an entire ship backing her. What made her more special than any other Commander out there? Didn't she just happen to be in the right place at the right time? So much of what they accomplished hinged simply on blind luck. Did they bring her back just because she's lucky? Or was she lucky because they brought her back?
Shepard couldn't think anymore about it. She carefully put the dog tags in a case, reading each name, remembering what she could of the soldiers one last time. No tears, just silence. It seemed fitting though, the quiet; nothing but the soft hum of the new Normandy lulling her into her own memories. Her conversation with Kaidan echoed in the back of her mind again. I'll do better by them next time…
Whether she was herself or not, Shepard was here now. She had a second chance for whatever reasons, better or worse. And people needed her now. She wasn't going to turn her back on them. With this new crew, she might not trust them all but they were her crew none-the-less. She was their Commander and right now was her 'next time'. Shepard vowed that no matter what, she was going to do better for it. For them.