Chapter 2: Powerless
(Ashley is lying in her hospital bed after Shepard's 2nd visit)
"On lips that are for others; deep as love, Deep as first love…"
Ashley closed the Tennyson book that Shepard had brought to her. She could only read so much before her head started to hurt, still suffering minor migraines from the injuries that she incurred from that "thing" on Mars. She placed the book on her lap and turned her head to the left to look out the window. Glancing out at the Citadel she let out a deep sigh. Her mind was once again somewhere else. On someone else.
She trusted Shepard again. Him coming by to chat, and also chasing away Udina in the process, was a pleasant moment. His words were words that only someone could only speak with true sincerity. It was all real, everything he said. And that helped her feel better than any medication the salarian doctors gave her.
Ashley thought back to Mars. She decided she had enough and finally confronted Shepard about things she not only wanted to know, but frankly needed to know. Part of her actually wanted to see him stumble around the questions, just to prove her doubts about him. Her stubbornness at times was something she herself hated. But Shepard answered them without any hesitation, almost as if they were programmed responses to what she wanted to hear. It almost baffled her. "Only he would know what to say.." she remembers thinking back on the elevator. It drew some of the anger out of her during this, replying harshly at one point saying "Don't 'Ash' me" because Shepard had completely torn apart her plan to be skeptical of him, not ready to fully trust it was actually him.
Ash asked more questions about "them" during his visit. And again, she heard what she wanted to hear as if Shepard were reading her mind.
It was for real, every one of Shepard's answers had her sold. She was fawning over him just like she had just those couple of years ago. Ashley felt powerless.