Over the next few days, his life gets back some of its color. Steve hadn't realized just how gray everything had seemed before until now, and he's starting to feel better. There's still a long road ahead of him, but it's finally started to look less like an un-scalable mountain. Shepard's seen the difference, too—she doesn't bring up the incident with the recording, but the time she spends below-stairs with him and James becomes more frequent until he's sure she's spending every minute of her downtime with them. As a result, he's becoming more familiar with her, and with how dark and hollow her eyes are becoming. He decides to follow her lead for now and not ask until she gives him an inroad to that subject of conversation, but he keeps an eye on her and makes sure there's ration bars or something from the mess hall down here for her. Someone has to concern themselves with whether or not she's eating, and she's obviously not up to the task.
There's always a request for aid coming in, and Shepard has a hard time telling anyone "no". For some, she's their only hope of rescue. For others, no one else could get it done right like she can. The sheer number of people who have interacted with her and come to trust her is astonishing. One would think that the rest of the Alliance had been asleep these past few years, because the only person they want to help them is Shepard. She is a hero, one for the history books.
On the other hand, she's also the sort to sit in the shuttle bay and drink a beer next to Steve while they both watch James do pull ups. Though he's joked about it before, he's right—the show is impressive. She takes a sip of her beer and tilts her head to view him from another angle.
"I didn't even know that muscle group could get that big," she says, really laying on the awe-struck wonder.
"The guy's an artist, and his body is his canvas. See those abs? Michelangelo's David had abs like that." He empties the bottle he's holding and reaches for another one. A pleasant buzz has settled into his head, and he wants to make sure it stays there.
"David's a little too pale for my tastes," she says. She's about two beers further along than he is, because James bet her a ten-spot she couldn't pound one in less than five seconds, which made her ten credits richer. Then they had a race to finish the next one before he'd wandered off, grumbling, to exercise and prove his manliness to everyone in the room.
"Ahh. You like your guys with a little color on them, I take it?"
"Yeah. Tall, dark, and handsome. That's my type, right there." She sighs wistfully, clutching her chest, and Steve chuckles.
James hops down, turns up the music he'd been listening to—something guitar-heavy and Spanish—and saunters over to them, weaving a bit. He grabs a beer, pops it open on his belt buckle, and leans on the crate next to Shepard. "So, you're saying I'm your type, Lola?"
"Not quite, Mr. Biceps McMusclepants. I go for guys with necks." Steve covers his mouth and laugh/coughs into his sleeve.
"So that's what turns your crank? Necks?"
"Among other things." She winks at Steve and stands to toss her empty in the trash.
"Aw, come on, Lola," James says, and suddenly pulls her into a ballroom dancing stance before she can sit back down. She squeaks and falls into him before regaining her equilibrium enough for a glare. "You gotta elaborate on that."
"What the hell are you doing?" she asks indignantly.
"Dancing. It's customary among my people to dance all the time, for no reason."
"Speak for yourself, Mister Vega," Steve chimes in.
"Hey, that's Biceps McMusclepants to you," James says, and Shepard really must be halfway to drunk because she actually giggles at that, and still hasn't extricated herself from his arms yet. "And I didn't mean all Latinos, just my people. We're a whole clan of dancin' fools."
"Although a great many of us do dance," Steve replies, and tries to take a drink from his empty bottle. He stares at it as though it could tell him how all the beer has disappeared so fast.
"You guys obviously haven't seen my skills on the dance floor," Shepard says, determined to protest against this affront to her dignity. "I make Wrex look like a ballerina in comparison."
James chuckles, "Now that's a mental image I could have lived without." Turning back to the business at hand and the woman in his arms, he explains, "Dancing is easy; all you're doing is moving with the beat."
"I could court-martial you for this."
"And you could have punched me in the face a thousand times by now, but you didn't do that, either." Shepard sighs and shakes her head, then straightens up and holds herself more confidently—her hand on his shoulder, the other clasped in his, while his fingers rest lightly on the small of her back. Steve leans back to watch, a small smile on his face.
James says, "Start simple—step back with your left foot, then come back to center and step forward with your right." He moves first and she's forced to move with him so he doesn't step on her foot. She's awkward at first, but Steve suspects it's mostly because they're both trying to lead at the same time.
"I'm so awful at this," she says, her face turning an alarming shade of red. She's so convinced she's a bad dancer that her body is making it so, and in her embarrassment Steve can tell she's not really even listening to the song anymore, just waiting for it to be over so she can start forgetting this ever happened.
"You just need the right partner," he says, and levers himself to his feet. He taps James' shoulder and Mr. McMusclepants graciously moves aside to let him have a turn. Shepard's arms are wrapped protectively around herself, but she loosens up just enough to let Steve get her arms where he wants them. She's so tense that he knows he'll have a hard time getting her to move again, so he shifts his arms up a little higher so she's forced to rest her weight on him. Then he begins to sway to the rhythm, just enough to get her moving. She glances up at him and gives him a sheepish smile.
"See? You're dancing already."
"I don't know if I'd call this dancing. We're barely moving."
"But we're moving to music. That's all dancing is." He pushes lightly on her left shoulder and she instinctively steps back with that foot, and he follows the movement. Then he tugs on her hip and she steps forward again. The long line of her body is warm against him as he leads her with gentle touches across the floor, and soon she's looking at her feet in amazement as though she can't believe what they're doing. Even James looks on in surprise.
"Hey, Commander, you're pretty good. You know, for a beginner."
"Told you all she needed was the right partner." She glances up at him with a smile that warms him all the way to his toes and he grows bolder with the dance, turning her around and stepping more quickly until she's laughing. When the song ends, she's flushed and giddy, and hugs him close on impulse. He hugs her back, and it feels good and right, this solid contact with another person. His heart suddenly feels too big for his chest and his hands clench into fists as he grips her tighter. She senses the change in him and strokes the back of his head as James clears his throat and excuses himself to let them have a moment alone.
"You all right, Steve?" she whispers in his ear, in case the answer is no and he doesn't want to let on.
"Yeah, I'm okay." He pulls away and steps back, and he thinks he sees her eyebrows crease in disappointment for an instant, there and gone again. "It's good to see you loosen up a little."
"You saying I'm uptight?" She laughs a little at the way his face falls. "Relax, I'm kidding. I know I seem . . . aloof, but it's only because I've got to keep it together for the crew. This fight is hard enough on everyone without me going to pieces all the time, although God knows I'd like to every now and again." She sighs and drops her head. "Sorry, I didn't mean . . . sorry."
"It's okay." She gives him a smile and starts to leave, but Steve calls her name and she looks back over her shoulder. He wants to tell her that it's okay to go to pieces if she has to, and that if she wants someone to hold her hand while she does it he'd be willing to offer his, but those sentiments seem too personal to be spoken aloud. "We should do this again some time."
The tiny uptilt of her lips tells him that she's heard his unspoken offer and she nods. "Definitely. Take care, Steve."
He goes to lay down and try to sleep, and the scent of her lingers on his clothes for a long time after.
The next few days are a whirlwind of activity. They spend most of it on Tuchanka, charging in with guns blazing to save the Primarch's son and bail out his squad. It's a blow to the morale of the ground team when they lose him later; Tarquin Victus was young and inexperienced, but he sacrificed himself for the good of an entire planet. There is honor in that, but Steve feels awful for the Primarch nonetheless. No parent should ever have to bury their child.
Finally, word comes down from on high—the cure is ready, all systems go. Steve gets the order to gear up and have the shuttle ready within the hour, and he's just finishing the pre-flight checklist when Shepard arrives accompanied by Mordin, Wrex, Eve, Garrus, and Liara. It's a tight fit, especially with the two krogan, but they all manage to fit in. Shepard pulls him aside for a moment and there's something in her eyes that looks dangerously close to panic.
"Cortez, can I ask you something?"
"Absolutely, Commander." Commander, not Shepard. Not now when she's armored up for battle. She puts on her rank like a shield before a mission, but today it's showing signs of cracking.
"If you had to choose between what's right and what's practical, what would you do?"
"You're gonna have to give me more to go on." She sighs and fidgets with her armor before continuing.
"I can't. Maybe after, but right now . . . just give me your opinion."
He has to think about it for a minute, but she waits for him. "If I understand you, I think you're asking me if I'd choose to follow my heart over my head." She nods, and he says, "In a war like this, when we're faced with cold ruthlessness, we can't lose our humanity. If we do, we become like them. Doing the practical thing might mean we save a lot of people, but if it means losing our integrity and our honor in the process, it's not worth it. If we die, then at least we die on our own terms and not theirs." Shepard's eyes are bright under the fluorescents and her lip trembles slightly before she clamps the Commander mask firmly on and nods.
"Thanks, I needed that." She ducks into the shuttle and calls, "All right, take us down."
"Aye aye, ma'am."
They land on Tuchanka and Steve watches in awe as Shepard and her team plow through the Reaper horde like an organic bulldozer. He gives air support where he can and watches anxiously when he can't; Shepard may seem invincible on the battlefield, but even heroes can have a bad day. When he hears the name Kalros over the comm and sees the massive Reaper ship directly in their path, he knows that she's having a very bad day, indeed.
She sprints to the maw hammers, dodging flying debris and the enormous fists of the marauders that are running amok. Garrus and Liara are trying their best to distract them and keep them off of her, but there's only so much they can do against such brute force. Finally, the last hammer crashes down with a thud and Kalros herself, huge and brutally beautiful, erupts from the ground and wraps around the Reaper ship like a boa constrictor, bearing it down even as it fires its cannon wildly into the air. The thresher maw crushes it and drags it, screaming, into the earth and Steve can't help but watch in slack-jawed wonder.
He's just seen a giant worm kill an ancient sentient machine. He briefly considers having a holo made.
All is quiet for a long time, just a lot of panting as they run for the Shroud, and then Shepard's voice in on the comm again. This time, she's not barking orders or issuing commands. This time, she's pleading with a friend.
"Mordin, this whole thing is coming apart! There's gotta be another way."
Remote bypass impossible, STG countermeasures in place. No time to adjust cure for temperature variance."
"You don't have to . . . please, Mordin, don't do this."
"Shepard, please. Need to do this. My work, my responsibility." The salarian takes a deep breath. "Would have liked to run tests on the seashells."
"I'm sorry." And god, she sounds like it. Like a much younger girl who sees the awful thing happening and wants to take it all back-please no, make it stop, she's saying, and Steve wants to reach out to her, but she's so far away.
"I'm not. Had to be me."
"Someone else might have gotten it wrong." Her voice breaks on the last word and Steve almost shuts the comm off to give her some privacy in this moment. A few seconds later, the salarian starts humming a song, something Steve recognizes from the Pirates of Penzance, and there's a little quaver to his voice. He's scared, Steve thinks, and that's when the tears begin, when he realizes that the fearless salarian doctor is humming to himself to calm his nerves as he goes to die.
"Cortez, are you there?" Shepard calls over the comm, and he hits the switch to break in and answer.
"Right here, ma'am."
"Get up there and see if you can't find a way to get him out once he's finished."
"Roger that, going in for extraction." He pilots the shuttle to the tip of the Shroud, but the doctor doesn't move from the terminal. Mordin barely has time to insert the cure and start the dispersal before the whole thing blows and begins to collapse. Shepard's hoarse whisper, "No," is louder than it has any right to be.
Steve lands at the LZ and Garrus, Liara, and Shepard hop in, silent as they fly away from the newly liberated krogan homeworld. The krogan have pledged support to the turians, and their clans are united in a strong army, thanks to Urdnot Wrex. The krogan will survive this war, and it's a major victory for their side. Celebrations are planned, and there's talk of heading to the Citadel to celebrate at every bar on the station.
When they're back on the Normandy, Steve powers down the engines and begins the post-fight maintenance checks. So engrossed is he in his work that it's not until he reaches the side doors that he sees Shepard sitting in the darkened interior, her armor in a pile beside her, thousand-yard-stare on her face. Steve sets aside the datapad he's working from and climbs in to sit next to her, but lets the silence drag out, hers to break. She hangs her head, her sweat-crusted hair hanging in her face.
"He was a good man," she says finally, and her voice is like sandpaper. "Why can't life be like the movies? The good guys win, the bad guys lose, and everyone lives happily ever after."
"It would be nice," Steve agrees, and the first tears fall to the floor between her knees.
"It's not fair." She sniffles and wipes her eyes, and he puts his arm around her shoulders. "I hate this war so goddamn much, Steve." She dissolves into sobs and he pulls her in against him. Soon his shirt is damp with tears and she buries her face in his side. All he can think to do is hold her and murmur all those comforting but ultimately useless phrases like, Just let it go, and Shhh, and It's gonna be okay. It's a long time before her tears begin to slow and her shoulders stop hitching, but she still doesn't move away from him as he rubs soothing circles on her back. It's as though she can't seem to find the resolve to leave the shuttle and let life go on without her friend. This is a sentiment Steve can understand all too well.
He loses track of time and when he looks down at her, he sees that she's fallen asleep. Rather than wake her up and force her to face all the harshness of her reality so soon after a blow like this, he gently lays her down, then goes to his own cot and gets his pillow and blanket. Gently, he lifts her head and slides the pillow under, covers her with the blanket, and takes her armor to stow it in her locker. He shuts the shuttle door as quietly as he can, and lets her have this momentary reprieve in private.
The requisition orders have piled up and he puts together a list of all the things they'll need to pick up from the Citadel, all the while keeping an eye on the shuttle. After two hours, he makes a quick trip to the mess hall for some dinner, but when he comes back she's gone. There's a new message in his inbox, too, and it reads,
Thank you for what you did. I really needed that. We'll be docking at the Citadel for repairs, supplies, and 36 hours of shore leave. Meet me for drinks?
Steve fires back immediately: Wouldn't miss it. He goes back to work with a small twinge of anticipation in his stomach, and wonders what it means that he's so looking forward to seeing her again.