Chapter 2
"Commander Shepard? You have a guest. Come in, Lieutenant."
A nurse pushed Cortez's wheelchair into position while Dr. Melfisa lowered the patient's bed. Then she put his hands in his lap, where Cortez would be able to see them both. "Are you comfortable, Commander? Shall I elevate your head a little more?"
Right finger squeeze. A yes. She did so, and Shepard had just enough muscle control to turn his head toward Steven Cortez.
"Commander," said the Lieutenant.
Shepard's lips moved, but not a sound came out.
"I'm going to give you two some space," Bei decided. "Lieutenant, if you want some help getting back to your room, just hit the call button, alright?"
She left before Cortez had a chance to respond. After the doors closed behind her, she let out a long sigh. Something in that room had felt tense. Fraught. It had made her want to get away as soon as possible.
And yet, it also made her insanely curious about what was happening in that room.
Bei activated her Omni-Tool and indicated to the other staff that she was going to take lunch. Then she stepped into the elevator and punched in the codes for the Special Observation Room.
"Packet," Dr. Melfisa said, addressing the hospital's VI from the comfort of an Observation Cubicle, "give me vid and voice for Level 17, Room 32."
"Yes, Doctor," replied an electronic voice, and a virtual screen popped up in front of her. "Zoom on subjects," she commanded. The image before her eyes enlarged until it was just Shepard and Cortez.
"—always believed you could do it. If anyone could save us, it was you. And you did. And then, you did one better, and lived through it." Cortez put his hand on Shepard's wrist. "I never stopped believing. Even when the husks were on me, I was thinking, 'At least Shepard will make it.' ...A pinkie flex? What does a pinkie mean?"
"H-hold," Shepard rasped.
"Hold? Do you want this?" Cortez lightly interlaced his fingers with Shepard's left. The Commander curled his right index finger. "Yes?"
Steven Cortez smiled for the second time that Bei had ever seen. "I can feel all of your fingers pressing. That's better than what the doctor told me before I got here. You're going to recover so fast. I just know it, Commander." And then his voice began to break. "You are the strongest person I know. I don't think there's anything or anyone that can get the best of you, Shepard."
"You."
Cortez looked away. "Don't say that. You swept me off my feet. No, it's more like you pulled me into your orbit. I don't know what I did to even attract your attention. But I count myself lucky."
They sat there silently for a time. Bei was just about to shut down her surveillance—she was beginning to feel a bit guilty about the whole spying thing—when Cortez said, "I know that I probably shouldn't be saying this, but sometimes it seems like everything that happened before was the peace, and this right now is the war. Yes, it was dangerous out there, and we had some close calls, not to mention all of the destruction that was happening planetside. But at the same time there were quiet moments. All the time waiting between destinations, all the time when it was just you and me and the darkness. Here, though, there's doctors running, injured folks getting rushed in for operations, the smells, the sickness, and all this death. Everywhere."
He brought his head down on Shepard's shoulder. "Do you mind if I do this?" he asked. Shepard squeezed the hand he held. "...Thank you. Just for a minute. I'm not going to be a burden on you, Shepard. The world has already asked so much from you. I won't ask any more. I won't do that to you. ...I can feel that. Don't tell me 'no.' I said I won't do that to you, and I won't."
He settled deeper into Shepard's shoulder. "When I spoke to you on the com, I already wasn't doing so well. I'd gotten banged up in the crash, and I was limping. I'd met up with a couple other soldiers and made it to a small camp to the south, where the medic pronounced me fit to hold a weapon. They needed anyone and everyone, at that point. Then you called, and almost right after that, the Reaper assault redoubled. I was right there with the others, trading fire, but there were so many of them. Every once in a while there'd be a husk wave, and some would slip through and we'd have to melee with them. And then suddenly the front line was down, and when the husks came, they all got through. I had three on me. I ripped one off, and someone shot the one on my left side, but then... fortunately, I don't remember a lot of it. And the next thing I knew, people were shouting that we'd won, and I was being carried off in a stretcher, and... that thing had... chewed my leg off. Part of it anyway. They took off the rest this morning."
Cortez straightened up and looked into Shepard's face, saw the bare horror there. "I should go," he said quickly. He dropped Shepard's hand and grabbed for the wheels of his chair.
"Ssstayy," said Shepard, his voice so tiny and fragile that the surveillance mic almost didn't pick it up.
Cortez stopped. He still would not look Shepard in the eyes, only at the hands in his lap. "Tell me the truth, Shepard. Do you really want me here, right now?"
Shepard squeezed his right trigger finger.
"OK," said Cortez. He brought his face near Shepard's. Hesitated. Came closer. Hesitated again. Pressed his lips to Shepard's. Withdrew. Kissed him again. And again. Said, "I'll stay until they kick me out, Commander."
Bei watched them until it was time to go back on shift.
Bei auto-keyed into her apartment and called out, "Liz! Liz, are you home?"
"In the bedroom," her wife called back.
Bei came into the bedroom and flopped down on the bed, next to where Liz was lying. "You tired, babe?" Liz asked.
"Mortally exhausted," Bei answered. "What a day. You?"
"Same," Liz answered. "I always thought peace would be more... peaceful."
"What happened this time?"
"The bread trucks were late today, and it was making people antsy. So when they finally showed up, people started fighting over the rations. It was just a mess."
"Oh, Goddess. How many were hurt?"
"A dozen injured. No fatalities today, but only because the Major ordered us to tear gas them."
"Goddess," Bei repeated.
"I shouldn't be doing this goddamned job," said Liz. "Every day I find myself agreeing more with the protesters. We're not 'peacekeepers,' we're soldiers." She sighed and closed her eyes. "What a miserable day."
Bei pulled herself closer, until she was resting her head on Liz's shoulder. "They'll get proper police in there soon, and then you can just rest for a while," she said, though she wasn't sure how much she really believed it.
"I hope you're right," said Liz, nuzzling Bei's forehead. "Tell me about your day."
"I'm worried about one of my patients. Newly-disabled vet, wheelchair-bound until he can get a prosthetic, which production is going to be backed up on for years to come... No next-of-kin."
"Is he going to have to stay in one of those camps?"
"They're not 'camps.' They're state-run, they have licensed nurses..."
"They're crowded, and there isn't enough food."
"Baby, I know that," said Bei. "I just have to think that it's better than being on the street. If I don't believe my patients have something waiting for them after the hospital, I'll stop being able to do my job."
"Of course. Sorry. So he's in a wheelchair and he has severe head trauma?
"What? Oh. He didn't have a brain injury. He's, uh, not actually technically one of my patients. Remember how I was tracking down one of Commander Shepard's crew? Thank you again for your help with that, by the way."
"Anything for you," said Liz, kissing the top of Bei's head. "So you found the guy?"
"I did! And I brought him in."
"And?"
"And... There was a lot of kissing."
Liz gaped, the corners of her mouth upturned. "You found the Commander's boyfriend?!"
"I knew you would be scandalized! What is it about you humans that makes you find same-gender relationships so salacious?"
"Bei, I'm not scandalized. I'm proud of you! ...OK, I'm maybe a little bit scandalized. I admit, the idea of the big strong Intergalactic Defender Guy having a boyfriend just tickles me, in a way that a girlfriend wouldn't. I guess it's old reptile-brain gender role stuff."
"Sometimes I wonder what it would be like to be a member of a species with males," said Bei, sighing and snuggling closer to her wife. Tomorrow they both had the day off, which they would hopefully spend indoors and under the covers, hidden away from the endless disaster zone that Earth had become.
"Wait, Bei... Does that mean you were... spying?"
Bei strode cheerfully into Commander Shepard's room the morning after her day off. "Good morning, Commander. How are you today?"
"Good," rasped Shepard.
Bei smiled at him. "Your recovery is going swimmingly, according to the charts. Did you see the Lieutenant again yesterday?" That Commander Shepard and Lieutenant Cortez were an item was not a secret between them. Not after Bei had walked in on them nose-to-nose the day before yesterday.
In response, Shepard nodded. Another good sign for his neck muscles.
A light flashed on his wrist, indicating a message to his private V-mail address. "Mr. Popular. You probably have a huge backlog of unread mail. Would you like to borrow a view screen?" Shepard nodded again, and Bei brought him a thin, plastic-encased flat panel, about the size of a dinner tray, with handles on either side. Bei took one; she directed Shepard's left hand to the other so that his Omni-Tool could sync.
Bei tapped the Mail icon that appeared onscreen. "You really are Mr. Popular! Who in the universe needs six separate mailing addresses?" All six addresses blinked, indicating unread messages. "OK, which one do you want to check first?"
"Four," Shepard whispered.
Bei tapped the fourth address from the top. Inside, there was just one message, a vid.
"Shall I?"
Shepard nodded. Bei tapped, and the video started.
"Good morning, Commander. It's about four a.m. I wanted to come by in person, but your nurses said you weren't to be disturbed."
Cortez's eyes were red, and there were deep lines of exhaustion around them. He rubbed at the corner of one with a knuckle and continued.
"To make a long story short, a lot of injured people just arrived, and the hospital doesn't have room for me anymore. And since I don't have any family to be released to... Well, there are a lot of people in the same situation as me. The Alliance is sending us all to various housing facilities for now. I'm going to one in Beijing, so... I won't be able to see you for a little while. It's just temporary, until I can navigate things on my own a better. So, I'm going to focus on getting to that point, and I want you to focus on recovering. No excuses, Commander, you're going to get better..." His voice wavered, and he looked away. "...And then, if you still want me, I'm here."
Cortez took a deep breath and looked back at the screen. "Because I love you." Then his hand reached for the vid controls. "Cortez out."
Bei had only vaguely been watching the video screen. Mostly, she'd been looking for Shepard's reactions. As for what she saw now, she could only call it 'stricken.'
"Alone," he whispered.
"You want me to leave you alone? I can do that."
"No. No. We're all—" he coughed hard, and Bei put a steadying hand on his shoulder—"alone."
Bei couldn't believe her ears. How could Commander Shepard, who had brought the whole universe together—through brilliant inspiration or brutal force, depending on who was telling the story—say this now?
For the first time, Bei became really curious about what had happened when the Crucible was activated. But that was not the right thing to talk about just then.
"Beijing is less than two hours by jet," she said instead. "He's probably getting settled in already. You should send him a message." When the Commander hesitated, she clicked her tongue. "In times like these, 'no reply' is as good as 'no.' Are you telling me you don't want to see him again?"
He clenched his left hand. A clear no.
"Then you get on vid, and you tell that man you want him."
"Love," corrected Shepard. "Love."