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Disclaimer: I do not own any of the Mass Effect characters and their likenesses, they belong to Bioware.
Three.
Shepard was furious.
She was pacing up and down the Civilian Affairs office, breathing loudly and fiercely. James was in the office too, now, standing in front of the door with his arms crossed. Detective Reynolds was sitting in her desk chair, watching Shepard with a concerned expression on her face.
Five minutes earlier, Shepard had practically sprinted out of the office, only for James to bolt after her and grab her, hoisting her over his shoulder in a fireman's carry as she pounded at his back and shouted at him to put her down. He placed her down, eventually - practically throwing her onto the office sofa without a single word. And now here they were.
"Shepard," the Detective spoke tentatively. Shepard stopped in her tracks, although she was facing away from the Detective's desk. She didn't respond. "Amelia, I..."
In a heartbeat Shepard span round, her face scrunched in pure fury. "No one gets the privilege of calling me by that name," she snarled, pointing an accusing finger in the Detective's direction. "Not even you, Reynolds."
The Detective was unmoved by Shepard's show of anger. "Shepard, I understand that this is difficult for you, but quite frankly, this isn't all about you. I've brought you here simply because I'm concerned for the child's well being. The woman he's called his mother for eleven years is dead. You're all he has."
Eleven years. Had it really been so long? Millions of memories were zooming through Shepard's mind. She had locked them away for such a long time, not realising that one day she'd be forced to relive them all over again.
"Would you be able to shine some light on this for me?" The Detective asked in a gentle voice. "I can assume enough from the hologram and your reaction, but I need to hear the full story from you."
Shepard's line of sight hit the maroon carpeted floor, and she drew in a slow, deep breath. She felt a little nauseous. The idea of having to drag up her past - especially to a woman she barely even knew - just seemed unfair, wrong.
She walked over to the familiar black leather chair and sat down. The room was uncomfortably silent. Shepard could feel two pairs of eyes urging her on.
"I was seventeen years old," She managed to speak, after a long absence of sound from the room.
"Okay."
Shepard suppressed the urge to roll her eyes at the Detective's faux-understanding voice.
"I wanted to be an Alliance soldier more than anything. I promised myself that once I turned eighteen, I'd leave, never look back, make something of myself. But..." Shepard's voice trailed off, and she pursed her lips, unsure of where the right words were inside herself. "I found out I was pregnant on my seventeenth birthday. Marina was a waitress at the local diner in this shitty run down area of Seattle. We ended up becoming friends. She was the only normal person in my life. Everybody else was pushing drugs, prostituting themselves. Marina wanted a family."
The hologram image of her emaciated, dying friend tore a hole right through Shepard's mind. She hadn't thought about Marina for years. All of a sudden, she was all Shepard could think about. The 'Kaidan' light in her mind had temporarily stopped flashing on and off. Now all she could hear was Marina's voice echoing through her.
"She held my hair back when I had morning sickness. She let me live with her so I could get away from the other guys in the gang. She kept me fed. I slept on her sofa for eight months. I gave birth to the baby on it. She never left my side."
Shepard's feeling of nausea seemed to grow stronger as she relived it all. Detective Reynolds grabbed Shepard's hand reassuringly across the desk, and Shepard was too buried in memories and emotions to angrily yank her hand away.
"I knew that having a baby would ruin any chance I ever had of joining the military, and I also knew that Marina couldn't have children, so her adopting the kid just seemed the best idea for both of us. She delivered the baby and I never even held him, I never even wanted to. By her being the kid's mother, we both got what we wanted out of life." A thought suddenly came to Shepard. "Where is the kid now?"
"He's in the local hospital, being treated for exhaustion and malnutrition," The Detective responded, "He's being well looked after. Once he's considerably healthier he'll be transferred to the psychiatric ward where they'll fully assess him and decide the next appropriate steps for him. Would you like to see him?"
"No," Shepard declared almost coldly as she stood up. As much as it pained her to learn that the woman she thought of as a sister, who had done so much for her, was dead, the idea of visiting the child that was for all intents and purposes her son did not appeal to her. She knew she probably seemed heartless, but she waived all rights to the child when she gave him up to Marina. She had given him up for a reason. She was not ready to be a parent - she wasn't ready back then, and she still wasn't.
"Please think about it, Shepard. I'm sure he has a lot of questions that only you can answer. Anyway, thank you for shining some much needed light on this case for me," Detective Reynolds got up from her seat, flashing a polite smile at Shepard as she extended out her hand. Shepard shook it half-heartedly, stepping towards the door that James was still guarding. James took a step to the side and extended his arm out toward the door, gesturing for her to leave first. She glanced up at him, noting an expression on his face that she couldn't quite read. Perhaps disappointment or judgment that she didn't care about the child that had clearly come looking for her? She, quite frankly, didn't care.
"Back to my cell, then," she retorted sarcastically in a quiet voice as the doors slid open before her and she stepped out, her human guard dog not far behind her.
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