I had no intention of being charged with insubordination, but then again… I didn't want to die.
*sigh*
With a shaky hand I pressed the button prompt on the screen, which immediately started a timer. 8 minutes.
I gave Ashley a thumbs-up as I ran back to the pillar. Ashley raised her hand to her ear, activating her comm channel.
"It's done, Commander!" She was screaming through the gunfire. "Now go get the Lieutenant and get the hell out of here!"
My heart was sinking deeper and deeper into my chest. I knew the risks, when I signed up to join the Alliance. But this… this was not how I wanted it to end.
"Douglas, pick up a gun and fight back! There's no point in hiding now!"
Liara heard Ashley's order and used her biotics to throw a Geth Pulse Rifle towards me. I nodded at her and picked it up.
Right. No point in hiding.
Slowly peeking out of cover, I took aim at a Geth Destroyer that was slowly approaching me, and pulled the trigger. The heavy recoil of the gun ruined my aim and I missed the shot. The second shot, however, made contact, making the Destroyer stop in its tracks for a second. I unloaded the weapon on it, shooting till I could no longer do so. As soon as my rifle overheated, I saw Ashley throw a grenade towards its direction.
The loud explosion made me flinch. As the smoke cleared, I could see bits of our synthetic enemy strewn across the ground. I looked at Ashley, who had her hand to her ear once again. Her eyes, visible through her helmet, were wide open, showing disbelief.
"…..yes, Commander. I… Okay." She paused for a second. "Joker, get the Normandy back to the bomb site. We'll clean up the landing area for you."
Wait, what?! So did they rescue Kaidan already? Can't be… they just left…
My thoughts were interrupted by more gunfire. After many terrifying moments of dodging and shooting, I heard the large door to our left open…
It was a dramatic entrance. Wrex and Jane immediately charged into the troopers, brutally destroying multiple enemies at point blank range. Garrus, on the other hand, walked backwards to the slightly raised platform, took aim with his sniper rifle and started firing away. Kaidan…. was missing.
Trying not to think of the worst, I turned around to look at the bomb. 6 minutes. We needed to get out of there, fast. I looked up at the sky, for a sign of the Normandy. Unless it swooped down and picked us up within the next few minutes, all of us were going to be vaporised.
A glint of reflected light caught my eye. It was not the Normandy. It was a distinctive looking Turian, on a flying platform, rushing towards our position…
No…..
Impulsively, I took aim and shot at the moving target. Almost immediately, I realised the stupidity of what I just did.
A flurry of biotic attacks were launched towards me by the rogue Spectre, as I tried to get back into cover. Jane and the squad were still busy dealing with the Geth.
"Commander!" I shouted, trying to dodge an alarming amount of blue pulses. "JANE!"
Just as I saw her look back at me, I felt a searing pain throughout my body. I was engulfed in a blue field and lifted into the air. Before I could understand what was happening, I felt myself being violently thrown into the ground. The back of my unprotected head hit the concrete with a loud thud, and I felt my vision turning black….
Silence.
A faint, muffled voice.
"…"
I can't… hear. And it hurts..
"…"
What?
"DOUGLAS!"
The voice finally made sense. I opened my eyes, and I could see Ashley staring down at me. The gunfire had stopped. As she helped me up, I turned around to look at the bomb. 2 minutes.
"We need to get out of here. Come on!"
She supported me by the shoulders and practically dragged me towards the Normandy. Jane and the others were standing inside the ship, beckoning us to hurry up.
What happened to Saren? And where on earth is Kaidan?
As we entered the ship, it instantly started lifting up, and in a few seconds we were well on our way out of the planet. Jane rushed towards the small window near the armory and looked out of it. A huge rumble and the muffled sound of an explosion were enough to let us know that the bomb had gone off. Jane kept looking out the window, lost in thought.
I looked around at the rest of the squad. Garrus and Wrex seemed uncomfortable. Liara, like me, was staring at Jane, looking worried. Ashley was leaning against the wall, trying to compose herself.
Every second I was standing, I felt my knees get weaker. A trip to the med bay was necessary. But first, I needed to know...
"What happened to Kai-?"
"He's dead." Ashley replied, in a shaky voice. "No one turned up to save him." She shot an angry glance at the Commander as she spoke.
Jane turned away from the window, staring at Ashley. "I had to make a choice, Ash."
"Don't 'Ash' me, Commander!" Ashley clenched her fists as she walked towards Jane. "He was the superior officer! I'm just a grunt with a gun. The bomb would have gone off anyways, it was already activated. There was only one reason why you came back to us, and everybody here knows it."
Jane's eyes narrowed as she took a step towards Ashley. "What the hell do you mean by that, Chief?"
Ashley took another step forward, aggressively. "You know exactly what I mean…. Commander."
I stood there, terrified, watching the two women staring each other down. I started to feel dizzy. I should probably sit down somewhere.
"Chief Williams," Liara spoke up, hesitatingly, "the Commander just saved our lives. I know you're angry about Lt. Alenko, but she is not..."
"That's the thing, T'Soni." Ashley was fuming, and very obviously trying to fight back tears. "She didn't save us. She saved her boytoy. We just happened to be nearby. Lucky us."
I flinched. 'Boytoy'?! This isn't going to end well…
"Listen…" Jane started, but then paused for a second and sighed. "Okay, let's head to the briefing room. Nobody utters a word till we reach there."
The squad quietly followed Jane as she walked away. I kept standing, breathing heavily and trying not to fall down. I wanted to call out for help, but I couldn't muster up the energy.
"You too, Harry," Jane muttered, not looking back.
The sound of my body hitting the ground was enough to draw everyone's attention.
"So, a concussion?"
"Yeah, among other things. Dr. Michel says I need rest, at least for a week. And 'rest' includes not being on the Normandy... Well, not that it matters. The Normandy isn't going anywhere, right?"
Jane smiled weakly, not saying anything.
Both of us were standing outside the Citadel's med clinic, staring at the view. It was the same place where I had shared a moment with Jane, on my 21st birthday. A little more than a week later, we were standing in the exact same spot, holding hands and looking outside, having a quiet moment to ourselves.
Jane seemed surprisingly calm, considering the fact that the Council had just taken away her ship from her, grounding the entire crew. She was staring out into the massive depths of the wards.
"I remember when I stood here for the first time," Jane spoke, in a wistful tone. "We had just returned from Eden Prime. Ash was standing right behind me, and Kaidan… well, he was right there, where you are." She turned to look at me, smiling. "I think… he was trying to flirt with me. I couldn't tell."
I chuckled. "He did have a bit of a crush on you. Honestly, I can't blame him."
Her smile turned into a grin. "You really like me, don't you?"
I put my arm around her waist, pulling her closer. "I really do."
She sighed and put her head on my shoulder. My thoughts went back to Virmire. So many things went wrong.
"There wasn't a 'right' choice, Harry," Jane spoke up, as if she read my thoughts. "If there was, I would have made it. I could have saved Kaidan and those Salarians, but that would have meant losing the three of you." She sighed. "Also, that would have meant potentially jeopardising our mission. The Geth, or Saren, could have disabled the bomb, or taken it away."
I nodded my head. "You told this to Ashley, right?"
"Yeah. She's okay. She was just in shock, after everything that happened. She had already lost her whole unit in Eden Prime, and with Kaidan, she just… Her whole outburst was just her trying to... unload everything."
"She said some really unpleasant things about you."
"And she feels horrible about it. She was convinced that I would be kicking her out of the ship." Jane paused for a moment. "Anyways, she's okay now. We had a nice, long talk in my quarters, on the way back here."
"Do you always forgive this easily?"
She lifted her head from my shoulder and stared into my eyes. "I... understand what she's going through. Seeing the people you care about die in front of you is something that I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy. Unfortunately, it's something we have to get used to, as soldiers."
I instinctively grabbed her tighter. "What about you? How are you handling all of this?"
She looked down at her feet. "I don't know. I thought I had learned to deal with death, once I finally got over Mindior. Looks like I was wrong."
"How did you get over Mindior?" I immediately felt guilty about asking her that. "I'm sorry… you may not want to talk about it…"
"Harry, it's fine, I'm the one who brought it up." She stared into the distance. "It took me years. I cried myself to sleep for most nights. But one day, I just ran out of tears. I know that's not… biologically possible or anything, but… you know what I mean."
The thought of Jane 'crying' was an incredibly alien concept to me. She was always so... stoic.
After a moment of silence, she continued. "I decided to move forward. Make their deaths matter. Make my survival matter. I tried to be a good soldier. A good person. Anyways, the older I got, the more death I saw. The more death I saw, the easier it got to deal with."
"But now it's getting worse, again. This is what your nightmares were about, right?"
She nodded, looking back at me. "Maybe, I'm getting softer. Or maybe, I've never gotten over what happened 13 years ago…."
I pulled her into an embrace. Her armor pressed against my body, as we stood still for a full minute.
I finally broke off the hug, and looked into her eyes. "Hey. I promised you something, remember? Let's go out and have a nice evening... just the two of us."
She smiled for a moment, but suddenly had a worried look on her face. "I would love to, Harry, but you are not allowed to leave the clinic.. and I need to go back and talk to Anderson first."
"Again?" I was confused. Didn't she just come back from meeting him at Flux?
"Yeah… I need to go run some errands for him. It won't take long."
"Well, okay." We let go of each other, and she started walking away. "Just let me know when you're done, Jane."
I slowly walked back into the clinic, nodded at Dr. Michel, and laid down on the bed.
One week. Well, at least Jane will be here with me.
Wondering why Jeff and Tali hadn't dropped by to visit yet, I slowly began to nod off…
"…absolutely unacceptable! You should have stopped him in time!"
The sound of shouting woke me up. I turned to look at the door and saw Ambassador Udina talking to a turian C-Sec officer, looking absolutely furious.
"Calm down, Ambassador," the officer replied. "Captain Anderson has been detained. Mr. Douglas here is the only member of the crew left behind. I'll arrest him right now."
"What good will that do, Avilius?!" an exasperated Udina exclaimed. "He's just a rookie engineer. Probably left behind because he is not even essential to her mission. And he's from the Douglas family! Hackett will murder me…"
"He got left behind because he's injured," the turian replied, coldly. "And I don't care about human politics. Commander Shepard and her crew just committed mutiny. They disobeyed the direct orders of the Council. Action needs to be taken."
What the hell happened while I was asleep?
Both of them simultaneously noticed me waking up, and rushed towards my bed.
"Mr. Douglas..."
Despite being terrified of the Ambassador's intensity, I tried my best to sound 'formal'. "Good evening, sir. What's wrong?"
"You bloody well know what's wrong! The Normandy just flew off the Citadel, despite being under lockdown. Your Commander is going to pay for this, and so are you."
I looked at him, dumbfounded. What the…? Why didn't she tell me?
Avilius, the C-sec officer, kept staring at me. "Mr Douglas, were you aware of this act of mutiny, at any particular stage? Did you attempt to inform the authorities after finding out?"
I quickly shook my head. "I had no clue, officer. Jane didn't inform…"
"Jane?" The ambassador's eyes narrowed.
I silently cursed myself. "I meant… Commander Shepard… she didn't inform me about this."
"So she met you before she left?"
I gulped. Shouldn't have mentioned her.
"Let me remind you, Mr. Douglas, that there are security cameras with mics, all over the Presidium and the Upper Wards," Avilius noted, coldly.
I nodded my head. "We talked, just outside the clinic. But she never told me about this."
Avilius seemed to be lost in thought for a few seconds. Then, he held out his hand. "Your omnitool. I'm confiscating it, till the investigation's over. I'll check the security tapes back at C-Sec HQ, to ensure that you're telling the truth."
I hesitatingly handed it over. Both Avilius and Udina walked out of the room, still talking among themselves.
"Harry," Dr. Michel, who was observing the entire exchange in silence, spoke up. "Did she really not tell you?"
"No, doctor. She didn't…"
..and I realised why. Having knowledge of a mutiny and not acting on it was as serious a crime as the act of mutiny itself. She knew she had to leave me behind, and she didn't want me to get into trouble. I just hoped it was worth it, because she won't be able to come back here till she stopped Saren, and proved that she was right.
Will we ever get to have that dinner…?
I lay on the bed yet again, not knowing what to do. Here I was, stuck on a hospital bed in the Citadel, while the Normandy was out saving the galaxy…
