Six months.
For the past six months Markus had been locked up for what he did in the Bahak system. Did ito/i the Bahak system. Those last moments on the asteroid he'd sent crashing into the Alpha relay had played over and over in his mind more times that he could remember. That clock ticking down as he tried to convince himself that there was no other way. That even if he didn't blow up the relay, the batarians would be dead, or worse, as soon as the Reapers arrived. Even after the Alliance had put him in chains to bring him back to Earth he tried to come up with some other way to stop the Reapers from just coming in through the front door and wipe out the entire galactic civilization, but there was no other way.
It didn't make it any less hard to live with the choice he had to make.
Every morning he woke up wishing that it all had been just a nightmare, but just moments later he realized that nothing had changed. Those lives were still on his conscious.
Even if they left him to rot in the brig for all those years those batarians should've lived it wouldn't be enough. Markus had no idea why the ramifications hadn't been worse. Maybe it would make the Alliance look weak to humanity, but he just couldn't know.
Worst of all was that he somehow still expected that Kaidan for some godforsaken reason would come visit him in his glorified prison. Markus wasn't even sure they let him have visitors – he didn't really have anyone that would, except for his mother than he assumed might have taken it to Admiral Hackett, or even just sneaked inside to see him that one time she came. But why he thought Kaidan would come was just… stupid. Naïve even.
After what had happened since he woke up on the Lazarus Research Station, after what had been said on Horizon he didn't even dare imagine what Kaidan must think of him now.
Shepard sighed and leaned his forehead against the arm he rested on the window. Looking out he saw something that caught his eye, something that made him lose his train of thought.
A little kid, playing out on the yard in front of the building. A model ship in his hand, soaring through the air. And Markus remembered doing the very same thing when he was just a kid.
i'When I grow up, I'm gonna join the Alliance, just like you and mommy!'
'Oh yeah? Are you going to be a soldier too?'
'Yeah! I'm gonna be the best in the galaxy! Fight all the bad guys and be a hero!'
'I'm sure you will be!'/i
He wondered if his father still would be proud of him. Would he understand why he did what he had to do in the Bahak system? Tell Markus he did the right thing even though he couldn't even convince himself of it?
Markus turned around when he heard the door slide open behind him with a whoosh, only to see a man walk through the door, saluting him.
"Commander."
He made his best effort to smile as he put away the datapad he held in his hand. "You're not supposed to call me that anymore, James."
