I worked 80 hours this week akjhdkshdkfaslda sgasgafg goodbye~.
*goes to sleep for 9049034 hours*
(side bar I spent a lot of time in external fixators when I was younger and I just want to point out that they absolutely suck and I actually feel bad that femshep is wearing them - walking or not, they're heavy and painful and they leave shitty scars... not that femshep is probably overtly worried about that... blah whatever I'm really going to go to bed now, I hope you all enjoy this :D)
The first time you get out of bed is on an early Tuesday morning, two days after Dr. Michel and your team of medical professionals finally fitted you with an external fixator on each of your legs; the metal contraptions drilled straight into the fragile bones below your knees are painless, if at all a little bit of an eye-sore, and Joker has taken full advantage of your still bed-ridden state by poking fun at you over the fact that you are finally the most crippled member of the team. The Alliance soldier posted outside your room (you wondered, up until that day, why on earth you even need a permanent guard detail) poked his head in not later than 7 a.m. to say he was going to run to the coffee place in the cafeteria downstairs, and asked if you wanted anything – you ignored Dr. Michel's direct orders to not drink any and ask for a latte anyways. The young man, smiling, happy, a lot like Jenkins (you thought momentarily, upon meeting him, that you were forever cursed to seeing the faces of those that died in your command – most people would have been afraid of a notion like that, but to you it was somehow comforting), nodded then stepped back out into the hallway, closing the door behind him. You were engrossed in an email from Miranda, who had recently returned to Illium with Jack (which, to be honest, you were still in a state of shock over – a little over a year ago they were ready to redecorate Miranda's cabin with each other's insides, and now they're living a life of luxury on Illium and, if the rumors are to believed, shagging in literally every place they can), when you heard the door creak open – eager to accept your forbidden latte, you throw the datapad down and look up only to be met with a camera hovering in your face. Your first thought is 'Allers has finally found a way to literally attach that thing to her waist', and you are even ready to rib the young reporter over it, when the camera moves suddenly to reveal none other than freaking Khalisah Bint Sinan al-Jilani.
Shit.
"Commander", she says condescendingly, a twinkle in her eyes as if she already knows both of your legs are more or less made of glass, "how lovely to see you again."
You glare at her, the hand you had under the blanket searching desperately for the 'call nurse' button (you pray that, if you happen to find it, they disregard all the times you called someone in to do something as mundane as reach the datapad that's just out of your reach, or change that channel on the television, or even just listen to your long list of complains – this would be the worst case of 'the Commander who cried wolf' that you can think of); you don't find it, however, so you settle for intensifying your glare by threateningly crossing your arms over your chest.
"Bite me, al-Jilani."
She widens her smile ever so slightly, clearly unfazed by your truly sad attempt at a come back, and slowly saunters across the room and rounds your bed. The reporter grabs the chair that has remained at your bedside since you had woken up and drags it just slightly out of your reach (which is probably the smartest thing you have ever seen her do) before taking a seat; her camera follows her example, settling at eye level just past your knees.
"Humanity has some questions for you, Commander Shepard."
You huff, blowing a loose strand of red hair out of your eyes. "Of course they do."
"Let me begin by saying that the galaxy as a whole appreciates what you did for us when you brought down the reapers – without your valiant effort and sacrifices in the face of overwhelming odds, we would be little more than dust right now."
The sincerity in her voice throws you off, causing you to swallow the vulgar response you already had planned – the Khalisah you remember was a slanderous and generally completely rude reporter that, despite your very best efforts to always do the right thing for everyone involved, had received the business end of your fist on more than one occasion. You shrug and look away suddenly, trying to focus your eyes on anything but the camera that is still mere inches from your face.
"Uh... thank you...?"
"That being said, Commander... I have some questions about the company that you chose to keep on your many expeditions in your effort to stop the reapers."
"The company I kept...?", you ask, knitting your eyebrows together in confusion. "My team? They were good people, the ones that we are lucky enough to still have with us still are – many of them died helping me to stop Saren, destroy the Collector base, stop Cerberus, and of course the reapers. Without each and every single one of them, we wouldn't have succeeded. Without every single one of them, I would have failed before I even started. That's a fact."
"We commend your efforts, Commander, really, we do. But you were surrounded by some... questionable characters the past few years. Humanity is starting to wonder – now that the reaper threat is gone, you're going to be falling into a lot of very well deserved power. But, will you use that power to advance the well-being of humans? Or will you use it to aid your collection of rag-tag criminals, and down right terrorists?"
"Criminals? Terrorists?", you shake your head. "What the hell are you talking about, al-Jilani...? The people I surrounded myself with, the people I still surround myself with, were handpicked because they were the best. Because they were the best the galaxy had to offer and the only team I would have ever wanted by my side."
"The 'best team'? A thief? A mercenary? A convict? And those are just the humans, Commander! Viewers would be interested to find out that you surrounded yourself with even more dangerous aliens, like drell assassins, and genetically engineered super-krogan. How about the geth unit your team joined up with on multiple occasions? Must have been a tense ship, considering you had a quarian on board that was at one point accused of being a traitor of the Flotilla. Or how about the turian ex C-Sec officer turned mercenary killing off innocent humans on Omega? And while we're talking about Omega, Commander, do you care to comment on your friendship with the self-proclaimed Queen of the station, galaxy-renowned drug and weapons dealer, wanted murder, crime lord, and ex-asari commando Aria T'Loak?"
"You're kidding right?", your eyebrows shoot up into your hairline, more out of surprise than anger, though you can't say that you are entirely happy with the picture the reporter is painting of a group of people that saved the galaxy on multiple occasions – a group of people that is entirely made up of individuals you call your friends, who you would give your life for in an instant and who would do the same to you. "Because you have got to be kidding. These people saved our lives – saved your life!"
al-Jilani has no intention of answering your questions, however, and continues talking over your incredulous response of her rant.
"But I suppose you make a habit out of befriending dangerous asaris, don't you Commander Shepard? You've been in league with Matriarch Benezia's own daughters for years now – the daughter of the woman that helped Saren, the rogue turian Spectre, betray the council and almost brought about the destruction of the Citadel."
"That was Benezia", you practically spit at her, the lid you had over your normally well controlled temper beginning to loosen at the brash accusations being suddenly brought against Liara based solely on the actions of her indoctrinated mother, "not Liara. Liara had nothing to do with any of that; she was at my side, fighting with me through every battle. She was forced to kill her own mother when Saren and the reapers indoctrinated her. So don't you dare bring her in to this, al-Jilani."
"Are you defending her because she's honestly not a threat? Or because, as rumors have it, you're sleeping together?"
"What?"
"You know that when an asari melds with you they can reach into the deepest parts of your mind and learn all of your darkest and most hidden secrets? Whose to say she won't use that power to unveil classified Alliance or Council information to gain an advantage of humanity? Better yet, who's to say that your Dr. T'Soni isn't using her strange alien sex appeal to get in your head and manipulate you? Are you indoctrinated by her, Commander Shepard?"
As quickly as you can without jarring your apparently perpetually sore muscles, you throw the covers off of yourself to reveal to her the large metal structures holding your fragile legs together. The reporter, despite her previous confidence, twitches her eye at the sight of exactly what you had given up to save even her sorry ass; she doesn't falter though, keeping her chin held high as she attempts to avoid looking at the metal rings and rods keeping your scarred and discolored extremities in place.
"God damn it. You're going to regret this, al-Jilani", you mutter as you painfully drag your heavy legs across the mattress and swing them over the edge of the bed (mentally, you tack on that you are definitely going to regret this more than she will – Dr. Michel said that you would need a few days to adjust to the set-up before you should put weight on them – but you hope that you can at least get one good swing in before you crumble down into a pile of your own shattered glass limbs). The reporter, upon seeing that you are really going to get out of the bed and presumably punish her physically for her wildly inappropriate line of questioning, immediately gets up off the chair and takes a few steps back to the foot of the bed to stare at you in complete disbelief. "Really, really regret it."
As you place weight on your feet for the first time in over a year and stand up off of the bed, you actually feel the atrophy in your thighs begin to make the muscles quake under the strain. You don't let up, however, determined to reach the gawking reporter still standing just at the end of the bed; using your left arm to steady yourself against the mattress itself, you take your first step towards her. And when you don't crumple to floor, or hear the very distinct sound of snapping bones, you taking another. And then another.
You are just about to reach the frozen woman, your right hand already balled up tightly into a fist with every intention of it meeting squarely with her jaw when a blinding light suddenly fills the small room, causing both al-Jilani and yourself to yelp, and resulting in you losing your footing and falling against the bed before landing with a soft thud on the floor next to it. When your vision finally clears, the bright spots dissipating, you are shocked to see the reporter floating several feet off the ground in what appears to be a tightly controlled singularity – the purple swirl of light is causing the woman to spin slowly, and if you weren't in such shock yourself you would have attempted to get a picture to capture the truly priceless expression she is wearing.
"Well", says a voice like velvet from somewhere near the doorway; you strain your eyes to see despite the blinding light still obstructing your view, but can only make out heavy white boots standing squarely just within the threshold, "Khalisah, I think it's time you left the Commander alone."
As soon as the sentence ends, Khalisah is rejected from the small field and falls so roughly on her head and neck that even you have to wince for her as you struggle to pull yourself up to sit down on the bed. Without the body floating midair, and with the added height that sitting on the bed offers you, you can actually see the mysterious figure with the voice like heaven that probably just did both Khalisah and yourself a huge favor – standing in the doorway is none of than Liara T'Soni, biting back a smile as she regards the reporter groaning on the floor with what can only be described as a twinkle in her eye.
"Don't you?"