The Darkest Hour

In Which Commander Shepard Shows his Vulnerable, Emotional Side

James Vega cracked his knuckles, the popping ringing throughout the cargo bay. "Think you can dance and talk at the same time, loco?"

"Get the fuck off my ship," said Shepard.

"Good to see you Shepard," said Anderson's hologram. He rubbed dirt from his eyes, stretching creases that looked a thousand years old. "It's been rough down here. I don't know how much longer we can hold out."

"Is that all you called about?" asked Shepard.

Anderson blinked blearily. "Hm. I can barely remember. I haven't slept a wink in days. Foxholes just don't it for these old bones."

Shepard thought of his cabin higher up in the Normandy, of his fluffy feathered Commander's mattress, and the pure white sheets. "Uh huh."

"Whatever you're up to out there—hurry. Earth needs you, Shepard."

"Never call me again unless it's something actually important."

"So Tali…you're an Admiral now, huh? I bet your dad would be-"

"Shut up."

"Proud. I was going to say proud."

"Just shut up."

"Direct dissemination required," said Legion haltingly, holding the holographic ball in one hand. He looked up. "Shepard-Commander. We…I…" Legion's faceplates worked in-overtime. "…Thank you."

"What are you gonna do with that?" asked Shepard, nodding at the ball of blue light. "Shoot some hoops or something?"

"The Krogan are back in business," said Wrex.

"Uh huh, sure," said Shepard. "Can't wait to see you get to eating all the other intelligent species for fun because you're just so badass and awesome. Good luck with the babies," he added, and winked. "You're going to need it."

Then he left.

"Stop right there Commander," said Ashley from behind the barrel of her pistol. "I'll shoot you if you come any closer to the council."

Shepard raised his own pistol. "Get out of the way Ash. Don't make me do this."

Her eyes became obsidian shards. "Get that gun out of my face!"

"You're almost as much of a bastard as me," said Shepard. "A real bitch. Just like that Aria T'loak bitch. I can't lose you both."

Javik looked over at him. "You are a very strange human."

Shepard looked over at him. "Hey, you know what—" His pistol went off and Ashley Williams crumpled to the floor. He turned back.

"Oops."

The air-car rocked as Kai Leng dropped down gracefully from above, landing with one hand denting the metal where he planted himself. He stood up even as they careened through the air, his body framed in the light of the Citadel's artificial sky. Shepard gaped as Kai produced a short katana from the sheath on his back and twirled it in a black arc through the air in preparation to ram it into the engine.

Then Shepard gave the car's engine a kick, causing it to buck up a twenty or so feet into the air as they passed under one of the enormous connective tram-ways crisscrossing the presidium. A wall of unbreakable alloy smashed into Kai Leng and his entire upper body was torn off from the sheer force of the blow, leaving his awesome cool ninja cyber-legs wobbling back and forth on the roof of the car and spraying a crimson cloud of gore in every direction. Shepard stuck his hand out the window and caught the awesome ninja-assassin's severed head as it shot past the cab.

Liara screamed in a high pitched voice just like the old days, and even Garrus let out a cry of surprise.

Shepard turned to stare at the ravaged head: its hair bunched in his hand, its mouth hanging open in a perpetual scream as blood whipped from the torn stump to trail behind the car, a grisly scarf of blood.

"Looks like you forgot to look both ways," said Shepard, "before you fucking crossed me."

"These memories of my friends…" Javik shook his head slowly. "They contain only pain.

"I know the feeling," said Shepard.

Javik looked at him.

"Just kidding!" Shepard laughed. "I don't have any friends."

"You are a very, very strange human," said Javik.

Shepard flipped him off. "Hey. Get fucked."

"I lost my husband," said Cortez.

"What a shame," said Shepard.

"My son died to save Krogan lives," said Primarch Victus.

"What a shame," said Shepard.

The Turian Councilor stood by Commander Shepard for a moment as he watched the medics carry away the body of Ashley Williams.

"I know how hard it is to lose a soldier," said the Turian. "But you saved our lives, Shepard. The Council won't forget this."

"Ah, yes, 'the Council.'" Shepard waggled his fingers. "The wise group of advanced alien species supposedly watching over the political stability of the entire galaxy." He waved a hand. "We have dismissed these claims."

"What a shame," said the Turain Councilor.

Aria stared off somewhere to the left of Shepard's head. "We have a mutual interest, Shepard."

"Yeah," said Shepard. "Your vagina."

She ignored him. "I'm not stupid. If the Reapers win this war then we're all dead. I can help you. If you help me."

"I bet you can."

"I need the fleets—Blood Pack, Blue Suns, Eclipse—all of them, under my banner. If you help me take back Omega, I help you take back Earth."

"I'll be your Alpha if you be my Omega," said Shepard.

"Of course the fleets won't go down easily."

Shepard grinned. "Unlike us, am I right?"

"I'll need your help tending to their leaders here on the Citadel. Once they're out of the picture, or under my thumb—

"—Am I right?"

"—I can promise you the full support of Omega."

Shepard leaned back in his chair. "So…you want my help, huh? Well. If you want me to do something for you…" His eyebrows rose suggestively. "Then you'll have to do something for me."

"No," said Aria.

Shepard stood up. "I guess you're on your own, then."

"I guess so," said Aria.

There was a very long pause.

Shepard grinned. "You sure—"

"I would rather die," said Aria.

"Is Jacob on the Normandy with you?" asked Kasumi. "I'd come if he was."

"I'm sure you would." Shepard leered at the data-point he was decoding. "…wait. Why don't you just find him yourself? What the hell, Kasumi."

Liara was weeping on her bed. She looked up when Shepard entered the room.

"I should have been there." Enormous tears fell out of her sky blue eyes and splattered on the bed.

"I should have stayed to help my people."

Shepard sat down on the bed. He reached over and patted her hand.

"A shame is what that is."

Liara wiped her eyes. "What?"

"I should go."

"Thessia, huh?" said Joker, fiddling with his holographic controls. "But they're wishing they'd trained a few more commandos than dancers right about now."

Shepard's fiberglass eyes bored into the back of his head. "Half a dozen million people just died, Joker. Plus I just discovered the Asari are God's chosen people. Not a good time for jokes."

Joker brought up a hologram of a small planetoid. His jaw was clenched. "You see this? Tiptree—a little colony in the ass end of nowhere. My dad lives there, so does my sister. Reapers rolled in there about two days ago." He closed the hologram down and stared off into empty space. "So you can assume that I'm generally aware there's a war on, Commander." He glared straight ahead, not even turning his chair around.

"Tiptree, huh?" said Shepard. "Bet your father is wishing he could bury your sister's ravaged corpse on a planet with a better fucking name right about now. With any luck he's already dead and he won't have to see his crippled wreck of a son break his own dick off trying to fuck a microwave. Hey, wouldn't it be ironic if your father and your sister were fused together to make a cannibal? I mean—think about it, you could say: 'hey guys, I know I have hollow bones, but your bones were liquefied into a nutrient paste! Guess who's laughing now?' Guess, Joker." He pointed at himself. "It's me, because you're so god damn funny. Because the thing I really need right now is a whiny, calcified shell of a man throwing every fucking decision and every fucking failure right back in my fucking face while he sets in an executive-hands-free fuck-off chair with a toaster's hand in his lap and fucks-off about things he knows fucking nothing about. No wonder Tiptree is on the back end of nowhere—if I was your father I would bail as many light years away from your whiny hollow ass as humanly possible. Hell, if they'd have had to stay around you much longer they would've put you down like the dying bird you are. Hey Joker, did you ever try to protect your sister, I wonder? Did she ever bring some guy home that you didn't like—some big, strong, healthy guy who made her laugh more than you could. And maybe you dropped that old chestnut "if you hurt my sister, I will kill you," didn't you? Because under that prickly exterior you're just a big heart, a big beating, bleeding heart. But I wonder what they would have done. Did they laugh when you tried to stand and deliver that bravado? I bet you couldn't even stand up then. I think they were all laughing on the inside, don't you? Maybe your father was used to it by then. I'm sure your sister was. Hell, bad jokes don't last forever, do they? If you'd stayed, how long do you think it would have taken for the joke to go stale? How much longer before you fell down the stairs one day, alone, and no one came to get you in time. Would they weep for you, little bird, do you think? Would anyone shed a tear? And when they buried that dead bird that fell out of your mother's cunt, do you they would remember you in a year? In ten? Who remembers the bad jokes, anyways? People remember the ones who can hurt them, the ones that can touch them, love them, that can stand on a level with them. But who remembers the dying bird, no matter how high it soared before it finally fell. Tell me, Jeffery, is it Tiptree that is so very far away—or is it you, who ran from the ones who saw your bones were hollow before you built a wall around them. When you heard that the Reapers came to Tiptree, did you tell anyone else? Did you shed a tear like they never did for you? Did you remember all the times they laughed at you, when you tried to stand and deliver? Did you even care? Or did you sit there in that fucking chair and keep on telling those hollow jokes until you were alone with the stars, until there was no excuse not to cry and yet you had dry eyes? These are the lasts hours, Jeff. The bird has fallen out of the sky, and the flies are landing on it. These last twitches you're giving—they won't stop the maggots from hatching in that husk you call a body, and eating you away from the inside. And you know what? I don't think anyone will be able to tell the difference once it's finally done. You'll just be the same old Joker to them, won't you? Smiling but never laughing. The bad joke that won't go away. But you'll known. And I'll know. The joke went stale a long time ago."

A small crowd of crew members had gathered in the cock pit. "Shepard," said Liara, coming up behind him, "maybe you should give it a rest."

At that moment, Joker entered the CIC with a sandwich in his hand. He limped up the ramp to the cock pit. Everyone watched him, including Shepard.

"Hey guys." Joker took a bite out of his sandwich. "Is he still going?"

Shepard swiveled the pilot's chair around to find it empty. "Huh. When did you leave?"

"Somewhere around the line about my mother's cunt." Joker sat back down in the chair and took another bite of his sandwich, everyone watching him.

Shepard's face went bright and his mouth curled into a snarl.

Liara winced. "Oh Shepard…maybe you should lie down."

"I'm fine," snapped Shepard, reaching up to scratch the side of his face. His finger nail stripped a long string of dry artificial skin away to reveal a crack of magmatic crimson, running like a luminous scar down the side of his face.

Everyone gaped at him.

"What?" Shepard growled, glaring about. "God damn I think I'm getting allergic to my soap or something, I itch all over, it's crazy. Hey EDI?"

"Yes, Shepard?"

Shepard scratched his nose, which came off to reveal a hawk-like beak of sanguine tinged reaper-tech prosthetics. "I need new soaps and toiletries," he said, holding up his severed nose and giving it a speculative look. "Make sure they're not cruelty-free."

There was a plopping sound. Liara and Shepard both looked down to see the Commander's ear twitching on the ground. Liara covered her mouth. "EDI, the Commander needs to get to the infirmary. Is Dr. Chakwas in?"

"Chakwas?" Shepard laughed. His face was getting redder, glowing almost electrically. "I left her wrinkly ass back on the Citadel. Dr. Michelle is way hotter anyways—too bad she only wants to fuck Garrus, though. What is it with chicks and turian cock anyways? And why Garrus? Hell, the guy is as dull as a calibration. If you can't take the hint from a box of erotic dextro-DNA chocolates you don't deserve any French pussy."

Liara's eyes had gone as wide as dinner plates. "Shepard…" It was not blood that made the Commander's skin glow red.

He rounded on her. "WHAT IS IT LIARA YOU WANT ME TO HELP YOU PUT ON MORE BLUE FACE YOU FUCKING ALIEN JEW?!"

And then Shepard's face fell off.