Shepard stood in the lounge, looking at the depthless stars. She could feel the hum of the ship around her, even if it did not betray their movement. Looking back down to the datapad in hand, she sorted through the intelligence reports and singled out what needed to be sent to Anderson. She turned her head as the door opened behind her, but continued to work as heavy steps entreated into the room.
"What can I do for you, lieutenant?"
"Thought I'd drop by," James replied, pacing nearby.
"Good to know," Shepard said under her breath, and fell silent as she continued to work. He kept moving behind her.
"Look, I thought - no, I had to come apologize for how I acted when everything went to shit on the Citadel," he said in a hurry. "I know now... well, that you lost someone. And I didn't then. I was an ass, and I wanted to apologize, ma'am."
"Water under the bridge, James," she replied without turning.
"That's easy enough to say. If I'd known -"
"You didn't." Shepard tossed the data pad down on the sofa in front of her, before half-turning to him. She smirked. "Besides - being a smart ass is what I like best about you."
"Oh yeah? What else do you like about me?"
Shepard briefly chuckle and sank down onto the sofa. "Apart from what I'm looking at? You help get me out of my head. I have to spend a lot of time in there, but you kick my ass to force a smile when I don't think I can."
"Sounds like quite the crush you've got there."
The datapad was in Shepard's hand and sailing to smack him in the head before she responded. He fumbled to catch it before it hit the ground. "You've been good to have around – maybe even a friend. When I needed one."
"Saying you don't need me anymore?"
She offered a Cheshire smile. "Oh I do. I need you to go help Cortez with the stealth calibrations on the Kodiak. We've got some heat coming."
"Oh I see," James replied and rolled his eyes. "Sweet talk me before getting me to do your dirty work. Hmm"
Shepard shook her head and snagged the datapad from the air when he tossed it to her, before he disappeared back out the door.
Shepard woke with a start, groaning as she lifted her head from the back of the chair. The remnant Mordin and Thane's voices echoed in her thoughts, leaving a deep ache in her stomach. She stood up with some difficulty, her dress blues sticking to her frame from the cold sweat upon her. She leaned on the desk and hung her head, her pulse thudding in her throat as she tried to slough the clinging panic of the dream. Her work terminal was still open - though the messages had grown since her unplanned nap.
She could remember sleep being an escape as a child - if she were sick or in pain it had been her refuge from it all. Somewhere her imagination could sooth her and take her away from drab colony life. The events that shaped her invariably changed that, and it became routine to sleep in stints - in small pockets of time, as though sleep were the enemy.
But that is what it had become. There was no rest when her eyes closed, there was no silence and peace, there were voices, faces, and shadows. Sleep was a reminder she couldn't evade.
Straightening her uniform as best she could, Shepard fled to the elevator as her chest began to tighten. Down two levels, she stepped onto the crew deck and halted into slow, silent steps. Garrus stood by the memorial wall, affixing two plates to the list; Mordin, Thane. She grit her teeth as she took to his side.
"Commander... didn't hear you there."
"Getting hard of hearing in your old age," she replied.
Garrus chuckled once, his mandibles flexing before he fell silent.
Shepard edged forward to trace her fingers over their names, and her touch lingered upon 'Krios'.
"Seemed like the right thing to do. We wouldn't be here without either of them - the Normandy wouldn't be."
"They're part of the crew," Shepard whispered. "And they sacrificed for the mission."
"Yeah."
The quiet sounds of the ship hung between them.
"Did it with EDI's help. She made them."
"The plaques were readily available," EDI commented, her voice nearby. "It was simple enough."
"Thank you. That means a lot."
When I join them, there will be no one to save my name. If I am dead, then all is lost, Shepard though. Would it be the peaceful rest she needed?
"Here's hoping we don't fill it up," Garrus said, and interrupted her thoughts.
"Yeah." Shepard glanced his way when he touched her arm. She nodded and turned down the hall, where the door to life support cycled open in front of her. She hesitated as Garrus cleared his throat, his slow steps following her.
"Shepard - don't go in there."
She put her hand on the doorframe, the weight of her grief emerging from the hollow spaces inside her. Everything was so heavy. The room seemed empty, so distant from where she stood. They'd covered the window - and his guns made a home elsewhere, now. She just wanted to sit there. To sit and close her eyes and pretend that they were somewhere else - that he was there, sitting silently across from her. And it would only be a moment before he reached for her hand, and said it.
Siha.
Garrus put his hand on her shoulder. "It's not where you should be."
"I guess not," Shepard whispered.
"Our requisition shipment came in," he said, his words coming together with greater speed. He shifted his weight. "The new mods you ordered. Seems like the right thing to do in the middle of the night, don't you think? Go and play with some guns?"
Shepard half smiled and the door closed. "Garrus, playing with guns is an any time of day activity."
"I know," he said, and they walked towards the elevator. "That's why I like you so much."
"Good. Get the last two crates onto the transport. Shepard wants us locked and ready by the time she gets back," Cortez said, and double-checked the requisition list he held. The other two crew members murmured amongst themselves as they hoisted the medical supplies onto the hovering transport cart.
"Too bad that won't be the case," Shepard said, and prompted him to turn.
"We can't all be as efficient as you, ma'am."
"I know, I know," she replied. "I'm just that good." They chuckled, and she fell into line with the crew members as they led the way from the transfer deck on the Citadel. Bypassing the main lifts, they took one of the short freight elevators up a deck, only to find a throng of refugees cluttering the way to the security checkpoint and their docking bay.
"Never gets easier to see, you know?" Cortez said as they followed the supplies. One of the other soldiers took the head to part the crowds. Families were huddled together against the walls, their belongings stacked around them. An asari was serving food rations and trying to calm the frayed, frightened masses.
"Doesn't get any easier for them, either," Shepard replied under her breath. "Their homes have been taken, their families fractured or dead. Something like that never goes away." She lifted a hand and smiled warmly at a pair of turian children looking her way. One waved back with just fingers, her face heavy beyond her years. They were held up at security as the crewman tried to convey their clearance codes.
Shepard wandered over and stooped down. "Hey there, how are you holding up?"
The older girl linked her arms around her sister and they cringed away.
"Sorry - I'm Jade. A soldier with the Alliance - and a Spectre too."
"Marta, come here!"
Shepard stood up as the parents hovered closer, and she lifted her hands innocently. "Sorry. Just... wanted to offer a friendly face."
"We can't be too certain," the elderly turian replied, and looked her up and down. His mandibles flared as his partner came to his side.
"You're Commander Shepard."
"I am, glad to make your acquaintance... ?"
"Commander!" Cortez called from nearby, flagging her to follow. When she looked back the turian family was gone, and there were other refuges filling the space.
"Shepard, please," a woman pleaded, and grabbed her arm. "You must be able to help us. We've been trapped down here for days! What are they going to do with us?"
"I'm sure the immigration officials are doing all they can-"
"I heard you gave clearance for another family when they landed – they'll listen to you!" Another man called out, and the other refugees murmured their agreement. Their eyes were marked by the death they'd seen, and deepened by lack of sleep.
"Each of us does what we can to help the war. I'm sorry I have to go-"
There was an oddity in the edge of Shepard's vision - separate from the soiled, wrinkled, and tired refugees. The woman beside her was brushed aside and raised her voice as the person came closer - their voices muted as Shepard's attention honed in.
There was the flicker of energy and metal - a blade.
It sliced through her arm as she moved to deflect it, and caught the woman by the scruff of the neck, flowing to pin the attacker to the floor. Another jerk wrenched the blade away - and their arm out of the socket. There was blood flowing, a burning up her arm - it was deep. The refugees screamed for security and shrank away from them.
"Stay down," Shepard hissed.
There was a subdued pop, and the woman's head jerked, her eyes bursting red. There amidst the blood was an unnatural blue glow. Cortez and one of the soldiers from the Normandy were at her side as a rivulet of blood leaked down the attackers' nose.
"Commander - are you alright? Damn it, I'm sorry - you're bleeding."
"I'm fine," Shepard replied, letting her weight off the person and pressing two fingers to the attacker's neck. "I handled it. Call Bailey."
A medic had Shepard sat down and was closing the laceration up her arm when Bailey and a trio of C-sec officers arrived. Her crewmen kept the crowds at bay, and without hesitation, the officers began to clear the refugees from the transition area.
"Shepard, good to see you," Bailey said, as he walked to where a technician was investigating the body. He knelt down, and they checked the victim's neck and chest. He cursed under his breath as he stood up. "That's the third one. Secure it in stasis and transport it to the labs. You're lucky to get out of this one alive."
"What do you mean?"
"Dignitaries from the other races have been turning up dead - at least eight of them. Two bodies similar to this - heavily modified, and carrying a blade."
"I didn't kill them."
"No, I know," Bailey chuckled and crossed his arms. "One of the few you didn't, I'm sure. They killed themselves - ocular flash-bangs."
"Cerberus," Shepard replied, and her eyes fell down to the dead agent on the ground.
"I suspected as much," Bailey murmured. He pulled up his omni-tool and quickly issued a handful of orders. "How's that arm?"
"You have some unique implants ma'am, I-"
Shepard tugged her arm back from the medic, cringing as something tore and swelled with blood. "Thank you. I have a doctor more than capable upon my ship." She took one of the applicators from the man and slathered the cut in medi-gel before standing up. "Did you need assistance with the assassins?"
"The salarians are providing us with the tech to try track them - I think we'll be able to make a break through and ensure no one else gets hurt. Or worse."
Standing over the body of the broken woman, Shepard's eyes darted between the between the subtle indicators - the artificial constructs that changed her. "Send me a report. Keep their bodies in isolation, but once they are no longer of use, destroy them."
"I don't know if that's -"
"It is necessary, and you will see it done," Shepard said and strode past him to where Cortez and her crewmen waited.
"I'll contact you when we receive word."
"Thank you, Specialist."
"What gives him the selfish right to give up the fight?" Garrus growled from where he sat beside her. "Like the rest of us don't want to be with our families? To be saving them from this hell?"
"I guess Jacob was just pulling a paycheque," Shepard murmured, and filled her glass. Another drink helped blur away the thoughts, but as she sat beside Garrus in the lounge, her father's voice surfaced. She was eleven. Her aunt had died in a shuttle accident, and he'd been under pressure from the colony – something about shipments for agricultural implements. There was more, but she'd been too young to care – too young for all the details. It was one of the few times she'd seen her father drink. Neither of her parents had known she was there.
You hit a point where it isn't a matter of being who you need to be at every moment– it becomes maintenance of your own existence. It takes all your strength just to meet the minimum. You have to meet a deadline, you have to support a family – you have obligations where failure isn't an option. And in your rush to keep everyone else afloat, you find yourself drowning. So what if it's in a glass?
"Jacob chose himself. He chose himself over the mission."
"Doesn't make it right," Garrus replied.
"Life isn't about what's right."
"You – you're hrm." Garrus drank his own drink, and huffed out before saying, "Preaching to the converted."
The galaxy was burning and she spent the creds on keeping their lounge stocked with liquor. Shepard drank the next glass and refilled it. Bloody maternal thoughts at the jealousy of Jacob simply running off to have a family – a luxury she had promised never to give herself. A fear she had rarely considered, knowing what it meant. The threat they would face. But she had loved – and knew loss.
"It isn't hopeless, right?" she whispered.
Garrus let out a heavy sigh. "Not yet."
"Not yet," she repeated in agreement.
His omni-tool went off, and he downed another drink before pulling up to his feet. "Speaking of responsibility. Here's hoping the Primarch is fine with my head in the drink."
"Have fun," she murmured, her eyes down in the glass as he patted her shoulder and lumbered off to take the call. Another glass emptied and filled, softening the edges of the world. It was some time later - time was something more difficult to gauge at the moment, she found - that Specialist Traynor came through the door.
"Commander, I have -" Traynor's foot steps slowed, and she cleared her throat. "I didn't mean to interrupt, ma'am."
Shepard picked up her head and sniffed in sharply, not moving from where she sat at the bar table. The world was pleasantly effaced. "What is it, Specialist?"
"Communications have been sketchy, but I'm narrowing down on a location." She waved a data pad, daring to tread a few steps closer.
"Thank you," Shepard said, and her words slurred together. She keyed up her omni-tool. "Jus' send me the info, an' mark it in the map."
"It - it's quite late. I mean, I will send it, I just though that..."
"You can go rest, Traynor," Shepard murmured, planting her face down into her hand as the world swam.
Traynor's eyes darted between the bottles - more than one empty ryncol bottle. Her brow knit and she nipped at her lip. "Aye, I will - it seemed to me you could use some rest yourself. That stool can't be comfortable."
"You are dismissed," Shepard said, enunciating the words with deliberate care. "Thnk you, Tray-nor."
"Yes," she quickly said, and took a step back. Shepard was supporting her head with a second hand when Traynor escaped out the door, and hesitated briefly in the corridor.
When Traynor and Liara entered together, Shepard had let her head sink onto the table.
It felt better to be lost and numbed. It felt better than waking from the dreams, than hearing their voices around her. Muddled them, watery words bubbled and muted.
"I'll take care of her," Liara said, and waited for Traynor to go before approaching. "Shepard?"
"Hmm," Shepard murmured, and tried to lift her head - the world tilted. "Liara? Wh-tar-you doin' here?"
"Does it matter?" Liara said under her breath, and had to move quickly to steel an arm around Shepard as the woman stood and pitched. She wrinkled her nose. "From the smell, I'd say that's quite the assortment of liquor you've have."
"Ahhh, it has to be strong," Shepard replied, inhaling deeply and trying to stand as her head rolled to look at Liara. "Being a cyborg, y'know? Har - Harder t'be poisn'd."
"I think you've had enough…"
"Is it ever?"
Liara moved a step towards the door, urging Shepard with her, and grunted, "Yes. Yes, I think you've surpassed that."
"Mebbe."
They struggled into the corridor, and Liara sighed again when they finally made it into the elevator. She let Shepard slump against the back wall. "I've never known you to drink like this, Jade. At least not outside of celebrations."
Shepard stared at her as the elevator started to move, her thoughts sluggishly pulling together. "You desherve better than this." She petted Liara's arm, her eyes glazed and unfocused. "But you're safe. You're safe here, I know you're safe."
"Right," Liara said under her breath, and linked her arm under Shepard's. "Come on…"
"Mm sorry, Liara," Shepard said as she stumbled along with her. "You should've left me there."
"I doubt that," she replied, and eased Shepard down onto the bed. The Commander went limp, and she sighed again. "You need me. I know that."
"But it's not fair," Shepard said as she closed her eyes. Her voice warbled. "It's never been fair, 'n' I just take take take…"
"Really, is that what you've been doing?" Liara grunted and tugged Shepard up onto the bed more. "Goddess, can't you help at all?"
"I'm sorry," Shepard murmured, and crawled up the bed with what seemed to be a concerted effort. She let her face slump into the pillow, staring at her footlocker off the side of the bed.
"It's alright," Liara sighed and stood up.
"I love him," Shepard whispered, and closed her eyes as tears welled in them. Her body began to tremble, and voice thickened as her words half-slurred together. "I love him and he's gone, and I love you. I've always loved you and I never told either of you enough."
Liara gaped briefly and a flush rose on her cheeks. She took a step away, and stood there stunned for a time. She wound her hands together as her thoughts flew, before she forced herself to step back closer to the bed. "Shepard?"
When no reply came she went closer. "Shepard I – I don't think now is… is the best time to talk about any of this, really…" Liara frowned, only to shake her head and step away as she heard a soft snore escape. She put her hands over her face. "Goddess."