Chapter 14 - Realizations

London Air Base

304 days since the reapers were destroyed

Hackett looked around the compound, wondering how to pick Shade out of the dozen or so geth prime units that were wandering around. He still hadn't customised his mobile platform… but then, to his surprise, Hackett saw him. He couldn't have said what it was that made Shade stand out. Only that, somehow, looking at the four primes standing in a huddle, discussing a damaged circuit board, he knew it was Shade.

"Shade?" he called, and the geth looked up. And his facial plates flared, the pattern being one that Hackett now recognised as indicating happiness. And then he came over, abandoning the circuit board to his comrades.

"Hackett-Admiral. How can I assist you?"

"I was wondering if you'd finished analyzing the rogue geth's memory core. Did you find any useful information on it?"

The facial plates rippled again, this time indicating… confusion? Sorrow? He wasn't sure of the exact emotion, but it had a bitter-sweet feel to it, a kind of excitement combined with a droop of the head.

"We did." Shade seemed reluctant to continue, and Hackett wondered whether he was pushing for something too personal. But then the geth went on. "The unit who shot the salarian was known as 'Flash'. The information we found on his memory core was… unexpected."

"You seem upset by it," Hackett hazarded a guess, not sure if geth even felt real emotions.

"Flash had encountered numerous threats from salarians. He was concerned about the safety of the geth, but he also understood the need to rebuild. Organics are highly dependant on technology, and he wished to assist."

"If he wanted to help, why would he shoot someone?" Hackett asked, and was astonished to see Shade's head droop, his facial plates sagging in despair.

"I failed," Shade said, seeming utterly ashamed of himself. "I was assigned to act as an intermediary between the geth and organics. You instructed us to work with the salarians. When this assignment was unsuccessful, I attempted to rectify it. I requested assistance."

"I remember," Hackett said, a sinking feeling in his gut. "You mean when the salarians were working on the relay? But we replaced them with teams of humans. That didn't improve the situation?" How had he missed something so important? The human crews had seemed cooperative, had even seemed to enjoy working with the geth…

"But the salarians were reassigned to repair FTL ships," Shade said. "Alongside a small number of geth. I failed to anticipate the problems this would cause." And as he spoke, Hackett felt a wave of guilt. If Shade had failed in his responsibilities, then Hackett was even more to blame.

"Flash found himself unable to resolve the threats from the salarians, and he wished to protect… his people. Resolution through proper channels had failed. So he sought to draw attention to the problem to lead to more resources being allocated to it. He knew that killing a salarian would lead to his own execution. But he did so anyway… in order to bring attention to our situation. His calculations were accurate," Shade concluded sadly. "His actions led to the investigation into the reaper code. And EDI's conclusions about morality. This was a great step forward for the geth." Shade's head drooped again, his plates flaring meekly. "We are… grateful… for his sacrifice."

London Apartment

305 days since the reapers were destroyed

Shepard opened the door and felt a flash of surprise at seeing Hackett on the other side. It had been a week since that infamous meeting at the hospital, and he hadn't been back to the Air Base since. In fact, aside from walks around the block, purely for the exercise, he had barely left the apartment.

Kaidan was out, checking on some much-needed repairs to the Normandy, and Shepard had the fleeting insight that Hackett had planned it that way. He held the door open, and Hackett took the invitation, stepping inside. "I've been thinking about what you said," he stated, cutting right to the chase. "And I wanted to tell you what I've come up with."

Shepard regarded him suspiciously. "You think you've worked out destroy verses control in seven days, when I've had it rattling around in my head for nine months without any kind of resolution?"

Hackett laughed. Smiled. Smirked. "Yes."

Shepard glanced sideways at the clock. 1:42 in the afternoon. "I'm going to need a drink for this one," he said, and without waiting for a reply, headed for the kitchen.

A few minutes later, he and Hackett were seated in the living room, on the second hand sofas, and Shepard mentally braced himself. "Okay. Hit me with it," he said, after taking a pull from his glass of whiskey. Hackett merely smiled and took a drink from his own glass.

"It's a lot more simple than I thought it would be," he said, with an air of smug wisdom, and Shepard idly considered how satisfying it would be to punch the bastard. Instead, he waited silently. Attempted to look patient and unconcerned.

"The truth of the matter is," Hackett said, setting his glass on the coffee table, "I think you would have made a shit AI."

Shepard's jaw dropped. It was so far out of left field, so utterly different than anything he had expected Hackett to say. He'd expected the absolution speech, the 'it wasn't your fault', the 'you had to make a split second decision', the 'you're only human, you can't blame yourself'. He told himself every possible placatory lie over the months, and none of them had helped. And in a single sentence, Hackett had blown through them all.

"What?" he managed to gasp out. He wasn't offended, far too stunned to gather any kind of indignation at the announcement.

But Hackett was unfazed. "Think about it," he said, propping one ankle up on his knee. "Throughout human history, there have been a number of recurring themes, and one of the big ones has always been… 'power corrupts'. No human is capable of having vast amounts of power without turning that power to their own advantage.

"So yes, at first, you would have led the reapers to improve civilisation, to advance technology, to deepen our knowledge and understanding. But how long would it have been before you started to see yourself as some kind of god? You would have had the power to determine who lived and who died. Which diseases you cured, and which were left to ravage innocent populations. What about criminals? There are thousands of them in the Terminus Systems. Would you have just decided to arbitrarily wipe them out? What about the geth? The rogue unit killed a salarian. The Catalyst said that synthetics would always go to war with organics. Would you have seen that as a declaration of war? Would you have shut down the entire geth population?"

Shepard shook his head, not to deny the accusations, but to try to clear it. Myriad decisions were running through his mind… each of them fraught with the risk of miscalculation, the chance of making a choice based on incomplete information.

And at the heart of it all was the gut-wrenching disgust at having decisions imposed upon them. The Catalyst had decided for all organics what was best for them – heedless of their dire objections to its decisions. Would he have become the very same beast? What about the genophage? If the krogan again began breeding rapidly, he would have had the power to cull their numbers. Mass murder, in the name of population control. The possibilities were endless… and endlessly horrifying. He had already made decisions which had altered the future of the galaxy – like releasing the rachni queen, much to the council's horror.

But the implications were far too big to wrap his head around. "But… there was millions of years of wisdom embodied in the reapers. Thousands of species. Wouldn't that have provided some kind of… balance to the drive for power?"

Hackett considered the idea. Briefly. "The Catalyst itself had access to all that information. It knew of organics' objections to the harvest. Had known, ever since Leviathan's species became the first reaper. And it had ignored it all. Knowledge is not power. Power can become an end unto itself.

"What it basically comes down to, Shepard, is this: You are not a god. You have neither the capacity, nor the right, to decide the fate of trillions of lives. And yes, as a result of that, the galaxy is holding itself together with bits of string and duct tape. But from this point on… they have the freedom to choose. Choose what? Who cares. That's not the point. The point is that the choice is theirs."

And just like that, Shepard felt a great weight lifted from his shoulders. Oh, he didn't believe all his guilt would go away overnight. It was far too complex an issue to simply dismiss with a few choice phrases and an ego-check. But…

But what Hackett was saying, in a nutshell, was that he had made the right choice.

"I can't lose you again…"

Instead of blocking his path to his true purpose, instead of destroying his courage and conviction… maybe those words had simply been his salvation.

London Apartment

310 days since the reapers were destroyed

This section has been removed due to rules about explicit content. To read the full version please visit 'Archive of Our Own' (just google it if you don't know it) and look for this fic under the same title and author.

Later that night…

Shepard lay in bed, Kaidan's head on his shoulder, Kaidan's arm flung across his torso, his breath teasing Shepard's skin with each exhalation. Neither of them were asleep.

And suddenly, unexpectedly, Shepard knew that it would be okay. That he could tell Kaidan anything, and he would still be here, by his side, still love him. Forgive him, if need be.

It would all be okay.

"Kaidan," he said softly, and got a murmur in reply.

"What is it?"

Shepard took a breath. In. Out.

"It's time I told you about the Catalyst."

Notes: We have one more chapter to go. Hope you enjoy it.