Shepard was a blur of movement as she roamed around their bedroom in the apartment, packing an extra change of clothes for the both of them as well as their medal boxes from the Alliance and Hierarchy. Her old Alliance dress blues were more snug than they used to be, clinging to every curve more than any military uniform had a right to, and if she had been in a better mood Garrus would've snatched her out of her packing frenzy and swept her up in his arms. But today, unfortunately, they didn't have the luxury of peace of mind.
"Garrus, did you make sure to download the list of recognitions that everyone received to our omnitools?"
"Of course, dear. I took care of everything."
She breathed a relieved sigh and blinked rapidly as she tried to think of what else was left to do. Truth be told, she was looking for any excuse at this point to not have to think about what was coming. But now, she wasn't able to put it off any longer as she gently nestled her and Garrus's black velvet medal boxes into the top of her duffel and zipped it shut, signaling the end of her packing spree. Garrus noticed that she was finished and came up behind her, putting his hands on her shoulders tenderly and pressing a chaste kiss to her cheek.
"Are you ready to go?" he murmured softly, squeezing her shoulders reassuringly. She nodded, well aware that they both knew she wasn't ready for any of this. Garrus grabbed the duffel bag before she could, but on his way to the front door he glanced towards one of the guest bedrooms and paused, his mandibles shifting nervously. After flashing a quick glance forward at her making her way slowly down the stairs, using the handrails for extra support to take the weight off her hip as much as possible, he disappeared for a moment. Shepard noticed his absence and looked back up towards the railing with furrowed brows.
"Garrus, what are you doing?" she called from the bottom of the steps, crossing her arms impatiently. She wanted this over with as soon as physically possible. He didn't reappear for a solid minute, and just as Shepard was about to hike back up the stairs she saw his head poke over the banister with a solemn expression.
"I'll be right down. I... I need to show you something."
"Is now really a good time, Garrus?" She loved him, but his newly-developed tendency to make them run late for important things had begun to grate on her nerves. And that was something she absolutely did not need today - a fact he was well aware of.
"It won't take long, okay?" Upon his reply, Shepard sighed and rolled her eyes, moving to lean against the nearby countertop at the edge of the kitchen. It took Garrus quite a long time to descend the stairs with his prosthetic, especially after their tough therapy session yesterday. But when he finally reached her, her eyes widened at the thing he held in his hands. He didn't hand it over to her right away, brushing a talon over the metallic surface with a distant gaze. When she cleared her throat nervously, he blinked suddenly and looked up at her. Wordlessly, he held the long, slender rectangle out towards her, and her breath caught in her throat. Her fingers traced her name etched into the plate unconsciously, as she stared right into the face of the evidence that she probably should have been dead (twice now, not even counting all the times she'd nearly died on the battlefield).
"You... You kept this?" Her words were choked, and she inwardly cursed herself for the sudden bubbling up of emotions that she had promised herself to keep in check today. Garrus just nodded, his hands wringing uncomfortably as he watched her ponder the name plate. "But why didn't you... Why wasn't it on the wall, with everyone else's?"
He obviously had been expecting that question, if the drawn-out sigh and nervous scratching at his neck gave any indication. Posey could hear the lowest notes coming from him, the beginnings of a deep and relentless keening that she knew would incapacitate him if she did not intervene. She shook her head slowly and mirrored his sigh, looking up into his solemn aquamarine eyes. When she'd calmed herself enough to keep her voice from cracking, she murmured to him quietly.
"You know what, never mind. I don't need to know." It took all the strength she had to put the name plate down on the kitchen counter, but when it was done she reached for Garrus and pulled him close. There was a deep, sad rumbling in his chest as his arms wrapped around her and she returned the gesture, taking a moment to mentally steel herself for the day. When she pulled back, she put a hand to Garrus's smooth mandible and gave him a small smile. He leaned into the touch, closing his eyes.
"Are you ready?" he said quietly, subvocals betraying the fact that he was no more prepared for this than she was, even though she'd technically done it before. She nodded despite this, taking the duffel from Garrus's shoulder and replacing it with his cane. He would've protested had it been any other day, but now he was silent and accepted the cane with a gracious nod.
"Ready as I'll ever be," Shepard said calmly, smoothing out the front of her dress blues carefully before walking out the door of the apartment.
#
Admiral Hackett has really outdone himself this time, Posey thought to herself as the door of her skycar lifted, letting her out at the edge of the vibrant green expanse that was the Presidium Fields. As much as she would have liked to do this somewhere more private, Hackett had insisted that this second memorial service, more for closure than anything, take place at the site of the memorial they had erected a few months after the Citadel had been recovered enough for habitation. Even from two hundred yards away, Shepard could see the pristine platinum rendition of the Normandy SR-2, glimmering in the artificial daylight of the Citadel. Just to the side of the immense statue, harder to see until they drew closer, was a small gathering of chairs and a small podium, with several armed Spectres standing outside the ring of chairs to ward off curious spectators and ravenous media.
Posey wasn't ready for this, at all. No matter how briefly she spoke today, even if she somehow managed to avoid eye contact with everyone the entire time, she was not going to be able to keep it together. That strength had left her long ago.
At the first memorial, so many years ago now, they hadn't asked her to give a big long speech. She'd simply said a few words about how brave her crew had been, how she'd never known any finer soldiers than those who had served at her side all those years. The whole time she'd felt numb with grief, so there had been no tears at the service. No emotional breakdown, no public display of mourning or sorrow for the Citadel News Network to pant over. She was well aware, though, that she was no longer numb to the memory of her dear friends. And even though some of them had made it back, it wasn't going to be enough to keep her from reliving every teammate's death that she'd seen. Every day, little things wore her down, and it killed her to know that she was nowhere near the woman she used to be. These were things she hadn't voiced to Garrus, knowing that he would do his best to console her when there was really nothing to be done. She was a woman changed now, so far departed from her former self that she wasn't sure she'd recognize Commander Shepard, Savior of the Galaxy and Reaper-Ass-Kicker Extraordinaire, if she saw her in the mirror. Even donning her old dress blues today hadn't been enough to make her feel any semblance of her former self, instead making her feel even more like a fake, a poorly-made counterfeit of the impenetrable, indestructible woman that the galaxy had once known her as.
Commander Shepard had been bold, brave, a game-changer. Someone who stared down death on countless occasions, and overcame insurmountable odds to do things no one had ever dreamed of.
Councilor Shepard was just a watered-down woman who cried too much, was angered too easily, and still relived every huge mistake she'd ever made (and, unfortunately for her, there just so happened to be a lot of those).
But today, she would do her best to put on that Commander mask, to replicate her old powerful tone of voice and the proud way she'd always carried herself. If not for herself, for her friends, or at least what few of them were here anyway.
Drawing closer to the memorial, she saw that most of the people who had RSVP'ed to her had already gathered around the cluster of chairs, talking quietly in small groups of two or three. Samara was the first to notice Shepard's approach, and she broke off from her conversation with Tali and Jacob Taylor to greet Shepard with a hug.
"Hello, my friend," the matriarch said serenely, extending the embrace for just an extra moment with a little squeeze of Shepard's shoulders. "It has been too long." Shepard nodded in agreement as Samara moved to greet Garrus with a handshake.
"Good to see you too, Samara," Shepard said quietly. "How is Falere?"
"She is well, thank you. The monastery has finished reconstruction, and she already has four girls who have enrolled of their own accord. It is nice to see so many who are willing to turn themselves over, rather than forcing me to chase them down."
"So you're still out hunting Ardat-Yakshi, then?"
Samara nodded slowly, her eyes closing for a brief moment. "A Justicar's oath is for life, Shepard. I will be out roaming the galaxy until the day I pass into the embrace of the Goddess, whenever that may come. I believe I still have quite a while left, though, and as you humans would say there's a lot of life left in these old bones. I am still a couple of centuries off from 1000, so I have no intentions of quitting or dying soon."
"Good to hear," Shepard replied with a warm smile. "I wish you all the best of luck."
"To you as well, Shepard." With that, the justicar moved off to another small pocket of conversation, and Shepard walked over to join Jacob as Tali's omnitool pinged loudly and she moved away to answer the message. Jacob had aged well since the first memorial - fatherhood had brought out just a frosting of gray at his temples, and she noticed the beginnings of deep laughter lines set amongst his rich, dark skin. His smile was brilliant white as he embraced Shepard heartily, clapping her on the back before greeting Garrus as well.
"Aren't you a sight for sore eyes," he grinned at Garrus, who flicked his mandibles back in a smile as he nodded.
"Jacob, how've you been?" Garrus's subvocals were still solemn, but if anyone else noticed they didn't say anything as Jacob laughed and pulled up his omnitool's interface.
"Busy, busy," he replied, extending his arm to show Garrus and Shepard the picture he had pulled up. The little boy was beautiful, almost seven years old and looking every bit like the handsome man his father was, sporting jet-black hair, though curly and wild where Jacob's was short and neatly trimmed. Gabriel had also inherited his father's rich chocolate eyes, as well as his mother's flawless caramel skin. As Jacob swiped to the next picture, he chuckled softly. "This kid has more energy than you'd believe, it's crazy. Brynn's got him at home right now, they would've come but Gabriel's got school tomorrow."
"He's grown up so much," Shepard cooed, leaning forward to get a better look at the picture. The last time she'd seen Jacob's son in person, he had been just a tiny little thing, cradled in Shepard's arms at the reception after Jacob and Brynn's wedding. She had held him all night, rocking back and forth and marveling at the way his teeny tiny fingers had grasped around hers so firmly, refusing to let go even at the end of the night when Brynn came by to feed him.
"That he has, Shepard," Jacob laughed again, swiping the interface to a few more pictures. "Brynn doesn't know it, but I've already got him training with pistols. Kid's a crack shot, I tell you."
"I wouldn't expect anything less from your kid, Jacob," Garrus said fondly as Shepard leaned into his shoulder. Jacob smirked and closed the interface, shrugging.
"What can I say? Alliance training is nothing if not effective."
"I can second that," Shepard interjected, and the two men looked at her and chuckled along with her.
" Cerberus may have ended up being a bunch of assholes with guns, but in the beginning they trained pretty well, if I recall correctly." Shepard turned at the interjection, feeling her face crack into a brilliant smile as she instantly recognized the sway of the full hips walking towards her.
"Miranda!" The woman's raven hair was swept into a loose braid over one shoulder, arcing down around a perfect bosom and long enough to reach her ridiculously small waist. Unlike the rest of Shepard's friends, Miranda's youthful features had stood the test of time, and she still looked just as young as she had the day she'd killed her father, Henry Lawson. Shepard figured she probably would have aged nearly as well as Miranda, had her cybernetics not been so strained in the Battle of London. She'd been able to heal relatively quickly, but there were many scars that had not and probably never would heal.
Miranda's teeth were perfect and shiny white as she smiled back at Shepard and embraced her tightly for a few moments. As they broke apart, Miranda opened her mouth as if to say something but was interrupted by a weathered, tired-sounding voice from the center of the small gathering. Admiral Hackett waited for everyone to quiet down and cleared his throat, gesturing towards the chairs.
"If you'll all go ahead and get seated," he said solemnly, "we can go ahead and begin." The various people acknowledged the request and moved slowly towards the seats, leaving Shepard and Garrus standing towards the back as she felt her throat close up. Garrus's fingers wove their way into hers and he gave her hand a reassuring squeeze, leaning down to whisper in her ear.
"You can do this. Just read what you've put together, Posey. We've practiced this at home, and I know you don't feel ready but this isn't something you can ever really be prepared for. Just say what you can. I'll be right there for you, the whole time. I promise."
Posey nodded and swallowed, walking towards Hackett at the small podium. He nodded towards her and took his seat in the front row of chairs, and Garrus followed to sit next to him. She took a moment to clear her throat quietly and compose herself before pulling up the interface of her omnitool and scrolling through to find the file she'd prepared. When she looked up, she briefly surveyed the faces of the people who'd been able to show up. She made a brief mental note to speak to the few she hadn't seen before the memorial started, including Jack in the back row and Kaidan on the edge of the second row of chairs. Grunt and Wrex took up half of the third row by themselves, but they had chosen to sit on the very edge as Wrex was going to need to leave quickly to get back to Tuchanka for some sort of meeting with all of the clan leaders, if Shepard remembered his message correctly.
As the final murmurings of the small gathering quieted, Shepard's eyes flicked back down to her omnitool. She took a deep, slow breath, looked back up towards Garrus and met his gaze for support, and then began to speak.
"Hello, everyone." Two words out of the gate, and she already hated how weak her voice sounded. But she had already started, and now she would have to continue. "I'm really glad that all of you could make it out here for this. This isn't going to be formal or anything, but I - we, Garrus and I and Admiral Hackett - felt like this would bring some sort of finality to everything we've all been through together. The last time we were all here, some of us still held on to the hope that the crew of the Normandy would one day be found safe. I'd like to quickly say thank you to everyone who hoped with me, who never gave up even when I had. Without you all, I don't know what I would have done with myself these past years.
"Even though we all held on to hope for so long, it was so incredibly unexpected when the Normandy docked on the Citadel a couple of months ago. And the fact that even one of the crew was alive, let alone four, was more than I could have asked for at that point. I know that we all wish more had come back, but... To be honest, guys, a selfish part of me is just glad to have those four. Joker, Kaidan, Liara, and..." Shepard's voice trailed off as she realized that there were two familiar faces that she hadn't seen in her survey of the crowd earlier. It was a little harder to recognize Joker without his facial scruff, but even here at a memorial he would've been wearing his old baseball cap, and it was absent from the group of faces before her. She also didn't see the speckled blue of Liara's crest anywhere amongst them, and she knew for a fact that Liara had responded affirmatively to the invitation to the memorial. However, there was nothing to be done about it now, although Shepard absolutely hated the idea of two of the SR-2 survivors not being able to attend the memorial and receive their medals and recognitions the way they should have so long ago.
"And Garrus," she finished as her train of thought jumped back onto its tracks. "The four of them made it back, by some miracle. Thinking back on all of those who didn't return with them, I thank whatever higher powers there are, every day, to have you all here in my life. Seeing you all out amongst the galaxy, doing the incredible things you were born to do... Death was always a part of war, something that was going to happen no matter what we did to prevent it. But every single one of us that took part in the war, was prepared for sacrifices. And while some of us made greater sacrifices than others, the things you have done with your lives now have honored their memories and the sacrifices they made. By leading nations, keeping the peace, tracking down criminals, and even raising families, you have made all of the suffering, the scars, the wounds of the past mean something. You've made everything we went through worthwhile. And, honestly, that's all we can do, now that so many of our friends and colleagues are gone. We... we, um..." Her throat began to close again of its own accord, choking her words, and she stopped. Her hands balled into tight fists on top of the podium as she closed her eyes, doing her best to dam the imminent flood of tears as long as possible. She was almost there, almost to the end of her speech, and then she could cry as much as she pleased once she got home.
But for now, she still had to finish. There was an understanding in the silence as she fought for control of her voice, a knowing look on the face of every person in the crowd that said they had shed just as many tears and spent just as many nights tossing and turning over the same things that were choking her up now. The idea that they'd all been there, they'd all suffered through the nightmares and survivor's guilt just as she had, gave her the last little ounce of strength that she needed to push through. She steadied herself, laid her palms flat against the podium, and inhaled deeply.
"We are what is left of their memory," she said with much more confidence than she actually felt. Garrus's eyes met hers and he nodded almost imperceptibly at her. "And it is up to us," she continued, feeling better by the second, "to make sure that they live on with us, and that they are always a part of us." With the quietest sigh of relief that she could manage, Shepard shut down her omnitool and walked towards Admiral Hackett, who stood and shook her hand firmly before taking her place at the podium. She sat down where he'd been sitting and Garrus's hand moved to her knee and he pressed a gentle kiss to her temple.
Admiral Hackett's piece was far less emotional, being only a reading of the recognitions the crew of the Normandy ships, both SR-1 and SR-2, had received at the first memorial. The entirety of both crews had been awarded a Galactic Unit Citation, well-deserved in everyone's eyes. The turian Nova Cluster, which Shepard remembered presenting to Ashley William's family a decade ago, was now given to James Vega, Steven Cortez, Jeff Moreau, Garrus Vakarian, Liara T'Soni, Kaidan Alenko, Admiral David Anderson, Urdnot Grunt, Tali'Koris vas Normandy, and Shepard herself. The same group of people had also received a Palladium Star, and Shepard thumbed the medal on her chest as Hackett re-read the list of names. The weight of recognitions on her chest was far too heavy for her, and the gleaming pieces of silver and gold no longer brought her any pride as they shone from amongst the rich fabric of her dress blues.
The Alliance had chosen to honor the human members of the crew that had been far less well-known by the galaxy with the Star of Terra, for which Shepard was immensely grateful. At the first memorial, it had brought her at least a small amount of peace to know that she would have some sort of recognition, some sort of galactic honor to send back to the families of Privates Copeland and Westmoreland, Adams, and the numerous other human staff members that had kept the Normandy ships up and running, along with Doctor Chakwas. Admiral Hackett had taken care of Karin's medal box all these years, seeing as she no longer had any family to send them to.
Wrex had chosen to honor those who helped with the genophage as well with the creation of the Krogan Hammer medallion, signifying great contributions to the betterment of the krogan race. That award had been given to a much smaller group, consisting only of those that Shepard had taken on the ground team to Tuchanka (Tali and Garrus, as it were), plus Admiral Anderson and Chakwas.
When Admiral Hackett had finished recounting the long list of awards and recognitions, he looked out across those seated. In his deep, tired voice he said, "Does anyone else have anything they'd like to say now, before we wrap this up?"
Everyone was quiet, but looked around at each other as if waiting for someone else to go first. Shepard knew they probably all had things to say that they couldn't bring themselves to say six years ago, but she was truly ready to be done with this ceremony. Still, no one spoke up, and Admiral Hackett took the hint after a few moments and cleared his throat, powering down his omnitool.
"In that case, I - "
"Wait!"
The entire group of people turned around towards the back of the little ring of chairs, where they could see a blue figure running full-speed across the field towards them. As Liara drew closer, they saw behind her two other people, jogging more slowly. Shepard breathed a sigh of relief as she recognized Joker's baseball cap, but she couldn't put a finger on who the other person was beside him. When Liara reached the back row of chairs, she bent over and put her hands on her knees for a moment to catch her breath, also allowing time for Joker and the mystery figure to catch up. When they were all three there, Shepard's eyes narrowed. This woman next to Joker looked somewhat familiar, but she couldn't think of why. Her dirty-blonde hair was swept back into a casual ponytail with a fringe of bangs sweeping down over her forehead, almost obscuring the woman's startlingly green eyes, and her lightly tanned skin covered what looked to be a very slender figure beneath an old asari-style lab coat with green trim. Joker's face was split wide open in a smile, and Liara's eyes gleamed with excitement as she practically bounced around the mystery woman.
"I'm so, so sorry we're late everyone," Liara said excitedly as her hands came to rest on the woman's shoulders. The woman smiled over her shoulder at the asari, revealing a set of bleach white, perfectly straight teeth behind full pinkish lips. "But we had someone we needed to pick up first. Everyone, it is my absolute pleasure to introduce you to the new and improved, EDI."