.

I heard from God today, and she sounded just like me.
What have I done, and who have I become.
I saw the Devil today, and he looked a lot like me.
I looked away, I turned away!

Arms wide open, I stand alone.
I'm no hero, and I'm not made of stone.
Right or wrong, I can hardly tell.
I'm on the wrong side of heaven, and the righteous side of hell.

I'm not defending, downward descending,
Falling further and further away!
Getting closer every day!

I'm getting closer every day, closer to the end.

Five Finger Death Punch - Wrong Side Of Heaven

Chapter 20 ~ Falling shadows

Later.

The second the airlock of the Mars archives had closed behind us and we waited for the air pressure to balance, Kaidan had wanted to talk. True, it was the first moment since our narrow escape from Vancouver three hours back that we actually could catch some breath, but with Vega in the middle trying very hard to appear invisible... I cut him off with a gruff 'later'. Kaidan had tried again, after we caught up with Liara T'Soni, who had arrived just an hour before us, and we got our suspicions confirmed that Cerberus was responsible for the death of all the facility's personnel. Only… I didn't want the asari to listen in either, and the fact that Cerberus' was involved gave me too bad a feeling to let us be distracted by something that probably only ended in calling names anyway.

Later.

Again my answer was later.

But there would be no later.

Slowly I let go of the Alliance helmet with the shattered visor. A terrible weight constricted my chest. My senses feeling oddly remote and not like my own, as my mind still refused to believe that my friend was gone forever.

Across from me the female-shaped synthetic, Cerberus had used to infiltrate the Mars archives, twitched for one last time before its functions shut down for good.

The Illusive Man had given the order and the synthetic had killed Kaidan. No remorse, no hesitation. Before I had the chance to react it was already too late.

I clenched my fist, looking up from the Alliance soldier and at the debris of the crushed Cerberus shuttle. Then behind the wreck, past the buildings of the archive complex hiding another Prothean ruin and at the deprived red surface of Mars that slowly got swallowed up by the approaching sand storm.

Dead.

Kaidan was dead.

The Kaidan I'd met right after I finished boot camp at the Houston Air Base and got assigned to the same unit he was in. Dark-haired Kaidan of Ukrainian origin with the sad, hazel eyes, who never cared for my bad reputation – or for hiding his fascination for the misfit that had overridden her fears with thinly veiled cynicism and an unbroken drive for survival.

Kaidan, who always kept sticking around even after one of his 'pranks' on me ended for him with a bruised shoulder and a dislocated arm – and maybe more so because, the suicidal idiot.

Kaidan, who treacherously sneaked his way into my heart and became my friend against all odds; who soothed my deeply buried need for companionship, always hoping for something I was simply incapable to give.

Time and again we had put up with each other's bullshit; always fighting and yet needing each other too much to pull the plug. Time and again nourishing the silent hope that one day things would turn out to be different. That we would be different. Until I got recruited into the N program and our ways parted for a while. Then we served together on the Normandy and I realized that after all those years we had finally become different. Just not in the way any of us had expected.

But none of it mattered any more.

Because now we would never be able to fix the things that had gone wrong between us.

A light hand suddenly landed on my shoulder, ripping me away from my thoughts.

"Shepard…" Liara's voice said softly into the radio, her words ragged by static. "I'm so… sorry… we have to go... The storm…"

I squeezed my lids shut for another moment, forcing down the sob that got caught in my throat. The asari was right. We had to get out now or the storm would pin us down for who knows how long. Precious time, we could not afford to waste. Not with the timer ticking away for Earth and all the other worlds that would follow.

Function, Shepard.

I pushed myself upright again, then motioned towards Vega to get Kaidan and loaded myself with the disabled Cerberus synthetic.

We ran back to our shuttle, my dry, stinging eyes fixed on Vega and the dead soldier slung over his back.

I'm so sorry, Kaidan. I never wanted this… I just… wanted to be your friend…

I knew I should have felt pain. Hatred. Anger. Anything. But there was nothing. Just a terrible emptiness that kept spreading through me like a carcinoma, numbing me from the inside out. Taking away the need to scream. To cry. To feel. I welcomed the void's embrace and climbed into the shuttle, cutting off the memories that still lingered somewhere in the recesses of my mind.

At least we had the data, Hackett wanted us to get. So far I had no idea what exactly the Fleet Admiral and Liara expected to gain from millennia-old blueprints to some mysterious Prothean machine.

I just hoped it would be worth the death it caused.

.~'*'~.

"… can't believe this! Outrageous! How dare they…"

Udina kept on ranting behind his office desk but I was only listening to the human Councilor with half an ear. After Mars we had headed straight for the Citadel to start calling in favors. That had been 20 hours ago - of which I spend the better part locked inside various conference rooms. I probably should get some sleep, but then I would be forced to deal with sad brown eyes and I wasn't ready for them.

So, instead I stared out of the floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the Presidium with its opulent greenery and artificial lakes, the damage from Sovereign's attack some three years ago completely gone. Even the small mass relay that led to Ilos sat there as clean and undisturbed as if it had never spat out a gun-toting mako at full speed.

Yep, here on the Citadel the invasion was so fucking far away it could just as well be happening on a different plane of reality. Which made the Council of course fall ass over kettle in their rush to help Earth. Not. Oh yeah, once again I couldn't help the feeling that saving them from the Sovereign had been the dumbest decision I could have possibly made.

"… sacrificing billions of lives to buy themselves time. But they call us 'savages'."

"We will figure something out. We don't need them, Udina," I said, my eyes still on the vista below.

"Don't need… Excuse me, but how do you think this is supposed to work? In case you've forgotten the Reapers reached Trebia this morning. Whoever might have been willing to help us yesterday will now throw in their lot with the turians instead."

I crossed my arms before me and turned my head to fix the elderly man. "There are other options."

Udina's face twisted into a sneer. "Of course. The mysterious device. Spare me."

I locked my hands under my arms, my jaws clenched. It was that or strangling the Councilor with my bare hands. "Haven't you read the report? There were hundreds of Reapers back on Earth, and dozens of them like the Sovereign. And this was only by the time I left the system. Even if we throw every ship, every cannon and every man, woman and child able to hold a weapon at them, there is no fucking way to defeat them! Not by conventional means." I took a deep breath. "Udina, please," There it was. It nearly killed me. "Help me to get resources into the project. It's the only -"

The sound of the door's automatism made me halt and turn around. My eyes narrowed. It was… Sparatus? Why, wasn't the Council done with kicking me in the face?

"Udina. Spectre." The turian Councilor begun, then fastened his drilling green-eyed gaze on me. "I believe I have an offer for you to consider..."

~V~

The shower steamed.

Blissful, hot water was warming my skin and washing away dust and dark blood.

A pair of slim hands snaked around my middle, blunt nails dragging lazily down my abdomen. My breath caught in a different rush of warmth. Blocky teeth nipped at my shoulder and a low growl of delight formed in my chest. I turned around. The short human woman grinned up at me, her eyes brimming with mischief. My gaze followed the water running down her alien, yet supple, combat-steeled body. It was also very… soapy, which made all kind of ideas invade my mind and I assure you, none of them had to do with cleaning up anything at all. She pulled closer and rose to her toes, her smooth-skinned front shifting against mine. She licked her reddish lips. My hands moved down her buttocks and, yeah, there was this sexy little moan again. I pushed her with her back against the steely walls of the shower, her thighs locked around my waist and then...

… then I woke to the sound of my own groan, my armor poking unpleasantly into my back, while in the distant the thunder of gunfire roared.

Damn it. I rolled out of the hard camp bed, whole body feeling stiff. Yeah. I was definitely getting too old for these kind of things. With a sigh I rubbed my face. Two orbits stationed on Menae, Palaven's largest moon, and I was already fantasizing about showers. Showers that got inexplicably compelling Spectres in it. Right. Where had I only gotten the idiotic notion that sleeping with her would make things between us any less complicated?

Subduing the raw stab of need mixed with deprivation, I grabbed my Mantis and exited the portable shack, doing my best to ignore the unpleasant truth: I had fallen. Too fast and too hard for my own good.

Outside I nodded towards the two soldiers at the supply station. Talid, one of our Comm Specialists gave me a small salute and Arenya tossed me a nutrition bar. She still held on to the undeniably charming twinkle in her eyes. Twice I had already returned from my shift to find the Cabal waiting for me in my bed and twice I had sent her friendly but unmistakably away. As flattering as her offer might have been, it had also felt lacking to an alarming degree.

Really, Vakarian? Are you already so messed-up that your own species isn't good enough anymore?

I growled at the thought and bit into my MRE, while heading for the command post and forcing myself to be a dutiful turian and keep my mind focused. Not thinking about the obvious when our own situation was just as equally dire. The Reapers had fallen upon us three days GST ago, a little more than one day after their attack on Earth. In the initial chaos I almost didn't arrive at outpost Rakasha in one piece. The troop transport that left Cipritine right behind us never made it. Its debris was now orbiting Palaven – along with many many corpses and not nearly enough destroyed Reapers.

Still, no matter how hard I tried, the worries would not fade; a worm that just kept eating at my mind whenever my concentration wavered. The Reapers had hit us hard, yet the footage I'd seen about Earth and the Sol system was plain devastating. It went against all logic to expect a personal message, not with the Systems Alliance in disarray about the destruction of their HQ, and certainly not as long as there were right now some 200 billion people bombing our Comm Buoys from all over the galaxy. And yet… she just had to be alright. I mean, the Collectors had killed her once – and all it had done was pissing her off.

Too fast, too hard.

I shrugged off the thought and entered the command barrack, acknowledged by the general's nod. The man was leaning over the map board showing the terrain surrounding the outpost.

"What is our status, General," I asked Corinthus.

"It's stable."

"That's more than we had yesterday."

The general replied with a short snort.

"Any news about Fedorian?" I asked.

His face turned grim. "There were no survivors."

I suppressed a curse. He gave me a sharp look.

"You know what that means, Vakarian."

I did all too well. It meant that with the dead approaching mind-staggering numbers, Clan Vakarian, however small, got pushed awfully quick towards the frontline. And unfortunately, I didn't even need the fingers of both of my hands to count the candidates suited for this kind of duty.

"We should get the radio back online," I said instead. "For my part, I wouldn't mind to have some warning before the Reapers swarm our position. With your permission, General?"

Corinthus nodded. "Assemble a team as you see fit. And Vakarian? Don't fail to come back. The Hierarchy will need your service. One way or the other."

~V~

Palaven was burning.

Whenever I looked up from the moon's barren soil, my eyes were inevitably drawn to the huge planet above me. To the fires. To the explosions. And the sheer endless numbers of machines darkening the sky.

Hastily, I averted my gaze.

You're vanguard.

I had to remind myself of this way too often of lately. But I could not dwell on what was happening there either. Could not think about who else might have perished in the infernos the Reapers were unleashing upon the galaxy's strongest military force. Smoothing my features, I followed the turian, who was in charge of this outpost, into the command hut.

Still, something must have shown on my face, for the General said, "It's bad, Spectre. But it looks far worse from up here that it actually is. The lines are holding. Our people won't break."

I nodded tiredly, not seeing the point in arguing that Earth also hadn't fallen. Yet. A good thing I had left James with Liara at the camp's checkpoint. As keyed up as the marine still was about the Council's indifference, I wasn't sure if he could resist the temptation to shoot all my diplomatic efforts square in the face just to make a point.

"I'm here for Primarch Fedorian, Sir. A war summit has been called in. I was told he would be here."

The General's face twisted as if he had bitten into a rotten plum. "His shuttle was shot down this morning. He did not survive."

I pinched the bridge of my nose to fight the little stab blooming behind my eyes. Just once I'd like to ask someone for anything and hear them say, 'No problem, Shep. Here, let me help you right away. No strings attached.' Once. Just. Fucking. Once.

"I understand. I'm sorry for your loss, General, and I really do hate to press on, but the clock is ticking. For all of us. Do you know who's next in line?"

Corinthus scowled at the map on the table before him. "No, unfortunately I do not. The outpost's radio mast was damaged this morning. Our communication is down until my tech team has fixed this mess."

"As they report to have successfully done," another voice was stating from behind and I thought my heart tried to jump out of my chest. "We should be online once more in a few minutes, tops."

"Hey, Garrus," I said and turned around. "I thought you were still on Palaven…" I hastened to stretch out my hand in greeting. It was that or throwing myself at his chest giggling like a maniac – which would have totally cramped my style.

He came to a halt, giving Corinthus a small bow of his head, before the General decided to frown again at his maps. There was a moment's hesitation, so tiny I even might not have noticed if I hadn't been explicitly looking for it, then the sniper's gloved hand clasped around mine. Ugh. Awkward. That was… unexpected. Quickly we pulled apart.

"I was transferred to Menae when the Reapers started pouring into the system. Somebody in the Hierarchy figured that it might be disadvantageous if their official - if not to say only - Reaper advisor got killed hiding in some moldy cellar from an orbital strike."

His face was deadpan. No expression whatsoever. I had no idea what to make of it, so I caught my hands behind my back and straightened. "Reaper advisor, huh? Sounds like there's a capital 'A' attached to it."

Garrus shrugged. "Politics. You know how it is."

Aware of Corinthus standing no five steps away I made some non-committal sound. Uh-hm. More like politics. Kiss. My. Ass. "Lemme guess? You kept yelling until someone tried to shut you up?"

At that his stony expression softened up, but oh, how I still could feel the rift gaping between us wider than the Mariner Valleys. It stung like a damn sonovabitch.

"Well, I learned from the best, actually. But - it gets even better. Someone actually listened."

"And a good thing the Hierarchy did. Without Commander Vakarian we would have lost a quarter of our fleet in the first hours," Corinthus added without looking up from his holographic map.

"My congratulations, then, Commander," I said and forced a smile on my face, gloved fingers clasping my wrist tightly as disillusion slammed into me unchecked.

It didn't matter that I saved their dumb Councilor a few years back. That I was a Spectre. That I would put my life in the line for one of their own in a heartbeat. 35 years of peace and all the majority of the soldiers out there saw was another alien intruder they were forced to play nice with.

Garrus knew. He perfectly knew it was one of the million reasons why we were Dead-On-Arrival and this was him pulling the plug. Or maybe he simply had moved on and I was once again the only idiot clinging to the past.

You told him it was just play and no strings. Deal with it.

How could I've been so incredibly stupid? This thing between us was an abomination that needed to be euthanized by fire.

The turian sniper started to say something then stopped, whirling around. We had a moment's ear-deafening warning and then all hells broke loose.

~V~

The impact of the missile ripped away my footing.

I rolled to the side and cowered behind the command barracks plated enclosure, Mantis ready in my hands. Me and my faithful companion squinted past the doorway. Shouts and gunfire sounded from at least four directions but it was impossible to make out more than schemes through the thick haze of dust.

Then I heard it. A deep, mindless roar no twenty paces away, followed by metal straining and breaking. Not missiles. Capsules. And by the sound of it loaded with something nasty and exceptionally ill-tempered. I looked over my shoulder to find Corinthus pushing the overthrown table off his chest, hissing commands into his headset. There was no sign of Shepard.

Why couldn't that woman sit tight for just one blasted moment?

I scanned the perimeter, dust beginning to settle. Faintly I could make out the remains of the capsule. It was big and something had managed to burst its way out with sheer force.

I looked back towards the general who was grabbing his assault rifle from the floor and I was certain I could hear the pale-haired Spectre swearing outside. The grip on my Mantis tightened. Corinthus seemed alright. Certainly he could…

Duty, Vakarian. It is your duty to stay and guard your CO. Not to chase after some crazy, trigger-happy woman.

It should have felt right to fulfill the obligations expected from me. It did not. Worse, with every moment - every second - I lagged behind, the uneasy prickle between my shoulder blades intensified, until it became an almost unbearable itch. I gritted my teeth and stayed put.

Up to this point I had been one-hundred percent certain that the rumors about her involvement in the Bahak incident were wrong, because no matter what, the Shepard I knew would have never been able to sacrifice hundred thousands of lives. After seeing that grim hardness in her eyes though... I wasn't so sure anymore.

A bluish light flashed ahead, followed by a figure approaching at a run and I heard another familiar voice shouting, "By the Goddess! Move, Garrus! They are coming this way!"

The asari skittered to a halt at the stair's landing next to me, turned and unleashed a biotic storm upon a group of human husks. I downed those that escaped Liara and a huge, nightmarish creature jumped into my view. And then a second. I shot at something that seemed like a head hanging on an impossible thin neck and I missed by a fraction, the bullet hitting the torso of the hulking monstrosity instead. Making zero impression.

No more time. I gestured at Corinthus to get him moving, tugged at Liara's arm and hastened towards the back of the small command shack, climbing over the fencing.

"What in the name of the Spirits is that?" the General asked as we ran around the barrack and into the thick of the attack; Liara mumbled some reply and I realized I did not care at all because no matter how hard I strained I couldn't hear Shepard's voice any longer.

~V~

The thing charged me.

Or better it made a gigantic leap over the turian medic it had just killed and stood right before me in all its hulking, semi-organic repulsiveness. It probably was for the better that there was nothing in its dead eyes even remotely remembering sapient life.

I dashed to the left, barely avoiding getting crushed between an oversized robo-fist and the quite solid wall of one of the camp shacks. All around me, soldiers fought in small clusters, barely keeping the upper hand. I wasn't sure if they could deal with a third of those monsters on top of all the other husks swarming the camp. And even less if my odds were any better. Liara had run off to support Garrus and the General, and the last time I had seen Vega he had been engaged by two of those eerily clever turian husks. To top it I just had an agitated Flight Lieutenant on my comm yelling at me that the ship was freaking out and EDI had shut down.

Why me?

I threw a biotic sphere at the mutated meatball to get some attention then ran towards the fortified trench running along the southern end of the outpost, hopefully being annoying enough to be pursued. They had mounted a M350 on the barricades there. Let's pray it was ready for action.

The tech-born nightmare roared and chased after me. Fast. Really fast. Aiming over my shoulder I emptied the clip of my Carnifex into the brutish creature. It barely slowed. I zigzagged to escape another attack. This time I wasn't quick enough. The husk backhanded me. I sailed several feet before I crushed to the ground. The air got pressed out of my lungs and I gasped, my side flaring with pain. I ripped up my hands to unleash whatever biotics I could summon before going dark, only to realize that the beast had turned away from me. By sound of it the fighting was finally dying down. Maybe I just could sit this one out. Maybe… I craned my neck. The husk was closing in on Garrus. Garrus who had run out of ammo. Garrus-the-idiot-Vakarian who would keep saving my ass even if it got himself killed.

Mind blank, I scrambled to my feet, two or three bruised ribs screaming in protest. A thin red sheen crawled into my view. Above me the sky was burning and the dead... They were everywhere. I stood in midst a sea of twisted corpses of countless species, a shadowed figure stirring at the edge of my vision, but all I could see was the turian falling to his knees, blood spilling from a wound in his chest, blue gaze fixed on me. He stretched out his hand. I wanted to run and could not move. His eyes… dulled. I wanted to scream and had no voice. The shadow turned away. He fell. I wanted to cry and had no tears.

No.

"No!" I howled and the images snapped, like a red veil jerked out of my sight.

Not. Today.

Not as long I was still breathing.

Pushing the pain in my side to some distant place, I darted towards the mountain of flesh and muscle. With a leap that made me feel like passing out any second, I jumped the beast's back and scrambled upwards. My combat knife sprang out of the sheath on my thigh and I drove it into the base where the creature's unnatural thin neck emerged. Dark, foul smelling liquid gushed from the wound, splashing me with a spray of gore. The creature screeched. And still advanced. I yelled a wordless battle cry and pushed the blade deeper, severing tech and the last remnants of spine and muscle cords. Headless, the creature finally staggered and dropped to the ground, me balancing on top of it. Breathing hard, I looked up and met the turian's gaze. I thought he was actually grinning.

"Shepard…" he said and then his arms shifted just so. Just one tiny gesture that should have changed everything.

Keyed up on the thrill of combat, it suddenly bubbled all to the surface and burst out. This moment of incredible peace I had found in his arms. The worries. The loneliness. The times I lay awake because of those dreams. Dreams that made me so afraid of falling asleep, because deep down something in me knew they had stopped being ordinary nightmares.

I closed my eyes. Seeing myself leaping down the dead husk and right into his embrace. Imaging his arms slipping around me as if they belonged nowhere else. Breathing in his strength and never wavering solidness. Heaven help me. I wanted this to be real so badly it had finally pushed me over the border and straight into Mad Country.

Oh yeah, go ahead and drag him down into your personal hell, why don't you?

And then,

See what happened to Kaidan? Do you really want him to become an even bigger target?

The words made Shepard cringe and Ivy howl in rage. It still was the only truth that mattered.

So what do you do if the one thing you want the most, is the one that inevitably leads to your destruction?

I jumped from the corpse, wiping the blade on my sleeve without looking up.

"Let's find Corinthus. We need to pick up the new Primarch. Quickly," I said, my voice raw and torn.

Below the ever present distant noise of the Reapers attacking Palaven, I thought I could hear a soft crack.

I swear it was the sound of my heart breaking.