The medbay door barely closes behind Chakwas, transporting the sedated David Archer, and as Shepard turns to leave, Jack starts at him with all the ferocity held back during the return trip from Aite: "You should have killed that fucking doctor, Shepard! Hell, you're a killing machine, don't tell me you've suddenly become soft!"
"I'm a soldier," he replies, very calmly, "not a judge, and definitely not an executioner."
Jacks snorts derisively but Shepard continues, unperturbed. "Of course Archer deserves punishment, but it's David's call to decide it, not mine. And it's also David's right to hear his brother's apology for what he has done to him one day. Who am I to rob him of that?"
"The guy's mental!"
"Mental?!" Within a split of a second, Shepard's voice switches into the tone that invariably makes the recipient jerk as if lashed. "Are you under the impression that he suffered less for that?"
"The fucking bastard deserves to die," she repeats heatedly, though with an underlying note of uncertainty.
Shepard doesn't relax his posture for an instant. "Not my call," he insists. "Nor yours."
Jack's eyes narrow. "And if it was your call? If he was one of those fuckers who set up Akuze? Don't tell me you'd let him go!"
He has to focus on his breathing for a moment but he had anticipated this question ever since they first set their eyes on David Archer, restrained as if on a cross, intubed all over, the tears constantly spilling from the eyes propped open – a sight that will undoubtedly haunt him at nights.
Both me and her, he remembers that sole sobbing gasp which Jack issued, and realizes that the hard line may not be the way - but he cannot admit the urge to tear Gavin Archer into small twitching pieces, either. "I did come across one of those, once, and had the choice to pull the trigger or not," he says softly, "and I decided not to. I wanted him dead, I did, but I didn't want to become a butcher for that. It wouldn't have brought anyone back. And, I did take his life, in a way, as he'll spend the rest of it among four walls."
"You're so fucking noble," Jack mutters bitterly.
"Not sure if I'd know about noble. But I know I just didn't want to be like them."
She stares at him a little longer and then, without a word, turns on her heel and leaves, for her hideout.
Shepard would much like to call after her, stop her, but he cannot. He cannot fight this fight for her.