Previously...
Shepard meets up with Miranda and agrees to help her rescue Oriana from her father on Horizon. Shepard chooses to activate Retribution on the Reaperized refugees with disastrous results.
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'Wake up, Thane!' Urgent shouts in my ear. Bright lights causing pain in my eyes. Trying to move. Pain with every breath. Weakness when I try to move. A slender arm raising me upright, shoving my arms through a backpack. Floor tiles cold on bare feet. Where are my boots? So tired.
The hallways is filled with people yelling, running. Chaos. No way to make sense of it. An arm around my waist, supporting me, guiding me. We enter a skycar. A familiar face - Professor Solus telling me something important, but exhaustion is stronger. Mordin's words are lost.
Alarms. Falling. Sparks flying. 'Arrived faster than we expected!' Landing. No, crashing. Staggering through a village. How did we get here? Where's the skycar? 'Stay with us, Thane.'
Monstrosities attack. Blaster shoved into my hand. Familiar. Comforting. One falls. Go to the sea. Where's Mordin? Separated. Lost. A different voice. 'Follow me.'
More fighting. Endless fighting. Blessed peace at last. 'You can rest now, Thane.' Letting go of consciousness. Blissful sleep.
This time when he woke up, it was quiet, peaceful, and dark. He lay for several moments taking stock of the situation. Why were peace and quiet unexpected? Where was he? There was a feeling of forgetfulness that was very disturbing. Why was that? He had an unsettling feeling of deja vu that pointed to previous periods of wakefulness, but he couldn't recall any specific details.
Slowly the pieces started coming together in his mind. He had been on Sur'Kesh. Mordin had an experimental treatment for Keprel's. The pain had been excruciating. His hand clenched into a tight fist at the memory. Deliberately, he forced himself to relax and breathe deeply and slowly. Knives stabbed him in the chest, but the pain was much reduced from what it had been. More important was the fact that he could breathe more deeply and easily than he had been able to in years, despite the pain.
He pushed himself to a sitting position and tried again to figure out where he was. He was on a hospital bed in a dark, windowless room, and from the way his muscles ached, he had been immobile for days. Opening his eyes to their fullest, he could just make out the limned outline of a door in front of him. An IV line tangled around his arm, and he pulled it loose before he struggled to his feet. He stifled a moan as he braced himself against the bed until his legs stabilized. He was still wearing the same lightweight hospital clothing he vaguely recalled from their frantic flight, and something unfamiliar hung around his neck. Reaching up, he didn't find the silver torc he normally wore. Instead, there was a long metal necklace with two flat metal pieces attached.
He frowned as he tried to bring more details to mind, but they stubbornly remained vague and foggy. He wondered if he would ever regain his missing memories. Mordin! He did remember someone saying he had been separated. He hoped the professor had survived. What little he could recall was not encouraging.
He staggered toward the door and found the knob by touch, opening it to find a brightly lit hallway. A short distance to his left, it led to a noisy room filled with salarians rushing back and forth. He leaned against the door jam letting his eyes adjust to the light and peered down at the metal tags in his fingers. Memories flickered uncertainly before one suddenly locked in. Shepard's dog tags. What were they doing around his neck? Obviously she had visited him while he had been unconscious, and he smiled as he wrapped his fingers around the small metal rectangles. Liara had returned them to Shepard after they had fought the yahg. That led directly to another memory of the first time they made love, and he spent a few minutes luxuriating in that memory before he was interrupted by a young salarian with a mottled brown skin and his arm in a sling. "You're awake! Wondered how much longer you'd sleep."
The voice was familiar. The face was not. "I know you," Thane said slowly, almost more of a question. His voice was hoarse from disuse.
"Nerend Solus. Accompanied you on hospital evacuation," he said by way of introduction.
"Solus?"
"Mordin's nephew. Assisted him on your treatment."
Thane looked down to the crowded room again. "Is he here?"
There was the slightest slump in the salarian's posture. "Died. Stayed behind to ensure our escape."
Thane closed his eyes and offered up a prayer to Kalahira for Mordin's soul. "I am sorry."
"Me, too," Nerend replied. "He would have been pleased to see your recovery. Predicted it."
Thane drew a deep breath, relishing it even as the stabbing sensation in his chest repeated itself. He was growing used to the pain now. "It appears to have worked."
Nerend nodded quickly. "Been monitoring progress. Residual pain should continue to diminish over time. Will run full diagnostics later. You have questions?"
Thane had dozens of them. He started with the most obvious. "How long has it been and what's happening?" The last thing he remembered was the agonizing pain that consumed him body and mind, leaving no room for rational thought.
"Mordin induced medical coma as palliative for pain and to allow treatment to continue. That was over five standard weeks ago. Thirteen days ago, Reapers invaded Sur'Kesh. Reaper standard procedure to eliminate comsats and concentrate ships and ground troops in major cities. Evacuated personnel to shelters. Focusing on ground resistance."
"Standard procedure?" Just how much had he missed while he had been unconscious?
Nerend ticked homeworlds off on his fingers as he listed them. "Earth. Palaven. Thessia. Then Sur'Kesh. Same pattern each time."
Apparently, a lot. Thane was shaken. The Reapers had invaded the galaxy as Shepard had predicted. Suddenly, nothing was more important than finding out how she was. "Shepard? Where is she?"
Nerend's slim shoulders shrugged up and down. "Discovered Normandy was in orbit after Reapers appeared, but chased away by orbiting Reaper ships. Was looking for Mordin, but too late. Hasn't returned. Limited communication with Citadel. Suggest you check news feed for updates."
"I need to send her a message, tell her I'm alive," he told Nerend. She would be going out of her mind with worry for him. He knew, because he felt the same way. He knew his lover would be fighting the Reapers, looking for any way to save people and destroy her ancient enemy. He ached for missing her and wouldn't be content to rest until he was by her side once again. "No," he amended. "I need to travel to the Citadel. As quickly as possible."
Nerend shook his head slowly, for a salarian. "Travel offworld difficult. Dangerous. Have to pass blockade." Thane started to object, but Nerend's omni tool beeped. "Will return to infirmary later," he told Thane. "Will discuss more." And with that, the salarian headed back into the organized chaos down the hall.
Thane slumped against the door jam and considered his options. He quickly realized he had very few. He was stuck on Sur'Kesh until the Normandy returned or he could convince the salarians to let him accompany them on one of their courier ships. In either case, Sur'Kesh was under assault by the Reapers, and even though this place seemed secure for now, there was no promise it would remain that way. Since he was awake, he needed to regain his abilities as quickly as possible. He straightened and suppressed a grimace. That promised to be a painful proposition. He felt ancient and wasn't sure he could defend himself against an angry glare at the moment.
He drew another deep slow breath for the pure pleasure of it, delighting in the way his lungs filled even if they burned. Turning back into the hospital room, he found the light switch and closed the door for privacy. His entire body hurt, and alone in the privacy of his tiny space he sank down on the bed to catalogue his pains. The worst was his lungs. Every breath still pained him like a hundred burning knives in the chest, but it was less painful than it had been during that frantic half-remembered flight from the hospital. There were muscle aches in his legs that threatened to cramp painfully. He squeezed his fist and sighed in exasperation when his arm began to shake. He hadn't felt such pain and exhaustion since he was a child of six and newly given to the Guild. Then again, he had also never gone so long without moving and exercising his muscles. Or undergone an experimental and difficult medical procedure to reverse Keprel's Syndrome, he reminded himself.
He reached down to massage his aching thigh muscles and grimaced as he felt how much muscle mass he had lost. Even though he wanted nothing more than to lie still and sleep until the pain went away, he forced himself to start a series of gentle stretches and movements. By the time he was finished, the worst of the muscles aches had faded into a warm glow.
He turned his attention to the backpack that was thrown haphazardly into the back corner. He found his armored leathers in there. Gratefully, he skinned out of the hospital clothes and into familiar ones, although he had to spend some time adjusting the fit due to the loss of muscle mass. That done, he found his omni tool in the bottom of the bag. Flicking it on, he waited while it connected to the local net, hoping he had messages.
There were dozens of them. Most were from his beloved siha. Nearly as many were from Kolyat. There were even some in there from Milar, Garrus, Kasumi, Feron, and his brothers. For a man who had spent the last decade purposefully avoiding personal contact, the evidence of so many people who cared about him touched him deeply. He bowed his head and closed his eyes, but tears of joy slipped out anyway. This was what his siha had given him. A life that meant something to others, proof that he was both loved and missed.
Eagerly, he scrolled to the earliest one from his siha. He drank in her image from the video. Even though in his memory it had only been a few days since he had last seen her via video, his heart knew that it had been much longer. His smile was unguarded as he listened to her rant and ramble about everything from the quarians to humans to turians.
The smile disappeared when she told him about Kolyat and Hama. She knew he wouldn't want to be kept in suspense, so she got straight to the point of how his son had become entangled in Milar's schemes to the point where he'd had to call for Shepard's help. When he listened to Kolyat's messages, his son was even more terse, and he could sense there was much that Kolyat was leaving unsaid.
He reached the message she sent directly after the Reapers had appeared and started attacking Earth. There was a heaviness to her words and even her gestures. Even though she had been preparing for this moment for months, years even, it still looked as if it came as a shock. Her messages after that point were irregular, and often made references to messages that he didn't have. He recalled Nerend's harried explanation of how the Reapers were interfering with galactic comm systems and how the STG was using drones and couriers to get messages out. In her later messages, she looked older, run down and wearied.
He came to the last message from her, and his finger hovered uncertainly over the interface. He checked the date. Just a few days ago. Briefly he allowed himself to hope that she would tell him she was coming back to Sur'Kesh. He longed to be at her side with an intensity that was painful. Lips pressed together, he pressed play.
Her appearance struck him like a bullet to the heart. Her eyes were sunken and red-rimmed. He knew immediately that she had been crying. Her nose was red, and her hair was pulled into a messy ponytail with scraggly pieces hanging down by her face. "Thane..." She stopped abruptly and bit her trembling lower lip, then the words came tumbling out like water from a burst dam.
"I miss you so much! I know I said I was sorry for being too late, but I can never say it enough. I need you, Thane. It's so hard..." A sob escaped and she stuffed a clenched fist to her mouth to stifle it. "There's been so much death...and I...I...was wrong and..." She fought a war to keep the sobs inside. He knew, even in private, she hated to break down.
How his arms ached to hold her, to whisper comfort into her ear, to promise that he would be there for her, that she would always have him to rely on, and yet all he could do was watch as the painful video unfolded. Abruptly she shook her head and reached out to kill the video.
It flickered back on, and quite obviously some time had passed. She was calmer now and held a glass filled with ice and amber liquid. "I almost deleted this, but then I figured what the hell. EDI estimates only twenty percent of comm traffic is getting through to Sur'Kesh, so you probably won't even get this." She spoke in a monotone voice, gaze staring into the distance just above the camera. "So anyway...yeah. Maybe you heard that I came to Sur'Kesh a few days ago, but the Reapers beat us there. I found Mordin." She stopped and took a drink, still staring sightlessly into the distance. "Professor's gone. No more show tunes in the lab. To Mordin," she said as she held her glass up then took a drink. "I tried to find you, but we ran out of time. I told Kolyat not to worry, but I lied, Thane. I'm out of my mind with worry.
"Not like I don't have enough to worry about anyway," she continued. "We're losing a million people a day on Earth, either through fighting or harvesting. So many die fighting each day that we don't even have funeral services anymore. Just a moment of silence at dinner each night. Anderson sent me some footage to show what they're up against. Husks were herding people into a harvesting ship. Little boy, about six or so, must of got scared. He ran. Husk grabbed him, slammed him down on the ground. His head..." She scrubbed her hand across her eyes as her sentences got choppier and it got harder for her to talk. "His dad chased after, but it was too late. Husks grabbed him and tore him apart. Literally. He was still reaching for his son when they ripped his guts out." She ended with a choked sob and drained her glass. She filled it again and drank half of it before she could continue. "Rest of the line broke and ran. Don't blame 'em. It was a slaughter. Then the husks tossed the bodies into the ship. Just more genetic material, right?
"Palaven is burning. The Reapers focus extra attention on the cities that fight back, and on Palaven, every city is fighting. I was on Menae, and Palaven hung in the sky overhead wreathed in fire. It was stunning." She gestured helplessly. "How do you fight an enemy that scorches planets?"
She emptied her glass and filled it again. He could see that she was already drunk with no intention of stopping anytime soon, and it reminded him painfully of Alchera when she drank to forget the pain. "Nightmares are back," she stated abruptly. "Expected them. I deserve them. Got so bad I took one of Chakwas' sleeping pills. Bad idea. Still had the nightmares, only this time I knew I was dreaming, but I couldn't wake up. Lasted for hours. Worst night of my life. So I'm back to the tried and true method," she said as she lifted her glass to the camera.
She leaned back against the couch and closed her eyes. "Can I tell you something?" she asked before she laughed humorlessly. "Not like you can object, right? I made a mistake on Horizon. Big mistake. Huge," she emphasized drunkenly, spreading her arms wide. "Thought I knew best, had all the answers. Everything would turn out alright, just like before. Just like on the Collector's Base. Suicide mission, but we got everyone out safe. Yay, me. Thought I could do it again, save everyone. Instead, I killed them all. More refugees, just trying to survive. Thought they were going someplace safe, but it was a Cerberus lie. I had a choice. Shoot a few hundred, or disrupt the network. Tried to save them, but it didn't work. So sure of myself..." She trailed off, and Thane thought she might be falling asleep.
He was miserable and angry on her behalf, mostly because he knew that she would have no one to share this burden with. Garrus would help as much as he could, but who would soothe her nightmares away? He wanted to be at her side to ease her heartbreak, to at least be someone to commiserate with over the hard choices, to remind her that she couldn't save everyone, that sometimes, no matter how hard you try, people die, and there's nothing you can do to stop it.
"Everyone's looking to me for guidance. They promoted me to Admiral and put me on the War Council. Fucking hilarious, isn't it? They wouldn't listen to me for years. Now that the Reapers are here and people are dying, they're begging me to tell them what to do. And when something goes wrong, they blame me for it." She sighed heavily and scrubbed her hand through her hair, causing it to stick out in all directions.
"Where are you, Thane? Did Mordin get you somewhere safe, like he promised? Did you ever wake up? Or are you one of the Reapers' minions now, like so many millions of others?" She sighed again and leaned back in her chair. "Do you think if I delete this message, it'll get to you? Dead messages for dead lovers? Or if I just keep the recording running, you could keep me company while I drink myself to sleep. Bet that would be pretty boring, though. I wish you would come home, Thane. I don't think I can do this alone much longer." She paused to drain her glass again and refill it.
"EDI did a prediction. At the current rate of harvesting, humanity will be extinct in twenty seven years. Sounds like a long time, doesn't it? Except that if we don't figure out a way to win this war in the next three years, our military and resources will be exhausted, and there will be no more fighting back. So there you go. If Retribution doesn't work, I have three years of ever dwindling resources to defeat an enemy that's been scouring the galaxy for millions of years. Doesn't exactly seem like a fair fight, does it?
"I need you, Thane. It's too much for me. I can't care anymore. Caring is too painful. I can feel little bits of myself just withering up and blowing away. How can I care about a company, or even a platoon when a million civilians die every day?"
She brought her attention back to the screen. "Please, Thane. Don't be dead. I need you to be alive. Come home soon. Before there's nothing of me left."
She reached out to end the recording, leaving Thane sitting on the floor with tears of his own spilling down his cheeks and holding on to her dog tags that she had left with him. He had known it would be hard, but like most, he had never considered the full impact of a Reaper invasion. And he had only her descriptions to go by. How much worse must it be for her to have seen it and made the decisions that cost so many lives? He saw the desperation in her eyes, the way she gripped her glass as she tried so hard to forget what she'd seen and done. He wondered what else she hadn't told him. What actions had she been forced to take that others blamed her for?
Home. She wanted him to come home, to her. He wanted to be by her side so badly. Prior to Shepard recruiting him, he hadn't had a home in ten years, only a series of safe houses between contracts. Now, home was the Normandy where Joker told prurient jokes, Rupert served mostly edible meals, and EDI saw everything but was circumspect about it. His angel needed him, and he was half a galaxy away. Sleep was an impossibility now, in spite of his exhaustion. He stood up and pulled on his jacket and went in search of Nerend. There had to be a way off this planet and back to his siha's side, and by all the gods of Rakahna, Earth, Thessia and every other planet in the galaxy, he was going to find it!
Thanks to Orchidellia, my beta reader, for all her great comments and suggestions.
