Toombs stared at her, attempting to process what she just said. It wasn't difficult to imagine that she was not alright, she usually wasn't, but he couldn't figure out why. While his mind attempted to sort that out, Lauren took a seat in a nearby chair at the side of his bed.
"Why aren't you alright? I'm the one in the hospital bed," Toombs pointed out.
Lauren leaned back in her chair and crossed her legs, folding her hands in her lap. She glanced at the door before looking at Toombs. "That's the point, you're in a hospital."
"You're...afraid of hospitals?" Toombs looked confused. He'd never known Lauren to be afraid of anything before. But...she wasn't the fearless Alliance Commander that he'd come to know before their fatal deployment on Akuze. In fact, she didn't look anything like her old self at all.
"I never got along with the nurses and doctors when I was in the hospital after Akuze." Lauren explained.
"What did you do?"
Lauren frowned. "Why do you assume its something I did?"
"Because your commanding officer would always say the same thing," Toombs reminded her.
"Yeah, Connors did." Lauren remembered the bright and older officer well.
"So what did you do?"
Lauren looked at Toombs and shook her head. "We had different views on how I wanted to be treated. They wanted to give me cybernetic organs, I wanted organic replacements. They wanted me to move on...I wanted to remember."
"Remember what? Akuze? You couldn't have forgotten..." Toombs trailed off when he say Lauren's face.
She was looking at him with a straight, serious face. She wasn't kidding. "The doctors told me that when your mind forgets something traumatic, it's to protect it from further harm. I didn't believe them."
"You don't remember anything from Akuze? How do you just forget something like that?"
"Well, I remember it now. Took some prodding and time, but it's there now. It's there." Lauren rubbed the side of her head. Her face went a little dark, like she was conflicted.
"Whats wrong?" Toombs asked.
"Can I ask you a serious question Nathaniel?" Her voice sounded distant.
He nodded.
"What happened to you?" She looked up at him. "What do you remember?"
He looked at her and then at the ceiling of his hospital room. "I remember when we hit the dirt and searched the colony. After all of that...it gets a bit patchy."
"Glad to know I'm not the only one with the rough patches - what else?" She leaned forward, her arms resting on her knees.
He looked at her, his eyes blank. "Then the ground shook. And they came for us."
"What happened to you after...the maws came? How did you get away?" Lauren twisted her hands in her lap.
He settled into his bed and looked at his hands. "I...don't really know. It happened so fast that I wasn't sure it was actually happening. I ran as fast as I could and eventually saw vehicle lights. I thought it was help..."
"But it was Cerberus." Lauren said quietly.
"Yeah," Toombs moved his fingers. "They knocked me out, when I came to I was somewhere else. A medical station, on some other planet. They were so...pleased that they had a survivor. They mentioned you," He looked up at Lauren. "Said that they couldn't get anywhere near you, but they said they were lucky to have me alive."
"What else?"
"They...did things. Tests of all kinds with," He looked up at her suddenly. "Do you remember the acid?"
Lauren picked up her left arm and flexed her fingers. "How can I forget it? It took my arm."
"Your whole arm?" he asked. "The whole thing?"
Lauren laughed bitterly. "The bones are cybernetic, theres organic tissue all around that. It's nasty to think about, but it took them five months to rebuild it."
"Damn."
"Why bring up the acid?" Lauren asked, dropping her hand in her lap.
"They did things with it." He explained. "Injected me with it, burned me with it."
Lauren's stomach twisted and churned. She brought a hand over her face. She couldn't imagine how anyone would do that - to anyone. Human or not, that was disgusting and horrible.
Toombs went silent and watched her face contort underneath her hand. Shepard and Deacon had managed to keep their faces straight, but here she was. Another survivor - the only other survivor - with her face twisted into a grimace as she attempted to calm her stomach. She knew the pain of the acid, he knew that now, but he had no idea that she knew exactly what it felt like to have not only on her flesh...But in it. Shepard and Deacon knew nothing of it. But she did, this woman he admired a long time ago, a woman that everyone said was stronger than steel. Here she was, trying to keep herself from crying and vomiting at the same time.
She seemed to snap out of it and looked at him, her eyes shining with unshed tears. "That's horrible, Nathaniel. I'm sorry."
"You didn't do it to me, you have no reason to be sorry," Toombs said quietly. "But the fact that you know the pain is more than enough. The nurses and doctors here, they know nothing about it."
"None of them ever will," Lauren took a deep breath. "We're the only two, Toombs. The only pair."
It was a reference to the time before Akuze happened, he knew that. But he ignored it and refused to comment, and instead let himself relive a few memories of the people who he'd served with. Lauren must have been doing the same, because she went silent too. But not for long.
"It's horrible to say, let alone think of, but we're alone. The others are dead." She said quietly. She said it as if she didn't believe or know what she was saying - like she was just letting the words fall out of her mouth. "But is that all we are? Alone? The doctors used to say that I wasn't alone, but I was certain that I was. I was so certain that everyone else was dead, and yet here you are. Sitting in front of me and reminding me of it."
They were silent again for a minute before Toombs spoke quietly. "We are alone in our suffering, but not when it comes to our lives. We're never alone." It was a line from a book. A book he must have read somewhere before, but he couldn't place it.
"On Grief; Our most easily forgotten stories." Lauren said mechanically and looked up at him. "They made you read that, didn't they?"
Toombs shrugged. "I don't know - fuck I read it somewhere. It just seemed appropriate."
They smiled somewhat humorously at each other. They were back to their old selves for a minute, laughing silently to themselves. Toombs looked at her and felt a question itch at his brain.
"If you don't mind me asking," He said quietly. "Why did you leave? The Alliance, I mean. You used to be so focused on your job."
Lauren blinked at him and frowned, biting her lip. "I don't...really know. I think it was me just being rebellious, but I think it was because I couldn't stand being that person everyone stared at on duty. The one they all pitied and treated like a fragile piece of glass."
"I wouldn't mind being that person," Toombs admitted truthfully. "At least I would still be working in the Alliance. It wasn't their fault what happened, they're still right in their own way."
Lauren had to admit it, Toombs was smarter than she remembered. "I'm still working."
"For who?" Toombs asked.
"Aria T'Loak." Lauren said quietly. "As a mercenary."
"Why?" Toombs asked.
The simple question threw Lauren off a bit. "What?"
"Why go be a mercenary when you could have just gone back?" Toombs asked, looking at her with a confused expression.
"It's not that simple."
"It's as simple as signing your name on a piece of paper." Toombs raised an eyebrow. "Obviously I can't go back, but you seem normal compared to me. More intact. Hell, almost stronger. Why not just go back?"
She didn't know how to answer. Why not just go back? Why not just go back to the way everything was now that she remembered it?
"Are you running from something?" Toombs asked quietly.
Lauren snapped her eyes up to look at him. "What?"
"I asked if you're running from something." Toombs tilted his head. "Or is it someone?"
"I'm not running." Lauren said defensively.
"Then why can't you answer me? Why not just go back to the Alliance."
"Because I can't," Lauren said angrily. "You think they'd just let me back after everything that happened?"
"Are you talking about Akuze or did something else happen to you?" Toombs wasn't trying to be prying. He just honestly wanted to know.
"You really want to know?" Lauren asked him.
"Yes," He nodded. "What happened?"
Lauren stood up and walked to the end of his bed. "Where do I start? My mother died, my father wanted back in my life, people began to ask me for information about things I couldn't remember, Shepard and I fought-"
"Woah," Toombs stopped her. "You fought Shepard? Aren't the two of you friends?"
"No," Lauren said angrily. Her temper flared and she could feel the hairs on her right arm stand on end. "We aren't friends anymore."
"What happened?" Toombs asked calmly. He knew the rage the biotic possessed. He'd seen it only once before a long time ago, but it had been destructive.
Lauren took a deep breath but continued to stand. "She wanted to take me back to the hospital after I checked myself out."
"Where were you going to go?" Toombs asked, knowing that couldn't have been enough to break up the duo.
"I wanted to go to Akuze, to see it. I hoped it would help me remember it." Lauren sounded different. Quieter than she was when she was talking before.
"That sounds like a stupid idea, even for you." Toombs said calmly.
Lauren turned and looked at him, disbelief on her face. "A stupid idea?"
"It's even stupider to know that you and Shepard fought over it. And that the two of you aren't friends anymore because of it," Toombs answered with a shrug. "But whatever, the two of you were close."
"It wasn't wrong of me to think that though," Lauren turned defensive again. "The doctors weren't helping-"
"They never help." Toombs raised an eyebrow at her. "You knew that long before Akuze happened."
Lauren opened her mouth to speak but no words came out. Nathaniel was right. He was utterly right. It was a stupid idea to fight over and it was completely unjustified. She hated Shepard for doing what Shepard thought was her responsibility – both as a soldier and as her friend. The two of them screamed out their hatred for each other, hated each others guts and wanted each other dead for no reason.
"Whatever happened to the plan of 'we all go together'?" Toombs asked, reminding her of the story she'd told him that day before Akuze. "Didn't you all swear that you wouldn't let each other die?"
Lauren nodded numbly. Her brain was whirling. Did I make all these decisions myself…about Thessia…Omega…and Aria myself? Or did I make them as something to prove to someone else? Her stomach knotted up again.
"I…can't believe it." Lauren said quietly. "In less than three minutes you've just destroyed everything I believe in."
"Nothing is wrong with re-evaluation," Toombs reminded her. "I don't remember how many times you said that when we served together. But everything is wrong when you do something out of spite. Re-evaluating makes you stronger, remember?"
Lauren looked at him, her blue eyes now filled with the familiar flame he remembered. Hackett was back and in the right part of her brain. Whether he'd done it or not, he wouldn't forget how she looked at that moment until the day he died. Fiery sapphire eyes that burned with some sort of secret passion – some sort of secret flame that no other mortal being in the universe could ever possess or put out. Something as unique as a precious stone.
I left that place with a clarity that I had never known before. My mind wasn't dark and full of horrible things that haunted me. That wasn't what all the nightmares were about to me anymore. It was of a time where everything made sense – where every action had a reason behind it. I was so determined, Liselle. I had to apologize to Shepard for the fight. I regretted it. I regretted everything for a moment.
I wasn't going to apologize through Deacon, she'd never believe it. I was on my way to the presidium when I heard the beginning of what would be the longest fight in my memory to this day. It was the screams of ships getting close overhead, ships that I could tell from the sound were not here for the scenery.
It was the geth.
Forecast: Author is going to bed. Thanks to goldenpath for helping me with this monster.
Next forecast: Lauren is gonna kick some serious geth ass. Guest appearances by both Anderson and a motly crew of C-Sec officers.
