Shepard grabbed her from Jacob's grasp and sent him off, and then she hauled her in after Zaeed, muscles burning. Mordin and Miranda were there giving covering fire. She could feel the pressure of the kinetic barriers beginning to reach its peak as round after round was vainly diverted away from her armored self and away from the smaller, fragile girl she was shielding with her own body. "Joker!" she yelled.
The pilot, still squeezing the trigger, sacrificed his hold on the weapon to slam his hand against a solid panel. The airlock closed, separating the seven of them from the horrible, horrible place below. Their ears popped, the pressure changing, and then the inside door opened.
"Yeah yeah, we get it, EDI," Joker snarled, leaving them. "Everybody hang on!"
Shepard never heard EDI's response. She was now the only thing holding Abby upright. She allowed her to slide to the floor, holding her hand against her chest to stop the bleeding. Behind her, she felt Mordin finally collapse, succumbing to his wounds. "God damn it, we need a medic!" Miranda shouted. "EDI, get Chakwas!"
"Why are you here?" Shepard snapped.
"We were cut off by a team of scions," she explained. "We just made the jump. Everybody else was able to enter through the cargo hold three to four minutes ago."
Shepard had no more medi-gel to spare, having used the entirety of her personal stock on her leg to staunch the bleeding. She could only resort to using her free hand to hold Abby's head up. A feeling of helplessness like no other took ahead of her. Despite everything, despite everything, she could do nothing but sit and prolong the inevitable. Abby's light blue eyes were rolling blindly in her head.
"I need you to breathe for me, sweetie," Shepard said, her voice cracking. Abby's eyes seemed to focus for a split second. "Breathe!"
Abby's sharp intake of air was anything but hopeful. It gurgled in her chest like a stuck drain, causing her body to shudder horribly. Her left lung was collapsing. A trickle of blood was pooling from one side of her mouth, leaving a crimson mark on her cheek.
The bomb detonated, and the Normandy rode the shockwave out past the debris field. She felt them hit the relay, and then, silence. If only it'd been that easy to begin with. She glanced back at Miranda and an unconscious Mordin - the former's hands were stained yellow with his blood. Jacob and Zaeed were kneeling down in the hallway, and the former had his omni-tool out, scanning their vitals.
Boots thundered on to the deck. Ken Donnelly and Gabriella Daniels looked pale and shaky, but determined. Both carried a large red bag. "The Doc's prepping the surgical theater," Gabby said breathlessly, dropping to one knee in front of her. She began to open her bag, removing a collapsible gurney.
"Shit," Ken cursed, looking at them both. He opened his respective bag.
Together, they were able to put Abby and Mordin on there without jostling them too much. Shepard kept her fingers pressed firmly against her wound the entire time. "Look at me," she said, running alongside the gurney as Gabby pushed it towards the elevators. Abby's eyes focused on hers, but she seemed to be a long way from hearing. Her hair was stringy with sweat, blood, and dirt; her face still bore the same, grate-shaped scar from Zorya, but it looked fainter now. But what really struck Shepard was how young she was, young beyond belief. All except for her eyes: those stared at her with a calm she would've never expected.
Her lips twitched as they got into the elevator. "Are you trying to say something, Abby?" Shepard asked her, leaning close. "Tell me."
The words were barely there, and she had to lean in close to hear. "H... K... HK... D-d..."
HK. Shepard could read her wants and needs as good as a mother, now. And she knew the answer she had to give would be different than the one she should give. As soon as HK was killed, EDI had messaged her on her private link to tell her. She didn't have the heart to tell Abby just yet. "He's on his way, sweetie," Shepard said calmingly. Miranda never looked up. A strange hand seemed to be grabbing the inside of her throat, squeezing it. A hot pressure was building up behind her eyes. She wiped the blood off of Abby's cheek with her glove. "He wants to see you. He's so happy you saved him."
Abby's mouth twitched a wry smile that was not young at all. "Liar," she whispered, her eyes fluttering shut.
Shepard stroked her head urgently with her free hand. "Hey, don't close your eyes. You need to stay with us, Abby."
Her eyes flickered in a bemused sort of way. "She's not going to make it," Ken whispered in a hollow sort of voice. "Shit."
"Don't say that," Jacob said.
Shepard risked a glance over at Mordin - he looked no better. Miranda had put medi-gel on the worst on the wounds, but there was going to be internal damage. Blood had crusted underneath one bulbous eye.
Abby sighed. "Shepard..." she whispered.
"Save it for later, we're almost there," she said. The elevator stopped on Three and they wasted no time in wheeling the two out. There, they could see the ground team – most of them looked busy treating the other members of the crew for minor injuries, regardless of their own. Shepard looked over at them just once and saw a body covered by a blanket apart from the group, and knew who it was immediately. What little talk had been going on quieted immediately, and their collective group focused on them. Kelly's lower lip wobbled, and she pressed herself into Garrus.
Chakwas took it from there. Despite her own shock and terror, she jumped straight into it, shooing everyone but Shepard and Gabby out. Gabby had, at one time in her life, been a Physician's Assistant. Chakwas controlled Mordin's bleeding with a clamp and began to take X-rays, but she was more worried about Abby. "Lung's collapsed," she said. She inserted a syringe into the girl's chest, but she still didn't look happy. Abby's blood pressure was dropping rapidly.
Chakwas drew Abby's shirt up to see the wound itself. It was nasty. "Close-range shot," Shepard said. "Assault rifle too close for the shields."
The wound itself was a hole to the left of her sternum. She could see flecks of white bone beneath. When she breathed, only the right side of her chest rose.
She tried – she really did, but eventually Doctor Chakwas shook her head. "I'm sorry, Commander." She looked close to tears. "But Mordin could use my help now much more than her."
Shepard knew what she was asking. She needed to focus on the ones she could actually save before wasting her time with a hopeless case. Shepard nodded grimly, mechanically. But just because Chakwas was done with her didn't mean she had to give up. Shepard began to administer a painkiller through an IV drip and gave the girl a transparent oxygen mask. Medi-gel wouldn't work, not for internal injuries like this.
All this time, Abby watched them. She could probably hear them, too.
Shepard started looking around for something—anything–she could use.
"It's okay," Abby whispered. "It's okay."
Those two simple words stopped Shepard in her tracks. She was already shaking her head. "No, it's not," she said. "We're going to make you all better. We need you. Here, with us."
"HK and Sarah," Abby mumbled. "They loved this place. They loved you."
Shepard swallowed. "I'm so sorry," she said. "I could have done better."
"No," Abby said with a gentle smile. Her hand reached up and laid itself on top of Shepard's. "Never your fault. Ours. We aren't soldiers."
"You saved my life."
"You saved mine..."
Chakwas and Gabby both faded into the background. Even the people outside, the people she knew were watching, seemed nonexistent. "I can't lose you three," Shepard said. "You always brought a new adventure." She smiled for Abby's benefit, but she was closer to tears. "I'll miss you."
"Don't be sad," Abby said, that bright spark once again apparent in her eye. "We will always be with you."
Shepard chuckled. "You need to tell me where you come from," she said. She had to have a family somewhere that would want her body, and from there she'd dispatch Miranda to find out more. "I want to know."
Abby eyes fluttered and her breath hitched. "It doesn't matter," she said. "Something brought us together. I'm glad it chose us." She smiled a little. "Guess what."
"Hmm?"
"Headache's gone." Her giggle looked like it hurt. "Stay with me?"
Shepard's lip wobbled, and she had to force a smile to stop an instinctive sob. "Of course," she said, feigning a bright tone as she rolled Abby's shirt down over the wound. She sat down next to her bed, holding her hand, and began to talk. Nothing of consequence, really. She talked a lot of the dress-up party they had in her quarters before crashing Hock's party. She told her that she secretly liked the outfit.
She didn't get far. Abby's hand grew steadily colder in her hand, and, eventually, she stopped breathing.
There was no beeping, no signal that Abby had come to the last legs of her life. She hadn't been hooked up that certain sensor. She just stopped, ceasing to live as gracefully as if she'd fallen asleep. Shepard bowed her head, pressing her freezing, blood-soaked hand into her cheek. She kissed it once, and then stood, looking down at her face.
She didn't look like she'd died peacefully. She looked like she'd gone through hell - those scars, that blood. Her eyes were still looking up at the ceiling, glassy blue and misted over. She'd followed Shepard's last order to the end.
Shepard closed them for her and took out the IV drip – she wouldn't need it anymore. She took off the oxygen mask and set it to the side, and then she grabbed a thick, heavy blanket from another bed to drape over her body for decency's sake.
She was in the same bed as Sarah had been, Shepard realized.
Shepard stayed long enough to make sure Mordin would survive, and then she left to join the crew outside. They quieted anxiously at her approach. Joker was with them. Garrus and Miranda were taking medi-gel off of Kasumi's thigh for a better look. Thane was sewing up a nasty gash on Grunt's face. They both stopped.
She didn't have to say anything. They'd seen it all, and more knowledge could be taken from the twin tracks of tears on her face. Jacob slumped against a wall, head in his hands; Miranda bowed her head, her shoulders shaking; Zaeed pushed past Shepard and walked into the Medical Bay; Garrus sighed and shook his head; Jack looked away resolutely; Grunt growled deep in his throat; Tali went to comfort Jacob in an unprecedented display of care; Thane clasped his hands and prayed as Samara walked over to the observation window; Kasumi began to cry in earnest now, burying her head in her hands; and Joker took his cap off, his jaw twitching with emotion. The rest of the crew exchanged darkly significant looks.
"We've lost them all now, then," Joker said flatly. "What about Mordin?"
"Still alive," Shepard said. "And he'll probably stay that way."
"You realize what's going to happen now, right?" Joker asked. "Without them, we're finished. Harbinger's still alive and there are more Reapers on their way. And they don't exactly like us."
"We're not finished," Tali snapped. "Look, we know what we have to do. It'll just be harder. But we'll make those bosh'tet Reapers pay."
Shepard wiped her eyes and shrugged. "I'm not going to give up. I'm going to kill Harbinger."
"I believe you," Thane said quietly.
"Too right we will," Ken said angrily.
"It was a victory," Miranda said, looking up. There were no traces of tears on her face. "We've taken care of the Collectors. We've saved hundreds of thousands of human lives today."
And I can be blamed with the final extinction of the Prothean race, Shepard thought grimly.
"Move the bodies to Deck Five when you have a chance," Shepard said heavily. "We'll have a proper service for them." That signaled the end of the conversation, and the others got back to work, but they seemed less energized than before. Shepard knew how they felt – she felt as if she'd run an entire marathon only to find out she was back at the starting line.
"She isn't gone, Commander," Samara's soft, sad voice said from behind her.
Shepard turned around to look at the asari, her brow furrowed. Samara's back was to her. Through the glass, Shepard could see Chakwas and Gabby slaving over Mordin's body, masks on their face, and gloves on their hands. Zaeed was standing over Abby's body. As she watched, he took the moon rock bracelet she'd been wearing and put it on his own wrist. That gesture touched something deep within Shepard. Somehow, Abby had succeeded in bringing out the softer side of the grizzled warrior. And then Shepard realized that she had not earned his loyalty to the crew—the dead girl had.
Samara turned to regard the Commander: her eyes were black as night. "She left us something."
Shepard's heart seemed to twist in her chest, and memories of the hours leading up to the flight through the Omega Relay followed. "An asari mind meld," she guessed. "She bonded with you. You know everything."
"Yes," Samara mused, staring into nothing. "Apparently I do."
