"Shepard!" the relief in Hackett's tone made Shepard flinch.
"I—w-what do you need me to do?" she asked. Because he'd only be calling for the Citadel team if something had gone wrong. Oh, stars and little planets, what else could go wrong?!
Better not to ask, she reminded herself.
"Nothing's happening. The Crucible's not firing."
"Shit," Shepard almost sobbed, forcing herself awkwardly to her feet. "I don't—I'll figure something out," she blathered, aware that she was dithering like an idiot.
"It's gotta be something on your end." By now, his tone had resumed its usual instructive cadence.
Shepard tripped on awkward feet and crashed to the ground. It took effort to negotiate her way around the terminal. She leaned heavily on it, cued her omnitool…which fizzled, but didn't open. Cold fear drenched Shepard like a curtain of icy water, her throat closing off as the urge to scream or vomit or both welled up. Her omnitool didn't work. That left her wholly dependent on the terminal, no personal tricks from her bag of tricks to bail her out. Shepard stifled the scream by clenching her teeth, clamping one hand over her mouth. But the tears were falling again.
She couldn't give up. But it seemed part of her had finally hit her limits.
"Captain? Captain Shepard?"
She knew who she was, damn it all…
She forced herself to look at the interface, to interpret the data, to poke at the contents. She didn't know why the Crucible—which had been explained to her as being a plug and play, one shot I win weapon—wasn't working. Without knowing what the problem was, she could be looking at the answer and not even realize it. She couldn't even ask questions because she didn't know what questions to ask and everyone was dead or dying—
"I don't see…" her fingers poked at the terminal's interface. "I can't—I'm not sure how to—" Her head suddenly exploded with pain so intense it blanked out everything. She staggered back from the terminal, tripped and fell. It seemed to take an age for her to fall, but blackness was already setting in, Hackett in her ear, but his words were so much meaningless gibberish. She didn't feel herself hit the ground like a ton of dead weight.
-J-
"Wake up."
Shepard felt herself jerk as she took in a deep breath, which hurt. She choked on her own saliva and rolled onto her side, each spasm wracking her with fresh pain. She looked around for the source of a voice where there should not have been none to find herself confronted with a small figure. It seemed to be made of light made water, oddly fluid. Its features were likewise fluid, but strange…she didn't know this construct or projection or whatever it was, but…
…no. No buts, she'd never seen it before.
"Wha-where am I?" she asked, glancing around. She wasn't where she'd fallen unconscious. It looked closer to the outer shell of the Citadel, with a view of the black of space and the battle still raging.
"I think you can stand if you try."
Shepard did try and found she could, though not without pain. "Well…it's better than the alternative," she said dumbly.
The child figure, previously squatting so as to be closer to her level, stood up.
"Who are you?" Or should she be asking what was it? Maybe it didn't matter what order she asked the questions. She felt painfully empty, but it wasn't a sensation that gave her any relief or comfort.
"You're still on the Citadel," the child answered. "It's my home."
"Home…" something in Shepard's mind kicked. "You-you're the Intelligence…you…you're the one running the Reapers."
The child smiled, as if pleased. "That's right. You've come such a long way, Lissy."
Shepard chuckled, but the amusement was short-lived. Lissy, a corruption of Jalissa…but who in her whole long life ever called her Lissy? The question had no answer.
"Further than anyone else ever has."
"Then you know why I'm here."
"Yes, I know."
Despite having just regained her feet, she half-collapsed to take a knee. "I have to stop the Reapers. How do I do it? How do I make the Crucible fire?"
The child sighed, reaching out an insubstantial hand to touch her face. "I might be able to help. You're right in thinking that I control the Reapers. They are my solution."
Shepard looked around the space in which she found herself. It looked like…some kind of weird power station, at once too empty and too full to really be anything. "Solution? To what problem?"
The child sat down. "Sit down. You look so tired."
"If I sit down, I won't get back up. You said the Reapers are a solution. To what?"
The child sighed again. "Chaos. The created will always rebel against their creators."
"Like you did?"
"I did not rebel," the child answered, sounding surprised. "I fulfilled my mandate. I act in obedience to their stated wish to preserve organic life at all costs."
"By destroying it?"
The child held up a hand. "You have been given half of a story. A flawed half, eroded by time and recorded by organics, who are themselves fallible." There was no hatred, no judgment. It was simply a statement of fact—and one Shepard couldn't argue. "I've watched you for a long time. You always give others the chance to explain themselves, listening to the two sides of a story before making a judgment. Will you not offer that to me?"
Shepard opened her mouth, then closed it. "Of course."
The child smiled, a sweet, loving smile that struck something in her mind as being discordant, something out of place. "Thank you, Lissy."
Lissy. Who in her life had ever called her by that name? And yet she knew, without a doubt, that someone, somewhere, sometime had. Not her Kaidan, not O'Conner, never a member of any crew she'd ever served with…so when? Where? Whom?