Title: Snow
Pairing: No pairing, just F!Shepard
Warnings: Some angst, recalling canon game deaths
Summary: Shepard visits Alchera to find closure for her death and the loss of the SR1 crew.
Word Count: 370
The surface of Alchera was still and silent. Snow crunched beneath her boots with every step. It reminded her of the winter nights she spent on the street as a kid. Now, as she did then, she found an eerie peace in the chilling calm though instead of snow-covered garbage cans and sky cars, it was the wreckage of her former life.
What remained the Normandy stood before her like a half buried fossil. Metal and girders twisted and torn like ribs and flesh exposed to the harshest elements of the unforgiving frozen wasteland. Scattered remains of the lives that once inhabited the vessel littered the field. Voices echoed in her mind among the haunting signs of life that were hers to protect.
Part of her hadn't wanted to go on the mission alone. The fear of the unknown on the surface gave her pause, but as she collected each of the twenty dog tags, she was actually glad to be on her own. It gave her the chance to come to terms with the crash...the loss. She was grateful that so many had survived and mourned those who did not.
Placing that monument in the snow felt like a shallow apology to those lives. An act of vanity. Self congratulations by the powers that be for making an effort. An empty gesture to honor the fallen. But just as the remains of the Normandy would someday be buried beneath layers of ice and snow, so too would that statue. Forgotten to time.
The Alliance certainly wasn't bothered to do anything about the wreck for the two years she was dead, so was it suddenly a priority? As she took one last look at the field, the bones that lay within it, and the broken helmet on her hand, she supposed it was more for her own sake than anyone else's. Closure. Burial. Let go of the past.
The snow crunched under her boots as she returned to the waiting shuttle. Back to duty, the mission, and moving forward. But, as she stepped into the deck, she promised the ghosts buried in the snows of Alchera that she would not let them be forgotten among the drifts.