Ruby was having trouble forming words as she watched her mother stir in her bed. Her tears wouldn't let up as they poured down her cheeks. She had so much to say. Questions like where and why we're the most important. Where did you go? What happened? Why didn't you come back?
The little red reaper wanted to know everything.
She gripped her mother's hand, feeling the warmth that came with it. When she turned her head to look at it, she had to blink for a moment as the Ruby noticed something that she didn't before. Her mother's hand were covered in scars that went up to her arm that disappeared under the patient gown.
Ruby felt her mind halt as she took another look at her mother's face, and felt fresh tears threating to come out of the eyes. A moment before she saw her mother, just like she remembered her. Strong and confident that she can take on the world.
Now the girl looked at battle scared women, ridden with reminders showing many conflicts of war.
Ruby gripped her mother's hand tighter. Raw emotions of anger and sadness built up in her.
What did you go through to keep your promise to come home, mom? Was the next thought, Ruby had for her mom.
Her thoughts were brought out when she saw her mother shifted in her sleep, eye's squinting shut and mouth twitching.
Mom?" Ruby whisper. "Mom wake up. . . Wake up, mom." Ruby said a little louder as her mother continued to shift in her sleep.
"Wake up," Ruby repeated not noticing her sister had gotten up and left. "Come back, mom. It's time to come home," she pleaded. All the while, the women shifted harder in her sleep.
Summer Shepard blinked as she felt her mind roam the familiar black forests of the nightmare. One that she's revisited many times before during the war with the Reapers.
Black trees stretched away from her in every direction. The ground mattered in different shades of gray. Particles of ash floated lazily in the air. Shadows of people darted around her eyes as they disappeared when she looked in their directions. The random park bench and light post that she will pass every time to find the little boy that she watched die when she abandoned Earth.
Looking down at herself, she wore her custom set of N7 armor that she collected throughout the Reaper campaign.
It was quiet. The air still, no whispers of dead friends haunted the air, only her breathing breaking the silence.
Something was different, though and in came to instantly. Each time she had this dream, the boy she saw on Earth, the one the Catalyst mimicked from her mind that spoke to her before she made her choice.
Destroying the Reapers once and for all.
Now that she did, why was she here?
…He. Ha…
The laughter of a little girl answered.
Spinning around from her spot, Summer was greeted with a new view.
No longer was the ground mattered in gray with burnt grass but in a blanket of white snow. The tall black forest trees were replaced with shorter wide branch trees. Ash had been replaced with snowflakes. The shadows of people and park benches also disappeared.
The sound of cloth flapping in the wind drew her attention. Looking back, the women saw that she was no longer wearing the custom N7 armor. Instead, she had on a white hood & cloak that stretched down to her knees. A black long sleeve top that went down to a skirt. A belt around her waist contained several ammo pouches. While also having a pair of long black pants with combat boots on her feet.
Summer had to blink a few times at that. This was new. But at the same time, felt strongly familiar like putting on an old uniform that you haven't worn in so long. Then it hit her; it was what she was wearing back when she was defending against the pirates on Elysium. Thou it was a bit more intact than before, shed had them up till the first Normandy got destroyed and were never recovered. But the cloak was new, she didn't have that before.
…Ha. Ha…
The sound of laughter reached her ears once more. She turns to look at the who was laughing and froze.
…Mommy your back!...
The women that faced down armies and two-kilometer size monsters felt her blood run as cold at the snow she stood on.
There, standing in the snow were two little girls, no older than four and six. One in golden yellow hair in pig tails purplish eyes and tan skin. The other with a red hood & cape on her shoulders. Hair in the deepest shade of red and skin as pale ash. With eyes silver like her own.
…Come catch me, mommy!...
The little girl in yellow said before she and the other girl with her disappear in a blur of red and yellow, leaving behind a trail of rose petals and embers.
The Commander that united a galaxy against a common foe stood shocked still as a sea of emotions filled as she took that first step after the little girls that sprang forth so many questions that need to be answered.
The snow crunched under her feet as she moved. Following the trail, emotions of confusion, sorrow, and sadness filled her mind for reasons that she could not obtain.
She neared them, and the two had their backs turned to her before they ran through the trees. Not wanting to lose them, she tried to follow the trail they left behind.
These girls know her; they called her 'mom.' That feeling of happiest filled her to no end, and she didn't know why but felt right.
Shephard needed to know who they were. She just needed to know. With her past a mystery and sensitive subject to her, it always seemed shift her in a bad mood. Whenever it was mentioned, for no reason whatsoever she'd start becoming teary eyed. It unnerved her to no end. Hell, after Cerberus brought her back and asked Miranda about it, the enhanced women became stunned that Shephard couldn't remember her past before the Blitz. No matter what the women did seemed to work. She'd remembered Jacob looking rather amused at the genetic women's attempts.
The only things she could remember were two blurs of red and yellow with the sound of a little girl's voice, and fallen rose petals.
The only people that she ever told this where those that she trusted absolutely. Which was Anderson, Chakwas, Tali, Garrus, and Joker; no one else knew about this because she asked them not to go spreading it around.
Flashes of those colors came and went during the years that annoyed and infuriated her to no end.
It took time to follow the laughter and rose petals in the snow. Shepard saw the trees had broken to a clearing. The trail of flower petals ended at a cliff with a stone slab before the edge.
Her feet seem to move on their own towards it.
…Mom...
The whispers were now back.
…Your home…
The Commander's body felt stiff as she moved. Like she felt coming back after a mission.
…Come back…
The closer Summer got, more her body ached more. She wanted to stop and rest, but her body kept going.
…Come back to us…
Pain seeped in her stomach and arms. As if old wounds were coming back to hunt her with a vengeance.
…Please…
Now…there, Summer stood in front of the lone slab of stone. Looking down, her eyes locked onto the inscription it bore.
Summer Rose ~ Thus kindly, I scatter.
Rose The name echoed in her skull like a hammer on an anvil. The only other thing she could remember was her first name, Summer. During the attack on Elysium where she ended up, she picked the last name Shepard due to not remembering her last. She chose it due to how she protected many people from the pirates like a "Shepard" defending his flock from wolves.
The only thing that Summer seemed to remember fully was how to fight like a huntress.
Wait…huntress? Summer thought before a series of images form her life before. Of her with fighting with a yellow hair man punching big black bears. A woman in red and black armor, wielding a single blade sword that sliced through several wolf-like creatures with ease. Another man with a scythe chopping up an oversize scorpion. Team STRQ, her old team before she had the Normandy team. Taiyang, Qrow…Raven.
Her family.
Family
More images, of Taiyang and a blond-haired baby, with that baby, grew to a cute little girl with pigtails hanging from the back with a big smile on her face. Laying next to her was another baby, one with dark red hair, before too, that baby grew to look like a younger-looking version of herself. The three of them stood together in the for front of Summer's mind for a moment before the slab of her Tombstone was in front of her again.
Summer felt her legs go out under her as her silver eyes never leaving the carved inscription.
Her memories were clearing up and returning to her. The regret, the joy, sorrow, hatred, happiness that was Elite Huntress Summer Rose came forth into Staff Commander Summer Shepard. Who was she now, a Huntress or the Commander, the Rose or a Shepard?
...Yang. Ruby...
Her hands felt warm. Even as she sat in the snow and felt them rise up. Looking up, Summer eyed the two girls from earlier each holding one of her arms, with Yang latched to her left and Ruby the right.
Come on, Mom. It's time to come home. The little Ruby said.
Summer blinked at the light that was above her head. The air around her smelt clean like a hospital, with the lack of a ship's bulkhead and replaced with an old-style tile ceiling which told her she wasn't on the Normandy or any hospital on the Citadel. Was she in a hospital on Earth?
"Mom?"
That one spoken word shattered Summer's mind and made her body go stiff. She felt a presser squeeze her hand, letting know she wasn't alone. Very slowly, she looked down to who was gripping her hand.
There she saw herself lying on her back with two young women by each of her sides. The one on her left looked like a younger version of Raven with the way her hair was but with yellow gold hair instead of black. The other looked like a much younger version of herself with her silver eyes and dark red hair. The three of us locked eyes as I could see the depts of their very souls in them, as a sea of emotions swirls in them like a rampaging storm. It felt like time was stopped for the of them as Summer looked into the lactic and silver eyes.
The age may be different, but she would recognize them anywhere.
She razed her hands as best she could while ignoring the pain that came with, she cupped the tear stain cheeks of the two women. They didn't move as she felt the warmth in her hands.
"Yang…Ruby…" Summer said her voice raw but the power was clear as she spoke the names of her children out load for the first time in a decade.
"Momma," Ruby croaked out as tears ran down her eyes and onto Summer's hands. She felt the tears hit her skin.
"This can't be real…" Summer whispered allowed. "I'm dead, or this is some messed up dream that the Reapers did. I can't be here, this can't be happening…"
"Mom," Yang said, getting her attention. "Your home again."
"You…came back…just like you promised…" Ruby sobbed in between words.
Summer looked back and forth between the two as her world just narrowed to barely beyond her bed. "Yang, Ruby…Oh god, I've missed so much…look how much you've grown…my little girls...my babies. My babies!"
The two girls went in and hugged her in a tight embrace. Summer felt all the emotions that she built up throughout the Reaper war and beyond being let out.
She openly cried onto the shoulders of the two brightest stars in her life with the hope of never letting go again.
.
.
Even thought I made this I still cry at the end after going back to re-read and editing a few things.
