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It was a silent elevator ride up from dinner to Shepard's quarters. Thane supposed he ought to think of them as 'their' quarters, since he shared her bed every night, but … she was still Commander Shepard, and this was her ship, not his.
He watched her now, without seeming to. Something was amiss with her. She had been up and out very early this morning, unusually so. Most mornings she liked to take her time, to wake up together and talk as they dressed.
Then she had been absent from her usual stations for much of the rest of the day, hidden away in the weapons locker going over every piece of each of her guns with an obsessive care that was more Garrus's style than hers. She cared for her guns, of course she did, but not to that extent. No, something was clearly wrong, and it was to do with him, he imagined, or she would have spoken to him about it at some point during the day.
He hoped she would speak of it when they were alone, but when the door closed behind them, shutting them in together away from the rest of the ship, she still didn't speak. She couldn't meet his eyes, either, and Thane knew he couldn't let this continue further. He waited while she fed the fish, slowly, making a good job of it, flake after flake landing individually on the water.
At last she turned, and he could see her eyeing her private terminal, coming up with more busy work to be done.
"Shepard. Siha. What is the matter?"
"Nothing. Nothing's wrong. Why do you ask?" she said, too quickly.
"Because I know you, and I know there is something bothering you. I know it's nothing I have done—last night was …" He smiled involuntarily, remembering the laughter of the previous evening, the long teasing conversation as they grew drowsy in each other's arms. "You went to sleep happy, but do not appear to have awakened that way."
"You and that drell memory."
"It was only last night, Siha. I imagine you still remember it as well."
He had hoped she would smile at that, but she only sighed. Remembering their conversation about whether she could develop drell memory, he thought perhaps it was that. And then it struck him. It wasn't the memory—it was him. Thane went to her, cupping her cheek gently. "You learned today that not even Commander Shepard can halt the progress of Kepral's Syndrome."
A tear welled in the corner of her eye, and she nodded briefly.
"Ah, Siha." He gathered her into his arms. "The entire galaxy bends to your will. Everything you attempt to do, you manage, despite great obstacles. And then you find something that you cannot change."
She nodded against his shoulder, and then pulled away, turning her face so he couldn't see it. "It's foolish, I know. You've lived with this longer than I have—"
"And still have not managed to come to terms with it," Thane pointed out. "How long did my fear of loving and of losing keep us apart? Too long," he answered, so that she didn't have to.
"Even now, I'm thinking that surely, somewhere in the galaxy, there must be a way."
"Of course you are. It is how you think, how you succeed. For you, there is always a way. But … not for me, Siha, as much as we wish for it."
Her face twisted.
"Is there more?" he asked. "Something else, beyond—"
But she was already shaking her head, cutting off his question. "No. Nothing."
"Are you cert—"
This time she stopped his words with a kiss. There was a determination, a deliberateness, about her movements that was new as she walked him backward across the room to the bed, as she relieved him of his clothes, as she lay atop him and took her time exploring and drawing his passion to its climax. Her own peak seemed to be something of an afterthought, although Thane made certain she achieved it. There were not enough times ahead of them to allow even one to go by without mutual satisfaction.
Even when they were no longer joined as one, Juniper clung to him.
"Siha," he said gently into the starlight, "tell me what you fear."
She drew in a breath at the word, then laughed softly to herself. "How that word makes me jump."
"You are Commander Shepard. You fear nothing, or so the vids tell us."
"I should know better than to believe my own press." She was silent, then, for long enough that Thane thought she wasn't going to answer the question. "I'm afraid of losing you. Not just to death—I can prepare for that—but beyond. Of losing my memories of you, forgetting the sound of your voice and the way you feel and … the way you make me feel."
"I understand." Although in truth, he did not. Perfect memory meant he would never lose those things—he could remember now the way Irikah had moaned at his first intimate touch of her, the way his stomach muscles had jumped at the sound, as though it had just occurred. "We will continue to work to sharpen your memory, Siha."
"I know, and it's helping—just to focus on the details, on each moment. It helps."
"But it is not enough."
"No. No, it isn't. I—Thane, I've always thought I was so strong, but this, the first real challenge of my life, and I can't …"
Thane chuckled softly, drawing her close. "No one but you would consider this the first real challenge of your life."
She frowned. "Yes, I see that … but it is, really. The first time since Mindoir that I'm facing a situation I can't do anything about. All this time, I pushed the reality away, saying when there was time, after we defeated the Collectors, then I would fix it, and now I can't, and I don't know what to do with that."
Thane held her, his hand gently caressing her arm and shoulder, as he thought. He had struggled with this as well, with his deep desire for a full life with her, for years stretching out ahead of them instead of weeks, and had at last yielded to his need and to hers when he could no longer fight the depth of what lay between them. He could not give her a quick or careless answer to the desperate need of her heart, her first taste of real grief since the deaths of her parents. It was clear she had pushed those feelings down deep inside her, and he knew she had struggled to do the same with her fears for his loss.
At last, he tightened his arm around her, holding her against him. "We make memories, Siha. We make them, and we record them in any way possible, for you to hold. Holos, vids, pictures, whatever we can manage." He felt awkward about it, having spent a lifetime avoiding being caught that way, hiding himself in the shadows, but it was the right thing for her now, he could feel that.
There was a faint hint of a sniffle, as if she was holding back tears, but she was nodding against his shoulder, too. "Yes. Let's try that."
"Right now?"
She freed an arm from between them to swipe hastily across her face. "Well, maybe not exactly now … but later." She clung to him. "I love you, Thane."
"I love you, too, Juniper."