Events of the chapter: Shepard has strange dreams, Shepard attends biotic therapy, Garrus & Tali visit her at the Alliance rehab facility
Author's note: I will be updating the previous chapters to remove all song lyrics (to comply with TOS), so forgive me for any unnecessary notifications.
Song: "A Better Son/Daughter" - Rilo Kiley"
CHAPTER 10: The Harrow
"But Albion fled from the Divine Vision, with the Plow of Nations enflaming
The Living Creatures madden and Albion fell into the Furrow, and
the Plow went over him & the Living was Plowed in among the Dead
But his Spectre went over the starry Plow. Albion fled beneath the Plow
Till he came to the Rock of Ages & he took his seat upon the Rock."
- Jerusalem: The Emanation of the Giant Albion, William Blake
8 months after the Reaper War
Vancouver, Earth
It's winter again. Walking by the winding stream, its margins made of cloudy ice like frosted glass. The larches only spindly trunks and twigs. The other flora fast asleep. Going further upstream, the snow begins to bluster at severe angles, unrelentless, and within a few minutes it's thick and hard to walk. The darkening sky is hasty and impatient. The stars come out—snowflakes of the firmament, suspended aloft before reaching earth. The stream leads to a clearing. It's the farm on Mindoir. The buildings are burning. A fuel cell combusts, sending flames bursting and sizzling from all sides. Wounds on stems seeping sap cauterize and then ignite. The smell of crops on fire. Rich, acrid, sweet. From the heart of the fire, a child's voice.
Wake up.
Her father's creased eyes as he delights in her earnestness, pulling weeds from the kale patch. "Good job, Circe!"
You have a choice. More than you know.
Her mother's stern face, her hazel eyes glinting, long dark braid under a brimmed hat.
The peace won't last.
Ashley, alone, clutching her side and guarding the bomb on Virmire, keeping the Geth at bay.
Your time is at an end, you must decide.
EDI, passionately confessing that she would risk death to defend her humanity.
I am the Catalyst.
Legion, ensnared inside the Geth dreadnought core.
Do what you must.
The Leviathan, dreadful, dark, and looming.
Rise up–
No, bury yourself.
Be everywhere, anywhere but here.
Dig a hole.
Sow a seed.
Reach up and reach down,
straight and tall.
Gather your food for the fall.
PING...PING...PING...PING...
The nagging chirp of Shepard's omnitool stirred her from a fitful sleep. She squinted and wiped at the sweat slicked across her hairline, stray strands of hair plastered where she had run her hand. She kicked the sheets to untangle them from her legs.
PING...PING...PING...PING..
She silenced the omnitool. But her heart was still convulsing, a rhythmic thunder rolling through her chest. Turning onto her back, she gripped the edge of her bedcover and pulled it firmly to her chin. A long, deep inhale through her nostrils, until her torso was stretched at every corner. Hold. Holding. Holding. Holding. Hold. Go. A cool, steady exhale through pursed lips, emptying her lungs completely. This was how Shepard began every morning now.
The dreams came without fail. Her dreams—if split into a timeline of before and after the events of the Reaper War—took two distinct shapes. The first, geometric and ordered. They were the dreams that replayed scenes from the day, distilling them into lessons to be learned—a succinct tessellation of experiences. Even if a little surreal, Shepard knew these dreams were her mind's way of making sense of the world.
The second shape, gauzy and mercurial. Here, things from the past were reappearing uninvited. Liminal spaces crowded with death. These were the only kinds of dreams she had anymore after the start of the war. They had only grown more intense during her time on the SSV Osaka. And Shepard's talent for ignoring them had also grown.
Shepard rolled out of the bed and shuffled to the kitchenette. The tiny kitchenette—made up of a mini-fridge, short countertop, and heating element—was luxurious and indulgent. She felt guilty for enjoying any measure of comfort when there were so many with scarcely a roof over their heads. But being a patient at the Alliance rehab facility meant that the Alliance called the shots on accommodations. Shepard snatched her water bottle from the counter and took a big swig. Her bare feet bristled at the cold floor beneath them. The thin fabric of her tank top—overstretched and ill-fitting—hung loosely from her frame, revealing the length of her sharp collarbone. It was too cold and damp to dress this way, but it was the price she paid for privilege. The great Commander Shepard.
She plunked down at the small table that doubled as a desk. Her leg bounced erratically as she scrolled through her messages; they were the only way she kept up with her old crew, most of whom were busy doing useful things. A rare message from Joker popped up on the display:
###
Hey Commander,
I hear you're awake... Congratulations on not dying! Sorry for not contacting you until now. Wish I could be there to see you, but I've gone on a little trip. Not very far though. Please send my love to Miranda, Kaidan, and our favorite vigilante. Hugs and kisses! Xoxoxoxo
-Joker
p.s. Seriously, I'm glad you're ok. You deserve a break. I'll see you when I see you...
###
That little fucker¸ Shepard thought fondly. Joker was the only one who shared her awful sense of humor. Garrus might entertain it, but he was far wittier and biting than she could ever be.
Shepard's leg stopped bouncing. She read the subject of the next message: "Request: Lt. Commander Circe Shepard, Crucible debrief". Shepard chewed at the inner margin of her lower lip, contemplating just ignoring the message for the time being. The last thing she wanted to explain was the Catalyst, or anything that happened on the Citadel that night. But she knew that Admiral Anderson deserved to have his story told, and the Illusive Man...well, the galaxy needed to know the extent of his betrayal and indoctrination. The Alliance had waited three months before contacting her. She knew the least she could do was read the message.
###
Commander Shepard:
We formally request your presence at Alliance Headquarters, Vancouver for a debriefing session regarding the deployment of the Crucible. Please contact administration to schedule a meeting as soon as you are able.
Admiral Steven Hackett & Admiral Patrcia Bhatt
###
Shepard pressed the heels of her hands to her eyes. What the hell am I going to tell them? She let out a sharp snort and sprang up from the chair. It was nearly 7:30 am; her biotic therapy session would start in half an hour. No time to reply right now.
Shepard exhaled sharply and lifted her arm, her hand trembling as she grimaced at the small, blue ball on the table. She had never wanted to tear something apart so badly in her life.
"Commander, I want you to take a moment to clear your mind. Concentrate all your attention on the ball. In your minds eye, there is nothing but this ball. Everything else around you is not here," directed her therapist.
Tapping into her biotic system was never something she had to think much about before. It was like any other reflex: she had an action she wanted to perform and her body did it. Throw the ugly batarian pirate over the railing. Done. Now, it was like learning to walk again. Or rather, crawl.
Sweat that had been beading on her forehead streaked down to her brow. Shepard ignored it and trained her eyes on the ball, picturing it shredded apart from the inside out. She pulled her arm back and forcibly thrust her flat palm toward the ball. Her arm shook as she strained to generate dark energy. The ball stared back at her blankly, unmoved and unphased. She had flicked the switch, but nothing turned on.
"Damn it! Goddamn it!" Shepard bellowed
"Maybe we should take a short break, Commander. It's been over an hour, and we're getting close to the end of your session," suggested the therapist.
"Yeah, fine."
Shepard grabbed the towel from the back of her chair and smeared her face with it. Miranda had warned her that it might take a lot of work to regain control over her biotics, but this was worse than she imagined. The usual warm tingle she felt when activating her powers was gone, not a whisper of it. Fuck. What's the problem? My eezo nodes are fine, right? She considered messaging Miranda or Dr. Paulsen right then and there but thought better of it. Don't be so impatient, Circe. Growth takes time. Shepard heard her mother's voice reaching out through her own thoughts. She stopped. Now is not the time to think of that.
After a long morning of therapy and medical examinations, Shepard stopped by her room for a quick refresh. While she was one of the lucky few with access to running water, Shepard was still in the habit of having sponge baths from her time aboard the SSV Osaka. She didn't see a good reason to change that; clean water was in short supply, and wasting it on a shower was taking it away from someone else.
Shepard brushed her hair smooth, framing the front of her face with her long, brown bangs. No short, messy ponytail today—she would be having visitors this afternoon. Tali promised she would stop by before heading back to the Fleet, Garrus too. Tali was leading a group of quarians who were making repairs and improvements throughout Sol; they offered their services in exchange for supplies and support. The last Shepard had heard, they were making inroads in Hong Kong, re-establishing the continental communications network and repairing a handful of military vessels. Tali may have been an admiral, but she felt happiest when she was working on a problem or doing something tactile. There wasn't much need for the Admiralty Board to be present at all times with the war being over. Whatever business there was to take care of within the Migrant Fleet, the Conclave took care of themselves.
Shepard gulped down a nasty nutritional supplement per doctor's orders and settled in with her half-read murder mystery. Just as she was getting to a good part (oooooh, she lied about the cause of death...what a bitch!), a soft ping came from the door. She set her datapad down and greeted Tali.
"Taaaliiiiiiiiiii!" she gushed, throwing her arms out.
"Hi Shepard! You seem happy to see me..."
"That's because I am! Come in, come in." She motioned for Tali to enter and gave her the only seat at her table. "How are you? How was Hong Kong?"
"Busy!" replied Tali as she sat down. "I've never seen so many people in one place! But I think we did good work there, helped a lot of people."
"Wow, that's great," said Shepard. She rolled her shoulders; the muscles in her chest had suddenly gone stiff.
"Doing favors for the humans, the asari, the turians...it can't hurt right? 'Diplomacy'. Maybe it will help us later," Tali proposed. "Quarians certainly aren't lacking for work these days. Lacking in resources, sure, but when has that ever stopped us?"
"That's because Quarians excel in bricolage. And you always were a go-getter," said Shepard.
"Brico-what? What does that mean? Like bricks?" asked Tali, puzzled.
"It means being able to make something out of whatever's around," said Shepard, proud of herself for remembering the word.
"That's an awfully fancy word. I thought my translator bugged out."
Shepard pouted. "Don't look at me like that—I've had a lot of time to read lately!"
"I don't think I've ever seen you read a book," Tali deadpanned.
"Well, we were just a little bit busy on the Normandy, yeah? I can read!"
Tali laughed. "I'm just teasing, Shepard, I know you can read."
Shepard stuck her tongue out at her.
"I'm not going to ask what that means." Tali shook her head in amusement. "How is your biotic therapy going? Any progress?"
"Ehhhh, it's going ok. Miranda said it would take a while, I'm not too worried," Shepard answered in a light tone. She thought of the small, blue ball from this morning. She clawed tightly at the edge of the table as she leaned against it.
"Don't overdo it, Shepard. I know you well enough to know you'll push yourself too far, too fast," advised Tali.
"Nah, I'll be fine," said Shepard. "Don't worry about me."
There was a soft rap at the door. It was Garrus. Shepard pressed the bypass and immediately leapt back; Garrus had been standing with his nose right up against the door and was staring down at her when it opened.
"Sorry, did I scare you Shepard?" he teased.
"Garrus! What the hell!"
"Heh, I love you too," he said. He walked in, carrying some scant twigs with dainty, white flowers jutting from the ends. He held them up for Shepard to see. "I remember you saying once that you missed real flowers, the kind that grew from the ground. I couldn't give them to you before because, well, space isn't so great for that."
Shepard took the twigs and inspected them more closely. "Garrus...did you get these from the dogwood tree next to headquarters?"
Garrus' mandibles flapped shyly. "Hmmmm..."
"Hah! He totally did," quipped Tali.
"Oh honey, it's the thought that counts," Shepard said sarcastically. She hugged him and grinned, still clutching the twigs. "I love them."
"Hey, Tali," Garrus said as she stood up to greet him. "How's life on the Fleet?"
"She's been in Hong Kong for the last month," Shepard reminded him.
"Oh yeah, that's right. Sorry, my mind is swimming right now, I've been tied up in this Reaper business."
"I thought turians don't swim?" asked Tali.
Garrus glared down at her. "You know what I mean."
"I missed you, Garrus," she replied.
Shepard assessed the space and realized they would be uncomfortable standing around in her small room. "Hey, do you guys want to get out of here? Maybe we can go for a walk, or find somewhere to sit down outside? It's a little crowded, with the three of us."
"Maybe you're right. We should go," said Garrus.
"That's my line," joked Shepard.
"Right, sorry."
The three friends wandered along the waterfront for quite a while, then cut across town before finding somewhere quiet to talk—a part of the seawall that had somehow managed to hold fast against destruction. They sat side by side, overlooking English Bay.
"English Bay? That sounds familiar. Didn't Kaiden say his parents have a place around here?" asked Tali.
"They did," replied Shepard. "The building was destroyed in the war, like everything else. His mom was staying at their orchard when his dad died. All alone. Kaiden went to get her as soon as the war was over. She's with him in Vancouver now."
It was chilly out, but the sky was beautiful; the sun slanted low in the sky, casting an amber glaze over the bay.
Garrus stared out over the water. "As if the death wasn't enough. So many of us cut off from the ones we love. At least he was spared that pain, I'm happy for him."
Shepard's chest ached again, like the feeling from armor that had been done up too tightly. "I'm sorry, Garrus." She leaned her head against his shoulder.
"What do you have to be sorry for? My family is alive because of you."
"And the Flotilla would have been dragged into another war with the Geth," added Tali.
Shepard straightened and turned her head toward Tali. "You'd just gotten your homeworld back, Tali. The emotion in your voice on Rannoch...it was like awe. You said you'd make a home there."
"And I will, Shepard. I believe that." Tali hung an arm around Shepard's shoulders. "Keelah se'lai,"
Keelah se'lai: Legion's last words, thought Shepard. A lump caught in her throat; she swallowed hard. "When you're in the middle of war, all you can think is: 'How do I save as many lives as possible?'. But it's different when it's over. The destruction, the personal losses, the pain...it adds up. And you see everyone around you, everyone you're responsible for..."
"I'm sorry, I shouldn't have said that," interrupted Garrus. "I never meant to put that on you."
"That doesn't make it any less true." Shepard stood and jumped down from the wall, onto the beach.
She scanned the horizon, catching a glimpse of some geese flying in a V formation in the distance. "Did you know that geese fly like that to conserve energy? It lowers wind resistance. They take turns leading in the front so none of them get too tired. And it makes it easy to keep tabs on each other. That's how old Earth pilots used to fly," she shouted over her shoulder.
Shepard watched the birds until they were specks of dust in the sky. She turned to face Garrus and Tali. "There's something I haven't told you..."
Garrus scrutinized Shepard's face and edged closer to the brink of the wall.
"I haven't told anyone, really. The Alliance is going to ask and I won't have a choice." She kicked her foot into the sand several times, dragging the sole of her shoe along the surface.
"When I beamed to the Citadel... well, a lot of things happened. The Illusive Man was there. And you know that Anderson died. But the biggest part–the part that no one knows–is that I discovered the Catalyst. There, on the Citadel."
Garrus leapt down from the wall. "It was on the Citadel all that time?"
Shepard pressed her lips together and nodded. "An AI."
Tali leapt down from the wall too. "So the Catalyst was an AI in the Citadel?"
"Yes. The Leviathans created it. They wanted to solve the problem of synthetics surpassing their creators and turning on them."
Garrus lifted his brow plates. "Wait, doesn't that seem backwards? Create an AI to stop AIs from hurting organics?"
"I didn't say it made sense." Shepard looked down and kicked at the sand again, this time sending some of it flying into the air. "This 'Catalyst' told me there were three ways to stop the Reapers. One, sacrifice myself. Upload through the Crucible and control the Reapers directly."
"That sounds...insane," said Tali.
"What about the other two?" asked Garrus.
"Second option: merge synthetic and organic life. All life would be preserved going forward, but no one would get a say in the matter."
"That sounds more insane," said Garrus.
"Final option: destroy the Reapers with a blast from the Crucible. It would target Reapers, but wipe out all other synthetics along with it."
"So that's why we couldn't save EDI...and the Geth..." Tali trailed off.
"Yeah. And it's why a lot of tech stopped working, and why all the relays blew."
"You made the right choice, Shepard," Garrus stated confidently.
"Did I? What if the Catalyst was right, what if it just starts all over again? I destroyed the relays on purpose. Billions of people cut off from their homeworlds, from resources, more death and suffering for nothing."
"We'll adapt, don't you think? It's what organics do," Tali reassured her.
"Sure, but what about later? I had a chance to stop the cycle, and I didn't."
Garrus took her hand gently and held it between his. "You can't think that way. It was war. There were untold losses, but there were more survivors than we ever expected to have. We could have all been wiped out of existence. Life won, Shepard."
"And the Geth? EDI? They adapted in the end, didn't they? And I made the decision that doomed them all."
Tali put her hand on Shepard's other arm. "Collateral damage, unfortunately."
"That's one way to put it, I guess." Shepard tugged her hand away and turned to the water. "I just don't see how one person should be responsible for deciding the fate of an entire galaxy. Why?"
"Maybe it's best not to think about it too much. You're right, you're only one person. You did the best you could," Garrus stood in front of her and squeezed her shoulders firmly with both hands, searching her eyes for affirmation of his words. She stared back, her green eyes dull and wide.
"Yeah, maybe you're right. Thanks for listening." A grim smile came and went as she put her hand over Garrus' and patted it. "Thank you too, Tali. You're a real friend."
As the trio stood in silence watching the sun go down, the questions replayed themselves ad nauseam in Shepard's head. She wondered if she would have been better off shooting the creepy brat.
