Shepard took a long breath of presidium air and let it out in a sigh. The trees, grass, and flowers might all be growing on a massive chunk of metal hanging in space, but they sure didn't know that. If it wasn't for the fact she was standing inside a giant doughnut, she might have been able to fool herself into joining them in their blissful ignorance.
"You know that I could have paid for all this stuff, Shepard," Martin said, jogging up beside her.
"Yeah, but I don't get to come by and spoil you nearly enough, so indulge me." She smiled and wrapped an arm around Martin's shoulders. Looking over her shoulder at Garrus, she widened her grin, adding a manipulative pleading to her tone. "Want to stop at Delan's since we're here? He might have some new rifle mods."
Garrus shrugged, hanging back a little, very quiet all of a sudden. She raised her eyebrow in a silent query about his mood, but he just answered her with another shrug. She turned back to the little mall alcove. She didn't need to look for mods, but . . .. She laughed and steered Martin into the cluster of kiosks. "Damn it, in trying to tempt C-Sec, now I want to buy Ingrid something nice."
Martin laughed. "You still have Ingrid? Don't they pay you enough to replace that old rifle? Please tell me that you retired Roger at least."
Shepard bumped him with her shoulder. "Hey! Show the old couple some respect. Why would I want new rifles when my beauties still hold their own?" She led the way down the stairs and over to the hanar shopkeeper.
"Captain Shepard, welcome back to this one's humble shop. It has many fine items for sale, all of great worth." The shopkeeper undulated a little within his shield bubble. Shepard loved the hanar. Polite to the point of craziness, but a really interesting - if private - people.
She turned to Delan's sales board and started going down the list. "Oh, Frictionless Materials X. Ingrid would look fabulous -"
The bright blue skies and sparkling white surfaces darkened as if a thunderstorm rolled in, blocking out the non-existent sun. Shepard turned toward the lake, head cocking. The daytime shone no less brightly. Not that she'd actually expected storm clouds in a fake sky.
What the . . .?
Absolute darkness flashed behind her eyes, and she stumbled, thrown off by the sudden blindness. Another flash like a closing shutter on an old fashioned camera, and she stumbled again, nearly going down this time before catching herself.
"Shepard?"
She turned to face Garrus, their eyes meeting for a moment. Thick, poisoned darkness bled in from the edges of her vision; blood dripping into water; chill, unwanted fingers scraping over her skin. She pushed away from the kiosk and shook her head, struggling to clear it. Gooseflesh rose over every inch of her skin, each hair a tiny spike inside the iron maiden of her clothing, tugging and tearing.
So cold. Alone, naked and bleeding, she shivered on the stone in the dark. Varren snapped and snarled, moving out in the ebony unknown. She tried to stir, lifting her head off the ground, but couldn't see her hand an inch from her face. The chains jangled as she heaved herself up off the slab, her elbow wobbling under her weight. Palm slipping on the rock, she fell, every inch of her torn flesh screaming, her cheek pressed into the chill, shallow slurry of her own blood. So dark. Sweet Jesus, wrap me in your light, and protect me, it's so dark. Rough hands grabbed her out of void, tearing a shrill wail of terror and agony from her throat. She cowered, trying to curl into a ball, fists and lash beating her until she lay still and the unseen monsters tore into her anew.
"What are you? Reveal yourself to us," a voice demanded. Its rough growl thundered with a chorus of batarian voices, nightmares dragged from the past. "You cannot breach the darkness."
Shivering, she retreated before the flood of invasive black.
Not the dark. Anything but the dark.
Still, her vision narrowed down to a pinprick of light. She struggled to hold onto it, clinging to her self, to her body and consciousness with tenacious fingernails. Questions appeared but drifted without answers until lost.
What's happening to me? Am I hurt? Losing consciousness? What the fuck is going on? Garrus!
Then she felt it. Huge and frozen, black as the void of space, but alive . . . billions of tiny spiders glistening wet-tar black, crawling and writhing over each other as they burrowed into her, crowding into her body and her mind, skittering between her cells. Oily, prickling feet crawled in through her ears, deafening her. They spread through the cold to wrap around her tongue, stealing her voice. They filled her nostrils suffocating her. Those senses co-opted, the fingers moved on, crawling up the back of her brain, spreading out, growing tendrils that wormed into her brain, finally punching through her eyes to steal the last of the light.
"Shepard?"
Garrus's voice drifted down through the living darkness, whispering as close as her own breath in the airless, infinite void that yawned between them.
"Your mind belongs to us," the darkness rumbled, distant thunder rolling toward her, inescapable. All sound disappeared in the wake of that dry, guttural voice.
Trying to scream, to ask for help, anything . . . she opened her mouth, but no sound came out. The floor slammed up into her knees as the void squirmed deeper.
"Garrus?" Martin's terrified cry sliced through her deafness, giving her an anchor in her struggle to remain inside her own body. His voice filled her with dread. "What's happening? I can see . . .. There's something trying to get into her head."
"What?" Garrus's armour rang as it impacted the floor next to her. "You can see something?"
"Yeah, it's . . . I can't describe it, but it's coming from behind that wall."
Shepard tried to force her eyes open only to realize that they already were, just filled with the frost-bitten midnight spiders that burrowed out through them to clutch at the world around her. Vague impressions passed through her - frustration, anger, curiosity, and fear . . . such fear. Terrified fingers of living darkness reached out to touch the world, trying to pull it all in through her eyes, nose, mouth, and ears. A great hand moved her, lifting her off the floor like a puppet. It turned her around, her body co-opted to see, to hear, and to know. She felt the obsidian presence's need to assess and negate all threats, of which she embodied the greatest and most unknown.
Fear - her own this time - tore off handfuls of the darkness, flinging it away from her. Anger burst through in fear's wake, the two colliding into an explosion that forced the dark back long enough for her to see Garrus and Martin disappearing through a gap in the back wall of the market. Lurching after them on unwilling legs, she climbed the few stairs, turning into a long, narrow room.
"What is it?" Martin leaned close to a black orb the size of a basketball. It sat atop a crate in the corner of the room, half-hidden behind a pile of other crates. The surface glimmered in rainbow colours like oil floating over a fathomless ocean. "It's emitting energy, but it shows black through my implants. How can that be? Nothing shows black."
Garrus's mandibles fluttered. "It feels . . . wrong." He shook his head. "It whispers." Drawing his sidearm, he flipped off the safety. "Move to the other end of the room."
"No!" The roar that came out of Shepard's throat wasn't her own, but deep and terrible, cold enough to freeze her throat and stab pain through her sinuses and into her brain. "It's not for you."
Garrus stared at her, his eyes wide with the first fear she'd ever seen him show. He chuffed and turned back. "That settles it." He raised his pistol and emptied the clip into the thing until it exploded.
The moment it burst in a molten spray of black ichor, the darkness vanished from Shepard's mind. She crumpled to the ground as the force holding her upright released her. Letting out a warbling sort of sob, she sagged onto her hip, her elbow braced against her side. She looked up into Garrus's eyes, holding his terrified stare as he hurried across the few metres and hit the floor on his knees.
"Shepard?" A hesitant hand drifted toward her cheek, stopping just short of touching her. "Are you all right?"
A strangled cry climbed out of her throat. She stared at him for another second, then jumped up onto her knees, wrapping shaking arms around his neck. Garrus pulled her in and held her, rubbing her back as if he could feel the chill that had infused her.
"Are you all right?" he asked again. "Spirits, Shepard, you're trembling."
Shepard nodded, staying pressed tight against his neck. "It was so dark, Garrus. Dark and cold, so cold. What the hell?"
"Shepard?" Martin's voice wavered, the extra thickness and added nasal tone betraying his fear.
She pulled away from Garrus a little and held out her hand. "I'm good, kid. It's just going to take me a minute to get my feet under me." She took his hand. "Help me up. I've got wobbly knees." Once up on her feet, she hugged the young man. "Thanks for finding that thing."
He shrugged. "I don't know how I did. You made a sound like you were being choked, and there was a stream of black energy flowing out of that thing, through the wall and into your head. What was it?" Pulling her back into a tight hug, he turned his face into her neck.
"I don't know, but it wasn't overly friendly, that's for certain." She stepped back and looked to Garrus, her hand lifting to press against his chest guard. "You both okay? Did it go after either of you?"
Garrus shook his head, but withdrew, returning to peer at what remained of the object. "What the hell was it?"
Shepard squeezed Martin's hand. "Can you ask Delan if I can have a large shopping bag, please? I want to take this thing with us but not so that people can see it."
"Sure." He trotted off and down the stairs.
"So?" Garrus asked.
"Absolute cold and darkness just crawled right into me, C-Sec. I couldn't do anything to stop it. It spoke to me. It was afraid. I felt that it considered me a threat, and it was trying to figure me out, discover my weaknesses." Shepard walked over and bent down to peer at the hollow, ruined sphere, the heels of her hands pressed to the crate. "It was some sort of communication device."
"Reapers?" he asked, keeping his voice low. "Do you think these might be what are indoctrinating people?"
Shepard shrugged but then nodded. "Must be the Reapers, right? Who else am I a threat to?" She straightened as Martin hurried back with a bag. When it came to placing the thing in the bag, she let Garrus take point, deciding not to risk letting that horror back into her head.
Once it was safely out of sight, Garrus took the bag. "Maybe we should cancel dinner, Shepard. This thing scares the hell out of me." He looked down. "What are we going to do with it?"
She nodded, still feeling breathless and weak. "It scares the hell out of me too, but right now, I just need an hour or so to settle and wrap my head around what happened. We'll eat, then take Anderson back to the Normandy for a long chat, and decide what to do with it then. Hell, he can help us with the geth-quarian situation too." Shepard held Garrus's gaze for another second, then reached out to Martin. "Come on, let's go relax for a bit. You can torture Anderson with Udina jokes."
Martin laughed. "I can't believe he has to work with that ass. Almost makes me feel sorry enough to spare him." An evil chuckle tumbled from his damaged mouth, the spirit behind it nearly enough to make her forget that anything had happened all those years ago.
"I'd be disappointed if you gave him any slack, and I think he would be too." She waved Garrus up beside them. "So, where are we headed, C-Sec? Is it in walking distance or should we grab a cab?"
Ten minutes later, Garrus landed their car in front of a small, detached building done up in a decidedly twentieth century style. When Shepard walked inside, a wide grin spread across her face. Her hand lifted, fingertips skating down Garrus's gauntlet as it fell back to her side. "This place is amazing."
Garrus nodded and led the way to a booth near the back. "Nearly everything I know about human popular culture comes from here."
Shepard's gaze wandered along the walls as they made their way through a heavy crowd. Movie, theatrical, and concert posters plastered the space between shelves of rotary phones and all sorts of mundane artifacts of day to day twentieth century life. It was amazing how far humanity had come in such a short time.
She shrugged and smiled at him. "It'll make your knowledge a little outdated, but that's okay."
Anderson arrived a few minutes after they did, shaking hands with Garrus and Martin before stopping to look at Shepard. He grasped her by the shoulders and stared into her eyes. "Something's happened."
Shepard let out a shaky sigh and nodded. "Yeah, I'll explain it all later. For now, let's just eat too much and talk about absolutely nothing important." Her eyes pleaded with him to spare her his usual gruff interrogation. She knew that the captain loved her just as fiercely as she loved him, and he'd be hurt by seeing her distress without being able to dig to discover its source. She glanced over at Garrus and Martin, sitting side by side in the booth discussing the menu, a soft smile tugging at her as they debated varren versus vat grown protein.
"All right, Shepard. It can wait." She chuckled as his tone clearly added an unspoken, 'but not for long.'
She slipped into the booth and scooted over to make room. Anderson and Martin traded handshakes over the table, Garrus following suit.
"So, Captain," Martin said, a trouble-making smirk on his face, "I hear you got yourself an awesome new job."
Anderson narrowed his eyes. "Mr. Weaver, I believe there's an internship available in the ambassador's office. Should I put your name down? You could join me and find out for yourself."
"Does the office have a cleaning staff adept at cleaning bloodstains off everything?" Martin responded, keeping his voice guileless. "If they do, I might consider it."
Shepard watched the two men banter back and forth, adding short comments now and again as she waited for them to get it out of their system.
"Okay, how many ambassadors does it take to screw in a lightbulb?" Martin asked.
"None, we don't use incandescent lights any more," Shepard sighed. "Oh look, we can order. Thank you, sweet baby Jesus."
After they ordered their food, Martin looked over at Shepard and grinned. "So, since Shepard brought her new boyfriend for din -." He yelped and yanked his foot up onto the bench to rub his shin. "Hey, that was uncalled for."
"You deserved it," Anderson said. "You know better than to refer to Shepard's new boyfriend as . . .." He turned and held up his index finger when Shepard moved to kick him. "Kicking me is a court martial offence."
"Shepard and I are not romantically involved," Garrus said, his voice low and heavy on the subvocals.
"They know that," Shepard said, giving Anderson a death glare. "They're just trying to torture me. What's next? Pimply teenage pictures?"
Anderson leaned forward and went into his pocket, pulling out his wallet. "Now that you mention it . . .." He opened the wallet, but she snatched it before any incriminating evidence could make it to Garrus.
The picture was one of her and her horse at a dressage competition. She was all done up in the black tails and tall, spit-polished boots. She'd set her top hat at a jaunty angle and struck a ridiculous pose.
"Oh, this one's not too bad," she said, holding it out toward Garrus. "I always did look good in the tails." She flipped to the next one. "Ah yes, this is more like what I expected." She laughed at the picture of a huge snow bank, her feet sticking out. One ski remained attached to her foot, the other one sticking out of the snow. She turned it for Garrus and Martin to see. "One of my better competitions."
Anderson took his wallet back. "She came down that slope like she was doing downhill, not cross-country, lost control in the turn at the bottom and slammed into that bank so hard it took the entire rescue team to dig her out." He shook his head. "I thought for sure that she'd killed herself."
"I was laughing so hard that it took them twice as long to pull me out. Not my best showing ever." She bumped Anderson with her shoulder. "He thought I'd be upset over screwing up so badly, so took me out for ice cream afterwards like I was eight." She squeezed Anderson's shoulder. "It was great. One of my best days, in the end."
He flipped to the next picture and held it out to her. A sad smile pressed her lips tight as she looked at her seventeen-year-old self, sitting in a lawn chair on the balcony of Anderson's Vancouver apartment. "I sure came through that time looking like death warmed over, didn't I?" She shook her head, staring at the sallow-eyed and rake-thin teenager. The picture had been taken about eight months after she'd miscarried, just after her arrest for working in the chop-shop.
She showed Garrus, feeling exposed, like she was stripping off a thick layer of stage makeup. He reached out, taking the wallet, his brow-plates tipping down in a scowl as he looked at the image.
"Don't let the moment of peace in that picture fool you," Anderson chuckled. "She was a hellion. I was an N7 at the time, and she stayed with friends while I was deployed. Eventually, they just crated up all their breakables and put them in storage while she was there."
Shepard chuckled. "I sent them two hundred credits a month for the first five years after I joined the Alliance to repay them for everything I smashed." She shook her head. "I don't know where they - or you - found the patience." Taking the wallet back, she passed it to Anderson.
Their food arrived, the conversation slowing as they ate, but they kept up teasing Shepard. Anderson told stories of her teenage misadventures, including the time she'd staged her own kidnapping to drag him home from an assignment in the Traverse.
"Captains Anderson and Shepard," an all too familiar voice called in its trademark combination of haughty superiority and barely contained revulsion. Shepard wondered briefly, and not for the first time, if Udina used that tone around the rest of the universe or just her.
The ambassador turned to look at Martin, a smile tearing open his face. "Mr. Weaver, what a pleasant surprise. You're looking well. Did you give any more thought to my invitation?"
Martin made a growling sound low in his throat. Anderson kicked him that time. The young man disguised his dislike under clearing his throat and plastered on a smile that she knew would fool no one but Udina.
"I'm sorry, Ambassador," Martin said, sounding as though he spoke to a five-year-old, "but I've decided to work toward joining C-Sec. Being stuck behind an Alliance desk really doesn't appeal to me."
Instead of looking disappointed or upset, Udina beamed. "That's an excellent idea. Let me know when your function scores are high enough - I hear they're getting very good - and I'll open a door or two." His eyes narrowed as he turned to Shepard. "Captain, I assume you're here only temporarily? Unless you have Saren in custody and just didn't inform me."
"We just recouped several billion credits worth of art, which I dropped off with an agent to make sure it was sent to museums and galleries." Shepard gave him a bright, disingenuous smile.
He stepped forward, bristling. "Why wasn't all of that turned over to me?"
"Because I want it ending up in museums and galleries rather than sent as gifts to your rosegarden friends." She grunted as Anderson elbowed her but kept the smile firmly in place.
Udina glowered at her for another moment before turning it on Anderson. "We'll discuss this in the morning, Anderson."
Shepard shook her head and opened her mouth, closing it abruptly as another elbow buried itself in her side.
Udina stalked off to join a group of other old white guys in suits a couple of booths over.
"Why can't you just smile and be polite?" Anderson muttered, turning to glare at her.
"To that ass?" Martin answered for her. "No way, Anderson. She's worth fifty of that waste of skin, and I'll shoot that slimy piece of . . . worm-ridden filth dead before I let Shepard suck up to him."
"Okay. Okay," Shepard said, gently easing the stiffness that had shot up between the two most important people in her life. She polished off the last of her drink and nodded toward the door. "Let's go before Martin gets himself worked up to the point of no return." She nudged Anderson. "Can you come back to the ship with us? I could use your help with a couple of things."
He nodded. "I can do that. I want to meet the geth unit anyway." Standing, he waved to the server, swiping his credit chit to pay for the meal. When Shepard started to argue, he held up his hand, shutting her down without a word.
They hired a cab, talking of easy, simple things until they reached the rehab center. Shepard drove, needing the distraction. Still, she held Martin's hand between the seats, trying to offer what comfort she could through the contact.
Shepard got out to hug Martin tight. "I don't know when I'll be back, kid, but I'll send messages when I can." She kissed his cheek. "Keep up the good work. I expect to attend your C-Sec academy graduation in the near future."
He squeezed her, the desperation in the embrace speaking to how upset and thrown his encounter with Udina had left him.
Rubbing his back, she whispered in his ear, "Udina doesn't matter, you know that. He doesn't get to me. Don't let him get you down. Just live your life. We'll ignore him completely."
Martin kissed her cheek. "Be careful out there." He bent and lifted a hand to Garrus. "Nice meeting you, Officer Vakarian."
"You too, Martin. Take care."
Shepard got in and closed the car. For a few minutes, they flew in silence, but then Garrus cleared his throat.
"Martin really doesn't care for Udina." He glanced across at Shepard.
"No," Anderson replied when Shepard said nothing. "I can hardly blame him. Udina has given him good reason."
Shepard squirmed a little under Garrus's continued stare. She knew he wanted an explanation, but she didn't know if Udina had torn too much scab off the wound to talk about it. "I told you that Martin ran outside our blockade to stop a grieving father?" Cutting a glance across at Garrus, she waited until he hummed a brief affirmative before continuing. "The slavers were torturing his daughter. They'd already taken her eyes. When they pulled out, they finished mutilating her. Cut her to shreds."
Swallowing hard, she shook her head. No. She couldn't just recite it like it didn't matter.
Anderson's hand reached up from the back seat and squeezed her arm. "The Alliance rushed them to a hospital, started surgeries to repair the damage as much as possible. Udina decided that the best way to get colonial development back on track was to have a memorial ceremony and to award the 'heroes' of the Blitz."
"Holly didn't want to do it," Shepard added, trying to keep the tightness in her chest from creeping into her voice. "She messaged me, begged me to talk Udina out of it. She didn't want to be paraded around in front of thousands of people without most of her face. I tried to talk to Udina, but he said Holly was an important symbol and hung up on me. I told Holly just to refuse and do whatever she felt was best for her." She shook her head, choking as she tried to swallow. The day crawled into her head no matter how hard she tried to keep the memories at bay.
"Udina used threats and coercion to get her up there, although none of us know exactly what he said," Anderson continued for her. "The night before the ceremony, she shot herself."
"Martin found her. They'd become really close." Shepard's voice came out so soft that it barely stirred the air. "I rushed back from my assignment to be with him. We nearly lost him as well."
Garrus nodded. "And he blames Udina."
Shepard kept her eyes on the car's controls, but nodded. "Udina didn't pull the trigger, but he murdered that sweet girl just the same."