Dilan - fiancee
Dilekorem - Beloved mate
Torin - Torini plural. Male turian of the age of majority (15)
64 Days ASR Nearing the orbit of Ploba
0738 hours
Given a thousand years and a far greater imagination than she possessed, Shepard couldn't have dreamed up anything close to what stared her in the face. A heady combination of excitement and terror set her heart racing, her lungs taking up all the space in her chest as she watched the Ypres close in on Ploba. Nerves tingling in her fingers and toes, she savoured the moment of feeling completely, blissfully alive, every sense sharpened to a scalpel's edge.
Sweet baby Jesus, her life took some unexpected turns … even setting aside the whole being shot in the head, Lazarus thing. Two weeks ago, if someone told her that she'd be preparing to dive her ship into the atmosphere of a gas giant, she'd have called them insane or a liar … maybe both.
What sort of mouldy Enkindler's ass-cheek doesn't want to dive into a gas giant? Right? It's the stuff people join the Alliance to do.
Maybe. Once. Shepard let out a long, noisy breath and leaned toward the projection, the edge of the briefing room table digging into the heels of her hands. Now … well, desperation never stopped forcing her hand, pressing her into situations where crazy was the norm. She just prayed that the reward outstripped the risk of placing the lives of a hundred people in chiastyllian hands. A wry smile tugged back the corner of her mouth. Well, so to speak.
"Are you prepared for descent?" The neutral chime of the chia's voice dragged her back to the reality of diving into a freakin' gas giant. Shepard shook her head, wonder and a sudden spike in her blood pressure sending the room tilting ever so slightly to the left. The last twelve people who tried that exact same maneuver all died horrifically, the atmosphere's giant foot stomping on their pathetic tin can.
That day, the Ypres would only be going part of the way, just deep enough to hide her from the suzerain, should they try to crash the party. The ground team would make the rest of the trip to the Cynosure in a shuttle. As much as she might be willing to play with her own life—trusting her skills and smarts to get her out of any scrape—she'd never expose the rest of the crew to those odds.
She looked down at the gauntlet wrapped around her forearm and shrugged. "As ready as anyone can be, I think. Just, if there is any doubt that your people can protect the ship, tell me."
"The chiastyllia protect a vessel that arrived two days ago. It remains intact at Cynosure depth." The image at the center of the briefing room table changed to that of a large, private yacht anchored to the glowing structure.
"Who's that?" Shepard asked, mostly to herself, even though she suspected she knew the interloper's identity. His appearance there provoked a mixed bag of emotions. On the one hand, she was glad to see him working on something rather than mouldering in self-pity. On the other … she glanced toward Nihlus. She didn't know how her dilan felt about Saren's new incarnation and didn't want to keep throwing Al in his path.
"Another who wishes to aid us," the chia answered, simply.
Convinced, Shepard looked first to Garrus, who just shook his head as if to say, 'It's insane, but go for it, and on your head be the consequences'. She stuck her tongue out, then turned to Nihlus, who remained fixated on the image at the center of the projector, his mandibles twitching with excitement. Spirits—to borrow an expletive—she loved him and his adventurous heart. If things had started a little differently, they would have made a hell of a badass Spectre duo. Everything might have progressed so very differently.
Looking back at her husband, she smiled and shook her head. No. No regrets there. Things had worked out just fine.
Movement at the center of the table pulled her back to the events unfolding before her. A flurry of the familiar, snow-like gems spiraled up out of the atmosphere, first a glimmer of light amidst the clouds, then gradually taking form. It surrounded the Ypres, coating the entire vessel in the diamond-like skin that the chia assured her would protect her ship from the pressure. She remained dubious but the tiny beings had been given plenty of opportunities to kill them and crushing them seemed like a waste of their time and resources.
"Captain," Lt. Cortez said, his nerves translating even through the comms, "the chia sent the coordinates, and the Ypres is ready to begin her descent into the atmosphere."
"Roger, that, LT. Take her down." Shepard gripped the edge of the table as the Ypres began slicing down through the thick clouds, lightning and plasma creating a truly spectacular corona. For some reason—maybe due to watching way too many old submarine movies as a kid—she expected the ship to creak and bang as it descended, but her ears didn't even pop. Apparently, the chia did, indeed, know their heavy-atmospheric-pressure-spelunking armour. Still, the lack of creaking and popping let her down a little, draining some of the fear that should accompany such a massive adventure. The chia turned the impossible and deadly into something a little too much like driving to the store for milk.
Still, as she watched the view, some real fear slithered through the excitement, the old thrill. No matter how hard she tried to immerse herself in the return to her old, throw-caution-to-the-wind self, the whispers crept in: anything could happen down there. She could die down there ... for good that time. Sweet baby Jesus, when Cerberus brought her back to life, they'd left big chunks out. When had she grown so old and cautious? When had she stopped looking forward to the next stupid risk? What did life mean without that thrill of reckless thunder and lightning sizzling through her veins to set all her muscles on fire?
Reaching up, she rubbed the fractal-patterned wound on her shoulder, a feather-light touch trying to ease the ache that spiked for a moment, the wounded nerves flaring. She needed to get her ass healed and start living more like the Shepard who didn't sport a massive bald spot across the back of her head. She needed to find her way back to herself.
A warm hand pressed against the small of her back. She backed into it without needing to look up to know it was her general. Nihlus still wouldn't have presumed an action so bold in front of Garrus. She was going to need to do something about that before they ended up paralyzed. If she committed herself to both torins, she wanted both relationships to be equally deep and fulfilling and beautiful. They deserved that. Hell, she deserved that. Maybe on the way to Klencory, she'd convince her dilan to take the gloves off—quite literally—and break down that final wall.
She looked up to meet the warring wonder and suspicion in her husband's eyes and grinned. Cerberus may not have brought her back whole, but at least they'd brought back the part that adored her torins. If she never experienced the old craziness, it might still all be okay as long as the two halves of her heart remained. She tipped her head toward Nihlus, a silent suggestion to include him. The general nodded and led the way over, the two of them taking positions to the Spectre's either side.
"It's amazing," Nihlus said, the words more an awed sigh than anything. His smile widened as the light show outside the ship grew more and more intense. Huge flashes of chain lightning ignited, searing across thousands of kilometres, so bright that Shepard threw up a hand to protect her vision.
"EDI, adjust brightness so we're not all blind by the time we arrive," she said, then cocked a teasing smile at the AI's image off to the side on the secondary projector. "Unless, of course, it's all part of your evil plan. Then, by all means, proceed."
The projection dimmed without losing the spectacular colours, the light show sharpening without the glare. "Adjusting contrast now, Shepard. You'll be more useful slaves with your sight intact."
"I hate that I never know if she's joking," Garrus grumbled, but half-heartedly, his second larynx too tight to add subvocals. He'd been stiff and quiet since boarding the Ypres, something she understood: the ship felt like enemy territory, even to her. The closer they got to Ploba, however, the tighter that stiffness became until he vibrated with it, high-tension wire screaming through his silence. Shit, she needed to get ahead of the inevitable detonation.
So, Shepard laughed. "Trust me, General, you'd know if she wasn't." She reached around Nihlus to grip Garrus's fingers, her arm slung around Nihlus's hips. The general's talons clamped around her hand, grinding bones to make his bread for the first—fee fi fo fucking ow—ten seconds, but then the pressure valve worked, and he eased back down to stiff. She let him go, leaving her arm draped around her Spectre.
Their first sighting of the fabled 'jupiter brain' came in the form of a sliver of golden light through a break in the clouds. It would be more than an hour before they got close enough to see anything. Still ... enraptured, Shepard greedily ate up the beauty of their surroundings, savouring the journey. The flashes of light and storms made from pure colour held her so captivated that she felt the tar spiders as nothing more than a tickle along her synapsis as they crept out of hiding. She welcomed their presence, the fact that they'd come out of hiding reassuring. While not at all comforting, their familiar presence allowed her to keep an eye on the suzerain. When they came out to watch, Shepard knew her actions had their attention. Even the slightest bit of information trumped none.
Look all you want, bastards. We're about to free the chia from the possibility of your corruption. Forever.
"You bring the enemy to the Cynosure," a voice spoke through the comm system. It rang with the same, sexless chiming notes of the gauntlet, but so much larger. If a voice could fill volume, that one would have overflowed even the biggest stadiums. It was the voice of an entire species, and its majesty filled Shepard with an awe that ached to the marrow of her bones. "For untold cycles we have remained here, hidden and safe, and now you bring them directly into our heart."
Shepard released Nihlus, stepping away a little. A vague thought bounced around the back of her skull that if lightning struck, only she should take the hit. And truly, did they possess even the slightest knowledge of the extent of the chia's capabilities? "It was unavoidable," she replied, but I also believe I bring a solution to the chiastyllians' exile … a chance to rejoin the rest of the galaxy without fear." Despite the voice coming from the ship's comms, she stepped toward the image of the growing sphere. "My name is—"
"Captain and Spectre Jane Gwendolyn Shepard," the voice finished. "Yes, you and your actions to aid our people are known to us. You have come to aid us further?"
"I hope so." Shepard leaned against the table that surrounded the projector. "I'm concerned that your people are so susceptible to being enslaved." She took a deep breath, the air feeling thick, hot, and muggy in her nose despite conditions remaining unchanged inside the Ypres. "It concerns me both for your sake and the future of the galaxy."
"What aid can you offer the chiastyllia?"
Shepard turned, scanning the small crowd of onlookers. Spotting Legion, she waved them forward. "Do you have knowledge of the geth?"
"We possess limited knowledge of their kind. They exist primarily as software and are resistant to infiltration."
Shepard cocked an eyebrow. Interesting choice of words.
Legion activated their omnitool. "The geth understand the need to evolve free from outside influence and control." Legion sent a file: the results of the brainstorming sessions they'd held during the trip.
"And if we refuse your assistance?" the voice asked, nothing changing in its tone to give Shepard a hint as to their thought process.
Shepard scoffed, a sharp, disgusted sound that cracked the air, loud enough that several of her people jumped. "Then I'd call you cowards … shut ins who've remained locked away so long they're afraid of leaving their front door." Not that she could blame them after millions of years, but she kept the empathy out of her tone.
The ambient tension in the briefing room leapt from apprehensive to explosive in the space of a breath. Shepard held her breath, waiting to see which way the chia would jump. She didn't think they'd react violently or even get angry, but the way her life turned, who knew. Her heart speeding up a beat every couple of seconds, she waited.
Finally, she opened her mouth to tell Cortez to get them out of there and turned away from the projector. Time to go. Valuable ally and dangerous weapon for the enemy or not, the cowards could hide away in their gas giant.
"You may proceed," the voice said as she took the first step toward the door, "but only Captain Shepard and the geth platform known as Legion may enter the Cynosure."
"Why just Shepard?" Garrus demanded, lunging toward the image, all braced angles and points: a pipe bomb set to blow, riddling everyone in the room with rusty nails and shards of broken glass.
"The chiastyllia trust Captain Shepard's history of controlling her will. The Cynosure shelters trillions of us. We must protect ourselves from contamination."
"This is some freaky shit, Shepard," Jack said, her voice pulling Shepard's focus from the projection to the rest of the team gathered on the far side of the table.
"That's putting it lightly," Kaidan agreed. "I don't want to imagine what we could bring down on our own heads if we went in there afraid."
Martin's silent but eloquent addition tugged one side of Shepard's mouth into a grin, and she tossed him a wink before meeting Kaidan's worried stare. "Yeah, best we don't leave the chia vulnerable to wild imaginations, Sparky."
Garrus stepped around Nihlus. The dangerous vibration returned, resonating through the entire room so strongly that he didn't need to speak to let her know how he felt about her going in there. She pressed her lips into a thin, slightly grimace. None of them would live to see a day when his impossible drive to protect her didn't rear its head.
Before the general could say anything to undermine her command, Shepard cut him off with a sharp breath, one hand cutting the air to pull the crew's attention back to her. "All right, everyone to stations, maximum battle readiness. I don't think the suzerain will be bold enough to try anything, but better prepared than not." Turning her attention back to the projector, Shepard asked, "How long until we arrive?"
"Your vessel will arrive at optimal depth in 58.282 minutes. Your shuttle will able to exit at that time, arriving within the Cynosure 28.931 minutes later."
"Excellent, thank you." Shepard nodded to the rest of her people. "Dismissed." She waited until the room cleared except for Garrus and Nihlus, then hopped up on the table around the projector. "Okay, let's have it, General."
"I don't like you going in there alone," the he said. Wow, there was a shocker. He stepped between her knees, his palms pressed to the table's surface on either side of her as he leaned in, his face too close for her to focus on his eyes. She rested her brow against his for a moment before pulling back until she could see the fear in that iceberg blue.
Garrus chuffed, a low keen underscoring the puff of air. "You haven't got anything to prove, Kahri. I know you want everyone to see that you came back intact … that you're still the same woman, but—"
"Callor … dilekorem ... I want only a couple of things from my life at this point and proving myself isn't on that list." The half-truth pierced like a broken, rusty dagger as she pressed her palms to his cheeks, trapping his mandibles. Proving anything to anyone else truly wasn't on that list. Proving something to herself … well … that was between her and herself.
She moved in with a distraction, kissing him. "I have a husband and a dilan, both brand-spankin' new, right out of the showroom, so what I want is to put some klicks on them … get them broken in." Pressing another slow, firm kiss against his mouth, she whispered, "I'll keep my wits about me and my eyes open. I'll be careful."
"Live feed from your hard suit cam?" he asked, but without any sort of question in his voice. Leaning back, he returned her gesture, wrapping his hands around her head, palms pressed to her cheeks. "We know so little about the chia." A long sigh stripped away the thick layer of general, leaving the torin bare and vulnerable.
She nodded and turned to press a kiss against his palm, his glove's weave rough against her lips. "I'll be wearing a breather helmet the entire time, but let's face it, Callor, that's not going to cut it if they space me or something."
"Not helping, Shepard." He shuddered; old, dry branches rattling in a winter wind, his fear so honest and real that its twin wriggled in behind her breastbone, making itself at home.
She stomped on it. Fuck, as if she didn't have enough worry without his fear of losing her adding to it. She turned a little, reaching out a hand to Nihlus. The Spectre nodded, a slight flutter of mandibles betraying his concern, but she knew he'd never try to stop her. Of her two torins, he most respected her capabilities, something she truly loved about him.
She squeezed Nihlus's hand, then released him, looking back to Garrus. "I'll be back in a couple of hours." She kissed him again, then slid down off the table, forcing him back. "And hopefully, we'll have some allies capable of making a difference in the war."
Garrus snatched at her wrist, holding the gauntlet up, levelling a death glare at it. "Promise me that Shepard is in no danger from your people."
"The chiastyllia only offer a threat at the will of those who would threaten others. Shepard is safe."
"Garrus, stop," Shepard said, her voice low and soft, but firm, the end of her tolerance for his overprotectiveness reached. "I'm still an N7, still a Spectre and the captain of this ship. I can take care of myself. I can't spend the rest of the war frozen in place, worried that the necessary risks are going to freak you out." She wrapped her arms around his neck. "I'll be fine, and every single mission, I'll fight like hell to get back to you. That's a promise." She kissed his mandible, then pulled away. "Let me go."
Reacting to the warning in her tone, he straightened, the general once more. Lips pressed into a tight smile, she nodded a quick thanks and strode to the door. Shit, the last thing she needed was Jack or Javik … even Miranda to see her as needing his protection. She'd spend the entire war fighting to be seen as the leader she needed to be. The snake had three heads—General, Spectre, and Shepard—not just one.
0803 hours
Shepard paused outside the door to the Ypres's gym, the metal cool beneath the palm of her hand. Within, she heard the sharp smack of bare hand against leather, the slight rip of talons destroying yet another heavy bag. She leaned into the door, pressing her brow to the metal, listening for the grunts of effort. Nihlus didn't know how to do anything but throw himself all the way into everything.
It's why he drinks … it allows him a barrier.
She knew he'd hate staying behind as much as Garrus did, but he'd never say anything. She just hoped his silence came from confidence in her abilities rather than worry over stepping on Garrus's toes. She had no idea how to break through the odd stiffness … the feeling that he tested every word and every motion to see how it registered with Garrus. Pushing off the door, she palmed the control, stepping through when the door opened.
"Not getting ready for your big shuttle ride?" the Spectre asked without turning away from the bag.
She watched him from the door for a moment, then turned to lock down the controls. "No, well ... mentally, maybe."
Nihlus dropped his hands and turned away from the bag. He'd stripped to the waist, his hands and feet bare, his chocolate-coloured plates gleaming. Shepard bit the corner of her lip as their eyes met and shook her head.
"Damn, aren't you something?" She grinned and strode across the gym, unzipping and shrugging out of her hoodie as she closed the distance between them. "I just thought I'd warm up a little … maybe see what sort of game my dilan has after all this time. Who knows what's changed over the last two years." She cocked an eyebrow and leaned on one hip. "Do Spectres get rusty?"
Nihlus chuckled, his eyes remaining deliciously locked on hers—heated and teasing—as he backed up to the stack of mats. "Game? Rusty? Do you ever make sense?" He dragged one off the pile and tossed it toward the middle of the room. "If you mean, have my superior hand to hand skills diminished since I last tossed you about …. Well, I'm not the one who spent the last couple of years being rebuilt out of old toasters and coffee makers."
Surprise pulled a sharp, bright laugh straight from Shepard's gut, her grin wide enough to ache. Blessed Enkindlers, nothing in the galaxy rivaled the beauty of her torins. "Oh, those are fightin' words. This is so on, Spectre. Consider your assless kicked." She laced her fingers then stretched her arms out until her knuckles cracked. Once she got the desired shudder from her Spectre, she dug into the task of stretching.
"It's almost sad how you never learn," he said, the warm roll of devoted subvocals belying his words. He dragged another mat out and set the two up edge to edge. "I'm not sure if I'm impressed or alarmed by your ability to delude yourself." He stretched, long arms nearly hitting the ceiling of the room. Good lord … Nihlus might be a little shorter than Garrus, but he was still freakin' tall. How did she not notice that most of the time?
She grinned and rolled her neck, making a show of stalking him. "Since they are our best chance to beat the Reapers … not to mention that you're stuck with me for the rest of your natural life … " She popped her eyebrows. "... and quite possibly any unnatural life as well, you better adore my delusions."
Nihlus made the first move, popping off a couple of tightly controlled punches. She danced just out of his reach, not letting him sucker her into range of his foot swipe. Instead, she waited, batting a few punches aside and dodging his kicks as she let him get his repertoire of obvious moves out of his system.
She knew the moment things became serious, his stare focusing to the point where he seemed to look right past her, his entire body grounding, settling into the floor as if gravity had both claimed ownership over his every movement and yet freed him at the same time. Contact became the rule as they moved in the dance, their movements not designed to take one another down but to converse.
A wide, wild grin spread across Shepard's face as they sparred, equally matched in their differences. It felt nothing like the barely contained rage of their first spar. They'd been vying for control back then, both stubbornly refusing to give way. It had shattered them, so utterly that it took months for them to find their way to somewhere solid and positive.
Nihlus stopped so suddenly that Shepard bowled straight through him, bearing him to the mats when she expected him to give ground, and he just didn't. Her breastbone slammed into his keel, the bladed bone feeling as though it cut her in half as it drove the wind from her lungs in a single, belching whoop. She rolled off, Nihlus catching her in one arm, holding her up as she gasped, chest heaving without pulling in any air.
"Oh, spirits, haksaya kubenar, I'm sorry." He pulled her in tight, his heat helping relax her stunned diaphragm as he massaged her back. "I … " Mandibles hanging in misery, he nuzzled her temple, coaxing her body into taking a full breath.
Once she did, air flowing again, she sagged into his embrace. "I might need mouth to mouth."
He laughed, his mandibles flicking once, hard as he drew her in, nuzzling her face. "Maybe after you've taken a few more breaths." He pushed her away just far enough for his gentle talons to examine her chest for damage. A few wounds wept a little, and a hell of a bruise would likely replace the red welt down her center line, but no harm done.
"That was dirty," she said, pulling in one of the weird bean cushions the turians used to support their cowl and fringe while they lifted weights. She stuffed it in behind him, then pushed him back. "What was your plan?" Throwing a leg over him, she straddled his thighs and leaned down, forearms braced against his chest.
Wrapping those long, strong arms around her, Nihlus chuckled, his mouth plates sliding along her cheekbone, his breath exquisitely heated, scented with desire … sweet baby Jesus, she loved that her boys loved her so deeply, and wanted her so fiercely that it changed their body chemistry.
"This was pretty much exactly what I had in mind," he whispered, his subvocals cutting straight through her. "I got tired waiting for one of us to take the other down."
Shepard chuckled and turned into him, kissing his mandible. "Next time try not to crack me right in half." Wrapping her arms around his neck, she leaned into him, her brow pressed to his, their breath mingling between open mouths. "So, want did you want to talk about?" Teasing fingers wandered up the edge of the plates along the back of his neck, finding their way to his fringe. "Or were you thinking about a different sort of grappling?"
He rumbled, a deep throaty purr. "I wanted to talk about us and … the other sort of grappling."
Shepard leaned back, her forearms on either side of his keel, bracing herself so she could look into his eyes. "I'm glad, because I'm worried about us on that front." She kissed him, then sighed. "I'm sort of afraid we're going to get frozen in the sex-free zone."
Nihlus pulled her in, nuzzling into her neck. "I want to, Jane. Spirits, I want to make love to you so badly that sometimes it's all I can do to keep it reined in, but …." He chuffed, his chest bouncing beneath her a little even as his grip on her tightened. "This might sound ridiculous coming from a torin in his fifties, but I want our first time to be on the night after we wrap our coillasi around one another's wrists."
Shepard grinned as she wrapped herself around him. "Why, Spectre Kryik, you romantic." She held him tight, swallowing down the molten ball of emotion in her throat before it could creep up to her eyes. "Okay, I can wait for the oil and firelight … but I really don't want to go even a couple of hours without some serious making out going on."
She kissed the soft hide just behind his jaw, nipping it lightly and grinning as he growled low and lusty, leaning into her. "This marriage isn't me and Garrus with Nihlus on the side, and I worry that you feel that way." She leaned back again to meet his eyes, loading her stare with as much love as she could pack into it. "I adore you, Nihlus Kryik, and I want us to have a lifetime of being madly in love. We deserve it after nearly a decade of crushing on one another from a distance."
He leaned up to kiss her, whispering against her lips, "We do." He deepened the kiss, their mouths moving together, a conversation without words. Easing his way from her lips to her ear, Nihlus whispered. "What has you so tied in knots the last few days, haksaya kubenar?" He eased her up off his chest. "Let's sit up and talk for a second?"
She sighed. Damn, she had hoped to sort through all her craziness before one of them nailed her down to talk about it. She kissed him, brushing his chin, nose, and brow with her lips before she rolled off to the side. "Yeah, okay."
Nihlus pushed himself up off the floor to sit cross-legged, his back pressed to the stack of mats. Patting his thigh, he invited her to sit with him. "This is the best position for talking," he said as she settled into the cradle of his legs. His tone low and soothing, subvocals thrumming with a deep resonance that she felt in her chest, he said, "Talk to me, Jane. You've been preoccupied since … well, I've felt it since we returned from Illium and Korlus, but it's worse since Horizon."
She leaned into his touch, her eyes closing as he took her face between his large, calloused hands. Letting his heat seep into the wounds carved into her cheeks, she took a long, slow breath. "I don't know who I am any more," she said and sighed, saying the words a far greater relief than she would have thought. Opening her eyes, she stared into his, seeing herself reflected there in a hundred ways, all slightly different. "That bullet shattered everything, Nihlus … it shattered me, and I don't think Cerberus found all the pieces."
Her Spectre caressed her battered face, his mandibles fluttering a little before he quirked a brow plate. "Oh?"
She nodded, relaxing into his touch when he didn't dismiss or deny her concern. "I've tried to find the old Jane Shepard, but it feels fake, like I'm wearing a mask that just doesn't fit." Wrapping her arms around his neck, she laid against him, allowing the arms that slipped around her to support her. Garrus worried about her constantly, too much to bring this stuff up, and she needed to talk … not joke ... not treat the great absence she felt lightly … but really talk about it.
"Since I woke up in that lab, I feel like half of me is missing. At first, I thought it was the gaps in my memory, but it's all back, and there's still this big chunk that's just gone." She rested her head on the soft flesh just inside his cowl and breathed in the warm, musky scent of his sweat, letting it soothe her. "All the old snap, crackle, and pop … swaggering through missions, shooting from the hip, cracking wise … where did it go?" Looking up to meet his eyes, she frowned, the skin between her brows pinching.
Nihlus shook his head a little, his mouth brushing her forehead as he answered, "It hasn't gone anywhere. You're still a smart ass." He smiled and pulled her in, his arms moulding her to his body. "Okay, you've changed a little, but it's not a bad thing, Jane." When she pulled away again, searching his eyes, mining for meaning, he shrugged. "You forget that I've been watching you for a long time." He rumbled, a deep, calming rolling of subvocals. "You became hard and brittle in the cycles after Elysium."
Shepard let out a long breath and closed her eyes, sinking into the familiar respite of Nihlus's energy, his beautiful heart. Garrus and Anderson … Archangel … had been so damned good for him.
"You came out of Elysium angry." The words hollowed her out, a spoon scooping a melon's guts. "So angry that you turned it against the entire galaxy. Sure, you couched it as jokes and who-gives-a-crap attitude, but in the end, you were lashing out and trying to pretty it up by calling it all sorts of things. Humor, testing people, getting them to reveal who they really were … it was all just your rage screaming to be taken seriously."
"I—" As his words hollowed her out and scraped her raw, her instincts insisted she fight back, argue in defense of that woman. She'd been a hell of a woman, after all. N7, Star of Terra recipient, chosen to be the first human Spectre.
Nihlus shook his head and kissed her brow. "Sh. It's my turn to talk. You get to listen." A smile of both blades and bandaids purchased her silence. "I know that anger almost ruined your career. Only Anderson and that damned medal stopped the Alliance from Cat 6-ing you." Wrapping an arm around her shoulders, he pulled her in against him. "Look, you've been dead for nearly two years and then dragged back. No one expects you to just brush that off, nor should you."
He kissed her temple, the strength of that embrace and the warm breath on her hairline soothing the raw lining left behind by the truth. Hollow she remained, but clean and ready to be refilled with all the new and beautiful. "Besides, no matter how different you think you are … you're still a hell of a soldier … still smart and quick enough that you make the rest of us look like we're going backwards … still the leader who will bring us through this war." He nuzzled her brow. "The fifty quips a minute, driving Makos through thresher maws Shepard … I think her time expired long before you died." Meeting her eyes, all the sharp edges of his smile softening, he sighed. "You've got a whole new life with Garrus and with me. You're so loved, Jane."
Shepard nodded and wrapped her arms around him, finding no reason to reply. He was right. She needed to grab hold of the new her and her new life: there wasn't a single thing wrong with either. That thought set off a chain reaction of explosions inside her chest and her head. Why was she waxing poetic about her old life … that tissue paper version of herself? She hadn't even possessed enough trust to give Garrus the morsel that he'd asked her for. That shell had no place in her new life.
"You're quite the genius, Spectre Kryik," she whispered, melting into his embrace. "And I love you."
"Captain?" Lt. Cortez called a few minutes later. "We're almost to launch depth. Legion awaits you at the shuttle."
"On my way." Other than sighing, she didn't move for long seconds, hating the idea of going down there without the general and the Spectre. "Guess I should get armoured up and down to the shuttle."
"As soon as the chia give the all clear, we'll be on a shuttle," he said, the words a promise that settled the elcor marching band, drum and gymnastics corps rolling around in her belly. Strong hands lifted her to her feet. "Come on, I'll check your armour for you."
(A-N: Biiiiig chapter. 150. I know a lot of you have probably thought the fic was dead. I got off track with Sassy, but she's pulling me back and I'm really going to focus on her as much as I can until this story gets finished. I've put almost three years in, and it deserves to get taken to completion. *hugs to all those still reading* Would love to hear from people. Yay Chapter 150.)