Chapter 1
London-2186, Fort Endeavour
14 Days post-Crucible
The light was painful to her eyes, even as she tried to squint and filter it from her sight. As brilliant as the lighting in the room was, she wasn't able to make out anything besides a blinding white haze and the presence of distant shadows. With a long squeeze of her eyelids followed by a quick flutter, Shepard was able to clear some of the distortions from her vision and make out vague blurry forms, and slowly sound began to trickle in to supplement her sight. She could hear hurried bustling around her, as well as the soft whirring and beeping of machines somewhere near her. A unique movement to her right, one of the blurry figures drawing closer to her, garnered Shepard's attention.
The Commander attempted to turn her head to face whoever was approaching her and felt a jolt of pain shoot up her neck and through the back of her head, her head only turning a little bit. Instead, she settled for her shifting her eyes as best she could to get a sight. Though the blurry forms all around her were clearing with each passing moment, she still couldn't make out the tall one next to her—though once she heard his voice she didn't need to. "You're one tough bitch. You know I gave the call for retreat when you and Anderson took that hit? I didn't suppose anyone could've survived it, and we weren't picking up anyone on the comms. You and Anderson pulled one last miracle off though and got that damn Crucible to fire." The rough English voice belonged to Major Coats, and though she'd only known him a short period of time, Anderson had vouched for his abilities which went far in her book. She felt a warm hand give her shoulder a gentle friendly squeeze, a stark contrast to her cold pallid skin.
"Anderson?" Shepard wheezed, her voice still hoarse from all she'd been through. Though Coats still hadn't come into full focus for her she could make out enough of his face to know that it wasn't good. She saw his lips, the rough shape of them, purse together into a thin line while he shook his head. "He didn't make it, he was dead when the Marines found you… you were still clinging to him. You tried Shepard." The news about Anderson, who'd always been like a mentor to her, pierced deep. She'd known he was dead as soon as he'd faded aboard the Citadel, but she'd drug him out anyways in a last-ditch effort to save him. "What happened up there?" Coats cautiously asked, his voice soft in case Shepard had a bad reaction to the question, "Do you remember at all? The medic said Anderson took a pistol round to the chest, who else was up there? Who shot Anderson?" Shepard just shook her head, turning away from Coats as her chapped lips frowned slightly, "I don't remember." Coats sighed, a disappointed sound with traces of disbelief. It was clear that he didn't entirely believe Shepard's amnesia, but he wasn't sure whether or not he could push it. "Tell me whatever you will, Commander. Do you have any idea who shot Anderson?" Gritting her teeth despite the pain it brought her jaw, Shepard turned her head as much as she could to face Coats, "I said I don't know, Major." With another sigh Coats nodded his head and stepped back, allowing Shepard to have some room to herself, "I'm glad you survived at least, I'll leave you be, Commander." With that, the English man turned on his heels and walked away from her bedside.
Anderson hung there, suspended upright before her like a puppet on an invisible string wielded only by the Illusive Man, directly downrange from Shepard's pistol. The Illusive Man was monologuing presently, but he had some kind of physical control over both Shepard and Anderson, and he'd already pointed Shepard's pistol—she knew what he was going to do. The thirty-two-year-old Commander was trying to keep worry for what was to come off her face, to show a last measure of strength before this man she respected so greatly, even though she knew Anderson didn't need it. He very obviously knew what was to come as well, and for one last time, he protected Shepard by avoiding showing any sign of such. Shepard wished that the illusive man had raised Anderson's pistol, that she wouldn't have to be the one to pull the trigger, but that wouldn't torture her nearly as much—and he knew it.
"…look at how much power they can wield."With that, the Illusive Man lunged forward, his fist clenching in midair, and Shepard felt her index finger forced down until the pistol in her hand went off and Anderson grunted in pain. Even now, even after she'd just been forced to shoot him, there were no signs of disappointment with her on his face. There was no look of anger for her, nor sadness, only disgust for the deranged man to his side.
Anderson! Shepard cried in her head, wanting desperately to lunge forward and apply medi-gel to the wound, to at least try to save him, but that wasn't the Illusive Man's plan. In fact, the sadist wouldn't even let Anderson drop to the floor and die properly, instead, he was forced to hang there as he had before, even as his gut leaked blood into his already bloodstained uniform. Despite the cries of pain in her mind, and her desire to save him, Shepard said nothing to recognize what he'd just made her do. He could pull her trigger for her, but he couldn't make her give him the satisfaction he wanted. The only indication that Shepard was even aware of what her pistol had just done was a momentarily regretful look that she shot Anderson, before turning back to the Illusive Man with hate in her eyes.
"You were supposed to protect us… and you failed."Shepard bit towards him, the hate in her eyes pure and consuming. "No! I am the savior of humanity… I am the pinnacle of our species!" The entire time the Illusive Man had been wandering in front of her, a pistol he'd taken from Anderson's belt in his hand as he grew more erratic. Finally, with his last words, he had pushed Anderson aside, clearly intending to kill Shepard, but the Illusive Man was no practiced killer. He'd spent most of his time aboard Cronos Station, telling other people what to do. He may have killed others himself, Shepard didn't know, but she did know one thing: she'd killed far more people herself than he ever could. Confident that the wounded Anderson was clear of any further shots, Shepard pulled the trigger one single time, catching the Illusive Man in the chest and dropping him to the floor before he had a chance to aim even properly.
Though her eyes were mostly closed as the memory played across her mind, she could make out another figure coming towards her. Warily she opened her eyes back up, half expecting the Major to have come back with a case of interrogation tools to extract from her just who'd shot Anderson, but instead, it was a familiar alien face, now in more clarity than Coats' face had been. "Primarch Victus," Shepard said, her voice somehow conveying surprise despite how weak she was, "I thought you would have evacuated the planet by now and returned to Palaven." The turian shot her what she had learned from years of working with Garrus Vakarian to be the turian equivalent of a sad smile, "I had hoped to do just that, Commander, not to say ill things about the beauty of your world. With the war finally over I only hope to see the condition of Palaven and begin rebuilding… though that has been complicated, all recent developments considered." Shepard cocked an eyebrow at him, confusion clear on her puffy and bruised face, "What do you mean… 'recent developments'?" She asked, her voice hesitant to ask what the newest bad news could be. "I guess you have been in and out of consciousness for two weeks. When the Crucible fired… whatever happened up there on the Citadel, the Relays have gone dark—at least the Sol Relay has. It isn't looking like our Relay is damaged, but we've sent a ship to Arcturus Stream to see if their relay is also out. If so… well, we're looking at a lot longer travel time. Right now communications are down, but," the turian held up his hand as if to wave off any alarmed outbursts, though Shepard was in no condition to make any, "we know that Anderson had access to a QEC that he used to talk to you, on the Normandy. We're trying to track down where that ended up now, if we can get our hands on it then we can get a relatively quick status update. Until then…" he just shrugged.
Shepard let out a long sigh, "It doesn't ever stop, does it Primarch?" The tall avian-like alien let out a soft chuckle while he slowly shook his head, "You know something about 'not stopping' do you not, Commander? Ilos, you tracked down Saren and his Geth, with a single frigate, engaged them on the ground, and then used a homemade Mass Relay to travel to the Citadel where you killed a Reaper before we even knew what they were." He held up one of his long talon-like fingers as if counting off, "Or there was when you flew through the Omega-4 Relay, a relay that no one has ever survived a flight through and killed another reaper." Another finger came up to count off Shepard's achievements, "I won't even try to count how many Reapers you killed in this latest war, but I know you just survived a crashing space station." The turian's head tilted upward while his last finger ticked off. "I'm beginning to think they put something in the water during N7 training." As he finished the turian let out another cheerful laugh, and Shepard decided she was enjoying this conversation far more than she had the one with Coats. It wasn't because the Primarch was reading off her accolades, she wasn't a narcissist, but he was cheerful.
"I had something that Ilos, Omega-4, and the Reapers didn't have." Shepard returned with a slight shrug, her face wincing in pain as she felt the burns and lacerations on her shoulders stretch. "Whoa there, settle down Commander," the Turian playfully chided, "if you anger your doctors they're likely to sew you up backward. Now, what would it be that you had special?" Shepard's gaze dropped, her attention fading to space as hollow sadness settled over her, "I had David Anderson."
Serpent Nebula-2186, Coalition Forces' Rendezvous Point
14 Days post-Crucible
The halls of the Normandy felt empty, despite everything in roughly the same places they'd always been. The Normandy's main deck, what Garrus Vakarian would always call the CIC despite whatever 'war room' or other fancy equipment they put in the back of the ship, was a cluttered mess of boxes and wires, and Garrus didn't dare move a single one of them. He'd nearly snapped at a Serviceman who'd drug one of the cords that ran across the deck's floor towards his station to provide power to something or another that'd had its wiring damaged in the crash. It's how she left it, he'd thought, it's what we've got left of her… her chaotic order, and her memories.
No one aboard the ship was without loss, though some of them felt it harder than others. Joker had hardly left the bridge since they'd managed to get the Normandy back up in the air, and when he would emerge his eyes were noticeably sunken in and dark. Whatever wave of energy that'd come from the Citadel as it broke apart, he'd gotten some feeling that it wouldn't just be bad for the Reapers, and the cocky ace pilot had tried to outrun it. He'd demanded that one of them, Ashley or Liara he thought, power EDI down and remove whatever power sources they could from her in a desperate attention to save the Artificial Intelligence that he'd fallen in love with. Even with his precautions, she'd suffered damage, and any attempts to switch her back on had failed, as had attempts to graft her processes into the Normandy's computers. In addition, by waiting as long as he did to leave the Sol System, he'd caused the Normandy to suffer the blast while in FTL, and it'd wreaked unknown havoc on their drive core. Miraculously Tali had gotten them back up and running in a week, and they'd only been a day's FTL jump from the Coalition RV Point.
If he were speaking objectively, Ashley had fared the worst in losses. She'd known Shepard the longest, she'd been the one that Shepard had fallen in love with, and in turn, the one that had fallen in love with Shepard. Sure, Vakarian had known her nearly as long, and there were rumors among some of the Normandy's crew that Vakarian might've had a crush on Shepard at one point during one of their deployments, but that was long past—and Garrus wasn't in the business of competing over who was in the most grief. They'd both been there at the end before Shepard ventured on her final charge towards the beam. Vakarian and Ashley had always been Shepard's preferred personal ground team, and he liked to think that it was because they were her most trusted amongst the crew, but perhaps that was Vakarian being a bit cocky. Garrus clenched his three-fingered fist in anger as he remembered his final moments with the woman, when the Alliance transport had been sent airborne, wounding Ashley in the process. He'd seen their redheaded Commander go up against hellish odds without letting even the slightest emotional compromise into her decision making, but he could tell that at that moment even she was scared. It'd been the most frightful that Vakarian had ever seen Shepard, when she'd brought the full force of all the emotional tension she kept locked away to bear on Ashley Williams, a normally otherwise stubborn marine, getting her to retreat aboard the Normandy. His grip tightened, his knuckles popping slightly at the tension as he remembered it, remembered the moment that he abandoned her. He could've gone with her, disobeyed orders for once in his damned life, and it would've saved her. He knew that if he had gone through the beam with her that she would've survived, but he didn't. He followed her orders, and he kept Ashley safe. Garrus looked towards a nearby wall, the momentary thought of venting his anger in a violent outburst against an otherwise innocent bulkhead flashed through his mind, but he thought better of it. Instead, the turian closed his eyes tight, his anger fading to a bitter sadness.
"Garrus…?" A soft voice spoke from behind him, stirring the turian from his moment of contemplation almost as soon as it had begun. He'd been standing between Traynor's station and the Commander's old station, but he turned to find Dr. Liara T'Soni standing just outside the Normandy's elevator, clutching a bundle of paper in her hands, and tentatively looking at the taller man. Garrus let out the breath that he only just realized he'd been holding, and with sad eyes, he looked down towards Liara. Though the asari had aged while they'd known each other, her longer lifespan meant that she showed little of it as opposed to the humans, turian, and tuarian aboard the Normandy. That meant that she still looked near exactly as she had when they found her on Therum. Physically the girl might've been significantly Garrus' senior, but as far as the asari were concerned she was barely an adult—explaining the dynamic that she'd struck with the rest of the crew that made it feel as though she were the youngest.
Garrus suddenly realized that he hadn't actually responded to Liara, only turned around and sighed at her, bringing a pang of embarrassment to the turian. "Err sorry Liara, I was lost in my thoughts… what is it?" The asari's face had sunk somewhat in the long moment that Garrus had only looked at her, and he feared that she thought he would just blow her off. The recognition of her inquiry brought some life back to the pale blue skin of her face, and her soft dark eyes looked up to make eye contact with his. "The Commander left this with us before she embarked for the final strike on the beam… she left it with me because I think she knew Ashley wouldn't ever realize that it was time to give it to you…" Liara's gaze drifted downward and to the side as if she were avoiding mentioning how Ashley had refused to put Shepard's name on the memorial wall when even Joker had done so with EDI. Garrus didn't blame Ashley for holding out, putting her name on the wall would be the final nail in Shepard's coffin and it would be a difficult thing to come to terms with. At least Joker had been able to hold EDI's body and see that she was dead… or whatever the equivalent was for an AI. Garrus realized that her hand was extended, the folded envelope of paper in it, and she was waiting for him to take it. Vakarian took the envelope from Liara, his hand trembling slightly as he unfolded it and read over the sloppy writing across its face.
J. Shepard
SAMC Commander, N7
Garrus Vakarian
As far as the face of the envelope went, that was all that she'd written. Garrus turned it over in one of his clawed hands, seeing that there was a bit of informal scrawling on the back flap of it and that the envelope had been sealed by the official seal of the Systems Alliance Marine Corps, with Shepard's own name scrawled at the bottom of the seal. Shepard's scrawling handwritten note read "Garrus, open this when I've died. If you don't want to, then consider it an order—my last order." The turian gritted his teeth, his mandibles flaring in emotion as he worked to unfasten the envelope without tearing it—treating every centimeter of the paper as if it were a precious treasure. Finally, he unsealed it, and inside he found a small slip of what he was pretty sure was notebook paper, that'd been unceremoniously torn from some spiralbound notebook, folded twice, and shoved into this envelope—true Shepard fashion. His hands still trembling, Vakarian unfolded the paper and held it before his face to read, the envelope tucked between the last two fingers on his left hand so that it was out of his way.
Garrus,
We knew this day was coming eventually, I'm just glad I got to retire first so I don't have to live in a galaxy without Garrus Vakarian. If you're reading this, some unlucky son of a bitch finally managed to put me down, note I said unlucky. If I didn't kill the bastard I'm assuming he's just found a place atop the kill list of the most dangerous Turian I know, just remember to duck. With that said, you're the sole surviving member of the Shepard-Vakarian team, I'm just mad that I won't be able to beat your ass in a rematch shootout on top of the Citadel. But don't you worry, I've made it to heaven half an hour before the devil knows I'm dead, and I'm sitting at the bar waiting for you—take as long as you will, I've still got your back.
Garrus could see that the paper in this section of the note had been bled somewhat, the ink running in every which direction, the trademark of a drop of water meeting the paper; Shepard had cried writing this. His chest felt like it was going to explode from the sinking of his heart, but he kept reading.
On the matter of the Normandy, she's yours Garrus. Whatever's left of the Alliance will probably have a field day with that one, but it's my standing orders for her, as the Normandy's commanding officer. If you have any problems with the Alliance get Anderson or Hackett, whichever one of them is still kicking when this is all over, to give you a commission, because I know one of them will make it out, and they owe my ass big time. I don't think a force on hell or earth could kill Anderson Hackett and me in a single battle. You're more than qualified for the position, and you know the Normandy more than anyone in the Galaxy, I know you'll keep her calibrated. The other half of my order is Ashley, she'll be your XO, and I need you to look out for her. Ash is a tough girl, but I'm sure she'll be going through some things about now… just don't let her do anything stupid Vakarian.
I've already made this as sappy as I'm sure you can bear, so I'll wrap it up there. You have a good life Vakarian, I'm proud of you and I know you'll be a damned good officer.
Commander Jessica Shepard, Systems Alliance Marine Corps Commander, N7
Garrus just stared at the letter, his eyes burning with tears that he was trying his best to not let out. Finally, like a levy giving way to crashing storm waves, a single tear slipped down his angular face. That tear was followed by another, and then another, and another, until Garrus was able to finally will them to stop, if only momentarily, by digging the nail at the end of his forefinger into his palm tightly. Liara was still standing in front of him, the asari's face a clear mask of sadness and remorse. She slowly brought her right hand up to her brow, flattening the hand and cocking her elbow so that her arm was near parallel with her brow, in the closest thing to a salute the asari scientist had likely ever done, "Commander." Liara said softly, her voice close to choking itself. Shepard must've told her what the letter said or had left Liara a letter of her own. Garrus swallowed hard, resisting the urge to allow his tears to come back, simply nodding his head at Liara, "Thank you Liara." Slowly the asari lowered her salute, her arm falling back to her side, and slipped back into the elevator to give him some time alone. Garrus sank backward, his bony rear resting against the edge of Shepard's old console as his head sank down into his hands. Finally, his will gave way and tears came freely running down his cheeks, the turian not even attempting to stop them. Instead, he could only think of one thing, Jessica... I've known her for three years, and she never told me her name was Jessica. She considered me her friend, her replacement, but I'd never even asked her for her first name.