Jane Shepard
I hardly made it to my quarters in one piece. It was getting worse and worse every day. I leaned back against the door, sprawled out on the ground. I could hear myself breathing heavily, wheezing even. Good God, the terror I was experiencing was insane. My heart threatened to break through my ribs. My veins burned, and I worried that I was experiencing tachycardia so severe that they were filling up with oxygen rather than blood. The blood, the bodies, the baratians, the stupid assistant who looked and acted so much like Zabaleta. All of it. I couldn't tell you what happened if I tried. I can't remember any of it. I don't know if I could ever step foot on Omega again after that. Jesus.
I don't know how long a time I spent helplessly shuddering and crying against my door, still in my combat armor. When finally I got myself together enough to breathe and think clearly my official shift was over. I should have been sleeping by then, but I had paperwork to deal with. Paperwork, I could deal with that. There were no gun shots, no plagues, no deaths, just requisition forms, status reports, crew details and upgrade statuses. I could handle that.
Names of the crew floated by as I worked. I didn't want to sleep anyway, so this was a better use of my time. Here I could zone out and quietly think to myself. Gardner needed foodstuffs, and I made a response that we'd pick them up next time we were on the citadel.
Pinching the bridge of my nose and sorting through more data pads, I let my mind wander a little. Garrus told me how he was emulating me. Garrus led a squad, and Garrus got them killed. He was doing a fantastic job mimicking my feats. He was getting to be a shaky, unstable mess, just like me. I couldn't think of a better way to emulate me. Instability had become some kind of trademark for me. But he deserves better than that. He doesn't need the shit that I have to deal with. He's still got a chance at redemption, so long as I can halt his journey down the same path I'm on. There's no hope left for me. I'm a broken as that mirror in my lavatory, but Garrus still has a chance.
I replied to a message on my screen politely declining Dr. Chakwas' offer to share the brandy that I picked up for her while on Omega. Getting drunk with the kindly old woman was all too appealing, but trying to keep a clear head and not break down reminiscing about old times with her could have been one of Heracles' great labors, with how hard it would be not to break down.
Garrus, Garrus, Garrus, I sighed. Don't follow in my footsteps, I taught you better than that. I thought I taught you to carve your own path. I heaved a sigh and continued my work, pouring myself some rum to steady the shaking in my hand. Even though he was following my path, I couldn't help but think about Toombs and compare the two of them. I left him behind directionless, no matter how unintentional it was. He was my responsibility. He was my charge. Most of all, he was my friend. God, that I left him behind for two years slowly wasting away on Omega . . . Unforgivable. It's a wonder he can even manage to laugh with me any more.
Donnelly's reports on the engine maintenance were insane. The time spend cleaning and doing minor adjustments was either them slacking off and filling out time sheets wrong, or something really ought to be upgraded. And from the few chats I'd had with the engineers, it didn't seem like they were the time to shirk their duties. There was a brief footnote mentioning faulty couplings. I remembered a salvage store on Omega. I sent a message to Miranda to go see if they had the right parts before we left dock tomorrow while she was procuring fuel and ammo.
I stood up to stretch and change from my armor to my uniform, feeling only a little foolish for not having done it sooner. My head felt comfortably foggy, and my body was warm. I glanced over at my desk to see that I'd managed to finish the rum without realizing it.
The blood on my armor caught my eye as I moved to hang it up. The slightly lighter, slightly more orange red drew my attention more than the rest. The horror I experienced at that moment was vivid.
"You humans think you're so superior." The words are said around blood as Balak clutches the various wounds I've inflicted on him. "But you're no better than us!"
No, no, no! I will not be sucked into another horror flash back!
I had already sent Kaidan and Garrus to take an account of the civilian casualties, so I have time to make this take as long as it needs to. The smirk on that batarian face is laughable. Shepard knows he's dead meat, just like the humans he just killed. I listen to him accuse me of being a terrorist, of being part of a worthless race, and I just smirk right back at him. I've got him in my sights. He gets to die tonight. Slowly. I shoot him in the shoulder wordlessly. The grunt of pain is sweet to my ears.
This is for Mindoir, you slave driving bastard.
"There are thousands more like me," Balak assures me. "Each one willing to die for our cause!" Great. Let's let there be one less tonight.
I shoot him in the chest, and there's a small hissing sound of a collapsed lung as she cries out in pain.
"What? What do you want? Details?"
"I don't want anything from you," I say. "I just want you to feel the pain that so many others have felt because of scum like you." I aim my gun at his head.
"Just kill me. Get it over with."
"No." I shoot out both his kneecaps. You get to watch the life seep out of you. You get to feel what my parents felt. You get to feel what Jesse felt. You get to die in a pool of your own blood, with nothing you can do about it.
"Fuck you! This is all your fault! Why the fuck haven't you just shut up already?" I screamed at the mirror. Jane was the one who felt guilty. Jane was the one who was dwelling. I didn't give a shit. I didn't care. As far as I was concerned, Balak got what he deserved! "Just shut up!" I yelled frantically. I sent three consecutive punches into the already shattered glass, shredding my knuckles even more. Grinding the broken glass into my hands, wishing to hell they were Jane's hands. She was the one making this hurt. She was the one who was revisiting all this shit. It didn't matter.
I'd put medigel on my hands later and cover them with gloves. The crew would never need to notice. My eyeliner had run all the way down to my neck, and my lipstick was irreparably smeared. I wiped it off so that I could reapply the black facial markings, as if that would give me some measure of control over Jane. But the tears didn't stop, and I was left glaring at my own face, nearly uncovered as it hadn't been in years.
"Commander Shepard." I choked on my own breath as I whirled around to see who spoke to me. "Officer Vakarian is at your door. He's requested to see you, despite your door being locked," added EDI. I coughed, releasing my caught breath. I was immediately relieved. I pressed the button on the panel speak to her. What the hell time was it, any way?
"Yes, EDI, go ahead and let him in."
"Yes, commander."
I stared at myself in what was left of my mirror after all the thrashings I'd given it. I tried to make sure I didn't look like as much of a mess as I felt, but Jane stared back at me. Tight-lipped, worried, helpless. I glared at her. Shepard glared at her.
After washing and covering my hands, and wiping the rest of my makeup off - Garrus, of all people, was the only one who I would allow to see me barefaced - I exit the lavatory and greet Garrus, glancing at the clock as I do so. It's 0600 hours, my shift should be starting in about one more. I do my best to put on a smile.
"Garrus, what are you doing up here so early?" I asked. Garrus twitched nervously, his jaw moving in a precursor to saying something difficult.
"I just wanted to make sure you were all right, Shepard," he said finally. I bit the inside of my cheek. Of course I wasn't as stealthy about my panics as I could hope for, but I still wasn't prepared for someone to talk to me about it directly, least of all Garrus. I mean, sure, Garrus and I go back as good friends, and sure, he's not bad at recognizing human expressions, for a turian, but I still thought the person to confront me would more likely have bee one of my human compatriots.
"Things got a little rough there in the quarantine zone. It's not like you," he continued after a slight silence in which I spend much of the time averting my eyes. Part of it was my discomfort at being seen without makeup, as stupid as that sounds, but most of it was that I honestly couldn't remember a single thing. The entire trip was blacked out of my head. It made me too agitated to meet his eyes at first, but it wouldn't do to be bashfully looking at the ground. That just didn't do justice to the great commander Shepard.
"What do you mean?" I asked, sitting down on the couch. "Did I do something lascivious?" I asked with a laugh. Clearly humor isn't going to satiate him or avert him. He sniffed and looked disapprovingly at the empty bottle and stacks of paperwork on my desk, but said nothing of it.
"I mean with those batarians. I just . . . You shot them down, even when you told them you wouldn't. My heart jumped into my throat. Oh, God, that did ring a bell. I lied, and killed them. Who cares if they were going to cause even more harm later, I lied to them. And I did it in front of Garrus, with his turian honor and honesty. What an idiot I am.
I couldn't meet his gaze. Shepard had been in charge. Jane hadn't been there at all. She had been catatonic. I couldn't really remember any of it, but if I really did that, then I screwed up big time.
"Shepard?" At his beckoning, I felt myself snap out of the beginning of yet another flashback. For the life of me, I couldn't say what. Probably just this event. I needed to stop clenching my hands, because I was drawing a good deal of attention to them, and they were only wrapped enough to staunch the bleeding for a little while. There would be red patches on the gauze any minute. But I didn't know what else to do to regulate my heart beat, nor did I know where else to look. It was either the hands in my lap, or up at Garrus' reproachful eyes. I took a shaky breath, not daring to look at him even as I spoke.
"Garrus, I don't have a good explanation. I shouldn't have done that at all. But could I ask you a really awkward and unrelated favor? Please don't call me that any more." There. I said it. I started a chain reaction. I couldn't stop there. I had tried to apologize, and instead I blurted all that out without a single pause in between. My hands stung as I wrung them, driving a little glass deeper and reddening my bandages. When I finally look up, trying to divert attention from my battered knuckles, Garrus was giving me a very confused look, but he hasn't seemed to notice my hands. That's some small blessing, and with that in mind I swallow against the lump in my throat and take a deep, somewhat steadying breath, even thought it's very shaky. "Please just call me Jane. I would appreciate it."
"Um, okay?" he said cautiously. "Why?"
"I'm getting called "Shepard" by everyone. People I don't like, people I don't trust, people I don't want to deal with. Pulling rank on them just seems so stupid, especially since officially I'm dead and not even a Commander any more." Oh my God. The bullshit that can come out of my mouth when I don't want to tell the truth. "The point is, I trust you, and I want to be able to hear something different when you talk to me than when Cerberus talks to me. You're questioning me on something I shouldn't have done, and I need more of that. Working with Cerberus is making the shades of gray all blend together."
I want to thwart Shepard. I want to make sure she doesn't pull that kind of shit any more, ever again. Please help me, Garrus. I want to be Jane again. I want to get rid of the part of me that needs to kill to flourish.
"Well, when you put it like that, it would be impossible to say no. You apparently trust, like, and want to deal with me. What a complement. Does this mean I should question your actions more often?" God yes, make sure I don't do that again! Make sure Shepard doesn't gain ground. Make sure she has to fight like hell to ruin things again.
"Only when they're worth questioning, buddy."
"Too bad you didn't tell me this before you opened Grunt's tank."
"And miss the chance to headbutt a krogan? I think I would have had to ignore you on that one."
"Well then, I suppose I should be getting back to calibrations. I'll talk to you later, Sh-" he paused, quietly smiling. His head bent in what might have been the turian equivalent of a blush. 的'll talk to you later, Jane. With that he exits the room.
I stir slightly at the unfamiliar address. No one calls me Jane. No one has since Mindoir. No one other than Kaidan.
Half an hour left until my shift starts. That's just enough time to cry and the cover my face again.