Invictus
IV: Salus
A peculiar feeling began permeating through Shepard's body — it was something like apprehension, but also not like it, like frustration but also not frustration.
It felt like dying.
"Of course, we'll need to salvage much more data to make sure," Liara said hastily. "The frigate was housing servers with quite a bit of data, and we have people on it right now."
"I — I see," Shepard managed to croak.
"I know it can't be easy news to hear, especially after waking up from a twenty-seven year sleep," said Singh, his face apologetic. "Whatever this turns out to be if it even turns out to be anything at all, you'll have the Alliance's full support. I promise you that."
Shepard could only open and close her mouth in response. Her mind was racing: what could she possibly do against the Leviathans? Why did it have to be her specifically? Would another suicide mission be involved? What about—
Suddenly she felt Liara's hand on her shoulder. "Shepard," she said simply, reassuringly. Although it didn't stop the torrent of what-ifs and what-abouts in her mind, it did pull Shepard back into reality long enough for her to take a deep breath and calm her nerves.
"I understand, Admiral. Thank you," Shepard said.
"Now, on to other matters," said Singh lightly, as though happy to be off the subject of Leviathan (which wouldn't be surprising). "We've arranged for an apartment for you on the Citadel while we get things sorted out. I'll come by in a few days to give you some time to settle in, and if you don't mind, there are some things I'd like to discuss with you."
None of that sounded very urgent, which put Shepard greatly at ease. "Of course, Admiral. Thank you."
"Now then, I think it's time for us to go," Singh said with a smile. "Matviyenko and Henry arranged for a C-Sec escort for you today because it's going to be an ordeal leaving the hospital. They're waiting outside the ward."
Shepard took a deep breath and exhaled slowly, steeling herself for what was to come. She felt nervous, honestly — the last time she had come back from the dead, she had been shot at and then whisked off into space by Joker with little ceremony. This time she would have to bear the full brunt of the Citadel in her face, in her dress blues no less.
She tugged gently at her collar.
"All right. I'm ready."
With one last glance at the hospital room that had shielded her from the outside world, Shepard followed Singh and Liara out the door.
The hallway was, strangely, devoid of any people apart from Henry leaning against the wall and reading from his omni-tool. Locked down indeed, Shepard thought.
"A C-Sec escort is waiting outside the main entrance, Admiral Shepard," said Henry, his omni-tool dissipating. "I'm going to warn you now that reporters have been waiting outside for hours. Once we leave the hospital, I strongly suggest you only smile at them if you must do anything at all until we can get into our vehicle. We will take you directly to your new living arrangements."
That was interesting. Henry strongly suggested rather than outright telling her what to do. Was this to be polite or did that mean he had no real authority over anything Shepard did? Not that she gave a damn whether he had authority over her; this was her second time coming back to life so she felt entitled to raise some hell if she damn well pleased. Now if only someone would give her a gun.
When they reached the door leading to the main lobby, Henry turned to speak again. "Some of your friends are waiting in the lobby. Just thought I'd warn you now."
Shepard gave him a questioning look, to which he replied with the "after you" gesture at the door. Don't see the need to be so ominous about it, Shepard thought in irritation as she stepped toward the door and watched the green panel spin as the door unlocked.
"SHEPARD!"
The last thing Shepard saw before being scooped up in a mass of armor and muscles was an enormous krogan charging at her. She didn't know what was happening other than the fact that she was being crushed into the neck of said krogan and that her spine felt like it might snap in half at any moment.
"Stop, put her down! She just woke up after twenty years, do you want to be the reason she dies now?!"
Immediately the arms crushing Shepard loosened and set her down — and it was then that she realized she was looking up at the face of none other than Grunt — her Grunt — who looked a little more scarred and slightly more worn but absolutely ecstatic to see her. "Grunt!" she exclaimed in delight, thumping him on the arm and pulling him into a hug.
"You sure you aren't part krogan? Hahahaha!" Grunt said, his deep laugh reverberating throughout Shepard's entire body. "Took you long enough to come back!"
When Shepard pulled herself out of the hug, she found a mass of familiar faces forming around her as the air filled with the sounds of familiar voices. There was Wrex, his seemingly unchanged figure looming behind Grunt; James, looking much less beefy than she remembered but with admittedly dashing age lines chiseled into his face to make up for it; Miranda, a smile on her still-youthful face as she scrutinized her, perhaps to see how her Cerberus fix-up job compared to this one; and finally a glimpse of Ashley, Tali and Jack (still sporting a partially-shaved head) standing a bit aways from the crowd.
Shepard was pulled into a whirlwind of delighted greetings and hugs — Shepard overjoyed to see that they had survived the bleak Reaper onslaught twenty-seven years ago, and in turn, they were overjoyed to find their commander and friend inexplicably alive after twenty-seven years. But it was almost too much for her, all this love; there was so much movement, so many voices saying so many things —
"Everyone, give Shepard some space," Liara said finally, her voice cutting through the air. Shepard breathed a small sigh of relief when everyone obediently backed off (except for Grunt, who was determined to stay at her side).
"I'm — I'm really happy to see all of you," Shepard said. She wasn't much of a crier, but she found her eyes beginning to well up with tears.
"I'm sorry, Admiral, but we really should be going. If you want to catch up, you should do it at your apartment," Henry interjected, though he shrank back in fear when Grunt whirled around and shot him a nasty glare.
"Heh, look at you and your fancy admiral title now," Jack called out with a laugh.
She glanced at Henry, who seemed rather impatient to go, and the receptionists and nurses who seemed equally ill at ease; Henry was right, it was time to leave. Huerta Memorial had been held up and inconvenienced for far too long on her behalf, and they were probably itching to get her out of their figurative hair. "Let's all get together soon, all right?" Shepard said, smiling and giving Grunt a pat on the arm.
"Yeah, fine," Grunt said in disappointment. "I'll bring the kids, they've been going crazy waiting to meet you."
Grunt's kids, Shepard thought in surprise (and slight horror). Grunt has CHILDREN.
"Come on, Admiral, we should get going," said Henry, who was making no effort to hide his impatience now.
Reluctantly, she bid goodbye to her old companions and (a bit disappointingly) Liara as well, who was understandably loath to venture out into the crowd of reporters and promised to come to the apartment later in the day. She followed Henry and Admiral Singh — who had been waiting patiently while Shepard had been mobbed — to the main entrance, steeling herself when they paused at the door to allow her the time to prepare herself. She nodded at Singh when she felt ready, and with Henry to her left and Singh at her right, the doors slid open and she took her first step out into a Reaper-free Citadel.
Any mental preparation for meeting the reporters outside was rendered useless upon seeing the multitudes of eyes and drones looking directly at her. She realized (a bit too late) that while one reporter was easy to handle and could be punched with few repercussions, fifty-plus reporters and who knows how many more civilians was an entirely different story. It was eerie how quiet they were — that her return was enough to reduce brazen reporters to hushed whispers at the sight of her. It felt so surreal that Shepard wasn't sure how long she was standing at the entrance; it felt like time had been suspended before her.
After what felt like eternity, sound and noise seemed to explode all around her. C-Sec guards sprang into motion, acting as a barrier to keep the people from mobbing her as Henry urged her along on the tail of the C-Sec escorts taking them to their transport. Shepard couldn't help but feel that she should make some sort of statement to the people gathered there as there were so many of them, but hadn't really a clue what to say. "I'm Admiral Shepard and uh...I'm alive. Surprise!"
Sure, that would be a great statement. Not.
But as she was being hurried along, she her eyes fell on a human pushing her way to the front of the C-Sec barrier. Her face was familiar — older but familiar — and had such pleading eyes that Shepard felt compelled to stop. She ignored Henry's impatient words urging her to pay no heed to them, and instead she approached this woman being jostled by C-Sec and reporters alike and pulled her out of the mob, much to the C-Sec guards' dismay. The crowd quieted down, either from surprise or anticipation or indignation that this woman had been chosen. The woman straightened her clothes with a professional air, but Shepard thought it was curious how she wasn't accompanied by a drone and wasn't reading data from an omni-tool.
"Khalisah Bint Sinan al-Jilani, Admiral Shepard."
Shepard's eyes widened in surprise. Al-Jilani had survived. And she was — was she a reporter right now?
"I'm not here with an agenda, Admiral Shepard, or even as a reporter," she said, a small smile on her face.
"Then...what?" was all Shepard managed to say.
"I just wanted to say — " al-Jilani hesitated, as though selecting her words carefully. " — I wanted to be the first to say thank you, Admiral."
The weight of these words left Shepard unable to speak.
"We wouldn't be here now if it weren't for you and your sacrifices, Admiral Shepard," she continued. "It may not mean much, coming from me. But thank you. Thank you."
Shepard didn't know what to do. If she opened her mouth, she was likely to spew gibberish. But to see this older al-Jilani so calm and not antagonizing her in the name of a story — it was touching.
"I did what I could," said Shepard finally, straightening up and folding her arms behind her back. "But I didn't do it alone. So I — I should be thanking the rest of the galaxy, because I wouldn't have made it as far as I did without their support and their sacrifice."
Al-Jilani seemed amused by the response.
"You haven't changed, Admiral Shepard."
Shepard could only reply with a wry smile — what could she really say to that? She gave a sidelong glance at Henry, who was watching her calmly but with a clenched jaw, and figured it was probably a good time to leave. With one last wordless smile at al-Jilani who nodded in understanding, Shepard allowed the C-Sec escort to lead her away to the transport waiting further down the pathway.
"That was unnecessary, Admiral," said Henry once they boarded the transport, slight irritation evident in his voice.
"I knew that woman," Shepard said simply.
Henry shot her a brief look of disapproval before continuing, "In any case, you handled it well. If you have to speak to reporters, do it like that."
She didn't like his tone and was tempted to give a sarcastic retort, but decided against it — he was just doing his job after all, even if he was being annoying about it. And in the end, it didn't take long for Shepard to find something much more interesting to focus her attention on.
The rebuilt Citadel was beautiful.
Her last memories of the doomed station had been of bleak death and destruction. The Citadel here, the Citadel of now was an entirely different story. Everything seemed so bright and clean and new; old structures that had existed for years upon years were destroyed or damaged when the Crucible fired, Henry explained, and so a good portion of the Citadel had been rebuilt. The buildings looked sleek and trendy (could a building be trendy?), and she could see that the tops of most had trees and other plant life on top.
"Those rooftop gardens are new. Reminds me of Earth a bit," Shepard remarked offhandedly as she stared out the window. Of course, rooftop gardens weren't a unique human invention, but the buildings and structures did look very...human.
"The Citadel was rebuilt in human space, so it ended up being humans designing a lot of the new structures," said Henry.
Shepard turned back to Henry in surprise. "It was rebuilt in human space? How did they move it back to the Serpent Nebula?" she asked.
"Oh, it wasn't moved back. We're orbiting Sol right now."
The way Henry had so casually thrown out that little tidbit caught Shepard off guard.
"What?" was all she could say.
"There was no way to — well — pilot the CItadel anywhere, so the best they could do at the time was move it to the edge of the Solar System. The Citadel was severely damaged and nearly the entire population of Keepers had been killed," explained Henry with a slightly disinterested look on his face. "I suppose people just got used to its new location, and coincidentally its done wonders for the Alliance economy. There's always talk floating around about moving it back to the Serpent Nebula, but none of the Council races really want to commit the time and resources to move such a massive structure anytime soon, so here we are."
A fleeting emotion — amusement, maybe — appeared briefly on Henry's face when he regarded Shepard's incredulous expression. "Of course, not everyone is happy about it," he said, turning away to look ahead through the windshield, "but naturally the most vocal ones are the ones who can't do anything about it."
"Glad to see that things are just how I remember," said Shepard wryly as she turned back to the window.
It was a relief that Henry wasn't the type for unnecessary conversation; he spent the rest of the time in silence, examining something or other on his omni-tool (his full-color omni-tool!). Shepard much preferred watching the passing scenery of what she realized was the Tayseri Ward. It had been badly damaged when Sovereign had exploded, and had been perpetually under repairs during all of her past visits to the Citadel. It was nice to see that it was finally rebuilt.
"The Alliance has arranged an apartment for you here in Tayseri Ward," said Henry as the transport came to a gentle stop. "It's nothing special, but it should suit your needs. I would suggest not throwing any wild parties here."
The look Henry gave her made it quite obvious that the one party she threw while on shore leave had gone down in infamy. It really wasn't fair — it was just the one, after all…
"Standard-issue Alliance clothing has already been delivered, and you'll be receiving a stipend from the Alliance for basic living needs," Henry explained as he led her into a tall apartment building and into an elevator ("Welcome home, Admiral Shepard," the door VI said pleasantly). "I'm told the Alliance has granted you an extranet mail account, the details of which should be in the apartment already."
"I remember being told to go back to the hospital for a checkup," said Shepard. Henry nodded, glancing back at the document open on his omni-tool.
"Yes, I believe they've sent the details to your Alliance mail account," Henry said as the elevator released them on the twenty-fifth floor.
She followed him down the silent hallway for quite a ways until they reached the last door. He pulled a small, slightly translucent keycard from his jacket pocket and held it up to the door, which let out a pleasant beep before sliding open. "The apartment building provided this keycard since you don't have an updated omni-tool yet," Henry explained, leading her into the apartment's entryway. "But if you want to register your biometrics to the door, the VI in the lobby can help you."
"Okay, I'll do that, thank you."
If Shepard had wanted to say anything else, she wouldn't have had the words.
The apartment was beautiful.
Of course, she'd lived on a cramped ship for ages so it wasn't hard for shore accommodations to be superior, but damn. The apartment was on the corner of the building, and all the walls facing the Ward were not walls at all, but floor-to-ceiling windows allowing the brilliant artificial sunlight to pour into the room.
The living room was modestly sized (and definitely not large enough to throw a huge party in), with light wooden flooring and a simple white couch and black coffee table, but the fact that she had such a wonderful view of the Ward down below...On a spacecraft it was dark space all around, so to have a view that didn't consist of deep colors and pinpricks of light was a very welcome change.
"Is the Alliance really paying for this?" Shepard muttered to herself in awe.
"I believe your housing stipend covers the cost of rent," said Henry, slight amusement in his voice as he peered at some sort of checklist on his omni-tool. "The place isn't really that big — there's only one bedroom and bathroom, and a small kitchen. Which," he paused to gesture toward a doorless room, "has been stocked with a small variety of levo instant meals. You'll have to do some grocery shopping if you want anything more — the VI in the lobby can tell you where to go if you want to do that in-person."
Shepard nodded absently — she was still marveling the view outside. The people down below looked so tiny and far away and for some reason it felt calming.
"Your clothing and basic toiletries should be in a box in your bedroom," Henry continued down his checklist, gesturing toward the room that had a door without looking up. "There's a configurable cleaning drone that should take care of cleaning the floors and the bathroom. Each room has access to the apartment system via holo terminal, and when you have your omni-tool, you can sync that to it. Anyways, these are all standard things, really, so you should be able to manage."
He paused briefly to see if Shepard had anything to say. "If you don't have any questions," he said when it was clear she had none, "I'll be on my way."
There was a little bite in his words — he probably was itching to get to more important things.
"Thank you, Henry."
With a nod, he took his leave.
She stood for a moment at the window as the heavy silence of the place began to overcome her. A creeping feeling of unease began welling up in her, but she didn't wait long enough to let it take hold and immediately made her way toward the kitchen. It was simple enough, with the basics and little else: a refrigerator, four-burner stove, some cabinets, drawers that presumably held some amount of silverware, a microwave, a little bit of counter space, and a tiny little table that would seat one or two people, tops. She peeked into all the cabinets and drawers and found only the basics: one pot, one frying pan, two coffee mugs, and an assortment of cooking and eating utensils. The refrigerator indeed held only levo instant meals, and only enough for a couple days.
Well, not like I need much more than this, Shepard thought, wrinkling her nose.
The bedroom was equally simple, with a bed just large enough for her to splay her limbs out, a wardrobe set into the wall, and a small desk and chair. The room was along the outer edge of the building, though, and was graced with the same windows (and view) as the living room. She found that any portion of the windows could be rendered opaque via the apartment system terminal accessible on the desk and spent a few moments alternating between complete darkness, partial opacity, and full-on transparent windows.
Eventually she managed to force herself to stop playing with the window controls and moved on to rifling through the pair of boxes on the bed. The smaller box contained toiletries and a small assortment of over-the-counter meds. The larger one had several sets of standard-issue Alliance clothing — which, even twenty-seven years later, looked about the same as she remembered. She spent a moment holding a stack of pants, taking in their familiarity and running her fingers over the differences. Eventually she put them down, refusing to let herself reminisce, and pulled off her dress blues. The collar had really started to irritate her and it put her at ease to be wearing a t-shirt and loose pants again.
When she lifted out the rest of the clothing, finally dressed in clothing other than hospital gowns or dress blues, her fingers brushed against something at the bottom of the box. To her surprise, she found a pistol and waistband holster sitting at the bottom. It looked like a variant of the M-3 Predator pistol she often relied on in battle, and it fit about the same in her hands. The pistol felt familiar and was almost a relief to hold, almost as though it was a piece of clothing covering up some very private part of her. She imagined that the Councilor probably didn't want her to be running around with weapons so soon after being revived (or at all?), so whoever slipped it in here was obviously hiding it. She was grateful to have it, no matter the reason.
Once the pistol was safely holstered at her waist, she sank down onto the edge of the bed and held her head in her hands. Everything felt too perfect, too easy — she would be called on soon, and she would be needed. Her first death hadn't let her abandon her sense of duty as an Alliance soldier, and her second one sure as hell wasn't going to. But still, all this returning from the dead came with a price, and she was sure that whatever it was, some real shit was going to go down.
And if that shit was going to be Leviathan, then it was going to be very real. A Leviathan was a monstrously powerful creature — a Reaper killer. And it had been hard enough for a coalition of galactic forces to even slow down the Reapers.
So what the fuck was she supposed to do about the Leviathans?
Was Admiral Singh coming to visit and tell her that she'd have to rally the troops again? Call on the turians and asari, tell them to suit up and move out for another galaxy-saving operation? Get more engineers to scrounge up enough material for another superweapon so she can fire it?
She looked around the empty room and hugged herself, her fingers clutching at her shirt as her breaths came faster, her vision blurring. Dread and anxiety began creeping through her body, filling her mind. She didn't want to be here, she didn't want to be the one. But this desire was at odds with her — she couldn't abandon her duty, not if billions upon billions of lives depended on it.
Admiral Shepard cried.