Shock.
It was the first thing Thane felt.
Complete and utter shock.
There she was, Shepard, right in front of his eyes. But it wasn't her. It couldn't be. The hair was off, the posture, the eyes. Nothing in there was Shepard. The woman that staggered from side to side as she was held up by one hand was not the same woman he had known and loved. But Thane knew that wasn't true. He saw the faint scarring around her wrists. The scarring she adamantly refused to get rid of. It was her penance, her reminder. Her perpetual pain.
And now this.
He couldn't look. The dead expression on Shepard's face...he couldn't bear it. Gone was the defiance and ferocity, replaced by nothingness. An empty shell of what used to inspire fear and loyalty.
Thane tried to get up and stumbled, catching himself on the table edge. His chest was constricting air flow, making it incredibly hard to breathe. The smoke filled room didn't help much, either. Suddenly, it felt smaller, more cramped. The stench was unbearable. He needed air. But more than that, he needed to forget what he had just seen. It felt like a horrible nightmare he couldn't wake up from.
Pushing past the jeering crowd, Thane stumbled his way to the exit, trying to hold back a violent cough erupting in his chest. The pain was overwhelming and it was getting more and more difficult to breathe. The base was pounding in his head and the room suddenly tilted to the right.
"Whoa! Watch it, man!" someone shouted at him, pushing him away, but Thane disregarded it. He barely heard it, barely felt it. The room was spinning and his body shook with the full blown cough attack. He had to get out. He couldn't save himself in this state, let alone Shepard. He needed help. He needed air. He needed to be able to stay on his feet...
"Aw, leaving already?" a more familiar voice resounded in his head. "But you haven't even placed a bid on your favorite commander!" A hand on Thane's shoulder made him pause, but it was only followed by a slap on the back and hysterical laughter.
Laughter.
It filled the room like a poisonous gas, voices blending together into one. His vision blurred, darkening at the edges as a single thought occurred to Thane.
He was drugged.
On purpose.
Someone here knew him, someone other than Ari. And that someone didn't want him interfering. Thane tried to remember who served him the drink, tried to remember what it tasted like, but nothing came. Regardless of that, he knew what it was. He had experienced it once before. An illegal drug developed by the batarians that inhibited the memory receptors while slowly poisoning the blood stream. No taste, no smell, and absolutely deadly. If he didn't get help soon, he was as good as dead.
Pushing past the pain in his chest and head, Thane broke through the guards and finally through the doors leading to outside. The chill air felt good against his flushed face but it wasn't good for him. He needed to sweat out the drug. The rapidly dropping temperatures would inhibit that.
Whoever drugged him knew he would go outside and knew he had a while to go before he could get any help.
The ground beneath him lurched abruptly, sending Thane to his knees as his body tried to reject the toxins. By this point, his whole body was shaking with pain and the sand by his hands was slowly darkening from the growing blood stain. As his vision completely darkened, the last thought that went through Thane's mind was his failure to save the woman that saved him so many times.