I do not own Mass Effect or any of the associated contact. Jagher Shepard is my Shepard and Fayelle Shepard is my friend's Shepard. This is a collection of moments set throughout the games. They're rated for language and violence mostly.

Mass Effect 2: Moments.
A Moment Before a New Storm.

"I did the right thing, Garrus, I know I did, but why…"

"Why do you feel so guilty?"

Jagher looked across the small room at her turian friend and nodded. She was seated on the crates in the corner, leaning back, ankles crossed in front of her and arms crossed under her breasts. Fayelle was leaning on the wall beside Garrus and had been listening to the exchange without so much as a comment—a rare feat for the young woman. They were serving as a sounding board for Jagher, who had just returned from the rescue mission gone horribly wrong; a mission where she had ended up destroying an entire batarian colony and blowing up a mass relay. Now she was facing a trial upon the ship's return to Earth to determine whether or not she should be punished for her actions against the batarian race, even if those actions had delayed the coming of the Reapers, the threat she had been warning the galaxy about since the beginning.

"You're a good person, Jag," Fayelle said, speaking for the first time. "Even though you saved millions, deciding to kill all those batarians can't have been easy. No one in their right mind would have found that easy."

"I didn't even hesitate."

"Nor should you have," Garrus said. "You bought the galaxy more time. Now all we have to do is get through the trial and then find a way to stop the Reapers and no one will remember your decision to blow up the mass relay."

Jagher offered up a watery smile. She knew the turian was trying to make her feel better, but it wasn't working; those weren't the words she wanted to hear, but there was nothing to be done about that. Garrus meant well, as did Fayelle, but her sister had never been good at giving comfort and her words had the same hollow ring that Garrus' did. After smiling and nodding at their continued attempts for a moment longer, Jagher excused herself and left the pair—who had become fast friends in the face of tragedy and danger—alone once more as she headed for the command deck.

They had to get to Earth after all, for her trial. But she had no intention of hurrying.

The elevator doors opened and Jagher walked up to the platform above the Galaxy Map, blinking as she always did as it flickered to life. She keyed in the coordinates for Earth and watched as the blue and green ball appeared to spin in front of her. It wasn't home to Jagher; it never had been. She had been born in space and lived their her whole life, moving around with her military parents, but there was still something tugging at her insides as she looked at the home planet of humanity. Part of her was excited to finally see it with her own eyes, but the larger part was scared what was going to happen to her once she got there.

She signalled Joker and EDI to head for Earth, but she also hit the button for the intercom. "Don't move too quickly, Joker. I'm not interested in getting there a.s.a.p."

"I hear that, Commander. One scenic route, coming up."

"Thank you. I'll be in my quarters if anyone needs to get a hold of me," she said to Joker and to her yeoman at once.

When she had received confirmation from both parties, Jagher rode the elevator up to her quarters where she kicked off her boots and stretched out on her bed, mind wandering to Earth and what possibly awaited her there. The more she considered the possibilities of the trial, the harder the knot of guilt in her stomach grew, until she felt as if she would be sick and she could taste bile burning in the back of her throat.

More than for her own safety, she was worried that if the batarians got the justice they wanted, that the Reaper threat would not get the attention it needed and the galaxy would be wiped out, that those millions of lives she had killed batarians to save would be forfeit. Jagher rolled onto her side and pressed her face into her pillow, sighing heavily and with an exaggerated noise.

A knock on her door startled Jagher out of her moping.

Author's Note.

This Moment and the next one are connected. Only ones to be directly connected so far.

Maybe I'll do that more in the Moments from ME3…

Next Moment: A Moment Where Family Matters.