"I'll call off the fleet, Tali get me on a fleet wide comm, I'm going to have to yell loud enough to subdue Gerrel before he goes gung-ho on me again." Shepard said, it was sad how he considered this a menial task, as his voice betrayed that tone.
"I've got you on a ship comm Shepard, do the best you can." Tali was clearly put off by Shepard's choice to have Legion upload, but she followed him anyway.
"Hold your fire! The Geth are about to return to full strength and Gerrel, if you give the order to attack I will stand by and watch as the Geth lay you to waste, I saved your fleet several times in this past week, I stopped that dreadnought, and recently stopped the Reaper influnce over the Geth, but I'm done helping you, if you attack you'll be sealing your own fate, Shepard out, Keelah se'lai."
There was a pause. For everyone but Tom it seemed like a year, but then it happened. "All ships, hold your fire." Gerrel said, he was admittedly a little surprised by Shepard's sudden out burst.
"Copying code insufficient, direct personality dissimulation required." Legion turned to face everyone. "I'm sorry Shepard, I have to go to them, it's the only way."
"Legion, the answer to your question, was yes, you had it the entire time." Tali was moderately distraught.
"I know Tali, thank you. Keelah se'lai." Legion deactivated as all of it's programs permanently disbanded to provide all Geth with the highest level of intelligence, a true form of sentience.
"Thank you Shepard."
"Raan? How did you get here?" Shepard inquired.
"My ship crash landed not far from here, me and my entire crew are fine, thank you for stopping Gerrel, had you not stopped the Geth would have destroyed the remaining population of our species, I have no doubt about that."
"Just doing my job, I think it's time I get back to my ship, Tali are you coming?"
"Yes, I may have my homeworld back but it won't mean anything if the reapers win, I with you until the end." Tali's voiced held absolute certainty.
"Good to see you're staying with us, Cortez we need pickup."
"On my way Commander."
"Are you coming Tom? Our evac is over there."
"Yeah...I'll be along." His voice was numb.
...
"EDI, where's Tom at? I need to talk to him."
"He's in the bar, Commander."
"Great, just what I needed thanks for the help EDI."
"You're welcome."
...
When Commander Shepard arrived at the bar, he saw Tom in a very sorry state. He was lying on the couch, two empty bottles of alcohol in both hands, he had gotten himself extremely drunk. He was snoring loudly.
Shepard checked his vitals. He'd be fine, he just had to sleep it off. The bigger issue was why? Why did he drink himself under the table like this? Grief was a possibility, especially since him and Legion were probably friends, but he hadn't grieved like this when Mordin died. He just went to sleep earlier then at his normal time.
That was it, he wanted to leave consciousnesses when grieving, that was his way of coping. It worked, sort of anyway. He always tried to keep a straight face, especially in battle, and that was something Shepard could admire, his discipline was similar to a solider following orders, but it seemed a little more personal, but that was expected, he was Commander Shepard, and if anyone could earn the loyalty of his crew, it was himself.
He'd save that question for later, right now he had a meeting with Admiral Hackett.
...
"Shepard good work on Rannoch, I never thought I see an alliance between the Quarians and the Geth in my lifetime, but it's certainly is a welcome surprise."
"It's a shame it took a war for them to do so, sir."
"I agree, but we have no time to think about what we could've done, now on a more important note, we've almost finished the Crucible."
"How long do you think I'll take to complete it?"
"It depends on how much resources the Catalyst needs, because as it stands right now that's the only part we're missing and it doesn't say much more then the name of the part we need."
"I'll see if I can find out what it is, sir."
"Find the answer as soon as you can Shepard, Earth isn't doing well and we won't last long in this war if we try to beat the Reapers conventionally."
"I understand sir, I'll try to find a lead soon."
"I've sent you a message on your terminal that should point you in the right direction, that's all the time I have now, Hackett out."
XXXXXXXXXXXXX
What time was it again? Tom could hardly remember. He felt very wrong, his vision was blurry and all of his movements were sluggish.
"Uhh, Section what did I do in the past three hours?"
You were given two bottles of alcohol from James Vega, and then proceeded to the bar where you drank both bottles, one at a time, you had an extreme amount of alcohol in your system, but you should be fine in several hours with proper rest.
"Oh okay, that makes more sense, I think I'm done grieving, I sure hope I don't make this a habit.
It was interesting to see an organic attempt to grieve by intoxication, why did you do this? I don't understand the logic behind intoxication, and although Legion was a 'friend' he would not want you to intoxicate yourself to such a degree.
Tom sighed. Bloody AIs.
"It's an organic thing, don't question it, you'd have to be an organic yourself to understand my answer."
Understood, I'll be on standby if needed.
There wasn't anything to do, so Tom decided to check his messages, there weren't any. He sighed, time never went fast when he wanted it to, only when he didn't want it to. He had a hell of a hangover. He groaned
"Hey, I see you've awoken, why do you always try to lose consciousnesses when someone dies?" Shepard was standing in the doorway.
"Oh, sorry I didn't see you there." Tom was surprised. "It's just how I cope, I have to drown out my problems that way, I just feel so guilty, survivor's guilt you know?"
"I understand the feeling, you know that your going to have a bad hangover right?"
"I'm already feeling it, I think I'll skip the next mission."
"That's to be expected, get some rest Tom, I need you at 100% when I need you on the next mission, also Chakwas might have something for that hangover."
"Really? Thanks for the tip, I think I'll go see her now."
"You're welcome."
XXXXXXXXXX
Shepard powered on his terminal, and just like Hackett had said, there was an urgent message for him. Shepard took a minute to read it over, he nodded satisfied. If this Dr. Bryson had info that could help him in the war against the reapers then he would take all the help he could get.
"Joker, set a course for the Citadel, I have an important business there."
"Yes Commander, setting a course now."
...
"Hello Shepard, I was told you were coming, we're nearing a breakthrough and you could use your help."
"Hello, Dr. Bryson, what's your assignment?"
"My assignment was to investigate myths, legends and anything of that sort before the Reapers started invading, most of them concerned the Reapers themselves, and now that they've come in force I've been tasked to investigate their origins, anything which will tells us why they're crusading across the Galaxy, and of course to possibly find a weakness after we know their origins."
"I could've used your help three years ago, so what info do you have for me that could help?"
"We're nearing a breakthrough, my assistant Hadley is actually gathering it on a datapad as we speak." Bryson took a breath, and that's when Hadley decided to walk in.
"Do you have the data?"
"Yes sir, it's all here, make sure this gets into good hands." His voice was somewhat monotone, and little unnatural.
"Thank you, continue with the work I talked about beforehand."
"Yes sir."
"He sounded a little...off, putting it mildly." Shepard was concerned.
"He's been acting like that for a while now, but I'm not sure what the cause is, but it doesn't seem to be anything worth looking out for, he's proved to be very helpful over the past three days, so I've ignored it to a point."
"To a point?"
"I tried questioning him at one point, but he kept deflecting the question, I didn't want to probe too hard as I would risk him quitting the job so I stopped, I just hope whatever's happening to him isn't detrimental to his health, but I'm rambling, let's get back on the topic."
"So these coordinates, what are they for?" Shepard was reading the datapad
"Those coordinates contain the estimated location of where the Leviathan is located, I do not know for certain, but most of my evidence points to them hiding on the planet 2181 Desponia."
"And I'm assuming that's where I come in." Shepard had been asked for help so often that now he knew when people needed him.
"Precisely, I don't know if these Leviathans or whatever are going to be friendly or not, and my people are non-combatants, you're well equipped to deal with this, and if the dossiers are correct you already have a former archaeologist on your team."
"That would be Liara, I'll investigate, I'll tell you if I find anything Dr. Bryson."
"Thank you Commander, I'll be here in this lab when you get back, so come visit me when you get back when you have the chance."
"I will, stay safe, the Reapers may try to silence you somehow."
...
"Joker, I'm uploading some coordinates, I need you to head there, we've got an old myth to track down."
"Yes Commander, it's going to take around 12 hours to get there, but we will, you know, eventually."
"Yeah, yeah, just get there."
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
"You know, I wasn't expecting Shepard to do that, nor was I expecting Legion to die, I'd never admit this to anyone other then you Tom, but I think I'm going to miss Legion as well." Tali was perturbed.
"The guilt is getting to me, but this war is almost over, at least I hope so, with the help of your people and the Geth, we have a much better chance then we did before of winning this war, mind if you can refresh my memory of how your people and the Geth are interacting?."
"The Geth are doing in weeks what have taken us years, infrastructure is being built as we speak, day and night, if there's one thing nice I can say about the Geth it's that once they're set on a goal, they don't stop."
Tom activated his countermeasure, ensuring that EDI wouldn't know what was going on in this room. "I tried my best, you know."
"What?"
"I tried looking at so many different solutions to save Legion, but I couldn't, it's eating away at me now, even after I drank myself under the table."
"Just know that I don't blame you, knowing things like that will weigh you down, keelah, being the daughter of an admiral puts a lot of pressure, I know how you feel, do your best to learn from your failures, it's what I did on my pilgrimage before Shepard came to me."
"Thanks, that helps more then you think, I just hope that at this point I've done everything I can to help Shepard, he deserves it."
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
"Hackett, we're on route to investigate the Leviathan, I'm hoping we'll be able to find something that'll help us win this war." Shepard said.
"At this point, hope is all I can give you as well, we both know that it'd be impossible to win against the Reapers conventionally, the Crucible is our only hope, and maybe the Leviathan, what ever it is, may lend us a hand."
"With all due respect, sir why me? I know that I helped stop Saren and the Collectors but there's more N7's out there, some of which are better then me at fighting, why me?" This was one of those rare moments where Shepard was forlorn.
"Shepard, I know there's better people out there then you, but the reason it's you who's dealing with all of this is because of this one simple fact. You can pay Soldiers to shoot things, defend things, and in some cases negotiate, but you can never pay a Solider to believe they're going to win the war. That's why you're in charge, because you believe, and I need people like that."
"That's humbling, sir."
"It's the least I can do Shepard, keep up the good work, myself and the rest of the Galaxy is counting on you to take down the Reapers, Hackett out."
That was very humbling, a lot more then what Shepard had said. He didn't care about a lot of people in this Galaxy, it wasn't a good place, people were always looking out for themselves, that was how it was when he was hunting down Saren after all. He rubbed his eyes. He was tired, he'd better go to sleep before Chakwas eventually force fed him some sleeping pills like she did on the original Normandy.
...
It was that bloody kid, again. He kept being set on fire just before he could be saved, and this time he'd actually seen himself burn with the child. Was he indoctrinated? At this point he probably was, but they way the Reapers were doing it was weird. Sure, he couldn't save that kid, and that made him feel guilty, but you could only guilt someone so many times with the same thing before they became numb to the whole thing, and that was starting to happen now.
"Shepard, we're 30 minutes out from that planet that you wanted me to fly to, you better get your guns of what ever." Joker's voice rang out through the intercom.
"I'll be there in a minute Joker." Shepard said. The man sighed wearily, this war was tiring him, he needed to end it soon.
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