2: Remembering To Forget
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Victoria Shepard examined the unconscious woman with curious green eyes, ignoring the repeated admonishments of her second in command completely. She'd already suffered through the same tirade for what felt close to a hundred times since re-boarding the Normandy with a person more than anticipated.
Doctor Chakwas had been very thorough in her examination of the patient, administering a sedative so she could treat her injuries effectively. It seemed that the bruising and cuts on her face had only been the beginning of the story; similar wounds marred her skin so effectively that it seemed the majority of her body was a dark shaded plumb in colour, only separated every so often by jagged pink scars or open, red lacerations.
Despite her beaten and bloody appearance, something about the girls face seemed so familiar to Shepard, reminding her of a long forgotten innocence she once vaguely remembered possessing herself. She'd shed herself of that rather quickly during her time in the Tenth Street Reds; the work they did seemed to do that to people, strip them of their naivety and turn them into ruthless cynics. But they also made survivors, and if there was one thing Shepard owed the Reds, it was that.
"Shepard are you even listening to me?"
"That depends. Are you referring to the first hundred times you started this rant, or the most recent?" Shepard eyed the raven haired woman pointedly with an innocent smile on her face, which only served to sour Miranda's mood even further.
"Commander, regardless of your personal feelings towards me, you know as well as I that I was put here because I'm good at what I do and-"
"Really? And here I thought you were 'put here' for the sole purpose of annoying me." Shepard interjected with another sickeningly sweet smile.
Miranda sighed, before ignoring Shepard's dig and continuing. "…I was put here because I am good at my job and as your XO, I wouldn't be performing my job if I didn't point out when you're being bloody well reckless. We have no idea who this woman is and know next to nothing about her except that she is an extremely dangerous criminal and potentially a psychopath. And as if that wasn't enough, our medical examination clearly showed excessive and addictive use of narcotics and hallucinogens. She's completely unstable and-"
"So I was just supposed to leave her to die?"
Green eyes bore into blue, searching for any sign of humanity in their depths. All they found was ice.
"Yes." Miranda didn't even hesitate with her answer, as cold and detached talking about throwing away someone's life as one might be discussing the weather. Shepard ground her teeth in disgust.
They'd already been through this cycle a thousand times since the Lazarus Station, Shepard consistently searching for some kind of warmth or normalcy from the other woman, only to be presented with a harsh reality of robotic 'perfection', without feeling or sentiment. Most prominently in Shepard's mind was their conversation before Freedom's Progress regarding the Cerberus Operative's rather blunt remark about her wish to implement a control chip.
She could remember Miranda's feeble excuses, explained with such authority and certainty that Shepard could truly see the passionate belief the Operative held regarding Cerberus. It was as if she couldn't even see just how wrong her logic was, twisting it until the abhorrent seemed positively just.
"We spent far too much time and money bringing you back to risk it all and the fate of the galaxy on the hopes that you might help us. Based on your past meetings with our organisation I'd say it's not all that unreasonable that we should have some kind of guarantee in place."
Shepard had regarded her with complete disbelief, unable to understand how someone so intelligent and dedicated to humanity could have gotten it so wrong, could have become so vile.
"You wanted to control me like some kind of slave? Like a pet you could get to bow and fetch whenever you felt like it? That's sick!" She had spat in rage, feeling the small scars in her skin aggravate into a searing heat that matched her fury. Just who did this woman think she was?
"This is no time for weakness Shepard. You of all people should know what we're up against – we cannot afford loose cannons or hero complexes to get in the way when humanity is at stake."
"Humanity? Sounds like a novel concept for someone like you."
"Whether you agree or not Shepard, humanity is exactly what we're fighting for. Not just against the collectors, but the reapers are out there too, an evil that threatens the entire galaxy." Miranda had simply matched Shepard's own fire with an icy winter's breeze swirling within her intense gaze. It seemed for a moment that they had reached an impasse, a hateful glare pitted against a fierce, disapproving mask. But Victoria Shepard had never been one to be beaten.
"Yeah, an enemy that indoctrinates their victims, strips them of their free will and turns them into mindless puppets. You're right Lawson, they sure seem evil to me."
From that moment on, it seemed their working relationship had only gotten worse, continually sniping at each other whenever they were in the same room. It didn't particularly surprise Shepard if she was honest; it wasn't as if she had ever expected to get along with Cerberus in the first place. The only strange part was how very different Operative Lawson was in contrast to her colleague Jacob Taylor. Almost at once, Victoria and Jacob had struck up a rather tentative friendship, with the Commander impressed by the sincerity the Officer approached those he worked with, and the caution with which he regarded his admittedly rather shady employers. It was a far cry from Miranda's zealous ideology.
In actual fact, it appeared that all the Cerberus crewmen aboard the ship were a great deal more amiable than Shepard had ever expected, though she had no doubt that that was less of a coincidence than it may have first appeared. No doubt the Illusive man had thought it a good idea to present his newest asset with as comfortable a setting as possible, which meant less Cerberus fanaticism, and more 'get-the-job-done-and-spill-drinks-after' types like Kenneth and Gabby.
She still didn't trust Kelly though. She smiled far too much than any person should ever have right too. Or perhaps that was just her cynicism talking again; Shepard had found it seeped through her consciousness at the most arbitrary of moments.
"Shepard this is serious." Miranda's voice cut through Shepard's thoughts once again, drawing her back to reality.
The Commander regarded the woman with an expression of annoyance, before sighing and resigning herself to actually attempting to listen without having the urge to throttle her. The moment she began speaking however, she found that it was a great deal easier thought than done.
"We went to Purgatory to acquire Subject Zero alone, which is already one psychopath too much if you ask me, but if she can be controlled and she is kept as far away from me as possible then she could well be of some use. This stray you picked up however, is a complete unknown element and potentially lethal. The fate of humanity rests on this mission Shepard; we can't afford to be side-tracked by your curiosity!"
"Why not? Curiosity only kills cats, not people."
Miranda's face remained unchanged.
"Oh come on, do you ever smile? Or has all that genetic tampering rendered your facial muscles paralysed."
Not even a twitch.
"Seriously? Nothing? Damn, you're like a robot or something. Fine, as your Commanding Officer I will take your worry into consideration… and completely overrule it. I'm not dropping her out of the airlock just because you hate feeling like you don't have control over something because as it turns out Miss Lawson, you can't control everything, especially people…" She may or may not have still been a little sore over the control chip fiasco. "…so if that's all, I'd appreciate if you would return to your more pressing matters like residing over the Cerberus fan club, or straightening your hair. I promise I'll take full responsibility if she wakes up and tries to kill us all in our sleep okay?"
"I wouldn't do that."
The two women swung round instantly at the sound of a new voice, broken and weak.
Sitting on the med bay bed, the bruised stranger looked remarkably young, though she couldn't have been more than two years Shepard's junior. It was mostly the innocence in her eyes, the same innocence that had made Victoria trust her back on Purgatory. Of course, Miranda was less believing.
"I'm sure. A psychopathic killer with a drug habit? You were likely in that prison due to an error in the paperwork."
Shepard raised her brows at the Operative in surprise.
"Was that a joke? Can you actually do that?" She queried, straight faced.
For a moment it seemed as if Miranda was going to ignore her and return to her stony silence, until she spared a brief sideward glance toward the redhead.
"Occasionally." She answered, her lips curling upwards the slightest fraction at the corners.
"The delivery could use some work." Shepard grinned when Miranda huffed exasperatedly with a roll of the eyes, her sour expression returning. It did nothing to hide the revelation that Miranda Lawson actually had a funny bone somewhere in her body. It was also very possible to get under her skin. Victoria latched onto this new piece of information for future reference before returning her attention towards the confused expression painted beneath the bruises and cuts of their spectator.
"A Prison?" She paused. "Makes sense I suppose. But I have no idea how I got there. I don't even know how I got here."
"You fainted, so we-"
"No, I mean… it doesn't matter." It looked as if she wanted to say more, but she quickly thought better of it and diverted her eyes to the floor, wringing her hands nervously.
Shepard felt rather vindicated; this woman certainly didn't appear to be some kind of psychopath, though she did have to consider that perhaps the reason she couldn't remember was because she was so high at the time. Or that she happened to be a very good liar.
"What's your name?" Shepard asked.
"You seem so different." The woman evaded, tilting her head as if to get a better angle of view. Her gaze uncomforted the Commander, filled with awe and something so familiar that she couldn't quite place. The woman's voice sent cold shivers down her spine. She was missing something.
"You know me?"
"You look the same - your eyes, your hair – but there's something different. It's strange."
"Who are you?" Shepard eyed her suspiciously, her voice more forceful. It seemed to make the woman smile a familiar smile, scratching at the Commander's subconscious as if trying to break free. She knew that smile. She knew it well.
"You used to have scars. There was one there, across your cheek. You got it in a fight, I think. Probably being stubborn about something and-"
"Alex?" Shepard stared, unbelieving. It couldn't be, she was sure. She would have recognised her at once. This woman was nothing like the Alexandria Keane she had left on Earth as a teenager. The energetic, fresh faced youth, albeit as jaded as any other orphaned kid living on the streets was a far cry away from the scarred junkie across from her, the trained killer.
But of course, Shepard was thinking of the extremely young Alexandria Keane. Not the woman she had become in her later teens; the woman who had become ensnared by the world of red sand and creeper and everything in between; the woman who had become a puppet to the Reds, completely incapable of breaking their hook on her. The woman Shepard had left behind when she joined the Alliance and never looked back.
And this is what she had become.
"You know this woman?" Miranda asked.
"I used to."
All the while, this stranger wearing Alex's smile seemed to leap into life, eyes alight with something akin to hope burning in their grey midst.
"You recognise me? You know who I am? Maybe this is real!" She muttered, before rushing forward toward the Commander, hunched forward to whisper conspiratorially in her ear.
"Where the fuck are we Tori? What's going on? I remember running and then, nothing. I wake up to gunfire and explosions and I have no idea how I even got here or what here is, or… God I was so sure I was going crazy." She exhaled in what seemed like relief, a small smile on her face. The hope never disappeared either, only intensifying in her gaze.
Shepard looked at Miranda and could see exactly what she was thinking. She knew, because she wasn't too sure it wasn't the truth herself.
Maybe she is crazy.
Then again, Miranda could have just as easily been thinking 'Tori?' which once again Shepard would have likely agreed on. No-one called her Tori. Not anymore.
Grey eyes darted each and every way, taking in every little detail of the med-bay with ever growing confusion before returning to Shepard, expectant of an answer. Instead, Shepard just stared back, taking in the other woman's face for the first time in over a decade.
Her hair was the same dirty blonde colour it had always been, but was cut far shorter than she could ever remember, falling just below her chin, stringy and mussed, while the familiar grey eyes Shepard recalled so vividly were ringed with a deep purple. They looked haunted, their sockets as sunken and fragile as the rest of her face. Even her smile was cracked and broken. She looked like a ghost.
She almost was. A ghost of Shepard's own past.
"I'm sorry." Victoria whispered, barely audible even in the silence of the wordless room.
This wasn't her fault, she knew. Even so, she found it impossible to shake the plague of guilt that had begun clawing at her insides.
Before anyone could say anything else, their silence was interrupted by Doctor Chakwas returning from her lunch, engaged in a rather spirited debate with Garrus over Turian reach versus Human flexibility. Shepard was halfway through a roll of the eyes and opening her mouth for a teasing admonishment when an ear-splitting scream shook the room with terror.
Four pairs of eyes turned to the source, which was now pressed against the back wall of the room, eyes wide with horror. Alex shook visibly, never parting her gaze from a rather bewildered looking Turian.
"What - The HELL - Is that? What the fuck is going on!"
Garrus' mandibles twitched.
"That's not usually the reaction I get from women. Shepard, be honest, is it the scars? I thought women liked scars."
Shepard ignored his jest, unable to understand her old friend's reaction. The only conclusion she could draw was that the Red's had poisoned her mind more than she had ever thought possible, or the drugs had done even worse.
"Garrus, perhaps it would be best if you returned to your calibrations." Chakwas offered, gently ushering him out of the room.
"Yeah, yeah. Like the calibration jokes are never going to get old." He muttered, but complied anyway, sparing a glance backward at the grey eyes that remained fixed upon his back before the doors closed behind him.
Alex didn't seem to relax all that much at his absence however, instead turning her petrified gaze to the remaining three women in the room, backing off instantly when Chakwas attempted to near her.
"That… it was like those things in the prison, the guards. They always wore helmets, but their shape… it wasn't human. They were monsters, like him." Her expression was almost accusing as her scrutiny returned to Shepard, eyes cutting through her flesh and searing her soul with guilt.
This is my fault. I never should have left.
"Tori, what is going on? Where am I, and what was that thing? I need answers God Damnit!"
"Me? I'm not the one ranting and raving at the top of my voice about monsters as if you've never seen a Turian before." She sighed in frustration, attempting to calm herself. "Okay, answers. We're on a mission to stop the Collectors from abducting human colonies, currently aboard the SSV Normandy in the Hourglass Nebula. And 'that' was Garrus, who I'm guessing would rather not be called 'that'; he's an ugly son of a bitch but he's under the impression he's a total stud, so I usually don't like to burst his bubble."
"Remind me to tell him you said that." Chakwas snorted and Shepard cursed under her breath. She'd forgotten; Karin Chakwas was secretly evil.
"I'm serious Tori, now is not the time to be joking with me!" Alex sniped.
"Would you stop calling me that? And this is no joke. What the hell is the matter with you?"
Alex's face was twisted with fury, eyes that had once been alight with hope instead searing with frustration. Her lips contorted into a bitter smile.
"Right, right, of course. How could I be so stupid? We're in space and that thing was an alien. Sure, I can't believe I didn't see it before!"
For a moment, Shepard was about to sigh in relief that she'd finally gotten through to her. For a brief moment. Then she realised that the other woman's tone was seeping with sarcasm, practically dripping like poison from the edge of her every word. The bitter irony was painted on her face like a mask that hid the truth from her own eyes. Shepard suddenly realised the gravity of the situation.
"You really don't believe that do you?"
"Of course I don't fucking believe it! Space? Really Tori? That's the best you've got? I'm surprised we haven't met Luke fucking Skywalker yet!"
Miranda sighed, rubbing at her forehead with unmistakable irritation.
"Wonderful. I never thought I'd say this Shepard, but she's worse than Jack. What is she talking about?"
"Star Wars, 20th century. She's a history buff." Shepard whispered back sheepishly. It did seem that this was certainly going far worse than she had expected, not that she would ever admit that to the Cerberus Operative.
Miranda raised a brow. "Of old science fiction movies?"
"She's a nerdy history buff." Shepard sighed, deciding to try a different tack with Alex. "Okay think back. What happened to you after I joined the Alliance?"
"What is that, some kind of shadowy space gang or something? This is insane. I was running, then you started shouting and I fainted. That's it, that's all I remember. Then I woke up in some wicked crazy prison that I've seen a thousand times in my worst nightmares and you just happen to be there, and then I fainted again. And no, I really don't know why I've been doing that so much lately, but I think it's probably something to do with the fact that I am losing my fucking mind!" Once the rant was out of her system, she visibly deflated.
She looked up at them with a broken expression, all the anger drained from her bones. "I just wanna go home." Her eyes met Shepard's. "Where's Nathan?"
Shepard froze.
This was far worse than she had ever imagined.
XIXIXIXIXIXIXIXIXIXIXIXIX
The muffled angered shouts from the other side of the door had fallen silent after a while. It didn't matter to Shepard. She hadn't heard them anyway, lost in her memories the moment that name had slipped from the other woman's lips. After a few moments of silent shock, then practically racing out of the door, the Commander sat as stone in the Mess Hall, staring blankly.
Miranda and Chakwas stood over her, their mouths moving but the sound subdued by the ringing and screams in her head. It took her far back.
Gunfire and chaos had reigned in the under-city of New Sylan, the broken city slums that nobody cared for. The dark places where kids could live and die on the street and nobody would even notice.
Every city had them, but New Sylan was diseased in the worst possible way. Built atop the ruins of Eastern Massachusetts after the Great War of 2079, New Sylan became a beacon of hope and inspiration for humanity, growing and living and shining in the face of adversity. It united a whole nation, rebuilding after such tragedy and loss.
But that was only the parts that people were allowed to see.
As the city grew and technology advanced, the buildings got higher, the population denser and the poverty spilled out onto the streets, separated from the rich by hundreds of feet of cold hard metal, their penthouses seeming to brush the clouds to the people below.
Never had the gap between rich and poor been quite so large or literal as in New Sylan.
It only got worse when the levels were created, concrete built around the towers so far up, blotting out the sky completely in some areas for those at the bottom. Darkness became a way of life for the poor of what soon became known as the under-city, urban decay and gang crime plaguing the dim-lit streets.
Those streets had been home to her once, left only to dream about the upper city, with their blue sky and their hovercrafts darting overhead. It had been home to them all, her and Alex… and Nathan.
And they'd left their mark; scars and tattoos and memories that would never disappear, and nightmares to retake the place of where her friend should have been. Even the colour of her hair was a product of her time in the Red's, the ones who'd saved her. As much as she regretted the things she'd done as an angry teenager in the upper echelons of their ranks, she would forever be grateful to them for teaching her about the world, for teaching her how to endure.
If it wasn't for the Red's, she never would have learned to fire a gun, or defend herself. She never would have learned to lead. She wouldn't have known how to look out for yourself above all others if you wanted to survive. It was that that had allowed her to make it out of Akuze alive and only that; self-preservation. In the end, none of the heroics she'd aspired to, or the intelligent thought and teamwork the military had taught her had meant anything in the face of those Maws.
Fifty dead, and she'd just kept running. Running, dodging, falling and dragging herself toward the extraction point, with the screams of her friends echoing in her ears. They hadn't run fast enough. They'd stopped to think, to fight, and to help. Their desire to aid their friends had outweighed their own survival instinct and it had gotten them killed.
Shepard had never had that problem. And it was all down to the Reds.
They'd saved her.
But eventually she had begun to question herself, to question her beliefs. She wanted Alex to come with her, to leave Earth and never look back. They would have taken the Alliance by storm. But Alex had been a different person towards the end, living only for her next fix. The Red's controlled her with it, had their hooks in so deep that Shepard had abandoned her to them.
Self-preservation.
She couldn't live a single more day under the Red's banner, so she had left her friend to fend for herself in order to save her own skin.
Joining the alliance had meant a real education, warm beds and strict rules. All things Shepard wasn't used to, but it soon had stuck. Her accent faded, her swearing declined and she eventually stopped vandalising her uniform. She even began wearing her hair in a braid and using big words she'd learned through reading, and reading often, about anything and everything.
It was like some kind of parallel dimension, and she seemed a completely different person.
But the scars remained, as did the memories and the lessons she'd learned. And unfortunately for her superior officers, a great deal of the attitude.
Regardless, leaving Earth had been the best decision she'd ever made.
Only then, in that Mess Hall with her head in her hands, and her old best friend, insane and confused in the next room did she ever think that perhaps it had been the wrong thing to do.
A hand placed on her shoulder shook her from her thoughts, snapping her into the present.
"Shepard, are you alright?" Chakwas asked.
The redhead looked up at the two women above her, Miranda's half intrigued, half annoyed expression a stark contrast to the concerned expression on the Doctor's face.
"It's cool, I'm good."
"Wonderful. Then you're willing to explain what just happened in there?" The Cerberus Operative folded her arms across her chest, brows arched coldly.
Shepard half wanted to exclaim 'none of your business' with a possible 'bitch' added on the end for emphasis before running again, but the expectant look Chakwas was giving her made her sigh and relent.
"Nathan was Alex's brother."
"Was?"
"Yeah, was. As in, not anymore." Shepard snapped back at Miranda. "He's dead. He died a long time ago, back on Earth." Shepard sighed once again, resting her head back in her hands.
"And she doesn't know?"
Shepard laughed bitterly, shaking her head just wishing it were that simple.
"That's the crazy part. Alex was there."