13: The Things We Never Knew

Arthur hadn't thought about Mindoir in a long, long time.

There was no reason to do so. His entire family was dead, save for his older sister—but the announcement of Commander Shepard's being killed in action put an end to that almost three years ago. Now, he had taken the opportunity to start over with a clean slate.

Arthur Shepard had become Arthur McMahon almost overnight with a hefty amount of paperwork and almost five thousand credits. Fade had been kind enough to grant him a discount, because of his family. Now he was living on the Citadel and nobody was the wiser as to his identity. Even after rumors of Emily Shepard's survival, he was glad that he had a new face.

When Commander Emily Shepard first surfaced as the first human Spectre, McMahon had not dreamed that this woman could be the older sister he'd cherished and lost on Mindoir. But some due digging and manipulation of contacts had revealed that yes, she was indeed his sister. To this information, he had scowled. So she had survived.

He thought back to the last time he thought he'd seen her alive.

"Em, wait up!"

The teenage Emily looked back, running over to her brother, who had tripped over another body. He was crying at this point, almost beside himself. She lifted him up and threw him over her shoulder and kept on running, away from the buildings and the ship and all the dead people and all the screaming. She was carrying her brother away from the bad people.

Her pace slowed, after a fashion, and she put him down, breathing heavily.

"Can't…run…anymore," she gasped. "I think we can take a breather."

Art nodded mutely, eyes wide and scared. The tears had dried long ago; now he was too tired to cry. He could only sit in the grass and watch the colony burn. The agonized screams of the other colonists were carried on the wind, as well as the smell of scorched flesh. His eyes watered.

Emily lay on her back in the grass, staring up at the sky. Tears were leaking out of her eyes.

Finally, her eyes lit on something in the sky.

"Look," she said excitedly. "It's a ship! An Alliance ship!"

"Where?" demanded Art, looking around wildly.

"There," she said, pointing at the sky.

Sure enough, one Alliance ship, then two, then three, descended from the sky and landed in various locations. By now Emily was on her feet, seeking them out.

"That one seems closest," she whispered. "I'll run there and get help."

"What, why can't I come?" asked Art plaintively, looking up at his sister. He didn't want to be alone. Not with the ghosts of what had happened.

"What if they aren't Alliance, but batarians commandeering a ship?" Emily shook her head. Looking around, she found a shack with a small pile of crates stacked up next to the door. "Here, hide in here," she said, forcing the door open. "If they're Alliance, I'll come back to get you. If they're not…and I don't come back…don't come after me."

Art nodded. His big sister would come back for him. She always did.

He lost track of time cowering in that shack, looking out the window for any signs of movement. He didn't know how long his sister had been gone, but he knew that she'd be back with Alliance people and then they could be safe. Maybe they could get adopted by an Alliance soldier and then grow up a ship. Maybe then he could get a violin.

He smiled happily, thinking of the possibilities. He was so absorbed in his thoughts that he almost didn't hear the door open.

At first he looked up hopefully, expecting to see his sister, but it was two batarians forcing a terrified colonist through the door. In a panic, Art scrambled into a closet and shut the door, hiding amongst the clothes.

Through the crack in the door, he saw everything.

His sister never came back.

By the time the batarians had left with their now-dead charge in tow, the sun was rising again, and Art was on the verge of passing out with thirst. He was huddled in a corner of the closet, shaking with fear, when they finally found him.

An Alliance soldier took off his helmet and crouched in front of the boy, his face gentle. He offered a hand out.

"Hey, buddy," he said gently. "We're gonna get you out."

All he could do was nod. They were humans, not batarians. And they were wearing Alliance armor. That was enough for him.

"Where's my sister?" he asked them. "Where's Emily?"

"Emily?" The soldier frowned. "You're the only survivor we've found."

He dropped his gaze. It was only now that he started crying, the sobs wracking his little body and tears falling down his face. Emily was dead. She must have been. She would have found the Alliance. She wouldn't have let her down. She loved him.

And now she was gone. Art cried his heart out that day for Emily Shepard, the only person who'd ever given a shit about him.

But scars heal, people move on, and life continues on its steady course no matter how much you try to stop it. Art did end up getting adopted by an Alliance family, and he got his violin. But no matter how many sonatas he played, no matter how many concerts he attended, he never forgot Mindoir. He never forgot his sister.

Art had been eleven when the batarians attacked his colony. Now he was twenty-eight, and his life was very different from that of his sister.

At first, when he'd first heard the news, he'd considered getting into contact with Emily and trying to reconnect. But he was long past the fateful day at Mindoir, and now there was only bitterness. If Emily was alive, that meant that she had found the Alliance…and then she hadn't come back for him.

Just like everyone else in his life, she had let him down.

Alchera was a cold planet.

That was the first thought that struck her as Shepard walked along the snow-covered planet, her eyes roving around the first Normandy's final resting place.

The armor shielded her body from the biting cold, but not her heart. Seeing the wreck of her former ship was like dying all over again, except worse because the scars had been so close to healing.

Despite Miranda's best efforts, Shepard still retained the memory of dying. She knew what it was like to struggle in the vacuum of space with the holes in your hardsuit, struggling for breath even as the very air was sucked out of your lungs. She remembered her blood boiling in her veins even as it froze, and the excruciating feeling of her organs contracting and expanding, fighting against each other, and finally, she remembered exactly what it felt like when the vacuum took over and she died.

Trying to shake the thoughts from her head, she looked around the wreck. A glimmer of metal caught her eye and she approached it, curious. Something small was partially buried in the snow. Shepard bent down and closed her fingers around it, pulling it out to reveal a pair of dog tags.

She swallowed. Admiral Hackett had mentioned that the identities of her fallen crewmates had likely gone down with the ship. She turned them over and read them, a lump forming in her throat as she read.

LOWE
HELEN M.
423-53410
AB POS
CATHOLIC

With a pang, Emily realized that the name was unfamiliar to her. She hadn't even gotten to know her own crew all that well. She had been busy hunting Saren and the geth, but still. She felt bad.

Slipping the dog tags on her arm, she kept walking, a long, thorough sweep that she knew would take her hours upon hours and even then she might not find them all. Hackett had said there were likely 20 dog tags to find. Twenty it was, then.

The Mako was tipped on its side, three of its wheels buried in snow. Though it seemed damaged on the exterior, Shepard had no intention of taking it back to the SR-2. The memories of frantically struggling with the controls of the infantry vehicle as her squadmates cowered in terror brought a sad smile to her face. It was odd to think that she'd never go back to those days, the good ol' days in her book. Well, perhaps not.

Garrus and Tali had offered to accompany her on the trip, but Shepard had refused. She, alone, had been the captain of the SSV Normandy. This walk was hers to take, and hers alone. She would not have anyone else shoulder her burden.

An hour later, there were twelve dog tags dangling off her arm and Shepard was sweating; the Alchera sun was high in the sky now. Looking up, her eyes lit on the ruins of the mess hall. Placing a hand on the ruined table, she inexorably thought of Ashley. Before she could help it, tears sprang to her eyes.

Ashley had devoted her entire life to the Alliance, even before Virmire. And what had she gotten in return? She had been pushed aside, flushed into the shadows because of a mistake her grandfather had made so long ago. She had been held back from reaching her full potential, and she had paid for it with her life. There would never be another person like Ash, she knew. All that wit, personality, potential…gone. And it was all because of Saren.

But even as she thought this, Shepard knew that the only person to blame for Ash's untimely demise was herself. She had broken the rules of fraternization and her judgment had become biased, choosing her lover over her comrade. She had made the decision that had condemned Ash to the geth and the nuclear explosion. It was she, alone, who had killed one of her only friends. Almost involuntarily, a sob escaped her lips. And before she could help it, she found herself wishing she'd left Kaidan for dead instead of Ashley. Horrified at her thinking, she began to cry in earnest, fists clenched on the mess table. God dammit. She should not have come.

It wasn't long before Shepard heard new footsteps on the snow, crunching quietly towards her. She did not turn. If this intruder on her grief meant her harm, so be it. Collectors be damned, she really did feel like dying right now. A three-fingered hand rested on her shoulder and she turned and before she knew it Emily was crying on Garrus's chest, the tears never escaping the confines of her helmet but her sobs wracked her body and he held her until she was out of tears. He touched his nose to her forehead sadly.

"You didn't have to come here, you know," he said quietly. "If you want, we can leave."

She shook her head. "No," Shepard said, her voice hoarse from disuse. "There's something I have to do first."

Garrus followed her back onto the snow-covered plain where the ruins of the Normandy lay, and they spent the rest of their time looking for the missing dog tags.

"Shepard, look what I found."

The search was almost complete when Garrus piped up, having found something behind the remains of the CIC. Shepard followed his gaze and saw that he was holding something round in his hands. Curious, she approached him.

It was her old N7 helmet, relatively undamaged and mostly intact in Garrus's hands.

"Your old helmet," he said quietly. "Do you want it?"

She took the helmet from him wordlessly, absentmindedly walking away from him as she did so. He followed her, and soon they were standing a few yards away from the cliff overlooking a wide, icy canyon.

Very suddenly, she dropped the helmet. In the same motion, she swung back her foot and kicked it away, over the cliff and down into the icy chasm yawning before them. A few seconds passed before they heard the soft clatter of something landing, far down and far away. Finally, she spoke.

"I don't want that. I had it when I died and I don't want it now."

He was shocked, but Garrus realized that he also understood. The helmet was a token of her time hunting Saren, but it was also a token of her death experience in the atmosphere of frosty Alchera. He wouldn't want to have it, either.

She looked at her hand and quietly counted the dog tags. There were nineteen.

"Do we have them all?" Garrus asked, following her gaze.

"Yes," she lied. "Let's get out of here. I've had enough of this planet."

He nodded. He offered her hand and she took it, lacing her five fingers with his three. They returned to the shuttle together. Neither one spoke. There were no words.

A/N: Late update, I know. Copious apologies. :-\ Better remember the name Arthur McMahon, because he's going to be significant in the plot later on. Anyhow, that's chapter 13.

A shout-out to my usual: ITestedGarrussReach, Siha Shap, Sathaeri (sorry for misspelling your name in previous chapters, meh), and Ember Filled Mist. Am I missing anyone? I don't think so. If I did, just know that you have honorable mention in my heart. 3 :p

Until next time…