She did not know what she had expected to find here, among the dust and old bones of her childhood bedroom. Everything was positioned exactly how she remembered it, completely untouched by anything but the natural ravages of time for almost two decades. The smashed bed, the closet door slightly ajar with the her ineffective hiding place thrown wide open all looked almost exactly as they had the day Anderson had carried her from this room, save for the liberal addition of mould and filth. She squinted at the floor and nudged the dust piles with her toe, exposing the glitter of natural quartz in the stone floors, and the old black stains that marred them. Her own blood, from her first broken nose. How many times had she broken the damn thing now? Six? It was hard to remember.
It was always hard for her to remember things like that, her brain too crowded with her various responsibilities to leave much room for mundane recollection. Battle tactics, ship status, crew status, weapon and armour status, politics, support, and opposition, all stabbing at her constantly, vying for priority in her day to day life. She woke up thinking about shield upgrades and went to sleep thinking about three point assault tactics. Her entire life was work, even when she was sitting at dinner or brushing her teeth or surfing her personal messages wondering what all these people who reached out to her were expecting. Mindoir was unique in that it was one of the only civilian aspects of her life that she remembered with absolutely perfect clarity almost two full decades after she had left it behind.
Or thought she had. She rubbed at the hump of deformed bone in the centre of her nose as she continued to look around the barren, lifeless little room where the little girl she had been was ultimately destroyed. That was the essence of it, the final reality that she had tried and tried and tried to deny. Mindoir had not made her stronger, the trials she had faced here did not harden her soul and spur her forward in pursuit of the justice she had been denied. The simple, sweet, pious girl that she had been simply did not exist anymore and Commander Jane Shepard, the Butcher of Torfan, the Saviour of the Citadel and the hundred other major and minor titles she had borne throughout her life was an artifice she had created to hide it. She had no more faith, no more belief that she even had a soul or that there was such a thing in the galaxy as true justice.
Anger surged through her, irrational hatred for what she had been and what she was now. She had knelt before the altar in blind faith, accepting the cluster-fuck of circular thinking that was karma and dharma, nirvana and Shiva. Now she believed in nothing, wandering through the universe on an insane quest that had been given to her because she was the only one with a hope in hell of succeeding. To what purpose? For what cause? What was the point of all this doubt and pain?
Why was she even alive?
A wordless scream of frustration ripped from her lips and she turned, furiously kicking at the pile of rotted wood that had once been her bed. It exploded under her wrath, a cloud of powdery splinters flying up around her and she ripped off her helmet, throwing it across the room where it slammed into the stone and went bouncing away, through the door and into the silent main room of the house. Her breath hissed out through clenched teeth as she glared around the cramped space, looking for something that could take the brunt of her boiling rage. A sliver of white caught her eye, on the floor of the closet, mostly hidden by the open trapdoor. She stalked over to it, kicking the door closed with one boot and only stopped when she realized what it was.
The Bhagavad Gita. Nibbled by pests at the edges, yellowed by long years in the open air, the paper so dry that when she picked it up she was afraid it might crumble entirely into dust. She unrolled it carefully, her mechanical eyes able to pick out the shape of the words even in the heavy darkness that was descending as the last rays of sunlight faded beyond the broken window. The words of Sanjaya and Dhritarashtra were things she simply could not forget, no matter how many times she tried. As she read them, stumbling over a few words and gaining confidence as her ability to read the twisted characters came pouring back she felt the anger leak out of her slightly, becoming less poignant, less intense. The great epic of prince Arjuna had endured in human thought for almost ten thousand years, if the Vedic scholars were to be believed.
"My limbs grow weak; my mouth is dry, my body shakes, and my hair is standing on end. My skin burns, and the bow of Gandiva has slipped from my hand. I am unable to stand; my mind seems to be whirling." Was that not familiar? How many times had she stood, shoulders square and jaw locked as she attempted to appear strong for everyone standing around her, while such terrified doubt boiled within her? How many times had she pulled her gun and felt its weight in her hand like an accusation? Many, many times. She knew how Arjuna, the great prince of the epic, would ask his many questions about killing and death to the Lord Krishna, knew what the gods answers would be, knew exactly how the long battle on the fields of Kurukshetra would unfold even as she continued to unroll the paper and read. Slowly, Shepard sank to her knees on the cold stone floor, among the dust and ghosts of her past. She remembered everything about this story, but the words poured into her as she knelt in the centre of the floor like she had a thousand times before. That was where the extraction team found her, hours later, when they made their way into the house.
"Shepard?" Tali's voice was faint, a mechanized purr from behind her opaque mask. Her commander, her captain, looked up from her place on the floor and furled the paper she had been reading again, being careful not to tear the delicate material, and tied it with the faded blue ribbon. There was a silent tension in the air, not helped by the presence of the skeletons or the expressionless stone of her features. She stood, carefully, pitching slightly as she realized that her knees had locked from hours of bearing her full weight against the unyielding stone floor. Tali had picked up her helmet in the other room and held it out to her. "I told Miranda and Jacob that they should wait outside."
"Thank you." She took the useless piece of equipment and secured it back on her head, the visor softening the intensity of her large, haunted eyes and the tightness of her features. A deep breath squared her shoulders, strengthened her core and gave her focus. It was time to get off this planet, something that she desperately wanted. Or thought she did at least, like everything else the thought of leaving now was coloured with all sorts of strange and conflicted feelings that she did not entirely understand. "Thane and Garrus?"
"Putting out the last of the fire. That was a lot of red sand, someone is going to be very unhappy with us." Tali commented as Shepard finally turned to face her, her expression unreadable. The quarian had become used to reading human faces and it was a shock to see the stony lack of emotion on her face when she knew that Shepard must be reeling inside. "Do you want to talk about it?"
"No, I don't." Shepard replied, sounding tired. "Not yet."
The young woman nodded, rubbing her hands together in the way she did when she was nervous. She had never been Shepard's shoulder to cry on, she was not sure that anyone really was, and had always been content to have the occasional girl talk or poker night rather than the in-depth emotional conversations that seemed to characterize deep friendship among her people. But when she had been vulnerable, with the trial and her fathers horrific crimes and her struggle to accept Legion as a member of their crew Shepard had been there, to support her, to offer advice that had been simple, direct and made things a little bit easier, a little bit better. She was comfortable, stable, a person that could be relied upon for everything. And now she was suffering, so obviously suffering, and Tali had no idea what to do or say.
"If you need anything..." She finally managed to say, the sentence trailing off as she realized how trite it must sound, how everyone made that offer when they simply had nothing else to give. She did not have the answers Shepard was looking for, the closure she needed or the redemption she craved. The commander just shook her head and put a hand on her shoulder, pulling her lightly toward the door. They did not speak, even as Jacob and Miranda fell in step with them and they headed up toward the remains of the fire to collect the two remaining squad members. The silence was heavy and turgid, and Shepard could feel her skin crawl under their scrutiny, longing for the solitude of her quarters on the Normandy or even of the room she had just left behind again.
A similar silence greeted them at the edges of the smoky black stain that had once been a fortune of illicit narcotics. Shepard nodded her approval at it, satisfied that this trip had at least ensured the destruction of that evil stockpile, and the six of them headed for the shuttle. The fire had provided an easy target for the search party, and they were piled in and headed back to their ship in under ten minutes, a small blessing in the face of everything that had happened. Shepard stared at the floor, much as she had on the way down here, the Bhagavad cradled gently in her hands. Mercifully, her squad remained silent and she did not have to fence off the many tender inquiries about her mental status. Those were what would really make her crazy.
The forty minutes it took for their shuttle to make it through the atmosphere to be scooped up by the Normandy was flat, featureless and seemed to her like single moment. She could not remember any time passing at all before her boots struck steel and she was out, headed for the elevator without a backward glance. Her squad watched her, she could feel them watching her, but they said nothing and did not follow her. She needed her space, needed to think with the supreme clarity that only solitude could provide and they understood that. Or maybe they just did not want to be around her, did not have anything to say and knew any attempt to help would be met with awkward silences and blank stares. Either way, she was thankful for their discretion when her legs gave out in the elevator and she sank to a sitting position, head bowed, shoulders shaking. It would not have been appropriate to have her crew see her like this.
The tears came next, in heavy, wracking waves that made her shake and tremble as she dragged herself out of the elevator, barely able to stand under the crushing weight of so much sudden pressure. She tore at the nodes that held plates of heavy metal clamped in place and they released with a sigh, letting a rush of cool air in against her skin. She began peeling layers off with feverish intensity, her gauntlets and chest plate gone by the time the door whooshed open to allow her passage into her private rooms. She merely kicked her discarded armour through the door as she reached her quarters, tugging at the zipper that fastened her armour padding in place and sliding it off her arms. The warm sweat on her skin gelled, making her feel instantly clammy in the mild cold of her quarters. She continued to shed her armour, desperate to get it off, to escape this terrible sensation of being crushed and smothered.
By the time she was naked, standing in the centre of her quarters and still holding the Bhagavad in one hand, her tears streaming freely down her face now that there was no one to watch her cry she realized that she had no idea what she should be doing. Her empty fish tanks bathed her skin in pale blue light as she looked down at the scroll in her hand, tugging the ribbon free and unfurling the epic poem to its full length. She laid it out on the floor, staring down at it, at the answers it claimed to provide. She had hated this thing and the circular logic it represented for years, hated the idea that you could preach pacifism and war with the same breath, hated that it supported the mindless sheep-like belief in a god that had nothing to offer the living for their lifetime of service but the promise of a better kind of death. But she had nothing else to do, so once more she knelt before it and read, until her eyes grew bleary and ached with tiredness. Until the only thing she could do was pop her sleeping pills and collapse on top of her blankets to embrace her usual dark oblivion.
It was hours later, twelve and a half to be exact, when EDI`s soft mechanical voice broke the silence of her quarters and stirred her from her escapism. She looked up, squinting into the shadows of her ceiling as she always did and wiped the grainy remnants of sleep from her eyes.
"People are asking to see you, Commander." The AI informed her mildly. "You have been uncommunicative for almost fourteen hours."
"I can read a clock." Shepard snapped, and even though it was not EDI's fault she did not apologize. She did not want to be disturbed, not by anyone, and certainly not by her own ship. She was mired in a place where all communication would achieve would be anger and stress for everyone involved, a place where she was so close to the edge of reason and rationality that she was not sure she could stop herself from attacking the first person who came up here cooing and begging her pardon and treating her like she was going to fall apart. The gentleness of pity disgusted her, it always had. "Who wants to see me?"
"Miranda would like to know what your orders are regarding the Normandy's next move." EDI supplied helpfully. She spoke in the same manner she always had and Shepard rolled onto her back, relaxing slightly and pressing the back of her hand over her forehead.
"Tell Joker to put her in stationary orbit behind the moon and engage stealth systems. We'll wait for their ship to show up and mount an assault with the intension of capturing it. The usual." She instructed. This was easy, clear even in the maelstrom of violent emotion that was raging through her. Battle came to her with a natural ease that nothing else in the galaxy did, it defined her and made her who she was. She could handle battle plans and tactics. "Tell Miranda to spend the wait supervising discretionary maintenance."
"Understood. Jacob would also like to know if you would still like him to remove the N7 embossing from your armour."
"Yes." Shepard growled. For someone who had left the Alliance by choice long before she had been forced out Jacob seemed hesitant about the idea of scraping away her badge of combative honour. Maybe he thought it meant more than it did, but the fact was that having an N7 emblazoned on her chest made it difficult to convince people out here that she was not simply a dog on a military leash. She needed it gone for practical, pragmatic reasons and the way she felt about it fell behind those. As always.
"I shall inform him." EDI was the best kind of secretary, omnipresent, to the point and without any of the crooning and sensitive shoulder squeezes she always got from Chambers. "And finally, Thane would like to know how you are feeling and if there is anything he can do."
"Tell him to stay where he is." She replied, rolling back onto her stomach and pressing her face into a pillow. She could not face him right now, was not sure that she would ever be able to again. "I don't want to talk to anyone right now."
A moment of silence, which was always strange with EDI who processed thousands of complex thoughts simultaneously every instant and never seemed to take longer than a nanosecond to come up with the perfect response every time. "As you wish." She said finally, and the subsequent silence announced that her attention was elsewhere and Shepard was finally alone again. After almost thirteen hours of sleep that tiny little conversation had exhausted her and she laid in bed, not moving, until the stink of old sweat and her aching bladder forced her to rise and make her way to the sterile military bathroom.
Being clean was something she had once considered to be the highest luxury, but lately she found that the only reason she spent so much time in the shower was because she had nothing else to fill her hours with. She had always thought that her obsession with work, her need to stay focused and on task had been a reflection of her driving personality, but her tragic epiphany on Mindoir had illuminated exactly how untrue that was. Her drive was powered merely by the fact that she had nothing else to consume her, nothing else to do when she was not fighting or directing other people to fight. It was the same with many soldiers, she had come to understand, as concerns like music, vids and relationships became pale and distant between the rigorous of life among the stars and the extreme violence of a life of combat. With her it was simply more intense, as was the case with most things.
She dressed herself in the usual black pants and shirt, garments as featureless as her and made her way back out to her quarters. She stopped, looking around the featureless room with her hands clasped in front of her. The Bhagavad was again the only thing she had to do other than sit in silence and think and she picked it up and carried it to her desk chair as she found her place again. She was almost finished it now, the familiar words refreshed by her twenty years of neglect and her revelation of insignificance. She could see something in it that was unlike the reverence of her child self or the bitter cynicism of her nihilistic young adulthood. There was a simplicity to the concepts of this text underneath the wordy poetry that typified Hindu scripture. It was scripture, but it was also a guide to simple goodness. She could see that now. She did not believe in it, in the idea that virtue could be a shield and that all life was precious but she could see something good in it again.
There were many good things about Mindoir, she thought, leaning back as her attention wandered from the script before her. The majestic, rolling mountains, the slanting cathedral twilight of the forests, even the insects that Garrus loathed so much had their own sort of striking alien beauty. Life had been hard, both at a spiritual and physical level, but her parents had always been happy. Her brothers and her had always been happy, well fed and active. She had been at peace, loved by her family and loving them in return with a ferocity that she had not felt again until she laid in Kaidan`s arms hurtling toward an almost certain death. Even now that grade of emotion seemed difficult to fathom, let alone muster in herself. She could not care that much about anything, not even the fate of the entire galaxy, not even herself.
The Bhagavad had defined a great deal of what she remembered Mindoir to be like, she realized, looking down at the script in her hands. She had not been the only one who knew each word by heart, who had grown up looking at it as the essential manual for achieving the ultimate nirvana. Their entire commune lived by its words, by the wisdom of Krishna even as they all worshipped different forms of their gods. Shiva had been the object of her families worship, but all the faces of god were acknowledged and celebrated in their household and in the village. The love that community had contained and felt for one another had come from their belief in the teachings of the Bhagavad, from the clarity of their meditations and the fervour of their faith. It had made them into something Shepard had never ever seen again, a place where everyone believed in the essential goodness of the galaxy and acted with that belief in mind. Honesty, generosity, charity, these were words that had not been unique or special on Mindoir. She had seen them every day, barely believed that there was another way to live.
Of course, this thinking was what had eventually killed them. Thinking of that made her angry again, and she set the fragile scroll down on her desk. If all things in the universe are a part of god, then all things in the universe are a part of each other and to do violence upon one is an abhorrent act that does violence on all. So they had stored no guns, erected no turrets, established no garrison and moved beyond the places where the Alliance would do that for them without asking. All in pursuit of this divine goodness and the sweet nirvana that would surely be their reward. Had her parents reached enlightenment when they were gunned down by batarians? Had a white light erupted, engulfing and absorbing them into the great oneness that connected the universe together? Were their bones tangled somewhere in that ditch, full of weeds and vines while their souls moved inside her, part of the great wheel no longer?
No. If she believed that, then she would have to believe in everything it entailed. She would have to open the book on god again, a book she had closed tight when she was thirteen years old. There was no god. There was nothing out there guiding her and making her strong. Her parents bones, mouldering in that ditch, were all that remained of them in the universe.
That thought was not helping. Nor was that fleeting memory of the awareness that filled the void between dying and waking on the Lazarus bed. Were her parents there now? Had she touched their consciousnesses there, before the trauma of living again purged the memories from her mind? There were so many questions she could not answer, so many doubts she could not shed. She began to feel again as though she were being crushed, her breath hitching in her chest as she struggled to take long, even breaths. She was losing it, losing all her precious, precarious control and screamed inwardly at herself even as the pressure mounted, making her bow her head and bury it in her hands. This was the end. She did not think she could take it any longer, the stress, the expectations, the juxtaposition of everyone's unflinching certainty and her unwavering doubt. Jane Shepard was finished.
"Siha." She looked up, having not even heard the door open and not remembering that she had told EDI not to allow entrance to anyone. His figure swam before her eyes, she was crying again and had not even realized it. She had told him to stay away, as good as ordered it, and she had meant it at the time. He was aware of this, she could see the uncertainty reflected in his wide dark eyes and the way he hesitated between her seat and the door. She wiped at her eyes and opened her mouth to speak, her voice cracking with the intensity of all she was feeling.
"I'm so glad you're here." She sobbed, actually sobbed, for the first time in her life and a moment later he was kneeling in front of her, his arms suddenly around her as she buried her face in his neck. He did not speak, as his hand settled on her hair and his strong, warm chest pressed against her and she did not try to talk or even try to think either. She just needed something to lean on as she cried, anything to give her an anchor in this tsunami of newly awakened emotion. She just needed him there, and that was all. She could not remember ever having cried in front of someone before, but she felt no shame as she soaked the shoulder of his jacket with her grief. By the time she pulled back, wiping at her red eyes and runny nose she felt empty, hollow in the aftermath of that release. He stood, and so did she, going to the bathroom to blow her nose and wash the rawness of tears from her face. When she reappeared at the door of the washroom she saw that he had removed his jacket and was staring at her empty fish tanks, his eyes far away.
"I did not know if you would want to see me." He confessed, quietly. "Every time I have tried to be closer to you I have found myself pushed away."
She nodded, still silent, and leaned against the doorway to her bathroom as she rubbed the back of her neck. She had never known how it was that people shared grief or struggles with each other, it had always been her choice to bear hers alone. She had thought that would make things easier, put less pressure on those around her and, in the selfish end, make it less painful to lose them. He turned to look at her as she remained silent.
"I have no idea what I am to you." He said finally, as he began moving closer. His gaze was intense, full of confusion and a wide-eyed hurt that she hated to see, especially knowing it was her fault.
"You're closer to me than anyone else in the universe, Rama." She said, closing the distance between them and reaching out to take his hand. He seemed to hesitate on the edge of pulling away and then let her have it, lacing his fingers with hers. She put her other hand on his chest, over his heart, and felt the strong pulse of it under the thin vest he wore. "You're… fuck, you're the only thing in my life that doesn't seem specifically geared toward driving me insane. You're the only one that doesn't expect anything from me and probably the only one that really believes we're going to beat the Reapers and live happily ever after. I pushed you away because I was scared, scared to feel too deeply about something when in the end I think I'm going to die with my pistol in my mouth just so I don't end up as a husk or some updated Collector prototype."
Her voice was trembling as she made her confession, everything spilling out in a rush of complicated thoughts. Her grip on his hand tightened and she pulled herself closer to him, needing to feel his heat, needing to remember that there was something worth being alive for. This, what she felt with him, was the only thing that seemed real anymore and if that was all there was then she was not going to run away from it anymore. She had spent her entire life running without even realizing it, running from what it meant to care about people, to care about the universe in the way she had as a child, running from everything that was difficult about believing in something. She believed in this, in what existed between the two of them, and that would have to be enough for now.
"You know I would never let that happen." He whispered, and his arms were around her now, his eyes burning into hers as he held her close.
"I know. That's why I called you Rama." She replied, running one hand over the back of his head, feeling the ridges along the centre of his skull solid and warm beneath her fingers. "He was a prince and an avatar of Vishnu. A great warrior and by all accounts a wise and patient king that did well by his people. More importantly though, he represents guidance and clarity. And protection." She ran her hand along his cheek and let it fall to his shoulder. "That's what you are to me, Rama. You are what guides me and protects me from myself, from the hopelessness that consumes me when I'm alone. Don't ever doubt how I feel for you, it's the only thing I'm really certain about."
"Siha… I…" He pulled her closer and now she could feel his heart pounding against her chest, the rhythm so strange, almost erratic compared to her own steady pulse. "I'm sorry."
"You don't have to be." She replied, wrapping her arms around his neck. "Just kiss me."
He did, words had taken them as far as they could at this point. Now there was just a deep, physical need to be with him, to feel his presence stabilizing her at least somewhat. Having him here did not erase what was going on, did not make anything better really, but she could feel her heart race and she was at least able to leave it behind her as she pulled him down toward the depressed living quarters and the bed. His lips left hers and she grabbed a handful of his vest, walking backwards down the stairs, never taking her eyes off his.
"I thought you wanted…" He began, his voice coarse in his throat. She had never stopped to think that maybe Thane had as much built up tension as she did, his own warm ache in his stomach that demanded to be satisfied. She glanced down and saw that she had been making a very large oversight indeed and then back up at him to see that he was staring at the bed, whatever thoughts he was having making his eyes darken in a way she had never seen before.
"I know what I want." She replied, grabbing him by the shoulders and giving him a rough shove that sent him tumbling backwards onto the bed. He looked up at her as though he had never seen her before, and he supposed that he never had, not in this particular light. "Don't hesitate on my account. What about you?"
She could feel his eyes rake over her, over the flat and decidedly unflattering clothing she was wearing and that dark look his eyes grew all the deeper, all the more hungry. When he met her eyes again all he could do was nod, and it was all the invitation she needed.
"I was hoping you would say that." She said, pulling her shirt over her head. "EDI, don't interrupt me for anything short of a massive critical systems failure."
"Or a fire?" The AI asked in a tone that was far to cheeky to be a glitch in her vocal array.
"It better be a really big fucking fire." Shepard replied, as she hopped up on the bed, planting her hands on either side of Thane's head as she lowered her head to his.
"Understood, Commander." EDI replied, before signing out and dimming the lights in a way that was perhaps a joke and perhaps just friendly consideration for her commander. Whatever it was, neither of the two people intertwined on the bed paid it any mind.
A\N: Please don't kill me, this is not a black screen, the sexy chapter will most assuredly be coming soon. That is all.