Jade finished her sandwich in silence under the prothean's careful eye. She waved him down when she finished and stood to go.
"I'm going to take a shower and go straight to bed. No need to escort me, Mother. I think I know the way."
Liara was exiting her cabin as Jade left the kitchen and Jade made a detour around the elevator on the Med Bay side. It wasn't that she didn't like the asari, but ever since the alien woman had displayed her ability to dig up things that should have been ancient history, Jade had felt deeply discomfited when in her company. So she avoided those situations whenever possible.
She rounded the corner of the elevator and stopped dead in her tracks. Shepard was standing in front of the memorial wall with a look of profound grief on her face. She was holding another of the gray nameplates, running her fingers gently over the engraved letters.
"EDI's actually got one of these queued up for each of us. Can fabricate them in a couple of minutes." The light tone she affected tripped and stuck in the black tar of emotion that laced her voice.
"That sounds like our EDI, she's prepared for just about anything." Jade moved to stand next to the commander and looked down at the plaque.
"It wasn't even his wounds that killed him." Tears had begun rolling slowly down her face as she spoke. "He'd been sick for a long time and he just …"
They stood that way for a long moment before Shepard began to speak again.
"We nearly made a go of it, back during the Collector mission." Jade nodded in encouragement. This had the sound of a confession to it and she'd spent enough time around the victims of tragedy to understand this wound needed purging before it festered. "He was such a gentle soul; for all that he was an assassin. And he'd been so wounded, so misused by life. He said I 'woke' him, brought him out of his battlesleep. But Garrus … Garrus was my rock, the one constant in my life.
"He was there for me after the disaster that was Horizon. Warm and safe and there. Thane was sick, dying. I didn't think I could handle losing him. He was so calm, so understanding, when I broke it off. He genuinely wished us well. I knew he had feelings for me. And he wasn't the kind of man who did shallow feelings, you know?"
Jade nodded. The tears were flowing thick and fast down the commander's face now, and Jade wasn't far behind. It was easy to compare Shepard's description to her own much-loved sniper.
"When he …" Shepard swallowed thickly. "When he died, his last prayer, last thought, was for me. Even after I walked away from him like I did, he still thought of me at the very end. God, what kind of person am I?"
"Just a person." Jade finally said. "No matter what the vids, or the publicists, or the brass says. No matter how they try to build you up into a hollow god for public consumption and worship. You're still just a person as fallible as any of us. And this?" She tapped the nameplate in Shepard's hands. "This wasn't a mistake. Thane Krios was a good man and you were a good friend to him. You were there when he needed you and that's all that counts."
Jade looked at the memorial plate and, for a moment, she saw another, this one brass instead of grey slate.
"At least you got a chance to say goodbye."
Shepard nodded and wiped the tears from her eyes. She took a deep breath and centered herself, a queer little smile playing around her lips as she stepped forward to attach the nameplate to the memorial.
Jade stepped back and turned to enter the ladies restroom, nearly running into Garrus as he stood just barely around the corner. Suspicion said he'd seen at least part of the exchange.
"Go to her," she said. "I think she's ready for you now."
He looked down for a moment before giving her a short nod and moving to where Shepard stood.
In the restroom, Jade's tears mingled with the tepid water.