Twelve: Of Soldiers and Load-Bearing

[Ashley]

She took a step forward to catch Shepard as she staggered away from Shiala's grasp. Shepard's pale skin blanched a sickly green, dark circles under her eyes giving her a skeletal appearance. The shorter woman braced herself against Ashley's solid stance, clutching her arm like a half-drowned creature climbing ashore from a flash flood. After a few moments, Shepard straightened and composed herself. She wiped cold sweat from her brow and started talking to the asari, finishing their business on Feros.

Ashley shivered, hoping she'd never have to see another weird asari mind-meld thing for the rest of this mission. It was one thing for them to talk to every alien they came across – Shepard was ridiculously thorough in gathering information from anyone she could talk to – but it was another to have an alien rummaging around in their minds. Even if it was to presumably pass on information that a another alien's technology placed there.

Nope, Ashley thought, I am not at the point where I would let anyone into my head. I'll fight with them, talk with them, eat in the same mess as them, but no way in fuck am I letting one in my head.

She cast a sideways glance at Garrus, who seemed completely at ease with everything. He was a cop, she remembered; he'd probably seen crazy shit in his day. Turians had mandatory military service too,if she remembered correctly. She hadn't there was much more in the universe that could surprise her, and she'd been proven dead wrong on that score, considering that the meld they'd witness was also apparently how asari had sex. The dots that Ashley connected made her sick to her stomach, and she couldn't explain why.

Why was no one objecting to first Liara, then the green asari effectively having sex with Shepard, in front of the crew, under the auspices of 'clarifying Shepard's understanding of the Prothean beacon.' Complete with gigantic neon signs pointing to the innuendo, she thought, scandalized.

Furthermore, why weren't the other non-humans saying something. Were they out to screw up Shepard's chance at becoming a full Spectre, just like Anderson's chance at the job?

The questions infuriated her. She followed Shepard and Garrus back to the Mako in silence. They rode back to the landing site, Shepard dictating her report to her omni-tool as Garrus drove the ungainly vehicle back to port. She didn't notice the ExoGeni team helping the colonists, who suffered a version of post-party "missing pieces" hunt with their lives. I didn't...'do...' anything when the ancient homicidal plant thing possessed me...did I?

The Normandy's decontamination cycle had a field day with their gore-and-plant-goo spattered armor. While they stood and waited for the scan and clean program to finish, Shepard broke the silence. "Chief, you look like you're going to start spot-welding Vakarian's plates to the hull. Everything okay?"

Ashley blinked, startled out of her uncomfortable thoughts. She felt disoriented as she registered where they were, but had no memory of how they got there. "Sorry, ma'am. I'm fine."

"Good for me, I guess. I don't think I'd make a good hood ornament," Garrus quipped, reigniting Ashley's irritation at how calm he was over everything. She shot him a dirty look, which earned her a mandible-flap equivalent of a cheeky smirk.

Shepard nodded, her eyes telling Ashley she didn't buy that particular load of bullshit, but would let it slide. "Alright then," she said as the airlock cycled, allowing them back inside, "I'll be filing my report with management, then hitting the mess and my bunk. If either of you need to debrief with me privately, let me know." They parted at the elevator, Shepard peeling off to hit her private locker area as Ashley and Garrus took the infernally slow contraption down to the cargo hold.

Somewhere between decks, Garrus broke the silence. "It's not sexual, you know."

Ashley blinked, looking at the turian in shocked disgust. "Excuse me?"

"What Shiala and Liara did to Shepard. It's not sexual," he said. "I'm not completely clueless when it comes to reading human facial cues, Williams. You look like someone tricked you into eating some of my rations."

She ground her teeth in frustration, then took a calming breath. "Not that I need to explain myself to you, but what makes you think I'm thinking that way?"

He ticked off the reasons on a hand. "You were completely calm up until they started talking, have looked disgusted ever since we left the planet, and you aren't particularly keen on strange alien practices, from what I've observed."

Oh really? Ashley thought. "Someone's been eavesdropping, apparently."

"Unintentionally, of course. Just like I know you hear when Shepard talks to me when she comes down on her rounds."

Ashley glowered up at the turian. "Fine," she said, crossing her arms beneath her breasts. "Educate me, O Wise Bird of the Ages."

Garrus chuckled. "You're not the first one to think an evil asari witch raped someone in plain sight," he said, using – of all things – air quotes to emphasize his point. "In C-Sec, if we had a witness who was particularly rattled by an attack of some sort, they could submit to having an asari scan them like what happened with Shepard."

Ashley nodded, still incredulous. "Uh-huh. And I assume if it's sexual they glow when they finish or something?" The elevator stopped and let them off onto the cargo deck, and Ashley put a few steps of distance between herself and Garrus.

"Well, they are biotics, after all, so sometimes they flare-" Garrus cut himself off when he realized where his sentence lead. "The point is, it's obvious when everyone's, er, enthusiastically participating or not, regardless of gender or species." He paused again, closing his eyes in a universal expression of oh fuck, I just did it again.

Ashley grinned, gleefully trading her irritation for getting under Garrus' hide. "I'll be a good sport and not even ask how you found out about that."

"I'll accept that mercy, but I'm not into asari, live or on a vid. Just not my thing."

"Fair enough, Vakarian," Ashley said, still chuckling as she walked away. She stopped after a few steps, then turned back. "Hey, listen. Thanks for that."

"For what?"

"For calling me out on my shit before Shepard got wind of it," she said. "She's already talked to me about being racist or specist or whatever. I don't want her thinking I'm flipping out over something I don't understand."

Garrus crossed his arms, tilting his head to the side. "But...you were flipping out over something you didn't understand."

"Well...now I'm not." She headed back to her weapons bench and stowed her gear, grabbing her shower kit and a fresh set of ship clothes. Her omni tool gave a chime from where she'd placed it on the bench. She picked it up and checked the message that had appeared:

Okay, there was 1 video. It was kind of boring, actually. - GV

Ashley barked a surprised laugh, and looked over her shoulder where Garrus made a show of working on the Mako, innocent as could be. "That's what they always say, Vakarian!" she called over. She was rewarded by a quiet, flanging chuckle. She grabbed her kit and headed for the elevator.

–

"Chief, do you have a minute?"

Ashley slid the last ammunition block home, then re-racked her rifle. She turned to find Shepard, at a loose parade-rest stance, waiting for the chief to be ready. Ashley reflexively saluted, before remembering that the commander wasn't one who needed a salute for every interaction. "Yes, ma'am; I just finished up here."

"Great. I wanted to check in with you about the mission today."

I'm still not used to how she asks for feedback after a mission. Ashley thought. "Well, I think everything went according to plan; we got what we needed, and the colony's safer for it."

Shepard arched an eyebrow in response. "Even with the combat gardening we wound up doing?"

"Heh, even with that. Plants with guns is a first, ma'am," Ashley glanced at her feet, knowing what was coming next, even as she dreaded it.

"So what had you looking like you were going to vent the first person who asked what was wrong on the way back to the ship?"

Ashley sighed. "Permission to speak freely, ma'am?"

"Granted."

"Before I answer, let me say that Garrus sorted it out for me before you came down. I worried that you might...er...have been taken advantage of...with the whole Cipher thing."

Shepard, for her part, looked genuinely surprised. "How do you mean 'taken advantage of", chief?"

"I thought that you might not know that...well, ok, the mind-meld thing. I didn't know asari could do that without...uh...certain sensations being involved. I assumed, and I was wrong, that's all." Ashley risked a quick glance over at Garrus' side of the hold, then over to Wrex, who appeared to be working on his shotgun. Wrex hadn't been there during her earlier conversation with Garrus, so she knew he'd never let her live it down if he heard the full details here.

Shepard furrowed her brow, confused, then made a small noise of connection when she got it. "Oh. I see where you'd be concerned with having Liara repeat the process to combine the original vision and the Cipher."

"Like I said, Garrus cleared it up for me," Ashley said.

Shepard let a big, gusty breath out, as if she'd been holding it back for a dressing-down she didn't need to deliver. "Fair enough, Ash. I learned about dealing with some of the...odder points of inter-species interaction during training." She paused. "Not all of it, but the general gist."

"What was different?"

Shepard smiled mirthlessly. "They can't explain what it feels like to have someone in your head with you. I'd like to avoid feeling that sensation again for at least a decade."

"I can imagine," Ashley agreed.

Shepard hesitated a little, then appeared to decide against something. "I should head up and get us underway. Any other comments, Williams?"

"None that I can think of, ma'am."

"Carry on, then." Shepard headed for the elevator, paused, then looked back. "Thank you for trusting me anyway, Ashley. I appreciate it."

"Any time, Skipper." Ashley blinked at the sincerity, as well as the note of loneliness, that marked Shepard's voice. It occurred to her that perhaps, just maybe, Shepard didn't have many people to confide in or look out for her inner interests. Where others might have been offended by assuming what they did or didn't know, Shepard appreciated the candor, the protective streaks in people she worked with. She would put them in line if they needed it, Ashley knew, but overall...Shepard had a lot on her plate, and not many to split it with.

Of all things, Ashley knew how that felt; living under a legacy of accusation and persecution prepared you for that sort of load-bearing.