Here begins the part of this story that takes place during Mass effect 3. Spoilers of the main storyline will definitely be present, so don't get mad if you find out something you didn't want to know! Reviews are always appreciated, and I hope you all enjoy!
Thane was worried. Outwardly, no one may have noticed it, but his brain was racing. It had been just over two months since they had successfully completed their so-called suicide mission. Shepard had been spectacular, and the Collector base had been destroyed. Then Admiral Hackett had sent some top-secret mission to her, and she had gone off alone. He would have insisted that someone go with her, to watch her back, but he knew that she would hear none of it. She had flown off alone, leaving the Normandy's crew to wait anxiously for her return, and the next news they got was a distress call, three days later. They had flown in just in time, and barely made it out of the system before an asteroid went crashing into the mass relay. The Reaper's invasion had been delayed, yet again, by Shepard, but at such a cost.
Nearly four hundred thousand Batarian colonists had lost their lives in the subsequent explosion, and although Admiral Hackett had understood the necessity of her actions, Thane could see Shepard's guilt. The Batarians were calling her a terrorist, a war criminal, and not entirely without reason. Her posture had radiated her tension for the next weeks, and she had not been her usual spirited self. She wasn't one to share her feelings readily, but Thane had done his best to comfort her. She had almost seemed relieved when the message came from Earth that she was to submit herself for trial. It had been a difficult goodbye.
"Stay safe, Siha," he had said, holding her close as she waited for the Alliance vessel that was going to pick her up.
"You too, Thane," she whispered into his chest. He had never seen his Siha cry, but her voice was small, and he knew that she was concerned for him. His Kepral's Syndrome had grown steadily worse, to the point where he could no longer perform on assignments. In fact, he too was waiting for a transport, one that would take him to a hospital. He hadn't told Shepard yet, but he was getting to the point where Doctor Chakwas and the Normandy could no longer provide him with what he needed. He didn't want to add to her burden before she was court martialed, so he kept quiet and did his best to hide his pain and the increasing difficulty with which he drew breath. They had shared a final, tender moment before Joker announced the presence of an Alliance ship, and then they had kissed goodbye.
That was the last time he saw her before all hell broke loose.
He was on the Citadel when the news came through. The Reapers had finally arrived, just as Shepard had always warned that they would, and they had hit Earth hard. He had been writing to Shepard weekly, but he had stopped sending them after the first few weeks, sure that none of his messages were actually making it through to where she was being held under house arrest. He had been about to use one of his contacts to smuggle a message to her, when he heard about Earth, and his heart nearly stopped.
"Alliance headquarters in Vancouver have been hit, and all communication channels have gone dark," the reporter was saying, "While some ships have managed evacuation, the majority of Earth's population remains on the planet, where this unknown enemy continues to block any attempts to reach our reporters…" He stopped listening, leaning back in the chair in the hospital lobby that he was occupying. Shepard was on earth. What had happened? Was she alright? He had to try to reach her.
He returned to the hospital room where he was staying, his Kepral's Syndrome now so advanced that he could no longer go without daily medical treatments. Using his Omni-tool, he composed a message to Shepard, but he had nowhere to send it. Her address hadn't yielded any response during her incarceration, and communication with Earth was now completely cut off. He sat back, carefully breathing steadily as dizziness overcame him. Stress didn't help his condition, as the doctor overseeing his care had repeated many times, and so worrying would do nothing to help. He would simply have to wait for some sort of news.
Kolyat had been visiting him the past few weeks, and while damage of the kind Thane had done to their relationship took time to mend, they had been working through the pain that he had caused. In the end, it was his son who gave him news about Shepard.
"The Normandy's been at the Citadel, father," he said, and Thane felt his breath catch, "One of the crewmen was injured, I believe he's in this hospital. Rumors are that Shepard is in command of the ship." He couldn't speak for a moment, but Kolyat placed a hand on his shoulder, and Thane caught it with his own.
"Thank you," he said, and his son nodded silently.
"I'll leave you be," he said, "You have a message to write." Kolyat left, and Thane quickly got his Omni-tool and composed a new message. For the first time in weeks, he didn't simply save it to the local drive, never to actually be sent. He knew the Normandy's comm address, and with any luck it hadn't been changed when the ship had been retrofitted by the Alliance. If it had… well, there was no point in dwelling on what might be. If this message didn't go through, perhaps he would go to the docking ring and wait. He smiled wanly at himself, planning a stakeout as though Shepard were a target. He may not have been able to perform like an assassin on the battlefield, but his mind still worked just as well.
If Shepard was truly in command of the Normandy again, he would find some way to reach her, even just to know that she was safe. He had no illusions about their relationship. Just because he loved her, and he had stopped denying that to himself, didn't mean that she felt the same way about him. Still, he wanted to see her again, to know that she was safe, or as safe as she could be given the situation. He sighed at himself, worrying like a Salarian Dalatrass, and sent the message to the Normandy, labeling it so that it would be passed through to Shepard. Once that was done, he went to see who from the crew had been brought to the hospital.
There was a man, probably no more than seven or eight years younger than Thane himself, in one of the rooms of the hospital, his face bruised and cut in several places. He had the telltale scars marking a biotic's implant port. From what Thane had gathered by listening to the nurses, this was the member of the Normandy's crew who had been rushed in. He didn't recognise the man, but that wasn't surprising. The crew he knew had been mostly Cerberus, and the Normandy was Alliance now. Regardless, he put his training as an assassin to good, if far less interesting, use, and listened for a time by the man's door. His name was Major Alenko, Thane discovered, and he was hoping that a woman would come visit him – Shepard? Thane knew that she had been hurt by a man named Kaidan Alenko before he had joined the crew, so it followed that this man was the same. Tali had explained further, telling him that Shepard and Kaidan had been involved, but Kaidan hadn't reacted well to Shepard being with Cerberus. Shepard herself hadn't spoken of him, and he had known it was none of his business, so he hadn't pried.
It seemed that whatever had happened between the two humans, Kaidan had somehow ended up back on the Normandy when the Reapers hit Earth. The exact cause of his injuries had been declared top secret, and even the doctors didn't know what had really happened, so Thane's listening in on conversations only yielded snippets of wild speculation. Well, if he was back on Shepard's crew then Thane didn't care about the past. He would watch out for this young man, and hope, just as the Major did, that Shepard would come to visit him.