Divided We Fall

Shepard thought she remembered being shoved into the back of a shuttle, and flying for a long time. She couldn't be sure, though, since the Somnex Four gave all of her recent memories a hazy aura. She didn't know what was reality and what her mind had made up to fill in the blanks.

Was Kaidan dead or alive? She had seen blood on his shirt. He wasn't moving. What if no one came for him? If he died there, bleeding out in that lightless alley on Illium, it would be her fault. She should have never agreed to see him. It only put him in danger. She should've known: trouble followed her like a shadow, and now Kaidan was lost in the dark.

Doors opening. Light streaming through the cloth of the bag that covered her face. She was awake, and she was alive. That much was real.

"Grab her arms," a voice, turian, said. They didn't realize that she was conscious.

It was the perfect time to take them by surprise. They assumed that the Somnex Four would keep her out for several hours, but what they didn't know is that Shepard knew how to defend herself from the gas attack. Sort of. As soon as the asari had told the henchmen to gas her, she'd started sucking air into her lungs, so that any of the Somnex Four that got inside her system was at a higher oxygen to gas ratio. She'd inhaled enough to knock her out, but she hadn't stayed like that for long.

Hands under her arms. Time to act. She mustered all her energy, and... nothing. Her muscles were unresponsive. They must have used some kind of temporary paralytic. Or maybe a stasis field. Shepard tried to jerk out of the grip of her captor, but the best she could manage was twitching her left index finger. Not exactly the thrilling escape she'd planned.

She felt herself being moved out of the shuttle, and onto something cold. Metal. Hard. A gurney, maybe. Her limbs dangled uselessly. They were strapping her down, cinching her tight. She could feel straps across her knees, thighs, abdomen, and chest, plus four individual ones keeping her arms and legs down. She could barely breathe. She wondered what would happen if she spoke to them. Probably nothing good. She held her silence. It was possible for her to just make out motion and shapes behind her black mask. She might see something that could aid in her escape, or even give a clue as to where she was.

But none of that really mattered if she couldn't even move her hand. Besides being weaponless, no movement meant no biotics. For the first time in her life, Shepard was completely and utterly helpless.

"Would you hurry it up back there?" the turian spoke again, with a hint of irritability in his voice.

"Calm down, Varick." Shepard recognized the voice as belonging to the asari that had attacked her in the alley. "We're almost there."

"Yeah, well we won't even reach the ship if you continue at that pace."

Ship? Shepard started to panic. They were taking her off world, far away from Illium, and any chance of rescue. If she was going to escape, it had to be now.

She tried again with the strength gathering thing. Not much happened, but she'd have to take what she got. Pulling against her bonds, she clenched her fists and activated her biotic energy.

"Shit, she's awake!" Shepard pushed as hard as she could against her wrist restraints, firing off a blue current in the direction of the voice.

But it had no effect. "Put her out, now!" There was the hiss of pressure release, and in her mind, Shepard pictured the turian shooting another dose of Somnex Four into the black sack that covered her face. That was the last image she had before everything was lost to darkness once more.

Back on the Normandy, Kaidan was also on a gurney, just sitting up. He put his finger on the thick medical staples Dr. Chakwas had so kindly outfitted him with. They made a bumpy ridge in between two of his ribs, sealing the wound and keeping all his bones in place.

"I'm fit for duty," Kaidan said. As soon as he heard that Garrus and Liara were going after Shepard, he'd jumped at the chance to accompany them. Resulting in a misplaced staple, which Dr. Chakwas then had to remove with a very scary looking pair of tongs. Still, he was determined to go with them. It was his fault Shepard was gone. He had to right his wrongs and get her back. He owed her that much.

"I don't know, Kaidan." Garrus had been sympathetic, but it was obvious to Kaidan that he blamed him for what happened, partially. And he deserved it. All he needed was a chance to fix it. "This is a high risk mission. We can't afford any liabilities."

"I'm not a liability," Kaidan defended himself. "Come on, Garrus. I was with Shepard during Sovereign's attack, when the Citadel was falling apart and we had to fight through all those geth to kill Saren. I think I'm qualified for this."

"I remember. I was there."

"So you know that I can do this."

Garrus sighed, his mandibles flaring as he did so. It wasn't that he didn't have confidence in Kaidan's abilities. Garrus knew it was unfair, and he felt a little guilty even considering the idea, but all of this badness had arisen when Shepard went to see Kaidan. Not that it was his fault, per se, but none of this would have happened if Shepard had just stayed on the Normandy to watch movies and build forts with Garrus. "That's not what I'm worried about. You were hurt, Kaidan. You need to be recovering, not throwing yourself back into harm's way." There. That was good. Makes me sound like a concerned friend. Hopefully he'll buy it.

"Garrus, can I talk to you outside?" Dr. Chakwas said abruptly.

He followed her out, glad to get a moment away from Kaidan to collect his thoughts and come up with a stronger argument.

Down in engineering, Kasumi was tip toeing very quietly up to an unsuspecting quarian. With her back turned, Tali would have no idea she was there until it was too late...

Kasumi put her face next to Tali's, and shouted, "Hi there!"

She jumped up with a high-pitched yelp, the data pad in her hands clattering to the floor. Glaring, she snatched it off the ground and gave Kasumi a scolding whack with it. "You startled me," she said.

"You should've seen your face!" Kasumi said, peals of laughter echoing throughout the entire engineering deck. She paused and reconsidered her statement. "Nevermind. Bad choice of words."

"Is there another reason you're here, or did you come down just to bother me?" Tali was actually a little relieved that she'd come down to distract her from her work. It was a good excuse to take a short break.

Kasumi leaned against Tali's workspace, shifting her weight all to one foot. "No. Just the bothering." Tali was about to smack her again with the data pad when she said, "Oh, wait! I remember. I wanted to ask you about the underwear model Garrus and Miranda are holding captive upstairs in the med bay."

"Underwear model?" That didn't sound like something that necessarily belonged on the Normandy. Tali thought that maybe putting the bar in Kasumi's room had been not such a great idea.

"Ruggedly handsome. Shirtless, last time I checked. Tan, toned muscles, five star ass. Big, soulful brown eyes..."

Wait. Tali almost didn't believe it. Surely, she couldn't be talking about... "Kaidan? Kaidan's here?"

"So that's Staff Commander Alenko?" Kasumi swooned. "No wonder Shep fell for him."

"Well," Tali said, "He was the one who fell for her."

"You know him?" Kasumi grabbed her friend by the shoulders. "Introduce us. Now. Or I'll steal your belongings and scatter them all over the Normandy in random yet well concealed places."

"Okay, okay. Calm down," Tali said, wriggling out of Kasumi's death grip. The two of them took the elevator up one floor. Tali was excited to see Kaidan again. It had been ages. She wondered why Shepard hadn't told them that he was visiting.

When the doors slid open and the two of them stepped out, Kasumi heard a few words from a tense conversation. She flattened herself against the wall, gesturing for Tali to do the same. She never missed an opportunity to eavesdrop.

"Medically, he's fine. Those staples I put in would hold a crack in a dam." It was Dr. Chakwas. Kasumi poked her head around the corner. She was speaking to Garrus, who looked somewhat agitated. He kept glancing back into the med bay. Kasumi saw that Kaidan was attended by some blue asari with a haughty expression who she'd never seen before, as well as Miranda, whose fingers were wrapped around one of his biceps. Though that wouldn't be the case for long if Kasumi had anything to say about it.

"You're telling me there's no good reason I can keep him from this mission?" Hmm. Garrus didn't like Kaidan, it seemed. Jealous, perhaps? Kasumi was definitely rooting for Shep and Garrus as a couple. They were just so damn cute. Well, maybe not cute. But undeniably well suited for each other. Sure, this Kaidan guy was hot, but he'd burned Shepard back on Horizon. Those kind of wounds did not heal easily.

However, Kasumi herself had no ill feelings toward him.

"No. Though I don't think it would make much of a difference to him either way," Chakwas replied, sighing wearily. "He wants to get Shepard back as much as the rest of us, Garrus."

"What?" Tali exclaimed, startling Kasumi, unintentionally repaying her earlier ambush in engineering. Against Kasumi's frantic motions to do otherwise, the headstrong quarian leapt from their hiding place. Great. Now they were both going to get into trouble for eavesdropping. "What happened to Shepard?"

Garrus rubbed his forehead with the back of his hand. "Look, Tali, can you -"

"What happened? Where is she?" Without realizing it, her voice had risen to a high shrill. Inside the med bay, Miranda let her hand drop from Kaidan's arm, and she strode over to where Dr. Chakwas, Garrus, Tali, and Kasumi were standing.

"She's been kidnapped," she revealed bluntly. Garrus threw her a wary look. Her finesse never ceases to amaze.

"Kidnapped?" Tali parrotted. "When? How?" People didn't just kidnap Commander Shepard. It didn't happen like that.

"It was my fault," Kaidan said, joining the group. "I was with her when they -"

"That doesn't matter now," Garrus interjected, regaining control of the situation. "We can't dwell on what has already happened."

"Garrus is right," Miranda said. "We need to focus on getting her back."

"Hold on," Tali said, turning her attention to the Cerberus agent. "Why didn't you tell us? You don't think that the rest of the crew deserves to know that their commander was taken?"

Garrus ground his teeth. She had a point. He would have wanted to hear the news as soon as anyone else on the ship did. It wasn't fair to them, but honestly, letting the whole ship know that Shepard was gone wasn't the first thing on his to do list.

Miranda had the exact same thought going through her head. "Excuse us for not writing up a memo for Her Supreme Highness while Shepard is out there somewhere, with God-knows-what being done to her."

At that moment, Thane appeared. He had heard loud arguing all the way from life support. Not something totally out of the ordinary, but nevertheless, he thought he'd investigate. He was surprised to see that two strangers, a male human and an asari, were part of a heated discussion that Tali and Miranda were on opposite sides of. That, however, was no surprise. He approached Kasumi. "What's going on?"

She opened her mouth to reply when Tali turned to him. "They're keeping secrets from us. Shepard's been kidnapped!"

"Information is on a need to know basis," Miranda snapped, slamming her fist into her open palm.

"That seems like something we need to know," Thane replied. Sometimes, he thought that Miranda forgot there were other people besides Cerberus agents on the Normandy.

"Well, now you do!"

"No thanks to you," Tali put in, arms crossed over his chest.

"You would think that, Tali," Miranda snorted.

"What is that supposed to mean?"

"Guys!" Garrus said loudly. Tali, Miranda, Kasumi, and Liara glared at him. "And, y'know. Ladies." He had all of their attention. "We're not getting anywhere by arguing with each other. We can't just fall apart because Shepard's not here, right?" That elicited a few nods.

"She'd want us to work together," Tali said, sneaking a glance at Miranda. Their eyes met briefly.

"That's something we can all agree on," she said. Although the issue still hadn't been completely resolved, they'd reached a truce for the time being.

"I'll have the AI make an announcement about Shepard's absence and call the rest of the team to the comm room. We need to discuss how we're going to solve this," Garrus said. Tali, Kasumi, and Thane accepted that. Even though a significant portion of the team was already assembled there, outside the med bay, they still had to alert Jacob, Mordin, Samara, Legion, Grunt, Zaeed, and Jack about the situation. "Everyone be upstairs in five minutes."

They all dispersed to prep for the meeting. Liara, Garrus, and Kaidan remained.

"That was well handled," Liara said. She had known right off that Garrus was the right choice to lead Shepard's rescue mission. She was rarely wrong.

"Thanks. We might be able to pull together just long enough to work this out," Garrus said. He dearly hoped that would be the case. He'd led a team before, but that was a bit different. None of his former teammates were hell-bent on making life impossible for the others. He looked at Kaidan. "I guess you're coming with us. Let's get you some armor."

Kaidan nodded. Garrus was allowing him on the rescue team. Now, all they had to do was save the day.