WARNING: THIS CHAPTER CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR ME3. The spoilers are for an early mission, not the end.
Notes: Like everyone else, I think the dialogue, characters, and gameplay for ME3 are amazing, but I'm pretty damn conflicted about the endings.
Updates will continue to be slow, but I hope my readers will stick with me for the ride.
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Even with her gun in her hands, Shepard could feel her fingers clenching into fists. She wanted to do more than just hit something—hit someone—she wanted to dig her fingernails into them like knives, bite and scratch and tear everything—everyone—around her into tiny shreds.
She'd just seen her worst nightmare come to life… and, like all nightmares, knowing what was coming hadn't given her any power at all to stop it, which only made it so much worse.
It hurt.
Her heart burned and throbbed until it felt as though her whole body was aflame, burning whatever was left of her away. It was enough to tint her entire view red—even redder than might be expected in a sandstorm on Mars—though, luckily perhaps, the rage that accompanied the pain only put a sharper edge on the clarity of her sniper's vision.
It was some satisfaction, but no consolation, to watch heads literally shatter into shards of blood and bone, fountains that ran as red as her rage.
They shouldn't be here.
Not her, not James, not Alenko…and not any of the people between them and whatever Hackett had sent them to retrieve. They should be on Earth, fighting. Fighting the Reapers.
Instead, they were here. Fighting each other.
And that didn't just mean her team was fighting Cerberus—they were all fighting each other.
Alenko, who'd been there on her nine, who'd seen Sovereign on Eden Prime, and again in those last final moments at the Citadel when they thought they might just have lost already, might just be too late… he hadn't been there when they'd spoken with Sovereign on Virmire, that was true, but… he'd been on Ilos. He'd seen Vigil. He, better than anyone, he should have known.
She could forgive him for not rejoining her. She understood what he meant when he said he was Alliance first… she'd known that before he'd ever told her.
He didn't trust her.
Fine.
She didn't like it, but she could accept it.
But what she couldn't accept was that he didn't trust himself.
Yes, sir, no, sir, whatever you say, sir… even if what the higher-ups were saying patently defied the evidence of one's own eyes—more than that, the evidence of your own flesh, your blood, your bones, your scars, your experience. How could he have ignored it all so completely?
He'd had the access to the Council and Alliance she'd somehow lost. He could have… he should have… spent the last two and a half years fighting and kicking like mad, making all the noise he could manage, struggling to prepare them for the horror even he couldn't imagine, but of which he, at least, should have had some inkling…
And instead… he'd just… fallen into line.
And Earth...
was falling.
Anderson had pulled her back out of the fire again, and she'd repaid the favor by leaving him behind. The guilt sat there at the back of her throat, making her want to gag, making her want to scream and scream and maybe never stop... but she couldn't, because she had a job to do.
Liara, at least, understood that. Her presence helped a bit, took the edge off just enough to keep Shepard from doing something she'd probably regret.
Shepard stood behind the asari, fuming.
Alenko's suggestion about the radio only upped her temperature.
First, she should have thought of it.
Most importantly, Garrus would have suggested exactly the same measure. She hated it that Alenko was here, making her life harder, while Garrus... she'd been dying to hear from him for months, sure he was equally anxious to hear from her... she didn't know where he was, and she could only hope like hell that it wasn't Earth... and that Earth was the only place hit. And she was already pretty damn sure it wasn't. She didn't want to think about that. It only aggravated her urge to scream or vomit.
Most immediately, Alenko's initiative irritated her because it only reminded her of how capable, how competent, how... oh, call it supportive... Alenko had once been. Once. When it had mattered less.
The tangled, throbbing, flaming mess of her emotions must have been even closer to radioactive than she'd realized, because Liara turned to look at her with an odd expression.
"What?" Shepard demanded shortly, teetering on the precipice between angry and defensive.
Liara raised an eyebrow, making Shepard feel guilty. The asari wasn't the one who deserved her rage. Alenko, maybe. Cerebus, probably. The Reapers, most assuredly. But Liara was only trying to help. "The major has become quite capable," she observed in her cool, quiet voice. A voice like water pouring over stone. It had always made Shepard think of a forest stream trickling down a rock face in some hidden, peaceful glade.
In spite of herself, she relaxed, just a touch. "That he has," she agreed wryly, wondering if Liara knew that was exactly what was bothering her... or if she was suggesting the atmosphere-she had to have noticed by now-was some by-product of the chemistry Shepard and Alenko shared-surely not, as she'd recognized Shepard's feelings for Garrus even before...
before Aratoht.
Most likely, Liara was trying to remind her that whatever her personal feelings toward the man might be, they were less important than getting the job done. And Shepard had to agree.
She sighed slightly, very slightly, and turned to follow Alenko through the door to the security room.
Just in time to see him crack the helmet on a dead Cerberus Operative who looked anything but human.
"They've done something to him," she muttered, more to herself than Alenko, but Alenko was beginning to develop a real knack for pushing her buttons.
"And by they... you mean Cerberus," he said as if that wasn't obvious. "Is this what they did to you?"
"You tell me," she snapped. "Do we look the same?"
"You look great," Alenko retorted drily. "But looks aren't everything, Shepard. Sometimes they can be-"
"Deceiving?" Shepard finished for him with a snort. "You done, Alenko, or do you have a few more hackneyed cliches you'd like to throw?"
Alenko shrugged. "Sorry, Shepard," he said, sounding anything but. "It's just that... ever since you joined Cerberus, I don't know who you are any more... I don't know what you are."
Shepard was struck with the sudden, almost hysterical, urge to laugh and she was horribly afraid that if she laughed, she'd never be able to stop. A year, a full year, asking herself that question and every possible variation. Do you really think I know the answers any more than you? Do you really think you're only the one with doubts? Do you think you're doing any of us any favors by reopening my old wounds in the middle of hostile territory? So much for capable. "How can you even ask me that?" she returned, annoyed to find she sounded more hurt and wistful than angry.
The what she was part... she'd put that behind her. Decided she was the sum of her thoughts, her feelings, and above all else, the sum of her actions. Whether the numbers that had come before were original or merely transcriptions, everything she'd done since the hard reboot, well, that was her. And, in spite of having done some pretty ugly things, the overall result was something she didn't really mind staring down in her mirror every morning. That was what counted, in the end. She knew that, and she didn't need Alenko demanding she second-guess it. Not now, not ever.
But especially not now.
The who she was part...
A day ago, on Earth, when she was awaiting tribunal, well... it would have been understandable. He should have known-he did know-she was right, the Reapers were coming. But he didn't know, couldn't know just how immediate the threat had been. If he doubted that... she could forgive. Killing an entire colony was an action almost too horrible to contemplate, and anyone who would-who could-commit such an act for anything less deserved to be doubted.
But now...
he ought to have figured out she hadn't done it because she disliked Batarians.
The Reapers had come.
She had obviously been telling the truth. And she had done what she had to do. Just as she had always done.
"How can you even ask me that?" she asked, annoyed to find she sounded more hurt and wistful than angry. Some people are just too thick to have the sense beaten back into them.
"I... I just... need to know. Is the woman I loved still in there somewhere?"
Maybe. Maybe not. I'm not sure she ever really was. What gets me is that I'm not sure the man I loved ever actually existed either. One death killed them both and I don't think they're getting resurrected. "Cerberus didn't change me, Kaidan." At least not any more than the Prothean Beacon did. Or Akuze. Or Virmire. We're all changing all the time. What matters is whether or not we change in a way that preserves some... integrity... between what we are and what we will be. And I think I have. As far as I can I tell. I thought my email made that pretty clear. Unless it didn't get through. "Or the fact I care about you-" although you're doing a good job of driving me down that road yourself. I hope you realize that particular destination would be pretty permanent. "But words aren't going to be enough to convince you, are they?"
And then a minor miracle happened.
Kaidan smiled. More than smiled. He chuckled. "No," he admitted, his tone decidedly less hostile than it had been since her death. "Probably not."