Chapter 36: Detainment - Shepard

"Sir you can't go in here!" The voice of one of Shepard's younger guards spoke outside her cell.

"Private, do you not know your superior officers?" Rah's cold voice asked. "Those who are paid more a month than you likely will ever see in your entire career?"

"I have my orders sir." The marine replied. "I'm not to let anyone enter without clearance."

"Soldier, do you have extranet access?" Rah asked.

"Yes sir."

"Then look up the name Robert Carmine. I'm damn sure you'll have all the proof you need." Rah told the guard coldly.

After a few moments, the guard spoke up, stumbling over his words. "I'm sorry sir. I didn't-"

"Damn right." Rah grunted and the door to Shepard's room opened.

"Rah." Shepard smiled up to her friend. Her gaze flicked to the four guards that followed the N7 in.

"Why the fuck are you lot in here?" Rah barked, not turning around. "Stay outside."

"But sir-" One marine began.

"I gave you an order soldier." Rah snapped, cutting him off.

The four guards looked between themselves uncertainly, but followed Rah's orders after a moment's hesitation.

"Good to see you again Sarge." Rah grinned to her when the guards left.

Shepard smiled back and walked over to him. Before he could say anything, Shepard pulled Rah into a tight, sisterly embrace.

"How are you holding up?" Shepard asked him softly and Rah returned the embrace.

"I'm getting better." Rah sighed out. "Jack… She's done more for me than I wanted her to."

"You've done more for others than you've needed to. Jack's being your rock when you need it." Shepard replied softly.

"Something is wrong with me Sarge." Rah spoke when they pulled away from each other. "I don't know what it is, but there's something in the back of my mind. Something that's been there since the Alpha Relay."

"I know the feeling." Shepard replied. "I've had a weird feeling ever since the Reaper corpse. If you can, tell me what happened out there."

"I fucked up." Rah sighed. "I was sent to rescue a scientist, but she was indoctrinated. I didn't realize it until it was too late. I spent four days out cold near a Reaper device."

"This can't be good." Shepard mused. "I won't pretend to know what it's like, but keep an eye on yourself. We can't fall to them, not when we're needed for the rest of the galaxy."

"I'll do what I can." Rah nodded.

"So tell me." He smiled after a moment of silence. "How have you been holding up?"

"Better than expected." Shepard chuckled. "I assume you're to thank for that?"

"Anderson and I yeah." Rah replied sheepishly. "Plus I've made it clear that you're here only because you want to be."

"Fair point." Shepard replied with a chuckle. "So how is Anderson doing?"

"Better what with not being the councillor anymore." Rah replied with a shake of his head. "I wish it wasn't true, but we need him in the military more than we need him as the councilor."

"Please tell me Udina isn't the councilor now." Shepard pleaded. She knew that when she met the man, Udina was nothing but trouble. The man was only in it for himself, and nothing else.

"If I did, I'd be lying." Rah sighed. "On the upside, he knows that he will never have my support for anything he ever does."

"Bet he wasn't too thrilled about that." Shepard chuckled.

"But, that's not why I'm here." Rah sighed, but still smiled to her.

"Oh?" Shepard asked, she couldn't tell if Rah came with good or bad news.

"I'm getting you some real guards, well one to be exact." Rah told her. "Man should be able to handle the job, so long as you let him. He's going to have a squad of guards that actually know what their doing to help protect you should something bad happen."

"So you noticed that all of them are fresh out of boot too?" Shepard smirked. It was a joke that her guards were all new to the Alliance, and none of them had weapons that were of any respectable quality.

"Yeah, that was insulting when I found out that they were put there by a navy officer too." Rah replied with a chuckle.

"I also got you a present." Rah pulled a datapad out of his pocket. Rah handed her the pad and she turned it on, only to find it completely blank.

"Thanks?" Shepard looked to him with a confused look.

"Just wait a week and then turn it on." Rah smiled to her. "And I know you've got something for that ass ugly boyfriend of yours."

"How-?" Shepard began but Rah silenced her.

Rah gave her a look telling her that someone was always watching her. She knew it, but in her confusion, forgot about the hidden cameras. Shepard nodded and went to her nightstand. She pulled out a small stack of papers and gave them to Rah.

"Same time next week, check that." Rah told her when he had the papers in his hands.

"Thank you." Shepard spoke softly before pulling him into a hug once more.

"I need to go." Rah told her, returning her embrace. "But if you need anything, I'm just a name drop away."

"I'll remember that." Shepard chuckled.

Reluctantly, Rah left her. Shepard could see in his eyes that he didn't want her to stay here, not after she had taken the fall for him.


Over the next several weeks, and then months, Shepard's life was a kind of hell for her. Her entire life she had been on the move. From childhood with her mother, to being a marine and then an N7, she had never stayed in one spot for very long. The only time she had was during the Ascension Project, even then she was at least moving around.

While on Earth, Shepard was in one of three places; her room, an interrogation room, or in a meeting with a team of lawyers. After the first month, life became overwhelmingly boring. Those assigned to interrogate her never understood that she would, and often did, run circles around them. She'd been trained to endure and perform the worst kinds of torture a man could think of. Those interrogating her never stood a chance.

A week after Rah's visit the guard he promised showed up. Lieutenant James Vega was a large man, even larger than Rah was. Before Vega even spoke, Shepard liked him. She didn't know what it was, aside from being human eye candy, but there was an air around Vega that Shepard liked. When the large hispanic marine introduced himself, Shepard's liking of him intensified. Shepard quickly saw why it was that Rah picked him, the man was N7 material, he just needed to be groomed for it. Vega also reminded her a large deal of Loco, not only with their common heritage, but also with their laid back demeanor that was also on guard at the same time.

With Vega as her guard, it was like a breath of fresh air. She no longer had a bunch of rookies looming over her all the time. Vega left her alone when she asked him to, but otherwise he was around for basic human interaction.

As her guard, he took her to and from interrogations and meetings with lawyers. Vega also surprised her one day when he took her to a small gym. Vega had seen how restless Shepard was getting and managed to get her limited access to one of the gyms at Alliance HQ.

Shepard couldn't have been any more pleased with the thought and proceeded to work herself until Vega was forced to carry her back to her cell.

As the days turned into weeks and the weeks into months, Vega was the only thing that made her days between messages from Garrus bearable. Shepard would freely admit that she was probably the worst assignment that Vega ever had, but the marine didn't seem to mind putting up with her.

During her fourth month of incarceration, Vega thought of something to help keep her mind off her situation. In the evenings, when there was nothing else for her to do, Vega would sit in her room, and stream a local radio station to his omni-tool. Shepard was touched by the gesture, by the chance for her to hear another person's voice after so long, and even more so during one segment of the radio station's routine.

"It's that time of night again folks!" The radio's DJ spoke, her warm and cheery voice flooding Shepard's cell. "For the next hour or so, we'll be playing requests from you all! Tonight, we're honoring those that can't be with their loved ones tonight."

Shepard looked up to Vega and the omni-tool. The station only took requests during this hour, and it was always had some sort of theme. The last few days, it had been different genres of music or dedicated to soldiers.

"Tonight, we're starting off with a request from a man named Angel on Omega for his girlfriend Kate. He's asked us to play something I didn't even know we still had. Hope you enjoy this Kate." The DJ spoke warmly before playing the track.

One of Shepard's hands flew up to her mouth and tears sprung to her eyes. The song was one that she loved and often had playing in her cabin, the one song that Shepard listened to that Garrus actually liked.

"Shepard?" Vega asked, noticing her reaction, a concerned look on his face. "Something wrong?"

"Nothing." Shepard replied, smiling to the large man. "Just this one is for me."

"You have a boyfriend?" Vega asked, an astonished look on his face.

"That's the simplest way to say it, yeah." Shepard chuckled. She closed her eyes and let the voice of the singer wash over her.

Vega took the hint and kept silent until the song was done. The DJ spoke out again, dedicating another song from a mom to her son.

"So what was that?" Vega asked her.

Shepard looked up to him with what she knew was a face of pure bliss. She took a moment to unclench her throat so that she could talk without crying.

"It's an old song, from back in the early twenty first century. It's called So Far Gone by an old band named Thousand Foot Krutch. My boyfriend knew it was one of my favorites. It's just like that asshole to do something like this." Shepard told him, chuckling at the marine.

"What kind of guy is this Angel?" Vega asked, a curious look on his face. Shepard knew what it was that Vega was thinking. It wasn't hard to tell that he had a thing for her, if she hadn't met Garrus she might have explored that, but she had and there was no one else in the galaxy for her.

"Well, he ran a cleaning business on Omega for a while." Shepard smirked at Vega. "And Angel's his last name. His first name is Arch."

Vega's gave her a curious look, the dots not yet connecting in his mind.

"Say it out loud." Shepard prodded.

"Arch An-" Vega spoke and his eyes went comically wide. "No way."

"Yep." Shepard nodded, a shit eating grin on her face.

"I thought he was dead!" Vega exclaimed, leaning forward in his seat. "Every merc on Omega bragged about it!"

"I guarantee you, he's alive and kicking." Shepard chuckled. "Biting too."

"Biting?" Vega asked.

Shepard pulled the collar of her shirt over to reveal Garrus' bite mark. It as something that she felt great pride in wearing, almost as much as the ink that only showed when she wanted it to show. To that end, she would gladly show to anyone that she was already claimed.

"So he is a Turian." Vega grumbled.

"And you've got nothing on him Vega." Shepard chuckled back.

"Why didn't you say anything?" Vega asked. They both knew what he was talking about. Over the months that she had been under his guard, he'd made a few shameless passes at her. All of them were meant to lighten the mood around her, but Shepard knew that the man would act on them if given the chance.

"I'm a woman." Shepard shrugged. "I liked being reminded that people find me attractive."

"You're more than that Commander." Vega replied, an exasperated look on his face. "Bit low don't you think?"

"Probably." Shepard replied, giving the Marine an apologetic look. "But I don't think my boyfriend would mind it. Besides, everyone needs some sort of encouragement from time to time."

"Not sure I know what you mean." Vega replied.

"Well, you kinda remind me of my Angel sometimes. Your flirting reminds me of why I'm here." Shepard smiled to the man. "I'm trying to do something to prepare humanity for the Reapers, hoping that someone will listen one day. You have a way of reminding me that my Angel is out there doing the same thing."

"Damn Shepard." Vega replied. "Not sure if I should be insulted that I remind you of your guy, or complimented."

"Both." Shepard chuckled. Vega gave her a mock hurt look. "If you ever meet him, I'm sure he'd thank you."

"He better thank me. Otherwise, I'm gonna come out of this looking like a giant jackass." Vega replied.

"I've got a feeling he will." Shepard chuckled.

The two of them fell silent and listened to the radio once more. One song was ending, and the DJ came over the air again.

"This request comes from a guy name Rob on Elysium for his big sis Kat. Had to dig this out of the archives, so I hope you enjoy this one!" The DJ told them all and another old song started playing.

Shepard felt a grin come to her lips when the old song started playing. It was one of the songs that Rah had blaring out of his helmet speakers on Elysium. It was one of the few songs that she actually liked from that day.

When Vega looked to her expectantly, she told him about it.

"The song is titled Hell Don't Need Me by an old group called Demon Hunter. The man that brought you here, the same one that I consider a brother, played this song when we were on Elysium together. Just one of those songs that you love because of what it represents to you."

"I feel ya." Vega nodded. "Everyone's got one like that."

Shepard couldn't help but wonder what it was that caused a haunted look on the marine's face. She didn't press it however, if he wanted to share, he would in his own time.


During Shepard's fifth and early into the six month of being imprisoned in Alliance HQ, Shepard started to fear sleeping.

It wouldn't happen every night, by there were times when she'd fell asleep and enter into a world of shadows. She would find herself in a dark and misty forest. All around her, spread throughout the trees, were shadowy forms of people. Some of them had shapes of humans, others were of Turians, some of Krogan, and even a few that looked Salarian.

There was only ever two sounds in her dream. One sound was of a child laughing, the other was of heavy boot falls. In her dreams, she would catch glimpses of a small boy running, being chased by a man in armor of the likes that Shepard had never seen before. Whenever she would catch even the slightest glimpse of the man's face, she would wake up in a cold sweat.

Shepard didn't know what it was, but something about these dreams terrified her to the very core.


A/N: There we are folks! Sorry about this being a shorter chapter, but not a whole lot that I wanted to do in this one. As you can guess, I'm going to be delving into ME3 with the next chapter, it might be a little bit longer than normal for me to write that, just to let you all know.

I very much recommend listening to the two songs mentioned in here. I feel that both of them very much fit into the story, and are also just good songs to listen too.

Anyways, hope you all enjoyed!

Once more thank you all so much for the continued support! Please let me know what you thought!

Until next time!