"Miranda!" Shepard spat the XO's name like an epithet, her chest was aching fiercely, and, clenching her fists, she relished the sharp bite of her nails into the flesh of her palms. It was a kind of helpless outrage that Shepard was unfamiliar with, one that demanded a target, no matter how rational their decisions had been.
Shepard had expected guilt, or at least defensiveness in Miranda's face, so it came as a surprise when she simply nodded coolly, waving Shepard to a chair in front of her desk. "Its good to see you up commander, you had me quite worried."
"So worried that you took the first opportunity to disobey a direct order!" Shepard refused to show the relief she felt as she sank into the proffered chair, hoping that the desk was high enough that Miranda couldn't see her legs shaking. Her body was protesting vehemently about being expected to move again so soon.
"I disobeyed no direct order, Shepard. Yes, I went against your wishes; but I was acting captain at the time, and my decisions were based on what was best for this crew, this ship, and this mission." As she nervously shuffled a scattering of datapads into an orderly stack, Miranda's voice lowered. "I know this is not easy for you to accept, but I honestly believe Garrus will be better off in a treatment facility. Keeping him here wasn't helping either of you"
"He was improving!" Shepard snapped, frustration sharpening her tone, "who knows what harm you have done by sending him away!"
"Was he improving, Shepard? Or was he simply clinging harder to you, because he was becoming completely unable to cope on his own?" Ignoring Shepard's furious glare, Miranda continued. "What happened to Garrus was horrific, but keeping him here was of no benefit to him, you, or the mission you seem to have forgotten about."
"I could have explained it to him, or he could have remained on board under sedation..." Shepard dragged her hand through her hair in irritation, becoming aware of just how unruly it must appear. "Also, 'forgetting the mission'? How can you accuse me of that?!"
"You were brought back for the sole purpose of bringing down the collectors, and we nearly lost you to a band of slavers, simply because you were too exhausted to concentrate." Shaking her head, Miranda pushed herself away from the desk, pacing the room with her typical languid grace. "As for keeping him on the Normandy...I would personally consider that nothing more than a selfish cruelty." Raising her hands as Shepard surged to her feet, fury etched into her face, Miranda stepped back, "think, Shepard, stop and think! To keep Garrus here, you would have to sedate him to the point he was no longer a danger to himself or others; what kind of life is that? You take that choice from him, along with any hope of him mentally surviving this, and you are no better than the people who did this to him in the first place!
Shepard's face flushed an ugly red, the flash of crimson cybernetics beneath her skin making her look hellish, Miranda watched impassively as the commander hauled herself to her feet, lips twisting in a mixture of rage and pain. She was just opening her mouth, when her skin faded to a sickly pallor and she slowly slumped back into her chair, "is that what I've been doing?" she muttered sickly, "was all this some kind of selfish attempt to prove that I could fix everything?"
"No," Miranda's cool voice softened, a rare trace of gentleness tinging her tone. "Your actions have been both understandable and commendable; but more people than Garrus need you now. I'm sorry, but you don't have the luxury of sentiment, Shepard, too much is at stake.
Trying to ignore the pity in Miranda's eyes, Shepard nodded mutely, trying to will away the horrible sick feeling that she was abandoning Garrus when he needed her most. The cold logic of the XO's argument had deflated the hopeless rage over her decision, leaving just a heavy sense of failure. Shepard struggled to not think of Garrus, confused and alone, as lost as she herself was. Without him, the herculean mission seemed to loom insurmountably in her future, almost ludicrous in its scale.
"If it helps," Miranda leaned her hip against the desk, "he was placed in an excellent private facility, the not inconsiderable cost of which was fully covered by your friend Dr. T'soni."
Shepard blinked at that, nodding vaguely. "Thank you," she winces at how flat her voice sounds.
"When you are feeling up to it Shepard, the Illusive Man would like to speak with you...we have had early warning of a colony that is vulnerable to Collector predation, the human settlement on Horizon." Miranda retrieves a datapad, handing it to Shepard, who accepts it with numb fingers, trying to focus on the statistics and population graphs that scroll past.
With a wordless nod, Shepard straightened. The ache of healing tissue seems less, and yet the pain grabs at her more, settling in her body like a poison. Irrationally all she wants to do is order Joker to set course for Illium, to ignore the threat on Horizon, to make sure that Garrus doesn't wake up alone, screaming in the grip of some nightmare she is too far away to sooth for him. The colony schematics blink balefully at her from the datapad screen, a flickering reminder of all that could be lost, all that she was needed for. Stifling a sigh, Shepard taps the datapad on the desk, forcing steel into her eyes as she meets Miranda's carefully neutral gaze, "tell the Illusive man I'll be ready to speak with him in a minute."
During her second week of Alliance basic, Shepard had been paired with fellow recruit Baruti Ankhol, for an exercise in hand-to-hand training against a larger opponent. With a good hundred pounds, and at least twenty-five inches on Shepard, Baruti had ended the match with one punch, a particularly effective uppercut to Shepard's stomach. Shepard could still remember that feeling, like all the oxygen had been sucked from the room, the feeling of gaping helplessly for air that just didn't exist anymore. She had felt it in the frigid, cerulean atmosphere of Alchera, and again when she watched Ashley Williams walk away from her on Horizon.
Horizon was one of those places Shepard just knew would find its way into her head during the night; something about the sheer normalcy of the colony made the scattering of frozen settlers, faces trapped forever in voiceless screams, so much worse.
From the moment the Illusive man had mentioned Ashley's name, Shepard had thrown herself into mission prep with an almost desperate intensity, pushing her physical rehab with the same dedication that Mordin showed to the seeker deterrent. The frantic activity managed to partially pull her mind away from Illium, from the fact that every comm-buoy they passed she put through a call to Liara, but got nothing but platitudes and excuses from Nyxeris. The Lanastia Clinic proved similarly unhelpful, refusing to give out patient information over the comm network, instead advocating that Shepard make a local appointment to speak with Matriarch Lanastia directly. The sympathetic receptionist did let her leave a voice message for Garrus though, but Shepard froze when the dead air of the recorder dropped silence over the comm unit, eventually stuttering through a horribly awkward message that left her red faced and slightly guilty.
Then Horizon itself, and the adrenaline rush of combat that drowned out everything else. Zaeed and Grunt had accompanied her, picked specifically for the fact that they showed no hint of the pity or timid concern that so many other of the crew showed. There had also been the fact that Miranda had clearly assumed she was joining the ground team, and the surprise, followed by disapproval, stamped on her perfect face, gave Shepard a slight, petty thrill. Although he didn't say anything, the smirk on Zaeed's craggy, scarred face made it obvious he had noticed the snub, and was amused by it.
Ashley's distrust, and obvious disdain had hit Shepard like a dash of ice water to the face. Somehow she hadn't even considered that Ash would do anything but believe and trust her, hadn't considered the passed time that to her felt like weeks, not years. It was hard to think that the last time Shepard had sat with Ashley in the main hangar, swapping war stories, anecdotes and rifle mods, had been over two years ago.
Shepard could clearly remember the Sr1's last stop at the Citadel. Garrus had been leaving for Spectre training, Tali returning to the Migrant fleet, and Wrex had plans to travel to Tuchanka; so they had all met on board for drinks, and a last farewell. Although it was obvious Ash would never been a big fan of turians in general, she and Garrus had worked together long enough to engage in some manner of camaraderie; Shepard could remember leaning against a crate, laughing helplessly as Ashley tried unsuccessfully to explain the concepts behind Halloween to a completely baffled Garrus. Tali had been in near hysterics, occasionally trying to interject, but dissolving into fits of giggles each time Ash insisted that 'no dammit, you didn't rob food from people's houses, they GAVE you treats.'
Staring at her own face in the mirror, Shepard tried to reconcile her image with the Cerberus traitor that Ashley saw. Peeling her sweaty underweave off her shoulders, she stared at the livid, bluish red scars crisscrossing the skin on her chest. From her collarbone, across the softer flesh of her left breast, the scar tissue leaves unfamiliar dimples and divots in her flesh; a countermeasure to the smooth expanse of skin on her hip, where her mind tells her she should have a pattern of old shrapnel damage.
Kicking the underweave free, she stepped under the spray of the shower; wondering if her mind is like her body. Did Cerberus smooth out scars there too, add in new whorls of personality, of compliance? Sliding down to sit with her back against the tile, Shepard wonders if Ashley was right, maybe this wasn't her anymore.
The half healed cybernetic scars on her face sting slightly in the direct spray, and Shepard ducks her head away, resting her cheek against the wall. Her mind skims over all the decisions she's made since first scrabbling up from the blackness of a comatose state, poking at them like the unconscious tonguing of an abscess. She thinks of Saren, and his hopeless insistence that Sovereign wasn't in control of his every thought and reaction, and wonders if she is the same now. A Cerberus puppet figurehead with no real thoughts of her own...and if that is true, is she really questioning it, or is she programed to do so. This twists through her head like an ouroboros, until the water conservation systems kick in with a chastising bleep, and the water slows to a trickle, then stops altogether.
The Normandy was on course for Maitland, a human colony world currently considering a full allegiance with the Systems Alliance. Miranda had insisted on the importance of making an appearance, both to make sure of the safety of the colony, and to advocate they leave the uncertainty of the Terminus for the stability of Alliance control. Looking back, Shepard went over every reason Miranda had given her concerning the urgency of this particular appearance, every response she had made; analyzing and reanalyzing her own words, searching for that flicker of compliance, of capitulation. The Maitland trip seemed nothing more than waving a figurehead at a bunch of settlers; if the Alliance delegates, and their dreadnaught escort, were already there, then the chances of collector attack was miniscule.
Shepard slapped a palm down against the wet tile decisively. "EDI?" she called, knowing the AI was most likely monitoring her quarters, "I need to talk to Joker."
"Of course commander," there was a slight click as the comm transferred over, then Joker's voice was echoing off the tiles.
"Commander, I've got you flagged as wasting water here," the pilot announced cheerfully, "are you making a swimming pool up there? Are you going to invite Jack and Miranda?"
"Joker!" Shepard sighed, " I need to know how far out we are from Horizon."
"We left Horizon in our dust pretty fast commander, we're about three hours out..."
"The Normandy does not produce dust Mr. Moreau," EDI's resonant tone interrupted, "and there would not be enough residual particulate matter on the hull to produce dust when the Normandy entered atmospheric acceleration."
Laughing silently at Joker's audible huff of frustration, Shepard interjected before a fight ensued, "change of plans, our destination is no longer Maitland." Leaning back against the slick, cooling tile, Shepard's mouth curved into a smile. "We're heading for Illium."