Hannah POV
The alarm by the gurney went off and I slowly began to awaken. The rooms aboard this ship were so lifeless and dull in atmosphere; I wondered why I never fell asleep all the time. I stretched my body out since sleeping whilst sitting forward is incredibly uncomfortable. Everything was still coming into focus so I didn't bother scanning the room. When I could finally see clearly my focus shifted to the sleeping form in front of me.
He was unconscious and almost comatose all because of one stupid, selfless, fucking, moronic decision. He made a decision which will rock the galaxy to its very core. If another galactic war breaks out, then he'll be remembered as a terrorist. If not he'll be forever remembered as a paragon of forgiveness. That is if he survives; he hadn't moved an inch in the past week because of the damned explosion on Tuchanka.
When we landed on Tuchanka we were immediately met by a Krogan welcoming. Wrex's idiot brother Wreav wanted Wrex dead so he could remain chieftain of clan Urdnot. Wreav's bond mate Bakara is the only reason why a firefight didn't break out at the LZ. She managed to calm the Krogan down and guide us through the camp, much to Wreav's annoyance.
After some snooping I managed to find out why Wreav really wanted Wrex dead. He was aiming for far higher than chieftain of his clan. He wanted to rule the Krogan people entirely. There was a Salarian scientist who was working on the cure for the genophage. He was on the verge of curing it but Wreav wanted to ensure that he could take sole credit for the revival of the Krogan people. The only reason Wreav remained the chieftain was because Wrex was off planet. With Wrex in the picture then Wreav's actions in curing the genophage would be attributed to Wrex's leadership.
Upon hearing that there was a cure for the genophage, Wrex went berserk. It took a lot to stop Wrex from beating the information out of Wreav. Eric managed to talk him down without shooting him. He convinced Wrex that alerting Wreav could get us all killed and that we should check it out ourselves before going in guns blazing. Whilst they argued I had positioned myself behind Wrex with my shotgun aimed at his back where he couldn't see me. I found myself admiring how he handled the situation with no bloodshed.
He had EDI hack Wreav's files and gain the location of the Salarian scientist. It turned out that it was one of Mordin's former classmates Maelon. After finding we had found Maelon in clan Weyrloc's dungeon surrounded by a pile of Krogan corpses, Cerberus arrived. Maelon was being forced to work with the Krogan after he had been captured on Illium and tortured on Tuchanka.
Maelon told us that he had successfully cured the genophage through very brutal means. He appeared before us a broken man, a walking, talking ghoul who was haunted by what he had witnessed. Maelon informed us of the horrors he committed and that after seeing crowds of women volunteering to be butchered by him, the genophage needed to be cured; he argued that if a race had been subjected to this degree of desperation, then something had to be done to fix it.
Everyone outside of Wrex argued against curing the genophage. Titus and Mordin preached about how the Krogan could potentially be vengeful and another war would break out. Aleena argued that if that were to happen then extinction would be the Krogan's only fate. Zaeed and Rael didn't seem to care about the outcome.
Rylee felt that everyone should have the right to determine their own destiny, whereas I was more cautious about curing the genophage. Every Krogan I had met outside of Wrex has tried to either kill me or capture me. They did nothing to convince me that they weren't a race of brutes and that Wrex wasn't an anomaly amongst them.
Samara and Kieran were unsure as to which side they should be on. They argued for both sides and recognised that the Krogan were an unknown which we should be careful with and Legion was trying to reach consensus
"We're going to cure the genophage!" was the declaration that Eric made.
He gave this dramatic speech about how the genophage was wrong. Culling the Krogan wasn't the solution to the rebellion. He agreed with Rylee that the Krogan should determine their own fate and that the Salarians and Turians had no right to do so.
Everyone got on board, however but not without complaint. We all understood the threat which Cerberus posed and we feared just what they could do with a Leviathan at their disposal. No matter what happened we needed to stop Cerberus from what they were doing and the shroud facility was the only place we could do that. So we all hopped into Wreav's ATV.
Wrex guided us through an underground passage that led to the Shroud facility. Wreav tried to collapse the tunnels in order to stop us. Apparently, he would have rather doomed the entire Krogan race than have Wrex be deemed the saviour of the Krogan people. Eric, Rylee and Aleena made sure that we stayed safe.
Cerberus was heavily entrenched in the area surrounding the shroud facility and they had a cruiser in place to guard it from any outside interference. Bakara gave us an insane idea to call upon Kalros the mother of all thresher maw. Once we had summoned her, the tide of the battle swung our way. She destroyed the cruiser by dragging it into the depths of Tuchanka. Aleena actually looked like she was being turned on by the whole ordeal whereas everyone else looked at the scene with awe and jubilation.
The only issue that remained was deploying the cure. It was then that Wreav made his appearance. Maelon openly defied Wreav's orders and this was met with shock from the other clans, Wreav had brought them so they could personally witness him cure the genophage. Out of anger, Wreav shot Maelon in the head. It was actually then that I realised just how different Wrex was from all of the Krogan I had encountered. Fair enough he was uncouth, rude and quick to anger, but he never put his own needs ahead of the needs of others like his brother Wreav just did. Wrex loves his people too much to destroy the Genophage cure just because he couldn't take credit for it. I could see the anger in Wrex, Rylee, Eric and even Mordin's eyes when they saw Maelon's lifeless corpse hit the ground. Everyone on the squad raised their weapons and aimed them at Wreav. We were all distracted by an explosion on the shroud facility.
Due to the damage which the battle between Kalros and the cruiser caused to the facility it began to collapse. We all knew that if the genophage was going to be cured we needed to act quickly. Wreav and his Krogan made a beeline for the convoys and made a hasty exit.
Eric and Mordin stayed behind so they could cure the genophage. It came as a surprise to everyone that Mordin was choosing to end the genophage. Mordin had decided that he had to honour the memory of Maelon by completing his noble quest and that he was curious about the potential of the Krogan people. The time between their entrance and the buildings collapse were incredibly tense. I found myself holding my hands in prayer subconsciously.
We were all filled with hope when Eric and Mordin jumped from the top of the shroud facility. Eric was using his biotics to fly out of the building but it was too slow. During their flight he threw Mordin forward so he could avoid the rubble. Aleena had jumped so she could catch the Salarian. But she couldn't get to the both of them in time.
One final explosion from the facility had blinded us all and we couldn't see what had happened to Eric. Rylee was the first of us to spring to action, she jumped as close to the rubble as possible. I hopped into the convoy along with everyone else and began searching for the body. His armour was disabled so EDI couldn't track the suit telemetry, so we were searching blind for him.
I was so scared of him dying before we could reach him that I searched even more frantically. Fear had overtaken my body and I was running on autopilot. Whilst I looked for him I began wondering why I was so frightened. I knew I had a minor infatuation with him, but I knew that it couldn't be the only reason… could it?
That was when I heard Wrex roar that he had found him. Thankfully there was no rubble crushing him, in fact the rubble was actually protecting him from lose bits of debris. He armour on the other hand was destroyed, the cuts on his torso appeared deep and dust and debris was getting into them. We needed to get to Chakwas immediately if he was going to survive. Joker had gotten the Normandy to our location in minutes.
Wrex was taking care of business with his brother Wreav. With Bakara's support Wrex had managed to rally against Wreav and oust him. Well the Krogan meaning of oust is to shoot you in the stomach, but he was ousted just the same.
Whilst Wrex dealt with his family drama, Rylee, Titus, Kieran and I investigated what Cerberus was after. We knew that there was a dead reaper here on Tuchanka. Turns out that it was in Kalros' lair. We had to summon her again so that we could draw her away and investigate the dead reaper. We used the Normandy's sonic cannon to bang the maw hammers.
On approaching the reaper we had to shield ourselves to prevent us from getting indoctrinated. The reaper's memory core was still intact after all this time and it had information on Leviathan. The last thing accessed on the reaper was a code, according to EDI it could take weeks to crack it due to its complexity.
That brings me to here and now. We were all taking turns at staying by his side so he isn't alone when he awakens… but once my current shift ended, I found that I couldn't leave. I longed for him to wake up… no not for him to wake up… I yearned for him.
It hit me like a ton of bricks! I have genuine feelings for Eric Shepard… I had always thought that any affection I felt toward him was merely because I knew I couldn't have him since he's my CO and that I'd eventually get over him. However, that's not the case, I have developed genuine feelings for this moron unconscious before me.
It wasn't hard to figure out why I like him in the first place. He's incredibly handsome, with his military buzz cut, caramel complexion, honey brown eyes, chiselled jaw and body… in short he was really good looking. But it was also his actions that drew my attraction. He accepted Rylee after she confessed her Cerberus ties, he volunteered to help Samara find her kid, he risked his life for Rylee on Namakli, without hesitation he risked his life to cure the genophage… he was like a storybook hero capable of solving everyone's problems.
I took hold of his hand and held it on my forehead as though we were praying "Don't you dare leave me moron" I pleaded "There's so much we need to talk about"
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Nate POV
I snapped out of the solipsism with even more new knowledge only this time it changed how I looked at my father completely. He was the one who cured the genophage, he convinced everyone to follow him to do the right thing, even if it went against their personal interests and beliefs. He was a true leader, something I've made a feeble attempt at being. Just about every time I'm leader, one of my friends ends up dead. Anderson told me that I was the leader of my clique; he told me that I should lead by example without bullying them into doing what I want.
What an example I've set, I mean I've slept with almost every human girl in my school, I've hurt my friends, I couldn't save James, I couldn't save Nyreen, I couldn't save Anderson or my mother and I couldn't save… Jennifer.
My mother used her emotion to help search for my dad on Tuchanka and look at the results, they found him. I could learn from that sort of determination. If I fear failing everyone so much, I should work harder to prevent myself from failing. I'm going to use my past failures to motivate me. I will not fail anyone again; no one is going to die under my leadership so long as I can breathe. No more feeling sorry for myself!
We paid Joker another visit so he could tell us what happened after my dad woke up. He told us that nothing much happened since they had spent weeks waiting for the information to be decoded. He said that my dad spent most of his time either in the CIC, Captain's Quarters which was off limits to everyone, the Citadel which obviously wasn't an option or the cargo bay for gym training.
We searched the cargo bay since that was the area with the most DNA. We found nothing useful for over 2 hours, that was until we stumbled on one of Rylee's memories.
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Rylee Leigh POV
Jackass finally woke up from his coma whilst Samara was on watch. Tch- Samara, it just had to be her of all people. Eric had developed an interest in her which wasn't entirely reciprocated. They'd train in the cargo bay and he'd 'flirt' with her right in front of Hannah. Of course Hannah would put on an act and pretend as though nothing was bothering her.
A couple of weeks ago he damn near begged Samara to be with him but she turned him down. What he didn't know was that Hannah and I had planted a bug in Samara's room and we'd heard the whole thing. I wanted to throttle Eric that second for being so fucking blind to Hannah and doing the typical guy thing by pushing for an asari. I get it, Samara's hot and everything but the woman has the personality of a wooden plank.
So I took it upon myself to kick his ass whenever he did something completely stupid. I tried getting Kieran on our side but he said that it wasn't his place. The guy could be a real pussy when he wanted to be. I wanted to keep this quiet since Hannah didn't want the attention. No one else on the ship suspected Hannah was interested in Eric because of her military persona; she comes across to some people as a bitch because she was so demanding and straightforward, but she was still a person with feelings.
I was busy practicing my biotics whilst Hannah was working on the weapons bench, she had been doing a lot of extra tasks around the ship lately, she always wants to be busy. After exhausting myself, lifting the crates up and down, I thought that the best way to spend my rest period was to speak to Hannah.
"Sanders, you busy?"
"No not really, I've already upgraded every weapon in this armoury, now I'm just fine tuning my own"
"Awesome so we can talk?" I chirped
"Fine I won't mention…. Him. I just wanted to see if there was anything you wanted to tell me"
"Actually yes there is. EDI finally deciphered the reaper data. She found Leviathan"
"Wow it actually exists. I actually thought we were chasing a myth this entire time. Wait if EDI found it doesn't that mean Cerberus has probably found it too"
"We have to work under that assumption. We're headed to Ilos now, that's where Leviathan is"
"Great! This mission is almost over. When you said that this wasn't going to be easy you weren't kidding"
"It's been worth it, anything that Cerberus has to do with something this big had to be investigated" she added "You need to take your rest. All hands on deck for this one, Eric want's everyone groundside"
"I have a feeling that this one is really going to suck"
"We just have to pray for the best won't we. This mission is almost certain to be the most dangerous out of all of them. If Leviathan actually shows up we are screwed"
"Yeah I know that thing is fucking HUGE!"
"This is why we all need to be prepared for combat at any minute. Rylee I want you good and rested. We're 8 hours out from the Mu Relay, and by the time we get there I want the squad at 100%"
"How do you even know if we're on the ground team or not. The bastard never tells anyone until we leave the airlock"
"It's going to be all hands on deck for this one. This is the most important mission we've been on so far, all of us need to be at our best"
"Awesome! Now we can just chill. Now about this thing with you and Eric, when the kid is born you are going to name it after me!" I shouted
"ONE! I'm not pregnant! And TWO we aren't even together" Sanders argued
"Yeah, yeah but when it happens you are going to call her Rylee. You have no say in the matter and that's that!" I asserted before turning my back to her and began thinking hard "If it's a boy you'll call him…"
"Rylee stop-"
"I can't think of any good boys names right now" I said, completely ignoring Hannah's protests.
"For fucks sake-"
"Hey EDI, what boys name do you think would suit Rylee and Eric's kid?"
"You have got to be fucking joking, you're really asking EDI"
"I do not have any preferences. But according to human history, the 1st name in the 'Big Book of Names' is Aaron"
"Naah… that's too boring try spicing it up a little" I suggested
"I do not believe that 'spicing it up' is within my programming" the AI responded
"Rylee stop it"
"Try a lottery of names and see what comes up"
EDI's hologram turned into a list of names and I started flicking through them. Hannah threw a fit and returned to her task of weapons management. Even though she was fixing the guns, I caught her peering at the hologram whenever the opportunity presented itself
"Jake no, Caleb… no, Parker… too uptight, Drew… no, Nathan… perfect. We could call him Nate" I exclaimed
I turned to Hannah and she was actually smiling "Nate… I actually like it" she whispered
"Nate? Who are you going to call Nate?" Eric asked, suddenly appearing behind Hannah. On instinct she grabbed him by the hand and tried to throw him over her shoulder, but he maintained a stern stance.
"How many times have I told you to stop surprising me like that. I hate surprises." Hannah huffed as she let go of his hand
"Sorry… I wanted to tell Rylee about Ilos… that was before I heard her yell something about naming someone Nate. What was that about?"
Hannah dived from the weapon's bench towards me just to put her hand over my mouth to stop me from talking. "Nothing, just unimportant woman stuff you know. You probably don't want to hear it anyway" she chuckled nervously
"I believe that Executive Officer Sanders and Ensign Leigh were discussing what name would best suit your hypothetical children with Executive Officer Sanders" EDI explained. God I love that bucket of bolts.
"I… uh…" were all the words that Hannah managed to muster. Even through her tanned skin you could make out the blush that stained her cheeks.
"Nate Shepard… I like it" Eric smiled
"Shepard? Who said anything about using your last name? I was going to call him Nate Sanders"
"Who cares about that!? Your daughter is going to be called Rylee, no fucking excuses you hear me" I asserted
"Really now… why wasn't I told about this arrangement?" Eric asked
"We're telling you now. You're welcome" Hannah smiled
Eric stared at Hannah with a goofy smile for a little bit and I could tell she was feeling a little self-conscious at that moment. I couldn't quite pin that look to any emotion I recall seeing anyone.
"Something's been brought to my attention by Kieran, Karin and Rylee that's been on my mind for a while now. Lieutenant I want a straight answer from you"
"Yes sir!" Hannah saluted
"Have you developed feelings for me Lieutenant?" Eric asked
Hannah's eyes softened and she gulped "Yes… I have sir"
"Why didn't you tell me sooner?"
"The mission is a priority sir, I won't do anything to compromise it" Hannah responded
"As your superior officer I can't condone any relationship ever forming between us. It goes against Alliance regulations." Eric declared
He is going to die and I am going to kill him. I began my approach to the asshole, with the intent to kick his ass through the ship's hull. What kind of asshole comes down to reject an amazing woman, right before a high risk mission. And all for what, a big tit, asari Justicar who won't put out, and has no personality. I'm going to kick his teeth so far down his throat he's going to be wearing them as toes. When I'm done with him he's going to have to choose which asshole he wants to shit through.
"Which is why I never told you about my feelings towards you either" he said solemnly. The look of surprise on Hannah's face was clear as day. That was a total 180… like what the fuck
"This Ilos mission is more likely than not, going to be a one way trip and I don't want to die without telling you how I feel about you"
"B-But… you- with the…. And… Samara with h-her…. WHAT?" Hannah stammered
"What happened with Samara is something I regret and I'm thankful she said no. Samara is an amazing woman, but she deserves better than what I was going to give her"
"She deserves better than you. And now you come to me!?" she accused
"Wait, wait before you get the wrong idea let me explain. I pursued Samara because I thought she was attainable, someone who could help take my mind off of this immense pressure I'm under. I went after her because the person I was really interested in was unattainable because of Alliance regs"
"Who's that" she huffed
"It's you, you dumb bitch" I intervened, is she honestly this thick when it comes to men.
"Wait, you've been interested in me this entire time?"
"Yeah, but I couldn't act on it because of regulation. And from how you act aboard the ship, I thought you'd never violate regs for…. Well me. That was before I got the ass kicking of a lifetime from your friend over there, a lecture from the good doctor and a speech from Kieran"
I knew I could knock some sense into him. I obviously didn't tell him directly that Hannah was interested, but I made sure he got the message; and here I thought Kieran was a real fucking pussy, turns out he has a set of balls.
"It really took all that for you to grow some balls. Maybe I should kick your ass more often" I joked
"Maybe not before Ilos, I'd rather not fight Cerberus with no arms"
"I'd leave you one to shoot with." I smirked
"So Hannah, how about after Ilos we go to the Silversun strip. I know a great sushi place there" Eric asked
"I'd love that, but only if nothing blows up"
"I make no promises"
"You ass" she punched him in the arm and they both started laughing