"The wheel is come full circle, I am here."
Shakespeare, King Lear
"What I am about to suggest," said Hackett, "is impossible."
Anderson didn't like the sound of that. He and Hackett were huddled around Shepard's bed, the woman looking wan and deathly. She could barely sit up, and her hands had developed a fine trembling that she tried to hide by pressing them in close to her body. But she would be fine. Shepard always was. It was one of her defining characteristics, and this would be no different. Still, she didn't react much better to Hackett's announcement, swivelling her eyes to look for solidarity with her former CO.
"Best get it out, then," said Anderson.
Hackett opened his mouth and shut it, running one hand over his chin. He glanced towards the door, as though that would offer some sort of incentive to continue. It wasn't like the Admiral to be so reticent with information. He pulled over a chair and sat on it, removing an OSD from his pocket and placing it on the bed near Shepard's legs.
"C'mon, Admiral," said Shepard, "the suspense is killing me." Her mouth twisted into a sardonic grin. "Har har."
Anderson was about to tell her that wasn't even remotely funny when Hackett interrupted him. "This is a mission briefing for you from the Council," said Hackett, licking his lips.
"And?" prompted Shepard.
"It's about an STG group that's gone silent. They want you to investigate." Hackett's eyes never left the OSD. "The last place they were heard from is a small planet called Virmire."
Shepard's hands convulsed around her blankets, the whites of her eyes visible. She stared at Hackett, and when he wouldn't meet her eyes, she stared at Anderson, who wanted to provide her with some sort of comfort, but found that he couldn't muster up anything. How had Patient B known? His mind stumbled over possible explanations.
"Could she have some sort of mole planted within the Council?" asked Anderson.
A quick headshake from Hackett dismissed that idea. "The report says that they received jumbled communications from an STG force situated on Virmire just before we started interrogating Patient B. Not only was she heavily guarded and unconscious prior to being revived, the Council itself didn't know about Virmire until literally just before she mentioned it."
Swallowing audibly, Shepard vaguely shook her head. "I don't understand."
"You're right," said Anderson to Hackett, "that is impossible."
The Admiral's mouth thinned and he looked anything but pleased. "There is one alternative that we haven't considered."
"What's that?" said Shepard faintly.
"Occam's Razor," said Hackett. "Everything being equal, the simplest explanation is usually the correct one." Seeing stares from both his subordinates, he sighed. "Maybe – and this is a big maybe – she's telling the truth."
That thought lingered in the air like a haze of smoke. Anderson broke the silence first. "Are you serious?"
"Unfortunately," said Hackett, "but think about it. Her DNA and dental records are a perfect match to Shepard's. She knows things that nobody but Shepard knows. She has tech we've never seen before. She has intel that should be classified. She says she was in a war, and by God, her body when she arrives could attest to that. And… And she knew about Virmire."
But Anderson couldn't accept that. "Maybe she's working with the Council?"
"To what end?" demanded Hackett.
He was floundering, and he knew it, but Anderson said, "To discredit humanity? To cause some sort of interplanetary incident?" He shook his head. "I just… Time travel? I can't believe it. That's science fiction."
"We're currently on a giant space station built 50,000 years ago by a long dead alien species," whispered Shepard. "We share that space station with half a dozen other aliens species, and we're all capable of FTL travel, and we're all going to be exterminated by a race of evil machines from beyond the galaxy." She shifted her weight slightly. "With all due respect, Anderson, we're living science fiction."
Put that way, the whole thing made Anderson feel incredibly foolish. "All right, all right, point taken." He took a deep breath. "Let's pretend for a second that she's telling the truth – that raises a variety of problems. First of all, how do we prove it definitively? Then, if we do that, what does that mean for us? For the galaxy? She says that there's a war coming, and from the look of her when she arrived, it wasn't going well."
The three officers let that thought sink in. Anderson could feel a chill creeping under his collar and he rolled his shoulders in an attempt to get rid of it. Hackett got that look on his face that Anderson hadn't seen since the First Contact War. Shepard… well, if possible, she looked paler than she had when they'd arrived.
"She knows about Devyn," said Shepard, and Anderson had to remind himself that she was speaking of her dead brother, not herself. "She knows about the Reapers. Like you guys were saying, I wasn't quite a nobody before my promotion, but I wasn't really worthy of a clone copy, either." She sighed. "As for the rest of it, I guess it means - if it's true – that we have a resource at hand, doesn't it? She knows what's going to happen because she lived it. She can guide us through it, right?"
"Except that maybe she doesn't," countered Hackett quietly. He leaned back in his chair and regarded Shepard. "She doesn't know anything about what that beacon did to your brain. By her account, whatever you're experiencing never happened to her." The Admiral sighed. "Which raises more questions than it answers and calls into question whether she could really lead us anywhere."
"She might have to," whispered Shepard, "if something happens to me." Anderson opened his mouth to object, hearing his blood pump through his ears, but Shepard held up a hand. Hackett, the Captain noticed, made no move at all. "You think I don't know what's going on beyond those doors, Anderson? There's a political shit storm brewing out there. You guys are trying to hide it from me, and I appreciate the sentiment, but I'm not an idiot." She sighed and she was so small in her bed that Anderson found his throat close up. "The doctors don't know what's happening, and – and I'm so damn tired."
Hackett stared at Shepard, and Anderson couldn't help but wonder what he was thinking. "The best thing to do might be to take her before the Council. Let them decide."
"I can imagine how much fun that's going to be," said Anderson. "Udina is going to have a field day with this one. How on Earth are we going to convince them that she's… she's from the future? We hardly believe it ourselves and we've talked to her."
"Don't tell Udina," said Hackett. He was thinking heavily, hand on his chin. Anderson nearly laughed out loud, imagining the Ambassador's face. "If she really knows the future, she might have some ace in the hole she can play with the Councillors to persuade them. If she doesn't, well…" He closed his eyes briefly and then opened them. "Either way, she'll have the element of surprise on her side and if it turns out that she really knows nothing, we can plead ignorance."
"Throw her to the wolves?" queried Shepard, brows pulling together. "I don't know how I feel about that. On one hand, yeah, she could be a spy. On the other hand, she could be, well, me." She chortled. "God, that's surreal to say."
"She's a political liability, Shepard," countered Anderson. "The other races aren't pleased we took her into our custody and haven't relinquished her, no matter what they say. If we keep her, we're sending the message that we don't play well with others. If we let her go, we risk losing a valuable asset. We need to get them to trust her – or at least tolerate her – so that we can have some more time to work this out."
Shepard took a deep breath and looked at each man in turn. "You better hurry then. Time… time may not be something I have."
Not knowing what to say, Anderson took her hand and held it.
000
Karin would be lying if she said that she was perfectly comfortable around Patient B. The simple truth was that she looked entirely too much like Commander Shepard for the whole experience to be anything but surreal. With the chart in her hands, Karin tried not to think about the fact that it was Patient B sleeping on that bed, not Shepard. It was nearly a sense of déjà vu, harkening back to the hours after Eden Prime.
Though other doctors had run the lab reports and medical procedures on Patient B following her unorthodox landing on the Presidium, Karin had gotten an official Alliance order that she was to be in charge of the wayward clone for the foreseeable future – or until the Normandy left dock, whichever came first. Something about the way the whole thing had been worded filled her with no little sense of unease. While she wasn't advocating that Patient B be locked up and the key thrown out, she hadn't had a proper conversation with the woman yet either, and wasn't sure of her motivation. Admiral Hackett, however, had seen fit to keep her here and, if the gossip was true, he'd already spent hours questioning her.
That neither Captain Anderson nor Admiral Hackett would tell her anything meant that either there was nothing to tell (unlikely, given the circumstances) or that they were keeping it highly classified. She knew which one she was willing to bet her medical license on.
On the bed, Patient B started to thrash around. Her vitals sparked violently, though all were still within the perfectly normal range. Her brain scan flashed like the lights in a nightclub. Karin held out a hand, ready to gently and calmly wake the sleeping woman, but it proved unnecessary when the woman in question's eyes snapped open, a half-formed scream ripping from her throat. She snapped up, hand ready to strike out at anyone close enough, eyes wild. Terror clawed down her face, until those same eyes came to rest on Karin.
"Hey," said Patient B, lowering her arm and struggling to make herself seem normal. Her eyes flickered around the room, before they closed and she nodded to herself.
"Bad dreams?" probed Karin.
"Yeah," said Patient B, swallowing, "something like that."
Karin nodded to herself, holding the chart out in front of her like it was some sort of shield. Foolish, she knew, yet she couldn't seem to help it. "Your arm seems better," she tried.
Patient B blinked, then swung her arm around in demonstration. "Yeah. It's not a hundred percent yet, but it could be worse. At least it wasn't my gun hand."
"And your leg?"
"Hurts," said Patient B, "but I've had worse. Throw me into a mission and it would slow me down, but it wouldn't stop me."
Neither one of them mentioned the fact that it was highly unlikely that Patient B would be going on any mission any time soon, but from the way the younger woman's eyes dropped to the floor, it was clear that Karin wasn't the only one thinking it. She couldn't help but feel a sharp prick of pity for Patient B. Here was someone who, because she wasn't who she thought, was left adrift in a world without purpose. Karin had no idea what the future held, and if the thought made her uneasy, she couldn't imagine it from this woman's point of view.
Karin cleared her throat. "Is there something I can call you? All of our reports are referring to you as Patient B. It seems oddly informal."
"I suppose Commander Shepard is out, huh?" asked Patient B with a tainted smile. She thought for a second. "My mom used to call me Dee."
"Dee it is," announced Karin.
"Can I ask… How long have I been here?"
"Two weeks," answered Karin, and seeing Dee open her mouth again, she continued, "and before you ask, Commander Shepard was here three days before your… arrival."
"Almost three weeks since Feros then, and just over four since Therum," muttered Dee, pushing her legs over the side of the bed. She ran a hand through her curls while she stood and started to pace, her limp noticeable. "There isn't a whole lot of time. Virmire happened a month after Feros, and then we pushed on Noveria. After that, with all the political red tape and the detour back to the Citadel, it took us a good two days to get to the Mu Relay."
All of the hairs on Karin's arms stood up. She opened her mouth to tell Dee that maybe she shouldn't be aggravating her leg, but never got the chance. The door clicked behind her and she turned to see Admiral Hackett standing there, hands clasped behind his back. Dee turned and stared at him, but made no move. Admiral Hackett's eyes turned on Karin.
"How's she doing, Doctor?" he asked.
"Surprisingly well," admitted Karin, hands clenching around the chart. "She's regenerating at an accelerated rate. I can only conclude that it has something to do with her reconstructive implants."
Admiral Hackett turned his attention on Dee. "Is this true?"
Dee shrugged. "A few billion credits worth of upgrades should buy you something, right?"
A few billion credits? Karin did her best to keep standing upright, but snuck a look at Dee anyways. The woman was utterly unfazed by the amount, and was currently engaged in a staring context with the Admiral.
"And would you be prepared to act on behalf of the Systems Alliance?" asked Admiral Hackett.
"So far as I'm concerned, that's what I've been doing for my entire adult life," replied Dee, though there was some flicker of her eyes that made Karin wonder. Dee licked her lips and showed her teeth. "Something about taking the soldier out of the fight but not taking the fight out of the soldier, right?"
Admiral Hackett gave the barest nod and strode forward into the room. Karin said, "Sir, if you'd like me to leave…"
"No, I need you here," said the man. "If the worst should come to happen, I expect you'll be involved in some way." He acknowledged Karin's nod, though she had no idea what he was talking about, and then he sat on the bed, clasping his hands between his knees. He took a deep breath and said, "I think I believe you."
Dee reeled backwards, suspicion patterning her face. "What?"
"I believe you," repeated the Admiral, and seeing as how this cleared nothing up, he added, "I believe there's a real chance that you're Commander Shepard."
Where Dee's expression was contained surprise, Karin was sure she was staring at the Admiral with abject shock. How could this be Commander Shepard if Shepard was waylaid in the ICU?
"Oh?" said Dee. "So what's your new theory? That I just fell through time and showed up years in the past?"
"Essentially," said Admiral Hackett.
Dee's eyes flew wide. "What, really?"
"I'm not saying that it's easy," continued Admiral Hackett. "It's straining every ounce of faith I have. But you knew about Virmire just as the initial report and mission briefing were passing into Udina's hands. You knew about the Reapers. Your DNA matches. And, well, you have Shepard's tics and Shepard is currently out for the count. She's not improving, and we don't know that she will. Isn't that right, Doctor?"
"Yes," said Karin, and it felt as though something molten had been poured through her circulatory system.
"What does this have to do with me?" asked Dee. "I don't know how to make her better, if that's what you're asking."
"We need you to meet with the Council," said Admiral Hackett. "Convince them somehow that you're what you say you are. If you can't convince them about the Reapers, at least stop them from taking you into their custody."
"I'm supposed to convince the Council of an insane theory?" said Dee, skepticism dripping. "Really? That's the plan?"
"I heard you when I walked in," said Admiral Hackett quietly. "You're trying to figure out how long before this thing snowballs. Anderson and I are trying to do the same. I think we all have the same goal at the moment, which is to stop Saren. Stop Saren, stop the Reapers. That's what we all want, isn't it?"
"It may not be that simple," said Dee hollowly.
Karin remembered how relieved the woman had been to see them all alive and well, and what with the mentions of the Reaper war that had tumbled from her – a war that, it would seem, the Admiral was taking as a fact (albeit one that hadn't happened yet)… At the time, Karin had been sure that it was the result of brainwashing, of cloning, of… something. Now? Now one of the highest ranking officials in the Alliance military was admitting that he believed Dee was from the future – that she really was Commander Shepard. But that wasn't possible, not even in theory.
Of course, until relatively recently, the idea of mass effect fields would've seemed utterly ridiculous to the scientific community as well. An element that allowed mass to be altered through the introduction of an electric current – impossible! Yet it was a principle that now drove the entirety of human society.
"Things rarely are," said Admiral Hackett as he stood. "But since accepting this theory means that you really are Shepard, that means you'll never give up."
Dee – or, uh, Shepard? – struggled to keep her emotions in check, but her trembling lower lip gave her away. "Sir... I do have certain documents on my omni-tool microchip, but the chip was updated when… When I was. It's unlikely that we could access…"
The Admiral placed a hand on her shoulder. "They wouldn't let you have one during the meeting with the Council anyways."
Karin's throat was strangely tight when her omni-tool beeped. She opened up her messages and her world tilted. "Admiral," she said, and something in her voice made him turn to face her. "It's, it's Shepard, sir."
000
Kaidan knew he was running the risk of giving himself away, but he just couldn't find it in himself to care. Even for the most devout of friends, coming every day – sometimes several times a day – might seem a little excessive, but this was Shepard and after what Ash had said… He didn't know if Shepard really felt the same way, didn't know if he believed it, but… but there was something there, wasn't there?
She was the first person he wanted to tell everything to. Brain camp, Rahna, Vyrnnus, everything. He'd been planning to tell her the next time they'd caught some privacy on the Normandy; he had rapidly realized that Shepard took time after every mission to talk to her crew, and figured that would be the best opportunity. Of course, then she'd fallen sick and the whole plan had shattered.
Which brought them to now.
Shepard was so small in her bed, and it was wrong. This wasn't the Commander he'd come to know, who could stand in front of complete strangers and win their respect, who could pull off battle tactics that every trainer in basic would say was impossible. And this wasn't the woman he'd come to care for, who shined so bright and won the loyalty of everyone on her crew. It wasn't right.
He knocked quietly on the doorframe and her eyes fluttered open. Though her smile was smaller now, weaker, it was no less pleased to see him, and the thought made the tempo of his heart uneven.
"What are you doing here?" she asked softly.
Kaidan pulled a chair up beside her bed. He hesitated a moment before putting his hand over hers, trying to remain upbeat even though hers trembled under his touch – and not for the reason he wanted. "Just come to check up on you. Let you know that Pressley's keeping the crew in line. Well, except maybe for Wrex. He wandered down into the Wards and said to message him when we were ready to get back to work."
Shepard sighed. "Has he gotten into any trouble?"
"None that we've heard about, and knowing krogan, we would've," said Kaidan. He squeezed her hand. "How are you doing?"
"Me? I'm great," she said with too much conviction.
"Okay, and now that you're finished lying, how are you really?" he asked.
Her shoulders slumped and she wriggled deeper under her blankets, face turned slightly away. "I'm scared. I wish that damn beacon had never been uncovered. I wish I could get out of this bed and put a bullet in Saren's head." When she turned back, her face was intent. "Kaidan, what makes you you?"
Kaidan blinked and tried to sort out what she was getting at. "Do you mean, how am I who I am? Or is this you more of the general kind?"
"The general kind," said Shepard. She weighed her words. "It's just that… I've got this beacon rattling around in my head, and there is all this information that isn't mine. I just… Lines are becoming really blurred lately."
Leaning forward with his elbows on the bed, Kaidan said, "I think there are two ways you know who you are. First are the things that you've done, the memories and experiences you carry with you."
Shepard blinked rapidly and ran a tongue over her teeth, swallowing thickly. "And the second?"
"How you let those experiences define you," said Kaidan. His mind, his rank were telling him to stop there, but he couldn't. "And after what you've been through, Shepard, anyone else would be a mess, but not you. You're kind, and strong, and…" He swallowed to cut off the word beautiful. "So what if you have this beacon? You're still you. You're still the same woman who pushed a stupid Lieutenant out of the way."
She looked close to tears, which wasn't his intention, and she pulled her hand from his grip. He was worried, for a second, that he'd done it, that he'd crossed the line, but she used that hand . "Thank you, Kaidan." Her hand jerked, and he was about to cover it with his, but she pulled away, staring at the ceiling. "When I was young, I never wanted to be a soldier, you know. That was… well, it wasn't my dream."
This was news to Kaidan, but he supposed he could understand. If he hadn't been biotic, if he hadn't been shipped to Brain camp, would he have ended up in the Alliance? His father had served, so it was likely, but from what he understood, Shepard had come from a family of civilians. Still, the idea that Earth's greatest soldier had started out with other dreams was… Well, Kaidan couldn't help but feel a sense of loss on her behalf.
"What did you want to do instead?" he asked quietly.
But she shook her head with a smile, and a hint of her usual good cheer leaked back into the conversation. Raising an eyebrow, she said, "That would be telling."
He laughed. "All right. I guess I guess I'll just have to pry it out of you once we're back aboard the Normandy."
Shepard stared to smile, but then the machines in the room went haywire, the cacophony almost deafening. Shepard's body clenched with pain, straining against some invisible bonds. Horror filled Kaidan as he rose to stand, to do something, but Shepard grabbed his arm tight enough that he was sure he would bruise and he didn't care. "I promise you that, one way or another, there will be a Commander on that ship," she said, voice little more than a wheeze. She closed her eyes, face contracting into pain. "Tell, tell Hackett that I want to see her. He'll know what I mean."
He was about to answer, but a slew of doctors and nurses rushed in and he was escorted from the room. With nothing else to do, he rushed to find the Admiral.
000
It was like she was a bubble, and she was finally surfacing from some deep underwater cavern to the light of day. The only problem with the metaphor was the fact that everything hurt. She opened her eyes and noticed the lights had been dimmed. Someone next to her cleared their throat and she turned to see… herself.
"Hey," said Patient B. "How are you feeling?"
"Like someone drove an ice pick into my brain," said Shepard, and she hated how weak her voice sounded. It reminded her of the ship after Mindoir, and the psychologists, and the doctors. Bet they never saw this coming.
"Can I get you anything?"
Shepard started to shake her head but held off when she realized how thirsty she was. "Water?"
Patient B grabbed the water bottle from the bedside table and uncorked it, holding it to Shepard's lips. The whole situation was unreal, and Shepard couldn't keep her eyes off her doppelganger as she drank, before pushing away the bottle. She tried to smile, but failed.
"This is… This is definitely one of the weirder things I've lived through," said Patient B, placing the bottle back on the table. "And trust me, you'll soon realize that that's saying something."
It hurt. Not just her head, though that too, but everything. The truth of it hurt. The knowledge that this other Shepard had never lain in this bed, had never had to deal with any sort of fallout from the beacon. Why? What had changed? If this Shepard hadn't shown up, would things have been different? And could she be angry with another person, jealous of another person… another person who was, in fact, herself?
"No, I won't," whispered Shepard, and the words hung there in the room.
When she spoke, Patient B sounded scared. "What are you talking about?"
"I'm dying," said Shepard, and though she'd joked about it with Anderson, she'd been trying to hide how scared she was. She wasn't ready to die. There was so much left for her to do. It was like she was just getting going, and now… And now, she was joined at her deathbed by herself, only three years older. The universe had a sick sense of humour.
"No, you're not," denied Patient B, standing up and looking for all the world like she wanted to hit something. Shepard understood the urge – she always wanted to hit something when she lost control, but rarely did. Instead, that rage would often fizzle before she found an appropriate target, turn into something colder, more determined.
Shepard took a deep breath. "How did Devyn die?"
Patient B worked her jaw, and Shepard saw in her eyes the same tears she felt prickling her own. "I was going to meet Kyle by the brook," said Patient B, and Shepard closed her eyes, recalling the scene. "I was going to meet Kyle with the cookies I'd baked him, and Devyn was following me. He was pestering me about meeting a boy, and not giving him any cookies, and the usual. We were almost to the treeline when a shuttle dropped next to our house. Then I heard the gunshots, and Mom screaming and… And I grabbed Devyn and we ran into the woods."
Nobody else could know that. Not about the cookies, or about meeting Kyle, or about Mom. Nobody. The scene was so real, down to the smell of grass mixing with the rot of the forest floor. She could hear the screaming and Devyn's laboured breaths and he struggled to keep up. "Stop," said Shepard. "Just… stop. If I didn't believe you before, I do now."
Patient B said nothing, eyes glued to the ground, and Shepard knew she was reliving it too.
"I am dying," said Shepard, reaching out a hand, "and I have to ask you something."
Is this what her hand felt like? It was the same size and shape, yet Shepard couldn't one as Patient B gripped her hand. "Anything."
The words sat on Shepard's tongue, but wouldn't come for a long time. She knew she had to say them, had to get them out, but doing that would mean… God, she'd wanted to handle this gracefully, peacefully, but all she could think of was…
"I need you to take my place," said Shepard. "When I'm gone." She held up her free hand to stop any protestations. "Saren is a threat and so are the Reapers. If you know about what happened, then you must really be me, and that means you won't give up. You have to be Devyn Shepard. You'll stop it from happening." Shepard hesitated. "Again."
Patient B's face was the definition of horror, eyes wide and lower lip trembling. "You don't know what you're asking."
"Probably not," agreed Shepard, "but I've got a Prothean vision in my head, and it's not pretty. I'm not saying I am – we are – the only one who can do it, but… You know what to do. You can stop the Reapers from doing what they did 50,000 years ago."
Dropping Shepard's hand, Patient B made no attempt to hide the tear that slid down her face. "You can't ask me this. This isn't my job," she said desperately. "You don't know… I had my chance and I blew it. I didn't… You don't know." She shook her head. "It's your turn. This is supposed to be what you do."
"It's not," said Shepard, though the words gave her little comfort. "It should be, but it's not. Let's both be honest – I'm not getting out of this bed. And if I don't stop Saren, who will?" There was that pain again. Shepard had held onto hope for weeks that she'd get better, that she'd be able to stop Saren, that she'd learn all about her new crew, that she'd figure out what she felt for Kaidan, that she'd be able to complete even one lousy assignment as the first human Spectre but… But her body was alight with pain like a bioluminescent jellyfish. Speaking was getting more difficult, but she struggled through. "I'm not getting up, so you're getting a second chance."
Patient B turned away and now she did hit something, slamming her fist into the wall. "How am I supposed to face them?" she asked.
"Who?"
"Everyone," said Patient B. "They were counting on me, and I failed. I let them down. How am I supposed to look into their eyes and pretend like it didn't happen for me? How am I supposed to pretend that I didn't watch them die?"
Even finding words was becoming difficult. "You're not," said Shepard, trying not to focus on what she was hearing, trying to remain steadfast in her determination. "You're supposed to remember. You're supposed to hurt, and you're supposed to be better. That's what… That's what you did after Mindoir, and that's what you've got to do now." The pain started to knife into Shepard's skull. "Trust me when I say I wish it wasn't happening this way but…"
"And what if I fail again?" asked Patient B in a small voice.
"All you can do is decide how you act in the aftermath of your experience," said Shepard, quoting Kaidan, smiling even though it hurt, and even though she could feel how cold her cheeks were from her tears. As a matter of fact, she was cold all over, and to pull her blankets over top of her. She was helped by Patient B, who pulled them up. "Can I ask you a question?"
Patient B swallowed loudly, but retook her chair and nodded.
"Kaidan and… Did we…?" She saw Patient B's eyes go wide, and even wracked with pain, even sleepy as she was becoming, she was embarrassed. "It's stupid. Never mind."
"Yes," said Patient B softly. "We did. Right after we stopped Saren, we got a bit of shore leave and we talked it out. We were assigned to different posts after that, and we didn't see each other often, but we were never far from each other's thoughts. I – I ended up meeting his family. His mom and I really hit it off." Patient B paused. "And he was a wonderful kisser. He made me feel loved."
And because that pounding silence in her head in her head became the sound of a thousand horses, Deirdre chose to ignore the fact that her counterpart was lying, was so obviously lying, because it was a pretty dream and after so much death, after so many nightmares, didn't she deserve a pretty dream? The only thing that could make it better was her family, alive and well. They'd get along with Kaidan, wouldn't they?
Then the shadow of the Reaper crawled out of the depths of her subconscious and plastered itself into her mind's eye, a negative image over the pretty dream she'd built, so that she could no longer see anything else.
She exhaled.
000
Councillor Tevos was nearing eight hundred years old. She had four daughters, three in the matron stage and one in the maiden. She'd been the asari Councillor for the last seventy years. She was fairly certain that whatever the galaxy had to throw at her, she would be able to handle it. After all, in the grand scheme of things, there was very little that changed. Skirmishes over territory, political disputes, natural disasters, she'd seen it all.
There were only two things in her political life that had genuinely surprised her. The first was the ascension of the Geth and the loss of Rannoch – nobody had seen that coming. The second, though she'd never admit it, was the discovery of humanity.
Humans were something of a black sheep in the galactic community, and Tevos couldn't fail to understand why. They were brash and demanding, and it was hard to get a grasp on them. Where the salarians were cunning and resourceful, they were also predictable in their needs and wants. The turians could be argumentative and aggressive, but the same was essentially true for them as well. Humans, on the other hand, differed as much from each other as they did from the other species. Understanding them was proving difficult, especially when they were engaging in political tactics that made zero sense.
This Patient B, for instance. If the woman had been bioengineered – and the possibility remained, though she trusted Valern's opinion – what would be the point? Though Shepard had been vetted as a potential Spectre, that hardly meant it was an assured thing. Look at David Anderson – Tevos had once been willing to entertain him as a candidate as well, and he'd botched his attempt.
Of course, in light of Saren's recent… rebelliousness, that was a matter that she was willing to concede may be up for debate.
In any case, the Alliance had requested an audience with the Council. In particular, they wanted to bring Patient B to them for questioning, though they were strangely evasive about giving any details about the woman's potential origins. Tevos was beginning to wonder if the Alliance hadn't engineered her themselves, though for what purpose she couldn't hope to guess.
Her door chimed and she looked up from her console to see Sparatus standing in her doorway, looking profoundly grumpy. "I thought you might want an escort to the meeting."
What he meant was I want to know what you think of this whole thing, but Tevos wasn't about to give away her hand. She rose gracefully from her desk and wandered over to him, wrapping her arm around his. He'd been attracted to her once, held off only by the fact that any private relationship would in all probability ruin their professional objectivity – a fact he'd learned for certain after she'd outmanoeuvered him several times in his first year.
It was an open secret, however, that he wasn't overly fond of humans. Prior to his ascension to the Council seat, Sparatus had been a highly ranked officer in the First Contact War. Prior to that, he'd been known as a practical soldier who'd never suffered a defeat. After, rather than being punished, the turian hierarchy had decided to promote him to boost morale. That didn't mean that Sparatus had ever fully forgiven the universe – or the humans – for slighting him.
"Do we know why they're bringing her to us?" he asked.
Tevos shook her head. "We did want to know what she was about. Perhaps this is our chance."
"I don't like it," said Sparatus. "The whole thing stinks of a setup."
The asari resisted the urge to roll her eyes. While he might be many things – a brilliant tactician, an exemplary orator – no one could deny that Sparatus tended to toe the line of paranoia. It wasn't his fault, really. Turians could be as cunning as anyone (Sparatus' predecessor was proof of that), but at heart they were still soldiers on the field.
"I don't think so," said Tevos. "For one, they'd never make it off the Citadel. The Alliance has sanctioned this. Any attempt on us would be political suicide. All the races of the galaxy would turn on them."
"Nobody said humans were smart," said Sparatus.
"Your prejudice is showing."
Sparatus harrumphed as they came to the Council chamber. The room had been vacated in light of the delicate nature of the issue at hand, with only several squadrons of security remaining. Tevos extricated herself from Sparatus and nodded to Valern, who returned the gesture. The three of them took their places.
"Let's get this over with," groused Sparatus.
"Captain," called Tevos to the leader of their security detail. "Bring in the human."
Following his salute, Valern leaned over. "This should be interesting. I can't say I'm not curious about this so-called Patient B."
"Sparatus is sure she's an assassin sent to kill us," said Tevos, trying to hide her smile.
Valern blinked and looked past her to Sparatus. "Humans are new in the galactic sphere, but there's no indication they're that foolhardy."
"You didn't witness they're tactics at Shanxi," growled Sparatus.
Tevos was about to intercede in the little tiff she'd created, but the doors opened. Walking on limping legs was a woman that made Tevos' mouth go dry. She'd read the reports, she'd heard the account first hand from Anderson, and Valern had managed to dupe one of the hospital staff into giving them further details, but she hadn't expect… Well, she hadn't expected Commander Shepard.
Eight hundred years is a long time to learn how to read people, and it was something that Tevos was good at. Even though humans were new on the scene, and even though some of their… racial tics were more ambiguous than she'd like, there was no denying the similarities between Patient B and Shepard. They held their shoulders the same way, scanned the room the same way, even stared up at the Council in the same challenging manner – though Patient B's expression seemed tinged with some undefinable human emotion that Tevos couldn't place.
"I take it you're the infamous Patient B," she said.
The human woman twisted her lips. "I prefer Commander Shepard, actually.
"I'm afraid we cannot take your word on that," said Valern. "No matter who programmed you, no matter how thorough a job they did, I'm afraid your memories are nothing more than illusory."
"Actually, a new theory has come forward," countered Patient B.
"Really?" drawled Sparatus. "Enlighten us."
Patient B took a deep breath and clenched her fists at her sides, rolling her eyes upwards. "How much did Hackett put in his reports?"
Asari had a tendency to dance around an issue they didn't want to discuss outright. Tevos had noticed this same tendency in other species as well – though perhaps less so in salarians, krogan and elcor – but none of them had the necessary skill to pull it off subtly. She said, "The report merely stated that your origins were inconclusive."
"That's for damn sure," muttered Patient B, but she pulled back her shoulders and stared them down. "Like I said, my name is Commander Shepard. And before you say, no that's not possible because there's already a Commander Shepard – trust me, I know. The thing is, before I woke up in that hospital, I remember it being 2186."
Tevos attempted to grab onto that thought, to make it stick, to make it something more than nonsense. Unfortunately, she wasn't successful.
"You've got to be kidding me," said Sparatus. He wheeled toward his fellow councillors. "No wonder they didn't tell us what she wanted to discuss."
Valern was stroking his chin. "Tell us, what was it like in 2186?" He held up his free hand to quell Sparatus' outrage before it had the chance to manifest. "Merely out of curiosity."
"Hell," said Patient B, and there was something in her voice that made all three of them pause. Tevos wasn't overly familiar with the term, but she'd heard it used once or twice. It mirrored certain early, primitive beliefs from the quarians – a place of eternal damnation. "In 2186, the galaxy was at war. And we were losing." A flicker of shame crossed the human woman's face; that emotion was one that was nearly universal among species.
"What do you mean, losing?" asked Tevos, keeping her voice blank. Sparatus sent her a look that clearly stated he was not impressed that she and Valern were encouraging this line of discussion, but Tevos found that she too was curious. "Who was losing? Who was in this war?"
"We all were," said Patient B. "We were all being destroyed by the Reapers."
This proved too much for Sparatus. "The Reapers?" he demanded, throwing his arms up in the air. "Ever since Shepard became a Spectre, that seems to be all we're hearing about. Now we've got a clone, and it's spewing the same garbage. I say we relieve the Alliance of their prisoner and start running our own interrogations."
The idea wasn't necessarily a bad one, though it would have to be handled with an infinite amount of grace. Tevos felt a sliver of uncertainty dig into her gut. It wasn't that she actually believed that this woman was Commander Shepard from the future – that was inconceivable – but the utter conviction on that woman's face was enough to make her mentally stumble.
"Listen to me," snapped Patient B. She hobbled forward one or two steps. "You didn't believe me the first time and we were losing everything. This is crazy and trust me, nobody appreciates that more than me, but after what I've seen… What I've seen…" Patient B's brown eyes skimmed some evidence none of them could see. "Let's just say that I've made a career of doing the impossible." She swallowed. "You have the chance to do it right this time. To prepare for the arrival of the Reapers."
"I assume that you have concrete evidence of these allegations?" said Valern gently, and when Patient B's eyes dropped and one of her hands grasped the other, he added, "Ah. That would be a no then?"
"Of course she doesn't," said Sparatus. "The Alliance is wasting our time. I imagine they think this is funny."
"You've got a rogue Spectre out there," cried Patient B. "And right now, he's indoctrinated and he's building an army to help the Reapers destroy us all. We have to stop him."
"That is a task we assigned to Commander Shepard," said Tevos firmly. "The real Commander Shepard. Regardless of whether or not we believe in her story – and, it would seem, yours – about ancient sentient machines out to kill us all, you have made an outlandish allegation and done nothing to substantiate it. You pose a risk to this station, and this galaxy, and as such, I must agree with my colleague about taking you into our custody." She risked a look at Sparatus, who preened in a most unattractive fashion.
"I suppose I must agree as well," said Valern quietly. "What you propose is entirely outside the realm of the possible. Perhaps through study we might better understand what happened to you, and where you actually came from."
"Then our business is concluded," said Sparatus.
"Wait."
They all three of them paid special attention to Patient B, who was now hidden behind a curtain of blonde hair. Her hands remained clenched at her sides, and everything about her screamed that she was furious. When she finally looked up, Tevos had to stop herself from taking a step back. She was an asari matriarch, after all, and a powerful biotic who'd once been part of an elite commando squad. The woman before her, though, she looked like a person who would do whatever was necessary, who was on the brink of disaster (or perhaps a psychotic breakdown) and was not going to take no for an answer.
"I know things," she said.
"Clearly," drawled Sparatus, "nothing important."
Patient B turned all her attention on the turian councillor, and Tevos found herself annoyingly relieved it wasn't her. "Tell me, Sparatus," she said, taking a step forward, "how's that nuclear bomb you've got hidden on Tuchanka, hm? Still active?"
Tevos blinked, and turned towards her colleague. He was staring down the human. "I don't know what you're talking about," he said, but there was a slight hitch to his last word, and he was tapping one of his feet like he always did when he was lying. Curious.
"And how about you, Valern?" asked Patient B, voice sickly sweet. "How's that STG project going? The one with the yahg? You know, that species we're all forbidden to contact? Uplifting them will be difficult, but hey, what's the worst thing that can go wrong? It all went so well with the krogan, right?"
Now Tevos looked at Valern, but he stayed silent. He made no attempt to deny it, but he didn't acknowledge it either. He'd always been harder to read than Sparatus, but the fact that he wasn't saying anything at all did not bode well.
"Tevos," said Patient B, and the asari dragged her gaze back down. Now Patient B was directly under the dais, looking up. Where she'd been sarcastic with the other two, she now looked almost sad. "During the war, when everything seemed darkest, you gave me a bit of advice. You told me that Athame guided those who sought her out. You told me I should visit her temple on Thessia before it was destroyed." Patient B swallowed, and when she spoke, it was with steel. "That was right before the Reapers invaded your planet."
Time seemed to stop, and a thin lick of chill dragged down Tevos' back. There was no way this… this nobody, this thing could know about the secrets in Temple of Athame. She forced herself to act confused but amused. "A war is a very strange time to be giving theological advice."
"You're right," agreed Patient B. "Though you also mentioned that there were several asari monasteries I could check out."
Now there was no denying. Though this woman was playing things close to the chest, it was obvious that she was referring to the Ardat-Yakshi. Tevos kept her kind but distant façade up, smiling slightly. "Is there a purpose to this?"
"Saren needs to be taken down," said Patient B, "but more than that, the Reapers are coming. You need someone to take them out."
Valern inclined his head slightly. "We've been keeping apprised of the Commander's situation. A very unfortunate turn of events, but there may yet be a chance that she recovers."
"She's dead," said Shepard flatly.
Tevos struggled to keep the surprise off her face, though neither Sparatus nor Valern managed. The whole situation must've been covered up extremely well by the Alliance if none of their sources had managed to get this information. Tevos couldn't exactly blame the Alliance – if news that the first human Spectre leaked out, especially with an identical copy walking around and Saren at large, it would do much not only to discredit them, but to undermine their bid for a Council seat. But what would this mean for the Council? Her mind skimmed over the possibilities.
Patient B hugged her arms around herself. "Look, I know none of you wanted me – wanted Shepard in any form – to be a Spectre. I get that. And I know all this Reaper business sounds like a bad bedtime story, but if we wait as long to address the threat as we did last time, we could end up losing everything. Again."
Whatever hint of a smile she'd had slipped off Tevos' face. "Are you trying to get at something?"
"Send me," said Patient B.
The urge to laugh bubbled up inside the asari, but she swallowed it down. Valern was thinking heavily, but Sparatus was staring down at the human woman with slitted eyes. "And why would we do that? We have no idea who you are or where you came from. You come in here making unverifiable accusations," here he tapped his foot again, "and you expect us to hand you a Council-funded prototype ship and send you off into the galaxy to do God knows what."
He had a point, and it wasn't one that had gone over Tevos' head. The whole plan was ludicrous, but she couldn't stop thinking about this woman's mention of the Temple of Athame. Nobody knew about the secrets contained within except those in the highest echelons of asari power. Tevos could count the number of people on her fingers. Of course, now they'd have to be extra careful. There was no doubt that Valern had filed away the comment and would be sending reconnaissance to figure out exactly what the asari were hiding under the veneer of religion. It hardly mattered. The asari had perfected their game long ago, and no salarian lived long enough to outmanoeuver them.
"It's risky," agreed Patient B, "but I guess you guys have a choice here. Either you grant me permission to take over Commander Shepard's post and stop Saren, or you let Saren run unchecked in the Traverse and, best case scenario, assemble an army of rogue geth, or worst case scenario, set in motion an invasion that will destroy us all."
"Or," said Sparatus, "we simply assign the task to another Spectre altogether."
Patient B shook her head. "You're not going to do that. The Normandy is an Alliance vessel."
"Developed in partnership with the turians," volunteered Valern, "and funded in part by this Council."
"But still a human ship," pushed the human. "If you take it away from the Alliance, there are going to be huge political repercussions and you know this. The Alliance won't take it sitting down, and if you start taking away resources away from non-Council members on what appears to be a whim and allocating them elsewhere, how long until dissention arises, I wonder? Especially since the first – and technically only – human Spectre died as a result of a shakedown run assigned by the Council itself? Not to mention the fact that it happened while she was hunting a rogue Spectre – a Spectre the Council initially refused to investiate properly." Patient B leaned back and stared them all down.
Tevos wasn't easily impressed, but this human had managed it. It wasn't a comforting feeling, however, because it was tinged with the knowledge that she knew more than she should, and probably more than she was even letting on. "Still, you'll forgive us for not wanting to send an unknown to take care of Council business. If we do that, we'll end up dealing with the political ramifications if your unlikely story proves untrue and you run rampant in the galaxy."
"You're wrong for two reasons," said Patient B, and Tevos wondered once more how humans could be so abrupt. "First of all, in order for this to work, nobody – and I mean, nobody – should know that I'm…" She frowned before rolling her eyes and pushing on, "from the future, or that anything happened besides Commander Shepard getting better and resuming her hunt. Running amok would raise questions." Now her face, if possible, got even more serious. "And second, my crew – the crew of the Normandy – would never stand for senseless violence or galactic battles or whatever you're thinking."
"They would not be able to object if they were dead," said Valern.
The expression on Patient B's face went beyond horror. Her lower lip trembled and the whites of her eyes became visible as they jumped between Councillors. It might simply have been that she was an amazing actress, but Tevos couldn't bring herself to believe it. Regardless of whether or not her impossible story were true, she loved those people. That horror turned to rage. It simmered beneath the surface, but Tevos could read it in the lines of her face.
"And, what? Fly the Normandy around the galaxy all on my own? You do realize that the ship is pretty recognizable, right? I might be able to hide out in space, but if I docked anywhere of repute, I'd be flagged instantly, wouldn't I?"
While it would hardly be as straightforward and simple as that, the nature of her ship would indeed make it difficult for her to continue without being detected – unless she used intermediaries and stuck to open space. Tevos had never had a head for space battles, but she considered herself a tactical thinker and small shuttles could be used to access planets remotely while the Normandy remained hidden off the sensors. Of course, should the ship itself suffer any damage, it would have to dock somewhere, but there was no end of places in the Traverse for the criminal element.
Then again, most of those places were unofficially run by the batarian hegemony, which would make things difficult for a woman wearing Shepard's face. Bad enough that the Commander had escaped becoming a slave, but to publically humiliate the hegemony when she decimated their attempt on Elysium? And what few other outposts there were would be more than happy to kill for a ship of the Normandy's stature.
"This isn't something to be decided on a whim," said Tevos, giving significant looks to Valern and Sparatus. "We'll have to deliberate over this matter and inform you of our decision at a later date."
Patient B huffed, but nodded tightly. She turned to leave but stopped after a few steps. "Councillors," she called. "Don't take too long. Saren's a bigger threat than you realize."
They watched her leave and the second those doors closed, Sparatus rounded on Tevos. "We're not seriously considering her proposal," he snarled. "There is exactly zero evidence that this outlandish theory is true."
"Are you saying there is no validity to her allegations of a turian bomb on Tuchanka?" asked Tevos, and she watched as Sparatus squirmed.
It was a difficult line they toed. If any of them admitted that Patient B's claims held water, they'd be exposing not only themselves, but their entire race to a public scrutiny that nobody wanted. More than that, however, there would be an erosion of trust between them – an erosion that, as Tevos watched Sparatus stew, she feared had already begun. If there really was a bomb, and she really had known not only about the Ardat-Yakshi but the Prothean relic in the Temple of Athame as well, then that meant her information about the salarians' experiments on yahg subjects was likely also true. Tevos studied the men in her company, realizing that although she'd never really trusted them, they'd been successfully keeping secrets of immense proportions from her. It begged the question: what else were they hiding?
There was also another more pressing problem: they all knew that Patient B's respective accusations were true, but if they agreed to let her take on Commander Shepard's shoes – or fill her old shoes, or, well, the whole thing made Tevos' head hurt – they would be admitting it to each other. Which was the bigger risk: revealing their secrets to be true and thus undermining the congruity of the Council, or allowing Saren to run amok in the Terminus systems?
And if she was right about certain classified information, was she also right about some impending Reaper attack…?
No, Tevos told herself. That really was too much to be believed.
"It would explain her genetic makeup," disagreed Valern, then hesitated. "But I, too, wonder at the wisdom of putting the Normandy in her hands and letting her run off."
"Saren needs to be stopped," said Tevos, sighing. "She was right about what would happen if we assigned the ship to someone else. The Normandy is needed to travel undetected. If Shepard is truly dead, we're left in a precarious state. We can't simply send Council ships into the Traverse. They'd see it as an act of aggression."
"Are you saying she convinced you, Tevos?" inquired Valern, and Tevos could see right through him. Worst part was, he knew it too.
So she did the only thing she could and allowed herself a graceful one-shoulder shrug. "I have no idea why I would ever tell a human to investigate the ancient asari beliefs about the goddess, but I don't deny that we keep low-profile monasteries dedicated to her, so I supposed that yes, I am saying that. Why? Are you saying that she was lying? And are you prepared to gamble us all on your answer?"
The two men held their breaths and looked at each other. Tevos let the weight of her words settle on their shoulders.
So, um, that happened... Surprise? *ducks*
I love this story, but it's gotten completely out of hand. I knew it was going to be long, but we've hit 30K and... uh, they haven't left the Citadel yet. (Only three games to cover, you say? Oh boy.) I want to thank everyone that read, reviewed, whatever - I will endeavor to have a new chapter up in a few weeks. :)