Compared to the amount of time it took to actually set up the diplomatic meeting between leaders, the travel time to the Annos Basin took almost no time at all, though to Shepard, it could not have been over fast enough. Her fingers flexed anxiously around the headrest of Joker's chair as the gathering of diplomatic ships came into focus, and she had to resist the urge to reach down and scratch at the inside of her thighs, though that task was becoming more and more difficult by the hour. Not long after her liaison with the turian gunsmith, in the days leading up to the projected summit, a faint, itchy rash had appeared on her inner thighs, and the more she scratched at it, hoping to curb the itching, burning sensation, the worse it only seemed to get. This rash was soon accompanied by abdominal pains, the brunt of which she blamed on cross-species amino reactions, but put on a brave face nonetheless, not letting on to her crew that anything was wrong and hoping that the sensation would pass, and quickly.
Her fingers gripped the headrest of the pilot's chair as another agonizing twinge passed over her, and Joker glanced back at her, looking a bit concerned, before turning back to the controls, allowing her her privacy. Shepard knew Joker well by now, and she knew that even if she went ahead and took the opportunity to sate the burning, itching sensation, he would refrain from saying anything about it to her. In retrospect, she had seen him adjust himself a good time or two when he thought nobody was looking, so he really had no grounds on which to judge her. But even so, that did not mean that she was going to take advantage of their understanding for a mere irritability.
After all, every crew member only got so many unspoken free passes, and she was not about to waste hers on a rash that was likely her fault in the first place.
As the Normandy got nearer to the congregation, Shepard could clearly see that the diplomatic ships of the salarians, turians, and krogans floated far away from one another, well out of weapon range, as if they were afraid to even look at one another until she arrived and could act as a neutral party. It was a disheartening sight, admittedly, but not an unexpected one. Bullheadedness ran deep in the blood of soldiers, and she was only glad that the different leaders had managed to keep their hands clear of each other's throats for this long. Turning away from the pilot's chair, Shepard moved down the hallway leading from the cockpit into the navigation room, but she had no time to attend to herself before she was approached by Traynor, moving towards her from her position at the edge of the galaxy map.
"Commander, the salarian dalatross and krogan clan chief are ready to come aboard," Traynor reported, her nervous body language doing nothing to back up her professional tone.
"Have them brought to the conference room," Shepard answered, glancing back towards the room in question before letting out a tired huff of breath. "And let's hope this doesn't start another war."
"The krogan is in no position to make demands!" Dalatross Linron insisted, throwing a quick, furtive glance Wrex's way, as if afraid the hulking brute might attack her unannounced for merely stating her opinion.
"The krogan has a name," Wrex replied, leaning menacingly forward towards the dalatross, his big, clawed hands pressed against the steel line of the table, his deep, rumbling voice icy as he made sure to pronounce each word as slowly and carefully as possible in an effort to drive his point home. "Urdnot Wrex. And I'm not just some junkyard varren you unleash whenever you're in trouble." When Shepard entered the room, however, Wrex paused, turning to look at her, before letting his hands slide off the edge of the table and straightening his posture, shifting between his broad, clawed feet as he watched the Commander cross the room to come to stand at the last remaining side of the rectangular table.
Pulling up a hologram console screen from a digitized slit in the surface of the table, Shepard entered a short code into it, and the room of the conference room sealed, the thick, soundproof glass effectively locking in all further conversation. Seeing this, Wrex gave a curt, approving nod before taking a deep breath and continuing on. "I've got problems of my own," he said, his tone calmer now as he addressed the room at large. "Reaper scouts have arrived on Tuchanka. So why should I care if a few turians go extinct?"
"Trying to draw out negotiations will get you nowhere, Wrex," Victus replied, a tired, aggravated twinge to his voice as he turned to face the krogan leader, straightening his posture and tucking his hands behind his back. "I have no time for it. Just tell us what you want."
"I'll tell you what I need," Wrex responded. Leaning in towards the table at large, he made stern eye contact with every person in the room in turn before answering, directly, "A cure. For the Genophage."
At this, the Dalatross' expression instantly changed, shifting from stern impatience to horror, and then anger. "Absolutely not!" she exclaimed, crossing her arms firmly across her sallow chest. "The Genophage is non-negotiable!"
"Why are you so opposed to the idea, Dalatross?" Shepard asked.
"Because my people uplifted the krogan!" Linron exclaimed. "We know them best."
"You mean you used us!" Wrex shot back, a guttural anger beginning to rise in his voice. "To fight a war you couldn't win! It wasn't the salarians, or the asari, or even the turians that stopped the rachni – it was krogan blood that turned the tide!"
"And after that you ceased to be useful!" the Dalatross shot back, all but sneering as she waved a dismissive hand in Wrex's general direction. "The Genophage was the only way to keep your… urges, in check."
At this, a corner of Wrex's scaly lip began to curl, and he let out the beginning of a deep, angry growl. Realizing that things were quickly going downhill, Victus stepped forward, quietly clearing his throat and drawing the attention of the Dalatross away from Wrex and towards himself. "Dalatross, you may not like him, but Wrex is right," he said, taking the reins of the quickly derailing conversation and attempting to steer it back on course. "Insulting him won't change that."
"I won't apologize for speaking the truth," the Dalatross snapped. "We uplifted the krogan to do one thing – wage war. It's all they know because it's all we wanted them to know."
At this comment, Shepard frowned, feeling her sense of ire towards the Dalatross rising with every word that passed from her wrinkled, lipless mouth. The toe of her boot bounced impatiently against the floor of the conference chamber as she fought off the almost ravenous urge to scratch at her thighs, instead focusing all her attention on the matter at hand, though the matter at hand was hardly doing much to improve her mood. "Your people should have thought the matter through, then," she countered, her fingers curling irritably against the edge of the table. "Was it really a surprise the krogan revolted?"
"That's precisely my point, Commander," Linron responded, a knowing sneer in her voice. "We made a rash decision – we turned to the krogan in desperation. It's the same mistake you're about to make today. No good can come from curing the Genopha—"
"The krogan have paid for their mistakes," Shepard cut over her as a pang of searing pain wrenched her side, causing her to flinch ever so slightly, but she quickly regained her commanding composure, addressing the room at large. "The Genophage has gone on long enough."
"One thousand, four hundred and seventy-six years," Wrex provided, seeming almost surprised at the high number, himself, even as the knowledge left his mouth. "If you're keeping track."
"It was a thousand years of peace," Linron shot back, pointing accusatorily at Wrex. "Free from these… brutes!"
"ENOUGH," Victus growled, drawing the attention of the room to himself once more. "Whether or not they deserve a cure is academic. It would take years to formulate one!"
"My information says otherwise," Wrex countered, levelling Victus with a knowing stare. "A salarian scientist, Maelon, grew a conscience. He was on my planet, testing a cure on our females."
"I remember," Shepard consented. "His methods were barbaric."
"But what you didn't know is that other females survived his experiments," Wrex went on, pulling up the screen in front of him and loading up a shaky video from what appeared to be a private network for the room to see. "So the Dalatross here sent in a team to clean up the whole mess, and to take them prisoner."
"Wh-where did you get this?" Linron demanded, thrown off-guard by the footage. Then, quickly regaining her stubborn composure, she insisted, "It—it could be a fabrication!"
"Don't insult me!" Wrex snapped, turning on the Dalatross and pointing an accusatory finger in her face. "Those are my people! They're immune to the Genophage—and you're going to give them back!"
"Dalatross, is this true?" Victus asked, a tone of betrayal in his voice as he stepped forward, disbelieving.
The Dalatross faltered, finding herself suddenly trapped. Then, steeling herself, she gave a shuddering scoff of incredulity. "How will curing the Genophage benefit my people?" she insisted.
That was the final straw.
"How long do you think you'll last alone against the Reapers?" Shepard snapped. The longer she stood still, the harder it was to ignore the feeling that flaming poison ivy was being rubbed over every inch of her body. She knew it was all in her head, that the rash had not spread any further than where it had been just before the conference, but the more she attempted to ignore it, the more irritating and painful it seemed to become, until it was almost too much for her to bear. "Because if you don't help, that's how it'll end up!"
"And I'll be the last friendly turian you ever see," Victus added for extra effect.
"So what's it gonna be?" Shepard demanded.
For a moment, the Dalatross was silent, mulling over her options, or the lack thereof. Then, resting her forehead in her hand in a gesture of regretful surrender, she gave a quiet sigh. "The females are being kept at one of our STG bases on Sur'Kesh," she said. Then, straightening to her full, threatening posture again, she looked up, her dark, almond-shaped eyes flashing with ire. "But I warn you, Commander!" she added, pointing an accusatory finger after Shepard, who had already turned to leave the room to give Joker the coordinates of their next mission. "The consequences of this will—"
"Will be nothing compared to what happens if the Reapers win!" Shepard snapped, cutting over her once again.
"Let's get the females!" Wrex chimed in, a shamelessly satisfied grin on his broad face that everyone in the room had unanimously turned against the Dalatross.
"You're not setting foot on Sur'Kesh!" the Dalatross objected, her voice cracking with anger. "This will take time to—"
"It happens now," asserted Victus. "As a council Spectre, Shepard can oversee the exchange."
"We're going," Shepard told her, firmly, before turning away again and heading towards the door of the conference room once more.
"I won't forget this, Commander!" the Dalatross called after her. "A bully has few friends when she needs them most!"
But her objections were met with the silence of an empty conference chamber, as Shepard, Wrex, and Victus had already exited, leaving her to wallow in her angry, misplaced superiority alone.
With the respective leaders returned to their people and Sur'Kesh clearly marked on the map, Shepard soon began the painstaking process of attempting to categorize and pull together the needed supplies for their upcoming mission. However, with the war eating up a majority of the galaxy's resources, it was becoming more and more difficult to find even the most basic of necessities, and therefore more and more apparent that her attempts to pull together a suitable cache for their mission to Sur'Kesh from the Normandy's existing stores were going to prove unlikely, if not downright impossible. Easy supplies such as ammunition, medi-gel, and other things which only a few years ago were so copiously and cheaply produced that people did not even think twice about simply leaving their unneeded extras lying around for others who needed them more to merely pick them up as use them were now precious commodities, hoarded by the frightened masses as the galaxy began to turn on itself in some strange, backwards Darwinian effort to be the last planet standing against a threat too large for any one force to realistically take on alone.
To Shepard's added dismay, the abdominal pains she had previously been suffering did not go away as she had expected them to – in fact, the pains only seemed to be getting worse, sometimes to the point that she would have to excuse herself to heave up her meals in her cabin's lavatory. The rash on her thighs did not seem to be going away, either, but at the very least it had begun to scab over, making it less of a constant, brazen pain and more of a passive one. Shepard figured, if anything, these aches and pains were more than likely a result of the stress she was undergoing, though she had never experienced anything quite like them before in her life. Then again, she reasoned, she had never really been under this much stress before in her life, either. Therefore, it stood to reason that she had no precedent on which to base her current condition of stressed-out misery, and thus, she could not say with or without a shadow of a doubt what was causing the aches and pains – only that she hoped that whatever it was would pass, and pass soon.
More distressing than the aches and pains, however, was the amount of strange, unwarranted attention her condition seemed to be garnering her from the ship's daunting Prothean in residence. While before Javik had seemed content to ignore and be ignored, he now seemed to be everywhere Shepard was – watching her from a corner of the mess hall, staring at her from down the walkway in the engine room, never close enough to tell her what it was he found so interesting, but always present, lurking in the corner of her vision. Once or twice, when she caught him skulking within earshot, she had asked him if she could do something to help him, to which he had paused, pensive, before slowly shaking his broad, tapered head.
"I am merely interested," he told her.
Shepard frowned a bit, confused by this vague non-answer. "Interested in what?" she asked.
"Your condition," Javik answered. Then, turning away, he had left the room, leaving her to ponder in baffled silence exactly what condition he was referring to.
Though restocking the Normandy was Shepard's first and foremost concern, she had been meaning to get back to the Citadel for at least a day's time now already after receiving an series of unexpected e-mails. The first message, from a Spectre that Shepard had never met by the name of Jondum Bau, had come entirely out of left field: Bau's e-mail informed her that he, along with a majority of his team working in the Special Tactics and Recon division, had taken her warnings about the Reapers seriously, and that he had some information he believed to be pertinent to her cause. He requested she meet with him at the Citadel to discuss the information, specifically entreating that their meeting be discreet. Shepard had been a bit taken aback by the e-mail, but decided it could do no harm to humour the Spectre's request. At the very worst, his information would be a dead end and she would be right back where she was right now, having only lost a bit of time and patience.
After all, in these uncertain times, it was much better to explore all possible leads, even those that had the potential to lead nowhere, than to leave any stone unturned and risk losing out on some valuable asset or resource.
The second e-mail, from Ashley Williams, had been a bit more uplifting. In it, she told Shepard that she was doing much better, and had even improved enough that the doctors had cleared her to receive regular visitors, though she was not quite ready to be released from their care just yet. She also shared the surprising news that during her stay at the hospital, she had been approached by Councillor Udina, who had offered her the prestigious position of Council Spectre, should she wish to take it. Then again, Shepard figured, it was not really that surprising – Ashley had always been an exceptional soldier, and her sense of honour was second to none. Should she decide to take the offer, she would make an outstanding Spectre, but it seemed, from her e-mail, that she had not yet decided on her answer, and she hoped that Shepard would be willing to stop by to give her some advice on the matter.
The third e-mail, however, had been the most unexpected – it was a message from Thane, explaining that he had tried to get in contact several times before but had failed each time, prompting him to wonder if Shepard were even still alive. In the e-mail, he confided that he had been staying at Huerta Memorial under a false name, Tannor Nuara, but that he would very much like to see her again, if at all possible, "before circumstances force us apart again". Figuring it could not hurt to kill two birds with one stone – or, in this case, four birds – Shepard had given Joker the heads-up to take them to the Hourglass Nebula. Then, taking EDI's currently unoccupied place in the co-pilot's chair, she had pulled the hood of her sweatshirt up over her head, allowing herself a short nap while Joker prepared to bring the ship in for a slingshot jump and a flawless landing.
Generally, she liked to allow Joker his space, but right now she could think of nothing that sounded more enticing than a quick, much-needed nap, safe in the knowledge that Javik would not follow her up to the cockpit and stare at her while she was sleeping. Sometimes it paid to have a pilot with a questionable sense of humour.
Things had changed on the Citadel. Almost nothing looked the same way it had six months ago. Though the layout of the place was familiar, it felt almost strangely bare. What had once been welcoming, almost garishly commercialized carpeted floors were now polished steel; decorative neon signs that had once adorned the walls, pointing in the direction of the various individual locations, had been replaced with large, almost tablet-like maps that pointed in the general direction of everything at once; what had once been a chatter of accessible radio, news, and advertisement kiosks had been replaced by giant screens that advertised to everyone at the same time and one overpowering announcement voice that came over the intercom every so often to assure everyone that everything was still in the same place it had always been, and that they were welcome to visit whenever they so chose.
Everything that might have cost extra time or money to keep running had been eliminated, leaving the Citadel feeling almost scrubbed clean, like a surgical room. It was an unnerving feeling, and one that Shepard could not imagine inspired much confidence in those who, like she, had taken note in it. The place was minimizing, preparing itself for war. Still, it was not as if she could not see the thought behind it, or even the necessity. It would be foolish to spend extra time, money, and effort to keep up appearances when that same time, money, and effort could be spent on protecting the same people the Citadel had once only pandered to commercially.
Now arriving at Huerta Memorial Hospital.
At the sound of the elevator arriving to their floor, Dr. Michel looked up, and, catching sight of Shepard over Dr. Chakwas' shoulder, she nodded her head in the Commander's direction. Catching this subtle motion, Chakwas turned, glancing over her shoulder, before turning around to face Shepard entirely, offering her a genial, familiar smile and folding her hands together in front of her in her usual, reserved manner. "Shepard!" Chakwas said, her tone sounding amicable but otherwise unsurprised. "There you are."
"Karin," Shepard answered, hardly trying to hide the note of surprise in her own voice. "You're here?"
Chakwas turned, glancing back towards Dr. Michel, who gave a faint nod before turning and starting to walk away. Shepard's distracted gaze followed the redheaded doctor as she departed, before she finally turned her attention back to Chakwas, who was watching her with a sort of calm, detached interest, almost motherly in a way, something which Shepard found oddly calming, especially here in Huerta, with so many of the people around her losing or having already lost those closest to them in the war. "I'm working at an Alliance R&D lab down in Shalta Wards," Chakwas answered Shepard's question, folding her arms over her thin chest matter-of-factly. "Coordinating closely with Admiral Hackett. I heard you escaped Earth in the Normandy, and that someone was critically injured. I came as fast as I could."
"We had a run-in with a Cerberus synthetic on Mars," Shepard answered, her tone grim, folding her own arms in response to the motion. "Ashley took the worst of it. How is she doing?"
"Very well, all things considered," Chakwas answered, giving an approving nod before letting her arms fall back to her sides, tired but comfortable. "I am impressed with Lieutenant Commander Williams' resilience, as well as Dr. Michel's expertise. I wish I could have been there to help on Mars."
Shepard faltered, unsure of how to respond to this. On the one hand, Chakwas had a point – had she been there when Ashley was initially injured, she could have been of quite some help, and they might never have had to have taken Ashley to Huerta to treat her wounds. On the other hand, having Chakwas there with them would have run the risk of her getting unnecessarily hurt, and, thankfully enough, Ashley had been resilient enough to pull through on her own just fine until she managed to reach the safety and medical expertise available at Huerta Memorial. Shifting her weight again, Shepard wet her lips, taking a deep breath and instead changing the subject, "It's been six months, Doctor. How have you been?"
At the question, Chakwas hesitated, and then turned away from Shepard, moving instead towards the window, where a beam of synthetic light shone through onto the bleached metal floorboards, warm and inviting. The imitation light of the Citadel reminded Shepard of springtime sunlight back on Earth, and it never failed to disappoint her to remember that here it was not coming from an organic source at all. "Good," Chakwas answered, coming to a stop in front of the window and folding her hands in front of her again, reserved. "I've been fortunate. When they impounded Normandy, the Alliance didn't really know what to do with me. I was never officially part of Cerberus, and I'd gotten a proper leave of absence from my previous post."
Moving up to stand beside Chakwas at the window, Shepard noted the way the light threw their shadows across the pristine floor of the hospital, and could not help but notice how lean the doctor's shadow was. Turning to look at Chakwas again, she took a moment to observe the woman, and for the first time, she realized how sickly thin the doctor had gotten since the last time she had seen her. It was an almost startling transformation – Karin had always been a petite woman, but it seemed that stress had taken its toll on the usually unflappable English doctor. Dark lines had formed under her bright blue eyes, and she walked with a faint, tired slump of her thin shoulders, as if she carried the metaphorical weight of the world upon them.
"So you hadn't technically done anything wrong by joining me to defeat the Collectors," Shepard concluded.
"Yes," Chakwas agreed, matter-of-factly. "Though I suppose if you were judged to be war criminal, I would have been tried as an accessory."
"Your place is in Normandy's med bay, Doctor. Not some lab."
"I couldn't agree more," Chakwas conceded. "Working here has been… edifying, but it's just not the same. So much pain and suffering… never the same faces twice, and when there are, it's never good. I want to do my part in this war, but there's only so much of this place I can stand before I start to lose a bit of myself to it. You just say the word and I'm with you."
"The Normandy wouldn't be the same without you, Doctor," Shepard told her, offering her a small, reassuring smile. She could see what Chakwas meant – just walking in the door of the Hospital had filled her with an unnerving sense of dread and finality, so she could not even imagine what it must be like for someone like Chakwas, spending all her time there tending to the sick and dying, never knowing if the person she was talking to one minute would be gone the next. "Go ahead and get your things. We're stationed at Docking Bay D24."
"Yes, Commander," Chakwas breathed, folding her hands together again, unmasked relief in her refined voice. "And thank you."
"Don't thank me so soon," Shepard joshed. "Remember: Joker is still aboard."
"And I'd be surprised if he's remembering his medication," Chakwas answered, just as droll, though Shepard could not help but note the faint hint of actual annoyance at this all-too-dependable behaviour. Then, feeling that the conversation had come to an agreeable end, Chakwas turned, starting towards the offices near the entrance of Huerta Memorial. Shepard, similarly satisfied, started to make her way in the direction of the care rooms when a familiar voice called her back, stopping her in her tracks. She could feel her stomach drop at the greeting, and though she felt guilty for feeling that way, she could not help it as she turned to face her addresser, forcing an uncomfortable but amicable smile to her face.
"Siha," Thane addressed her, nearly bouncing on his thinly-clad heels as he came to stand in front of her. "I heard Earth was under attack. I didn't know you made it out."
"Thane," Shepard responded, feigning happy surprise. "It's been too long. I was beginning to think I would never see you again." A small part of her had been hoping that she could have avoided him on this trip to the Citadel, but she supposed it was inevitable that he would find her. After all, she never went anywhere without some small sort of fanfare in her wake, whether she liked it or not, and he was one of the top assassins in the galaxy, always with his ear to the ground. In all honesty, she had been wanting to see him again, but on her own time, when she felt more secure about everything going on in her life, both personally and professionally. Her relationship with Thane, if it could have been called that, had ended rather abruptly when she had been court-martialled on Earth and made to stay in the Alliance facility for six months, out of contact with anyone from her crew. Not that she had done much of anything to combat that – the time spent on her own had been refreshing, and had allowed her time to clear her head.
"Good to see you staying in shape," she told him, grasping at straws for something positive to say.
"My disease kills slowly," Thane explained, matter-of-fact. "With enough care and a healthy lifestyle, it can be delayed for a few years." As he continued to stare at her, taking her in, Shepard could feel herself all but fidget under his longing, scrutinising gaze. From the start, she and the drell had had very different ideas of where their so-called relationship was apt to go – he was a romantic at heart, whereas she dismissed the idea of true love and instead preferred to concentrate on what made her feel good in the here and now. Thane had been much more invested in the relationship than she ever had, calling her his warrior goddess and insinuating that she made his life so much better despite the disease that was slowly eating away at him. She, on the other hand, had not been interested in him much further than on a sexual level, but had been too afraid of hurting his feelings to tell him so.
Admittedly, his doting, constant attention, and claims of affection had all been nice while they had lasted, but Shepard had realized, even back then, that although she enjoyed the attention he gave her, she could never commit to him the way he would have wanted her to. That sort of attachment was simply beyond her short-term capabilities, and so, when she had been presented with the opportunity to forgo speaking to him for a long period of time, she had all but jumped at it. She had hoped that the six months spent apart with no contact would have lessened his feelings for her, but it seemed that her hopes had been in vain as he reached forward, taking her hands in his, holding them tenderly.
"Of course, my allotted time has come and gone," Thane added, thoughtfully. "Now I exercise because it pleases me."
"I see," Shepard answered, unsure of what else there was to say in the situation. She allowed him to hold onto her hands for another moment, letting him familiarize himself with their feel, before slipping her hands out of his grasp, flexing her fingers as she tried to dismiss the feel of his cool, almost amphibious touch against her skin.
"I sent a few messages while you were incarcerated," Thane told her then, seeming almost not to notice her level of discomfort, or politely ignoring it for the sake of amity. "I suspect they never got past the guards. But… what are you doing here?"
"Visiting a friend who got hurt protecting me," Shepard answered, thankful for the opportunity to shift the subject away from their strained relationship, or lack thereof. "Ashley."
"The dark-haired human woman in intensive care…" Thane seemed thoughtful for a moment, his dark, glassy gaze diverting from her face, before turning his attention back to her and offering a reassuring hand of encouragement. "She will be starting physical therapy with my class soon," he said.
"That's her," Shepard confirmed, giving a short nod.
"Your enemies may try to finish her off here," Thane observed, before adding, reassuringly, "but I will look out for her. As long as she is here, consider her under my protection."
"I appreciate it, Thane," Shepard consented, reaching forward to offer him a friendly, grateful touch on the shoulder. It was only after she had pulled back from the gesture that she realized that it had probably not been the best idea – physical contact signified an extension of familiarity, one she had tried to cut short when she had pulled away after he had taken her hands. Offering it up again meant that it would be that much harder to shake him when she needed to leave to visit Ashley, or to head back to the Normandy. Thane seemed to realize it, too, and for a moment he seemed to linger on it, giving his head a meditative tilt to one side and shifting musingly between the pressure points of his feet. Then, straightening again, he offered Shepard a thoughtful stare, his black, reptilian eyes almost expectant as they fixed on her, waiting on her next move.
"I am near the end of my life," the drell suddenly spoke again, breaking the uncomfortable silence that had fallen between them. "It is a good time to be generous. Kepral's Syndrome has put most of my other plans on hold."
Shepard hesitated, taken aback by his frankness, before giving a half-awkward shrug of one shoulder. "I'm back on the Normandy on an important mission," she told him. "I could use you there, if you'd be willing to come along."
Thane paused, considering this a moment. Then, finally, he gave a slow, candid shake of his head. "I cannot," he answered, truthfully. "I would not be as I was before. I need daily medical attention, and if I know you, you will want to fight the Reapers somehow. You need the best at your side, and I am not at mine." Folding his unusual hands together, he brought them to rest against the base of his ribcage, watching Shepard with a silent, observant bearing. "I am at peace with what I have done with my life, Shepard," he finally broke the silence again. "There comes a time when one must rest from war and conflict. It is not your time, but it is mine." He fell silent again, pensive, before finally taking a deep breath and lifting his chin, proud.
"I have only a few loves left, but you are my last," he told her then, the depth of the statement almost startling. "I may not be able to fight the Reapers at your side as I once did, but let me do what I can for you."
Shepard hesitated for a moment, unsure of how to respond. Then, abandoning her paranoia of physical contact, she leaned forward, planting a soft, quick kiss of thanks on his cheek. "I wish the best for you, Thane," she told him, earnest. Thane smiled in response, but there was something wan in his expression, almost as if he did not believe her, or could read right through the noncommittal nature of her reply.
"I think of you often, Siha," he confessed. "Live well in the time you have. Perhaps… we will see each other again."
"Perhaps we will," Shepard agreed. Then, giving Thane's hands one last, reassuring squeeze, she released them, feeling an unexpected sense of closure as she turned away from him, making her way towards the Inpatient Wards, and Ashley.
Perhaps seeing Thane again had not been such a bad thing after all.
Shepard's visit with Ashley had been, though short, satisfactory. She had been glad to see that her loyal friend was, at the very least, doing better, and in the course of what small amount of conversation they had managed to have before Ashley had succumbed back to healing sleep, Shepard had managed to learn a bit about the Lieutenant-Commander's family, those in the service as well as those still back on Earth. She enjoyed learning about her crew members, and Ashley's family history in particular had always been interesting to her in the way it had shaped the dark-haired woman's thoughts and motivations as a soldier. A few who had served on the same crew as herself, Williams, and Alenko back during the proud run of the first Normandy had sometimes been put off by Ashley's talk of religion, as well as her hesitation towards openly trusting any aliens they happened to come across, but Shepard had never been one to take sides without first learning everything there was to know about someone, and what made them think the way they did.
It was a good thing she had, too, as it had brought her that much closer to the woman who would quickly become one of her dearest friends. Having to choose between her and Lieutenant Alenko had been a crushing blow; he, too, had been a very dear friend, but he had volunteered without hesitation to stay behind on Virmire so that the rest of them could get to safety – a selfless act of heroism which, despite the years that had gone by since its execution, had never quite left Shepard.
However, she was determined not to let sad memories quell her good spirits as she took the central elevator down to the Presidium Commons, interested to know how the more frivolous parts of the Citadel had changed since her last visit. Like everything else in the Citadel, the Presidium had become jam-packed with industry, from armour and ammo shops squeezed so close together that single counters were being used for two or three different storefronts at a time, to apartment blocks with doors barely ten feet apart, suggesting apartments that could not have been much larger than Shepard's quarters on the Normandy, and likely smaller. Large, attention-grabbing advertisements covered every available free surface, and what had once apparently been a free-range lounge area had since been converted into a banking centre, with several sticky-fingered volus bankers ready and willing to take the credits of anyone dumb enough to open an account at the near-peak of the war.
Still, it seemed that some things had not changed. The beautiful vegetation that had always, to Shepard, given the Presidium a comforting atmosphere was still there, growing out of every polished ledge and corner tile, and the crystal clear filtered moat still bubbled with life, its lapping surface playfully catching and reflecting the beams of the Citadel's artificial lightsource. The stores and common areas buzzed with people conversing in low voices about the rise in prices and the state of the war, but it was not difficult to tune them out until all that Shepard could hear was a dull, wordless hum. Then, catching sight of what appeared to be a familiar face, Shepard turned, making her way down the stairs and moving across the squeaky, polished floors until she stood at the bar of the Apollo Café, offering a genial, if somewhat forced, smile of recognition to the café's asari bartender.
"Hey there," she said, causing the asari to look up, seeming not entirely surprised at having been interrupted. Pausing in her work, the asari observed Shepard for a short moment, searching her extensive memory for where she had seen the woman before, and then, seeming to remember, she smiled back at the Commander, indicating towards her with the dish-rag she held.
"Hey, I remember you," the asari said, sounding at least moderately happy to see a familiar face. "Shepard, right? Heard you're fighting the Reapers." Setting down the dish-towel, she bent, pulling a glass and a vial of blue liquid from under the counter. Then, opening the vial, she poured it into the glass before sliding the glass towards Shepard across the bar.
"Matriarch Aethyta," Shepard replied, a knowing smirk turning up a corner of her mouth as she pulled the glass of blue liquid the rest of the way towards her. "You were working on Illium, last I saw you." Picking up her glass, she took a sip from it, careful not to down it all at once. She had learned from experience to pace herself when dealing with alien liquor.
"Yeah," Aethyta replied, giving a humourless huff of a laugh as she stashed the dish-towel she had previously been using under the bar. "Illium. Won't be going back there anytime soon. Not the way things are going now."
"Why?" Shepard asked, running the pad of her finger pensively along the edge of her glass. "Has Cerberus taken it over, like Omega?"
"Cerberus?" Aethyta asked, almost surprised by the question. "Nah, not Cerberus. They haven't touched it, shockingly. Not that they had to, anyway. Illium did a fine job destroying itself without their help."
"What happened?" Shepard asked. Then, frowning, she lifted her glass to her lips, taking another thoughtful sip.
"Fear," Aethyta answered frankly. "There's no more effective weapon in the entire galaxy. You scare a group of people enough, and they'll turn on each other like a pack of wild varren."
"So people got scared and… left?" Shepard asked.
"More or less," Aethyta replied. "But it didn't happen overnight. It was slow, like a poison." Spotting a patron getting up to leave, she turned, moving down the bar to collect their used glass, before returning to stand across from Shepard again, retrieving her dish-towel from under the bar and starting to clean the glass. "Fear turned what was once the most thriving industrial planet in the galaxy into… barely more than a glorified ghost town," she told her, her bare brows drawing together into a hardened frown. "People stopped trusting one another. Pretty soon paranoia began to set in, and people who'd been friends, even the best of friends, started to turn on one another. It was… a nightmare."
Finished cleaning the glass, she stooped, setting it underneath the bar, before starting to clean the bar top distractedly with the cloth in sharp, practiced circles. "By the time I finally got outta there, barely any shops were still left open," she went on. "And those that were had to be under constant armed protection to prevent looters from trying to steal the grossly overpriced merchandise. The only place that still seemed to get any business before I left was the bar, and even then never to anyone lookin' to have fun…" Here she sighed, stopping in her cleaning to look up at Shepard with an expression of melancholy. "Only those trying to drown their grief," she said. "Or turn a blind eye to the inevitable."
"So how'd you end up here?" Shepard asked, taking another drink from her glass, distracted.
"Eh, with the Reapers making noise I figured it was time to get somewhere safer," Aethyta returned, almost dismissive, seeming only too glad to change the subject and shed the unhappy sentiment of before. "So I moved here."
Shepard narrowed her eyes, staring at Aethyta for a moment, as if trying to gage the truth in her answer, before finally shaking her head. "I don't think so," she answered. "I've seen some video footage… of you looking at Liara." At this, she turned, glancing over towards where the young asari scientist sat, and Aethyta followed her gaze, silent, before finally letting out a soft, conceding sigh.
"Yeah…" she admitted. She shifted uncomfortably, resting her hip against the edge of the bar and sliding her hand back and forth across its surface, thoughtful, before finally looking up at Shepard again. "Matriarch Benezia was, um… was her mother," she told her. "And, uh… well, she doesn't know it, but… I was her father."
Shepard frowned, taken aback, her finger stopping in its distracted rounds on the edge of her glass as she stared at the asari in front of her. "You mean you were her other mother, right?" she asked, confused.
"No, I didn't pop her out," Aethyta answered, annoyed, as if this were the most obvious thing in the world. "Hell, she's never even met me."
"Sorry," Shepard replied, still confused but trying not to show it. "If you were human, you would both be called the mother, regardless of… which one gave birth."
"Well, I'm not human, am I?" Aethyta snapped, visibly irritated now. "Anthropocentric bag of dicks."
Realizing her clueless commentary may very well have caused her to overstay her welcome, Shepard quickly finished off her drink, sliding the empty glass across the bar counter towards Aethyta, before nodding her head in the direction of Liara, who sat across the courtyard from the two of them, reading distractedly from a datapad, seemingly in her own little world. "I think Liara would love to meet you," Shepard said, trying in earnest to change the subject to something more agreeable.
"Why?" Aethyta asked, picking up the empty glass and cleaning it with a quick jerk of her wrist before stuffing it back below the counter with the others. "She doesn't even know me from a hole in the ground. Benezia ran off before the kid was born…" She hesitated, turning to glance over towards Liara, and let out another small, penitent sigh. "Besides, this isn't charity work," she added. "She's one of the biggest intel brokers in the galaxy. And she's got some shady connections…." At this, she turned to look at Shepard again, knowing. "Like a girlfriend who used to work for Cerberus…" she said. "Sound… familiar…?"
"I only worked with Cerberus to fight the Reapers," Shepard quickly countered, defensive.
"And you're not with them now, I know," Aethyta replied, her own hackles visibly rising to meet the Commander's. "If you were, you wouldn't get within a lightyear of Liara."
"Is that a threat?" Shepard hissed, all but challenging the matriarch.
"I'm no Commando, but I've had a thousand years to learn to fight dirty," Aethyta replied, her voice dark. "Nobody messes with my girl." Then, seeming to cool down, Aethyta picked up her cloth again, starting to wipe down the already-clean bar once more, preoccupied. "Anyway, you combine her work with Benezia, and… well, the matriarchs might have ordered a hit if I hadn't agreed to keep an eye on her."
"That's not gonna happen," Shepard snapped, defensive.
"No argument here," Aethyta answered, holding up her hands in a gesture of truce. "I only took these crap jobs to keep the matriarchs happy that she's under control."
For another instant, Shepard allowed herself to seethe, letting her emotions play themselves out before she tried to overcome them with the practiced calm she had been working on since finding herself on thin ice with the Alliance, with her every move under scrutiny. It paid to have self-control in this line of work, but she also knew that if she tried too hard to keep her emotions bottled up, they would eventually bubble over and she would explode. It was better to give herself time to cool down during each confrontation than to depend on isolated instances of private emotion to balance out the forced stretches of calm. She knew officers who had tried that tactic before, and most of them had failed miserably.
"I bet she'd like to meet you," Shepard finally said, returning the conversation to the amicable tone it had been before Aethyta's derailing comment about Shepard's questionable allegiance to Cerberus.
Aethyta hesitated, and then, trying hard to keep the look of near-hopefulness from her expression, she glanced over towards Liara, who sat at a far corner table in the café, reading off of a datapad, seeming completely wrapped up in her work. "Yeah," Aethyta finally replied, sceptical, turning back towards Shepard again. "We'll see how that goes."
Shepard tapped her index finger thoughtfully against the edge of her glass, considering Aethyta as she did so. The matriarch was no fool; she could read Shepard like an open book, and knew all too well that the Commander was easy prey to reverse psychology, and a sucker for a challenge. Everyone had heard about the infamous suicide run Shepard and her crew had taken into the heart of the Collector base, and had learned that the phrases 'don't do that' or 'you can't do that' only served as open invitations for the Commander to prove the naysayer wrong. Finishing off her drink, Shepard slid the glass back across the bar towards Aethyta, making a quick pass across the digital reader in the countertop with the hand her omni-tool brace was equipped to, transferring digital funds from her account to the café.
Making her way across the café to where Liara sat in her isolated corner, Shepard moved up behind the young asari, resting her hand against the edge of Liara's chair and looking over her shoulder at the datapad she seemed so intent on. The scrolling text made little sense to her, but she was sure it was important to Liara, and likely something the asari would not appreciate being spied on while studying. "Still working?" Shepard asked her, making her presence known, and Liara looked up from her datapad, soft surprise in her expression at having been pulled away from her work, before seeing Shepard and setting the datapad down in front of her, letting out a small, weary sigh.
"One call leads to another," she told her. "And here I was hoping I'd have time to enjoy the view." Getting up from her seat, she crossed to the railing overlooking the artificial moat, propping her gloved hands against the bar and leaning into it, staring out across the expanse of the Presidium, seeming almost lost in thought. "The last time I saw the Presidium… remember how it was all rubble after Sovereign attacked?"
"I barely got to see the Presidium before half of it got crushed," Shepard answered truthfully.
"And by the time they repaired it, it was time for the next invasion," Liara added. Crossing her ankles in a dancer's waiting posture, she turned her head to glance back at Shepard, her usually gentle expression stern. "The Citadel hasn't seen the reality of this war yet," she told the Commander. "We should stock up on necessities while we can."
"Such as?" Shepard prompted.
"Eezo," Liara answered simply. "Heavy arms…" Turning back towards the moat, she leaned her elbows against the café's railing, letting out a long, tired sigh as she stared out at the view, seeming to look through it rather than at it as she ran over and over in her head the list of things the Normandy would need if it were to have a chance to survive to the end of the Reaper war. "Mercenary groups…"
"We'll get the people," Shepard told her, reaching out to put a reassuring hand on the young asari's back. "Take a moment for yourself now and then."
"I know, I know," Liara conceded, turning away from the Presidium view to move back towards her table, seating herself in front of her still-scrolling datapad. "But there's always one more task or meeting…"
"Speaking of meetings," Shepard said, thankful for the easy segue in the conversation as she slid into the straight-backed chair across from Liara's, "that bartender over there—"
"The matriarch hired by the asari government to track my movements?" Liara asked, barely missing a beat. Shepard knew she should be used to Liara producing this sort of uncanny knowledge at the drop of a hat by now, but it still took her by surprise how unaffected the asari seemed to be by this information, and for a moment she could only stare at her friend in stunned, awkward limbo.
"She's your father," she finally blurted out.
"I know," Liara replied.
"You… you know?" Shepard asked, now completely thrown off-guard. If Liara had known this information before, why had she not said something – or, more pressingly, why had she not gone over and talked to Aethyta herself? The matriarch had clearly wanted to establish a connection with her Shadow Broker daughter, but it seemed that Liara had intentionally kept the fact that she knew that small bit of information to herself, though for the life of her Shepard could not quite figure out why.
"I'm a very good information broker," Liara answered simply, the faintest hint of sarcasm in her usually passive tone.
"And you haven't talked to her about spying on you?" Shepard asked, her brow furrowing in confusion.
"If I did that, they might send someone who wasn't as sympathetic to me," Liara told her, matter-of-factly. "Besides, this is hardly the time for family reunions."
"Liara," Shepard scolded.
Liara faltered a moment, shocked at having been scolded by her best friend, before pursing her blue lips and frowning indignantly. "Oh, fine," she huffed. Then, getting to her feet, she began to move away from Shepard across the café towards the bar where Aethyta stood, her stitched tailcoats giving an agitated little twitch as she walked, and Shepard could barely help a wry smile from inching across her face at the sight.
She might not have been til-death-do-us-part material, but damn if she didn't have a cute butt.
Almost everyone on the Citadel was familiar with C-Sec, though few seemed impressed with them, which did not seem like such a strange turn of events. C-Sec had hardly ever come with star-studded recommendations, especially from those not involved in its ranks – between reports of dirty policework and those who actually worked to uphold a clean system struggling to keep up with all the cases assigned to the point that they could not help dropping the metaphorical ball left and right, it came as no surprise that the young couple Shepard spoke to when asking about the offices of certain C-Sec officials had initially met her inquiry with a scoff before finally divulging to her where the offices had been moved to since the rearrangement of the Citadel to better fit the need for wartime efficiency.
Bailey's new office did not take her long to find – nestled into a tiny corner of wallspace right down the hall from the Spectre base of operations and Councillor Udina's office in the Citadel Embassies, it was the first door she came to after a short walk up a flight of highly-polished stairs. She could hardly help but pick up a few hints of conversation wafting up from the desk that had been set up to take care of any questions and concerns regarding wartime affairs, and she felt a pang of pity for all the men and woman asking about their loved ones. However, these thoughts were quickly dispelled the instant she saw the door of Bailey's office open and two familiar figures emerge, locked in what appeared to be a forcefully civilized battle of wills.
"There is no antihuman conspiracy here, Miss Al-Jilani," Bailey assured the dark-haired reporter, and Shepard could clearly hear the note of annoyance in his straightforward tone as he clasped his hands in front of him, cordial despite what she could only guess was his natural instinct towards vexation. "The Council is simply not granting interviews at this time."
"My viewers are going to know that C-Sec and the Council are denying them access," Al-Jilani replied, unimpressed, folding her arms and cocking her hip to one side in disapproval as she came to a stubborn stop just outside of Bailey's office door.
"Listen, lady," Bailey sighed, irritated, his hands clenching, even in the passive gesture he held them in. "You think I like playing gatekeeper between the politicians and the paparazzi? I don't have time to babysit them and I'm not here to hold your hand."
Pursing her lips, Al-Jilani held her ground, weighing her options for a moment. Then, dropping her stance, she instead propped one hand on her hip, using the other to point accusatorily towards Bailey, who barely reacted to the display apart from blinking tiredly at her. "Well I'm camping out until I'm granted an audience!" Al-Jilani insisted, sounding ruffled but no less determined than when she had first come in.
Realizing he was fighting a losing battle, Bailey merely sighed. "Fine," he told her, unclasping his hands and allowing them to fall resignedly at his sides. "I hope you brought a sleeping bag." Having said his piece, Bailey turned, disappearing back into his office and letting the automatic door shut behind him with a hiss. For an instant, Al-Jilani seemed put off, clutching her digital memo pad to her chest, her thin fingers tapping agitatedly against the polished edges, as if contemplating her next best plan of action. Then, catching sight of movement in her peripheral, she turned, and when she saw the Commander, her eyes instantly widened, seeming to have forgotten entirely the rudeness of her previous pseudo-interview.
"Commander Shepard!" Al-Jilani exclaimed, holding up a hand to draw the Commander's attention to her. In truth, the gesture had been unnecessary – Shepard was already well aware of the interviewer's presence, and even if she had not been, Khalisah was a hard woman to miss, with her signature brightly-coloured work attire and the little white camera-bot that always floated just behind her right shoulder, bobbing happily in the air like a deceptively carefree buoy as it captured her every critical moment for the media world to see. "Commander, the people of the Alliance have questions!"
Sliding her hands into the spacious pockets of her jacket, Shepard turned to face Al-Jilani, preparing herself for yet another barrage of backhanded questioning. Her rash was beginning to burn again, but she clenched her teeth, forcing herself not to react to it in front of the reporter. If Al-Jilani caught wind of Shepard having so much as a bug bite, she was sure the journalist would use it to her advantage to claim that the Commander was in some way distracted from her duties. That was the way the media was – they like to take a small story and exacerbate it into a galactic disaster. It was only a pity they had chosen to do the opposite when it came to Shepard's initial exposure of the Reapers – had Al-Jilani only been working with her this whole time, rather than against her, then the galaxy might have been better prepared for the now-inevitable Reaper attack.
"Commander Shepard!" Al-Jilani prompted her. "Khalisah Bint Sinan al-Jilani."
"I know who you are," Shepard sighed, trying her best to sound patient, but even her feigned patience was beginning to wear thin.
"I—yes," Al-Jilani answered, quickly. "Now, isn't it true that you were on Earth when the Reapers attacked? How do you justify running away while millions of people on Earth die? Is that the best we can expect from the Alliance?" As she spoke, the little camera-bot popped up over her shoulder, its lens widening expectantly as it stared Shepard down, and Shepard could hardly keep from glaring into it. Khalisah she could deal with on any given day with little to no trouble, but she really hated that camera.
"I came to get help for Earth," Shepard explained simply, her speech slow and steady, countering Al-Jilani's heated demands for answers. "For everyone."
"What about all the people suffering while you play politics with the Council? What about them?" Al-Jilani pressed, and for the first time Shepard could hear the fever pitch of desperation creeping steadily upward in the interviewer's voice, and found herself feeling a pang of actual pity for the woman. It had never occurred to her before now that Al-Jilani might have family on Earth just like everyone else, but as she spoke, the Commander could not help her heart from going out to the other woman. "How can you stand here while our families die? What are you going to do—?!"
"Khalisah," Shepard suddenly spoke, her voice gentle, stopping the interviewer cold. Then, taking a step forward, she placed a reassuring hand on the woman's shoulder, levelling her gaze with Al-Jilani's deep sea-green eyes, kindly but stern. "We're doing everything we can," she assured her.
"Before they cut the feeds… there were so many dead…" Al-Jilani pleaded, her tone desperate, as if hoping for something, anything, any words of reassurance from the Commander that everything she had seen so far had been wrong.
"I'm gonna stop the Reapers or die trying, but I need your help," Shepard told her, keeping her voice calm but steady. "Keep asking the hard questions, Khalisah. Don't let the Council forget about Earth."
For a moment, Al-Jilani seemed speechless, unsure of what to say, how to respond to this show of unexpected sincerity and good will. Then, clutching her microphone, she gave a single, understanding nod. "I will," she said, her voice quiet but determined. "Thank you, Commander."
Returning the gesture, Shepard let her hands slide off of the reporter's shoulders, allowing Khalisah to begin to walk away, and, as she did, Shepard turned as well, heading towards Bailey's office. Then, suddenly –
"Wait," Al-Jilani said, holding out an imploring hand towards the Commander's retreating back. Shepard stopped, taken aback by the journalist's sudden change of pace, but, rather than turning to face Al-Jilani again, she simply looked at the ground, sliding her hands into her pockets and silently indicating her willingness to listen, if only for a moment. Retrieving her hand, Al-Jilani took a quick, shuddering breath, readying herself to speak. "Listen, Commander," she said, her voice tentative as she took a cautious step forward towards the other woman. "I know we haven't always been on the best of terms, but I… had an idea." Al-Jilani paused then, biting her lip, clearly nervous to go on, but Shepard turned around to face her, giving the other woman her full, undivided attention.
"I'm listening," she said.
"Commander," Al-Jilani said again, her fingers curling anxiously around the handle of her microphone, twisting it nervously as she attempted to figure out how to word what she was trying to say. "What if… I were to report… from aboard the Normandy? That way, my viewers can get a good look at what's really going on there, and I can give the world the real story of the fight against the Reapers, right from the frontlines."
She hesitated again, seeing the stern look of scepticism on the Commander's face, but then, taking another step forward, she took a quick, sharp breath, anxiously twisting the microphone between her hands even harder. "I wouldn't be in the way," she assured her. "I'd only ask for interviews when people wanted to give them. I wouldn't make a nuisance of myself, I promise. Plus, I-I'd be happy to sleep just about anywhere. I just… I really think this is the opportunity of a lifetime, to show the world what's really happening and let them know exactly who's fighting for them. That way, even if you do die while fighting the Reapers, you'll live on in infamy in all the vids I've captured of you and your crew along the way."
Al-Jilani smiled, the gesture appearing almost painfully forced, her entire body seeming to tense up at the prospect of the greatest war story ever covered on galactic television. "What do you say?" she asked enthusiastically.
"I have no interest in living on in infamy," Shepard answered bluntly, and she could almost sense Al-Jilani deflating like a stuck party balloon. "And I hate to tell you, but if we die, you would more than likely die, too. You remember what happened to the last Normandy."
"Right, but that was… almost three years ago," Al-Jilani argued, a tone of desperation rising in her voice now. "Please, Commander. This is the story I've waited my whole life to do. The Real Commander Shepard: Courageous War Hero, or Ruthless Warmonger?" Clutching her microphone to her chest, she gave a long sigh, her dark sea-green eyes all but lighting up at the prospect of the exposé.
"You don't have many friends, do you, Khalisah?" Shepard asked, deadpan.
"Oh please, Commander," Al-Jilani begged, seeming to completely ignore the question. "Please…!"
Shepard sighed, bringing a hand up and letting her head rest in it for a moment, her other hand propped resignedly against her hip. Then, letting her hand fall back to her side, she looked up at Al-Jilani again, weary understanding in her bright-green eyes. "Fine," she answered, her voice quiet, simply too tired to argue anymore. "Just so long as I get veto power over the segments you file. I don't want any sensitive information about myself or any of my crew going public all through the galaxy. Understand?"
"Of course," Al-Jilani answered instantaneously, but Shepard could still detect a faint hint of disappointment in her voice.
"Okay then," Shepard told her, strictly-business. "Report to the ship as soon as possible. Any questions?"
"How much gear can I bring?" Al-Jilani asked, a familiar squaring of her shoulders and perk to her posture as she once again returned to the role of the inquiring mind. It seemed that no matter the setting, that was what she felt most comfortable doing – asking questions. It was no wonder she chose journalism to be her profession. Shepard only hoped her inquisitive nature would not get in the way of her crewmembers doing their duties efficiently.
"One footlocker," Shepard answered simply, and she was relieved when Al-Jilani did not instantly object to the regulation. She guessed that, with the war and everything going on, everyone had been forced to make hard choices, and nobody could really count on all of their possessions still being there when the worst of the carnage was over. One footlocker, or one cargo bag, seemed like just enough storage space to carry the absolute essentials – the sentimental heirlooms, the things someone simply could not live without. For Shepard, the destruction of her first ship and her consequent displacement to an entirely new allegiance and environment had taught her to live with just what she carried on her person, but she knew that others with less drastic backgrounds could not be asked to do the same, and one footlocker seemed a reasonable compromise.
"Thank you, Commander," Al-Jilani told her, giving her another appreciative nod. "I'll go get ready right away." Al-Jilani turned, starting to head towards the elevators, then, seeming to remember something, she turned back again, this time pointing an indicative finger towards Shepard. "Commander," she said. "We haven't always seen eye-to-eye, but I'm glad you're on our side."
Then, satisfied that she had gotten to say her piece, Al-Jilani turned back towards the elevators again, leaving Shepard to watch her disappear into the crowd, before shaking her head and muttering to herself, "I just hope you're on our side."