The meeting with the Matriarchs had been rather... intense. They always seemed to be, only this time I had had both Benezia and Aethyta to deal with. Aethyta was a lot more similar to what I remembered than Benezia had been. She didn't beat around the bush that one, she was direct and quite smart too. I had dropped a rather short explanation on the Collectors right there on her lap, and she had picked up the thread and pulled without even blinking, already penciling in details of a plan I had barely started to pierce together in my head.
And she was very different from Benezia. Chalk and cheese, really. Their byplay was interesting to watch, but hard to follow. There was a lot of unsaid subtext between every look and gesture they exchanged.
Nonetheless, I was really looking forward to a good dinner and better rest. Maka was supposedly arriving in another day, so I had a chance to at least sleep in the decadently luxurious suite that I had been confined to the first time I had boarded Benezia's private yacht. Sure, it had been a bit of a prison at the time, but that bed could make even a salarian oversleep.
I was, however, a bit surprised when not an hour after the meeting there was a chime at the door. Maybe they forgot to ask me something.
"Come in," I called from the bed. I had been laying there going through the available in-ship music - due to the lack of extranet - and had discovered that salarian music was actually hilarious. Not in Mordin's Gilbert & Sullivan's way, but it was so fast, and so hectic, that some of the pieces just had me rolling on the floor laughing at how hysterical they were. Some of them were downright awesome.
My laughter died down like a hot iron plunged in water when the door opened and Shiala walked in. I had talked at length about my Three Weeks in Paradise with Benezia and Aethyta, but it wasn't until that moment that my brain took a step back and remembered what had happened before my little holiday. The moment before I woke up in the Cerberus cell. Marie's visit to my apartment in Arcturus.
"Roy!" she said, the relief in her voice as clear as on her face. "Goddess I was so worried, I'm..." She stopped walking and looked at me. I couldn't see my face, but given that I was making no effort to hide my anger, my face probably spoke volumes for me. "What's wrong?"
Ten different ideas fought for dominance, trying to be the first ones to come out of my mouth. Each one worse than the other. I carefully put my feet down, sitting at the edge of the bed now, and gestured for her to sit down next to me. I didn't say a word.
"Are you feeling all right?" Shiala said, carefully complying with my gesture.
I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, and then looked at her straight in the eye. "For once, it might be best to try this the asari way."
She looked at me in confusion, so I just tapped the side of my head. That finally got her attention. So she reached out, put her hand around the back of my neck, her fingers caressing my skin as she did. Her eyes went black, and as expected, she whispered "embrace eternity" and we were melding again.
The memory was pretty much boiling under my skin, came to the forefront as soon as our minds touched. Me, sitting in my apartment, gauze stuck in my nose to stop the bleeding from a well-thrown bottle to my face. My own reactions muted at the time, courtesy of the disabled implants, but my feelings about the whole thing a lot clearer now. I had a datapad in my hands, and Marie was sitting next to me.
"Recognize any of them?" Marie said.
The datapad had six pictures, six asari. Marie was still talking, asking if I recognized any of them, that she was worried because they were sure they were agents working for someone. I recognized Shiala. Then I recognized another one, some asari who I had met and had been very forward with me. Borderline psycho, in fact, wouldn't take no for an answer. We were melding, so the chain of memories followed, the way she had come on to me, and I also felt Shiala's reaction to it.
She recognized her.
So what, is this some kind of game to you all?
No! That's-
She couldn't hide it, although she tried. I felt the mental scramble as she tried to put her thoughts together, trying to formulate a response. She didn't offer any memories, showed me anything for me to just watch and understand. It was such a telling reaction that even I understood what that meant. Even in her mental scramble she still let bits and pieces fall through, and I could see that, while she recognized the others, she hadn't expected them to be there. But somehow she knew what had happened, and it all traced back to something she did. But she wouldn't let me see.
Since I wasn't about to try and pry anything out of her, thank you very much, I mentally pulled back, hard, and we broke the meld. I swatted her arm away and stood up, getting an extra step of distance between us. I didn't say anything. I just kept my eyes fixed on her, and for once, I didn't care if my anger showed or not. Go ahead, give me your lie, was all I could think.
"Matriarch Benezia..." she trailed off, and started rubbing her temples. "We sent someone to keep an eye on you after you first came to us. We didn't know anything about you, we didn't even really believe you, you know that!" I didn't reply, so after another uncomfortable pause, she kept talking. "It was just a precaution, nothing else. It wasn't... It wasn't supposed to go that way."
"Stellar job," I replied. "So that's how you keep an eye on someone? Harass them until it sticks? What the hell are you trying to do here? Or is it a game to you?"
"I..." She dropped her hands and looked at me. "I don't know. I'm sorry Roy, I really am."
"You're sorry."
"We didn't understand- I still don't understand. You don't tell me, you won't share! What is it that makes us so repellent? Maybe me, but-"
"What is it? Are you kidding me? You think that is normal?!"
"No! I don't know! I'm not human! I don't understand you! I'm trying, but you won't let me!"
"What the hell does that have to do with anything! You were trying to understand me? That's what you were all doing? Piss off!"
She threw her hands up in a strange there you go kind of gesture and stood up, her eyes finding a fixed spot on the wall to avoid me. She took a deep breath and shook her head. "I can't keep doing this," she said, and didn't even give me the courtesy of looking at me before walking towards the door. "I'm sorry," she said one last time, opened the door, and just walked off.
The punch I delivered to the wall probably resonated through half the ship.
After my chat with Shiala I had lost all my appetite. I skipped dinner, headed out for the Spectre ship, and spent the night there. Really couldn't stand to be in the yacht for another minute. I was conflating two things in my head, and needed to sort them out. The first one was the idea that Benezia had sent someone to "keep an eye on me". It irritated me for sure, but after a while I moved past it. If she did that back when I first met them, I really shouldn't be surprised. It was low, sure, but... No, not like the second thing. When we were melding, Shiala had let it slip, and she knew she had, too. She knew about that other one I had identified, I had gotten a feeling that I could only describe as "oh shit", and she recognized the others too. The recognition wasn't all, there was this feeling that she had been trying to scramble, that she had had something to do with it.
Maybe a running bet to see which one got into my pants the fastest. It was ridiculous, but even though she hadn't shared it all so clearly, I had that feeling that I wasn't too far off the mark. And the hell of it was that I had started to trust her too.
This all brought me back to Marie. I had trusted her, too. Hell I had... We had.
What the hell is wrong with me. It can't be just bad luck. It's got to be something I do.
It was sixteen more hours until Maka arrived, long after Benezia's ship was gone. The sensors came to life when a shuttle of asari make dropped out of FTL a thousand kilometers from my ship, and was soon followed by a hail.
"I hope you didn't scratch the paint, or I'm not letting you kids take the ship again," Maka said over the comms.
"Don't look at me, she was the one driving," I replied. "It's just me though, what do you want me to do?"
"Fix your attitude so we can dock, we'll do the rest."
It probably says a lot about my mental state at the time that I nearly snapped with "what's wrong with my attitude" before realizing that she clearly meant the ship's orientation. I followed the instructions, let the VI do the work, and soon there was a resounding *CLANG* as the ships docked. After decon, Maka walked in looking tired, but with her usual easy smile on her face. I didn't miss the darker blue shadows under her eyes, or her obvious relief when the airlock closed behind her and the shuttle separated with a shudder that ran the length of the ship.
"Welcome home," I said. "Had fun?"
She regarded me for a moment or two and laughed softly. "Not entirely, but it was productive." She headed for the back of the ship, straight for the wall of guns and already unclipping her own from her armor. "Done everything you needed to do?"
And more, I thought. Yeah, there was no need to go into the whole spiel about how things had gone with Benezia, I didn't even know if she knew about Benezia or not. At the very least she knew Wahea and who she worked for, but yeah. "For now. You look tired."
"Haven't had a wink of sleep in three days," she said. She looked inside the cabin, saw the perfectly made bed there, and sighed.
"What time should I wake you?"
She looked at me and grinned. "Very droll. No, work first, we have lots to do."
"Work?"
"Yes." She headed for the cockpit, and gestured for me to follow. "We have to get your story straight."
"Right..." I sat in the co-pilot seat and looked at her. "I'm not entirely comfortable with lying. Mostly because I suck at it."
"Comes with the territory," she replied. She was doing the pre-flight check a hell of a lot faster than Wahea had, with the ease of someone very familiar with the instruments and systems. "There's no telling who else Cerberus has on hand that might be interested in your story."
"If I lie, they'll know I'm lying."
"You're not going to lie. You're going to tell what you know, and send anything you can't, or won't, talk about to me."
I gave her a quizzical look. "How?"
"You were working under Spectre authority. Anything out of the ordinary, it was setup by us," she grinned, and finally gunned the engine, heading straight for the system relay.
It took about fifty hours to get back into Alliance space. Maka took the scenic route, as she put it, to give us time to prepare. In reality, it was a lot easier than I had expected. We went over what Cerberus had done, which consisted of little else but asking basic questions over and over because they weren't getting much out of me, and crafted a story around that. Details were important. She got me to think about the parts I was happy to share, the parts I wanted to keep out, and the parts I should ignore. The last one was specially important. If the story was that a Spectre had been working with me, there were things she did behind the scenes that I wasn't privy to. Like background information, fake leads for Cerberus to bite, all the rest. Once I had all the bits, written down on a datapad, I was to read them over and over, and visualize them. Not just think, for example, that the Spectre told me she was looking for a terrorist cell that had infiltrated the taskforce of Admiral Drescher, but to visualize her telling me that. Think about where it happened, how it happened. Visualize everything.
After hours and hours doing the exercise, the visualization in my head became much more fixed once she saw it through a meld. It was downright weird. Visualizing things out of the imagination still left images kind of... diffuse, so to speak, at least for me. But after melding, it was all crystal clear, and more important, consistent.
"It's like you're creating false memories," I told her once we did the first one.
"Not exactly. It's almost impossible to create a good false memory," Maka replied. "Definitely can't fool someone who melds with you and takes a look. But helps to remember the details, doesn't it?"
"I guess, yeah."
"Good. I wasn't briefed on the details of what your actual work has been, and I don't need them. But try to make up situations that are as far removed from that work as possible. If you trigger real memories when trying to remember the story, you can easily slip-up and drop something you didn't want to."
"Right."
On and on. She did finally get some sleep - she slept for sixteen hours straight, in fact - but by the end of it I had a good feel about the upcoming shitstorm. All in all, it was mostly about hiding how much about Cerberus I knew since, as Maka pointed out, was far too much for someone like me. So The story was that the Spectres had gotten wind of a terrorist cell trying to infiltrate the project, and had set me up as a potential recruitment target. Anything that looked out of place, I could refer them to the Spectre.
I was expecting a tough debriefing on my arrival. I got something more akin to an interrogation.
"Who are these people?"
I looked at the offered datapad. Pictures of six asari. Shiala was one of them. I recognized Shiala. And by proxy, the datapad they were showing me.
"I know a couple of them, why?"
"They are asari agents, we're working on identifying their affiliation. What business did you have with them?"
I shrugged. "You'll have to take it with the Spectre. Don't really know a lot about them all." Technically, technically true. I didn't remember most of them.
"What kind of background work did you do with Chief Morgan?"
"The usual," Maka said. "Some contacts that would ring alarm bells, some suspicious monetary hooks, all monitored of course." Nice and vague.
"Like these?" The agent showed her a datapad with eight pictures of what appeared to be a random assortment of asari.
Maka smiled. Obvious, too obvious. "You don't expect me to confirm or deny anything you put in front of me, do you? I have to protect my resources." Pleasant smile, no details. Not a clue if the asari in front of her were agents of Tevos, Aethyta, or whoever else Morgan was working with. It didn't matter.
"And what did you do for five days after the Spectre found you?"
"Mostly eat and sleep." I pointed at my face, which still had considerable bruising. "And some medical treatment."
"And you couldn't do that here?"
"Ask the Spectre," I replied. The agent gave me a cross look. "I'm serious, she was the one doing stuff, I was eating, sleeping, and bathing in medi-gel."
"So what did you do with the information Chief Morgan gave you after his rescue?"
"I did as he asked and got him a taco," Maka replied. "He wasn't in any condition to give me anything, all he did was eat my food and take room in bed."
The agent coughed uncomfortably at her response. Too easy. It didn't look as if he knew she was lying. Had he known that Morgan was part of her assault of the Cerberus base, it would have been a very interesting revelation indeed.
"You went outside the chain of command, Chief. That-"
"I didn't," I replied immediately. That one Maka had been very thorough in explaining to me. "Our agreements with the Council recognizes the authority of the Spectres."
"With limits such as how it does not allow for Spectres to force subordinates to spy on their superiors, or break the chain of command."
"I did not, the only suspect was a civilian contractor. I did not find any involvement by anyone in the chain of command. If I had, I'd have reported to SAI immediately, which by the way the Spectre was well aware of," I replied.
"Civilian. Yes, this... Marie Rice was it?"
"Marie Roux," I said, giving her a firm shove under the incoming bus. "Former SA, but currently a civilian."
"You're not giving me a lot to work with here, Spectre."
"It's an active investigation," Maka replied. "I will forward a more detailed analysis to your Office of Citadel Affairs in due time. I am not obligated to answer to you, agent. I am doing this as a courtesy."
"But why Morgan?"
"Easy target. One of few survivors of a batarian raid that wiped his colony. Background checks turn up absolutely nothing, no family connections, few friends, easy to isolate. He was the perfect bait to dangle in front of this terrorist cell."
"Nearly cost him his life."
"He knew the risks," Maka replied, shrugging with obvious ease. "It wasn't what I expected of them."
"And what did you expect?"
"I expected that he'd be introduced to others once he had gained their trust. Once I had a solid enough line to the leadership, he could eject. Instead, they kidnapped and tortured him."
"That doesn't strike you as odd?"
"Very," Maka replied. Of course it was odd, it made little sense, but who was that human to say?
It took forever until the agent, whose name I never learned (he literally said "you can call me agent" when he introduced himself), finally let me go. With a warning not to go anywhere important over the next millennia. How lovely. When I finally got out of the offices, I was surprised to see Maka waiting for me. She was leaning against the wall by the entrance, arms crossed and eyes closed, with her head resting back against the wall too. She seemed... relaxed. As soon as I stepped out, she opened her eyes and turned to me with a smile.
"There you are. Your Intelligence operatives are very thorough."
"Tell me about it," I said. "Thanks."
"Hey, I take care of my people," she said, so naturally that it was almost enough to make me believe it.
"Thanks," I replied, offering my own, and not entirely forced, smile. I checked my omni-tool, and realized that it was starting to get late. "You know, after all that, I think at the very least I owe you dinner."
"Oh?" Maka said, making an effort to raise her eyebrows as humanly as she could.
"Yeah. It'll be good, but won't be fancy. Ever heard of Relay Rob's?"
Thus, twenty minutes later we were sitting at Arcturus' favourite retro diner; best barbecue this side of the relay, and all that jazz.
"Have we decided yet?" the very chirp waitress said. If she was put off by serving a human marine and a (lightly) armored and armed asari, she didn't show.
"Oh I decided three days ago at least. I seriously, medically need the biggest burger you have in the menu, and make sure it has bacon."
The waitress laughed and tapped her datapad. "That's a Big Rob then. And you?"
"I am undecided, this is not my usual fare," Maka replied. "What would be your recommendation?"
"Ah, you still have that soy and honey glazed rib rack on the menu?" I said. "Asari like punchy flavours, and they like it salty too."
The waitress looked at me with wide eyes, struggled heroically for about half a second, and just started laughing as her skin turned a shade darker red. At which point I realized what, exactly, I had said, which wasn't helped by Maka's response.
"Yes, we do like salty flavours," she offered.
Our poor waitress. And my poor spleen, crushed as it was as I tried not to laugh in embarrassment.
"Okay, okay," she finally said, comically fanning her face with her free hand. "I'll ask, but if not our mixed skewers would probably do the trick," she offered, and got a nod from Maka. "Drinks?"
"Astro-fizz for me," I said.
"Mala-caprice for me," Maka said.
"Also, can you get us the appetizer tray as well?" I said.
"Sure thing!"
The waitress jotted everything down, still fighting a smile, and quick as lightning she made her escape. I thought about saying something, but somehow Maka gave me a look that told me she knew exactly what had just transpired. So, I decided a change of topic was in order.
"How did it go while you were away? We haven't actually talked about it."
"I didn't want to distract you," she said. "It was busy, but quite fruitful. I have several leads to follow."
"Anything on the head?" I said. The waitress was back, and put a huge glass of Astro-fizz in front of me, and a bottle of something pale yellow in front of Maka, together with a glass full of ice and a slice of some fruit I didn't immediately recognize.
"Nothing concrete," she said, speaking as she poured her drink. "I would be happy to require your assistance in the future, if it appeals to you."
"I very much want to follow-up. They tried to kill Shepard. I'm not going to let that shit stand."
"Don't let your emotions cloud your judgement." She sipped her drink, and made a face that, despite the smile, made me think she had just bitten a lemon. "You were quite focused at the time, that kind of help I can always use."
"Yeah, mostly because I knew what was coming," I said. "I have to say, I was quite impressed with you. Thinking about it later, you took charge but directed everyone really well. Juggling everyone's weaknesses and strengths."
"I am a Spectre," she said with a smile.
"Yeah, that's the thing. Aren't Spectres supposed to be lone wolves and do their own thing? Because that was some primo teamwork."
Our appetizers arrived, and for a few minutes the two of us gave our attention to them. Maka made a point to add salt to half the dips, looking at me out of the corner of her eye as she did, and smiling all the way.
Once most of the tray was empty, she retook the conversation thread. "Before I became a Spectre," she said, "I bounced all over the Citadel forces for nearly two hundred years. Commando work in the Terminus, boarding parties with the patrols, even some covert ops to bust slaver rings, and even tried for intelligence work for a decade."
"That's about three or four lifetimes for me," I said.
She snorted a laugh. "To sum it up, I have been the worst kind of remora for longer than you've been alive, attaching to a different fish every time it looked shinier. It made me a terrible choice for most of the work, but in the Council's eyes, it made me a great candidate to be a Spectre. I work alone most of the time, which I enjoy, but I know how to work with many others."
"I don't think we have the time to learn how to be Spectres that way," I said. "Short lived species and all that."
"Neither do the turians, yet they manage somehow. I have no doubt that the humans will manage the right skillset eventually." She looked me straight in the eye, and her perennial easy smile widened ever so slightly to become a much more natural one. "One of the many reasons I find you all so fascinating."
We were both hungry enough that dinner was over rather quick. My burger was a pound of awesomeness and bacon, her ribs were sweet, salty, and delicious, and overall we had an excellent time. We moved it on to one of the less noisy bars afterwards, and talked for hours about the past. She told me all about her favourite places where she had been in the past, and I managed to dredge up stories from History about what, exactly, was going on several centuries ago on Earth while she was out there exploring the galaxy. I always liked History, mostly in the form of historical fiction. Overall I had a great evening, and hers was the second contact I added to my new omni-tool, right after Wahea.
Which reminded me that I had to do a data restore ASAP.
My medical leave was finally over after another week, although I still had to follow-up on the implants and getting them upgraded - once they figured out the bugs, that is. But I still had another round of "debriefings" regarding Shepard and the events around the clinic. Admiral Kishi's assistant, Lieutenant Kalenda, had been shot and killed. Shepard had disappeared. I had already explained how they had threatened Shepard to try and get to me, but I had had no idea about the rest of the events. Only found out after Admiral Kishi herself got in touch with me. She had been briefed by SAI, luckily, so I didn't have to give much in way of explanations, but she still had questions and wanted to hear from me about what had happened. More importantly, she wanted to be sure I was up to returning to duty, because Admiral Drescher had asked for me to join her taskforce again. For what Kishi told me, she was setting up some joint exercises with the geth fleet as the next step towards better relations between our races.
And the geth had specifically requested my presence there. I asked whether it was the geth or Legion who had asked, and got sweet nothing as an answer. Lovely. What I did get was a swift kick in the butt to hurry up because the geth had been waiting for almost a month for this whole thing to start and I was holding it all back. Not that it was my fault, but there you go. So it was in that state of mind that I found myself when I was rushing out of the apartment in full uniform, only to bump on Shepard right as she stepped through the door.
For one interminable, shocked moment, neither of us managed anything other than to look at each other. I think my mouth was hanging open in surprise. Something was off, and it wasn't until she smiled that I realized what it was. Her eyes.
"Ali..."
Her smile widened, and she got on her tiptoes to throw her arms around my neck, giving me a tight hug. And unlike many other occasions past, this time I returned the hug instantly. She was there. Right there. Alive. I had done my best not to think about it. I had tried desperately hard to believe Benezia when she said she was safe and recovering. And now she was home.
I don't know how long we held each other, a good while at least. Then, when we both pulled back, my heart sank. Her eyes. Those weren't her eyes.
"What happened to you?" I said.
Her smile faltered somehow, but didn't vanish completely. She waltzed into the apartment, half-sat on the back of the sofa, and took a deep breath. "New eyes, yes. Do you like them?"
I didn't answer at first. I closed the door, blindly found a chair, and sat down without breaking eye contact. I'm pretty sure I had managed to close my mouth so that I wouldn't look like an idiot.
"I... I heard you were safe, recovering. But I didn't know..."
"As you can see," she said, and pointed at her face with both hands, "I'm perfectly fine." She slid down to the sofa to sit down properly, with a soft sigh. "Mostly. I'm still so tired. And there's the physio too."
"What... What happened Ali?"
"Our royal friend," she said. I didn't get it. "You know, very tall, legs for days, great singer?"
And just like that, the mouth I had heroically managed to keep closed decided to hung open. "What." It wasn't a question.
"I've been working with them you know, helping them find others. She told me they needed a queen to do it, and I accepted." She gestured for me to wait, probably because my mouth was moving, but I wasn't managing anything other than some squeaking sounds. "It went well, and I'm perfectly safe." She pointed at her face. "New eyes." She tapped her chest. "New heart, new lung." She gestured down. "And some other parts I think. My stomach is different too, I haven't tested if I can eat ribs yet or not."
"Ali what the fuck!" I snapped.
"I'm alive," she replied, her voice still damnably calm. She tapped the side of her head. "I was stuck there. I kept singing the same songs from the melody, when my family was alive. And she sang to me, and called me from it. I had to relive the worst of Mindoir, but the song was so different this time. The melody hurt, but she changed the song. She helped me hear your song."
I wasn't entirely sure what Shepard was talking about. But what I could follow, I really didn't like. She had been forced to relive the worst of Mindoir? I remember being brain-fucked by a rachni queen, and it was not a pleasant experience. I stood up trying very hard not to scream in frustration.
"Please don't be mad," Shepard said. "She helped a lot. I'm great. Honest."
"Lana how can you be so damn calm!"
"Because it's true." She stood up and stopped me from pacing, grabbing me by the shoulders to face her directly. "I should have done it myself a long time ago. But I didn't want to think about it. It still hurts, and I'm angry, but... not like before." She sighed. "I don't know how to explain it."
"What the hell..." I muttered.
Shepard smiled widely now, slapped my shoulder and stood back. "You're just trying to protect me like you always do," she said, and this time she didn't sound as annoyed by it as she usually did. "See, that's why I think Singer couldn't have chosen a better brood warrior."
"Okay now you're just screwing with me," I said, a little bit annoyed at that.
She laughed. "No, no, it's true. You're going to be a dad!"
...
...
"WHAT?!"
Maybe she had been pushing too much, maybe she had been enjoying herself too much, but it was rare to catch Roy on the backfoot, and she had been enjoying his startled reactions so much she couldn't help herself. Sure, he was worried, she could see that his anger was not directed at her; or at anyone, really. But she was there, safe and sound, so she couldn't think of a better way to break the news of everything that had happened to her. She hadn't talked about the debriefings, the medical examinations, and everything else she had been subjected to straight after returning, she had kept quiet and waited until she was there.
But the news that he was going to be a dad had him so confused, and seemingly angry, that she made her best effort not to break out laughing and take it seriously.
"Okay, not exactly, but that's how it works with the- with them. The queens use the memory-song of worthy brood warriors to imprint on the next queen, so technically she's your daughter but you-"
"WHAT THE HELL!" Roy screamed. She clammed up in surprise as her rachni-made heart suddenly bumped hard on her chest. "I didn't-!"
And then he stopped. Completely. His eyes went unfocused, and he clammed up with a very audible clack of teeth. The sudden, unexpected, incomprehensible change threw her off her amusement train and left her flailing in a vacuum, with no idea as to what had happened.
"Roy?I didn't mean to-"
"I have to go," he interrupted her, heading for the door.
"What? Roy, wait! I-"
He raised one finger, pinning her down on the spot with that single gesture. "We'll talk later," he said, and his voice was flat. Completely flat.
She could only nod. He left, the door closed behind him, and she was left standing there like an idiot, the wind taken out of her sails, and unable to compute what had transpired. At least at first. She had taken the joke too far, that much was clear, but Roy had flipped completely at it. In the past she had had to push him much harder than that to get a reaction so strong. She had hated herself for it too.
The melody was there for her to sing again. Her blaming him for not saving her family. She knew it was unfair. She had known at the time, and she knew even better now. He had punched the wall, taken a few minutes to calm down... No, this time she hadn't wanted that. She hated it. But it wasn't until much later in the day, as she waited and waited for Roy to return, that she remembered. She remembered about his family. She realized she had made a big joke about something that Roy would never be able to laugh at.
Much as she would have wanted to stay awake and wait, her still aching body had its own demands. She still tired easily, and she still had to tire herself if she wanted to recover. She found a quiet corner in the nearest gym to do her prescribed exercises, as far from prying eyes as possible, and returned home to eat and, exhausted, sleep. Doctors had recommended she stay on nutrient paste for a while, but there was nothing of the sort in the apartment. Instead, she ate some of the food that Roy always seemed to keep ready for her in the cryo unit. It was delicious. It always was.
She slept deeply, but woke up in the middle of the night for no reason other than the thought that she needed to wake up. A strange, clear impulse in her otherwise sleep-addled brain. Her room was in complete darkness, but she could just see a sliver of light creeping under her door. She took a moment to force herself into wakefulness, pulled herself out of bed, and walking as quietly as possible, opened the door of her room.
Roy was sitting on the sofa, omni-tool on and his hologuitar on his lap. He wasn't playing. Just sitting there.
"Sorry I woke you," he said, his voice low and soft.
Shepard shook her head. She sat on his cot, and pulled up her legs to her chest, resting her head on her knees. "You didn't," she replied, her voice just as soft. Her new eyes were letting her see Roy in the darkness, far beyond what the low glow of his omni-tool would have normally allowed her.
For a while they just sat there in silence, neither of them saying a word, or making a noise. Eventually Roy put the guitar aside and leaned forward, putting his hands over the back of his head. He took a deep breath, exhaling slowly and purposefully. Shepard steeled herself. She could simply apologize, but that wasn't enough. Much like Singer-of-Dawn had done for her, she wanted Roy to look at his melody, and understand his own song.
"Roy," Shepard said, her voice shattering the silence even as she tried to speak as softly as she could. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have taken that joke so far. I should have known better." She waited, but all Roy did was nod. He still kept the same pose, elbows on knees, leaning far forward, not looking up. Not looking at her. "When you left earlier, you said you didn't, and then you stopped. What were you going to say?"
He didn't answer. He shook his head, and still wouldn't move.
"You were going to say that you didn't ask for her?" Shepard ventured. "That you didn't want her?" She stood up, sat on the sofa's arm, put her hands on his back, and leaned down, resting her head on his shoulder. "You're not your father, Roy."
"And yet, I sound just like him," Roy said.
"No. You're not. You're strong. You're brave. You're generous." She paused. "A bit too generous sometimes," she added, a smile on her face she hoped would be carried by her words. "Even if you think you sound like him. You aren't like that."
She felt his back raise and fall as he breathed deeply. She leaned back, and gently pulled at his shoulders, guiding him to sit back on the sofa. He did, with an unexpected lack of resistance. But he still didn't look at her. Come to think of it, she wasn't even sure if he could see her. His omni-tool was off, and there were no other lights in the room. The pilot light on the oven and the tiny red pilot above the exit were the only sources of light.
"What the hell happened to you Ali," he muttered.
"I told you," Shepard replied.
"Yeah, but you sounded more like Singer than your own self," he retorted.
"I guess," Shepard said. "I think... I think Singer just gave me a mirror. And I didn't like what I saw."
Roy just closed his eyes and rubbed his face. It was a gesture she knew well by now, something he did to shake himself out of a train of thought.
"What are you going to do?" she said. "What do you want to do?"
"I don't know." His words were slow, distant. "I don't know what to do. I'm screwing everything up."
"How are you-"
"You nearly died!" he snapped, the fist loud words either of them had spoken.
This time, Shepard had been prepared for that. "But I didn't," she said, still speaking in soft, soothing tones. "I'm here. Thanks to... Thanks to the one you saved from extinction. You. I can't think of anyone else in the galaxy who'd have figured that one out."
"It shouldn't have happened," Roy said.
"Is this one of your things where you say you don't matter?" Shepard said. "Like that time you said I'd have gotten out of Mindoir by myself anyway? Even if it was true, you made it better. You do things from here," she poked his head, "and from here," she poked his chest, right on the heart. "Our royal friend. Her children. The geth. You're doing good in ways I can scarcely believe. Don't let fear for me stop you."
Roy leaned back, burrowing a little deeper in the sofa. He rested his head back and kept his gaze fixed on the ceiling. Probably contemplating the unfathomable darkness. Shepard thought of making a joke and letting him know she could see him, but it wasn't the time. Now it was the time to make him see the true colours of his song. Through her eyes. She wished she could sing to him the way Singer-of-Dawn had sung to her. Words were such imperfect vehicles for conveying everything she had seen in him. He had always bristled against praise. And it wasn't modesty or embarrassment. But little by little she hoped she'd make headway.
At length, he finally spoke again. "You think she'll want to see me?"
"I don't know," Shepard said, after taking a minute to find the thread of conversation. "Technically she hasn't been born yet. But I know she'll be leaving for a new home before a year, and she won't be alone. She'll be well taken care of, if that's any help." She put her hand on his face, a gentle caress to let her know she cared in a way the darkness didn't let her express. "You have time to think about it. If you decide to, I'll come with you."
Author's Notes: Okay, so... Too sappy? I hope not! Too sudden a change in Shepard? Intended, for the most part, but hoping I haven't overdone it and given people whiplash with the change. Shipping? I just rocked every boat, so sorry about that! :D
The chapter is not as long as previous ones mostly because all this I had originally intended to show on the previous one, before Benezia took over and expanded its length beyond advisable limits. It'd have stretched the previous one to the longest one I've written so far, and I thought it was a few threads too many to tie up in the same go. So, there we are.
What lies ahead? Well, there's going to be some fast forwarding with a few disjointed scenes, and we'll have a peek at what some people have been up to while we weren't looking.
Reviews! Thanks a lot for the reviews, honestly :)
V-rcingetorix, NazgulBelserion : Thanks! I seem to be one of the few people who like the asari as a general concept/race (past specific individual asari and the blue alien babe trope), they seem to get rained on a lot in many fics.
RIOSHO: Aria is indeed an issue I have to deal with. But there's going to be stuff on the other side of that relay. Oh yeah. Add in some quarians, mix well...
D72: Shepard was the one that got the wrong end of a grenade during the assault of the Dreadnought. Goldie made it out OK, Roy suffered implant burnout. Goldie nearly got killed, but Roy's unit came to the rescue just in time. You probably don't need to rewind too far to get back in situation tbh, but thanks for trying anyway :)
Adam Redmayne: Oh I do intend to have some fun with the other side of the O4 relay. Oh yeah. It'll change... things. Muahahaha!
Uemei: Wahea and Shiala (and Roy) are about to have a weird relationship I need to work on to figure out, after the bomb I just dropped in this chapter, heh. The bomb, I had planned. The one I hadn't figured out this far is Wahea. Characters just continue to surprise me.
Tom712: 49,993 has some structural problems, namely my handling of Shepard and Legion. I probably should have had Shepard in a Collector stasis pod, or have pushed much harder from the AI point of view. As it is it kind of muddled in the middle, and didn't work as well as it needed to. So really I'd have to do a full re-write, which is a bit of a tall order at the moment.
BJ Hanssen: You haven't seen anything yet when it comes to boldness, just you wait haha. Emily Wong will soon have the limelight again!
Kamika111, Mayhem296: Thanks! :D
So, what comes next? As I mentioned, some moments as we speed along with a bit of a timeskip. We'll see which scenes - it might even go on for more than one chapter, depending on how long I dwell on the scenes. Until then, thanks for reviewing, favoriting (we're on the front page when sorting by favourites, woo hoo!), following, and of course and as always, reading!