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Requested by : Laurel

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"She did all she could, Commander." Valan, an older, technically retired Salarian Spectre missing one of his horns and with a dark green face cross and hatched by scars, said as he adjusted his grip on his Mattock. He shuffled in his ill-fitted armor and flicked her a look, frowning, "I'm… Sorry, Commander. To ask you to come and do this…"

"It's fine." She lied, reaching out with an armored hand to brush a thumb over the Alliance logo on the open coffin beyond the window. "Someone… Someone had to confirm the body."

"They did…"

"It's her." She said, nodding curtly, "Ash- Ashley Williams."

"I understand." Valan nodded, turning to look through the window and nodding to signal the doctor inside to close the casket. Turning back to her, he laid a hand on her shoulder and said, "She saved half the Council, Shepard. She'll be remembered."

"Yeah." Shepard nodded, shrugging the hand off and turning to leave, "If any of us are, when this is all said and done…"

Valan didn't respond as she walked away, up through the emergency medical ward much of C-Sec headquarters had been converted into in the wake of the battle. Nurses, doctors, and combat medics tended to rows of wounded soldiers and civilians. And volunteers, with no medical training but a desperate drive to help, rushed back and forth with tools, beds, blankets and whatever else they could be sent to get or to throw out to free up people with medical minds for fetching and working medicine.

She felt a hand on her leg as she rounded the corner of a treatment area and she looked down, bile rising at the Batarian face looking up at her. Or the half of it still there, at least - the rest was a misshapen mass hidden under bloodied bandages.

"You…" He rasped, "Commander…"

"Yes, I'm the Commander." She nodded turning and, after a second, kneeling to meet his level. "Can I help you?"

"The Pillars…" He rasped, "Returned them…"

"I only wish I could have done more."

"Enough…" He murmured, eyes blinking rapidly as he reached for her again. Against her instincts, she caught his hand when it trembled and fell and she held it. "Mindoir…"

Her shoulders bunched and, quietly, she asked, "What about Mindoir?"

"Was there… Was… Wrong…" His eyes screwed up and his face tightened, "Showed me- Thank you…"

Suddenly, he relaxed entirely too much and Shepard sat there, holding his hand. A dead man's hand. A dead slaver's hand. She didn't know what she felt at that, much less how to process it. And didn't have time before a man screamed and shoved her aside, grabbing the Batarian's hand and shaking his shoulder.

"Rakan!" The very Human man sobbed, brown hair matted by blood around a little medical patch. "No! Not you, too!"

"You… Knew him…?"

"He saved me…" The man sobbed, collapsing over the Batarian and choking on air. "Out there- From the Reapers. We came here because- I made him! It's my fault!"

"Sir!" A doctor barked, grabbing him and trying to get his attention, "Mister Andrews, you have a concussion! You need to calm down!"

"Fuck you!"

"Nurse!" The Turian called, "A sedative!"

Shepard took that moment to turn and leave, nearly tripping over a case of Medi-Gel the doctor had dropped in his haste to get to the man. To Andrews. All around her, she could hear and see the same scenes playing out as she continued on towards the shuttle bays. Men and women dying, others sobbing, doctors desperately trying to save who they could while nurses rushed to and fro with supplies and food and water. It was chaos she had blocked out until just that moment.

"Help! I have a code… I don't know- Suit breach!" Someone from the end of the hall screamed as they pushed a rolling bed through, a Quarian on it seizing and clutching at the stump of her arm. The Human nurse didn't have gloves, all of them policed by C-Sec for the surgeons working triage, and refused to touch the Quarian, calling, "I need dextro-hands and Medi-Gel!"

Dextro hands would prevent infection…

So would her new, clean gloves.

"I'm here." She called, rushing over to the woman and pulling out one of the capsules of Dextro compatible Medi-Gel she carried with her, just in case Garrus needed it, and pressing it to the wound. Pinning the woman with a hand on her chest, she leaned down to reassure her, "You're fine- Breathe. Is your oxygen system functioning?"

"Damaged!" She rasped, clawing at the hoses around her mask.

Shepard pulled her hand away and picked through them until she found one of the hoses in the back and felt air hissing from it. Omni-Gel sealed it and, after a second, the Quarian sucked in an easier breath and relaxed, chest heaving. She murmured something in a slurred voice that Shepard took to mean 'thank you' and Shepard nodded and turned as the Human woman pushed the bed away, smiling her own thanks as she went.

"You." Shepard barked as a doctor made to rush past, out the door. The Turian paused, confused for a moment, and Shepard asked, "What can I do?"

"I…" He sighed, shook his head and gestured around them, "You've done plenty. Unless you're a doctor…"

"Wait one." She ordered, turning and cuing her comm-line. "Joker."

"Uh, yeah, Commander?"

"Find the nearest open docking bay to C-Sec HQ that the Normandy can dock at and land." She ordered simply, "Use my clearance if you need to, Alliance, SPECTRE, I don't care. Hell, use our ambassadorial codes. I want Chakwas and whoever we have on hand to set up a secondary triage there. Dispatch our service-men to the less battle-wracked areas of the station to bring in supplies, and crack out our reserves, too."

"Aye, Commander." Joker answered, "Doc is gonna want a liaison…"

"What's your specialty?" She asked the Turian, turning to him.

"I'm…" He sighed, "I'm a dentist."

"Perfect." She nodded, raising her Omni-Tool and grunting, "I'm going to connect you to my, uh, staff-aide. You're going to be running liaison for a secondary triage unit I'm setting up."

"B-But I've never-"

"Have you ever worked in a field hospital?" He shook his head and Shepard nodded, "Today is a day of a lot of firsts for you, Doctor. Do your best."

"...Yes, Commander." He nodded, offering her a bloody hand, "I will."

She shook it and turned, heading on and asking Joker, "Can EDI reach out to local clinics and after-care on the Wards? We need more of everything down here."

"She's on it, Commander." Joker answered, voice dropping a bit when he added, "Don't do what I think you're doing…"

"Which would be…?"

"Ignoring your pain and burying yourself in work."

"...You know me that well, huh?" She sighed, "Or am I just that obvious?"

"How long have we worked together again, Jane?" Joker laughed, "It'd be a shame if I didn't know you that well, Commander. Now get off-line and take the day. Or a few. There'll still be a war on by then, I promise."

"Right…"

Cortez was waiting for her, uniform dirty from fixing up some damage the Kodiak had taken supporting the fighting on the Presidium but otherwise looking unbothered by the chaos and noise he was surrounded by. Strikingly unbothered, in fact. She gave him a look for it, worried, but he just waved her off and offered her a distinctly familiar brown bottle.

"Beer…?"

"Custom, back home." He grunted, "When someone loses someone, they buy a beer. Take a swig and toss the bottle."

"Ah." She was no stranger to strange colonial traditions - or military ones, for that matter - and took the beer without a fuss. Waving it between them she forced a smile and said, "You and me later? For Ash and."

"And Robert…?"

"If you like."

"I don't." He sighed, "But… Well, we all do things we don't like. Shoot me a message when?"

"I will." She nodded, stepping past him and into the Kodiak.

"Huerta?"

"Huerta." She nodded again, "I… Have to see someone."

"Is he that bad off…?" She didn't answer as Cortez came in, leaned against the bulkhead, frowned and nodded. Heading for the cockpit, he said, "We'll toss the bottle for Thane, too, then."

Huerta, when she reached it, was in the throes of just as much chaos as C-Sec had been.

Fortified barriers had been thrown up across the district, topped by watchtowers and heavy machine guns manned by Citadel Defense soldiers, while others worked inside to clear debris away and search for survivors. And traps. Tents and prefab shelters had been thrown up wherever there was space around buildings for triage and care, and she could see open-air kitchens where workers supplied food and drinks to the civilians who had emerged from their shelters into the mess. The main thoroughfare Huerta rested on was even more heavily built up, with prefabs filling the open space and triages set up in most of the damaged stores. And a morgue, of course, that she passed on the way in… Full of neatly laid out bodies stacked up on shelves while men and women outside did their best to strip bodies of bulky armor and weapons, and find identification for them.

She was just glad her helmet kept the smell out…

Blood and oil and everything else was not something she enjoyed.

"John Doe is waiting approximately one hundred and four feet ahead of you, at the entrance to Huerta, Commander." EDI's voice broke her out of her own thoughts, "I… Informed him you were coming, but he did not respond."

"Yeah." She sighed, "I bet he didn't."

He was exactly the type to clam up in a situation like this, rather than express how he felt about any of it.

"Doctor Michel has stated she will come to find you there with him when Mister Krios' condition…" She trailed off for a moment, searching for a word, before she finally settled on, "Turns."

"Right." She closed her eyes against the pain, took a breath, and pushed on. "Thank you, EDI."

"Of course, Commander."

She spotted John at a barricade set up right outside Huerta's entrance, looking down the path with a hand on a Vindicator rifle. He turned ever so slightly as she joined him, but didn't say anything, so she stood with him for a minute. A few passersby gave them looks and muttered their thanks - oddly, for once, more John than her - but otherwise they stood in silence. Eventually, the man leaned to the side, pressing their shoulders together, and she leaned into it to offer - and accept - what little comfort they could convey.

Neither were exactly good at this, after all.

Finally, she said, "You did good work here."

"I did what I could."

"You save a lot of lives."

"I lost a lot, too…" He murmured, "My orders. My responsibility."

"Not your fault, though…"

"I know." He nodded, "It's war."

"Yeah." She leaned her head on his shoulder and, after a moment, he leaned his head on , she promised, "We'll make them pay for it, John."

"I know." He nodded, hands tightening on his rifle. "Kai Leng…"

She could hear a lot in the way he said the man's name. The way his voice dropped and reverberated. The anger and hate and pain. In a way, it frightened her - she knew what someone could do when anger pushed them, and not all of it was great. But she knew that, in the end, all she could really do was trust him with it. And besides…

She was just as angry, if not more, than he was…

"Commander. Uh, Mister Doe." They both turned and Shepard smiled thinly at the thin, exhausted looking young Drell standing behind them, fiddling with his thumbs. She reached for him and he let her pull him into a hug, tucking his nose into the crook of her neck and letting out a weak, shuddering breath as he murmured, "My father is… Doctor Michel says it's almost time."

"I'm sorry…"

"Don't." Koylat snapped, pulling away from her and turning to John so sharply he flinched and, for a moment, Shepard felt a thrill of fear run up her spine. Taking a breath, the Drell said, "Do not look down on my father's sacrifice and feel like you are to blame."

"I was the one who-"

"My father said," Kolyat cut in, smiling sadly, "that he was glad you sent him. One final chance to put light out, into the galaxy, before the end."

"I… See…"

"And besides," the Drell smiled just the least bit wider, "he said 'someone else might have gotten it wrong'."

And that was a punch to the gut that made Shepard choke for a moment. After a shaky breath, all she could manage was, "That scaly son-of-a-bitch…"

"You should both come." He said, holding up his little prayer book. "Father… Hoped we could all pray together, before the end. Or sleep. Whichever takes him first."

"Of course." She smiled, turning to her armored… Whatever they were, now, tied together as they were. "John?"

"Sure." He murmured, "If… If you want."

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Sparatus turned from the dark window he'd been standing at for… Spirits, how long had it even been now? Long enough the morgue assistant had left him there and, when he turned towards the light of the door, his legs were stiff and near-numb. The morgue behind him was empty, the light blindlingly bright, but he recognized the shadow that stepped through the door and flicked his mandibles in irritation as he turned back around.

"Valern."

"Sparatus." The Salarian said, joining him at the window and murmuring, "It's hard to believe she's… Gone."

"Isn't it?"

"She's been a fixture of the Citadel since before I was born." Valern murmured, "Since before you were born. Or your parents, even."

"Four hundred and nine years." Sparatus nodded, "She was nearly eight hundred…"

"If only Williams had been faster." Valern sighed, sounding more tired than Sparatus had ever heard him.

"If only Councilor Udina had been loyal."

"Or that, too, yes." Valern nodded, letting their conversation lapse for a while. He'd always been like that - patient, in spite of how little time a Salarian would ever have. Normally, he admired that. Salarians often seemed flighty and quick to rush off, to him, not that he blamed them for it. But now?

Now the silence was too heavy.

"We need to decide what to tell people…"

"I already decided, and told them." Valern said, closing his eyes when Sparatus rounded on him, mandibles flicking. "You have been down here for four hours, old friend… The people needed their leaders, and I had to answer for their absence."

"I suppose they did…" He sighed, turning to frown at the glass, "I… Should have been there."

"Perhaps, but this has been a trying day for all involved." Valern waved it off in that way of his, that told the old Turian he wouldn't consider the issue any further. Instead of letting Sparatus speak, though, he went on, "You should know that you were shot, by the by."

"Oh, I was?" He grunted, "Must have missed that."

"A grazing head wound." Valern nodded, "One of my agents will apply a medical patch and wrap when we leave, to sell it. You suffered it attempting to save Councilor Udina, in fact, from that horrible Cerberus ambush."

"Indeed…"

"Come." Valern said quietly, "We need to see the ambassadors for temporary Council replacements."

Normally, the Council assigned a mourning status for a month when a Councilor died, and allowed the Embassy to simply pass on its requests and decisions via mail. But now, with the war on? Traditionalists would decry the decision, but as a Turian, he could not bring himself to put things on hold for a trifling comfort. Even if it was one he would have enjoyed… He had enemies that needed to burn for bringing this to his home.

And for taking his friend from him.

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Somewhat shorter chapter, but we all know how the goodbye goes. We all know what happens. So Imma let you all imagine it and stew~

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