Bluh bluh bluh, sentimental drivel.
This fic served the purpose of indulging the following:
-My love of tragic endings in stories that aren't tragedies.
-My love of the musebox dark-future-Sing.
-Godmodding, and writing other peoples' characters badly, apparently.
-Filling Kinkmeme prompts with genfic.
IN SHORT. Ignore me. Just. Go about your business.
"Sparing Sagan was a mistake," Garrus said as she stared off at the gap between the walls and into the tunnel beyond them. It was the closest thing she'd had to a window in years. "Even he saw it coming."
Somewhere behind her, she heard him sit. The beds didn't creak here, no springs in them, they were just cots. That thought faded as quickly and distractedly as it had come. She couldn't debate with him, not on this, and given the losses they'd taken in that last assault, she didn't want to. He was right.
She'd heard the conversations, whispered between Sagan and Thane, the distracted promises to disobey her, the quiet passing threats and awkward evasions regarding the topic. Thane had to have known she was aware, or maybe his pact with Sagan had been very serious. In either case, he hadn't even flinched, despite her standing right there when it came down to it.
"I know." It was the only answer she had. Shepard's arms were folded idly across her chest. It was a habit, one that had never faded, had never shifted over all these years. Garrus had told her, once, that it made him feel like they were back on the Normandy. He never said which one, but at this point? It hardly mattered. Ten years scraping around in tunnels made certain details irrelevant.
"He was your friend, you shouldn't have put him through it," Garrus added. They were both too worn to inject any real anger in this rebuke. "He deserved better...and those losses? They're on your head."
"I know," Shepard repeated. She shifted her hand just a bit, freed it up from the crook of her arm and twisted her fingers together. That was a more recent habit. It only paid off when she was out of armor, as she was now, but she did it a handful of times a day. The metal band on her ring finger shifted idly as she did.
Wasn't gold; he hadn't fully grasped the tradition, or maybe he had and he'd opted for something a little more personal, she'd never really been certain. Inconel. Had no idea how he'd gotten it, or how he'd cast it, but the damn thing was more solid than the armor she covered it with. When he'd given it to her, he'd made a remark about how she disliked taking off her. Peppered it with the idea that he didn't want to give her an excuse to remove a malleable trinket.
It hadn't been expressly romantic at the time, either, but that was neither here nor there.
"Shepard." The door opened and that redirected her attention. She turned her head away from the crack in the bulkhead, twisted at the waist, and half-faced the door. Kaidan had always leaned in the room just slightly before entering, even before she'd outranked him, before the Reapers. It was just something he did. She inclined her head when he made eye contact and he stepped in.
"Status?" Shepard requested evenly and Kaidan nodded just slightly. She had to hand it to him, he knew when to adhere to protocol and when to prod. Probably why he'd been sent in to report to her instead of...well, anyone else. To his credit, his eyes didn't even stray to the fresh bullet hole through her shoulder or the steadily reddening bandages. She'd live; no one questioned that anymore.
"Legion finished the calculations, the files seem viable. None of the scientists can find a flaw. Tali and Flynn are working to create the correct sequencing protocol. The engineers are...I've never seen anyone move so fast," Kaidan admitted evenly. There was a note of pleading in there, dry and futile as it was. He wanted Shepard to order them to take a break, to rest after the losses after that battle, but it wasn't going to happen. Not this time.
"Keep me updated," Shepard added and returned to looking out the split in the wall before her. Kaidan was still standing in the threshold; she hadn't heard him take a step. He was lingering for one of two reasons and Shepard waited until he gave her a sign as to which one it was. Either he wanted to make a request or--
"Are you--" He was checking up on her. She wasn't surprised. Of the three people she might have actually opened up to, one was on the bed behind her, one was meditating, and Kaidan was third. Idly she wondered if he'd come of his own accord. Knowing him? It was entirely possible.
"Dismissed," Shepard interrupted him flatly, cut him off before this could go any further. It was not a conversational sort of evasion, not something that permitted the banter they used to fall into. She didn't want to talk, didn't want him to push it. He was a biotic and uninjured; he was needed elsewhere and he knew it. Kaidan didn't continue and didn't respond. Garrus had the good grace to remain silent until Kaidan left the room and closed the door in his wake.
"Why are we still here?" There was an edge of impatience in there, this time.
"I ask myself that every day," Shepard responded noncommittally and continued to twist at her ring. The motion was unconscious, whether it helped her think was debatable.
"No, here," Garrus corrected evenly and let out a sigh. "You're putting everyone's life on the line; you're assuming that data you got from some terrorist asshole a decade ago was anything near accurate. Or the data you pulled out of Hypatia? You never used to rely on leads this shoddy, not all the way like this."
There was a pause. She didn't say anything and he continued.
"You've lost your mind, you know that?" It was so matter of fact, so frank that Shepard finally turned to face him.
He was seated on the edge of a cot, arms propped on his knees, just peering at her. Behind him, illuminated occasionally by the half-viable, flickering, emergency lighting, were six identical beds, makeshift, kidnapped, or whathaveyou. Cots, a litter or two, one medbed. Her eyes traveled across them, across the familiar shapes in the dark, despite her resolve to keep from doing that again, and she let out a slow, drawn breath.
Sagan was the only one left uncovered.
For all his belief in separating the actions fo the body from the soul, Thane hadn't been able to shoot the man--cybertronian? He'd been given a full frontal headshot, plain as day, and he hadn't taken it. The hole in Sagan's chest was large enough that, really, it didn't matter. Still, for Thane, it said something. Not a sure kill....really. Either way, Sagan looked almost happy in his stillness and Shepard couldn't find it in herself to begrudge him that.
"I know," Shepard answered and looked away from Sagan to...to Garrus. He hadn't moved and his avian eyes watched her with such focus that, for a second, she could almost fool herself.
She didn't have Thane's perfect memory and, truthfully, had been doing her damndest to forget it all. Ten years? Ten years was a long time. Sometimes, it was a different injury, sometimes there wasn't an injury at all, and others...like now, he would be so real she could mistake him for Garrus. Much as she wanted it, desperately as she needed it, there was no chance of making that mistake today.
The bed he was seated on wasn't vacant.
"If I weren't crazy, you'd be gone," Shepard told the figment plainly.
"Shepard," Garrus started, almost jovially...almost. Neither of them had the energy for that, either, for any emotion. His mandibles flared in a familiar configuration and, try as she might, she couldn't brace herself against whatever horrible thing he was about to say. She couldn't ignore him, ignore that voice--He was...well, all she had left.
"I am gone."
Shepard closed her eyes at that, her breath hitched, and there was a long, morbid silence. When she opened her eyes again, the hallucination was gone and her expression crumbled. Whether she was emotional because of him or for him, she couldn't say. Now, however, she had no buffer to keep her from really assessing the situation and she pressed her face into her hand as she tried to regain her composure. If she fractured any further it would be hell getting it back together and she...she had to have it together.
The cold metal of her ring pressed against a contusion on her forehead. Something in the back of her mind told her exactly how and when she'd gotten that injury--it was during the assault on Hypatia's maintenance ring, when they'd been on point to disable all station functions. She'd covered Legion left Garrus and Sagan to--and try as she might, she couldn't ignore it. Shepard pulled her hand away from her face as though she'd been burned and just stared at the band for some long time.
"You said you'd walk into hell with me," Shepard said softly, addressing the ring, and then looked back at the turian corpse on the table. The sheet they'd thrown over him did little to hide the extent of his injuries. "I just..."
Shepard toyed with the piece of jewelry reflexively. The cold metal was familiar but it was uncomfortable. She twisted it around her finger and back again before she approached the side of the cot. She'd made her decision and this was a conversation she wanted to have with the real Garrus. She had to do it quickly, had to...say something, or risk some desperate part of her mind ruining this once chance with an imagined copy.
"I wanted you to walk back out."
Her own voice sounded distant as she stared at the covered shape where his face was. Shepard didn't move, for fear that he might, for fear that the hallucination would reappear and shatter the mild, terrible peace this moment had. For fear...of ending this, all of this, and forcing herself to move forward with time. She wasn't certain how long she stood there, but it wasn't until Kaidan's tentative knock resounded through the morgue that she finally spoke again. Her voice was much quieter, just barely possessed of sound, and it was almost drown out by the hum of the elecricelecricityity in the lights. She couldn't even hear the sound of her her ring as she set it on the table, her own pulse was in her ears.
"I love you, Garrus."
Kaidan never had a chance to open the door because Shepard came through it, gear slung over one shoulder, before he had the opportunity. Her expression was unreadable, the perfect face of command, and the speech she delivered as the Engineer's started up the...she wasn't even certain what to call it. Their ticket out, if anything.
It went quickly. Whether it really had, because everyone wanted to escape this place and return home...or because she wasn't certain she wanted to leave it anymore, she couldn't say. The Normandy crews had to remain, be among the last to leave. Only Legion had the data, and if something went awry, they'd need him more than anyone else.
Eventually, they were all that was left. It was easy to forget, then, that all of this had happened. Another abandoned station with a crazy AI ,out in the middle of nowhere? But ten years was a long time. No one asked why she'd left her ring and she didn't tell them. Legion, Jacob, Jack, Kal'Reegar, Samara...Thane. Almost half the crew separated from them. Several hesitated, but they weren't all going back to the same place.
Everyone knew it.
A few scattered goodbyes were exchanged. The long look Samara granted her implied that Shepard was lucky to be spared the demands of the code, and the asari was relieved that she did not have to enforce it. Jacob made a comment about how a Shepard without tits was going to be strange. Thane bowed solemnly and...as abruptly as they had arrived, they were gone.
For a moment, no one spoke.
"You know what the best goddam thing about this fucking waste of time was?" Zaeed seethed flatly as the remaining crew gathered in the appropriate place beneath the singularity.
"There was good? Did that all happen before I arrived?" Tali prompted and did an admirable job of covering how choked up she was.
"Get to take out my frustration on some goddam collectors when we get back. Ten years training, maybe the lot of you have learned which end of the gun goes at the enemy."
"An encouraging vote of confidence, Mr. Massani. Shepard, we should go," Miranda answered dryly and undercut the attention on Zaeed.
"Get it ready, Tali," Shepard ordered idly and started down the hill of shrapnel--some old, some new, some recently fallen from the singularity they were using to escape. She was the last one to join them and turned to face the the smoldering remnants of Zone 01. The station was almost pitch dark beyond that, everything rendered inert. Dead. She almost pitied the next people to come through.
Almost.
"What's that saying you alliance types have?"
Shepard didn't react, but something in her shoulders relaxed just slightly despite the weight that settled in her gut. Kaidan was standing beside her, occupying the space so that no one else could, so that it wouldn't remain empty, because she needed someone to be there. Whatever his reason...she didn't have to look to know that it wasn't his hand grasping hers.
"No man left behind."
And then there was silence on Sacrosanct.
-My love of tragic endings in stories that aren't tragedies.
-My love of the musebox dark-future-Sing.
-Godmodding, and writing other peoples' characters badly, apparently.
-Filling Kinkmeme prompts with genfic.
IN SHORT. Ignore me. Just. Go about your business.
"Sparing Sagan was a mistake," Garrus said as she stared off at the gap between the walls and into the tunnel beyond them. It was the closest thing she'd had to a window in years. "Even he saw it coming."
Somewhere behind her, she heard him sit. The beds didn't creak here, no springs in them, they were just cots. That thought faded as quickly and distractedly as it had come. She couldn't debate with him, not on this, and given the losses they'd taken in that last assault, she didn't want to. He was right.
She'd heard the conversations, whispered between Sagan and Thane, the distracted promises to disobey her, the quiet passing threats and awkward evasions regarding the topic. Thane had to have known she was aware, or maybe his pact with Sagan had been very serious. In either case, he hadn't even flinched, despite her standing right there when it came down to it.
"I know." It was the only answer she had. Shepard's arms were folded idly across her chest. It was a habit, one that had never faded, had never shifted over all these years. Garrus had told her, once, that it made him feel like they were back on the Normandy. He never said which one, but at this point? It hardly mattered. Ten years scraping around in tunnels made certain details irrelevant.
"He was your friend, you shouldn't have put him through it," Garrus added. They were both too worn to inject any real anger in this rebuke. "He deserved better...and those losses? They're on your head."
"I know," Shepard repeated. She shifted her hand just a bit, freed it up from the crook of her arm and twisted her fingers together. That was a more recent habit. It only paid off when she was out of armor, as she was now, but she did it a handful of times a day. The metal band on her ring finger shifted idly as she did.
Wasn't gold; he hadn't fully grasped the tradition, or maybe he had and he'd opted for something a little more personal, she'd never really been certain. Inconel. Had no idea how he'd gotten it, or how he'd cast it, but the damn thing was more solid than the armor she covered it with. When he'd given it to her, he'd made a remark about how she disliked taking off her. Peppered it with the idea that he didn't want to give her an excuse to remove a malleable trinket.
It hadn't been expressly romantic at the time, either, but that was neither here nor there.
"Shepard." The door opened and that redirected her attention. She turned her head away from the crack in the bulkhead, twisted at the waist, and half-faced the door. Kaidan had always leaned in the room just slightly before entering, even before she'd outranked him, before the Reapers. It was just something he did. She inclined her head when he made eye contact and he stepped in.
"Status?" Shepard requested evenly and Kaidan nodded just slightly. She had to hand it to him, he knew when to adhere to protocol and when to prod. Probably why he'd been sent in to report to her instead of...well, anyone else. To his credit, his eyes didn't even stray to the fresh bullet hole through her shoulder or the steadily reddening bandages. She'd live; no one questioned that anymore.
"Legion finished the calculations, the files seem viable. None of the scientists can find a flaw. Tali and Flynn are working to create the correct sequencing protocol. The engineers are...I've never seen anyone move so fast," Kaidan admitted evenly. There was a note of pleading in there, dry and futile as it was. He wanted Shepard to order them to take a break, to rest after the losses after that battle, but it wasn't going to happen. Not this time.
"Keep me updated," Shepard added and returned to looking out the split in the wall before her. Kaidan was still standing in the threshold; she hadn't heard him take a step. He was lingering for one of two reasons and Shepard waited until he gave her a sign as to which one it was. Either he wanted to make a request or--
"Are you--" He was checking up on her. She wasn't surprised. Of the three people she might have actually opened up to, one was on the bed behind her, one was meditating, and Kaidan was third. Idly she wondered if he'd come of his own accord. Knowing him? It was entirely possible.
"Dismissed," Shepard interrupted him flatly, cut him off before this could go any further. It was not a conversational sort of evasion, not something that permitted the banter they used to fall into. She didn't want to talk, didn't want him to push it. He was a biotic and uninjured; he was needed elsewhere and he knew it. Kaidan didn't continue and didn't respond. Garrus had the good grace to remain silent until Kaidan left the room and closed the door in his wake.
"Why are we still here?" There was an edge of impatience in there, this time.
"I ask myself that every day," Shepard responded noncommittally and continued to twist at her ring. The motion was unconscious, whether it helped her think was debatable.
"No, here," Garrus corrected evenly and let out a sigh. "You're putting everyone's life on the line; you're assuming that data you got from some terrorist asshole a decade ago was anything near accurate. Or the data you pulled out of Hypatia? You never used to rely on leads this shoddy, not all the way like this."
There was a pause. She didn't say anything and he continued.
"You've lost your mind, you know that?" It was so matter of fact, so frank that Shepard finally turned to face him.
He was seated on the edge of a cot, arms propped on his knees, just peering at her. Behind him, illuminated occasionally by the half-viable, flickering, emergency lighting, were six identical beds, makeshift, kidnapped, or whathaveyou. Cots, a litter or two, one medbed. Her eyes traveled across them, across the familiar shapes in the dark, despite her resolve to keep from doing that again, and she let out a slow, drawn breath.
Sagan was the only one left uncovered.
For all his belief in separating the actions fo the body from the soul, Thane hadn't been able to shoot the man--cybertronian? He'd been given a full frontal headshot, plain as day, and he hadn't taken it. The hole in Sagan's chest was large enough that, really, it didn't matter. Still, for Thane, it said something. Not a sure kill....really. Either way, Sagan looked almost happy in his stillness and Shepard couldn't find it in herself to begrudge him that.
"I know," Shepard answered and looked away from Sagan to...to Garrus. He hadn't moved and his avian eyes watched her with such focus that, for a second, she could almost fool herself.
She didn't have Thane's perfect memory and, truthfully, had been doing her damndest to forget it all. Ten years? Ten years was a long time. Sometimes, it was a different injury, sometimes there wasn't an injury at all, and others...like now, he would be so real she could mistake him for Garrus. Much as she wanted it, desperately as she needed it, there was no chance of making that mistake today.
The bed he was seated on wasn't vacant.
"If I weren't crazy, you'd be gone," Shepard told the figment plainly.
"Shepard," Garrus started, almost jovially...almost. Neither of them had the energy for that, either, for any emotion. His mandibles flared in a familiar configuration and, try as she might, she couldn't brace herself against whatever horrible thing he was about to say. She couldn't ignore him, ignore that voice--He was...well, all she had left.
"I am gone."
Shepard closed her eyes at that, her breath hitched, and there was a long, morbid silence. When she opened her eyes again, the hallucination was gone and her expression crumbled. Whether she was emotional because of him or for him, she couldn't say. Now, however, she had no buffer to keep her from really assessing the situation and she pressed her face into her hand as she tried to regain her composure. If she fractured any further it would be hell getting it back together and she...she had to have it together.
The cold metal of her ring pressed against a contusion on her forehead. Something in the back of her mind told her exactly how and when she'd gotten that injury--it was during the assault on Hypatia's maintenance ring, when they'd been on point to disable all station functions. She'd covered Legion left Garrus and Sagan to--and try as she might, she couldn't ignore it. Shepard pulled her hand away from her face as though she'd been burned and just stared at the band for some long time.
"You said you'd walk into hell with me," Shepard said softly, addressing the ring, and then looked back at the turian corpse on the table. The sheet they'd thrown over him did little to hide the extent of his injuries. "I just..."
Shepard toyed with the piece of jewelry reflexively. The cold metal was familiar but it was uncomfortable. She twisted it around her finger and back again before she approached the side of the cot. She'd made her decision and this was a conversation she wanted to have with the real Garrus. She had to do it quickly, had to...say something, or risk some desperate part of her mind ruining this once chance with an imagined copy.
"I wanted you to walk back out."
Her own voice sounded distant as she stared at the covered shape where his face was. Shepard didn't move, for fear that he might, for fear that the hallucination would reappear and shatter the mild, terrible peace this moment had. For fear...of ending this, all of this, and forcing herself to move forward with time. She wasn't certain how long she stood there, but it wasn't until Kaidan's tentative knock resounded through the morgue that she finally spoke again. Her voice was much quieter, just barely possessed of sound, and it was almost drown out by the hum of the elecricelecricityity in the lights. She couldn't even hear the sound of her her ring as she set it on the table, her own pulse was in her ears.
"I love you, Garrus."
Kaidan never had a chance to open the door because Shepard came through it, gear slung over one shoulder, before he had the opportunity. Her expression was unreadable, the perfect face of command, and the speech she delivered as the Engineer's started up the...she wasn't even certain what to call it. Their ticket out, if anything.
It went quickly. Whether it really had, because everyone wanted to escape this place and return home...or because she wasn't certain she wanted to leave it anymore, she couldn't say. The Normandy crews had to remain, be among the last to leave. Only Legion had the data, and if something went awry, they'd need him more than anyone else.
Eventually, they were all that was left. It was easy to forget, then, that all of this had happened. Another abandoned station with a crazy AI ,out in the middle of nowhere? But ten years was a long time. No one asked why she'd left her ring and she didn't tell them. Legion, Jacob, Jack, Kal'Reegar, Samara...Thane. Almost half the crew separated from them. Several hesitated, but they weren't all going back to the same place.
Everyone knew it.
A few scattered goodbyes were exchanged. The long look Samara granted her implied that Shepard was lucky to be spared the demands of the code, and the asari was relieved that she did not have to enforce it. Jacob made a comment about how a Shepard without tits was going to be strange. Thane bowed solemnly and...as abruptly as they had arrived, they were gone.
For a moment, no one spoke.
"You know what the best goddam thing about this fucking waste of time was?" Zaeed seethed flatly as the remaining crew gathered in the appropriate place beneath the singularity.
"There was good? Did that all happen before I arrived?" Tali prompted and did an admirable job of covering how choked up she was.
"Get to take out my frustration on some goddam collectors when we get back. Ten years training, maybe the lot of you have learned which end of the gun goes at the enemy."
"An encouraging vote of confidence, Mr. Massani. Shepard, we should go," Miranda answered dryly and undercut the attention on Zaeed.
"Get it ready, Tali," Shepard ordered idly and started down the hill of shrapnel--some old, some new, some recently fallen from the singularity they were using to escape. She was the last one to join them and turned to face the the smoldering remnants of Zone 01. The station was almost pitch dark beyond that, everything rendered inert. Dead. She almost pitied the next people to come through.
Almost.
"What's that saying you alliance types have?"
Shepard didn't react, but something in her shoulders relaxed just slightly despite the weight that settled in her gut. Kaidan was standing beside her, occupying the space so that no one else could, so that it wouldn't remain empty, because she needed someone to be there. Whatever his reason...she didn't have to look to know that it wasn't his hand grasping hers.
"No man left behind."
And then there was silence on Sacrosanct.