(Untitled)

[femshep]

CHARACTERS: femshep and of_kalahira (but if any of the other squadmates wanna join, just let me know and you're totally good.)
DATE: 11/16 (Day 19, before the mission text and directly after this.)
RATING: idek. Shepard's pissed.
SUMMARY: Shepard had no other choice but to agree to babysit the galaxy's almost-destroyer. Now she feels like breaking anything that

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[of_kalahira]

"We rarely are," came the voice from behind her, though Thane kept several yards between them. It wasn't a matter of safety, but boundaries were something he understood well, from his life with the Hanar if not his life with his own kind.

He stood, folding his hands behind his back with the intention of letting Shepard do whatever she felt that she needed to do, provided that armor stood between her and serious injury.

For now, she'd blame herself, and he'd give her a few moments to do so before presenting what he considered to be a rational explanation for Saren's behavior. Shepard was perhaps the strongest human he'd met, but she was human. Humans held their emotions as closely as Drell held their memories, and it wasn't his place to try to calm her when her spirit was not ready to be calm. It would be a disservice both to her and to the dead.

"I won't interfere."

[femshep]

Her head dropped back, eyes closed, and she exhaled slowly. He wasn't going away. Anyone else and she'd have been sure she could convince them to leave her alone, but if tailing her weren't extremely important to him, 'not in the mood' would have done the job just fine.

After a second, she stopped abruptly and turned to face him. "What is it that you want from me?" It was harsh, but he could take it. He was almost better at this than Garrus, in that sense, despite that she'd known the turian over twice as long-whether she meant it to or not, if it were Garrus tailing her right now, with how little attention she was paying to the abrasiveness of the words coming out of her mouth? There's no way it wouldn't end in a fight. No way in hell.

[of_kalahira]

Thane frowned in concentration, reviewing his motivations despite the fact that he did so at least twice daily during his own meditation. He wanted her not to make a mistake. He wanted her not to succumb to emotion when her squad needed her, more than ever. Though Thane had his own consciously muted flashes of sympathy and empathy, he was, above all, a pragmatic and solitary person. He worked alone. It had been hard enough to learn to accept the word of another, and trust was not something he would surrender easily

[femshep]

He wanted her not to make a mistake. Every single person in this galaxy wanted her not to make a mistake, not a single goddamn mistake. So she hadn't. Nothing that would matter much to them, anyway. Only to her. The rest went off without a hitch, every single time, and still he could sit here and think he was standing between here and some big fucking mistake?

He wanted a leader.

"I am a leader," she shot back, skipping right over his question. It was a fair question, sure, but it involved stopping and thinking and Shepard was not fond of either of those right now. "I made the only call that made sense." Her voice wasn't as harsh this time. It wasn't by any means warm, but it was at least level. "But if you're going to stand here and tell me I'm supposed to like it, after everything that bastard did, everyone he-" Her jaw closed on her bottom lip, not from emotion but from refusal. She wasn't going to yell at Thane. He didn't deserve it.

When she spoke again, her voice was hushed. "You killed the man who killed your wife." She