Archive of Our Own ^beta

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Jane wasn't worried about her family when she left the house. She had told them there was a study session at Kelly Chamber's house. Jane hadn't mentioned that said study session was in the dunes, or that Kaidan Alenko from Algebra would be there. Although Jane thought her older sister, Kahlee, had known what she was up to. Mom had no idea. Shanxi was like the deserts of Earth, rocky, scorching hot, and without vast forests. The study session was just her and Alenko outside of town. No one else would be coming, especially not Kelly or anyone else from school.

She was still wearing her work clothes, for when Kahlee tutored her afterschool. Shanxi was mostly composed of miners, and Jane's sister taught her how to keep the machines clean. The outfit was grease stained and the knee was patched, but Jane was in a hurry. Her shirt was an old fashioned blue gingham button up, the kind a grandma would wear. Bellying her billowy top was a form fitting white tank top. She ran over the last rise and saw Kaidan, standing at the top of a nearby dune. He was smiling his gorgeous smile underneath his puppy dog eyes. Jane had just reached him when he pulled her into a kiss. He was by no means good, there was spit everywhere, but an A+ for effort. They broke apart for a much needed breath. "Jane, wow." Jane blushed a bit and hoped the dark hid it. "Thanks Kaidan."

After this brief exchange they went back at it. Jane was unbuttoning her over shirt when air raid sirens went off back home. Kaidan snapped his head toward home, "Jane, we need to get back." She could see the lights from a ship descending through the atmosphere. Jane's stomach fell to her shoes, "Kaidan, I don't know if that's a good idea." He rolled his eyes, "C'mon Jane. What if they find out we're missing?" The pit Jane's stomach was in continued to deepen, "Really, I don't think it's a good idea Kaidan. Let's wait it out here." The ship was close enough now to see. The design was alien, and all curves. "Jane, I don't know if this is anxiety, but we need to head back." He grabbed her wrist, and she dug her heels into the sand. "No Kaidan! Something is wrong!" Her voice had ascended in pitch to screeching, but Jane didn't care anymore. If Kaidan went back, she was certain he would die. Jane Shepard wouldn't die for a man, no way. Kaidan released her from his grip, "Fine, but I'm not taking any fallout. You can deal with that yourself."

Jane ran down the dune and behind a nearby one that was substantially higher. She watched Kaidan's retreating back for a moment, but then went back to hiding. There had been a screwdriver in her back pocket that she was now clutching like it could save her. Hopefully, this just lasted the night. Jane knew she couldn't live out here for long. Any moisture traps would almost certainly fail. Her only chance at survival was through the night. As the hypothetical occupation lasted longer, her survival rate dwindled. Soon, the screams began. It was the sound of tortured souls being laid to rest. During the following hours of hell Jane laid there listening to the screaming and occasional gunshot. Her hair, which was red like her mother's, was sandy and her scalp began to itch. Just as the sun began to rise above the horizon, Jane heard a sound. It sounded like a ship taking off, but she didn't dare move to check. Maybe it was a trap and whoever they were luring her out. Jane saw said ship pass over and into the atmosphere.

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Although the sun was coming up and the grains of sand were warming, Jane shivered. The screwdriver's handle was warm under her sweaty, shaking palm. She had seen the ship pass overhead, but Jane decided to wait another hour or so. Just as the sand surrounding her began to burn, she stood and surveyed her home. Thick plumes of smoke rose from numerous locations. One of the habs looked like it had been knocked over. Jane began a debate with herself, whether or not to return to town. The desert wasn't hospitable in the slightest. Back home, there was a delta and some lakes to draw moisture from. Although a few oases could be found between the dunes she didn't have a map, and without a map Jane would probably die. Jane ultimately decided that either choice would end in her likely death, and going into town would prolong her life. Shanxi had been a small colony, only a dozen habs and a quarter of those were labs, storage, and water reclamation and filtering. The water here was potable, but contained trace amounts of mercury that would be fatal over a lifetime. While she had been pacing and arguing with herself, the sun had risen and Jane could feel it beginning to burn her exposed skin. Jane and Kaidan's plan had been a stupid one, and if her mom survived there would be serious consequences. Jane stopped herself. There was no if. She had to be alive. How could Hannah Shepard, a former rear admiral of the Alliance, be dead? There was no way.

She was beyond exhausted, but adrenaline coursed through her veins. Jane's shoes were filled with sand and grains squeaked between her dry teeth. She and Kaidan had been about 200 meters out from the settlement last night. Jane crossed the distance in no time, and quickly wished she hadn't. A body was on the ground, about 5 meters away. It was Kaidan. He was sprawled back, glazed over eyes watching the sky unseeingly. She wanted to rush over and shake him till he woke. The bullet wound on his chest, caked with dried blood, said otherwise. Jane had been right not to go back. It was a cold comfort in the face of Shanxi's certain destruction. She knew it was selfish, but why her? Jane's life just twelve hours prior belonged to someone else. A girl who was happy, carefree. A girl who had a mother and a sister who loved her to Earth and back. A girl who had a home and a boyfriend and friends. Jane was no longer that girl. As she continued her search of the colony, brandishing her pitiful screwdriver, Jane stumbled upon more bodies. In one hab unit, a backroom's door lay open. This didn't bode well, but she had to investigate and ensure no hostiles were left inside. In the place of an enemy was a baby's crib. Inside was a small child, barely a few months old by the looks of her. Her face was peaceful and sleepy, but a gory hole in her abdomen ensured she slept forever. Jane stumbled out of the room, disgusted. Her name had been Emily Watson. Emily's mother was so proud of the little girl, she toted her around the neighborhood for a week after her birth. Jane threw up when she was outside. As she heaved something caught her eye. A flat disc, barely the size of a penny, lay in the sand next to the hab. Once Jane had finished regurgitating her previous dinner, she grabbed the disc. It was shiny and cold to the touch, but smelled like eezo (a mix of ozone and burnt gunpowder). She knew it was probably inconsequential, but decided it was odd enough to warrant keeping. The next hab unit was her own. The Mako wasn't in the driveway and the door out front was wide open. Two steps over the threshold told Jane all she needed to know. Her mother was in the kitchen, the body slumped against the stove. Her spatula was a short distance away and something in the bottom of her pan was still smoking.

Jane dropped on her knees to the left of her mother. Hannah's face was frozen in fear, her eyes wide open. When she touched her mother's hand it was cold, devoid of all love and warmth. A hole in her forehead was ringed with dried crimson. Jane sat by her mother's body and sobbed, each time feeling as though she was being disemboweled. By the time she was done, Jane had laid her head in her mother's lap, like she did many years ago. This would be the last time she would do so. As she stood, Jane noticed her mother's dog tags hanging around her neck. Jane grabbed her mother's dog tags, slipped them on, and kissed her cold cheek. Just as she left to check the rest of their unit, the familiar sound of a ship descending into the atmosphere rumbled through the air. Jane ran back, closed her mother's eyes for the last time and looked for a place to hide. Her eyes were still puffy from crying as she searched. Someone had been injured in Kahlee's room, but the body was gone. Maybe there were other survivors. Jane knew not to be optimistic. She thought she was ready for life outside of Sol, beyond the Chiron Relay. She finally decided to hide under the bed. Jane's head kept swirling with all the what if's. What if they had stayed on Mars? What if she hadn't gone out last night? What if she had gone into town with Kaidan? All of this was stopped by the whooshing of the hab's front door opening; someone was here. Whoever had just entered was heavier than a human, and there was more than one. A rhythmic chirping and a few trills seemed to echo in the emptiness. Jane tried to stay silent, but when a pair of two toed feet came within twenty inches of her face, searching the bed probably, she whimpered. Jane hoped and prayed that if there was a god out there, they would let this slide and she could just continue to hide under the bed.

Evidently, if anyone was upstairs, they weren't listening to Jane. Whoever was connected to those strange, strange feet went silent. Jane tried to roll over, but hit her elbow on the bed, hard. She knew that this definitely couldn't be ignored. A trill rang out and one more set of feet came inside the room.

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Jane gripped the screwdriver hard, the octagonal base cutting into her hand. It was kinda funny to Jane, in a dark way. She was laying here, discovered and her only weapon was a screwdriver. She had never thought the way she, Jane Shepard, would go out, was under her own bed. Whoever those things were, they started talking. Not in her language, not in English, but in a system of clicks, trills, and growls. Her mother's dog tags were cold against her chest. Jane saw the original one shift their weight. They dropped down to their hands and knees. Jane screamed and thrashed in an escape attempt. Whatever this person was, they weren't human. Two eyes, inhumanly blue, stared back at her. Their entire face was a shade of slate gray, covered with navy markings. Those navy markings lay on what looked like bones. Jane was dead, this was it. As she writhed in an attempt to get away, something went wrong with her ankle. Something very, very wrong and very, very painful. The alien waited patiently, mandibles fluttering. Jane stopped flinging herself about and just began crying. Her mother was dead, her sister was missing, and aliens had showed up for an intergalactic snack, great. Everything crashed down on her at the same time. The person watching her cocked their head and waited. The other one just stood around. The standing alien left for a few minutes and returned with something that crinkled. Jane had stopped sobbing by now, her waterfall barely a trickle. Her shirts were wet at the hems and a small puddle was forming below her face on the cold hab floor.

The alien watching her suddenly held something out to her. A bottle of water and a single ration of the Alliance's MRE protein bars were in their strange three digit hand. Jane was up against the hab's wall and refused to reach out. Their talons glinted. Who knew what that person would do if she was within reach. Jane shook her head and the alien nodded in response, shoving both items hard enough that they skidded across the floor to her. Jane stared them down as she cracked open the bottle's top. Doing so had meant setting her faithful screwdriver down for a second, leaving Jane defenseless. It hadn't been opened, so she reasoned it would be safe. She took one sip, and then another, and another, until the entire bottle was empty. She then moved onto the protein bar. Those were far from actual food in any other circumstance, but this time the bar tasted like it was ambrosia. Jane demolished the bar in a similar fashion to her water. Just as she finished another alien strode in and Jane began brandishing her screwdriver again. This one barked at the one on the floor and they acquiesced and moved away. The new one was a bit lighter in gray color, but retained the navy markings. A click, much like the sound of safety on a gun being turned off, shot through the air. Jane jumped and flattened herself against the back wall again.

The other alien began to speak, and to her amazement Jane could understand fragments of the sentence. "Who are-Where are-" The voice sounded like a virtual assistant, emotionless. She spoke, for the first time in a day and her voice cracked painfully, "Your translator isn't working." The one trying to speak to her hissed something out. The old one sounded with a similar click and took the new one's place. "Who are you?" They seemed startled by the question but answered. "My name is Garrus Vakarian. Who are you?" The voice was male and lower in tone. Jane relaxed a bit off the wall. The aliens were interested in talking, good. Maybe she could distract them a bit. "I'm Cadet Commander Jane Shepard." The alien kneeling fluttered his mandibles at her, "Nice to meet you Cadet Commander Shepard. Are you hurt?" Jane tallied her injuries. Beside the bruised palm of her right hand and the broken ankle, she was fine. Mentally, she couldn't even begin to comprehend everything happening. "I should be fine, but my ankle is broken." "Are you here to eat me?" Garrus flared his mandibles and chuckled, "We aren't here to eat you" Jane felt embarrassed now and it showed in a burning blush across her cheeks. He cocked his head at the sight, "Are you alright?" She was damned, "I'm embarrassed." He stopped and stared at her, "Oh." The other alien that had been on the floor barked at Garrus again. "What happened here?" Jane began fiddling with her screwdriver, "I don't know exactly. I was planetside when this happened, but I wasn't in town, which is how I survived." Suddenly, she realized what they were doing, "You were the ones who attacked weren't you? You came back to clean up the mess!" At this revelation Jane shrank back to the wall and clutched her long forgotten screwdriver.

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"No, no that wasn't us!" Jane didn't care anymore. Fuck stalling and getting them to talk, these people had murdered her family, her boyfriend, all the people she ever knew were dead or MIA. Garrus seemed nice, but there was a reason Jane was Cadet Commander of Shanxi's JROTC. She didn't take BS from anyone. This corner was getting awfully tight, awfully hot, awfully confining. She was going to die here. One of the fucking aliens would sit on the bed and that would be it. She would be squashed like a pancake. That was all Jane Shepard would be known for being, a fucking pancake. She flattened herself even further than already and wielded the screwdriver like it would be the end all be all for the aliens. She must have looked crazy, insane even to Garrus.

"Shepard, that wasn't us. We received a distress signal from this location." Jane shook her head wildly. There was a headache pounding there now. Maybe Garrus and his friends had poisoned her rations and water. She was gripping the screwdriver in one hand, her mother's dog tags in the other. "Cadet Commander Shepard, listen to me." The Cadet Commander thought it over. If they wanted to kill her, they could have already done it. Giving quarter made no sense at this point to them, so she decided to hear Garrus out. "Another one of my kind came here and did this. We got an anomalous signal and came to investigate." One of the other aliens growled at him and Garrus snapped his mandibles in response. "Would you mind coming out from under there?" Jane pondered it for a moment and responded. "Everyone has to leave the room. You can all stand at the door to my room, but when I come out no one can be in here. Got it?" Garrus responded with a curt nod and relayed the request to everyone else. Although there seemed to be some griping among the aliens, all of them stepped outside. Once everyone was gone Jane took a few deep breaths. Her mother was dead, her sister was missing, she was an intergalactic snack. But Garrus was her only chance of survival. The colony was damaged beyond repair and the water reclamation hab was literally smoking. Jane didn't want to go through the pain and agony it would take to retrieve every person's body and give it a proper burial. Especially not her mother's or Kaidan's.

Garrus'es flanged voice called out from the hall, "Shepard, are you alright?" She took another deep breath and began scooting out from under the bed, "I'm fine." Her ankle got jostled a couple times and Jane hissed in agony, but kept going. Finally, she was out. Her hair was dusty and sandy, and her overshirt was moistened with tears and a bit of blood; the once bright blue gingham was now grungy and dull. The tanktop underneath was soaked with sweat. She thought about lying there forever, but one of the aliens outside clicked a few times. Jane stood for the first time in two hours. The pain in her right ankle was unbearable to stand on. She whimpered again and toppled over onto the bed. In her closet was a set of crutches, from when she had knee surgery a few years back. She hopped over to the closet and procured the crutches. They were a bit too short, but there were also a couple of aliens outside her door. Jane would take care of her ankle once she was completely alone.

Jane made her way out the door and her jaw dropped. When she had been under the bed, Jane couldn't ascertain the aliens' heights. Garrus was on the floor with her, so she assumed he was her height. Garrus was at least two meters tall, although he looked a third of a meter taller. The other was above his height, but just barely. Holy shit. "Shepard, this is my sister," he gestured to the other one. Garrus'es sister's crest was flattened and her mandibles hooked out. "I'm not sure if you heard, but I am Cadet Commander Jane Shepard of the Alliance Navy." His sister watched her closely. "Cadet Commander, please call me Solana. Are there any other survivors?" "No, not that I am aware of. My sister, Major Kahlee Sanders of the Alliance is currently missing in action." Solana fluttered her mandibles a bit before answering, "We'll need to search for any survivors. Garrus, take Cadet Commander Shepard back to the ship." Garrus spoke, "Should I take her to the ship?" "Yes, but hide her in your pod. We'll deal with her permanent hiding spot later." Jane was frustrated, she was listening, "My ankle is broken." "Garrus, make sure she doesn't break it further.. Cadet Commander Shepard, let Garrus know if you need anything." With that Solana left to coordinate her squad, and Jane, with Garrus'es help, started off to their ship.

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Jane tried to ignore the bodies as they passed, but it was hard. There, on her left, was the body of Kelly. She was annoying, yes, but had she deserved death? No, no Kelly hadn't. Jane stumbled as they passed Kaidan's body. She had just been with him last night. How could he be...gone? Garrus noticed her stumble and followed Jane's gaze to the body. "Was he someone special to you?" She nodded, "His name was Kaidan Alenko. We were...close." "Oh, what do you mean by-" He noticed the redness on her cheeks and remembered what she had told him earlier. "OH. I'm sorry for your loss, Shepard." She shook her head in resignation, "I'll miss him for sure. Kaidan was a good friend and classmate." Garrus blinked at her, "Classmate?" She nodded, "Yes, we were in school together." "Shepard, are you considered an adult?" "No, I'm not eighteen. Are you an adult?" "No, I'm only fourteen." "ONLY FOURTEEN?! HOW OLD IS SOLANA, SIXTEEN?!" "No? Sol is almost twenty-five." "How old is an adult for you?" Garrus cocked his head for a moment before responding, "Well, we start basic training at fifteen, but we aren't considered full adults until we finish our military service. Usually, that's around thirty, but some, like my mom, keep working for the Hierarchy even after that." Jane furrowed her brow, "What's 'the Hierarchy'?" "It's our government." Jane caught whiff of something unsavory, and then realized it was her.

Kaidan's lifeless eyes were still staring upward, and now at her. "Hold these, will you?" Garrus began to protest, "Shepard, don't! You said yourself-" She dropped to Kaidan's side and winced. Her ankle definitely wasn't getting any better, but if this was the last time she would ever see him, Kaidan at least deserved the best send off she could muster. Jane remembered he had been Catholic and carried a rosary. It felt as though she was defiling his corpse, but he had told her, merely twelve days ago, that if anything should happen, it was her responsibility to take the rosary as a reminder of him. She found it in the breast pocket of his shirt, the bullet wound a few centimeters away. Jane's father had been Catholic and she still remembered a few prayers. Allen Shepard had left them when she was ten, just after they had left for Shanxi. He promised to follow them through the Charon Relay on the next supply shuttle, but never arrived. Jane fumbled with the rosary for a bit. Her eyes began to water as she took in the gravity of the situation. Garrus shuffled and reminded her he was still there. "Garrus, could you give me a moment?" "Sure, call out if you need anything." She closed her eyes and tried to recall the words, "Father of all, we pray to you for Kaidan, and for all those whom we love, but see no longer. Grant to them eternal rest. Let light perpetual shine on them. May his soul and the souls of all the departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace....amen." Jane didn't believe in a higher power, just plain science, but it had seemed wrong to leave his body without some kind of religious affirmation. She put a hand on his face and closed his perpetually open eyes. "Kaidan, I know you can't hear me, but I don't care. I know we didn't get far at all, but I loved you all the same. You know what I believe, but maybe you're right, maybe we'll meet in whatever Heaven is." She sighed deeply and tears pricked Jane's eyes. "You dumb ass, why didn't you listen to me? I'll probably never see you again, but I'll always remember you." Jane called out to Garrus for her crutches and tucked the rosary into her own breast pocket. "Goodbye Kaidan Alenko."

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Jane couldn’t walk in the dunes easily. Her crutches slid and sunk in the fine sand, not to mention the rapid height fluctuations. Garrus seemed to have no problem, and she was convinced he had forgotten her. That is, until he turned back to her, “Shepard, do you need help?” She grunted and tried to act as if she was perfectly capable of walking, but then the Cadet Commander lost her balance and slid down the side of the dune, for the third time. Garrus stopped and came back for her, “I’m about to do something that might seem disagreeable, but it’s for the best Shepard.” Without any more context, he bent his bulk down and picked her up bridal style. For her part, Jane squealed and tried to scramble away. “Ofh. Shepard, if you keep struggling, I will drop you, even if I don’t want to.” She instantly stopped, however her position was less than comfortable. The armor Garrus was wearing poked into all the most sensitive, soft areas. The worst was her stomach, which screamed as though it was being impaled by the pointed end of his chestplate. Jane hissed out, “Can you hold me a bit higher?” Her alien acquaintance readjusted, and she became surprisingly comfortable. The Cadet Commander was fairly sure the armor would have been cold in normal circumstances, but thanks to Shanxi’s hot climate, it was warm, if not uncomfortably hot. “Huh, you’re pretty light. This should be easier than I thought.”

They came to the crest of a nearby abnormally high dune and he stopped walking. “Look out there.” She shaded her eyes with her hand and surveyed the terrain. About half a kilometer away was Solana’s starship. The hot sun caused scratches in the metal to be highlighted in bright streaks. Across the side was some indecipherable script. “What’s her name?” Garrus spoke, but this time she could feel it. Alongside his speech, a series of clicks and trills, was something else. It thrummed, with an agenda of its own evidently. Shepard barely heard what his reply was over her observations. “The HMS Valour. Her spirit is Hierax, Palaven’s military hawk.” “Spirit?” “A spirit represents a unit’s courage and accomplishments. Hierax is the Valour’s spirit.” “Are spirits your gods?” “No, we don’t pray to them for intercession. They are neutral forces in our life.” “What’s Palaven?” He looked down at her, no longer staring off at the ship. “My home planet,” Garrus’s crystal eyes bore into her own, “Sol and I are from the capital city, Cipritine.” She noticed that his plants retained the silver shine, even more apparent in the sun. The skin of his neck was a tawny brown, but he finally caught her eye. “Everything ok Shepard?” Jane became embarrassed, to have been caught staring. That heat returned to her cheeks again. “Yep, fine, a-ok. Let’s get going.”

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The decontamination was not Jane’s favorite. For one thing, Garrus forced her to walk up the ramp herself, which was covered in sand. When she asked why he just murmured something that his translator didn’t catch. Maybe it was a cultural thing, she didn’t know and he seemed unwilling to tell her. A fine mist drifted out of the vents and filled the room. Jane watched it and held her breath. About halfway through, she had to breathe, it was biologically impossible to continue remaining conscious without air. To her pleasant surprise, it was scentless. “Is it safe to breathe this stuff?” Garrus blinked a few times, almost as if he was lost in thought, before answering, “Should be. It’s just an aerosolized disinfectant.”

There wasn’t anyone in the main areas of the ship, and Shepard wondered where everyone was. As if reading her mind, Garrus supplemented an answer, “Sol probably sent everyone out to search the colony.” They made their way to the cargo hold. The Valour was designed for people like Garrus, even the stairs were big. When he had stepped off the last step, Jane was still on the second. He came back for her and lifted her again. This time, she didn’t struggle. The stairway dumped them directly into an extensive training area. Jane saw a row of lockers before Garrus moved on. The cargo hold was magnificent. It was about nine meters to the ceiling and fifteen meters back. Most of the storage area was filled with a shuttle and crates. Jane couldn’t read anything, but the look of military packaging was universal. She giggled a bit at the stark similarity.

After her last mishap, Garrus stayed much closer. “Where are you hiding me?” They continued back to the shuttle, “If we shift some of these crates, I might be able to fit you in.” He gave her a once over, “It will be a few days till we get back to Palaven. Sol might be able to scrounge up something for you to wear. Other than that, you should be ok. You’ll have to eat the rations from your colony until Sol knows what your amino acids are.” Jane thought about it, and the plan sounded fine, but there was one thing. “What about later, when we get to Palaven?” Garrus paused his preparations. “I don’t know yet. I think Sol wants to have a meeting with me tonight, and then I’ll let you know, ok?” Jane had plopped down on a stray box while he talked. It was strange, she had barely met Garrus a few hours ago, but he cared. In the low light, his eyes were nearly indigo, and reminded her of oceans or sapphires. His face was alien, but damn if it wasn’t beautiful. “Shepard?” She blinked and realized that he had caught her staring, again. “Oh yeah sorry, I’m fine. That sounds good.” Garrus helped up into the cubby, and left to rejoin Sol and her crew.

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Shepard slept deeply and without dreams the first night. Garrus came back and briefed her on the plan. Basically, she would be smuggled into their family home, Sol would dismiss him from the crew, and then they would talk to their dad. Apparently big bad dad Vakarian was a hotshot space cop who had connections who could get her back to the Alliance. But until she was introduced, they would have to hide her somewhere. Sol had a live-in girlfriend, so that part of the house was off-limits. The only place left was Garrus's room. Jane told herself it was just for a while and then she’d be back home. Well, if she was being honest, there was no going home anymore. But if she was honest, it would make her cry and that wasn’t good. Especially in the echoey cargo bay, and considering that Turians seemed to have better hearing than she did. So Jane just shut everything out and wrote stories in her mind. About the little girl who met spacemen, or the man who jumped and flew. The trivial nature of it helped her calm down. Sol found a dress for her, but Jane was more petite for the person it was tailored for. Meaning the near crew neck turned into a very generous scoop that showed more cleavage than necessary. Additionally, it (would have if she could have stood up) pooled at her feet. The color was a deep maroon. Garrus said it suited her, but Shepard hadn’t taken a shower. It felt like every inch of her body was caked in dust and sweat.

The second night was hell for the living. Screams pierced the air and cities burned as she watched, unable to move. Eventually, her clothes caught and Jane’s skin boiled and burned. Everything was scorching. Her lungs filled with smoke, unable to draw a breathe. When she finally broke through to reality, someone was looming over her. The figure was tall and masculine. He looked alien, and for a second she didn’t recognize him. The fearful stupor from her nightmare lingered, but then she recognized him. “Garrus?” He hummed reassuringly. Abruptly, her fading panic returned red hot, “What’s wrong?” “Nothing. Sol is giving everyone shore leave when we arrive, and then I’ll sneak you out.” Jane propped herself up onto her elbows, “How far are we?” He laced and unlaced his fingers, rubbed the back of his neck a few times, and avoided her gaze, opting to stare at the floor instead. “Well…” She pulled out the Commander voice, “Garrus, what is it?” He flinched at her sharp tone, “We’re nearly there.” Anxiety began writhing, red hot and constricting her airways.

Sound filtered out and she became a little girl hiding the closet again. Paralyzed with fear and worried footsteps weren’t Kahlee or Mom, but someone bad coming to hurt her. Only her heartbeat echoed through the hull, into the emptiness of space. But just like before, someone would come and save her. This time it’s Garrus, shaking her shoulders. “Jane, Jane? Are you alright?” Tears started leaking down her face, and she nearly jumped into his arms. He froze.