Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“Can we please stop talking about Shepard?”

Miranda swerves as a nurse pushes past her with an armful of compression bandages. Her eyelids sting in the smoke. She breathes through her mouth and wants only to sit for a minute, just a second, but no one’s coming to relieve her for another twelve hours. If they come at all. And Garrus simply won’t drop this line of questioning.

“She’s almost certainly dead. I couldn’t make her tough enough to survive a bloody Reaper beam.”

The entire right side of Garrus’s armor has been blasted away. He doesn’t seem to have noticed.

“We don’t know that. If she activated the Crucible, there’s no way a pile of rubble could take her down.”

“That pile of rubble was the entire Citadel coming down above her. In the meantime, I do know that this turian is going to die if you don’t stop arguing and start compressing her chest.”

Miranda pulls away from her patient to let him take over, ignores the screaming that’s started up again outside the makeshift hospital, and grabs the nearest medic. He sags alarmingly easily into her grip. “You- get me another packet of medi-gel now.”

“Ma’am, there’s no more-“

“Then get off your arse and tell the c-wing to send us whatever’s left of their supply. And if they start any bullshit, remind them that Alliance orders are that servicemen take priority over civilians.” Her voice softens. “Please hurry.”

“Right away, Ms. Lawson.”

Between the sickening tang of blood and the heat of a London summer, the field hospital is as close to collapse as Miranda’s ever seen. Gunfire rings out periodically, but most of the time it's quiet. As much as a post-war wasteland could be considered quiet. A dozen babbling voices come from the rubble beyond, where emergency pallets are spread like so many butter pats on blackened toast.

Their makeshift morgue takes up an entire city block.

Meanwhile, Garrus is still standing in front of her. His eyes flash with disapproval.

“Why are you even here? You don’t need my approval to leave the hospital.”

“Alliance orders not to approach the Crucible until we get confirmation that all the Reapers are gone. I’m giving them another ten minutes. If I don’t get the go-ahead by then I’m striking out on my own, regulations be damned.”

“Of course you are.”

“If there’s a chance that Shepard survived, then we need to start looking now before it’s too late. It’s only been three hours since…it’s entirely possible she made it. We owe her at least- at least - that much. Come on, Miranda.”

“Does it look like we have even a single set of hands to spare right now? You’re talking about digging through thirty cubic miles of debris. The Commander’s last known location was broadcasted before Hammer even landed- the Crucible was blown to bits, she could be anywhere. It’s out of the question.”

The patient shudders and goes still under her hands. Garrus ceases compressions. Miranda curses and reports another open bed on the server. It’s filled almost as soon as she lifts her bloody fingers from the datapad.

“The Normandy had a lock on Shepard’s position before we made a run for the beam. If we could just find them and get their scanner activated, it’d make it a hell of a lot easier. Did they even make it out of the Sol system? Is anyone looking for them?”

“Not a priority. You’re asking questions that no one knows the answer to.”

“And I’ll keep asking them until someone does. What’s the word from the Council?”

“The last asari survey team said there’s no trace of debris beyond the relay. The Normandy either made it out or they’re dead too.”

Turians can’t frown, but Garrus’s mandibles contract in something that might be sadness and might be fury. Miranda can’t tell. His rifle is unloaded but there’s a pile of confiscated heat sinks nearby. If he goes for one, there’s no way they can take them all away from him in time.

Instead, he follows Miranda to the next occupied cot.

“We can’t just sit here and do nothing.”

“I’m not. That remains to be seen for you.” Miranda snaps. “Now either help me hold his leg in place while I re-attach it to his body, or go somewhere where you can do some good. Damn it, where the hell is that medi-gel?”

She takes a deep breath and re-sanitizes her hands. Her datapad flashes and the hourly casualty report begins its steady scroll down the screen.

“Ashley’s doing recon at ground zero. I’m going to contact her. Coordinate the recovery effort whether the Council considers it a priority or not.”

“Fine.”

“When you’re done you should join us.”

“Fine.”

“I’d like something more than ‘fine’.”

“I can’t promise anything, I have too much to do here. With people who actually have a chance.”

“Your confidence is downright inspiring, Lawson.” Garrus growls, pushing another application of medigel into the Alliance soldier they’re working on. No use, too much blood loss. He’ll be dead within a minute. Exsanguination, that’s what the humans called it. Damn humans had no survivability whatsoever-how did something so weak and delicate ever beat the Reapers? How did one of them save the collective ass of the entire galaxy? How did she save trillions of lives in this cycle and the next- and how stupid was he, to believe she could keep her own life in the bargain?

“I don’t think you’ve thought this through.” Miranda looks away from the dying man and picks up the datapad again. Another bed emptied, another filled. Repeat, repeat. “I think your loyalty to the Commander means you’ll throw everything that you have at an unsolvable problem, wasting resources and quite possibly building up hope that isn’t there.”

“As if just loyalty could have kept anyone with Shepard every time she went to hell and back. You know as well as I do that loyalty was only good for making us show up, not getting us to stay. You wouldn’t even be alive if loyalty was all that mattered to you.”

“Loyalty and a little bit of mental instability. Reckless desperation. Should I go on? I don’t even know what you want me to say here. You want to leave, leave. Go find Spectre Williams.”

“The stoic act isn’t fooling anyone. If you’re trying to convince yourself that it’s helping, you’re doing a piss-poor job of it.”

“Whoever said that it’s working?”

Garrus slams his fists down and throws something across the room. He paces the same tense steps that he has for the last hour. Miranda actually jumps when he pushes his scarred face up against her own.

“Damnit, Miranda! You can’t just give Shepard up for dead, you can’t act like she didn’t mean anything to you! If it were you under there, wouldn’t you want us to go through hell to save your life? What if it was Jack? What if it was Oriana?”

Miranda lashes out in a wordless fury. Never mind that he weighs about a hundred pounds more than she does, or could easily overpower her in this exhausted state. She puts her hands out and shoves with all her might, moving him by exactly zero inches. She’s just so bloody tired of all of it.

Shepard would be searching. Shepard wouldn’t let something as idiotic as fear keep her from the truth, as gruesome as it might be. Shepard wasn’t afraid to fail.

Garrus’s mandibles flex again. She brings one trembling hand to her face.

“Stop. Get out of my hospital.”

“It’s not about me.” Garrus says, softly. “I don’t need your approval, or your resources, or even your help to find Shepard. But Shepard does, if she’s alive. If we manage to bring her back, I need you to believe that she can be saved- and then I need you to do it. You know her body better than anyone.”

She closes her eyes and sees the blueprints, the biometric scans, every iota of Shepard’s construction as clearly as it was yesterday. Wilson, the med-bay, the pistol without a thermal clip. The first words Shepard ever said to her.

Shepard, wake up!

“But I’m a believer in intent, Miranda, and if a soldier doesn’t believe something can be done, there’s no way to help him. You’d just be hoping he’d get lucky and succeed anyway. Shepard needs more than luck. Shepard deserves more than luck. Don’t you get it?”

Miranda’s eyes are stinging again.

“I’m not a bloody soldier, Garrus. I’ll be here if you need me but I can’t come with you. The Reapers may be gone but there’s still so much that needs to be done, before we can recover. And I can’t make myself useful if I’m worrying about Shepard. If I’m thinking about how she might be-“

Clone or not, I’m the only Shepard left.

“Even if she’s alive. Even if you needed me to rebuild her again…I’m afraid I won’t know how. No one gets a miracle like that twice. Not even Shepard.”

An Alliance private walks in just as Garrus is opening his mouth again.

“Mr. Vakarian?”

They turn at the same time.

“Someone made an inquiry about Commander Shepard. You asked to be informed if-“

“Go ahead.” Garrus says. Miranda keeps her face stone.

“A source identifying themselves as Alliance. Someone called Specialist Traynor?”

Chapter Text

She’s down to her last heat sink but there’s nothing to shoot at.

Devastation is hypothetically easy to patrol. No lingering resistance, no urgent touch-and-go first aid. Ashley looks into entrenched positions and through destroyed buildings and sees nothing worth saving. Easy. Her pace never slows.

It’s worse than Eden Prime, worse than leaving Earth behind when the Reapers hit, on par with watching the original Normandy go down in flames with Shepard still aboard. It hits Ashley somewhere below the heart and above the stomach, flattening air into tight blades forced in and out of her lungs. The stench of death permeates her helmet filters like they’re not even there.

She coughs anyway.

“Ma’am?”

“I’m fine.” Ashley recovers. “Keep moving along the left perimeter along that apartment complex, we’ll circle around this building and meet you by the Reaper corpse at the end of the street. Tag criticals and get whatever ID you can from the bodies. If they’re alien, contact their command center.”

“Understood.”

They pick their way through the debris bit by bit, scouring the area for any signs of life. But the Reapers didn’t take prisoners. Every corpse they find is cold.

“Ash, it’s Garrus. Come in.”

She signals a stop.

“Ash here. Go ahead.”

“Priority one, change of plans from Hackett. Get to the turian supply depot, they have excavation equipment waiting for you. Then grab every able body you can find and head to these coordinates. I’m sending them now.”

She looks down at her omnitool.

“Why there? Are we looking for something?”

Garrus hesitates.

“The Normandy collected them right before the Crucible fired.”

“The Normandy! They’re okay?”

“Hard to tell, it’s recorded, not live. They broadcast one badly garbled transmission from somewhere beyond the relay, so they made it. But we haven’t found any others. Damnit.”

“Wait, they broadcast a message but it didn’t contain their location? What's more important than that?”

Garrus begins to click his mandibles softly together, a sound reminiscent of fingers drumming on a tabletop. His usual confidence is noticeably absent.

“Shepard’s last known coordinates. They got a bead on her a few minutes before the Crucible fired. It’s our best shot of finding her.”

Boldly they rode and well.

Ashley blinks and lowers herself into a crouch as the news washes over her. The marines behind her look at each other, unsure, as she squints towards the horizon. The Citadel, blown into pieces. Could anything survive that? So much has been destroyed, but Shepard’s out there somewhere. Maybe even alive.

Into the jaws of-

Ashley picks her gun back up and turns her omnitool to intercept the widest frequency it can cover.

“This is Spectre Ashley Williams of the Alliance, calling any military or civilian personnel in the area. If you can still hold a shovel, get to this turian supply depot for immediate reassignment. Council authorization.” She pauses. “Search and rescue op. Fifteen minutes before we head out with whoever we have. Everyone in this goddamn galaxy owes a debt, and we’re going to start repaying it.”

Into the mouth of Hell.

_

Thirty exhausted marines breaking into a full run on her command. There’s something she never fails to take pride in. Even as they approach and her own pace gets faster, they keep up.

Shepard would have been proud.

Calling it a “turian supply depot” is a bit generous when they arrive, guns and armor clanking. There are some supplies, yes, but it doesn’t look far off every other part of London except for the fact that most of the bodies scattered around are turian. The site is already crawling with white-robed aid workers cleaning up the debris, but the only thing Ashley has eyes for is the small fleet of recovery equipment waiting for her amidst the bustle. Good enough for a rescue.

Darkness is gathering on the city fringe, as she squints and tries to make some assessment of the time she’s got to get started. Losing the sun will make this considerably harder. They’ll have to get moving to make the most of the daylight left.

As they walk towards a half-demolished building, a familiar tattooed hand throws a hand up in a wave.

“Hey. Got your message.” Jack crosses her arms, dried blood matting her ponytail and streaks of it on her hands. Ashley looks down at her own armor, battered to hell. The blue is peeling off in flakes, fluttering to ground.

“Jack. Glad to see you made it through.” She’s never been overly fond of the instability that Jack lives and breathes, but there’s no denying she’s come a hell of a long way. Speaking of which- Ashley looks behind Jack and sees a dozen young, curious faces trailing Jack’s every move. “And your kids did too, I see.”

“Yeah, thanks to Shepard’s damn meddling. Got them support roles bolstering front ranks instead of throwing their asses into the fray all at once. Anyway, lemme know when we’re heading out. I want to make sure a couple of the kids can thank her in person.”

“I didn’t say who-“

‘Please, as if the Council would send an all-call for someone other than Shepard. We wouldn’t all fucking be here for anyone else, either. Learned that much just from watching you. Didn’t need to be on the Normandy for us to matter. Anyway. I’m done leaving debts unpaid.” She waves a hand behind her, and Ashley looks past and sucks in a surprised breath.

The entire galaxy is here.

Well, in representation if not in number- she half-way expected the entire fleet to arrive, given the usual results of Shepard’s calls-to-action- but there’s some of every species propped up by a familiar wall of Alliance blue. A salarian repairs a krogan’s armor. An asari stands side-by-side with a vorcha. An elcor readjusts a mounted cannon on its back.

She can almost see Shepard’s smile.

A depleted salarian squad comes up to her, one of them extending a burnt three-fingered hand as he removes his helmet. Their expressionless faces manage to look as tired as Ashley feels.

“Major Kirrahe, STG. Nice to see you again, Spectre Williams. We’re ready to do whatever we can.”

“Thank you.” She looks around at the rest of the wordless assembled mass around her. They tilt their faces up for instruction. “The rest of you, what can you do? I don’t recognize any of the equipment here, but if it can help us find Shepard we’ll take it. Fill me in.”

An asari commando presses a bandage to her forehead as she speaks. “Matriarch Aethyta heard your broadcast. She sent us all here- anyone that was left of her squad. Most of our heavy tech is damaged, but we’ll do our best. If that doesn’t work, our biotics can lift anything short of an actual Reaper. We won’t let you down.”

“Arlakh Company. You know me.” Shepard’s krogan-son. Grunt smacks his fists together and growls low in the throat. “We can break things. Now where’s Shepard?”

The turian beside him coughs. It was a shock, at first, to learn how Shepard had managed to bring the krogan and turians into an alliance unheard of for a millennia. No one person should have been able to wield that kind of influence. Shepard had managed it with an old friend she'd almost killed, years ago, a hyperactive salarian, and a thresher maw that shouldn't have existed. 

“Um, what he said. We’re General Victus’s former squad. The Commander helped us back on Tuchanka.” He says, making nervous shuffles away from the krogan. Grunt squints at him. “Anyway, uh, most of the gear is still operable and we have explosives. Small bundles for precision work. Just…erm, we’ve got orders not to let the krogan touch them.”

“Heh. Coward.”

“Aria ordered!” A vorcha hisses, holding what looks suspiciously like the controls to an Atlas mech. The mech has been stripped and put back together in strange but dig-worthy ways. She can only hope it does what he believes it does. “No Reapers left! Need return favor!”

Everything has already been loaded onto repurposed tanks. A path is already blasted through the rubble, tons of rock and sheet metal chewed up and spit out. Ashley’s never been so grateful to see a Mako in her entire life.

“Yeah, yeah.” Jack mutters, impatient. She gnaws at her knuckles despite the blood on them. Ashley remembers first meeting her on Horizon, scrawny and feral and altogether horrifying. Now she’s another one of Shepard’s success stories. They all are, in a way. “Since we’re all introducing ourselves, apparently, these brave little shits and I aren’t finished kicking Reaper ass yet. We’re not going to let them get Shepard.”

Ashley looks at them all, this small army, and wonders for the millionth time what compelled Shepard to push her away from that beacon on Eden Prime three years ago. The Commander’s predictive powers. Whether any of them actually understood Shepard’s calculus before doing anything at all.

Ashley Williams will not fail Shepard before she has a chance to find out.

She puts her helmet back on. She tries not to think of what the mass of the Citadel must feel like, balanced to a single point on a single human chest.

“Got it. Let’s move out.”

Chapter Text

Admiral Hackett never imagined being on a first name basis with the Council.

He’s career military. There’s reason for that- he’s never seen the need for the mix of political and personal closeness- the more connected you grew with politicians, the greater the consequences when it came time to make hard decisions. All you could do was make your case as strong as possible, spit-shine your shoes, and hope you got lucky once the big dance begun. And here he is, bloody and dusty in a room packed to the gills with equally weary galactic leaders, waiting for news on the Reapers. What are they even doing here? The Citadel is destroyed. What are the Councilors now but figureheads of a failed experiment?

But this is not the first war. He will not be the first to make these choices. They won’t be the first ones to lose, if they do.

This does not comfort him in the slightest.

God, it’s been less than twelve hours since the Crucible fired and it feels like twelve years.

“Councilors?”

They all turn their attention to one of the vid-screens hurriedly set up from their hub. Councilor Sparatus, who had insisted on fighting when husks threatened to break into their command center, raises his head off his hospital cot.

Hackett watches the static clear, the screen split into a dozen feeds, and holds his breath.

Their translators are working so hard they’re buzzing.

“We’re getting preliminary communications reports from neighboring systems. The blast from the Crucible scrambled comms briefly but- it seems to have worked. The resistance in Thessia is reporting in. So is Menae. The Reapers are finished- and heavens, this may be premature-everywhere. It seems the Commander succeeded.”

No one in the room dares to even breathe. Then Councilor Tevos, trembling, takes a step forward and staggers down to her knees. Hackett watches Councilor Valern reach for her, prop her back up for a moment before they embrace, tears running down both their cheeks. He hasn’t cried in…oh, years. There is wild cheering from every room of their dilapidated headquarters. The laugh of an elcor sounds a bit like a foghorn. Hackett wasn’t even aware they could laugh.

But at least’s the war’s over.

It’s finally over.

Less than a year long, but billions dead. Immeasurable resources used. Impossible odds surmounted.

Every one of Hackett’s fifty-two years seems to crash down over him at once. He closes his eyes and feels the ache in all his bones, to his very core, to this great emptiness that hollowed him out when Anderson first gave him the news of the first Reaper touchdown on earth. 

By God, the Commander did it.

And oh, he is so tired.

But even now time begins to tick away at their new future, and he needs to take every opportunity not to waste it. Even as his colleagues wipe the tears from their eyes, his planet is still burning.

“Without a doubt, repairing the mass relays has to take priority.” How Sparatus still manages to be bossy at a moment like this, Hackett doesn’t know. He’s taken a nasty shot to the chest, and each breath pulls another sucking sound from the depths of his throat. “All our fleets here, and skeleton security in all other systems. Crime and lawlessness follow every conflict- imagine the consequences of an all-out galactic war.”

“Respectfully, elcor and volus colleagues have frozen non-war assets for the time being. Credit system will be sheltered from illegal activity. Tentatively, should not be advanced financial fraud in Citadel space.”

Formerly Citadel space, Hackett notes.

“Good. The terrible truth is that Reaper infiltration of most systems has granted us a boon after their destruction. Our engineers are saying we might be able to salvage their considerable eezo cores once any danger has been cleared. And since the Reapers left few systems untouched, each one might be able to reconstruct its own mass relay. In theory.”

Tevos always did have a mind for optimism. Hackett watches her type away at her datapad, fingers a blue blur over the screen.

“Preliminary reports suggest little danger. We are detecting no signs of life, organic or otherwise, within Reaper corpses. Observations of known indoctrination victims have perished with them.”

“Bitterly, several high ranking leaders among them. With great shame, we had no idea they were under Reaper control.”

“Damn them to the pits of Hell.” Sparatus says, with satisfaction.

“This one concurs.”

“Admiral Hackett, your thoughts? It’s your species’ relay we must rebuild first.”

He rouses himself with a little difficulty, and noticed that they’re all suddenly staring at him. Must have lost himself for a second there.

“Ahem, sorry. Regarding the relays, we do have another option. All the geth ships had considerable eezo supplies, both onboard and within their own systems. The quarians have already volunteered to take the first crack at it. Nowhere near the amount we’d need to repair the relay, but it’s a start. Combined with what we can get from the Reaper bodies- well, no projections, but it shouldn’t take too long.” Hackett says. He rubs his dusty beard.

“Losses were heavy on the ground, unfortunately, but we were prepared for a much longer war than we fought. I expect the same goes for your troops. Destruction is massive but it can be rebuit. With the death of the geth, we have enough energy generation to begin testing the mass effect fields immediately.”

The reports said as much. Hackett doesn’t know whether they’re optimistic or pessimistic, and chooses the middle ground between the best and worst of them. Uphill battle, with a plateau at the end. He can work with this.

“That is…a convenient solution.” Even Sparatus has the decency to look uncomfortable. “We must take what help we can get. This war would not have been won without them.”

Nods follow in quick succession around the room.

Would you look at that, Hackett ponders. Galactic peace, and all it took was mass genocide to make it happen.

“It may go even faster if the asari would see fit to contribute Prothean technology they…withheld from the rest of the galaxy.” Tevos visibly bristles.

“I don’t think I like your tone, councilor. If I may recall, the reason krogan support wasn’t obtained sooner was because of the turians’ stubbornness to negotiate for nigh-on millennia. How many lives might have been saved if they had come sooner, I wonder?”

“That does not compare to several millennia of secrecy!”

Well, the peace was nice while it lasted.

 “Stop this, now!”

It’s alarmingly easy to fall into the authoritative role he’s occupied for so long, even faced with the highest authorities of the entire galaxy. They all cease their bickering to stare at him like guilty children. Let them be ashamed. The anger that Hackett has been holding back for the sake of diplomacy has reached a boiling point. There is only so much he can take.

“The war hasn’t been over for a single day, and you’re already letting petty disagreement derail critical business. Have you forgotten how much your people have sacrificed- are still sacrificing? We all have our own accounting to do now. But if you let more people die for your egos-“ He grits his teeth. “Their lives are on you. And your people will know it.”

The vids are off but Hackett is tempted, briefly to activate them and broadcast their meeting to the whole damn galaxy. Counterproductive, but satisfying as hell. Secrecy had been Udina’s prerogative. And now that the bastard’s dead, well-

Tevos raises her hands in a peacemaking gesture.

“We are only trying to preserve our own civilizations, Admiral.”

“Yes. I- ahem, apologize for the distraction.”

Hackett sighs and turns again to the vid screens. Contingency plans need to be discarded and recovery plans made.

“I know.”

They fall into an uneasy silence, but he can already see the wheels turning behind their repentant expressions. How to carve out a larger piece of the pie in the new universe they find themselves in. It was the way the world- the universe-worked, for cycles beyond their own. Hackett sighs. Well, humanity wouldn’t draw the short stick this time. Not on his watch.

He owes it to her to stop that from happening.

“Shall we address the survivability situation? We are, for all intends and purposes, stranded on your Earth for the immediate future. The casualty reports are enormous, but we still have considerable troops to clothe, feed, and house until the relays have been fixed.” Tevos picks at invisible faults in her armor. They’d all been warned to protect themselves, but it’s almost comical how new and unused all their issued gear is. Their spotless armor fools no one.

Hackett knows.

“We will accommodate as best we can.”

But even as he says it, he doubts the words leaving his mouth. Palaven is in ruins, as is Thessia. Rannoch is a little better off, but with only children and the elderly actually on the homeworld, the lack of geth help will be more devastating than expected.

God, what of the resources the krogan will want? The other races left without support? Without the relays, what catastrophe will they be too late to stop next?

“Hackett? Spectre Williams here.”

“Come in.” He says, automatically. “And please, for the love of God, have good news.”

“Admiral, we’ve recovered Shepard.”

His breath catches on old lungs, old hopes. He’d authorized the search party hours ago on a brief, desperate whim. With so much happening, it had slipped his mind to think they might have succeeded.

“Condition?”

“Can’t tell. If she’s breathing, I can barely feel it. Pulse readings are flickering in and out. I can’t- I mean, I don’t know-“

Hackett squeezes his eyes shut. He sees Anderson’s stern face beside Shepard’s smiling one, wavering in and out of easy recollection. Just swimming through his own blurred memories is a lot harder than it used to be before the war. Headaches accompany his every thought. He takes his bloody cap off his head.

“Bring her here, and we’ll bring her back.”

“Yes sir.”

“Hackett out.”

He waits a moment for the line to disconnect before dialing the hospital.

 “Ms. Lawson?”

“Here.”

“Did you hear all that?”

“Yes. The Commander’s vital signs are being relayed as we speak. Jack, get the corner cot prepped and set up a privacy screen. All of you medics, bring all available supplies to her. I’m not to be disturbed under any circumstances.”

“Good. I hope you still remember how to put Shepard back together.”

The turian Garrus is yelling something in the background. Someone else is cussing a blue streak. Shepard’s people?

“You don’t have to hope, sir. We’ll get it done.”

Chapter Text

Sam’s not tired at all.

“This is Specialist Traynor of the Normandy SR-2. Commander Shepard of the Alliance was last seen at the following coordinates: 7QFI39284 on the Epsilon Grid, …

Not a bit. She taps at the garbled comm screens in the slightly smoking confines of the CIC and lets the static fill the space with everything except an actual signal, and her eyes don’t close at all. Sam just stares and stares and stares and waits for something to make sense.

Lectures at Oxford were a sleepy affair. She remembers cavernous halls more suitable for chamber orchestras than the delicate points of discrete mathematics. She’d nodded off more than once back then. Big Theta notation and the Extended Euclidean Algorithm were dull enough without the urge to close her eyes and slip into dreamland.

Sam had been trained for that, not this. Labs, not warships. Technocrats, not Commander Jane Shepard, the Butcher of Torfan, Savior of the Citadel, Hero of the entire bloody Galaxy and the most talented martyr that Sam’s ever had the misfortune of loving.

But no, she’s not tired.

“EDI- EDI’s still not responding. Can’t you do something?”

“Gabby’s gone down to the AI core, she’ll open it up and see. The overload to the absorbers in Engine IIA took down a lot of tech in that area when we pushed the FTL drive to capacity.”

“Wait- did her eyes just move? I think her eyes just moved!”

“Sir, it’s not just the mobile platform that shorted out, it’s the entire bloomin’ Normandy. Was it the Reaper beam? I don’t get it, why would it take EDI out and not us? It just doesn’t make sense-“

“Adams?”

“I read you.”

“I’ve lost all heat signatures down here. There’s no energy generation from anywhere in the AI core. No data coming through the mobile platform either.”

“That’s functionally impossible, she can’t just have disappeared.”

“Could she just be offline?”

“Negative. This isn’t a repression issue, she’s not there period. Wiped. Not even command line functionality. All logs are missing- she’s not just gone, there’s no trace EDI was ever here.”

There is a silence, and no matter how Sam strains she can’t hear a thing.

“I’m so sorry, Joker.”

“I don’t need you to be sorry, I need you to fix her!”

“Jeff-“

“Don’t call me that!”

Sam keeps listening. Still no signal. Nothing but white noise. And now, no voices either. Something heavy slams into the side of the wall up on the bridge and the reverberation sets her teeth on edge. It happens again. And then again. Sam swallows and raises her voice above the noise.

“This is Specialist Traynor of the Normandy SR-2…”

The elevator doors behind her whirr open. The floor-finding mechanism has miraculously survived the tech blackout. Someone’s heavy footsteps come up slowly behind her.

“Traynor.”

“James.”

His voice is husky with smoke inhalation. Hers isn’t much better.

On Earth, they hadn’t been helpless. Joker and EDI ran scouting missions with the Normandy’s stealth drive, opened the cargo hold periodically to shuttle Alliance soldiers to the front. The flashes of absolute carnage she’d seen, blasts of hellish sound that roared suddenly to life every time that hatch opened- those were already permanently imprinted on Sam’s mind.

Eyes closed, ears shut. Doesn’t matter.

But she couldn’t turn away. Always dashing from her command station down to the lower deck, moving as close to the opening as possible every time they’d touched down, hoping for a glimpse of Jane.

James rubs a hand across the top of his head. His hand comes away streaked with ash and some gunk that the husks leave when they attack.

“Most of the crew is breaking into sleeping shifts. Not much we can do while we’re all waiting for information. I’ve put you on the list to sleep first.”

“I’m fine. I don’t need it.”

“Sam, you’ve been working for the last thirty-six hours.”

“I’m fine.”

“You’ve already sent a hundred of those broadcasts back to Earth. Only thing we can do now is wait and see if anyone gets back to us. Please don’t make me give an order.”

Right. He’s in charge now. XOs get the deck when the Commander’s away.

Sam steps away from the console. Her hands have been curled in the same position for so long they uncramp slowly, in increments, hesitant to break from a typing position. What’s the point, really. She’ll need to use them again soon enough.

She turns to face James, leaning heavily against the metal behind her for support as her knees unlock and turn to jelly all at once. He wraps strong hands around her shoulders but it doesn’t hold her up. Nothing but her console is doing that.

“Whoa there.”

The blood rushes to the rest of her limbs all at once. She tingles all over.

“EDI’s still out of commission. Unless we can figure out what’s wrong with her, we’ve lost our best chance of contacting the Alliance. I’m more useful here than I am asleep.”

“Adams, Ken, and Gabby have already slept and eaten. They’re working on EDI now, if there’s anything to be done they can do it. Sam, please. Sam?”

You’re still here? Specialist, you’re off duty.

Commander! Um, yes, Commander, I am, but the turians sent us the coordinates to another fuel depot and I wanted to… make sure we were in range to intercept.

EDI does have access to the Normandy’s data, you know. She’s probably already worked it out.

I have, Shepard. We are not en route but the Alliance has sent a collection vessel.

See?

Um…

…but you knew that already.

…Maybe?

You want to tell me what’s really going on, Specialist?

It’s just…Private Campbell has the bunk above me, and she sometimes snores, and everyone else is already so used to being on the ship but I can’t sleep with it yet. I’m certainly working on it, but until then I thought I’d….well, I thought I’d work.

We need you at your best, Specialist. That means awake and rested when you’re actually on duty. Next time we’re on the Citadel, get some earmuffs or something.

Yes, Commander. Sorry, Commander.

Until then, you can have mine.

It won’t happen aga- wait, what?

Hey, I was a crew member once. Didn’t always have a nice fancy cabin all to myself. My men were damn good soldiers but terrible bunkmates. Next time, remind me and I’ll grab them for you.

I can’t accept- I mean, they’re yours. Don’t you need them?

What for? It’s not like my fish snore or anything. Take them, it’s the least I can do. And if you need anything else, just ask.

T-thank you, Commander.

Hey, you’re not on duty, remember? Call me Jane.

A-alright, Jane. I’m Sam. Call me…Sam.

Sam. Got it.

Steve Cortez walks by, his arm plastered and bandaged and favoring his right leg, a hollow sort of look in his eyes. He looks at Sam, tries for a small smile that has none of the cheer she’s used to seeing, and salutes James before limping his way to the elevator. They both see his face fall when he thinks they’re not looking, before the doors close.

“Esteban’s on sleep duty too.”

“You’re not getting me to leave.”

The elevator whirrs once more and Sam actually sees James’s bulk tense in surprise, shifting ever so slightly so he’s blocking Sam from whoever’s emerging. When did that start happening?

“Lieutenant Vega.” Liara nods at them both, and tucks her hands behind her back. “Samantha, I’ve brought that hacking tool you wanted. It should be able to clean up some of the static in the comm lines.”

“Thank you, Liara. How’s Tali?”

Tali had been hit right in front of her, as they laid down covering fire for the Alliance troops. An entire wave of husks had charged at an exhausted Liara and Sam only had time to gape in horror, expecting to see the doctor torn to pieces by their grasping hands. Then a familiar drone zipped in front of the doctor, giving Liara time to vault back over a barricade. Then Sam heard the scream.

There’s another image Sam will never get out of her mind. Tali covered in blood, suit ruptured in a dozen places, wheezing breaths through a break in her helmet. The drone fizzling away into her omni-tool. Dr. Chakwas’s ashen face.

Sam’s amassing quite the collection.  

You’re turning into a regular marine.

“She was breathing when I left, but still critical. Dr. Chakwas is tending to her now but she’s warned me not to be optimistic.” Tears form at the corners of Liara’s eyes. “Oh Goddess, if she hadn’t sent her drone after me I’d be dead. But-“

“Hey.” James touches Liara’s shoulder. “It’s not your fault, any one of us would have done the same. So would you, if Tali were in that situation. She wouldn’t want you to blame yourself.”

“She could die. She just got her homeworld back and to die light-years away, after all that effort, because I couldn’t keep my barriers up-“

“And you just got Thessia back. Sam and I just got Earth back. And we’re all going to go back to our homeworlds to make things right as soon as we can, including Tali. Thanks to Shepard.”

Sam doesn’t miss the way Vega’s guilty eyes flicker back towards her for a moment, upon mention of Jane’s name, but it doesn’t shake her. It can’t, not when it’s been the solitary thought in Sam’s mind since they’d hit Cronos Station. It all seems so long ago now.

“Yes.” Liara says, tilting her head a little ways back. Soft but growing steadier. “Yes, you’re right, Lieutenant. I’m going to go salvage what I can from my quarters. Oh, before I forget-“

Liara extracts her hacking tool from one of her numerous pockets, and hands it over. Sam takes it, grateful. Liara understands that she needs to work. Liara’s used to this. Liara’s seen Jane dead once already.

But Vega, damn him. He reaches forward and snatches it out of her hands.

“No. You’ll make yourself sick or drive yourself crazy or both. If there’s any news we’ll call. From this moment on I’m officially relieving you of duty.”

“Don’t you take this from me. Don’t you dare.” Sam spits, full of venom she didn’t know she was harboring. It’s so completely strange to take this out on James, James who in all rationality is correct and in charge and alive, that Liara actually takes a step back.

But now he won’t even look at her. He slides Liara’s device into his pocket, forcefully logs Sam off the comm channel, and briskly walks towards the elevator.

“James! Damnit, Vega, you bastard! Give that back!”

He doesn’t turn around.

The loss of the comm connection unhinges something. Sam bends over and presses sweaty hands on her knees, hoping fruitlessly for the sudden panic to cease, to leave her alone, go away. But a brute animal grief still wells up from a depth previously unknown to her, visceral and terrifying and endlessly empty, and the knowledge of what would have, could have, should have happened threatens with each passing second to overwhelm what control she still has over it. There’s no need for a comm because there’s no need for a message. There’s no need for a message because Jane is-

Keep it together. Just- keep it together, damnit.

Sam barely realizes that she’s brushing Liara away until it’s happening. She barely pauses when she tries to take her arm, and calls out her name with concern. She barely hesitates before stepping into the elevator.

Sam doesn’t go to the crew deck, or after wherever James has gone. When the elevator stops, her fingers hover for a moment, and then she is pressing a palm to the front of Jane’s door.

Jane?

Just wanted you to know, uh- I changed the access protocols for my cabin. EDI suggested it, and I figured since you spend so much time up there anyway, you should have free access to the place. Even when I’m not there. So, yeah. Come up whenever.

Moving in already and we haven’t even had a proper date? I’m flattered.

Sam, your toothbrush has taken up permanent residence in my bathroom cabinet. This is just proper procedure.

I’m “just proper procedure”, huh? Well then, don’t expect me to feed your fish or take your hamster on any more walks-

Fine, I’ll take my cabin door and my fish and my unwalked hamster and go somewhere where we’re all wanted–

Thank you. I mean it.

Are you sure?

I could kiss you again to make sure.

I think that’s acceptable.

Every one of Jane’s model ships is broken. Shards of glass and metal have punctured a few of them, skewered the delicate parts Jane had worked so hard to get just right. All those nights she spent on them, when Sam played second fiddle to a damn tube of glue because that’s what Jane needed.

Sam, I do not!       

Darling, you collect ships like you collect people. See, there’s Liara’s Broker base and Tali’s liveship and the geth destroyer- ooh, Vega can be the Mako!

I always thought Vega might be the Citadel skycar. He’s destroyed enough of them.

Very funny. So which one am I?

You? You want a model ship?

Yes, as of this moment I actually do. Well…?

I’m thinking.

Think faster!

You know, I was considering getting your Cision Pro chrome-plated and put up there, right next to the Destiny Ascension. Years from now we can look back and say, remember how we saved the Normandy from my evil clone that one time? With that ridiculous toothbrush that cost as much as my N7 Eagle?

I am…shocked and horrified at what you’re implying right now. You’re comparing me to an instrument of oral hygiene, really?

You brought it up!

That doesn’t mean I want to be immortalized for breaking up plaque!

I’m sooo terribly sorry, Sam. Have I ruined your life?

A little. But don’t worry, you’ll have plenty of chances to make up for it.

Well, Jane never did get her a new toothbrush, so Sam’s willing to call it even. They can break each other’s things saving the galaxy.

Sam lies down on the bed, curls herself up, and closes her eyes. She does not cry.

In the darkness, it’s impossible to say for certain if Jane is actually there or not. Schrodinger’s Shepard. If Sam concentrates, she can almost feel Jane’s arms holding her, belief suspended, her warm toes pressed against Sam’s blocks of ice. On the way to Earth, they’d lain under the dappled glimmer of the aquarium and waited for the familiar whir of the mass relay to tell them their time was up.

She must have fallen asleep. When the cabin intercom activates, Sam opens her eyes and for a stupid second, she waits for Jane to get up to answer it.

I’ll sleep when I’m dead.

 “Traynor?”

It’s unfair to hate his voice for not being Jane’s. But Sam’s not a saint, so she goes ahead and hates it anyway, before pressing the intercom button.

“I’m here, Joker.”

“I still can’t get EDI to respond.” He sighs, and Sam notices the telltale cracks in his voice. Still, hope isn’t gone from him yet.  “But some of the channels cleared up and we’ve received transmissions from a nearby volus colony. We were thrown into the Hades Gamma cluster, somewhere –Adams is trying to patch communications to the Alliance now with their help. I figured you’d want to be here.”

“I’m on my way.”

When she arrives, they are all huddled around her comm station. The mass of people parts as they all see Sam walk up, and she settles her hands in their usual position as they reconverge around her, a silent sea to her oblivious island.

They wait.

At some point, James walks up and puts a hand on her shoulder. She lets it stay.

Then suddenly-

“This is….zzzzz….Vakarian of Palaven Command. This communication is for the SSV Normandy or any ship that can get to them-“ The signal fades out and Sam grasps wildly for her screens, adjusting and calibrating to no avail. There’s nothing more she can do.

“zzzz…our drives are damaged…zzzz…”

“Garrus.” Dr. Chakwas whispers. Sam reaches out and finds her arm, and holds on tight. Tighter.

Garrus went to the beam with her. If he’s alive, then maybe…maybe-

Sam is sick with hope.  

“Get back here as quick as you can! Shepard’s barely holding on, the Crucible….but she’s alive!…zzzz….Traynor-“

Sam lets go as the world spins around her.

The aquarium is smashed, the ships broken, the mass relays in ruins.

But Sam’s feet tingle with warmth.