Chapter Text
Electra Shepard leaned over the bar top, her short fingernails rapping on the glossy surface while her grey eyes searched for nothing in particular. Her gaze meandered to her right where a figure in full N7 armor swirled a drink in a rocks glass absentmindedly. He gave her a curt nod and tipped his glass at her. Comfortably balanced in the high-back chair, he looked as if he had been here for a while. Upon looking down to her feet balanced in a pair of black pumps, the veins just starting to pop out from her pale skin, she guessed she had been here a while too. Waiting.
“Can I get you anything, ma’am?” a voice rang. Shepard’s head snapped up to find the source of the voice; an older asari swished a rag over an empty glass. Her blue eyes regarded Shepard with a welcome softness. Her mouth formed the words delicately with no hint of impatience or urgency. Electra cocked her head, wondering the last time she’d ever heard something so nice.
“No, I don’t think so. I’m waiting for someone,” she responded, the words tumbling out of her mouth. An image of battered silver armor and blue tattoos flashed into her mind like a flash of lightning, but she shook her head and brought her hand to her face. Another image – her skin sticky with her own blood – flew through her mind, but when her fingers touched her forehead, the skin was clean and soft. This was the part where she’d usually begin to worry, maybe even ping Chakwas on her omni-tool, but she found she couldn’t conjure any reason to do so. Not here. The thin fabric of her red gown hugged her skin like honey and reminded her that it wasn’t every day she dolled herself up and got out; she might as well enjoy it.
“Actually,” she began, holding out her hand to capture the bartender’s attention, “I’ll take a scotch, neat. And make that top shelf, please.” The bartender smiled and ducked under the bar, returning with a bottle of rich amber liquid. Was that Glenfiddich? Single malt, 21 Years Old. She couldn’t believe her luck as the asari poured a healthy serving into a pristine glass and slid it over to her.
“How much will that be?” Electra asked, muttering a curse when her omni-tool didn’t glow to life on her left arm. How could she forget something like that?
“On the house, commander. I think you’ve earned at least that.”
Shepard’s brows knit momentarily and she gave a half-hearted nod before looking all around her. The bar seemed familiar. The sound of sky cars humming in the distance undercut the low chatter and clinking. People in gowns and tuxes mingled amid the soothing jazz and neon. She didn’t recognize a single person but more than once did one of those strangers raise their glass to her as she scanned the room.
“This is going to sound like a weird question, but where exactly am I right now?” Electra asked as she turned around, but the bar was empty except for her. The N7 that had been on her right no longer occupied the chair. She pulled the scotch closer to her and let her vision drift off into the glass. She couldn’t remember the last time she felt quite so weightless, or even had the chance to stare at a drink and think twice before bringing it to her lips. She only wanted to know the name of the bar so she might return after…
“I don’t want to be here anymore,” a small voice said somewhere below her. The complaint was accompanied by a slight tug at her dress, drawing her attention to the tiny blue hand gripped in the crimson fabric. Looking up at her, a shimmering blue child opened its mouth again and said, “I wanna go home.”
“And who are you?” she asked, though she felt her mind stretching at the edges of recognition. Something, something, crucible… it didn’t feel right. He looked a lot like the virtual intelligences she'd encountered before if not for the pressing realness of his voice and touch.
“Please can we leave? I’m tired,” the child complained. She looked up and around again, but this time couldn’t catch a single passing glance from anybody. It seemed unlikely someone would just lose their child at a bar. When she opened her mouth to try to get someone’s attention, the child repeated, “I’m tired. I’m lost. I want to leave.”
“I’m waiting for someone. Where are your parents?” she asked, squatting down to eye level with the child. She guided his tiny balled up fists into her hands. She tried rubbing her thumb over one of his wrists to soothe him, but his face remained twisted up. He looked to be on the verge of tears and, seeing as she’d never dealt with a crying child before, she looked even more desperately into the crowd. The crowd seemed to be drifting further back into the reaches of the bar.
“You brought me here. You aren’t supposed to be here, and neither am I. I didn’t want to come here,” he continued, his voice beginning to waver. “I can’t be here. I can’t stay here. Please let’s go home.”
“Honey, I don’t know who you are,” she tried to soothe, hoping she didn’t sound too desperate to be rid of him. Worse, she still had the nagging feeling that she did know him. Through the flickering of his virtual corporeality, she thought she saw hints of human skin. That overwhelming sense of calm was beginning to fade; ache crept up her legs. “I didn’t bring you here. I need to stay here. He’ll never find me if I leave.”
The child’s hands opened and gripped hard at her fingers, his nails digging into her skin. She held back a startled yelp, not wanting to upset him any more than he already was.
“It’s TIME TO GO!” he shouted and reached his hands out to grab her shoulders. She wobbled in her heels slightly and snatched his hands back into hers. Looking at them, she noticed her previously unmarred porcelain skin looked singed and bloody. She averted her gaze back to the child. “Don’t let me die. Please don’t let me. I’m not ready. Mom, please! Please let’s go home. Please! PLEASE!”
Electra stumbled to her feet and whipped around, desperate for any familiarity, but the bar had vanished. She stood in a vast, unending slate of misty grey. Her dress hung in tatters across her body. Pain etched its way into her core. Her hands shot to her stomach as a jolt of pain shot through her. She glanced down and found rubies of blood spilling through her trembling fingers. A vision ran back through her head of her rushing down a red pillar, pistol heating in her hand as she emptied her clip into it. What else? As soon as she asked, the vision vanished and the bar materialized around her, along with the child. She looked down at him with terror as he crumpled to the floor, gasping and flickering. She fell to her knees and gathered him in her arms, but his eyes rolled wildly in their sockets. The boy from earth began to show through the blue glow. No one around seemed to notice the scene playing out – the people had become pillars of shadow and whispers crept in through the seams of light between them.
“How do I save you?” she begged, hands coming up to his face which grew red as he seemingly choked on the air around him. His tiny hands gripped at an invisible cinch around his small neck.
“M-momma,” he choked out, and she squeezed her eyes shut. She couldn’t watch him die. Not again. Her own breath felt thick in her lungs, like all the empty spaces in her body had been replaced with thick, black smoke. “Wake…Up…”
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2230 October 10th 2187
“May we join you?” a soft voice rang from the doorway to the lounge. Garrus’ head snapped up from the drink gripped in his talons – when had the glass become empty? He swore he had filled it only minutes ago. Liara delicately took the stool beside him while Tali walked around the other side of the bar. She tutted as she rifled through the stock of alcohol before retrieving a few bottles.
“How long?” he asked, his voice much quieter than either of them had ever heard it. Liara felt a shiver go down her spine at the stark contrast to the way his laugh had filled Shepard’s apartment on the Citadel not even a month ago. Had it been a month? Even she had begun to lose the days since they had crashed.
“We’ve reached the Sol system. We are about an hour from Earth at our current speed. Turns out we didn't make it that far afterall. We haven’t been able to patch through to any major comm channels yet, but we’re receiving multiple broadcasts from various forces. Would you like to hear?” Liara asked. When he didn’t answer, she nodded to Tali who patched the broadcast through her omni-tool.
This is Alliance Command. As of Earth time 0800 on September 2nd 2187, all Reaper activity has ceased. Mass Relays have taken damage and appear inoperable. We understand your confusion but request your ongoing patience and cooperation while we calculate and repair damages. To reach your designated embassy for instruction and relief, tune to the corresponding frequency according to your –
Tali waved her hand, halting the message.
“Alliance ships and crew are to report to the Citadel. Sounds like it took heavy damage. Another broadcast was calling for aid in the active search and rescue still taking place on Earth and the Citadel. It sounds like the effort has been ongoing since we were last here. Seeing as you are acting XO, we need your approval to dock.”
Garrus tossed the information around in his head before asking, “Do we have any way to reach Admiral Hackett?”
Tali and Liara exchanged a look before shaking their heads.
Garrus felt their eyes glance at the metal plate in his left hand, then to the empty glass in his other, both cold against his skin. Shortly after the Normandy crashed on the small garden planet a month ago, he’d felt some rogue hope that Shepard might be alive still. That certainty burned through his body like wildfire. When he refused to add her name to the memorial wall, he felt it pass through the crew of the Normandy, too. But it had been weeks. No word. Communications had been down and even getting basic navigation up had required every member of the Normandy giving their best effort. Ordinarily, EDI would be the one to take care of those kinds of things but since the red wave engulfed them, she appeared little more than a lifeless hunk of metal and silicone. Despite this, they made their way by scrapping parts and fuel to cross the void of the Local Cluster, only to be greeted with indifferent silence.
Shepard would strip him of his position if she knew he’d spent his time as XO getting wasted and giving up. And if she lived, she would have found them herself by now. Especially now. There would be something left for them to hope with. He swayed on the stool before snagging one of the dextro bottles Tali had just put out and refilling his glass. He was about to bring it up to his mouth when Liara firmly placed her hand on top. He suppressed a ragged growl.
“You were the one who refused to put her name on that wall. You don’t get to regret that decision now,” she said, her voice low. Tali grabbed his drink and plopped her straw in it. He couldn’t bring himself to look at either of them.
“Take us in to the Citadel, and don’t stop trying to reach Hackett,” he muttered, shoving off from the bar with a wobble and striding from the lounge. He heard Tali mutter “Keelah” as the door hissed shut behind him. He should feel shame, but as the elevator brought him up to the commander’s quarters, the only thing he felt was that unshakeable weight. An emptiness and silence that accompanied the still unmade bed where they had writhed not so long ago. He had been sleeping on her couch since they crashed.
When he had first entered her quarters a month ago, it had been with confidence. He felt four years younger – at least his anger and passion did. He felt that blind hope that he could fix the whole world all over again if it meant his Electra could come back to them. To him. It was a feeling similar to the stunned relief that washed over him upon seeing her approach his apartment on Omega and the warmth that radiated from him every time she shot him one of her knowing smirks, those ones meant just for him because no one else knew what choice words she was probably holding back. He could still smell her on the sheets. Sometime during that final month before the final battle, something about her scent had changed in a way that drove him almost mad, but he couldn’t place what it was. When he tried bringing it up, she retorted that she still showered daily with a smack on his arm. Of course she wouldn’t understand with her terrible human nose, but the smell had only made him grip her tighter, fuck her harder, every night that he snuck up to her cabin. Was it that thing he had heard about once? About being able to smell when someone was going to die?
He shook the thought from his head. It was spinning anyway. Liara was right. He hadn’t put her name on the wall because he knew.
The alternative just wasn’t going to cut it.
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2055 September 4th, 2187
Admiral Hackett stormed through the crowded corridors leading to Huerta. Triage had pushed back into the halls and satellite offices and apartments. Between the Citadel closing and that shockwave that shattered so much of it when the crucible fired, Hackett was surprised that every following day brought more survivors from the ruins. In all his years he’d never seen so much destruction, but the spectacle wouldn’t slow him. Not now. Every person on their feet, doctor and patient alike, peeled back from his determined path; the frazzled receptionist silenced himself with a stiff salute as Hackett bore past the entry. A nurse rushed up to him and saluted, her hand a little shaky. Hackett’s scarred lip stitched up into a snarl.
“Admiral Hackett, sir. I’ve been sent to escort you.”
“Were accommodations made?”
“All of them that we could. Are you ready sir?”
He nodded and followed the nurse into the elevator. It descended to what Hackett thought was the lowest level – the morgues – when the nurse punched in an extra code, plunging the elevator down another few levels. The elevator rattled around them. The doors opened to a bright white interior filled with beeping monitors and chattering doctors. All drivel. None of it mattered. What mattered was the woman lying on the stretcher at the center of it all, skin wrapped in bandages and casts. Tubes and wires trailed from the body to the various machines surrounding her. Hackett shoved past the nurse and up to the stretcher. He took an extra moment to stare at the woman’s face, but it was not a face easily mistaken.
“Well I’ll be damned, Shepard. I’ll be fuckin’ damned.”