Chapter Text
When he first opened his eyes, it was cold and dark. A piercing pain was radiating through his body and he decided to better close his eyes again.
When he awoke for a second time, he could see blurred faces and burning white lights. The faces were murmuring things he couldn’t make sense of. One face was addressing him with his name, that much he was able to understand, and he tried to reply, but somehow only dry coughs escaped his lips. Then he felt something cold on his arm and in the next second he drifted again into darkness.
But the third time he opened his eyes for good. Staring into bright, white neon lights, he slowly made sense of his surroundings. He was in a hospital. The IV in his field of vision suggested as much. The room wasn’t empty. He could make out various noises. Wetting his painfully dry lips with his tongue, he gathered enough strength to move his head and look around.
He was in a room with various other patients. Some were sitting in their beds, some seemed to be asleep. Nurses were scattered around the room, hurrying their ways and occasionally stopping at one of the beds. No one seemed to have noticed him being awake yet, however.
He watched a drop of the clear fluid from the IV running down a plastic tube, disappearing into his bandaged right hand. Carefully he tried to move his fingers, but was interrupted by a voice close by.
“Lt. Cortez?”
He turned his head to the left and blinked two times. It took him a few more seconds to fully comprehend that the person standing next to him was Admiral Hackett. He tried to come up with something to say, but the Admiral hushed him with a move of his hand.
“It’s good to see you finally awake, Lt.” Hackett turned around and brought a chair up to Steve’s bed. When he sat down, Steve’s first thought was that Hackett seemed different than he remembered him. He looked tired and worn out, not even close to the Hackett he had known before the war.
After a short pause in which Steve wasn’t sure, if he should say anything, Hackett breathed in deeply and spoke up again. “How are you feeling?”
“I… Thank you, Sir. I’m not really sure how I should feel. What has happened? How much did I miss?” Steve’s voice sounded hoarse and even to him a little alien. He swallowed hard a few times. When he focused again on the Admiral, he was surprised to find him holding out a glass of water to him. Steve took it thankfully and slowly drank a few sips of it. The cool liquid felt like heaven and Steve wondered if plain water had ever tasted so good.
But Hackett didn’t give him much time enjoy the taste. The heavy sigh from his direction made Steve raise his eyebrow in wonder.
“You missed out about four days.” The Admiral frowned as if he had difficulties to piece it all together as well. “Well, do you remember crashing your shuttle in London after dropping off Shepard and his squad?”
Steve nodded slowly. An uneasy feeling had begun to settle in his stomach.
“Then, surely, you also remember that you made it on foot to one of the close by firebases.”
Again Steve’s only response was a small move of his head. Although his memories were blurry, he remembered the aftermath of his crash too well. Surprisingly, he hadn’t been badly hurt then. He had been able to make his way alone to a close by friendly base. But why he ended up in a hospital eluded him.
“Towards the end that base was under heavy fire. You were lucky it ended when it did. Rescue troops found you under the rubble one day later and at first it didn’t look like we would get you patched up again. The brain trauma you suffered was severe.” Hackett sighed again and looked with narrowed eyes at
I’m anxious on a ridiculous level about posting this chapter and continuing this whole fic after dropping out for so long…
It is what I wanted to write, though, because I’ve been planning to include Steve in this fic all the time., for two reasons. Firstly, he is one of my favorite characters in the whole series and secondly, my personal head canon has always been that he remained on Earth after the end. So I’m more than happy to just put him in this chapter. Here’s hoping that you also like this idea.
Pfew… I mean to continue this story the best I can in the next weeks/months and I really hope to finish the next chapter soon.
Steve.
The latter tried to get the puzzle pieces together. He remembered nothing of the mentioned attack and couldn’t even recall the face of one the people stationed at the base he made his escape to. But what struck him the most was Hackett mentioning the end of the war. Could it truly be over now? He had some difficulties believing it.
But now, with the blankness in his head lifted, a thousand questions formed there instead. He wasn’t able to formulate even one though, so he remained quiet. Although he was in no actual pain for the moment, he suddenly felt dizzy and could hear the drumming of his heart. He started to gesticulate with his hands, as if this could help him sort out his thoughts.
“Give it a break, Lt.” Hackett interrupted him. “Most important thing is that you are safe and recovering. The rest of your questions will clear up in time.”
The small and rather grim smile he got from Hackett didn’t really ease any of his feelings and Steve eyed him carefully, trying to read more into the other man’s expression. He wetted his lips with the tip of his tongue and tried again at formulating a question.
“If I might be so blunt, Sir,” Steve said. “What exactly are you doing here?”
Although it was hard to meet the eyes of the Admiral in front of him, Steve didn’t flinch away. The fact that such a high ranking Alliance soldier had been waiting at his bedside in an overcrowded hospital room, just wouldn’t add up to any story version he had in mind.
Hackett’s shoulders sagged down, which was even odder. Although Steve hadn’t had many run-ins with him, he had never seen him falter in his poise. The whole situation just got a whole lot more awkward.
After long seconds of silence, in which the Admiral looked at Steve with a still unreadable expression, he finally cleared his throat and spoke with a very quiet voice.
“Truth is, I need your help and I told the nurses to contact me as soon as you showed any signs of consciousness.” Hackett looked around the room. The overall noise was so high that Steve had barely been able to understand him. He took the chance to look around the room himself. There were roughly ten more occupied hospital beds and countless nurses were running around the room like ants trying to hold the chaos at bay.
Steve tried to look at a few faces, but he couldn’t make out anybody familiar in his vicinity. An icy feeling settled into his guts and made his heart beat heavily against his chest once more.
“I’ll fill you in on the details as soon as you are out of here,” Hackett added after some time, while shooting a nurse who was approaching them a warning look. Steve watched this in wonder, but didn’t comment on it.
The nurse scuttled away immediately and busied herself over another patient.
Steve neither liked the secrecy, nor the way Hackett was behaving. But he was also certain that he wouldn’t get any further updates from the man. However, another pressing question began to take shape in his head and Steve wondered, why he hadn’t asked it sooner.
“What about the others? Where’s Shepard and the rest of the…”
A small hand motion of Hackett cut him short and Steve stared at him disbelievingly, half his sentence caught somewhere in his throat.
“Yeah,” Hackett sighed. “We’ll talk later. Report back to me once your fit enough.” He got up from his chair and looked down on Steve for a few more seconds. It raised the level of discomfort in Steve, but he wasn’t able to produce another sentence and watched Hackett depart from the room without a farewell.
Puzzled he looked after him and was interrupted only by the nurse Hackett had sent away earlier. She quickly distracted him with her questions and soon the first doctor stood at his side and conducted some rather painful tests on him. When the doctor was satisfied with puncturing him and pressing several parts of his body, they left him again.
Alone with his thoughts in a room full of injured strangers, Steve tried to relax a little and maybe catch some more sleep. But even though the bed was surprisingly comfortable and he was almost entirely without pain, he wasn’t able to sleep for a long time. His thoughts circled around the strange encounter with the Admiral and the unanswered questions. Whatever had happened to Shepard and his Crew after he crashed his Shuttle couldn’t be good, or else he would have received some information.
He remembered more bits and pieces, even the small talk he had had with Shepard shortly before they left towards the Reaper Beam. But more details wouldn’t come to him and slowly he felt the beginning of a headache.
He closed his eyes and placed one arm over them. The room was still filled with noise, which he couldn’t shut out as easily, but at one point he even managed to drift into a dreamless sleep.
~~
Two days later Steve was allowed out of bed. He would still have to stay in the hospital for a bit, but at least he could leave the dreadful sick room, which had become even more crowded during those two days. Although some of the other patients had tried to get friendly with him, to share some war stories, Steve was far too absorbed in his own thoughts to establish any sort of contact.
Now he was wandering around the hospital floors aimlessly. From time to time he was almost run over by hospital staff and he wondered how many more lives had been lost in the aftermath of the war.
He stopped at a small window and looked out. The weather was surprisingly good. There was still a lot of dust in the air and all in all it was like looking through a faint fog wall, but the sun was shining and gave the scene in front of him a very peaceful touch.
He was looking at the hospital yard, which had been cleared up hastily. The debris had been moved to one side of the yard to make room for some hospital tents and Steve immediately felt glad that he hadn’t had to sleep in one of them.
He still watched, as a group of three men and two women entered the yard. They were all holding datapads in their hands that seemed to display pictures of some people. The stopped nurses and doctors randomly and showed them the pads. Their eyes didn’t display much hope, but, eventually, one of the men was led into a tent.
Steve had to turn at way. He pushed himself wearily from the window and walked down the corridor without a look backwards.
He should start to inquire after his friends. Before he hadn’t even dared to think about them, but now he wanted to know and he needed some answers.
His first idea was to inquire at the reception of the hospital, where a small office had been established. There was already a long line of people there, patients and visitors, civilians and marines. Steve lined up determined and waited.
After only a few seconds even more people had lined up behind him. One of them, a civilian woman in her twenties, shot him a sad, sympathetic smile. He looked away without returning it. He was tired and worn out. He neither felt liked receiving any comforting looks, nor like talking to anybody.
Steve waited for over an hour. Then it was finally his term to ask the grim looking official behind the counter his questions.
“Military or Civilian?” The man with the gray hair didn’t even look at Steve.
“Military.” Steve’s reply was a bit hesitant. Suddenly he wasn’t so sure about his coming here anymore.
“Name of the person you’re looking for?”
His first impulse was to tell him the name of his husband, a silly, but persistent reflex. Steve swallowed hard and bit down on his lip for a second. Out loud he said “James Vega.”
The man typed the name hastily.
“MIA. Next?”
Steve immediately opened his mouth to protest against this news, but no sound left his lips. He was suddenly feeling ice-cold.
“Next?” The man inquired again and Steve was almost pushed aside by the sad looking woman, who had lined up behind him.
“No, wait, stop. What about…” he thought for a second and shot the woman a warning look. “What about John Shepard?”
The man behind the counter grunted. “Man, you’re not the first to inquire after him. I tell you what I told all the others: No information available. Your big hero is probably still rotting away under some rubble.”
Steve’s hands twitched. Usually he wasn’t very impulsive, but right now he wanted to punch the man. The woman tried to push him aside again and this time Steve used his elbow to hold her at bay.
“What about the rest of the Normandy crew? What about Kaidan Alenko? Jeff Moreau? What about all the others?” Steve tried to keep the panic out of his voice, but he still thought he sounded pathetic and this wasn’t usually a good way to sound, if you were dealing with grumpy officials.
“God damn it,” the man threw up his hands. “The whole Normandy is missing. So each and every of her crew is reported MIA. Their probably space debris for all I know. Now, if you don’t mind to not waste any more of my time and the crowd behind you…”
When the woman made another attempt to push pass him, Steve didn’t resist. He stood at the edge of the crowd and let the new information run through his brain.
Later he made his way back to his bed with an absent mind. Tomorrow he would leave the hospital, no matter what and he would go directly to Hackett. There had to be more to this story.
~~
“I didn’t expect to see you here so soon.” Hackett moved around his desk and extended a hand towards Steve.
Startled by the unusual welcome, Steve took the offered hand. He couldn’t help but feel a bit shabby next to Hackett. The clothes he was wearing weren’t his own. They were given to him at the hospital. A nurse, clearly not approving of him leaving the hospital already, had thrown them out of a huge pile of clothes. The jeans were far too big and the shirt seemed already a little worn out. But it was better than nothing and probably more than some people owned right now, because he even had the luxury of owning a toothbrush. His temporary ID had also already been issued and this would grant him access to some of his money.
The Admiral, however, didn’t seem to mind the lack of a uniform. He moved around his desk and motioned for Steve to take a seat there as well.
Steve sat down hesitantly and waited a moment for his superior to open the conversation. But Hackett didn’t seem in a hurry.
“I’m sorry, Sir,” Steve said finally. “But, the last days have made little to no sense and I really need some answers now.”
Hackett breathed out heavily and put his hand in front of him, as if he was gathering his thoughts anew. “Well, first off I’m glad you came here so soon, Lt. I know the last days must have been confusing, but trust me, after this massive war there is hardly anything that makes sense to anyone. I’m myself still trying to sort things out.” Another heavy breath followed and Hackett looked down on his hands.
Steve was becoming more and more impatient. It was hard for him to keep his feet still on the ground. But he tried to calm his nerves by taking a deep breath himself.
“How are you really doing, LT?” Hackett asked with raised eyebrows.
“I’m doing just fine, Sir,” Steven replied without being able to keep the sharp edge out of his voice. “But I still have no information about what happened to my friends. The only thing I got told is that the Normandy is missing, along with Shepard and everyone else. I want to know where they are.”
“Yeah,” Hackett spoke slowly. “I know. Yes, the Normandy is missing and until now we have hardly any information about what happened there. We’ve been trying to track her down, but they disappeared through the Mass Relay mere seconds before it was destroyed. We have no idea where they might have ended up or if they even made the jump.”
Steve raised a hand in disbelief. “What do you mean? The Sol Relay is destroyed?”
Hackett nodded slowly. “Yes, it is. Triggered by whatever the Crucible did. We have reason to believe that all Relays are affected. Repairs are being organized, but it might be months until they are online again.”
“Huh,” Steve was totally baffled. “That’s hard to imagine right now.”
“Yeah, I know. It’s hard to make sense of anything at the moment.”
“So,” Steve said hesitantly. “They’re really gone.”
Hackett eyed him carefully and seemed to search for words for a few seconds. “They’re missing. But I’m pretty sure they’re still out there somewhere.”
Steve bit his lips and nodded. Blind hope had never played out good for him, but he didn’t want to discuss this with his superior.
After a few seconds of silence, Hackett spoke again. “But there is something else I wanted to discuss with you. As I said in the hospital I need your help.”
Steve could only shrug. Right now he was busy evaluating the information he just got and all in all he couldn’t really imagine going back to work in the next days. But Hackett wouldn’t let him off just like that. He stood up and walked around his desk. “Follow me.”
And although it was hard to gather the strength, Steve did.
~~
Steve had been standing speechless in front of the glass window for a couple of minutes already, staring absently into it. Slowly his brain was processing the scene behind it. He pressed one hand against the window and closed his eyes, exhaling deeply.
“So, he’s alive.”
“Yes,” Hackett replied and moved closer to stand directly behind Steve. “But we’re keeping it quiet. No one has to know, until we can be certain that he will survive. It looks better now than a few days back. His current condition is still critical, but stable.”
Steve let go of a breath he didn’t even know he was holding and looked once more at the person in the hospital bed on the other side of the window. He was hardly visible under all the bandages and the various life support machines.
During the drive to the hospital on the other end of London, Hackett had explained to him what had happened in the last minutes of the battle and what they thought Shepard had done. He hadn’t explained to Steve where they were going and even when they had entered the hospital and proceeded through a tight security check into a closed off, seemingly isolated floor of St. Raphael’s, Hackett hadn’t cared to explain anything further to Steve.
Steve had been recovering in a different hospital. From what he had seen during their walk through the building, the situation here wasn’t less chaotic than anywhere else. That’s why he wondered how they could afford the luxury of an empty, but obviously functioning hospital floor. When they had proceeded through the security check, where even the famous Admiral wasn’t admitted through without his ID, the sudden quietness had startled Steve so much that he nearly stumbled over his own feet. The atmosphere had changed from a hectic, but lively chaos to a rather creepy stillness.
Embarrassed he had continued after Hackett who had proceeded with strong steps. Only after they had arrived in front of Shepard’s hospital room, had Hackett explained to him why they were here.
Steve wasn’t sure what to do next or how to reply to Hackett. He had a big lump in his throat that made even breathing hard. He couldn’t take his eyes of the scene in front of him and continued to stare through the window.
After a few seconds Hackett seemed to move away from him. Steve heard steps and murmured voice. Then whoever had been there departed, but Hackett came back to him.
“I take it you were close to the Commander?” Hackett’s voice was sharp against the otherwise silent floor and Steve was fighting back a sudden wave of nausea.
“Well,” he replied. “He was close to every one of his crew. Looked after us and made sure we were doing ok, even in the midst of this crazy war.” Steve sighed and turned around to face Hackett for the first time since they had entered the hospital. “I believe you could even say we are friends.”
“I’m glad to hear that,” Hackett nodded. “I think he needs a friend right now.”
Steve could only agree.