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Dr. Chloe Michel clapped her hands against her thighs, dust and pieces of peeling paint shaking lose from where it had been caught in the fabric of her suit. Shepard coughed and waved their hand in front of their face, motes of dust swirling all around the pair.
“It’s a mess,” the doctor apologized, “but I wanted to show you what I’m working with. Or, rather, what I’m not working with.”
The medical unit of the Citadel hadn’t been as badly damaged as some areas during the attack. She had even been able to treat patients for a few days, and what a busy few days those had been. Then someone in the cleaning crew had been a little too rough while disposing of a geth body in the upper market and, well….
“One dead geth did all this?” Shepard asked as they tried to see past the rubble into what had been the med bay.
Chloe nodded. “Thankfully, no one was badly injured and we were able to quickly dig out those trapped inside. But that was the last thing I could do for them. I can’t treat anyone else until this gets fixed.”
“How many are you asking us to take, exactly?”
“I wouldn’t waste your time if it wasn’t important, Commander. I’m not asking you to play nurse and take in a few humans and asari with sprained ankles.”
Shepard crossed their arms over their chest but waited for the doctor to finish.
“Just the two. One was brought in in critical condition and always needed more than I could provide. The other… well, he - “ she sighed and dropped her face into her hands. “I should have never taken him.”
“Great.” Shepard opened her omni tool and with quick strokes pulled up Dr. Chakwas’ face. The doctor squinted past Shepard’s shoulder and craned her head like she was trying to get a better view.
“Well?” she asked the commander.
Shepard looked to Chloe. “You ask her.” The ghost of a smile pulled at the corner of their lips and they shifted their weight back to one hip, allowing the two doctors a better view of one another.
Chloe swallowed. She looked between the ruins of her clinic and the lined face of Chakwas.
“I request that Specter Nihlus Kryik and Saren Arterius be transferred to your care, Dr. Chakwas, aboard the SSV Normandy.”
Chakwas rocked back. The corner of her chair bobbed in and out of view as she swiveled. “The crew won’t like this, Commander.”
“It’s your call, doc.”
“I know and I don’t like it.” Her face disappeared from view as she stood, Chloe and Shepard left to stare at her empty chair as she paced away from her desk.
Chloe pulled her lower lip between her teeth and clasped her hands behind her back to keep from snapping. She hadn’t slept well recently, hadn’t eaten enough, and she couldn’t even remember when she had last had a glass of water.
Dr. Chakwas settled back in her chair, gloved hands folded over her stomach. “The transfer has been approved. You’re welcome to bring the patients aboard as soon as you like, Dr. Michel.”
You are irrelevant.
The pain was immediate. Or maybe it was never ending. There had been a great burst of at the end, a sharp and searing flash of agony rending Saren in two. There had been a gun in his hand, pressed just beneath his mandible, but that hadn’t been the pain. Had it? Hadn’t he been trying to stop the pain?
“He’s coming around.”
He swung his head away from the voice, tried to lift his hands to cover his face but found he couldn’t move. He tried again, felt where his talons dug into the soft foam beneath him and tried to lift them. There was something catching at his wrists and he felt the pull as he tested their hold.
“Hey now,” the voice said again, accompanied by a warm press of flesh against his crest. He kept his eyes closed. “Welcome back.”
You are nothing.
His eyes flew open at the sound of the voice and he thrashed. He swung his head up, the hard bones of his face connecting with something more delicate. Someone was yelling, someone said “shit!” and he closed his eyes again and pulled with all his strength against whatever was rooting him in place.
The strength left and at first it seared through him, a liquid fire that rushed through his veins. It sapped his strength, his arms going numb. The numbness spread. Then came the calm, the voices trailing off, lost in a haze.
The door was sealed and impenetrable, both locked from the outside and rigged with an additional alarm that notified the entire crew when the door was opened. Nihlus knew this because he had managed to get through the door once.
The first time he had seen Saren it had been too much of a shock, the sight of those distinctive mandibles causing a spasm of pain at the base of his neck just beneath his carapace.
The second time he had been prepared. He soaked up the sight of Saren laying prone, his arms and legs tethered to a point just below the bed.
This time he was determined. Not even the sound of the alarm as he breeched the security and watched the light flicker from red to green deterred him.
Unable to find a gun, the damage he was capable of doling out was limited. He smashed his hands into Saren’s face. Dug his talons into the tender skin of Saren’s waist between the plating. Gnashed his teeth, pulling at the cords of Saren’s neck.
Saren hadn’t moved when Nihlus jumped on him, hadn’t even attempted to raise his hands to defend himself. He couldn’t fight back, not really, but Nihlus had been expecting a little more. Saren had kept his eyes open, sightlessly starring up and past Nihlus.
It had taken three of them to pull him off, both the doctor and a helmsman too wary of Nihlus’ injuries to do any real work. It was the asari, Liara, who had pulled him off with her biotics.
He had been watched more closely in the weeks after that and his bed was moved across the lab, closer to Dr. Chakwas’ office than the sealed off corner Saren occupied.
That had only deterred him for as long as they’d had the patience to watch him.
The third time he got a good look at Saren, all he did was stare. The sixth time he pressed his hand against the window. Not long after that he started talking to Saren.
Saren didn’t talk back until much later.
We are the end of everything.
Saren cried out, his back arching away from the hard surface he was laid out on. He strained, the sinewy muscles of his arms and legs taut as he tried to free himself.
“Saren, open your eyes!” This voice was coming from outside his head but he screamed again. He whipped his head back and forth, tried to bury his face under the pillow. It didn’t matter where the voice came from, he didn’t want to hear what they had to say.
“You’re just dreaming! Saren, open your eyes!” There was a loud sound, something like thump thump that made him twist his body against the bed. He kept his eyes shut. He could feel the wires all around him and could hear the breathing of the ship. How did he get back inside the ship?
The time of our return is coming.
“No,” Saren wailed. “No, I’m broken. I can’t help.”
“Saren!” The outside voice again. There was no acid burning through him when this voice spoke.
Nihlus let his legs dangle over the edge of the bed. He touched one foot at a time against the ground, moving slowly. He could hear Saren crying out, could hear the bed creak as he thrashed and writhed against his restraints.
On a warship there was always someone awake, always the muffled sound of feet shuffling through the hallways. But once the doctor went to her private quarters, Nihlus was guaranteed at least a few hours of peace and quiet.
His feet dragged across the ground as he shambled forward. He leaned against the beds and tables along the way, his talons digging into them for support. Dr. Chakwas walked the length of the med bay frequently, and each time it only took her a 12 seconds. On a good day it took Nihlus a few minutes. On bad days, like today, when he found it difficult to make a fist and had to use the spines of his elbows to support himself, it could take double that. Triple that.
Finally at the door he paused, resting his crest against the window as he caught his breath. Just on the other side of the door, he could hear Saren more clearly now. He rolled his eyes, straining to see through the darkness of the room.
As far as he knew, no one had risked removing the restraints, though he knew the one across Saren’s carapace had been added after he had broken Commander Shepard’s nose.
“Saren.” Nihlus pounded a flat hand against the door. “Saren.”
Saren moaned and tried to lift his arms. They moved an inch of the bed before the restraints pulled at him. His head jerked from side to side, his spurs drumming against the bed as he tried to free his legs.
“You’re dreaming.” Nihlus slapped the door again, this time with both hands.
Saren’s eyes opened, the dark orbs rolling around as he tried to located where Nihlus’ voice was coming from. He had given up pulling against and fighting the shackled that tied him down. One hand dangled limply off the side of the bed, his long fingers splayed.
“Nihlus,” he rasped. “Nihlus, is that you?”
“Does it hurt when you hear my voice?” Nihlus could feel his knees starting to wobble and he pressed his hands against the door. The surface was too smooth, it wouldn’t hold him up if he started to fall.
“No.”
“Then it’s me.”
Saren nodded as best as he could while laying down. Nihlus could see his mandibles flexing open and close, his teeth exposed in a grimace as he looked around the room.
Nihlus helped to guide his focus, tapped one talon against the door. Saren turned his head to the sound.
“Can you look at me?” Nihlus asked. He had never seen any of the lights in the room turned on, not even when the doctor went in to check on Saren. There was only the soft blue light coming from a machine that had been pushed in a corner.
Saren’s brow ridge lowered, pinching together as he looked straight through the window.
“You’re dead,” he said blandly. He turned his head away from the door, his eyes squeezing shut. “I killed you and then I killed myself.”
Nihlus shifted and jammed his shoulder against the door as he moved one hand to press against the window. “Yeah, you tried. You aren’t dead, yet.”
You will end.
“Saren, can you hear me?”
He could hear everything, the two voices were pulling him apart.
We demand it.
“Trust me, Saren. Open your eyes.”
There was a third sound. An alarm blaring. Saren wanted to cover his ears but he was still trapped inside the ship. Sovereign had consumed him, pieces of its insides keeping him suspended in place.
We are infinite.
“Spirits, open your eyes Saren!”
A piece of Sovereign fell away from him, the raw wound where the restraint had cut into his still organic arm exposed to the air.
The outside voice, the soft voice that didn’t hurt, was closer than it had ever been before. “Trust me, Saren! Trust me!”
He shook his head, covering his face with his newly freed arm. This was all a trick. Sovereign was testing him. It had discovered his plan to end the indoctrination and he was being punished.
I am the Vanguard of your destruction.
Something that felt almost familiar brushed against his mandibles. Things that almost felt real, organic, like fingers, ran over his crest.
“I’m here,” the soft voice said.
Dr. Chakwas wasn’t saying anything, but Nihlus could tell that she was angry. Humans were easy to read, their soft faces always melting and reshaping into a hundred different expressions that said a thousand different things. Thin lips, flared nostrils, wide pupils. She wasn’t happy.
As fierce as she looked, the lines in her face as fine as crevices, she wasn’t going to be Nihlus’ problem. It was Shepard that would prove to be difficult.
“ - and besides putting yourself in danger, you put my whole crew in danger! We have no idea what he’s capable of. He almost killed me - twice! He almost killed you! He almost killed - ”
Nihlus rolled his head to the side to see if they were done. Their face had turned red, a hand raised as they counted off the people Saren had attempted to kill on one hand. They ran out of fingers and raised the other hand.
“Commander, if I may?” Chakwas swiveled in her chair, her chin cupped in one hand as she looked between the two. “I don’t agree with the way he did it, but I do believe he has a point.”
“You’re kidding?” Shepard sputtered. Their face scrunched and they redirected their anger towards the doctor. “You didn’t even want them on the ship! Now you want to let Saren lose?”
“He’d hardly be lose.” Chakwas waved a hand in the air dismissively. “He just wouldn’t be locked away.”
“I’ll take care of him.”
Shepard’s attention snapped to Nihlus, their gaze icy. “The first time you got in there you tried to rip his fucking throat out with your teeth.”
“This time I was trying to help him.”
Shepard looked skeptical, but Chakwas smiled. Her chair stopped swiveling and she leaned forward, elbow on knees. “Have you forgiven him?” she asked.
Nihlus cleared his throat. He tapped a talon against his thigh and titled his head to look up at the ceiling. The first time he had put his hands on Saren, he had looked right through him like he was ready to die. The second time, Saren’s face cupped between his talons, he had looked up at him like he had finally remembered he was alive.
“I don’t need to forgive him to see that he’s in pain,” he finally answered.
Chakwas stood up and clapped a hand on Shepard’s shoulder. “I think it’s time we bring Saren out of solitary confinement, Commander.”
We are the end of everything.
Saren bolted straight up. The tangling mess of Sovereign had been removed. He cried out, his talons coming up to cover his face. He attempted to dig under his eyes, he wanted to pluck the sound out from where it reverberated behind his brow.
“You’re awake now. You’re safe.” Something wrapped around his wrists and pulled his hands away from his face. Unlike Sovereign, this voice didn’t singe through his veins, and his skin didn’t burn where he was touched. Soft, red light seeped through the edges of his eyelids. His skin felt warm where he was touched.
“Saren, can you open your eyes?”
Saren obeyed, the instinct to listen to spoken word too strong to quell.
The ship was different. It was bright and warm, the darkness that permeated Sovereign chased to the edges of the room. There were no wires dangling from the walls to pull and wrap around his legs, no fluid and sparks dripping from the ceiling to sear his carapace and head. He couldn't hear the ship breathing.
"Where am I?" His throat felt dry and his voice was cracked. He was startled by his own voice, the cool timbre of it familiar. Had it been him screaming all that time?
"I have you now, Saren." A white painted face hovered into view above his eyes. The warm, organic hands cupped one side of his face. "You're safe with me."