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Admiral Hannah Shepard, née Huang, didn't usually mind funerals all that much.
People died, in the military. It was a job hazard. You were allowed to cry about it if you wanted, but if you got too into it people might think you were unstable. So she didn't. And if you didn't cry, a funeral was pretty much just another meeting. A priest or rabbi or lama said some words, unless it was instead some slick nondenominational talker, and everyone looked grim about the words, and there were some more speeches from friends or family. Hannah had some practice giving those speeches. She wasn't charismatic, per se, but she knew what people expected to hear and she could say it. It was, overall, a pretty smooth process. Her parents' funerals had been nothing – small family affairs, sitting there blinking incense out of her eyes alongside the handful of cousins who cared enough to fly out to Gánxiāo or lived dirtside already. Alan's funeral had been exhausting, trying to keep ten-year-old Vivian from fidgeting and still maintain the faraway look of sadness in her own eyes. Alan had taken care of arranging her parents' funeral, and she'd delegated Alan's to his brother.
She had no one to whom she could delegate Vivian's.
Instead, Hannah enlisted a Taoist monk. (She hadn't really realized, on a gut level, that there still were monks. She knew they existed, but – anyway.) Wu was young, polite, and quietly apologetic regarding her presumed loss. Hannah hated him on sight. It wasn't as if she was going to find a better monk, though. She was pretty sure they were all like that. So she'd paid his fee, without really looking at it, and told him she wanted a funeral for her daughter.
He looked – shaken might be the word. "She had no younger siblings, no spouse or children?"
She shook her head irritably. "No. What does it matter?"
"...if you will forgive me, I do not think you are a traditionalist," Mr. Wu said carefully. "Why do you want a traditional burial?"
Hannah looked at him, and he flinched almost imperceptibly from something he saw in her eyes. "Because they won't let me just send her gun out an airlock," she bit out, "and I hate the idea of a Protestant talking over her empty coffin slightly more than I hate the idea of you doing it."
There was a long silence.
"Her body was not recovered?" the monk asked.
"No. Her ship exploded."
"I am sorry."
"I don't particularly care if you're sorry."
Another silence.
"I will perform a funeral that will not embarrass or infuriate you," he said eventually, "if you will agree to say the prayers and make the appropriate offerings to appease her spirit. Properly, with your heart."
Hannah grimaced. "...Fine," she muttered. "I'll try."
He asked a lot of questions. She sent him over a copy of Vivian's birth certificate so that he could determine her astrological information; she knew that much. She hadn't thought she'd need to know her daughter's favorite flower.
"I don't think she had a favorite flower," she said. "Can't we just do chrysanthemums? Isn't that how this works?"
"Chrysanthemums are traditional," Mr. Wu allowed. "But we also might try to soothe the spirit with her favorite things."
"Her favorite things were guns, biceps curls, and rank insubordination," Hannah said flatly.
"Difficult to accommodate," he mused. "Though we can burn joss paper in the shape of a rifle, if you truly believe she would find such a thing soothing."
Hannah froze.
"I apologize if I have given offense," he said hurriedly.
"No, no," Hannah said slowly. "It's just – that's the first thing you've said that I actually liked."
The monk smiled a very small smile, and made a note.
Back at home, Hannah looked grimly at the packets of incense Mr. Wu had given her. He had told her how to arrange them, what to say in slightly antiquated Mandarin, and... that was it. He seemed to assume she already knew how to pray.
She got out the lighter from her kitchen drawer and sparked the incense to light, piled in a plate on the counter. Then, hurriedly, she removed the smoke alarms from around the apartment and stacked them in the bathtub before they could go off. By the time she got back to the incense, it was trickling white smoke and smelled powerfully of flowers Hannah couldn't name.
She spoke her piece over it. It was a pretty bit of poetry. At least, she was pretty sure it was. She'd never had much of a taste for poems.
Then... she sat down and stared into the smoke. What was she supposed to do? Remember her daughter.
What did she remember?
Vivian in elementary school. (Schools. Military brats never got to stay in one place for long.) Fighting tooth and nail not to go in the mornings, coming home with notes from teachers in the afternoon. Vivian is an energetic girl but should direct her energy more productively. Vivian has committed the following petty misdemeanors. A boy pulled Vivian's hair and she broke his Goddamn nose, and we have this list of schools that might better suit your needs as a parent.
Vivian at her father's funeral. Ten years old. Full of tension, not sad so much as impatient. Picking at a loose thread on her dress, clicking her fingernails, grimacing as the preacher droned on about the Kingdom of Heaven. An elderly relative looking disapprovingly at Hannah. The psychic waves of disapproval emanating from her: Why aren't you stopping her? Why's she so fidgety? What went wrong raising this child, that she can't even mourn her father properly?
Vivian in the JROTC. Smiling wider than Hannah had ever seen her smile, as something finally made her feel at home. Glowing reports from her instructors. Going off to N-school, graduating, rising through the ranks. Getting assigned to the Normandy. Sir, you might want to sit down. There's a message about your daughter.
The incense had burned down to nothing, and Hannah's eyes were red-rimmed and itching from the smoke. She rubbed at them, feeling inexplicably exhausted. She was supposed to do this every week?
...well, it gave her something to do with the paid time off they'd made her take.
Every week, Hannah sat before the incense, and prayed, and thought back on her daughter's life. It became distressingly clear to her that she didn't have that much to think back on. She went through the aging datasheets containing old school projects. They were technically competent, but unenthusiastic. In kindergarten she scrawled guns all over the page, but by middle school she'd learned to confine her doodles to private files.
She requested a copy of Vivian's personnel file. It came to her minimally redacted; privileges of being a ranking officer and a blood relative. She scanned through it a dozen times. Found herself reading it like she would anyone else's – someone they'd sent over to join her ship, maybe.
This girl knew her stuff, was the impression she got. Vivian had topped the charts at N-school; it seemed like every instructor had wanted to leave a note in her file, whether to commend her performance or to rail against her for insubordination. She'd taken her position as second lieutenant on the SSV Avalon when she shipped out, and had performed not just admirably but exceptionally, leading her platoon to victory after unconventional victory. Her rise through the ranks was as meteoric as it was inevitable. Her troops loved her. Her superiors saw her with mingled respect and dread, never sure what she'd do next.
Hannah felt like she'd never met her.
In the past fifteen years, the fifteen years in which Vivian had gone from a bright-eyed high school graduate to a hero of the galaxy, how many times had Hannah spoken to her? A few dozen; they'd called on each other's birthdays. And they'd had Christmas together, more years than not. There had been the incident with Zabaleta. And – and – was that it?
Was that all the connection Hannah had to this woman?
The funeral was held on the Citadel, in one of the dozens and dozens of general-purpose Presidium spaces. It was a private ceremony, no reporters or wailing fans. There was a plinth with a portrait of Vivian, surrounded by white flowers and a few offerings. Hannah had her dress blues, reassuringly uncomfortable, a starched weight on her frame.
She was numb.
Someone was talking to her. The voice was pleasant, soothing, but with the unmistakable flanging of a turian speaking through translation. She turned.
"-sorry for your loss," said the turian with the soothing voice. His clan markings were unobtrusive; his armor was neat and well-maintained; he wore a combat visor, despite the formal occasion.
"Thank you," she replied.
"I worked under your daughter," he continued. "She was – really something."
He looked like he might cry, if turians cried. Hannah nodded, not sure what to say.
"I'm Garrus Vakarian," he said, wiping his eyes surreptitiously. "Um. Did she – say anything about me?" He looked hopeful and fearful at the same time.
"She never told me much about anything," Hannah replied.
Garrus cleared his throat after a few seconds. "I've never been to a human funeral before. So I hope I don't do anything too, uh, gratuitously offensive."
"You'd have to be trying," Hannah said. "You can be offensive by accident, but gratuitous takes work."
"Well. That's a relief." Garrus shifted uncomfortably. "If you could… give me a rundown anyway… though, um, it's not your job. Scratch that."
"We have a little while for people to show up," Hannah said. "Then there's food and speeches and a couple of meditations – moments of silence, poetry reading. Then everybody burns some incense and joss paper. It's not too complicated."
Garrus nodded. "Joss paper, that's the… origami gun on the altar?"
Hannah snorted explosively. "It's not origami. It's just made out of paper. You burn it and it goes to where she is now. So I got her a gun, because you can't really go wrong there, and there's some Hell money, and… what's that face."
"Um." Garrus coughed. "What is Hell money."
"It's – so, wherever you go after you die, you're going to need money. Food, housing, bribes, what have you. The afterlife isn't Communist. So, you get money from the First Bank of Hell. Because, honestly, where else would you find a bank?"
Garrus made a truly fascinating expression. "I. I see."
Hannah laughed a little, a dry sound without much mirth. "It's alright. What do turians do for funerals?"
"The body's mummified and interred with your possessions and some ceremonial regalia – that's the important thing. If your body can't be recovered, then they do some extra rituals to make sure your spirit can find its way into the catacombs."
"They who?" Hannah probed.
Garrus shifted. "Well, whoever's in charge. Usually your commanding officer."
"Makes sense."
Garrus straightened up a little. "...can you get Hell money if you're not, you know, a funeral parlor? Just as a private citizen, to make an offering on your own time?"
Hannah felt… suddenly, somehow, exhausted. Was it the fact that this boy was so energetic, so enthusiastic to get a good grade in the mourning process? Or was it the fact that she'd had to be dragged kicking and screaming into her own grief, and this boy was industriously looking for ways to make up for lost time?
"Yeah," she said heavily, turning to look for Mr. Wu. "You can get it off the Extranet. I should go."
Garrus looked subtly pained. "Of course, Admiral Shepard. Maybe we'll talk later."
She headed for Mr. Wu, but she was intercepted by a krogan, his red armor dented and scarred but polished to the extent it could be. He gave her a toothy grin.
"Shepard, I assume," he growled amiably.
"Admiral Hannah Shepard, yes," she said. "You are?"
"Urdnot Wrex. Wanted to tell you your daughter was a damn good fighter, ma'am."
"...thank you, mister Urdnot," Hannah said carefully.
He laughed. "Day I met her, I thought this girl, right here, could and would kick my ass if I gave her an excuse. So I did."
Hannah raised her eyebrows. "And did she?"
"Hell yes, ma'am."
She nodded. That sounded like the Vivian she had come to think of her daughter as over the past weeks. "It sounds like it was a mutually fulfilling activity."
Wrex blinked. "One way to put it. Was she always like that?"
"Like..."
"You know. An angry hellcat."
Hannah paused. "I... think she must have been."
"Ah."
"What?" Hannah asked.
Wrex shook his head. "You didn't actually know her. Did you."
"She was my daughter," Hannah said weakly.
"Not what I asked."
Hannah felt like the incense was getting to her again, her eyes burning and her head heavy and her bones tired, tired, tired. "No. I never knew her. I had a baby, and every time I blinked she got bigger and further away."
Wrex gave her a measuring look, then clapped a hand on her shoulder. "Come on, I'll introduce you."
"What?"
He rumbled with laughter. "Admiral Shepard, there's someone I'd like you to meet. This girl bent every rule she couldn't break, left everybody she met with a different grudge against her. I've got enough stories for a lifetime, but seeing as we're on a schedule I'll save most of them for later."
Hannah blinked. "You're... introducing me to my own dead daughter."
"Clearly you need it," he shrugged.
She couldn't find it in herself to argue.
Wrex told her about how Vivian had met him taking on a mercenary job, and offered him a job on the spot. Wrex told her about how Vivian had convinced him to take down the cloning facility, even though it seemed at the time like his best shot at fixing the Genophage. Wrex told her about Vivian: not the Vivian she'd sort of known, not the Vivian she'd seen in the files, but a Vivian who seemed so alive she might round the corner and surprise her at any time.
"I – I should go," she said eventually. "There's other people to meet, and Mr. Wu will want me to give my speech pretty soon."
"Of course," Wrex said. "Go on, Shepard. We'll talk another time."
Drifting again, she startled at a faceless figure. Then she realized that it was just a quarian, and felt faintly ridiculous. What, did she think the convention center was haunted by a ringwraith?
The woman came up to her, mistaking her surprise for curiosity. "Hello," she said. (Her voice sounded young – young enough that Hannah internally downgraded her from "woman" to "girl".) "My name is Tali'zorah vas Neema. Forgive me, but are you Vivian's mother?"
"I was," Hannah said heavily.
A brief pause. "I'm sorry," Tali said. "I thought you should know that she spoke of you often."
"...how did you know her?" Hannah asked.
"I worked under her in the mission to take down Saren."
A longer pause. "What did she say?" Hannah asked.
"Um. She wished she had been closer to you. She said that – you were someone she could have learned from, that you could have taught her about command." A deep breath. "She said you'd told her that she'd be better off joining the circus than the military. That you pushed her away every time she tried to bond. That – when you found out she was in the JROTC you said so, what, is this your teen rebellion?" Her voice was hoarse. "And she still wanted you to love her."
Hannah closed her eyes for a second. "Worked under her, huh."
"She was desperate for someone to talk to," Tali said. "And, yes, maybe there was more there. I don't know, because she's dead."
"Sure fucking is," Hannah said grimly. "I did tell her she should join the circus. You know why? Because the military eats people alive. You never get out of it. And I've never heard of a clown going Rambo."
Tali stared at her. "You're a bitch," she said eventually, her voice crisp and precise.
"Sure am. Will that be all, miss?"
"Yeah," the girl said, sounding oddly satisfied. "I think it will be."
Hannah stood in front of the long white-draped tables. She had some cards, a speech written on them. It was the kind of speech she had given a thousand times. She shuffled the cards.
Speeches like this started broad. I'm Admiral Hannah Shepard. Thank you all for coming. My daughter, Vivian... dedicated Marine... example to her troops...
It didn't matter that she hadn't really known Vivian. It didn't matter that the last conversation they'd had was a twenty-minute phone call at Christmas. She could have given a speech like this for her own mother, or the homeless man outside the public library, or Mickey Mouse.
The hollow feeling inside her wouldn't go away.
A few minutes in, talking about the honor and burden of motherhood, Hannah stopped.
"I'm sorry," she said dully. "I – I need to – get some air."
And she walked out.
The park was great for her stated goal of getting some fresh air. It smelled of honeysuckle and Asari mauveblossom. For her actual goal of not being in that room anymore, it was even better.
She had no idea why she'd suddenly left. Feeling hollow wasn't a medical emergency. Feeling like a ceramic doll that might shatter at any second. Feeling like her daughter was in the crowd, staring at her.
She imagined Vivian. Vivian, taller than her by half a head, her hair cut just as short, her face unsympathetic.
"You're going to make me tell you what's wrong with you?" the vision of her daughter asked.
Hannah closed her eyes to hear her voice a little better.
"Mom, this is stupid. You're not crazy enough to actually be hearing voices. You're just using your imagination for the first time since you got out of second grade."
Did it matter?
"Maybe not," she admitted.
Hannah felt her eyes trying to water. Like she had a thousand times before, she bit her tongue hard, harder than was probably a good idea, and the tears shrank away.
"That? That right there? That's what's wrong with you."
It wasn't that dire a coping mechanism. She didn't drink, she didn't smoke. Wasn't an old woman allowed a few sins?
"It's not about how you cope," the voice of Vivian said quietly. "It's that you think this is something to cope with. Mom, I'm dead. You're allowed to cry."
Hannah opened her eyes.
The park was still empty.
She walked back into the building, back into the wide-open room.
Mr. Wu was reading a poem aloud. He nodded to her as she entered. She nodded back, and took her seat. She felt, absurdly, like a high school student.
Mr. Wu finished the poem. He led the funeral party through the lighting of incense and joss paper. He handed out envelopes, each containing a ten-credit chit and a piece of lychee candy. He guided the guests out the door.
When they were gone, he came to Hannah's side.
"Are you alright, Admiral Shepard?" he asked quietly.
She shook her head.
"My daughter is dead," she whispered. "And I never learned how to cry."