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Chapter Text

Shepard’s fingernails rapped on her desk, a four-part drum beat, as she pondered the dossier grasped in her other hand. 

Evidently, a turian, a krogan, an asari, and a salarian were not an ironically diverse enough team for The Illusive Man: he had to add a rarely-seen drell to that collection, and an assassin at that. 

What was next? A hanar mercenary? An elcor with a cannon strapped to his back? 

Shit, she really hoped she could have a cannon-wielding elcor on her team. 

A drell assassin, however, was most curious. The drell were a species she knew woefully little about. Furthermore, how could she trust him? How could she know that someone else wasn’t paying him more than Cerberus was to slay her in her sleep? The thought discomfited her and she shifted uneasily in her chair, her four-part drum beat increasing in tempo. 

She rolled to her intercom, connecting with the main battery. 

“Garrus." 

"Shepard?" 

The drumming of her fingers on the desk moved to her lips. "Would you consider yourself to be an ‘expert sniper’?" 

Through the intercom she could hear his indignant snort. "You tell me, Shepard. I keep telling you, we need to have that shooting contest–" 

She cut him off to retort, "The one that would be horribly unfair because you’re as good with a sniper rifle as I am with a shotgun?" 

"It’s not my fault you chose the brute force weapon." 

Garrus was far too talented at being just-a-bit smug, but Shepard could give him a little taste of his own medicine. "As it’s not my fault that you don’t have the balls to be in the middle of the action." 

In spite of their banter, Garrus was a close friend – the closest that she had on this ship filled with strangers. It was a bonus that his technical and sniping expertise struck a balance with her biotics. 

"Let’s… agree to disagree on this one. Why are you asking if I’m an expert sniper, anyways?" 

"The last dossier sent to me was for a drell assassin. Considered an 'expert sniper’ and 'quick-kill biotic specialist’." 

"We already have two expert snipers on the ship, and five quick-kill biotic specialists." 

Shepard carelessly tossed the datapad containing the dossier onto her desk, closing her eyes and leaning back in her chair. "Exactly. Why the need for redundancy?" 

"You don’t trust him." 

Damn, Garrus knew her far too well sometimes. "He’s a fucking assassin, of course I don’t." 

She heard Garrus chuckle. "What’s that human saying…" 

EDI’s voice on the intercom interrupted Garrus. "Keep your friends close and your enemies closer?" 

Garrus laughed, but Shepard grumbled. She disliked the idea of the AI listening to their conversations, even less so when they were discussing a decision made by its boss that she disagreed with. 

Garrus continued, "Would you rather have him close where you can keep an eye on him, or have him slighted by a broken contract, waiting in the shadows for us?" 

Shepard fell into a lengthy silence. Building the right team to take down the Collectors was essential, and a mutual trust between them even more so. Perhaps commencing their relationship with mistrust wasn’t the best call. 

Finally she decided, "Let’s meet with him. Miranda, you, and I. We’ll judge from there." 

"Yes, Shepard." 

She closed the connection with the main battery to open one with the bridge. 

"Joker? Set a course for Illium. We have an assassin to meet.”

Chapter Text

“Mia Evelyn Shepard.”

“Please, just Shepard.” As the last surviving Shepard, she believed she owed the family name its due.

“Alright Miss Shepard, let’s –”

She reiterated, “Just Shepard. Please.”

The therapist – no, psychoanalyst – peered at her over the rim of his glasses. Why he even had glasses when laser treatment was so easily accessible, she didn’t know. Perhaps it made him appear more approachable. More likable. Yet at the moment, he didn’t seem to her to be much of either.

“Right,” he drawled. “Shepard. The Alliance has hired me to have a small discussion with you, make sure that certain matters have been taken care of.”

Wordlessly, she crossed her arms and gazed at him warily. She knew exactly what shit to expect from this type of conversation, and she was ready for it.

“Let’s talk about your family.”

“My deceased family,” she corrected.

“I’m sorry for your loss.” His condolences were almost convincing. “Can we take a moment to talk about them?”

Feigning nonchalance, she shrugged through stiff shoulders. “What do you want to know?”

“There were… four of them, lost that day?”

“Five,” she corrected, again. “My mother, Hannah. Father, Michael. Younger brother, Eric. Older sister, Olivia, and her son, Marcus.”

The therapist leaned forward in his chair, tenting his fingers. “That must have been extremely difficult for you, losing so many loved ones.”

No, dipshit, it was the most fun time of my fucking life. “I miss them all very much.”

“And do you ever wish that you could get revenge on those who caused you such pain? The batarians?”

Of course I do. Of course I want revenge on the bastards who murdered my family and slaughtered an innocent toddler in cold blood because he’d be useless as a slave. But if I tell him that… there’s no way in fucking hell they’re going to let me into the Alliance. “The blame does not lie on a single race. We need to focus on the eradication of slavery itself.”

He nodded slowly, but seemed unconvinced, so she elaborated. “I also think we need to have the Alliance do a better job of protecting it’s fringe colonies. To allow an attack so atrocious fly under their radar is something that cannot happen if we want our colonies to continue to have faith in us.”

His gaze fell to his clipboard, and he made a few swift notes. Shit, she hoped she was being convincing. She wanted nothing more than to join the Alliance; not to take revenge on the batarians, but to work on ridding the galaxy of the darkness seeping in at the corners like a tipped bottle of ink.

To ensure no other family would suffer the way hers had.

“So you believe the fault lies on the Alliance?”

“I believe the Alliance could do more, yes. But to do more, they need more recruits, which is why I’m here.”

More scribbling. More nodding. More hope that she was passing their test, that she would be sane enough to enter their ranks.

Not that everyone in the Alliance was entirely sane.

“Thank you for your time, Mi– Shepard. The Alliance will review all aspects of your application before contacting you.”

They both stood and briskly shook hands before she left, her stomach roiling in nerves at the thought of her pending application.

Chapter Text

“What is your greatest regret?”

Shepard snorted. “That’s a heavy question. Don’t you usually start with ‘what’s your favourite colour?’ or ‘when’s your birthday?’”

His open palm on her ankle was a comfort. It was still, and warm, but it was a reminder of his presence, and her ease with it, something so unfamiliar to her. It was an anchor tethering her to him, for whatever amount of time the galaxy deemed they would be able to spend together.

“Your favourite colour is orange,” Thane responded, deadpan. “It reminds you of the small flowers that grew on Mindoir. And your birthday is April 11th, Earth calendar.”

“You have me there.” His hand traveled from her ankle to the top of her foot, tracing the ligaments and tendons that ran to her toes. For a long time, she pondered the question, but he remained patient and silent. It was not that she didn’t know the answer – she did – it just felt so… strange finally feeling comfortable enough with a person outside of her family to discuss it.

Not that she didn’t trust her crew – she trusted them with her life – but it was much more difficult trusting them with her deepest secrets.

Her brow fluttering into a furrow, she finally muttered, “Ashley.”

His voice rising in inflection, he repeated, “Ashley?”

“She was… a good friend. A good soldier. And I had to leave her on Virmire so that Kaidan could set off the bomb. Every day I ask myself if there was more that I could have done to save her, if I could have split the team up, if I could have… done anything.” She swallowed. “But I didn’t. And there’s nothing I regret more than choosing to leave a soldier like her behind.”

“And your greatest accomplishment?”

At this, she threw her head back and laughed openly, unabashedly. “Were you a therapist back on Kahje?”

Gently, his hand squeezed her foot. “I wish to know you, Siha. Every part of you, the shameful and the proud.”

Her gaze caught his, and she smiled. “Opening up to you, then. Since I lost my family, I couldn’t open up to anyone. It felt safer to close the door to who I truly am, presenting the shield of Commander Shepard instead.” As she spoke, the floodgates of her soul opened, pouring out the emotions she kept so closely locked up for all of these years. “But with you, I’m more than the Commander. I’m Mia Shepard, your Siha, and being that is more to me than any kill count or medal.”

His hand remaining on her foot, he leaned down to press his lips against hers, just once, lightly, but enough to set her heart aflutter and leave her dazed.

As their lips pulled apart, their mouths still close enough she could feel his hot breath on her nose, she knew that how long their time together was didn’t matter. They had each other, every part of each other, and whether it was for a month, a year, or ten years didn’t matter. For she treasured each moment, and when there were no more moments to be shared, she would always remember them as the best of her life. 

He was the key to open up the vault that was Mia. Without knowing it, she had been searching for the key her entire life, and now that the vault was open, she would clutch onto that key close to her heart until it turned to dust.

“Now, Thane…” her smile was wry, and more than a little smug, “It’s your turn.”

Chapter Text

“Siha.”

She recalled the feeling of smooth skin beneath her rough hands, demanding teeth on her neck, desperate hands on her sides.

The voice before her spoke again. “Siha. Siha?”

Had it been a dream? No reality had been so vibrant, so filled with sensations both known and unknown.

No reality of hers had been so filled with so much unbridled love.

“Shepard. You must wake.”

That voice was so familiar. Perhaps it was another part of her dreamscape? A smell wafted to her – a smell of freshly cooked bacon – and she realized that this could be no dream.

Her gummy eyes fluttered open to find the man from her dreams at the foot of her bed, a tray laden with food in his hands. He wore naught but a black robe cinched at the waist, exposing the length of his chest. She rapidly blinked the sleep away, and he smiled.

“Good morning, Siha. Did you rest well?”

Her eyes darted to her clock, and she was alarmed to see that it was already 1000 hours. “I suppose that I did!” She couldn’t help but laugh; a piece of the warmth and pleasure from last night lingered within her. “Is that… breakfast?”

He placed the tray on the bed beside her and gingerly kissed her cheek. “It is. Happy birthday, Shepard.”

Without pause, she grabbed the back of his neck to pull him in for a deep kiss. He still tasted faintly of their shared passion. When he pulled away, they exchanged warm smiles. “Thank you, Thane.”

Only five minutes had passed, but she could not think of a better birthday in her lifetime.

–

Siha.

My Siha.

My Shepard.

This year, she knew there had been no dreaming, for no dream could bring this much pain.

In her empty bed she rolled, the vacancy never more present.

Her rock, her Thane, was gone. In his place was only a hole in her heart, so vast and bleak that nothing could fill it. 

She closed her eyes to try and sleep again, for sleep brought her the respite of dreams, and dreams were the last place that she could find him.

Yet sleep did not come, only the reminder that she was alone in this hurricane.

Never before had she had a worse birthday.

Chapter Text

This was their place of comfort.

Their place where no fear or burden crowded their minds, their place where they were granted a temporary silence amid the racket that had become their lives.

And although they were together, they shared no words and no touches. They simply were themselves, together, not the masks they had each carefully constructed and carried around with them like talismen.

Thane would pray, for Shepard, for Irikah, for Kolyat, for the Normandy crew, and for the humans who had been abducted by the Collectors. Prayer for both those who had already passed across the sea, and those who were staring it down, asking it when it was their turn.

Shepard would read. History books containing stories of great leaders now passed, or fictional tales spinning stories either wild or too near truth. On occasion she needed inspiration, and the reminder of what leadership truly entailed. Or sometimes she needed to be taken away from harsh reality and transported to another world, another person's problems, another ailing galaxy that was not hers to save.  

For as they reached the precipice of their lives, the only thing they needed more than each other was to better understand themselves, and to come to terms with decisions made -- or not made at all.

Shepard shifted in her chair -- a plush chaise that Kasumi had somehow acquired for her, no doubt without credits -- and stretched her arms above her head, her back cracking in anger at her stillness. Even her body demanded that she remain restless. She was reading a tale of the rise and fall of Joseph Stalin. The masses then thought that a tyrant was the worst of their problems; oh how they would fear what they faced now. When her gaze searched out Thane -- she always found calm within his peaceful facade -- his eyes fluttered open, feeling the burn of hers.

The smallest of furrows was set between his brows: something was on his mind. She raised a brow in query.

"You died, Shepard."

A snort escaped her, but it was resentful and humourless. "I did." She often tried to forget the burn in her lungs as she gasped for air and received none, the panic as her legs kicked helplessly while her blood screamed for oxygen it would no longer received, the fear as the edges of her vision began to darken and she coldly accepted that she had reached the end.

It was an end at a beginning. That fact made it almost unsurprising when she woke on Miranda's table. Not that she considered herself immortal by any stretch of the imagination -- she knew she wasn't, and she knew that death was inevitable -- but to finally find a worthy mission, and then to have it swept under the rug before she was killed by the exact enemies she should have been looking for, was wholly unfair.

But she had died. She knew it. It was no coma; she had passed into the ether and returned with a chip on her shoulder.

As he always did when he had a query on his mind, Thane clasped his hands and shifted his weight forward. "Did you meet your God when you did?"

It was her brow's turn to furrow, her gaze fixed on book as she closed the cover. "No. For a flash, I thought I... felt something..." Her brows pinched as she tried to recall a memory so faint it was like focusing on a point miles away. "Someone touching my arm, whispering I'll be ok. Maybe it was God. Maybe it was Ash. Maybe it was my mind's last effort to ease my passing. But there were no golden gates awaiting me, no God in his long white robes with his list with my name on it stating I've been accepted into heaven." She snorted, and this time, there was some humour in it. "We, as organics, glamourize death. Say that it's for honour, or an adventure into the unknown, or whatever it takes to pull the fear out of death. But when you die... you take a breath, and your heart gives its last beat, and then... blackness." Her eyes met his, and when they did, she knew she had said the wrong thing. His gaze had fallen and his hands were held together loosely, like he had lost his tether to hope.

She stood and crossed the room to take the seat opposite him, taking his hands in her own. "You worry."

"I only dream of the sea. To know it doesn't exist..."

Her grip on his hands became fierce. "For us, it does." His eyes met hers, a sparkle of curiosity in the blackness. "Just because one day our bodies won't be together, doesn't mean that our spirits won't. I only have my body's memories. Perhaps while I was on that table, with my body being reconstructed piece by piece, my spirit was dipping its toes in the sea, admiring the eternal sunset."

He still appeared unconvinced. "Perhaps."

With her short fingers she touched his cheek, the skin blissfully soft beneath her fingertips. "And if there is no sea for us... if we're banished to the pits of hell or whatever may await us for our misdeeds... or perhaps if we forever lay wherever they deem a suitable place to leave our bodies... isn't that even more of a reason to treasure the moment now?"

His hand covered her smaller one. "It is. Every moment with you brings me hope; not for the future, but for the present."

The corner of her lip flickered into a smile. "The future is overrated."

"Yet we still fight for it."

"Not for us." Her head shook slowly. "But for everyone else."

Slowly but not tentatively, Thane leaned forward to press a soft kiss to Shepard's lips. She closed her eyes and sighed into the kiss, a smile remaining when he pulled away.

The present. She could live with that.

Chapter Text

Each breath is agony, every inhale piercing his dying lungs with a thousand tiny stings, each exhale a rattle as more and more life trickles out of his body.

The pain is not new, but it is steadily worsening, as it has been for as long as he can remember. It began with a wheezing cough one morning, turning into shortness of breath while on a job, until the pain became so overwhelming it stole his precious few hours of sleep each night. It was when he had spent a whole night gasping for the oxygen that refused to enter his lungs and his bloodstream that he chose to admit himself into Huerta.

After all, he knew Shepard would find him at Huerta, and bless her, she did. 

But in this moment, that pain would not be his enemy, but his compatriot. It would become the drive he needed to complete his last job.

For his Siha needs him; he could hear the desperation in her voice as she pelted through the Citadel, attempting to stop the coup that was threatening to end the last vestiges of galactic unity that were the Council. 

Thane spots the salarian councilor. She is afraid; her breath is rapid, her pupils dilated, her heart racing, her hands trembling. She believes she will die. 

Thane closes his eyes and whispers one last prayer to Kalahira. He prays that Shepard will survive this, that she will end the Reapers and Cerberus and be granted the rest that she deserves. He prays that she will not resent him for his sacrifice, and that she will find love and happiness once he is gone. 

His time has come. He is grateful for the life that he has been granted: for Irikah, for Kolyat, for Shepard. It is more than he deserves.

His eyes flash open, and he leaps in front of the councilor. 

Chapter Text

The wind whispered through the trees, bringing with it the sweet smell of hay and the sharp tang of manure. Yet she didn't mind either of the smells; they meant that the summer harvest was near, and with harvest always came an influx of income.

The breeze brushed leaves against her cheeks, reddened beneath a layer of freckles by too much time spent in the sun. She closed her eyes and smiled, pushing her lashes against the apples of her cheeks, clutching her just-finished novel against her chest.

There were few things in life she could ask for beyond what she had in this moment: tranquility, while she sat on her perch in 'her' tree; contentment, brought by the joy of diving into and leaving another finely-crafted world, contained in the novel she clutched; and the thought of a good winter for her family, as this harvest promised a higher yield than they had yet seen.

They lived simply, the Shepards, but she would trade the simple life for nothing else. For as a new colony, their focus was caretaking for their people, by growing and tending to food, excavating trees and stone for building, and collecting solar energy to power their homes. There were a few scientific outposts, designed to study the atmosphere and land, but after the preliminary terraforming tests completed on a planet, scientists would not occupy it in full until the society was flourishing, which was usually a half a century-long process.

As Mindoir was in its second decade of occupation, her generation would be growers. Being given a generous amount of land upon settling, the Shepards chose to grow hay -- a commodity most farmers could not grow due to limited land -- and house dairy cows. Profit in the summer came from hay, and year round from milk. Beef cows were more profitable, but her mother and father could not abide with owning a slaughterhouse. Not that dairy farming was all playing-with-cows and watching-them-die-of-old-age: male calves were kept in confinement until they reached three months, when they were sent off to veal farmers.

Mia never ate veal. Ever. She couldn't bear the thought of eating one of her old friends.

She stretched her arms above her head and let out a wide yawn, the warm air tickling the back of her throat. She checked the time on her omni-tool; she only had about ten minutes of peace and quiet left before she had to go back and feed the cows.

She scanned Mindoir's horizon; from her elevated vantage point she could see the red soil stretch for miles upon miles, occasional farms, houses, and trees breaking up the horizon. She briefly wondered what other planets, especially Earth, would be like; she had grown up on Mindoir, and it was all she knew. Other children who had visited the Citadel told her stories of the massive space station, how it was dominated by tall buildings and cars whisking people from one point to another at a hundred kilometers an hour. Other than on special occasions, the combine was her fastest mode of transport.

Her mind was wandering to the next day's harvest when she spotted the ships.

Immediately she knew something was amiss; the Alliance only visited them during emergencies as it was, but these ships were not sporting the white and blue of the Alliance.

She thought back to her Galactic Politics class, and as she realized what the colours meant, she became so afraid that it was like someone dropped an ice cube down her spine.

It was the Batarian Hegemony, and they were dropping down only a half a kilometer from her family's farm, where her whole family was currently residing.

But what were the batarians doing? The Alliance had promised her parents when they had landed here that they had reached an agreement with the batarians, and that the colonists did not have to fear them. From their numbers, she feared that this was no friendly visit.

What could she do? She momentarily considered running into town to raise the alarm, but just as the thought crossed her mind, she heard the high-pitched whine of the alarms ringing, and she had no doubt that whoever had set off the alarm would be calling the Alliance now.

The first three ships had landed. They weren't warships, they were sized for passenger travel, but that began to worry her even further. Droves of batarians were filing out, all armed with assault rifles, and she began to tremble at the sight.

No one in her family was armed.

And the batarians were spreading out, approaching her home and the homes nearest to hers.

Behind her she could hear more jets as they landed into the center of town, even larger ships this time, even more batarian soldiers climbing out in droves.

She felt cold, ice cold, her entire body shivering like she was outside in nothing but her skivvies in the middle of winter despite the fact that it was a warm summer day. She pulled her legs up to her chest to warm herself, her wide, shocked eyes trained on her home.

A large batarian kicked down her door.

She opened her mouth to scream, but nothing could come out. She wanted to jump out of her tree, run to the house, run into town, run to another part of the planet where they weren't being overrun by alien soldiers with massive guns, but she had become frozen, curled up in a ball high up in her tree, on her perch.

What could she do, after all? At sixteen she was gaunt and gangly, five foot four and just under a hundred pounds. She had some muscle from farm work, but she could lift no more than her own weight. She had biotic power, yes, but nothing more than it took to lift a bale of hay from the ground into their cart. Her vision was so poor that she was considered legally blind without her glasses, and she wasn't able to get corrective surgery for another two years. She had a few big shovels that she could use as weapons, but what would a shovel do against a fully automatic assault rifle?

Shit.

Shit, shit, shit shit.

The batarians were filing into her home now. Her home, where her mother, father, brother, sister, and nephew were quietly living their lives.

Behind her, from the town, she heard a blood-curdling scream. She squeezed her eyes shut like it would block out the sound, but oh, oh God, it didn't. She heard a woman scream and a batarian laugh. She heard "no, please, stop!". She heard a series of gunshots.

Then silence.

Her neighbours were being slaughtered.

She felt bile rise from her throat when she heard gunshots coming from her house.

Who were they shooting? Her kind, slightly overweight but in the way that meant that she gave the best hugs, mother? Would she never again hear her loud, jubilant laugh?

Perhaps it was her father, who worked so hard that his palms were hard from callouses and who had taught her almost everything she knew? Who had patiently told her that her biotics were not a curse, they were a gift, and showed her how to lift objects?    

Screams came from her house. Screams of fear and protest. The screams were followed by more gunfire. Tears began to pour from her eyes, and she covered her mouth to keep the sobs from escaping, lest she be discovered.

Behind her, men were being pulled from their homes, bound and beaten and thrown into the ships.

The batarians were slavers.

By God, they were slavers, come to make them all slaves for the hegemony.

And she was completely helpless to save any of her neighbours, her friends, her family.

Her eyes snapped open when she heard her father's hoarse cry. He and her brother were being dragged out of their home towards a waiting ship; he was far, but she could see that he had a big black eye and what looked like a broken leg. Her brother looked dejected, gazing at the ground and crying.

The rest of the house was silent.

Where were her mother, sister, and nephew?

Were they dead?

Infants didn't make good slaves, nor did old and recently-pregnant women.

She bit on her knuckles to stifle the scream that threatened to escape her.

Her father had started to fight back, screaming at the batarians, trying to kick the legs out from underneath his captor. The captor responded by hitting her father in the head with the butt of his rifle, and her father collapsed like a sack of potatoes.

It was then her brother's turn to fight; he squirmed and screamed and lunged towards his fallen father as blood pooled around his head. Her brother kicked the batarian who was holding him straight in the groin.

In retaliation, the batarian shot him in the head.

Mia's eyes ached from the tears that fell and fell and fell, and she tasted copper when she bit her knuckle so hard it bled.

For good measure, they shot her father before moving onto the next house.

Mia was broken. Her brother's and father's bodies laid eerily still, their limbs twisting every which way, so far from peace that she needed to vomit at the thought.

What had they ever done to the batarians to deserve this? Unable to find work on Earth her parents had chose to settle here, forgoing aspirations for a simple life where they could raise a happy family.

And what do they get in return? Sudden, unexpected aggression in the form of batarian slavers descending to capture and kill them all.

And where were the Alliance? Half an hour had passed since the alarm had rung, where were they? They had promised that they would always be close to the colonies to protect them, and where was their fucking protection now?

Her family was dead.

She was alone.

She held herself and rocked and cried, and cried, and cried.

She cried until the batarians had cleared the town.

She cried until all of the ships, satisfied with their load, rose and left.

She cried until a lone Alliance ship landed, too few soldiers leaping out of the ship to scan the area.

She finally released her knuckle from her mouth and screamed and one of them heard her: a dark-skinned man with kind eyes wearing an N7 hat and wielding his own assault rifle.

She cried when he brought her onto his ship, wrapped her in a blanket, and offered her water.

All joy had been pulled away from her, and all that was left was misery and pain.

Yet the kind-eyed man held her while she cried. He soothingly ran his fingers through her hair. He even found a chocolate bar hidden in the rations and offered it to her.

And she wondered if, with this fragment of life she had left, she could dedicate herself to something like this: rescuing those who had lost everything, and trying to stop those who had taken it away from them.

Maybe she could ensure there would be no more slavers, and no more abducted colonists.

The thought provided her with a sliver of hope on her darkest day.

Chapter Text

So this was the great Commander Shepard, bursting in through the door as subtly as a charging krogan.

She was not at all what he had anticipated.

Rumours told him that she was a fighter who specialized in finesse, who sent her enemies to the sea with a combination of powerful biotics and precise pistol shots to the head. Furthermore, he had heard that she often brought technical experts as teammates, who preferred to whittle down enemies from afar rather than hit them head on, a technique that Thane respected.

He had to admit that he was rather disappointed.

Without a bit of stealth or subtlety she had worked her way through Dantius Towers, tearing through waves of enemies, even throwing a man off the highest level to his death. She was not flanked by precision fighters, but rather she opted for muscle: a bulky krogan who bounced uneasily from foot-to-foot, searching for the next enemy to beat down, and a heavily tattooed and scowling biotic who scanned the room with a predator's eyes.

Shepard herself did not live up to his expectations either. Her reputation was larger than life, yet she was small even by a human's standards; if he had to guess, which he was rather good at, she was five foot five and one hundred thirty pounds, in human measurements. She wore cosmetics: heavy black lashes beset bright green eyes, and she even went as far as to paint her lips red. Cosmetics had no use on the battlefield, why would a soldier as practical as Shepard wear cosmetics?

Arms crossed around a narrow chest, she watched him pray wordlessly. At least she was respectful of his rituals.

Leaning away from him -- out of caution or fear, her wondered -- she explained to him the Collector threat. As she spoke, the confidence in her voice gave him an inkling of what made her so great: even in the face of likely death, she was set in her belief that this task would save humanity, and that was exactly why she would do it. He respected her dedication.

Without hesitation, he accepted the job. When he took her hand, her grip was firm and her brow was set in determination.

Although he was still unsure of Shepard herself, he was sure of the mission, and for the time being, that would be enough. Shepard herself he would watch and analyze, to determine if she was truly as great as her legend.

--

So this was her assassin.

She was impressed.

Although he had been louder than she had anticipated when he crawled through the ducts, at least he had the sense to use them, and Nassana was so distracted with Shepard anyways that a little bit of noise didn't matter.

When he dropped behind the guards, it was another story entirely.

He moved with the grace of a dancer, each move appearing choreographed and calculated, even though she knew that he was improvising. He was fluid and precise, each kill taking as little time as possible. His goal was not to make them suffer, but to kill and be done with it. Equally impressive was the silence of his executions, and the fact that if any guards were left outside of the room, they wouldn't have heard a thing beyond the muffled kill shot that penetrated Nassana's stomach.

Contrary to her first impressions upon reading the dossier, he was exactly what the team needed. She had expected an assassin to utilize more brute force and direct aggression, but Thane possessed a style and grace to him that no one else on the team did, and she knew he would be invaluable for reconnaissance and stealth missions.

As they discussed the Collector threat, she leaned on her back foot to analyze him: he was composed of lean muscle, watchful eyes that were analyzing the room even as they spoke, and a cat-like yet quiet disposition indicating lightning-fast reaction speeds without being twitchy.

In spite of the nature of his work, when he shook her hand and agreed to join them -- even more unusually, mission gratis -- she trusted this man to watch her six. Perhaps it was his sheer skill, his immediate dedication to the cause, or the way that his gaze softened when it met hers.

Past notwithstanding, this was a man she wanted at her back.

As she lead the way to the ship, she glanced periodically at him over her shoulder, not warily but curiously. She wondered how he viewed the team she had brought with her -- a choice she made with the belief she would need to intimidate an assassin -- and even how he viewed her.

When they returned to the ship, she vowed to sit down with him and learn more about this curious man. Behind his dark eyes she knew that secrets lived, and for reasons she did not yet understand, she wanted to learn them all.

Chapter Text

He was gone.

Her clothing felt hot and stifling, yet at the same time all the warmth had been sucked out of the room, leaving her chilled. She wanted to leap out of her own skin, drown in her sorrows, scream out in agony; but she had to remain reserved, for Kolyat. 

Kolyat’s hands were pressed together in silent prayer; he was still as stone, only his eyelids fluttering faintly. Shepard’s own lids were fluttering as she held back tears; the pressure of holding in a torrent of emotions made her ears ring, quietly at first but increasing in volume quickly until the sound overwhelmed her, blocking out the sounds of doctors rushing past the door and skycars whirring past the windows.

After too long Kolyat stood, pressing a reassuring hand on her shoulder. Perhaps he gave her parting words but they were drowned out by the ringing in her ears so she only nodded. With that he left, and Shepard wondered if she would see him again.

She hoped so.

The door slid shut behind Kolyat, and with a soft cry the pressure within her burst and she allowed her impatient tears to fall. 

Thane was gone. Truly gone. She had known for so long that this day was inevitable, but that knowledge made the thought no easier. Never again would she hear his laughter, see his smile, feel his presence at her back, always wary, always watching. Never again would their lips press together, chastely or not so; never again would his hands lace between hers, his eyes sparkling with joy.

Grasping his hand – it was cold, so cold – she buried her face into his arm, her body racking with sobs.

“I can’t do this without you,” she whispered into his skin. She was almost grateful he would never know she spoke those words; they showed a weak side of herself that no one else could know. 

After what felt like only moments, a nurse entered, gently escorting Shepard away.

She left the room an empty woman, but brusquely wiping away tears with her arm, she knew that she must remain the Commander.