Chapter Text
She had not authorised this.
In fact the music blasting over the ships intercom was on the list of things she was explicitly against having on board. It was hardly a long list and most of the things on it were illegal regardless of location but this terrible, awful music made the cut.
Kudos to it, Shepard supposed.
“EDI,” She said to the ceiling, “Turn that off,”
“I'm afraid I can't do that Shepard,” Came the AI's response.
“What?” Shepard demanded, just a hint of her branded Commander steel in her voice.
“I cannot comply with your request,”
“You can’t...? Why?”
“I have been asked not to,”
Shepard opened her mouth to ask just who it was on this ship that had the ability to supersede her orders; the answer was no one, even turian Primarch’s and quarian Admirals went by her rules so long as their three toed feet were on her floor, but shut it as she detected the faint whiff of obstinacy coming from EDI’s dock. The AI was not in an explaining mood it would seem and she’d be better off going straight to the source.
“You know I really don’t ask for much,” Shepard told the giant miniature hamster watching her with little black eyes from his cage. Suicide missions and every resource she could get her hands on to win this damn thing not included.
“Is some peace and quiet today of all days really too much to ask?”
The little ‘meep’ she got in response told her it probably was.
Shepard sighed and lay the tray of model parts she had been about to break into on her desk. A feeling of defeat had her sliding it back into it’s box, she doubted she’ d be getting back to it any time soon.
Her schedule now included a lot more ass kicking. Well since she couldn’t actually kick the ass of her intended target without killing him; it actually contained a lot more yelling.
The damn music was playing in the elevator too because of course it was. Traynor was humming along at her station but shut up right quick at the glare Shepard sent her.
“Joker!” She snapped as she made it to the cockpit. Her pilot didn't appear to hear her however over the sound of his own tirade.
“Fucking shit dammit!” He repeated as he flipped several toggles. “The damn intercom won’t stop playing that crap or shut off!”
Shepard realised he was alone, EDI was noticeably absent from the co pilots chair
“I take it you’re not the one who put her up to this?” Shepard said. The look Joker sent her was withering.
“Does it look like I’m enjoying the dulcet tones of Jingle Bell Rock?” He demanded.
“Where is she?” Shepard sighed.
“Everywhere,” Joker said but at her glare added, “Hell if I know, check the AI core,”
Traynor was silent at her post but Shepard swore she heard her start humming again as the elevator door closed.
Whatever she expected to find in the crew deck, it wasn’t what found her. There were garlands of tinsel strung everywhere; tinsel! On her ship! Not a hologram either. Real, shiny bioplastic stuff that was likely to shed, get sucked into an air filter, jam something it wasn’t supposed to and kill them all. OK maybe that was a bit overdramatic but it’s relative benignity did not endear it any further to Shepard.
The entire mess hall smelled of something sweet, with a hint of spice, like the biscuits Van de Vries’s family had sent him from home on their first tour. She’d never gotten the name down and he’d never shared. It wasn’t as if she’d had anyone sending her things she could try to trade with.
In the space before the stairs to the main battery there was a holographic tree, programmed down to the last individual evergreen pine needle. She’d never seen one like it before; they’d all been clunky polygonal renders back on, Shepard bought a hand to the bridge of her nose and squeezed inwards until blue-red blobs appeared in the corners of her eyes.
And that damn music, coming from everywhere. Bright and cheerful and grating as a Reaper’s laser.
It looked like everyone on the damn ship except for Joker, Traynor and Javik were here, dotted about the deck like this was a party she hadn’t gotten the invite to. Maybe she had but missed it. She’d gotten bad at keeping on top of her messages in the past week, for reasons.
Several people had silly hats on. Donnelly was in a downright hideous jumper Gabby was proudly telling Westmoreland she’d won the right to make him wear in Skyllian Five. More than half the room held a drink of some description but she could clearly see anyone who was meant to be on duty was going dry. So they hadn’t completely lost their damn minds.
“Well I just don’t get it,” Tali was saying to Garrus, seated at what had become their spot at the table, “Pear tree is easy enough but what’s a partridge? Is it like a patriarch? Oh! Maybe it’s a topographical feature, a pear tree on part of a ridge. No that’s the wrong way round,”
“My translators coming up with birds but ones that nest on the ground not pear trees,” Garrus said
“So maybe it is about ridges,”
Normally just seeing either of them and hearing their voices was enough to brighten Shepard’s day but she didn’t normally have Christmas carols blasting at her.
“Lola!” Came a shout from James. He was before the oven in a ridiculous apron that Shepard decided then and there also made the short list of things absolutely not allowed on the Normandy.
“Lieutenant,” If she thought James would take a hint from the use of his rank over his first name or Vega she was mistaken.
“Pull up a chair, I’ll get you some cocoa,”
Cocoa? They had goddamn cocoa? When would this nightmare of red and green end?
When she made it, there was EDI. Standing still as a statue beside the tree.
“EDI!”
“Merry Christmas Commander,” She said pleasantly. The multi-coloured lights on the holographic tree reflected off her body, giving her the appearance of a living disco ball.
“It’s not Christmas,” Shepard told her.
“It is currently 0100 hours December twenty-fifth within the Oceanic Republic state of New Zealand,”
“We keep United North American Alliance or standard galactic time,” Shepard felt compelled to say, even though that was far from the point.
“Understood,” EDI said then without changing her expression or tone she added, “Merry Christmas Eve Commander,”
Shepard felt like screaming, she usually did around this time of year but now it was for completely different reasons.
“EDI I don’t remember authorising any of this,” She said instead
“You did not,” The AI agreed,
“Then why, all this?” Shepard gestured wildly to the scene before her.
“It is Christmas eve and I was asked,”
“By who?” As she spoke James yelled ‘Cocoa’s up!’ and her eyes narrowed.
Of course.
Shepard made her way to her soon to be ex Lieutenant. Last one in, first one out after all.
“You want marshmallows or whipped cream? Candy Cane?” He’d managed to acquire all three and Shepard realised the conspiracy went deeper than she’d thought. There was only one person on board who could come up with goodies like that and getting him involved was a low blow.
“I couldn’t get mini marshmallows, so I hope full sized it OK,” Steve said apologetically. Shepard glanced at James and he was smirking. Bastard. Of course he’d gotten Steve involved, he was smarter than anyone gave him credit for. She knew that, not just because she too was a mite more intelligent than most people expected of a military type but because he knew she’d be more inclined to go along with his sick and twisted festivities if it meant Steve would be happy
Shepard had been blessed through the years to know many people she could consider brothers in arms but Steve was more like an actual brother. They could never figure out which of them was meant to be the older as they each looked out for the other as an older sibling would but that wouldn’t save him.
It wouldn’t save any of them. Her hatred for this particular season went far deeper than the affection she usually held for her crew.
“EDI,” She ordered, “Turn the music off.”
She looked confused but otherwise complied. The song ended before they could find out what George Michael intended to do with his heart next year. Everyone looked at her, Shepard was used to that but it didn’t make what she had to say next any easier.
“Take those down,” She gestured to the tinsel garlands, “Deprogram that,” The projector providing the tree was targeted next, “And stow all non essential food items,”
There would be no cocoa, no sweet and spiced biscuits on her ship.
“Lola,” James began.
“Now, Lieutenant!”
“Yes Ma’am, He scowled. She was about to snap at him to stow the attitude while he was at it when Ashley made the mistake of butting in.
“Now wait a minute, the Alliance charter states we’re entitled to practise our beliefs,”
“You convert those three when I wasn’t looking?” Shepard countered gesturing broadly to Garrus, Tali and Liara. Ashley opened her mouth with a snarl and Shepard slapped another band-aid on their still healing relationship with the caveat,
“Anyone with religious rituals may preform them in the observation lounge. Everything else goes. Now.”
She spun on her heel and headed back to the elevator. The silence was louder than the music had been.
“You heard her, parties over,” James said.
Shepard made it around the elevator column when a hand closed around her wrist and pulled her against a vaguely triangular armoured chest. Two smaller, gloved hands grasped her face and she found herself backed against Garrus with Tali’s glowing eyes peering up at her.
“Jane,” She said her accent drawing it out so it sounded more like ‘Jeyynne’. She couldn’t see Tali’s expression but she somehow knew it. Concerned, worried, perhaps from the shine in her eyes even a little pitying.
“What’s wrong?”
“Let go of me,” Shepard said dispassionately. Garrus let out a troubled coo, she could feel it rumbling through her back and up her spine. They didn’t let her go. Tali splayed her slender wire like fingers across her cheeks and leant in closer. Almost owlishly as though she were trying to see through her eyes and into her thoughts.
“Let me go.” She repeated with no more inflection than the first time. Garrus and Tali glanced at eachother over her shoulder. Tali’s eyes met hers again and she nodded.
“OK,” She said drawing her hands back, “OK.”
She stepped away from her and so did Garrus. The still space of air at her back where he had been felt cold.
“Don’t come up tonight,” She said in the same tired monotone.
And then almost skittish, like a mouse caught out on open hawk encircled land Shepard darted to the elevator.
She didn’t take a breath till the door closed but when she did she found herself sucking in deep lungful’s as though she had been drowning.
She allowed herself a moment of pure anguish in the form of one all encompassing sob before getting a hold of herself again. No one was here to see her except EDI but Shepard found acts were easier to maintain if they were kept up constantly. Hell do them for long enough and they stopped being acts. She was almost entirely OK the rest of the year now. It was just the next few days she struggled with. And dammit they should have known that.
The information wasn’t exactly secret. It was in Alliance reports and testimonies, pretty much anyone on the ship could access if they so desired. And if they didn’t have the clearance for that there was always all the civilian news reports that had come out about it at the time. Failing both those options she was sure there were a half dozen unauthorised biographies about her floating around that would talk about it.
Did they want her to go downstairs and spell it out for them? That’d ruin their little party even more spectacularly and she’d have to contend with their goddamn pity. No, better to be the Grinch who spoiled Christmas than poor little orphan Janey.
Shepard entered her cabin and froze as though she’d seen a ghost.
Because she had.
“Not bad,” Nihlus hummed looking around the room, “Certainly a step up from that broom closet your Captain gave me the use of. The fish are an interesting choice,”
“You’re dead,” Shepard said.
“I’ve heard the same said of you,” Nihlus shot back and at her wide-eyed look quickly added; “Don’t worry no pro turian paramilitary extremist group spent billions of credits bringing me back. I’m dead as dead.”
“Then why are you here?” Shepard wanted to know; remarkably calm considering. She wanted to say that talking to a dead turian Spectre was the strangest thing she’d ever done but it didn’t even crack the top five. Hell, she’d fought one before.
“I’m here on a mission actually,”
“The dead have missions?”
“You did,” Was the response.
Fair point.
“So what is it?” Shepard made her way to the couch and sat down, she was apparently doing this now. Nihlus followed cutting through the coffee table despite he fact he didn’t appear the slightest bit immaterial.
Rather he looked exactly as he had alive, when she had known him. Did ghosts remain in whatever they had died in forever or had he purposefully made himself as familiar to her as he could?
“I have a message for you; tonight you will be visited by three spirits,”
Shepard raised an eyebrow.
“The turian kind, orrrrr...?” She drew the word out.
“Ghosts,” He said, “The dead, like me.”
“You’ve got to be joking,”
“I wish I was. Wish I had actually, joked more.” Nihlus said wistfully. “It all seemed so serious back then.”
“Galactic security tends to,” Shepard said her voice too razor edged to be considered completely dry. Nihlus laughed.
“That’s what I thought. I thought my duty was the only thing that mattered. I wish I had learned better sooner.”
Then apparently done being introspective he turned back to Shepard;
“Three spirits. Be ready.” He ordered
How the hell was she supposed to do that? Was there a pre haunting checklist she was meant to run through like she did mission prep?
Nihlus began to fade but before he could Shepard sprung up.
“Wait!” She cried, Nihlus obligingly solidified.
“Eden Prime,” She said, “Before you died, were you going to recommend me? As a Spectre I mean, ”
He smiled, the turian approximation that was all in the mandibles and showed no teeth.
“I would have trained you myself.”
And then he was gone.
Well that was, something. What, Shepard couldn’t say.
Just something.
What would her life be like now if that first shake down run had gone to plan, she wondered. Who would Jane Shepard, apprentice of Nihlus Kryik be?
She pictured herself without the Normandy. No Anderson, Joker, Chakwas or Kaidan around. But perhaps he, Jenkins and Pressly would live.
Ashley with the 212 on Eden Prime stagnating because of her last name. Wrex the same as Krogan everywhere no reason to care about his or anyone’s future. Liara in a bubble with no one to find her, Garrus never getting anywhere at C-Sec and Tali just another faceless suit rat drifting though the galaxy.
Shepard thought of herself shaking hands with Saren Arterius, nothing more than another Spectre her mentor was introducing her to and felt sick.
Spirits, she forced herself to think about them instead. Three spirits, yeah right.
She’d done and seen some crazy stuff but she had to draw the line somewhere and the dearly departed coming to call seemed as good a place as any.
Besides it’s not like any of her dead had ever made the effort to try and drop in on her before. Where had they all been all these years if they could visit? Did they just no longer care about her? Was whatever afterlife there was, she didn’t remember anything from the time she’d been dead, so much better than making sure she was OK?
Well she was OK.
So what if this time of year was rough for her. She was hardly the only person who had a reason to hate it and by the time the twenty-seventh rolled around she’d be back to her usual self and life would go on as normal.
Spirits, Shepard thought as she sat back down at her desk and reached for her model kit.
You know what? She didn’t believe Nihlus, didn’t believe that had even been Nihlus.
She’d been knocked in the head enough times to shake a few things loose. And she was under a lot of stress right now. The time of year aside the whole galaxy was going to hell around them, anyone in their right mind was on the edge of sanity.Shepard was pretty sure the only people who were fine these days were indoctrinated.
Her brain had probably made the whole thing up through stims and however much residual medi-gel was in her system.
Or it was the beacon acting up again. Shepard swore, you get Prothean technology shoved into your brain one time and the whole galaxy goes to shit.
The idea for this bit me so hard I just had to go for it. I maybe rushed a little to get it out in time for Christmas so I hope it's up to my usual standard. Feel free to tell me if it's not. I accept criticism of my work I only ask that it be constructive.
Merry Christmas and Ari out!