Work Text:
Shepard knew Mordin had noticed her stiff form and her clenched jaw the moment she walked in.
She couldn’t speak. Everything that happened… what she had seen. Dr. Gavin Archer experimented on his own brother. He talked about him in his logs as if he was some kind of alien— pretty much outright called him such. The way Shepard’s stomach churned as she had made her way to the VI core, watched the memories that David showed her, helping her to understand just what his brother had done to him.
The only reason Dr. Archer didn’t wind up with a bullet in his head at the end of it all was because David asked her not to kill him.
Despite everything the doctor had done to him, David still loved him. Shepard didn’t know if she could feel the same had it been her in that literal torture device, if it was say for example, her mother who put her there.
Shepard and her mother weren’t close. They weren’t estranged or anything, but they weren’t close. She would like to think though that her mother wouldn’t do that to her. She knew her mother loved her.
But if Dr. Archer loved his brother David, and yet was still capable of doing what he did to him…
The important thing was that she got David out of there. He was now in a safe place: Jon Grissom Academy. Far away from Dr. Archer. She made sure to pull strings and get a restraining order too, just to be safe. And she asked the staff at Jon Grissom Academy to give her regular updates on how David was doing. She gave David the email for her private terminal, so if he needed her he had a way to contact her.
Alien. His own brother. Alien. Like a human computer. He talked about David like he wasn’t a person. He was flesh and blood, not a computer. He wasn’t an alien, he was a human— and even if he were an alien, it would still not be an excuse.
Shepard paced the lab, her muscles tight, arms firmly crossed and her nails digging into her sleeves. She wished she hadn’t chosen to wear a long-sleeved today. The pain would have been an outlet. Not a good one, but an outlet all the same.
Mordin cleared his throat. “Shepard. Are you alright?”
The question everyone on the Normandy was asking her, it seemed.
“No,” she managed to choke out.
She lifted a hand and rubbed her forehead. What would Dr. Archer have done, had Shepard been diagnosed? If it had been on her record? Would he have tried to incapacitate her, save her for when David couldn’t handle the strain anymore? Not that Dr. Archer would’ve been able to take her down— he could certainly try but he’d be dead before he even got close to succeeding.
But hypothetically… if he was somehow able to capture her and use her, when she was no longer useful herself, would he have tried to find others who were autistic, like her, like David? And that was assuming that David’s ability to communicate with the geth wasn’t just him. Not all autistic people were alike, and Shepard’s ability to understand mathematics was average at best. She was pretty average at a lot of things. Maybe she was better off not knowing. She got David out of there. She stopped the project. He was safe. He was alive.
She wished she could have done more. Maybe if she had gotten there sooner, more people would still be alive. All those scientists on the station… Dr. Archer’s actions got them all killed.
She stopped pacing and again crossed her arms, digging her nails into her sleeves.
That horrible man tortured his own brother, the person you’re supposed to love and care for. He caused countless people to lose their lives. What were they thinking in their last moments? She remembered their faces. Some of them still twisted in fear, frozen in time. All of that pain, all of that loss. And for what? For what? The geth could be dealt with through strategy and firepower. Not through torturing people. At that point, what were they even fighting for? At what point did “making the tough calls” stop? At what point did—
“Shepard?”
“Hmm?” Shepard glanced at Mordin for a second, then let her gaze drop back to the floor. She shouldn’t have come in here. He was staring at her. Watching her.
“Seem stressed. Troubled. Would like to help, if possible,” he explained.
She didn’t want to be perceived right now, it just made everything feel worse, it made her feel like she was caged, like the walls were pressing in on her and would crush her bones…
She didn’t want to be alone either.
Sitting alone in her cabin with just her fish didn’t sound remotely comforting. EDI was there too, but she— she needed the company of someone with a physical presence.
“This is gonna sound like a weird request, but could you— not look at me right now? And I’ll… sit at the table behind you. Maybe get some work done. No talking. I just need to not be alone right now.”
It finally felt like Shepard was breaking out of the mental loop she had caught herself in. Her body still felt tight, but at least she was— moving. Getting things done. She wasn’t stuck.
“Of course. Will be quiet. Will be here if you need anything.”
Shepard felt like she could breathe a little easier. She walked past Mordin’s table and sat down. It took her a moment to be able to lift her arm and open her omni-tool. They worked in silence for a while. There were only the sounds of the ship. The hiss of the vents, pulsing of equipment, the occasional faraway beep from a computer.
Sometimes Mordin’s feet scraped the floor, but it was infrequent enough that it didn’t bother Shepard much.
Shepard sat back, shoulders slumping. Thirty minutes in, and she had finished all her paperwork. It was funny, calling it paperwork when it was all digital.
What was less funny was the fact that she had nothing else left to work on. There was only her thoughts.
And she knew she wasn’t going to make any progress with them if she just sat there ruminating. Playing the events in her mind over and over again.
She swiveled in her chair and looked at Mordin. He looked engrossed in his work, and she felt bad that she was about to interrupt but she had nothing else to do and the silence was only going to suffocate her. Maybe both of them.
“Mordin?”
“Yes?” He didn’t look at her yet, perhaps waiting for her to tell him it was okay— she appreciated that.
“I’m going to talk for a bit… get my thoughts out. I’d appreciate it if you listened. Just wait until I give you the word before you say anything.”
“Understood, Shepard,” Mordin said gently. “Proceed.”
“I’m autistic,” she said. “That means my brain’s structure is different from what’s considered the norm in humans. David Archer, the man my team and I brought back from Aite and took to Jon Grissom Academy— he’s autistic too.”
Mordin nodded along.
“What I saw down there… he was being tortured. Experimented on. Treated like a lab rat. Dr. Archer called him a human computer. He treated David like he wasn’t a person. I— I feel— I wish I had put a bullet between Dr. Archer’s eyes. I almost did. I had my gun pointed at his face, and I was this close to pulling the trigger. What he did to his own brother— but David asked me not to kill him. That’s the only reason I didn’t do it.”
Shepard moved to stand beside Mordin. She placed her hands on the desk in front of them, not sure what else to do with them.
“I can’t comprehend it. What possesses someone to do that to another person? Especially if that person is your brother. I’ve seen so much fucked up shit in my life, Mordin. My entire unit on Akuze… I saw them all die right in front of me. I was the only one who made it out of there alive. This… with David, the project… it feels just as…”
It felt like a dam came down over Shepard’s mouth. She couldn’t speak. Her thoughts were stuck. It felt like she was drowning.
Mordin looked at her now, alarm flashing across his face. He opened his mouth to speak. Shepard finally moved— she rushed forward and hugged him tightly. Mordin froze, and after a moment she felt a hand rest lightly between her shoulder blades.
She felt like she was falling. But she was standing upright, her arms wrapped around Mordin.
“Know you said to wait until you gave the word but.”
He paused, as if waiting for her to stop him. When she didn’t, he continued.
“Neurodivergent myself,” Mordin said, his voice like the end of a rope being cast down to the bottom of the chasm for her to grab. She took hold, gripped the rope as tight as she could, and climbed, one inch at a time. “Uncertain what I would have done in your shoes.”
The light at the top was growing closer and brighter. She just had to keep climbing.
“May have made the same choices. David’s health and safety more important than personal feelings.”
She was almost at the top. She reached a hand up, the light dancing between her fingers.
“Love the oppressed more than you hate the oppressor. Good words to live by.”
For the first time since she came into the lab, Shepard smiled. She pulled back slightly, though she didn’t quite feel ready to drop her hands from Mordin’s back, and she lifted her head to look up at him.
“I think I knew that deep down,” Shepard said softly, “but I needed to hear someone else say it too. Thank you, Mordin.”
“Of course. Anytime. Need anything else?”
Shepard shook her head. “No. I’ll stay awhile— if you don’t mind. I promise no more interruptions to your work for the day, at least not from me.”
“Acceptable.”
With that, Mordin went back to work. Shepard let her hands fall from Mordin’s back, and went to sit back down at the table behind him. She gazed out the window and watched the stars as they streaked by.
The tension had finally left her body. Now she just felt exhausted. She had no more work to do, and it was going to be a while before they reached their next destination. Shepard leaned back in her chair and closed her eyes, listening to the ship, to the faint sounds of Mordin working…
A few hours later, she woke up to find a blanket wrapped around her and a pillow behind her head, and on the desk a sticky note (where Mordin even got one, she didn’t know) that said “Work done for the day. Didn’t want to wake you. Asked Yeoman Chambers to feed your fish. Rest well. Will see you tomorrow.”
Shepard smiled.
Later that day, she would place the sticky note on her cabin desk. So whenever she saw it, she would be reminded of Mordin’s kindness.