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Normandy SR-2 — Night Cycle
The Normandy drifted through open space. It's engines humming low and steady, a metallic heartbeat in the dark. The artificial gravity held everything in place, the stars outside did not.
Night cycle dimmed the corridors to a soft blue glow. Most of the crew slept.
The ship did not.
"Commander Shepard." EDI’s voice flowed through the cabin speakers, smooth and precise. "Grunt is requesting your presence."
A soft groan came from the bed. Shepard rolled onto her side, red hair falling free from the loose bun she’d forgotten to undo before sleep. A few stubborn strands clung to her cheek. She squinted at the ceiling.
"What time is it, EDI?"
"0237 shipboard."
She exhaled through her nose. Of course it was.
She swung her legs over the edge of the bed. The cold of the Normandy’s metal floor seeped into her bare feet immediately, but she barely reacted. Years of military life had conditioned her to wake fast and move faster.
"Tell him I’m awake."
"I already have."
A faint, tired smile tugged at her mouth. "Of course you have. Thank you."
She didn’t bother with her uniform. Didn’t bother with shoes. Baggy grey sweatpants. Black t-shirt. No socks. No armor. No Commander.
Just Shepard.
She dragged the blanket from the bed and wrapped it around her shoulders like a cloak, holding it in place before stepping into the corridor leaving her cabin.
The elevator hummed softly as it carried her down.
The Normandy was quieter at night. Fewer footsteps. No chatter from the mess. No clanking tools. Just the steady pulse of the drive core.
She made her way through the hallway of the engineer deck to Grunt's door she didn't bother to knock just stepped right through.
The room he'd claimed the cargo hold, was unlike the rest of the ship it was unfortunately blazing with light.
Grunt must have overridden the automatic dimming.
Shepard squinted as the doors closed behind her. "You trying to interrogate someone down here?"
Grunt sat on the floor with his back to the wall, arms resting on his knees, broad shoulders casting long shadows against the metal plating. His eyes snapped to her instantly.
"Shepard."
She padded across the floor her blanket trailing behind her. The cold metal bit at her feet again, but she ignored it. She lowered herself beside him with a quiet exhale.
"You couldn’t sleep."
It wasn’t really a question.
Grunt shifted, jaw tightening slightly. "Ship's too quiet."
"Too quiet?"
"No fighting. No gunfire. No alarms. No Voices" His voice dipped lower. "Head won’t stop."
She nodded slowly. She understood that. When things were too quiet, her own mind had a habit of wandering places she didn’t like.
"I wasn’t asleep either." she lied gently. "Just laying there."
He gave a doubtful grunt but let it pass.
"Tell stories." he demanded.
She leaned her head back against the wall, staring up at the ceiling. "You just want something with a high body count."
"Yes."
A tired laugh slipped out of her. "Three days ago I told you about Saren."
"That one was good."
"Hard act to follow."
"Doesn’t have to."
She glanced down at him. In the bright cargo lights the edges of his armor caught sharp reflections. For all his size and ferocity, he looked almost...young.
She began.
She told him about Feros.
About the colony swallowed by vines and spores. About the Thorian’s influence creeping through the minds of settlers. About the endless wave of creepers rushing them through narrow corridors.
She left out the smell.
Left out the almost panic.
Left out the asari clone’s face the first time it dissolved before a new copy was regurgitated from the plant.
Instead, she leaned into the scale of it. The relentlessness. The way the enemy just kept coming and she kept standing.
Grunt’s breathing gradually deepened. His shoulders relaxed.
By the time she finished, he had shifted onto the floor fully. His massive frame sprawled beside her. Slowly, almost unconsciously, he rested his head in her lap.
Shepard adjusted the blanket so it covered his shoulders and part of his chest plate. Her hand settled on the edge of his crest.
Usually that was enough.
Usually he’d already be asleep.
Tonight, he wasn’t.
“Mordin,” Grunt muttered suddenly.
She glanced down. “Yeah?”
“Tried to give me something.”
“For sleep?”
He scoffed. "Said it would regulate hormones. Improve rest cycles." A dismissive rumble. "Wouldn’t take it."
She smirked. "You don’t trust him?"
"I trust him to experiment."
"That’s fair."
Silence stretched between them. Comfortable. Heavy.
"He said..." Grunt added, turning his face toward the opposite wall as if embarrassed, "humans sing to their young."
Shepard’s eyebrows rose. "Oh?"
"Claimed it calms them."
She smiled slowly. "My big, terrifying krogan baby wants a lullaby?"
"I have completed my Rite." he snapped automatically. "I am full-grown."
"Mmhmm."
He didn’t deny it.
She chuckled softly, the sound low and warm. "Well...it’s worth a try. But I haven’t sung since I was seventeen."
Grunt shifted slightly closer without meaning to.
"EDI" Shepard murmured.
"Yes, Commander?"
"Dim the lights."
The brightness faded to a gentler glow.
Her hand began to move along the curve of his hard frontal plate, slow and rhythmic. The motion was instinctive. Familiar. Her mother had done the same thing, fingers brushing through red hair while she was young, the last time she'd ever felt safe.
She swallowed.
Then she began to sing.
I wish I was on yonder hill...
The mix of languages flowed soft and clear through the cargo bay. Not perfect, not polished, but achingly sincere.
Her voice it filled the metal space and somehow made it feel less cold.
Grunt’s eyes remained open at first.
Then half-lidded.
Then heavy.
Engineering — Main Battery Access
Tali leaned over an open panel, omni-tool glowing as she adjusted power flow subroutines.
Donnelly paced two steps left, two steps right. "If we siphon even five percent from secondary systems..."
"We destabilize the load distribution."
Gabriella cut in. "We’d need reinforcement nodes."
Garrus Vakarian leaned against the far wall, arms folded, mandibles relaxed. "Just don’t cripple the Thanix cannon's power. I haven’t even finished calibrating it."
Tali snorted. "You’ve been calibrating it since we installed it."
"Precision matters..."
He paused mid-retort.
"…Quiet."
Daniels frowned. "We are quiet."
"No. Listen."
The others fell silent.
They heard nothing.
Tali tilted her helmet slightly. "Garrus?"
He held up a hand. His fringe twitched subtly. "There’s..." He exhaled. "You don’t hear that?"
"Hear what?" Donnelly asked a bit more impatient then he wanted to let out.
Garrus blinked. "...Right. Only turian here."
He looked up toward the ceiling. "EDI. Is someone singing?"
"Yes" EDI replied. "Commander Shepard is singing a lullaby to Grunt."
There was a full three seconds of silence.
Donnelly barked a disbelieving laugh. "No she’s not."
"She is."
Garrus straightened slightly. "...Shepard?"
"Yes."
Tali stared at her console in disbelief.
"Should we..." Daniels hesitated. "Should we check?"
Garrus grimaced. "I’d rather not be charged by a krogan tonight."
Donnelly hesitated.
"...But."
"If you would like." EDI offered smoothly "I can patch a live feed. No privacy request has been issued, and no compromising activity is detected"
Daniels groaned softly. "That feels wrong."
"Do it." Garrus said.
The feed flickered onto Tali’s console.
They saw Shepard on the floor, blanket wrapped around her shoulders, Grunt sprawled in her lap like some enormous, armored child. Her fingers moved slowly across his crest as she sang.
The some of the words confused their translators.
"…Irish Gaelic" Donnelly murmured quietly. "Old Earth language. Mostly extinct."
Daniels glanced at him. "You speak it?"
"My grandmother did. Ireland and Scotland are close."
Tali’s voice softened. "She sounds....different."
Less Commander.
More human.
The song ended.
Grunt’s sleepy voice carried faintly through the audio. "What’s it about?"
"A woman whose lover joins the military." Shepard replied softly. "She’s sad. But she loves him enough to let him go and support him."
Garrus’ mandibles tightened almost imperceptibly.
Kaidan Alenko.
History still lingered between the words.
Grunt huffed. "Weak."
"Very." she agreed lightly.
"Another."
She laughed quietly. "Demanding, aren’t you?"
He tugged the blanket closer around himself.
"There’s one my mom used to sing." Shepard said after a moment. "You won’t understand a word."
"Doesn’t matter." Grunt murmured. "Like the sound."
Grunt’s breathing had slowed, but his eyes were still open...unfocused, heavy.
"What’s the next one about?" grunt asked, voice rough and dragging at the edges.
Shepard’s hand continued its slow path over the ridge of his crest. "It’s more of a true lullaby." she said softly. "A mother comforting her child, they’re safe, they're loved, that she’s there, and that they can or should now close their eyes and rest."
Grunt was quiet.
Long enough that Shepard wondered if he’d already drifted off.
"I don’t know what that is." he muttered finally.
She looked down at him. "What?"
"A krogan mother." His brow creased faintly, not in anger but in thought. “Tank didn’t teach that. Taught battle. Bloodlines. War. Not...that."
Her fingers slowed slightly but didn’t stop.
He shifted, heavy head pressing more firmly into her lap without meaning to.
On Tali’s console, Grunt’s voice came through low and blurred with sleep.
"Wouldn’t mind it." he added, words slurring faintly with sleep. "If they’re all like you."
Shepard’s throat tightened.
"Like me, huh?"
He gave a soft grunt. "Strong. Tough. Smart." A pause. "Nice. To me."
It wasn’t dramatic. It wasn’t sentimental.
It was simply stated. Like a battlefield fact.
The engineering bay went completely still.
Donnelly’s mouth opened probably ready with a quip, and then he closed just as fast.
Daniels swallowed softly. "Oh."
Tali’s hands tightened slightly around the edge of her console. Her voice, when it came, was quieter than usual. “He means it.”
Garrus didn’t speak.
His mandibles had gone still. His gaze remained fixed on the screen, on Shepard’s hand moving gently over Grunt’s crest like it was the most natural thing in the galaxy.
"…Yeah." he said finally. Low.
No one laughed.
No one teased.
For once, even Donnelly didn’t break the moment.
They simply watched as one of the most dangerous being on the Normandy admitted, half-asleep, that he would have liked a mother.
And that he might have found something close enough.
Shepard let out a quiet breath that almost turned into a laugh. “Careful, Grunt. The krogan might revoke your tough reputation.”
"Let them try" he muttered.
His eyes finally slid closed.
After a few seconds, barely audible "Wouldn’t have been bad...having one like that."
Shepard’s hand resumed its steady rhythm across his crest. She blinked once, hard, then leaned back against the wall.
"Alright" she whispered.
And she began to sing.
Dún do shúil, a rún mo chroí...
Her voice faltered just once.
A tear slipped down her cheek.
Daniels inhaled softly. "Is she..."
Tali’s gloved hand hovered near the console. "We should give her privacy."
No one moved.
The song was shorter than the last.
Softer.
When it ended, Shepard brushed at her cheek and gave a faint, self-conscious chuckle. Her hand came to rest over Grunt’s crest. Her head leaned back against the wall.
Within the minute, her eyes closed.
The feed cut to black.
"Both Commander Shepard and Grunt are asleep." EDI informed them calmly. "Privacy mode is now engaged."
No one spoke for several seconds.
Garrus finally exhaled. "She carries too much."
Tali nodded. "She always has."
Donnelly cleared his throat. "We’ll rebalance the draw tomorrow."
Daniels shut down her console. "Yeah."
One by one, they powered down and went there way to bed.
The Normandy hummed steadily onward.
Morning Cycle
Grunt woke first.
He blinked once, then twice.
His head was warm.
He shifted carefully and looked up.
Shepard was still asleep, hair completely free now, spilling down around her shoulders and across her blanket. Without armor, without her command posture, she looked smaller.
Softer.
He sat up slowly so he wouldn’t wake her.
She stirred anyway.
"...Morning."
"I am hungry" he announced.
She snorted, eyes still half closed. "Yeah me too."
"And ready to kill enemies."
"There it is." She pushed herself upright, rubbing her face. "We’re heading for that Reaper IFF, then the collector base. You’ll get your chance."
He studied her for a long moment.
"You sing well." he said.
She froze slightly, then gave him a crooked, tired smile.
"Don’t tell anyone."
"I wont."
He hesitated.
"You're not weak."
The words landed heavier than he likely intended.
Her expression softened.
"Neither are you."
They stood together.
Above them, the Normandy cut through dark space toward a dead Reaper and whatever waited inside it.
But for one night, at least
There had been singing instead of gunfire.
And that mattered.