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“Last chance, son.” Anderson was leaning on the railing next to Kaidan, watching his face as the Normandy slowly approached the docking bay in the distance. “I think she’d appreciate a familiar face, all things considered.”
He blew out a heavy breath, glancing over at the Admiral. Shepard was turning herself in, and after everything, the words they’d exchanged, the ones they hadn’t; he wasn’t sure he could face her. She was doing the right thing, all told. Bringing the new Normandy to the Alliance, turning in all her intel and asking nothing in return. He should be relieved, should feel the weight of her betrayal falling from his shoulders at last. He knew it would be so easy to accept that answer, but he also knew Isla Shepard. Her turning herself in, the woman who unapologetically stole the SR-1 to chase Saren to Ilos, could only mean one thing–an acknowledgement of her guilt.
“I’m not sure I should be the one to arrest her, sir.”
Anderson’s eyebrow quirked up. “I’m not asking you to arrest her, we have MPs who will be processing her into custody after she arrives at headquarters. I’m asking if you’d like to be the officer who receives her, and escorts her onto a base she no longer has clearance for.” Kaidan scrubbed his hands over his hair, looking lost as the admiral continued, dropping his voice. “I’m asking if you’d like one more opportunity to speak to her before everything she says and does is recorded.”
He froze. Two years of loss and yearning slammed back into him with force, and he thought of all the things left unsaid. The unsent messages in a folder in his outbox. The nights lying awake, staring at the ceiling, thinking of the sound of her breathing beside him. The look in her eyes on Horizon, the fear when he’d heard the Normandy had gone through the omega-4 relay. Time to talk to Isla, one-on-one, was all he’d wanted.
“Yeah, okay. I’d like that.” Kaidan straightened, adjusting his uniform and glancing up at the gleaming ship settling into final approach maneuvers.
“Good. I’ll be waiting for the both of you.” Anderson glanced at his omni tool, clapping the younger marine officer on the back. “I can only delay Hackett for so long before he suspects something, but…take the time. Talk to her. You both need it.”
“Yes, sir.”
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Shepard hiked her sweatshirt up over her shoulders, zipping it up. She had a small bag with her, hygiene supplies and a few extra sets of shirts and underwear, but didn’t anticipate being allowed to keep much. She’d never been arrested before, and wasn’t sure what the protocol was. Joker was watching her pace the deck from the cockpit, EDI uncharacteristically quiet.
“There’s still time to steal the ship,” he said finally. She wasn’t sure if he was joking or not. “I’m sure we’re quick enough to slip the fighters, and I don’t think they’d shoot us down.”
“Probably shouldn’t tempt fate,” she said with a strained laugh, folding her hands on top of her head as she looked up the deck towards the glittering display of the CIC. It was eerie to see it empty. “Don’t think Cerberus is going to build us a third Normandy.”
He didn’t reply, but the silence was heavy enough. The pair of them had seen enough deaths, enough destruction. This was the best way, no matter how much they both hated it. She paused, running her hand over one of the stations lining the wall as she listened to Joker’s tone turn as professional as it could as he talked to air traffic control to initiate docking. She’d heard him give the operators sass in the past, but he was following protocol to the best of his ability now, the gravity of what they were about to do pulling both of them down.
She used the time to say her goodbyes to the ship. It wasn’t the original Normandy, the halls didn’t hold Ashley’s laughter, Pressley’s gripes; Wrex had never turned the cargo bay into a range to teach their Quarian crewmate to handle a shotgun, Anderson had never held command–even the station she’d first very nearly kissed Kaidan at had been wiped, replaced by the galley and the sweeping wall outside Miranda’s office. But it was her Normandy. She’d made sure of it as she’d gathered Garrus and Tali back to her side, dragged her now former-Cerberus crew to the light, taken in mercenaries and thieves and a kind-souled assassin. She’d done incredible things on that ship, and she hoped the Alliance would do right by her. She had to believe they would, or she’d have taken the pilot’s offer to duck docking procedures and steal the ship for the second time.
The docking seals clicked and hissed into place, and the sound settled into her chest with heavy finality. She’d never see the inside of this ship again. She picked up her mostly-empty duffel bag before she could change her mind. “Joker,” she said quietly. She couldn’t look at her pilot, her friend, without feeling another part of her heart shearing off. “Stay there, just in case. Hackett knows you’re with me, they aren’t levying any charges against you, but–”
She heard his limping gait against the deck and stopped, staring at the inside of the airlock as he approached her and gently pulled her into an uncharacteristic hug. “I told you,” he said, his voice very close to her ear. “That you weren’t doing this alone.”
She swallowed the lump in her throat and had to stare up at the bright lights above the doorway to suppress the burning behind her eyes. “I don’t want you to get hurt.”
He scoffed. “I’m a private citizen, and a highly decorated veteran thanks to your inability to take the easy path. I’ll sue their asses if they shatter my bones trying to get me into cuffs.”
That made her laugh finally, and she nodded as he let go of her. “Thank you.”
“Hey, you paid me handsomely for this service, through a series of shell accounts linked in no way to a certain well-known terrorist organization,” he ribbed, the weight of the moment passing as they made eye contact. He lifted his SR-2 hat and scrubbed at his short hair before placing the cap back down and straightening the brim. “I might as well escort you right to the doorway.”
“Take care of her for me?” She cast one final glance at the ship. After everything, she wasn’t sure how to give it up and live on the ground. How to know that her home was flying on without her–if they didn’t disassemble it on sheer principle.
“I’ll personally stab any techs who come on board with malicious intent,” he said with a firm nod. “EDI and I have got her for now. You’ll be back on her soon enough, Commander.”
She smiled sadly, unable to muster the will to correct him, and punched the wall panel to start up the airlock. True to his word, Joker stepped in alongside her, hanging back from the outer door as far as possible. He was as loath to leave as she was. Isla took a deep breath, and stepped forward into the light as the airlock cycled open.
Two marines stood with rifles at the ready, and they brought them to bear directly on her chest as soon as the door slid to the side. Her hands jumped into the air before either of them spoke, very aware of her lack of shields or armor. She clenched her teeth, leashing her power; even an involuntary flare would be seen as an attack to a non-biotic, and the last thing she wanted was to look like she was fighting.
“Get on the ground,” one of the Marines started, taking a single step towards her. She blinked at him. This wasn’t what she was expecting, at all.
“Drop the bag,” the other one said. She obliged, slowly lowering her arm to set it on the ground in the entrance to the airlock.
“My name is Isla Shepard,” she said as she moved. “I’m here to turn myself and my ship over to Admiral Hackett, as requested. Please take me to Alliance headquarters to see him. Jeff Moreau is a privately hired pilot, he has nothing to do with this, I paid him to fly the ship.”
“What’s in the fucking bag?” One of the marines, a young man, toed it away from her reach without taking his eyes or his barrel off her. Fear. They were afraid of her. Unarmed, unarmored, with her hands in the air, they were still afraid of her.
“Clothes, toothbrush, shampoo…” She started reciting her packing list obediently, confused. “I’m sorry, what’s happening?”
“You’re under arrest, that’s what’s happening.” The second man approached her, and it was then that she noticed a set of cuffs dangling from each of their belts. “Get on the ground.”
“No.” Hackett and Anderson had both assured her that it would be a quiet affair, that they were sending an officer to escort her to headquarters. That they both owed her at least that much respect, after everything. She’d been assured she wasn’t charged with anything yet, that she was wanted for questioning and things would progress from there. She had no idea who these marines were and why they were behaving so aggressively, but she was not about to be cuffed and frog marched out of her own ship. “I’m coming peacefully, but unless you’ve got an arrest order I’m not getting on the ground.”
She heard the safety click off one of the weapons, and raised an eyebrow at the implication. They’d just been trying to intimidate, but they were prepared for violence. At least they seemed to be ignoring Joker entirely, she could see him out of the corner of her eye, standing with his hands folded in front of him. One of the men stepped closer to her. “I said get on the fucking ground, Cerberus.”
She felt her face flush despite herself, and bit down against another surge of power. “I am not with Cerberus. Who gave you the order?” She stared at him over the top of his rifle. She should be more afraid, but she was no stranger to guns in her face and keeping her calm had saved her life on more than one occasion.
“What’s it fucking matter to you?” The marine who’d confiscated her bag approached her, reaching out with one hand. She stepped back, just a half step, and it was enough for him. He dropped his rifle, and the sling and magnet yanked it to his side as he grabbed at one of her raised arms and the opposite shoulder. He turned her body, and she let him slam her into the side of the docking tube. Her head cracked against the wall hard enough she felt it in her teeth, and despite her best efforts her biotics flared visibly from her skin at the sudden shock.
“She’s attacking–” one started, just as the other shouted “stop resisting!” Shepard squeezed her eyes closed, fighting every instinct inside her that screamed to throw both men back from her and get out of there. No matter who gave the order, hurting those men would cause the situation to spiral even further out of her control than it already had.
“I’m not,” she started, and the man pushed her face harder into the wall. She felt one of his hands clasping the back of her neck and the other pulling her arm behind her back, and she let him sweep her feet out from underneath her and drop her heavily to the ground. She reached out with her free hand to brace her fall and protect her face, but the man used his own momentum as he drove her downward by her neck. She caught her own weight, her wrist singing with pain, before he drove his knee into her upper back and forced her downward again. Isla felt her lip split against her teeth as her face slammed into the ground, the metallic tang of blood filling her mouth. He grabbed for her other arm, wrenching both shoulders back painfully as he gathered her wrists together.
“Hey come on, there’s no reason to hurt her,” Joker protested.
“You stay out of this,” the voice over her shouted.
“Screw you man, I’m calling your boss.” The blip of Joker’s omni tool was a small sound of relief, but as cold cuffs closed around her wrists and the pressure of the man’s knee didn’t abate from her spine, a small traitorous part of her brain whispered that this was how this was supposed to go down. They’d lured her in with false promises of dignity and told her she was doing the right thing, but she was a criminal. A mass murderer. She had been since she’d woken up with a lab and agreed to go along with the plans Cerberus had for her. Of course she wouldn’t have come to Earth if they’d told her she was going to be violently detained on arrival.
She squirmed, the pressure of his knee crushing the air from her lungs. Her heart was racing, fear of the breathlessness driving logical thought from her mind. Half of her focus was still tied up keeping her biotics contained, but she folded her legs underneath her hips and pushed back, twisting her shoulders. She wasn’t going anywhere, she couldn’t, but she wouldn’t suffocate under the weight of some MP corporal who didn’t know what he was doing. She tossed him off her back and sat up, staying on her knees as her chest heaved with the effort of taking in breaths. The cuffs bit into her wrists, painfully tight, and she rolled her shoulders back against the strain.
“What the hell is happening up there?” She heard a familiar voice coming from the stairs, and whipped her head to peer towards the edge of the platform just as the man who’d restrained her moved to regain his control. He grabbed her braid where it parted with her scalp and yanked up, tilting Shepard’s head down as he drove her back to the decking. His knee came down on the back of her neck, and a splitting pain sparked across the bridge of her nose as her face was crushed beneath his weight. Blood clogged her airway and she choked, panic flooding her body as he applied crushing force with his knee and maintained his grip on her hair. It was painful and humiliating, and she gagged on the blood spraying down her throat as she sucked in small breaths through clenched teeth.
She could hear the marines shouting a variety of commands, insults, demands to comply, but her brain was going fuzzy around the edges. Moving was fighting back, breathing was fighting back; humans were still so afraid of biotics, despite their growing regularity. It all happened so quickly, the man on the stairs hadn’t fully ascended before her vision was swimming from the pressure on her neck.
“Get off her. Right now.” His voice was low, and deadly calm. It took a moment’s hesitation for the man to comply, and she heard heavy footsteps approaching before the marine scrambled off her, kneeing her head in the process. She rolled to her side the second she could, heaving in breaths, knowing how weak and vulnerable she looked on the ground but unable to care as she sucked in oxygen.
Gentle hands reached her, pulled her to a seated position. She came face to face with Kaidan Alenko, and they both blinked at each other in surprise for the space of a breath. His eyes softened as they took her in, his touch firm but kind as he steadied her against the wall. “Shepard,” he said, her name soft on his mouth, almost a prayer, as his hand jumped reflexively towards her face before he pulled away. A full turn from the way he’d spat her name on Horizon, a step past the tired way she’d imagined it in his message. “Are you okay?”
“Fine,” she muttered, the blood pouring from her nose and mouth making her voice thick, ridiculous sounding.
His gaze hardened, and she saw the sheen of blue wreathing his hands before he clenched them and vanquished it. She wondered if the marines saw, if they were as afraid of him as they were of her. Both men snapped to attention as Alenko brought the full force of his attention on them, rising to his feet and striding towards them. “What the hell happened here?” He asked, not returning the salute rendered by the corporal. He held his hand out, and they both stared at him blankly.
“She was resisting arrest,” the man who hadn’t gotten physical with her answered first. “She’s a terrorist, a dangerous biotic. We had to subdue and restrain her so she wouldn’t hurt anyone.”
“Keys.” Kaidan’s voice was ice.
“Sir, we–”
“Give me your keys.” The man grudgingly dropped them into his palm, and then reached to his side for his weapon. “If you touch that, I’ll consider it an action against me.” Kaidan turned his back to the marines, crossing to her and kneeling by her side. “If either of you move a muscle, I’m going to tack disobeying a direct order onto your growing list of offenses. Stay where you are.” He made quick work of the handcuffs, tossing them to the ground with the key still dangling from the lock. He helped Isla to her feet, his gaze sweeping over her just as it had dozens of times after firefights and heroic stunts. His eyes finally locked on her face again, and she swallowed thickly, wishing this had gone any other way. She knew she looked ridiculous, pathetic. She wondered what he was thinking, whether he thought she was doing the right thing, or if it was just another layer in the Cerberus charade. Whether he cared that she was hurt because she was Isla–had once been his Isla–or if it had more to do with rules, ethics; the legal treatment of a prisoner.
“Joker?” Anderson’s confused voice broke the tension, and Kaidan’s head snapped towards the pilot, as if noticing him for the first time.
“Sir, the goons you sent to the dock just beat the shit out of the Commander, and I–.”
“What?”
“I just wanted to see if that was, you know, what they were supposed to be doing? It didn’t seem like something you’d order.” Despite it all, she felt the corner of her mouth turn up in a smile as she watched her flippant pilot tossing fuel onto the fire.
“Major Alenko is…hitting Shepard?” Anderson clarified, his voice incredulous.
“Oh, no sir. Here,” Joker lifted his omni tool, snapping a photo. Isla grimaced; that one needed to never see the light of day. She could feel the blood staining her face, her chest, dotting her clothes. She knew her hair was a tangled mess. She was leaning forward, pinching her nose as she stood close to Kaidan; his posture defensive, as if to tuck her into his shadow as he staged his body between her and the pair of marines. The man who’d kneeled on her neck had blood on the knee of his uniform, and both looked appropriately ashamed at being caught in an action they were clearly not authorized to take. A few seconds between the photo and Anderson’s response were enough for the pieces to fall into place. None of this was authorized, the admirals hadn’t lied to her. They’d sent Kaidan to get her. Alone.
Her gaze traced over his profile. Had he volunteered, or had they chosen him because he was a familiar face? Had he come to see her, or was it his usual sense of duty carrying him to ensure such a delicate task was done to standard?
Anderson sighed, and Isla felt some of the tension leave her body. “I did not authorize port guards to place Shepard under arrest. I will handle this through the proper channels, and I trust Alenko’s management of the immediate situation completely. Thank you for calling me, Mr. Moreau.” The channel dropped, and Kaidan looked back at her for the briefest of seconds, his eyes curious, before the Marine officer clicked back into place.
“What in the hell did you two think you were doing?” He asked, his voice devoid of its usual warmth. “Even if you had any authority to place the Commander under arrest, was that any way to go about it?” The use of her rank startled her. “You’ve abandoned your duties, assaulted a superior officer, acted outside of your authority, misrepresented the interests of the Alliance, and–most importantly–you violated her rights as a citizen.” They looked appropriately chastised, and smartly stayed quiet as he lectured them. He stared at them for a second, before shaking his head and turning back to Joker. “Will you escort the Commander to the head on the crew deck?”
“Escort her?” He rolled his eyes. “She knows where the damn bathroom is.”
“Jeff, just–” He sighed, closing his eyes briefly. She wasn’t allowed back onto the ship alone, she realized. “Shepard–Ma’am, get yourself cleaned up, take all the time you need. I’ll handle this and then we can go.”
“Thanks.” Her voice was croaky, her throat sticky with clotted blood. She cleared it, then turned and followed Joker back into the ship. They were silent as they stepped into the elevator together, and as she jammed the button for the crew deck, he finally let out a single low whistle.
“Well, that went well.” He crossed his arms, rocking back on his heels.
She snorted, then winced as her nose stung and fresh blood bubbled out past her pinched fingers. “Guess I deserved that.”
“Oh totally, thanks for saving the galaxy again, let me just break your face real quick.” His voice was characteristically sarcastic, but his posture belied the concern and anxiety he was feeling. “It’s a good thing Kaidan showed up, or the Alliance would probably tell you that happened in a dream, too.”
She couldn’t muster up a reply to that. She knew he was kidding, but these days it was getting harder to laugh about the way the Alliance had treated her before she’d died. “Shepard,” EDI chimed in. “I have clipped a recording from my docking bay camera feed. I provided you, Jeff, Major Alenko, and Admiral Anderson each with copies.”
She had to hand it to her, the ship AI was excellent at surveillance. “Thanks, EDI.”
“Of course, Shepard.”
“Uhhhhhh Commander?” Joker sounded embarrassed. She glanced over at him as they stepped out onto the crew deck. “I may have also started recording when they pointed their guns at you. I also might have already sent Kaidan and Anderson that video.”
She groaned. “So everyone gets to watch me get my ass kicked from multiple angles?”
“In your defense,” he chattered, stopping in the doorway of the restroom. “You weren’t fighting back. If you were, you and I both know they’d both be drooling on the ground at a minimum. I don’t think that’s really up for debate.”
She saw herself in the mirror finally, and realized she looked so much worse than she thought. Her nose was broken, and badly displaced at that. Deep redness spelled the bruises that would soon be beginning to bloom at the inner corners of both eyes. Her bottom lip was split and swollen, and blood coated her mouth, chin, neck, and spilled down the front of her grey t-shirt. She cursed, turning the sink on and letting it run warm before she leaned forward to scrub at her skin.
“At least you’ll look badass in your mugshot,” Joker offered.
She let out a laugh, picking at a stubborn spot of blood with her thumbnail. “I’m not sure two black eyes and a broken nose is the image I’m going for. I was trying for sympathetic and respectable. I look like I was in a bar fight.”
“C’mon, Anderson and Hackett know who they’re working with. You’ve been charging headfirst into every problem you’ve encountered since before any of us knew you.”
She leaned forward to take a mouthful of water from the faucet, and it stung badly as it passed over the front of her teeth. She spat out the bloody water, and they both heard the clink with it. She stared down at a small chunk of off-white bone sitting in the basin. “That bastard chipped my tooth.”
Joker let out a low whistle. “Thanks for cooperating, how do you feel about some out-of-line goons? Talk about a welcome home party, it’s not like you saved the galaxy again or anything.” His voice faded into the background as he talked. She leaned forward into the mirror, curling her lips back. The corner of her upper right incisor was missing, angling the edge of her tooth bizarrely away from the canine beside it. Despite everything, it made her heart fall just a little. She’d never considered herself especially vain, but she’d been pretty. Strong cheekbones and a once-straight nose that had upturned lightly at the end. Her eyes were a moss green, accentuated with her usual flick of eyeliner to sharpen the softest part of her face. The Lazarus project had taken her freckles, and the intervening months had added a few new scars to replace the familiar lines she’d lost in her reconstruction. She was gaunter than she’d seen herself in a long time, deep purple shadows blending into the edges of the blooming bruises beneath her eyes. Even her hair was duller, the fire-red sheen dimmed and her curls knotted and flattened. The chipped tooth completed the image of the damaged, washed-out version of the woman she’d been.
She’d been the Alliance’s poster girl, once. She’d broken under the pressure.
Everyone was waiting for her to wash the damn blood off her face, and she imagined she’d have ample time to mope very shortly. She leaned away from her reflection, and glanced up at Joker’s eyes in the mirror instead. He showed no signs that he was going to call attention to her period of melancholy. “Hey, what are the chances you saw where they kicked my bag?”
“Zero,” he shrugged. “But I know where you live. What do you need?” She appreciated his continuous lack of past-tense, even though she knew it was wishful thinking.
“A fresh shirt.” She unzipped her thankfully bloodless hoodie, tossing it to the countertop.
“Yeah, be right back.” He turned and began slowly limping towards the elevator around the corner, and she pulled her shirt over her head. Wetting the clean bottom hem, she scrubbed the blood from her neck and chest. She gave herself a once-over, blood free finally, but not much more presentable with the state of her face. She pulled the hair tie out of her ratty braid, and bent forward to shake some life back into her hair as she heard the elevator open again.
“Hey, Shepard. Do you need–” Kaidan, rather than Joker, rounded the doorway to the bathroom and she heard him freeze. Her heart dropped and she straightened, hurrying to pat down the mess of her hair into something presentable as she looked at him. She watched his eyes flit around the room, from her battered face and wild hair to the blood soaked shirt in the sink and the distinct lack of the pilot he’d told to escort her onto the ship. He cleared his throat. “Your uh. Nose. I can set it for you.”
“Oh.” She glanced at herself in the mirror once more. The bridge of her nose was offset from the midline of her face, just a slight jog to the left but noticeable enough. “Probably should.”
“I’m no doctor, but I can at least stop it from healing especially crooked. It’s better to do it before it swells too much,” he added. As if she needed any more convincing, she’d trusted Kaidan’s field medical training since Eden Prime. His gaze on her face was assessing. As she nodded and he took a step towards her, she watched his eyes focusing on a spot near her eyebrow, diligently avoiding glancing down to her exposed skin in her sports bra.
He settled his hands on her face, his grasp delicate as he turned her head from side to side to examine the damage. Kaidan’s proximity, the tenderness of his touch, was dizzying after the last few times she’d been near him. She sucked in a tiny gasp, half bitterly grateful she couldn’t smell him past the scent of blood, and wrestled internally with the wall of control she held to suppress the eezo in her blood from rising to the surface of her skin. She tingled where he touched her, as she always had, but she’d nearly forgotten the specific intensity of his biotics against hers that had once been so familiar.
Kaidan’s thumbs found their place on either side of her nose, and she gasped at the sudden flood of pain. “Sorry,” he said softly, his eyes briefly meeting hers. “This is going to hurt. I really need you not to jerk back. I’m going to count to three.”
“Just do it,” she gritted. “I’ll stay still.” One hand gripped the edge of the sink, her knuckles going white against the steel basin. The tensing of the muscles in his forearms were her only warning. She heard the disgusting crunch of cartilage and bone a split second before pain sent a brief hot sick feeling through her entire body. Her hand shot out, gripping the fabric of his uniform to steady herself. He held her still for just another moment, keeping the pressure against her nose, murmuring reassurances that cut through the pain enough to send a confusing ache through her chest.
Joker found them that way, an oddly intimate pose given everything, with his hands steadying her face and his uniform top closed in her fist. She glanced at him over Kaidan’s shoulder, watching his eyebrow lift as he took in their closeness rather than meeting the warm brown eyes that were inches from her own. “You’re bleeding again,” he muttered, and the tension of the moment dissipated instantly.
“Shit,” she turned, snatching her damp shirt from the counter top and pressing it to her face. She moved to pinch her nose, but thought better of it after the precise work Kaidan had just done to fix it. The metallic taste of blood slid down her throat, and a red stain bloomed out from where she held the shirt to her face.
“I got you a clean shirt to bleed on,” Joker quipped, brandishing the folded black bundle of cloth in his hand. Kaidan jerked as if he hadn’t noticed the other man’s return. As if his attention had been so wholly focused on Shepard that he’d let his guard down.
“You might have to hold onto that for a second,” she said, her voice muffled by the damp balled up shirt pressed to her face. “Alenko fixed my nose, supposedly.” She glanced at him, and watched his lips press into a grimace.
“I did my best,” he crossed his arms, then uncrossed them and shoved his hands into his pockets. He glanced over at Joker, tried to look around the bathroom that hadn’t changed much from the original design, but his gaze kept sliding back to her each time he looked away. She pulled the shirt away hesitantly, dabbing softly as she assured the bleeding had slowed to a stop and she was good to get dressed. “Anyway,” he said, clearing his throat. He was watching her gently stretch the neck of her clean shirt to get it over her head without brushing against her face. His gaze practically burned through her. “Whenever you’re ready, Shepard.”
Her heart sank. She hadn’t expected any of what had just transpired to give her a pass, but she’d hoped for a few minutes to gather herself. A few minutes to talk, to acknowledge whatever had just passed between them in the context of the last few years since she’d died. She swallowed tightly, her mouth still tasting of blood, and reached over for her well-worn hoodie. “Yeah,” she spit out. “I guess there’s no sense in waiting.”
She thought she saw hurt flash across his face, but it was gone as soon as she recognized it. “Okay,” he said softly. “I’m following you, Shepard.”
The words ached with the familiarity and the finality of it all at once. Without another word, she led her former Lieutenant, her once-best friend, the man she'd maybe even loved, off the Normandy for what she knew would be the last time.