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“I am someone who did not die when I should have died.”
Shepard spoke still with the air of the Commander he’d always been, but there was a new, sharper edge to a voice that carried gentleness like fragile glass. It hurt him when he held on too tightly, but fell through bloodied fingers when he opened them. He could find no safe place in-between to rest his aching hands. No safe harbor, no sheltered port; he was standing at trial, a bloodied body left for the lions to tear apart. And Shepard hated it.
The jury remained remarkably silent, uneasy shifting in seats and drumming of fingers on wooden benches echoed by the sheer vastness of the hall. Alliance drapery lined the walls, insignias emblazoned across every surface, doctrine spilled upon the polished floor from lips that only knew how to speak in humanity’s voice and no other.
A stony-faced Admiral stares him down from his seat across the courtroom, wanting Shepard to make a mistake. Something that would untie his hands and allow him to leave Shepard to rot in the brig. Shepard had given him no quarter, his words were as polished as the medals sitting on his chest, the golden trim of his Alliance blues framing his deeds as a legend they couldn’t afford to lose.
The Admiral sniffs indignantly, breaking the silence strung across the room. His every tactic had been matched and thwarted by Shepard, and his ire was bubbling over. Shepard was being pushed to the limit, and the jury could see the cracks starting to widen in his carefully constructed visage. They’d decided Shepard’s fate hours ago, a majority in favour of his exoneration, but the final judgement was still waiting somewhere in the Admiral’s teeth, sharp and ready to strike the killing blow to a dying man.
So, fingers curling around the shattering pieces of Shepard’s dignity, the Admiral pulls, finally in reach of a perfect reason.
“Shepard, it was Cerberus who brought you back. You made the choice to stay in their employ. You made the choice to fight the Collectors. You made the choice to find Doctor Kenson. You made the choice to destroy the Alpha relay.”
Shepard snaps against the pressure, his fingers digging into skin around his cuffed hands, the holo-interface delivering static repulsion whenever he tried to move his wrists. The built-up charge shocks him, and he clamps his mouth shut against the pain. He fixes his eyes on the Admiral across the room, burning with anger and humiliation, and he doesn’t think about his words. The first mistake.
“It was never my choice to be brought back!”
The Admiral doesn’t flinch. His thin, scarred lips pull into a quiet smirk. He has him.
“You had every opportunity, every reason to turn yourself to the Alliance.” he counters smoothly.
“No! You’d have made me into a criminal, locked me up, taken away every opportunity I had to stop the Collectors— Cerberus gave me a chance. I took it. Is that such a deplorable thing?”
Reckless reaction. The second mistake.
“It’s treason, Shepard. You understand this?” the Admiral doesn’t relent, he pushes for the final snap, the final victory.
Shepard waits for the kill, but it doesn’t follow the Admiral’s words. Not yet. But he’s tired of waiting, so Shepard drops his gaze to the floor beneath him, shoulders falling under too much weight. Carrying the fate of humanity had only marked him black and blue and bloody, too much red where life should’ve been, too much failure when doubt crawled in. He’d lost friends, he’d lost his humanity, paid for every sacrifice with some small part of him until there was nothing left to recover, until they turned him into Lazarus and called him a miracle, when all he wanted was quiet.
The courtroom was anything but quiet. The ripple of shock, the quiet murmurs, the scratch of nails upon wood, the low hum of concern, of uncertainty for a future that only Shepard knew was coming. And they would never believe him.
So Shepard breaks. He lets the Admiral shear whatever was left of his pride, exposed his true humanity to a room full of people who liked to pretend he was far more than human. But he was, and unforgivably so. He was capable of compassion and blinding confidence, brighter than any star in their endless skies. He was capable of hatred, boiling under the skin, turning his power to payment when he called for his debts. He was capable of laughter, of grief, of fear and doubt, of failure. Everything that made him the man he was, instead of the legend they talked about.
So, he understands, finally. The third and final mistake?
Being human.
“It’s survival, Admiral.”
That’s the last he gets to say. The Admiral is smiling in ugly victory as he renders his judgement, and Shepard is stripped of rank and command, dishonorably discharged. His jailers march him to his cell, the gilded cage of a well-furnished, stocked, warm apartment that he cannot leave. They release his handcuffs and slam the door, and Shepard is alone.
Shepard is alone, and he decides that survival isn’t worth it.
"I am someone who did not die when I should have died.” is the note they find hours later, scribbled with shaking hands on an empty pillbox.