Just a BioWare Fan

“Oh, Kaidan,” I said in exasperation. “If things had been different, if we could have been together, I would never have known Thane as more than a suave assassin, another piece of my team. I never stopped loving you; I just didn’t see any hope for us.” He pulled back in consternation but I hadn’t finished.

“You told me in no uncertain terms where I could stick Cerberus and I was left drifting on my own. What happened with Thane, what grew between us, was so much different than what I had with you.” I stood and paced around the long table.

“You’re this whole person, this wonderful other that stood up to me and stood with me. We’d lived by the same rules, been given the same training, and served with the same people. You knew how to remind me what was right and make me remember why.

I struggled to sound reasonable. “Kaidan, we need to clear the air or we can’t work together. Anderson and Hackett think they’re being cute but I’ve wanted to talk to you for so long. I just…couldn’t find the nerve to start.” My voice failed a bit in admitting my fear.

“You didn’t seem to have any trouble talking to everyone else on the Citadel about the toils and perils your wonderful new team faced while they worked to save the galaxy and…and about how much you loved Thane.” The bitterness that filled those words tore at me, both hearing him say Thane’s name and the pain I could feel in his words. Yet had I ever said that, spoken of Thane so bluntly or publicly?

I didn’t believe that I had, that those words had been broadcast anywhere. Obviously Kaidan was getting his information somewhere closer to me. But we’d come to the root of the problem now and denying I’d told any interviewer about my personal relationship with Thane wasn’t enough.

It has been five months since I helped Thane die. Kolyat and I met briefly, painfully, a few times. I’d signed over Thane’s body to his son, to be given to the sea as Irikah had been. The boy had wanted to know more about his father but couldn’t contain his anger at my place at the end of Thane’s life that Kolyat felt his mother should have had.

I told him stories about his father’s regrets, his beliefs, and his love for his family. We cried, in the same room but not together. He sought my presence grudgingly, torn between resentment and his desire to believe that Thane really had loved him. Our conversations were stilted but I thought he at least accepted that Thane had tried to do his best for his Kolyat, whatever mistakes he may have made.

I'd spent the first six weeks on Earth, numb and staring. My ship had returned, freshly painted and logo-free. Garrus had arranged to have some black market techs on Omega go over every line of EDI's code as well as chase every wire in the ship to ensure that Cerberus could no longer snoop.

A flurry of activity swirled outside the windows of the med bay as the refugees made their way to the airlock. It would take some time to process them all through that choke point. Dr. Chakwas returned and began packing things into a bag for me to take.

“I wish there were more I could do,” she said. I thanked her, both for the sentiment and for not trying to talk me out of what I was doing. As we spoke, Thane shifted and I turned back to him.“Why have we come to Earth?” he asked.

“You said you wanted a desert,” I answered. “They've got the only one I could think of that doesn't require breathing masks or full environment suits.” He looked at me with an unreadable expression. I could see surprise and pain but other layers that I couldn't recognize lay beneath those. If he wanted to see a desert before he died then he was damned well going to see one.

My heart stopped in my chest until I noticed the monitors still hooked to his body. They beeped along, flashing erratically, signaling that he was still alive. I forced my numb legs to carry me across the med bay and stared hard at Thane’s chest under the sheet, willing it to rise and fall. When I reached the side of his bed his eyes flickered open and I braced my arms on the frame as my knees buckled.

I smiled gently, hiding my reaction to how ashen his rich complexion had become. I recovered my balance and took his hand. “Thank you for keeping your promise,” I said softly. I wondered if he was somehow holding on until I released him from it but I couldn’t let him go, not yet. That may have made me selfish but just then I had too much to say to him.

“Always, for you,” he whispered around the breathing mask. I could hear the weight of his guilt, of the broken promises he’d made to his family, in the phrase. Even this close to death, after saving the entire human race from extermination, he couldn't forgive himself. I kissed his hand gently as Dr. Chakwas stopped beside me.

By the time we reached the end of the last corridor at the outside of the base every one of us was bleeding and splashed with gore. The Collectors had thrown everything they’d had at us, husks and soldiers alike. The sight of the Normandy floating beside the base lifted all of our spirits enough to fuel one last burst of speed for a leap through the low gravity to the open airlock.

I saw a few of my crew members and even Joker providing covering fire as others caught the team and hauled them aboard. I thought my heart would break as I saw my friends rushed into the waiting arms of those few we’d managed to save. Finally I was the only one left.

The first of the explosions rocked the station back from my ship as I sprinted toward the lip. Unable to check my momentum, I pushed off with all I had, windmilling my arms as though that would somehow provide me enough thrust to bridge the gap. I might as well have flapped them for all the good it did.

“They’re alive!” I yelled as the others piled through the doors behind me. As I watched in horror, Chambers’s face became blotched and the skin began to peel away. The fluid in her pod turned a frothy, bloody pink and she beat at the port with hands from which the flesh had sloughed down to bone. “Get them out,” I screamed frantically.

We hammered and pried at the pods on the floor as the eight plugged into the network of tubes along the wall flushed obscenely behind us. I didn’t know who had been in the other seven pods, didn’t want to know. I may have scorned Yeoman Chambers’s attempts at manipulating my life but nothing she could ever have done could have merited the torture and dissolution that she’d suffered. I saw Garrus help Dr. Chakwas stand shakily and would have started crying if tears hadn’t already been streaming down my face since the moment I saw that at least some of my crew was still alive.

We opened the pods that we could reach, finding twelve more of my crew and seventeen colonists. Empty pods hung across the vast walls and across the ceiling. Hundreds of them filled each of the distant outcroppings that dotted the chamber. There was no way to tell if those were empty and no way to reach them directly, beyond the fact that the Normandy couldn’t carry all of them even if we could release the prisoners. My heart ached as I realized that anyone still alive in this chamber would have to be left behind. I wanted to smash each of those pods, preferably with the face of a Collector, and save every human on this station but we simply couldn’t. They were as doomed to die as if we’d never come.

The dock crew at Illium had us loaded and ready to go before my hair was even dry. It looked like The Illusive Man had played nicely for a change. I had EDI and Tali scan everything we took aboard for surveillance equipment or unpleasant surprises but they both came up empty.

By the time we finished our jump back to the relay near Omega and I went down to check on Thane he was back in the life support room, up and dressed as stylishly as ever. His breath came roughly still but some of the new medical supplies had helped to ease his laboring lungs. He ran his hands through my hair and kissed me thoroughly while I wallowed in my disappointment that he was no longer nearly nude and in a bed.

“You appear to have recovered from our adventures on Zorya. I fear that my days of stealth are over, however,” he joked. “My targets would hear me through the walls.”

How sweet he was, trying to reassure me despite how obviously he had deteriorated in a single day. His face looked drawn, serious despite his light tone. Had it really been so short a time since he was dancing destruction through the geth on Haestrom, laughing? His quick fluidity had slowed to a smooth grace in the past few weeks. It was clear that the Kepral’s Syndrome had spread far beyond his lungs. Guilt stabbed at me. I’d been hauling him around the galaxy, thrusting him into situations that would only worsen his condition, and he had actually thanked me for doing so. He’d saved my life and risked his for me countless times and all I had to offer him was death.

I held him as tightly as I dared. “I need you to be careful, Thane,” I said, swallowing tears yet again. “Promise me. Promise you’ll be back here with me after we destroy these bastards.”

He held my face in his hands and pressed his lips against my forehead, each of my cheeks in turn, the tip of my nose, and finally my mouth. “I promise, siha,” he answered solemnly. I wished I’d asked him more about his language so that I could have a name for him as beautiful as his for me.

Both of us knew keeping that promise was essentially out of his control. It calmed me, though, to have told him at least a little of how I felt and to have him so clearly accept what I offered. Had there been time I would have hauled him to his cot then and there but I suspected that Thane, ever composed and deliberate, had never heard of a quickie. Instead, we made our way to the briefing room so that the whole team could discuss strategy while EDI and Joker performed the half-blind calculations that might allow us to live through the coming jump.

There wasn’t any way to prepare for what would happen. We tossed ideas around and considered some what ifs but as soon as Joker announced that we were approaching the relay I kicked everyone free and headed for the bridge. Thane and Garrus both came with me and I was thankful to have my closest friends around me. I was terrified, though I wouldn’t allow it to show. The Omega Four relay swam into view. Most relays pulsed a familiar, biotic blue, a color with which we’d all become comfortable. The mysterious machine we faced, however, glowed a diseased purple-red, a threatening bruise of color that clearly warned us away. I’d half hoped that the IFF handshake would turn it the reassuring cobalt of the others but that didn’t happen. The roiling brilliance grabbed us and threw us to the heart of the galaxy.

I doubt anyone breathed as we were decelerated on the other side. Then we made up for that breathless moment hyperventilating as Joker threaded the Normandy through nigh-invisible gaps between the broken, blasted, and otherwise destroyed ships that choked the space around the relay. It must keep a clear field in the debris around itself but the landing distance was incredibly short. I reminded myself to kiss Joker on the cheek for being good enough to not only make the jump that accurately but to react so quickly to the thousands of looming threats. We’d upgraded the shields and the hull but it was his skill that squeaked us through the minefield.

No sooner had we cleared the bulk of the mess than sentinels sprang to life around us. It looked like the Collectors were not relying on the debris field alone to knock out those lucky enough to survive the trip. Their lasers forced us back into the wreckage and a high-speed game of chase ensued. Between our weapons and more of Joker’s unorthodox piloting we finally managed to destroy the last of them. Our shields were all but depleted and the hull scored in many places but we were still flying. EDI confirmed that the worst of the damage had been superficial. We cruised to the object of our collective hatred, a bizarre structure that looked as though random asteroids had been strung together with titanium beams and the spit of some enormous nest-making insect.

Sliding from a dock in the behemoth was none other than our friend, the Collectors’ ship, according to EDI the very one that had killed me and then kidnapped my second crew. That fucker was going down if I had to launch myself out of the airlock and attack it with a hand knife. Happily, I didn’t need to: Garrus showed us all the value of the hours he’d spent calibrating our new Thanix cannon when EDI sliced the damned thing to ribbons as Joker spun us around its flanks. I cursed it colorfully the entire time, willing us out of the path of its weapons as we dodged and weaved about the ponderous thing.

I hadn’t noticed that I’d grabbed Thane’s hand at some point and was crushing it in my anger. He made a small noise of protest as the other ship broke apart before us. My frustration at being unable to assault the ship myself broke as I apologized for hurting him. He really needed both hands to be effective inside the base and there I was, trying to break his fingers. My own hand was sore from squeezing so tightly. With the other I punched Garrus on the shoulder in thanks and congratulations. The look of satisfaction on his face cheered me.

We scraped to a landing on the surface of the base, too damaged in the fight to maintain our distance. The Normandy hadn’t been designed to land rather than dock. My whole ship was leaning to port and EDI poured a stream of damage reports into my omni-tool. I cut it off with a curt, “Can you fix it?” I wanted the bottom line: could we still get back home? EDI reassured me that the supplies we’d taken on in Illium had included plating and replacement power cells that she and Legion could use to repair any hull breaches and restore the shields, given a few hours. While I could have used Legion’s precise marksmanship with me it was more important that everyone know we had a ship in which we could return. We needed that hope to sustain us.

I ordered Grunt to release Miranda and everyone but Joker piled out of the Normandy's canted airlock. We made our way to the nearest opening as EDI scanned the base for our best attack route. There was no real way to know where my crew lay in the massive structure but the time had been relatively short and we could hope that they hadn't been killed outright and tossed aside like those on the ship we'd cleared weeks ago. With any luck we'd interrupted the Collectors on their way to do whatever it was they did with the humans in their pods and they'd be along a main path. Of course, with any luck they wouldn’t have been there in the first place.

The team split and reformed as we followed the network of corridors along the circuitous path EDI had mapped to the heart of the structure. I sent Tali crawling through the ducts to hack locks, racing to stay ahead of her to keep valves open before she cooked behind one. We slaughtered Collectors wholesale, wiping out every one of the creatures we found. There would be no prisoners taken on this enterprise. It was an exercise in vengeance and a bitter satisfaction flowed through my team as we progressed. Then we came together in an enormous chamber filled with pods hanging from the walls and strewn about the floor. In the one just to the left of the door stood Yeoman Chambers, her eyes open and her mouth screaming silence.

The hull was intact as we approached the ship. None of us was prepared for the destruction we found inside. We stared at the remnants of the cargo, what had been secure enough not to get blown out of the hold when EDI had opened the doors. I made my way through the halls and rooms, finding only two of my own crew, both dead before the decompression had gotten to them, as Garrus and I supported Thane on the way to the med bay with the hope that we could do something for him.

But Dr. Chakwas was gone and Mordin had his hands full just running triage on the team’s injuries. We got Thane settled into a bed, back on oxygen as dry and pure as it came. I wanted nothing more than to stay beside his bed, stroking his forehead and holding his hand. He shooed me away, however, speaking calmly despite the rumbling in his chest.

“Joker needs you now,” he said, “more than I do.” I wanted to argue but I knew that we had to go straight after the Collectors. I would be damned if I would let them have my entire crew, regardless of their nominal employer. These were my people. I kissed his fingers and headed for the bridge.

After we returned to the Normandy, EDI explained that it would take a couple of days to crack the IFF and hook it up to the requisite systems. I reviewed the status of ship upgrades with Mordin, cleaned up a few errands around the galaxy, and pondered the fact that the only people to whom I wanted to say goodbye were all on this ship, except one. I was essentially preparing to be dead for good, something I'd never had a chance to do the first time.

I wrapped up every loose end I could, slashing my cash reserves down to the bone, and burned fuel and probes like mad to make sure I was ready. Jacob and I worked out weapon improvements, Garrus calibrated the main guns to an exactitude even Mordin would admire, and in general my crew did everything they could to make the SR-2 as ready as she could get. The only thing I couldn't bring myself to do was to respond to Kaidan's message. I felt like I owed him something more than the silent treatment after all we'd been to each other. But what could I write to him?

“Dear Kaidan, I appreciate your message and agree that we should talk if I live through the next few days. If I don't, thanks for the memories.” Nope.

At least with Legion nominally on our side I could leave him alone with EDI. I trusted the AI to take care of itself for the time being, at least with a guard still posted nearby. I did arrange for someone to bring Legion something with which to clean itself. It looked awful and smelled worse.

It would be best for me to visit Tali before she heard about the geth's activation from someone else. No sooner had the elevator door opened on the Engineering level than Yeoman Chambers pinged me. "Tali wants to talk to you, Commander." I rounded the corner as she said it and the woman herself looked up at the sound.

"I'm already here, Chambers," I replied. Tali seemed agitated and I thought we could use some privacy. I hoped that no one had run to tell her about Legion. I gestured for her to follow and we headed up to the briefing room. "So, about that geth..." I began and proceeded to explain what had happened.

Thane was as slow and thoughtful in kissing me as he was in so much else. I luxuriated in the feel of his mouth on mine. But when my hands began to wander too far afield he stopped me. "Siha, are you sure?" he asked. I glanced up at him, prepared to laugh, but his face stopped me. He looked concerned, tentative. I ran my finger across his lower lip, giving myself a moment to seriously consider the question. The hell of it was that I couldn't, as much as I wanted to, say yes.

I heaved a massive sigh. "No." Thane knew me too well. I may have decided to put Kaidan on the back burner, if not in the fridge entirely, but that didn't mean that I had gotten over him. They say the best way to do that was to get under someone else but it was still too soon. I wrapped my arms around Thane again and snuggled in close. As badly as I wanted to be with him I simply wasn't ready. "I seem to spend half my time thanking you, Thane," I said, "right after I apologize."

He held me close and I lay still, listening to his heartbeat and his not-quite-right breathing. "We need not rush," he said calmly. "This will suffice for now."

The farther we got from the drifting Reaper the less I felt like my helmet was the only thing keeping my head from exploding. I pulled myself together for the debriefing and considered with my crew the implications of bringing a functioning geth on board. Everyone had felt the same presence I had to some degree but no one seemed as concerned. Had I been singled out, was I more sensitive or vulnerable to indoctrination than the rest of my crew? The question ate away at me as we discussed the installation of the friend or foe signal.

Regardless of the dangers we couldn't go after the Collectors until the Omega relay would talk to our ship. Finally everyone seemed done rehashing the same questions. Jack, Thane, and I headed to the med bay to get checked out by Dr. Chakwas. While the husks didn't fire weapons they did, from time to time, explode. The three of us had been beaten badly and sustained bruises and burns everywhere.

The doc checked us out, treated the worst of our injuries, and gave us painkillers with strict instructions to rest for several hours. Jack threw on her clothes and stalked off to her cubby below Engineering. Thane emerged from behind the screen where Chakwas had been treating him buttoning his jacket as he walked.

Despite our new connection, I couldn't put my interest in Thane before the mission. It seemed that every time I turned around one of my crew had an issue that needed to be addressed.

Grunt was going through puberty, Jacob had discovered the location of his long-missing father's ship, and Jack needed closure at Pragia before she could focus. There were mercenary bases to destroy, geth infiltrations to investigate, and planets to explore. While I made time to talk to Thane and the new easiness between us meant that I was less distracted by my growing interest in him, neither of us seemed to be in a hurry to get more physical.

I was intensely aware that I still had one more piece of unfinished business that stood between us. It took me two weeks, but finally I mustered the nerve to face this last concrete connection with the love that I had lost simply by being dead for a couple of years. As the Normandy cruised through yet another nearly-empty system I dragged myself to my cabin.

Thane’s high spirits continued aboard the shuttle as we returned to the Normandy.  Zaeed and Tali were deep in conversation.  I don’t think the man had ever talked to a Quarian and he seemed fascinated by her suit, at the very least.  She loved to explain things in intricate detail so the two were absorbed in a discussion of parameters and functions.

Thane and I smiled at each other.  I didn’t even care that I must have smelled like the ship gym after a full day’s worth of workouts.  This had turned out to be the best day I’d had since I’d awoken at the Cerberus base.  “I have never heard you laugh so freely,” Thane said to me.  “It suits you.  I had a great deal of fun thinking of ways to make you do so again.”

I refused to spend time picking that statement apart to decide if it should ruin my mood.  “What about you?” I asked.  “I’ve never seen you have fun.  We’ll have to find more chances for you to let loose like that.”  Thane chuckled and replied, “I never thought I would enjoy someone’s company so much again.”  In my head I kicked my conscience in the ankle and told it to shut up if it couldn’t say anything helpful.  I settled for saying, “I know what you mean.”

It seemed that a detachment of Quarians had traveled to a colony planet from which they’d been exiled by the geth. The details were sketchy but Yeoman Chambers seemed to take excessive pleasure in letting me know that that the system’s sun had become unstable and that the heat hazard on Haestrom would require heavy shields and environment suits. I was coming to hate that woman. Joker sure seemed to like her, though. I wondered if I’d been too convincing in warning him away from her. It must be a lonely existence for him, being so fragile, but Kelly would probably break him in half.

I shuddered and pushed the mental picture away as I made my way to the shuttle bay. I had enough horrible images in my head without pursuing that train of thought. Since Dr. Chakwas was doing some work on Garrus’s poor, blown-up face I’d asked Thane and Zaeed to come along for an all-sniper team. With sentient robots it was best to shoot from as far away as possible.

As the shuttle approached Haestrom I checked the readouts and cursed them roundly. “It’s 123 degrees in the shade and I have to wear full armor!” I yelled. “Stupid geth.” I added a few more choice words about geth, their parentage, and what things they could stick in which awkward places. I could hear Thane laughing at me as the shuttle descended. “I suppose this hot, dry air will be wonderful for you,” I said sourly.

I returned to the galaxy map and set about organizing the tasks I knew needed to be addressed. The Illusive Man had been feeding us all sorts of tidbits through Miranda so we had plenty to do. My theoretical second-in-command had warmed toward me since we’d “rescued” her clone that she called a sister from the clutches of her controlling “father”. It seemed to me that she had determined the course of this young girl’s life for her, which was almost as wrong as what their father had intended to do, but being forced to act as a Cerberus puppet at times had made me a bit sensitive to manipulation.

At least I’d forced her to talk to the girl. She deserved to know the real situation and to make choices for herself. The girl was the age Miranda had been when she’d run away. Perhaps if Miranda got over her obsession with being “perfect” and started to talk to people instead of at them she could be a friend. Unless, that was, I had to kill her to keep her from killing Jack.

The petty issues between crew members always flared after a long stretch in space. Since I’d let everyone ashore at the Citadel most folks were more relaxed, if not completely hung over, having blown off some steam. Dr. Chakwas let me know that she had bought another bottle of brandy but I wasn’t ready for another session of reminiscence and heartfelt talk with her just yet. She was a piece of the old Normandy and one of the few people who would openly talk to me about Kaidan. Unlike some of the crew she wasn’t intimidated by me in the least and had pulled no punches in letting me know how much she thought of him and how thrilled she’d been to see us together. I was so angry with him that I couldn’t face the good doctor for a while.

I had much to do when we returned to the Normandy and Thane had plenty to occupy his mind for a time. I finally made time to visit him on the crew deck two days later. I wondered how he was dealing with the difficult emotions our escapade with Kolyat must have brought. Thane showed me in and placed the ever-present cup of coffee on the table. His time alone seemed to have done more than restore his usual calm. He looked even more serene, having had the weight of some of his guilt lifted by recent events. I toyed with the cup as I asked, “How are you doing?”

He took my hand in both of his. “I cannot repay the kindness you've shown me, siha” he said. I realized how much Thane touched me and how little anyone else did. He would brush his fingers across my back when he ushered me to the door after a talk, put a supportive hand on my shoulder when I had made a difficult decision on a mission, or simply tap his fingers on my wrist to draw my attention to a tactical issue during one of the many battles we'd fought. There was never anything inappropriate about these small contacts but I had never before noticed how often they'd occurred.

Feeling his cool hands on mine brought home to me just how much they'd meant. I may have been in charge and in control but how could I not crave physical contact after the intimate months Kaidan and I had enjoyed after defeating Sovereign? A rush of guilt tore at me but I fought it back, telling myself that Thane meant nothing more than to express his friendship. I tried to remember if I'd seen him do the same with any other members of the crew. Surely there had been instances where he'd placed a hand on Garrus’s shoulder in combat or shown Miranda through a door so chivalrously. I just couldn't call any to mind at the moment.

As soon as Sergeant Bailey heard the name Mouse had given us, he buried his face in his palms

"Of all the…" he began. "Look, I can help you but you have to keep me out of it. Kelham and I have an…understanding. I don't bust him for petty bullshit and he 'buys tickets to the policeman's ball' from me. I really need to sell those tickets. I got kids to get through school," he said.

I rolled my eyes and Garrus made a disgusted noise. Not only was Bailey overly impressed by me, a ghost with a shadow title, but he was crooked as well. I supposed the important thing was that we get Kelham into a position where we could quickly extract the name of his target. Bailey's little foibles could make him more pliable. I had a feeling we'd need that leverage before the day was out.

Bailey agreed to have his men pick Kelham up and let us use a room at the security office. He made the call and made himself scarce. I was tempted to rat him out anyway. So far the only humans I had gotten to know in C-Sec were corrupt. That sort of thing pissed me off, especially when so few of us were accepted onto the force in the first place.

I asked Garrus to join us when we went to the Citadel. Thane and I had discussed strategy and agreed that having a third sniper was the best plan. If the worst happened one of us would take the shot to keep Kolyat from doing so. Garrus still had contacts in C-Sec, as well, and could help us find the boy in the first place.

No one outside of my team knew that Garrus had for a time been Archangel, vigilante extraordinaire, but I thought that the three of us had enough in common to make a formidable trio no matter who the contract target. My whole team had been trained to kill in one way or another but I thought we three were the most stable of the group. I should probably have found that frightening but having reliable firepower had repeatedly been critical to our success. These were my two closest friends, now, and I wanted to do this right for Thane.

We waltzed through security despite being heavily armed. My name and Garrus's connections eased the way. We stopped at Sergeant Bailey's desk just inside the checkpoint. I'd met him on my first stop here. I had been declared dead a couple of years earlier, probably because I had been, and Bailey had been thoughtful enough to notify the computers that I was not after all. He'd waived the red tape for me out of respect for my title and my history, which made him a weak point in the bureaucracy no matter how much I appreciated the help. He glanced up from his paperwork.