An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
Chapters: 7/? Words: 13,794 Rating: Mature Fandom: Dragon Age, Mass Effect Relationships: Cullen Rutherford/Female Shepard
Chapter seven, in which Shepard takes on a new role, and the Inquisition grows around her.
As Cullen fought on through the valley, the Breach above them stuttered and stabilised, and with it the demons around him fell; turned to ash and scattered away on the breeze, the only remnants of their presence new wounds on battle-hardened skin. But he cared not for his aching muscles or tired eyes; it was Shepard alone who governed his thoughts, her glowing hand and empty expression seared on his mind as he raced back towards their home.
“Where is she?” he asked Cassandra at the gate; her face hardened, and he feared for a brief but terrifying moment it was the last he’d seen of his friend.
“She lost consciousness after stabilising the Breach; the healers are with her currently.” The anxiety in his chest loosened but didn’t abate; he nodded as he began to move past her, but she threw a hand out to stop him. “You should stay away. For now, at least.”
“Why? What happened?”
He expected grave injury, uncertain survival, a battered and broken Shepard beyond his help or his prayers — but what Cassandra spoke of instead was, somehow, even worse. “She says she does not remember what happened at the Temple. But when they found her, she was screaming.”
His insides turned cold with that single word, because Shepard didn’t scream; she couldn’t scream, severed from all which governed such reaction, even her response to pain muted and stilled. “That isn’t possible.” Cassandra looked unconvinced, and it felt like an accusation; he sparked up in anger as Shepard no longer could, for she needed someone to defend her on this. “You cannot truly think—”
“I do not believe she had anything to do with the explosion,” she quickly tried to placate him. “But I believe she is hiding something which happened there, and I do not know why. I saw it myself at the Breach; when we got close to it, she changed.”
“How do you mean, changed?”
She opened her mouth, but seemed to think better of what she’d intended to say; instead she shook her head, her shoulders sagging in defeat. “You should ask her yourself when she wakes. But I would still check with the healers to ensure she is… stable, first.”
It took three days for her to come round. Three days of whimpers, and shivers, and fluttering eyes behind closed eyelids, and as much as he could Cullen remained by her side; though their fledgling organisation had never been busier, it was hard to care for anything beyond her survival. And so he carried out his work from her bedside, issuing orders and scrawling terse replies to missives as the healer tended to her wounds; watching on with unease as the elf Solas poured strange magic into the mark on her hand. He knew there was a chance she might never wake; that she’d cede, unobtrusively and insignificantly, into an end she didn’t deserve.
Though that had already happened long ago.
But there was an insuppressible hope that, if she’d changed at the Breach, she might still be changed when she woke; that the old Shepard would be back, and the last few years would fade to a foggy nightmare on her newly-revived mind. She’d be furious with him; she might even try to kill him. But she’d be her again.
(Continue on AO3)
