#shrios

Mindoir fractured Mari, scattering her into a dozen pieces that the Alliance gave direction. Purpose. Her edges were sharp, still are sharp, and they’re best utilised when pointed at the enemy. At first, her instructors upon recruitment pegged her as a loose cannon, until her training managed to get all the pieces aligned.

Still fractured, but focused. She felt happy—or maybe stable is the better word—that way, for the longest time, and desired nothing more.

Aligned too effectively, perhaps, after the events of Torfan left most of her squad dead and her image becoming that of a bogeyman among batarian slavers.

The Butcher.

Being on the Normandy was what made her feel as if she was something more—or she could be.

Really, the aliens had been the first. They weren’t Alliance, and weren’t subject to the same regs against fraternization. There weren’t any mandatory barriers in place, keeping distance between her and them. Liara’s fumbled but endearing attempts at connecting with her. Tali’zorah’s dedication. Garrus’ commitment to justice and change, even if she had to talk him into not going down the same path she once did.

And Wrex, somewhat. That relationship was more murky, but they had a mutual understanding, as killing machines. Living weapons. Sharp edges and all.

And then there was Kaidan.

Kaidan took the bricks of those walls placed between and removed only a few of them, piece by piece, just enough for his hand to reach through and gently, patiently, intertwine his fingers with hers.

Out of everyone, it had to be him that tried to see her, and she had more difficulty looking away than she expected.

At first, she feared he was forming an attachment to her out of a twisted form of hero worship, or some sense of obligation after she’d torn him from the grip of the beacon on Eden Prime. But he was too persistent. Too patient. And only nervous in the sense that there was a charming boyishness about him.

The time they spent together on shore leave was only around a week, before they were sent right back out to hunt down more geth, and it was the only time in Mari’s life since before Mindoir that she fully felt like anything other than the edge of a blade.

He once told her that she made him feel human. He doesn’t know the half of it.

But Mari doesn’t have the Alliance anymore.

She doesn’t have Kaidan, either.

If Mindoir broke her, dying has turned her into a smear on the wall. A corroded constellation of the visions of the reapers, of the images that flash through her mind of both Mindoir and putting bullets between the eyes of batarians on Torfan and how those memories blur and blend together, of nightmares from everything that her pursuit of Saren left her with, of an itch that comes to her in the middle of the night to get up and go to her bathroom mirror in the hopes of seeing if she can peel her skin open with her bare hands to see what’s underneath.

Mordin told her there’s cybernetic augmentation, a few ‘additions’ to her basic human structure, scaffolding and supports for what was once a dead body.

It hasn’t stopped the itch.

That’s without getting into the memories of Kaidan, still fresh in her mind even days after seeing him on Horizon. Days after receiving his message afterward.

The image of the betrayal in his eyes is something she will never be able to rid herself of. Another ghost, to join the many, except this ghost is still alive.

When things have settled down a little…maybe…

That part almost made her laugh when she read it. He still doesn’t understand the breadth of the reaper threat. He was there for Sovereign, which had been bad, but that was it. She had no way of imparting to him the visions that have been burned into her brain, and maybe even into her very DNA at this point.

If she did, then the council would never have not believed her.

Maybe she never would have died in the first place. Maybe she never would have left the Alliance.

Or left him.

A pang of guilt hits her, but it’s undercut by something else—their purpose, their mission, the fact she was brought back for it. He thinks Cerberus has her on a leash.

No.

Cerberus, the collectors, and the situation as a whole, all form a shadow that looms over her, in the same sense that the grim reaper might, waiting to collect his due once she’s fulfilled her purpose. The jaws of a flytrap, waiting to snap close and take her into dark nothingness again.

Every night, her body aches with something bone deep, and she can’t help but feel that the universe wasn’t going to sit back and let someone defy its workings, bringing a person back from the other side.

When things have settled down a little.

Settling down means stopping, and stopping might mean drowning in the dark.

She has work to do before that happens.

“Shepard?”

Mari starts. Her eyes flick to a figure behind her in the reflection—tall, green-skinned, and clad in sharp black. When she turns her head, she picks out the thermos of tea in his hands.

She’s never met a drell before, and it makes Thane hard to look away from.

“I didn’t know you drank tea,” she comments. Uselessly.

“Not often. You did not see me come in earlier, but I noticed you were here, and clearly had something on your kind.” He gives her the polite smile that’s become characteristic of him. “I asked the mess sergeant if he knew what you liked to drink.”

Mari’s brows lift as she turns and carefully takes the thermos from his hands. Hesitantly, she takes a sip.

All too familiar a flavor.

“...that was nice of you, Thane,” she says. “You didn’t need to do that.”

“It is no trouble.” The drell takes his usual seat at the table, folding his hands together. “You seem to find yourself in this room quite often.”

Mari blinks.

“Maybe this an odd thing to say about an alien species,” she says, “but you come off as very down-to-earth, Thane. An attitude like that can help…tether me, if that makes sense.”

That earns her a soft chuckle—a strange sound, with the way drell voices are.

"I see. The mission ahead is difficult, and if you find comfort in our talks, then I am content to provide what support that I can.”

“You sure I’m not hassling you? Taking too much of your energy?”

“I am sick, Shepard, but not fragile. If I were ill enough that I felt engaging in these discussions with you was tiring, then I would not be in any shape to have accepted your offer of recruitment.”

Mari nods, uneasy.

Out of everyone on the ship, the two of them were the closest to the topic of death. It’s a strange commonality to think about.

But while she has nightmares about it, he is…content. Steady. At least from the outside.

Thane inclines his head. It’s hard to make out his pupils against the black sclera, but he looks to be examining her. “Something troubles you deeply.”

“Other than us careening towards a point of no-return, with me at the helm?”

“Yes. Other than that.”

Mari lets out a long, weary sigh.

“...you’ll think it’s stupid.”

He smiles again. “I doubt there is much that would bother a woman of your caliber that I could be convinced is frivolous."

“And if I told you it was over a guy? At least partially.”

“Then I would ask who, and in what way.”

Mari shifts on her feet, taking another sip of tea. She doesn’t want to be having this conversation, but talking to Thane is beginning to feel like…being gently pried open, with an understanding that he’s more than happy to stop if she were to ask.

And that might be something she needs in the midst of all this. In the midst of Cerberus, the collectors, and being half-alive.

“An old Alliance crewmate. He was with me on the Normandy, when I hunted down Saren,” she holds the mug of tea up to her face, partially obscuring it, although she can’t picture her own expression. “I ran into him on a human colony that had just been abducted by the collectors, not long before we left for Illium to track you down.”

“You two were close, I take it?”

Biting at her lip, Mari nods.

There’s an odd light that gleams in Thane’s eyes that she can’t pin down for the life of her, whether it’s her usual emotional ineptitude, or it’s something about drell.