Post by iamseph on Jul 4, 2012 10:12:50 GMT 1
I don't think I even need to look at any other fic to know that others have written their own wrap-ups So no points for originality.
I ran out of steam near the end and it started turning into a script rather than a story. I don't know if I'll ever finish it off. The Extended Cut does not play nice with this writing, and I'm not sure if I care to revise it.
This is about Kerrigan Shepard, my Renegade Vanguard. She's one of the two Shepards I've played all the way from ME to ME3.
Reviews page
Revised 07/07/12
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"You're not taking me?" Liara exclaimed.
"No... I can't." Kerrigan Shepard stared down at the ground beside the Mako. Ashley, James and EDI talked amongst themselves nearby.
"But... why? I've always been on the team, ever since we met. You're leaving me behind now, of all times?"
Kerrigan shook her head as she struggled to find the words. She glanced up into the distance at the column of light that marked the end of their journey, a welcome distraction. The horizon of Earth had been forever changed by the Reapers landing. It was hardly recognisable as the same planet she had left behind to unite the galaxy. It felt like it had been so long ago.
"Are you going to answer me?!" Liara demanded, frustrated by the silence. She had never seen Kerrigan hesitate for so long before. Kerrigan never hesitated. It had been one of the many things that had brought them together as there were no games or pretence.
"I'm keeping you safe." Kerrigan forced herself to speak, and even in the midst of her turmoil her voice came strong and focused. She was already preparing herself for the final battle.
"It's too dangerous."
Liara stared, shocked into silence by the admission. Together they had faced insane odds time and time again. From the early days of Saren to overcoming the Shadow Broker and still only minutes earlier they had faced waves of banshees and cannibals. Morinth had hardly been recognisable, but Kerrigan had been silent in the shuttle after blasting her head open leaving only a husk of flesh and Reaper wiring. Kerrigan couldn't bring herself to explain further, and they stood in total silence for many seconds. Shots and explosions formed the background noise to their final moments. Liara was first to break the silence.
"Keeping me safe?! Too dangerous!"
Kerrigan had never heard Liara shout like that before. The Asari was always so calm and controlled. Surprise alone got Kerrigan to look up and meet Liara's eyes. It didn't last. She looked back down as Liara continued.
"I was there when we fought Benezia! I was there with you fighting Saren! I was there fighting that damned Yahg! But now, in the fight that matters the most, you've lost faith in me!"
Kerrigan shook her head again and managed to find her tongue, speaking strongly but quietly.
"I'll always have faith in you. There's no-one I can rely on more. But..."
Liara holds her tongue as Kerrigan stops. She's not about to lose her temper again so soon, despite her Krogan grandfather.
"If I take you, and you die, I don't know if I'll be able to continue without you. I fight for you, so you can have a future, with me or without."
The commander took a deep breath and shook slightly as she heaved a sigh. She looked up at Liara and met her eye steadily, her expression serious again. Kerrigan could not forget what she faced: the last push, no-man's land, a suicidal charge across open ground against enemy fire. The commander was getting her game face on; she couldn't afford to let her feelings surface in full.
"I don't expect to survive this. I need to know you're safe."
The anger drained from Liara at Kerrigan's words. She stepped closer and took Shepard's hands in hers. Liara's gloves and Shepard's armoured gauntlets did not leave much room for intimacy, but it was there nonetheless as Liara looked into the commander's eyes. Softly she spoke, back in her normal soothing tone.
"How is this any different from every other time we've gone together to our doom? You watch my back and I watch yours, and we survive together."
Though her expression remained steady, Kerrigan's hands wrapped around Liara's as she stoically treasured the last few moments of closeness.
"I've always known that I would survive before, I knew I could overcome whatever I faced. But not this time. I need to know that, even if I fall, you'll be alive. You can take the Normandy, fly away to deep space, and live in peace away from all this like we talked about."
As Kerrigan talked about what she thought was coming it brought tears to Liara's eyes. She moved closer still and brought Kerrigan into an embrace, so she could whisper her answer into her partner's ear.
"I already mourned your death once, don't you dare make me go through that again. I love you."
The commander nodded faintly. As she often did in times of intense emotion, she articulated herself poorly with a tasteless joke.
"I don't really want to die again either."
Kerrigan had to stop there; she had to break away from Liara before her feelings became too prominent. She pulled out of the embrace, her expression cold. She couldn't think of the Krogan she had betrayed and given false hope of a cure to, or the Geth she had annihilated, or the Rachni she had exterminated. She couldn't think of her last night with Liara, or their playful talk of little blue babies. She couldn't think of Liara's tears. There was no more time for anything but the fight. Liara looked confused as her fingers trailed over Kerrigan's when the commander placed the distance between them.
"I have to go. It's time to save the galaxy."
Liara wanted to speak, to scream, to cry out. But she had touched minds with the commander; she knew Kerrigan was doing what she had to do to face the battlefield with a clear mind. Liara knew that no-one but her had seen Kerrigan's soft side and it was the only way Kerrigan could lead. She nodded and let Kerrigan move away, then turned away and wiped the tears from her eyes as she returned to the shuttle. Kerrigan watched her go for a second, fighting the urge to run after her and hold her again, but turned back to the others.
"Ash! James! Gear up, we're moving out!" Kerrigan barked orders at them. She double-checked that her shotgun was ready and flexed her mind by knocking apart a pile of rubble with a biotic shockwave. The three of them boarded the vehicle, and the final rush began.
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Amidst the smoking remnants of the citadel, Kerrigan's battered body lay. Her armour had been blasted open in places, fused to her flesh in others, and cuts and bruises riddled her body. Blood was spattered all over her and a lot of it was hers. The Reapers were no different to the Geth - someone made them, and they had been destroying the potential creators. She had not hesitated to destroy them, and damned the consequences. Maybe life would repeat the mistakes of the past again, but she'd be damned if anyone was going to make that choice for them.
An Alliance shuttle slowly picked its way across the remnants of the citadel, looking for signs of life or activity of which of were neither. Shepard's transponder had failed; such was the damage her armour had suffered. They were looking for a single body in a colossal city filled with corpses. Shepard's last known location before the explosion was the only clue they had, and the only reason they had any chance of finding her.
The blue shuttle slowly hovered over the surface of the wreckage, the searchlight scanning for signs of life. The light moved back and forth. Occasionally it caught a bright spot that caused it to go back and search again, but there was so much devastation that it seemed hopeless. The crew could hardly tell the difference between twisted and broken metal and twisted and broken body armour. Suddenly the shuttle stopped and the searchlight steadied over the N7 that adorned Shepards armour, which had somehow been unscathed by the explosions. The passenger didn't wait for the pilot to confirm it; she opened the passenger compartment and jumped out. Rather than relying on the clumsy suit thrusters to move, Liara controlled her descent with a mass effect field.
"Shepard!" She breathed the word softly as her feet touched down next to the commander.
"Goddess, no! Not again!"
Liara knelt over the battered body, bringing her face close to Kerrigan's. The commander was pale, cold to the touch, and blood had dried around her mouth and nose. The beating she had suffered in saving the galaxy had not been gentle, nor had the explosions that spelled her last moments.
"Huhh..." It was a quiet noise as Kerrigan drew breath. She only knew pain, pain and... Liara's voice came through it all.
"Lehh..."
She couldn't even muster the strength to speak, open her eyes or move her body. Every breath was torture. She couldn't tell how many ribs were broken and at least one lung was ruptured. She'd been injured in all those ways and more before, but not all at the same time.
Kerrigan just focused on Liara's voice and breathing, she fought for every breath so she could keep hearing Liara. She'd lain there feeling herself slowly die. The commander had been ready to give up and fade away any second, but knowing Liara was alive and had come for her brought her back from the brink.
"Come on Shepard, you're not dying on me now!"
Liara had to create another mass effect field to extract the commander from the wreckage. She twisted broken metal away from where it curled around the ravaged body. It was a great struggle, as Liara fought back her tears, to support the body and move it into the shuttle. Disrupted from a delicate equilibrium by their movement, the wreckage began to crumble around them.
"Back to Earth! Now! She's still alive!"
As the shuttle started back on the long journey to Earth, Liara attended as best she could to the commander's wounds. It wasn't a med bay, but Liara did what she could to treat the burns and cuts with medi-gel and stop any more bleeding. It wasn't much, but it kept Kerrigan stable for long enough to get to a surgical team.
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Nothing but a grey haze. Noise. Movement.
"She's waking up! What's going on?" An unfamiliar voice said.
Colours started to come, noise became more distinct and then the pain hit. Pain. Only pain.
"I thought you had her under!" A second voice objected.
Pain.
"No-one should be awake under these sedatives!"
Nothing but pain.
"Increase the dosage, it's too early!"
Constant, excruciating, overwhelming agony. Everything burned! Everything hurt!
"Do it!"
Pain. Pain. The grey haze returned, noise faded away. Liara. Silence. Nothing.
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The nothingness parted leaving the haze and the vague noise again. Light and colour slowly came into focus. Lots of white, and something blue.
"Liara?" Shepard croaked, it hurt to speak and she wasn't even sure she had made more than a grunt.
"Take it easy, Shepard. Don't try to move. You were terribly hurt."
No, not Liara. Blue? Female? Of course...
"Ash?"
Shapes became more distinct, the world started to come into focus. Ashley in her black and blue casuals. It was a hospital, there were beeping machines hooked up to the commander.
"You did it, you stopped the Reapers. It's all over, the husks just... stopped at the same time as the Reapers. We've been trying to rebuild since."
Kerrigan tried to move, she distantly felt her fingers twitch. No, that wasn't enough for her. She grimaced as she balled her fists and forced herself to sit upright.
"Stop it, Shepard! You'll only hurt yourself!" Ashley moved forwards and placed a hand on the commander's shoulder to stop her getting up further.
"They'll restrain you if they have to, just lie back and rest."
She tried to fight Ashley's hand, but was still too weak and had to settle back in the bed.
"Okay, okay, I'll stop." Kerrigan croaked and did her best to look around the room slowly.
"Where's Liara? Did anyone else survive?"
Ashley patted Kerrigan's hand and offered a pained smiled down at her.
"Vega didn't make it." Ash closed her eyes for a moment, trying to block out the image of James' body evaporating.
"EDI... she was disabled with the Reapers. Grunt, Jack and Jacob have been by. We've been taking it in turns watching over you while we work, but Liara hasn't left the hospital. She's been working whenever she hasn't been sleeping or sitting with you. I'll get her."
Grunt... the betrayed Krogan. Kerrigan closed her eyes and lay back while Ash left the room. It didn't seem like Wrex had been thinking clearly enough to tell anyone about her betrayal before he confronted her on the Citadel. It had been fortunate that he had let his anger overcome him and just stormed in with a gun. Jacob had been guarding ex-Cerberus scientists that had taken part in experiments torturing their own family members and who knew what else, Kerrigan wasn't sure how she felt about that. Jack, for all of her dark past, was the only one of them Kerrigan wanted to see again. But at long last, the war was over. That meant a time was coming when Kerrigan would have to face the consequences of all of her decisions.
The door opened again and Liara stepped in, and Kerrigan had to push aside her thoughts to meet the Asari with a smile. Seeing Kerrigan awake, Liara hurried to her side and wrapped her hands around Kerrigan's.
"Shepard! You're awake!"
"Liara, I..." But there were no words she could muster to explain her distress. There was only one thing she wanted.
"Hold me."
Liara was taken aback for the moment at the simple vulnerability of Kerrigan's words, so out of place from the woman that had united the galaxy and fearlessly faced suicidal odds again and again, but she was not going to refuse. She leant down to Kerrigan, taking great care not disturb any of the tubes or wires attached to her or to press too hard against her injuries. Kerrigan struggled to put one arm around Liara and fought back a grimace, but was glad to have Liara so close while the Asari rested her head against the Human's shoulder. For the first time in what felt like her whole life, Kerrigan could rest and just enjoy the comfort with no impending doom hanging over her head.
With a struggle, Kerrigan tilted her head down to brush her lips against the Asari's head-tentacles. They'd only spent two nights together since they first met. Kerrigan had let her life become so consumed fighting the Reapers that it didn't seem like she had anything left to do... except Liara. She kissed the spotted blue tentacle and leant back again.
"I'm going to go crazy while I wait to heal." She said in a low coarse voice, the best she could muster in her battered state, and smirked.
It wasn't much of a hint, but Liara was thinking the same thing so picked up on it quickly. As she moved back off of Kerrigan she smiled down at her.
"Yes, and you'll take longer to heal if you don't take it easy. I don't think either of us wants that."
Kerrigan smiled back, holding Liara's hand in hers.
"Okay, taking it easy, I'll see if I can remember how to do that. How's..."
Kerrigan stopped at the magnitude of what she was thinking. It was such a big question to ask, from one small human on a little planet around a weak sun.
"How's the galaxy?"
Liara shook her head and gave an exasperated chuckle.
"I'll tell you, but promise you won’t get up and fix everything once I've told you."
Kerrigan shook her head as much as she could do comfortably and smirked.
"Promise. The galaxy can look after itself without me for now, but I can still keep up to date can't I?"
"The mass relays were destroyed, it's changed everything. Fortunately my network is still functioning, so I can keep in touch with the rest of the galaxy, but for now interstellar travel is going to be a slow and expensive process. Planets reliant on interstellar trade have been struggling to become independent. Palavern and Illium are much like Earth, ravaged but fighting to stay alive."
"The Normandy crashed after the destruction; Joker wasn't ready to handle flying the ship alone without EDI managing all the small details. I think he... had become reliant on her, but none of us really realised how much she did to keep the ship flying straight. He's been taking it badly. They lost a week getting the ship back into flying shape before they could lift off and return to Sol."
Kerrigan squeezed Liara's hand and frowned, concerned suddenly.
"How long was I out?"
"Two weeks. I... didn't exactly do what you told me. I stayed on Earth with a shuttle, rather than returning to the Normandy. I got you out of the wreckage of the Citadel and brought you back here as soon as I could. Oh goddess... when I found you, you looked dead."
Kerrigan grimaced as Liara squeezed her hand a bit too tightly, Liara noticed and released quickly. "Sorry."
"I think I can forgive you. How bad was it... is it?" Kerrigan asked. She hadn't seen the extent of her injuries beyond knowing she was wrapped in a lot of bandages.
"You lost a lot of skin to burns; the grafts that were grown for you will take time to heal fully. The surgeons had to remove a lot of your cybernetics that had stopped working too, so your body needs to recover from that. You had eighteen broken bones and countless lacerations and internal injuries."
Kerrigan frowned, it hadn't been all at once but she had recovered from that many injuries in a week before. Liara gave an apologetic shrug.
"Supplies are scarce. We're relying on natural healing a lot more than usual, or you would have been up and about already. You're going to be here for a while, but we'll get you up and active for physical therapy as soon as possible."
Kerrigan groaned. She was frustrated as much by the slow healing process and thought of physical therapy as much as by not being able to get out and be active.
"I'm going to need to work out a lot after I've healed to get back in fighting shape. I have some ideas how you can help me with that."
Liara chuckled and shook her head.
"You've got a lot of time to work on those ideas. I'll look forward to seeing you put them into action when you're able."
Her coy smile faded away as Liara looked back out the door.
"I've been coordinating events around the galaxy, trying to keep order with the Alliance practically wiped out. I... need to get back to work. Aria has been trying to start her own queendom after she escaped the Citadel."
"Its okay; if you work in here it might keep me tearing myself out of bed from boredom." Kerrigan answered hopefully, eager to keep Liara's company even if she was preoccupied being the Shadow Broker.
"Make sure Aria knows I'm still around. It might stop her getting too carried away if she knows I'm watching her."
Liara smirked, but shook her head.
"Maybe. Or maybe she will try to finish you off when she finds out the state you're in, to secure her own future. She's ambitious and cunning enough to try it."
They continued talking softly, in between Liara having conversations with her agents throughout the galaxy. Shepard eventually fell back to sleep from the effort in her worn state.
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"Hey, Shep, you awake?"
Not many people called her that, and not many people would wake up someone who had almost died from their injuries so irreverently.
"Jack. I am, now." Kerrigan answered with her annoyance very clear in her tone. Her voice was rough but a lot better than when she had first woken up.
"Yeah yeah, I woke you up while you're half-dead, get the fuck over it."
Kerrigan opened her eyes at Jack's bluntness and half-rose up in the bed to glare at her. Then she remembered what she had told Jack a long time ago, to get the fuck over her own issues.
"Guess I had that coming."
"You bet."
"Still not a fan of the 'girls club' we had going on, huh?"
"Shit! You even remember that? Guess we both affected each other, then. Fuck me..."
"That was the plan." Kerrigan shot back, finding out if she could shock Jack for a change.
"No-one gets... wait. What?"
Jack was surprised for only an instant before she laughed and continued. It was an effort on her part not to playfully shove Shepard, which would probably have broken something.
"I fucking knew it! Sorry Shep, been there, done that, got the tat. It's not for me."
"Probably for the best, we'd have ripped a hole in the hull between our biotics."
"Yeah, you're almost as powerful as I am. So it's all girls huh, not just blue ones?"
Kerrigan wondered for a moment which of them really was more powerful. In a sense, she hoped they would never know, as that would mean they had gone head-to-head and one of them was dead.
"Not all, but they don't have to be blue. What is it with my Yeomen being all over me? Kelly, then Samantha."
Jack showed no intent of toning down her caustic sense of humour as she grinned and replied.
"I guess you're every dyke's dream girl, huh? So I gotta ask, you never made a move on me... or Kelly, even when your blue bitch was out of the picture. Why not?"
"That sounds like a 'girls club' question to me." Kerrigan answered, for once actually annoyed at Jack's characteristic bluntness.
"If you don't like the fucking question, just say so, don't fuck about."
"Fair enough. I guess I loved her even then."
"Guess so." Was the glib response from Jack.
"That's all you're going to say?"
"Yep."
Silence fell and Kerrigan considered the void of words that Jack wasn't saying. Love, or even a relationship lasting more than minutes, did not seem like something Jack was interested in knowing. But with her students the convict had shown a small but noticeable change.
Whatever the future held it was obvious that Jack had no plans to open up to Kerrigan, of all people, any time soon. Kerrigan chose a less revealing subject.
"So which one is that tat? Is it somewhere fitting?"
"You still want to get me naked, huh? Sorry, that one's out in the open."
Jack took off her jacket and demonstrated one of the tattoos on her arm. Kerrigan suspected Jack had only started wearing more because of Alliance regs, as Jack showed just as little self-consciousness as she ever had about standing there half-naked.
Part of talking to Jack always made Kerrigan relax, as long as she could put up with the insulting use of words. There was really nothing she could say that Jack would have a problem with, which made conversation surprisingly easy.
"I used to think about exploring all of them and getting to know all their stories. For good or bad."
The last part was added as an afterthought, Kerrigan knew there would be tattoos on the living canvas what was Jack's skin that were about traumatic or unpleasant events. Jack wasn't someone who would or even could just hide from the bad things in her life. As she thought about all the things she didn't know about Jack yet, her eyes roved over Jack's body trying to take in every shape and picture. Kerrigan was snapped out of her thoughts with with one word from Jack.
"Kinky."
Kerrigan looked up and laughed as much as she was able, which still hurt like hell.
"So what are you up to now? The war is over and we're both just soldiers."
"I'm not just a soldier now, thanks to you. My kids still need to be kicked into line. I was looking forward to beating the living shit out of some Cerberus fucks once we were done with the Reapers. But they all seem to be dead too."
"That makes sense, they were practically husks. So what are you going to fight instead?"
"Now that's the big question! We got me and my kids, and we can take down pretty much anything between us, and we got nothing to kill. I'm getting antsy; sitting on my ass just teaching all the time, don't know how long I can stick at it."
"It's only a matter of time before another war breaks out. Now the Reapers are gone, there will be a lot of people trying to take advantage of the weakened militaries to seize power."
"You're right! We could start a war!"
Jack kept a straight face for a few seconds as Kerrigan tried to work out what to do about that. Just as Kerrigan was about to try and give a reason not to, Jack cracked a grin and laughed.
"I'm just fucking with you! Had you going there, though. I'll keep them drilling, they wont go soft on me. It'll keep me occupied, for now."
Jack smirked, but looked ambivalent. She didn't really know how long she could go without a bit more conflict.
Kerrigan was getting tired. She was still only partially recovered and even the conversation was hard work. In recognition of the straightforward way she could speak with Jack, Kerrigan didn't waste time being subtle.
"I need to rest."
After a moment Jack just nodded and put her jacket back on.
"Get better soon. Life is a lot more fun with you up and about."
"Yeah, I'll get right on that." Kerrigan answered sarcastically, as if she were able to just heal faster.
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More scenes:
Joker
Grunt
Fallout from Geth being destroyed, Krogan being betrayed
A bit of gunplay
I ran out of steam near the end and it started turning into a script rather than a story. I don't know if I'll ever finish it off. The Extended Cut does not play nice with this writing, and I'm not sure if I care to revise it.
This is about Kerrigan Shepard, my Renegade Vanguard. She's one of the two Shepards I've played all the way from ME to ME3.
Reviews page
Revised 07/07/12
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"You're not taking me?" Liara exclaimed.
"No... I can't." Kerrigan Shepard stared down at the ground beside the Mako. Ashley, James and EDI talked amongst themselves nearby.
"But... why? I've always been on the team, ever since we met. You're leaving me behind now, of all times?"
Kerrigan shook her head as she struggled to find the words. She glanced up into the distance at the column of light that marked the end of their journey, a welcome distraction. The horizon of Earth had been forever changed by the Reapers landing. It was hardly recognisable as the same planet she had left behind to unite the galaxy. It felt like it had been so long ago.
"Are you going to answer me?!" Liara demanded, frustrated by the silence. She had never seen Kerrigan hesitate for so long before. Kerrigan never hesitated. It had been one of the many things that had brought them together as there were no games or pretence.
"I'm keeping you safe." Kerrigan forced herself to speak, and even in the midst of her turmoil her voice came strong and focused. She was already preparing herself for the final battle.
"It's too dangerous."
Liara stared, shocked into silence by the admission. Together they had faced insane odds time and time again. From the early days of Saren to overcoming the Shadow Broker and still only minutes earlier they had faced waves of banshees and cannibals. Morinth had hardly been recognisable, but Kerrigan had been silent in the shuttle after blasting her head open leaving only a husk of flesh and Reaper wiring. Kerrigan couldn't bring herself to explain further, and they stood in total silence for many seconds. Shots and explosions formed the background noise to their final moments. Liara was first to break the silence.
"Keeping me safe?! Too dangerous!"
Kerrigan had never heard Liara shout like that before. The Asari was always so calm and controlled. Surprise alone got Kerrigan to look up and meet Liara's eyes. It didn't last. She looked back down as Liara continued.
"I was there when we fought Benezia! I was there with you fighting Saren! I was there fighting that damned Yahg! But now, in the fight that matters the most, you've lost faith in me!"
Kerrigan shook her head again and managed to find her tongue, speaking strongly but quietly.
"I'll always have faith in you. There's no-one I can rely on more. But..."
Liara holds her tongue as Kerrigan stops. She's not about to lose her temper again so soon, despite her Krogan grandfather.
"If I take you, and you die, I don't know if I'll be able to continue without you. I fight for you, so you can have a future, with me or without."
The commander took a deep breath and shook slightly as she heaved a sigh. She looked up at Liara and met her eye steadily, her expression serious again. Kerrigan could not forget what she faced: the last push, no-man's land, a suicidal charge across open ground against enemy fire. The commander was getting her game face on; she couldn't afford to let her feelings surface in full.
"I don't expect to survive this. I need to know you're safe."
The anger drained from Liara at Kerrigan's words. She stepped closer and took Shepard's hands in hers. Liara's gloves and Shepard's armoured gauntlets did not leave much room for intimacy, but it was there nonetheless as Liara looked into the commander's eyes. Softly she spoke, back in her normal soothing tone.
"How is this any different from every other time we've gone together to our doom? You watch my back and I watch yours, and we survive together."
Though her expression remained steady, Kerrigan's hands wrapped around Liara's as she stoically treasured the last few moments of closeness.
"I've always known that I would survive before, I knew I could overcome whatever I faced. But not this time. I need to know that, even if I fall, you'll be alive. You can take the Normandy, fly away to deep space, and live in peace away from all this like we talked about."
As Kerrigan talked about what she thought was coming it brought tears to Liara's eyes. She moved closer still and brought Kerrigan into an embrace, so she could whisper her answer into her partner's ear.
"I already mourned your death once, don't you dare make me go through that again. I love you."
The commander nodded faintly. As she often did in times of intense emotion, she articulated herself poorly with a tasteless joke.
"I don't really want to die again either."
Kerrigan had to stop there; she had to break away from Liara before her feelings became too prominent. She pulled out of the embrace, her expression cold. She couldn't think of the Krogan she had betrayed and given false hope of a cure to, or the Geth she had annihilated, or the Rachni she had exterminated. She couldn't think of her last night with Liara, or their playful talk of little blue babies. She couldn't think of Liara's tears. There was no more time for anything but the fight. Liara looked confused as her fingers trailed over Kerrigan's when the commander placed the distance between them.
"I have to go. It's time to save the galaxy."
Liara wanted to speak, to scream, to cry out. But she had touched minds with the commander; she knew Kerrigan was doing what she had to do to face the battlefield with a clear mind. Liara knew that no-one but her had seen Kerrigan's soft side and it was the only way Kerrigan could lead. She nodded and let Kerrigan move away, then turned away and wiped the tears from her eyes as she returned to the shuttle. Kerrigan watched her go for a second, fighting the urge to run after her and hold her again, but turned back to the others.
"Ash! James! Gear up, we're moving out!" Kerrigan barked orders at them. She double-checked that her shotgun was ready and flexed her mind by knocking apart a pile of rubble with a biotic shockwave. The three of them boarded the vehicle, and the final rush began.
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Amidst the smoking remnants of the citadel, Kerrigan's battered body lay. Her armour had been blasted open in places, fused to her flesh in others, and cuts and bruises riddled her body. Blood was spattered all over her and a lot of it was hers. The Reapers were no different to the Geth - someone made them, and they had been destroying the potential creators. She had not hesitated to destroy them, and damned the consequences. Maybe life would repeat the mistakes of the past again, but she'd be damned if anyone was going to make that choice for them.
An Alliance shuttle slowly picked its way across the remnants of the citadel, looking for signs of life or activity of which of were neither. Shepard's transponder had failed; such was the damage her armour had suffered. They were looking for a single body in a colossal city filled with corpses. Shepard's last known location before the explosion was the only clue they had, and the only reason they had any chance of finding her.
The blue shuttle slowly hovered over the surface of the wreckage, the searchlight scanning for signs of life. The light moved back and forth. Occasionally it caught a bright spot that caused it to go back and search again, but there was so much devastation that it seemed hopeless. The crew could hardly tell the difference between twisted and broken metal and twisted and broken body armour. Suddenly the shuttle stopped and the searchlight steadied over the N7 that adorned Shepards armour, which had somehow been unscathed by the explosions. The passenger didn't wait for the pilot to confirm it; she opened the passenger compartment and jumped out. Rather than relying on the clumsy suit thrusters to move, Liara controlled her descent with a mass effect field.
"Shepard!" She breathed the word softly as her feet touched down next to the commander.
"Goddess, no! Not again!"
Liara knelt over the battered body, bringing her face close to Kerrigan's. The commander was pale, cold to the touch, and blood had dried around her mouth and nose. The beating she had suffered in saving the galaxy had not been gentle, nor had the explosions that spelled her last moments.
"Huhh..." It was a quiet noise as Kerrigan drew breath. She only knew pain, pain and... Liara's voice came through it all.
"Lehh..."
She couldn't even muster the strength to speak, open her eyes or move her body. Every breath was torture. She couldn't tell how many ribs were broken and at least one lung was ruptured. She'd been injured in all those ways and more before, but not all at the same time.
Kerrigan just focused on Liara's voice and breathing, she fought for every breath so she could keep hearing Liara. She'd lain there feeling herself slowly die. The commander had been ready to give up and fade away any second, but knowing Liara was alive and had come for her brought her back from the brink.
"Come on Shepard, you're not dying on me now!"
Liara had to create another mass effect field to extract the commander from the wreckage. She twisted broken metal away from where it curled around the ravaged body. It was a great struggle, as Liara fought back her tears, to support the body and move it into the shuttle. Disrupted from a delicate equilibrium by their movement, the wreckage began to crumble around them.
"Back to Earth! Now! She's still alive!"
As the shuttle started back on the long journey to Earth, Liara attended as best she could to the commander's wounds. It wasn't a med bay, but Liara did what she could to treat the burns and cuts with medi-gel and stop any more bleeding. It wasn't much, but it kept Kerrigan stable for long enough to get to a surgical team.
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Nothing but a grey haze. Noise. Movement.
"She's waking up! What's going on?" An unfamiliar voice said.
Colours started to come, noise became more distinct and then the pain hit. Pain. Only pain.
"I thought you had her under!" A second voice objected.
Pain.
"No-one should be awake under these sedatives!"
Nothing but pain.
"Increase the dosage, it's too early!"
Constant, excruciating, overwhelming agony. Everything burned! Everything hurt!
"Do it!"
Pain. Pain. The grey haze returned, noise faded away. Liara. Silence. Nothing.
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The nothingness parted leaving the haze and the vague noise again. Light and colour slowly came into focus. Lots of white, and something blue.
"Liara?" Shepard croaked, it hurt to speak and she wasn't even sure she had made more than a grunt.
"Take it easy, Shepard. Don't try to move. You were terribly hurt."
No, not Liara. Blue? Female? Of course...
"Ash?"
Shapes became more distinct, the world started to come into focus. Ashley in her black and blue casuals. It was a hospital, there were beeping machines hooked up to the commander.
"You did it, you stopped the Reapers. It's all over, the husks just... stopped at the same time as the Reapers. We've been trying to rebuild since."
Kerrigan tried to move, she distantly felt her fingers twitch. No, that wasn't enough for her. She grimaced as she balled her fists and forced herself to sit upright.
"Stop it, Shepard! You'll only hurt yourself!" Ashley moved forwards and placed a hand on the commander's shoulder to stop her getting up further.
"They'll restrain you if they have to, just lie back and rest."
She tried to fight Ashley's hand, but was still too weak and had to settle back in the bed.
"Okay, okay, I'll stop." Kerrigan croaked and did her best to look around the room slowly.
"Where's Liara? Did anyone else survive?"
Ashley patted Kerrigan's hand and offered a pained smiled down at her.
"Vega didn't make it." Ash closed her eyes for a moment, trying to block out the image of James' body evaporating.
"EDI... she was disabled with the Reapers. Grunt, Jack and Jacob have been by. We've been taking it in turns watching over you while we work, but Liara hasn't left the hospital. She's been working whenever she hasn't been sleeping or sitting with you. I'll get her."
Grunt... the betrayed Krogan. Kerrigan closed her eyes and lay back while Ash left the room. It didn't seem like Wrex had been thinking clearly enough to tell anyone about her betrayal before he confronted her on the Citadel. It had been fortunate that he had let his anger overcome him and just stormed in with a gun. Jacob had been guarding ex-Cerberus scientists that had taken part in experiments torturing their own family members and who knew what else, Kerrigan wasn't sure how she felt about that. Jack, for all of her dark past, was the only one of them Kerrigan wanted to see again. But at long last, the war was over. That meant a time was coming when Kerrigan would have to face the consequences of all of her decisions.
The door opened again and Liara stepped in, and Kerrigan had to push aside her thoughts to meet the Asari with a smile. Seeing Kerrigan awake, Liara hurried to her side and wrapped her hands around Kerrigan's.
"Shepard! You're awake!"
"Liara, I..." But there were no words she could muster to explain her distress. There was only one thing she wanted.
"Hold me."
Liara was taken aback for the moment at the simple vulnerability of Kerrigan's words, so out of place from the woman that had united the galaxy and fearlessly faced suicidal odds again and again, but she was not going to refuse. She leant down to Kerrigan, taking great care not disturb any of the tubes or wires attached to her or to press too hard against her injuries. Kerrigan struggled to put one arm around Liara and fought back a grimace, but was glad to have Liara so close while the Asari rested her head against the Human's shoulder. For the first time in what felt like her whole life, Kerrigan could rest and just enjoy the comfort with no impending doom hanging over her head.
With a struggle, Kerrigan tilted her head down to brush her lips against the Asari's head-tentacles. They'd only spent two nights together since they first met. Kerrigan had let her life become so consumed fighting the Reapers that it didn't seem like she had anything left to do... except Liara. She kissed the spotted blue tentacle and leant back again.
"I'm going to go crazy while I wait to heal." She said in a low coarse voice, the best she could muster in her battered state, and smirked.
It wasn't much of a hint, but Liara was thinking the same thing so picked up on it quickly. As she moved back off of Kerrigan she smiled down at her.
"Yes, and you'll take longer to heal if you don't take it easy. I don't think either of us wants that."
Kerrigan smiled back, holding Liara's hand in hers.
"Okay, taking it easy, I'll see if I can remember how to do that. How's..."
Kerrigan stopped at the magnitude of what she was thinking. It was such a big question to ask, from one small human on a little planet around a weak sun.
"How's the galaxy?"
Liara shook her head and gave an exasperated chuckle.
"I'll tell you, but promise you won’t get up and fix everything once I've told you."
Kerrigan shook her head as much as she could do comfortably and smirked.
"Promise. The galaxy can look after itself without me for now, but I can still keep up to date can't I?"
"The mass relays were destroyed, it's changed everything. Fortunately my network is still functioning, so I can keep in touch with the rest of the galaxy, but for now interstellar travel is going to be a slow and expensive process. Planets reliant on interstellar trade have been struggling to become independent. Palavern and Illium are much like Earth, ravaged but fighting to stay alive."
"The Normandy crashed after the destruction; Joker wasn't ready to handle flying the ship alone without EDI managing all the small details. I think he... had become reliant on her, but none of us really realised how much she did to keep the ship flying straight. He's been taking it badly. They lost a week getting the ship back into flying shape before they could lift off and return to Sol."
Kerrigan squeezed Liara's hand and frowned, concerned suddenly.
"How long was I out?"
"Two weeks. I... didn't exactly do what you told me. I stayed on Earth with a shuttle, rather than returning to the Normandy. I got you out of the wreckage of the Citadel and brought you back here as soon as I could. Oh goddess... when I found you, you looked dead."
Kerrigan grimaced as Liara squeezed her hand a bit too tightly, Liara noticed and released quickly. "Sorry."
"I think I can forgive you. How bad was it... is it?" Kerrigan asked. She hadn't seen the extent of her injuries beyond knowing she was wrapped in a lot of bandages.
"You lost a lot of skin to burns; the grafts that were grown for you will take time to heal fully. The surgeons had to remove a lot of your cybernetics that had stopped working too, so your body needs to recover from that. You had eighteen broken bones and countless lacerations and internal injuries."
Kerrigan frowned, it hadn't been all at once but she had recovered from that many injuries in a week before. Liara gave an apologetic shrug.
"Supplies are scarce. We're relying on natural healing a lot more than usual, or you would have been up and about already. You're going to be here for a while, but we'll get you up and active for physical therapy as soon as possible."
Kerrigan groaned. She was frustrated as much by the slow healing process and thought of physical therapy as much as by not being able to get out and be active.
"I'm going to need to work out a lot after I've healed to get back in fighting shape. I have some ideas how you can help me with that."
Liara chuckled and shook her head.
"You've got a lot of time to work on those ideas. I'll look forward to seeing you put them into action when you're able."
Her coy smile faded away as Liara looked back out the door.
"I've been coordinating events around the galaxy, trying to keep order with the Alliance practically wiped out. I... need to get back to work. Aria has been trying to start her own queendom after she escaped the Citadel."
"Its okay; if you work in here it might keep me tearing myself out of bed from boredom." Kerrigan answered hopefully, eager to keep Liara's company even if she was preoccupied being the Shadow Broker.
"Make sure Aria knows I'm still around. It might stop her getting too carried away if she knows I'm watching her."
Liara smirked, but shook her head.
"Maybe. Or maybe she will try to finish you off when she finds out the state you're in, to secure her own future. She's ambitious and cunning enough to try it."
They continued talking softly, in between Liara having conversations with her agents throughout the galaxy. Shepard eventually fell back to sleep from the effort in her worn state.
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"Hey, Shep, you awake?"
Not many people called her that, and not many people would wake up someone who had almost died from their injuries so irreverently.
"Jack. I am, now." Kerrigan answered with her annoyance very clear in her tone. Her voice was rough but a lot better than when she had first woken up.
"Yeah yeah, I woke you up while you're half-dead, get the fuck over it."
Kerrigan opened her eyes at Jack's bluntness and half-rose up in the bed to glare at her. Then she remembered what she had told Jack a long time ago, to get the fuck over her own issues.
"Guess I had that coming."
"You bet."
"Still not a fan of the 'girls club' we had going on, huh?"
"Shit! You even remember that? Guess we both affected each other, then. Fuck me..."
"That was the plan." Kerrigan shot back, finding out if she could shock Jack for a change.
"No-one gets... wait. What?"
Jack was surprised for only an instant before she laughed and continued. It was an effort on her part not to playfully shove Shepard, which would probably have broken something.
"I fucking knew it! Sorry Shep, been there, done that, got the tat. It's not for me."
"Probably for the best, we'd have ripped a hole in the hull between our biotics."
"Yeah, you're almost as powerful as I am. So it's all girls huh, not just blue ones?"
Kerrigan wondered for a moment which of them really was more powerful. In a sense, she hoped they would never know, as that would mean they had gone head-to-head and one of them was dead.
"Not all, but they don't have to be blue. What is it with my Yeomen being all over me? Kelly, then Samantha."
Jack showed no intent of toning down her caustic sense of humour as she grinned and replied.
"I guess you're every dyke's dream girl, huh? So I gotta ask, you never made a move on me... or Kelly, even when your blue bitch was out of the picture. Why not?"
"That sounds like a 'girls club' question to me." Kerrigan answered, for once actually annoyed at Jack's characteristic bluntness.
"If you don't like the fucking question, just say so, don't fuck about."
"Fair enough. I guess I loved her even then."
"Guess so." Was the glib response from Jack.
"That's all you're going to say?"
"Yep."
Silence fell and Kerrigan considered the void of words that Jack wasn't saying. Love, or even a relationship lasting more than minutes, did not seem like something Jack was interested in knowing. But with her students the convict had shown a small but noticeable change.
Whatever the future held it was obvious that Jack had no plans to open up to Kerrigan, of all people, any time soon. Kerrigan chose a less revealing subject.
"So which one is that tat? Is it somewhere fitting?"
"You still want to get me naked, huh? Sorry, that one's out in the open."
Jack took off her jacket and demonstrated one of the tattoos on her arm. Kerrigan suspected Jack had only started wearing more because of Alliance regs, as Jack showed just as little self-consciousness as she ever had about standing there half-naked.
Part of talking to Jack always made Kerrigan relax, as long as she could put up with the insulting use of words. There was really nothing she could say that Jack would have a problem with, which made conversation surprisingly easy.
"I used to think about exploring all of them and getting to know all their stories. For good or bad."
The last part was added as an afterthought, Kerrigan knew there would be tattoos on the living canvas what was Jack's skin that were about traumatic or unpleasant events. Jack wasn't someone who would or even could just hide from the bad things in her life. As she thought about all the things she didn't know about Jack yet, her eyes roved over Jack's body trying to take in every shape and picture. Kerrigan was snapped out of her thoughts with with one word from Jack.
"Kinky."
Kerrigan looked up and laughed as much as she was able, which still hurt like hell.
"So what are you up to now? The war is over and we're both just soldiers."
"I'm not just a soldier now, thanks to you. My kids still need to be kicked into line. I was looking forward to beating the living shit out of some Cerberus fucks once we were done with the Reapers. But they all seem to be dead too."
"That makes sense, they were practically husks. So what are you going to fight instead?"
"Now that's the big question! We got me and my kids, and we can take down pretty much anything between us, and we got nothing to kill. I'm getting antsy; sitting on my ass just teaching all the time, don't know how long I can stick at it."
"It's only a matter of time before another war breaks out. Now the Reapers are gone, there will be a lot of people trying to take advantage of the weakened militaries to seize power."
"You're right! We could start a war!"
Jack kept a straight face for a few seconds as Kerrigan tried to work out what to do about that. Just as Kerrigan was about to try and give a reason not to, Jack cracked a grin and laughed.
"I'm just fucking with you! Had you going there, though. I'll keep them drilling, they wont go soft on me. It'll keep me occupied, for now."
Jack smirked, but looked ambivalent. She didn't really know how long she could go without a bit more conflict.
Kerrigan was getting tired. She was still only partially recovered and even the conversation was hard work. In recognition of the straightforward way she could speak with Jack, Kerrigan didn't waste time being subtle.
"I need to rest."
After a moment Jack just nodded and put her jacket back on.
"Get better soon. Life is a lot more fun with you up and about."
"Yeah, I'll get right on that." Kerrigan answered sarcastically, as if she were able to just heal faster.
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More scenes:
Joker
Grunt
Fallout from Geth being destroyed, Krogan being betrayed
A bit of gunplay