Chapter Text
Her body lay in a pile of smoking rubble at the heart of the citadel. Much like before, she was adrift, left for dead, as the world scrambled to get its bearings after the destruction of the Reapers. Those who saw her alive last were dead now, Anderson and Harper, along with the heroics and martyrs who flung themselves towards the striking beam of fate beside her.
Communications were down, systems isolated, records jumbled in the chaos. Piecing together the fate of Shepard was not an easy task, though some believe she made it through the beam, most were doubtful that she survived. How exactly the Crucible wiped out the Reapers was a mystery. Shepard was once again declared MIA, and presumed by most to be dead. As the months went by, nearly everyone was certain it was true, and her legacy as a martyr, savior of the galaxy, had quickly risen to levels of worship and godhood. Religious sects began to immortalize her, some even called her the second coming of Christ.
Ridiculous, she thought.
Recovery efforts were hasty at first, manpower was devastatingly low, as the orbit of the Citadel decayed above Earth, and most relief efforts focused on stabilizing it. When her body was recovered, she was layered in pieces of mismatched hardsuits linked to different soldiers - all of them dead. When the blast hit, she crawled back into the corridor the beam had put her in, and she took from the dead. She took their vests, their helmets, their bracers and their oxygen units, and made her grave beneath the bodies. It saved her life, but only just. She was unrecognizable when they pulled her body from the rubble nearly two weeks after the blast. Her tags were missing. She was shipped down to Earth to a small relief camp outside of Brisbane and placed in a medical coma for two months. Shepard had become just one out of millions of unknown soldiers.
The damage was extensive, not only from the blast and rubble, but the non-functionality of her synthetic implants had caused brain toxicity, blood poisoning, and nerve damage. When brought from her coma, she suffered mobility issues and seizures. She could not form words for weeks. Disfigured, most of her body and face were wrapped in bandages for months. Unrecognized by staff, she was nothing more than a wounded soldier in this lonely outpost infirmary. How she was sound of mind was a mystery even to her, but her thoughts were remarkably quiet upon awakening. The world just seemed quieter, even among the chaos of the relief camp. Anything was quieter than the sound of that laser beam she lept into, boring in her mind when she closed her eyes. It was surreal, living after deciding the fate of the galaxy. She didn’t feel like the same person, like the real Shepard ended with the blast. Sometimes she wondered if she had died on the citadel and just didn’t know it yet. When prompted for her name and rank, she feigned amnesia. She didn’t know why she did it, but anonymity was something she hadn’t experienced since she roamed the streets of York as a teen. Just another disabled combat vet, one of thousands in the tiny camp, one of millions on the planet. Eventually, she took an identity to avoid suspicion, the name of someone she knew to be dead. Chambers. That ought to keep the rumors at bay for now, until they are able to pull Kelly’s records.
Guided on all sides by attentive nurses, she struggled to hobble across the floor and lift fifteen pounds as part of her daily physical therapy. She quickly learned that she would never be fit for duty again, but this was a reality that she only knew in the form of words on discharge papers, and she could not accept the true weight of these facts. She never would.
The day came when she could walk on her own, a slow shuffle at first, strengthening to a brisk step after nine months in the hospital. Regenerative nerve therapies were expensive, but the Alliance waived all fees for duty personnel at the final assault on Earth and the Citadel. As she healed and the bandages came off, the staff began to recognize her, and she knew her time in anonymity was running short. Whispers of Shepard were heard in the halls. Some became quiet when they saw her pass by. It had never occurred to her to look into a mirror, and she wondered if she would recognize the Shepard everyone else saw.
For the first time since her enlistment, her hair had grown out. It started creeping on the nape of her neck, and she could just hook it around her ears. Her bangs curled on her forehead just above her brows. The breeze of the AC tousled it, and the feeling carried a strange vulnerability with it. She had not stopped to feel sensations of being alive in a very long time. The only thought in her mind was that a pressure suit mask would not be able to seal over the fringe – and that it could be leveraged against her in a fight. Not optimal. The day she rose from the filth of the megalopolis underbelly and enlisted into the Alliance, the day the corpsman shaved her hair to the scalp, was the day she became a person. She kept the same buzz ever since. Not even during SERE training did she let it grow beyond the length of a high-and-tight, and she became adept with a blade to give her fellow Marines a shave as well. Shepard the Barber had a table open for anyone looking to clean up on those long deployments, as long as you had spare credits or that chocolate part of an MRE to trade. Team-bonding activities, she called it. Keeping it clean also increased morale. More than anything, letting your CO put a knife to your neck, balls-deep in an alien wasteland while everyone is strung out on go-pills, showed a trust of confidence. She could take care of her team, even when knee-deep in the shit.
But there was no team, now. No fights left to survive. No pressure suits. No switchblade on her person, not even a uniform. No identity. She was only a woman in a white gown with shaggy red hair, a fake name, and wild eyes. And a shiny bionic leg thrifted from the plentiful and unfortunate dead.
The hair was darker than she remembered. She was certain she was once a fiery youth with bright hair, not this depressed auburn flop. The color ran cold and darker than blood. Perhaps it was her age. Then again, everything seemed brighter before her N7 days. The memories wore a soft glimmer that only nostalgic eyes could give. The stark whiteness of the lamp highlighted the ugliest parts of her, things she wished not to see. But she couldn’t remember the last time she stopped to look in a mirror. The cabin lighting was always dim.
Did I always look like this?
The quiet of her mind began to slip away as memories stirred on the back of her eyelids. She was certain she had died on the Citadel, for when the blackness overtook her, Thane came to her, beautiful Thane, just as he promised he would. The pain she felt when he passed had never fully healed, for there was no time for healing. Nothing could fill the void of that tragic love. She felt a strange sense of envy for him, for he passed before the end of all things. More so, death is peaceful.
When she slept, a beautiful dream came back to her. Liara. And then Kaidan. And the rest of them. How it would break her spirit to know their fates, so she did not inquire. She was more than apathetic. She was empty, and she could not figure out why. She had accomplished the impossible, by all rights she achieved her destiny, and saved the galaxy. And yet, she was filled with a profound sadness. It was normal to feel a bit down after the closing of a long adventure, but it went beyond that. This was not bittersweet. This was tumultuous sadness, turbulent and uncomfortable, like cold ocean water in her stomach. She could only make sense of one emotion - that she should have died on the Citadel.