Chapter Text
Dragging, scraping. Something tugging at her ankles. Light. Impossibly bright light. Nimble tools piecing her together again. Nerves are replaced with cybernetics. Muscle and bone are mended. Her heart beats like a drum in her ears. Reminding her that she’s alive. Mocking her. There isn’t any pain, but she cries.
“Let me die!”
A voice that is both familiar and inexplicable speaks, surrounding her, enveloping her. “No; you have yet to live.”
*
She awakens in a hospital. There are tubes sticking in her arms and a hundred machines beeping around her. She tries to move, but her body screams in protest. Her legs are the worst. Wiggling her toes takes an enormous amount of effort. Everything hurts. She leans her head back against the pillow and fights off tears.
“Grab my hand!”
“And then?”
“And then you live!”
“For what?”
Why couldn’t they just let her die? Surely that would have been best; there is only room in the galaxy for one Commander Shepard. She’s learned that much. And if she can’t be Shepard, then what can she be? Just some poor fool that shares the bitch’s DNA. No one cares about her. Not even Maya. Maya, who rescued her, taught her everything, was willing to let her die like a dog.
Suddenly angry, she grabs the tubes in one of her arms and yanks them out. It takes almost all of her strength. Multiple machines begin to scream in alarm. Her arm is bleeding. She goes to do the other arm. Her head feels light. The door opens suddenly and a team of doctors and nurses rush in. They all freeze when they see her, but she doesn’t hesitate. She pulls out the last of the tubes, relishing in the pain.
“Commander, don’t!” one of the doctors yells, rushing forward.
“GET AWAY FROM ME!” she screams.
Two of the nurses – both asari – grab her arms and pin her with surprising strength. Her vision swirls. A salarian comes forward with a syringe and injects something into one of her arms. Ten seconds later, the darkness returns.
*
She wakes slowly. The machines beep in the distance, and she hears voices.
“She woke up about…eight hours ago,” someone says. “Ripped out her IVs and her sensors, started screaming at the doctors.”
“Is she alright?”
“She’s fine now. They think she was confused; probably still on battle mode.”
“Keep me updated.”
“Will do.”
The voices go silent, and she hears a soft, exhausted sigh.
She opens her eyes slowly and sees the room for the first time. There’s a large window on her left. Outside cars fly by, and she can see the Presidium. People have left flowers in her room. Lots and lots of flowers. There are teddy bears and balloons. On her right is a turian, looking at something on a tablet. It takes her a good two minutes to realize that it’s Garrus Vakarian; one of the real Shepard’s friends.
“Get out,” she hisses.
Garrus looks up at her, his mandibles flaring ever so slightly in surprise. “You’re awake.”
“What are you doing in here? Get out!” she snaps. Did she send him? Did she post someone in here to tell her when she woke?
He looks troubled. “Shepard, what’s wrong?”
Shepard.
“…Shepard?” she repeats, numbly.
“Yes,” Garrus says. He gives her a strange look. She finds it difficult to read his expressions; his alien face is nothing like a human’s.
“I’m Shepard.” The words sound robotic. It reminds her of when Maya was teaching her how to be a person: You are human. Your name is Shepard. Back then she’d parroted what she said, not fully understanding it. Now feels much the same.
Garrus leans forward. “Yes, you are; how do you feel?”
He thinks she’s Shepard. He thinks she’s Shepard. Suddenly she remembers what one of the doctors yelled when she woke up the first time.
“Commander, don’t!”
Commander. As in, Commander Shepard.
“I don’t understand,” she says. Her voice cracks. She fights to maintain control of her emotions. The Commander doesn’t cry. That’s what Maya taught her; the Commander is strong, resilient, fully capable of standing alone. But she’s not the Commander, she understands that now. She’s not anything. Why is she alive? “What is going on?”
Garrus frowns. Or she thinks it’s a frown, at least. He grabs her hand. The gesture is extremely familiar, and uncomfortable for her. His skin – if it can be called that – is hard and cool. She flinches away. He gives her another look, tilting his head slightly in confusion. “The Reapers retreated, Shepard; it’s over.”
The Reapers? The war is just…over? “They…retreated?”
“The Crucible did…something. Whatever it was, they’re not hostile anymore,” Garrus says. “Well, they haven’t been so far.”
“How long?” she asks.
He hesitates. “…you’ve been in a coma for about eight months.”
Eight months. That doesn’t- that doesn’t make sense. None of this does. How did she get here? How is she alive? What happened to the real Shepard? She starts to tell him. And as soon as she tells him they’ll toss her out. And she can try again. She can make sure no one will find her this time.
Then, she remembers the voice.
“No; you have yet to live.”
It was so…familiar. But she’d been so incoherent she wonders if she even heard it at all. Perhaps the doctors had been working to put her back together, just as Cerberus had put Shepard back together. Perhaps it was a dream. But she remembers that voice. Full of love and sympathy and warmth. Like a mother’s voice. Like what Maya seemed like when she first woke her up.
Is it possible that someone actually wants her to live? To try?
She hesitates. Garrus is looking at her expectantly. If she tells him who she actually is, they’ll just cast her out again. But if she tries to pretend to be Shepard, they’ll know. She can never fool her friends. That was the reason Cerberus threw her away; she didn’t have the original Shepard’s memories. …but what if Shepard didn’t have her memories, either?
“Who are you?” she blurts out.
Garrus blinks once, then leans back. “You don’t know who I am?”
“No,” she lies.
That look passes across his face again- she’s certain it’s a frown now. He gets up. “I…need to go tell your doctors you’re awake.”
With that he walks out. For the ten minutes he’s gone, she doesn’t think he believes her. Somehow he innately knows that she isn’t her. She’s just a copy, made only to provide the real thing with spare parts. There are surgical scars all over her to prove it. She gave the original Shepard a kidney, part of a lung, stem cells, who knows how much blood. She looks at the tubes in her arms and thinks back to her earliest memories. Knives and needles and strange masked faces.
She shudders. Yep, she’s made up her mind. She fucking hates needles.
Garrus returns with three doctors in tow. One of them is the salarian who sedated her before. He stands in the doorway with an asari – Liara – and they watch as the doctors examine her. Or, rather, bombard her with questions.
“Do you know when you were born?”
“What are your parent’s names?”
“Where were you born?”
“What year is it?”
“When did you join the Alliance?”
She doesn’t have to feign amnesia for most of these questions. Maya never bothered to tell her much about the real Shepard. She doesn’t know when she was born, or where she comes from. All Maya told her was that she was weak. She let aliens dictate what she was supposed to do when her true purpose was to serve humans. Looking back on it, she wonders how much of that was just bullshit. She realizes now that she was only a tool. Something to be used and thrown away. Just like with Cerberus.
She answers ‘I don’t know’ to every single question, and the doctors look at each other with furrowed brows. Behind them she sees Liara sigh and walk off. Garrus, however, remains. He watches her with what might just be concern.
“Let’s arrange an MRI,” the asari doctor says, looking to the other two.
“Two of you are aliens,” she says suddenly. Out of the three of them, there’s only one human. “How the hell do you two know if there’s anything wrong with me?”
They seem surprised. The salarian answers, “We’ve trained several years to understand and treat any species that comes through these doors. Don’t worry Commander; we’re certified.”
They leave. As they walk out, the asari doctor stops and asks Garrus something very quietly. He shakes his head. The asari taps something into her tablet, then walks out. He looks towards her. “Do you…um…want me to stay with you? I know you don’t know who I am but-”
“You can go,” she says.
He nods once, then leaves.
So she sits there alone, listening to the machines beep away. She stares at the window and wonders where the real Shepard is. Did she die stopping the Reapers? Or is she still out there?
I don’t care, she thinks. I’m the Commander now. It’s my turn.