Chapter Text
Prologue
A gray-haired man dressed in a white lab coat walked into an enormous room in the very core of a hidden research facility. He looked up on a construction in the very middle of this room built from crescent metal bars wired together to form a circle approximately fifteen meters in diameter. Several large tubes connected to three support beams were glowing in a dim light, pumping element zero to the basis of the entire construction.
In the very middle of the mechanism was a naked asari, held in a mass effect stasis field, helpless. She raised her head to glare at the gray-haired man, her eyes filled with pain and anguish, but there wasn't anything threatening in them. It was a look of a person begging for death.
The man in the lab coat ignored her.
TiDES was the proud name of the entire mechanism. Not everyone working on its construction knew the meaning of that abbreviation, but they didn't question it. The gray-haired man on the other hand, knew what the machine was supposed to do, he had been in the lead of its development from the very beginning, for four long years since the blueprints of the machine were discovered.
"Begin the test," the man ordered tucking his hands into the pockets of his coat.
Several scientists around him moved to their positions at the control panels on the other side of the room. The protective screens dropped around the TiDES, before the entire room seemed to come to life: the metal ring in the center started to spin effusing flashes of blue energy, and everything behind the protective screens lid up.
"The dark energy level is ten percent from the potential and rising," announced one of the assistants.
"The Gateway is opening; its current diameter is two millimeters. All systems are stable," supported the second one.
"Dark energy level is thirty percent and rising. The Gateway's size is eighteen millimeters. All systems are stable."
A red light suddenly started to blink on a panel next to the gray-haired man, and an alarm sounded around the research facility. Every scientist hurried to power the TiDES down.
"The test subject stopped responding," one of the assistants explained.
The bright lights behind the protective screen went down, making it possible to see the other side of the room. What left of the asari, now a scorched skeleton, was smoking in the middle of the metal circle.
"Clean this mess," the man in the lab coat sighed, before he turned around and left.
The room adjacent to the area the man exited from was smaller and brightly lit with several luminescent lamps built into the ceiling. It was nearly empty, except for several terminals and personal lockers next to one of its walls.
The man took off his lab coat, hanging it in a locker with a sigh. It was the third subject that died during the test runs, none them came even close to providing the mechanism with enough power. The gray-haired man was starting to lose hope.
"Nearly two centimeters?" a calm voice from the terminal asked. "Not exactly a result I was expecting."
"Sir," the gray-haired man turned towards the voice slightly startled. "I'm sorry, sir, the test subject was very weak, we couldn’t expect anything better considering -- ” he tried to explain.
"I'm not judging you," the voice from the terminal interrupted him. "And don't worry, I will provide you with a subject powerful enough to open the Gateway."
"But, sir," the gray-haired man tried to reason, "is it even possible to find someone suitable for this?"
"I said, don't worry about it," the voice reassured calmly, like it always did. "Leave this matter to me."
Part One
The Lost Child
Chapter 1
The Systems Alliance's headquarters looked busy, drowned in everyday routine of the largest military base on Earth. Dozens of officers and soldiers were hurrying to attend to their duties stopping only to pass a datapad, share a few words with a comrade, or an occasional salute to someone with a higher rank.
In general, everything looked as Shepard remembered it almost two years ago, before the Reaper fleet arrived to Earth destroying everything that stood in their way.
Sometimes it felt as if everything happened in another lifetime.
Now, a lot of things had changed. The building, which had been nearly destroyed, looked like the Reapers had never even touched it, and all the people around behaved like nothing had ever happened. Or at least they were really good at pretending.
Most of the soldiers didn’t even recognize Shepard as he was passing by, trying not to pay much attention to the surroundings. Occasionally, he was still catching a glimpse of utter surprise and fascination among the crowd as the recognition was settling into their minds, but most of the time people were choosing to ignore him.
To tell the truth, it was something Shepard was grateful for. He'd never refused to give an autograph when someone asked, but he'd always felt uncomfortable about it. He preferred to be just a guy, just a soldier, who did his duty, even if that duty was to save the world.
There was a reception desk before the elevators leading to the higher floors. The receptionist was a young woman in her mid-twenties dressed in a standard alliance uniform, who gifted Shepard with a soft smile. Shepard smiled back and attempted a quick maneuver to the elevators. He felt a familiar tingle of the ID recognition scanners as he reached the elevator doors, before the lock beeped and turned red.
“Excuse me, sir!” the receptionist called out. “It’s a restricted area, you need a special pass before entering.”
“What?” Shepard surprised. “Since when?”
“Since half a year ago,” the receptionist sighed. “You’re new in here, aren’t you?”
“Well, you can say that,” Shepard grinned. For some reason someone assuming him a newcomer seemed amusing for the ex-commander.
“First time in Vancouver?” the girl smiled leaning forward over her desk and looking Shepard right in the eyes while activating the omni-tool on her wrist. It was very obvious that she was flirting.
“Nah, I live here,” Shepard shook his head placing his elbow on the top side of the counter desk, resting his chin on his left hand so the girl could see the thin platinum band on his ring finger.
The message it seemed was received. The girl had never stopped to smile, but Shepard still could see a note of disappointment crossing her features as she focused on the readings from the omni-tool.
Then she suddenly froze in place. “Oh my god,” she inhaled. It took her several long seconds before she managed to get a hold of herself standing up and saluting. “Excuse me, sir! You may proceed, sir! Admiral Hackett is waiting for you!”
“Relax,” Shepard sighed. “I'm still technically retired, I don’t have a rank for you to salute.”
The girl’s shoulders visibly relaxed as tension and shock eased, “I’m sorry, you’re still a hero, no matter the rank. And,” she cast her eyes down smiling apologetically, “sorry about earlier.”
“It’s ok,” Shepard nodded. “And thanks for the clearance,” he smiled before turning back to the elevators and making his way to one of the top floors, pondering what the admiral needed.
Depending on the results of his medical examination, Shepard’s leave was due to end in two months, but Hackett had called him earlier that morning asking to drop by his office as soon as Shepard had some free time. The admiral had tried to sound casual, but he knew perfectly well that lately Shepard had nothing but free time, so his request sounded more like an immediate order.
Shepard’s suspicions grew even higher as the elevator doors opened to the sight of the admiral waiting for him in the hallway. “Looking great, Shepard,” Hackett said. Shepard knew that the admiral was an honest person, but still suspected that any sort of compliments besides good field performance coming from him was more of a formality, or means to mitigate whatever bad news he had in store. “You have no idea how good it is to see you finally on your feet.”
And it was good indeed. Shepard himself couldn’t believe that he managed to recover after the explosion on the Citadel. Walking towards the catalyst’s core, discharging the magazine-clip of his gun into it, he'd considered himself a goner. But yet, after everything went black, he somehow managed to open his eyes again, finding himself in a hospital bed with dozens of different tubes and wires attached to his body and the sleeping frame of Kaidan seated uncomfortably on a chair next to his bed.
None of the doctors at the time had known for sure if he could ever walk again, save the idea of returning to active duty. But somehow he managed to get better and several months after the war he was able to stand on his own. Now, a year out of the hospital, the only inconvenience left, was an occasional pain in his joints and muscles.
“I was taken good care of,” Shepard smiled politely, “I thank my husband for that.”
“Well, look at you,” the admiral nodded walking Shepard down the corridor leading to his office, his hands gathered behind his back, “went through hell and back, saved the galaxy and even had time to build a personal life. Hell of a multitasker, I’d say.”
“I assume, discussing my life and wellbeing wasn’t the reason you invited me?”
“No, it wasn’t,” Hackett agreed. They finally reached the office and the admiral invited Shepard in, gesturing to sit on one of the chairs in front of the desk. “Actually, I’ve been planning to ask if you’re interested in reinstatement. We have some… problems you could really help us deal with.”
To tell the truth, Shepard had been thinking a lot about it. At first, he'd been thankful for the end of the war and looked forward about finally settling down to live a normal life, even if he hadn’t known for sure if his body would function fully ever again.
He was wrong about it.
After over eight months of doing nothing but taking care of Shepard, Kaidan had returned to duty in the reserves working with the Alliance as the human biotic specialist, resuming his work with the biotic special division program. With Kaidan spending most of the day at work, Shepard found himself drowned in boredom, spending his time watching TV, cleaning and cooking dinners as he waited for his lover to return from work.
With time the role of a house-wife started to irritate him to the point where his temper started to snap. Thankfully, he'd never unleashed it on Kaidan, but the last year was difficult for both of them.
When Shepard received a call from the admiral, he suspected a request like that, he even hoped for it to happen. No matter what the task was, even if he was going to be assigned to do nothing else, but fill out papers, Shepard wanted to return.
“Would it be something you will need to think about?” the admiral asked snapping Shepard back to reality.
“No, sir,” Shepard shook his head, “I had plenty of time to think. I would like to return to duty, sir.”
“Good,” Hackett acknowledged. “With your medical record, there is no way of returning to hot spots of course, but your knowledge in some areas is exactly what we need right now.”
“So, what can I help you with?” the commander inquired.
The admiral looked Shepard in the eyes and sighed. He stood from his chair and moved to the wall behind his desk, reaching for a panel attached to it. A section of the wall slid open revealing a big screen with several images across it.
“Several days ago our agents informed us of a contraband shipment delivered to Earth,” the admiral started to explain. We still don’t know what was in it, but there is something you might find important -- the container was delivered from the Iera system, Shadow Sea.”
Shepard blinked feeling a sudden rush of adrenaline as he saw the chart of the familiar star system on the screen. There was only one planet in Iera someone could smuggle from. “Horizon,” he whispered.
“Yes, and that is not all,” admiral continued, “we managed to track and find the container, but it was empty.”
Hackett pressed several more buttons on the panel and the image on the screen changed. Now it was showing a plane white box, approximately a meter and a half long and half a meter wide.
“There was an insignia on it,” Hackett explained. He zoomed on one of the corners of the container and Shepard felt a chill run down his spine.
“This cannot be true,” he said seeing the familiar hexagram shaped symbol. “Cerberus.”
***
It was an unusually warm and sunny day for the Vancouver’s March. The surprisingly clean streets of the city center were filled with different people: mostly human, but occasionally Shepard could see a turian or an asari among them, which for the commander had started to look surprisingly natural.
It was unbelievable how good everything looked here. Sometimes it was still possible to see half ruined buildings further away and some buildings in the center were still covered in green construction nets, but the streets were clean, with neatly cut trees and bushes around sidewalks and boulevards, with most of the stores working, most of the cafés and bars. It almost looked like the war had never accrued.
Shepard perfectly knew that it wasn’t the case, he knew that the moment he walked past the center to any of the city suburb, if he dug deeper under this first impression of tranquility, he could find a lot of dirt, a lot of destroyed buildings, people still living on dry rations or in quickly build trailer-style cabins, waiting for their houses to be rebuild. It almost looked like someone tried to quickly clean up a mess in a room by putting everything under a bed or into a closet, so it looked clean, but if one was only to open that closet, they'd be buried under the pile of garbage hidden in it.
It also looked exactly like Shepard felt.
On outside Shepard seemed perfectly fine. Thanks to the modern medicine, he didn’t even have many scars left on his face and body after the incident. But it only took Shepard five minutes of additional walk before his right knee started to ache. The commander took a deep breath and continued his way to a café, trying to not pay attention to the pain. In the end, Shepard thought, it was going to be something he would have to live with for the rest of his life.
The reason Shepard came here was to meet with Kaidan, whose office was temporarily moved into a building of the Vancouver Community College as the portion of the headquarters dedicated for study rooms was still in a process of being rebuild. The campus was in walking distance from one of the small restaurants, which Kaidan picked as a destination for his lunch breaks.
Shepard finally reached the restaurant, picking one of the tables in an open area outside the establishment. It was a nice place, somewhat quiet with a good view on a small green area under what once used to be a rather large office building, but now was fully wrapped in construction nets.
The place itself reminded him of Apollo’s on the Citadel, where he used to go with Kaidan back during the Reaper invasion. The thought, even if it seemed ridiculous together with the ‘reaper invasion’ part, brought some warm memories and it somewhat dulled the pain in his knee.
The waitress, Jess, whom he'd known for several months, came to him with the menu. She was dressed in a green apron with the logo of the establishment ontop of a simple skirt and a blouse. Her black hair was cut shorter than the line of her shoulders and she looked at least fifteen years younger than Shepard, but talked to him like he was one of her old friends. The commander also could swear he hadn't yet seen her not chewing gum.
“Hey, John,” she greeted him with a smile, “you’re earlier than usual today.”
“Yeah, had some things to take care of,” Shepard nodded, “got free earlier.”
“Want to order something or just a beer, while waiting for your husband?” She inquired.
“I’ll go with beer, thanks,” Shepard nodded.
“Alright, be right back with your order.” She said and turned around returning to the indoor part of the establishment.
Jess didn’t even ask what beer he wanted. He and Kaidan had been dining here so often that all of the people working in the café knew them, together with their preferences in food and drinks. Shepard also was certain that Jess knew who he was, knew who Kaidan was, but to his relief she'd never brought it up.
Shepard sighed and extracted a datapad from his bag, starting to read his new mission assignment for the third time. After a year of doing nothing, it felt somewhat surreal to return to work. Even more so, considering that work was connected to Cerberus, the organization he was sure vanished together with the Illusive Man.
“Cerberus isn't just an organization, or the people behind it. Cerberus is an idea. That idea is not so easily destroyed,” he suddenly remembered the words the Illusive Man had said once. Did it mean that they were still alive and kicking, after all this time? And if they did, what possibly could they bring to Earth from Horizon?
The report was indicating a big fight over something in the container. Whatever happened there, led to deaths of five Cerberus agents, who most likely were killed with biotics. It either were some really well-organized thugs deciding to steal the cargo from Cerberus, or whatever it was in the cargo was alive and decided to go free.
Shepard started to rub his temples. One of his hands dug into his grown hair. It was still somewhat strange for him to have anything longer than several millimeters growing there. He thought about shaving it off again as he felt the most comfortable with the buzz cut, but then remembered how much Kaidan liked his hair that way.
The comfort of the buzz-cut was just another thing Shepard was ready to give up for his husband.
Shepard’s thoughts were suddenly interrupted by a small movement on the corner of his eyes. Someone else wouldn’t have noticed it, but years of the military service where you had to be on your toes day and night, noticing every single detail off in the surroundings, every unusual sound even if you were asleep, as it was the only way to survive, paid off.
Instinctively he turned around getting a hold on something from the left side of him. This something turned out to be a small arm of a child not older than five or six years, dressed in a long shirt which at some point Shepard suspected was white, but now it was torn and dirty so it was really impossible to distinguish the color, and the same level of dirtiness pants. The child head was shaved no more than a week ago and now looked like the hairstyle Shepard used to have last year.
“Hey now, what were you trying to find in my pocket?” Shepard narrowed his eyebrows, trying to look angry while his heart felt like tearing from his chest by looking at the kid who probably hadn’t eaten in few days.
The child didn’t reply, just stood there looking at the commander with unbelievably blue eyes, without a single note of fear or regret reading in them.
“All right then, I know you were trying to steal a cred-chit,” Shepard sighed still holding the kid by the arm, “you know, you could’ve just asked. Are you hungry?”
The child’s expression changed becoming hopeful.
“All right, climb on the chair, we’ll figure some food,” Shepard smiled.
The kid nodded and carefully retrieved the hand from Shepard’s grip, then climbed on a chair on the other side of the table keeping a watchful eye on the commander. Shepard meanwhile looked around, trying to find if there was anyone watching them. Anyone who could know the kid, but no-one seemed to pay attention.
“What’s your name?” Shepard asked, but the kid simply continued to look at him without saying a word.
“Do you have parents? Home?” Commander tried again, but with no result.
Jess chose this moment to reappear from the main building with a bottle of beer. She gave Shepard a surprised look as she noticed the child.
“I left you for only a few minutes and you’ve already found an orphan to protect,” she chuckled shaking her head.
“Do you know him?” Shepard inquired.
“No,” Jess replied, “it’s the first time I see him.”
“All right, I’ll figure something out. Can you bring anything to eat for him meanwhile?”
“Sure,” Jess shrugged with a smile, “be here in a moment.”
* * *
The nameless child was half-way through a rather large plate of chicken soup when Kaidan finally showed up. He approached the table eyeing the kid with surprise before turning his attention to Shepard.
“Uh, John… anything I should know?” he asked tentatively, taking a seat next his husband.
“Besides the fact that not everyone is as lucky as we are?” Shepard asked with a shrug.
For a moment Kaidan was silent looking at Shepard like he was trying to read his mind. For what Shepard knew, that was exactly what Kaidan was doing, because he'd known him for so long, that sometimes he didn't need words to understand him. Then Kaidan turned his attention to the child.
“Hey, little girl, do you have a name?” he smiled.
“Ugh, a girl?” Shepard surprised.
“Well, yeah, can’t you tell?” Kaidan chuckled. “So?” He tried to talk to the kid again, but with no result. When he realized he wasn't going to get an answer, he turned his attention back to Shepard, “we need to call the police or any public service responsible for this sort of things,” he said as he opened the menu. “The girl is either ran from an orphanage or got lost and has someone looking for her right now.”
Hearing it, the child suddenly climbed down from her chair and moved to Shepard, embracing the man in her small arms. For a moment Shepard remained stuck shocked before he finally moved his own arms to wrap them around the kid. Something turned in his belly upside down that moment, starting to bounce around, but whatever it was, it wasn’t unpleasant.
Shepard looked at his husband who was now eyeing him with surprise. “Huh,” was the only thing Kaidan managed to pronounce.
“I think it means that I will have to find out if she’s lost without the police part,” Shepard sighed.
Kaidan placed his menu back on the table and nodded. “Can I talk to you for a moment?” he inquired, then he turned to the girl and added: “hey, little one, we are going to get you some ice cream. Just wait us here, all right?”
The girl nodded and returned back to her seat, watching as Kaidan pulled his husband from the chair and tugged him to the corner of the café’s outdoor yard.
“For the first time I have no idea what to say,” Kaidan sighed, crossing his arms on his chest, “or how to react.”
“What? I will just need to call some orphanages and check the extranet if there anything about missing children,” Shepard smiled, trying to encourage his husband. “I have half of a day free anyway.”
“You can’t just do it,” Kaidan whispered. “What if you won’t have enough time today? What will we do with her then?”
Shepard looked into Kaidan’s eyes as it had always helped him to understand his partner better. There were many emotions he could read in them and some that he couldn’t. Kaidan in his turn seemed to be trying to do the same.
"You worry too much," Shepard shook his head, "I'm sure, I can deal with it in a few hours."
“John, it’s not a hamster or a fish, it’s a child!" Kaidan tried again, his expression almost panicked, "what you’re suggesting is called kidnaping, and last time I checked it was illegal,” he said.
He rubbed his face with his palm and swore quietly under his breath fidgeting his feet. To Shepard, it looked like his husband had a huge fight going on inside his own mind, but it was impossible to tell what were the sides of his mental argument. Most logical to Shepard seemed the assumption that it was the wish to trust Shepard that occupied Kaidan's mind, but surprisingly he started to understand that he wished it to be something else. Even if he couldn’t tell what exactly he wanted it to be.
“All right,” Kaidan finally nodded, “all right, try that. But we are calling somewhere, anywhere if you aren’t able to find anything by the end of the evening. Because even if the kid doesn’t have a family, we can’t just bring her home. Even for one night.”
“Ok,” Shepard agreed. For some reason he started to feel somewhat angry at Kaidan, even if everything the other man said sounded very reasonable. Shepard wasn’t even sure what was making him so upset.
“Now, let us finally eat, because I have only half an hour of my lunch break left. I've spent the whole morning running around the training facility with my students, blasting holographic husks, so I really need my calories back,” Kaidan sighed as he turned around returning to their table.