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Jade Shepard stared down at her hands. They looked empty, but she rubbed them furiously against her pants in a vain attempt to remove the stains that only she could see. Her comrades had always seen her as someone hard and unbending in her resolve. She accepted that role because she knew that when difficult decisions had to be made others might fold and make the easy choice. Not her, though, she had learned long ago to live with the hard choices.
The figure in the bed stirred, forcing her to look up.
"Shepard?" Thane blinked a few times as he made out her features in the darkness. "Am I dreaming again?"
Jade let out a gruff laugh and shook her head, "No, it’s me." A smirk tugged at her lips, “Although I’m half tempted to ask why you’d think I’m a dream.”
The drell shifted on his hospital bed and moved into more of a sitting position. "It has been a long time, Shepard. I did not expect you to be one to waste time on a dead man."
The hint of a smile slid off of Jade's face as she met Thane's eyes. It was true, she hadn't bothered to visit him in the hospital before today, even though she'd had numerous opportunities. "The dead seem to be all around me these days," Jade fidgeted, rubbing at her hands again.
“And this bothers you now?”
Jade bowed her head, pressing her palms into the sides of her head, “It never used to…well, not like this.” As she shook her head between her hands, dark tendrils of hair loosed around her face from the no-nonsense knot at the nape of her neck – ruining the stern perfection she had always maintained.
Thane was silent for a moment. The Commander had never allowed a chink to show in her armor, and he reasoned that something significant must have happened to cause her this much distress. Instead of pressing, he waited for her to continue.
After a few moments, Jade lifted her head and smoothed her hair away from her face. “How do you do it?”
“Do what?”
“Forgive yourself for the lives that you’ve taken?” She pushed herself up and shoved the chair back with a loud scrape, “…and don’t tell me that you aren’t the instrument…or that your soul isn’t you…or whatever it is you tried to sell me before. Somehow you have to live with the choices that you…your body…makes while you’re here,” she turned on him with vengeance in her eyes. “How do you live with that?”
Thane sat up and swung his legs over the side of the bed. A coughing fit wracked his body and Jade blinked, backing away. After he composed himself, Thane gently replied, “I ask for forgiveness of the transgressions of my body because it is what my soul needs to be at peace.”
Jade stalked back and forth in the tiny hospital room. “There’s no one to forgive me.”
Thane moved from the bed to intercept her erratic pacing. He placed a hand on her shoulder, “There is always someone who can forgive you. Your god,” Thane was thoughtful for a moment, “or perhaps a friend. You just need ask, Commander."
She looked into his eyes, the dark pools beckoning like the infinity of space, and she wanted to believe him. She wanted to lose herself in his eyes, to let them drown her, and make her forget. She had confided in him when she should be confiding in Garrus, but she was afraid that Garrus wouldn’t understand. No, she knew he wouldn’t and it would kill her to see condemnation on his face. Jade blinked away her confusion and shrugged herself out of Thane’s grasp. “This was a mistake. I shouldn’t have come here.”
“Shepard,” Thane tried to call her back, “I know you are upset about something. It may do you good to speak of it. I am still your friend, Siha.”
When she glanced over her shoulder at him, the cold mask of determination was already back in place, “Maybe you shouldn’t be. Everyone who stands beside me seems to...die beside me.”
The sadness in Thane’s eyes was too much for her to bear. Jade turned to leave, but she hesitated. Her face softened as she looked at him one last time, “I’m trying to win a war. That means there are even harder choices ahead and I’d hate to see you become yet another casualty by my own hand. Goodbye, Thane,” with that, she left.
He stood in the empty room watching over the spot on the floor where she had just been. When he realized that she was gone for good, he crawled back into his hospital bed. Sleep seemed futile to him now as Shepard’s words still echoed in his mind. Thane switched on the vid screen and scanned through a few channels. As the images on the screen painted a grim picture, it all became clear. The news was awash with reports of the attempt to cure the genophage, the death of the famed scientist responsible for it, and the standoff between Shepard and Urdnot Wrex resulting in the death of the Krogan leader. Thane hung his head and said a silent prayer for Shepard. Clearly she was in need of more than any forgiveness he could offer.