Identity (a Mass Effect fanfiction)

Friend

After he finished the call with the asari Councilor, Shepard walked through the Normandy's bridge to the cockpit. It was nearly silent; even those who had to talk to one another in the course of their duties were doing so in very hushed, muted tones. And everyone he passed either gave him a quick glance of apprehension or avoided making eye contact. He couldn't tell if this was a response to the loss of Thessia to the Reapers or to the way he had acted when he returned to the ship from the planet. Either way, nothing about the unusual silence or the heightened tension being caused by his presence was doing his rising temper any good. What were they staring at? Had they never lost before? Or was it that they had thought he couldn't?

Anderson's pep talk—his swift kick in the rear end of Shepard's arrogance, really—had helped, had given Aaron the impetus he needed to keep going, to make sure that what happened on Thessia wasn't the end but just a bump in the road, but it wasn't enough to keep the black anger at Kai Leng and the Illusive Man from bubbling in Shepard's veins.

In the cockpit, Joker and EDI were talking quietly, but they stopped as soon as the door slid open. Joker spun his chair around, looking up at Shepard from under the rim of his ever-present ballcap. "Thessia," he said. "Man. I guess the asari are wishing they had fewer dancers and more commandos right about now."

In his mind's eye Shepard saw the Reapers descending, heard the screams of the valiant asari who had been using every last ounce of determination they possessed trying to defend their homeworld, and he saw red.

Joker must have seen the rage rising in him, because the smile on his face faded. "Too soon?"

"Damn right it is! You're a hell of a pilot, Joker, and I put up with a lot because of that, but we are in the middle of a war! People are dying out there."

"Yeah. I get that. I have people, too, Shepard. You never asked, so you don't know that, but I have a father and a sister out there on a shitty little planet that was still not small enough for the Reapers to overlook. I know we're at war, and I know what's at stake."

"Then why the jokes, at a time like this?" Aaron demanded.

Joker actually got to his feet, something he rarely did because of the pain associated with his Vrolik's Syndrome, and he looked Shepard square in the eye. "Because EDI says that according to your armor's metabolic scans, you're under more stress now than during the Skyllian Blitz. And the last time I had a briefing with Anderson, he told me to take care of you. The guy in charge of the defense of Earth, what there is of it, and he's worried about you! So hell, yeah, I'm gonna make jokes. So you have a tiny little chance of not exploding all over my leather chair, just when I've got it to fit me just right."

Shepard was touched by Joker's loyalty and Anderson's concern, but there was still too much anger boiling in his veins—most of it at himself, for having failed on Thessia, he had to admit—to let it show. "When I want a damn pep talk, I'll ask for one," he growled. "Understood?"

"Yes, Commander." Joker maneuvered himself carefully back into his seat and swung the chair around, his chilly formal response louder in the small cockpit than if he had shouted.

"Shepard," EDI piped up, "perhaps a stirring rendition of 'La Marseillaise'?"

"Not now, EDI." He stalked out of the cockpit.

Garrus was waiting for him, leaning back against a bank of monitors, arms crossed over his chest. "You were a little hard on Joker, don't you think?"

"He asked for it. It's no time for a joke."

"It always is, for him. It's in the name."

Shepard glared at him. "Are you defending his flippancy? Do you know what just happened out there?"

"Yes. I do. I've seen it before, remember? And I know that I just advised the Primarch to cease all offensive operations against the Reapers."

"A full retreat?" Shepard's jaw dropped.

Garrus sighed. "The only way to save Palaven now—or Earth, or Thessia, or any of the worlds under Reaper control—is to hold our ships back for the Crucible."

"Yeah. It is. But in the meantime—"

"A lot of people die."

"All the more reason to—"

"To what, Shepard?" Garrus asked. "To lose what makes our races worth fighting for, the humor and the art and the hearts of our people, by insisting on dour faces and anger at all times?"

"It's not that simple!"

"Look, I get it. This is Sovereign a thousandfold. But we won then ... and we'll win now."

"I wish I had your confidence."

Garrus chuckled. "I wish I did, too. I'm just faking it to impress you."

Aaron managed a small quirk of the lips. "Consider me impressed."

While Garrus went into the cockpit to cheer up Joker, Shepard left the bridge, reaching for the button that would take him up to his quarters, but he didn't want to be alone. Not right now, not with the defeat by Kai Leng still fresh in his mind. So he went down to engineering and knocked on Javik's door. The Prothean was the only person he could think of who might understand.

"So," Javik said, without turning from the basin of water he kept in his room, staring down into its depths, "you have lost the asari home planet."

The bluntness stung, but after all, it was what Aaron had come for. "Yes."

"In my cycle, we lost many planets. You get used to it."

"That was fifty thousand years ago! We had a chance to stop this now, today, and I blew it!"

Javik turned, all four eyes glaring at Shepard. "For me, our losses were only yesterday. Our empire spanned the galaxy! Now it is only a myth."

Aaron felt the reality of the Prothean's words through the link they shared, as if he had lived through the extinction himself, and he shuddered. "I know," he whispered. "I'm sorry."

But Javik shook his head impatiently. "Do not be sorry, Shepard. That is not the task I call you to." He put his hands on Aaron's shoulders. "I suffered many defeats in the last war, but I am still here fighting in this one, looking for victory. Let this loss be the fuel that powers you, as mine have been for me."

"I ... don't know if I can. Not this time. It was within my grasp! I nearly had everything we needed to destroy the Reapers once and for all, and I—"

The Prothean's hands tightened on his shoulders. "Your future is still out there. Your people can say something mine could not: There will be a tomorrow."

"Only if we win."

"No one else has ever made it this far."

Standing there looking into the Prothean's eyes, Aaron knew it was true—but he also knew how tired he was, how desperately weary and ready to stop fighting.

"You must not give in to that feeling," Javik said urgently. "It is what the Reapers trade on, the idea that their force is so overwhelming it is futile to fight. But you have proved them wrong, time and again. You can do it once more. You must."

Shepard tried to find the strength from somewhere deep inside himself; tried and failed. He shook his head.

"I am with you," Javik told him. "I, and the asari, and the turian, and the quarian, and all the humans aboard this ship. We are with you, and we will not leave you until we are victorious. You do not have to do this alone, my friend."

It was the first time the Prothean had used the word—possibly the first time he had ever addressed it to anyone not of his own race. Aaron felt his friend's strength flowing through him, felt the remembered warmth of Garrus's support, and Joker and Anderson and EDI's concern, the support of the others here, and something shifted, a band of grief compressing his chest eased, and he could breathe, and think, and plan again.

He grasped Javik's arms. "Thank you."

"Any time."