Chapter Text
I slid into the seat next to Joker and rubbed the armrests appreciatively. "Gotta admit, the leather's nice."
“Uh-huh. You’re not here for the upholstery.”
I shrugged: guilty. "Once we’ve checked out this mining facility on Helyme, I want to go to Alchera."
Joker's head turned so sharply that I worried for his neck. He was silent for a few seconds, as though he expected me to say more.
"Oh, you're serious. Why?” He paused for a beat. “No, let me rephrase that. WHY?"
I waited long enough to be sure he was done. "Closure? And I need to pay my respects. I…" I glanced at him, then out at the stars. "I can't even name everyone we lost that day. Twenty-one souls, under my command. They deserve to be remembered."
He winced. “Two years, Commander. I don’t think anybody expects you to have the names at the top of your head.”
“Two years for you.” I tapped my forehead. “Three months for me.”
He looked forward again, making a few adjustments on his console.
“I should have gone as soon as Hackett let me know about the memorial, but it was right before we got the call to Horizon. How did they pull that off, anyway? After what happened to us, I’m surprised anyone was brave enough to go back.”
“Kaidan pitched a fit about recovering remains. With your name attached, the Alliance managed to get an asari ship and a turian ship to back them up."
"My name." I sighed and let my head fall back against the headrest.
"Everybody wanted to know what happened to you. I gave them my report, that you'd - " His voice caught. "When your body wasn't with the ship, the conclusion was that you'd been propelled outside the mass effect fields and burned up in the atmosphere."
I nodded. I'd probably never know exactly how my body got from the attack on the Normandy to the Shadow Broker's agents.
After a minute or so of silence, I got up. "Let me know when we're approaching Helyme."
He nodded. "Commander."
As I passed by, I put my hand on Joker's shoulder. My gaze was already on CIC. "I don't regret it."
I didn't linger. I wasn't expecting a response.
The shuttle hatch hissed open and the air from within crystalized like a breath in the frigid atmosphere. Our landing had rearranged the snow drifts, but the first crunch of my boot in the white surface highlighted our foreignness here.
The air was still. I stepped aside to make room for Dr. Chakwas and Joker to join me, but otherwise scanned the surroundings. It felt strange to land on a new planet without the expectation of being shot at.
I made a slow circuit around the shuttle, orienting myself. There were broken struts sticking out of the snow, like a bleached rib cage in the desert. For two years there had been nothing but wind and snow to disturb the fragments. It almost seemed like they could be gathered up and reassembled. Except the lives.
Joker stayed by the shuttle, although his armor should have been supportive enough to let him move freely. The lower gravity would help, too. But I didn't press him.
They'd put the memorial in an open space where you could see the Normandy's name on the hull. There was a spot where the snow drifts were low enough I could walk up to it, in the vicinity of the M. I squatted and pressed a hand to the icy metal. Even through the suit I could feel the bitterness of it, like the ship resented my presence.
A chill pierced my lungs. I recoiled with a gasp and landed on my ass. Dr. Chakwas narrowly side-stepped me.
She offered me a hand up. “Are you all right, Commander?”
“Fine, fine,” I assured her. On my feet again, I took a deep breath. My lungs were normal. Oxygen was flowing.
“I don't guess there's much else to see here. Let's do what we came to do.”
I circled back to the memorial. Gravestone, really. With my name right at the top, followed by Pressley's, and the other 20 in two columns. If Kaidan was the driving force, that explained the two extra names at the bottom: Ashley Williams and Richard Jenkins. It also explained his abrasiveness at Horizon, if he’d gone out of his way to make this happen.
I stuck out my hand and closed an eye to block my name. “Guess we didn't bring anything that would let us correct this.”
“It doesn't need correcting,” Dr. Chakwas said. “It happened.”
I wanted to argue, like I had with Garrus. It wasn’t fair. Most of these people had families. Parents, spouses, siblings. Children. The Dravens had talked about having a baby. They’d asked my opinion on whether they should try the in vitro method that was supposed to be able to combine their genes, or go a traditional route with sperm donation.
I sighed. “Would have been a lucky kid.”
“Indeed.”
I looked at her in surprise, but of course she would have known about that. And she was plenty sharp enough to follow my train of thought.
I cleared my throat and drew myself to attention. Dr. Chakwas followed my lead.
“Doctor, please begin.”
“Thank you Commander.” She took a deep breath, and let the stillness settle for a moment. “A poem in honor of those we’ve lost.
“I am not resigned to the shutting away of loving hearts in the hard ground. So it is, and so it will be, for so it has been, time out of mind: into the darkness they go, the wise and the lovely. Crowned with lilies and laurel they go, but I am not resigned.”
Her voice was steady and firm, tone neutral, yet the words dropped into my head like stones falling in a lake, leaving turbulent trails. My eyes watered.
“Lovers and thinkers, into the earth with you. Be one with the dull, the indiscriminate dust. A fragment of what you felt, of what you knew, a formula, a phrase remains — but the best is lost.
“The answers quick and keen, the honest look, the laughter, the love — they are gone. They are gone to feed the roses. Elegant and curled is the blossom. Fragrant is the blossom. I know. But I do not approve. More precious was the light in your eyes than all the roses in the world.
“Down, down, down into the darkness of the grave, gently they go, the beautiful, the tender, the kind; quietly they go, the intelligent, the witty, the brave. I know.” She paused and took a full breath, then finished in a stronger voice. “But I do not approve. And I am not resigned.”
I ignored the wetness on my face. There was nothing to do about it with the helmet in the way. It wasn’t just the Normandy’s crew members we’d lost, was it? The Collectors had murdered millions while Cerberus was busy bringing me back. Now Cyrene, Fehl Prime, Freedom’s Progress, at least half of Horizon’s population. The doctor’s understated reading made me want to howl at the enormity.
I was so focused on not letting my reaction loose that she caught me off guard, even though I expected the command: “Commander, call the roll.”
Right. That was what I’d come here to do.
Jack had shaken her head at me as I repeated the 21 names and ranks to myself, making sure I could say them all without hesitation. “Can’t you just put them on the heads up display?”
“The point is to remember them,” I’d insisted.
I re-set my shoulders, lifted my chin, and called out, forcing my voice to stay even: “Major Karin Chakwas.”
“Present.”
“Flight Lieutenant Jeff Moreau.”
There was enough of a pause that I contemplated turning to see if he was still present, but finally he gave a short cough and a hoarse answer. “Present.”
Now for the hard part. I kept my gaze on the top of the memorial, the ship sweeping skyward. Reading was cheating.
“Navigation Officer Pressly.”
A breath. Silence.
Louder: “Lieutenant Commander Charles Pressly.”
A breath. Silence.
“Navigator Pressly is not here.”
A breath. Go to the next name.
I'd drilled them in well enough that I didn't have to think much, which was good because my mind was only partly in the present. My eyes saw the memorial, but in my head I could see the long line of transfer cases being escorted off the Shanghai on their way to their families from Akuze.
I hadn’t felt right about being alive then, either. I nearly had a brawl with the medics who wanted to rush me to the hospital, but the XO had intervened to let me see the rest of the platoon off - what was left of them. I might have been in borrowed dress blues (big enough to fit over the bandages) and clinging to the corner of the wheelchair for support, but I held my salute until the last case left my sight.
I was grateful that the Normandy’s lost crew had gone home, too, to the greatest extent we could offer. Of course, almost all the news coverage of the mission focused on “Commander Shepard not among those recovered,” but I’d gathered by inference that I was the only one not located.
What we were doing now was probably redundant, and I had no idea if anyone else would approve, but Dr. Chakwas argued that unusual circumstances made unusual procedures “reasonable… even necessary.” And this was different. I wasn't a petty officer just trying to keep shooting and stay in one piece. I was the commanding officer they'd risked court martial for. The whole galaxy owed them for that. A final roll call was the least I could do.
Adding Jenkins and Ashley at the end was easy. They were clearer in my mind, since I'd outlived them long enough to grieve.
I'd managed to keep my voice level through the litany of names, but on the repetition of “Gunnery Chief Ash-” my throat tried to close up. “Ashley Madeline Williams,” I finished. Then: “Chief Williams is not here.”
I was trying to find some eloquent way to wrap up when Dr. Chakwas’ voice caught me off guard again.
“Lieutenant Commander Jill Shepard.”
She hadn't told me she was going to do that. My knees wavered, and I snapped a salute mostly to get my body under control. It took me longer to corral my voice.
“Present.”