Archive of Our Own ^beta

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Shepard says “I love you” to Kaidan like she is stitching up a wound.

The two of them have been sitting outside Liara’s quarters for hours after the fall of Thessia, when she says it, despite EDI’s frequent requests for them to sleep and her assurances that she can keep an eye on Doctor T’Soni.

They are both tired, but they talk of lost soldiers and lost homeworlds and stop when they reach the subjects that are still sore for both of them. That is when Shepard applies those three words like bandages on the cuts of Virmire and Mars and the Citadel that have never fully healed.

Quietly, Kaidan says them back and slowly, steadily, the scars begin to fade.

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Javik manages to roll all four of his eyes, a habit he must’ve picked up from Joker, when Shepard tells him she loves him.

“Primitives and their emotional outbursts,” he scoffs but Shepard only grins and exits.

Years later, Javik recalls that memory with perfect clarity as he stands atop a cliff, thinking of the lost soldiers that were once under his command. Fifty thousand years of grief and guilt pushes him to lean over the cliff, toes at the very edge. Shepard's voice echoes in his head.

Strange that a millennia of exhaustion and desperation can be balanced by three simple words. 

Primitives, Javik thinks as he steps away from the cliff, continue to surprise him. 

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Shepard counts her heartbeats in the spaces between her “I love you” to EDI.

Four beats as EDI processes her words. Seventeen beats for EDI’s response, a witty quip that Shepard smiles politely at. Twenty-six heartbeats for EDI to walk back to the cockpit, filing away this encounter with Shepard to examine later.

Six hundred thousand heartbeats later, EDI stops Shepard as she is pacing through the Normandy.

“I have spoken with Jeff and I have come to understood that my earlier answer to your statement was incorrect. I believe the proper answer should have been, ‘I love you as well, Shepard’.”

Three heartbeats for Shepard to fold EDI into a hug and seven heartbeats for EDI to decide this is a moment worth saving.

She labels the memory, “Humanity”, and stores it away.

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 The atmosphere in Shepard’s quarters is heavy with regret and fatigue when she enters after another long, fruitless mission to rescue as many as she could from a ravaged colony.

She is thinking of rescues when she picks up the photograph on her desk, rescues, not sacrifices, at least that is what she swears to herself.

Her voice has changed since the last time she spoke to the woman in the photograph. The weight of the galaxy has pressed it thin and too many deaths has made it sharp, but her words are soft and powerful and unchanged in meaning when she whispers,

“Love you, Ash.”

She presses a kiss to the photograph and sets her ghosts to rest.

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When Jacob speaks, Shepard hears her brother in his voice.

She goes to him after the last shreds of hope he had in his father fade away. He leans against her shoulder as she murmurs inconsequential stories from her past until he has dried all of his tears.

They carry too many broken dreams between them, broken dreams of unbroken families. They are tired of unfinished hopes, of siblings and parents that were only half of what they were meant to be.

Shepard’s “I love you” is the first brick and Jacob’s “I love you too” is the second.

Word by word, brick by brick, they begin to build themselves a new family.

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Shepard’s “I love you” to Jack burns her throat like whiskey. Jack laughs and pounds another shot back.

“I fucking love you too,” she responds. 

Jack’s eyes are bright and fierce and teasing when she dares Shepard to dance and leads her to the floor. It is their last dance together before Shepard lights up the galaxy with the Crucible, but Jack is unaware.

“Shepard!” she shouts. “Get your head out of your ass and dance! I have to get some footage for all the vids that are going to come out when we finish with this shit war!”

Shepard laughs, shoots back a retort and begins to dance.

The vids break galactic records for copies sold, of course. Jack buys a few copies and shows them to her students every year.

“You can be the worst dancer that ever lived and still be a goddamn hero,” she tells every class. They have contagious laughs and vivacious smiles, her students.

They remind her of Shepard.

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In her dreams, Shepard stumbles over the rubble of a shattered monastery to find three sisters ripped apart by war and a mother besieged with regret, but in the waking world, Samara is calm. Grief colors her every movement, but she mixes tranquility and acceptance into her sorrow until it disappears, blended away into a new hue.

They meet on the Citadel after Kallini and speak of useless nothings that mean everything. They are parting ways when Shepard clasps the justicar’s hand.

“I love you,” she says.

Samara kisses Shepard’s forehead, lightly, gently, so that memories of small blue hands and lilting, unsure voices do not overwhelm her.

“And I, you,” she replies. “Be safe.”

As Shepard turns away, Samara finds that she is not worried.

Her daughters have always been much stronger than she believed.

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Grunt laughs when Shepard tells him she loves him.

"Yeah," he says. "But I'm still hungry." 

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Kasumi suprises Shepard one day with her carefree wink and cheery wave as she steps off the Normandy and says,

“Love you, Shep!”

Shepard’s laughter bubbles out of her as if it had been waiting for a moment to burst out of the tightly stoppered bottle where it had been contained by the suicide mission. She steps into Kasumi’s warm embrace, still chuckling and clings tightly to the thief.

“I love you too, Kasumi,” Shepard says, her voice muffled. Kasumi detangles herself after a moment, saying,

“I’ll see you later, Shep!”

“Will I see you?” Shepard calls after her.

Kasumi grins and vanishes.

The Normandy is quiet without her.

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They are always the last to sleep and the first to rise, the two soldiers. Garrus cannot sleep through the gunshots he hears in his dreams and Shepard sees only a hazy red when she closes her eyes. They remain awake through the night, studying diagrams and old messages and memories.

Garrus is silent and so, Shepard speaks. She tells him about the exhaustion that has sunk into her bones, the pills she takes every morning, the tremors in her left hand that she cannot control. He clasps her hand in his and tells her about the pounding in his head, the aching fear for his family, the holes in his armor.

Shepard tells her best friend she loves him, as they wait for morning to come and for their re-entrance into the fray, and Garrus nods, says it back. It is not the first time they have said those words, but it will be the last for Shepard and Vakarian, Vakarian and Shepard.

In a bar high above them, two drinks are waiting.

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Shepard’s “I” is blue like the lightest hour of dusk on Kahje and the brightest ring of a biotic flare. It is a selfless blue, a gentle blue, wrapping and enveloping Thane in layers of cerulean warmth. He can hear the sea rippling every time she says it.

Shepard’s “love” blinds him. The color of a raging sun is contained in her love, bright yellow like the neon signs on the Citadel. He closes his eyes against it’s burning afterimages and sees calm waves rolling onto golden beaches.

Shepard’s “you” is a soft green, the exact same hue as her eyes. It is a quiet, unnoticed green that is blended away into other colors to create a masterpiece. It is the color of the leaves on the trees that sway barely noticeably on the golden beaches across the sea.

In those three words, Thane sees peace.

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The speed at which humans process and explain information is considerably slower than many species in the galaxy, but the coordination of their body language and facial expressions and speech can cause the listener to process at the same speed because the listener must connect all three to have a coherent conversation, very interesting in this case, Shepard’s facial expression is not matched with her speech, she is presenting two different emotions, perhaps to confuse, no, not confusion, respectful impatience, almost as if she is waiting for something, waiting for a response, what response however, the intersection of her words and her culture and humanity’s proclivity for displays of emotion, the proper answer should be- Ah.

“Yes, Shepard.”

Correct answer? Mordin is unsure, there is the upturned expression, a smile, they call it, a good sign, pleasure in Shepard’s voice, amusement in her body, but why laughter? Perhaps his answer was unusual, he will research it later, maybe discuss it with a friendly human.

He realizes the answer moments before the blast. Obvious, obvious. The answer is love you, also, Shepard. But too late now, too late.

He hopes someone else got it right.

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Zaeed wakes every morning with the taste of oil and smoke in his throat and searing flames licking at his legs.

He is dying, and he can feel it when his hand shakes on the trigger, when his stomach heaves out of his control.

“I’m just bloody old,” he says to Shepard’s concerned eyes. “Take your goddamn pity party somewhere else.” She laughs, fearless.

“I love you,” she says before she goes.

He hasn’t heard those words in such a long, long time.

“Shut it,” Zaeed says to his failing body. He stands, grimacing, and dusts himself off.

“I’ve got a goddamn war to win.”

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The Kodiak is Shepard’s hide-out from the prying fingers and hopeless faces. Anytime they dock on the Citadel, Steve offers to take her on a quick ride and she accepts, always.

“What would you have been if you weren’t in the Alliance, Steve?” Shepard asks.

“I’m not sure,” he replies. “Nothing quite beats flying, not for me, at least.” What would Shepard be if she wasn’t a commander? He doesn’t think either of them know the answer.

They fly aimlessly, restlessly, with the Kodiak as their only buffer between them and war. When they return to the Normandy, as always, Shepard thanks him.

“Love you,” she adds and Steve tries to say it back but he cannot swallow the lump in his throat fast enough.

She understands. She always does.

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“Shepard?! Is that you?!”

Wrex’s bellowing laugh echoes off the Tuchanka stone. The two warriors meet each other in the middle and Shepard squeezes Wrex with an intensity that does the Krogan proud.

They sit on a devastated planet and talk about a devastated galaxy. Shepard is tough and unyielding when she speaks of Earth but she cannot speak about the fall of Thessia, the losses on Palaven. The cuts and bruises this war is leaving on her aren’t healing.

“I love you, Wrex,” she says as she’s leaving.

Normally, he would brush it off and simply tell her to stay safe but he has lived long enough to recognize death in a soldier’s eyes. Shepard won’t see Tuchanka again and they both know it.

“Same to you,” he says. “Sister.”

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James sits by Shepard’s side in the medical wing of the Normandy, taking his watch. They all took a beating on Tuchanka, but Shepard came out worst. A pulled shoulder muscle and a partially torn ligament in her knee that even the combination of Dr. Chakwas' care and Shepard’s impressive implants are having trouble healing have kept her resting.

“You’ll be back up soon,” James says softly to the sleeping Commander, “Probably too soon. Even the best soldiers need to rest sometimes, Lola. And you’re the goddamn best of them all.”

He gets up and shoots one last look at Shepard’s still body. He’s heading for the door when he hears a faint whisper.

“I can still kick your ass in pull-ups.”

“In your dreams, Lola,” James replies, grinning.

Shepard smiles, her eyes still closed.

“Love you,” she says.

“Love you, too.”

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“Miranda, it’s too much.”

“I can handle it, Shepard.”

“I know you can,” Shepard says quietly, “but you don’t have to.”

Miranda’s bones are sculpted from perfection, but perfection looks frighteningly like exhaustion up close. Shepard’s eyes tell Miranda that she too, has bones made of greatness and weariness.

“Here, let me help.”

“It’s alright, Shepard, I’m almost finished.”

“Then, get some rest when you’re done. I love you,” Shepard says so easily. The door shuts softly behind her and a hint of a smile crosses Miranda’s face.

“I know you do.”

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“I love you” slips out of Shepard’s mouth stiffly and lies cold on the floor. The words rest there like rusted, picked over scrap metal, caught in Legion’s unblinking light. Shepard wants to pick them up, crunch them between her teeth and pretend it wasn’t too soon. It hasn’t always been the right time, but it has never tasted so wrong before.

Error. Shepard-Commander, we do not understand.

Shepard cannot explain. She flees.

So many battles later, the Geth are crackling to life and Legion is dying. Tali watches peace take shape in the sky with her own eyes as Shepard realizes wires and pistons are not so different from bones and blood.

Shepard-Commander, I understand. Shepard-Commander, say it again.

Legion’s light goes out just before “you” but it's alright, the words are familiar. It was always the right time.

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Tali has never been on Rannoch before, but she knows her homeworld in her bones.The sunset-swirled sky, the rushing rivers and the weathered cliffs, she knows them.

This is what home is, not a place, but a knowing. Home is traveling through tides of light and shoals of dust and coming to a place where you unquestionably, unconditionally belong.

Shepard’s gentle touch pulls Tali from her wonder.

“I love you, Tali,” Shepard whispers and in that moment, Tali realizes why Rannoch is so achingly familiar. Why she recognizes home as if she has had one her whole life.

Home is in Shepard’s eyes.

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Shepard is indescribable. Traveling by her side has been an breathtaking experience. I have learned much in the span of these past years, but doubtlessly I have learned the most when with Shepard. That is not to say that all of the knowledge I have gained from Shepard has been useful, for example, the proper care and handling of a space hamster was not something I expected to learn however-

“What are you writing?”

“Nothing. Just thoughts on our mission,” Liara replies and glances up at Shepard. “This cycle would have been inconceivable to your ancestors. Perhaps even inconceivable to mine. Do you not ever think about all of this, Shepard? ”

“Too much,” Shepard says softly, “It’s getting late, Liara, you should get some rest, I'll see you in a few hours. Love you.”

However-

It truly has been indescribable.

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They hand him Shepard’s dog tags after the battle because he’s the most visible member of the Normandy now and the Normandy is the most visible reminder of Shepard.

“Do you think she’s still alive?” Reporters crowd in around him and shove omni-tools under his nose, recording him.

Shepard flashes before his eyes. Shepard, an untrained spectre staring down the Council, Shepard, pushing people off the burning SR-1, Shepard, lying dead on a cold operating table, Shepard, grinning at the new SR-2, Shepard, wiping away her tears after leaving Earth, Shepard, balancing the weight of trillions of lives on her shoulders, Shepard, crawling through rivers of blood on the Citadel, Shepard, laughing, saying to him, “I love you, Joker, stay safe up there.”

“Do you think she’s still alive?”

Maybe.

“You bet your ass she is.”

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Months after the war is over, Traynor helps to plan Shepard’s memorial. It’s an impossible task, trying to sum up Shepard in just a few words, but Traynor thinks the Commander would have enjoyed watching them try.

The Normandy is so uncomfortably quiet when she slips in late one night to pull some files and clear any last remaining messages from Shepard’s inbox. They’re discussing permanently docking the Normandy, maybe making it a part of the memorial. Shepard would never have wanted a grounded Normandy, Traynor thinks, as she breathes in the air that still tastes like home.

She’s so preoccupied that she almost doesn’t notice the faintly flashing light at the comm station. Curious, she opens up her inbox and finds a message to her from Commander Shepard, sent 7 hours, 26 minutes and 59 seconds before the Normandy landed on Earth for the final battle.

Traynor,

It’s been one hell of a ride. Your support during this whole damn war has carried me through it and I have one last favor to ask you. If this goes sideways and I don’t make it, keep the Normandy together. Find people who can keep her flying because she’s the last, best hope we’ve got. Make sure the crew doesn’t go anywhere and if, somehow, the reapers’ asses are kicked back to dark space in a matter of hours, tell them that I still expect to see them reporting for duty tomorrow. The Normandy’s not finished yet. There’s still so much good we have to do in the galaxy. I know you love this ship more than anyone except maybe Joker, Traynor, and I know you’ll look after her, no matter what happens.

Thank you, Samantha, for everything.

I love you.

Traynor wipes the tears from her eyes, shakily but determinedly. She clears her inbox and powers off the comm station. When she leaves the Normandy, there is only fire in her eyes and a purpose in her step. There is work to be done.

The Normandy rests, one chapter ending and another beginning.

This is Commander Shepard, signing off.