Old Wounds 11 - In Pieces

Old Wounds 11 - In Pieces
author - pence789
features - Commander Shepard, Kaidan Alenko
________

“The Reapers served us.”
The world was blood and smoke, screams filled the air.  The figure bent down to meet eyes with Shepard, still writhing on the floor against the binds.  Blood still oozed from her wounds, eyes clouded with tears.  Surely there had been a sign...
She had been wrong, oh so wrong.
“You have proven yourself, little creature.  I’ll send you back to your people...but you won’t remember this.  You won’t remember anything, really.  You can’t know of us, but I’m sure you’ll be nice and happy the way you were before.”
Shepard would’ve spit in its face, screamed at it and cursed, but she found no voice or strength.
“You killed our servants, but that’s fine.  There are more, yes, many more floating around.  You aren’t the only galaxy out there, and resources run out eventually.”
“I’ll find a way.  I’ll...I will kill you all.”
A laugh echoed through her head.  “You aren’t the first to say that, and you certainly won’t be the last.  Go, human.  Go back home.”
And then she was falling, through a vacuum of blackness as she had before when she’d died.  The pain was gone, her body numb and cold.  She looked down, spreading out her weak limbs as she fell, and saw a prick of light in the distance.
“Home...”  Where was home?  Her head began to throb, the feeling of faces and memories being torn from her mind.
“No, please, no...”  She felt her family slipping away, her first day of the academy, commanding her first crew, chasing Saren, the destruction of the Normandy.  Then came the Omega 4 Relay, meeting Jack and Thane for the first time.  Off went Garrus and Tali, Legion fading from view.  Liara dissolved from her mind, as did her mother and father.  Joker flew out of view, EDI and Miranda close behind.  She felt tears in her eyes.  Everything...they took everything.  Yet the last hurt the most, her mind’s fingers wrapping around the last face protectively as the unseen attacker fought for it.  “No...not him too.”  And then it was gone, warm brown eyes and a warmer smile.  Thick black hair with tips of grey and gentle hands.  The feeling of contact, the feeling of their eyes and skin meeting, when their hearts beat as one.
“Kaidan...”  The words slipped from her lips longingly, as she ceased her descent.  
____

Shepard’s eyes fluttered open.  
The lights were harsh in comparison with the darkness, and she rose her shaking hand to block the light.
“Shepard?”  A voice came from her right, and a man suddenly appeared over her with a look of both fear and hope.  “Shepard, can you hear me?”  A woman came to her left, looking at a monitor somewhere above her head.  “Shepard?” She stared.  
“Who...who’s Shepard?”
She fell back into darkness.
____

In and out, black and white.  Rise and fall.
It was a pattern she learned quickly, the pattern her life fell to.  She would open her eyes, the man would speak of strange things, the woman would look at monitors, and she’d fall back into darkness.  The light was longer each time she rose, yet she felt better when she fell.  Life was easier in the blackness, away from words and strangers.  She wanted to sleep, to always sleep.  There was always pain in her head when she saw the man, like a person trying to get out.  It hurt her when the make-believe person struggled.  Sometimes she’d see a face in the darkness, or hear a word.  It didn’t make sense, so she’d just push it away and fall again.  She’d see a woman one day and a man the next.  Some of the words were names, some of them planets and other things.  She had asked the man about some of them, about what Saren and Wrex was and what Thessia and Earth was.  He would ask where she’d thought of them, and she told him about the darkness.  She’d decided that she liked the man with the warm eyes.  He would always smile at her, but his eyes would be hurt.  He knew who she was, all these things that she’d known.
“The doctors say you lost your memory, that you’ve been hallucinating.”
“But you don’t believe them.”
He’d smiled with his eyes this time.  “You’ve always been able to read me.”
“This might sound weird, but...what am I like?”
He laughed a little, a distant nostalgic laugh.  “Where to begin...”