After Horizon

Three times during the dinner hour, I try to leave the battery.  I can hear the low hum of conversation out there, the clink of plates and glasses.  So I try.  Try to walk casually into the mess, pick out a food ration from the cabinet marked ‘dextro’—while politely ignoring the stench of whatever Gardner’s serving tonight—and  sit down across from Shepard, like I always do.  We’d trade stories and reminisce about past missions, maybe debate the merits of various sniper scopes or trigger assemblies, laugh at Joker’s off-color (and frequently racist) jokes.  Talk, like soldiers do.  But tonight I have forgotten how.  I’m suddenly afraid to be near him.  Which is ludicrous.  Shepard is my best friend in the galaxy.  Maybe my only friend in the galaxy.  Why am I afraid?  Because he touched me?