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To Break a Hero	By : Tanwen Category: +M through R > Mass Effect Views: 6126 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Mass Effect, nor the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
- 7
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- 9
Shepard was in the darkened park again.
She saw the boy from Vancouver, playing off in the distance. She knew that his life was in danger, and she tried to run to save him. But it was like moving through molasses - she could never go fast enough, she could never do anything other than run towards him only to see him vanish, or burn.
Screw that. Go back and get Alenko. It’s the right choice and you know it.
If Kaidan had died on Virmire, would that have been easier? Their relationship was new and uncertain then. Would saving Ashley have made things different?
But even though it hurt like hell now, Shepard couldn’t regret the time she’d had with Kaidan. I’m sorry, Ash.
She was almost to the kid - but he stood and ran away from her, and she had to change course to keep going after him.
Had to be me. Someone else might have gotten it wrong.
She missed Mordin. She wished he was here to talk to right now. He’d give her some meaningless technobabble about her dreams that would make her feel better. He’d point out that there were bigger problems, or he’d suggest something wacky to help her sleep better.
Does this unit have a soul?
Legion. Who’d have thought she’d care so much about a geth? Maybe it was the fact that he’d shown up in N7 armor, but she had never doubted his sincerity. Geth were many things, but they were not subtle. It had always seemed too improbable that he was some sort of infiltrator unit. She’d been right.
His sacrifice, and Mordin’s - they had been worth it. Painful, but worth it.
I’m nearing the building, but running is difficult. I’ll try to get to you.
Those didn’t deserve to be Thane’s last words to her. His death wasn’t like the others. It was senseless. He’d sacrificed what time he might have had with his son to try and help her, and died on the end of a sword, of all the goddamn things.
Kaidan’s sword.
You can’t save me, Shepard - please don’t try -
Shepard tried to will herself to move faster. Kaidan. She had to save him. It was her fault that Cerberus had gotten a hold of him, whatever Chakwas had tried to tell her, days ago.
You can’t save me, Shepard.
Shepard.
Voices blended together in a soft whisper, feeling like a wind rushing around her. The leaves picked up as she ran towards the boy.
Shepard.
She had to turn sharply to keep the boy in her sight, but she still couldn’t run at anything other than an absurdly slow pace.
Save me, Shepard.
She was running towards Kaidan, now, seeing him standing there with a bright smile on his face.
Please. Save me.
Kaidan was picking up the boy now, both of them smiling and laughing. It looked like a dream she’d had in better days, of Kaidan picking up a child with her hair and his eyes.
Shepard.
She was still running, reaching her hand out to them, as the flames licked up to consume them.

Hours later, fighting her way to the Temple of Athame on Thessia, Shepard could still see that image in her mind’s eye. She had done her best to keep her mind on the mission and not dwell on her dream - nightmare - but it was getting harder and harder to put those feelings aside. She almost wished she’d actually listened to Chakwas and tried to deal with it.
But there really was no room to deal with it.
After fighting off Banshees, Ravagers, and that fucking Harvester, they finally reached the Temple of Athame. Liara was with her, of course, and Garrus made the third member of her team. She hadn’t taken EDI with her on a mission since the attempted Cerberus coup at the Citadel.
Liara overrode the shielding on the Temple and they entered, inspecting the artifacts around the edges until they came to the statue in the middle. While Liara discussed the difference between Athame worship and the modern beliefs the asari held, Shepard closed her eyes. She felt a presence at the edge of her mind, something calling out to her -
“There’s a Prothean beacon here,” she said suddenly, breaking her reverie as well as interrupting Liara’s monologue.
“What? You’re sure?” Liara asked.
“It’s not exactly something you forget,” Shepard said dryly, a bit more harshly than she’d intended.
Liara looked up at Shepard, then at the statue. “But … why hide it?”
“Does it matter?” Shepard asked. “What matters right now is that it contains Prothean information, which the councilor thinks will help us with the Catalyst. So we need to access it.”
Garrus and Liara exchanged glances, and Liara nodded reluctantly. “The few records I can access talk about tapping into Prothean data streams, reconstructing matrices … none of which I see here.”
Shepard’s attention was caught by one of the murals to the side of the statue. It seemed to be flickering with light. “Maybe that’s the point,” she said, walking over to look at it. As she did, the light in front of the mural vanished, and a trail of pale green light appeared stretching from the mural to the statue. Cracks appeared on the statue, with the same pale green light stretching out.
“By the goddess… literally,” Liara said, looking up at the statue.
“Look around,” Shepard said. “There must be more of these connections!”
“Incredible. The beacon seems to think you’re Prothean, Shepard. It must be the cipher you got back on Feros years ago,” Liara commented as they moved towards one of the other artifacts. At a different time, Shepard would’ve found that interesting and perhaps even fascinating. Today, she just wanted to find the damned connections and get the information inside the beacon.
It didn’t take long to open all the connections from the artifacts at the temple’s edges to the statue, and they returned to the statue to see it split open, revealing the matte-black beacon that still figured in Shepard’s dreams - or had, before the recurring park dream with the kid had started.
“We need to hurry,” Liara said. “This place isn’t going to-“
The beacon lit up all at once, and produced a glowing ball that looked like Liara’s Glyph. It came to a stop in front of them.
“… last very long,” Liara finished.

Shepard wanted to kick Vendetta in the nonexistent teeth by the time it announced that there was an indoctrinated presence and that it would be shutting down. At least it had given them information about the Catalyst - the Citadel again, really? - but it had been a dose of pessimism that Shepard really hadn’t needed. There was enough doom and gloom in her life right now. She didn’t need anyone else casting doubt on her ability to finish the job.
Shepard turned to look at where a figure in black was striding towards them, with a gunship behind him blaring its bright lights in their direction. “Hello, Jane,” Kaidan said as he stopped halfway down the aisle.
“Oh, Spirits,” Garrus said, his voice thick with emotion. “Kaidan. You look like hell.”
“So do you, old friend,” Kaidan said. “Or are you trying to tell me the scars are purely cosmetic?”
Liara came up to stand besides Shepard and almost recoiled. “He’s … his mind is nothing like it used to be,” she said. “Cerberus will pay for this.”
“Talk is cheap, Liara,” Kaidan replied. “I’ve yet to see this merry little bunch strike a decisive blow against Cerberus.”
“What about the Citadel?” Garrus asked. “Your little coup didn’t go as planned.”
“A minor setback,” Kaidan said, striding forward. It made Shepard’s heart ache to see him like this, so confident and determined - for the wrong things.
“What does the Illusive Man want?” Liara asked.
Kaidan scoffed. “What do you think? I came here for the Prothean beacon, same as you.” He smirked. “It’s so nice that you’ve already figured out how to access the information in that VI. I’ll take it now.”
“You really think we’re just going to give it to you?” Garrus said, unclipping his sniper rifle. “You can’t have forgotten everything you know about us.”
“Worth a try,” Kaidan said with a shrug, and then threw out his hand. A wave of biotic energy traveled out and hit Garrus, staggering him backwards and draining his shields.
Shepard deliberately sought the coldest place inside her that she could find and barked out, “Get him!” She suited word to deed by activating her tactical cloak and bringing out her own sniper rifle to try and get a bead on him, leaving Liara to counter his immediate biotic attacks. As soon as Shepard had found cover, she shot Kaidan.
Through the scope of her rifle, she saw Kaidan stagger backwards, an expression of pain on his face. For a moment that expression threatened to cut through the cold shell she’d wrapped around herself, but she locked it down as she reloaded the Black Widow.
“Cover me! I need to recharge!” Kaidan yelled and jumped backwards, into the spotlight created by the gunship. The gunship promptly opened fire, sending Liara ducking for cover behind one of the pews. They waited until the gunship stopped firing before coming back out, Shepard’s tactical cloak activating once more.
Putting Kaidan in her sights never got any easier. Liara kept him distracted most of the time, waging a biotic war, while Garrus and Shepard attempted to take long-range shots at him to wear him down. Just when Shepard thought they might be making some progress on taking him out, he retreated to the cover of the gunship again. Frustrated, she slipped out of her cover when he reappeared and sent a ball of flame streaking towards him. Then she started to raise her sniper rifle again.
For just a moment, Kaidan’s eyes met hers. She could have sworn that she saw something there - indecision, maybe, or conflict. Or maybe she was just seeing what she wanted to see.
You can’t save me, Shepard.
“Kaidan,” she said, almost inaudibly over the roar of the gunship. Everyone else was forgotten. She was about to reach him, she knew it, she -
The gunship fired rockets towards the main supporting beams of the temple, sending Shepard, Garrus, and Liara diving out of the way. When she poked her head up again, Kaidan was moving forward to collect the data from Vendetta. Shepard tried to scream his name again, but the piece of wall she’d been hanging on to cracked and she had to scramble to keep from falling into the gaping hole the gunship’s rocket had created.
When Shepard had regained her footing, she saw Kaidan running out of the temple. The pale green glow of Vendetta was gone.
“Shepard!” Liara called. Shepard looked over to see Liara trapped under a piece of wall, and ran over to pry her free. Garrus joined them a moment later, and all three of them watched the gunship leave, with Kaidan and the data on the Crucible.
- 7
- 8
- 9
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To Break a Hero