Chapter Text
Beeping. Loud beeping interrupts your sleep, but you try to stay in your dream as long as you can.
“Don’t leave me behind.”
“I love you, Tali.”
You find yourself waking up despite your desperate clinging to the edges of a dream that seemed so real.
Two tanned humans are near your bedside when you turn to look angrily at the beeping monitor. The man jumps to attention behind the woman, who sits in a chair beside you, hands clenched on your sheets.
“Skipper?” The woman whispers, her brown eyes awash with relief.
“Commander?” The mohawked man behind her lets out a sigh of relief and starts laughing, “Damn I knew you would wake up! Can’t have my N7 trainer dying on me like that.”
The woman turns to hit the man on the arm, her gaze stern despite unshed tears being blinked back.
“James, go get a doctor. I’ll watch Shepard.” She orders the man, James(?), turning quickly to rush out the door.
As you start to become more awake, your heart starts pounding, “Who are these people?”
An asari nurse rushes in and urges the two humans out, the salarian doctor standing over you, checking your vitals briefly before beginning to ask her questions.
“Do you know your name?” The doctor asks, looking intently between your face and your chart.
“Commander Jesse Shepard, doctor.” She nods, before clearing her throat.
“Do you know what year it is?” You grin in response to this question, trying to puff up your chest as much as possible, despite the wince and groan of pain it causes you.
“Yes, doctor, it’s 2183, the year I’m supposed to start under Captain Anderson on the SSV Normandy.”
There’s a pause, a quick flick of the salarian’s eyes over your face and back to the chart.
“Mhm. Right, well, you’ve sustained serious injury to your entire body. Mostly held together by glue and pins, at this point. Your brain has been affected, there’s some amnesia, though that is to be expected. You will receive therapy…”
The doctor drones on, your brain tuning out as you gaze at the red-orange markings on the salarian’s skin. A stab of clarity hits you, but you don’t know why, the color and mannerisms…
“Wait, amnesia? Memory loss? Then, who does this doctor remind me of? Why do I feel so sad thinking about them…”
“Any questions, Commander? We can allow the visitors back in if you’d like, although there is no pressure. This has been a lot of information for you,” The doctor finishes, replaces the chart at the end of your bed before she heads towards the door.
“Please, no visitors today. I-I need to rest,” you feel ashamed for some reason, and your face reddens as you turn it away, laying back down and closing your eyes.
“What is happening? What year is it really? The doctor didn’t say…”
---
Weeks went by, you did your memory therapy and you didn’t allow any visitors. You worried that they would all sense that you weren’t the Commander Shepard they knew.
Since you woke up, your days have been rather tiring: memory therapy, physical therapy, occupational therapy. All of it to slowly get your body back to what it was before, whatever that means.
Every now and then, as you lay in bed in the evening, you catch the glimpse of a shadow in the window. It seems slight, not the humans from before you’re sure, you think it’s maybe a quarian. Sometimes the reflection of the lights in the hallway bounce off their mask.
You wonder if they’re someone you once knew. Every time after you first catch this shadow at your window, you turn away, tears welling in your eyes for unknown reasons.
---
“Had to be me. Someone else might have gotten it wrong.”
The last bits of a dream slip through your fingers as you wake, tears streaming down your face. The salarian doctor is in your room standing by your bed as she checks your chart.
“Everything alright, Shepard?” She asks, putting the chart away and assessing you. “Are you in pain?”
“No, doctor. Just…a bad dream? A memory?” You shake your head, rubbing your forehead as you try to remember. “A tower and an explosion. Someone I knew.”
The doctor watches intently, eyes recognizing the description but not saying anything. You watch her back, hoping she’ll finally give some clue as to what you’ve been seeing in your dreams at night. Adventures and people you don’t know or remember.
“Why are you crying, then? Do you think something bad happened to this person?” The doctor asks, quiet, pulling out a separate tablet and typing something into it. She is prompting you, you realize, trying to drag the memory out of you. The memory therapist has done the same, to little gratification.
“I mean there was an explosion. And I’m crying, so I assume yes. I…” You close your eyes, remembering a flash of a face, a voice. A salarian.
There’s a silence as you think and as the doctor observes, gentle tapping sounds as she takes her notes. More of the dream comes flooding back to you, two krogans asking for your help. The salarian walking away from you. Looking up at the tower and the explosion. Fragments piece together, large gaps in between.
“I remember,” your voice is soft, sad. “Mordin.”