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kepesh-yakshi · 7 years

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Quickfic: Recovery

January 22, 2187 CE (EST 0515) Hi, diary, how long has it been? I told myself a long time ago that I would never keep us separated for more than a day, and if we were, I'd write on something else and insert them in with you in the right order. We started this three years ago, and I commited - and you know how committed I am to things I believe in. (scribbled out words) I think it's impossible that I'm even writing this, with all that happened almost a month ago. I was almost killed. Again... (more scribbled out words, a teardrop smudged the end of it)

I I don't want to talk about it right now. But I am alive, and that's really all I wanted to say. -- Marley Shepard closed the thick navy blue leather-bound journal, stuffed with pages of various sizes and colors, folded and stored as neatly as she could make them, put it at the edge of the rolling tray, and set the pen on its cover. It smelled of sweet things: rose, lavender, cinnamon, vanilla...just enough so that you could imagine some pages were deliberately scented. James Vega, who sat in the chair at the far corner of the hospital room, found it peculiar, as his Commander wasn't at all a girly girl. Sure, she had a knock-out body and she took great care of herself, and even wore makeup, but she never once gave any inclination that she was into scented paper. He pondered what kind of prank he could pull on her with that discovery. But to him, she always smelled like sweet peppery cinnamon...no, what is it called?

"Clove," he mumbled out loud. Marley, Doctors Liara T'Soni and Karin Chakwas, and Jeff "Joker" Moreau all looked at him.

"Oh," he backed away, verbally, stating "nothing, sorry." He revered his Commander. All five feet, six inches, 136 pounds of her. She was small in stature, but “tight” by muscular structure, with round rocks for shoulders and horseshoe triceps. Even her legs were well defined. She wasn’t cut like he was, but she looked like she worked out. She had a pixie crop of reddish brown curls, half wrapped away under bandages and burn cream, blackened but healing teal eyes that normally levied an understanding beyond someone of her age (32), soft curved cheeks and lips that seemed to edge upward in a smile. Even when she was frustrated, she always seemed to have a hopeful look about her. Her wide-bridged nose, currently taped due to being broken, sloped straight into a round tip that often wriggled when she spoke, which made his inner child giggle with glee. at how adorable she looked. He was thankful that she didn't know that he thought that way. He wasn't in love love with her, but he did adore her. She was his hero, and not for the things he was thinking about. In moments like this, he often wondered how someone of her background could keep her wits about her and be so compassionate and capable of doing the things she had done. After all, he still couldn't even talk about Fehl Prime.

"Nothing, Lieutenant?" Marley's inquisitive response was one he wasn't sure how to reply.

"Well, I can smell your journal from over here, and it reminded me that I notice you smell like cloves." There was a long pause, and Joker let out a chuckle. "I mean, not the cigarettes or anything like that...just...the clove things. Like cinnamon and pepper or something...nevermind." He chose to sit in the far corner of the room for a reason, primarily because he was too worried about her to be more than just present. He almost felt helpless for her. There in that hospital bed was one of the strongest and bravest people he knew, burned, bruised, and broken in so many places. And her half-bandaged head was hanging low. Until he said "cloves."

"I smell like cloves, huh..." She'd been told that, before, but wanted to make sure she heard him right, and that he was the one saying it. The big hulk of a man sitting noticeably far away from her, in a skin-tight faded red shirt and baggy black cargo pants, sitting with tension throughout his muscular body, was displaying every sign of awkwardness that she'd ever seen.

He owned his slip, to her amusement. "Yes, ma'am. And cloves smell very nice." "I've heard that before, and thank you for the compliment." She smiled and nodded earnestly at him. As simple as the exchange was, it was a desperately needed distraction. She savored the moment as it was.

"You're welcome...ma'am." He withdrew from the subject, turning his attention to the view from the second floor window. "I still can't believe you talked Admiral Hackett into letting some of the keepers come down here during the recovery effort."

"Yes, yes I did," Marley welcomed the unfolding diversion with open arms. "It was the second thing I said to him when his team escorted me from the station."

Jeff leaned forward in his chair, which was immediately to the right of Marley's bed. His curiosity was clear as he interjected, "I still can't believe you got them to communicate with us."

"What was the first thing you said, if I may ask?" Dr. Chakwas turned away from the three-dimensional x-ray images on the wall-sized screen across from the bed.

Marley's smile grew bigger. "I asked him if we were successful, and then I said 'let the keepers come, too, we're going to need them'." She reserved almost all of her emotions, save for when the time required it or if she absolutely trusted whomever she was talking to, always preferring actions to words, but she knew how to negotiate in tense situations. "When I realized I was alive I..." but she never felt so helpless than when she first woke after opting to outright destroy the Reapers. It was a moment she'd prepared for, finding closure with everyone she loved and every event she'd lived through. But the moments after all was done, though hazy, were still in her mind.

This was something she felt a desire to share, and the room hosted people she trusted with her life. It would be an emotional discussion, so she readied herself the best she could by taking some paper tissues out of the box on her tray. "My ears were deafened from the explosion. My eyes were light-blind, and everything was dark..." her voice, which she normally spoke with the deeper ends of her range, even macho according to James' interpretation, was shaky and soft. Still, but shaky soft. "I remember hearing creaking metal, the smell of dead bodies and electricity, my own burnt hair, my blood..." It was the first time in many years that she let more than one tear fall in front of people. She let one out earlier, but only one, and to Marley, that didn't count. One tear was a body function, not an act of emotion. This time, there were many. "I could breathe, but I was stuck. I had a re-bar pinning my leg down, and I couldn't move. Then this keeper shows up and says 'we see you, we will help' and starts sautering it in half right there. So I said 'you understand me?' and it said 'we understand you.' So I asked it 'what are you going to do?' and it told me 'we will rebuild. We always rebuild.' She sighed and looked down, 'then it said they could help rebuild earth, since the light beam still worked.' It pulled me out of the wreckage and to a spot where I could see why I was still able to breathe. There had to be a hundred of them - maybe more. They had turned on the environmental shield generator that cover the area that the beam to earth was around, so none of us would implode."

"But how?" Jeff asked. "That place was decimated -- especially at the center!" "You know their little backpacks? They carry generators in them." "Really?" Dr. T'Soni added. "That's quite amazing."

"I know, and there are so many of them that if the Citadel were to burn...well, like it did...they could keep the environment sustained and still have enough keepers left to administer medical help." Marley huffed in a half-laugh. "They really do take care of that place."

Dr. T'Soni was so curious about the keepers. They were a side hobby, next to the Prothean research. "Did you ask them why they have always been so quiet?"

"They weren't allowed to speak. It was the "old machine" that kept them quiet."

T'Soni paused for a moment, and then looked down and away. "Oh, that's very sad. I don’t think I could live without being able to communicate."

"Wait," Jeff again, inquisitive as ever. "Did they actually confirm this?"

"Yes. They confirmed it." The tears were gone, to Marley's inner relief. Her crew seemed to collectively avoid the hard parts of the events and focus on what might be dubbed 'cooler' ones. "Gentlemen," Dr. Chakwas spoke up, "The Commander's visitation hour is coming to a close, and I regret I must ask you to wrap things up." "No problem, Doctor," Jeff said, getting up slowly and safely. James popped up like a slice of toast out of a toaster. "Alright. Joker, Kadera's?"

Jeff grinned. Kadera's Cafe was his favorite cafe in that area of London -- a corner coffee house with rustic ceramic mugs and a real cappuccino maker from the turn of the millennium -- and great hamburgers with real Angus beef, none of that synthetic stuff. "Kadera's it is." He looked up at Dr. T'Soni. "Liara, wanna join us? They have that shrimp soup that you love..."

Marley gave Dr. T'Soni a permissive look, and the Doctor replied, "I believe I will, thank you."

The two men bade farewell to their Commander, and Liara hugged her gently before all three of them left the room, leaving Dr. Chakwas to finish a report she was working on.

"You've built a great team, Commander," she said. "Your dedication to them has reaped you a benefit unsurpassed, and that benefit is loyalty. They love you." She turned away from the images on the screen and looked Marley in the eyes. "And I love you. I am relieved you're still with us."

Marley could feel the emotions building up, but quickly checked them. "I am grateful for them, Dr. Chakwas. Grateful for you. Their being here isn't just on me, it's on them, too. They're a strong team." "And with that, I must go tend to other patients. Your progress is good, believe it or not. You should be able to remove those bandages, this week. It's ashame we couldn't get medigel on it, sooner, or you'd already be healed, except for that leg and collarbone. I expect three more week,s at least, for those breaks to be healed."

"Yeah..." Marley huffed another laugh. "I can do a lot of things, but supporting fifteen hundred pounds of cinder with my femur is not one of them."

Dr. Chakwas laughed. "I suppose you're right. It's good to see you finding a laugh, right now. It will help the healing." She turned for the door. "Get some rest, Commander." Then it was quiet. From her view in the bed, it looked mostly normal. Dr. Chakwas made a point to put her in a room not facing the remains of the Citadel, as she was aware that the emotional and mental trauma that the Commander dealt with may be affected by such a view. All Marley could see was a blue sky, treetops, and a couple of buildings that weren't physically affected by what happened -- and yes, some buildings were miraculously still in tact, for some reason.

She opened her journal, again, and began to write.

It was on fire And everything was trapped in the flames The globe glowing in bright orange trails To see it crawling with purple death machines, And to know that I could do nothing But that we could do everything And we got me there so I could end it And those overlooked salvaged my live So that I could go back to those who sent me.

#mass effect #mass effect fan fiction #is there a tag for this?#oc shepard #femshep #writing #fan fiction #marley shepard

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