We haven’t spoken in a year. Her mom is dying. I text her to find out how she’s doing. She’s come back to town for her mom’s treatment. Somehow I end up going to the hospital to see her. She wants a comforting presence.

I get there too late. Her mom is already gone. She’s already left. Won’t answer the phone. I wait there for hours before she tells me she’d like to see me. I wait for several more to find out when that might be.

There’s a chapel at the hospital. An all faiths kind of deal, but it’s clear it’s mostly Catholic. Never been very religious despite believing in God. Still, I spend two hours in that chapel praying, if you can call it that. I’m not sure I know how to pray. God probably thinks I’m selfish. This time, though, I can only pray for her. I still love her. Disregarding everything she’s put me through, I know she’s been hurt just as badly. I don’t want her to hurt anymore.

I don’t know if my prayers work. I never get to see the story end.

Three days. After twenty-eight hours of surgery performed by the best endocrinologists and cardiothoracic doctors they could find, it took three days for Claire to wake up from her coma. They had explained it to her no less than a dozen times and she still had trouble wrapping her head around all the damage her body had undergone. All of them had, really; there hadn’t been a single member of the Evanescent ground team who hadn’t had to undergo at least one minor surgery upon regrouping with the Fifth Fleet, but she’d easily had the worst go of it.

She’d gulped it all down with mild disbelief. That was common, the nurse had said. She was on enough sedatives and painkillers to make a krogan loopy, so lightheadedness and the occasional lack of comprehension weren’t really that bad, all things considered. It was only compounded when, several hours later, they informed her of everything else that had happened during her slumber. They’d abandoned Sentinel in favor of playing hide-and-seek with a small diplomatic fleet in the unoccupied systems. Its location was broadcasted bi-hourly to the Normandy alone through an encrypted QEC relay, guaranteeing that the Reapers couldn’t find them by hacking comms.

Furthermore, their suspicions had been confirmed that there were, in fact, Reapers that were ready to fight at their side. Or, perhaps more accurately, they didn’t actively want to annihilate all life in the galaxy. Add to that the fact that the geth were now full-on allies and the quarians were scratching their heads looking for reasons not to join the fight, and it all became a straight shot of “no fucking way that actually happened.”

Throughout it all, Donovan had never left her room. After they’d regrouped with the fleet, the Evanescent’s crew had assisted in the evacuation of Sentinel outpost and all injured personnel had been moved to Hackett’s flagship, the Armistice. It was a heavy cruiser far larger than any vessel Claire had ever served on, and as such its medical facilities extended beyond just a small sickbay with a few cots and basic triage equipment. She had her own private quarters complete with a view screen, a single chair that looked like it would torture you the longer you sat in it, and her personal assortment of IV drips and monitoring equipment. They’d said she was stable, but was being kept in observation for another twenty-four hours just to be sure.

Beyond that, there wasn’t a whole lot of reason for her to leave recovery. Donovan occasionally met with his cousins, or Garrus—Shepard had even stopped by once to talk to him and check on Claire—but otherwise any work he needed to do, he did from his omni-tool. They were in a sort of recuperation period, he’d said, waiting for the geth to start work on some new tech and hoping that the research teams would magic into existence a plan to save the universe.

It was remarkable to see the change in him, comparing the person he was now to the person she’d met back in Vancouver. He had really come into his own. His face still bore the bruises and scars from Tuchanka that had yet to mend, but there was an air of dignity present that hadn’t been completely developed before. It had always been clear just from a simple glance that he was smart, seasoned, and influential; but now, he was determined. There was a fire in his eyes and a spark in his step that made it seem like he could set the whole world on fire.

It was quite attractive.

Claire mentally chided herself for the wayward thought. Not that it wasn’t true, or that he wasn’t a physically attractive person; that had been abundantly clear from the start, as well. But now wasn’t the time for such thoughts, and she didn’t think it appropriate given their already intimate relationship. That night on Sentinel, she imagined they had both shared much more with each other than either of them had meant to, and while she was glad for the connection, it did complicate things. She had always hated complicated, and certainly didn’t want to make it even more so.

“So explain it to me again,” she said absently, setting down the holo-novel she’d been reading while Donovan typed away his third report of the day.

He looked up with a puppy dog glance of confusion, twitching his broken nose. “Which part?”

She’d asked the same question a few times already, constantly getting him to re-explain one thing or another that she had such a hard time believing. Honestly, none of it should have been so surprising considering everything they’d already seen, but disbelief was a hell of a powerful internal block to try to dismiss.

“The Reapers,” she continued. “The good ones, I mean. What is it they want, exactly?”

His eyes bent into a frown. “I think we’re calling them Wardens now. At least, that’s what Shepard said last time I talked to her.”

Of course. It only stood to reason that the machines called Reapers, who had previously only been entirely intent on genocide and harvesting organic life in order to procreate, would now be given such a redeeming title. Claire agreed with the sentiment; they couldn’t very well continue to call the good robots Reapers, but it seemed so . . . wrong. Even if their intentions were good, they’d still killed God only knew how many trillions.

“I know, I hate it too,” Donovan continued. He could no doubt see the skepticism in her face. “But as far as I understand it, we’re still working on that. Hopefully, if we come up with any possible solutions to the galaxy imploding on itself, they’ll have suggestions.”

“You sound like you don’t completely believe that.”

He sighed, nodded in agreement, and dropped his head. “It’s a tough sell. Everything pointed to the Reapers being hell-bent on annihilating us without a care in the world as to why they were doing it. I fall asleep some nights still trying to convince myself that that’s not precisely what we’re dealing with anymore.”

“But it’s not,” she said, trying to offer him comfort as much as to convince herself. “They see potential in us. They have to; why else would they even approach us?”

He scooted his chair closer to her bed and put his hand on top of hers, gripping it tightly. Claire had gone through bootcamp just like every other marine, and her grip strength was nothing to scoff at, but his was remarkable. If she didn’t know any better, she’d think he was a professional rock-climber.

He still didn’t look particularly convinced, either, but he was trying to for her sake. “You’re right. Things are looking up.”

She didn’t offer a response, opting to give his hand a squeeze in return. They then returned to their own business, him writing reports and occasionally wading through message chains, and her getting sucked into a rather mundane story in which a college student tried to save the world from his deluded professor. It wasn’t bad, all things considered, and kept her interest long enough that she didn’t notice several hours had passed before the nurse entered the room to check Claire’s vitals. They exchanged pleasantries, briefly talked about the book she’d been reading, and engaged in idle chatter about how strong her readings were looking. The internal lacerations were healing nicely after the surgeries, and the bones that had been broken were almost fully mended.

Just before the nurse finished up, Donovan excused himself to run to the bathroom and get some food. He wouldn’t take long—he never did—but he still asked the nurse to wait with Claire for a few minutes until he got back. She obliged, assuring him that there were a few more minor things for her to take care of anyway. In truth, Claire didn’t think there was anything else she needed, other than a bit of conversation.

“You know he hasn’t left the medbay since you arrived,” she said, a coy smile playing on her face. “Least, not for more than a second. They’ve been trying to drag him left and right.”

“I know,” Claire responded, unable to stop the same smile from appearing on herself. It was partly due to politeness, yes, but she couldn’t deny that it did her some good to hear those words, even if two other nurses had told her the same thing.

“Only one reason for something like that.”

Two, actually, Claire thought, though she didn’t dream of saying it out loud. In fact she was surprised the notion had even surfaced; circumstances weren’t exactly ideal, but she was in a pretty good state emotionally. Even so, an idea blurred through her mind that didn’t quite belong: the only motivator more powerful than affection was guilt.

She shut the thought down quickly, like she had been doing fairly frequently lately, and forced herself to remember the social context. The nurse was still staring at her with a downright playful grin, completely oblivious to the fact that her patient was still dealing with PTSD and didn’t have the slightest presence of mind to consider personal entanglements.

Still, the woman was only trying to be nice. Claire returned with her best imitation of a sheepish smile, and thank God Donovan came back into the room before she had to say anything else.

He noticed the tension that had built, she thought, but he knew better than to make a scene out of it. Instead he simply thanked the nurse for waiting, set his food down on the side table next to Claire’s bed, and brought his chair closer. The nurse only gave one last smile directed at Claire before leaving the room.

“The hell was that?” Donovan asked, a sarcastic smile playing on his face as he took a bite out of his sandwich.

“She has the hots for me," Claire replied sarcastically. Deflecting awkward situations with humor always worked.

The next few hours were spent idly. They enjoyed a casual chat while Donovan ate, learning much more about each other than either of them had realized they were missing out on. Claire couldn’t help but feel that he was holding something back, but she also imagined that was natural for someone like him. He had lived most of his life in isolation, sequestered by parents who thought the world would corrupt him, and had only furthered that isolation by becoming obsessed with the inevitable invasion of the Reapers.

And she had thought her parents were controlling. At the very least, even if Donovan wasn’t being completely straight with her, she knew he wasn’t lying either. He was trying. And she learned much more about him as a person through the way he talked about things more than the topics he chose to talk about. For example, he was terrible at small talk. She knew that he had an incredible capacity for oration, given all the monologues he’d droned on about when discussing the war, but when it came to smaller, less consequential topics, he had trouble keeping the conversation going. Claire assumed it was because he had been taught that those aspects of life weren’t worth talking about, which only made her want to talk about them more.

When conversation began to focus on her, she could see he was much more interested. He asked questions about everything; any time she mentioned a detail about her life, he wanted to know more. He was particularly interested in her family and the relationships throughout her life—anyone she had ever been close to, whether it was a favorite aunt, a best friend, or a romantic fling, they all intrigued him.

On the flipside, his relationships weren’t a welcome talking point. He had failed most of them, he’d said, and while he recognized that those failures didn’t always rest squarely on him, he took the blame regardless. It went a long way in explaining his guilt over leaving earth, and the losses they’d taken at the Citadel. His was a savior complex much more deep-seated than any Claire had ever seen or heard of; most saviors tended to be white knights who didn’t understand the harsh realities of the people they were trying to help. Donovan knew it from firsthand experience, and had decided that if he couldn’t help himself, he was going to try to show others that they were worth saving.

It was a touching mentality, really, but one that had its own issues. He couldn’t very well help anyone if he was living proof that a soul couldn’t be helped. And he knew that, he said. Something had happened while they were buried under twelve metric tons of debris that made him decide not to give up on himself. He had accepted long ago that he could never take his own life, but that didn’t preclude him from waking up every day hoping it would be his last. That some act of cosmic chance would end it all for him in a quick moment of solace.

Now, it was different. He knew that if he wanted to make a difference, he had to accept that his life had value and he had to make something of it. It was so genuine that it even gave Claire a bit of hope, and she could see that something really had changed in him. It was subtle, and she thought he himself was still coming to an understanding of it, but a decision had been made to take action rather than ride the current. Behind the bruises and the scars, there was life in his eyes. Claire couldn’t deny it suited him.

It was towards the end of this hours-long discussion that the door to the room opened once more. Odd, it wasn’t time for the nurse’s regular check-in.

But it wasn’t the nurse. Shepard herself walked through the door, blonde hair practically shining off her dress blues, giving the impression that she was about to attend some formal meeting or another. And behind her, two more souls entered the room, wheeling in a contraption the likes of which Claire had never seen. One was a doctor or scientist, a balding human sporting round wire-rimmed glasses and a typical lab coat; the other, a thin geth that held virtually no physical distinction from every other geth Claire had seen. The sight of it unnerved her for a moment, seeing as it was her first time in the presence of an actual geth, but neither Shepard nor Donovan seemed even remotely put off by it. That didn’t make it much better, but at least she took comfort in their familiarity.

The three new entrants to the room, followed by what looked like a medieval torture device, was quite the sight to behold.

“What’s going on?” Donovan asked, immediately standing up to greet Shepard and check out the device she’d brought with her. The scientist and the geth ignored him as they turned the device on and began setting it up.

“I’m sorry, I wanted to wait to do this until you were better, but we’re pressed for time.” Shepard mostly addressed Claire, seeing as she was the one still confined to sickbay, but she was speaking to Donovan as well. “As soon as the geth came aboard, they started work on machinery that’ll help us identify the effects of indoctrination before they get too severe. Anyone who could’ve been exposed to the Reaper signal is being tested.”

Just a check-up, then. Nothing too serious. A sort of mental well-being, with the aim of keeping everyone from losing their minds. Made sense.

“What about your crew?” Donovan asked, real concern playing in his voice. “And Evanescent’s?”

This time it wasn’t Shepard who answered, but the geth who stood ready and waiting to begin the procedure. “The ground teams of both the Normandy and Evanescent have been scanned, all showing light signs of indoctrination. This is to be expected for any organic that comes within proximity of a Reaper capital ship. The effects have thus far been minimal, and treatment is available.”

“Treatment? How do you treat indoctrination?”

“Believe it or not, theta wave therapy,” the scientist answered. After a few seconds, when it was clear that no one knew what that meant, he continued. “Theta waves help regulate creativity and memory within the human brain, among other things. My xenobiology’s a bit fuzzy, but the aliens have similar treatments using slightly different methods. For you, it’ll stimulate your brain enough that it serves as a counteractive to the Reaper signal.”

“How so?” Claire asked, intrigued by the science of it all. She could see the worry present in Donovan’s body language, but if there had been any real danger, Claire imagined there would be a guard or two present for the procedure. So, with no actual threat present, curiosity got the better of her.

“According to the geth, the Reaper signal emits what we’ve currently termed an omicron wave, unlike any other brain wave we’ve been able to identify. It crosses all species barriers, slowly lulling the brain into a state of . . . well, indoctrination. It’s almost a form of hypnotic suggestion, until the victim asserts their own will too strongly, at which point it completely overrides their consciousness. Theta wave therapy returns the mind to a calmer, relaxed, meditative state that erodes Reaper influence.”

Fascinating, every bit of it. Claire had never been able to academically study neurochemistry and psychiatry, but she’d always told herself that if she ever went back to school, the only thing she’d be interested in would be learning more about the human brain. Hearing such a clinical explanation of something that seemed so fantastical was intriguing, to say the least.

“And how does this device identify indoctrination?” She was glad Donovan asked, because that was her next question.

“Your physical brain and chemical composition will be scanned for signs of immense alteration,” the geth answered. “Indoctrination changes the physical makeup of an organic brain, far more quickly than the brain naturally evolves itself. The more your brain has changed relative to the length of time between scans, the more severe the indoctrination.”

“So this will have to be a regular thing,” Claire mused, “if we want to be able to chart the progression in an individual.”

“Correct.”

Donovan and Shepard exchanged a meaningful look, one that showed both concern and serious contemplation. Claire thought she had some idea of what they were thinking, but she hadn’t been nearly as involved in the course of this war as either of them had. They’d both been making decisions—or at least, informing decisions—whereas she’d just been there to patch people up along the way. And now, she was the one being patched up while they made even more decisions.

“Well, let’s get it over with,” Donovan said resignedly. “Might as well find out just how crazy I am.”

The scientist nearly leapt into action, moving across the room to grab the chair and get it situated perfectly. He then instructed Donovan to sit, and the geth brought the device around behind him. The machine whirred a bit as two probes extended out from the base, moving just next to Donovan’s ears on either side until they fully encircled his head.

“Now don’t be alarmed,” the scientist said as he fiddled with his omni-tool. “It’s nothing invasive. We’re just going to get a few quick scans of your brain, measure the change since your last scan, and compare the results.”

“You have my brain scans on record?”

“Don’t talk, please.”

He shot the doctor a rather rude look, but did as asked, forcing Claire to stifle a laugh. They sat in silence for roughly a minute, which seemed quite fast considering that Donovan’s entire brain was being scanned so precisely that they’d be able to measure physical changes.

Oddly enough, Shepard and the geth were just as silent, and it struck Claire as strange that Shepard had come all the way to sickbay just for this. She had likely been present for the tests on every crew member, but surely she had more important things to do than watch two people get their brains scanned.

Then again, Shepard hadn’t been reserved about her distrust of Donovan and his cousins. In fact she had been the opposite of reserved, so much that rumors had spread among Hackett’s team. Claire wasn’t the type to engage in such things, even if it had been about someone she didn’t trust with her life, but that didn’t stop word from getting around.

A moment later the scientist grunted and the device stopped humming. “Mm, you’re in decent shape,” he informed Donovan. “Slight variations, but not enough to cause any concern. We’ll start theta wave therapy immediately to negate the effects.”

“And that’s safe?” Donovan asked as the scanners slid back into their idle position. “I don’t like the idea of altering my brain’s signals.”

“They’ve already been altered by the Reapers,” the scientist said, casually taking notes on his omni-tool. “This will just undo what’s already been done.” Then he faced Claire, realized she wasn’t in a good position to have a machine stuffed behind her, and frowned. “Now you’re up. We’ll have to move you out of your bed just for a minute.”

“Let me,” Donovan said, moving the chair closer so that Claire wouldn’t have to move far. Then he rested a hand on her shoulder as she leaned forward. “You good?”

She nodded. They had said lightheadedness was to be expected, so unless she was about to pass out from dizziness she was fine. “Ready.”

He wrapped one arm around her, positioning his shoulder just under her left arm, and placed his hand on the opposite side of her waist. Then together they leaned forward, lifted off the bed, and spun around so she could plop down gently into the chair.

Her head pulsed at the sudden exertion and immediate release of pressure, but she was still conscious. No worries there. Donovan sat at the end of her bed and smiled as if to give moral support.

Such a dork.

The same process repeated itself again as she sat there waiting for it to end. It was surreal, she thought, that she even had anyone in the room to just be there, existing with her and getting through the moment together. Surreal to think that in under a month, this person she hadn’t even known had literally fallen from the sky and become such an important part of her life. So important that she was probably only alive because of him, the same way he was only alive because of her. There was no doubt in her mind she would have died in Vancouver if Troy and Donovan hadn’t been so insistent.

The thoughts rambled on in her mind for such a long time that it took her a moment to realize her scan wasn’t going nearly as quickly as Donovan’s had. A quick look at the scientist’s sunken eyes told her that something wasn’t right.

“What going on?” she asked. “Why’s it taking so long?”

The man didn’t answer, only continuing to swipe through results on his omni-tool. “Oracle, what do these results mean, precisely?”

“No data available,” the geth replied from the other side of the room. “What is clear is that Claire Daniels' neural physiology has been altered much more than her compatriots’. There is significant evidence of Reaper indoctrination.”

All chaos broke loose at that statement. The scientist’s eyes widened, Donovan stood up quickly, and Shepard moved forward with her hand raised to keep him back. Everyone started talking all at the same time, so quickly and chaotically that in seconds they were all yelling at each other. Claire just sat there immobilized, taking it all in like she’d been told she had cancer. It wasn’t real.

But it wasn’t that serious, right? They’d said that treatments were available. Surely if Donovan and Shepard weren’t severely indoctrinated, Claire couldn’t possibly be too far gone. She’d been present for earth, sure, and the lunacy on Tuchanka, but Donovan had all that same time plus the mission to Jerusalem, which as far as they knew was the first real attempt from the Reapers to indoctrinate someone. It couldn’t be that bad. Everyone was just scared.

It didn’t help that, despite the logic running through the forefront of her mind, Claire was terrified too.

“ . . . not taking her anywhere without me!” she heard Donovan yelling, snapping her back to reality.

“We need to isolate and study the effects of indoctrination so that we can better treat it,” Shepard responded. Her voice was equally as loud as his, but it didn’t carry the same anger. She wasn’t emotional; it was a simple matter of procedure. Threat management. Scientific research. In a split second, Claire had gone from a person to a problem that needed solving.

“Bullshit,” Donovan spat. “Isolation isn’t to help her, it’s to help the rest of you. You really think Daniels is a danger to us?”

“It doesn’t matter what I think, it matters that we have orders. We’d be doing the same thing if it was me or you, and we both know you wouldn’t have a problem with that.”

Donovan’s face lightened a shade, and Claire didn’t think she’d ever seen him more enraged. His wasn’t a stupid anger, though; not the kind that forces one to act impulsively and recklessly. No, instead it was a cold fury, the kind that gathered fuel patiently over time and exploded only at the opportune moment. He wanted to go off, that much was easily identifiable. In fact, Claire was worried that Shepard was about to get hit. But instead he buried his anger so deep it seemed to be causing him physical pain.

“It’s fine,” Claire said softly, leaning forward to take his hand. “It’s just procedure. You heard them, we have ways to treat it. Just let it go.”

It was a very, very long time before he let out a sigh of defeat. He nodded just barely, forcing himself to go along with it simply because Claire had asked him to, and dropped his head.

“Take her to the lab,” Shepard told the scientist. No sooner had she said the words than the geth moved to support Claire, helping her to her feet. “I want hourly progress reports. Under no circumstances are any untested procedures to be used. Just get her back to a hundred percent.”

“Of course,” was all the doctor said.

Claire let go of Donovan’s hand, brushing his fingers as she was led out of the room. She saw Shepard turn to face him, put a hand on his shoulder, and then she was out the door. That was when it really sunk in.

She was indoctrinated.

It was never an easy thing to lose people, but somehow, it almost seemed more difficult to hear that someone you cared about was wounded. Or in this case, diseased. Wounds could be healed and diseases could be cured, yes, but this one wasn’t quite a certainty. The geth—serving as proxies of the Wardens—had given them a lot more than they’d previously had, but it had come with a warning: the tech was experimental, and not guaranteed to serve as a magical treatment. They could lessen the impact of indoctrination, and they could identify its effects on one’s brain. They could not, however, say with any measure of certainty that an individual could be brought back from indoctrination, even if it hadn’t crossed the threshold which gave the Reapers total control.

It was all more of a preventative medicine than anything, and not a particularly good one at that. Chakwas had likened it to curing the flu by simply never going outside again. If they saw noticeable changes in someone’s brain patterns, that person would have to be excluded from any operations that might bring them in further contact with the indoctrination signal. If their brain returned to normal after a course of theta wave treatment, they could go on field ops once more; if not . . . well, they hadn’t had to worry about that until now.

Donovan didn’t know all of this; he and most of the Evanescent’s ground team had been placed on a sort of administrative leave, wherein they were instructed to report on the Tuchanka operation and weigh in on certain critical developments. For the cousins, those developments had primarily included the geth/quarian conflict, and what they imagined the quarians would do now that they had Rannoch once more. None of their duties had necessitated that they know the full details of the indoctrination research, and therefore, everything that had just transpired was surely a sucker punch out of left field.

The only reason he hadn’t been dressed down was because Ella could relate. He wasn’t a soldier, and he hadn’t asked for any of this to become his responsibility. Hell, he and Troy hadn’t even wanted to take part in the fighting, or get themselves so embroiled with the Reapers that they ran the risk of being indoctrinated. Yet there they were, surviving not just one, but two certain-death situations with the godzilla monsters.

And now, someone he cared about was at risk of losing her very free will. Of all the messed up shit Ella had seen in the last three years, she’d at least never had to deal with that.

She never took her eyes off him as he breathed deeply, trying to regain his composure. It was only then that she realized her breathing had become heavy as well, causing her to wonder why. Adrenaline, probably. She had been in more fights than she could possibly remember, and as such she knew the look of rage in someone’s eyes that came from a desperate longing to lunge forward and rip her throat out. She just hadn’t expected it to come from Donovan, of all people. The kid who had wanted nothing more than to offer assistance to the hero that he idolized.

Well, she couldn’t exactly call him a kid anymore. Despite all of his contributions, Ella had never been able to shake the image of he and his cousins as inexperienced youths trying their best to appear wiser and more important than they were. Now, they had lived through the attack on Vancouver, the Citadel, Jerusalem, and Tuchanka. They’d fought, taken risks, worked with their unit, and helped provide some of the most valuable intelligence yet in the war with the Reapers.

Furthermore, they really had grown, and not just thanks to the gene mods. It was a sight to behold really, seeing as Donovan had once been roughly on the same level as Ella whereas he now stood several inches taller than her, but more important was the growth in his demeanor and attitude. He had seen a lot in the past month; too much, really. Two weeks ago, Ella thought the idea to physically fight her over Daniels’ isolation wouldn’t even have crossed his mind. Now, she knew that he had really been ready to throw a swing at her. It was reckless and stupid and fueled purely by a lack of consideration, but it was gutsy too. There was a good reason that even krogan thought twice before starting a fight with Ella Shepard.

There was still something hiding, though. She’d known that from the very beginning. Hackett had been right—trusting them was the correct course of action, especially given the display of loyalty they’d shown by nearly getting themselves killed on Tuchanka—and Ella had to admit, she’d slowly come around to the idea of letting them have their secrets. However, it was becoming dangerous; not only for everyone around them, but for themselves as well.

Donovan knew that, she thought, and it was part of the reason that he was so emotional. There was a deep frustration that drove everything else, compounding the effects of the fear he’d shown for Daniels’ well-being. Whatever reason he’d had for keeping his secrets, it was past time to let it out.

“What the hell’s going on with you?”

Ella regretted the choice of words immediately. She’d wanted to be gentle about the whole thing and try to coax him into a secure state of mind, but this wasn’t her area of expertise, and it always showed in these types of conversations.

Still, it was already said. No use going back on it now.

Donovan paced to the other end of the room, still avoiding eye contact. He wasn’t angry anymore, at least, and he didn’t seem to be wallowing in guilt or self-pity like he had been after their escape from the Citadel. Instead he seemed almost disappointed. Ella wasn’t exactly the most empathetic person, but the guy really wore his heart on his sleeve despite his reluctance to talk about what he was going through.

“It’s just a lot,” he finally said. A frown adorned his forehead as he stared at the ground. “We’ve all been through a lot lately, and so much insane shit has happened that it’s . . . it’s just hard to process everything.”

Was he being honest? Any previous conversation Ella had held with any of the cousins never usually went far beyond surface level; they offered information, tried to help when possible, and had no issue chatting about the events of the war, but they never broached any hard topics. If the discussion turned to their past or any deep pondering about their feelings, they deflected and either ignored the conversation or brought it around to a different talking point.

Yet there Donovan was, actually telling the unfiltered truth about himself for once. It took Ella a moment to realize that she’d broken through so effortlessly, but once she did, a thousand ideas sprang to the surface. Immediately, she wanted to ask what his big secret was; why he always seemed so suspicious—but that would close the door entirely, and the bigger concern was making sure he and his cousins got their shit together.

“I know it is,” she responded, sitting at the edge of the medical bed that had only moments ago been occupied by Daniels. “Believe me, I know it. When I heard what happened on Tuchanka . . . well, here you all are, living proof, and I still don’t really believe it.”

“I don’t know how you do it.” Donovan leaned his left shoulder against the wall and crossed his arms. “I mean, I went on one mission with the Evanescent’s squad; we didn’t even really know each other, but we lost three people on Tuchanka and I just don’t know how to deal with that.”

He stopped, knowing that Ella was still grieving the loss of Grunt, and they both took another deep breath. He wasn’t wrong. The hardest part was having to let go of the people she swore she would never lose.

“And now we have indoctrination to worry about, and . . . ” His eyes finally met Ella’s, and she could see exactly what he was feeling. Anger, sorrow, confusion, frustration, fear—all somehow rolled up into one horrific volley of emotion that would annihilate anyone on the receiving end. “I can’t lose them to something like that. I can’t.”

He was referring to his cousins, naturally, as well as Daniels whom he’d grown remarkably close to over the weeks. What was it about suicide missions that developed such a strong emotional intimacy between people? Ella couldn’t deny that she and the crew of the Normandy had fallen prey to that same strange force of nature; but on a much larger scale, she was certain he was talking about much more than the people closest to him. His sense of responsibility rivalled her own, if only in the regard that they both took much more guilt on their shoulders than either of them should have.

The curse of a martyr.

“Sometimes I don’t know either,” Ella answered. Not that it really was much of an answer, but if Donovan was going to be completely honest, so would she. “I think about what’ll be left at the end of this war, assuming we actually win, and this sick feeling boils in my gut. You just press on because you have to. It’s either that, or let everything you know be destroyed.”

It wasn’t a particularly helpful sentiment—Ella knew, because it was what she told herself practically every day—but he did at least take it into consideration. Even so, they were barely scratching the surface of everything that bothered him so much.

“What’s really going to happen to Claire?” he asked, refusing to let up on the solemnity in his gaze. He was smart; he knew that there was more going on than they’d let on, and he deserved an honest explanation.

“Theta wave therapy, like the scientist said. Hopefully it can counteract the effects of the Reaper signal.”

“And if it doesn’t?”

Well, if it didn’t, they were all in for a very, very difficult war. Part of her wanted to reassure him; tell him what he wanted to hear in the hopes that it would somehow affect him positively. But he’d see through that, and Ella didn’t much feel like lying. She’d never been very good at it, anyway.

“I have no idea what happens then,” she answered honestly. “Clearly we’ve all been subjected to indoctrination, and the Reapers will keep trying so long as we go into conflicts with them. If everything works like the techs think it should, we should be safe as long as we limit our exposure and undergo a steady treatment regimen. But if not, if it doesn’t work like they say, we can’t let anyone be exposed so much that they fall fully under Reaper control. The last thing we can afford is a threat from within, and trust me, I don’t want to see it happen any more than you do.”

“So we just hope? Have faith that everything will work out?”

“It’s what we’ve already been doing, isn’t it?”

He couldn’t disagree, at least. The dialogue had hardly been contentious, but the last thing Ella wanted was more disagreement. She was tired of arguing. Tired of fighting people who should’ve put up no resistance. In this case, it was a very personal matter rather than one of ideologies, so it was somewhat easier to brace against; but in the grand scheme of things, and in determining what courses of action to take in the war, there had been enough dissent. For once, they had a clear vision and were preparing for everything the Reapers could throw at them.

Now if only they could all get over their personal baggage, it would be a much smoother ride. It made Ella wonder how much easier it would be to exist like the geth, free of all emotion and distraction. The only thing they ever had to worry about was their damn consensus, and now that they were individuals, they didn’t even have that problem.

You must be stressed if you’re wishing you were a robot.

God, if that wasn’t the truth.

“I’m sorry, Shepard,” Donovan said out of the blue, bringing Ella out of her contemplative moment. “There’s enough going on right now. I shouldn’t be letting my shit get in the way of what we need to do.”

That was a rather abrupt change in tone, and Ella thought she knew why.

“Hey, don’t do that,” she replied, getting a curious glance from Donovan. “Don’t shut down. I know it’s easier to bury everything and tell yourself you’ll deal with it later, but there’s too much to bury. You won’t make it out alive.”

Donovan chuckled at that. “You know I actually was buried alive, right?” Dark humor, a joke that Ella laughed at mostly to be polite. “But I know, it’s just . . . familiar. It’s what I do.”

“Well don’t,” she stated rather forcibly. “You’re making a habit of getting yourself into situations that, by all rights, you never should’ve gotten out of. The Citadel, Jerusalem, now Tuchanka.”

He frowned at that, for the first time in the whole conversation at a loss to understand the deeper meaning behind her words. Ella had seen that he was a fairly insightful guy, but something about her sentiment flew over his head this time.

“What are you saying?”

“I’m saying me and you are more alike than I think either of us wants to admit. We take risks that shouldn’t be taken because we believe in the greater good, so much that it’s more important than our own lives. There may very well be a moment where we do have to make that sacrifice, but until then, we have to make sure we’re alive to do it. We can’t just throw ourselves at every problem that arises thinking that going out in a blaze of glory is the answer to the mountain of guilt on our shoulders.”

It took a moment, but he did catch on. And it was several more thoughtful moments before he decided to respond. Ella did appreciate that about him: even if it made conversations a bit awkward, filled with long pauses between speech, he didn’t often say something that wasn’t deeply meaningful.

“I’ve wanted to kill myself since I was twelve, you know.”

Ella tried her best not to act surprised, but she sure as shit hadn’t been expecting a truth bomb so monumental as that. It wasn’t the suicide that even took her aback, it was the way he just said it with no preamble and no compunction, as if he were reading a speech. That was on purpose, of course, because no one ever says such a thing in a dramatic and expressive tone of voice—that would defeat the entire purpose of saying it out loud—but that didn’t negate how unexpected it was.

And oddly, it was refreshing to hear the raw truth about him.

“One of my earliest memories is being alone in my room as a kid, couldn’t have been more than two or three, crying to myself as I sat on top of my dresser. Nothing happened, I wasn’t in trouble. I was just sad, deep inside myself. Took almost twenty years for the doctors to tell me it’s a condition called dysthymia. Persistent underlying depression. No matter what happens, no matter how happy I am, my brain will always circle back around to the negative.”

That explained so much about him. And while Ella couldn’t exactly relate, she did know the feeling of being broken. It wasn’t possible for someone to go through as much black ops training as she had and come out completely sane. It was a different kind of broken, to be sure, one that couldn’t really be compared; these things never could. But it did make her feel for him, and only reinforced the idea that they were too similar to one another.

“So you internalize,” she said, picking up where he’d left off. “You think that you have to make up for some deficiency that doesn’t exist, and it lessens your value in your mind.”

His frown deepened, but not due to anger or resentment. It appeared as if he were coming to a sort of realization, like he’d known that fact all along, but had never heard anyone say the words out loud. It seemed like a corny sentiment, but there was a strange power in speaking the thoughts that only ever scratched the surface of one’s mind.

And in a roundabout way, Ella knew that they weren’t just talking about him.

“It’s why I place so little value on my own life,” Donovan continued, allowing himself to admit what he had probably never even spoken in his mind. “I’ve always thought that my entire purpose in the universe was to make things easier for others, because I could never have a happy life. That’s why I keep taking these risks that nearly get me killed. I haven’t cared enough about myself to find any other reason to stay alive.”

Ella stood from the bed and crossed the room, placing a hand on his shoulder. This was well beyond the scope of her emotional range, but she knew that he needed a comforting presence. They both did.

He recoiled slightly at her touch. It was a knee-jerk reaction, and one that not many would have caught, but Ella’s reflexes were sharp enough to notice it. Yet despite his initial hesitation, he chose to accept it.

“I was awake on Tuchanka, you know,” he said. “After the Reaper put us all in the ground. At least, I think I was awake. And I realized all of this; I’ve known it for a long time. I think if I had let myself, I could’ve died down there. But I chose to fight, and I decided that I’m going to be better. I just . . . don’t really know where to start.”

It had been a very, very long time since Ella Shepard had cried, or even felt the desire to do so. In fact, she couldn’t even remember the last time she’d let a tear escape her eyes. It had probably been at the Villa, in the first week of her spec ops training. She’d spent an entire night in the jungle crying to herself, if for no other reason than because she knew she wouldn’t have the opportunity to do so again in the future. Starting down the career path of an N7 had meant that she no longer had room for emotional breaks, and that mindset was only amplified once she’d been made a Spectre.

But as she stood there, comforting this kid who she’d barely known for a month—and who she still didn’t fully trust—she wanted to cry. To empathize with him while she absorbed the utter sadness and lack of direction he was sharing with her. It was the same thing she felt; she hadn’t been beating her head bloody against the wall all these years to convince everyone that she was right. She had been trying to convince them that she was worth listening to.

She didn’t know where to start, either.

“Maybe we have to figure that out together, then,” she said, completely incognizant of the words falling from her mouth. Instinct had taken over, forcing her to say only what she deeply believed in the moment. “We can’t win these kinds of fights on our own. If we want to push through and do things the hard way, we need all the help we can get.”

He nodded, and for a moment Ella didn’t think her words had truly made any impact on him. It was never an easy thing, expressing one’s deepest thoughts, emotions, and shortcomings; it was especially difficult to be in a position where you felt expected to help someone through those things, all the while knowing that the same depth of emotional turbulence lies dormant in yourself as well. Neither of them were okay, and they weren’t going to be any time in the future. But the important thing was that they were trying, and there was no clear path to overcoming those demons without trust and reliance on each other.

Despite how much she hated to admit it, she needed to accept that fact just as much as Donovan did. It struck her as ironic, considering that Garrus had approached her with damn near the same thing only a few days ago. Now, staring at this young man who reminded her so much of herself, it had all come full circle. His confessions may as well have been hers, and her attempt to offer reaffirming words may as well have come from him.

He did understand, after all. Much more than she would’ve previously given him credit for. After his initial hesitation, Donovan placed a hand on Ella’s outstretched arm in a sort of gesture of solidarity, and perhaps a bit of appreciation. There was nothing for him to say; symbolic gestures and encouraging sentiments were all well and good, but what really mattered was whether or not they’d be followed up on with real intent. Telling someone who’s depressed that you’ll be there for them is like telling someone who’s on fire that you’ll bring them some water—it’s a grand gesture and certainly nothing to scoff at, but until you’re extinguished, that sentiment doesn’t mean much. They would both just have to hope that when the time came, they’d each be ready with a huge bucket of water.

“Come on then, let’s get out of this room,” Ella said. “There’s a galaxy out there waiting for us to save it.”