#vanguard is more important than oxygen anyways...

[miceenscene]

N7 Month - Day 5

Space

There was a deep dark irony that only the universe could provide in that a woman who could actively remember the first time she set foot on a planet and was a commander of the most advanced starship in the galaxy was terrified of the stars.

It wasn’t always like this. Shepard used to love staring up into the heavens the few times that she wasn’t already there herself. Her first spacewalk at eighteen was the most thrilling thing she’d even encountered and she’d barely gotten her helmet off before she was asking the Alliance sargeant when she could go again. But in all her childhood fascination, she’d somehow forgotten the two most important truths about space.

Space was unforgiving and space was eternal.

She was reminded harshly of both of those truths as she spiraled away from her first ship, the only sound her panicked breaths and a horrible hissing of oxygen escaping her suit. The stars didn’t care how much she’d once loved them. Maybe that was the real irony, to be buried in the vast spaces of eternity, swallowed and crushed by what she once loved.

But that was a lifetime ago. She was remade, reborn, given a new ship, a new crew, a new purpose. But the dregs of that old fear still clung to her, making her avoid certain rooms on her ship all together or avert her eyes whenever she passed by the large windows. There was one window that she couldn’t avoid. And every night as she laid beneath the skylight, she would silently wish death upon the engineer that thought it a good idea to put a window above the bed of a person who was once spaced.

Some nights she could roll over and pretend that the window wasn’t there, that she couldn’t see the gaps between stars that she’d once fallen through. Other nights she could sleep on the nearby couch, not directly under the stars’ glare and therefore a modest improvement. And then there were some nights when all she could do was have a staring contest with eternity.

Trouble was, stars don’t blink so Shepard lost every damn time.

It always started in her hands, the subtle shake that was just the vanguard for her own personal temporary destruction. Then her heart rate would speed up and her breathing would go shallow. If she shut her eyes and focused, she could keep from spiraling… sometimes. Sometimes the shake and the breath and beat joined in a race that she couldn’t stop no matter how hard she tried.

This room was too big, too open. She didn’t care what EDI said, there was no way that skylight was as safe as steel would be. The low hum of the engines four decks below had never been so loud. It pressed in on her skull, droning, humming, hissing--the horrible horrible hissing. She had to get out. Now.

The sheets tangled around her legs as she scrambled out of bed, dragging her to the ground momentarily. Palms slammed against the floor, stinging as she struggled back up to standing. A staggered run let her throw herself out the door of her cabin and into the elevator. Quickly, her useless brain began running damage control scenarios. She had to sit this out for an hour or so, but she couldn’t do that in her room. Her damned squad had already claimed most of the best hiding spots across the ship--she just needed somewhere small, somewhere out of the way, somewhere with no windows.

The sight of Commander Shepard power walking across the crew deck in the middle of the night in her sleeping clothes was probably a strange one, but if she moved fast enough no one would catch more than a glimpse. She gave up any pretense as she hit the gangway, running the final few feet to the main battery.

The doors opened on her approach and Shepard shut them immediately behind them, slamming her hands against the cold metal and gulping in breaths. Better… but not good enough. A hand pressed to the base of her throat, feeling her chest rise up and down with every blessed breath. There was plenty of oxygen here, she was fine, she was fine, she was fine. 

The frustrating thing about an irrational fear is that there wasn’t really a way to logic herself out of it. Just hide and wait for the storm to pass her by. The main battery was small, deserted as any occupants should have long since been in bed, and it was essentially a metal box. But it still wasn’t enough tonight. She needed somewhere smaller, somewhere safer.

She spotted the temporary weapons bench that had been installed only a week or so ago. Immediately, she dove for it, shoving the storage crate under it out of the way and tucking herself underneath. She rested her chin between her knees and ran a calming hand up and down the back of her neck. Slow breaths, slow breaths--

“Shepard?”

She looked up to see Garrus standing on the far side of the battery, a moderately confused expression on his face and in his own version of sleeping clothes. Though she was completely clothed, Shepard had never felt more naked in her life as she stared at him, unable to speak.

He frowned and stepped towards her, watching her with that careful yet piercing gaze. When he was still several feet away, he crouched down so he was at eye level with her. “Are you hurt?” he asked in a quiet voice.

After several moments of concentration, she dragged her head side to side.

“Can you speak?”

More concentration. No.

“Do you want to be alone?”

Yes. No. Maybe. No. She shouldn’t have come here, she shouldn’t have forced this crisis onto him. She was supposed to be the leader, she was Commander Shepard for Christ’s sake. Commander Shepard didn’t hide under a table three decks below because she couldn’t breathe for the stars. Except that’s exactly what she was doing. Garrus was already a witness. And even if she knew she wanted to, she physically was incapable of moving from this spot right now.

Garrus seemed to sense her lack of decision and stood slowly, disappearing for a moment back around the main gun. That was fine, who would want to watch the woman who was supposed to lead him into certain death shake uncontrollably? But then he reappeared a moment later, a blanket in his arms. 

He approached very slowly, and waited for her to stop him in anyway before he leaned towards her and tucked the blanket around her. After several more seconds of deliberation, he crowded under the table with her. There wasn’t really room for two grown adults, especially with one of them being a seven foot tall turian, so she wound up smushed into the corner with Garrus’ arm pressed to her other side. There wasn’t space to adjust and it was perfect.

“Sorry,” Shepard mumbled about ten minutes later when she’d finally stopped shaking. “Thought you’d be--”

Garrus shook his head. “Don’t be sorry.” He heaved a breath. “You’re not the only one who figured out that this is a good defensible location.”

“And there’s no windows,” she added after several seconds had gone by.

He glanced her way and then nodded. “That too. Do you want to stay here tonight?”

Now that the storm had passed, exhaustion was seeping into the gaps. She had no clue what hour it was, but the thought of leaving this space was not a pleasant one. “Do you mind?”

“No. Not at all.”

“Then yeah, I do.”

“Okay.”

She expected him to go back to wherever he’d been previously sleeping, but he just settled as best he could into the small space. She watched his eyes drift shut after a few moments and then she tucked her face into the blanket. Her last thought before she fell asleep was that it smelled like him.

Ao3 Version

[kaitoshikithevanguard]

Inspired by this: People say you cannot live without love... I think oxygen is more important..

Replaced oxygen with Vanguard...