Through the Motions
Day.08
None of the ground team could get to the showers fast enough after getting off of Feros. Carrine had managed to save every colonist, although she had been very tempted to shoot the one that threw the grenade next to where she was covering herself.
She rubbed her face, the warmth from the water easing the headache that had been building up since she was given the Cipher. She still couldn't understand what the vision was about, although she heard the screaming much clearer, and could make out a word or two, but it wasn't enough for it to make sense. The whole day kept sending her thoughts back to Mindoir; she genuinely pitied the colonists and wanted to do anything in her power to help them.
Sighing, she shut the tap off and wrapped the towel around herself, turning to the lockers on the other side of the shower room to grab her clothing. Now dressed, she wrapped the towel around her shoulders while her hair dried and made her way to the comm room to brief her team on the trip.
- - - - - -
Carrine trudged into her cabin, sealing the door shut behind her. Liara had connected their minds once again, but felt they were no closer to discovering where Saren was targeting. Their last hope was that finding Benezia on Noveria would give them some answers, but Carrine was sure it would give them twice as more questions.
As she sat down to try and sleep the migraine away, a beep from her omnitool told her someone was at the door. She groaned as she sat up. "Come in."
Kaidan stepped in, water and a small cup in his hands. "Figured you might want something."
Carrine blinked at him, clueless. "Huh?"
He chuckled, stopping next to her bed. "I know what a migraine looks like, Commander. Figured you'd want something to get rid of it." He looked up at her after setting the water and the cup with two pills in it down on the stand next to her bed and gave her a half-smile. "Are you all right from the Cipher?"
Carrine shrugged. "I've been better. I've been worse. It just makes everything from the vision more intense."
He nodded. "That's what Garrus and I figured. Joker's already charted us for Noveria, ETA about 10 hours."
Carrine pinched the bridge of her nose. "A planet full of ice, just what I wanted for a vacation."
"Shepard, are you honestly all right?" Kaidan asked, frowning. "If you're this stressed out, just don't forget not to cut any corners."
"I won't, Kaidan," Carrine sighed. "I'll be fine. And I never cut corners. Not after Akuze."
Kaidan sat down at the desk by her bed as Carrine turned on a soft light next to her bed. "You blame yourself for that, ma'am?" he asked.
She nodded in response. "I should've reacted faster. If I'd been able to hold off just a little longer, Jordans and Toombs could've gotten the missile system working and we could've fought back. If I'd been a little faster, I could've radioed for help sooner. If I'd followed my gut that day, we never would've landed on the nest. I was their commanding officer. They died because of my bad judgement."
"So that explains why you're a bit more impulsive than the other CO's I've had," Kaidan said softly, arms crossed and leaning back in the chair, the light making his eyes look more gold than Carrine knew they really were.
"I'm not one to ignore my instinct. Not anymore, at least. Even if it goes against my orders, I tend to be right in bad situations."
"I get that, Shepard. But everyone makes mistakes, you don't have to-"
"I don't have to what?" Carrine spat, snapping her head around to glare at him. "I have the blood of 50 men and women on my hands. I have the blood of my brother on my hands. People I cared about died because I wasn't good enough. Because I made mistakes. I can't sleep most nights because it's always there. The battles are always on my mind. It's not something you forget when you lose people like that." She looked away and gripped the sheets around her tightly, eyes glistening just slightly. "Kaidan, I don't expect you to understand," she said softly, "because you've never been in that situation. You've never lost people like that. It changes you. You don't come out the same after brushes with death like that."
Kaidan was quiet for a few minutes, absorbing what Carrine had told him. He watched her, the way she hunched over slightly and curled her shoulders into herself; a completely defensive position. He figured she expected him to tell her that it was out of her control, that things happen that you can't do anything about. That it was okay to move on because what's done is done.
"No," he started, "I don't know what that's like, and I hope to anything I never have to. I can't imagine what it's like to lose everything that's ever meant something to you, twice especially. I'm not going to blame you for it, Shepard, because you did what you could with what you had, but I get why you blame yourself. Everyone on this ship would follow you to hell and back. You have a natural air of command, people naturally trust you. That won't stop because of what happened in the past. At least I know it won't stop me from trusting you."
Carrine calmed herself down and ignored the migraine that was again growing. She looked at him out of the corner of her eye and met his gaze. He gave her his half-smile, trying to draw her out to talk again. She looked back down and sighed. "I know," she said, voice barely above a whisper. "And I appreciate that. I trust you guys with my back, and I know you won't let me down. But if I fail...if I don't get us through this...I can't live with myself if it happened again. It nearly killed me last time."
"Is that why Anderson was saying everything had to be dry around you?" Kaidan asked. He knew it was rare for Carrine to open up like this and he had a feeling he was one of few people who saw this side of her.
Carrine leaned her head back, letting out a short bark of laughter. "That's a long story, and it's not pretty . Sure you wanna hear it?"
Kaidan didn't back down or rise to the bait. "I asked."
She kept her eyes on the ceiling as she dove into her memories.
- - - - -
Mindoir, 2170
The older, darker-haired teenager slammed his back up against the door, desperately trying to keep it shut. His sister pushed on it with all her might, both trying to keep the pressure the batarian squad was putting on it at bay.
"I-we can't-we can't hold this much longer, Carr," the older one panted, his brown hair sticking to his forehead from blood and sweat. Carrine swore, in equally as bad shape as her brother.
"We gotta keep it shut, Mark," she said, desperation evident in her voice. "We have to find mom and dad. We have to find out what happened to everyone."
Mark grunted as a particularly heavy push hit him in his lower spine. "If we make it out alive, Carr. If we survive this shit."
Carrine opened her mouth to say that they'll make it when the batarians broke down the door, sending the siblings sprawling onto the floor. They quickly jumped behind the concrete counter for shelter as the batarians opened fire. The leader of the group laughed. "I am Balak, humans!" he sneered. "You cannot hide in here."
Mark took a deep breath and grabbed the saw next to him, handing a crowbar to Carrine. She looked him in the eye as he nodded - the signal to go out dealing as much damage as you can.
"If they get to you," she remembered her mother saying while they tried to find weapons as the batarians approached, "make yourself not worth the effort. Fight. Fight with everything you are."
She hurtled herself over the top of the blockade, smashing her crowbar down on a batarian's skull as she did so, and rolled to dodge the barrage of bullets that followed her. The batarians nearest her and Mark pulled out military-issue knives and followed with close-quarters combat. Carrine noticed Balak had left.
"C'mon, you sons of bitches, that all you got!?" Mark goaded, cutting the head off the batarian to his left. He'd taken down 3, but his right arm had been badly mutilated. Carrine was fighting her second and had managed to avoid taking too much damage.
One gunshot rang out and she heard a gurgled noise come from her brother. Time slowed to a crawl as the batarians turned towards whoever fired, and Carrine dropped her weapon to catch her brother. He stared at her, wide-eyed, blood pouring from the bullet wound that tore his throat apart. She knew he had seconds to live, and all she could do was hold him as he died in her arms, tears streaming down her face and falling onto his cheeks. He tried to cough, and it came out as a burst of blood as his eyes rolled back, body convulsing one time before becoming still. Carrine let out a wail, clutching her brother to her chest.
"You wanna join him, girlie?" the batarian who shot him laughed.
Carrine lost it, moving purely on instinct and not thinking about her body's motion in the slightest. She shoved the pistol away and headbutted the batarian, using her momentum to knock him to the floor. She jumped on top of him, quickly snapped his neck and snatched up the gun, turning on the remaining 10.
Three hours later, Carrine heard more ships approaching. Clutching the empty pistol in her hands, she tried to shield her brother's body and locate the ship. A small blue shuttle fell into her line of vision, approaching at her 10 o'clock. It landed, and what seemed to be three Alliance marines stepped out.
Shaking, she trained her pistol on them, too terrified and in shock to realize that they're the rescue crew. All three stopped, and the two in the rear drew their pistols in return; the lead, who seemed to be their captain, held up his hand and went down on one knee.
"We're not here to hurt you, child," he said, in a deeper voice that reminded Carrine of her father. "We want to help you."
She swallowed heavily. "I-I-no! I don't believe you!"
He didn't blink or lower his arms, but began to walk toward her in a crouch. "We're from the Systems Alliance. We intercepted your colony's distress signal and we came as fast as we could." He stopped 10 feet in front of Carrine. "I'm Major Anderson. I'm here to help you. Can you put your pistol down?"
Carrine look at him, eyes wild and hair matted and clinging to her face with dried blood and sweat, eyes red from crying, shaking from fear and adrenaline. The pistol fell from her hands as she clutched at her arms, sobs wracking her body. Anderson quickly moved toward her and moved her away from the bodies, holding her head to his shoulder to keep her vision blocked as she cried.
The Alliance dealt with the funerals for everyone else that died that day in the months following. Anderson had taken Carrine under his wing and basically adopted her; she stayed at his apartment on Arcturus Station and finished school there, and really only befriended two people in pilot training. Kender and Moreau had just the right level of don't-give-a-shit and defiance that she could get along with them, whereas most of the teenagers there were regular army brats.
That was when Kender introduced her to alcohol. She took to it like a moth to a flame, drowning her memories and snuffing out her depression with liquid fire. By the time she was nearly 18, she had been hospitalized twice for severe alcohol poisoning that nearly killed her. Moreau stopped talking to her as she spiraled down, and Kender continued to fuel her habit.
Anderson stepped in, giving her an ultimatum: to either sober up and join the Alliance on her 18th birthday, or be sent packing to Earth and hope she makes it. She decided to take her chances on dying in the Alliance doing some good to avenge what she lost than to waste away on Earth.
- - - - - -
Kaidan sat in stunned silence as Carrine finished telling him her history as a colonist, or the last few hours of it, anyway. "Shepard, I...I had no idea."
She snorted. "No one ever does. All they see is Commander Shepard. No one wants to know how a farmer kid got hardened like this. No one wants to know their heroes feel pain."
"I don't see Commander Shepard," Kaidan said. Carrine raised her eyebrow and looked at him, questioning him with her eyes. "Right now, I see a woman made bitter by her life, but did better because of it. You wouldn't be you without everything that happened to you, Shepard. You didn't deserve it, but it made you who you are."
"See, that's why I like you, Alenko," she smiled. "You don't judge. Shit's happened to you, too. But I like the man it's made out of you."
Kaidan coughed while trying to laugh, a half-smile appearing on his face. "Uh, thanks, ma'am, but you're going to make me blush." He stood and dimmed the light Carrine had turned on earlier. "I should get going before the crew wonders what's going on. Good night, Commander."
She smiled as he opened the door. "Night, Alenko."
She rubbed her face, the warmth from the water easing the headache that had been building up since she was given the Cipher. She still couldn't understand what the vision was about, although she heard the screaming much clearer, and could make out a word or two, but it wasn't enough for it to make sense. The whole day kept sending her thoughts back to Mindoir; she genuinely pitied the colonists and wanted to do anything in her power to help them.
Sighing, she shut the tap off and wrapped the towel around herself, turning to the lockers on the other side of the shower room to grab her clothing. Now dressed, she wrapped the towel around her shoulders while her hair dried and made her way to the comm room to brief her team on the trip.
- - - - - -
Carrine trudged into her cabin, sealing the door shut behind her. Liara had connected their minds once again, but felt they were no closer to discovering where Saren was targeting. Their last hope was that finding Benezia on Noveria would give them some answers, but Carrine was sure it would give them twice as more questions.
As she sat down to try and sleep the migraine away, a beep from her omnitool told her someone was at the door. She groaned as she sat up. "Come in."
Kaidan stepped in, water and a small cup in his hands. "Figured you might want something."
Carrine blinked at him, clueless. "Huh?"
He chuckled, stopping next to her bed. "I know what a migraine looks like, Commander. Figured you'd want something to get rid of it." He looked up at her after setting the water and the cup with two pills in it down on the stand next to her bed and gave her a half-smile. "Are you all right from the Cipher?"
Carrine shrugged. "I've been better. I've been worse. It just makes everything from the vision more intense."
He nodded. "That's what Garrus and I figured. Joker's already charted us for Noveria, ETA about 10 hours."
Carrine pinched the bridge of her nose. "A planet full of ice, just what I wanted for a vacation."
"Shepard, are you honestly all right?" Kaidan asked, frowning. "If you're this stressed out, just don't forget not to cut any corners."
"I won't, Kaidan," Carrine sighed. "I'll be fine. And I never cut corners. Not after Akuze."
Kaidan sat down at the desk by her bed as Carrine turned on a soft light next to her bed. "You blame yourself for that, ma'am?" he asked.
She nodded in response. "I should've reacted faster. If I'd been able to hold off just a little longer, Jordans and Toombs could've gotten the missile system working and we could've fought back. If I'd been a little faster, I could've radioed for help sooner. If I'd followed my gut that day, we never would've landed on the nest. I was their commanding officer. They died because of my bad judgement."
"So that explains why you're a bit more impulsive than the other CO's I've had," Kaidan said softly, arms crossed and leaning back in the chair, the light making his eyes look more gold than Carrine knew they really were.
"I'm not one to ignore my instinct. Not anymore, at least. Even if it goes against my orders, I tend to be right in bad situations."
"I get that, Shepard. But everyone makes mistakes, you don't have to-"
"I don't have to what?" Carrine spat, snapping her head around to glare at him. "I have the blood of 50 men and women on my hands. I have the blood of my brother on my hands. People I cared about died because I wasn't good enough. Because I made mistakes. I can't sleep most nights because it's always there. The battles are always on my mind. It's not something you forget when you lose people like that." She looked away and gripped the sheets around her tightly, eyes glistening just slightly. "Kaidan, I don't expect you to understand," she said softly, "because you've never been in that situation. You've never lost people like that. It changes you. You don't come out the same after brushes with death like that."
Kaidan was quiet for a few minutes, absorbing what Carrine had told him. He watched her, the way she hunched over slightly and curled her shoulders into herself; a completely defensive position. He figured she expected him to tell her that it was out of her control, that things happen that you can't do anything about. That it was okay to move on because what's done is done.
"No," he started, "I don't know what that's like, and I hope to anything I never have to. I can't imagine what it's like to lose everything that's ever meant something to you, twice especially. I'm not going to blame you for it, Shepard, because you did what you could with what you had, but I get why you blame yourself. Everyone on this ship would follow you to hell and back. You have a natural air of command, people naturally trust you. That won't stop because of what happened in the past. At least I know it won't stop me from trusting you."
Carrine calmed herself down and ignored the migraine that was again growing. She looked at him out of the corner of her eye and met his gaze. He gave her his half-smile, trying to draw her out to talk again. She looked back down and sighed. "I know," she said, voice barely above a whisper. "And I appreciate that. I trust you guys with my back, and I know you won't let me down. But if I fail...if I don't get us through this...I can't live with myself if it happened again. It nearly killed me last time."
"Is that why Anderson was saying everything had to be dry around you?" Kaidan asked. He knew it was rare for Carrine to open up like this and he had a feeling he was one of few people who saw this side of her.
Carrine leaned her head back, letting out a short bark of laughter. "That's a long story, and it's not pretty . Sure you wanna hear it?"
Kaidan didn't back down or rise to the bait. "I asked."
She kept her eyes on the ceiling as she dove into her memories.
- - - - -
Mindoir, 2170
The older, darker-haired teenager slammed his back up against the door, desperately trying to keep it shut. His sister pushed on it with all her might, both trying to keep the pressure the batarian squad was putting on it at bay.
"I-we can't-we can't hold this much longer, Carr," the older one panted, his brown hair sticking to his forehead from blood and sweat. Carrine swore, in equally as bad shape as her brother.
"We gotta keep it shut, Mark," she said, desperation evident in her voice. "We have to find mom and dad. We have to find out what happened to everyone."
Mark grunted as a particularly heavy push hit him in his lower spine. "If we make it out alive, Carr. If we survive this shit."
Carrine opened her mouth to say that they'll make it when the batarians broke down the door, sending the siblings sprawling onto the floor. They quickly jumped behind the concrete counter for shelter as the batarians opened fire. The leader of the group laughed. "I am Balak, humans!" he sneered. "You cannot hide in here."
Mark took a deep breath and grabbed the saw next to him, handing a crowbar to Carrine. She looked him in the eye as he nodded - the signal to go out dealing as much damage as you can.
"If they get to you," she remembered her mother saying while they tried to find weapons as the batarians approached, "make yourself not worth the effort. Fight. Fight with everything you are."
She hurtled herself over the top of the blockade, smashing her crowbar down on a batarian's skull as she did so, and rolled to dodge the barrage of bullets that followed her. The batarians nearest her and Mark pulled out military-issue knives and followed with close-quarters combat. Carrine noticed Balak had left.
"C'mon, you sons of bitches, that all you got!?" Mark goaded, cutting the head off the batarian to his left. He'd taken down 3, but his right arm had been badly mutilated. Carrine was fighting her second and had managed to avoid taking too much damage.
One gunshot rang out and she heard a gurgled noise come from her brother. Time slowed to a crawl as the batarians turned towards whoever fired, and Carrine dropped her weapon to catch her brother. He stared at her, wide-eyed, blood pouring from the bullet wound that tore his throat apart. She knew he had seconds to live, and all she could do was hold him as he died in her arms, tears streaming down her face and falling onto his cheeks. He tried to cough, and it came out as a burst of blood as his eyes rolled back, body convulsing one time before becoming still. Carrine let out a wail, clutching her brother to her chest.
"You wanna join him, girlie?" the batarian who shot him laughed.
Carrine lost it, moving purely on instinct and not thinking about her body's motion in the slightest. She shoved the pistol away and headbutted the batarian, using her momentum to knock him to the floor. She jumped on top of him, quickly snapped his neck and snatched up the gun, turning on the remaining 10.
Three hours later, Carrine heard more ships approaching. Clutching the empty pistol in her hands, she tried to shield her brother's body and locate the ship. A small blue shuttle fell into her line of vision, approaching at her 10 o'clock. It landed, and what seemed to be three Alliance marines stepped out.
Shaking, she trained her pistol on them, too terrified and in shock to realize that they're the rescue crew. All three stopped, and the two in the rear drew their pistols in return; the lead, who seemed to be their captain, held up his hand and went down on one knee.
"We're not here to hurt you, child," he said, in a deeper voice that reminded Carrine of her father. "We want to help you."
She swallowed heavily. "I-I-no! I don't believe you!"
He didn't blink or lower his arms, but began to walk toward her in a crouch. "We're from the Systems Alliance. We intercepted your colony's distress signal and we came as fast as we could." He stopped 10 feet in front of Carrine. "I'm Major Anderson. I'm here to help you. Can you put your pistol down?"
Carrine look at him, eyes wild and hair matted and clinging to her face with dried blood and sweat, eyes red from crying, shaking from fear and adrenaline. The pistol fell from her hands as she clutched at her arms, sobs wracking her body. Anderson quickly moved toward her and moved her away from the bodies, holding her head to his shoulder to keep her vision blocked as she cried.
The Alliance dealt with the funerals for everyone else that died that day in the months following. Anderson had taken Carrine under his wing and basically adopted her; she stayed at his apartment on Arcturus Station and finished school there, and really only befriended two people in pilot training. Kender and Moreau had just the right level of don't-give-a-shit and defiance that she could get along with them, whereas most of the teenagers there were regular army brats.
That was when Kender introduced her to alcohol. She took to it like a moth to a flame, drowning her memories and snuffing out her depression with liquid fire. By the time she was nearly 18, she had been hospitalized twice for severe alcohol poisoning that nearly killed her. Moreau stopped talking to her as she spiraled down, and Kender continued to fuel her habit.
Anderson stepped in, giving her an ultimatum: to either sober up and join the Alliance on her 18th birthday, or be sent packing to Earth and hope she makes it. She decided to take her chances on dying in the Alliance doing some good to avenge what she lost than to waste away on Earth.
- - - - - -
Kaidan sat in stunned silence as Carrine finished telling him her history as a colonist, or the last few hours of it, anyway. "Shepard, I...I had no idea."
She snorted. "No one ever does. All they see is Commander Shepard. No one wants to know how a farmer kid got hardened like this. No one wants to know their heroes feel pain."
"I don't see Commander Shepard," Kaidan said. Carrine raised her eyebrow and looked at him, questioning him with her eyes. "Right now, I see a woman made bitter by her life, but did better because of it. You wouldn't be you without everything that happened to you, Shepard. You didn't deserve it, but it made you who you are."
"See, that's why I like you, Alenko," she smiled. "You don't judge. Shit's happened to you, too. But I like the man it's made out of you."
Kaidan coughed while trying to laugh, a half-smile appearing on his face. "Uh, thanks, ma'am, but you're going to make me blush." He stood and dimmed the light Carrine had turned on earlier. "I should get going before the crew wonders what's going on. Good night, Commander."
She smiled as he opened the door. "Night, Alenko."