She doesn't have to think about it for long to realize that he's right. Before all this, Shepard would have called bullshit and moved on; Indoctrination was as close as anyone had come to the mystical hoodoo that this whole planet seemed to run on, and even then there had been some kind of explanation.
But he's right— or rather, it checks out. Shepard watches him, and she doesn't have to be a Turian to hear the misery in his voice.
Fine, then.
"Let's test that theory," She says, shoulders squared and jaw set. She steps up, reaches out, and just as she's done so many times before, cups his cheek and jaw, on the scarred side.
She's braced for it, and there's nothing wrong with Shepard's poker-face, but it still takes her a moment to breath through it; the piles of corpses, stinking even through a hardsuit filter, and the moist almost-organic look of the interior of the Collector ship. Death, she realizes, as her vision clears. All of the flashbacks, or hallucinations— whatever they were. They were about death.
"Okay," Shepard blinks clear, and maintains the contact, steady and sure. It only seems to happen when they touched, not just if they touch; small blessings that mean she doesn't have to let go, "Right. We are going to handle this."
A statement of fact, flat and uncompromising.
"You don't stop using your biotics just because you might hurt somebody. You train them, so you won't. So if this permanent, if this is you now, we got work to do. You understand me, Vakarian? When have we ever quit just because the going got tough?"
no subject
But he's right— or rather, it checks out. Shepard watches him, and she doesn't have to be a Turian to hear the misery in his voice.
Fine, then.
"Let's test that theory," She says, shoulders squared and jaw set. She steps up, reaches out, and just as she's done so many times before, cups his cheek and jaw, on the scarred side.
She's braced for it, and there's nothing wrong with Shepard's poker-face, but it still takes her a moment to breath through it; the piles of corpses, stinking even through a hardsuit filter, and the moist almost-organic look of the interior of the Collector ship. Death, she realizes, as her vision clears. All of the flashbacks, or hallucinations— whatever they were. They were about death.
"Okay," Shepard blinks clear, and maintains the contact, steady and sure. It only seems to happen when they touched, not just if they touch; small blessings that mean she doesn't have to let go, "Right. We are going to handle this."
A statement of fact, flat and uncompromising.
"You don't stop using your biotics just because you might hurt somebody. You train them, so you won't. So if this permanent, if this is you now, we got work to do. You understand me, Vakarian? When have we ever quit just because the going got tough?"