[Shepard sees Shiro take the hit and then feels the echo of it, one-two punch, exactly like the echo of a physical sound. First you see, and then you feel it. The proverbial celeritas from which time derived its arrow. She looks away, helpless-- it is in this way that Shepard is a coward.
She remembers when it was Sirius, a man she'd barely known, and yet when he'd gone, he had left a hole like a lifetime-sized night of blackout drinking. She kept seeing the evidence of his presence, in little tells, memories half-known and irretrievable. But the reference was no longer there.
But this was, perhaps, a little different. She'd known Darkling. They'd competed together, for a definition of "compete" that involved the ABA!. She knows grief like that, has known it, even before the Nest, when she looked down from a window and--
The boy runs among flowers, chasing a plastic ship through an imaginary sky. The boy struggles to manage a door too large for him-- why don't they help him? Why doesn't anyone help him? The blast-- red light, laserlight, impossible power, the blast-- the roar of engines, she looks away. The smoke is black. Coward. Coward!
Shepard offers Shiro a fresh mug of coffee, without asking. She keeps her own trauma behind her teeth, for the moment, swathed in shields like fierce water.]
So. How you holdin' up?
[This is her professional voice, the one she used to use to check on her crew, when the war seemed like it might crash down and swallow them all. That's a different grief.]
ii.
She remembers when it was Sirius, a man she'd barely known, and yet when he'd gone, he had left a hole like a lifetime-sized night of blackout drinking. She kept seeing the evidence of his presence, in little tells, memories half-known and irretrievable. But the reference was no longer there.
But this was, perhaps, a little different. She'd known Darkling. They'd competed together, for a definition of "compete" that involved the ABA!. She knows grief like that, has known it, even before the Nest, when she looked down from a window and--
The boy runs among flowers, chasing a plastic ship through an imaginary sky. The boy struggles to manage a door too large for him-- why don't they help him? Why doesn't anyone help him? The blast-- red light, laserlight, impossible power, the blast-- the roar of engines, she looks away. The smoke is black. Coward. Coward!
Shepard offers Shiro a fresh mug of coffee, without asking. She keeps her own trauma behind her teeth, for the moment, swathed in shields like fierce water.]
So. How you holdin' up?
[This is her professional voice, the one she used to use to check on her crew, when the war seemed like it might crash down and swallow them all. That's a different grief.]