RP: Shepard, Kaiden & Ashley

[keelah_selai]

Down the stairs to the lower deck. Around the base of the drive core to the maintenance shaft entrance. Up a ladder, and into the duct tunnel. Up a second ladder and turn to the left. Crawl for a sixth of the ship's body and another left turn. Up a short ladder, and out into the room housing the AI Core...

The AI Core was dark and silent, just like the Engineering deck. Tali had never spent much time here - both Legion and EDI frightened Tali a little. She'd been trying to make amends, for Shepard's sake, ever since her argument with Legion, but it was hard work, overcoming years of ingrained prejudice. There was something...off about the room, though. Tali couldn't quite put her finger on what was wrong or different. It must be the lack of noise, she thought, and moved quickly to the electrical panel on the doors.

Just a few moments, and the doors to the Medbay sparked and slid open with a metallic groan.

Comments

[itsinmyblood]

Ashley shook her head at the man's question. She had never seen the man before. Nothing about him was familiar to her at all.

"I'm sorry, but no. Should I know you?" She felt guilty, the look on the man's face was heartbreaking. But there wasn't much that she could do. Ashley rarely forgot a face, and one that was as attractive as his? There was no way she would forget a face like that.

It was hard to let Kaiden go, but he seemed real enough and her injuries did need to be tended to. It was shocking that Tali seemed unharmed, seeing as she had been in the midst of the fighting the last time Ashley had seen the Quarian. But all that faded away when Kaiden said what appeared to be the unknown man's name.

"Shepard?" No, that couldn't be right. Commander Shepherd was a female, one who lost her entire family to the Batarian attack on Mindoir. It was a story that most people knew. Not to mention that if the Commander had a brother, Ashley was sure she would have mentioned it to someone, Garrus at least.

"No, that's- I mean...." Why wasn't Kaiden as confused about this as she was? If anything, Kaiden looked like he had known the man beside him for years.

"I'm sorry but the Commander Shepard I know is a woman. Thanks, Tali." Ashley smiled when Tali helped her ease her armor off before continuing, sending Kaiden and the supposed Shepard a confused look.

"Right, LT?"

[kaidanmod]

"I...no," Kaidan said slowly, looking between the three of them. "Shepard has always been Shepard. I know I had some doubts on Horizon, but... No, this is Shepard. We joined him to fight Sovreign. Ash, don't you remember?"

[cmdr_shepard]

Shepard stared at Ashley. For once in his entire life, speechless. A thousand different thoughts ran through his head. Were they dead? Was this some kind of strange hallucination? The entire thing was too bizarre. Possibly more bizarre than anything Shepard had seen to date and that was saying a lot.

"... What happened on Virmire? What do you remember?" Was it possible that this wasn't his Ashley? That this woman was from... Some other universe, maybe? Where he was a woman and she'd survived Virmire? It didn't explain how she'd ended up here or where here was, but....

[keelah_selai]

Tali listened with half an ear as she began organizing the necessary medical supplies and applying them to Ashley's impressive array of injuries. She paused at the question of Shepard's gender, and starred at Ashley. With a note of horror in her voice, Tali spoke. "This is like one of those strange fantasy stories you humans tell, with clones and changes in the timelines..."