On Any Other Day

[earthborn]

Who| Shepard And Her Adoring Fans
What| The Customer Complaints Desk Is [OPEN]
Where| A lovely little park outside a lovely little café on a quiet day when the sun is shining, just after a certain network post
When| The morning after Shepard's Exposé goes live.
Warnings/Notes| Talk of murder, genocide, cussing, and political discourse. God help us all.

The sun is shining, the birds are singing, she's got a rail-thin barrista with a shock of violet-pink hair, and he keeps bringing her coffee from all the way across the street. On any other day, she'd call it perfect— he keeps sarcastically saluting her and she keeps sarcastically thanking him as 'private', and the coffee is damn good in addition to cheap and hand-delivered. On any other day.

But despite the shining weather and the convenient caffeine-drip, she's not set up here with the empty chair beside her own for the sake of simple joys.

Come at me, bro.

Comments

[earthborn]

It always surprises her to see something like Donatello move with such agility. It feels like a joke, like when the Krogan in action vids have their acrobatics sped up until they leave blur-trails. That's her expectations working against her, she should know better by now.

"Hey Don," more surprising than that is that he's here at all. She wouldn't have anticipating him having much to say— but then, maybe he'd made Kaidan's mistake and invested a little too much faith in her, never a wise decision, "What brings you out here so...early."

As if there were any doubt.

[polyturtle]

"I'm an early riser," Don replied with a shrug. It was the truth. "Just walking around outside for once, though to be honest, I hadn't anticipated seeing you out here."

He paused a bit, before continuing.

"Probably goes without saying that I saw the 'special' last night..."

[earthborn]

"If you'd figured out how to miss it, I'd have appreciate the tip."

What? Sarcasm is an excellent coping method.

"I put a call out on the network," which explains why she's out here sipping on flavored water and not in the Tribute Center doing her usual morning workout, "The complaint desk is open. Been getting all kinds of fun conversation."

[polyturtle]

"Unfortunately not." Don's tea was brought in front of him, and he quickly thanked the waiter before he vanished from the area. "So, 'butcher of universes'?"

Judging by the flatness of his tone at that last part, it was clear he didn't exactly believe that.

[earthborn]

"Butcher of Torfan," she corrects, and if her voice is quiet, it's just as hard, "That's what they called me the first time I got run through the tabloid gauntlet. I'm not fine with it, but it's nothing new."

She took a gulp of her own drink and sighed, rubbing at the small hairs at the back of her neck. Claudia never let them cut it short enough; what she wouldn't give for twenty unsupervised minutes with a proper set of clippers.

"You can ask, if you want. It's what I'm out here for, anyways."

[polyturtle]

"Torfan," Don repeated, his other hand slowly going under its chin. "...What happened there?"

Though he had the sinking feeling he knew.

[earthborn]

"Torfan is— was, sort of an outpost, mainly for pirates and slavers who wanted to prey on Alliance holdings in Citadel Space. Most of them were Batarian, those aliens you probably saw onscreen, the four-eyed ones," Her voice was flat, all the emotion skinned off, as if she'd told this story many times before. The endless report and re-report that came with Torfan had made talking about it rote, boring, almost easy, after a while, "They sent in a team of Alliance Marines. I was there, my CO at the time was a Major Kyle. He took a bad hit early on, and we lost a few others, which left me in charge. The mission was to go in there, and get rid of the bastards who'd been raiding our colonies, and I did. I lost some friends on Torfan, a lot of marines died that day, but I made absolutely sure that the raiders never came back."

She paused to drink, but her stare remained steady over the paper rim. Killing surrendering enemies was not to be considered honorable by the codified rules of engagement, but honor isn't a high and shiny ideal; it's a thing of grit and blood. It's a thing you live with every moment of every day, and sometimes you have to compromise it and sometimes it has to compromise you, but it's not a decoration that you pull out when it's convenient.

It's not a thing you can bend to make your own wants acceptable.

"I don't have any mercy in me for those kinds of people. They don't get to surrender and get ransomed back home. Not with me."

[polyturtle]

He was silent, after that explanation. Don's thoughts on honor were...complicated, to say the least, more so since he arrived in Panem.

Growing up, honor wasn't simply an ideal; it was a part of the means which a warrior conducted oneself. It was a duty that any warrior had to strive to fulfill in their actions. There were simply lines that, when crossed, were dishonorable. It tied into a warrior's sense of justice, compassion, and chivalry to act honorably. To lose that honor, to act dishonorably, was to lose a part of the warrior's self. The best case was to kill oneself, if no other alternative existed.

It would have been easy to just wash his hands of Shepard knowing she killed people who surrendered. Before those Mousers invaded the old homestead, After hearing her be called a butcher Don would have just stood up, shook his head in disgust, and walked off, saddened.

Yet Don couldn't anymore. He had no right or luxury to call out Shepard and not be a hypocrite. He'd once marched his own brothers on a suicide mission where he knew, deep down, at least one of them wouldn't come back, regardless of his encouraging words of hope. It didn't matter how broken they'd been. He still did it, for somewhat similar reasons that Shepard gone to Torfan. And he'd had no problem killing Shredder, with no remorse, that time. Had no problem with it the second time, even when that was averted, and saw how that had affected his brothers afterwards. Shell, Leo almost scalped their father because of it.

And Panem...well, everyone here knew what happened. In spite of his attempts to try and keep something of his honor. Now he was just trying to keep what was left of his dignity. If honor or dignity were different things.

Don wasn't sure how long he's been quiet, by the time he finally spoke. He did notice his tea was all gone, though. He'd drank it all in one gulp as he had been thinking on her words.

"I...I see." He stared down at his empty cup, his own voice quiet, but distant. Though, not towards the woman across from him. "You did what you had to do."

[earthborn]

Ah, there it was. The silence, the unmet stare, the glassy realization. Conrad Verner, only a hundred times worse because Donatello wasn't just some random ass on the Citadel who didn't know his own limits. He was something of a friend, someone Jane looked for in a crowd.

Someone she had hoped to know well.

Disappointment was one of the less fun aspects of this job. People built you up; recruitment posters, statues, memorial flames. Plaques in parks, denoting your successes, long passages in history books about your defeats. You could imagine a Shepard build on the pillars of the real thing's reputation, even if you spoke to that real woman every day— look at what happened with Alenko. But that wasn't fair, to Kaidan or to Donatello.

But it still wasn't good to see it happening. To hear it run loud through the silence. She gave him time and let him speak.

"I ask a lot of the people in my command. I take them into the worst fights, and on suicide missions, again, and again. I am asking them to give everything for me, but I would do anything for them," she paused, tried to think. No, it didn't matter. She shouldered through it, voice gone thick around the edges, "Anything. A good commander knows the difference between spending the lives of her soldiers, and wasting them. And I'm offering to die right beside them if it comes to that, because my life— the lives of those I sent to die on Torfan were not worth more than the colonists we were protecting by going there in the first place."

She'd thought very carefully about, and rejected, the notion of bringing a flask to this. Three times now, she'd regretted it. But it was probably this fourth time that was the hardest.

"Sorry. Turns out the truth is actually a little less flattering than the Capitol's storytime."

[polyturtle]

"I..." At this, Donatello shook his head. "That's not it. I'm not angry at you. Its just..."

He was silent again, before letting his breath out. Had he been holding his breath? He didn't know.

"...I did the same, once. Not the exact same, but..." Given the way he hesitated, it was clear it was not something he spoke of often. If ever. "I understand. Its not a question of being 'good' or...'honorable' at that point. Sometimes...its something that needs to be done. And you have to be ready to shoulder the potential price."

The waiter came, pouring a new cup. Don didn't even notice.

"Its just something I never really...talk about."

[earthborn]

"Most people don't. It's kind of a downer," she nodded at private barista's sketchy salute, but didn't return the oblivious smirk, and waited until he'd once again passed out of earshot, "Speeches about kicking ass and coming home heroes tend to be more popular."

Shepard set down her cup with a snap; maybe she'd misjudged.

"Tell me a story, Don. I'm sure as hell not gonna judge you."

[polyturtle]

There was a sigh, and a long gulp of tea, before Don responded.

"I think I...ended up making a future where my world went to shell. My brothers maimed and our father dead. Our enemy had conquered the planet, and who knew what else he was going to do. So...I came up with an idea for a mission. To give my brothers hope again."

The tea in Don's cup was pretty much gone.

"I knew...that not everyone was going to come back. I wasn't sure any of us were going to survive. But, didn't tell my brothers that. I didn't want them to fall apart again, like they had. And they all...well, you can guess."

[earthborn]

"They didn't make it home."

It was a hard lesson to learn, and it was hard to see it learned, too. Sometimes you couldn't win. Sometimes you chose not to win, and you didn't realize how badly you'd screwed up until you were watching the light fade out of someone's eyes. Not everyone got out safe, and even those that did get home didn't always leave those places behind.

"You can't save everyone, Don. Sometimes, you can't save anyone, not even yourself," That didn't make it easier, but Shepard had nothing in her that could ease this burden from Donatello's shoulders. It was only the painful empathy of someone who knew the guilt and shame of it, and had no more answers than he, "All you can do is learn from what happened. Do your best in the next one."

[polyturtle]

"I know." Don's cup was empty, once more. "It doesn't make it easier. I never told my brothers, when I got back home..."

At this, he let out a huff.

"Heh. Funny thing is, now you're the only person I've ever actually told about my trip into the future. I never even told Master Splinter. I...guess its because I didn't think anyone I knew would get it. Or ever believe things could have ever gotten that bad."

[earthborn]

"Never challenge the power of 'worse,'" Shepard intoned solemnly, and set her own cup down to pour for Don with the air of someone who didn't often handle a teapot. She managed.

"I'm glad you did. It never really leaves you, it's just... you move on, but it's still in you," A topic change, perhaps, "Tell me about your brothers."

[polyturtle]

"My brothers..."

Don folded his hands, looking down at his empty cup. On the one hand, he wasn't sure speaking of them was a good idea.

"Leo...Leonardo's the oldest. The leader. He's generally the one who keeps us level-headed in a situation. Keeps us in line so we don't get killed...and he's got no problem being the first to jump into a situation..."

On the other hand, it felt good to talk about them. He'd practically been pretending they hadn't existed for a good majority of his time in this world.