Chapter Text
After the Alliance picks Shepard up from Akuze, she is treated for dehydration, mild hypothermia, and an array of acid burns. She is debriefed, more than once, the story growing flat and dry in the retelling. She meets with one therapist, and then another, and answers questions and submits obediently to neural scans and psychiatric evaluations.
Eventually, Shepard asks if she can take leave.
It’s granted, though, she thinks, reluctantly. The psychologist she talked to is probably afraid she’ll just disappear: her records say she has no home, no family ties, hardly any close friends before her enlistment. But they don’t have a good excuse to keep her. If she did have a family to go home to, they’d definitely grant her leave, rather than keeping her at the Alliance military hospital on Arcturus for another few weeks of evaluations.
She does have a home and a family to go to, or at least, she did. The Alliance just doesn’t know that.
Then again, she hasn’t told anyone she’s coming back, either.
On Arcturus, it always felt like someone was watching her, so she didn’t call. As she straps herself into the cramped seat of the commercial transport, she has time to contemplate her choices, to regret how long it’s been since the last time she called or sent a message. She’s been stationed off-planet, surrounded by people, with hardly enough time and never enough privacy to feel entirely comfortable. She closes her eyes and tries to sleep through the journey.
Once she gets to New York, she walks. It’s a good city for walking. She walks up one street and down another, matching the brisk pace of the crowds. She wears plain, dark civvies and boots, her lone duffel bag slung over her shoulder. No one looks twice at her, even with her shaved head and her gaunt cheeks. It’s been a long time since she was in a place like this. There are no open wastes, no monsters erupting out of the ground, no stars. The city smells like people and smoke and eezo from all the mass-effect-powered cars that have mostly replaced the old internal combustion engines. She lets herself fit into the flow of the crowds, lets herself be moved by the tidal surges of humanity. She stops for a cup of coffee, and later, she grabs a slice of pizza, New York style (big and flat and floppy) and eats it as she walks. The drumbeat of her heels against the pavement reminds her of the call she’s not making. She could do it, now that she’s on-planet and unobserved. More than once she reaches for her omni-tool, and more than once she lets her hand fall back to her side, her fingers curling into a fist. She can’t even quite say why she doesn’t do it.
It’s been five years since she was in New York. She pushes away the twinge of guilt at that thought and tries to think. How long has it been since she last sent a message? Six month, at least— eight? Nine? She could push the button and send another one, right now.
She doesn’t. The more she thinks about it, and doesn’t, the more her guts curl up inside her. As the air cools toward dusk and the shadows of tall buildings darken the city streets, Shepard considers her options. If she still doesn’t want to make that call, from here she has two: she can go up, or down.
Down is straightforward. Any manhole cover will do. She’s pretty sure remembers how to get around, and while it’s always possible they’ve picked up and moved, there’s only so long she can go banging around in the sewer system without tripping over part of Donnie’s extensive perimeter security. On the other hand, there’s no telling what tripping that security would do to her, or what else is hanging out in the sewers these days, or whether the routes have changed due to construction or flooding or...
Up is more physically taxing. She remembers the old patrol routes, too, and it won’t take her that long to find her way to a hot spot or two and lurk to see if anyone’s out on patrol. It’s getting dark, so... should be soon. The view’s good, too, and the air’s fresher than the sewers. But if she goes up, she has a much better chance of missing everyone altogether.
Down is logical. She hasn’t felt logical since Akuze, though, and she finally recognizes the tightening in her gut for what it is.
The truth is, she left five years ago, and she’s been a shitty correspondent. A shitty friend. Her messages have been sporadic, even to April, short and awkward. She should have come back years ago. She certainly could have, right? She’d had leave before. She could have bought herself a ticket back to Earth, but... she thought that one day she’d come back victorious . Proud and bold and full of good stories. With presents, or some damned thing. Something to show for it. Something to justify the fact that she left, some souvenir of traveling the stars.
Not like this. She left, she trained herself into exhaustion, she lost all her people, and her only souvenirs are the glossy scars the acid left.
It would serve her right if they were pissed off or resentful—specifically pissed off at her, that is, not Raph’s general state of being eternally pissed off—and she hates the idea of admitting what happened, that she made it out into the stars and what she found there was an acid-spitting nightmare, that she’s come crawling back to lick her wounds because she has nowhere else to go.
She doesn’t even know for sure if they’re there , she realizes. That’s the other fear gnawing away at the back of her brain: they could have moved or even left the city, or they could be... gone , all of them or one of them...
She imagines going down and finding the old lair cold and empty; she imagines the set of brothers broken up, a body without all its limbs, and her chest tightens. That can’t have happened. Surely April or Casey would have found some way to let her know, unless they’re pissed at her, or they all went down in some conflagration that she’d left them to face without her. It can’t be like that. It just can’t. They have to be okay, because... because that’s what she wants. Needs.
She reaches for her omni-tool, but she can’t make herself make the call. Any call. Her finger hovers over the omni-tool interface as she imagines a silent, empty, dirty lair. She thinks about slogging around in the wet hoping the route hasn’t changed and nothing is rigged with explosives or tranquilizers or whatever the hell else Donatello’s perfectly understandable paranoia can come up with. She thinks about fresh air and a view over the city, and the tightness in her chest settles into longing.
Up, then.
She launches herself up the nearest fire escape.
On the rooftop, the stars aren’t any brighter, really, but the air’s a little clearer. There’s more wind, cooling her face, clearing out the smell of the city. Buildings are turning into black outlines against the fading brilliance of the sunset as she moves. After walking in crowds for the last few hours, it’s a pleasure to let her muscles loosen up and move freely. She’s out of practice, but the rooftops are still close together, and she can still make the jumps. It’s like old times. Down on the street, she remembered what it was like to be part of a crowd, to be out and moving around in an inhabited place. Blending in, nobody recognizing her or even suspecting the hell she’d walked out of. This is what most people’s normal life is like.
But up here is a reminder of freedom. She always used to climb up to get above the heat and the noise and all the damned people. On the roofs, she could see the stars, there was room to move. There still is. Here the city’s a mass of old chimneys and ductwork and the occasional rooftop garden, not a great knot of humanity. Shepard breathes in deep and runs.
No wonder she’d wanted to go up rather than down.
It takes about twenty minutes for her to find trouble.
She’s pausing, watching the stars come out over Brooklyn, her back against a chimney, one leg drawn up so her foot rests flat against the brickwork. She’s not far from her old neighborhood, she realizes distantly, only a few blocks from where she first met the turtles.
Somebody screams.
Shepard springs forward, looking over the edge until she spots the screamer: a figure slight, female, backing down an alley with five men after her. Robbery, maybe. Or something else. It doesn’t matter. Shepard’s heart beats faster and her skin tightens and her mouth spreads out wide into something that’s not quite a grin. She’s not carrying her guns, but she has fists and feet and training and an omni-tool, and she is spoiling for a fight. These are street thugs, not a nest of giant acid-spitting worms. This is something she can fight and win .
She swings herself over the edge and slides down the fire escape until her feet hit the ground, the impact vibrating up her legs. She springs out of the crouch she landed in and grabs the collar of the nearest thug, and hauls back for the punch. The impact of her fist against his face goes all the way up her arm and feels good . The one next to him lunges toward her, but she shoves his buddy into him, and they both go down in a sprawling heap. The almost-victim screams again and runs. Good. She’s out of the way and Shepard doesn’t have to worry about her, then.
With her focus narrowed to her opponents—especially when four more of them come running into the alley—even Shepard doesn’t see the other figure descending from the heights, until one of the thugs howls and it’s not because she hit him. She registers a dark, stocky figure and the glint of fine steel, and a half-feral smile spreads over her face. She doesn’t hesitate to turn her back on the newcomer, who reciprocates, and for a moment they’re actually in contact, her lean back against something solid and rounded and rough-textured.
Then they both move, and the street thugs don’t stand a chance. The only bad moment comes when one of them pulls a pistol, but it’s like a reflex, by now, for Shepard to hit her omni-tool before he can fire. She gets the techmine off and hears the sweet whine of an overheated gun, and moments later a kick sends the weapon flying out of the thug’s hand.
By the time they’re done, half of the guys have run away again, and the other half are on the ground.
Adrenalin is still buzzing through Shepard’s system, so the first words out of her mouth are: “I could handle them myself, you know.”
“Sure you could.” Raphael wipes off his weapons, slides them into his belt with the usual flourish, and crosses his arms. It’s dark enough she can’t make out his expression. Her gut tightens into a knot again. “Military teach you to wade in when you’re outnumbered?”
“No.” Shepard sticks her hands in the pockets of her jacket. “That was all you.”
When he moves, she can see that the scowl isn’t one of the really angry ones. She doesn’t have time to relax before Raph punches her in the arm, glaring up at her. “You forget how to write, kid?”
“No.” Shepard rubs her arm. It stings. “I just…”
“Don’t be a drama queen. I barely tapped you.”
She huffs out a breath. “Yeah. I... I’m sorry. I meant to come back before. Or write, I just... didn’t have a lot of privacy in the barracks.” It’s a shitty excuse. Her shoulders draw together, bracing for... something. Another blow, or the tongue-lashing she probably deserves.
“Yeah, you should have,” he says, but he doesn’t sound particularly irritated. “And what, you’re here for a visit, or just to bust some heads?”
“Sure.” Shepard scuffs her foot in the alley’s grime, suddenly graceless and gawky and sixteen again. “Visiting, I mean. If that’s okay. The heads were just... convenient.”
“That’s the good thing about bad neighborhoods,” he says. “Always a target when you feel like hitting something.” He starts off down the alley. Shepard takes a step after him and then hesitates, her fists closing inside her pockets, until Raph glances back over his shoulder. “Coming?”
“Yeah,” she says, a surge of relief setting her feet into motion.
At the mouth of the alley, there’s momentarily enough light that Raph takes a look at her and smirks. “Nice haircut.”
Shepard’s mouth twists into a smile. “Thanks.” Some of her hair had come off with the acid. They’d had to shave other parts of it to treat a cut, so she told them to just take it all. She’s like it better if her face weren’t so hollow. She’s lost a surprising amount of weight since Akuze.
Once they drop through the nearest manhole, Shepard makes herself ask the question that’s fluttering around in her gut. “Is, uh. How is everyone?” She hasn’t missed that Raph is out alone, and hopes there’s no dire reason for that fact.
“Fine. Same old. City doesn’t change much.”
“Right,” she says, her nervousness not quite quelled. “But you guys are—”
“Pretty much the usual.” A sharp green eye slants toward her. “Thanks for asking.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t—”
“And stop apologizing.”
She bites back another apology and keeps walking. Raph has never really been given to idle conversation, and Shepard tries to find the silence comfortable. It’s not easy, her heart rate ticking up as they go; is it just her imagination, or do these tunnels look more familiar than the ones where they’d entered? Maybe—she’d like to think so—but she’s still not prepared when they stop, Raph moves an ordinary-looking brick, reaches into a hidden recess, and the wall in front of them parts on a burst of light and warmth and noise. Shepard takes a deep breath, and it smells exactly the same as always: that weird mixture of pizza and incense, with whiffs of hot metal and turtle sweat, which doesn’t smell quite the same as human sweat. She freezes on the threshold, but a large, strong hand closes around her wrist to pull her in, down the corridor and into the main room, where Raph calls out, “You find the damnedest things in the alleys, guys, come take a look.”
For a moment the sound drops except for the blare of whatever’s on the vidscreen. Shepard summons up a wavering smile, and then she can hardly breathe as Mikey slams into her for a bone-crushing hug.
It isn’t like she never left, because greetings like that are for when you last saw someone years ago, not the week before. As she gets passed from one hug to the next (Raph standing by looking smug as if he conjured her up himself), the thing that makes tears prickle under her eyelids is that she’s so obviously welcome . It’s what coming home should feel like, something out of a vid or storybook, so she feels even shittier for not coming back sooner . Nobody says a word about it, though, not even Splinter, who greets her with more restraint than his sons, but with enough warmth that she knows the welcome is real from his end, too. After that they are all talking over each other, showing off five years’ worth of projects and games and accomplishments. April’s out of town, she finds, something to do with her research—”She’ll be sorry she missed you,” Donnie says, but Shepard is relieved to avoid April’s too-perceptive eyes and the suspicion that she’s pushing all of her inner turmoil on the other woman. Casey’s away, too, off visiting relatives. Shepard admits she has several days of leave. “Good,” Leo says, “you can help entertain Mikey, then,” in the face of his younger brother’s scowl.
It isn’t until she’s dropping off to sleep on a spare futon that she realizes they asked very few questions, and no one said a word about Akuze. Maybe they don’t know, but the news had gone out on all the Alliance channels, so maybe they do and are just trying to spare her out of pity—
But exhaustion wins, and she sleeps without nightmares that night, for the first time since the rescue team pulled her off Akuze.