An image started to shimmer into place where the galaxy map normally glowed, but she heard Wrex’s voice before it cleared.
“ARE YOU DEAD AGAIN, SHEPARD?!”
He roared so loud the whole CIC heard him, and Rhi rocked back on her heels. When the image came through the massive krogan was standing too close to the pick-up, filling the entire screen. “WELL, ARE YOU DEAD AGAIN?”
Shepard spread her good arm in an innocent shrug. “Don’t think so,” she said.
“Good,” Wrex grumbled. “Good. Once is enough for anyone. Hmph. Watch your back out there.”
She smiled to herself, charmed and befuddled. “What brought this on, anyway?”
He stepped back enough that the vid pickup could catch more than just his face and brandished a helmet at the screen. Her helmet; the burned and broken one she’d picked off Alchera in her daze.
How the fuck did Wrex end up with that? She hadn’t given it a second thought after dropping it – she didn’t even remember where – somewhere in the Normandy.
“Thought it was some kind of message. If you’re not dead again, then what in the name of Shiagur is THIS about?” He waved the helmet.
Shepard planted a fist on her hip and swept a disapproving look over her crew. “I haven’t the faintest idea. Anyone? Why does Wrex have that thing?”
Beside her, Chambers cringed. “I, er, mailed it to him…”
She dropped the scowl. “What? Why?”
“I, it, uh – Joker said to!”
“For shit’s sake, I was being sarcastic!” Joker’s voice came through her earpiece, but he said it loud enough she could faintly hear him from the helm, too. “I can explain later,” he said more quietly, for her ears alone.
“When?” she asked Chambers.
“Right after Alchera – as soon as we hit a transfer station. Shipping from the Terminus Systems to the Krogan Demilitarized Zone isn’t exactly regular,” Chambers pointed out.
Wrex nodded. “Got held up in customs. Have to let the turians poke it and prod it and cover it with official stickers before they let the krogan have a chance at it.” He grinned, revealing a huge mouthful of teeth. “Never know what kind of super weapon we could make out of a broken helmet. HA!” He looked at it again. “Mistake, huh? Want it back?”
“No!” She realized that came out a bit too forcefully and backed off. “No, no, just toss it out or something. It’s trash.”
Wrex held it under his arm. “Think I’ll keep it, then.” He grinned again. “Good to remember you came back from that, Shepard.”
“Wrex.”
“Shepard.” He nodded and closed the connection.
Ha! Oh, that's another scene that was a long time coming. I wrote (most of) it while I was writing about Alchera, as kind of an antidote to the seriously heavy emotional stuff going on then. It was too light, though -- I needed things to be getting grimmer, not lighter. It was distracting and it didn't fit. Sticking it in the epilogue felt almost like a marvel-post-credits scene, a little bit of fairly random humor that calls back to the main event. The package getting held up in Turian customs is entirely to cover how much time had passed between Alchera and the epilogue -- that it was delightfully banal to have this gruesome memento lost in shipping was just a bonus.
This is also a scene that owes a lot to bits of film comedy (though honestly, I suppose a lot of my silly stuff does -- I definitely see/hear the pacing as if it were a movie, and then capturing that in prose is the hard bit). "Are you dead again?" is because I watched Cool Runnings way too many times as a kid; when Shepard asks "Anyone?" it took all my will power not to add "Bueller?" afterwards.
