Chapter Text
The party was going well. Shepard was happy to see how many of her crew had come, and how many were actually mingling and having fun. They recounted all the missions they fought together, the arguments they had, and just had a chance to laugh about everything they thought they’d never overcome. And then there was drinking. Lots of drinking. But it was okay if it got everyone to relax. That’s what they needed, anyways: To let loose and take their mind off things. And even though she wasn’t letting herself be seen much, Kasumi was enjoying herself just as much as the others.
Shepard leaned her elbows against the kitchen counter, hands folded together in front of her as she watched the group now gathered in the living room. She activated her omni-tool and turned her translator off and just stood watching them, a small smile on her face hearing the alien words mingling with the human languages. Ashley, Garrus, Liara, Tali, and Wrex were reminiscing. She was happy that Ash looked back at it now with nostalgia and not with the same apprehension for the aliens she had before. Shepard wasn’t sure what they were saying exactly anymore, but she didn’t care.
“Commander,” Javik’s distinct voice addressed her. He came up beside her and looked at the same group she watched.
“Hey, Javik. Enjoying yourself?” she asked.
“I believe so,” he replied.
Her smile widened at the answer, though she was a bit surprised.
“They speak highly of you,” he said.
She cocked a brow and glanced back at them. “They’re talking about me?”
“You haven’t been listening?”
“I have, just… I turn my translator off sometimes,” Shepard answered. “I like hearing the languages. It’s interesting to hear the difference and how they still understand each other.”
The corners of Javik‘s mouth pulled down thoughtfully. He spoke again, but not in English. “My people never needed translators. Everyone spoke Prothean.”
She chuckled and said, “Nice try, Javik. I can still understand you.”
“I do not believe you,” he said, eyeing her from the corner of his eye.
“Believe it,” she replied.
“Then how is it you understand Prothean?” Javik turned his head towards her and leaned his hip against the counter.
Shepard turned in full to him, crossed her arms, and leaned against the counter. “It was the Prothean cipher that the Thorian gave me.”
Javik narrowed his eyes, and switched back to English. “I have heard tell of the Thorian, but I know nothing about this cipher.”
“I wouldn’t be surprised if you’ve heard of the Thorian. It lived on Feros, and your ruins were all over the place. But the cipher was kind of like the knowledge and viewpoint of you guys. It gave me a… cultural context for your beacon.”
“You needed a cultural context?” he asked, narrowing his eyes again.
“Yeah, we barely understood it. And even having the cipher didn’t help much. I used two of your beacons, got the cipher, and I still didn’t know what Saren wanted from-”
“May I touch you?” Javik interrupted nonchalantly.
Shepard gave him a confused look. “Uh, you do realize I was in the middle of explaining something, right?”
He stood up away from the counter and held out his hands. “I should believe it would be easier to just show me what happened.”
Shepard eyed him suspiciously, then stood up from the counter, as well, uncrossing her arms. “All right. Go for it.”
He grabbed her biceps as he had when she’d welcomed him to the ship, but not as forcefully. It was a gentle touch. He closed his eyes and dropped his head forward, focusing on her memories. She didn’t know if it helped, but she tried to think back to her first mission on Eden Prime, bowing her head to focus, too. She realized he was looking back to when she was first briefed on the mission and what was really going on. As if capable of unlocking her memories, they played back in her mind vividly. He rolled through the most important parts, the mission on Eden Prime, the beacon, her confusion on what she’d seen, her presentation to the Council.
“Your council is useless,” he said, still in the memory.
Shepard scoffed. “I had to work with them, though.”
He parsed through recruiting everyone on the Citadel and the second Council presentation. Recruiting Liara, killing Benezia and getting the location of the Mu Relay, and finding the thorian and getting the cipher. Then he ran through her memory of Virmire, activating the other beacon, speaking to Sovereign, blowing the facility up. And then how the Council tried to stop Shepard from going after Saren on Ilos. The moment he saw Shepard speeding away with the Normandy, though, he broke contact and started laughing.
“You are funny, Shepard!” he said, a smile on his face. “You said that nobody is allowed to steal your ship, not even you, and yet that is exactly what you have done before!”
Shepard laughed at the realization. “Oh, man. How could I forget that? Anderson even told me how he punched Udina in the face to unlock the ship. I’m still jealous I wasn’t there,” she said, smiling as much as he was. Shepard was happy to see him laugh, especially as heartily as that.
“You are truly a trailblazer, Shepard,” Javik added with a lingering smile before taking her arms again and seeing the rest of the memory. Their trip to Ilos, the console in the security room that only she could understand, then the race after Saren, and speaking to Vigil.
Javik paused to let go again, looking thoughtful. “There were other Protheans who survived the war.”
“Not enough, though. And not for long, either,” she said.
He grabbed her again for long enough to breeze through the rest of the memory, jumping through the conduit and following Saren, her decision to save the council and Sovereign’s defeat. He finally released her and leaned against the counter again.
“I see how you can understand my language now,” he said finally. “I have not heard you speak it, though.”
Shepard leaned against the counter again and crossed her arms, deep in thought. His words before had rumbled and rolled through him, but even when she listened to Vigil all that time ago, she just… didn’t notice. It was normal to hear, as if she had always known it. She could just barely tell when she was hearing Prothean, could hear the foreignness of the sound in her ears, but her mind just thought so easily of what it meant that she just didn’t think of how it sounded. Now, however, she thought about trying to say something, and she wasn’t really sure how, but the more she thought, the more she felt something guide her in how to speak, like a voiceless instructor.
“It never occurred to me to try,” Shepard said slowly. She looked at him and saw a quiet surprise on his face.
“You sound just like a Prothean,” he said in a gentle tone.
She couldn’t help but stare at him, not sure what to think of his response.
“Shepard,” Liara’s voice said, the asari approaching them.
She started talking, but Shepard quickly gasped and frantically started waving for her to stop. Reactivating her translator, she quickly said, “Okay,” and let the asari whisk her away to mingle with her other guests.