A/N: This was completely inspired by one of Lordess-Alicia's comics on DA, "Never Easy," http:/ lordess-alicia. deviantart. com/gallery/ 33042526#/ d3hmyb3 (take out the spaces :) which has Mordin and Shep in on of the Normandy's observation lounges and he is evidently feeling the weight of guilt (or at least doubt) for the genophage. It's become head cannon for me for Mordin and my Shep after his loyalty mission in ME2, and inspired this story which takes place after the events of the Arrival DLC.

It is dark and quiet and she keeps loosing track of the stars. Everything blurs together in a river of silver beyond the viewport.

The weight of the alcohol is a solid anchor in her hands, glass bottle cool against her palms. She's not even sure what it is. Or how much she's had. Drink until everything is numb and distant, until there's so much alcohol in her brain that all the facts and statistics are drowned out in a fog of hazy perceptions and half-formed thoughts.

Aratoht.

She should hate them. She should be glad. Should be filled with a righteous light of justice fulfilled. They killed her family, they've enslaved no one even knows how many innocent people. But the only anger she feels is a slow, toxic burn in her gut and the target is herself. For agreeing to go on the damned mission in the first place, for agreeing to leave her team behind.

For not being strong enough.

The alcohol burns her throat, filling her mouth with the same numbness as her brain. The door slides open almost silently behind her as she lowers the glass back down and leans forward to rest her elbows on her knees.

Mordin sits beside her at exactly the perfect distance. She half-turns her head to regard his bony knees. She wonders how he knows that is her perfect distance, the precise range at which he is close enough to offer the silent companionship she needs without crowding the boundaries of her well-defined sense of space or making her uncomfortable. He has simply observed and recorded this information about her. She has never in her life been important enough to anyone that they would notice such a thing about her, let alone care enough to remember and apply such knowledge of her idiosyncrasies.

And now she has a ship full of them. People who care about the woman beneath the uniform. A goddamned family. She has brought them together for war, forged them into a flawless unit capable of frightening perfection on the field of battle, and despite this, despite how much she demands of them, they have given her even more than she'd asked for. She'd asked for their commitment to her cause, and they'd given her their unhesitating loyalty to her every impossible command. They'd given her their love. A depth of devotion that scared her as much as it buoyed her and lifted her up. She found herself depending on them more than she'd ever thought she'd depend on anyone.

She blinked down at the almost-empty bottle in her hands.

Shit like this, this was why she hated getting drunk. Introspection had never been her strong suit.

"The first man I ever killed was a batarian."

He shifted a little, throwing one arm over the back of the seat, blinking those dark eyes at her and giving a short nod. Waiting for her to continue. She looked back down at the bottle and blew out her breath.

"My parents had taken my little brother into the town for—I don't even remember what. So I was alone in the house. Everything going to hell all around me, batarians chasing a group of bleeding, naked women through the field of wildflowers around our house. I watched them through my bedroom window. The town was in flames. There were gunshots. Screams. The smells—chemicals, shuttle fuel and whatever they used to burn the town. I hid in the closet with my dad's shotgun and when one opened the door I tore a hole right through his stomach." She swallowed the bile in her throat, and then gave up and washed it down with the last of the alcohol. "Their blood is the same color as ours. Humans, I mean."

She set the bottle between her feet with a careful precision she only achieved when drunk.

"He opened the door and kind of—gasped, I don't think he'd expected anyone to be in there. The kickback from the gun just about tore my arm off, slammed me back against the wall of the closet. Splattered his guts all over the hand-made quilt on my parent's bed."

She remembers stumbling out of the closet, dazed, almost tripping over his boots. The ringing in her ears from the gun. The silence. The way she'd felt, looking down at the enemy at her feet.

"Empty. Nothing." She clasps her hands together. Her voice is rough. "I should be angry. Shouldn't I? Feel…satisfied."

Mordin shifts again and she turns and meets his eyes. The blur of stars reflected in the wide, dark depths. "Life is life, Shepard. Batarians no different from human, salarian, krogan. All the same. Innocents and civilians—never an easy thing, when there is such a—"

"Such a goddamned waste."

He tilts his head, considering her, and the silence stretched between them. The anger boiled inside of her, ready to be unleashed at a target, any target. She didn't want it to be him. At last she blinked away unshed tears and dropped her eyes.

"I'm sorry. I…get like this, sometimes."

His hand on her shoulder, so light and hesitant. "No need to…apologize, Shepard. I understand."

"All those lives." Her voice is scarcely a breath, a ghost of sound over the hum on the Normandy's engines.

Her hands, traced with a fine line of scars from so many battles, are weightless on her knees. Tools, like her guns, with which she plies her trade, the duty of a soldier: killing. So much blood. So much death.

Beside her, Mordin scoots closer until his hip is pressed against hers and lays his hand over her own. He wraps his other arm around her shoulders and she leans into him, resting her face against his shoulder. Letting herself relax into the support of a friend, a man she respected and admired. A man who had caused more deaths by one small act than all her years of killing combined.

"I know," he said. His fingers tightened over hers. "It's never easy."

"Thank you, Mordin. For being with me. I'm stupid drunk right now and everything is spinning and I'm going to have a horrible hangover in the morning. But. It means a lot. To me. To have you here. I haven't always…I mean, friends, you know? I'm not so good at that. At least, I wasn't. In my old life."

His chest vibrated beneath her ear in an almost silent chuckle. She smiled. She loved him. She loved them all.

"Glad to be here, Shepard. Glad to—give support in turn." He hesitated and then she felt his hand stroke over her hair, unsure and unfamiliar with such a gesture. Comforting a human. His voice was soft when he continued. "All of us…feel same way about you, you know."

She let the tears slip down her cheeks unheeded. It was the alcohol. Damn it. But letting herself be here, in this moment only, resting in the arms of a friend—all of the stress and pressure laid aside for only a moment… Sometimes it's okay to be vulnerable. When there's someone there to protect you. This is something she knew, once upon a time as a little girl running freely through her life, heedless of the potential for pain.

It's what friends are for.