A Second Chance

Prologue

Normandy SR-2

The galaxy's stars sparkled, freely sharing their glow with whoever would gaze at them. They throbbed from their core, and the vibration of billions of stars echoed in every single one of Shepard's cells. She was one with the cosmos. She felt the vast darkness of the universe holding her strongly by her shoulders, like the embrace of a protective giant. She smiled while a scorching heat manifested from her core, making her tremble. She clung closer and blended in, fusing herself in his lap, drawn to the warmth enveloping her like a protective bubble.

Suddenly the stars began to dissipate, their glow hidden behind the compact dark gray walls of her captain's cabin. The pulse of the cosmos lessened, leaving a sparkling tickling throughout her skin. She took in a deep breath and immediately Thane's heady citrus scent reached her awareness. Shepard hugged him stronger by his waist, nestling on his chest with her ear against his scales, listening to the drumming of his heart. He was alive, he was still breathing, and every time they made love, she suffered the consequences of the drell venom affecting her like a hit of acid. Even though the medication developed by the salarian STG which Mordin had given her inhibited the effect of his saliva on her, direct contact with his skin was a different thing. To kiss him was no problem, but to make love to him was a much stronger dose of the venom. Mordin had warned her about it.

Shepard smiled. She had never been a fan of hallucinogens; she'd hardly ever smoked – just one or two joints in her life. However, since she and Thane had fallen in love, her brain had to make the effort to get used to the astral trip she took every time they made love. Sex with him was amazing, yet adding his venom, it became something close to a mystical experience.

She pushed herself up on her elbow and stole a kiss from his mouth. He smiled and caressed her cheek. The touch of his intensely green scaled skin was a lot softer than his appearance would lead an observer to believe. She lost herself in his onyx eyes, where she always searched for his barely-visible emerald irises.

She had never loved another being this much in her entire life. Her life had been pledged in service to the Alliance. It had been complicated to accept her feelings for him. He was dying.

Thane had Kepral's Syndrome, a disease affecting those of his species unable to cope with the extreme humidity of Kahje, the hanar homeworld where drell had lived for a little over two centuries. Originally from the arid planet Rakhana, drell suffered the consequences of their disproportionate industrial growth, which affected the natural balance of their planet to the point of threatening their survival. The hanar had arrived on Rakhana before the drell could go extinct, rescuing as many as possible, some hundreds of thousands, while billions of drell remained, abandoned to their fate on the dying planet.

The result was now visible. Like Thane, many other drell on Kahje were unable to live outside their domed cities, which had controlled environments to prevent their being exposed to the planet's extreme humidity. Thane's capacity to transport oxygen through his body slowly decreased with time, like an excruciating death by drowning. His days were numbered, and neither of them knew exactly how many he still had left. Nevertheless, he was here with her, giving her his all like the life partner she had always dreamed of but never met. In the most horrendous of contexts, the battle against the Collectors, this love had flourished as if life itself had managed to forge a path in between so much death.

They melted in each other's arms in a sweet kiss. The tickling of his venom still whispered on her skin. On her tongue. With her eyes closed, she let herself go. She had already died once, tomorrow she could die again. That was reason enough to love unconditionally and without a single trace of logic.

***

Hagalaz, Shadow Broker's command center

"We were about to set the bomb when the Illusive Man called. He wanted to keep the Collector Base at any cost."