"There's no telling what other nightmares will be unleashed." Who:Thor and Shepard Where: the hospital What: Thor meets Shepard. There’s srs talk When: During the plague Warnings/Rating: PG-13 Status Complete
Thor was helping out everywhere he could in the hospital, even in the end, with the washing of patients too sick to do so, and the changing of sheets. Despite his reputation, he was able and willing to be gentle, kind and quiet, respectful of all, and utterly lacking in flirtation. He was just trying to make things easier on the overstressed and overburdened hospital staff. And sometimes, the days were better than others. He met friends, like Emma Frost, and checked in with others like Kitty Pryde and Clarice. And he had time to sit with Natasha, and kiss her, and breathe in the knowledge she was still alive.
But most of the time, he worked.
The hospital was getting old. Shepard could remember the last time she had to lie down this much. After the events on the Citadel, and the destruction of the Reapers, when through some miraculousness she’d been pulled out of the rubble. She’d died, she knew, a second time. Before air flooded back into her lungs and gave her a third chance.
She wondered if she’d have a fourth, laying there on a gurney in a hospital hallway.
Thor moved along, when he found her and made a split second decision. A room had just opened up and with a gentle smile he nodded to her. “I’m Thor, an orderly. Going to move you a bit, okay?” He wheeled her down the hall gently, toward the new room.
“How are you feeling today?”
“Like I’m gonna die.” Shepard said, her tone light and joking. “Been worse, though, I can tell you that. This is..” She coughed. “Like a vacation.”
Thor nodded, pressing the door button and watching it open, then wheeling her in close to the bed. “Well, yeah. But you won’t. We’re going to make sure of that.”
Gurney positioned, he paused. “I’m going to shift you from the gurney to the bed, but they have you scheduled for your wash. Do you want a female attendant to perform it?” That was always an option for female patients.
“I’d prefer that,” Shepard rather hated that whole aspect. Sure, she flirted and played at having fun with it but it was undignified and unbecoming a soldier.
“Of course.” He nodded and retreated out to wait while a female attendant came in and helped Shepard attend to what was necessary, then helped her redress. Once she was gone and all was set to rights, Thor came in to help Shepard to the new bed, and set her up.
“I hope this room suits you. Turns out our presidential suite was taken by someone wearing a Lincoln beard.“ Silly humor, but he tried.
A wry smile crossed Shepard’s face. “I’d prefer to be treated just like anyone else. My former status isn’t enough of a reason to take a bed or a place from someone more deserving.” Here, or there. Sure, she’d taken advantage on the Citadel with discounts, but that was for the war effort.
“Of course. I was, mostly, joking. This is the first room to open up in some time, and it would have been snatched up soon.” He shook his head. “Most people are around the same. the worst ones are downstairs still. “ It was not pretty.
She nodded her head. She thought of Omega, and the virus there, and worried about how long it would take before things broke down to that level. She didn’t hold any illusions as to societies ability to weather these kinds of things. “These things never are.”
“The cure is being worked on. But it’s still not out yet. I am hopeful, however.” If necessary, he had a way, he thought, to cure some. those here, anyway. It wouldn’t help others and the cost would be high, but he would gladly pay it.
“Sometimes hope is all we have, and all we have to operate on,” Shepard replied, her eyes distant, looking onto other shores.
Thor smiled, and reached out, one hand touching her shoulder. A spark leaped, and a little energy, just a little, flowed into her. “Sometimes, hope has more allies than we know.” He busied himself making sure the bed was set and everything was taken right.
“Do you have anyone visiting you?”
"Plenty of people. Not the one I want, but I'd rather she be somewhere else and not sick." Shepard coughed. "I don't usually mind the company. Grew out of my ornery loner phase a long time ago."
“Makes sense. Well, if all goes well, soon you can see her in your own home.” he was confident, and hopeful both. “These have been trying days, but we will find our own ways to get through them, we always do.”
“Yep. I’m glad this is all that’s trying us, to be completely frank. There’s always the threat of worse around the corner, but waiting for the reaper’s shadow to fall over you is no way to live.” She meant the grim reaper, of course. And the other kind as well.
“Very true. Instead, we should live life and make it as good a one as we can. And prepare a little.” Words spoken by another echoed in his mind and he spoke a paraphrase of them, musingly. “There was an idea, once, to bring together a group of remarkable people, so when they were needed, they could fight the battles that normal people never could.”
“Sounds like my kind of idea.” She thought of the alliances she’d built, the disparate people she’d brought together. People that hated one another, or misunderstood one another and yet were willing to put their banners behind her.
Thor nodded, thinking. “I’ve made a few outreaches, and perhaps, if we had enough people, willing to respond, willing to help others, we could minimize these sorts of things.” he rubbed his face. “Even something like this had to have a starting point.”
"You think this wasn't a natural event?" Shepard had her own suspicions, but she'd kept them to herself. She didn't believe in natural events any more. They'd all been colored by her dreams.
“Not remotely. As far as i’m concerned it couldn’t be.” He hesitated, then spoke softly. “I know some of those infected were mutated by their dreams into whole other species of people. And that means this virus mutated too. No human, natural virus could mutate so fast across so many types of people. And that means engineered, which means a dreamer, or from the dreams themselves.” He spoke intensely, but without bite.
Shepard nodded her head. It made sense, and matched with what she knew, like Alma. She felt bad for the dar Wrex might become Krogan, even if she secretly wanted Liara to be her blue self. “I’ve had whole vehicles from my dreams. Armor. Implants.”
Thor reached down and with a will, let Mjolnir become visible. “And I have this.” he lifted it to her eyes, the feel of it bringing a sense of belonging as always, which disturbed as well as relaxed him.
“And the Sentinels were from the dreams of those I spoke of who were a different race. “ he shook his head. “Things and people crossing over. It’s like a strange reality merging event, but slow and over a long period of time...”
She raised her eyebrow. The hammer seemed like more than just a hammer. Like something from the Protheans, or even a Cycle millions of years before her own. Fear gripped her. “If something like that, or those Synthetics could cross over, what’s to stop a Reaper...”
Thor placed Mjolnir back at it his and lifted his hand and the hammer faded from view again. “A reaper?” he sighed. “This is why I want there to be people ready. Not a team so much as... people. Allies. Defenders. Ready to meet a threat if it crosses over from the Dream Worlds to this one. Willing to answer the call whenever it comes.” He shivered. “MY dream world holds many threats as well, none of which i want to see here.”
“A Reaper,” Shepard said, by way of explaining. “The end of the world. Just one is two kilometers tall, and comes with hundreds of thousands of mindless soldiers. It can turn a city to ash in days, taking the dead to add to it’s army.”
She sounded tired, and weary. “They can be beaten. It just takes a helluva lot of work. I’ve got my crew, but no ship. No fleet, no alliances. Our technology is so outdated, I hope you have something up your sleeve.”
“...ah. Definitely not something to enjoy.” There was a part of him that wondered if he could take one. But he did not care to let that part out. Thor nodded. He smiled slowly.
“If I can find someone to pull it out for me, yes. Asgard’s technology was akin to magic to Earth’s sciences. IN it’s applications and in it’s creation. dream me spent a lot of time in classes and passed all the tests. If I can find someone who can find those memories and then someone who was smart enough to apply it to Earth science, then we would have access to the ability to build you all the technology you need.’
"A Thalanx cannon would be handy." Shepard thought aloud. They'd fitted one on the Normandy - it was literally the same main cannon a Reaper had. "The only problem is to get one you have to kill one of the Reapers. But if we had something with that kind of power and enough armor to survive a glancing glow, I've got a pilot that could fly it. Assuming our ship doesn't decide to show up too."
Wouldn't that be a kick?
“I hope it does. And I hope we can get prepared. Not because i want conflict, but because... “ He rubbed his hands. “IN less than three months, we have had an alien invasion, a robot invasion, and a plague, all from the dream worlds. And there are rumors of something else going on as well. it is like something has unstopped the gates, a little, and things are happening faster.”
And he did not like it.
"There's no telling what other nightmares will be unleashed." She sighed. Even if it wasn't Reapers, it would be something else. Maybe even something worse, though she couldn't imagine what would be worse. "Principles might have to be compromised, if survival becomes an issue."
She was serious on that, even if she'd tried everything she could to keep to her own. Sometimes, you had to break them.
“Perhaps. We shall see. Compromising principles too far renders life not worth living. But... still, there will be a time when we will have to figure that out.” And he hoped they could find a way.
Shepard nodded her head. She understood exactly what he meant, and respected him for it. “There will be a time, I just hope we can measure up to it.”
Thor nodded, rubbing his face. “We will, or there will be others to do so.” He smiled a little.
Shepard looked suddenly much more tired, and weary. “In my experience, it’s those others we need to prop us up. To be giants, we have to stand on the shoulders of people better than us.”
Thor nodded, hmming. “Very true, Very, very true. There are those I truly wish were here.” He sighed, then grinned and gently clapped her shoulder. “And new friends to add to the list.”
Laughing, Shepard seemed to lighten, even if his hand on her shoulder hurt like a bitch. That man just didn’t know his own strength, or she was just extra weak. “Making friends is my specialty.”
“Good. A good specialty to have, my friend. A good specialty to have. Soon they will have a cure spread across everyone and you can go home to yours, and forget this place.” he nodded.
“No, I don’t think I’ll forget. We wouldn’t want to forget.” She gave him a wan smile. “We wouldn’t want to repeat this.”
Thor nodded slowly. “You’re right. A futile thing, forgetting.” He smiled, then, in response to hers. “One can hope, instead, for better days.”