The soldier is the only one smiling now. His throat gapes, pink and red with a flash of white, a grin of the brightest kind. He's smiling, even as his eyes stare blankly and his expression remains rigid. His name is Andrews.

And Sable will never forget it.

He crouches next to John. Their shoulders press together because the space behind the storage crate is small. If they moved Andrews, there'd be more room. But Andrews is smiling and they leave him where he lays.

Let him smile, Sable thinks. His eyes burn, and he swipes at them angrily.

"Do you think they'll come back?" John whispers. His voice trembles. A shudder runs through him, which Sable feels against his own arm. His brother is trying to be strong. They both are.

Even Andrews. He won't stop smiling.

"Yeah," Sable eventually says. He grips his rifle tight. He'd lost one of his gloves a while ago, and now his bare fingers curl around its trigger. He hears the sound of gunfire in his head, hears the screams, and it doesn't stop. People fall, their blood seeping from them like a surging tide.

"Oh," John says, and his voice breaks. He closes his eyes, breath hitching. There's only despair. "We're going to die here."

Sable wants to deny this. But he says nothing. He listens to the screams, the gunfire, and stares at Andrews' grin.

"We're the only two left," John says. His voice is steady now, but he still shakes. He's so good at pretending to be strong. Unlike Sable. "Coms are down, we're low on supplies, and outside, there's a thresher maw. We're not going anywhere."

Sable looks at his brother. His heart wrenches in his chest. It hurts. He can't pretend. It's not his way. But he can be there for his brother, right until the end.

He reaches out. Gives his brother's arm a soft punch. John looks at him, eyes frightened, but he manages a tiny smile. He knows what Sable is trying to say.

"Yeah," he says. "Okay."

***

When Sable burst into the bathroom, he was out of breath and sweaty and nearly cooked in his own hardsuit. He staggered against the sink, chest heaving.

"You are clear," Yuwin said over the com. He'd lost the snark and was acting serious for once, which Sable appreciated. "I've locked and disabled the door temporarily, so you will have a few minutes."

A quick sweep of the bathroom showed it to be empty, except for the far stall. Its door was closed and Sable could see a pair of worn black boots, polished to a perfect shine, beneath it.

Sable deactivated his stealth cloak. His form shimmered into view in the bathroom mirror. The sudden splash of silver caught his eye, and he turned to look. It wasn't that he cared much for his appearance, but he wondered how he'd look to John. Did he appear calm? Collected?

The answer was... not really. His hair was a damp mess of black, the longer fringe hanging limply over the left side of his face. He brushed it back over his head with his fingers. It looked neater that way, though now the thin white scar was visible. It followed the left side of his jaw, curling up behind his ear. He grimaced, then decided it didn't matter. It was only John, and he already knew.

There were dark bags under his eyes, and his face was pale, but that was normal for him. Other than that, his gray eyes were clear and his silver hardsuit appeared unmarred. Good enough.

He quietly went to the stall door. He knocked. "John?"

"Hey." The reply was quiet. Too quiet.

Sable pushed on the door. It was unlocked and swung open to reveal his brother sitting on the toilet lid, hunched over with his head in his hands. He looked up, his blue eyes unfocused and slightly glassy, lips twitching in an attempt to smile. His skin was covered in a sheen of sweat.

Sable knit his brows, but otherwise hid his alarm. "John, what's going on? Are you sick?"

His brother shrugged. The material of his dress uniform pulled tight at the motion. "Maybe? I have the world's worst headache."

It had to be more than that. John wouldn't have called him over otherwise. Not when it was a risk for Sable to be out in the open. People thought he was dead, after all.

"Tell me what happened, John."

John closed his eyes, slumping. "We went to Eden Prime. A Spectre was on board, a turian named Nihlus Kryik. Intimidating, but a good sort. He was there to evaluate me."

John opened his eyes, regarding Sable wearily. Then he snorted. "You know this already."

Sable inclined his head. Of course he did. What kind shadow would he be if he didn't?

"Okay," John muttered. He winced, one hand rubbing at his forehead. "Right. I'll get to the point, and - this place clean?"

"Yeah. Yuwin's on it."

"Good. Things were ugly on Eden, Sable. There was geth, settlers turned into these... things. Husks. Nihlus was murdered by another Spectre. And there was this alien ship-" John broke off with a gasp, every muscle in his body tensed. His eyes went blank and he stared past Sable, lost in... something.

"John?"

No response. Sable grabbed his brother by the shoulders and shook him. "John!"

That did the trick, as John snapped out of it. He blinked and rubbed his head. "Sorry. It's - it's hard to think straight. There was this beacon on Eden. Prothean. I accidentally activated it and it put this alien gibberish in my head. I can't understand it, and it hurts to even try." He paused, taking in a deep, shuddering breath. Sable recognized the look of his brother trying to hold it together. It gnawed at him like a dog worrying at a festering wound.

"I see it every second of every day," John softly said. "And if I sleep, it's in my dreams too. The doc is doing what she can, but it's only getting worse. I don't know what else to do."

Sable stared at his brother. This, he realized, was the reason John called him here. He'd have to get Yuwin to research what exactly this beacon thing was, but apparently it had affected John's mind. Which gave him a bad feeling, because John's mind was already fractured. It couldn't take much more before he broke and returned to -

Jaw tensing, Sable began unfastening his gauntlets so he could pull off his gloves. "Let me take a look."

The look John gave him made him flinch. "Sable..."

"I can't help you if I don't know what it did to you," Sable said. He reached forward, hesitating only for a moment, before he lightly pressed his bare fingertips against John's temples.

For a moment, all he felt was John. Brittle steel, surrounded by compassion for his people, brilliant and blindingly bright. It was almost bright enough to hide the curls of oily smoke that drifted through his core. These were old wounds, scars, pain. The smoke hid the open abyss that yawned below, and it'd be so easy for the steel to shatter and let all the pieces tumble into its depth.

A furrow dug into Sable's brow. He needed to go further. He pulled on his biotics, just enough for its static to crackle along his skin. A spark leapt from his fingers to John, and then he pulled – come to me – give to me – and he felt something respond to his call. He braced, but -

Crimson cries roar their rage. Discordance drums, growing greater with every beat. Flesh unfurls, twitching, tortured, and he can't tell what it is, but then there's thousands, a thousand thousands, fighting, fleeing, falling. Why? Wails want the reason, and rise into rage when there is none. Their loss is so loud, their grief grinding him into dust, the last layer of ash shrouding the ruins of the galaxy. It looms, larger than life, a denizen of dominance, of destruction, undefeatable, undeniable, death. Bitter bile touches his tongue-

And he retched, falling to his knees, his head knocking into John's knee on the way down. There was an awful, blaring sound in his head, and it chilled the blood in his veins. He couldn't hear anything else, and even when he clamped his hands over his ears, it went on and on, a terrifying, awful, screech that promised - promised -

"What?" His own gasp punched through the nightmare like it was tissue paper, and suddenly all he heard was blessed silence. He panted, trembled, and felt John gripping his shoulders painfully hard.

"Sable!" There was such raw panic in John's voice. It made Sable realize that John must have been trying to get through to him for a while now.

Grimacing, Sable sat back on his heels. He rubbed at his head, which throbbed with the worst headache he'd ever experienced. His mind felt confused, full of bits of information that he couldn't even begin to understand. It was too alien, too overwhelming to even try. Even now, they pulled on him, demanding his attention, even though to even think about them felt like diving into a pool of razor blades.

Was this how John felt? No wonder the guy was struggling.

"I'm okay," Sable said. His own voice sounded tinny to his ears. "Just... give me a minute."

He braced himself mentally, teeth gritting, and began shoving it all into a box. Dealing with sudden influxes of random information wasn't new to him - his cursed ability saw to that - but this was the first time he had to deal with garbled, monstrous data that was so beyond his understanding that it threatened to turn his mind inside out.

For now though, he wasn't going to touch it. He shoved it all in its designated box, slammed the lid shut, and locked it tight. It could stay in there forever as far as he was concerned.

He opened his eyes, and wiped the sweat from his forehead. John was watching him closely, stricken, and Sable sighed.

"It's fine. I'm an old hand at this, remember? Now pass me my gloves, and then I'm going to show you how to deal with this mess."

A deep frown creased John's features, but did as asked. Sable pulled them on, grateful and relieved for the layer of protection. "I don't know what that beacon is, but it's got some messed up things stuck in it. Where is it now?"

"Destroyed," John said. "It broke when I touched it. Are you alright? You shouldn't have-"

"Fine," Sable said, a little sharper than he intended. He caught John's quiet flinch and cursed silently. "Look, I can deal with it. Been doing this sort of thing all my life, right? That's why you called me here, isn't it?"

John didn't say anything. In the silence, Sable got the answer he was looking for.

"Okay. Your head is a giant mess right now. Not that's anything new," he held back an amused twitch of the lips at John's scowl, "but this is some nasty stuff. You can't let that wander around because it will drive you crazy. Literally."

"That's what Chakwas said," John muttered. He dragged a hand across his face, looking even more exhausted. "There were a few cases in the past, and they all lost their minds."

Sable shook his head. "That's not going to happen to you."

"What if it does?" There was a resigned note to his brother's tone, and Sable didn't like it one bit.

"Then I'll be there to pull you out again. As many tines as you need me to. Now listen, I'll walk you through this, all right?"

His brother didn't respond, but he winced slightly as something pained him. His pale blue eyes - once so bright and clear, now dim and world-weary- flicked up and met his.

Sable knew he was listening. He spoke softly, clearly, breaking down the steps he often took to keep his own mind from being overwhelmed by unwelcome information surges. For once, he thought, his curse was a blessing because it gave him the skills to help his brother.

He'd taken the worst of it from John, and if he was lucky, John would assume the fading memory of the alien information was just a result of the "trick" he was explaining now.

John, for his part, took it all in like a sponge. He didn't need it explained twice. He sat, shoulders hunched, hands interlaced between his knees, and listened.

Only here, where it was just the two of them with no eyes to see and no ears to here, did John let the veil fall and let his real self show. He was strong, had to be, to continue pushing forward after everything had happened, but he also was incredibly fragile. A man could only take so much, could only lose so much before he broke.

Mindoir was where John buried everything he had to live for. Mindoir was where Sable buried the old John, because the man that left that ruined colony was but a shell of himself. At least he still retained his compassion for others. It kept him from becoming a monster.

Sable hadn't broken on Mindoir, but he had changed.

But Akuze – that was the finishing touch. The final nail in the coffin. There, John barely survived, but he did survive - Sable saw to that. He did everything he had to to make sure John pulled through intact. In the end, John never knew what happened. Those memories had faded, and it was better for the both of them if John couldn't remember.

All John knew was that Sable faked his own death and vanished, and when the Alliance came to pick John up, he was the only known survivor. A hero.

Sable wanted to keep it that way. He didn't want John to know what he did, or what he'd endured. Mindoir was John's shatterpoint, but Akuze? Akuze was Sable's.

"Someone trying to enter," Yuwin informed him. "One of John's companions. A Lt. Kaiden Alenko."

Sable frowned. He didn't take his attention away from John, who currently sat very still, eyes closed, concentration etched on his face.

"Can you buy us some time?" He asked very softly.

"No more than a few minutes. Alenko knows how to deal with a malfunctioning lock. Anything longer than that and he'll become suspicious."

"All right." Sable didn't say anything else. He waited patiently, aware of time counting down, but not showing any concern over it. He watched his brother, and felt a small wave of relief when he saw some of the tension ease from John.

"That... actually worked." John opened his eyes. He sounded almost awed.

The corner of Sable's mouth twitched. "You sound surprised, big brother. I do know what I'm talking about, you know."

"Heh." With a dry chuckle, John wiped his forehead with the sleeve of his casual N7 fatigues. His color was much better than it had been a minute go. "I'll believe you this time."

Sable's head throbbed right behind his left eye. He didn't let it show, only asking, "Better?"

"Better." John smiled, and there was such a deep gratitude in his eyes that Sable looked away. It dug at him, reminded him of what he'd done. If John knew the truth, he'd only be enraged.

"Sable-" Yuwin's voice was urgent.

"I gotta go." Sable hastily opened his omnitool, activating the stealth field once more. Heat seared his skin, courtesy of already overloaded heat sinks, but he ignored it. It wouldn't feel great, but it wasn't going to kill him. Probably.

John gave a curt nod, understanding. Sable grabbed the top of the stall's flimsy walls and hoisted himself up just as the doors to the restroom opened.

"Sir?" Came a calm, steady voice. "Is... everything alright?"

"Fine, Kaiden." John rose, ducking his head beneath Sable, who'd held himself motionlessly above the stalls. "Just needed a moment to myself."

From his perch, Sable saw a sturdily built man in Alliance colors, dark of hair and eye. The man, Alenko, looked John over closely, not bothering to hide the concern in his gaze. As far as Sable could tell, it was genuine, and that made him relax a little. Knowing his brother had people who cared on his team was more than a little reassuring.

Of course, he had dossiers on all of them, but it was hard to get a read on people unless he saw them in person.

"Understandable, sir." Alenko flashed a smile. "But we better not keep the Council waiting. Or Anderson, for that matter."

Council? Sable narrowed his eyes. Considering what John had told him, he shouldn't have been surprised. Geth, Prothean beacons, and a dead Spectre.

That was enough to concern anyone, least of all the Council.

~*~SPACE TIDBIT~*~

Biotics: 

This is the space magic stuff. I'm fuzzy on how it works, to be honest, but it has to do with creating mass effect fields and affecting gravity. 

Asari are born with this ability and are the best at using it, but other races, such as humans can use biotics by using bio-amps. That's dependent on whether they have the ability to use it in the first place, though. Sable is one of these. 

However - Sable's use of it is a bit different. His own ability is very unique and I don't think it's a even a thing in the original series, lol.  While he can use the common biotic skills such as Lift, Pull, and Throw, he's very clumsy and unrefined with it. His true talent lies elsewhere. 

Also, this fellow is Kaiden Alenko: