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She’d been a good half second away from just slipping back into her work and trying to forget this conversation happened— after all, she practically idolizes the commander, who just treated her like a balloon being handled by Freddy Krueger. Of course, Kelly’s too nice to say anything about it, but thankfully Shepard does before walking away. “Commander,” as she looks over her shoulder, away from the terminal and towards those mournful-looking eyes.
“I’m truly sorry for anything that may have happened in the past to give you reason to be uncomfortable here, but I want you to know I understand your apprehension. Really, I do. But I hope you’ll believe me, regardless, when I saw this crew, on this ship, is here for the right reasons— we all care about humanity very much. We all have relatives living in remote colonies. Many of us have already lost friends, family, loved ones. We’re here because we want to make a difference, to stop the collectors, before we have to dig more graves. I mean that, and I think you believe me when I say it.”
Shepard did her best not to let the skepticism show on her face, though that got easier as Kelly touched on more plausible points like the crew having family in human colonies. "Ms. Chambers, I certainly do believe that the reason we’re all here is to keep our colonies safe. But as for understanding my apprehension, respectfully, you don’t. And I know you don’t because if you did, there wouldn’t be a Cerberus patch on your shoulder.” Her tone was much softer than it had been earlier. She wanted to reassure the poor girl, but telling her that her naivete was alright or that things would be okay was not truthful. In fact, Shepard was very certain that this was all going to end very badly.
If Kelly was as well-intended a person as she seemed, then one day she would realize what she’d gotten herself into and that disillusionment could potentially destroy her. It took the commander a long moment to come up with something positive to say, but finally she took a breath. “I do, however, appreciate that you want to understand my apprehension.” Maybe an acknowledgment of her good intentions would be the kind of reassurance she needed without lying to her. Things certainly hadn’t gotten off to a good start. Between arguing with Miranda and now this, if she kept on as she was she’d have everyone on the ship hating her by lunch. Except maybe Joker and Chakwas.
tagged as: #adegreeinpsychology #meeting the crew
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”Commander, it’s not like th—…” By this point, she’s certain she’s offended the commander somehow, and precisely how awful she feels about that is written all over her face, despite her attempts to hide her frown. She doesn’t finish her earlier sentence— Shepard’s clearly on edge, understandably so, and Kelly doesn’t want to push her over it. “… I’m sorry if I’ve offended you, ma’am. I won’t take up anymore of your time, but I’ll be here if you need me.”
Ah, bloody hell. She was so angry to be aboard the ship that she’d bullied the damn secretary. Her anger deflated visibly and she cleared her throat. “I… apologize. I doubt you personally had anything to do with what happened there. I just–” She paused and sighed deeply. “You’re the brain shrinker, you know all about adjustments.” The commander had already made it clear that she wouldn’t be here if there were any other option, but what she hadn’t realized until Chambers’ reaction that it would only make things worse to alienate everyone on this ship because of that. It wasn’t their fault that Cerberus was evil, and it wasn’t their fault that they’d brought her back to life or that she’d lost everything while she’d been gone. “You didn’t deserve that. I disagree with your assessment of Cerberus for very good reasons, very personal reasons… but none of those are your fault.”
tagged as: #adegreeinpsychology #meeting the crew
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Kelly shifts on her heels as she listens to the commander speak— she definitely knows she’s said something wrong at this point, though she still has no clue what. She seems contrite about whatever it might have been, hanging her head a bit as she listens. Of course, she knows what happened to Shepard on Akuze— but the involvement of Cerberus is something she had no clue about. “I’m sorry, commander. I didn’t mean to remind you of Akuze. I know what happened there was terrible. If you need someone to talk to about it, I’m always happy to listen.”
The commander could not have looked more galled if Kelly had been trying deliberately to piss her off. There was just no way anyone working for Cerberus could be so wholly unaware of its track record and ruthless intent. Chambers was either willfully ignorant or woefully naive and Shepard couldn’t be sure which it was. It was the bit about being happy to listen that really got Adahlia, though. If Toombs was right, and it certainly seemed to her to be that way, Cerberus had set up the thresher maw attack in order to judge reaction. It was likely that the word reaction was meant in a strategic, combative sense, but the idea that they wanted to see how the experience had scarred her emotionally, to follow up on the experiment, really got to the commander. “Oh I’m certain you would, Ms. Chambers.” She replied icily.
tagged as: #adegreeinpsychology #meeting the crew
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Uh oh, she exclaims mentally, the smiling running away from her face like it’s off to do a 10K marathon. Did I upset her? I think I upset her. Of course she’s completely clueless as to how— Kelly has only ever seen the good side of Cerberus, bathed in glowing propaganda light beams. “I’m sorry, commander. Did I cross a line?”
Shepard cleared her throat and shifted her weight from one foot to the other. She wasn’t entirely sure how to handle this situation. “Ms. Chambers, did you know that during World War II there were people living in Poland with death camps in their back yards who had no idea that it wasn’t snow falling from the sky, but the ashes of burning bodies? The American soldiers who freed the victims from those camps brought the neighbors in so that they could see what atrocities they’d allowed to happen, completely unhindered. You know, I hear Akuze is absolutely lovely this time of year.” It wasn’t like she was giving away some great secret. The fact that Shepard was the sole survivor of Akuze was probably in her file.
tagged as: #adegreeinpsychology #meeting the crew #please don't hate me
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”It’s all right, commander. I don’t expect you to trust us— or even just me— right away. Trust has to be earned, and you’re right to think of it that way. I just hope you’ll give me, and Cerberus, the chance to earn that trust while we’re working together,” she beams back with a smile, her upbeat personality not even slightly affected by Shepard’s skepticism. “We’ll do a lot of good together. I promise.”
Her use of the ‘us’ pronoun made Shepard visibly uneasy. She’d grown up with a gang, and had left them for the Alliance. The commander knew exactly what a group identity was and the kind of loyalty it could command. It made her hesitant to offer Chambers that trust. “Right.” She cleared her throat. Did she not know who the commander was? Was this girl completely unaware that Shepard was on Akuze? Or maybe she was just unaware of the allegations of Cerberus’ involvement with what happened there.
tagged as: #adegreeinpsychology #meeting the crew
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Shepard looked taken aback. “I wasn’t implying that you personally were racist, or something. I apologize, if that was how I came across, Ms. Chambers. However, you won’t be convincing me of Cerberus’ good intentions. They are not a shelter for humans, I can promise you that.” She did her best to still give the woman a polite smile, but inwardly she hoped that one day Chambers would realize she’d gotten in deep with the devil, so to speak.
tagged as: #adegreeinpsychology #meeting the crew #thanks for the follow!!