Chapter 18: Sharing the pain
While July had three episodes of Mass Effect that aired, each month afterwards had two. The second episode of October had put everyone's good mood down the drain. It was the episode of Rick’s suicide attempt and his retelling of what really happened to his family on Eden Pri. It wasn’t just simply told by Act!Rick, it was shown in a flashback. The audience had been completely shocked into silence. Silence… that was how the episode ended. At the end of the episode Act!Rick went back to his quarters and lashed out violently, destroying all the equipnt in his workshop including his helt with his biotics. The last scene was of him kneeling completely breaking down, crying into Act!Jane silent’s embrace. The music, not helping at all to tune down the negative emotions the public were feeling. It was a very slow and grave piano accompanied with a very sad choir composed of children's voices. It beca worse when violins played along the piano with a very high pitch exacerbating the tragedy they were watching while making it also disturbing.
After the credits a link to a list of various psychologists in the galaxy (filtered by clusters, systems and planets) and also numbers to suicide hotlines were displayed telling the people to ask for help.
For the first ti in three years the chat was silent. No ssages of any kind were posted. No s. Nothing. Until one user posted a gif of a candle being lit up, the common gif for a show of respect and homage. A second posted it too, then a third then more and more. An unending chain of candles was lit up and flooded the chat. Billions of people were paying their respect.
At Celeste Academy, the only thing you could hear was the crying and sobbing of the most emotional students. Those that had Rick as a teacher understood why he had taken a leave of absence all week and why he was a bit out of sorts the previous one. Of the crew and family that were watching in the private theater, those that weren’t in the know and close to Rick were devastated. Jennifer didn’t show it and did her very best to not cry while Miranda was hugging her with everything she could. Kahlee and Anderson were in the sa situation but she was letting the tears fall. Tali had left to go back to the 49th floor to find Rick but found him nowhere. EDI told her that he had left Celeste earlier in the evening, just before the airing, and refused to tell her where.
Life was soured for the next few weeks after that and Kelly had a lot of students coming to see her. Sotis to ask for help, sotis just to talk and get out what they had on their chest. It wasn’t until a month later that Rick ca back to Celeste discreetly. He was berated by his children for leaving without telling them or saying goodbye and he could only apologize to them. Jane was about to reprimand them but Rick stopped her. They were children, they didn’t know and shouldn’t know. Any other ti they would have been in the right so reluctantly she let it slide. Tali had simply glued herself to him in a crying ss so did Kahlee. Jennifer waited her turn for a more private setting where she simply hugged him wishing she could take his pain away. They had talked a lot about Analysse and she truly understood that she had been the love of his life. The one that stopped him from becoming a monster. She couldn’t imagine the guilt he had been carrying all those years. Guilt that must have been even heavier every ti he interacted with her. Jennifer didn’t bla him one bit, but by now she knew how he thought, she knew he was blaming himself and yet still kept the mask up, hidden by his helt.
She and Jane had warned their students to act as they usually would and that more than anything normalcy is what he needed more than anything. So students were worried and asked them questions.
“Ma’am… is he going to be alright?”
“Yes. Even though that’s a wound that will never heal properly he has worked on it and has his family around for support. He isn’t going to do anything stupid.” Jane replied with a reassuring smile.
“Why?” one of them asked. “Why show us that? Why show such a private and… and…” the rest of the question was never finished as the student began to cry. Imdiately her classmates were there to support her.
“Because… It was necessary.” Jennifer said.
“What do you an?”
“The war… we lost lots of people. From strangers to loved ones… We were all scared deeply, one way or another and now that it’s over we need to rebuild not only our civilizations but ourselves. To push forward and live. Not everyone is able to do it. Many people need help and perhaps do not know how to get it or even want to get it or simply don’t know that there is help for them to begin with.”
“He also wanted to show the Galaxy that… you may see us as heroes but we’re living beings too. We’re not invincible. We laugh, we cry, we’re hyped and we break down, we’re happy and we mourn. He wanted everyone to know that we were flawed, that we go through the sa things that everyone does. It’s a way to connect with each other, that no matter our species we’re all in this together. And if exposing his own pain and trauma can help people he would do so without hesitating a single mont. And he did.” added Jane.
The students were awed by the length at which Rick would go to promote symbiosis and tried their best to make sure their classes were as normal as usual. After receiving a Throw or two during training their compassion went out the window and just wanted to hit him once. He was still the strict and a bit sadistic teacher they always knew him as and that helped a lot in getting things back to normal.
To fight the low morale, Kahlee had reminded the students that there was the festival of the end of the year to look forward to. That fired up everyone and everything went greatly. This ti Celeste landed on Thessia (with the proper authorization to do so) for any outsiders to get in. Like usual the donors were present to look at the Academy’s results and were more than satisfied. This ti, so ca with their family after getting permission from Kahlee to enjoy the festival.
One of the new attractions was a cooperative obstacle race where everyone could participate but also a small football tournant where everyone could enter. Students and families or a mix of both grouped together to make five people teams. There were even teachers’ teams. Jennifer and Jane were forwards, Rick was the midfielder and defender while Garrus was the defender and Anderson the goalie. So students objected to the team however.
“Look at that! Do you see what I see?” Jennifer said, pointing at the students to Rick.
“If you’re talking about the whiny bitches that’s scared of a team whose youngest mbers are thirty three then yes.”
“Damn, If I knew we were raising chickens I would have taken my frying pan.”
“Do you think they will lay eggs out of fear if we shout?”
“I don’t know but I’m hungry now, so let's find out.”
“““Hell no!”””
“We’re going to kick your asses!”
“Maybe they’re not chickens but just barking dogs. Are you intimidated? Because I’m sure not.” Rick said to Jennifer.
“That’s it! Prepare to get the humiliation of your life teach’!”
“You hear that? It sounds like a baby pyjak squeaking.” said Jennifer.
Both biotics laughed evilly as they riled up the other participants. anwhile the rest of the team were doing their best to not laugh at their antics.
“By the spirits. I hope to never be the target of their taunts. The two of them are unbeatable.”
“It does get people worked up.” Anderson said with a smirk.
There were sixty four teams in total for the morning. With a ten minute ga plus five more minutes in case of a draw, things went fast. Their team went far into the tournant, reaching the semi-final where they were defeated in the last fifteen second by a master feint from an asari that expertly made a decisive pass between Rick and Garrus to her krogan teammate that scored the winning goal. It had been a very close ga as it was the only goal goaled. With no bitterness from their side, team TEACH Number 1 as it was called by the organizers, congratulated their opponent and cheered for them in the finale. The final match that they won.
All in all everyone had a good ti and after the graduation ceremonies people left the ship. The sa students that had stayed during sumr stayed once again but this ti were joined by others. Not many but enough to fill an entire class. Those new ones were quickly taken care of by the veterans though it wasn’t a walk in the park.
Consulting the family and Kahlee, Rick proposed a christmas feast and a small party for new years for them and other teachers that were staying there. Thinking it was a good idea to offer sothing like that to students who needed it, Kahlee agreed but didn’t take a single credit from Rick as the donations were more than enough to deal with that.
So when they fill back up their stock of food while on Thessia they also bought decorations and end of the year the food. Most were human traditions of course but Christmas was a ti of giving first and foremost, a ti of sharing and they thought it appropriate to celebrate it. Of course they had checked for any tradition from other species and with the exception of new year there was nothing to celebrate, which was fine with them.
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Dorothea’s has been a shocking revelation to probably everyone in the Galaxy. An AI that created her own organic body to take possession of to understand organics was terrifying things to many and that launched an unprecedented debate about AI rights and put forwards the geths existence and status in the Galaxy which so far has been simply ignored. EDI had a very hardcore fan base that supported her through and through and she felt happy about it. Of course the sa leechers that had been inappropriate towards her synthetic bodies, didn’t seem to learn and were banned once again. The appearance of Grunt was hailed by fans and his survival in the mission was received with relief. Not a single person had taken the side of Dalatrasse Linron. While so had still reservations about curing the genophage the ways she used were despicable and didn’t sit well with anyone. At least openly. There was such a backlash against her that any person of the sa mind kept their mouth shut. The fact that Rick planned and succeeded in taking down the leader of one of the species sitting on the council so easily, however, terrified people a bit and wondered what else he could have done. They were also disbelieving of the way he was predicting events playing out.
Finally ca the Tunchanka mission. People were familiar with it, they had seen the footage ti and ti again. Fortunately the footage had been heavily edited to show the strong and impactful monts for the propaganda so there was plenty to discover for the public. The passage into the ruins had shown another side of Rick that people didn’t know about. Fear. So far they had never seen him scared. So applauded his determination to go on with the mission despite his phobias while others simply mocked him for having them. After all, what kind of grown ass man was fearing the dark?
However, they discovered his rage once they were out, that he had cald down and any dissers quieted down. After all he was soloing reapers troops with an unseen brutality and everyone instinctively understood that you didn’t ss with him like that. They finally understood what his teaser ant and that it was a warning to the public.
After Act!Jane and Act!Wrex declaration of friendship a fast engaging orchestral tal music began with a very morable electric guitar riff. The crew was hacking down Reapers troops as fast as they could until they were confronted with the run towards the reapers. The music went up a notch when Act!Rick fought the Brutes on his own. From this mont the screen was split in tow, showing what Act!Garrus and Act!Rick dealing with the horde while Act!Jane and Act!Liara were doing their best to reach the Hamr. The numbers of brutes the first group (especially the latter mber) killed could be counted in the multiple dozens, way more than what was shown to the public. When it was ti to activate the second hamr, a smug and engaging lody on piano began to play as Rick did his thing.
“Deranged_Armony: He ain’t gonna do what I think he’s gonna do, right?”
“_QuadMaster_: IT’S WALD OF COURSE HE IS!”
“Swiggity Swooty Booty: The guy survived the escape of the Collector’s base, what do you think?”
And indeed, Act!Rick did as they thought. When he fell down the hamr, everyone knew it was the mont of awe. Everyone cheered when it happened and cheered so more when the Reaper was defeated.
“ °°RICK
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