Shepard still wasn't used to the way her body worked. It had been a few weeks since she had awoken in a Cerberus med bay to the sound of Miranda Lawson's demanding voice, but every day she noticed something new about her body. The way her hair insisted on parting slightly off center, the achy joints that wouldn't fully extend until warmed up, and her now perfectly straight pinky finger, the little bend it took on after she broke it in a childhood fight with her older brother, gone. Today it was her freckles, and she stared into the mirror, utterly fascinated by the light blemishes that were arrayed in an almost too symmetrical pattern across her nose and cheeks.

If she looked close enough, and at the right angle, she could see the ghosts of jagged scars cutting chaotically through through her features. The scars were hard to notice, she had to give Miranda and the Cerberus medical team credit for patching her up so well, but the fact that the scars existed at all threatened to bring back memories she wished she could suppress.

She traced her fingers down each of the near-invisible scars, shuddering at the memory of her helmet shattering on impact as she was tossed around like a rag doll before being sucked out of the de-pressurizing Normandy. For all the things she appeared to have forgotten, the one thing the wanted to forget, she never could. With her eyes closed she was transported back there, a familiar pressure tugging on her chest as she fought for air, praying on a rescue that came too late.

Shepard struggled to push herself back into the moment. She wasn't on that Normandy, she was on the new one, the one they brought back from the dead, the one that felt just as empty as she did.

She opened her eyes and breathed deep and slow, her heart returning to it's resting pace.

"EDI." Shepard spoke to the empty room

"Yes Commander?" the metallic voice echoed back

"Call Officer Lawson to my quarters please."

"At once Commander." EDI replied.

Shepard resumed the examination of her body, pushing herself to remember every injury and scar that should have been there. Some memories were easy to come by, like the bullet she took the the calf during basic training. It was the day of their first live-fire test, to experience what its like to be under heavy fire, real bullets, real danger, for the first time. They wore protective gear, yet one shot fragmented off her armor and somehow managed to slip between the plates, embedding itself into her upper thigh. She fought through the pain, helped her team to victory, and then walked herself nonchalantly to the medic, garnering herself quite a reputation in the process.

She drifted in and out of her memories for quite some time until the sound of the opening door indicated Miranda's presence in the room.

"Commander," Miranda stated, "you wanted to see me?"

"Yes, I'm in the bathroom, you may enter." she replied.

Miranda stepped through the doorway and respectfully averted her eyes from Shepard's muscular body dressed in only undergarments.

"Reviewing your injuries again?" Lawson asked a little too sharply.

"I need you to walk me through the process again."

"Of course Commander." Miranda begrudgingly agreed.

The Cerberus officer stepped behind Shepard and starting at her head, ran through the process, which at this point was becoming more like a ritual. "When we recovered your body, it was obvious you had undergone massive trauma. Your skull was fractured in sixteen places, your facial bones were crushed and your brain was swollen from numerous contusions. After your helmet shattered, the rest of your suit lost pressure and cracked, so most of your skin was burned away after entering Alchera's atmosphere, and what was left was far too damaged from radiation to salvage."

She moved down to Shepard's torso. "Almost every inner organ was ruptured and most of your bones were...mush. Due to the reduced pressure of being exposed to space for so long, air pockets had formed in your bloodstream and organs. Because your first instinct after your helmet decompressed was to hold your breath, as soon as you lost consciousness your lungs ruptured. Shortly after your heart would have failed."

"Cause of death?" Shepard asked, her face as rigid as she could make it

"Asphyxia. You were lucky the attack occurred so close to Alchera, otherwise the prolonged exposure to radiation and subatomic particles would have completely denatured your DNA. If that would have happened, we would have been unable to bring you back"

"Now the process of bringing me back."

"I've told you before Commander, much of that knowledge is classified," Miranda warned.

"Tell me all you can." Shepard demanded

"We salvaged as much of your brain tissue that we could, and from that, created a new brain. Your hippocampus and frontal cortex were mostly intact which is what allowed you to have retained the memories you do have. Your skeleton was rebuilt using a mixture of organic bone tissues and bone weaves for strength. Your organs, circulatory, limbic, nervous systems and skin were all regrown. Harvested what we could from your original body, but there wasn't much we could salvage. After that it was only a matter of a few cosmetic procedures to lessen the appearance of scars and bruising until completion."

"And the revival process?" Shepard asked already knowing the answer.

"Classified."

"Were there any other synthetic implants put in?"

"We fitted you with the standard heavy bone, muscle and skin weaves, medi-gel conduits, as well as upgraded your biotic implant."

"Nothing else?" Shepard questioned, trying not to sound too demanding.

"Nothing," Miranda confirmed.

"Thank you, that is all."

"Your welcome Commander." Miranda replied, quickly leaving the Commander alone once again.

This ritual had been played out many times before. Shepard remembered every conversation vividly, but kept hoping Miranda would let something new slip each time. She never had. It was peculiar to have someone else more familiar with her body than she was, especially when it didn't even feel like it was hers. She felt like a parasite, something gross and foreign that had taken over an innocent and was sucking it dry. Logically, she knew it was a miracle, but it felt more like a curse.

Her crew considered it a miracle though, or at least it appeared like they did. It took Shepard longer than she thought it would to finally notice the whispers behind her back. It was nothing malicious, no one was that disloyal, but the whispers spoke of something she too had wondered about herself: that she had somehow come back different.

It was a natural instinct, she supposed, that people would question something that defies nature, and her second coming fit every definition of the term. She knew there were people who doubted her before, but now they could use her very existence to undermine her authority at every turn. Shepard felt more pressure than ever before to be completely perfect.

"EDI" she spoke to the room once again

"Yes Commander?" the AI responded

"Send notice to Tali, Garrus, Joker, Mordin, Liara, and Dr. Chakwas to meet in the conference room at 1300 hours, please indicate the confidential nature of this meeting"