I want to reclaim who I am.

The Reclamation Effect

Prologue

It's a beautiful day on the Citadel. It always is.

The fires and debris and broken glass kind of kill the effect, though.

The screen in front of me stabilises, static giving way to the image of a young, attractive woman. She looks to be in her late twenties, with shoulder-length red hair and a light dusting of freckles. Green eyes gleam cheerfully from an open face, and she smiles easily. It's good to see a smile, especially now.

"Tobias," she says in greeting, waving at her camera.

"You know I prefer Parker, Shepard." I retort, but I can't help myself from smiling despite my headache. It is good to hear my name every now and then, as much as I might like to gripe about it. "How's the Omega Nebula?"

"Pretty empty, really," she says, smile fading. "We all feel pretty useless, I think. Especially with the Reapers still out there, and the Citadel like it is. How is it on your end? You look like you're about to keel over."

I don't need as much rest as other people do thanks to a mishap with the Rachni Queen on Noveria, but this last month has me working harder than I ever have before, and even my enhanced endurance is failing.

"The Citadel's pretty enough, if you ignore the bloodstains, the bullet holes and the missing Ward. Do I really look that bad?" I ask half-heartedly. I'd hoped I wasn't looking as bad as the other doctors.

"Big bags under your eyes, pale skin, you're thinner, hair looks unwashed and you've got a raggedy beard," Shepard lists off, somehow without seeming malicious. "You look like shit."

Honestly, I feel like shit. Much like my apartment, I guess. The apartment Eri and I used to share is messy, dirty and more than a little battered, a casualty of the damage inflicted upon the Citadel wards during the Reaper/Geth attack. Still, it's a whole lot better than most other buildings. And the people fared a lot worse than the infrastructure did.

And everyone fared better than Tayseri Ward.

I force the thoughts away. I have enough nightmares when I sleep. I don't need them while I'm awake.

"It's pretty bad," I admit, grateful to be sitting down. "I'm working overtime at the hospital every day, and some of it is pretty disheartening. There are still people being brought in and dying every day." I won't let what happened on Noveria happen again, when I put spying ahead of my medical training. I couldn't have lived with myself if I didn't do everything I could to help.

"We should be back soon, a week or something." She looks around, says something to someone offscreen. "I have to go. See you when we get back to the Citadel?"

"With pleasure." I smile. The image disappears. The last month has been a hard one for Annelise Shepard, with the death of nearly half her squad in the battle against Saren. My smile falters at the thought of Ashley Williams, Wrex and even Kaidan, but I've had time to process it. Maybe if I'd done something different they'd still be here. Maybe if I'd just…

There is nothing but the will of the queen.

I know I shouldn't, but channelling the Rachni memories isolates the pain. Rachni focus exclusively on duty and mine isn't done yet. I can grieve and be emotional afterwards. My omnitool beeps, and where Shepard's vibrant smile once was a haggard, harrowed salarian doctor appears, people of all races moving hurriedly in the background.

"We need you in here," he says, abandoning the pleasantries. There hasn't been much time for them recently. "One of my people collapsed, and we need more hands. How long?"

I'm moving the moment the first words are out of his mouth. At the rate the doctors are dropping from exhaustion, we'll need another wing just for them. I grab an energy drink on the way out, pulling a jacket on as the last words filter into my brain. "Five minutes," I respond, closing the tool. It's a twenty minute walk. My whole body aches from sleep deprivation, my head feels like it's about to split open and every photon feels like a knife in my brain.

I start sprinting.

Sometimes I wonder if the weather setting was intentional. You know, like a way to take the edge off the chaos and mayhem of the Geth attack. I pull my hat down further over my face as a pair of Asari jog past, leaning tiredly against the bench, looking out at the lake. The Citadel's water reserve was dyed brown by the combined blood of the Council races, but the Keepers repaired the filtration systems almost immediately. Now the lake was a pristine blue again, as if nothing had ever happened.

I don't know. I guess I felt like things were being forgotten, even if nobody is trying to hide the scars. That's the nature of sentient beings, I guess. Denial is our way of life. Not even three weeks gone, and memories start to fade. Soon people would forget the terror of being hunted, rationalising it to a momentary concern.

My memories were another point of contention. They're starting to return, albeit slowly and randomly. Things just click sometimes, when I see or hear or feel something I associate with my past life. Like knowing that Sovereign's true name was Nazara, it just snapped into place like I'd never lost it. The big stuff like the existence of the Reapers never left, but still. The devil is in the details.

Did it mean I was finally getting over the trauma of the Queen sifting through my mind? I hope so.

For now the Citadel was in a state of emergency, but the atmosphere of panic and chaos had all but disappeared. I mean, it was a good thing, right? People need normality.

People also forget much too easily.

But for the moment, we of Shepard's team are all A-list celebrities, something eons away from comfortable for me. I knew being part of Shepard's team would get me a name, but I know militaries that could learn persistence from the damn tabloids. All that, and I'm probably the least famous of the crew. The only reason I could escape them in the hospital was thanks to the C-Sec presence rebuffing them.

The fact that I might have threatened to put the reporters in a hospital bed if they distracted me might have helped.

I'd dodged interviews, found reasons not to go to press conferences and flat-out ignored the thank-yous and 'requests' for meetings to discuss 'potential future partnerships' many times over.

No, thank you. I am a spy; I don't like publicity. But despite all my efforts, my picture is still circulating the extranet as a member of Shepard's heroic crew. At least I'm not as famous as Shepard or Garrus or Liara, by far the three most high-profile members of the crew. Probably because Garrus and Liara are Council races, and Shepard is Shepard.

I did manage to find a few hours to myself, though. There were a few questions I had to answer, research tasks I'd been gathering while we were chasing Saren. Chief among them, what exactly was happening when I used Life Transfusion.

This might be 2183, but there are and will always be certain inviolable laws. Conservation of energy, for example. You could never, under any circumstances, create energy from nothing. Therefore, when I turned Life Transfusion on the extra energy had to come from somewhere.

It took a few hours of tentative experimentation, especially since I couldn't exactly ask the other doctors for help. In the end, though, I figured it out. I still have no idea what acts as the 'trigger' and how exactly it activates, but I managed to find where the extra energy comes from.

Interestingly, it was an ability that humans already have, even if it's buried and subconscious. Autophagy, the last-resort biological process of a gravely injured or undernourished creature in order to continue living. In autophagy, a body would break down working non-essential components in order to repair damaged essential systems, or provide energy for essential procedures like movement or breathing. Life Transfusion was far more aggressive than normal autophagy, but the basic idea was the same.

In effect I am self-cannibalising myself every second for more power. I'll recover given time to rest, but excessive continual use would break down my body from the inside out, eventually causing death by consecutive massive organ failures.

So… not something I want to rely on, then.

I feel myself slipping into sleep, just lounging on the bench. I reluctantly push myself forward, waking myself up again. The last three weeks have been non-stop and the total hours of sleep I'd had would be around eighteen, but it still wasn't time to rest.

I suppose I could have slept some more, but sleep never came easily to me. The Shadow Broker is still out there, and presumably still of the intent to bury me six feet under. Intellectually I knew that with my newfound celebrity status killing me might be more trouble than it was worth, especially taking into account the chaos of the Citadel.

C-Sec was mauled pretty badly, but they weren't the only ones. Everyone's chains of command would have been ripped apart, from small-time crime networks to the Broker himself. Or herself, I guess. For the time being, I shouldn't have to worry about a hidden knife coming for me, if only because getting coherent instructions would be a miracle.

It didn't help me sleep without a gun, though.

Another week passes. Another week, where it's rare if I don't need to wash the blood of the injured and dying off my arms less than four times a day.

Liara's call finds me an hour after the end of my shift, lying in the comfiest chair I have, dead to the world.

Shepard's gone.

Total call duration, three minutes and twenty-two seconds. Most of it spent in utter silence and Liara's tearful sobbing.

Cold. I feel… very cold. Shock, most likely. Emotional anaesthesia.

Annie Shepard is dead.

There's a deep emotion, buried beneath layers of unfeeling, numbing cold. Buried so deep I almost can't tell it's there, so deep that in trying to find it I might lose myself for good.

Fire and ice. Rage and pain. Shock and grief.

I am disparate. Silt. Flowing, escaping all confinement and bindings. If I could I'd separate my mind into a billion pieces and order them all to run.

Some part of me is injured, I know that much. It's unavoidable really, considering the news. Wounds affect the physical body, and I just want to leave it behind, float free, escape. Run away.

How sad it is that we three-dimensional beings are aware of higher dimensions. It seems so cruel, to know that so much that might be is always just out of our reach. We see the things that could be, realms of infinite possibility that our minds simply can't comprehend but we can't so much as touch them to use them to runaway and leave it all behind and escape and no, don't panic because panic triggers fight or flight and-

I'm already wounded. There is no escape. No running. Wounds don't just affect the physical.

What is a soul, that it can be hurt?

I know what that pain is, that rising emotion. It grows as the ice melts; was it bound? Or does it just devour everything as it expands?

My Queen is dead. My Singer is gone.

I feel adrift. So hopelessly alone, no brood-mates to seek. No colony to defend. Alone.

Vengeance. Retribution. Reprisal. Revenge. Recrimination. So many words for the same thing.

It's different for Rachni. There are no words, no clever therapies.

There is a sound, though. There is a colour. The colour of blood spilt to honour the memory of the dead.

There's a feeling. A duty, responsibility, conviction, requirement. Deathsingers. The survivors of a dead Queen, their only task to obliterate all existence of their Queen's murderers.

The blood-songs for dead Queens have killed entire species.

There's no hesitation, no human emotion amongst the roaring sea of flashing colours and sounds.

I call Liara back. She picks up on the fourth ring.

"When?" I ask simply. There's nothing else that we could be discussing.

"Twenty-two hours ago," she replies, tears in her voice.

Almost a full day. The fact gives me pause for a second, derails my Rachni half. The insectoid race has a connection of some sort, a mental awareness of their Queen. They know instantly if she is injured or killed, and react accordingly. It took me nearly a full day and someone needing to tell me.

"Who?" I ask, trying to be less callous, a touch softer. I'm not the only one struggling.

"We don't know," she replies regretfully. "I… I was never in the bridge. I didn't see anything. All I know is that we came under attack from two unknown enemies and that stealth did nothing. Shepard ordered me to assist the crew in getting to their escape pods while she went after Joker. From what he told me, she sacrificed herself to make sure he survived."

"Anyone else make it out?"

"Garrus and I are unharmed. Tali left for the Migrant Fleet a few days ago. Two or three of the crew made it, but everyone else..."

I could forgive her for not caring so much about the losses amongst the Normandy's crew. Many of them had shared Ashley's early sentiments about allowing non-humans on the Alliance's most high-spec warship, and few of them had become what I'd consider even acquaintances.

The silence stretches on, neither of us with anything to say. Finally, I break the silence.

"What are you going to do now? What about Garrus?"

"We're on board an Alliance cruiser, the SSV Bendigo. It's bringing us back to the Citadel… I don't know. I can't believe it."

The call ends on a sour note, and I try to sort out my emotions. I'm not used to feeling so strongly about things, in general; I'm both introverted and practiced at dispassionately examining situations. This, though… This is different. Harder. Somehow.

I dealt with Wrex's execution, Ashley's death, Kaidan's passing. I didn't cry over them. I did my grieving after the mission was over, but I could always step back from the emotion, get perspective and continue on. I could do something else; tend to something that demanded my full attention.

This though, I have no idea how to deal with this. I want to punch something, break something into tiny little pieces so I can empathise with it. My fist is raised before I figure that if I blow out the wall of my apartment I'd need to find another place to live. If I hit the wall without biotics, I didn't trust myself not to smash my bones into powder.

I feel so strong, strong enough to take on any fight and win. And yet I feel so weak, so impotent and insignificant compared to the enormity of the galaxy. What could I do, just one life? One set of hands? Destruction was always so much easier than creation.

Then comes the doubt, the thought that I've failed, that something was badly wrong. I believed that maybe when I had died and been somehow reincarnated into the present day it was for a purpose.

Now the hope of the galaxy was dead, and there was a chance, however slim, that I could have prevented it. I could have changed it. So much for a higher purpose.

And at the same time, how could I have done anything about it? The Normandy was stalked and killed by a powerful ship, one that could apparently pierce the Normandy's state-of-the-art stealth technology. I didn't even know that was possible, let alone how it happened. If Shepard was being hunted like that, I don't think I could have done anything to stop them. I might have been able to change the ship's course, dodge an attack or two. But avoiding isn't stopping, and nobody can dodge forever. Most likely, the only thing I would have accomplished was dying alongside her.

It was a thought my Rachni half wished for fervently.

After all, Liara, Garrus or Joker, none of them had managed to prevent the attack, or save Shepard's life. What was I supposed to do? It was their fault! If they hadn't fucked up, then this wouldn't have happened!

Righteous wrath doesn't have much force if you don't believe it.

I can't blame Liara, or Garrus, or even Joker. The man cares- cared about the Normandy like it was it was his own child. He would have never simply let it get destroyed and if eluding the enemy was beyond Joker's skill it was beyond any other pilot in the Alliance. In the end, from what Liara told me, Shepard had a choice between Joker and herself, and she chose the disabled pilot. What was he supposed to do, knock her out and save her?

It was just like her to sacrifice her own life for one of her crew. And as heartless as it is, I wish she'd made the other choice.

I pass hours with thought, sometimes sitting, sometimes pacing furiously. Never still for long, though, and numerous times I had to pull back at the last second from lashing out and destroying something.

I am alone. Not in the metaphysical sense, or any kind of deep understanding of the concept of 'alone'. Not in a paranormal sense, not in any special way. There was literally no one that I could turn to for comfort and understanding. I have no friends to call on, no acquaintances, no family. Not while Erintrea is still fighting for her life on Thessia.

For a long time, the only thing that moves in my apartment is my new pet. I felt like I had to make the place look liveable, at least. Now, though, it just seems absurd.

Hours later, I fall into fitful sleep.

Garrus and Liara are quietly returned to the Citadel the following night. Garrus manages to find a bed in the C-Sec barracks but Liara is distraught, barely able to function. I let her stay at my place. I'm not sleeping well anyway. She looks like I feel, and the full-body scarring from Saren's biotic attack doesn't improve the image. Tiny white lightning-like scars cover most of her body, mostly cosmetic but still disfiguring by modern standards. I know she's planning on getting skin grafts to remove them, but there just hasn't been time.

I leave a note and go to the hospital, forcing all thoughts of Shepard out of my mind. Just twelve hours, just a short time.

I feel like I'm disrespecting her memory. But she would approve, right? I'm trying to help people.

Who am I kidding? I don't even know if there's a reason to help people anymore. Now that Shepard's gone, the Reapers will wipe us out in a few years. She was the beacon, the rallying call that we all fell in behind.

I can't do that. Nobody else can do that. That was the thing that made her special, the thing that set her apart.

The hours pass slowly, and despite everything I can't focus. Shepard, unknown enemies, the Reapers, the Shadow Broker, Cerberus. There's too much, too much to keep track of. The chains of thought whirl endlessly in my head, fragmenting and falling to pieces. I can't keep track of it all, not like this.

I don't know what to do. I've always had a plan; a course of action I knew would advance my ultimate goal. Namely, preparing the galaxy for the Reaper invasion by assisting Shepard and making her life as uncomplicated as possible. But that plan doesn't work without Shepard, and I bet everything I had on her. I never made a back-up plan, never seriously thought about doing it without her.

And now I have to.

It's a whole new realm of uncertainty, so many things I'd thought sealed and done reopened and newly problematic. The Council, mercenaries and the disparate governments of the galaxy. Without someone to follow, they won't fall in line. Without a charismatic and skilled leader, there's no figurehead, no army. Who else can do that? Garrus might, if he wasn't plagued by insecurities. Maybe.

The other option is me, as loath as I am to consider it. But I could never lead by example or inspire people in the same way Shepard did. Realistically, the only way I could lead is through fear, and that's never going to be effective.

I can feel myself spiralling into uselessness, running that vicious cycle until it tears me apart.

Helping people is fine. Just keeping them alive for a few more years so they can get turned into Husks isn't.

When I get back from the hospital, Liara is waiting for me.

"The date for the funeral is set," she tells me. "It's tomorrow, in the Alliance staging area. It's going to be a space burial. And that thing you asked me about; I don't know. The ship went down over Alchera, but aside from that..."

No matter. It's still early days.

I'd half thought that the Council would want the funeral to be televised across the galaxy from in front of the Relay Monument. However it was done, I'm glad the public spectacle was averted. The night passes painfully slowly, but the morning still comes too soon. The moment our air taxi lands in front of the Alliance compound, swathes of reporters envelop us like a pack of ravening hyenas. It's not public knowledge that Shepard is dead, even now. But secrets exist to be exposed, and one like this won't stay quiet.

I feel like killing them.

This was a time for mourning, for letting go, for grieving. Ordinarily I tolerated reporters, even enjoyed watching them pin down politicians with knowledge of supposedly hidden deeds.

This is different.

I push through the crowd mutely, Liara taking advantage of my bluntness to follow in my wake. I ignore the microphones, the cameras, the bodies. I wonder if any of them are aware just how close to death they'd come until the gates to the restricted area opened and we leave the mob behind.

Garrus is there already, along with some of the Normandy crew. Joker is there, as is Adams and to my surprise, Tali. I thought she'd gone back to the Migrant Fleet already. I suppose when she got the news she just turned around. The rest of the attendees are government or military representatives, all of them. No family to weep over the casket, and for all I know her Alliance friends are deployed elsewhere or they just haven't heard. Or dead.

I don't know whose decision it was to hold the service so quickly, so haphazardly. Perhaps that's for the best. Half of me still feels the call of the deathsinger and I have to stand in place, eyes closed, just breathing for a long time.

Breathe. In, out. Human. No Rachni, no rage. Calm. Peace.

"I have no idea how you got in here," an acerbic voice says, directed at me. By the tone and the voice, I know who it is.

"You barely knew her and your presence here is unnecessary," Ambassador Udina all bit spits. Intellectually, I know he's furious that Shepard recommended Anderson over him for the position of humanity's Councilor. Intellectually, I know he's just taking his frustrations out on me, a convenient target. My ordinary response would be to ignore the barking of wounded pride, just to smile and ignore.

The deathsinger has other ideas:

Kill him.

Cleave, rip, destroy, obliterate. Tear, maim, cut! Annihilate those responsible! Vengeance and death!

KILL HIM!

Before I know it my hand is streaking toward the politician's face, nails out ready to pierce eyes and rend flesh, green biotics streaking across the skin. My eyes are wide, mouth open in savage euphoria, teeth bare in anticipation of the kill. My whole being cries out for blood, and life for life. Blood and repentance. Vengeance and death. Atonement and absolution, forever and ever.

And underneath it all, grief and sadness so palpable it brings tears to my eyes.

There will never be words. But there is a sound. There is a colour.

I sit down, hard. I crush my hands mercilessly under my backside, cross my legs and just sit in the middle of the reception area. Too close, too close to losing control. Udina doesn't know how to respond, but I suppose nearly having your skull crushed by a deathsinger isn't something you're ever prepared for. But more than anything, I'm ashamed that I very nearly proved him right. Funerals are a place for peace. Not for bloodshed.

No matter how much it's deserved or called for.

The politician looks down at me with a strange expression on his face. "For Shepard. Not for you," I grunt, slowly rising back to my feet.

Is this the first time that he's come close to death? I suppose it must be. Ordinarily he might fall back on bluster, threatening and throwing out snide comments. But no amount of political power would have stopped me from tearing his throat out then and there, nor would any repercussion have swayed me. It's not a human instinct; it's not something a normal person would consider. But such is the way of the deathsinger. Regardless of the damage taken, you destroy the enemy. Always. No, you never just destroy the enemy. You remove all trace that they ever existed.

The former ambassador's pale face gapes uncertainly for a few seconds, before he abruptly takes a few steps backwards. "You're more beast than man," he says. It's not condescension, just pure incomprehension. And humanity has always feared what it doesn't comprehend. I force out a hoarse laugh, looking him in the eye. I feel like shit, and right now all I want is for everyone else to feel as shit as I do.

"No beast," I spit vindictively. "Monster." Yeah. I'm a monster, so that you don't have to be.

Admiral Hackett leads the service, Councilor Anderson performing the reading. His eyes meet mind for a second, and he nods almost imperceptibly, just once. It's a short ceremony, brief and honest. The coffin is empty, merely window dressing to a sombre, melancholy ceremony. I don't know if she would have liked it, that quiet requiem.

Who cares, some part of me says. What does it matter if she would have liked it or not? She's dead. I lock my jaw and push the thought away.

Present, of course, are the three representatives of the most well-regarded races of the galaxy. Valern leads them as they enter, probably a nod to his seniority. Of the current iteration of the Citadel Council, the Salarian is the only one to survive the Battle of the Citadel. The Alliance staging area is in surprisingly good condition, considering that the battle was only a month ago.

"Annelise Shepard was a paragon of duty, responsibility, and virtue. We will all miss her very much." Anderson finishes, his face pale and drawn, much like the squad. As he speaks the last words, the pallbearers carry the casket to an airlock and as we watch as it vents into space, vanishing into the abyss.

I stand separately from Garrus, Liara and Tali. Why? The three of them are obviously distraught, Liara crying and by the shaking of the machinist's shoulders I suspect her of shedding tears too. Why don't any fall from my eyes? Why are they so dry?

Why am I alone?

The rest of the day passes in an odd funk, like the world's colour was suddenly shut off. For a little while I follow Joker's example and while away my evenings as he does, imbibing copious amounts of alcohol. Chakwas eventually drags me out, but no amount of words or force short of breaking bones can move the bereaved pilot. I can't decide whether I hate him or not. Right now I don't even want to acknowledge the fact that he exists.

The next few days pass in identical fashion, just going through the motions. It's rare now that we get new patients in the hospital, and most of the work now is just maintenance for those who caught infections or have persistent problems. Routine. They don't need me anymore.

All around me, the world starts to reset. The Keepers go diligently about rebuilding the Citadel, even starting to patch up Tayseri Ward, and life moves on. I wonder if this isn't even the first time the Citadel has been so badly damaged, if even this is just normal and expected.

Saren and his Geth aren't the biggest story anymore, and despite all the devastation and ruin people go out of their way to never think about the battle. One of my patients had just arrived on the Citadel, and hadn't even experienced the chaos.

And to me, the world is grey.

Why am I allowed to live as if nothing has happened, when time continues to tick on?

"I guess it's time to find a new job," I mumbled to myself. Move on. Do something. I think Dr. Michel came by. I don't remember.

Liara enters the main room of my apartment quietly, her skin still flushed from fallen tears.

"I found something," she says. "I want to get her body back too," she says quietly. "Shepard… She deserves a proper burial."

Who cares about a body? Dead is dead. I grunt noncommittally, flicking my omnitool to the news to read the headlines.

My body goes cold, my mind blank. My hands tremble as they hold the display steady and frigid understanding dawns.

Startling new evidence come to light, it reads. Negligence by the first human Spectre the cause of Tayseri Ward's destruction. Millions dead because of bad judgement and poor leadership.

On the front page of the newspaper. The government-owned newspaper. Endorsed by the Council. They're trying to place the blame for Tayseri Ward's destruction on Shepard? Why? The only thing that would ever accomplish is to destroy her name and break up the team. Demonize her. Because the Council has to be blameless and perfect, doesn't it? If they weren't people might start thinking they're mortal. We can't have that, oh no.

I thought this was all over. We had her funeral, damn it. Shepard's team died with Shepard, and the world moved on without us. Are we just relics of the past now? Obsolete in a galaxy that never stops.

My job is done. The Reapers are known, the galaxy aware. It's irrelevant who finishes it from here. That is the way of the spy, the infiltrator.

So why do I feel this way?

I look again at the civilians who breathe because she bled. Even the pristine fucking whiteness of their shirts pisses me off.

I never wanted to be a hero. But I think I've performed well, even exceptionally, in my duties thus far.

All I want is for everything to be remembered as it was. As it is.

"Where are you going?" Liara asks, surprised as I rise from the couch, neatly store my omnitool away and arm myself carefully.

"To kill the Council," I respond neutrally, completely at ease. It's the only viable course of action, really. If I claim to have vital information from Shepard's mission, I'm sure I can get a face-to-face audience and they won't have repaired the chamber's anti-weapon systems yet. My first target will have to be Valern, I can drop him through his personal barrier with a few good shots, but it'll probably overheat my pistol. The Asari I can Reave and Burst, she's a career politician so her biotics are probably lacking. Then I can finish off the Turian with a Warp and punches if required. Anderson won't have moved in yet, so there's no need to hold back. Between my biotics, pistol and the element of surprise, I'm confident I can assassinate them all before I'm killed in reprisal. That's not a problem.

Deathsingers are never expected to survive their vengeance.

"Wha- you can't do that!" Liara exclaims, appalled and shocked, maybe wondering if I've snapped. Incidentally, she might just be correct. However, that's not a relevant line of inquiry at the moment, so I shelve it for later. Then I remember that there will not be a later, and so discard it entirely.

Wordlessly, I flick the extranet file from my tool to hers. She opens it and reads, her blue face paling as her eyes widen. Her own body starts to shake, and her hands clench tight enough to whiten her skin completely.

Then she sighs, almost deflating. "I know how you feel," she groans wretchedly, and I know she's telling the truth. "But I've got a lead. We could get her body back," she pleads, though I'm not sure if she wants to convince me or herself.

I inhale deeply, weighing the options. On one hand, vengeance and blood, the path of the deathsinger. On the other, a useless sentimental effort, likely to fail, for nothing but selfish self-gratification and a few words to an old man.

This world's fucked me over in more ways than I can name. It's time for a little selfishness.

"When do we leave?" I ask.

A/N: IMPORTANT NOTICE! If you haven't yet read my first fic 'The Transmigration Effect', I strongly advise that you read it before starting on this. Plus, I like The Transmigration Effect. So you should read it.

Well well well. It seems like such a long time ago that I promised this would come, and at the same time it feels like yesterday.

In any event, welcome to the first part of a The Reclamation Effect! As you might have guessed, the story will focus on the attempt to reclaim Shepard's body in the aftermath of the Normandy's destruction. On a more administrative level, the details of the story will be as follows; recluse and I will update this story fortnightly on Sundays. I might have preferred to update weekly, but now that we're married and both working hard for the future weekly just isn't possible, I'm afraid.

To everyone who has been patiently waiting for this since the end of The Transmigration Effect, thank you so much. I'm deeply humbled by your patience as much as I am by your desire to read what amounts to me just having fun at a keyboard. I hope you'll enjoy the rest of the story!