Chapter Three – The Morning After the Night Before

AUTHOR'S NOTE

Hello all, just a quick note this time. In an attempt to get a decent sense of the scale of the galaxy and what would be entailed by anyone facing a post-Crucible sojourn across the stars, I've been doing quite a bit of looking around the net at Mass Effect universe and real-life facts and figures. This has mostly come from the Mass Effect Wiki and Wikipedia (as well as other places), but a galaxy map on DeviantArt by the user Engorn has been indispensable in figuring out the finer details. The map is available here art/Mass-Effect-Galaxy-Map-215055063 and it's worth a look if you're as much of a nerd as me or if you're trying to figure out a solid post-ME3 story (that keeps the 'destruction' of the relays part of the ending) yourself.

This one's a bit of a beast but it ties up some mysteries and lays a lot of groundwork for the story so that things can hot up. I've got some interesting (and evil!) ideas for chapter 4 but you can't get there without a bit of background.

Please enjoy chapter 3, and please leave a review if you have any opinion whatsoever on the story. Don't worry about offending me – I have a job that comes with the risk of wearing bodily fluids and being hit by delirious/demented/confused/angry/all of the above people and so it takes a fair bit to shake me! Even a one sentence review is nice to receive, but I'd really appreciate some proper constructive criticism. What's good? What sucks? I have to steal from the excellent Melaradark here and say that if you happen to say or request something specific in a review and I do it, I was probably about to do it anyway – by the time a chapter is finished I've usually thought out most of the next one. As such I won't be taking on plot suggestions but any other criticism or feedback would be helpful and gratifying!

The following takes place the day after the crucible has fired

Liara T'Soni lay on her side on the bed in the Captain's cabin of the Normandy. Just one day ago she and Lena had shared the bed and reaffirmed their love for one another with an endless view of the stars above them. Despite the knowledge of what they were facing, as well as the poor odds of their survival, Liara had been filled with a peace that now seemed impossible. For the second time in three years she was facing the death of the woman she loved, though now the love had grown, and with it, the pain.

From the lift outside the cabin Kaidan Alenko approached the door. Unsure what he would say to Liara when he entered he simply stood in the small corridor and hesitated. He wondered what the right words were to say to a recently bereaved woman in Liara's position and thought of the last time they had lost Shepard. That he had been unable to comfort her as she gasped for air between sobs remained one of his greatest regrets. The shame he felt at his previous action made him vow not to let jealousy of what she had found with Shepard to interfere with his compassion this time. Feeling a new sense of resolve, he pressed the buzzer on the door. Hearing no response he pressed again before EDI's voice came over the speaker in the ceiling.

"The door is unlocked Major Alenko," she said, startling him. Even after these last few months he was still surprised by the Normandy having a mind of its own.

"Thank you EDI," he replied. Though he was uneasy about simply entering, he felt the news he came bearing was too important not to disturb Liara, as well as a potential distraction from her imminent slip into all-consuming grief. From his point of view, they would all have to deal with the loss of their friend and leader – and inspiration in many senses – after the business of finding their way home.

Gathering himself, he placed his hand over the sensor in the door and the green holograph disappeared as the door split into four and opened. As he stepped into the room he saw Liara laying on the bed facing the pillows that rested against the far wall of the cabin and the framed picture of Lena and Liara on Elysium taken after Liara had become the Shadow Broker. She was still wearing the medbay patient's gown that Chakwas had put her in to clean her up and there was a protective dressing applied to several of the projections of the asari's head crest – a consequence of her following Shepard's habit of not wearing a helmet in combat.

"Hasn't even changed," Kaidan thought to himself. "Chakwas let you go then?" he asked, as an awkward attempt at opening a conversation. In truth he suspected (due to her attire) that Liara had simply got up and left the medbay, ready to or not. Either way his comment elicited no reaction, Liara simply lay still on the bed. He tried again, "feeling better?" he asked this time. Once again he was met with silence and after a few seconds he let out an audible sigh.

In her silence Liara hoped that Kaidan would leave. She had no idea what to do but she did know that she wanted to be left alone. At this point she could see no future for herself, no progress from the agony in which she was drowning. A bizarre and almost indescribable sensation of profound sadness with an occasional apathetic lack of any real emotion was upon her, leaving her feeling unable (as well as strongly disinclined) to interact with the world in any way. What she needed was her Lena, though any such reunion seemed highly unlikely to her. How often, after all, does one get lucky enough to have such an experience twice in even an asari lifetime? The fact that Shepard was alive and in an Alliance hospital would, for the time being, remain hidden from the woman that had until so recently been the most informed person in the galaxy.

Kaidan, however, would not be deterred. He walked toward the bed and sat next to Liara. Seeing the tears streaming down her face he was struck by the uncanny similarities between their species. The multi species band of misfits that had been the Normandy crew had grown such a familiar feeling that moments such as these were among the few that Kaidan was reminded that his friends were aliens. Still, looking at Liara he saw nothing but a broken young woman mourning her lover. "She wouldn't want this Liara," he said.

At this moment something changed in Liara. She tensed briefly and sat up, fire in her eyes. "She wouldn't want this? How can you just give up on her?" she spat at him in a venomous tone. Though Liara had clearly slipped into despair at the thought of Lena dying again, the reality leant the news by others seeming to confirm it felt like a betrayal, especially from a man she believed to share her romantic tastes.

"I was just trying to..." Kaidan gave up the sentence after a few words of Liara talking over him.

"I don't care what you meant," she shouted, her sadness temporarily turned into anger, though she seemed to calm with each word, "I can't think of her in the past tense. She might still be out there." Women as intelligent and caring as Liara rarely stayed angry with friends for long, especially over a poor choice of words. Kaidan, giving her space to vent her emotions sat there in silence, a compassionate look on his bruised and grazed face. Though the hope in her last words had sounded at least as desperate as it was sincere, it was an improvement on silence and screaming.

"She might," was his eventual response. "EDI has worked out our location. The crew is gathering to discuss our route back to Earth. If she is OK then that's where we need to go." He paused for a few seconds before continuing, "even if she isn't, I think you need to help us find her."

Liara sat up and looked at Kaidan with a wounded expression and tears in her eyes. "She promised me she would always come back to me," Liara said in a pained voice, remembering the conversation that restarted her relationship with Lena after they defeated the Shadow Broker. The statement seemed to take a lot out of the asari as it was a while before she spoke again, once more in a straining voice. "I'm sorry Kaidan. I...," she considered her next words, wanting to acknowledge her friend's pain without mentioning the open secret of his love for Lena, "I know this is hard for you too."

"I'll let you get changed and meet you by the elevator," he said, making no verbal reference to Liara's comment, though the slight sag of his shoulders and the brief wrinkling of the skin round his eyes indicated both his discomfort and his appreciation at the thought as he left the room.

When the doors of the cabin opened again Liara emerged wearing a medic's all in one suit strikingly similar to the one she used to wear on the first Normandy, reminding Kaidan of just how much had changed in those three years. The first time they had met Liara she had been wearing the same thing, in a frightening position and about to be pulled free by a surprise visit from Shepard. Kaidan wondered if Liara was hoping for the same thing here.

The pair made the elevator ride - as well as the rest of the journey to the conference room - in total silence, the oppressive atmosphere so tangible that even the normally garrulous Privates Westmoreland and Campbell say nothing as the pair pass by. As the door opened Liara caught sight of the rest of Shepard's core crew – EDI, Tali, James, Joker, Engineer Adams, Dr Chakwas, Cortez and Specialist Traynor, all those close to her – before returning her gaze to the ground in front of her. Seeing the team assembled only highlighted the absence of Javik, Garrus and, most notably, Shepard. Despite this, Liara's caring instincts temporarily made her aware of Traynor's haggard appearance – the grief of yet another rival for Shepard's affections – and caused her to look up in concern for her friend. As soon as their eyes met, however, Liara looked away, unable to offer comfort through the conviction that she must be suffering more than anyone else present. In truth, her feeling was justified.

Eager to break the tension Joker made an announcement, "well the war seems to be over guys." The announcement was met with the sceptical glances of people that had a hard time believing something they had given so much for was over so quickly. "We've passed several dead Reapers floating around in the system. Of course, that one at Mnemosyme was supposed to be dead too..." Even through the glass of her mask Joker understood Tali's glance to mean "shut up", and so he did.

Noticing the renewed tension Joker had created, EDI carried on with the business of the meeting, "from analysing our surroundings I have deduced our position. We are in the Sparta system of the Artemis Tau cluster." A galaxy map appeared above the table with their location highlighted.

James, quick to speak as always, vocalised the group's confusion, "Artemis Tau? How the hell did we get there?"

"Soon after we travelled through the Sol relay I detected unusual readings from the relay. The most likely explanation is that the Crucible interfered with the normal function of the relay network and caused involuntary jumps. Shortly after entering the Exodus cluster we made two such jumps, though now the local relay is non-functional we cannot take the same route back," she said with a touch of regret that reflected how increasingly human, for want of a better word, she had become.

"Well then how the hell do we get back?" James replied, exasperated in an energetic way – a tone seemingly unique to the young officer.

EDI addressed the question – clearly she had thought of a plan, but in her continuing effort to match organic behaviour she was endeavouring to arrive at consensus through conversation – by presenting the information available, "we are approximately 150 light years from Earth following our mass relay jumps. In its current state the Normandy should be capable of travelling roughly fifteen light years per day and as such the journey to Earth should take us ten days. However...," she paused, quietly inviting the rest of the crew to join her.

Engineer Adams accepted the invitation, "we have to discharge the drive core every fifty hours...,"

James required no invitation to cut the engineer off, "or we're toast."

"Not how I'd have put it, Lieutenant," the engineer replied.

"'S'why you need marines around," James shot back with his usual pretence of arrogance.

The levity in spite of the situation struck Liara as possibly Shepard's greatest influence on the group before she chastised herself for thinking of her love's legacy before they had heard any news of her fate. "How can you give up on her?" she thought, an intense feeling of guilt rising in her as she though of the woman that had never given up on anyone, unaware of Shepard's breakdown on the Citadel.

Kaidan, now the ranking officer on the ship, coughed in a way that said "back to business," and EDI carried on.

"Ten days of travel is equal to 240 hours. Such a journey would require 4.8 core discharges. Unfortunately we cannot follow the route we travelled as the distance between clusters is too great. We will have to take a less direct route with more discharge points available." She paused again, though this time she had altered her voice slightly to display apprehension, "the nearest cluster on a plausible route is the Kite's Nest."

The atmosphere in the room once again became uncomfortable. A journey through the home of the Batarian Hegemony was clearly not a popular concept.

James was again the first to comment, "batarian space? That's loco even for this crew."

"He's right. This ship isn't popular with batarians," Tali said.

"Can't we just use the stealth system?" Traynor asked, looking around.

Adams partially dismissed the suggestion with a wave of his hand, adding, "we'd have to discharge that too at some point and when we did the heat we were giving off would make us stand out like a fourth of July celebration."

"We blow things up on the fourth of July Sparks," James explained to Tali.

"Thank you," was what he took from her gesture, though he missed the undertone of, "I got it."

At this point any observer would notice that the subject of argument had become how to survive the journey through batarian space and not whether they should head there in the first place, such was their resignation to what EDI had displayed to them on the projected galaxy map in the middle of the table. There had also been no mention of Shepard, partly out of thoughts for Liara, and partly because no one could bring themselves to face the fact that she might be dead again.

Adams continued, "We could use the IES if we limit our travel at FTL."

Joker, indignant at the suggestion, spoke out, "you've got to be kidding. It's like fifty light years to the Kite's Nest. We can't spend the next half a century on getting less than halfway home, we'll run out of food for a start."

"If we overload the drive core food will be the last of our worries," the engineer retorted.

"What about rogue planets?" Kaidan asked.

The pilot replied, "forget it. There are hardly any on the maps and even if we randomly dropped out of FTL every five minutes to look for one we'd attract any Reapers left out there with all that scanning." Even after he had seen the lifeless Reapers floating in the system he was unwilling to believe the war was completely over.

"So we just burn it at FTL and hope for the best?" James was rapidly becoming the voice of the group's worries.

All present felt as though an age had passed before EDI again brought the proceedings back to business. "We will need to be quick as supplies are low. The ship was travelling light for combat duties."

Once more James gave voice to what everyone else was thinking, "so now we have to stop to resupply in batarian space too?" he said shaking his head.

"Not that they'll have dextro rations anyway," Tali added.

"We should not have to worry about that as we have two person's worth of dextro rations and Garrus did not return to the Normandy," suggested EDI. The mention of Garrus's absence seemed to knock the breath out of the young quarian – another loss felt all too keenly by the crew.

Unrest was building amongst the group – faced with an almost impossible journey home through hostile territory and after the loss of two of their closest friends Kaidan could see morale dropping faster than a lead balloon on Dekuuna. He stepped in to draw things to a close, "we'll head to the Kite's Nest and find a suitable planet for a core discharge. While we're there a shuttle will dispatch a team to the nearest planet that we can resupply from and then rejoin the Normandy to continue the journey."

EDI again supplied information that was not entirely welcome, "the only garden world in the system we will reach first is Khar'Shan, the batarian home world." There was regret in her voice at having to continuously break the bad news.

"Khar'Shan it is then," said Kaidan.

From the view out of the window one would never know that there had been a galactic war against an existential threat, but then this was a country which had often managed to avoid wars in the past. For whatever reason, perhaps for none other than it hadn't been this part of Switzerland's turn yet, the area had even managed to avoid the bombardment usually afforded to areas the Reapers did not consider worth a full campaign. This was fortunate for Lena as she now lay in the most advanced hospital on the planet - a title the facility would even have a good claim to had most others not been destroyed – though she did not know it as she was both naturally unconscious and under a heavy layer of artificial sedation. Over her stood Dr Heida Friedrich, senior trauma surgeon at the Lauterbrunnen Valley Medical Centre and the woman that had led the team operating on the soldier through the night. As she reviewed the various information on her datapad she wore a concerned and frustrated expression.

"Access to this information is restricted," came the tinny voice from the small computer. This was the fifth time Dr Friedrich had been denied and she was finally out of patience – a remarkable achievement considering how little sleep she had had. Weekends on call were always tough but even more so when something like this happened, not that such a thing ever had happened before.

"This must have something to do with the cybernetics," the doctor though to herself. During the surgery she had been surprised by several additions to the commander's body and she suspected that such extensive modifications may be the cause of the heavy classification in Lena's records. Before she could give the subject any more thought, however, her comm link sounded an alert.

"Dr Friedrich, there's another... unexpected admission for you," the private at the non-emergency entrance sounded shaken by whatever was going on. The doctor decided to go and see what was happening for herself rather than attempt to get anything from the shell-shocked boy. Not having to spend as much time consoling people was why she had gone into surgery over medicine in the first place – anaesthetised patients don't talk back.

As she rounded the corner she saw a group of marines with a stretcher hovering amongst them. On the stretcher was an unconscious turian.

Dr Friedrich fixed the lead marine with the stare that had so unsettled Rooke the day before. "What is the meaning of this," she glared at his arm for his rank designation and his chest for his name, "Lieutenant Joseph? We are neither trained nor equipped to deal with ill turians here. I'm afraid you have the wrong hospital. It would also have been nice if you had informed us you were coming." Nothing about the way the doctor said 'nice' was even remotely so. The marines could tell theirs was not a welcome presence.

Joseph, however, clearly did not care about whether he was welcome or not. "The turian isn't seriously injured, just sedated to prevent disclosure of location. This is Garrus Vakarian ma'am, of the Normandy. We found him not long after the Crucible fired. Command thought it might be beneficial to have him in the same location – keep them all together to prevent leaks I suppose," he stated calmly, with the subtext 'it really doesn't matter why or what you think, this is happening,' blindingly obvious to all present.

Angry at being undermined, not to mention what she saw as the absurdity of the situation, Friedrich responded sharply, "this hospital is in a tourist location. Anyone could find it. And if you thought this poor thing was a security risk why on Earth did you bring him to a hospital?"

"He isn't a security risk ma'am," Joseph replied, still irritatingly calm.

"Then why is he sedated?" she fired back.

"Orders ma'am," he said. Joseph was nothing if not the consummate professional.

"This shift has taken a sharp turn towards farce," the doctor thought as she glared at Lieutenant Joseph. "Bringing more of the Normandy crew here is likely to draw more attention to us, not less," she said, the lecture delivered more at than to the officer. "And why in God's name did you sedate the poor man? Did he consent to that? Did he even consent to being moved after everything else he has obviously been through?" she asked, referring to the state of Garrus's face, even more damaged than it usually was.

"Frankly ma'am I have no idea what he consented to. He will need somewhere to rest and recover though." This last comment seemed to infuriate the doctor even more, to Lieutenant Joseph's satisfaction.

"This is a hospital not a hotel lieutenant!" she shouted at him.

"I'm aware of that ma'am. We have to get back to London now though. Thank you for your time doctor," he said to her with only the minimum required respect for a superior officer.

Resigned to the powerlessness of her situation, Dr Friedrich ordered the nurse that had come to investigate the commotion to take Garrus to an empty room and make sure he was safe. Sighing in disbelief at how the shift was developing she walked up the stairs to her office and immediately placed a call to the Alliance in London. She was answered by a young communications officer with an apathetic manner – clearly the lad would have preferred to be celebrating the end of the war.

Dr Friedrich did not allow herself to be put off by the manner in which she was greeted, pulling rank on the young man to kick start the conversation in the direction she wanted it to go and unconsciously slipping into her authoritative voice. "Young man I am Major Heida Friedrich from Alliance Medical in Switzerland. I need to speak to the commanding officer in your area about a serious matter," she said.

"Yes ma'am," came the reply, and a hold screen came up on her computer terminal.

After some time a woman with an even harsher face than Dr Friedrich and greying brown hair tied into a regulation bun appeared on the screen. On the uniform were the markings of a general and the name 'King'. It would shortly become clear that she had an attitude to match her surname.

"General Francine King here. Is there a problem major?" King asked derisively.

"I recently had one Garrus Vakarian transferred to my hospital without warning from London. Given his history and the fact that the poor man had been knocked out I assumed someone of authority might have an explanation for me," Friedrich replied as calmly as she could. She had had enough of disrespectful soldiers for one day, whatever their rank.

King was visibly perturbed by the lack of reverence with which she had been addressed. She answered the doctor in a cold tone, "the turian was a drain on scarce Alliance resources here. Once I found out he was part of the spectre's crew, I thought we should send him there. We need to keep Commander Shepard's location a secret as there are numerous individuals that may wish her and her crew harm. We have batarians in London, doctor Friedrich, I don't know if you'd given that any thought."

By this point in the day Friedrich was well and truly tired of the suggestion that Garrus being sent to her somehow protected Shepard but she managed to repeat her objection in civil terms. "General this in no way reduces the risk of leaks but merely increases the chance of attention being drawn to the facility. How did you even know that Commander Shepard was here?" The forced civility evaporated as the question presented itself to the doctor.

"Whatever your objections, major," the rank was voiced in such as way as to remind Friedrich of her place, "you have no choice in this matter. If you think that the turian increases the chance of security leaks you shall simply have to have him confined to the hospital until Commander Shepard recovers. Your commanding officer, General Alberts, agreed with me when I contacted him earlier and I suggest you take up any problems you have with him." "Though if he tolerates this kind of insubordination he isn't worthy of the rank," she added.

General Alberts had left the hospital after surgery on Shepard had finished and would probably be asleep. Even during the war he had managed to avoid working too many weekends.

Exhausted, Friedrich chanced one more question, "anything else I should be aware of general?" she asked.

"Actually yes," the general replied, "you have an angry krogan coming your way. He came to me not long after we sent you the turian. It turns out he's another ex-Normandy crew member. Shepard was running some kind of interspecies outreach centre or something."

"Angry krogan?" thought the doctor. Ignoring the casual racism of the general's last comment doctor Friedrich had to find out more about the latest surprise. Being Commander Shepard's doctor was turning into a rather eventful affair. "Why is there an 'angry krogan' coming to see me?" she asked.

"The krogan was the leader of an allied force in London and an old crew mate of Shepard so I gave him the location he requested," the general replied. The doctor could have sworn the general really meant that she had simply wanted to be rid of the krogan.

"This puts paid to any pretence of keeping the place a secret," she thought. "Leader of an allied force? Perhaps this is Urdnot Wrex." The warlord had a reputation as being slightly more thoughtful than the average krogan that reassured the doctor somewhat, though she had never met a krogan before to get an impression of exactly how thoughtful the average krogan was.

"If there's nothing else, doctor?" King's comment interrupted Friedrich's thoughts.

"Thank you ma'am," Friedrich replied icily.

"If there's nothing else, doctor?" As King asked her attention was already being competed for by what was happening to her left, to the extent that she completely missed Friedrich's sarcastic goodbye.

"More aliens? Another one of Shepard's collection." she thought to herself.

At the door Javik pushed his way through her guards. The men gave only token resistance – everyone in the galaxy with a connection to even the most uninformed news service knew of the prothean fighting alongside Lena. To most this was another sign of her ability to unite disparate people to a common goal, to General King this was yet another moment where she had to deal with cultures she had no interest in.

"Human I need a ship," Javik blurted out with his typical lack of tact. Though he had softened around the edges somewhat during his time with Lena, in his exhausted state all he could see in front of him was a jumped-up primitive, a description many of King's colleagues would have appreciated.

"It's 'general'," she hissed at him, "and you will receive no such thing, I don't care who you are or whose ship you were on."

"General I need a ship for a personal matter. I have helped you fight the Reapers and now this is all I ask in return," Javik said in a calmer voice.

"You won't get it, and even if you did there's nowhere to go. The relays are out and who knows if we'll ever fix them. Better left to our own business anyway." With no one senior around the general was free to air as many anti-alien views as she wanted. Whatever she may have thought of the prothean, she wasn't expecting his response.

Javik stood still in front of her for a moment and then closed his eyes. "I will find my men. I will join them." The words came back to him from earlier. What would he do if he were unable to take his rightful place with his old crew? To die with his men had been his intention for some time now, even before Shepard persuaded him to touch the echo shard. He opened his eyes and focused all four on the now confused general's face, "the Reapers are defeated, Shepard their conqueror. The last prothean voice has spoken," he said as much to himself as to her.

With King still confused, he turned toward the window, placed his pistol against his head and pulled the trigger.

After a much needed coffee break looking out at the snow covered peaks, Dr Friedrich resolved to call her commanding officer. Alberts took some time to answer the call, and when he did it was apparent that he had just woken. The general was an amiable doctor and academic who joined the Alliance on its inception, mainly due to his sense of adventure. In recent years he had, however, grown to tire of his job somewhat due to the increase in his administrative roles as he ascended the hierarchy. His lack of enthusiasm for being General Alberts instead of Dr Alberts had grown to the point that he would be leaving the hospital to work at a university hospital in his native America soon, but in the meantime he had endeavoured to bury himself in clinical work and shirk his managerial duties – duties that fell on colleagues like Dr Friedrich. Despite this she was fond of the man.

"What can I do for you Heida? Is this call about our turian guest?" he asked in his broad Boston accent. Even with his tiredness there was genuine warmth in the greeting.

"That and other things," she said. "Why is he here?" she asked.

"London were pretty keen and I couldn't see any harm in it, plus it might help Commander Shepard to have someone familiar around when she wakes up. I couldn't care less about the military nonsense. How is she this morning? I thought everything went well in the OR."

The general had unwittingly opened a very awkward line of conversation. Friedrich seized the opportunity.

"About that, Richard. Weren't there a few unusual things about Commander Shepard?" she asked him. She was greeted by the face of someone trying to avoid talking about a sensitive subject.

"What do you mean?" he asked back.

"Come on Richard! All those implants? How much trouble we had with the initial incision on her head? Human skin isn't that tough without cutting-edge enhancements and all that metal didn't put itself there. When I tried to look at her records everything was classified. What's going on?" There was no response beyond the face of a man that knows he has been caught out. "I need that information if I'm to treat her effectively," she added.

Alberts knew when he had been beaten. Unfortunately for a man in his position he had never been particularly good at keeping secrets, particularly from his friends. "I'll come in and show you," he said. "Her records are only available to those approved by Alliance HQ, which is a hole in the ground right about now. My position gives me certain privileges and I suppose you do need to know her history."

Before she could thank him an alert sounded on her terminal to indicate another incoming call. "I have to go Richard, there's another call. I'll see you later," she said.

"Ma'am we have a krogan on the landing pad who says he wants to see Commander Shepard," came the nervous voice of the guard that had accepted Garrus earlier.

"Send him in, serviceman," was her only direction. Surprises like this were easier to deal with when forewarned.

"Here we go again," she thought.

Wrex stood in the quiet room and looked at the bed. Shepard lay there unconscious and almost unrecognisable. Her hair had been shaved and there was a large dressing on her head, her distinctive green eyes had been taped shut and her pale skin was covered in bruises. Despite the pleasantly decorated room and dramatic view from the window she looked far from serene, surrounded as she was by medical equipment and with tubes in her neck, her nose and her mouth.

The slow, regular beep of the ECG and the gentle hiss of the ventilator were the only sounds as Wrex stood over her. Never before had the woman seemed so frail to him. Despite the krogan perception that all humans (and especially their females) were soft, Wrex had come to know Lena as a formidable warrior - one to be respected or feared, depending on which end of her gun one was standing. He had also, despite finding her quixotic and sanctimonious when they first met, come to see her as a close friend. She had welcomed him onto her team three years ago when the rest of her crew looked upon him as little more than a savage and had, through all their conversations in the cargo bay, persuaded him not to give up on the future of his people. Three years later she had led an interspecies force to cure the genophage. She even warned him about the salarians trying to cut a deal to sabotage the cure. Part of him considered offering her a place in the clan, and he let out a small laugh as he remembered hearing about the time she head butted Gatatog Uvenk at the Urdnot camp.

The laugh made Dr Friedrich jump. There was something about the krogan that scared people. The doctor's shock brought him out of his thoughts and he fixed her with what she couldn't help but feel was a threatening glare. "How is she, doc?" he asked.

Seeing the foolishness of letting confidentiality get between her and an armed 800 pound alien warlord, Dr Friedrich answered him. "She was very badly wounded when she came in to us last night. We had to operate on a severe gunshot wound on her abdomen and there was also serious internal bleeding, as well as a lot of cuts and burns. I'd say she was probably caught by a large explosion from the state of her armour. We also had to remove a piece of her skull to alleviate swelling of her brain. We're keeping her sedated while this machine breathes for her," she pointed at the ventilator. "Frankly, given the fact that she obviously wasn't wearing a full helmet she's lucky to be alive. Any normal human would be"

Wrex looked back at Lena, "she's tougher than a normal humans," he said with what Dr Friedrich thought was a touch of melancholy. After working with people for so long she liked to think she was good at reading them but this krogan was proving more difficult.

Thinking Wrex might know more about her patient, she asked him, "why is that, Mr Wrex?"

Another small laugh made her jump before he replied, "it's just Wrex, doctor. Urdnot is the name of my clan."

"Sorry, Mr Urdnot it is," she said. She was usually far more confident than this.

"Just Wrex, doctor. I'm not going to eat you." With this statement Wrex laughed again, this time more heartily. "They're not all like you, Shepard," he thought to himself.

Dr Friedrich, having no idea how to respond to any comment from a krogan about being eaten, simply repeated her question, though this time with the correct name, "why is she tougher than other humans Wrex?"

Wrex tilted his head slightly to the side. It was apparent to him that the doctor had very little idea about Shepard's past and was trying not to admit it. "If you want to know something doctor, come out and ask," he said.

She sensed that this was her opportunity. "When we operated on Commander Shepard there were several things that were... different... about her. I tried to look up her medical records and they were all classified. If you know anything it would be helpful to me as her doctor if you would tell me."

"Cerberus," he said in his deep voice. The effect he seemed to be having on the doctor was distracting him from the sinking feeling Lena's condition was giving him so he let the word linger in the air before continuing. "Cerberus rebuilt her three years ago after she died on the first Normandy. She got spaced so they had to do a lot of rebuilding. She never told me exactly what but she said there were a few 'extra bits'."

Dr Friedrich couldn't believe what she was hearing, "surely you mean she almost died."

"She died doctor," Wrex said. "She got spaced in a Collector attack. Half the crew saw her go from their escape pods. Came to Tuchanka two years later and told me all about it. She was on another crusade of course."

"This is impossible. Perhaps she thought she was dead. We can do incredible things with very ill people these days you know..."

Wrex stopped her with what was definitely a menacing look. "She was dead. If you won't listen to me try your boss." He paused briefly, "what's going to happen to her now?"

Still shocked from Wrex's claims she took a moment to respond. "We'll monitor her for a while and when she's ready we'll withdraw the ventilator and sedation. If she can manage to breathe by herself we'll go from there. It depends on whether there was any permanent brain damage. If there is there's a good chance she'll have some kind of disability. Other things may dictate what happens for us though – for some reason she has been very hard to sedate, and that may complicate matters."

"She came back stronger, doctor," Wrex said. "She'll get through this."

"I hope you're right," she said. "If what you say is true then Commander Shepard may exceed my expectations."

Turning to leave she recovered her composure and remembered she had missed something. "Even through the sedation she can probably hear what you are saying in case there is anything you want to say to her," the doctor said, adding, "we also have another of your comrades here – a turian called Garrus Vakarian."

Wrex looked at her, surprised. "What is this, the Normandy reunion? Where is he?"

The comment elicited a weary look from the doctor. "He's upstairs in room 15, but he's...," she hesitated, "...asleep at the moment."

Wrex detected the hesitation but decided to make nothing of it. He had scared the doctor enough for one day.

Dr Friedrich walked back through the hospital toward her office on the top floor. The implications of what Wrex had said troubled her. Rumours about Commander Shepard being involved with Cerberus were common throughout the galaxy, but then so were rumours about her having an asari girlfriend. From the opposition of these two ideas Dr Friedrich resolved that the rumours probably weren't worth listening to. Still, the amount of implants they had found and the obvious artificial strengthening of her skin, bones and muscles meant that Shepard had undergone some unusual medical procedures that were not widespread in the Alliance. If these procedures were performed by Cerberus then the Alliance would have had them classified. Even if that were the case, she still could not accept the idea that Shepard had somehow been brought back from the dead. She had quite a few questions for General Alberts.

Rounding the corner to her office she saw General Alberts leaning against the wall at the door. A short man in his early seventies, Alberts was dressed in a casual light brown suit and walking boots with a long winter coat draped over his arm. From his dress and posture one would never guess he were a general in the Alliance, but it was his day off and he earned the rank in the more relaxed atmosphere of research and development. He was also a skilled clinician, even if his enthusiasm for the administrative responsibilities of his job had long since waned.

"Good morning Heida," he said in his serious voice – whatever he had to say was evidently important – and gestured down the corridor with his head, "follow me."

The two of them continued on to Alberts' office and as they walked in the general shut the door behind them and took a seat at his desk. He looked up at Dr Friedrich with a welcoming expression that was slightly forced. "Take a seat," he said. When she had taken him up on the offer he looked at her for a moment, took a deep breath and told her, "whatever is said in here stays between us Dr Friedrich, do you understand?"

"Yes," she replied. The gravity of the situation was emphasised by his use of her title, something she couldn't remember him doing since her interview at the hospital. Realising he was temporarily paralysed by the awkward situation in which they found themselves she decided to break the ice, "I've just had a very interesting conversation with a krogan. He seems to think Commander Shepard died and was resurrected by Cerberus." Alberts looked shocked. On reflection, not the best ice breaker, she thought.

"Well that's about it actually," he said. He felt relieved that he hadn't had to bring up such a seemingly absurd thing. He put his haptic interface gloves on and entered his details into the computer on his desk, pressing another key to send the documents to the wall screen. Displayed were Commander Shepard's classified records. "In here you will find all of Commander Shepard's details. They make for a pretty fascinating read I'll say."

"So it's true?" said Dr Friedrich, shocked. She looked at the screen, her eyes drawn to Shepard's birth and death dates – 04/11/2154 – 06/03/2183, 06/15/2185 – present. Needless to say, medical records didn't normally have two separate birthdays, let alone one two years and twelve days after death. "She was dead for two years? It's impossible..."

"That was my reaction too, but if you read the documents here it all checks out. When Shepard came back to the Alliance at the start of the year she brought all the records with her. The second birthday there is when they woke her up apparently rather than when she was technically alive again. Incredible achievement when you think about it, terrorists or not," said the general. There was a look of wonder on his face which came over him whenever he discussed academic matters, presumably the reason he was leaving the Alliance to work at a university.

"So what did they do?" she asked, looking at the records on the screen.

"Well I'm told they called it all the Lazarus project. People working in secret are always so damned dramatic. Want a coffee?" he enquired.

"No thanks," she replied calmly, despite her eagerness to hear the rest of Shepard's story.

He continued, "the Normandy was out in the Terminus after the Battle of the Citadel when they were attacked by a Collector ship. Most of the crew escaped but Shepard herself was lost. According to her then shipmate Liara T'Soni the Shadow Broker was hired to recover the body, but T'Soni and a Cerberus agent stole it for the Illusive Man on the promise he could bring her back. The details are in the file, but long story short they took the heavily damaged body to a Cerberus facility and put her back together over the course of two years using or inventing various techniques to stimulate regrowth or augmenting her with cybernetics. Testimony from the project lead states that the project aimed to bring her back exactly as she was, which they could only do because her helmet kept her brain intact. Hell, they even replaced her tattoos to ease the psychological trauma. Apparently they had the same plan for her scars but they ran out of time."

Dr Friedrich could only stare at him for a minute, before gasping, "this is amazing Richard. What's the clinical impact?"

"She should recover from her injuries fairly quickly I'm told. She also has a very high tolerance to sedation it would appear," he said.

"She has been more restless than most patients, and we're having a lot of trouble keeping her paralysed for the ventilator. We're into what should normally be overdose levels on the meds. I assumed she had a drug problem from combat trauma. I even had to break out the propofol."

"There's a reason I keep the oldies in the pharmacy Heida." It appeared they were back on first name terms.

"If we keep dosing her with that though we'll kill her."

"Or it will stop working, in which case you'll have to take her off the ventilator. Hopefully she's ready. I don't much like the thought of being the one to pull the plug on the first human Spectre," he said.

"I'm sure that would mysteriously be scheduled for my shift," she said, half-jokingly testing Alberts' reaction.

Alberts laughed. He was back to his usual self. "There have to be some advantages to being in charge," he retorted.

"Is there anything else in here I need to be aware of before I get a chance to read the whole thing?"

"She has synthetic fibres woven through her skin, muscles and bones, which is why she was so damn hard to operate on last night. I knew you'd notice but I kind of hoped you wouldn't say anything." He smiled weakly at her.

"Sorry," she replied with more than a touch of sarcasm.

"Some of the implants also augment the functions of her liver and kidneys to make her hard to poison.."

"And medicate," she interrupted.

"I understand they also modified her eyes and nose so she was more sensitive to hazards. Obviously they didn't factor that in on the psychology front."

Dr Friedrich did not respond to the joke but simply sat in silence looking at the screen. Eventually she looked at Alberts, "can you send a copy of this to my office Richard?"

He shook his head, "I'm afraid not Heida. Too classified. I can give you my login details though, let you look this stuff up whenever you need to. That way you get what you need and I stay out of trouble."

"Thank you Richard. I still can't believe all this," she said, shocked.

"Just think how it's been for her," he replied.