Shepard was lost in a world of wavering fire and lime, where shapes and images burned away, curled up into nothing and were reborn all around her a moment later.

"All soldiers have nightmares," Anderson said as he sat beside her on a sterilized cot in an Alliance hospital. Her days were long, full of syringes and steel tubes that shot radiation at her brain half a dozen times a day. All this and she was still half-lost, her consciousness clinging to the blood-soaked stone of Torfan, and his voice sounded far away. She could see him in her mind, his face distorted and inflated, hovering over her, big as the world.

"I don't," She replied. Her thoughts rolled over each other in ponderous circles. Thinking hurt, the act weighed down by too many pills to count.

"You will," He promised, and his words echoed around her as his face drew in and crumpled, his warm mocha skin melting into a hurricane of slick brown oil.

He had been right, though it had taken years and a horrific death to make it so. She always dreamed now. And they were always nightmares. Most of the time she dreamed of the grey fields and a legion of marching dead that clawed, and gasped, and reached for her with long, cold fingers.

Sometimes she saw Mindoir as it had been on that day, streaks of fire in a sapphire summer sky, the alien cough of machine gun fire among stone houses, the screams and prayers of the dying as they beseeched a deaf and useless god.

Sometimes she was in the orphanage on Yugurtz, among the hollow-eyed orphans and the crow-black nuns with their gowns slithering across the floor. They brandished rulers and broom handles, or stood with their hands bone white and dripping icy water, whispering soft shapeless words about Christ and sin and forgiveness.

Other times it was of the gutters and the blood red sky, the narrow alleyways between decaying old buildings, the hunger and pain of the streets.

And she dreamed of war, of airless purple Torfan and Commander Dorn whispering to her through a mouthful of blood, of Bines and Forlorn and Godfrey. She fought in the Blitz again. She dreamed of Saren, of Virmire, Noveria, Feros, Illos, of the heretic geth and the terrible, merciless Reapers, the demons of dark space descending on warm, brightly lit worlds.

Sometimes she was drifting in a dark place, smeared with fire and the far off pin-points of the stars. As she moved through the deadly vacuum, she found absolute serenity. Time passed rapidly around her, stars rising out of clouds of orange stellar dust, burning, withering and exploding before her eyes as she sailed through the depths of existence. Then she would realize she was not breathing, and the terrible silver curve of Alchera would rise up from the darkness, as a vice of cold steel closed over her throat and she would be choking, kicking, screaming in silence as all heat drained out of her and every muscle betrayed her.

She dreamed of dying and mindless, animalistic terror among the stars.

Shepard had lived a full life, and there was much of it that deserved to be remembered. In her feverish, morphine-tainted dreams, all experiences melted together, the colours twisting around each other in an eternal fiendish moment of smeared neon and blood. There was always so much blood.

Shepard woke shaking in dim quiet, with her side only aching a little bit. It took her a moment to remember where she was, and she lifted the thin med-lab sheets to wipe the sticky traces of medi-gel off the reddish lines where Chakwas had gone wrist deep to repair torn organs and soft tissues. She was thirsty.

"Doctor Chakwas said that you should not move for another four hours, Shepard." EDI informed, as Shepard swung her legs out of bed.

"You can wake Chakwas if you feel you have to, EDI," Shepard replied, glaring menacingly at the blue orb of radiant light along the wall. "But if you do, I'm going to have a good solid minute to wreak havoc in the AI core before she comes to put me down again."

There was a moment of contemplative silence.

"Just don't over exert yourself," EDI said finally, "And take your pills."

Shepard signed off and examined the pill bottles Chakwas had left on her bedside table. Antibiotics and painkillers, the little yellow kind that people had called 'BB's' during her command school days, and popped for recreational fun just as often as practical use. She took two of each with her glass of water, as recommended, and went on a search for pants.

Shepard found a pair of standard issue trousers and a clean white t-shirt, both of which were a couple sizes too large for her, and pulled them on. No socks or shoes. She stuck the pill bottles in her pocket and strode barefoot out of the medical bay, squinting around the deserted mess hall.

It was the ship's night cycle, the lights dim and casting deep purple shadows everywhere. The BB's were making her light headed, smearing the details of things together in a sort of blissful wash of milky pastel. She made her way around the long tables and their benches to the stove, craving cookies and tea with a sudden, irresistible power.

No cookies to be found, Rupert always hid them, but there was a half-full kettle on the stove, so Shepard got a mug and some tea bags. She spent several minutes staring at her hands as the water boiled, and the kettle began to whistle. It took her a moment to remember what she was doing exactly, but she eventually managed to get the drink made. She settled down on the nearest bench, cradling the mug between her hands and watching long tongues of brown floating out of the steeping bag of tea leaves and spreading through the hot water. It was all intensely interesting to her.

"Are you certain you should be up?"

Shepard swung her head up, the world spinning only a little to find Thane standing by the nearest steel pillar, half-concealed in the shadows of the ship's night cycle. Deep pools of shadow hid his eyes and made him look almost menacing, a vague shape etched in darkness.

"Probably not," Shepard replied calmly, blowing on her tea,"Water's still hot."

After a moment, Thane stepped out of the shadows and got a cup to make some of the thin, golden-coloured tea he liked. He took a seat across from her, stirring honey into his mug as he studied her thoughtfully.

"Are you enjoying your pain killers?" He sounded vaguely amused and Shepard tore her eyes away from the overhead light fixtures, which were actually very interesting when she really, really looked at them, and met his eyes. Thane was smiling, the corners of his full lips pulled up in the tiniest show of emotion.

"They're pretty awesome," Shepard laughed, "Man, why is it you're always around when my consciousness is getting altered? I swear, I'm normally very sober and reserved. Prudish. Square," She made a square shape in the air between them using her thumbs and pointer fingers, "Like that."

Thane laughed, a gravelly cascade of warmth that wrapped around her and made Shepard grin like a big idiot.

"I don't mind," He said, "You seem to avoid me when you're sober."

Shepard frowned. This was not good. She had promised to have this conversation with him after docking, but the internal bleeding had taken priority. Now she was flying high on post-op painkillers, and her traitorous brain provided her with no concrete out. She shrugged after a moment, her boney shoulders stabbing up under the baggy white cotton of her stolen shirt.

"Sorry. I think about you all the time, if that helps. I'm just... I'm so..." She paused, and gave up trying to explain it to him after a moment. She shrugged again. "I can face everything that scares or intimidates me in the galaxy, except when it comes to having a real conversation with someone."

Thane raised a sleek green brow at her, and Shepard looked away, sipped her tea and grimaced as it burnt her tongue. The sting of it pierced even the warm envelope of pain killers, and she sat for a moment, running the singed tip over her teeth and thinking.

"I wish I could give you a real reason," She said finally, "I wish I could explain to you why I'm so afraid of this whole... thing between us. But I can't. All I know is that every time I think about it my guts freeze up, and I start gagging on my own tongue like an idiot. Every part of me that has anything to do with being a normal human being is absolutely paralyzed."

Thane watched her for a moment, as though he expected her to continue and she just shrugged helplessly.

"That's it. I'm just a freak, and it has nothing to do with you," She said.

"I appreciate you being honest with me," Thane said quietly.

Shepard smiled. She hoped that they could go back to being friends now, nice and normal. She could have the occasional sexy daydream, catch a glimpse of him out of the corner of her eye and wonder what might have been, but in the end they would just be comrades, fighting side by side, respecting each other only in the way that soldiers did. The way that was safe, the way that she knew how to handle.

"Have dinner with me," he said, and it took a moment for her drug-addled brain to register that.

"What?" She asked, blinking.

"Is this not what people do?" Thane asked, feigning wide-eyed innocence as she gaped at him, "I'd suggest some sort of vid to go along with it, but I know you don't watch very many of them."

"I... is this some kind of joke?" Shepard asked, a flash of indignation colouring the blank shock of the moment.

"Of course not. I want to have dinner with you. A 'date' is what I believe people call them," Thane drank some tea and she frowned at him, her lip finding its way between her teeth where she chewed it thoughtfully. He seemed to find something about that amusing, and there was a maddening flash of a smile on his lips as he lowered his mug again.

"Where are we going to have dinner?" She asked him, her voice growing heated. This was just ridiculous. It was making her angry how ridiculous it was. "We can't exactly stop over at Zakera Cafe or anything."

"We could have it in your quarters. Or mine if you prefer, though yours are undoubtedly finer and more private." Thane watched her struggle with a sort of cool, collected serenity that just furthered her irritation. As if this were the most normal thing in the world - as though she could just put everything aside for a few hours and eat dinner with him, like she was some sort of human being.

"Did I not just describe how I'm an anti-social freak that is pretty much incapable of having a normal conversation with someone?" She asked, as her doped brain struggled for some real, convincing reason to say no.

"You did. But I don't plan on giving up until you give me a good reason to," Thane replied placidly.

"And that's not a good reason?"

"No. If I didn't find your quirks... interesting, I never would have pursued this in the first place."

Well, that made a lot of sense. Damn him.

"What if I say no?" She asked, her tone and her eyes full of challenge.

"Say no and we'll find out," He said. "Or say yes. I would be lying if I said I wouldn't prefer that."

Shepard chewed her lip and thought for a long, careful moment. Maybe it would be best to actually go on one 'date' with him, if only to prove what a terrible idea this really was. Words did not seem capable of convincing him how broken she truly was, at her core, under all these layers of cultivated confidence.

"Alright, fine. But I want to go on record as saying that this is a terrible idea."

"Not the most romantic acceptance, but a man takes what he can get," He smiled again and drank more of his tea, apparently satisfied with the results of their conversation. Silence stretched between them.

"What happens if this doesn't work out, Thane?" Shepard asked, looking up from her cooling tea and fixing him with her intense black and orange eyes.

"I don't know," He confessed, "But fear is not a good reason for holding back."

Unable to find a reply, Shepard drained her mug and stood up, setting the cup in the sink as she collected her thoughts. She lifted one hand to her face, watching the light wavering over her long, golden fingers. She was struck for a moment by the delicate shape of the bones, how paper thin the blood vessels and fine golden skin that covered them really was. It was easy to forget that she really was just flesh and bone, an organic machine swaddled around a human mind and heart.

"Tonight then?" She asked, not turning around.

"Tonight. Do you have any requests that I should forward to Mr. Gardner?" Thane brought his own cup to the sink, appearing behind her without a whisper of sound. His cool fingers brushed the back of the hand resting on the sink, only briefly, and she did not pull away.

"Rupert knows. Just... tell him it's for me and he'll know."

"I look forward to seeing you," His voice was quiet, packed with subtle undertones that sent a ribbon of heat all the way down to her groin. It excited the hell out of her, at the same time as it made her feel weak kneed and helpless.

Shepard found herself alone in the mess hall - Thane had gone so suddenly and quietly that he might have evaporated into the air. Since there was no one to see her, she took a few deep, calming breaths to try and assemble her addled thoughts. She had to calm down. She had to get control of herself. Maybe she should meditate.

That was a very strange thought. It haunted her all the way up to her quarters, where she zoned out in the shower and wound up using far too much hot water. In the end, she took the other two painkillers in the bottle and collapsed onto her bed, slipping into another formless dream.

"It wasn't your fault."

"I know."

"We had bad intelligence. They had you outnumbered a dozen to one. That you managed to do what you did was amazing. It saved a lot of lives."

"I know."

"It's not your fault that they died, Shepard."

"I know."

"It's a miracle you survived."

"Is it?"

Ten years had not made it any easier. When Alchera rose out of the murk and wrapped its frozen hand around her throat, it was almost a blessing.

Shepard woke to find her alarm buzzing on the bedside table - she had slept through it for almost an hour. She reached for it groggily and thumbed the button to silence before laying face down on the pillow for a few minutes. The ache in her side was gone, and when she lifted her shirt to look at the surgical scars, they were nothing more than faint, pinkish lines on the soft brown skin.

"I would avoid the medical bay for a couple days, if I were you, Shepard," EDI indicated, as Shepard hauled herself into a sitting position among her sheets.

The Commander managed to laugh, and the AI vanished from the terminal by the door.

Shepard got up, her mouth dry and mealy from the pain killers, and her bladder full enough to hurt. She crab-walked to the bathroom to relieved herself and brushed her teeth. She was half way through getting dressed before she remembered what she had agreed to do tonight. Her eyes flickered to the clock and she sighed.

Zipping up her jumpsuit, Shepard remembered that this was her off-duty cycle - no distracting responsibilities waited for her outside this room. She sunk into her seat and opened some star charts and notes, resolved to lose herself in work instead. She succeeded for a little while - EDI had triangulated the signals from Vido's encrypted transmission and found the system of origin. She plotted a course, frowned at it, and plotted another. She sighed, closed her files, and leaned back in her chair. This was not working the way she wanted it to. She needed something new.

Two hours later she strode out of the elevator, passing crewmen with blind purpose and intensity as she headed for Miranda's office.

"Shepard. It isn't time for our weekly meeting," Miranda glanced at the holographic calendar in the corner of her desk and shook her head, shaking loose curls of dark hair around her slim shoulders. "In fact, you shouldn't even be working today."

"I just want to run an idea by you," Shepard replied, sinking into her usual seat across the desk. Miranda raised an eyebrow and closed what she was working on.

Shepard took a deep breath, organizing her thoughts, before she finally said, "We aren't doing enough."

Miranda looked startled, "What do you mean? We've crippled drug traffic in Alliance space, destroyed Blue Suns profit margins, blown up a dozen ships, and killed a small army of mercenaries. It hasn't even been two months. You weren't planning to just back hand the whole organization into non-existence overnight, were you?" She sounded amused.

"When I set out to do something, I do it, no matter how impossible it might seem," Shepard replied, "And I'm telling you, we aren't doing enough. The Blue Suns can always hire more mercs and make more snake. All we're doing is giving Vido Santiago a wicked headache."

"Well what do you want to do?"

"I want him to be scared," Shepard replied. "No, I want him to be fucking terrified. If he's not wetting the bed every time his house creaks at night we're not doing our job. So I have a new plan."

Miranda stared at her for a moment, her blue eyes disbelieving - then she smiled. "What did you have in mind?"

"Illio," Shepard replied, grinning as Miranda leaned forward in anticipation, "What was different about Illio?"

"Aside from sixteen kilometres of raging fire stretching out in every direction?" Miranda thought for a long moment. "They weren't processing drugs at Illio. They were growing them."

"Exactly," Shepard smiled, "The shipments we destroyed were being sent to the sorts of planets we've been attacking. There was enough of it to give twenty processing plants a month's work, all harvested and piled up at the space port, ready for export. And we destroyed all of that with just a few hours of work."

Miranda leaned back, her smile widening into a grin as understanding blossomed between them, "How many other Illio-style planets do the Blue Suns run?"

"Thirteen," Shepard said, pushing a data pad across the desk.

Miranda picked it up and scanned the systems listed with a critical eye."You've mapped these strangely. It's all jumping around, pushing forward and then moving back, striking major planets and then weaker ones. To make sure they can't anticipate us?"

"Partly. But also because I want Vido walking on egg shells, always wondering where I'm going to be next, what I'm going to be doing, who I'm going to be killing. I want him spitting blood and pulling his hair out at the roots by the time I finally break down his door." Shepard grinned, wildly, and pushed her silver-blond curls off her forehead with both hands, "Tell me I'm crazy."

"Not crazy," Miranda replied, pulling up her own data, "Wildly ambitious, maybe. But this all makes sense. And it's going to make a lot of people very, very angry. Not just the Blue Suns. Are you sure we're ready to have half the Terminus Systems trying to blow us out of the sky?"

"Maybe not. We might get shot down and all die horrible, firey deaths," Shepard acknowledged, "But as long as the Terminus Systems are splintered and lorded over by an army of pirates and mercenaries they'll be ripe pickings for the Reapers. With the Alliance and the Council ignoring me, we have to do this alone which leaves no room for hesitation."

Miranda paused for a moment and the two of them just stared at each other, trying to read something vital in each other's eyes. "Okay."

"That's it?" Shepard asked with a grin, "I was all set to convince you."

"You have convinced me. I trust you Shepard, and if you say we can do this, I have no option other than believing that we can." Miranda lifted the data pad, "Can I keep this?"

"Yeah," Shepard stood up, "Before we do anything though, we have to go get Tali from the Flotilla and pay Aria T'Loak a visit. I want to have a little chat with our asari friend."

Miranda smiled, "I can't wait."

Shepard turned to leave, feeling a spring in her step that had not been there when she entered Miranda's office just moments before. She was feeling clear-headed, purposeful, despite the nature of her propositions. She stopped as Miranda cleared her throat tactfully behind her.

"There's something I wanted to talk to you about," Miranda said, "I was going to wait until your next on-duty cycle but since you're already here..."

"What is it?"

"Vido's put a bounty on your head."

Shepard blinked, and then she threw her head back and laughed. It felt good, she could not remember the last time she had managed anything more than a chuckle or a titter. She laughed until her sides hurt and sank down in her seat again, bracing her hands against her knees.

"How much?" She managed to ask.

"Eight hundred thousand credits," Miranda said, her expression hovering between amusement and confusion as Shepard continued to shake with laughter. "Why are you laughing?"

"I don't know what else to do," Shepard replied honestly, between gasps. "Does he think that's going to intimidate me? Does he really think that I could kill geth, Saren, the Collectors, half his organization, and then be brought down by some two-bit Terminus bounty hunters? It's funny."

Instead of calming down, she just laughed harder until the force of air slamming through her often-broken nose made a harsh braying sound. The noise only made the whole situation funnier and Miranda finally joined in. The two of them laughed until they were gasping, leaning back in their seats with their arms folded over aching sides and stomachs. Shepard wiped her forehead with the back of her hand and took a few deep calming breaths.

"Was that good for you?" Miranda asked, her blue eyes twinkling.

"Better than sex," Shepard grinned, pushing herself up again on wobbly legs.

"I still think we should be careful," Miranda said, a measure of calm returning to her milk-white face as she sat forward in her seat and leaned over her terminal again. "Eight hundred thousand credits is a lot of money."

"The only person I would worry about would be Zaeed, and he's never going to kill me and take money from Vido," Shepard replied with a wave of her hand.

"EDI intercepted a message Vido sent to Thane, trying to hire him to kill you," Miranda replied, "She forwarded it to me."

Shepard frowned, and waved a hand dismissively, "Thane is even less likely to kill me than Zaeed. Though maybe he should tell Vido he'll take the contract and demand his money up front. We could use it right now."

Miranda remained serious, "Are you sure you can trust him, Shepard? I know you two are... close. But he's still an assassin."

"And a good man," Shepard replied, holding up a hand, "I know that it's your job to be concerned about stuff like this, so thank you for being diligent. But Thane should be on the very bottom of your list of worries. He'll never betray me."

Miranda stared at her for a moment, her eyes narrowed. She leaned back in her seat with an air of studied nonchalance and leaned one elbow against the back of her chair, "You seem certain."

"As certain as I am of you."

"What exactly is going on between you two?"

"That," Shepard said with an enigmatic smile, "Is none of your damn business."

"Shepard," EDI said, appearing at Miranda's office terminal, "Kasumi would like to see you on the observation deck."

"I'll be there in a minute, EDI," Shepard stretched, her spine snapping back into place as she gave Miranda one last cocksure grin, "I'm glad you're on board, Miranda. I'm glad you're here."

"So am I."

Shepard left the office feeling strangely carefree. With these people fighting by her side, it was almost possible to imagine she could actually do everything she needed to, that the Reapers might fall when they finally made their ominous arrival. The future of their presence was a crushing weight on her shoulders, making most days dark and full of a constant, smothering dread. It was nice to feel it lift, if only briefly.

"EDI said you wanted to see me?" Shepard said as the door to Kasumi's room slid open. She stopped. She had been expecting to find the thief alone, curled up in her corner of the couch as usual, but instead she found Kelly standing in the middle of the room, prying open a bottle of wine, while Gabriella giggled about something she had just said. The door slid open again behind her and she found Miranda blocking her one path of escape, and knew something sinister was brewing. The four women smiled at her.

"What?" Shepard asked.

"A little bird told us that you have a date with Thane tonight," Kasumi grinned, "We thought we should help you prepare."

"I brought some clothes," Kelly said, filling the wine glasses arranged on the narrow table in front of her, "You'll fit mine much better than Miranda's."

"I brought the wine," Gabriella said, her smile broadening, "It'll be easier if you get a little drunk."

"I'm here to make sure you don't try to fight your way free," Miranda said, crossing her slim arms across her chest and smiling wickedly.

"I trusted you," Shepard said, pointing an accusatory finger at her.

"How silly of you," Miranda replied, her smile growing more devilish by the second. "I'll take a bullet for you, Shepard, but when it comes to torture like this, I'm afraid you'll have to look elsewhere for help."

"Grunt would never do this to me," Shepard crossed her arms defiantly.

"That's not going to win you any arguments," Miranda pointed at the couch, "Sit. We have everything all worked out."

"Is that supposed to be comforting?"

"No. It's supposed to inspire fear and obedience."

Shepard sat, and a glass of wine was pressed into her hands. All other claims notwithstanding, it would be much easier to endure whatever it was they had planned for her if she was drunk. Kelly was quick to give her a refill when she immediately drained the glass.

"Don't you have anything harder?" Shepard asked as she raised the glass to her lips.

"No. Now stop complaining and enjoy yourself," Kasumi ordered, and drew a portable extranet terminal out from beside the couch, setting it in the middle of table. She fiddled with her omni-tool as Kelly produced a duffle bag and set about pulling out slips of brightly coloured cloth and spreading them across the back of the couch and Kasumi's narrow bed.

"This is my favourite," Kelly said, holding up a red silk dress and letting it ripple in the overhead lighting. It was cut short, had a plunging neck line and superficial little spaghetti straps.

Shepard gave her a flat, uncommunicative look and Kelly shook the dress in the style of a matador. Little gold threads were woven into the silk and they sparkled as the cloth rippled and moved.

"No," Shepard said flatly.

"Every time you reject something without trying it on you have to slam a glass of wine," Gabby informed her.

Shepard slammed the glass and Kelly set the dress aside with a sigh.

Shepard was trying to decide whether she should be angry, mortified or both. She wanted to know who had overheard her late-night conversation with Thane and thought that Kasumi, of all people, was the person to tell. She knew it was Kasumi. The idea of playing dress up with the Commander had her fingerprints all over it.

"Mordin should get some credit for this idea too," The thief said, as the terminal lit up on the table and Kelly continued to rummage through her clothes on the hunt for something appropriate. "He provided the... educational material."

Shepard almost spat out the sip of wine she had been taking from her refilled glass and eyed the terminal with horror.

"Educational material better not mean what I think it means," She coughed.

The video on the terminal was of a fully clothed male drell. His scales were deep, vibrant gold accented with patterns of chocolate brown on his arms and forehead, his cheeks a blood-red crimson so dark it seemed almost black. He swung sensual, heavily hooded eyes at the screen and smiled, his even white teeth flashing. He had been sitting and he stood up, muscles rippling under his thin clothing and Shepard felt her mouth go unaccountably dry.

"You want to watch porn?" She rasped, "What kind of party is this?"

"Not porn," Kasumi replied, "Instructional videos. What kind of friends would let you walk into a date blind?"

"If I have to choose between them and the kind of friends who force me to watch porn with them, you might be out of luck," Shepard said, though she could not seem to tear her eyes away from the broad, four-fingered hands that were slowly undoing shirt buttons on the screen, revealing tracks of burnished scales. The drell smiled again and with a jerk of his hands he pulled open his shirt, exposing a long track of seamless golden muscle, marked with only a few thin lines of brown across his pectorals and a single thin, mouth-watering sliver of ribbed red skin on his lower abdomen.

"Damn," Gabby breathed appreciatively, "Now I'm jealous."

"I'm going to memorize every inch of you," The drell on screen growled, his husky voice heavy with intoxicating sexual energy. Shepard had a hard time tearing her eyes away as Kelly held up another dress, the same brown silk number that she had worn at the party. Shepard shook her head and Kelly gave the wine glass a meaningful look.

Shepard was happy to drink. The way the golden drell was rolling his shirt down over his sculpted shoulders was doing strange things to the pit of her stomach and she needed to be distracted. When Kelly pulled out a black dress, one that looked reasonably long and did not show inordinate amounts of cleavage she stood, feeling only a little wobbly.

"I'll try that one on," She said.

"This? I didn't even mean to bring this," Kelly said, shocked, "I think I bought it for a funeral."

"Look, do you want me to play along with this or not?" Shepard asked, as the drell demonstrated how to stroke the dark red stripe on his abdomen, still staring straight ahead with sizzling intensity. The camera man had managed to capture his shots so that it always looked like the drell was staring straight at her. She stripped down to her athletic underwear and the four other women unleashed a simultaneous groan.

"You're not going to wear that tonight are you?" Miranda asked. "What happened to the lingerie I gave you?"

"My clothes are not coming off tonight," Shepard replied heatedly, "And that underwear was barely worthy of the name."

Kelly and Miranda exchanged exasperated looks as Shepard shimmied into the dress, pulling the thick straps over her arms and turning so Kelly could do up the zipper on the back. She spread her arms and turned in a circle, letting them have the full effect.

"Congratulations," Kasumi said from her position in the corner of the couch, "You look slightly less like a nun than usual."

"I do not look like a nun," Shepard huffed. In truth, she wished that Kelly had brought along something with sleeves. And some pants. Even in this dress there were painful amounts of scars showing, all along her arms and past the knee-length hem of the dress. "Nuns don't wear jumpsuits."

"Nuns hide their bodies under shapeless black cloth and freeze up if anyone dabs a spot of colour on them," Kasumi replied, "You are a nun, Shepard."

"Whatever. Find me some slut suit and I'll show you how ridiculous I look in it, if you need proof." Her glass was full of wine again, and Shepard picked it up, trying to avoid looking at the terminal. The drell had the button of his trousers undone, and the line of red thickened as it vanished under the cloth. He had an expression of ecstasy on his face as he traced it with his conjoined finger.

"How is this not porn again?" Shepard asked, as he made a deep, rumbling noise in the back of his throat, an agile pink tongue sliding out of his mouth to wet his full lips.

"It's not porn if you don't see the full package," Gabby replied, "Damn, how many crunches do you think this dude does? More than Thane? More than Jacob?"

"I have no idea," Shepard replied, tearing her eyes away from the screen as Kelly handed her the next option.

"God Kelly, I said slut not street walker."

It went on like that for a while. Shepard squeezed in and out of a dozen different dresses, and the drell took them through some of his erogenous zones with embarrassing thoroughness. True to Gabby's promise there was no full nudity or any demonstrations of the most obvious tactics, but Shepard learned all about his sensitive abdomen and the siantiatic ridge at the base of his spine, and the best places to kiss and caress his red throat and cheeks.

By the time the video ended, the drell was panting, his lips parted and his pants bulging in a way that made Shepard's cheeks burn. Her four captors made crude, poorly worded double-entendres about size and elbowed each other mercilessly. Shepard drained the last of the wine out of her glass and looked down at the dress she was crammed in to.

It was French or Spanish or asari or some damn thing that was supposed to be impressive and stylish. They had gone through so many styles and cuts that Shepard could feel her head swimming. Or maybe that was the wine, she seemed to remember there having been two full bottles the last time she checked. She was hovering in exactly the right level of drunk, before the world stopped making sense and after all common restraints had given way to empty optimistic positive energy. She had even managed to ignore her scars enough to realize that whatever this dress was it looked pretty alright.

"Oh please, Shepard, for the love of all that is holy, just wear that one," Kelly moaned, collapsing into the couch and snatching up the last bottle, draining the few traces of white wine still lingering around the bottom. "I have no more strength to fight with you."

"Look, I didn't ask you to do this," Shepard reminded her, craning her neck around trying to get a feeling of how her ass looked in the dress. Pretty good, if she said so herself.

"That's definitely the winner, Shep," Kasumi murmured from her seat, still nursing her second glass of wine and watching the more lubricated members of their get together with sharp, dark eyes. "He won't be able to take his eyes off of you."

The current option was black, like the funeral dress. The similarities ended there. While the other had been modestly cut, this one clung to her skin with open sensuality. The silk held tight against the silhouette of her waist, the slim lines of her hips and the swell of her shapely behind. It was backless, impossible to wear a bra with, and hung around her neck in a halter-style. The neck did not plunge too scandalously, but it was deep and the cloth clung to and outlined her small breasts in a way that was... distracting. There was metallic orange thread worked along the hem, shining in the overhead lights like seams of fire. Stiff ribbons of the same colour were folded into an elaborate knot and stitched onto the dress under the bust line like a sash.

"Alright," she said, "I'll wear it."

A collective cheer went through all assembled, congratulations were exchanged as though a great war had just been won and Shepard took a bow. Kelly had shoes for her, which were even smaller than Miranda's, and Shepard waved her off.

"You aren't going to wear your combat boots with that are you?" Kelly asked.

"No. I just won't bother with shoes," Shepard replied, flipping their sceptical looks away with the back of her hand. "It'll be fine."

She checked the time. Three hours until Rupert started serving dinner. She stretched and grinned at the four of them, feeling amazingly care free, as though she might actually enjoy this.

"I'm going to go sober up," she announced, "Then I'm going to top my buzz up, stop drinking, and have a 'date' that will go horribly and never be spoken of again."

They all sighed.

"Attagirl, Shep," Kasumi said, "I am loving the confidence."

"No one is more confident in their ability to fuck things up than I am," Shepard boasted, putting down her wine glass and gathering up her discarded boots and clothes.

"You are so getting interrogated tomorrow morning, Shepard!" Kasumi shouted after her as the door slid open. Shepard winced, sure that her voice was probably audible in life support at that moment.

"Unless you two wind up having breakfast together!" Miranda crowed, lifting her wine glass in a toast to the air. Apparently her father's blue prints for the perfect daughter had not included a high alcohol tolerance. Shepard was certain her shouting had carried at least as far as life support. Hell, Garrus had probably heard her in the forward batteries.

She was too warm and happily drunk to care at the moment though. Shepard made her way to elevator before she remembered that all her scars were out in the open, thick glittering tracks of orange marking her like some sort of radioactive paint. A twinge of panic boiled in her stomach, and when the elevator slid open already occupied she felt her heart jump into her throat.

"Damn," Jacob said appreciatively, "What do I have to do to get a woman to dress like that for me?"

"Go have a chat with Kasumi sometime," Shepard replied. For some reason, having Jacob lose his cool like that had made her scars less important, and she found herself feeling genuinely sexy for the first time in... well... a long time. Cybernetic super solider Commander Shepard was a title that came with very little sex appeal.

The elevator made its way up to the combat deck and Shepard caught a glimpse of a few crew members, most of whom did double takes at the sight of her bare foot in a dress, holding an armful of clothes. Jacob stepped out of the elevator and paused for a moment before turning around and fixing her with his deep brown eyes.

"What did you say about Kasumi?" He asked. He sounded confused, but only in the way that people always do when they are trying to pretend they do not know something.

"Figure it out," Shepard replied, and the doors slid shut as the elevator lurched toward her quarters.

Alone, her thoughts drifted toward the night ahead and she felt her stomach quiver nervously through the numbing embrace of wine. She needed to get her mind in order, to get some goddamn control of herself and stop spazzing out about a meal.

How many times had she eaten dinner or lunch in life support with Thane while they listened to music or talked about some mutual interest - or been perfectly comfortable being alone with him for hours on end, as though she were utterly at home?

There was nothing for her to worry about.

Shepard pulled the dress off and diligently reminded herself not to throw it in a pile on the floor. She folded it over the back of her chair and got into her lounge clothes, a tank top and cotton boxer shorts instead. She perched on the edge of her bed and squeezed her eyes closed and decided to have a stern word with herself.

Okay, Shepard, she thought, Just don't do everything you always do and things will be just fine. Just be sexy and confident and don't spill on yourself or vomit anywhere.

The last time she had been on a date was in command school, when spilling and vomiting had been a regular part of liquor-soaked social interactions.

Don't chew your lip, don't pick at your fingers, don't laugh through your nose because the break makes you sound like an asthmatic donkey, and that's pretty much the opposite of sexy. Don't drink too much. Don't talk about god or politics or the time you spaced out and had a horrifically inappropriate day dream about him on that very couch. The couch he'll be sitting on.

Shepard's eyes popped open as she realized what she was doing. This dinner date was a bad idea - she had known that from the start. Yet here she was thinking of ways that she could avoid messing it up, when really that was the opposite of what she should be doing. If anything, she should be getting slobbering drunk right now so that she could totally ruin her chances with Thane.

Shepard flopped backwards on the sheets and cupped a hand to her forehead. She closed her eyes and took a few deep, centering breaths, in through her nose and out through her mouth. She thought for a long moment, running over her own thoughts, trying to get some grasp on what was happening in her own mind.

For the first time, Shepard found herself admitting she had no idea what she wanted anymore.