A/N: I wrote this for a prompt on kinkmeme, oh, a month ago? Prompter mentioned that it was exceedingly strange that Shepard was totally okay and fine entering the Geth Dreadnought, despite having been spaced once. I concurred. This little study popped out.

Drift

When she says, I'll go first, she doesn't really think it through. She takes point, as always. She leads. Garrus and Tali, they nod and she smiles at them as the airlock hushes closed behind her. Her mag-boots are heavy against her legs; it's like when she was little and she would play by the creek on Mindoir, mud slurping up her legs, twisting viscous tongues around her ankles to keep her down. Only it's not like that at all, either.

Besides the expectant silent buzz of static on her communicator, the only sound is her breathing. Her eyes peel upward, peering through the flaking docking bay, and she knows immediately this was a mistake. Once upon a time, on the first space ship she could remember, she looked out the window and thought, they're even more beautiful up close.

Right now, she moves one foot forward, and then the other. She waits for something in that quiet vacuum. Is her breathing faster now? Is her heart? She can't tell. One foot, and then the other. Her back is slick with perspiration and uncomfortable against her armour and didn't they always say space was cold? She's not cold now, she's the opposite. She's moved only a few meters from the airlock, and with a few dozen left to go, her head spins in a way that has nothing to do with her spiralling path through the destruction.

"Commander?"

"What is it, EDI?" she says, and her voice sounds breathier than usual. A bead of sweat licks down her face, and she's seized with the sudden urge to remove her helmet and wipe it away.

"Your vital signs are growing elevated. Are you all right?"

"Yeah," she huffs, "fine."

It tastes like a lie, but lies are like bad wine – they start out too strong, too tart, but the more you get, the easier they go down. She's been lying a lot lately, the most common one being, I'm fine I'm fine I'm fine.

She thinks, I'm fine as she scales the walls, her fingers tracing the wall even though there's no gravity and therefore no support, and all it'll take is one wrong step – or an explosion rocking the Normandy, scattering the remnants of walls, and her boots having nothing to hold to and –

"Shepard?"

The sound of Garrus' voice makes her pause. There's a distinct edge of worry stitched into her name, and she realizes that that off rhythm panting she hears is hers. She forces herself to breathe slowly, calmly, inching her way forward.

"Yeah?" she says.

"You doing okay out there?"

"Peachy," she says.

There's a moment of silence on the other end, and she can almost see Tali and Garrus shrugging at each other, trying to figure out if peachy is an affirmation or not.

EDI decides to chime into the conversation. "Commander, your vital signs indicate that you are under a high level of stress."

"You try walking through a damaged docking bay towards a Geth dreadnought in the middle of a battlefield and we'll see how you do," she says, unable to stop herself.

"What, the great Commander Shepard brought low by a suicidal plan?" says Garrus, his voice light and teasing.

"It's been an off day," she allows, swallowing her lump, a smile creeping onto her face despite everything. "Somehow I didn't get enough sleep."

Garrus makes a lovely hmm sound, and she swears she can almost hear Tali smiling over the communicator but then there's this lurch, and suddenly the world really is spinning. Metal cracks and twists, and heart in throat, she rushes forward just as structure behind her detaches and floats out into space, like those bubbles her mother used to buy that would float and float and then burst.

And she wonders, did I burst? All she can think is that sometime in school, before – well, before – that one of her teachers told her that when people were spaced, they vomited up all their insides like deep sea fish if removed from the water too quick. But more than that, she's thinking that she definitely doesn't remember that, if it happened, but she does recall the way the air suddenly wasn't there, and that there was this horrible ringing, and it felt as though Wrex were sitting on her, kind of like right now only worse, and all she could see were the stars twinkling out at her and they were as beautiful as ever even through the shadow that crept on the edges of her vision...

She feels hot, so hot. If only she could take off this damn helmet.

"Shepard!" It's Garrus again, only this time there's more than a thread of worry in his voice. In fact, he sounds like Joker sounded when the world turned to fire and ruin around her and she floated away like some small bubble waiting to burst.

"Yeah?" she answers, around large deep breaths that don't seem to do enough.

There's a sigh over the comm, and the relief is palpable. "You okay?"

"Uh," she clambers, "I'm – yeah – don't worry – I'm -"

"Fine?" he supplies.

"You're such a smartass, Vakarian," she says, voice breathy. He chuckles, but it's off somehow. It's the sort of chuckle he gave after being hit in the face with a rocket – glad that everything seems okay but not entirely convinced.

"The entrance to the Geth ship should be just ahead, Shepard," comes Tali's voice.

Looking up, it appears to be maybe four meters away. Doable, definitely, if she can remember how to walk. She slides one foot forward and then the other, coaching her breathing. She's only two meters away now, sticky and hot from sweat when she can't help but think, how ironic would it be to die here before she pushes that thought away because the last thing her life needs is more poetic license.

When she punches that button and the Geth airlock opens, she tumbles inside and slams it shut. She sits there on her knees, feeling her armour dig into her skin and knowing that she's going to have bruises that have nothing to do with battle. She peels off her helmet and touches her forehead to the cool wall of the ship. Her breathing is long and deep and painful, and her lungs burning in her chest. She doesn't have long, only a few moments, but she uses those moments to compose herself.

"I'm in," she says, finally, though her voice is hoarse. "Now how do I get the others on board?"

As EDI and Tali collaborate in giving directions, Shepard puts her helmet back on with pointedly firm hands and moves on.

Later that night, after dealing with the Geth and the Quarians and all the political bullshit between, she staggers towards her room. She wants nothing more than to crawl into bed. Not to sleep, no, but to allow herself to be exhausted.

What she doesn't count on, as she's exiting the elevator from the CIC, is that Garrus is waiting for her. He's not in her room, but rather posted as sentry outside, arms crossed.

"Shepard," he says, pushing himself upwards. His eyes study her face.

"Hey," she says, quietly. "You need something?"

She doesn't wait for an answer before entering, but motions for him to follow. He does, albeit slowly, tentatively. It makes her frown, which in turn makes her headache even more pronounced. She pours herself a glass of water and sips, turning only when she realizes that a significant amount of time has passed where he's said nothing. Glass to mouth, she looks a question at him.

He's surveying her, something that's been happening more and more often since the Reapers arrived. He's looking for cracks, and no matter how hard she tries to plaster them up, no matter how much her new wallpaper seems to fool everyone else, he sees through her. It makes her fidget.

At last, he says, "You want to tell me what happened down there?"

She blinks at him, long and slow, and sets down the glass. She crosses her arm, then uncrosses them. "Got a little overwhelmed is all. Don't worry about it. I'm -"

"Fine?" he finishes, tone sardonic. "Yeah, I've heard." He pushes forward, so close she can feel the heat emanating off of him. "Now tell me the truth."

What she wants right then is to tell him to fuck off, to kick him out of her quarters, because she has a goddamned war to win and she's not going to win it by being weak. But he's wearing that measured look again, that look that says that he knows something up, that he's not going to let go – something, she thinks, that's leftover from his C-Sec days; in fact, probably the exact quality that got him on her crew in the first place.

So with a heavy sigh, she sets down her glass and slumps onto the sofa, elbows on knees, head propped on her hands. She doesn't look at him when she says, "That docking bay reminded me of the Normandy." A beat passes, and she amends, "The first one."

"Funny," he says, "I don't remember the Normandy being that decrepit. Seems like the sort of thing a person would notice."

She tries to keep her tone light when she says, "Yeah, but you weren't there at the end." When Alchera shone through what used to be the ceiling, and even though it was awful and burning, the stars were beautiful up until the moment when her lungs shrivelled up like raisins and everything hurt. She risks a glance at him, but all she can see is how controlled he appears.

"You remember that?" His voice is very still.

She pulls her arms around herself. "Hard to forget the day you died."

Garrus lets loose a smattering of guttural sounds, running a hand down his face. From his tone, he's swearing under his breath but her translator doesn't pick it up. He sits next to her, his hand close but not quite touching. "You shouldn't have gone out first. I wasn't thinking."

"Me neither," she says. "Don't worry about it."

"Worry about Commander Shepard, most insane woman in the galaxy? I think I'd need to retire. My heart would give out after a week." There's a smile in his voice, but it doesn't quite creep all the way to his eyes. He's holding something back, and she realizes with a start that he's frightened. That he isn't sure how to comfort her, and really, who can blame him? Not many people get spaced and then come back to have trauma about it.

"I dunno," she retorts, bumping his shoulder with hers. "You might make it a month. You're pretty fit, you know."

"Ah, glad to see you noticed." Now there's definitely a smile, his mandibles flaring. His control lapses, and he reaches his arm around her shoulder. He presses his forehead into her hair. Then he says, more quietly,"Just... don't do that again. In case I do become the worrying type."

"Noted," she says.

With her face snuggled into the curve of his shoulder, she feels perfectly grounded.