Disclaimer: I don't own the rights to the Mass Effect series. Bioware and EA do.

Six months.

Such a small number, the number six. It was seemingly insignificant quantity when compared to the likes of 175/90 BP, 102˚ F or 150 mg.

...The number 'six' was an introduction to Hell.

Her first month in Huerta is the shell-shock of her career. A doctor who takes care of soldiers and Marines does not simply jump back into a civilian lifestyle. No, it is a nasty, painful transplantation, each incision made by the scalpels of indifference and wistful ignorance, and sewn back up with the willpower of experience and the scant hope that maybe things would get better.

She has been spoiled, she realizes. The patients she once took care of would not complain about most things because they knew what needed to be done. A bullet? Get it out so I can get back on the field. A broken arm? Operate on it so I can hold my gun in a few days. Missing leg? When can I ship out after a new one? Yet the man in his 40's in front of her has filed a complaint and a refusal of treatment because he claims the doctors don't understand his needs. He doesn't seem to care about the fact that the infection will eat away at his lungs until there is nothing left. But no, no, he knows right. He's a miner. He's lived all his life knowing what to do and no damn doctor knows anything anyhow.

The second month isn't nearly as bad as the first. She is careful to keep an open mind about the opinions of civilians, understanding that they aren't the ones who'd seen the Collectors or felt the voice of Harbinger booming through their chests. But oh, the pain of seeing how easy people live even after the Citadel had been attacked. Whenever she's mentioned the Reapers, it earns her some strange looks, and even some scoffs. It's as if they have completely forgotten it, and she feels as though she is the only one in the hospital who knows the truth.

Coworkers eventually ask her questions about her life when they are comfortable enough, seeming to understand that the lines of her face haven't come from years working on the ground. A young intern shadowing her asks, quite suddenly, if she is able to sleep at night like the rest of them, blinking his still-innocent eyes once.

She only responds that she tries.

The third month is even easier than the previous two. Her work is done quickly and efficiently, adapted to the lives of those around her because even if she can't convince them of the truth she might as well keep them healthy for the time being. She might actually get a hang of this, she thinks.

It's Monday. Her shift is nowhere near done. The maiden in the waiting room won't stop chattering to her friend about the clubs and how her boyfriend was going to take her out tonight and that the dancing was going to be great. The doctor tunes out her voice, or at least tries, until she hears Shepard's name. "The Reapers can't real, can they? That commander...oh, what was their name? Shepard? Yes, that's the one: Commander Shepard? Isn't that moron locked up in prison for slander and war crimes. How can anything someone like that says be true?"

Laughter.

The girl continues to spout nonsense in her ignorance, unaware that a whole fleet of humans had been wiped out so she could waste her time in Purgatory being the life of the party, and the doctor's fist longs to connect with the girl's nose. Had she held a sobbing commander in her arms, spent hours treating a bleeding crew and encouraging them to keep going, come close to being liquefied and fed to a newly-forming Reaper...for this?

Amidst her anger, she reminds herself that it takes all kinds to make a galaxy, that she is a lady, and that if she doesn't see to the next row of patients one of them might start demanding to know where she is.

She walks on without saying a word.

By the fourth month she feels in her bones that something will happen soon. Something must happen soon. She's already allowed herself to indulge in one honest moment where she complained about the patients and then moved on with her life. If there was one thing the Alliance taught you, it was to suck it up and move on.

But she can't. Not that. She can't move on from what Shepard has said, what she's seen. Will the Reapers wait until Shepard dies, or will they come sooner?

No, they are coming. She feels a chill in the air. Night time is too quiet. Or maybe she's just paranoid.

The nightmares have started back up and now she has to go see her own doctor.

Month number five. It's almost pathetic, the amount of time she's spent in this neutrally-colored room. The young woman in her mid-twenties with sympathetic eyes and lipstick too red for her face asks her to talk about how she'd felt on the ships treating her patients.

She manages not to roll her eyes, but the non-committal noise of frustration comes out anyway.

How she'd felt? Feelings didn't matter when you were trying to get shrapnel and slugs out of someone's side, or when you were trying to clamp someone's artery shut with your own two fingers because you'd run out of instruments. Feelings didn't matter when you were trying to tell your commander that even if they were rebuilt from the ground up they were still them. Only Time mattered, and you must work in harmony with it because you certainly can't go against it.

"...Busy," she finally answers neutrally. Mid-twenties frowns, types something down on her omni-tool and asks her to elaborate. The doctor closes her eyes and sighs.

Damned PTSD.

Six months pass and she still feels as though she's on her first, but life is life and that's the way the galaxy spins out in space. She's made a few friends, even a few drinking buddies. She enjoys walks through the botanical sector where no one can ask her intrusive questions or ask her what kind of suture they should use for a deep bleeder. She's taken a doctor the Commander has once helped – Doctor Michel – under her wing and shown her the ropes. Doctor Michel had never been involved in treating wounded soldiers. And yet that was what made her so good in the hospital: she could learn to fit in perfectly where Chakwas could not. Better still, the young doctor believes her, believes Shepard. So when the Reapers attack and the others panic over the announcement of what has happened at Vancouver, she and Doctor Chloe Michel are already in the back to take stock of their supplies.

Never in a million years would she be glad for a Reaper attack, but now, after what has seemed like forever, she feels as though she has a purpose again. Streams of wounded from every corner of the galaxy come pouring in, and she treats more than her share of soldiers who know their duty and are only slowed down by her incapacity to patch them up at the speed of light.

And then, one day, a familiar face.

"You belong on the Normandy."

Six may have been an introduction to Hell but the way to Heaven had never shone brighter.

A/N: I really wish people would do more fics for Chakwas. She's such an interesting character and so little (compared to the other crew members at least) is known about her. Here is my attempt to rectify that. I know it's a tad sloppy, so I'll be making edits here and there because there's always a way to improve a story. Also, any words of wisdom on the layout would be nice because I couldn't think of any other way to throw this down than putting it in between breaks. Putting these segments into chapters just didn't seem to fit.

Anyhow, thanks for reading!