"Well, that's a nasty shot you took, Shepard."
The Commander smiled apologetically at the Doctor before sitting on the exam table, wincing as the gesture caused a new wave of pain to run down the length of her left arm. Chakwas took a closer look at the wound, her expression severe. By the look of it, it was really hurtful. She was surprised Shepard even managed to take her armor off on her own – but she didn't complain. Dealing with a bullet was definitely easier through a tank top.
"The bullet is put deep in your shoulder, Shepard; it goes beyond the muscles. Extracting it won't be easy."
"Great. More glowing scars is so what I need right now."
The Doctor smiled at her Commander, somehow reassured by the humour in her words. If she could laugh about it, then it wasn't bad to the point that she couldn't deal with it. Shepard really was the strong type indeed. She gently whipped the blood away from her arm then applied medi-gel on the wound.
"We'll just have to wait a little before it starts to anaesthetize your shoulder".
Shepard shot a glance at her shoulder. She paused for a second.
"In fact…You might want to double the dose, Doc."
Visibly surprised, the Doctor shot her a glance, her eyebrows raised in confusion as she answered the Commander.
"I just gave you twice the normal dose, Shepard. I didn't forget about your condition."
Between Cerberus' additions to her body and her biotics, medicines didn't really work on her. Her body healed and worked too fast for most of the drug to kick in before getting digested – and what was left of it was consumed by her biotics. But Chakwas had known that for a long time now, and she knew Shepard was aware of that. So…what wasn't she telling her?
"I know, I know. This is not about…Anyway, I'm serious. I'd be lucky if this," she pointed at the patch of medi-gel with her right hand, "made my skin slightly numb".
Chakwas held her gaze, waiting for her to continue. Shepard searched her face for any trace of disapproval or judgement, but there was none. Chakwas knew better than to jump to conclusions. She seemed honestly curious about it and nothing but trying to understand.
Shepard kept silent for a time, but when it became clear that the Doctor wouldn't let go of it, she softly sighed and went on. When she spoke again, it was so soft Chakwas wasn't sure she heard it well.
"It's the Batarians."
The oldest woman unconsciously cocked her head to the side. Did she heard right?
She wasn't expecting that. Of course, she knew about Shepard's background. But right now, she failed to see the link.
Shepard glanced back at her wounded shoulder as she started to explain herself.
The day the Batarians attacked the colony on Mindoir, they killed every adults and abducted every children; to sell them later as slaves through the galaxy. The whole process took the Batarians a few weeks to be done. Mainly because they couldn't afford to stay too long in the same place – they knew the Alliance was after them.
After a few days, the Batarians realized they'd get troubles selling her: She was the oldest of the children; and the skinnier one but mostly, she never stopped fighting. There was this constant defiance in her stare, this never-fading rage in her body. Therefore, no one would buy her. "I want something that'll obey and serve me, not a sick, wild, dying animal that'd stare back and fucking bite", someone once said.
After a week, the Batarians were dead certain taming her would be a hell of a problem. So they decided to keep her for their enjoyment until they'd find her an owner. They called her 'the Lucky One'.
Since she was the lucky thing that would stay aboard and serve them for a while.
A few others, like her, weren't sold right away since they were too weak to survive or too broke to react. Those whom, like her, weren't good enough for sale, were used as tools. Sometimes to serve food. Sometimes to do simple tasks. Sometimes to blow off steam through a good fight.
Beating her quickly became the best entertainment aboard the Ship: she fought back when the others kids only cried and screamed in fetal position. At least there was some challenge with her. They soon blew off steam on her only. And she dealt with it. She dealt with every blow. She dealt with the threats and the hunger. She dealt with frantic, broken voices screaming in horror and pain in the cell next to her as some kid got even less lucky than her. She dealt with the scent of blood and tears.
She dealt with hearing them rape her friends and siblings.
Shepard sighed, aware of the cautious glance of the Doctor on her.
"The Batarians' Leader didn't want any visible bruise on his livelihood. Therefore, with every blow came a patch of medi-gel."
This was the #1 rule: no bruises, no broken bones and no black eyes on the slaves. Do whatever you want to them as long as no one can see it after. And the crew respected this. So every single time they beat her, they'd put medi-gel on her wounds.
Every single day they'd put medi-gel on her skin.
Chakwas stayed still for many seconds, frozen in her chair. When she opened her mouth to reply something, Shepard continued before she could.
"I became resistant to medi-gel. It still works, fortunately - at least for the healing part. It just takes a lot of it to ease pain."
Shepard stared back at her, her smile still in place.
"But you're the Doc here, so I'm not teaching anything. You already know about excessive drug consumption effects."
Chakwas held her gaze, her expression composed. She fought back the sense of injustice and disgust that threw her heart in her throat, and put on her professional mask. She wouldn't allow her feelings to show - she couldn't trust her words right now.
She'd known Shepard for many years. As the doctor of her ship, she cared for her - sometimes in a quite unprofessional, motherly way. But mostly, she respected her. And there was nothing that could ever make her have pity on her Commander. But she knew that, if she said anything, her indignation would sounds like nothing but this - pity. Therefore, she kept silent. Instead, she applied more medi-gel, stopping when Shepard told her it was enough.
A few seconds passed by in complete silence. The scent of blood and antiseptic was overwhelming.
"I didn't mean to sadden you, Doc."
Chakwas looked up at her from her spot, as she was already working on extracting the bullet.
"It's okay. I'm over it" Shepard smiled genuinely at the woman before adding, "I only wanted to avoid the side-effects of pain. Can't let myself faint over a single bullet, you know – Garrus would never let me live that one down."
The Doctor smiled back at her, and finally found her voice back.
"Indeed. He would never, ever, let you live it down."
Shepard grinned back at her, and her tension melted away with the relief of seeing the woman back to warm smiles and lively glances.
"…You're not going to have me buy your silence, are you?"
"Me, Shepard? You're hurting my feelings here – I would never do such a thing, of course."
"Of course."