A/N: This is my take on what happened after Horizon. For any book nerd out there, I took my Shepard's name from Valentine Wiggin from the Ender Series' by Orson Scott Card. Great series, I highly recommend it.

Small.

Commander Valentine Shepard said the word softly, letting it roll on her tongue. It wasn't a word commonly said around her but it was the only way she could describe how she felt. It felt inadequate and yet it fit her perfectly.

Small.

"What is happening. Locked. My pass not working. EDI."

"The Commander had overridden your pass, Doctor Mordin," Shepard heard EDI say smoothly from the other side of the door. "I'm afraid that until Shepard comes out, you're stuck in here."

"That is my lab."

Val sighed, knowing this was childish. This lab had no connection to her, she understood nothing in it. It was her safe harbor to let the echo of his accusation bounce around in her head without having to see the picture on her desk as well.

A ghost.

The word left a bitter taste in her mouth and her stomach in knots. The man who had promised to protect her and be at her side promptly ignored it all as soon as his eyes landed on the damned Cerberus insignia on her chest, where her N7 belonged.

She couldn't decide if she was more angry or upset. Either way, this had broken her in a way she couldn't understand. There had been men before him, of course. But none had moved her like he had. She had never felt this need to keep him safe, to make him happy. He deserved so much.

And now he didn't want her.

"Shepard? It's Miranda. Open this door."

"Make me," she snapped, slumping against the wall once more. She took a weak swig of the brandy and looked down at the letter.

Signed, Kaidan.

"Commander Shepard, I order you to open this door. You're keeping the doctor from his work."

"Maybe you didn't hear me," she didn't mean to be like this, but couldn't stop herself from snarling, "make me."

"EDI, open this door."

"I'm sorry, Officer Lawson," EDI sounded slightly irritated now, "but as your superior and Commander of this vessel, Shepard is free to lock this door. I cannot do as you wish."

"Dammit. I knew we should have implanted that control chip, we can't afford these delays."

At the mention of the control chip, Val shuddered. When Miranda had first mentioned it, it terrified her. She spent weeks wondering just what Cerberus had put in her that didn't belong. 'No wonder Kaidan is repulsed by me," she thought as she raised the bottle to her lips again, 'I could be a monster and not even know it.'

But she did know. As long as the archives on Project Lazarus were accurate, they had brought her back the same stubborn, charismatic, get-it-done, caring woman she had been before she died.

"...I could smash down the door. We need to know she'd okay," she heard Grunt say, causing her to smile. He had taken a liking to her after taking him to Tachunka. He was a little protective, no wonder he wanted to make sure nothing was harming his leader.

"I am monitoring Shepard myself. She is fine. Bringing down the door would only cause unnecessary damage to this vessel."

"What's going on?"

Tali's voice. Sweet Tali, he closest friend. One of the few that trusted her even when her judgement seemed wrong.

"Are we having some kind of gathering?"

Garrus. She saw his face clearly in her mind and her stomach lurched.

"EDI," she said softly, "I need them. Garrus and Tali. Joker too. He can open up a comm link in here. Can't he?"

Pleading to an AI. Pathetic.

"I will check with Mr. Moreau," EDI assured her before her voice popped up on the other side of the door, instructing her crew her wishes. As soon as footsteps faded away, Val punched the override code into her omni-tool. Garrus walked in first, closely followed by Tali. The door shut behind them, leaving them in familiar bubble.

"Oh, Shepard," Tali breathed as she sat on the ground next to her, "I'm so sorry."

Garrus couldn't think of the right words to say. He wanted to tell her that he'd track that spineless coward down, that he'd make him pay but somehow doubted that would help the Commander.

He had never seen her like this. Broken, as if something was off.

It was him, of course. Kaidan Alenko had always worried about right and wrong and regs. It wasll of that that had made him blind to see the gray area where Cerberus wasn't the bad guy in this case. He had abandoned the woman who had led them to the impossible and won. The woman who reserved that special smile, where mischief shone in her eyes, just for him.

God, how he hated Kaidan Alenko.

Instead of saying all of that, he leaned down in front of Shepard, looking in her troubled emerald green eyes. "You look like a wreck, Shepard."

"He hates me," she mumbled weakly before trying to drink from the bottle. Tali tsked it away from her, handing it to Garrus and sighing in annoyance when Garrus took a drink from it.

"He's an idiot," Garrus snapped harder than he meant to.

By this point, he was sure Tali was glaring at him through her mask. "He is an idiot. But you were his in a level deeper than we can understand. We hurt when you died, Shepard, but he grieved. He held on. We all abandoned each other after you died. It was too hard to be around each other without you, so we left. He didn't only loose us, he lost sense. Seeing you after two years of guilt and grief, after two years of making himself belief that you're never coming back... the shock of it all made him spew out all of it."

Shepard held out the letter. Tali read it first, sighing before handing it to Garrus.

"Uhh. Commander? I'm not really good at this mushy-girly crap. And to be honest, I never thought you were either."

She giggled. Joker sounded so uncomfortable. "I'm not. I've... never been this... mushy. Don't like it."

Garrus nodded, crumpling the letter up in his hand. Val's eyes widened then narrowed when he tossed it aside. "Shepard," Garrus began, reaching for her hand, "we need you. I -"

"Don't say it," she rushed ahead of him, already anticipating what his next words would be. "Garrus, you're... if it weren't for you and Tali, I couldn't do this. You're my closest friends."

"Oh, okay. Thanks a lot, Commander."

"Shit. You too, Joker."

"No no. I see how it is."

"Well if you could get your ass in here quicker than a drunken Volus, I wouldn't forget you're always there in the shadows just listening in."

"That's hot, Commander."

"The point is," a smile played on her lips, "I need you too. As my... friend. It wouldn't be fair to you if we... went through with our initial experiment. I... I still love Kaidan. He has a right to be upset with..."

Val trailed off, looking at Tali for help. The quarian tilted her head before finishing the sentence with "upset at the situation."

Shepard nodded, trying to ignore the disappointment in Garrus' face. "If.. that's what you want, you know I'm here for you. Like always."

Tali stood up, holding her hand out for the Commander, "Come. You need some rest, to sleep this off. The Reapers won't wait for your heart to mend."

She led Commander out of the lab, towards the elevator. Before she rounded the corner, Valentine Shepard looked over her shoulder at the turian who was left holing the broken pieces of his heard and mouthed, "I'm sorry".