Quick note: When I first started this story I hadn't written anything in over ten years, and you can tell. The first chapter is nothing but exposition. I would take it down and rewrite, but this is where I was when I started. Chapter 2 is a more accurate representation if you'd prefer to skip to that.

She moved silently though the corridors of the Normandy, the ship exactly as it used to be. Garrus, Liara, Kaidan, even Ash. Not one of them responded as she drifted past them down towards the place where it had happened, the place that always drew her back.

Panic, white hot, streaked through her, forcing a ragged gasp from her lips as the light around her splintered into a million pieces and she fell out of the world, falling through the side of her blazing ship and out into the starry void.

There was a second of stunned silence, then the cold prickle at the back of her neck and the incessant alarm in her suit that still rang in her ears every night. Her helmet. Fuck. She hadn't put it on properly.

Stars rushed past in a bright blur and, in her terror, she turned to see the planet rushing up towards her as her hands started to burn, flames rushing across her face and filling her mouth.

Half sobbing, half gasping, Shepard twisted off the bed and onto the floor, burying her face in the twisted blankets as she tried to dust the nightmare off. It was the same every night, falling through the wreckage of her life only to awaken in whatever mess the Reapers had left behind.

It still made no sense. She'd gone from dying to waking in some Cerberus facility under attack, as usual, and then she'd been given her ship back, or something like her ship. The only familiar face was Joker, and his was the last face she'd seen before she'd been hurled into space.

Shepard took a deep breath and lifted her head, scanning the room for something to quell the panic. Her Cerberus uniform was neatly folded on the sofa, and on the other side of the room the fish tank spilled its blue light across the floor, showing only how unfamiliar everything was.

She rose slowly to her feet and headed for the shower, taking care not to look at her face in the mirror as she passed, and ducked under the hot water with a sigh. Her body was covered with a fine filigree of scars, streaking red across her pale flesh.

Miranda had assured her they would fade, and Shepard had to admit there had already been a slight improvement, especially on her face, where the glowing scars made her look like some kind of monster.

From what Shepard could gather, Miranda had been in charge of bringing her back to life, kindling a spark from whatever remained after her fall through the atmosphere over Alchera. She had been deliberately vague about how that had happened exactly, and her attitude did nothing to endear her to Shepard, making it abundantly clear that she saw her as a project and nothing more.

The only other people she'd had any contact with so far were The Illusive Man and Jacob. She wanted to trust Jacob; he was ex-Alliance and she wanted that to count for something, but the logo on his uniform let her know exactly where his loyalties lay.

The Illusive Man was a different matter. She would never trust him, but for now their goals were the same and, much as it annoyed her to work for Cerberus, she saw very little in the way of alternatives.

Human colonies were vanishing and, being pro-human, Cerberus naturally wanted her to look into it. From what they'd seen on Freedom's Progress, the Collectors were harvesting humans, for some reason Shepard had yet to fathom.

There was also the very expensive question of why they'd resurrected her and given her a new ship in the likeness of her old command. They'd even offered her help in the form of unlimited resources and prospective team members.

Whatever suspicions she might harbour, Cerberus had brought her back from the dead and they had given her the means to continue her fight against the Reapers. A fight that had already taken her life.

Back when she'd seen her first Reaper everything had seemed so clear. It was her duty to protect people, and she'd done her best to do just that, setting herself against impossible odds and somehow making it out the other side. She'd become the first human Spectre, she'd brought Saren down, and she had saved the Citadel.

Now nothing was clear. She was working for the enemy, chasing after Collectors, and everything had changed, down to the very fabric of her skin. When she looked in the mirror, she saw not herself but the ghost of Commander Shepard, tethered to what seemed like her joke of an existence by the one thing that had taken her life in the first place – her need to stop the Reapers.

Shepard forced herself to switch the shower off and stepped slowly out, shrugging into her uniform before sitting down at her desk to look over the dossiers that the Illusive Man had sent her.

There was no way she could hope to take on the Collectors without a strong team, and without her old team to fall back on she would have to use whatever the Illusive Man gave her. She could only hope that he invested as much in her team as he did in her.

She had wanted to contact her old crewmates again, had started numerous messages only to erase them and walk away from her console as she questioned herself repeatedly. To them she was dead. Was it fair of her to drag them into this again simply because she missed them?

Not having Garrus by her side was the hardest. He had been her best friend, always at her side in battle and constant in his friendship. What would he think of her now, working for the group they had despised so bitterly?

She was ashamed of herself and what she had become - a scarred monster with a complete disregard for the morals that made her who she was. Working for the wrong people for the right reasons was not the Commander Shepard her friends had known, and so the messages had remained unsent.

Picking up the foremost dossier Shepard had one last read through the information before dragging herself out of her chair to go and meet up with Miranda and Jacob.

She made her way through the Normandy, past the usual bunch of quietly submissive Cerberus personnel, through CIC and up to those stairs. The weight of her nightmare pressed in on her, her feet heavy as she approached this part of the ship as she did in her dreams, as the back of her neck prickled uncomfortably. It felt like someone walking on her grave.

Eyes straight ahead Shepard pressed on, reaching the glow of the cockpit where Joker seemed to be insulting the AI again.

"Joker, how's it going up here?"

"Ah, you know. Just like old times. Except for the freaky space ghost that keeps talkin' to me. Do you think it's possible for a new ship to be haunted? Could we get it exorcised or something?"

"We're working for Cerberus, we're going to fight the Collectors, and you're bleating about the AI? Still?"

"Yep."

Shepard rolled her eyes at him, happy to hear his usual stupid comments. "How far are we from Omega?"

"Bout an hour. What are we doing, bringing someone else on board to join the Cerberus party? Can you bring someone fun this time, someone who doesn't have a stick up their ass?"

"I'll do my best, Joker, just for you. Let me know as soon as we've docked."

"Sure thing, Commander."

Shepard nodded and left the bridge, making her way to the briefing room to meet Miranda and Jacob for their pre-mission briefing. Their first target was Archangel, a mercenary commander located somewhere on Omega. Intel suggested he had managed to make himself a target of the local mercs by attacking their leaders, and, knowing Omega as she did, there was no way he'd be able to escape their attentions for long.

Miranda arrived early for the briefing, closely followed by Jacob who looked pissed off at being last.

"Commander." He gave a brief salute then glared at Miranda, who completely ignored him. She leant against the table and fixed Shepard with what seemed to be her usual suspicious look.

"So, Commander, we're going to retrieve Doctor Mordin Solus, correct? Our intel indicates he's set up some kind of clinic in the plague zone."

"No. We're going after Archangel first. He's managed to upset every single merc in Omega and that makes him our priority. There's no way he can avoid them for long in a place like Omega," Shepard said, folding her arms. "And as soon as we've recovered him, we can go after Mordin."

"What? He's got all the mercs after him?" Jacob whistled. "I'd hate to have those bastards after me. Though they might kill each other first, make our lives a lot easier."

Shepard nodded, reflecting that it should be relatively easy to get them all to turn on each other. Alliances between gangs were always fragile at the best of times and it could take the slightest thing to break them, as she well knew.

"We'll head to Afterlife first and speak to Aria T'Loak; she should be able to tell us something about Archangel and Mordin. I'd rather not have to fight our way in through the mercs if possible. Any questions?"

Miranda stalked over and circled around Shepard, scrutinising her carefully. "None whatsoever, Commander. I trust you're feeling up to this?"

"If I wasn't, you'd be the first to know. EDI, what's our ETA?"

"Twenty seven minutes and forty three seconds."

"Go get ready and I'll meet you at the airlock in fifteen minutes. We need to be ready to move the moment we dock," Shepard ordered, striding back to her room to start suiting up.

Before she left the cabin, she forced herself to look in the mirror, staring back at the glowing eyes of the creature she had become. Commander Shepard was dead, but she allowed herself to hope that if anything of her remained it was the best part, the part that would keep going no matter what.

She was no longer a Spectre or a Commander but something entirely different - a shade dragged back from death itself. With a last look, Shepard left the room and went to collect her first lost soul, her Archangel.