Disclaimer: I only own Vivian. All other items, characters, places, etc. used are products of Bioware. Thank you and enjoy reading! Please R&R, your feedback keeps me going guys!

A/N: This is a reboot/rewrite of my earlier fanfic for Mass Effect "Displaced". A lot of things will be different so might as well treat it as a whole new thing if you read "Displaced".

Timeline is set after ME3 ending. Approx. 2187.

Sand and wind, wind and sand. I didn't enjoy being in Baghdad any more than the rest of the soldiers around me, but we had to obey our orders. It was my squad's turn to patrol on foot in front of the convoy of Humvees, keeping our eyes peeled for IEDs. I was on point with Jacobson to my right. His eyes were as sharp as mine. I trusted him. I trusted my whole squad. We were more than just soldiers out here. We were brothers and sisters, bound by a bond stronger than blood.

Movement on the rooftops caught my eye. I looked up, scanning the ledges but seeing nothing. I glanced over at Jacobson with a questioning eye. He gave me a nod to let me know he's seen it too. I went back to scanning the area. Not a moment later Jacobson yelled, "RPG!"

I instinctively ducked down and signaled the others to do the same. I heard the hiss of the rocket as it flew through the air. The explosion of the rear Humvee followed quickly, the aftershocks knocking us off our feet.

"TAKE COVER!"

I shouted the order and signaled the men to abandon the other Humvee. We dove behind anything sturdy. I shouldered my rifle and popped off some shots at the enemy to force them to take cover. Jacobson grabbed me by the elbow and tugged me behind a half crumbled wall. Shots rang out from both sides.

I looked over at my friend. His back was against the wall but he'd slid down it to the ground with one hand over his abdomen. Blood seeped out between his fingers as he tilted his head back and cursed.

"You're hit."

"Yeah. Damn mother-"

A few shots broke the wall above my head, forcing me to crouch down. "We have to get out of here. This is a death trap."

"How did they know we'd be coming through here?" He asked through gritted teeth.

"No telling. Stay here."

I heard him yelling for me as I dashed out of cover, grenade in my hand. Unlucky for our attackers I had one hell of a throw and never missed my target. I pulled the pin and chucked the grenade hard before rolling behind some crates. A few seconds later the explosion followed, accompanied by a few screams. A few of my comrades dashed into the building with its roof collapsed from the blast.

"All clear!"

I stood from my hiding spot and looked over at Jacobson as he got to his feet. His imaged blurred a little and I felt lightheaded. That wasn't my normal reaction after a close call like that. Usually we all had to sit for a bit and catch our breath but something was different. Something was wrong.

I looked down to see blood in the sand where I had been laying. My gaze went from the ground to my chest. Blood was seeping out from several wounds, one of them in the upper left part of my chest. It was short of a heart shot but I could feel the left side of my chest aching as my lung tried to suck in air. I looked over to Jacobson. He stared at me in horror for a moment. When I started to fall, he ran over to me. I hit the ground hard, knocking a bloody cough loose.

"Man down!" Jacobson yelled as he fell to his knees beside me.

He ripped my Kevlar off and by BTU shirt open to expose the wounds. I could hear him curse between my attempts to pull in ragged breaths. I could already feel my energy draining. He pressed down hard on the wound on my chest to try and slow the blood loss, but that wasn't what was killing me.

I dug my right hand into my pocket and pulled out my letter. I grabbed one of his hands and pressed the letter into it. His eyes met mine. I never noticed how pretty his eyes were before, they were like pools of blue-green seawater. Right then they were full of powerful emotions I was becoming too groggy to recognize anymore.

"Make sure he gets this," I said weakly before coughing up more blood.

"Don't talk, Caldwell."

I shook my head. "It's too late and you know it." I coughed again. "Make sure he gets that. Make sure he knows that I love him."

He nodded. "Alright." His voice was practically a whisper. Jacobson never liked giving up on people.

"I'm counting on you," I managed to say weakly with only the thought that I would see my love again on the other side to comfort me as I died.

My eyes shot open. Panic set in quickly when I didn't recognize the world around me. I tried to move but quickly realized I was strapped down to the table I was laying on. I struggled against the bindings while sirens blared loudly.

"Intruder alert. Intruder alert. Security breach in sector seven. Sectors eight through twelve locking down." An automated voice repeated overhead.

Finally some rational part of me took over and I stopped fighting the restraints. My heart was hammering in my chest, competing with the blaring siren and message. I tried to take long deep breaths to calm myself as I started to look around the room.

Metal walls and ceiling. A long desk with holographic screens above it on the wall and a chair lying on the floor from being hastily abandoned. There wasn't much else there. Certainly nothing I could get my hands on to cut away the restraints.

Think. THINK. There's got to be something.

I looked down to analyze what exactly was restraining me. I had straps around my wrists and ankles as well as a wide strap across my torso to hold me down. I noticed that the strap on my right wrist was a little looser than the others and decided to test it. Pulling my arm and squirming about revealed that it was coming loose. I fought harder until I could finally slip my hand free. It was a cake walk from there to remove the other restraints.

I sat up on the table, dangling my legs over the side, and rubbed my wrists while I looked at the screens above the desk. Several of them had been monitoring my vitals. One had a 3D rotating map of my body with different areas highlighted and another had a 3D rotating map of my brain with different areas highlighted as well. I couldn't really make sense of it.

Above those screens were the ones relaying views from different cameras. I could see men in strange, white armored suits moving swiftly through the halls. In one camera, which had been observing a large room with many storage crates about, I saw three people come into view. The first I saw was a tall guy with dark hair in blue armor, a bit different from the soldiers in white, and carrying a type of rifle. The second one was a little hard to comprehend at first. She was blue, like actually blue with tentacle-like growth on her head that swept back to meet behind her head. Her armor was white with blue trim, which was much more form fitting than the men's armor, and she carried a pistol. The third one was a big burly guy in blue armor and carrying a type of shotgun.

Shortly, several white-armored soldiers entered the same room from the opposite side and opened fire almost immediately. I watched the fight unfold as the three returned fire. I was amazed to see some kind of shield deflect a bullet as it was about to hit the burly guy. I was even more surprised a second later as I saw a blue aura surround the woman's arm, her eyes glowing the same color. She tossed a generated mass of the blue aura at one of the men. He flew backwards into another and they both fell, crumpling into unconscious heaps on the floor. The fight was over quickly and soon the three made their way through the room and out of camera view.

Okay. What the fuck did I just see? Better yet, how am I even alive right now? I shook my head. I didn't have the time to sit around and try to figure things out right now.

I hopped down from the table and went to the door. It looked similar to a set of blast doors on a bomb shelter. When I approached, they slid open with a hiss. I jumped a little in surprise, but kept going. I looked down each end of the hall outside. Across from the door "Armory" with and arrow pointing left and "Command Center" with an arrow pointing right were painted on the metal wall in yellow. The armory sounded like a good choice. I needed a weapon.

It wasn't too far down the hall that I found the door to the armory and ducked inside. It was nearly cleaned out. I cursed through clenched teeth as I started to rummage around. I managed to find a pistol and some ammo cartridges. It took me a minute to go over the thing and figure out how to use it. The technology was amazing. I would have loved to sit there and study it but it wasn't the right time. I had to get moving.

I left the armory, turning back the way I came in hopes to reach the command center. I found myself taking off in a run. My boots thudded heavily on the metal grated floor. It felt good to have my blood pumping through my veins, spreading adrenalin through my system. I had always loved being in the thick of it. I wasn't the type to lose my shit when things were going wrong. I was able to hone in and think tactically. I guess that's why I climbed in rank so fast and ended up leading my own squad of soldiers. But this was obviously not Baghdad.

I was almost to the end of the hall when the doors at the end opened. I came to a stop as quickly as possible, almost falling forward from the abrupt ending of my momentum. Two soldiers in white armor stood in my way. They quickly raised their rifles when they spotted me. I backed up a few steps.

"Stop right there!"

"Drop your weapon!"

I held up my hands, still holding my pistol. "Hey, fellas. No need for any of that. I'm on your side."

One of them huffed a dry laugh. "Do you think we're stupid? We're not gonna give a crazy science experiment a change to turn on us."

"Science experiment?"

"Yeah," the other agreed. "We saw what happened with the last one they brought back to life. And they didn't make any…adjustments…to her."

I didn't miss the way he picked his word wisely or how he spat it at me like an insult. Back from the dead? Adjustments? Were those the glowing parts of my brain and body maps? What the hell is going on?

"Now, I'm not going to say it again, cupcake. Put down the fucking gun or I'll put you down."

I flashed him a nasty look. My muscles tightened, readying for action, but before I could do anything another door to the side opened. The three from the cameras burst into the hall. I stepped back a few more steps, preparing to run instead of fight.

"Oh, shit, it's them!"

The two men turned their guns on the intruders. I ducked down as they opened fire. The burly man with the shotgun popped off two quick shots and both the dark-haired man and the alien woman blasted them with blue energy. They never stood a chance. Then their eyes turned to me.

I quickly stood up and aimed my gun at them. "You want to kill me too? Fucking try it. I dare you." Pure venom dripped from my lips.

"Whoa, whoa. Calm down, chica," the burly man lowered his gun and held up one hand.

The other two also lowered their weapons but it was the dark-haired man who spoke. "It's okay. We're not going to hurt you."

"You could be lying to me. How do I know I can trust you?"

They looked at each other before he answered again. "How about 'the enemy of my enemy is my friend'? Will that do for now?" He took a couple steps toward me.

I could see just how handsome he was as the light filtering through the window to the right lit up his face. He has espresso hair that was a little messy but shorter on the sides, military perhaps, and his eyes were warm and earthy. I could see his genuine kindness within those brown depths. I looked at the other two stepping up behind him.

The other man had a more tan skin tone, and adding that to him calling me "chica" told me he was probably of Hispanic descent. His eyes were brown as well but reminded me more of the color of whole almonds. His hair was slick black and cut even shorter on the sides with the top worked into a faux hawk. He had one long scar across one cheek, a small one on his nose, and a deeper one below the other eye. I guessed he might have been a bit of a scrapper.

The woman drew my interest as well. She was clearly not human with those tentacle like things on her head and her light blue skin tone. She was very beautiful, exotic looking, and her aqua eyes were like pools of seawater. She looked at me with a hint of concern. I felt that her worry was not for her teammates but for me, which I found strange.

I lowered my gun and they all seemed to relax at the same moment. "Alright. I'll go with you, for now."

"Good," the first man said with a nod.