Shepard slowly clenched and unclenched her hands, twisting them into the sheets. Every night, she went through this. The shutters were rolled back, exposing the breathtaking view of open space and the clouds of color and light generated by the ship's speed. Breathtaking was the word for it. Before the Collector ship blew the first Normandy out of the sky, she would have reveled in it, but now the sight made her stomach flip. Just when she thought she had the reaction under control, a new wave would hit as she irrationally expected to fall.
She clenched her jaw and angrily keyed the shutter control that was slaved to a function on her omni-tool. She could hardly even remember her free-fall through space, but she knew she hadn't been afraid, even when she knew she was going to die. Angry? Absolutely. She had thrashed and twisted as she drifted toward Alchera, trying in vain to reach the breach in her hardsuit, even though she knew simply clamping a hand over the rupture would do exactly nothing to save her, especially when she hit the planet's atmosphere, as she knew she would long before anyone could possibly swoop to her rescue. But she didn't scream, or shout, or curse. She fell in silence, aside from the grunts and gasps of effort as she tried to do something before she died.
No fear as she died. So why, now, did the sight of open space freeze her blood and make her heart rate spike like she'd just sprinted around the ship? And it was getting worse. Now, occasionally she woke up in a cold sweat, terrified she'd fallen asleep with the shutters open. Why the hell does it matter while I'm asleep, anyway? I'm on a goddamn starship, I'm surrounded by hard vacuum if I can see it or not. When that happened, she made herself hit the control that haunted her and watch the stars until she succumbed to exhaustion. Or until she had to get up and return to duty, as was most often the case– as was the case now.
Her feet hit the floor a moment before her omni-tool chimed to wake her and the lights in the cabin rose slowly to full illumination. Time to get up. Did I sleep more than an hour last night? It didn't feel like it. She hated relying on stims to get her through the day, but it had been a long time since she could claim she didn't need them for just that. Her first cup of coffee was already waiting– Thanks EDI– and she ignored that it was still a little too hot and drank it in long gulps anyway. Cerberus definitely does coffee better than the Alliance, she thought, recognizing another entry on the long list of justifications she'd been constructing since a few hours after she woke to Jacob shoving a gun into her hand and Miranda's voice in her ears.
Not for the first time, she wondered how Miranda would react if she told her about the developing phobia. Ms. Perfect was so proud of her success– restoring her to life when she was little more than cooked meat and miraculously-preserved gray matter should have been utterly impossible– why couldn't they let the dead rest?– what would Miranda think to learn that her success shivered in her bed every night like a child afraid of the dark?
Shepard would never dream of revealing such a weakness to anyone in the Alliance, psych evaluations would follow and in her gut she knew where that would lead. She'd be grounded– stuck on one planet or another, never to fly or command a ship again. But Cerberus needed her, and she was no good to them on the ground. Even if they wanted to, even if they should, she knew they wouldn't.
The truth was that she suspected the defect had nothing do do with project Lazarus, and everything to do with her. It was only a matter of time before something left a permanent mark on her psyche. The Alliance had been scrutinizing her for just such a crack ever since Torfan. Hell, they'd been looking for mental scars since she enlisted, but Torfan convinced some that they'd missed something. It was the batarians. If it hadn't been batarians, no one would have drawn a connection, no one would have worried, but after Mindoir, batarians and Shepard in the same sentence would always raise eyebrows and hushed whispers.
So she toyed with the idea of confiding in Lawson for all of thirty seconds, just like she had every morning for the past several weeks, then shoved the thought away with more than a hint of anger with herself. It was bad enough that she was afraid, but wanting so much to share it with someone, to relieve herself of the burden of it, was even worse. And Cerberus was the enemy. Never reveal weakness to an enemy.
It was a handy excuse.