Her head felt like it'd been hit with a hammer over and over, and when her eyes opened, it just kept getting hit. This pain, this sensation, was locked in sync with her heartbeat. With every beat of her drum like heart, a ripple of pain would shoot through the back of her eyes.

It didn't help that there was so much noise. Yelling and gunfire, she had no moment to catch her breath. It felt like she hadn't breathed air into her lungs in years. Like she was being forced underwater for so long and just now, she was getting a breath, but she couldn't even savor it. This breath and the one after it, they were cut short. Short and stiff until she was basically hyperventilating, but she was breathing, and that was all that mattered.

"Get to the locker and grab your armor, Shepard!"

She glanced around for a source to the voice, but found none. Of course she'd wake up alone. Of course no one was here with her. That voice relaying orders to her was nothing more than that, a voice. A voice that left her alone in this hellhole until she could reach it, wherever the hell it was.

But there was this strange sensation she felt when slipping on her armor. It wasn't strange because the armor was heavier than the normal light armor she wore and it wasn't strange because the armor came with a pistol, but no thermal clip. It was strange because she didn't feel alone.

It wasn't one of those feelings where you felt like someone was watching you from the corner of the room. That horrifying feeling when your skin begins getting a goosebumps and you keep looking behind your back. That feeling was different. This feeling was one where you knew that someone was there and you weren't uncomfortable. Yet, in scanning the room once, twice, three times, it proved to her yet again that she was alone.

...you're not.

She nearly toppled over in pain from this sudden rush of a headache. Shepard placed her hand on the locker for support, her eyes glued shut so that the bright, fluorescent hospital like lights would worsen her headache.

Shaking off whatever this strange feeling was, she rushed towards the door. What she was hearing was nothing. It wasn't real. There was so much rushing into her head at one time, she wouldn't be surprised if it was just one of the many memories coming back to her at one time. It could not phase her, she could not let it phase her, it would cause too much of a distraction.

Alone, Jane fought through this seemingly never ending hell. Although, it was comforting. Somewhere deep inside herself she knew that she'd been dead once before. It was faint, but the memories of her death replayed in her head over and over, like someone was rewinding it. She knew this, but it did not phase her. Not yet at least.

Her adrenaline was pumping, her heart was basically beating in her ears. The mixture of using her sharpshooting and biotics, almost made her forget that she was once dead. Almost.

She opened the door to another area of the large building and slid into cover next to a man. Hoping, almost praying that he was friendly. If not, she'd just screwed herself. But thankfully, he was with her.

"Shepard!" He called out to her. Even with his yelling, it was a bit hard to hear him over the constant shooting of the mechs, "I thought you were still dead. It must be really bad if they've got you running around here."

Jane looked down at her hands. Noticing how faint orange lines ran over her fingers like a swiveling road. Constantly turning, never straight.

That was a dumb thing to say, IT spoke in her head again. She tried not to grimace in pain as it spoke to her. Whatever it was. The man in front of her was clearly already worried about her. She could not make him worry more.

"Was I?" She asked. That being the only thing she could ask. The memories of her death played over and over again in her mind, and yet she couldn't bring herself to believe it, for some reason.

"Yeah. You were out for like two years. We you first got here, I didn't know what you were. You were like--"

A sudden shot of gunfire close to his head cut his sentence off, which she was thankful for. The way he was describing her, the way he spoke about her body post death, made her feel disgusting. She was happy to be lulled away into a world of gunfire and biotics once more. That way, she wouldn't have to think of what she was now anymore. That way, she wouldn't have to think about the body of hers that was reconstructed, or the oddly familiar voice in her head. All she had to think about was shooting and not getting shot. It was simple. It was what she needed to take her mind away from the horrors that was herself. At least until she met her.

Her first impression of Miranda came from watching the woman put a bullet into a seemingly innocent man's head, then smiling at her. The smile seemed cheap, fake, and practiced, but in the heat of the moment, she was stunned. Words would not come from her mouth. Instead, her eyes glanced from Wilson's bleeding skull back to Miranda's smiling face, once, twice, three times she did this until Miranda spoke again.

"Wilson betrayed us, Shepard, he betrayed us all," was all she said, as if that were explanation enough.

I wouldn't have done it any other way.

She began to grit her teeth. This voice in her head, she was beginning to hate it. It was menacing and harmful. It frightened her, just because it was oh so rude yet so familiar at the same time. Who was it? Who was this menacing man in her head that was speaking to her? She knew it, the name was on the tip of her tongue, but she couldn't place it.

The shuttle ride was a bumpy one. One that was almost completely silent. She could hear the shuttles engine, it made up the white noise that she focused on. It felt better to focus on something, if she didn't, she felt as if he would slip through and speak to her again. And she knew that she could not bare to hear what he had to say.

"Shepard, we need to mentally evaluate you," Miranda spoke finally, breaking the silence. This nearly made her chuckle. How could she even begin to describe that there was a man speaking to her in her head.

Jacob spoke after her, "Really, Miranda, do we really have time for this?"

"Normally we would've ran these tests for weeks, a shuttle ride evaluation will have to do," She snapped back. The way the bickered with one another reminded Shepard of an old married couple in a way. She found herself smiling about this.

Miranda and Jacob asked her things. Basic questions that everyone knew that answers to. Questions that could've been answered with a simple search on the extranet, or even asking a friend. The questions they asked her we're simple. About Ashley's death on virmire and members of the Normandy. Her preference for guns and who she chose to be councilor. Basic things, she answered with almost no thought at all, the answers came to her naturally, because they were part of her.

Though, through all of this, one name that was mentioned stuck with her. Saren. The minute Jacob dropped the name, her headache came back full swing. It took a lot out of her to keep her straight face whilst it was happening. Shepard wanted to tell them, she did. These headaches and voices in her were not normal. She wanted to tell them that something was deathly wrong, but she didn't trust them. Not yet. They were Cerberus and they were both rather sketchy.

She kept this mentality up through the shuttle tide as it whispered to her. Her headache was barely registered when it whispered to her. It didn't feel like much of anything, but that didn't change the fact that she could hear every word it was saying to her. Every syllable, every note. It spoke to her, and she listened.

Does this hurt you less? He asked her, his voice just below a whisper, barely audible.

She began to nod, but stopped herself. Jacob and Miranda did not hear what see was hearing, if she began nodding randomly they would question her and she had no answers. So she spoke back in her mind.

yes. it hurts a bit less.

Good, good. I was beginning to fear that I'd never get a clear message through to you.

but, who are you?

Do you not remember me, Shepard?

The way his voice seemed to hiss her name. It was then when she recognized him. This voice speaking inside her head was as far from friendly as it got. It was nothing good. The sudden realization of who it was made her heartbeat speed up to almost a mile a minute. She could feel it in her throat. Her breathing speed up as well, almost as if something was pressing down on her chest and she was gasping out for her very last breath.

It took a minute for Miranda and Jacob to notice that there was a problem with Shepard, and when they did, it felt as if it were already to late. Her bright green eyes rolled into the back of her head and she slumped over into her seat with Miranda and Jacob screaming at her to stay with them. But she couldn't stay with them. She had someone to see.

Her dream was a pleasant one. In the beginning at least. Tali, Liara, Garrus, Wrex, Kaidan, and Ashley were all sitting with her around a table. They all had a drink in their hands, they were laughing, smiling, cheering. It felt so good to be with all of them again, like her family was together once more, but she knew this was not real. No matter how bad she wished for it to be true, she knew that this was nothing more than a dream.

But she chose to ignore this fact, she chose to enjoy her friends once more before she would from this dream. A smile on her face and a drink in her hand as she listened to a story Garrus told about C-sec. On instinct, she took a sip of her drink. It tasted of nothing, reminding her once again, that this was not real. No matter how much she wished to pretend that she was once again on the Normandy with her loved ones, you can only pretend for so long.

Then, as quickly as they were there, they vanished into thin air. Leaving her at an empty table, with nothing, but their partially empty glasses to remember them by. She glanced at each glass one by one and remembered the person who held it. For her, it'd been a few days, but for her friends, it'd been two years, as Miranda had said. She remembered them, but did they remember her?

"I apologise for getting rid of them," a voice from the shadows spoke. The same voice that gave her headaches, the same voice that shot himself almost two years ago. Saren Arterius stood at the other end of the table, turning her once happy dream into that of a nightmare.

"Please God, wake me up," she whispered whilst staring up into the sky. Her hands trembled, but she tried not to show it by placing them beneath the table.

"Trust me when I say this is just as unpleasant for me as it is for you," whilst he spoke, he slid into one of the chairs. The exact one that Ashley was in. The one that would've been empty anyways, because Ashley was dead.

"Then leave," she barked, "Get out of my dream and stay out of my head."

"If I could would,"

"I don't read you,"

"I'm stuck here," he gestured around himself, "In your head. In your memories. In your mind."

"That's not possible. This is just a bad dream. This is not real."

"I'm afraid it is,"

She rested her face in her open palms, exhaling a large burst of air from her lungs that she hadn't even realized she was holding.

"Dear God, I've gone mad," she spoke, her voice quivering.

After this, Saren said nothing, he only exhaled a sigh as well. Leaning back another in his seat. His eyes glanced around the room before falling upon her again. She was anxious, waiting to wake up from this horrible nightmare so that she could go out and shoot something to take her mind off of this nonsense. That's all this was. Nonsense.

Her death had brought her so much trauma that she made a personification of her worst fear and placed it into her mind so that it may ridicule and mock her. That had to be it. There was no other explanation.

"Ask Miranda," he finally said.

"What?"

"Miranda was in charge of you during your-" he looked her up and down, "Rebuilding. She did something to bring me here."

"She did nothing," Shepard spat, "Because you are not real."

With those words, she was jolted awake. Yet again, her head was aching and her eyes burned from the bright hospital lights. She inhaled a large breath, thankful to feel the air hitting her lungs once more. The nightmare was over and she would forget about it as the day went on. She knew it.

"You sure did scare us, Shepard,"

Jane sat up and followed to voice around the medbay to a desk. A desk where a woman with grey hair sat, filing paperwork. This was not the medbay from the Normandy. It was much much bigger and spacious, with more beds and better supplies, but that grey haired lady, Dr. Chakwas was here. If she was here, it meant that she was back home on the Normandy, right?

"What happened?" She asked.

The doctor stood from her chair and stepped over to Shepard, placing a cool hand against her forehead, "You've got a bit of a fever. Likely from working yourself so hard after just waking up from such a long slumber."

"But, where are we, Doctor?" Jane looked around the room once more.

"In the medbay on the Normandy," she replied nonchalantly.

"That's not possible," memories of the Normandy exploding and burning flooded back to her. Memories of her watching it while drifting farther and farther away from it, while her lungs lost air and could not pull any more back into them. She remembered it so vividly, and yet..

"I suggest you go talk to Miranda, she'll have answers,"

Yes, talk to Miranda.

"I'll do that, doctor," she spoke, ignoring his voice as it whispered to her. If she acknowledged it, it would mean that she was making it real in a way. Therefore, she would ignore it until it went away.

"Oh, and be sure to say hello to Joker. He'll be happy to see you're awake," Chakwas called from behind her.

That named sparked a bit of light into her heart. Joker was here as well. He survived the blast from the Normandy, but that didn't answer where she was.

It was a ship, obviously, a large one at that. The structure of it was extremely familiar, yet unfamiliar at the same time. She recognized it, but did not as well. It was a strange sensation.

"Shepard, Miranda is by the Galaxy map. To get there, take the elevator-"

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, who the hell are you?" Yet again, she was shouting at disembodied voices.

"I am the ship's Enhanced Defense Intelligence, but I am called EDI for short,"

"What are you?" Shepard found herself asking, knowing that it's responses didn't sound like a simple VI. It couldn't have been.

"I am an AI, Shepard,"

AI's are illegal for a reason. His voice grimaced, and for once she found herself agreeing with him.

The elevator chimed and her head shot to look at who was exiting. Miranda took quick paces out towards Shepard, almost running towards the woman. She felt thankful to see this woman. With all the voices talking to her at once, it felt good to see a person who was real.

"I was just coming down to check on you," she nearly panted, "Are you all right?"

"Yes, I'm fine. Just light-headed,"

Ask her what she did.

"If you feel as if you need to rest, please do Shepard. The Illusive Man was not happy to have postponed your meeting due to a common fever," Miranda sighed.

"Is that where we are? The Illusive Man's ship or something?"

Ask her, Shepard.

"No, we are on your ship. The SR-2 Normandy, built especially for you with the likeness of your original ship in it," Miranda's full lips curled into a bit of a smile, "Building it took almost as long as it did to build you."

"It's mine?" She questioned.

"You'll have to talk to the Illusive Man first in the CIC, there's a lot more to this than just us bringing you back to life and giving you a new ship. There's something we need you to do for us?"

Her hand fell onto her hip, "How do I know I can trust you?"

"We share a common interest, Shepard," Miranda turned in her heels and began to walk the other way, "Meet me at her office if you need anything else, if not, see the Illusive Man in the CIC."

You didn't ask her about what she did to you to make us like this, Shepard. Why?

because you're not real.