A/N: This is BioWare's playground; I just use the swingset every once in a while. Nothing belongs to me.

The Common Raven (Corvus corax) is an all-black bird which typically lives about 10 to 15 years in the wild, although lifespans of up to 40 years have been recorded. An omnivore, Common Ravens are extremely versatile and opportunistic in finding sources of nutrition, feeding on carrion, insects, cereal grains, berries, fruit, small animals, and food waste. Some remarkable feats of problem-solving have been observed in the species, leading to the belief that it is highly intelligent. Over the centuries, it has been the subject of mythology, folklore, art, and literature. In many indigenous cultures, including those of Scandinavia, ancient Ireland and Wales, Bhutan, the northwest coast of North America, and Siberia and northeast Asia, the Common Raven has been revered as a spiritual figure or god. – Galactic Codex, Common Birds of North America (Earth)

Dr. Chakwas smoothed a hand over the last of the medical bay bunks, her nimble fingers ensuring sheets were firmly tucked and pillows perfectly aligned. These were her favorite days: upon boarding the Normandy, the well and able-bodied crewmembers would march down to see her in order to file their final paperwork – their health and immunization records – before being permitted to ship out. She had requested that the crew bring her hard copies of their files, something of an unusual request by most standards, in order to prolong those visits, those days – in order to prolong the time before she would only see them to watch them die or suffer. For many, this would be the first and last time she would see them alive. For many, the next time they would be brought down to see her, they would be unrecognizable were she to compare their faces against the smiling portrait dutifully inserted into the top right corner of every medical file. For now, they all were filled with the same nervous air of anticipation and excitement. It was far more pleasant to be around than what she would deal with normally.

Chakwas half-turned to check the clock against the far wall. Half an hour remained until the first of the check-in windows was set to open, and there was still much to do. It had become a habit of hers to skim through those files that had been sent ahead, and the Normandy's crew had proved surprisingly interesting – from the pilot's hereditary bone disease to a well-functioning L2 biotic. It would be among the more difficult crews she had managed medically, she had decided, but she was rather eager for challenge – for all that the premature study of those records had unintentionally set her back several hours in her preparations.

She was still deep in thought when she half-heard the doors to the medical bay hiss open. Had the time gone by so quickly? The doctor glanced again at the clock, a worried frown settling across her face. Whoever had just entered would simply have to return once things were more in order. "We're not ready yet," Chakwas called briskly, resuming her final check of the sheets on the last bunk. "Check-ins will start in about half an hour."

"Anderson said I should come now."

Chakwas scowled, eyes settling on the stack of file boxes that had not yet been organized. Her record-keeping was an anathema to the digital age. Against the wishes of her supervisors, she worked with paper, jotting handwritten notes onto medical files instead of tap, tap, tapping away at a datapad like they had wanted her to do. She had always felt that something as personal as life and death should not be reduced to digitized blips and bleeps. There was no entry on the Alliance's standard treatment form for what a soldier's hands felt like as they clenched hers, as death slowly relaxed their grip until she was once again released.

"Anderson said I should come now," the intruder repeated.

"Well," Chakwas snapped, "he should not have. Check-ins will start in less than half an hour now, and I have a lot to do before then."

"Oh. I'll wait then. Can I sit here?" The voice was small and light with a melodic sing-song innocence that forced Chakwas to finally turn to face its owner. And its owner, a woman, stood just inside the doorway to the medical bay, barely five foot tall, if that. Dark messy curls spilt from her crown to just past her shoulders, obscuring most of her face except for large violet eyes framed by thick, dark lashes, and full lips painted with bright red lipstick. Her skin was impossibly pale, the color of the fine bone china Chakwas' grandmother would proudly use whenever important guests had come to dinner.

"Support personnel aren't supposed to check-in until 1500," Chakwas replied, still studying the small – woman? Girl? The doctor's eyes narrowed. The breathing porcelain doll before her couldn't be a day over eighteen. The doctor had guessed her occupation – something as small and fragile as she appeared to be certainly was not the type to go into combat. Chakwas imagined the girl fresh-shipped into the Citadel by some well-meaning country mother who had hoped her innocent, porcelain doll daughter would snare a dashing young marine at first sight. Well-meaning country mothers had always underestimated what they were sending their innocent, porcelain doll daughters into.

"I'm a marine," the girl breathed in reply, already easing herself onto the medical bay bed whose sheets Chakwas had just expertly straightened.

Sighing, the doctor eased away, slowly stepping towards the yet-to-be-organized file boxes. "You can leave me your paperwork, since you're already here. If there's an issue, I'll call you back. Okay? No need to wait."

"I don't have any paperwork."

Chakwas turned and faced the girl again, her mouth tight with frustration. She must be fresh out of basic training. How did she make it through basic training?

"They didn't tell you about the paperwork?" the doctor asked, knowing full well the girl would have been told of the necessary paperwork when getting her assignment.

"No, they told me," the girl replied evenly. "I didn't get it."

Chakwas placed a balled fist on her hip, leaning against her desk with her free hand. "Well, we're still in port, so you'll have to go get it," she barked. "I don't have time to do a full physical on check-in day."

"That's why Anderson told me to come now."

Anderson should have given the doctor advance notice that someone was coming, or, more properly, should have sent the child away at the first admission of being unprepared. Chakwas snorted, slowly picking up her clipboard. Check-in day was going to be less blissful than anticipated if Anderson believed he could spring surprise physicals on her all day. Still, a Captain's order was a Captain's order, check-in day or no.

"Fine," Chakwas hissed, unclipping the pen from where it rested at the top of her clipboard. "I'll need your name to access your files."

"Avery."

Chakwas waited in silence for a surname. The girl waited in silence, too, staring blankly at the far wall. It appeared no surname would be given.

The doctor bent over the clipboard, flipping through the attached pages until she came to the ship's manifest. Something seemed off about the girl, but still … She had said she was a marine. Flipping forward a few pages, Chakwas tapped her pen lightly over those with first names that started with an 'A.' Adam. Andrew. Allison. No.

The girl had spoken her name in a strange manner, her tongue blurring the letters so it had almost become 'aviary' – almost as if she had never heard her own name pronounced before. But here it was: Avery.

Avery.

Chakwas froze, her pen rolling down limp fingertips to clatter on the floor. "Avery? You're Commander Avery Shepard – the XO? The one they call The Raven?"

Slowly, the girl – woman –, pushed back the mess of dark ringlets covering her forehead, revealing more of that famed alabaster skin. "Yes, that's right," she replied simply. "Did you find me?"