When I dream, I dream of a great golden planet silent beneath me, a half-circle of horizon whichever way I turn. I can feel the air rushing through the holes in my suit, feel the non-shockwaves of the Normandy's death behind me. I dream that the air is gone, all gone, and my hands are clawing at my throat but I'm still alive. The sunstar breaks free of the planet's shadow and I am ablaze with light, a glorious death; but I'll still alive. I can't breathe. My heart burns in my chest, and I know that if I turn around I will see Kaidan and Joker behind me, blue-cold with the death of atmospheric loss. I don't turn around. I am pulled toward the sunstar, a fierce grip on my body, in my bones. I can scream, I can cry in my dream—sometimes I even see Ashley floating beside me in her familiar armour, and she laughs with a bloody mouth and hollow eyes to see me die alone.

When I dream, I don't wake up. The dream shifts, slipping into half-remembered conversations and the sounds of gunshots, the hiss and crackle of biotics flaring up around me. I shoot everyone. I shoot them all again, and again. Saren becomes Sovereign, Sovereign becomes Saren; Saren becomes Garrus, and I shoot him in the eye because I cannot trust him any more—what if he becomes Sovereign again? So I shoot, and run, and run again. Eventually the gunshots disappear into the distance, Kaidan and Miranda and Thane dead—killed by krogans and batarians and mercenaries in faceless armour, and I am left alone to run. Tali catches up with me and laughs because her mask is smashed open, her blank face soaked in blood. Saren becomes Sovereign and Sovereign becomes the Illusive Man, and I wake up with my hands still wrapped around my own throat.

So I stop sleeping. Samara asks no questions, but patiently teaches me how to reinvigorate my biotic abilities without the usual human-required hours of sleep; meditation, food, meditation and more food. If I'm not shooting, I'm eating. Joker makes comments about pregnancy and gluttony until he notices that I'm not laughing. The food begins to work. For a little while, things work out. I stop snapping at Jack. I take out some of my frustrations on Grunt until one of our sparring sessions gives me an ankle torn so badly I'm limping for days, even with the best medical treatment, a biotic healing display—again provided by Samara—and Miranda scaring Grunt into refusing to fight me again. Garrus offers to help, being more in my weight range, but I am so scared of hurting him I refuse. I retreat to my cabin and try not to trust anyone. Friendships are wonderful; friendships saved the Citadel. I should stop being a coward and go out there, talk to my team, get to know them as well as I knew the first Normandy.

But I begin to see Ash laughing with her bloody mouth and hollow eyes even when I meditate. I walk out in my new Cerberus-provided uniform and select people to take with me. I fight down the nausea and headaches that apparently came with the technological corrections, additions to my bones and muscles and nerves. I go out, I shoot, I talk.

Oh, how I talk.

I give rousing speeches to a flotilla of quarians. I talk Garrus down from killing for revenge. I convince Miranda her sister needs a sister, not a mysterious benefactor. I talk to Okeer about the Krogan and hear nothing good in reply. I talk to Mordin about research and genophage and Virimire. I talk until I want to rip my own tongue out. My tongue lies. I am so good at telling people what they want to hear from me; the good, the noble, the careful Shepard. Words, words, words. I've seen the other side of death and all they want is words.

The day we landed on Horizon, before half the team had even joined us, I saw Kaidan. We shook hands, and I looked into his eyes and saw a stranger. I could name every member of the first Normandy's crew. I could tell you their life stories, their hopes and the names they spoke in the dark.

I looked into his eyes and saw caution, distrust. I didn't blame him. I am not Shepard. I have the remains of my old body, glued and stitched and tugged together by the best technology this universe can buy. I have my own mind, my own memories. I have my own moral compass, the great streak of light that burns between my eyes and drags me mercilessly down the path of What is Right. But I do not have myself. Who am I, the Shepard some people hate, some people hero-worship? Who am I to save the galaxy? Who am I to decide who lives, dies, survives, comes with me or stays behind? What do I feel? I look at myself from one side and see a scared cowardly woman shooting everything in sight and talking, talking because no one listens but no one wants to hear the silence. Often after I eat, I find myself rushing to the bathroom, emptying my stomach. I'm never hungry now.

So I said goodbye to Kaidan and we go to Illium. I see Liara, and see the same disconnection in her eyes; self and non-self, self and expectation. She's coping better than I, though. She chose to live that way. I still see the sunstar just as my last breath is sucked out of my suit.

We pick up Thane, after shooting yet more mercenaries—the way I'm going there would be no mercenaries left in the galaxy—and bring him on board. I don't talk to him, but leave his welcome-aboard chats to Kelly and Miranda.

The meditation practice fails entirely. Every time I close my eyes now, I hear the high shriek of the Collector's particle beam over the steady hiss of my biotics. I give up, thank Samara and go back to exhausting myself in training. The only way I sleep is with my face pressed into the floor of the training mats. The crew is worried, I think—well, Miranda and Garrus and Tali. They are worried that their Commander is falling apart, but I'm not. I know what I have to do. I know what I need to eat, how much sleep I must have to operate competently. I know how to hold my gun, not to take stimulants, to smile and ask questions.

I do my job, because no one else will do it. I have seen what is on the other side of death and everyone is so scared of dying they do not ask what it actually is.

Miranda demands I sleep properly, take some time off training to rest and read. I remind her that after two years of sleep I am undermuscled, low on stamina, weak-wristed and short of breath. I am still the Commander: she shrugs one shoulder but accepts it. The Illusive Man sends me a message asking me to see his favourite psychologist on Illium. I suggest—politely—that Miranda limit her reports to mission progress and nothing else. The silence after that message is deafening.

Grunt and Thane and I destroy a thresher maw, because we can, and during the fight I feel one of my cybernetic implants shift at the base of my skull. Pain explodes in my head and I can't see, can't feel, can't smell the sour offal stench any more—a blessing in disguise—but I can hear the creature's roar and I spin around, aim blind, and fire. The earth shudders; I stumble back and someone crashes into me, throwing me to one side. I feel the whoosh of an impact; my eyes shiver back to life. The thresher's carcass has landed where I stood a few seconds ago. The pain flares deeper into my skull, a metallic tang on my tongue. Thane stands up and offers me a hand, holstering his favourite rifle as he does so. He smiles, his strange eyes full of fire. I force a smile in return, and congratulate Grunt on completing his rite of passage. Wrex is glad to see me, I think, and treats me as if nothing has changed. For one moment as the pain in my skull eases, I wish I could stay here on this ugly, beaten rock and talk to him and pretend I've already saved the galaxy from its own stiff-necked blindness. But Thane asks if I am well. I'm blinking far too much. I nod, carefully, and we leave Wrex to his dreams and go back to hunting Collectors. Doctor Chakwas gives me a scan and a painkiller, and says it may happen again but there's not much to be done. I think of Kaidan and his biotic migranes, the way his face would draw in, his eyes grow shadowed, and I wonder if this is excrutiating agony is what he felt.

So I develop a habit of wandering the ship during the long hours of travel. I stand behind Joker and stare into the black-blue of space until he asks EDI if I can be forcibly removed because I'm making him nervous. Samara always welcomes me, and we sit in comfortable silence. I think she is more used to being silent than speaking, and now that is more restful than sleep. Gradually I even doze, sitting cross-legged until I go numb, staring into the field of stars that slide through graceful darkness away behind us. Even Jack is restful to be around. She asks no questions, tells nothing, and gradually I see there is a great philosophy of mind beneath the violence and bloodthirsty conditioning—if only she would admit to it. I think, sometimes, that she and Samara would deal well together if not for the stark void of belief and conviction between them. They both look into the darkness when others close their eyes.

I avoid Miranda, avoid the way she watches every move I make. There are moments when I think she knows me better than I know myself. Jacob and I have nothing to say to each other; the past is past, the future is on its way. I help him find his father, and that is that.

It comes to me, slowly, that I am dying. I have been dead, and dragged back into life out of sheer bloody-mindedness from Miranda and the Illusive Man. Some days my fingers go numb, slipping on the trigger, fumbling on the star maps as I plot our next course. My heart lurches as we sprint across yet another battlefield. Once or twice I stop breathing until the panic kicks in and I force air down my lungs. I don't think about it for a while, don't even notice, until Thane and Jack and I are exploring Jack's old home, old prison. Breathing is hard anyway on this foreign planet, but even so I begin to cough, and can't stop coughing. My throat is raw. Jack doesn't notice, but Thane looks at me with a curious calm. When we get back to the ship, as we unload our guns in the armoury, he suggests quietly that I see the Doctor.

"I'm fine," I say, and that is that. I go to my cabin, and lose myself in paperwork. The pseudo-plastic, new-ship smell fills my nostrils, invading me with all the silent reminders that this is wrong. This Normandy and I are poor copies of what we were; I am metal and upgrades, just as she is.I should be dead. I am dead. The datapads skid across the desk. I'm dying.

I have to get out. Abandoning my unwelcoming cabin, I step into the elevator that I once found claustrophobic and now find safe. I listen to my body; my heartbeat is so quiet I can't hear or feel it. A nerve twitches in my elbow, a persistant reminder of inaction. The implant at the back of my skull is a dull rumble deep inside my bloodstream. The hallways are empty, most of the crew asleep as we cruise through the giant black of space toward Omega. I swallow, dry-mouthed, and follow the corridor to Life Support. The lock is green, so I knock and walk inside. Thane is sitting at the table, eyes half-closed in his favoured meditation. He half-turns as I walk in, and says, "Shepard."

I sit down opposite him, still lost in the revelation that has been screaming for attention. When I dream, I dream of death in the sunstar of Normandy's graveyard. I know now. "I think I'm dying," I say in the voice that is mine but not mine. The perfect replica of my voice that Cerberus gave me.

Thane leans back in his chair, and says, "Yes."

I contemplate the table. He waits.

"I should be scared."

"Perhaps."

Behind me, the Normandy's great engine hums, the song that leeches through the entire ship, the pervasive reminder that this is not the loving old Normandy but an imposter, sleek and beautiful. It is not my Normandy. My Normandy died, and I with her.

"I've already died once. I didn't want to die that time."

Thane looks at me. "And now?"

The broken implant in my head buzzes. "I don't know. I ... I'm dying. What does it matter if I want or don't want it?"

"Indifference is not the same as acceptance."

"I know." My voice breaks abruptly; Thane reaches across the table and touches my arm.

"You are not indifferent. You and I look into death and accept it. But we have work to do."

The fear that is coiled tight in my stomach rises up. "I don't know if I have time to destroy the Collectors. I think I could die any moment. Cerberus brought me back but ... for how long?"

Thane is silent for a moment. "I do not think you will die before we destroy the Collectors, Shepard."

"Why not?"

He smiles, and for a moment the crippling fear recedes. Breathe, Shepard. "You are too strong. You are too strong for life, but you won't give in immediately. Knowing that death will come does not mean you accept it for today. Accept it for some other time."

"I have to remind myself to breathe," I admit.

"So do I. But you gave me a chance to fight. I told you once, I had accepted the oncoming ocean. Now ... not yet. I am not reconciled. I will wait."

"I dream of dying inside a sun," I say, "and nothing can stop it. I see you die. I see everyone die."

"Dreams are the fractures of a tired mind. You have been tired for years."

I lean forward, elbows on the table, hands across my face. I want to rest my head on the table and lose myself in true sleep; no dreams, no thoughts. "So what do I do, Thane?"

He is as calm as ever, the drell who has taken so many lives. I wonder why I came here, why I spoke to him instead of my old friend Chakwas, or Miranda who could contact Cerberus and have me checked over, or Joker who knows some of the disunity between this mission and the way life should have gone. What would be the point? I have been in death before and I will be in it again. To tell Miranda her two years of dedicated work has failed would be the cruelest of jokes. And Chakwas ... she once called me the quiet center where she could catch her breath. I will not tell them anything. I will not tell my crew that I can see the end of my life hurtling toward me in the blazing fire of the sunstar.

"Be alive."

I laugh, suddenly, and pull my hands away. "Of course." The words are sincere. I know he's right. Thane has faced death for far longer than I have. He has a son he loves, has done everything he can to place himself on the right path. And for me? I have the Collectors to destroy, to atone for my sins. I have friends I must protect. Thane watches me. I think he knew I was dying before I realised it myself. How long has he been waiting for me to realise it for myself? "What do you dream of, Thane?"

He counters: "What did you see on the other side of death?"

I close my eyes, and sink deep into the buried, tangled mass of fear and thought and history and glorious, terrifying images, held down by the weight of Miranda's work on my destroyed body. I have thrown all this away; it is not me, it is the old Shepard, she who died and stayed dead. I cannot face her past and say it is mine; or can I? I look up, into Thane's deep green-black gaze.

"I saw the ocean."

"And that is what I dream of."