Author's Note: This is my first dabbling in to the Mass Effect universe, so please be gentle. This was done for the wonderful Princess Cheesecake using her female Shepard Amelise. This is my take on the scene after you recruit Garrus. Please enjoy, and if you like it, review!

Shifting Scars

The scar on her nose was gone.

It was almost ironic, him gaining one and her losing one. Although some might find such a feature unattractive, the slight wrinkle of her nose when she laughed and the slight discoloration across her cheekbones made her different, special, unique compared to all those other humans. Sometimes he had trouble meeting her eyes, softer than they should be given all she'd gone through, and it gave him something else to focus on. Once, before his death, he saw Kaidan press a chaste kiss to the scarred skin on the bridge of her nose, and underneath the almost krogan wave of anger and jealousy he felt was a wistfulness that he was able to do the same and bring such a pretty flush to her cheeks.

There were new scars now, on her chin and cheekbones, not as noticeable as the old one, but still there all the same. The Lazarus Project wasn't perfect, given that they had healed one scar and left new ones, but it didn't do anything to change the way he saw her. Her hair was still the same fine golden blond as it had always been, and when she let it hang free after a trying conversation with the council or a tough battle, he still had the desire to run his claws through it, to see if it was as soft as it looked.

But it hurt, to see her again. For two years, he'd had to burry her as dead and try to find a way to carry on with his life. No body to mourn, no opportunity for closure; one minute she'd been there, bright and beautiful and alive, and the next, she was gone, nothing but an indistinguishable speck against the black velvet of space. He'd lost more comrades than he cared to remember, but at the loss of Shepard, it had felt like his heart ceased to beat. Everything felt distant, dulled in comparison.

And now, she was standing before him, surveying him with the same gentle smile, leaning against the table in the comm room as he awkwardly fingered the healing scar on his cheek. "No one will let me look in a mirror," he tried to joke, but he knew his voice was thick, cracked. "How bad is it?"

Her smile widened, and there, he could see the white enamel of her teeth just barely between parted lips. "Not nearly as bad as they're making it out to be," she murmured, and her voice washed over him like a spring rain. There was so much he wanted to ask her, that he wanted to tell her, but he was a coward. Even now, with no one there to stand in his way, he couldn't bring himself to potentially ruin the most important relationship in his life.

"Well, there are some women who find scars attractive," he joked weakly. "Mind you, most of those women are krogan..."

Shepard laughed, and it sounded like home to him; regardless the price, he wouldn't lose her again.