~Author's Note~ Just a little idea that popped into my head in the wee hours of the morning. Not something that I've seen before. A little darker than my other fics.

Shepard nearly slipped on the ice for the fourth time since exiting the shuttle, and again mentally berated herself for not bringing along a crewmember.

What an ignoble end for the great Commander Shepard. Yes, she defeated Sovereign and his army of Geth, but then she slipped on an ice flow and broke her neck. May she rest in peace. The idiot.

It certainly wasn't the best time for her to take a break from her mission and head out to Alchera, just to collect a few dog-tags. Not to mention, she really didn't appreciate Hackett deciding she was the best person for the job. What kind of messed-up superior sends a soldier back to the spot where she died to do a job that anyone with a pair of eyes could handle? Chambers knew it, she had tried to get Shepard to let Garrus or Jacob go down to the planet's surface, but Shepard had had no choice after what Garrus had done.

In Hackett's defense, of course, he didn't really have a precedent for a soldier dying and then suddenly coming back two years later. Still, you don't need a psych degree to know that kind of experience is going to change a gal. Not that she was going to tell the psychologist Cerberus had assigned any of that. She didn't trust the Illusive Man as far as she could throw him. She could probably throw him pretty far with her biotics, but that wasn't the point. She just knew Kelly Chambers was reporting everything back to her leader, and she didn't want it getting back to the Illusive Man that she was weak, or human. He had violated her enough already by just rebuilding her. Her mind and her feelings were her own, damn it. She didn't need to be psycho-analyzed by Cerberus.

What really pissed her off though, was Garrus. She and Garrus had a camaraderie from the old days, being as they were the only two people on the Normandy that had worked together to stop Saren. Okay, there were Chakwas and Joker, too, but she meant someone she could count on to watch her six. And that son-of-a-turian-whore had had the gall to ask her if she was "okay" with going down there, in front of the entire goddamned crew. No, she sure as hell wasn't okay with going down where she had *died*, but hell if she was going to stay behind while someone else went and grabbed the dog tags now! And no thank you, she didn't want your help, you big blue ass, not after that!

She was supposed to be the great Commander Shepard, and first Kaidan decides to treat her like a traitor, and now Garrus is treating her like... like she's about to break.

Maybe she is about to break. The dreams were getting worse.

But that doesn't mean she wants Kelly in her face every time she gets off the damn shuttle. Nor does she really want to deal with Thane and his passive bullshit. If he wanted her, then let the man speak up already. She could politely tell him to fuck off, she wasn't interested in drell, and they could move past it. But now, the tension was just high enough that everybody else was noticing it.

It didn't help that Kasumi kept subtly nudging her towards Thane. She was pretty sure the girl wanted her and Thane together just so she'd have Jacob all to herself. Not that Kasumi was willing to make a move either, she just liked to watch the man work out.

Jeez. It was like she was in command of a crew of teenagers.

Only Garrus treated her like a friend- like an adult, and now he was worried about her. But then, that's what friends would do for each other... right? Shepard knew she wasn't the easiest person to get along with, and she had never had any real friends, growing up on the streets of New York. She had seen some vids on the concept though. It seemed to her that friends wouldn't accuse each other of treachery, that's for damn sure. Good riddance to Kaidan. But... they did look out for each other. Damn it. Now she owed Garrus an apology for blowing up at him. That wouldn't be awkward at all.

She bent down, grabbing another dog-tag, bringing her total to 18. It was like some damn perverted easter egg hunt. She was not leaving without getting all twenty of the things, even if she was about to freeze even through her armor.

She trudged over to the Mako, checking around the vehicle to see if- yep, there was another.

Just one more to go and she could get off this frozen rock. Maybe head down to the med-lab and surprise Chakwas with that bottle of Serrice Ice Brandy she had picked up. That would definitely help warm her up.

There was a glint of something underneath one of the Normandy's cargo crates. The Normandy SR1, she reminded herself quickly- her ship was completely intact, currently orbiting Alchera, just waiting for her to finish. The crate was heavy and wouldn't budge. So she did the rational thing. She unloaded 10 rounds into it at point-blank range, the bullets chewing up the crate and shifting it just enough so that she could grab the tag.

She breathed a sigh of relief. That was 20.

She commed the Normandy, letting Joker know she was heading back to the shuttle and she'd be back on board in just a few minutes. She'd be glad to get off of this damn rock, and then she could head down to the battery and apologize to Garrus for blowing up at him. And then she could get on with the mission and put this whole mess behind her.

Damn it! Nearly slipped again.

The sun glinted off of something out on an ice-flow, catching her eye as she straightened. What was that?

One part of her said who cares? She's got the dog-tags. She should just head back to the shuttle and rendezvous with the Normandy.

But the same part that was treating this thing like a perverted easter egg hunt won out. Who knew what it might be? Maybe a new weapon that she could give to Garrus as an apology for acting like a child.

She headed over towards it, nearly slipping again. She slowed when she got within a few yards of it. It was her old helmet. Charred and blackened from atmospheric re-entry. But definitely her old N7 helmet. Funny that the visor and everything remained intact. That was one well-made piece of equipment.

Shepard stood over it, staring down, feeling oddly reluctant to pick it up.

The Collectors had stolen two years of her life, and this helmet had been sitting here for those two years.

Why had Cerberus left it here? Had they just not found it? But shouldn't it have still been on her head? A sudden chill that had nothing to do with the temperature went over her. On a childish impulse, she kicked it, some part of her hoping she'd knock it off the edge and she wouldn't have to bend down and bring it with her. It barely moved at all, just rolled over enough so that the visor was facing up. She nearly walked away right then, not wanting to know.

But still, that other side, it wouldn't let her move away, wouldn't let her leave.

She reached down and activated the visor on the helmet. For a moment, she thought the mechanism wasn't intact. Or wasn't working. But then it slid back.

She screamed, dropping the dog-tags and falling back onto the snow and ice, scrambling backwards, trying to get away from it.

Trying to get away from the blank, soulless, dead eyes staring at her from the helmet.

Commander Shepard's eyes.

Jacob had lied to her. The truth of it, the undeniable truth, was that Commander Shepard had died in the skies over Alchera.

And she was nothing more than an imposter.