12 September 2186, Coalition Medical Facility, Westminster, London/Earth, 2 Days Post Crucible Fire

Whistles, soft bells, low hums, and a steady set of clicks encased the constant buzz of urgent voices. Once white curtains coated in lairs of ash and dust. Dimmed lights flickered and crackled, and the young woman wondered if they were really useful at all, stealing power from the emergency dynamo that could have been diverting power to more vital recourses.

Like more life support systems.

Even now I can hear her grumbling, When was the last time people even needed backup generators on this side of London? One hundred years ago? Weren't they specifically made for colonies nowadays?

But back then, right after the Reapers fell, the whole galaxy needed them, and they all stepped back in time to survive.

I'm sort of glad I grew up more technologically resilient.

Equipment had fallen to cheap and rustic, and much of it could not be used without manual assistance. Most looked makeshift, raw, and constructed from what was on hand or could be scavenged. No such thing as a one-hundred percent accurate incision or medical dosage existed anymore. Hell, they didn't even have nearly the proper pharmaceuticals in stock for all of the wounded and ill, and I'm not quite sure anyone on Earth did. Apparently one of the officers had put the requisition in the day before, and the Alliance had sworn to send as much aid as possible to this outpost, but I'm skeptical to believe she relied on that promise. Just like I'm not quite sure how much faith she could squeeze out for the faulty station VI that never seemed to remember whether it was still active or which medications were needed on a patient-by-patient basis.

She once told me she almost emptied an entire cartridge of her Locust into it as the human hand became solely responsible for all those lives. And somewhere deep down - in spite of all of her aptitude - I think that scared her.

The sting of antiseptic and the metallic stench of blood lashed at her nose. More spilt on the floor from behind the curtains and in the bustling corridors. For safety's sake someone needed to rid the grime from those halls. But there was no telling who or when the chance would come because almost every able-bodied person in this little, torn up hospital worked towards the benefit of those lives left to save. At that point, a fine line could be drawn between expendable comforts and hygiene.

Outside remained no less bleak than the field hut she found herself wandering. No sun. Black coated what was once clear as the blue in her eyes, the blue in my eyes. Dry and suffocating and cold, crops sparse, water contaminated, history decimated. Consequences would be dire on this poor world's surface.

The Reapers left them with this. Not a victory to celebrate, but a genocide where every species would search for and pick up broken pieces. None of those people deserved to die, none of the children and families deserved to be stranded, starving in the frost. They deserved so much more - prosperity, the pursuit of happiness and a better life.

And Miranda Lawson made sure I knew it.

But not much potential could be left on a galaxy scarred and burnt beyond recognition. And then, the entire facility - the entire city - reeked of death and the air tasted of despair.

Little distinction could be made between soldier and civilian, officer and enlisted, human and alien in this place. Separation between levo and dextro people became one notable precaution so there could be fewer medication errors in an already flustered environment. But they all equally slipped through the staffs' fingers.

Miranda possessed no medical doctorate either, not technically even a nurse. Oh, she could certainly pick up a tourniquet and lend her services like she had under fire. And yes, she once instilled life after death, but not by her own personal doing. Credit belonged to underlying, deceased staff. Her medical prowess grew from hands-on field work, and composed itself of fact checks from textbooks that hardly applied to the relics in supply.

The illusion of kissing scraped knees, cradling swollen wrists, and rubbing pinched fingers couldn't last forever.

Experience in any capacity became neccessary to survival, and Miranda prized no quality above efficiency.

Except maybe . . . .

Seared meat and tubes. It churned her stomach because she knew exactly what lied below all those damp, mummified dressings, and she suddenly had a heartbeat to match the one on the monitor - one of the few available for priority patients.

You need to be here. Want to be here, Miranda, she reminded herself once more and took a deep, audible breath, alerting the aid at the bedside.

"Ms. Lawson," Chief Reed greeted with a strained smile, and scaned the chart in his lap for the umpteenth time. Probably in his mid-fifties with stalks of curly brown hair, a good man and exactly the attentive nurse Miranda wanted watching her loved ones. "The commander's fever spiked a few hours ago. It's down now. All things considered, he had a better morning than I would have predicted."

Miranda snorted. "More like Shepard didn't fall, die, or need emergency surgery."

Not like the day before.

Not like when she watched the third Citadel scouting party rush him into the operating room. Charred and bloody and crushed, armor melted, casing chipped away from the flesh. Not like when they finished breaking away the bone, when she watched his eyes open and close blindly in white hot anguish.

The chief's grin grew wry, and he stepped forward to press a thermometer to Shepard's temple. The results still made her uneasy.

"Slept through most of it, too," he said.

Green would become a treasured sight on many homeworlds in years to come. But then, even if one remained milky and unseeing beneath a bandage, Miranda could be satisfied with the tiny glimpse she could still scavenge because they were warm and vibrant flecks backed by honey and earth and life. Unfocused and drained, a smile resided in Shepard's eye when he saw her dallying at the side of his bed.

Drunken and weighted, Shepard glibly picked up his remaining bandaged hand to wave. If he could speak, he would have just about gushed and simultaneously griped because he suddenly seemed very inconvenienced by the tube in his mouth - the one helping him breathe. His fleeting frustration passed, however, as Miranda smiled softly and pressed her lips to the center of his burning forehead.

The nurse's footsteps halted at the curtain, and a coat of sarcasm surrounded the genuine warmth. "Yeah, I'll be right back. Give you kids a bit of space before I have to dope your boy back up with his prescription."

"Thank you, Reed," Miranda whispered as the curtains swished, and backed away just enough to address Shepard. "How's the pain?"

An absolutely ridiculous question, but worry got the better of her. Loathe as she was to admit it. And the feeling did not dissipate for a second.

Shepard's lip twitched up as he ground his incisors down on his trach and gnawed away at the plastic case. He looked a bit surprised when he realized that yes, she was actually speaking to him, and no, he could not chew through the breathing tube. He merely shrugged and lolled his head from side to side. In spite of the fact he had been carried in half-dead less than twenty hours before, low on blood, skin, and oxygen; Miranda found comfort in his abandon, without his Atlas posture.

"Next time you want to take a break, let's not fight through hell and blow up half the galaxy first," she teased, easing her way into a seat at his side. "We'll just slip away with some false IDs and steal government secrets for currency. Much easier, don't you think?"

Shepard blinked heavily, exhausted, but his stare did not stray from her.

Miranda missed the rally of wits. She wished he did not need the tube, but at least she had found him.

"Yeah, those meds hit the spot. Didn't they? Well, you look better than you did a couple hours ago," she lied.

Minuscule improvements were visible, and he remained too incoherent to thrash about. So Miranda supposed she could not be a complete liar. She desperately wanted to touch him. But with his skin so checkered beneath his bandages, fear of excess petting causing him unnecessary harm kept her mostly at bay. Until she discovered a bare patch on his bicep, not quite the right temperature - feverish and dry.

"The relay is still offline. I imagine when we have the resources, we'll fix the sphere. As I've heard, that's what's broken. Everyone is going to need it to get home. Dextro crops don't grow very well on Earth, or any crops now," she mused, spilling out a brief update inspite of Shepard's level of awareness. "Some surviving businessmen have thrown in their hats and hired civilians to coordinate with the Alliance's reconstruction efforts. Don't know how anyone is going to be paid. Credits are pretty useless now. There's a lot of rubble to clear from ground zero, outwards. The Citadel is basically silent. Tensions are going to start running a little high down here."

Her eyes snapped up when she caught herself. A trace of disappointment in Shepard's singular gaze, and she instantly felt regret.

"I'm sorry. That's not very positive thinking, is it? The Krogan and Turian are actually getting along best, and they've been more than happy to do some heavy-lifting. That's all you, Shepard," she said, squeezing his arm. "The rest of it . . . ."

The massacred and stranded people, the destroyed soil and water supplies, the obliterated history and infrastructure, the bureacratic walls masked by temporary peace, future political ramifications, their missing friends.

And because some secrets initially suck and have to grow on you like a leech before you can cope with them - her own, ever-growing, personal dilemma.

"We'll figure it out," she swore. "We always do."

She delicately ran her fingers across tuft of exposed auburn on the left side of his head, careful not to tug because moving skin anywhere near a burn feels like grinding sandpaper against soft tissue. She swore Shepard would be at least a little upset if - when - the doctors removed the bandages, and he realized he disintegrated a good chunk of his hair.

So Miranda kissed his forehead again because she didn't do it often enough and he still circled really low in the drain, and said into his unblown eardrum, "You're one of the most beautiful persons I've ever met."

She almost laughed aloud when she saw the emotion brimming in his good eye because high as a kite, Shepard grew incredibly flighty on medication. But Miranda really did mean it. So selfless and good, and when Miranda looked at him and saw the future, it didn't frighten her in quite the same way it used to.

A new type of agony replaced the old, as things often go.