"To die, to sleep –

To sleep, perchance to dream – ay, there's the rub,

For in this sleep of death, what dreams may come..."

William Shakespeare, Hamlet

The pain surrounded and penetrated her whole world. She stared at the vision before her, the destruction of an entire galaxy, and she wanted to weep away her soul. This, this was what she was up against. She longed for the days when she was new to special ops, hunting terrorists and war criminals – tame prey, by comparison.

She hadn't asked for this. Hadn't wanted this. If only she hadn't touched that stupid beacon back on Eden Prime…

Logically, she knew that if she had to do it all over again, she would. That the beacon had given them precious knowledge. That they would never have even heard about the Reapers if not for it. But as the edges of inky night threatened to swallow the whole of her vision and every nerve in her body screeched with pain, Shepard allowed herself for the first time to regret.

And then… then everything went dark.

000

Somebody had shoved a bowling ball into his gut when he wasn't looking. It took a sincere effort to will his body forward, especially when all he got from the staff were contained, anxious glances before they shuffled off in search of better news. When even the nurses didn't want to talk to you, well, that wasn't a sign of good things.

Anderson tried to focus, tried to strategize his way out of this one, only he never got further than Shepard's name. God, she'd been such a small thing when she first entered basic. Her instructor had been a friend of his, and had bet twenty credits the girl wouldn't last the first month. Anderson hadn't been so sure. Though skinny and pale, there was a fierce light in those dark eyes that made him a believer. He'd taken the bet. Never had twenty credits been so rewarding.

And now… now there was a very real possibility that even though that wiry young woman had proven herself, she wasn't going to get to enjoy it.

Karin was waiting for him outside the hospital room, one shoulder pressed against the wall. The doctor was normally impeccable, but today her uniform hung unbuttoned and her hair unbrushed. If there were a bowling ball in his belly, she had anvils strapped to her arms. Still, she managed to unearth the ruin of a smile at his approach.

"Captain Anderson," she said, "it's good to see you. I just wish it were under more pleasant circumstances." A spark of emotion erupted on her face and then was gone.

Four tours together gave him a fairly comprehensive understanding of Karin Chakwas' moods. She felt guilty, but more than that, she was doing something Anderson had only seen once: second guessing herself. "How long?"

With a sigh, she managed a mangled shrug. "Since the beginning. After Eden Prime, her brain scans were odd but not abnormal. Everything said that it was probably that vision of hers – dreaming, in other words." Karin's frown got deeper and deeper. "Then she had a few misplaced nosebleeds, a few migraines. Again, nothing abnormal when you consider what she's been up against for the past while."

He almost didn't want to ask. "So what changed?"

"From what I understand, she was given another piece of data related to her original vision," said Karin. "A missing puzzle piece, if you will, that would add context to the rest. She collapsed, and her squad had to carry her back to the Normandy." Karin took a deep breath. "I ran as many scans as I was able on the journey, and they've run more still here. She has a severe intraparenchymal hemorrhage – bleeding within the brain. She's just returned from surgery."

Anderson ran a hand over his jaw and gently pushed past Karin to stand in the doorway. Shepard's head was all bandaged up, her golden hair completely covered. She breathed shallowly within the confines of her narrow bed, the sound filling up the room like an air pump hooked up to a balloon. "So she's going to live then?"

The pause was slightly too long to be comforting, but it was telling. Karin was studying her shoes. "In theory, with proper care she should be able to make a full recovery. It won't be quick or easy, but she'll live."

With a sigh, he said, "Why do I sense a but coming?"

"Her brain activity is off the charts, Captain. Normally, you'd only see readouts like this on patients doped up on hallucinogenics. Truth be told, though we know it's her vision prompting this response, we have no idea how to stop the symptoms from reoccurring. Couple this with her implants and…"

Anderson surged with annoyance and it was only through several deep breaths that he managed to stuff it back down. "What you're saying is, you don't know."

"I don't know," agreed Karin, crossing her arms and staring at Shepard.

"Shit," said Anderson. It was bad enough that Shepard, his friend, was lying in a bed after having gone through brain surgery, but he also had to think of the possible political ramifications of what her death would mean. Humankind's first Spectre, Hero of Elysium, and she might die before the completion of her first assignment. And that… that brought with it a whole slew of other concerns. If Saren wasn't stopped, he would lead his geth followers out of the Traverse and humanity would be under attack. Worse, if Shepard's vision proved true, Saren and the geth would be the least of their concerns.

In the weeks since he'd come to the Citadel, he'd seen enough of the politics to know that this was going to end badly. The Council races liked to weave nice, diplomatic sentences together, but it was an open secret that they'd elected Shepard to Spectre status as a means of shoving a particularly smelly mess under the rug. Without Shepard, as beautifully stubborn as she was, all efforts to stop Saren might continue on in name only.

Worse yet for Udina, the Council might decide that they'd given humanity sufficient standing with even one human Spectre, never mind the fact that the woman in question died.

She wasn't even dead yet, and Anderson was already considering the interspecies fallout following her demise. It reminded him of when his mother died a few years back, and how he'd had to settle her affairs before she'd even passed.

"Will she wake up?" he asked.

"We'll know in a few hours."

He hoped she did. He hoped she got back on her feet with her trademark smile and good humour. He hoped that, failing that, he'd at least get to look into her eyes and say goodbye.

He'd nearly made up his mind to stay with her for however long it took when his omni-tool beeped. Drawing up his messages, he read one from Executor Palin that said, I have something headed your way that you're going to want to see…

000

Kaidan drummed his fingers along his knees, watching the seconds count up on the digital clock in the hospital lobby. It had been six hours since Shepard was admitted, and except for four trips to the coffee dispenser and two to the men's room, he hadn't moved from his chair. He wanted desperately for Shepard to walk through that door and tell him that she was going to be fine.

Most of all, though, he didn't want her not to be fine, not with all the things he hadn't mustered up the guts to say yet. He was an idiot, and he knew it. You just weren't supposed to be attracted to your commanding officer, and you definitely weren't supposed to start getting friendly with her. But he couldn't help it. She was kind, and she listened to him earnestly and with an understanding that surprised him. And her laugh, God.

He wondered if he would ever hear it again and the room suddenly felt like someone had open all the airlocks and vented the room into empty space. Closing his eyes, all he could see was the way she'd collapsed after that asari had given her the cipher mind to mind. Shepard's limbs had been twisted at awkward angles and a thin trail of blood had snaked from one of her ears. Wrex had put a bullet into the asari and Kaidan hadn't given it a second thought.

Looking back, he should've seen something was wrong. She'd come to him to ask advice about dealing with migraines, and he hadn't been able to tell her much. Her face had been thoughtful though, and in retrospect, maybe a little scared.

A hand clamped down on his and he started, his eyes meeting Ash's. Her brows were drawn together, and if he didn't know any better, he would've said that she was preparing to rip his throat out with her teeth. "Enough, LT," she said. "Have you even gotten something to eat?"

He shook his head.

"It's a damn good thing you've got me to look after your sorry ass," she said, pulling a protein bar from out of her pocket and tossing it into his lap. "I don't know what happens when you biotics don't eat regularly, and I don't really want to find out."

"Thanks," he said, staring down at the bar for a few beats before tearing into the thing.

"Yeah, yeah," said Ash, slumping into the chair next to him. "Any word?"

Again he shook his head, eyes sliding towards the door that led to the ICU. "She'll be fine, though."

"Of course," said Ash, and he was stupidly grateful to realize that she sounded totally confident. "This is Shepard we're talking about. Anyone that can survive an onslaught of fifty thousand batarians and live to tell the tale is capable of overcoming a headache gone wrong."

"Don't forget Mindoir," said Kaidan before he could stop himself.

Ash was quiet a long time while Kaidan ate his protein bar. They listened to some newscast about a freak electrical accident near the Presidium, a fight in the Wards that left a bar demolished, and some politician's war on litter.

Chin to chest, Ash said, "You know, I don't know anything about Shepard except what's in the bio vids."

Kaidan paused mid-bite and tried to think back to their conversations. She'd teased him more than once, made a few passing comments about horny teenagers, and one or two mentions of either Elysium or Mindoir, but that was it. He had no idea what sort of food she loved, or what kind of music, or what she did with herself when she wasn't soldiering. They were all questions he'd wanted to ask, but he hadn't been able to find a way that wasn't a total breach in protocol.

He opened his mouth to say something, but was interrupted by Doctor Chakwas entering the room. He was on his feet in half a second, and Ash was close behind, the two of them crossing the room to where the Doctor waited with a tired smile.

"She's awake," said the Doctor, "but only barely. I'm sure she wouldn't say no to seeing you."

They were led down a hall, stopping only once to let paramedics and a flurry of doctors rush past, all huddled around a gurney sporting a woman – or, at least, Kaidan thought it was a woman. He got a flash of gold and then they rounded the corner and out of sight. Doctor Chakwas went down an opposite hall, stopping in front of a room. She frowned, blinking at her omni-tool as she pulled up the interface. Her eyes scanned the message, and her frown became more pronounced.

"You two will have to keep an eye on her," she said. "Captain Anderson needs my attention." With one slow glance at Shepard's room, the Doctor headed back the way they'd come.

He and Ash peeked inside. Shepard was sitting up in bed perusing the extranet on her omni-tool, dark bags slung under her eyes like those saddlebags in those old Westerns Kaidan's dad loved. Ash squeezed his arm then shouldered past him, an overly large smile plastered onto her face. Shepard looked up at the sound of footsteps and a smaller, more honest smile grew on her lips. She scanned Ash's face, then her brown eyes turned on him and… Was it just his imagination, or did everything about her soften for a moment?

"Have you guys been here the whole time?" she queried.

"Not me, skipper," said Ash. "I had to go find the non-human crew and give them a status update. They were pretty worried." She paused and threw a mischievous glance at him. "The LT here stayed though."

"What do you mean?" asked Shepard with a frown, and Kaidan opened his mouth to explain, but she continued on. "How come you have to head out there? Why can't they come here?"

"Regs," chimed in Kaidan, stepping closer towards the bed, unnerved to suddenly be the centre of Shepard's attention. Yeah, unnerved, we'll go with that. "Alliance had to petition long and hard for this hospital. Anyone without the proper clearance isn't allowed in. The Council wasn't overly fond of the idea until they realized that they and their representatives would always have proper clearance." He shrugged.

Shepard continued to frown like there was an idea in there that didn't appeal to her, but she couldn't figure out which one it was. "I don't want the others to worry unnecessarily," she said.

"They're pretty concerned," agreed Ash. "Looked like little miss Prothean doctor was going to wear a hole in the floor." Seeing this did nothing to comfort their fearless leader, she added, "But I'm going to tell them right now that you've woken up and you'll be back in action in no time." The Gunnery Chief gripped Shepard's hand. "Get better, Commander. We've still got bad guys to shoot." Ash clapped Kaidan on the shoulder as she left, throwing him a discreet wink.

"Noted, Chief," said Shepard with a smile, watching as Ash vacated the room. Then her eyes were all for Kaidan, and he felt like he was suddenly pushed on stage and expected to perform some amazing feat. She gestured to the plastic chair seated next to her bed and he parked himself there. "How are you doing Kaidan?"

He almost laughed. This woman never seemed to save a thought for herself. But then he looked into her weary face and Feros came rushing back. He leaned over her bedside, clasping his hands together over top the covers. "I'm shaken, that's for sure. God, seeing you pass out like that, I think I nearly had a heart attack."

Her hand came to rest on top of his, and for a moment every single nerve migrated to where she touched him. "I'm sorry," she said. "I didn't mean to worry you."

He moved to clasp her hand, trusting her to tell him off if he was being too forward. Kaidan met her eyes and asked the one question he needed to know. "What happened?"

Shepard twisted her heard away from him, staring at the blank wall opposite instead. "The Prothean vision has been giving me trouble," she said. "You've probably noticed the headaches I've been getting. I thought I could deal with it, that the headaches would go away." She snorted. "Obviously not."

Guilt replaced blood as it sloshed through his veins. Kaidan remembered the magnetic pull of the beacon, and how although he'd thrown all his weight backwards, his body continued to be drawn towards the ancient technology. He remembered the impact of her body on his, the gust of breath he let fly as he hit the ground, and seeing Shepard suspended in the air, eyes rolled back in pain before the kick of the explosion left her crumpled and unconscious.

"I should've been me," he said, closing his eyes. "I should be the one going through this. If you hadn't saved me from the beacon, I…"

"Stop," ordered Shepard, voice sharp. When Kaidan opened his eyes, she was glaring fiercely at him. "Don't you dare say it. I pushed you away from that beacon and I'd do it again. What's done is done. There's no use talking about what if." She thawed a little. "Besides, if it you'd had to put up with this mess on top of your L2 migraines, you would've been no help to anybody. It's better this way."

Kaidan wasn't sure if he'd go that far, but he'd never felt so much like kissing her. If their relationship – if their friendship – had progressed to a point where that was reasonable, he might even have done it. Except that he was seated in an Alliance-controlled hospital, holding the hand of his CO, and though a certain amount of leeway would be given, he didn't want to take the chance that they'd be called out for fraternization. Not when the entire galaxy seemed to be conspiring against Shepard already.

"Still," he said, "when I saw you collapse… I can't remember the last time I was so scared, Shepard." The words settled slowly over the room, like the all too infrequent snows that would blow over Vancouver in his youth.

"I'm okay, Kaidan," she said, voice soft and all for him. Her fingers brushed his chest and she pinned what he assumed was supposed to be a reassuring smile on her face. "Really. Doc says I'll be out of here in no time."

Knowing Doctor Chakwas as well as he did, Kaidan knew Shepard was lying. He didn't know exactly what was wrong with her or what treatment she'd been getting in the hospital – though judging from her bandaged head, probably not anything he wanted to know about – but he was skeptical that Chakwas had said anything of the sort. The doctor was more likely to order more bed rest than was necessary, not less.

"Good," said Kaidan, deciding for now to play along and trying to convince himself that her fingers on his chest had nothing to do with it. "The Normandy just isn't the same without you. You hold us together, you know?"

"Oh, I'm sure you guys would manage without me," objected Shepard with a dismissive head shake. "Sure, it would be a lot harder to track Saren without Prothean visions jangling around in your head, but I have no doubt you guys would be fine."

Something… Something in the way she said that lowered the temperature in the room a dozen degrees. Those beautiful brown eyes of hers were downcast, studying the thread count on the knitted blanket that covered her. Shepard sounded oddly like she was trying to convince someone, and the more terrifying realization was that Kaidan wasn't sure it was him.

"No," he said firmly, "we wouldn't."

Shepard rolled her eyes towards the ceiling and Kaidan started when he realized they were glossy with unshed tears. "You think that now. When you lose someone you… care about, you always think that there's no way you can continue on afterwards. But then you do because you have to, and it gets easier until it's second nature." She sighed softly. "You're all talented individuals. You could get the job done."

"Shepard," he said to get her attention, but her eyes remained swivelled upwards. He tried again, "Hey." This time, her eyes slowly connected with his own. "I didn't mean we couldn't manage without you, but… I don't think we'd want to."

And that, that was the closest he had ever come to saying he loved her, that she was more to him than simply his CO. That although they hadn't spent that much time together, his day was always a little brighter after he'd seen her for the first time, even if it was only across the CIC.

Her lower lip quivered and he wanted, not for the first time or even the twentieth, to capture it with his own. Her smile was mismatched with the sadness in her eyes. "I'm going to be fine," she said. "I'll do whatever it takes to make sure that the Normandy keeps flying with Commander Shepard on board."

"See that you do," said Kaidan, wanting to believe her, wanting it more than anything. He smiled. "Ma'am."

She laughed then, and his heart soared. It was too soon for the thought, he knew, but looking at her, he couldn't help but think, My God, I never want to love anyone else.

000

Liara left the others in the small café after hearing Shepard had woken, as much for her own sanity as theirs. She hadn't been able to sit still since the Commander had fallen ill, wondering what had caused the collapse, and how come she hadn't noticed anything was wrong. True, she hadn't been on the mission to Feros – there'd been nothing there to suggest a Prothean connection, and Shepard had wanted a balanced squad with her – but she was supposed to be a scientist. An archaeologist was trained to notice slight variations where others saw none, yet Liara had noticed nothing amiss with Shepard.

This was why, she told herself, nobody in the academic community would take her seriously. If she couldn't even tell when a living, breathing person had something wrong, how could she made broad generalizations on minimal evidence concerning a long dead race? Especially when that living person was…

She stared out across the Presidium, wondering what her mother was doing now. When she was young, Benezia used to take her here, to the Presidium. They would get lunch at one of the cafes before wandering the foliage lined walkways. It seemed a miracle then, that the Protheans had built something so amazing and so enduring. Her mother had simply smiled and done her best to indulge in her daughter's curiosity.

Those days were long behind. Benezia had thrown her lot in with Saren, and though Liara didn't know the specific details of that betrayal, it wasn't something she could forgive.

Especially not when…

This wasn't the first time that Liara had been attracted to another person. She might only be a hundred and six, but she'd also studied among some of the most brilliant people in the galaxy. One or two had caught her eye, but none so quickly or so completely as Commander Shepard. At first, she tried to tell herself that it was simply Shepard's connection to the Protheans that interested her, but it soon became apparent that wasn't it.

She supposed it started that one night when she was studying in the common area. Shepard had wandered up with her usual small smile, and Liara found herself unable to resist returning one of her own.

"So I was wondering," said Shepard, in a transparent attempt to be polite, "if you could teach me how to make singularity?"

They'd spent the better part of the next few hours in the cargo bay. Teaching wasn't something Liara had ever been good at, and it didn't help that her pupil was another species – and terribly beautiful to boot. The light had caught the gold of Shepard's wavy hair, and Liara had been reminded of a flower that grew in the parks on Thessia. Despite Shepard's force of will, however, the singularity eluded her. The effort left her with bright cheeks and sparkling eyes.

"I'm sticking that on a geth squad once I get it mastered," she'd confided. "Going to be fun to watch them float around like dandelion seeds."

That woman was a far cry from the pale and drawn creature that Kaidan had carried back aboard. He'd laid her down so tenderly, wiping the hair from Shepard's face in a way that made Liara's fingers tingle. It was only now, when her concern had muted into a dull vibration instead of a sharp slap, that she could admit she'd been jealous. The feeling had only intensified when she saw the Lieutenant wander after Shepard into the Alliance hospital, while she'd been asked to remain outside.

She wanted Shepard. However it had started, she was growing to care for her Commander. But if the price of Shepard's life was losing her to Alenko, Liara would gladly pay. She sent a prayer up to Athame.

The area near the Council Tower was abuzz with activity. Vacating her musings, Liara wandered forward to where a wall of people had gathered around. She could vaguely hear the dual tones of a turian C-Sec officer attempting to shoo the onlookers away.

Liara tapped another asari on the shoulder. "What's happened?"

The woman shrugged, lifting herself onto her tiptoes to attempt to see over a salarian. "I'm not sure. They said something about a freak electrical malfunction earlier. Now, people are saying it was some sort of explosion."

Despite herself, Liara was curious. She shuffled through the crowd, and managed to work her way to the front. A large crater was in the middle of the walkway, at least twelve meters in diameter. Liara couldn't figure out why people were saying electrical malfunction or explosion until she realized that there were scorch marks leading away from the centre of the crater.

Weirdest of all, the trees had been stripped of their leaves but remained unburned. Liara frowned, collecting all the data. She couldn't deny that this might have been Saren's handiwork, or her mother's, however unlikely both options seemed. But an explosion wouldn't have left the trees untouched, and an electrical malfunction wouldn't have caused the ground to buckle the way it was.

Unless…

Liara backed straight into a turian and then offered a hurried apology. Pushing past him, she started back towards the café she'd come from, needing to put her theory to an audience.

It wasn't an explosion, and it wasn't electrical. What it looked like was a giant mass effect detonation.

000

Karin stared at the DNA analyses and tried to make sense of them. When her brain refused to cooperate, she switched to the blood work and tried to find some middle ground there. Nothing. She glanced over at Anderson, who stood on the opposite side of their commandeered office. His back was against the wall, his arms crossed over her chest, and he just watched her, waiting.

So she pulled up the brain scan and stared at that too. Her brain frizzled with incomprehension.

Anderson didn't say a word.

She'd been made to wait for nearly half an hour in the office before Anderson marched in, several OSDs in his hand. He hadn't revealed anything then, either, merely handed the files to her and asked what she made of them. Twenty minutes had passed, and she was still waiting for him to reveal the punchline.

"Where did these come from?" she asked, propping herself up on the edge of the desk.

"New patient," said Anderson. "There was some sort of incident up near the Presidium. Enough to damage a body badly enough that on first glance it would be indistinguishable." The Captain pushed away from the wall, looking troubled. "But when you start cleaning up the blood, start accounting for the bruising and the facial fractures, well. The resemblance is uncanny."

"There are over eleven billion people on Earth alone," she felt obliged to point out, despite the growing knot of unease in her stomach. "Statistically, the likelihood of finding two unrelated people with similar appearances is not insignificant."

"And the lab results?"

Karin swallowed. "Those are… more problematic, I will admit."

"There's one more thing, too," added Anderson. He closed the space between them, fishing something from inside his pocket and holding it out to her.

It was a set of dog tags, charred and covered in blood. She clasped it, then held its weight in her palm. Her hand was the first to start shaking, and then her knees. She sat down heavily in one of the nondescript office chairs.

They read: Shepard, Devyn A.

This is something I've been thinking about for months. It won't be updated quickly - it's going to be far too long and complex for that, but I needed to put it out into the world so that I'd give myself an obligation to finish it, no matter the timeline. It's quite different than my other pieces, so I hope that you enjoy! :)