Heat blasted her face. She turned her head to try and get away from it but her body wasn't cooperating. Someone rolled her onto her front and a blaze of pain spread across her shoulder and shot down her arm. Whoever was moving her dragged her to her knees and the pain in her shoulder turned into an inferno. She cried out, head lolling forward as she squeezed her eyes shut, and the person moving her paused. Her breaths hissed through her clenched teeth as she braced herself to be thrown over the person's shoulder. Instead, the hands lifted her so she'd be cradled against a broad chest.

The sound of sirens melded with the ringing in her ears. Inside her skull, it felt like a yahg was rampaging. She tried to collect her thoughts, but every time she caught snippets of memories, that yahg would barrel through and scatter them again.

The tink of metal on the uncarpeted floor. Sprinting from the room, barrier up. Sending a shockwave down either side of the hall to throw unsuspecting people out of harm's way. A rush of air and heat and noise then nothing.

Her eyelids cracked open. Black water sprayed her face and clung to her lashes as James hurried–

Wait, James. When did James come back?

She tried to push him away, let him know she could walk.

He looked down at her then. The furrow between his brows smoothed and the corners of his eyes crinkled in relief. He'd never looked relieved to see her before. Behind the shirt tied over the lower half of his face, she could see his mouth moving. She frowned at him. There was a slight pause before he started to rub his face against his shoulder. She yanked the shirt down impatiently, but even without the fabric she still couldn't hear anything.

"Suspected ruptured eardrums," she croaked. "Put me down, Lieutenant."

James rolled his eyes and Shepard could feel the frustrated rise and fall of his chest as he sighed. Even though she'd already told him about her hearing, he was still talking. It mustn't have been in English since she couldn't make out the shape of his words. He shook his head before lowering her legs to the floor.

She carefully put her weight on one leg and took one step before her other leg collapsed underneath her.

James' grabbed her around the waist before she could fall on her face.

"Idiot," said James, his lips close to her ear.

Shepard's head snapped around and she glared at him, lips set in a hard line.

"I can hear you when you're this close."

The flickering emergency lighting bathed everything in an unnatural, dark yellow light, but Shepard could still see his ears turn a darker shade. He dropped his gaze from hers and motioned with his head for them to continue. She glared at him for a second longer before turning her concentration to the task of climbing down the stairs.

She'd be damned if she allowed herself to be carried out of the building, but she could settle for being helped out.


Shepard sat rigidly on the hard hospital bed. She was glowering at a large syringe that had been stuck into her shoulder just minutes ago. She tried to focus on what the doctor and Anderson were discussing, but her attention kept getting pulled back to the syringe. Shepard had always felt more trepidation sitting in a medbay than she had facing impossible odds in battle.

She didn't notice the nurse until he touched her injured knee. She jerked away, her barrier flaring to life.

Relax, she told herself, and mumbled an apology to the nurse. She took a deep breath and let her barrier dissipate.

Almost twenty years later and Mindoir's ghosts still haunted her. The doctors poking and prodding her; speaking to each other as if she wasn't there; sticking her in the psych ward for longer than she cared to remember…

"Someone's trying to kill you," said Anderson, his words piercing through the storm clouds of her memories.

Her mouth twitched into a humourless smile. "What's new?"

The nurse held Shepard's leg carefully as he tended to her injured knee. A cocktail of anaesthetic, anti-inflammatory drugs and magic—Shepard never could understand medical technology—meant she'd be mobile, if tender, in a few days. At least the ringing in her ears had faded to a mildly annoying background noise. The automated arm suspended from the ceiling had fixed her ruptured eardrum in a matter of minutes. She supposed that was a testament to how frequent the injury was for soldiers.

"Casualties?" she asked, her voice subdued.

"Two. Four more in ICU and eighteen treated for minor injuries."

She sighed, frustrated. "I told you to leave me on some deserted moon."

"Don't be unreasonable, Shepard. Whoever infiltrated Arcturus would likely find whatever backwater you got dropped off on and just bomb you from orbit." Shepard disagreed but kept her mouth shut anyway. "We leave for Earth in an hour. We're just waiting for a few specialists to pack their gear for their reassignment to the Normandy's retrofit."

She nodded, and Anderson started to say his farewell before she interrupted him.

"We should leave Lieutenant Vega here."

Anderson looked at her like they'd had this conversation a thousand times already, even though Shepard had never brought up the idea before. "He's a good soldier."

"I don't want good; I want the best. I need the best. Whoever threw those grenades almost got me. If they'd thrown them onto the couch or the bed, I wouldn't have heard them. I want Vakarian or Grunt or, hell, I'll take Alenko, even with all our unfinished business." The nurse finished strapping her knee into a brace and Shepard leaned forward in her seat, punctuating her words by stabbing the air with her finger. "I want people I trust. People who I know will come out alive."

James chose that exact moment to walk into the room, pushing a wheelchair in front of him.

Anderson glanced at the Lieutenant, who stood to attention and saluted until the admiral nodded. James relaxed into parade rest and fixed his gaze at the wall across the room.

"Request denied, Shepard. Those people aren't available. Trust… well, you're just going to have to learn it," said Anderson in with what she'd dubbed his 'Admiral tone'. "One hour. Be ready."

He turned and left. James saluted him again as he passed by. When the door slid closed, James' posture dissolved into an impertinent slouch.

"You're hearing's back. I was kind of hoping you'd still be deaf," said James.

Her eyebrow twitched up in annoyance before she smoothed her expression into distant neutrality. She would have crossed her arms over her chest if her shoulder wasn't strapped up.

"Why are you here?"

"Taking you to the ship."

"I can make it alone, thanks."

James didn't look convinced. "Go on, then."

Shepard pushed herself off the bed with her uninjured arm. All of her weight was on her good leg and James's gaze flickered to her strapped knee before going back up to her face. He crossed his arms over his chest and leaned back to put his weight on his back foot, nodding his chin in invitation for her to start walking. She took an experimental step and hissed through her clenched teeth, her face screwing up at the sharp pain.

"Congratulations. Ten centimetres," said James with a slow clap. "You'll get to the Normandy tomorrow."

Her tortured scowl turned angry.

"I thought your assignment was to guard me, not piss me off." She spat every word from her mouth like it was something bitter. "Silence is golden, Lieutenant, and I could use some goddamn gold in my life."

James took a deep breath and opened his mouth. Shepard's eyes narrowed. He coughed awkwardly and shut his mouth again. Wordlessly, he brought the wheelchair to her and waited for her to lower herself into it.

Shepard eyed the chair, hating the thought of being wheeled out of the hospital and onto her own ship. Well, onto what used to be her ship. The reminder of all that had been taken away from her didn't help her mood.

"I'll use the crutches," she said, taking the few agonising steps to the crutches leaning against the wall.

"I don't think I've ever met anyone as stubborn as you." This time there was no insolence in his voice; it sounded more like admiration.

Her eyebrows shot up in surprise. One side of her mouth hitched up into a sardonic smile. "No one ever achieved anything without some pain."


The assassin suppressed a laugh at how easy the Alliance was making it for him to get close to the commander. Then again, the Alliance had harboured the assassin for years, unaware of their true allegiance.

No one who had been with Shepard when the Normandy was painted in Cerberus colours was still serving on the ship. The assassin walked with a small group of the new crew. They'd all been enjoying their last properly-cooked meal before they boarded the Normandy and had to live on reconstituted slop until Earth.

"I'll feel safer when we actually get to Earth," said the assassin as they reached Normandy's docking bay. "Being on the Normandy is great, but when I got this assignment, I wasn't told Shepard would be on board."

The others nodded gloomily, minds still obviously on the blast that almost killed Shepard. They stopped before the airlock, a drone materialising in front of them. Each person presented their palm and their omnitools flared to life as the drone checked their palm prints as well as their security passes. The assassin held out his hand, the drone taking no longer to approve him than it had anyone else.

Trying to kill Shepard in her room had almost worked. Perhaps it was stupid, but the assassin didn't think she'd be able to avoid a belt of already-activated grenades going off in her tiny room. The assassin underestimated just how quickly Shepard could react.

The little group shuffled into the decontamination chamber between the outer and inner doors. When the inner doors slid open, the assassin smiled as he took his first step onto the Normandy.

Next time, he would not be so careless.