Great thanks go to DeliriumGothique for her hard work on beta-ing this chapter and for all the support! Also, I wanted to thank Nika, without whom comics would never be possible, and my boyfriend, just for being there.

BioWare owns everything, I have no regrets, and You should go and check the comic for this chapter on in my dA gallery! (links in profile).


Entry 2

I am a doctor and someone needs me. I cannot fail them…


I still have no idea how Jeff Moreau figured out he can call me "Dany" instead of using my full name. As far as I remember, the only people who called me that were my parents and siblings back on Demeter; all those years ago before I got enlisted in Grissom. Every time I am on the bridge and he calls me that, it brings back old memories of home.

Maybe that is the reason why I am stalling, engaging myself in an idle talk before I go back to the med bay and start refreshing my knowledge on salarian anatomy, all over again.

Jeff seems to like my company – or at least that is what I hope. In the previous week he did not do anything to kick me out from the bridge even though I lingered longer than delivering his medications would require. I took over the "privilege" to bring them to him every two days from Doctor Chakwas. She seemed rather pleased that I was going to remember about it for the both of them. Apparently, Jeff's intentional forgetfulness in this area has been some sort of an issue between the two.

'I'm telling you, Dany, almost eight million people live in this place!'

'That cannot be possible,' I say even though I believe him. I was here when the Normandy docked on the Omega station and so I caught a glimpse of the gigantic structure when we were approaching. It certainly did look big enough to house that many inhabitants, but… 'They would have to be quite crowded…'

'I'm not saying they're not,' Jeff shrugs my scepticism off. 'Think about quarians. They live in a crowded space!'

I nod in agreement. They say there are fifty thousand ships in the Flotilla and that they house seventeen million quarians. I can hardly imagine such a large number of people, let alone try and think how they would fit on such a limited number of ships… I keep those wonderings to myself, seeing that Jeff is now occupied with some work I do not fully understand. I figure out it is best not to interrupt him.

We sit a minute or two in silence, while he moves some windows around the main screen in front of him. I watch him do that absent-mindedly, my thoughts already circulating around the equipment in the med bay. Few hours ago Shepard took Miranda and Jacob on the Omega to find a salarian scientist, who is apparently running a clinic in some deepest and most dangerous levels of the station. I certainly don't wish anything to happen to any of them, but I do a memory re-run through the med bay's supplies just in case. We are pretty well stocked - the Illusive Man apparently doesn't care about costs of his investments - and I allowed myself to pack some of the most basic items in my handbag. I run through its content and realise Joker is looking at me.

'Those don't seem like my usual meds,' he notes, tilting his head to the side.

'Because they are not,' I start, before I realise I should have bitten my tongue instead. A little unnerved, I decide to continue. 'Look, I just thought... Imagine what would happen if you got an urgent call from the Commander, demanding immediate medical help on the Omega. At least I am packed for that!'

'You're so eager to go on a field mission, Dany?' He teases and I shrug in response. I am far from eager. In fact, the mere thought of stepping on the ground of Omega makes me want to hide under the bed and pull the blanket over my head. From all I have heard that place is full of mercs, bandits and killers of all races, that wouldn't think twice before they fire a round or two into your back for some twisted reasons of their own. The thought makes me shiver, so I try to concentrate on the contents of my bag. Three packs of medi-gel, standard human type. Three injection shots of sedatives and three of mild painkillers, also human type. One pack of medi-gel, standard universal levo-amino type - one of three that were in the storage. I couldn't find any of the dextro-amino types, not to mention any pack specific to any of the alien races of the Galaxy. I make a mental note to request an adequate resupplying in that area from Shepard. I am merely halfway done with my examination, when the communication panel on Joker's window starts to flash with a green light.

'Normandy to the ground team,' he says, opening the com link. 'What's your status?'

In response we get a terrible mess of static, gunshots and Jacob screaming something difficult to understand. I pick up maybe one word in every five, but the message is obvious to me in a flash. The status is bad, very bad.

'Ground team, I can hardly hear you! Dammit, Taylor, what the hell is going on?' Joker yells to the com, as if that was supposed to help clear the transmission.

'The hell is going on!' Jacob yells back, surprisingly clear this time. 'We got a turian casualty, we need a shuttle sent to these co-ordinates right now!'

I spring to my feet, feeling my heart speeding up to a very unhealthy pace.

'Tell them I will join the shuttle crew and help,' I say to Joker and he nods, waving me away. Without another word I turn around and run through the CIC deck towards the elevator, barely avoiding bumping into people as I pass. I catch my breath as the elevator takes me down to the shuttle bay and I stare at control panel, hoping it could run faster. I realise the low hum I hear in my ears is my own blood, rushing through the organism in an adrenaline hype. I take the time to draw two deep breaths and try to calm myself.

I am a coward. I have always been one. But there is that one, miraculous thing that can make me focus and fight my panic off. I am a doctor and someone needs me. I cannot fail them.

When I get off the elevator, the shuttle team is already there, waiting. One of the soldiers - Thomas, I think, waves at me to hurry then pulls me inside the vehicle. We take off before I have a chance to sit and he catches me before I fall.

'Careful, Miss,' he warns and then gently puts me on the seat. 'We have Commander Shepard on com.'

Someone hands me the datapad and in this one horrible second I realise they are going to look after me, because I am an assigned medic on her way to a very wounded patient, which makes me a very important person.

And a person that is very much required to succeed.

'Commander, this is Johannsen here,' I say to the datapad and I am surprised by how steady and sure my voice sounds - even though my throat is so painfully dry. 'What is the status of the injured party?'

'Heavily bleeding,' Shepard's voice is cracking and almost unclear with all the static. 'He got hit by a gunship rocket... half of his face is a mess and there are several bullet wounds to the torso.'

I feel my heart stopping to a halt at that. Oh, goodness. Don't they always say the first case is going to be your worst?

'Have you used medi-gel?' I ask.

'Not yet, we're just trying to shell him out of his armour...'

'Then don't! It's just going to make things worse. Take his armour off and press the wounds to slow down the bleeding.'

Shepard fells silent and for a few heartbeats I pray that he is going to listen to me - probably against his own better judgment.

'You sure about that, Johannsen?' He asks finally and I dare to take a breath again.

'Yes.' I sure hope that I am. But levo-amino designed medi-gel in a dextro-amino organism's bloodstream seems more deadly to me than the blood loss. 'We will be there in...' I look at the soldier next to me and he puts three fingers up. '...in three minutes. Hold on.'

'You better. Shepard out.'

Three minutes seem like aeons. I try not to think of the consequences if the turian bleeds out to a sorry death and instead try to concentrate on the details of the turian anatomy I still remember. I wish I had done that earlier, but, heck, weren't they supposed to be looking for a salarian instead?

The shuttle lands with a slight tremor and I am up and out with the soldiers without thinking. We have landed on a very damaged terrace - gunshots chipped the metal balustrades in many places and bits of it are smoking, probably from grenades. Miranda Lawson is waiting for us near the entrance to the rest of the building.

'Inside!' She shouts and gestures me to follow her. I walk fast, realising my fingers are painfully clasped around the strap of my bag and I release them carefully. I must be calm - I think, trying to ignore the intensive smell of blood and sharp odour of discarded thermal clips. I must be concentrated on the task at hand. I run into the room and immediately notice Shepard, leaning over a figure sprawled on the floor in a quickly spreading pool of deep blue blood. I freeze and for a fraction of a second all I can think of are cornflowers, blue on the canvas of golden fields on Demeter. It is the same colour. I could swear it is the same colour.

I shake it off and run, landing on my knees next to the turian. I wince at the impact, but quickly forget about the pain. His face is indeed a mess of blood and scraps of badly burned skin, but it's his arm and neck that are bothering me - grey skin and plates turned into an ultramarine splatter. I close my eyes just for one moment and I recall the page forty-seven of my "Turian Anatomy Atlas", trying to remember how exactly the veins, arteries, muscles and tendons are intertwined. There. I open my eyes again, place my right hand on a bit of undamaged tissue and charge myself up.

Mass effect fields immediately flash around my fingers and I direct them, forming them into tubes and capillaries, putting them where veins should be and connecting severed arteries. I can hear Shepard gasp over my shoulder, but I cannot afford myself a second to look at him. Discharges tingle at my fingertips and I bite my lip to withstand it and not let my fingers twitch, not yet. Net of blue, glowing pipes quickly covers the arm and right side of the turian's neck, then it unveils lower to cover all the holes that bullets have made in his torso. I allow myself to utter a gasp and try to speak. It takes me two failed attempts to get it right.

'Medi-gel, please,' I whisper and my voice sounds very weak in my own ears.

'But you said...' starts Jacob, who has materialised on the left side of the turian some time ago, but he is immediately silenced by Shepard.

'Do what she says,' he commands in an adamant voice and for a second I feel a wave of admiration and gratitude flowing through my body.

'Over the fields,' I say and the song of that title starts playing in my head. I push it away. Focus, Danielle. 'And over my hand. Just cover it all.'

Either I am already hallucinating or it's my wishful thinking, but the puddle of blood doesn't seem to be growing anymore. I realise my clothes are wet, soaked with the ultramarine liquid to the very fibre, and I mildly start wondering whether I will get an allergy rash from that or not. I blink. I need to stay tuned. I know I can hold up a biotic field for hours, I have done that before.

Just never this big or this complicated.

Suddenly I feel the turian's arm twitching under my right palm and his eyelids fling open. He utters a muffled screech and tries to say something, but ends up coughing. I push him down when he tries to move and catch his other shoulder with my left hand.

'Easy,' I say as loud as I can and his eyes focus on my face. I recognise the look. I haven't seen it that many times, luckily, but it is enough to see it once to remember it forever. Help me - plead those eyes. I don't want to die yet. 'It is going to be all right,' I say as calmly as I can, hoping his translator was not damaged in the blast. 'I will not let you die.'

'Garrus, buddy, hang in there!' Shepard leans over my shoulder. 'We're getting you out of here!'

The turian relaxes a little and I swear he would have tried to smile, if his face wasn't as shredded as it is. I realise his name should mean something to me, but I forget about it immediately. Later. Now I need to concentrate on those fields. They are still holding. I am still holding them, I am.

'Injection shots in my bag,' I manage to whisper. 'White with sedative. Green with stimulants. Now.'

It's surprising how fast the shots are delivered. I must look very determined. I stop Shepard with the wave of my hand before he uses the stimulants on the turian.

'This one is for me,' I say quietly. 'Back of the neck. Please.'

The sting of pain is brief, but I cannot help the twitching. I will never get used to those, I think. It takes only a few heartbeats for the stimulants to dose my system with new energy and clear my head a little bit. I take a deep breath.

'Stretcher, please,' people around me move in blurs, but I see when they put it on the floor, next to the turian. 'Miss Lawson, may I ask for one bigger biotic field to lift him up? But carefully, I mustn't loose contact with him.'

The turian, Garrus, my brain reminds me, is gently lifted and then put down on the stretcher that someone pushed underneath him. Another someone, I guess Shepard, tries to put me aside.

'No,' I protest. 'I must not loose the contact. Fields will collapse.'

I hear an argument going on close to me, but I cannot understand a word through the mist that is covering my brain. Suddenly I am being lifted and seated sideways on the stretcher. I think we are being carried back to the shuttle because the rocking sensation makes me dizzy. I know I need another shot really soon. I try to say that out loud and a face framed in obsidian black hair appears in front of me. For a second I can only ponder on how perfectly beautiful it is, before I realise I am facing Miranda and she is talking to me.

'There was just one shot in the bag, Johannsen.' She seems genuinely worried, but whether that is for my sake or the turian's or whoever else's, I cannot say.

'Well then. We should hurry,' I try not to think about it right now. Granted, I once kept a small net of tube fields during a knee surgery for two hours, but that was a walk in the park compared to the amount of energy I require to generate this gigantic protective web over the turian's body right now. I blink, because the world seems to be getting slightly pink. Distant vibrations inform me that the shuttle has just taken off. 'Please, I need Doctor Chakwas on com. Please.'

'We've already updated her.' It is Shepard; he is standing right next to me, his fingers clasped around my arm in a reassuring gesture. It is making me feel very warm inside and it is helping. It really is. Especially because I can taste something metallic and salty on my lips and I know my nose started to bleed. I reach towards it with my left hand and someone passes me a piece of white cloth. A bandage, perhaps. I press it to my nose and rise my head up.

'He is going to need surgical hearing implants,' I say stubbornly through the material. I have to tell them this while I am still thinking quite clearly; I need Doctor Chakwas to be prepared for the surgery in case… No. There is not going to be any case - I need to stay focused and the best way is to concentrate on the task at hand. On the turian under my palm and web of biotic fields. I can feel his heartbeat, slow, but stable. For now.

'Miranda, pass that on to Chakwas. Johannsen? Danielle, look at me.'

I look into Shepard's eyes, brightly blue and obviously concerned.

'Are you all right? How long can you keep that up?' He gestures to the light surrounding my hand.

'You will see when I pass out,' I try to joke and he gives me a weak smile.

'You can do it, Danielle,' he assures me and his grip on my arm gets tighter for a short moment. 'Just don't overdo yourself. We need you on this team.'

We need you on this team, he says. He needs me on his team.

Then I will prove it to him, I will prove that I have been hired not for my looks and not because of those blue, doe eyes. But because I can do what I claim I can do, I will keep up those fields, I will cling to this turian's arm even if that means I will collapse in the med bay senseless. I can do it. I can still see those biotic tubes and capillaries; I can feel the blood rushing down the net I have created. And I can feel that heartbeat. I can hear it in my ears.

No, wait. The second one is probably mine.

World goes hazy around me and all of a sudden a face of an older woman appears in front of me with a worried frown painted all over, then there is the sting of pain on the back of my neck and familiar, irritating surge of energy flowing down my veins. In a minute my surroundings get clear again and this time it is the med bay, with all its surgical cleanliness and precision. I recognise the older woman as Doctor Chakwas. She pats my arm reassuringly and issues orders I still cannot hear clearly. A moment later, I find myself standing - no, barely standing, someone has to hold me up - near one of the beds. Miranda's biotic field is putting the turian on it and I feel someone is moving my right hand, fingers still tightly closed around the turian's arm, along with it.

'Danielle, can you hear me?' That's Doctor Chakwas' voice. I turn my head to look at her and even that movement causes my vision to blur like crazy. 'Can you stand on your own?'

'Yes, I think so.'

I feel the arm of that someone behind me releasing me and I discover I can stand straight without support. It is an amazing feeling.

'Shepard, you can now get out of here. All of you get out. Doctor Johannsen and I will handle it from here.'

So, it was Shepard. He tries to say something, but Doctor Chakwas just gestures him out of the med bay, then she touches the control panel of our windows that separate us from the mess and rest of the ship. They shimmer and immediately lose all transparency. Now we are cosily shut off from the rest of the Normandy, just awesome Doctor Karin, a seriously wounded turian and I.

His name is Garrus. It dawns on me where I remember his name from. Garrus Vakarian, the turian who helped Shepard to stop Saren.

'EDI, I need all systems up and running flawlessly, we've been through the drill.' Doctor Chakwas is back on my right side, gently pushing me a step away so she could reach the turian. 'Danielle, how long can you keep that up? You've been doing awesome work so far.'

'With those shots I can keep up for hours,' I assure her, even though I can hear that distant thump of my own heart in my ears. I know I can do that. She smiles at me.

'Let's hope I can work it out quicker than that. Move to the left a little, I need some space.'

'I mustn't...'

'...loose the contact. I know, I've read your files. We can do it, just remember to tell me when you feel like getting another shot, all right?'

I nod and she begins to work with a steady, surgical certainty I so much admired in my teachers all those aeons ago at Grissom's. Under her hands the gunshots are patched up, the severed arteries are being sewn back; scraps of damaged skin are pieced together like very messy and very organic puzzle. I retract my fields inch by inch until all the protection they provided is no longer needed. Doctor Chakwas wipes the last smears of blue blood from our patient and takes a step back to give her work a scrutinising look. The left side of the turian's face is now covered with long and precise stitches and patches of synthetic skin, applied to enhance the regeneration process. Delicate blue shine indicates where hearing implant has been installed. It will take a few months before the skin and flesh would be reconstructed enough to hide it, so for the time being Doctor Chakwas covers the damaged area with the IWDS bandage – we were equipped with only a few of them, probably due to their cost. Cybernetic-laid fabric adjusts itself to the shape of the turian's face, clinging to it so tightly it almost looks like a part of his body.

'Well, we couldn't do better in these circumstances,' she says and I can hear fatigue in her voice. 'Great job on keeping the medi-gel from his bloodstream, by the way. I hate the way those things come in conflict with dextro-amino physiology and with injuries that severe…'

I nod and try out a very weary smile. At least I hope it is a smile. Most likely it is just a painful spasm on my face.

'Goodness, girl, you need to go and get some sleep,' Doctor Chakwas chides me in a surprisingly friendly way. 'He's not going anywhere for the next couple hours at least. I can keep an eye on him and you can get some rest.'

'I need my dinner first,' I say resolutely. 'And supper. And probably a few meals up front too. I guess I am going to use up my calories for the next couple of days right now…'

She smiles at me with understanding. Biotics are always assigned higher calorie ratios than other crewmen, but that crazy thing I have just performed is going to require more than one meal. I can hardly believe I keep on standing here, not to mention I am still thinking more or less clearly. I am starting to suspect that I just don't remember some of the shots Doctor Chakwas gave me.

But I did it. I cannot believe it, but I managed to keep on long enough to save this turian's life. I watch for a moment as Doctor Chakwas puts a blanket over his exposed body to keep him warm. Turians usually require higher temperatures, my brain reminds me casually.

'You knew him before, didn't you?' I ask and she turns towards me with a smile.

'Yes, I did. Shepard told you his name?'

'He mentioned it. And I've read the reports, so…'

Doctor Chakwas leans over the turian and takes off a visor off his head. I realise I have wanted to do that at some point, but apparently forgot to.

'Garrus is lucky you were on that shuttle. With those wounds he would have bled to death or died because of that silly medi-gel.' She looks at me and tilts her head to the side. 'Which is why I will not mention to Shepard that you went on that shuttle without authorisation. And that you're still refusing to go and take care of yourself. Change out of those clothes, girl, go and eat something before you'll end up occupying a bed next to him.' She points at the turian. 'He will be all right. You've saved him. Now off you go.'

I go off as she said. Next thing I remember is that giant portion of ice cream I keep munching on for a very long time, because that was the biggest calorie bomb Mess Sergeant Gardner could pull out of the freezer on a short notice.

After that I think I have crawled back to the med bay somehow and crashed on the last bed in the corner, the one protectively shielded by the sickbed curtains - the same ones I pulled out three days ago, when I stayed in the bay instead of going to my assigned bunk bed in crew quarters. I wonder what Doctor Chakwas would think about it, really.

Because I would rather like her to let me stay and sleep here, than having to sleep on the top bunk in the quarters. I am scared of it, because I roll in my sleep like crazy. I just know I am going to end up falling off eventually…

Also, falling asleep here is just… so much… easier…