Author Note: Thank you everyone for the follows. Drop me a note and tell me what you think as well. It'll help me write more! :D

Chapter 2

The aversion to bio-beds was understandable. Knives and needles, that I wasn't wielding, still gave me night terrors. What they were suggesting, was nothing I'd considered before. What more could they take from me before I was no longer myself?

The wheelchair creaked and I felt the body shift beside me before my vision into the lab was obstructed by hard, greyish plates and blue eyes. "Stop self-flagellating already Shepard. You are doing this."

I frowned at him, more because I'd been caught in the act. Again. "What if I don't want to?" I spat belligerently.

It is a good thing my comrades are used to my caustic tongue and renegade nature. Anyone else would have been struck. Garrus is even better at taking my punches. He only smirked in that vigilante way that drove females wild right and left. I wondered why Tali hadn't followed through on her intent to bed the Turian. I also wondered why Garrus hadn't found his way back to his family.

Why the hell were they all still hanging around me? They had so much to do. Lives to live. Why couldn't they just let me go?

"Shepard," Garrus' tone implied I was being childish. Uppity Turian bastard. "Do you really never want to be whole again?"

A deep ache that I'd been denying, suddenly took my breath from me. Eyes clouding with tears, I couldn't hold back the gasp that escaped from my throat. It turned everything I was inside out; that one question. Perceptive, uppity Turian bastard!

While I tried to rein in the first wave of loss after surviving the war with the Reapers, Garrus chuckled low under his breath and held my shoulders steady. The big rough thumbs gently rubbed against the exposed skin from my tank top. "Breathe Shepard. I learned to be perceptive when I realized you would die before showing any weakness."

"What the hell does this look like to you Vakarian?"

"Panic attack?"

I growled low under my breath and he finally drew forward and wrapped me into a hug I had never been prepared for. In all the times I'd experienced doubt, I had done so in the presence of one man. Despite my constant need to protect myself, I had allowed the woman in me to trust the faith and security of Kaiden's arms. Saving him, leaving Ashley to die, listening to him call me a traitor and I had still trusted my heart when he'd come back to me. Shown my weakness.

I realized now that I had been a fool. All through my mission I had thought that Kaiden was my only solace. My only weakness. I realized now that the perceptive Turian and the pushy Asari were just two of my reasons to keep going. The panic that had welled up at the mention of the man who would eventually have no time or patience for a broken woman was ebbing. It soaked through my remaining flesh and into the hard but oddly comforting press of Garrus' body. Unable to hold the line. Unable to keep the distance and completely lost for words of gratitude, I sank into him and let him hold me.

His breath whispered against my ear and a shudder began to build in my bones that I would never be able to contain. "Let go Shepard," he murmured and like a dam breaking, it burst through me with a vengeance. The choices I had to make. The bodies I left behind, both human and synthetic. The family I had lost. The songs of the scientist, the flash and crackle of perfect memories, the machine logic of love and loyalty, the screaming unjustness of reality itself was a burden I'd carried since the moment I'd touched the beacon.

It started as a sob and then rose up into a fever pitch of wailing pain that rang through the reclaimed labs of the Cronos station. Miranda and Liara watched helplessly from the other side of the lab window and Garrus slowly rocked me while I clung to him.

XXXXX

Miranda's back was as picturesque as her front. There were a million questions to ask and yet I couldn't pull them past my ribcage, or what was left of it. Feeling my eyes on her, she finally turned, her beautifully engineered self, frowning. "Are you going to resist?"

"Will you put a chip in my head now?"

Some of the fear left her eyes and she propped her fists on her hips. "I have half a mind to; if only to keep an eye on you."

"Won't do any good," I smirked and lay my head back on the bio-bed, eyes slipping shut. I felt her move closer to me, but I kept my eyes closed. I needed to. I couldn't look at her.

She sighed. "Aren't you going to ask me anything?"

Nope.

She sighed louder when I didn't respond. "Well I'll tell you anyway. For the year you were in recuperation and a verdict could not be reached, we have been gathering resources and intel."

"We."

I could feel her smile when I couldn't help interject.

"You've already met the good doctor and our resident vigilante." I cracked on eye open when she paused and scowled at her. She was toying with me. Wench. With a muffled chuckle and a twinkle of her eyes, she continued. "You have a lot of friends Shepard, even if it's much cooler to you if you don't. At first, many of them were too far away to really help me and Liara. Garrus reached us by some small feat, after he managed to track down his family in Palaven. Faron has been managing the Shadow Broker's network remotely from here since they don't have a base of operations at the moment. With many of the mass relays still inoperative, we've had to travel the old fashioned way; which means it takes nearly forever to get supplies here."

"Garrus' family…"

"Are safe."

"Thessia?"

Miranda shook her head. "All our planets have suffered. We are in this together now thanks to you. You gave us a chance Shepard. We owe our future to you." There was a question on my lips and Miranda touched my arm. "Who are you waiting to hear from?"

It was him. Always him. "Kaiden left for the Alliance fleet."

The wince was near imperceptible. "He is a Spector," Miranda soothed then grunted softly. "Bloody coward."

I frowned at her, not quite ready to accept the fact that he was really gone. "That's harsh."

"To think he couldn't have waited a little longer!"

"You told him?"

Gritting her teeth, Miranda seemed to gain control of her anger and met my eyes with absolute candor. "He knew. Are you ready to hear what we're about to do?"

"Gimme legs?" It was good to see my usual sarcasm hadn't been in the right side of my body.

"Well, yes." Miranda smiled. "That's a given really. But augmenting your skeletal system is the easy part. Offering compatible sensory feedback to your cyber-grafts is something else entirely."

"English please," I teased, with a roll of my eyes. "You've already built me out of a bag from what Liara told me."

"Not true. Your body had been nearly carbonized through the atmosphere before we recovered you, but your basic body structure was still intact. We healed, bound and augmented a lot of what was already there. Reconstructing an entire limb and internal organs are a challenge."

"Salivating, are you?"

"Do shut up." The Cerberus scientist laughed and went back to her readings. "I think it's best you just let me do my job."

"Am I going to be able to pay you back?"

Miranda Lawson looked over her shoulder, her reverence for my heroic deeds as clear as her words. "You already have Shepard. Now just relax and count to 10."

"Wait," I felt the world swim around me. "He knew and he…left…anyway. Wait Miranda, why did he still…why…oooh ponies."

To be continued