"You know, Shepard, one day I won't be able to rebuild you."

Her eyes were still too sensitive to the light, but she knew Miranda's voice. She managed a dry cough in place of a laugh. "Hopefully I won't get it into my head to damage the hardware again," she croaked, shifting stiffly in her white, blurry landscape.

She felt a hand on her chest. "Don't try to sit up yet, Commander."

"Chakwas?"

"Yes—now, please, at least wait until you can see properly before you try that again."

"That obvious?" Shepard closed her eyes in an attempt to let them adjust more gradually. She cleared her throat in an attempt to sound less like the old Mako's engine.

Miranda's voice now: "I'm afraid so. Normally you fix right to attention. Your eyes were shiftier than a volus under interrogation."

Shepard's chuckle sounded less like a cough this time. Everything was sore, but it was a definite improvement from what she last remembered feeling. She could hear Miranda and Chakwas fussing with something. She opened her eyes again, and this time, the room swam slowly into focus. Miranda stood to her right, and Chakwas was at the foot of the bed, preparing a syringe.

"Just a mild painkiller, Commander," she said. "I know you'll want to be up and about immediately, but do try to take it easy for a couple days."

Shepard turned her head to either side, stiff neck creaking, examining the empty med bay. She felt a little relief confirming that she was still on the Normandy and not tucked into some remote hospital. But if the bay was empty…

"Where's Garrus?" She struggled into a sitting position as Dr. Chakwas prepared her arm for the injection, ignoring the way her sore muscles protested, joints cracking and skin itching.

"Not to worry, Shepard; he and Tali made a full recovery." Miranda rested a hand on her shoulder.

The commander felt a pinching sensation as the needle pierced her skin. "They're a little bruised yet, but no worse for wear," Chakwas added. "We told Garrus he had to eat something—doctor's orders."

Miranda leaned against the next cot, arms folded. "He didn't want to leave you for even a minute."

"Neither did anyone else, really." The doctor disposed of the needle and syringe in a marked bin nearby. Shepard could feel a liquid warmth soothing her tender muscles. "But they were, thankfully, much easier to distract."

Chakwas pressed a glass of water into her hand as Shepard swung her legs over the side of the cot. She took a grateful sip, cringing a little at the roughness of her throat when the water passed through it. "You may want to get dressed before you go dashing about, Commander."

Indeed, the cool air was welcome on Shepard's stiff joints, but a commanding officer running around in a med gown was not the best idea.

Miranda gestured to the far corner, where a set of clothes was neatly folded on the medically white counter. "We brought you the most comfortable-looking set of fatigues we could find."

Shepard returned the now-empty glass to Dr. Chakwas. "Thanks." She slid off the cot, pleased that her legs did not shake unduly and that her steps did not tremble as they had on the Citadel. (She was not about to admit that they did, however, feel about as stable as a hanar's tentacles.) "How long has it been?"

"Four weeks," said Miranda, as Shepard shed her gown. She didn't bother checking the med bay windows, but they were neatly shuttered.

"Better than two years; things are looking up already." She slid into the navy button-down and rolled the sleeves up to her elbow, ignoring the groaning protests of the joints in her fingers. From a glance, she could see there were red lines and welts crossing the skin of her arms, her stomach, her legs, her chest—but, she considered, that wasn't really anything new.

"Even so, don't do anything rough for a few days. I won't be patching up anything that's your fault."

"Of course not, Miranda." Shepard tugged the tan cargo-style pants over her legs and belted them loosely at her waist. "Who do you think I am?" She tucked her shirt neatly into her trousers, though it did not have a hope of staying tucked or tidy.

Miranda snorted. "You don't want me to answer that."

Dr. Chakwas chuckled. "Please be careful anyway, Commander. You don't want to lose mobility permanently. As little work as possible, and no rough extra-curricular activities."

Shepard almost had the dignity to blush.

"We mean it, Shepard," said Miranda, giving her best stern X.O. look. To be fair, it would work wonders on anyone but Shepard.

Hell if she was going to let them get one over, recently mostly deceased or not. "I'll see what I can do about work," Shepard crossed her arms with a smirk as Miranda rolled her eyes. "But the sex is what it is."

The former Cerberus agent gave an exasperated sigh, but Shepard got a chuckle out of the doctor. "Good lord, Commander—just go before Garrus loses his temper with the mess sergeant."

Shepard lost no time in crossing to the med bay doors—only a slight reduction in normal speed and some unsteadiness, maybe a slight limp from bruising along her spine and the protests of her joints (that was all the commander would admit to, if asked, at any rate). It would probably be much worse without whatever Dr. Chakwas had administered, but, all-in-all, not too bad for her second brush with death.

"Remember what we told you!"

"All right, all right." The doors slid shut behind the commander.

Conversation drifted from the mess hall. Gardener was fussing with something at the sink, muttering curses, but two very familiar forms were bent over trays at the nearest table.

"I should really be—"

"No, Garrus, I promise it will—Shepard!"

The commander in question grinned, spreading her arms as wide as the stiffness in them would allow. "Tali—Garrus—I can't tell you how glad I am to see you."

"Not as glad as we are to see you, I'm sure." There was a smile in Tali's voice as she sprang out of her chair to embrace Shepard.

Garrus embraced them together but had not managed anything except some thrumming sounds that might have been "Shepard." He ran the talons of one hand through her hair—mercifully still in its crew cut, unlike the last time she had woken to find Miranda had pieced her back together.

They were clinging a bit too tightly, but she didn't mind, pressed against the turian's broad chest and the silken fabric of Tali's scarf brushing her cheek. "I was terrified the last time I saw you."

"You sure did a good job of hiding it." He released Tali from his grip, but did not let Shepard go.

"Hello to you, too, Garrus." She pressed her forehead to his. "I did better than you, anyway."

He chuckled, and Shepard could feel it in her chest. "I'm an awful turian, what can I say? I'm pretty sure your influence has made me worse."

"You and your unfounded fears."

His mandibles twitched in what might have been amusement or worry. "Not quite unfounded." Garrus traced her face with a talon—across lines she assumed were scars.

"Do I look as bad as you?"

Garrus laughed. "Not quite."

"You look a little… rugged," Tali provided.

"Not as rugged as Zaeed, I hope." Shepard was grinning but a silence fell—the sort that only one thing followed. The quarian and turian shared a glance. "What?"

She knew.

"Zaeed… did not make it this time." Tali twisted her hands together. "I am sorry, Shepard."

"Most of his squad went down," Garrus added, finally relinquishing his hold on her waist.

Shepard nodded slowly, feeling the muscles in her neck tighten from her shoulders through the base of her skull. "His impossible missions had to run out sometime—if he'd survived, he would have been pretty disappointed by any job offers after this."

"Things will seem a hell of a lot smaller after the Reapers," her turian agreed, mandibles twitching into a little grin. "Probably better he's not disappointed like the rest of us… although, we're still here; that probably means something bigger and badder is lurking in the future."

Shepard's lips sneaked into a smirk. "Retirement? I can't think of anything more difficult, especially after the Reapers."

Her best friends shifted uncomfortably as a silence fell. "About the Reapers, though…" began Garrus.

"Yeah?"

Tali was twisting her hands together again. "Shepard, if you're not well enough yet—"

"Shepard!" Joker shuffled his way through the hall toward her, EDI's unit close behind. "EDI said you were up and about, Commander. How are you?"

"What, no wisecracks?" She met him halfway with a friendly nudge on the shoulder.

The pilot gave her a lopsided grin. "Nah—I'll make up for lost time once you're moving better than I am."

Shepard folded her arms. "Come on—I'm moving fine, all things considered. You sure you've got nothing for me?"

"Well… this is the opportune moment for a jab about you and Garrus since you can't catch me…"

The turian in question tilted his head. "But I still can, so you might want to keep it to yourself."

Joker raised both hands and took a step back. "Nothing like that, Vakarian, I swear. Just general teasing about the commander being all mushy."

"Do I really look mushy to you, Joker? I can still catch you, injuries or not, so I wouldn't go that route either, if I were you."

"Oh, come on—even with EDI to help me?"

"Jeff, you know I will not stand between you and the commander or Officer Vakarian if you instigate conflict and earn retaliation."

He rolled his eyes. "Thanks for having my back."

"I was under the impression that humans preferred intimate stimuli from the fr—"

"OK! Got your point, EDI. Embarrass the commander, get awkwardness back."

Shepard didn't bother hiding her smirk. "I suppose you two made it out all right, EDI? Better than the three of us did, anyway?"

The AI met her embrace more tentatively than Tali and Garrus had. "Indeed, Shepard. We were greatly relieved when we received your location on the Citadel. The Normandy sustained minimal damage."

"What happened, exactly, anyway? I think I lost consciousness before you arrived."

Joker waved a hand. "We got a ping on your location."

"That the technical term, Joker?" The corner of Shepard's mouth sneaked up in a grin.
"About as technical as 'serious shit,' Commander. Anyway, I steered the Normandy in to save your ass…"

"Actually, it was Liara and Dr. Chakwas who did most of the ass-saving, as far as I'm aware," corrected Tali.

"Not that we didn't try," Garrus added, arms folded.

"They almost had to tie Garrus to the bed to stop him from trying to limp down to the shuttle for you. Dr. Chakwas threatened the both of us, but I knew I wasn't in any shape to do much but slow down the team."

"I could've done it… but there would've been a bigger mess to clean up and it might not have been as fast as Liara's extraction." Shepard placed a hand on his forearm, giving it as firm a squeeze as she could muster, and he covered it with his talons.

"Her biotics played a large part in extracting you without causing further damage to your systems," said EDI. "The Reapers had begun a retreat—"

"And here's where it gets weird."

"'Peculiar,' perhaps, Jeff, but not entirely inexplicable."

"Whatever—keep going—the part about the AI-catalyst-doomsday thing is wack."

"I discovered and communicated with an AI as Liara transported you safely to the shuttle. Shepard—it said it had come to an accordance with you, that it controlled the Reapers and would use them to help repair the destruction they had caused, and then disappear to the far reaches of Dark Space."

She nodded. "Yes."

"What?"

"But, Shepard, what did you have to concede? What did it want?" Tali demanded.

"It was designed to create a solution in the conflict between synthetic and organic life—all I had to do was convince it that its solution wasn't the right one."

"Shepard—that AI was hundreds of thousands of years old—perhaps millions. It is unlikely you could have convinced it that its decision, which has, in its eyes, been successful for many cycles, is flawed." There was a frown in EDI's voice.

The commander raised her hands. "I know. But the idea was in its head—"

"Processors."

"—processors—when I got there."

"What do you mean, Shepard?" Garrus' expression was difficult to read, even after all this time. It might have been concerned or frustrated, maybe ponderous? Focused, if nothing else.

"When I arrived, it told me that I had shifted the balance-by finding the Catalyst, a new solution was required, since no organic had made it that far before. It… gave me a choice—there were three things I could do with the power of the Crucible."

"Well don't stop now! I'm on the edge of my proverbial seat here, Commander—wouldn't want me to fall off and break something."

"Jeff, this was likely a traumatic experience for the commander, regardless of her high psychological and physiological durability. Please continue when you are ready, Shepard." EDI inclined her head in a decidedly human gesture of comfort and assent.

Truly, it was not trauma that made Shepard hesitate. It was your call. Own it. If they disagree, they can go find the damn Catalyst and send everything straight to Hell themselves.

"I could have triggered the weapon, destroying all Reaper tech, including the Mass Relays—"

"Shepard, why not destroy them completely? We could have made do, and not sit around waiting for the wretched things to break treaty and destroy us again." Tali shook her head. "Why?"

"We could have rebuilt the mass relays ourselves, or come up with new technology to replace them," EDI added.

"Gotta say, Commander—"

"There was another consequence," Shepard snapped. "The Crucible wouldn't discriminate between synthetics—the Geth, EDI, even me, thanks to Cerberus' upgrades—though that was the least of my worries since it would have destroyed the Citadel with me on it anyway. I wasn't going to condemn a whole race, even if they are synthetic."

"We knew the risks, Shepard." But EDI wouldn't meet her eyes.

She nodded. "And if I thought that was the only way, I would have done it. But I wasn't about to let it be the only option."

"What were the others?" asked Tali.

"The Illusive Man was right about one thing—there was an option to control the Reapers, to become the Catalyst and make the Reapers do whatever I saw fit."

"Of course that one was out," scoffed Joker.

Shepard shrugged. "Risking corruption wasn't high on my list, no. The last option it gave me was to put my… essence… into the Crucible's beam and deploy it, changing the genetic structure of everything in the galaxy—essentially making everyone a synthetic-organic hybrid."

"Sounds like bullshit." Tali shook her head.

"Synthetics and organics would understand each other—no conflict," EDI provided.

"At the cost of everything that makes us each strong and unique. I didn't do my best to unite the galaxy just to defeat everything each of us stands for. I told it we deserved a real choice. Freedom."

"And the evil ghost-AI thing just bought that?"

"No. I had to provide evidence." Shepard looked to Tali. "I pointed to the quarians and the geth, working together to rebuild their world." The quarian glanced to her feet—a movement Shepard associated with a blush.

"Irrefutable evidence, Commander."

"Thanks, EDI—I rather thought so."

"Looks like that refusal to accept insurmountable odds served you well again." Garrus' mandibles twitched into what Shepard recognized as a grin.

"You could say that. I didn't go all the way to Hell and back to—"

"Hell and back three times," he corrected.

She chuckled. "Ok—Hell and back three times just to have some little shit tell me I had to give it all up."

"Shepard!" Liara nearly raced to cover the distance.

They embraced, the asari catching herself just before she crushed Shepard's shoulders too unmercifully. "I understand I have you to thank for being functional."

Liara shook her head. "Dr. Chakwas and Miranda did far more for you than I."

"Oh, come on, Liara, you know we would have traded places with you in a heartbeat to get her on board safely, and neither of us could have done it without doing more damage," said Garrus.

Tali nodded. "We would have made a mess of it."

"I really—"

"It is true, Liara—without your biotic skill and care, more permanent damage might have been done to the commander."

Joker shrugged. "Yeah, you were pretty good."

The asari gave a soft chuckle. "Oh, very well—but only because I'm out-numbered. How are you feeling, Shepard?"

Shepard grinned with a careless lift of her shoulders. "I'm on my feet. Aches and pains, but nothing I can't shake off."

Garrus made a sharp humming noise. "Of course. That's why you limped your way out of the med bay."

"Shepard—" The look of sympathy on Liara's face was unacceptable.

She shot a glare at the turian, whose eyes glinted with mischief. "As I said—shaking it off."

Liara shook her head. "You should be resting, Shepard, especially if you're having trouble—"

"I can make it to the CIC; I've been out of commission four weeks too long."

"Shepard!" Miranda emerged from the med bay. "Follow the advice; the CIC and the remainder of our problems will still be there after a rest in your quarters. This is quite enough for your first time up and about."

The commander straightened, assuming what Joker had fondly dubbed "command stance." "Absolutely not. The galaxy needs to be re-built—I won't leave a task half-done."

Miranda folded her arms. "The only reason you're walking is the painkiller Dr. Chakwas administered."

There was a glint in Shepard's eyes to challenge that assertion, but Garrus placed a hand on her shoulder. "Don't worry about it; I'll accompany Shepard."

A smile tugged at her lips. "Thanks, Garrus. At least somebody trusts my judgment." She glanced and Miranda. "And remembers who the commander is."

The woman in question was unimpressed. "I don't serve under you anymore, Commander. I'm exempt from your stubborn fits."

Shepard scowled. "I don't have fits."

"No, but you sure throw 'em a lot, Commander—I mean, look at what happened with Quarian Admiral Asshole—I think your words were something like 'so help me, I'll stand here and watch them blow you out of the sky?'"

"Can it, Joker!"

"Case in point."

"Joker…"

"All right—canning!"

"Now, if everyone will excuse me, you can get back to your posts."

"Just be careful, Shepard," said Tali.

Garrus nodded. "Don't worry."

Miranda opened her mouth to speak, but seemed to think better of it, waving the pair off. "Don't say I didn't warn you, Shepard."

The commander strode with as light a limp as she could muster toward the elevator. "Noted, Lawson." But there was a small smile catching the corner of her lips.