Chapter 3: What's not on the files

On her second appointment with doctor Dunard, Shepard arrived at the exact hour she was supposed to be there. Mark Clark opened the door and greeted her.

"See?" she told the young man as she walked in. She had a half smile on her face. "On time today. How have you been, Mark?"

The secretary seemed a little surprised that she called him by his first name, or that she asked about him.

"Fine, Lieutenant, and you?" he said.

"Great," she replied. She walked to the window behind Mark's desk. It was snowing outside. The flakes fell over the roofs and terraces of repaired buildings, and on the ruins of other structures that were beyond repair. Earth still showed signs of the onslaught it had endured, and she was sure that was true on every other planet with sentient, advanced species. She withdrew from the window.

"The doctor-" started the secretary.

"Is waiting in his office, I know," Shepard interrupted him. She stood silent, near the window, looking out for a few seconds. "Hell of a war," she finally said.

"Yeah," Mark replied in agreement, his voice becoming dark, burdened with memories. "Lost my brother and my mom. My sister and dad made it."

"Sorry for your loss," she said with genuine sympathy, looking straight at him.

"Hell of a war, you said it yourself, Lieutenant," he replied. "My dad's an architect, who'd guess they'd be so needed. My sister works in the hydroponic farms. Even with so much death, there's still a lot of mouths to be fed, human and alien," he paused for a moment. "That's a great thing, though."

"Yeah," she nodded, "it is." Shepard sighed and looked at the closed wooden door, and then back at the young secretary. "I should go," she said.

Mark nodded and sat at his desk. The Commander walked to the office's door, and opened it without knocking. Dunard was sitting on an armchair, but he got up to greet her. She closed the door behind her.

"Thought I wouldn't come?" she asked him as she shook his hand.

"Oh, I knew a little snow wouldn't stop you," the doctor replied with a grin. "Have a seat, please."

She walked to the couch she had occupied the last time she had been there, but she stood in front of it, looking out the window. Dunard patiently sat in front of that couch, with his arms over the armchair.

"You don't take notes?" she asked, looking behind her, in the direction the doctor was. She turned and shifted her weight on one of her legs, her arms crossed over her chest. "Are people wrong when they picture shr... I mean, psychiatrists, with a datapad on their hand?"

"I don't need to take notes. I remember everything my patients say," he paused. "I'm not good at anything else. I can't dance. Can't sing, Can't cook. Can't shoot a gun, or even punch a mugger if I needed to. I can't even lie, I always give myself up. But Commander, I'm good at what I do, and I remember what I'm told."

"You probably had a lot of patients..." she insisted, sitting in front of the doctor with her legs spread and her forearms leaning on them. "Can you remember about them all even if you haven't seen them in a long time?"

"Yes. Every single one," he replied in a calm tone, just observing her.

"Impressive," she remarked with a slight movement of her head. "How do you do it, is it just natural for you or do you have some sort of technique?"

"Stealing away you own time so I don't make you speak about yourself?" asked the doctor grinning. He placed his hands over his knees, relaxed. "I told you a few things about myself last time, because you needed to know who I am in order to trust me, but this isn't about me."

"I know, doc, and I'm not playing with you," she straightened her back. "Just curious. There you have, something about me. Curiosity is a major flaw in my personality."

"Smart move, Commander," the doctor said, laughing. "Smart move," he made a brief pause, in which he seemed to be studying her. Finally he made an almost imperceptible movement with his head, and said: "Fine, I'll tell you. When you see a person, you recognize him or her. You don't see an individual mouth, a set of eyes, a hair color." While he was talking he gestured with his hands to emphasize his words. "You connect every trait on that person's face and you create a mental image. Well, that's what I do. When I see a patient I treated, I also see how it all comes together. Their personal history, their fears, their manias. Their hopes and dreams. It all shapes in a pattern I can recognize. That's also how I see if they are doing better or worse. So, yes, I'm a damn good shrink."

She chuckled and moved on her seat.

"Anything else?" asked Dunard, smiling.

"Not right now," she answered shaking her head. "Something will come to my mind eventually, but for now I'm good."

"Great," he said, nodding. "So, how have you been?"

"Good, actually. Been doing a lot of things," her voice sounded vibrant.

"What kind of things?" Dunard asked interested.

"Well, for a start, I led a memorial ceremony in my ship, for our fallen," she said matter-of-factly. She leaned forward and rested her elbows on her laps. Her hands intertwined together near her chest. "It was something very private, for my squad mates and a few other people I trust."

"How did it go?" he asked, placing his forearms on the arms of the chair. His gray eyes scanned her, as if he could read her thoughts if he looked intensely enough.

"Good," she replied, nodding. Her features had a neutral expression. "We hadn't had time to do something like that during the war..."

"How did you feel?" the doctor insisted.

"Lots of ghosts put to rest." She lowered her head, slightly. "I actually needed that," she added, softening her voice.

"Yes," the doctor said while he nodded, "those ceremonies are important for closure."

"Yeah."

"You mentioned last week that something was keeping you awake at night," he said as if he had suddenly remembered it. "Are you sleeping better?"

"Doc," she said with a grim smirk, leaning back, "that's another matter entirely."

She stared at a certain picture on the wood paneling of the office. It showed a traditional English cottage in a prairie. Shepard vaguely thought that if that house existed, it was probably left alone by the Reapers. Perhaps a small family dwelt there, their lives not totally shattered by giant alien machines. She shook her head. A soft wind had started blowing outside, depositing flakes of snow on the border of the window behind her. The sound it made was a little numbing.

"Tell me about it," the doctor requested. "You go to bed at night, and then what happens? Are your thoughts keeping you awake? You fall asleep but you wake up because you're having bad dreams?"

"Both," she admitted in a low-pitched voice. She crossed her arms over her chest. "You know, I've never been a heavy sleeper, and after my training on the N7 program I really didn't need much sleep. But ever since I woke up from coma... I can say I had a great night if I slept three hours. Doesn't happen so often."

"Aren't you tired?" he asked with some concern in his voice.

"Nope," she shook her head, slowly. She crossed her legs. "I have this frantic energy, this urge to get things done right now... I've always been active, but I'm way beyond that lately."

"I see," he said in a low voice.

"And here comes the 'I see' again," she commented, disappointment oozing in her voice.

"We'll get there," he said grinning. "Is this anxiety keeping you awake, this urge to be in action all the time? Do you feel that you should be doing something else, instead of sleeping?"

"No..." she started slowly. She tilted her head a little and uncrossed her arms, placing her palms down over the couch at her sides. "That's what keeps me awake during the day. At night... at first it was because I had been asleep for five months. You know? The first night I had this feeling..." she paused and her breathing rhythm increased ever so little. "It's hard to explain."

"Try, and I'll ask you if I don't understand," he offered in a soothing voice.

"When I woke up in that hospital room," she said, her muscles obviously tensing, her face contorting in a grimace, "Garrus was there and I told him about this vision I had..." she paused. "During the Battle of the Crucible, when I was injured by the Reaper guarding the Conduit, I fell to the floor. My mind however did not. I had this series of hallucinations... very strange stuff, but I only understood later that they weren't real," again she made a pause, remembering. "Something about a child – a ghost child – saying that he was the Catalyst, and then my Normandy stranded on some jungle planet... Anyway, the first night I couldn't shake the feeling that the day I had just spent with Garrus and a couple of friends was part of the hallucination..."

"You thought your mind was tricking you," he said, moving slightly in his armchair. There wasn't a question in his voice.

"Yeah, exactly," said the Commander, distressed. "I didn't fear that I wouldn't wake up again if I went to sleep that night. What I feared is that I'd realize I hadn't woken up at all." She moved uncomfortably on the couch, her lips closed for a while. After nearly a minute she resumed talking. "During the day I'd accepted that I'd been in a coma for months and I was back. But at night, it wasn't so easy to tell what was real," she paused. "It was dark, and the shapes were vague. You see, Liara decorated my room a lot like my cabin on the Normandy. The turian sleeping right beside me could have been a memory, a wish... My body could have still been on that hospital bed, while my mind thought I was with Garrus..."

Neither of them spoke for a minute. Shepard crossed her arms as if she felt cold. Dunard then asked softly:

"Is that why you discharged yourself from the hospital?"

"Oh, you know that?" she sounded surprised. She let her arms fall to her sides.

"It's on your files," he replied in a calm tone. He briefly glanced behind him, in the direction of his desk.

"Of course it is," she said, tired. "Anyway," she continued after a brief pause, "that first night I didn't sleep." She uncrossed her legs and leaned forward, resting her forearms on her laps. "I just watched my turian breathing, fearing that if I so much as blinked, he might disappear. I slept the second night, but that was when the bad dreams began."

"And now?" the doctor asked, genuinely interested.

"The dreams are getting worse," she lowered her voice. "Doctor, I'm a soldier. I was wounded many times, and I have a high pain threshold. I died, for fuck's sake. But... the Reaper's death ray, and the debris that fell over me... In all my years of service, I never experienced something like that." She shook her head. Her tone revealed anguish, the type of which the doctor had never heard from this particular patient. The contrast was apparent because so far she had been so controlled, in charge of herself despite the deep feelings she had confessed. "It was beyond pain, it was excruciating torture. And now the dreams are getting vivid and a little of that pain is creeping into them. Not every night, it only happened a couple of times, but..."

"You fear that if you sleep," completed Dunard, "it might happen again."

"Yeah," she admitted, nodding slowly. She seemed profoundly ashamed. "I mean, I'm a soldier, I shouldn't fear pain..."

"If you had to face a combat situation in real life, would you fear being injured?" he asked.

"Nope," she replied immediately. "It's not that I like it, but it comes with the job. I'm not scared of it. What I fear is that ghost pain, while I'm dreaming..."

"It's a reasonable response, Commander," he said, putting his elbows on the arms of his chair. "If you're wounded while you're awake, you can do something about it. Apply some medi-gel, have a painkiller. And you have the reward that you were performing your duty. However, if you feel pain in your dreams, there's nothing you can do about it, not to mention that nobody gains anything from it," Dunard paused. "I would think there's something seriously wrong with you if you didn't want to avoid that sort of pain. Luckily there are courses of action to take, for instance I could prescribe you some sleeping pills that-"

"Not happening," she interrupted with a wide and fast motion of her hand from side to side, with her palm down, while shaking her head. "I'm not taking drugs."

"I felt that would be your answer," he paused. "It may be necessary though. According to your files, you woke up from coma about a month ago. If you can't sleep well for much longer, you could seriously compromise your health."

"Give me the options," she demanded. Her self control, her decision and the leadership her voice exuded were all back. There wasn't even a shadow of her previous distress.

"Well, today, before you leave," Dunard said, "I'll give you some relaxation exercises. If they don't work, I'll have to prescribe you the pills next week."

"I'll make them work," she said, determined.

"Don't you dare lying to me about it next time," he said, grinning. He adopted a more serious tone, and said: "It'd really be against your interests."

"Doc, I'm here, right?" she said, sounding exhausted. She leaned back, resting on the couch. "Chakwas didn't send me, I asked her to recommend me someone and she gave me your name. I know I should sleep, but I'll make your relaxation exercises work," she paused. "I want to get better. I promised Garrus I'd take care of myself."

He nodded slowly, while she thought about all the other things she wasn't telling him. She decided that information could wait. She wasn't ready to speak about all of her concerns with him yet.

"You started this therapy after returning to active service," he said a moment later. "I wouldn't have recommended it if you came before. In fact, I'm thinking on giving Admiral Hackett advice to place you on leave for some time."

"No, doctor," she said, anxious, "don't do that to me. I'm on duty because I asked for it."

"I know," he said with a smile. "Hackett gave me your files in person. They are very confidential and complete. I don't think many people would be cleared to see those files, in fact I'd be surprised if anyone else other than the Admiral and myself had full access to them."

"You must be some kind of Alliance institution," she commented, leaning forward and placing her elbows on her laps, "if Hackett places so much trust in you."

"I gave the Alliance reason for that trust," the doctor said, confident. He seemed to be considering something for a moment. Finally he got up. He walked past his desk and lifted a painting on the wall. There was a safe behind it. He opened it, took something and closed it again, a low beep confirming the security had been reactivated. He returned with a small disk, the size of half his palm. He handed it to the Commander. "Here, have a peek," he said, while she took the disk, "It's heavily encrypted, and each file has a different password. Well, they aren't really passwords, they're quantum states, it'd take half the age of the Universe to crack them with brute force analysis."

Shepard opened her omni-tool and scanned the disk, but she couldn't access the files. The doctor approached and indicated her what to type. Before her eyes came the report of her return to active service. She read while he was standing next to her.

The file said that she had refused the promotion she was offered by the Alliance. It also had the information that Cerberus was still operating, and that the Illusive Man hadn't been found. On addition, it said that Hackett assigned her to a specialized team with the mission of finding Cerberus cells, and neutralizing them. The team was led by another N7 operative, Major Ian McAllister, and she was supposed to take her direct orders from him.

The Commander closed the file, and gave the disk back to Dunard. He placed it again in the safe behind his desk, and sat back on his armchair, in front of her.

"Why did you let me see it?" she asked crossing her arms over her chest and tilting her head slightly.

"Because," he started slowly, "I need you to understand. I'm dedicated to helping you, and I'm not your enemy," he paused. "When I first met you, I told you I help people but keeping in mind who they are. The same piece of advise could work miracles in a person, and turn another into a complete mess." His voice was firm, resolute. He pointed to the wall where he had his safe. "Those files might not say who you are, but they say a lot about you. I know how important it is for you to be back on duty. I wouldn't even think of taking that from you for even a day, if I didn't believe you're are in serious risk."

"Risk of what?" she asked. There was some defiance in her tone, her posture, the shine on her eyes.

"Of causing permanent damage to your mind," he replied, not intimidated by the strong personality of the Commander. "I know you don't want to do that, but I'm not so sure if you know how to avoid it. Your pride could get in the way of your healing process."

Shepard stared a the doctor for a full minute, without saying a word. Her face was expressionless, her arms still crossed on her chest. Finally she got up and looked out the large window behind the couch. A mantle of snow covered the terraces, the debris, and the street outside. The sky was almost as white as the floor.

"I wouldn't let the Reapers do that to me," the Commander whispered after a while, standing next to the couch. Her eyes were still fixed on the view outside.

"Of course not," the doctor said, still sat on his armchair, with his head slightly tilted up to look at her. "However, last week we spoke about all the other people who helped you with your mission. You admitted you couldn't have done it alone," he paused. "Well, Commander, you can't do this alone either. If you knew how to heal, you'd have done it already. You'll have to trust that I know what I'm doing."

She shook her head and uncrossed her arms. Slowly she turned to face Dunard, and looked at him straight in his gray eyes.

"I trust you," she said, "but if you tell Hackett to place me on leave, you'll only manage to stress me even more. I won't rest while there's so much to do. This was a galactic war. Humanity has lost all resemblance of normal life, and society is sort of functioning because the Alliance military is taking charge." She dropped herself on the couch, facing the doctor. "We're literally forcing people to go on with their lives," she paused. "Meanwhile, Cerberus' plotting to kill all aliens stranded on our world, and the Alliance just doesn't have enough resources to find them and stop them for good. We're just playing cat and mouse with them. Not to mention the krogan are talking about eating salarian stew, and I don't mean a recipe. My friend Wrex is trying to ease the tension, but he's just one person. I have to make sure the krogan won't uprise again, this time taking their war against the salarian to the streets on Earth."

"It's not all your responsibility, Commander," Dunard said, calmly.

"Oh, but it is," she said leaning forward. "I brought these aliens here, I told them to come and help us. I know I could have died and someone else would have to fix this mess, but I'm alive and I won't turn my back on it."

"Fine, then," the doctor said with a sigh. "Just take it easy. I won't force you to take some time off, but you have to promise you'll find some pauses to relax."

"I promise," she said nodding. She sounded sincere.

He nodded and observed her for a while. Finally he said:

"You mentioned that you promised Garrus you'd take care of yourself. I assume you spoke with him, then."

"Yeah," she said, a very faint smile forming on her lips. "Told him I'm coming here. The only thing he had to say about it, was that next time I shouldn't think on how to tell him what's on my mind." She chuckled. "You know? I got the finest turian on the galaxy."

"Still not your boyfriend?" Dunard asked, smiling.

"Boyfriend is such a small word to describe him," she shook her head slowly, "I'm not a teen experiencing her first crush. No... Garrus is so much more than that. He was with me when we were chasing Saren, heard me when I let him see that he was indoctrinated. Saren committed suicide and Garrus helped me take down his corpse controlled by Sovereign.

"Then I died," she continued, "and Cerberus rebuilt me. I found Garrus on Omega, on a bad situation. I took him out of there, but he came with me to hell and back. We were on a suicide mission that ended with no casualties, because my team was that fucking good.

"After that... I was taken into custody, until the Board needed my help to understand what the hell was attacking us," she shook her head again, memories coming to her mind. "I went to the Citadel to find help, and from there to a moon on Palaven to retrieve the Primarch for a summit. Garrus was there, but he didn't stay to defend his home-world. He came with me. Granted, my mission was galaxy-wide and probably bigger than just one person holding ground on a moon, but... he came, and he's been with me during rough times," she paused. "He helped me take a Reaper down on Tuchanka and then another on Rannoch, and he was with me when we failed on Thessia, and then he came with me to the core of Cerberus HQ."

Shepard rose her head and looked at Dunard. "So, doc... how do you name a person like that 'a boyfriend'? I can't. I need another word to describe everything he is for me."

He looked at her and smiled. He didn't reply to that question, and she thought there probably wasn't an answer, other than the long explanation she had given him.

When Shepard finally left, she knew she'd have a lot of things to think about.