Seven years passed since Shepard walked into the red haze that brought the Reapers tumbling down to the earth. She'd spent three of those years recovering in ICUs and therapy to deal with her injuries and trauma, and took daily medication to keep the chronic pain to a minimum. Her Cerberus hardware had fried, left her organs to cook under the weight of rubble until a recovery team found her with half of her face blown off and her bones splintered like wood. She remembers the lights of the operating room; she'd thought that she'd crossed over into heaven, but the smell of pink antiseptic and a steady heart beat told her otherwise. After a new pair of lungs and a new skeleton she felt like a science project, a guinea pig for the latest and greatest medical procedures. The only human things left about her were her scars, and her memories. Some had faded with time, gently and quietly, like the hum of the first Normandy, while others sharpened like the edge of a knife and tore her skin apart. Anxiety rolled in like waves, other times like hurricanes, paralyzing her, rendering her fearful and cold at the foot of her bed.

But she was alive, and that's what that mattered.

She'd been honorably discharged, raised to the rank of Rear Admiral, and received vet benefits for her medical care and a pension that allowed her to live comfortably on the Citadel in Anderson's apartment for a time. The strip proved to be too public for her, too easily accessible for fans and critics and general crowds to gather at her door while she hid in an upstairs closet, hands over her hears and face stained with fear. Sometimes she would stay there for hours or days, sometimes screaming, other times silent, until Ashley or Miranda showed up after a flurry of missed calls and unanswered emails. They'd pull her out carefully, go through the steps and motions to bring her back to life like a doll without batteries, feed her, clean her, making hushed calls at 2am to Chakwas and her therapist when they thought she was asleep.

Some days she'd wished they'd never come, but they always did.

Ashley said she was worried, and Miranda said she cared, but neither of them lived with the nightmares. They were like stones in her pockets, weighing her down in some river deep enough to drown but shallow enough so that she could see the sun shining through the surface. All the killing she had done, the fighting, the dying-Shepard may have been built from metal and wire, but her mind remained an imperfect, organic thing. The doctors diagnosed her with PTSD, anxiety, depression, obsessive compulsive disorder, anything to explain to her friends and crew why she screamed in the middle of the night, why she would never be the same again. She was no longer Commander Shepard, humanity's soldier, protector of the galaxy, but simply Shepard: survivor, celebrity, war hero, broken thing. Something that had served its purpose, something that had been robbed of its mortal glory the day they uncovered her in the rubble. Her legacy would no longer consist of going down with honor, but instead with a slow decline into old age and instability. It was the decay of her previous life that hurt her most, though, the fragments of her mind that remained and haunted her-Virmire, the Collector Base, Earth-things that couldn't be erased, no matter how many pills she ate or how much she drank, or how hard she tried to drown out the sound of Anderson's voice or Kaidan's laugh with the cool side of her pillow.

And nothing could fill the void that was Thane, not a placard or memorial statue or medical research foundation that could ebb the pain of his death. For years she carried it like she carried everything else, heavy on her shoulders, bending her like a sapling against the wind. Her friends seemed to settle down around her as the currents of time slowed, like silt in a river, finding comfort in their new families, slowly licking their war wounds. Tali and Garrus married, even Kasumi parted with her Black Box and settled down with a nice doctor from the Citadel. Liara would come and go, vanishing as she often did, leaving flowers or candy in her wake. Wrex often invited her to Tuchanka to visit his children, and she'd gone once or twice to appease him and stop the flood of emails. Her first visit was right after she was cleared to leave the hospital, wheelchair bound, oxygen tank strapped behind her in case she had troubles with gravity. Joker and EDI joined her, and Vega pushed her along with a gentle ease she'd never seen from him before. He turned out to be her constant companion in her later years, a mix of little brother and caretake she didn't quite understand, but never questioned.

"You look like shit," was the first thing Wrex said when she saw him. And she did. She'd lost half of her body weight since she was found, nothing more than a frail shell of the soldier she used to be. Her legs were healing from being crushed and rebuilt, her arms barely strong enough to carry out daily tasks without tiring, she could no longer hold a gun, and struggled with small buttons or writing utensils. No doubt her face was a mess; she was told that it had been mangled beyond recognition, and believed it by the number of cosmetic surgeries she underwent before they would let her look in a mirror.

Shepard smiled and let out a small, dutiful laugh. "I've seen better, but at least I'm still here."

That was what she kept telling herself. I'm still here, as if it was some consolation or small mercy, a gift to her for all she had given, but in reality it was far from. The only gift she'd wanted was a death that had meaning, and the peace of mind that came with being buried six feet under.

It had been a good visit, enough to lift her spirits, only for them to come crashing down her first night in the apartment alone. She'd dreamt of Kelly, of the way her friend writhed in pain and cried out to Shepard for help, fists pounding on the glass of her prison as her skin burst like boils filled with acid. She would dissolve in front of Shepard, awake and screaming, only to return to life the next night and die again. Her house bot, a small glowing globe with a soothing voice (Liara's gift to her), had called Vega in a panic. He found her cowering in the bathtub, carried her to her bed like a child and held her until she fell asleep, calling her carita and telling her not to worry, No te preocupes, todo irĂ¡ bien, that everything would be okay. The dawn would come and they would still be there, Vega's arms around her and Shepard holding on for dear life.

Nightmares like this found her often, try as she could to keep them buried under glasses of warm milk and melatonin and various psychiatric medication. In the mornings her breakfast consisted of small blue, white, and pink pills, colored like candy with none of the taste, enough to fill her stomach and make her feel full. For the first few weeks they'd made her sick, barely able to eat the rest of the day, but with some adjustment she found a balance between quantity and effectiveness. Trial and error, Chakwas said to her at her evaluation appointments. Weekly, bi-weekly, trickling down to monthly and then not at all, they used to be something of a respite for Shepard, a chance to see a familiar face without having to leave her home, at one time the apartment on the strip, and later on the small, tasteful buttercream house with a white picket fence that she'd dreamed of. It was in a secluded sector of the Citadel meant for Earth's high profile individuals and their families. The Normandy crew had pooled money, Hackett and her mother had pulled strings, and on her 37th birthday they'd surprised her with her dream home. Everyone had helped build the fence, Cortez had said, it was their gift to her.

She cried the day they brought her there, Miranda and Kasumi blindfolding her, holding her hands through the door, removing the black bandana over her eyes to reveal the Normandy crew piled into her new living room like sardines. It was the first time they'd been together since her release from the hospital and her return from Tuchanka years ago. The shock was nearly too overwhelming for her, she remained speachless in the doorway until she burst into tears. There were a few familiar faces beyond the crew, the most noticeable being Kolyat. He was in a corner near Liara when Shepard had arrived, hands behind his back, a gesture reminiscent of his father. They'd made eye contact, and later he came to her in the kitchen when everyone else was busy gambling away their credits.

"Shepard," he greeted her, eyes blinking and calm, and the old soldier felt the terror creep into her throat. He was taller, leaner, a perfect picture of Thane before her, something she had never prepared herself for, not something she cared to admit or acknowledge but was forced to as he stood there patiently, waiting for a reply.

"Hello, Kolyat. It's been some time," she replied, forcing her shoulders to relax into a graceless shrug.

"It has. We haven't spoke since you were in the hospital," he shifted, leaning on the island opposite her. "I hope you got my letters."

Shepard forced a smile, suddently too old and too tired to move. "Yes," she said, remembering. There were emails, and hand written letters asking about her health, if she needed anything, how he would visit her when permitted. He'd come a few times, but after her release the visits stopped and the letters became more infrequent and she grew more reclused and as Kolyat grew into his own. He was Bailey's shadow, some dark angel he called on whenever regulations failed to procure results. No doubt Liara had work for him well, far away from assassinations as per Thane's wishes, but enough to keep him busy.

But he had cleared his schedule to see Shepard, after two years, to welcome her home. The sentiment was more than enough to touch her heart.

The drell opened his mouth and closed it again, looking at his feet, and then back at Shepard. "Sinem," he began, and it was the second time he had used her first name since Thane's death, foreign to her ears just as it was to his lips. "It was my father's wish that we stay in touch. To watch over each other as friends would so that neither of us would be alone in our grieving.

"But," he paused, reserved with his words, "I would like to think that it was in hopes that we could be family to one another. It was, I think, his greatest wish."

It was the intimate understanding of Thane's nature that both possessed that, in Shepard's new kitchen on a Saturday night, both promised a memory of a man that they would be the family he dreamed of, a promise that would only last until Shepard died two years later on her 40th birthday.