N/A: A big Thank You to Buggirl who beta-ed all chapters! Thank you so much for everything so far. I don't know where I'd be without you.

Chapter 4

No Faith

There is no faith in which to hide...

Shepard was staring out of the shuttle's window, her head filled and racing with thoughts while she tried to process all the information she'd been given. Her body - a mess.

Commander Shepard had been brought back from the dead.

She'd been dead! DEAD! How do you deal with such information? How do you deal with your own death?

Two years

The security officer she'd run into, Jacob Taylor, had dropped this little fact as if it was nothing. As if resurrecting someone who'd died was something they did on a daily basis. He used to be Alliance but joined Cerberus.

Cerberus

That's where she knew the logo from.

At least Taylor had been honest with her about who he was working for, still the fact that it was Cerberus who had brought her back from the dead, made her stomach clench. More than once she'd destroyed their laboratories and killed their agents. An organization that had gone rogue, putting human interests before everything.

At every cost

She remembered the sick experiments they used to run all too well.

Two years in Cerberus' hands. Who knows what they've done to me, she thought while still staring outside. During the fight earlier she'd noticed that her biotic skills were far more powerful than she remembered them being.

Two years

This thought just wouldn't let her go. The first things she'd asked as soon as there had been a chance for more questions were about her old crew. She'd been relieved to hear that most of them had survived. Most of them except for a few service men from the lower decks and Navigator Pressly.

Everybody else had gotten off the Normandy in time before it was destroyed. What were they all doing now? How had they felt after her death? Had they known about Cerberus' plans of bringing her back and that finally they'd succeeded?

She slightly shook her head. Naaah, she thought, none of them would know. They all hated Cerberus as much as she'd hated this secret organization...

Wait! Had hated?

Startled, Shepard stared at a fingerprint on the window pane. Why did she just think that? She must be more confused than she thought. Then again, back on the Cerberus station where she'd woken up what seemed like ages ago, she hadn't acted much like herself either.

After meeting Taylor, they both had found this Wilson, the man who Shepard remembered from the first time she'd gained consciousness. She wondered how much time had passed since then. Together they'd fought their way to the shuttles, where eventually they'd bumped into the voice from the intercom earlier, Miranda Lawson. Turned out Wilson had been the traitor so he had been the one trying to kill Shepard. But why?

Miranda had shot him, no questions asked. And all Shepard could do was stand there and agree with this woman's actions. She had just shrugged it off while holstering her weapon.

Hell, if she could have, she would have killed all of them without a second thought.

No, you wouldn't

Her thoughts stopped for a split second and then she saw it.

No, I wouldn't have killed them. I would have asked questions to get answers. This all makes no sense. Why me?

"Before you meet with the Illusive Man, we need to ask a few questions to evaluate your condition."

Miranda's voice snapped her back to reality and Shepard sat up. When Jacob interrupted, she could hear Miranda talking about weeks of testing. Weeks of testing? What did they think she was? A human guinea pig?

I'm not your lab-rat!

Jacob asked about her past, her childhood, her family, her friends. She felt a sting in her heart. Mindoir, long ago, slavers. She tried not to let the sudden emergence of emotions show. After all this time, the memories of the events on Mindoir, where she grew up and lost her whole family to batarian slavers, still haunted her, but these people were strangers and those feelings she was not prepared to share. She pushed the memory aside.

Jacob asked about the Skyllian Blitz on Elysium.

It was hard for her to suppress a moan at his question. The Blitz had rocketed her into war-hero sky when all she had been doing was her job. Well, actually not even that, seeing that she had been on shore leave at that time. She'd never wanted to become a hero and had hated all the publicity and handshaking that accompanied her new status.

She wasn't really paying attention to what he was saying. She gave him an answer, one that she had used over and over. No hero speech, that one was reserved for officials, reporters, people who needed comfort or encouragement. But Cerberus? They deserved the other version. A charming way to tell them to fuck off.

Miranda took over, and again Shepard's attention was brought back to the here and now as she heard Virmire and was painfully reminded of one of her hardest decisions in her life.

"...where you destroyed Saren's cloning facility. You had to leave one of your squad behind to die in the blast."

Memories flashed through her head. Shepard on her way to the tower. Ashley on the radio. Gunfire everywhere. The decision between Kaidan by the nuke and Ash up at the tower. Two people she had come to trust and to care.

"Gunnery Chief Ashley Williams was killed in action. It was your call. Why did you leave her behind?"

She hesitated, they would never know how hard it had been for her and how much it had hurt and still did. So she gave them the official answer. About Ash dying a hero and how she'd had no choice, because they had to stop Saren. It made her sick to her own stomach listening to herself. There were parts she wanted to keep for herself, those memories that burned, she didn't want them to know anything about her. It was none of their business. Hell, it wasn't anyone's business besides her own.

Bet, you're both dying to hear my confession 'bout how it broke my heart. You're not my friends.

She leaned back and turned her head to the right, focusing her eyes on the fingerprint again while the voices became far away echoes.

Two years

Dead

Those words repeated themselves in her head like some sort of mantra. She'd never been a spiritual person. Never believed in God. But death had always been a present constant in her life. Always there, lurking, ready to take her life, or one of those she cared for or loved.

Eventually she had shut off all emotions to the outside world, to herself. Not being able to feel anything had always been easier than feeling pain. It had worked well for her. But after Elysium things had changed. She'd felt as though someone had broken down these walls with a couple of well-placed mines, and put her into the middle of make-the-galaxy-a-better-place-sort of game, assuring her that she only had this one try and failing would have most fatal consequences. Regardless of how much she'd hated her role as iconic figure, as symbol, as hero, she'd known that people had started looking up to her. This status had made people trust her and follow her wherever she would lead them.

Then, the hunt for Saren had started, the turian Spectre who'd gone rogue, leading a large geth army in his attempt to bring back the reapers. An old machine race that wanted to wipe out all organic life in the galaxy. Suddenly, she was no longer just a member of a crew of humans, but the captain of a ship and the leader of humans and aliens. She'd helped them overcome issues, helped them grow attached to each other. To see each other for who they were not what they were. She had broken down the species barrier for some individuals and it had made her proud.

Good times, she thought bitterly.

Deep inside her, well hidden in a well-secured box lay those feelings. The feelings for the people that had become more than just affiliates.

Kaidan Alenko, a friend she had trusted with thoughts and feelings she had shared with no-one else before. He'd been there for her, listening, giving advice, not judging her actions, always having her back, sometimes even flirting. Eventually, she'd realized that he'd developed feelings for her too, but she had told him to keep things professional and being the great man that he was, he had understood.

Liara T'Soni, the young asari scientist, not really young compared to a human, but at 106 years old by asari standards still a maiden. When she joined the crew, her innocence shone through her years, she was beautiful and smart. They'd spent countless hours talking about the protheans, loving the enthusiasm in Liara's eyes, they often laughed about her clumsiness around other people.

Tali'Zorah Nar Rayya, the quarian. Her technical knowledge had sometimes rendered Shepard speechless. How hard must it have been for her to be away from home, travelling the galaxy and ending up on an Alliance ship fighting the biggest threat of the Galaxy. Shepard had rescued the young woman out of a dangerous situation on the Citadel and it was Tali and her data, that she'd extracted from a geth's memory core that eventually led to prove Saren's guilt.

Urdnot Wrex. Shepard's heart sank as the mission on Virmire came back to her mind. She relived the last moment when the Krogran had gotten into an argument with her over the cloning facility on the planet. They'd ended up pointing their guns at each other but it hadn't been Shepard's that killed Wrex. Ashley had shot him, trying to protect her. She had failed, as a friend and as a Commander. Quickly, she pushed the thought away.

Garrus Vakarian, the turian and former C-Sec officer. Her heart skipped a beat. He had always been there for her as well. Listening to her, talking about tactics and life in general. He hadn't been really happy when they had finally tracked down Dr. Saleon, a salarian scientist Garrus had to let go during his time in C-Sec and she stopped him from executing the sick bastard. Although the doctor had died in the end and Garrus had gotten his revenge, she knew it had left a bad taste in his mouth, one that had momentarily sullied their relationship. Self-justice had never been an option for her but the silence between them after the incident had been hard on her. She had missed his company, his voice and his sense of humour.

Shepard pushed any thought of Garrus from her mind as well, only to have it replaced by the picture of a green eyed man wearing a hat.

Joker! She smiled but it went unnoticed. The man with the brittle bones, yet the best pilot she'd ever seen and worked with. His wit never cared about ranks but she could always count on him in difficult situations. She hoped he was alright.

She missed all of them and wondered if they missed her too.

Oh, you died for god's sake. They probably shed a few tears, if any, got piss-drunk and then moved on!

Again, she stowed away all those memories and the feelings that went with them and focused her mind on the situation.

Two years

Dead

Dammit! She cursed silently and took a deep breath. Alright, she thought. You don't want to let me go, then let's face it. Yes, I was dead, so what?

There is nothing

What?

There is nothing. You were dead and you saw it for yourself. There was nothing. No light. No one greeting you at the end of the tunnel. Nothing. Hell, there wasn't even a tunnel. You were dead and gone, and if it wasn't for Cerberus, you wouldn't even know that you were dead. You just died and didn't know it. No one gives a shit that you even existed.

What? I don't believe in afterlife and such things.

Then why the hell am I here?

She may have never believed in heaven or a life after death but for some reason her mind had found comfort in the thought of a peaceful place. A place, where her family had been allowed to go to after those endless hours of horrible, senseless slaughter by those batarian bastards. A place free from fear and pain.

Yes, it scared her. It shattered her soul to know that all of them were really gone and she would never see them again.

Shepard gulped down the tears swelling up inside her.

But...I'm here now.

Yeah, because Cerberus brought you back. You're pretty lucky if you ask me.

Her thoughts lingered until she was distracted by the gigantic space station that came into view. The shuttle, finally, had reached its destination.