Teetering on the edge of sleep was not the way she wanted to go.

Balanced on this knife's edge, she recalls two sets of memories: those of comfort, which she kept close to her heart, and those of battle, that guided her hands and lived in her blood.

Shepard's cheeks flushed with brandy; the gurgling breaths of the first man she had ever watched die on her table: Peters was his name, Carlos Peters—she had never forgotten; blue blood on Shepard's fingers, the cerulean print from her hand along her jaw; Garrus' steely resolve, panic in his eyes; a toast to Ashley: Commander Williams, Spectre, captain of the Normandy; gunshots and shells, her patient hisses and screams—they are unprepared for Shangxe; an arm around her shoulders and the room spins: she giggles even as she and Shepard nearly fall when the commander helps her to a cot.

The doctor can feel a cool hand on her forehead, but it seems distant compared to the vivid memories that embrace her.

And then the palm and fingers are a tendril of water as it closes over her head, and kindly sets her on the far shore.

A beach makes more sense than other things, and Chakwas is not prepared to question the pebbled expanse, hints of sea glass peeking through the stones. She faces a shallow pool left by the tide, its surface mirror-smooth, and she catches a glimpse of a dark-haired young woman in it. She smiles. It's been some time since I've seen that reflection.

Chakwas sands, comfortable in a body devoid of simple aches, comfortable wrapped in her medical uniform. She does not need to look to know that Normandy SR-2 is proudly displayed on her shoulder.

Beyond the pebbled beach is a bar, and beyond it, she can make out a house—as she feared. It is hers.

Chakwas isn't sure that she is cut out for stationary living, not a life alone: not anymore. Not for years. Hell, then? Mercy would be the ability to drink herself into oblivion… the bar's signs wink in the sunlight. Perhaps purgatory?

I'm a physician of war, never meant to be in a lab. The field is my place.

"Doctor!"

Joy and relief and exhilaration: never doomed to a stationary existence, not now.

"Shepard!"

And somehow, the Normandy became more than the field: it became home.

Dr. Chakwas had never been one for embracing. Today, she makes an exception.

"It was never quite the same without you, Commander."

Shepard was laughing, but her eyes were a cavern of sorrow. "How do you think it was from this end?"

Dr. Chakwas held her at arms' length, looked her over in sunlight that now seemed too bright, too harsh, too yellow after the white light of her memory, filling the shadows of the med bay. The sun cast shadows: it did not chase them. "Have you been alone?"

"No, not… exactly." Shepard drew a steady breath, met her eyes. Those green orbs were glaring now, sorrow hiding behind a pillar of strength, drawn up from reserves too long untouched. "There is something I need you to tell me, doctor. Karin. Please—what happened to the Reapers, to—to everyone?"

"To Garrus, Shepard? You can say so, it's—"

"Not Garrus." The commander herself seemed to wince at the sharpness of her reply. "Not yet—yes—but… everyone else first. The Reapers?"

Chakwas nodded. She could understand. If she had been left here, waiting for her commander instead, alone, she… well. She would have managed. "Utterly destroyed, Shepard, as we hoped."

"And… EDI?"

"EDI, Shepard? I'm sure EDI will outlast us all, Liara included."

"Then… the Geth are…" She began to laugh. "Damn—I was right." She socked Chakwas' shoulder, kicked up sand, raced a little ahead. "I can face them!" Shepard sobered, but a smile lit her features where there was only weariness before.

"Come on, doctor! We have to meet with the others, give them the news."

Chakwas shook her head. Well, this made as much sense as anything else… and they would be together again. She smiled. "I'll race you there, Shepard."

In the moment it took for Shepard's brow to furrow and her mouth to open, the doctor raced ahead, her step careful and swift across the slick stones.

"Wait—you—" The commander recovered and was quick on her heels.

"Come on, Shepard! I must be thirty years old; I'm surprised you recognized me at all!"

"You look exactly the same as the last time I saw you." She threatened to overtake the doctor, but deliberately slowed to jog alongside, legs compensating easily for the dips and pools in the terrain.

"Then you're going to let an old woman kick your ass, Commander?"

Dr. Chakwas had known for a long time that it wasn't simply the ship.

Shepard grinned. "Not a chance."

As they raced over the next rise, they caught a glimpse of seven familiar shapes below.

Home.