Shepard introduced herself to her personal assistant, who was very cheerful and a bit much for her to take so she politely left the yeoman to her duties. Next she met the chief/janitor, that was disturbing to say the least, shortly before discovering that Dr. Chakwas had found her way to the Normandy. Her tale of the Alliance's movements over the last two years was less than inspiring. She couldn't blame the woman, or Joker for that matter, for joining up with Cerberus considering what the group was offering them. She added a bottle of ice brandy to the list she was compiling, starting with better ingredients for meals. The engineering deck was next. They needed parts for efficiency sake. Back on the command deck and a short chat with Jacob let her know that, while the Normandy was updated from the original, vast improvements would need to be made if they expected to survive an attack on a single Collector ship. It was just more to add to her quickly growing list. It was a good thing the new Normandy was outfitted with mining equipment. Shepard almost ran to the cockpit for a more light hearted conversation.
Joker heard Shepard's foot steps coming up the stairs and across the walk way that led to the cockpit. He spun his chair around in excitement.
"Can you believe this, Commander? It's my baby, better than new. It fits me like a glove! And leather seats! Military may set the hard ware standard, but on a first gen frigate, they could care less if the seats breath. Civilian sector comfort, by design." Joker rambled on like a school boy. He was interrupted by EDI.
"Reproduction was not intended, Mr. Moreau. Seamless improvements were made."
"And there's the down side." Joker said. "I liked the Normandy when she was beautiful and quiet. Now she's got this thing I don't wanna talk about. It's like ship cancer."
"I don't trust them, but we still need to move ahead." Shepard said.
"Yeah, I guess you're right." Joker agreed. "So we're stayin' right? I mean, the seat is real leather..."
"Glad to see you're keeping it all in perspective." Shepard teased.
"Uh, leather!" Joker played as he turned back to the controls.
Shepard headed to the galaxy map to check their trajectory to Omega before heading up to 'the loft' that was the captain's quarters. She had her own deck, small tough it was, the cabin was huge. Much bigger than the original Normandy's captain's quarters. There were two desks, two levels, fish tanks, a corner sofa that was huge, a king size bed... Hell, she even had her own shower room. It was hard not to get swept up in it all.
For the first time she wondered about Captain Anderson. Had he become a Councillor? How had he handled her death? What did he say at the funeral service? It almost made her laugh at the thought that she could stand there and wonder about her own funeral in past tense.
Sonya removed her Cerberus uniform and tossed it down to the sofa from the upper level of her cabin. The shower room was white and tiled from floor to ceiling. The waist up mirror over the sink didn't reflect the image of herself she was used to. Seeing herself since waking from death for the first time was a shock she had not prepared for. She nearly fainted, but managed to stay standing by grabbing the lip on the sink. Her mind reeled with disbelief before curiosity took over. She examined herself carefully in the reflective surface.
The scars on her face weren't as bad as she thought they might have been, her eyes looked the same when the light didn't hit them just so to reveal the cybernetics hidden there. Her hair was still white blond if only a little longer when she took it our of the bun in which it had been fashioned. Even her bush was still as she remembered it. New scars, that would heal, indicated where she'd been sewn back together like a patchwork quilt. But the scars she knew, the ones she loved, were gone. It was if they'd taken the very memory of him from her. The cuts under her breasts, the lines down her rib cage, back and hips, the nicks in her shoulders, the bite marks, everything was gone. Even the little 'N' shape from his chest spur. It wasn't her skin. It couldn't be. She suddenly felt trapped as if she were in someone else's body that just looked like hers.
Sonya walked in a daze over to the shower and turned it on. The warm water hit her skin and warmed her, relaxing the muscles that were tense under it's rain. Steam filled the room and fogged the mirror, obscuring anything that might reflect in it. Slowly Sonya sunk to the floor and curled into the corner under the shower head. The warm water ran down her face, plastering her hair to a body that shuddered with the force of her tears as they joined the rivets that washed away the dirt and grim of battle.
