The waiting room in the therapist's office is bare; just four hard-backed chairs and one side table, covered in tacky statuettes. I sit in the chair closest to the outer door. The inner door is shut, but I can hear voices inside. After a few moments, an older woman comes out and briskly heads for the door next to me, shutting it behind her as she leaves. Another minute passes, then a familiar face emerges from the inner room. "Well, well, Josslyn Shepard. Never thought you'd grace my office."

I smile, standing up. "Becky Rowe. It's been a long time."

"Not since high school. About fifteen years, now." She motions me into the other room, and closes the door as I pass her. "And it's not Rowe anymore. It's Parker. Doctor Parker."

I sit on the couch, staring at her. "Parker? You got married."

"Yep." She settles into an overstuffed armchair facing me. "Remember Skylar?"

"You married Skylar Parker?" I shake my head, laughing. "You couldn't stand him."

"He grew on me." She stares at me a long moment. "But you're not here to catch up, JJ. I got a call from your mother begging me to see you. So what's wrong?"

"Becky, I…"

She clucks her tongue. "I'd prefer 'Doctor'."

"If you insist, then you're going to have to call me 'Commander.' It's only fair."

"All right, Becky's fine, then." She picks up a datapad from the floor beside the chair. "Why don't you tell me what's wrong, JJ. I might be able to help."

I sigh. "I wouldn't even know where to begin."

"Where everything does: at the beginning."

I sigh again, staring at the floor. The beginning…but of what? The Blitz? The Reapers? "Which beginning are we talking about, Bec? There's a few of them."

"Well, let's see. When did you start feeling the way you do now?"

"I'm not sure what you mean."

"Don't play dumb with me, JJ. I know you." Her voice is soft, but her tone is razor sharp. "Your mother mentioned you've been…depressed. When did it start?"

I close my eyes a moment. "When I woke up from my coma."

"And why do you think that is?"

"Shit, Bec, I don't know." I stand up and walk to the window, peering out. I can't look at her.

"Yes, you do. You're the only one who does know." She's silent a moment. "You can avoid all you want, JJ. I've already been paid for this session. If you don't want to talk, it's your business. But I can see you're hurting, so why don't you sit down and talk about this like an adult?"

I return to the couch, finally managing to look her in the eye. "Fine."

"All right, then. Now, why…"

"Why did it start when I woke up? Because I woke up."

She stares at me, her brow furrowing. "I don't follow."

"I didn't plan to come back from the last battle against the Reapers."

"…You wanted to die?"

I nod, and as I do, I feel tears stinging my eyes. "I never planned to survive that last assault. I thought that…that when I'd beaten them, I could just…" I shrug.

"But why? You have so much to live for."

A laugh escapes my lips. "Yeah, right. Commander Shepard, the Reaper-killer." I stare at her. "You think I want that? The fame, the attention? I didn't want it after Elysium and the Blitz, much less now." I sigh. "I watched people I care about—people I'd come to trust and love—I watched them die, Becky. I watched them sacrifice themselves to save others."

"Then they were heroes. You should be proud of them."

"I am. Doesn't mean I can't be pissed that they're dead."

She types something into the datapad she's holding. "Tell me about them."

I take in a shaky breath. "Well, there was Legion. A geth. He…"

"It," she interrupts. "Not he."

"No, at the end, Legion was an individual. He sacrificed himself to give the rest of the geth true consciousness."

She nods, typing into the datapad again. "Who else?"

"Mordin Solus. A salarian doctor. He…" Another deep breath. "He sacrificed himself to cure the genophage. We needed to disperse it from the Shroud, but it was sabotaged. He went up to fix it and…"

"Who else?" Her tone is soft, soothing.

"Ashley Williams. I had to leave her behind on Virmire. I wish I hadn't ever been faced with that choice."

"Virmire was three years ago, JJ. Did you really only lose two friends to the Reaper war?"

The tears start falling. "N-no."

She hands me a box of tissues. "Tell me."

I open my mouth, but nothing comes out. I try again. "T-there were more than three, but…"

"But?"

I take a deep breath, trying to calm down. "Sorry, it's…it's painful to think about."

She stares at me for a moment, pity in her eyes. "I gather it was someone to whom you were very close?" I nod, taking a tissue and wiping some of the tears away. "Tell me about them."

"His name was Thane. Thane Krios."

"Human?"

"Drell."

A smile is tugging at her lips, but her eyes hold shock. "Really? How did you meet?"

I smile. "He…" A light pops in front of my eyes…

He drops down from the ceiling, behind a clueless Eclipse merc. With one quick movement, he snaps the merc's neck. Effortlessly, he turns and punches a second merc in the throat, killing him. A flash of gunfire, and a third merc falls. He grabs Nassana, and with a single shot to her abdomen, she's dead. After laying her back on her desk, he clasps his hands in front of him, his eyes closed.

"Impressive," Garrus says. "You certainly know how to make an entrance."

I have to agree. I take a few steps forward. "I was hoping to talk to you," I say, my voice echoing in the over-large room.

"I apologize," the assassin says, "but prayers for the wicked must not be forsaken."

I'm surprised. "Do you really think she deserves it?"

"Not for her." He looks up, catching my eye for the first time. "For me." He stares at me for a few moments, then begins to walk out from behind the desk. "The measure of an individual can be difficult to discern by actions alone. Take you, for instance. All this destruction, chaos… I was curious to see how far you'd go to find me." He stops in front of the desk and turns to me, an enigmatic expression on his face. The sun is directly behind him, the light filtering in through the shades, giving him an otherworldly glow. "Well, here I am."

"I do want to talk to you, but…how did you know I was here?"

"Gunfire and explosions." He walks toward me now. "I prefer to work quietly." He passes me, and I turn, following him. "If I have to fight through guards, I've made a mistake. I rarely make mistakes." His head turns toward me, though his body's still facing away. "You disrupted my plan. But your distraction eventually proved valuable."

"Let's cut to the chase." I want to say more, but there will be time later, I'm sure. "I need you for a mission."

"Indeed." He doesn't seem surprised. I wonder how much he's been told, if anything at all.

"You're familiar with the Collectors?"

He turns and walks to the window. "By reputation."

"They're abducting entire human colonies. Freedom's Progress was their handiwork."

"I see." His tone is still unfazed, though a bit less so now.

"We're going after them."

He turns toward me sharply. "Attacking the Collectors would require passing through the Omega-4 relay. No ship has ever returned from doing so."

I cross my arms, trying to suppress a smirk. "They told me it was impossible to get to Ilos, too."

"A fair point. You've built a career on performing the impossible." He turns back to the window as I step closer, closing his eyes for a moment. "This was to be my last job. I'm dying."

"JJ?" Becky's hand is on my arm. "What happened?"

My head is spinning. "I was…I was remembering the first time I met him." I tell her what I remember, hoping I don't sound too much like a star-struck teenager. "It was strange, you know? I was impressed with him right from the start."

She's smiling. "I can see why. Dangerous, graceful…and a drell, to boot." I fix her with a glare, but she just laughs. "Oh, come on. You don't remember when we'd talk about the boys in class? How I thought they were cute, and you just thought they were disgusting. So I asked you what you found attractive, and you just blurted out that you wanted to date a drell." She pats my arm. "So I'm not really surprised, JJ. But I'm still a bit confused. You said you knew he was dying when you met him."

"Yeah, I did. But…" I sigh. "Cerberus tried to stage a coup. Tried to seize power using Udina. They sent an assassin to take out the other Council members. Valern had been meeting with the C-Sec Executor. The assassin found us there, and…" The tears are forming again. "Thane showed up, and fought with the assassin. He…he was stabbed." One tear slips, and then another. I grab a tissue and blot them away. "The more I think about it, the worse I feel, Bec. I was standing right there when the bastard stabbed him. Why didn't I shoot him? I could have shot the son of a bitch. Why didn't I?"

"Maybe you were afraid you'd hit Thane?"

"No, I…I had a clear shot a couple of times. I could have taken it." I turn to her. "I just… I don't really want to talk about it anymore. Just tell me I'll stop feeling like this."

She types something into the datapad, then looks at me. "I'm going to give you some medication. If you take it, you'll stop feeling like this. I promise." An alarm beeps, and she clicks it off. "And that's the end of our session, I'm afraid."