Despite the fact that Purgatory was closed and the music was off, Aria could still hear the insufferable noise in her head. The asari lolled her head back on the couch in a vain attempt to get rid of the pounding headache that was preventing her from moving. Derimus had brought her a tonic that he regularly gave to people with hangovers, but Aria had set it down on the far end of the couch and didn't want to move.

"You have a call coming through," Bray's deep voice caused her to flinch.

"Put it through," Aria said to him without opening her eyes. She didn't give a fuck about who was calling her this early; she just wanted to get it over with so she could go back to suffering in silence.

"You don't have a hangover, do you?" A sultry voice graced her ears, causing the asari to sit up. Lauren was standing with one hand planted on her hip and a playful smile on her lips. "Because I might just be offended if you were drinking without me."

Aria's headache disappeared. "Be offended all you want," Aria responded. "It's your own fault that you're not here."

Lauren's smile widened and she chuckled. "You look absolutely miserable, you missing me already?"

"Always," Aria said with a smile. "How are you feeling?"

"Like a caged bird," Lauren stuck out her lip and mock-pouted. "But other than that, I'm doing fine. Shepard's doctor has cleared me for physical therapy, so I'm at a hundred percent. Or eighty percent."

"Don't attempt to do math - you might blow a nerve."

Lauren raised an eyebrow and cocked her other hip. "So says the woman who throws people out of airlocks. Anyway, I thought I'd call and tell you how I was doing. I know Chakwas has been sending you encrypted messages, but I thought you'd enjoy hearing from me."

Aria relaxed into the couch. "I do enjoy hearing your sarcastic voice, thank you."

"That's not all I called about though. You'll like this one - I've been offered to join Shepard's crew and rejoin the Alliance."

"You're not seriously considering it, are you?" Aria leaned forward, her headache returning with a vengeance.

"Do I look like I'm considering it?" Lauren asked seriously. "Besides it was just thrown at me by my father, I've barely had time to even think about it. Oh, he knows by the way."

Aria figured as much. Not much escaped Steven Hackett's view - especially not things that involved Lauren. She'd let the job subject drop since Lauren had changed the subject. Obviously she didn't want to talk about it on an unsecured channel. "What'd he say?"

"Something along the lines of, 'please keep me informed of things like this' and 'please don't do anything you'll regret'. So the usual, with more glares and posturing," Lauren said dryly.

Aria smiled. "You have such a caring father." She said sarcastically.

Lauren snorted. "Caring is not in his vocabulary, but he is trying. He just doesn't like surprises." She suddenly looked over her shoulder.

"Do you have to go?" Aria sat up.

Lauren nodded. "There are more important calls that I guess have to be made by someone else."

"Be careful," Aria said quietly. "Don't let Shepard get you blown up."

Lauren laughed a sound that Aria rarely heard. "I'll make sure she doesn't kill me. I'll send a message when I can."

Lauren stood in the elevator that would take her down to the crew deck. Her call to Aria had been short and not as long as she would have liked, but Traynor apparently had things to do and she didn't want to intrude. But it was nice to see Aria's face again – seeing her smile had really cheered Lauren up.

But the job offer from her father – to rejoin the Alliance and fight with Shepard – was the only thing on her mind. She'd be lying if she said she hadn't considered it before. The offer had been tempting when Shepard was fighting the Collectors. But now with Omega being occupied by Cerberus, it didn't seem right to even consider that job until she was sure that Omega was back in Aria's hands.

"Why is everything getting so fucking complicated?" Lauren groaned. "Why can't it just be, shoot this and blow that up, like it used to be?"

The elevator door opened and Lauren stepped out into the hallway, shoving her hands in her pockets. She was hungry for real food – not that protein crap that Chakwas had been giving her. She kept her head low and walked around the corner, hearing the chatter from the crew that was loitering around the mess hall.

She glanced up at the counter and noticed that marine she'd met earlier, Vega. He seemed to notice her too.

"Vega right?" She asked.

"We like to call him Jimmy, but that is his name." A turian sitting by the medical bay windows said.

Lauren stopped in her tracks. His voice seemed so familiar to her. Lauren had met many wanna-be mercenaries when they wandered into Afterlife. Most of them looked and acted like they were badasses, but all of them ended up turning into bullet fodder by the end of the week. All except one. She remembered the turian the moment she saw him walk into Afterlife. He didn't walk like a mercenary, he didn't talk like one, and he sure as hell didn't act like one. He was the only mercenary that she had actually taken interest in, and had ever willingly saved before. He didn't look the same, but he stood the same way as that mercenary she'd saved a long time ago.

"Archangel?"

Garrus flicked his mandibles. "Sapphire."

"Thought your name was Lauren." Vega looked confused.

"The people she kills know her as Sapphire," Garrus stood up and walked over.

"Are you calling me a murderer, Archangel?"

"I just call it like I see it." Garrus said in a flat tone, staring at her.

Lauren didn't move under his gaze. "Then you should be introducing yourself as the angel of death. I'll even vouch for you."

The crew inside the mess hall were watching, all of them abandoning their food in order to watch. Only a few of them understood what was going on, the rest were watching the affair somewhat confused. It was a game that was played a lot - the universally understood game of 'chicken'. After a few seconds Garrus chuckled and backed away, showing subtle signs of obeisance. He held out his hand. Lauren took his hand and gently shook it.

"Glad to see you're not dead. T'Loak would have had a field day on Shepard's ass if you died." He said as he let go of her hand.

"I'm glad I'm not dead too," Lauren said with a smirk. "What are you going as now?"

"Vakarian. I'm a soldier now." Garrus's voice was flat.

"Pity, you made a good merc."

"Not nearly as good as you," Garrus pointed out. "Still going through walls, Sapphire?"

Lauren smirked. "I would show you, but Shepard might kick my ass for tearing through a bulkhead. But I'll gladly throw you through a wall if you ask politely."

The turian chuckled. "It's nice to see that your near death experience didn't completely change you."

"I like to think of it like a slightly irritating flesh wound. That reminds me, you still playing tag with rockets?"

Garrus started laughing. "You heard about that?" He touched the scarred side of his face. "How?"

"How was I not going to hear about it? You took a rocket to your fucking face, not many mercs come back from that. You, good sir, are a legend on Omega for that. You could probably drop your name at any bar and get free drinks for a night."

"I might have to do that sometime." The turian chuckled. "What are you doing down here? Thought Shepard took you up to her cabin."

She rolled her eyes. "Contrary to popular belief, I actually have to eat."

"Lucky for you there's actually good food for a change," Vega gestured over his shoulder. "Although there probably isn't much left, but there is fresh coffee."

She scrunched her face up. "Syntho-coffee or actual coffee?"

"Syntho," Vega replied with a grimace. "It's good if you put enough sugar in it."

"Yuck," Lauren grimaced. "I think I'd rather just eat an energy bar if you have any."

Vega nodded and stood up, reaching into an open door on the other side of the counter. He snatched one up and tossed it to Lauren. "We have a lot on board; no one will eat the damn things. They're always in this drawer here if you ever want any more."

Lauren tore the wrapper off the bar and sniffed the bar questioningly. "Good, it's not stale. I always managed to get the stale bars back when I served." Lauren took a bite. The bars always tasted like a weird mixture of fruit and crackers, but they were good. And filling.

"How the hell can you eat those?" Kenneth asked from his seat at the table.

She hastily swallowed the bar. "They're better than ration bars."

"Anything is better than ration bars," Vega said with a smirk. "Even dirt."

Some of the crew laughed.

"I would say you should try turian ration bars, but that might kill you." Garrus said casually.

"I'll try one if you try a human one." Vega said grimly. "I'd take deadly allergic reaction to eating those damn things any day."

Lauren snickered and noticed Chakwas sitting in the medical bay watching her. She waved two fingers at the doctor, who frowned at her. The elderly woman extended one finger and made a 'come hither' sign. Lauren glanced at the crew, who were now absorbed in either their food or were watching James and Garrus. She walked as quickly and as quietly as she could into the medical bay.

"Yes, doctor?" She asked her mouth full of energy bar.

"Swallow your food before you talk."

She dry swallowed the energy bar. "You wanted me?"

Chakwas nodded. "I want to get a look at your nervous system today and see if your arm is healing."

Lauren looked at her left arm. "I can move it and my fingers; it just hurts when I jerk it around."

"That means the bandage can come off." Chakwas stood up and walked to the supply cabinet on the far end of the room. She began to rummage around. "Take a seat on one of the beds and let's take a look."

Lauren obeyed, shoving the rest of the energy bar in her mouth before she sat down. She watched as Chakwas came back over, a pair of scissors in her hand and a brace in the other.

"Wiggle your fingers for me." She ordered.

Her fingers didn't really move all that much at first, but after a few seconds she showed Chakwas that she could touch her thumb to all her fingers. She'd practiced last night while Shepard was snoring away in her bed, unable to sleep because of the noise.

"Alright, now for the bandages," Chakwas grabbed Lauren's left arm and quickly cut the bandages off her forearm.

There were scrapes and a large amount of bruising, but otherwise her arm looked like normal. Some of the bruises were purple now, in an advanced state of healing. Lauren wiggled her fingers again and gently moved her wrist.

"You heal remarkably well. I'm going to assume it's because of the cybernetics in your arm." Chakwas noted as she turned her hand over to get a look at the inside of her wrist.

"You mean because of the whole arm," Lauren said somberly. "It's all cybernetics and synthetic bone. The only thing that's real is the muscle and flesh above that."

"I know – it's a remarkable example of cybernetic remolding. Well, besides Shepard." Chakwas began to cut away at the bandages on her elbow and upper arm.

"Shepard has cybernetics?" Lauren asked. She hadn't really pegged Shepard as the kind that would want them. But she did do dangerous things.

"You never heard the story?" Chakwas asked as she tugged the last bandage off to get a look at the stitches underneath. "It's actually rather funny now. Back when we worked for Cerberus against our own wills it was a very touchy subject."

An image of the Normandy with that damned orange logo on it flashed across Lauren's mind. When she first saw it she couldn't believe it and didn't want to believe it. She had tracked Deacon down in Afterlife and waited for him to be alone before she walked up and asked him. He told her, in a paragon fashion, that they had no say in the matter and that they weren't going to be working with them for much longer after they attacked the Collectors. It had been a risky plan, a suicide mission, but somehow they had managed to pull it off. And then they'd literally flipped the Illusive Man the bird before they quit.

Just thinking about it made her giggle a little inside - that big smug bastard getting flipped off by not one, but two of the Alliance's best commanders and loosing not only the crew of the Normandy SR-2, but the entire ship itself. She would have paid a million credits just to see the look on his face.

"It looks like the stitches can come out. The bruising will heal up by tomorrow, but you should be able to use your arm completely now." Chakwas grabbed the brace and wrapped it around Lauren's elbow.

"What's the brace for?" She asked.

"To make sure you don't throw the joint out," Chakwas looked up at Lauren. "Aria was rather insistent that I make sure you wore a brace after you fixed it. She mentioned something about your back?"

She cringed. The incident involving her back was not only private, but also embarrassing. "Oh, that. Yeah, I'll wear a brace. Better to be safe than sorry, I suppose."

"Other than that, you're done being under my care." Chakwas tapped the brace. "I have tons of these, so don't worry about giving it back."

"Thanks for everything, doctor." Lauren rubbed at her left wrist, glad that the restrictive bandages were off. "I mean it."

"Just doing my job," Chakwas said with a small nod.

Lauren smiled and walked out of the medical bay, making a beeline for the elevator. With her arm unwrapped and her legs able to walk, she was finally able to work on the abilities that concerned her most.

Her biotics.