The night air is redolent with the perfume of gardenias and roses, even though she knows neither plant grows in the vicinity. Not for lack of trying. Or money spent on gardeners.

Her foster mother spares no expense when it comes to making an impression, and if the society papers are raving about the perfection of evening garden parties scented with gardenia and rose, by God, this party will be the height to which all others aspire.

She imagines black-clad hirelings in balaclavas shuffling through the bushes with spray bottles filled with gardenia-and-rose-scented water, or dozens of impossibly-expensive air fresheners hidden amongst the bunting and scentless bouquets, and she laughs even though her feet hurt and the soda water is doing exactly nothing to take the wine out of her dress. She doesn't even know who did the spilling; she just remembers looking down and seeing the swiftly-spreading stain marring the white silk at her abdomen.

"What do you need me to do?" one of the serving staff girls had asked, desperate, her grey-green eyes wild, her red hair in disarray.

Come to think of it, perhaps the server had been the one to cause the spill. Poor girl. No wonder she was so upset. Not that it matters now. The damage is already done.

The resistance of the stain makes her swallow her laughter almost as soon as it bubbles up; they will miss her inside soon. Even now, she's meant to be dancing with one or the other of her foster father's important friends, and she's aware of the clock ticking. There'll be hell to pay if she's the reason the party is ruined, if her absence is what the society columns are discussing tomorrow instead of sublime food and beautiful people in beautiful clothes and gardenia-scented air. Her foster mother's disappointment is legendary. She shivers. Her stomach aches and when she tries to breathe the stench of flowers makes her head hurt.

Dabbing the cloth against the left side of her midsection where the stain is worst, she succeeds only in turning even more of the white a ghastly shade of pink. Perhaps if she uses her shawl as a very wide belt. It won't be pretty, but it'll be better than absence—

Footsteps on the path steal her attention from the hopeless rescue attempt. Her little bench is in a particularly shadowy corner, and she half-expects the newcomer to keep going, but instead he pauses, and the sudden silence is an expectant one. A nightbird chirps. She's pretty sure the birds come from the same party-supply store as the gardenia water.

"Hello?" she asks. It echoes in the dark. Hello, hello, hello like the whispers of strangers. She swallows to moisten a suddenly dry throat and succeeds only in making herself cough.

The man who approaches is tall and dark; even in the shadows she can tell that much. She should probably know him—she's been introduced to countless people this evening—but his features are hidden by both the darkness of the garden and the shadows cast by the brim of his hat and she can't quite make him out. Perhaps he is one of her foster father's friends, come to claim his dance with her. She sighs, but before she can explain her predicament, he says quietly, "You're not supposed to be here."

She laughs again, this time at his audacity. Even to her own ears the mirth rings hollow, a little too high-pitched, a little too strained. "I beg your pardon? This is my party."

"Is it?" he asks. "You're certain?"

She parts her lips, prepared to protest, but something stops her. His voice is strangely familiar, deep and resonant. The kind of voice a person might trust. He steps a little nearer, and she sees he's wearing the trim blue dress uniform of an Alliance officer. The bars and decorations mean something, but she has no idea what. She's pretty sure he's important though. He carries himself like an important man, shoulders back and chin lifted. And only important men are invited to the parties her foster parents throw.

Until now, the shadows and the color of the fabric has hidden it, but as he moves nearer she sees the darker patch on his abdomen, almost identical to her own. She reaches out with her pinkish-stained white cloth before she can think better of it—she still needs to clean herself up, after all—and says, frowning, "Oh. Someone spilled their wine on you, too."

"God," he says, and the heaviness of the single word brings incomprehensible tears to her eyes. "Feels like ages since I just sat down."

"Best seats in the house," she offers, shifting sideways. "If you're looking to avoid all the business inside, I mean." He tilts his head the way a puzzled child examines a problem they don't understand. The intensity of his gaze bothers her but she doesn't look away. That intensity reminds her of someone else. She can't think who, though, and pushes the thought away. It makes her uncomfortable. Uneasy. A few moments later, he sinks down next to her and instead of gardenias and roses, she smells something sharper, bitter and metallic.

The wine, she decides, is a terrible vintage. Or it's corked. Her foster mother is going to have someone's head when she finds out.

"Did it go all the way through?" she asks. When he says nothing, she presses, "The wine. Did it go through your jacket? Here, let me—"

"You did good, child."

Her reaction is sudden, violent; wine-stain forgotten, she flings herself to her feet and glares down at the interloper with the deceptively kind voice. Her white skirts swirl around her and she sees streaks of wine where she hadn't noticed them before. The dress is ruined. Everything is ruined.

He's not looking up at her, so she sees only the brim of his hat and the unprotected nape of his neck.

"You don't know anything about me," she declares, edging a little farther away from the bench. Her delicate heels scrape too-loudly against the pebbled path. She wants to run but her breath catches and her stomach twists and she can only force herself to take another small step backward. "You—you're making me uneasy."

He raises his face then, and for a moment she almost knows his name, almost understands how he fits into the puzzle of her life. "You're not supposed to be here," he repeats, his lips turning up in a faint, pained smile even as his hands clutch at his belly. "You should go."

The words stop her in her tracks, and she puts out a hand. With nothing to grab onto, she stumbles, falling forward, reaching desperately to break her fall. Her hands scrape against the tiny stones. She hears the delicate fabric of her dress tear, and just for an instant the bitter smell of blood drowns out even the memory of gardenias and roses—

"—Long will she be out?"

"I couldn't say. Shall I wake her—"

"Don't."

"Garrus—"

"Who is she? What—"

"Enough. This is not a conversation we ought to have now. Here."

She kept her breath slow and even, fighting the pull of sleep and the garden, trying instead to focus on the voices around her. For some reason they weren't the ones she was expecting. The woman—and that was strange, she didn't remember a woman from before—had an accent. British. The other voice was dual-toned. Alien. Memory came back in a rush so sudden it was almost painful. The turian from the recovery squad. His name had been Garrus, if she remembered right, though the fog of painkillers made everything a bit blurry. The doctor—yes, the woman was the doctor; not her usual doctor, a different one, but hadn't they said a new doctor would come? She thought she remembered that from within the fog—had put her under while they moved her from one ship to the other.

For the pain, the new doctor had said.

She hadn't felt like protesting, because the pain was constant and relief from it always hard-won. There was only so much fight in a person.

We'll get through this. We always do.

The turian's sigh distracted her before she could question where exactly that thought came from. If she'd ever heard a sound more resigned, she didn't know when. "I need to know. Is this another of Cerberus'… spares?"

"Not as far as I can tell."

She almost opened her eyes at the sound the turian made, like he'd been punched in the stomach, punctuated by a low keening, almost like a cry. When he spoke, his tone was rough and sharp and startling; the vocal equivalent of walking on broken glass. She shivered, and fought the urge to close her hands into fists at her sides. "So we've got a Shepard who doesn't remember she's Shepard. We know nothing about who took her, what they've done to her, or what possible motives they might have had—"

"Come now, Garrus. Kaidan said she answered to her name easily enough right from the beginning. She does appear to know who she is. It may be temporary, or entirely treatable. You mustn't jump to the worst possible scenario. I'll know more when she wakes—"

"She didn't know m—us. She didn't recognize us." She had to strain to hear him, and she felt a pang of regret for the way she'd spoken to him back on the ship. It was only he'd been looking at her so intently, and she hadn't ever been so close to a turian before; she couldn't help the frisson of fear—

One of the machines started beeping and she realized it was because her own heart rate was elevated.

You're not supposed to be here.

"Can you open your eyes for me, Commander?" A moment later, the doctor tried again, more insistently, "Shepard? Can you open your eyes?"

If he was right—if she had forgotten—if she knew this turian and all these people, these strangers—what else might be missing? The incomprehensible reason she was referred to by a rank? By a surname? She didn't remember the last time anyone had used her given name. She swallowed hard. Of course she didn't. Her memory was pocked with holes; she had no idea how much was missing. Was the name she remembered even her name at all? The machine's concerned noises increased in tempo and she forced her eyes open to keep from being pushed under again, back to the garden, back to the cloying, manufactured scent of gardenias and roses. Back to the blood—no, the wine, the wine on her dress.

"You're fine," the doctor soothed. She had a nice voice. The kind of voice a person might trust. It had been wine on her dress in the garden, hadn't it? And on the jacket of the man who'd told her she didn't belong? Whose voice was familiar but whose name she no longer knew? "Take a deep breath."

She tried, but her chest felt tight and her head felt hot and the whole room stank of flowers and antiseptic. She was aware of the turian—of Garrus—stepping closer but he froze as soon as her eyes found his. The right side of his face was a mess of healed scars. Between his height and the size of his shoulders—probably mostly armor, she tried to reassure herself—he loomed. She wanted to squeeze her eyes shut, wanted to ask him to leave the room again, but something about the way the doctor had spoken with him earlier made her hold her tongue. It was strange, but she thought maybe he was actually the one in charge.

Whatever he saw on her face made him step back, but his eyes—or at least the eye she could see, the one not hidden by the glowing interface of a visor—never left her. She felt laid bare before that gaze, but if he'd been human, she'd have said the tilt of his head was confused, perhaps even unhappy.

She didn't know what to do with that.

"I'm not supposed to be here," she said, and this, finally, was enough to break the turian's intense scrutiny. His eyes widened and his mandibles flared and then he glanced away, toward the floor, away from her.

"None of that," the doctor admonished lightly, still gentle, still kind. "You may not remember it at the moment, but this is precisely where you're meant to be."

"I'm sorry," she added in an embarrassed rush. Only she wasn't sure if she was sorry for being here, or sorry for hurting him, or sorry for something else she couldn't remember. Perhaps some combination of all three. Either way it cut deep, and once again the doctor had to remind her to breathe. She smelled roses. She smelled blood. Even though she suspected neither was actually present. Hirelings in balaclavas with spray bottles full of blood-and-rose scent.

Tell me something true, she thought, but she couldn't bring herself to say the words aloud. Not after the reaction the last ones had wrought.

The turian—Garrus—crossed his arms over his chest and she had the strangest feeling it wasn't a disapproving or disappointed gesture. He looked for all the world as though the weight of his own arms was the only thing keeping him from breaking.

She didn't know what to do with that, either. She didn't know what to do with any of it.