The lights were off when she opened the door to Shepard's cabin. She frowned, reached for the switch. When Ashley didn't see him, she sighed, ran a hand down her face, and went down towards his couch. Shepard was sitting in his usual corner, clutching a datapad his hands so tightly that his knuckles were white.

"EDI said you needed me." It wasn't a question.

Shepard's head snapped up abruptly and her brows furrowed. Since getting off the Lazarus Project's station, Shepard had been struggling to keep control of his own temper; it was evident in the angry red scars that flared up occasionally, typically on a bad day for him. Lately, he'd been getting better at it, but something must've set him off today. One of the scars was cutting across his jaw.

"Yeah," he said, tossing the datapad onto his desk. "Sit." She didn't move, but instead just stared at him, both brows raised. The Commander stared right back at her before pinching the bridge of his nose. "Ash, trust me, okay? I don't have the energy to get into it again."

Ashley's brows went up. "Something happen?"

"Sit and I'll tell you." She did, keeping a healthy distance that Shepard's narrowed eyes caught. "You don't have to..." He shook his head. "Never mind."

"All right, so what's this about? Finally gonna kick me off the ship?"

"What? No. I don't...I didn't mean what I said earlier, Ash. I was just...frustrated."

"You meant it. Don't try lying to me."

He waved her aside, crossing a leg over another as he tried to relax. It wasn't working. That much was obvious from the way he kept fidgeting. Ashley was tempted to tell him to spit it out, but she kept quiet. He'd get around to it when he was ready to, as always. Instead, she took a page out of his book and did what she could to get comfortable, or as comfortable as she could get. It was rare that Shepard didn't have the words he needed. It made her as restless as he looked. She didn't like it.

"I...we need your help," he finally said. "The crew, me, Miranda, all of us. It's like...how I was needed for my visions of the Protheans. It helped us to know where Saren was going and what he was doing."

Understanding dawned in her eyes as she nodded. "And you need to know if there's anything I can do to get us through the Omega 4 relay because of my...'visions' of the Reapers." She made sure she put air quotes around the "visions" part. They weren't visions. Not in the same sense Shepard's were. Her issue was a lot more...complicated.

"Exactly," Shepard said. "You have a connection with them. And without Cerberus' intel, there's a good chance we won't be the ones getting through that relay."

"Except I don't just see Reapers," Ashley said. "There's a lot of baggage with it. You know...like dancing the line between humanity and indoctrination. Barely being coherent enough to understand what I'm seeing."

"We have Samara. That asari justicar? We can do exactly what we did back on the SR-1."

"Let some random asari into my head? You think I'm going to be okay with that?"

"No," he replied, shaking his head. "I didn't. Miranda didn't. I doubt anyone would expect you to allow that. I was hoping...I could persuade you. After all, this is your life we're endangering, and you're the one that has to suffer through that...stress."

She arched a brow. "Yeah, reminding me of what it takes to even get that far is going to help your case." Shepard gave her a small smile. "But luckily for you, I think I know a way to get what you're looking for. Painlessly. Or...as close to painlessly as this is going to get."

"Oh really?"

Ashley nodded, wringing her hands together before slapping them on her knees. "You're not going to like it. Hell, I don't even like it. I'd rather die all over again than..." She frowned. "Wow, that was ironic."

"Oh. Oh. You mean...?"

"Going back to Virmire?"

"Yeah, you were right. I don't like that idea," Shepard said. He got to his feet, crossing his arms as he went back to his desk. "Don't think Garrus will, either, or Joker. That planet was... It was all shit, but you already know that."

She wasn't sure why she stood, but she sure as hell wasn't going to sit back down. "If I can handle it, you can." He glanced back at her, just over his shoulder, and shook his head. His hands were clenched around his desk, flexing his fingers and rolling his knuckles. There was something wrong. Not just the thought of having to go back to that planet, but something else. Against her better judgement, Ashley stepped up beside him, a lot closer than she probably should've been. However dumb it was, she didn't regret it. Even as she seemed to gain some semblance of control over her life, Shepard seemed to lose control of his, and there was something sickly unfair about it.

"Shepard?"

"I'm fine," he said.

"Didn't I just tell you not to lie to me? I know you're not. You've been...off since Horizon."

He shook his head. "I'm fine," he repeated. "Just...thinking. Virmire was a shitstorm waiting to happen and I made too many bad calls. It gets me thinking about the rest of the bad calls I've made, and it goes downhill from there."

"You did what you thought was right."

"If I did that, you'd have been in Kaidan's shoes," Shepard said.

"It wasn't a bad call. One of us was going to die. There's no changing that," she said. "Just like there's no changing where I am, where you are, where Kaidan is, and so on. It is what it is. Take what you can get."

A smirk tugged at the corner of his mouth. "Cerberus taught you how to use your words."

"It doesn't help that trying to remember any of those stupid poems gives me a headache."

"We'll get it sorted out, Ash," Shepard said. "One way or another."

"Insert sappy poem here."

He laughed and shook his head, sighing. He was smiling now, faintly, but it was there. She returned the gesture. "Are you sure you're up for that, though? Going back to Virmire? That might trigger something worse than a little panic attack."

"I can handle it," she said. "I've shaken off indoctrination once already. What about you? Can you handle it?"

Shepard swallowed, but nodded. "Yeah, definitely. It'll just...be hard. Sometimes, I'll wake up and expect this all to have been some sick nightmare. You being here, I mean. Going back... I haven't forgiven myself for that, Ash, and I don't think this will help."

"I died on Virmire," Ashley said. "I died because you chose Kaidan." He looked up from the table, brows creasing together in worry. "And I've forgiven you for it. Even when...when I overheard that the original Normandy had been blown up, that you'd died too, I still forgave you. I've never blamed you for it and I never will."

"Wait, you heard about me dying? When?"

"When I was in that facility on Horizon. Shepard, I was fully aware most of the time I was there. These implants... All of them were installed at the Lazarus Project. The only thing that really happened on Horizon was the..." Her voice caught and she had to look away, swallow, to recover. "Research. Torture. Whatever you want to call it. It wasn't until you died that the Illusive Man decided I'd be more useful as a puppet. So...yeah. While Cerberus recovered your body, I was being thrown around in that half-aware state like a ragdoll. I killed Alliance officers, marines, anyone who opposed Cerberus. 'Testing,' they said. To make sure I could kill you if it came down to it."

Shepard frowned. "Could you?"

She shook her head. "I'm sure they beat enough combat skills into me that I could without much effort. Not that I'd ever want to."

"And if the Illusive Man made you?"

"He'd better keep me under for the rest of my life," Ashley growled. "Or he'd be next." Her fists clenched, but she let out a breath and forced herself to relax. "The point is, I could've been furious with you about Virmire. I could've been glad that you got killed, but I wasn't. And Cerberus flaunted it at me as much as they could just to make my life more miserable. Just like they planned to flaunt me at you."

"The Illusive Man is a bastard," Shepard agreed. "He'll get what he deserves one of these days. I'll make sure of it." Ashley just shrugged, staring at the wall now. "But you have to give him credit...he did get one thing right."

"What's that?"

Shepard turned and hopped onto his desk, looking up at his ceiling. It was made similarly to the observation decks, allowing him to look at the stars but capable of being closed over in a firefight. "Losing control of you is going to bite him in the ass."

"The Reapers thought the same thing," Ashley said, following his gaze as she turned to lean against the edge of the desk. "They're afraid of you. You've killed them before. But me, they think I threaten their purpose. They think I'm proof their cycle is unnecessary."

"Good thing you're on my ship then," Shepard said. "I need all the morale boosts you're gonna bring with that one." She huffed, rolling her eyes in mild amusement. "In all seriousness though...how bad do you think it'll be?"

"Words can't describe how terrified I am. You saw what happened to the Protheans. Now imagine that through the eyes of the Reapers, only hundreds of thousands of times more...violent. Imagine it compressed into less than a second, and understanding all of it, and wanting to help it happen again. Imagine seeing it from the very beginning. Every bloody second of it."

"How many?" he asked quietly. "Before us. Before the Protheans?"

"Too many."

Shepard rested a hand on her shoulder. "We'll get it done, Ash. We'll stop the Collectors now, and we'll stop the Reapers when they get here."

"I believe you."

"After everything you just told me? I was saying that for myself, really. Not you."

"You scare them for a good reason, Skipper. If anyone can get us through this, it's you."

He squeezed her shoulder and she smiled. "Thanks, Ash."

She got up on his desk, sitting beside him, and staring at the distant, unmoving stars overhead. Buildings loomed just on the edges of the window, but were far enough back that it was easy to imagine the same comfort she felt sitting in the armory.

"You don't need to thank me for being honest. None of us would be here if we didn't believe in you."

"Sometimes I need to hear it from another person," Shepard admitted. "It keeps me focused."

For a while, they were silent, watching as skycars passed overhead, and listening to other ships as they docked or left Nos Astra. It was more relaxing than sitting in the armory, wedged under one of the tables so she'd be left alone. That was, partially, due to Shepard. He had a way of calming her, whether or not he was trying to. When she told him she was terrified of the Reapers, she was being honest, but having him beside her did wonders to keep any fear from entering her voice, or from getting scared at the mere thought of experiencing what she'd seen during her encounter with Harbinger. He wasn't perfect by any stretch of the imagination; they argued constantly about her feelings on aliens, or on the decisions he'd made, but it worked. She was glad it did, but she still couldn't forget what they'd just fought about only a few hours ago.

"Do you trust me?"

Shepard looked down at her. "Of course I do."

"But what if you're right? About me being...programmed to gain your trust, only to turn around and kill you later?"

"Then we'll deal with it when it happens," he said. "I'm not losing you again."

"Lucky for you, I don't plan on dying again anytime soon." Ashley's eyes flicked over to his briefly before returning to the window. "Or letting Cerberus get their hands on me. This is my fight, too. I plan on seeing it through."

She could hear the smile in his voice. "Nothing like getting a moment where you're yourself again."

Ashley closed her eyes and let her head fall on his shoulder, exhaling a deep breath. "As weird as it sounds, the worst part of being in that facility was thinking I'd lost you." Shepard sucked in a huge breath like he was surprised, but she ignored it. "I don't know what I was thinking. It wasn't like I was in any shape to break out and find you if you hadn't died, but...it hurt. It hurt more than anything the scientists ever could've done. When you snapped me out of that...that thing, back when we just escaped the station, I could've cried if I hadn't been so confused."

"You are such a sap sometimes," Shepard said. "I really should buy you a poetry book. Then it'll be like nothing ever happened." She laughed, mostly in disbelief, and Shepard continued, "But yeah, I trust you. Cerberus can't program feelings like that. And besides, you've always been honest with me. Sometimes it's annoying, but you don't beat around the bush. It's part of why I like you."

"As much as they tried, I don't think they really got rid of my personality."

"One of the days I'm glad you're so stubborn." He rested his cheek on her head and her throat tightened. It was so painfully sweet that she could hardly take it. She tried to swallow past the lump forming in her throat, but it was hard. This was the first real time it was hitting her that they'd both died, been brought back to life by an organization they both despised, and still ended up back in the same position they were in when they were hunting Saren. It made her chest ache.

"If you had to...could you leave me behind again?"

Shepard stiffened, but his answer was instant. He didn't need to think about it. "No. Not again. I need you here."

Ashley let out a shaky breath and focused on the fish swimming around in Shepard's tank. It wasn't like she was about to cry, but whenever something hit her like that, it scared her. Her life was slowly falling back into place and she didn't know how to deal with it. She wasn't ready for it. Fighting off all those feelings and urges still wasn't easy, but it was a fight, and it was a fight she had to win on her own. She didn't know what she'd do with herself if she ever got free of Cerberus' indoctrination. Every step that got her closer to it...moments like these... It only got scarier.

"I'm happy to hear it."

She'd never be free of Cerberus, not completely, and she'd never be completely free of the Reapers, but there were some parts of her that neither of them could ever touch. That first time she'd really seen Shepard as Shepard had been one of the most relieving and stunned-her-stupid moments in her entire life, and not because she'd thought he was dead. It was because he came back. She'd lost him, and he came back. That overwhelming feeling in her gut had told her she was in way too deep with this man. Ashley didn't care, but she knew it. With where they were going, there was no way this would end well for either of them.

And no one could touch it. Not her, not Shepard, not Cerberus, and not the Reapers. That snapped her out of so many potentially dangerous situations that she'd come to rely on him for it. In the back of her mind, there was that insistent voice, the one that said caring for anyone was a weakness, the one that Cerberus had planted there without trying to.

Ashley ignored it and closed her eyes again, taking a large breath in. The way it filled her lungs was soothing. It was her decision to ignore it, and it was her decision to stay where she was. That was what mattered to her in the end. Not that there was a good chance this thing they had would bite them in the ass, not that the Illusive Man tried to wipe the feelings from her, but that she chose to stay when leaving would've been easier.

"Shepard?"

"Hmm?"

"Thank you. For coming back."

He leant back, forcing her to sit up, and he had the dumbest grin on his face. It made him look younger, much more like the idealistic idiot of a commander she'd run across the galaxy with before.

"I should probably say the same," Shepard said. "If I were you, I'd have left after our...argument earlier."

"No, you wouldn't have," Ashley said. "Too many reasons to come back."

Shepard's grin returned and he kissed her. It was brief, sloppy, stupid even, but there was something distinctly Shepard about it that made her smile. Even when he pulled away, he still rested his forehead against hers, and neither of them made to move. She found herself running a thumb over the thin scar on his jaw, frowning as she traced it down to his chin, completely oblivious to the face he was making while she did it.

"That tickles, y'know. In a bad way," Shepard whispered. "And we both need to go get some sleep for tomorrow."

"Oh, I've found a soft spot," she teased. "I didn't know you were ticklish."

"In the bad way!" he repeated, this time defensively.

Ashley laughed and shook her head, moving away to drop onto her own two feet. She stretched, bit her tongue to stifle a yawn, and scratched the base of her skull, right beneath the tight bun her hair usually found itself in.

"I didn't know there was a good way to be ticklish."

"There is. It typically lands you in bed with someone, but..." Shepard trailed off with a shrug and a suggestive wink, giving her another grin. She returned the gesture, unable to help herself as she debated between hugging him and leaving. Kissing someone was one thing; it could be insensitive and pointless, but holding someone was different, more intimate. Or maybe she was just stupid. Or both.

As it turned out, she didn't have to choose. He wrapped his arms around her shoulders and pulled her into his chest before she could stop him, and unlike the time on Horizon, Ashley hugged him back. It wasn't as gentle as that time either, but more desperate, like he expected her to vanish from his arms. It was ridiculous, but she could understand.

When they broke, he walked her out to the elevator. Shepard looked less...upbeat now, but he was still much more relaxed than he had been when she'd first come up.

"After we get Tali, we go to Virmire," Shepard decided.

Ashley hit the button to call the elevator up and nodded. "Agreed."

"We're not letting Cerberus get to the Collectors first."