Author Notes: I have written a lot of narrative that takes place in the time before the original start of this story so I'm trying to incorporate those as "flashbacks" in these chapters. I hope it works but if it's too confusing please let me know and I'll try to change it up. I'm not sure how many more of these "flashbacks" I'll work in so it may be a moot point, but if this chapter is confusing let me know.

In my own personal experience battling depression is different for every person, and I've tried to represent this as best I could based on that experience and with how I feel Shepard would handle it. I've taken some liberties with how I think Shepard and her therapist would hash things out as they go.

O~o~O

I'm told the first word out of my mouth was an emphatic, if slightly hoarse sounding "Fuck!"

They had lifted up a piece of the rubble that was all that remained of the Citadel and had found Commander Shepard trapped beneath looking beat to all hell. Luckily it had been Jack that had found me so she laughed off my exclamation with a relieved chuckle. It must have been the pain talking because I don't remember any of it but apparently my next words were "Everything fucking hurts!"

They had me wrapped up and pumped full of medigel by the time the field team arrived leaving nothing for them to do but transfer me to a nearby field hospital. I was fading in and out of consciousness by then, my blood leaving a trail on the bare concrete floor as they rushed me to surgery. The medigel saved me. My suit had given up well before I'd been found, alive only because of those damn Cerberus implants. The ones I still wish I didn't have to be thankful for.

But I am now. Back then it was only because I had to be. I don't remember much, brief flashes, but Sheila is persistent—she knows me well enough to be able to push me out of my comfort zone. I'm comfortable enough to let her.

The next thing I remember is waking up to sunlight on my face. It was warm and unfamiliar and welcome all at the same time. It told me I was planet side, and I assumed it was Earth, but there was really no telling with how long I'd been out. But it had felt like Earth.

I close my eyes and try to relive those moments for the first time ever…

O~o~O

A face swims into view and the blue-grey eyes are familiar. I struggle to find a name in a head full of jumbled thoughts and clouded memories. It takes me too long, and we both know it. If it had been a matter of pulling the trigger I'd be the loser of that draw.

Luckily it wasn't.

"Miranda," I finally manage, and my voice comes out dry and cracked. My throat aches and I swallow thickly against the pain.

She nods. "Good, Shepard. You remember me."

Why wouldn't I remember her? She had been my XO when we'd taken down the—the—

She must see the panic in my face. "It's okay, Shepard, it's normal not to remember everything. Calm down," she urges, her voice softer than I remember. "Listen to the monitors, that's your heart rate. You need to bring it down. Just like you do on the battlefield."

I hear the blip of the monitor as it races. I can feel it pounding in my own chest and I take a breath, not deep because it hurts too badly, but I breathe. I close my eyes and try to clear my mind. It helps, but not like it used to. The pace slows, the pounding eases but not like it did for the calm, collected Shepard I was before.

"Very good." She taps something out on her datapad and then looks back down at me. "I don't know how you did it again, Shepard, but you're alive. When the Citadel exploded… I just… We all thought you were gone."

I suck air in through parched lips and try to form my voice around one word. One vitally important word. Her brows furrow when she realizes I'm trying to speak. She leans in even though knowing Miranda she could hear a whisper from twenty paces.

"Normandy?"

She shakes her head and she looks sorry. It's an unfamiliar look on her and I don't like it. I don't like what it implies.

"The Alliance won't tell me anything," she says with a shrug. "I'm Cerberus to them. But I hear things… They lost coms with the Normandy just as the Citadel exploded. No wreckage, but no contact. We don't know where the ship is… or her crew."

That was the worst blow of them all. Worse than the explosions, worse than the fight through London. That was my ship, my crew, my responsibility. They were missing, and I couldn't do a damn thing about it.

It's a Commander's worst nightmare, but they were more than just my command. They were friends, family. I wouldn't have come half as far as I had without them. They were the reason I had made it to the beam.

"Shepard, are you—" She stops herself because she was about to ask if I was alright, and she knows I'm not. Not physically and not burdened by the weight of this news. "Do you need anything?"

I shake my head slowly. Every movement hurts. "No."

She touches my hair softly, "I'll be back. Try to get some rest."

My eyes burn even before her footsteps fade away but I can't stop the tears that slide down my cheeks just like I can't bring back the Normandy, or lead a search party to find them, or stand up on my own.

Just like I can't stop it when my heart rate starts to rise; when the air grows thin in my lungs and the monitors blare with alarm.

They tell me later that it was a panic attack. Nothing major. It happens to lots of people, they say like it's an assurance. I have to remind myself that they aren't soldiers. They haven't been on the battlefield. It's the one place you should be panicking, and the one place you can't.

I don't panic.

But they tell me what I've been through is traumatic. I have been 'traumatized'.

Fuck that.

I say it's not a panic attack. It's not PTSD. It's something else.

They say I'm a soldier, not a doctor. They tell me to trust them but for me trust is earned, not freely given. I insist that it's something else. I know myself. Something isn't right.

But they don't listen.

O~o~O

Sheila flips through the old charts. "There was a broken implant, shrapnel," she says, reading the report aloud. "It had found its way into your blood stream; that had caused problems when your heart rate had risen."

She's not a medical doctor but I trust her more than I had trusted the doctors in that London hospital. After putting up with me for two years she's earned it.

"When I woke up after that my parents were there. I do remember that," I tell her and there's humor in my voice; it's an emotion that's slowly been returning. Sometimes I find things humorous that shouldn't be, or that seem so simple they shouldn't leave me breathless with laughter. Sheila tells me it's normal—and for once she gives a snippet of herself to me.

"When you feel numb for a long time these emotions seem so strong, and can be set off at the drop of a hat—for almost no reason at all. I know. I've been there."

I look up suddenly and she meets my eyes. It's the smallest thing, the simplest admission. I don't ask about her past because it's not my place to. She's the therapist, I'm the patient. Even though I don't know the details it's another connection.

"I was so tired," I recall. "And Miranda was standing there telling me my parents were there to see me. It seemed selfish to say I wouldn't see them so I nodded when she asked if she could let them in." I laugh. "She doesn't know my mother. She couldn't have stopped her. I sure as hell couldn't have. Probably still couldn't. My drive—that comes from her."

My mother had fawned over me for as long as she can spare before she's called back to work. Being an Admiral carries a heavy responsibility, she told me, like I didn't know. My father patted my hand awkwardly, seeming uncomfortable outside of his garage. I tried to smile even though it hurt like hell, and he told me I did a good job before he followed my mother out the door. Back then I didn't imagine our relationship would get any better. It just goes to show I still can't predict the future. Not that I'd want to.

I open up to Sheila a little more and I talk about Miranda; and I tell her about Jack. "I never would have expected to see those two in the same room of their own volition," I tell her. "They always hated each other. But those two were my near-constant companions those first few months in the hospital."

"Tell me about it," Sheila says.

So I do.

O~o~O

Time is a different creature in a hospital. Some days I wake up and it's only been a few hours; other times I wake up and the relief in people's faces tells me it's been days, or weeks, or months. You may wake up exactly as you were before, or with a new scar, or a new IV. You may wake up with a shaved head because they had to drill into your skull to install new implants and remove an old one.

Healing is never simple, even when it's easy, and it's never as easy as it should be.

Jack comes to visit me every couple of days; she's the first Alliance officer who can offer anything remotely close to a debriefing. Even she's not privy to all the news but it's better than nothing.

I'll take what I can get.

"You gave me a hell of a scare, Shepard," she says by way of greeting the first time I see her after I wake up.

I smile, though the pain probably makes it look like more of a grimace. "Sorry 'bout that."

She shrugs and drops into the chair next to my bed. "Whatever."

She tells me she stayed with me the whole time they were fighting to keep me from death's door, and she recounts in her own vivid detail the mad dash from the Citadel wreckage to the hospital, of her waiting impatiently in the cordoned off section where people could wait to see if their loved ones pulled through.

She had been there for hours, through the shouting she was sure meant I was dying; through people coming and going; through five cups of some crap that tasted worse than the instant coffee Gardner had served on the Normandy. It was halfway through that sixth cup when Miranda strode in, as casual as you please, to take over.

"For once I was happy to see that bitch," Jack says, and I know it pains her to say it even now. "I knew she'd get you through. Cerberus hates to see their work go down the tubes."

I tell Jack that Cerberus is going under. That it's probably already done for. The Illusive Man is dead…killed him myself, I say, even though it doesn't seem like it's good enough for her or for me. But I have to remember that he poured four billion credits into bringing me back. I can't hate him for that.

Even though sometimes I really try to.

O~o~O

My job had been done. The galaxy has been saved—as much as you can call it saved when planets and civilizations were in ruin, and your crew had disappeared and no one could tell you where they were or even if they lived. As I had laid in that hospital bed staring at the ceiling I had heard Hackett's voice telling me I "did a good job" like it was over. But I guess to them it was.

Somehow we had rallied the galaxy's fleets and somehow we had defeated the Reapers. It seemed impossible. It had seemed unreal. I had made it to the other side, and it was a side I had never expected to see.

When I spoke with my mother on the phone, she had assured me that was just the medication talking. Look at what you've done, she said, and I had heard the pride in her voice. It was for her daughter. It was for her daughter's accomplishments, her daughter the soldier's accomplishments. If they're gone you'll live on and serve in order to honor them. Officers lose crew members in war. It's a hard truth, but we've all faced it.

I had wanted to tell my mother they weren't just crew but I knew she wouldn't understand. They were friends, family; they had been the reason I'd made it as far as I did. But as alike as my mother and I were I knew she wouldn't understand that.

"You tried to convince yourself you weren't hurting," Sheila says when I pause, and I let myself nod.

"It's normal," she tells me. "We don't want to admit we're struggling, that we're not as strong as we always convinced ourselves we were. After such a long time of taking care of yourself and your crew—of taking care of the galaxy—it seems like a failure to admit we need help too. It must have been a hard realization for you."

"Sometimes I think I'm still realizing just how hard it was," I admit.

She tells me there are always going to be hard days because that's how this works. But eventually the good days will fill the majority and the bad days will grow few and further between.

"It's okay to admit you're not okay. You've done your duty. Your crew is safe. The galaxy is saved." She pauses to look me straight in the face and waits for me to look up from staring at my hands.

"You've taken care of everyone else. Now it's time to take care of you."