Chapter 29

The door chimed at 0600. Garrus let Dr Chakwas in. Cassidy was still asleep. Dr Chakwas scanned her, took a blood sample and checked the dermal regen sites. Callista came and sniffed the doctor. Dr Chakwas petted Callista for a bit, then got up and motioned Garrus to join her up by the desk.

"The dermal regen is nearly done. I've done a quick blood sugar check and she's lower than I would like. I'm going to have Samesh send up breakfast for you both a bit early. Then have her eat more with Liara. Don't let her sleep through breakfast. I'm also boosting her calorie intake for the day. I'll see her again around noon."

Garrus said, "Thank you, doctor."

About a half hour later, Parveen arrived with their trays.

Garrus went over to Cassidy's side and shook her shoulder, "Hey, breakfast is here." "Its not time for Liara yet, just let me sleep some more." "No, Dr Chakwas specifically said you get to have breakfast with me now and with Liara later." "Oh, ok, hand me my sweats please." Cassidy dragged herself to a sitting position then pulled on her sweats. Garrus pulled her to a stand, held her close for a moment, then kissed the top of her head. Then he walked her over to the couch.

She had oatmeal with brown sugar and banana slices. Bacon, yogurt with granola and orange sections. "I want you to lead the ground missions today." she said. "I can do that." When they finished, he gathered up the trays and took them up to the desk. "I'll get ready and get the first retrieval rolling."

Garrus was ready to go when Liara and Parveen arrived. Garrus said, "Liara, we'll be meeting at the shuttle in an hour." "I'll be ready, Garrus." Cassidy's tray this time had fried eggs over-easy, multi-grain toast, hashed browns, patty sausage, with butter, peach marmalade, and maple syrup, and a fruit smoothie. While they ate and talked about the latest news from Liara's information network, Callista got into the kitty cup between them and curled up, purring.

After Liara left, Cassidy took a shower and got dressed. She queued up an easy listening playlist and turned the volume down low. She grabbed her book, found her place and immersed herself back in the Foundation.

She was focused on the book still when Garrus returned. He placed a bag on the table in front of her and went to clean up. She marked her place and looked in the bag. There was a tall insulated mug and a box of chocolate dipped strawberries. The mug had sweet iced tea. "Any trouble down there?" "Just the usual, took out the usual assortment of Reaper troops, gave the local defense a breather." She nodded, took a bite of strawberry. "We're on our way to the relay system. We'll tackle that after lunch."

She got up and went to her locker, pulled out a pack of cards and a cribbage board. "Do you know how to play cribbage?" "No, but I'm sure you can teach me." She coached him through a couple of sample hands and they played one game. Samesh came on the com, "Commander, are you coming down to lunch as usual or do you want trays sent up?" "We'll come down, Samesh."

They joined Tali, James and Ashley at the table. Tali said, "You are looking more energetic now, I'm glad to see it, Cassidy." "Heard your tank was running on fumes, Lola." said James. Ashley said, "Are you feeling better now, Shepard?" "Samesh is successfully tempting me to eat more than I'm used to and that's helping, so yes, I'm getting there."

Parveen brought their trays. Cassidy's was a spinach leaf garden salad, beef enchiladas in medium red sauce, spanish rice, refried beans, a small glass of dark cerveza, and a sopapilla with honey. James' tray was the same. Ashley had soft corn tortilla tacos. They joked about the Blasto series of movies.

Cassidy finished and excused herself to go see Dr Chakwas. "Your looking better, Shepard. Let me scan your regen sites. Good, that process is complete. Now the blood draw . . . good, your blood sugar is coming up. We'll need to keep it higher than usual for several days for your stores to build back up." "So, medical leave the rest of today, then what?" "Well, light duty tomorrow and then we'll see."

Cassidy said, "OK. Um, I wonder if you could do some research for me?" "What's on your mind?" "Garrus and I have done some small tasting of each other's food and neither of us tasted anything of what was supposed to be spicy. So, does that mean that my gut ignores the dextro stuff or does it get taken up into my blood stream but then ignored there and passed out through the kidneys?" "I'll look to see if there's anything published in the Alliance military files, but we may need to do individual trials on you, if you're that interested." "Yes, I'm interested, please." "OK, I'll get back to you."

Garrus came into the med bay as she was getting off the bed, "We are getting ready to head out for the second retrieval." "OK, I'm going back to my reading. See you when you get back."

Cassidy went out and Samesh said, "Commander, I have something for you." She went over to the galley and he handed her a bag, "Trail mix, for munching. Some dried fruit, some M&Ms, some nuts. And here is your strawberry shake." She took the bag and the insulated mug. "Thank you, Samesh."

Callista walked by and into Liara's room. Cassidy went back up and back to her book.

When she finished the book, she put on a simple yoga video, got a mat out and followed along. Garrus came in while she was in a camel pose. "I thought your limits were walking and talking for today." "This is very easy-going yoga. I'm not even breathing hard. I needed to stretch." She ended the video and put the mat away. "How was the mission?" "Not even much opposition this time." "Another game of cribbage before dinner?" "Sure."

The next three weeks were spent scanning, retrieving and delivering.

During that time, one evening in the first week, Dr Chakwas asked Cassidy into the med bay. "I looked into the question you asked and there is some, but not much. What is there seems to indicate, where allergic reaction is absent, some of both, some ignored in the gut and some taken into the blood and ignored there. However, details like which foods go which way are absent. If you want more information than that, we're going to have to do the individual testing I mentioned before." "All right, draw up a plan for the testing and I'll look at it. This is not really a priority, so we'll do it when time permits." "Barring a medical emergency, I should have a plan for you tomorrow."

The next evening, Dr Chakwas said "Here's the plan. I place a micro-camera in your duodenum, then activate it to record when we know dextro material will be there. The video will be able to show which molecules get taken up by the villi to be deposited into the blood. When we're done, I'll tell the camera to release and pass with the next meal. Here is the order of the foods I suggest you try." "How long will the camera placement take?" "We can do it now in about 10 minutes." "OK, let's do it." "Here, swallow this, here's some water, . . . now I follow it down . . . and there. Yes, I'm getting an image from it. Now, what I have here is a turian vegetable, practically straight starchy carbohydrate."

The evening visit to Dr Chakwas became part of the daily schedule. Garrus noticed, but didn't ask, figuring she would tell him if he needed to know.