Authors Note: OK Guys. At the moment I am without a Beta reader, as mine is on Hiatus for a bit. So please be forgiving of any mistakes.

We are starting to get down to those last crucial missions now... so Enjoy the ride!

Chapter Twenty-nine

Shepard stalked through the Normandy, bristling with the force of how uncomfortable she was. She swallowed hard, trying to force the memory of Morinth, Samara's daughter, from her mind. Everything had started off going to plan. Samara had found reports of Morinth on Omega so they had headed there to let the Justicar apprehend her.

Once on Omega, they were just a few days too late. Morinth had killed a young girl, an artist. It was then that Samara had explained what Morinth truly was, and was capable of.

She was an Ardat-Yakshi. An Asari with a type of genetic default. If you let an Ardat-Yakshi mind meld with you, you died. They would completely burn out your mind and nervous system. Worse, everything about them drew you in. How they smelt, their voice's, their bodies. They were an Apex predator.

A shudder ripped through Shepard, and she gritted her teeth against the pain and sensations in her head. Shepard had been used as bait. Dressed up by Kasumi and sent into the club to mingle, and hope to be approached by Morinth, while Samara kept a sharp eye out. Everything had gone to plan. Morinth had approached Shepard, and they had sat for some drinks and conversation. Then, they went back to Morinth's apartment.

That's where it had gone wrong. Samara had been a fraction to slow, and once Morinth had realised Shepard was not who she seemed, she had forced the meld.

It had been agony.

It had felt like talons tearing into her skull, ripping away essential pieces of herself. What in reality had been seconds, to Shepard was like long minutes. Morinth had torn down into the deepest part of herself, where she kept those most painful and precious memories hidden. The Asari had ruthlessly torn into the memories of Kaidan, of her family, and twisted them.

Another shudder tore through Shepard. She stepped with shaky legs off the elevator towards her cabin, but stopped at the door, and just sat. Unable to go any farther. Again and again her mind was bombarded with memories, the old true ones first, followed by the twisted, heart wrenching abominations planted by Morinth.

Lily laying in the grass, her white dress with blue flowers slowly turning red, her blue eyes gone glassy.

Her mother, dead eyes staring at her through the crack in the wardrobe door.

Kaidan's face above her, leaning down to kiss her, oh so gently the night before Ilos.

Her mother, twisted in a passionate embrace with the Batarian that gunned down her father, her eyes as cold as her smile as they looked over his shoulder at the frightened child in the doorway.

Kaidan, blood pouring from a gunshot wound to the gut, lying on the presidium. His eyes shocked and accusing on hers, and on the gun in her hand.

Kaidan, face gone blank, amber eyes glassy. Dead.

Shepard punched the command on the door and just made it to her washroom before she started vomiting. She clamped her hands on her head, willing the images away. She sat, in her washroom, head clenched tightly in her hands as they tore through her mind again and again.

"Shepard?" The voice asking was soft, unsure.

"I'm here Tali." Shepard groaned, getting slowly to her feet and rinsing her mouth. The throb in her head felt like it was going to split her skull in two. She moved slowly out of the washroom, and leaned against the wall facing her Quarian friend.

"Keelah…Shepard, are you alright?" Tali's voice was full of concern.

"I will be. It's just… god Tali. Morinth, she ripped into my head, planted images of things…I can't stop seeing them."

"Is there anything I can do? Anything that will help?" Tali's hand settled gently onto Shepard's shoulder.

"Actually…Can you tell Joker to set course for Illium, then tell Miranda she has the deck? I am going to get something from Chakwas for my head, if I don't I think it will split right in two."

"Of course Shepard. I will tell them right away. I hope whatever Chakwas gets you helps. I can't imagine someone being able to force into your mind like that…I'm sorry."

Shepard smiled at her. "Oh Tali…only you would be sorry for something that you had absolutely nothing to do with."

Tali wrung her hands and Shepard was sure if she could see the Quarians face she would be blushing.

"It's the thought that counts." Tali quipped at her, then with a last squeeze of her shoulder, she headed off to do as Shepard asked.

Moving slowly, Shepard made her way down the stairs in her cabin to sit gingerly on the edge of the bed. She sent a message to Chakwas, then concentrated on breathing in and out, all the while trying to stay out of her own head.

With a hiss the door to her cabin swished open and Chakwas stepped through.

"Shepard. I understand there was an incident with the Ardat-Yakshi?"

Shepard snorted, then immediately regretted it. "You could say that. She tried to force a meld…it wasn't pleasant. She forced me to see things…" Shepard cut herself off, not wanting to voice exactly what Morinth had made her see.

Chakwas flared her nostrils in indignation. "Force a meld! Of all the barbaric…well, we will give you a shot for the pain, and I suggest you let me give you something to help you sleep. It will all be for naught if you can't sleep because of the things in your mind."

How the doctor always seemed to know just what was troubling her, Shepard would never know. With a grateful smile, Shepard nodded, and Chakwas prepared the shots.

After fussing over Shepard a little longer, and making sure she would get a tray of dinner sent up to her room, Chakwas bustled out in a flurry of efficiency. Shepard sighed and lay back on her bed, looking up at the stars through the view port above her bed.

She lay, watching the blue waves caused by FTL travel dance back and forth across the stars. It was quite pretty really. It reminded her of how how Kaidan looked when he let his biotics dance across his skin. Her eyes began to feel heavy, and she drifted into sleep.

She ran, chasing after the flash of blue that always seemed to be just out of sight ahead of her. The feeling of urgency in her was strong. She had to be faster, she had to catch…it? Him?

Her legs pumping hard, she rounded another corner, a quick glimpse of a leg clad in blue armour tantalizing her by slipping around a bend just ahead. With a last burst of speed, she raced around the corner only to stop dead as she cleared the edge.

Kaidan was standing on the Presidium in bright blue armour, flames and billowing smoke behind him. He had a pistol pointed right at her face. His face was wary and he was saying something to her, but she couldn't hear. There was a noise in her ears like a constant buzzing, drowning everything else out.

The vision of him wavered, going out of focus, and suddenly she was looking deep into his eyes. The amber colour was so vivid, and they shone with the passion and caring that made her love him. Her vision blurred and wavered again and suddenly she had a pistol in her hand, pointing at him.

He looked like he was going to lower his, and was still saying something to her that she couldn't hear over the muffling noise in her head. She could feel how heavy the pistol felt in her hand, could feel the tension in her finger on the trigger.

A part of her mind was beating its fist's against its cage, screaming at her to stop, to think. In the blink of an eye, Kaidan's beloved face became hard, cold, and the tip of the pistol raised slightly towards her head.

The finger on the trigger of her pistol tensed and the crack it made as it discharged was deafening. The voice in her mind was howling with grief and rage as She watched Kaidan's face go blank with shock. He took a small step towards her, then slumped to the ground, a red stain spreading slowly out from beneath him.

No! Nononono! I shot him. She tried to run forward, limbs dragging as though battling through thick molasses. By the time she reached him his beautiful eyes were dimming.

"Shepard I…" The light left his face, and with a sigh he was gone.

She went completely numb. She looked at the pistol in her hand. She was a murderer. She had killed the man she loved in cold blood, with no reason.

She was no savior, no hero. She looked up at the Asari standing above her.

"You don't deserve him Shepard. You've never deserved him. Every one who loves you dies. Your family, your friends. You are the bringer of death." Morinth said in a cold tone.

Images tore through Shepards mind like claws, leaving painful furrows of grief in their wake.

Ashley, gunned down, the water around her red and green with the blood of the Salarians surrounding her.

Jack, covered in blood crashing lifeless to the floor.

Kasumi disappearing into a ball of flames.

Thane impaled by a huge metal beam, going limp as a rag doll.

Jacob, Zaeed, Mordin, Tali all gunned down by collectors, one after another.

Grunt devoured before her eyes by a seeker swarm.

Joker, screaming in agony as the Normandy went down in a ball of flames.

Chakwas and Kelly, melting before her eyes as though doused in acid.

Miranda, crushed under an enormous metal beam, blood leaking from her mouth.

Garrus, shot in the gut and dying in her arms while a hail of bullets surrounded them.

With a scream Shepard pulled herself out of the torrent of images and raised the pistol towards the Asari standing over her. She emptied her pistol into the alien until Morinth fell to the ground.

Those cold blue eyes flashed black as Morinth gasped. "You'll kill them all…"

Shepard shot upright in bed covered in sweat, a scream strangling in her throat. She looked wildly around, realising she was on the Normandy.

"EDI, crew status report. Now" She gasped.

The blue orb flickered to life at the far side of the cabin. "Operatives Lawson and Taylor are asleep. As are Grunt, Ms. Goto, Officer Vakarian, Zaeed and Dr. Chakwas. Jack is writing in the Cargo Hold. Dr. Solus is singing in the Lab, and Tali Zorah is working on a terminal in Engineering. Ser Krios is meditating in life support. Mr. Moreau is at the helm. Nothing out of the ordinary Commander."

"Thank you EDI."

Shepard struggled to keep her breathing calm, but she kept seeing them dead, over and over. A sob ripped free.

It's not real Jane. It is all in your head. It's not real. Another sob tore loose, and suddenly she was hysterically crying. She couldn't seem to catch her breath. The more she tried to hold them in, the harder the sobs shook her frame. She was having a panic attack. She was bent over her knee's, trying to force air into her body, and didn't notice the tell-tale swoosh of her cabin door opening.

Suddenly the green eyed, bearded face of Joker was in front of her. His strong hands gripped hers tightly and he said "Breathe Shepard. Just follow me."

His hands were holding hers tightly as he made exaggerated deep breathes in and out, in and out. She tried to match him, but the gasping sobs were hard to stop. He stayed exactly where he was, just doing the deep breathes. Slowly, she was able to match him for a few, then a few more. The racking sobs finally stopped, and she was left feeling completely drained as the occasional shudder ran through her frame.

Joker's hands were rubbing hers now, and she lifted her tear streaked face to meet his worried gaze.

"I'm sorry Jeff." Her voice was raspy, and felt raw. She shivered and he scooted closer, rubbing his hands briskly along her bare arms.

"That Asari really pulled a number on you, hey Shepard?" His voice was soft. Not a hint of his usual teasing in his tone.

"She raped my mind. Made me see things that weren't real, that never happened. I can't stop seeing it. I dreamt… I saw… everyone dead. You,Tali, Garrus…Kaidan-" She cut off and swallowed hard, pulling away from his gaze.

"Jane… It's ok. It was just a dream. Something she made up. Your fine, we are fine."

"It's not just a dream! Everything that Bitch said is true. Everybody dies Jeff. My Parents, Lily, Ash… And now I am leading everyone on this suicide mission thinking I can get you all out safely. Fuck, I even killed me!"

Joker's face was shocked. "Shepard-"

"I'm glad, really." Shepard pushed to her feet, pacing away from him and around the room. "I am glad that Kaidan isn't here. I'm glad I don't have to watch the light in his eyes fade. I'm glad at least he is safe."

She leaned her fist's against the cold glass of the fish tank, fighting the tears burning the back of her eyes.

A rough hand was on her shoulder, spinning her around.

"Fuck that Shepard! This isn't you. Yeah, your parents died, and Ash died. But that wasn't on you. You saved thousands of people on Elysium, Shepard. Thousands. You saved thousands more on the Citadel. You died, saving me! So Morinth fucked you over, made you see some shit that no one should have to see, but you are Commander Jane Fucking Shepard. When has a little mind fuckery made you give up? You had a Prothean beacon jammed in your head, and it only made you fight harder. This isn't you."

He was breathing hard, his eyes lit with conviction.

"How do you know Jeff? How can you think it will all be okay? After everything we have seen?"

He grinned at her, that cocksure grin he always had. "Because you have the best damn pilot in the galaxy on your side, not to mention a kick ass team of crazies willing to walk into hell at your side. Jeez Shepard. Do you really think anyone else in the galaxy could have gotten all these people to work together? I know we will all get through it because we have you. And you wont ever leave someone behind."

She stared at him. At the belief burning behind his green eyes. Belief in her.

She squared her shoulders. Even if she did worry, Joker was right. She was the one that pulled them all together. If she fell apart, so would they. She didn't want to think about what would happen if they hit the Collector home world with her acting like this. She had to be strong. She had to believe in them, in herself.

"Jeff, I'm sorry. That's twice now you've had to come up here and mop me up." She gave him a crooked little smile in apology.

"Hah! Shepard, you're one of my best friends. The least I can do is be a shoulder sometimes. Besides, it's not exactly hard on the old ego to have a beautiful woman cry her eyes out on you because she had a bad dream." He winked at her.

She laughed, and the last vestiges of the visions faded away. These were her people. Fuck Morinth and, as Joker said 'her mindfuckery'. She would do what she always did. Bring them home.

"Alright Moreau, let's just make sure that ego doesn't get any bigger, hmm. Otherwise I seriously doubt your ability to get your fat head out of the airlock!"

He clutched a hand over his heart in mock pain. "Oh! You wound me Shepard!"

She smiled, and leaned over and hugged him gently. "Thank you Jeff. It means a lot to have you here." She broke off the hug, then scrubbed a hand over her face briskly. "Well, since we are both up, you might as well set course for Illium. We need to go and see Liara."

"Sure thing Shepard, Tali told me. See you at breakfast." He fired her a cheeky salute, then turned and headed back towards the bridge.

After the door closed behind him, Shepard decided to jump in the shower. She was covered in dried sweet, and she wanted to wash the memories of the nightmare away. As she moved towards the washroom, the picture on her desk flickered to life. She picked up the picture of Kaidan and held it, examining the planes of his face.

Somewhere out there he was alive and well, and fighting for her to have something to come back to. She pictured his lopsided grin and flashing eyes when he found something funny. She pictured his lips, and his husky voice whispering something in her ear when he checked the seals on her armour.

She smiled at the photo, and trailed a finger down his face. He was alive, and so was she. Now all she had to do was keep it that way.

00oo00oo00

Shepard sat in Port Observation staring blearily at the shot of whisky in front of her. Zaeed was on her right, telling some outrageous story about ripping off a Krogans head plate with a knife to Jack, who was downing shots like they were water.

Garrus was on her left, with the same slightly glazed expression on his face as was on hers.

Liara was the new Shadow Broker. Liara.

It still didn't seem real. When they had arrived back on Illium, there had been an absolute shit storm. Liara revealed that she was the one who had given Shepard's body to Cerberus. Apparently she had been trying to find it, with the help of her friend Feron, and they discovered that the shadow broker wanted it to give to the Collectors. She chose Cerberus instead, and the Shadow Broker had not been amused. Feron had been taken and Liara assumed he was dead.

Well, it turns out he wasn't. He was a prisoner of the Shadow Broker, and had been for just over two years. They decided to meet at Liara's apartment, as the Asari needed to check something out with one of her contacts without Shepard. That's when things got really crazy.

Liara's apartment had been shot up, she was missing, and a Spectre got involved. It was about as FUBAR as things could get.

Turned out the Spectre, Tela Vasir, had been bought by the Shadow broker, and was supposed to eliminate Liara, as she was working her ass off to bring him down. The battle had been intense, and there were civilian casualties, as the shadows broker blew up three floors of an office building trying to kill Liara.

Once Vasir was dead, they had been able to discover the lair of the Shadow Broker. It was on Hagalaz. An inhabitable planet that felt like it's sole purpose is to kill you.

The Shadow Broker's ship was huge, and untraceable due to the fact that it lived in a permanent lightning storm. It had taken them hours to battle along the immense ship, and finally find Feron.

He was not in good shape. The Shadow broker had been torturing him for years, and when Shepard found him, he had been hooked up to some kind of torture chair. If you attempted to free him from it, he was jolted with electricity. They were forced to leave him there, and go on to confront the Shadow Broker.

Shepard tossed back the shot in front of her, grimacing at the burn and the memory of the Shadow broker.

He had been a Yahg. Shepard hadn't ever seen something like him before, but Liara knew what he was. And it hadn't been good. Yang's were an extremely aggressive and incredibly smart race, that were barred from Citadel space after massacring the Council delegation. They were also enormous. Over 10 feet of sold muscle and razor sharp teeth and claws.

Liara, Shepard and Garrus had been about to engage the monstrous Broker when, in a flurry of speed, he threw his desk across the room at them. Shepard and Liara had managed to dive out of the way, their smaller frames fast and agile.

Garrus had not been so lucky. The desk had hit the Turian full in the chest, send him flying across the room and knocking him out cold.

Shepard snuck a peek at him from the corner of her eye. He gingerly touched the fresh bandage on the side of his face and then flung back another shot.

Once they had finally gotten the Broker down, by using his own ships lighting gathering against him, calls started pouring in from his contacts all across the Galaxy. They had been frozen, unsure of what to do. The Liara had stepped up to the console and issued the command for everyone to proceed as normal.

The console used a voice scrambler, so whoever stood at it sounded the same. She became the new Shadow broker.

Shepard had left Liara and Feron, who would recover but was definitely going to need to take it easy for a long, long time, on the Shadow Broker vessel to begin the tedious process of taking charge of the vast networks of spies throughout the galaxy.

She poured herself another shot, and slammed it down, ignoring Jack's cheers as she did so. She caught Garrus' eye and he grinned at her, then started to laugh. It was contagious. Soon everyone in the room was laughing with him. As one, they raised their glasses and toasted the new Shadow Broker.

"To Liara. Shy Prothean expert turned galaxies number one information broker and badass. May she always be on our side!"

00oo00oo00

With a groan, Shepard rolled over in her bed and stared blearily at the alarm chirping incessantly at her from her night stand. She threw out her arm and sent it crashing to the floor, but it didn't stop. Cursing under her breath she grabbed it and turned it off. Sitting on the edge of her bed, cradling her head in her hands she regretted immensely the overindulgence of the night before.

With a grunt, she heaved herself off her bed and staggered into her shower, turning it on full cold and stepping under the spray with a small shriek. Stepping out after a quick washing of her hair, her head felt much clearer. Her terminal light was blinking at her, and she decided she would finally read the message from Hackett.

Her hangover vanished instantly. Alchera. He wanted her to go to Alchera and recover the dog tags from the crew that died on the first Normandy, and place a monument there. Her heart pounded, and her mouth went dry. Alchera, the place where she died.

She closed her eyes and thought vainly of a way to refuse. But it was no good. She thought of the crew that had died. She thought of Pressley. She had to go, she owed it to them. She dressed in her black fatigues. She had bought them on the Citadel, she needed something without Cerberus logo's and she didn't have any alliance fatigues so they would have to do.

She fired off a message asking Chakwas, Joker, Garrus and Tali to meet her in the comm room. She went through the mess and asked Mess Sergeant Gardner to whip up a hearty breakfast. When she stepped through the doors to the comm room, everyone else was already waiting.

They watched her curiously as she took a deep breath, and moved to the front of the room.

"I have received a request from Admiral Hackett-" She started, only to be cut off by Joker.

"What! After everything they did, the Alliance thinks they can ask you for favours!"

She shot him a look, and he shut up, but still looked pissed. "As I was saying, I received a request from Admiral Hackett to fly to Alchera and retrieve the dog tags of the members of the crew that perished on the first Normandy."

The silence rang through the comm room as everyone digested this. Shepard scanned their faces intently. Garrus hummed, then met her gaze head on, and gave her a tiny nod. She smiled at him slightly in relief. He would join her.

"As each of you served on the original Normandy, I wanted to ask if you wanted to join me. I thought we could honor our crew mates together. Along with collecting the tags, we are going to place a monument honoring those who gave their lives in service."

Garrus stood up instantly, followed by Tali. "We would be honored to go down there with you Shepard." Garrus said in his rumbling tones.

She looked at Joker and Chakwas. Chakwas stood up first. "Shepard, if you have a suit for me, It would mean a lot to me to join you. Pressley and I, we were very close. I would be honored to share in placing a monument for him, and the others."

Shepard looked at Joker, who was looking at the floor, his hands gripping each other tightly. She stepped over to him, and knelt in front of him, mirroring the pose he had taken with her after her nightmare a few days before.

"Jeff, if you don't want to go down there I understand."

He looked up at her, his expression shattered. "They are dead because of me Shepard. I can't…"

"Jeff Moreau, if you hadn't stayed in that pilot's seat for as long as you did evading those beams, all of us would be dead. The died because of the Collectors, not because of you. We all did everything we could." Her voice was soft, quiet in the somber comm room.

He held her gaze for a few heartbeats, then sighed. "O.K Shepard. Let's do it. All of us."

Six hours later the five of them stood on the icy planet of Alchera, looking at the broken remains of the original Normandy.

It was silent except for the sound of their breathing through the comms. "Ok. Let's start looking." Shepard said quietly, and linking her arm through Joker's so she could support him, they moved off toward the largest piece of hull. The bodies they came across were unrecognizable. Charred and twisted they barely resembled humans. Shepards hand shook at she reached down and took the first set of tag's gently from the corpse.

Raymond Tanaka. He had been one of the team mates that worked on the survey terminals with Kaidan. She tucked his tags gently into the pouch on her hip, and they continued forward.

An hour later they stood before the shattered remains of the cockpit. Joker's hands were shaking, and his breathing was harsh and erratic. Shepard reached down towards a data pad sticking out of the snow at her feet.

It was Pressley's. After reading it, and letting a smile cross her face at her old XO's words, she called Chakwas over and passed it to her for safekeeping. Then she released Jokers hand and moved into the ruined ship. Near the very front, she found the last set of tags. As she stood, so close to the pilots chair an image of Joker flashed through her mind. Cocksure grin on his face as he boasted to Anderson about being the best Pilot in the galaxy.

As she turned to move back towards the little group waiting outside the ruins, there was a sharp gasp through the comm and Garrus said her name. She looked over to where he was bent down by the edge of a huge snowdrift. He jumped to his feet and stepped back from a lump on the ground as though it had shocked him.

She motioned for the others to wait, and headed towards Garrus. A sharp keening cam through the comm, then cut off abruptly as Garrus clicked off the public channel. Shepard immediately activated their private channel and the keening continued.

By the time she reached him the sound he was making was soft, and absolutely heartbreaking. His huge shoulders shook slightly as she moved up beside him.

"Garrus what?-" Her voice died out as she saw what he had found.

There in the snow was her helmet. The helmet she had been wearing when she was sent spinning into the void.

This was where she had lain, before Liara sent her to Cerberus. This was her grave.

She went down on her knee's and her hand shook violently as she brushed the snow off the N7 helmet. As soon as she picked it up, she was back there.

Shepard spun, flashes of the stars and burning wreckage coming in and out of focus as she turned. She could hear the harsh rasp of her breathing and a chilling pressure building in her chest for just a moment before her suit started screaming with alarms.

Hose breach.

Even as she scrambled frantically for the hose, trying desperately to plug it, she knew it was hopeless.

As she spun around and around in the vastness of space, her lungs shredding as she desperately tried to breathe air that was no longer there, she thought of Kaidan. She tried to tell him she loved him, in case there was a tiny chance he could hear.

But no noise escaped her except the tortured sound of dying lungs trying desperately to breathe. She pictured his face, trying to bring it to the front of her mind.

Then it all went black.

She was flat on her back, choking and gasping and clawing at her helmet. Suit alarms blared and shrieked at her. Garrus was prying her hand's away from her helmet seals and screaming her name. He lay half on top of her to stop her mad thrashing.

Some part of her brain registered that he was there, that she could see his face so she wasn't spinning endlessly and dying in the vacuum of space. She forced herself to stop clawing at her helmet, but she still couldn't breathe. Suddenly Garrus' face was gone, replaced by Joker's. He pressed the glass of his helmet right up against hers and yelled "Breathe with me Shepard!"

She could hear the deep breathes he was making. In and out, in and out, just as he had after her nightmare days before. Her hands were still tightly gripped by Garrus and she could here the horrible keening noise he was making even with his comm clicked off.

"Focus Shepard! Breathe!" Joker said, bumping his helmet against hers to make her focus. She manages a gasping breathe, then another.

Once she managed to get some oxygen back into her system, she realised she had had another panic attack. Chakwas had said she would suffer from PTSD, that after something so traumatic, there's no way she wouldn't. But this…

If Garrus hadn't been next to her she would have torn off her helmet. She would be dead right now.

She used Garrus' death grip on her hands to pull herself into a sitting position. Behind Garrus and Joker, Tali and Chakwas stood gripping each other and watching as though frozen. Upon seeing her sit up, Chakwas released Tali and moved to Shepard's side. Joker rolled away from her, and moved to comfort Tali. Garrus remained where he was, her hands clutched tightly in his, the keening dying away.

Chakwas scanned her and checked her vitals. "Shepard. You had a panic attack. Jeff said he had been through this with you before, and I am glad to see he knew what he was doing. How are you feeling now?"

Her head throbbed and she felt like she was going to be sick. "I'm fine Karin. Tired, and pretty embarrassed actually."

Chakwas tutted at her sharply. "You have nothing to be embarrassed about. Seeing something like that." She gestured to the helmet laying forgotten beside Shepard. "After what you've been through would have set anyone off. I want to do a full scan on you once we get back to the Normandy."

Shepard nodded her head wearily. "Let's place the monument and get the hell out of here. I never want to see this place again." Chakwas nodded and moved away. Shepard looked at Garrus, still crouched next to her, still holding her hands as though scared to let them go.

"Garrus?"

He shuddered and his hands tightened reflexively.

"Garrus…I'm ok. Let's get out of here. Garrus?"

He nodded and released her hands. They moved back towards the Kodiak, and placed the monument beside the largest piece of wreckage, jutting out of the snow with the words Normandy emblazed across its ruined frame. Shepard tucked her old helmet under her arm and brought it with her.

The ride back to the Normandy was silent. Shepard kept shooting worried glances at Garrus, who was still silent. Once on board they all stripped out of their armour. Chakwas reminded Shepard to report to the med bay for a full check-up. She nodded, then motioned her head towards Garrus, who was sitting behind the weapons bench, head bowed.

Everyone silently left the bay, leaving them alone.

She sat next to him. "Garrus-"

"I should have left it. I should never have shown you." His dual toned voice rang with pain.

"Oh Garrus, it's not your fault. If you hadn't been there to stop me…"

"You died Shepard. You died and I wasn't there. And today… today you almost died again and I couldn't…I couldn't." He keened softly again and Shepard suddenly realised that the noise was how Turians cried.

She moved off the bench and knelt in front of him. Apparently survivor's guilt was affecting crew mates who hadn't even been on the Normandy when it blew up.

She reached up and cradled his face in her hands.

"Garrus, It's over now. I am back, and you are here and we made it through. If it hadn't been for you today, I would have clawed my own helmet off. If it hadn't been for you, I would be dead. You had my back, as you always do. I'm sorry, so sorry I scared you like that. As soon as I touched it I was there again, spinning away into space listening to my air bleed out. I just lost it…"

He bent his head and rested his forehead against hers. The keening faded away. They sat there for long minutes, until all the tension fell away. When Garrus finally pulled his forehead from hers, his eyes were clear.

"Shepard… You scared me today. More than anything else has. We are a team. There's no Vakarian without Shepard, so remember that the next time you try to kill your self, hmm."

She smiled at him, more proud than she could put into words at his brave attempt to lighten the mood. She truly didn't deserve a friend like him.

"Right. No Shepard without Vakarian either. I better get up to med bay before Chakwas sends a search party."

He nodded, and she stood up with a groan. As they took the elevator up to the crew deck, Shepard turned to him before heading into the med bay.

"Garrus?"

"Yeah Shepard?"

"Thank you."

"Anytime Jane. Anytime."