His ears were ringing. Someone was waving one of those medical lights in front of his eyes and he winced, turning away from it. It clicked off the same instant. "Glad to see you're awake, Commander."

It was Chakwas' voice, but the room, probably the med bay, was too hazy for him to really see anything. He tried to sit up anyway, groaning when something dug into his ribs and held him down. It didn't feel exactly pleasant, but it didn't necessarily hurt either. He was grateful for that; he imagined he didn't want to be feeling any sword wounds just after waking up. But that still didn't explain the restraints.

"What the hell is this?" His mouth was dry. His voice sounded like someone stomped on his throat for hours.

"You...had to be restrained."

"I can see that. Why?"

"Sometime after you were brought aboard, you started raving about geth. Before you could lapse into an episode, Williams and I tied you down."

He blinked several times. It didn't help much. "Ash was here?"

"Her sister," Chakwas corrected. "Ashley hasn't been here since she and Garrus dropped you off. Sarah, however, has been up and down for the last twelve hours. I don't think the poor girl knows how to sleep."

Shepard tried shaking his head after another wave of blinking. That did the trick, but the lights overhead still hurt his eyes. It would take some readjusting. "That's uh...that's great. Now are you going to let me out of these things?"

Chakwas returned to his field of view, leaning over him with a furrowed brow. "How are you feeling?"

"What?"

"How are you feeling?" she repeated. "Mentally, physically, emotionally. Virmire was a traumatic experience for all parties involved, but you haven't had the chance to talk with Chambers yet. Unlike Ashley, Garrus, and Tali, you've also exhibited signs of that trauma, both last night and over the last several days."

He frowned. "Just let me out of the restraints. I have things to do."

"Commander, you can either tell me that you feel fine, or I can call Chambers down to reassess your mental stability."

"I'm fine, Chakwas," he said. "Now let me up. I need to...something. I need to go do something."

She sighed as she began unclasping the belts holding him down to the cot. It felt good to be free when he sat up, stretching his arms overhead. That didn't feel so good; he stressed both ends of the wound and he scowled, running a hand over his ribs. Medigel was still covering the entry wound, and if he really thought about it, Shepard swore he could feel a small glob on his back. It would be a few days before the medigel could come off.

"I still recommend you speak with Chambers, Shepard," Chakwas said. He rolled his eyes and ignored her, reaching for his folded up shirt and boots. Just because he was hurt didn't mean he had no work to do. There were courses to plot, people to check on, and a stiff drink with his name on it. "You lost a good friend because of an order you gave and you haven't had the time to mourn, let alone get past it. Bottling it up isn't healthy."

He laced up his boots and glanced up at the doctor, frowning. "Grieving now would be redundant."

"You skipped the process, Commander. It might be redundant, but like everyone else, you'll have to face the consequences."

Shepard shook his head as he got to his feet. Shirt was next. "No. Ash is alive and we're off Virmire. I couldn't be happier." After pulling on the Cerberus uniform, Shepard started for the door. He strode out into the mess hall and went straight for the gun battery, intending to get Garrus for that drink before starting his routine. Garrus was always up for a drink. Only when Shepard entered the battery, the turian was nowhere to be seen. He checked past the cannon and up by the power cells, but he wasn't there.

"EDI, where's Garrus?"

"I believe he's down on deck five with several other members of your crew. They seem to be sparring."

"Who the hell told them they could do that?"

"I don't know, Commander. Would you like me to tell them to return to their posts?"

Shepard sighed and shook his head. "No, that's not necessary. Thank you." EDI gave her traditional farewell as he turned and headed for the elevator, explicitly ignoring looking at the med bay. One of the passing techs nodded politely in greeting and he barely had the semblance of mind to return the gesture, so focused on getting where he was going. As he rounded the bend near Miranda's office, he noticed Kasumi and Thane also heading for the elevator, and he wondered what the heck everyone was doing. Garrus wasn't in his usual place, Thane was socializing, and Kasumi was somewhere other than her couch.

The two of them beat him to the elevator, but Kasumi held its doors open for him as he slipped inside. "Hey, Shep."

"Hey," he replied, swallowing past the dry lump in his throat. "Where are you guys going?"

"Cargo hold," Thane said.

"Everyone else is blowing off steam down there," Kasumi added. "It might be fun to watch as they beat each other up."

"I didn't know you were a sadist," Shepard said, arching a brow.

"Not a sadist," she said. "Bored. There's not much call for thievery aboard a ship. There's not much call for anything aboard a ship, actually."

He shrugged and Thane said, "You could meditate."

"I'll leave that to you and Samara."

Thane straightened as he adopted his usual stance, arms clasped behind his back. "It might help you clear your thoughts. You seem troubled."

Kasumi laughed. "Bored," she repeated. "That's why you and I are doing something fun."

"Questionably fun," Shepard corrected, grinning at the drell. Thane's expression was passive, but for a half a second, he thought the corner of his mouth flicked up in a small smirk. "So you know they're sparring down there?" Both Thane and Kasumi nodded. "Are you going to participate, Thane?"

"I...don't know. It's hardly appropriate, Commander. Not with my training."

Shepard snorted. "I bet there are two people down there who'd get a kick outta fighting you."

"You're probably correct."

Kasumi glanced between them before clearing her throat. "Who?"

It was easy to forget she hadn't been on the Normandy as long as the others; Kasumi was so quiet and kept to herself that Shepard had barely remembered to check on her when he'd gone asking if anyone needed his help with anything. All she'd done was remind him of Cerberus' deal, which he'd been more than inclined to help her with. She wanted to recover something of hers that had been stolen—her old partner's graybox.

"Grunt for one. Y'know, the hell-bent krogan squatting in engineering," Shepard answered. "Then there's Jack. Both of them need something to hit more often than they should."

"It's a wonder you take Williams and Garrus out with you, then," Kasumi said.

"I like Garrus," he said simply, shrugging. "He's always had my back. And if I left Ash here, she'd probably punch someone hard enough their teeth would come out the back of their head."

"Uh-huh," she teased, nodding conspiratorially. "Definitely it."

Shepard squinted, but before he could say anything, the doors opened in the shuttle bay, and Kasumi fled for the small crowd several yards away. It mostly consisted of his ground team; Garrus, Jack, Zaeed, Grunt, and Jacob, who was probably the sole cause of Kasumi showing up in the first place. He barely recognized the brown-haired girl sitting on one of the storage crates, but even if he didn't, the way she was whispering something in Ashley's ear pretty much told him exactly who it was.

Thane strode after the thief, so Shepard followed, diverting his eyes straight ahead when he thought Ash met his gaze. Nope. He wasn't touching that one. There was no doubt that Sarah had told her about whatever had happened to get him restrained earlier, and he had no interest in explaining any of his feelings to her. He'd learned to keep his mouth shut. After all, it was his business, not hers.

He stepped up beside Grunt, placing himself between the krogan and Thane, and was welcomed with a rough smack to the back. It aggravated the stab wound as he staggered, but he still slapped on a ridiculous grin when he straightened. "Shepard! We were starting to think you'd miss all the fun."

"Not if I could help it," he said. "But, uh, who authorized this, exactly?"

"Lawson."

He didn't realize they were in earshot of the two women hanging around on the sidelines. Suddenly, Shepard wished he'd stayed in the med bay, or gone to plot courses with Joker and EDI. The look Ashley was giving him wasn't one he liked. Too much concern mixed with too much irritation.

"Miranda? You expect me to believe you went to her to get permission for...this? Turning my crew into punching bags?"

She arched a brow. "You say that like you think I'm dumb enough to get involved in this."

"You have a track record of stupid things."

"In all fairness, those stupid things tend to work out for the best."

"Like volunteering to stay behind on Virmire?"

The chattering around them stopped immediately and Shepard crossed his arms. That...was definitely not the brightest idea he'd had, saying that, but it was the truth. And while he was already regretting it, he wasn't about to back down.

"That work out for the best, Ash?"

Her eyes narrowed as she dropped onto her own two feet. He could barely see that challenging look buried there, and if he didn't know her as well as he did, he would've missed it. But damn, he wasn't regretting that now. Whatever that was, it wasn't the wounded puppy they'd picked up as they fled the Lazarus Project's station. That was something eerily similar to the same woman who'd held a gun on Wrex to protect him. And that was something he liked more than he should admit.

"I don't know, Commander. Wouldn't exactly be my place to say."

"Your place? No one knows what happened better than you do."

"My feelings and what's right don't tend to coincide, even on a good day."

"Looking for an outside opinion?"

"Unbiased," she said. "Someone who doesn't give a damn. That rules you out."

"Does it?"

Both of her brows went up now. "That a challenge, Shepard?"

He glanced around, eyes falling on each person clustered around the wrestling mats spread over the floor. "That's up for interpretation."

Just when he thought she'd agree to it, Ashley leant back against the crate she'd been sitting on moments before. "Tempting, but no. Don't want to break your pretty face. Then you'd never convince anyone to stop shooting at us."

Shepard shrugged, nonchalant, but he gave a mental curse. One for whatever the hell had gotten into him. Another for even bringing that up in front of her sister. And another just for being a dumbass. Silence lapsed over him and his friends, and after a few minutes, Garrus managed to convince Thane to join him. Blowing off steam. That's exactly what had been on his mind, but not in the same...ballpark as sparring.

Oh, he had some steam that needed blowing off all right.

It had only been a couple hours after he got to witness the extent of Thane's hand-to-hand training when Shepard collapsed on his bed. A satisfied groan escaped his lips, muffled by the bedding, and he let himself lay there for an ungodly amount of time. He was exhausted; when they picked up Tali, they went straight to Virmire, and there'd been no stopping down on that hellhole, so he figured a nap was in order. Everything else was finished—he had spent some time on the bridge after selecting the Citadel on the galaxy map, had a couple conversations with Garrus and Thane, and ended up here. Shepard felt like he earned the right to a damn nap by now.

Problem being, sleep wasn't something Shepard was even remotely good at. He had nightmares nearly every night, and if he was already acting out while unconscious, he didn't want to try sleeping. Raving about geth, he thought, snorting. That was exactly what he needed, having a mental breakdown in front of the doctor. Once this was over, assuming they survived, Shepard could see the psych eval order smacked on him by the Alliance. Chakwas had recommended one when they defeated Saren; Shepard wasn't going to put it past her to do it again.

Instead of getting the rest he so desperately needed, he rolled off the bed and onto the floor, then pushed himself up to go check his emails. Ever since he sent that first one, his mom had tried to keep in touch with him, and he put as much effort into it as she did, which was very little. She was captaining a ship and he was fighting a war the whole of the Alliance should've been in on. There wasn't much time for either of them.

But as soon as he sat, he knew his inbox would be filled with mail he'd already gone through. He marked a few threads as important, deleted the rest, and went back to his bed. It wasn't soft by any means of the imagination, but some days, nothing could beat having a bed so large all to himself. He didn't envy the crew with their bunks or sleeping pods. Private quarters with a nice full-sized bed was exactly what every ship needed, for the commanding officers at the very least. It wasn't within Alliance standardizations, but damn, he could dream. The new Normandy was twice the size of the original; he couldn't help wondering what exactly Cerberus would've done with all this space if they made the SR-2 an exact replica of the SR-1.

Thinking of it made him remember he had a shower. His own, personal, shower. Instantly the best part of his cabin. That, and the empty fish tank that lit the entire room. Shepard made a mental note to ask Kelly if she could feed his fish while he was away; they kept dying. Or he could just stop trying to raise the damn things. He had his hamster. It didn't need constant care to survive.

"Commander, Ashley Williams would like to be allowed into your cabin."

Shepard groaned and rolled onto his back. "Let her in, EDI."

"At once, Shepard."

He sat up as the door opened and ran a hand down the back of his head. Time to pull out the razor; hair was too long. After growing up in a military family, buzz cuts were a habit, and anything longer irritated the hell out of him.

"Hey, Commander."

Shepard looked up from his lap and forced a smile. "Hey, Ash. What's up?" She ignored him, looking around his cabin before stepping down to join him. She sat on his couch, looked behind her, then back at him. "Ash? You okay?"

"I'm fine," she said quickly. "I'm more worried about you."

"Me? There's nothing to worry about. I'm perfectly fine."

She fixed him with a dark look and he sighed. "Sarah told me what you did earlier."

"I was dreaming," he said defensively.

"You punched her," Ashley snapped. "Hard enough to bruise. That's not dreaming, Shepard." He started to protest, but she cut him off. "You need help before you start having flashbacks in the middle of a firefight. Chakwas asked me to—"

"The doctor. She put you up to this?"

"I would've said something with or without her asking me to. You're having the same problems I did and I don't want to see you spend the next few months wondering why you're a mess when it can be avoided."

Shepard shook his head. "It's not the same."

"It doesn't have to be. You didn't sit through beatings and you don't hear voices, but I didn't watch an entire colony burn and I don't have to worry about the crew. That's the kind of stress that breaks people, y'know. Stuff like that will get you discharged from the Alliance if you let it."

"I didn't need counseling after Elysium. I didn't need it after Saren attacked the Citadel. I sure as hell don't need it now."

"I'm not saying you do."

"Are you sure? Because from where I'm standing, thats exactly what it sounds like," he retorted.

Ashley ran a hand down her face. "No, that's not what I'm saying. You've dealt with everything else that's happened without an incident. I can respect that. Hell, everyone on this damn ship does. But compartmentalizing only works for so long. And 'ranting about geth' is evidence that it's not working for you anymore."

"This still sounds like you want me to talk to Chambers."

"No," she repeated. "I want you to take a look at me, tell yourself that I'm alive, and get over it."

He blinked, frowned. "I know that."

"You don't act like it. This started when I suggested going to Virmire. That was so I would have problems, not you. And here we are, backwards. When I suggested that, you started getting defensive. You got aggressive with the people you deal with on other planets. You stopped being yourself, and now that we've got what we need, you're acting out while you're unconscious. The man I know wouldn't punch someone trying to help him, sedated or not."

"It was an accident."

Ashley waved the comment aside. "What did you do after I died?"

Shepard's frown deepened. He didn't see the point of this. "Went after Saren."

"And after that?"

"Hunted down geth before the SR-1 was attacked."

"Did you ever once stop to tell yourself I was gone?"

He shook his head. "I didn't need to. Every time I went down to talk to Garrus, I could see it. There wasn't time for it anyway. Saren was going to attack the Citadel. He had to be stopped."

"Chakwas told you that was the problem, y'know."

"It's not the problem."

"Oh, I can tell that's the problem already."

"And you're just suddenly a psychiatrist?"

She got to her feet. "Don't need to be to tell you that's what's wrong. So before I get Sarah on a transport and before you find someone to shoot at, you and I are going to do something fun."

Shepard's brow crinkled. "Fun." It wasn't a question. "On the Citadel?"

"No, on the ship," she said sarcastically. "Yes, on the Citadel. Where else?"

"The ship," he suggested.

Ashley rolled her eyes. "No. Citadel. Just you and me, half hour after we dock. Got it?"

"And...what are we going to do?"

She shrugged. "Who knows? That's part of the adventure."

He shook his head and laughed. "Really? Is that really what you just said to me?"

"Got a problem with it?"

He just shook his head again, amused. "Whatever you say, Ash."

"Good. See you later."