July 9, 2187

Shepard could not recall appreciating a short shuttle ride as much as she did that particular one, both for it being a ride in the shuttle rather than being hauled overland, and for its brevity. The deck plating vibrated far more than she remembered, making every nerve ending in her body scream at once.

Garrus bent over Shepard, his mouth just touching the top of her head. "How's the speck?"

"Might just be wishful thinking on my part, but she seems fine. I made her the best shield I could. It almost drowned me, but hopefully it kept her safe from the worst of it."

"She?" Garrus asked and chuckled. "You have some sort of inside connection that I don't know about?"

Shepard shook her head a little. "No inside information, just a feeling. How's Lenka?"

He nodded. "She's fine. She got pretty upset earlier, so Dad headed back to take care of her. He's been calling, letting her talk to me. She's okay, Shepard, don't worry." He sat up, his hand hovering over hers.

Shepard squeezed his hand, stroking his thumb with hers. Glancing over at James, she gave the Marine a wink. "How are you doing over there, action man? You okay?"

He grinned and shrugged. "You know me, Lola. All about the dramatic rescues. Wouldn't mind if you stopped needing them for a while though. I could use a good long nap."

"I'll see what I can do." Her lips thinned in a tiny smile as she let her eyes close. "I could use a bit of a nap myself."

The shuttle settled to the deck in the Normandy and someone popped the hatch. Shepard smelled the clean, feminine scent of Dr. Chakwas and opened her eyes. "Hey, Doc."

The doctor smiled. "How are you feeling?"

"Slow roasted, sick, and my arm hurts, but overall, can't complain." Shepard chuckled, then mewled softly with pain. "Until I laugh."

"Well, let's get you up to my lab." She activated her omni-tool. "I'll give you something to help dull the pain, but I'm afraid you're in for a pretty rough few hours." She pressed a syringe to Shepard's neck.

After a few seconds, the throbbing in her arm and the constant, furious chatter of thousands of scorched nerve endings began to ease. Shepard let out a long sigh. "Thanks, that helps."

Garrus held her hand the entire time, stroking her wrist, letting her crush his fingers as every bump of the stretcher ripped through her like a bolt of lightning. He kept up a steady rumble through his sub-vocals, but she couldn't be sure whether he intended to soothe her or himself. She hadn't seen him so close to the edge in a very long time—since Sidonis.

Once Shepard lay on the bed in the new lab, Dr. Chakwas hooked her up to an IV, opening it up to help replace the fluids she'd lost over the course of the day. After another dose of painkillers, the doctor cut the headband holding the reflective blankets and robe over Shepard's head in place, soaking the headband in a cooling wash before removing it. Shepard judged by Garrus's reaction how much skin came away with it. It didn't hurt as much as she expected. It had probably torn loose at some point during the day. The doctor slowly rinsed the layers of caked mud off Shepard's face, drenching her headdress in the process.

"This wash has an anesthetic in it and will help loosen up the lymph and skin that is bonded to the material. It's still going to hurt like hell though, Shepard. Sorry about that." Dr. Chakwas clenched her jaw as she used tweezers to start loosening the material from the edges.

Shepard nodded and clenched her teeth, but still screams tore from her lips, jagged shards of agony like smashed glass. They paused several times when Shepard started to choke, her throat raw, dry and cracked; her body so dehydrated her tears came out oily and burned her eyes. After she drank a bit, she gave Karin a nod and shifted her grip on Garrus's hand.

"Is there some reason, Shepard can't sleep through this?" Garrus asked, his voice so stressed that Shepard caressed the back of his hand with her thumb.

"Severe burns are tricky, Garrus. We'll do what we can to control the pain."

Shepard met and held his gaze. "It's okay. You know me, born drama queen. It'll be over soon."

When the material finally lifted away, it took almost all of the admiral's hair and scalp with it.

Seeing her hair stuck to the inside of the material brought new and different tears to Shepard's eyes. "Never been all that vain," she gasped, "but damn."

"Don't worry," the doctor said, her eyes glassy, "it'll grow back."

Shepard nodded and pressed her lips together. "Yeah, caps are all the rage anyway, right?" She looked up at Garrus, suddenly terrified that her appearance would scare their current child. "Lenka? Have you talked to her? Where is she?"

"Remember I told you in the shuttle? She's with Dad. She knows you're okay. As soon as we get you settled, I'll bring her in."

Shepard didn't miss the glance that passed between the doctor and her mate at her lapse in memory. "Right. She's with Dad."

"Nicely done with the shield, Admiral," Dr. Chakwas chuckled, applying medigel to Shepard's face and scalp. "Actually paid attention to Instr. Perrin's class?"

Shepard shook her head. "Not really, but remembered a couple of things. Thank goodness he covered how to get clean water before I fell asleep." She clenched her teeth and nodded to Garrus to help her sit up so that they could unwrap the belly band and cut away the layers of robes down to her dress uniform. The uniform, the doctor cut up the sides but left in place.

More of the cool, anesthetic wash poured over her. Every centimetre of her body that wasn't prosthetic or hadn't been covered by the belly band felt as though a million knives stabbed into her, but the wash helped a little. At least until Dr. Chakwas started peeling the uniform away. Massive blisters had formed, broken, and wept into the material, gluing it to her with the strength of industrial epoxy.

Garrus held her hand through it all despite wincing like he'd been kicked by a mule every single time she screamed. She tried not to. She tried to spare him that much, but her resolve lasted only until the next strip of uniform. Before they even had her legs uncovered, she began trembling so hard that the table rattled.

"Okay," Karin said, her voice soft and soothing. "Let's take a break." She covered Shepard in more wash then draped a cooling blanket over her and administered another dose of painkillers through her IV. "If you can, go to sleep. You need to rest."

"Yeah, thanks, Doc." Shepard let her eyes close, pulling her prosthetic arm in when Garrus let it go. "A rest would be a very good thing right now." She heard a chair roll up next to her, and gentle talons wrapped around her hand again. Turning her head ever so slightly, Shepard opened her eyes to look into Garrus's. "You've got to be exhausted." She stroked his hand with her thumb.

Shaking his head, he lifted her hand to his mouth. "I'm fine." He nuzzled her hand. "Didn't think I'd be so grateful for this arm. Otherwise I wouldn't be able to touch you."

Her eyes drifted closed again as the painkillers began to work. "Yeah, sort of nice to have two parts that don't hurt." She dozed, images of Lenka, Balak, her entire ordeal tangling into a mess that didn't allow for much actual rest. Then Garrus stroked her arm, the pads of his talons brushing up her forearm and back down, the rhythm slow and soothing. He talked about Adrien, Solana, Ravenor Barl, Gira and her tryllic, his harmonics low and soothing, his voice and gentle touch easing her into a restful sleep at last.

Shepard woke when Karin returned to continue peeling away her uniform. Taking one look at the doctor's face, she gave her a weary smile. "Isn't this when we all take a good, long belt of whiskey straight out of the bottle?"

"We could all use it, that's for sure." She applied more medigel to Shepard's exposed skin. "Your face is looking better already. Do you want me to drape something over your scalp so that Lenka can come in? She's pretty worried."

Shepard looked to Garrus, who nodded.

"Okay, let's do that. I don't want to put her under any more stress than she's already been through. As long as you don't think I look bad enough to frighten her."

"The medigel is hiding the worst of it," Karin confirmed.

A few moments after Garrus called for his father to bring Lenka down, the door opened and the child burst through. Garrus grabbed her in his arms before she could touch Shepard.

"Mommy!" Tears streamed down her face.

"Hey baby." Shepard smiled and reached out to caress Lenka's cheek. "Your dad says you've been worried."

All four beautiful, black eyes gleamed with such pain that Shepard's heart felt each tear like a knife to the heart. The child hiccoughed sobs and nodded. "I didn't know where you were. I was so scared. But Papa came and said Daddy would get you back."

Shepard nodded. "Yeah, and he did. I'm fine, baby. Just a little tired and sunburned. Dr. Chakwas will get me all fixed up before you know it. Can you give me a kiss on the cheek?"

Garrus let her go. "Be careful not to touch, though, pretty eyes."

Lenka nodded, looking very solemn and leaned over to give Shepard a tiny peck on the cheek.

"Mm. Now, I feel so much better. I love yah." Shepard looked up at Herros. "Hey, Dad. Thanks for looking after Lenka."

He walked over and took her good hand between both of his. "Of course. Don't worry about anything, just rest."

She nodded and closed her eyes. "Yeah, resting sounds really good."

"Come on, kiddo," Herros said. "Let's go get some dinner, and let your mom rest."

"Take dinner up to the cabin, Dad," Garrus said. "It's a little noisy down here."

Shepard sighed. "That it is." She brushed Lenka's cheek with her fingers. "I'll see you later, sweetie."

Lenka climbed down from Garrus's lap, kissed Shepard's cheek again and then left reluctantly, dragging a little behind her Papa, not willing to take her eyes off Shepard until they passed out of the lab and into med bay.

Shepard sighed. "We're going to have two of those soon."

Garrus took her hand. "Which will mean no more crazy stunts." He nuzzled the palm.

She chuckled. "Crazy stunts? All I tried to do was go out to dinner with my husband and father-in-law like a normal person."

"Well, that is pretty crazy." He clutched her hand to his face and closed his eyes, his entire body trembling. "If I'd lost you … ."

Shepard stroked his cheek with her thumb. "Hey, I'm okay. A couple of days, I'll be one hundred percent."

"How are we going to live here without me worrying about … this happening?" He met her stare, and for a moment, she thought he was going to bolt.

She squeezed his hand tighter. "Garrus. Stop. I'm okay."

Three hours later, Shepard lay naked and shaking under a thick layer of medigel and a cooling sheet, drugged to the eyeballs. She looked into Garrus's eyes, seeing the strain of the past day, the toll the hours and pain had taken on him. "Go get something to eat and sleep for a bit, love," she whispered. "I'm just going to get some sleep anyway."

He shook his head. "I'm fine."

Shepard looked to Karin. "Can you get someone to bring this amazing, stubborn torin some food, please?"

The doctor smiled. "I can even arrange for a cot. Then maybe you'll both get some sleep?" She dimmed the lab lights as she headed out.

"Good." Shepard nodded to Garrus. "Come and give me a kiss."

He frowned, his mandibles dropping. "It'll hurt."

"Some things are worth it." When he touched his mouth to hers, she kissed him softly. "Mm, definitely worth it." She smiled and drifted off.

She woke a few hours later when Karin came in to check on her and give her some more meds. Garrus had finally succumbed to his exhaustion and lay on his side on a cot next to her, Lenka curled in against him. Shepard smiled and shook her head. "My family," she whispered. She laid her hand over her stomach. "That means you too, Speck. We made a good team today." Closing her eyes, she let the meds take her away once more.

July 10, 2187

The next time Shepard woke, the cot beside her sat empty. She yawned and grumbled as the movement set her entire body complaining. She chuckled, then groaned. "You're quite the piece of work, Shepard."

Movement near the door into the front room caught her attention. "Anyone there? I'd get up, but … ."

Soft footsteps approached. "It's just me, Shepard."

She smiled. "Hey, Terion. How are you doing? All healed up?"

"I'm fine," he confirmed, still from outside her vision.

"Come where I can see you." She chuckled. When he walked up to the end of her bed, she smiled. "There you are. Wow, look at you".

He held his two original arms out, showing off the suit Garrus or Herros must have loaned him. "I'm back to me again."

"You were always you." She held her hand out, reaching across for his. When he took it, she sighed and her eyes drifted closed. "So, you just lurking? You're home, you should be out being young, wild, and on shore leave."

He chuckled. "I don't think I was ever young and wild. My idea of a good way to spend shore leave was studying specs or doing non-routine maintenance on the weapons."

Grinning, Shepard lowered her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. "Don't tell anyone, because I like my bad girl reputation, but yeah, that was me too. At least before I went into the N program. But, spending your time down here in the hole with scary, skinless lady is a little crazy."

He stepped up beside the bed, his eyes glassy, and squeezed her hand. "I have an appointment with the residential rebuilding committee from one of the districts to see about getting a school built. Turned out that Dad thought being a teacher would be a good career for a primarch's son. Any idea how he came to that conclusion?"

Shepard gave him her best clueless stare. "Not a one." After a breath, she nodded, tugging on his hand a little. "I'm really glad for you."

"He loves you, you know?"

The words dropped like cement on the floor, bouncing a little between them before settling.

Shepard nodded. "I know, and I love him in my way. Adrien is a good friend." She frowned. "Did he tell you to come down here and report back?" The way Terion's mandibles fluttered told her everything she needed to know. "Yeah. He's impossible. No sense of boundaries." She sighed as her eyes drifted closed. "But I missed him, impossible or not."

Terion's brow touched hers, just a feather brush, and he set her hand down beside her. "You need to rest. I'll come back later."

Her lips twitched in a smile even though her eyes didn't open. "Good. Now go be young and a little bit crazy."

Shepard dozed, wandering through dreams laced with conversations from outside med bay. James followed her through her ordeal, telling her stories about raiding Apostle sanctuaries and the puta who kept 'getting all up in Garrus's business'. She woke feeling more tired than before she fell asleep.

Karin came and went, applying medigel and filling Shepard with drugs that sent her back into hazy slumber. The only time she regained any sort of sense was when Garrus came in to help her eat, bringing Lenka, who chattered away about her day. They kissed her carefully and left her to sleep, promising to be back to spend the night. Shepard kissed them both and drifted back into a remarkably empty liminal space.

"Hey, Shepard?"

Shepard opened her eyes and blinked a few times, the world silent, cool and very dark. Fairly sure that she'd heard the Normandy's pilot, she looked over at the door. "Hey, Joker. Come on in. I'm a little scary looking, but I don't bite, much."

The pilot limped down the length of the lab, his leg braces making a slight mechanical whine with each step. He stopped next to her bed and looked down, the expression on his face sadder than she could ever remember seeing it.

She reached up and laid her hand on his elbow. "You okay there, fly boy?"

He nodded and looked down at her hand. "Yeah." He just stared, so she left him be to say what he needed to say in his own time. "So, we almost lost you again." He sighed. "I should be pissed at you. I feel like I need to be pissed at you. You ruined a perfectly good career of being a sarcastic ass."

Shepard's brow furrowed a little. "I'm sorry?"

"It was supposed to be this easy coffee and cake run. Swing over to Eden Prime, test out the new ship, head home. Then you walked onboard and everything went straight to hell."

The furrows in Shepard's brow deepened enough to really hurt. Somehow, if she'd never boarded the Normandy, Nihlus wouldn't have died, Saren would have … what? Just gone home, and Sovereign would have been a geth dreadnaught?

"It turned into chasing rogue Spectres and monster death robots of doom. Then the monster death robot died, and you died. That should have ended it, right? If you were the cause of all the shit? But no, it just got worse. You died to save me, and my life went to complete shit." Joker took her hand in his, the gesture startling her enough that she jumped. He didn't seem to notice, just holding her hand like he intended to arm wrestle her.

"Joker?"

He shook his head. "Then you came back and there was the Illusive Man and Collectors and every human going to be turned into grey paste to make this big ugly ass death robot of doom that looked like some old cheesey action movie shit. And you saved everybody. Suicide mission—we were all supposed to die, and then we all came back. You couldn't be content with that, you had to save everyone some more and blew up a planet and went to jail. And everything went to shit again."

He released her hand and walked away a few feet. "What the shit? How can things get worse when we're not on suicide missions? But they do. And then the giant death robot's cousins and college roommates show up, and you kick their asses. What the shit? Who does that? And in the process, you killed my girlfriend, and I really loved her, Shepard."

Turning to face her, he stared into her eyes with an expression of such complete sorrow that she held her hand out to him. "I really loved her." He took her hand again.

Shepard nodded, her breath hitching in her throat behind a lump of unshed tears.

"You brought all this crazy shit with you that day, and I want to be pissed off at you, because things were working pretty well up until then. I want to be pissed at you, because I still miss her, but if you hadn't come along, I never would have known her at all."

Shepard's lips cracked as she pressed them in a thin smile.

"And what if you'd died out there yesterday, and I hadn't gotten a chance to tell you?" He grumbled. "These months have been hell, you know? Being pissed off at you. You're my best friend, and I owe you everything."

Her smile widened as she nodded. "I've missed you too."

"So, we're okay." It was a statement, not a question.

"Sure, if you'll do something for me." Shepard grinned when he looked at her like she was pushing her luck.

"Oh?" He nodded toward her head. "You want a cap to cover that baby's ass up there, don't you?"

Waggling her head a little, Shepard chuckled. "Yeah, but that's not all. I have a sort of huge favour to ask."

"You're really pushing it here, Admiral." His expression screamed sarcastic bastard about to unleash his powers, but his eyes gave him away. They remained soft and sad.

"When we get our asses back to Earth, Solana has put together what I'm certain will be the wedding from tulle and floral hell."

Joker perked up, practically cackling. "You need someone to help burn the place to the ground the night before?"

"Damn, why didn't I think of that?" She squeezed his hand. "No, what I need is someone to give me away. I've been sorta hoping you'd take the job of walking off that plank with me."

"Jesus, Shepard." He appeared to hover on the edge of presenting her with a list of people better suited to the job than him, but then just nodded. "Sure, what the hell, we can liven it up a little. Maybe a few flashbang grenades behind the orchestra, a couple of vorcha ballerinas to throw rachni workers into the crowd." His eyes narrowed. "Think we could find any thorian creepers somewhere? Nothing crazies up a wedding like toxic, green projectile vomit."

"Toss a Krogan charge in there somewhere, and it'll be a hell of a party." She met and held his gaze for a second. "Thanks, Joker. It means a lot."

"Sure. Now you just have to grow your hair back for the big day." He pulled back.

"I don't know, bald might work for me. What do you think?"

His face scrunched. "Not a chance in hell, Shepard. You have a weird-shaped head." He grinned and headed for the door. "It looks sort of like a krogan's ass."

"Wait? What? How do you know what a krogan's ass looks like?" she called after him. "Is there something I don't know about you and Wrex?"

He just kept walking. "Didn't the Navy used to have a don't ask, don't tell policy? I'm invoking it."

Shepard grinned and let out a long, happy sigh, relaxing into the bed. "Chicken."