-Jane-

It's been ten damn days that she's been puking nearly every morning like clockwork and, quite frankly, she's getting really fucking tired of it. Why her stomach suddenly thought her digestive tract is a two-way street she doesn't care, but it better knock it the fuck off so she can do her damn job.

Yeah, big talk when you're praying to the porcelain there, Jane, she ridicules as she heaves again, glaring at last night's… whatever it was again. Who'd have thought the thing that'd take her down wouldn't be a rogue Spectre, a merc or merc band, the Collectors, or the Reapers, but Mess Sergeant Gardner's cooking. 'I wash my hands' my shiny new Cerberus ass.

"Jane." A concerned voice calls just before a warmth crouches beside her, a hand rubbing her back as another helps hold her loose hair out of the way. "Why haven't you gone to Chakwas yet," Garrus asks with a worrying rumble to match his twitching mandible.

Spitting some of the bile out of her mouth, hating the sting and taste she's had tailing her over a week straight. "Because I already talked to her on the first day. She said it's probably food poisoning because Gardner is a fucking janitor first and cook second. Plus, the Reaper didn't count, dead bodies will make anyone blow chunks."

"I mean why haven't you gone lately. It's been ten days. I don't think food poisoning lasts that long." Offering a hand, she lets him help her up to her feet and stands back while she brushes her teeth. "Look, I know you're stubborn, and at least we didn't have to worry about you trying to take out the Geth servers with the contents of your stomach," she snorts around her brushing, "but what if you start vomiting on Aite? You said it yourself, we need the entire ground crew for this big of a location and I don't want you in the fight if you're, well-"

Spitting, she smirks with the foam on her lips and interrupts, "Introducing the crew to my breakfast in vivid technicolor?"

"In not so many descriptive words, yes." He blocks the doorway, hands taking hold of her shoulders. "You are staying-"

"What?!" She scowls, fists glowing blue as the ball tight enough that her knuckles make a creaking noise from what must be the Cerberus cybernetics. To his credit, her husband doesn't budge. If anything, he matches her rage with a deep growl as he steps closer, actually standing at his height to tower over her, and his eyes dark in warning.

"You. Are. Staying," he says, more warning vocals that challenge her to resist, and she starts to see the Archangel that the best of the merc bands pissing their pants. "You are no good on the field in your condition and you know I'm right." When her lips tight and she releases deep, drawn out breath of seething anger, she feels a strong grip on her chin, making her look up at him. "Stop being a fucking idiot and think."

"Bold fucking words, Vakarian," she snaps with a swat at his hand, not caring about the sting that signals the fact that his talons at least drew a bit of blood. "You forget I'm your fucking commanding officer."

"Consider this a temporary relief of duty." There's a split second of shock before her fist flies out, but he's fast, grabbing her wrist before it can land. "Commander Shepard, you are unfit to fulfill your duties due to your condition present over the past ten standard days according to the Normandy's day / night cycles."

"Don't you fucking dare spout fucking regs-"

"Under these conditions, you are temporarily relieved of duty until the Normandy's Medical Physician deems you fit to return to active duty," he continues without faltering, a low rumble under his emotionless words that speaks of concern.

It's only because she can tell from the things he doesn't need to say with his words that she relaxes in his hold, shoulders slumping in sudden exhaustion that has nothing to do with the nearly complete lack of any relaxation and fitful sleep, but the cause of it all. The closer they get, the more the reality weighs on her that, even if they can manage to defy all odds and return from the Omega-4, they will only end up in the same sort of Limbo she found herself in after Saren.

What's worse is the fact that now she's got this stint with Cerberus to further discredit her warnings about the Reapers, no matter how much hard evidence she may present to anyone who will listen – or be forced to hear because she's just going to scream until someone relents. Not the way a true politician would do, but, hell, she never wanted to be one in the first place, so she'll go at it like she would a fight, charging in headfirst and beating her opponents into submission. The only difference is that she'll be using her words instead of her fists and, if her crew's complaints are to be believed, the two are interchangeable in impact.

"Jane," he says in attempt to pull her away from her thoughts as he bends to gently nudge her forehead with his and she can't help the soft press back that pulls a rumbling purr from him.

Sighing heavily, she lifts hands she hadn't known he released up to cup his face in a way that will not cause pain on his wounds. "You're right…" She doesn't feel like it's an act of relenting so much as an opening of her eyes, finally seeing past the blinders thrown up from her knee-jerk defensiveness to her mate's justifiable concern over the validity of her command in her current condition.

"You admitting I'm right? You must really be sick," he jokes with rumbling amusement in his chest, turning into an audible chuckle when she pouts in mock anger and swats his chest with the back of her hand. Growing serious, Garrus cups her face to look up at him. "You go be seen by Chakwas and I will take the ground team to Aite. I'll send you the link to my visor and our comm channel if we need to change it once we get planetside and find Cerberus chatter on our usual frequency."

Jane nods before sighing, at least determined to not sit out the entire mission even if his offer is more a curse than a helpful offer for her to be involved. "I will play nice, go to the MedBay, but the second I hear anything off about the mission, I'm dropping. I mean it, Garrus…" she narrows her eyes to help support how deathly serious she is about this. "Mean it as in I'm taking my armor down to the MedBay so I can suit up the second I either get cleared or hear trouble, and don't even try to hide it from me."

Shrugging with a shake of his head, he agrees begrudgingly – because he knows he doesn't have a damn choice, "Fine, Jane. This isn't me agreeing with your obvious insistence that your health comes second because you know my views on your safety and health, but since I can't stay here to physically force you to go see the doctor, I will make damn sure you can't go down to Aite."

She lifts a brow, unconvinced with his confidence of thinking he can manipulate the battlefield. Hell, if he could, we wouldn't be having to worry about the shit hitting the fan on every fucking mission we drop on.

"I'm curious to see how you manage that," she says as she crosses her arms, jutting her hip. "And even more curious as to why you haven't managed to use this magic ability to influence our luck on missions before now, when I won't even be dropping."

"That's the unfortunate thing," he hums with a shake of his head and a slight smirk. "My powers don't seem to work whenever you're around. You must just be my polar opposite, negating my abilities."

She snorts, finally cracking a smile. "You're such a fucking shit."

"Normally, I'd question why someone would compare me to excrement, but I know it's just your own special way of saying you love me, think I'm the most handsome Turian alive, the best shot, can make calibrating look good, am great in bed-"

"Alright, alright," she interrupts as she manually turns him, giving a shove to his back to hurry the hell up and get suited up for the mission. "Get off your ego trip and get ready for your drop, you are the commanding officer for this, after all." He scoffs, but she knows it's with little true annoyance, and she chuckles as she heads down the steps to help him.

They get through it quickly when working together and, despite his warning that he better not see her coming to Aite, he helps her convince – which actually turns out easier than planned – Chakwas to see her up in her cabin so she can both keep an eye on the ground crew's progress and keep her condition away from scuttlebutt. She's sure the agreement between her Turian husband and ship doctor is just because they want her to be complacent, sees the truth in the fact that she'd probably just stay in the CIC pacing instead of actually going to the MedBay, and at least with her in a 'safe' place, she can feel somewhat in control in a situation where she is a slave to her body's fucked up idea of a joke. So with an assurance that she will be back up to the Loft to start the exam, she goes to the Cargo Bay to pass on her command in front of them all to limit any questioning planetside, when she is not physically around to punch or kick fucking sense and respect into them.

Surprisingly, there is not a single noise of protest or insolence towards their unofficial XO taking the reins for this mission and she wonders if perhaps this is the best sign towards their survival past the Relay looming on the horizon. If they can learn to rely on each other explicitly and combine it with their physical upgrades to the Normandy and individual equipment, they just might be able to drop into hell and drag themselves back out.

And so the torch is passed to the one person she knows can do it – 'leadership potential overshadowed', my ass. Let's just hope Liara isn't as batshit crazy and inaccurate – and she watches the large group of her acquired team stand at attention as her husband gives them the debrief of their situation. It's been a long time since she stood on the sidelines, listened to another strategize and layout the groundwork for when the action begins, and it gives her a unique outsider's view.

In this one moment, she can both see a new side of Garrus she knew existed, but never had the chance to see due to only ever having him below her on the chain of command, and see how he has grown over the two years they had lost. No longer is he the questioning man that lived in the shadow of a lesser Turian, but an individual, the one who gained the reputation on an immoral as the only form of avenging justice that even gained the attention of the self-appointed, 'untouchable' Queen, herself.

Watching from behind the windows of the safety of the Engineering hallway as their numbers divide into the two shuttles and Hammerhead, she sees him pass before being the last one in and look up to her. She smiles and gives a firm nod in silent 'give 'em hell' and chuckles when she sees his mandible spread in a huge grin. Yeah, he'll do a damn good job down there.

She stays, overseeing their disengage from the Normandy, until the Cargo Bay doors close, shutting off her view of the tree vehicles carrying her entire ground crew – hell, her unconventional family after so long living and working together on a tiny ship in space. With nothing else to keep her from the unfortunate reality of having to suffer through a visit from Chakwas, she heads up to the Captain's Quarters.

As she rides the lift, Jane calls out to the ship's integrated AI. "EDI, keep me updated on the IFF install. I may not understand all the lingo, but I'd like to know if my ship is suddenly becoming a Reaper or is dead in the sky."

"While I have taken the necessary precautions to ensure that the Normandy will not 'suddenly become a Reaper', the unusual instability in other systems presents a need to further analyze its impact before we attempt to use it for our travel through the Omega-4 Relay. I will update you when the installation is complete or if there are any additional delays." With the lift arriving at the first deck, Jane merely nods and dismisses EDI to deal with their own separate matters.

She hopes to get over and done with this visit, never a fan of a person one usually only sees when too wounded to just walk off an injury- not that Chakwas, herself, is an intolerable person - so she can jump into the team on the ground's comms and Garrus' visor feed and get a feeling of what they're up against in the Cerberus facility. Goal in mind and determined to accomplish it, she starts to explain her symptoms to Chakwas, hoping that the doctor can just give her a shot or pills for the nausea. Or better yet, help me convince Gardner to stop cooking and cleaning shit out of toilets.

Much to her annoyance, she isn't graced with such an easy fix to her ailment and, even when all she wants is something for the nausea, the doctor insists that Jane sit around while she runs tests. Tests that include blood being drawn – numerous times – and peeing in a cup – again, quite a few times fueled by the water Chakwas is forcing down her throat – and an extensive minute-by-minute retelling of the past two weeks.

"Jesus Christ, Chakwas," she mock whines. "I don't even say all this shit to Garrus, how am I supposed to remember what I ate for lunch eight days ago? I can barely remember last night's dinner."

"Well, since you're vomiting, don't you think the first thing we should check would be your diet?" The woman raises a single silver brow. "Or would you rather wait the few hours while the tests run, just staring holes into your armor?"

At the motion to the armor locker on her far wall that she hadn't realized she was staring at in hopes she could find a way to be needed on the ground, Jane sighs through her nose before groaning. "But I hate it here…"

"Commander Shepard. There is no need to make a bigger fuss than a child-"

"You don't even have candy to bribe me with either," she cuts the doctor off, seeing the woman roll her eyes with a shake of her head. "You know, normally, when you drain someone of that much blood, you at least give them a cookie or-"

"Shepard," her attention snaps at EDI's interruption. "I have detected a signal embedded in the static coming from the IFF. We are transmitting the Normandy's location." Eyes widening, Jane stands, about to order them to FTL jump to lose their pursuers when EDI gives a report even worse than the first. "Propulsion systems are disabled. I am detecting a virus in the ship's computers."

"Fuck!" Her balled fist slams onto the side table, the emission from her flared in rage biotics frying the small alarm clock radio and scattering her collection of loose drawings. "Send a ship wide alert of an enemy boarding," she practically growls and she rushes to her armor, yanking it from its place in the locker. "Everyone better arm them-fucking-selves. Those bastards will get us over my fucking corpse! Again." The AI doesn't need to be dismissed, doesn't even bother to waste time acknowledging the order, and she doesn't fear the message not getting through.

As she yanks on her undersuit, she sees something she'd never thought she'd see in her peripheral. Even as a doctor with her patients' medical concerns coming first, it is obvious in her wide eyes glistening with what Jane is ashamed to acknowledge as the woman's true fear making itself known beyond her professional mask. What this must feel like for Chakwas to once again find herself on a ship – a Normandy, no less – being attacked by what is absolutely, without a doubt, the same damn ship as before has to be something akin to Jane's own thoughts.

Except she is going to be damn sure she doesn't go down without a fight this time. No suffocating in the cold of space because she was blown out of her crumbling ship and had her respirator tubing nicked. Oh no, if she has to, she will take them down with her and the Normandy.

Stupid? Absolutely, but she isn't in the right mind to care.

"Shepard," a weak voice comes from her right as shaking hands offer to help hand over armor pieces. "You can't fight in your condition." There is no fight in the words, no real command to stop, because they both know that there is no other option than to fight, to go down with the ship again if she has to. Puking up her insides doesn't disqualify the Commander of the Normandy from fighting off an enemy boarding party.

"I have no choice. I won't wait up here with my finger up my ass until they come up and I will not go down without a fucking fight this time." She punctuates each word with a snap of another piece of armor into position.

As if to further illustrate how dire the situation is, the AI doesn't even bother to materialize the glowing orb hologram as EDI speaks, a tone in her tone that Jane almost could trick herself into believing as slight panic. "Shepard. I can save the Normandy, but in order to do so, I need my sealed databases unlocked. I can initiate countermeasures and bypass the defense systems."

"EDI, I don't understand a fucking word," she snaps as she grabs her weapon and starts to rush to the corridor between the lift and the door to their cabin. "But I need a way down from my level."

"There is a maintenance tunnel that leads from your position to the Crew Deck." What looks like emergency lighting on the floor illuminates a path to a hatch. "The lights will guide you, Shepard."

"Status," she orders as she leaves Chakwas in the 'safety' of the Loft, almost ripping the access tunnel's hatch off its hinges and dropping down to rush as much as she can while half crouched in full armor.

"The Collectors have boarded the ship. They seem to be actively taking the crew instead of opening direct fire."

"Tell me something I don't know." Scowling and glowing in rage, she uses a strong kick backed by the force of one of her biotic charges on the hatch to the Crew Deck, sending the piece of metal flying and, coincidently, manages to hit one of the Collectors dragging her crew onto the elevator just before the doors close. "Get back here, you fucking pricks!"

Her search for a fight doesn't go unnoticed for long as one of the large masses of bodies shuffles around the far end of the elevator shaft, moaning one of those painful moans before firing the cannon on its arm. Jane tucks back behind the wall and keeps her head down as she sprints to the counter in the Mess, sliding over it, not caring at how that scatters pots and pans with loud clangs and bangs sure to attract any and all enemy forces on this level, and drops behind the far end for cover.

This position gives her the distance she needs as she uses the trick Samara taught her, draining the massive husk creature to boost her own barrier before leveling her pistol and beginning to fire. Not caring to hide behind her cover until she absolutely has to, when she sees that tell-tale charging of that cannon, she counts her bullets and ejects the sink, snapping in a new one in one fluid movement, until the creature finally falls.

In such close quarters with such an accurate long range armament, she doesn't think she can take on another unless she manages to get the surprise on them when they round the corner. Even then, she doesn't think she has enough heat sinks.

Wait… Garrus' weapons bench. Her head snaps to the Main Battery and she gives the area a quick scan, seeing only the shadow on the wall beside the Life Support of a Collector that hasn't seemed to notice her. Figuring that this is as good a chance as any, she takes off for a sprint towards her mate's station, knowing he's prepared for any kind of eventuality. One more for the paranoid Archangel.

When the doors slide open directly before she can run head-on into them, she has a breath's length of time to register the four eyed silhouette in the way. Thinking face, she ducks under the sights of its weapon and gives a strong punch into the crook of the thing's elbow, hearing the audible crack.

With its grip weakened, she grabs the underside of its weapon and, with added force from her biotics, slams it up, hitting the Collector in the face to a loud whirring squeal of pain. Yanking the useless, to her, weapon from the staggered monster, she uses the heavy piece of weaponry as the only thing she can imagine, clubbing it over and over until there is nothing left attached to its neck but a disgusting yellow-green pulp where its head used to be.

Panting from her rage alone, she tosses the useless piece of shit weapon aside and grabs the assault rifle from the weapons bench. She's always known she could trust on Garrus to watch her back, even when not physically with her, and isn't surprised, but relieved, to find a good stash of heat sinks.

Holstering her pistol for the much more efficient assault rifle, she puts her back to the wall beside the doors and checks out towards the lift. The shadow is still there, but what concerns her is the lowering of the elevator once more, stopping on her level to loud, piercing screech.

Flashes of fighting the massive source of that noise remind her that there's no way she can take it down in these close quarters and she doesn't have anywhere to go once it manages to make its way to her location. Not to mention that it could probably destroy the deck right under her feet when it slams onto the ground with a 360 shockwave.

Glancing around the corner, she curses when the Collector that had been just pacing the deck sees her, clicking and chirping in what she assumes is an alert. An alert that turns the giant creature of a hundred stole faces towards her. "Fuck," is all she can say to the amount of shit she's found herself in.

Just then, the lights flicker for a split second, but that's all that's needed for her eyes to catch and realize a very simple, very stupid, mistake she has made. 'Always check your surroundings, rookie' the Drill Instructors always shouted from recruitment until graduating out of boot camp and here she is, forgetting the one thing she doesn't think she's ever gotten lazy on.

Ducking out of the Battery before the Scion's blast can hit and stun her, she rolls towards the counter that had given her a small amount of cover. That leaves her, really fucking regrettably, surrounded in front and behind in an environment that is much too small for this kind of fight. Her only saving grace – and she can't believe a single word of that – is that their fire seems to be more to flush her out or stun her.

Knowing she has no choice but to go out swinging, she levels up the rifle and starts firing without pause into the husk creature closing in from the Battery, one enemy from her unshielded side better than two somewhat blocked by her half-assed cover. She knows she'd never be able to take them all out, but, to his credit, her mate knows what he's doing with his weapons as she actually feels like she can have a chance when she sees the Scion drop before even managing to get past the sleeper pods.

Relief, it seems, is always short lived for her, for when she gets the chance to take in the newly changed situation, she realizes that the hostiles at her back have moved faster than she anticipated. Fast enough, she regrets to admit, that when a shadow falls over her, drowning her in darkness, she knows it is only one thing and, despite her every instinct screaming not to, not to stare the end in the eye – eyes, a fuck ton of them – she raises her eyes to a thousand screaming faces, like the accusing faces of her nightmares in agony for an eternity.

She has only a moment to tighten her hands around the weapon and close her eyes in deafening, heart wrenching, defeat before the darkness behind her eyelids engulfs her, no longer of her control as she loses consciousness.