Alenko sat stonily beside Shepard, his gaze fixed upon her expressionless, battered face, except during the few seconds every few minutes that he checked to make sure her vital signs were still present. "Is she still in there?" he asked Javik, his voice cracked with weariness and fear. He kept asking because he couldn't not ask. If he wasn't asking Javik, it was because he was asking Liara.

The Prothean's eyes turned down to Shepard. Gently, he touched the inside of her wrist with one finger. His pupils contracted, then he blinked. "Yes."

Alenko nodded, sure that the Prothean was telling the truth. Javik had exhibited an odd sort of attachment to Shepard since that moment when she woke up, still in the process of being prepped for transport. If she knew he was 'reading' her every time someone asked, she would have pitched an absolute fit.

Alenko nodded his thanks, feeling again how cold Shepard's hand was, despite his having held it for so long. One would think that his warmth would have imparted itself to her flesh, but it wasn't so. Then again, she was so battered, so torn up. This was no bullet wound or punctured lung. It was easier to say where she wasn't injured.

Suddenly, unexpectedly, Shepard's fingers tightened until his hand felt as if it was caught in a freezing-cold steel vise. "Doc, come here a minute…" his voice wavered uncertainly, half afraid this was some sort of death paroxysm, half hopeful that, in some measure, Shepard was aware that there was a world around her.

A world waiting for her to come back into it. This time, though, she wouldn't need to scream in pain as drugs only just started to flood her system.

"Yes?" Dr. Chakwas, as weary as Alenko himself, got to her feet and came over.

"Look." He lifted his hand, showed her Shepard's suddenly rigid grip, the knuckles white from the pressure she exerted. It was clear that the effort was a sustained one.

Dr. Chakwas looked at Shepard's vital signs. "That's likely an involuntary reaction…" But her voice held a trace of hope she tried to suppress.

"No. It is not," Javik said, his finger on Shepard's bare wrist again. His words finished seconds before Shepard's neutral activity spiked.

It was the only thing she was really aware of: her hand was stuck in an oven. It wasn't painful, but it was uncomfortably hot. And yet, it contrasted so sharply with the rest of her world that it stood out as odd. Not much to remark upon, but it was odd.

Then, it occurred to her, dimly, that her other hand—or the place that should have been occupied by another hand—was icy in the extreme. As was the place where toes should have gone; even for a spacer, her feet felt like blocks of ice. But at least she had feet this time. It seemed that the source of warmth came from without, rather than within. So something had to be doing it.

Suddenly, the cold frightened her, became severe enough that it touched an ingrained memory of another cold, another dark.

….another place 'alone' that had tried, and succeeded, in swallowing her up…

She struggled to find the source of the warmth; warmth meant she wasn't alone in the cold and the dark and the emptiness.

Then, she became aware of pain. It was dim, at first, a ridge of discomfort where she expected her hand to be. Then it spread out, a diffuse level of pain that could not be fully comprehended because her mind couldn't fully understand. Drugs, she realized, painkillers. Probably heavy-duty ones.

Someone had said something about sedatives.

But something else, like a friendly handshake seemed to lay itself over her consciousness. It took her a few moments to realize she was seeing through someone else's eyes—someone with too many eyes—looking down at herself with another familiar face in the periphery. The tetra-ocular viewpoint shifted, bringing the second face into focus.

She had to wake up. She looked dead.

Shepard opened her eyes to find the ceiling of the Normandy's medbay.

"…I think she's waking up." Alenko stood nearby, his attention fixed on Dr. Chakwas—for it was she who appeared a moment later.

"Shepard?" Dr. Chakwas asked calmly.

Shepard's eyes panned sluggishly to Alenko's brown ones, shapely, long-lashed, soft brown eyes. The first thing she had really noticed about him in a personal context. He blinked and she blinked back. "Kaidan…"

"Hey, look who joined the party," he smiled gently, squeezing her hand.

A cold fear gripped Shepard. "Tell me…you love me."

Alenko's expression broke into a grin, which caused the split in his lip to reopen. "I love you, Jalissa."

"Good…I was having déjà vu." Her head fell to one side, bringing Javik into view. "Ugh. A Prothean…"

"Ugh. Another primitive," Javik returned sardonically.

That was all that needed to be said, really.

She didn't feel them, but all her observers saw her eyes suddenly and inexplicably fill with tears, widening until the whites showed clearly. "Garrus?"

"Sleeping," Alenko answered. "Anderson's fine, too."

Fine? But…she'd watched him die…

"You can't… you can't worry about this just now." Alenko's words were a desperate plea. For once in your life, please, don't worry about anyone but you.

She didn't know how to do that, but fear for Anderson, for EDI, for the geth welled up inside her. She clenched her teeth, the tears running free. "Did we win?" she needed to hear the answer.

"The Reapers have been sent screaming into their graves," Javik said with brutal satisfaction. "But you know this."

"Sometimes…you just want to hear a thing," Shepard answered. "EDI?"

"I am here, Shepard."

Shepard opened her mouth, then shook her head.

"You've been dreaming," Dr. Chakwas said gently, but firmly. "It may take you a little time to sort things out. You'll have to be patient with yourself."

The way Dr. Chakwas invoked dreams seemed ominous…