Coming around was painful and left Shepard horribly disoriented. She hurt all over, but knew the pain was felt through a haze of painkillers. This suggested she was being allowed to wake up, and that frightened her.

Before she could call out, Miranda's face loomed over hers, smoothing her hair back. "There you are. Before you ask, Kaidan and Garrus are fine. Your friend Anderson is fine, too…relatively. How do you feel?"

Shepard considered, aware that something was horribly wrong with her, but she couldn't place her finger on what it might be. She felt unbalanced, ready for hysterics… but couldn't seem to get worked up enough for them. That, she realized, must be because they were pumping something else into her painkillers, something to help her keep calm.

"How bad?" she could wiggle her various digits and feel with them…but she had the deep-seated sense that something was very wrong; once the thought occurred to her it became impossible to shake off. Was she…missingparts?

"Well, you're alive," Miranda said succinctly.

Shepard winced inwardly. "That good, huh?"

"Afraid so." Miranda stood where she was for a moment, blue eyes clouded. "You'll be fine, though." Her fingers came to rest on Shepard's shoulder. "You just need time to heal. We've got the worst of it taken care of. No more surgeries; everything else is all minor compared to what we've already fixed."

Shepard bit the inside of her lip. Convalescence had never been her thing; in fact, after so long at war, the idea of being convalescent scared her. Being unable to react in case of danger, being unable to act if something came up that needed her…

She was such a sitting duck and there was nothing she could do about it. If she couldn't fight back…it had been a part of her for so long. If she couldn't fight back…what good was she?

"Shepard, you have time to heal," Miranda put in, apparently finding something she didn't like in Shepard's face.

"Tell me what I'm recovering from," Shepard said softly. "All of it."

Miranda bit her lip, then looked away and began to list off the problems, starting at Shepard's feet and moving up.

The list was so exhaustive that Shepard wondered why she was still alive. It almost sounded easier to catalogue what about her wasn't damaged.

How could she be anything like what she was in the face of that kind of damage? Her eyes stung. The war was over and she found herself looking at a big, blank wall of irrelevance. It wasn't something she had thought to prepare for. She had always assumed that either she would die or she would live…she hadn't considered the technical difficulties with the 'live' option.

"Don't look like that," Miranda snapped, her voice unusually brittle, fingers digging painfully into Shepard's shoulder. "The fighting is over, but there's reconstruction. Who's going to put the turians and the krogan in time-out when they start snarling at each other? Or remind the quarians that the geth are allowed to be people?"

That was…something…but it only eased the sense of irrelevance a little. She was an N7. They adapted.

But she was also so tired…

"The last point is moot," Javik's distinctive low tone announced. Shepard winced at his sudden appearance in the conversation…and wondered at it. "Because machines are not people…exactly."

Shepard snorted at this minor deviation from his previous 'if a machine can talk, I kill it' attitude.

"Stop being such a foolish primitive. It isn't becoming," Javik commanded, coming to stand over her. His four eyes darted around as he touched her shoulder.

Shepard found herself making a face at him.

"A little better. Your biotic is wrong: the fighting is not over. Your war truly ends when you dance on the Reapers' graves. Such as they are. And you are in no condition to dance yet." His tone grated on her nerves, summoning enough irritation with him that she almost didn't notice Miranda twiddling with the mix dripping into her veins.

"Picturing you dancing makes me never want to sleep again. I'll be haunted by the image," she grumbled.

"It can hardly be worse than yours, so I have heard," the Prothean returned.

"Low blow, Javik."

"Then do something about it. Oh, wait, you cannot. You are stuck to a medtable and are never likely to ever get off it. I forgot."

"I really hate you, sometimes," Shepard glared at him, but she felt a wry twist of amusement. She knew what he was doing…and she appreciated it. If she felt irrelevant and he didn't…then someone was definitely wrong. Since she was the one on medications, she had to give credence to the idea that maybe she was the one who was wrong.

"It is one of my most endearing qualities. At least, so I am told." Something in Javik's alien face seemed to soften, but he immediately became gruff again as though having anyone—even her—see the softening offended him. "You must do your best to recover, Shepard. I have fought in your war and lived. I do not know what to do with 'peace.'" With that, he turned on his heel and marched out, radiating stiff dignity.

"What makes him think I know?" Shepard asked, but she felt better for his up-by-your-bootstraps encouragement (or maybe an alteration in her mix—how fast would she feel that?). If Javik recognized the necessity of recovery time and actually made allowances for someone needing such a thing…then it would be stupid of her to look at it differently or let herself spiral immediately into shocked despair at the prospect of her own shattered health and wrecked body.

Javik had no patience for injuries—his own or those of others.

She sighed as the medbay doors swished closed. "…am I going to be okay?"

"If you keep a good outlook there is no reason you shouldn't make a full recovery. It will just take time—and you have that."