Title: Illusive

Pairing: None

Warnings: Anxiety, some discussion of trauma, nightmares, strong language

Summary: Shepard can't sleep after walking from Project Lazarus and struggles with her resurrection but finds helpful advice in an unlikely place.

Word Count: 639

I can't breathe!!

Shepard shot up in bed gasping. Sweat covered her body and sheets. She looked around disoriented and confused. Where was she? How did she get there? Her chest heaved in panting breaths as panic continued to lap at the fringes of her mind like an incoming tide. Forcing herself to take deep breaths, she battled back from the overwhelming fear and remembered where she was.

She was on the rebuilt Normandy.

Cerberus had rebuilt her body.

She was alive.

The trappings of her last moments of life always encroached while she slept, like a caged demon clawing to get out. On those long nights she wandered the ship feeling like an imposter. Like a copy of her former self. Despite the reassurances from Doctor Chakwas, she wondered what was really going on inside her head. Was all an illusion? Was her mind truly still her own? Had it even still been hers after getting trapped in the Prothean beacon?

She tried to shake away the existential crisis as she slipped into a pair of sweatpants and sneakers. Standing in the lift, she considered her options of where to go. The lounge sounded peaceful. At that hour of the cycle Kasumi was usually skulking around the crawl spaces of the ship anyway, so it would undoubtedly be vacant and quiet.

The door slid open and to her disappointment, Zaeed sat on the couch. Truth be told, she didn't mind the aged merc and actually enjoyed talking to him after missions, but she wasn't much in the mood conversation. As she shifted to leave, she heard the creaking of leather as he turned to see who was lingering in the doorway

"Shepard." His gravely voice greeted. "Can't sleep, I see."

"Sleep isn't really my thing anymore." She casually replied, joining him on the couch.

He grunted a reply and pulled from his glass of rye. A comfortable silence fell between them. Although she usually spent those long stretches through the night alone, sitting quietly next to Zaeed gave her a strange comfort as she grappled with her illusive existence.

"You know, Shepard..." He finally offered gently. "It takes time for wounds to become scars."

"I don't take your meaning."

He breathed a chuckle, gesturing his scarred face and prosthetic eye. "I didn't exactly wake up from this and throw myself back into the fight. And that was just a bullet to the head. This shit you've been through? Gotta give yourself some time to adjust."

"Time is something I don't have much of."

He grunted another agreement. "Feels strange, doesn't it. Being alive when you shouldn't."

It was her turn huff a chuckle. "Like I'm wearing someone else's boots except it's my entire body."

"Yeah."

"How do I even know if this is real?" She asked aloud, more to herself than him.

"You don't." He answered without missing a beat. "So do as you go'damn please. Next time you think you're dying laugh."

"What?"

"The way I see it, if all this is just some fucking game of the Illusive Man's, you're telling him you don't give a shit."

"And if it really is my death?"

"Don't know about you, but I'd rather die laguhing at death's ugly go'damn face than being afraid of it." He emptied his glass and stood. "Now, at the risk of sounding overly parental, you should get some sleep, kid. You look like shit."

Shepard smiled and stood. "Goodnight, Zaeed. Thanks for the talk."

"Anytime, Shepard."

She returned to her cabin and took a brief shower to wash away the nightmare and film of sweat. After quickly changing her dampened sheets, she crawled back into the comfortable bed. It could have been Zaeed's perspective or the fact that she was just that tired, but she slept dreamlessly for the first time since her resurrection.