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Shepard left med bay, resisting the temptation to hold her hand up to her face and conceal where the scars had been. Dr. Chakwas had done a good job manipulating the new equipment, and had pronounced Shepard's skin good as new. It had taken Shepard a long while to be certain she was ready for the scars to be taken off—after all, what did she care if she was scarred? But this party tomorrow required her to look her best, and in case Commander Shepard's facial scars were part of a dossier, she thought it was time to get rid of them. But now she felt self-conscious about the fact that they weren't there anymore.

But had they ever been part of her? Cerberus had left them there, the unfinished reminders that someone had wanted to keep her from being revived, that someone had wanted to kill her in the first place and made it necessary for Ceberus to revive her. Was her life truly her own?

The mess was deserted; even Gardner was in bed by now. The procedure to take off the scars had taken longer than anticipated, and they hadn't been able to begin until fairly late because of the various demands on Shepard's time. She didn't know how late it was, but it was well past the hour when most of the crew sought their bunks.

There was still coffee, though, so Shepard poured herself a cup and sank down at a table. Her fingers curled around the handle, but she didn't lift the cup, or drink, lost in reverie. She ought to go to bed as well … but then, she was off to this party for Kasumi tomorrow, and would no doubt have to be up late for that. Might as well get a head start on the late hours tonight. She could try to sleep in for once in the morning, although she doubted she would manage to do so.

It was quiet enough on the ship that she heard the whir of the elevator and the swish of the doors opening and closing. She should get up and greet whoever this was, make some small talk, be the Commander Shepard they all expected. But she didn't seem to have the energy.

And when a familiar long-fingered hand fell on her shoulder, the touch light and caressing and full of concern, she wasn't certain if she was pleased or not.

Thane took a seat across the table from her, his head dipping so that his black eyes could find hers. "Siha?"

She nodded. "I'm all right."

He took his hand off her shoulder and wrapped it around her coffee cup. "Sitting here with ice cold coffee? I think not." He stood again, picking up the cup. "Wait here."

Shepard didn't bother to respond. Where was she going to go?

Thane came back in a minute—or more, she wasn't sure—with the coffee reheated. "Drink that, and then talk to me, Siha."

"Not a lot of point, really," she told him, but she took a deep swallow of the coffee, feeling it warm her insides as it went down. Her insides? Cerberus's insides, more like. She still didn't know what they had used to piece her together. "What if I'm not really me?" she asked abruptly, without having intended to or even knowing if that was the question she wanted answered.

"What do you mean?"

"I— Cerberus rebuilt me, you know that, but … Miranda's never been exactly forthcoming with what they used. How much of me is machine, how much of me is … what I started with, how much cobbled together from other lifeforms or grown in a lab."

"I see." He didn't add anything, and Shepard wondered if he saw her now as something grotesque, if he was thinking of a graceful way to get away from her.

"And even before that—how much do you know about the way we tracked Saren and found out about Sovereign?"

"Very little."

"I … was taken over by something, a Prothean beacon, on Eden Prime. I saw visions." If she concentrated, she could still see them, the Protheans' last cry for help. "After that, I was able to understand the Prothean language. But … there again, I don't know how much of an effect it had, what else I learned or came to understand or was changed about me when the Protheans touched my mind." She met his eyes across the table, searching for a response and seeing nothing. He was just … listening, no remarks or judgements or attempts at comfort. "Who the hell is this Commander Shepard person, anyway? Do I own her, or do I just take up space inside her, waiting for the next group of people to come along and tell her what to do with her life? Am I going against the Collectors by choice, or because Cerberus told me to, or because the Collectors seem fixated on me?" Looking down at the dark liquid in the cup, she said softly, "Mostly, I push all this aside and I do the work because it needs to be done, because I'm the one best suited to do it, because when I'm working I don't have to think about it, but …"

She felt those cool, smooth fingers under her chin, lifting her head so that he could see her face. "Who was Commander Shepard before the Protheans found her on Eden Prime?"

For a moment, she wasn't sure what he meant. "She was a commander in the Alliance navy; she—" But what else had there been? She shook her head. "I don't know. You make a good point."

"From what you have told me, Siha, you have been lost in a battle sleep of your own since you left the colony on Mindoir. And now that you are attempting to reconnect those two parts of you into a single whole, you are finding that more has occurred to your body than you had reckoned with while your soul was elsewhere." Thane smiled. "If you ask me, you are handling it far better than most would in your situation."

"What if there's nothing left to reconnect with? Apparently, Miranda toyed with putting in a control switch when she rebuilt me, and the Illusive Man wouldn't let her … what if they did more than that? Altered me in some fundamental way I don't know about yet?" Unable to look him in the eye, she focused on a reflection of the light in her coffee. "You know the Council thinks I was … manipulated by Saren, that I made up the Reapers. What if—Thane, what if that's true, if my memories, my mind, were altered and I don't even know it?"

"Garrus would know," he said immediately. "Tali would know. And Joker, and Dr. Chakwas. By all accounts, you appear to be the person least affected, least changed, by your own death."

"It's—well, to me it isn't like I died. It's more like I was just asleep for a long time. I woke up and I was the same and everyone else was different."

"They had two years to grow and alter; you lost that time."

Shepard shook her head. She was chilled all through; even the reheated coffee hadn't helped. Even to her own ears, she sounded ridiculous, but … if Cerberus could take someone who was spaced and rebuild their body, what else could they do? "What if—Thane, what if they're not the same, if Cerberus—?" She couldn't finish the question.

And she didn't need to; Thane got to his feet, pulling her to hers, and wrapped his arms around her, holding her close. "Siha, Siha, you can't allow yourself to think that way. Trust me, these are your friends, the people you knew."

"How do you know?" But she clung to him anyway, taking comfort from the lean body and the strength of his arms. "For that matter, everyone on this ship was chosen by Cerberus. All of … you." Even him, she thought. Even Thane had been brought to her by Cerberus.

Thane was silent, and her heart sank, because she was right, and there was no escape, and who knew what Cerberus had done … And then, with relief warm in his voice, he said, "Grunt wasn't."

"What?"

"Grunt. Not even the Illusive Man could have predicted Okeer would sacrifice himself for an unwakened tank-bred kroganling. But you brought Grunt on board, and you awakened him—and then you took him to Tuchanka and helped him become a man, helped him earn the right to belong to a clan. And your friend Wrex? He's not touched by Cerberus, and you and he seemed to recognize each other well enough."

Despite herself, Shepard smiled at the memory. "We did, at that."

"And …" Thane leaned back so he could look at her face. "I am not here for Cerberus, Siha. Their dossier may have led you to me, but I chose to join you. It was not Cerberus who made their way through that tower to me, against what another would have found overwhelming odds, and it was not Cerberus who listened to me and took me to save my son. That was you, Juniper Shepard, body and soul acting in concert. You are more whole than you want to believe."

"Thank you, Thane."

He cupped her cheek with one long-fingered hand. "It disturbs me more than I can say to see you doubt yourself, Siha."

"If it were only … If I could ever get Miranda to give me the details. There's so much I don't know." It occurred to her that there were entire systems in her body that she couldn't swear were working right. She still had the implant to stop her cycles—what if she no longer had them? What if she could never—

Standing there, looking into the black eyes of this man who had so unexpectedly come into her life, Juniper Shepard realized three things with a clarity she had never experienced before: that she wanted to live, to come back through the Omega 4 and live a full, normal life, somewhere outside the military, including children, something she had never considered before; that she loved this man, really loved him, despite the difference in their species, and wanted her future to be spent with him; and that it could never be, because whatever happened on the other side of the relay, he was dying, his time measured in months rather than years.

Resolutely, she pushed all of that away. The Omega 4 lay before them, the Collectors, before any of that became relevant. For now, he was here, and she was here, and they were together and that was all she needed.

"Why not ask Miranda again? She seems to be softening toward you," he said, unaware of her turmoil.

"That's a good idea. Maybe I will." She smiled at him, reluctantly pulling herself away from his arms. But she caught his hand before he could turn away. "Thane?"

"Hm?"

"You said I saved you that day in the tower … but you've saved me every day since. Does Arashu have another angel?"

He shook his head, smiling. "None that seems relevant."

"Too bad."

"Good-night, Siha."