Waking up in a stupor with Miranda's face staring down at her and monitors beeping was starting to become a habit for Shepard.

Shepard touched her mouth lightly and didn't find a tube or anything there, so she carefully pried apart her parched lips. "Miranda."

"Shepard. Nice to see you awake." Miranda smiled, an unusual sight for Shepard to see when waking up from a medically induced coma. When Miranda and Jacob had led Shepard off of the space station after bringing her back from the dead, Miranda seemed panicked and disoriented. The Miranda she saw after gaining consciousness in the hospital after London was concerned, calm, and a bit guilty. This one was smiling.

"What's up? You're… smiling," Shepard croaked.

"Is it a crime to be satisfied when your friend is recovering and not deceased? Especially after they've been in your care?" Miranda replied as she wandered toward the foot of the bed.

"My leg?"

"Thought that would d be one of your first questions."

Miranda pulled up the bottom of the blanket covering Shepard's legs. Shepard didn't want to look. If there was a jagged stump, it would surely mean that even with Miranda's procedure on her spine, she wouldn't be able to walk the same way she had before. Who the hell had done this? She was going to find out. Apparently, there was just never a break in life for Commander Shepard.

A deep breath, and she glanced down. Sure enough, the leg below her knee wasn't there. The site of the impromptu amputation was bandaged, but showed no signs of infection. Protruding from what remained of her leg was a mechanical limb made of shining metal. It didn't look like a real lower leg. It was all metal wires, tubes, and other pieces forming a thin shaft for what used to be her two leg bones and a complicated joint for her former ankle. Her new foot was blocky, but seemed to have some type of moveable toes. She was pleased to see that she had been outfitted with a bionic prosthesis. Shepard went to wiggle her new toes, but stopped when she remembered her paralysis. It was then that she noticed that her other foot was starting to feel cold, and she felt a lightness from the blanket's absent weight.

"What did you do, Miranda Lawson?" Shepard asked in awe.

"You might not know this, but you've been out for two weeks. When you first came to the hospital, we focused on cleaning up the wound. Luckily, you had no other major injuries, just a few fractures, lacerations, and contusions. Nothing I haven't seen you with before. After that, I was able to outfit you with a cybernetic leg by connecting it your existing implants and doing some other work. Then came three spinal cord surgeries, and one to place receptors in your brain. You're still in the middle of stem cell therapy, and you have more surgeries and a lot of physical therapy on the horizon, but as you've already noticed, everything's starting to fall into place. Within a year, you should be able to recover most of the feeling and mobility of your lower body."

Miranda was beaming at her, probably awaiting Shepard's jovial reaction. Shepard simply stared at her.

"Why?"

"Why what?" Miranda asked, confused and quickly deflating.

"You've crammed all of this in two weeks. Wasn't I in an explosion? What about all of those people? Did you help them? I was fine."

"You weren't entirely fine. I don't call anyone missing an extremity and bleeding out 'fine.' For once, I wanted you to wake up and be happy. You're my friend, you're Commander Shepard. It was already scheduled, no reason to delay it. You deserve this."

"That's where you're wrong. I don't deserve this. Don't get me wrong, what you've done is incredible. But is everyone else okay? I'm sure this place must be overflowing with casualties."

"Unfortunately, that's not the case. The blast was contained within the building, with only several bystanders on the street suffering minor injuries. There weren't that many people inside… and most of them didn't have a heartbeat when they arrived here."

Shepard turned away. She knew somehow she was the reason for all of this. More lives lost because of her. "You could have saved them."

"No, I couldn't have. It doesn't work like that."

Shepard bit her lip hard to keep herself steady and contain her emotion. "What was it? Who was behind it?"

"It was an explosive device laced with eezo for an extra punch. Made a massive reaction. There should be no lasting effects from the exposure to the eezo, there wasn't much left after the blast. As for who did it, they're still investigating."

"But it was someone trying to kill me, right?"

Now it was Miranda's turn to look away. "That's the current theory."

Both women remained quiet until Miranda pulled the blanket away completely and brought a wheelchair over to her.

"You can brood about this if you want. However, I know a couple of people who would be thrilled to see you after we've run through some tests- if you're up to it, of course. There' s one gentleman in particular who has been asking about you."

"Who?"

"Lieutenant Colby."

Shepard was wheeled onto a different floor- the burn unit, to be exact. Colby was sitting by the window, his body hunched over in the flimsy chair.

"Hi there, Lieutenant Colby, brought you a visitor," Miranda announced.

Colby glanced over at them. That's when Shepard saw that more than half of his head was covered in bandages. Apparently, his wounds had not fully healed. Colby smiled at them before wincing, and then he tried to rub the area around his mouth.

"Do not touch, please. Colby is awaiting a skin graft, and later I'll be doing some regeneration therapy similar to what you underwent after the SR-1. Helps smooth out any imperfections the graft leaves behind," Miranda informed Shepard. "And then we can go ahead and start something like that on your leg, Shepard."

"I'm fine without it. I mean, it doesn't look like Colby's face," Shepard joke, grimacing at how stupid she sounded. Colby gave a light guffaw.

"Alright. I'll leave you two to catch up. As soon as either of you become tired, please call a nurse so that Shepard may be escorted back to her room. Thank you."

The two of them were left all alone. Shepard pushed herself over to Colby.

"Want to check out my shiny new leg?"

Colby gave her a look.

"No? What, you feel bad about it or something?" Shepard continued.

"No. You're alive, and you told me to."

Shepard stuck out her bionic prosthesis to show it off to Colby. "I think it might just be sexier than before," she deadpanned.

"You moved your leg."

"Yup. A cool trick of Miranda's. They went through with my surgeries and everything."

"Congrats."

"Thanks."

Both stared out the window at the Vancouver skyline. Shepard didn't know what to say, so she jumped to a topic she always could lean back on: taking down the enemy.

"Do you know who did it?"

"I probably don't know much more than you. Been here the whole time, a few visitors, but none willing to tell me anything. I'm sure the list of suspects is long, though."

"Should have brought Norven. If I had…"

"You can't think like that," Colby interrupted. "We've been to that place before. All someone had to do was plant it and wait until they saw us and detonate it. Someone's been tracking you, and none of us caught on."

Shepard rubbed her face, trying to wipe away the guilt that kept piling on her. "I should've seen this coming. I wish I could be out there trying to find the people behind this, but it sounds like we're both going to be here a while, me especially," she sighed.

"Yeah, seems like it," Colby smiled sadly.

"Thank you for getting me out of there. And for everything."

"Don't worry about it. It was my job as your guard, and it's now my job as your friend."

Another moment of silence fell upon them, and Shepard struggled to get out what she wanted to say.

"It's just I've been through so much shit, you know? And it doesn't stop. Not now, not ever. And I lost pretty much anyone who made things okay. With this attack and everything, half of me feels like the universe wants me dead, and I want it, too. The other half of me still sees a future, a time when things might be okay, but I'm always getting pulled into the past."

"So move on. Leave it all behind."

Shepard laughed dryly. "You don't know what I've done."

"I don't need to. I see who you are as a person. I don't think you would do anything wrong if it didn't lead back to the right reason."

"Maybe." Shepard reached out her hand and took one of Colby's in her own. "Thanks for the pep talk. And don't worry, I'm sure Miranda will make your face pretty again."

"Pretty? What, not handsome? Manly and good-looking?

"Fine! She'll make your face handsome, and rugged, and tough, and manly, just as it always was."

Before Colby could react, Shepard had stealthily leant forward and gently pressed her chapped lips against his before pulling back just a little. With a slightly concerned look on his face, Colby tucked a piece of her hair behind her ear.

"What was that for?" he asked quietly.

"That's for being someone who keeps me looking forward to the future."

It was two weeks later – a day she'd never forget. Shepard was fussing with her hair while standing in front of a mirror in her hospital room. She wasn't supposed to be exerting herself, but standing up for a minute or two while in close proximity to something she could hold onto was doable. Her hair had grown down to her shoulders since London, but the blast had burnt some of it, so now she was back to rocking a crop cut. Colby was going to stop by later. He'd left the hospital already after a skin graft and regeneration therapy. Colby looked the same as before, expect now there were a few new scars that he didn't want to bother erasing.

She was still playing with a cowlick on her head when she heard a knock on the doorframe. "You're here early," she answered, giving the mirror one last glance as she finally tamed the unruly stand.

"Huh. I'm pretty sure I'm late."

Shepard stilled and slowly turned around. "Kaidan."

"Hey, Shepard," Kaidan greeted her, his voice raspy and filled with emotion.

As he approached her, Shepard's heart was pounding in her chest, and without even realizing it, her legs started to give out. She tried to grab the edge of the hospital bed, but there was no doubt about it: she was going down. Before she made contact with the floor, Kaidan was there, catching her in his arms and helping her to rise back up.

"Sorry. Maybe I should have called before I came over," Kaidan apologized quietly as he led her back onto the bed.

"No, no, no," was all Shepard could say. She was genuinely speechless. Shepard had dreamt about this moment in the past. She would see him as he disembarked from the Normandy, and their eyes would meet. Both would rush toward the other, and they'd passionately embrace, whispering about how much they missed each other and nothing was going to ever come between them again. In actuality, their reunion was starting to become a more awkward affair.

Shepard hadn't seen Kaidan in over a year. There were more wisps of silver throughout his hair, and there were definitely more wrinkles. Kaidan had lost that muscular bulk that he'd built up in training while Shepard was on the SR-2 and awaiting trial. She couldn't imagine how she looked in his eyes. Shepard was certainly thinner and less muscular, but there was also the matter of her cybernetic leg and scars covering her face and body. Her hair was an uneven mess, and she was starting to sport a few wiry white hairs of her own. Physically, they were obviously different from the way they were when they had parted. Time had also caused Shepard to change as a person. She felt oddly distant in this moment. Seeing Kaidan again was like greeting an acquaintance.

"I missed you," Kaidan sighed, bowing to place his forehead against hers.

"I missed you," she replied automatically. "I thought you were dead," she blurted out before she could stop herself.

Kaidan merely chuckled and smiled. "I thought you were, too, but I was able to eventually get some news about everything that happened. God, I couldn't wait to get here. How are you doing? Miranda was able to give me some info about what you've been going through."

"I'm fine. I mean, I wasn't, but then I was okay with it, and now I'm getting back to normal, I guess. Well, not really."

"I thought the procedures were successful and…"

"Yeah, yeah, they worked, I'm just stuck here."

"It takes time, Shepard. The good news is that I can be stuck here with you. I heard that you left the Alliance and have a medical leave of absence from the council? I can't believe you're even on the council. Anyway, I put in my retirement, too. I'm still a Spectre, but going to take a break."

"You definitely deserve it."

"Yeah." Kaidan held her face in his hands, his eyes still glued to her in amazement and reverence. "I hope I didn't keep you waiting too long."

"Too long for what?"

"It's one of the last things you said to me."

"That's right."

"And now I can hold you again." Kaidan kissed her delicately, like he was afraid she would break right before him. Shepard's eyes started to water. "Are you okay? Are you hurt?" Kaidan asked, his voice instantly taking on a note of concern.

"I'm fine. It's just everything," she answered succinctly. Kaidan's thumb wiped away a tear that formed and started to find its way down her cheek.

"It's okay, it's finally over," Kaidan tried to calm her. "Now we can start our future."

Thank you for all of the reviews :) They are very much appreciated. Sorry for the delay in getting this chapter out.