Breath seeped into her lungs, a mere trickle of air. She stirred faintly, lying utterly still as she took another gulp of air. She felt as though plate-glass was shattering inside her chest when she inhaled, but her body would not be denied. Her heart began to pound inside her chest, suddenly desperate to escape the soothing blackness that promised relief from all sensation, that even now threatened to suck her into the dark embrace of nothing. She couldn't move; she didn't feel any pain yet, but somehow she knew her condition was not good.

Memory failed her. Where was she? How had she gotten here? A blank wall of silence met her questing mind, and she felt a dull panic rise within her. Movement was still beyond her, but she tried anyway, only to be met with agonizing, blinding pain. She gasped, which only tortured her overworked lungs and caused more pain. Red edged with black blotted out her gray vision, threatening her consciousness, and she did her best to wait out the pain.

Finally it subsided, leaving once more that hollow numbness that belied the damage she had sustained. From a long, long way off she heard the low rumble of voices. She tried to make a noise, even a whisper, but failed. She heard the sounds of rubble shifting, and voices again, closer and sharper this time.

"….Should go in…..Getting dark." The gravelly tones sounded familiar.

"You go.…See fine." She recognized that voice too, with its unusual accent, but she could not for the life of her remember where she'd heard it.

"Shepard!" The bellow of a krogan was unmistakable. "Sheaprd!"

Here! I'm here! Her brain thought, but the words didn't make it to her throat. It was all she could do to keep breathing as the pain steadily increased. She heard the crunch of boots, this time quite close.

"Look…" The gravelly voice had gone quiet, and a rock scraped close to her head.

The weight pinning her body down shifted away from her limbs a piece at a time and with much grunting and scraping. Pain flared and died, causing her breath to come in hitched gasps, but finally light pierced the dark and she made out three amorphous figures through the gray haze of her vision. The gravelly voice let out a whole string of curses, then said, "Get someone down here right fuckin' now. We found Shepard, but it's bad."

A great shadowy shape filled her vision.

"Don't touch her." the accented voice snapped. "She may have internal trauma, and…..." She didn't hear the rest of it. Her brain could only grasp at fragments, and she felt a kind of lightheadedness that made concentrating all the more difficult.

"Come on, Shepard." The krogan growled. Hs voice had gotten very distant again, and Shepard knew she was about to pass out.

"Hold on, Shepard. Just hold on. Just…."

VVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVV

Chakwas sat at her desk, nursing a cup of black coffee and a headache. Garrus' condition, as predicted, had not gotten any better. His larger wounds still bled sluggishly, cause for concern given that they should have shown at least some progress with the aid of modern medicine. He never complained, but he refused to see or speak to any of the Normandy crew. She could tell he was hurting badly, but any attempts to comfort him were met with bitter, distant comments, warning friends away. He didn't want to hear it, obviously. He sat still and let her treat him, but he completely ignored her attempts to talk to him. She likewise ignored his silence, continuing to prod at the walls he'd raised around himself until he started growling.

When it got to that point, he became dangerous, not to be toyed with, and she left discreetly. She'd seen more than one man who had gotten mauled by a pissed-off turian, mostly in the year or two after the First Contact wars, and she had no interest at all in becoming the next casualty. She wished she could help him, but he had shut her out, and Chakwas feared that the only way to get to him was to bring Shepard back. If she was right, though, Shepard wasn't coming back. It was a terrible loss for all of the Normandy crew, and even more so for the turian. She only wished he could see that and allow them to help him.

She checked the time and got up with a sigh. She had to check on Garrus. Everyone else refused to do the job; the turian had distanced himself from everyone around him, and she was the only one who could deal with his caustic nature without being negatively affected the rest of the day. She opened the door to his room with the caution of a bomb tech disarming a nuke. He was lying in bed, curled up, back to the door, seemingly oblivious to her entry. But she knew he'd heard her. Turians had excellent hearing; he was just ignoring her. But she didn't want to seem like she was barging in on him, so she called his name.

"Garrus?"

She heard a low grunt as he sat up, which was all she was likely to get from him. Chakwas entered carefully, shutting the door behind her. Antiseptic stung her nostrils, but under that there was a faint but noticeable foul smell that made her cringe. He didn't meet her eyes as she walked around in front of him, but refused to let go of the blanket he had clutched around his shoulders. She tugged at it, trying to pull it down, but he still wouldn't let go. She let go with an exasperated sigh.

"Garrus," She told him sternly, hands on her hips, "You have to let me help you. If I can't help you, you won't heal."

He didn't move, but let out a low growl as she tugged at the blanket again.

"Garrus, don't be so-" she stopped as he let the sheet drop. His chest and pants were covered in dried blood, and his arms, where he wasn't protected by scales, bore long slashes, evidence of severe damage from a knife or...talons.

"Garrus….What did you do?" Chakwas asked softly.

He crossed his arms and stared resolutely at the ceiling, mandibles trembling. The expression in his eyes was too painful for her to bear.

"When did you do this, Garrus?" she pressed, turning one of his hands out towards her. He shook his head mutely. The wounds had closed already, so there was no point in using medi-gel on them. Self-harm was a very, very dangerous behavior, though, and one that should be discouraged at all cost.

"You can't do this to yourself. Do you have any idea how dangerous the infection could be?"

"Yes." He had closed his eyes, tightly, clearly in significant pain.

"Then why do you do it?"

"The physical pain…is easier to deal with." His voice cracked, dry and miserable.

"I understand, but you cannot do this to yourself. You're already wounded enough. If you continue this, we're going to have to file your talons down. You know that, right?"

"Yes."

"Do you want to talk to me about this?"

"No."

"Garrus…" She waited until he looked at her. "You have to stop this. All right?"

He nodded, eyes closed, and she gently put a hand on his shoulder.

"I'm here to help you. Just tell me what I need to do."

He shook his head, and she sighed and began to peel back the bandage from his shoulder. She gagged as the long, deep, ragged wound was revealed. Her stomach jolted threateningly at the mix of blue dextro-amino blood and thick, slightly greenish pus oozing from between the two edges of the laceration, but she held it back. She hadn't gotten this far by being sick at the sight of blood, but this was a different matter. The wound had gotten infected because of its failure to close properly, and the smell was enough to make even a surgeon slightly ill. The hospital had him on a special diet to help accelerate the healing process, but he wasn't eating much, if at all, and Chakwas knew it.

She cleaned and dressed both of his wounds without comment, noticing that the other injury looked much the same. If he was bothered by the sting of the antiseptic, he didn't show it, staring blankly into space somewhere over her shoulder. She finished up, stripped off her gloves, and tossed them in the biohazard container before turning back to him.

"Garrus, do you need anything? Anything at all?"

There was a long pause, and then he said, "I can't sleep." Hs voice was flat, devoid of emotion.

"Why?"

"Nightmares…bad ones." He put a hand over his face. "I don't want to sleep." He shivered. Whatever these night terrors were, if they were enough to scare him out of getting proper rest, then they were a serious problem.

"I can give you something tonight, but you can't make this a habit. Get changed into clean clothes and I will come back with it, all right?"

He nodded a little.

"I'm here for you if you need me, Garrus. You know that." She told him softly, pausing at the door frame.

He said nothing in return, so she sighed and left to get the medication, closing the door behind her. Making a quick decision, she decided to stop by her desk beforehand to log the information. Upon opening her terminal, however, she discovered that someone had sent her a message. It was from Zaeed, the grizzled old mercenary who had volunteered to search for Shepard. She bit her lip and opened it, fearing the worst. She read it once, quickly, but was forced to go back and re-read it. She thought that surely her eyes must be playing some kind of trick on her, so she spoke the words as she read them.

Chakwas-

Found the Commander. She's wounded bad, but still breathing. Shuttle picked her up about an hour ago. Should be there soon. Tell Vakarian.

-Z

She knocked her tower of papers over in her rush to get the news to Garrus, but was long gone before they hit the floor.

VVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVV

1 week later

Garrus paced in front of the door, ignoring the pains from his healing wounds. Most of his burns and cuts had disappeared thanks to medi-gel. Chakwas had put him on heavy antibiotics, and the infection in his shoulder had cleared up relatively quickly. She had agreed to let him out of bed on the one condition that he not over-exert himself. He couldn't help but think that maybe he was disobeying her, but he didn't really care. Ever since she told him about Shepard, he had been very agitated, desperate to see his Shep. It didn't matter to him that Shep would most likely be asleep; he just wanted to confirm her existence with his own eyes, just to be sure this wasn't some drug-induced fantasy. The seemingly permanent loss of Shepard had been by far the most painful thing he'd ever had to deal with, and he wanted desperately for the news to be true that she was back.

Garrus turned, body stiff and alert as a doctor exited Shepard's room. The man looked less than thrilled at letting the turian inside, but he guessed the doctors on this floor had discussed his 'problem patient' nature and knew he wouldn't be able to rest until he got to see Shepard.

"Can I…"

"In a moment. She's awake, but she's very groggy. You need to be extremely careful; don't lean on her or put any pressure on her. Understand?"

Garrus nodded.

"Five minutes. No more." The doctor stepped aside, holding the door open for him, and he walked past the threshold quickly, before the doctor could change his mind.

He stopped, barely inside the door, as he looked over the female lying in bed. Half of her face was bandaged and she was very pale, but undoubtedly she was…

"Shepard." He whispered, unable to believe his eyes. She was covered in blankets, the bed a mass of tubes and wires all connected to her. She looked so frail that it would be impossible for someone who didn't know to tell this was the Mighty Commander Shepard, but under the smell of antiseptic, he could smell her. Scents never changed, and hers was unforgettable; spicy and bright, like citrus fruit and the crushed leaves of certain plants on Palaven. Even though she was raised human, she smelled undeniably of his home.

He walked up to the side of the bed, and she turned her head to look at him, green eyes almost obscured by her drooping eyelids.

"Hey…" Her voice was soft and slurred, confirming what he already knew; she was heavily doped on painkillers. He knew she preferred the pain over the confusion and hated to see her like this.

"Shep, I…."

"Shh. I know." She told him , reaching towards him with one hand but lacking the strength to lift it and touch him. He gently wormed his fingers underneath hers so her hand was resting in his. A soft smile spread across her face.

"C'mere, big guy."

He leaned down towards her, touching the side of her neck with his face. Her breath was warm against the side of his neck; her scent intoxicatingly strong in his nose and mouth. She sighed softly.

"Love you." She told him faintly, her hand lightly squeezing his.

"Love you too, Shep." He responded almost instinctively as she slipped back to sleep, his nose still against her neck. A deep, content thrumming was working its way up through his sub-vocals, and he didn't stop it. He held her hand as she slept, unwilling to leave her side. Five minutes were over too soon, and he reluctantly pulled back from Shepard when the doctor came to get him. As he straightened, he spoke to her, even though she couldn't hear him.

"Glad you came back."

She had no idea how glad.

A/N: It's done, folks! First finished FF by me! WOOT!

Was it worth? Did you like? If so, leave a review and this could be followed up with some shorts.

Hope you all enjoyed it! Be sure to check out Manic Effect! (It's awesome, I promise!)