A/N: I feel like a horrible person for this chapter but like I said, day by day. You have been warned.
As her eyelids slowly lifted, her vision hazy, and her breathing ragged, Shepard didn't realize what was happening. She tried to take a deep breath but inside her mouth was a tube that connected to her lungs, a machine breathing for her. She wanted to scream.
She had just gotten back in bed, after Garrus cleaned her. She hadn't fallen asleep that hard, had she? She scrambled to grab the tube in her mouth. She reached with her left hand and she saw her fingers. They…were there. They had never been reduced to blacken stubs. They were completely in-tact.
She began gagging and within seconds she saw Dr. Michel, approaching her, yet everything moved so much slower. She could not breathe. Horrified, she began clawing at her tube and it was then that she saw her hands.
Shepard looked down at her hand, studying it. She saw the beginning stages of wrinkles, solidified lines etched in her skin, hands that she had never seen before. Her hands were not hers, not how she had just seen them. It was just last night. Hours ago. Shepard looked at her nails, grown out in an oval shape. Her nails a bit yellower, the skin paler underneath the nail. Dr. Michel immediately pressed a button on the machine next to Shepard. She started crying. Hot tears covered her face, but slowly, as her muscle movements gradually became nonexistent, she no longer felt control of her eyelids.
Empty sleep covered over her.
Once again, her eyes opened. The tube was no longer in her throat, but there was an oxygen mask over her mouth and nose. Her every muscle and nerve vibrated, but she could not move.
Looking through a clouded gaze, she saw Dr. Michel standing over her.
"Commander Shepard, welcome back." Her French accent was still the same. Shepard followed the voice with her eyes and landed upon the woman's face. Her once large and vibrant eyes were shrunk by dark black circles, her lips taut and in a perpetual frown.
"Dr. Michel?" Shepard's throat was so dry. Hearing her discomfort, a nurse immediately placed a straw in her mouth. Shepard sucked the water through her teeth, having forgotten how good water tasted.
"How are you feeling?" The words echoed from the doctor's pink painted lips behind Shepard's eyes, but their meaning was not understood.
Shepard could only nod, still drinking her water. Hearing the slurp that told her she had drank all of it, the nurse began pulling the cup away. Shepard slowly removed the straw from her lips, the end of it bouncing against her lips.
Dr. Michel took a deep breath and grabbed Shepard's hands. "Do you know where you are?"
She nodded, and the words poured from her mouth lazily, "The Citadel."
"Yes. Huerta Memorial." The Frenchwoman paused before asking her, "Do you know what year it is?"
Shepard nodded. She had just woken up. "2188. Coma's been fifteen months." She sounded so sure, so positive. "Where's Dr. Chakwas?"
Dr. Michel's frown deepened, and she reached for Shepard's hands. Her eyes started to water, and her nose begun to drip, and she cleared her throat. The gravity of her words was about to bury her. She took a deep breath and gently squeezed Shepard's hand.
"Shepard…it hasn't been fifteen months." Dr. Michel placed her other hand on the commander's shoulder and looked into her eyes.
Shepard's heart pounded in her chest, and every hair on her body raised. Fear flooded behind her eyes and she looked at the doctor for answers. Unable to speak, her ears felt as if they were filled with cotton, white noise warming her eardrums.
"It's 2202. It's been fifteen years."