Chapter 5: Shepard.

Why's everything so hazy? Holy crap that hurts…

Shepard had been out since being pulled from underneath the rubble, now two days later she seemed to show signs of coming to. A nurse noticed her movement and buzzed for the doctor, she walked to Shepard's side.

"Its ok honey, take it easy" She placed a hand a top of Shepard's

"Wh-Who is this?" she sounded cautious, she couldn't open her eyes properly for some strange reason. She winced again to herself, her right arm was in agony. The rest of her seemed achy, bruised but this was a whole other scale of pain for Shepard.

"Don't struggle honey" The nurse spoke softly trying to reassure the now spooked Shepard. She attempted to raise her right arm to feel for her eyes, see if she could prize them open
"OW SHIT!" she barked her eyebrows arching high up the middle of her forehead teeth gritting together

"Now don't struggle" The nurse seemed to get panicky by the tone of her voice, she watched Shepard raise her left arm to touch her eyes.

"I can't open my eyes! Why can't I open my eyes?!" The nurse snatched her hand back down, trying to reassure Shepard.

"We haven't had time to clean you up yet. Due to the nature of your injuries it was safer to see if you'd come too before clearing you up, it seems as if blood has dried on your eyelashes, fusing them together"

"Clean it! Get it off!" she sounded almost upset, like a whining dog.

"Hang on honey the doctor's coming to see you now and then we'll get you cleaned up"

"No!-" she went to protest against the nurse when she heard footsteps enter the door, followed by what sounded like loads of people asking questions…clicks…frustration, anxiety, all manner of emotions could be heard, soon to be silenced by the door hissing shut.

"Well it's about time you woke, Shepard." Shepard's head twitched ever so slightly, her left ear leaning to hear towards the voice when suddenly she recognised it.

"M…Miranda?" she asked, there was a slight questioning in her voice, almost like she didn't believe it.

"Yes Commander, It's me" She placed a reassuring hand on Shepard's hand.

"But…How? I can't see, what happened?!"

"Calm down" Miranda had to bite her lip not to snap her answer out. "Thought you would have learned to react calmly to waking since the Lazarus project" a smile snuck from the corner of Shepard's lips. "Some soldiers found you in some rubble" she gestured towards the nurse "Some warm water and cotton wool for her eyes please" the nurse nodded and went across the room "Somehow you were breathing, but the state you were in Shepard. The state you still are in is, well" She felt the lukewarm wet padding of cotton wool upon her eyelids and hissed, they were still bruised.

"Let's just say it wasn't too far off when I sorted you out last time" she laughed light-heartedly "But at least this time I had a heart beat and working arteries, oh and some flesh on the 'meat and tubes' as jacob once said" Shepard turned her head to look towards Miranda's voice only for it to be moved back softly, the nurse telling her to stay still as she worked on getting the dried blood off her eyes.

"And the Reapers?"

"Dead. All of them" Miranda confirmed almost military like. "It was strange, a red energy pulse just…rushed over Earth, and they all collapsed. It was like nothing I had ever seen before."

"I…" she wanted to tell Miranda what had happened, but hesitated. Firstly if anyone she wanted to talk to first, it was Garrus, then military blood kicked in and she needed to tell the alliance.

"Garrus, Where's Garrus?!" her face looked frantic with worry

"I'm sorry Shepard, I don't know" Shepard's heart sank into her chest "Last I heard was he had been hurt badly and you sent him off on the Normandy. Hackett told me that, but I haven't spoken to him for a couple of days, he asked me to send for him when you wake up. Which I'll have to do now. With your permission of course."

"No…no…Not yet." She winced again "I need to get my bearings" she felt water trickling down the sides of her face to her ears, it tickled her a feeling which she hated. The nurse finally spoke softly

"I think you should be able to open your eyes now, I haven't got it all off so expect a little bit of stinging with your eyelashes, but most of it is off."

Shepard began to open her eyes, indeed the tiny clumps which were too stubborn to budge pulled eyelashes out leaving clumps in her vision, she rubbed them off with her left thumb, wincing more as the pain of them pulling out stung. Her vision was extremely blurry making her feel sick, she shut her eyes again.

"This is like having the most awful and painful hangover…ever" Shepard moaned.

"Yeah, Painful definitely." Miranda agreed "You were pretty beat up. Your leg seemed to heal fine within the past couple of days. Your ribs are nearly there, still very bruised though, a lot of you is really bruised so don't think you can get your marching gear on yet" she laughed "But your right arm is just, I don't know! It's like the cybernetics are just gone in it."
"It feels it" She grimaced as she touched it lightly

"Well it was broken in a very awkward way. We've had to" she bobbed her head to try explain this in simple talk "Basically break it again so that when it does start to heal, It heals correctly"

"As if I wasn't broken up enough, you add another one?" Shepard joked through the grimacing. Clutching her right arm softly before realising it was in a cast, a bright pink florescent cast at that. Her eyes focused on it for a few moments before clocking onto the extreme colouring of it. "Is this some kind of joke?" She grinned.

"Shepard, of course not!" Miranda smirked back "I always thought it was your colour, or was it you that said you detested that Phoenix armour that Ashley lent you?" She faux coughed after that statement. Shepard shook her head smirking.

"I hopefully still have the helmet in her memory, she'd have loved being down in the fight" her face went deadpan, slightly whimsical thinking of Ashley. Miranda nodded her head.

"Well Shepard, are you feeling up to seeing Admiral Hackett yet?" she changed the subject, she always felt awkward when others spoke of Ashley, after all Miranda didn't know her, and she always felt like she was just the 'dark haired girl who filled her boots'

"I… Yea why not?" her left hand waved to gesture bring him in "I might be a bit offish but I need to know about the crew, I just hope they're ok and Hackett knows."

"Right" Miranda acknowledged before going over to the desk where the nurse sat and making a call.

"He's on his way" Miranda confirmed.

Shepard looked toward the door, randomly noise started to perk up from around it she looked confusingly at it. Hackett entered into the room, his body half twisted towards the outside, flashes of light all around, his arms shooing whatever was out there like batting away a fly.

"NO COMMENT!" he barked before turning his body around and relaxing it with a slump, he looked at Miranda.

"Ms. Lawson, those paparazzi are getting out of hand, isn't there anything we can do about them?"

"I'm not sure, rights and all that" she shrugged clueless.

"I'll get some people on the door, that'll scare them off." He suggested military like "Shepard." He nodded towards her "Good to see you back up, you had me worried for a few days"

"No change there then huh?" she laughed

"Good to see the humour is still there." He nodded and smiled.

"Sir, Paparazzi?" Shepard seemed confused, she knew she was hailed as a 'hero' but never had much of this whilst on her journeys.

"Since you saved Earth, and well the Galaxy" Hackett began "you've become more than just a war hero in their eyes-"

"You're seen as a major celebrity now" Miranda added "You're on covers of magazines, always spoken about on gossip channels, fashion sites-"

"FASHION SITES?!" Shepard spat, she never heard something so ridiculous in her life "What my armax arsenal gauntlets are hot to trot for season autumn winter now?!" Miranda almost doubled over with laughter before Hackett brought the conversation into a more professional attitude.

"To be honest Shepard, word is flying around about you and your Turian officer's relationship, there aren't many Human-Turian couples around…and now they treat it like some trend"

Shepard face-palmed.

"But these guys need to understand, you're not some drunken rap party-falling out of a sky-car celebrity, you're an alliance commander. Do expect some… unusual requests though commander"

"Noted" Shepard nodded "Anyway, you wanted to see me sir?"

"Yes Commander, I was hoping we could talk…" he looked towards the nurse and Miranda "In private"

"Sure" Shepard looked to Miranda who took that as cue to get lost as she ushered out the nurse. The doors opening with the clicking of flashlights going

"KHALISAH-BINT-SI-!" the doors closed

"Oh thank god for that, thought I might need to punch with a broken arm if she would have gotten in then" Shepard joked.

"I think she's taken enough for her team" Hackett reprimanded her, Shepard pouted. "Shepard" Hackett's voice was purely military now, he meant business "What the hell happened up there?" Shepard placed her good hand to her head as if the thought of it hurt her,

"Sir, I don't even know where to begin…"

"Try me" his eyes squinted making sure he concentrated on every single word that poured from her mouth.

"Well, I remember waking in this" she shrugged and shook her head "random part of the Citadel, I'd never seen it before, it had a red hue, bodies were just piled up everywhere… and I seem to recall a keeper just working like nothing had happened on a console" Hackett grunted at the mention of a Keeper. "Then Anderson started chatting to me through my earpiece" she gasped a little "Anderson?! What happened to him?" Hackett bowed his head.

"We found him, but… not in a good way, I'd go as far as to say he was worse off than you. He's in an unstable condition down the hall"

"He's alive?! I was scared he had died!"

"We don't know Shepard, at the moment he's on life support which means he is breathing with assistance, but he could have brain damage. We won't know until he wakes up" Shepard's heart sank. She gulped to restrain her emotions and continued to an eager Hackett.

"I remember we conversed as to our positions in the Citadel, and I was walking…Well hobbling up this chasm, and as I reached the top, he was there, at a terminal. I had no idea what the terminal did though"

"Did it work the catalyst?" Hackett asked

"No no, at least I don't think it contributed to it, the catalyst was. It was, well an ancient AI. But he appeared to me as some sort of apparition. A young boy, who I met when the reapers first started attacking in Vancouver."

"It wasn't the Citadel?" Hackett seemed confused, his hand touched to his chin in deep thought soaking what Shepard had just said.

"No, but we kinda had to be there to meet it, it's hard to explain" She shrugged her words couldn't express what she wanted to say.

"Just say it as you think. I'll do the unravelling" Hackett nodded.

"To cut it short, the Catalyst spoke to me why things went on. It justified everything that it did, I was getting frustrated knowing that they were the cause of destruction each and every 50,000 years and then he said that I was the first human to basically be there. Which led to them having to rethink their actions."

"How?" Hackett frowned.

"He gave me 3 choices. I could 'control' the reapers, they would listen to me. Or I could merge synthetic life and organic life together. But I didn't feel like I should choose that for everyone, it, I don't know. It wasn't easy." Her heart somersaulted again. "Wait, are all AI's…Are they dead?"

"It makes sense now you have said that. All Artificial intelligence has ceased to work, VI's we've had trouble with, but nothing too hard to overcome. AI's however, no response"

"Oh no, EDI" her good hand touched to her chest, this was the most emotional Shepard had been since before her enlistment in the alliance at 18.

"Look Shepard, I'm sure we can get the best people to work on EDI…"

"It's not that simple!" Shepard barked. "The catalyst warned me that the cycle would soon emerge should AI's begin the cycle again…I can't explain this very well without discriminating them, its unfair" she shook her head "EDI was one of probably a handful that wouldn't have ever…EVER ended up like the reapers. Now I've just gone and ended her life because I wanted rid of the reapers"

"Shepard" Hackett nodded his head with authority "One personal casualty over thousands, in fact millions of enemy forces about to end our lives as we know it is one I'm sure EDI would have understood."

"Just because tactically it sounds right, doesn't mean it is right though" Shepard lowly scowled her words. She had learnt all this the hard way throughout this long mission, from losing Ashley on Virmire, to Mordin, Thane, Now EDI. Nothing was easy, no choice was right or wrong. But they definitely felt wrong.

"Poor Joker" She looked to the wall to refrain the tears setting in her eyes being caught by Hackett. Hackett placed a hand on Shepard's shoulder

"You did good, kid." His smile softened on his battle torn face, this was a meaningful gesture. A very rare one from such a proud Admiral too, the best.

"Thank you sir" Shepard smiled back, her whole face not matching it as it wasn't too genuine. "This is just. Going to take some time I think." Hackett hummed and nodded.

"I think it's time you got some rest, I've bended your ear for far too long already." He stood up and saluted Shepard and made way for the door. As soon as the door closed, Shepard had to finally release after so long. She cried herself to sleep, emotions were high inside her, thoughts were too much and grieving needed to be done. Her emotional roller-coaster had no end and finally she broke.