The lift ascended, taking Shepard directly to the Huerta Memorial Hospital in the Presidium. He wondered about Kaidan, hoping nothing terrible had happened to his friend during his little detour through Purgatory. He didn't want Alenko to go out like this. He didn't want the Illusive Man to win.

The doors slid open.

The inside of the hospital wasn't quite chaotic, but it looked like it was heading in that direction very quickly. The waiting room was nearly filled, hysterical voices rising up from the crowd, and a line had formed at the reception desk. Doubtless, the casualties from nearby systems were beginning to trickle into Citadel Space. It wouldn't be long before every clinic in the Presidium and the Wards were overcrowded.

"Now Entering: Huerta Memorial Hospital," a feminine-sounding VI informed him.

"I should hope so." Shepard stepped out of the lift.

"I'm Commander Shepard, and this is my favorite hospital on the Citadel."

The fervor in the room quieted and all eyes were on Shepard as he stood at the waiting room entrance. The lift doors slowly slid closed behind him.

"I, ah..." He cleared his throat a little. "As you were, people." No one moved. "...And that's an order."

The room fell back into hysterics.

"Woah." He knew it had just been good timing, but another part of him started to wonder if he really could make some kind of a difference here. He was the First Human Spectre, after all. That had to count for something.

Commander Shepard is Easily Distracted

"Shepard, M.D."

The receptionist typed something into her console and shouted, "Next!" The line shifted and a young man with a cold sweat ended up at the desk. "Symptoms?"

"I have a c-cough, I can't keep any food d-d-down," the young man said, his voice jittery. "And I-I-I feel like I'm s-s-standing in a f-f-freezer."

Shepard stepped forward and casually leaned against the front desk. "I can help with that."

The receptionist did a double-take. "Who are you?"

"Commander Shepard. Spectre."

"O... kay?" She pointed to the line. "If you have an ailment, Commander Shepard, I'm afraid you'll need to wait in line like everyone else."

"Lines are for the weak. You ever see a lion stand in line to snack on a gazelle or to get the drink of water that would save his life?"

"I was born on the Citadel, Commander. I've never seen a lion."

"Space-lion?"

"There is no such thing as a space-lion."

Shepard's eyes narrowed. "I bet you also thought there was no such thing as a Reaper, huh? Guess who's oh-and-one on that prediction. Not me. Not Shepard Commander." He turned to the young man, scanning him with the omni-tool. "Now, what seems to be the trouble?"

"I-I think I hav-v-ve a bad c-c-cold, s-s-sir."

"Hmm, yes, interesting, yes." Shepard pressed a few buttons at random. "Open your mouth and say 'Ah'."

The young man hesitantly obliged. "Ahhh..."

"Hm, yes, quite. Feeling any better?"

"N-n-n-no, sir."

"Okay, do me another favor and finish this sentence: He traded in his Chevy for a...?"

"C-C-Cadillac-ac-ac-ac-ac-ac."

"Hm, yes, you oughta know by now." Shepard turned to the receptionist. "Ma'am, his symptoms aren't dissipating. This man has to be gotten to a hospital."

The receptionist's hand was hovering over the button that hailed security. "He is in a hospital, Commander... And I thought you were going to do something to help with your omni-tool."

"Nope." Shepard held up the omni-tool. "I was just googling the symptoms, but ended up at the music video for Cold Sweat by James Brown and a picture of a kitten riding a vacuum." He shut off the device. "Are either of those actual medicinal remedies?"

"Just... leave, Commander Shepard. We'll take care of this man."

Shepard nodded and turned to the young man, who seemed more confused than sick at this point. "Get better, son." He clapped him on the shoulder. "And that's an order."

—

Two asari, a counselor and her patient, sat on the other end of the waiting room, staring out over the perpetual river flowing below. The patient was restless, shifting around in her seat and tapping her fingers nervously against her armrests. The counselor placed a hand on her shoulder and the patient jerked back suddenly.

"The doctors told me you haven't been sleeping," the counselor said. "Have you been having nightmares again?"

The patient settled into a memory, her eyes unblinking. "I can still hear the screams... I think they're mine... No... Yes! They're mine. My hands are covering my eyes and I can't watch!"

"Shhh." The counselor rubbed the patient's back. "It's okay. It's all over now."

"Everything went so wrong. All that I loved was consumed, twisted into an abomination. I tried to escape, but I was trapped. There was only one way out. There was nothing else I could do!"

Shepard approached the patient, taking a knee so they could talk eye-to-eye. "Is everything all right here?"

"Who are you?" the counselor asked.

"Shepard. Spectre. Commander."

The counselor leaned over and whispered, "Post-traumatic stress disorder."

He gasped. "Reapers?"

The patient suddenly lashed out, slamming her fists onto her armrests. "They said Dragon Age 2 would be better!"

"Oh, no..."

The counselor nodded knowingly. "It gets worse."

"How much worse?"

"She bought the DLC."

"Oh, no..."

"Afraid so."

Shepard turned to the patient. "I'm so sorry for what you've had to go through. It'll get easier with time."

"It's okay," the patient said with a giggle. "I paid for a year's subscription to The Old Republic, so maybe that'll get my mind off things. It's non-refundable, so that must mean it's good, right?"

Shepard backed away.

Slowly.

"Sure it is! Hey, ah... do me a favor. Get better. And that's an, uh... And that's an order..." He rounded the corner.

—

"Kaidan Alenko?" the salarian nurse asked, taking a moment to process the name. "Sure, he was admitted today. His room's down the main hallway, first door on your right."

Shepard nodded gratefully. "Thanks, doc."

"Nurse."

"No, I'm a Spectre." Shepard made his way down the hall, dodging a steady stream of stretchers and doctors that seemed to continuously flow from one room to the next and out into the hall again. He found the first door on the right. Instead of a room number, the holo-placard on the door read: Morgue.

Shepard felt his blood run cold. He dropped to his knees. "No..." He pounded on the door, attacked it as though it was the Illusive Man himself. "No! Why, why, why!" he shouted into the air.

"Commander Shepard?" The salarian nurse tapped him on the shoulder. "I said the first door on your right."

Shepard perked up and looked to the other side of the hallway. He could see Kaidan on a medical bed inside. "Oh." He stood and brushed himself off. "I thought you meant my right."

"His room is on your right, Commander."

Shepard scoffed at the nurse. "Think you're real funny, huh?"

"I assure you, a hospital is the last place you'll find comedy."

Just then, a physician in blue scrubs blasted down the hall using a stretcher as a luge. "EAAAAGLE!" He crashed into one of the windows and flipped into the decontamination chamber, unconscious.

"Maybe you're right." Shepard left the nurse and went to Kaidan's side. It had only been a few hours since they'd arrived on the Citadel, but the injuries he'd suffered back on Mars were subsiding. The swelling and bruising on his neck and face had all but disappeared.

But Kaidan was still unconscious, and breathing so subtly the soft beep, beep, beep of the EKG was the only thing that let Shepard know his friend wasn't dead.

"Hey, Kaidan." He hoped his voice would prompt a response, but his friend remained motionless. "Don't know if you—"

The intercom overhead chimed once. "I'm Commander Shepard, and this is my favorite intensive-care unit on the Citadel."

"—can... Okay, anyway: I don't know if you can hear me, but since you can't tell me to get the hell out, either... I'll take my chances."

"...Get the hell out," Kaidan wheezed.

"You'll pull out of this coma soon. Don't die, Kaidan. You've got to fight. We need you in this. Seeing you in action again... it reminded me you're a hell of a soldier. The Alliance could sure use you. I could use you."

He turned to find a doctor waiting patiently behind him, who was going over a datapad with one hand and balancing himself on a cane with the other.

"You need anything, doc," Shepard said, "let me know."

The doctor looked up from his datapad, surprised. "Oh, we'll let you know, all right. How about another soliloquy from you? That ought to fix Mr. Alenko's fractured C2 vertebrae, multiple contusions, intracranial injury, as well as being comatose. We'll keep our life-saving science and medicine at the door while you chat it up with an unconscious patient. I bet you talk to walls in your spare time."

Shepard wasn't quite sure what the doctor was getting at. "I talk to my ship sometimes.

"Just get out."

"Is there a chance he has lupus?"

"It's never lupus." The doctor shoved Shepard toward the door.

"Come on, Kaidan!" Shepard shouted back into the room. "Fight!" The doctor closed the door on his face. Regardless, Shepard said through the door, "And that's an order..."

He sighed after nothing happened. Part of him expected Kaidan to walk out of the room just then, ready and able to take on the Reapers along side the rest of the crew.

But he didn't.

Shepard would court-martial him later for failure to obey orders.

Frustrated, he made his way back to the lift. He still had a Council to meet with concerning the Reaper threat... if he remembered correctly. It had been a while, he was starting to lose track of what he had to be doing.

Something about Anderson?

On his way back through the decontamination chamber, he heard a pair of nurses making quick conversation.

"Hey, I just noticed something."

"Yeah?"

"We're supposed to have the 'best care on the Citadel', but we only have two rooms and two beds."

"I've only just now noticed this."

"That clinic in Zakera Ward that Dr. Michel transferred from had more than us."

"Probably the price we pay for having this great view of the Presidium."

"It really is a great view."

"Great view."

"Yeah..."

A wounded soldier, bound among a clutter of stretchers in the middle of the hallway, held his arm out. "I... can't feel my leg!"

The nurses nodded absently.

"Great view..."