8: Interlude

.

Alex gripped the sheets beneath her hands so tight her knuckles turned a garish white. They felt real. Every imperfection in the cotton scratched gently at her fingertips, the material grazing her palms as tangible as the brush of her hair against the nape of her neck.

It was all too much. She couldn't be there again, zigzagging between realities in her head, never knowing what was the truth and what was a lie.

Sweat beaded on her forehead. Tori just stood there, staring at her with a worried crease between her brows and Alex could only stare back, swallowing nervously as the dread in her gut encircled her heart and squeezed.

"How much do you remember, Miss Keane?" Doctor Chakwas hid her concern a great deal better than Victoria, but it was still evident in her eyes as she drew closer to the bed.

Alex hesitated. The last thing she needed was to end up locked up in some padded room, wrapping herself tightly in a forced, perpetual hug.

"Just, setting out from the house. Then it's all… blank." Her eyes flickered nervously back to Tori's, hoping the untruth wasn't too obvious. Her friend had always been quick to tell her what a terrible liar she was.

"Has anything like this ever occurred before?"

"No."
"Yes."

The words were synonymous, as if said in the same voice. Alex gawked at Tori as if she'd grown a second head, but the woman was unfazed as she continued. "She's fainted before; usually after a really bad headache."

Alex narrowed her eyes at her friend. "Judas."

The doctor shook her head. "No, Shepard is quite right to inform me. I need to know how best to-"

"What did you just call her?"

Alex spoke with an urgency that stopped Chakwas dead in her tracks, silent and confused as to the sudden demanding tone in her patient's voice.

"Miss Shepard?" She repeated innocently, clearly puzzled.

Alex frowned. Liar.

There was a significant silence in the room, as grey eyes flickered over the other two women suspiciously. The doctor had called her Shepard - she was sure of it - like the Chakwas on the Normandy. Was it a blip in her fantasy, the lines between her realities becoming blurred in her brain? Or am I just hearing things now too? She sighed, her tense posture deflating rather quickly.

"Sorry." She murmured, defeated. Even if it was some kind of proof that this was all a strange sort of lie, there wasn't much she could do about it, trapped as she was in her own head. Alternatively of course, if it turned out that her current predicament was in fact real, and everything else was make believe, there was little she could do about that either. Expect maybe get some help, as averse as she was to the aforementioned padded room. "Carry on."

Dr. Chakwas coughed politely. "Yes well, as I was saying, it's important that you tell me the truth so I can properly treat you. Now, do you have these headaches often?"

"No."
"Yes."

Alex sighed, eyeing her traitorous friend once more. "Sometimes."

"I see." The grey haired woman scribbled something down on her pad before smiling at her kindly. "How often would you say?"

Tori cut in before Alex had chance to even open her lips. "All the damn time! I've told her she needs to get her head scanned or something but she never listens."

The doctor nodded, scribbling further. "Yes, well I do think it would be best if we performed some tests. A scan would be beneficial to a diagnosis and to rule out any causes in the brain…" she eyed Alex, who heaved a sigh in response.

"Great."

Her shoulders sagged in defeat, barely having time to breathe before the day started to rush by her.

Everything was a rush of activity. Between being carted around and looked at by various professionals, people taking her blood and scribbling notes around her while sharing very little information, it was proving to be a long and frustrating day. She was tired. So much so that she couldn't even pretend to be surprised when she was escorted into what was promised to be the final test room and came face to face with yet another familiar face.

"Alexandria Keane, is it?" Miranda Lawson – or Doctor Lawson as she announced herself - stood before her, flicking through a notepad studiously, her words quite fittingly nothing less that cool and professional.

It was disarming, to see the woman dressed in anything other than her form fitting Cerberus outfit, heels clicking on the grating of the ship. Though her clothes were still equally fitted, the outfit was overshadowed by a white lab coat and glasses, which if anything served to make her look even more severe – if such a thing were possible.

"Well, if you'd like to lie down on this machine, then we can begin."

Alex just nodded, a little dazed. She had questions. She wanted to know why every face in this hospital seemed to be one from her dream, her other life. She wanted to know if she could trust herself – if she could trust anyone. Most of all she just desperately wanted to scream.

Her lips wouldn't open however. No sound escaped her. She was tired, yes. But above that, there was fear, and it held her so tightly in its grip that she was paralysed to do anything but follow the strange and convoluted path she had found herself on.

So onto the machine Alex climbed, trying desperately to keep her shaking to a minimum. A deep humming sounded around her, monotonous and calming. Sleep threatened to take her there and then and she wondered briefly that if she closed her eyes, would she wake once more in another time, another place, surrounded by the impossible but familiar. As her lashes fluttered, time seemed to bleed together. She wasn't sure if it had been minutes or hours passed when finally she was face to face with Miranda once again.

There was a cool atmosphere in the office, white and bright and real. Alex wanted to shield her eyes from it, to cover her face and drop to the floor and cry until she had no more tears, but a firm yet gentle hand on her shoulder kept her grounded. Crying would solve nothing.

Victoria looked the picture of calm beside her, despite the shaking of her fingers ever so slightly against Alex's shirt. It was a fact that made Alex feel for her instantly, bringing her hand up to grip her friend's reassuringly. As unsure as she was about everything, Tori was still her best friend and she'd be damned if she let any version of her suffer, imagined or otherwise.

"Now, I'm sure you'll be pleased to know that your brain scan didn't show up any irregularities." Doctor Lawson began, looking certainly less than pleased herself as she shifted her glasses slightly. "Your blood tests didn't reveal anything unusual either."

"And that's a bad thing because…" Victoria queried, reading Miranda's sombre expression with an inquisitive raised brow. Her hand had tightened slightly in Alex grip and the blonde realised with a start what it was swirling in the green of her eyes.

Fear.

Alex had never known Victoria to be scared of anything, yet there, in that hospital room, with the fate of her best friend in the balance, she was terrified.

The doctor's steel blue eyes surveyed the redhead coolly. "It's bad, because none of our tests even hint towards a physical problem that could be causing Miss Keane's symptoms. It's bad, because it means that we don't know how to treat it. It's bad, because-"

"Alright, I get it."

"The fact is, we may be looking at something that isn't physical at all."

The silence that followed was palpable.

There it is, Alex thought. Everything she had feared and, evidently, everything that Tori had feared too, for the swift intake of breath she drew into her lungs was like she had been punched in the stomach. The resolve on her face however, made it clear she had been expecting it. She was a smart woman. She had likely been worrying about this outcome from the very start; the same way Alex had been, grasping desperately at straws in the hope that there was some simpler explanation; something physical, something fixable.

"So I'm crazy?"

"Well we always knew that." Tori joked, managing a strained smile that was all too easy to see through. Alex smiled back at her all the same, assuring and calm, desperately holding back the tears that were threatening to overwhelm her at any second.

Miranda watched them both, expressionless, shifting her glasses minutely as she made some notes in the open diary on her desk. "You'll be scheduled for psychiatric evaluation with Doctor Chambers. She'll be the one to ascertain if that is the case. Other than that, there are a few more physical tests we'd like to run so you will have to stay in hospital overnight."

"Wait… Chambers? Kelly Chambers? Oh God."

Miranda actually smiled slightly at the outburst. "I wasn't aware the two of you were already acquainted. Believe me, I understand your apprehension, but this is necessary."

Alex just cringed, silently formulating an escape plot that would get her out of a psych evaluation. There was very little she could think of that she'd actually enjoy doing less than talking about her current predicament with Kelly Chambers all over again, scooping her eyes out with spoons included.

Despite her dread, she nodded regardless and allowed herself to be led back to her room by her best friend, taking a seat on the side of her bed. Stood in silence for a few moments, Tori looked to be searching for the right words but unable to find them. Alex didn't blame her. What does one say to someone they care about when they're most likely losing their mind?

"So…" she started, clearly uncomfortable, and likely just as scared as Alex was. "That Doctor's hot huh?"

Well I didn't see that one coming.

The sombre atmosphere dissipated, dissolving with the laughter that erupted from the blonde's chest. Victoria laughed with her, hopping up onto the bed beside her friend. Raising a hand, she gently brushed a tear from the younger girl's face that Alex hadn't even known she'd let fall.

"Everything will be okay. You know why?"

Alex sniffed, shaking her head.

"Because you've got me looking out for you, and I'd never let anything happen to you. Promise."

Alex offered a grateful smile, unsure how she would get through any of this without her best friend there beside her.

Victoria continued. "Even if you end up in an asylum somewhere… I'll visit; bring cookies, that sort of thing." She grinned mischievously, fully expecting the punch to the shoulder Alex swiftly delivered.

"That's so bad! What if I do?" The scolding tone the blonde tried to use was somewhat undermined by the obvious grin she was fighting to keep off her face and the waver of laughter in her voice.

Tori just chuckled. "Oh you laughed."

The silence was warmer this time, with smiles between them as opposed to fear. Alex wasn't sure how long it lasted, just content with the company, before the redhead shifted beside her.

"Well," Tori announced, sliding off the bed. "I don't know about you, but I'm pretty tired. Better go home and get my beauty sleep if I'm going to be seeing the hot lady Doctor again tomorrow." She winked conspiratorially with an incorrigible grin that almost made Alex forget all about the reality crisis tearing rampage through her life.

"Seriously? It seemed like you two wouldn't get along at all." Even as she said it, Alex couldn't help but think that that was the understatement of the century.

Tori just nodded, replying with an impish tone. "Probably."

"Like your personalities would clash…"

"Mhmm."

"You'd argue all the time…"

"Yep."

"And fight…"

"Most likely."

Alex just stared at her friend incredulously. "And that's what… a turn on for you?" She sat, mouth agape at the ridiculousness she was hearing. She couldn't possibly really mean…

"I think I'll ask her out." The redhead grinned, brows dancing wickedly before giving a playful salute and exiting the room.

Alex sat alone, staring after her dumbfounded, thinking not for the first time that her friend was clearly just as crazy as she was. "Wow." She muttered to herself, shaking her head. Either her brain was more whacked out than she thought, or her subconscious was trying to tell her something.

Eventually she kicked her brain into gear and moved to lie down. If Tori had been right about one thing at least, it's that she was definitely tired. Though as she crawled beneath the covers, finally left alone with her own thoughts, the anxiety she'd been feeling seeped all too quickly back into her system, twisting in her stomach, knotting heavily.

She was scared to sleep, and even more anxious to wake, unsure of where she would find herself. That didn't stop her sleep laden eyelids getting heavier by the second. It was almost time, she knew, the pull of exhaustion distracting her even from the door to her room swinging open. With her eyes flickering closed, the last thing she saw was a nurse standing over her - the black and orange hospital logo blazoned on his clipboard - before finally succumbing to sleep.

But her thoughts didn't stop. Her brain wouldn't rest. Images floated in her mind, dancing behind her eyes.

She dreamed of space, and shapes like diamonds...

…Of surgeons with scalpels, and machines, and the ominous gates of hell.

She dreamed of burning.

She dreamed of a dog with three heads.

AN: Yes I know. I'm officially the worst updater ever. I'm tremendously sorry for my terrible writing drive.

I also have to apologise at how short this one is, but I did it as a small interlude mostly just to get me back into writing something/ANYTHING for this fic. Hope you don't hate it too much. I've been struggling a lot with balancing Alex's story with the actual ME stuff, so please let me know if you actually care about Alex's character/journey, if you enjpy chapters like this exploring her... difficulties, or if you would rather her part in the fic to be cut down massively to focus on other stuff.

Also, for any of you who didn't notice, I uploaded a one-shot(Dangerous) exploring Shepard and Miranda's date that I mentioned last chapter, so if you haven't already check it out and let me know what you think. I was also considering doing another to bridge the gap between the date and the beginning of this fic, which would cover their first re-meeting on the Lazarus station. Would that be something anyone would be interested in?

And finally, thanks again for anyone who's staying with me on this. I will finish. One day. Possibly when we're all dead, but hopefully before then.