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"Ma'am, I err…"

"God damn it Williams, if you're going to take the liberty of hacking into and then shot-gunning my entry console and I haven't killed you yet I think you can take the liberty of taking a seat."

"Yes Ma'am"

"And stop calling me Ma'am it's annoying."

"Yes Commander"

"Even more so"

"Shepard?"

"There we go."

"Shepard… What the hell was that about?"

"Akuze"

"Going into any more detail, Skipper?"

"Skipper? And No."

"Why?"

"Too many memories. Too much pain, suffering. Too much everything."

At the mention of 'pain, suffering', I winced as it all came back to me for an instant: The Glass, the fall, the Acid, The Screams. In self-defence my biotics flared up and threw Ashley (fuck you SIAT, I'm calling her what I want now), and basically everything not welded down across the room, away from me, including my chair, so 'too much everything' was said on the floor, surprised at the size of my outburst.

"Shit, Ash are you alright?" I asked, with real care in my voice, not the 'fake but it sounds real' voice I used whenever talking to the crew or ground team about their problems. Normally I couldn't give a crap but they didn't need to know that.

"I'm fine skipper" she replied, picking up her chair and trying not to wince, something I recognised instantly: Normally so I could hit them again in that area, but this wasn't a fight, yet.

"Chief, you're not, I can tell."

"You'll have to do more than that to kill me, I'm afraid."

"Whoever said I was trying to kill you?"

"The biotics flaring up and throwing me across the room?"

"Damn you chief"

"Many have tried, none have succeeded."

"I'm fairly sure you were here for something else chief."

"But the biotic flare is something to do with it, no?"

"I don't want to talk about it."

"Which is why you need to talk about it."

"I'm Fine!" I raged.

"No, Julianna, you're not. You just crushed a coffee cup with your mind without even knowing about it," she said, pointing. I glanced around, and there it was: A perfect cube of ceramic with a handle sticking out of it.

"I… Shit… Here, play it," I said, chucking a data recorder at her.

"What I said during my dream about Akuze." It doesn't have the entire story, but when it's played; my mind will helpfully fill in the blanks, and I'll relive it all. I'll do my best to describe it all to you.

Tentatively, she pressed the play button, and I lied back on my bed, waiting for the terror and the pain.

"Alright, Listen up," My voice, younger.

And so it begins.

I described it to her as best I could, but I think that was most of what she got was incoherent screams of terror and pain. To be fair, that's mostly what it was.

When I snapped out of my memory, as suddenly as a Drell, I noticed a warm comforting presence, one that I had not felt in such a long time: the simple comfort of a hug. For once I no longer cared about my mask. I simply hugged her back and cried. It felt… I am not sure what it felt. The fact it felt at all was something of a surprise. I had not allowed myself the pleasure of emotions in such a long time, Since Akuze.

As the spams and biotic flaring ended, it felt somehow muted, not as powerful as before. I realised that the simple presence of Ashley had calmed me somehow.

Then Ashley spoke.

"I'm… sorry Julianna. I'm so sorry."

She hugged me tighter, and I hugged back. There was nothing I wanted to do more than hold her, feel her warmth, because when I could feel it, I was no longer alone in this cruel, cold galaxy.

"Shepard… Julianna… Tell me about Mona."

"Alright… Mona and I went through Basic, H.E.A.T and N7 together. We were always side by side, handling whatever was thrown at us. Before our old commander brought the farm, I was second in command, she was third. She always carried the Team's Long-Comm. This was still in the days when we needed one, before they figured out how to use the suit as an antenna.

Anyway, we had a bond, the type only soldiers could have. We trusted each other with our lives. I always knew she was watching my back, and she knew I was watching hers. It was mutual, unspoken.

We first started having a relationship right after N7 Graduation. We both passed the final test in record time, with flying colours, but god-damn we were wounded while doing it. We were confined to the care of doctors for two weeks. It would have been longer but we were both Biotics and they plugged in special amplifiers that accelerated healing at the cost of vastly reduced biotic power. I still wear it when I sleep to reduce the severity of uncontrolled flare-ups

After then we were on a month medical leave and I had no money but she had a small apartment and I asked if I could crash there. She said yes and really that was when it started. During that month we went out together and we started dating then, but we didn't see it like that.

We first had sex about a week before we landed on Akuze. By then I had opened up, taken off my mask. I had scars before Akuze. Growing up around soldiers does that to you, but nothing on the scale of Akuze. But still. I knew she loved me by this point. It was in the way she spoke, the way she acted when we were alone. I loved her back, but my body wasn't showing it. Even back then I had trouble with emotions. My body wasn't capable of showing them.

And then, Akuze, There she died, not knowing I loved her. In fact, she was the first person I ever loved. The other people I had slept with was just for the pleasure.

After Akuze, her death tore me up so badly, I didn't stop crying for weeks. The Brass figured out eventually, but they wanted me back in the field so they didn't write me up. They knew that is they did I would quit. But afterwards, I looked back and felt… only anger. Anger at my weakness, how tore up I was, how my reaction had let the Brass on to us, how my feelings had overcome my logic.

So, I swore an Oath: To Diana."

"Diana?"

"Greek Goddess of the Hunt. She also Scorned Love with all the heart. I swore an oath to Diana to never Love or make love again."

"To be honest Julianna, that doesn't sound like the sort of thing a soldier would do. Celibacy and Soldiers do not mix."

"I know. Got a poetry quote to cover it"

"Don't think so."

"Thought so"

"Julianna… You've said a lot about your relationship with Mona and Mona Herself but you haven't described how she looks. Could you..?"

"She had this wonderful shoulder length, silky hair. Same colour as yours actually. She had this tattoo of the DNA helix made out of Car parts. She ran with a gang on Earth, the Sweethearts, a street racing gang in the Big Pig. She was their main mechanic before she signed up to get out of the gang. She was a sentinel like me. We learned complimentary skills. We had great synergy.

Oh yeah, about that apartment I mentioned? It came under attack a few times from the Sweethearts. They wanted their mechanic back.

They Attacked Three Times. The first they took us by surprise but we fought them off with our biotics.

The Second we had our pistols on us so that ended pretty quickly.

The third time we knew they were coming, so we met them in full armour and with assault rifles. They took one look at the 'N7' on our armour and Ran."

"They knew what it meant?"

"N7's had been deployed to take out heavily entrenched terrorists when CO19 and the regular army failed. They knew enough. They left us alone after that. They also gave us a wide berth after that."

"Losing her must have been hard for you."

"You have no idea chief. She meant the galaxy to me. I still wear the leather straps from Her Long-Comm under my Armour: Reminds me of her. It's the only thing I have left of her."

"Can I ask, my by the way… the flare-ups?"

"Started after Akuze. I get stressed, angry, scared, if I'm hurt or if the odds seem hopelessly stacked against me… It just happens. My biotics just… work, I suppose. They do stuff I didn't tell them to do. Push everything away, crush coffee cups, rip apart random objects. Medics got scared of treating me if I wasn't sedated because by Biotics would smash them aside without me doing anything. That got really annoying."

"Shit Shepard, you've got scars... Any other side effects?"

Ah, what the hell, I thought. "Yeah. Just one, I think."

"And that is?"

"An annoying, sarcastic, pedantic voice in my head."

"Kidding, Skipper?"

"I wish."

"Does it have a name?"

"Not really, but I call him SIAT: Stress Induced Angsty Thoughts."

"SIAT… interesting… Wait, you said he."

"His voice is masculine. And I didn't want to call him it. He just feels Male."

"Julianna, is this conversation stressful for you."

"Yeah"

"So what is SIAT making of this conversation?"

"By this point he would be yelling at me to stop talking, but… he has been strangely silent since we started talking now. He was very vocal about the fact he thought I should stop talking to you earlier.

He was very annoying. He would but in during conversations, while I was planning strategies, anything. He seems to delight in making me lose my train of thought. He was my own personal daemon. And now, it seems he is gone."

"Forever?"

"I God damn Hope so."