Face It

Rehabilitation

With a glance up, she knew the answer. It wasn't going to be an easy four and a half weeks. More than a month. Invalid. Out of commission. Stuck.

"Doc, isn't there anything I can do?" Shepard begged.

"Rest. That's what. You need to spend time getting better." The man had little sympathy for her.

The back of her head hit the table she was in front of in a futile attempt to show her frustration. Her chair squeaked forward, her casts scraping on the floor quietly. It was embarrassing. She should've known better. It was just a training exercise. It wasn't anything serious. But she still went 'above and beyond' what she was supposed to.

There was a beacon. There was no indication of whether or not it was part of the exercise. She'd sent out for confirmation, but her equipment cut out. She did what she had to- followed the source, received the danger warning, ignored it (of course), and dug deeper. Sent the alarms to the other side, to move the 'enemies' away from herself. Well, now her almost half broken body was paying for her recklessness. It'd taken almost an entire day to get her out from underneath the rubble.

Shepard entered the room labeled 'Rehab'. Underneath 'is for quitters' had been scribbled. No one bothered painting over it. It didn't help her already glum mood.

Two heads turned, the only acknowledgment of her entrance.

"Hey." Someone said.

Shepard didn't answer. She threw her things on the ground next to an empty bed away from everyone. Dealing with people right now was definitely not going to make things easier. All she had now was her biotics. She didn't want to see what happened to all of the medical equipment attached to her if she put up a shield and shot off a singularity.

Days passed without much human contact. She just laid in bed, waiting for a month to pass by. After two weeks, she was able to restart her upper arm training. The people in the wing watched her with a sort of dispassionate envy. After she started moving again, she became more agreeable. She started talking to the other soldiers.

"So...what happened to you?" She wondered one night.

"The day before you got here, I was training. Suddenly, my equipment glitched."

"Did something happen?"

"When it came back on, all of the drones were heading to me. I couldn't fight them all." The young girl shrugged.

Shepard blinked, "Sorry."

"It wasn't your fault."

"It...kinda was. I was on the other side. I sent the drones."

For a moment there was silence, "Oh..."

"You're going to be okay, right?"

The girl looked down, a small, unreadable expression on her face. Shepard waited tensely.

"Right?" Shepard repeated.

"My legs are never gonna work right. I'm going to have to study to be a tech."

Shepard's heart sank. She'd done that. She'd...broken that girl. That girl who'd never once complained, in all of Shepard's time here, about anything. Shepard had been selfishly whining about not being able to run- or to even walk- without crutches. The girl across from her was completely ruined. There was no real military future for her.

Her body ached more then, in that one moment, than it had when the building around her collapsed and fallen on top of her.

…

"We can trigger the alarms on the other side of the base, take the heat off of us." Kaiden said, looking at the terminal.

Shepard didn't hesitate in her answer, "They have enough problems. Signal them over here."

Garrus looked at her with a nod. But he didn't know the half of it.