Disclaimer: All rights to Mass Effect belong to Bioware, not me.

Waking Up

Chapter 4

"You tell him goodnight every night?" Doc asked.

"Yes."

"That's good," he assured. "Now I'm going to ask something that may seem like an odd question."

"Go for it," Shepard beckoned.

"Do you leave a space for him in bed at night?" There was no denying that she did, and her silence seemed to give it away. "I see," Doc said.

"What does that have to do with anything? Is it wrong that I still want to imagine him next to me?"

"No, not at all."

"Then why is it important?" Shepard asked.

"This could go one of two ways – either you're in denial that he's not coming back, or you're accepting the fact that his spot won't be filled." Shepard pondered on that for a moment before she opened her mouth to speak.

"I understand that he's gone… I just don't want to feel alone." Doc was nodding at her explanation. "What does the nod mean?"

"We talked about him not abandoning you. I think this is a good thing."

"You think it's a good thing?" Shepard clarified.

"It keeps you at ease, right?" Shepard nodded. "Then yes, I would say it's a good thing." There was silence between them for awhile. There seemed to be less to talk about the further Shepard got through her mandated recovery plan. "Shepard, are you tired?" The question seemed out of the blue.

"Always," she confirmed.

"When was the last time you took a look at yourself?" he asked.

"You mean, like… figuratively?" She was slightly puzzled.

"No, literally," he answered. "When was the last time you looked at yourself in the mirror?" It was curious that he would ask that. Shepard had hung a towel over the mirror in the tiny apartment bathroom ever since she moved in; she hadn't wanted to face herself.

"I don't have a mirror," she lied.

"I doubt that, Shepard."

"It's not impossible," she argued.

"You have a mirror," Doc decided.

"Yeah, I do," she admitted. 'Great way to just give in, Shepard. What's happened to you?' she internally questioned herself.

"Challenge five: look in the mirror. It's time to face yourself."

Standing at the sink in the small bathroom, she brushed through her wet hair and stared at the towel-covered mirror. She was trying to detangle the reasons why something so simple was so frightening to her. This wasn't just any woman – this was Shepard. And this was just a mirror – a mirror! She tossed her hairbrush aside and placed both hands on the counter to lean forward and stare down the towel blocking her reflection.

"Just wanted to tell you how beautiful you are. Love, G," she could recall from her messages before the disaster on Earth. She thought about how much she must have aged since then and tried imagining the changes in her face. She decided she couldn't waste her time guessing, so after an aggravated sigh, she pulled the towel from its resting place over the mirror.

Her hair was longer – that was the first obvious change. Her skin had lost its healthy glow and was pale. Her lips were colorless, no longer the warm, natural pink that they used to be. Her eyes bothered her the most. The fire in them had faded, leaving them almost lifeless, and light, purple circles had made their home just beneath them. An unattractive scar started near the center of her cheekbone and stretched up past her eye, her eyebrow, and towards her hairline. No wonder Doc had asked if she was tired; she looked as though she hadn't slept in ages. She looked sickly… very sickly. In being honest with herself, she decided she looked more like death. How depressing.

She wondered what Garrus would have said if he had seen what she had done to herself. She couldn't decide if he would be distressed at her lack of motivation to take care of herself or angry because of the immense self-pity she seemed to carry around. But it wasn't self-pity… it was guilt.

"I followed orders, you idiot!" she yelled at the air, directing her words toward her deceased mate. "I came back alive… why didn't you?" she whined. With that, she became overwhelmed with multiple emotions at once – sadness, anger, loneliness, longing. She felt herself starting to choke on sobs. "Don't be stupid, Shepard," she fought. Not knowing what else what to do, she let out a heartbreaking cry and planted her first into that ghastly reflection that kept staring at her. The glass shattered beneath her knuckles, and blood began to make its way down her fingers and trickled down her wrist. "Don't be stupid," she repeated as she snapped back to reality.

"I let them die," she admitted angrily the moment Doc opened his door to her at the next session.

"Nice to see you, too, Shepard. Please take a seat," he said as he motioned for her to take a seat at the usual spot on the couch in his office. "How did your challenge go?"

"Did you not hear me? I let them die!" Shepard exclaimed.

"While saving the galaxy," Doc assured.

"They shouldn't have died."

"They were aware of the risks when joining your team. They knew survival wasn't a certainty."

"But they counted on me," Shepard argued.

"Their sacrifices will never be forgotten."

"Not many people even know their names. It's all 'Commander Shepard, Commander Shepard.' What about Liara T'Soni? Or James Vega?"

"Or Garrus Vakarian?" Doc finished for her.

"Or Garrus Vakarian," she confirmed.

"Their losses are not your fault," Doc said confidently. "Carrying that guilt isn't healthy."

"I noticed," Shepard responded as she raised her injured hand to finger the dark circles under her eyes. Doc took note of what she saying along with the bandages across her knuckles. He seemed to have a difficult time in deciding whether the challenge was successful or not. Always the perceptive one, Shepard responded to the question on Doc's face. "I did the challenge," she started. "A lot happened."

"Like what?" Doc inquired.

"I couldn't handle it," she said, eyeing her bandages. "And I'm trying to figure out if Garrus would be angry with how I've been handling these past several weeks."

"Why would he be angry?"

"We were both soldiers. We were taught how to take care of ourselves, and I don't know if you've noticed, Doc, but I'm not exactly taking proper care of myself."

"You think Garrus would want you to move on?" Shepard looked up and locked eyes with him for a moment. He would, wouldn't he? She began to nod slowly.

"I think he would," she finally said.

"Moving on doesn't mean forgetting," Doc assured, addressing her worry before she was even able to voice it.

"How do I put those deaths behind me?" she asked.

"You can't hold yourself responsible forever. It could kill you if you did." She pondered the idea and let out a sadistic chuckle. "Something funny?" Doc asked.

"Yeah," she admitted. "For a moment there, I considered death over this idea of moving on."

"For a moment?" Doc clarified.

"Until I realized that that's what cowards do," she confessed. "I won't let fear compromise who I am." Funny, that was the second time she had used that same statement in defense of her character.

"Good to hear," Doc approved. "So, Shepard, you've saved a million lives. Why don't you celebrate the lives you've saved?"

"Because it's not good enough," Shepard admitted.

"What if you started saving lives again?"

"That's what I'm trying to do – I just need to get my job back first."

"You don't need to be in the military to save a life," Doc said as an idea lit up his face. "I got it! Your next challenge is to save a life."

"Whoa! You go from looking in a mirror to saving a life? That doesn't seem fair," Shepard argued.

"Like I said, you don't need to be in the military to save a life. You just need to find a way."

A couple days later, Shepard pondered this challenge as she went for her usual run. 'Save a life?' she questioned herself. 'I've saved enough, haven't I?' She scoffed at her own cynicism, but kept running until she rounded the corner in front of her residence.

"Mew," she heard as she reached her door.

"Soldier?" she said aloud. It amused her how this had become the cat's name over time just out of habit. As she directed her eyes down the hall, she saw her friend staring at her expectantly. She thought for a moment and raised her hand to motion him toward her. "C'mon inside. Would you like to come in for dinner? And a home?" It was uncanny how he had seemed to understand her because he immediately stood and trotted over to her door. After rubbing himself up against her calf, he let himself inside. Save a life… check.