"So we were trapped on the roof of this ridiculously tall skyscraper. I mean, you could feel the sway when the wind picked up. There's no way down, all the security alarms have been tripped and the dude's got his private army sweeping floor by floor. I figure we're toast. But Joe, the magnificent bastard, decides he's going to get us a helicopter. Only problem is, neither of us can fly a helicopter."

Jade was propped up in her clinic bed, braced legs stretched and stiff in front of her. The bruises on her face, faded to mottled green and brown, made her look like an animated corpse. Javik was standing near the foot of her bed. His expression was impassive, but his eyes were fixed on her face as she illustrated her story with broad gestures.

"We get into this little dragonfly-type thing and we're pushing buttons at random, no idea what we're doing. We must've done something right because the motor fires up. Joe had the Devil's own luck because as soon as we start hovering, the damn wind kicks up and pushes us right over the edge of the roof and we start this barely controlled descent. To this day I still can't figure out how we managed to walk away from that 'landing' but here I am!"

"I begin to wonder how your organization remained a secret if all of your missions are as thrilling and ill-fated as your stories indicate."

"Ah, they weren't all like that. You're a soldier, you know how it is; you go on a hundred, hundred-fifty smooth missions and one-fifty-one goes straight to shit. If you're lucky enough to survive it, you usually have a good story to tell later." Her eyes were a bit glassy with the medications necessary to dull the pain as her legs mended themselves.

"And yet, some elements of these stories seem fantastical, even for this period's technology."

The medbay doors swished open and Jade called out to the entrant.

"Oi! Doc! Time for more happy juice? Oh."

A tall, sinister black being moved through the portal with a sinuous grace that sent an atavistic thrill down her spine. It crossed the room, feet clanking faintly against the deck. Jade and Javik watched in silence until it disappeared into the AI core.

"Okay, either we've got a new crew member, or Chakwas has gotta start weaning me off these drugs."

"The commander insisted on 'rescuing' that machine from the geth dreadnaught." Disgust coated every word and dripped from his curled lip. "Apparently, she worked with it before. I cannot understand why she trusts these synthetics so freely. In my cycle, they would have been destroyed long before they had the opportunity to develop any semblance of intelligence. Synthetics will always turn on their organic creators."

Jade blinked owlishly, caught unprepared by the venom in his voice. "Um .."

"You were still under sedation when the commander undertook that mission. These quarians lack appropriate foresight. This private war is a distraction from the Reapers." He had begun pacing at the foot of her bed, hands twitching spasmodically in agitation. "We may need the resources they are foolishly squandering here before we defeat the Reapers."

"That may be Javik, but they're already too deeply committed to pull out now without severe losses. And I assure you, I have already blistered the Admirality Board's ears, or whatever the hell they have in those helmets, about how stupid this action is." Shepard strode through the door and tossed her datapad on a desk. "How's our resident invalid? Chakwas tells me you gave Joker a run for his money for the most breaks in a single limb at one time."

/I still have her beat by one. Gonna have to up my game though./

Jade rolled her eyes at the camera in the corner. "Recovering and bored out of my skull."

Shepard chuckled and rested a hip against Jade's bed. "I know the feeling. I wandered around for three weeks during the hunt for Saren with a cracked shoulder blade from where Benezia threw me against a wall because I just couldn't sit still. Never did heal right."

"That's because you refused to slow down and rest." The doctor had entered while Shepard was telling her story. "Soldiers make the worst patients. Especially heroes. At least Jade's injuries force her to stay off her feet."

"Speaking of, Doc, any idea when I'll be getting my alternate sniper back?"

"I just finished speaking to Liara about the files you stripped from Lazarus Station when you rescued Jade. There were some anomalies in her healing patterns and I wanted to check if my hunch was correct." Chakwas pulled up an image of Jade's legs and gestured to several dense lines that crisscrossed the bones haphazardly from ankle to hip. "Her left leg is healing quite rapidly and will likely be capable of bearing her weight in a day or so. But her right is not nearly so advanced. It will be at least ten more days at the current rate before it, too, is combat ready. This disparity was my first clue. The next is this pattern of old, healed breaks. They are too regular for her to have gotten them naturally."

Shepard fisted her hands against her thighs as the other woman explained. "They used her as a guinea pig."

"Well, yes."

Shepard squeezed her eyes shut and her lips pressed themselves into a thin line of suppressed rage. She nodded briefly, and Chakwas took that as a sign to continue.

"According to the files Glyph has been able to recover, Jade has a different bone weave in each leg. Apparently, they kept her in an induced coma and broke her legs to observe the healing process, made adjustments to the weave's programming then broke them again. Once they were satisfied with the results, they implemented them on you."

"So, I guess the moral of the story is that I'd better not be planetside when the weather changes or I'm in for a world of hurt."

Shepard's head snapped to look at Jade where she was propped like an oversized doll against the adjustable back of the hospital bed, green eyes wide. "You're being awfully philosophical about all this."

Jade shrugged. "The way I see it, there's no way to change it now, so there's no use getting all worked up over it. 'Sides, regardless of how I got this way, these stems will be healed up a lot faster than if I'da had to do it the old fashioned way. I don't know 'bout you, but I don't fancy eight to ten weeks in traction. Also, Doc's got me on some fabulous drugs. It's easy to be philosophical about things when you're high as a kite."

Shepard snorted. "Be that as it may, we need to keep Glyph recovering those files when there's nothing more pressing on Liara's plate. And I'm going to track down Miranda. We really need to know if there're any truly nasty surprises lurking in all that hardware they loaded you up with."

Then, as if thought had given birth to deed, Shepard was out the door. Jade took a deep breath and consciously made an effort to ease the death grip she'd taken on the sheets.

"Hey, Doc?" Her voice was thin with strain. "Can I get another shot of the good stuff? I'm startin' to feel my bones knit again."

Chakwas tapped a command into her omni-tool and Jade sighed as the cool relief of the narcotics coated her jagged nerves and pushed the grinding glass sensation of her bone weaves working far enough away that it was bearable again. She heard the low rumble of Javik's voice from a spot to her left, and much closer than her feet as her eyes drifted shut.

"You did not tell the commander the anesthetic properties of her own enhancements are not present in Jade's."

"I know, but there's nothing Shepard can do about it. Knowing that one of her team is in excruciating pain will only distract her."

Javik simply grunted in response. The bed lowered to a more comfortable position and Jade floated, semiconscious, in a timeless fog. There was a steady rumbling croon that fluttered around the edge of her awareness, gently soothing her. Eventually, against the backdrop of distant pain and the odd song, Jade slipped into true sleep.