Alright. So I've got the timeline down, now I've just got to wrestle an actual plot out of this sucker past chapter three. Now if you'll excuse me I'm going to go edit chapter one because it's really bothering me how many mistakes are in there.

Side-note: last chapter was my first time writing an action-esque sequence. Let me know how I did/what I can do better. Since Mass Effect has a lot of action and I'm going to have to learn fast.

_OoO_

Only three had survived. Three. Three. She kept playing that number through her head, hoping that with repetition it would either sound better, or lose all meaning; either way it would hurt less. Either way she'd be able to rest, and stop thinking about how she had let so many of them down. Maybe if her turrets were built better, or if she had been able to increase the strength of the shields. Maybe if she had taken one of the optional medical classes that went beyond the basic knowledge all Alliance soldiers had to learn.

They had started out with twenty, and two shuttles. The second shuttle had been gunned down before they'd even managed to get off Palaven. It was the reason Saren and Leerah no longer had a mother, and why her squad dwindled down to thirteen before they'd even begun fighting. Unlucky thirteen. Murphy was a bitch, but at least he had a sick sense of humor and foreboding.

She tried not to focus on the chaos that had surrounded the Normandy's med bay just a short time ago, nor on the pang of fear and loathing and pure, simple hurt that she felt every time she thought of Saren. Laying on a cot, in pain and weak. Too much blood loss, and a bullet that they couldn't remove without the risk of him bleeding out. It wouldn't be a problem if they had more turian blood, but as it stood they had used everything they had just simply trying to keep his heart pumping, and the other one- God, she couldn't even remember his name- hadn't been the correct type. There was a small corner of her brain where she was thankful, and she had to try and remember to thank him.

What would Leerah do if her brother died? Stuck on an alien ship, without a mother or brother, waiting until they could get back to the Citadel so she could be reunited with her father. A father that had too many responsibilities to give her the care she truly needed.

Lynn sat at the table in the mess hall, staring vacantly at the large windows leading into the med bay, and wishing that she had the power to do something, anything. She had screamed at the doctor- she felt bad about it now, but it hadn't been her highest point in life, and things were chaotic bordering on insanity at the time. Especially with the VI core smoking. The smell and the thickness of it had gotten in the way of properly treating the men that had survived long enough to make it into the room, and the insanity of everything kicked up a notch when Shepard came storming into the room, adding to the already cramped quarters and shouting to be overheard over the cacophony. He'd arrived out of the VI core a minute later with a shining robot that seemed, somehow, genuinely taken aback at the death and blood around her.

Lynn hadn't known that synthetics of any kind could find puzzlement at their surroundings, or that odd type of concern that she had managed to convey. If she hadn't been screaming at the doctor to save Saren, to synthesize the blood he needed by using her own, then she would have found amusement in it. At the time, the only thing that registered was that the smoke was finally easing, and that the doctor was yelling back at her that it simply wasn't possible to 'turn human blood into turian blood.'

She knew that, of course, but she'd been so desperate- still was really- that she kept shouting that if Cerberus could bring someone back from the dead then it bloody well was possible, and that if Dr. Chakwas didn't get her ass in gear and start working on it she'd shove a bullet through the woman's heart with her bare hands. She'd been promptly removed from the med bay after that, reduced to waiting on snippets of news about the men being treated.

And none of it had been good. They'd gotten five wounded, Saren included, and two uninjured members not including her or Leerah, onto the shuttle before the crash site had been over-run and they were forced to retreat. Now it was just down to Saren in that med bay; she'd watched as, over the last two hours, one of the wounded would be removed from the med bay in a body bag. She wasn't relishing the ceremony that the Normandy would no doubt hold before sending them out the airlock to their final resting place.

The small turian girl in her arms shifted slightly, still occasionally making soft chirping noises that sounded, more than anything Lynn had ever heard before, like heartache. She shifted the girl a little, before raising her left hand to softly caress her eye ridges. She didn't know turian anatomy or culture well, and hoped that she was at least doing something to comfort the child.

Another fifteen minutes went by with the two like that, before the elevators doors swished open and Shepard's turian friend rounded the corner, closely followed by Shepard himself. She raised her eyebrow at the pair, as it looked as if they wanted to talk with her.

"Dr. Chakwas has some news she'd like to relate to us," Shepard said, pausing slightly to eye Leerah with a meaningful look. Lynn nodded in understanding, knowing that he didn't want to alert the girl to the fact that this meeting would be about her brother. "Afterwards I'd like to hear what happened, as you're the only squad member that hasn't been debriefed yet. And Joker seems anxious to talk with you as well."

She sighed, nodding her head wearily. Of course her brother wanted to talk to her, he no doubt wanted to yell at her about how she wasn't supposed to be going out on missions. About how she was recklessly endangering herself, and how mom would turn in her grave if she knew that her baby girl was out killing people. And of course she'd have to debrief the Commander about the mission. After all, Alliance picking up a turian family on Palaven? And then crash landing on Menae, which would have been an obvious hot-spot to try and avoid while escaping the Reapers.

She had more pressing problems to concern her with at the moment, however, as she glanced down at Leerah who stared back up at her with the turian equivalent of saucer-sized eyes, shock and desperation radiating off of her. She looked around the hall, quickly spotting a man that seemed to be mindlessly walking around the perimeter.

"Hey!" She called, catching his attention before nodding her head in Leerah's direction, hoping her message was clear. By the look of trepidation on his face, he had understood completely what she wanted, "oh for fuck's sake," she whispered to herself, trying to shield Leerah's ears from her cursing out of pure instinct. It was fruitless, due to turian's hearing abilities, but she didn't know that.

"Come on, it's not like you can break her. Just, sit with her. Talk about something- you've got nieces or nephews, haven't you? Tell her an Earth fable, I'm sure she'd be interested in that," she rolled her eyes as he still looked unsure, and decided on simply thrusting the child into his arms and forcing him into agreeing.

This seemed to amuse both the Commander and the other turian- she really needed to learn his name- but she didn't particularly feel up to smiling back at them. Dr. Chakwas' news wouldn't be good, she was sure, and she wasn't looking forward to hearing it.

She prayed that by the end of the night their numbers wouldn't be dwindled to two survivors.

_OoO_

"Ms. Moreau," the doctor greeted her, and Lynn felt a small pang of guilt creep into her. The doctor looked exhausted, and all Lynn had done for the past several hours was be a pain in the ass. She shifted her stance uncomfortably, once again ignoring the itch of her still blood-stained arms.

"Dr. Chakwas, I-" she began, before being waved off by the older woman.

"I wish I had better news," she began, and Lynn tried to breathe around the rock that had become her heart. "Unfortunately all I'll be able to do is keep him stable until we reach the Citadel, but if we don't get there soon he won't make it. And the bullet will cause permanent damage to his left arm once he's stable enough to remove it. I felt it would be best for you to know, as his immediate family is a little... underage... to properly handle the news."

She'd been sucker-punched. She'd already known that there was nothing more the woman could do, and that any further treatment would have to be performed on the Citadel; and she was ecstatic to hear that he would survive that long- if the Normandy didn't face any problems along the way. She wasn't prepared to hear that he would have permanent damage, though, and felt the warm trail her tears made as she thought about it. He was only sixteen, just out of boot camp- he'd been trying to help, trying to make his father and his people proud of him. He didn't deserve to be rewarded with something like that.

"Ho- how extensive will the damage be?" She asked, clearing her throat and wiping her eyes with her arm, forgetting momentarily about the dried blood there, and succeeding in only making herself look as if she was crying blood. "Will he still be able to shoot a gun? Wield a knife? Point?" Her mind kept coming up with scenarios where he was reduced to helping from the back lines- handing out medi gel and extra heat sinks. God, that wasn't something that the strong turian she knew he'd grow into would be able to handle. Not with any dignity, at least. Wounded in his first fight.

"It's difficult to say, it will depend on how long the bullet stays in there, and how much success they have at removing it."

Lynn felt herself drop at the words, her knees hitting the hard floor. It would be better to hear a definitive answer- even if it was the worst possible one- than to spend the foreseeable future to knowing, always worrying. She ran a hand through her hair, staring at the wheels on the cot in front of her. It wasn't until a taloned hand appeared in her vision that she even registered that she wasn't standing anymore, despite being able to feel the bruising pain in her knees and the coolness of the floor seeping into her bones.

She swallowed around the thick feeling in her throat, trying to pull herself together as she stared unknowingly at the turian offering her his hand. With a shallow sigh that felt more like her body trying to force her to start breathing again, she grasped his hand and tried not to let herself shake once she was standing again. She needed to pull herself together before she left the med bay, or Leerah would pick up on her distress.

"Okay," she said, still staring blankly ahead of her, still not registering that she was staring at the turian male before her. "Okay, what can I do?" She finally blinked, focusing in on her surroundings again; surprised that she was staring at blue armor and not the doctor.

"There's really nothing more that we can do. In an hour I'll know if his health with stay stable enough for visitors," his sister was left unsaid, but everyone in the room knew that's who the doctor meant, "but until then we'll just have to hope for the best."

Hope for the best. She tried not to scoff, now wasn't the time for her to lose faith. If ever there was a time, it would've been just after the shuttle crashed, and yet she had maintained her faith throughout the entire hell that that battle had been. Granted, she hadn't had much time to second-guess anything, to question why, to feel abandoned. Not like she did now. Even still, if she could look her own death in the eye, if she could witness Captain Cassidey- a strong, brave, competent man- slip away from everything; well, she could hold her faith a little longer if she could do that.

Nodding, she thanked the doctor, being sure to inject apology into her tone- Dr. Chakwas may have been able to brush aside her threats and hysteria, but Lynn certainly wasn't.

"Commander, I believe you wanted me for a debriefing?" She focused her attention on Shepard now, trying to block out the light wheezing of the boy on the cot, the loud beeps of monitors hooked up to him. It wasn't proving very successful.

_OoO_

I'm sorry it's so short. I've had family over all week and getting this much out was a huge hassle. I'll try and get more out soon- you know, the debriefing, the family discussion with Joker, and the eventual dropping off of the children at the Citadel.

I'm messing with the timeline a little tiny bit, because I'm trying to make her someone a turian would find worthy of being their friend/potential love interest, since they're a hard bunch to impress. But it's a bit difficult, because she is most definitely not as intense or strong as Shepard, so I've got to find ways other than just battle prowess to show off how strong she is.

ANYWAY! Happy Easter to those of you who celebrate it, and FYI: yesterday was my birthday.

You know what makes a good birthday/Easter gift? Reviews. Just a subtle hint