The first thing that hit him as he entered the room was the smell of antiseptic. It was familiar to Thane, having spent the last three months of his previous life in a hospital. He ignored Garrus, Tali and the others, all of his attention focused on the figure in the bed. Most of her skin was wrapped with bandages, and the parts that weren't were covered in vicious purple and yellow bruises. Several machines were attached to her, letting out small beeps and pings that were the only signs that she was alive at all. Her face, what little of it that wasn't covered by gauze, was swollen, red, unrecognizable, and one of her arms was encased in a plastic cast. The hardest part for Thane to see was the tube that fed into her mouth and down her throat, a ventilator next to the bed manually pushing air into her lungs at timed intervals, causing her chest to rise and fall in an unnaturally precise rhythm.
"Siha," he said in a pained whisper, and moved to the side of her bed. Liara had gone to stand on the other side of the cot, her hand hovering over Shepard's bandaged one, afraid to touch her and cause and more damage. Kaidan had stopped just inside the door, and seemed to be unable to express whatever he was thinking. Thane knelt by the side of the bed he was closest to, and ever so gently, with a delicacy he had learned from years of work as an assassin, touched the ends of his fingers to one of the only places not covered in bruises or gauze, Shepard's shoulder.
"Oh Shepard," Liara said softly, "What happened to you?" Joker placed a hand on the Asari's arm. Garrus and Tali were both seated in chairs at the end of the room, having been there for almost a half hour already while the shuttle made the round trip to the Normandy and back. Kaidan seemed to have recovered himself, and stepped over to stand next to where Thane was kneeling.
Arashu, goddess of motherhood and Protection, Thane silently prayed, still holding his fingers perfectly still against Shepard's skin, This one is your daughter, and never has there been a more true Siha in your service. She has sacrificed so much to keep others safe. Please keep her close to your heart, and protect her as she protected those who could not defend themselves. Please help her to regain her strength, that she may once again be your sword and shield. The prayer wasn't a traditional Drell supplication, but the entire situation called for something untraditional. It was almost completely silent in the hospital room, as if no one knew what to say. The only sounds were the machines and the combined breathing of everyone there. The quiet didn't last very long, however, before Joker spoke.
"Well, she's been worse," he said, matter-of-factly.
"That's true," Garrus said, "From what I've heard about Cerberus bringing her back, she was more like a shuttle crash than a person before they started."
"This is Shepard we're talking about," Kaidan added, "It'll take more than a Reaper and a couple of explosions to take her down."
"She'd probably be insulted if she knew we were even thinking it," Tali said, and all six pairs of eyes in the room instinctively flicked towards the commander's prone form. Garrus let out a slightly strained laugh, and ran a hand over his face,
"Spirits, it's like we were all expecting her to sit up and start yelling at us." There were a few quiet chuckles, and then silence descended once again. It lasted for longer this time, and was only broken when Tali let out a small sniff.
"Oh no, Tali, don't cry!" Garrus exclaimed, and pulled her into a hug while she started weeping,
"I'm sorry. I just- I just- Keelah, she's so… broken! I didn't know-" her words lost coherence as her sobbing grew worse. Thane felt a tear track down his own face. He knew what she meant. Shepard seemed so small and fragile in that bed, and no one knew how to help. They all stood helplessly for a while longer, until Kaidan suggested that they take turns talking with her, letting her know that they were there, and that they cared about her, and that she had to keep fighting. Everyone murmured agreement, and the Major spoke with Garrus, working out what order people would visit in. It was tacit that each person wanted a private moment with the woman that they all owed their lives to.
The order in which they would speak with Shepard was, in the end, determined by random numbers chosen by Thane, who volunteered to go last. It may have seemed a selfless act to the others, but in truth he wanted to stay with his Siha as long as possible, and did not want to feel as though he would be keeping others waiting. He sat in the makeshift waiting room – actually the ship's lounge – while each of Shepard's loved ones took their turns. Kaidan returned with red-rimmed eyes, and Liara had visible tear tracks down her face upon leaving the commander's room. Even Joker, who usually approached every situation with an excessive dose of sarcasm, looked tired and downtrodden when he came back from his visit. Thane spent the time alternating between brief conversations with the others and lost in his own thoughts.
When his own turn came, Thane slipped silently into the room, once again taking in the sight of the young woman in the bed. She didn't look like someone who had saved a whole galaxy. She looked like just another victim. He sat by her bed for a moment, carefully running his fingers over that same spot on her shoulder that seemed to be the least-injured part of her. He didn't know what to say, but if what James had mentioned was right, then his voice might be able to reach Shepard somewhere in her subconscious.
"Siha," he began, "You have saved my life three times now. You brought be back to life when I fell in love with you, you grabbed me and held on when the Collector base was crumbling around us, and now you've brought not only my soul but my body back from the dead. If there remained any part of me that was not completely yours, it belongs to you now. I swear to you, Siha, I will bring you back to life in turn. This hospital bed will not be the final resting place of the great Commander Shepard. So keep breathing, Siha. I'm here with you for every breath." He bowed his head and murmured the prayer that had been on his lips since finding out she was alive. He spent some time by her bedside, just listening to each inhale forced into her lungs by the ventilator.
Each member of the Normandy eventually made their way back to their ship to sleep, several shuttle trips back and forth allowing for each person's preference. There was, however, one crew member who did not board a shuttle to return. Nobody said anything about the absence, though it was noticed by all of Shepard's visitors. They decided that it would be best to simply not mention the suspiciously missing assassin, and simply left, each knowing that Shepard was being guarded by the very best.
Thane had slipped silently into an unused room as guards and military police made their rounds. He had pinpointed the cracks in the ship's security almost subconsciously, and was using them to his full advantage. It may be difficult for someone to board the ship without authorization, but once on board it was very easy to stay there. He waited for the ship's public-area lights to dim, signaling the beginning of the night-cycle, and then slipped out into the hallway.
There was a pair of nurses in the hall, deep in discussion about Shepard's drug regimen, but Thane had no trouble making his way past them. This was probably the easiest time he'd ever had sneaking into a place where he wasn't supposed to be. It probably had something to do with the fact that, instead of trained mercenaries, the majority of the ship's residents were medical staff, not at all on the lookout for intruders. He reached Shepard's door without meeting anyone else, and found it locked. Keeping his acute hearing trained for any sign of approach, he moved his hand forward and made his first foray into hacking a lock since the change.
It was odd, at first, interfacing with the door lock. It lacked the intelligence of the Geth with whom he had interacted upon his meeting with Admiral Hackett, and it didn't contain the user interface that the Normandy's comm system had. It was simply a matter of organising the lock within his mind, matching connections and coaxing the security to be let down for a moment. With slightly disorienting, he found it to be blessedly simple, and it wasn't long before the seal turned green and the door slid open.
Inside, Shepard was exactly as he had left her. Still lying motionless, still connected to tubes and wires, still just as broken. He felt almost as heartbroken as when he'd entered the room earlier, despite the time he had already spent there. Creeping cautiously over to the bed, he looked over the datapad attached to the bedframe that hadn't been present while visitors were in the room. His medical knowledge wasn't extensive, and his knowledge of human physiology was even smaller, but he knew enough to see that only about half of her surgeries were over and done with. It was going to be a long process for Shepard to heal. He watched her for a while, noting the way that her face was so still, as though she wasn't even dreaming in her sleep. Not wanting to dwell on what it could mean, that her mind wasn't at all active, he took up a post in the corner beside the door. Admiral Hackett hadn't been sure if there were still some people in the galaxy who would kill Shepard if given the opportunity, but Thane was taking no chances. He had no weapons, but that made no difference. He was the deadliest assassin in the galaxy, sniper rifle or no, and if anyone wanted to hurt his Siha, he would take them down. He spread his feet, hands folded in front of him, head bowed, and began to meditate. To anyone watching he would appear to be oblivious to his surroundings, his eyes closed, stance relaxed, but he would have sensed the presence of anyone approaching from either end of the hallway long before they reached the door. Thus he began his vigil.