War Wounds
Excuse me while I experiment with Shepard's POV. (BTW - Badasses can feel pain.)
Disclaimer: No crack was used in the writing of this chapter, however, copious amounts of vodka were consumed. Upon sobering up, I fixed the grammatical FAIL, removed all incorrect a's and e's in the word anesthetized (which I cannot spell properly even while sober without help), did research on bullet wounds and surgery (OMG! EW!), and received a friendly push from Sinvraal. In its current state, it is acceptable enough to add to the canon.
YMMV, but I hope you enjoy.
"Tech sucks balls."
Now, Shepard couldn't say that she didn't like tech. Quite the contrary: She loved it. Loved using it; loved playing with it; loved learning about it.
Mostly, though, Shepard just loved using it. With the right application, it allowed her to function at optimal levels within society, human or otherwise. Sometimes it allowed her to function at optimal levels within places she wasn't supposed to go, human or otherwise.
It also made explosions bigger.
Bonus.
The AutoASS, however, was not something she loved. In fact, were one to be so bold, one could say that she absolutely loathed the medical machines. She loathed AutoASSes with a passion so fierce that, were the machines not beneficial to patching up her marines (or inconveniently attached to the bulkhead on a ship in a vacuum), she'd plant explosives around each and every one of the devices and cackle with sadistic glee as they exploded into fiery vortices of death, doom and destruction.
She most especially hated the one operating on her shoulder. It held a special place in her hell and she would rejoice were the device to magically (or biotically) go boom. (Post-op, of course. She was rather attached, as it were, to the object of her loathing.)
Since she had opted to stay awake during surgery to her shoulder –a brilliant choice, really; there was work to be done, after all and most could be done by voice-activated programs on her omni-tool – and although she was numb and her brain warm and fuzzy – another wonderful idea; work was definitely getting done and in such an orderly manner, too –she could hear the slick of fluid against tissue and the Auto's instrument arm and the crunch of bones as the machine did its duty and cleared away the necrotic tissue under Dr. Chakwas skillful fingertips. The sounds that came from her own body were not sounds she thought it should be making.
Why was she still awake again?
Oh. Right.
Work.
Getting it done.
The geth's sniper slug penetrated at such an angle that it had broken her clavicle, made a mess of the tendons, ligaments and nerves in around her shoulder and torn out a hole in her back, fracturing the top of her shoulder blade in the process. Or something like that. It was more likely the bone fragments that did the major damage – not including the through-and-through hole in the first place – but Shepard was too dizzy to contemplate bone fragments in her current state.
Two scars for the price of one. Thank creators, makers and or God for grenades. Justice was served with a nice-sized helping of thermal paste.
Medi-gel had sealed the wound before she could bleed to death, and as a graduate of the N program Shepard had special genetic modifications that increased adrenaline, platelet and collagen output by 3.5 to 6.89% to increase clotting and healing and reduce blood loss during such situations. The modifications were based on krogan regeneration and had just skirted the Sudham-Wolcott Genetic Heritage Act of 2161 by calling 'regeneration during healing' a 'natural process' and skillfully left out the part about the krogan metabolism study.
She slurred something that was supposed to come out coherently and mean, "Something nasty has reached my tongue," because what was that god-awful taste? Whatever drugs were in her system, they'd completely infused into her very being and were now doing push-ups on her tongue in the spectacularly-epic, vomit-inducing flavors of Raunchy, Nasty and Moldy Cheese.
For some reason unbeknownst to Commander Shepard, what she was thinking and what she was saying didn't sound exactly the same and after the final slurred word left her lips and several seconds of stupefaction, she realized, Oh. Duh. Drugged. How silly of me to think the good doctor could possibly understand that.
And, oh, hey, were those lights supposed to be that bright? Because: "Oh. Pretty."
"Commander, I think it would be best if you were anesthetized for the duration of the operation."
And that was all Shepard remembered.
The Normandy's Internal Emissions System was a total wreck by the time they limped into dry-dock in the local cluster two weeks after running from geth rockets, a krogan Battlemaster, a rockslide, lava and a geth mother ship.
Shepard took one look at the datapad Adams offered her and felt as smart as the proto-lichen on Casbin. The thought of Casbin took her mind in a whole other direction, an unwanted lump forming her throat.
"Liberty, shore leave," she said, handing the datapad back to her chief engineer, still trying to digest the litany of engineer-speak. In a word, or perhaps a sentence: The IES was fucked. "Discuss it with Pressly."
Adams nodded. "They have been through a lot, Commander," he said, eyeing her arm sling as he did so.
She nodded in return, refusing to acknowledge her injury and thinking instead about the strange dream in the infirmary and lights and the nagging thought that Chakwas knew more than she let on and perhaps some of the command staff did as well.
Shepard continued on her way from her quarters, where she'd confined herself for the last six days until she could walk upright without shrieking in pain and slapping the comm for Chakwas to increase the flow of painkillers into her system. The medical excuse was "light duty". Shepard didn't argue. The pain alone put her into fits of dizzying nausea that she didn't want any of the crew to witness. Hell, she didn't want to witness it and it was her body. No choice.
Such was life.
What she didn't like was being out of action. She thought of all sorts of things to do while not having the ability to do them. Like eating, using a stylus, or pushing down her pants with two hands instead of one to use the head. Hell, she couldn't flex her hand without feeling shards of glass under her skin from her elbow up.
The medical terminology was "nerve damage."
Actually, that was what she had understood. The medical terminology went over her pay grade as far as she was concerned. The doctor knew what she was doing, and so Shepard had faith that the "nerve damage" was repairable. Just as she knew the IES was repairable.
But it was going to be a long six months before she would be without any pain and it was going to be a long twelve weeks before the Normandy was fully operational again.
She entered the infirmary to find Dr. T'Soni chatting with Dr. Chakwas.
"Commander," Dr. Chakwas greeted.
Dr. T'Soni stood up quickly from her seat, ringing her hands as she did so. Her eyelids fluttered. Shepard had little experience with asari, so she didn't know if T'Soni was merely blinking or if it was a cultural thing. "Oh, Commander."
The asari looked... guilty? What now? "Something I should know?"
"We were just discussing you," Chakwas said, giving her best shit-eating grin. "I was regaling her with your latest exploits."
Dr. T'Soni put a hand to her head, running a thumb along the dark scales of her eye ridge. "I, um. Yes," was all that she said. If anything, she looked out of place and embarrassed.
Despite herself, Shepard smiled, took a seat on the nearest bed. "Please don't put me on a pedestal, Doctor Chakwas. You know me. I'm clumsy and fall a lot."
"I do not think you are clumsy at all," T'Soni gushed. "You are very graceful. Like an agul bird." Her eyelids did the flutter thing again. "I mean. For a human. The ones that I've met…" She trailed off. "I have not met very many of your species."
"The Commander was trying and failing to be witty," Dr. Chakwas said, standing to aid Shepard in the removal of her button-down, formal dress shirt. It was the only type of shirt Shepard could wear and get in and out of comfortably.
T'Soni looked perplexed. "Witty? Oh! A joke."
"The Commander's brand of humor usually falls flat on its face."
"I'm sorry: 'Flat on its face?'"
"Doesn't work," Shepard supplied, then winced.
"I see." It was clear that the asari did not. She seemed... distracted by the sudden lack of Shepard's shirt.
"We'll be holding a final debrief as soon as Alenko comes on duty," Shepard informed her as Dr. Chakwas began her tongue clicking as she examined the wound track for debris. "You should be there, Dr. T'Soni. We could use your input."
T'Soni brightened, inclined her head. "In that case, I should, perhaps, update my translator to your dialect. If you will excuse me, Commander." She did something that appeared to be the cross between a curtsy and rude human gesture. "Dr. Chakwas." The gesture and not-quite-a-curtsy came up again. Then she hurried off to the storage room where she had set up her one bag of belongings.
"Was that an old 'up-yours' hand signal?" Shepard wondered aloud as the door to the storage room slid closed.