Lillith rested her weight on her heels and stared at the USS Tokyo as it sat in the docking bay. She had received the assignment just hours before, being pulled from a restless sleep on the crew quarters of Arcturus. The day before she'd been sure they were sending her ground side on Benning – that was what she had been told anyway. Today she was the XO on the Tokyo. Without pomp, ceremony, or explanation. Not that she minded, she didn't mind anything very much. They sent her where they sent her, and she did her job. Since Torfan, what seemed a lifetime, but was really just a few years, ago, that had become easier. The Butcher of Torfan commanded respect, even if it was distilled from fear, whenever she walked into a room. The fact that she rarely, if ever, smiled, just made those around her work all the harder, thinking she was displeased.

Part of her was upset that people thought she'd turn on them. Yes, she'd lost a large part of her squad to those batarian bastards, but every single one of her rounds had found its target. And not a one of those had two eyes. It didn't matter though, not really, she decided, hefting her canvas bag higher onto her shoulder. Let them think what they would. She had a job to do.

Though she kept her emotions under tight control, her curiosity would not let her take rein, and her mind whirled with the reasons why they could have sent her here. She couldn't think of any reason why she'd be taken from a mid-rank field position to XO on one of the Alliance's flag ships. She tried to think of what it was she could have done, and though she kept a list of all her accomplishments, and knew them all well, there wasn't anything recent enough for this last minute change up. A klaxon sounded; the Tokyo was getting ready to start pre-flight checks. She adjusted the bag again, made a mental note to fix the strap, and headed for the gangplank.

She headed up the enclosed ramp, looking for the ship's CO. She hadn't asked who it was. It was an oversight she wrote off to being awoken in the middle of the night and told to get herself to the far side of the station, double time. Excuses wouldn't help her find her way, though. The door to the airlock slipped open as she approached and a young man – young man, she laughed to herself, he was probably three or four years older than her at least – and a familiar face walked out. She smiled, for the first time in months, when she saw David Anderson. He smiled back.

"Lieutenant, make sure everyone's on board, and then meet us in the conference room for final mission orders."

"Yes, sir," the man said and slipped by them.

"First Lieutenant Shepard, reporting for duty sir," she said, snapping to attention. "Permission to come aboard?"

"Permission granted, Lieutenant. It's been a long time."

Lillith relaxed her pose slightly, standing at a strange combination of attention and military rest for a moment before Anderson began to walk back toward the airlock. She fell into step with him, adjusting the bag again. The cinch had to be broken – it was the only reason she could come up with for why it kept sliding off her shoulder. It was pulling nowm though, and becoming more uncomfortable with each passing minute.

"Yes, sir. I had just achieved N1."

"Not too terribly long ago then. You've broken all my records, Shepard," Anderson chuckled, "and created not a few new ones. N6 already. I was impressed."

"Thank you, sir."

"It's well deserved. You were originally supposed to go to Benning, weren't you?" They'd made it up to the bridge, and Shepard eyed her new shipmates critically. Few were her equal, she knew that, but all too often since she'd started to be assigned to non-N-grad fire teams, her shipmates did little but slow her down. It didn't look like this assignment would be much different. She knew they were all competent. You didn't get on the Tokyo without knowing what you were doing, but she also knew that competency alone didn't get the job done right. Anderson took his seat in the captain's chair and smiled out at the stars. She hoped he knew that too.

Lillith hefted her bag again. She had hoped to be able to put her bag away before they actually left dock, but that didn't look to be possible. The pilot, a young woman practically bouncing in her seat, was already reading off the start up numbers. Lillith moved slightly towards her, glancing over the pilot's shoulder at the readout. She wouldn't be able to fly a ship like this, at least not well, but she had an appreciation for the tech. The Tokyo was equipped with older models of the same solid state holographic interfaces that were used in modern omni-tools, but it's last retrofit, under the ships previous command, had seen a series of upgrades to the software. The pilot's fingers flew over the controls, and she was completely unphased by the presence of Shepard behind her.

"We'll be ready to leave dock in just under half an hour, ma'am. A diplomatic shuttle pushed us back on the list."

"Yes, thank you."

The pilot went back to her work, running through check lists and countdowns. The ship shook slightly before the inertia dampeners kicked in as the docking clamps were released. They floated silently at the dock, waiting permission to leave the station. Shepard cast another critical eye around bridge then returned to stand beside Anderson. She hefted her bag again; the thing was beginning to drag on her shoulder. It had never been quite right since she was 16, but now it was beginning to ache horribly.

"Sir? What are you orders?" she finally asked as the ship began to pull away and head for the relay.

"Shepard," Anderson laughed, a wide grin splitting his face, "let's go see what we can find."

Lillith adjusted the weight of her bag so that more of it sat on her good shoulder. It wasn't good for her spine to have the weight lopsided like that, she knew, but if she was going to have to keep the thing on her back the entire flight to the relay it was better that than having to hit up the doc for yet another scan that would reveal no actual damage to her shoulder.

"Yes sir," she said, wondering if maybe all the tales about Anderson being a great leader were a bunch of tall tales recited to get soldiers to enlist. She knew the Alliance was already beginning to do that with her, they had shuffled her through various photo shoots just a few weeks ago. Smile at the camera, look like war is fun. Look like killing is enjoyable. Look like you still have a soul.

There had been some minor backlash from the batarians when the first wave of those promotional pictures at hit the Citadel, apparently. Shepard had yet to set foot upon the center of galactic government, but her image was plastered all over the human areas. There had been a minor riot, led by batarians, but backed by a number of humans as well. The Alliance had done what they could to pacify everyone after what had happened on Torfan, but the nickname she'd picked up there had stuck. The protesters had apparently wielded signs saying 'Don't let the Alliance turn you into the next Butcher of Torfan.' Lillith, when she'd heard about it, had smiled and said that if that was the best slogan they could come up with, they were doomed to fail. It wasn't even catchy.

"Shepard?"

"Yes sir," Lillith answered, keeping her eyes on the stars as they flowed past the ship.

"Crew quarters are a level down. I'm sure you can find your locker on your own?"

"Oh. Yes, sir. Thank you, sir," she said, before turning and heading for the stairs. As soon as she was out of sight of the bridge, she let the bag slip from her shoulders with a sigh of relief. It wasn't even that heavy. She didn't own very much, and she'd been shuffled around enough that she'd taken to keeping most of her few possessions in an Alliance lock up anyway. It was her damn shoulder. But there was nothing she could do about it now.

There were whispers in the hall as she walked the corridors looking for the crew lockers. There was a string of sleeping pods along one wall and a handful of bunks across from them for short naps if there wasn't time for a full sleep cycle. Lockers, however, seemed in short supply.

"Can I help you find something?" A woman's voice interrupted Shepard's search, and she spun on a heel to be greeted by a woman in her early fifties, perhaps, maybe a little older; still young, all things considered, but with grey hair, and, despite her age, a grandmotherly smile.

"Crew lockers. I can find them." She turned away, continuing her search.

"You won't have much luck if you continue going in that direction," the woman answered, crossing her arms and smirking.

"Excuse me?" Shepard said, stopping and turning back again. She was the XO on this ship, and she was not about to be talked to like that.

"Crew lockers are down the hallway back there. Just before the medbay. I'm Dr. Chakwas, and I don't think it is too much of a leap for me to say that you are Lieutenant Shepard?"

Lillith bit her tongue. She didn't hold much faith in doctors, and the last thing she needed was to get on the bad side of another one. She'd left a string of angry medical professionals behind her, though admittedly, most of them were psychologists. The doctor was, however, the only person aboard the ship that could give her an order besides Anderson. It had to be medically related, but Shepard had found over the last few years that doctors had a horrible habit of finding something medically wrong with someone when they didn't like them.

"Oh. Thank you. Yes, Lieutenant First Class Shepard, a pleasure to meet you." Her arms were full with her bag, and she didn't particularly want to shake hands anyway, so she simply rolled back on her heels, then attempted to move past the doctor toward the hall she had indicated.

"Is you shoulder bothering you?" Chakwas asked, blocking her way.

"No, I'm fine." She attempted to move around the other way but the doctor stopped her again.

"Well, if it does bother you, I'm always available."

"Yes, of course." Lillith did her best to keep the snap out of her voice, but was fairly certain she failed. Why was it that everyone with a medical degree thought they had the right to poke their noses in where they didn't belong? She'd passed her last physical, she's passed her last mental exam, wasn't that good enough? Did they have to keep pestering her? She glanced over her shoulder and saw the doctor watching her. In defiance, she slipped the bag back on her shoulders and raised an eyebrow at the doctor who simply smiled back at her.

Wonderful.

She hadn't been aboard two hours and she'd already discovered one person she never wanted to see again.

Shepard leaned back in her chair and closed her eyes. Her head was throbbing. The bright light overhead wasn't helping things, but it was better than attempting to work with the tiny wires in the combat drone without it. The one inch square box that housed the processor for the drone, and linked it to her omnitool had been damaged in the last fire fight. The Tokyo didn't see very much ground combat, but when they did it was usually brutal. Though the ship was generally tasked with diffusing internal situations in the colonies, they did run into Batarian slavers and merc groups from time to time.

It had been the Blue Suns, patrolling just on the edge of the Terminus and Traverse that had damaged her drone. The drone had been overloaded, but before it could fully integrate, a biotic had hit it. The feedback from the double blast had fried the circuitry, and left her blind. They'd been able to flush the Suns from their hidey hole and get the supplies they'd stolen back to the colony anyway, but the drone had been destroyed.. Lillith had been sitting at the table in the mess ever since they got back, attempting to fix it. She'd had no luck, and her head was splitting from the work.

The issue seemed clear enough. A fried wire that was preventing the SSH from initiating, but she couldn't get the drone to form from either the direct button on the box nor from her omni. She'd replaced the wire, twice, tried rerouting it around the fried terminal, and had even gone so far as to replace the processor. Nothing had worked, and trying to figure out what to try next had the back of her skull pounding.

She rubbed her eyes with the heels of her hands, attempting to clear her mind. She knew what was wrong, she knew how to fix it, she just didn't know why it wasn't working. When she looked back at the table there was a dark brown bottle in front of her, the label proudly displaying its ancient earth heritage. Beer was a scarce commodity in space. A few colonies brewed the stuff, and those wasn't terribly expensive, but it took up valuable space that was better used for more important things - like food and weapons. Earth brewed beer was especially rare. It rarely got exported off planet, and when it was it cost a fortune. She glanced up from the bottle to see grey eyes smiling back at her.

The beer suddenly didn't look quite as appetizing, coming as it did from the ship's chief medic. She'd so far been able to avoid having to to go to the see Dr. Chakwas for any injury, and she certainly had no desire to see her when she wasn't hurt. The doctor's smile had the horrible habit of reminding Lillith of her mother as well. It had the same warm, knowing tilt to it. It was a smile that said that she was willing to listen, and that, at the end, she'd bake you cookies and tell you everything was going to be alright. It was a smile that made Lillith think of blood. That made her think of how humans don't sound much different than cattle when they are slaughtered.

"You look like you could use a break," the doctor said. She slipped into the seat across from Shepard, without so much as a by your leave, her own bottle already open.

"I'm fine," Lillith snapped, pointedly ignoring the chilled bottle and returning to her work.

Chakwas smirked and crossed her arms. "Did I say you weren't, Lieutenant? But you do have a headache, most than likely caused by eyestrain. You have also soldered that same wire, in the same place, four times in the last ten minutes. So, as I said, you look like you could use a break."

"Well, I don't. Thanks." She picked up the soldering iron, and realized that, just as the doctor had said, it was the same wire she'd just replaced a few moments earlier. She paused, then continued anyway. She couldn't let the doctor get to her. She didn't need medical assistance. She had to see the alliance doctor, and their shrink, every year. If there was anything wrong with her, she'd have been told. She certainly wouldn't be XO on the Tokyo. She could feel Chakwas' smile, though, as she continued her work on the drone. She knew it was petty, continuing to work on it, and she knew, that Chakwas knew, that she knew it was petty. She didn't care. She didn't want anything to do with the doctor. Doctors were bad news, she'd known that since Mindoir, and there wasn't anything that would change her mind. Still, she could see the bottle out of the corner of her eye, and the doctor didn't seem to be in any hurry to leave her alone. What was the harm in sharing a beer with her?

She wasn't a shrink.

She wasn't in her office.

The worst she could do is call Shepard unfit for duty. That seemed unlikely.

Thinking about it, it was more likely that she would take Lillith's repeated insistence on fixing the same wire as a mark of insanity and have her sent back to the Alliance shrink.

With a sigh, Shepard put her tools down, leaned back in her chair again and used the edge of the table to take the cap off the bottle.

"Thanks," she said, tilting the bottle slightly toward the doctor.

"It's my pleasure. It's the least I can do for one of the few members of the ground team to not continually grace my medbay."

"Engineers aren't exactly front line soldiers," Shepard answered.

"Neither are snipers, but if you knew the number of times Kingsley has ended up on my table you would think they were."

Shepard grunted her agreement. "I'm not fond of hospitals," she finally said.

"Nor doctors, from what I gather," Chakwas laughed, placing her now empty bottle on the table. Unless you're bleeding everywhere, or have a head wound, I'm not going to try to keep you in medical. I do like to know my patients, though, and that's usually easier to do before they end up unconscious on my table."

Shepard stared at the label on the bottle for a long time, then drained what was left in it. "I don't want anyone to know me."

"You are doing a great job of making sure that happens. I can be persistent when I want to be, though. I'd rather learn about you, from you, than from your files."

"I do my job. I do it well. I've been cleared at every physical. What in the universe could you learn from me that could possibly help you patch me up if I got shot?"

"More than you know," Chakwas answered, "I have a couple more of these stashed away. Another?"

"No. I need a clear head for this," Lillith said, nodding down at the disassembled drone. "Answer my question."

Chakwas grinned and shrugged, "There are certain anesthesias and pain killers that can cause mood changes in the short term. They may work better, but if a patient is already of a certain personality, it might be wiser, and better for them, to use something different, to avoid the possible side effects. It's nothing that would prevent their use, but as a doctor it's my responsibility to not only heal my patients, but to make sure they are comfortable with their treatment."

Lillth grunted quietly, considering. She could understand that, she supposed. She felt much more comfortable going into a fight knowing the layout of the area, and who she was fighting, rather than going in blind. She remembered her father, when they had a sick animal, before he called the vet, would track what the animal had eaten, where it had been, and who had had contact with it. He also kept all the genetic records for the animals, going back generations before they'd first bought them from Earth.

"The more information the vet has, Lilly," he had said, "the better she'll be able to find out what's wrong. Did her mom have a history of intestinal problems? Is she normally docile and just recently become aggressive? All of that matters, sweetheart. To me, so I know if I need to call Doc Jennings, to you, so you know if you need to get me, and to the doc, so she knows how to treat her. Never forget that, baby. Knowledge saves lives, keeps this farm going."

Knowledge hadn't saved her father. Knowledge hadn't saved the colony. But knowledge had saved her own life on the battlefield more than once. It had saved the people in her team. And maybe, just maybe, if someone had known the batarians were coming, things might have turned out different.

She sighed and flicked the wire she'd been messing with earlier. There was a buzz and the drone appeared over Chakwas' shoulder. The older woman jumped slightly, and Lillith laughed, shutting the command off.

"All right doctor, go grab those beers. What do you want to know?"

edited because apparently I was drunk the last time I did