Chapter 6

After returning to Huerta Memorial, Shepard officially decided she was done with hospitals. She had had it up to her eyeballs with doctors and nurses and people all telling her what to do when, what not to do, what to stop doing, and what injection to stick in her butt next. According to Miranda the surgery had been a success, at least. Her implants were successfully repaired and awaiting activation once her anesthesia wore off. Shepard held up her hands and pondered them. Nope. The anesthesia hadn't worn off yet. Unless it was normal to ponder one's hands . . . .

The door hissed open startling her out of her meandering ponders. A very large, frightening figure took up most of the door frame. Damn, it was ugly! And red. Ugly and red . . . .

"Hi Wrrrrex!" she exclaimed. Her words sounded slurred. Were she slurring words? Wait . . . was. Was she slurring words. Word slurring. Sluuurrrriiiinnnng . . . .

"What the hell's a matter with you?" Wrex grunted, trundling into the room.

Shepard giggled. He did trundle. He was just a big, trundling, lumbering teddy bear of a krogan beast. Lord. Urdnot. Thing. Thingy. She giggled again. Thingy.

Wrex waved his hand in front of her face. "Shepard?"

"Hmm? Oh nothing. Who are you and what are you doing here?"

Wrex blinked. Shepard laughed. "Kidding, Wrex."

"Uh huh. So listen, we need to have some words. Why did Grunt get a piece of your armor and not me?"

"I like your face. It's so scarred and badass. Ooooh my gosh. I just realized, we look like twins!" Shepard pointed to her face. "I mean look at this thing! Your face has a huge badass scratch across it, my face has a huge badass scratch across it. It's fate. We are brood brothers. Brothers in arms. Comrades. The Three Musketeers! Except . . . there's only two of us. But you know what? You are badass enough to be two Musketeers and I'll be the third. Musketeer. Muuuuusssssskeeeteeeeerrrrr."

"Uh . . . Shepard?"

"Yes Wrex?"

"What are you talking about?"

"I don't remember. What are you talking about?"

"Grunt getting your piece of armor!"

"Oh right! That. Why are you bothering me about it? You're a krogan! Beat his ass until he relinquishes it!"

Wrex let out a hearty guffaw. "Hahahaha! That's what I like about you, Shepard. You understand the way of the krogan. I just wanted to see what you'd say. I came to show you something."

"If it has more than six hundred teeth, I'm not interested. Is it normal for my tongue to feel tingly?"

"Anesthesia doesn't work on krogan. So I have no idea," Wrex said unhelpfully. "Only way to knock out a krogan is by beating him over the head. Really hard."

"No? Damn. Becauthe my tongue feelth numb. Feelth. Feeeeeelltttthhhhhhbthbthbhth . . . Okay now I'm jutht thpitting all over mythelf."

"Focus!" Wrex bellowed impatiently when Shepard began pawing at her tongue. She glanced up at him with her tongue still out and blinked awkwardly.

"Thorry."

He seemed contented and reached over his back and pulled out his shotgun. For a completely irrational moment she was fairly convinced he was going to shoot her with it, but alas, it was not to be. He was positively beaming as he presented it to her.

"You're giving me your thotgun?" Shepard couldn't help herself.

"No, Shepard, keep up! Look at the barrel."

She accepted the offered shotgun and looked it over. It read: N7: In Honor of the Great Commander Shepard, The True Savior of the Krogan People.

"Really? You . . . you had your shotgun dedicated in my honor?" she asked. Her tongue chose that moment to stop being numb.

"What idiot would have the balls to mess with a krogan who has a shotgun named Commander Shepard? I can see it now," he said, his eyes taking on a faraway, blissful look. "Surrounded by thirty turian thugs on Omega, they have me pinned down, then suddenly I jump out of cover and shout, 'FEEL THE WRATH OF COMMANDER SHEPARD!' Then they all piss their collective selves and run away like the little pijaks they are. Because no one defeats Commander Shepard. It's all for strategic purposes."

"How dare you use me. I'm so offended," Shepard said with a smirk that clearly stated: "You're awesome, Wrex."

"Yeah, yeah. So I hear you're going to live on Thessia. You sure your girlfriend will be okay with you being surrounded by so much blue temptation?"

Shepard shot so many daggers (read: daggers="nuclear warheads") at him that he actually took a step back with a laugh. "I know, I know. You only have eyes for Liara. Good thing, too. Because if you cheated on her, I'd have to kill you."

"If I cheated on her, I'd have to kill myself. Like that ancient Japanese thing. What's it called? Seppuku? It was the tradition for dishonored Samarai to commit suicide as a way of reclaiming their honor."

"Good. Well I'm off. Gotta go deal with some more damn political diplomatic shit. Take care of Liara, huh? That little asari is the catch of the century."

"I know," Shepard said with a soft smile. "And I will."

Shepard gritted her teeth and concentrated every millimeter of her considerable will power on her legs. She was standing and that was a start, but convincing her legs to move forward was another matter entirely. They had their own ideas about the matter which involved not moving. She gripped the two metal bars on either side of her hips and took a couple of deep breaths. Much to her chagrin they were still at Huerta Memorial in case something went wrong while in physical therapy. Well, it was at Liara's instance. When Shepard had flat out refused to stay, Miranda had gone to Liara and Liara had settled the matter with Shepard. For someone who bossed people around for a living, Shepard seemed remarkably incapable of bossing Liara around. Although, Liara apparently had no trouble at all bossing Shepard around . . .

Shepard shook her head in bemusement. Miranda was standing fairly close in case something went wrong, but she was pretending not to watch Shepard by typing away on her omni-tool. It was a pretty transparent guise, but Shepard was glad for the courtesy. Though it was two days after her surgery, Miranda was still sporting N7 merchandise, only this time it was an N7 tank top with a rather flattering sleeveless N7 zip-up hoodie over the top.

She could feel her legs for the most part, but after weeks of being stuck in bed, they weren't in any shape to be walking. The thought irritated her so much, she took an explosive step forward. Well, it was more like a small shuffle forward, but still. She bit her lip as pain shot up her legs, but she didn't care. It was the first real progress she'd made since waking up from her damn coma. Bolstered by the progress, she took another step, followed by another. Her legs screamed at her to stop, but she ignored them.

"Shepard, don't strain your legs too much or you could cause more damage," Miranda cautioned, taking a concerned step forward.

"I know what I'm doing," Shepard growled and took another stubborn step forward.

Her legs seemed to disagree. Just as she took the step, her knees buckled and she only just stopped herself from falling. Thank the goddess for the bars. Miranda stepped forward and helped Shepard steady herself with a mildly scolding look.

"Shepard, you have no one to impress here. It's just me. And we both know how much you impress me," Miranda said.

"Look, I just want to walk again. This isn't about impressing anyone," Shepard said, wincing as she adjusted her weight.

"Miranda," a voice suddenly said from the doorway. Shepard knew that voice. And loved that voice. "Leave us."

Miranda glanced up, thought about arguing for a moment, but then seemed to reconsider based on the look Liara was giving her. "Make sure she doesn't do anything stupid," Miranda said on her way out.

"I thought you had some Broker things to finish up?" Shepard said, wincing again as she adjusted her legs to look at the asari.

"It can wait," Liara replied, crossing the room to stand at the opposite end of the two bars. "I was doing some research and I think I may be able to help."

Shepard couldn't help but grin. "My always-researching sweet Shadow Broker. Okay I'll bite. What did you find out?"

Liara's body began glowing blue as she activated her biotic power. "I've been reading a thesis written by a rather forward-thinking salarian doctor doing some pretty cutting edge research. He has theorized, quite convincingly, that if a talented biotic with enough knowledge of anatomy were to send biotic pulses through the paralyzed portion of the patient's body, it can strengthen the muscles much faster than normal. It was actually something they were developing at Grissom Academy."

"So . . . you haven't actually tested it yet . . .?" Shepard asked, a little hesitant but willing. Liara didn't say anything, just made her case with a biotic pulse through Shepard's legs. It started in her feet and worked its way up her thighs and hips. It traveled up further still until her whole body was cocooned in it.

She wanted to further explore that sensation, but she felt the biotic energy nudging her forward. It didn't do the walking for her, it simply offered a more full support than the bars could. She took a few hesitant steps forward, pleasantly surprised to see the biotics had also somehow managed to dampen the pain of walking as well. Her progress across the 5-meter long bars was agonizingly slow, but when she reached the end, she felt like she'd won a marathon. This was way more progress than she was expecting from her first day in physical therapy.

When Shepard reached her goal, she rested her head on Liara's shoulder in sheer relief that it was over. She felt Liara's arms close around her and melted into the embrace.

"Thanks, Liara," Shepard said softly when her breath returned to normal.

"Always," she whispered, tightening her arms around her beloved.