"You prove that you get things done, and people join up."

Roarkshop here: So a special shout out to my new homie K.D. for volunteering to be my new proof reader/editor/fellow fan-girl. Hopefully now that I don't have to read the chapters a bazillion times I'll be able to post 2 a week every once in a while. She is an instrumental help and I'm so excited to get this story done now!

Per usual all themes and characters are bioware.

Shepard woke up in the Med Bay after only an hour. Even sedation was no match for her nightmares.

The Med Bay was empty except for Garrus. She slowly stood up, her head pounding, and made her way to his side. The slow rise and fall of his chest made her feel better. She thought of her reaction to seeing him die. Well at least she thought that's what she was seeing at the time. God, the memories made her face flush. What a fool she made out of herself. What a terrible display of weakness. She cursed herself silently for long minutes.

Damn me, she thought putting her face in her hands. How could she have over-reacted so blatantly? What the hell was wrong with her? She had made him think she was in trouble, and in his weakened state his instincts just... reacted.

She wondered if he'd ever forgive her.

As much as she wanted to, she decided not to sit with him. Instead she headed out of the Med Bay, into the elevator and to her cabin. He probably wouldn't even want to see her once he realized what a mess she had made of everything. How foolish she had acted. No, she'd leave him to sleep in peace and deal with her own bullshit on her own. It was how it had to be.

She sat in her room after that, knees against her chest, hard floor under her, staring at the glowing, empty, fish tank. She had to get a grip. She'd never been unable to cope with her trauma in the past. Surely a rape/murder was more traumatic than waking up from a coma, wasn't it?

But she hadn't been in a coma. She was dead.

Ugh, she thought, putting her head on her knees. What does it even matter? I'm alive now, right?

...Right?

She shook her head and scrambled her, now short, hair with her fingers. "God damn it," she cursed slamming her fists into the ground. She thought of the way he had looked at her, the fury in his face, the blood dripping onto his chest plates.

She put the heels of her hands over her eyes. Red hot embarrassment filled her face. Get a hold of yourself, she demanded silently. The mission is too important. You don't have time for this kind of bullshit.

Her weaknesses were intolerable.

She went to the bathroom to wash her face hoping it would calm her some. She just had to wait it out until the morning. Then she had a war zone to head into where the salarian professor was. War zones were better therapy than sitting in the middle of the floor, trying to think her way out of her own mind.

She ran the water until it was steaming in the sink and cupped some in her hands, splashing it onto her face. The water stung. Burned her face. The pain was relaxing. She did it two or three more times until numbness set in. She reached for a towel and held it on her face as she stood, dabbing away the droplets of water from her skin.

When she lowered the towel, Saren's face was staring back at her in the mirror.

"AGH-" She called out, jumping back and losing her footing, toppling to the floor in the bathroom. When she scrambled back to her feet to look in the mirror again, he was gone. It was just her. Cybernetic scar and all. She put a hand on her throbbing head and realized she was shivering again.

God damn it, she thought. That's certainly not a good sign.

His eyes fluttered open to the fluorescent light of the Med Bay. He lifted a hand to his head, and noticed the resistance of the I.V.s before putting his arm back down. Spirits, his head was splitting. Where was Shepard? Had she actually come to save him minutes before he fell? Or was it just a desperate hallucination created in a last ditch effort to help him survive? Had it worked? Was he dead? The details were all so fuzzy he could hardly remember anything other than her desperate face in the Med Bay.

"Fast recovery like always, Mr. Vakarian," came a familiar accented voice.

His eyes couldn't focus as he sat up. "Doctor Chakwas?" He was pretty sure there was a human shaped blob moving towards him.

"One in the same," she said, almost cooing, putting a hand on his shoulder to let him know where she was.

"Where is she?"

"The debriefing room with the newest crew member."

He relaxed a little.

"What in the hell is going on?" he groaned.

"Well, you were hit in the face by a gunship missile, and then went berserk in the Med Bay."

"Cute," Garrus scoffed, not appreciating her sarcasm. "After that. Before that. Have I found a loop hole back in time? Shepard's alive, I'm back in your Med Bay, what the hell, Doc?" He grunted and held his throbbing head in his hand.

"Right," she continued. "Well, Shepard was killed when the original Normandy was destroyed. It only took a few weeks after her funeral for the Council, and the Alliance, to start dismissing her theories on the Reapers as rubbish. 'The desperate ideas of an over-tired specter', they said."

"I remember that part," he said, rubbing his head. "That's why I left."

"That's why we all left," she said with a sigh. "Joker and I had been officially grounded. Everything was crumbling apart without her. A few months later Cerberus found us. Told us they were rebuilding both the Normandy and the Commander. They didn't give us any details but they assured us that the Commander would be revived and that we were welcome to serve under her once again when that happened."

"So... what.. they saved her?"

"More like rebuilt her. From what I understand there wasn't a lot left of her when they found her body. Top-of-the-line technology was used to reanimate her cellular structure and brain activity. They must have spent a large fortune to do it."

"Why?" he said, still confused. "Why does Cerberus care?"

"No doubt you've heard of the humans disappearing in the Terminus Systems."

"Yeah. Whole colonies, right?"

"Yes, well, they've found out that The Collectors are who are taking them. We don't know why or for what but Cerberus believes that they are answering to The Reapers. And there's only one person who has dealt with a Reaper before, so they figured it would be worth their time to bring her back."

"Last I checked," Garrus said as he tried to stand. "Cerberus was bad news. Sick experiments, pushing for human domination... the works. "

"Shepard doesn't trust them either. It would be an understatement to say that she's been on edge around them. But once she found out about the Collectors... the Reapers...well..."

"Yeah," he said, rubbing the back of his neck. "She's still Shepard."

"She certainly is," she sighed, going to sit at her desk. "She hasn't slept at all since awakening three days ago. She's so sleep deprived, compounded with the stress of waking up, losing two years of her life... I worry about her. After you were wounded she almost suffered a full-scale psychotic break. I even sedated her but she still only slept for the better part of an hour. If she doesn't get some real rest soon I fear the long term ramifications."

"She hasn't slept in three days? Why?"

"I suspect that, now that you're here, she might get better. I don't know all the details, you know how she hates consulting me on anything. But I know she's been having terrible nightmares that wake her after only a few minutes of sleeping. The amalgam of stress would have reduced a lesser person to shambles by now. I'm actually surprised she went as long as she did without erupting."

"Doc," he said turning to her, holding his splitting head again. "I only really just came to terms with her death. And now she's... I don't know... this is a lot to take in."

"I know."

"And now what?" Garrus said, growing more and more frustrated. "She's been alive three days and she's already back in the suicide saddle? Taking on an ancient race of bad guys no one has any information about? Picking up where we left off as if there isn't two years of her being dead in between?" He exhaled and leaned on his fists over the bed. "How many times does she have to die until she's satisfied?"

"Does that mean you're not going to help her?"

"What's the matter with you," he snapped. "Of course I'm going to help her. I'd follow her into hell if she asked me to." He turned and stomped his way out of the med bay. "Doesn't mean I have to be happy about it."

Shepard had been listening to the salarian professor prattle on and on and on for the last hour on the way back to the ship. He barely put spaces between his words. She and Jacob were trying to debrief him after they finally got him on the Normandy, which was proving difficult.

"No distress signals are sent out. There's virtually no evidence that anything unusual happened at all," Jacob explained. "Except that every man, woman, and child is gone."

"Gas Maybe? No, spreads too slow. Airborne virus? No, slower than gas. Drugged water supply? No, effects not simultane-"

"For the love of God man, take a breath!" Shepard snapped.

"Easy, Shepard," Jacob said. "He's a problem solver, that's just his process."

"Well fucking, shit, man. Internalize a little." Her hand rubbed her eyes to try and push the pain away. The pounding in her head eventually gave way to the regret for snapping at the salarian. "You don't need to keep guessing," she said, trying to sound calmer. "We have plenty of DNA samples and muck for you to play with in the lab."

"Interesting, resistant to trauma yet mental state weakening with compound stress. Obvious sleep deprivation, 3 days at least. Human physiology normally weak to mental trauma, quite possibly at the point of legal insanity."

Shepard was staring, dead pan, and obviously not amused.

"Will need a lab," he continued, awkwardly. "To start research on tissue."

"Our lab is fully equipped, Professor Solus," EDI chimed. "I will direct you."

The professor happily trotted out of the room, the doors wooshed behind him and Shepard lifted her hand to her head to take down her hair, only to remember that most of it was missing now. Just another reminder of how different everything was. She jumbled her hair with her hands as if it gave her some kind of control. After a few seconds of awkward silence she exhaled.

"Sorry again," she said. "About the punch in the face."

"Really, Shepard," Jacob said. "You can stop apologizing. You didn't even punch me that hard."

"Jacob," she protested. "I can see the bruise on your face and you're black. Of course I hit you hard."

"Well," he said chuckling, rubbing the spot on his chin. "I was going to shoot him, so. Imagine what you would have done then."

"Good point," she said, leaning over the table. "What's next? Prison ship?"

Jacob explained the details to her as best he could but he could tell she wasn't listening. She just kept holding her head and wincing, so eventually she dismissed herself and she trudged her way back up to her cabin, ignoring the friendly greeting of Kelly Chambers as she loaded herself into the elevator. She thought about stopping in to check on Garrus, but figured she would be more of a hindrance than helpful. He probably didn't even want to see her.

She collapsed onto her couch, her legs dangling over the arm of it. She was so tired. So worn. She could hardly keep her eyes open. But she fought it. She knew as soon as she fell asleep the nightmares would come back. Even still, she only lasted about fifteen minutes before she started to drift.

"You have a visitor," EDI chimed, making her eyes pop open. The doors to her chambers hissed and she sat up to see Garrus' form filling the space.

"Shepard," he said, looking at her sideways, like he had always used to.

"Garrus." She almost breathed his name as she scrambled to her feet. "Hey."

It was good to see him up and about. Relief filled her chest at the sight of him.

There was an awkward silence as she tried to think of what to say. How to apologize for her terrible show of instability in the med bay. But what could she say? 'Sorry I'm crazy'? 'Funny thing about coming back from the dead, they don't tell you about the psychosis?'

Ugh, she thought. I'm fucked.

But before she could think of anything to say to him, he had closed the distance and wrapped his arms around her.

"I don't really fully understand what's going on," he admitted, exhaling through his nose, holding her, relishing how her scent surrounded him. "And I don't much care either, I'm just glad that you're alive."

She was silent for a beat, and he felt her exhale against his chest.

"If nothing else," she said softly. "I'm glad that you're glad."

The reaction wasn't what he expected, and it made a weird lump form in the pit of his stomach as she pulled away. Did that mean she wasn't glad?

He tried to assess her as she pulled herself out of his arms. She didn't linger like she usually did when he held her, it was almost like the touch made her uncomfortable. Like she was afraid of him. He had hoped she would have understood his reaction in the Med Bay, but by the looks of it, that most certainly wasn't the case.

She obviously wasn't healthy. Though, what the normal level of health should be for "being brought back from the dead" he wasn't sure. He decided she looked great for a dead woman.

The rings around her eyes were so dark it looked like she had been avoiding sleep at all costs. Her short hair framing her face was different, but it was neglected and stringy, not full like it had used to be. The bright cybernetics scar trailing her face was unnerving. Something about it all was different. Eerie. He was starting to realize why the doctor had been so worried about her.

She had her fists on her hips and was pacing for long silent moments, chewing on her lip.

"Listen Garrus, about the Med Bay-"

"Don't," he said, lifting a hand. "Don't even bother. I'll ignore your rampage if you ignore mine. Deal?"

She exhaled through her nose, her brow sternly furrowed. She obviously wasn't happy with the consensus, but bit her tongue anyway.

"Deal."

"I already apologized to the crewman whose nose I broke. I can't think of a lot of good things to say about Cerberus, but at the very least they don't seem to hold a grudge."

She didn't laugh, just nodded absently.

His eyes traveled the length of her then back up. Obvious problems aside, he was still just happy to see her. He was still having trouble sorting through all the doubts surrounding her less-than-triumphant return, but there she was.

The awkward silence was something he wasn't used to, however. Their conversations had always flowed so naturally he never really needed to try. He was trying to figure out what was making them so uncomfortable. It was almost like the silence was a third person in the room, distracting her.

"Chakwas wouldn't give me a mirror," he said gesturing to his face, trying to break the silence.

"Hmm?" she said looking at him, only then hearing what he had said.

"How bad is it?"

"Hell, Garrus," she said, sinking into a hip, that old confidence in her stance. "You were always ugly. Put some face paint on there. No one will even notice it."

He laughed, and immediately regretted it. "Agh, don't make me laugh. Damn it."

She laughed a little, but the silence took over again.

"So, definitely and upgrade from the last quarters, huh?" he said, rubbing the back of his neck. "My feet hang off the bunk in the battery."

She waved off the comment like it angered her.

"You can have this one," she said, sitting on the arm of the couch. "It's not like I'm using it. It's too big and too comfortable for me to get any real sleep in it."

"So you can't sleep in your bed because it's too comfortable?"

"Well you remember the bunks on the Normandy. I had been sleeping on those rock slabs for years before you came around, you know. Sometimes I sleep on the floor here just to try and get more than a few minutes at a time."

"You look like you haven't slept in years, Shepard."

"Thanks," she scoffed, and waved him off when he went to protest her offense. "Anyway it's quite the contrary. This is what it looks like when you have done nothing but sleep for years."

She put her hand on her head, wincing, like someone had just shouted at her. She cleared her throat and ran her fingers through her hair to try and play it off, but he had already seen it.

"You okay?" he asked, tilting his head.

"Yeah," she said. "I mean I guess. I don't know how good zombies are generally supposed to feel, so I guess I can't complain."

"You're not a zombie," he said, trying to comfort her. "I mean, unless you've got a hankering for brain matter I don't know about. In which case I can back away slowly."

"If brains were what I was craving I most certainly wouldn't cause a threat to you,".

"Ooh," he said putting a palm on his chest like she'd shot him there. "My poor pride."

She laughed, genuinely. Her smile lit up her face, if only slightly. For the briefest moment, she looked like he had remembered her. The realization of just how far she was falling was jarring to him. He didn't know what he was supposed to say or how he was supposed to help her. How do you deal with coming back from the dead? Everything in your life changing in the span of moments? He had no idea what she was going through, no frame of reference.

"So," she said, feeling the awkwardness between them. "You know my whole traumatic story. What's yours? How did you let those mercs corner you on that bridge? That's pretty out of character for you."

"Ah yeah," he said exhaling. "If it's all the same to you, Shepard, it's been a hell of a day. I'm going to head back down to the main battery for now." He cleared his throat. It's not that he didn't want to tell her. But so much had happened, so many thoughts swam through his mind, he wasn't ready for the inevitable rehash of Omega.

She nodded, but the sadness in her face was apparent.

"Of course, Garrus," she said, standing. "We got the prison ship in three days. So rest up."

"Aye, Commander," he said before turning and exiting.

Once he loaded himself into the elevator he fell against the wall of it, leaning his head back.

This isn't what I wanted, he said to himself. All the times he had idly wished Shepard was alive, it was more that she had never died rather than she was brought back from the dead, a shadow of her former self. It seemed like her. She still made the same faces, stood the same way, smelled and looked the same. But it was like she was just acting like herself. Like someone else was in her skin. He put his head in his hands.

How much of her is even in there?

Commander? She thought. He called me Commander.

She fell to the floor and sat on her knees, confused. Everything was so different now. He seemed like he was happy to see her, but, it was different. It was so awkward. Can he tell that she's broken? Was it his superior senses that made him retreat like that? He had practically sprinted out of the room. Could he hear the machinery in her like she could? Did he see what an abomination she was?

Probably, Saren said. We turian's can sense even the smallest changes in you. He's probably intimidated by your new found power.

She squeezed her head so hard she thought she was going to make her nose bleed. She wasn't hearing voices. She wasn't. She couldn't be. She wasn't crazy. She just needed to sleep.

She settled against the floor on her side, putting her hands over her ears to stop the noise. She closed her eyes and took deep, slow breaths.

The mission is too important, she thought. Get a grip.