He knew it was going to happen before it actually did.
Heartbeat going faster.
Breathing getting harder.
The feeling that the walls were slowly closing in on him.
Cold sweat forming on his forehead and icing the core of his body.
James opened his eyes only to see the quiet and dark surroundings of his studio apartment. It was weird...his body was back somewhere dodging reaper beams and killing husks while his mind was here in the silence. There was safety and there was security. It was such a dissonant feeling.
He took a slow deep breath in and then let it out equally slowly trying to convince himself that everything was okay. Everything was alright. His hands were clenched into fists, muscles straining, his body screaming at him to get to cover...to get behind something at least to be protected...be protected by what again?
Another slow breath in.
Another slow breath out.
Remember, there's nothing happening right now. Remember that you are in a safe place. Remember that you are home.
Minutes passed and he felt the attack slowly subside and settle back into the depths of where it came from. His body gradually began to relax, his muscles unclenching and his fists loosening up. Cold sweat still beaded his forehead and soaked through his pillowcase and sheets making them unpleasantly damp.
Sitting up with a little groan as his body protested, he checked the time on the little holographic clock he kept at his bedside on a little table. The little dim blue light making him squint as he did so. 0345.
Cursing, he tossed the blanket covering him to the side and stood up. He hadn't even gotten 2 hours of sleep. The lights immediately flickered on to the lowest setting illuminating the apartment as James stripped his bed of its sheets, crumpled them into a heaping ball of cloth, and tossed them into a laundry chute beside it.
There was no use going back to sleep now, he wouldn't even be able to.
"Time to take a shower." he muttered to himself as he walked over to the shower a change of clothes and a towel in hand.
-.-.-.
Shepard scrolled through a data pad that the Salarians had given her on one of their rare visits. The contents were about her, more specifically, it was the information that the Alliance was trying to gather on her current location and status.
Somehow, someone had seen her once as she made her way around the neighborhood for a brief little outing. She was intrigued, to say the least about the various conclusions that the team assigned to her 'case' were making. 'Imposter' 'Robot' 'Mistaken identity'...'Dead'.
It was all expected though and none of them surprised her. She didn't want people to know of her survival, it was better that she was dead to the world even if it caused the people who cared about her pain.
Was it because of her physical condition? Maybe.
She set down the data pad with a heavy sigh and then tried to lift her left arm. The effort made her grit her teeth but she somehow got it to rise up a few inches. Her arm trembled violently and then dropped to her side on the bed as if it had spent every ounce of energy it possessed. Useless.
Shepard frowned and then looked up at the white ceiling. No matter how late it got, she couldn't fall asleep. She was tired as hell but sleep evaded her constantly. She couldn't help but let out a wry chuckle.
Just look at the state she was in now. Shepard had always been the one to look at people in their broken bodies, but now it was her turn to be the one broken.
She had always been a little proud of her physical abilities. Her strength, her speed, her training. She had been the best and she knew it. Not arrogant. No. But she had been confident. In the current state she was in, there was no way she wanted to tell the world she was alive...
A sudden beeping startled her and when she spent a moment trying to figure out where it was coming from she realized that her omni-tool was the source. Raising an eyebrow, she flicked her right wrist letting the tech display itself in a flood of orange. A message? at this time? From who?
It couldn't be the Salarians. They would all be sleeping right now...something about optimal neural connections something something.
No one else knew her contact information. The Salarians had tagged her with a new identification chip and they were the only ones who could get into contact with her, this was all at Shepard's request of course. In the system she was just another Salarian female living on earth temporarily.
Shepard paused a moment before letting the message display itself in front of her.
It had been a while since her blood ran cold and her chest tightened.
It had been a while since fear had showed itself to her in its coldest and darkest form.
It's not over. We're coming for you.
A shudder wracked her body and Shepard shut the omni-tool down trying not to vomit.
What kind of sick joke was this? Hadn't she had enough? When would the world decide to leave her in peace? She already had a bunch of shit to work through and now this...