Bioware's playground. I'm just hanging out on the jungle gym.

Captain's Personal Log: Omega Nebula, Fathar System, Lorek

Work would definitely save me. I hadn't talked to my crew since before we'd arrived on Horizon. I needed to do something to break up the monotony of scanning for minerals, especially since my mind kept replaying my conversation with Alenko over and over and over again. Loved. I clenched my teeth.

Joker spun his seat around the second he heard my boots on his deck plates. He looked at me, a wary concern crossing his features. "Hey, Commander, it's, uh, pretty crazy the people you can run into out here, huhn? I mean, it was probably a set-up or something, but it was still good to see Kaidan, uh, Staff Commander Alenko. Wasn't it?" Joker asked, nervously twitching in his seat.

For one moment, anger raced through me like a brushfire. My hands shook and I almost flared up all over his cockpit, but I took a deep breath, getting my control back. The rage subsided just enough to be put back in its cage. "Another reminder of how I've lost more than time."

"Oh, good, because I was so not looking forward to your mood if that went bad." He grinned at me. Ordinarily, I'd laugh and give my smart assed pilot a break. Not today.

"I don't need this garbage. From you or him." My voice was barely civil. But I hadn't punched him. Yet.

He shrugged, his dark green eyes looking at me steadily. "There's a reason I don't date crew, Commander."

"Thanks for that update, Joker. And here I thought you and your palm were in a committed relationship." He winced and I immediately felt bad, "Look, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said that." I rubbed my forehead as he waited, his expression still angry and unfriendly. "He dumped me." I honestly didn't care that this conversation was being relayed to The Illusive Man verbatim. Joker's quick intake of air warned me he was about to say something sympathetic I couldn't handle, so I went back to something else he said. "And you're right. It was a setup."

Joker's eyes widened. "By who? Cerberus or the Alliance?"

I rubbed my eyes. I think the implants were making them burn. Yeah, implants, that's what the problem was. "Does it matter?"

He looked at me, his head tilted. "No, I guess from our perspective, it doesn't."

"Good. Find me something to shoot. And when you get a chance, have Jack tell you about Hamlet." I turned on my heel to leave.

He called after me, "I'm not going to have to sit through all 14 hours of the elcor production, am I?"

I left his cockpit laughing. That had probably been the little bastard's goal to begin with.

Joker found me something to shoot. We'd gotten an assignment from Cerberus to find one of their operatives that had infiltrated an Eclipse cell. I discovered I couldn't really care less about whether the guy was alive or dead, but it was the chance to shoot a few mercs. I dragged Jack down with us, I went nowhere without Vakarian. Once out of the Kodiak, however, I didn't take the opportunity to talk to them. I stalked ahead, gun out, waiting for someone to jump us. It was just that kind of place, a shabby looking pre-fab building sticking out of the side of mountain.

I wanted to blow it up.

We entered the base and were hit by heavy fire immediately. I grinned and threw myself behind cover. Just what I wanted. I felt my anger fill me and ordered Garrus to overload a Vanguard's shields. Shotgun out, I marshaled the mnemonic for Charge. "Son of a bitch, it's my lucky day," I muttered and released my biotic energy so that it flared around me and I flew across the room, hitting the other Vanguard so hard she flew backwards into the wall and her neck snapped. One more asari not making it to her matron years, I thought to myself and spun to attack the salarian, punching the alien in the face and blowing him away with a another shogun blast. Another asari came out of nowhere and peppered my shield with bullets, my HUD screaming at me about battle damage as pain lanced through my torso and I screamed a curse. I flung myself behind a crate, panting, to allow my shields to regenerate and the medigel to heal me, letting Garrus drop her shields.

After the short explosion of his overload, my HUD blinked to show my shields' restoration and I bared my teeth and peered out. The asari bitch that took my shields down was advancing on Jack. I brought up the biotic field, feeling it electrify my skin and shot myself at the asari at the speed of sound. She bounced off me and sailed over Jack who took her out with a shotgun blast. I spun, looking for another merc. I ducked another hail of bullets, but didn't bother diving for cover. I hurled myself at the salarian tech shooting me, tossing the fragile alien into Garrus, who punched him into the floor and shot him. I grinned at the tall man who frowned back at me as Jack ran to the back room to steal anything not nailed down. I turned to the console behind me.

The fact that I was here to rescue a terrorist from other terrorists amused me no end. The reports listed in the screen confirmed it was an Eclipse base and they'd been torturing the Cerberus stooge for quite some time until they killed him. I glanced at Garrus after reading the logs and found he was still glaring at me. I ignored him. I was in no mood to deal with him. I wasn't done shooting things. Or blowing them up. Or hitting them with my body at the speed of sound.

And no, I wasn't imagining Kaidan's face when I impacted.

I turned off the screen and Garrus flung me to the ground, hauling me behind a low wall and holding me down with his own heavily armored body. My face was up close and personal with his neck, the scent of metal, caramel and something that could only be described as sweaty turian overwhelmed me. "What the hell, Vakarian?" A spray of bullets answered me and he just looked at me like I was missing a few brain cells.

"Have you completely lost your mind, Shepard?" He shouted at me as he turned to fire over the wall.

"Shut up and shoot, Vakarian!" I shouted back, moving away and readying myself for a Charge.

"Would you two stop bitching and fight!" Jack yelled at us from where she was crouched.

I didn't answer her and Charged the first one to lose his shields. This fight was slightly more difficult since their leader was cowering behind a column and pinning Garrus down with near-constant fire. I ran up behind him, my HUD telling me his armor was down to half. Three shotgun blasts and the leader lay twitching at my feet. I kicked him for good measure. When I looked up, Garrus was pointing Jack toward the front door. I didn't hear all he said and I didn't actually care. I knew something wasn't quite right with me, but there wasn't anything I could do about it yet. It would go away.

Eventually.

I stood in front of another console, ignoring the stinking corpse on the other side of the room. Data. Heavily encrypted. I opened my Omni-Tool and downloaded the data. I stood and stared at it for a moment. I should send it to Anderson, maybe even to Kaidan. I really should.

I closed the 'Tool and turned to see Garrus leaning in the doorway, glowering at me, his cheekplates tucked in tight and hanging low on his jaw and his brow ridges drawn together. "What?"

"What was it you asked me the other day? 'Why the fuck do you have to play the hero all the goddamned time?'" he demanded.

"Who said I was trying to be a hero? I was trying to get the job done." I hit the "erase database" function on the console a little too enthusiastically.

He stepped closer to me, "Getting the job done and committing suicide are two different things, Shepard."

I glared at him, "Is that your expert opinion, Archangel?"

He shook his head, his arms crossing over his chest, "Don't you dare bring Omega into this, Shepard."

I stepped closer, still glaring up at him, breathing heavily with the need to hit something again. Hell, it might even be him, this time. "Then don't question my tactics again."

"Tough. I'm going to question them when you put yourself and the rest of our team in danger."

"What danger? They were all focusing on me!" I nearly shouted.

"And thank Spirits for that," he rolled his eyes sarcastically and poked my armored shoulder, "You die, what happens to us? The rest of the galaxy?"

"I don't give a fuck about the rest of the galaxy," I snarled.

"That's too bad, Shepard. The rest of the galaxy is depending on you, whether they know it or not. Whether they care or not." His voice dropped to that lower register that made my spine tingle, "And your team is depending on you, too."

"My team? Or just you?"

He just stared at me until Jack burst through the doorway, "Are we getting the fuck off this rock, or not?"

Back on the Normandy, I stormed away from Garrus without a word on my way to my quarters. I needed a shower and I needed food, in that order. Kelly's far-too-cheerful voice informed me as I passed that I had an email. As if I couldn't check it myself.

Sighing, I reached my quarters and stripped out of my armor, leaving only my red lace bra and undies on. Still in that bad mood that had caused Garrus to get so irritated with me, I padded up the short stairs to my desk in my underwear, my dog tags bouncing against my breasts. I flopped down and sucked on the edge of one in an absentminded habit as I queued up my mail. I froze as the header of one said, "About Horizon…"

Shepard,

I'm sorry for what I said back on Horizon. I spent two years pulling myself back together after you went down with the Normandy. It took me a long time to get over my guilt for surviving and move on, I'd finally let my friends talk me into going out for drinks with a doctor on the Citadel. Nothing serious, but trying to let myself have a life again, you know?

Then I saw you, and everything pulled hard to port. You were standing in front of me, but you were with Cerberus. I guess I really don't know who either of us is anymore. Do you even remember that night before Ilos? That night meant everything to me… maybe it meant as much to you. But a lot has changed in the last two years and I can't just put that aside.

But please be careful. I've watched too many people close to me die – on Eden Prime, on Virmire, on Horizon, on the Normandy. I couldn't bear it if I lost you again. If you're still the woman I remember, I know you'll find a way to stop these Collector attacks. But Cerberus is too dangerous to be trusted. Watch yourself.

When things have settled down a little… maybe… I don't know. Just take care.

-Kaidan

I stared at the screen, my mouth dry. Rage worse than I'd felt since he turned his back on me at Horizon flooded my veins. I felt the bottom drop out of my stomach and my shoulders tense up and my heart race as if I were about to enter a kill zone. A frission of dark energy crept up and down my skin as I tried to reign in my temper, before my biotics went off. What the hell was he playing at? I clenched my fingers around the edge of my desk, digging my short nails into the plastic. He didn't know who either of us was? I was still the same pragmatic, bullheaded Marine who happened to be a woman. I still had the Semper Fi tattooed on my ass I'd gotten on a drunken dare back in the Academy, which was, strangely enough, intact, despite my death and reconstruction. The same woman who had apparently been in love with an idiot. I put my head in my hands. Gunfire, blood, screaming, my fellow Marines being snatched from me in the dark. I know all about survivor's guilt, Alenko.

Hands shaking, I pulled the pins out of my hair and shook it out. OK, so he wasn't an idiot. He just didn't believe I'd been dead. He'd rather believe I'd been undercover and lying to him than that I'd been dead. He'd rather believe I'd sold out and was working for the people who'd murdered my unit. I couldn't see the logic in that, but I could see how the betrayal would be easier to wrap your brain around. So… I was either delusional, or a lying sociopath? That's what he was going with? I think it was obvious he didn't know me, but did I know him? He was beginning to sound like the Council. If I ran into him again and he air quoted at me, I'd throw him out the nearest airlock!

If I was still the woman he remembered? Really, Alenko? I pinched the bridge of my nose, feeling nauseated. I made it to the bathroom in time to throw up the protein bar I'd wolfed down before Lorek. Shaking, I took off my underwear and turned on the shower, turning it punishingly cold. I stepped into it, hoping it would cool my temper as well as my skin. The icy water sluiced over me, and I shivered. My heart slowed its rapid beat. Was he the man I remembered? The man I remembered wouldn't have turned his back on me on Horizon. He helped me steal the Normandy! He helped me commit treason! For if we failed in our gambit to stop Sovereign, that was definitely the charge that awaited us. But… to not see that I was forced into something? To not let me explain that my back was against the airlock and I had no way out? To not see that I was trying to protect him? I'd given up the idea of revenge for Akuze years ago, even if I was presented with my unit's murders now. The needs of the colonists took precedence over my vendetta. I leaned my forehead against the cool metal of the bathroom wall.

He once told me he always left a way out. Apparently, this letter was his way out.

I got out of the shower and dried off. Pulling on a fresh set of undies, this time in black lace, I sat back down at my desk and pulled his picture out of my drawer and put it on my desk in front of me and stared at it.

I didn't keep track of the number of times we made love after killing Saren and Sovereign. I'd given everyone a brief shore leave, a mere twenty-four hours, and I'd kicked them all off the ship, except Joker, since he refused to leave. The cargo bay was empty as Wrex and Garrus had already gone their own ways. Garrus, to C-Sec, with the promise to rejoin us when he'd gotten his Spectre-hood. Wrex, to Tuchanka to help his people. I was visiting Ashley's station. I'd gone down there frequently since Virmire to give her an update, talking to the empty weapons bench. That's where he found me.

Warm, strong hands on my shoulders. That velvet voice, "I miss her, too."

"I wanted to tell her again. I thought she'd want to know. That we killed him. That we won." I rubbed my cheek on his hand. He raised his thumb to stroke my face in return, his gun-calloused fingers wonderfully rough on my skin. I hadn't bothered to put up my hair this morning and his other hand stroked through it, tangling in the curls and sending shocks down my spine.

"What was it you said? It wasn't my fault, it wasn't your fault. It was Saren's fault. And, I guess, Sovereign's," he told me, softly, pressing up against my back, his hands sliding down to my waist.

I turned and put my hands on his face, tracing his cheekbones with my thumbs, feeling the rasping of his stubble against my fingers and palms. His whiskey-brown eyes were half lidded, the look that meant I was wearing too many clothes. "Have I told you how beautiful you are, lately?"

I smiled, "No, Lieutenant Alenko, I don't believe you have. I think you need to fix that."

He pulled me tighter to him and I wrapped my arms around his neck. I felt his hard body against mine, and felt how happy he was to be there pressing against the front of my hips. "Then allow me to rectify that situation, Commander," he told me and brought his mouth down to mine. My sorrow over the loss of my friend submerged beneath the sheer want of him. The bare need for him I'd felt since I'd gotten on board this ship a little over a year ago. I dropped control of my biotics just enough to feel the electric tingle flare up all over with an answering and extremely delicious shock as he did the same. His tongue pushed into my mouth and I entwined mine with his, feeling myself grow wet from just his kiss and our merged biotic fields. He lifted me up and pushed me against Ash's workstation. Without thinking about it, I wrapped my legs around his hips, feeling his erection press against my own damp arousal.

The feeling brought me back to myself. I pulled my mouth away and rested my forehead against his, "No, we can't. Not here."

He groaned, "Where then?"

"Anywhere, just not on Ash's bench."

He set me on my feet and turned to look out over the cargo bay. That small half-smile began to play about the corners of his mouth, "Come on." He dragged me away from the bench and across the bay to the Mako. I began to grin in response when I figured out his plan.

He pushed me up against the hull of the tank and yanked my shirt over my head, my tags coming off with it, his biotics flaring against my skin again. The searing warmth of his body against my front and the aching cold of the metal against my back made my head spin. His thumbs rubbed against my nipples through the blue lace of my push-up bra and I felt a spike of heat shoot straight to my groin. I captured his mouth with mine and pulled his shirt out of his pants. He hit the door control on the armored rover and silently the hatch slid back. I yanked his shirt over his head, his tags bouncing back against his pecs, and we threw our shirts inside and stumbled in after them, falling to the transport's floor, me on top. I sat up, straddling his hips and ground against him, wrenching a masculine gasp from his throat. He yanked at my belt with eager fingers. "God, Shepard, you look damned good in your BDUs, but they are a pain in the ass to get off."

I fumbled at his belt and leaned down, "I could say the same about yours." I kissed him as I finally got his belt unbuckled.

If he'd really been that messed up by my death, that the furthest he'd gotten with another woman was drinks, my coming back into his life was not a good idea. I needed to cut him loose. Especially until after this mission. The one I may not come back from. I couldn't die on him a second time. He needed to think it was over. That Horizon was it. Garrus' face floated in my vision, his blue eyes narrowed in laughter, and I pinched the bridge of my nose. I stood up and paced my small office, not caring if I was giving the surveillance cameras in my quarters a show. I twisted my tags around my neck, sucking on the chain.

I needed to talk to someone, and it wasn't going to be Kelly Chambers. Anything I said to her would be on the next report to The Illusive Man. Back during the hunt for Saren, Kaidan had been my sounding board, unused to it though he was. He'd bolstered my confidence more than once with his quiet assurance that he had faith in me.

He had no faith in me now. I felt the room spin a little and had to run to throw up again. Oh, look, the rest of the protein bar. I despised him just then. His lack of faith in me shook my own faith in myself to my core. Was he right? Was I cutting the corners he'd warned me about so long ago? No. I couldn't think like that. Thinking like that would get us all killed. It would get Garrus killed. And it sure as hell wouldn't save those colonists.

I brushed my teeth. I forced myself to dry my hair and put it back up, twisting it mercilessly. I hated the fact that I felt like I needed to talk about this. I couldn't go around doubting my decisions on this mission. It was too important and too dangerous.

But no. I flopped down on my desk chair, preparing to reply to the man who'd ripped my heart out of my chest and lit it on fire. What on earth or above it could I say? I'm sorry I died? I'm sorry you don't believe me? I'm sorry you don't believe in me? I'm sorry you can't forgive me? My feelings were something I needed to resolve myself, and I did need to resolve them, as much as I'd prefer to ignore them. Another face floated in front of the eyes of my memory, dark-skinned, chiseled jaw, melting brown eyes, close-cropped black curls. Faces of my dead, the ones that never really left.

It didn't matter how much I needed to unburden myself, not to Garrus or even Joker. It was unfair of me to dump any of this on any of my crew, even if they were my friends, too. Keeping up appearances was just as important to a commander as making the big decisions. My doubts would just have to remain that, mine and mine alone.

But I did owe Garrus an apology.