"Thinking"

"Talking"

"Impactful word"

Location: Unknown

Time: Unknown

"Is this a genjutsu?!"

The thought crossed her mind whilst being swarmed by images of death, destruction and at last, the annihilation of different races by the Reapers which had long been forgotten, but her kind was not among them.

It felt as if it was some sort of genjutsu, even though the chances were odd. All her senses fell victim to the beacon's influence.

She saw their last moments.

She heard their screams of agony.

She smelled the rotten flesh of the corpses of fallen soldiers across the battlefield.

She tasted the blood dripping from their wounds, she touched the surfaces of their homeworlds.

She felt their pain as if it was her own.

Hadn't she witnessed the complete downfall of her kind, she would have had a broken mind by now from the enormous income of information; sensations that didn't belong to her, but became a part of her.

With her perception of time altered, the beacon subjected her mind to countless repetitions of one and the same vision until Akane was sure it had been branded into her brain for all eternity.

She was losing her own self in those visions, not being able to draw the line between illusion and reality anymore. She wasn't sure if by luck or some divine intervention, but somehow she was able to break free out of the beacon's hold over her. But not without cost.

The experience had worn out her psyche to such an extent, that her mind chose to shut itself down immediately after regaining control over her body.

Location: SSV Normandy SR-1 - Second Deck - Med-Bay

Shepard POV

"Doctor? Doctor Chakwas? I think she's waking up."

Shepard heard Kaidan vaguely speaking from somewhere near. She blinked rapidly several times to adjust to the artificial light her sight was met with, then slowly pushed herself into a sitting position.

God! How her head pounded only by the simple movement. Her body felt sore, but nothing she couldn't handle.

"You had us worried there, Shepard. How are you feeling?" The grey-haired doc asked in a silvery tone.

Honestly, she felt like her brain was left in the microwave for too long and her head was about to explode. Her eyes seemed to sting if they took in more light than normal and her throat was dry as a desert. So, she went along with a simple 'Nothing serious.' Dr Chakwas raised a brow at Shepard, obvious to her lying.

The aged woman chose to let it be with a shake of the head, "While I am glad to hear that at least one of my patients is faring well, though the same can't be said about your mysterious ally over there."

The doc watched Akane's trembling form behind Commander Shepard, testing if Shepard's memory was still intact.

The kid! She turned around to see what had happened to the girl. Hell, she didn't know if she could call her one after the ordeal they went through, even though she much looked like one. Her behaviour; her actions, spoke otherwise. Jane was observing her carefully throughout their mission on Eden Prime.

One, because she was still a kid and the situation was way too dangerous to let her roam freely.

Second, because Jane was dead sure that the girl wasn't just something ordinary to begin with.

A kid her age should have been paralysed by fear from the attack, by the horrors that the geth orchestrated. God, it had made even Jane sick to look at (and she had seen some seriously disturbing things during her career), yet nothing of what she expected showed on Akane's face, who seemed somewhat used to it.

She knew the moment she first saw her face; it was emotionless, expressionless like a doll and her gaze was as dead as was the tone of her voice. This had been proof enough that this wasn't a look that belonged to a mere kid anymore, so Shepard wouldn't treat her like one.

"How long was I out?" Jane asked, still holding her gaze at the shaking Akane.

"About fifteen hours. Something happened down there with the Beacon, I think."

"It's my fault. I must have triggered some kind of security field when I approached it and the kid had to push me out of the way." He crossed his arm over his chest, watching Akane's chest rise with ragged breaths.

"You had no way to know what would happen, as did I. Akane was first to act, and I am just as guilty as you," Jane assured him, even if it didn't sound that comforting, one of the corners of his lips turned upwards.

"Actually, we don't even know if that's what set it off. Unfortunately, we'll never get the chance to find out." Dr Chakwas added and Kaidan was to confirm, "The Beacon exploded. A system overload, maybe. The blast knocked you and Akane cold. Williams and I had to carry you back here to the ship."

"I appreciate it," Jane thanked.

"Physically, you're fine. But I detected some unusual brain activity, abnormal beta waves." Chakwas stated, not that Jane understood a third of what that doctor told her.

"Would explain the annoying throbbing in my head," Jane affirmed.

"I also noticed an increase in your rapid eye movement, signs typically associated with intense dreaming." The older woman continued, making Jane remember what the Beacon sort of transmitted into her brain. It was more like a nightmare, even so, she was partly glad that these weren't any clear images, just fragments.

At some point, she wondered if Akane was seeing the same images that she had seen. Judging by the way she looked while 'dreaming' about now, Jane knew she wasn't far from the truth.

"How is Akane holding up?"

"I am afraid to say that she is in dire need of medical attention. The side effects from interacting with the Beacon have hit her the hardest. While you were suffering from minor hyperthermia, in other words, fever. Akane suffers from hyperpyrexia; a state where the core body temperature extremely elevates up to 40.0 or 41.5 °C. Such a high temperature is considered a medical emergency, one the Normandy's med-bay can't provide, so we will have to give her into intensive care at the Huerta Memorial Hospital. Needless to say, that was only half of the portion Akane is going through right now." Dr Chakwas explained to both the Commander and Kaidan while walking up to the restrained Uchiha.

She scanned her through again with her omni-tool, before further talking about Akane's condition, "She shows the same symptoms you showed but to a higher extent. Alternating beta waves, frequent spasms, heavy sweating, rapid breathing, fast or weak pulse, even when she remains comatose."

"I added this to my- Oh, Captain Anderson." Dr Chakwas noticed the Captian of the Normandy enter the med-bay.

"How's our XO holding up, Doctor?" The three of them straightened up when his commanding voice hit their ears.

"All the readings look normal. I'd say the Commander's going to be fine."

"Glad to hear it. Shepard, I need to speak with you - in private." Captain Anderson turned to fully face Shepard. A signal for Kaidan to leave the med-bay together with Chakwas.

"Sounds like the Beacon hit you pretty hard, Commander. You sure you're okay?" Jane looked straight into his eyes. Captain Anderson was always an honourable man in her eyes and someone whose opinion and respect she valued more than anything. In his presence, she always got the feeling that she could ease up and stop pretending for once. Almost like a father she never had.

"I don't like soldiers dying under my command." Jane softly confessed, seeing the Captain also ease up a little. In the end, she was human after all. And he, too. She knew he would understand her without judging. Jane felt safe with him.

"Jenkins wasn't your fault. You did a good job, Shepard." It should have made her proud but the weight of Jenkins's death lingered over her head like a dark cloud. Jane generally disliked being praised, but hearing it from him was an exception. She hoped that her words of encouragement had helped Kaidan the same way earlier.

"Intel dropped the ball, Sir. We had no idea what we are walking into down there. That's why things went to hell." Jane knew how missions could turn into a mess, she was a trained N7, but the young Jenkins wasn't. It pissed her off more than it should and it was recognizable in her voice.

"The geth haven't been outside the Veil in two centuries, Commander. Nobody could have predicted this." He was right, fighting against the geth was the last someone would expect on the large list, but still, she felt responsible for Jenkins' death; like she could have done more.

"Did we leave Gunnery Chief Williams back on Eden Prime?" Jane returned to a more pleasant question that had been bothering her ever since she woke up in the med-bay.

"I figured we could use a soldier like her. She's been reassigned to the Normandy," Captain Anderson responded in kind.

"Williams is a good soldier. She deserves it," Jane admitted without hesitation because it was the truth. She had proven herself during their mission on Eden Prime and Jane had hoped that it would be better for her to get away from Eden Prime for some time. She knew what it felt like to lose soldiers under her command (her mind coming back to the young Jenkins), but a whole unit would have weighed her down immensely.

"Lieutenant Alenko agrees with you. That's why I added her to our crew." A small smile spread across the Commander's face. Sometimes she thought this man could read her mind, and most of the time she was glad for it.

"You said you needed to see me in private, Captain?" The short heart-to-heart chat was relieving and very much appreciated, but they had more important manners to attend to.

"I won't lie to you, Shepard. Things look bad. Nihlus is dead. The Beacon was destroyed and geth are invading. The Council's going to want answers." The flat sound returned to his voice and he folded his arms behind his back.

"I didn't do anything wrong, Captain. Hopefully, the Council can see that," Jane replied.

"I'll stand behind you and your report, Shepard. You're a damned hero in my books. That's not why I'm here. It's Saren, that other turian." He averted his gaze for a moment, before returning it to Shepard.

"Saren's a spectre, one of the best. A living legend. But if he's working with the geth, it means he's gone rogue. A rogue Spectre is trouble. Saren's dangerous. And he hates humans." To Jane, it sounded as if the Captain spoke from experience, but reckoned Anderson wouldn't want to talk about it. She had come to know how to read the man just as he did her.

"He didn't come to Eden Prime because he hates humans," Shepard concluded, though she very well knew that Saren will use his Spectre status to cover it up and pretend to be the victim of it all if they go in front of the Council.

"You're right. Saren has allied himself with the geth. I don't know how. I don't know why. But it had something to do with the Beacon."

"You were there just before the Beacon self-destructed. Did you see anything? Any clue that might tell us what Saren was after?" he asked, knowing full well that Jane had something that they could use as proof. She leant back against the edge of the bed she had slept on, telling the Captain about those strange images she had 'dreamt' about.

"Just before I lost consciousness, I had some kind of vision." Captain Anderson stepped closer to Shepard.

"A vision? A vision of what?" he pushed for more details and Jane tried her best to make at least a bit of sense of this vision.

"I saw synthetics. Geth, maybe. Slaughtering people. Butchering them." She looked down at the ground to stop herself from the dizziness that claimed her for a second.

"We need to report this to the Council, Shepard," he replied.

She managed to hold back a scoff at the thought before replying, "What are we going to tell them? I had a bad dream?"

She felt ridiculous, but she knew she was safe with confessing it to Anderson, that he wouldn't think her crazy, but that didn't mean she would receive the same reaction from the rest of the galaxy, much less the Council.

"We don't know what information was stored in that Beacon. Lost prothean technology? Blueprints for some ancient weapon of mass destruction? Whatever it was, Saren took it. But I know Saren. I know his reputation, his politics. He believes humans are a blight on the galaxy. This attack was an act of war!"

Shepard knew he told the truth, he always did, but they would need to be careful if they want to bring him down, both politically and confrontational.

"He has the secrets from the Beacon. He has an army of geth in his command. And he won't stop until he's wiped out humanity from the face of the galaxy." The Captain stated with certainty.

"In my opinion, it's too soon to be sure of Saren's true intentions, but If that's what you say it's true, then I'll find a way to take him down," she promised in return.

"It's not that easy. He's a Spectre. He can go anywhere, do almost anything. That's why we need the Council on our side."

"We prove Saren's gone rogue and the Council will revoke his Spectre status," Jane declared, if Saren's about to continue on the path he had chosen, then Jane would make sure to stop him, but by doing it the right way.

"I will contact the ambassador and see if he can get us an audience with the Council. He'll want to see us as soon as we reach the Citadel. We should be getting close. Head up to the bridge and tell Joker to bring us in to dock." And without a back glance, exited the med-bay.

Shepard watched Akane for a moment before calling Dr Chakwas back; it was her 'territory' after all. She wanted to divert Captain Anderson's attention from the kid. She owed her that much for saving Kaidan's life probably and mostly because she didn't like to talk behind people's backs.

"If I may ask of favour, please watch over Akane." Jane didn't say it as an order, and it wasn't meant as one.

"You needn't do that, dear. I won't abandon my patient so easily." She chuckled as the Commander also left the med-bay, heading towards her pod.