Sole Survivor, Mako Driver

It's been three days since Garrus was admitted into the hospital, and Shepard has spent most of that time sat by his bedside, in the hope he'll wake up. Considering the turian once took a direct hit to the face from a rocket launcher and was fine, she doesn't want to think how much damage the Thresher Maw must have done. She leaves only to sleep, eat, use the toilet, and do her physio, and there is no change in Garrus.

Shifting in the uncomfortable hospital chair, Shepard places her hand next to Garrus's on the bed. “Hey. Don't know if you can hear me, Garrus.The doctor says it's a possibility, so I guess I'll just have to trust him. Gotta admit, getting flattened by a Thresher Maw and not resembling a pancake at the end of it, is pretty damn impressive. Don't get me wrong, Vakarian, I'm not saying you look good on it. You're pretty beat up, not sure you'll be pulling any more recon scouts anytime soon.” She smirked, remembering the conversation she and Garrus had shared what seemed an age ago. “That was quite an adventure, huh, Garrus? Stopping the Collectors, I mean. Not that fighting the Reapers wasn't … interesting to say the least.”

She mellows suddenly. “I've made so many bad choices, Garrus. Akuze is the obvious one. I'm sure if you were awake you'd say it wasn't my fault, but it doesn't stop their broken torn faces staring up at me every night, y'know? And... I've never told anyone this but, leaving Ash on Virmire... It wasn't a tactical decision. It was a personal one. Kaidan came to me at the ship once, before we stopped Saren, you know. He wanted... Well he wanted the same thing as you and your scout, I guess.

She laughs, running her hand over her face and through her hair. “Look at me. The great Commander Shepard, unable to say the word 'sex'. Anyway... I turned him down. Didn't want it to get in the way of the mission, especially as it was so high risk. But it did, anyway. He did. Get in the way of the mission, I mean. I already had feelings for him, and I chose him over Ash. I let a friend die that day for my own selfish reasons. And then there was Horizon. That shook me up. I...” Shepard stops talking and shakes her head. “Yea. Anyway, both Tali and Zaeed dying at the Collector base, that was a disaster. I know, I know they both signed up knowing what they were in for, but I was their Commander. It was ultimately my choices that lead to their deaths. Zaeed wasn't the most likeable, but he didn't deserve to die. And Tali... God, Garrus, she was once of my best friends. I miss her.”

Shepard hides her head in her hands. “I miss Kaidan too, Garrus. Why isn't he here waiting for me? I sure as Hell didn't expect him to be non-stop by my bedside, but they must've notified him by now.”

“You mean they haven't told you?” A turian voice butts in from the door, startling Shepard out of her thoughts. She narrows her eyes at the turian – it's the guy from the Citadel that thinks all humans are racist.

“Told me what?” Before he can answer she carries on. “Who are you anyway? Last I saw of you, you were at the Citadel, complaining about how all humans are racist. What's going on? Has Garrus got his task force back up and running?”

The turian clicks his mandibles in irritation. “Yes, I'm part of his task force. We're cleaning up after the war. And most humans are racist, if you're surname's Arterius.”

Shepard raises an eyebrow. “Any relation?”

He nods, faceplates shifting slightly. “Second cousin. That going to be a problem, Commander?”

She fixes him with a level stare. “Your actions are your own, Arterius. Unless you start joining up with machines, you're fine in my books.”

He cocks his head to one side. “Fair enough. Although the only machines left after your purge are toasters.”

Despite herself, Shepard laughs. Then frowns. “You're stalling me. What haven't they told me about Kaidan?”

“...You mean the fact that he has a husband and two kids now, or the fact he met said husband as a doctor working at this hospital?”

If Shepard wasn't sat down, she would have fallen. “Wh... What?”

“It's true. Husband's name is Joseph, kids are Lucie and Sara. One is five, Joseph's child from a previous marriage, and one has just turned one year old. I've heard they're planning to adopt another kid, but that could just be a rumour.”

Shepard finds her voice, coloured by disbelief. “Could just be a rumour? About a third child my boyfriend is having with another man? You're shitting me, right? At least tell me there's a chance that this is just all some insane game of Chinese Whispers, gone horribly wrong?”

Arterius shakes his head. “I saw it on a vid a while back, and I've seen them with their kids around the Presidium every so often. There's mixed feelings about them as a family. At first the reporters were mad at him for abandoning 'The Saviour of the Galaxy'. Then they realised he helped stop the Reapers too, and they became quite a famous couple. Guess you can't wait forever, huh?”

Throughout the conversation, the hum of Shepard's biotics have been steadily getting louder, and her normally under-control biotics whizz and swirl around her like an intimidating aura. Without a word to the turian, stands from the chair and starts off down the hallway. The turian guarding Garrus follows her, and thus neither of them notice Garrus's monitor start beeping.

The first person Shepard bumps into is a nurse. “Where. Is. The Head Doctor?” She growls.

The nurse takes a step back, unsure whether to answer her or call for assistance. Her hand inches towards the panic button, and a very pissed off Shepard lifts her with biotics into the air. “Where is the God Damn head Doctor?” She roars. The terrified flailing nurse manages to hit the panic button with her foot. As the hospital personnel come running, Shepard drops into cover behind a medical trolley, biotics still flaring, leaving the nurse still dangling in the air.

“Jane!” The ward Sister bellows, trying to make herself heard over Shepard's seething biotics. “Jane Shepard, what the Hell do you think you're doing?”

“I could ask the same question of you!” Shepard yells back, sending a weakened shockwave in the doctors' directions, just enough to send them flailing to the floor, but not enough to hurt them. “Why didn't you fucking tell me about Kaidan? I saved the Damn Galaxy, and you all persist in thinking I'm weak! Have I not earned the right to be treated like a fucking adult?”

“When you stop cussing like a child we'll stop treating you like one!” The nurse yells back. In response Shepard sends a singularity to the middle of the doctors, scattering them like seagulls.

The walls shake as Shepard sends an extremely powerful biotic charge out in all directions, then stop all of a sudden as a junior doctor has the foresight to hit her with biotic dampeners and a tranquilliser. Shepard slams to the ground like a sack of krogan, but the walls are somehow still shaking. As the nurses scrabble to pick Shepard up and cart her back to her hospital bed, a walls and part of the ceiling cave in. Flashes of orange and white accompany battlecries in the hospital ward.

Cerberus are attacking.