Perfect

"Shit," Joker groaned as he hoisted himself up from the solid bed of rock that had been laid out from one of the many Reapers. "Commander, I have a proposition for you. Next time you decide to destroy the Reapers – or at least something of that nature – try to do it a little more... delicately. Think of the pain your entire crew is in as of now," he said, cracking his back in a painfully cacophonous crack to erupt from his spine, causing more pain to reach the surface than he had originally intended. "I get that you're my commanding officer and the hero of the galaxy and all, but try to think a little more of the current state of your crew."

I turned over so that I was laying on my back. "Because I could control the way the Reapers practically just exploded without warning?" I shouted. "Or the way the Normandy crash landed? I'll definitely remember to think of you and the supposed excruciating pain you're in next time I save the galaxy. If there is another time," I grumbled the last part, pulling myself up from the ground with as much strength as I could wield at the moment. "I'll even start now. It'll take my mind off of how much I feel like death. I wonder why I do. Oh yeah, I just saved the entire world from absolute destruction!"

"God, Commander, I just asked you to be a little more delicate, you didn't need to turn into an anaconda. Jeez," he rolled his eyes, rubbed his forehead, and leaned his weight against the ship.

"Well I don't exactly have the time to think of the possible pain my pilot will be in after we land while I'm in the process of killing Harbinger! Seriously, Joker, how did you think that just asking me that damned question would make me sway into thinking of you for one moment and not the fate of the galaxy? Hell, if I worried more about you then destroying Reapers, we probably wouldn't be here right now. The galaxy would be destroyed already by them, there wouldn't be anyone safe," I yelled, stretching the same way Joker had just before, the same unpleasant sound reaching our ears.

I began looking around us, checking to see if any of the crew was in a different general area then Joker and I. The only people I saw around us - beside the crew that we never see any other time - were Liara, Garrus, Chakwas, EDI, Traynor, and James. Where did Javik, Kaidan, and Anderson go? "Joker," I began, "did you by any chance see where Kaidan, Anderson, and Javik went?" I asked him, continuing to search around the ship.

"They're probably just in a place you haven't been looking. Here, let me help you," he said as he began looking around trees, bushes, and other places. After a certain period of time searching for the three, I heard Joker shout, "I found Javik!"

Running – or fast-walking, with me being in my weak state – over to where Joker was, I helped him get Javik out from the plethora of weeds and rubble. Once Javik was up and out, I began searching for the Admiral and Major. Looking deeper into the forest (or at least that's what it seemed like it was) then the others probably would have liked me to go, I searched thoroughly for the two, finding them quite close to each other. Kaidan was laying beside a tree, armor shredded, blood on his arms and slightly on his face, multiple branches from the tree lying around him, and little bits of some branches were inside some of the flesh wounds.

I found Anderson hanging on a rather strong, but not too high, branch – or branches – in a slightly worse condition than Kaidan. There was a gash in his right forearm, scars all over his body, blood the remains of his armor, his head, his arms, and his legs. "Shit," I muttered, lifting my arms and picking the admiral up and walking over to the rest of the crew. "What do we do?" I asked them.

"I'll see if I can do something with what I could savage from the med bay," Chakwas said, lifting Anderson from my arms and toward the Normandy (or at least what wasn't destroyed of it).

Sighing in relief, I walked back toward where Kaidan was, shaking him saying, "Come on, Kaidan," over and over until his eyes opened. "Anderson's in the Normandy with Chakwas. He was in a horrible condition when I found him," I informed him, helping him up from the charred leaves that had fallen.

"Where was he?" Kaidan asked, leaning against the tree and grabbing one of the deeper wounds that were on his arms.

"Up on a tree branch. Lucky that branch held him up, I didn't even know that was possible. I didn't even expect there to be enough trees left on the planet to make such a big forest. But like I said, he was in bad shape - gashes, blood, scars. It was horrible," I told him, remembering the horrendous way Anderson looked when I saw him.

"Wow," he said in disbelief, "that's... horrible. Is he okay?" he sounded more worried then I had ever seen him, even in the three and a half years I've known him.

"Yeah, in pain for sure, but I think he'll make it - he's strong - and I think Chakwas knows how to work some sort of magic and fix Anderson so that he's as good as new. He will have to deal with those scars, unless he gets surgery or something to get rid of them; otherwise, he's going to be as good as new."

Kaidan nodded, "Good. We should... probably get back to the rest of the crew," he pointed out.

"Yeah, we should. I'll lead the way," I said, heading in the direction of everybody else.

~X~

"Shepard, are you okay?" Kaidan asked me, staring at me with intense concentration. His chocolate orbs opened wide, paying close attention to my every move.

I looked away from the datapad and up at Kaidan. "Yeah, I'm fine. Just got a strange thing sent to me by Chakwas. I should probably go ask her about it," I said, leaving my cabin and toward the elevator, going to the CIC to talk to Chakwas. Once reaching the floor, I traveled to the med bay. "Hello, Anderson," I said to him.

"Hello, Shepard," he said, waving his hand. "This place just gets more and more annoying to wake up to every day. It's nice to see someone beside Chakwas every once in a while."

When reaching Chakwas, I said, "What the hell is this?" holding up the datapad. "This can't be true."

"It is, Commander," she told me, "the tests I ran the other day confirmed it. It happens to most women at a point in their life, your timing being impeccable. You didn't have this to keep you down while fighting the Reapers, or keeping you from doing your duties."

"My work is never done. There are people and places that are always in trouble, all over the galaxy, Chakwas. I'm not going to just sit back and watch innocent people die because I didn't bother helping them just because doctors say I need to stay away from fighting. It's in my nature to help these people, and you're not going to stop me from doing that."

"Well you're going to have to find another doctor, then, because I'm not fixing this for you. Maybe some other doctor will, but I wouldn't do something like that. And good luck finding a doctor who will work on the Normandy and do what you want them to, but I know that I definitely won't be the one to do that."

"Wait," Anderson spoke up. Chakwas and I both snapped out heads in his direction immediately, "what's going on? Maybe I could help you by being a mediator."

"Shepard has a sort of medical condition and she shouldn't be on-duty with it and she is deciding otherwise," Chakwas said, making me seem like the bad guy.

"In my defense, I do need to work. I can't let my team leave on missions without me, and I sure as hell can't sit on the sidelines and cheer them on," I explained to Anderson.

Anderson sighed, placing his head in his hand. "I think Shepard should keep working," he said, recieving an overly dramatic jaw drop from Chakwas. "If it gets too difficult for Shepard, she knows to stop, but if there's one thing I know about Shepard, it's that she can work through just about anything, and does what she needs to. So, Chakwas, there's no need to stress about this."

I smirked. "Shepard," a voice rang through the room, "Admiral Hackett is on the comm," the person said.

"Shit," I said, running to the comm room, seeing Hackett on the comm. "Admiral Hackett," I began, "is something wrong?"

"Yes," he told. "Wrex's brother, Wreav, is trying to create the salarian equivalent of the Genophage."

My eyes widened, "How the hell is he planning to do that?" I asked.

There is no way in hell Wrex would let Wreav do that - not after what Mordin did - and there is no way in hell he would do that after they just got the cure for the Genophage.

"I'm not quite sure, I asked myself the same question when I found out."

"How is it even possible to do that?"

"Supposedly he's going to merge the DNA from the females who had the Genophage and the female salarian's. I'm not quite sure how it's supposed to work, but it seems like he's thought of all the pro's and con's if he's so sure about this plan."

"Why would he do that after a salarian risked his life to cure the Genophage in the first place?" I asked.

"He called it revenge for the krogan ever having the Genophage in the first place."

"How does he suspect he's getting on Sur'Kesh without being seen?"

"He's supposedly going to kill everyone and everything in eyesight," he explained.

"That's all I needed," I said.

"Just remember to get him before he leave Tuchanka. Hackett out," Hackett said.

"Joker," I began, "set a course for Tuchanka."