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Shepard has never been one for dresses. Sure, she wore them as a kid, but there really wasn't much need for them after she joined the military. On formal occasions, she'd wear the Alliance Military uniform. And when she had shore leave, she was not about to swap out her armor for a set of heels and a form-fitting dress. When it came down to it, she preferred something comfortable. Free time was rare enough even before she took on the title of 'Spectre'; she didn't want to spend those few moments hobbling around in a pair of impossibly high heels.

However, she had spare time in spades aboard the Proserpina and Kasumi had picked out a dress and shoes and even accessories for her to wear to this party. And somehow -- Shepard can't even remember how now -- she'd been conned into wearing the outfit Kasumi'd selected.

Thankfully, at least, the shoes were something sensible. Even if the dress wasn't.

Shepard's appearance at the party had been brief; she'd dropped off her own contribution to the gathering collections of food and beverages, surveyed the other guests, and almost immediately noticed that someone was missing.

Nuada.

Immediately, she turned heel and went right out the door. Before long, she's standing in the doorway of the Training Room, watching Nuada as he spars with an invisible opponent.

"I thought I'd find you here," she says, folding her arms over her chest. "What, you not coming to the party?"

Shepard pulls back at Nuada's last swing, holding her sword in a defensive position in front of her. One of the many moves she learned from Arturia during their training sessions together. They've probably been dueling for a half hour now -- and while dueling with Arturia had done a lot to improve her skill with a sword, Nuada was an entirely different beast entirely. She'd learned to anticipate some of Arturia's moves, but she was still getting a feel for Nuada.

"Are we good for five?" she asks, lowering her sword.

Shepard makes her way towards one of the training room benches. Her entire body is slick with sweat thick enough that it shows through her tank top and her shorts. But she's not finished yet. If anything, her discussion with Kasumi left her feeling as though she should push herself harder than she had been -- and it shows in the way she moves on the training room floor.

She's using too much force when delivering her blows.

Shepard sets her bamboo sword against the bench and reaches for her towel first, her water bottle second. With one hand, she pops the cap open on her plastic bottle and downs the beverage; she wipes her neck down with the towel with the other.

After a minute, Shepard slings the towel over the bench, places the bottle down beside it and turns back to Nuada.

"Do you think we can take a minute to talk? There's actually something that's been bothering me."

A beat.

"And I think you're likely the one person aboard this station who isn't going to freak out at what I'm going to say."

Shepard was never so thankful to be aboard the Proserpina as she was after departing Venice. With Bashir injured, she was happy to be back aboard the station. The technology there wasn't exactly on-par with her own reality, but the medical devices they had on-hand were still much better than whatever they could have had in 16th century Italy.

Still, technology didn't work miracles; Bashir, despite looking much better today than he had in days past, is still recovering. And Shepard is keeping him company, sitting in a chair next to his bed, skinning an apple with a paring knife.

"I met someone from my future today," she says, letting a curl of skin fall into her lap. "She told me that there was a time when I was missing. But it sounds like I eventually go back."

Shepard likes parties. She just doesn't like big ones. If given the choice between a small, simple gathering between close friends and a large, extravagant one, she'd always choose the small one. The large celebrations tended to be the ones where she'd have to pretend to be someone she wasn't: it was all forced smiles and handshakes and compliments.

That wasn't Shepard.

When she was handed an invitation to a party, Shepard wasn't sure if she should actually go. But an even mixture of boredom and curiosity is enough to send her there solo, holding the invitation in a single gloved hand.

Shepard is not really a big fan of vids. Even as a kid, she didn't really watch them. There were far more interesting things to do on the colony than watching TV. There was so much that was still left unexplored on Mindoir. Military life didn't exactly allow for a lot of down time in front of the television, either.

But with the excitement of Italy behind them now, there's little Shepard wants to do more than veg out somewhere for a few hours somewhere. And that place happens to be the level one rec room.

She would have normally just popped open her communicator and got some reading done, but the television had been left on by whoever was occupying the room last. At first, she left it on just in case they came back, but a half hour later, they had still not returned. She half-listens, half-watches what's on the screen as she thumbs out a book recommendation to Arturia on her communicator.

The television show's about a girl detective with a high school life far more exciting than Shepard could remember having back on Mindoir. The young protagonist was trying to find the person who had murdered her best friend. And she seemed to be doing a good job of it, too; for being so young, she was definitely pretty clever.

Shepard looks up once she's hit the 'Send' button and idly wonders what Garrus would think of the show.

Shepard and Bashir had breakfast every day. It had taken some time for Shepard to develop a daily routine aboard the ship. At first, when she thought that her tenure on the ship was only temporary, she didn't bother with establishing a schedule. But as time passed and it became increasingly more clear that she was going to be here for the long term, she found herself craving some regularity.

Her morning push-ups were the first thing she’d added to her schedule. One day, she started doing them every morning. Then breakfast at eight AM became a regularity. And later, a morning jog around the station. It wasn't long before her mornings were fully scheduled away. And while others might not find much comfort in the same old routine, Shepard did, because it gave her some sort of purpose. And that made living on the Prosperina a little more bearable than it would have been otherwise.

Little had changed about her schedule since its establishment, but Bashir's inclusion in her morning routine was one of them. The two of them had both been early risers unlike many of the other ship's denizens, so it seemed natural that they ate breakfast together. Occasionally, she'd stop by the science labs later in the day and talk with him and Baltar. Sometimes they'd bump into one another in the halls. And every now and then, they'd decide to watch spy vids together in the rec room. Or try to, anyway. Most of the time it ended in failure: either the vid would be a completely different genre altogether or it'd be in some alien language that neither of them knew.

But it wasn't common for either of them to drop by the other's room -- especially in the evening. It wasn't like they couldn't; they just didn't. So when Shepard makes an appearance in Bashir's room on the evening of the 11th, it's probably unexpected.

And so are the two cupcakes in her hands as well.

When Bashir answers the door, Shepard is ready with an explanation: "It's my birthday." A fact she neglected to mention earlier this morning. "I'm not really big on birthday celebrations, but I thought surviving long enough to hit the big 3-0 was worth a cupcake or two."

She offers Bashir one of the cupcakes. It's chocolate with a thick, soft gray-brown icing with caramel drizzled on top. A stick of white and dark chocolate swirled together in a candy cane pattern extends out of the icing, a tasty garnishment.

In short, Shepard really seemed to hit the lottery at the replicator tonight.

"And please," she says, lifting up her free hand as if to stop him. "No singing."

The next day, when Shepard wakes up, she discovers she’s sick.

Really sick. And she knows it.

“Walk it off,” she tells herself as she stumbles out of bed; she’s damp with sweat, but she feels like she’s freezing. She tries to swallow back a cough, but it presses forward anyway. Yesterday was uncomfortable, but today.

Well, today was something else.

If Shepard believed in a God, she might wonder if this were their idea of a joke.

Shepard remembers the last time she was really sick. The year she turned nine, she caught pneumonia. She had always been a fairly healthy child up until then. She had spent her entire life up until then on Mindoir. She’d been incredibly active for her age. There was always work to be done on the farm and since a colony as new as Mindoir offered few amenities, there wasn’t much she could do except play outside with her brother.

Her family had been settled there for years now, but resources that probably seemed basic to anyone living on Earth were just being established. And as they were being established, more people were moving in. As Shepard had spent her entire life without exposure to off-world humans, she hadn’t developed the immunities that her older brother and parents had.

It wasn’t long after the population surged that she found herself in bed, holding her mother’s hand as she read to her from a book. Her brother, thoughtful even at fourteen when most boys weren’t, brought her one of the tomatoes they had planted, even though she couldn’t eat it. And her father, who worked tirelessly day after day took the day off to find a doctor on-world who could be there that day.

Shepard wasn’t a child anymore, though. She couldn’t rely on others to take care of her. They all had their own things to worry about. The last thing Shepard wanted was to be a burden to somebody else.

“Water,” Shepard says to the replicator, and she’s thankful when it decides to actually oblige. “And vitamins.” A few pills spill onto her hand.

She tosses the pills into her mouth and knocks her head back, washing the vitamins down with half the bottle. She wipes her mouth with the back of her arm then gets dressed.

It’s time for her morning jog.

By the time she finishes circling the station once, she’s winded. Breathing somehow seemed difficult enough, but swallowing the fact that she might not be able to follow through on her morning ritual was even harder.

There was no faking out Bashir today, and she knows it. He had seen through her yesterday, and her condition had only grown worse since then. Leaning against the wall, she tugs her communicator out of her pocket and flicks it open, then taps out a quick message.

FROM: Jane Shepard
TO: Julian Bashir

Change of plans. Not going to be at breakfast this morning.

Then hits send, tucks the communicator into her hoodie pocket, then makes her way to the Training Room. She might not be able to follow her schedule to a T, but she’s sure as hell going to try.

Shepard never gets sick. Or at least, she never admits to it. As first Human Spectre, she had a lot to live up to; as Commander of the Normandy, she had a lot of responsibilities. The only time she had a free moment to hit the ship's medical bay was when she was bleeding enough that medigels weren't doing anything to improve her physical condition.

And Shepard liked to keep those moments few and far between.

Those few times she was sick -- really sick -- she'd inject herself with immunity boosters and get back to work. And if they didn't work, well, she'd just tough it out. Even if the immunity boosters didn't work whatever was in her system out immediately, they definitely hastened her recovery.

Unfortunately, there's no immunity boosters onboard the Prosperina. Or anything like it. Not as far as Shepard could find, anyway. Which meant that she was going to have to treat whatever had afflicted her body the old-fashioned way.

"Do you still have dreams of Deep Space 9?" Shepard asks, taking a long swig of her orange juice. There's a strange sense of fatigue drawn in the lines of Shepard's face this morning as she and Bashir enjoy their breakfast together. It's difficult to know if Shepard's sudden weariness and this morning's topic of choice are linked or not.

Shepard is sitting on one of the benches on one of the Prosperina's several observation decks. It's one of the few places that comes close to reminding her of home -- that is to say, the Normandy.

She no longer considered Mindoir home. The Normandy had been her home for the past year. Civilians probably couldn't understand how anyone could consider a military stealth ship their home -- hell, there were probably some military folk who'd think the same way. But the people there were the closest thing she had to family.

She lets out a soft sigh.

This place might have to become her new hom soon enough. There was a strong possibility that none of them might ever make it back home. It was a possibility that became easier to swallow with every passing day.

"Can't remember ever seeing any of these constellations," she says to herself as her eyes scan the skies. She had never been much of an astronomer, but after traveling from one side of the galaxy and back more times than she can count, she can recognize the patterns of familiar systems on approach.

And these stars are none of them.