Eyes part 1. chapter 18

John loves Dana, it is clearly seen and clearly felt, but he does not bind her to himself — she is free in her life and in her destiny. If she likes being with John, then she stays with him of her own free will, and not because she owes anything to John or he, John Shepard somehow tied her to himself. He did not force Dana, as far as Karin understood now, to think about marriage, pregnancy, and finally. He was giving Dana himself, helping her, and, as Chakwas was now convinced, he wasn't demanding or asking for anything in return.

Dana believes John, she knows him too well — after all, they grew up together in the same orphanage. She believes him, but she also surprisingly does not bind him to her, he is free.

Of course, it is quite possible that here, in the reasons for giving Dana such freedom to John, one can count the fact that both Shepard and his companion are orphans. One can also consider the reason that from an early age both defined their life paths and chose professions. John is a soldier, Dana is a professional athlete. Discipline, regime, strict schedule. The framework of life, where can you go without it? Perhaps these circumstances also played a binding and perhaps cementing role in the relationship between Shepard and Dana. Right now, it didn't make much difference to Karin what Dana's last name was. For John, she was always-and. Chakwas is convinced that there will always be only Dayna. It's enough for him to know her name. To know, not with words, but with his soul.

Dana understands that John is dating a lot of people and probably at least assumes that one day John will meet his true, complete, and only love. Maybe she's ready for it. She is ready because she knows that John will be able to make sure that she, his very close friend, will not suffer, will not feel abandoned.

Chakwas saw John writing a letter to Dana relatively recently, perched in a corner of one of the frigate's compartments on a folding seat. He wrote thoughtfully, slowly, plunging into memories. And I saw him reading the letters in response from Dana. He was so happy with every letter, even a short note with just a few lines.

Until the frigate stopped at the repeater at the entrance to the system where Eden Prime was located, John managed to receive too few letters from Dana. Too little, as Chakwas now acutely realized. Too little.

Shepard loved Dana, and, as Karin was now convinced, he was capable of loving so many reasonable people. Not only humans, but also aliens. If he hadn't been so capable of loving the same aliens, he probably wouldn't have been able to help the Asari and the Turian so effectively and completely, who were going through difficult times due to the situation and circumstances. To those who survived and returned, thanks to Shepard's dedication and heroism, yes, yes, to his completely unprovoked, even somewhat everyday heroism, to ordinary life.

Karin paused for a moment, glancing at the monitors hanging over the hospital bed, and felt with particular force that Shepard loved all Normans. They became his own for him. Yes, it was quite possible that he had paid special attention to her, the chief medical officer of the frigate, a major in the Chakvas Air Force medical Service. But he also paid attention to David — Karin noticed this automatically, maybe subconsciously.

Shepard not only commanded and led, as befits the senior assistant to the commander of the ship and the commander of the amphibious crew of the prototype reconnaissance frigate. He was studying. Karin was convinced, and this conviction had just received additional-and more than one-proof that Shepard had decided to learn a lot from both her and David. To study imperceptibly, without focusing the attention of teachers and mentors on it, but to really, fully learn.

Several days of Shepard's stay on the frigate had shaken up the crew. Yes, the new XO is tough, strict, insistent, even merciless — where would Jenkins or Alenko or Moro fall under his hand or gaze again and again. But the new XO is careful, attentive, silent, modest, and knows how to see and understand many of the good things that exist not only in every human being, but also in every alien. If he had been even a little more callous, he would hardly have been able to cope so well with the restoration of the Asari and Turian psychosphere. Many human psychotherapists and psychiatrists would not have been able, as Karin was now convinced, to do a hundredth of the useful and absolutely necessary things that Shepard had managed to do during those minutes spent on the bodies and souls of these two former huskies.

Former ones. It is unlikely that now the Asari and the Turian will often recall these months of their powerlessness and impotence. They will remember them, these months. And they will remember that it was the earthman, the human John Shepard, who interrupted these times.

While performing the final part of the surgical intervention protocol, carrying out the necessary manipulations, Chakwas thought that the Spectrum Turian was the reason for the success of the capture of the elderly Asari by the Scout Reaper and the reason for Benezia's transition to the category of captive and submissive slave of this Reaper. The standard chain was being built: Reaper — Saren-Benezia.

Yes, later, after Benezia's meeting with Saren... I would also like to know exactly how this meeting took place... Benezia fell under the increasing psychic influence of the Reaper, which is still commonly referred to by a few narrow specialists as indoctrination.

A few dozen minutes later, Chakwas covers Asari's naked body with a light canopy supported by a wire frame. Basically everything necessary has been done. Now it was important to understand how the healing would go. Moving away from the patients, Chakwas went to her desk, sat down in an armchair and called up the full monitoring data on the wall screens, which took into account both recent manipulations and their results in static and dynamic terms. The diagnostic complex performed a repeat check, the Medical Center processed the information received and displayed comparative tables and graphs.

Reading the indicators, thinking about the revealed interdependencies, predicting the development of the situation, Chakwas waited. With Shepard's help, she hoped that in less than a few hours, first one and then the other patients in the Infirmary would come to their senses. Both literally and figuratively, they will return to this world. No longer huskies, but ordinary representatives of their races. Free from any outside influence and interference. If Nazara did not protest or oppose Shepard or her, Chakvas did not somehow try to block the desire of the ship's XO and doctor to return the Asari and the Turian to a normal life — and the Reaper certainly had such capabilities and abilities, then ... the interventions made allowed him to cautiously hope that very soon The patients will come back to life.

Yes, the breathing of the Turian and the Asari is leveled, the pulse is no longer racing, there is no excess tension in the muscles, there is no tightness in the bones. Yes, both patients will have to spend several more hours on full bed rest without the right to move freely — and Karin is already convinced that both Saren and Benezia will be pretty excited about the fact and content of their release from the husky state in the full sense of the word.

The design of the hospital beds in the frigate's Medical Bay took into account that they would be used to accommodate not only humans, but also representatives of many races now known to earthlings. Therefore, both the Turian's crest and the Asari's appendages were now sunk into special recesses at the head of the beds, which allowed patients to keep their heads straight and not strain the muscles and ligaments of their necks. Yes, Chakwas well remembered that the Turians' neck was a very vulnerable part of the body, but now, here in the medical bay, she could be sure that Saren had nothing to worry about.

Nihlus, of course, will not slow down to appear, but it depends on her, the doctor of the frigate, what schedule of visits to patients — and, by the way, quite serious patients — should be established to ensure their speedy and complete recovery. Visits are important and necessary, but this is not even a matter of the near future. At least not for a few hours.

Did she, the frigate's doctor, think that she would have to operate on real, serious patients a few days after the frigate left the "manning field"? No, I probably didn't. After all, for too long the galaxy has lived without tension, maybe even, as the Imperials like to say, "going with the flow." And now the breath of a galactic war, not a local one, is becoming more and more acutely felt. Many apocalyptic predictions are beginning to come true once again.

Time passed unnoticed. Chakwas was fully aware of herself as a recluse of the Medical Bay, she liked being its sole owner and, if possible, the only inhabitant. She didn't need anyone's company, she was calm about the fact that until something extraordinary happened, none of the Normans would look at her.

After all, a medic exists in order to be always ready to help a non-medic. Always be ready. So Chakwas was ready. And this willingness paid off. She had her first real, special, serious patients in a very long time. Who now, after the surgical interventions, have begun to approach the moment of their hopefully full recovery.