InsaneJournal

A red-haired woman with a strong nose and just the faintest hint of scarring in a few places across her face sat in a plastic diner booth, with a cup of coffee in front of her, looking out the window at the rapidly falling snow. She was dressed strangely––nothing like any of the other women in the diner, who presumably had also been chased in by the falling snow and had decided to stay until it calmed down. No dress for this woman, nor sweater and pedal pushers; she was wearing what looked almost like a jumpsuit, black and white with a large C shaped crest, with bulky pockets or padding in several places. Not 1960's at all. Also, not great for the weather, although it wasn't precisely as if Shepard had packed for this weather.

Or any weather at all. She was pretty sure that she'd been in deep space somewhere in the Skyllian Verge, the last time she'd checked, and she was still not completely sure that this wasn't some kind of stress-induced mental break. Surely, she was lying on a medical slab in the Normandy's sick bay, while Chakwas tried to talk her into waking the hell up. But if it was a hallucination, it was a very very realistic one; she had pinched herself probably a thousand times at this point, and it hurt each time. She did it once more, just for good measure, and once again it hurt and once again she remained right where she had been sitting.

Which was, as near as she could tell from questioning the local civilians, New York City, New York, United States of America, Earth. It had actually been bemusing, for a while, that these people were apparently still calling it just the USA, and not the UNAS, but then… well, then things had really gone nuts. Nuts with the snow, which had rolled in almost with no warning, and now made the city streets look like Noveria on a good day (and Shepard didn't want to ever set foot on Noveria again, not even on the best summer day that frozen planet ever saw); freezing, Shepard had pretty quickly fled into the nearest eating establishment. And tried to pay for a meal - and when she'd pulled out her credit chit to pay, the man behind the counter had laughed. And then stared at her like she was nuts -- and then laughed some more. She had tried to explain, multiple times, and the closest she got was convincing him that she wanted to buy "on credit", which he'd refused.

It had taken her a solid half hour to negotiate some kind of deal, and it had been peppered with the diner cook laughing at her for reasons she didn't quite grasp, but finally they'd worked it out. It had helped that the snow had been piling up, piling up, and piling up more while they had been arguing. For a cup of coffee (he wouldn't cave to a hot meal), she'd shovel the sidewalk in front of his store every half hour, to keep it open for customers. She had been up to this for two and a half hours now; the physical activity had been welcomed, even if the cold had been biting, and the coffee had been worth it a thousand times over.

It was real coffee. Not synthesized, not grown in a terrarium, honest to goodness Earth coffee, not even "improved" by Gardner's questionable cooking methods. This was her fourth cup. Which was not precisely helping to take the edge off of the bizarreness of the day; in fact, it was making her jumpier (it was a lot of caffeine). Especially given the newspaper she'd read - because - 1964? It was a joke, a hallucination, a… a booby trap designed by Cerberus as vengeance for that little insubordination and completely quitting their bullshit display she'd put on in front of the Illusive Man. (He probably could orchestrate something like this, an entire section of a city filled with costumed actors just to mess with her head. She really wouldn't have been surprised to learn that he was a completely vengeful bastard.) Because it couldn't actually be 1964.

And yet, here she was, drinking real Earth coffee and watching real Earth snow fall from the sky (.... in August? she wasn't entirely sure, but she'd always thought that in terms of Earth months, August was Northern summer, not winter). Which, speaking of that snow, it was starting to pile up again. Shepard leaned forward on her elbows to look out at the sidewalk, where it seemed like she could probably clear away a bit more snowfall. Work would probably clear her head; "I think I'm going to need the shovel again, Chuck," she called out. "After I finish this cup."