Admiral Anderson: You're looking well, Shepard. Maybe a little soft around the edges. How are you holding up since being relieved from duty?
Shepard: It's not so bad once you get used to the hot food and soft beds.
I couldn't sleep in bed that night. I did something I hadn't done since Burma, except on a few night exercises: I went out into the garden with a blanket and rolled up under a bush. God knows why. It wasn't affectation — I took good care that no one knew — nor was it sheer necessity, nor mere silliness in the exuberance of homecoming. At the time I felt it was a sort of gesture of thanksgiving, and only much later did I realize it was probably a reluctance to "come home" to a life that I knew there could be no return to, now. Anyway, I didn't sleep a bloody wink.
