Disclaimer: I do not own Mass Effect. I'm just in love with BioWare's characters, and I am in no way making money from spouting my fangirlishness.

Prologue:

"I hear the wind call my name,

The sound that leads me home.

It sparks up the fire - a flame that still burns,

To you, I will always return."

-I Will Always Return, Bryan Adams

***

Shepard wasn't sure how they had survived. She'd skimmed along the thin edge of death a hundred times before, enough to have considerable faith in herself. Maybe part of her knew she could, and would, survive this too. She had too.

And Shepard was nothing if not a survivor.

Still, the lines of what she could do, and what she should've been able to, were becoming uneven. The casualties suffered from the Normandy's journey into the Omega 4 relay were frightening.

Because they hadn't had any.

Commander Shepard either had someone of divine power looking out for her and her crew, or they were the luckiest sons of bitches this galaxy had ever seen.

There had been ecstatic celebration among the crew upon their return to the Terminus systems, even some hysterical laughter from residual shock. Everyone was in an extreme state of relieved euphoria at their success, including Jacob and Miranda, despite the sudden and abrupt end to their relationship the man that had so far supplied them with their very livelihood.

Shepard had to admit that between death, and a very substantial 'fuck you', she was beginning to form a a rather creative pattern of finding ways to quit jobs.

Though, as far as Shepard was concerned, she had never quit the Alliance. But as long as the Alliance remained ignorant of the Reaper threat, the commander had been dependent on Cerberus's resources. But that didn't keep her from secretly forwarding all of her mission reports directly to Anderson. Though he never replied, she knew he'd gotten them.

She felt she'd done what the Illusive man had brought her back to accomplish; debt paid in full. The protection of the human race was back on track. Now she needed to work on the protection of all existence, and for that, she needed her old life.

Her new crew, even the members that had previously left the Alliance Service, has been more than willing to follow her when she'd had announced they'd be leaving behind all connections to Cerberus. They responded with encouraging confirmations that they were her crew. And if anyone could get the job done it was her, no matter what colors she was wearing. There were a few that were even eager to scrape the Cerberus logo off the bulkheads after hearing what the Illusive Man had asked of her in the Collector base.

It didn't take long for Shepard to make plans for what their next step would be, and she was anxious to begin. She was nostalgic now for all the things she had once had and believed in, and was keen to make headway in a direction she could thoroughly get behind.

She instructed Joker to plot a course for the Citadel. They still had a lot of work to do. She had to convince the Alliance that she could be trusted again. And then she had to persuade them further to mass together against an enemy that they had so far been denied knowledge of. With only circumstantial evidence…

It wasn't going to be simple, but Shepard was a woman who didn't know how to fail. She'd already transmitted a missive to Anderson to inform him of her newest goals and game plan.

But not before alerting someone else of her survival.

I know, it's a teaser, but I'm excited to share this idea. :D Keep your eyes open! Chapter 1 soon to follow.