Agonizing pain, every limb on my body screamed it! I could not see anything, for I was surrounded by darkness. Was this life after death? Had I beaten Mindoir, Saren, the Collectors and the entire Reaper fleet only to be gifted with eternal suffering? I always had hoped to see my father after death, and recently had hoped to see Williams, Mordin, and Anderson. Perhaps this was my punishment for not being able to save more lives? Whatever the reason was, the agony I felt was too great. I shut my eyes.

…

I began to wake up, the pain though lessened was still there. With what energy I had I tried to open my eyes, and was successful. I was in some med bay, and noticing a window nearby, I peered from my position apparently on an operating table to look outside. I was greeted with the sight of endless space. So I was in a ship, but how had they pick me up on the citadel? They could not had gotten through the Reaper fleet… unless the Crucible had worked. Hearing footsteps, I turned to face whoever it was creating the noise.

"Shepard!" the Batarian exclaimed as he approached me, "I knew you were too stubborn of a human to die!"

"Good to see you up and walking Bray. Not to be rude but what the hell happened?"

"Well…" Bray paused for a moment as he checked my wounds, "…our fleet was being ripped apart. Hackett thought you were dead and the Crucible a failure. He ordered everyone to pull out of the Sol system. My small freighter, the one you are on, was hit and we could not make the jump along with a few other ships. Lucky for us it was not long until you did whatever it was you did to fire the crucible. Soon after, the few of us left started helping other survivors on Earth and the Citadel, we are still searching the hundreds of escape pods. "

"Where is the fleet now, and what about the Council?"

"The Council? Those scumbags are dead, if they were alive someone would had found them by now. As for the Fleet, well no good news there. All communication software advanced enough that would allow someone to contact another in a different system has been fried, and we have not been able to fix it yet. One of the better off ships were able to repair themselves enough to leave this system and hopefully go through the relay but when they reached it they discovered the relay had been hit by the same blast that almost tore apart the citadel. Now it is repairable, but we lack the materials and tools to fix it. I assume the fleet is working right now to fix the relay on their end so they can send someone."

"Bray how long have I been out?"

"Found you myself the day after the Reapers were destroyed, and you have been in a coma the past five days."

"That long?"

Laughing, Bray leaned against the operating table next to Shepard.

"Ha-ha, Shepard you worry too much. The Reapers are dead, the galaxy is safe and earth is saved, all is good! Anyway, Doc Heplorn found another piece of shrapnel in you and was about to get it out when you started to wake, so he sent me-"

"Doctor Mealon is operating on me!"

"Calm down Shepard, whatever happened in the past is in the past. He wants to help you. Now take this sedative so he can operate. I will have a surprise for you when you wake up"

Reluctantly I swallowed the pill in Bray's hand and soon drifted into slumber. As I slept I thought of Liara, Earth, Anderson, family and the comrades that had served or died with me throughout this war. If the Council listened to me at the start, how many lives would had been saved? Impossible to know. My last thoughts before waking were of myself and Liara, and hopefully our future tiny blue children.

"Bray, Shepard might be waking soon…" Maelon said as he stood over me, then stepped back in surprise when my eyes suddenly opened, "…yes definitely awake."

"Ok, now get out of here Doc, no need to freak him out," as Maelon left the room Bray turned to me, and smiled as he thought of whatever the surprise was, "I am going to enjoy this Shepard."

Chuckling, Bray took a step back. The door to the med bay opened. Through the doorway walked in a person wearing the Rear Admiral uniform of the Alliance.

"Mom? How did you get here?"

"The ship I was on, you remember the SSV Orizaba, took a bad hit and crash landed on Earth. A reaper was about to finish us off but you saved me and my crew when you activated the crucible. You saved everyone, I am proud of you and your father would had been too... On a sad note, I heard about Admiral Anderson and several other of your crewmembers, how are you dealing with all this?"

"I lost a lot of good friends, but I will survive. I'm glad you stopped by."

"So am I. Unfortunately I need to leave, as the highest ranked Alliance officer left I am needed on Earth. I hope you get well soon."

As my mother hugged me good bye and walked out as quickly as she had come in, I could not help but feel that everything would turn out right after all. Soon the Fleet would send in aide, and with a little luck perhaps the galaxy will experience peace at long last. I sure as hell would not complain about it.

…

Over the next few days I drifted in and out of sleep. Various crew members and visiting space captains stopped by to see me, usually for autographs or just to ask several questions. Bray came by often to swap stories, and my mother came when she could to talk. Maelon insisted I would have to remain on the ship for the time being on the account of my considerable injuries. Nether less as soon as I could stand I did whatever I could to aid the crew. The small freighter had taken a hit that had gone through its hull. The crew took whatever help they could get to help make repairs, the hit through the hull had also left many empty beds and chairs. Needless to say the crew was shorthanded. I was repairing some wirelines with a salarian on the seventh day of my recovery when I was surprised when Bray called me up to the Bridge.

"Bray, what is the-"

"Shepard no time for idle chat," Bray lead me over to one of the terminals, "Take a look at this, one of the turian ships assigned to watch the relay just returned and transmitted this to me. With this picture contains a message, apparently the ship is the only survivor and it only had time to transmit this to us before its life support failed."

"Any survivors from the ship?"

"No escape pods were launched."

"Make sure this gets out to everyone, we only have twenty minutes at best before they arrive."