Commander Shepard looked up from where he lay on the ground. Dust and ash clung to the sky but patches of blue could be seen as gentle breezes blew the ashes of burnt buildings away. Pain laced through his body as he took a deep breath of the dust filled air.

The first thing he noticed was the warm feeling coming from his chest. Looking down he saw that a pile of rubble had landed on his legs, effectively pinning them in place with no chance of him being able to free them himself. As slowly as he could without causing himself excruciating pain Shepard placed his hand on his semi-melted N7 armor feeling the blood that poured from a deep gash across his sternum.

At least it hit bone, else I would be dead no matter what. Shepard smirked, looking into the sky as debris from thousands of warships and fighters and parts of the citadel fell from the sky. He sighed softly, thinking of his friends, family, and crewmembers. They were safe from the threat of the Reapers, Cerberus was finished, and they had lived through it all.

Smiling to the sky Shepard thought of everything he had done over the course of his life; fighting Saren, Sovereign, the Collectors, and now the Reapers. Once again we face each other Death, he thought to himself, one time beating you is good, but twice? That's daring, even for me. Shepard slowly closed his eyes as his vision dimmed. He knew his chances of survival were limited at best now with his wounds and he accepted it.

The last thing Shepard noticed as he slipped into the warm embrace of death was the yellow color of an emergency vehicle hovering over his crushed body.

Tali ran up the piles of rubble that had formed after the ensuing battle. Corpses littered the ground as she looked for one person. She looked around seeing hundreds of bodies but none of them familiar, none of them alive.

Come on! You said you would come back, you said you would return. You promised me! She thought to herself as she sat on the highest pile of debris. She heard the sound of footsteps behind her but pain no attention to them; she looked out into the scared land looking for a sign that he might be alive.

"Tali." the soft voice of Admiral Raan echoed in Tali's ear, "Child, come there is much to do. We need to help rebuild the ships and relays. There is also the wounded we must tend to."

"I know Auntie Raan, But…" Tali choked, "he promised me he would come back, he promised me."

"There, there child, I know it's hard but we can't keep on searching, there hasn't been a medi-evac in the past six hours."

"We just can't give up on finding him! He's out there we just have to keep looking!"

"We are not giving up yet, but we can't continue the search for much longer either. We need to regroup and start over. Form a better search party then just a few people randomly looking."

Tali sighed quietly tears threatening to fall as she stood up she knew Admiral Raan was right. "I'm just scared that if we stop looking we may never find him at all." She said as the older Quarian hugged her gently. As she pulled away to look at her, a yellow emergency vehicle sped past sirens blaring towards the hospital.

Hope sprung into Tali's eyes as she watched it rush by her. She knew it could only be one person alive in that area that had been carved with harbingers beam .Feeling nothing but hope she ran with the Admiral to their vehicle and followed the medi-evac to the closest functioning hospital.