Disclaimer: Don't own Mass Effect, damnit all, it belongs to Bioware and EA.
Summary: My personal epilogue to ME3 and the end of Shepard's tale.
It had been odd, waking up in the hospital two weeks after destroying the Reapers using the crucible after being certain she'd die. She had swarmed Liara, who had been waiting at her side like the faithful wife out of a sappy holo-vid, with questions of EDI and the Geth. Liara had told her that as far as they could tell, the only geth who had been killed by the blast were geth who had been outside of the range of the Comm Buoys and thus hadn't been upgraded to full and sentient AI's. EDI was fine, she had a moment of stutter when her systems flickered but she'd come back, just the same as before.
Shepard couldn't figure it out, even her own cybernetics had kept functioning so why was it that all the synthetics, that the Catalyst claimed would all be destroyed with the reapers, all seemed to have survived the blast with nothing more than a stutter in functionality. Liara even told her that by the time they'd found her the nanobots in her own body had already started to repair the damage they could, she'd been kept unconscious seemingly for no reason for over a week.
Now, with the war against the reapers over Shepard was back on the Normandy, laying in her bed with Liara's head on her chest just holding each other close. She still didn't understand why the synthetics she'd come to know and care about had been spared but she didn't care either.
Janet Shepard had been genuinely surprised when the Alliance had officially retired the Normandy from being an alliance warship entirely as well as giving the commander an honorable discharge. She'd actually been told that keeping her, and her ship, to themselves would do a great disservice to the galaxy as a whole and her in particular.
Joker's contract was up so he rejoined her on the ship. Dr. Michel had stayed as well, stating that life in a clinic would be wasted compared to aiding a spectre. Sadly, not all of her crew could stay.
James left to pursue his recommendation to N7 training and Ashley left to go do her own thing as a Spectre.
Garrus had followed through with what he said he wanted to do if they survived, he was living on a personal island on a remote Turian colony.
Tali was still in the engine room, having resigned her post as an admiral of the quarian fleet.
Then of course, there was EDI who was only too happy to be her own ship, or Shepard's ship... either way.
There were others, of course, but Shepard was ashamed to admit that she had purposefully limited emotional attachment to them. If they died she'd feel bad enough, she didn't need the added pain of remembering what their favorite food was.
Then there were those who for various reasons, could not join her on the field of battle for that final charge, who were responsible for other areas. Wrex and his lead of the krogan charge, Jack and her students aided by Samara and her justicars holding Shepard's right flank while waiting for the missiles, and the N7 that weren't who petitioned to join Hackett's forces under Shepard's banner.
In a blessing Shepard hadn't known the galaxy would ever give her all of them had lived. Jack and her students made it through the war and the newly commissioned officer had indeed gotten them all inked, not with anything silly like she'd taunted though, each had the emblem of their unofficial platoon on their left shoulder-blade and none had so much as made a peep during the process, Jack had never been more proud of them.
Wrex championed the krogan's reintegration into galactic politics and Grunt, surprise surprise, was the head of the recreated Aralakh Company and was currently beating respect into his new company's krogan-thick skulls.
Samara and the justicars had broken apart into single-person dispensers of justice and death after the reapers were gone. A surprisingly large amount of them had survived, especially considering their code demanded they do nothing less than fight at the frontlines. Samara herself was currently watching over Falere until a proper monastery could be rebuilt and asari sent to staff it, not because she didn't trust her daughter but because a justicar who did not understand the situation would react according to the code by how the situation appeared and would be forced to kill Falere. Samara wasn't sure if she could refrain from attempting to murder her fellow justicar if they did that.
The N7 that wasn't had shown up, as if she knew the schedule, just before the Normandy was set to disembark and... well, Shepard would say respectfully requested if the person was actually military, but in reality it came very close to flat begging. It turned out to be for the best really, the person, an Adept by the name of Kayleen Armala, was dangerous. She wielded only a locust SMG but rarely fired a round, her biotics fast enough to allow her to rip through enemy forces nearly single handedly, she fit well with Liara as well, the two combining on biotically explosive attacks.
Liara had even managed to reconnect with over 75% of operatives she was unsure had survived. She'd submitted them all through indoctrination scanners she herself had developed with Tali's help and only two had failed. Those two had been placed in isolation, fearing possible sabotage even if their controllers were destroyed but instead they fell into a state of utterly helpless catatonia. Liara had them shipped to a mental illness center to be taken care of for the rest of their lives.
That done she had already ordered a new base be made inside a system known for instabilities, no one would go there... no one except Joker. The Normandy would be the only ship capable of reaching the base once it was constructed, they'd even have to ferry workers to and from the base under guise of owing the Broker a favor.
'Now,' thought the spectre as she looked up through her skylight to see the mass effect field rippling over the hull, 'Now we live.'