Prologue: Retrieval

The Reaper Invasion is over. The Reapers are dead. Earth has begun to rebuild. Life seems to be returning to normal. The Mass relays are being fixed. All of the organic civilizations are working to start anew.

The wreckage of the Citadel that has fallen to Earth is being picked through, salvaged and searched,,

No survivors are expected.

But Anderson said it himself. Hehas already died once, and it didn't stop him.

It should surprise them when they find his badly burned body still breathing, shallowly, from under the wreckage.

It should. But it doesn't...

"Hold on!" one's echoing voice calls. There's darkness. He can't see, but he can hear, as if through a long tunnel, but he can hear them, crying, crying, "Hold on, Commander! Hold on!"

I am Commander Shepard...and...and...

~END TRANSMISSION~

Chapter One: Recovery

Two Days Later

Hannah Shepard sighed as she paced the waiting room floor of the hospital. She was glad to know there were still some major medical facilities still standing after the devastation of the Reaper Invasion. It was a small hospital in a remote city in the USA, but it had doctors, technicians and necessary medicine and equipment.

She was even gladder when the call came in that they had found her son—breathing, alive. Barely, but alive. He was being flown in from London, where he'd been found beneath the Citadel wreckage. And she was waiting. Waiting to see him—to see how bad it was. Mass relays and synthetic life could always be fixed. But sometimes, organic life could not.

He was alive now. But for how long?

The doors swung open, suddenly, as a gurney was pushed through the white-washed halls, and Hannah's eyes followed it. She heard a few of the EMTs talking quickly.

"Commander Simon Shepard, age 32, Alliance Navy. Crash-landed to Earth aboard the Citadel—covered head to toe in third degree burns, multiple lacerations—potential internal organ damage-!"

Hannah rushed toward the gurney, her red-gray hair cut short—also a Marine, through and through—but falling into her wide, blue eyes a little as she was paused by one of the nurses as the EMTs rolled the gurney toward the OR.

"I'm sorry, ma'am, but you can't go back there—they're taking that patient straight in for emergency surgery," the nurse said, gentle but firm.

"No, but that's my son! That's my son!"

"I'm sorry, ma'am. You need to wait here," the nurse said again with the same tone as before—kind, but commanding. "We will let you know as soon as the surgery has concluded—please, sit down."

Hannah pushed her hair out of her eyes, finally, and slid into a seat finally. She swallowed down the sob that threatened to burst forth from her throat, blinking back hot tears. She had caught just a glimpse of him—her beloved son with his skin blackened and charred. Even if he survived, he would never be the same.

"Tamora," came the voice of one of the doctors, peeking his head out of the OR. Hannah looked up as the nurse from before made eye contact with the middle-aged man in the white coat. Her brows furrowed when he said: "Get Miranda Lawson down here. Immediately."

"How are you feeling, EDI?"

EDI glanced around the medical bay of the Normandy, frowning deeply as she looked at her hands, wiggling the silver fingers carefully, the color distorted into a metallic orange by the visor over her curious eyes. She looked up again at the young woman speaking, noting the auto-tuned sound of her voice through the mask she wore.

"Yes, Tali," she said, finally. "I am well."

Tali'zorah vas Normandy stood, adjusting the shawl around her mask a little and typing away at the computer at Dr. Chakwas' desk. She glanced over her shoulder at EDI. "What's the last thing you remember?"

"Being in the cockpit with Jeff as he tried to get the Normandy and her crew to safety. Then...nothing."

Tali nodded. "And before that?"

EDI knew what Tali was fishing for—she wanted to make sure she was the same. After all, Cerberus had built her, and though Tali was quarian, and skilled with technology and advanced artificial intelligences, it was still possible to lose something, especially after such a hard shut down.

"All of my memory interfaces and most of my functionality have returned to 100% capacity, Tali," EDI replied. "The only function I am having trouble reconnecting with is my interfacing with the Normandy."

"Which is why the ship is still stuck, isn't it?" Tali asked as she plugged some hardwires into EDI, from some ports that she had exposed just under the back of her head, where the base of her skull met her neck. "Let me see if I can figure out why. But first I'm going to run some diagnostics on all of this primary unit's functions, and the state of your core processor-"

"My mind."

Tali sighed and nodded. "...yes, your mind, to make sure no kind of critical failure can still get triggered like before."

"Tali, are you only doing all of these meaningless tests to distract yourself from the almost inevitable perishing of Commander Shepard?" EDI asked, which, to anyone else, might have been proof that she was back to normal, as she had never had, and probably never would have, a filter on her questions and curiosity.

But Tali only paused in her typing, and leaned heavily against the desk, her back hunching, her head now low to her chest. She took a few deep breaths. "...Shepard would want us to get his ship up and running again," she said, her voice tight and sharp. "...Alive or not."

"I have upset you as is evident by the curt tone of your voice. I did not mean to. It only seemed like the most obvious conclusion that one who was so deeply in love might try to distract oneself from the pain of loss. Perhaps I still do not understand emotions well enough yet to make such judgments, though."

Tali shook her head, crossing her arms over her chest as she turned and leaned her bottom against the edge of the desk now. She looked at EDI, and, though hidden from the AI, she smiled sadly under her mask. "No. You understand us too well, sometimes, I think. Yes, maybe that's part of it. Maybe I...want to think about the present so I don't have to think about the past—or the future."

"You were counting on spending your life with the Commander."

Tali nodded—silent.

EDI noted something else in Tali's demeanor—a heaviness. She was carrying something—something she was unsure she should share.

"Tali," EDI began. "...there is something else. Please, do not feel obligated to hide it from me."

Tali shrugged. "Joker's been like me—distracting himself, trying to get the ship started without you. He's been worried. And...angry." She sighed, massaging her helmet with her hand and shaking her head again, her shawl shifting as she did. "He blames Shepard for you shutting off."

"What? But Shepard was not even on board when the critical malfunction occurred."

Tali turned again, checking the graphs on the screen as they spoke, ensuring EDI was stable, and she let out a heavy breath. "We don't know what happened back on Earth. We're stranded here—wherever here is. But Joker said the Mass Relay gave out and dropped us here just as you shut off. And the ship shut off. And my suit...shut off, for a moment, until I fixed it. Everything synthetic, everything run or guided or connected somehow to technology just...stopped."

"You believe Shepard did something to synthetics—in order to defeat the Reapers."

"I didn't—until Joker mentioned it during one of his angry mumbling rants while he was trying to rewire the helmsman console as if he thought that was going to help." She sighed. "I had to ask Cortez to fix that."

"I still do not understand what that has to do with your undivided focus on fixing me."

Tali gave a small, slightly bitter chuckle and opened her omni-tool to download EDI's system diagnostics from the computer onto it—so she could check up on EDI in a more frequent, portable manner later on. "He blames the person I love for killing the person he loves. So...since the person I love is p...probably d-dead..." She choked back tears. "...I'm making amends for him."

EDI was unsure how, but she felt that deep within herself—the desperation, and the unconditional love. Tali'zorah was Shepard's perfect match, and vice versa. She could not imagine losing Jeff the same way—and yet she also understood Jeff's side for that very reason. She frowned, deeply, furrowing her metallic brows. "...you love Shepard in a very unique way. I have seen much physical intimacy and the shallow veils of love that organics offer, but it is very hollow, I have come to realize. And yet you, even in death, have his best interests within you. You give of yourself for his sake—is that what true love is?"

"Well, yes," Tali said, tilting her head curiously at EDI's questions. "Loving someone means sacrificing for them—doing for them before you do for yourself. Shepard loved people—all people, all sentient life. If he sacrificed himself...that was why. The least I can do is...everything I know he would do if he were here."

EDI nodded.

"Anyway, I'm done for now," Tali said, going around the back of EDI, and unplugging the hardwires. "Joker is probably wondering if you're alright, so I'd go see him first. In the meantime, I'm going to go look at the drive core and see if I can't jerry-rig it to start up manually without your intervention."

"It is possible, but even still, I will attempt to reintroduce the majority of my core processing power back into the Normandy's systems," EDI said. "If it will help you make amends."

Again, it couldn't be seen—never had been seen by any but one person—but Tali smiled and nodded. "Thank you, EDI, but also...please, try to focus on recovering."

Two weeks later

"I am glad you preserved your Lazarus notes, Ms. Lawson," Hannah Shepard said to Miranda Lawson over a mediocre hospital cafeteria lunch a few weeks later. "You saved my son's life."

Miranda gave a small nod as she sipped the two day old black swill that the hospital staff had the nerve to call coffee. She glanced up from the styrofoam cup at the Commander's mother, and smiled, sadly. "It wasn't much, and with the rudimentary equipment they have here, it took some doing—but at least we were able to fix much of the blackened skin, and scarring—at least on his face. He was lucky that he barely had any internal injury."

"That is also due to you though—you fitted him with so many synthetic implants, the doctors say he was nearly unbreakable."

"His bones, maybe, considering the calcium-titanium compound I infused them with—but his organs were all his own. I mean, they were...regrown in a lab and replaced, but they were real, human organs, with a few modifications perhaps to his heart and lungs so he could work, run and fight longer and faster. They shouldn't have been in one piece after falling through atmo—again." She sighed. "Shepard is nothing if not...always lucky."

Hannah smiled, and touched Miranda's hand. "Your research, your time and effort—it saved my son. Again. You don't need to be modest."

"It's the least I could do!" Miranda said, suddenly, looking up and into Hannah's eyes—Shepard's eyes—with such earnest sincerity. "He saved my sister, Admiral Shepard. He saved the man I love—even if that man is with someone else. He saved me. That's what he does—he saves people, he cares about people, he inspires people. Don't get me wrong, he's human. He makes mistakes, but he owns up to them and that's what makes him a good leader! We can't afford to lose someone like him—I'd rebuild him a million times more if it meant keeping our home safe from things like the Reapers. It was my honor and duty, Admiral. Truly."

Hannah smiled and squeezed Miranda's now trembling hand, nodding. "It is much appreciated, Ms. Lawson. How long do you think he'll be comatose?"

Miranda took a deep breath and calmed, shaking her head. "Hard to say. It took two years for him to fully recover being completely overhauled. The skin procedure was intensive but not so wholly overtaxing. So...it could be anywhere between a few weeks to...potentially up to a year, I'd estimate."

"But you're confident he will wake up?"

Miranda nodded. "I have hope."

"At least the food here is edible for humans and dextros."

Tali looked up from her omi-tool at Garrus' words, as he and Kaiden scrounged the strange, tropical planet they were stranded on for edible foliage and berries. Grunt was out hunting for meat. By now, they knew what they should and shouldn't eat for the most part, but Tali still liked to scan everything they picked up for potential toxins or other problems.

"How do they look, Tali?" Kaiden asked about the leaves she finished scanning.

She shook her head. "No. Toxic. We should stick to what we know."

"It's running low," Garrus replied. "The berry bushes we found are going bare, and we have no idea what the cycle of seasons is like on this planet."

Tali sighed, and massaged her helmet before wringing her hands together with a shake of her head. "We need to find a way off of this planet before we run out of food."

"How's EDI?" Kaiden queried, closing his eyes and massaging his forehead, as he sat down under a tree nearby when his head began to throb—the shade helped.

"Better. But we still can't get her to communicate with the Normandy. She wants to—she tries. But she starts to overheat. I think it's a problem within the ship—not with her."

"Can we find it?" Garrus glanced at Tali out of the corner of his blue-on-black eyes, his arms crossed over his chest, his turian whiskers shifting a little as he spoke.

"I've been trying, Cortez has been trying, Adams has been trying. Even Joker has been trying but nothing seems out of the ordinary," Tali replied, and then closed her eyes tightly. "Shepard would know. He would know what is wrong with his ship; he would know!"

The shout startled both men, and then Garrus moved toward her, wrapping his arms around her as she began to hyperventilate in an attempt to keep from crying. "Hey, hey," he said, gently. "Calm down. It's okay—I know, Tali...I know. I miss him, too."

"We all do," Kaiden murmured, opening his eyes and sitting up a little, his legs, crossing his legs and placing his hands on his ankles as he watched the quarian try to calm. They all felt the loss of their friend, heavily. For Kaiden, it was like losing a brother—he knew Garrus felt very much the same.

The people on the Normandy were family.

And they'd just lost the essential cog in the clockwork of their familial relationship. The piece that had kept them all together, and happy even in the darkest times. It was a heavy burden for all of them, and Kaiden knew it was probably worse for Tali. He'd never loved someone as she loved Shepard—but he could only imagine it was like having his implant removed by force.

Like losing a limb—torn off, bleeding, refusing to heal.

"Tali," he said from under the tree. "Maybe you'll help me inside? I should go see Dr. Chakwas."

"Huh?" Tali said, the sound of wet tears in her voice.

"...Tali."

Garrus glanced at Kaiden, his brow arrowed into a deep 'v', when he realized Kaiden's plan and nodded. "Oh—oh yes, Tali, you know how dizzy Major Alenko gets when his implant starts to act up. You should help him inside. I'll scan the rest of these for you."

"I—um, alright," Tali said, and offered her hand to Kaiden, who took it gratefully, sliding a comforting arm around her and beginning their ascent up the ramp into the ship.

Garrus watched them with a sigh, and swiped the back of his hand over his brow, shaking his reptilian head a little. Stranded and mourning. How could they even go on?

'Come on, Vakarian,' he thought to himself. 'You know that bastard would want you to take care of everyone. Don't start giving up now.'

"It has been two months, one week, and three days since Commander Simon Shepard of the Alliance Navy was recovered from the wreckage of the Citadel," Miranda said into her omni-tool as she paced Shepard's hospital room, checking his vitals and making notes along with her recordings. "Skin grafts seem to be healing successfully, though he will have intensive scarring still down his left arm, and over certain areas of his stomach, chest and back where grafts didn't take. Face is almost completely healed—no scarring leftover this time as with the first attempt. Improvements made to Lazarus research mostly successful."

Miranda stepped closer to the comatose Commander, and leaned in, inspecting the well-chiseled cheekbones, thin jaw, and brown-red facial hair that grew in an almost unruly manner. "Improved chemical make-up of bones from initial reconstruction kept skeleton completely intact during atmospheric reentry, and crash. Internal organs were mostly unharmed, except some slight bruising, and a single laceration on the right lung which involved surgical repair."

She looked at the heartbeat monitor positioned next to his bed. "Heartbeat is strong. Subject is likely to wake any day now given how well he is healing from these procedures. So, it's safe to say that again, Project Lazarus is-"

There was a sudden gasp of breath, blue eyes popping wide open, as disheveled hair of the same brown-red color fell into them, the cerulean irises glancing around frantically as the suddenly wide-awake Commander tried to register where he was, immediately noting the wires hooked up to him, as well as the breathing tubes in his nose and throat.

Miranda's own eyes were wide, and she stood there, frozen, her mouth agape as she watched him awaken, and begin to cognitively process his surroundings. Finally, in a breathy, shocked tone, she murmured:

"-a success."

I'm sure this is a no brainer to any Mass Effect fan but the Shepard in this story is based off of my own Shepard from the game, not the stock Shepard. My description of him will become more detailed as the story goes on and I'll try to include a picture of him as the story cover eventually. Thank you. God bless.

"Pursue righteousness, faith, love, peace with those who call on the Lord out of a pure heart." 2 Timothy 2:22

Please review.