Well, I'm back! It's been more than a long while, but I hope to be doing this with some regularity for the foreseeable future. As a little disclaimer, I'd like to say that it's pretty unlikely that I'll end up going back and finishing Redemption. I haven't done anything to it for years and its difficult to pick up the pieces and go back to it. Time has soured my opinion of the parts of it that were published, and its hard to go back and be excited about finishing something that I'm no longer excited to reread. You never know though, if the mood strikes me and the demand is there, I may try to put something together.

In the meantime, I'm working on a story about a different Commander Shepard. This time it's a male. It should be a fun little story, and if its received favorably it could evolve into a more recurring thing.

Anyway, thanks for reading, and be sure to click on Review!

Note: I do not own Mass Effect or its characters.

Chapter 1

Shepard's eyes snapped open and he gasped for breath. The motion sent waves of agonizing pain through his chest. His eyes tried to focus but it was too bright to see. Where was he? More importantly, where was his gun?

He tried to move and more pain shot through his body. He slowly became aware of the sounds of the room he was in. A beeping, speeding up a bit, among other technological sounds. A hospital room. The beeping noise was the sound of his vitals, speeding up as he regained consciousness. His eyes adjusted to the damnable brightness and confirmed his suppositions. He groaned weakly. What had happened?

The door was open and he could hear the clatter of feet on the inhospitable hospital tiles. A woman strode into the room at a brisk pace. "You're awake," she said, with a degree of surprise in her tone as she fired up an omnitool and began to scan him and make note of his condition.

He tried to speak but his vocal chords wouldn't cooperate. He forced them to function and hated how quiet and weak his voice sounded. "What happened?" he asked her. "Did we-" he winced as the pain suddenly intensified. "Did we win?"

The nurse smiled sadly. "We won," she told him. "We lost a lot of people, but we won." He was glad to hear it. He tried to recall what had happened on the Citadel. The Illusive Man was dead, his mad thirst for human dominance finally at an end. He'd remained true to his vision until the end, when Shepard had put him down like he would any other mad dog. Not out of cruelty, not out of malice. Out of necessity.

He remembered with great sadness what had happened to Anderson. They'd sat together and looked out at the stars as old friends, comrades; as brothers in arms. The old man had slipped away from him, and he'd been sure he would soon be just as dead.

He remembered the Catalyst, the AI housed in the Citadel who had been under their noses the entire time. The Citadels many enigmas had never sat well with him; as it turned out, he'd been right to be wary all along. He'd labored over the Crucible for a few minutes; the device could be executed in three ways, none of which were without their sacrifices.

In the end, he'd decided that the never-ending struggle between organic and synthetic life was a matter for future generations to sort out. This war was about killing the Reapers. It had always been about killing the Reapers. He wasn't about to kill himself in a mad bid to dominate them, nor was he going to play God and make the decision to merge all organic and synthetic life without the knowledge or consent of the people it would affect.

No, he'd gone to the Citadel to kill the Reapers, and regrettable as it was to lose EDI and the geth, kill the Reapers he did. He remembered peppering the core with shots from his Paladin, the big pistol sending waves of pain down his shattered arm. He remembered the explosion. And now he was here, in this hospital bed.

"How long…how long have I been out?" he asked, a little afraid to hear the answer. The last time he'd asked someone that question he'd missed his thirtieth birthday, and his thirty-first.

She frowned, eyes becoming thoughtful as if she was considering the best way to tell him. "Nearly two months, Commander."

He let out a harsh chuckle. "Could be worse," he said, speaking from experience. "What about the Normandy? Did they make it?" He thought of Ashley, of what they had rekindled. He needed to know that she was alright.

"There'll be time for that soon," she said in a tone that suggested she didn't want him getting too agitated. "I'll be back with the doctor." She zipped out of the room.

He gazed at the ceiling and considered the ramifications of the victory. There was no way they'd have been able to win a conventional war with the Reapers, so he had to assume the Crucible had done its job. The Reapers were no more. If the Catalyst hadn't misinformed him, this meant that the geth were dead as well. He regretted their sacrifice, but they'd backed him in the war knowing it could mean the extermination of everything. It was either the geth or an incomplete victory, and with a force as horrifying as the one the Reapers had assembled, Shepard would not stop short, would not compromise. He wondered how Joker had taken the death of EDI. Did the pilot know that he was responsible?

More footsteps outside, and in walked Dr. Chloe Michele. "Hey Doc," he said weakly.

"Hello Commander," she said with a smile, her accent just as French and sexy as ever. "You've been out for a long time. How does it feel to be back in the land of the living?"

He shook his head faintly. "Hurts like hell, to be honest. The nurse was more concerned with getting you in here than filling me in; what's been happening?"

"Whatever you did on the Citadel worked. Some sort of shockwave came out of the Crucible; the Reapers died as it passed through them. The pulse worked its way through the relay network with the same effects; they're all dead."

He breathed a heavy sigh of relief, causing himself more pain. Dr. Michele continued: "Unfortunately, whatever you did with the device also killed the geth. I was never the greatest fan of them," she said with a small shudder. "But they did help us, and it's tragic that they were killed like that."

He closed his eyes. It wasn't what Legion would have wanted, but he had to believe that it…that he would have understood why Shepard did it.

"The fleets have returned to their homeworlds to begin rebuilding, though some have remained stationed in Sol to help in repairing the Citadel and categorizing the losses we sustained there. It's funny. I never thought I'd see the races get along so well, but even after the fighting was done, there was still a great sense of unity."

"Doc…what about the Normandy?" He dreaded the answer. It would be devastating to learn that he had saved the galaxy, only to find out that the people who he fought for most directly had perished.

"They're alive," she said, and Shepard let out a sharp sigh of relief. "Unfortunately, the Normandy sustained severe damage during the retreat order Admiral Hackett issued. Also, the Crucible's pulse damaged the relays. I'm told that our people are working to get them fully operational, but it will take time. When last we heard from the Normandy, they were still several months out. But make no mistake, Commander. Your crew is alive and they are on their way here."

He deflated a bit. He'd wanted nothing so badly as to have a drink with his crew. To hold Ashley. "So Doc, how long am I going to be restrained in this bed? I'd like to get back to work, help with the reconstruction."

Dr. Michele's face fell. "When they pulled you from the rubble, you were badly hurt."

"Yeah, I can tell," he said, sarcasm coloring his tone. "How long?"

She leaned over his bed and drew the blanket down. His eyes widened, his jaw dropped, and his veins turned to ice.

"Commander, I'm…I'm so sorry. Your leg had to be amputated."