(Disclaimer: All the Mass Effect characters don't belong to me, and this story is only a work of my over imaginative mind when I got bored and thought of a continuation of what would've happened after then end of ME3.)

Chapter 1

Red light and fire, that's all she could remember seeing before the blackness set in. Tired and pain and wanting to rest, finally to rest and never get up again. Eternal rest. That's all she wanted. All she needed. She had done her job and then some. Right? She had saved the world, the others could do the rest. Her work was done. But why did she still hurt so much? Wasn't dying supposed to relieve the pain? She made a small sound as she cracked open an eye and was surprised to see the room fill with the color of white and the sound of small beeping around her.

"Project Fox has awakened!" A brusque female voice gasped in a small voice heavy with an unfamiliar accent.

She looked around and saw her run out of the room briefly only to be opened in another minute by another unfamiliar looking man. He said something to the woman in a foreign tongue, nodding to her between words. She didn't understand what was said, but of what she remembered, it did sound like an earthen language, Russian perhaps? She looked around behind her as much as her neck would allow her in her range of motion without too much pain. There were monitors with green jumping lines next to her as well as a tube with clear liquid attached to a part of her wrist. She tried to read the text on the monitor but it wasn't English or any language she ever knew or could remember. It resembled Cyrillic letters she thought as she strained to read it, unsuccessfully, for several seconds. She lay back down, the pain surging. She noticed the tall man staring at her intently.

"How are you feeling? We didn't think you'd ever awaken you know…" He said in the most heavy Russian accent she'd ever heard.

She had so many questions at that point. Where was she? How'd she get here? Why did they refer to her as 'Project Fox'? Why did she hurt so bad? Who even was she?

"I'm…a little dizzy. And it hurts if I try to move too much." She hesitated before going on, studying the mans ugly face gazing at her. "Where…am I?"

The man shot a glance to the dark haired woman who first spoke when she first opened her eyes. She saw her nod.

"On an undisclosed remote facility in Katrovozh. You've been asleep for quite some time… We were beginning to think we should just put you out of your misery… But we gave you more time to see if the saying held true."

"What saying?"

"That legends never die."

"What do you mean? I don't understand. Legends?"

"Oh, just an old Russian saying passed down in my family for generations. It's nothing more."

"But…How did I get here? I don't…remember anything…" She tried to search her brain.

"Ah… yes amnesia is quite common after traumatic events and accidents. It may take some time to regain your memory again… If you even want to… Not that you could really go back to the life you once had."

"What do you mean? I want to know everything. Tell me!" She demanded, finding strength from a body that felt foreign yet still attached to her.

The man sighed. "You may not like all you're about to hear…"

Suddenly the woman interrupted with something in Russian. After a few seconds, the man shook his head and replied to her. "Requiescat in Pace." He announced after his piece in Russian.

"What the…"

"Don't worry about it… I daresay you're better off not knowing. Anyway… We found you in the rubble of old London… Everything was a mess, chaos everywhere. It was a couple days later, we had a different purpose for being there but we quickly abandoned it after we found you. I know what you might be thinking, but the Alliance didn't send us out or anything, we're not affiliated with them at all, I can promise you that much. You can rest assured when we pried your broken limp body from the wreckage, we were sure to make off back to our remote facility as soon as possible before anyone had realized what had happened. To this day, us three are the only ones you know you're still among the living."

"The…Alliance? L…London? Why was I in London?"

"Maybe this will help bring back your memory." He said as he lifted a shiny silver dog-tag out of his pocket and held it out to her. "We found this around your neck."

She reached out and grasped it in her hands as much as her body would allow. It hurt so much to move. Like all her veins were solid rock. She turned it around in her hand. It was full of scratches and an odd id number on the back. There were 2 big white letters next to a small patch of red on a black background on on side.

'What is N7?' She turned it over and there was a name engraved in the silver metal in small text.

"Stella…Shepard?"

The man nodded solemnly.

"It was yours… Before your accident. A couple pieces of large debris were shoved aside and suddenly…we saw that shining in the reflection of the sun from your neck on the ground. That's how we knew who you were. Your body was so mangled it was nearly impossible to identify you without it. The woman you used to be…"

Then it hit her. All her memories came back at once, or most of them, the important ones anyways. Her mind flooded with images and sounds of the Normandy, the Citadel, the Counsel, the Reapers, her pilot Joker, Admiral Anderson, her first death and when the Illusive man brought her back to life, Cerberus and her time working for them, the Collectors, and all her old squad members and friends. Were any of them still alive that she didn't know about? Might they have survived? It was like deja vú, only she knew it was real. She suddenly felt sick.

'Will I ever see any of them again? No…of course not…I'm dead…again. I can't just go searching them out, not that I'll ever find any of them again anyway, and let them know I'm back from the dead again… That's not fair for anyone to go through. As nice as it would be to see them, it doesn't change the fact that I'm probably presumed clinically dead and seeing me now would only go to further prove that I'm a living ghost. They'd probably call me a fake. And besides… I need to move on, I know they have by now… As much as it hurts… I lost everything that day. And I can't tell anyone…cause they would never understand. And perhaps the worst part of that is that I'll never get the chance to tell a certain someone else that they lost everything too…'

She couldn't bring herself to say their names…Maybe she didn't want to…trying to recall hurt too much…more than she thought it should.

"H-How long…was I…sleeping?"

A long pause of silence passed.

"Today is October 28th…2187."

Stella gasped.

"I've…"

"You've been in a coma for a year 4 months and 12 days. We were starting to believe you wouldn't pull through. You were in pretty bad shape when we found you. Both your legs broken in five places each, eight of your ribs shattered, your right arm fractured and twisted around in the opposite direction. Half your pelvis fractured and both your kneecaps shattered. A deep open wound in your lower stomach seeping blood. Multiple bloody cuts on your face, and everywhere from your neck to your feet. You were lying in a pool of your own blood. Oh, trust me, it was bad. I honestly didn't think you'd make it. We did everything we could to heal you. By now your body has healed most of the worst of it, and what remains is a collection of scars and pieces of metal holding some of your bones together. Luckily your helmet protected your face for the most part so there was no need to do any major plastic surgery but your body suffered the worst of it." He paused as her mouth dropped and her eyes went wide. "You may not have died that day truly… but to the world you did. In other words… You don't exist anymore."

"It's been… so long…Have I really been out that long?"

"No doubt it'll be hard to get used to and adjust… But in time I'm pretty sure you'll walk again and be able to live a relatively normal life… Under a disguise and alias as well."

"Would someone really be able to recognize me after all this time?"

"Maybe not everyone, but there will be some. You've become something of an idol and a hero since that day you destroyed those things. You can never be who you once were. The world would go mad, hunt you down, kill you perhaps. You are never to speak of you truly are…to no one! That is why we have prepared the name and papers of a certain 'Shauna Windsley' for you to bear. Also we have specially made eye altering black contacts to hide your lovely green eyes as well as ordered this long black wig to conceal your hair of fire."

The dark haired woman opened a medical cabinet and brought out a bag. She rustled through it and laid out a green and white contacts capsule and then pulled out a combed shoulder-length black as night wig. She turned around and scribbled on a clipboard before removing the page and setting it down beside the other contents in front of her. Stella took it all in disbelief. She couldn't believe what was happening, what had happened. She darted her eyes from the forged birth certificate to the pieces of her new facial armor and back over them again. Could she really do this? Live her life as an ordinary nobody? Did she really have any other choice?

'I guess it wouldn't be too bad…A normal life is all I've really wanted from the beginning. Shauna isn't a bad name either, it's not that much different from my real one. I guess…the only way for me to live now is to be someone else…'

"I wouldn't have to live here, in Russia would I? I don't even recognize the location you told me."

"Not at all. We could send you back home to Canada if you wished… After you learned how to walk again and regained full control of your body. Where is it you're from again?"

"I grew up in Victoria, British Columbia… That's where my parents are buried… I'd really like to go back there again when I'm able."

"That much I can grant to you, Shauna. Also, I have no doubt you will develop some form of chronic panic attacks or PTSD when this is all over or when you think it is. You must tell them you were in a catastrophic car accident and barely made it out alive. I have spent over a year planning a lie for you to tell and become to protect you from the world. It is the only way left to you. You understand, no?"

She sighed and nodded glumly.

'Maybe it won't be all that bad… I'll be back in Canada… And I'll have a chance to start anew…without anything holding me down from before. If I have do this…to really become someone else to be me…maybe I could finally do what I've always wanted to do, what I never got to do before joining the Alliance…'

"Do you by chance have a tablet I could use to check what's going on the world? There's a few things I need to find out."

"Here, you can use this." The mysterious dark haired woman handed her a data pad.

"Are you hungry at all? You haven't eaten solid food since before this whole ordeal. A bite to eat might help clear your mind." The man said in his broken English as he gestured towards the door of the room.

"Anything you have is fine."

The strange man nodded as he followed his helper out of the room and she heard the door latch shut behind them. Shepard waited for a few minutes till their footsteps were out of earshot to make sure they weren't listening nearby. Despite all they had told her and done for her, she still didn't think she could trust them completely. Her dog-tag was still lying on the tray in front of her so she slipped the chain around her neck and fastened the clasp. She made sure to tuck it underneath her clothes so as to keep it out of view and have one last memento of who she once was. No doubt there would be many other look-a-like fake tags posing as her own she might run into. There was no mistaking hers as the real one though. All you had to do was notice the unique soldier ID in extremely tiny letters on the back. No one else had ever seen her tag before it got made, nor after for that matter, and would not be able to replicate it as it was.

'I will never forget who I really am… No matter what happens. I'll live a lie to the outside… But I'll never truly lie to myself. If this is how it has to be then…so be it.'

She looked at her reflection in the glare of the light on the data pad and nearly fainted. Except for a few minor scars on her forehead, her face looked almost exactly the same as she remembered it before. Her hair was still kissed by fire, only longer as it fell a bit past her shoulders. Her eyes still sparkled that faint green when she looked deep within them. The face she had always known, the one she remembered stared straight back at her. She let out a little gasp, followed by a series of deep breaths to calm herself. She couldn't have a panic attack, no, not now, not when she still had stuff to find out before she knocked back out for the day. The pain was growing less intense, getting a little better the more she moved different parts of her body. She worked up a bit of courage to try on her new wig and stick the fresh lenses in her eyes after a few moments. The woman who stared back at her from under her new disguise was completely unknown to her.

'How could changing my hair and eyes like this make so much of a difference in how I look? I had no idea it would be this effective… There's no chance in hell anyone who ever knew me would know me like this… All I have to do is alter my voice a bit and change the way I talk and…wow I can really pull this off… This might even be kind of fun.'

Before wasting any more time since she felt suddenly very tired, she went to work on what she desperately wanted to know that no one could answer for her. She turned on the tablet and searched for all the names that were confirmed KIA from the day of the reaper destruction. The names seemed to go on forever, most of whom she had never known, and the only names she knew for sure had died that day were on the list. A flutter of hope bloomed in her heart. Next she looked through all the MIAs hoping to find the same result. She gasped when she saw her own name on the list, even though she knew it would be. Although next to her name in parentheses, were the words 'Presumed KIA', which seemed only unique to hers. As much as she hated to see her name on there this way, in a way it delighted her. It would be much easier for her if the world already assumed she was dead. Near the end of the list she breathed a sigh of relief. None of her former squad mates names were on either list. Her heart leapt. That meant that there was a good chance they all survived. That fact comforted her as she drifted in and out of sleep.

'They all survived… They're all still out there somewhere…They did it. Maybe I wasn't such an awful commander after all…' Stella smiled happily as her eyes grew too heavy to stay awake.