This story is based on my first, and still favorite play through of the Mass Effect franchise, which was a Colonist, Ruthless, paragon, female Shepard who decided to destroy the Reapers; though it will have some AU aspects to it as I did not like some of the decisions that were made by Bioware in Mass Effect 3 .

First of all, as we will find out a little bit later in the story the Geth have not been completely destroyed. There are also some pairing that do not appear as canon in the main franchise universe.

I am hoping have this story run for a couple of centuries after the end of the Reaper Invasion, so yes it is going to be a long story; it will follow the lives of Commander Shepard, Liara, their family, and friends. Most of the main (and some not so main) characters from the franchise will make appearances. There are also going to be some new characters which will be created purely for this story.

Vancouver, Earth, Sol System, Milky Way

December, 2186

Two weeks since the end of the Reaper Invasion

The first thing that Adrianna Shepard saw when she woke up was a blurry blue blob sitting next to her curled up in a ball. After a few seconds her vision started to clear, she could tell that she was in a white room. For a second, she wondered if she was dead and she was in heaven. She tried to move her head to look around the room but when she did to a shooting pain shot through her entire body and she cried out in pain.

Okay, she thought, I guess that rules out this being heaven.

This made the blue blob jump up in fright. But, when she saw Adrianna was awake she kissed her and said, "Shepard it is amazing to see you awake."

Shepard recognized the voice; it was the voice of the Asari crew mate and lover, Dr. Liara T'Soni. She tried to say something to Liara, but her throat was so parched that nothing came out.

Liara realized what she was trying to do and said, "Shepard by love try not to talk you have been badly hurt, and are still recovering. Let me try to find the doctor, and get you some water."

Shepard heard Liara get up cross the room to the door, open the door and call for one of the nurses. Shepard's eyesight was improving by the second, and she could make out more of her surroundings. She tried to turn her head again to see more of her surrounding, but when she tried to move she got another sharp jolt of pain down her spinal cord which then radiated throughout her entire body.

She looked down and saw that most of her body was covered in either bandages . She tried to remember what could have happened to her that made her this wounded. But, she could not remember anything that had happened recently. The last thing that she remembered was that her team had made it to the forward base in London, which the resistance had set up. There, she had just joined with Liara and had experienced her lover's entire life, she could not remember the events that had led to her hospitalization.

As she tried to remember Liara came back into the room with a glass of water and said, "here love try to drink this, then we can talk I am sure that you have a lot of questions."

She put the straw to Shepard's lips and Shepard greedily started to suck down all the water until she needed to come up for air. It might have only been water but to Shepard it was ambrosia given how dry her throat was.

After Shepard had finished drinking the water Liara put the cup down on the small table next to the bed and asked. "Now what was it that you wanted to say, love?"

"Where am I," croaked Shepard her throat still dry.

"You are in an Alliance hospital in Vancouver. It has been about two weeks since you destroyed the Reapers. You have been in a coma for the past two weeks, because you were badly injured during the battle and the doctors were afraid to wake you up because of the amount of pain you would have been in, they just took you off the medication ten hours ago. It really is a miracle that you are even alive right now, when they first found you the doctors were not even sure if they were going to be able to save you."

That was what Shepard had forgotten, she had been hit and badly wounded by Harbinger during the final push to the Citadel but somehow managed to get abroad the Citadel where she met the Illusive Man and Admiral Anderson.

The Illusive Man had tried to stop her and Admiral Anderson from destroying the Reapers, because he believed that he could control them. He had killed Admiral Anderson, and then turned the gun on himself when Shepard convinced him that he had been indoctrinated by the Reapers. Then, she had been transported to the Catalyst which was actually the mastermind behind the Reapers; it had explained to her that there were three options.

She could either destroy the Reapers like she had originally intended to do, but it warned that it would only bring about a temporary peace. Or it told her that she could take control of the Reapers, which would mean that she would in essence become the new Catalyst and she could direct the Reapers as she saw fit. This would have stopped the war as the Reapers would have been totally under her control. Or finally. it told her that she could add her energy to the Cruible which would create a synthesis between all organic and inorganic life in the Galaxy.

She had chosen not to take a chance with the Reapers; she did not believe that the Reapers could be trusted so she decided to destroy the Reapers once and for all so they would never be a threat to the galaxy ever again. She also figured that given the lessons that they had learned in the past they could prevent the rise of another race like the Reapers. So she had pulled out her pistol and fired at the Crucible beam releasing the energy trapped within and wiping out all synthetic life in the galaxy.

When the energy was released, when the energy hit her she had experienced the most horrible pain that in her life. It felt like her body was being ripped apart on a molecular level, then she had blacked out and woken up in this bed.

Liara's voice snapped her out of her memories, "Adrianna, love, are you okay? You are crying."

As Liara wiped the tear from her eye Shepard looked at her and asked in a quiet voice, "So, then s it finally over, did we win?"

Liara smiled and said, "Yes, my love you did it, the Reapers have been destroyed, and the galaxy is safe."

Liara turned her head, and Shepard could tell that something had happened that Liara did not want to tell her while she was in the hospital. But, just as Shepherd was about to say something Liara said in a low voice, "All of us survived except EDI was badly damaged somehow when the ship was hit by the Crucible's energy. The Alliance, with the help of Miranda, and some of the old Cerberus techs are looking into it, but they are not sure if they are going to be able to fix her.

Everyone else made it out fine, and they have stopped in from time to time to check in on you. Ashley and I were in the worse shape after we got hit during the final push, but it was nothing that Dr. Chakawas couldn't fix on the Normandy on the way back to earth."

Then, as if she was guessing the question on Shepard's mind she said, "The only damage was that the mass relays were badly damaged by the influx of all of that energy. Through most of the ones between the major systems have been repaired the galaxy still has a long road ahead of it before it is where it was before the invasion."

Shepard could not believe all of the damage that the Crucible had done.

"How long have I been out for," croaked Shepard .

"You have been out for over two weeks, when they found you in the Citadel there was extensive damage to your body, both organic and inorganic. You had burns over 90% of your body. Most of your major bones had been crushed, and you had lost over have of your blood.

The only thing that saved you was the implants that Cerberus used when they brought you back. The Alliance has been working around the clock for the past two weeks to make sure that you did not die. You got very lucky Shepard."

Shepard smiled, she was right; despite the odds she had survived the Reaper invasion. Liara was alive, and there were no more missions to be completed or galaxies to save. She was a truly lucky person, now she could finally for the first time in the past four years take a break from suicide missions and simply live her life with the women that she loved.

Little did Shepard know that the galaxy still had need of a hero and her struggles were far from over yet.

Notes-

Hi Everyone, I hoped that you enjoyed the prologue of my first fanfiction story.

I plan to update the story every week, and I will try to stick to releasing them every Sunday. I know what you are thinking, it is what I always think when authors say something like this, yeah right he is not going to release every week. But, I am going to try to keep to that schedule, unless I mention otherwise the week beforehand. Unfortunately I have to write a couple of more background chapters to introduce all of the plot elements; but the good news is but I already have a rough outline about what I want to accomplish with these, and the updates will be more frequent until I get into the main part of the story.

I am new to this so your comments would be appreciated.