It was a beautiful service. Upon a hill on Earth. Buried on his home planet, of course. Wouldn't want it any other way. It was just how a Lieutenant Commander's funeral should be. The whole twenty one gun salute, and everything. John Shepard was laid to rest that day in front of a large gathering of friends and comrades. He was dead. He had died a hero. Perhaps the greatest hero that the galaxy had seen in some time. He'd saved the Citadel and the Council alongside it, giving his life in the process, as well as taking Saren's. He exchanged his life to give the galaxy a chance, and for that, he'd go down in history.
His knowledge of the Reapers, however, was buried with him. None of his companions had the information that he had had, nor the ability to do anything about it. So that was it, it seemed. Whatever happened, would happen. Shepard was honoured by the Council, but his wishes were not. They still lacked confidence in his Reaper theory. It seemed nothing could be done to change that.
It had been a month since the battle of the citadel. It had taken a while for the funeral to be organised, and the body to be transported home, what with all the clean-up work following Sovereign's attack. Since then, the Normandy had been handed over to another Captain, and only the human crew members remained. The Aliens were told to leave. So they left.
Wrex disappeared off in to the galaxy. Word had it he was back to his old mercenary work. Others said he'd returned to his homeworld to finally follow Shepard's advice and help his race. Nobody really knew. Nobody could find him and tell him when or where Shepard's funeral was. Yet he could still be seen observing from a distance on the day it happened.
Garrus had gone to Omega, where he'd apparently been involving himself in low-scale vigilante work. Knocking a few heads for the greater good, earning himself some credits in the process. Win win, from his perspective.
Tali had a lot of problems. She didn't have anything to show for her pilgrimage, and even if she did, she had no money, or friends, now that she was cut off from the crew of the Normandy. She ended up worse than she had been beforehand, as the Alliance took all research from her before they kicked her off. She ended up on the Citadel, doing cheap Engineering jobs in an attempt to raise enough funds to be able to find a suitable gift for her pilgrimage. She didn't ask anyone for help at the funeral though. She felt she needed to earn it herself, even though she'd been robbed by the Alliance.
Liara had returned to her research work, resuming her life of travel through the galaxy in search of Prothean ruins to add to her now fairly deep knowledge of them.
None of them really maintained contact, other than the odd message to eachother, which was odd, as they all considered eachother great friends after everything they had been through together. It seemed that without Shepard, the centrepiece, it would not work.
That was the last day that they were all together - Ashley, Tali, Wrex, Liara and Garrus... and, in a way, Shepard, too.
But Shepard was gone. And the Reapers were still coming. But nothing could be done to remedy that. So it seemed.