-The Citadel-

Don't get romantically involved. That had always been Shepard's rule, from the very beginning. Don't get romantically involved with the crew. It caused unnecessary drama. And she broke her own rule on her very first journey as a commander. She couldn't help it, really. When she met Liara...it was like nothing else she'd ever felt before. Before she really had a chance to do anything about it, she fell for the young Asari doctor...and Liara fell in love with her, too. The things you thought, as you were about to die...in life itself it was probably no longer than a second.

The sound of the gunshots, the look of determination on her face as she stepped towards the generator. This would destroy the reapers. It would save Earth, and the fleets fighting there. More importantly...it would save Liara. Everything she'd worked for, everything she'd done up to this point...it had all been for her. If it hadn't been for Liara, she would've lost it all a long time ago. She wouldn't have made it here, to the Catalyst.

The generator started to spark and explode, flames erupting up from it as Shepard closed her eyes and let the flames consume her, her last thoughts going to her girlfriend. I love you Liara...

-The Normandy-

"The Crucible is armed. All fleets retreat." The fleets left the system one by one, all except the Normandy. On board Joker was switching between channels, searching for any sign. Any hint. Anything, to signal Shepard...and then Ashley gently placed a hand on his shoulder, shaking her head. "We gotta go."

Joker looked at the control panel, sighing before he made a fist, slamming it into the control panel. "Damn it." He made the jump out of the system, at the very last minute. The sound of the Crucible firing echoed behind them, and he struggled to keep control as they continued.

The Normandy traveled through the deepest parts of the Milky Way, testing it's very limits as Joker frantically tapped away on the controls, shutting off safety defaults and several alerts as the ship started to hiss and spark, the energy surge from The Crucible easily keeping pace with them. The engines short circuited and shutdown as the beam caught up with them, Edi shutting offline and the ship crash-landed on some planet in the middle of nowhere.

Joker stumbled out of the smoking Normandy, examining it before he shook his head. The ship was damaged, but he could fix it. Quite easily, actually. He turned towards the sunset then, stepping towards it to examine the sky, without a sign of Reapers in the area as he forced a bitter smile. "She did it...the Reapers...they're gone. She did it." He turned to his left then, Liara standing beside him as she looked at the sky herself, tears running down her face as she looked up at the sky.

There was only one thought running through the Asari's head, making her feel numb in ways she couldn't explain. 'My Shepard is gone. My Shepard...dead. She sacrificed her life to stop the Reapers...' The Asari tore her eyes away from the view, her eyes full of pain as she started to walk away from the rest of the crew, trying to keep herself under control.

"Liara..." She heard Ashley's voice, and the sound of her starting towards her before Joker interrupted her.

"No. Let her go Ashley. She needs time to deal with..." Joker's voice faded away as she got further and further away from the others, until she finally couldn't take it anymore. She just slumped down, her vision blurring with tears as she sat at the base of a tree in the jungle, her thoughts overtaking her.

"My Shepard..." Liara looked up at the sky, tears running down her cheeks as she watched the stars start to come out, scanning the horizon for...something. Anything. She didn't know how long she'd been sitting there when someone took a seat beside her, the Spectre sighing before she spoke softly.

"Liara...she did it. She stopped them. Saved us. All of us. The entire galaxy...and she did it knowing she'd have to die...but she did it because she loved you. Because she wanted you to be happy. To survive. She would want you to be happy." Liara looked away from her, saying nothing as she felt the tears in her eyes once more, finally finding the strength to speak.

"I never should've left her...I should've stayed at her side. Should've gone with her..." Liara looked down now, feeling something she couldn't explain. "This is the second time I've lost her...and this time...she won't be back."

"Hey now. You don't know that. Shepard came back from the dead once. She might do it again. We put up a hell of a fight against the Reapers. We united the entire galaxy to stand against them. I doubt there's ever been an army the size of what we brought together that day. If there was a chance she survived...she did. She'd do anything to come back to you Liara. Anything." The Lieutenant Commander stood up then, pausing to look at Liara. "I've gotta get back to the others now. You should come too. They're worried about you Liara."

Liara said nothing as she watched Ashley leave, considering her words before she looked back up at the stars, now feeling hope. It might have been a very small chance...but it was a chance. I will find you Shepard...I promise...and I'll never leave you again. The Asari smiled, standing up before she turned towards the Normandy and started back towards the others. They had a ship to repair, and the sooner the better.

They couldn't exactly find Shepard while they were stranded on the planet.

-Cronos Station-

The station was a ruined mess, left behind after Shepard's battle with Kai Leng. The station had been steadily losing power, and was now running on backup generators. Entire sections of the base were dark and uninhabitable, no power supporting them. The base had been designed to focus solely on keeping the Illusive Man's control room running, at all costs. Even that was running out of power now, the AI running the base having been destroyed by the Crucible's energy.

And yet oddly enough...it wasn't the only thing in the relay. There was a fleet of ships as well, nothing near the size of the fleets that had been at the battle for Earth, but a fleet nonetheless. They had made the jump before the relays had been destroyed, and they had even intended to dock on the base. Now...that wasn't an option. They were barely keeping they're own ships up and running, having every able-bodied man and woman working to keep the ship online.

They had to manually go in and rewrite the very code itself, all their AI's mysteriously shutting off after the Crucible fired.

A man stood at the top of one of the larger ships, looking out through a window down at some of the other people running around, shaking his head as he turned to his desk, an odd symbol on emblazoned on his chest. "I can't believe it. Months of planning, and the perfect opportunity wasted, and all because of some god damned weapon used against the Reapers." The man shook his head in annoyance, sighing as he shuffled through some papers on his desk.

At first, Shepard attacking the Cerberus base had worked out in their favor. They'd been trying to figure out how to raid the base for what seemed like ages, and then Shepard launched her own attack. Their inside agents had told them that the base was in ruins after the attack, and Cerberus was starting to evacuate. Admiral Alexander May saw his chance and took it, ordering Exodus to make the jump to the dying system, and they arrived just in time.

Not even five full minutes after they arrived, the Crucible fired and destroyed the relays and all synthetics with it. For a few moments, their fleet had gone dark. But Alexander had studied the Crucible and it's designs, knew what it was meant to do, and what it was more likely to do. The moment the ship had started to fail and all the AI's went dark, he had his engineers working to repair it. Within the hour they had them up and running, or well enough that life support wouldn't fail.

Alexander pressed a button on the control panel, speaking into the ship's intercoms as he did. "This is Admiral May speaking. All Exodus soldiers are to report to the briefing room. All engineers are required to stay at their posts for the next forty-eight hours while we figure out just what went wrong. Alexander out." He walked towards the door then, opening it as he exited and a woman stood up outside the door, saluting.

"Admiral." Alexander paused for a moment as he looked the woman up and down, remembering the day he rescued her from a group of slavers. She hadn't been the only one imprisoned but he'd had no choice. He only had time enough to rescue one of them, and he'd saved her. Luckily enough though...the kid's twin sister had been saved too. By the alliance. And she'd grown up to become one of the most important human commanders in history...

"At ease...Shepard. We'd better go now. We have a long day ahead of us, and the fact that we have to practically rebuild the base doesn't help." The commander nodded as she followed suit after Alexander, none the wiser that the great Commander Shepard was her fraternal twin.