Hi there. To expand on the summary, this story is follows Commander Rory Shepard, Colonist/Sole Survivor/Infiltrator. For some background info, she romanced Liara and stayed loyal, and she is mostly Paragon but definitely has her Renegade moments (don't we all). Even though they were very close friends, she had to leave Kaidan behind on Virmire, which in my headcanon, was something my Shep struggled with immensely throughout the series. Finally the (probably) most important thing you need to know before reading this, is that this is a Destroy ending fic. I try to follow the canon as much as possible, but there are a few tweaks I made concerning the extent of the Mass Relay damage.

If I make any mistakes feel free to let me know, I always enjoy getting any kinds of comments/criticisms you might have. Well I guess all there is left to say is thanks for reading and I hope you enjoy :)...I should go.

Unfinished Parts: Prologue

"Ma'am, I don't think we're going to find anything up here. I mean look at the place, its a shit hole."

Miranda Lawson bit her tongue to keep herself from yelling at the Alliance marine. She didn't take her eyes off her omnitool as she made her way through more rubble. "Keep looking."

"But-"

"I said keep looking." she snapped at the marine, finally turning to look at him. "I believe Hackett's orders were perfectly clear. You are under my command for this mission, so when I say keep looking, you fucking do it."

The marine, who's name tag read "Gatlin", stared at the ex-cerberus officer blankly before looking back to his omnitool. "Yes, Ma'am." he replied quietly before resuming his work.

Miranda took a deep breath before looking over the vast piles of rubble her and a team of 300 plus alliance marines, complete with shuttles and mechs, were in the process of sifting through. It was hard to believe that just a day ago this pile of crap used to be the Citadel, the center of galactic civilization. All along it was their missing piece to defeating the reapers, and less than twelve hours ago the whole puzzle came together. An unexplainable red light emerged from the Citadel and came pulsing through the universe. And in it's wake it brought the reapers down, as well as destroying most of the Citadel, disarming the Mass Relays, and as far as they knew shut down the Geth.

She didn't know whether the changes were permanent or not. She received her orders almost seven hours ago from Admiral Hackett to shuttle up to the wreckage of the Citadel with a team. She had one goal: find Commander Shepard.

Earlier she had been quite confused when she was told she had an urgent and classified message from the head of the Alliance military. She was afraid Hackett may have found out about her having access to their resources to save her sister, or perhaps he needed someone to convict for the crimes Cerberus had committed over the years. It was a completely illogical place for her mind to go, considering it was just hours after the Reapers had been destroyed, and everyone was in the midst of a celebration. But even after all been through with Shepard, her first instinct was to distrust the Alliance.

Earlier...

Miranda was still with her team of ex-Cerberus personnel on Earth in the midst of helping transport the wounded when she answered the call.

"Ms. Lawson." Hackett greeted her through an omni-tool connection.

"Admiral Hackett?" she answered in a quizzical tone.

"I know this may strike you as odd, but it seems I have an assignment for you."

"What kind of assignment?"

"We can't find Shepard." Hackett replied quietly, as if he could barely bring himself to say it out loud.

Miranda's heart sank as she struggled to find the words to respond. Miranda realized she had not even stopped to think about where Shepard was. When she saw that the Crucible had been a success and the Reapers were destroyed, she assumed Shepard would be on her way back to Earth, Normandy crew in tow. She had been so busy with her own crew's safety and care she hadn't even begun to think about-she couldn't be missing, she was Commander Shepard.

"Last known location?" Miranda quickly brought herself back to reality. The Admiral took her question as confirmation of her acceptance of the task.

"The Citadel, we believe somewhere near the Presidium...God I guess it's not even there anymore after the blast." he cleared his throat. "The last signal I had from Shepard was somewhere near where we docked the Crucible before it fired. After that any signals from the Citadel went blank."

"Don't you have a team to send up there?" Miranda asked. She didn't doubt his capabilities, she was just extremely curious as to why he contacted her.

"We have sent two teams up there already to analyze what we are working with." Hackett explained. "The Citadel is heavily damaged, and they are working to rescue any civilians possible. The location that took the most damage seems to be very close to where we last had Shepard's signal."

"Could she be with the Normandy?"

"Not likely, The Normandy had orders to vacate the Sol system in fear of the unknown reaction of the Crucible. We still had a signal from Shepard while the Normandy was evacuating. Unfortunately I cannot know for sure...we've lost communication with ships outside of the system. An unfortunate consequence of the Mass Relays being disabled from the Crucible firing."

"The relays are damaged? How severe?" Miranda had heard chatter of the relay's utter destruction, but did not want to believe it.

"There's no way to know for sure at this moment. We've got a team on it, but for now I'd like to focus on locating the Commander."

"Of course, what do you need from me?"

"There will be a shuttle picking you up shortly. I'll forward what we know to your omni-tool. The entire search team will be under your command." Hackett explained.

"My command?"

"Yes, your command Ms. Lawson." Hackett confirmed. "I understand you're a bit of an expert when it comes to keeping Shepard alive."

Miranda smiled. "Well I guess there is no denying that."

"Now get up there and find her." she could sense the desperation in his voice.

"I'll do everything in my power to locate Shepard sir."

"Hackett out."

Now here she was amidst the devastation of the Citadel cursing herself for not putting a god damn tracking chip in Shepard during Project Lazarus. Her only hope was that they found the Commander in better shape then they had almost 3 years ago. A partially in-tact body would be nice this time, but knowing the Commander she wouldn't let Miranda get by without a challenge.

She would have smiled thinking about her friend if she wasn't currently sifting through wreckage to find her body. Walking over piles of unidentifiable rocks Miranda kept track of the data feeds and readings sent to her by the alliance team, while also searching manually through rubble herself. She wouldn't give up until she found Shepard...but she was starting to feel increasingly desperate as the hours passed by. And if there was one thing Miranda Lawson hated feeling it was desperation.

"Ma'am!" The now familiar and increasingly irritating voice of Gatlin called from behind her. Miranda's patience was wearing very, very thin.

"Sergeant Gatlin if you do not want to continue searching through this 'shit hole' then I suggest you either keep those thoughts to yourself or you can catch the next shuttle back to Earth. And good luck trying to explain to Admiral Hackett why you just can't bring yourself to continue searching for the savior of the galaxy."

"No ma'am, that's not it."

"Then what is it?"

"I think we found her."