A New Beginning

Tick-tock, tick-tock. "Come on how much longer till they call my name? I want to be out of here already!" thought Jennifer Shepard as she glared at the clock, anxious to be done with her last day of high school ever. She was also eagerly awaiting the six month break she had before she was set to ship out for boot camp.

"Jennifer Shepard," the Dean finally proclaimed. "Congratulations on graduating college."

"Finally free. At least for a while." thought Shepard as she joined the steadily growing herd of college graduates on their way out of the school, some of which would, like her head into a career in the Alliance. The pleasant mood she was in was only slightly dampened by the fact that she had to walk home, since her bike was in the shop and now she would have to walk all the way.

Since she really wanted to start off her little holiday she decided to take a shortcut through a not-so-nice neighborhood and through the old abandon warehouse district. As she was walking along, she noticed a girl- maybe two or three years older than her- staggering out of one of said abandoned warehouses.

"Why are there so many drunks nowadays?" she thought.

At least until said girl turned to her and Shepard noticed she was bleeding form what looked like very large bullet holes near her heart and in her gut, and then Shepard realized that the warehouse was one of the ones that a recently closed down cryogenics company used to own.

"Please help me!" yelled the girl before she collapsed on the floor, passed out from blood loss. Shepard rushed over and dragged the girl, who was heavier than she looked, into some nearby shade. She then called her best-friend, Alex, to come and help her while she started to put some medigel on the wounds.

Two minutes later Shepard's best friend, Alex, pulls up in the skycar he got for his birthday 3 months ago. Shepard threw open the back door and got the girl in the car. "Drive! And you better drive fast"

"To where?" Alex asked

"Where do you think? The hospital idiot this girl is dying so floor it!"

"You got it I'll get us there in 15 minutes, that's the best I can do legally!" he hollered while he zoomed into traffic.

"Who said anything about legal? We need to get there before she dies, not after. We can explain to the cops when we get there, I called you because I knew you could get there fast without crashing, and because you're the best dam driver this side of omega. Besides you still own me for saving you from those 3 guys trying to kick your ass 2 weeks ago." She yelled back.

"Dammit, sometimes I wish I never told you that I do some street racing, and too be fair if it was a one-on-one I would have beaten any of them. Fine, but if I get a ticket you're paying for it!" He growled, as he slammed his foot down on the accelerator.

Shepard ran into the hospital carrying the mystery girl fireman style, while Alex stayed outside, trying to calm down the five police officers they'd picked up in the race there. "I need a doctor over here quickly!" yelled Shepard. When a nurse came over, she gave the girl over to the professionals, who promptly placed her on a nearby hover gurney. When Shepard tried to follow, a blond nurse stopped her and said, "Miss, I'm afraid I'll have to ask you to stay out here."

With a sigh, Shepard went outside to help Alex calm down the cops, who looked about ready to put the cuffs on Alex. "Officers we are extremely sorry that we were speeding, but we were trying to save a girl's life."

"So we have been told miss but breaking the law is still breaking the law." Said the first officer, a very serious looking man, and a Sargent according to his rank, who looked like he was having a bad day.

"Aw come on Kyle, their just young kids trying to help, if you ask me we should be rewarding them for their heroics." Said his partner, who looked to be around Shepard's age and seemed a lot more laid back than the Sargent.

"Fine, I'll let you kids off with a warning, but don't let me hear about any of this kind of thing again or I won't be so lenient" and with that they all proceeded to the police station to give their statement on both the high speed chase they were just in as well as the discovery of the mystery girl.

After a long time at the station, Shepard decided to go see if the girl was okay. All she needed was a ride there. "So Alex you want to drive me back to the hospital?"

"No, oh hell no. I'm not going to be driven you anywhere you already almost got me arrested once today."

"Oh come on you did not get arrested and there is no urgency this time so you won't need to speed there at all. Plus don't you want to know what happened to the girl we saved?" Shepard said practically begging him.

"Oh, fine." Said Alex. "But I'm not going anywhere near over the speed limit!"

"Thank you and you won't have to."

15 minutes later at the Hospital

"Thanks again for the lift Alex." Shepard said as she got out of the car.

"Yeah don't mention it and for the love of god try not to get in trouble please."

"No promises" Shepard said laughingly, as she walked into the hospital and ran right into the nurse from earlier.

"Oh sorry about that miss. Hey, you're the girl that brought in the bullet wound patient, aren't you?" asked the nurse.

"Yes that was me. How is she?"

"Well, the surgery was touch and go for a few minutes there, she's now stable, and will probably wake up soon."

"Could I see her?" asked Shepard, curious about the girl.

"It's technically against the rules for anyone other than family to visit for the first few hours." the nurse said, sounding sorry, but after a moment said, "But since her DNA says she's from about one-hundred-fifty years ago, I guess you- being the person that saved her- are probably the closest living thing she has to family. It should be fine. She's in room 205."

"Thanks." Shepard said as she walked to the room. When she got there, she sat in one of the chairs and waited for the strange girl to regain consciousness.

1 hour later OC POV

The girl's eyes slowly fluttered open, and she squinted against the harsh light of the hospital till she got used to it.

"Oh good your awake. How do you feel?" asked Shepard who was sitting to her right.

She turned her head toward Shepard and gave her a once over with eyes that seemed to miss nothing. "Not too bad." She replied "Hey aren't you the girl form earlier? The one from the warehouses?"

"Yep that was me" said Shepard. "So the nurse tells me that you are from 150 years ago, but she wouldn't tell me your name. If you don't mind would you tell me?"

Since the girl saw no reason to lie to her, after all she had saved her life she told her. "Sure, it's Yudi Vaim."

"Wait, as in THE Yudi Vaim? The first female Navy SEAL? That Yudi Vaim?" Shepard's gaze turning from plain curiosity to intense respect.

"The very one." Said Yudi wearily, wondering how this girl knew information that was supposed to be highly classified. "What year is it?"

"2178" She replied. "You've been missing for almost a century and a half."

Yudi whistled in surprise, the number of years only just now registering. "That long? It took that long to get tech that could fix me up?"

"No we have had the tech for a while but the Cryo Company you had a contract with was corrupt and never bothered waking you and was also closed a few months ago." Shepard replied.

"Damm I would pick the corrupt company." Said Yudi chuckling. "My luck hasn't exactly been good the last few months before I was shot."

"Yeah about that, if you don't mind me asking, how did you get shot? From what I learned the SEALs were an elite stealth group."

"I'm not sure whether I can tell you that. I might already have broken protocol by telling you my name." Yudi replied apologetically.

"Well I assume they wouldn't mind considering that the SEALs program was shut down three decades ago." Shepard said

"What!? They closed it down?" Yudi Exclaimed completely shocked.

"Well not so much as closed down as they were renamed." Said Shepard quickly to calm her down and lower her blood pressure. Almost everything was renamed after the First Contact War. With all of earth now being one people in the Galactic community we couldn't have a America only military group, so our military is now called the Alliance, and we renamed all the spec-ops groups too."

"Then what are the SEALs called now and how do I get in?"

"Well first off you can't apply you have to be picked by the council. Now and days the SPECTREs an intergalactic group, and the closest thing we have to it is the N7 Marines. I'm joining them soon and I am sure they would jump on the chance to have a SEAL in their ranks."

"Well looks like I'm going back to boot camp."

"It might be better to get through physical therapy first" Said Shepard laughingly

AN: hey guys this is my first fic ever. thanks much to cthulu1 for encouraging me to try my hand at writing and for Betaing for me. now unfortunately I don't usually have a lot of time on my hands so this story probably wont have an update every week, but I will set my goal to at least 1 update every 2 weeks. hope you all enjoy the fic and remember reviews make me happy.