It was over. Relief and boiling anger mixed inside Shepard as he stared at the hole in the clouds where the Collector ship had been.

The mechanic, Delan, had apparently decided to risk it after hearing the Collector ship blast off, and began raging at the heavens and at Shepard as he realized what the Collectors had taken.

"Commander Shepard, Captain of the Normandy," came a voice Shepard had longed to hear since waking up on Lazarus station, and his heart leapt up as he laid his eyes on Ashley Williams, the woman he loved, and who had spent the last two years thinking he had died forever. "The first human Spectre. Savior of the Citadel. You're in the presence of a god, Delan. Back from the dead."

"All the good people we lost, and you get left behind," Delan groused at the ops chief. "Figures. Screw this. I'm done with you Alliance types." He walked off while Shepard tried not to make a fist at the obnoxious know-nothing's retreating back. Then Ash stepped forward and hugged him, and he forgot the mechanic immediately.

"I thought you were dead, Commander," she murmured. "We all did."

He held the embrace a moment longer, then released her and stepped back. "You don't sound to happy to see me, Ash," he observed. "Something bothering you?"

"Yeah, something's bothering me," she replied, and he kicked himself mentally as the relief in her voice turned to stress and anger. "I spent the last two years believing you were dead. We had something, Shepard. Something real. I—I loved you. I thought you were dead. I almost—why did you put me through that? Why didn't you try to contact me? Why didn't you let me know you were alive?"

"It wasn't my choice," Shepard answered, as apologetically as he could. "I was in some sort of coma for two years after Alchera, and I've spent the last few days putting together a team to take down the Collectors. No one would tell me how to reach you, but I could use someone else I trust watching my back."

"You have to admit, Ash, we made a good team," Garrus chimed in.

Ash's gaze flicked over to the turian, and she sighed. "I don't know, Skipper. You talk a good game, but I need to know more. There have been reports that Cerberus might be behind these attacks, and that you were working for them. And now here we are."

"I'm not working for Cerberus, Ash," Shepard promised. Then he frowned, and added, "But I bet I can tell you where those reports came from. I got an email from Anderson asking me to meet him before I'd been seen by anyone but Tali and a traumatized quarian pilgrim. Cerberus brought me back to life, and they gave me a ship and important intel, but the Council trusted me enough to reinstate me as a Spectre—I'm still working for them, just doing it on the Illusive Man's dime. He's not the only one who'll want a report after this, though."

Ashley's eyes narrowed. "The Illusive Man. So you are working for Cerberus."

"Not for, Ash, with," Garrus argued. "Is Cerberus up to things we aren't aware of? Almost certainly. But we are going after the Collectors, and most of the crew—Joker, Karin, the engineering team—are only on board for the chance to fight for Shepard and against the Reapers. We've even got a salarian scientist on the team, and Grunt here," he gestured at the krogan with his rifle, "wasn't exactly the creation of human supremacists."

"That said, I don't trust my whole crew," Shepard continued, "and I sure as hell don't trust the Illusive Man. I need you, Ash. I couldn't fight Saren alone and I can't pull this off by myself. And when things do come to a head with Cerberus, it would mean a whole lot to me to have my old team there—to have you there. You can call Anderson from the Normandy and tell him you've joined the team, Spectre authorization."

"Spectre, huh?"

Shepard nodded. "As long as I stick to the Terminus systems."

Ash nodded and tilted her head. "There lies the port; the vessel puffs her sail— / There gloom the dark, broad seas."

"Push off," Shepard quoted back, "and sitting well in order smite / The sounding furrows, for my purpose holds / To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths / Of all the western stars, until I die."

Ash's face broke into a broad smile. "O Captain! my Captain!" she whispered, stepping forward to embrace Shepard once again.

He smiled and hugged her back, answering softly, "I survived Saren. Hell, I survived dying. You aren't getting rid of me that easily, Ash."

"Wouldn't have it any other way, Skipper," she shot back, letting go to cuff him lightly on the shoulder. "Now, let's get to work chasing down those four-eyed alien bastards. Plus, I need to make a call."

Shepard put a hand to his helmet and activated his comm. "Joker, tell the shuttle to come pick us up. We've done all we can here."

A/N: I've played through ME2 a couple times and done a near-complete run of 3, keeping Kaidan alive every time. I finally played ME1 for the dual purposes of saving Kirrahe and romancing Ash, and Ash/Shep is now my favorite ME pairing. That plus Horizon being the biggest railroad in the series until the very final end of 3 inspired this scene, where no extra-universal intruders or other alterations to the universe are necessary to make those two poor communicators (plus Garrus, who is no help in canon) get their act together.