ok, your wait for chapter 7 has ended. Sorry for the Huge break, but I'm not going to say anymore excuses.. maybe one, my 'editer'/ mistake spotter/ brother has gone AWOL so any mistakes he would spot out (misspellings, weird box things caused by switching format, and gramatical errors) please tell me if you spot any so that I may edit them.

An eerie lapse of suspension enveloped the beings aboard the Normandy. The cold blackness of space once again surrounded the frigate. Below deck in the garage madness stirred. Shepard and Walker started to move after being dropped to the floor. Shepard regained her senses, slowly crawling on her hands and knees. Walker, still lying on his back, took off his kevlar helmet with the pistol still in his hands. The two stood up, within a blink of an eye Shepard grabbed Walker's hand, twisted it around her back and disarmed him in one fluent motion. Then she flipped Walker over and slammed his back to the ground.

"Aah! What the hell?! I just-" Walker said right before Shepard punched him in the chest. Walker grabbed Shepard by the arms then flipped her over him to the ground. She hit the metallic floor with a blunt force. Walker tried to subdue Shepard but his efforts were met with a swift elbow to the face.

"God damn it! listen to me!"

Shepard jumped up on her feet and stood in front of Walker.

"The gun shots were all I needed to hear..." Shepard said with anger.

Then She kicked him in the side of the head, knocking off his orange tinted ballistic glasses. Walker fell to the floor with his face down. He moved his hand near his head and clutched the ground trying to get up. Shepard grabbed her pistol from her hip and aimed it at Walker. Gathering his strength, Walker made it to his knees only to look down the barrel of Shepard's gun.

"Don't. Move." Shepard asserted.

Walker sighed, rolling his eyes toward the ceiling. Without hesitation Walker lifted up his right leg and propelled himself forward, tackling Shepard. The pistol flew from her hands as she hit the ground. Walker, noticing he had knocked the wind out of Shepard, grabbed her arms and pined them down with his hands to the floor above her head. With his legs he folded his ankles over both of her knees restricting her from kicking. Walker quickly took off his bandana, trying to get Shepard to understand him.

"Listeną½€ I just sa-"

Out of no where a kick struck Walker in the ribs. He tumbled off Shepard about five feet away. Holding his side, Walker groaned in pain.

"Commanderą½€ are you alright?" Garrus question in confusion.

"I'm fine."

Garrus grabbed Shepard's hand and lifted her up to her feet. Shepard walked over to pick up Walker's pistol.

"Back off E.T." Walker ordered to Garrus with Shepard's pistol pointed at him.

"Don't do anything you're going to hate yourself for later Walker." Shepard said, trying to negotiate with him.

"I've already done a few things." He said under his breath.

"Walker. Don't do this..." Garrus announced cautiously.

"It talks!?" Walker questioned in mass confusion toward Shepard.

Garrus took this chance to run at Walker, gaining momentum, and kicked him straight in the sternum. The gun dropped and Walker again flew backwards, skidding on the metal floor. Walker curled up on the floor due to having suffered two kicks from a Turian's massive legs.

"Shit!...ah! The ribs again!!- Son of a Bitch...!" Walker rambled reeling in pain.

"You alright?" Shepard questioned.

"Agh..No! I'm not alright. I jump into some strange ship to save your life. Get locked in, not knowing where the hell I am. Shortly after I get my ass kicked by an Alien. And still I don't get a 'Thanks'. So yeah... I'm not alright -coughs-"

"I was talking to your 'E.T.'-Wait, saved my life?!" Shepard yelled intriguingly.

"Yes! I would have told you that hadn't you kicked me into oblivion... -cough- There was a guy on the roof aiming at you. I jumped on you to prevent him from shooting. Those three shots were fired at him, not you." He exclaimed gasping for air.

Shepard's eyes widened with regret for ignoring Walker's plea to explain his actions. She wrapped her hand around her forehead, shaking her head in frustration.

"I'm sorry Walker... I jumped the gun on that one." Shepard's voice dimmed.

"It's alright -muffled groan- we're all jumpy." Walker replied staggering to his feet."You mind telling me who your friend is." Walker, still half bent over, lifted up his hand to motion toward Garrus while his other arm cradled his chest.

"This is Garrus. He's a Turian."

"Welcome to the twenty second century." Garrus remarked with a lightened tone.

"Excuse me!?"

"We're back to our place in time?" Shepard questioned.

"Yes Commander, I ran it through with Joker before I came down here."

"... Not good..." Walker growled to himself. The two stood there for a moment to observe Walker's reaction to the news. He paced in a circle rubbing the scruff on his face then moved his finger tips through his short brown hair. He then leaned his head backwards with his arms folded behind his head and his fingered interlaced to support his neck.

"This is every kid's dream. Traveling into the future." Walker gasped.

"You going to be alright? It's a bit shocking for us too." Shepard said with concern.

"Commander, a word with you on the deck." Joker announced over the loud speaker.

"On my way."

Shepard looked at Garrus and nodded, then she walked to the elevator and boarded it. The elevator slowly made it's way to the quarters of the ship. The Turian and Human stood there for a while, nothing but the sound of soft humming stirred the air between them.

"No hard feelings, Garrus?" Walker tried to break the ice.

"None taken."

"Your foot ok?"

"Ha, my foot's fine." Garrus said with a 'smirk'. Walker began to regain his mind after being told that he had just jumped 173 years. He took off his body armor, vest, and camel pack setting them on the floor, then he picked up his M4 Carbine that had been knocked off his shoulder after he tackled Shepard into the ship.

"So, cruising around in my battle dress uniform is probably going to make me look ancient now, right?" Walker questioned.

"Very." A swift reply came from Garrus.

Walker looked down at his uniform and shrugged, if he was the only one that liked it, so be it.

On the bridge Shepard stood behind Joker waiting for the message.

"Alright Commander. I found some information about our little 'incident' "

"And it is?" She waited for Joker to tell of his findings.

"According to the laws of the space-time continuum and time travel theories." Joker cleared his throat. "One could only go back in time as far as the first second the time machine was first turned on."

Shepard's eyes froze with shock. Her face blank as a sheet of paper. Questions poured into her thoughts, she nearly fell from her knees buckling after hearing Joker's findings.

"This means... Someone made a time machine in the year twenty-ten?!" Shepard finally spoke.

"Or further back, that's what im thinking."

"Why aren't you blown away by this?!"

"I was. This is extraordinary stuff Commander! If we tell the brass about this we would be famous!" Joker yelled.

"Probably be locked away forever too... Seeing that it was made in 2010 or before. We may have stumbled upon a top secret project."

"Then why did Saren have it?"

"I'll have to tell this to Hackett and Anderson when we report back."

"What about the whole 'locked up' thing you mentioned?"

"It'll be off the record until we find out more."

"How are you sure they wont just tell anyways? Eh... I'll take your word for it commander. Just don't forget to put my name in."

"Have I ever?" She stated while she walked to the galaxy map. Joker smiled as his eyes broke off Shepard and floated back to his work. The Commander walked on the platform of the map with both her hands on either side of the railing.

"Transmission coming in, it's the Admiral." Joker forwarded to Shepard.

"Patch it through to the comm room." She replied. Then Shepard walked down the ramp and into the door leading to the room.

"Your awfully fast to keep in contact Admiral." Shepard stated.

"The Normandy dropped out of contact about a day ago Commander, we where starting to worry. What did you find?"

"It's some sort of mass relay that caused the signal, we followed it through but found no sign of the Salarians."

"Where did it lead to?"

"This is going to be off the record Admiral, until we better understand what happened."

"Transmission recording is turned off, tell me what you know."

"So far it seemed that the mass relay isn't much of a mass relay at all but rather some sort of device that transported us to a place in history. A time machine if you will. It brought us to the twenty first century, twenty-ten to be more specific, during the Iraq war."

"...Interesting Commander... Are you sure of what you saw?" Hackett replied with uncertainty.

"Positive, we have personnel from the time period on board."

"If what your telling me is true, that's a dangerous idea."

"He's enlisted in the U.S. military Marine Corps. If it was anything like it is today he should be trained to deal with immense mental trauma. Besides, coming aboard was his idea."

"I will not ask you to explain that story, I believe you Commander. You should tell this to councilman Anderson, he should understand your findings. Unlocking the truth about Saren and the Reaper's was far-fetched to most, but so is this, bring the marine with you, just incase Anderson needs 'proof'."

"Understood Admiral."

"Hackett out."

Shepard crossed her arms and stood silent for a moment, pondering the method on how to positively inform councilman Anderson of the news. Behind her the doors opened, the sound of footsteps followed.

"We need to talk Commander." Kaidan's voice became apparent.

"I thought no one was allowed to enter while the commanding officer was attending communication matters." Shepard said in a smart tone.

"It sounded like you had things pretty much wrapped up in here. But on to a more serious note Commander."

"What is it Alenko?"

"What exactly happen when I left you in that building?" Kaidan's voice drifted to concern.

"It was nothing, just found GhostShadow and rescued him." Shepard's tone was laced with hesitancy. Kaidan stepped closer to better understand her emotion.

"You know your lying right? It's painfully obvious, look, Just tell me what really happened. It can't be possible for you to take five hours to rescue the sniper team, and from what I know sniper teams of that era usually work in twos... Where did the other guy go?" More concern rang in his voice. Shepard stood there for a moment, not knowing what to say after she had just lied to and was caught red handed by the one she loved, the only one she has to love. Kaidan's eyes slowly moved from her's, aimlessly wandering down her face then on her neck.

"Shepard! What's that?" Kaidan question frightfully.

"What's what?" She replied without really noticing his surprised state.

"On your neck, it looks like a bruise." Kaidan stepped even closer to Shepard. On a closer inspection Kaidan noticed several minor cuts and scuff marks on the Commander's face.

"What happened to you...?" He whispered holding her face with his hands. The two stood there staring into each other's eyes, Shepard tried desperately to avoid his brown orbs, trying not to give in to his demeanor. Suddenly Shepard's right eye blanked out in vision, she was shocked by the sudden jolt in her sight, then her iris sparked a quick light blue almost teal color then back to the normal green. She pushed Kaidan's arms away and turned her head to the right attempting to prevent Kaidan from noticing. She held that stance for about a second then grabbed her eye in intense pain. Without words Kaidan jumped at Shepard and began to hold her neck in a strange way, then with his other arm he held her head. The two quickly stumbled to the floor in a rather strange position. The door to the comm room opened and Wrex walked through.

"Shepard, I was wondering-" Wrex stopped mid sentence and cocked his eye at the sight of the event. No sooner did he come in than he whipped around and left, not saying a word.

A minute later Kaidan let go of Shepard. The two sat on the floor next to each other. Shepard sat with one of her knees up, she leaned her head on her knee and let out a long sigh.

"You need to come clean Commander. Tell me what's going on." Kaidan said in a light but serious tone. Shepard contemplated on telling Kaidan the whole story, what was causing her the extreme agony. Maybe he didn't notice, maybe he didn't see the one thing that made her feel less than she was, the one thing she could have prevented but was too powerless, too weak to stop. Maybe he didn't notice.

"Alright, I will. I was captured shortly after you left. GhostShadow was in the building we searched but when I found them I collapsed about the same way I just did now. The enemy captured me and took me to their camp, there they tried to get me to talk."

"Damn it, I shouldn't have left your side..." Kaidan said putting his forehead in his palms.

"You were following orders Alenko, no one knew they would be held in there."

"That excuse doesn't work. We have more technology than they ever did at that time, something should have buzzed."

"I've been through worse Kaidan. I bleed so others won't have to, even you." Shepard replied once again showing her iron resolve that kept her alive for so long and her willingness to sacrifice. A silence came over Kaidan, those powerful words resonated deep within his soul.

"So what was that move you pulled on me?" Shepard asked, trying to lighten the mood.

"I'm sorry about that Commander. It's a pressure point, I use it to help relieve my headaches, except, a little less awkward."

"you'll have to teach me how to do it sometime." She smiled. Then the Commander's heart started to race after those words, she expected the inevitable, the one question she hoped no one would ever ask.

" So, what's causing you to have such bad headaches? Are you keeping something from me? Your not another L2 are you?" Kaidan questioned repeatedly. There was the dreaded question, although phrased differently, nevertheless it was the same question that demanded the same answer. Wanting to know what is wrong with others is commonly conceived as kind or caring. For Shepard this 'common courtesy' has been turned into a hellish ordeal. Her heart jumped into her throat, having to lie once more or to tell of her failure, her shame, both are unacceptable.

"No, I'm not- It's just- Nothing... nothings wrong, just a few random headaches."

"There's something wrong with you and I'm going to find out! You shouldn't be feeling like this." Kaidan roared, sick of having information withheld from him.

"Maybe there's something wrong with you-I'm fine! I don't need you to waste your time to find what's wrong with me!" Shepard retaliated.

"Commander?!"

Shepard stood up and stomped out the door. Kaidan froze, stricken with guilt having raised his voice at Shepard but questioning what she meant.

Shepard walked down the ramp from the command deck to the quarters of the ship at a fast pace. Through the quarters she slowed down next to the mess hall, thinking about what she had said. Two crew members passed by her, unaware of the scene that took place moments before. As Shepard walked into her room Walker and Garrus stepped out of the elevator, having a meaningful conversation about the advancements in technology and the Normandy. The automatic door shut behind the Commander sealing off the feeling she had to get somewhere private. She took a few steps into the room before a crunch sounded under her boot. It was a capsule from the medicine bottle she threw earlier, many of the blue pills laid about the floor. Shepard knelt down and picked up the two halves, she then examined it. The blue liquid that was inside the capsule contained tiny particles that shined in the light. She then stood up and walked over to her desk throwing away the broken pill in the waste bin beside it. Commander Shepard took her uniform from the bed and laid them down next to her. She stood there for a moment thinking about what came over her in the comm room, trying to get everything together. Shepard shook her head then started to unfasten her armor vigorously. The various accessories, ammo pouches, upgrade holders, weapons all hit the floor. Then she started to loosen her elbow pads, leg plates and body plate, to allow the air seal to expand. The blue camo suited Shepard, in some cases it became a trademark of the Normandy's ground crew, as everyone that left the ship wore the same color. The air seal hissed as it was released but the armor maintained it's shape. The air seal locks in atmospheric conditions vital to the life of the wearer, but must be released prior to removal. She powered down the rest of the armor and began to strip off the suit.

"As you can see Walker, a lot has change since your time." Garrus said motioning around the mess hall.

"I'm pretty impressed, and to think that I believed nothing was going to change." Walker exchanged.

"Thanks to the discovery of prothean technology under the surface of mars, humanity has evolved. It came to be known, as you humans call it 'mass effect'."

"When did we come across the first non-human species?"

"Well... it wasn't a friendly one. After the Rachni Wars no one was supposed to activate any mass relays in fear of giving the Rachni the advantage of traveling through them."

"Figures, humanity's first contact with another life form is hostile."

"We, the Turians, found a human fleet attempting to activate a mass relay. We took it as hostility for breaking the law and attacked, this was known as the 'First Contact War' on Earth."

"Another year, another war." Walker sighed.

"So it would seem. Anyway enjoy the new surroundings Walker, I have to get back to my duties."

"Carry on." Walker said in an automatic response.

Garrus took off to the elevator leaving Walker in the middle of the mess hall. He looked around the room trying to spot similarities in the ship. Of course the table was the most prominent followed by the chairs. He moved toward the table and touched the surface. With quiet content of it just being a normal table with no lasers or advanced shielding he smiled, some things are just too simple to let go. Walker then pulled a chair from under the table, quickly he leaned to the right to see if anything happened, but nothing did. For piece of mind Walker slid the chair back under the table then out again. Finally on further judgement he determined that this chair, was in fact, a normal chair. Walker looked around the room for any witnesses to his foolish actions but none were found. With a slow and steady decent he sat himself in the chair, bracing his hands on the arm rests, just incase. Slowly the feeling of uncertainty quickly turned to relaxation, and for once this week he didn't have to worry about flying bullets, grenades, IED's, or the odd alien that wants to engage in hand to hand combat. The door to The captain's quarters opened with a loud swooshing sound. Walker jumped in the air from his seat, which is humanly impossible but he managed to pulled it off.

"You doing alright lieutenant?" Shepard said confused of what she just saw.

"That door just scared the hell out of me." He said in a shaken tone.

Commander Shepard turned her body around to look at the door, she looked at it for a moment and shruged, then walked over to the table and sat directly in front of Walker.

"Are you usually that tense?"

"Not that tense but tense enough. The army's all ways give us marines a hard time about overreacting about every weapon shot or loud noise."

"Keeps you alive doesn't it." Shepard retorted.

"You bet. Besides war has changed, there are no front lines anymore. Bad guys could pop up anywhere."

"I have some good news for you, the front lines are back, it just depends on what planet."

"That's good, but the planet thing sort of scares me."

"You've been on one planet you've been on them all, nothing really changes." The Commander remarked.

"Yeah... except for the gravity and atmosphere, and terrain." Walker contradicted.

"Pretty sharp for a guy from the past."

"It's not like we're cavemen in the twenty-first century, we don't have clubs." The lieutenant joked. Shepard chuckled then got up from her seat.

"You want some coffee?" Shepard questioned.

"Sure, I'll take some thank you."

Shepard walked into the medical room then into the back room. Walker sighed a sigh of relief that Shepard had no ill will toward him after they fought in the garage. But for some strange reason he felt attracted to her, almost as if he knew her forever. After a few minutes Shepard came back with two cups of coffee and sat back down at the table.

"I didn't know what coffee you like, so I got you plain black."

"Don't worry about what I like, after a few weeks of MRE's you tend to not be as picky as you once were."

"How was it?" Shepard asked.

"They were horrible! Don't get me started on the chilli-mac."

"No, how was your service time."

"Oh, well I saw a lot of action on this tour."

"You had more than one tour?" Shepard questioned

"Yeah, I'm on my second tour of duty, some of my men are on their third. My first was about three years and my current is going on one and a half."

"I bet it gets rough staying in the desert for that long."

"Yes it does, you got sand storms every now and then, it's hot as hell, sand all over, camel spiders. It's tough, but we get through it. Regardless of all that we are serving our country, everyone of us, we aren't getting paid to sit in our comfortable house and watch football."

"Run n' gun attitude?"

"Ha! Used to be. I have a wife that I love and a child that I care about this go around. Now I realize that everyone is going home to someone, and I want to make sure they make it back to that someone."

"You're a good leader Lieutenant. I'll put it upon myself to get you back to your time, and your family." Shepard announced with determination.

"Thank you ma'am."

The two drank some of their coffee.

"What about you Commander Shepard? What about your family?"

Shepard nearly choked on some of her coffee while she sipped it.

"You alright Commander?" Walker asked in confusion.

"Yes, I'm fine." Shepard said quickly. "I don't have a family, they were killed by slavers."

"Wha- Comm- I'm sorry... I didn't- I shouldn't have asked-... I'm so sorry for your loss..." Walker scrambled for words.

"It's alright, I get that question a lot. It doesn't hurt anymore."

Walker didn't know what else to say. In an attempt to sunder the silence Shepard decided to change the subject.

"What else happened during your time in Iraq?"

"A few things happened. After the nuke went off Al queda took back most of Iraq. We all fought to get together for days. Army, Marines, Air Force, everybody."

"I remember studying that in school."

"A lot of good men and women died that day... My last couple weeks there, I'll never forget."

"Where were you during the explosion?"

"I was patrolling the outer fringes of the city, to far to get hurt but near enough to see." Walker looked down to the surface of the table. "After that I was enraged, enraged that a terrorist group could pull off something that big. It was a small scale nuclear warhead but its damage was catastrophic, the sheer amount of American forces and Iraqi civilians in the area made it so. "

"A lot of things could happen if enough people gather for the wrong cause." Shepard replied. Walker nodded then drank some more if his coffee.

"Orders commander?" Joker questioned over the loudspeaker

"Take us back to the Citadel"

"Aye aye Commander."

Shepard stood up from the table and picked up her cup. She then looked at Walker and his uniform.

" Are you going to go into the Citadel looking like that?' She questioned.

"What's the Citadel?"

"It's a giant... 'space station' you might say, almost like earth, well the gravity part."

"Interesting." Walker glanced to the side then brought his hazel eyes slowly back in thought. "What do you mean by 'looking like that'?"

"Eh... kinda hard to explain but we don't normally have people wandering around wearing clothes nearly 200 years out of date." Shepard said with a hint of sarcasm.

"So now the military is concerned about fashion now?" Jason sparked.

"I'm just saying it would probably be in your best interest to wear some of the current armor available."

"You wont catch me wearing that skin tight shit everyone's got on. You might be able to look good in it but I cant"

"Thanks, I suppose. Well anyway we could get you some civilian clothes or maybe a spare uniform from one of the guys around here."

"I'll go with the uniform, not ready to put on normal clothes just yet."

"Okay, I can understand that. Go ask Joker for his spare, I'm sure he has one. You can find him up on the command deck, he flies this bird so he wont be too hard to find. As for me I have to go do a few things before we go ashore."

"Understood."

The two moved away from the table going in opposite directions. Walker stopped between the stairs and the elevator plainly confused. He looked both ways then pointed at the elevator then once more looked at the stairs. Finally he chose the stairs and started his ascent. At the top Walker confronted the menacing automatic door.

"Okay, just like the grocery store." Walker whispered to himself.

He stepped one step closer to the door and it opened. He waited for a moment to look through the door. Walker was about to step past the door when it shut right in his face.

"Damn it..." again Walker whispered.

Lieutenant Walker stepped back a couple of feet then the door opened again. Once more he attempted to pass the seemingly insurmountable obstacle but this time he jumped through the door. After staggering a few steps from the jump he recovered his balance and grabbed his uniform jacket at the bottom and jerked it downwards to reposition any out of wack cloth parts or wrinkles. Walker then traveled around the command deck looking at all the technology. A few moments later he stood behind Joker at the helm of the ship.

"Joker?" Walker questioned.

"Yeah what is it-? Who are you?!" Joker said surprisingly as he whipped around to see who it is.

"Lieutenant Jason Walker, First Lieutenant if you want to get technical."

"No, I don't. You must be the new guy we picked up."

"Old guy in this circumstance."

"What did I say about getting technical?"

"You got a mouth on you don't you kid." Walker said irritated by Jokers remarks.

"First off I am not a kid 'old man', secondly you need to lighten up I'm only messing with you." "Messing with me huh?"

"Yeah, it's been a long shift if you know what I mean, just trying to pass the time. So wach'ya need?"

"Commander Shepard told me you might have a spare uniform for me to use."

"Yes in fact I do, it's in my locker in the medical bay. I'd go with you but as you can see im the only one fully qualified to fly this ship." Joker gloated.

"Well im honored by your statement." Walker remarked.

"Sure..."

Walker started back down to the medical bay.

"Hope it fits!" Joker yelled at him

Walker turned about half way pointing his finger in the air as if he was about to say something but then paused for a moment then blew off what Joker said and resumed to walk away.