A/N: So chapter 10...didn't think I'd make it past chapter 3 without losing all motivation and will to live but hey ho here we are!
Quick heads up, I have read redemption, but wanted to switch up a few events simply for my own selfish reasons of wanting to write a beautiful description of a dead body, and besides, what is life if you can't do something for your own selfish reasons once in a while?
Also yes dead body...description isn't too graphic in my opinion, but then again I've watched a ton of AHS and my idea of graphic is twisted, and if you don't want to read it, I'll stick in an authors note before the body and afterwards to save your lunch :)

Finally, I am splitting this story up into 2, so for the majority of this part, it is femshep/Liara.

The final dogtag was recovered. Hayley looked at the name.

Talitha Draven

Shepard had originally put off visiting Alchera while preparing for the suicide mission, because she feared that she would lose her composure after seeing the wreckage of the Normandy and the many dogtags that once belonged to the fallen crew, but even 3 and a half years after the Normandy SR-1 was destroyed, the emotional pain of seeing what remained of the ship was still fierce. Hayley took the recovered dogtag and placed it in the pile of 19 others, before taking a seat on the snow next to them. The lack of bodies reminded Hayley of when they checked Virmire after the mission for Ashley's body, only to find the nuclear explosion had vaporized it, and the only reminder of her sacrifice was the memory of her telling Kaidan it was right for Shepard to go back and get him. No bodies meant nothing to bury, and the empty caskets would remain empty forever.

"Liara, I found the last one" Hayley had originally wanted to come on her own, but the asari insisted she go along for support. When Shepard called her to come over via the communication link in her breather helmet, she didn't appear, and Hayley noticed her standing over by a mountain of ice, looking at something. Fighting against the numb pain in her legs that travelled up her lower back whenever she took a step, she walked over to her girlfriend to see what she was staring at.

It was Hayley's old N7 helmet.

They both stood in silence looking at it for a while, Shepard desperately wanting to pick it up but avoiding the urge in case it sstartled Liara.

"Go ahead..." It was barely above a whisper, but Hayley took that as the cue to pick up the old piece of armour. When she picked it up, something fell to the ground and settled in the snow. It was black and appeared that it had been burned and stuck to the inside of the helmet, until it froze and came off when Hayley disturbed it.

"Please tell me that isn't part of my face" After years of being on the streets, or in a gang or in the alliance, Hayley had learned that it was better to make light of these situations, instead of taking them for what they were, as it relieved some of the emotional turmoil that could otherwise destroy a persons mental wellbeing.

"...Feron took it off...and..." Liara's voice began to catch, and she heard her human girlfriend clip the helmet on to the back of her hardsuit before putting her arms around her and hugging her. Shepard felt a pressure against her mind and she couldn't fathom why now, of all times Liara would be trying to join minds with her, but she let her mental barriers down anyway.

The planet was covered in still smouldering ruins and bodies in the middle of decomposing, as Alchera had unicellular life forms which enabled this despite the temperature. As much as Liara wanted to claim everyone's bodies so they could be put to rest, the reality was she was here to find Commander Shepard. Cerberus gave her the means to do this, and Feron had told her it was a decoy that she thought was in Omega and offered to help her to make up for almost getting her killed by the blue suns.

Each overturned body was another failed attempt at finding Shepard and Liara was close to giving up when she heard Feron, "Liara, there is something over here"

Her chest swelled with excitement as she ran over to his position, the thought of what she might find miles away from her mind. If it was Shepard, she will be happy, regardless of whether she is alive or not.

At least that is what she thought. (A/N: Dead body starts now)

Feron had found her, although the only give away was the N7 helmet and virtually destroyed N7 chest plate. The majority of the rest of the armour was burned up or missing all together. A bloody pulp was in the place of the left arm eith shards of bone sticking out at strange angles from the shredded meat, and a large slit in the abdomen revealed Shepard's innards that were covered in snow and dried blood. What flesh remained was between red raw and completely black, evidence of entering Alchera's atmosphere still present even with the snow and ice that had begun to claim the body. Some bones were visible and the right leg was bent at an angle that it should never have been able to get into, with the femur protruding through the incinerated muscle.

By the Goddess, Liara felt physically sick, finding it hard to believe that a 2 months earlier, this bloodied pulp had agreed to be with her, and told her that no matter what happens on Ilos, she will always love her. The same woman that one month ago, had ordered her to get into an escape pod while she ran back to get Joker before she was swept away in an explosion that ultimately lead to her death.

"We need to check the extent of the head trauma, Liara" Feron knelt down towards the head of the corpse, Liara wanting desperately to run away, to get back on the Cerberus shuttle, to be taken back to Omega. To find a nice dark corner where she could curl up into a ball and wish for all this to go away, for it to be before the collectors attacked. For Shepard to still be alive and with her.

N7 breather helmets were meant to withstand massive temperature changes, so that if the wearer was killed in an explosion or spaced, the helmet should keep their head intact so they can identify the body without the use of a dogtag that was likely lost in both circumstances. Liara could already see Shepard's dogtag was not on her body, nor did she see it glinting in the snow, and braced herself for what was to come.

Feron removed the helmet, although it did not come off with ease, pieces of flesh having melted into the helmet and making it harder to remove without half of Shepard's face joining it. In the end, only a chunk of the left cheek came off, revealing the tissues underneath, with enough coming off to reveal her teeth and a tongue that looked at though it had been bitten through. Like the rest of her body, Shepard's head was black in some places and red raw in the rest. There was no right eye, just a bloody hole and loose optical nerve in its place, and the left eye was blood red, with some fluids having dribbled out on to Hayley's cremated cheek, as rigor mortis had long since set in and caused her eyelids to snap open. Most of her hair had been burnt off and part of her skull was visible as some of her scalp had peeled back.

(A/N: Okay, y'all are good now)"Liara, is this definitely her?" Feron placed the helmet down and looked up at Liara, her helmet making her face impossible to see as not to give away her emotions.

"y-yes...yes that is her...that's Shepard" Liara fought out, feeling bile rise into her throat as she named the Commander's corpse.

The meld was broken abruptly by Hayley, who grabbed Liara and held her tightly as she heard her crying over the comm link. She knew her body was bad, seeing as it had been in a vacuum then had gone from sub-zero temperatures to blazingly hot in a few minutes, but she didn't realise it would be that bad, even the vid file on Chronos Station didn't go into that much detail. At some point they had sat down, and Hayley pulled Liara over so she was sitting in her lap.

"Why wouldn't you let me help you, Shepard? Why?" Liara forced out in between her tears, smacking Hayley hard in the back to punctuate her sentence. The hardsuit took most of the power of the hit, but the fact that it was her girlfriend smacking her caused Hayley's eyes to fill with tears to.

"I didn't want...I didn't want you to get hurt I-I wanted you to be safe" Liara finally stopped hitting Hayley and instead she started crying far louder than she already was.

"But I wanted you! How is it fair that you forced me to leave while you died?" Even through the comm link which automatically adjusted volume as to not destroy the receivers ear drums, Shepard could tell Liara was full on screaming at her now.

"Because it wasn't! I didn't want to die but I'd rather it was me than you. I...I can't live without you anymore..." This time Liara was quiet, minus the fact she was still wailing into the comm link, and Hayley fought back her own tears before saying, "I'm sorry...I'm so sorry"

After that, they just dissolved into crying into each others shoulders (well, into their breather helmets that were resting against each others shoulders) until it was impossible to do so anymore. By the time they walked back to the shuttle, their throats were sore and their eyes burned, but they both felt relieved. Liara because she finally let Shepard see what she saw, and Shepard because Liara finally shared what happened when she found her body. Now all that was left was to discover everything that happened on Earth and at the crucible, but for the time being, those memories could wait.

A/N: Yeah I decided Shepard had more that one clone so her new arm and eye came from one, but the other one wasn't used and was in one piece so she was able to appear in the citadel dlc. After all, if Cerberus had 4 billion credits to spare for the lazarus project when they had the ability to clone, they would have made more than one Shep copy.