A/N: Sorry for the wait for this update, exam season, a cold, and a case of writer's block all conspired to delay this chapter, but here it is :)

Ilos

September 14th, 2186

The feeling of her ship once again underneath her feet, its familiar hums and vibrations like an orchestra around her, made the hair on the back of Shepard's neck stand up in anticipation. The Normandy was surging back to life at her command and she'd had to briefly steady herself against the Command Podium's railing to keep from losing her balance. She and the ground team had burst aboard the ship with an urgent speed that warned those in her path not to delay her. All around her the crew had stared, some hiding it better than others, at the captain they'd assumed dead for weeks now. She'd caught sight of Garrus in the corner of the CIC, his avian eyes locked on her like he was afraid she might disappear were he to lose sight of her for even a moment. She wanted desperately to have a proper reunion with her old friend, to pull him into a tight hug and exchange stories of what they'd been through, but that would be saved for late—right now she had to finish saving them.

She could tell from some of the shaking as the Normandy navigated over the forest, and from the occasional creak and groan, that the frigate had taken a beating when the batarians had shown up. Still, she knew that the ship had suffered worse and still performed, and she knew Joker could milk all the performance available from this ship. Besides, they didn't need acrobatics, just haste towards the conduit. The homemade prothean relay was looming ahead of the Normandy and was just visible from the where she stood in the CIC.

Overhead the batarians had only just caught sight of the ship's sudden movement, as Joker had taken the Normandy out of IES to give shields and propulsion every last ounce of power they could muster. Their fighters were scrambling to reach the ship, but at their current speed they would be through the Conduit before the fighters could close within firing range—but that posed another problem. The other side of the Conduit was the Presidium, and while the Mako had managed to slip through fine, a ship the Normandy's size could be torn apart by the twisting arrival and impact. Still, it was their best chance to slip away from Ilos with their lives, without having to pierce a batarian blockade and limp for two weeks.

The ship began to violently shudder as they drew closer, blue tendrils of lightning snapping at its hull from friction caused by the Conduit. They surged the precious distance between the sleek frigate and its target, and then all went a blinding white as the Conduit wrapped the Normandy in its low mass field and flung it across the galaxy.

The SSV Kilimanjaro

September 15th, 2186

The damage from their arrival through the Conduit had been intense. The Normandy, while sleeker and thinner than a destroyer or carrier, was not even remotely a small ship. From her vantage point aboard the Kilimanjaro, stationed just above the wreckage of the Citadel, Shepard could see the damage that had been wrought during their exit. Much of the support structure for the Presidium's circular shape in that area had been torn apart, and the already-damaged buildings which had once been embassies and offices in the area were little more than mangled wreckage and floating debris. The crash had sheared one of the Normandy's support wings clean off and had mangled another severely. The impact breached the hull in several places, leading to the venting of the cargo hold—three of her sailors were still in the Kilimanjaro's ICU in critical condition from oxygen deprivation.

Shepard was standing in a quiet section of the ship, a slim deck with a wide wall-consuming viewport and a few small utilitarian seats. For ships this large the Alliance actually devoted space to crew leisure, and observation. A dreadnaught like the KMJ, one of the affectionate nicknames the marines had coined for the Kilimanjaro, there were so many personnel aboard that at any given point—when not in battle—there was a large population of off-duty crewmen. She hadn't told anyone where she was going when she'd come here half an hour earlier, but that wasn't unusual for her. Shepard, even when aboard the Normandy, needed periods of solace and contemplation. Normally she was able to find that inside her cabin but that wouldn't do here. She had a temporary bunk, but there were too many people worried about her or wanting to reunite with her for any peace to be found in such an obvious spot; and so she had come here, to a place few would think to find her. Even now, staring out the viewport at the swirly planet below, and the crippled station, she found a slight jolt of terror in her stomach. It'd been year since she was taken down with the first Normandy, and left to suffocate in the blackness of space, but it still haunted her dreams some nights. For the first few months the sight of the void generated terror in her, but slowly she came to regain her sea legs for the stars.

"The first time was just down there, you know."

The voice came from a few feet behind her and caught her off-guard. Shepard spun, partially coming out of her seat, to see who had managed to sneak up on her. Looming above her, far taller than her now given she was still seated, was Garrus Vakarian. She gave the turian a curious eye, questioning partly what he was doing here, and how he'd known she was here. He seemed to predict her question and his mandibles flared into what she'd come to recognize as a smile from the alien, "You should know that I know you're not as much of an extrovert as you let everyone believe—you couldn't stand too much public attention from even the Normandy's crew without withdrawing to your cabin and pretending you had paperwork to do, let alone handle reporters."

Her curious expression morphed to a teasing smile and she cocked an eyebrow at him, "I was going to ask what first time you were talking about, the first time you tested 'reach'?"

His mandibles flared again, this time in a different expression, showing embarrassment the best a turian could with faces that couldn't flush. "The first time we met."

She patted the seat next to her and turned her attention back to the viewport. "Why don't you sit down Vakarian? We've been through enough for a few days."

The lanky turian lumbered towards the seat and slid down into it awkwardly, "I'm just glad that I didn't end up being in command when an Alliance Warship crashed, intentionally, into the Presidium. You can have that one Shepard."

Shepard returned his joke with a tired and annoyed sigh, her face sinking down into her hands a little as she turned to face him. "It was mostly rushing to get everyone medical treatment and debriefing when we arrived, so no one said anything, but I'm waiting to see which member from the Flag Rank Fan Club I've made through my career chooses to take up the crash with me. I'm also not looking forward to how long Normandy is going to be in drydock from damage-sustained."

Garrus chuckled with a low sub-tone laugh and rested an elbow on his knee, "You need some time off Shepard, some time away from fighting and running. I thought you were dead, we all thought you were dead."

"To be perfectly fair, I thought I was dead too."

"You know what I mean. You need to rest, to heal, and then to return to normal; not what normal has become."

Shepard let out another of her tired sighs, turning to look back at her long-time friend and brother-in-arms. Her eyes found another spot beyond the viewport to focus on, "We barely made it… look at all the damage we took just surviving."

From the edge of her vision she could see her old friend nod, "What happened to you up there? I was with you on the ground until you evacuated Ashley, and the last I saw Harbinger annihilated Hammer team."

Shepard pursed her lips together. She didn't like remembering the night, nor did she like retelling it, but Garrus had been there. He'd been the one she trusted to watch her back, and the one she charged with taking Ashley to safety when the Normandy swooped in for evacuation. "After the blast I scraped myself onto the Citadel, and Anderson was already there. We were ambushed by the Illusive Man before we could open the arms, and he seemed to have some indoctrination-like control where he could manipulate our bodies… he made me shoot Anderson." In vividly dark detail Shepard began retelling the story of her fight aboard the Citadel, of the Catalyst and her choice, and her flight to get off before the blast.

When the story was done the two of them sat in a still silence, the weight of the tale bearing down on Garrus. Finally he patted her on the shoulder, and his voice took on a sympathetic tone, "I'm sorry I couldn't have been there for you then Shepard…" His voice trailed off in a way that implied he wasn't done, but for another half minute neither spoke, "I'm a terrible choice of timing for things… I wanted to tell you face to face that I have to leave—the Primearch has asked me to come back to serve a ranking role in our military, given how many of our skilled we lost... I must do this Shepard. It's how my people are."

The news of Garrus leaving, her right hand, stabbed at Shepard's chest like a blade. She'd known that his time on the Normandy would likely be limited, given he wasn't human, but she was never prepared for it to come. "I understand Garrus. We'll see each other again."

There was a dull underlying pain along the inside of Shepard's left arm. It'd been weeks since the crash, and a while still since the surgery that had repaired her implants, but she was just now noticing there was still lingering pain from that. The cuts and bruises on her face had mostly healed, with only subtle dark scars to mark their existence. Slowly she flexed her arm as best she could in the stiff dress uniform, wondering if it was the damage done by the crash, or the inorganic repair of her implants, that had initially caused the pain.

With a frustrated tug she adjusted the collar of her uniform, the tight buttons scratching her throat in a way that made it itch. "I want you to know I hate having to do this."

"All the years we worked in the Verge, the Traverse, and Terminus, and you think I didn't pick up on your hatred for formal and official meetings?" Admiral Hackett stood to Shepard's side, his cap firmly on his head and his sharp military blues a contrast to her deep special forces red. The man's stony face was shaped into a bit of a smile at the verbal jab, but he seemed just as dreadfully inclined towards their coming meeting as she.

"I just wanted it said, so that when you're being debriefed for a formal report on this meeting, I have that in writing."

The older man was clearly doing his best not to sigh, but his amused grin faded to a wary frown. "What makes you think the meeting will go that badly?"

She just cut her eyes towards him, a serious scowl replacing what had been her stubbornly annoyed frown. "I've just got one of those feelings."

It was still only the day after she'd arrived at the Citadel in the Normandy, and already she was having to be subjected to speaking with the Council. Her only saving grace was that they weren't present over Earth, having rather stayed behind where the rest of C-Space forces were, and thus she and Hackett would be connected to them over VidComm. Presently they were standing in front of the floor-sized VidComm projector in the Kilimanjaro's bridge, waiting for the connection from the Council to come through and begin the meeting.

A soft hum whirred up from the floor, indicating the projectors were warming up, and a second later the distorted image of the three Council Members came to life, broadcast through one of the few available QEC transmitters left functional. It was the asari councilor who spoke first, her hands folded together in a reconciliatory and humble manner, "Shepard, on behalf of the entire Council allow me to say that we are so glad to see you survived, and our sympathies go out to you about Admiral Anderson. We also have the utmost pride in you and have proved yourself worthy of having been Earth's first Spectre time and time again."

The salarian councilor cut in next, her tone wary "I've yet to read official reports on your trip to Ilos…" she was cautious in the way she described the operation, careful to make sure she didn't show the disdain obviously held by the Council regarding her roguish maverick actions. "How long do you feel you and your ship will need for recovery before you're ready to return to service? The destruction of the relays has left the edges of C-Space quite unstable.."

That was it, that question was the match Shepard had known would be struck, and the salarian councilor had done just that. Her blood boiled near immediately, her posture shifting to one so stiff that Hackett spared her a glance, hopeful that it hadn't affected her in ways he knew it had. "Return to service…" The words fell out of Shepard's mouth in a confused blur, while her anger summoned the tirade that had been simmering inside her for months.

"I only meant resuming your Spectre duties for you, thankfully with the war over things have relaxed quite a bit."

The memories of what it'd been like to flee Earth while it burned flooded through her mind. They were joined by the poignant memory of having to drag the newly-appointed Primearch Victus and Garrus both away from Palaven as it burned. This war had claimed so much from all of them, and its devastation was the only reason Garrus was having to leave her now, to fill the holes left in his people's military. "You can shove my Spectre badge up your ass. You're lucky that I don't begin advocating with all my might to whoever the Alliance is going to appoint as AG to have charges pressed against each one of you."

The asari councilor spoke up again, sensing that her salarian colleague had triggered Shepard's notoriously precarious temper. "Commander, that seems a bit much. We understand you've been through more stress these last few months than anyone deserves to, feel free to take as much time as you need to recover before returning." The blue-skinned alien cut her eyes at the salarian, issuing a desperate warning not to provoke Shepard in a similar manner again.

"Was I not clear? I hold each of you nearly as damn responsible for the war as I do the reapers themselves. You can consider our relationship done, and you can consider yourself on notice from the Alliance." The last bit had been a heat of the moment blurt on her part, and not something she'd checked over with Hackett. If the Admiral had stiffened or otherwise reacted, she hadn't noticed. Instead he stood firm and seemed to support everything she said through his mere body language.

"Commander, that is ridiculous—"

"Ridiculous? Councilor the Asari hid a prothean VI on Thessia for millennia without sharing its existence with the galactic community. Besides the leagues of advancement the other civilizations could have had, it ended up that the most vital piece of knowledge for the Crucible was on that V.I. How many millions could we have saved if we'd known about the Catalyst sooner? Or about the reaper war earlier? During the war, when we needed the best and brightest from around the Galaxy to work on the Crucible in hopes we might survive, the Salarian Union pulled all their support because we wouldn't enter a deal in bad faith with the Krogan. Did you think the reapers would be preferential in their genocide? That if the rest of the galaxy failed with the Crucible you could hide out and avoid them? The reapers weren't discriminatory in their destruction, Councilor. And you," she jabbed a finger towards the turian councilor, "You stood right there and mocked me over the existence of the reapers when we could've been preparing. You three can go fuck yourselves," she pulled the Spectre badge from her dress uniform and threw it at the VidComm's camera, "I resign."

The VidComm was terminated quickly as she stormed for an exit, fiery red hair fluttering behind her. Hackett caught her pace and came lock step with her, "You just told the most universally accepted governing body in the Galaxy to go fuck themselves while in full Alliance Dress."

"I didn't really plan it, it just all rolled off my tongue." The truth was that the salarian had triggered something in her mind, a trigger that dredged up dozens of memories. She remembered Kaidan Alenko, all warm smiles and kindness, burning in a nuclear blast as she escaped Virmire. She remembered Mordin Solus, stoic bravery even as he fought to destroy what had been the legacy of his career to save a race of people. She thought of David Anderson, her naval father and closest confidant, dying next to her on a burning citadel. All of that had been something that could be forgotten and smoothed over by the Councilors, and she was a tool to stabilize their space while they worked out a way to restore travel and communication.

"Telling Commanding Officers to fuck off has been something that seems to commonly roll off your tongue. I'll run damage control for you as far as Alliance Top Brass are concerned, because surely some will pounce over this."

"I appreciate it, sir."

After months of combat where he only wore his BDUs or battle armor, the feeling of James Vega's tight crimson red dress jacket felt strange. The way it bound at his shoulders made the marine subconsciously worry about being caught off-guard should a fight arise, despite the significant amount of security present. He had been summoned, alongside the other marines from the Normandy and several relevant officers already in system, to a military ceremony in one of the more formal gathering rooms aboard the Kilimanjaro.

His fellow N7 stood a couple yards ahead of him, amidst a line of other officers and Alliance dignitaries. Starting on the right there was the newly appointed Prime Minister Nyah Dowling, formerly a lower level executive within the Alliance Government, but ultimately one of the most senior surviving executives. Beside him was Kyie Pike, the Alliance's new Secretary of Defense. Pike was a retired Naval Commodore of several years, having left the military shortly before the breakout of the Eden Prime war. On her side was Admiral Mikhailovich, the older man looked like a raging fire that had been put out by a spray of water, below the surface he still simmered with an unseen flame. The next in line after Mikhailovich was Shepard, who looked equally as uncomfortable as Vega in her dress uniform, and to her side Admiral Hackett.

There was a man, a few paces past Hackett, who stood at the small podium setup for this event. The speaker, who had introduced himself as the Kallum Briggs—the new director of Alliance Intelligence. Briggs was delivering an inspirational speech to those gathered, the motley crew of officers, noncommissioned, and enlisted personnel. His speech focused on the importance of intelligence during the reaper war, focusing heavily on how vital he found the intelligence contributed to Shepard from his efforts to be. For most of those gathered that was enough to work them into, at the least, a roused patriotism. That was a theme across the Alliance these days, it wasn't hard to rile up patriotism and fear wherever you went—near annihilation brings that out in a population. To Vega, a man who had stood by Shepard since the moment the Reapers arrived on earth, it felt hollow and self-exaggeratory.

Once Briggs had reached the conclusion of his speech it was time for him to surrender the podium, his entire body language still rigid and hard pressed from the passion behind his comments. The next to step up to the podium was the rugged, stone carved Admiral Hackett himself. Hackett's remarks to the crowd were the reason that many gathered today were present, James included, and he could feel an almost surreal anxiety in his stomach. The Admiral began his remarks by highlighting Shepard's career, her heroism at Elysium, Eden Prime, and the battle of the citadel. Her struggle through Akuze, and Virmire, and her death during the crash of the Normandy SR-1. Few gathered could have possibly been ignorant to those details, but it reminded them all what she'd been through—and it likely annoyed Shepard to her bones.

"Commander Shepard has shown no scarcity of courage and heroism, even in the face of a galaxy-wide threat. She was the first of humanity to be made a Spectre, and through that authority she prevented, delayed, and then ended the Reaper invasion. I believe it's time the Alliance shows due appreciation, and as such I'm honored to present you the rank of Captain, Shepard."

The promotion ceremony had been short and sweet, mostly, and for that Shepard was thankful. She'd been forced to listen to the droning of a line of politicians, but the worst part was to stand in front of everyone as her service accolades were lauded before those gathered. That part had been Hackett's doing, no doubt a friendly jab back at her given how he'd witnessed her reaction to such after the Blitz. With the new rank pinned onto her crimson dress uniform Shepard was free to mill about the room, exchanging remarks with some of the officers gathered, and receiving a hushed congratulations from her marines that'd been in attendance.

She had been enjoying the relative quiet of the room's edge, her drink occasionally brought up for a sip while she scanned over those present. From the left side of her peripheral vision Shepard caught sight of someone approaching and turned her attention to find Ashley Williams slowly approaching her. She had a smile plastered on her face when she drew closer to Shepard, and then—with an imposed drawl—said, "Oh Captain, my captain."

Shepard closed her eyes and let her head lean back to hit the wall, "You've been waiting three years to use that, haven't you?"

Ashley just gave her a partial shrug before coming to rest against the wall near Shepard, "In case that didn't get the message across, congratulations skipper, it's long overdue." The words were followed by a smile so warm and sweet it might've been glazed onto Ashley's face. Shepard thanked her, and for a few moments the two sat in silence. "Did you really tell the council to go fuck themselves?"

Shepard grew deathly silent for several moments, though her mouth twisted into a self-amused grin, "In those exact words."

Ashley snorted an amused response and took a long swig of her drink. "You know that makes problems through right—? I'm a Spectre still, the only one humanity has now, and there's no way they'd let me stay aboard a ship where I'm not the CO, or the CO isn't a Spectre."

Shepard had considered a lot of the ways that her telling the Council to fuck themselves might come back to bite her, but none of them had factored in that Ashley would have to go her own way. Still, the news didn't leave a surprised expression on Shepard's face; the newly-minted Captain bore her trademark blank stone face. Finally, she nodded a bit, gulping down some of her drink to buy her a little more time, "I know, I couldn't do it anymore though Ash. I couldn't go beck and call for the Council when they just caused this—" her hand motioned towards the nearest viewport to demonstrate the damage from the war, "and every chance they were given along the way to help make things easier, they turned their noses up at it. All three of them."

"Hey, Jess, I know, I know." Ashley's voice was thick, but soft. She had a way of cutting through Shepard's anger, or her anxieties, to calm the woman in a few could. "I know what they've done, and I know how boneheaded they are—but the Alliance has to have someone there. We need the access it offers. I've gotta be that person for the Alliance."

Yet another walking away from her. Garrus had only just departed, and now Ashley too. Both had legitimate reasons, but it left a sore spot in Shepard's chest, she didn't like losing trusted members of her crew. "I know, Ash. I understand."

"We'll make it work Skipper."