Kaidan watched the unthinkable happened below him. Jane Shepard had finally reached the Crucible and was ready to fire. Limping, red blood streaked the floor behind her as she activated the Crucible's beam.

Without thinking, he sprinted full toward the beam as Shepard activated it. A single blast, followed by another, resembling a red color, shook the battle-scarred earth, and a single column of the bright beam broke in his sight as he stumbled backwards. Things slowly went grey as he saw a flash of red – the red of Shepard's hair and the red of the Crucible's beam, mending together.

He didn't even have time to make a sound. He only heard his broken breathing. That moment he watched Shepard turn to look at him over her shoulder, before he was sent flying parallel from her.

Only flashes now allowed him to see. Striking the ground with all unimaginable force Vega landed just feet away. Ringing diffused in his skull as pain passed from nerve to nerve and knocking him unconscious in the process.

Bleeding profusely, Kaidan tried to positioned his body upwards to see if Shepard had survived, but Shepard was gone. Not even a body decorating the ground.

Kaidan awoke with a gasp, as his mind was still reeling over the nightmare. The dream was so vivid, so real, that for a moment he thought he was back with Vega and Shepard, stopping the Reaper invasion for once and for all.

Sitting up Kaidan felt sweat beads race down his forehead and down his face and even his bare chest was covered in his perspiration. Disgusting, he thought. This wasn't the first time his mind flashed back to that day; the day he lost Shepard. It had been four years since the war was ended, but that only meant the beginning of his nightmares and as the years passed on, they only intensified. Doctor Chakwas diagnosed him with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, which he thought was bullshit, but not that he would admit that to the doctor. She prescribed him medication, which helped when he actually took them. He didn't like them, though. They made him irritable and hungry. He remembered nearing wiping out the mess hall from him extreme appetite.

After a long shower and stripping his bed sheets to be washed, Kaidan set down on the sofa next to the bed and opened up a data pad connected to his private mail terminal. Nothing caught his eye other than a message from Admiral Hackett.

Major Alenko,

This week marks the four year anniversary since the Reaper invasion had been repealed. The Citadel is finally opening a monument dedicated to those who perished in the way. You have been listed as VIP by the Citadel Council. Your presence is not required.

- Admiral S. Hackett

He closed the message. "Has it really been four years?" he thought questionably. Some days it felt like a lifetime since the Reapers were defeated, but when he had those nightmares it only seemed like minutes. He knew the Admiral respected if he did not attend. He didn't feel like a hero. He only felt lucky that he hadn't received the same fate as Shepard.

The Milky Way galaxy had paid a heavy price. The Batarian race was nearly annihilated as only a few hundred thousands Batarians still live. The major worlds of Thessia, Earth, Sur'Kesh, and Palaven were nearly destroyed and each race's economy was plunged into an economic crisis trying to repair the damage. It would be decades before Earth would be within the fifty-percent tile of completion.

Other than the day the Crucible has been fired, Kaidan remembers another day as well; the day he had been named Commander of the Normandy. He originally refused the idea. The Normandy was Commander Shepard's; always have been and always will be. How could he ever live up to the standards she had set up? That decision was quickly changed when Anderson chewed him a new asshole. "Who else can be called Commander of the Normandy other than the very man who served on it from the beginning?" Anderson had said. He had a point, so Kaidan accepted.

Most of the original chew was still there. Only EDI, Liara, and Tali were gone. Liara went back to Thessia to study more Prothean ruins in hopes of uncovering more technological advances that could speed up the process of rebuilding. Tali hasn't left Rannoch since the Quarians managed to take it back from the Geth, who were destroyed by the Crucible's blast and he didn't even want to think about EDI, and the pain that still lingered in Joker's heart over losing her.

The years have not been completely terrible. Despite the mass death tolls, the alliance between Asari, Salarians, Turians, and Human has dramatically increased and even the Krogran hostility toward Salarians and Turians has slowly been on the decline. The galaxy was finally working together to rebuild what they all had lost.

Even his own life had improved. Kaidan was looked upon as a hero and had become as famous as Shepard was when she defeated Saren. Every other day, he was invited to some party that took place on some remote planet that was privately funded. Lines of women had lined up to be his date, or to even talk to him. He lost count on how many business men wanted to arrange a marriage between their daughter and him. He was now the only human Spectre, which he has dedicated his life to. For a while he thought about retiring and relocating back to Earth to be with his parents, but he wasn't ready to see the complete destruction his home planet had underwent. Being on the Normandy seemed like the better choice, and when he wasn't on the Normandy, he was in his apartment on the Citadel; the one Shepard previously had, but after her death, Anderson gave it to him.

The idea of getting married and having children went away a long time ago.

He missed Shepard and with every passing day, his mourning only increased. He knew Garrus or Vega would be there to talk, should he need it, but talking about it only made him feel worse. It was easier to just keep it to himself, though Chakwas had warned him several times about bottling up his emotions and blah, blah, blah. He stopped listening after the tenth lecture. She had become more of his second mother than a doctor.

He stopped thinking of what he could've done different and maybe saved her and focused on the life he had now. He had an entire crew that needed him as their leader and how was he going to fill that position if he just set up in the Captain's Quarters all day long, moping about what could've happened. He was in love with Shepard and always would be, but she was gone and nothing he could've done that fateful day would've changed how it would've ended. Now, his life was dedicated to was being a Spectre. He vowed to protect every individual possible, punish anyone who committed an unjustly crime, and most of all, remember his true love as she was.

A/N: Yeah, this chapter was boring, but this is just to catch everyone up on how the galaxy is recovering after the Reaper War and the state of Kaidan's mind since, after all he is the main character of this story. Next Chapter will begin the story! Anyway, reviews are appreciated. My writing is super rusty. My thought never come out on paper the way I want them to!