A COMMANDERS GRAVEYARD

Garrus, Karin and Calen stepped off the Normandy shuttle and looked around them. Hackett, that old space dog had sent a message regarding the Normandy crash site. How on earth had he known that Shepard was still alive? Even the letter from Anderson was boardering on "I don't really know if you are Calen Shepard but..." Hacketts mail had been different, he knew. She wondered if he had spies inside the Cerberus network itself. Wouldn't have surpprised her if he did, that old bugger had his hands and his fingers in most things that people didn't know about.

Garrus and Karin had insisted on coming with her. Garrus wanted to pay his respects and Karin, aside from the same desire, was not about to let her foster daughter visit the SRV's gravesite alone. Two shuttle pilots had come down with them, but that was to watch over the package that had sat in the Normandy lounge for a week now.

Stepping out the first sight that hit them was the bulk of the vessel, the name NORMANDY staring back at them. Calen glanced at the pilots and nodded, and with Garrus and herself helping they carried the package to a spot just before the broken ships body and set it down. Unveiling it they fell silent at the memorial plague.

The pilots waited a respectful amount of time then made their way back into the shuttle..

KARIN.

She had been a spacer most of her life. She had been born and raised in London England and, like most of her family had joined the medical profession. Kings College Hospital in London, a prestigious medical school as well as a working busy Hospital had a history going back centuries and that was where the young Karin trained.

Unlike her family though, she had opted to join the Alliance medical corp. Her romantic ideals of space and adventure had soon been erased with the reality, harsh as it was, of space travel. Especially after Shanxi.

She had been in her late thirties when she had been aboard the SSV Folkestone one of the first vessels to attend Mindoir after the Batarians had left. She had run to the Shepard homestead to find Jason and her friend Hannah both dead, and a stunned wet and bedraggled teenage girl, no more than 16 with enough cuts and bruises over her to cover her tanned features, sitting with her knees up under her chin glaring at the door like some caged predator.

"Calen" She had whispered. She told the team with her to cover the bodies "Calen its me Karin"

The girl had not moved and only when Karin had placed a blanket around her shoulders did the girl look up, in her hand, hanging onto them for dear life was her parents love tokens. Karin had made no secret of the fact that she was taking the girl home with her.

Anderson, the Commander of the operation, had agreed whole heartedly. The child needed to be with people she knew. Now years later she watched the same woman who she had raised as her own walk around the wreck site like she was in a daze. Every so often she found a dog tag and put it in a case.

Karin found the remains of her medical bay and heaved a sigh. She picked a dog tag up and read the name. Helen Lowe, there was one just off from it, Addison Chase she closed her eyes,

"Helen come on its time to go" Karin yelled above the explosions.

"You go doctor, I am just grabbing some essentials"

Chakwas nodded once "I will be in engineering, meet me there and we'll get as many of the wounded as we can off into the evac tubes"

"I'll be with you in a moment Doc" Helen saluted quickly and grabbed whatever emergency medical supplies she could find. Chakwas watched as she attended to a wounded crewman and turned her back to head for engineering when an explosion hit the mess hall and the medical bay,

She went to get her nurse when she was held by Wrex, "Its too late Doc" Wrex rumbled. Karin struggled in his arms as her nurse and the now dead crew man Chase, Addison Chase, were sucked into space, she didn't even have time to scream.

Karin set the tags in the box that Calen held out for her. "You OK Doc?" She asked, her face hidden behind her helm, so the Doc couldn't read her eyes, her voice as ever in control.

"Helen had been so proud to be assigned to the Normandy. When we stole the vessel she dressed up as a pirate for the morning, do you remember?"

Calen nodded "I remember. She danced with Wrex and Pressley around the mess hall pretending they were holding the crew up and threatening to make them walk the plank if anyone dared go against the captains orders." A chuckle emitted from the Commanders voice mic. "You pretended to walk the plank as I recall."

"She was a dedicated nurse and Alliance soldier who knew how to have fun, even at her age as Joker had put it on more than one occasion. She could have come with me, I was heading for Engineering to aid Ashley, she chose to stay and collect emergency supplies that we would need, she stopped to help Crewman Chase. Such horrific burns on his body, he had lost an arm but was still alive, and then that ship cut through the mess hall and had it not been for Wrex I might have been sucked out with her." Karin wiped her eyes "I will never forget the expression on her face Calen, she knew she was going to die but she reached out for me."

"Do you want to return to the Shuttle?" Calen put her arm round the docs waist,

"No my dear, I have to do this myself."

"Come join me when you are ready Mum"

Karin smiled a little and watched her foster daughter walk off. Beside her a whisper of a woman's words in her ear "She is the Normandy"

"That she is Helen, that she is."

GARRUS

The Mako was perched on a small ridge of Ice and snow, which seemed ironic in Garrus's opinion. Seeing as the amount of punishment the Commander put it through it always ended upright. He couldn't help but smile a little as he recalled the swearing that would happen whenever Shepard took the wheel.

He crouched down as something shiny caught his attention. He read the dog tag inscription Tabitha Draven. He uttered a sad sigh and closed his fingers over the metal tag. He had been a C-sec officer, failed one at that, not because he wasn't good at his job, quite the opposite in fact, but, because he always pushed to ensure Justice came for all.

When he had returned to C-Sec after the attack, it had not been the same, he would sleep but the screams of the dying and wounded would always haunt his dreams, and whilst he could not give these poor souls justice, he knew where he could and who he could help. He quit C-Sec and moved to Omeaga. Plenty of criminals to fire at there. No innocents in the way, just out and out scum and that was how he liked it.

If an innocent was in the crossfire than Garrus would personally get them out the way, hell Wrex would be proud at the number of bullet wounds that scarred his body now. He glanced back down at the dog tag.

Tabitha had been one of the maintenance team that had constantly checked the Mako over after each mission. Garrus had helped her on numerous occasions and a rapport had built between the two. She had told him about her home in New Orleans, he had told her about his home on Palavan. She had told him about her family, he had told her about his. They had become friends and then one night they became lovers.

"Do you think you will stay aboard the Normandy?" Tabitha s voice had sleepily asked.

"I want to. Shepard is a brilliant Commander and I want to be there when she finds the Reapers" he had replied and then tightened his arm around her shoulders "and I wish to explore this relationship with you. I had no idea human women were so...flexible"

"Not all human women Garrus" She had chuckled "but I did Yoga for years it helps"

Garrus was not sure what Yoga was, so he had asked her to explain. She told him all about it, its discipline and how it had helped her burn any anger she had felt at her fathers death during the reclaiming of Shanxi.

He liked the sound of it and had asked her to teach him some of it. She told him that it wasn't a martial art, and he still asked her. When she fell asleep he got up and got dressed went to look over the Mako once more. There was still one more calibration needed. The old girl needed all the help it could get once Shepard got her hands on it.

The first explosion knocked him off his feet, he was hauled up by a half dressed bleary eyes Tabitha and both of them headed for the weapons locker. The second explosion sent the quartermaster flying into the bulkhead, his head impaled on a jagged bit of metal.

The Mako had begun to move and Tabitha pushed Garrus down only to be caught under the tracks and crushed. Garrus yelled her name as blood spewed forth from her mouth and was held by Ashley.

"She's gone Garrus, there's nothing you can do...i am sorry"

He could only watch as the Mako smeared with his lovers blood and guts rolled out of the exposed hanger door taking her with it.

"Help me with Tali and Greg, before we all get blown out into space" Ashley brought his mind back into focus and he did as she ordered.

"She was always talking about you" Garrus's mind came back to the present to see Shepard standing beside him. "We had already figured out what was going on with you two and I didn't care, I thought it was kinda cute."

"Cute?" Garrus arched an eyebrow.

"Yeah, the big bad C-SEC Turian and the Human engineer, what a romance film that would have made"

Garrus uttered a choked laugh and nodded "She was a nice woman Shepard, I liked her, she had said next earth leave she would take me to the Mississippi and show me how to fish"

"Tell you what Garr, if we get some leave to earth, I'll keep her promise for her. I know it won't be the same but..."

Garrus looked at the dog tag for a final time and placed it in the box "It will be fine Calen, she idolised you, said you were the only one who had the balls to do what no one else did. I don't think she would have minded in the slightest."

Garrus clasped his hands behind his back watched his Commander and best friend walk away. "Stay by her side Garrus, she is going to need you more than she will ever admit." Tabitha's voice echoed in his mind.

"On that love, we can agree" Garrus replied to the spectre at his shoulder "Rest easy and thank you for all you taught me,"

She had known every single crew member under her command, they were not just faces that saluted her when she walked past or would nod in greeting at her, they were her crew and she knew them all, their histories, their dreams. She had prided herself on knowing them all. Hackett had said that she was unlike any other Commander, with the exception of perhaps Captain Anderson. She cared enough about her people to want to get to know them.

Calen set the last dog tag in the box her foot hit something. Looking down she saw it, crouching now she brushed the snow and ice off and staring back at her was her battered N7 helmet. She set the box down and picked her old helmet up with shaking hands she looked it over. She put the box in her armour compartment and stood up to get a better look at it, taking her helmet off and setting it on her belt magnet she could see it better.

She looked inside it and gasped as she saw the dried blood stains and other matter that had attached itself to the inside.

She closed her eyes as the sound of the Normandy dying echoed in her mind. The twenty crew that had not made it out of there. Jokers face as she slammed her hand against the release button, floating in space as the escape pods made it out and seemingly looking at her friends and lovers one.

The panic that overwhelmed her as her air began to leave at a horrendous rate, feel of a bulkhead slamming into her struggling body and her air gone, the feeling of suffocation, she dropped the N7 helmet and sank to her knees. The last thought she had before she died, the last emotion was the overwhelming fear of burning. She was burning, her skin, her suit, her hair, everything burnt away.

She bowed threw her head back and screamed, bringing Chakwas and Vakarian running over. Her scream was rage incarnate, she had been at peace, she had died a horrific death but she had found peace, her parents were waiting for her, she had been with them and then yanked back, yanked back into pain and terror and pressure.

Karin knelt beside her and pulled her into an embrace, she was not crying, she was shaking and she was moaning "No no no no" Over and over again. "Why Liara, why?"

Garrus rested his hand on her shoulder and saw her hold the helmet to her chest tightly. He radioed the Normandy and told Joker that when they were aboard to head for the Citadel. Gently he and Karin got the Commander to her feet and walked with her, their arms round her. They got back to the shuttle and said one final goodbye to the SRV before they headed back to the SR1.

Garrus thought he saw the ghosts of the crew salute their Commander, he thought given what he had been through on Omeaga this was his own mind, but as he met Karins blue eyes he knew that she had seen the same. The crews spirits would remain, but they were going home to their families at last.