A/N: Wow! Thanks for the apparent enthusiasm for this. I'll be flailing in my corner.

So They Say

The Victory Fleet was devastated.

As they limped back towards Earth, the ships that hadn't made it with the bulk of the retreating forces began to report in. Mostly smaller ships - a large number of the dreadnoughts and cruisers had been targeted and destroyed or crippled by the Reapers. But it was still far more than he'd even hoped for.

As they neared the broken Citadel, kept together only by mass effect fields with the occasional flicker of light dancing down an arm, Hackett released a long-held breath. Around the Citadel were the scattered husks of Reapers, completely lifeless. "Do a scan," he ordered quietly. The ensign at the scanner nodded, and reported back in a matter of minutes as the ship began to draw into what he considered "dangerously close" territory. A Reaper floated lifeless, though, as they moved carefully past its dead corpse.

"It appears that the Reapers' mass effect cores have been destroyed," she explained. "No chance of reactivation, spontaneous or otherwise."

Hackett nodded, looking back over the wreckage in front of his ship. "Send a message to Earth. Find out if anyone's still alive. And we will need to run rescue operations to the Citadel." He turned on his heel, heading back for the war room.

Now more work began.

They would need to get any survivors off the Citadel. If the station was as damaged as it looked, they didn't have long before the fields failed entirely. And if Shepard . . . no. She would want the focus to be on others. She always did.

::Sir,:: the comm officer interrupted as soon as he'd reached the war room. ::Major Coats reports that a good number of the forces not with Hammer on the ground survived. Most of the casualties were in that group.::

"Good. Tell him to coordinate with Urdnot Wrex and Major Alenko to form se-"

::Uh, sir . . .we've had no communications with the Normandy since the retreat. They haven't reported in.::

"What?" Hackett opened the ship's report from the haphazard retreat. "She was right behind us." The last ship to leave the field, as he would have expected.

::There's been no communications since.::

Hackett sighed, eyes closing. "Then tell him to coordinate with the Grissom students."

::Yes, sir.::

"I want teams scouring the tower and the Presidium within three hours. The Council is our top priority." Without them and Shepard, he couldn't even begin to think what turmoil the other races would get into.

::Aye aye, sir.::

::Sir. All fleets reported in except the batarians and the geth.::

The news about the batarians didn't surprise him. The last anyone had seen, their last ship was being piloted into an unshielded Reaper, taking out both. The geth, though . . . "Any ideas why the geth are silent?" He squinted. No, there were the geth - their ships hadn't retreated?

::No, sir. Their ships appear largely intact, but there is no sign of activity, nor did they retreat with the rest of the fleet.::

This fight couldn't have claimed two whole species - or a species and a synthetic group - could it? "Tell the quarians to check on them."

::Yes, sir.::

"Let me know when Wrex and Jack are prepared."

::Yes, sir.::

Hackett lowered his head and, for the first time in months, took a deep breath.

#

"Oi!" Bailey's voice rang through the nearly silent rubble, peppered by more falling rocks and dripping water. "Councilor?"

Tevos coughed, shaking her head to clear it. She'd been trapped under her desk when the Reapers moved the Citadel almost two days earlier, and hadn't quite been able to force her way out of it. And judging from the screams and roars outside her office the station had been crawling with Reaper forces, and in her current trapped state she would have been easily taken out. She cleared her throat and coughed again, dust lodging back in her throat. Something fell somewhere back in her office, landing on top of her desk with a loud thud. She winced as her desk shook above her head, and she again poked at the rubble blocking her under it as if trying to gauge its thickness for the seventeenth time. "Captain! In here!"

There was silence. "Door's blocked. Hang on, Councilor." A few minutes later there was a loud crash, then footsteps. "All right. Let's get you out of there."

"The other councilors," Tevos asked, really wishing she could stretch. "Are they all right?"

"Fine," Bailey said, his voice far closer to her now. "We're diggin' them out of their offices now, Councilor. Hold still. Might get iffy here."

Her desk started to shake, dust falling off onto her head. She coughed, closing her eyes until she felt air around her, and Bailey's hand rested on her shoulder. When she opened her eyes she was surprised to see a young human woman, blue biotic glow slowly dissipating from around her body. She smiled at the Councilor as Bailey helped her to her feet. "Let's get you to a medic."

#

"Found Anderson." Wrex kicked a piece of rubble aside and off the lax, unmoving admiral. "Shepard's got to be nearby."

Once they'd located all three councilors trapped in their offices with only minor injuries, Wrex, Jack, and Grunt had refused to do anything more until Shepard was located. Grunt had sent the rest of Aralakh off with another warlord after they'd received a strict admonishing to behave from Wrex, and Jack had left her own students with Bailey after threatening him with severe bodily harm if any of them even came close to getting hurt.

"Looks dead," Grunt said gruffly. Wrex huffed in reply. "Can't be far."

The ceiling of the room - which appeared to be the base of Citadel Tower, right under where the Crucible had initially docked - was a mess. Rubble had forced its way through several holes, with remnants of the huge weapon crashing through afterwards. Jack had already climbed one large piece of plating, poking her head through one of the holes. It opened to space, but the mass effect fields that protected most of Citadel tower seemed to still be holding.

"There's a lot of rubble," she called down. "Bitch might have made it up here."

Had they been talking about anyone other than Shepard, Wrex might have dismissed it. "Go on."

Jack pulled herself through the hole, scarcely waiting for the krogan to pull themselves after her before opening her omnitool and initiating a scan for either lifesigns or Shepard's omni-tool. She hadn't gotten rid of the code after she'd started at Grissom, telling herself it was because Shepard would probably get into trouble again and need her to save her dumb ass rather than because she was being sentimental.

It surprised her when a faint blip appeared to her right. "Got something!" she announced, sprinting towards it. Thundering steps indicated that at least one of her two companions was running after her.

At the bottom of the questionable pile of rubble, stretched out to the side was a single limp, burnt hand, connected to a limp, burnt arm. A faint orange glow wreathing it marked the remnants of an omni-tool, pulsing in time to Jack's signal.

"Make a call for a medical team," Wrex barked at Grunt. "Tell them we've got Shepard and I'll eat them if they don't hurry."

"I-"

"Do it!" Wrex grabbed one of the beams before the younger krogan could argue, throwing the steel to the side.

"It's half the fucking Crucible," Jack complained, flaring and throwing another piece aside in a wreath of blue energy.

"Stay still," Wrex ordered as he held out a hand, this time flaring a bright blue. Jack scoffed. He glared at her, then motioned. "Take that half."

"That's better. On three."

Together, they grabbed part of the rubble in a sheath of blue and pushed. Hunks of the Crucible flew off the pile, and they began stripping it layer by layer. Grunt jumped up and down at the far end of the platform, waving his short arms to try and attract the circling medical shuttle. Fortunately one didn't miss a bouncing krogan very easy and the shuttle began to pull in, landing on the most solid looking part of the tower base.

Wrex and Jack finally pulled away the last layer of rubble.

Shepard had been caught in at least two explosions, the skin on her arms black and covered in melted ceramic. Her face was cut badly, blood crusting the side of her head and skin slightly pink from further burns, right arm still slung protectively across her face. Her hair was unevenly burnt, in some places down to her scalp, the bun holding it back long singed off. And there was no telling what other injuries were hidden under her armor. Her right hand still clutched a pistol, twisted and inoperable from where something had fallen on it. She didn't move, though no one had expected her to.

Wrex tore off the last piece of rubble, sharp ears picking up the squeak of a gurney behind him. He wasn't even sure the trauma team was needed, to be honest - in all he did and didn't know about human physiology, she was dead. Again. But he stepped aside anyway, resisting the urge to head forward with them in case he shifted the rubble she was precariously perched on. Shepard was very krogan-like, after all. If anyone could have survived . . .

"Got a weak pulse!" the first medic to her cried, looking up from his omni-tool with shock. "Help me get her stable so we can move her."

"What can we do?" Wrex immediately interrupted as the rest of the shuttle team ran by him.

"Just stay out of -" he paused. "No. Wait. You two are biotics, right?" They nodded. "We'll get the brace and the vent on her, and you can lift her onto the board. Just keep her steady, all right? We don't want to jar her too much."

"You know a lot about biotics," Jack commented.

"My brother was one," he replied simply.

As soon as the team stepped back with what gear they could get in place ready before the stretcher, the first medic nodded back. Jack and Wrex lifted Shepard carefully out of the rubble and onto the team's stretcher, settling her down. She didn't stir.

"Guess all that water lifting did something," Jack said, dragging the back of her hand across her forehead and leaving a trail of grime. The medical team retreated to their shuttle, anyone not pushing the gurney attempting to remove the unmelted parts of Shepard's armor and do whatever else needed to be done, and Wrex clapped his companions' shoulders.

"Well, better help those C-Sec idiots," he said gruffly, beginning to guide them back towards the hole they'd come up through with only the smallest glance back as the shuttle took off.

#

Kaidan swung his legs over the side of his cot, groaning. His entire body was on fire, limbs feeling strangely weak. He let his head fall forward onto his hands with a groan.

"Hold still, major," Chakwas said suddenly from his side. "How's your head?"

"Fine," he grumbled. He at least didn't have a migraine. That was a slight plus. "How long was I out?" Had he been that badly injured?"

"Nearly a day," Chakwas mused, scanning him with her omni-tool. "I had to keep putting you under."

"You - what?" His head jerked up, making his vision swim slightly. "You were drugging me?!"

"You were half an inch from ripping Garrus' head off, Kaidan. And I mean that quite literally." She closed her tool. "You look fine. No remaining damage."

"So what happened? Where's Shepard?"

"We crashed," she explained. "We lost EDI."

"'Lost' her? How?"

She didn't reply immediately, jerking his head up and looking into his eyes with a light. Kaidan winced. "Comms are mostly down. We're getting some static here and there but can't call out. Adams and Tali should have the Normandy spaceworthy shortly. Joker, Garrus, and Liara are working on the comms. I'm sure they could use your help, though."

"Doctor-"

"Didn't lose anyone in the crash," she continued, as if she hadn't even noticed his interjection. "Joker managed to crash-land safely. He informed me that he has plenty of practice - I think he was referring to the time we wrecked on the Collector ba-"

"Karin!" He snapped. She looked away, busying herself on her terminal. Kaidan pulled himself to his feet and leaned over her desk. "Do we know about Shepard?"

"Go up to the cockpit," she murmured. "They'll fill you in there."

Kaidan pushed off and stormed out, heading for the cockpit. He saw Garrus and Liara in there long before he heard them - which he realized, as he drew closer, was because the entire cockpit was silent. As he got closer, static flickered through, and he started to recognize it. A list of names. A long list.

"Alliance Channel Seven," he said quietly, making all three jump. It hadn't been used since the Battle of the Citadel, only used in times of war or after major actions to read updated lists of the missing and dead. Since the Reapers invaded, it'd been running almost nonstop with new names added almost every hour.

"It's the only thing we're getting. All the other comms are down," Joker said, waving his hand. "Probably everyone trying to call people systems away."

"Probably." He swallowed, dreading his next question. "Uh, anyone we should know about?"

They were quiet for a second, then Liara cleared her throat. "We've been listening for several hours," she said quietly. "Anderson is listed with the dead."

Kaidan nodded, swallowing again. "Shepard?"

They shook their heads. "But they haven't gotten to the missing yet, either," Joker said. "But they were together, and . . ."

"No," Kaidan said. "We don't know. She could still be alive." They traded a look. "Don't give me that. We don't know." They didn't answer, and he cleared his throat. "She's fine," he repeated firmly. She said she'd wait for me, his mind added, almost a scream. She'll wait for me!

He missed the second look the trio gave one another.