Authors Note:

First and foremost, thank you to everyone who has reviewed/commented and followed this story, it really does mean so much to me that people like what I've written and I agree with all of you that there needs to be more M Shep/Vega love and shipping in the world, so I hope I can fill part of that void for us.

Eva Galana, thank you for your critical review, it's really helped me think more about what/how I write so I'm going to cool things off a little and have the romance bubble a little more slowly. It just went a bit fast I think because I got sort of caught up in the excitement of the moment but thank you for the support. The same goes out to everyone else who has reviewed, it means the world to me.

I still haven't really planned out where exactly this is going but I do have a rough structure so bear with me if it sounds awful or anything, I'm going to try and write longer chapters now so hopefully you can have more fun reading it. This chapter is generally Shepard related and sorry for the kind of monologue in the middle but I hope it works.

Chapter 2 – Galactic Hero

"What?" asked Shepard, slightly alarmed at James' sudden outburst. As he asked this, Shepard was also thinking 'Shit! Did I hold that eve contact too long? Shit! Shit! Shit! What am I worrying about anyway; it didn't mean anything…did it?"

"Umm, nothing Sir, just remembered I'm meant to be helping introduce some new Alliance Recruits in 5 minutes and I'm gonna be late. Gotta run Shepard!" shouted James, having already started jogging down the corridor.

'That's a nice ass' breathed Shepard as Vega flew around the corner, out of sight. 'What? A guy can appreciate when another guy is good looking, right?' John reassured himself. Now, with James gone Shepard could focus back on the task at hand which was? Oh yeah, being grounded by the Alliance.

Without his precious ship, the Normandy, Shepard felt like half a man. The Normandy has become part of him, and her crew had helped shape him into the hero the galaxy viewed him as today.

'Yeah that's right, a galactic hero.' He began his internal debate: 'The pressure of the whole fu***ng Milky Way lies on my shoulders and I couldn't get rid of it even if I wanted to. I mean, sure being such a symbol of hope does have it's advantages what with all the attention, meeting the other 'celebs' and the never-ending flow of free items, you'd think I was living the dream. It's great but it's just not what I want.'

'Everyone always asks the easy questions like what were missions X, Y & Z like or who have you been photographed with this week but none of it matters. Not to me. They always start the interviews with "Hi, How are you?" but none of them really care or want to know how I'm genuinely feeling. Can you imagine the look on one of their faces if I was to actually tell them "Yeah, I feel like a piece of s**t. This hero crap sucks." I don't think they'd know how to respond, and an hour later they wouldn't even remember it. As long as they get the right shots, they get their viewers and their credits, and then they're happy.'

'The cameras are gone and once again I'm left alone. I can't even dare to tell anyone the truth, can you think of the media shit storm and the headlines: "Commander Shepard, The Whiney Little Bit*h". The Alliance would hate me for it too, showing a sign of weakness, especially with what's happening with Cerberus right now.'

'I can't even find someone to confide in truthfully, if I ever let myself fall for someone I know that they would be ripped out of my life in some bloody battle in the blink of an eye. I can't get to know anyone well because in the end, we all know, it's going to end badly. No one listened to me about the Reapers and now they're knocking on our door and we have f**k all to fight back with. How else is it going to end? No civilisation in the last however many hundreds of thousands of years has been able to stop them, so how can we? Not even the Protheans, who as far as I can tell were much more advanced than we are, could stop the Reaper threat. I don't want to face that kind of loss. I can't face that kind of loss. Not after what happened on Akuze with the thresher maw attack on my unit. No. I mustn't let it get to me. I just need to do my job, get my ship back and be a soldier.'

Shepard distracted himself with a few mundane tasks, searching around the extranet for war updates from Alliance News Network, messing around with his omni-tool (he still never asked Tali to hack into it for him so her could access the mysterious 'hidden features' the Quarian had spoken of) and playing with his biotics trying to gentle lift the books and chairs in his room without ripping them apart. He was more used to destroying enemies on the battlefield and throwing them around rather than gently focusing on an object to fly it around the room.

'Maybe if I…' and before he knew it he'd began hurtling towards the glass-panelled ceiling and the last image that crossed his mind before he fell unconscious was the beginning of a beautiful Vancouver sunset over the bay, the subtle warmth gently tingling his skin.

Shepard's limp body rapidly fell towards the floor but luck was on his side, he'd managed to fly into the ceiling space directly above his bed so nothing broke as he slammed into the mattress, although the poorly-made bed did give way underneath the immense force of a fully grown man landing on it, cheap wooden frame instantly snapping, leaving John's body in a complete state, lying between messed up sheets, wooden bed slats poking up out of the mess and an exploded pillow leaking feathers right by his face.

"Shepard.." wheezed Vega, fresh blood covering the side of his head.

"You gotta get out of here!" Shepard replied.

"Bullshit!" Vega exclaimed, longing for more battle.

"Don't argue with me James" Shepard reassured the soldier.

"I can still fight…" James managed to get out, before a cry of pain escaped his lips, he was obviously seriously injured. "Just give me my gun!" he forced out.

"Please, I need to know somebody is getting out of this alive. I can't let you die. Please." pleaded John, a lump beginning to grow at the back of his throat.

James' face spoke a thousand words. His eyes were longing to be with Shepard, his nose scrunched up by the obvious pain he was in and his lips trembling at the thought of never seeing the man in front of him again.

"Good Luck, Loco. I..I…I lo…"

The roar of Harbinger ripped through Shepard's ears and drowned out Vega's words, giving Shepard no chance to reply as the image before him vanished into complete and utter blackness.

Vega's introduction with the new recruits was not going well. He hated being here anyway, it was obvious none of them were listening, too excited by the hype of joining the military and the adventures they were going to have, and if James was honest with himself, he was a third wheel in this presentation. The other two Alliance officials with him, a tall, middle-aged, dark skinned man and a slightly older, greying female were much higher ranking than him and did more or less all of the talking. Vega was more of a show-and-tell toy, stood there to be the poster-boy of the Alliance.

He could feel time physically slowing down as the meeting was gradually getting to a close and he could feel a pang of hunger in the pit of his stomach the let out a whimper of a growl as everyone said their goodbyes.

'Maybe I should go see if the commander want's to grab a bite to eat or something? He said we should get to know each other better, especially as I'd been working on his ship the Normandy whilst he was grounded. Plus, what kind of a man can deny a good steak for dinner? I know the best place…'

Vega planned where to go and how to get there on the trip back to Shepard's room, booking a skycar in advance to get them there. Shepard was grounded, but he was still allowed to go out under supervision, and since he was stationed to watch over John, he didn't see the problem. Shepard must have been fed up of Alliance rations by now anyway.

Reaching Shepard's door, Vega quickly stopped himself to go over how he was going to ask Shepard if he wanted to come, he just wanted it to be casual and didn't want to make the situation awkward, so he thought, just put your soldier held on and don't beat around the bush. Be blunt.

Pounding on John's door, James got no reply, tried again, no reply.

Three more tries and still no answer.

'Right, I'll just use my bypass to get in, he might not even be there anyway' he though, reaching into his pocket.

As the metallic door to Shepard's 'room' (more like a penthouse in James' eyes) hissed open, he was treated to one of the funniest sights he had seen in a long time.

Sprawled out on the broken wreck of what appeared to formerly be a bed was an unconscious John Shepard, draped in pieces of bed frame, tattered sheets and feathers from an exploded pillow gracefully decorating his head.

Not only that, the funniest thing was that as far as Vega could tell, Shepard was butt-naked with just the thin bed sheets protecting his (well-endowed according to the folding of the sheets) manhood.

James began to let out a mixture of uncontrollable screams and laughs as he saw Shepard's body begin to stir, eyes slightly opening in a misty daze.

"So this is the mighty Commander Shepard, the Galactic Hero!" he managed to throw out before another scream of laughter erupted from his chest.

Afternote:

So there you go! Chapter 2! I hope you thought it was okay ^^ I wanted to lighted the mood a bit and ease off the intensity and to be honest, just have a bit of fun after that crazy inner monologue I gave Shepard. I can just imagine how funny Vega would find it walking in on Loco in a scene like that so I just had to put it in! Again, please review if you can or message me or something to let me know what it's like, I have so much fun writing this and it feels like a great outlet. VEGA 4 LIFE 3