Roarkshop here: Finally! Mass Effect 2 Storyline! I'm sorry to leave on a cliffhanger, but I had to! You know you love it! This marks where I will be switching perspectives more actively. I won't be sticking to Garrus alone I will be switching pretty actively between Shepard and Garrus and sometimes other crew memebrs too. I hope you all enjoy this Chapter as I worked very hard on the tone of it. Please feel free to tell me what you think!

For those of you who have been messaging me requesting I do a Thane romance I'm going to have to decline, for now. Let me at least finish this story or I never will! =P

Check your inboxes for replies! And as always: Thank you SOOOOOO much for your support. It means the world to me.

"The Normandy's dead, just like us if we don't get the hell out of here!" Jane shouted at Joker.

"No, If I can just- Oh shit. They're coming around for another attack!" he said. "OW! Watch the arm!" She hoisted him around her shoulders, effectively breaking the brittle bone in his arm with the force of her armored grip. She shoved him into the shuttle just before a blast knocked her away from the wall. She knew that if she didn't send the shuttle away, they would both get spaced.

"Shepard!" Joker cried as she slammed her fist into the launch button, watching it detach and soar away.

Her last thoughts surprised her as she circled through space.

Garrus.

The way he would move her hair behind her ear, the way he would pull her out of the line of fire, the way he laughed, the way she could always move into his arms when she was feeling especially defeated. She thought of the fire in his eyes and the passion in his tone when he would make that bestial sound in battle. Even if the reapers came back, she knew he wouldn't take it lying down. That even without her, he would do the right thing. This all happened in a matter of seconds, of course, as her lungs started tearing and pain surged through her body. Eventually, though, she found peace thinking of him. Thinking of them.

Her last thought was about how cruel the universe was, that she only now realized how much she cared for him, now that she would never get the chance to tell him so.

Her eyes flickered open to white. White everywhere. Nothing but white. Oh god, she was in a hospital. A voice was shouting at her. She sat up, thinking she was going to see Deelia dying on the gurney across from her, but there was no one. Just the voice shouting for her to grab a pistol, and a crippling pain in her head.

I distinctly remember dying, she thought to herself. Is hell a giant hospital? That would be just my luck. Where's my crew? Where am I? God damn it, who is yelling at me? I'm pretty sure I hate her.

The pain wracked her whole body as she sat up and hobbled to the station, glaring down at some strange armor.

"What in the good god damn? What is this crap?" She growled, stepping into it as quickly as she could, but every time she moved her body protested with a sharp twinge of pain.

"You don't have time to wait around," the voice shouted. "Get to the compartment and grab your pistol."

She picked up the empty gun and groaned like someone had told her a bad joke.

"Hey," she snapped. "Annoying disembodied voice, this gun doesn't have a thermal clip."

"It's a Med bay," the Australian accent said over the comm. Shepard thought she could hear the woman rolling her eyes.

"If a thermal clip is a ridiculous thing to have in the med bay, why is there a gun in here?"

"Just get to cover, that wall's going to blow."

"Yup," she said as she limped into cover seconds before the canisters exploded. "Definitely hate her."

"Two years," she said. Astounded.

How could this be happening? The last thing she remembered was sending Joker off in his shuttle, and spinning idly through space as her oxygen leaked out. She hung her head into her hands. She felt like reality was slipping through her fingers. She had to get control back.

Bite it down, Jane, she thought. Get a grip.

The two Cerberus operatives, Miranda and Jacob, were talking in the shuttle, but she didn't really hear any of it. Project Lazarus. Illusive Man. None of it meant anything to her. None of it made any sense.

They asked her something about the Skylian Blitz, the name ignited her memories. Holding the wall, getting the civilians into safety, refusing to run away. She made some sort of half-effort response.

"Whatever you call it, it was damn impressive," Jacob said.

Then they asked her about Ash. The name clicked in her head. Gunnery Chief Ashley Williams. Virmire flashed across her mind.

She stared out the window as they left the atmosphere, watching the mushroom cloud rising from the land. She thought about her defending the nuke before the explosion. She thought about her lowering her gun, making peace with her God just seconds before it went off. She remembered the chill that went through her as she watched. The tears she bit down, fought for the sake of her squad. She remembered a comforting hand on her shoulder, pain spreading through her chest. Warm blue eyes, silently comforting her.

Garrus...

"Where's the rest of my team? How do I find them? Are they all alive?"

"You didn't answer the question, Commander."

"Yes, yes, Ash died on Virmire to save us all. Where. Is. My. Team?"

They explained that they didn't have a lot of information on it, and that the Illusive Man would explain everything.

She was determined to get some answers.

She stepped into the ring that scanned her body, transmitting it to the Illusive man. It was an understatement to say that she was disappointed that she was only meeting his image, and not the actual man.

Necessary precaution is right, she thought. I wouldn't hesitate to throttle your righteous ass.

"Cut to the chase," she snarled after he jabbered for about 5 minutes. "What are the reapers doing that you spent billions of credits to bring me back?"

"We're at war," he said. "While you've been sleeping-"

"Dead," she corrected.

"Yes... Entire human colonies have been going missing. We think someone is helping the reapers, like Saren and the geth with Sovereign. You bested all of them. That's one of the reasons we chose you."

"Cerberus doesn't fight wars. What's the catch?"

"No catch. You may not agree with our methods but Cerberus' motives have always been to further human development. Now hundreds of thousands of humans have gone missing and we need you to get to the bottom of it."

"That's it? I wake up after two years of dead and it's just business as usual? Get your ass back to work? Who do you think you are? Playing God like this. You had no right to interfere with my death. I don't have to do anything you tell me. The problem with bringing me back is you can't just cart me around now, I will decide my own battles."

"Yes, you will. I brought you back but there was never any guarantee that you would accept our way of thinking or help us. It is your decision and the ship is yours now. But you care about the fate of those colonies. You've never let a person die if you could stop it. And you're the only one who can stop it now."

"You son of a bitch," she growled. How dare he use her past against her. "I will check out this colony. But I do not answer to you, and I will not let you get in my way. After I check it out, I will decide what to do. Whether or not you remain in the loop will depend entirely on whether or not you're full of shit."

"There isn't much I can do to stop you now that you're alive. No one has ever been able to make you do anything you didn't want to do. But these people need you now Shepard, remember that."

"Die in a fire," she said over he shoulder as she walked out of the broadcasting ring.

The mission was disconcerting on... just... so many levels. The only good thing about it was Joker.

"You'll see, Commander, it'll be better than the old days," Joker said, trying to be upbeat.

"I hope so," she said. "I died."

"Gah, you're such a downer!"

She smiled, only slightly. It wasn't real, but it was the first smile she had found since waking in the med bay. A little part of her past that was still in tact. There was no one else of her old crew available to her, Dr. Chakwas aside. She wondered if they would still be unavailable if they knew she was alive.

She went into the bathroom to look herself over, and everything really hit her. Tali had been at the encampment, retrieving an old team mate. She was shocked to see her alive. There was no recognition, no friendliness. Not that she could blame her. Two years. Two years. Two. Years.

God, she thought. She looked at me like she didn't even know me.

She washed her face in the hottest water she could handle, just happy to feel how it hurt her. To ensure that she still felt pain. To ensure some part of her was still human. She lifted her shirt and was a little comforted by the fact that she could see the scar on her stomach from Noveria, of all her old scars it was the only one still there. It was much more faded than it had been, but it ensured that they had at least used her body to rebuild her, rather than starting from scratch. At least something was still her. She glared at her reflection, the dark rings around her eyes, the glowing red scar on her forehead that ran past her eye and down her cheek. She was looking more and more like Saren every day.

No, she thought. I'm not like Saren. Saren was indoctrinated. I'm doing the right thing. I'm going to help these people.

She had to stop thinking about it, she had to get it out of her head. She left the bathroom and stormed across the room, dragging a hand across the glass of the empty fish tanks to sort through the various dossiers.

She poured bullets into Saren's husk, even after they had already killed it.

"Shepard, it's dead," Garrus said, grabbing her shoulder from behind. She turned to look at him, tears streaming down her face. He held her tight and pressed his forehead against hers, holding her face in his hands. Her heart raced in her chest as she searched his eyes with hers. Something was happening to her. His thumb caressed her cheek as he held her.

"It's over, Jane," he said.

The sound of him saying her name made her knees tremble, and sent a terrible pain surge through her. She wasn't right, something was happening. She pushed him away as hard as she could.

"Get the hell out of here," she screams at him.

He looks at her, confused, hurt in his eyes.

"Don't ask questions, god damn it, just go!"

"Jane... what's wrong," he says, reaching for her.

"No... Garrus..." She buckles over and the pain wracks through her body.

YOU ARE NOT SAREN, BUT YOU WILL DO.

She screams as the power goes through her body, bringing her to her knees, red light pulsing out of her cybernetics scars, her eyes, every part of her.

"GARRUS," she screams. "GO!"

Her face contorts, her cheek bones jut out of her skin, cutting through the flesh of her cheeks. They stretch, elongate past her face to behind her head, making a sickening crunching noise. The top of her skull stretches, coming out of her scalp, stretching into fringe. Her eyes glow red and her nails grow into large, sharp, deadly weapons. The pain is unbearable. The sound that rips from her throat speaks of her pain. It's sickening.

I. AM SOVEREIGN.

"Shut up!" She says, clasping a taloned hand on either side of her head. "Get out of my head!"

I AM THE VANGUARD OF YOUR DESTRUCTION.

Her head snaps up, her eyes focusing on Garrus. She roars, her teeth like needles, bared and angry. He backs up, slowly, the fear apparent on his face. She charges him punching her talons through the soft skin in his sides, his blood is hot on her hands as it spills out of him.

"Jane.." he chokes, coughing out blue blood, dripping down his mandibles. "...why?"

"I'm sorry, Garrus," She cries, tears falling from her glowing eyes, trailing her face plates.

"You're a monster," he says as his eyes roll back in his head.

"No... Garrus..."

"GARRUS!" she shouted, sitting up in her bed, reaching for someone that wasn't there. She panted heavily, sweat dripping down her form. She was shivering.

It was just like the past two nights. Sleep only came to her about 3 times, and even then only in 5 to 10 minute bursts, haunted by horrible nightmares of her cybernetics taking control, the reapers killing everyone in their path, her crew and friends dead on the Citadel. Tonight her nightmares were of Garrus. She couldn't get her mind off him. The dossier for one "Archangel" reminded her too much of him. Renegade sniper making life hard on some thugs. That was so something he'd do. She can't imagine that he went back to C-sec or stayed in specter training. If he had, it would have been easy to locate him. An impossible mission he could take on, no red tape to get in the way, and all the bad guys he could handle. It seemed right up his alley.

She laid back in her too-big bed with her hands over her face. Trying to think of her old crew. Trying to think if they would be happy to see her. Even if her crew did know she was alive, it would be rude to just ask them to drop whatever it was they had going on now to join some new impossible cause. A cause she didn't even want to be involved in. She was supposed to be dead. Rotting in some atmosphere somewhere, never having to worry about anyone or anything ever again. It was too much to fathom. She had to concentrate on the mission. As much as she hated the Illusive Man, he had been right. These people were going missing, and someone needed to find them. Men. Women. Children. They were all gone. No signs of struggle. Carted off by some giant bugs with smaller pet bugs. What the fuck.

If she concentrated on the mission, maybe she could keep her mind occupied enough so that she didn't think about the desolation she found waiting for her. Everything was different. In a matter of moments, everything had changed. Tali was leading her own team, Wrex was taking over Tuchanka, Liara was working with the shadow broker, Kaiden had been promoted moving on perfectly without her.

The Illusive Man's words haunted her:

The turian disappeared a few months after you were declared dead. Even we haven't been able to locate him.

She thought of him having found a nice girl back on Palaven. Garrus never seemed the settling down type, if he was still the Garrus she knew. She had always thought that he would finish specter training and join her on the Normandy and they could spend the rest of their years kicking ass and killing shit. She never really thought past that. But she certainly never considered a life without him in it, it wasn't even an option in her head. Now it was being forced on her against her will, her only friend having moved on without her. But still, the idea that he was somewhere, alive and happy with a woman he cared about, was calming. Though also strangely annoying.

She tossed and turned in her too-comfortable bed. The blue glow of the empty fish tanks taunting her. Why the hell does a ship need fish tanks?

Then it hit her. What if it was him? No one knew anything about Archangel other than he was a turian. Cerberus said Garrus had disappeared and was untraceable. What if Cerberus had somehow accidentally gotten her old team mate back to her without even knowing it? She admitted the odds were slim. But a little bit of hope in an otherwise hopeless situation was better than succumbing to the madness that had been threatening her these 2 days.

She gave up on sleeping and sat at her private terminal for a few minutes, and decided to type out a message to his old C-Sec account, even if he didn't use it anymore, maybe it had a way of finding him. It was better than another night of nightmares and thrashing around her bed.

"Omega has no titled ruler and only one rule..." The asari said. "Dont. Fuck. With Aria."

Shepard thought it was annoying that she was talking in the third person, but she needed answers, and the asari was well guarded. Shepard was in no mood for that shit storm.

"I like it," Shepard joked. "Easy to remember."

"If you forget, someone will be sure to remind you."

"Then I toss you out the nearest airlock," said the batarian guarding her.

I'd like to see you try, Shepard said in her head. Instead of that, she sat, quietly, and asked questions when she was queued to. Now that she thought about it, she figured that, if the situation were different, she would rather like Aria. Though she reminded her of someone she had heard about once, but couldn't put her finger on.

She found out all she could about both Archangel, and the salarian professor, Mordin, they were supposed to be finding. She told them that the mercs after Archangel were hiring anyone with a gun to help kill him. Shepard thought that seemed rather desperate.

"That sounds like it could be our ticket in," Jacob said from behind her.

Yes, thank you for that resounding realization, Cerberus, she thought.

It's not that she didn't like the kid, she just couldn't get the anger out of her. Though she did think it was disconcerting to watch how he always eyed her up. Might as well be licking his lips, he was that obvious. It weirded her out. She wondered if he had been looking at her like that when she was still dead, or if he only liked reanimated corpses.

She decided to go after Archangel first since he seemed to be in the more desperate situation. She wasn't going to risk him dying while they pranced around a plague zone. They needed him.

After rendering some kids gun useless so he couldn't go get himself killed, she finished her talk with the recruiter, and headed to the merc base camp. If nothing else, she was looking forward to killing something.

Shepard tinkered with the hacking terminal on the Mech board. She hadn't done this in a long time, Tali had always hacked containers and crap for her. Not to mention the last two years of dead making her rusty. It clicked like something happened.

"There, did I disable it?"

"No," said the Cerberus operative in that accent of hers. "But you did remove the friend/foe differentiating system."

"Nice," said the other one. "Now it'll shoot whatever it see's first."

"Whatever," she said dismissively. "It'll do."

She was not impressed with the intelligence of these mercs. She was wearing shit more expensive than what they were offering to pay her. She knew mercs were stupid, but this was just a gross oversight in judgment. Were they really this desperate?

She tried to talk to the different merc leaders to figure out what they knew about the sniper. But everyone's information was just as vague as the last. Even the "tactician", Cathka, had about as much information as a rabid Varren. But he was repairing a gun ship that promised to be trouble later, so she figured she could disable him and thus keep the machine in whatever level of disrepair it was in.

She got rid of him: Violently.

They started to charge the boulevard but couldn't really see anything, other than the piles of corpses littering the way. A merc charged passed them and his head quickly exploded. They hadn't even come over the wall yet. It was a hell of a shot.

"Holy hell," Jacob said. "He's a crack shot. He might be better than your old team mate."

"No one is better than Garrus," she said unable to hide her smile. Hope filling her chest, making her fingers twitch. She glanced around the corner just to see Archangel ducking into cover. It had to be him. It had to be.

Without even thinking she charged over the wall and sprinted into the building. She moved like lightening, killing everyone in her path with out even looking at them. A pistol in each hand. Moving purely on instinct.

"Commander," Miranda called out, stopping over the wall to kill the mercs coming from behind them. "What are you doing?"

"Teaching these mercs some god damn manners," she shouted back at her.