Prologue:

Day 1

Shepard's mind had never rested easy since the day he had left Earth. While he had never been overly fond of the planet due to growing up in the slums of its vast megacities, he still saw it as home. A home he had left to burn while he ran to get help from the Citadel Council, who, as usual, were too busy bickering amongst themselves. Ever since he had left on the Normandy, his mind had been plagued with nightmares over everyone he had left behind and lost. Not just on Earth but on every mission and operation he had ever taken part in. His first squad on Elysium, Kaidan on Virmire, Mordin, Thane, Legion… and now Anderson.

He couldn't remember how it happened… He just knew that something had.

Anderson…

The Illusive Man…

The Citadel…

The images swam before his eyes but he couldn't find any coherency in them. The only thing he could make out was a voice.

"Commander… Shepard, can you hear me…"

"Is he waking up?" another voice responded from the blur.

"Stop crowding him, and let me get through."

All of a sudden the murky images were dispelled with a horrendously bright light. It was as if the light of heaven itself had finally decided to revel itself to blind him rather than bless him. Then it dimmed a bit, or rather it moved, and he was able to see…

"Dr. Chakwas?" Shepard mumbled through a pair of dry cracked lips. His voice felt rough. Like his vocal cords were trying to shake off a layer of dust that had accumulated over years of disuse.

"Do you know where you are?" Dr. Chakwas asked as she hovered her omnitool over the length of his body. Said body, he noted, was in horrendous condition. While he couldn't muster the energy to lift up his neck and look, he knew just from the sheer amount of pain his neurons were flooding his brain with that he had been hurt badly. His face felt swollen, his chest seemed like it was ready to split open with every breath he took, and there was a concerning lack of sensation in his left leg.

"The Citadel…" Shepard mumbled. It was the last place he remembered being.

The Citadel…

The Illusive Man…

Anderson…

"No, Commander, you're in the Normandy's medbay. Litenauet Williams, Garrus, and Vega brought you on board after the Kodiak shuttle docked at the Presidum Tower." Chakwas told him before turning to the growing crowd beside him. "He appears to be fine. Just a little delirious. That doesn't give you permission to crowd him, however. OUT! I'll let you in one at a time to see him when he's ready for visitors."

It wasn't long before his awareness fully returned. After around five minutes, Shepard was finally able to look around the medbay without asking where they were. Dr Chakwas had moved over to the small terminal at the end of his bed to monitor his vitals and adjust some of the diagnostics for his cybernetics. The only other occupant in the room was Tali who sat on the bed next to him. Her suit had a collage of grey and yellow patches covering it, and an IV was connected to a small port in her forearm. She was staring at him intently with her two bright mercury-colored eyes.

As his memory slowly came back to him, he let out a breath he hadn't realized he was holding. "You made it."

At that, both Dr. Chakwas and Tali started towards him. While the IV kept her from getting out of the bed, Tali leaned so far over the edge Shepard thought she might fall out. Meanwhile, Dr. Chakwas moved over to the head of his bed and scanned him once again with her omnitool.

"Commander, how are you feeling?" She said with a touch of relief in her voice.

"Like shit." He responded dryly.

Chakwas snorted a small laugh. "Well, I'm not suprised. You have seven broken ribs, a broken arm, a concussion, and a leg that'd be a clump of meat if it wasn't being held together by your cybernetics. That's not even to mention your internal organs, which is an entirely different nightmare to explain. I would recommend not moving too much. I can also give you some painkillers if it would help."

"It would be nice, thanks. But… again, what happened? The last thing I remember I was on the Citadel." Shepard said.

"After we med-evaced Tali from London, we passed by the Citadel on our way into orbit and were in a position to extract you after the arms started to open. You weren't responding to our communications, so we sent in a team to get you…" She trailed off.

"They also found the bodies of Admiral Anderson and an unidentified human male with extensive Reaper cybernetics. From his description, it sounds like how you described the Illusive Man."

Shepard closed his eyes and nodded slowly. With those words, the unintelligible images he had seen before finally started to arrange themselves into something resembling a chronology. "I think I will refrain from talking about what happened until I've rewritten my report."

"I understand, Shepard. I can't even imagine what happened up there." Tali chimed in, still leaning over the edge of the bed. "I'm just glad you're okay."

"I'm glad you're ok too Tali…" He paused and swallowed a bit of spit down a burning throat. "I think I'm gonna retire."

"Good! Once we get you back to the fleet, you can hand in your resignation to Admiral Hackett-"

"Wait, what do you mean by getting back to the fleet?" Shepard interrupted with a not of concern in his already fragile voice.

"Well um… after the Crucible detonated we got pulled out of FTL and crashed on an uncharted planet," Tali said sheepishly.

Day 11

"Alright, Shepard, you ready?" Tali asked as she slung Shepard's arm over her shoulder. Most of her suit was covered in grease and oil from working on fixing the drive core. Ever since the Normandy had crashed on this planet the whole crew had thrown themselves into the task of repairing their ship. The whole crew except Shepard.

"As ready as I'll ever be," Shepard responded half-heartedly. Despite regaining consciousness, Dr. Chakwas had confined him to bed rest for the foreseeable future while the repairs were underway. As much as Shepard would have liked to overrule her, he had a hard time making the case that he was fit for work while being unable to even stand on his own. However, she did allow Shepard to be relocated to his cabin for a few hours each day so as to provide a change of scenery. Hence, the reason Tali was here.

"Ok on 3… 1 … 2 … 3!" On the announcement of the final number, Shepard felt himself rise to a standing position. It was not his legs, however, that had managed the daunting feat of lifting him, but rather Tali's. His Quairan girlfriend seemed to be taking his weight quite well, and it wasn't long before she had shuffled them both out of the medbay and into the elevator, whose door was already open and waiting for them.

"I'm sorry that you need to do this," Shepard said awkwardly while pressing his thumb against the elevator's touchscreen display. It was the only thing he could really do, after all.

"Don't be. It's not that much trouble, really. You're actually pretty light!" Tali said cheerfully. The elevator dinged, and they stepped out.

"Tali. I'm 102.5 kilos."

"I know! It's so convenient. I can just pick you up whenever I need to. See!" Tali said before reaching her free arm around Shepard's hip and moving her grip on Shepard's arm to his upper back instead. Shepard meanwhile leaned slightly against the nearby to keep his left leg off the ground without bending it. His left leg had been the only part of his body to see little improvement, and even with the liberal usage of painkillers, it had been in constant agony since he had woken up. Even with it slightly brushing, the metal floor beneath him sent jolts of pain up his limb. Afterwards, she tried to pivot her body in a counter-clockwise rotation to lift him off the ground with little success.

"Well… we Quarians are more known for our leg strength than our upper body strength." Tali huffed before resuming her original position and carrying him the final distance to the bed and sitting him down.

"Ok I'll be done with EDI's AI core repairs in a couple hours. Once she's back up and running I can come up and keep you some company." Tali said as she went over to the cabin's coffee table. "Until then, I downloaded some vids for you to watch on this portable terminal."

"You mean laptop."

"No. I mean portable terminal. Keelah, is this one of those human things where you give something a name that makes no sense?" Tali responded before rubbing her visor as if trying to pinch her nose.

"Tali. The name makes perfect sense. Here let me show you." Shepard said grabbing the laptop and placing it on his thighs. "See. Its on top of my lap."

"...Boshtet. You win this round, but it still doesn't explain why you call emergency induction ports 'straws.'" Tali said before walking out of the room. "I'll see you in two hours."

Day 24

The Normandy's repairs were finally complete. After almost a month of fixing the weathered ship, it was fit for space flight once again. EDI was once online, the drive core was operational, and the engines were not at risk of exploding. Or at least not likely to until they could return to the fleet for proper repairs. The Normandy wasn't alone in her rejuvination either. Her captain's condition had greatly improved as well. It had taken almost the entire stock of the medical bay's medigel reserves, but the injuries Shepard had sustained to his internal organs had largely healed.

His skeletal structure was a different story. Most of his ribs were still slightly cracked; his left arm had regained most of its movement once his cast was removed, but his left leg had not been so lucky. As Dr. Chakwas has previously stated, it was mainly because of his cybernetics that he was able to keep the appendage. Most of the bones there had been completely shattered, and the majority of its muscles ripped to shreds. It would take years for it to fully heal, and even then, he would never have full use of it ever again. Shepard had been taking high dosages of painkillers around the clock just to make the constant ache he felt bearable. This persisted long after most of his other injuries had healed. Eventually, Dr. Chakwas caved to Shepard and adjusted the settings of his cybernetics to numb the leg. This was of course, followed by a lengthy talk on the importance of properly monitoring his leg as he may not feel any relapsing or new injuries he might sustain in that region of his body. Still, the adjustments meant he was able to stand on his own two feet. Granted, this was with the assistance of a cane Tali had welded together for him with spare engine parts, but it at least meant he didn't need to be carried anymore.

Before the Normandy could leave the uncharted world of Genesis Epsilon 5, it had taken EDI two hours worth of sorting through star charts to find out the name of the planet, there was one last thing that needed to be done. Considering the fact that the lives of the Normandy's crew had never been exactly peaceful he wanted to get this done just in case the found themselves in another warzone after they took off.

The Normandy crew stood assembled on the crew deck facing the wall opposite the elevator. Shepard and his ground team stood at the front with himself holding a small magnitized piece of metal in his free hand. He looked down at the words printed on it.

ADM DAVID ANDERSON

Slowly he hobbled towards the wall. His cane clinked against the metal beneath his feet with every step he took. He paused to run his thumb over the name of the only father he had ever known in his life. After a second Shepard finally raised his arm and let go as the plaque pulled itself against the wall right above the motto of the System Alliance. Tears filled his eyes as he stepped back to join his crew once more. Even though it had been almost a month since the battle for Earth, and he had spent his time mourning the death of his adoptive father, this was it. This was the last goodbye.

"ATTENTION!"

Although the voice was Shepard's own it seemed muted. Shepard's mind felt disconnected from the rest of his body as it moved to perform the standard Alliance salute that's drilled into each and every recruit during their first month of boot camp. The rest of his crew followed suit in a near-uniform motion. Both human and alien. They all held the salute up until, one by one, they noticed the tears slowly trailing their way down Shepard's face.

" Oh, Shepard… come here"

He turned around to look at Tali, who had been the first to break her salute.

And then she hugged him.

By the time Shepard's sobs had finally subsided, and the flood of tears wiped clean from his red puffy eyes, the rest of the crew had dropped their salute as well.

"Joker. EDI. Set course for Earth. Let's see if we can't find Admiral Hackett and the rest of the fleet." Shepard said.

Day 27

Cling

Thunk Thunk

Cling

Thunk Thunk

Shepard slowly made his way to the QEC through the barren war room. What had once been a crowded room full of frenzied officers and desperate data analysts was now a dark, empty skeleton of what it once was. The war room had been cannibalized for parts in order to repair the rest of the ship. Most of the terminals lay disassembled along the walls. The holographic projector that had once been used to plan some of the most crucial operations of the war had been uprooted and taken apart. The only thing that had been left untouched was the QEC due to the knowledge that it would once again have a use, unlike everything else here.

"Commander. Good to see that you're in one piece." Admiral Hackett addressed Shepard as his image appeared. The shadows that had previously dominated the room were driven away by the blue light of the QEC. "I know the first thing you're going to ask is what happened to the Reapers? And to that, I can safely say it's over… we did it. The relays are severely damaged, but the Reapers have been destroyed. We won."

Shepard let out a sigh of relief and leaned heavily on his cane. "Good… Sir, with all due respect. I think I would like to retire now or at least be transferred to a desk job."

Admiral Hackett let out a small chuckle. "I thought you might say that. I already drew up the honorable discharge forms, but there's just one little problem. Shore leave."

Shepard furrowed his brows in confusion. "Shore leave?"

Hackett nodded in confirmation. "In order for an Alliance service member to be honorably discharged, he can't have any outlying shore leave time built up. It was added to the regs because of a class action lawsuit right after the First Contact War. Its built into our registry system and we can't complete your discharge until you've used up your accumulated shore leave. We could just dishonorably discharge you, but you deserve better than that."

"So what are you suggesting?" Shepard asked, pinching the bridge of his nose. Of course, there was always something else to do.

"Dock with the Citadel and take a vacation. After you and your crew's shore leave is over, I give you a discharge with full honors and a medal. If it means anything, any accumulated expenses will be paid for by the Alliance. Think of it as sort of a victory lap. You and your crew can finally blow off some steam and get a medal at the end of the week."

Shepard paused for a moment. While he would have preferred to just get discharged, a little celebration before helping the rest of the galaxy with reconstruction sounded nice. "Alright, Admiral. I'll go inform my crew we're going on mandatory shore leave."