Author's Note: Hello! I am sorry about the wait! There is a bit of interest in this story, so I'm going to keep going with it. I really love Mass Effect. The story, the characters, everything. I hope that I'm doing it just a bit of justice in my writing, but we will see. I love hearing what you all have to say, so let me know what you think! I'm off to bed now! Enjoy!

Disclaimer: I own nothing.

Warnings: Language maybe and OOCness.

Word Count: 5,611

Anderson tilts his head to the side, curiously. He takes a moment to study her face with his dark caramel colored eyes before nodding and making a waving motion for her to follow him. She does, thankful for how much Anderson cares for her. They've been close for a very long time, and the fact that he's willing to bend over backwards for her at practically every turn is a comfort she needs really bad right now. She's not sure she can tell him everything, but she has to start planting the idea of the Reaper threat somewhere.

He is trusted friend and a well respected officer in the Alliance. It makes Shepard feel bad to be using him like this. It's not done maliciously, but still, the part of Shepard that watched her father figure die is in deep pain from not just telling him everything right off the bat. It hasn't been nearly long enough but Shepard is already done with all of the nonsense she knows has yet to come. In some ways, it was taxing just thinking about how much this entire thing is going to suck. It's going to be hard trying to go through all of this without saying anything to any of her friends.

"Come," Anderson says, waving his hand for Shepard to follow him. They walk away from the council meeting spot and off to the side to sit down on one of the five or six benches over there. It's thankfully a little out of the way so that they can talk in some semblance of privacy. "Now, what would you like to talk about. These... uh, Reapers, right?"

Shepard nods, lowering herself next to the father figure in her life. She takes a moment to look around at the few people who are still up and about at this time. At least up here, there wasn't much else that could be done up here once the council retired for the evening and wouldn't be having any more public meetings. Shepard watched that Salarian - what was his name again? - trying to scan the Keeper and made a mental note to go over there and talk to him before he leaves. She doesn't know what not scanning the Keepers could possibly do.

There is just some things she's not willing to risk. No matter how menial they may appear at first.

"I'm not sure what to say," Shepard says slowly, turning her eyes toward Anderson to see him staring at her curiously. "I mean, I know what I want to say, I'm just not sure how much I can say right now."

Anderson's eyes narrow slightly. "Why can't you just say everything?"

Shepard smiles thinly. "Because, all of it is going to sound completely insane, and I'm not sure how much crazy you'll be able to take right now. So, maybe an insane story all together but in small, more believable portions is what is needed right now."

Anderson's frown deepens slightly. "Are you sure that's wise? I mean, after what I just heard, I'm inclined to believe pretty much anything at this point."

Shepard's smile lessens a bit. "You don't know truly insane until you've heard my tale, but for now, I'll tell you what I can and I know it's going to be unbelievable but you're going to have to have a bit of faith in me, alright Anderson? Can you do that?"

Anderson lets out a long winded sigh, gazing around the area for a moment. When he turns his dark brown eyes back to her, he nods, slowly. "Fine," he says, "I'll give it my best try. Let's hear it."

This time it's Shepard's turn to sigh, running her hand through her long black tresses pulled up into her signature bun. Her fingers get tangled in a few knots and she reaches up and undoes the bun, letting her hair fall down around her shoulders and down to the middle of her back. She runs her fingers through it a few times, knowing that Anderson is one of the few people she can really let her hair down around - figuratively and literally. Even at this point. If Shepard trusted anyone else in the whole universe to have her back no matter what, it would be Anderson.

"The Reapers. It's a real threat. In my vision..." she hesitates, wondering how in the world she was going to phrase this, "I saw... I saw what could only be explained as the Protheans, fighting gigantic... towering beings as they were being wiped out. Anderson," Shepard raises her eyes slowly to stare into Anderson's to show him just how serious she was, "I saw the same being flying away from Eden Prime. Saren's flagship... it's a Reaper."

Anderson closes his eyes for a moment, trying to get his thoughts in order. His hands, which were dangling between his legs as his elbows rested against his thighs, clench and unclench in obvious worry. His jaw works, Shepard can see, as he ponders her words. As unhappy as he is, this is a good thing. Shepard knows this reaction. He believes her. Even though it's crazy to just assume, he believes her.

He will never truly understand how much it means to her that he is willing to go out on a limb like that. For her. She saw the Reapers, she knows how bad it's going to get. And even she isn't so certain, had she not known now what she does, if she would be able to believe him with so little. Anderson is by far a better friend than she ever could be. Ever hope to be.

After a long, bated silence, Anderson asks in a low, controlled voice, "How certain of this are you? I mean, about any of this?"

"About that ship being a Reaper? I'm positive," Shepard says, her voice even. "It's the exact same. But Saren and Matriarch Benezia are talking Reapers. Plural. In the vision, I saw thousands, darkening the sky..." She didn't really, not in her vision at least, but she might as well have. She's still not sure what to call what happened to her. So far, everything has stayed relatively true to what she already lived through - or thought she lived through? - and it only begs for an alarming future to come.

She would rather be the laughing stock of the entire universe and be wrong about this entire thing, then not do everything she can to prepare for what was to come. Anything she can do at this point to try and give them a bit of a head start on trying to prepare for the invasion, she'll take it.

Normally, Shepard would feel bad about lying to Anderson, but she couldn't muster any of those feelings right now. She's certain that if she goes and does everything as close to how she did it as possible without attempting any strives in the direction of a possible better future, she won't be able to forgive herself. All the lives lost then, will be on her hands. Or at least a better ultimate outcome to what she knew was to come. It's not a matter of stopping the Reapers, Shepard wasn't naïve enough to think that they could halt their invasion indefinitely, but she was going to stop them permanently. There is no way she's going to let them catch her and the rest of the universe unprepared.

Shepard will be damned before she lets that happen.

Shepard was please, stepping out onto the dock to see Wrex, Tali, Garrus, Ashley and Kaidan waiting for her outside the SSV Normandy. She smiles, taking a moment to look at each and every one of them for a moment, before stepping past them and punching in the code to open the pressurized door and letting them all step inside.

"Everyone playing nice?" She asks easily, trying to fill the silence that had settled over them.

"Yes, ma'am," Kaidan and Ashley say together.

Shepard turns around to look at her crew, giving each of them a once over before asking, "Did everyone get everything they needed? Settled everything they needed to before departure?"

"Yes, ma'am," Kaidan, Ashley and now Garrus, say together.

Shepard quirks an eyebrow, trying to remember if they were always like this. Whether they were, or not, she doesn't like it. There should always be a form of structure in a military vessel, but the Normandy is a little different from a regular military vessel. Shepard does lead her crew, but this wasn't all about her. This was about all of them. They all needed to be comfortable and work together to be able to not only prepare for the Reapers and stop Saren and Soverign.

But now Shepard has to turn her attention to what is going to happen next. Anderson relinquishing control of the Normandy to her still felt unfair and a kick in the gut, but she understood why he ultimately came to such a decision and respected him immensely for it. Now that Shepard thinks about it, since becoming a Sepectre, she's had very little time to be able to sit down and talk to him - to really thank Anderson for everything that he's ever done for her. He was there with her when she joined the Alliance. He was a confidant and friend since the very beginning.

She loved him dearly and yet she never took the time to really thank him. In some way, she always thought that she would have time later to really sit down and hash out the apologies and thanks to her long-time friend and mentor. She didn't even really realize how little time she had until the moment his eyes shut forever and she was left alone on the crucible.

Now they need to head to the Artemis Tau Cluster to find Liara. Therum in the Knossos system, if Shepard remembered correctly. She have to get a good look at the galaxy map quickly before letting Joker know just to be sure. She doesn't want to be wrong and waste any of their time. She knows that there is still time and that she needs to slow down, but it's already going to take a week to even get to Artemis Tau and another day or two to finally get to Therum.

The more she thinks about it, the more she's sure it's Therum.

"Good," Shepard says after perhaps too long of a silence. "I'm glad to see that you are all here." She waves her hand and heads down the docking tube to the decontamination chamber with the rest of her crew and hopefully one day longtime friends. They all squeeze into the small chamber, making sure to give the krogan a wide berth that Shepard wasn't sure if he appreciated or not.

She leans against one of the walls as the scanner passes over them, looking around at the small collection of people. "Does anyone have any questions?"

"I do," Wrex says, surprising Shepard by being the first to speak up.

"Shoot," Shepard says, crossing her arms over her chest and offering the old, scarred krogan a nod to continue.

"Are you going to be spacey this entire trip?" Wrex asks plainly. Ashley stares over at him with wide brown eyes while Kaidan blinks slowly.

"Wrex," Tali says slowly. She wrings thin, three fingered hands in front of her nervously. "Can you really ask that?"

"I just did, didn't I?" Wrex grunts, turning reptilian red eyes from Tali to Shepard. "Not that I really care, I just want to know how much waiting I'm going to have to expect on this journey."

"No, it's fine," Shepard says dismissively. She wasn't mad about the question nor could she blame him for asking. She hasn't really been paying too much attention to the now. Too focused on the future. "You're right. I'm a bit out of it, Wrex. I won't let it effect my performance, if that's what you're worried about. I never mean any form of disrespect to any of you by my silence or faraway look," Shepard says firmly. "I hold great respect for all of you. You are putting your lives on hold, and on the line for me and my mission. I just..." she hesitates, "I just have much to think about in regards to what is to come."

"That's understandable," Garrus says, mandibles flickering outward a bit. He looks around for a moment, appearing suddenly uncomfortable. "I mean, if you want, you could bounce your thoughts off of us."

Kaidan casts him a curious glance before taking pity on the turian and nodding. "I agree with Garrus, Commander. I'm sure we'd all be able to help somehow. And if not, it may help you just being able to talk about it out loud."

As true as that might be, it was moot at this point. Shepard couldn't really tell them what was on her mind because unlike Anderson, who has this unbelievable talent for believing in her despite how insane she could quite possibly be, the rest of her friends still new very little about her and how much she was willing to do for them and so their relationship is tentative if nothing else. By saying too much she could affectively scare them all away forever and ruin her chances of being to stop the Reapers.

Such a thing was not something she was willing to risk. If them thinking she was a bit of an airhead was going to keep them all around long enough for the bonds to form and the threat to start showing itself, then she is just going to have to live with it.

"Thank you," Shepard says, offering the two men in front of her a small smile. "I appreciate it, Kaidan, Garrus. I will definitely keep it in mind." As soon as she finished speaking, the door behind Joker opens up and Shepard pushes herself off of the wall and heads in first, casting a glance over her shoulder at the remainder of the crew. "Make yourselves comfortable. We are going to be getting to know each other well over the duration of our mission." And in the years that follow, Shepard doesn't say.

She walks up behind Joker watching as he prepares the Normandy for take off, going through preflight checks. She can hear the rest of the crew come in behind her and head toward the galaxy map. She spares a few words to Joker, gives a speech over the intercom to the crew - nothing extravagant but enough to lift their spirits a bit and to show them that this mission was important - before heading to the galaxy map to be sure of where their first destination was going to be. Once she was sure it was Therum, she let Joker know before checking on the crew.

Not surprising that Tali was the only one that really wanted to talk. Kaidan didn't have anything to say, Ashley was still angry about Eden Prime, Garrus was excited about being able to finally start getting the bad guys, Wrex didn't want to talk really about anything and even made an angry quip about the Genophage that Shepard felt she should have seen coming from a mile away before going to talk to Tali, who happily talked her ear off.

Tali pretty much knew everything that Tali was going to say and knew everything that she was talking about, but she didn't mind hearing it again. In fact, that was part of the reason she left speaking to Tali last, simply because she knew that the quarian wouldn't brush her off so easily in the beginning. If Shepard thought about it logically, Tali didn't really know much about the other species through personal experience and was probably happy to be able to talk about her people and even learn about the humans who weren't around the galactic community when the quarians were exiled from Rannok.

After so long of people in the galaxy basically blaming the quarians for creating the geth and then losing their homeworld to their own creation, Shepard couldn't help but think it helped Tali relieve a bit of built up stress being able to talk about it with someone who she perceived as having no connection to the situation other than through the events on Eden Prime.

That wasn't true, but it made Tali feel better and that was what mattered.

It wasn't until the next morning, while Shepard was eating a simple protein bar for breakfast that she realized that not only was the food supply they had basically shit for the humans, but it was practically nonexistent for Garrus and Tali. She wanted to slap the shit out of herself. This wasn't the first time she's traveled with dextros before. She can't believe she forgot.

Heading down to the cargo bay, she went into the engine room.

"Tali!" Shepard calls, startling the quarian for a moment before she turns around, hands held up as if she was doing something she shouldn't be.

"I was only looking at the emission output, Shepard," she says quickly. "I promise I wasn't tweaking anything."

Shepard blinks in confusion for a moment before realizing what the girl was trying to say. "Oh, Tali, don't worry. I'm not mad at you. Feel free to take a look. I actually wanted to talk to you about something else. You aren't in trouble."

She hesitates for a moment before lowering her hands, casting a glance at Adam's to make sure he didn't appear angry - he offered her a little shrug, not appearing angry or upset - before walking over to Shepard slowly. As if the older woman was lying and about to chastise the girl. Shepard waves for her to follow and heads over to Garrus.

"Hey," Shepard says, stepping up next to him.

Garrus turns toward her, tilting his head a bit. He casts a glance at Tali before suddenly looking nervous, probably feeding off of Tali's own nervous energy.

"Is something wrong, Shepard?" Garrus asks, blue eyes wide.

"No," Shepard says immediately. "Well, kind of." Garrus and Tali look worried. Shepard raises an eyebrow, not sure how she feels about their tentativeness. Were they like that before and she just didn't notice? Or at least, wasn't skilled enough in reading their body language to have been able to tell? Shepard knows that they are newly made crewmates and had no idea what to expect from her, but she can't believe that they would be... frightened of her. Perhaps worried that she would kick them off the mission, maybe. But it's surprising how just a few short years has changed her entire ability to read them. If she hadn't had that dream/memory/foresight/time travel experience, would she have not been able to see such shifts in expression and body language on her friends? She can almost guarantee it.

"What's wrong?" Garrus asks, rolling his shoulders back, mandibles pressing against his face tightly, preparing himself.

Shepard shakes her head, stepping closer. "Garrus, Tali, relax," she says, looking between the two. "Did you guys do anything wrong?"

Garrus blinks in surprise before shaking his head while Tali says softly, "No."

"Then you have nothing to be so worried about," Shepard says easily. "Besides, it's not like I'm going to beat you up or kick you off my ship. Whether you like it or not, you're here to stay. I doubt there's anything you can do that would make me remove you from the ship, so relax, okay?"

Garrus stares down at her for a moment, staring into her eyes with his own light blue ones, trying to read her emotions like that. His shoulders and mandibles relax a bit, but he doesn't appear to know if he found what he was looking for. He doesn't have the years of dealing with humans under his belt anymore to be able to help him figure out what she was thinking.

Tali lets out a sigh of relief, believing Shepard's words right away. Tali, so sweet and childish. Shepard really did love her quarian best friend.

"Listen," Shepard says, crossing her arms over her chest, "the reason I called the two of you out is because something occurred to me this morning that I was absent minded enough to forget before leaving the Citadel." She looks between the two of them. They stare back at her, waiting to hear what she had to say. "I forgot to make sure you two had proper provisions for this trip."

Tali tilts her head curiously while Garrus's entire posture relaxes. His mandibles flutter a bit, showing his appreciation without any inflection in his voice. "Thank you for worrying about us, Shepard," he says. "Thankfully I figured this might be the case and brought aboard some provisions, myself. I can share with Tali if need be, I don't mind."

Tali looks up at Garrus, her eyes cresting as she smiles. "That is kind of you, Garrus. Thank you." She looks back to Shepard. "I too brought some food for myself. Perhaps not enough to make the entirety of our journey, but for a while I'll be fine."

"Same," Garrus says.

Shepard smiles at them. "Good thinking, you two. I'm sorry I hadn't thought about it before we left the Citadel. Let me know if you are running low, we will stop somewhere so that you guys can restock. I realized that we have a poor selection on this ship this morning and I know that with a krogan on board we are going to burn through it a lot quicker than it was intended for solely a human crew. I know to get a lot of fish for Wrex, I'll just have to see what he specifically likes, but I don't trust myself to shop for the two you. If you find a place that sells good provisions for you guys, let me know and I'll transfer credits to you, alright?"

Garrus starts to shake his head. "It's alright, really, Shepard. I'm sure between the two of us, Tali and I can make it."

Shepard shakes her head as well. "Sorry, Garrus, no can do. I don't expect Wrex to be buying his provisions, nor do I expect either of you. I'm okay with this, trust me. You two are part of my crew. I want to make sure that you are fed, keeping up training and ready for the battles that are to come. Don't worry about it, okay?" She offers the turian a little smile.

Garrus's mandibles flutter, showing his appreciation again. "Thank you, Shepard," his voice is soft and it sends a shiver down her spine that she tries to hide by shifting. "I appreciate you thinking about us."

"Yes," Tali says, nodding her head quickly. "Thank you."

Shepard nods. "No problem. Let me know if you guys need anything, okay? You are just as important to me as the human members of my crew. We are all in this together. We will all need to be in tip top shape when we face off against Saren."

"Yes, ma'am," Garrus says, rolling his shoulders back proudly.

Tali nods again, straightening up a bit. "Sure thing, Shepard."

"That's all," Shepard says, sparing them a single nod before turning around and heading toward the elevator before pausing, feeling Wrex's eyes on her back. She turns to look at him. When her eyes locked with his, he jerked his chin a bit, beckoning her over.

She turns and walks over to him. "Wrex?"

Wrex stares at her with deep crimson red eyes. "I heard what you said over there."

"Yeah..?" Shepard says, raising an eyebrow curiously. "Is something wrong?"

"No," Wrex says simply. "I just find it curious, is all. What are you up to?"

"Me?" Shepard asks, genuinely confused. "You think I'm trying to buy your love?"

Wrex grunts. That wasn't what he was thinking. "I don't claim to understand humans, but are you all this... accommodating?"

Shepard shrugs. "I suppose it depends on who you encounter, Wrex. Just like any other race out there, there are good humans, bad ones and everything in between. I can't really say what I am, Wrex. That's up for you to decide for yourself," she says sagely.

Wrex lets out a low rumble, staring at Shepard for a moment, as if trying to get a read on her, before turning his red eyes away to stare at the mako behind her. Figuring that was his way of showing that the conversation was over. She shrugs her shoulders and turns to head back to the elevator.

"So long, Wrex," Shepard says flippantly.

"Shepard," Wrex says, which is usually his way of saying goodbye as well, but there is a lilt to his voice that suggests that he has something to say. She pauses and turns back to him, curiously. "I'll send you a list of my favorite fish," he says, offering her cheeky smile.

Shepard rolls her eyes, smiling faintly. "Got it."

Shepard couldn't sleep that night. A side effect of having not slept for months during the war with the Reapers. She sat on her bed facing the empty fish tank next to her, mentally debating on whether she should get some more fish and even another hamster to bring a bit of life to the cabin. While she couldn't find a reason not to buy a hamster, she had to really promise herself not to go on a mass genocide of all of the fish that she will come to own. She definitely won't let them all die like she did before.

Somehow she's more mature, she thinks.

But that was just some of the forefront thoughts that she had when the night was young, but once she finally convinced herself to lay down and sleep, she couldn't. Every time she closed her eyes, she would be back on Earth, watching as the Reapers descend from the skies followed closely by balls of bright red lightning and dark clouds. She could hear the horrible, loud roar through her mind.

It became painfully clear that she wasn't going to get that out of her mind, so she went to sit at her desk and look through her emails, trying desperately to figure out what to do. She had to get Liara, see the thorian and save the rachni. It feels like the end of the road is only a mile ahead of her - which obviously it isn't - but she can't seem to get up off her belly and is stuck army crawling through molasses.

When she didn't really know what to do or where to go, it felt like the situation would drag on forever, but now it feels like she didn't want this portion of the story to end. The suspicion, the worry, it was nothing compared to what is to come. If she can't sleep now because of something that hasn't even happened yet, what is she going to do when the time comes.

Whenever she would have these moments, these nights where she just couldn't sleep - her thoughts and fears taking over her nights - Garrus would come to her. Well, he was with her every night once they reunited on Manae, but he would be sleeping on her bed and wake up to her tooling around on her Omni too, or the extranet or her emails, and he would bring her to bed with him. Sometimes they would have sex so that she could focus on something else. Sometimes they would just sit and talk. And sometimes he would just hold her in his arms and whenever the nightmares would wake her, he wouldn't let her go, pinning her to him while using the low rumble of his subvocals in her ear to calm her down and lull her back to sleep.

Or at least relax her again.

Garrus was her rock. She needed him so bad. It was so strange being in this room - even though it was the SR1 version rather than the upgraded SR2 version of the Normandy, it was still her cabin - without Garrus there. Without the little things that she would find around her cabin that belied his presence even though he wasn't there at the moment.

His data pads. A picture of the two of them on the Citadel after they proclaimed their love for one another. Little glass vials filled with the blue paint he used for his tribal markings. A bottle of wine that only he could drink next to a wine that only she could drink and two cups.

She grabs one of her data pads, unable to stay in this room any longer, and walks out to the elevator and took it down to the mess hall. There she spends the rest of the night - or the night shift, she supposes - keeping a detailed list of everything she can remember about her journey - people, places, things - that could help her prepare the galaxy for what is to come. It was never too late to start preparing for the Reapers, she just wasn't sure how she was going to go about it. Wrack her mind as she may, she isn't able to come up with too solid of a game play, yet.

Hopefully, with time, she will be able to come up with something.

Perhaps it was because of the lack of proper sleep for the past week, but when they finally arrived on Therum, she was so excited to invite Garrus and Tali into the mako with her. It had been so long since she last drove the mako, and while she was told - from many horrified humans and aliens alike - that she is an absolute terrible driver, she finds a bit of sick enjoyment, hearing them scream in horror in the back.

Especially Wrex. Now he had some lungs on him.

Garrus told her just a few days after they reunited during the Reaper invasion, when she was having a particularly difficult night, having woke up from her nightmares screaming, that he was terrified to ever drive with her. That every time she asked him to go on a mission with him, he felt stress unlike anything a turian should ever have to go through.

"Now remember," Garrus had said, rubbing her back slowly with his manicured talons, so that they wouldn't break her skin just from a gentle tough, "we turians don't take stress well. Can you imagine how much mental agony I was in all the time. Thinking back on it now, it's no wonder I'm so messed up. I mean, quitting my life - again - to go to Omega of all places to be a vigilante, fall in love with my dead best friend and then leave my burning homeworld simply because I can't be away from you for too long and the six months away prior was agony? I must be nuts!"

"I'm sorry," Shepard rasped, closing her eyes, a tiny smile tugging on her lips. She reached up and wiped away the silent tears rolling down her face.

"And it's all your fault too!" Garrus said, sounding as if he just discovered the very reason for his own existence.

"I'm sorry," Shepard said again.

Garrus paused for a moment before wrapping his arms around her waist and resting his mandible against the back of her neck, pressing close to her with the hot plates of his chest. "I wouldn't trade a single moment with you for the world," he whispered. "Insanity is worth it so long as you are here with me."

Shepard laid her hands down over his own, squeezing her eyes shut tight. "I agree. I would go through hell and back, just for you."

"Not alone," Garrus said adamantly. "I'll be right there by your side. Through thick and thin. No matter what."

The deep feeling of loss, loneliness and worry pulls Shepard back to the present. She has to shake the feeling away and turn toward Garrus and Tali who were making their way over to her.

"We are ready, Shepard," Garrus says, blinking down at her without an ounce of the love in his eyes that he once held.

Shepard's throat swells shut and she turns away. "Excellent. Let's get into the mako." A pause, then, to try and lift her spirits, she says, "I'll drive."

"Sure," Tali says, easily.

"Right behind you," Garrus says.

Shepard lets out a smile, pained smile.

For the Reviewers:

1. goukagin: Yes, I did! I am so sorry for the slow update!

2. KittenKakt: Thank you! I was a bit worried that people would find it annoying and unproductive. I like to think about it as I feel I would live through it. The whole debacle with Saren was no doubt important, but in the grand scheme of things, I wanted Shepard's focus to be solely on what is to come, and how it affects the people around her. Tali is just so cute, I love her a lot. About Garrus, I wrote him in, and then it somehow got deleted out. Thank you for pointing it out to me!

3. Rayne Arianna Maranochi: Yeah, I'm kind of in that kick right now with a bunch of Naruto stories and I wanted to see if the concept could still work but in a Mass Effect story. So far it's going okay, so I would like to keep going with it. If you remember the name of the movie, I would love to know!

4. VGirl7553: Aww, thank you so much for saying that. I really appreciate it! I really do love hearing from everyone so the fact that you took the time means a lot to me. I'm sorry about the wait!