PROLOGUE

Note: This is my first attempt at a fanfiction so please do not criticize it too much. Also this story may have a chapter released every week at the minimum, as I'm currently also working on a Reach Machinima called "Earth Schism." For further details, see my channel "Omega4Productions." Apart from that, I should say that I hope you enjoy the story I'm hoping to delve into and well, just go on ahead. I've yapped on enough. :)

The ship was eerily silent. Most of the crew was either sleeping or working to repair the ship. But all was very silent. Everyone knew the war with the Reapers was over, but noone could find the strength or need to celebrate, because there wasn't anything but that to celebrate. A sad day it was. Joker's intense yelling of pain and loss echoed throughout the ship. For he had lost the one thing that mattered the most to him. EDI.

The Reapers had been defeated, but not without sacrifice. When that red burst of light hit the Normandy, EDI had fallen into a fit of malfunction, circuitry being scrambled as her body danced on the floor, eventually silenced by the wave of death.

And now only sorrow filled the ship. Gardner kept everyone as fed as he could, but aside from lack of emergency rations, food could not wipe away the silence that has plagued the crashed ship.

Tali could not say she didn't feel Joker's sorrow. She too had lost a loved one. One who not only stood up to the Reapers and destroyed them, but also felt a love for his quarian engineer that was unparrelled. This man had destroyed the mighty armies of the geth, defeated a Reaper Saren, flew into the heart of the Collectors, decimated a Reaper abomination, made peace between the Quarians and the Geth, cured the genophage, then lead the largest fleet in the galaxy to retake Earth.

That man was Commander John Shepard, the one man she loved, her captain, her protector, her he was gone. In an instant, all thoughts of victory were wiped away from her mind as John told her to leave him, to save herself. Build Yourself Home. Tali's last words to him still echoed in her mind, always bringing tears to her eyes. I have a Home.

Tali tried to use repairs on the ship as a way to forget about her loss, but it only brought her more sorrow. He was gone. He's never coming back. He's dead. And I can do nothing, but stand here and fix things. Damn this war, if only that Mako had never hit me. He might still be alive. Or she would be dead as well. But that was at least better than the realm of existence she currently lived in. Being dead with John and joining the Ancestors was alot better than living on without him.

Tali had gone to sleep that night in John's cabin, their cabin. The plaque John had bought them to show her that his cabin belonged to both of them still hung the wall, and as Tali looked at it, she felt as incomplete as ever. She cried herself to sleep that night, her arms looking for something to embrace. I certain man. They found nothing.

When she woke up the next morning, she felt the pillows were wet. Wet with her tears. She tried to get up, but her body refused to budge, her arms would move, but her legs wouldn't. She gave up. Laying there, she looked up at the ceiling wondering what John's last moments were like. Blinded by the the furious light of Harbinger's laser, it must of either been quick, or extremely painful.

She prayed John's end was quick and painless. It must have been. She would have felt his pain. Or was she right now? After all she had cried herself to sleep as if in intense pain. Then she realized it was all mental pain, her soul trying to come to terms with its other half's death. She was forever incomplete. She could never bond to someone else, feel the way she felt when she bonded to John. That feeling was long gone. And never coming back.

I hope you enjoyed my first attempt at a fanfic and hope you stick around for the first chapter. This is obviously a continuation of the To Survive trilogy by Callinstel on . His stories are excellent, and I just had to continue it. This is based after Mass Effect 3, and will be mostly focusing on all the Normandy crew (including ex-crew members).