Chapter One

Why did it have to be like this? Why was she forced to choose her own demise by leaping into a beam of colored light to stop the reapers?

Commander Shepard should have a better ending than this, after all she did, she deserved to go out in a blaze of glory, with the last thing she sees being her lover's face as she dies in his arms. After uniting the entire galaxy, she deserved an ending at least that spectacular, didn't she?

Instead she dies alone, not even an enemy shooting at her, no one to tell of her courageous and selfless act after she's gone, and no closure for the love of her life.

These are the thoughts that go through her mind as she limps toward the center light, the green beam of synthesis, but she knows the longer she takes, the more people die, and so she throws her gun aside and sprints for the beam, wishing this wasn't really happening, that this had been a dream.

As she leaps, she thinks about the people who meant the most to her, Anderson, Joker, Tali, Liara, Kadian... and Garrus.

God, Garrus... They should've gotten their happy ending, they deserved to retire on a beach somewhere and adopt a little baby or two, there were plenty of orphans from all this fighting they could've given a home. They would've been good parents.

"Forgive the insubordination Shepard, but your boyfriend has an order for you. Come back alive, it'd be an awfully empty galaxy without you."

She felt the tears come as her energy was absorbed. "I'm sorry Garrus..."

Her eyes flickered open and she drank in the sight of the room, she lay in a bed cocooned its blankets, the walls of the room were as white as the sheets and the polished hardwood. A window next to the bed poured in sunlight, and a desk in the opposite corner had a private extranet terminal sitting on it's surface.

She groaned as she sat up, every muscle screaming with her movements. She untangled herself from covers and climbed out of bed, rubbing her temples. As the commander wondered where she was, panic overtook her, there was no way she was still alive after synthesizing, but if she were in heaven, she wouldn't be in pain. And there was supposed to be a bar, a bar damn it, not a 21st century style bedroom. If she couldn't find the bar, she couldn't find Garrus, she couldn't tell if he'd made it.

There was a nightstand next to the bed, and a picture frame rested on it. Hoping for a clue she picked up the frame and checked the photo inside. At first she didn't recognize it, but as her eyes swept over the happy blonde 14 year old and her parents in alliance uniforms, she remembered it, and nearly dropped it, the last photo she had of her family before her father went MIA, a photo she had lost in the destruction of the Normandy SR-1.

Carefully she set it down and backed away, there had to be an explanation for that, maybe she did survive somehow and and someone tracked the picture down for her as a get well present. She bolted over to the open bathroom door, and turned on the faucet in the sink, leaning over and splashing her face with cold water.

When she turned it off and looked up into the mirror, her body jerked with surprise, her hair reached just past her shoulders, devoid of the cuts she'd made for her time on the Normandy. None of the scars and wrinkles she'd gained over the years were present.

Shepard had expected to be pretty messed up after her fight with the reapers, but it was quite the opposite, her skin was not scratched, scarred, or even bruised. Panic began consume her, and she went for the only thing that could confirm anything. Spinning around, lifting up the back of her tank top, her eyes scanned for the "PROPERTY OF VAKARIAN" tramp stamp she had gotten after losing a bet to the turian shortly after they started dating.

She sank to the floor, hugging herself. It wasn't there to her, that presented two possibilities, she was actually a Shepard clone with all of the commander's memories- a highly unlikely scenario as her previous clone, was fully aware she was a clone- or her time on the Normandy, on Eden Prime, chasing Saren, stopping the collectors... falling in love, was all just a very elaborate dream- not as unlikely, but definitely out there unusual. It felt so real, but there was nothing left now to prove that it all happened, so it had to be the latter, right?

Picking herself up and stumbling over to the doorway of the bathroom she stared at the room, searching her memory. If it had all been a dream, she must have been in this room before, so why didn't she recognize it? Frustrated, she stalked over to the window and stared at the outside, the view was breathtaking, but what was even more breathtaking was the realization that hit her like a speeding bullet. She was in the bedroom of the small apartment she rented on earth for when she had extended shore leave, and that was the straw that broke the camel's back.

If everything had really happened, this apartment, would be a pile of rubble.

Now, that she knew it was a dream, it was a necessity to find out how much of it actually was actually a dream, she decided sinking into the chair in front of her extranet terminal and quickly accessed her private messages. Scanning through them for important details, she noticed an unread message from Captain Anderson, sent that morning, with the subject "Early End to Shore Leave."

"Shepard,

I apologize for cutting your shore leave a week short, however, the construction of the ship we'll be serving on finished earlier than expected. My higher ups want to get this stealth system tested ASAP, all we need now is for the crew to arrive and we'll head out.

Anderson."

Reading it, deja vu spread through her system, she remembered reading this message before, but there was no way to confirm such. Powering down the terminal, the 29 year old hurried to dress and pack before she left to catch a shuttle to where the Normandy was.