"Shepard."

A noise in the dark; a voice she recognized from what seemed like an eternity ago.

"Shepard."

There it was again. Persistent, she thought. But misguided. Shepard was dead.

"Shepard, you did your duty. But there's one last thing you need to do."

No. No. No NO. NONONO. She retreated further into the darkness. What more did they want from her? What more did she have left to give? She had already given her life- surely that was enough.

"Shepard, it's time to wake up."

Wake up? She would laugh if she had a mouth, a voice. How could the dead wake up? Death was a permanent sleep. Everyone knew that.

"Shepard, you've done it before."

Suddenly, there was a point of light in the dark as she remembered. The voice was right; had she not awakened from death once before? Had she not left this place before? The memory shone faintly, but it was light nonetheless. She moved towards it.

"Shepard," The voice was stronger now. "Shepard, come back to us. Come back to me."

The light grew larger and brighter as slowly, faces and names joined the first memory.

Kaidan Alenko.

Ashley Williams.

Jeff "Joker" Moreau.

Urdnot Wrex.

Tali'Zorah vas Normandy.

Liara T'soni.

EDI.

Miranda Lawson.

Jacob Taylor.

Samara.

Urdnot Grunt.

Jack.

Thane Krios.

Kasumi Goto.

Zaeed Massani.

Legion.

Mordin Solus.

James Vega.

Steve Cortez.

Samantha Traynor.

Javik.

With each face and name, the light grew stronger; it was soon to overwhelm the dark. Her eyes hurt, but she kept moving towards it. Finally, one last face and memory flooded the dark, drowning it all away with the brightest, greatest light yet.

Garrus Vakarian.

"Shepard, I need you. Shepard, I love you."

Commander Shepard's eyes opened.

Garrus was right there to see the great Commander Shepard open her eyes for the first time in over half a year. Of course, to him she was just Shepard, though just wasn't the right word for her, because she was the love of his life.

It was his voice that coaxed her from the dark and quiet of her coma. He hadn't known what to say when the nurses told him to try talking to her, not at first. But then he thought of what he would want to hear if their roles were switched, and suddenly the right words came to him.

When her blue eyes opened, a moment of perfect clarity washed over Garrus, and two things became clear. One, he would do everything in his power to ensure Shepard was never taken from him again. Two, he loved Shepard with everything in him, and he wanted to be with her for the rest of their lives.

Relief followed this moment of clarity, a wave of relief and happiness and hope. The most he had ever felt before, cynic that he was. The nurses rushed around the couple, yelling for a doctor, exclaiming to one another, barking commands. But they faded around the lovers, cloudy shapes and forms, because how could they see anyone else?

Their eyes, nearly the same shade of blue, gazed into the others. Garrus took Shepard's limp hand in his own, and brought it gently to his face.

"Shepard," he breathed. "Shepard, you're home." He turned her hand in his and kissed her palm reverently, eyes never once leaving her face.

A tiny smile creased Shepard's face. With great effort, she opened her mouth, and the first word on her lips since coming back to life yet again, was a name. His name.

"Garrus." She whispered, and her eyes flooded, with pure, bounding, unadulterated joy.

"I'm home." She agreed.

It was a while before Shepard could see any of her other crew members, though Garrus promised they were all very anxious to see her. He wasn't technically supposed to be in there with her either, but the hospital staff made an exception. Garrus never said, but Shepard was pretty sure intimidation was why he got a pass. Either way, he rarely left her bedside, which Shepard was glad for. She never wanted to not see his face again.

"I'm done with dying," she told him jokingly as they sat in her room together. It was a few days since Shepard had opened her eyes, and surprising her caretakers, who said it should be impossible, she was already sitting up and could move her hands and arm on her own. She still couldn't walk or leave the bed without help, but there was no doubt in her mind that she would get there. Someday.

"You'd better be," Garrus replied. He was sitting by her bed, and she was sitting up against the pillows, eating the hospital food that she was already tired of.

They were quiet for a bit. Garrus took Shepard's free hand and stroked it with his thumb. In the few days since Shepard had been up, they hadn't had much opportunity to talk about anything important. While the staff conceded that Garrus could stay with Shepard, they warned him not to talk too much or to say anything that might upset her. Her health is still delicate, they told him. She needs time to readjust.

Shepard hated it. She wanted to talk about what had happened, to find out what Garrus and the rest of her friends and been doing in the last few months, to see what had happened as the result of her choice to destroy the Reapers.

"So, while we're here and alone," Shepard began, pushing the last bit of food away. The nurses would scold her, tell her she needed to eat for her strength, but she didn't want anymore to eat. "I wanted to talk about what all happened while I was out. Like, what happened in the galaxy in the aftermath of the Reapers? What did you and all our friends do? Stuff like that." She looked at Garrus beseechingly.

He hesitated. "I don't know, Shepard. You heard those nurses. They sounded pretty serious."

Shepard rolled her eyes. "Oh come on, Garrus. Scared of a few nurses?" She teased, before becoming serious. "Look, I really need to know. I need to know where I stand, especially before our friends get here." Especially Joker, she thought grimly. "I know not all of the news may be good, but I can take it. I've taken a lot worse than bad news in my time."

"Well, alright," Garrus said, giving in. "what did you want to know?"

Shepard's eyes gleamed as she settled back against her pillows. "Everything. Start from the top."

The world had been saved via Shepard's actions, but it had also been thrust into chaos.

All tech featuring synthetic intelligence or Reaper design had crashed.

"That caused quite a mess," Garrus remarked ruefully, a half-smile ghosting to life on his face nonetheless. He then became sober. "It...didn't discriminate. EDI's gone, Shepard."

Shepard looked down, and twisted the sheets in her hands.

"Shepard?" Garrus murmured.

"I knew that would happen," Shepard muttered guiltily. "When I made my choice…the- Catalyst- told me it wouldn't. And, I knew EDI would be included. As well as the geth, Liara's Glyph…" Shepard drew up her knees, wrapping her arms around them. If there had been one good thing about the coma, it was that she didn't have to answer difficult questions, and she didn't have to feel the crushing weight of guilt.

Garrus was quiet for a moment. Finally, he queried, "Choice?"

Shepard made herself meet Garrus' questioning gaze. "Choice." She confirmed. She explained in detail about the Catalyst and the form it took for her, as well as the three choices that had been offered to her.

"I knew choosing to destroy the Reapers would still come with a lot of repercussions," Shepard told Garrus, "Like losing EDI." She looked down at the sheets. "EDI was my friend. I didn't want to lose her. I didn't want to lose any of you. But, destroying the Reapers was what I had gone there to do. And the other choices, they had their own repercussions. To control the Reapers meant too many unknown variables. It would mean giving up my life for something that might not have even worked. As for synthesis, who am I to choose to merge organics and synthetics?" Shepard shook her head, and her eyes began filling with tears of frustration and guilt. "Would that even create peace? What if it only worked for some? What if…"

"Shh Shh Shh," Garrus murmured soothingly, gathering Shepard in his arms. He breathed into the sweet red tangle of her hair, and let her sob for a moment, not having to explain herself.

"I would have made the same choice," Garrus told Shepard in a low voice. "Destroying the Reapers is what we set out to do. And of course," he added, stroking Shepard's hair fondly, "I have more selfish reasons. Those other choices sound like they involve you dying, with this time no Cerberus to put you back together."

"Yeah." Shepard confirmed, sounding tired.

"This way, I get to be with you a little longer." He looked down at the top of Shepard's head. "I need you alive."

"Joker probably would have said the same thing about EDI." Shepard said quietly.

Garrus sighed. "You can't tell Joker you had choices. He's been...pretty upset about losing her."

Shepard shook her head and drew away from Garrus' arms. "No. I need to tell him. He deserves to know." She looked out the window, and saw that the trees and grass were starting to grow back from the scorched Earth, little pokes of green in the blackened wasteland."They all do."

"It's your choice," Garrus replied. "No idea what the outcome will be, though."

Shepard just shook her head darkly. "Keep going?" She asked.

So Garrus did.

"The Normandy crash landed on a planet just outside the Sol Cluster. Lucky for us, it was habitable, because we were stuck there for a knew that the Reapers had been destroyed, and we also knew you were the cause." He hesitated. "So the natural conclusion was that you had died. We...held a memorial service on board. Not just for you, but for Anderson and EDI as well."

Garrus stopped here, and shook his head, his grip tightening on Shepard's hand. He took a minute to compose himself, and Shepard was quiet. She knew if their spots had been reversed that this would have been a hard memory for her, as it seemed to be for Garrus. Finally, with a shuddering breath, Garrus continued on.

"We had a plaque with your name on it. Everyone decided I ought to be the one who put your name up there, considering, well, you know. We were going to put yours up last. But Shepard, when I walked up to the Memorial Wall...I couldn't do it. Something in me was stopping me, was telling me to hold on. I was reminded that you had survived certain death before. If anyone could have survived the destruction of the Reapers, I knew it would be you."

Shepard's eyes welled up again and she wordlessly outstretched her arms. Garrus fell into them, and for a long time they simply held each other. "Didn't I tell you? You'd never be alone," Shepard murmured.

"Never," Garrus reaffirmed. He squeezed her tightly, gathering strength in her slender form to continue.

"Surprisingly, no one pushed too hard about it. We all wanted you to be alive, and we were all gonna hold out hope until there was no way we could anymore. Not long after, we managed to get the ship back up, all of us working together. But when we got back into space, we ran into another problem."

"The mass relays?" Shepard guessed.

"Yeah," Garrus confirmed. "It was damaged, severely so. But lucky for us, once we got back in space, we were able to establish contact with the Alliance. They told us that all of the relays were damaged, but they were working tirelessly to fix them, and would stay in touch with us as they figured out how."

"I know they must have succeeded, because you're here, but how on earth…?" Shepard mused. "It must have been hard. We've never understood them fully."

"The saving grace, as I hear it, was that while they were very damaged, they were not completely wiped out," Garrus answered. "They were still intact, so there was still a design to work with. Not too terribly unlike the Crucible. With the scientists we helped gather for the Crucible, they began work as soon as possible. The Quarians and Salarians helped too, on their side of things. The Salarians in particular took on a lot of the responsibility."

"Hmm," was all Shepard said, but it was enough.

"Yeah, I know. They got a lot of backlash for their lack of help against the Reapers. From every front- humans, turians, asari, and krogan were all very critical of the Salarians' selfish approach. Apparently, there was even talk of taking away their council seat." Garrus shrugged. "Not sure if there's any truth to that, but it put their asses in gear. They announced they would be focusing all their efforts in repairing the crashed technology, starting with the mass relays. Frankly, it was a win-win; because they stayed so neutral in the war, they still had a lot of resources to put into this research, so they were the best candidates for taking the helm. Furthermore, they needed to redeem themselves."

"I'm guessing they did?" Shepard asked.

Garrus nodded. "Definitely. They managed to get the relays back to limited functionality in the span of about six months. Only military ships and absolutely necessary travel was permitted at first, but the Normandy fit that, so we navigated our way back to Earth as soon as we were able."

"And how soon before you found out I was alive?" Shepard questioned.

"Three days before you woke back up," Garrus answered grimly.

Shepard's eyebrows shot up. "That soon?"

"From what I've been told, it was a few days before your body was even found," Garrus replied. "You were buried under some rubble, at the heart of the destruction. They didn't even realize you were alive at first, you were so beat up."

Shepard knew this was likely true, as she touched her face. Nothing hurt, but it would have then if she had been conscious. New scars now marred her face; when she had first looked in a mirror since waking up, she had joked to Garrus, "We're twins, now." Many of her bones had been broken; her armor and cybernetics had protected her vital organs, but it couldn't save everything. She still couldn't walk or move her legs without assistance. Ruefully, Shepard reminded herself that she was still lucky. She could have very easily been one of the dead.

"When they did," Garrus continued, "you were rushed to a makeshift hospital first. You were one of many, and since none of us were around to claim you, you became lost in the crowd for a time."

"I imagine people thinking I was dead helped with that," Shepard remarked drily.

"Probably. You didn't have your dog tags either, and your armor had been destroyed, so they had no way of knowing you were even Alliance. They just treated you as one of the unknowns. Eventually, after about three months, you were one of the last unclaimed, and the staff wanted to know why. They thought you were probably a soldier given where you were found, and the fact that you were found in armor, that it was destroyed notwithstanding. So they contacted the Alliance, and told them they might have one of their people. They were spread pretty thin at that point; a lot of people died in the war, and there was just so much destruction to deal with. Still, they sent someone down, and luckily for us he recognized you. They had to be sure, though, so Admiral Hackett came down himself to verify, and they tested your identifiers against the records they had for you. Both confirmed it was you."

"Admiral Hackett made it?" Shepard asked, perking up.

"He sure did," Garrus affirmed affectionately. "So they moved you to an Alliance hospital, and recognized you as having survived."

"So how come you didn't know about me until a few days before I woke up?" Shepard asked, frowning.

Garrus shrugged, looking frustrated and moody. "They gave some excuse about not wanting to put the news out over the airways just yet. So it wasn't until last week when we landed that we found out."

Shepard leaned back against her pillows thoughtfully. She could sort of understand the Alliance's gesture. If they announced that she was alive only for her to die not long after, then what sort of hope did that inspire in people? There may also be people who would want to take advantage of her vegetative state, if they knew about it. She wasn't sure why exactly the Alliance made that call, but she realized that if it were Garrus, and if it was the Turian Hierarchy that was hiding him, Shepard would be pissed too.

"And then of course, there was red tape once we did find out. Naturally we all wanted to come see you immediately, but they weren't allowing any visitors. They told us you were in a coma and were "delicate."

"Never heard that word used to describe me," Shepard commented, frowning.

"Who could unless you were in a coma?" Garrus joked, before becoming serious. "We went back and forth for a few days before they finally relented and let me come to see you. It was your Admiral Hackett who gave the O.K." Garrus looked sheepish here. "It seems some anonymous source told him I was your boyfriend and that we were madly in love? His words when he gave his consent, not mine." Garrus blushed the way Shepard had learned turians do, their face plates becoming tinged with blue. "Though, they weren't wrong. Just wasn't really prepared to hear your boss say that."

"Liara!" Shepard growled, then laughed throatily. "Oh, this has her written all over it."

"You may be right," Garrus chuckled. "We'll have to get her back for that one. Either way, it worked. He said that as your partner, legal or otherwise, I had the all-clear to visit you, in case things suddenly went south, I guess. I'm sure he wasn't anticipating you waking up to the sound of my voice," Garrus teased, chucking Shepard lightly under the chin.

"And were you?" Shepard countered with a smile.

"I wanted to believe it would," Garrus replied, looking down. "So I said what I thought I'd want to hear, were our roles switched."

Shepard raised Garrus' chin so that their eyes could meet. "Thank you." She replied simply, and the couple exchanged a tender kiss.

"Soo...how soon do you think until we can, ah…?" Shepard stated suggestively, after pulling away from Garrus. She wiggled her eyebrows.

"Can we….?" Garrus replied, feigning ignorance. "What, tango again? Have a shooting contest? Do some calibrations? I'm not following here, Shepard."

She swung her pillow at him, hitting his shoulder. "I'll calibrate you!" She hit him repeatedly as they laughed, Garrus play-cowering under the soft thumps of her pillow.

Eventually they calmed down. "Ahh...probably not until you have control over your legs again, Shepard," Garrus replied seriously.

Shepard nodded, resigned to her momentary celibacy. "I thought that might be the case."

They were quiet for a moment, before Shepard brightened back up.

"Guess that means I need to begin my physical therapy ASAP!"

Garrus smiled. "You giant dork." Then, quietly, sincerely, "I love you."

Shepard smiled at Garrus, and placed her hand on his cheek. "How long I've been waiting to hear that." She leaned in, and the couple exchanged another kiss, a kiss that was long, slow, sweet, and full of gratitude for fate and the funny ways it worked sometimes.