"Shepard!"

The words were the last thing she heard from Joker as she slammed a fist into the emergency close button, sealing him away from the rest of the crumbling ship as the attacking vessel's laser ripped through the cockpit. Then there was a brief flash and the escape pod shot off into the darkness of space, a red blinking light telling the commander that the emergency beacon was firing. God willing, someone would pick up on it soon.

She had briefly seen his face as the doors sealed shut; panicked, desperate and disbelieving. In the back of her head, something clung to the hope that she would see it again.

Further thoughts were quickly cut off when another explosion ripped from the control panel that the pilot had been sitting at just moments before. This time not even her gripped gloves were enough to keep Shepard's tenuous hold on the Normandy from being broken, the force knocking her into the metal panelling and forcing the air from her lungs. Her arm bent back to a horrific distance and she heard something pop, before she was sent flailing off away from the ship.

Without a sound in the vacuum, the SS Normandy finally exploded with a brief flare of fire, illuminated only by the light reflected off the planet they had been orbiting. All Shepard could see was its bright, icy blue surface and shrapnel from the Normandy falling to its gravity. Like shooting stars they burst into red flame as they broke into the atmosphere.

In this void, Shepard forced herself to remain calm, trying to run her thoughts through basic training to see if her instructors had given any helpful hints as to what to do when vented into space with your ship destroyed and your form slowly falling into a nearby gravity well. Focusing on a mental image of a flame, her consciousness willing it to remain bright in her mind, she was not surprised to find that no one had ever believed that anyone would find themselves in such a position.

Chances are if anyone had asked, they would have given an answer not unlike Shepard's assessment of the situation: Not a snowball's chance in Hell.

While she still had breathing time, Shepard rapidly began looking for something to pull herself out of what was looking to be a very sticky and ignoble end, anything. What exactly she couldn't really think of, but the Commander had been in plenty of situations where she needed to think on her feet with limited resources. That was just the moment where it all came together.

It was strange how calm and serene everything seemed, the great hunks of the Normandy hurtling past her like ships sailing on an invisible sea, turning a cherry red one by one as they entered Alchera's atmosphere. It was almost beautiful.

All she could hear was her own forcefully measured breathing and the pump of the oxygen tank. And also a strange hissing…then an alarm from her armour's inbuilt computer.

A leak.

Immediately Shepard went into action; trying to fix the problem before it was too late. She hadn't any time as it was; she didn't need a lack of oxygen to add to things.

Flailing behind her with her good arm, Shepard found herself trying to block it off, to grab her air tubes and…do what? She couldn't seal it with her finger, not forever anyway.

Dammit…

She felt the atmosphere in her suit drop.

A cool VI voice suddenly sounded in her ear, strangely muted, "Warning: Suit breach detected. Internal atmosphere reaching 0.7 atmos. Self-repair functions offline. Oxygen levels critical. Warning: Suit breach detected. Internal atmosphere…"

Dammit all…not like this. Not now…

Her next gasp was harder. It wasn't just that there was bad air; there was increasingly little to breathe in.

There's too much left…please, don't let it be now…

Then her lungs found nothing at all.

Becoming quickly light headed, Shepard was vaguely aware of her legs kicking desperately, of her hand coming to her throat, as though trying to keep what little oxygen she had left in her. There was a deep pain in her chest as her diaphragm strained and her heart heaved and pumped wildly. Her vision beheld the planet Alchera, its icy surface strangely cold, beautiful and utterly alien. It was getting closer. She must be being drawn in by its gravity…where she will be burnt up upon entry and smashed like a water balloon onto its surface.

Mother…Kaiden…David…I'm so sorry…I've failed…

Her mind and her vision started to blurr and then slowly blank. The VI's voice was muffled into silence and there was nothing. For a moment Shepard existed in a state of complete oblivion, like that spot between sleep and dreaming.

Then a strange, childish giggling.

Ah, Shepard thought, surprised she could still think at all. My brain must be starved of oxygen…starting to hallucinate…hearing voices…

It grew louder, and there was something unsettling about it. The way it echoed, the way it sounded. Was that music too?

"Little floating spaceman, floating in the dark, Your spaceman friends have left you, your ship is blown apart…"

Hazily, in the depths of her oxygen deprived brain, something found strength to question. What the Hell?

"Little floating spaceman, no planets you will find, Another ship has found you, and that ship is mine…"

)O(

Mournful, solo and piercing, a trumpet sounded the Last March and Admiral Hackett of the 5th Fleet, dressed in his finest and with enough medals on him to patch up a hull breach, swept his hand up sharply in a salute. Like a great piece of machinery, well oiled and precise, the hall did the same. Even those not of the Alliance military, or any military at all for matter, did something to give their respects. With that, the trumpet sung its dirge into the echoing chamber of the Citadel Council.

The admiral stood on a stage before a large holographic image of Commander Jane Shepard receiving her honours for her part in the Battle of the Citadel and the destruction of the ship referred to as Sovereign. Fragments of the colossal vessel still littered the Council Chamber where she stood, indeed they were still there now. The Council had insisted that it was a ship of geth manufacture, despite Shepard's constant protest to the contrary, something that had quickly turned her into an embarrassment for the Alliance. This image gradually transitioned into another photo of the whole of Normandy's crew assembled just beside the ship itself, taken shortly before her maiden flight. Then into a picture of Shepard, bloodied and battle-scarred yet nevertheless wearing a broad, triumphant grin, standing in front of an equally battered statue that stood in the centre of Elysium's capital garden. This, in turn, faded into another picture, then another in an unending loop.

To either side of the stage were Alliance flags, plus the colonial or national flags of every crewmember who served aboard the Normandy. Included were the flags of the Turian Hierarchy, the Asari Republics, the Quarian Flotilla and a hastily-made flag bearing the symbol of Clan Urdnot, since Tuchanka had no recognised unified government.

The final flag almost didn't make it, but pressure from the rest of the crew ensured that Wrex was represented. The krogan himself was absent, but to the crew that mattered little. He probably would have been amused at his clan's symbol appearing, perhaps for the first time in its history, so neatly and almost professionally sewn on a flag by asari artisans. Hanging with the others, it almost looked civil. Almost.

Shortly behind Hackett, Captain Anderson and a myriad of other officers and officials, including Ambassador Udina wearing whatever expression would cause the least political backlash. Amongst these, Captain Hannah Shepard bore a face of pride despite the tears, her salute the crispest. Everyone agreed: no mother could expect a finer daughter. Tears streamed down her cheeks and she displayed them shamelessly, defying those tears with a smile at the System Alliance flag as it lowered to half-mast. Her salute was the last to drop.

No mother could expect a finer daughter.

All in all, it had been a short but simple multi-faith ceremony, with few long-winded speeches but plenty of feeling. The atmosphere in the room swelled with each moment, the past destruction of the Citadel ignored as nearly the whole station paid tribute to the galaxy's heroine and to the crew that served under her. Except for those, of course, who had reason to celebrate, but they wisely kept out of sight.

There was no doubt about it, it was a ceremony Shepard…Jane would have approved of.

Kaiden Alenko felt a little self-conscious up on stage, along with the rest of Shepard's old crew. The Normandy's old crew, barring a few notable exceptions.

Many were still bearing marks from the ship's destruction; lost hair, scars, burns. One had lost an eye when a control panel went up, whilst another had been left paralysed from the waist down until the spinal injury could be treated. They stood up there all the same, with all the pride an Alliance Navy crewman who had served in the line of duty deserved. Those who could stood, and those who didn't looked envious of the former.

A few other wreaths were present alongside the one for Shepard, there to honour those who also fell in the line of duty. Their absence was as keenly felt among the crew as Shepard's. Ash was being honoured here as well, although she had already been given a ceremony just a month before the Normandy's last flight. She was still a part of the Normandy crew, after all.

Jane would have wanted nothing less.

Himself, Kaiden got away from the attack relatively unscathed. He had been wearing armour and his shields were up at the time of the attack, which helped protect him from the flying shrapnel. It certainly helped that most the major injuries came from those who had been in the engineering deck, which was hit the hardest and had more things prone to exploding. Even so, those facts still didn't stop him from thinking that he had cheated somehow in getting off so lightly. Somehow he felt…cheap. Like he'd cheated or something.

Looking at the assembled crewmen, as the last sombre bars of the trumpet sounded, Kaiden had to admit to himself that he felt guilty there weren't more up there. And there could have been more up there; Kaiden just couldn't deny that fact. Above all he felt terrible that Shepard wasn't among the living as well.

But then she probably would have been pushing for a new ship to go out and destroy the sons of bitches responsible. Nobody did this to her crew and got away with it. Nobody. Saren got away lightly for his role behind Ashley's death.

Beside him, Garrus shifted in his seat, decked out in C-Sec dress uniform. Even after all this time dealing with them, turian expressions remained unreadable to Kaiden. He hazarded a guess that it had something to do with the mandibles, sort of like human lips, but otherwise turians all seemed to just scowl. Still, he got the impression that Garrus was just as hard hit by Shepard's death, and the loss of the Normandy, just as much as the rest of them. The turian had spent a lot of time gazing ponderously at the wreath laid for her, or else at his taloned hands or the holographic projector.

"An impressive turnout," the C-Sec officer finally said, his flanged voice so low it was almost a purr to Kaiden's ears.

Kaiden nodded, keeping quiet and only half-listening. His thoughts were still replaying those horrible minutes (although at the time it had seemed like hours) where the ship had started to tear itself apart under the brutal assault of that alien vessel, the screech of buckling metal and popping joints biting into Kaiden's ears, along with the roar of fires and explosions, the screams and shouts of panicked crewman and the crackle of short-circuiting equipment. How many people did he pass, unknowing? Locked away behind malfunctioning doors he could have opened, lost in smoke he could have searched, or tucked away in corners he didn't inspect? How did Shepard die? Would his presence have made the difference, another set of eyes and hands? Joker wouldn't talk about it and Kaiden never pressed him, but he saw the haunted look in his eyes that the lieutenant found familiar. A part of him couldn't help but think of it as accusing. Those thoughts were the ones that kept him awake late at night, when fire, rumbles and screams dwelled at the edge of dreaming.

"I should have gone with her…" he muttered.

"I'm sorry?"

"N-nothing, Garrus. Just…" A sigh; it had been a long two weeks since the SS Little Big Horn found them all in their pods. "It's nothing."

The Lutheran priest stood again, an aging woman with short cut hair the colour of iron, her ebony hands holding a plain Bible from which she had read Jane's favourite psalm. Speaking in a clear voice she spoke of the importance of strength in these times, of not mourning what was lost but treasuring what had been given, of hope for the future and of pride in what took place in the past. For Commander Shepard had proven the worth of humanity to the galaxy, demonstrated their spirit and prowess not merely as individuals but as a species. Because of her, humanity had at last come of age and was ready to take its place amongst the other races of the galaxy. Whilst the galaxy would be hard pressed to replace those sons and daughters lost aboard the Normandy during that fateful attack, the bar has been set, and it has been proven to be attainable by all who have the guts and the drive. So let no one be consumed by grief, let them instead be moved to pride and admiration, for the achievements of tomorrow shall always been inspired by the victories of today, which have been made possible by the sacrifices of yesterday.

Kaiden felt it a rather poor speech. Not one word was mentioned of the Reapers, either, to no one's surprise. But then why ruin the occasion with mention of the galaxy's impending extinction?

Once again a surge of pain, dull and throbbing, crept up at the sides of Kaiden's temple, setting his teeth grinding as each pulse of pain drove into his skull like heavy iron nails. He pinched the bridge of his nose, closed his eyes away from the stark light of the Citadel and bowed his head a little.

His migraines had been terrible lately. Far worse than usual, and far more frequent. They lingered longer too. Usually they'd arrive every now and then, a brief annoyance before they subsided as suddenly as they came. Now it seemed every half hours, usually whenever he turned his mind to the Normandy's destruction, or Jane, it came upon him like an incessant five year old with a mallet. Chakwas had simply said that it was likely a result of stress and that Kaidan simply needed time to rest, collect himself and recover. She made it sound so routine, so easy. Almost as though Kaiden could just relax on a beach somewhere with a drink in a coconut with a little umbrella and forget it all.

If only, if only.

At least she allowed him a prescription of pain killers; they helped with the worse of them. A damn shame he couldn't take any now…no water. It'd be just his luck to be caught on camera, pulling a stupid expression while he tried to swallow a pill stuck in his throat.

Hopefully there'll be a water cooler somewhere when the service is over.

The former remnants of the Normandy's crew met up in a small bar located in the Presidium, one that immediately declared all their drinks on the house when the owner realised who they were. Apparently her sister had been serving on the Destiny Ascension during the attack and had been saved by the 5th Fleet as it rode in to the rescue. The gesture was gratefully received.

There were only a handful; Garrus, Joker, Liara, Kaiden and Dr Chackwas, although numerous other members of the crew were scattered on other tables. The conversations seemed almost normal, until you noticed something almost like a shadow that cast itself over each group that everyone seemed to be trying to ignore. It lingered over each table, bringing attention to itself even as people tried their best to put it out of their minds. It reminded Kaiden of the old Pink Elephants mind game. Don't think about pink elephants. Although mostly drowned out by the general ambiance of the bar, the glitzy salarian pop music playing in the background did very little to ease the mood. If anything, it made the free drinks even more welcome.

Salarians did wonders in the laboratory and the intelligence services, but they were obviously not meant to sing. Or make music. Or write it. At least in Kaiden's opinion.

Shepard's old squad were silent for a while, occasionally glancing at each other before contemplating other areas of the room. No one seemed to want to say anything. Could've been that they didn't know what to say, but Kaiden's money was on them just being unable to speak what was on their minds. Chakwas was drumming her long, elegant pianist fingers on the table, while Garrus stared out the window as though it was the most fascinating show on the Citadel. Liara's gaze, meanwhile, lingered on her clasped hands, her blank face defying the ponderous look in her eyes. He didn't know why, but Kaiden got the impression she was plotting something. He could practically see the cogs in her mind whirring.

Joker, however, looked lost. From the moment he arrived at the table, he had sat there, gazed into his drink and looked for all the world like someone who had just found out that he had some horrible, incurable disease that was slowly killing him. His face was ashen, his eyes focusing on something only he could see and his posture that of a man who had not been sleeping well. Out of all of them, the past events seemed to have struck the pilot especially hard. There was once a time when Kaiden would have been thankful for Joker's sarcastic, irreverent joking and teasing to have had a stopper put on it, for him to be silent and serious for once. Now Kaiden seriously wished he was more careful in what he asked for.

I thought I could save her, LT, he'd said as Kaiden found him in the infirmary of the Little Big Horn, being treated for the broken ribs he'd acquired when Shepard had manhandled him into a pod. I thought I could save her. I was so close…I just needed…

There was nothing Kaiden wanted to do more at that point than hit him. This was just too much. How dare he? How dare he!? Because of his stupidity, his arrogance, Jane was gone. Because of him, Commander Shepard, hero of Elysium, of Eden Prime, of the Battle of Citadel, was a sorry crater on some godforsaken planet! Because of that idiotic bastard with the gimpy legs…! And there he was trying to justify himself, to try and worm his way out of responsibility. Dammit, she deserved better than that!

Had Joker tried to argue further that he could have saved the Normandy there would have been no holding back. Kaiden would have pounded him until he was pulled away or Joker's face turned into half a pound of mince. So the pilot had a soft skull did he? Let's see how well it holds up to a good biotic punch.

By God, Kaiden was more than ready. He had a lot of stress to work out.

But Joker didn't to justify himself. For a while he didn't say anything; he just looked at Kaiden pleadingly until finally he dissolved into sobbing.

I'm sorry Kaiden… he said, in a tone of voice that robbed Kaiden's anger of its righteousness. God, I'm so sorry…it's all my fault…I should have listened…

That angered Kaiden even more; not only had Joker taken Jane away from him but now he'd robbed him of his chance to be angry at him too. But then that wasn't how Jane would have done it. Never. She knew better than to just give in to anger like that so easily, especially at someone as tortured as Joker was.

So what else could Kaiden do? He forgave him. He had no choice.

It was Garrus who broke the silence, looking away from the view of the Citadel the multitude of insect-like ships zipping through the arms of the wards and towards the table at large.

"So," he said. "What's going to happen to you now?"

Dr Chackwas sighed. "That's the brass to decide, Garrus," she said, her tone somewhat resigned. "But word on the grapevine is that we're being split up."

"Wait, what?" Liara suddenly looked up from her hands, her expression startled. "Split up?"

"The crew is too loyal to Shepard, even now. I get the impression that the Powers That Be are left a little worried about what we might do if left together, or that a new commander wouldn't be as respected. We stole the Normandy once before to go after Saren. Perhaps they think we'll do so again to track down who did this to us."

"But…split up the Normandy? Will they really do that? Can they do that?"

"Unfortunately they can, Liara," Kaiden said. "And they probably will. Besides, what would we do now that Shepard's gone? She made this crew. I don't think…I just don't think anyone else could ever pick up the pieces. Especially not with the Normandy gone too."

Liara was silent for a moment, trying to formulate an argument. Ever since Saren was stopped and Sovereign defeated, she'd been a part of the Normandy's crew just as much as anyone else there. For all intents and purposes, the Normandy was her home. Her crew were her family and friends. Aboard that ship, Liara belonged. In that sense, Kaiden could all too much see why she'd want things to remain the same. From little she knew, Liara was something a social outcast even among the usually tolerant, cosmopolitan asari.

"I have to admit…" Liara suddenly said, her soft voice making her sound as though she was scared to be overhead. "I too don't see much point in staying now that Shepard's gone."

That caught Kaiden by surprise. "Oh I…uh, where will you go?"

"I'm…I'm not sure. Going back to my old studies now seems almost…pointless, in a way. Especially since it seems likely that, in a few years, we will all be reduced to hollow ruins and scattered artefacts ourselves."

The asari turned to look out a window, towards the "skyline" of the wards and the flights of countless ships and skycabs, so tiny they looked almost unreal as they zipped in neat lines between the towers, made into silhouettes by the light of the nebula that the Citadel floated in. She seemed to study it before returning to the group at large.

"I might travel for a bit. Collect my thoughts. Maybe try and see if I can find out what attacked us and why. Who knows? I may even find another way to stop the Reapers."

"The Council seems convinced that the geth were behind the attack," Chackwas said, her tone clearly saying what she thought of that theory.

"Oh, the Council's blaming everything on the geth," Garrus muttered. "A ship goes missing, it's the geth. A colony goes out of contact, it's the geth. The damned Citadel gets attacked by an eldritch abomination on a killing spree and what do you know? It's the damned geth. It's that or pirates."

"Well, you can imagine the panic that might arise if they told everyone that a race of sapient machines were on the way, machines that have been destroying all organic life in the galaxy since the beginning of time, for all we know," Chakwas said.

Garrus hissed irritably and looked back to his drink, mandibles flicking in much the same way a cat might flick its tail when annoyed. Kaiden couldn't blame him; it had been rough on everyone. And Garrus had the additional stress of being back in C-Sec; from what little he'd mentioned of it the place had gotten worse since Sovereign tore the place up. A lot of officers were slaughtered by the geth and collateral damage both. There were huge gaps in the command chain that had to be rapidly refilled, areas in the wards that had become hotspots of crime because manpower shortages meant they weren't being monitored, the frustration of people asking for help they can't provide. Then the turian stood, downed his glass, which had been filled with a strange milky-green fluid, and paid his tab on his omnitool.

"I've got to get back to work soon; a lot of C-Sec officers were killed in the attack and we're still running with huge gaps in coverage. Palin is running my ass like a varren in heat. But it was…it was good seeing you all again. Even if…uh. Yeah."

Another awkward silence descended. To think, they'd been planning a get together again for a while but never seemed able to get round to it. Tali couldn't just leave the Flotilla as and when she pleased, there was always something that Shepard and the Normandy needed doing and, as Garrus noted, C-Sec was still reeling from the Battle of the Citadel.

It suddenly made Joker's off-hand comment that at that rate their first get together would be for someone's funeral strangely biting in its prophecy.

"It was good seeing you too, Garrus," Liara said, before standing herself. "And I think I'll leave too. I have things that I'd like to do." She had a strange look in her eyes that Kaiden had never seen in them before, although he knew right away what it was; he'd seen it in Jane's eyes often enough.

Liara was on a mission.

"So that's it?" Joker said, at last. The outburst and his tone made everyone glance at him. "We're just gonna part ways and go on like always? Just like that?"

"We're never going to go on as we used to, Jeff." The way Chakwas was looking at her glass suggested that she no longer felt it adequate in volume. "Never. But we're not going to forget either. And I don't believe the Commander would want us to fall apart on her behalf for that matter."

Kaiden sighed. "I guess you're right. And I'm not going to stop fighting either. The Council has to be made to see reason, somehow, and there's no reason why that can't be done through the system."

This was met with a snort. "You're so naïve, Kaiden," Joker muttered, shaking his head. Kaiden felt his teeth clench as a new migraine kicked in.

Please. Not now Joker.

"It's what Shepard would have said, though," Garrus noted. "The rules and regulations are there for a reason. When you stop following them, people get hurt. Or something like that."

"That is something Shepard would say," Joker said with a sigh. "Kind of annoying. Like that kid in the class who always does their homework and has a heart attack when someone speaks without putting their hand up." Now there was the old Joker again. Perhaps he was finally getting better? "I guess…we'll just have to see what happens then. But we should definitely meet up again. Swap stories or something, I dunno."

"Yeah, I'd like that," the turian said with a nod. "But as I said, I need to get going. Good luck, everyone."

With that he turned on his heels and, with Liara in tow, walked out of the bar, the automatic doors sliding open and shut to let him through. The three humans remained for a moment, an awkward silence descended amongst them like a heavy, smothering blanket. In the background the electro-pop music kept playing, mingling with the chatter of conversation in a thousand different tongues made mutually intelligible by the wonders of Citadel science, the clinking of glasses containing a myriad of drinks, the scraping of chairs and, occasionally, the distant ringing of someone winning a quasar game out towards the back. It was Chakwas who broke the silence between them.

"So, shall I buy the next round? Or are we going to sit here in silence and with empty glasses all day? I might just be able to handle the former, but I'm afraid I won't stand for the latter."