Epilogue (8 years later)

Magdalene Shepard's POV

Right after the Decontamination chamber on board the Normandy

"Captain Anderson. Commander Shepard reporting to duty, Sir." I clasped my boots together and salute sharply.

He chuckle and return my salute, "At ease, Shepard." He waves me over towards the bridge as Private Robert offer to take my duffel bag to the lockers, "It's being 8 years since we served together, still keeping it together I hope?"

"You know me, sir. Always raring to go." I grin as I quickly fall behind him.

"That I know, Shepard. Here, let me introduce you to your new crew." He motion towards the cockpit as two men turn around from their stations to greet me.

"This is Jeff Moreau, our Flight Lieutenant, and Staff Lieutenant, Kaidan Alenko. Lieutenant Alenko will be with you if we ever need for a ground team."

Jeff Moreau struggles to get up but I place my hand over his shoulder and give him a firm handshake. I reach on over to Kaidan and he held out his left hand in greeting, "Commander Shepard."

"Lieutenant Alenko." I nod and return his handshake. I smile with pride as I glance at the ring on his fourth finger. We hold on a little longer than we should, still a bit dazed that we will be serving together for the first time.

Captain Anderson gives a polite cough and we release our grip, "Come on, Shepard, let me introduce you to the engineers."

I smile and take a step back, "Lieutenants." I turn around and continue to follow Captain Anderson.

I do not know how the mission will turn out but I have a gut feeling this is going to be one hell of a ride.

That's the end of this story. I deliberately left it to your interpretation what the ring meant. I wonder how different would things be in ME if both Kaidan and Shepard were together on the get go? *cough* Like Ilos, especially ME2 Horizon…

As mention previously, do let me know what you would like to see as continuation; probably won't be a full series, just one shots here and there.

Thank you so much again for the support! :)