Victory

Author's Note: This story takes place after the destroy ending. I am always open to feedback and comments so please send them my way! Hope you enjoy!

"Impact imminent….impact imminent….impact imminent….warning….impact imminent….brace for impact."

Those were the last words Commander Jane Shepard remembered hearing before she crash landed in a Scottish field. It was hard for her to see the controls; she was delirious from pain and was coughing blood. Falling from space was a familiar but unwelcome sensation for her, and even with her experience she could not protect herself from being thrown about in her seat as the shuttle crashed.

After that things got a little hazy. She remembered seeing flashes of light, she remembered the old farmer who came rushing to her crash site. He was yelling something but she couldn't understand him. Her ears were burning and the parts of her body that still felt like they were on fire didn't help matters. She had tried to call out to him, but didn't have the strength.

Shepard knew she had to have a concussion, perhaps even a major one. She told herself not to fall asleep, but she couldn't fight her own body that forced her into submission. She let out a small gasp as her world faded into darkness just as the farmer reached out to grab her limp body.

She wasn't sure how long she was out but when she awoke she was in some sort of hospital. Everything was blurry and she half wondered if she was going blind due to some sort of force trauma. She could make out some shapes around her and the fluorescent lights burned her now seemingly sensitive eyes.

It seemed as if the shapes around her were doctors. She couldn't make out details but one appeared to be a Salarian, the other a human female with dark hair and the other a red colored Turian. They were talking amongst themselves; probably about her. She wasn't sure but their tone was one of concern and perhaps even panic.

Shepard attempted to call out for them but was shocked to hear a garbled mess in place of her own voice. The doctors around her scurried towards her grabbing her and yelling at each other with compounded frustrations. Shepard tried to move but they held her down and then began to sedate her.

Shepard panicked, the last time she was sedated it was by Cerberus and that a worrisome thought crossed her mind: what if this was Cerberus? Sure, the Illusive Man had died inside the crucible but that didn't mean his foot soldiers were anywhere near done. What if their new plan was to take her?

Jane had remembered Miranda telling her about a plan to potentially put her under mind control, a chip to keep her in line. The Illusive Man had voted against it at the time but she was confident that if he had another chance he would renege on that. Shepard's eyes darted about as she tried to figure out exactly where she was, but before she could the drugs put her back to sleep.

Shepard floated from vivid dream to vivid dream. She saw parts of her life unfold before her, the good, the bad; the death of her parents at the hands of the Batarians was a particularly painful memory. She tried to wake up from the nightmare but she couldn't. It was like her mind was locked on a rail and she was being forced to experience each and every dream in painful detail.

"You did good child" the words of her mentor David Anderson. Her supplant father figure after being orphaned. He was the one with the plan on how to defeat the reapers, he was the one who stayed and fought. He was a tougher soldier in many ways, he was a man who had nothing but his job and yet he was so kind and gentle at the same time. He was a fascinating person and the true hero of the Milky Way; but he would never take credit for it. That wasn't his style, and maybe that's why she admired him so much. It should have been her bleeding out in the crucible, not him.

But Jane also knew this line of thinking was foolish; Anderson would never allow her to die in his stead. The only two things Anderson had left outside of war was Shepard and Sanders. Jane knew that she represented to him the child he never got to have and Sanders most likely the family he never got to start. At that moment an image flashed of Anderson and Sanders hugging her as a child. She felt warmth, she felt completion and then they vanished like the mythical fantasy that moment was.

Shepard continued to float about her subconscious. Waiting for any movement, any end to the parade of memories. It was all too much, like a roller coaster ride she desperately wanted to get off but couldn't. She heard whispers and then she saw his face…Garrus Vakarian.

"Come back alive" he had told her, she had to come back alive. He was waiting for her! He probably didn't even know she was alive, what if he was hurt? What if he had moved on? What if he did something drastic in grief? No! No, Garrus wouldn't do that he's a fighter like her. He was going to fight; she knew he would not give up on finding her. She just had to get up and tell him where she was.

"Garrus."

"Oh my God she's waking up!" she heard a female voice say. There was a lot of noise, it was too much noise; the lights were so bright. The lights felt like the sun had been placed right in front of her face. Shepard closed her eyes for fear of burning her pupils. She began to hear the faint beat of her own heart on a monitor. She tilted her head just enough to see her pulse and readings were normal. That was a relief, a momentary respite from her worries.

"Garrus" she moaned in pain. Where was he? She glanced up and saw the shadowy outline of a Turian body coming into the room. Her heart rate rapidly increased, it was Garrus!

Shepard lifted her head up which was still in a brace to see him and then some light in her eyes faded as she realized the Turian was the doctor she had seen earlier. It was not her love, but instead some skinny alien in a lab coat. Her heart returned to normal and she struggled to speak.

"Commander Shepard calm down. We need you to relax, and we need you to lie still. Can you do that for us?" the Turian had a youth to his voice, he was young. Younger than her, probably just out of medical school it seemed. Jane tried to calm herself but it was like the 'on' switch of her mind had been flipped and now it was running wild with thoughts and scenarios.

Where was her Normandy crew? Where was she? Was she still in Scotland or had she been moved to a new location? Before she had landed in London she had heard Scotland hadn't gotten hit that bad yet. The Reapers weren't interested in destroying a bunch of farmland; they wanted to devastate the major cities first. The Normandy was up there with team Sword, and things weren't going well right before she entered the crucible.

"Commander Shepard. Are you able to talk?" that came from the female doctor. Shepard had no reply. The Turian motioned to the woman and she pulled up a chair and sat next to her. She then signaled to the Turian who nodded his head solemnly.

"Commander my name is Nilon Rykos, with me is Ms. Dana Brownstein we were the surgeons who operated on you."

"T-thank you…" said Shepard weakly, her voice hoarse. Dana placed a hand on Shepard's shoulder.

"Please Commander, do not speak. You are at the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh; you were brought here shortly after your shuttle crash-landed. You were in a coma. I will detail your injuries momentarily. I am going to give you a series of 'yes' or 'no' questions. Close your right eye for yes, close your left eye for no. Do you understand me?" Shepard closed her right eye. Nilon nodded his head.

"Do you remember anything after the crash other than waking up in our hospital?"

Shepard closed her left eye she didn't have the strength to bring up having briefly been conscious before being sedated.

"Are you aware of anyone who came to see you and or attended to you during your stay thus far?"

Again Shepard closed her left eye.

"Are you aware that the Reapers were defeated?"

Shepard couldn't help but smile a bit as she closed her right eye in more of a winking tone. That got a quick but warm smirk out of Nilon. Then Jane felt the hand of Dana grasp hers and her heart rate went up a tick; something was wrong.

"Commander Shepard you received various burns on your body. Most were 1st and 2nd degree burns however you sustained numerous 3rd degree burns and several 4th degree burns in particular on your left arm and legs." There was a pregnant pause with Nilon he glanced quickly at Dana. "If you are not familiar; fourth degree burns affect tendons, muscles and bones. Your arm and leg were so severely burned that Ms. Brownstein and myself had to amputate them."

Shepard tried to move, she was not aware she now focused her eyes over to her left side and saw that her entire left forearm was gone and her left leg was nothing more than a stump. She let out a howl as Dana restrained her.

"Commander Shepard, please calm down" Dana was imploring with her and Shepard was trying her best to remain still, but she couldn't believe her arm and leg were completely gone and she had just now noticed.

Shepard's breathing became shallow and rushed but as Dana caressed her hand lightly Jane began to relax a bit. It reminded her of a doctor who had took care of her after she had broken her wrist in basic training. She didn't remember the doctor's name but she remembered feeling he knew what he was doing. She felt she could trust Dana, she had an air of experience about her despite not looking a day older than 30. Shepard's breathing began to normalize.

"You also experienced several broken ribs, you shattered your right foot but we were able to save that though you won't be able to walk on it for a while. We had to replace your synthetic lung it was severely damaged and no longer working. You also burst an eardrum from the sound of the explosion. Our doctors predict you have lost around 50% hearing in your left ear and around 20% in your right. Though I caution those predictions are….optimistic. You also damaged a few ocular nerves and we will need to do more surgery to return your sight to normal. We have one of the best teams for that here. You're in good hands Commander Shepard."

Jane didn't know what to say, she knew it was bad, she didn't know it was that bad. But of course it had been, the little brat had warned her that she would most likely die because of the loss of power to synthetics. Then it hit her, did that also mean the Normandy lost power?

"My crew…doctor…my crew. The SSV- Normandy. My crew! Alliance….Navy." There was another foreboding pause. Nilon was having trouble looking her in the eye so Dana spoke up.

"The Normandy crew was listed as Missing In Action, it's been very public in the news. They had gone through a mass effect field right before the EMP wave. Their current location is unknown…"

The world stopped for a moment. Joker, Kaidan, Tali, James, Liara, Chawkwas, Samantha….they were all on that ship. But Garrus, he was on the ship as well! Jane let out a scream "Garrus! Where is Garrus Vakarian?!"

"He was on the Normandy when it went missing. We haven't heard anything from them despite attempts to contact them. The last anyone saw of the Normandy was when it vanished into the traverse. That was nearly eight weeks ago" said Nilon knowing every word he was saying was killing his patient.

"No, you're lying! They would have found a way to contact someone!"

"Commander, the ships were rendered almost completely useless, and most ships that were currently passing through a mass effect field were destroyed. At this point in time the only plausible outcomes are that they are stranded, or dead."

Dana shot Nilon a sharp look, Nilon seemed embarrassed by it, but he stood tall as Jane began to try and unlatch herself from the bed. "Commander, you are not well, you need to rest. You are in no position to move right now!"

"Shut up! Let me go!"

Commander Shepard tried to get out of the bed but before she could Dana injected her with another sedative. Jane screamed out to them her voice still a wreck "Bastards! Let me go! Let me….go…."

When the red head warrior awoke next it was night and the room was silent. She tired to move but realized they had now equipped metal latches to keep her down on the bed. After a fruitless struggle she sighed heavily and resigned herself to her current fate.

Looking up at the ceiling her mind began to think of every horrible thing that could be happening to her crew, to Garrus. They were all tough and knew how to survive, but eight weeks was a long time. And she just couldn't believe they wouldn't have found a way to get back home at this point.

Was this her destiny? To lose everyone and still somehow survive? What a cruel joke to survive death twice but to lose everyone else around her in the process. Perhaps this was some sort of cosmic punishment for all the wrong she had done during her quest to save the galaxy. Perhaps she deserved this.

Jane took a breath; it was not helping to blame herself right now. She had to think, who could be out there who could help her search for her squad? Grunt wasn't the search and rescue type but if he was still alive he'd be loyal to her. Where was Jack or Miranda? They were in good shape last she saw them. Jacob was fighting and helping with the crucible as far as she knew he had survived. They had to be around somewhere, they had to have come visited her…right?

It was a night of near hopelessness. There was nothing the savior of the Citadel could do to save herself. She was confined to a bed, she was missing limbs and she felt like warmed over garbage. In this tiny night of despair Shepard decided to call on someone she hadn't talked to in years, almost a decade.

"God. God, if you are there…if you can hear me…I know we don't really see eye to eye on a lot of things. I know I'm not the best candidate to ask for your favor right now, but I need your help. I don't know what to do, and I am so scared. I am so, so scared. I don't have anything to 'cash in' all I have is me. And I'm a mess….tell me what to do. I don't know what to do."

There was silence, as there always was after prayer. Shepard didn't even know if she could call it a prayer, it was more like a plea. She wasn't even sure if there was anyone or anything out there that would hear her. But she knew that if Garrus was alive then there was something good still left in this awful universe.

"God, if won't help me escape this then I have only one request. If Garrus is alive send me some hope, send me a sign. And if he's dead…"

And at that moment Shepard did something she hadn't done in a long, long time. She allowed herself to cry. And it came out like a fire hose, all the years of pain and suffering shooting out of her like a sprinkler.

All the people she had lost, all of the time she had spent, all of her painful memories grabbed at her and for once she didn't wrestle with them she just let them be. She had no more will in her to fight her own humanity.

"Don't let them fix me up again and turn me into another soldier for battle. If Garrus is dead, let me die!" And then Commander Jane Shepard closed her eyes and let herself drift off to sleep.

The next morning Shepard awoke to the sound of a very familiar voice. "Shepard?" Jane dared to open her eyes to see the familiar and friendly face of the former Cerberus operative Miranda Lawson.

"Miranda?"

"Hello Shepard. Glad to see you up."

"Heh, well I'm glad to see you."

"Commander, we need to talk. It's about the Normandy."

Author's Note: More chapters to come soon, please let out all your feedback love hearing from readers!