I had a little idea running around in my head and this story practically wrote itself. I expected it to be a short one-shot, but it's surprised me and morphed into having actual chapters. I originally wanted to write this for a friend that's a big Garrus lover. Unfortunately, I am totally Shenko at heart and didn't want to write a Garrus romance and potentially get it wrong. So, this story is purposefully ambiguous in regards to romance. I intentionally wrote it so you could squint, read between the lines and see it as either Kaidan or Garrus as a romance interest.

This is my first fanfic unless you count that stuff I wrote about Sonic the Hedgehog back in middle school. (I don't.) Many thanks to my husband for editing this. He is relentless and wouldn't let me end a single sentence with a preposition. Since he isn't editing this intro part, I will now write a sentence he won't be happy about. HA! Take that!

This story is set just after ME1.

It had been only 2 weeks since the battle of the Citadel and most of her crew were still nursing minor injuries. After Sovereign's fall they had set out immediately into the ruined Citadel to help with the recovery mission. An uncounted amount of people had lost their lives, businesses, and homes during the attack. It was bleak volunteer work, but it had to be done. And if there was one thing Commander Shepard knew far too much about, it was the phrase "had to be done".

After Shepard rejoined her allies, she had immediately set to combing the destructed areas for wounded and trapped civilians with them. Believing her to be trapped or even crushed beneath the wreckage of the fallen Reaper, the rescue medics had found and tended to her team first. It had taken many subtle glares from the tall, watchful Turian and many careful offers from her trusted, loyal Lieutenant before she had even been willing to stop amid the wreckage of the Citadel and let them tend to her wounds.

She could have simply retreated back to her ship or basked in the attention that her rescue mission was beginning to afford her, but recovering survivors and using her presence to give people hope took precedence for her. It had to be done.

Commander Shepard sat down on a pile of rubble, wincing as she looked over her armor. She wasn't quite sure what had broken her arm, whether it was part of the building or part of the Reaper itself, but she was thankful it didn't seem to be that bad. She did her best to clear her right eye with the gloved side of her armored hand once more. There was a rather nasty gash above her eyebrow that had been letting a trickle of blood down run into her eye. She assumed the wound looked as bad as it felt. The damage had been enough to earn a startled stare from her usually stalwart Turian companion. He wasn't very familiar with human physiology and had assumed she was two steps from death. Shepard was quick to reassure him that head wounds just bled a lot and she would be fine.

Lieutenant Kaidan Alenko crouched beside her and began unclasping the armor plates on her injured arm before setting them aside carefully. He had taken notice of her almost protective reverence for the hard earned N7 armor. He wasn't sure if it was some sort of superstition or self-reminder of what she could accomplish when needed, but he paid the specialized armor the same respect that he had watched her care for it with.

She allowed herself to openly sigh as he began to gingerly prod the wounded arm. It wasn't the pain she was worried about. She had broken enough bones to almost become immune to the feeling and she knew Alenko was more than patient and skilled enough to fix the injury without causing her more discomfort.

This is going to be an inconvenience, thought Shepard, finally giving words to what she was feeling. It would take days for leadership to regroup enough to give them new orders. Her crew could easily sit back and tend to their wounds while they waited. And though Shepard had seen more than her fair share of the death and maiming of soldiers, she was deeply discomforted by the suffering of civilians. Had there been any better way to win without so much collateral damage?

She bit her lip at the thought. Alenko snapped his head up to look at her and froze, thinking he had mistakenly applied too much pressure as he was resetting the broken ulna in her arm. She gave him a slight shake of her head, the unspoken communication enough to reassure him.

"Do you think it'll ever be the same?"

The question rumbled from the deep voice of the Turian standing in front of them, breaking her out of her thoughts. Shepard looked up to watch him for a moment. Garrus Vakarian's back was to them, but turned just slightly to the side as his gaze roamed purposefully over the remnants of the once beautiful gardens and waterways of the Citadel. His beloved Mantis sniper rifle was still cradled expertly in his hands. He reminded her of an eagle scanning the fields for some unfortunate field mouse he'd soon swoop in on and crush with his talons. She decided not to share this image with him. "Turians are nothing like your Earth birds, Shepard." he'd admonished her about it once before.

Shepard gazed over the debris that currently made up the once beautiful Citadel and at all the people trying to pull their lives back together before answering him.

"Probably not, Garrus," she responded to the shoulder he'd turned their way, the only indication he was still listening and not waiting for more enemies to pop up and gun them down in their one moment of reprieve. "But they'll rebuild anyway."

They had spent those two weeks at a grueling pace, the entire crew carefully combing the rubble for survivors, organizing supplies, and setting up makeshift shelters for the families that had lost their homes in the attack. Shepard now stood in the cargo bay of the Normandy SR-1, surrounded by that same crew.

They looked awful, to put it simply. Her eyes drifted over each one to take in their current state, trying to assess how much they had left.

She started at her XO Pressly. While she was out overturning rocks, he had borne the burdens of leadership on the ship itself. Pressly would never admit it and Shepard would never bring it up, but he was probably one of the oldest officers on the ship. He was most likely very close to retirement. He had served under countless captains and seen many battles. To most, he looked as composed and in charge as he always was, but Shepard noticed a tenseness in his shoulders that had not always been there.

Shepard glanced next to Alenko. His left arm was bathed in the orange glow of his omni-tool. He was tapping away at it busily. She watched him pause for a moment and scrub the back of his hand over his forehead. His eyes were dark and tired. How many migraines had he willingly suffered to help move the fragments of Reaper and building? Her teeth clenched for a moment, anger at herself flaring briefly. She had let him push himself too far.

Garrus was leaning back against a control panel, separated a bit from the rest of the group. His arms were crossed over his armor, talons resting on his arms. The pose was meant to give off an air of ease, but Shepard could see his eyes flickering around the cargo bay now and then. Was he seeing possible places for enemies to hide or possible places for bodies to be buried? She knew he'd seen one too many of his own people crushed under the same rocks she'd found her own.

Tali was seated on one of the supply crates. She was bent forward so her elbows rested on her knees, her hands clasped between them. It was impossible to tell what she was feeling with her face covered by a suit, but Shepard knew the Quarian was not one to sit motionless for such a length of time. It had been too dangerous for Tali to participate in the endeavor to recover bodies from the wreckage. There was too much risk of her suit becoming punctured by some errant sharp building material, so she had spent much of her time assisting the various provisional hospitals.

As she felt the Normandy touch down onto the planet, Shepard stepped forward into the middle of the cargo bay. She drew strength from the repaired armor that felt more comfortable to her than a favorite t-shirt and felt more like a uniform than anything the Alliance had ever given her.

Her crew quickly set aside their brooding and assembled themselves closer to her. Shepard lifted her chin and slipped easily into Commander Shepard mode.

"Alright. I want this to go quickly and smoothly. We're just picking up supplies from the colony to bring back to the Citadel. Nothing fancy." She looked over each of her crew members briefly before adding, "Unlike most of our missions, this most likely won't be a trap."

"Shepard. I can't help but feel like this is busy work for us. We're a warship, not a freighter."

She nodded at Garrus. It was a bold statement to make to a commanding officer and there were few on her crew that would have so easily voiced it. Garrus was definitely one of those few. She wondered if he knew that or if this was just his Turian way of doing things. If anyone else had made the statement, Shepard might have brushed it off with some platitude, but from Garrus she would give him the benefit of sharing her own mirrored thoughts.

"I've thought exactly the same thing. But right now, we're a threat."

"A threat?" Alenko seemed to snap out of his pensiveness. "Commander, I know we had to make the choice of destroying Sovereign over saving the council, but that hardly seems enough to make us a threat. You could have nominated yourself Warlord and everyone would have agreed to it."

Shepard was momentarily thankful of his usage of "we made the difficult choice" instead of the blame that she knew would soon lay squarely at her own feet.

"I think that's exactly why we're being sent away from the Citadel on this kind of busy work. We rightfully went against their decision, mutinied, stole an advanced warship, and saved the day in style. I think they're worried about the grudges we might have and the demands we might make once we realize we have them."

She tucked a few loose strands of hair behind her ear as she continued, "They know it's safest to keep us out of the spotlight right now. Too much media coverage would lift us even further onto pedestals and give us more leverage than they could ever fight against."

There was no response to her statement. Everyone had seemed to decide their shoes were the most interesting part of the cargo bay to look at. Well, that certainly helped lift spirits, Shepard thought ruefully as she slammed her hand onto the large red button beside the cargo bay door. Red lights flashed and familiar klaxons screeched in their ears as the large pressure door began to lower itself into a ramp out onto the snowy planet.

Shepard immediately made her way down the ramp into the snow, fully armored boots loudly announcing her arrival, not bothering to stick around to listen to the inevitable quip from Garrus about the snow. Someday she'd visit Palaven and judge his perfect weather for herself.

She allowed herself a brief smirk at the thought of Garrus' two-toed boots sinking immediately into the snow while her own carried her with relative ease across the buildup. They had landed near what looked to be a loading dock outside of a rather impressive grouping of buildings. Unfortunately, the loading dock was all but lost under the heavy pile up from the previous blizzards. There were various supply crates arranged in the snow, some of them almost buried underneath it. Shepard figured that the colonists had most likely carried out the crates the night before, and a storm had blown threw afterward, nearly burying them from view.

Shepard stopped as she reached a small open area amidst the arrangement of supply crates and barrels. She could hear her team clanking down the metal walkway from the ship and then crunching into the snow behind her. Pressly would stay aboard the ship to help organize the materials as they came on board, but Alenko, Garrus, and Tali would be helping her catalog and load the stock back onto the ship.

Garrus was right. They were a warship, not a freighter.

Shepard silently surveyed the snowy inventory they would be bringing aboard with an unhappy quirk of her lips.