Thanks to my one-shot "The Entry" I've decided my attempt at a Garrus and FemShep fic to well. Bring up why that journal entry exists. Post ME3 of course with a little bit more closure. Not exactly a happy ending, but you know hey we all can't have them. Though Garrus and Shepard can and will get there's along with a few others of our favorite friends. Please READ "THE ENTRY" It'll help things make more sense when a certain conversation I have planned happens. Mostly about my FemShep as a kid though at the risk of spoilers. But your call.

Also to tell you the truth I'm not going to have the Normandy be marooned on some backwater planet. Rather let's just say thatThe explosion of the Citadel caused a burning in the Earth's atmosphere giving it that weird look . I think Bioware got a little lazy with some of their background art and character design *COUGH TALI COUGH* anyway I love this series and here's anew series for you all to enjoy to help me get inspired to write along side my original fictions! And of course the Relays are just shut down. For awhile and also rating is because of well...things that'll happen later.

Chapter 1

He stood atop the crumbling building. His visor was blinking every few minutes as it had been for days. The tech was wearing out from damage, but he had more important things to do with his time and it was still working for what he needed it to do so he didn't mind the occasional fritz. Though truth be told the constant cutting in and out of the music in his ear was more annoying than the occasional blink. Still he did nothing as he scanned the ruin of the city called London.

It had been nearly a week since Shepard had disappeared. The Reapers were destroyed along with several thousand geth and unfortunately EDI. No one knew why but Shepard and he wanted nothing more to find her and get some answers. His Valiant was shaking in his hands as he looked around. It was all rubble for the most part. Bodies of Reaper forces littered the grounds and worst of all were the Reapers and he just wanted to shoot them all over again.

It was their fault that she was gone. Their fault that he'd barely slept over the last few years, and now after so long of fighting rest was out of his reach.

The crews around him were making noises. The machines of the humans and other members of the armada were busy removing the bodies. Separating allied troops from their enemies, and engineers were working on building temporary housing units and hospitals. Many of his friends had gone into the hospitals.

Kaidan, James, Jack, and Liara were all being treated and would be released soon. He'd gotten off with some burns and a bruised ribs and a dislocated shoulder. Miranda and Javik had unfortunately perished in the fighting. Miranda was able to pull off an amazing feat and take down a Reaper with her fighter squad by exposing a weakness in their target. It was a victory but a loss that was felt no matter your personal feelings for her.

Javik had sacrificed himself in a showdown with a Reaper that was trying to kill him and James. The Prothean died in his attempt, but so did his prey and he was given an honorary burial along side the others who had fallen.

Kirrahe and Wrex made it out with minimal injury but they still felt the losses and many were worried about Joker who was found crashed in the jungles of a place called South America along with the rest of the crew and the Normandy itself. The Reapers had ignored a portion of that land in hopes that the plants would help the next cycle.

The crew and Dr. Michel were fine, but with Joker's condition he was touch and go and Dr. Chakwas had made a special trip from the Crucible to help him.

Garrus scratched at the new scars on his face and growled loudly as he pulled the Paladin from his hip holster and shot at a nearby Reaper. The war was over but the pain was still fresh in everyone's minds. Several of his friends were dead, no word on his family and with the Mass Relays not functioning many people were unsure of how they'd all survive.

The quarians, Rachni, and salarians were working round the clock to get the technology up and running. They were examining the code the Reaper's used in hopes that it had something to do with an IFF that was keeping them from restarting them. And while there had been mild success they were still a ways off from getting them working.

Behind him he heard a noise and turned with his pistol, the setting for armor piercing set but he was prepared to fire an impact round and send the threat off the edge of the building. The threat however turned out to be Wrex who had his shotgun prepped as well.
They stared at each other for a moment before slipping the guns back into their homes and embraced as brothers.

"To what do I owe the honor ,Wrex?" His scars hurt as he spoke and his jaw was stiff from the missing plates around it.

The krogan snorted loudly, his new scars stretching and bleeding a bit as his muscles twitched. "You know, I hate to say it, but I'll be glad to be heading back to Tuchanka."

The remaining mandibles on his face twitched as Garrus heard this. "You're not staying? I thought you'd be staying to help in the search."

Wrex scratched the back of his neck and shook his head. "I never said I was leaving this second. I'm going to stay behind with a small squad. The remainder of the soldiers I've brought are going to be starting the trip home. It'll take longer than we want, but I won't unleash a bunch of pissed of krogan on Shepard's planet."

He looked at Garrus whose eyes were focused on destroyed city. "You think she's alive don't you?"

"If she's dead then I'll gladly pitch myself off a cliff."

Wrex raised an eyebrow at this statement. "Really? So what Liara was telling the truth about you stealing Shepard out from under her." Garrus's fingers twitched at the statement and Wrex let out a laugh. "Relax, Vakarian. What you do on your personal time is none of my business."

The sniper scratched his scars and chuckled. "Yeah, well from what she's told me I'm a bit better than Liara in certain aspects of the bedroom."

The warlord let out a groan. "Keep that to yourself, Turian. I'd rather not know what those fangs of yours have bitten into."

Letting out a loud laugh, the turian gave his friend a smile. "If you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen."

"What?"

Garrus waved his hand. "It's an old human phrase."

Grumbling the krogan turned looked out over the wastes. "You need to get back to your own people."

"I would if I could, Wrex. But, she needs me."

Wrex turned to his friend. "Are you sure about that, Vakarian?"

The krogan received no answer.

The next morning, Garrus awoke in his bunk to the sound of trucks rolling by. Removing himself from the hard mattress, he pulled his gun out from his foot locker and slipped it into it's holster again and stumbled out into the cold morning. He hated how Earth's temperature and climate could change so quickly, but it couldn't be helped.

Nodding to a few turian subordinates he headed to the command post where he met up with Admiral Hackett and the Primarch.

"Garrus, glad to see you're up and moving. Is the shoulder any better today?"

He nodded but kept left arm in its sling. "I'm supposed to check in with Dr. Chakwas after this meeting." He looked around at the piles of data pads and paperwork. "I take it the rebuilding isn't going as quickly as we want it to?"

Hackett shook his head and did his trademark scratching of his chin. "It's going better than expected. Earth did suffer large amounts of damage but we were lucky they didn't hit major resource spots for lumber and minerals. Humanity was their target so only large areas of the populace were hit. Still infrastructures are down and along with the rest of the galaxy there is little to no trade routes. And thanks to the Crucible we're all effectively stranded here for as long as it takes all of our engineers to figure out how to get the blasted relays turned back on."

"I talked with Wrex yesterday. He said he would be sending a large portion of the krogan army back to Tuchanka."

Primarch Victus nodded and let out a sigh. "In truth we do need them to leave. The krogan have no enemy to fight here and with a large portion of the our military here it is a wise move. Wrex has shown skills as a leader keeping his people under control. But again just like with the relays it will take some time for us to send them home, but there is a plan for that."

Garrus was curious at this. "What plan is that, sir?"

"We're working on repurposing Reaper drive cores to be retrofitted into our ships."

He felt his mandibles flinch at this announcement. "Are you sure that's wise? We don't know the amounts of power we're dealing with or if it could possibly bring a Reaper back online."

"There's nothing to worry about, Mr. Vakarian. I will be heading this project."

Admiral Xen appeared and took her place at the table. "We've figured out a way to safely remove the cores from some of the smaller assault machines. Their drive cores have to power much more devastating weaponry than most of our ships, along with the being able to transport such a large amount of mass as well as survive trips in deep space. By our calculations repurposing one of these cores could grant a ship of ours speeds fast enough to reach a system like the Krogan DMZ in a matter of days." She tapped the front of her mask and Garrus could tell from many months around Tali what she was thinking.

"And I take it you haven't figured out how to do that without killing the crew flying the ship?"

"Or without causing a massive amount of collateral damage."

"So, you're looking for a pilot, a ship, and a crew. I think I'm fresh out of those at the moment."

With a wave of her hand, Xen sighed. "I don't need the Normandy. I already have the schematics for the retrofit and I can apply it to other ships. If there was one thing Shepard did before she went and got herself blown up it was to upgrade that ship as much as she did."

Garrus felt the urge to pull out his gun, but was stopped by one an Alliance soldier who shook his head.

Though the scene was not lost on the admiral. "My apologies for the crass words, Vakarian. I meant no offense. Truly my people are indebted to the Commander and I meant my words with the utmost respect. But, well tensions are high and our people must return to our home world just like the rest of the armada or else we will not last long."

There was a sincerity to her words and Garrus felt his anger subside, but not by much. Putting the gun back, the turian looked between the leaders and asked. "So what is the plan then if you don't need the Normandy?"

Xen turned her attention back to the turian. "Simple, we need Shepard."

Garrus couldn't believe what he'd just heard. "Really? Shepard? Why? We don't even know if she's alive."

"And yet you were still planning on attempting to form a rescue party, if I'm not mistaken?"

He froze in place at Victus' accusatory tone.

"Well, I guess you could call it that." There was no reason for him to lie and doing so would do more harm than good to his plans. "But what does this have to do with getting everything working again."

"It's the Catalyst, Vakarian."

"The Catalyst? You're telling me that we need Shepard for the Catalyst? The Catalyst was on the Citadel. We can't access it because the Citadel is destroyed."

"That's not necessarily true, Garrus." The voice came from behind him and when he turned he saw Liara limping toward him with Kaidan, Kirrahe, Wrex, and to his surprise Urz.

"Are you sure you two should be here? If I'm not mistaken you have a few more days before discharge don't you?"

Liara and Kaidan laughed while Kirrahe stood off to the side analyzing the situation as Kaidan spoke.

"We have about four more days of bed rest but Liara was called in to give her analysis on the situation."

"It seems only fitting as I was the one who handed over the device blue prints to the Alliance. But I digress," she pulled up her omni-tool and moved to a file before enlarging it.

"What is that?"

The file was a mash of symbols that Garrus could identify as prothean but without the cipher he had no clue what they said.

"With the help of Javik and some deeper research I was able to deduce that the Catalyst was not actually an item, but a being. An organic that was supposed to bring about an end to the Cycle once the Crucible was inserted into the Citadel."

They were all quiet for a moment until Garrus asked, "And you're thinking, Shepard is somewhere still in the Citadel?"

"It is possible, but I'm"

Her voice trailed off and Garrus knew why. He did his best to fight the tears but one escaped. "I understand, Liara. But," he took a deep breath, "she deserves to come home."

For a few moments they were silent until Garrus said, "You have four days people. Get some rest." And without another word he left the command post.

When he arrived back at his bunk, he removed the dog tags and stared at them.

Lieutenant-Commander Leela Shepard
Service No. 5923-AC-2826

He pressed them to his mouth and mimicked a kiss as best he could. "I'll bring you home."