Garrus stood in front of the Galaxy Map, in the Command Information Center, staring at the Sol System when Joker's voice, crackling over the intercom, interrupted his thoughts.

"Garrus, Admiral Hackett is personally coming on board to debrief everyone who was on Earth, so you might want to be ready," Joker said softly. "He said that he'll meet everyone in the War Room."

"Thank you Joker. I guess I should get ready," Garrus said, his voice flat. He pushed away from the railing and turned towards the door leading into the War Room.

"Garrus," Liara said, catching up to him through the door. "Why aren't we going back to Earth? Why aren't we looking for Shepard?" Garrus turned to look at her, his face grim.

"We have to be debriefed before we can do anything. All fleets at the rendezvous point are on lockdown. Admiral Hackett should be here shortly," he said, turning away from her and continuing into the War Room.

"What? But that's ridiculous! We know more about what happened on Earth than they do! We can't just leave her there!" Liara cried.

"What do you want me to do about it Liara? Don't you think I already know this? But coming from a military point of view I understand what's going on. Trust me, I want to find Shepard just as much as you do and don't forget that," Garrus said angrily, staring at her. He glanced up as Tali walked into the room closely followed by Kaiden, Vega, and Javik.

"So Admiral Hackett is going to be debriefing us in person?" Tali asked, coming to stand next to them. "I don't understand." Javik stood there with his arms crossed over his chest and looked at Tali.

"I don't understand this cycle. In my time we would have been out searching for our commanding officer and not sitting here waiting for someone to tell us what happened and what to expect further," he said, shifting his weight to his other foot.

"Agreed," Vega said, leaning against the door frame.

"We still need to know exactly what happened on Earth. Did Shepard even make it?" Kaiden asked quietly, looking around at all of them. Garrus turned on him quickly, his eyes sparking angrily.

"Of course she made it Kaiden! Don't think for a second that she didn't," he growled furiously at him. Kaiden put his hands up in the defensive postion.

"I was just saying-"

"You can stop just saying anything altogether. I know she made it. I know I'm not alone in this," Garrus said, looking at the others who nodded their heads in agreement. All of them turned around at the sound of Admiral Hackett's voice behind them with Kaiden and Vega saluting him.

"At ease gentlemen," he said, placing his arms behind his back, lacing his hands together. "I have come to debrief you in person because I think you, all of you, deserve it. We should sit," he said, gesturing to the table and chairs. He sat down, pulling out a data pad and placed it on the table. "I've linked all of this information to your omni-tools so you can reference it. As you may or may not be aware the Mass Relays were badly damaged, but it's nothing we can't fix. However, this is going to make space flight extremely difficult for those of us who are not used to it. We currently have no word about the Citadel and how much damage it took. The Geth are seemingly unresponsive and we can't raise them on any communication channel. We don't know what happened on the Citadel, but as far as we can tell the Reapers were destroyed as well as all synthetic life which puts all of us in a difficult situation. We chose this rendezvous point strictly because we can survive here until we can manage to get back to our systems, assuming we can fix the relays fast enough," he said, looking at each of them. "If you look at the galaxy map on your omni-tools you will see that we are in the Exodus Cluster which has a few systems and we are not far from other clusters. Some of you will be wanting to head back to your own systems and planets, but without the relays that is not an option right now. All of the fleets knew this when we discussed the rendezvous point and the possible outcomes that the Crucible could have on the Citadel. Our top scientists warned us of many scenarios and this is one of them." He sat back and looked at them carefully. "We will keep you updated on current events as we try to move forward. But for now we can rejoice in the Reapers destruction. Are there any questions?"

"Sir, what about Commander Shepard?" Tali asked quietly.

"We have no word about whether or not Commander Shepard made it back to Earth alive," Hackett said softly, laying a hand over hers. "Right now all we can do is hope and pray for her. We don't even know if Commander Shepard is on Earth."

"We have to find her, Admiral," Liara said, turning off her omni-tool. "Shepard wouldn't just sit here waiting; she would look for any one of us." Hackett turned his head to look at her and nodded.

"I agree Dr. T'Soni, but my hands are tied. There is nothing I can do at the moment," he said carefully.

"Bullshit! We could have search parties pulled together in a matter of hours back on Earth looking for her and send ships to the Citadel to look for her. You're choosing not to look for her," Garrus said angrily, his mandibles flaring, slamming his hand down on the table making everyone jump from the loud noise.

"Officer Vakarian, I know that you're angry but it would take us weeks at best to get back to Earth. If she is on Earth then she could be anywhere. Trust me, I disagree with this just as much as you do, but this is coming from the highest of chain of command which is above me. As I said, my hands are tied," Hackett said, barely controlling the edge in his voice.

"The Alliance should be doing a lot more to look for her! She saved every goddamn species in the galaxy," Garrus said, his blue eyes dangerously heating up. Admiral Hackett leaned back in his seat, lacing his hands together and looked at all of them. "She would say fuck the rules to save anyone who needed help, which includes you and the entire Alliance Navy." Liara placed her hand on Garrus' arm and he shook it off angrily, staring down the table at Admiral Hackett.

"I agree with the Turian," Javik said, looking between the Admiral and Garrus. "Had I been given an order to abandon my commanding officer I would have ignored it and dealt with the consequences later, especially during these circumstances. Commander Shepard did the impossible and her people are treating her like she is nothing. It is sickening; she should be your first priority." Admiral Hackett looked down at his hands and took a deep breath.

"It, sadly, is not the first time the Alliance has abandoned Shepard," Tali said angrily. Hackett drew his eyebrows down and frowned.

"It was neither my nor Admiral Anderson's decision to abandon the Commander. When the Normandy was destroyed in Geth space we did everything we could to get the Alliance and Council to search for her. They would not budge and believed that she was killed in action which turned out to be true due to some evidence we received from a very good information broker on Illium," he said, shooting a glance at Liara whose eyes widened in feigned ignorance. "We also received word that when she was recovered Cerberus was involved. As much as we wanted Shepard we could not work with Cerberus and after all of this, with good reason. The Alliance refused to give Shepard her rank back despite the protests of many. Shepard is like a daughter to me, so don't think that I do this without a heavy heart," Hackett said, anger at the edges of his voice. The crowd at the table was silent, taking in what he said. Not once had any of them ever considered that it was not Anderson or Hackett who refused to look for her and declared her KIA. The Alliance, as a whole, had been the culprit. The Alliance treated her as just another soldier, but she was more than that, especially now. Anderson had welcomed her back with open arms when he knew she was alive. Hell, Hackett had personally come aboard a Cerberus controlled vessel to debrief Shepard about the Batarian System she destroyed to bide time before the Reapers invaded.

"So what do you propose we do, Sir?" Vega asked. Hackett looked up from his hands at him and gave a half smile.

"What would the Commander do?" he asked them, looking around at the grim faces of her crew. The looks on their faces was exactly what Hackett was talking about when Shepard asked him why they chose her to lead the galaxy in the fight against the Reapers. She was a leader and a friend to her crew and they followed her into hell. She never gave up on them and they weren't about to give up on her now.

"If I remember correctly Shepard would enlist the help of an Admiral to help the Normandy escape," came Joker's voice crackling over the intercom referring to the incident where Udina had locked down the Normandy and Admiral Anderson knocked him out and released their lock so they could chase Saren to Ilos. Hackett chuckled and stood up away from the table.

"I cannot give you orders to go back to Earth, but if the Normandy were to go rogue I would never know. I would have no knowledge of how the Normandy, and its entire crew, initiated stealth systems and slipped past all of the fleets. I would also have no knowledge as to how half of the Fifth Fleet disappeared," he said, looking at all of them with his arms behind his back. "I expect you understand?" Everyone nodded, looking around at each other. "This debrief is over. I need to return to the Fifth Fleet. It's time I try to figure out where half my fleet and the Normandy are." With that, he turned away from them and strode from the room.

They sat there, looking at each other, not knowing exactly what to do next. They got the Admiral's permission, but it was going to take more than the Normandy and half of the Fifth Fleet to find Shepard. Earth was no small planet and there were many cities to look through. They were talking about sifting through tons of pounds of rubble , broken streets, downed buildings and every nook and cranny they could find to locate Shepard. It was going to be no easy feat and they needed help, more help than they already had.

"Before we go anywhere, I propose that we contact all of Shepard's allies and ask for help. Many of them are still at Earth or here with the fleets," Liara said, voicing everyone's thoughts.

"That's a long list Liara," Kaiden said. "I mean how do we know that many of them are still alive?"

"We know that Wrex, Jack, Miranda, Grunt, Samara, Jacob, Kasumi, and Zaeed are still alive. Shepard talked to them via a communication terminal before the final assault. We can contact them and see if they lend any support in our efforts," said Liara who was looking at her omni-tool. "Aria may also be a possibility. She did give Shepard the Blue Suns, Blood Pack and Eclipse. I am not sure if she'd be willing. However, she'll have little choice in the matter considering most of them were at Earth."

"Aria T'Loak? Are you serious? We can't trust her with a ten foot pole!" Joker said over the intercom.

"She trusted Shepard only to help her take back Omega, so what does that say?" James asked.

"We need to leave soon and start coordinating with people," Garrus said.

"I'll be down on the engineering deck with Adams, Daniels and Donnely," Tali said as she stood up. Garrus nodded at her.

"Liara can you use your resources as the Shadow Broker?" Garrus asked looking her direction. She looked up from her omni-tool with a small smile.

"Of course I can," she said.

"I'll be in doing some calibrating and try to get in touch with as many people as I can," Garrus said and with that everyone went off to their designated areas.

Once Garrus was back at the gun battery he leaned against his desk, looking at his sniper rifle. He sighed heavily. Was she still alive? The thought in and of itself left a tight, cold grip on him. If she wasn't- no, he wasn't going to think like that. She had to be. Shepard had been through far worse and had come out alive. He closed his eyes, remembering the look on her face as she told him goodbye as he and Tali got on board the Normandy before she made her suicidal attempt at reaching the beam. He'd never seen that look on her face before. It wasn't just determination. In her eyes he saw the despair, stress, loss, love, and fight she had inside of her. No words would have convinced her to stay and let the galaxy be destroyed and he admired that, loved that about her. She was a rare thing in the universe, but from all the vids he had seen and all the reading he had done that was the main difference between humans and the rest of the galaxy.

Deep down he truly believed that if the task of saving the galaxy had been left up to any other species, his included, there would have never been a chance. Before meeting Shepard, he'd had a crude way of thinking about them. He thought they were a strange species. But when it came down to it, humans had the most fight in them. Even more so than the Krogan or the Turians.

The galaxy had seen the humanity as a giant bully. The pushed to get what they wanted and they never gave up. During the 314 Relay incident the Turians believed that they had gotten the upper hand, they were too confident thinking the humans inexperienced in war. They had the largest fleet, the strongest armies in the galaxy, but in the end the Turians suffered one of the greatest defeats in their history by a new race. Humanity had shown its teeth and beat them back.

After he started working with Shepard he had done an exorbitant amount of research on their species. The humans had always warred with one another for various reasons. Religious beliefs, humanitarian beliefs, rights, animals and so many other things.

The Turians were good at war, but they had a pride problem. They refused to admit that they were losing and in doing so they would lose more soldiers than needed. The Krogan would decimate anything in their path without regard for life or consequences. The Quarians refused to get into anything and instead focused their anger on their mistakes. The Asari tried diplomacy and instead of fighting most of the time, they enlisted the help of other species. The Salarians were sneaky and did black ops missions. Humans were different. They could admit when they were defeated, they didn't attack unarmed civilians for no reason; they used diplomacy when it worked and relied solely on themselves to solve a problem. They had their black ops, but they did not try to deny it.

Humans were stubborn, hardheaded creatures but they cared about everything and anything. That was what separated them most. They would ally themselves with an enemy to take down a greater threat when no other species was willing to. They cared about the well being of others and not just themselves. In the end, Shepard showed the galaxy why humanity was the greatest species in the galaxy. Humanity got the impossible done. Garrus admired the human race. They were so diverse but when it boiled down to it, they would all stand together. They refused to give up and Shepard was the epitome of the human species.

Garrus sank down onto a box of ammunition, feeling his shoulders sag. He wasn't sure what he would do without her. He remembered the conversation he'd had with Shi'Ira the Consort on the Citadel, before Shepard and the Normandy went off to Horizon and discovered the horrors of Sanctuary.

He was sitting in the Presidium, watching Shepard speak to Joker about EDI who was wandering the Citadel unattended when a hand was laid on his arm. He looked up and the Consort smiled down at him.

"Garrus Vakarian?" she asked in her soft, husky voice. He nodded, unsure as to why the Consort would seek him out. He'd never tried to see the Consort because he simply didn't care. "May I sit here?" Again he nodded, still confused. She sat down gracefully, very unlike Turians.

"Is there something I can do for you?" he asked, looking at her. She smiled a soft smile.

"That is an interesting question. However the answer is no. I merely would like to speak to you," she said, looking over at Shepard who was laughing at something Joker said. "The Commander is a special person. She's been through much and will go through worse before the end. It is good that she is here even if for a short time." He didn't like the look she was giving the Commander and shifted his weight in his chair. Shi'Ira glanced at him, her mouth pulling up in the corners. "Garrus, I do not wish to come between you and the Commander though from what I hear there is an Asari who has caused a divide." With that mentioned they both looked over at Liara who sat diligently reading a data pad and typing on her omni-tool. He shook his head.

"No actually. It would be more accurate to say that I have caused the divide," he said, his voice deep and rumbling. She raised her eyebrows in slight surprise. "But you said you had something you want to talk about?" She nodded and leaned back in her chair, her face becoming serious, crossing her legs. As she did, he couldn't help to glance at the long expanse of blue, slender legs as her dress parted at the slit. Immediately he felt ashamed and felt his face get hot but it looked as if Shi'Ira had not noticed or if she had, she had the tact to not say anything.

"A few years ago I gave Shepard some words of wisdom and I see that she has followed the path I spoke of, but I fear something," she said quietly, looking down at her hands. When she looked up at him again there was a fire in her eyes. "I fear that without Commander Shepard, this galaxy cannot survive. Her crew must ensure her survival. Everything that she has worked for and has accomplished could all disappear in the blink of an eye without her. She is the heart of the galaxy." She placed her hand on Garrus' and looked him in the eye. "Commander Shepard must survive. You and your crew must see to it that nothing happens to her. Never leave the Commander behind." She looked away, removing her hand and stood. Garrus say there staring at her; he wasn't sure what just happened. "It has been a pleasure speaking with you Garrus." As she walked away she watched Shepard, worry lining her face as if she knew something no one else did.

Garrus now understood what the Consort had meant. He believed that she was right. The Galaxy couldn't survive without Shepard.

And he had no intentions of leaving her behind.