Rebuilding Our Realm.

Chapter 1; War is over.

When Fallon Shepard was a little girl living on the streets of London, she never imagined that she would leave planet Earth, let along become an N7 agent for the alliance, or become the saviour of the Citadel and fly through the Omega 4 relay – defeat the collectors and bring her whole crew back safe and sound.

Yet here she was, stuck to the floor by this piece of chewed up metal, which she was pretty sure came from the opposite wall. She could not remember what happened to her in order to end up in this sort of mess. The last thing she remembered was running towards the ray of light that would take her to the Citadel; and then getting struck by the reaper beam.

All she knew for sure was that she had at least 2 broken ribs, her shoulder was dislocated and she was almost certain that her leg was broken. All she could do was concentrate on her breathing and hope that someone would get to her soon- preferably in the next couple of hours.

*2 Weeks later on the Normandy*

"What's the ETA joker?" Kaidan asked whilst walking up behind the pilot's seat.

"I'd say around another 3 days Major... Hard to fly a ship with no AI to help!" Joker stated whilst looking blankly towards the empty space in the co-pilot seat.

"Tail and Liara are doing everything they can Joker. They will have her up and running again in no time, but for now we have to concentrate on finding Shepard."

"Yea, I realise that, it's just hard at the moment, you know, not only a few days ago we were putting up her name on the memorial wall. I am not about to give up on her just yet, but I know a lot of the crew just need….. closure, in a way."

"Can you think of anyone in particular?"

"Well Garrus is taking it pretty hard; I mean they were best friends Kaidan! Tail is helping a lot though, so I'm sure he will be ok but…"

"What is it Joker?"

"Well, normally Javik would come up from the cargo hold to have dinner with the rest of the crew; you know what Shepard was like with that sort of thing; but after we had left that God-for-saken planet he went up to the commanders quarters and no one has seen him since…"

"Hmmm, I'll go check if he is ok, thanks Joker. Carry on."

"Why thank you Major," Joker answered to Kaidan's back as he was down towards the CIC.

*Meanwhile on Earth*

"How are you feeling commander?" asked Fallon's nurse – for what seemed like the 3rd time that day! Fallon herself had a cast on her left leg, her shoulder was still a little sore and her ribs still hurt whenever she yawned, laughed or coughed – not like she had been laughing much anyway! Since Wrex had found her, with the rest of the rescue squad, (in a part of the citadel that had crashed down through Earth's atmosphere), and had taken her to one of the only remaining hospitals in London. Later that week the hospital had ran out of power, forcing the staff to move the critically injured and most important personnel to a different hospital situated in the city of Oxford. Oxford had mostly been untouched throughout the war, maybe one of two reapers bodies still lying round where they have not been picked up yet. The hospital itself was called the John Radcliffe – JR for short – the staff here were pleasant and she had had access to the best health care they offered; yet she still could not rest. Her crew had been announced missing the day after the war had finished, the same day that Wrex had found her. The press were constantly trying to get into the hospital to see their 'hero of the war,' one had managed to get in a couple of days ago and had asked her questions about how she had stopped the reapers, to which she could only answer that she could not remember. According to the doctors she had gone into survival mode when crashing down to Earth, and the horror of the whole ordeal had overridden her memory with information, meaning that the memory leading up to it was blacked out, and this had created a few hours of just blank information. So altogether she was not feeling great, she had lost her crew, her ship, her memory, but also the man she was falling in love with. Well when you say man…?

*Back on the Normandy*

'Knock knock!'

"Javik, is it ok for me to come in?" When no answer met Kaidan, he manually hacked and opened the door and what he found nearly shocked him more than Mars. Javik was stood at the fish tank feeding Shepard's fish.

"Can I help you Major?" Javik asked without looking away from the fish.

"I…I… Well I was just thinking I didn't see you down with the crew today, I was just wondering what you were doing?"

"I was here if you must know…" Javik answered with no hint of his feelings showing on his face.

"Yes well I can see that, but why are you in the captain's quarters?"

"Shepard and I normally spoke in here, and therefore I come here; is there a problem with that Major?" Javik asked whilst turning round to wards Kaidan, who was still standing by the door of the room."

"Well… no but I don't think Shepard wo…"

"My relationship with the commander has nothing to do with other people's business" Javik hissed as he walked towards Kaidan.

"I know you two were close, but she was close with everyone! We all feel bad about her being gone but we all still have to get along until we find her" Kaidan stated as he backed up towards the elevator outside Shepard's quarters.

"You have no idea what you are talking about Kaidan, leave here!" Javik said as he turned back towards the fish tank.

"Fine but just so you know when we get here back, I am going to make her mine again."

"From what I heard from the crew, she was never 'yours' to own!" With that, Kaidan stormed into the elevator and near enough smashed the buttons with his biotics.

Once the elevator doors had closed and taken Kaidan to the lower levels, Javik turned towards Shepard's computer and played the last song that she had listened to before going down to Earth- for what seemed like the 21st time! Javik hit play and the room was filled with music.

'So this is Christmas,

And what have you done?

Another year over,

A new one just began!'

The music carried on round the room as Javik wondered back over to the fish tank, he decided then that he would ask one of the human crew what Christmas was.

'War is over

If you want it…'