Second Chances(A Mass Effect Fan fiction)

You Only Live Twice

**** About 2 years later ****

"Shepard! Wake up! This facility is under attack!" An unfamiliar female voice shouted over a comm from somewhere above Shelby.

"Shepard, I know that your scars aren't healed yet, but you need to get moving."

Shelby groaned as she rolled over to get off of the medical examination table, almost falling off. She grabbed the edge of the table with one hand to support herself as she slowly stood up straight. Shelby gently grabbed her jaw and moved it around before looking over her arms, and seeing little orange scars all over her arms.

"Shepard, get moving!"

"I'm going, I'm going. Jeeze, bossy much?" She groaned out under her breath and made her way over to the armor locker and slowly got dressed.

Shelby pulled out her chest plate and looked at her reflection in the restored and upgraded armor. Bright orange scars along both sides of her jaw and across the right side of her hair line from the middle of her forehead to the bottom of her temple. There were thinner scars across her cheek bones that had smaller lines that tappered down in varying places on each side. Her left eyebrow had a jagged scar that went up at a diagonal and crossed the middle left side of her forehead with little thin lines branching from it here and there.

"What the hell happened to me?"

Shelby was jolted from her thoughts as the woman barked orders at her again. Shelby rolled her eyes at the voice.

"Oh, just shut up already." Shelby quietly growled out as she finished dressing and grabbed the pistol off of the nearby table.

********
Once Shelby was in the evacuation shuttle with Miranda, the woman who was bossing Shelby around ever since Shelby woke up, Jacob came in and sat on the same side with Miranda. Miranda had been the leader of the Lazarus project, which is the only reason Shelby was even alive now, and Miranda asked evaluation questions until she was satisfied with the results showing that Shelby was still the Commander Shepard she had been.

"Now I have a question for you, Miranda." Shelby stated.

"Of course, Commander."

"How long has it been? How long was I.....out of commission?"

"Two years."

Shelby ran her hands over her hair that had been twisted into a bun on the top part of the back of her head. She shook her head and looked out the window. "I'm not supposed to be here. Why am I so special?"

"You'll have to ask the Illusive Man that yourself. But if he thought you were important enough to bring back from the grave, He must know that you deserve the second chance." Miranda tried to reassure her, but it didn't do much for Shelby.

Shelby continued to stare out the window, thinking of all the friends she had on the SR1, the night before Illos with Kaidan......Kaidan, the one person Shelby let break down her barriers and had come to care for, the one who she had come to love over the years. Now she wasn't sure if she'd ever see him again.

****