The Cost of Survival

"You're alive, Shepard," she said, gently stroking his shoulder. "Isn't that enough?" But he didn't know if it could be. Somehow, 20 of his people – the Normandy's people – died in that attack and he lived. An alternate take on ME2 had Shepard survived the destruction of the SSV Normandy and never had to be rebuilt by Cerberus.