This is my simple and short take on the end of Mass Effect 3. My head canon if you will. Please enjoy, and if you have any comments feel free to post them :-)
Bioware owns all. I own none of this.
Shepard stumbled to her knees and coughed, flecks of blood spraying from her mouth and disappearing into the sludge that covered the floor of the dark room she found herself in. She could barely breathe. Her chest ached, her nose was clogged with blood and char. Looking around as her eyes slowly, too slowly, adjusted to the low light she realized not being able to breathe was a small blessing.
Bodies.
Bodies everywhere. That's what the sludge was. Decaying fluids escaping their hosts to pool on the floor. A mangled, twisted mass of arms, legs, torsos. It was too much. She wretched and fought her aching muscles to stand upright. A keeper chittered softly to itself as it went about scanning and adjusting the bodies. It ignored her.
"Shepard? Shepard can you hear me?" a weak voice called out to her.
"Anderson? That you?" she asked the air around her, hoping her comm still functioned. Her omni tool was ash like half her armor.
"Yeah," a pain filled pause, "followed you up the beam."
She continued to talk to the admiral as she forced herself to put one foot in front of the other. She used it to drive her on, that and the unflinching intention to blow the reapers to hell for all the pain they'd caused.
Anderson moved faster than she did; she finally caught up to him at the control panel he mentioned seeing. He was using it to hold himself up, but for the most part he looked better than Shepard. Slightly.
"Anderson!" she called out to her mentor, he turned around and started to smile when they were both suddenly struck by the familiar oppressive mental noise that meant one thing: Reaper.
"Shepard!" Anderson choked out, stumbling towards her, "I...can't.."
Shepard felt her limbs go stiff as she too succumbed to the mental assault. It was so strong, so close...
"I underestimated you, Shepard," the Illusive Man said as she stepped out from behind her. His voice was as suave and cutting as ever. She really, really wanted to put a bullet in his forehead. Now that she finally found herself face to face with him, she couldn't command her stiffened limbs to pull out her gun and do just that.
"What...what've you...done?" she slurred as he stepped into sight.
"I warned you," the Illusive Man said as he gazed up at the Citadel, "control is the means to survival. Control of the Reapers – and of you, if necessary." His skin was pale, and they could see the Reaper augmentations he'd subjected himself to.
Anderson grunted forcefully, "They're controlling you!"
The illusive man turned, casting his gaze scathingly on the aging marine, "I don't think so, Admiral."
Shepard clutched at her aching chest, trying to straighten from her hunched stance. No good.
"Why bother with us, if you can control the Reapers?" she asked, trying to draw the Illusive Man's attention away from Anderson.
"Because...I need you to believe," the Illusive Man replied, sounding idealistic and irritated at the same time. He stepped toward the edge, his voice softening a bit, "When humanity discovered the mass relays, we learned there was more to the galaxy than we imagined. There were some who thought the relays should be destroyed! They were scared of what we might find. Terrified of what we might let in. But look what we've achieved! Since that discovery we've advanced more than the last 10,000 years combined! The Reapers will the do the same for us again, a thousand fold!"
He paused, and the pressure inside Shepard's head exploded. Reality itself felt like it was folding in on her, and though she screamed at her limbs to stop, no sound came out and her hand did not stop lifting her pistol to point it at her mentor and dear friend. Anderson raised a placating hand, seemingly to comfort and wave off the weapon at the same time. Her eyes widened in horror at what the Illusive Man was making her do.
No no no no no, she screamed at her body, willing it to listen.
"But - only if we can harness their ability to control," the Illusive Man finished, practically purring in her ear.
"Bullshit," Anderson spat out, "We destroy them, or they destroy us."
"And waste this opportunity?" the Illusive Man hissed, "Never."
"Maybe you're just so hungry for power it's clouded you vision," Shepard shot back, rage making her chest ache even more.
"No. No! It's not that simple," the Illusive Man replied, going to stand by the edge of the platform again.
"Isn't it?" Shepard demanded angrily, "you're willing to give up anything for control!"
"Yes," the Illusive Man replied, once again calm, "If not me, then who? Are you going to control the reapers?"
Anderson shook his head, "There's always another way."
"I've dedicated my life to understanding the reapers," the Illusive Man said sternly, "And I know with certainty the Crucible will allow me to control them."
"And then what?" Shepard challenged him.
"Look at the power they give!" the Illusive Man said, at the same time flexing his newfound Reaper control on the two marines.
He had stepped to the side, no longer putting Shepard or Anderson between him and the small doorway that led to the control platform. For an instant Shepard was sure she could take no more, that she would shoot her oldest friend. Then, just as suddenly as the Illusive Man had taken control of her, it was gone.
Along with his head. She blinked once, twice. His body slowly toppled over, realizing it was no longer receiving impulses from his brain. Relief washed over her as she sank to her knees. Anderson managed to keep his footing, and he was staring at the Illusive Man's body with a bemused expression.
"I'm getting too old for this shit," he muttered, limping over to Shepard. She waved him off. A fit of coughing kept her from talking, but she waved urgently at the panel before them. Anderson nodded and turned back to the controls.
Shepard once again looked at the body next to her. A rapidly widening pool of blood coated the cool metal floor around him. She stopped coughing and took a ragged breath. There was a heavy bootstep behind her.
"Hell of a shot, Garrus," she mumbled, not looking up.
"I was highly motivated not to miss," Garrus replied as he hooked a hand under her elbow and gently helped her up. "Before you ask, I jumped the ramp as soon as you turned around. I told you we're in this to the end. You're a bigger asshole than I thought for asking me to watch you die twice."
The turian sniper helped her over to Anderson and the Citadel Controls. He was conversing with Admiral Hackett about opening the arms.
"Do it now, Anderson. The fleet is getting torn to pieces," the grizzled fleet commander ordered.
Anderson glanced over at Shepard and Garrus, and then ordered the Citadel arms to open. As the gaps started to appear, the trio saw the horrors of the battle raging outside. Explosions lit up the sky and pieces of ships – fleet and Reaper alike began raining down on the massive station.
Hackett's voice again crackled over the comm, ordering the remains of the fleet to protect the Crucible at all costs. There was nothing to do but watch as the massive construct was moved slowly into place. It began to jettison its protective armor, sliding into place against the presidium tower above them.
"The crucible is docked but it's not powering up. It's got to be something on your end," Hackett said urgently, forcing them to tear their gaze away from the battle and back onto matters at hand. Anderson began to frantically page through the controls, but Garrus laid a hand on his arm.
"Let me, Admiral," he said gently. Anderson nodded and stepped aside, giving Garrus room to work. The tall alien sniper in the bulky armor hid an expert hacker. Garrus had become an accomplished tech during his time in c-sec. His species had been on the Citadel for more than fifteen hundred years. It wasn't a stretch for him to work out the controls to link the Crucible system to the Citadel. His hooded blue eyes stared intently at the screen in front of him for several moments while Anderson fielded Hackett's increasingly frantic calls.
"You still want to blow the Reapers to hell?" Garrus asked finally, hands still flying over the controls.
"Damn right," Shepard replied.
"The Illusive ass was right. We could control them, make them work for us or send them back to dark space. There's a reason this was the Catalyst. It's the Reaper brain. The origin point. The citadel was first, then the Reapers were made."
"Garrus, I did not come all this way, fight this hard, sacrifice and ask others to sacrifice so much to make nice with the Reapers. I want them blown to hell. Where they belong."
"That's what I was hoping you'd say. You want explosions? You've got them." With that, Garrus gave the console one final command and looked over at the human woman he loved so much.
"You give me such nice things," she practically purred. Or would have, had she not started coughing again.
Above them, the Crucible suddenly erupted to life. Pure white energy poured from it to the citadel and then arched to the massive five kilometer arms.
"The crucible is nothing more than a power source," Garrus told them as they watched. "But it needs to be activated. It was designed to connect with the citadel and then use the station's systems to start a cascade effect. We could have used the power to overwhelm and control the Reapers, but the crucible was really designed to take over the Citadel's systems and use them to flood the reaper's with raw energy. Essentially sear their programming away. The citadel is the hive of all the Reaper programs. They talk to it, it talks to them. The crucible is a hunter killer. It's going to use the Citadel as a conduit to seek out and destroy every single Reaper in the galaxy." As Garrus finished his explanation the Citadel shook violently and the air around them shimmered as pulses of pure white light began to emanate from the Crucible. A Reaper that had chased a nimble turian frigate inside the station's arms shook violently, stiffened and then went dark. They could see trails of smoke flow out behind it as its momentum carried it crashing into one of the Wards.
Shepard was too tired to cheer. She was too tired to feel elated. She was tired, and cold. Her nightmare was finally over, and now all she wanted to do was go to sleep. Darkness crept in around her, Garrus and Anderson's voices began to ebb away and she felt herself slide quietly to the ground next to them. Alarmed, Garrus knelt down next to her. She could see his mouth and mandibles moving, but she couldn't hear anything. Why wouldn't they let her sleep?
"She's going into shock, we need a medical evac right now, damnit. I don't care who else is dead or dying, we're not going to let her die. She needs to live so she can god damn well keep leading this galaxy!" Anderson shouted into his comm.
"Normandy to Anderson, you called for a pickup?" Joker broke in, the Normandy swinging into view above them. With control that went beyond precise, he edged Shepard's ship alongside the platform, getting the cockpit airlock inside the mass effect field that protected Shepard, Garrus and Anderson from the vacuum of space. Garrus grunted as he hefted Shepard into his arms and carried her to the ship with the admiral leading the way.
Chakwas was already waiting for them. There was no room for a gurney, but she had her omni tool out and working as soon as they were in the ship. She had Shepard stabilized by the time they got to the elevator, and was applying medigel to the superficial external burns.
Garrus set Shepard down on an open bed in the Medbay. It was surprisingly empty for a ship just coming out of the greatest space battle the galaxy had ever seen. Only a few wounded taking up some of the beds. Joker really was one of the best pilots in the fleet.
"I'll be able to do a more thorough exam here, but I'd say she's going to be just fine," Dr. Chakwas said tartly as she stared intently at her omni tool. She glanced up at Garrus' red and blue blood stained armor.
"I'm fine -" he began to say but she cut him off with the quirk of a finger towards another empty bed. Tired, sore and physically drained, he gave in and started pulling off his armor. He helped Shepard defeat the Reapers, but Spirits he was a fledgling around that doctor.
"Hey you," Shepard whispered as she opened her eyes and found Garrus reading a data pad next to her. He tossed it aside as soon as she spoke, leaning forward to gently take one of her hands. Most of the burns were well on their way to being healed.
"Hey," he replied softly.
"What? No long winded speech about being the savior of the galaxy?" she smiled.
"I'll leave that for you. I prefer to stay to the background where I can steal all of your kills," he replied.
She laughed softly and began to take a mental inventory of her faculties. She could still feel her hands and feet. A deep breath wasn't painful, and her head didn't hurt..too much. Her skin itched unbearably, as did her ribs.
"All in all, you're in fairly good shape for taking a Reaper beam to the face. You've only been out for a day, before you ask. You had some burns to your nasal passages and throat, a broken rib had punctured one of your lungs and you had mild burns all over your body. No head injuries, but I'm not surprised. Your head makes a krogan jealous."
"Oh god don't make me laugh. My ribs are barely holding together as it is," she mocked him as she chuckled.
"Like I said, you're in pretty good shape. Chakwas says you're free to go whenever you wake up," he finished, flaring his mandibles in a turian smile.
She sat up and then glanced over at him, "What aren't you telling me?"
"Nothing. The Reapers are dead, the whole team lived. The fleet is in bad shape, but we knew that was going to happen. The council is dead, along with anyone else on the Citadel when the Reapers and Cerberus took it. That's what a lot of the bodies we saw were. The citadel itself is barely functioning. A lot of the systems got fried when we destroyed the Reapers. The keepers have been hopping trying to repair the systems. The mass effect core is still functional, so its still in orbit around Earth, but we can't figure out how to tell it to move. All the engineers from the crucible are now working on figuring out how the citadel REALLY works, rather than how they thought it did."
Shepard stared at him for a moment, "So you're telling me that...we did it? It's over? We get our happy ending?"
Garrus nodded, "We get our happy ending."
"Well damn," she replied, flopping back on the bed.
"What's wrong with that?" he asked.
"Now I have to figure out how to take care of a krogan baby."