Disclaimer: The Mass Effect universe belongs to Bioware.
Author's note: This is my response to the unfathomable disquiet the ending of Mass Effect 3 left me with.
The way it should have ended
The sky was dark over London, and the soldiers on the ground watched as balls of fire rained down from the heavens. Some wept for relief. Some embraced. Others simply collapsed and trembled during the first moment of anything even half resembling peace for the past six months.
The Crucible had destroyed itself in its usage, but with that use the Reapers were pushed into a retreat. They broke atmo and were met by the massed fleets of every nation who had banned together for the greater good of the galaxy. For the first time since this war began, there was a victory. Earth, while not thoroughly clean of the Reaper taint, had been retaken.
The day was won.
Amid the jubilation, a lone shuttle landed at the London outpost. It had been on autopilot, manual control long beyond the means of those it carried to safety, and was met by a swarm of soldiers and medical personnel who practically fell over each other in their eagerness to open the doors.
The harsh lights of the landing area, when they reached past the scrum of EMT's, lit upon the crumpled, exhausted form of Admiral Anderson. He was awake, but barely, and had in his arms a woman clad in half disintegrated N7 armour. He held her across his lap as though she was half her age, and had both on his face and in his posture the entirely paternal cast of a father shielding his daughter with the last of his strength. Staying awake for her because he had to.
When they were found her face was hidden in his neck, his arms around her, both of them black and blue and soaked in each other's blood, but Anderson did not care. If she was to die in his arms on their journey he was resolved that she would do so knowing comfort and love. He had rocked her gently and spoken of his pride in her as her breath became soft on his neck and she began to go limp. Had told her all the things he knew she'd want to hear in her last moments, just in case they actually were her last.
She had won.
Earth was safe.
She would be remembered.
And, most importantly, that the man he knew was waiting for her would find his strength and live well, knowing she was waiting at the bar for him, looking down.
As it was, the light that left him half blind when the shuttle doors opened wasn't that of any heaven he had thought to expect. Nor was it the abrasive glare of the lights surrounding the landing zone. It was the beam on an omnitool, worn by a woman whose face was blessedly familiar. When he spoke to her, his voice was barely a rasp.
"It's Shepard" he said as Karin Chakwas, newly dropped off by the Normandy to head the camp's quickly growing triage, eased herself between the fussing medics and two of her most respected friends. Her heart broke at the sight of them, and she choked on a sob as she reached for the stricken Commander, slipping her fingers, gloved and white but quickly stained by the grime and blood, up onto the seemingly comatose woman's throat. Searching for a pulse. She met Anderson's eyes as he spoke again.
"She's bad, doctor. I don't know if..." His voice dropped further as he fought to keep it steady. "I can't feel her breathing anymore."
Chakwas coughed out another sob, focusing past the pain in her throat and chest and really feeling for that pulse. Willing the woman she felt nearly maternal affection for to live. Keep going. It took a full minute, but finally her eyes again found Anderson's.
"I've got it!" she cried, relief and anguish in turn choking her, making her words as raspy as Anderson's had been.
"She's alive David!"