CHAPTER ONE :: COVERED IN DARKNESS


Darkness. Heavy, crushing darkness all around. No stark white lights, no music, no life flashing before your eyes - only the darkness and the fierce, fiery pain raging from tip to toe. So this is what it felt like to die. All alone under the rubble in the Citadel, she lay barely conscious, just fighting to take another breath as each one became more painful than the one before. Spots danced before her eyes as her lungs gradually failed her, the taste of each smoke-tinged breath beginning to take its toll. Despite everything, though, she'd done what she set out to. The reapers were gone, they were destroyed, their cycle of destruction had finally been broken.

She'd ran through a severely war-torn London, a city now unrecognizable from the tourist vids. Many landmarks had been wiped out along with most of the population of the city. The local resistance had put up a good fight, an admirable fight considering their severely limited resources and the fleets had come together in a way that had seemed impossible at the beginning of the war. Although the Reapers had wiped out so many ships, they'd still won through in the end. In the final push, she'd had to order her team to evacuate after one of her best friends and the man she loved were injured by Harbinger. Kaidan. Was that truly the last time she'd see him? The last time she'd get to look into those gorgeous whiskey-colored eyes? She hoped not, but as the life force ebbed from her body, she felt herself grow weaker by the minute.

She and Anderson had made it through the beam, they'd landed on some unknown part of the Citadel and even now when the air was tinged with smoke, she swore she could still smell the decaying flesh. Their discussion with the Illusive Man had resulted in both his deaths and Anderson's, something which had almost stopped her in her tracks. She'd gone on, just as she always had, with her head as high as she could hold it, the blood she lost from an abdominal wound kept her head just that little bit lower than normal. Given three choices, she'd strode up to the only option her head would let her accept. She'd spent years of her life trying to find a way to stop the Reapers, to end them once and for all. Their Prothean puppets had even killed her once in a time, so what use was sacrificing her life to keep them alive, even if she could control them? What was the point in combining synthetics and organics? No, the only option was to wipe them out to ensure that they could never, ever wipe out another civilization.

The crucible had fired and true to its legend, it wiped them out. The war was over. But at what cost? Millions of lives. Hundreds of ships in the skies over Earth and an atmosphere tainted by eezo for their efforts. The relays were gone; each galactic race had fleets stranded on the wrong end of what used to be the Charon relay and the woman who had persuaded them all to commit to the cause lay almost dead in the aftermath of the crucible.

The longer she lay there in the silence, the more desperate she became. She couldn't die like that, all alone in the dark, no matter how heroic the actions that landed her in that position were. No. She ordered herself not to. Her amp tingled as she tried to channel what little of her strength was left into her biotics. Maybe she could move some of the rubble? But if she moved it, freed herself if she was able, would she only live long enough to bleed out? In the end it didn't even matter, her attempts at biotics were pitiful at best. All the while, her pain intensified - her abdomen bled, her chest felt as though it might implode at any second and her lungs screamed for clean air. When every avenue points toward death, surely there's no possible way out - it's the bottom line, the destination to which all roads would eventually lead, one way or the other. So it was a little earlier than she had originally planned but to die as a legend would have its perks...

No. This would not be where it ended.

The longer she lay there, the heavier the darkness seemed to become, bearing down upon her with an ever increasing force. As time passed, she was vaguely aware of a shrill bleep and a buzzing sensation somewhere around her left wrist. Felt a little like her omni-tool but surely if she was dying, it must already be dead but if her amp was still online, who knew. Maybe her technology was stronger than her body - it'd have to be but she was sure the crucible blast must've fried all of her cybernetics. Damn Cerberus tech ... But if Miranda had fixed her once, surely she would be able to do it over again. Right? Right. With her mind made up, she gasped for another breath as her head began to swim again, her vision dimmed, the light of her surroundings gave way and all she could hear was that damn bleeping. What the hell was that?

Without the energy to even open her eyes again, she couldn't even will herself to believe that she could make it out of there alive. This was it. No amount of ordering herself to breathe, no amount of ordering herself to live was going to save her now. End of line. No more Normandy, no more travelling the galaxy, no more Kaidan, only the eternal darkness. Time to embrace the silence as the Queen of a now extinct race had once put it. But her wrist still bleeped and now she could swear that she could hear footsteps somewhere behind her. Frantic, scuffled footsteps, the kind you take when you're trying to get somewhere faster than your legs want to carry you. And then the bleeping stopped, suddenly replaced by a high pitched wail, the kind of wail she might make if her body would allow her pain a voice.

The rubble shifted, groaned, as it was moved. "We think we have her," a voice came from above her but she didn't recognize the voice, couldn't see the face. Opening her mouth, she tried to make a sound, any sound that might tell her rescuer that she was there. Maybe she wouldn't die alone after all. Her throat was too far gone to be able to speak, all the noise she could make was a pained sigh, nowhere near loud enough to be heard over the sound of the moving rubble. "Yeah, that's the tracker on her omni-tool," the voice spoke again but she had no idea who they spoke to, "If she's still alive under all this shit, we're going to need an evac yesterday, last week, last fucking year." At least whoever the voice belonged to seemed to know she was almost out of time.

It felt like an eternity but as the last piece of rubble was lifted from her body, she felt the buzzing at her wrist stopped. The wailing stopped just as she caught sight of her rescue party. Finally she was getting out of here, finally someone would put her back together again. She didn't know the men in her rescue party, why hadn't her crew come to look for her? We're they even still alive?

"Someone ping Hackett, tell him that we found the Commander and that we need immediate evac," he crouched at her side and attempted to staunch the bleeding from her abdomen, "Didn't I already say we needed evac yesterday, damn it! Hang in there, Shepard, we're gonna get you back to Earth."

Earth. It wasn't home but it'd do.

"Shepard, do you hear me? Give me something here," the desperation in his voice kicked up a notch, "Shepard? Shit, she's not breathing! Kenton, you're the damn medic, get the hell over here and help out. NOW."

Maybe she wouldn't live to see Earth again after all.