Author's note: So I was one of the few people (apparently) who didn't hate the ending of ME3. I intended this to be a one shot that perhaps explained to some degree why I found the synthesis ending to be interesting. But I thought about it some more, and decided I wanted to expand on it, maybe play around in the new and strange universe Shepard created when she made her choice. We'll see how much of it I end up writing, but I have some ideas…
Just assume this story is going to spoil every major plot point of ME3, including the ending of course.
This is updated now to include what we learned in the extended ending. It will spoil that too.
Jane Shepard
Battered and broken, Shepard limped toward the great blinding beam of light. As she lurched forward, the pain and fatigue fell away, discarded, and she began to run, a desperate sprint.
She leaped towards the light.
The seconds before she reached the beam seemed like ages, falling through the emptiness.
She saw Anderson smile at her once more. She saw the MAKO, hurtling at an impossible speed through a mass relay. She saw herself, leaping across a different chasm, towards the Normandy's shuttle, and Garrus catching her, pulling her to safety. She saw Legion reaching out to all geth, giving the gift of himself so that they might truly live. She saw the wonder on the faces of the krogan standing beneath the tower where Mordin had gone and never returned. She saw her crew, standing at attention, strong and proud. She heard Thane's prayer and Samara's blessing. She stood with Garrus and pressed her forehead to his, and felt the warmth of his hands on her own.
And the beam of light consumed her. Crude flesh dissolved, painlessly, but her essence remained, on the cusp of the Crucible, ascendant.
And she understood, with a sharp and beautiful clarity.
She reached out and embraced the galaxy.
She saw with a billion eyes, touched tentatively the new world with a billion fingertips. And with each being she touched she birthed a new life.
She felt the shattering relief of a billion beings as the Reapers lifted their heavy forms away from her worlds. The confusion and fear, the awe and wonder as new forms stepped forth, as all were transformed; it crested within and through her.
The Normandy ran from her, but she did not mind. She was inevitable, a goddess, and time had no meaning for her.
She flowed through them, these beings she had loved so dearly, and desperation gave way to wonder at the merging.
She fluttered among the leaves above the ship, felt the touch of EDI's hand on Joker's as they stepped forward, beheld the new and strange world through Garrus's eyes.
"You will never be alone," she said, to Garrus, to the galaxy.