AN - This is an angst fest. Takes place after the Reaper blows them up on the way to the Conduit to reach the Citadel, but BEFORE Shepard regains consciousness.

Alone For Long

So, if a tear, when thou art dying,
Should haply fall from me,
It is but that my soul is sighing,
To go and rest with thee.
- Stanzas, Emily Jane Bronte

She wakes gasping for breath, choking on water, the ever constant swell and recede of the surf threatening to drag her back out to sea if she doesn't move. Fingers clench in gritty sand and her knees pull sluggishly underneath her, finding enough purchase to raise her body to all fours. Lungs burn as she coughs up salt water, muscles shake and tremble trying to support her weight. She manages to drag her body, weary and heavy, from the waves and further onto land, barely aware of sunlight warming her skin.

Shepard collapses herself into the sand relishing in the warmth against her cheek. But where the hell is she? This thoughts forces her upright again to assess her surroundings. As far as the eye can see to her left and right is sandy white beaches and in front all crystal blue, white capped waters. There are no landmarks, no bright distant star in the clear sky to tell her where in the galaxy she might be.

I must be dead, she thinks because the last thing Shepard remembers is running to the Conduit with Anderson at her ten, James at her two and Kaidan at her six. They had been making good progress tucking and rolling to avoid the Reaper's blasts, but all it had taken was a scant moment of hesitation and they had all been hit, their entire squad decimated. She remembers screaming, burning, the feel of her own armor blown apart, pieces that were once meant to protect rapidly melting, shattering, cutting into flesh.

I failed.

The burning in the corners of her eyes and subsequent tears come unbidden. Everything Shepard accomplished, every resource she gathered, everything she put together, every alliance she had built all worthless now because she had died in the last stretch.

No matter how big their fleet is, without the Crucible the Reapers will win.

But there is a freedom in the emotional release, a freedom that Shepard has not allowed herself in years because there was always one more mission, one more assignment that required her full attentions. She was not allowed to be seen as human, allowing herself to be molded into some idyllic figurehead of hope - the calm at the center of the storm when she was roiling, seething with turmoil within.

So she finally grieves for everything she has lost, and everything she has yet to lose thinking about how she had not been living day to day because after Mordin, after Thane, after losing Thessia and after all the insurmountable decisions that should not have been hers to make, even living day to day had become too hard. Shepard does not know if there is a difference between day and night here and so lives now in the space between one painful, gasping breath and the next, telling herself that even after everything she has yet to fall; cutting herself on the shards of her broken heart and shouldering the limp figure of her crushed spirit.

Shepard grieves until she is spent and nothing is left except painful, tearless gasps and her thundering heartbeat. But she has at least one answer - there is day and night in this place where there is no screaming, no patter of gunfire, no burning, hollowed out buildings crumbling like so much refuse. And there are no bodies piled high around her, ravaged beyond recognition. The burning sun hangs low in the sky, and constellations completely unknown to Shepard are beginning to flicker into existence above the watercolor sunset. What there is, is peace; a tranquility that settles over her bones that had been beginning to feel utterly foreign to her as of late.

But there is also a sudden loneliness and Shepard wonders if she is the only one here. With so many dead or soon to be, it seems unlikely.

So she stands with the intent to seek out others, only now realizing the change in her clothing. God, how long has it been since Shepard has worn anything but a uniform? But the two-piece suit and sarong fit her well and she smiles as she wiggles her bare toes in the sand. Red hair tumbles around her face and down her arms in a length it hasn't been since she was sixteen - since Mindoir when a slaver had nearly caught her by grabbing the long plait of hair down her back. Curious, Shepard wanders to the edge of the water and looks down into to her reflection, into a face so many people had looked up to for hope, for guidance and 'please save us!'. The once familiar scars are gone, so is the swoop in her nose and her skin is warmed by a healthy flush for the first time in a long time.

She has been made new.

She breathes what feels like her first breath of life, her first unmeasured breath before turning to walk down the beach. She walks with the abandon of 'I'll get there someday', taking her own unrushed pace because there is no need to rush here and yet with each step Shepard takes she feels as if she is walking toward something. There is a pull in her stomach guiding her ever nearer to her destination and with each step closer, her heart quickens with anticipation though Shepard doesn't know what she is walking toward.

The sun sets and begins to rise again and still Shepard walks, slowly, deliberately, never wavering, never tiring as her feet carry her on and on and on. And it's in the pre-dawn hush, the moment of silence as the world holds its breath for the sun to share its brilliance that Shepard finally sees a figure on the horizon. Suddenly her chest is fluttering in urgency, knowing this is what her feet have been carrying her toward and there are tears in the back of her throat but she can't get them out because all at once she is running. Suddenly the distance is too much and there is a need to rush and the pull in her stomach becomes a violent tug with each pound of her feet against the sand.

He laughs when she crashes into him and it breaks her heart all over again to hear it now knowing it's because they are both dead. But Shepard feels his mouth form into a smile against the curve of her neck as his arms lock around her back, holding her to him selfishly. And she thinks, this is peace, this is salvation.

"Siha," he breathes into her hair and there is no coughing, no wheezing, no desperate gasping intake for air. The gravel of his voice is just as she remembers when he was well and his heart beats steadily against her own.

"I'm sorry," she says because she doesn't know what else to say. "I'm sorry I took so long."

Thane pulls back, her face cupped in his hands but there is sadness in his liquid gaze. He traces his thumb lovingly along the swell of her bottom lips and says, "I wish you would have taken longer, siha, and it pains me to tell you that you cannot stay when I wish so selfishly for you to remain."

She feels it again, the rupturing fault line that forms in her heart. "But -"

He shakes his head. "You must return, there is still much for you to do, but it is very nearly over. I promise you."

"I'm tired, Thane," Shepard says and for the first time hears it in her voice. And she is, she is so fucking tired down to the marrow of her bones and the impulses of her cybernetic implants that keep her body from falling apart when it's the only thing she wants to do; exhausted beyond comprehension.

He swallows heavily and she knows instantly that this pains him as much as it does her. Thane's hands fall to her waist, his fingers curling against the bare skin she'd only had a short time to share with him. But here, they could have a lifetime, an eternity and that possibility is difficult to let go of.

"Let me stay here with you," she begs him, heart pounding, aching because she already knows what he's going to say.

"I want you to stay, siha, but even you must have realized that you can't. Not yet."

But what she hates the most is that his words have rung true. In her head, in the depths of her heart Shepard hears the echoes. She hears the gunfire returning, the crack of nearby flames, and the ghost of pain is already returning to her body. She hears the distant battle that is not yet finished and it calls out to her blood and each quickening, adrenaline filled beat of her heart is tinged with aching.

"I don't want to go," she says weakly, but Thane is already beginning to fade, he is already sending her away back to war and blood and pain and loss. He is sending her back to the bullets and pain of the bled-out slumped soliders, the 'fucks' and 'goddamns' and 'Jesus Christs' of the wounded.

"I know," he replies and bends over her.

And this at least is familiar for a little while - the feel of his lips against hers, the catch of her breath and the press of his cool hand against her back. Shepard tries her hardest to hold onto the feel of his fingers in her hair, the way her body tucks against his because it feels like she has gone far too long without it. And there is an unfathomable tenderness with which Thane kisses her, holds onto her, soft and patient and she thinks this is holding back. Their time is limited and there should be urgency, fever and passion - something primal driving their actions forward.

Thane pulls away from her when she tries to press closer, forehead pressed against hers but his fingertips are ghosting over her exposed collarbones. "Go now, siha. There will be time enough for us."

"I'm coming back, Thane," she promises him. "I won't leave you alone for much longer." Of this she is utterly confident.

His eyes find hers and the pain is back, but he says, "I know."

Shepard smiles, blinks slowly, deliberately and -

Opens her eyes.

EDITED: 5/9/12.
And despite the 'Complete' tag on this,
there will be a Part 2. I got talked into it.