A/N: My first upload here, so feedback would be appreciated. I may add a few more one-shots later down the line, depending. Thanks for your time.

It was just him there, and he had been ready to die. And just as how he handled everything else, he stubbornly accepted it, with the stipulation that he bring as many mercs with him as he could. If nothing else, Omega's spirit would surely be pleased with way he intended to leave the living world. It wasn't the way he would have wanted to go, but it was the way had determined that he would go. There were precious few parameters he could actually affect now. May as well make the most of it.

But he had seen something unexpected through the scope, and that had changed things completely.

Of course he hadn't eaten well, and he hadn't slept much, so he could have accounted it to his eyes playing tricks on him. But as deceitful as his eyes may be, there had been no point in his entire military career that he had cause to doubt either his scope or his eyepiece. He needed to see her, and he needed to see her before he was dead, so he took the liberty of pushing her along. None of the men beyond that bridge were good for her to spend any time with.

He was elated to see her, of course, though below that lurked the poorly-concealed weariness that had plagued him, and below that a roiling anger bubbled. Where the hell was she, and where had she been? Her usual inscrutability was infuriating; hadn't she let the world think she was dead for two years? Hadn't she let her friends, let him think she was gone? It was the most barefaced thing she could do. But there was no time for that, and even though that was his friend and his ally standing next to him, even though it was Shepard herself, there was something far more important. He was tired, and he had no will to go against every militaristic instinct in his bones. Right then she was his commanding officer, and he was her soldier. He had to set aside his anger and his relief and his joy, because absolutely none of that was now necessary in the wake of his commander's orders. This wasn't his death anymore; this was a mission, and she wanted his survival.

So he would survive.