Just a drabbly-thing I wrote while listening to the incredibly depressing ME3 soundtrack "An End Once and For All," for the prompt: "Shepard is haunted by those that she's lost, and asks for help from a God she doesn't necessarily believe in."
Contains MASSIVE SPOILERS for ME3.
Shepard doesn't exactly consider herself religious.
Most of humanity's much the same way; it's difficult to believe in God when your race discovers they aren't alone in the galaxy, and theories of how the world was created are proven drastically wrong.
Or when self-proclaimed supreme beings arrive out of nowhere and proceed to destroy entire races.
She does her best to keep up the façade in front of others. It wouldn't do for them to see the great Commander Shepard showing weakness. She knows they don't expect her to be unfeeling, but if Shepard lets even one crack show the whole wall might come crumbling down, and that could possibly be the end of everything.
A few of them see through it. Tali, who puts her on such a pedestal that the cracks don't matter. Liara, who's more concerned with keeping her own cracks under wraps than pointing out others'.
And Garrus, who is the only one Shepard allows to try and help patch things up – the only one who asks "Are you okay?" and gets the truth rather than a deflection. After all they've been through together, they've learned to lean on each other. Without him, Shepard imagines she'd never have survived the pressure of being a Spectre, much less defeated Sovereign and destroyed a Collector base and everything else that came after.
I couldn't do this without you, Garrus.
Sure you could. Not as stylishly, of course.
Still, when the nightmares get to be more than she can handle and she's alone in her cabin, Shepard finds herself on her knees.
Losing men is nothing new to her. N7 steeled her for that. With command comes loss – every good leader knows that, and you can't ever save everyone. Hell, some days you can't even save most of them. But the Alliance and N7 knew that commanders are only human.
Shepard feels less like a human, these days, and more like an icon. A symbol. And symbols don't screw up.
Wear a mask for long enough, and you start to believe it yourself.
I guess it's not just human nature. We all lie to ourselves to deal with horror.
Maybe it was the Collector base that got her overconfident. Suicide, the Illusive Man said. Shepard was so determined to prove him wrong that she bought her own lies. And when every single member of her squad walked out alive, they didn't even feel like lies anymore.
Now the deaths roll in and she feels every single one of them like a knife to the heart.
Some are worse than others. Mordin's death was the first that really rocked her – because he was one of hers.
Someone else might have gotten it wrong.
The first ground squad member she'd lost since Ashley, all those years ago. And yet there was dignity in his passing, because he chose it knowing full well what it would mean. Mordin died setting right a deep-seated regret, and though Shepard grieved his passing, that was something she would always admire.
Then came Thane.
He'd been her wingman, second only to Garrus – her moral center, to keep her grounded when her whatever-the-cost nature got out of control. He'd loved her, once – even called her siha.
A warrior-angel of the goddess Arashu. Fierce in wrath. A tenacious protector.
Though she'd found happiness in Garrus, she suspected his feelings never faded. It didn't matter, because he'd been at her side through shitstorms and firefights and she'd never doubted him, not once.
And then she'd met him again, in Huerta Memorial Hospital, and he told her he was dying.
She knew it was coming, knew there was no cure. It didn't stop the hate – hate for whatever had done this to him, for something she couldn't define. Fate? Chance? God?
When Kai Leng shortened even the little time they had left, she found a focus for all that hate. A purpose.
She'd been so caught up in chasing revenge that she let the asari homeworld fall to the Reapers.
Now an entire planet is dying because you didn't have the strength to win.
After Thessia, the dreams come every night. And eventually Shepard gets to a point where sometimes it's better just not to sleep at all, so at least she can attribute the circles under her eyes to sleep deprivation and not guilt.
Tonight, though – en route to Cerberus HQ – even the cybernetics can't keep her on her feet through her exhaustion, and she somehow ends up collapsed in bed anyway.
She wakes shaking – that's nothing new. But right now, Garrus is in the battery, and though she curls reflexively against where he should be, there's no strong arms to wrap around her until the trembling stops. She shoves the covers away in an effort to stop sweating, and barely makes it to the bathroom before her knees buckle and she retches, bringing up nothing but bile.
The last time I had a briefing with Anderson, he told me to take care of you. The guy leading the resistance – on Earth! – is worried about you. And I'm supposed to help.
I appreciate the thought, Joker, but I'm fine.
The hell you are.
Rather than try for sleep she knows isn't going to come, Shepard sits on the edge of her bed.
It's hard enough fighting a war, but it's worse knowing that no matter how hard you try… you can't save them all.
She closes her eyes, at first; then opens them again, feeling foolish. Eventually she settles for staring at the floor. "Alright," she says. "I don't do this, normally. But hell, it can't hurt."
Guide this one, Kalahira, and she will be a companion to you as she was to me.
"I don't know what I'm doing." Despite herself, she gives a tired laugh. "No surprise there. I don't think there's really a precedent for the whole only-hope-of-all-life-anywhere thing. So I guess… I guess I'm just saying I could use a little help here. If there's any help to be had. At all."
If we don't figure out something, "Maybe Later" will be an epitaph on a mass grave of eleven billion.
"I'm not asking to come out of this unscathed. I won't even ask for protection for my people. That's stupid. People are going to die. I just – I just want this to be over, somehow. I just –"
We can do this, Shepard. You can do this. Never doubt that.
"I just want to rest."
She hears the elevator doors open outside her room, and a moment later Garrus walks in, armor swapped for civvies, and affection etched on his face.
"Shepard. Thought you might be up here."
If there's one thing Garrus is good at, it's making her forget, for a little while. And when it comes down to it on Earth, he's there like always.
Not sure if turian heaven is the same as yours, but if this thing goes sideways and we both end up there… meet me at the bar.
Garrus likes to hide pain and worry behind humor, but it at least makes both of them feel a little bit better.
There's no Shepard without Vakarian, so you better remember to duck.
Somehow they both know it's goodbye, even without saying it.
Come back alive. It'd be an awfully empty galaxy without you.
Shepard has to amend her out-of-practice prayer, then, because just the promise of rest wouldn't be worth it if he's not there.
You'll never be alone.
They'll rest together, when the time comes.
And wouldn't you know it, he's late to the bar.