"I'm proud of you, child," were his last words. Shepard inwardly winced at the gravity of his tone, the immeasurable weight of those words. The endearment, the unmasked sensation, all military formalities forgotten in the final moments. She groaned in pain and shifted in her position upon the floor, trying in vain to find a location that would permit her relaxation without subjecting one of her many injuries to strain. Lucy sat, utterly bloodied, broken, but certainly not beaten...
She turned to him, struggling to find words that would pull him from his stupor, the one that she had seen occur before, moments before death in too many of her friends. The one that you cannot come back from, but remain in for only a few moments. Though they feel like they span multiple cycles.
It was in vain. All of it, her mindless shifting, her words of comfort, protesting death, fighting the reapers. It had to be in vain, or all the struggle and death so far would have to come to mean something she wasn't ready to comprehend. Lucy would've much rather slipped away from the titles, the fleets, the insurmountable responsibility, and endless inability. Slipped away from consciousness into a world of tattered, shadowy dreams that seemed to constantly mock her inability to save everyone...or anyone. She could chase that damned child until the last gasping breath left her lungs. "A fitting way to die," the thought came bitterly as Lucy plagued herself with the memories of the awful dreams. Shadows never formally materializing but always speaking. "That hell would be better than this one," the small, voice came from the back of her mind. She supposed it was meant to be a comforting thought, though barely. "You could slip away, fall asleep and be with your shadows."
A voice crackled through to her. Ripped through her dismal thoughts and reminded her that, though it dwindled and wavered significantly, there was still hope. And though forces were diminishing by the second, a resistance still existed. Though the message that broke through to her added another terrifying weight to her already overburdened shoulders.
"Shepard...Shepard! Damnit the Crucible isn't firing!"
Admiral Hackett's voice found her in her dismal selfishness and reminded her of her responsibility. Reminded her of her firmly held belief that their sacrifices were not for naught and that failure was never before less of an option. She found herself again, in that crumpled broken mess next to the body of a man who had led the resistance through darker times.
Lucy was instantly disgusted with herself for such selfish thinking. Such self absorbed notions as to leave those alive behind and submit herself to her injuries, while the body of Captain Anderson, a man who struggled against the reapers every day and led the failing resistance remained beside her.
That was the main motivation that got her moving. Not simply the notion that another needed her, but that had Captain Anderson seen her slipping away he would've rimed her. That thought almost made her smile as she struggled in a half limp, half crawl across the platform to the light console that acted as a beacon for her efforts. The platform seemed to stretch on for miles as she made her way slowly across it, all the while attempting to form a cohesive sentence by which to respond to Hackett...the cohesiveness never came, but her journey across the platform eventually came to an utterly exhausting end.