It was a cold, quiet morning in Arlington Cemetery. The surviving crew of the Normandy was gathered around the grave, listening to Ashley recite the poem she had picked for the occasion.

"Under the wide and starry sky, dig my grave and let me lie: Glad I did live and gladly die, and I lay me down with a will. This be the verse you 'grave for me: Here he lies where he long'd to be. Home is the sailor, home from the sea, and the hunter, home from the hill."

Ashley looked away from her squadmates, trying not to tear up as the riflemen behind her began the 21 gun salute and Taps began to play.

"I think he would have appreciated that, Ash," Shepard said, "He always seemed to like you … or at least, you were the one he complained about to me the least. Hell, from him that was practically a marriage proposal." She looked down at the headstone with its inscription of Javik / SSV Normandy SR-2 / Reaper War / Nov 11 2186 / Purpose Fulfilled. "It's not where he wanted to be buried," she continued as Liara lowered her back onto her chair, "but I think he would appreciate the view."

Arlington had survived the Reaper occupation mostly unscathed, although the blackened marble where the Tomb of the Unknowns had once stood served as a reminder that nothing the enemy had touched had managed to remain unscarred. They'd heard the stories about how the tomb guard had maintained discipline until the swarm of husks had attacked his position. The guards carried rifles but were issued no thermal clips, and so he had used his weapon as a club to destroy his attackers until a passing Destroyer had trained its beam weapon on him.

"And he'd be grateful you were able to finish his job, Skipper."

"If he wasn't too busy listing all the ways I did it wrong," Shepard answered with a wry smile.

"He wasn't much of a charmer", Ashley replied, shaking her head, "but he was a good soldier. He'd be proud of you. He was proud of you, Shepard." There was a long silent moment before Ashley spoke again. "How did it happen?"

Shepard looked down, took a deep breath, then started speaking about the final push to the Reaper conduit.

"Go! Go! Go," Anderson shouted as the last survivors of Hammer ran alongside the last functional Mako down the A4. With the chance to pause long enough to aim her Black Widow X sniper rifle gone, Shepard had switched to her Paladin pistol, and was using it to best possible effect on the husks standing between her and Trafalgar square. This is easy, Shepard thought as they crested the last rise before they would reach the conduit that had been built where Nelson's column had once stood, This is far too…

And that was when Harbinger had landed, shattering the last intact portion of the National Portrait Gallery to ruins beneath it. She wasn't entirely sure how she knew that the dreadnought was that specific Reaper, but she knew its identity with as much certainty as she knew her own. And the whispers that had been haunting her sleep, that had plagued her since the beginning of the battle of London, grew to a roar as Harbinger began firing its main beam at the oncoming soldiers. The first blast caught the front of the Mako, flipping it forward too rapidly to hear the screams of its crew, with each successive blast reducing another group of soldiers to ash until there were none left but her, Liara, Javik, Anderson, and Coats.

SHEPARD, she heard Harbinger say as it targeted her. The air around her began to turn red, then green as she saw the wreckage of the Mako fly to intercept Harbinger's beam.

"And you already know the rest, Ash," Shepard said in a raw whisper, "Javik used his biotics to block Harbinger's beam from hitting me, but when it touched off the Mako's eezo core the shrapnel from the explosion that knocked me out … he took a larger piece. So no, Ash, he wasn't just a good soldier. He was the best." She looked past Javik's headstone to the other newly-planted ones beyond it. "They all were."