AN: THIS WORK IS UNDER REVISION and will be completed soon!

This is my first Shepard (Earthborn Survivor Vanguard Paragon), with my first playthough's ending and mistakes. Bonus material at the end of the story will include a YouTube playlist for appropriate music per chapter. Bioware/EA started it.

Warnings: includes fairly graphic descriptions of violence, swearing, and one sex scene.

I would really appreciate any constructive criticism you can give me.

Enjoy!

...

Don't cry; the sky is in our eyes

Tonight we burn like stars that never die...

(Hammock)

'I consider my body's death and a chill settles in my gut... I am afraid, and it shames me—'

The drell's skin was composed of fine, smooth scales. As she slid her hand over his she felt the dense muscle shift as his fist tightened with the effort of controlling himself. The pools of his eyes were not so contained.

'Thane...'

He looked up, shoulders heavy with the weight of staring too many truths in the face. She wondered how long he had sat completely still in Life Support, before coming to her. She wondered how many memories of Irikah he had relived. She wondered if he had relived any recent events involving her. She certainly had: she had read the beginning of the same file three times before he'd come in. She hadn't really believed he'd come. And now...

I've never felt affection for another species...

The fishtank glowed over them; walls of metal and plastic. For once, her ability to talk her way out of any situation would not work here. There was nothing left to say. The assassin knew every detail of the impossible situation they had slipped into: there was no other side of it she could show to him. Hell, maybe there wouldn't be another side. The one-way trip of the mission was just beginning, but it had begun for them long ago. There was only one comfort left to give, one last frontier to cross.

She lifted her hand to him and this time he did not flinch away. Her palm, toughened by workouts and pistols, brushed his cheek and her fingertips touched the velvet red ruff on his neck. The tears prickled. Her skin looked even darker compared to his sleek greenness. God but he was warm. Burning. The desert sun forever setting, the smell of spices forever strong, and still he had come to her. A warmth of her own rose in her chest. There was hope for them yet.

She'd already made the tactical decision to invite him to stay a while, in view of his distress, but now it was a decision she made with the whole of her body. What to say in this vital moment?

'Be alive with me, tonight.'

Fuck. She winced inwardly. Nice, Shep, make an oblique reference to his murdered wife and his own terminal illness. His mouth opened, presumably to protest, either at the action or her ill-formed advance, and she snapped: she unleashed weeks of sexual tension to forestall the moment and went for it and just fucking kissed him.

'Mmmhn...'

His lips were yielding, impossibly soft and smooth, and after a fraction of a second's shock he drank like a man dying of thirst. The musty, bitter taste of his tongue in her mouth... Her hands skimmed over the contours of his head and neck; his rested on her waist. Her body responded with softness and a shiver. My god... All our gods... I had no idea how much I wanted this... How much I wanted to give this memory to him...

Presently she breathed and pulled herself away and examined him. This close she could feel him breathing, feel the muscles tug and pull air into his ruined lungs. She glanced down at the long, lithe body she held in her hands and wondering how to undress him without making a further fool of herself.

He blinked horizontally, releasing two more tears. She pushed them away with her thumbs, astonished still by the warm smoothness of his scales. 'It's okay to be scared, Thane. I sure as hell am. It's how I know I've not gone crazy. Yet.'

'Hhhh.' At last, it happened. He smiled, and a sighing half-laugh of a breath fell down over her shoulder.

She smiled back tentatively. 'I don't suppose there's any chance you'll forget the first thing I said?'

He knew what she meant. He always did. 'Clumsy as it was, I would not want to...'

'Awh.' Shepard slid her hands beneath the shoulders of his coat and shifted. 'Well never mind. I'm gonna make damn sure you remember this...'