Disclaimer: I own nothing. I only play in Bioware's (and Gaiman's) playground.
A/N: To those who are familiar with what the summary references, this isn't really a crossover. It only utilizes the concepts vaguely.
The Endless Path
There is a book somewhere, where her name flourishes, and in it her story is written.
When the Alliance crumbles around her, she knows she can no longer run.
One minute there is deafening silence as the world seems to come to a halt around her, the next, Anderson is screaming at her, telling her to get up, Shepard, damn it, get up. Her head feels heavy and his voice sounds far away, like he's yelling in an ocean. The dust settles in her lungs, she coughs harshly and the world restarts.
Pain blossoms in her sides. After six months of non-activity, the pain had seemed like a distant memory. Now it's sharp, a reminder. She pulls herself up, out from the debris like she has done countless of times before. Anderson's face softens briefly — relief, hope, however fleeting.
She steels herself, pushes herself on. The gun is solid in her hands, the recoil is reassuring.
It feels damning when the child says she can't help and when he disappears, she feels wretched. Still, she goes on, muscles her way forward step by step.
She wants to stay, is desperate to, but she is aware that this is not her fight. She relents reluctantly. Fate has other plans for her; she knows that as well as she knows her own heartbeat.
She gives Anderson a nod, closes her eyes when the shuttles are torn apart but doesn't look away until Earth is completely out of her sight. As she walks away, the shutter closes behind her with a finality that she feels deep inside.
She's steadily losing her grasp on sanity, this she knows. Every breath that she takes seems to inch her that much closer to a breakdown.
They do not help. They, the ones pulling her strings, the ones with personal agendas and hidden motives. They make ludicrous demands of her, expecting her to please them, to save them all.
She doesn't know why they put her on this impossible pedestal. Tell her to point a gun and she will shoot, but here they expect her to forego her weapon of choice and use words to negotiate terms and conditions. She's nothing but a soldier masquerading as a politician. Most of the time, she reckons the real her is hooked up to a bed somewhere, drugged up to her gills, hallucinating all this bullshit up.
It's the most credible scenario that she's come up with so far. Maybe if she strips naked and dance in the middle of the war room, the ensuing embarrassment will be enough to shock her awake from her undoubtedly drug induced coma.
She's only human, but they presume her to be a god. Therein lies the path to madness. Who else but the insane can hear the voices of the dead?
The wall of names mocks her. She has stared at it long enough for the crew to start to worry.
She wants to tell them that they should save their worries for their own well-being. This is, after all, what she leaves behind – a list of names and not much else. At times, she doesn't understand how they can stand to place their fragile trust in her.
Has to be him, he says.
All she sees when she closes her eyes are them back in that moment. Her, trying frantically, futilely, to get him to stay as the Shroud falls to pieces around them. He always rejects her, placating, gentle, wants her to see. It has to be him. Just like it has to be Tarquin Victus.
She suspects she will keep replaying that moment, obsessively analysing every single facet, dissecting every single word. Forget doing the right thing, she will always question if what she did is enough.
In the end, all that she leaves behind are crumbling towers and smoking craters.
She and Garrus make plans. They discuss their immediate retirement plan; debate the merits of a timeshare package they have seen while browsing through the citadel for armoury provisions. They decide they'll rather spend the credits on a skycar. Besides, the royalty off the vids should be enough for them to buy a piece of prime real estate anywhere they choose. She won't even have to pull her infamous Shepard endorsement card for a good deal.
He can't swim, turian anatomy not being built for that, but the idea of a beach sounds appealing. It's better, at least, than the eternal winter of Noveria he says. She herself has never really minded the cold but refrains from telling him that, feeling, a tad absurdly perhaps, that the admission seems a bit of a betrayal to him.
The beach then, she agrees. She swears on the virtues of a Piña Colada and promises to nurse him back to health if he falls ill to the levo alcohol. There'll be time for that, in this future that they are envisioning, to fall ill for inane reasons and not because one of them has just had a part of their body sheared off in the middle of a battlefield. He might even finally find the time to sit down and learn how to paint.
As she strokes the marred side of his face fondly, she thinks that adoption is a possibility too.
It is a dream that is nice to have, though she fears — recognises — that this is all it will ever be.
She hears it all around her — snippets of conversation, loud and clear as day, despite the constant murmuring amongst the people. They are all desperate people in desperate situations. The lucky ones haven't lost anyone, yet. The unlucky ones have lost too much.
There is a lady at the counter asking the asari to help her contact her son. It's an intrusion, but she stays and listens anyway. It's the least she can do, she reasons. The asari tries, but the lady is implacable. Finally, it ends and the asari turns away to the side, briefly, to try to get the smile back on her face before she has to tend the next one in line. Next week, the lady will be back there again.
Beyond this counter, it's the same story everywhere, rinse and repeated, but she's acutely aware of each one. Every heart-wrenching cry of anguish over the news of a loved one, gone, missing, dead, is another tally for the losing battle against the inevitable.
She wants to help all of them, if only to lessen their grief, but she can only do so much and sometimes… She remembers the asari from the hospital. Her fist clenches. The road to hell is paved with good intentions. She would brave it if only she isn't so sure she won't suffocate in their misery first.
She sees the way Kaidan looks at her. She's seen it on various faces. She recalls him looking at her like that before, an entire lifetime ago, back when they were both very different people. She knows what's coming even if she wishes it isn't so.
She doesn't want to do this, but he gets this determined look on his face, and she has this sinking feeling that she's not going to be let off that easily.
She tries to make a joke of it, but damn him, he's grabbing the reins of the conversation and steering it elsewhere and fuck, she hates it when he does that. Eventually, he picks up the hint and jokes along with her, but it's too little, too late.
He takes it well enough, she convinces herself as he carefully avoids her eyes, because nothing cures a broken heart like a piece of well-cooked steak.
She can't bear the look of adulation he gets when he looks at her. It's nothing personal against him; she can't bear it when she sees it on other people either. She thanks whatever deity there is out there that turians are not the most facially expressive people in the universe, but even Garrus can't quite mask the adoration in his eyes. It's silly because of all people, he knows her, but it feels too much like she's always one step away from disappointing him.
It's all just an illusion. The choices given to her aren't really choices.
The facsimile of a child continues speaking, the same fucking one who told her that she can't help, and she doesn't bother to listen anymore. She itches to clip him on the side of the head and drag him to his parents (if he even has parents) to be properly disciplined. How dare he.
The Illusive Man, perpetrator of a homicide-suicide like he is a cliché in a 21st century soap opera wants to control. Anderson, whose hands gradually goes cold in hers, wants them gone, all of them, down to the very last fucking bastard.
She thinks of EDI and Legion and she doesn't think she can do what Anderson wishes to them. The Illusive Man is not a bad man, not entirely, but she's done taking orders from him.
There is a third alternative, in her array of artificial options. It shines green, bright and accusing.
She can always refuse, of course, and not pick any of the low hanging fruits on the apple tree. But she's weary and she's ready for this to end. This is the last page for her, she knows it.
She pushes all thoughts of her friends, of the ones she loves out of her mind. It will not do to have them put the hesitation back in her steps in this crucial moment. She'll feel sorry for what she's choosing to do to them now, but there will be time for regrets later, preferably over a shot of something green while she waits patiently for company to come.
The last thing she knows, before the light consumes her and breaks her into millions of tiny pieces is the embrace of someone familiar, someone she's known her whole life and the inexplicable rustling of wings.