[A/N: While working on my Naruto fanfiction, that I'm still writing in French for now, I kinda missed Mass Effect. So I ended up writing this short one-shot and I hope you'll like it! And merry Christmas to you all :)]
I just wanted to not be okay – to be allowed to be "not okay", really. I always had been okay, always had been fine, because that was what people had expected of me. I had to be the reliable one, the one you could depend on. I had to be the strong one; and I never even realized before he came along how lonely that was, how lonely I had been.
He was the one who had changed it all. Before him, I had never opened up to other people, never allowed myself to not be fine, to need help. Even when I was really, really down, I had never shed a tear in front of people. If I ever needed to cry, I did it away from prying eyes and alone in my quarters, usually under the burning stream of the shower. Then he had come, along with his urgent need to protect everyone, and suddenly I had someone who wanted to protect me. Obviously, it had taken him some time to peel my layers, but it felt good, knowing that someone out there cared enough to worry about me. No one ever had, not since I had stopped being that little girl who could still be saved. Now I was the one doing the saving, over and over and over again, and somewhere along the way I had somehow lost myself, lost sight of the woman behind the warrior, of the soul behind the armor. He had found her – me –, hidden so far away I had almost forgotten she was here.
For all these reasons, I couldn't let him die. He was my one beacon of light in the darkest of times, when all seemed lost and nearly was. He was the one holding me together when I was breaking down. And now we were standing in the middle of this rubble people had once called home, and I just couldn't. let. him. die. Nor could I find the words to tell him I loved him or how sorry I was to leave him behind and to send him back to the ship, but something in his disoriented, heartbroken eyes told me he knew.
-You were the best thing to ever happen to me, I managed to say.
Judging by the tone of his voice and the gloom in his eyes, yes, he did know. He knew me too well by now; he knew when I was full of shit, when I was mad, when I was sad, when I was happy. And right now, he had guessed what I couldn't put into words. He shook his head:
-Don't.
-Garrus, I ordered, take him back to the Normandy.
I trusted Garrus. He would do what must be done. He was my best friend, my scaly brother from another mother, and he would know. Still, seeing them leave would break my heart, because all I really wanted was to have them stand by me once again, like they had since we'd become a team, back when we were a few years younger and just wanted to make things right; back when death wasn't right around the corner and remained something intangible that only happened to others. Before the Collectors, before the Normandy blew up in space with me still in its hull, before the Reapers. So little time and yet it felt like such an eternity. I could still picture us when we had first teamed up, back when Tali was still that naïve Quarian who had stumbled upon something so much bigger than her; when Garrus still worked with C-Sec but somehow already showed that side of him that would bring him to turn into Archangel; when Kaidan blushed and stammered every time we talked; when sweet Liara was still miles away from becoming this badass Shadow Broker… back when Ash was still alive. Truth be told, we were all so naïve back then. We thought we could be the saviors of the galaxy, fighting our way through any kind of shit thrown our way. We kind of believed that yelling louder than the rest of them would mean we'd emerge victorious. Politics, Saren and Virmire had slowly taught us otherwise. Then the rest had happened, and now…
Now we were here.
-Shepard, don't! He screamed.
How I wanted to listen to him. How I wanted to say "Alright, love, let's do this together again". But no, not this time.
Because, you see, everything had come down to this. Akuze. That day on Eden Prime. Freaking Virmire. Damned Alchera. And even way before that, my childhood, my past, my growing up and turning into the Commander I had become. Every step I had ever taken in my life, every decision I had made, every choice, every single heartbeat. I didn't regret much of it, because it had also led me to them, to him, to the short time we had had together, to our team – no, our family. Deep inside, I knew, even as I stood there in the wreckage of what had once been the fierce and beautiful city of London, that, given the chance to start again, I would probably do it all over again. In hindsight, there were only a few things I would change, and there were mostly personal ones. And if it meant changing this outcome, us, our friends… No. I'd keep everything, the good, the bad, the losses, the obstacles. I would even die all over again, just to know that in the end, I would get to stand here and feel this heartbroken, because somehow, it also felt worth it.
I took his hand in mine. I wanted to feel his skin against mine, but I had to settle for our gloved hands.
-Don't, he said yet again.
Oh, all the things we could have been. Right at this second, it seemed like we could still be anything, like there was still hope, but I knew better. Years of this had taught me to know better. Still, all the things… Had we not given enough? Did we not deserve some respite; did we not deserve some happiness, some closure, something – anything?
-We make the sacrifices no one else would make, I reminded him – or myself, possibly.
I said it because it was the truth, plain and simple. We would die, if need be, for a world that was likely to forget us after we'd given up everything for its survival. We were but little pieces of nothingness in the grand scheme of things, but it didn't matter, not really. This was what I had pledged to do, whom I had sworn to be. This was why, despite strongly believing we did deserve a future, a break from such darkness and destruction, I was about to do what I was set on doing: sending them away. So I let go of his hand, I put them both on this ship that had turned into our home, and I ordered them to go, to leave me behind.
Because everything had come down to this, and this was something I had to do alone. On my own. I had to be the strong one again, the one I had not needed to be since he had entered my life, since they had broken down the walls I had spent my whole life building up. For them, I would be the person I had been before they had entered my life, because this person was the only one who could push to the end of this mess, who would fight until her last breath, who might have a chance at survival. This person was a fighter, a survivor – and, they thought, a hero. I could be her again. Shit, no, I would be her again.
Still, as I stood in the wreckage of London, watching my ship fly away, leaving me alone on the ground, my heart broke just like I'd anticipated. I recognized that feeling of loneliness, the same one I had lived with for years, ignoring it for what it was because I didn't know better back then. This man, these people… They had turned my life upside down for the better and for the worse. They had made me vulnerable, but in a way, they had also brought out a new kind of strength I didn't realize I had. Before, goodbyes had never been emotional. People had come and gone in my life, never staying, never belonging there. They had been flickers of time, weak presences overshadowed by the person I was supposed to be. But my team on the Normandy had never expected that from me. They had held me when I had been at my worst, they had comforted me in times of grief, they had supported me no matter what, followed me to hell and back. They had never minded the tears, the cries, the fears. Hell, they had even welcomed them as proof that I was only human after all.
It had all come to this. Every single step I had ever taken in life, back to the tiny ones I had taken as a child, had led me to this moment, when I would be the only one standing in this ghost of a city. Fighting to the end, because it was the only thing I knew how to do. The thing I had done best all my life.
Except this time, I wasn't really alone. Despite the appearances, they were still here with me, every step of the way. They were the very reason I was standing here. They were the best part of me, the best part of who I'd become. And they were everything I was fighting for, everything I wanted to come back to, every reason I had to stay alive, every hope I had for a future. Now, as the world didn't make sense anymore, they did; they made sense. Life had taught me that the walls we build in order to protect our hearts can suddenly come crashing down, and one can't do anything about it. But it had also taught me that despite this, some things just make sense. We did. Him and me. The people I'd chosen to surround myself with. I had learned that, yes, I would be broken, but then we would rebuild it – my walls, my soul – together. And so they made sense when nothing else did anymore. When the world was a desperate mess, when people kept dying despite our best efforts, when everything seemed to be coming apart, they made sense. They made it seem like it was worth fighting, like it was worth not giving up, just so we could have these tiny, insignificant and yet so meaningful moments. Small instants spent laughing together, enjoying ourselves; jokes thrown at each other; stolen kisses in the hallway; poker nights; dinner in the mess. Nobody could ever take that away from me. Not even the Reapers. Even flying somewhere out there, they still had my back. I had no idea, absolutely none, if I would make it back to them in one piece, or at all. They were not safe either, not yet, not until the threat was finally neutralized, not until my job was done. But it didn't really matter. I was ready to die if it meant having them live, even if I wasn't there to see it, even if they had to heal and grieve over me. That's what family meant to me now: giving it all up if it meant guaranteeing they would not have to – all my dreams, my entire future if need be, growing old with him, seeing the peace I had fought so hard for – all of it, just to know it would mean they'd get to live and breathe somewhere out there.
The Normandy disappeared on the horizon. I gritted my teeth and braced both myself and my muscles, ready to run ahead. I didn't know what awaited me in the next few hours, in the next minutes. I knew dying might be in the cards, but losing – losing was not. I would be okay. One last time, for them, I would be okay.
And make the sacrifice no one else would make.