(Mass Effect 3 feels prompted this.)
It's all down to this final moment.
You have to choose.
She knows that for every moment spent staring, people are dying. It's amazing and appalling that for however long the Catalyst has existed, it has managed to distill the fate of the galaxy into three options.
Destroy all synthetic life? Then what was the point of brokering peace for the quarians and the geth?
To control the Reapers? Never. It can never be that simple, that easy. The Illusive Man - Jack - thought it could be. This war, her life has taught her that nothing is that easy.
A new level of evolution? To force synthesis between man and machine? And then what?
Shepard knows that she can't do nothing. She didn't come all this way, didn't sacrifice friends, a future, her future to stand here and die doing nothing. She is a Marine, a soldier, and she knows what happens to people who do nothing.
The child is standing there, saying nothing, just watching. Even though she knows that it's no more than an VI, she can see the knowing look. It knows what her choice is - will be.
Anderson used to say that there's always another way. If you can't find it, you just haven't looked hard enough. She wants to believe that she will be right.
This is it, she tells herself. There is no coming back from this one. Making those promises was a stupid thing to do, but what else could she have done? Liara's final plea rings in her ears and she feels the tears come. Throughout this whole shit show of a war, she hasn't been able to cry. But now, at the end, she can feel the sting and the heat of her own tears.
She staggers away, turns her back on the child. She can't look back now. Not anymore.
And then, she can see them.
A hand is outstretched.
It's okay, she hears. It will be okay.
She believes.
For the last time, Shepard believes and reaches out.