This is some short story that I needed to get out of my head and I know that there's probably another similar work like this one, but oh well...
Everything was like she always pictured how it would be, and when she entered the beam and finally made it to the Citadel, she smirked before gathering the strength to get up.
She knew she was going to die, but she was going to make it. And she was going to end that madness, once and for all.
When The Illusive Man fell to the floor with his own bullet to the head, in that moment is when she really realized it. They were no threats left, and only a single thing left to do before getting the rest that she—that everyone—deserved.
Shepard crumbled next to the dying figure of Anderson, sitting next to him. His labored breaths matched her own ones, but that wasn't enough to take away her relief.
"Commander," he mumbled, acknowledging her. She imitated his stance, resting her back for a moment on the closest platform and stretching her legs. Giving herself a little calm before the storm, before the inevitable end of them.
She turned to him, a sigh full of relief escaping her lips, "We did it," she just said, and he agreed with her words, giving an exhausted nod before turning to the landscape in front of them.
"It's… quite the view," he had to admit, releasing a little chuckle, a mix of both pain and satisfaction. Pieces of a dead Reaper were floating close to the Earth's atmosphere, and she tried to laugh but her left side was hurting so much that she almost choked.
But she wasn't about to leave Anderson alone just in that moment, "Best seats in the house," she tried to joke, forcing her lungs to not breath too much and trying to hold the pain from the puncture below them.
"God… it's been years since I just… sat down," Shepard had to turn her eyes to him when next to the dead Reaper, her gaze shifted to at least a dozen turian ships floating around it, all of them obliterated.
Her insides started to burn and Shepard struggled for breath while trying to keep talking to Anderson, "I think you've earned a rest…" but he just hummed low and it was obvious how he was forcing his eyes to maintaining them open. She swallowed hard and pleaded, "Stay with me… we're almost through this"
But deep inside she knew that he wasn't looking forward to see the end of the war. "You did good, child… you did good." He leaned to her side, clutching his stomach with both hands, and when he tried to cough, a little drop of blood fell from his mouth to the floor. But he was insistent, and continued, "I'm proud of you, Jane"
"Thank you, sir," she tore her eyes away from the blood stain and gazed at him again. She noticed how he was very still on her side, "Anderson?" she whispered, her voice thin, but she knew that he wasn't going to move anymore.
Shepard closed her eyes and clenched her teeth, forcing herself to maintain her posture, to not embrace the pain that she was feeling just now. The dead needed to wait just a little more before she finally reunited with them.
She gathered all the force that she could muster and took three deep breaths, just what she needed to be awake, to feel alive and to still hold on. Her eyes traveled to the landscape but her mind started to drive away from the Citadel, her thoughts enclosing onto the Normandy and its crew, her crew.
Were they going to be alright? Was everyone alright? She had to think they were, because if they don't, all her struggles were for nothing. With a hand still holding her side, the other traveled to her comm, hoping for a moment that it was still working somehow, and she hold still for a second before attempting to reach her ship. Her insides started to burn again when the name of Garrus crossed her omni tool, but the least she wanted was to crush the little hopes he surely had for her to make it out alive.
Her eyes started watering, both from the pain and her struggle to reach Garrus, and she gathered another deep breath, closing her eyes and letting the tears fall, a mix of salt and blood washing over her face. I'm so sorry, Garrus. Oh, God, I hope you know how much I am.
She pressed the button to activate the comms. "Jo—Joker?" she panted, hoping and praying to the spirits and gods of all species that he could hear her somehow, "C—can you hear me?"
Suddenly, she heard a loud static and a male voice in the distance, his words very difficult for her to understand, but after a few seconds, the comms started to fix—surely EDI was on it—and Joker came again, a worried tone in his voice, "Shepard! Normandy to Shepard, please tell me that you're there…"
"I'm… I'm on the Citadel," she managed to mumble, trying not to lean to her side and making an effort to sit straight. She heard a lot of steps on the background of the comm and she realized that probably her voice was reaching the entire ship by now. That wasn't good. "You… managed to get out?"
"Shepard!" Liara's voice entered in her comm, next to a lot of her crew calling for her. I can't say goodbye to all of them again. "Shepard, the Crucible is not working. Nothing is happening!" Tali managed to say out loud, covering the chatting around her.
Her eyes opened and her lungs started to hurt so much that she felt that it was tearing up her insides, but she started to move anyway, because there must be something she could do in that chamber to help. A pained cry came out of her throat when she tried to get up, but that wasn't what stopped her from crawling to the screen.
It was Garrus' desperate tone in her comm, "Shepard, stay with us, we're coming to get you!"
Another yelp came out of her mouth, but this one she was sure that it wasn't from the pain of her body. She managed to keep crawling, stretching a hand to hold onto the screen and try to do something to activate the Crucible.
It has to work. Harbringer itself was protecting the beam, this couldn't be for nothing.
With all the force she could muster, she held onto the screen and forced her legs to get up, "There has to be some—" she leaned onto the console, aware that the entire ship was listening to her panting. Fortunately, all that they were doing was yelling to her that she needed to hold on just a moment.
"The shuttle is on its way from Earth, Shepard. Wrex is there with Miranda and Jack," Liara interrupted and got the reins of the comms, informing her of their plans.
Shepard almost yelped again. Were they giving up on the Crucible? Making a suicide attempt to get her out of there and not really leaving, was it because everything was useless? Hackett was aware of that? Were they giving up on her?
No, my crew wouldn't do that just now, or ever.
She blinked hard a couple of times before focusing on the console, trying her best to understand and looking for something that could open the arms of the Citadel, at least that was something she could do. "Joker, leave… I can—I can—"
But then, the floor below her started to glow and before she could realize it, a massive round of pain started to gather inside her head, on her brain, and she fell again. A blinding light was surrounding her, and everything felt like she was being ripped apart from the inside. Like her brain cells were exploding, destroying her implants, and the only thing she could do was scream with all the air in her lungs, clutching both sides of her head, attempting uselessly to prevent her skull from exploding as well.
The comm started to break again, but what she could hear besides her own screams of agony, were the voices of her crew calling for… Garrus?
And then, everything went silent, and all she heard was a loud beep in her ears. It was a full second when she thought that she must have been deaf—because she couldn't even hear her own screaming—and she figured that everything must be over. Her body no longer responded to her and the pain disappeared, leaving only the blinding light behind her eyelids.
Maybe her brain finally exploded, or maybe the pain was too much that she no longer felt it, but she welcomed the sensation. The loud beep on her ears was the sound of death after all. It had to be.
But then, all of a sudden, the sound came back, and with it the shredding pain in her insides. And a flanging voice was screaming, matching her own cries in the comm.
"Garrus! What's happening?" Liara's voice never sounded more desperate in her years in the Normandy. "He's convulsing, someone get Chakwas!" Joker yelled, shutting down the loud sobbing of Tali in the distance.
Shepard wanted to ask too what was going on, but blood started to get down her nose, and the pain was finally subsiding, draining her of all the strength she could have. She struggled and forced herself to talk, but not even air was reaching her lungs, and her back touched the floor, the muscles of her neck giving up and one of her cheeks touching the cold surface.
Between all the yelling, Joker was still attempting to talk to her, "The shuttle is almost there, Shepard, hold on!" but Shepard wasn't giving importance to his words when the sobs and screams of the women of the ship were getting louder and louder, "EDI, help him!" and Shepard wanted to cry with them as well. Because, whatever was happening to her and Garrus, it wasn't what she supposed it was going to end.
I was prepared to die here, if that meant that they survive. That he survives.
The white light was diminishing, or it was the darkness finally embracing her and taking her away? It was really that easy, that peaceful to die a second time?
"Oh, Goddess… no, Goddess, he's gone…"
Her body started to convulse violently when the air was fully drained from her lungs, but Shepard didn't even make an effort trying to breathe. And she didn't found any strength left in her after Garrus stopped screaming on the other side.
It didn't take long for the yelling and for all the sound to disappear, and for everything fading into black.