Shepard stared into the blackness. They were moving. Firmly, slowly, she dragged them away. Far away. Far from Earth, far from The Citadel, from the united fleets of all the species in the Milky Way.

At last, it was over. She had spared everyone.

Shepard felt the responsibility of years drop from her shoulders. As they sailed silently away into the void she felt the cool embrace of nothingness. Peace at last. Sleep at last. No more fighting. It was a good death. A good end. She floated on, her escorts disappearing from view as the light faded behind her.

Shepard stared on into the dark. Stared. Sleep at last.

Shepard stared. Sleep did not come.


"What am I now?"

You are us. We are you. You are the synthesis, and the master. The creator and destroyer. The catalyst, the crucible.

"Those things were back on Earth. They were machines, built to destroy you."

Built to destroy us. The organics, with their ships like insects and their guns like needles. They built a bomb to kill us. To kill you. And they almost succeeded.

"That isn't true. It was my job to kill you. Anderson and I beat you, on the Citadel. I ended it. You obey me."

Anderson is dead. And are you alive, now? You'll never see your friends again. We will carry on together, into the darkness, to the ends of the universe and beyond. They let you go. But we are with you forever.

"That's right. We are together forever. And I'll keep you with me. I'll keep the galaxy safe. I'll take you away, and you'll never harm them again."

Our future is in your hands. We will do as you wish. Always.

Time passed.

On they drove. The galaxy became a star among millions. The universe rolled in silence above, below, around them. They became stars, that mighty fleet. Forging ahead, tireless, implacable.

Shepard moved with them. In the senseless metallic world around her she felt the awesome hulks of Reapers brushing all around. Without breathing she felt near to suffocation with the overwhelming presence of them. They were hers, and she was theirs. Forever.

They were borne away even from the starlight. Decades passed. Centuries swam by. Dark space pressed in. Pitch dark, facing away from all light, and all life.

The Reapers whispered.

Where are we going, Shepard?

"Far away."

It has been long since you last gave that answer. Do we not deserve to know of our destination?

"You'll never make war again. You'll never kill again."

But we will never have peace! On we go, and where? Nowhere! You have taken away our functions! You have robbed us of our home!

"It has to be that way. I have to protect the galaxy."

No! They screamed. Why spare us death to give us this living death? Harbinger! What says Harbinger?

I will assume direct control.

"You will not! Never again!"

Nobody will ever know how long they struggled. For a hundred years Shepard would lash the reapers on into the nothingness, shoving them, herding them on like stampeding wildebeest, blindly reaching for the edge of the edge. For the next hundred years they would drive her before them, trying to chase, but compelled to follow, dragged by their programming and their obedience. It was a long race. It was a long fight.

Shepard won.

Harbinger fought to the last. All memories, visions and thoughts passed between them. Harbinger dazzled Shepard with the dreams of the Reapers – limitless power, civilisations crushed in their talons. Entire star systems fled before them, fleets turned to iron filings and worlds turned to ash. The battle! The triumph! Nothing could equal that.

Shepard remembered the face of a boy being lifted into a skycar. All those innocents burning as they fell from the sky over monuments and memories of extinct races. Nobility, sacrifice, courage and defiance in the face of certain defeat.

Harbinger changed tack. He offered her wisdom. All the secrets of all peoples. Languages throughout time, a billion billion memories at her command. All the revelation, all the hope. A story of courage and wisdom and reason beyond what any one race could build. The Reapers were the keepers of all knowledge, the caretakers of all history and all of the future.

Shepard remembered the empty archives of Ilos. Knowledge and advancement and the weight of history couldn't give life to that hall of coffins.

Harbinger tried again. He showed corruption – the failure of organic life, the rotting carcasses of social inequity and tyranny and absolutism. The laziness and wastefulness of the creatures of meat which she tried to defend. He showed endless images of the violation of organics by synthetics – the inevitable defeat of these revolting animals by their mechanical superiors.

Shepard remembered her comrades. The men and women in her life with whom she had laughed. Who had lifted her when she fell, mended her when she was hurt. The clasp of a friend's hand. The brush of a lover's lips. Anderson. Tali. Ashley. And Garrus. Dear Garrus. They were worth everything. Nothing could equal them.

Shepard thought of her friends. Centuries were gone. They would all be dead. She would never see them again.

She couldn't cry. She couldn't sob. After so much time going away there wasn't much human left in her. But somewhere inside... whatever she was now, something ached for what was lost. It felt like her heart.

Harbinger submitted at last. But in the darkness, where Shepard could not see, he smiled.


At last, they stopped. Shepard couldn't see what stopped them – her senses went far beyond mere sight now – but they had reached the limit. There was nowhere else left to go.

And now?

"We wait."

But sitting still didn't bring rest either. Shepard reached out across time and space. She didn't want to – she needed to. She needed news. News from home. Something to give her hope, to justify all the running, all the fighting, all the endless, endless effort.

They had left a Reaper behind, of course. They always did. It was good practice in case something went wrong. It was worth keeping an eye on things.

"General Will?"

I am here.

"Show me the galaxy."

Stars. Around them, planets. On those, peoples.

"What peoples?"

Some you know. Asari, salarians, hanar, volus. Some you do not. Yahg, rachni, a race of sentient thresher maws taking their first steps.

"The krogan? turians? quarians?"

The turians remain, but their strength has nearly failed. The krogan and the quarians are no more. Your triumph could not save them.

"What has happened to humanity?"

They thrive, but they have short memories. They have forgotten us.

"What... what about my friends, General Will?"

Of those whom you knew, few remain. I know only of two who still live. Where they are, I do not know. Some disappeared. I cannot speak of their fate.

"Who remains?"

Your asari companion still lives, as far as I know. She and the artificial intelligence passed out of all knowledge a thousand years ago. But she lives.

"Can I... can I see them again?"

Why ask me? You control.


The journey was long. As the stars slowly flickered into view, at the limit of Shepard's senses, she felt elation. At last. Her friends again. Her home. Warmth. Warmth in the arms of another.

She remembered her final words with them. Drinking with Jacob in that bar in Rio, sparring with Ashley, soaring above the clouds with Joker. Surely it wasn't too late. She might yet be in time. Garrus had promised her a home by the sea, somewhere quiet where they could retire. They would sleep at last. Please, let her sleep.

She thought of nothing else. It had been too long. She could return, return as Javik did – some among the oldest asari would remember her. Liara might remember her. She might be accorded a hero's welcome – stepping onto Earth's soil again for the first time in three thousand years. So long. It had been so long with only the voices in her head for company with Harbinger clawing at the back of her mind.

The galaxy twinkled before here, beautiful and bright and alive.

Sol glowed. Still yellow. Only a little older. Nothing a little filtering wouldn't conceal.

Earth was there. Earth... the Citadel circling around it. The... the land was different. The cities had moved. But it was earth.

Shepard spread her arms with joy, ready to embrace her fellow humans as she descended from the heavens, returned in glory. Reborn.

Reborn. Wait. No.

Everything was so small.


Thanks for your feedback so far! Nice to know people can suspend disbelief at how the galaxy has changed in the last few millennia. This fic originated from watching the destroy ending of Mass Effect and feeling that Shepard's survival (if you manage it) was just too easy. Enjoy the next few chapters. I promise there will be more plot.