A/N: This one wasn't originally intended to be a Shepard/Traynor piece (does this ship even have a name?); it was supposed to be Shepard being angry because all her friends are dead.
"Losing Thessia wasn't your fault."
"No, it wasn't, because we haven't lost Thessia," Shepard insisted, her voice uncharacteristically loud, "just like we haven't lost Earth, or Palaven." She'd kept it together for the crew, and for Hackett and the councilor, but here in the safety of her cabin, with only Traynor by her side, Shepard's composure was beginning to slip. It wasn't the pressure of failing her mission, or seeing Liara so distraught, or even watching as Thessia burned.
It was how alone she felt.
"Missions - and wars - aren't won or lost because of one person," she seethed, marching down the steps to her bed and pretending she didn't notice when Traynor reached out a hand. "Everything we're going to do is only possible because there are hundreds of thousands of people out there working together. That's how it's always been."
"Nobody's asking you to win this war alone—"
Before she could finish, Shepard silenced her with a wave of her hand and plopped down on her bed, ignoring the fact that she was still wearing her armor, covered in dirt and sweat and blood. "But they are. When you hear about Saren, you hear about howCommander Shepard defeated him. Commander Shepard took out the Collector base, and now Commander Shepard is uniting the galaxy."
Traynor slowly sat next to Shepard, leaving a fair amount of room between them, and offered hesitantly, "You are uniting the galaxy. And the crew - the whole crew, comm specialist included," she added with a small smile, "are right behind you."
Taking a deep, steadying breath, Shepard began again, her voice once again calm. "Did you ever hear about the time on Feros that I got knocked out cold by one of the geth, and Kaidan carried me back to the Normandy? Tali covered him the whole way, and took a pretty bad shot to the leg that gave her a nasty infection. Or," she continued, her gaze locked on the closed cabin door, "about the time we picked up Garrus on Omega? He was bleeding all over the floor, Zaeed and I were out of ammo, and Miranda took out a gunship with a pistol and some fancy biotics."
"I—no," Traynor admitted, "I've never heard those stories."
"They're all dead," Shepard continued, her words barely more than a whisper. "Kaidan and Tali and Zaeed and Miranda. And now, Thane and Samara and Mordin and Legion are gone." She paused, reaching over to take one of Traynor's hands. "There are days that I don't care if we lose every planet out there," she confessed, "but if I lose one more soldier under my command…"
"You won't." When Traynor gave Shepard's hand a reassuring squeeze, she couldn't feel it through the thick material of her gloves; instead, she saw it as her eyes lit up with hope and the corners of her lips crept up into a small half-smile. "Because you're going to save the galaxy, then we're going to spend a long, long time on a nice vacation and treat ourselves to expensive drinks."
"Yeah." Shepard knew it wouldn't be that simple, but they'd get there; they deserved it.