The Obligatory Epilogue

He pulled the last piece of rubble free and looked down at her, tried to find the real her behind the ruin of flesh at his feet. Her wounds were innumerable and he didn't need his visor to tell him that all life had flown. Slowly, as if he didn't wish to wake her, Garrus lifted Jane's corpse from the tomb it had made of the crashed Citadel. He held her close and shut his eyes at the waves of pounding grief that flooded him, feeling guilt that there was no small measure of relief mixed into it as well. He'd been afraid of her as much as he'd been afraid for her. Her and her damn vengeance.

"Thane was right." said a voice to his left and he half turned to take in the woman who'd accompanied him here. Miranda Lawson, no longer flying Cerberus colors. She was standing tall, hair flying in the breeze as she took in the vast ruined landscape of her people's homeworld. The city was in flames but that didn't take away from the hope that shone in her eyes. The guillotine had not fallen, the end had not ended them.

But he only had eyes for the dead one in his arms. Garrus let himself remember that last few months of fighting, hectic, the terror that gripped him as he was forced to witness atrocity after atrocity. He'd done his best to be the counterweight, and sometimes succeeded. The genophage was cured, even though Jane had pushed to fool the krogans into only believing it so. To keep the Dalatrass happy. The quarians were dead, as well as all the geth. He'd failed them in being unable to move Shepard to pity that once.

A hand landed on his shoulder and he swiveled his head to look down at his salarian friend, new lines on his face indicating how harrowing their ordeal was. Mordin said, kindly, "We won. Reapers dead."

The thing with the genophage and the quarians were only a couple in uncountable instances of such things that had conspired to rob him of his sanity. Jane had been a force of nature, cruel and indomitable. Even more so after Thane had been taken from her. She'd run at every obstacle like a mad thing, using every trick, deception and outright betrayal to accomplish this.

She'd gone so far that a few had fled her side, even Zaeed. Garrus wondered for a moment how that old bastard was doing out in the Terminus, maybe he'd found a place of his own. He hoped so, a beach, a pretty wife maybe, some bright ending. Spirits knew they needed a brighter future.

Garrus couldn't have left, as much as he'd have liked to. He saw how much she needed him, how could he run now.

But they had this. Victory, at last. And at so high a cost in lives and at times, nearly his soul. Victory over her old enemies, they'd found her nemesis a few feet away already, his once glowing blue eyes dully staring at the sky. Garrus looked down into her barely recognizable face and whispered, "Yes, the monsters are all dead."

She'd kept her promise as best she could, gave him everything he needed to help her, except time. Time he could have used to change her nature, fix her broken soul. Now she was dead. At least, perhaps she would find solace there, the two would be re-united on the other side of the veil. Him and her, Thane and Jane, and they would be free of the things they'd done in this life.

A shuffling from his side reminded him that Miranda had lost someone close to her as well. You could see it in her eyes, the slight sloping of her shoulders. So many were gone and yet she was still here. The woman said, "Now what?"

Garrus walked to a shuttle that had a gurney for just this purpose strapped in the rear and set Jane's corpse onto it. He looked at his comrades, for that was what they'd become, people to cherish and trust. He said, "Now we're free. The past and the future have no hold on us. All oaths have been fulfilled."

"..Free..." Miranda smiled and laughed, "I don't even know what that is any more."

"Perhaps time to find out." Mordin said, hopping in after them.

Yes, there's time to find out, Garrus echoed in his mind and laughed clear and loud as the vehicle lifted off. He sat back and pulled the gift she'd given him so long ago to him, its black lacquer shining dully, deadly and quiet, just as she'd been. With talon, he started the laborous etching on its stock, adding a few names, running his fingers over them, just remembering. All the dead ones. Making a new oath to never forget the cost of pride...and the reward of sacrifice.