AN: Sorry for the delay in updates - busy week. The beginning of this section might be a little confusing, but it is from Shepard's POV and she's confused so... hopefully that works out...
Entropy
A fellow soldier, someone she'd done N7 training with back in the day, had described the feeling of a Biotic Charge to her. The slight pressure building at your temples, the tingling of biotic tingling through your limbs, and the sudden rush as if experience an FTL Jump the way a ship does. Being one moment here, and then the next here being somewhere else entirely.
How his first Charge had been unnerving enough that he'd had to drink the feeling away that night.
Shepard finds herself experiencing that jump again and again. She finds herself flashing through time, around a large hall whose details are becoming more and more faded in her mind. She's looking up at a massive statue. No, now it's carvings. No, wait, now it's a bust.
She's drowning, fucking drowning in her inability to concentrate, to hold on to a single goddamn minute before she's in some other goddamn minute. Even with Garrus and Liara there, she feels alone. They're talking, both of them are talking, but she just can't anchor herself to anything. Don't they notice that she's gone?
And then she's being shot at - fucking shot at - and she just doesn't know which way is up.
The rifle's in her hands, already she's lowering it. What could she even point it at? She doesn't know what the target is -
That's when the first bullets hit her. Hard, straight in the chest and she staggers slightly but more are coming and eating through her already low shields.
Her focus comes back slowly. A little more as each bullet hits her, knocking her farther back when all she can do is stare wide-eyed. Garrus snarling desperately for her to get down, but either her hearing's going or her translator's mucking it up because she barely understands him.
Gunship. That's what's hitting her, shooting her relentlessly. Her limbs move like jelly but she starts to feel them cooperate...
And then that terrible sound of her shields finally giving out and the all too familiar feel of a bullet going straight through her leg. She drops where she is - even as the feeling's coming back the only thing she finds now is pain - but the bullets have stopped.
Liara. Liara's in front of her, biotics casting a pale shell between them and the ship.
He appears from out of nowhere, scoops her into his arms and is yelling at Liara to give it up, they have to get into real cover now.
An explosion and she's flown forward through time again. Smoke and dust and she's alone but god there's a lot of blood on her. Leg wound, yes, still bleeding, but no, not all of this can be hers...
"I don't see why the Illusive Man troubles himself so much when it comes to your interference." The voice is cold and condescending. She turns to look the man in the eyes only to find narrow slits. The man is soulless, she knows it instantly. "You're clearly not worth the trouble."
Deep in her blood - her blood goddamnit - she knows she hates that man. That she'd like nothing more than to riddle his body with holes and skewer him alive. A rage she can't explain takes hold of her and she charges him on her bloody leg.
What kind of asshole brings a sword to a gunfight, she wonders as she dodges his blade. She has no idea where her own gun is, lost in whatever happened between this jump and the other, but it doesn't matter because she can still throw a mean punch.
She leans her weight behind it - has to, really, because of her leg - is about to connect...
On the follow through there's no one there, the ghost of that damn man gone and instead a huge chasm.
Her heart has stopped in her chest, she sweats it has to, and there's no conscious thoughts as she scrambles to grab a hold of anything, anything to stop her descent into blackness. The metaphorical implications aren't lost on her, but unlike with her memory, this is real, this is tangible and when she flails out in desperation there's actually something there to catch hold of.
Somehow she manages not to disappear through time again as she climbs back to the light. Her leg is burning in fiery numbness but it still does what she asks of it. It's starting to give out though, when she's closer to the top. Five more feet, that's all she needs...
A familiar gloved talon appears and as soon as she's close enough, she grabs on as tightly as she dares. She scrambles over the edge as he pulls her the last bit, both panting but up again almost instantly.
"Can you walk?"
She tries her weight on the left leg. "I can limp."
He hesitates a second before offering a shoulder and sharing the burden of her weight. She barely has time to settle herself before he's got them hobbling towards the exit.
The building's collapsing around them. She's barely better than a cripple at this point and won't be able to run if they need to. Garrus is beaten up just as badly, it looks like, because he flinches every time his right foot hits the ground and she can smell the almost sweet scent of turian blood. As always, he's a stubborn bastard and keeps plowing towards the entrance.
A piece of falling rubble forces them apart. They throw themselves in opposite directions. As the block hits with a boom that shakes the floor slightly, she hits the ground hard on her injured leg. Of course.
She hisses in pain and pushes desperately for the medigel release, apparently long empty. The building's falling with renewed vigor, every few yards a new ceiling beam splintering into dozens of smaller pieces.
It doesn't bother her too much to think this is the end. Never did before. It's almost a relief, a strange sort of relief forged in an adrenaline run and a growing combat weariness, and she can't help the grimace, the goddamn pout when she feels Vakarian trying to pull her back to her feet.
"Get out of here, Garrus. That's an order."
In her somewhat distinguished career, she's seen a lot of shit and she's ready to stop seeing it. To call it a day and hand off this whole galaxy saving business to whoever's next in line.
"With all due respect, you were relieved of command."
She's unceremoniously pulled to her feet, so hard he almost dislocates her shoulder, but they're up and limping furiously around the remains of this goddamned temple she doesn't even remember.
Maybe thirty, maybe twenty feet to go is when the blue in the corner of her vision catches her eyes. Such a familiar shade...
"Liara," she moans. Oh god, not Liara. Shepard tries to go in that direction, needs to be sure, can't just leave her. Even if she looks so lifeless... Still, what if...?
But Garrus is pulling her away. She resists but his grip only tightens. "No time." He sounds severe and cold, but there's a bitterness and heartbroken quality underneath that she couldn't just be imagining.
When they're out in the open she breaks free and he finally lets her. A wail builds in her throat as she collapses in a puddle on the ground, somehow unable to weep despite the pain festering in her leg and growing in her chest. But she finds it meets aches already there, as though this is not the first comrade she's lost and mourned but god she can't even remember who is gone, who has bled out in front of her.
Her fingers dig into the ground, wanting to crawl beneath it until she finds everyone and everything she's lost in this fucking war. She just wants to crawl into her early grave and bury herself in oblivion-
A coldness fills her as she realizes that that is something she can do.
She slams her head against the pavement. A small splatter of blood reflects her effort. Although ringing, her head is mostly still clear and goddamnit she's still here. No no no please no. She slams her head again, praying that the next Shepard, the one who gets to forget Liara's body twisted at that god awful angle-
"Shepard!" For a moment it's her voice before her muddled head puts it together and it's Garrus. His arms are firmly around hers, he's trying to pull her into a hug. No, a hug is for comfort. He means to restrain her.
"No!" she shrieks, fists coming up to pound her head. "Forget!" she sobs between blows. "Forget!" She can't move anymore, he's got her too tight and now tears are actually flowing.
"She died for you," he hisses. "Don't make her death worthless."
There's no way to know how long he holds her there, surrounded by a planet dying. She lets him, doesn't want to but lets him anyway, until she's not drowning anymore.
No. Now she's just slipping away with the tide...