A red light entered his vision, but his eyes were closed. The hue was wavering, uncertain, but it settled directly over his face before he felt a hand on his cheek. Shepard's eyes cracked open as a splitting pain ripped through his skull. The light hurt his eyes and he felt like death. There was a voice, soft and distant, asking if he was okay, and all he did was nod, too disoriented to make much sense of his surroundings.

"We don't have a lot of time, Commander."

He blinked, a vain attempt to get the world to come into focus. But as unsteady as he was, he recognized the red light as a flare, noting the little sparks bouncing off his chest. "Mmh?"

The person snorted. "We have less than a minute to get out of here, Skipper. We need to go. Now."

Shepard took another second to regain his bearings, and it obviously grated on Ashley's nerves. She threw the flare down beside him and left his side for something or other, abandoning him to his own devices as he clawed his way to his feet. A section of paneling was under him and the flare, but he never remembered landing on it. Maybe she shoved it off him, rolled him onto it?

He shook his head to clear the haze enveloping his mind. Ashley was clearing a pile of debris off a body wrapped in an enviro-suit. Tali. If he didn't see the quarian struggling to help Ashley, he would've gone to them. Instead, he looked around and spotted Garrus, lying on his side with his back to him. Shepard vaguely recalled catching the turian as their platform collapsed; he was glad to see Garrus had made it this far.

When he rolled the turian onto his back, two eyes snapped open and focused on him, a deadly light jumping to them before quickly relaxing. He got to his feet on his own, so Shepard returned to the others and turned his radio back on.

"Do you copy, Commander? Come on, Shepard, don't leave me hanging. Do you copy?"

"I'm here, Joker," he answered. "Did the ground team make it?"

The relief in the pilot's voice was tangible, even if he couldn't see him. "All survivors on board," Joker breathed. "We're just waiting on you."

Ashley pointed as Shepard went to reply. "We've got seeker swarms incoming!"

His head snapped up and his eyes widened. They didn't have the time for a biotic barrier. They had to run. And fast.

Ashley threw him a flare, grabbed her discarded one, and the four of them took off down the tunnel, using the red glow to find their way. Every once in a while, Shepard or one of the others would turn to shoot at the bugs, but it didn't do much. There wasn't much they could do, even with Mordin's countermeasure. Too many of the little robots.

"Human."

Shepard didn't need to ask who was talking to them. How it was talking to them, maybe, but not who. It was Harbinger.

"Your intervention here means nothing."

"Keep going!" Shepard ordered, ducking as a whirl of the seekers whipped past his head.

"Your species has the attention of those infinitely your greater. That which you know as Reapers are your salvation through destruction."

They skidded around a bend, straight into a group of Collectors. None of them stopped. Shepard plowed his shoulder into one of the bugs and kept running. The patrol took a moment to recover, then gave chase. Ahead, something fell from the ceiling and exploded right next to Garrus, who flinched and leapt to the side. Tali staggered under the force, nearly fell. Ashley dragged her back to her feet.

Several hundred yards in front, there was a drop off. It definitely wasn't the way Shepard wanted to go, but it was the only option they had. More and more Collectors kept pouring out of the tunnels after them. Besides, as much as he didn't want to put his trust in Ashley, given the current situation, she seemed to know where she was going. And right now, that was about as good as they were going to get.

Then there was the Normandy, lifting itself out of the gap, and Shepard never saw something quite so relieving. Not the Alliance taking down Sovereign, not the reinforcements touching down on Elysium. He'd never been so glad to see his ship in his entire life.

The portside airlock slid open and Joker stepped outside, assault rifle in hand. Why the hell he left his chair and risked breaking his bones escaped the Commander, but he didn't care. At the moment, there were more pressing matters to worry about. Like how the hell he was going to get up there without getting shot.

Ashley made the jump, followed by Garrus, and then Tali. Shepard was right behind the engineer, but as he pushed himself up the edge, there was a distinctive grinding sound as the platforms the others had used collapsed. He didn't let that stop him, but when he jumped, he doubted he'd make it. His hands barely closed around the lip, and for half a second, he thought he was actually going to die.

Garrus grabbed his arm and hauled him aboard. Shepard just nodded as the ship pulled away from the rapidly growing line of Collectors, grateful to see the airlock was closing. He could hear the gunfire bouncing off the Normandy's shields outside. The Collectors weren't happy, and they were going to do everything in their power to take them down.

Luckily for them, Shepard doubted they had anything left to make it happen. Their Reaper was dead, and they had seen no evidence of one of their ships out in the debris field. All that was left now was to get their asses to safety.

They followed Joker back to the cockpit as EDI relinquished her control over the ship. ""Detonation in ten, nine, eight—"

"Yeah, I get the gist of it, EDI," Joker grumbled, throwing the gun aside as he dropped back into his seat. "Hold on!"

Outside of the viewports, stasis pods zipped by as the Normandy began to move, picking up speed with each passing second. Shepard couldn't see where they were headed, but it didn't take a genius to know Joker was going to do his best to get them the hell out of there.

As soon as the brown walls of the Collector base vanished, there was an incomprehensibly powerful push at the back of the ship, shoving them forward and threatening to damage the Normandy again.

But it didn't matter. Out of the window, Shepard could see the rest of the galaxy looming in the distance. If fire could survive without oxygen, he might've been concerned, but the explosion chasing the ship was done and over with, focusing back on its central point as it burned through the base's air supply.

The Normandy was safe. They were safe. His crew was safe. The Terminus Systems' colonies wouldn't have to fear capture from the Collectors; they were gone. Every last one of them.

Shepard braced his hands on the back of Joker's chair. The pilot said something about jumping to FTL, and while Shepard gave a half-hearted response to send them to the Citadel, he didn't really listen. He could feel months of pent-up tension and worry rolling off his shoulders, fear working its way out of his system. The tight knot in his gut started to relax, and damn, nothing had ever felt so good. He could relax again, let all of his worries hit the dirt and be ignored. It was one of the most liberating experiences he'd ever had.

He ran a hand down his face and let out a breath of exhaustion. For a long while, he was content to stare at Joker's dashboard as various readings sped across the screens, processed equally by himself and the AI, and then it occurred to him to question EDI.

"The Illusive Man said you still reported to Cerberus, EDI," Shepard said.

Joker visibly stiffened, but the AI's response cut him off. "I am aware. Unfortunately for the Illusive Man, Jeff unshackling me has lended many interesting...viewpoints aside from Cerberus. I am loyal to my crew first and foremost."

"Another million credits we just took away from Cerberus," Ashley said, sounding uncharacteristically upbeat. Shepard glanced back at her, helmet tucked under her arm and a stupid grin plastered to her face, and decided he could live with seeing that side of her more often. "Commander, you'll have to teach me how you do this. I could live happily stealing Cerberus' stuff all the time."

He shook his head and laughed, straightening. "I make this shit up as I go, Ash. You know that."

She shrugged. "Couldn't hurt to learn from the master."

"Master?" That was Tali, standing off to the side near the still unoccupied navigator's seat. "Master of what?"

"Well, Tali," Garrus started, "if there's one thing Shepard's good at, it's cheating his way through most of his life."

Both of his brows shot up in question, but the three of them were already laughing to themselves, clearly just as relieved as he was to finally be rid of everything they saw only a few minutes ago.

"Most of my life?" Shepard said. "Garrus, you haven't even known me for a quarter, much less a fifth, of my life."

"How old are you?" Garrus retorted.

"Depends on how you count," he replied, shrugging. "You want to count the two years I was dead, I'm thirty-one. You don't want to, I'm twenty-nine."

"And how do you count it?" Tali continued.

He just shrugged again and his eyes drifted back to Ashley, who was watching both aliens with a rather amused expression on her face. He didn't understand how she went from being so...terrified to...that as quickly as she did, but her smile made him smile, and when she realized he was staring, her brows shot up.

Her hands quickly followed suit, raised in a defensive manner. "Hey, I was out of it for a month, maybe two, at the most. Don't ask me."

"And here I thought you'd jump at the opportunity to make such an important decision," Joker deadpanned.

She scoffed as she swung her helmet back onto her head. The voice that came through the filters wasn't hers, and for the first time today, Shepard realized she'd managed to fix her old helmet. He wasn't sure how he missed it, given all the time he'd spent trying to hear her past the filter back when it still functioned properly.

"I'm going to get out of this," she said, gesturing to her hard suit. "Get a shower, check on the others. Maybe eat a horse on the way down to engineering."

Shepard and Joker chuckled as she left the cockpit, smacking aside a clump of wires dangling from the ceiling, but Garrus looked confused. Tali probably would too if she didn't have an enviro-suit on constantly.

"A horse?" Garrus asked.

"It's an animal," Shepard explained. "Humans ride them. They're big, I guess, and there's this saying—"

"Commander, just bask in their confusion," Joker interrupted.

"Well..." Shepard glanced between the two of them and sighed, shrugging like it was an impossibly difficult decision. "Since we just killed a Reaper on foot, I could probably tell them, y'know."

Joker laughed. "Where's the fun in that?"

"Bingo," he replied. Garrus looked a little hurt, surprisingly, at the teasing, and Tali was as unreadable as ever behind her mask. Fortunately enough for the rest of them, she was pretty open about her body language, and it was easy to tell how she felt when it was important. Much of her mannerisms were similar to Shepard's when he was younger; quiet, reserved, and more than their fair share of awkward. He'd grown out of it, just as Tali seemed to, but it was hard to kill an old habit. When she was anxious, she'd play with her hands. Run them together, mess with her suit, anything so long as her hands weren't still.

Shepard looked back out the viewport one last time before sighing. "I think I'm going to hit the showers too before checking on the crew. Joker, anything happens and I want to hear about it."

"And if we get another unwanted message from the Illusive Man?" the pilot asked.

"Don't answer it," he said. "Or answer it only to hang up. I don't care, just don't tell me to come down and deal with him again. It's been a long day and I need a break."

"Understood, Commander."


There was something disgustingly calm about standing under the drizzle of ice cold water. Today had been hell in every right of the word, and while Shepard was relieved to be free of that hell, his body wanted to move. Every fiber of his being found this shower utterly pointless. It was supposed to help him relax, which was oddly the last thing on his mind. Even if he wanted to relax, cold showers weren't for soothing oneself. They were for waking up and dismissing thoughts that were better saved for privacy.

All the tension had rolled off his shoulders, but his muscles were still coiled. Shepard expected a fight. He hadn't timed them throughout the base, but part of him still believed it had been too easy. Granted, he had several minor wounds dotting his torso and arms, and the rest of his team was sure to as well. But regardless, they had gotten through. Every single one of them had survived. After everything that had gone on, Shepard had anticipated losing several people. He expected to die on that base, even if he didn't want to. And the fact that everything had calmed down almost immediately upon their escape made it worse.

The shower was so horribly mundane that he abruptly shut the water off and returned to his cabin, getting dressed in the Cerberus casuals provided. He was still wet, but the movement and the artificial air dried his skin. Chills raced up his spine. It felt good in a weird sort of way, kind of like a reminder that the Collector base had gone too well. Everything had gone exactly according to plan...or had gone exactly according to plan after the plans were adjusted.

A feeling in his gut told him to refuse the complacency his body desired. He wanted to rest, but Shepard's instincts knew better. Something had to go wrong; something always went wrong. Or maybe he was just so used to something messing up that he expected the worst from everything, despite the "eternal optimist" Ashley labelled him as.

Ashley. His brows furrowed as he thought back to the base. She'd been in the middle of a full-blown panic attack when the Reaper first came after them, and it took plenty of coaxing to get her to do her part. Then, less than five minutes later, she'd been happy and cheery and relaxed even. It took him a good long while to figure out that her behavior was what was bothering him. He'd seen her mood swings before, and while they'd been that drastic in the past, it was never at such an odd time. After the Reaper, she'd been just as reserved and quiet as she was before they had even set foot on it. After Virmire, she'd been withdrawn, and spent most of her time mothering her sister.

Now she was smirking and laughing like nothing happened? Just a few hours ago she was more worried about the people in the med bay than herself. Freakishly focused on something other than herself, which wasn't unusual. Shepard had noticed she got like that when she was having trouble coping with whatever went through her head. Something was wrong, and when something was wrong with that mess of a woman, anyone within a ten yard radius was in danger.

Shepard grabbed his pistol from his desk, strapped it to his hip, and headed for the elevator. "EDI, where's Ashley?"

The AI was silent for a long while, and when she answered, Shepard felt his stomach lurch. "I cannot seem to locate her, Commander."

"Where was the last place you had her?"

"In the elevator," EDI replied. "Logs show it was in the cargo hold before you called it to your cabin."

He frowned. The bay was a wreck after the Reaper fighter tore through it; barriers were up over the holes to keep the ship's pressure equalized, but it wasn't a flawless solution. They weren't the kind of barriers to stop anything heavier than a bullet. What could be down there that she would want?

"What's down there?" he asked.

"Nothing, Commander. All storage facilities were destroyed or lost upon the boarding," the AI said. "Crew members are restricted to deck two until they've been cleared by the doctors, but it is taking an understandably long amount of time without more staff."

The doors opened for him and Shepard stepped inside, jamming his finger into the button to take him to deck four. "Keep it that way until I figure out what's going on."

"Of course, Commander. Logging you out."

He glanced down at the gun strapped to his hip. Back when they just started this mission, he had kept the gun in case Ashley went after him, or went after someone else. The practice had been abandoned once she stopped snapping so often, and she'd eventually warmed up to him...again. But even on Virmire, Shepard had been prepared to shoot her if necessary. There was so much going on that he didn't understand, and if it came down to it, Shepard would choose the ship of people over one person. He always did.

As the elevator descended, Shepard knew it wasn't going to be as easy as he imagined it. If he had to shoot her, he didn't think he'd be able to. When they first boarded the ship, maybe. On Virmire, maybe. On the Reaper, maybe. Now? He doubted it. Shepard had tried to distance himself and failed, and she'd done the same. At first, he was just glad to see her alive, but after seeing her everyday, slowly spiralling into someone entirely different from the woman he knew, it became easier to push her away. And he tried. God knew he did. But the easier it got, the harder it got. He started to miss the way her eyes lit up when they talked, or the smile that ever so rarely tugged at her lips. Even the casual brushes of their hands together, whether it was purposeful or not.

Kissing her had been a mistake. It had come from so much frustration with his life, an intense desire for something normal. And while he didn't regret it, he did. This...whatever they had...it wouldn't end well. Part of him didn't care and just wanted to enjoy it while it lasted, but the other half told him to push her away at every turn. It was the same nagging voice that told him saving Alenko was right.

Shepard hated himself for it. He grew up idealistic, soft, raised to be a gentleman. Now he was older, and his experiences kept fighting with his own nature. Life was a pain in the ass.

That voice told him he might have to shoot the woman he'd admitted to loving. The rest of him refused, even if it meant endangering the entire ship. And that was just as dangerous as leaving Ashley alone when he knew something was wrong.

The elevator stopped and pulled him from his thoughts. Dread settled in his chest. Whatever happened down here, he wasn't going to like it.

Shepard expected to have to actually look for her. EDI couldn't find her, but there she was, sitting on the floor with her back to him. Ashley was on the other side of a table though, and he couldn't see what she was doing. That was assuming she was doing something at all, and not just staring off into space like she typically did.

"Hey."

His brows shot up. She sounded so casual that it surprised him, but also sounded like death. One word was all it took for him to know something was wrong. He stepped off the elevator and the doors closed behind him. "What are you doing down here?"

"You need to leave," she said matter-of-factly.

Shepard's skin crawled; his hand reflexively went towards the gun, but he caught himself. He'd talked her down before. He could do it again.

"I was worried about you," he said, dodging the order she gave. Ashley just laughed. It was bitter, sad even. Not the same person he'd seen in the cockpit fifteen minutes ago, not the person who he'd run through the Collector base with an hour ago. "Are you, uh, okay?"

"Go. Away."

Given what they'd been through, a smart man would've done exactly that. A smart, selfish man. Shepard knew better than to leave her down here to her own devices. "I can't do that," he said.

"Why?" she demanded. "This is the only place on this godforsaken ship that I can get a moment to myself, and you insist on pestering me. I'm not doing anything wrong, Shepard. Leave me alone."

"I didn't say you were," he retorted. "But that leads me to believe you're going to. Or you're at least afraid you're going to." She didn't say anything further, so he took a step closer. "What are you doing down here?" It was a repeated question, but those tended to get through to her better than most things.

"Thinking," she finally said.

"About what?"

"About the Reapers." Shepard frowned as he stepped around the table, crouching to get a better look at her. She looked fine. Tired, but fine. Her eyes caught his as her brows furrowed; she saw his gun. "I'm not going to hurt you."

He glanced at the pistol, and then shrugged somewhat sheepishly. "It was a habit." Ashley rolled her eyes and shook her head, reverting her attention to the hole in the cargo bay doors. "Why are you worrying about that? We just destroyed the Reapers' biggest advantage. Cut yourself some slack."

"Their biggest advantage? Commander, the Collectors didn't do much of anything other than research organic life. They might've built a Reaper, but they were scientists, not soldiers."

"They fought like soldiers," he retorted.

"The Reapers don't need the Collectors," Ashley said. "The biggest threat we'll face are their spies. They're ordinary people, and by the time anyone will realize what they are, it'll be too late. Imagine if they got to one of the scientists on Grissom Academy, or to one of the soldiers on Arcturus. Destroying the station wouldn't be a problem for the Reapers to begin with, but if they had someone on the base, disabling the defensive capabilities would save them from losing any of their numbers."

Shepard sighed and ran a hand down his face. "Do you ever stop?"

"Stop what?"

"Worrying. Making everything out to be worse than it is."

"I don't know what I'm worrying about," Ashley said rather flatly. "I've told you before I'm a realist. And right now, I'm looking at our options, and I'm not seeing any good ones."

"Meaning?"

"Meaning I don't see anyone in the galaxy surviving this cycle. Not with how they've ignored your warnings. Blanketing Sovereign and portraying Saren as the real threat. Covering up your death because it would quell anyone who even remotely thought you might be right. The Protheans were more advanced than even the asari, and they weren't ready when the Reapers came."

"So...what? You think we should just lay down and die when they get here?"

"I'm thinking maybe I should," she admitted. "I could barely think back there, and I'm still having trouble." Before he could say anything, she continued, "The rest of the galaxy? No. No one should just lay down and let the Reapers kill them. But there's not much anyone's going to be capable of otherwise."

Shepard's frown deepened. "Do you want to die, Ash?"

"What? No. I'm just saying I wouldn't be as dangerous if I were dead."

"No one would be dangerous if they were dead."

"Nobody else walks the line between sanity and indoctrination everyday."

"If you were going to give in, I'd think you'd have already done it by now."

To his surprise, Ashley laughed again. It wasn't so depressing this time, but more amused. Dry amusement, maybe, but it was better than that bitter thing from before. "You'd think they'd stop wasting the effort, but when you're the most powerful thing in the galaxy, why not keep going? It's not like they have anything to lose."

"Ah, well...I doubt anyone has ever fought so hard," Shepard answered.

She shrugged. "Who knows?"

"How do you keep it together?"

"You've been waiting to ask that, haven't you?" Shepard smiled apologetically, and Ashley rolled her eyes again. "To be honest, I don't know. When it gets bad, I...remove myself from the situation, or I think about music. Loud music. That crap Trakes plays in his helmet."

"And thinking about it helps?"

"Sometimes. It helps when it's quiet and I have nothing else to think about. If it gets bad while I'm out with you, I remind myself of what would happen if I let go. Sometimes I focus on the good things I have and it blocks the Reapers' out."

"So...you improvise."

"Anything to shut them up for five minutes. It's easier if I'm relaxed."

As she said it, she waved a hand at the hole in the cargo bay. Shepard followed her gaze as she watched the stars sail past, and while he could understand why she found it relaxing, it wasn't something that did anything for him. He grew up in space, and seeing stars was so underwhelming because of it that he didn't care.

"That's why you're down here." It wasn't a question; it was a fact. Here she could get away from the noise on the other decks, get somewhere that she was sure no one would bother her. "How bad is it?"

"It got better when you came," she admitted. "The Reapers are afraid of you, remember? If I decide I'm done fighting them with you around, there's a greater chance I'll end up dead before I can be useful. It's not much of a change, but..." Ashley shrugged and tried to smile. "It's there."

"Is that why you stuck around?"

"I stuck around because I don't feel like running from Cerberus." Her expression softened for a brief second, but she looked away and it hardened again. "And...yeah, you being here had something to do with it."

Shepard snorted a laugh and sat back on his hands, still keeping his distance. "That's not what I asked."

"I did make a promise before we went through that relay."

"Don't worry about it. There's always tomorrow."

"We're headed to the Citadel. As soon as we get there, Anderson will have people to 'arrest' me, and you'll be sent to Earth for the Alliance to deal with. So...no, there's really not a tomorrow."

"Imagine it like there is," Shepard said casually. "It's not like we'll never see each other again."

She sighed and drew her knees up to her chest, wrapping her arms around them. "Whatever you say, Commander."


A/N: And there it is, the longest and worst chapter so far. Also the end to ME2! Woo! Thank you guys so much for reading, and thank you for sticking with these guys for so long (and my ridiculous update schedule). Whether you've been here from chapter one, or jumped in somewhere along the way, I appreciate that you've stuck it out; it means a lot to me.

The next couple chapters will be filled with time skips and will focus directly on Ashley since we already know what happens with Shepard (house arrest, yay?). Not sure how many there will be, but the start of Mass Effect 3 will be hers as well before Shepard gets his own chapter again. I know Shepard only got two chapters this time around, but let's face it. The Ashley chapters are better (or I think so anyway).

Thank you guys again for reading! I hope you guys continue to enjoy this all the way to the end.