"I can't be back there. I never went back there. And now it's not there to go back to. I can't be back there.
"But I'm there. It's dark and ashes fall like snow…or are they little bits of paper? I can't catch them, can't decide which it is. The trees make gnarled hand-like shadows, but it's cloudy and the moons aren't visible. The grass crunches underfoot, and night mists swirl around my ankles. The wind makes the trees creak and the grasses rustle.
"Shadows hang about in the trees, in my peripheral vision—hazy black things that aren't there when I look right at them. They whisper, and I know the people we've lost are there. Thane, Legion, Mordin…they call me, but I can't find them. They're lost. Beyond my reach, but so close.
"And then I hear it: the soft sound of a child in distress. I turn, I see the bright white sweater and shock of blond hair. He squats on the ground, arms wrapped about his knees as he sniffles, and I start moving towards him.
"He's supposed to be dead. He is dead. I watched him die.
"But if I'm here and can't be, maybe it's not surprising that he's here and can't be.
"It rattles my sinuses, all the soft tissues in my body: that awful sound Reapers make before they fire at you. The boy looks over my shoulder, jaw trembling, eyes wide. Red light flares behind me, but there's nothing there when I turn to look. When I turn back to the boy, he's gone. I can hear him crying softly, and it's so important that I find him. Save him.
"I can't run properly. It's like my armor weighs a million pounds, or like gravity's gone weird. There's no speed, but I have to try.
"I can pick out other voices, people I know are gone. I can't tell if they're accusing me for not having saved them; I just know they sound so sinister, there in the dark.
"It takes forever to reach where the boy originally was, but I get there. I turn, slowly, looking for him. It takes a few minutes to locate that bright white hoodie, but I find it, try to follow. But the harder I try, the slower I go until I feel like I'm crawling. I even look down, to see if dead hands aren't reaching out of the earth to slow me down—there aren't.
"Too slow. Too slow, why am I always so slow…?
"…it's like that for minutes. For millennia. Finally though, I catch up to him. This time, though, he's not alone.
"She's me. The me I used to be. She jogs over to him, takes a knee and puts her hands on his shoulders, then pulls him against her as if she's been looking for him for ages.
"I stop running when they look at me. Neither of them speaks, but the sounds in the shadows get louder, a crashing cacophony of too many words and too many voices. There's no meaning in the noise.
"I reach out for them as they watch me, big eyes focused on my face. Then…they start to burn. Little tongues of fire, then fingers of flame, more and more and they just kneel there, watching me. They flake away joining the ashes and falling paper fragments until there's nothing left but a pair of charred husks. I touch them and they disintegrate, crumbling away into nothing.
"Then there's another light behind me and I—"
Shepard choked on the words as she covered her mouth, shaking her head. "I've been having dreams like this for months," she said quietly. "It was just a bit worse tonight. Nerves, I suppose."
Alenko gently chafed her arms, trying to restore some warmth to her. "Tell me about the little boy."
Shepard shrugged. "While I was in lockdown, he used to play in the little park my room looked out on. He'd come down every few days, play with his little toy ships. I used to think 'well, at least someone's not worried.'" She leaned back into Alenko. "When the Reapers arrived, and Anderson and I were trying to get to the Normandy, I found him. He'd worked his way into the ducts somehow. I wanted to save him, bring him with us, but…a Reaper came in close and I looked away. When I looked back, he was gone. I saw him again when we were taking off. He made it to an evac shuttle, scrambled in before it took off." She shuddered involuntarily, her voice growing thick. "I watched a Reaper laser cut it in half. If I'd been faster, more decisive, I could have saved him."
Alenko tugged her closer, closing his eyes. It was on the tip of his tongue to tell her she couldn't save everyone, but he knew better than to actually say it. She already knew, and that was what hurt her. "It's almost over," he whispered, kissing her neck. "We finish off the Illusive Man, get the data to finish the Crucible, then it's a hop, skip, and jump to Earth."
She didn't say anything for a long time. "I hope so."
The three words spoken in that somber tone chilled Alenko to his core. Even as she hoped for the best, he knew she was looking into the worst case scenario…and finally seemed to be confronting it as a very real, tangible possibility.
No, not possibility: probability.
He tightened his grip on her again. If she lost faith…forget the rest of the galaxy. Alenko was sure that if she lost faith that they could do this, lost the hope of being able to do what countless Cycles failed to do, then the next engagement would be her last. It was dogged, blind determination driving her at this point. If that were to waver…
"We've done everything we can," she said. "I'll feel better once I finish the night out."