It was pain. She was dipped in it, soaked in it, saturated with it. But she felt it. She had experienced so many kinds of pain in her life but, this was new. It was hard to breathe—so hard to breathe—because it was hard and because it hurt.
But in this case pain was a welcome feeling. It meant she was alive. She wasn't sure how she possibly could be, but one had to have a body to feel pain, one had to have a functioning brain to feel pain, and lungs that pumped air to feel the sensation of 'hard to breathe.'
Part of her wanted to just drift in the agony.
The rest of her knew better. She forced herself to breathe, to take in a deep breath of air. Pain stopped her halfway through, her chest refusing the work. She gagged and truly struggled for breath, the life-giving action interrupted by her attempt to make it a conscious effort.
Her eyes flew open as she struggled, bright lights making dancing silhouettes over her, white coats toned grey moving about her.
No.
"No!" the word came torn out of her, like flesh shredding until claws.
She'd woken up to this before, to white coats doing strange things to her. "Kaidan!" She needed help. She couldn't fight. Drifting in agony was one thing, but there wasn't a muscle group in her body that wasn't screaming. "Garrus!"
She wanted to scream 'get away!' because she was surely alone and neither Kaidan nor Garrus could hear her much less come get her. She was lost, like pocket change, on a Reaper-held station. How could they possibly hear her?
"Shepard! Shepard! I need you to calm down!"
The voice was so distant, an echo in an empty building, but she hear it all the same. "Doc!" her voice was too hoarse, a harsh whisper when she wanted to scream. She didn't remember the last time she'd screamed for help. She wanted to scream 'Get them off! Get them off!' but she gagged on her own short supply of air as someone shoved an oxygen mask over her face.
"Step away!" a new voice, commanding and powerful, joined in. "Doctor—you must increase her medication." Sound suddenly went dull, a three-fingered hand appearing on her forehead. The gesture burned enough to make her scream but she knew the hand because of the touch that followed. "White coats? Why is she afraid of white coats?"
"White coa—" Dr. Chakwas' voice asked, sounding somehow neared.
"Get back! She only needs the one doctor," a flanged voice snarled.
"But—" some unknown protested.
The Reaper saw them scattered like empty nutrient tubes and knew it had won. It didn't even bother to sweep them over one more time. It simply picked up and flew away in search of the one it truly wanted. But it couldn't see her, because she had been cleverer.
He couldn't move, could barely breathe, but he was alive. He fell onto his back on the Normandy's deck, feeling at his wounds. He was alive, but wasn't sure how badly hurt. He could breathe. He could see. He could hear. He groped for his weapon but couldn't find it.
He found he could roll onto his side. Bodies lay in heaps, too detailed after the ambient light caused by the beam. Some of the bodies shivered. Others grieved.
Where was Shepard? Surely not dead…how could she be? He knew the answer and yet…she had made him believe.
It was dead time. The waiting. Seconds slipping by in silence, the war raging. He gained the cockpit with the others. It was better to watch from there, whatever the doctor might think. What good was healing if the Reapers won? None at all.
The Doctor didn't argue. Or maybe, while painful, his injuries weren't that severe.
Suddenly, the EDI machine…went into strange paroxysms, which resolved themselves, leaving her unhurt.
Within minutes, it was over. It was spectacularly over, but anticlimactically enacted. No lights, no strange visual effects. Just the sudden effects of the Crucible sweeping over the system and—according to others—pinging out through the relay system to touch every Reaper in existence, no matter how remote. One shot, one hundred percent fatalities. It was a beautiful thing.
His eyes might have stung; his throat might have closed off; his nasal secretions might have grown runny and unpleasant. He wouldn't share that with just anyone.
He knew it was over as he watched Reapers suddenly go inert, several colliding spectacularly with one another.
They had won.
They had won, and it was because Shepard—yes, perhaps he would even say 'his friend Shepard'—got them as far as she had. All the assets' efforts, while laudable, while brave, were only an extension of this one singular will. Without her Hammer One scheme, no one would have reached the beam. But they had, and it was all thanks to her. Her efforts. Her sacrifices.
They were alive. The Reapers were dead. And he did not know what to do with peace.
Tears stung like acid sliding down cheeks she knew were ruined; the laugh that tore out of her was and was not her own, mingling with sobs. It was over. It was over. She knew it was over because he saw it end.
And she was still alive, even if only for the moment.
"Yes," came the self-conscious response, "we have won, it seems. You are badly off, my friend. Rest, now."
She feared the hand might move away, however painful it was, but it did not. Other hands, careful ones with gloves to protect her ruined body, closed gently over her hand or, more accurately, let her hand rest in large three- or five-fingered cradles.
She spiraled back into the dark, aware that painkillers were pushing her into it.
This time, she wasn't afraid. She didn't fight, but let the darkness take her, to bear her where it would.