Sam huddled behind cover. She had never before in her life taken shots at live people. Only targets shaped like people, and that adjutant monster earlier, which she couldn't even actually see when she was aiming and shooting. It just had those lights she had been aiming at.

So why did she think she'd be able to help hold the line and not completely lose her shit outside Afterlife?

To be fair she had not actually lost her shit. She was just in a state of complete and utter disbelief. This was not her life. This was not what she was actually doing.

I analyze data. I solve puzzles. I play chess.

Well, buck up, Sammy. You said "Oohrah" and now here you are.

Sam popped up from her cover, took quick aim, and let off a few quick shots with her pistol. She couldn't be sure if she hit anyone, but the incessant fire from the other side didn't pick back up immediately so perhaps she caused a bit of damage?

"Shepard, where are you?" Sam said quietly.

Next to her, Bray laughed. {If I had a credit for every time I asked that about Aria,} he said.

Sam smiled weakly. "And does actually asking help get her here faster?" she said.

{Never,} he replied. Then he stood and let off an entire clip's-worth of shots, sank back down, and popped the white-hot thermal clip.

Sam nodded. "I suppose we'll just have to keep this up."

A shot sparked off the metallic cargo crate Sam was squatting behind. She shrieked involuntarily and jumped back. Unfortunately, she was up a small set of steps, meaning jumping back landed her awkwardly. She fell backwards and landed on her back several feet away.

"Shit!" She tried to scramble to her feet, but even after hours of being in her armor she was not used to it. She fell again, sprawled on her stomach this time.

It gave her a fantastic view of the doors Shepard was supposed to appear through. The doors opened as Sam got her feet under her, and she experienced a momentary flash of joyous relief.

Until she realized it was not blue and white armor she saw, but the blueish-white luminescence of adjutants.

"No!"

{What is it?} came Bray's voice over her radio. Then, {Fuck!}

Sam was frozen. The world slowed to a stop, and she stared in horror at the five adjutants that occupied the doorway that was supposed to house relief and salvation. This was supposed to be respite. She was supposed to be saved. She had done her part and now the mighty Commander Shepard was supposed to be here to finish this job. She'd found Ashley's family. She'd done her part. Sam was supposed to be able to go back to the Normandy, to Ashley with her sisters and her mother, and bask in the afterglow of playing the soldier and helping to get this thing done.

Now, however, she was definitely going to die. The world was still but she knew she was going to die. Shepard wasn't coming, or wouldn't come in time, and these monsters were going to tear Samantha apart limb from limb. It was a comfort that the job was still done – Beth, Sarah, Abby, and Lynne were all safely inside Bray's apartment still. But Sam was filled with a sadness she'd never quite experienced before that she wouldn't be able to see this through to the end. She wouldn't see Ashley again. She wouldn't see Beth embrace all four of her daughters. She'd never see Tim again, nor would she know what happened to the rest of her family.

She would die. Right here, right now.

Time sped back up as she realized that she could not let that happen without a fight. Standing with Cerberus to her back, unafraid, Sam lifted her pistol and began to fire.

A strange sound filled her ears, like a guttural moan or scream. She wasn't aware she was the one making the sound until she took a ragged, gasping breath and it stopped. Her pistol overheated and the clip popped out. Sam reached for another with one fluid, practiced move. She popped it into place and took a step to her left.

An adjutant approached swiftly, but Sam laid into it, popping the strange sacs on its back with each shot she took. It barely slowed, but still Sam took satisfaction from causing it damage.

She wasn't used to this, though. There was so much to keep in her periphery and she wasn't accustomed to keeping her awareness, which had shrunk down to these monsters only, broad. She stumbled on something, and that was enough of an opening. The monster she faced leapt forward, and suddenly Sam was on the ground, her vision filled with the monster's face.

This is the end. This is where I die. This is how I die.

The monster's face dissolved into goo. Sam's heart stopped momentarily, then beat 100 times faster to make up for it.

She was not dead.

She was, however, pinned to the ground by the headless body of her adjutant assailant. She lifted her head to see what had happened, and saw several things at once. Bray lay on the ground, unconscious or dead, near the door the adjutants had appeared through. The four remaining adjutants stalked the same target. And that target was most definitely Nyreen.

Nyreen shot and shot her pistol, each time a sac exploding its luminescent goo. But it wasn't enough. They were going to get her.

Time slowed once more and Sam watched in horror as Nyreen grabbed her belt of grenades. What could she possibly do with it?

Nyreen pulled one of the grenades. Sam tried to shout, tried to tell her that Bray might be alive, was right there, and would most definitely perish if Nyreen dropped that grenade and ran. She tried desperately, but her breath would not come.

Nyreen activated the grenade. Sam tried to summon up some bit of strength to shift the monster pinning her down. She couldn't get it off but perhaps she could get to her spare clips, distract the adjutants long enough to give Nyreen a chance.

The activated grenade hit the floor, and time sped back up. Suddenly Nyreen and the adjutants were surrounded in a biotic bubble. The door next to Bray opened once more, spitting out Shepard and Aria, running as fast as they could. Nyreen looked up to Aria, then suddenly Sam was looking the woman in the eyes.

There was no time. She couldn't do anything. Nyreen was going to die and-

The grenades exploded.

"No!" Sam screamed.

The bubble filled with black smoke, then the bubble was gone. The smoke swirled and cleared, leaving behind a blackened circle on the ground.

All that remained of Nyreen was a pile of ash.

"No," Sam whispered, and a sob broke her voice.

{Sam!}

{That's it! Tell your boss I'm coming for him!}

Sam stared at the pile of ash in stupefied horror. Shepard ran toward her. Aria ran right by her for Afterlife.

Time had been funny for the last few minutes or hours. But it seemed to all speed back up at once when the weight of the dead adjutant left Sam's body.

{Sam!}

Samantha took hold of Shepard's armored hand, hauling herself to her feet.

{Sam. You're okay.}

Samantha nodded. She couldn't quite make her voice work. Her eyes traveled to the pile of ash. Shepard followed her gaze.

{I know. She was a hero.}

"I don't want her to be a hero," Sam said, finally finding her voice. "I want her to be alive."

Shepard just buffed Sam's shoulder pad. {You're alive. She made sure of it.}

Sam let out an involuntary sob.

{Sam. I know it's hard. But I need you to buck up until this is done. We're almost through it. We just need to get through that door, save Aria's ass because she's in there alone like a fucking idiot, and save the Council. Then we can lose our shit and mourn our dead.}

Sam shook her head. "I don't know how you do this so much."

{Use the fury, Sam. Funnel the sadness into rage and unleash it on the enemy.}

Sam took a deep breath. It wasn't her usual instinct. But as she thought about it – about the needless death, her family injured and hiding in the dark, Nyreen's self-sacrificing death – she realized she was angry. She was furious. And it felt like a much more productive emotion than the sadness. It made her want to do something. Anything.

She took her pistol in-hand and jettisoned the thermal clip, then replaced it. She looked up at Shepard. "Let's go, Commander."

{Keep that shit up, and I'm going to need you to be open to a little extra-marital affair. Oohrah!}

Sam followed Shepard, pausing briefly to see that Bray was waking up. He waved them on – {I'm fine, go get the Council!} – and they continued on through the doors of Afterlife.

The passageway to Afterlife looked like a hurricane had passed through it. Bodies lay against the wall, the metal surfaces around them charred and dented. Aria had passed through in a rage.

Nevermind what I said about her control being the scariest. It is even scarier when she finally loses her cool.

They reached the open main doors to the club – hard to imagine this as a club in the state it's currently in – and paused.

{Get down,} Shepard said, fiddling with her rifle to ensure it was loaded and as ready as could be. {They know I'm coming. No one knows you're here. Let's keep it that way for now.}

Sam nodded. As angry as she was, she knew she was unprepared to go into any battlefield with guns blazing.

"I'm with you," she said, and then sank into cover behind some of the heavy crates that had been moved into this spot for this purpose

Shepard nodded and stepped around the corner.

{Good of you to join us, Commander,} Petrovsky's voice sounded in her ear, picked up by the helmet's mic.

Oh, but Sam hated the slimy sound of that man's voice. She peeked around the corner where Shepard had disappeared. What she saw made her heart drop.

Shepard stood, gun pointing to the ceiling, her hands up. Beyond her, Aria stood frozen, gun also pointed to the ceiling and body bristling with blue biotic energy. Beyond her was Petrovsky, standing on a balcony overlooking the club, a pistol in his hand.

The muzzle was pressed firmly into the side of the asari councilor's temple.

{We can talk this through,} Shepard said.

{Not another step, Commander, or I will kill Councilor Tevos and it will be your fault the galaxy is missing its asari leadership in the middle of the war with the reapers.}

Curse that man, Sam thought. What can I do?

Sam sank fully back into cover and pulled up her comms data feed. She scanned communications and saw that about a minute before – right when Aria would have been biotically slamming all those bodies outside – Petrovsky had put out a call for reinforcements.

The thing was, those reinforcements were needed from beyond Omega. His call had not yet passed through all of the safeguards he himself had put into place to keep communications from reaching or leaving the station. Sam grabbed the message, deleting it. He would not be getting his reinforcements.

But he still believed they would come.

Eyes suddenly wide, Sam began to furiously type.

"Commander," she said in a whisper. The whisper was probably unnecessary, but she didn't want to risk being heard in this cavernous room.

{Sam, what is it?}

"I'm sending him a message. Whatever he does next, it's false hope."

{Got it. Can you let Aria know somehow, too?}

"No."

{All right. I trust you.}

And that meant everything. Samantha finished preparing her message and sent it. She waited a moment – felt like an eternity – and then she could hear Petrovsky's voice booming through the hall once more.

{Well, Aria. I've really enjoyed this little tete a tete. But it's time you accept how things will go.}

Sam smiled to herself and peeked around the corner again.

Petrovsky was still going. {Reinforcements have arrived and you have lost. Your soldiers are dead. Your only ally is Shepard, and the Alliance is not coming.}

Sam watched him intently. He had a horrible gloating smile as he spoke. His salt-and-pepper beard twitched with it whenever his mouth closed. The hand holding the asari councilor's neck moved freely, his fingers flexing into her collarbone and throat. Tevos's expression could only be described as disgust.

{I think I'll keep your jacket as a trophy,} Petrovsky said, and Sam saw something so important she almost shouted in triumph. He was getting sloppy. The muzzle of the gun had moved, no longer planted firmly into the councilor's temple. Instead, there was an inch of space between it and her skin. As he continued – {I'll hang it, right here where you used to have your throne} – the muzzle drifted further south. His free hand was loose on Tevos's shoulder, and his anchor was gone. The muzzle drifted further.

And then the asari councilor exploded.

That's what it looked like to Sam, at any rate. Aria seemed to disappear, reappearing at the councilor's side. Shepard dropped to the floor, having no other cover. The room erupted in gunshots and biotics.

Sam pulled her pistol and popped momentarily out of cover. Letting muscle memory take over, she took aim at the nearest Cerberus soldier and fired three times, then rolled back into cover.

It was enough. Shepard appeared at her side, back against the wall as she sat on her haunches.

{Nice shot, Sam. He's down. I'm impressed.}

"I have never not enjoyed target practice," Sam said, replacing her thermal clip as she spoke. "And these bastards deserve it more than the target dummy ever did."

Shepard moved out of cover for a moment, firing several quick shots, and then slammed her back against the wall once more.

{There's only a few more. Wanna take the left?}

"Hell yes, Commander."

{Good. Let's go.}

They rolled out of cover in unison, finding their feet and taking aim. Sam didn't think about killing. She thought about Nyreen's body lying outside as a pile of ash so that she, Samantha Traynor, could live. She thought about Beth's injuries, about Finn and their status as orphan. The reapers didn't do any of those things. Cerberus did.

So Sam hurt them back. She made her way around the room, dropping into cover when she needed to replace her thermal clip but otherwise laying waste to any movement of white and yellow armor she could see.

And then it was quiet. Sam stood on the steps leading up to the balcony, Shepard across from her on the other set of steps. They nodded to each other and met on the landing, looking up to where they had left Aria.

Aria, who was black-eyed and kneeling over a prone Petrovsky. He struggled, pawing weakly at her hands around his throat, staring up into Aria's face. He grew quiet, and then Aria's eyes were blue once more. She gave a final jerk with her hands, ensuring the man was truly dead, and then she sat back on her haunches.

Before Sam could leave the spot where she was rooted, Aria was on her feet again, turning to Tevos, who was approaching slowly from where she'd been held by the edge of the balcony. To Sam's surprise, the two asari took each other into an embrace, both pairs of eyes suddenly inky in the harsh lights Petrovsky had filled the club with.

Sam looked to her left to Shepard, who stared up at the two asari wide-eyed behind her helmet.

Yeah, that's about my reaction, too.

Quietly, Sam took hold of Shepard's arm, leading the commander toward the other councilors and giving the two asari some semblance of privacy for their loving embrace. As she passed a table, she saw a rather remarkable wooden chess set.

"Commander," she said, hand hovering over it reverently. "Is it common for a marine to take a trophy?"

A/N: I'm not saying this was all inspired by thinking Sam should get the chess set, but I'm not not saying that.