Javik did not turn around when Shepard approached. "Shepard."
Shepard joined him at the knocked-out window. "Was it this bad in your time?" she asked without preamble.
"Worse. I have been listening to the krogan—to Wrex—speaking to his men."
Shepard's mouth twisted into a wry grin. "He knows how to put a speech together."
"Yes. In my Cycle, there was no coming-together of the races. There was no rallying cry." Seeing what those two things had accomplished in this Cycle made him even less surprised that his failed. There was a difference between willing and forced cooperation: namely, that when cooperation was willing, unanimity of purpose kept things moving forward, no matter which leaders died, no matter how bad it looked. Forced cooperation lasted only as long as the goad was in place. After that…fragmentation.
His people had been superior and powerful…but perhaps not wise.
He turned to Shepard, regarding her two-eyed alien face. "I envy you. The future is still out there. It is something my people could never say: there will be a tomorrow."
"Only if we win today."
He sensed the testing in her words. She believed they could win, not without cost, not without sacrifice, but victory was attainable. She wanted to know if he believed it, too. If he didn't, there was no way she would take him with her as part of Hammer One.
"No one else has made it this far."
Shepard chuckled at this. "You did. You came a long way, Javik. Further than anyone else here."
"And I look forward to fulfilling my mission."
"Then what?"
Javik bowed his head. "You are now the avatar of this Cycle, the exemplar of victory. Not just for humanity, or turians, or krogan, or Protheans—but for all life. Every soul that has ever existed is watching this moment." The admission itself, that the dead were watching, told him how much he had changed since entering this Cycle.
Stand in the ashes of a trillion souls and as if honor matters. The silence is your answer.
He still didn't think honor mattered in victory, but he knew a waiting silence when he heard one. The silence in his heart seemed to be a waiting one.
"Well, when you put it that way, no pressure," Shepard responded sardonically. He sensed the unease that crystallizing her position in that way created.
Good. That kind of responsibility should make one uneasy. It meant they would handle it well.
"Do not waver, Shepard. Victory is not attained without hard choices."
"I know."
"I know you know." It was difficult for Javik to speak from his heart, as the saying in this Cycle went, but here, now, for Shepard, his comrade…perhaps even his friend…he tried anyway. "I know you will see this through for all of us, no matter the cost. And if that cost is high…you will be remembered well by those who remain." He held out his hand awkwardly, after the human custom.
A line of silver traced along Shepard's lower eyelids as she took it and shook it firmly, with a resolution he could feel pulsing between them, even through armored gauntlets. "You too. If we actually pull this off, what are you going to do afterward?"
Javik turned back to the waiting city, which was not silent even though it waited. For a long time, he imagined he would return to the place where his own squad had fallen by his hand…and join them. To put this last vestige of his own Cycle where it belonged: in the history books. To put himself out of his own misery.
Now, after months with the Normandy's crew, the idea of 'peace' unnerved him, but not so much that he felt the need to recoil from it. Perhaps it would be the crowning insult to the Reapers, a Prothean living to the end of his natural life. The Cycle might be different…but perhaps that wasn't entirely a bad thing.
"Since my birth, life's only pursuit has been war," he admitted slowly. "I…look forward to what peace looks like."
"Don't worry. Someone, somewhere, will start some shit just for the sake of normalcy, and someone else will have to clean it up. There'll always be plenty of work for soldiers," Shepard assured him. She sounded regretful that the end of the war didn't mean an end to conflict, but chose to interpret it as things going back to normal, which was what she really wanted.
"Perhaps I will write a book with…Dr. T'Soni," Javik admitted. They'd actually discussed the matter before now, though he wasn't committed to the idea.
It's either you set the record straight, or you keep hearing 'o wise Enkindler, this one…' every time a hanar sees you. And if you survive this, you'll be a big damn hero all over the Extranet. They'll allseeyou, Javik. Millions of them.
Liara knew how to make a point. Even now, the idea of more hanar revering him like a living deity when he wasn't, when his people never had been, made him uncomfortable.
"She suggests 'Journeys with the Prothean.'"
"You considering it?"
Javik shrugged. "I will need a job, once there are no more Reapers to kill."
"There will always be room for you on my crew, Javik. As long as I'm leading it."
The offer, so plain and so honest, made him feel uncomfortable, though he appreciated it. It might be alright to write a book with Liara. It would be better to keep finding soldier's work with Shepard. More than that, it was nice to have choices that were 'Choice-A or Die.' "Thank you, Shepard. For letting the last voice of the Protheans speak. It has been a…a privilege."
"You're welcome." From the wistful look on her face, she understood everything he had said, and everything he hadn't said. He wouldn't like many people to have that gift of understanding. But he didn't mind so much in this one very special case.