Ashley Williams opened her eyes to stars. She was lying in the middle of a chamber (strangely familiar), all sleek silver metal, and past that was an open window into the void of space. The stars were cold and distant, and in between them drifted ships on fire.
The galaxy's last throw of the dice against the Reapers.
She rolled onto her side, gasping at the pain that shot through her. The memories washed over her like a stingingly cold ocean wave. The advance on the beam, the pain when she'd gotten hit.
Shepard's gloved hands on her face, something terribly sad in her eyes, and I'll always love you.
Then how had she ended up here?
She blinked a few times and then heard someone else moving. She pushed herself to her knees and then her feet - and there was her pistol, familiar in her hand.
Shepard was sitting ten metres away from her, looking at her with glassy eyes.
Ashley staggered over to her as quickly as she could on her injured leg. Shepard looked like hell. Her armour was charred and boiled away and she was bleeding from a wound to the chest. Her breathing sounded all wrong.
"Hey, hey, hey," she fell to her knees beside her and pressed her hands into the wound. "I'm here."
"Fuck!" Shepard groaned and tilted her head back, gasping. There was blood on her lips.
"You need - you need help. A medic-"
"Ash," Shepard said. Sweat was beaded on her forehead. "How - how did you -?"
"You needed me," Ash breathed, pressing a hand to her jaw and it was the only truth that mattered. "I have to get you out of here."
Her leg was pretty banged up, but she was in much better shape than Shepard. It was going to be up to her to get them both out of her.
"No, no - wait, the Crucible-"
"What?" She was half holding Shepard up at this point.
"I need to fire it."
Of course nothing went the way it was supposed. "Okay...okay, how do we do that?"
Shepard pointed, her arm trembling with the effort. Ashley followed her finger and then blanched at the crackling blue energy.
"That doesn't look safe, Shepard."
Shepard smiled grimly. It was almost macabre, with all the blood dripping down her chin. "It isn't safe. It'll kill me."
"No. No, you're not going anywhere near that-"
"It's the only way, Ash, please, I gotta finish it," Shepard was clinging to her arm with surprising strength, ceramic plating creaking under her fingers.
"There has to be some other way," she shook her head, pressing her lips to Shepard's forehead, pulling her close, "I can't - I can't lose you again."
"Ash, please," Shepard pleaded.
"No," she shook her head, her vision blurring with tears, "No."
Shepard went still in her arms, the pain and the fear and the love melting off her face. She blinked and then her eyes were a pale, pale blue instead of warm, dark brown.
"You are distressed," it was Shepard's voice but it wasn't-
And then-
ERROR.
THAT IS NOT HOW IT HAPPENED.
EXECUTING PROGRAM TWO.
Ashley Williams opened her eyes to the smooth, plasteel ceiling of her prefab home. It was one of those mornings - her knee was a dull, constant throb and when she bent it under the sheets it'd gone stiff. She grimaced and sat up, the sheets falling to her waist.
Shepard was asleep beside her, curls wild and cybernetics gleaming from scars traced along her shoulder blades. It'd been a good night. Shepard's physiotherapy had gone well and Ash had gotten off work at a reasonable time. They'd eaten noodles together and afterwards they'd had very careful sex.
It frustrated Shepard and Ash got it - but she also didn't want to put her wife back in hospital.
They'd fallen asleep with Shepard pressed to her back.
Ash grimaced and swung her legs off the bed, flexing her sore knee. Their home was a prefab slapped down in one of the Earth military bases, crowded with a tiny kitchen and a tinier bathroom, full of their belongings - or mostly Shepard's beloved model collection. Yesterday's uniform was on the floor.
Shepard stirred beside her. Her voice was rough with sleep, "Hey."
Ash wanted to tell her to go back to sleep since she didn't have to be at the hospital until two pm, but unfortunately there were practicalities.
"I'll get your meds for you?"
Shepard grumbled something that might have been assent, burying her face in her pillow. Ash grinned at her, tracing a gentle hand down her spine. There'd been a time where it'd been a challenge to keep Shepard in bed past 5am. One good thing since the war had ended had been Shepard slowly and grudgingly admitting that relaxation and the odd sleep in wasn't the worst thing in the world.
Ash just wished that came without the pain she still experienced from her war injuries.
She found their medication, half-hobbling across the apartment. She took her own and brought Shepard's over to the bed with a glass of water.
Shepard took them and then nodded at Ash's leg. "Sore today?"
"Yeah. Your mum taking you to the hospital today?"
"Yeah. Said she'd be over around one. What time do you have to be at work?"
Ash glanced at her omnitool. "An hour. I should get ready."
She leant over to press a quick kiss to the corner of Shepard's mouth. "I'll see you tonight. Love you."
"Love you too, cariño."
She kissed Shepard again and went in search of a clean, pressed uniform.
When she stepped outside, in the cool London air, the sky was empty, except for a handful of Kodiak shuttles buzzing above the Alliance base. Ashley stared for a long moment at the empty space above the damaged skyscrapers.
Something about it felt wrong.
After a minute she shook herself. Nothing was wrong. They'd won the war, she'd married the love of her life and she had a difficult but rewarding job commanding a Marine company helping secure the damaged city.
She had work to do.
The day passed quickly, as if in a daze. She came home to Shepard, exhausted and passed out on the bed. She ate alone and then curled herself around the other woman.
In the darkness she watched the rise and fall of Shepard's chest before she eventually fell into uneasy sleep.
She dreamt of a dozen battlefields on a dozen planets. Her gun's barrel melting until she had to use it as a club against the onrushing husks. She dreamt of Shepard's sad smile and her hands on her face. Old eyes in a young woman's face.
She woke early in the morning with an aching knee and Shepard's head tucked into her shoulder. Past Shepard's back was the window and through it, the empty sky.
Empty.
She couldn't remember how they'd won. How could she not remember?
She sat up and put her head in her hands.
"Ash?" Shepard's arm came around her waist, her cheek pressed to Ash's shoulder, "what's wrong?"
"How did we defeat the Reapers?"
"What does it matter?"
"Of course it matters-" It'd been the sole purpose of Shepard's life for years, if you'd listened to her. How could it not fucking matter?
"I love you and we're together, isn't that enough?"
She balled her fists in Shepard's shirt, pulled her close, desperate to hold on - terrified -
"How did we win, Shepard?"
Shepard looked at her and her eyes blazed unnatural blue, nothing like the glow of her biotics, and with almost infinite gentleness, she said, "Ashley, you're making this harder on yourself than it needs to be."
ERROR.
THAT IS NOT HOW IT HAPPENED.
EXECUTING PROGRAM THREE.
Ashley woke to the sound of Shepard humming in the kitchen and the running of water. Her chest twisted and she took a moment to bury her face in the pillow. The material felt so real against her face. How could everything feel so real? Her memories conflicted. She remembered watching Shepard disappear into the smoke and ash of London, knew she'd never seen her again - just as clearly as she remembered the past few days of married life without the Reapers looming over them.
Maybe she was just going crazy. Maybe that knock on the head on Mars had scrambled her brain more than they thought.
Or maybe…
She went in search of her wife.
Ashley stopped in the doorway and watched Shepard doing the dishes, her sleeves rolled to her elbows. She'd grown her hair out from its military close crop and now her curls curved around her ears. Her wedding ring was sitting on the bench.
Ashley twisted hers around her finger.
Shepard heard her and looked over her shoulder. She smiled, "Hey cariño."
Ash stepped closer and tugged on Shepard's shoulder until she could press even closer and cradle her face between her palms.
"My hands are still wet," Shepard tried to protest.
"I don't care," she breathed and kissed her, sliding one hand back to tangle with black curls and the other stroking along a familiar cheekbone and jaw. Ashley did her best to memorise it all; the taste of her, the softness of her lips, the texture of her skin, the way Shepard's wet hands came to rest on her waist to pull them together. Like any space between them was too much.
They were both breathless when Ash pulled back and pressed their foreheads together.
"Is everything okay?" Shepard asked, a crease between her eyebrows. So perceptive and yet such a brick wall about her own feelings.
She choked out something that might have been a laugh and pressed her face into Shepard's neck. "No."
"Ash-"
"I love you."
"I love you too. What's going on?" Now there was real concern in Shepard's voice. She always tried to fix things, Shepard.
"I love you," she repeated.
"Talk to me," Shepard murmured, stroking her back.
She felt like she had in the moment before she'd broken her leg when she was sixteen. Air where there should have been firm earth and terrible anticipation in the moment before the pain and the snap of bone.
"I love you but this isn't real."
Shepard went still in her arms. The awful gentleness in her voice made Ashley want to weep. "You always were stubborn."
"I know...I know."
"You could have been happy. I could have made you happy."
"It wouldn't be real," she whispered. She couldn't live in this fantasy, no matter how sweet it was. "You need to let me go."
"I am not the one holding on," Shepard said. No, not Shepard. Shepard was dead. This was her ghost.
She tightened her grip despite herself. "Please. Put me at the start."
"Are you sure?" the Machine asked.
"Yes."
IS THIS WHAT YOU WANT?
EXECUTING PROGRAM FOUR.