Author's Note: This is it! We've made it to the end! Thank you so much for your kind words and your support, it means more than you'll ever know. I hope you enjoy this last chapter.

CHPT11:_ABYSS

This is it: the last mission.

The requirements are clear: get to the Citadel and activate the Crucible. The consequences are also clear: failure dooms the entire galaxy, and it is not an option.

In my memory, your volcanic voice: "I will not let his death mean nothing!"

Neither will I; and I won't let your personal sacrifices, your pain, be in vain either.

You, me, and Tali run through London's streets. Thane is right, I would've liked to have been here under better circumstances, when the oceans weren't on fire. We weave past a hoard of husks that get completely flattened by Wrex and his krogans passing us. From across the battlefield, I see you nod at Wrex in quiet thanks, and we continue pressing forward, Anderson syncing up with us not long after.

The Reaper Conduit comes into view, bisecting the deathly sky above. Reapers continue their extinction protocols. The Citadel hangs precariously in the Earth's sky, an anomaly in Sol, but a hopeful symbol. Grim watches closely, collecting lives like dolls, wondering who will be next.

And I think he found his new target.

We bolt, avoiding as many shots as we can – but one hits a mako, flipping it and then there's nothing but fire, and heat, and gravel everywhere I look. The edges of my world turn black for a bit, and my hearing has been affected at the moment. And everything hurts as I try to crawl towards cover.

Then you fill my vision, your face in the waves of desperation, like on Omega all that time ago.

I watch your mouth move, and hear sound crawling back slowly. It returns in full when you stop talking – when I see the Normandy careening into view, her engines roaring above the battlefield. Tali dashes on ahead, covered in soot and limping – and please don't let her enviro-suit have a breach. Please.

You throw one of my arms across your shoulders, help me stand, and jog me to the Normandy. And that's when it finally clicks.

"Here," you say to Tali, passing me to her slim, shaking shoulders, "take him."

No. No. No. "Shepard…"

"You gotta get out of here."

"And you've got to be kidding me."

"Don't argue, Garrus." But you grin, just a bit, and… and…

There's… There's so much more I want to say. "We're in this till the end."

There's no time. There's no time. My throat's thick with blood and emotion and my subvocals won't stop screaming again. New scars will cover where the old ones are, deep in the back of my throat, and I have never known desperation like I do now, reaching out for you.

Shepard, don't do this to me. Don't do this to me!

There's so much more that I want to say, that I can't say because my voice isn't cooperating – but my subvocals are carrying so much, and you will never hear it. If only humans could hear them – could hear what they're really saying to the galaxy. You became the too-turian human, but you're still deaf to me.

So I shout and shout and shout into the abyss.

You grab my hand without looking, holding it like it's the only thing keeping us both stable in a tsunami. I wonder if you can feel how violently it's shaking. I wonder if you can feel how tightly I'm holding on. I wonder if you can hear that. I wonder if you understand. Please, please understand.

"I promised Thane," I choke, and I think my eyes water, but I can't tell from which kind of pain. "I promised him that I would keep you safe. I want to keep you safe. Please."

"If this is the end, he will be waiting for his Siha at the shore. And if it's not, I will find you, like I promised – and you will tell me the things you want me to know."

The quarian elbows me in the side, and it hurts, and I still can't speak what's in my heart.

Your grip on my hand doesn't let up, and neither does mine. Your ocean blues stare at me hard. I keep drowning, and drowning, with Earth burning around us. Your next words are stinging waves, push me further down into the pain that waits, "After everything we've been through, after all you've done for me, I will not lose you too."

"Shepard –"

"I will give you a world worth living in."

"Jane –"

I love you. So, so much.

Tali starts, but you let go of my hand and interrupt with a single command: "Go!"

And as the Normandy pulls away, as I count your breaths, you disappear into the maw of war.

There's not enough energy left in me to strangle my subvocals. All I can hear is a dirge.

The Normandy has crashed somewhere that's green. Joker lumbers back inside, dejectedly ignoring EDI's collapsed body in the other seat. Who knows, maybe she can be brought back online, maybe this is a temporary knockout from the Crucible. Tali's by my side, my arm still around her shoulders on the floor. She isn't shaking anymore, but I can tell she's exhausted.

All around me, the crew's faces say the same thing, from Hackett to Liara to Traynor, and more: cautious optimism, wrapped in a shroud of grief. Both things our Commander left us – hopeful optimism to change the future, and grief for everything and everyone that's been lost along the way.

We wait in silence, for hours, for any signal from Earth. For any confirmation. Anything at all.

Kaidan presses his knuckles into the sides of his head to fend off pain. Dr Chakwas, tending to each of us in rotations, notices this action – and procures a needle for him, filled with the only treatment that's ever seemed to help his migraines. James tries to fill the silence by talking, but no one listens, so he gives up.

Then, at last, Joker speaks, "Uh, I'm receiving a transmission…"

Most of us look sharply at him, but I don't have the strength to observe anything but the floor.

"We won. The Reapers are all gone."

There is no celebration, no cheer – not until we know about our Commander.

He is silent for a while, still listening, and then, "The damage caused by the Crucible… She didn't make it."

I shut my eyes so tightly that the muscles around my face ache. Jane.

"This is regrettable, but in the end, the Commander did what was right," Javik says, and his voice has lost much of its confidence – rattled by the news like the rest of us, but forcing himself to be strong through the pain. Tali sniffles beside me as he continues, pacing, "In the end, she destroyed the Reapers, and saved and avenged countless lives. In the end, she followed orders. She was a good soldier. Like a turian."

There's a rough touch to my forehead. I open my eyes – it's Javik.

He watches me quietly, and the point of his contact feels unsettling. After a few moments, he drops his hand, steps back, and looks at his fingers, sifting through my memories and feelings like debris. And he is oddly careful with his words, "Your dirge is not unsung. It will live on in the universe. The drell will receive her at the shore."

Thane will help her to through to the next world, and guide her where I can't. Make her happy, like I never could.

He steps away from me, the sound fading. Hackett's voice sounds dimmer too, instructing Joker to send a signal back to Earth, reporting those that survived. But have we survived? Have I survived this? I did once… but can I do it again?

I… I don't know anymore.

The Normandy is heartless without you at its core. Like a satellite without a red star to orbit.

I can't help but wonder what I more I could've done.

If I… loved you better, would you have stayed?

Would you have saved yourself? Could you have seen me the way I see you? Like an explosion that can never be contained, because it is endless, burning forever in the hearts of all those who saw your brilliance. The brightest red star, lighting the way for every living thing, a lighthouse when yours had been broken and stolen more times than I can count.

I said I would never let anything break you ever again… but this did, and you couldn't recover, and I'm sorry, Shepard. And Thane… I'm sorry that I couldn't protect Siha.

Beside me, Tali nudges my arm gently, softly, kindly, "Garrus, eat, please."

She doesn't get a verbal response from me, just a slight head shake and half a raised hand. She nods in acknowledgement, looking back across a rebuilding London. We were asked to return by Hackett, but I don't remember the reasons why. I don't remember anything anymore. Not even how to breathe underwater.

The tide has stilled and blackened, and I've sunk too far under the pressure.

Tali's been nothing but kind, staying by my side after the Battle for Earth, too afraid to step away. We've been through too much together – I supposed she needs me in some way too. She's aware of the words I could never say to you, scarred into my subvocals for eternity. But despite the constant pain, I will keep them close, in the vain hope that you'll hear them inside – even though you were deaf then, and now.

I couldn't make a way back for you. A way back after Thane. Out of the darkness. I failed.

Shepard… I shut my eyes to stop them from leaking.

And behind them I see the dozens of stars streaked across the bridge of your nose. Your flaming red hair shining under the Normandy's lights. The sharpness of your shot, the speed of your movements, the strength of your punch and your orders and your grit and determination and…

The love you had for Thane. Unyielding in the face of unescapable death. Finding and seizing your happiness after your second chance, and how grateful and happy he was to receive you. The way you'd both look at each other, in quiet awe. The way you walked around the Citadel that day, with Kolyat, and how despite the circumstances, you were both still happy. The way you bettered him, and me.

The crease in your cheeks when you'd laugh or smile. How I was submerged by it all, always drowning, just like him.

You told me he would await you across the sea, at the shore. And I try to picture you with him, your smile, salt water holding you by your ankles. Thane can breathe – he can talk and laugh without coughing, and I know how happy that'd make you, his Siha. Maybe you'd look up at the sky, grateful to be reunited. Maybe you'd see my eyes.

And deep in the ocean, without a red star above, I will never escape, because I can no longer breathe without water in my lungs.

Aim for the heart so there's no way back. Then aim for the brain so they can't be saved. That's what I always told you, Jane.

And you were always a better shot than me.