There were explosions. Fire. Yelling. Panic. Shepard remembered this day well, because it was one of the worst days of his life. Dying tends to have that sort of effect on a person. It was just another routine mission. Of course, it's always routine up until all hell breaks loose. And hell certainly broke loose on this one.

Officially, Shepard was supposed to be hunting the remaining pockets of geth still in council space. Of course he was actually looking for anything he could use to fight the reapers. Even then, Shepard knew the threat they posed. But like Garrus once said, knowing the truth about the reapers never really felt like a victory. When so few people believed the truth, he was fighting against the fears of a galaxy.

His fight was cut short, however, when the Normandy was attacked by an unknown enemy ship. A massive, powerful ship. Its main weapon cut through the Normandy's armor like wet tissue paper. It was like the shields weren't even turned on. With one attack, the mysterious ship had thrown the Normandy crew into chaos. There was nothing Shepard could do to stop it. His crew was dying, and he couldn't stop it. Of all the memories he had to relive, this was probably the worst.

Even through all of this, Mordin's words were still ringing in the commander's ears. "Find her." He had to have meant Tali. From the moment he started reliving these memories, Tali has been invariably absent. When he was on Earth, rushing for the conduit, on Rannoch when he killed the reaper, and now…

"Tali!" Shepard remembered. He never saw Tali during the collector attack. Kaiden came to help him put out fires, and he had to get Joker to an escape pod, but he never saw Tali. It was before they began their relationship, but Shepard had always felt they had chemistry. When the collectors hit, she had been preparing to head back to the Migrant Fleet to complete her pilgrimage, her rite of passage into adulthood. They had always known that she would be going back. Even though Shepard had feelings for her, he felt there was no way he could just get in the way of that. It was only two years later that he found out that Tali had feelings for him as well. It had been a month since they stopped Saren and Sovereign, and Tali was taking her time in preparing to return to the Migrant fleet. Now he had a pretty good idea as to why.

Shepard tore his way through the Normandy as fast as he could with all the destruction that was going on around them. He had to find Tali. He knew that she had gotten off safely the last time, but with everything that was going on now, he had to make sure. He had to find her. Shepard may not have known what would happen when, or if, he did. But whatever it was it had to be better than this, constantly reliving the deaths of his friends. And even if it continued, he would at least have Tali to help him through it.

As he moved through the ship, everything seemed to be in slow motion. Even through all the wreckage, it was clear that Tali was nowhere on the Normandy. There was no sign that the quarian had ever been there at all. It was like someone had erased her from existence. He stopped to think, maybe she had already evacuated. Whatever the case, she wasn't here. Now all he could do was go make sure Joker got off the Normandy.

Seeing the Normandy in this state again was like tearing open an old scar. The SR-1 was a good ship. Seeing it like this was like losing a good friend. Being raised on ships, Shepard usually formed some strong attachments to them. Though he knew that he could always move on to another one, it was never quite the same.

Joker was glued to his seat as usual. Trying to save the Normandy, even the she was already lost. One had to admire his determination. However, Shepard wasn't about to let him die. He'd drag him into a pod by his ears if he had to. Of course, that wasn't necessary. He knew what was going to happen. He would get Joker out in one piece, but get spaced himself.

He got to the bridge and managed to get Joker to an escape pod. Now all that was left was dying. Even as his life was slowly ebbing away, Shepard's thoughts were of his crew. But more than anything, he felt regret. Sure, there was the regret that he wouldn't be able to fight the reapers, but what he regretted most was not telling Tali about his feelings. He knew that Tali formed strong attachments to the crew. It was part of being a quarian. It was something they had in common. Having been raised on ships their whole lives, they saw their crew as a sort of surrogate family. Knowing now the way Tali felt about him gave Shepard an empty feeling in his chest, like someone had torn his heart right out of it. He felt as empty as the endless abyss of space that was now choking the life out of him. Darkness enveloped him as his last breaths were drawn.

Everything went from cold and suffocating, to temperate and refreshing. To anyone else, this might seem like an improvement over slowly dying in the vacuum of space. A tropical setting marred only by distant thunder storms. It was a rather beautiful place. Yet it was still a place the commander hoped to never see again. This was Virmire. The rogue spectre, Saren Arterius, had built a facility on this planet where he was studying indoctrination and building an army of krogan. Shepard and his squad went in to investigate why an STG unit had gone dark. There, he encountered Captain Kirrahe and his men. They had determined the purpose of Saren's facility and were planning to destroy it using their ship's drive core as a makeshift nuclear device. Wrex wasn't particularly happy about destroying a facility that could hold the cure for the Genophage, but Shepard was able to convince him it was the right thing. Kirrahe's group would serve as a distraction while Shepard's team cleared the facility in order to plant the nuke. It was a sound plan, but a dangerous one. Kirrahe suggested that one of Shepard's squad accompany him. The commander sent Kaidan Alenko with the salarian captain. His biotic and tech skills would prove useful in coordinating the distraction team. Shepard would need to have Ashley with him to help arm the jury-rigged explosive to take out the facility.

The operation went sideways. Geth reinforcements forced Kirrahe and Kaidan's group into a chokehold. Shepard took Garrus and Tali with him to back them up while Ash stayed behind to arm the bomb. As soon as they got close, a geth ship dropped off more reinforcements at Ash's position. With that, the commander was faced with one of the hardest decisions he has ever had to make in his life. It was either Ash or Kaidan. Ash had the bomb, but Kaidan was covering Kirrahe and his men. There was no time. Ash had armed the bomb and he had to pull Kaidan and the STG squad out of there before it went off. Shepard made for the LT's position, which was swarmed by geth. They went down fairly easily. He might have had time to go back for Ash, if Saren himself hadn't shown up. In that encounter, Shepard realized that Saren had been indoctrinated by Sovereign, the reaper that the turian spectre had discovered. Saren was nothing more than a puppet under the control of the reapers, and he didn't even realize it. If it hadn't been for him, he might have been able to save Ash. Maybe.

Shepard was expecting to have to fight his way through the facility again, reliving the memory like all the others he had experienced. Tali was still missing, which wasn't surprising at this point. However, this time, everyone else was gone as well. No Garrus, no Kaidan, no Kirrahe, no Wrex. There weren't even any geth. Shepard was completely alone.

The commander walked along the beach toward the krogan cloning facility. There was not a soul in sight, organic or otherwise. There weren't even any of the crab-like creatures scurrying about. Even without any distractions, it still took a while for Shepard to reach the facility; the first time around he had the Mako. This time, he was on foot and he seemed to be close to where the Normandy had dropped him off. It wasn't the long hike that made the trip painful; it was knowing what he would find in the facility.

Ashley was there, along with the bomb. She just stood there. Serene, at peace. It was a little unsettling. Everything was too peaceful. Even though Shepard was certain that none of this was real, given the nature of his previous flashbacks, something this peaceful seemed like some kind of setup. Shepard approached her cautiously, not sure of anything at that point.

"You know, skipper, I'm not going to bite." Ash was so nonchalant about all this, which leant to this whole thing being a setup.

"What's going on?" The question had more than one meaning. Ever since he flashed back to Earth, nothing had truly made sense.

"Something bad's happening, skipper. I'm here to get you out of this." With those two sentences, Shepard had more insight into what was happening to him.

"Something bad?"

"I'm sorry, but I don't have all the answers. I think you know who does."

"Tali."

Ash simply nodded in reply. It was starting to come together. If he found Tali, he got the answers to what was happening to him. Finding her, however, has proven to be problematic.

"I don't know how much more of this I can take, Ash."

"You just have to go a little further, skipper." Ashley's attention is drawn up behind Shepard. "Looks like we've got company."

Shepard turned. It was Saren. Of course he would show up. He was the reason Shepard wasn't able to save Ash. The commander hoped that he wouldn't be seeing him again, but it seemed that it was inevitable.

"Shepard. You've strayed from your path." Saren spoke with his usual confidence. There was something off about how he presented himself, though. Like he wasn't actually part of the memory.

"Funny, somebody else told me the exact same thing earlier. I hated him, too."

"You're going backwards, Shepard. Running from your decision, foolishly chasing after love while the galaxy burns."

"Don't listen to him, skipper. Love is something worth fighting for."

"I know, Ash. I know." Shepard immediately drew his heavy pistol and started shooting at Saren. The former spectre defended himself by throwing up a biotic barrier. His reaper implants made him a particularly powerful biotic. However, that is a trait that the two of them shared. Shepard launched a warp to disrupt Saren's barrier, then followed up with a throw to detonate the warp field. The blast threw the turian off his platform, but he quickly recovered and retaliated with a volley of a pulse rifle fire. Shepard took cover and returned fire with his Lancer. The commander ducked back down into cover to let his weapon cool. Fortunately he had gotten back into practice with the Lancer by the time he reached the endgame. Fighting Saren was no mean feat. He had been a spectre much longer than Shepard. He fought in the First Contact War, and has a reputation of being ruthless in battle. Thinking back, Shepard realized he never truly defeated Saren in a fight. He managed to evade him on Virmire, and when he killed him on the Citadel, the turian had been converted into a mindless husk. If he had his full faculties, Shepard wasn't sure if he could really beat him. However, if this was something going on in his own head, then the commander had home field advantage.

Shepard launched another warp, this time striking Saren directly. The former spectre's armor began to shred under the unstable mass effect field, leaving him vulnerable to gunfire. The commander jumped out of cover and fired at him until his gun overheated. Shepard dropped the rifle and drew his pistol, shooting as he walked toward his enemy. When Saren attempted another biotic attack, Shepard launched a singularity behind him. Without a barrier, the turian was pulled into its gravitational field, leaving him wide open for Shepard to finish him off with a shot to the head. The singularity faded, dropping Saren's body to the ground with a loud thud. Dead.

Shepard dropped to the ground. He was spent. He was tired of jumping from memory to memory, fighting all the horrible things he had encountered. He was just plain tired. Shepard just sat, wondering when this nightmare would end. How much longer would watch his friends die? Would he ever find Tali, or would he lose her forever? Coming back nearly three years in his history has taken its toll, and yet he still didn't understand what was going on. Was he heading toward oblivion, or was he doomed to repeat his failures for all eternity? At this point, it didn't really matter to him. He just wanted it to stop.

"Shepard." Ash's voice was low, like she knew something bad was about to happen. Shepard silently looked to her. "It's time for you to go now."

"Where?"

"I think, you know where."

"Why? She wasn't there. It was before we met." Shepard knew where he was going. And he didn't like it one bit. "Why the hell am I going there?!"

"It will be the worst experience you'll relive. But it will also be the last."

"What does that mean?"

"I'm sorry. But you'll just have to find out for yourself." Ash tapped a few controls on the bomb, arming it. "Goodbye, Skipper. And good luck."

In a brilliant flash of light, everything was gone.

The ground is shaking. Shepard knew that shake well. His oldest enemies. And not just one of them. It was a nest. This was the mission that would scar Shepard for the rest of his life. It was his mission on Akuze. His entire squad was devoured by thresher maws. Shepard thought he was just unlucky, that it had been a horrible accident or that he screwed up somehow. However, it was no accident. It was deliberate. Planned. It was a Cerberus experiment. An experiment. To them, people were nothing more than a resource to be exploited. But even knowing what Cerberus had done, Shepard went along with them because they were the only ones who would give him the resources to fight the collectors. Yet every day of it he questioned whether he was doing the right thing. He told himself he was, but he still wasn't really sure. If Garrus and Tali hadn't been there, Shepard probably would have felt even worse about it. He was relieved when he saw the quarian machinist again on Freedom's Progress, alive and well.

No matter what Cerberus did to help him, Shepard would never forget what they did to his squad. They led them into a thresher nest just to satisfy their curiosity. Good people died, supposedly for the good of humanity. Whatever it was, it certainly wasn't for the good of humanity. It was probably the most horrific moment of his life, and it was replaying in slow motion. He couldn't move. He could hardly breathe. All Shepard could do was watch as his squad was killed.

"You could have avoided all this, Shepard." A familiar voice, but not one that filled him with comfort. It was the Illusive Man. Why was he here? He wasn't on Akuze, not in person. Shepard didn't have the strength left to question anything.

"What do you want?"

"I want you to get back on track." He walked around from behind Shepard to face him directly. "You've been running from your fate. Running from me. Running from all the tough choices you don't want to make."

"I'm not running. I'm just looking for someone."

"Ah, Miss Zorah. How do expect to find her here? It was before you two met. If you keep going backwards, you'll never find her. Time to let her go, Shepard. It's not like anything could have ever come from it."

"I never trusted you in real life. What the hell makes you think I'd trust you here?"

"You don't need to trust me. Sooner or later, you'll figure out your little, relationship, is meaningless and quite frankly wrong."

"I don't think I will. I don't have to listen to you. You're just a figment of my imagination."

"Defiant to the end. You got lucky when you were on Akuze, being the only survivor. However, I don't think you'll be getting that lucky this time."

A thresher maw burst out of the ground in front of Shepard. It just stood there, looking down at him. It stared him down, but Shepard was just ready for it all to end. He was tired and he just wanted it all to be over with. He just closed his eyes and silently waited for it to happen. He could feel its breath on him. It felt like the thresher was right in his face. It was all coming to a climax. Just not quite the one he was expecting.

There was a screech from the thresher, like it was struck by weapons fire. Shepard opened his eyes and realized that it had been hit with some kind of high heat weapon. No, it was a Carnage blast, from a shotgun. It wasn't enough to kill the creature, but it was able to drive it back underground. Shepard quickly got to his feet and spun around to try and see where the shot came from. It didn't take long. Though her face was obscured as always, her elegant purple veil and unmistakable figure gave her away immediately. She stood there, defiant and calm, gripping a Wraith shotgun firmly in her hands. It was the woman he'd been searching for this whole time, the one he fought so hard and suffered for. It was Tali'Zorah vas Normandy.

"Tali…"

"Shepard." It was her. It was really her. Her voice cut through everything going on, tickling his ears with its sweet sound. With one word, his name, she made all the suffering and loss worth it.

"Miss Zorah. You shouldn't be here." The Illusive Man maintained a calm visage, but Shepard knew Tali's appearance shook him. Shepard smirked slightly at his reaction.

"You're one to talk, Mr. Harper." That shut the Cerberus leader up quick. That must have been the Illusive Man's real name. But it was curious how the quarian machinist knew that. Didn't matter. All that mattered was that the look on The Illusive Man's face was priceless. It was good to see him taken down a peg.

"You're keeping him from his destiny, alien. You're interfering in matters beyond you. Shepard has to make a decision."

"He made a decision, but you pulled him back here. You just want him there making the decisions you want him to make." There was fierceness in Tali's voice. She's always been like this. She was someone a person could easily underestimate, but it would be very unwise if they did. It looked like Ash was right; it seemed like Tali had some answers. "Come on, Shepard. Let's go somewhere a little nicer."

She held out her hand to the commander, her captain. He took it without question.

"Shepard!" The Illusive Man's composure was gone. He wanted to keep Shepard from going anywhere except with him. "Don't turn your back on me Shepard!"

"Will you just shut up?" With a single swift motion, Tali drew her pistol and shot the Illusive Man right between the eyes. He shouldn't have underestimated her.

Everything began to shift again, the rocky environment melting into metal. It was a small hallway, dimly lit by a somewhat eerie red light. It's been nearly three years since he'd been there, but he remembered it well. This was the alley way near Chora's Den on the Citadel. It was where Shepard and Tali first met. If it hadn't been for her, Shepard might not have gotten the evidence he needed to convince the council that Saren had gone rogue. He would have never been allowed to chase after him and he would have learned of the reapers, and everyone would have been in some serious trouble. So Tali was a bit of a deus ex machina.

Shepard looked around. No one there. Just him and Tali. It was finally quiet. None of his friends were about to die, no rogue spectres, geth, reapers, or Cerberus. He could finally breathe easy and perhaps get some answers. He looked to Tali; she was wearing the envirosuit she wore when she was on her pilgrimage. It looked a lot more patchwork than other quarian suits he'd seen. When they met again on Freedom's Progress, she had changed so much, and not just her suit. She'd done a lot of growing up in the two years they were apart. She was given a lot of responsibility after she returned to the Migrant Fleet. Perhaps it was because the valuable geth data he'd let her copy, the fact she was an admiral's daughter, or both. In any case, she deserved it for all she had done. She deserved so much.

"Well, here we are. Hard to believe it's been three years since that day. Of course it's been shorter for us, hasn't it?" Tali looked at Shepard and touched a spot on his cheek. "That's right. You had a scar on your cheek. Cerberus fixed that though."

"Yeah. What did you mean us? You weren't dead for two years."

"No, but I'm just a projection of your own mind. So everything you know, I know. And you don't know what I was up to when I went back to the fleet."

"Right." Shepard sort of figured as much. He's also figured something else. Something he knew in the back of his mind but didn't really want to consider. "I'm being indoctrinated, aren't I?"

"Yeah…"

"So, I'm going to be one the reapers' puppets?"

"Mmmm, no." She was so nonchalant about it.

"But…"

"The Illusive Man is indoctrinating you, whether he realizes it or not. But he also inadvertently gave you a lifeline to save you from it."

"My implants, from Project Lazarus."

"Yes. You'll get one chance. Use it well. Come back to me alive, okay? Don't leave me behind." Don't leave me behind. That's what she said at the conduit. Shepard's heart sank when she said it then. This time, his heart was close to breaking.

"I, I won't. I'll come back for you. I'll end this war and come back for you!"

"Good. Good. It's time to go, Shepard. Time to end this, once and for all."

"Alright. How do I get back?"

"You just have to remember where you are."

That should have been easy. He should have remembered where he was, where he really was. It was all hazy. After everything he had been through, the truth seemed to just slip away. He struggled with his own memories, trying to get back to where he really was. After a few seconds, he managed to pick something out.

"The Citadel."

"Yes, but not here. Remember." There is a flash. Dark, red, painful. It's over in a second.

"Damn…"

"Remember." Another flash. He's holding a gun. Looking straight at Anderson. Gone again, just like the first. "You're almost there. Just a little more."

"But… what do I do when I get back?"

"You're Commander Shepard. You'll think of something. Now…"

Remember.

Everything snapped. The Illusive Man was stepping forward, about to clench his fist. He was about to force Shepard to shoot. He only had seconds. He had to do something fast. Then Shepard remembered: he was biotic. Shepard put all his will into firing the right nerves to make a biotic field. There was too little time, and he couldn't move enough to make a strong one, just one strong enough to move his hand a few inches to the right. Shepard fired. But instead of hitting Anderson in the stomach, he hit the Illusive Man in the side. Harper's hold on Shepard and Anderson was broken. There was nothing stopping the commander from shooting the Illusive Man in the head: Except for a thermal clip that had reached its heat capacity. Shepard was starting to agree with Conrad Verner about thermal clips. With no other weapons at his disposal, Shepard ran at Harper and tackled him. They hit the console behind Anderson, activating it. The arms of the Citadel began to open.

Harper managed to get a chokehold on Shepard. He was fully intent on squeezing the remaining life from the commander. As the Citadel arms opened up, however, Harper was distracted by the sight of Earth burning beneath them. Shepard was able to break free and level a punch to the Illusive Man's wound. Before they could reengage each other, the floor panel beneath them began to rise, lifting them into another room. It looked like it was open right out into space. One expected to be sucked out into the void, but it never happened. There was a massive beam of energy rising from the ground in the center of the room. This was where Shepard made his choice. Or at least, where he though he made a choice. He didn't have much time to think about it as Harper came at him again. It seemed his strength had been amplified by the reaper implants he had throughout his body. Harper threw Shepard a dozen feet towards the energy beam. Shepard had almost forgotten how much pain he was in before Harper's attempted his indoctrination.

"You just never know when to quit, do you Shepard?" He seemed confident, but Shepard knew he was beginning to lose his cool.

"I guess I don't, Harper." The Illusive Man stopped for a moment.

"How do you know that name?"

"I suppose I got into your head when you were trying to get into mine."

"I should have let Miranda put that control chip in your head. In hindsight it would have saved me a headache." Harper walked up to him and grabbed him by the neck. "We could have controlled them, Shepard. We could have dominated the galaxy! But now, humanity will die because of you!"

"Shepard!"

It was Anderson. He must have followed them up. Before Harper could even fully turn, the admiral shot Harper in the knee. He would have probably hit something more vital if he hadn't been injured himself. In any case, it might have just saved Shepard's life. The commander grabbed Harper and threw him to the ground. The Cerberus director quickly got up again, but before he was ready to fight again, Shepard punched him right in the face. He didn't stop. Blow after blow forced Harper backwards toward the device Shepard used to control the reapers in his hallucination. It felt as though Shepard's body would give out at any moment, but he didn't stop. Not until Harper was backed up just a few feet from the machine.

"We're right here, Shepard! I can control the reapers!"

"No. You can't." Shepard wound up and delivered one final blow directly to the Illusive Man's skull, knocking him into the machine.

As soon as Harper hit the machine, it looked like he was getting electrocuted. But Shepard knew what was really happening to him. He was about to be torn apart and uploaded as the reapers' central consciousness. But Shepard remembered what the Catalyst told him when the Illusive Man was trying to indoctrinate him. It said that the reapers couldn't be controlled by someone they themselves controlled. However it didn't really say what would happen if they tried.

"ERROR! ERROR!" The Catalyst appeared, but instead of the voice of a child, it had something more along the lines of the reapers. It was deep and terrifying, but what it was saying made it more bearable. It sounded like it was starting to malfunction.

The Illusive Man's body slowly disintegrated. He screamed the whole time, right up until he had to no mouth to scream with. However it was mostly eclipsed by the booming voice of the Catalyst spouting techno babble that Shepard didn't really have the strength or patience to listen to. It went on for a few minutes before it got quiet again. Shepard hobbled back to the center of the room, towards the holographic projection of the Catalyst. The commander had wondered whether the Catalyst was actually the AI controlling the reapers or something from his own mind. It looked like it was real, but then again, so did the whole trip down memory lane.

"Shepard. You are strong indeed."

"What just happened?"

"The one you call the Illusive Man was integrated into our systems. The control mechanism has become corrupted. Total failure is imminent. The Illusive Man's integration has interfered with my operation. It is causing critical failures in my processes. Our own control signal will cause a catastrophic error in the reapers' runtimes, as well as my own. The Crucible will fire automatically, transmitting the corrupt code to the reapers. Their ability to process the numerous programs within their constructs will be stripped away, putting them into a catatonic state. The mass relays will also be damaged from the Crucible's transmission, but the damage should be relatively minimal. There is still time to choose one of the other options."

"I don't think so. I have someone to get back to."

"Then the future is in your hands." And that was it. The Catalyst faded and the Crucible began to fire. The allied fleet retreated though the relay to escape the blast.

Shepard watched as a massive, white wave of energy fired from the crucible over the Earth before sending a beam off into space, most likely into the mass relay network. He watched as the reapers surrounding Earth began to spark and begin to move erratically. They began to fire wildly, shooting at each other, tearing themselves apart. Soon, the reapers seemed to become overwhelmed by the lack of control. They eventually stopped moving, becoming catatonic like the Catalyst said they would. The reapers had finally been defeated.

Shepard walked over to Anderson. The admiral was sitting on the floor, his strength almost gone. Shepard could relate. He joined Anderson on the floor and looked out on Earth. They could only imagine the cheering that was happening on her surface. They didn't need to hear it. They were perfectly fine with just watching the reapers float lifelessly in space.

"Damn. Now that's a sight." Anderson sounded completely and utterly relieved. The enemy of the entire galaxy have been reduced to empty shells. "I can die happy now."

"Not planning on dying anytime soon, are you?" Shepard was only half joking.

"Heh, no. Kahlee would probably give me hell if I died now. How about you, Shepard? You look rough."

"Well, if I went and did that, I'd have an angry quarian to deal with."

"So, you and Tali, huh? I thought there was something there."

"Yeah. She's out there somewhere. It might take a while, but I'll get back to her. I'm not going to leave her behind."

"Good. They'll probably send up salvage ships soon." Anderson leaned back, taking in the view of the Earth. "You did good, son. I'm proud."

"Thanks you, sir."