Title: Selfish
Summary: For once, she decided she could be selfish. F!Shep/Liara
Disclaimer: I dont own anything in the Mass Effect 'verse. I also don't own parts of the ME3 trailer I used.
AN: Barrier is being deleted and edited...a lot. Sorry folks.
Selfish
The mission of Eden Prime took a surprising and unexpected turn, but Shepard took it all in stride. When she was later asked why she was fighting, she said she was fighting for the human colony. She wasn't xenophobic, she actually preferred Krogan to humans. The loss of Nihlus hit her harder than most; they got along great, despite the difference in species. But she was a soldier, and Alliance one at that, and she must protect humanity from it's new threat - although the Prothean memories in her head made her worry that humanity wasn't the only one in danger.
As the months went on, after she had finally gotten enough truth to prove Saren was a traitor, the itch in the back of her mind that there was something bigger than Saren and the geth got larger and larger. While the Prothean memories in her mind hinted at something called the Reapers, she just couldn't put the pieces of the puzzle together for proof. When Vigil finally gave her the story of his people and that there were Reapers, she had to warn everyone. The battle was long and fierce. Her decision to save the council was the choice that most of the humans hated her for. They had lost a lot of people that day, but she wasn't just fighting for humanity.
And then she had died.
The Normandy had been attacked by an unknown vessel, and couldn't be saved. She managed to get as many as she could out, including Joker and Liara, but she had died. She remembered the feeling of emptiness around her, the hissing of air as it escaped her suit, the burning of her skin as she entered the planet's atmosphere. Then nothing. She hadn't stopped the Reapers, but she had died doing something she was born to do.
Then she was ripped from the peace and the darkness, and thrust into a world that was in chaos.
Human colonies all around the Traverse were disappearing, and it seemed like her so called revivers, Cerberus, were the only ones actually concerned. While she didn't trust them, nor the Illusive Man, she did what she has always done: fight. The new threat, the Collectors, made a shiver go down her spine, but she fought to protect the human colonies. But when it was found out that the collectors were working with the Reapers, and they were actually Prothean too; well, the urge to hit her head against the wall was very strong.
Her team was a band of misfits, not unlike her old one, but they did it. Her second suicide mission and everyone came out alive. The collectors were destroyed, and it was one less thing to worry about. However, their peace didn't last for very long. They had managed to stop Sovern and the Collectors, but the Reapers were still out there. Despite all the warnings she had been giving, and all the proof, no one would believe her. The Reapers didn't exist, they said.
The battle was long and bloody.
Five hundred Reaper ships. Thats it. Five hundred against billions. But it had barely been enough. Earth was the first to fall. Two million dead in the first day, another seven by the end of the first week. Although Shepard had gathered as many people as she could, the defenses they had put up had been annihilated. One by one, planets fell: Thessia, the Asari homeworld; Dekuuna, the Elcor homeworld; Palaven, the turian homeworld. All bore scars of a bloody battle.
Ten years, billions dead, but they had won. When the last enemy fell, on the small planet of Xawin, Shepard finally fell to her knees, relieved that they had finally won. She disapeared a month later, never to be seen again; but, before she left, she gave one last interview. When she was asked who she fought for, she looked at the mixed crowd around her. Her crew, both old and new, were there. Including one asari.
She grinned and looked at the reporter that asked the question. She could be selfish, for once.
She was fighting for her wife and unborn daughter.