A/N: Part two of the piece that was meant to be one part – Ash's side. Again, text/thoughts in common are bolded. And I'm seriously so irritated about the lack of being able to use three columns for this that I'm thinking of making my own website just to show it the way I originally planned.
Okay, okay. I'll calm down.
... eventually.

Thanks as always to those who read and especially those who review!

Today, I helped my sister prepare to bury her husband.

I didn't know what to say to her.
I still don't.

When we were kids, I always knew what to say to make things better – when there were problems with friends or with school, when someone was hassling her. Hell, I even knew what to say when Dad died, to remind her of the time we spent with him and how much he loved us. It didn't make the pain go away – nothing could – but more than anyone, Dad understood that words had power. The power to comfort, to help someone heal…

But I don't know what I can say to her this time.

Was it weeks ago that they were on their honeymoon or just days? How can you recover from finding someone only to lose them so quickly thereafter?

Well, I guess I know something about that, after all. And I know that there's nothing you can say.

I guess she sees that.

I'm trying to handle as many of the arrangements as I can. It's what I did for Mom when Dad died, and what I did for as many of the 212's families as I could.

Sure, there was that big public memorial service after the Battle of the Citadel… but it just didn't seem like enough. When remembering the loss of so many, it almost seemed to overshadow the lives of the few.

My few.

It was a small ceremony, simple – just Alliance honors and family. And I stood before that little gathering and spoke of each of them as the individuals they were and deserved to be remembered as – not names on some big memorial plaque, grouped under "Human Alliance Navy Unit 212, Lost on Eden Prime."

I included Kaidan too.

Anderson helped me contact his mother, but his family declined to show… Said they couldn't face me. We sacrificed Kaidan on Virmire that day, and though we had our reasons, the ones who made it out are living reminders of their loss.

I don't blame them for not coming. I can't say they were alone in feeling that way, either.

A lot of families came to my memorial, but not all. And even if they showed, I could still see it in their eyes as they looked at me, could feel the unasked question…

Why them and not me?
I don't know.

But, it's something that I ask myself every day.

I don't think you can ever recover from losing your unit, all those lives entrusted to your care. I've been thinking about it a lot lately.

And I pray that I'll never see that look in my sister's eyes – wondering why, of the two Alliance Marines in her life, she kept me but lost her husband.

So, I'll help her bury him. It's all that I can do. When words fail, the only thing left are your actions. I hope that mine will speak loudly enough.

But I know that it's hard not to draw the comparison, not to look at the living and see the dead.

How do you measure a man?

I'm not a biotic like Kaidan, or a dreamer like Nirali Bhatia. I don't even know if I'm half the soldier that Sarah's husband was.

All I can say is that I'm me.

And I live each day knowing that I was chosen to move on while the others were left behind.

I just hope that I'm making them proud, that I'm good enough to live up to their legacies.

I hope that I'm making a difference.

And I hope that, at the end of everything, there will be a galaxy left to measure and remember me.

On storm-struck deck, wind sirens caterwaul;
With each tilt, shock and shudder, our blunt ship
Cleaves forward into fury; dark as anger,
Waves wallop, assaulting the stubborn hull.
Flayed by spray, we take the challenge up,
Grip the rail, squint ahead, and wonder how much longer

Such force can last; but beyond, the neutral view
Shows, rank on rank, the hungry seas advancing.
Below, rocked havoc-sick, voyagers lie
Retching in bright orange basins; a refugee
Sprawls, hunched in black, among baggage, wincing
Under the strict mask of his agony.

Far from the sweet stench of that perilous air
In which our comrades are betrayed, we freeze
And marvel at the smashing nonchalance
Of nature : what better way to test taut fiber
Than against this onslaught, these casual blasts of ice
That wrestle with us like angels; the mere chance

Of making harbor through this racketing flux
Taunts us to valor...

- Channel Crossing, Plath