~Author's Note~ Thanks for all your kind words, guys. I would have responded to everyone if you guys would get some accounts. :P
Hopefully Bioware hears all this outcry and gives us an ending that our Shepard deserves, regardless if it was planned or not. Until then, I guess we'll plow ahead. :P
The first thing Shepard thought when she woke was simply one word. Pain. Incredible pain as if her entire body had been dropped into a fire. The second thing was how incredibly dark everything seemed. And then she realized why.
The beam, the way into the heart of the Citadel, was gone.
A few choice curse words came to mind.
Of course they'd shut it off as soon as they realized their indoctrination attempt failed, why would they leave a backdoor wide open with their enemy so close? But that problem was suddenly forgotten as her mind caught up to the present. She was not the only one who had been struck by Harbinger's laser.
"Garrus! Tali!"
She glanced around, wildly, but it was difficult to see anything in the darkness. Lights still flashed elsewhere, she assumed those were lasers, as the Alliance and their allies kept fighting. But now, that didn't matter. She had to find them. They couldn't be...
She wouldn't even think it. Despite the pain from her injuries, which were severe, she starting searching through the rubble.
But it wasn't Tali or Garrus that she found first.
It was Anderson.
The Admiral was lying partly out of some rubble, his entire body burned and nearly unrecognizable. She nearly turned away, assuming he was dead, until she noticed his eyes were tracking her.
She limped over to him. She would have been smiling, but one look at his injuries told her rational side that there was nothing that could be done here.
He spoke, obviously through great pain. "Shepard. I'm done for. You've got to get out of here, you have to tell Hackett the plan has failed."
She could hardly see, either because of the tears streaming down her face or because the darkness seemed to be getting worse. Ignoring him, she began to try to move the rubble away. Her emotional side refused to give up on him.
He coughed, and it sounded like the last gasps of a dying man. Shepard refused to think she could lose him, here, just after she had realized what he meant to her.
With what was obviously a supreme effort of will, Anderson raised his hand and placed it on her shoulder. She stopped her efforts, for a moment, and looked into his eyes. They were shining. "I'm... so proud of you, child. So proud. I know... I know that you will finish this."
She blinked away her tears. She had to be strong. "Together, sir. We will finish this together."
He smiled, a sad smile. "You never would give up on anyone, Shepard. Tell Kahlee... well. Tell her I'll be looking out for her, okay? From wherever we end up."
Shepard closed her eyes, trying to control herself. When she opened them again, Anderson's head was resting on his chest, a smile on his face.
With a sigh, she stood up. She remembered telling Ashley that they could grieve for Kaidan after the mission was done, but not before. Anderson would not want her to fall apart, not now. She had a job to do.
She looked up, at the fight raging in the heavens above her. "It's time to end this."
Forgot searching through the rubble for hours. She no longer cared. If the enemy heard, let them come. She'd kill them all with her bare hands if she had to. She raised her voice, a shout that echoed around the battlefield.
"Garrus! Get your big turian ass out here. Tali, you too. And if I hear anything about a damn suit rupture I'm going to-"
"Keelah, Shepard, keep your voice down! I just saw a few of those little bosh'tets heading past this same area, you're going to get us killed!"
Shepard looked around, unable to pinpoint where the quarian's voice was coming from. "Tali?"
"No, it's the other quarian you brought with you on your squad. Of course its me!"
"Where are you?"
A three-fingered hand came out from under the Mako that was sitting in the middle of the carnage. "Hurry, Shepard, the bosh'tet is coming around again."
Shepard dropped, and wormed her away underneath the vehicle. "Good to see you made it Tali."
"Yeah. Not all of me, though."
"Not.. all of you?"
For answer, Tali turned, just a bit, but it was enough for Shepard to clearly see that her right arm ended at the elbow. Her sharp intake of breath was involuntary. "Oh, god, Tali. Your suit! Are you..."
"I don't know Shepard. I cut off that area from the rest of my suit as soon as I woke up, but... I don't know. If it weren't for the geth interfacing in my suit, I'd be dead already. They managed to activate the suit so that it shut that area down, not as cleanly as I could have- and did, as soon as I woke up- but enough to keep the infection out. I think."
"Wait.. you... have a geth in your suit?"
"Yeah, right before we made the jump to Sol, I decided I might need the extra help. It's been... supportive." She paused, seeming to be listening to something. "Except when it's trying to make jokes out of situations like this. Keelah, I swear EDI was never this bad."
Shepard paused for a moment. "Did you.. did you see if...-"
Tali's voice was soft. "He's beside me, Shepard. I dragged him underneath as best I could."
Shepard took a deep, steadying breath. She didn't know if she could do this without Garrus. "Is... is he-" she choked up, unable to get the words out.
"I'm not sure, Shepard. He's breathing. I think. But... he's bad. Really bad, Shepard. Keelah. None of this is going like we planned it. It just seems like everything-"
Tali was abruptly cut off as something grabbed her by her leg and jerked her out from underneath the Mako.
"SHEPARD!"
"TALI!" No, no, no. She wasn't going to lose Tali, not now.
Shepard rolled out as fast as she could. It was a lone Marauder, and it had tossed Tali to the ground. Its pistol was raised, pointed down at the quarian on the ground below it. Shepard had no weapon, and no time to think of a better plan. She was an engineer, but her omnitool had been completely fried by Harbinger's blast, so there was nothing left for it. She charged the Marauder, who looked up as it heard her, and shifted the pistol to her. But she was too fast for it, and she hit it at full speed, knocking the thing to the ground.
She had some vague idea of snapping its neck with her bare hands, like she'd seen in the vids sometimes, and grabbed it by the throat to try to twist. The vids made it look a lot easier than it actually was.
The Marauder simply stood up with her clinging it to, desperately trying to snap its neck. With one hand, it grabbed her and slammed her into the rubble. She couldn't seem to catch her breath. She knew it was standing over her, knew it was about to shoot her, but she just couldn't breathe. She gasped, trying to fight through the pain. All the hurt from her earlier injuries came screaming back.
She vaguely heard Tali yell something, frantic. A name she used to know.
The Marauder pointed the pistol at her.
And with a distinctive crack, its head snapped back, blue turian blood flowing from the new hole in its head. It crumpled to the ground, dropping the pistol on the way down.
The voice that she heard next was music to her ears. "I said a one-turian kind of woman. Not a two-turian kind of woman. Although that... thing hardly counts as a turian."
Shepard managed to shakily bring herself to her feet, grabbing the marauder's pistol as she went up. She turned and saw him. Garrus Vakarian, leaning against the Mako, smirking at her. Of all the cheek. In this situation, outgunned, alone, and surrounded by the enemy, he was making wisecracks. He may have lost his visor, and most of his armor, and burns were clearly plastered over his skin and on his arms.
But to Shepard, there wasn't a more beautiful sight in the world than her turian on his feet.
She stumbled over her words. "Garrus... I thought..- "
"I told you once before Shepard. It's gonna take more than Reapers to stop this cross-species-"
She flung herself at him, causing him to drop the rifle.
He held her, just for a moment. Then he grabbed her shoulders and pushed her away enough so that he could look her in the eyes. "I am not leaving you, Shepard. That's a promise."
She looked up at him; Garrus Vakarian, her Archangel, and the only thing in this universe holding her steady. Her eyes flashed with sudden fire. "You ready to give the Reapers every kind of hell we can throw at them?"
He looked over at the Marauder, the twisted example of what his species would become under Reaper indoctrination, and his eyes set. "Let's finish this."