Miranda was dying. Indeed, after taking multiple gunshots to the chest at point-blank range on top of her other injuries, what surprised Liara wasn't the operative's imminent death, but that she'd stayed alive as long as she had. Still, even the combination of her genetically augmented physiology and indomitable willpower were failing, and when the Shadow Broker looked into her eyes, she could see that Miranda knew it too.

"Liara…" With every word she forced out, flecks of blood spilled from Miranda's cracked lips, but she pressed on, determined not to leave this unsaid. "I'm sorry…", she told her, the apology coming easier than she thought it would have, "About all of it… The things I did to you two…"

Looking at the dying woman lying beneath her, there were plenty of reasons for the Shadow Broker to hold on to her hate. Miranda had twisted Shepard's body, repeatedly tried to seduce her, and kidnapped Liara… For the Goddess' sake, she had tried to kill the asari back on Mars. And yet, she had also saved Liara on Hendril, and now she had given her life to help save the galaxy. Reasons enough, she decided, to let go.

"It is all right," she said softly, brushing back a strand of the operative's bloody hair. "It's over now."

Above them, the green light surrounding the command console was shifting and changing, a hum of energy filling the air as the Crucible powered up. "She really did it…" Miranda whispered, her voice beginning to fail her.

"Yes, she did," Liara agreed before adding. "We all did." Goddesses only knew how, but it seemed they had come through and Miranda was entitled to her share of the credit.

"Oriana."

"Do not worry," Liara reassured her. "I will make sure she's safe."

"Tell her…" Miranda coughed up more blood before slumping down on the ground, unable to find the strength to finish her thought, but Liara could guess what she wanted to say.

"I will tell her that she had a sister who loved her, and who died to make sure that she was safe," she promised. Liara wasn't sure how much Miranda had heard. The operative's eyes were closed now and her chest was at last still, but there was a smile on her face, so Liara supposed that it had been enough.

Rising, the Shadow Broker looked over to her friends. Both of them were in better shape than Miranda, especially Ashley. The Spectre had some cracked ribs to go with a collection of cuts and scrapes, but she was still up and about, helping to see to Garrus. The turian was more seriously injured, with his burns and shattered shoulder, but medi-gel had stabilized his condition and even brought him back around.

As the hum of the Crucible grew louder, Garrus let out a pained chortle. "Guess it… actually worked," he quipped, "Don't have to get… refund from the protheans after all."

"Don't be so sure," Ashley told him, not quite ready to celebrate. "We still don't know what it's going to do."

Samantha Traynor pulled herself to her feet, her chest still filled with a stinging ache that had now spread throughout her limbs "Bloody hell," she muttered as she tried to make her legs perform their intended function. "EDI, where's Kelly Chambers and what is she doing?"

"Former Yeoman Chambers is in the Normandy's cockpit," came back the cool reply. "She is currently unconscious."

Sam blinked, still trying to clear her head from the shock. Deciding she had better take a closer took, the specialist staggered her way towards the front of the ship. Just as EDI said, Kelly was sprawled out on the floor of the cockpit while Joker remained at the helm. What drew Samantha's attention though was the view out of the windows. Below them sprawled the Citadel and atop the massive Crucible docked with it, energy was gathering.

"The Crucible is active," EDI informed them somewhat unnecessarily.

"Yeah, but what's it going to do?", Joker asked, seemingly oblivious to the specialist's presence.

They didn't have long to wait for their answer. Massive spikes of energy sprang forth from the Crucible, striking several of the Reapers they had been battling, ripping the massive ships apart as if they were toys. From there, the blasts jumped, shredding more and more Reapers while leaving the rest of the fleet untouched. One by one, the titans died, and even as they did, the Crucible pulsed again, sending the largest beam of energy yet into the Mass Relay and from there, out to the rest of the galaxy.

Sam could only watch in awe as the Reapers fell, these seemingly unstoppable monsters cut down in a single, mighty stroke by the weapon they had spent months devoting most of their energies to building and deploying. Overwhelmed by emotion, she threw her arms around Joker. "We're going to win!", she cried out, tears streaming down her face. "We're really going to win!"

The pilot winced at her embrace. "Ouch! Watch the ribs!"

She let Joker go, her face falling. "Sorry, I got carried away."

"It's all right," he told her, laughing in spite of the throbbing in his side. "I think we're all due for a little celebration right now."

Shepard stepped away from the pedestal, the prothean interface fading from her mind as she let go of the control mechanism. Below her, Ashley was patching up Garrus, and Liara was kneeling above the still form of Miranda. "It's done," she told them. "How's everybody else?"

Garrus shrugged his good shoulder and said, "I'm all right," though given the bloody mess that had been made of his other one, the Spectre wasn't entirely convinced by his claim.

"Miranda is gone," Liara informed her softly, with more regret in her voice than Shepard would have expected to find there.

The commander shook her head. Once, hearing that Miranda had died would have brightened her day, but now, she wasn't quite sure how to feel either. "Can we get a message through to the fleet?", she asked, pushing the thought aside for the moment.

Ashley opened her omni-tool and punched in a command. "I think so. Whatever was messing up our transmissions seems to have cleared up." She paused for a moment, checking the data feeds. "It worked." She was choking up as she said the words, staggered by the magnitude of the news she had to deliver. "The Crucible worked. The Reapers are destroyed."

Liara came to her feet, stumbling into the Spectre's arms. "Goddess," she said softly, tears of relief on her lovely face. "We made it."

Shepard just nodded and placed a kiss on the side of her lover's crest, too overwhelmed by the moment to find any more words even as she heard Liara say, "Call the fleet. Tell them we will require extraction, and make sure they send medical personnel to the area below the east elevator as well. Tali is there."

The reminder of her friend's danger brought back Shepard voice. "Ash," she said wearily. "You stay here with Garrus. I'm going to go to Tali."

"I will come with you," Liara told her, putting an arm around the Spectre for support. Her leg still hurt, but she was not going to be parted from her bondmate again today, and though there was nothing more she could do for Tali until real medical assistance arrived, they could at least let her know what had happened. She deserved far more than that, but it was all Liara had to give right then.

As the shuttle brought them back to the Normandy, Shepard was quiet. Tali had been unconscious when they found her, and now the quarian was on a separate transport, barely alive and en route to a dedicated medical frigate. Shepard was reluctant to leave her side, but with the carnage of the battle, space there had to be reserved for the most serious cases. The rest of the team was going to be looked after on their own ship, even Garrus, who was currently sleeping under the influence of the powerful painkillers the medics had given him.

Liara had been trying to give her bondmate space, but Shepard's silence worried her, and closing her omni-tool, she reached out, placing a hand on the commander's knee. "Are you all right?", she asked quietly. "You have said little since the rescue crews found us."

The Spectre shrugged. "I guess I am. I just always imagined I'd be happier when this day came, but it's hard to know what to feel right now. It's all too much."

"I understand," the Shadow Broker said gently, "But I still think you should know that we have started receiving reports from across the rest of the galaxy. The Crucible destroyed all the Reapers, not just those in this system. The Mass Relays themselves are temporarily inactive for anything more energy-intensive than communication due to the power they expended, but the technicians believe they should recover in a few weeks." She smiled at her beloved. "It really is over."

Shepard managed a tired smile in return. She'd known what the Crucible was supposed to do from the time she'd spent interfaced with it, but it was still a relief to hear that it had worked as intended. "I'm glad," she told the asari, "But still… There's just been so much death." She thought of James and Javik, Miranda and Thane, Mordin and Kaiden, to saying nothing of the billions more she didn't know, the countless lives on Earth, and Thessia, and Palaven, and elsewhere that had been lost to the Reapers. "How can things go back to the way they used to be?", she asked. "How can anyone have a normal life after all of this carnage?"

Liara leaned over and kissed her softly on a freckled cheek. "Allow me to share a little professional wisdom with you."

Shepard raised an eyebrow. "The Shadow Broker has files on healing after a galactic war?"

"No." Liara shook her head. "From my real profession. I have spent most of my life studying the past, and while nothing on this scale has ever happened before, countless nations, and cultures, and even worlds have suffered unimaginable losses. They go on, Shepard. They mourn, and they build monuments to the dead, and they name streets after their heroes, and children after the people they have lost, but they go on. We will as well."

Shepard swallowed back a tear as she saw the love and compassion in Liara's beautiful blue eyes. "We will." Suddenly, a thought seized her and she put a protective hand on her bondmate's stomach. "Our daughter, Liara, is she going to be okay after everything you went through?"

"She is." There was a calm certainty in the archeologist's voice that settled Shepard back down. "I think I would be able to tell if something was wrong. Asari pregnancies are resilient, probably because they are so uncommon and so lengthy."

Brushing her eyes dry, Shepard gave her a wry smile. "How lengthy?"

"A year and a half. Sometimes longer."

Shepard's smile broadened as she made her peace with that concept. "It's okay," she told her bondmate. "We have the time."

Ashley was the last to disembark from the shuttle and when she did, she was immediately set upon by a very enthusiastic Specialist Traynor. Her girlfriend threw her arms around the Spectre, kissing her hard and deep. "Hey," Ashley told her when they slowly pulled apart, "I'm okay, Sam. Try to go easy on the chest though. I cracked a couple of ribs over there on the Citadel."

"Oh, geez," Sam apologized, loosening her grip and feeling particularly stupid given that she'd made the same mistake with Joker only hours earlier. "I've got to stop doing that."

"Don't worry about it," Ashley smiled. Just then, she noticed the burn mark on her girlfriend's uniform. "Looks like you had a bit of an adventure here too. What did you do? Something dashing, I bet."

Sam blushed, her dark skin turning a completely adorable shade of red. "It really wasn't very heroic," she admitted. "I just got shocked by a crazy yeoman."

Ashley gave her a confused look and Sam explained, "Kelly Chambers turned out to be indoctrinated. She ambushed me with a spanner during the battle."

"What happened to her?"

"Joker stopped her."

"Joker?" Ashley grinned. "I'll have to buy him a beer."

"I imagine there'll be a lot celebrations now. I mean, we did just win the biggest war in history."

The specialist kissed Ashley again, a longer, slower kiss that left a warm, tingly feeling spreading throughout the Spectre's body in spite of her injuries. Sam felt so right in her arms that all of the days' hurts just seemed to be melting away.

The kiss finally broke and Ashley's smile took on a devilish contour. "You know, speaking of us winning the war…" A part of her felt wrong thinking about sex at a time like this. After all, Tali was still in critical condition, James was dead, and countless others were too. And yet, she and Sam had survived what her lover rightly called the biggest war in history, and the sheer exuberance of that swept aside her doubts. "I believe you promised me that if I came back alive, you'd be up for anything I wanted."

"I did," Sam agreed, but as she looked up and down at Ashley's battered form, she added, "And I will be when you're feeling better. I don't think it would look good to have the second human Spectre pass out from internal bleeding in my bed. Now come on. Let's go get you to Doctor Chakwas."

"Fine, fine," Ashley agreed with a mock frown. She wasn't really in any shape to fuck, but just the idea was pleasant. "I would point out one thing," she added as they made their way to the elevator together.

"What's that?"

"You don't actually have a bed. Just a cot in the enlisted women's rack."

"I'll get one," Sam laughed, an uncontrollable giddiness gripping her at the thought. She could do that now: buy a bed, fuck Ashley in it, or do anything else she wanted with the rest of her life, a life she was actually going to get to live.

So, what did people think of Miranda's death and all the rest? I tried to balance people's euphoria and grief in their reactions, which was tricky. Regardless, there's only two chapters still to go. An epic amount of "We didn't die" smut next, then an epilogue. Thanks as always for reading.