I wrote this for a prompt last October- anon wanted to see Shepard dying from something unexpected with Thane beside her. I wrote this with the notion that in some realities there are no great sacrifices, no happy endings, no gallant exceptions for heroes...even the savior of the galaxy is only human.

Thanks for reading.

Sunbird

The light seems brighter, somehow. She imagines its heat on her legs, but her armor's too heavy and thick and she can't feel much of anything, least of all her jumbled limbs.

Her mouth feels heavy, the act of talking cumbersome. She swallows around the sensation and speaks anyway. "Thane." Her voice sounds foreign, sort of how she imagined she might sound if she'd spent a lifetime smoking. "The sun. I want to feel... could you..."

He's a little clearer than he was at the beginning, but there's still this strange warping to all the forms around her, and he's no exception. She considers telling him he's fuzzy. The effort to breathe around the sharpness in her chest reminds her why he might not find it as amusing as she does.

Her companion casts her in shadow as he moves quietly from kneeling beside her to the fasteners on her armor; his fingers move with deft precision and his body cools her while he's between her and the sun. As he methodically exposes her skin, she finds herself thinking that being cold is just as comforting in its own way. It's one more thing to feel, one more thing to remember about living.

Piece by piece, Thane lifts the parts of her armor that he can get to without moving her. She can see him work his way down to her feet though she does not lift her head. He comes back to her chest last; his expression as he lifts the chestplate makes her heart feel sluggish with ache.

She doesn't want to tell him that she cannot feel the sun on her legs. She doesn't want to tell him that she cannot lift her arms.

"Is that better, siha?" he asks. His voice... that is something she can feel; that is a warmth and a comfort as strong as the feeling of the sun seeping into her chest through her undersuit should be. She smiles at him, trying to perceive his edges as they slide in and out of focus.

She isn't frightened, not really. She's done this before.

It's okay.

But this wasn't how she'd wanted it to go, or planned, or even imagined in passing. She never thought it would be on some backwater planet because of a patch of loose gravel and awkward footing. It was the sort of thing she might have laughed at and said was too stupid of a way for her to die, after everything.

But it's the way it is. She breathes in. She breathes out. At least she can breathe.

Thane has settled onto his knees next to her; she comes back to him when she feels his warm hand cupping her cheek. "I'm sorry," she rasps, talking harder still, but she's content that at least she can hear her own conviction and tenderness. His hand on her face strokes across to her ear, his thumb a distinct sensation against her cheekbone.

"You have nothing to be sorry for." He leans across her and presses his lips against her lips and then against her forehead. "And much for which you should be proud."

That pricks at her eyes; she blinks rapidly and tries to push past the knot in her throat. The tears spill anyway; her breathing grows ragged as she fights to control herself and it's so much harder than it should be, but gradually the gnawing ache fades and she can breathe a little better again.

A strong hand cups her head and neck - something feels funny about her back all of a sudden - she's being lifted. From the corner of her eye she can see the edges of Thane's jacket, and she realizes he's somehow shifted her into his lap.

She looks down; she can see herself now. She glances at her hands and they are pale and purposeless beside her as a doll's. She asks him to hold her hand, and he does. He grips it for her because she cannot grip his back.

The sun's still rising higher, circling over the planet, heading toward its prime.

Shepard watches the edge of shadow receding as the sunlight moves up her chest. At last she can feel it on her neck, pouring against her chin and into her parted lips. As the light moves up to her eyes, she is suddenly sheltered from the glare by a textured hand across her brow.

There is still so much she wishes she could say, but she's fairly certain how that would end; she really doesn't think he wants to see her crying herself to death, so maybe it's better this way. She trusts him enough to know he can intuit the important truths without needing them to be said.

The stretch of red earth that she can see from beneath his hand grows hazy as insects start to sing in the heat. She wonders if the haze is a mirage or if it's her eyes, but either way it's sort of beautiful, an impressionistic painting. It's something to think about other than the way her chest feels wrong even though she can't feel most of it, and the way air seems harder and harder to find. That is not not a feeling she's missed; she swallows, struggling around the breath she can't quite catch. She doesn't want to die like that, struggling for breath -

-There's a sound, then, a bird, somewhere near over her head; it's calling, singing. She imagines it in the small-leafed tree behind her, on a branch bathed with sunlight. The sound seeps into her body, and the song is like a memory glimmering at the edges, right out of reach. She reaches out to follow.

They find him facing away from the cliff; he's slightly bent over a body as though he's curled above it to offer protection. They hear him before he hears them.

He is trilling.

They stop in their tracks, unable or unwilling to break the song, but Miranda looks at Garrus, looks at Jacob, and her face is ashen and sad. And she steps forward and walks into the light.