Anderson thinks it's less the bullet in his guts and more the grief that's killing him.

Blood comes up his throat and drips out his mouth, staining the logo on his uniform that says he's Alliance. He tries to sit up straighter and his legs spasm. His feet leave trails on the floor, dirt and dust and blood from the dead in London. His whole body shakes. He's broken. He's going numb, but not enough to dull the pain. His heart pumps and his lungs push air in and out and he still can't get enough breath to feel like he's not suffocating. Dirty sweat runs in his eyes. He wants to pretend that it's because of this that he's crying, but he can't. Shepard looks worse than he does.

His blood, hot and slippery, leaks out of his stomach in time to his pulse.

He's dying, and she looks worse.

She's dying, and it's killing him.

He doesn't have the words to describe how much it hurts. It's leaving a ragged hole in him, its edges festering, worse than the torn skin that's barely covering his burst intestines. It doesn't matter that his heartbeat is ticking his time away like a metronome because this grief isn't going to end when his life does.

He wonders if he could have done something more. Something else. He wonders if he could have stopped Saren twenty years ago, would he have protected the galaxy? Protected the humans? Earth? He wonders if he would have protected that scrawny girl with the pale freckles and the glossy black hair and the look in her big blue eyes that said she knew there was ugliness in the world.

He wants to tell her she's come so far from being that scared little girl, homeless and alone.

"You did good, child," is all he manages to say. "You did good. I'm…proud…of you."

He means to say more. He means to tell her he's sorry for not being stronger when she was gone. To tell her that she's the best humanity could ever have to offer. Tell her he's glad she's found a family. That she should have gotten a god damned promotion the first time she saved the galaxy.

He means to tell her that she's got herself one lucky turian. To ask her if she's taking his name, what the name of their first kid's gonna be. That she's gonna be a great mother. To tell her not to blame herself for everything that's bad in the universe.

He means to tell her that he loves her. That she's a daughter to him, and he loves her.

He means to say more.

But he dies, and he can't.