A/N: Here it is! The finale of how I think it should have ended. I have written quite a lengthy sequel called "A Gift for You, My Commander," which explains more of what happened after the battle and a whole lot of Shepard recovering from her extensive injuries. Plus, lots and lots of happy ever after and Shep/Liara fluff.

Chapter 7

Reality came crashing back around her in the shape of a hard metal floor.

"Shepard!"

Her ears were ringing and her head was splitting again. She was getting sick of headaches.

"Fuck," she said under her breath. Where the hell was she? And who the hell was calling her?

"Shepard! What happened?"

"What?" Shepard said, still trying to identify the voice talking to her.

She lifted her head and squinted in pain. She saw blue. Was she outside? When had they gone outside? A few moments later her eyes began to clear and the blue focused into a face.

"Liara!" she breathed, pulling Liara into her arms. "Goddess, Liara. Please tell me I'm awake. Tell me this is real."

"It's real, I promise," Liara assured her and helped Shepard to her feet. "What happened?"

"Harbinger," Shepard answered. "I'm not sure, but I think he just tried to indoctrinate me."

A heavy silence settled over the team as they processed her words. After about a minute of uncomfortable glances among them, Garrus broke the silence first.

"So you're not having any urges to kill us all and feed our broken remains to Harbinger, are you?"

"Very funny, Garrus," Shepard said.

"But how did you stop him? As far as I know, no one has been able to resist indoctrination. Scientists have theorized that someone could resist if they had indomitable will, but it's never been proven," Liara said, her eyes betraying her worry.

Shepard paused. It was a good question and it had but one answer. "You," she replied simply.

Liara blinked, confusion settling in her beautiful sapphire eyes.

"I thought of you," Shepard repeated softly and placed a hand on Liara's stomach. Then whispered so no one could hear, "And her."

An endlessly tender smile curved Liara's blue lips, but their moment was not destined to last.

"Get a room you two," Jack drawled.

Shepard was about to throw a remark in Jack's general direction when the ground beneath them suddenly shook violently, knocking them all off balance. The wall at the end of the corridor suddenly opened up into a cavernous room. Everyone's guns went up expecting the worst. Harbinger didn't disappoint.

In the vast room ahead of them rested the largest, most terrifying Reaper they'd ever seen. It looked similar to Leviathan, only much, much bigger. Unlike Leviathan, however, it was almost entirely synthetic. Shepard could make out some organic material it had incorporated in its structure, though, somewhat like the giant human Reaper at the collector base. It was wired into the ship with a seemingly endless number of ports and power cords and tubes, pulsing energy into the ship like some kind of unnatural heartbeat. Shepard took a bold step forward.

"Not what you had planned, Harbinger?"

"Only death awaits you, Shepard," Harbinger's replied. His voice reverberated around them, almost deafening in their ears.

"Funny, I was about to say the same damn thing," Shepard retorted.

She didn't wait for him to start monologueing. She was here for one reason and one reason only.

"FIRE!" she bellowed, firing off the first shot with her assault rifle. The roar of gunfire and biotic explosions filled the air as her team enthusiastically obeyed her command.

The team spread out, flanking their opponent and giving it everything they had. Shepard wasn't aiming at anything in particular, but she was keeping her eyes out for a weak point. It had to have a weakness. And if it did, she would find it.

At first it appeared he wasn't even going to fight back. It stood completely stationary as their guns pummeled him with crossfire. But the moment passed when, with a loud groan of metal grating on metal, Harbinger planted his "legs" on the floor and began drawing power to him. Shepard had been fighting long enough to know when the shit was about to hit the fan.

"Everyone get in cover!" she shouted and leaped behind a metal pillar nearest to her. Liara ended up behind the same pillar and Shepard took the moment to grab Liara in her arms to further shield the asari with her body.

A shock-wave of red energy burst forth from Harbinger, momentarily stunning the entire team. Shepard regained her footing and glanced at the rest of the team. Fortunately everyone had made it to cover, so she saw no casualties. She took a moment to make sure Liara was okay then continued firing on Harbinger. A minute or so later, Harbinger powered up again and fired off another pulse of energy. Shepard stepped back behind the pillar with Liara and prepared for the shock-wave. It came in full force, this time cracking the pillar they were using for cover.

"Shit," Shepard cursed under her breath. "We need to change our plan. Power couplings?"

"Power couplings," Liara agreed.

"Let's cut off this bastard's power!" Shepard commanded the team, then opened fire on the nearest cluster of them.

Sparks flew everywhere as they fired away, and the couplings began snapping off one by one. Harbinger retaliated with another shockwave, then pounded the ground with his "legs" which violently shook the entire ship. Shepard fell to her knees then managed to roll out of the way as the pillar she'd been using for cover snapped and crashed to the ground. When she regained her bearings, pain suddenly exploded in her side. She glanced down and saw metal shrapnel from the pillar was buried deep in the side of her torso. 'Pointless armor anyway,' she thought bitterly. She pushed the pain from her mind and continued shooting at Harbinger.

After what felt like half a lifetime of sawing away at the creature, they finally blew through the final bunch of power couplings. Harbinger let out an eerie scream that sounded similar to that of the Rachni queen. Shepard shuddered, then the lights around them suddenly went dead. She heard a slew of curse words over the comm from her team, then everyone activated their flashlights. Shepard had a light bulb moment of her own.

"Holy shit," she said to her team. "The ship isn't Harbinger's power source. Harbinger is powering the ship. He is the power source!"

Through the gloom Harbinger began to glow red, in turn making the room glow an eerie blood red.

"Your Crucible has already failed, Shepard," Harbinger said. "It matters not what you do. We cannot be stopped. Do you truly believe we have not seen the progress of your weapon?"

She ignored him. Her mind was spinning a thousand kilometers per hour. The catalyst. The key was in the catalyst. The Keepers on the Citadel had been the major failing in Sovereign's plan. Harbinger wouldn't make the same mistake twice. And what was the best way to ensure organics would never get their hands on the catalyst?

"Holy . . . fuck," she whispered, staring at the glowing body of Harbinger. It had been right in front of her this whole time. "Hackett!" she shouted into the comm. "I found the catalyst! Lock onto my coordinates!"

"Are you sure, Commander?" he replied. "We're showing your location is inside a Harbinger's ship."

"Exactly," she replied. "His shields are down. It's now over never, Admiral."

Hackett didn't hesitate. Within seconds they felt the ship begin to vibrate as the Crucible focused in on its target.

"I'm thinking that's our signal to leave," Garrus commented.

"You still know nothing," Harbinger's said, his voice even louder than before. "Chaos cannot beat order. Do you believe the organics who came before have not already attempted what you are attempting? You are nothing."

Shepard was getting fed up with him saying that. She was standing in front of a billion-year-old foe with the entire galaxy rallied at her back. That was something, damnit.

"And after all this time, you still don't know everything. It's nice to know we organics can still surprise you," Shepard said. "I get it. You wanted to ensure the Citadel incident wouldn't happen again. You didn't want to leave anything important in anyone else's hands, because you're the only thing you trust with the solution. So you made yourself the catalyst."

"What?" her team said in unison and all eyes turned on her.

"Makes sense, doesn't it?" she said. "What else would he entrust with something so important as the catalyst to his destruction?"

The ship began vibrating more violently. The red light around them grew brighter.

"The cycle must continue," he boomed, causing Shepard to wince at the noise.

"I don't think so. Not this time."

As if to accentuate her point, the ship groaned as it began heating up from the focused beam of the Crucible.

"Time to go!" Shepard shouted to her team.

They didn't argue. Shepard made sure she was the last one out of the area and they all began sprinting for the exit. But even as they fled, Shepard got a strange sense of forboding. It still felt too easy. The structural integrity of the ship began to crumble in front of them, already weakened from the fleet destroying the gun. Ship parts fell around them, some dangerously close, but they kept running. Just when the entrance came into view and Shepard began to feel hope that the crazy plan would work, Hackett's voice came over the comm.

"Commander, Harbinger is blocking the signal of the Crucible somehow. It's still targeting the ship, but it's stopping us from targeting the entire reaper fleet. Is there some way you can stop it?"

Shepard stopped running and her team stopped several paces ahead of her.

"And we almost made it out," Garrus said with a sardonic grin.

Shepard was about to give him a smartass reply when the ship violently shook and the floor above collapsed. It crashed between Shepard and her team and everything around her went black. The blast of the collapse knocked her to the floor and partially buried her in rubble. She groaned, gripping her side. The shrapnel had been pushed further into her side and it felt like more than a couple ribs were cracked. And her armor looked like it had just been thrown in a meat grinder. Great.

"Shepard!" Liara's concerned voice came over the comm. "Shepard, talk to me!"

She coughed up blood before replying, "I'm okay. Is everyone okay?"

"We're all fine," Liara answered. "Give us a minute. We'll get you out of there."

"No!" Shepard croaked, struggling to get to her feet. A beam had inconveniently fallen over her leg and from the feel of it, it was broken. "Get out of here! This whole place is coming down. I'm on this side, I'll get to Harbinger."

"Shepard, don't you dare!" Liara's voice filled the comm. "None of us came this far just to have you die on us!"

"Yeah, I'm going to have to agree with Liara on this one," Garrus said. "I'm not leaving without Shepard."

She heard the rest of the team agree with Garrus and Liara.

"This whole place is coming down!" Shepard barked. "I'm not trying to play the damn hero, I'm trying to end this!"

"So end it. And we'll be here when you do. Better hurry, though. I think this place is about to collapse on us and kill us all," Garrus said in his usual, nonchalant Garrus way.

Shepard cursed under her breath. And this is why loyalty was a double-edged sword. She staggered to her feet and suppressed a groan of pain. Yep. Her leg was definitely broken.

"I'm going to kill you all when I get back," she said, but she lacked any conviction to be angry. She was actually touched, but she couldn't have vocalized it.

"Empty threats are no threats at all," Javik said. "And I'll be damned if a human is going to die for me."

She gritted her teeth and began walking back back to Harbinger. It felt like the longest walk of her life. The sound of her team desperately struggling to dig her out faded into the darkness behind her as she trudged on. She opened a private channel to Admiral Hackett.

"Hackett," she said. Her voice sounded weak in her own ears. "What do I need to do?"

"Harbinger's power source needs to be interrupted somehow. Not necessarily shut off, just interrupted."

"Hackett . . . Harbinger is the power source. And I'm fresh out of thermal clips."

Hackett was silent for a time. She could practically hear the wheels in his mind turning.

"I have my Omni-tool blade. I'll make something work," Shepard assured him. "Just give me a little more time."

As if on cue, Harbinger came into view. When she reached him, she leaned on a fallen pillar to catch her breath.

"You have done well, Shepard," Harbinger said, his deep voice taking on an oddly soothing tone. Or maybe she was just hallucinating from blood-loss. "No one has come as far as you have. No one has come so close to completing the cycle as you. Take pride in that."

"What the hell are you talking about?" she demanded.

"Let me put it in terms you will understand," a new voice entered the conversation. She knew that voice. She had come to hate it.

"Why am I not surprised?" she snapped, turning her gaze to the Illusive Man. "I know your name was Jack Harper. I think I'll call you Harper."

"Think about it, Shepard," the Illusive Man said, ignoring her. "For millions of cycles, Harbinger has been searching for someone who can complete the cycle. A hero, a paragon who could unite the Reapers, or 'synthetics' if you will, with organics. Someone who could complete the cycle. That's what Harbinger was originally created for. It was created to unite organics and synthetics."

"That's the biggest load of bullshit you've said yet," she snapped. "And you've said some pretty amazing bullshit over the years. Harbinger was created only to destroy. You're so goddamn indoctrinated, you can't see it!"

"Think about it, Shepard," he continued ignoring her. "Why in the world would Leviathan create something with the soul purpose of destroying organics? They didn't! They created Harbinger to unite organics with synthetics to stop synthetics from rising up against their creators! Harbinger was meant to literally be the Harbinger of Peace in the galaxy. It has only failed because it needed you, Shepard."

"Me?" she repeated. She didn't actually believe a word he was saying; at this point she was just humoring him to buy herself time.

"You, Shepard! You're the hero Harbinger has been waiting for! You're the hero it has needed, the hero that can control the Reapers and unite synthetics and organics! You heard it. No other organic has made it this far. No other organic has stood in opposition to Harbinger and lived to tell the tale. And here you stand! You have beaten the odds and survived! You have passed every challenge Harbinger has placed in your path, and now you can end this!"

"What you didn't know is the rest of what Leviathan told me," she countered. "You only heard it in Harbinger's words. Leviathan told me they lost control of Harbinger. They told me Harbinger failed at its designated purpose which was to stop the conflict between organics and synthetics. Instead Harbinger turned against its creators, ironically as all synthetics do. It came up with the insane solution to end all organic life every fifty-thousand years in order to 'save' organic life from the destruction of synthetic life that it created. It trapped itself in some kind of completely insane loop. It can't escape any more than you can, none of us can! Not until Harbinger is destroyed! You can't control the Reapers! The only way this can end is when they're gone!"

She saw the first ripple of doubt pass over his face. "No . . . Harbinger was created to unite us . . ."

"How the hell did you even get here?" Shepard asked, suddenly realizing no explanations made much sense.

"I arrived before you did," he said with a dismissive wave of his hand. "I told you, we can work with Harbinger. Why do you think I'm still standing here, alive? I am working with it!"

Shepard decided it was time to ignore him. She'd heard enough of his bullshit to last a lifetime. She instead turned her attention back to Harbinger. "Are you so afraid of me succeeding, Harbinger, that you're going to talk me to death with Harper, here? You're pathetic."

Harbinger's eerie red light brightened and a moment later Harper let out a horrible scream. Then he fell limp to the floor. Shepard recoiled slightly at the sickening sight. Then epiphany struck again. She leaned heavily on the fallen pillar and began gathering her strength.

"Shepard," Harbinger said, his voice slower and than usual, reminding her of the Reaper on Rannoch, "you must continue the cycle. Order must be ensured. Chaos. Must. End."

"You know what, Harbinger?" Shepard said, activating her Omni-tool blade behind the pillar, "I think I've had enough of all this 'order' shit. Hell, I've been taking orders my whole damn life. I'm kind of sick of it. I think a little chaos is good."

Then she leaped into action. She had nothing left to say so she let her actions speak. She vaulted over the fallen pillar and launched herself at him. With a running leap using the last of her strength, she aimed for the central source of crimson light and plunged her blade deep inside it. Pain like she'd never known exploded in her arm and spread through her body, but she held fast. Harbinger let out a horrible scream-like sound as energy cascaded out its core like lightning.

"Go to Hell!" Shepard screamed. "And take your fucking Reapers with you!"

She raised her Omni-tool blade and plunged it again into the red power source. A sudden shockwave of energy sent Shepard flying as Harbinger began overloading from the concentrated energy of the Crucible. She hit the opposite wall with a sickening crunch then fell broken to the floor. She raised her head with what little energy she had left to see Harbinger saturated in an unnatural red light. She dimly hoped the Crucible was working. She lacked the energy to ask Hackett if it was. The world around her was strangely muffled. She felt like there should have been sound.

She blinked when a thought dawned on her. She had done it. She had stopped the Reapers. Though she was surrounded by destruction and death, she was content. The galaxy was saved. The cycle was broken. The weight of the galaxy she'd been carrying for so long was gone. A tiny smile curved the corner of her lips. The sight of Harbinger being ripped apart by the Crucible may have been terrifying and violent, but Shepard saw only beauty in it. It looked to her like a star was being born, ushering in a new dawn of hope and peace.

Her head lowered slowly to the ground and her eyes drifted shut.

'If only I . . . could have held Liara . . . one last time . . .

Then all faded into a blissful, inky darkness.

The team made it about halfway through the rubble when they heard Shepard's scream. It was very distant and muffled, but they all heard it. Liara's heart leaped to her throat and left her with a sick feeling in her stomach. All rational thought left her mind. Nothing else mattered, only an all-consuming need to reach her lover. She sent an explosive wave of biotic energy borne of desperation at the rubble blocking her path. Metal went flying in all directions and moments later she saw her opening.

"Samara, Jack, Miranda, keep this path clear! I'm going to get Shepard!"

The three of them, for once, didn't argue. They linked hands and combined their biotic energy, creating a large barrier around the entrance to keep it from collapsing. Liara charged ahead. Harbinger's ship was falling apart around her and she had to dodge flying ship parts, but nothing slowed her progress. She had only one target in her sights and she'd be damned if she would let anything stand in her way now. Not now. Not after they had come so far, been through so much.

Her biotic barrier flickered under the pressure of flying debris but it only bolstered her determination. She could feel her body straining under the effort, but she just pushed herself harder. She skidded to a halt when she reached the entrance and looked around wildly for Shepard. The first thing she saw was a brightly glowing/screeching Harbinger. The sight may have been quite an amazing one to see, but she took little notice. Looking over the rest of the room, her eyes at last fell upon Shepard's body.

"Shepard!" she cried out, rushing to her beloved Commander's side.

Shepard was partially buried in rubble, her arm had a terrible burn, and blood covered it like a glove of crimson. The visor of her helmet had also split open, revealing a nasty gash on her face. Liara used a biotic push to blast the rubble off Shepard's body then carefully rolled her over on her back. From the amount of blood pooling on the floor beneath her, it was safe to assume Shepard had more injuries that Liara couldn't see.

"Stay with me, Shepard," she whispered. "I'm here."

Then she cradled her broken lover with biotic energy and levitated her off the ground. The ground shook beneath her feet as the structural integrity of the ship began to give way, but she moved with a sure-footed gate. Every muscle in her body tensed as she plowed forward, straining to maintain her biotic barrier under the barrage of falling rubble. But her progress would not be slowed. She could feel her eyes burning red, could see it around the edges of her vision. She was slipping into the asari biotic bloodrage. Under normal circumstances she would have fought it. She had heard stories of asari slipping into a bloodrage and never returning from it. But she didn't care. All that mattered was Shepard.

After what felt like an agonizingly long battle against falling rubble, the team came into view.

"Normandy! We need a pickup NOW!" Liara snarled into the comm.

"We're on our way!" Joker replied.

"Shepard!" Grunt bellowed, running to Liara's side, followed closely by Garrus. Liara carefully lowered Shepard into Grunt's strong arms, and Garrus supported Liara with an arm around her waist. Samara, Miranda, and Jack held the barrier while the team moved away from the imploding Reaper ship. A minute later the Normandy flew into view, looking for all the world like a metal angel to Liara's eyes. It landed in front of them, and Joker was already standing at the entrance of the air lock, providing cover fire with a gun turret from encroaching Reaper ground troops. The rest of the team began firing wildly at the enemies, protecting the biotics still holding the barrier.

"Glad to see the old bird is still flying," Garrus said to Joker, giving Liara a leg up into the Normandy.

Grunt didn't bother getting help from anyone - he leaped inside without assistance, then took off running toward the med-bay with Shepard's body still held tightly in his arms. Liara followed closely behind, still battling back her bloodrage. Moments later she felt the Normandy take flight, racing against time to avoid the ensuing explosion.

But even though the Normandy was rattled and strained from flying like a bat out of hell, they knew they had made it. They had done the impossible.

The galaxy, at long, long last, was truly free.