Disclaimer: I own nothing, I make no money.

Author's Note: Holy Mass Effect Batman! I went five months with a total writer's block on this story and now, in two weeks, I've got two chapters out. Well, I'm not going to question it. Thanks for your patience readers. Please enjoy.

Sheparding Men

Chapter Sixteen: To Reach For It

"War has no prejudice. It kills the young and the old alike, the feeble and the able, the combatant and the civilian. No one is exempt. No one escapes its touch." - A war-battered Shepard learns about love from the different men in her life. Memory. Passion. Constancy. These are the gifts they gave her.

Shepard remembers the day Alliance soldiers pulled her from the wreckage of an M-080 Infantry Fighting Vehicle on Akuze. Barely conscious, her back blanketed in acid burns that tore straight through her armor. Pus already caking in the open sores. A broken femur. Dehydration. Heat stroke. Her own vomit, dried and baking in the planet's searing heat, under her chest and cheek where she had fallen and couldn't get back up. She had resigned to die in that vehicle, the scent of her comrades' blood still burning the air in her nostrils.

She remembers the steady flicker of constant flies against her cheek and how she had wished for an end.

It never came.

Shepard has always known how to survive, even when she hadn't wanted to, even when every fiber of her being is pleading for that peaceful silence of sleep that never ends. Her body pushes on. Clings just a little tighter. Digs just a little deeper. Her heart and her lungs and her blood are beyond even her own understanding. Something inside her doesn't know how to die.

There are many things she can survive.

But it's the living and the breathing and the long walk on that cuts the deepest.

Looking at Thane now, his back to her as he looks through the hospital waiting room windows, hands clasped behind his back, shoulders stretched taut – just the thought of him in reach – has her shaking uncontrollably. She stands at the exit of the main hall, rooted at the sight of him several feet from her.

There are many things she can survive but his touch, his voice, his breath – him – he will be her dearest scar, she knows.

She moves to him.

She is close enough to see his reflection in the glass, to see the recognition in his dark eyes across the pane, when he turns to her. His body rises with his breath, a single, long intake that fills him, steadies him. He holds it at her stillness.

They stand silent and watching each other for many moments as the world moves around them.

Shepard opens her mouth but it is a croak that leaves her. She clears her throat, licking her lips. Everything is bright and sharp and stark in the room. His eyes are darker. His shoulders are smaller. His lips are impossibly drier. She swears she sees every ridge and pore of his vivid green skin and she loves them each. Something about him screams pain but it isn't his face or his posture. His body is losing the fight. He is a defiant warrior in a traitorous shell.

Shepard knows all too well the sharp disconnect between the soul's desire and the body's will.

When she thinks she might shatter if another moment of silence is stretched out before them, she finds her voice, small and breathless. "Hi." She swallows back the bile rising at the edge of her throat.

Thane releases his breath, and it rattles from him like splitting stone.

Shepard's chest constricts harshly at the sound.

"Siha," he breathes, and suddenly, anything she might have thought to say is gone from her.

She takes a hesitant step closer. "I missed you," she whispers. Because it is all she can say. All she knows in this moment.

He is still too far. There is still too much distance between them.

He smiles, his lips breaking slowly open across his face and she has never seen anything so beautiful. "And I, you." His hands slip from behind his back and rest at his sides, uncertain.

Forcing words she thinks might just be filling space, Shepard answers back, "I thought drell had perfect memory." She lets a stilted laugh fall from her lips, already dead in the air between them. "How can you miss someone who's always with you?" Her throat tightens, her eyes suddenly moist without her realizing it. She clamps her jaw shut tight so he cannot see her tremble.

Thane offers a small, knowing smile, his eyes drifting to her hand at her side. When he takes a step closer, enough that she could touch him if she only reached for him, her breath stills in her chest. He reaches for her hand, threading his fingers through her own and raising it to his mouth. He pauses with her knuckles just beneath his lips, his eyes unflinching on hers. "To touch you, siha…" He trails off, lips pursing with barely constrained emotion. He dips low to press his lips to her knuckles, his shaking breath breaking over her skin and she thinks maybe he wasn't the one dying. He keeps his mouth to her hand for several seconds, eyes fluttering closed. And then his voice breaks her in ways he will never understand. "It is a singular experience." He pulls her hand from his lips and watches her, straightening.

When she stares at him, eyes pooling with tears, her body stiff with tight control, he rubs a thumb along her knuckles and then tugs, gently. "Come," he whispers.

She does.

He moves his arms around her just as she steps into him. Her shuddering breath is buried in his shoulder, her hands curling tightly in his coat. His hands are strong and sure and she sobs at the realization that it isn't enough.

Death hurries toward them still.

"I have longed for you, siha," he breathes into her hair, and she clutches tighter, her fingers digging into his coat painfully. The quake that rocks through her shakes them both. He sighs against her, his hand coming up to brace her head against him, his other arm wrapped around her waist. He dips his head lower so that their cheeks press together. She is sure he can feel the wetness of her tears and the thought sobers her. She clears her throat, pulling a tight breath through her aching lungs and pushing from him, slowly. He releases her reluctantly.

She stands apart from him, her jaw clenched forcefully to control the sobs held tight in her throat. "I didn't know if you were dead or alive or…" She shakes her head. "I had no word."

Thane nods, his brows angling sharply down over his eyes. He motions for the two vacant chairs beside them. "Please."

She follows his offer and they both sit facing the wide window of the hospital, Thane bent with his elbows along his knees, fingers steepled together, and Shepard turned to him, one leg pulled up under her, her hands sweaty and uncertain as they lay flat on her thighs.

Thane speaks first. "I tried to get through but any Alliance comm. channels leading to you were strictly secured. I left messages on your extranet account, knowing even that too would be locked out. I could only hope that you would find me when the war broke out." He presses his steepled hands to his mouth, eyes intent on her. "I had not known you even escaped Earth until a few hours ago, when I heard word of the Normandy docking here at the Citadel, and that you were aboard." He sighs, hands moving to hang between his knees, still locked tightly together. "I cannot describe the relief that overwhelmed me at the news."

Shepard grips at her thighs, her tear-stained smile shaky along her cheeks. "I tried to reach you too. But I couldn't. I didn't even know…where to…" She looks around, eyes blinking furiously to hold the tears back.

"It does not matter now. We are together," he answers, his hand sliding over to hers and wrapping securely around it.

"But for how long?" she whispers harshly.

He stills for a moment, eyes locked on their joined hands. "Our time was always limited. Even from the beginning."

"I know," she snaps, regretting it immediately. She sighs, leaning back along the chair and rubbing her free hand along her forehead. "I know," she repeats, softer this time. "I just didn't think…didn't think there was a chance we'd be apart for the end."

Thane's questioning gaze flicks to hers and she glances to him at his silence. She blows a shaky breath from her lips. "All those months apart. Not knowing if you had…died." She swallows tightly and grips tighter to his hand. "I have to be there in the end. I have to."

Thane's mouth forms a thin line, and he cocks his head, gaze shifting to the floor. "Perhaps it is best that you are not," he answers lowly.

"Don't," she warns, a hiss.

He begins to pull from her but she holds tight to his hand. His gaze shifts back up to hers. "Siha," he begins, voice a hesitant breath.

"Don't," she hisses once more, snapping up to scoot closer to the end of the chair, closer to him. "You said once that you were mine. You promised. When I told you I didn't care for how long that meant, that I wanted whatever you could give, I meant it." She shifts closer, licking her lips, hand clenching tightly to his. "Even the moments where it hurts. If it's with you, then I will take them all."

Thane's gaze shifts between hers for a moment, his mouth pursed tight. Slowly, so slowly she might have missed it if she hadn't been completely and utterly in love with every miniscule detail of his form, he smiles. It doesn't reach his eyes. "You are too good for this world, siha," he breathes, eyes never leaving her. "Too brave." He says it like a regret.

She manages a half-hearted chuckle. "It's gotten me into a few scrapes, sure." She tries for a cocky grin but it ends up more a grimace and so she drops her gaze to their hands and tries not to cry. "Everything is different now, Thane."

He sighs, leaning back against the chair, his thumb sliding over her knuckles. "The Reapers."

"Yes."

"And Earth?"

She snorts, a harsh sound of dejection that catches in her throat. "Burning."

"I am sorry, siha. Beyond words."

Shepard nods, lip caught between her teeth, leaning back as well. Their linked hands stay locked between them. "It's not going to be an easy fight. And I need everyone I can get." She glances toward him thoughtfully. But she doesn't voice more.

A hum of agreement rumbles in his chest. "I only wish I were able to join you."

"Is it…" Shepard stops, voice catching. "How far along?"

He is contemplative for a moment, eyes raking over the bright expanse of the Presidium through the brilliant glass before them. "I should be dead already."

The reflexive tightening of her grip on his hand shifts his gaze back to hers. He offers a smile that should be comforting but is only pained. "I am not afraid, siha."

Her lip quivers, but she clamps down on it. She wants to be the stoic, strong warrior goddess he has always thought her to be. She wants to be the assurance at his back and the hands bearing him up and the air he breathes. But she is already slipping. She is already taken out to sea.

Her nightmares always end with an ocean between them and the distant, haunting image of his form across a shore she will never reach.

She finds her voice somewhere in the depths and a sharp twist of her gut follows the words. "What if I told you I was?" she whispers.

He laughs. He actually laughs. It is short and brilliant and warms something inside her she thought she'd already lost. "I wouldn't believe it," he answers, so surely. As though the thought itself was impossible. "I don't believe you've ever known fear."

She opens her mouth to retort but his sudden movement stalls the words in her throat. He turns to her, leaning swiftly and purposely across the space between them until his lips are pressed to hers. His free hand comes up to cup her jaw, fingers pressing tightly to her cheek like a promise, like a need. He presses his tongue to her startled mouth and she parts her lips without thought. She moans along his tongue, her own hand coming up to grip at his collar and she shifts toward him, their knees knocking together, but she doesn't care. She tries to get closer, unlinking their hands so that she can slide her touch along the back of his neck. His responding groan makes her needy, makes her desperate, her fingers gripping the back of his neck and she whimpers when he slides his tongue deftly across hers. He pulls from her swiftly, breaking them apart forcefully and she tries to follow him back. Just for a taste. A lingering touch. Just the breath of him in her mouth. It is a need so intense her whole body aches with it. Her desire blooms beneath her skin and everything inside her screams now.

Because it is all they have.

Thane is panting against her lips, his hands bracing along her neck, keeping her just out of reach but close enough to feel the heat of her. To hear the impatient growl that rumbles along her lips. He chuckles, her huff of annoyance breaking against his mouth and she pushes forward once more. He lets her, opens his mouth for one last, slow pull of their tongues against each other and then he pulls back once more. "There she is," he breathes darkly against her mouth.

Shepard closes her eyes and digs her fingers into his collar, holding him to her, wanting more but needing the most and knowing that neither is hers right now. "I just…this is just me wanting you, Thane. I've never hidden that. Or apologized for it. But that isn't bravery. It's…" She stops, her breath shuddering through her as one hand slips up to his cheek and she feels his warmth against her palm. "It's just selfishness."

Shaking his head softly, his lips still a whisper away, Thane chuckles. "You have always known how to fight when everything around you tells you it is futile. You reach for the impossible every day. With your hands. With your mind. With your heart. And you hold it with you even now. Your beauty is in your reaching."

"And if I can't hold on to it any longer?" Her voice quakes between them. "If I have to let go?"

"Then hold tighter," he breathes against her, pressing his mouth to hers for only an instant, only the brief warmth to reassure her. "And I will not let go either."

She sighs against him, eyes fluttering closed. "That's a pretty high pedestal to fall from." She manages a short, punctured laugh, bracing her forehead against his.

"Then fly," he answers back.

She laughs again. They stay silent and braced to each other for many moments, simply breathing together, simply memorizing the feel and the heat and the weight of each other's hearts in their hands.

When they finally break apart, it is together, synchronously. They each lean back from each other, and their steady smiles feel whole this time. Feel right. Thane's eyes harden slightly as he watches her, and she takes a bracing breath at the look.

"I am ready, siha," he says, shoulders stretching back. "You must be as well."

She nods, the words still catching in her throat before they can come to air. But she knows what he asks. And she knows what it means. And she knows what she will have to be.

Ready. For the end.

For his.

Maybe even for hers.

But never theirs.

She clears her throat, eyes suddenly dry. "I will be," she assures softly.

It is enough.

Because it will have to be.

Garrus finds Shepard in the Observation Lounge, in her usual spot along the top of the couch, boots on the seat, back against the glass.

He swears he sees her like this in dreams some nights.

"Kaidan alright?" he asks, the door sliding closed behind him. Shepard looks up and manages a wider smile than he's seen since reuniting on Menae.

"He's awake and on the mend."

Garrus nods, moving to stand just before her. "Good. I'd hate to lose another good one."

Shepard's smile wilts, but it isn't from sorrow. It is more resignation. "Same."

After a moment of nothing between them, Garrus cocks his head and sighs, scratching at his cheek. "Everything good between you two?"

She nods thoughtfully, fingers tapping along her knees. "I think so."

"But?"

She glances up at him, shaking her head. "No 'but's, just…I don't know."

He steps closer, leaning forward to rest a hand on her knee. "What?"

She offers a hesitant smile and pats his hand. "Just got me thinking of everyone else out there. Tali, Mordin, Samara." She stops, because there are too many names to list off. And too many she will never be able to say again.

Garrus pulls his hand away and makes a low hum of agreement that flares his mandibles. "I was thinking the same recently."

Shepard shifts forward, hands raised in the air as she gestures with her words. "I mean, I don't even know if half of them are alive or not. And that's the killer. The not knowing. Because it's not the same. It's not the same as Ashley's dying voice over the line or Jack's bloody face or God, even Legion. Just…dead on the floor. Gone. Never…never coming back." Her voice cracks at the end and she rubs a hand harshly across her nose, sniffing loudly and pulling her shoulders taut.

"As hard as all that shit is," she continues, "as fucked up as it gets, it's still better than not knowing. It's still better than that sharp pull in your gut that tells you one morning that you'll see them again, bright-eyed and alive and fucking there but then…but then no. The next moment it's defeat. It's the knowledge that nothing survives that." She stretches her hand out and points past the glass toward a destruction laying in wait for them even now. Toward cold metal and deafening mechanized voices and the last red gleam of light before the end. "It's the stupid, fucking pain that sinks deep in your bones and tells you no. They're not coming back. None of them. Maybe not even you." Shepard scoffs and twists away so that their gazes break and she digs her knuckles into an eye socket. "Fuck, it's just…" She sighs, her whole body slumping with it. "It's just so fucking exhausting."

Garrus shifts his footing, a short click resonating from his throat that catches Shepard's attention. She looks up to find his brow plates angled sharply down toward his eyes. "Have you heard anything about Thane?" he asks hesitantly.

Shepard sighs, leaning back against the glass. "I saw him at the hospital."

Garrus lifts his brows. "Really? I mean, spirits, I wasn't sure if…" He teeters off.

"I know," Shepard finishes for him. "I thought the same."

"But he's okay?"

Shepard pulls her lip between her teeth and pats the space next to her. Garrus moves to it instantly, ambling up the couch and settling beside her. "I don't think anything about the situation is 'okay' exactly but…he's alive. And we're in touch again. And…and that's the best I can ask for."

Garrus pulls one foot up to rest on the opposite knee. "Well, I'd say you've been due for some good news, Shepard."

She flashes him a genuine smile, though quick and inadequate. "Thanks. He's been at the hospital a lot the last few months he says, readying for the end." Her eyes shift to the bar and stay there.

Garrus rushes to capture her attention once more. "Kolyat?"

Flicking her gaze back to him at the name, Shepard huffs slightly, propping her elbow on one thigh and resting her hand in her palm. "They're working through their issues. At least, Thane is trying to. I don't know how well Kolyat is responding to it but…Thane is hopeful." Her smile returns, this time wider, and it stays with her longer. "He's trying to make peace before his time is up."

"And you?" Garrus asks it softly, almost as though he expects danger with the answer. "Have you two been making peace?"

Shepard's hand slips from under her chin and she leans back against the glass. She picks at the edge of her sleeveless cotton top. "As much as we can."

"Shepard…"

"It's okay," she lies. "Really. I knew this going in. We both did."

"Doesn't make it any easier."

"No. No it doesn't." She sighs, hands sliding along her thighs and stopping, resting over her knees. "But then again, this is war. And anything is possible. Hey, he might outlive me." She tries to end it on a laugh but it comes out more like a choke. So she clamps her mouth shut and stares off at the wall.

Garrus shakes his head. "You've always had a horrible sense of humor, Shepard." It is tinged with something she cannot name.

"I think I was being serious," she whispers, unsure. Her voice is blaringly hollow in the empty room.

Garrus waits a moment, throat tight, and then, "I know."

Shepard looks at him, clearing her throat and shifting in her seat. "He says he'll look after Kaidan."

Garrus manages to bark a laugh.

The sound alone pulls a half-smile across Shepard's lips.

"Gallant to the end, is he?" His laugh lingers longer than he thinks maybe it should but it's just too silent in this room.

"Always was," she whispers.

They stare off at the grey wall of the Normandy for several seconds, each thinking and loving and grasping something different. Each almost wishing the cold glass behind them could slide away and space could take them.

It'd probably hurt less than this.

"You'll win this in the end, Shepard."

His voice fills the room and breaks through every shadow in every corner. Shepard feels it as though it had pulled from her own chest. As though the rumble of his words and the sound of his voice had always belonged there.

With her.

And they feel right.

More than anything else has felt right in a long, long time.

"You always do," he finishes, turning to her so that she can see in his face how much he believes it.

There are so many things she wants to say. So many things she needs to say. So many things she knows she should say.

But instead, she settles for her outstretched palm between them, and when he threads his talons between her own trembling fingers, she knows he's heard her.

The clench of his own hand is his faint whisper back.

Grissom is smoke-filled and battered when they touch down. Shepard checks each room, each corridor, for any surviving students. EDI monitors Cerberus comm. chatter and Liara gives medical attention to the few straggling students they encounter. They send them on their way to Kahlee Sanders and continue. There are many students they are too late for.

Shepard comes across the body of a student in the mess hall, her blonde hair stained red at the scalp, trailing over her face. She lays sprawled beside a table, face down in a pool of blood. Shepard doesn't even bother checking for a pulse.

Liara sucks in a breath beside her. "Goddess, they're only children." Her hand comes up to cover her mouth, her fingers trembling.

"Yes," Shepard agrees, the word a tight hiss of air.

"How could they do such a thing?" Liara questions.

EDI glances toward the exit at the opposite end of the mess hall. "Cerberus has proven time and again that they believe in the old adage 'The ends justify the means'. It is not surprising they would use such methods."

Liara snaps her gaze to the synthetic. "It's still abominable."

Shepard closes her eyes and breathes deep, before rolling her shoulders and opening her eyes once more, motioning for them to continue on. "Which is why we're going to stop them," she answers tightly. "This is why we're here, why we're in this war." She moves to the wall along the exit and braces against it, peeking out into the corridor. Her voice carries over the comm., her words steadier than she feels. "These are the people we're fighting for. These are the ones worth saving." She steps out into the corridor, sighting along her rifle. "I intend to leave them a galaxy worth living in."

EDI is silent at her side, and Liara's soft hum of agreement tells her all she needs to know.

The next dead body they come across is Cerberus. Shepard is too wary to call the flickering spark of emotion in her chest hope.

It strengthens with each step.

The students in Orion hall are exhausted as they slump against each other and the tables in the upper level, thankful for the reprieve that Shepard and her team have provided them. Without a teacher to guide them, they've been struggling in their trek through the school, searching for an escape from the Cerberus soldiers. Ensign Jason Prangley leads them the best he can. Shepard manages an awkward pat on his shoulder when their conversation is over and she sends him to check on the students, leaving her to figure out their exit strategy.

Prangley nods, the fatigue slumping his shoulders. He rubs a hand over his face and sighs. "Thanks again, Commander. I don't know what we would have done without you." He gives her one last weary smile and then he is making his way up the stairs to see to the other students.

Shepard has a hand to the radio at her ear and is about to order Cortez back to the Normandy when Ensign Rodriguez steps up to her, lip caught between her teeth. Shepard stops at the look of apprehension on the young woman's face.

"Commander, I…I need to ask…" Rodriguez looks to her hands, nervously wringing them before her. She shakes them out and looks back up, eyes pleading. "Do you ever forget the first time you kill someone? Because today was mine and I…I –" She doesn't get anything else out, her eyes falling to the floor in the wake of her question.

Shepard sighs, her gaze shifting to the upper level to watch the other students. How easy it would be to lie. To tell her that the blood washes off and that the nightmares become bearable and that she will never see her victim's face in the mirror. How easy it would be to tell her that after today, it gets easier. It gets better. That she'll never feel guilt and that somewhere deep inside, she'll always remain clean. Untainted.

Innocent.

But Shepard knows that innocence has no place in this war, and she hates that it will be a lesson learned so young for these students. For so many out there. She hates that she must be the one to teach it.

When she looks back to Rodriguez, the young woman is watching her with hopeful eyes. Her mouth hangs open in expectation.

Shepard furrows her brows and shakes her head, her throat tight with words she knows all too intimately herself. "You never forget your first, Rodriguez. And if you're lucky, you never forget the rest either."

Rodriguez sucks in a breath, her brows angling sharply down in confusion. Her hands clench into fists at her sides. "Ma'am?"

Shepard licks her lips, taking a step closer, her eyes intent on the other woman. A child really.

So young and so new and so…blameless.

This war should never have been theirs. But it is. And it will continue to be. And Shepard knows it would be unkind to pretend it won't.

In the end, it would only kill them.

"The moment you forget – the moment it stops haunting you – that's when you lose yourself. That's when you don't come back whole." Shepard takes a deep, long breath, her chest aching. "Sometimes you don't come back from that at all."

Rodriguez's mouth slips open in horror, her eyes already wet with tears. She takes a terrified step back. Shepard reaches out and catches her by the forearms.

"Listen to me," she breathes harshly, close enough that Rodriguez can feel her hot breath on her face. "I'm so sorry you had to go through this. And I wish it were different. I wish I could tell you it fades. But what you did today, the life you took, never forget why. Never forget that it was you or him and that you made the right choice. You made the right choice. You chose you. You chose life. And there is never fault in such a choice." Shepard's hands grip tighter to Rodriguez's arms and the ensign whimpers softly at the touch, her lip trembling. "Before this war is over, you might have to make that choice again. Don't hesitate. You do and you die."

"But I…I don't want…" A shuddering breath breaks from the ensign.

Shepard's eyes narrow, her brow set. "Because they won't hesitate. And they won't remember you. That's what makes us different. That's what makes you human. Don't let that go, however painful it may feel. Don't let that go. Or you're lost to them already. Do you understand?"

Rodriguez nods adamantly, her tears finally breaking free, and Shepard knows her swift answer is only from fear. She knows it is too much for her in this moment. But Shepard cannot bring herself to lie. She cannot bring herself to make a promise she knows she cannot keep. To promise peace when there can be no such peace is not a kindness. The truth is never a kind thing.

Even so, she knows there are some things in this world she can still do, still reach for.

There are some things still in her power to promise.

Shepard braces her hands on either side of the crying ensign's cheeks. "And do you understand that I will do everything in my power to make sure you never have to make that choice again?" Her eyes are intent on Rodriguez's own wildly blinking ones. She does not let her go.

Rodriguez cannot nod, her head caught in Shepard's hands. Her face crumbles with the pain, her tears falling unashamedly now, her breaths coming from her in short, aching pants. "I understand," she croaks, her voice breaking. "I understand."

Shepard swallows tightly and releases her. "Good."

Rodriguez reaches for her before she can react, and the young ensign wraps her arms around the commander with all her strength. She sobs into the older woman's chest. Shepard blinks in surprise, her hands stilling in the air. She glances toward the opposite end of the room where Liara and EDI are conversing, only to find the asari staring in surprise at the scene. Shepard shakes her head minutely, her mouth hanging open.

Rodriguez clutches tighter, her sobs quieting.

Shepard slowly lowers her hands, resting them awkwardly on Rodriguez's shoulders, her face softening. "I know, and I'm sorry. But I need you to calm down. This isn't over yet."

Rodriguez nods, sniffing loudly and then pulling back, wiping a hand across her face. "I'm sorry, Commander. I won't do it again."

Shepard shakes her head, a soft chuckle falling from her lips. "I suppose I'd rather the emotional outburst than a catatonic state."

Rodriguez wipes at her eyes again, pulling her shoulders back. She cocks her head in question.

"It means you're still feeling this. And that means healing is possible," Shepard offers in explanation.

Rodriguez sniffs again, eyes downcast. "It just hurts, ma'am."

Shepard lays a hand on her head. "I know, Rodriguez. I know."

She's known for years now.

Liara steps up beside them, cautious. "Everything okay over here?"

Rodriguez clears her throat and takes a step back, folding her hands behind her back. "Yes, ma'am. Sorry about that. Just a moment of weakness."

"A moment of humanity," Shepard corrects, smile soft and quick.

Rodriguez nods, her mouth opening as though to form words but then she stops. She tries to smile. It is hesitant and barely there. But it's a start. She nods her farewell and heads up the stairs to join her classmates.

Liara raises an inquisitive brow Shepard's way.

Shrugging, Shepard answers her with a weary sigh. "Just another reason we have to win this war."

Liara nods her understanding, her hand coming up to rest along Shepard's arm. She squeezes it affectionately.

Shepard wonders if anyone wins such a war.

Prangley is shot in the back as they scramble for the shuttle and Shepard barely gets Rodriguez in before the Cerberus troops are clambering toward the docking ramp. She looks back and finds Prangley unmoving on the ground, his blood spilling across the tiles quickly. Shepard turns around and doesn't look back.

"Jason!" Rodriguez yells, reaching out from the shuttle, but Shepard shoves her back in, hooking a hand around a ceiling bracer and then banging on the side panel twice for the pilot's attention. "All in! Let's move it!"

The door panel slides closed, bullets ricocheting off the metal as the engines fire up and the shuttle lurches forward. Shepard steadies herself as they speed away from the station. The vehicle is filled with a sudden, blaring silence in the wake of the firefight. Many of the students sit with their faces in their hands, others staring off at the wall across from them.

Shepard doesn't hear a sob.

"Commander," Kahlee ventures from her position across the shuttle. "I want to thank you for your help. We couldn't have made it otherwise." Her words end on a hollow sigh.

Shepard only nods, words failing her.

"We just left him," Rodriguez whispers, her face in her hands.

"Jason was –" Kahlee begins but Shepard interrupts, her voice tight and controlled.

"Prangley made a choice." She promised herself she would not lie to these young men and women, these future soldiers. Even if they must hate her for it. She readies herself for the coming grief and panic. She knows the truth will be needed, now more than ever.

Rodriguez whips her head up at the words, anger coloring her features. "And that makes it okay? We left him to die." She curls her fists in her lap.

"He was already dead. You weren't. And that's when I made a choice." Shepard is unapologetic, her eyes unflinching on Rodriguez.

"Commander," Kahlee begins, voice chastising.

Shepard holds up a hand, and then looks around the cabin at the other students, all with faces turned to her. "Many of you nearly killed today. Some of you actually did. And others of you are still back on that station, dead and never coming back."

Kahlee takes a step forward. "Commander, that's enough."

Shepard clenches her jaw and lifts her chin, her eyes hard on Kahlee. "But it isn't, you see. It isn't enough just to tell them the truth. It isn't enough to know. They have to feel it. Or the only thing awaiting them will be an early grave." She looks around the cabin once more, making eye contact with every trembling student. "You thought you were ready for battle? Well, this is it. This is battle. This is war. You might not have wanted this war but it's here all the same. And it's not going to go away just because you want it to. Just because you're scared. It's kill or be killed out there. It's fight or die. And it's people like Prangley who will win this war. So this is where you make a choice." Shepard pulls a heavy breath in, her fingers curling tightly around the handle steadying her. Her gaze falls on Rodriguez. "Will you fight?"

She lets the question settle around the shuffling students. Part of her wants to take it back. Take it all back. Because the question shouldn't even have to be asked. They should all be sleeping peacefully in their bunks back at Grissom station, or eagerly joining in on a class discussion, or playing pranks on the teacher and laughing in the corridors. They shouldn't be here. They shouldn't be made to make such a choice.

But war has no prejudice. It kills the young and the old alike, the feeble and the able, the combatant and the civilian. No one is exempt. No one escapes its touch.

She wants to save them all.

She knows she will fail.

And the only way she can live with that painful knowledge is by arming these young and frightened students with the truth. The truth that there is power in this choice.

To fight, or die.

They only have to reach for it. To grasp that power.

Rodriguez keeps her gaze steady on Shepard. Her nails cut half moons into her flesh with the force of her clenching fists. She licks her lips in anticipation of her answer.

Shepard made her choice long ago.

Something inside her doesn't know how to die.

They are heading to Eden Prime. Back to the beginning. Back to the start of it all.

Shepard thinks about the long years and months and days since she had first seen the vision of a warning come too late. She thinks about all the things she's seen and all the people she's met and all the choices she's made.

She thinks about how she had been bitter and resentful for so long. How surviving ignited her wrath.

Now it ignites her power.

She only has to reach for it.

Shepard finally understands the weight and measure of every painful instant in her life. Every stark moment and vivid breath of existence. How it all matters. She understands – after all the blood and all the sweat and all the lives she's held and taken – she understands what she was meant for.

The fight.

This fight.

The gleaming image of Eden Prime through the shuttle's viewscreen brings a decisive smile to her lips.

She doesn't intend to lose.