Jules,

I'm sorry.

I'm sorry that you have to read this at all, under these circumstances. But you deserve to know.

It's my fault, about Migs. I've always tried to tell myself we lost him because there was no other choice. But I had a choice and I didn't make it.

I left a box for you at Blue's. Will has it behind the counter. You know the combination for the lock. I know you have a new life now, but if you want to find out the truth, it's there.

You were right to hate me. I don't ask your forgiveness.

If there's a Heaven, and if, by some chance, I make it there, I'll tell Migs how much you miss him.

Goodbye.
Gregg

-An unsent suicide note, written Sept. 3, 2184

He couldn't let go.

The street was aflame around him. He was standing just a little way from where the asphalt was smoking and molten. He could see the building in front of him burning. He could hear the sounds of walls and ceilings crumbling.

He could see the mass effect field, a thin blue film, wavering like a soap bubble just about to pop. He could see the light around Dess growing dimmer. He could see the tension building as the exhaustion overtook her.

Clarke knew she was telling the truth. One slip, one hiccup and the entire thing was primed to collapse. The ground underfoot trembled again as the Reaper behind him took another step forward. The other soldiers had all found fresh cover and here he was, standing in the open, frozen knowing that any moment would be Dess's last.

He couldn't bring himself to turn away.

The rifle in his arms felt like it weighed a thousand pounds. He looked down at the gun as he heard the thrum of the Destroyer's main gun fire on some other part of the city, rattling his bones with its deep frequency. What good was a tiny rifle against that kind of behemoth? He tucked it behind his back, clipping it to the slot on his armor.

If he stood here, waiting, watching, the building would fall and crush her. If he went in to try to pull her out, maybe it would still fall and crush both of them. What did it matter?

Maybe she was wrong. Maybe he would be able to grab her and get her to safety before everything collapsed. If he did nothing, she would definitely die. If he went in, even if the chance was infinitesimal that he could save her, it was still a chance.

His life wasn't worth anything, anyway.

He would have already ended it two years ago. He had held the pistol in his right hand to the side of his head, his dog tags clutched in his left so that the authorities would know who he was when they found him. He had his finger on the trigger when his entire hand started shaking and he began to wheeze.

He hesitated, stepped out of the shower, put the gun away and went outside to get some fresh air, calm his nerves and try to rebuild his resolve. He had wandered to the underground station, to sit on one of the benches and watch the trains go in and out.

And then he had saw her trying to puzzle out the route maps.

It wasn't fate, Clarke knew, because he had spent so many years convincing himself that nothing happened for a reason. Bad things happened. There was no greater purpose to any of it. People suffered because that's how it went sometimes.

Seeing Dess that first time, going up to talk to her, following her to her stop and taking her for a drink, it wasn't fate. It was him, that last shred of him that had stopped him from pulling the trigger that morning. That last part of him that wanted to see tomorrow and the day after and the day after.

For a time, the chance to speak to her again was the only thing that kept his pistol locked inside his safe during the day.

If he lost her now, like this, what would be the point of going on? The only reason he was here, the only reason he had fought this hard and this far was for that tiny chance that they could win and that there would be a tomorrow and a tomorrow after that.

His life was nothing more than long odds and long shots.

Without her, without that reason to survive another day, what would be the point?

"Fuck it," he said to himself as he looked at the distance between him and her. It would be shorter to go out the west side of the building. The edge was more ragged, but if they made it out, the structure was less likely to fall that way. He could maybe grab the belt around her combat suit, and with one strong pull, yank her halfway to the breach.

"Dess!" he shouted as he crouched slightly, setting his feet as he prepared to sprint. "I'm coming. I'm coming to get you!"

He rocked back, pressing the ball of his right foot into the ground. He set himself, looking at the path in and the path out.

"Clarke! Don't!" Dessia begged, the tears still running down her face.

He pressed down, ready to take his first stride, when a hand grabbed his left arm around the bicep.

"No…"

The single word was weak, hacked from the throat of Vorn at his side.

Clarke nearly gagged as he first looked at the Batarian. His armor was scorched. His left arm and most of his shoulder was gone, with only bloody, burned remains of his flank remaining. The entire left side of his face was a massacred pile of burnt flesh. The single, mechanical eye in the top left of his head dangled in the socket, no longer functional. And the back portion of his skull was missing, with the metallic remnants of his biotic implant jutting out through the missing section of flesh and bone.

How Vorn was even alive, much less standing, was a miracle.

His grip released to an open palm as he pressed against Clarke's chest, pushing him backward as he limped toward the ragged gash in the building.

He could hear the Batarian muttering something that sounded like prayers as he took each step. His right leg thumped down with each step as he dragged his scorched left behind him, swaying from side to side. Vorn lifted his right hand up toward his side, his fingers curling into a claw as a slight blue light began to form in his palm.

Vorn teetered as the implant protruding from his head began to spark and fresh rivulets of blood trickled out from around it. Clarke watched as he passed through the edge of Dess's field, one shambling step at a time as he continued to voice his prayers.

"Vorn, no…" Dess cried out as he shuffled inside the building.

"Don't cry for me," he said as the he wobbled, nearly falling backward as a crackling white spark jumped off his skull. "I'm already dead."

The Batarian moved around the side of Dess, stepping just behind her as he raised his sole arm as high as he could, resting his palm in between Dess's shoulder blades. The right side of his face, what was left of it, contorted and he grunted loudly in agony as the blue light began to swirl around him.

The mass effect field supporting the building began to fall as Dessia's arms crunched down, her palms barely up over her shoulders. The debris she supported began to come down with them, as more and more fell around the edges crashing burning material onto the ground floor.

"If you happen to find my Aja," Vorn croaked as loudly as he could above the din of the crashing debris. "Tell her… she'll always be my little star."

The implant in his head crackled one last time, spraying a shower of sparks out of the side of his head along with a spray of blood. His entire body drooped and began to crumble toward the ground. His gaze went blank as his legs gave out from under him.

Dess gave a moan as the field finally collapsed and began to fall too, when the biotic pulse burst from Vorn's hand with his last gasp.

The wave thrust Dess's limp body forward, sending it spinning across the lobby and out toward the street.

The entire building creaked and collapsed. Clarke watched as the ceiling came down, piles and piles of debris engulfing Vorn before he even hit the ground.

He stepped forward, extending his arms out, and caught the now-unconscious Dess. The building continued to cave in, burying Vorn under tons and tons of wreckage and belching dust and smoke out of the broken walls.

Clarke ducked his head and turned to cover Dess, lifting her up and stumbling blind away from the falling building toward the remaining standing structures.

"Over here!" he could hear another soldier shouting, opening his eyes enough to see the man waving him toward the propped open door of the building next to them.

The ground shook as the Destroyer took another step. As quickly as he could move, he made it just inside the doorway as the entire block shook again and another blast of the Reaper's beam struck the damaged skyscraper again, having caught the machine's attention in the collapse.

Clarke lost his footing and fell, landing on his back as he continued to cradle Dess, holding her draped across his arms and into his chest even as he crashed into the floor. Dust fell from the ceiling of the hotel they now found themselves in, but the structure held. Another step, the building shook and the Destroyed continue to move forward.

The soldier helped him up, a young man, Alliance, who looked as pale as if he had pissed his armor three times in the fight already. Clarke scooped up Dess again, turning and looking for somewhere, anywhere else he could take her. He carried her behind the counter and shoved his way through a door into the offices that sat in the lobby. He lifted his foot, kicking everything off the desk onto the floor and carefully laid her down.

Clarke pressed his ear to her mouth and held his hand to her neck, nearly fainting with relief as he felt the gentle thumping of her pulse in his fingertips and could hear the quiet sound of breath whistling in his ear.

He lifted her left arm and activated her omni, pulling up the medical protocols to begin the process of reviving her. The omni beeped as the auto sequencers began to collect her vitals and attempt to address problems.

Clarke placed her arm back down and stepped back until he bumped into the wall. He pressed his back to it, letting his legs slowly slide out from under him as he lowered to the floor. He pressed his hands to his across his forehead as he slumped, coughing and hacking as he could feel the stress boiling over once more, overwhelming his body.

His arms trembled as the building shook again, his chest heaving up and down as he tried to breathe. His skin felt on fire, even as sweat began to pour out of him. He could feel his heart thumping, pulse skyrocketing, beating so fast that it might break and fail.

He watched. Before he caught Dess in his arms, he watched as Vorn's body tumbled lifelessly toward the ground. He saw as tons upon tons of debris caved in on top of him, crushing him to death. Even as he ran for cover with Dess slung across his forearms, he passed by bodies lying in the street, some so burnt and mangled they were hardly recognizable anymore.

He watched Vorn die. He stood, helpless, while Bug gave his life to stall the reapers from falling upon them. He was frozen, caught in his damnable panic when Grog stepped out in front of him to keep him alive. He had backed them into a corner, a corner they couldn't escape until Tarkus paid with his blood to rescue them.

More than half of Scarlet platoon had perished under his command on the long, bloody trek to the Alliance FBO.

He led thirty-five men to their deaths on Torfan.

He remembered each of their names still. How could he forget, the way they rattled around his skull every day since then? He could see their faces in the barracks and in the drop ship. He could remember their voices, their hometowns, their specialties and weaknesses. Hell, he could even recall their specific loadouts they had opted to carry to that God-forsaken Batarian moon.

His Platoon Leader, 1st Sgt. Daniel Dawes grew up in Dublin but lived most of his life in London. The guys used to always used to rip him because he hated Guinness and Jameson. But he could throw a set of darts in the pub better than anyone. He caught a bullet in the neck while moving to fresh cover in that cavernous pit where the Batarians made their last stand.

Sgt. Jack Morris took Rook Squad down a tunnel and got flanked. All his talk about his glory days playing safety on some small American university football team didn't do him much good when a grenade shredded him and two other guys of his squad.

Braden Corle spent most of the mission crawling up to guys who were already dead. He was a damn good field medic. If it weren't for him, Sgt. Tremblay might not have made it back to the Citadel and Spc. Trufont would have lost more than just his left leg. He couldn't save himself, though, when he took three rounds to the heart.

Pfc. Hemmings carried a Vindicator, too. He had spray-painted the trigger on the gun gold, and would never shut up about how every shot was "a good as gold." He barely got a full magazine of shots off though, because he was the first one to run afoul of one of the Batarian auto-guns. The damn thing nearly sawed him in half when it cut him across the belly.

Sgt. Desmond Okebe never made it out of the dropship. As soon as the doors open, a Batarian sniper shot went right through the glass on his helmet. He always talked about his wife and three girls back home in Nigeria and how he was going to get out of the city and buy a farm once he was discharged.

If Okebe didn't go down, Migs never would never have had to step up to lead Raven Squad.

Allen. Brown. Clarke. Cunningham. Tremblay. Trufont. Zemeckis.

Of his forty-two men, those seven were the only ones of his who made it off that rock still breathing.

Allen was killed in action Eden Prime. Brown was drunk when he went off the road and smashed a tree head on. Cunningham's ship when down in flames protecting the Citadel during the Sovereign attack. Trufont died two years after Torfan of complications after they took his leg. Zemeckis went out alone in a motel room with the heroin needle still in his arm when the coroner found him.

Who knew about Trufont. He was either up on one of the ships in orbit or he was down somewhere on the ground fighting this impossible war. Either way, there was a good chance he was going to die today, just like the rest of them.

The armor. The armor was so tight. He began to unbolt himself from his chestplate, even though he could still hear continued gunfire in the lobby. His fingers shook, fumbling over the clips as he grabbed them one by one and snapped them open until he could throw the armor off of him onto the ground.

His chest was soaked in sweat as he pulled the wet shirt away from his skin. He heaved for breath, his entire body feeling on fire. The building shook as the Reaper took another step. He wheezed as he pressed his back to the wall and closed his eyes. An explosion on the back end of the building snapped his eyes back open as he jumped, holding his hand to his heart as he felt it pounding out of his chest.

He looked at the Vindicator on the floor next to him. If he picked it up and ran outside, he could fire it at the first reaper he saw. He could turn off his omni, he could leave his chestplate inside. He could take a shot to the chest or the head. He could fall in the street and bleed and die and be done with it. He could join up with the rest of his platoon from Torfan. He could stand before Tarkus and Vorn and Grog and Bug and explain to them that they were all stupid for trusting him.

His left hand clutched into a fist again as his throat began to close once more. He forced his fingers out, but they snapped closed nearly as quickly as he could open them until his hand locked into a claw, the joints of his fingers frozen and painful.

Maybe this would be the one. Maybe finally his airway would close completely. He'd feel the burning in his lungs as his body burnt the last bits of oxygen. He'd spiral away, eyes growing dark as his head spun around into the abyss, until his muscles were deprived of air and his heart seized and stopped.

It would be time. It was inevitable. He had been sidestepping that moment for years now, always finding a way to just narrowly escape the end. But it couldn't go on forever.

The reaper was owed his due.

Maybe the mechanical monstrosities that bore the same moniker were sent to collect.

He struggled to push himself to his feet, leaning heavily against the wall. If this was it, if finally death had caught up to him, he wanted to collapse and die outside of this room. He didn't want Dess to wake up and find him slumped against the wall with one hand clutched around the collar of his shirt and the other frozen into a damnable fist at his side. Let him walk into the street and die like a dog out there.

Clarke wheezed as he took the first step, his legs feeling numb underneath him as he choked for air. He braced himself against the wall with his right hand, stopping as the building shook once more with another step of the Destroyer, then took a second step. His left hand stayed glued to his left hip, his knuckles burning at the intensity at which they stayed curled into a fist.

When the Destroyer fired again and the beam shook the building, Clarke jumped as a pang of fear coursed through him. His hand against the wall slipped and he stumbled forward and fell, hitting the wall as he tumbled to the floor. He opened his mouth to breath, but it felt as if he were trying to breathe through the narrowest straw. The arteries in his neck thumped violently as he pushed himself to a sitting position against the wall again.

"Dess…" he wheezed, looking helplessly in her direction.

She didn't move, lying still on the desk except for the slight rise and fall of her chest.

"Dess," he said a little louder, using what felt like the last of his breath.

She didn't answer.

Clarke forced his lips closed, inhaling what little he could through his nose as he tossed his head back until it hit the wall. He closed his eyes once again. He tried to open his left hand, tried to force his fingers out of the ball they instinctively curled into.

He couldn't get his fingers to obey him

He couldn't prevent it from happening.

He couldn't do anything to stop it.

He couldn't go back.

The soldier came back to the table with another three glasses of brown ale, each topped with a frothy white head.

"I keep telling you, Migs, no one drinks this Dog here," Clarke said as he grabbed one of the glasses of Newcastle.

"It's English," Migs protested.

"There's a reason why we sent it over the pond to the States," Clarke said as he lifted the glass and took a gulp. The ale wasn't bad, but compared to the dozens of other choices on tap or in bottles behind the bar, it was like drinking out of a puddle on the side of the street.

"Well I think it's pretty good, regardless," Jules agreed as she took her empty off the coaster and placed the fresh glass down in its place. She leaned over from her stool and planted a kiss on Migs' cheek.

"Just wait," Clarke said. "Put a couple more in me then I'll be ready to whip your ass on that pinball machine."

Migs nearly choked on his beer as he was mid-drink, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand as he lowered his glass. "Please. You'll just embarrass yourself again."

"I think you mean, 'Yes, sir. I'm pathetic and you're the best, sir.'" Clarke said.

"One, I'd never say that. And two, we're off base, sir," Migs mocked.

He waved off the insult as he hoisted his glass once more. Blue's was a little more alive than usual tonight. There were two Asari sitting at the bar having wine and that had pulled in more uni boys than usual who spotted them through the window. They were pretty good at pretending the guys didn't exist though and Will was doing all he could to shoo the men off with a towel.

Still, it was comfortably quiet and cozy. Clarke appreciated that, compared to the low-light, electronica music and trendy drinks being slung at a lot of the downtown clubs. Those places attracted nothing but girls looking to make mistakes and plenty of guys willing to be those mistakes.

It was getting harder and harder to get away with all the training ramping up. The Alliance had been flying them out three times a week for training simulations at the defunct coal mines in Yorkshire. The mission objectives were being tweaked every trip and personnel was constantly being shifted around to find the right mix. They had been swapping different riflemen in and out, but Migs and the other sergeants had been stable, so far.

Clarke hoped the Alliance brass made up their minds soon and locked in a roster. They were supposed to be relaying out to Sidon in the Verge in two months to run a more in-depth simulation there before finally making the jump to Torfan.

The criminal moon wasn't worth half a shit strategically, aside from sending a clear message to the Batarians that they'd better think again before ever encroaching on another Alliance world.

"Were you able to get your fitting done, Clarke?" Jules glanced across the table with her hazel eyes and one eyebrow bent down suspiciously.

"Yeah, of course," he lied, having forgotten again. If he got up early, he could get over there and do it before having to report in for evening meetings on base.

"Make sure you do it tomorrow," Jules said, seeing right through him, as usual. She sighed and smiled as she looked across the table. "Just five more months until I'm Mrs. Julianne Perez."

"And here I thought you were going to stay as a Fullenkamp," Migs joked. "Or hyphenate."

"Oh God." She rolled her eyes at the notion. "See, now if you were a Catholic white boy farmer, you'd fight right in in my hometown."

"I've seen you sunburn before," Migs said, pointing down to his tanned Hispanic skin. It was a fair bit lighter than his paternal grandparents, but his dad's Mexican blood mixed with his mom's Texan had softened up his complexion. "Our kids will thank me someday."

Jules had her wavy strawberry-blonde hair, a dusting of freckles across her cheeks and rounded Germanic features. She came straight out of the middle-of-nowhere southwest Ohio and its miles of flat landscape carpeted in soybeans, corn and chicken barns. So she said. It sounded like West Country, where you could learn more than you'd ever want to know about a dairy cow.

And yet, she had come here to follow Migs when he got reassigned to the Alliance base in London. Despite no signs that he was ever going to get released back to the States, she stayed.

"How much longer til you're shipping out?" Jules asked him.

"Not really clear. At least two months." Clarke couldn't really say more than that. That Jules knew they were prepping to go anywhere was a breach of confidentiality. The Alliance was trying to keep this Torfan raid as hush hush as possible.

"We'll be back in time for the wedding," Migs reassured her for the thousandth time since she first found out.

"Assuming you both make it back," she said as she rubbed her hand across her eyes as she often did when she was trying to come to terms with Migs' line of work. She wasn't cut out to be a military wife. Just as well, considering Migs wasn't planning on staying for life. "I just don't like that I can't know where you're going or what you're doing."

"It'll be fine. Besides, I'm being led by the 2nd Lt. Greggory Clarke," Migs said with a mocking tone.

"Yeah, if anything I'll get shot because all these illiterate Americans will go right when I say left because they don't know the difference," Clarke said. "No offense to you, Jules. I know you went to school. Migs on the other hand…"

"Hey, I dropped out because I couldn't afford it," Migs said, with a sly smile and a shrug. "It had absolutely nothing to do with house parties and kegs. Besides, without that I would have never rescued that naive freshman girl from Ohio who got way too drunk at our Christmas party."

Jules smiled and sipped her Newcastle.

"I just worry," she said.

"We'll both be there," Migs said. "Me at the end of the aisle. This guy right next to me. And as long as he doesn't forget the ring in the hotel room, everything will be great."

"Promise you'll both come back?" Jules asked.

"You know it, babe," Migs said.

Clarke gave a nod. "Promise."

It was a gorgeous summer day when they lowered Migs' empty casket into the ground.

Despite the midday Texas heat, Jules didn't seem to notice the sun beating down on her black dress. Her red-gold hair was pulled back, twisted into a bun on the back of her head and pinned tightly. She wore blood-red lipstick.

She never seemed to blink, staring intensely at the flag-draped coffin sitting on the lift.

She never cried a single tear.

Right before they lowered the box into the ground, she stepped forward, twisted the diamond ring off of her left hand and placed it on the lid of the coffin.

When the service was over and everyone began to leave, she stood in the same place without moving and without averting her gaze. Clarke had stepped away, hoping to catch her before she went home, but when he saw her standing there, alone, for nearly an hour, he went back.

He approached, standing on the other side of the gaping hole in the earth. He looked down again, seeing the sparkle on the gem in the ring even with it shadowed by the walls of dirt six feet underground.

"What happened, Gregg?" she asked, without moving her eyes from the hole in the ground.

How could he answer that?

The truth wouldn't ease her pain. The truth was classified. The truth couldn't do anything but make the hurt worse.

"He gave his life for the mission," Clarke said. "For the Alliance."

"Bullshit," Jules said, her voice almost spitting disdain.

"We all lost a lot on Torfan," Clarke said. He lost more than four-fifths of his platoon. That wasn't an outlier, he found out during debrief. Some units had been completely wiped out, while most limped off the moon with no more than a quarter of the men who started.

The tunnels had been more expansive than their intelligence showed. There were many more Batarians than recon reported. And the majority of them fought like soldiers, not petty thugs and smugglers.

It was a massacre on both sides. Alliance intel reported the Batarians were already withdrawing from the Verge. They deemed the mission a success, despite the cost.

"Why are you here, Gregg? Why are you here and he isn't?" she asked. "You promised me. You both promised me you'd come back."

"I did everything I coul-" he began to say, then stopped as his left hand curled into a fist in his pocket, "I… I tried. But I couldn't save him."

She was quiet. Her eyes stayed pasted on the coffin. Clarke kept his eyes on her, looking for any change, for anything. Her skin was already looking red from the sun. Her eyes were dry, with no signs that a tear had touched the mascara on her eyelashes. The ring finger on her left hand had a pale band where she had worn her engagement ring for months leading up to today.

On a day like today, she should have been doing a final fitting at the dress shop, not standing in a cemetery.

Clarke unclenched his hand in his pocket, feeling a tightness in his chest as he looked down at the coffin in the ground again. Maybe it was just the heat, but he felt light-headed and soaked in sweat. Each breath hurt, like someone was sitting on his ribcage or as if he were trying to inhale while submerged underwater. He could feel his heart racing as he shuffled his feet, feeling fidgety all over.

"I'm so sorry, Jules," Clarke finally said when he couldn't bear the silence any more.

For the first time, she made a noticeable movement as she inhaled deeply, her chest and shoulders lifting before settling back into her normal form. She swallowed, her lips opening just slightly as if the emotion that must have been inside her were trying to creep up.

But it didn't. She pressed her lips together again, staring into the grave.

"Just leave me alone."

He did.

When he returned to London, he tried to call her. She never answered.

When he went to her flat and knocked on the door, she was either never home or never answered.

When he checked at Blue's, Will said he hadn't seen her since he heard about Migs. Then he gave Clarke a pint, on the house, and left him to his thoughts.

Two weeks later he found she resigned her position at the hospital.

He checked her flat again and found out from the landlord she had left, abruptly, even paid the penalty to break her lease. She didn't leave a forwarding address.

She didn't answer emails, texts, phone calls. He messaged her sister in the States, who said she didn't want to talk.

He stared at the list of unanswered messages he sent her the first time he pushed his pistol to his temple. When he lost his nerve, throwing the gun across the room, he called her again leaving a long, rambling, weeping message on her voicemail pleading her to call him back. He needed to hear her voice. He needed to talk to her about what happened. He needed someone, anyone, to help blunt the pain that was eating him a live from the inside out.

He begged, until he hung up the call, curled into a ball on the floor and wheezed, shaking, until he lost consciousness.

After two years, he stopped trying.

Every few weeks, he'd log on to the net and poke around to try to see how she was doing. He'd skulk around the fringes of her social media pages, admiring the photos he could see of her with friends or family.

He didn't know whether to feel happy or to weep when he'd find a photo of her smiling.

He'd come across search results for her name in the local news from time to time when she'd get a recognition from some nursing organization or the other. She was one of the judges at the 2182 Little Miss and Mister contest at the county fair back in her hometown.

In 2183, her last name changed to Cooley, although he never found an engagement announcement in any of the local papers.

Clarke stopped looking then.

She had found a new life.

He was forever stuck in 2178.

He felt the hard bump as the shuttle slammed down onto the rocky surface of Torfan.

The pings of bullet fire were already dinging across the side of the ship. When the doors slid open, the buzz of blue shields surrounded them as they took fire. A single, booming shot from a rifle somewhere in the mouth of the cave exploded out.

Clarke could feel the pieces of glass bouncing off his shoulder pads as Okebe's helmet was penetrated and the sergeant fall backward deeper into the landing craft, spraying a fountain of blood through the broken, jagged faceplate.

"Go! Go! Go!" Clarke shouted across the comm as the soldiers piled out the door, charging for the stones and boulders that littered the field between them and the entrance to the cave.

His feet touched down into the blue-grey dust as his shield turned aside assault rifle fire. The HUD inside his helmet was blinking rapidly as shields of his platoon members dropped. He listened to the breathy, updates from squad leaders as they called in orders and updates on their progress forward.

Clarke popped up from behind his stone, sighting his rifle in the middle of the head of one of the Batarians suppressing a fireteam and pulled the trigger, ducking back down as he watched the splatter coming from the alien's skull as it tumbled and fell.

"Squad leaders, prepare to move toward first objective. Raven Squad, Crow Squad, enemy resistance at Point Alpha is too thick. Move around to Rally Point Delta. Rook Squad and command will provide cover fire." He relayed the orders in as he glanced at the data coming into his omni. Okebe, Ferguson and Dimitriov were already dead. Vitals on Hankins were fading fast, but he was bleeding out in the open where no one could reach him without joining him on the casualty list.

He lost half of Crow Squad when they got hit by a turret emplacement that wasn't on the maps. More and more Batarians seemed to surge out of the caves even as they carefully advanced forward, pouring rounds into the mouth of the tunnel. There wasn't a second that went by when someone's shields or vitals in the HUD weren't flashing under fire.

By the time they got into the tunnels and the squads starting moving toward their individual objectives, his platoon was already down thirteen men.

It was a bloody slog through the tunnels. Every auto-gun emplacement they hit pinned them until they could coordinate to have a biotic hold a shield long enough to get one of the engineers into place to overload shields and then pummel the thick armor plating.

No matter how thick the fighting got and how many men were falling, command continued to press them to move forward.

And then there he was, at Objective Two, where several of the tunnels converged into a central junction. It was there he watched a frag shred Morris and two of his squad members. Clarke could still remember the Batarian lettering on the side of the large, metal shipping crate he had pressed his shoulder into as he tried to hold the corridor while the squads each began down their assigned tunnels to set the charges.

He was always here. That spot, crouched on the ground against the dull grey metal, turning out of cover to pick off Batarians one by one was the place. This was the one place he always came back to and couldn't run from.

He curled up, Vindicator clutched to his chest, back pressed to the steel crate, breathing slowly as he waited until everything around him froze. He sat in the middle of the memory, a moment stopped in time, forever.

It's where Dess could always find him.

Gregg, she says. He can feel the soothing emanations of her mind washing against the wall of anxiety and fear that suffocated him. I'm here.

I know.

He can see her now, inside this memory, as she slowly steps through the dark, narrow tunnel toward him in this moment of illusion. Each step she approaches, he can feel the tension lessening. He can almost feel it like gravity, like his consciousness beginning to tumble back down to where it will meet his physical body.

She crouches down in front of him, her soft blue hand reaching out to cradle his cheek. Her touch feels like a warm bath, so calm and peaceful, as if there was nothing wrong at all in the world. Here, inside these moments where they melded together, these are the only times he ever can feel truly at peace any more.

Somewhere, beyond his head, he knows there is still a Destroyer marching down the street, still reapers prowling the alleys and battling the soldiers. They are both at risk every moment they linger here, on whatever transcendent plane she takes him to when she welcomes him into her mind.

Dessia looks down at the light on his omni for what seems like the first time, or at least, the first time he ever notices. The comm button, alight in red, is the key that keeps everything here paused, that keeps everything from devolving into the abyss.

Will you show me what happened?

The question sends a shock of cold through everything, a lance of fear that cuts him from his stomach up through his chest and into the back of his mouth where his tongue meets his throat. It sticks there, choking him.

He can feel the soothing touch of Dess's other hand as it wraps around his neck and around the back of his head. Her fingers slowly slide through his hair as she pulls him closer. She leans her head down, until her forehead touches the crown of his head. Her quiet breathing is like soft music meant for only him.

His left hand curls into a fist by instinct as his wrist begins to tremble. Even her touch is not strong enough to overpower the compulsion. He can feel her squeeze him tighter as his breath shortens.

I can't, he pleads. I don't want you to see.

I can help you. But you have to let me in.

Nooo. The word wails as it slips out of him heavy with fear.

Please, Gregg. This is where you pain lives. If you share it with me, I can help you begin to heal it.

I'm scared. It is not so much an admission as a plea for her to stop.

I know. I was scared too. But you were there for me when I needed you. Let me be here, for you.

Everything begins again with an explosion of noise, of gunfire pelting the crate, of his heavy breathing inside his helmet, of the buzzing of his shield generator as it recharges and re-establishes itself. His right hand reaches, touching the button on his omni.

"Raven Squad explosive charges are set." It's Migs. Tired, but excited.

"Good work, return to rendezvous," he responds back.

"Negative," Migs answers. "There's a console down here. I think I can hack it and shut down those auto-guns. Maybe throughout the whole complex."

"Cancel that, Migs. There's no time. Return to rendezvous," he orders. "Crow Squad and Rook Squad are already back."

"It'll just take a minute," Migs protests. "I can get this. We're getting torn up by the guns. I can knock them out."

They continue to hold the junction, keeping the Batarians at bay. Clarke watches the vitals in his HUD bouncing up and down as his squad exchanges back and forth with the defenders. He counts the seconds in his head, watching as the shields on the other members of Raven Squad begin to dip.

"What's happening down there, Migs?"

"Batarian resistance. My guys got it. I'm almost through."

The radio beeps out as command cuts in.

"Clarke, this is Kyle. What is the hold up? We're reading charges are set. Other platoons are already advancing on the third objective."

"We've still got men down the tunnel, Major."

"We are reading inbound Batarian squads toward that junction. We need to close those routes down now or you're going to have troopers bubbling up on your rear."

He switches channels. "Migs, we've got Batarian squads coming toward our position. Command wants the tunnels closed now. Abort your hack and get your men up here now."

"Negative Clarke, I've got this. Just a second more…"

"There's no time, Migs. Cease operations and return to rendezvous now. That is an order."

"How many more men are we going to lose if I don't get those guns off, Clarke?"

"None of us are going to make it if those Batarians get on top of us."

"I'm almost there." There's a loud burst in the radio and the HUD for Pfc. Urias blinks out. "Shit. Just a little more. Come on you bastard… Got it! Auto guns are powering down. Raven Squad, move, move, move!"

"Lieutenant, why aren't those tunnels closed yet?" Kyle is back in his ear.

"Our men got delayed. They are on their way now."

"Batarian squad on our six!" Dawes shouts out from his side as he rises and sprays his rifle back down the corridor.

"Rook Squad, double back and cover our rear," Clarke shouts. "Migs! Get up here now!"

"Lieutenant, close those tunnels."

"My men are on-"

"That is an order, lieutenant. Close those tunnels."

"Major, I have six men in the hole. If I blow the charges it'll bury them too."

"This is a precision operation and we are out of time."

"Migs where the fuck are you!?"

"We're pinned down by a Batarian squad. McConnor is down. We're trying to extract him."

"There's no time. Get out of that hole. I have orders from command to blow the tunnels."

"We can't leave him behind."

"Migs get out of that hole!"

"More Batarians coming up from below!"

Clarke raises his rifle to his shoulder and peppers six rounds into the soldiers percolating up from underground. His shield falls as he feels the bullet pierce the armor of his right thigh, penetrating far enough to pierce his skin.

"Cover the lieutenant!" Dawes calls out. Witworth moves out of cover and is cut down before Dawes himself changes sides to hold the position.

"Migs where are you?!"

"We're free. On our way back up. We've got McConnor and… shit… take cover! Martin, Kessick I need suppressing fire on those Batarians."

"Clarke we're being overrun!" Dawes shouts.

Clarke's fingers curl into a fist around the detonator in his left hand as the tunnel fills with more Batarian fire. The bars in his HUD are flashing violently in and out as his squads continue to get pummeled. McConnor is dead. Martin is dead. Migs's shield drops and his health begins to fall.

"Migs!"

"We're on our way up. Batarians got me in the stomach, but I'm-"

"Lieutenant Clarke, this is General Sampson. This is a direct order. Detonate your charges and close those tunnels. You are putting the entire mission in jeopardy. If you don't close those tunnels from below we all go down."

His fingers open and reset on the handle of the detonator, left hand squeezing into a fist so tight it makes his knuckles hurt. His forearm is burning as he stares down the tunnel entrance from below, watching the flashes of light and smoke coming up from below. Kessick's name is now dark in the HUD. Migs' health bar has dropped below half and is continuing to fall.

His entire arm begins to shake. His shield pops again as another Batarian shot glances off his helmet. He holds his breath and closes his eyes.

Clarke pushes the button on the detonator.

The entire junction rumbles as the heavy explosives detonate one by one. The sound gets louder and louder as it climbs up from the subterrain. The Alliance soldiers duck for cover as the entryways belch fire and smoke and debris from below as the tunnels crumble and collapse in on themselves. The Batarians behind them are swallowed up as the explosions from below consume them.

The first sound he hears after is the comm clicking in his ear again.

"Good work, lieutenant," Major Kyle commends, although Clarke knows he had to be watching the personnel displays at HQ. "Continue to advance toward third objective. Kyle out."

When Clarke opens his eyes, the detonator is still firmly clutched in his left hand, his thumb pressed down on the trigger.

He tries to open his fingers, but they refuse to budge.

It takes his right hand to pry his hand open until the used detonator tumbles to the ground, bounces once, and rolls down the sloping floor toward the collapsed tunnels.

When he blinks again, the memory begins to fade, melting away as if it were being sucked into an infinite black hole.

Clarke opened his eyes, back inside himself, back on the floor of the hotel office.

He could feel a streak of tears down his cheeks. Dess, her forehead pressed lightly to his, had a matching set of streaks. He could feel her labored breath upon his face. Her body trembled as she absorbed all that she had taken in from him.

In his left hand, where his fingers instinctively curled into a claw around the detonator that had ended the lives of Migs and the rest of Raven Squad, he could see Dess's blue fingers curled inside of his own.

Her body straddled his waist as she rested lightly on his lap. Her left arm was snaked around his shoulder and neck to hold onto him. She continued to rest her head on his.

"I understand now," she said quietly as her entire body seemed to shiver at the realization of what he had done settled through her.

"I killed them," he whispered back. "It was my choice. My hand. My finger that pressed the button."

He expected that she would try to make excuses for him now, as he had tried to do for himself for years.

They were being overrun. They were out of time. If the Batarians overtook their position they could have moved freely through the caverns and ambushed the other groups. Migs and his men were already wounded.

Closing the lower tunnels were a key objective of the mission. The Alliance leaders had chosen him to get it done and he had accepted. He knew how critical it was to the mission.

It didn't matter.

When he pressed the plunger on the detonator, he knew that they'd die.

And he pressed it of his own free will.

"I know," she said instead. She shivered as she lifted her hand out of his, wrapping her other arm around his neck too. "But you don't have to suffer alone."

For what it was worth, her words planted a small bit of warmth inside him, inside the place where there was nothing but the empty echo of Torfan banging through him.

He inhaled and exhaled, finding his breath had returned and the strangling anxiety gone, abated. His muscles still felt weak, tired, sore.

"I think I'm OK now, Dess."

She didn't move.

"Can we… can we stay like this a little longer?" she asked.

He could feel the vibration through the floor, still hear the muffled popping of gunfire and the hum of the Destroyer's beam and crash of destruction it caused. This was still a battlefield. But in the small office in the midst of a battlefield, just him and Dess, he felt like he could ignore all of that reality to just soak up this one, private moment.

"Yeah."

He rolled his neck slightly and savored the way her head moved with his, staying connected at their foreheads. He placed his hands on the sides of her combat suit just above her hips as her body swayed slightly down into his. She smiled slightly, swallowing a giggle as she made contact with his armored greaves.

Clarke's breath slowed to match the pace of hers, their chests lifting and falling in sync. His thumbs moved slightly, brushing over the protective fiber of her suit toward her hip bones. Dess shifted her weight a little, sliding up on his lap as her hand slipped into the hair on the back of his head. She lifted her head off of his, pressing her cheek to his as she nuzzled lightly against the curls of his beard.

He involuntarily gasped a little as she brushed over the codpiece of his armor, even though he could barely feel it inside of his armor. Her cheek moved against his, sliding toward the center of his face. The tip of her nose brushed against his. He could feel her breath on his lips.

The building shook violently as a roar of an explosion rocked the street.

Dess instinctively ducked her head and Clarke covered her as the drop tiles rattled and fell out of the ceiling while the entire room seemed to pulse up and down. She rolled off of him as the drywall near the door cracked and split and the door popped open as the stress on the frame pushed it inward.

Clarke could see the roar of fire engulfing the street and feel the rumbling as the Reaper teetered and began to stagger. A second burst, heavy weapon's fire, erupted in a ball of flame burst large enough to lick the lobby of the hotel. He could feel the rush of air and heat as the shockwave pushed past and the giant black structure of metal squealed, twisted and fell.

"Destroyer down! I repeat the Reaper is down!" a jubilant voice declared over the radio as Clarke flipped the channels back open on his omni for the first time since coming inside.

"Hahaha! Did you see that shit! Take that you mechanical fuck!" another shouted.

"Where did that missile come from?"

"That's all Shepard, baby! Commander Shepard fucked that thing right in its beam-hole!"

The radio cut as the override came in from command.

"All Hammer squads. This is Admiral Anderson. The path is open to the Citadel beam. Mako transports are en route. Gather up, prepare for transport. We'll make a final push toward the beam," the radio said. "This is it. Anderson out."

Clarke shut off his comm and let his wrist fall to his side. He glanced out of the now-open door at the smoking heap of black metal he could see up the block. A Reaper was dead. He glanced over at Dess, who was brushing herself off from the dust that had come down from the ceiling.

"We made it," he said.

"I can hardly believe it," she agreed. "But we're not there yet."

Clarke nodded as he pushed himself to his feet and collected his chestplate from the ground where he had discarded it. He snapped it back into place as Dess rose to her feet and brushed the dust off of her.

"I know," he said. "We're close. Closer than I ever thought we'd get. Let's finish this. For the others."

Dess nodded as she touched her belt to make sure her pistol was still in its holster. She ran her hands across her suit once more to toss off a bit more dust, then motioned to the door.

"I'm with you, Gregg," she said. "Always."

"No…"

Dess whispered the single word as the Reaper dropped from the sky like a spider descending on silk. Her eyes, his eyes, everyone's eyes followed the gigantic black ship as it lowered from the atmosphere landing behind the beam. The six white lights on the front of Harbinger seemed to see all of them, staring them all down at once, daring them to move an inch closer.

The entire convoy of Makos seemed to stop at once. Every soldier following them on foot stopped in their place, heads craned upward. In between them and the Reaper, there were hundreds of yards of barren, blasted ground sloping toward the beam.

Far to their right, he could see the movement of the first man vault the ring of the debris and the first Mako to lurch into movement behind him. Shepard, he knew, leading the charge.

"Stay close to me," he said to Dess, extending a hand out toward her.

She quickly grabbed it and squeezed. He squeezed back.

"Try to stay behind the Makos," he said, scanning the no-man's-land between their position and the target. Wide open. No cover. "It's our only chance."

The radios jumped to life again, the last command shouted by Anderson in haste over the line.

"Hammer squads, go, go, go!"

Every soul on the ground seemed to move forward at the same time.

He let go of her hand as he clutched his Vindicator tightly with both palms. Clarke glanced up, ducking his shoulders slightly until he saw the wheels of the Mako begin to spin, spitting stones backward as it revved up its drive and lurched forward.

"Come on!" he shouted back to Dess as he sprinted forward, trying to stay behind the back gate as it began to roll and rumble down the hill.

Then the beams began.

The first one picked a fighter out of the air, bisecting the ship in a bright ball of fire. The second came not even a second later, pointed toward the ground as one of the Makos to their right exploded in flames.

Clarke stumbled as the ground shook under his feet with each strike from the Reaper. The Mako in front of them bounced over a broken chunk of ground as he continued to run flat out behind it. He felt a whoosh as Dessia bolted forward with a quick push from her own biotics up over the uneven ground as he stomped awkwardly over the chunks of asphalt and concrete.

They were just two people in the middle of a wave of soldiers all rushing toward the same objective. His feet tangled and he almost fell as one of the beams struck just ahead of them. The group of three soldiers that were there were now gone, no sign of them except a burning jet of flame rising from the ground.

He pushed his legs harder as the Mako began to pull away from them, but there was no way he could keep up with the vehicle as it began to create a larger and larger gap in between them. His lungs burned at the effort as he ran. He let go of his rifle with his left hand, dropping his arms to his sides as he pumped them to build a bit more speed.

No sense in being combat ready. Cannibals and marauders were the least of his worries now. His shield would stop a few bullets if the lessers reapers tried to jump them. There was nothing his shield or armor would do if the Reaper targeted him in the open.

The beams kept flying, one after another. They moved all over, picking target after target across the entire battlefield. One would shred a mako on the far right flank, followed by one picking another shuttle out of the sky on the far left. Then two would hit in the middle, one high, one low.

The red beams hit targets in the front and the back. It obliterated soldiers into ash and ripped apart thick Mako armor as if it were paper. All of the soldiers were spreading out, trying to put as much space between each of them as if that even mattered.

Clarke ducked, losing his balance and falling face first into the ground as a beam sheared just over his head, striking a group of soldiers following behind them. His armor scraped against the street as he tried to stop himself. Soldiers flew past him, not bothering to stop to help him before they were the next to be disintegrated.

"Gregg!" He felt Dess' hand around his left arm as he pushed his hands down and his feet scraped against the ground to lift him back up.

"I'm fine! Run!" he shouted as soon as he was back on his feet and he and Dess were off again. A Mako zoomed past his right side and he moved to try to get behind it, with Dess right at his side.

They were getting closer, but he watched as the Reaper lasers shredded anything that came within a hundred yards of the beam. It continued to fire multiple shots per second. Hammer was getting depleted fast and the entire field was filling with wreckage as destroyed Makos, shuttles and fighters littered the approach.

The Mako in front of them sped up, gaining ground. And then a beam began ripping up the ground, the red light so hot and intense he could feel it across his face as it struck ahead of them. It moved, tracing the path of the Mako until it struck the nose of the vehicle and sent it erupting into a fireball that bounced up into the air.

His shield broke as a piece of wreckage blasted back and struck him, scraping across his right shoulder as the jagged, burning metal blew past him. He dropped down, sliding on his legs as one of the heavy tires bounced over twisted head. He slammed his hands down to slow the slide until his stopped and bounced to his feet again.

When he turned his head to the left, he realized there wasn't anyone next to him.

"Dess!" he shouted as he looked, seeing the white of her combat suit on the ground.

He turned backward, while everyone else ran forward.

She was squirming, barely moving. Her arms were stretched out and she already had a splotch of purple blood on the back of her head where she had slammed the ground. Her legs, her legs were pinned under a scorched and broken piece of metal that had blown off the Mako. Clarke shoved the edge, but the thing was three times his size and didn't budge at all.

Dess's head moved slightly as she opened her eyes as she regained consciousness, obviously dazed. She grunted and groaned as she tried to lift her neck and sit up, although her body could barely move.

"Hold still Dess," Clarke said as he scrambled to her head, holding it in his hands as he slowly lowered it back down. From above her, he could see that both legs were pinned underneath the wreckage and the left side was smeared with her violet blood.

"What… wha…"

"Just try to lie still," Clarke said. "You're hurt."

The beams continued to fire, the low-frequency hum of the Reaper cutting through his head.

"I can't feel my legs," she said.

"Close your eyes," he said, tapping the buttons on her omni for her to get the medigel sequencer started again. He checked the bar for her vitals and scowled at how grim it looked.

Her lips moved, as if she were tasting something that wasn't there. Her face contorted in pain as she moved slightly, until she settled and stilled. She swallowed and grimaced again.

"Gregg," she said weakly. "You have to go. You have to get to the Citadel beam."

He shook his head, throwing his gun to the side as he took up a position above her head. He leaned down, holding his face over hers as he rested his hands on either side of her head to keep it steady. He hoped the touch of his hands would help calm her as he looked at her left hip where the purple stain was creeping up the white of her combat suit.

"Not without you," he said as he watched the beams continue to rip up anything that got close. This was folly. So close and still a million million miles away.

He saw her hand try to reach for him even as her face twisted in pain again. She closed her eyes, breathing deeply as a bit of blood dribbled out of the corner of her mouth. "Don't. Don't move. Just relax. I'm here."

She licked her lips, her tongue brushing across the rivulet of blood before she pulled it back inside her mouth. "Are we going to make it?"

No, he knew as the Reaper made sure nothing got close. The Crucible was ready. Every species in the galaxy had banded together to resist the Reaper extinction. They all came here to play their one prayer against the mechanical monsters. And it was all going to come up short by a hundred yards.

Clarke reached out and took her hand, twining his thumb around hers as he bent it slowly toward her chest where he could hold it.

"Someone will," he lied.

She swallowed again with another grimace and slight whimper. Her fingers tightened around his hand. "I'm scared," she said as he could feel her arm trembling.

For once, he wasn't.

His arms were sore from the day's exertion, but steady.

His heart was thumping from the intensity of the battle, but not racing uncontrollably.

His breathing was labored from the sprint, but not choked off.

The fingers on his left hand weren't curled into a fist.

He lifted his left hand and gently touched her cheek with it, moving his fingers until they traced slightly around the curve of her ear, like she had done so many times to try to calm him before melding. He couldn't do whatever it was she did and open his mind to her.

"Just concentrate on my voice and try to relax," he said.

He gave her palm a squeeze as he bent down and planted a soft kiss on her forehead. It was no meld, but he hoped it might have the same soothing effect for her as it did for him.

He closed his eyes, resting his forehead down on hers.

If he could give her that small comfort, at least, it might begin to make up for all she had done to try to put the shattered bits of him back into one piece.

Clarke never saw the Reaper beam as it tore up the street toward them.