The darkness is devastating.

Shepard has been through a lot, but to die this way – suffocating in space rather than downed in a firefight – is unexpected. She wouldn't call it undignified, but after everything she's survived, it doesn't feel right.

Snippets of memory:

The Normandy in pieces

Joker alone in the cockpit

Pulling at cords, wires, tubes

Floating

After everything, everyone – "I'm going to die alone."

All the good she's done (and the bad), all the people she's helped (and killed), all the friends she's made (and boyfriends left to die), and Commander Shepard is going to die by herself in the far reaches of space on fake call about geth activity.

How unceremonious.

"Pardon me, human, but you seem to be lost."

Shepard can count on one hand the number of things that she knows about drell, but she has been alone in the dark for what feels like forever. She is in no place to be picky; she would even be happy to see a batarian that still blames her for what happened during the Skyllian Blitz.

Her body isn't like it used to be, but Shepard tries to smirk.

"That's one way to put it."

The drell is beautiful in that way that aliens are: foreign, colorful, unfamiliar no matter how familiar she is with another species.

"I wondered why I was supposed to come here. I think you are the reason." Shepard doesn't answer, and the drell continues. "Kalahira told me it would be different for you, that there are no oceans for humans. I do not understand why it is so dark."

"It's a joke," Shepard says, voice cracking and wavering after what could very well be millennia of disuse. "All I ever wanted was to go to space. What I have left is a starless void."

The drell hums noncommittally, changing tack.

"I'm sure you know how important you are. It is not only humans who revere the Hero of the Citadel. Perhaps that is why Arashu chose you."

"I don't know much about drell religion-"

The drell shakes her head, smiling. "There are few who do that do not practice themselves. It does not matter anyway, really; she expects nothing from you that you have not been doing already. Be a guardian, Shepard. Do your name proud."

She doesn't leave afterwards, and the darkness is still stifling, but Shepard is not alone in it.

The drell comes and goes as she pleases, or so it seems to Shepard, but realities are deceiving. Time has always slipped through Shepard's fingers, a silvery fish swimming almost-but-not-quite close enough to catch for herself. She's a good listener, the drell, but very rarely offers anything up about herself.

"Why?" Shepard asks herself.

The drell shrugs. "I am dead, Shepard. What does it matter?"

"So am I."

"For now."

The way she says it is alarming, but her affectations are still foreign and drell-like and neither of them have translators in this limbo that they're in. Their understanding is something unassisted by tech. When Shepard mentions her unease on the topic, the drell doesn't understand.

"Surely there are some things that technology can't explain."

Shepard snorts. "Tech got me this far. I scrapped on Earth until it got me into the Alliance."

She is not usually so loose-lipped, but really, what does she have to lose? The drell is never unkind, and Shepard has no secrets anymore; she has had no secrets since killing Saren, and even if she did, who would this dead drell tell?

If the drell asks questions, Shepard answers, and sometimes she shares just out of boredom. Anything is better than being alone in this vast expanse of arctic blackness. Time stretches on infinitely and passes instantly at the same time, and one day –

"What's your name?"

Shepard has asked before, and the drell always smiles coyly, deflecting elsewhere. This time is no different.

"Why does it matter?"

"Why does keeping it matter?" Stubborn, hotheaded Shepard shines through for just a brief moment, and it's enough to force a genuine grin from the drell.

"Your secrets disappear with me, Shepard, but when you wake up, only Arashu can guide you."

"You keep saying that I'll wake up, or that I'm only dead for now, but I feel like I've been gone a long time and the only friend that I've had in the interim won't even tell me her name."

Shepard has improved (some) in reading drell body language, and in human-speak, the drell's voice sounds almost teary when she speaks.

"Arashu truly has blessed me if you bestow upon me the honor of being called friend."

The drell flickers out into the black, and Shepard is alone.

Something is wrong. All of Shepard's nerves are firing at once, like they are trying to learn how to be alive again, and her drell has been absent for a time that feels longer than eternity. She has not cried since the Blitz, and she can't remember a time she cried before that, but this pain is so deep that she is tempted to. As her body pulls itself together (literally, muscles tethering together and neurons rewiring), Shepard tries to scream and nothing comes out.

It is still dark, but a brighter black than before, and from the void, Shepard hears a distinctly human voice say, "Reconstruction nearly complete."

An indeterminate amount of time passes.

"Shepard." The voice is her drell and the human voice, together, at the same time.

The next breath Shepard takes is excruciating, tearing from her throat to her core to her extremities.

"Arashu protect you."