AUTHOR'S NOTE: Right, so I started playing the Mass Effect games a few weeks ago and didn't expect to be completely enamoured with them, but, hey, what can you do? I finished the third game last week and was utterly heartbroken about what happened to my Shepard. And then I got the Extended Cut, which was a whole lot better. Anyway, this is what I liked to think would have happened post EC. It's gonna be sad, y'all.

Wake up, Shepard.

Her eyes snapped open, her lungs screamed for air. She gasped, her mouth filling with the taste of soot and blood. Darkness pressed in on all sides. Something heavy and metal pinned her leg to the scorched earth. She couldn't move, she could scarcely see, and there was an awful pounding in the back of her head, but she was alive. Alive.

But hadn't she…

Shepard groaned. Her brain throbbed with the weight of memory. Splintered visions of what happened before the fall flashed in front of her like cruel mirages. She saw a man, a broken man, the serenity on his face as they looked out upon their dying home, their home he so desperately believed she could win back. You did good, child.

She saw a woman, her eyes blue as Earth's sky, her skin just as lovely. What was her name? L…Laura…Leandra? No, that wasn't it. Li…Li…How would you like to be remembered?

Shepard closed her eyes. The woman disappeared. In her place stood the shadowy silhouette of another man. Or at least Shepard thought he was a man, even though he didn't look anything like the other one. He was all rough angles and lean, long limbs. His tall frame lingered on the edges of her subconscious, never straying too close. But he was always there, through the fall and the crash and the crushing, crushing silence. He was what kept her from drifting away into the void, urging her to return to him. He was the rock she clung to. The bright spot in her shadowy world.

Come back alive.

When this was over and when she made it back to what was left of civilization, Shepard promised herself that she'd find that man, whoever he was, and she'd thank him. For everything.

Wake up, Shepard.

The commander did as she was commanded. She woke up. She might not have known who the woman was or who the tall man was or who the first man was, but what Shepard did know was that she had to get out of this smoking rubble. Drawing in a deep, burning breath, she wrenched her hands from out their hidden places amongst the debris and braced the nearest piece of scrap metal, pushing up as hard as she could.

The metal moaned and popped, its jagged edges biting into the skin of her palms. Shafts of light began filtering in through the cracks, getting bigger and bigger as Shepard pushed. How strange it was to see something other than darkness. She was so close. All she had to do now was free her leg. She decided that the best course of action was the one unseen. Knowing how mangled her leg was wouldn't make it any better. Hell, it probably would just make things worse.

Biting her lip, she fastened her hands around her bloodied thigh and pulled. Pain thrilled, flesh ripped, ash crumbled. She pulled and she pulled and she pulled and then, finally…Release. Numbness, calming and cool, spread throughout her injured leg. Shepard sighed. Numbness wasn't good. She'd pay for her messy extraction methods later. For now, she had wreckage to escape.

Squinting against the light, Shepard hoisted herself up through the chasm she'd made, emerging from her resting place like a long dead god. She gasped. Her cramped little world had just gotten a whole lot bigger. Unfolding all around her was some sort of garden planet, made obvious by the towering trees and bright green leaves. A warm wind tousled her hair and the air felt salty on her tongue. The familiar sound of water smashing against the coast drifted in through the tangled vegetation.

Where was she?

Shepard stumbled to the ground, still clutching her wounded leg. Her good leg did little to stabilize her. Her muscles, having been relaxed for so long, had weakened considerably. Her arms ached every time she moved them and her hands were riddled with fresh scrapes. The ache in her head persisted, intensifying when the light hit her just right.

But all these physical ailments could not even begin to amount to the emptiness she felt. Try as she may, Shepard could not recall the name of the blue skinned woman or her solemn sentinel. She could not remember what came after "Commander" or before "Shepard." What she did remember was death, destruction, agony, a child that glowed like the galaxy itself.

And she remembered a choice: Destroy, control, synthesis…Refusal.

It was easy to tell what she picked.

The giant exoskeleton of some massive metal thing sprawled behind her in blackened heaps. Shepard had no idea what it was. The results of her choice? She supposed it didn't matter anymore. The structure was damaged beyond repair.

Whispering a faint goodbye to the place she called home for God only knew how long, Shepard found herself staggering through the forest, toward the crashing waves. She had to see…She had to know…

Progress was slow. She shambled into the heart of the jungle, completely ignorant of what might've awaited her inside. Truth be told, she didn't care. She didn't wake up from a nightmarish coma just to get eaten by some alien animal. She'd fight whatever came her way, weakness be damned. She had to get to that ocean. She had to see…

The forest eventually thinned out to reveal a beach, an endless stretch of blinding white sand. Shepard leaned against the nearest tree, pausing to absorb the sand, the ocean, the cloudless sky. She let the noise of the water drown her, the pull and the push of the waves. It was a beautiful sound.

Even more beautiful was how the water felt as she collapsed into it. Her burnt armor melted away into the blue, the blood faded from her hands and legs. The waves crashed over her head, soaking her hair and stinging her eyes, cleansing her of the devastation of the past. Yet, as she arose from the tide, Shepard did not feel cleansed. She felt…

Broken.

She looked broken.

She stared down at her distorted reflection, not quite recognizing the face that stared back. Dark brown hair that swished at her shoulders, burnt at the tips. Indigo eyes. Corpse-pale skin. This woman couldn't be her…This woman looked dead, and she…She wasn't dead.

Naked and shivering, Shepard turned away from the corpse in the water and looked back to the beach. Perhaps she'd return to the wreckage to look for supplies. Clothes, food, anything help her surprise. Or perhaps…Perhaps she'd stay here. In the ocean. Let the waves take her some place quiet, some place where she'd never have to see the dead reflection ever again…

Come back alive.

There was that voice again. His voice. The tall man, murmuring in her ear. An order for you…

That was when she decided. She had to go back. If not for herself, for him. He'd done so much…It would have been unfair to repay him with her death. She had to get out of this water, she had to get off of this planet, and she had to find him.

No matter what.

Shepard made it to the sand when she heard a peculiar noise. A far off roaring she somehow associated with safety. The roaring got louder. Shepard looked up. Streaking across the sky was a ship, a slender cruiser painted in black. Awestruck, she watched as it thundered overhead, zooming into space at incredible speeds.

Maybe if she'd gotten closer, maybe if she'd climbed a tree, maybe if she found a cliff to stand on, she would have seen it, written on the hull of the ship…

NORMANDY, SR-2.

Instead, Shepard stumbled back down the path from whence she came, back toward the forest, back toward the wreckage, back toward the darkness.