Work Text:
You’re starting to lose awareness of your surroundings. Sweat--or maybe blood--drips into your eyes and you try to wipe it away with a dirty hand. Eyes blink rapidly and when they drift to the Catalyst, you’re painfully reminded of reality--from the child on Vancouver, to your subordinate on Torfan, to its final form right now. Every second you stand here, another world is destroyed, but part of you would let the entire galaxy fall just to catch an extra glimpse of this fake, twisted version of Ryan.
You blink again and your head swims, your vision blurs. The skin where your armor’s blasted away feels charred, your bones feel broken. Perhaps the only other time you’ve ever been in this much pain is during a previous death you do not remember.
But you cannot stay here forever, you must make a choice. You stumble forward, you are no longer in control of your body--just like how you weren’t in control when you shot Anderson and watched him die. You grew up an orphan, with Ryan’s family by extension eventually becoming yours. You’ll never know what it’s like to have a parent but you get the feeling Anderson could’ve been something akin to a father.
You’re getting lost again but you keep moving towards the beam of light. It guides you like the North Star used to guide you through the hidden alleys of Mexicali after jobs for the Reds long ago. It guides you like the map aboard the Normandy has guided you through so many missions and hazards and adventures.
“What will you choose, Cal?”
What will you choose?
The weight of an entire galaxy rests upon your shoulders but just a few minutes longer and you will finally be freed of this burden.
Walking is hard but what hasn’t been hard about these circumstances? Just a little bit farther, Shepard. Just a little bit farther.
The incline to the beam almost makes you fall but you keep going. The light engulfs your vision and there’s a roaring sort of silence in your ears. The Catalyst’s words echo in your mind all at once but the ones screaming loudest are the words telling you that you will die if you walk into this light. There will be no bringing you back this time. There will be no more pain, no more hardship. You think of the last three--no, almost four now--years. You remember Saren and his perspective on survival. You remember the way Kaidan broke your heart on Horizon and how you later learned to repair yourselves together. You think of every life you’ve ended, including the slaughter you chose at Torfan, including the first life you helped end when you were only a young teenager in a gang.
A gaze burns into you from behind. But it’s not truly real, is it? If you turned around, Ryan’s warm loving eyes wouldn’t be looking into yours. That face isn’t real. Either the Catalyst has abilities beyond your comprehension or you’re hallucinating. That’s not so far-fetched, the fact you’re still standing is nothing short of miraculous. But then again, defying the odds is sort of your specialty.
More time passes, the reapers continue their rampage. Are they prisoners of this too, doomed to continue the cycles against their will? The real enemy in all this is the leviathan. If so, why should the reapers die to pay for their creators’ crimes?
That is why you stand at this beam, poised to sacrifice yourself for all life--synthetic and organic.
Would Kaidan be proud of your decision? Will he be able to move on more quickly this time, having already mourned your death before? Or will it be worse? How much pain have you put Kaidan through since you’ve met? How can you do this to Kaidan again and again?
The galaxy is forever changed, recovery will be one of the most difficult things it endures, but somewhere in there you can see the future you and Kaidan could have. That future feels farther away than the edge of the universe but it’s so damn close that you could touch it, if only you’d simply reach.
But there’s someone who won’t be there no matter how hard you try, no matter what shape the Catalyst wants to torture you with, and you have to wonder what he would do. You were the wrong Shepard for all this, you know that. You were never meant to return to the Alliance. He would’ve been the spectre, he would’ve been the leader to end this war.
...He would’ve been the one forced to make the most impossible decision. But Ryan Shepard is your best friend, your partner in life long before Kaidan entered yours. You know him better than anyone in the Milky Way, and he knew you equally in turn. If Ryan was standing here, you know what he would do. He would close his eyes.
You close your eyes.
He would feel the heat of the light dancing across his skin.
You only feel sick.
He would step closer, silently apologizing for leaving you behind.
You step closer, thinking of Kaidan being told again that you didn’t survive. Your body shakes but whether in exhaustion or in fear, it does not matter.
And then Ryan would let go and he would fall into this beam and the galaxy would be saved at the cost of his life. A person so big and so bright would be dimmed out forever.
Like he is now and has been for the last seven years.
Your eyes open. The light howls in your face. Your eyes burn. Tears spill down and they feel like lava rushing over your skin.
That is what Ryan would do, but you are not him. You take a step back. You are Cal Shepard, and you are afraid to die. You are many things and long ago, you accepted that selfish is one of them.
You take another step back, and another. More, until you're safely out of the light’s deadly glow. You’re crying harder now and the headache it gives you is almost enough to knock you unconscious. Is this how Kaidan’s migraines feel? You turn around.
“I can’t do it,” you cry. “I can’t.”
The Catalyst looks at you with lifeless eyes. But you’re not talking to it. You’re confessing to Ryan. To Kaidan. To Edi, the geth, the reapers, every AI that’s fought for their life against a galaxy that doesn’t want to understand them.
“I’m sorry.” Your voice whispers so softly, you’re unsure you even speak these two words aloud. But it doesn’t matter. Your remorse will never be enough and yet that is not enough to stop you from turning back around and staring at the conduit.
Your guns are gone and of course it only happens after Anderson. Your entire life is doused in luck--both incredibly good and horrifyingly bad. But you don’t need bullets, like most of your life you have your biotics to rely on. It takes what little strength remains to create a proper warp, but you manage because you have to.
The conduit crackles like lightning as your power washes over it but it does not break yet. There's still time to change your mind again. You won’t.
Instead you slump to your knees. Your heart pounds, blood rushes through your veins, pain erupts in one of your legs and there’s no way you’re walking out of here. Your lips twist into a sad smile. As if you were ever going to.
More biotics seem impossible in your condition, just like everything else since this journey began. You feel a different kind of warmth course through your tired, battered body. Within the next few seconds, the whole galaxy comes to a halt. You launch a second attack and collapse into a heap on the ground. The conduit violently explodes and the rest of the room starts to follow.
A question you never really asked Miranda is exactly how much of you is cybernetic implant now. ‘A lot’ is vague, is it vague enough to mean that you’ll also be destroyed in this red pulse? Part of you hopes so, if only so you don’t have to live with the guilt of destroying so much more than a simple machine. But if you die alone here then it will have all been for nothing.
Your lungs force you to take a sharp breath and it hurts. The edges of your vision dim and this time, you will pass out. You hope you wake up with Kaidan beside you. You hope you don’t remember these final moments. Did you make the right decision? In a situation like this, do right and wrong even exist?
“This is your choice, Cal.”
For a moment, the pain fades. For a moment, you feel at peace until finally you feel nothing at all.