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Thessia had fallen.
Kai Leng had gotten away with the Prothean data and now the Alliance had no way to finish the Crucible. The war was over before they’d even put up a fight. Liara was a mess, her homeworld lost to the Reapers. Charley knew how she felt. Having to leave Earth during the first attack was difficult, but she couldn’t even imagine having to go back… to see it in ruin.
Charley ran her fingers over the names on the memorial board, hovering over one name that was added recently.
Thane Krios.
Staring at the names of all of those who wouldn’t get to see a Reaperless galaxy, Charley felt the pang of loss more poignantly in that moment than at any other. She’d been brought back to life for the singular purpose of ending the Collectors, and after that, the Reapers. But she was losing. She never expected to lose.
So much loss, so many tears already shed… she didn’t have it in herself to cry anymore.
Instead, she was angry. Pissed. The Illusive Man and his crew of pawns were dogging her every step, making a mess of a war that should’ve been straightforward. He wasn’t helping humanity. He was ensuring their extinction.
Charley leaned forward, pressing a kiss to Thane’s plaque, feeling her heart pound painfully. Every moment she lived without him was torture of a new kind. She had always kept herself at a distance from others. After Mindoir, she didn’t want to experience that sort of loss again. But after being resurrected, she gave herself a chance to make connections, to be close with people… only to have it end like this.
“You gave me a reason to be better, Thane. To do better. For you, for Kolyat… for the galaxy. I didn’t think we could beat the Collectors.” She never admitted that aloud before. She was Commander Shepard. She was the Savior of the Citadel. Everyone had been so damned sure of her abilities.
No one seemed to realize she was only human. Only a soldier. No one remembered that she was only one person with a galaxy on her shoulders.
Charley never thought she could win… until Thane. He showed her what it was to be alive. And she did the same for him. They had each other to live for… until they didn’t.
“Without your faith in me, I might’ve stayed on that Collector base when it blew. But you… you saved me. And I couldn’t…”
Her throat closed over the words that she couldn’t speak.
She had failed him. Failed to save him.
Now she was failing the galaxy.
Her feet gave out beneath her and Charley slid to the ground at the base of the memorial, her entire body going numb as every emotion hit her at once. The terror at the moment of her death. Worry about the future. The pain of so much loss. Her failures as a commander and as a friend. Too many had died. More would die before the war was over.
Suddenly, it was as if a dam had broken. Tears streamed down her face, leaving hot trails where they touched her skin. Her love for Thane had kept her going, kept her grounded, but without him to lean on, she didn’t know what to do. Her friends were counting on her… hell, the galaxy counted on her to find a way to stop the Reapers.
But what happened now that she’d lost all hope? When the very reason for her fight was gone where she couldn’t follow?
What happened to the galaxy when their leader didn’t want to win?
Charley sat there, the passage of time forgotten, tears coming fast now that they’d started. If anybody saw her, they didn’t approach her. No one tried to comfort her. She was left to mourn alone.
That's all she was in the end: alone.