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An End Once and For All

Notes:

Just a scribble I wrote long time ago after finishing Mass Effect 3 and crying like a baby.

Work Text:

Shepard: Will she live? If I destroy the Reapers, will she survive?

The Catalyst: No race before you was so close to destroying the Reapers and you worry about one organic life?

Shepard: This organic life was the reason I got this far. She was the reason I never stopped fighting. I need to know that when I’m gone, Liara will be safe.

The Catalyst: It’s the Reaper lives you’re about to take, Shepard. Not organic. But the longer you stall, the more organics die. And they die by the millions. She can be among them.

Shepard: I know. I just… I wish I could see her face again and feel her warmth and…I wish I had more time.

The Catalyst: I am unfamiliar with the concept of love, Shepard, but over the millennia I have seen this force, this rather primitive feeling made heroes. But also, bore villains. And yet… This is the power every sentient organic life fights for.

Shepard: Because you can be a hero and save the world, but if there’s no one to make the world better for, no one to come back to, what’s the point?

The Catalyst: But you will not return, Shepard.

Shepard: I know. She’s going to lose me. Again.

The Catalyst: Do you wish to go back to Earth and fight along the one you love, and die knowing the Reapers will destroy all organic life and prepare the universe for another cycle?

Shepard: I wish… No, Liara will survive and she will endure, and she will move on, because she’s stronger than anyone I know, including me. And she’s got a long life ahead of her. A long, beautiful life filled with love and happiness.

The Catalyst: But not with you.

Shepard: No. Not with me…

The Catalyst: Shepard?

Shepard: OK, I’m OK. It’s time to put an end to this. Once and for all.

The Catalyst: You know what to do.

Shepard: I know. Goodbye, Liara. I love you.