Work Text:
Dying
So this was what dying felt like. Again.
This time?
In fact, she had died too many times. Almost died too many times. She wasn't supposed to live anymore, not for years. And even though everything she'd always tried to was to forget, she remembered how every single time felt like.
Gasping for air desperately. Trying to catch the loose end of her air supply at the back of her suit, realizing it was all too little, too late.
Punching against the mech's closed front lock on the way down to leviathan because for that moment she felt like drowning would be even less painful than being ripped apart by the growing pressure of steadily going down towards an unknown distant seabed.
Feeling the heat and fire of the exploding Citadel on her face, continuing shooting no matter what, thinking it was the only possible way to end this.
She remembered it all. Dying amongst the stars, going down on Despoina, blowing everything up for galaxy's sake. Facing death once too often.
But every time she'd fought it. Lost it, maybe. But always fought it.
This time she couldn't. Couldn't even move an inch.
(Wake up commander.)
She lied there, gasping for air, trying to breath, to see, to move (Get out of that bed now - this facility is under attack.) - and she failed. Before, she hadn't been sure if she'd be willing to fight again once this moment would've come. She thought maybe she'd finally made peace with it, as far as that was possible.
(Forgive the insubordination, but your boyfriend has an order for you.)
She thought she'd be willing to take it when it'd come. The end of it.
(Come back alive.)
Now she realized she wasn't. Wasn't willing to die. Wasn't ready. But even if she wanted to, even if she wasn't ready for death, she couldn't do anything about it.
Couldn't fight it. Not this time.
(Wash the sins from this one.)
She didn't feel her body anymore. Didn't feel broken bones, or burnt skin, or ripped muscles. She was all pain but didn't feel as if it even belonged to her.
(Guide this one to where the traveler never tires, the lover never leaves, the hungry never starves.)
All she did was trying to breath, not yet ready to die again. Trying to force herself to fill her lungs with air that smelled like smoke and burn and fire.
Breath. It wasn't even gasping for air. It was knowing that if she wanted to live she had to breath. One step at a time. Fill lungs with air. Let air out. Repeat. Repeat again. Breath.
She was all pain.
But the pain is good. Means you're not dead - yet. You're still alive.
But the breathing wouldn't work.
It felt like drowning. Space. Water. Depth. Fire. Gasping for air when there wasn't.
This was what dying felt like. Again.
(Shepard…)
She'd known too many ways of it. And all felt like drowning.