Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Just as Shepard was about to follow Anderson through the mangled doors, she heard a metallic thud. Her heart rate spiked as she approached the vent to deal with yet another husk. Instead of a Reaper abomination, the blue light from her readied biotics fell upon the boy's face. Her hand relaxed, dissipating the mass effect fields, as the recognition startled her.

Shepard stared out the window at the rooftop gardens below instead of at the datapad. As far as detention centers went, hers was pretty nice. Located in the Vancouver Alliance headquarters, it had a window and a sink with reliable hot water, though the bed was too soft. She hadn’t been able to get used to it even after six months in lockup. No doubt it was the ironic brainchild of someone in R&D: an environment specifically designed to make soldiers uncomfortable. 

She watched the boy as he ran around the garden with an F-81 Trident in hand. His white sweatshirt had grass stains on the elbows and along the hem. It seemed that someone had taken their child to work today. At least one of his parents must have been Alliance Navy brass, to gain access to the rooftop of a headquarters satellite building.

Her door slid open and Lieutenant James Vega walked in, saluting. “Commander.”

Shepard glanced down at the forgotten datapad. She had been granted access to it only that week and even then she wasn’t allowed any outside contact, which was the only thing she had really wanted it for. Considering what was looming she wasn’t exactly in the mood to catch up on the latest bestselling books. “You’re not supposed to call me that anymore, James.”

“Not supposed to salute you either. We gotta go. The Defense Committee wants to see you.”

She replied, “Sounds important.” She had hoped that being granted access to a datapad, even one without full extranet access, meant that her confinement was coming to a close and she would be able to finally assist in preparations for the inevitable Reaper invasion.

James didn't wait for her and just exited the cell, the door not closing behind him. After one last glance at the child in the rooftop garden, Shepard tossed down the datapad and jogged to catch up, a small smile on her face at the young lieutenant's confidence that she would follow.

The hallways were swarming with people, a desperate energy in the air. “What’s going on?” she asked.

“Couldn’t say. They just told me they needed you. Now.”

She was about to follow up when she spotted the familiar figure of Anderson hurriedly approaching. 

And she knew. They were here.

“Anderson,” Shepard said.

“Admiral,” said James, saluting. He fell in behind Shepard and Anderson as the latter turned and began walking in the direction he had just come. 

“You look good, Shepard. Maybe a little soft around the edges. How are you holding up since being relieved from duty?” Anderson said.

“It’s not so bad once you get used to the hot food and soft beds,” she replied.

“We’ll get it sorted out.”

Shepard was briefly amused at the idea that Anderson meant that they would resolve the hot food and soft bed situation, rather than her reinstatement. A harried looking officer nearly slammed into her shoulder but swerved at the last second and her amusement died. “What’s going on? Why is everyone in such a hurry?” She knew, of course, but she had to ask. Perhaps her worst nightmares hadn’t come true and they still had time to prepare.

“Admiral Hackett’s mobilizing the fleets. I’m guessing word’s made it to Alliance command - something big’s headed our way.”

“The Reapers?”

“We don’t know, not for certain.”

“What else could it be?” 

“If I knew that…” he trailed off.

“It’s the Reapers. And we’re not ready for them, not by a long shot.” Impotent anger bubbled up nearly choking her. 

“Tell that to the Defense Committee.”

She gave voice to her frustration. “Unless we’re planning to talk the Reapers to death, the committee is a waste of time.” If they had listened, they would have had six months of preparation. It wouldn't have stopped the Reapers but it would have been something.

“They’re just scared,” Anderson said. “None of them have seen what you’ve seen. You faced down a Reaper. Hell, you spoke to one… then blew the damn thing up! You’ve seen how they harvest us, what they plan to do to us. You know more about this enemy than anyone.”

She could barely contain a scoff, pausing in the middle of the hallway. “That why they grounded me? Took away my ship?”

He turned to her. “You know that’s not true. When you blew up the batarian relay, hundreds of thousands of batarians died.”

She grimaced. She kept thinking back to that gauntlet, searching for what she could have done differently when destroying the Alpha Relay and the batarian colony in the Bahak system. Even if she could have gotten her warning out, there was no way the colony could have been evacuated in time. The Reapers are a threat to all sentient life, and those batarians were just the first casualties of this war, this harvest. She had to live with that choice. 

But at the back of her mind, she was frightened by the fact that she had spent two days passed out with an unshielded Reaper artifact nearby. The idea that the seeds of indoctrination had been planted in her was chilling. 

She shook it off. “It was that or let the Reapers walk through our back door.” A lot of good it seems to have done though. They resumed their hurried walk.

“I know that, Shepard. And so does the committee. If it wasn’t for that you’d have been court-martialed and left to rot in the brig.”

“That and your good word,” she said. Naturally, since batarians were not part of Council space, her Spectre status meant absolutely nothing.

“Yeah. I trust you, Shepard, and so does the committee.” The way he kept speaking for the committee made it sound as though he was trying to convince himself more than her.

“I’m just a soldier, Anderson. I’m no politician.”

“I don’t need you to be either. I just need you to do whatever the hell it takes to help us stop the Reapers.”

She never planned on doing anything else.

They walked through a door to a large vestibule leading to the committee chambers and were met by an Alliance officer. “They’re expecting you two, Admiral,” the woman said before walking away again.

“Good luck in there, Shepard,” James said. She reached out and shook his hand, as Anderson walked on.

Suddenly she heard a familiar voice. “Shepard!”

She turned, surprised. “Kaidan?” 

She walked up to join him and Anderson, who said, “How’d it go in there, Major?”

“Ok I think,” Kaidan said. “Hard to know. I’m just waiting for orders now.”

“Major?” asked Shepard.

“You hadn’t heard?” said Anderson.

“No, I’m a bit out of the loop these days.”

Kaidan said, “Sorry, Shepard. Didn’t mean to keep you out of the loop.”

“It’s not like you learned the Reapers were coming and didn’t tell me,” she joked.

A ghost of a smile appeared on his face. “True enough.”

The Alliance officer from before came back. “Admiral.”

“Come on,” said Anderson. Shepard followed him through the doors into the chambers, nodding to Kaidan as she went.

The admirals arrayed before them sat at the sound of their arrival. Their faces were worried. 

“Admiral Anderson. Shepard,” said the admiral to her left. The Commander before her name was conspicuously absent.

“What’s the situation?” she asked.

“We were hoping you would tell us,” he replied. They knew it was about to get bad. An officer who had been monitoring one of the many work stations positioned around the room’s perimeter stepped forward and handed Shepard a datapad. 

The admiral at the center of the imposing desk finally spoke. “The reports coming in are unlike anything we’ve seen. Whole colonies have gone dark. We lost contact with everything beyond the Sol relay.”

The man on the left spoke again. “Whatever this is, it’s incomprehensibly powerful.”

Shepard barely had to glance at the datapad before the reports confirmed her suspicions. She looked up at the admirals. “You brought me here to confirm what you already know. The Reapers are here.” Gasps sounded across the room.

Saying it out loud was almost a relief, though the intensity of the moment hadn’t quite hit her. She was only hearing about how the other shoe had dropped over there somewhere. She would be in the thick of it soon enough, however.

The female admiral spoke again. “Then… how do we stop them?”

“Stop them?” Shepard said. “This isn’t about strategy or tactics. This is about survival. The Reapers are more advanced than we are. More powerful. More intelligent. They don’t fear us. And they’ll never take pity on us.”

“But, there must be some way.”

Shepard took a breath and set her frustration and resentment aside to assume the role of inspiring leader.“If we’re going to have any chance of surviving this, we have to stand together.”

The man on the left scoffed. “That’s it? That’s our plan?”

Suddenly, another officer in the room spoke up. “Admiral, we’ve lost contact with Luna base.”

Anderson turned to Shepard. “The moon? It couldn’t be that close already.”

“How’d they get past our defenses?” said the admiral in the center.

The officer spoke again. “Sir, the UK headquarters has a visual.”

A screen full of static bloomed against the left wall. Impossible metallic screeches sounded and an Alliance soldier’s face appeared amid the noise. Fiery smoke lit up the sky behind him. The audio was completely scrambled, the fact that the soldier was speaking was barely discernible. Another metallic blare sounded and an explosion cut the feed. The screen went black with a terrifying “signal loss” written in white and a whine of comm feedback. Then nothing.

Everyone in the room stood up in stunned silence. The screen lit up again. Incoming Signal . Panels of footage filled the screen, news reports, military feeds, even civilian footage, all depicting the same thing - the Reapers were landing on Earth with explosions in their wake. The video panels coalesced into one image of Reapers touching down. 

The terror that Shepard felt whenever she dreamed of Harbinger punched her in the gut. The knowledge that the Reapers were now beginning the harvest of her home planet, the birthplace of her species, gripped her spine and nearly stole her breath. She gritted her teeth in an effort to remain stoic and exchanged a glance with Anderson.

“Why haven’t we heard from Admiral Hackett?” he said.

“What do we do?” asked one of the admirals.

Shepard looked back to the admirals arrayed behind the too large desk. "The only thing we can. We fight or we die.”

Anderson, clearly done with the committee meeting, said to her, “We should get to the Normandy. ”

There was a single moment then when it was possible to pretend like this wasn’t happening. One beautiful moment of denial where the Reapers were only images on a screen. Shepard almost wished she could be the kind of person who could indulge in such fantasies. 

And then metallic thunder enveloped them. Explosions, the now all too familiar blare, and more thunder sounded in the distance. She took a sharp breath and the admirals stood up from their desk to look out the window. The sky began glowing red and the crackling of red lightning joined the cacophony.

“Oh my god,” one of the admirals breathed.

And then they could see a Reaper touching down like a hand reaching through the clouds above the Vancouver harbor. The red glow resolved into the Reaper’s laser which fired on a nearby building.

Shepard shared another glance with Anderson. “Move!” she shouted. “Go, go, go!” 

The Reaper fired again, this time at their building, blowing out the windows and throwing the overly large desk through the room. Shepard and Anderson barely had enough time to drop to the floor as it sailed overhead, just missing them.

Shepard rolled to her feet but a secondary explosion threw her against a bench lining the far wall and she fell to the floor. The world became a mix of ringing, muffled screams, and eerie whispers. She lay dazed for several moments. 

Full consciousness roared back in and she clutched her head as she sat up, nearly choking on the smoke that now filled the room.

There would be no more rooftop gardens, no more children running carefree, pretending to be fighter pilots.

The Reapers were here. The harvest had begun.

Chapter Text

Anderson was calling her name. She could hear his voice fighting against the ringing in her ears. "Shepard!"

She shook her head, clutching it in an effort to make the ringing stop. 

“Shepard!” 

“Shepard, come on get up.”  He finally found her and extended a hand to help her climb to her feet. He gently clapped her on the shoulder once she was steady. 

The air was thick with smoke and it coated the back of her throat. She took a moment to clear it as Anderson said, “Here, take this.” He handed her a pistol and by the weight of it she could tell it had a nearly full magazine of thermal clips. “We’ve got to get moving.”

They picked their way through the wreckage. Charred and mangled corpses wearing what used to be Alliance blue were scattered about the room.

“This is Admiral Anderson. Report, anyone. Major Alenko is that you?”

Shepard saw a person lying face down on the floor and she had a brief spark of hope. She turned the body over but the man was dead. She recognized him as one of the admirals on the committee whose name she never learned.

“What’s your status?” continued Anderson over the comm. “I can’t raise the Normandy . You’ll have to contact them. We’ll meet you at the landing zone. Anderson out.”

They walked up to the hole that used to be the large window wall and surveyed the destruction before them. They shared a look and then jumped out the missing window down onto a makeshift ledge.

The Reapers were all over the harbor and what little was visible of the city beyond.

“They’re massive!” said Anderson, echoing her own observations of the dozens of Sovereign's and Harbinger’s brethren. “Come on, Shepard. We need to get to the Normandy . They’ll pick us up if we can get to the space port. Let’s move.”

They picked up their pace along the makeshift walkway, confidence in the building’s integrity born from the desperation to get to their ship. Suddenly, a part of the building in front of them became the unintended target of a Reaper laser and exploded, staggering them back a few steps. 

“Look out!” Anderson exclaimed. They regained their footing moments later and fortunately, enough of their path survived the attack that they were able to press forward. “How do you stop something so powerful?”

Shepard did not have any answers for him. She could usually be relied upon to say something inspirational, or hell, anything that might keep a spark of hope going, but words completely escaped her and she remained silent. They had to focus on getting to the Normandy . Everything else could wait. 

Their luck with building integrity was slowly disintegrating and they encountered a large gap. “Take a running jump, it’s farther than it looks,” said Anderson.

She probably had a concussion. She couldn’t manage even an acknowledgement. She jumped well enough though. 

A Trident flew overhead, several Reaper Oculuses on its tail. It could hardly stand a chance with such odds and took a hit to its tail, crashing into a nearby building almost immediately.

They made it to the next building by climbing onto its roof via ladder from their walkway. “Come on, we’ll have to go this way,” Anderson said. “Major, you read me? I’m patching in Shepard.”

Shepard’s comm crackled to life with a fuzz of static. “We’re almost to the Normandy . I’ve got Lieutenant Vega with me, we’re taking heavy fire!” If there was more that Kaidan was saying, it was cut off by static and their own latest challenge - husks had arrived on Earth. 

“Husks! Take ‘em out!” said Anderson.

She didn’t need any more encouragement and was already lining up her shots before he spoke. Perhaps Anderson also thought she had a concussion. 

She worked hard to preserve what precious little thermal clips she had. A shot per head. She was careful, but she still ran out, the gun now a bludgeoning weapon or a paperweight. 

Anderson said, “I’m out of ammo. Come on, we gotta move.”

They climbed down a ladder to get to the next building. Husks were swarming here too. “Have to take these things out the old fashioned way,” he said, brandishing his fists.

It had been a while since Shepard had the opportunity to biotically pulverize something, so she appreciated the practice. Prison may be a gym, but the use of biotics, even while under "house" arrest, had been strongly discouraged.

Anderson must have been concerned that she was rusty because he called, “Don’t let them grab you!”

Shepard punched and danced her way to the building through the horde of husks as though she had trained with her biotics only yesterday. An impossible screech brought her attention to the Reaper in the not too far distance. She instantly changed direction and slid into cover. Seconds later a laser fired in their direction and the vestibule they were aiming for exploded.

When the Reaper directed its attention elsewhere, Shepard and Anderson continued on, picking their way through the wreckage and walking past husk corpses - those they made and those made by falling building. “Gotta find a way out of here,” Anderson said.

Shepard saw the orange glow of a door sigil not too far away and led them to it. Just as she was about to connect her omni-tool to see if she could hack it, a husk lunged half way through, clawing at her through the tiny opening.

“Watch it!” said Anderson.

She destroyed the husk with a biotically charged fist and it died, sliding to the floor and leaving the doors still partially opened. She wedged herself into the opening, using her arms to push it open further. “Through this way,” she said.

Anderson climbed under her arms through the doorway and Shepard was just about to follow suit when she heard a metallic thump and a creak.

"Hey. It’s ok." Shepard extended her hand to the boy. 

He was clearly terrified, cowering further into the duct. "Everyone's dying." His voice shook and tears had created tracks on his small, grimy face.

What do you say to that?

She settled on, "Come here. I need to get you someplace safe. Take my hand."

“You can’t help me,” he said in a small but certain voice.

A metallic groan sounded and stole her attention as she looked out through the ruins expecting to see a Reaper stomping through the building. She saw nothing but she did hear Anderson calling her soon after. 

She turned back to the boy, his eyes still wide with fear. He looked as though the Reaper sounds made him cease breathing and he shrank against the side of the vent.

She waited patiently, her hand still outstretched, even as her thoughts were racing with a constant refrain of we don't have time for this . “I would like to try. It’s not safe here.”

After several more painful moments the boy gently nodded and wiped his nose on his sleeve before he crawled through the ventilation shaft toward her. His hand felt so unbelievably small in hers as she helped him exit the vent. Her heart was breaking seeing such a small life forced to witness the unimaginable horror of the Reapers.

She knelt down to look him in the eye and put her hands on his arms. "What's your name?"

A quiet moment. "Will." His voice was so small, just like his hand.

"My name is Shepard," she said. "Do you know where your parents are?"

He shook his head, his eyes shining with unshed tears. “They told me to crawl into the vent and hide when we heard those monsters coming.”

Shepard took a steadying breath. How do you tell a small child you can't help him find his parents? 

“Shepard! In here.” Anderson’s voice came clearer.

“Coming!” she called back to him. She turned her focus back to Will. "I'm going to get you out of here safe, Will, ok?" She wanted to tell him that she promised. It was so easy to just let it slip off her tongue, but she knew that wasn't a promise she could keep. Just saying what she had was probably too much of a promise already.

He nodded and took the hand she offered him.

She was first through the door and the boy followed, never once letting up on the death grip he had on her hand.

Anderson had been waiting in the hallway, trying to move enough of the debris to make a path forward. "Argh. This is a goddamn mess!" he said as they approached. His gaze landed on the boy and he immediately looked like he felt guilty for cursing. "Who do you have here?"

"This is Will," Shepard said. "We're going to get him to safety." There was no room in her voice for argument though she doubted Anderson would have tried. Having a civilian with them - and such a young one at that - was going to slow them down and every second counted with the Reapers right outside. She couldn't save the population being mowed down and harvested right now, but she could save this boy.

Anderson kneeled in front of Will. "I'm David," he said, "It's nice to meet you."

"Nice to meet you," Will said quietly, almost automatically, and pressed himself further into Shepard. 

The admiral stood up and addressed her. "We should move."

They continued through the building, lifting debris out of the way for each other, all the while Will did not let go of her hand. 

“They hit so fast I thought we’d have more time," said Anderson.

“We knew they were coming."

“And they still just cut through our defenses. We need to go to the Citadel. Talk to the Council.”

She nearly stopped walking in surprise. “The Citadel? The fight is here.”

“It’ll be everywhere soon enough,” Anderson replied. “You said it yourself: the Reapers will destroy everything if we don’t stop them. The Council has to help us.”

“You sure about that?” Shepard had had too many interactions with the Council to believe that was true.

“No, but you're a Council Spectre, that has to count for something,” Anderson said.

She could feel Will looking up at her at the mention of Spectre. She was surprised that a young kid on Earth would even know what that was. Despite what she surmised was recognition, Will said nothing, just continued clutching her hand as they walked and crawled through debris. She wondered if he was in shock because he was saying very little. She knew nothing about children and certainly nothing in her training covered traumatized children. 

They reached a section of the building where the floor had completely collapsed and their only path forward was a metal beam still hanging on to the side of the wall. They started forward, but Shepard felt a pull on her hand when Will remained frozen on the spot. 

“Anderson, wait,” she said. “I know this seems scary,” she said to the boy. “But I’m going to be right there with you ok?”

“No, I can’t!” said Will, vehemently shaking his head. “It’s too high up.”

Both Shepard and Anderson looked around but there wasn’t much time to find a way around. “There’s no other way,” Anderson said.

Will started to panic. “No, no! Please don’t leave me! Don’t make me go!” Tears were streaming down his face and his breathing was fast and uneven. He clutched desperately to her legs.

She tried to gently pry him off so that she could crouch down to his level but that just scared him even more. Finally she managed to peel him off and immediately squatted at his eye level. “Hey, hey, it’s ok!” He kept crying and nearly hiccuping. “Will, look at me.” She gently put her hands on his shoulders. “It’s ok. I’ve got a new plan.”

She waited patiently for the boy to make eye contact, as though she couldn’t hear the sounds of fighting right outside. When he finally looked her in the eyes she said, “I’m going to carry you across, ok? I need you to hold on real tight and shut your eyes. Can you do that?”

Will nodded and wiped roughly at his face. “You are so brave, Will,” Shepard said as she picked him up and set him on her right hip, her right arm clutching the boy tight. “You can do this. We can do this. You ready?” She felt him nod into her shoulder. “Your eyes closed?” Again he nodded, holding on to her even tighter. 

She waited a minute for him to calm down and his breathing to settle before saying, “All right, let’s go.”

She nodded to Anderson to lead the way. Their walk across the beam was painfully slow. Anderson wasn’t as agile as Shepard, but he also didn’t have a six year old throwing off his balance. She bent her knees generously to keep her balance and she took each step with purpose. Had the ledge been any narrower, they never would have been able to make it across.  

The sounds of fighting in the city continued and an explosion went off nearby. Shepard could feel Will flinching in her arms but he stayed quiet and she didn’t have the room to look down at him to make sure his eyes were still closed.

Another explosion rocked their building and despite her best efforts Shepard lost her balance, tipping forward into the abyss. Will screamed and Shepard clutched him tighter to her as they began to plummet down. She swung her left arm out grabbing for purchase to no avail, never letting go of the boy that had trusted her this far. 

Just before the point of no return Anderson caught her by the back of her shirt and then grabbed her free arm, hauling her and Will back to the wall. “Gotcha!” he cried.

Shepard breathed deep and said, “Thanks, I owe you one.”

Anderson smirked. “More than one.”

Will whined, scared out of his mind, into her shoulder. Shepard arched her back to lean into the wall without arm support so that she could rub Will’s back with her left hand. “It’s ok,” she said. “We’re ok. I’m not letting go. We’re going to continue on. We’re almost there.”

They continued to inch their way across the beam until finally they were somewhat safe on the floor on the other side of the chasm. The relief she felt at the solid surface beneath her boots was a whole body experience. Her limbs nearly melted and she felt like she could breathe again. 

“We made it, I’m going to set you down now,” she said. The other side of the room had a large, formerly picturesque, blown out window, which was their clear path forward.

“Grab some ammo,” said Anderson as he crouched by a half hidden heat sink box. “Reload, let’s keep moving.” 

Shepard unstrapped her pistol and reloaded with the last of the available heat sinks as he handed them to her. She kept her gun in her right hand and reached the left out to Will. “Come on,” she said. “Let’s take the next step.”

Chapter Text

They dropped down through another blown out window onto a garden balcony and soon picked their way to more makeshift walkways. Shepard never once let go of Will’s hand and she briefly wondered if she was crushing it. He held on with a similar ferocity.

Will kept up pretty well as they scrambled along the wreckage, keeping his eyes focused on his feet the whole time. She didn't blame him. The way the Reapers were crawling all over Vancouver, she wished she could do the same.

Another Reaper the size of Sovereign landed in the bay before them, startling them out of their rhythm.

"God!" Anderson cried. Shepard knew he didn't mean the Reaper, but the word fit all the same. He continued, this time on comms. "Major Alenko, we're in sight of the space port. ETA three minutes."

The comms fizzled back to a half life. "We made it to the Normandy -" Static cut through, Kaidan's voice flickering in and out. "We're taking heavy fire! Oh god, they're going to take down that dreadnought. Evasive maneuvers!"

The dreadnought in question became visible then, just as the comms cut again. The dreadnought was standing strong against the Reaper that had just landed near the space port, but Shepard already knew it was a last stand. A head on attack was suicide. The Reaper was already firing back on it.

"Major!" called Anderson on the comm. "Kaidan! Damn it, they're in trouble!"

With a metallic shriek and the lightning crackle wind up, the Reaper fired one last red laser on the dreadnought and the sound cut through her brain in a way no sound should. The resulting shock wave from the explosion reached them quickly and threw them against some nearby fallen struts. Shepard maneuvered herself to take the brunt of the impact and protect Will. The pieces of the dreadnought slamming into the surrounding high rises became ringing background noise. Will's sobs cut straight through her.

The platform the three of them had been standing on gave way and they slid down, getting dumped mercilessly into the bay. Shepard curled herself around Will again as they fell. She slammed into the debris below at an awkward angle on her knees and elbows sending pain in lighting waves through her limbs. Anderson landed right beside them, their landing pad resolving as the floating wreckage of some earlier last stand.

"Will are you ok?" Shepard asked. She knew he wasn't and his tear stained face confirmed it. But despite his continued sobbing he nodded. "You gotta be brave for a bit longer, do you understand? We're almost to the ship. I'm going to keep you safe." She started to stand, her injured knees causing her to make a rather pathetic picture of a protector.

"I'm scared," he said.

"I know," she said. "Me too. But we're going to be brave and we're going to get through this."

Will ran to clutch at her legs and Shepard crouched despite the screaming in her knees to give him a hug. "We're almost there," she repeated.

"Normandy, we're going to reroute, do you copy?" said Anderson on the comm once they had a few seconds to get their bearings.

Shepard could hear Kaidan's voice in reply, but couldn't make out what he said with any clarity through the garbled static.

"Normandy, come in!" Anderson tried again. He shook his head when he made eye contact with Shepard. They pressed on, Will still clutching her left hand.

Not far up ahead they could see some crouching Alliance soldiers. "Friendlies," said Anderson. He jumped down to a lower part of the wreckage and crouched into cover next to the soldiers.

Shepard and Will's descent was slower. She made the jump easily enough and then reached up to support him as he made the jump down too. They moved to crouch into cover beside the others.

"You two alright?" Shepard asked the soldiers. Now that she was beside them she could see that one of the men was trapped underneath debris.

She was about to position herself to start lifting when the other soldier hissed, "Get down, they'll see you!"

Shepard carefully peered up out of cover and saw hulking, grotesque creatures the color of rotting meat shuffling among the wreckage. Her heart flipped at the moment of recognition when one turned its face in her direction and she saw four eyes. Batarian eyes.

This was a husk, or at least the batarian equivalent of one. She shouldn't have been surprised to see these new Reaper abominations, but her stomach gave a lurch all the same. These had been people. The husks from earlier were easier to see somehow, years of exposure to them having dulled her reaction. But this was a new terror, and yet all the more awful for its familiarity.

One of the creatures found a body or a mangled husk in the wreckage and Shepard watched in fascinated horror as it leaned over and sucked the flesh into itself, creating a digital, raspy slurping sound.

She ducked back down quickly. She turned to Will and gently pried off his hand from hers. "I'll be right back, ok?" She didn't know what she would say if he clung on or said "no." Perhaps she shouldn't have phrased it like he had the option to deny her. But the small boy must have seen something in her eyes because he nodded mutely and scooted closer to Anderson.

Shepard nodded back at the two of them and leaped into nearby cover, drawing her pistol and unleashing her biotics on the cannibal before it could finish eating. They quickly turned their attention to her and started firing on her with their claw like mismatched giant arms.

"Well that's definitely new," she said to herself through gritted teeth, ducking down into cover. She looked over the aisle to Will and Anderson, making sure the two of them were staying put.

She tried to conserve her heat sinks as much as possible and used her biotics to fling the Reaper monstrosities into the harbor when she could. On one satisfying occasion she was able to pull off a biotic combination which sent a loud pop of an explosion echoing among the waterborne ruins. She could not entirely avoid shooting however, and at least two of the creatures finally fell, riddled with her bullets.

"Shepard, over here!" Anderson called. Once the coast was clear she made her way back over to her little group. "What happened here?" he asked the soldiers.

"Our gunship was shot down, we barely made it." He nodded in the direction of a large plume of smoke nearby, presumably the remains of their gunship.

"You have a radio?" Anderson asked. "We're trying to contact our ship."

The soldier shook his head. "No. There's one in the gunship but it's going to be crawling with those things."

"Stay here, son," Anderson said. "We'll get you out of here." He nodded to Shepard and they positioned themselves on either side of the metal strut pinning the second soldier. After a brief countdown they lifted the strut and with a cry of pain the man rolled out of the way. Shepard and Anderson let go of the strut and the metal loudly collapsed into the water, creating a bridge towards the smoke signaling the gunship wreckage.

"Come on, let's get to that gunship," Anderson said. The soldiers parted with what thermal clips they had left, though Shepard didn’t like the idea of leaving them unarmed. With any luck they would be able to reach the radio on the gunship soon and call for an evac.

She turned to Will. “You ready to keep going?”

He was distracted by the Reaper troop bodies strewn about the wreckage.

"Will?" she said, trying to get his attention without success. Finally she put her hand on his shoulder and he turned to face her. "Will you have to focus." If he continued to get distracted he would die. She refused to think about what her getting distracted by the need to protect him will do to her.

“You have to stick to me like glue, do you understand? Step where I step and do not deviate. When I take cover you stay down. And always stay behind me unless I tell you otherwise. Understood?”

Will nodded and wiped at his nose.

“This is very important," she reiterated. Will gave no more outward signs of understanding, which Shepard chalked up to him being an overwhelmed and traumatized child. She would get no where berating him. "Come on,” she said, gently taking his hand. They followed Anderson across the makeshift gangplank made by the floating debris.

The Alliance soldiers were right, Reaper ground troops were crawling all over the wreckage. As they pressed forward the cannibalistic creatures from before were even closer and the three of them slid into cover.

"What the hell are those things?" Anderson whispered fiercely as they watched them lumber around.

"I don't know what they are now, but I can guess what they used to be," Shepard whispered back. "The Reapers must have rolled through the batarian systems before paying us a visit." She turned to Will. "Stay down."

Without waiting for confirmation from the kid, she launched herself over the low wall and biotically pushed the cannibals away, clearing a path for herself. With Anderson providing covering fire from the back, they were able to clear the coast fairly quickly but Shepard could feel her energy lagging. It had been a long time since she had eaten anything and her biotic conditioning was not what it used to be before her house arrest. She just hoped she would be able to limp along long enough to get the opportunity to get back into form.

Once the hostiles were down, Shepard motioned for Will to join her at the latest pile of wreckage that she was using for cover. She continued her vigil for more enemies. Anderson, meanwhile, pressed farther to search through the downed gunship.

“Shepard!” Anderson called after a few minutes. “Over here. I found a radio.”

Shepard and Will approached, the child dropping to his knees next to Anderson as she kept watch. “Normandy, this is Anderson, do you read?” He fiddled with some more settings.

Kaidan's voice finally came through clearly. “Admiral, what's your location?” he said. Shepard had never been so relieved to hear his voice, despite their tense history.

“By a downed gunship in the harbor. I'm activating its distress beacon. Send support. We’ve got wounded out here.”

Static came through on the line, covering something that sounded like, “Aye, aye, Admiral.”

"Major!" called Anderson. Despite fiddling with more settings only static sounded. "Dammit, I lost the signal."

"Let's hope that beacon does its job," Shepard said. Suddenly an explosion sounded above of them. “Eyes up!” she called. “We’ve got incoming! Will, against the wall!”

There was a short debris wall between them and the recently landed Reaper forces. The boy ran quickly to comply. Shepard took the right flank and Anderson moved in on the left. Will made himself as small as he could between the two of them. Shepard's sympathy for him flared briefly before being packed away quickly to focus on the hostiles.

Shepard used her biotics more in the next ten minutes than she had in the last six months combined. Every time she found herself nearly at the end of her well, she dug deeper. If she was asked to guess at the source of the new reserves, protecting a small child from Reaper forces certainly rated highly as a motivating factor. In that moment, it wasn't the abstract fate of the galaxy. It was Will. He was small and scared and he needed someone to protect him. She was that someone right now.

As every minute dragged on with radio silence from the Normandy, she and Anderson finished mopping up the latest wave of Reaper ground troops. An evacuation shuttle finally arrived to pick up the wounded Alliance soldiers and Shepard only had to take the briefest look at Will to know that she couldn’t tell him to get on it without her.

The choice was soon ripped from her as a nearby explosion rocked the already precariously floating wreckage and separated them from the evac shuttle working to get the wounded onboard.

Another wave of cannibalistic Reaper forces tore through the sky and landed before them.

"Running out of ammo!" Anderson called.

Just as Shepard was about to reply a familiar voice cracked over the comm. "Cavalry has arrived!"

Finally, the familiar shape of the Normandy flew before them, firing on the enemy ground troops and clearing their way. The Normandy zoomed past and then executed an elegant loop to swing back around for a pick up.

"About time," Anderson said.

“Let's go!” Shepard called to her two companions. She ran through the wreckage to the highest point, Will struggling to keep up. She slowed her pace to hold the boy's hand and help him.

Normandy’s cargo hold opened up. Kaidan and another soldier stood on the resulting ramp, alert and with assault rifles in hand for covering fire.

Shepard stopped several feet from the edge of the wreckage and turned to Will, releasing his hand. “I’m going to pick you up now and you’re going to need to hold on tight, understood?”

He nodded. "Ok."

Shepard picked him up and slung him over her left shoulder, securely wrapping her left arm around his legs. “Close your eyes and hold on!”

She backed up a couple of steps and bounced, getting a feel for her new center of gravity and then ran as fast as she could on such a small runway, Will whimpering and screaming as she accelerated. She leaped across the water and landed on Normandy's ramp with a thud on her feet. Kaidan reached out an arm to steady her.

As soon as she was stable she reached around and moved Will into a tight hug against her chest. He continued to sob into her shirt.

"Welcome aboard, Shepard," he said, with a glance at the child in her arms.

"Thanks," she said. Then she called back over the fierce winds and Reaper massacre screeches, "Anderson, come on!”

Kaidan and the for-now nameless soldier let out a few shots into hostiles in the distance, providing covering fire for Anderson, who now stood on the edge of the wreckage. Another Alliance shuttle approached the wreckage and she and Anderson watched it for a strange, calm second.

“I’m not going, Shepard,” he said across the chasm between them. The distance suddenly felt much larger than seven feet.

She shook her head sadly, as though denying his words would make him change his mind. She only just got him back.

"You saw those men back there. There's a million more like them and they need a leader."

"We're in this fight together, Anderson," she said, voice not cracking like she thought it would have.

"It's a fight we can't win. Not without help. We need every species and all their ships to even have a chance at defeating the Reapers. Talk to the Council. Convince them to help us."

"What if they won't listen?" she said. Unfortunately, that was highly probable given her history with them.

“Then make them listen! Now go, that's an order!”

“I don’t take orders from you anymore, remember?”

Anderson fished something out of his pocket and tossed it in her direction. She caught it deftly, despite the child on her left hip. She could feel the warmth of the metal and their vaguely rectangular shape before even opening her hand. She uncurled her fingers, revealing her dog tags.

“Consider yourself reinstated,” Anderson paused for effect, "Commander."

She briefly chuckled at his flair for the dramatic.

"You know what you have to do," he said quieter.

She watched him, frowning, but didn’t try to convince him. She put steel in her voice. "I'll be back for you. And I'll bring every fleet I can." She adjusted her grip on Will so that both of her arms were supporting him and turned to walk aboard her home. She briefly turned back to Anderson. In a quiet voice that she hoped conveyed every feeling of what leaving was doing to her and everything he meant to her, she said, "Good luck."

“You too, Shepard.”

Shepard and Kaidan stood next to each other and watched as Anderson saluted them and then got smaller as the Normandy began her ascent. Anderson held the salute for a beat longer and then ran back through the wreckage where a shuttle awaited him.

Explosions rocked the skies and more wreckage was created in the harbor and the city beyond. Shepard watched them like grotesque fireworks, tears threatening to fall. Her planet was burning. Humanity's home was falling. The cradle of her species was being annihilated.

Finally the cargo bay doors began to close. She turned into the ship and strode quickly through the cargo bay, fiercely clutching Will.