thelittleredmonstr:

Silver tags clinked against the cracked visor of the old helmet she had picked up, and again when another tag joined them. 

There was little to salvage. Shepard shifted through the bins anyway, opening what she could, shooting locks off what she couldn’t.

Pulling the trigger was damn near mechanical at this point. 

Alchera spread out before her, cold and unyielding, and still she felt nothing. Time did not exist here; Shepard certainly didn’t.

Snow quietly drifted down as she made her way around the wreckage, softening her footsteps.

She stared at the undercarriage of the Mako when she had walked by, and a small, distant part of her mind wondered if it was worth it to bring the beast back up with her to the Normandy. Garrus might even find it funny. Joker wouldn’t.

It took two steps over the surface of a boulder, split in half from falling metal, and a misplaced grip for her to finally look up and see it. The ablative plating of the Normandy SR-1, the remnants of its name facing skyward in defiance. Dead, but still daring the sky to remove her. 

An irony that the icy face of Alchera would crack through her own facade, forcing her to do what Miranda, what Kelly, what Chakwas had all been trying (and failing) to do.

It’s time to stop.

A deep breath. And then another. And another… Shepard began to shiver as each breath became harder to draw. A deep line of self control was the only thing that stopped her from stripping her helmet and armor, exposing her skin and lungs to the unforgiving climate of her one-time grave.

Shepard had been running since Miranda yelled at her to get off the operating table. Ice and snow now formed over her feet, forcing her to take stock.

The pilot’s seat still in tact somehow, angled as though someone had recently left, and would return soon.

A half-charred datapad lay near it, the last will and testament to an old dog who could learn new tricks. 

The alcove of a quiet man, once covered in dust and now buried in ice, still offered refuge from the gathering storm.

She held a helmet in her hands that had once been hers, and the metal tags inside belonged to people she was responsible for.

It wasn’t just twisted metal gripped under her hands, but ribs splayed open, exposing the once-beating heart of a warship for all to see. The charred bones of a ship she had called home.

Each realization hit with the force of a concussive blast. But Shepard stood defiant, swaying only with the wind and not because she was drowning under emotions as high as the snow drifts.

She should have stayed buried on Alchera, but the icy maw let her go. Only just.