***ME3 spoilers ahead***

Dear Bioware: thank you for making games that grab me by the throat and don't let go, for writing characters I've truly come to care about, and for creating worlds that make me dream. About that ending, though… WTF? I've been hooked since the very first game, desperately hoping that Shepard would get the ending she deserves. And the ones she got just didn't make sense (especially the bit about the Normandy, and how exactly Garrus got there).

In my mind, for what it's worth, here's how things went down.

Just before ME3…

No matter your species, no matter the era in which you live or the station you hold in life, the experience of being imprisoned is very much the same. Some may initially be more defiant, some more ashamed, but inevitably as the days grind by, the loss of freedom takes its toll. Shepard was a prisoner in all but name, and semantics mattered little to her now. Hero, traitor, saviour, murderer… in the darkness of her cramped quarters such words had no meaning. She was alone, and her helplessness gnawed at her guts, making her furious and frustrated beyond belief. There were long sleepless nights, wracked with mourning for the deaths she knew would come, when she almost came to believe her people deserved their fate. The Reapers had been reduced to bogeymen, fictional monsters used to scare little children and fresh recruits. Such naivete was only human nature: for a race accustomed to the comforts of civilized life, the truth was too horrible to believe. That the Alliance gave her privacy to suffer in silence she would have been grateful for, if she hadn't been so desperate for news of the outside world.

Nearly six months had passed since she was locked away, and just as long since she'd heard from Garrus. There were rumours he'd gone back to Palaven, but she was allowed no external messages. Too much of a security risk, they said. Her last memory of her lover was as the Alliance took her away to answer for her war crimes. They led her into their shuttle, shackled like a convict, having the decency to let her turn to face the airlock as the doors closed. Garrus stood resolute, fist clenched over his heart in a silent promise.

"I love you", she said, but couldn't be sure he'd heard her over the loud hiss of the airlock. It was all she could do to bite back tears, but her pride wouldn't allow her to show weakness.

They took the Normandy, the ship she'd earned from the Illusive Man, paid for with her blood and the lives of countless Collectors. The Alliance sold her corpse to the enemy, branded her a traitor, and now they took her warship in exchange for a pardon she didn't want. She wanted only her freedom, and they'd taken that too. Fuck them all.

When the attacks came, she took the news with grim determination. Her first thoughts were of Garrus, of whether he was caught in the Reaper onslaught. She had a momentary vision of him, screaming in a holding tank as the enzymes set in, and her mind locked down to bury the image as deep as it would go. It settled into her stomach, a sickening lump that refused to go away until she saw him safe. Vancouver was lost, all of Earth thrown into violent chaos, but the hope of finding Garrus alive burned brightly within her, driving her forward.

When the turian councilor sent her on a mission to his homeworld, Shepard felt dangerously high, giddy and anxious all at once. Seeing what was left of Palaven nearly broke her. Garrus was tough, she reminded herself. He took on every criminal organization on Omega and prevailed. Together, they killed a Reaper, stopped a genocide. He would find a way to survive. He had to.

And he did. Menae was reduced to rubble and waste but to her it became the most beautiful place in the galaxy the moment she saw Garrus. She wanted to throw her arms around him, plant kisses everywhere she could reach. To hell with war and common decency: she wanted to throw him down and take him right on the battlefield. Instead she grinned like a fool, carried out her mission with her lover at her side, and fought the urge to shriek out her joy like a drunken krogan. The Reaper forces on Menae didn't have a chance: each enemy was an obstacle to bringing Garrus back to the safety of the Normandy. Slaughter had never felt so damned satisfying.

With the Primarch secured, Shepard ended the debriefing transmission and rushed up to her quarters, hoping to find Garrus there. Only the empty room greeted her, bedsheets tucked tight with military precision. He hadn't come to see her. Shepard panicked: six months had passed with no contact. Did Garrus know they'd blocked her from sending messages? Had he thought she'd broken ties with him? He loved her. She would have torn apart the galaxy to find him, and he would have done the same for her. As long as she'd known him, every waking hour he wasn't fighting for her, he was working to optimize the Normandy's weaponry and keep her safe. At once, she knew where he would be.

Entering the main battery, her doubts vanished when her eyes met his.

"Thank the spirits you're alive, Shepard." He opened his arms wide: she rushed forward, nearly knocking him over. She was overwhelmed by emotions she'd been forcing down since the moment she was torn away from him. Shepard buried her face in the crook of his neck, drowning in his arms, loving him so much she thought her heart would burst. It was weakness, she'd been taught, to need someone so desperately. No matter: love was a force more powerful than Shepard.

They made love on the floor of the main battery, unable to wait for the privacy of Shepard's quarters. Afterwards, cold steel grating at her back and a warm turian wrapped around her, she stroked his scarred face and told him everything he meant to her. Garrus sighed, a deep contented rumble that echoed through her body, and kissed her. Hours later, she left him alone to continue his work, forced her wonderfully aching body back into military garb, and went back to her duties with a profound sense of peace and a smile on her face. She knew what she was fighting for. And, according to Garrus, turian superstition said they'd just brought good luck to their Thanix cannon.

Each day the war looked bleaker, conflict raged and losses grew astronomical. There were victories too, ground regained and alliances forged, hope rekindled with the knowledge that Reapers could be killed. Garrus was with her through it all, a fierce warrior fighting at her side, a lover and partner and steadfast support, a sanctuary for her soul. Through it all, they knew they would never be alone, finding strength in one another when hope seemed lost.

At last came the final push, and with the survival of every sentient organic species at stake, they fought with the rage and desperation of cornered animals, defeating wave after wave of Reaper forces. The tower that would transport them to the Citadel loomed in the distance: reaching it was their only chance for salvation. Garrus rushed ahead, drawing enemy fire away from Shepard. For the sake of the galaxy, she had to survive, even if it cost his life. Searing heat ripped through his legs, sending him sprawling to the ground. Forcing his eyes open, blinking away the dust and rubble, he saw a lone figure limping toward the beam, surrounded by husks. Instinct took over: he propped himself up onto his elbows as best he could, balanced the barrel of his sniper rifle on a mound of rubble, and prepared to die. But not before he'd used up every last fucking heat sink protecting his beloved.

Garrus watched her body be drawn into the beam, said a silent prayer of thanks, and began a slow, agonizing crawl toward a makeshift foxhole.

Regaining consciousness aboard the Citadel replaced one nightmare with another. With every step Shepard's wounds reopened: it took all her strength to force her pain-wracked muscles to propel her forward. Mutilated corpses as far as the eye could see: it took all her resolve to walk past them and toward whatever new horror awaited her here. In the end, there was no demon, no monstrous villain to defeat. There was only a being, indifferent and aloof, that wanted to casually discuss how to find a solution to the disruption of its genocide. Had she known how, she would have killed it.

She stood at the heart of the Citadel: the vastness of the chamber made her feel small and insignificant. Why a near-omnipotent creature would leave such a crucial decision up to her was beyond her comprehension. Maybe there was no decision. Maybe that was the point. She thought of all the friends she'd left behind, all the lives that were counting on her, and chose peace. With every step toward the glow, her heart felt lighter. Shepard's final thoughts were of Garrus, hoping he had survived to see the world she would create, her heart filled with love for him as she threw herself into the unknown.

Born of man, Shepard was resurrected by the Illusive Man as an organic machine. She was the first of her kind, but would not be the last. When she joined her energy to the Crucible, it used her essence to rewrite the blueprints for life itself.

Alone in his foxhole, clinging to the last shreds of life, Garrus drew ragged breaths. He rolled onto his back, fringe digging into the dirt and shrapnel beneath him. The stars were gone, the sky alight with firepower from the battle raging far above. His eyes followed the tower beam up into the chaos, trying to catch a glimpse of the Citadel, as though seeing it would mean that Shepard was still alive. A glint caught his eye: magnification from his visor confirmed his greatest hope. The Citadel's arms were opening. She did it. They did it. He wanted to watch her victory unfold, to see the Crucible in action, but he couldn't keep his eyes open. Gasping for breath, the world slipped into darkness, his body suddenly filled with warmth. His pain was gone, and in his mind he felt her presence within him, joining him, changing him. Shepard.

"Shepard."

It was Garrus' voice, she was sure of it, but all she could muster in return was a garbled breath. There was liquid all around her, tubes and wires and lights and noise. She thrashed helplessly, trying to open her eyes and bringing up a neural interface instead. In an instant, information her organic brain could never have processed came flooding in all at once. Peace. Synthesis. Project Lazarus' research data recovered and put to use.

"Shepard." His voice was soft, pleading.

Learning was so much easier now. Shepard flexed her limbs, instructing the VI sustaining her to withdraw the life support she no longer needed. Her body felt different: they'd had to rebuild her from genetic code and hardware. She opened her eyes, saw her mate's expression of exhausted relief, and smiled.

"I told you you'd never be alone."

Garrus helped her pull her trembling body from the tank, cradling her in his arms. She felt his mind reach out to hers, the synthetic interface more seamless than when she'd linked to the geth.

What happened, Garrus? What does this mean?

No one knows. The war is over, the Reaper attacks have stopped. You're alive, that's all that matters.

You brought me back.

Yes. There's no Vakarian without Shepard, you know.

What do we do now?

We start over. We rebuild. And… I'd still like to find out what a turian-human baby looks like. Or at least keep trying.

Garrus.

Shepard?

I love you. I always will. She would have said more, but he pulled her in and kissed her passionately, and suddenly nothing she could possibly say could be better than this moment. Amid the ashes of destruction, they had hope, they had a future, and for the rest of their lives, they had each other.

I feel better now. Strange as it may sound, I feel like I owed this to my Shepard. Comments? Thoughts? I can't get this game out of my head.