Summary: After fighting for so long, there's something soothing about death. Something inviting.

Something like peace.

When his hand slips from hers though, her heart hiccups out an uneven rhythm in her damaged chest. She doesn't want to let go. Doesn't want to let go now that he's by her side, and she remembers, she remembers all the reasons why she fought, and all the reasons why she has to itry/i.

And oh, god, she doesn't want to die.

Author's Note: This fic was previously posted to my tumblr 2 years ago for N7 day. Seemed like it was about time it made its way over here. This takes place immediately following a somewhat AU Destroy ending in ME3. Hope you enjoy, and Happy (belated) N7 Day!

Journey Back (To You)

After fighting for so long, there's something soothing about death. Something inviting.

Something like peace.

It settles over Shepard's limbs, loosening the muscles until any urge to move evaporates like dew in the midday sun. It transforms the air around her, so thick with the acrid scent of gunfire and burnt flesh, into something sweet and enticing.

There is a part of her, a loud irritating part, that tells her to fight. To move. It insists that the pillow soft bed she is relaxing in is really a pile of rubble. It describes, in excruciating detail, how the gentle warmth she is basking in is really just her blood spilling from her myriad wounds, and pooling beneath her back. It shouts, in its best imitation of a banshee, that she has more to do, that the battle isn't over - that the battle will never be over. It screams at her to GET. UP.

But she is exhausted. Worn down to the bone, and moving isn't on the agenda. Not again. Not anymore. And with Anderson's voice still ringing in her head and the memory of her last action - being at ground zero on the Citadel for a shockwave of her own making, thanks to a column blasted full of holes - she thinks she's earned a rest.

So she ignores that voice, and all of its complaints, content to watch the world fade to black around her. She's earned it after all.

You did good, Child.

And she has.

Hasn't she?

~~~\/~~~

When she comes to, the sweet odor of death is replaced by the antiseptic wash of a clinic, and the pile of rubble beneath her back is actually a pillow soft bed - though one holding her at an uncomfortable 30 degree angle. At first, the only noises she can hear are a steady electronic beeping and the whirr of a ventilation fan. But then, familiar tones - dulled, though, like she's listening to them through a broken comm unit, or after a too large swig of ryncol - begin to bleed through.

"- to think it might help? I...I'm not really sure… I guess...well...hmm...repairs on the Normandy are progressing. The engineers think we'll be out of drydock in the next few weeks. Tali...Tali's been working with EDI on the communications array and Joker…"

Affection swells inside of her, a bubble fit to burst straight through the bandages she can now feel wrapped tight around her chest, pressing down on her sternum and keeping her heart thrumming in place. Of their own accord, the fingers of her left hand twitch, making her aware of a familiar presence resting on top of the digits. Warm, pliable skin - the texture of the softest leather marred only by hard earned calluses at the tips, and across the palm - squeezes back.

"Garr..." His name is a broken note played upon her vocal cords, but the raw scratch of air garners his attention just as efficiently as if she'd managed to yell.

He shifts beside her, his face coming into her line of vision, or what's left of it. She knows that it's him, can pick the outline of his body out in a room full of shadows, but she can't see any detail. The colors all blur together, and no amount of blinking seems to dissipate the grainy filter cast over her sight.

She tries to pull herself upright, hoping that will help, only to growl out her frustration in a series of unintelligible syllables when she lacks the strength and coordination to do so. The companion to the hand laced with her twitching fingers falls upon her shoulder, gently pressing her body back to the mattress; a whiff of gunpowder tickling her nose as he moves in close. She focuses on the wash of blue that overpowers the tangle of colors.

Blue's always been her favorite color.

"Shh, Shepard. Don't move. Don't-" And then he's calling for a doctor, shouting over his shoulder, his voice muffled further by how he turns his head, and her whole world narrows down to just the pinprick of light that circles him like a halo.

The hand at her shoulder moves to her scalp, stroking loose strands of hair away from her face, guiding them behind her ear. She aches there, she notices. In fact, as she comes more and more awake, she realizes that she aches everywhere.

But then there is blue, with points of black at the center just inches from her face, and the aches seem less important. She focuses as best as she can, trying to force her sight to work based off of memory alone.

Soon though, she's being jostled, and he moves out of her line of sight, the hand at her scalp leaving with him as foreign shapes and bodies move in around her, squawking nonsense that she hopes includes an order for some pain killers, because damn. Everything hurts. She goes along with it all at first, trusting that wherever she is, they aren't out to do her any harm. Not with Garrus there.

When his hand slips from hers though, her heart hiccups out an uneven rhythm in her damaged chest. She doesn't want to let go. Doesn't want to let go now that he's by her side, and she remembers, she remembers all the reasons why she fought, and all the reasons why she has to try.

And oh, god, she doesn't want to die.

Fear and adrenaline claw at her, overwhelming her senses until the pain is in the background, and she can think of nothing more beyond: Garrus! Find Garrus! And though something in the back of her brain tells her to stay still, to stop, she uses the spike of energy the fear gives her to swing her empty palm out in an arch, looking for something to anchor her.

Or rather, some one. "Gar-"

Warm skin slides over her fingers, wrapping around her hand in a gentle grip that grows stronger the more she clings. She moves her head from side to side, trying to locate him in the mess of colors and shapes surrounding her. Darts a dry tongue out to swipe at desiccated lips before managing to cough out a single word.

"Stay."

A hand presses to her cheek, turning her to the side where blue looks down upon her, his voice soothing her with the sound of home when he speaks.

"Always."

~End