Notes:

This is my first of anything that I've ever written. After playing ME3 I always had ideas rattling around in my head what my Shepard would be going through, or what he would want after the fight was over and this was it. In respect to one of my favorite authors Michael Stackpole and his book I, Jedi, I wanted to do something in the first person. Not sure I captured it, but I think I did alright. My thanks to one of my several favorite fanfic writers fahRENheit2006 for the encouragement to start writing and suggesting ideas to improve what I had written.

Please note that Mass Effect and all of the characters referred to are owned by Bioware/EA.

"It's almost over".

The words filtered through my mind as I pulled up my pistol to fire on the glass tube that would somehow bring about the destruction of the galaxy's most hated enemy. As I began to fire, images of my friends flashed before my eyes.

Mordin.

Thane.

Legion.

Anderson.

Ashley…Ashley. The woman who had kept me from succumbing to despair and hopelessness. My anchor in the storm.

After nearly three years of being in love, we had finally admitted it to each other the night before and I desperately wanted to hold her again and tell her how I felt about her. Now it was beyond my grasp, duty called and the lives of billions hung in the balance.

I've been a part of the Alliance military since I was a kid, long before I ever joined OCS. When both of your parents are Alliance officers you're always a part of it. They wanted me to carry on the tradition but never used guilt or the excuse that I was duty bound to join like others did. In my mid-teens I had seen a vid about how Batarian slavers had hit the colony of Mindoir, it was tragic and horrific, the way the colonists were treated infuriated me. It was so wrong and evil that I wanted to do something. It was several weeks later when Mom got back from her tour that I discovered she was on the ship that came to the aid of the colonists. At first she tried to spare me the gory details, but I let her know that I saw some of it on the news and wanted to know more, so she let me have it. Slavers usually don't harm their slaves so as to increase their profits but these Batarians were especially cruel. They used detonation collars on the least desirable as examples to those who tried to resist and Mom considered them the lucky ones. I knew then that I wanted to join the Alliance to help other people, protect the innocent, and be the hero.

My pistol fired, again and again. The tube was strong and I exhausted the thermal clip to blast it apart.

I was resigned to death, I never figured that the run to the beam would be easy but as I listened to the Catalyst I realized that I wouldn't survive. I knew my duty and why I had to be here; I knew that if the Reapers weren't stopped now, the cycle would continue to threaten another civilization. Mordin's words came up at that thought, "It had to be me." But aren't heroes allowed to be a little selfish sometimes? Why couldn't I do what I came to do and have my happy ending? I'm sure that this makes me sound a little selfish, and to be honest there were far better people than I who gladly sacrificed their all to help others. I had always lived a life of service, to the Alliance, to others, I started out the idealistic little kid, but as the years wore on and reality sank in it became more of a duty and I grew to resent it. If there was a job to be done, or a hostage to be saved, I gave my all for it and did the best job I could. It doesn't mean I liked it.

It's interesting how at the end of your life how you think back to the things you never got around to do. I had thought about having a family before, but only briefly and usually when I was with Ashley. In fact it was falling in love with her that really started it, when all you have is the service, you either while away your duty shift dreaming of a better time or work harder to improve yourself. In the past several months of dodging Reapers, watching friends die and seeing planets being burnt to cinders, I had finally allowed myself to imagine what it would be like to simply be a family man and that is what I wanted now.

Despite my desire, could I really live that life? Could I be the man and eventual husband that Ashley needed me to be? Could I raise children and be the father they needed? Or would I end up like many soldiers out there who just couldn't switch off and ended up divorced with kids who barely tolerated them? I've been a soldier since I could enlist and it was the only life I knew. Being a soldier had become such an ingrained habit that I could plan out my day and it would rarely change, even with the chaos of war, a soldier's life is a constant state of early starts, PT, chow time, instructions from your C/O, and mindless work, only to do it all again the next day. At the same time I was so tired of the fighting, the endless threats and I was tired of leading a life of blind duty and enduring lonely nights. A wife, a few kids, and a steady job looked pretty good at the moment. I was reminded of a story of an American officer from the Second World War by the name of Richard Winters, in his biography he mentioned shortly after the Normandy invasion of how he stopped to thank God for surviving the day and promised God that were he to live out the war that he would find a quiet place to live and raise a family, which he eventually did. Could I survive this and have my dreams too? I didn't know, but I was going to try.

The tube cracked apart, a small explosion began a chain reaction and I knew I had seconds left.

I made a last moment prayer to God to allow me to live, I wanted that little piece of land and a life of peace. A life with the only woman I had truly loved, and a couple of kids. After all I had been through, could I at least have that? Those who read this may scoff at my belief in God, especially after learning of the Reapers and the countless civilizations that came before. My father wasn't a believer in any particular faith, but my Mom raised me to believe in God, however she made certain that I knew I had a choice in what I wanted to believe and could follow what ever path I wanted. I had always been a sucker for desperate hopes and lost causes, and believing in a God whose existence couldn't be proven was no exception and coupled with the things that I've experienced in battle I knew there had to be something out there. Like that yarn about there not being atheists in foxholes; when you see a soldier get shot, only to find that the bullet tore through their barrier and merely left a small hole in their helmet less than an inch from their skull, or seeing guys survive explosions that should turned them into their constituent atoms, you tend to think there is something greater at work than simple luck.

The explosions grew, blasting apart the tube and engulfed me in a wave of heat and flames and then I felt nothing.

For a time it felt like I was in a deep dreamless sleep, no pain from the gunshot or the burns from the laser, I began to recall what I had felt like when the first Normandy was destroyed, I had floated helplessly in the void struggling for air, but this wasn't like that. I saw flashes of images; bright lights, Ashley crying, friends standing over me, people calling my name, nothing was clear but I had accepted that I was dead. Perhaps this was the afterlife? It wasn't until my vision cleared that I found myself lying in a hospital bed that I realized how far from the truth that was. I tried to sit up but the pain was too much, at which point a beep sounded from the console above my head and my pain began to lessen and I immediately felt tired. It seems I was being dosed with a pain killer and it was already causing drowsiness. Before I fell asleep I looked to my left and saw Ash wrapped in a blanket on an Alliance issue cot next to my bed and knew that my prayer had been answered.

I had a chance to walk a new path.