2199 CE
Nimbus Cluster, Agaiou System.
SSV Normandy SR2

The cockpit was silent.

Joker sat in the pilot's seat, powering up the thrusters to ease the ship away from the starbase. EDI sat in her usual chair, contemplating. Garrus was standing back, leaning against the wall next to the airlock.

Ash stood up against the window, watching the research station drift away from them. Joker had asked if they would be taking the probe with them; after all, it was the closest thing there was to a body of the Commander. But Ashley had disagreed – Shepard had not enjoyed his time living as that thing, and would not want to be remembered by it. In her eyes, the probe was not Shepard's body; it had just carried his soul for a while.

In any case, she doubted Terien would be willing to part with the chance to study such advanced technology.

As the starbase grew smaller in the distance, Ash reflected on how she had arrived only a few days earlier. Confused, frustrated, and wondering what had gotten everyone so worked up. Now she knew.

Shepard had done what needed to be done, just as he always had.

And he'd never forgotten her.

4 hours later

Terien watched the holo-feed as the panel slid open. He tapped on his screen, directing a pair of robotic arms to reach into the newly opened compartment on the probe. The sensors registered a solid grip, and the arms began to pull back out.

The salarian moved his gaze away from the holo-feed to looking at the probe through the glass. The arms slowly pulled out their find. A blue sphere, roughly a foot in diameter. The Shepard-AI's central quantum processor.

The virus had burned out most of it, and the rest had deteriorated when the Shepard-AI powered down. There would be no recoverable data within.

Nonetheless, Terien felt a small measure of awe looking upon it.

Then the moment passed, and the salarian directed his team to begin running scans upon the sphere. Even if data could not be recovered, the internal architecture of the unit could inform future advancements in the field of Artificial Intelligence for years.

Terien returned his attention to the holo-feed.

1 month later

The skycar rushed through the air, the green fields flying by beneath them. Cassie watched as a storm flashed on the otherwise sunny horizon, then turned her head.

"Okay, Mom. When are you going to tell me where we're going?"

Ashley adjusted her grip on the wheel. "I'm not. It's a surprise."

"Mom, you may have tried to keep it hidden from me, but I do know which planet we're on."

"Oh yeah?" Ash glanced at her.

"Four relay jumps away from home? Orbiting a main sequence star? Two moons? Farming colony? Mindoir's the only planet that fits, even if you did insist on blindfolding me through the spaceport." Cassie folded her arms. "So presumably, whatever we're doing here, it's something to do with Dad."

"Has anyone ever told you that you're ridiculously intelligent?"

"Yes. You. Regularly." Cassie looked out the window again.

Ashley gazed at her for a moment, then shook her head. "I love you."

"You tell me that regularly too. So why are we on Mindoir?"

"Like I said – it's a surprise."

Cassie groaned and fell silent.

Ash guided the skycar across the landscape, towards the mouth of a wide valley. It took some time to get there, but a worn dirt track on the ground guided the way. The village they were headed to had not been lived in for a long time – although Mindoir had been rebuilt after the attack, this corner was left untouched.

A river flowed out from the valley. The water level was low to the ground – it was currently Mindoir's summer season – but there were wide floodplains to either side. Further upstream, the ground rose. On one side of the river a forest stretched down from the hills; on the other side the ground had been flattened, and a number of early prefabricated houses were placed in the rough arrangement of an old village.

Ashley circled the village. Most of the buildings were still in a good state, despite having been left to the elements for more than two decades. Satisfied that she'd found the right place, she flew the skycar towards a clearing in the middle of the village. Another skycar was already parked there.

"Wait," said Cassie, leaning forwards at the sight of three people waiting for them. "I know those two! And that third figure... A geth? What's a geth doing here?"

Ashley didn't reply, just settled the skycar onto the ground and opened the doors. Cassie jumped out of the car and ran across the village square, waving her arms.

"Uncle Garrus! Aunt Tali!"

Garrus crouched down to catch her in a hug, while Tali looked on with a hand on one hip. Ashley wore a smile as she headed across to join them. Cassie had spoken to both Garrus and Tali on vid-calls before, but this was the first time that they'd ever actually met.

"Do I get a hug?" she asked, raising an eyebrow as she approached.

"Sorry, but the Quarian Ambassador might get jealous if I greeted you like this," said Garrus, looking up.

Tali kicked him in the side, then walked over to embrace Ashley. "From me? You certainly get a hug. It's been far too long, Ash."

"I know," said Ash, breaking the hug after a moment. "You can blame me for that."

"I do," replied Tali, but there was warmth in her voice. She turned her head towards the geth that standing a few paces back. "Ashley, you asked for a representative of the Geth Consensus to be present. This is their Ambassador to the Council. He and I work together on an almost daily basis."

The geth stepped forward, offering a hand. Ashley paused – the geth's stance seemed strangely familiar – then took the hand and shook it.

"Ashley Williams. We are platform Ghost-Ambassador. We wish to convey gratitude for inviting geth to this juncture." Ghost's facial plates flared briefly. "Addendum: We believe you would want to know that this unit attained the last probable sighting of Shepard-Commander before Crucible-Activation."

"You..." Ashley blinked. "Thank-you. You were the one that informed Hackett that Shepard made it to the beam?"

"Correct."

"Then... I am grateful that you've come." Ashley glanced to one side. "I shouldn't keep you – I just know that my daughter is eager to ask you plenty of questions."

Ghost inclined its head. "We welcome curiosity." It stepped to one side, approaching Cassie and Garrus.

Ashley stared at her hand for a moment. Introducing myself to a geth. Eden Prime... feels like ancient history all of a sudden. I guess that this is something else I have you to thank for, Shepard.

About ten minutes after Ashley and Cassie arrived, a red skycar came speeding into the valley. It set down with a bump, and two krogan climbed out.

"Ashley Williams," one of them rumbled. "Care to tell me why you've dragged us all out here into the middle of nowhere?"

"Not yet, Wrex. Wait until everyone else gets here."

"Huh. Sure." He grinned. "Shoulda guessed that you'd be playing things close to the chest."

The other krogan spoke up. "Anyone got anything to eat? What's that little thing running around?"

Everyone turned and looked at Grunt in horror, including Cassie.

Ashley glared. "That 'little thing' is my daughter. She is not for eating. If you try, you'll be eating bullets."

Wrex nudged the younger krogan. "I wouldn't mess with Mommy-Williams, Grunt. She plays rough."

Grunt shrugged. "Thought it was worth a shot." He trudged over towards Cassie. "So you're Shepard's child?"

"Yes." Cassie calmly met his gaze.

"Heh. I just thought that you'd be... taller. You're tiny."

"I'm only thirteen!"

"Yeah? Well I'm only fourteen!"

Cassie folded her arms. "Then you're big." She said this as if it meant that she'd won the debate.

Samara was the next to arrive, followed shortly by Liara and Javik. Joker, EDI and Kelly seemed to have been racing their skycar against Cortez and James when they arrived – Cortez won, although he did ask EDI if she had let him. Kasumi appeared at some point – no-one was entirely sure when. Samantha Traynor arrived a bit later than she'd planned, but she made up for it by bringing sandwiches for lunch. Zaeed's arrival was heralded by a skycar that almost fell out of the sky - as he climbed out, he asked if anyone would be willing to give him a lift back, since his engine had just exploded. Karin Chakwas, Gregory Adams, Ken and Gabby all came as one large group. Miranda and Jacob also came together, though Ashley was surprised to learn that they'd given Jack a lift. Jacob later confided to Ashley that the entire trip had been a series of arguments between Jack and Miranda...

Steven Hackett was the last to arrive; the retired Admiral pulled up in an expensive skycar that drew Joker's admiration. Hackett told him that he could borrow it for a drive – but only if it came back without the slightest scratch.

Ashley allowed the team to mingle and chat for a while before deciding that it was 'time'. With Garrus' help, she gathered everyone beside a very specific house in the village.

"You all know where we are. You all know who once lived here. Shepard was a man who touched all of our lives. He was our friend, our family. A man we fought beside. To one among us he was a father, even if he never met his own daughter."

Ashley chose a rise to sit on, as the rest of the group settled down below her.

"It might be true to say that Shepard died thirteen years ago, saving the galaxy. It might also be true to say that he died a month ago, in a room, with me at his side." She realised that she was looking straight at Cassie. "I brought you here to tell you what happened during those thirteen years. How he saved the galaxy one last time. And then, I have a final message from Shepard for each of you."

It took a while – and a bit of help from Garrus, Joker, and EDI – but Ashley described everything that she had learned at the Council's research starbase. She told them that she was sharing classified information – she also said that she didn't care because they deserved to know. She told them about the probe. She told them about Shepard's final moments.

In the end, she chose to describe Shepard's time with the Reapers in her own words. She had wondered whether to simply read the various files aloud to them, but since those files were addressed to her, it felt too... personal. So instead she simply told them what they needed to know.

There were questions. Ashley answered them as best as she could. She kept back certain details – such as her suspicion that Shepard had eventually been forced to forget most of the people present.

And then, when the story was done, she took off her backpack and began to hand out datapads. Each person received a message specifically for them – Ghost's message was one that had been addressed to the entire geth consensus.

As Ashley handed out the last of the messages to Javik, she felt a hand tapping her on the back.

"Don't I get a message?"

Ashley turned, then crouched down beside her daughter. "No. And yes."

Cassie frowned. "That doesn't make sense."

"I know. But Shepard died before I had a chance to tell him about you. He died not knowing that you existed."

"So no message then," said Cassie. "I figured."

"Cass... There's a reason I brought us to Mindoir. Shepard lived his life struggling to make sure that what happened here never happened to anyone else. Fighting to let everyone have a chance at their own future. And everyone includes a certain Cassandra Shepard-Williams." Ashley tilted her head. "You ask me what message he left you? Live your own life. Be your own person. Make your own choices. Your future is your own – live it."

Cassie looked down, staring at the ground.

Then she looked up.

And smiled.

Author's Final Note

Wow. I'm done.

You know, after so many dark sequences, it was nice to end on a happier scene.

-Invictus-

This story is one that's been in my mind ever since the first time I finished Mass Effect 3, roughly fifteen months ago. Needless to say, the Extended Cut and the Leviathan DLC caused me to change parts of it, but the basic plot always remained the same. I won't go into detail on how I feel about ME3's ending – just that this was my way of accepting it.

-Invictus-

For me, the beating heart of this story was the scene in Chapter 3, of Shepard's final moments with Ashley. I originally planned that to be the final scene, when we knew everything that Shepard had been through and could understand how much it meant to him to see Ashley again.

Instead, I ended up reversing it and doing that scene as almost the first thing, so that you could see it through Ashley's eyes. The idea was that you'd be constantly revising your interpretation of what that scene meant. The first time you read it, you don't even know that Shepard has just died. You probably had some idea that he might have, but you didn't know.

And, by now, you know that the scene represented everything that had kept Shepard going throughout the past thirteen years.

-Invictus-

An early plan of Invictus had two parallel stories – one following Ashley in the years after the war, the other following Shepard outside the galaxy. But since the two plotlines had no real connection to each other, and since I realised that it was Shepard's story that I wanted to tell, Ashley's plotline got changed up until it became the framing story. There's enough left for you to figure out what she's being doing for thirteen years.

Speaking of framing stories - I experimented a LOT with this story, doing plenty of stuff that I'd never tried before with my own writing. Chapter 11: Corruption is probably the primary example of this - completely non-linear, a framing story within a framing story, with me varying the pace and style of voice throughout. There's a reason that chapter took so long!

-Invictus-

The poem itself didn't get associated with the plot until quite late. For a long time, this story had the working title of "Mass Effect: Resolve". I do like the ME3 scene where Ashley recites the verse from Invictus, but it was only after I looked up the whole poem that I felt it would be a good fit to my story. Fortunately, it's in the public domain!

-Invictus. Latin for 'Unconquered'-

And that's the point. Despite everything that the universe threw at Shepard, he never gave up and never backed down. He did what needed to be done to give the galaxy its own future.

This wasn't a happy ending fic. But it was, hopefully, a meaningful fic.

I hope you enjoyed it.

Thank-you for reading.

PS: I have two follow-up stories planned for Invictus.

One will follow Cassie as a young woman in the new galaxy, the other will follow Garrus much later in life. I've laid groundwork within Invictus for what I have in mind – and some of that groundwork is more obvious than the rest – but you should be warned that neither of these sequels is much more than a vague plan at this point. Nonetheless, if you're interested, then do feel free to follow me/pester me with a PM in a year if I still haven't started anything...