Whole, Part 2 (a Mass Effect fanfiction)

This One Last Deal

On the way to the Citadel, Shepard had contacted Ann Bryson and told her as much as it felt safe to say over an open channel. Ann was quick; she seemed to have picked up on what Shepard wasn't saying. She promised to be waiting in her father's old lab when the Normandy docked.

Shepard made her way across the Citadel as quickly as possible. Every human she ran into had heard about Earth, and all of them seemed shocked to see her here and not on the way to defend the homeworld. She didn't have time to stop and explain to each of them that a person could defend the homeworld without being boots on the ground, so she didn't.

"Commander. I got your message. You need me to talk to Leviathan again?" Ann said, greeting her as her skycar landed in the courtyard outside her father's lab.

"Yes." Shepard looked around. They were as alone as they could be. "Leviathan is the Catalyst."

Ann sucked in a shocked breath. "You're sure?"

"Absolutely sure. Now the entire fate of our galaxy, today and in the future, rests on whether I can convince Leviathan to help."

"You did it once before."

"That didn't require anywhere near as much agreement as this." She looked at Ann seriously. "I'm sorry I have to put you through this again."

"I can't say I'm looking forward to it, but—if it's what needs to be done, then I'll do it. Thank you for not bringing James. I don't think he could handle that again."

"I hope ... I hope there's a future where he doesn't have to worry about you like that, ever again."

Ann smiled. "Me, too." She led the way into the lab. "Shall we?"

"Let's do it."

Sitting down near the artifact, Ann nodded. "Ready when you are."

Shepard hit the button to drop the shields. For a moment, there was nothing, then Ann spoke in that artificially deep, chilly voice. "Why do you call on us?"

"You are the Catalyst."

"Yes."

"You knew that all along! You could have stopped this so much earlier!" Shepard caught herself. Flinging accusations at Leviathan wasn't going to get her anywhere.

"We hide in the darkness."

"For this day! You've been waiting all these cycles for someone to find you, for someone to finish the Crucible—for someone to give you a chance to end what you began all those millennia ago! Help me, please," Shepard begged.

"Why?"

"Why?!" Why, indeed. A being that had hidden itself away in the depths of an endless ocean on a forgotten planet for time immemorial had no sense of the immediacy of the need. After all, it had slept through the same need over and over again, allowing billions of people to die. The only being it had interacted with, as far as she could tell, in all that time, was Shepard herself. The only way to reach it, then, was to make a personal appeal. "Because I ask you," she told it. "You said yourself I've done what no one else has—I brought the galaxy together. We are ready to fight the Reapers together, every race."

"Not all."

"No, of course not. We've had to fight Reaper indoctrination every step of the way, to build alliances between races that have always been enemies, to combat the greed of those who see the fall of civilization as an opportunity. But I have brought so many together." Tears were gathering in her eyes. "Don't make it all for nothing. Let me save my galaxy. Please. Please!"

"Do you know what will happen to us if we help you?"

"No," she admitted. "I don't. Will you die?"

"Perhaps."

"I'm sorry. But think how many have died while you lived, there at the bottom of the ocean. Isn't it time to rejoin the galaxy, to take your place among us?" She wondered what she was really asking. Would an awakened Leviathan be as bad as the Reapers? Worse? Either way, they needed Leviathan or they wouldn't survive. Earth, Palaven, Thessia, already fallen, other homeworlds under relentless pressure. Juniper had to admit for the first time that she had lost, completely, unless she could make this one last deal, beg this one last favor, talk this one last species into community with the rest. "Please help us."

Ann's body was shaking. There wasn't much time left.

"Please!" Shepard asked again, losing control of her tears. She was openly sobbing now. So much for the calm, rational Commander Shepard she had intended to face Leviathan as. But it had never mattered as much as this. Maybe not for herself—much as she'd like to live, she knew Thane waited for her across the sea, and that took much of the fear out of death—but for Kaidan, and for James, and Ann, and for Joker, and for Liara, and for Tali and Garrus, and for the quarians and the krogan, and for Steve Cortez and Daniels and Donnelly and Traynor and Emily Wong and ... everyone. "You have to help us," she said at last. "There is no one else. This is the last chance."

"We will meet you in the Sol system."

There was a flash of light from the artifact and it shattered. Ann's body slipped off the bench and fell to the floor. Shepard scrambled to her side, frantically looking for a pulse. It was there, but weak. Immediately she put a hand to her comm, calling for transport to Huerta Memorial.

To the turian medic who arrived, she said, "Take the best care of her possible. She may have just saved the galaxy. And when she wakes, tell her Commander Shepard says thank you."

She'd have liked to go with Ann, but there was no time. The Normandy needed to head for Earth, and every other ship in the galaxy with it.