At this point in the war, Shepard’s exhaustion extends into her entire state of being.
From the stresses placed on her shoulders, like Atlas bearing the weight of the world, humanity’s fate is in her hands, her diplomacy in uniting human and alien forces alike to stop the reapers. From the traumas of her past embedded in the scars on her skin to the way alcohol has become a crutch, to Leviathan getting into her head and decidedly staying there, Shepard is tired, and her faith is waning.
She’s never believed in a god or gods all of her life. Never raised in it, never considered it, but admiring Ashley’s faith in God is something she respects, deeply. She might not understand it entirely, to the complexity of the vastness of the galaxies unknown and unexplored and an omnipotent and omniscient being, but she respects it. Ashley has been her “rock” even through death and all that comes with getting spaced and being resurrected by a human terrorist organization.
Ashley has stood beside Alice for all these years, through thick and thin, through bullets and biotics, and even now, she stands beside Shepard, her skipper at her worst during the eleventh hour prior to attacking the Cerberus base, prior to setting everything into motion to save Earth - a planet that Shepard has only ever been to twice before in her life, once for Alliance training in Brazil, and for her house arrest awaiting trial in Vancouver. It’s hard to comprehend a home world when so little of her life has been spent there, but she needs to.
Mindoir was reconstructed, but it was never the same. Tragedy shapes a world, changes the outlook from the past, and Earth is rich in history, most of which Shepard has only vaguely read about in her spare time.
Ashley stands beside her, offers her light hearted jests, “are we in for a rough ride?” and laughs with an air of nervousness veiled behind it. They both recognise it, but look to one another for that silent reassurance - we’ll make it, we have to, I’ve got your back, I love you.
Shepard looks to the love of her life, and for that moment, for that night, she is at peace, if only for the last time.
