I blame myself. [She does. Shepard blames herself, can think of a thousand ways she might have decided different. But it's always that way, you can dodge the bullets by imagination alone, in your head. It wasn't reality, it was more like solipsism.]

Sometimes, bad things happen for no reason. You can do everything right. You can warn them early and fight your hardest and sacrifice everything you have, and still things fall apart. People die.

[The memory of her own voice intoning, soldiers die in war. The close-up flash of a Reaper's beam. Cold weight in her hands, dog tags in the snow, twenty-one names lined up on the wall. Twenty-two. Twenty-three. Twenty-four...

Mr. Williams, my name is Jane Shepard, I was your daughter's commanding officer aboard the...]

That's not failure, that's life. Burden of Command, they call it. You're not carrying this alone.