Who Saves the Hero by Kudara

Chapter 12

Normandy - After Miranda's mission

So much for a standby and watch mission, Shepard reflected wryly as she entered her quarters and began stripping off her armor. That had went out the window from the moment they had talked with Miranda's asari contact waiting for them in Eternity, a popular bar beside the trading floor. Miranda's father had hired Eclipse mercenaries to kidnap Oriana and bring her back to him. The news that Oriana wasn't the same age as Miranda had come as a shock to Shepard. The idea that the man actually had several embryos on ice as it were, ready to decant and raise if his current daughter wasn't exactly what he wanted, was appalling.

Knowing that she was about to be replaced and perhaps even killed had probably been one of the major reasons Miranda had run away from him. No wonder the woman seemed to have no clue how to reach out and connect with others, Shepard thought, Miranda's father had to be completely cold-blooded to raise a child and then decide to replace her with another one when she wasn't exactly what he wanted.

At least she had stopped Miranda from killing her friend. Even though Niket had betrayed Miranda, Shepard could tell that the Cereberus operative had still cared for him. And Shepard believed he had been telling them the truth, he had honestly thought Miranda had stolen Oriana out of revenge and that Miranda's sister would be better off being raised by her wealthy father than in relative poverty. Besides he was unarmed, and he had agreed to help them by telling Miranda's father he had no idea where Oriana had been relocated once Miranda confronted him. When the Eclipse captain, Enyala, had killed him, Miranda had immediately and angrily retaliated, attacking the asari with a powerful biotic attack.

Shepard entered the bathroom and stepped into the shower. She needed to clean up and then she wanted to speak to Miranda, see how the other woman was doing. At the end it had seemed as if Miranda's introduction and talk with her sister had gone well, but it had also been clear that the Cerberus operative hadn't wanted to talk about it right then. Shepard was hoping she would feel more comfortable aboard the ship and in her office.

Normandy - Third Deck, XO Office

Miranda's expression as Shepard entered her office was welcoming; it seemed as if she had been right about Miranda being more relaxed and willing to talk here.

"Thanks again Shepard," Miranda said as she stopped on the other side of the woman's desk. "Taking the time to help me with my sister," she dropped her gaze from Shepard to the surface of her desk as she admitted, "I couldn't have reached Oriana in time without your help."

"I'm glad that we did," Shepard responded.

Miranda nodded, stood up walked over to a lone chair situated in front of a window and sat down in it facing the view, "I'm glad that Niket tried to redeem himself. For what good it did," she added. "Thank you for stopping me Commander."

Shepard walked over, "Sounds like you had a soft spot for Niket after all," she observed.

"I didn't have many friends, Niket was one of them. He never wanted anything from me. He was safe...comfortable. A reminder of a more innocent time I suppose," Miranda responded.

"Are you happy about your sister's relocation?" Shepard inquired.

"She has what I wanted her to have," Miranda glanced over at Shepard, "A normal life and the freedom to choose her own path. And she knows she has an older sister, a friend."

Shepard could hear the happiness in the other woman's tone. It brought a small smile to her lips, it seemed as if she had been right to insist that Oriana deserved to know she had more family that cared about and loved her. "Are you going to talk to her again?"

Miranda sat up in the chair, "I honestly don't know," she admitted, "for once I haven't planned that far ahead. I'll deal with it after our mission. I have to stay focused, and she needs time to adjust to her new home."

Shepard knew that finding Miranda in such a talkative mood was rare. Miranda seemed to want to talk about this so she decided to push for more information, "You never told me what you talked about."

"I introduced myself. Her family was shocked. She adjusted quickly, of course. She's as smart as I am. She plays the violin loves the adagio movement of Nielsen's fifth, just like I do. She wants to work in colony development. Told a joke about it, she's really funny," Miranda said with a smile and then added, "something we don't share."

Pride, wonder, a moment of humor, it was interesting listening to the different emotions as Miranda talked about her sister. "Let me know if I can do anything else," Shepard offered.

Miranda stood, "I think I've got it from here. My father has no chance of finding her family in their new location. But thank you Commander, my sister is safe again thanks in large part to you. I won't forget that."

All in all, Shepard thought, as she left Miranda's office things had went very well. Their interactions were more relaxed than before and she thought that Miranda now trusted her, at least on a personal level. She also had an idea why the dramatic threat she had made before the Freedom's Progress mission, to kill herself before she would let herself be controlled by some chip in her brain, had hit home so well. Miranda's father had tried to control every aspect of his daughter's life, Shepard's threat must have been like a slap in the face reminder of the Cerberus' operatives own past, and most likely why the woman had backed down so quickly and never mentioned it again. Miranda had probably realized that her father would have happily done put a control chip in her brain to ensure her obedience if the technology had been available when she was a teenager.

Shepard also had a good feel for why Miranda seemed to find it difficult to connect with others and why she seemed to lack empathy for people unless she personally knew them. Shepard hoped that getting to know and keeping in contact with her sister would be good for Miranda. Though the Cerberus operative had protected Oriana and made sure she lived her own life, until now Miranda hadn't had the opportunity to love her sister the person as opposed to the idea of her sister. As the black-haired woman had said herself, Niket had been a safe, comfortable choice for a friend that expected nothing of her, and yet she had cared enough about him to let Shepard stop her and be willing to let him go. Getting to know her sister however, was not going to really be necessarily safe or comfortable for Miranda, but it had the possibility of being a much more rewarding and deep relationship than anything Miranda had experienced before.

Now if she could only get Miranda to realize that she had more value than just being a useful tool, first for her father and now for the Illusive Man. Shepard didn't doubt that he knew Miranda's weaknesses and played on them, even to the point of acting almost like a caring father to her. If she still thought of herself as a useful tool after all these years of loyal service to the Illusive Man and his ideology however, he wasn't giving her a lot of praise or building her up to be confident in herself. If Shepard's suspicions were correct, he doled out the attention whenever Miranda did anything useful, leading her on just enough to want more, to want to finally prove herself to him and feel as if she had truly gained his approval, but never actually let her feel as if she had achieved it. Thus ensuring she would keep trying, believing that if she did better, if she tried harder, she would eventually gain what she desired. Shepard's lips curved downward in a frown at her thoughts, it was emotional manipulation at its finest, and would be very difficult to combat.

She sighed as she entered the elevator, letting her concerns about her XO go for now, and tapped the control for the top deck and her quarters. They were still docked at Illium, it was late enough that she didn't feel like trying to find out if Liara was still working. First thing tomorrow morning would be soon enough for that, Liara's message to her after they had found all the data she needed hadn't been what she had hoped. Oh, it had been friendly enough and if they had just been friends it would have been all she expected, but they had been more than just friends. Though except from the too short kiss, one could hardly tell from the way Liara was acting toward her that they had ever been lovers. It was intensely disconcerting to Shepard, and she still had no idea if it was because Liara thought her offices were being watched or if the asari were just not interested in rekindling the relationship.

The elevator doors opened and Shepard levered herself away from the wall she had been leaning upon and exited, crossed the corridor and entered her quarters. She stopped by her desk to pick up the picture of Liara there; it was very nice picture of the asari, she had to give whoever had chosen it that. Amanda closed her eyes; she knew she was already mourning the end of their relationship. Today...damn it she knew she wasn't imagining the distance that Liara had kept between them after she pulled away from the kiss. Maybe that had just been remembered emotion on Liara's part, brought on by her appearance, and then just as quickly regretted.

Amanda gazed down at the image of the asari that she loved, or maybe it was just that they were being watched. She shouldn't give up just yet and just let what they had die, not when she hadn't even gotten up the courage to actually ask Liara how she felt. Tomorrow, Amanda vowed, one way or another she would get a definitive answer from Liara, did the asari still love her or did she only want to be friends and let their past relationship stay in the past. Never mind that the past seemed only a few months ago to Amanda, she could pretend that it didn't tear her apart for the few days they were on Illium. Then perhaps after enough time it wouldn't be a lie.

Shepard gently placed Liara's picture back in its spot on her desk, and determinedly pushed the painful emotions away. She couldn't dwell on this, at least not for the rest of the night; she had other things she needed to do before tomorrow came. Shepard smiled bitterly, if Liara didn't want to be with her anymore she would understand. Just as right now, their relationship had always had to take second place to her duty. Shepard bowed her head, that was just the reality of her life now, the safety of the galaxy had to come before her personal life.

She went to her bed, and sat down on the edge of it, took a few deep calming breaths. She knew the protheans were more used to communicating with each other by mind to mind contact than any of the races besides perhaps the rachni in the galaxy today. Even the asari, who used it to teach their children how to meld, did not tend to meld except in very specific instances and of course during intimacy. The protheans though, they exchanged information with each other in that way almost daily. It was a normal means of communication for them, so normal that even their mechanical means of communication often used an artificial mental connection to deliver messages.

Shepard needed to find a way to meet with Rayna Vallan tomorrow morning, to come up with a reason to visit the commercial spaceport that didn't raise any suspicions. Then she needed to fill the asari in on all the reasons why she thought that Cerberus couldn't be trusted. She needed to explain why she needed the rachni's help to try and figure out the Illusive Man's true motivations behind wanting her to fight the Collectors, and why she was sure the Council and Alliance were being purposefully kept in the dark about what was actually happening. If she could learn how the protheans transferred information mind to mind then her task tomorrow would be so much easier. She didn't dare spend too much time speaking to Rayna, and certainly not the hour or more she would need to explain it verbally. She needed a quicker way of getting the information to the asari and she didn't really think a normal meld would work well. Liara had become tired and fatigued after just looking for the prothean beacon data because a meld with her was so difficult, and Shepard had much more information than that she needed to show Rayna. She needed to show the asari the Cerberus operations she had uncovered and destroyed before her death as well as what had happened since they brought her back to make her suspicious of them.

So now she was hoping that locked in the cipher was the memory of someone who could teach her how the prothean's communicated and how they ordered their thoughts such that they could create coherent messages like those in the beacons. Shepard kicked off her shoes and lay back on the bed staring up at the window above her. As they were docked, it was shuttered, and so not much of a view, but better than letting people look in on her room. She closed her eyes. Before she had just let her mind wander, now she was trying to find a specific type of memory with no clear idea of exactly what it should be like. Only that she needed memories that had something to do with passing memories or information from mind to mind. She turned her mental focus inward, searching...

Really Adlanna should have better control of her thoughts than this; all children were taught how to focus their thoughts from a young age. Adlanna however, seemed to have little control over hers. Odd thoughts kept intruding and Lindariel had no desire to know who the young woman thought was cute or otherwise. This was the drawback of working at one of the more prestigious academies in all of the empire. Some of the students were truly gifted and joys to work with because they truly wished to learn, and others were the children of the rich and powerful, and some of them were...less than enthusiastic learners. Adlanna was one of her more gifted students, but despite having some of the best tutors train her, she still lacked the mental discipline needed for proper mental communications.

"Focus Adlanna," she sternly admonished the young woman, "your thoughts are drifting."

The young woman said sulkily, "Yes Lindariel."

Abruptly breaking the mental connection between them, Lindariel straightened. Such impertinent familiarity was completely unacceptable!

The young woman immediately withered underneath her stern glare, "Pardon, Elder Instructor Lindariel, my apologies to you."

She stared down at the young woman until Adlanna seemed to realize that she had truly stepped beyond the bounds of proper behavior this time. "I accept your apology," she finally allowed, "but your behavior will still be noted in my daily report to the Chief Instructor." She paused for a tiva before adding, "Who will doubtless forward it to your parents."

The young woman's dolthond, or head roots, snapped tight to her neck in shock, doubtless she had thought the apology would be enough. It was not, the young woman had skirted on the edges of showing proper respect to her and the other instructors for the last time as far as she was concerned. The elder was tired of her behavior. Let her family deal with it, no matter that he was the owner of Hayll Nayzle and greatly respected by many, his daughter's behavior, if not corrected soon, would bring great dishonor upon him and his family.

"Now again," Lindariel instructed giving the young woman little time to recover from the news of her punishment, "strengthen your mental barriers, clear your mind and push aside all other thoughts, focus only on the information you want to convey, bring your �r� into harmony with mine, initiate the mental connection and then open the way only to those thoughts you wish to share."

Lindariel opened her eyes, she was lying flat upon a surface and she was not in her classroom any longer. The elder sat up and then quickly rose, looking around the room in alarm, but there didn't seem to be anyone else here. What had happened? How could she have been in her classroom teaching and then suddenly transported here? She straightened her shoulders, she was Elder Instructor Lindariel not some youngster to be frightened by the unknown, she calmed herself by pure force of will and then took a second more careful look around. The surface she had been lying upon appeared to be a resting platform, though not like the ones she was used to and there were living fish swimming in tanks along one wall.

She walked around the resting platform to take a closer look at them wondering if they were there for decoration as they appeared or as a food source. Models of ships enclosed in transparent walls caught her attention next, their design varied wildly from one to the next and none of them looked like ships built by her people. She went up the steps, ah now here was something that looked familiar, Lindariel thought as she saw what was obviously some type of data input device upon the desk to her left. She sat down in the chair and as soon as she did one of the objects on the desk suddenly activated, displaying a picture of an alien. Lindariel reached over and picked it up curiously, what race was this? So strange looking and yet...familiar? Liara, the strange word came to her mind, but how did she know....

Shepard she was Amanda Athene Shepard, and not Lindariel Ealothen, Elder Instructor. Amanda drew in a deep breath and placed the picture of Liara back on her desk. She looked at the open terminal, wondered what Lindariel would have made of it. There was no telling she decided after a moment, but she suspected the prothean woman would have went poking around trying to figure out what was going on regardless of the fact that the language wasn't familiar to her. Elder Instructor Lindariel hadn't lacked in intelligence, determination or courage.

Shepard examined the memories she had just unearthed, interesting she hadn't realized prothean society was so strict and honor based, it almost reminded her of some of Earths Asian cultures. And damn, Elder Instructor Lindariel was one scary woman. Shepard was happy she hadn't had any teachers like that in high school. If she had, the entire class would have probably been quiet and awake in an effort not to attract her attention to any one of them, much less mouthing off to her as that one teenager had foolishly done.

Now she had exactly the information she needed to figure out how to transfer information from mind to mind. Lindariel had taught the very thing she needed to know and there were a lot of memories for her to go through, the prothean had been a teacher for almost three hundred years. Shepard's eyes widened, she doubted anyone realized that the protheans were fairly long lived, though not nearly as long as the asari or krogan. Lindariel's memories indicated that she expected to live until she was around six hundred or so years old.

Shepard also now had an explanation for why the Thorian memories she had found were both teachers. It had lived right below an educational complex with both an academy for the younger students and what would be equivalent to a university for the older ones.

Illium - Liara T'Soni's Office

Talk about screwing your courage to the sticking place, thought Shepard, as she stopped at the bottom of the stairs leading up to Liara's office. It was very early in the day, and few people were even out and about. Those that were looked like they were heading to work. Tali and Garrus were with her once again and she knew they would stay politely outside Liara's office just as they had the last time. Damn it, where was a good firefight when you needed one. She swallowed against the tightness in her throat, well this was it. She started up the stairs, ignored Nyxeris rising up from behind her desk, and entered Liara's office.

Liara looked up from the terminal on her desk as Shepard entered; she didn't look surprised, "Shepard," the asari greeted her, "Thank you for getting me that system data." Liara held out a credit chit which Shepard just stared at with a confused frown, "Here," Liara explained, "It's not much but hopefully it will help you on your mission."

Shepard waved it away, trying not to show her anger; they had gone from lovers to her being paid for her services now? What the hell was this? "The Normandy is doing fine credit wise; we had a lot of excess minerals to sell when we docked here. Miranda was able to get a good price for them, enough for us to purchase everything we wished to buy here and even do some upgrades on the ship with some left over."

Liara's fingers clenched on the credit chit before she laid it back on her desk, "That's good to hear. You always were good at coming up with ways of raising credits when you needed them," she said, her tone terse.

Shepard stared at her, she sighed, "There's no need for payment between us Liara."

Liara drew in a surprised sounding breath, "I didn't mean to imply that there was," she apologized softly, "I wouldn't have been able to set myself up as an information broker if it wasn't for my share of the money from the Normandy fund. I only meant to give something back to you."

"Don't worry about it," Shepard said, "everyone on the ship contributed toward that fund, there isn't any need for you to repay it in any way." Liara stared at her for a moment, then she nodded, swept the credit chit from the desktop and put it away in a drawer. "So the information I got you," Shepard prompted her. It was easier to keep her mind on doing rather than feeling right now.

Liara sat down, "Do you remember the Shadow Broker?" At Shepard's nod she continued, "With the information you obtained for me, I may be able to find information caches from his agents."

Remembering what the Illusive Man had claimed, that Liara was working for the Shadow Broker, Shepard asked, "Are you on the run from the Shadow Broker? I can help you if you are."

Liara smiled, it wasn't a particularly pleasant one. "Actually it would be more accurate to say that the Shadow Broker is on the run from me. We crossed paths not long after you died," Liara explained. "Since then," her tone hardened, "I've been working to take him down." The asari slapped her desk hard enough with one hand to set her monitor shaking. "With this data I'm a step closer."

Shepard had to fight to keep her jaw from dropping in surprise; she didn't think she had ever seen Liara act quite this angry before. "I've never seen you ready to execute someone in cold blood. What did the Shadow Broker do to you?"

Liara stood up, "I was on a job with a friend," she explained. Her hands clenched, "the Shadow Broker's people caught us. My friend didn't escape. I don't know if he's dead or still being interrogated," Liara turned toward the window, "but I need to find him. I owe him my life." She turned back toward Shepard, "And I need to make the Shadow Broker pay for what he did." She slowly settled back into her chair.

Shepard frowned, friend what did that mean, was he just a friend or something more? Had Liara found comfort in the arms of another? She shook her head; she shouldn't assume anything, not yet. "You can't come with me because you're after the Shadow Broker? What if I help you find him," she offered.

"I'm sorry Shepard," Liara stood up again, "the galaxy doesn't work that way, I need to find leads, trace information, I need to work. I can't do that on the Normandy." She sat back down again, "I wish I could."

Shepard bit back the initial angry response she wanted to make; maybe Liara was saying she couldn't work on a Cerberus ship. Shepard could certainly understand that, it didn't make her comfortable knowing that Cerberus was monitoring every piece of communication coming into and out of the ship. She didn't ask though, instead she just said, "Do you need anything else."

Liara looked at her, "Yes actually I do, but first what about you? Do you need anything, any information?"

Well at least that was something. Her hands clenched briefly, she was reduced to being grateful for small scraps of consideration now? "Actually," said Shepard, "I'm looking for two people, an asari Justicar named Samara and an assassin, Thane Krios." Yes, it seemed as if she was, Shepard thought bitterly.

Liara typed in a few commands at her terminal, "Samara, yes, she arrived recently and registered with Tracking Officer Dara. You can find Dara at the transportation hub."

Shepard frowned, "Why would Samara have to register with a tracking officer?"

"She's required to as a Justicar," Liara explained, "As for Thane Krios he arrived here a few days ago; my sources tell me he may be targeting a corporate executive, Nassana Dantius." Shepard frowned that name seemed familiar, and then it clicked, the asari diplomat whose Eclipse mercenary sister she had killed. Shepard had found information on the slaver's body indicating that she was blackmailing Nassana and had confronted the asari diplomat with it later on the Citadel. "He contacted a woman named Seryna. She has an office in the Cargo Transfer levels, perhaps she can tell you where Krios is."

Shepard was impressed, "That was all just off the top of your head?"

Liara smiled, "I'm a very good information broker, Shepard. The world of intrigue isn't that different from a dig site," she explained. Then she added, "Except that the dead bodies still smell," with a hint of disgust.

That brought to mind too many unpleasant memories, the day the batarians had raided Mindor being one of them. Bodies lying on the grass and walkways, torn by bullets or simply beaten to death, congealing and drying blood pooling around them. The summer sun beat unmercifully down on everything, it's harsh light revealing every detail of the brutal wounds on the bodies of the people she had known for all of her life. There was the stench of death hanging in the still, hot air and the sound of the insects buzzing around the bodies and blood. In the distance she could hear shouting and the sound of gunfire. Oddly, despite all these sounds there was a pervading sense of silence immediately around her, one which was broken only by her own footsteps, the sound of her own breathing. Yes, she remembered the smells, and the sounds, and the sights. Shepard determinedly pushed the memories aside. She had come to appreciated most of her renewed and resurrected memories, but sometimes, like now, she truly wished that some memories had been a bit more dimmed by time before they became so perfectly fixed in her mind. "So you mentioned you needed something?" she asked determinedly. She had found that focusing on something else, especially something active, helped her get past these moments.

Liara was looking at her, a concerned expression on her face. Shepard waved it off, "Just a flash of an unpleasant memory," she explained lightly. She had become rather good at distracting people from paying too much attention to her thankfully infrequent flashbacks.

Liara nodded, though she still seemed uncertain, "The data you obtained for me, as I said was extremely helpful, it gave me a target. The Shadow Broker has several contacts here on Illium. The most powerful is someone called the Observer. Taking down the Observer will put me closer to the Shadow Broker."

"Alright, so how did you need me to help?" Shepard asked.

"I don't have the technical skills to reconstruct the data," Liara explained, "and the Shadow Broker only refers to his agents by race and profession. Nyxeris had gathered information that narrows the Observer down to one of five operatives, a turian, a salarian, a krogan, a batarian and a vorcha. If you can refine the list I'll know where to strike."

"Do you have any specifics on these agents?" That was precious little information to work off of.

"I'm afraid not," Liara grimaced, "Nyxeris was lucky to get as much as she did, the data is the our only hope of determining which one is the Observer and if we wait too long," Liara shook her head, "they'll all disappear."

"I'll reconstruct the data and tell you what I find," with Garrus and Tali to help her, this shouldn't take too long. Shepard hoped that with the Observer out of the way, Liara might be able to relax a little and they might be able to have an actual conversation. Now that she was watching for clues to decipher Liara's behavior with her, Shepard could see how tense Liara was, although the asari was doing a decent job of hiding it.

"Thank you Shepard," Liara said, sounding relieved, "When you find something call me on the radio channel we used in the old days. I can't risk handling this in person."

Shepard nodded, "It shouldn't take us long," she promised, she turned and left. She wanted to get this done, and done quickly. She motioned to Garrus and Tali to come closer when she got to the bottom of the stairs and explained what needed to be done. With all three of them working on the problem, it didn't take them long to find the information caches Liara had spoken of, the only issue was that none of the five suspects fit the data that they had found.

Frowning at the suspicion that was forming in her mind, Shepard called Liara, "Shepard, did you get any information on the Observer?"

"All five of the suspects are male, the Observer is female. Something's not right; you said Nyxeris gave you this lead?" Shepard asked.

"Yes, my assistant Nyxeris got me the information...Nyxeris gave me the information," she could hear from the hardening of Liara's tone that the asari had made the same connection as she had, Nyxeris was the Observer. "Nyxeris, could I see you in here for a moment?" she heard Liara say.

"Liara we're only five or so minutes away," Shepard said urgently, "wait for us to back you up." Instead of a response she only heard static as the connection was disconnected at the other end. Shepard stared at her omni-tool in angry disbelief; she couldn't believe Liara had just done that. "Garrus, Tali back to Liara's office," she growled, "She's confronting Nyxeris right now."

Nyxeris wasn't at her desk when they passed by and burst into Liara's office, weapons drawn, but pointed down. In the middle of the room, Liara stood over Nyxeris' obviously dead body. She tensed as they entered and her biotics flared for a moment before subsiding almost as quickly upon realizing it was them.

"What's wrong with you?" Shepard growled at her, "Why didn't you wait for us to back you up?"

Liara's blue eyes narrowed at her tone, "I knew I could handle her," she defended herself angrily.

"That's a dangerous assumption to make," Shepard rebutted sharply, "especially when you have a safer alternative available. Dying cured me of any foolish notion I had that I couldn't be defeated," she snarled and would have added something more about not wanting Liara to learn the same lesson except that Liara interrupted her.

"And I lost any foolish notion I had that I could be anything like you when I barely escaped from the Shadow Broker alive and had to leave Feron behind," Liara snarled right back.

The two of them stared at one another, anger dying as quickly as it had risen as they realized what each other had just admitted.

"Umm..." the silence was broken by Tali, "Maybe we should wait outside," the quarian said, sounding very uncomfortable.

"Shepard?" Garrus questioned.

"Just a second," Shepard said to him, looking down at the body of Nyxeris with a frown, "What about her?" she asked Liara. Should they contact the police? This wasn't exactly a clear cut case of self-defense.

"There's a narrow corridor behind my office," Liara said, "I know of someone who will see to it that her body just disappears." Shepard frowned, that sounded like a very shady character for Liara to know, though she could certainly see how it might be useful in certain circumstances like this one. "We aren't all Spectres' Shepard," Liara said, interrupting Shepard's thoughts, "Some of us can't just leave the dead bodies of our enemies lying around for anyone to find," her tone was harsh, defensive.

Eyes narrowed, Shepard replied, "Fine," she bent down, grabbed the woman's shoulders, lifted, "Garrus get the legs please." When they had lifted the body, she looked over toward Liara, "Well?" She wasn't happy about any of this, and saw no reason to pretend that she was. However, she wasn't going to risk Liara's safety or chance the local police being less than understanding over some dead Shadow Broker agent who would have would have killed Liara without a second thought if ordered to do so. The data they had recovered certainly indicated that the Shadow Broker agent had no problems in the past with ordering and recommending that people be killed.

"I'll show you," Liara said quietly and walked out of the office and then pressed a small recessed area in the wall. A barely discernible door slid open, revealing a dusty looking corridor that looked like a service access-way. She and Garrus laid down Nyxeris' body there and left it.

"We need to talk," Shepard said to Liara once they were standing outside the asari's office again. She wasn't angry anymore, only sad as it firmly sunk in that the sweet shy archeologist that she remembered had grown and changed into the much harder asari in front of her now. Liara had told her that the past two years had been difficult for her; she was beginning to understand exactly what those years had done to Liara.

Liara nodded, "Yes, I guess we do," she agreed quietly and walked back into her office. The door shut behind her, leaving Shepard, Garrus and Tali outside for the moment.

"We'll just stay out here Shepard, make sure no one interrupts you two," Garrus assured her quietly

"Thanks," she said to both of them before she followed Liara into her office. The asari was sitting down at her desk; Shepard took the chair on the opposite side. They stared at each other for several seconds, neither one speaking. Shepard sighed, and broke the silence, "So, what's your next move now that you've found your Observer."

Liara seemed surprised at the question, but answered quickly, looking relieved, "Now I gather information, peel away layers of lies and shine light into the shadows." She drew in a breath, her eyes narrowing, "And when I find the Shadow Broker," her voice hardened, "I hit him with a biotic field so strong that what's left of his body will fit into a coffee cup."

This was rather pure anger, what in the hell had the Shadow Broker done to Liara to make her so bound and determined to kill him? Had she been right and this Feron Liara had mentioned earlier had been her lover? "That anger can't be just from what you've told me. What else happened between you and the Shadow Broker?"

Liara's eyes flitted away from hers, the asari got up suddenly, turned to look out the window. She drew in an audible breath, "Did Cerberus ever tell you how they recovered your body?"

Shepard stared at Liara's stiff back "They said the Collectors had offered a reward for it, enough to have every merc group combing the Terminus Systems. The Blue Suns were the ones that found me. Cerberus managed to acquire me before I was handed over to the Collectors."

"All true, only who ever told you left a few things out," Liara said. "The Collectors made the deal through the Shadow Broker. I was the one who took your body from the Shadow Brokers base..." she bowed her head, "and then I gave you to Cerberus because they said they could rebuild you." She turned back around, slipped into her chair, never quite meeting Shepard's gaze.

Liara...it had been Liara who gave her body to Cerberus knowing how much she hated them? "Why didn't you tell me about this before now?" she managed to ask.

"Because I screwed it up Shepard," Liara admitted, "I barely escaped with my own life. And when I gave you to Cerberus, I told myself I was doing it for you," she said softly, her voice full of pain, "For a chance to bring you back." Liara paused for a moment and closed her eyes, "But I knew Cerberus would use you for their own business." For a brief moment, she met Shepard's gaze again before bowing her head and confessing, "And I let it happen...because I couldn't let you go. I'm sorry."

Shepard looked at Liara, saw the pain and sorrow in the downcast blue eyes. She couldn't hurt Liara, no matter how conflicted her own emotions were over Cerberus bringing her back to life. "It's alright," Amanda said softly, "you did the right thing, my mission is important." The Reapers, only she was in a position to do something, to find out why they were directing the Collectors to abduct colonists and to stop them. "I wouldn't be here to do it if you hadn't given me to Cerberus."

Liara stared at her searchingly, as if wondering if she were telling the truth. Shepard pushed down her conflicted feelings, gazed back trying to convey her reassurance. It must have worked, "Thank you," Liara said, she paused, "I was...afraid you'd hate me."

"Never Liara," Shepard vowed, leaning forward, "I..."

Before she could say anything else, Liara hurriedly interrupted her, "So, that's why I must destroy the Shadow Broker, for what he did to my friend, and to you and whatever he's doing with the Collectors."

The interruption was jarring, it had to have been clear what she had been about to say. It was obvious that Liara hadn't wanted to hear it. She firmed her jaw, "Liara when I last saw you we were lovers, what are we now?" Shepard forced herself to just ask the question, to get it over with whichever way it went.

Liara lurched up from her chair, "I had hoped you would not ask me this," she said, her voice strained.

"I need to know," Shepard bowed her head briefly before raising it to gaze into Liara's eyes, "I deserve to know."

Liara stared at her, blue eyes pained and nodded, "I hoped that Cerberus could do as they promised, but the months passed and being without you hurt so much," she whispered. "I couldn't take the long view, I couldn't just cherish the short time we had together, I wanted...needed more." Shepard clenched her hands in her lap, fought the urge to go to Liara, to hold her and sooth away the raw pain she was seeing. Liara drew in a harsh sounding breath, "Eventually as the months passed I stopped hoping, and sometime after that I stopped hurting every moment of every day." The asari bowed her head for a moment before lifting it and continuing, "I managed to build up my business, focus on finding the Shadow Broker." She looked over at Shepard, "And now after two years here you are, and you're going after the Collectors and if you survive that mission the Reapers." Her face contorted with pain, "I can't Amanda, please understand, I just can't do it again." Tears welled, "If I let myself...and you died...I can't, not again. Not when it's stopped hurting so much and I was finally... Please, just don't," the last was a broken whisper.

Amanda held out her hand, wished so badly she could go to Liara, hold her and promise her that she wouldn't die again. But they both knew that would be an empty promise. "I'm sorry, Liara I never meant..." what could she say; she never meant to break Liara's heart? But yet she had, the proof of it was right before her. "I'm sorry," Amanda repeated and then turned on her heel and left, she didn't say a word to Garrus and Tali as she went by them.

She didn't quite know where she was going right now; she needed a quiet place to get herself together. She bit back a choked sob, as always, there were things she had to do that couldn't be put off for another day, there wasn't enough time for her to break down right now. She maybe could spare an hour to deal with this so that she could get it together enough to meet with Rayna and then find either Samara or Thane. Damn it, how could she have thought she could still be a lover to Liara when she didn't even have enough time to mourn the loss of their relationship or give any comfort to herself?

Continued...