Who Saves the Hero by Kudara

Chapter 16

Normandy - Captain's Quarters

Samara was settled into the port side Observation room on deck three, the justicar having stated a preference for looking out into space. Or the great empty void, as Samara had termed it. They were docked, nothing required the Commander's attention before tomorrow, and Miranda was certainly capable of making sure the crewmembers enjoying a night out in Nos Astra returned to the ship safely. Shepard finally had a chance to go to her quarters, remove and clean her armor. Now and only now, did Shepard feel as if she were finally free to take some much needed time for herself.

Amanda stripped, went into the bathroom, shut the door behind her and started the shower. Garrus and Tali had both swept her quarters for electronics, but she knew EDI regularly monitored the state of the crew as part of the AI's duties. It wasn't meant to be intrusive, even though it of course was, but for the crews safety. In case someone was hurt, the AI would be aware of it and could alert Dr. Chakwas or the nearest crewmember. This though, Shepard didn't want anyone to know about, and she definitely didn't want any questions from EDI tonight asking if she needed help. Or worse, the AI deciding to inform Yeoman Chambers that Shepard needed a visit from the ships psychologist because the Commander was crying in her quarters.

She stepped underneath the stream of warm water and began to soap up, letting the familiar actions of bathing and washing her hair soothe her. When she was done, she rinsed off. Given the situation, it wasn't a surprise that the warm shower hadn't relaxed her all that much. It was time to deal with what had happened this morning. Taking in a deep breath Amanda let fall the walls she had kept between her and her emotions for most of the day. Pain, loss, sorrow, she went to her knees, her legs suddenly weak at the force of her grief. She fought to keep from making a sound, though all she wanted to do was crawl in the corner and sob without regard for who or what might overhear her.

Liara oh Liara, oh my love, I never meant to hurt you. Amanda wrapped her arms around herself, huddled against the corner of the shower and let the warm water run over her, mingling with and washing away her tears as they formed. They would not be together, not experience whatever the future brought to them side by side, supporting and protecting one another. Never again would she feel Liara's distinctive touch in her mind, never again would she touch the asari's body and bring her to sweet pleasure. Nor would they experience the more mundane pleasures of life like simply sitting and talking, eating together, or just sleeping curled up with one another. It was bitter and hard, and Amanda knew that the aching emptiness in her life that she had lived with ever since she woke up... she would just have to continue living with it, because Liara would not be there to fill the void.

Sometime later her tears slowed and then stopped. Feeling wrung out and exhausted from her emotions, Amanda rose slowly to her feet. She turned off the shower and reached for the towel hanging on a rod nearby. Methodically she began drying herself; she glanced over at the small information display for the time. It had only been twenty five or so minutes since she had stepped into the shower. Amanda was surprised; it certainly felt as if she had been in there for longer than that. But she guessed not, apparently it hadn't been that long at all.

She dried her hair and then stepped up to the mirror checking her appearance. When she caught herself checking out her eyes for any tell tale orange glow, Amanda shook her head at herself. Her implants were doing fine; it had been weeks since everything had healed up and her remaining biological systems and cybernetic implants fully integrated. She knew why she had looked though. It had taken Miranda and her team almost two full years to rebuild her and Liara had probably known how bad a shape her body had been in when the asari gave it to Cerberus. Amanda bowed her head, no wonder Liara had lost hope and moved on thinking that Cerberus had failed, that it had been an impossible task. She turned away from the mirror, hung up the now damp towel and exited the small bathroom. Going down stairs and to the small closet inset into the wall, Amanda began dressing.

What would Lindariel have done if her love had unexpectedly come back? Even after several years? The thought popped up unexpectedly in her mind. Amanda knew the answer; the prothean woman would have welcomed him back with overwhelming joy, and rejoiced that he was with her again. She felt a flicker of resentment towards Liara, that she hadn't been able to do that. Of course Lindariel's mate hadn't had a dangerous profession, there wouldn't have been any reason for the Elder Instructor to fear that he might be dead again in a few months time. Leaving her alone...again.

Amanda sighed and bowed her head, no matter what it always came down to that, trying to save the galaxy was not a safe occupation. But what else could she do? The Reapers had to be stopped. If they weren't, then no one would have a safe or long life, not her, not Liara, not anyone. She turned, made her way up the stairs and to her desk. She picked up the picture frame as it activated, Liara. Amanda trailed her fingers over the picture of the asari. She had to let Liara go, let the asari live her own life while hoping that she didn't get lost in her quest to find the Shadow Broker. The anger she had seen worried her but...she couldn't do anything about it now, not when simply being together hurt both of them so much. Maybe later, maybe when everything wasn't so raw between them they could talk about it again. Amanda opened a drawer, gently placed the picture frame face down inside, and then closed it. She didn't need the constant reminder of what she had lost in plain sight every time she walked by this way or used her desk.

She smiled bitterly at her acceptance of the situation. She knew why this felt the way it did, and why this morning had just been the confirmation that their relationship was over. This morning had simply given her the answer to the question of why it was over. She had known something was wrong from her first meeting with Liara, but in truth it had begun well before that. Amanda knew she had in many ways already been mourning the end of their relationship well before even having arrived on Illium. It had been as if she had somehow known, despite how much she had hoped she was wrong, that things weren't going to work out well for them.

Normandy - Port side Observation Room

Samara had stated nothing more than the truth when she said that she needed to meditate on the day's events. When the day had begun, the justicar had thought there would be nothing more important in her life than tracking down Mirala and permanently stopping the Ardat-Yakshi from adding any more bodies to the trail of dead the asari left behind her. She had thought that the current state of galactic affairs would more or less continue on as they had been, and certainly had no reason to fear that her entire race as well as every other advanced race was in danger of extinction. Now, in the space of a few hours, all of that had changed.

When Samara found out she would have to leave asari space to follow Mirala's trail, she had immediately begun to prepare for it, all too aware that things had changed since she had last traveled outside of asari space over four hundred years ago. Thus she had researched the current state of galactic affairs and investigated the most recent newcomers to Citadel space, humanity. As a race Samara had found them fascinating. Certainly she understood why the other Citadel races were taken aback and wary of them. Given what the race had accomplished in such a short period of time, it was clear that what was commonly said about them was most likely true. That as a race they were very intelligent, abnormally ambitious, highly adaptable, relentlessly curious, and had a powerful desire to prove and advance themselves. They were the most individualistic of all the known races, which made them unpredictable as a species, and their history showed that they could be very aggressive. Little wonder that the Council races, which had been used to a fairly static status quo for over a thousand years, had been thrown into turmoil when the human's conflict with the turian's had thrust humanity into the galactic scene.

Samara had known from the first moment her eyes met the human's gray ones that the female she was facing was a formidable warrior. You did not survive as a justicar for as long as she had without being able to take a person's measure at a glance. And then Shepard had introduced herself, the first human accepted by the Council to be a Spectre, the Savior of the Citadel. Among a race noted for their individuality, their drive and ambition, Shepard had stood out above the rest of her race enough that the Council had taken notice of her.

She had read about Shepard while researching humans, knew some of the human's past. Samara knew that Shepard was an officer in the Alliance Military and a graduate of their Special Forces program. That as a young officer she had successfully led the ground teams on Elysium and held off a large force of mercenaries and pirates until the Alliance Navy arrived to drive the attacking force away and had received the Star of Terra, the human militaries highest award, for her actions. Then, two years ago, Shepard had been inducted by the Council as the first human Spectre. She had stopped the rogue Spectre Saren in his attempt to lead a geth attack on the Citadel itself, and the Spectre's orders to the Alliance's Fifth Fleet during the attack had been the sole reason the Destiny's Ascension, the Citadel fleet's flagship, and the Council had survived the attack.

The revelation of Shepard's identity was certainly enough to raise Samara's interest in the human by itself, and then the Spectre had requested her assistance for a mission against the Collectors. The justicar knew more than most about the enigmatic race, for one thing she knew they were real and not myths. When she was a maiden, she, along with several slaves that had been intended for trade with them, had narrowly escaped capture by them. Only the fact that Samara had managed to pilot the ship she was on through the nearest mass relay and to safety moments before the Collector ship arrived had spared them. The justicar had no idea what the Collectors might want with over a million live humans, but she suspected their intentions were not benign. No one actually knew what the Collectors did with those they collected because none of their captives had ever escaped.

Samara wasn't free to accept the Spectre's offer though, no matter how intriguing it sounded. The Code obligated her to continue following Mirala. Then Detective Anaya had arrived with orders to detain her. Shepard had quickly stepped in, seeking a way to avoid a confrontation between the justicar and the Illium police. Samara had immediately seen a way; if she joined the Spectre's mission the detective would release her. The detective had already stated that she wouldn't be able to release the justicar from detention before the twenty four hours of cooperation permitted by the Code were completed. That meant that she would have to fight her way free and the justicar knew that no matter how hard she tried, innocents were likely to be killed during her attempt. Also, there was a chance that, knowing when she would be compelled by the Code to seek her freedom in order to resume her investigation, the officers might kill her, thus allowing Mirala to continue her killing unhindered by Samara's pursuit. The Code demanded that she protect the innocent over punishing the unjust, if she saw a way out of this situation she was honor bound to take it.

She had made her offer to Shepard, if the human would find the name of the ship Mirala, or Morinth as she was going by now, had left on then she would join the human's mission. Given what she knew about the Spectre's past, Samara had expected Shepard to succeed. Samara hadn't, however, expected to see the human less than an hour later or with a young Eclipse mercenary as her prisoner. The Justicar was immediately aware of what that implied about the Spectre's actions during the past hour. Her investigation into the mercenary group indicated that the local Eclipse sisterhood under Captain Wasea numbered around forty or so members. Samara strongly suspected that all of them, except for the young Eclipse sister who was the human's prisoner, were now dead. Shepard and her two companions were efficient and deadly, it made the Spectre's concerns about the one Eclipse Lieutenant Samara had killed and the strict nature of the Justicar Code all the more intriguing to the justicar.

As Samara had listened to the human Spectre talk to the detective, the justicar learned that Shepard had went far beyond what the asari had asked of her, and had acted on her own volition to aid the local police in solving several of their cases. In addition to the name of the ship, the human had obtained the evidence necessary to bring Pitne For to justice for illegal smuggling, and for his involvement in the deaths of three Eclipse mercenaries. Shepard had also brought in the murderer of his partner, the human's prisoner, Elnora, the young Eclipse mercenary. The Spectre's companions had also obtained evidence detailing the Eclipse activities on Illium and handed it over to the detective. Samara had been pleased to vouch for the authenticity of the Spectre's evidence and ensure that neither the volus nor Elnora escaped justice.

Samara had not been exaggerating when she told Shepard that the human's actions had impressed her. Spectre's were usually notable for the fact that they were only accountable to the Council and were not required to obey the law if it interfered with their mission, and yet this human seemed to hold the law in high regard. Samara had only come across one other Spectre, whom she promptly began to pursue for his killing of an innocent civilian. Council business or not, his action had clearly been unjust according to the Code. Even though Samara barely knew Shepard, she did not believe the human Spectre would take the same action in the same circumstances. From Shepard's actions today, the justicar would guess that the human Spectre would capture her target and either take them in herself or turn them over to the local authorities to stand trial for their actions instead of executing them in the field.

Then they had traveled to the Nos Astra Temple of Athame, and Shepard had informed her that there was more that she needed to know about their mission. Samara had been resistant at first; the Code often compelled her to harsh action. Sometimes knowing too much about those she might be forced to kill later only made fulfilling her duty more difficult. And experience had taught the justicar to form her own opinions instead of trusting other's interpretations of events and people. Despite her resistance Shepard had persisted, and the human's manner quickly made it clear that listening to what the Spectre had to say was not actually negotiable despite the fact that it had been phased as a request.

Garrus Vakarian and Tali'Zorah vas Neema were fiercely protective of Shepard that much had been evident to her within the first five minutes of her conversation with them. They had quietly informed her of the reason that Shepard needed to meditate before melding with her. This morning, prior to her meeting with them, the relationship Shepard had been in with an asari maiden had officially ended. That had been the cause of the hint of grief in Shepard's aura Samara had noticed during their first meeting.

Tali'Zorah in particular seemed to think that the asari in question was being foolish and that Shepard would not remain single for long once she got over her current grief. There was mention of another asari already having approached the Commander with her interest in the human that Shepard had gently turned down just yesterday. Garrus mentioned some human male, Jacob, who was a member of the crew, being interested in the Commander, but then Tali had made a scoffing comment about him waiting a long time for Shepard to be attracted to any male. The turian had laughed and nodded, agreeing with her that this Jacob had absolutely no chance with the Commander. From their comments Samara gathered that Shepard had no interest in the opposite sex. She knew that while the majority of humans were interested in the opposite sex, there were also a significant number of them that were only attracted only to the same sex.

Then the conversation took on a decidedly more serious tone as they told her that there was a lot more at stake than just the actions of the Collectors. Their manner when they spoke of it made it clear that they considered the fate of the colonists, while grave, to not be as great a concern as what the Spectre wished to discuss with her now that they were away from any witnesses or listening devices. Shepard had mentioned that a greater threat might be behind the Collectors actions, and it was evident to Samara that this greater threat was what the Spectre wished to discuss here. What could overshadow the fate of over a million people? The thought was troubling to the justicar, and she pressed them for more details but the turian and quarian insisted it was Shepard's place to tell her any more.

Or rather reveal more to her within a special type of meld, apparently this would not be a very vocal discussion. If it hadn't been for the fact that the turian looked so completely serious Samara might have thought she was being joked with, after all she had already noted that both Shepard and Garrus seemed fond of witticisms and humor. A human, controlling the nature of a meld, it sounded impossible, but then Tali cagily informed her that Shepard had learned how during their search for Saren. Both of them had then refused to say anything more, telling her that it was the Commander's decision whether or not to tell her the details and giving the clear impression that Shepard would be extremely mad at them if they said anything more. In fact, they gave the clear impression that Shepard had previously reprimanded them for discussing whatever it was they weren't telling her.

Fortunately for both of them, Shepard had reappeared before their halfway revealing to her what was going on and then refusing to discuss the rest had become more than just mildly annoying. She and the Spectre had returned to the room where Shepard had recently been meditating. After a moment of tension following Shepard finding out that the three of them had discussed the Spectre's personal life, which, to Samara's own surprise, she had been able to diffuse rather easily, they had moved onto the reason for their presence at the temple. Shepard had sketched out her suspicions of Cerberus that they were supporting the mission against the Collectors for reasons other than altruism. Then quickly moved on to what Shepard had described as their actual primary mission, finding out if the Reapers were behind the Collector's actions.

Samara had never heard of such a race. Given the way Shepard was talking about them, mentioning dark space and an awaiting fleet, it certainly seemed as if she should have heard about such a threat. At that point the justicar had felt it was necessary to remind Shepard that they had discussed none of this before she gave her oath to the Spectre. The human had stared back at her with solemn light grey eyes and agreed that she would hold Samara only to the terms of her oath, assistance with defeating the Collectors, but that she hoped that the justicar would willingly extend it once the asari knew everything. The human had looked so serious and grim as she spoke...it had been awhile since anything had given Samara a chill feeling, but the Spectre's manner had at that point.

After that discussion, Samara had melded with Shepard using a prothean melding technique, which was the special type of meld Garrus and Tali had discussed so vaguely outside. Shepard didn't go into too much detail about how she had learned the technique, at least not yet, stating that the details were classified at the highest possible level, Council level classification.

Even though Shepard had told her to expect a mental barrier the actual presence of it blocking her way into the human's mind had surprised the asari. When Samara noticed the pull she had been told to watch for she went along with it, letting it pull her inside the human's mind and into Shepard's memory of her conversation with Sovereign on the planet Virmire. The giant warship that had led the geth attack on the Citadel was actually a member of a race of sentient machines that every 50,000 years wiped out all advanced organic life from the galaxy. They were the actual builders of the mass relays and the Citadel, structures that they left behind to ensure that organic life found them and then developed along the paths they wanted them to develop before harvesting and exterminating them. The justicar had also seen pieces of the prothean beacon message, horrific, nightmarish images of an entire galaxy spanning civilization utterly destroyed planet by planet. Samara now knew why those images haunted Shepard's dreams, and why the Spectre was so determined that it not be allowed to happen again.

When she had asked why she had not heard of the Reapers, Shepard had responded that the Council had decided they had insufficient evidence to believe the Reapers existed. The Council thought that Sovereign had merely been an advanced geth warship, and Shepard had been deceived by Saren. Shepard acknowledged that if the hologram were the only evidence the Spectre had that she might believe she had been deceived as well, except that one conversation with Sovereign's hologram was not the only reason the Spectre believed the Reapers were a very real threat. Shepard had also spoken to a prothean VI program on Ilos, and then to Saren on the Citadel during the attack.

The Spectre had mentioned the term indoctrination; Sovereign emitted an energy field that that allowed it to control the minds of those exposed to it. Saren, Matriarch Benezia and the disciples that had followed her had all succumbed to it and become controlled by the Reaper. At the time they were speaking of, Samara had known that Benezia was wanted for treason against the Council. All justicars had been informed of the charges, and then a few months later they had been informed of her death and then nothing else was ever officially stated about it. Now she knew why and she also knew who had killed the matriarch, Shepard, who obviously still had very conflicted feelings about it. The Spectre had talked about Benezia's good intentions, that the matriarch had joined Saren in order to persuade him to turn away from his destructive path. Only Lady Benezia had found herself facing a much different foe than the one she had thought she was facing, not Saren, but the Reaper, Sovereign.

For the first time since it had happened, Samara actually felt the impulse to freely share with someone what had happened on the asari colony world where Mirala had twisted the minds of an entire village into worshiping her. Only the children of the village had escaped the Ardat-Yakshi's control. From the way Shepard acted while speaking of Lady Benezia, Samara thought that Shepard would understand everything, the necessity of killing the controlled asari who had attacked her, her feelings of regret and sorrow at their deaths, and her anger at Mirala for what she had done to them.

Then Shepard had spoken to her in the prothean language and the human's aura had changed at the same time, something Samara would have stated was impossible before witnessing it herself. Through a second meld with Shepard she had learned about the Thorian, a sentient plant that had lived on Feros before Shepard had killed it because it had attacked her and would not give up the colonists it had enthralled. The plant had been very old, even older than the colonization of Feros by the Protheans. When the Protheans had come, the Thorian had studied them, and when they died it had consumed them and in doing so absorbed a portion of their memories. Saren had traded one of Benezia's disciples for this information, a prothean Cipher. When Shepard killed the Thorian that disciple had been released both from its control and Sovereign's. Shiala had transferred the Cipher to Shepard's mind as the asari had to Saren's, giving the human an understanding of the Protheans so that Shepard could interpret the beacon's message as something besides confusing, disconnected images.

From the memory of the Thorian, and the Spectre's discussion with Shiala, Shepard had transitioned immediately into her memory of meeting the prothean VI on Ilos. From that memory Samara had learned that the Citadel was actually an inactive mass relay connecting to dark space and where the rest of the Reaper fleet awaited. The only thing which had spared them from suffering the same fate as the Protheans already was the fact that the few prothean scientists that had survived the century's long cryogenic sleep on Ilos had used the mass relay they had built to travel from Ilos to the Citadel. Once there, they had reprogrammed the Keepers to respond only to the Citadel's control signals. Thus when Sovereign sent the Keepers the signal to activate the Citadel relay and begin the invasion nothing happened because the Keepers had ignored it. The Conduit that Saren had been searching for was the mass relay the Protheans had built on Ilos, which linked directly to the Citadel and what was thought to be merely a piece of artwork on the Presidium.

Shepard had taken the data file Vigil prepared for her to use to take temporary control of the Citadel, and was ready to leave in pursuit of Saren, when the young asari maiden accompanying Shepard, who was Matriarch Benezia's daughter Liara T'Soni, begged that they stay a little longer. Liara had wanted to ask Vigil more questions about the Prothean civilization. That was when Samara had realized from Shepard's remembered emotions towards the asari maiden that the two of them had, at the time of this memory, recently joined together. The love and exasperated affection Samara felt from Shepard towards Liara T'Soni was unmistakable. Then Shepard's mental barrier had faltered and a storm of disjointed memories swept in. Emotion so sharp and pain filled, love, regret, sorrow, memories of Shepard dying, memories of Liara T'Soni crying, telling Shepard that she couldn't fall in love with the Spectre again and then lose her a second time.

Suddenly, in an abrupt and disorienting shift of perspective and basic cultural perceptions, Shepard had begun speaking in Prothean once again. Only this time, since she was in a meld with Shepard, Samara had understood the words and had seen the prothean woman the Spectre was remembering. Samara couldn't help but be fascinated by what she was witnessing; she was experiencing the memories of a woman from a race that hadn't existed for over 50,000 years. She had been quickly shaken out of her fascination however, by Shepard's extreme embarrassment and shame at subjecting Samara to her uncontrolled feelings and thoughts and then Shepard's confusion upon realizing that she was still thinking like a Prothean. The justicar had paused long enough to reassure Shepard that she was not offended by the human's loss of control before slipping out of the meld.

Between knowing what Shiala had said about the Cipher from Shepard's memories of Feros and from what she had just experienced, Samara now had a much clearer idea of what Shepard had received with the Cipher, fragmented memories from thousands of protheans, which formed the prothean cultural imprint, and relatively complete memories of a few individual protheans. The fact that Shepard was only beginning to have trouble with the Cipher was a testament to how strong a mind and sense of self the human possessed. Samara could only think of one thing that might help the human cope with the prothean memories she had been given, and the justicar didn't hesitate to offer to teach Shepard the meditative techniques every asari learned before they became an adult to help them cope with the memories they acquired from their partners during a joining.

Samara had commented that merely having access to the memories from the Cipher would change Shepard. It was strange sharing a piece of commonly held asari wisdom with a human, but from what the asari had just seen Shepard was already making full use of whatever mental techniques and bits of wisdom she gleaned from Elder Instructor Lindariel's memories. And Samara had felt a subtle difference in Shepard's memories and the woman now before her, the earlier one simply felt younger. Perhaps it was just the experiences Shepard had gone through since then which had matured her and not her access to the prothean memories, but the asari was sure that the memories would affect Shepard in various subtle ways as the human kept accessing them. When she was a maiden Samara had learned quite a lot from the various joinings she had engaged in with others, whether with other asari or other aliens.

At that point Samara had certainly realized who the mysterious asari maiden was who had ended her relationship with Shepard that morning. And after witnessing the barrier the human had rebuilt, Samara realized that Shepard hadn't dealt with the emotions from what had happened earlier at all, she had just sealed them away. Samara had no desire to re-experience either Shepard's memories of dying, or her last meeting with Liara T'Soni if the human's mental barrier faltered again. Plus Samara was getting the impression that Shepard thought that she would not believe the Spectre unless the human shared her actual memories. It didn't take a lot of reflection to realize that the Council's continuing disbelief of Shepard's word was behind this. The justicar couldn't imagine what it felt like to the Spectre to have fought so hard to stop Saren from unleashing the Reapers upon the Galaxy and to protect the Council, and then have the very people she was protecting to turn around and tell her they didn't believe her. Not without solid, inconvertible proof that what Shepard was telling them was real. No wonder Shepard had looked at her so gratefully when Samara had vouched for the evidence the Spectre had found to the detective. As a justicar Samara was used to her word being implicitly believed, from what she had observed so far Shepard had become used to exactly the opposite.

Suddenly this form of melding began to take on troubling aspects to the justicar. Yes, it was a quicker way to get information than telling it, and there wasn't the danger of being overheard and thus particularly suited to clandestine activities, but there were reasons why information obtained though a meld wasn't admissible evidence in the asari legal system. It wasn't legal because the asari did not want such evidence to become the only evidence that would be accepted. A meld was always intrusive to a person's privacy; the person sharing memories not only shared the actual events of what had happened but their own emotions and thoughts about what they were witnessing. Thus to prevent the information obtained though a meld from becoming the only way an asari could prove their innocence, and thus essentially being forced upon anyone accused of a crime in order to clear their name, any information obtained through a meld was invalid as evidence and had been for many millennium.

"You do not need to share any more memories for me to believe you Shepard," she had told Shepard, "simply telling me will be enough." When Shepard lowered her eyes and looked troubled Samara had gone with the easiest explanation, "I do not wish to intrude on your grief again." The Spectre had grimaced at that comment, as if the fact that she was hurting was something to be ashamed about.

Samara had not seen much, but she had seen enough to tell that Liara T'Soni had ended the relationship not because she did not love Shepard, but perhaps because she had loved Shepard too well and too intensely. And Shepard certainly still loved and cared for the young asari maiden. The justicar had no idea how the two of them had become separated, or why Liara had thought Shepard had been dead, but it was clear that the young asari had believed that and believed it for an extended period of time.

So much guilt, sorrow and pain between the two of them, and Liara T'Soni was so very young, barely an adult, just at the beginning of her maidenhood with centuries of learning about and experiencing the galaxy ahead of her. To have found someone she wanted to become bondmates with at such a young age and then to lose them... Samara herself had lost her own bondmate through circumstances that had driven them apart after nearly a century together, each with a full burden of guilt and grief. "You should not feel any shame at mourning your loss, Shepard. You still care for her quite deeply," she said to the Spectre.

Shepard's reaction, the flash of pain across her face, the sudden inhalation of breath, betrayed how close to the surface the human's pain was, mental barriers notwithstanding. The human nodded, "You're probably right," she agreed. Shepard's tale, even as bare of detail as it was, made it clear that it had been quite a battle to make it to the Council chambers at the top of the tower. There Shepard had managed to talk Saren into believing that there was still a chance for the galaxy, that despite what he had seen in the beacon message it didn't have to end that way this time. Controlled by the cybernetics Sovereign had implanted in him since his last meeting with Shepard on Virmire and where she had planted the first doubts in his mind that cooperating with Sovereign was the right path, the turian had done the only thing he could still do to help Shepard, take his own life.

The Spectre had then used Vigil's data file to take control of the station and open the surrounding mass relays, commanding the human fleet to jump in and destroy the geth fleet outside the Citadel, clearing the way for the Ascension to escape with the Council. Shepard had then opened the stations arms so that the human fleet could attack Sovereign, and ordered Tali and Liara to make sure Saren was actually dead. Sovereign had then activated Saren's implants and taken control of the turian's dead body, using it to attack the trio. Shepard's description had sounded rather gruesome, fighting a reanimated corpse whose flesh had been burned away, leaving only a skeleton and implants. Shepard and her two companions had destroyed it, and the human fleet had destroyed Sovereign, preventing it from activating the Citadel relay and opening the way for the Reaper fleet. The thought of how close the Reaper had come to succeeding was a chilling one to Samara.

Samara had been uncertain about the Reaper hologram, it was after all possible after all that Saren had created it as the Council had suggested. The prothean VI, however, that was impossible to ignore. Saren hadn't even known about its existence. No, in this case the simplest explanation was also the likeliest, the Reapers were real. It was not a pleasant truth to accept, that there was a race of powerful sentient machines that apparently existed only to exterminate all advanced organic life every 50,000 or so years. Never would Samara have expected that her way of avoiding a confrontation with the Ilium police would lead to this, finding out about a threat to her entire race as well as every other space faring sentient race in the galaxy. The extent of the danger imperiling them was almost overwhelming.

Samara's concentration broke, she let the biotic energy she had been controlling fade away as she opened her eyes and looked out the observation window before her. This side of the ship faced out over the city instead of the docking platform. It was night, and the view of Nos Astra was actually quite beautiful with the tall buildings lit up against the darkness and the lights of the air cars forming long streams of movement through the city. The thought of its skies being darkened by Reaper ships, its varied citizens, whether asari, turian, salarian or human or any of the other various races that called Illium home, running terrified before mechanical hordes trying to escape their deaths...

Samara decried the soulless corporate existence so many of Illium's citizens embraced, but to think of every single being who lived here being killed, all these buildings being razed to the ground, all of their accomplishments, no matter what value she might place on them, being erased as if they had never existed. Samara's eyes narrowed, her entire being rebelled against the very idea of such a thing happening here or on any world. Shepard was right; the Reapers were an evil which had to be opposed and defeated.

The justicar turned her thoughts to what had happened earlier once again. When Shepard had asked her if she believed what the Spectre had told her, Samara had replied that she did, and then Shepard had thanked her. After sharing so much of herself, her memories and her emotions and reactions at the time of them and the human had thanked Samara for believing that the Spectre was telling her the truth. Samara frowned, that was disturbing, it didn't seem as if Shepard questioned the truth of what she had witnessed, but the Spectre certainly seemed to have lost faith that other people would believe her word.

Samara had said that the Council played a dangerous game in using the Spectre as a contingency plan in case they were wrong about the Reapers. She hadn't yet known how dangerous a game the Council played until they had touched on Shepard's death.

What the asari had seen and felt, being unable to breathe, her hope that the crew would be rescued and the sight of a cold white planet filling Shepard's vision, had indeed been the Spectre's memories of her own death. Samara hadn't missed the human's use of the word rebuilt when she spoke of Cerberus bringing her back to life, or Shepard's expression when she touched her own face. Something about what Cerberus had done to her body to bring her back to life deeply unsettled the human. Samara also hadn't missed the look on Shepard's face when she had asked if the Spectre wanted to be alive. The human's words, if Shepard had spoken them, would have only been confirmation that Shepard was convinced she had been pulled from the Goddess's embrace to return here. As if those burden's weren't enough, there was the prothean Cipher Shepard had been given to help her understand the beacon's message, and what would undoubtedly be a struggle to keep her sense of self intact.

So much dedication and drive in the Spectre, and yet underneath it all there was a worrying fragility due to the staggering amount of personal difficulties the human was facing. It was clear to the justicar that it was only the strength of character and innate sense of duty which Shepard possessed that kept the human focused on and moving towards her goal. She did it in the midst of what she obviously thought of as her enemies, with only a few trusted individuals to support her. She did it despite the fact that she felt that the Council had abandoned and turned their backs on her. The unyielding resolve, the relentless determination and unflinching sense of duty that the human showed, all of it was directed toward ensuring that the Reapers did not destroy all of them. Samara was honored that she was now included in the small number of those Shepard felt she could trust. And she was pleased that she could help Shepard with the Cipher by teaching the human the meditation techniques she knew. Hopefully, they would be enough to help bulwark the human's sense of self against the prothean memories Shepard possessed.

Near the end of their discussion in the temple, Samara hadn't hesitated in extending her Oath to Shepard to include destroying the Reapers. In this case, her personal feelings and the Justicar Code were in perfect accordance. Such a threat to them all must be stopped, and took precedence over her own personal oath to bring Mirala to justice. Even though it seemed contradictory, Samara was aware that she had probably increased her chances of fulfilling her personal oath by swearing herself to the Spectre's mission, for Shepard had repeated her promise to help the justicar apprehend the Ardat-Yakshi. Though Samara would have preferred to do this on her own because of personal reasons, the justicar had also been hunting Mirala unsuccessfully for four hundred years now. She had been very close to apprehending the Ardat-Yakshi before she escaped off world; perhaps Shepard's aid was exactly what was needed to bring her hunt, and Mirala's killing, to an end.

Continued...