Originally intended as a prequel to Scar Tissue, this ended up taking on a life of its own. The only relation to the original are character names and relationships.

Bioware owns the Mass Effect universe and all its characters. If you don't recognize a character, it's probably mine.

Beta: pixelatrix

*Possible trigger warning*

"Tell him," Katie said. "Go on. Tell him the truth." She took the picture from the memorial shelf behind the bar and shoved it in her uncle Marcus' face. "Tell him how they really died."

"Katie, what the hell has gotten into you?" Jason asked as he tried to wrench the picture from his niece's hands. "It's been twelve years. Let it go."

She growled quietly and shook her head. "It's been twelve years of lies, Uncle Jason. I'm tired of you and Daddy not believing Ryan and me."

Jason sighed. "You were three, Ryan was five. You were traumatized and confused. You don't know what you saw."

"No, she's right, Jason. I've been living a lie all these years," Marcus said as he looked at the picture of his half-sister Lara and sister-in-law Rosana, smiling together at Katie's second and Ryan's fourth birthday party. The kids' last, as they had both refused to celebrate their birthdays ever again after the murder of their mothers and grandparents exactly a year later.

Jason looked at his half-brother, startled. "What the hell are you talking about, Marcus?"

Marcus got off of his bar stool and began pacing as he recounted, in an eerily calm voice, everything that had happened that day. "You remember, it was just after the First Contact War. You and Steven were taking shore leave for the kids' birthdays. Lara and Rosana had already taken the kids with them to Mom and Dad's house. I had started towards the spaceport to pick you guys up but instead turned around and went back to the house. Kyle was there, waiting at the side of the house for my signal. I went in, took out the pistol, Kyle's pistol, and shot them all in the head."

Marcus paused in his narrative and Jason, looking horror-struck, opened his mouth to say something, but Katie held up a hand. She knew what was coming next. She wanted Jason to know, no matter how bad he thought it was, in reality, it was so much worse.

"I signaled for Kyle to come in and handed over the gun. He shot me in the shoulder to make it look like he was the one who had killed them all and had just missed when he shot me. Then he grabbed Katie and Ryan and took off. When the cops showed up, I told them I had walked in on him taking the kids and that's when he'd shot me. The plan was for him to kill them as well, but when the cops showed up at the cabin, he chickened out. He actually told them the truth, the entire plan, but since he had the gun and the kids, they didn't believe him."

Silence descended over the bar as the meaning of Marcus' words sank in for Jason. Finally he spoke, his voice rough with barely controlled rage. "So you let a man go to prison for four murders he didn't commit while you walked around devil-may-care all these years? And all these years, you let Steven and me believe our children to be liars?"

Katie shook her head. "Do you have any idea of the hell Ryan and I went through all those times you and Daddy left us with him before you retired?"

Jason raised an eyebrow. "I'll grant you that leaving you with a murderer was a mistake. But, all three of you said when we asked, Katie, that the scars on your face came from tripping into the glass coffee table and Ryan's on his arm were from when you scratched and bit him. And we believed you."

She shook her head again. "That's all true, but not the entire story, which you never asked for by the way. What really happened was that we got into a huge fight in which he told me that it was my fault that Marcus killed everybody and why he wanted to kill us too."

"He actually said that to you?"

Katie shrugged. "Why do you think I scratched and bit him? He's lucky I didn't bite his neck."

Jason growled. "I'm gonna kill that little fuck!"

"And this is why I never said anything," she said, rolling her eyes. "Deep down, I knew he didn't actually mean it and he eventually apologized. Anyway, that's how I ended up in the middle of the coffee table, because when I bit him, naturally he pushed me away. I tripped over my own feet and voilà! But we wouldn't have had that fight if we hadn't been stuck with Marcus. The stress of being around him 24/7 pushed Ryan over the edge."

"Stress, Katie?" Jason asked, still trying to wrap his mind around what Ryan had told her. "You were kids. How much stress could you two have really been under?"

Katie sighed. "Quite a lot actually. Do you have any idea what this jackass is like when he's drunk? He's loud, angry and extremely-"

"Violent," Marcus growled from behind her as he reached out and yanked her from the bar stool by her braid before wrapping his hand around her throat, pulling her body flush with his as he backed up against the wall and pointed a pistol at Jason. "Now you know the truth, little brother. And now, you're going to die."

Jason picked up his own pistol from a shelf under the bar and pointed it at Marcus. "Come on now. Let's be reasonable about this. Let her go and we can talk this out like rational adults."

Marcus scoffed. "Rational? You? Don't make me laugh, Jason. And what do you think you're going to do with that? You don't have a prayer of shooting me without hitting Katie first."

"So you're going to do what? Kill me? What about her? She knows everything too."

"No one would believe her, about any of it. You and Steven have made sure of that. No, after I kill you, I'm going to take her back to my place and keep her as my pet until Steven comes looking for her. Then I'm going to kill him too." Marcus tightened his grip on Katie's throat as he lightly grazed the knuckles of his gun-hand over her breasts and stomach, down to her hip, causing her to shudder involuntarily. As he spoke, his lips brushed the shell of her ear, seemingly purring his taunt at her. "By now, I'm sure she realizes her mistake. So I can do whatever I want to her and I know she'll never say another word to anyone. Wouldn't want anyone else's blood on her hands."

"You sick fuck!" Jason spat out. "What the-" He looked into Katie's eyes and saw fury had been replaced by a haunted look, coupled with pain and fear; this was not news to her. "You've already done this to her before, haven't you?"

"Oh so many times," Marcus said in a self-satisfied voice.

"Why didn't you say anything, Katie?" Jason asked.

Her only answer was a whimper as she tried to pry Marcus' fingers open.

"Who's she going to tell, Jason?" Marcus said with a snide smile as he pointed the gun back at his brother and applied still more pressure to Katie's throat. "The only one who might believe her is Ryan, and that wouldn't help her any. If you didn't believe either of them back when they were children, why on earth would you believe them now?"

"You're a fucking psycho, you know that?" Jason snarled.

"So I've been told," Marcus said sarcastically as he pulled the trigger.