Author's Note: I felt the need to Deus ex Machina ME3s friggin' Deus ex Machina. It was supposed to be a quick, three part story. It's not going to be, it's taken on a life of its own. Just a quick note on changes from ME3s ending though
- Shepards ground team did not magically get teleported back to to Normandy, that's just stupid. More so than anything else in the end. So stupid, in fact, that I'm ignoring the fact that Liara stepped out of it in the cut scene. However, anyone not with Shepard on the final run was assumed to be aboard.
-Additionally, do to a series of messages I recieved, you should know Shepard is human, with an estimated lifespan of about 150-200 years. Take that as you will, but consider yourself warned. (This DOES have a happy ending though)
Disclaimer: If you don't know them, I probably made them up. Otherise they belong to Bioware and EA. I promise to put them back when I'm done.
Edit: Typos and grammatical errors
South Florida 2493
Illira leaned back on her hands, her toes digging into the warm sand. She named the stars she knew, finding Mars among the hulking debris of Reapers. They'd be passing through the main part of the debris field starting in a few hours. Already bits of dead machines were casting long trails in the night sky as they burned up in the Earth's atmosphere. When she had been very small, her mother had told her that every year, on the day they passed through the field, the light streaming through the sky was her father telling her how much she loved her. Though almost three hundred years later, and she knew that wasn't true, she still whispered, "I love you too, Dad," as the the fireballs crossed the sky.
She twisted her head, hoping to see her mother walking down the beach, but the long expanse of beach was empty. No one cared much about the Reaper War much anymore. The fact that Illira's father had scarified herself to save all the people in the galaxy was lost to all except the Krogan and the Asari. And even they had fallen into some bad habits trapped as they were in the Sol system. But she and her mother always came together to watch, to remember. Her mother would tell her stories of when she'd travel with the crew of the Normandy. Of the first time Illira's father had died, the come back to her. Of the life they had wanted together.
It was the only time she and her mother saw each other anymore. For the last century they had been at odds. Illira had begun working with the Asari consulate on Mars, her mother had stayed on Earth. And in her time on the red planet she had heard things about one Dr. Liara T'Soni that had made her wish she could change her name. Race traitor, some of them had called her, though mentally ill was more common. Her coworkers hadn't even bothered to hide the fact that her pure-blood mother was a source of serious scorn among other Asari.
Growing up the only other asari she'd ever had any real contact with the Justicar Samara. And the older asari had never spoken of the fact that her mother had actively avoided finding another lover, even one that was not a bondmate. Or the fact that she worked for the human Alliance. In fact, Samara had always been almost sympathetic to the way her mother had acted. But Illira had listened to her peers, and confronted her mother. When the often stoic doctor had broken down into tears, rather than comfort her, Illira had stormed away.
They now only spoke on this day.
The day Illira's father had died.
Illira fingered the small piece of metal in her pocket. Her way of making everything up to her mother, and fixing things that went wrong so long ago. If she actually showed up today.
"Hello, Illira," came a soft voice from behind her. The asari matron turned her head again and saw her mother walking barefoot along the beach, her sandals held in one hand.
"Hi, Mom. I didn't think you were going to make it."
"I missed the first shuttle. Where's Nillye?"
Her mother always asked after Illira's bondmate. They'd met about six years before, and though most asari still had mixed feelings about pure-blood relationships, the fact that the war had left so few of them in the system had left them turning a blind eye if the post-war babies tended to bond with other asari. It took a bit of the stigma away from her mother, but the doctor's other peculiarities meant she was more or less shunned by other asari anyway.
"At home," Illira said, tilting her head toward the small house just off the beach. "She said it was too muggy to sit out here."
"And how is work on my granddaughter going?"
"Mom! Jeez."
Her mother chuckled, looking up at the stars. "That well, huh?"
"Honestly, mother."
"You entered your Matron years almost four years ago, Illira. You're going to start getting antsy if you don't do something about the lack of toddlers in your home soon."
"MOM!"
Her mother shrugged, smiling.
"Your father wanted a lot of children. I never knew her before...everything...but she'd talk about it sometimes. Wanting a large family. She used to say that she'd always wanted boys, and that we'd have to have twice as many daughters to make up for it. She'd have adored you."
They lapsed into silence. Ten minutes later the sky seemed to catch fire. No longer just the occasional red trail of burning debris, as the Earth passed back through the heart of the remains of the Reapers and galactic fleets the individual streams of light merged, became a shower of sparks lighting up the night sky. It would last for the next two weeks, day and night, but this was the first night. The night her father died.
They'd found her body in the rubble of London, still breathing, but it hadn't lasted long. She'd been dead before they had gotten her to the field hospital.
Her mother had been less than a week pregnant. Her father had never known their attempts to start a family had succeeded.
Her father had never known about her.
They sat under the ever brightening sky for a little over an hour. It was past midnight now, and the breeze from the water had died.
"Come on up to the house. I'm sure Nillye is still awake. I made up the spare room, too, if you want to stay."
"I'd like that."
The house was bright, clean, and homey. There were a few digital holos on the end tables, and photographs on the walls. It was a hobby Liara had picked up when Illira had been a baby, and had passed on to her daughter. The basement of the house was an old fashioned dark room, and an old silver nitrate camera sat on the coffee table.
"Dr. T'Soni!" Nillye called from the kitchen as mother and daughter stepped into the house. She had heavy pink markings on her indigo skin, and her eyes were a bright, shining green. Liara could see what her daughter found attractive in the other asari, and the woman had a heart almost as big as Illira's father's.
"How many times do I have to tell you to call me mom? Or at least Liara."
"Right, Dr- um, Liara. I was just on my way to bed, but make yourself at home." She came out of the kitchen, wiping her hands on a towel. She kissed Illira on the cheek, smiled at her mother-in-law, and climbed the stairs.
They watched her go, then Illira, under the pretense of taking her mother to the spare bedroom, led the older woman down to the basement. Liara paused at the darkroom, impressed with the collection of antique machines and modern reproductions her daughter had collected. When she caught up with Illira at the end of the hall, though, it was clear the room she was headed for was not a spare bedroom at all.
"What is this?" she asked, glancing curiously at her daughter.
"An apology."
"An- for what, Illy?"
"For being here when dad isn't. And, well, you'll find out." Illira said, walking into the room.
"Don't be a fool. I...we...don't ever think that." She couldn't find the words for what she was, for the years she hadn't been the perfect parent because she kept seeing her lover in her daughter's eyes. She'd never blamed the child for her father's death, though, had never wished to trade the life she had had with her daughter for more time with her bondmate.
The room Illira had led her to was mostly empty. In the center was a long table, with a small box on it, and a photo album. She knew it, it was the one she'd made of Illira. She'd left it with her daughter over a hundred years before, when they'd fallen out. Her daughter took a long piece of black metal from her pocket, and dropped it into the box.
"I'm so sorry, mom. This is for the best, it has to be done. You can...I put all the information you've collected in the photo album. On the Catalyst. On the crucible. On everything. Everything we've learned. Everything you've done. Fix it. I love you mom, I love you so much."
Illira stepped out of the room, and shut the door before Liara could reach it. She banged her fists against the heavy wooden door.
"Illira! What are you doing! What is this?"
The box on the table had begun to glow. Captivated, she moved toward it, absently picking up the photo album and holding it to her chest. The glow increased, bathing Liara in a heavy yellow light.
"Illi-"
"-ra?" There was a burning pain in her side, and she was no longer standing. A warm rumble pressed against her back. The photo album was still clutched in her hand. The cotton sun dress she'd been wearing in the Florida heat was gone, replaced by the white body armor she hadn't worn since she'd first felt the stirrings of the mind growing inside her.
"Dr. T'Soni? Hold on, we'll be out of the system shortly. Your plan worked. The ship is destroyed." Liara lifted her head, noticing that it felt a lot heavier than she ever remembered. Feron sat at the controls of a small shuttle. Glyph hovered beside him, and she was crammed between the components they'd had time to save. She remembered this, this run from Cerberus all those years ago.
"Where...what happened?" she choked out.
"Don't speak, Liara. You've lost a lot of blood. I've stopped it, and the medi-gel is working, but we really need to get you to a hospital. We'll be through the relay soon."
Straining against the fatigue that she hadn't felt just minutes before, when she was standing in her daughters house, she opened the photo album on her lap.
It was as she remembered it. Photos taken by the few friends she'd still had on Earth. Days out with Tali, her belly swollen with the life she and her lover had created. And then, in the hospital, the tiny little Illira, wrapped safely in the birthing creche, Liara laying beside her - the umbilical cords still joining them. The baby, growing into a happy toddler. A bright child. When she lost her baby teeth, when her crest began to separate fully. The first day of school, the day she graduated. All there.
And yet, it couldn't be. Or she couldn't be where she was. An hallucination. She'd wake up, back on the beach. She'd fallen asleep on the sand, and this was all a dream. A dream, because she had run from Hagalaz three hundred years ago, two years before her daughter had taken her first breath. Six months before she'd been reunited with Shepard. And none of these pictures would happen for years, and the photo album wouldn't even exist until well after the war was over. Well after they laid Commander Shepard in the ground.
The tears came unbidden. She wanted this second chance, but she didn't want to loose her daughter. She couldn't come to terms with what she wanted to be true. She flipped to the last page of the album. When she'd made it, it had held Shepard's dog tags, and the letter of condolence from the Alliance, but those were gone. Liara tried to sit up straighter, but the pain ripped through her abdomen. She settled for just readjusting the book on her lap. Javik's memory shard – the only piece of personal property Shepard had had on her person when she'd been found, was in a plastic bag where the dog tags had been. And taped to the other side, on the back cover, was an envelope.
Telling herself it was still all just a dream, despite the pain in her side, she debated just ignoring it. The flowery script on the front was clearly Illira's, and if she read it, if she opened it and it confirmed the sinking feeling that had begun to settle in her stomach, she wasn't sure what she would do. She shifted again, and the pain in her side had dulled. Shepard had always told her that was a bad thing. That when the pain began to fade, you were just that much closer to dying.
But she hadn't died here.
Feron had taken her to an asari colony and she'd been back on the ship and on her way to Mars in just a couple hours. She looked down at the wound in her side, Feron had bandaged it, and he'd said he put medi-gel on it. That would explain why the pain was receding.
Figuring the worst that could happen was that what she already suspected was true would be confirmed, Liara tore the envelope from the album.
"We're through the relay. We will be landing shortly. Stay with me, Liara."
"I'm okay," Liara said, though she felt anything but.
The front of the envelope simply said "To my mother", in her daughter's handwriting. She opened the envelope with a shaking hand, and removed the paper from within. It was written in asari, though in human characters. Her daughter had never gotten the hang of the asari alphabet, and Liara had never pressed the issue.
Mom, the letter read,
I'm sorry. I know that does not make it easier. Nillye and I have been working on this for years. She found something when she was in the arctic. I never told you about that trip, I wish I hadn't been so horrible to you. I wish I had understood. I do now, and I know that Dad...if Dad had lived that things would have been so much different. Don't worry about me, Mom. I guess I don't even exist, right? Don't worry, we'll meet again. I won't remember, but hopefully you will. I think you will. Everything we found says you will.
There are things you need to know. Things I wish I could have told you in person, but I know you wouldn't have come with me if I'd tried talking to you about it first.
You can't tell anyone. Except Dad, she'll need to know how to fix everything. Everything she needs is in the Prothean shard. I don't know if you ever used it, you should. Before you give it to her. She used it. She really loved you. There are things on it she needs to see, to help her understand what happened and what will happen.
The device Nillye found should take you back to just before the battle for Earth. I don't know how much farther, but no more than a year or two. Only what's in the shard needs to be done, only the code on the Citadel tower. Use the shard, you'll understand. I don't know what changing anything else will do, but if you want to visit Dad, well, you know where the information on the Crucible is, so it shouldn't take you as long to find it this time. Not that I want you to, or that I think you should, but Nillye said you might want to.
And know I love you Mom. Everything I've said, everything I've done, I'm so sorry. This doesn't make up for it, but maybe the savior of the galaxy will get her parade. I wish I could have found the words to tell you before now. I didn't know how to make it better. Tell Dad I love her.
Take care Grandma,
Your loving daughter,
Illira.
Taped to the bottom of letter was a memory chip. She peeled it off the paper, and reached over to the stack of datapads stacked beside her. The chip wasn't compatible. She dug through the pile, looking for another model. The shuttle was making its decent onto the colony when she found one that the chip would work with. The screen blinked, then showed a video. Liara watched it, awed.
She had a very similar video in the deepest memory of her Omni-tool. Hers was dated over three hundred years before. This one was dated a week ago. Or was it that hers was from over a year from now, and this was from three hundred years after that. She'd have to ask EDI.
She could ask EDI.
Her daughter was going to be a father, and she could talk to EDI.
Whether blood loss, or just mental overload, Liara felt herself begin to pass out.
"Congrats, baby," she whispered before her world went dark.
Commander Shepard leaned against the headboard, grabbed a slice of toast from her breakfast tray and went back to reading War and Peace. The bed was too soft, the toast didn't taste like cardboard, and it had actual orange marmalade on it, not re-hydrated grape flavored jelly. It would be heaven if it didn't feel quite so much like hell. Her trial had ended a week ago, and despite a rocky start, it didn't look like they'd actually court martial her. They stripped her of her rank, stuck her in this fancy prison, took away the Normandy and had prevented anyone she knew from contacting her. It was all that she expected, but that didn't mean she had to like it.
There was a knock at her door just as she was shoving the last of the toast her mouth.
"'M Dee-thent," she said around the mouthful of bread, knowing that the only person who ever knocked before entering was her guard.
"Hey, Commander," James said, stepping into the room as the door slid open, "Sentencing."
Shepard brushed the crumbs from her hands, tossed the datapad onto the bed and followed James out of the room.
"You shouldn't call me that anymore."
"Yeah, well, I still have hope, Commander."
Shepard chuckled, following the Lieutenant through the maze of corridors that made up Alliance Headquarters in Vancouver.
She didn't see a pair of blue eyes spot her around the corner. She didn't see those eyes fill with tears. She didn't see the woman attached to those eyes turn around, shoulder's squared, hugging a large brown leather book to her chest.
Two hours later she stepped back into the hallway, no worse off than when she'd stepped in. The Reapers were likely going to have a walk in the park with her locked in a small room on the fifth floor of the Alliance building, but she'd known the score when she'd turned herself in. But it didn't help that they refused to listen to her. They hadn't even let her say a word today. They'd lectured, and scolded, and shook their heads in unison. Then they'd sent her back to her well decorated cell.
"Sorry about that, Commander."
"Seriously, Lieutenant. Keep that up and we'll end up being neighbors."
"I'll let you borrow a cup a sugar whenever you want, Commander."
Shepard laughed, shaking her head at the young man. "Shepard, Lieutenant. Just call me Shepard."
"Yes, ma'am." He opened the door to her cell, then locked the door when she was inside.
He sauntered down to the end of the hall, chuckling to himself. He heard the voices before he saw who they were attached too.
"Look, ma'am, I'm very sorry, but Ms. Shepard isn't allowed any visitors. If you'd li-"
"Commander Shepard just saved all you from the Rea- from the Geth and the Collectors. Look, I know Admiral Hackett. I'm sure if you just call hi-"
"Ma'am, I'm very sorry. If you'll just go back to the lobby, I'll see what I can do. But you can't be up here."
James rounded the corner and saw Ensign Chase, a young, eager woman with bright blond hair and the most rapturous smile, and an asari holding a large book and wearing a long blue and white dress in her native cut. Ensign Chase had the look of a cornered deer plastered on her face, and James was fairly certain that in another few minutes the asari would be past the young woman one way or another.
"Problem, ladies?" he said, leaning casually against the wall. Both women turned toward him, one pale, and thankful, the other blue and furious. It brought a smile to his face.
The ensign saluted, standing at attention. The asari marched toward him, her icy blue eyes on fire. "Yes. There is a problem, James. I just came from the Mars Archives and I need to speak with Shepard immediately. It's important."
He stared at her blankly. She blinked, waiting. Then said, with a tone reminiscent of a practiced speech, "My name is Dr. Liara T'Soni, I am a Prothean expert sent by Admiral Hackett to the Archives. I have to get the information I found to Commander Shepard immediately."
"Dr. T'Soni, of course," James said, moving away from the wall and holding out a hand, "I've heard a lot about you. Unfortunately, I can't let you back there. Why don't you let Ensign Chase take you back to the lobby, and I'll personally come get you when you have clearance."
"Don't talk down to me, Mr. Vega. I don't know who you think you are, but-"
James held up his hands, only vaguely curious how she knew his name, "Whoa, take a breath. I'm sure it won't take long, but you really can't be back here. Ensign, go get clearance for the good doctor. We'll wait here."
The ensign gave him a quick salute, and scurried off to find someone to let Liara in to see the commander. James motioned to a chair by the elevator, that just happened to be past the security check point. Convenient, simple, and the asari was not throwing biotic balls of lightening around. Which, if half the stories he'd heard from Commander Shepard were true, was not outside the realm of possibilities for Liara T'Soni.
T'Soni sat on one of the plastic benches, legs crossed, toe tapping with an air of impatience that was nothing like the woman Shepard had talked about. She kept opening the book on her lap; there were pictures, the old kind, printed on paper, inside. She never went past the first couple pages, before shutting in quickly. He moved over to her, wondering what the images were of. Anything recent would have been on a holo, and those looked more like the pictures his grandmother had hung on her walls.
He glanced down the hall, trying to see if Chase was coming back, but the hallway was empty. He moved over to sit beside the asari, sitting straight beside her, trying not to look like he was trying sneak a peak at what was in her book.
"Is there something you wish to talk about Lieutenant?" she asked, closing the book and putting it on the bench on her other side. She left her hand on it, though.
"How you know me, for one thing. 'Cause I'm fairly certain I'd remember, well," he let his eyes trail over her body, Shepard would kick his ass if she saw, but he couldn't help it, "you."
The look in her eyes softened, and small smile danced across her lips. If her knowledge of his name had left him only mildly curious, the new look in her eyes left him frightened. He'd seen it on his buddy's mother's faces when they all piled off the transport for shore leave. But it had never been directed at him before, this look like they're seeing someone they thought was dead, had steeled themselves to the fact that they were dead, but now they were standing in front of them. He tried to think of something witty, something clever to change that look, get it away from him. Sometimes he felt like he knew this woman, just from the way Shepard had talked about her, but he knew Shepard had never tried to contact anyone outside the base, was only too aware that she hadn't spoken to the asari since before she turned herself in. So, then, he had to wonder why she looked like she knew him.
"It's fairly common knowledge, Mr. Vega, that Commander Shepard is the only prisoner on this block with a full time guard. It is also fairly common knowledge that you volunteered to guard her door. And, as there was no one else down that hallway, it's not a large jump to say you are James Vega. Was I incorrect?"
Her voice had changed, there's something darker about it, and he knew she was lying. Why, he couldn't fathom; he'd remember meeting her. His own research said she was an information broker on Illium, and perhaps that's where she got the information. Perhaps she simply dug it up. But there would be no reason to hide that. The soldier in him said he should remove her from the blocks now, that if she's lying about how she knew him then it probably wasn't wise to leave her alone with Shepard. The self preservationist in him told him that if he tried he'd have two very beautiful, very angry women trying to kill him. And he didn't want to tick Shepard off, let alone her talented biotic girlfriend.
"No, I guess not. Just, I know Shepard hasn't had any contact with anyone off base, and well, you being her, well, hers, or is she yours? How does that work? Anyway, it seemed strange is all."
"Nothing strange about it," she said defensively.
"Sure, but, never mind."
She let it drop and James sat in an awkward silence with her, waiting for Chase to return. He hoped she got clearance for T'Soni. He didn't want to send her away, Shepard needed a pick-me-up after the tribunal had more or less eaten her alive less than an hour ago. A minute went by. Five. He tried to think of something else to say, but nothing came to him. She fiddled with her Omni-tool, changing settings on it.
"New version?" he asked, just trying to break the silence. He hadn't changed his since he got his first one, but he knew more than one person who updated theirs on an almost weekly basis.
"What? Oh, no." It flashed once then disappeared. They lapsed into silence again.
The silence stretched, uncomfortable and heavy between them. Vega kept opening his mouth say something, then changing his mind. He looked like a gasping fish and he knew it, but every thought that crossed his mind to say generally resulted in Shepard throwing him out her cell window when she heard about it. Harmless flirting was one thing, pressing an advantage you didn't have was another. Finally, when he thought that he was just about to take Liara back to Shepard, clearance be damned, the elevator dinged and Chase had scurried half way down the hall before he could get her attention.
"Lieutenant," she said, snapping to attention, "Dr. T'Soni has supervised visitation clearance." She handed James a datapad, which he began to read before noticing that the asari was already past them and down the hall. He shoved it back into the ensign's hands and trotted after the doctor.
She'd slowed when she had gotten around the corner, aware that she didn't know what room Shepard was in, and James quickly caught up with her.
"275," he said, moving in front of her to the door. He knocked, which surprised her.
"I'm decent, what the hell do they want now?" came the answer to his knock.
James watched the play of emotions on Shepard's face as she took in Liara standing beside him. He took a half step out of the way to the let the asari pass him. He wasn't an expert at reading aliens, or humans, for that matter, but he thought he had a good sense for what people were feeling. What he saw on Dr. T'Soni's face confused him, though. If Shepard was to be believed, and he had no reason to doubt her, she had said goodbye to the woman slowly walking past him just days before showing up in Earth space and offering herself up for trial. The look on Shepard's face was what he expected, welcome surprise after a two month absence; the flicker of a smile, the way she stood up just a little bit straighter, and the fact that she was looking right into the doctor's eyes. T'Soni's reaction though was drastically different. Perhaps it was a lack of understanding of asari, but all her reactions to him earlier had been human enough for him to gauge. Now, though, rather than a slow smile, and a confidant posture – what he would expect if, say, his old girlfriend suddenly showed up to visit him if he hadn't been the one to call it off – T'Soni looked scared. Her eyes were wide, and he saw her hands shaking. She wouldn't catch the Commander's eyes, and he fairly certain that she was about to cry.
"Hey, Liara. I thought-"
What Shepard thought was cut off as Liara reached her. Blue hands reached out and cupped Shepard's face, thumbs brushing her eyes, fingers dancing over her cheeks. She mapped Shepard's face with her hands, like a blind man. James saw tears fall and he shrugged uncomfortably.
"I've missed you," Liara whispered, her hands suddenly going to the back of the Commander's head and pulling her into a heady kiss. James cleared his throat, but the asari didn't hear him. The hand that wasn't tangled in the mass of hair at Shepard's neck was now tracing it's way down her body. Shepard fell into the kiss, wrapping her arms around Liara, hugging her close to her. James cleared his throat again, louder this time, and Shepard's eyes, half closed before, shot open. Liara either hadn't heard, or didn't care.
"Liara," Shepard said, trying to get the other woman's attention, but instead of working, the husky sound of her voice not only made James that much more uncomfortable, but simply made Liara growl and recapture the Commander's mouth.
James wasn't entirely sure what to do. The door to the hall was still open, and he was fairly certain that the right thing was to step through it and close the door. But he couldn't. Ensign Chase had said supervised visits, which meant he couldn't leave the two of them alone, no matter how much, and clearly it was a lot, they wanted to be. He tried to look at the coffee maker, the books stacked on the counter, but his eyes kept going back to the entangled bodies in the middle of the room. Shepard was still attempting to get the asari's attention, but everything she tried was failing. James shifted uncomfortably as he noticed the asari's hands going for the button on Shepard's pants.
"Um," he started to say, when there was a hum, and a tingling in the air. Shepard made a noise somewhere between a moan and a whimper. Suddenly the two in front of him were encased in the blue glow of biotics.
Idiot, was all he could think as he pulled his gun. He hadn't even considered that this wasn't actually Liara T'Soni. But, then, the Commander had reacted as if it was. Then why the hell was she...
He never finished the thought because just as suddenly as they had arrived, the biotics were gone. Liara had jumped about three feet away from Shepard and was about the shade of an overripe blueberry.
"Oh Goddess, I'm sorry," she said, hiding her face in her hands. Shepard looked unsteady, blinking rapidly and breathing hard. Vega couldn't really blame her; he was having a hard time catching his own breath. He kept the gun trained on Liara, though, despite his discomfort.
"You okay, Commander?"
"Mmn? What? Yeah, I'm okay," she answered, swollen lips working into a slow smile and walking on shaking legs to sit down. "Damn, Liara. I should go to prison more often."
It hadn't seemed possible, but Liara actually went a few shades darker.
She also noted the gun pointed at her for the first time.
"I..," she started to say, but Shepard had apparently gotten control of herself.
"Put the gun away, Lieutenant. She wasn't trying to hurt me."
T'Soni eyes widened, "No! I would never, I wasn't...I was...I didn't...that, it's not. I..." Her blush, which when faced with the weapon and begun to fade, came back in full force.
James reluctantly holstered the gun, Shepard clearly wasn't hurt, but he was going to keep a closer eye on the doctor from now on.
