Note: Welcome to part 2.9 of my 7 part Mass Effect AU series.(I know I know, going full kingdom hearts with the numbering convention but this is necessary) If your new, Hi, and thank you for the click! However, I'm going to ask you to go back and read Mass Effect II: Lazarus Rising, at the very least, first as this is a companion piece meant to fill the gap between LR and ME3. It'll have fewer chapters (no promises on word count) and if your familiar with ME2 you know what we're covering here. Here's to the next step in Jack, Kal's, Garrus', Tali's, and Saren's story! I hope you enjoy the ride..

Prologue: Homecoming

The vid screen was repeating the same image over and over again. A long, wide, bright beam of white light shooting across the heavens from the mysterious Omega-4 Mass Relay down the length of the entire Milky Way galaxy to a Relay in the Viper Nebula. News anchors and military analysts from almost every species had the same idea, Aria T'Loak had sent a signal to the Batarian Hegemony to do...something. The popular consensus was that Aria had been trying to signal her Batarian allies to get into the fight against the Human Systems Alliance. After all, Admiral Hackett and the rest of the fifth fleet were getting closer and closer to Omega by the day. Others argued that was too obvious since literally trillions of beings had seen the light trailing against the night sky while jumping between Mass Relays. These people purposed the light must've been a natural phenomenon since, as they pointed out, the light just kept going into dark space. Jack Shepard had known better.

He had been on an ancient space station belonging to the reclusive, insect like, race known as the Collectors. On behalf of the oldest VI's he had ever seen, the Reapers, they were maintaining the station just in the slightest chance that their cycle had been broken. Jack had the burden of knowing that every fifty thousand years, the Reapers would exterminate all advanced life in the galaxy only to retreat into dark space and wait for the next cycle to begin again. He had disrupted this cycle two years ago by destroying the Reaper scout ship he knew as Sovereign in the battle for the Citadel. Unfortunately, the Collectors along with the Human terrorist group known as Cerberus restarted that cycle by activating the satellite beyond the Omega-4 Relay. No one on that vid screen would know that truth, or the deeper complexity there in, because he was considered a terrorist himself.

In his desperation to stop the Reapers from returning, Jack had turned to Cerberus for help. It wasn't like he hadn't tried reaching out to other people. Throughout his first and second battle with the Reapers, he had reached out to the Systems Alliance, the Citadel Council, and much more recently a now technically former General in the Turian Hierarchy. Besides Adrien, whose help came too late to make a real difference, no one had listened to him. It was far more convenient to blow off his warnings as dark fairytales in exchange to focus on the political scandal of the day. Jack had no choice but to turn to Cerberus despite their troubled personal history for the greater good. Only now did he realize how wrong he really was to put any kind of faith in them when they were the ones to ultimately activate the satellite. He couldn't understand how a group who focused on the betterment of Humanity would purposely put all of them in jeopardy? Of course, they weren't alone in responsibility for the act.

With a heavy heart, Jack had to acknowledge the fact that the love of his life had a hand in the signal being released at all. Kal had the choice to save Zero, a sixteen year old girl he had come to see as a daughter, or stop the signal from being sent. He chose Zero in a split second decision potentially changing the fate of the galaxy forever. It was hard not to be angry, furious even, at Kal for throwing all of his work down the drain and maybe get them all killed but, he loved Kal for doing that instead of the 'right' thing. He would be no better than Cerberus if he was willing to throw away his own people for the greater good. Jack tried to get that across in his last conversation with The Illusive Man but, he wouldn't listen putting them on opposite ends of the upcoming war. The feeling that Kai Leng hadn't been a loose cannon in activating that signal just wouldn't leave him, it made too much sense.

Currently, Jack was sitting alone outside of the medbay in the Turian dreadnought to not wake up a sleeping Kal inside, when Tali came to sit next to him. "Hey.."

He turned his head to look at her, "Are you ok?"

She sniffled and waved a hand dismissing the question, "I will be. That last thing we fought in there burnt part of my suit but, I was able to get it stiched up. Lucky I already had an infection I guess... I came to check up on you. How are you doing Jack?"

Jack closed his eyes still remembering that thing they had fought in the last three minutes before they detonated the nuclear bomb in the satellite. It's dark green gray skin reminding him of sea weed you would see at the bottom of a not well kept aquarium. He thought the indoctrinated version of Saren had been near impossible to defeat but, whatever had come out of that Collector cryo pod had been so much worse. Whenever they tried to use the tactics that had worked against the Sovereign controlled Collectors, it just laughed and called them primitives. It's biotics had also been made of flames which surprised him because even at the height of his indoctrination, Saren's biotics could best be described as a black goo. It had taken Adrien Victus and a Kodiak shuttle to take it down long enough for them to run away. If that nuclear bomb hadn't of gone off moments later, Jack wouldn't have been positive that the thing was dead.

He was toying with the wedding band on his finger for something to do and gave her an emotionless half smile, "That changes by the hour if I'm honest. First, I was just scared when the Turian medic said Kal was lucky and one of the stab wounds almost hit a lung. Then, I flip flop between whether I'm angry with him or not for what he did. Then, I'm terrified that at any moment I'm going to be watching that tv and a wave of Sovereign's are going to come through that Relay to kill us all. And after all that, I remember Tarquin has control of the ship we're in and he's taking us to the first Alliance ship he can find to lock us all up."

Tali had a mixture of light coughing and laughing, "Keelah, you sound worse than me when I ramble.. Just...don't be too hard on him.. What's the saying about pieces of Earth and invisible houses...?"

Jack couldn't help but laugh as well, "You shouldn't throw stones at glass houses, basically means you shouldn't be a hypocrite. I know Tali."

She had just reminded him of another reason it was difficult to be mad at him despite the severity of the situation. At the height of the Skillyian Blitz, he had bargained with a Batarian to save Kal only to get his own mother killed. Sure, the entire galaxy versus a few hundred people wasn't as serious but, they had followed the same principle; love was more important than duty. Separating over the aftermath of that decision had been one of the worst mistakes either of them had ever made so, he wasn't going to do that again. He was going to have to have a talk with Zero so she didn't make the same mistake Kal made with him. Otherwise, he was afraid about what she'd do alone out in the galaxy since she was already self destructive. It wouldn't help that Cerberus and the Blue Suns mercenary band wanted her head.

She was about to say something else when Tarquin Victus entered the hallway, "Commander, do you have a minute to talk?"

Jack shrugged looking up and down the hallway, "Doesn't look like anyone wants my autograph Tarquin, what's up?"

The Turian sat down across from him with a heavy sigh, "I.. I wanted to apologize for the fact that I turned you into the Alliance before I understood you were telling the truth about the Reapers... It just seemed like a made up story to get yourself out of trouble for working with Cerberus."

Tali had a hopeful but obviously joking tone, "Not too late to change your mind. Just unlock an escape pod and we'll get out of your way."

He smirked giving her a chuckle before shaking his head, "If I hadn't of made the promise before we jumped through the Omega-4 I might've considered that offer. Problem is, no matter how angry we were when we made the promise, the ninth platoon honors their word. We wouldn't have helped you deploy that bomb if service and honor weren't in our creed."

Jack bowed his head politely to let him know it was ok, "And I appreciate what you did because you didn't have to. All I ask is that you do whatever you can to prepare for the Reaper invasion. Once I'm in jail the Alliance is going to silence me and we're screwed if no one else is going to be ready for what's coming."

Tarquin had a grave expression across his features, "You have my word Shepard, I'll go to the Primarch himself when the platoon gets back to Palaven."

As he stood up, Tali stopped him. "Hey, do you have any idea when our jailers are coming?"

It was Tarquin's turn to give a non committal roll of the shoulders, "Chief Williams and the SSV Everest were coming from the Citadel two days ago. I'd assume any hour now."

Going to prison was never going to be a nice experience no matter who sent you there but, some people would've been nicer than others. Ashley Williams had served with him on the original Normandy during the hunt for Saren but, the two of them frequently butted heads. Their main sticking point had been his compassion and trust towards the alien members of the crew while she had very little of those two things. Since his time with Cerberus the two played a cat and mouse game ultimately culminating in a firefight in Donovan Hock's vault. Seeing her again after he had been forced to kill some of the men under her command was going to be fun. They could argue about who started it but, that confrontation started the latest war between Aria and the Alliance. All the bloodshed was going to allow the Reapers to walk right in without resistance, they needed more time.

Tali stood up about to follow Tarquin, "I'm going to find Garrus and make sure he's ok too. Remember what I said Jack, don't be too hard on him, he just did what he thought was right."

Jack had a weak smile, "I won't, and say hi to Garrus for me." As she left he decided it was time to find Zero and make sure she didn't do something she would regret.

_o0o_

Adrien shook his head collecting personal items off of his old desk in front of the dreadnoughts CIC, "The answer is still no Saren."

Saren was growing irritated with his former commanders stubborn attitude on this issue. He had been on the Collector satellite for spirits sake, he should know the Reaper threat was real. Maybe he did believe they were real but didn't think that Saren and Legion could do anything about it. From Adrien's perspective his request had to be sending up a dozen red flags. Why would he want to release them into the Perseus Veil when the first time these two travelled there together they started all this? However, Saren knew convincing Adrien to let him go now was a lot easier than attempting to persuade Human Alliance officials to do it. As far as the general population of Humanity was concerned, Saren had been the boogyman behind all of their recent problems and Legion was a personification of evil to them.

Rael's voice came out of Legion's body and shared Saren's frustration, "Have you even been listening to what we've been saying? Do you not understand that the Reapers are coming right now?"

Adrien slammed his small box on the table, "Yes, I did! You both seem to be forgetting I'm the one that saved your asses from becoming galactic space dust. What I don't understand is why you can't present this to the Alliance officials coming to take you."

One of Legion's metal flaps twitched with Rael adding, "Really? You see no reason why anyone wouldn't listen to us right now?"

Saren jumped in knowing they didn't have the time to be subtle, "The last time anyone saw me I was trying to kill the Citadel Council. I attacked the heart of the galaxy with multiple copies of him." He said while pointing at Legion to make his point clear, "If you can't understand why the Alliance would want to ignore us, then you've lost your touch more than I realized."

Legion finished with, "Not to mention the AI construct of Creator Zorah housed inside this unit is illegal in Council Space. The two of us would be scrapped for sure."

Adrien waved a hand to get them to stop talking for a moment, "Alright, alright, I get it... Go over your plan, one more time."

Rael took a deep 'breath' as though he was explaining something to a child for the third time, "During the mission with Shepard, we had the opportunity to go inside Sovereign's shell as he called it and communicate with him. When Garrus noted that Sovereign repeated a part of the same speech as two years ago I got an idea. What if the Reapers weren't as advanced as we thought and instead, just simple VI's? Programmed to perform a specific function every fifty thousand years. If that is the case, I could potentially program them all to self destruct at the same time and they would be none the wiser if I use their specific programming language."

Adrien watched him carefully listening to every word, "Aren't they billions of years old? I don't think they would just have a copy of their language sitting around at a fueling station for you to find."

Legion pointed at Saren, as if he was accusing him of a crime, "This meatbag injected the Geth consensus with trillions of terabytes of Old One data to indoctrinate the Geth. If we are allowed to find one of the Geth processing centers beyond the Veil, we will safely be able to examine the code long enough to be able to copy it for our own purposes."

Adrien just started to laugh as if the Geth told him a joke, "And how exactly do you plan on finding one of those hubs? They're lost somewhere in the middle of the Veil, otherwise the Migrant Fleet would've destroyed them years ago."

Saren kept a vague tone with his hands behind his back, "That part isn't your problem though is it? All I'm asking for is you unlock one escape pod for us to get away.. Say we overwhelmed you and forced you to do it."

His answer might suggest that Saren had no plan to find the Geth hub but, the real reason he was being vague was because he knew Adrien wouldn't approve. While it was true that the Quarians had no idea where any of the hubs were, Saren betted that the Shadow Broker knew. The Shadow Broker was an illegal information trader that knew everything for the right price. If he told Adrien that part of the plan, the older Turian would assume Saren was going to use his services in an attempt to disappear forever. If the galaxy was in a better state, he might've considered it as a tempting retirement option. The SPECTRE in Saren told him that he had to keep fighting until the Reapers were defeated. It was the very least he could do since he started this mess by allowing himself to become indoctrinated in the first place.

Adrien glared at him with real venom in his eyes, "The last time you asked me to do something that sounded so simple, twenty people died and I had to say the woman I loved was insane from grief. What makes now any different?"

Saren knew he had to be talking about the massacre he brought about on Klendagon. Due to the murder of his brother and the fact Harper had almost started another Human war with the Hierarchy, Saren had put on fake Alliance armor on and framed Harper for the deaths of twenty people including his wife. Adrien had known about the attack and even dragged Hannah Shepard away from the clinic to avoid the attack thinking he was just going to kill Harper directly. In order to protect his own political career, Adrien contradicted Shepard's report on the matter, throwing her under the bus in the process. He had every reason to be angry with him but, Saren didn't feel sorry for him in this instance. All the choices Adrien made back then were his own, and they had bigger issues right now other than their past relationship.

Whether it was wise or not was debatable, Saren was going to hold his ground, "You expect me to feel sorry for you that you've made some mistakes in your life? I was nineteen Adrien, you should've seen right through me and know what I was going to do."

Adrien's voice became an angry thunderstorm, "You told me you were only going to avenge your brother. I believed you and you prayed upon my faith in you, to then do something horrible. There were children in that clinic Saren, do you know how many you killed because of your vendetta against Jack Harper?"

Two days ago, Saren would've let that point go, they may have been children but, they were all being raised to be racists by Harpers friends. However, Kai Leng had brought up Klendagon as a justification for turning on Shepard. He could only assume that Harper had brought Leng up to think Adrien had been behind the attack and not Saren. Hate was an effective tool if aimed properly and Harper made the calculation it was more useful pointing at the youngest N7 in a generation rather than a single Turian SPECTRE. The argument could be made that if he managed to kill Leng in that clinic, the Reapers wouldn't be on the march right now. Although, he could also make the argument that if he hadn't started on the path to Cerberus anyways.

He became defensive not wanting to face his own responsibility in the scandal, "No one was forcing you to make the report you made. I wasn't holding a gun to the back of your head while you wrote that Hannah had lost her mind. You did that because you believed what I did was right, necessary even for the protection of the Hierarchy."

Adrien's thin nostrils flared only for Legion to stand between them with Rael saying, "I am the difference Adrien. You might not know me but, I am based on a Quarian Admiral whose daughter is right outside this office in the ship somewhere. I promised her that one day I was going to build her a home on our homeworld and I intend on keeping that promise. I'm not doing this to get freedom for myself, I'm doing this for the galaxy, and I'm going to make sure Saren will do the same."

The Turian sighed staring at the Geth, "I can't help you directly, but the unlock code is 3620012. Use it on a pod and you'll probably have thirty seconds to launch before the bridge crew identifies the intrusion."

Saren said nothing assuming Legion was going to follow him to the escape pods. The conversation had certainly been bitter but, he had hoped it would be a wake up call for Adrien. He needed to realize that not all of his problems were Saren's making, no matter how convenient it was to say so. As he and Legion were rounding the corner, the dreadnought shook lightly, with the lights flickering for just a few seconds. His only assumption was that the Alliance had just docked with the ship and was coming to arrest them all. He hurried forward to the escape pod and started typing in the code, they needed to go now to insure they could make their way to the Shadow Broker. The sound of footsteps from the way they came made him raise his pistol prepared to fight if he had to.

Garrus froze and raised his hands in the air stunned from the movement, "Little twitchy right now huh? I'll go get the others, keep the pod open we might be coming back hot."

Legion shook his head with Rael saying, "Adrien informed us once we typed the code in we would have thirty seconds to leave. We cannot afford to get to the others."

Garrus motioned to the pod door, "Put something against the door to keep it open, I won't be long."

His thoughts were running through the possibilities of what to do right now. He could follow Garrus' advice but, that would most definitely lead to all of them getting arrested and sent to Earth. Saren could just let Garrus go to get them and then leave without him though that had other consequences. If any one of them unintentionally let slip the plan, the Alliance could jeopardize their mission. While Saren could try and convince Garrus not to tell anyone, he knew his brother wouldn't abandon the woman he was falling in love with. If Saren was going to make sure his mission wasn't going to leak, Garrus was going to have to come with him, whether he liked it or not.

Saren put his foot in the entry way to the door pretending to take his advice, "Yes, go I'll wait."

Garrus started to leave only for Saren to use biotics to hit him on the back of the head, "I'm sorry brother, your going to have to come with me alone."

After the pod launched into space directed towards Illium, Legion spoke up, "I was right you know."

Saren raised a browplate out of curiosity, "What are you talking about?"

Legion looked over to him with drooped metal flaps indicating he was sad, "My calculations were right, I read a seventy percent likelihood that you would betray the group for yourself once the chip was removed. I just didn't know I would be following you."

_o0o_

Jack finally went into the medbay having not found Zero anywhere else. He was surprised to see her sitting next to Kal's bed looking confused more than anything else. His assumption was that she was going to be angry with him for putting her above literally the entire galaxy. She had every right to be angry but, Jack realized no one other than them ever prioritized her. Zero genuinely didn't understand why Kal had chosen her over the safety of the galaxy. Her ankles were covered in a power armor that one of the Turian medics had given her so that she was able to walk. It was almost a miracle that she caught on to walk again so quickly, he wondered if she was ever going to be able to walk again on her own.

She looked over to him with a conflicted face, "Why me..? I'm just a useless piece of shit. No past, no future, no family, I'm expendable. But, he saved me."

Jack sat down looking at a sleeping Kal before glancing back at her, "Well, I'd like to think you have a family now with the two of us, if you'd take the two of us anyways. And I promise you have a future as long as I'm still breathing, I'm not going to give up just because the Reapers are coming now."

Zero stared at him blinking slowly, "I don't really think we can be a family when we're all gonna end up in jail at any moment now."

As if on que, the ship shook and the lights flickered for a few seconds. The Everest must've docked and Ashley surely had to be rushing to find him with help from Tarquin. Jack could've potentially fought off Ashley and tried to escape but, it seemed pointless. The Alliance wasn't going to stop hunting him and without the unlimited resources provided by Cerberus, he wouldn't be able to realistically stop the Reapers while on the run. Plus, even if he somehow escaped with everyone the Normandy was in Cerberus custody. Jack would never have the advantage of sneaking around the galaxy undetected ever again, so what was the point in even trying to continue to hide from the Alliance? The best chance he had now was to try again and convince the Alliance one more time to the fact that the Reapers existed.

Kal sounded tired but, his eyes seemed to glow a little brighter seeing the two of them together, "Oh I don't know, we won't have much else to do in a jail cell. We can send each other notes or something to keep you company."

A Human voice he and Kal knew only too well spoke from the door to the medbay, "That's assuming you two aren't going to get the death penalty for everything you've done."

Jack looked backwards only to realize with shock that it was Jacob Taylor in an Alliance outfit was the one here to arrest them instead of Ashley. The last time the three of them had been together, Saren had hit him over the head in an early attempt to remove his control chip. As a result, Jacob seemingly had lost his memories up until Torfan during the Skillyian Blitz. Not only had Jack killed his own mother in the fight on Torfan, he had killed Jacob's father as well. That wasn't even counting the burn scars he had unintentionally given him due to the Batarians actions. It was ironic he was going to be the one to ultimately arrest them and take them home.