It Will Not Happen A Third Time

by Mick Kreiger

Harbinger has underestimated Nathan Shepard not once, but twice and now that he's woken up in London after the attempt to trick him with the Catalyst, Shepard and his team will fight even harder to destroy the Reapers, and Nathan won't stop until they're gone and he can be at peace with Kaidan. M!Shenko slashtimes.

4. Onwards to Anderson's

Onwards to Anderson's

A/N: Since I only actually got two votes – one for EDI/James and one for Liara, I decided that I would just write it from two characters' perspectives, switching over at a time. Liara will begin the chapter and then James will take over. M'sorry if my portrayal of Liara isn't great, she was never my favourite character.

Liara hadn't left the door to the room in which Shepard was resting for long; she had been assigned to monitor him. Even if Kaidan was in there with him and would keep him safe, she didn't think it wise to leave them wholly alone. Kaidan and Shepard were not exactly the best of people to leave in each other's company. They were too involved with each other and Shepard would be inclined to mask any symptoms in favour of spending alone time with Kaidan. Her Omni-Tool began buzzing a few minutes after Kaidan went in to see his beloved Commander. She glanced down at it and her eyes widened in seeing the results. Heightened blood pressure, faster heart rate, increased adrenaline; Shepard was performing some kind of physical activity. Well not just some kind of physical activity. She could hear the pants, the whines, the moans from the two lovers. She wasn't shocked by that – no, what had shocked Liara was that Kaidan would let Shepard have sex with him here. There was a battle raging outside – although since the moving of the Citadel; she had noted that the battle had calmed a little. There was less focus on London now.

The asari stayed by the door, feeling unsure of what she should do and feeling a little red heat enter her cheeks; it had been awhile since she had felt this flustered. She thought back to that time; she had last felt that way when she had come onto the Commander that was laying his boyfriend in the room next to her. She had misinterpreted his friendly concern as something more and she had suggested something – she had suggested emotional attachment to the man. Alright, Liara, enough of the fancy words to hide your real thoughts, you had what humans call a 'crush' on him, she chastised herself in her thoughts. Whilst it had been a long time since that awkward conversation where he had told her in no uncertain terms that he wasn't attracted to her – or to any being that wasn't male, she couldn't deny that she still felt a lingering attraction to him. When she had shared her mind with him at Anderson's Camp to cement their friendship for what she was sure would be the last hours of their lives, she had been tempted to share more than just her mind – she had been tempted for only a moment to use that moment of connection to initiate the asari mating process. It was so close to what they had shared that she was sure that no one but another asari would have noticed. Hearing the sounds coming from Shepard and Kaidan in the room next to her made her feel rather guilty about that moment of weakness.

Nathan was very much in love with Kaidan; she could see…hear it in the way that he whispered the other's name sometimes in between his moans of pleasure. If she had done what she had wanted; if she had been that selfish, she could have caused some real problems between the two of them and she knew that. It wasn't common that an asari mated with someone without permission and because of that many amongst the other species were unaware that such a thing was possible since they so often referred to it as a joining of them. She had heard it described once as almost being like mental sex – it was an apt enough description since if it was possible to have sex with someone; it was thus possible to rape someone. Ardat-Yakshi committed the same act that she had thought of – the difference being that they were infertile and driven to such addictive violence by genes; she had come close to such thoughts without anything other than her own selfish thoughts. She was made doubly guilty by the way she felt for Feron. She was worried about him constantly, he ran through the back of her mind at the strangest times and every time she saw him, she could feel her heart beat a little faster. They had shared the most intimate of words on the call they had shared before the hit on the Cerberus base.

She consoled herself with the fact that she hadn't done it. It was just the thought of it that she had to feel guilt for; she had done nothing wrong. She was sure that Nathan had pointed out to her once that as long as it was only a thought and that she hadn't actually done something that she didn't have to feel guilty for it, although she had seen him do just that; be guilty for his thoughts. In a conversation with Garrus, he had expressed doubts about the Krogan; he had thought about not curing them, about accepting the Dalatrass' offer. She remembered that he had told Wrex that thought and had all but begged for forgiveness. Wrex had done it easily, saying exactly what Nathan had told her – that he had not done it; in Wrex's own way of course which if she recalled had been along the lines of him both understanding but still kind of wanting to feed him to the varren….or a thresher maw. She couldn't remember which one.

"Alright…Nate, get your armour on, we should probably get out there before someone comes looking for us," She heard Kaidan say – she was a little surprised by the way that he simply spoke the other's name; despite the fact that Commander Shepard often said to people to call him by his first name there was something about him that made you call him Commander or Shepard even if you were extremely close to him. She knew that even Garrus never considered calling him anything other than "Commander" or "Shepard" – although Shepard was deeply in love with the Major and the Major seemed deeply in love with him so she knew that that made a difference. People in deeply committed relationships often had a name for each other that no one else ever used. From conversations with her 'father' she learned that the name her mother used for her: 'little wing' had originated in that way. So Nathan Shepard, Commander of the Human Alliance, Spectre was Nate to his lover.

She waited at the door a moment longer before slipping back further away; it wouldn't do for them to know that she had heard what had happened. If she remained a little further back she could pretend that she hadn't, even though she knew that even if she had been that bit back she would have heard them anyway; they were not particularly quiet about their sexual activities – Kaidan was particularly bad, but Liara could surmise from knowing Shepard that was probably his doing. Shepard liked to win at things. She guessed that making Kaidan moan in his pleasure made him feel like he was winning – especially given that Shepard made his own noise when Kaidan was doing things to him. What exactly they did wasn't something she particularly knew. She had never really known what two males would get up to given that it wasn't something that she could ever take part in and that someone like that would not be interested in her presumably.

It took only a minute or two further for the two men to vacate the room – marine life had trained the two men to ready themselves very quickly; Liara still had issues with that sort of dress speed on the rare occasions that she wore proper armour; such as she was at that moment given the dangers of being on Earth. There were more here even than the moon they had rescued Primarch Victus from. They looked to her with a small nod.

"We're ready for the push," Kaidan said, his tone held very level; Liara was surprised at how he managed not to betray what had just occurred between him and his lover from his voice, although she knew she shouldn't have been. A conversation with Diana Allers had told her that Kaidan was capable of hiding pretty much anything from his face. She nodded in response and looked to Shepard to confirm that he was fine – he was walking perfectly capably and she could see the odd purple-blue wave run around his body indicating that he could summon up his barriers. That was good; she had had no idea if his biotics were wholly intact after that since she had no capability of checking his brain for injury.

She was glad that they were intact; Shepard relied heavily on them when he fought as all Vanguards did and whilst he was an exceptional soldier even without them, she knew that he would pale in comparison to some of the true soldiers if his biotics were removed from his arsenal. Although it would have taken a combination of both experience and power, she knew, given that Shepard had managed to defeat James in hand to hand sparring anytime James had asked. A point of personal irritation on James' part – it had sparked the determination in him to defeat his commanding officer eventually. Liara had been amused when he had told her that in one of their rare conversations; she didn't' speak to the man much. He spent most of his time down in the Armoury where she rarely ventured, although from the feeds that she had monitoring the ship to make sure no one knew what was in her room; she was aware that he spent much of his time simply watching over the shuttle pilot; Steve Cortez.

Liara followed Shepard and Kaidan as they moved on from the corridor in front of the room in which they had kept Shepard during his period of unconsciousness towards the stairs that would lead them into the main room of the ground floor, where the rest of the team were holding any enemy forces that were trying to get in at bay. She could hear the odd shot being fired but it seemed quieter than when they had originally moved into the building, although she knew that much of the enemy force had left with the Reapers when they had shifted the Citadel Access. She looked to the stairs; no one was guarding the top. She wondered if that had meant that given the smaller number of enemies, they had pushed outwards a bit from simply holding the stairs to actually occupying the building. She couldn't be sure; she hadn't asked for any status updates as she had carefully watched over the Commander.

The two men in front of her seemed quieter than they usually were; where usually they giggled and flirted with each other – as subtly as they were able, which wasn't at all – they were now quiet and their hands were kept to themselves aside from the two that were holding. Liara looked at that, the knuckles of the two men were completely white; they were gripping onto each other tightly. Liara wondered if Shepard was unsteady or it was simply that they were feeling a little daunted at that challenge that was going to lie ahead of them. It was going to be difficult for them soon. The fleets could only keep surging through the relays for so long before they would have to get food and the likes and that presented risks of being caught by the Reapers, although she was unsure how pursued they actually were given the tasks that the Reapers were fulfilling – the harvesting of any planets they found with intelligent life capable of more than basic intrasystem space travel. She wondered what the purpose of that was. They were keeping some species alive, but would then return to slaughter them later. Why not simply destroy all life, all planets? She understood that they gained resources from these extinctions but they did nothing with that. They came and they slaughtered and gathered resources and then they simply left – returning to presumably a dormant state in dark space. There was nothing that they seemed to expend resources on aside from the destructive conquests which they used to gather resources.

Liara calmed her thoughts; now was not the time to ponder the motives of their enemies. When they were defeated, then she could think on it and present theories in papers and books as she had done when researching the Protheans; although study of their culture wasn't as appealing after her interactions with Javik. She had thought the Protheans wise and benevolent. She had thought of them as similar to the asari and she had thought that the Protheans would have liked her species, feeling that they followed similar ideologies. She had been wrong; the Protheans had been a brutal empire expanding by the enslaving of many cultures and believing that all were inferior. That Prothean man infuriated her as much as satisfied her by answering some of the questions that she had had. She imagined that this was an example of a human saying; "Be careful what you wish for, it might come true,". She had thought it a silly saying when she had first heard it; why would someone not want the things that they wanted to come to pass. Now she understood; she understood that when things happened, they didn't always come with the consequences that a person thought it would.

James Vega was at the front of the building that they were operating out of. He was wondering when Loco would finally wake up; he'd been down awhile and Doc had said there was nothing wrong with him so far as she could tell. Loco was loco down to his very nature, James had decided in that moment. He'd joked with the team that maybe it was all those sleepless nights catching up with him giving a look to Kaidan. He hadn't quite pinned down a nickname for the Major, having not spent much time with him. Kaidan didn't come to see James very often, although he and Esteban got along particularly well, and often Kaidan would come to gossip with the pilot. Thoughts of him brought worry to James' mind. After Esteban's shuttle had went down, he had been so worried about him. He had radioed that he had been alright – which James had been truly grateful for but they hadn't really managed to communicate after that. He had radioed out a few times, checking that the other was safe. The last communication had been a bit shaky, the group that he had been found by and that were taking him back to Anderson's Camp had been moving quickly; they had caught a nest and were outnumbered. Fortunately it had been mostly just regular human husks, so as long as they stayed ahead of the horde then they would be fine, but they hadn't spoken for a bit after that – Esteban had asked for some time to get away and said he would radio when he had gotten back to the Camp. That had been ten minutes ago and every minute James grew more worried.

The team guarding the door was quiet; they hadn't been speaking much the entire time that they had been there, all of them too focused on making sure that they were fine. Scars and Sparks sat close to each other – they were the warmest of the group being that they were close to each other and were the only ones not worrying about their other half – the other exception being EDI; although she had also been quiet, preferring to monitor herself only peripherally, returning mostly to the ship after the forces had decreased in size and they weren't constantly fighting to hold the building.

"Hey, Kaidan's been up there awhile, how long they taking?" James asked aloud, he had never really been able to keep his thoughts to himself, particularly when it was comments on the situation that they were in. Usually the squad didn't mind when he asked these questions since it broke up the deathly silence that tended to envelop the group.

The robot that had been mostly stationary near the stairs was the one that responded first, in her rather appealing voice.

"My audio processors detected the sounds of Kaidan stuttering the word "Nate" in a manner that he only does when approaching orgasm, a few moments ago," The AI said, causing James to laugh loudly, unable to stop himself from doing so, much to the chagrin of Buggy who looked upon James with derision; much as he always did. Buggy was not the happiest of people on Shepard's team. That honour belonged to Sparks generally; she was usually quite happy, the exception being when she had just joined and the stuff with Rannoch, although she had been rather ecstatic when Loco had proven his craziness for yet another time and had managed to find a solution that satisfied both the Quarians and the Geth. The man had managed to solve a three hundred year old war. That was impressive. James was glad that he worked with that man. Even if that did mean that they had to hole up inside a building in London and fight for nearly six hours straight with no rest before it had calmed enough that a couple of them could take a couple hours of rest.

EDI was right; it didn't take too long for there to be the noise of people walking towards the stairs and start coming down. Looking at Loco, James didn't see anything wrong with him; he was his usual self, looking contented with a grin and holding on to Kaidan's hand tightly. It would be cute, if he found that sort of thing cute, which he didn't, nor did he find Esteban cute. No, that was just when he had drank too much cerveza, two men together was not cute. It wasn't bad, but it wasn't cute. Women were cute. Women were what he was interested in. Women like Ice Queen- although, he wondered if he should consider changing that nickname after Sanctuary, when he had seen her cry. Ice Queens didn't cry, but he mentally shrugged. It wasn't like him to change someone's nickname and it wouldn't be the first time someone changed completely from the first time he met them. Loco had changed a lot. He had been angry and a little sad when they had first met. From what James had gathered, Kaidan wasn't allowed to visit during that time since they were on the Normandy together to take down the Collectors and since Kaidan was human, it was possible that he was a true Cerberus agent, a notion which had made James laugh. Anyone who had met Kaidan knew that he would never break the rules, hell, he barely bent them. The only time that he did things that seemed off character were when Shepard asked him to. He really loved Shepard, that much was plain for James to see – which was good. He privately didn't want to know what their chances would have been like if Shepard and Kaidan weren't in love. The Commander wouldn't have been the happy man that he was, and he had heard stories of what happened on missions if something had happened between the two of them. Fortunately, to his recollection it had only been once – the mission directly after Virmire.

"Alright, everyone ready to make a push for Anderson's?" The Commander asked, his tone firm and steady, much as it always was when he was ready to give orders, although given that this was a question of readiness, there was a little concern buried in there that only those that served with him a long time would recognise. James had been proud of himself when he had started to hear it and that confirmed to him that Shepard was dedicated to his officers more than anything else. If anyone was not ready, he knew that they wouldn't be pushed until they were. Shepard was determined not to lose anyone and he would wait until they were at maximum strength before setting out, which James figured wouldn't be long if at all. There was no one that was suffering really and the Commander himself was the only reason they hadn't returned to Anderson's yet.

"We're not the ones who faint when charging a Reaper all of a sudden," Scars answered with his usual sarcastic "charm" as Sparks had put it once. That had been before they were all public. They had figured that after Shepard had caught them they didn't stand a chance at keeping it secret since when Shepard had found them, EDI had seen. Apparently before that, they had asked EDI never to monitor them – which some of the other crew members had done.

Loco laughed as a response to Garrus' comment on him, apparently satisfied that that was a consensus that they were ready to move from this place, getting onwards to Anderson's Camp, a goal that James would be quite happy in fulfilling soon, he was getting hungry and they only kept so much food on them at any given time. That was military style. The building they had been occupying had helped a little, they had had food and they had only been there for about a day but still. It would be better to have more food than that – and hot food too. They had not heated any food, since the only way would have been fire and that would draw attention to their building and that needed to be avoided whilst they were tending an unconscious Loco since moving him would be slow and if heavy artillery like Harvesters or Ravagers came then they would be in real trouble – fighting would have switched into a high speed attack on that, making sure it was destroyed before anything else. It also would have meant fighting outside in open ground where they could be attacked from all sides at once. That would not have been good.

"Alright, we push forward, sticking together, no one break off even if that means we have to go slower," Shepard said firmly in his full Commander voice. This was an order that was above all else. Shepard would get everyone there or no one there – everyone, James knew. Shepard wouldn't lose like this, he couldn't. He would fight harder than anyone and they would get through to the Camp to the relative safety that it offered. Assuming that it hadn't been packed up and moved without them – although Anderson knew what they had done. They had radioed across a few times. It occurred to him that Esteban still hadn't radioed back but he couldn't dwell on that at the moment, he needed to get through to the Camp. He could wait and worry there. The shuttle pilot would be equally worried if he never went there either, he would also be crushed if he died. According to Esteban himself, James beat out even Shepard for being there for him. After Shepard had pushed him to go to the memorial wall, James had taken up the slot for being Esteban's shoulder to cry on – literally a few times as well.

The team moved from the building in a practiced formation, which was rare for them – usually they sent in a small team. It was only on a few occasions that they fought with their full complement, although when they did, they were a very strong force – James believed they were even better than the original Normandy crew – although in fairness five of six of them were there and the crew of the second Normandy. James wondered what it would have been like if he were there, but again, he pushed the thoughts out; he needed to be entirely focused on the mission. Loose thoughts got you killed in combat situations. They weren't far from Anderson's Camp, it would only have been a few minutes of walking had they been in London before it had gotten attacked but now he wondered how long it would be. Anderson hadn't known exactly what building they had holed up in and given that he had to start moving troops immediately he had left them to defend themselves since they hadn't really needed extra support.

They didn't even reach the end of the street before the first shots were fired. A group of husks had stumbled upon them and they charged with their predictable slow runs. They were easily dispatched with a flurry of tech attacks, biotic surges and gunfire. He could see that Shepard was fully operational now since he watched the Commander use his Biotic Charge ability several times to decimate the enemy force, although given that he seemed to be being careful in this battle, James noted that he only charged close by enemies, unlike his usual strategies of moving to the most strategic enemy and eliminating them before using that strange ability where he fired off his shields to take out a few more. James wished he could do that, but he had been told that such a fighting style was rare even among the Vanguards. According to Kaidan he had started doing those moves more routinely after learning more about those abilities from Jack – the instructor at that biotic school. The move was effortless now on Loco's part, he could simply slide across a battlefield almost like a horizontal version of that float-fall that he had seen some asari do.

James felt almost unnecessary in that particular battle, with the biotics using their powers and the techies using theirs and the amount of long range fighters they had, James didn't get much opportunity to use the shotgun that he had pulled out. He would have switched but given the amount of long range fighters and assault rifle users he had opted not to – just in case one got too close to one of the squad members. Not all of them were good with close combat – particularly hand to hand. Loco and Kaidan were the exception to the rule that James could beat everyone in the squad – and James maintained that Kaidan only won because he cheated. He used his smarts – and Kaidan was really smart. The man could lie about his intentions, even giving off really convincing signals in the tiny moves of his body. Curves was right – it was like he was trained to lie, which was odd considering that he was the most honest person that James had ever met. Kaidan didn't keep secrets really – only the odd work-related thing.

The husks were defeated in only a few minutes and they could proceed once again, each of the members surrounding Shepard. They knew he was fine from the battle but the team were unable to keep themselves from making sure that he was well defended, just in case he collapsed again – they were unsure of what had caused his first collapse so they were very unwilling to leave him undefended since it had occurred without warning and it could happen again. James didn't think that it would, though. He had guessed that it had something to do with the beam thing that Harbinger had shot down upon them. It had hit really close to Loco after all; at first he had thought that that had been what had happened – that it had hit so close that it had damaged the Commander or sent a paralysing fear through him that had made him faint – which he imagined would happen to most people if a beam came that close to obliterating them.

Looking forward after a few minutes of uninterrupted walking through the streets, James could see the massive improvised barrier that cordoned off Anderson's Camp from Reaper ground forces – mostly. He remembered that when they had been there, the odd Husk or Cannibal had gotten through. The turian ones seemed not to have come with them though…that had confused James. He had asked Doc about it and her only explanation was that with the Battle at Palaven having escalated due to the Krogan presence, it was possible that they were diverting them to that battle and not bringing them to Earth, meaning that there were fewer of them and since they provided an advantage more when greater numbers were involved, it made reasonable sense for the Reapers to hold them back except for larger assaults.

"Alright guys! Nearly there," James said cheerfully to break the tense silence that had been sitting over the group as they travelled. The others looked to him for a moment with a look that could only be described as the look people gave to FNGs when they did something that reminded them of their newness.

They pressed on just a little faster, the anticipation of food and sleep pressing them on better than any thought that a huge Reaper force could appear behind them at any moment. As they drew close to the barrier, they knew to take the building on the left – that would lead up to a door that would allow them entry into the Camp without forcing the troops inside to open the barricade, which would expose them for a few minutes to any Reaper forces in the nearby area – particularly Banshees since they could appear out of nowhere. James shuddered at the thought of the Reaper-fied asari. They were the worst of the Reaper creatures – mutated and twisted versions of those ageless and graceful women. He thought that after seeing what dark twisted creatures could be created from those peaceful blue women he was forever put off them. Even the husks of his own kind weren't as monstrous somehow.

The building was deceptively quiet on the ground floor – Anderson's troops wouldn't occupy that building aside from the area around the door so that they wouldn't draw attention to themselves and attract any attacking forces away from the main barricade and through that building – they could only hold it against so many and if the Reaper forces got in, in great number it would be like defending a cage from the inside – completely useless. Any aerial strikes would be bad as it was, James knew, but at least the Harvesters could only carry so many troops at once and usually it was husks they dropped and the husks were easily defeated by anyone with a gun.

As they passed through the door on the second floor being greeted by a few tired looking Alliance troops, James Vega's thoughts drifted to Steve Cortez, who still hadn't radioed that he was safe.

Pinned down. Damn it. He felt like Robert and he knew that his husband wouldn't want him dying in this way. The squad he was with had been reduced in number by about half and they weren't really able to move at all – no retreat and no flanking. They had been cornered into this street and if they couldn't find a way out they were going to die.

"Fucking Reapers," Steve Cortez cursed as he fired the assault rifle that he had taken from one of the marines as they fell – a guy named Lieutenant Kreiger, who had taken a bullet from a Cannibal saving Steve from a husk that had gotten hold of him. Steve hoped that that sacrifice wouldn't be in vain and that he would get back to Anderson's Camp – back to James.

A/N: Sorry this is late. Muse failed me and then I went back to school and that took up time. It would have been posted earlier but I was writing and could barely keep my eyes open and had to stop before I finished the chapter.

A/N/2: Couldn't help the Cortez bit at the end there. The question becomes then do I make the little mission I plan on having James go on to rescue him part of this fic, or do I leave it for now and then make it a side-fic? Advice guys?