Warnings: gore, cannibalism, suicidal thoughts

The first order of business was to find a functional suit for Bailey. He'd been stuck in the bubble at least a week; the hull leak had been slow in this area, only recently drained out. "I was lucky I had my rations with me," said Bailey, kicking the near-empty backpack. "Though I had to, well, ration a lot more carefully than I had been." The look he gave her was significant.

"Where did you find those?"

"There's emergency caches all over the Citadel," he said, not realizing she already knew. "'Course, most of them have been cleared out by now. Still some preserved food in the apartments, too, I'd wager, if we can get to them."

After a pause, he fixed her with a confused look. "What've you been eating?"

"The Keepers were bringing me rations," Shepard said quickly, hoping she wouldn't puke, and went for the edge of the bubble. "I'll be back as soon as I can."

As she floated away, Bailey shouted at her back: "You're working with them?"

Why had Bailey been shooting at Speed? The question tumbled around her brain as she traced her steps back to the frigate. It didn't really seem like him to lose his cool unnecessarily. Though he had been in this mess a hell of a lot longer than she. Maybe it was just getting to him?

Not that she could really throw stones in that regard.

Visions of her sister still danced at the corners of her vision, fading away anytime Shepard tried to focus on them. And they were only that: visions. Illusions. Lilo was dead, she knew that. She'd been there.

Shepard continued to ransack the apartments as she went through them. There wasn't much more than what she'd found her first time through, though, and not any food at all. That was either strange, or...Realizing she wouldn't be able to do this in front of Bailey, at least for a while, Shepard sucked in a breath.

"Catalyst?"

"Yes, Shepard?"

"There are only seven survivors, besides me?"

"Yes."

She left the apartment pantry open and continued out the back door into an alleyway. "Were there more?"

"Yes. Quite a few, actually. The guerrilla forces held relatively large enclaves throughout the Citadel for some time."

Shepard sighed. "What happened?"

"Hull breaches, primarily. Some were hit directly, others were in zones with slow-leak issues, such as where your Commander Bailey is. He is lucky the Keepers found him. They would appreciate it if you could stop him from attacking them."

"Why does he think they're a threat?"

Pausing at the next broken airlock, Shepard waited for the Catalyst to respond. She crossed her arms and resisted the urge to tap her foot. Finally, she snapped, "Catalyst?"

"I do not know."

Shepard's eyes narrowed. "That's awfully convenient. Anyone ever tell you you're a terrible liar?"

"No."

The wreckage was easier to swallow the second time through. Briefly, Shepard wondered what that said about her. She'd seen far too many battlefields, she thought. Too many dark and twisted laboratories, too many slaughterhouses...just, too many. Yet, somehow, it had never seemed to get any easier...until now.

She surveyed the floating field of corpses for one that looked like it might suit her purposes. The body would have to be drug back; it would be difficult to get a suit off in zero-G. Not that she had ever tried.

Get to one of the walls like before, aim herself to pass just by a corpse, and drag it along behind her until she hit the opposite wall. From there, she could get back down exactly as before.

It seemed a viable plan, anyway.

Corpse wrangling was never going to be an Olympic sport. If it were, Shepard thought she'd have earned at least a bronze. Though a bit more difficult than her initial speculations, the jumps proved easier with each successive attempt. In a relatively short amount of time she had three candidates, all roughly Bailey's size. She cut loose a length of wire with her omni-tool, bound the bodies by their ankles, and pulled them along behind her as she headed back inside.

"Rodger," Shepard said as she rolled the first body toward Bailey, "Likes long walks on the beach and jogging in the summer. Coulson, here, is a nerd with a heart of gold who hopes you won't laugh at his collection of mint Captain America playing cards, and Cael—"

Bailey was staring at her.

"Well, I thought it was funny."

He scoffed and bent to start stripping the bodies. "Been working on that, have you?" From the suits, Bailey managed to cobble together one that fit somewhat correctly. One of the units still had power, so their meager reserves were kept intact. After switching out "Rodger's" Omni-tool cuff for his own, Bailey powered the suit on and ran a quick diagnostic. "Seems functional."

"Great. You were working on the comm-hub?"

Bailey's head jerked up. He frowned. "I didn't mention..."

"Lucky guess." Shepard shrugged. "That's what I came down here for." She wasn't such a great liar, either, but Bailey seemed to believe her. Or, if he didn't, he kept it to himself. Bending, he grabbed his pack and pulled it on, then shoved the helmet over his head.

He fastened his gun to the hip-holster, and lead the way out of the barrier and down a tunnel just behind them. It was long and dark; Shepard pulled out her flashlight to see dead advertisement boards, closed doors, and blank terminals. Offices, probably.

"The Ward's main operations are just down here," Bailey said, "though what we need is in a maintenance area."

"What's the situation?"

"Fuckers cut straight through the boards. Can't patch them together, too precise. So, I've been digging around for replacements. A lot of specialized tech, though."

"There are others, though, aren't there? In the other wards. Maybe we could cobble a single unit from—"

"Thought of that," Bailey interjected as he shoved open one of the doors. "They blew the others to pieces. This's the only one left."

Frowning, Maki followed him through rows of cubicles. Data pads were hovering over desks, along with chairs and a collection of alien workers. The door at the back of the room lead to another hall that branched off into smaller, personal offices. At the far end was a smaller security room with a maintenance ladder descending into a hole in the back corner.

"Why would they just leave the one?"

"I wouldn't rightly know," Bailey gruffed. He glanced at her over his shoulder.

Bailey slid down the ladder first. Shepard followed, and found the barrel of a gun in her face.

"Bailey." At this range her shields wouldn't matter. She focused her gaze on his face, trying to see his eyes through the darkness of his helmet.

"I want to trust you," he said evenly, "You pulled the entire Citadel's ass out of the fire a few months back. You've helped me keep order. Hell, you've saved a shitload of people all over the galaxy. Killed a lot, too, though."

"What're you getting at?"

His silence seemed conflicted. Eventually, he grated out, "All I know is you show up on this godforsaken hole looking like you've come straight out of Hell, tell me you saved the Reapers, and you're working with the goddamn Keepers. I can overlook the Cerberus thing. This...I'm having a hard time with this, Shepard."

"What did the Keepers do, exactly?"

"What didn't they do?"

His shouting bothered her even less than the gun waving in her face; it was amazing the things you could get used to. So she just stared at him. Slowly Bailey's shoulders began to relax. "You don't want to shoot me."

"Want to?" His laugh was airy, desperate. "No. I don't want to. Not a lot of 'want to' in my life these days."

"Yeah? We ought to form a club."

"You don't get to act like that!" The gun jabbed the air just shy of her helmet. "You had more choice than most of us get in a lifetime. Several lifetimes! Over half the coverage coming in about the war was just what Commander Shepard decided to do now. Cure the krogans. Save some reaper-bred rachni? Now you flip a coin and save the reapers, too. Over some AI, no less."

She shouldn't have opened her mouth. Shepard cursed herself for ever being so stupid. Maybe he had a point, too. Yet somehow...she just couldn't feel sorry for it. In itself, taking that fall wasn't something she regretted.

"The Keepers," he said slowly. "They're...They're tools of the reapers."

"Yeah...?"

The gun quivered with rage. "When the Citadel sprung a mind of its own the Keepers...Oh they didn't kill anyone, sure. Probably can't. Didn't stop them from falling on the dead, though. They swarmed the corpses, tore them apart, carried them off...somewhere."

"The Keepers have always taken bodies to the vats," Shepard snapped. "You know that, Bailey."

"No! That wasn't...It wasn't..." He put a hand on his helmet. Slowly, the gun lowered. "It just seemed..."

"Malicious." Keeping her voice soft now, Shepard reached for his shoulder. He flinched away, and she dropped back. "You were under attack. People were dying. I would have thought the same."

His head lifted, but it was impossible to read his face through the darkness of his helmet. When he didn't say anything, Shepard continued, "I'm not going to tell you I trust them entirely. All I know is that I would have died weeks ago if it weren't for them. And that generator that kept you alive? That was their work, wasn't it?"

"I don't...it was just..."

"I've seen them build one."

He shook his head, and backed off a pace. Gesturing behind him, Bailey muttered, "The hub's over there, in the corner."

After a pause he added, "I need a moment."

"Wait." Shepard stopped Bailey by the arm as he started to move off into the darkness of the maintenance tunnels. "Your gun."

Maybe it was his confusion or the old authority returning to her voice, but slowly Bailey held out the weapon. She took the handle and after she said, "You did just pull it on me. There's nothing to attack you here," he released it.

She set the gun to her shoulder holster, then went to find the hub.

When she judged she was well enough alone, she whispered, "There's a Reaper on the ship, isn't there?"

"No," said the Catalyst. It was lying.