My life has been absolutely insane for the last two months or so. I am not kidding when I say that I have traveled every weekend. It has been exhausting. On top of all that, I've been swamped with work, struggling to make a decision that will greatly affect my entire life, and still trying to maintain my social life. Anyway, that's why this chapter has taken so long. My time allotted to work on this has been minimal at best. I don't really foresee my life getting much easier soon, but as always I will try my best to keep working on this story.

Now that you've sat through my complaining, I have a super cool amazing mega awesome announcement to share. I have started working on a new project related to Sophia and Liara's story. Specifically, a new story about their romance. I won't say when it takes place in relation to the other four stories because I don't want to spoil anything yet, but it is a story that I think was sorely missing in their timeline. I'm addressing some issues that I failed to address elsewhere and exploring some cool aspects of their characters. If you can't tell, I'm pretty excited about this project. I've been working away at it secretly, trying to decide whether it merited being shared with anyone else, and have since grown very fond of it. I'm itching to share it with you all, and I will soon. I promise. As of right now I have all of the first chapter written and a good chunk of the second and some bits and pieces of other chapters. I'll probably post the first chapter soonish in order to get it out there and all, but I want to build up some kind of buffer so that I don't have as many update problems as usual. So be on the lookout for that.

Related to this chapter: kudos to arcturusjourney for suggesting that Halber should get a LI. Once the suggestion was made, I thought it was too hilarious an opportunity to pass up. I like to imagine that Halber is quite the charmer. Besides, this chapter needed some comic relief.

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Crisis

Liara finished applying medi-gel to the cut on Shepard's face, her long, blue fingers tenderly tracing the raw, red wound. Sitting on the counter of the tiny medical facility in the defense compound of the colony, the commander waited patiently as Liara treated the cut, all the while considering how to proceed with the interrogation of Irek. How could she get information out of someone who was completely delusional? Perhaps she could think of a creative way to utilize Halber's skills in this situation. She had already called in the whole team, and they would be arriving momentarily aboard the Normandy. She had her chief medical officer prepared to test for any strange physical problems. She had her personal assistant, Lasha, prepared to comb through surveillance footage. And she had the rest of her soldiers prepared to investigate the entire base looking for clues. If the Illusive Man was up to something, she'd figure it out.

The queer itch of the medi-gel as it began stitching the skin back together brought her out of her thoughts.

"That should stop the bleeding," Liara sighed, stepping back and looking at her handiwork. Shaking her head, she added, "Only you could find the one homicidal and crazy turian on an otherwise peaceful planet. I wish you had less dangerous talents, Shepard."

The human grinned, which made the cut on her face throb as if to remind her that being too expressive at the moment was a bad idea. "Come on, Liara, let's be fair. That turian was probably planted by the Illusive Man to kill me. It wasn't just me bringing out the worst in people. My people skills aren't that bad."

Liara turned her back to wash her hands in the nearby sink. "I suppose that is true, but I very nearly crushed the boy with my biotics. If I had not thought better of it at the last second... that scene could have turned into a massacre." No need for her to say which side would have won. Shepard had enough firepower to completely eliminate the colony if she wanted to. But the backlash from the turians would have been horrific. "Maybe that is what the Illusive Man wanted. For one of us to retaliate and tarnish our reputation."

"Maybe," Shepard agreed. She hopped off the counter and wrapped her arms around Liara's middle, kissing the side of her neck affectionately. "Thanks for coming to my rescue, Doctor."

Liara chuckled softly and leaned into Shepard's embrace, her back pressed against the commander's torso and her head resting on the human's shoulder. "You know, most people would be on edge after nearly having their faces clawed off, but you decided that you will take the opportunity to be romantic. I do not know if I will ever quite understand you, Shepard."

"I wouldn't ever want to become boring," she replied, finding Liara's lips with her own and drawing her into a kiss. The movement of her facial muscles made the cut ache, but she ignored it as she allowed herself to get lost in the moment. She tightened her grip around Liara's middle, pulling her in closer as she nibbled the asari's bottom lip playfully.

Suddenly there came the swoosh of a door opening and they both broke the kiss to look towards the sound like two teenagers caught in the act. Shepard's assistant, Lasha, stood in the doorway, looking ready to turn around and bolt. "Ah, Commander," the young drell stammered. "I'm sorry. I can come back later. It's just that you said to report to you when the Normandy landed and..."

Shepard smiled, releasing Liara from her embrace. A long time ago, Shepard would have been mortified to have one of her soldiers catch her being unprofessional, but now she was just too old to give a crap. It was no secret that she loved Liara, so she didn't particularly mind if others saw her expressing her affection. "No, it's fine, Lasha. I need to talk to you about what's going to happen." She walked over to the drell, Liara following. Lasha and Liara gave one another polite nods, they'd interacted on several occasions and were quite comfortable with one another. "I'm going to conduct an interrogation with Halber's help. While that is going on, I want you to collect every scrap of surveillance footage from this place and examine it. Look for any signs that Cerberus was here, and also look at when Irek attacked me. See if you can pick up on anything we might have missed. I've already asked Dr. Gunasekera to do a complete physical on Irek and see if there's anything wrong with him. Liara, I want you to help him analyze those results. One of us has to turn up something useful."

"Understood, Commander," Lasha answered. Then studying Shepard with those dark, drell eyes, she added, "Ma'am, if you don't mind me saying, I can't believe someone got the jump on you."

"Ha ha," Shepard replied, touching the cut on her face self-consciously. "Laugh it up." She just knew the crew would be joking about how a kid got the best of Commander Shepard for at least a month. Heading to the door, she said, "Find me if either of you discover anything." Then she headed for the interrogation room. When she walked into the small, windowless room, Irek was already handcuffed to a chair and Halber stood across from him. The elcor only turned his head to look at her once she arrived, but the turian had an immediate, violent reaction. He struggled against his bonds, and snarled at her with an almost palpable hate. The intensity brought Shepard up short. She knew that he thought she was some sort of pirate, but his anger seemed to go beyond that. It was out of control.

Running her hand over the top of her hair and sighing, she turned to Halber and asked, "How do you want to do this?"

"Politely: I thought it would be best if I asked questions, Commander, while you observe. If you would take a seat in the corner perhaps."

She nodded and dragged a chair over to the corner and sat down. Halber turned his attention back to Irek, though the turian had his eyes trained on the commander. "Friendly: Irek, my name is Halber, and I'm going to ask you a few questions on behalf of the Galactic Military. Will you cooperate?"

The young turian glared at him and his mandibles twitched down into something like a scowl. "Maybe. Depends on what you ask."

So young, Shepard thought. He must be the equivalent of a teenager for humans. Young, rebellious... and stupid. No wonder he managed to find so much trouble.

"Carefully: I know you believe this woman to be a pirate, but what if I told you that she was actually Admiral-Commander Shepard?"

Irek snarled at him. "I'd call you a liar. Do you think I'm blind? I know what Commander Shepard looks like. Everyone does."

"Intrigued: Ok, then. Describe Commander Shepard."

The boy blinked in surprise. "What's the point of this?" When Halber didn't answer, Irek said, "Commander Shepard is a human with black uh... fringe? I don't know what they call it. The stuff on their heads. It's always slicked back in some sort of military style. She has sort of bluish purple eyes, a scar just above one of them. Uh, she's not that tall. Average for a human, I guess? I don't know. What else do you want to know about her?"

Shepard raised an eyebrow at him and crossed her arms over her chest. How could he not see that he'd just described her?

Halber gave no reaction, however, and said, "Calmly: And the woman sitting in the corner, what does she look like?"

Irek gave him a deeply confused look. Glancing warily between the two of them, he said, "Tall woman, with a dark fringe cut really close to the head. Kinda like a human male, maybe. Green eyes. A couple of scars along her jaw."

"Surprised: I see."

"So, he's hallucinating?" Shepard asked. "What on earth does this mean?"

Halber turned slightly towards the commander and said, "Confidently: He did not lie, so he must believe that you are truly someone else. This proves there must be something wrong with his brain. He isn't working for Cerberus."

"Great," Shepard answered, "but that doesn't tell us why he thinks I'm someone else."

Halber thought for a moment, then turned back to the turian and said, "Inquisitive: Irek, have you encountered anyone strange in the last few months? Had contact with any visitors to your colony?"

"You mean other than you guys?" he replied sarcastically. Shepard shook her head, thinking again of just how young the boy must be if he would backtalk in this situation.

"Insistent: Anyone strange?"

"No. I don't remember anyone strange. It's been pretty normal until you showed up."

Before Halber could ask a follow up question, there was a loud knock at the door. Shepard rose and looked through the narrow slit of a window to see Lasha standing outside, looking anxious. Turning back, the commander motioned for Halber to follow her outside. They exited the room, leaving Irek handcuffed to the chair, and Lasha immediately jumped into her reason for coming.

"I think I've found something, Commander. Something strange, at least."

"How did you discover something so fast?" Shepard wondered.

Lasha shifted her shoulders in an almost impatient way, as if it were all really quite simple. "I'm a drell, so I only need to watched the footage once. Then, because of my perfect memory, I can replay it in my head a million times, but a lot faster than actually doing it in real time. I've already gone through the footage probably fifteen times. And I noticed something peculiar."

"Wistful: How wonderful it would be to have a perfect memory so that I might perfectly recall your beauty."

Shepard blinked at the elcor, her eyes wide. Had he just hit on Lasha? Her drell assistant seemed equally as stunned and they both stared at him for a minute. Then, unsure what to say, Lasha just stumbled on, "Um... So, I thought it was strange that Irek waited so long to attack you. He waits almost two minutes before making his move and until then he doesn't even seem to notice the commander. The trigger, it appears, is when you speak. The second you say something, that's when his entire personality seems to shift. Therefore, I think your voice was somehow the spring for Cerberus's trap."

Shepard rubbed the back of her neck and said, "But what does it all mean?"

"Certain: It means that he has been conditioned," Halber said. "Clarifying: He has been conditioned to recognize and attack you based on your voice."

"And I think we know how," came Liara's voice, as she and Doctor Gunasekera appeared at the other end of the hall. The doctor was a tall, Indian man, with thick, black hair and a tightly cropped beard. He'd been Shepard chief medical officer ever since Doctor Chakwas had retired. Well, retired wasn't quite the right word. That woman was not one to sit idle, even in her old age. But once she had relented that she was getting too old to travel on spaceships all the time, she had agreed to transfer to a small clinic on Bekenstein. She'd personally recommended Doctor Gunasekera to take her place. Calm and easy to get along with, Gunasekera was always ready with a smile or a joke, even though he was a perfectionist when it came to his work.

When the pair reached Shepard and the others, Liara launched into her explanation. "Doctor Gunasekera immediately performed the tests you asked for before sending Irek to the interrogation room. By the time I arrived to help, he had already noticed a peculiarity with the brain scan."

"The brain scan?"

Gunasekera nodded. "Yes, Commander. I noticed that it didn't look quite right. Here, I brought a copy with us." He held a folder in his hand and opened it to produce a sheet of paper which he handed to Shepard. She squinted at the image, realizing it was a brain, but not really sure what else she should be looking for. The brain was divided into many colored sections, many bright oranges and reds next to blues and greens. Gunasekera pointed to two points next the bottom of the sheet and to the left. "Do you notice these two points that are bright white?"

Shepard nodded. "Yeah. They kind of look like hooks."

"A good observation," the doctor said, smiling as if he were teaching a class on the subject. "White represents an extremely active portion of the brain. At first I wondered if there was some sort of foreign body present in his brain, but my other scans showed that not to be the case. So, I was baffled by this abnormality. Notice the two regions where these 'hooks' are present: the temporal and occipital lobes. These are the parts of the brain associated with memory and hearing, and visual processing respectively."

"Excitement: That could explain Irek's hallucinations," Halber put in.

The doctor nodded his agreement. "It certainly could. Still, the question remained as to what these 'hooks' were. But when I showed these scans to Dr. T'soni, she had an idea. Really, it was quite brilliant."

Liara blushed at the praise and shook her head. "No, it was nothing. It was just that when Dr. Gunasekera explained the medical implications to me that I made a realization. I did not really do anything."

The human doctor reached into his folder again and handed Shepard a second copy of a brain scan. This one looked similar to the first, including the hooks, but instead of being white, the spots were grayed out. "Dr. T'soni is being too modest," Gunasekera insisted as he pointed to the second scan. "Without access to this document, we could not have solved the mystery."

"So, uh, what are we looking at?" Shepard asked, feeling a bit out of her element with all this medical information.

"That is actually your brain, Commander."

"What? Mine?"

Liara nodded. "It was taken right after the Reaper War, when you were being treated at the hospital. I asked Feron to locate the document for me and send it. I had a hunch, but I needed to be sure. Do you realize what this means Shepard?"

The commander looked between the two scans, processing what she had just learned and wondering at the similarity between her and Irek's brain scans. Then it hit her. "Indoctrination," she whispered.

"Yes," Liara agreed. "That is what I realized as well. The boy is indoctrinated."

All the pieces fell into place. Irek's behavior could easily be linked to indoctrination. It was why he didn't see the commander as herself, why he had such strong feelings towards a fake identity, and why he had only been triggered by her voice. And she knew the Illusive Man was capable of it. He had been working on indoctrination when she had destroyed his base all those years ago. He must have spent the last decade perfecting it.

Halber leaned towards Shepard's shoulder in order to look at the two scans. "Curious: If these hooks are what cause indoctrination, then why are the boy's white and the commander's gray?"

Gunasekera rubbed his chin as he thought. "That's a hard question to answer. I would guess that it means one of two things. Either these 'hooks' that where inserted into the commander's brain are still present, but inactive, which would suggest that new hooks cannot be added. Effectively making the commander immune to further indoctrination. Or, they are empty space from when the 'hooks' were... ripped out is the best way to put it, I suppose. Which would suggest the opposite: that the commander is more susceptible to indoctrination. It is hard to say which is the more accurate statement."

"I'd rather it be the first, but I also don't really want to test it out," Shepard muttered. Staring at the scans, she couldn't help but feel that the answer had been glaring at her this entire time. She knew that the Illusive Man had been developing indoctrination techniques. That he had even used it on his own troops. Why hadn't she realized that he would never just give up on that goal? Indoctrination was one of the most powerful tools that the Reapers had had at their disposal. The Illusive Man wanted that power and he would do anything to obtain it. Then another realization hit her like a sledgehammer.

"Oh God," she whispered. "Miranda."

Liara's eyes widened as she made the connection as well. "By the Goddess, you are right, Shepard. He is going to indoctrinate Miranda. If he controls the human councilor, he controls human interests in the political realm."

"Deeply troubled: Irek was just a distraction," Halber put in. "He wanted us to waste our time here."

"It wasn't a complete loss," Lasha said. "At least we know what he's up to now. It's not like we're coming at him blind."

"Contritely: You're as smart as you are beautiful. We have gained valuable information." Shepard had to bite back a grin, especially when she saw the way Liara and Dr. Gunasekera gawked at Halber's flirting with Lasha. The drell looked terribly confused, and Shepard couldn't blame her. There was something both amusing and disconcerting about hearing romantic words said in a monotone, yet knowing that Halber was being completely sincere. "Worriedly: I just hope we are not too late to save the councilor," Halber continued.

Suddenly, EDI's voice came over the radio and Shepard put two fingers to her ear to listen. "Commander?" the AI said, "Aria T'loak has just forwarded a transmission to the Normandy. It appears to be a distress signal from Ms. Lawson."

"I'm on my way right now," the commander said. Turning her attention back to the others she added, "Everyone gather your things and report back to the Normandy immediately. Halber, you can leave Irek for now and tell the turians that they can release him once we leave. We won't be pressing any charges or anything. It seems that he's only a danger to me, so if I stay away he should go back to normal. You can tell his father about the indoctrination if you think he should know, but you should mention that there is no known cure. They just need to keep an eye on him and keep him out of Citadel space."

"Gravely: Understood, Commander."

Shepard rushed back to the Normandy with Liara beside her while the others went to complete their own tasks. She jogged down the unfamiliar corridors of the turian defense compound and radioed to EDI to call back all the troops. Boarding the ship, Shepard turned left into the cockpit and found EDI and Joker both looking concerned.

"Apparently this message was sent over open channels and Aria's people managed to intercept it," EDI said quickly. "I have used vocal markers to confirm that it is Ms. Lawson's voice in the message. It is very short, Shepard." A monitor popped up on the ship's control panel and the transmission began to play.

"Shepard! This is Miranda! The Illusive Man has me imprisoned somewhere. He's -" The message cut off abruptly. Shepard balled her hands into fists. She wanted to tear the Illusive Man's head from his shoulders. If he wanted to get to her, she would rather that he just came at her directly. But he was smart, and he knew that this method was much more effective. Abusing others to get to Shepard was an easy way to put her on edge and make her act impulsively.

Taking a deep breath, Shepard forced herself to focus and not let her anger get the better of her. "Could you trace it?" she asked.

"Yes, I have. I've determined that the call originated from the Sowilo System in the Hourglass Nebula."

"Sowilo?" Liara exclaimed. "That is where Hagalaz is."

"The Shadow Broker base?" Shepard asked. "The Illusive Man set up shop right under the Shadow Broker's nose?"

Liara shook her head. "No, not really. Cerberus attacked our base on Hagalaz at the start of the war. We had to abandon it. And because Cerberus had discovered its location, Feron and I agreed that it would be a poor choice to reestablish the Broker base there after the war. Feron resides somewhere else now."

"Where?"

Liara smiled apologetically. "I am sorry, Shepard, but I really cannot say. Even I do not know. I urged Feron to pick the location on his own and never inform me. My people have a saying: secrets shared are secrets lost."

The commander shrugged. "Fair enough. Still, seems pretty gutsy of the Illusive Man to move in if the Shadow Broker thinks it is unsafe."

"Actually, it makes a lot of sense," Liara said. "The system is mostly empty so a single space station would go unnoticed. Also the Shadow Broker has distanced himself from that location, meaning he will not come looking any time soon. It is the last place we might have looked for him."

Shepard sighed. "I really wish that bastard wasn't so clever." Turning back to EDI, she asked, "And we think this distress call is legitimate? Not a trap?"

"It is hard to say, Commander," EDI answered, sounding worried. "I found no sort of encryption. Plus, if we did not have Aria T'loak actively looking for odd transmissions, there is less than 1% chance that we would have found it. I am inclined to believe that it is legitimate."

"I can contact Feron and with his resources I can pinpoint the most likely location in the system to began searching for the Illusive Man," Liara offered.

"Do it," Shepard said. "Joker, how long will it take to get to the Sowilo System?"

The pilot brought up one of his maps on his console and said, "It's two jumps from here. So about three hours."

"Set a course. I want everyone back on the Normandy now."

"Yes, Commander," both he and the AI said.

Shepard stalked off to find Garrus and tell him what they had learned. She would need him up to speed and ready in case they had to make hard choices. Liara followed, keeping up with Shepard's brisk pace. Her lips pulled down into a frown and when they were alone in the elevator she asked, "What if we find the Illusive Man and Miranda is already indoctrinated?"

Shepard gritted her teeth. It was the same question she had been asking herself and wishing that she didn't have to answer. "I don't know."

"Do you think that if the source of indoctrination is gone that any being controlled will be set free?"

"God, I hope so." When the Crucible had fired, it had destroyed anything controlled by the Reapers. They'd found husks dead along with several people who looked normal on the outside, but must have been indoctrinated. A grim reality to their victory. So, Shepard had no idea if killing the Illusive Man would free Miranda and anyone else he might have indoctrinated. But it seemed to reason that if you destroyed the puppeteer, then the puppet would be free. Then Shepard frowned. Or the puppet would go completely limp and lifeless. Shit, that metaphor had gone south quickly.

"And... if it does not work?" Liara asked quietly.

The elevator doors opened at the third deck and Shepard stepped off. "I'll do what needs to be done," she said grimly.

After all, she always did.

~.~.~.~.~

Benny didn't lie. She had never needed to. Uncle Wrex had told her once that lying was the greatest insult you could give to another person. You could hit them, scream at them, curse them out, and all of that was better than lying. At least if you fought with them, you thought they were a threat. But lying meant that you didn't respect them. Either you held so much contempt for them that you did not think they deserved the truth, or worse, you thought they were so weak that they couldn't handle it. And Benny had never come across a person she thought so little of that she felt compelled to lie.

Which was why she felt so miserable at the moment. Not only had her parents lied to her, but now she was forced to lie to the rest of the galaxy. Well, maybe not lie, but hide the truth. She couldn't tell her friends who her parents really were. She couldn't tell anyone. Plus, she had to put on a mask and pretend like everything was fine. She had to go to museums and monuments with her class and pretend like she actually gave a crap about what they were supposed to be learning. And all the while her world felt like it had been ripped out from under her.

Therefore, it was no surprise that when she finally had a moment to herself, away from the rest of her class, Benny had wandered out to the park near the hotel and sat on a bench near a pond. Not for the first time, she closed her eyes and wished that she would wake up to discover that it had all been a dream. That would be so much easier than dealing with her conflicting emotions. On the one hand, she loved her parents, and the thought of being estranged from them made her eyes well up with tears. Yet, on the other hand, they weren't just her parents anymore. They were these larger than life heroes who everyone worshipped and who the entire galaxy had known about except for her. It felt like a cruel joke played at her expense.

As she sat stewing on her feelings of betrayal, someone sat down next to her on the bench. She glared at Matriarch Aethyta, wishing that her grandmother would just leave her alone. Besides, her grandmother had lied to her as well. Everyone she loved had lied to her.

When Aethyta noticed the petulant look on the little asari's face, she rolled her eyes and shook her head. "I've let you sulk long enough, Kiddo," she said. "You're part krogan and I know better than to let a krogan nurse their anger. It just gets worse. So, let's talk. I'm sure you've got questions."

Benny did have questions, but she knew many of them had to be directed at her parents. Still, there were things her grandmother could answer. "What's really going on?" Benny demanded. "Why is Uncle James really here? Where are my parents?"

Aethyta sighed. "They're hunting down a terrorist. The leader of a group called Cerberus."

"I know who that is," Benny said. "Now."

"Well, this madman abducted the human councilor and your parents have to deal with him."

Benny's eyes widened and she felt a sudden chill. "Aunt Miranda? They're rescuing Aunt Miranda?"

Aethyta nodded.

"Are they in danger?"

Aethyta's face twisted up as if she had tasted something sour. "I don't wanna scare ya, Kiddo, but yeah. The Illusive Man is a ruthless bastard and he doesn't like your parents. Especially Shepard."

Benny gripped the edge of the seat. "We have to help them," she insisted.

In reply, Aethyta let out a disparaging snort. "What help would we be? Look, your parents are the ones that people call when things go to shit. If they don't succeed, then there is no backup. Besides, me and James are here to keep you safe and away from Cerberus."

"So, you just want me to sit here and do nothing?" Benny demanded, feeling tears threatening to fall down her cheeks. She felt so helpless; there was a battle going on a million light years away, and while her parent's lives were in danger she was playing tourist on the Citadel.

Aethyta folded her hands in her lap and leaned back. "I know it sucks. Believe me, I know what it's like to feel as if everyone you care about is suddenly out of your reach. But your parents are the best, Benny. They've made a career out of doing impossible things. You just need to trust them to do what's best."

"Trust them?" Benny muttered angrily. "They lied to me."

Sighing, Aethyta put an arm around the little asari's shoulders. "I know nothing I say is gonna fix this for you right now - I know you need to hear it all from them - but I will tell you somethin', Kiddo. You're the reason either of them is still alive."

Benny raised her eyes to stare into the matriarch's. "What do you mean?"

"The Reapers were the most terrible thing this galaxy has ever seen. Defeating them was pretty much an impossible task. Shepard and Liara... they could have refused to fight. They could have run away - Goddess knows they had the means to do it. But they didn't. And I don't know how much you've learned in the past day, but what Shepard went through to win... well, it was tough. Anyone else might have given up. Dying would have been easier. But she didn't. Both of them kept fighting and stayed alive because they wanted to see the future. They wanted to see you, Benny. You're the reason they fought so hard. You're the reason they won. So, remember that. Everything they do is for you. If they lied to you, then they had a good reason."

"But how am I supposed to look at them the same way again?"

"You don't. If there's one thing I've learned in a thousand years it's that you can't keep wishing for the past. You move forward." Aethyta patted Benny on the head, smiling warmly. "Maybe you'll learn things about yourself in the process. And maybe you'll realize that you don't just love your parents, but you respect 'em too."