Strangled coughs and low, breathless sobs. The sound of someone retching. The dull thump of a body collapsing to the floor.

Shepard's ski-mask was damp with her own saliva as she pressed the wool over her mouth, inhaling the black fibres. Her body was burning from the inside out in the yellow-green fog.

The sound of Tali's fingers jabbing at the screen of the door's security console. "Hang on," she gasped under the whirr of her air-scrubbers. "Almost...almost...got it."

The door whooshed open. Peeling the mask back from her skin, Shepard squinted through the toxic haze, running towards her fallen teammate. It was only when she stooped down over the prone body that she saw it was Kaidan. She felt a twinge of regret. He hadn't believed in this mission and yet he'd come anyway, out of duty, maybe even out of the vestiges of old loyalty. Now he was suffering for her choice.

Kaiden craned his neck back, pressing the top of his skull into the hardwood floor. He gasped like a hooked fish, his eyes twitching, blinking out hazy yellow tears.

Shepard grabbed him, hefting him up onto her shoulder and started to drag him towards the door. Jacob stumbled over and helped her to support him. When they reached the door, they nearly tripped over the threshold in their eagerness. Kasumi sealed off the room, still coughing and clutching at her throat.

They eased Kaidan onto the floor. Shepard pulled off her ski mask to use as a cushion for his head.

Kaiden sucked in a few breathes of good clean air, hacked them out and then inhaled again. Closing his eyes, he sighed, the frightening purple-red colour in his face fading to a dark pink that mottled his cheeks and throat. "I'm...okay. That was like...drowning...in a fire. Help me sit up."

Shepard put her hands on his shoulders to prop him up and he coughed again, spitting some mucus onto the floor. A few feet away, the grandfather clock gave two stern chimes.

"You sure you're alright?" she rasped.

He gulped, wiping a gloved hand across his mouth, then leaned forward, panting. "Yeah. Been worse. Shouldn't have let myself go down like that."

"I don't think you had much of a choice on that one."

"I want to get up."

His body swayed forward as he tried to stand up, but she clasped his shoulders, holding him in place.

"Sit tight for a minute."

He shrugged his shoulders, struggling against her grip. "It isn't safe here."

"Nobody's coming," Jacob assured him. "Not yet anyway."

Kaidan shook his head. "That turian officer. She said she was on her way."

"I'm okay, but the rest of you still need to recover," Tali said. "You stay. I'll check the hall."

Shepard wasn't sure she liked the idea of her scouting around on her own. "Don't go far. Be careful."

The quarian nodded. "Always, Shepard."

She crept to the corner wall, peeking around the edge of corner, and then snuck out into the next section of the corridor.

"I can get up," Kaidan insisted. "Just got to find my feet."

The man was bloody persistent when he got an idea in his head. Shepard rose clumsily to her feet, offering Kaidan her arm. He didn't take it. Instead, he fumbled for a minute, bracing his hands against the floor as he struggled to balance on wobbly legs. When he managed to stand, he gave a low sigh, his chest heaving.

"See. No problems."

It was then that Shepard heard the sound of boots tromping along the corridor. From the heavy footfalls, she could tell that more than one turian was heading their way.

Kasumi peered around the corner, whipping back into safety just in time to literally dodge a bullet. It flew past her shoulder, shattering the grandfather clock's glass casing.

"Actually I think we've got a problem," Kasumi said. "And that problem has got Tali."

A gruff voice came from the corridor. "Come out and give us what you stole, Shepard. If you surrender, we'll only arrest you. Turn you into the proper authorities. Otherwise, the quarian gets a suit puncture - one she won't recover from."

"Don't do it, Shepard," Tali said, shrill with fear. "They're crazy. They'll shoot everyone."

Kasumi edged aside and Shepard moved into cover next to her. Darting a glance around the wall, she glimpsed Tali, accompanied by three turian agents. One of them was holding a pistol to her head.

Even more interesting was what was coming up behind the agents, faster and quieter than she'd ever thought possible: a shaven-headed psychopath, a tank-bred krogan and one very pissed-off turian.

"New deal: you let Tali go and we walk away without killing you," Shepard suggested. "You should consider it."

"And why would we do that?" the agent asked.

His head blew open in a dark mist, his body dropping to the parquet floor.

"That's why," Garrus said.

The other two agents opened fire with assault rifles, but between Tali's combat drone and Grunt's ferocious bloodlust, they didn't stand a chance.

"Now that is totally nakama," Kasumi said.

Shepard stepped out of cover, still completely in shock. It was as if her brain was short-circuiting. It didn't make sense. Garrus had left the ship back on Palaven. Now suddenly he was storming Saren's mansion on Auctoritas.

Maybe the toxic fumes were making her hallucinate, but if she was going to freak out on poison gas and have a vision of Garrus, she didn't think her imagination would include Grunt, Jack or heavy weaponry. Well, okay, maybe some heavy weaponry. But not the other two.

"So...how's everybody doing?" Garrus asked. "Just wanted to check in. You know. See what was up."

Before Shepard could summon up an answer, Tali attacked the turian with a hug. "You came back! I knew you wouldn't leave and not say goodbye or anything. Keelah, I was so angry at you but now I'm not angry at all!"

Garrus patted her shoulders, gently trying to extricate himself from the embarrassment of getting cuddled by a quarian, one who seemed to be crushing the air out of his lungs. "Uh, yeah, good to see you. Also very glad you're not angry. Your shotgun - kind of scary."

"Hey, wait!" Jack said. "We show up here and save your asses, but he gets all the fucking glory? What the hell is that?"

Shepard smirked. "Jack, did you want a hug? Because, you know, I'm sure it can be arranged."

"Heh heh, do it!" Grunt said. "I want to see this."

Jack's hand went to her pistol. "Not one step closer, Shepard. A simple thank-you will just fine."

"Well, thank you then," Tali said. "I was happy to see you."

Shepard eyed Jack and Grunt sternly. "I appreciate the good timing, but I do remember telling you two to stay back at the ship."

"The ship?" Grunt bellowed. "You expect me to stay at the ship? When there are some perfectly good turians to kill? Not likely."

"Insubordinate? Definitely. But you can't fault them for enthusiasm," Garrus said.

Something about his blasé tone made Shepard suspect he'd definitely had a part in encouraging this 'enthusiasm'. She didn't think it was a coincidence that he'd come charging in with two of the most bloodthirsty members of her crew, the ones most likely to ignore her orders to stay back at the Normandy and help Miranda with maintenance work.

It made for an unlikely alliance. Under normal conditions, Garrus didn't go out of his way to socialize with an adolescent krogan or a hardened felon he gladly would've scoped and dropped if she'd strayed onto his old turf on Omega.

Kaiden approached them, still looking a bit wobbly. He cast a wary glance at Garrus, giving the turian nod of recognition. "We've got what we've come for. Let's get out while we still can."

Giving up on stealth entirely, they rushed through the corridors, swatting down security drones like flies. It wasn't until they reached the second floor landing of the spiral staircase that they encountered real resistance. Amerantha stood at the bottom of the stairs wielding an assault rifle. She was surrounded by more than a dozen guards and a pack of steel-collared fighting varren.

Shepard ducked behind the rails of the balustrade, sticking the muzzle of her sub-machine gun between the slats and rattling off rounds like a woman possessed. Two guards fell under the hail of bullets, while another floated through the air, at the mercy of Kaidan's biotics.

Varren pounded up the stairs, gnashing their teeth. As they approached, Shepard saw that their legs had been reinforced with cybernetics, implanted metal spikes protruding from their faces. They were fast, much faster than she had anticipated and she found herself doubling back on the stairs, striving to evade their snapping jaws as she shot at guards.

Shepard stumbled on a step and a varren leapt at her, tearing at her leg. She flinched as the creature's teeth sunk into her skin, feeling warm blood stream down her calf. She stomped on the varren with her boot, its fishy eyes going glassy with pain. She kicked it again, sending its body slamming into the railing and then put a couple bullets in it for good measure. Jack's shockwave pounded past her, sending three other varren tumbling down the steps.

Shepard shifted her weight onto her uninjured leg, bumping against Garrus, who'd positioned himself on the step above her. He had his assault rifle out and was intently watching a guard who'd taken cover behind a marble statue. The second the guard's head poked out of cover, a bullet sliced through his neck.

Garrus gave a dry chuckle. "It's nice to be back. I missed you. And all the good times we have together."

"I missed you too," she said, turning to spray another varren with bullets. "Not that I'm protesting, but I thought you'd decided -"

"I changed my mind."

She glimpsed a varren lunging for her. Before it could clamp its teeth around her arm, Garrus pumped two rounds into its head – tap, tap – as easy as if he was clicking through vid channels.

"Impressive!" she said, shooting him a teasing grin. "My hero."

He shrugged. "Well, you've always been mine."

It knocked the breath out of her, that beautifully off-hand little comment of his, and she couldn't muster up an answer. For all his awkwardness, his cynical moods, the tough-guy swagger, there were moments when Garrus Vakarian was capable of astounding sincerity, saying exactly the right thing at precisely the right second. There were times when he could still her heart with just a couple of words.

As her forces thinned in number, Amerantha started to take more risks, to emerge from behind her troops. Firing off her assault rifle, she shot down a crystal chandelier. It smashed over Grunt's head with a shrill tinkle of glass, and he collapsed on the floor, groaning.

Jack leaped over the banister in a blind fury, throwing out a misaimed shockwave. "I'll tear you apart, turian bitch!"

The attack rumbled past Amerantha, bashing a side-table to splinters and sending a coatrack clattering against the floor.

"Humans," Amerantha scoffed. "Filthy bare-faced apes." She fired a concussive round at Jack, busting through her barrier, then took cover behind a marble pillar.

"Shanxi was a good start," the turian continued. "But we shouldn't have stopped there. We should've bombed you repulsive creatures back into another stone age. We should have put you in zoos, where you belong!"

"Ouch," Shepard said. "I'm a little hurt."

Garrus popped a fresh heat sink into his rifle. "Want to play a game?"

"What sort of game?"

"Let's see who can shoot her first."

"Sounds like fun. What do I get when I win?"

"Who says you're going to win?" he countered.

Damn, she'd missed him.

She'd almost forgotten the competitions she used to hold with him, Wrex and Tali, including one frenzied tournament to see who could destroy the most geth in a week. Tali had shocked them all by taking the win and the bragging rights - although she didn't get to do much boasting about it nowadays with Legion onboard.

Shepard rushed down the steps, pausing only briefly to blast another one of those pesky varren, and then ducked behind the stair post. Leaning forward, she glimpsed the side of Amerantha's thigh, exposed as she struggled to counter dual attacks from Jack and Kasumi. She aimed and fired off two shots. Amerantha cringed, pulling herself deeper into cover.

Shepard chuckled. "Easy. I win."

"I meant a head-shot," Garrus protested, his gun trained on Amerantha's position. He narrowed his eyes impatiently, as if willing her to emerge from behind the pillar. "Wasting bullets on a leg is just sloppy."

"Don't go changing the rules now. You only said I had to shoot her."

"Okay, a compromise: the score's 1-0 for you. But a head-shot wins."

She was going to argue this, when their battle banter was interrupted by the ear-splitting roar of a charging krogan. "TURRRRIAANN!"

Grunt stormed towards Amerantha's shelter in a blood-rage, her bullets bouncing off his hide like wasp stings. His machine gun fired incendiary rounds, scorching the turian's armour and then burning into the plate beneath.

She yowled, stumbling backwards, flapping her arms against her torso in a vain attempt to extinguish the flames. It only succeeded in fanning them.

Grunt chuckled and showered her with another round of ammo. She dropped to the floor, writhing in agony, fire searing black paths over her metallic skin. Her body rolled slightly, still flaming, setting the antique table and one of the rugs ablaze.

Jack pumped her fist in the air. "Fry, bitch! Man, I want to see this place burn."

"That one was in your honour, Baldy," Grunt said. "No one insults my krant."

Garrus rested his gun on his knee, heaving a martyred sigh. "Damn. That bastard won the game and he doesn't even know it."

Shepard regarded the charred corpse and the victory celebrations Grunt and Jack were conducting in the midst of the bonfire. "Don't tell him. Believe me, it's better that way."

"Don't know why he was so pissed off," Garrus muttered. "She didn't even mention the genophage."

Flames spread across the carpets and climbed the curtains, blackening the heavy fabric. A sconce exploded, sending glass flying in all directions. Smoke rose in feathery grey trails, carrying a stench of burning flesh and fresh varren carcasses.

"C'mon, people! Let's go!" Shepard hollered, waving her team members out the door. She looked over her shoulder at the krogan and the convict, who were still frolicking in the flames, stacking bodies like campfire logs to fuel the fire. Trust those two to treat a massacre like a national holiday.

Glaring at the pair, she pointed to the door. "Get. Out. NOW!"

She must have sounded frightening because they listened without her having to stomp over and strong-arm them.

As he walked out the door, Grunt shook his head mournfully. "It figures. And we were just starting to have fun."

Black smoke billowed from the broken windows of the mansion, the last piece of Saren's legacy torched to the ground.

There'd never been a funeral for the rogue Spectre. Shepard didn't even know what had happened to the body – the few scraps of ridged skin and shrapnel that'd been left of it, anyway. Maybe this belated cremation, attended by his foes, was the best memorial Saren could've received for, a tribute in blood.

It was odd, but she found herself getting a little misty-eyed at the sight of the roof collapsing, tongues of flame darting up through the rafters. It was as if she was grieving him...or mourning the woman she'd been before Eden Prime, before the Prothean beacon and this whole damn mess.

In any case, she missed having just one really formidable enemy, a good old-fashioned megalomaniacal mass murderer like Arterius who she could thwart at every turn. By contrast, the Reapers were so massive, so unfathomable in nature and so systematic in their drive to commit galactic genocide that they made her show-downs with Saren seem downright quaint. But it was silly indulge in nostalgia, to drudge stuff up from a past life, the one that had ended before she'd even died. She turned away, relinquishing the memories to the fire.

As they strode towards the property gates, a varren came barrelling out of the bushes and lunged at Jack, pinning her to the lawn. Shepard raised her pistol to shoot it and her finger was gripping the trigger when she realized it wasn't intent on ripping the convict to shreds. In fact, it was licking Jack's freckled cheeks with its forked tongue. She recognized it as the albino varren Severin had said was his favourite, the one called "Harbinger".

Jack pushed the varren off of her chest, wiping its drool off her cheeks. "Get the hell off me, you crazy mutt! You think that's fucking cute? Huh?"

"Plug-ugly thing really seems to like you," Jacob said. "Hey ugly doggie, what's going on?" He reached over to pet the varren's ears and the creature gave a low growl.

Jack guffawed, her mouth widening into the most genuine smile Shepard had ever seen from her. Usually Jack's grins looked like silent snarls. "He's got the right idea. Cerberus, bad. Maybe I'll keep him around. Make him into a pirate dog. Teach him to rip out that Illusive bastard's lying throat."

Grunt nodded approvingly. "A dog of war. Yes, I like it. We will teach him to be worthy of our clan, to slaughter all our foes."

Jack wrapped a possessive arm around the bewildered varren. "We? Screw that. It's my dog. Hear that? Mine. Nobody else's. He chose me."

Shepard felt sorry for the varren. Getting caught in a tug of war between Jack and Grunt was something she wouldn't have wished on any creature. Well, maybe Councillor Velarn.

Jack looked to Shepard appealingly. "He's mine, right? I get to keep him."

"I don't think so."

"C'mon, Shep. Please? It'll be cool. He'll fight Reapers and shit."

Shepard raised an eyebrow. "Let me get this straight. That...thing...is going to take down Reapers?"

"Maybe with its odour," Garrus suggested.

Jack scowled. "Quiet, Narc! You've been back five minutes and you're already wearing out your welcome."

Shepard folded her arms over her chest. "If I let you bring that thing on the Normandy, are you actually going to look after it? Or are you just going to let it crap all over the engine room?"

God, hanging around Jack was starting to turn her into her mother. Her mom had given a youthful Jill almost the exact same line when she'd picked up a stray cat on Arcturus station. Of course, she'd been six at the time and she hadn't been allowed to keep it.

Jack sighed. "I'll take care of it. Alright?"

"Promise?"

"Yep."

"I want a serious answer on this."

"I solemnly fucking swear!"

"Okay."

Jack smiled again, poking the varren's snout with her finger. "I'm going to name you 'Miranda'. Like that? Oh yes, you do!"

Kasumi giggled. "Well, I like it."

Jacob just shook his head despairingly.

"If you call it 'Miranda' it's not coming on the ship," Shepard said. "I don't need that kind of trouble, thank you. Besides, it's already got a name. 'Harbinger'."

Jack shrugged. "Eh. Alright. That's kinda bad-ass."

She petted the varren and its ugly pink eyes stared up at her adoringly. "Hey Harbinger. Hey Bing. Let's go back to the Normandy and piss off the cheerleader. Good plan, huh? I think so."

As they walked back towards the ship, Garrus sidled over to Shepard. "I don't know, Jill. Giving the crazy con a varren? I think that might end up biting us in the ass. Perhaps literally."

"Us? Did I hear that correctly?"

"Well, yeah. I mean, I was hoping..."

Her eyebrows lifted expectantly. She didn't plan on making this easy for him. "Go on. You were hoping?"

"Maybe this isn't the best place to talk about it," he said. "But I'd like to. Talk. If you're willing."

She nodded. "I'm willing to listen."

"I'm glad. That's all I can ask," he said. "So, how was Saren's house? Did you find what you were looking for?"

She glanced down at her bag full of plunder, evidence to sway the Primarchs. She looked back at him, still surprised that he was walking alongside her with his usual assured stride, as if nothing had changed, as if he'd never left. Every so often his arm would brush against hers, his fingers brushing lightly against the back of her hand.

"Maybe I did," she murmured. "Maybe I have."