Chapter Twelve - Prayers both heeded and not

Amarceru - the bitter, mud-like tea popular with turians. Popular with quarians but much more dilute.

Tarc - Vulgar expletive equivalent to shit.

Caris - Beloved, precious, cherished

Torin - Torini plural. Male turian of the age of majority (15)

Tarin - Tarini plural. Female turian of the age of majority (15)

Pahir - Son

Patrem - Father (Familiar form Pari equivalent to dad)

"Put him through," Victus orders even as he runs through the door, Terion right on his spurs. He steps up to the QEC console and nods to the omega shift comm chief. Finally, word from the Normandy. It might be 0300, but he could have been dragged out of bed for only one piece of better news.

"Are the Reapers defeated?" Hackett demands the moment he appears. "Did the Crucible work?" The admiral appears significantly more haggard than he did ten days earlier, a more visceral reminder of the radically changed galaxy than Victus needs on two hours sleep.

"Admiral Hackett, you're on the Normandy?" Victus shakes off his surprise to answer the question. "Yes, Admiral." Victus looks up as Terion yawns, showing all his teeth. Jane's remembered delight whispers through his mind, a dull, rusted blade scraping along the inside of his skull. "When the Crucible fired, the ground units turned to dust and the ships all shut down. Shepard did it; she saved us all. Or at least most of us. As far as we can tell, the geth were destroyed as well."

"As was the Normandy's AI." The admiral lets out a deep sigh, his shoulders sagging as if he's carried them up around his ears for days. He probably has. "I feel like we've been stranded without word for years. Did the turian fleet make it to their rendezvous?"

"They did. Commodus has them on course to Palaven." Victus catches movement out of the corner of his eye. He gives Ralayis a weak smile as she hurries in and places a cup of amarceru on the console next to him. She presses a hand over his for a moment before she backs over to the wall. The last week has nurtured far too much over-familiarity, but everyone is so raw and she's been such a lifesaver that he doesn't have the heart to call her out on it.

When they won the war, everything was supposed to be sunshine, grilled drellak burgers, and long vacations in the sun. Instead, it's just a new war and a different hell: dark, dank days of black skies, freezing temperatures, sooty rain and snow, mud, and shortages … of everything.

Victus stifles yawn after yawn as he listens to Hackett report on the Alliance, asari, and quarian ships. His flagship, already badly damaged in the battle, had been all but destroyed by the Crucible's blast, falling out of FTL before reaching the rendez-vous.

"It took the fleet three days to find us and another to evacuate the survivors," Hackett says, leaning heavily on the QEC console. "Specialist Traynor repairing the Normandy's QEC may just have saved everyone from going mad. Not knowing if the Crucible worked or if we were still at war has weighed heavily on everyone." He lets out a long sigh. "We're still a few days out—we can only travel as fast as the most damaged ship—but we're on our way back."

Vakarian pushes in next to the admiral before either can say anything further. There's no smile of greeting from the other torin, no hint of relief, just dread and a frantic sort of hair-trigger distress. "What about Shepard?" he asks, his voice taut, subvocals flat. "Why isn't she there? Is she all right?" His mandibles twitch once, the sidelong glare that passes between he and Hackett telling Victus that the interruption is against direct orders.

Victus merely shakes his head, reality hitting him hard and all of the sudden: he's been too busy to do much other than keep moving, but it's been nine days. Nine of the longest days on record. Clamps fasten around his throat, squeezing tighter as he tries to form the words to tell Garrus that his best friend is missing and after nine days, presumed dead.

Terion steps up next to him and salutes. "Advisor Vakarian. Admiral Hackett." Victus notes the admiral's reaction to Garrus being addressed first, and thus as the superior officer. Hackett's expression betrays his realization that Garrus Vakarian is more than merely Shepard's XO. Victus's pahir clears his throat before continuing, "We have been searching the Crucible and surrounding space for more than a week, sirs, but the area is heavily littered with debris. We'll need air support to clear the area to do a proper search."

"You'll have it," Hackett says, straightening and giving them a starched, last-word-on-it sort of nod. "The remaining shuttles are still occupied with SAR efforts?"

Victus's voice burrows its way through his closed windpipe, and he grips Terion's arm, easing his pahir back off the pad. Unable to meet Garrus's stare for more than a split-second at a time, Victus focuses on Hackett's less demanding presence. Vakarian feels like a brooding time bomb, as if he's barely containing the urge to kick Hackett off the pad and drill Victus for details.

"Yes," Victus says at last, answering Hackett's question. "We cleared the city—although stragglers continue to come in—then moved onto the Citadel. Despite the heavy destruction, we find a few more survivors every day." Opening his omnitool, he sends his daily logs to the admiral. "We've got the base here cleaned up and one of the buildings repaired to house the hospital. SAR teams are raiding the Citadel for any medical equipment and supplies that they can find. Luckily, C-Sec built massive shelters in the deepest, most fortified areas of the ward arms."

Pausing, he takes a long draught of amarceru, the bitter heat welcome as he fights his body's demand to lie down right there. "With the hospital up and running, we've focused on building secure housing for the civilians. The military personnel are housed in tents around the perimeter of the base." He sighs and half-falls back into a braced position against the console. Spirits, he needs to return to bed for a couple of hours before Wrex arrives at the door, bellowing the abuse he calls a krogan wake-up call.

Victus clears his throat and takes another drink. "Keepers are swarming all over the Citadel, repairing the vital systems first. I sent an engineering team to the relay yesterday but won't hear back from them until later today or tomorrow." He turned away and covered a yawn with his hand. "Sorry, Admiral. It's the middle of the night here."

The admiral dismisses any offense with a wave. "You have my apologies for calling so early, Primarch. I'm sure you understand our eagerness to discover the rest of the galaxy's fate." Hackett's smile is thin and wan. "And thank you for holding down the fort. I can finally relax knowing that our people back there are in good hands." Hackett's turn to yawn. It seems lack of sleep and stress aren't limited to those on Earth. "I'll go through these reports and call back at 1200 local time." He slants the time as a question.

Victus nods. "I'll make sure to be here for that, barring the morning scans or sweeps finding Shepard. If they do, my assistant, Lt. Ralayis Meran, will be able to help you. She's my feet on the ground while I'm searching and knows what's going on better than I do." He waves the young tarin forward so that Hackett will know her face if she needs to take the call.

Hackett nods to acknowledge Ralayis. "Later on, then. Hackett, out."

Vakarian leaps in to stop the admiral from disconnecting the call. "Primarch, call me …." He stops, no doubt trying to find a way to phrase the demand as something more request and less order. Garrus is a better turian than he gives himself credit for.

"I'll call you as soon as I get back to base later today," Victus promises, meaning it. As crazy as the search has made him over the past week, it must have been so much worse for Garrus.

"Thank you." Vakarian backs away, his low, flicking mandibles and subvocals betraying his continued worry, but he allows Hackett to close the channel. "Normandy, out."

On his way back to bed, talons dragging through the ever-present mud, Victus wonders whether Hackett's weariness will save Garrus a lecture on ignoring the Normandy's chain of command. The thought of the other torin's reaction to that draws out a bleak smile.

We'll find her, Garrus. Whatever shape Jane is in, we'll find her and have closure one way or the other.

"Primarch," Wrex calls, striding through the door of the command center at 0630, "we've got the probe scans from overnight sorted and plotted." The fact that the krogan leader doesn't make reference to pyjaks anywhere in the sentence drops Victus's heart into his boots. Wrex has made Primarch Pyjak a trend among certain, less reverent, search party members, so the sudden decorum sets off all of his alarms.

"Wrex?" he asks, his subvocals demanding that the krogan just spit it out, however horrible the news is. He braces against the table even as Wrex slots the OSD into the computer and the data appears in holographic form.

"We found her. We were looking in the wrong place," the krogan says simply, but there is no relief … no celebration in his voice. "At least we think it's her. There's a faint lifesign reading here." He marks the spot in red, the location giving Victus back some of his hope. The readout comes within 65% of Shepard's stats, an acceptable margin for error. "She must have been thrown clear by the explosions."

Victus leans in. "She's within the Citadel's air and gravity." Looking up into Wrex's eyes, his frantic with hope, he asks, "Is she stable there? Not escaping or being pulled down?"

Wrex nods. "Her position is stable." He zooms in to show a misshapen form spinning slowly over the course of the scan. "Doesn't look like she's in very good shape, but the shuttle is outside and ready to go."

"Don't worry," Ralayis says when he spins to face her, "I'm all over the call with Admiral Hackett." Her smile is warm when she squeezes his forearm. "Go, bring her home."

He's already running, beating Terion out the door, sprinting down the slippery, makeshift ramp system to the street. The rest of the crew is already in the shuttle—Cortez in the pilot seat, Jack, Miranda Lawson, and Urdnot Grunt strapped into the back—when he leaps inside and throws himself into a seat. They all nod, but no one speaks as they settle in for the twenty minute flight.

Victus recites silent prayers over and over in his head, his talons thumping out a sing-song rhythm against the decking. The chanting is a neurotic habit that he's developed as they searched, partly to keep his hope alive, and partly to keep himself from dwelling on thoughts of what happens when they find her. It's far too easy to give in to the love that pulses through him every second ... to imagine finding her, nursing her back to health, finally finding a way to go on their date … feeling the softness of her kisses … her warm palms calloused and dry in his talons … the comforting weight of her in his arms ….

Spirits, just let her be alive. Anything else, we can overcome. Just let her be alive. Anything else, we can overcome.

As he chants the two lines over and over again, he chews on the outside of his tongue. It's another stress habit, and it leaves his tongue aching by the end of the day, but clenching his teeth had left him with blinding headaches. The sore tongue proves far less debilitating.

Heart beating quick and light, entire body tingling with anticipation, he strains against the physics of time and distance as if he can use the power of his mind to push the shuttle faster or bend space to warp them there instantly. He growls low in his throat and glances over his shoulder at the read out in the cockpit, the red blip drawing closer with agonizing sloth.

Terion presses his shoulder into Victus's, the gesture one of companionship and comfort. It stills the primarch's thumping, his boot making solid contact with the shuttle floor. At least for a few moments.

"Coming up on the area now, Primarch," Cortez calls through the comms. "There's good air density although gravity is pretty much zero'd out up here, so tie yourselves in before you do anything crazy back there."

Victus snaps open his restraint and jumps up, grabbing the tether that ties him to the shuttle when he searches unstable or dangerous areas. It's a wise precaution that allows them to reel him in if he gets hurt rather than risking someone else. Right then, it's a fiddly torment that keeps snagging on shaking talons, tangling as he unwinds it and clips it to the belt around his waist.

He hooks onto the shuttle's frame and looks over at Wrex, the krogan moving with veritable sloth across the troop compartment. Fifteen impatient reprimands fly up into his mouth only to be choked back before the krogan hooks on, nods, and hits the control to open the hatch. Spirits! Finally!

Victus shakes out his hands to stop their trembling and activates his omnitool, pulling up the scan on the small viewer.

"That's as close as I want to get," Cortez informs them. "Good luck, gentlemen, my prayers are with you."

When the pilot brings the shuttle to a relative stop, Victus kicks off the frame a little too hard, launching himself out and away from the hatch. The speed leaves his tether snapping and banging off the shuttle door instead of unravelling smoothly, and Jack curses, barking at him to hold up while she untangles it. No. He snaps back: something rude. Shepard's signal is close, a small tangle won't impede him.

Pulsing his hardsuit thrusters he soars around bits and pieces of ships and buildings, well … around most of them, anyway. He earns another curse from Jack as he slams straight into a huge chunk of debris, then bounces off to ram through the floating body of a hanar. The tentacles wrap around him like the arms of a desperate lover. Guilt doesn't slow his haste as he wrestles free and flings the corpse away from him, into the debris field. Normally, they tag bodies with transponders for the retrieval teams, but he turns his back on the hanar as it floats away. The dead can wait; Jane can't. She's already waited far too long.

Keeping on eye on his omnitool, Victus blasts his thrusters, powering through the pieces of what was once a fighter and its turian pilot, closing in on the tiny blip of hope. It's irrational, his headlong rush. Irrational and dangerous. Jane has waited nine days, another five minutes will make little difference. But still … after so many days, he knows the odds are stacked against Jane's survival. Her armour will have administered medigel to stop any bleeding and seal wounds, and the scans found life signs, something that after nine days with no food or water, he assumes can be blamed on the tech implanted during the Lazarus project.

Damn it! He needs to get to her. Days floating in the ruins or not, every second counts, and they tick past in time to his heartbeat, hope refusing to submit to pragmatism.

Just let her be alive. Anything else, we can overcome. Just let her be alive. Anything else, we can—

Wrex lets out a bellow of triumph. "I've got her."

Victus hits his left-hand thrusters, spinning toward the krogan, almost missing the muttered, "At least, I think it's her," that follows. Almost.

He understands the krogan's doubt the moment he gets close enough to see her body in Wrex's arms. He freezes, every nerve suddenly as rimy as they were molten and electric the moment before. For the space of several breaths, his brain flails, trying to understand how Wrex is holding her to make it look like large pieces of her are missing.

Her legs … they have to be blocked … hidden behind Wrex's bulk. He's the size of a skycar, after all.

In the moment that Victus realizes that the Crucible's explosion stole her legs, it also steals all the warmth and air in his hard suit. He gasps, hands lifting to his throat, his heart pounding so hard inside his skull that its thunder drowns out the voices on his radio.

65% of Shepard's stats … he'd thought it an acceptable margin for error, but it wasn't a margin of error at all … only 65% of Jane remains.

How can she still be alive? Dear spirits … all her hair is burned away, the skin on her head, neck, and arms covered in swaths of blistered and waxy scarlet and patches of scorched black. Most of her armour is melted into slag, huge chunks of it torn away.

"Primarch?" He blinks as Wrex calls his name, breaking through the horror. "She's alive."

Victus nods. That was his prayer. Everything else, they can overcome. He holds out his arms. "I'll take her, Wrex." When the krogan hesitates, he insists through low, growling subvocals: he won't be argued with. Not about that. Gently, carefully, they transfer Jane into his arms, her body cold and stiff, her extremities frozen.

But it's her. Despite her terrible injuries, he knows that it's her. Mandibles trembling, he lets out a soft, low keen. He's found her. He's finally found her.

"Hello, caris," he whispers, not caring in the slightest who hears him. "I told you I was coming for you. Sorry it took me so long." He swallows, another keen accompanying the half-gasp, half-gulp. Staring down at her closed eyes, their lids sealed with glimmering trails of ice, he says, "I've missed you. Spirits, woman, how I've missed you." Talons latch onto his heart, the cruel squeeze robbing him of air and voice once more. He aches to rest his brow on hers, the desire to brush his mouth plates over her lips tightening that clawed grip until his hold on her slips, the heart-attack level agony leaving him lightheaded.

No, he can't let it swallow him. He gathers her to his chest, cradling her so her head rests between his arm and side. She needs him, and he needs to be there for her. He can collapse, dissolve into helpless wailing, and have a breakdown or ten, but later, once she's being looked after.

"Reel me in," he calls over the radio, his earlier urgency shoving aside the pain. They don't have time … she doesn't have time to fiddle around.

To Jane he says, "Let's get you to the hospital." The rope tugs at his harness, pulling him on a straight path back to the shuttle. "Wrex, watch for debris. Keep my back clear." He shelters his precious burden, his armour taking a few small hits, although Wrex clears away the worst of the hazards. Jane has suffered enough, and he makes a silent vow to protect her the best he can for as long as he can.

A guarded happiness explodes in his chest, its shrapnel tearing a keen through his second larynx. Swallowing hard, he clamps down on the raw, bleeding wounds and says, "You owe me a date, caris." He's got to focus on the positive. She doesn't need him weeping over her as if she's already died. She needs him strong and fighting at her side. He's found her. There is hope. "Someplace with candles and shit."

Miranda and Grunt snatch Jane from his arms the moment he reaches the shuttle and place her on a stretcher. Victus sits on the floor next to her, holding her hand in gentle talons as the dark-haired human activates her omnitool, running scans and fussing the entire way back to Earth.

They land just outside the hospital doors, a crowd of doctors and nurses swooping in as the shuttle opens. Victus takes one end of the stretcher, refusing to be bullied from his duty by the porters. They'll steal her from him soon enough, taking her into an arena where he's all but useless. For that moment, he can help, and so he carries Jane into the triage ward, able only to hold her fingers for six heartbeats before he's chased out … banished into exile in the waiting lounge.

"Primarch," the physician says, his tone and posture defeated and … lazy. Perhaps he's just exhausted, but Victus isn't feeling the slightest bit generous. Slouching against the counter, the doctor plays with the corner of Shepard's chart. The information is handwritten on scraps of paper, some of which have scorched edges. He believes the human saying is, 'beggars can't be choosers', the idiom especially true in post-Reaper-War London. "Commander Shepard is in extremely critical condition."

Victus feels ice water splash into the pool of molten rage in his belly. They haven't come that far to let some too-tired-to-bother surgeon let Shepard die. The primarch fixates on the chart, her missing limbs indicated by thick black slashes of marker. For a half-second, he allows doubt to creep in. Is he being selfish, clinging to her … insisting that they drag her back from the cliff's edge where she teeters, so close to toppling over?

"I'm afraid that her implants just keep restarting a dead body." The man gulps and steps back when Victus's stare snaps up to grab his in sharp talons. He gulps again, his throat-lump bobbing several times, and Victus can smell fear in the man's sweat, acrid and sour. "At this point, I think it would be kindest to sever the connection to the master implant and let the commander pass quietly."

No! One hand slices the air and then slams against the counter hard enough to make the nurses jump. No! Shepard has fought like hell, implants or not, and she's going to be given every chance. He closes on the surgeon in one stride, towering over the man. "If you aren't willing to put in the time and effort, I'll find someone who will." Leaning in, but being careful not to make the slightest contact, he lowers his subvocal register to one that borders on threatening. "She is the only reason any of us are still here, and you will treat her like a living, viable patient until which time her brain and her heart stop of their own volition."

"Sir … Primarch Victus, they already have … several times. The biometrics from her armour show that she has failed over two dozen times." He backs up far enough to look up, meeting Victus's threat with more guts than the primarch gave him credit for. "She has third degree burns over fifty percent of her body. The explosions violently amputated both legs and her left arm. Her entire body is riddled with shrapnel ..." He trails off and then sighs, his hands lifting in a helpless sort of shrug.

Victus shakes his head. His heart pounds in his throat, the pressure … the constant throbbing ... leaving him dizzy and nauseated. Pressing a hand to his temple, he wrestles himself under control. "I stepped out of that shuttle to collect her. I held her hand all the way back, and I helped carry her in here." His turn to swallow hard enough to make his throat click, but it finally eases the pressure enough to think clearly. "You don't need to tell me how badly she's hurt."

With clarity, comes reason, and he backs up a step, taking a deep breath that calms the fury. He's not winning any friends in the Alliance ranks, and he's going to need them to help Jane.

"As of this second, everyone is going to stop telling me what's wrong with her and what can't be done," he says, pleased with how rational he sounds. "Instead, they're going to tell me what's viable and what the options are to save her life." Raising his brow plates, he leans down to meet the surgeon on a level. "If she's died and come back over two dozen times in the past nine days, it means she's fighting like hell. The least we can do is fight just as fucking hard. Am I making myself perfectly clear?"

After a long moment of staring at Shepard's chart, the surgeon lifts it from the counter and nods. "Very well. She'll be in surgery for at least twelve hours. If you leave your contact information, the nurses will be able to find you to give you hourly updates." Looking up, he gives Victus a crooked, wry smile. "I don't envy your political rivals."

Victus shrugs. "One fights for what matters, Dr. Ziang … for what strikes closest to home. Right now, nothing matters more than her." He spins on his talons, marching toward the couches along the far wall of the waiting room. "And the nurses will be able to find me right here to report in."

He stops halfway and turns back. "Wait. I want to see her first." When the doctor shakes his head, Victus sets his shoulders and arches his neck, working the arrogant primarch angle. "If there's a chance she might not come out of this surgery, I need to see her before she goes in."

Ziang sighs and waves to a nurse. "Please take the primarch to see Commander Shepard. Give him a mask, and make sure he goes through decon a few times."

Victus hesitates. It didn't occur to him that he might complicate her recovery. Still, he needs to see her. Numb … wrung out from a long day of being tossed about in emotional storms … he needs to see her, to get the chance to cradle her fingers in his … to stare at her until he convinces himself she's not a mirage that will dissipate with a breath.

He ties the surgical mask over his nose and mouth, then follows the nurse through the door into a long, white corridor. Silence presses in around them, the closed doors on both sides leaving him airless … caught in limbo, a purgatory not unlike the endless corridors he searches in his nightmares.

Then a door opens, ultraviolet lights sweep over him, and she's there. Tubes and wires connect her to a large computer, IV's, and oxygen. His stare slides over the many things keeping her alive to focus on her.

Jane.

She's a scarlet face, scarred and tattered, peeking out amidst bandages and white, crisp sheets. Somehow, out of the sundered armour, clean and cared for, she seems so much smaller and more fragile.

The nurse—he notices that she's asari—rolls a chair over next to the bed and gives him a tight smile. "I'll be back when they're ready to prep her for surgery."

He opens his mouth to thank her, but the continued, floating airlessness steals the words before they can escape. Grabbing the back of the chair, he tries to anchor himself, the past couple of weeks suddenly seeming to have been some vague sort of dream. Denial … it has to be denial. His talons sink into the back of the chair. If it's all some dream, the final battle has yet to happen and Jane is still out there somewhere, whole and healthy, laughing at one of Garrus's ridiculous jokes.

Stepping around the chair, he sinks onto the seat and reaches out, gentle talons whispering along the warm, solid length of her right arm. Somehow, it came through without more than a couple of scratches, spared while the rest of her limbs were torn from her body.

"Jane." Her name hovers in the still air between them until he slips his talons under her fingers. "They're going to be taking you into surgery in a few minutes," he says, the dissociation settling as his thumb brushes across her knuckles. "I told them I had to see you before they started, because I need to make sure that you know I'm here, and I'm waiting for you."

He bends to rest his head on the mattress next to her hand and breathes her in. It's there. Her scent barely registers above hospital and everything else, but it's there. "Spirits," he says and sighs, "I've been going crazy trying to find you. Now that I have, you've got to keep fighting. I'm going to be here every second, fighting with you and for you, but I can't do it alone."

A soft keen rolls up his throat, a faint warble of frustration. Everything he feels is too intense, too huge and overwhelming to squeeze down into words.

"I love you." He nods, the three words encapsulating the essence of it. "That's what it amounts to. I love you so much that I don't think I can bear losing you, so you've got to suck it up and fight like hell for us." Careful not to move her hand, he nuzzles the backs of her fingers. "I'm sorry if it hurts and it's hard, but you can't take the easy way out."

"Primarch?" He nods without turning toward the door. "They're ready for her."

He nuzzles Jane's fingers again, then pushes up out of the chair.

Bending over her, he just touches his mouth to her brow. "Don't leave me, caris," he whispers, a cancerous terror erupting in his chest. "Please, you can't leave me now." He closes his eyes against the threat of tears, the tumor growing and spreading until his ribs and keel creak under the pressure like old timber.

He breathes, slow and steady, clinging to control. "As much as I have to do this alone if you leave me, dear spirits, Jane, I don't want to." He pulls back far enough to cup his hand over his mouth, a desperate wall thrown up to hold back the keens trying to batter their way out. "Please don't make me do this alone. That's not the deal." He bites down on the words, not too proud to beg, but the nurse clears her throat. He nods and touches his mask-shrouded mouth to Jane's lips. He needs to let them get to work.

"I love you," he says once more. "Come back to me."

Somehow, he makes it back to the waiting room without seeing where he's going. The storm breaks, tears falling so hard and thick that the world disappears behind a grey curtain of mist. Falling into a chair, he cradles his head in his hands, elbows slamming into his knees. He covers his mouth to muffle the escaping keens, relief melting the steel that's held him upright and kept him going. Without his stoic armour, he's left raw … bleeding as he's torn between hope and fear, two alpha varren fighting over scraps.

Distant footsteps echo against the concrete floor, and the chair next to him lets out a jagged screech, its legs scraping across the floor as someone sits next to him. A comforting arm slips around his shoulders.

"Pari?"

Victus wipes at the tears on his face, the movements almost vicious, then looks up at his pahir. He supposes that's what he is now and lets out a short sigh of relief as he sets Primarch Victus aside in favour of Pari and Adrien, the torin who loves Jane Shepard.

Terions lifts a hand to gesture toward Miranda Lawson, the woman standing a few metres away, posture stiff, almost regal, her hands clasped behind her back. "Ms. Lawson wants to assist the doctors, but they won't let her get involved unless she has permission from someone Shepard gave her power to." He shrugs. "I'm not sure what that means. It didn't translate well."

"Power of attorney," Lawson offers. The woman steps forward, relaxing a little. "Legal permission to make decisions for her if she's incapacitated." She pauses and squares her shoulders, as if bracing for a fight. "I'm not sure what Shepard has told you about me, if anything," she says, "but I ran the Lazarus Project. I was in charge of bringing Shepard back after she died on Alchera. I know her implants and physiology better than anyone. I can help them save her." Quick, efficient hands tug the tie out of her hair, then pull the thick mass away from her face, fastening it into a tail on the back of her head.

Tarc! How had he forgotten? Shepard had told him about the Lazarus Project. Victus stares at Lawson for a good ten seconds. His initial flare of joy cools to something less sure when he remembers Shepard's description of the pain and mental anguish she went through thanks to her first resurrection. Would she even want another? Damn it.

Of course, the last time, she'd been brought back to fight a war. She awakened to fighting and death. This time, she's being saved to have a life: a chance at peace and love and all the things she told him she wanted that last night.

Victus pushes out of his chair and paces to the window. Rain pours down, clattering against the heavy plastic sheeting that obscures the bleak world on the other side. If he insists on bringing Jane back, it's to a long, agonizing fight and a ruined world. Setting aside his own wishes and hopes, he brings the Primarch back into the equation, because Adrien can only make one decision when it comes to Jane. The primarch has a better shot of making the choice that's best for Shepard.

Is it arrogance to believe she'd be willing to fight and suffer for a chance at the life she wanted after the war … a life with him? She might well hate him for dragging her back to a devastated galaxy and everything that means to her recovery. Lawson doesn't possess the resources she once had. Performing miracles like regrowing limbs is impossible, at least for the foreseeable future.

Tarc. If Jane hates him, she hates him. There's only one decision to be made. He turns to face Lawson and his pahir.

"Garrus Vakarian holds Shepard's power of attorney," he says, using the words to brace himself for the fight to come. "I'll contact him and get him to send whatever permissions are needed." And with that, he strides for the door, hurrying across the base to the comm room.

Please don't hate me for not being able to let you go.

(A-N: I thought I'd put Adrien out of his misery and continue right on with this chapter. That probably means a slightly longer wait for the next one while I catch up on my other projects. Thanks so much for the support, as always. Hugs.)