A/N: After Garrus and Thane's loyalty missions.

Garrus spun his glass on the faux-marble bar. Thane drained his quickly, unblinking. Kasumi played with the stem of her fruity drink while I stared at my beer. I didn't have much to say, honestly. The bartender glanced at me with caution. That was usually a bad sign, now that I think about things. Then again, the bartender at the Dark Star had a good reason to be wary of me- I had puked all over his bathroom and had to be carried out bodily the last time I was there. The bartender was giving me the stinkeye. Tali sat with Kasumi, not saying anything. A dark cloud hung over all of us.

"Thank you, Commander," Garrus said, "For what you did today. We've both gotten a little more vicious since fighting Saren, but thanks for stopping me."

I took a drink of beer, nodded.

"No problem, Garrus. I know it must have felt right to reduce Sidonis, but it would have caught up with you in the end."

He nodded, drained his glass. The bartender refilled it without being asked.

"I know Commander. I...I just wanted justice for my men. Is that so bad? And I went and cocked it up. I fucked up my military career by agitating, I fucked up my C-Sec career by being impatient. I got my team killed. Spirits, can't something in my life go right for once?"

He shook his head. Tali patted him on the back.

"Come on, Garrus. You've done plenty right. You fought the good fight on Omega, you fought Saren," she almost whispered to him. They started talking, Thane listening in. I was happy to be left with my own thoughts, but Kasumi called out to me instead.

"Shepard, out of curiosity, what was that little scuffle about earlier?"

"What?"

"That thing with the young guy."

Walking through the wards, some young punk had run into me, trying to provoke a fight while a bunch of his buddies watched, ready to jump us. I hadn't said anything, just slipped into stance. I knew their types- they ended up as pirates, or dead, or in jail in the end. He shoved me when I didn't respond. I had told him, I stacked fucks like you five deep during the Blitz, finally made your worthless asses useful - as sandbags. Keep on walking. We locked eyes a moment, and my crew closed ranks. He rethought picking his fight, and walked on grumbling to himself.

"Shepard," Tali interrupted, "Garrus needs to sober up some. Going to be here awhile?"

"Yeah, Tali."

"I'll assist her," Thane said. It was probably the most he had said in four hours, once we arrested his son. He had a lot of thinking to do. We all did. The way Garrus had changed was worrying me. Kasumi watched silently and Tali helped Garrus up. I caught a glance, saw that same weariness in his eyes that I saw on Omega. I slapped his shoulder, nodded as he turned away. The bartender opened another beer, put it beside my mostly empty one. I nodded at him, turned back to Kasumi.

"That kid is the kind that grows up to be a pirate or merc or slaver. The kind I killed in spades."

"How do you know?"

"He doesn't care about hurting others. He wants to do it. Not like Garrus did, to even the scales. He wants to do it because he can, because he wants to be the big man. It's a pirate mentality."

"And that sandbags comment?"

Right about then, I felt what Thane must feel every time he goes into one of those trances. I stepped out of myself, let the words bubble out.

My unit had been bar-hopping after a long field exercise. Fighters sprayed missiles and missiles into the downtown of Chryse, just to put the fear into them. Caruthers and Hendel bought the farm right then and there. Shrapnel from the street got them, killed them on the spot they were dancing by the big window. It wasn't hard to tell they had a thing, the way they looked at each other, the odd touch on exercise. The way they danced before shrapnel tore him apart, the way she gibbered and held his body as she bled out in under a minute. Once the shock had worn off, we made for the garrison. We hadn't made it far enough from base to make getting back there an ordeal. We made it far enough, though. By the time we got there, it had been pounded flat from orbit. A few buildings were still intact, most important the armory. It was located a ways from the barracks and motor pool, mostly underground. It was a saving grace.

We ended up being deployed with some local police and armed civilians in a nearby school, using it as a waypoint for all the civilians to run and hide. We had gotten rifles, a pair of light machine guns, some rockets, some grenades. A couple of radios that we gave to some of the civvies to run while we fought- we had our own local net. I don't remember how we got there, actually, but there we were. I was in shock, dragged bodily around. There's a gap I can't explain, but the memory picks up with the pirates and batarians landing on the ruins of the base, and swarming out with flexcuffs and demonic grins. They thought there was nothing but easy pickings left. They must have missed the twenty of us slipping into the school after the bombardment. We waited until they were a hundred yards out before we opened up. I had the Mantis, because I was the best shot in the bunch. Harlech actually tagged one of their ships as it lifted off, sending it crashing back down on the other one. Behind us, refugees continued to stream in as we lit into the slavers. I don't think any of them survived- most of the wounded ended up trampled in other attacks, or bleeding out. But I sat there, like it was the target range. Bang, work the bolt. Bang, work the bolt. Through the scope, the only difference between the human pirates and the batarian ones I could see was that they bled different colours. Otherwise, they died just fine.

The second wave was more careful. They came down behind the wrecked, started using it as cover, trying to snipe at us. But the boys in the armory had been busy. They got a piece of old artillery ready, cracked open the doors and fired cannister shot into the batarians as fast as they could feed it. All we saw was chunks of mercs, pirates, and scumbag flying at a right angle to us. We laughed, Harlech saying something about 'a whiff of the grape'. That attack broke in a hurry, after a half-hearted attempt to charge the gun. We sniped at those who fled, and waited. The armory troops sealed their blast door again, hoping for another chance to deal out some death for their lost friends.

The civvies in charge of the radios reported that the battle line was forming with volunteers pretty quickly, but most major bases had been hit from orbit early. It was chaos, as frantic fighting raged across the city, every major city on the planet. Someone said that the pirates hadn't jammed the signal, help was coming. No one was sure. No one was quite sure how many of them there were, where everyone was. At first, I thought they would break easy. We had slammed a pair of their atmospheric shuttles to the ground, crushed two attacks. There were fifteen of us, plus some cops in the building, and we were digging in. Hell, we had a field piece ready!

The third wave hit forty five minutes later. They started hitting us with mortars at range before coming in, leapfrogging. There was a good mix of batarians and humans, making us keep our heads down. Jamison caught one in the leg during that attack, and Koryo lost his arm to a sniper. He was out of the fight, but we managed to force them to withdraw. We managed to tourniquet the arm, gave him a sidearm and put him in charge of the radios. The guys in the armory were preparing another surprise, since the pirates hadn't figured out they were there yet. It turns out that once the base was leveled, the pirates had actually picked the base as a good LZ. And drop they did, shuttles, ferries, everything dropping off men with nets and shocksticks, guns and flamethrowers. And we got them, we hit them hard. Even when they got inside, we fought them off with rifle butts and fire extinguishers, bayonets and fists. All the while, we could hear the women and children in the basement distantly screaming in fear, giving everything a horrifying undercurrent of desperation. The building gradually was chipped away by shots and shrapnel. Bodies piled up around the ruin of the school, and eventually we started piling some to use as cover- not our revered dead, but theirs. It worked pretty well, surprisingly, with the batarians' armoured bodies stopping slugs reasonably well.

It had to happen eventually. They had the numbers on us. They had firepower. We were hurt, and after fighting for what seemed like an eternity, they started advancing. I looked around for help...and I realized I was alone. The wounded were back defending the civvies in the basement. The dead lay where they had fallen. I was alone, and hadn't realized it from being glued to the scope. I shot, I moved, saw them start to break cover at a run. I hauled Harlech's body off of his LMG, opened up. They scattered, and the armory caught them again with the canister shot. I tried to stop the from rushing the armory. I did my best. But they made it inside, and I heard once-cocky quartermasters and technicians screaming for their lives. Last I heard was "'God save the Alliance" from the lips of an officer cadet before the ground started shaking. They had set the magazine to detonate, and a pillar of fire and shrapnel flew from the entrance. I hopped from emplacement to emplacement, clearing any room I thought might hide infiltrators with grenades I recovered from the fallen. I missed one or two, and had to fight with a combat knife or the butt of my gun. They told me I fought like that for four hours. I forced the bastards to keep their heads down, pay in blood for every inch their took from me. I honestly thought I was dead, and I was determined to sell myself as dearly as possible.

I was never so glad to see a bucket-head in my life. I heard it before I felt it- the whine that orbital drop pods make as they streak through the atmosphere, the low rumble in the air. The slavers didn't hardly react until the whine became a roar, and by then it was too late. Ten-meter wide pods slammed to earth, scattering the enemy with the impact. Doors flew open, and the first reinforcements leapt into the air- assisted by massive myoelectric muscles. The first time you see a bucket-head, you can't help but be in awe. The suits alone are ten or twelve feet tall, with rocket pods on either shoulder, a massive claw on one hand, a heavy machine gun on to back it up, and an assault cannon or flamethrower on the other. One very last thing any sort of infantry trooper wants to see is power-suited shock troops bouncing at them; armored like a tank, with about the same amount of firepower and an elite warrior inside, a living engine of destruction. It was beautiful, watching five of them turn a stalemate into a rout just by showing up. I remember other drop pods, with more suits, and platoons of drop infantry to back them up. Shuttles took off, trailing pirates left to fall to their deaths, but they didn't get far as rockets reached after them. Bucket-heads crushed pirates in enormous three-fingered claws, mowed them down as they fled the roaring infantry. I stayed conscious long enough to emerge from my spider hole, identify myself,and bodily throw myself at the nearest medic.

Tali must have come back early from bringing Garrus back. When I finally escaped my memories, when I got back from the smell of blood and burning bodies, she was there. Her mask was unreadable, but she reached out and took my hand.

"You were so brave, Shepard. I would have ran."

"You give me too much credit and not enough to yourself, Tali."

Kasumi nodded, face still shadowed.

"Thanks, Commander. That clarifies a few things," Kasumi said quietly.

The turian bartender was wiping a glass, but piped in.

"How many of your team survived?"

"A cop short two legs and an arm. Me, Jamison and Koryo. Two civvies who helped defend the place. I took one in the chest myself near the end. Everyone else got Navy Stars of Gallantry. I'm just the lucky one. Pour me one for the road."

Tali let go of my hand, stroked my shoulder.

"Are you alright, Shepard?"

"I'll be fine."

I paid my tab, shook it off. I hadn't wanted to go back there. I could live without seeing it. The important thing was not to fail my crew like I had failed my friends. Everyone would be coming home this time, every single one of them. Tali rested a hand on my shoulder as we walked back to the ship. I didn't say hardly a word.

A/N: Hope everyone liked this glimpse into Shepard's past, I felt it was good but might have lost his voice a few times.