A/N: Yesterday, I received review #100 for Parallel Lives. I want to thank every single one of my readers for sticking with me in this story, and leaving all the wonderful feedback that keeps me going, and helps me improve. Rather than internet cookies, I have left something in my profile for you to enjoy.

Yes Tayg, it is exactly what you are hoping it is.

From: LTS
To: CC

How do you plan to convince Shepard to work with Cerberus?

From: CC
To: LTS

We are the only group who believes her about the Reapers, and the only one willing to do what is necessary to prepare. We will not need to convince her.

The message flashed invitingly at her. She ignored it.

'Commander Shepard. Captain of the Normandy. The first human SPECTRE. Saviour of the Citadel. You're in the presence of a legend, Delan. And a ghost.'

His voice was just as she remembered. Cool, calm, soothing. His deep brown eyes had widened with surprise, at her presence, at her companions, that she was indeed working with Cerberus.

She poured some whiskey into the small glass and drank it in one. It burned slightly on the way down, but Shepard had yet to feel the effects. The bottle was already half empty.

'We thought you were dead'

She was dead. And now she was alive.

It was something she still tried not to think about. People can't just be brought back from the dead, after two years, no matter how much money was thrown at them.

Another shot.

'And now you're working with Cerberus.'

She had tried to tell him. The Alliance wasn't listening. The Council wasn't listening. She was only with Cerberus for their resources, because they were the only ones taking the Reapers seriously.

Was she telling him, or herself?

Another shot.

'Maybe they're just using you.'

That was not true. She told him that. He did not believe her. She said was using them.

Wasn't she?

With all of these machines in her body, how could she be sure of that? She felt like she had control of herself. Or would being controlled feel like that? Or was she being controlled by outside circumstances? Were seemingly random events all managed, to force her along a path?

She could not afford to think like that. The Collectors were on Horizon. They were using Reaper technology; Husks. There was no way Cerberus could play a bluff that big. If they could, would they? Just to get her to trust them? For what purpose? Was Kaidan being paranoid? Was she being overly trusting?

Another shot.

'You saw it yourself Kaidan, this was the Collectors, and they have Reaper technology.'

He still didn't believe her. How could he be so stupid? He was always the calm, level headed one. The rational one, who looked at all sides of an argument before making a decision. But as soon as he saw Miranda's uniform, all reason went out of the window.

She shouted at him. He deserved it, for being thick headed.

He didn't get angry, didn't look surprised.

Was she just confirming his suspicions?

She always relied on Kaidan for his judgement of a situation. She could always trust him to be fair. Was he being fair? Was she so blinded by her fight against the Reapers that she could not see the truth?

She took another drink. It was still not affecting her. Apparently her new body's resistance to toxins included alcohol.

'I'm an Alliance man to the core, Shepard.'

"You're a traitor", he meant.

She had been declared a traitor before, when she had stolen the Normandy to assault Ilos.

And now here she was again. On the other side to the organisation she thought she had dedicated her life to. The organisation that had taken in a terrified, traumatised orphan, trained her, given her a home and a purpose.

An organisation she now felt only contempt towards.

They were blind. They ignored her warnings about the Reapers, and their only response to tens of thousands of humans disappearing was to send a lone soldier to install guns that did not work, then blame the whole problem on the only people actually trying to stop the attacks.

Wishing the problem would go away, setting up a scapegoat so nobody would ask them the difficult questions.

Cowards.

The bottle was empty. It seemed a waste to keep drinking when it was not even affecting her, but the burning as it went down was pleasant enough to justify opening a second.

'I would have followed you anywhere, Shepard.'

She looked back at her team. Garrus and Tali were amongst them, and Kaidan knew it.

She turned back to him and sneered. She was furious at how ignorant he was being, how blind, how stupid.

'I'm still leading, Kaidan. Where are you?'

She was still angry. She wanted Kaidan to listen. She wanted him to join her.

No, that was not right. She wanted to be correct. She wanted somebody whose judgement she trusted, to validate her.

Hearing it from Garrus and Tali, whilst reassuring, was not the same. Both of them looked up to her, idolised her, would follow her whatever she did.

Kaidan made up his own mind.

And he had made his choice, just as she had made hers.

Her anger began to cool.

They both wanted the same thing. Maybe one of them would be proven wrong, maybe both. But until then, she would fight the Reapers. She would stay the path with Cerberus. The Illusive Man's manipulation of events to lure the Collectors to Horizon was cold, but she could not hate him for it. They learned a lot from the attack, not least of which was confirmation of their real enemies. It was the kind of call the Alliance would never have made; they would have hesitated, reacted rather than acted, and more colonies would have been lost. She didn't like it, but understood it.

She looked across at the clock. 02:46. She could go to bed and still be up at 07:00 feeling well rested. There was one empty and another half empty bottle of whisky on the table in front of her. She was not drunk, and would have no hangover. Cerberus were thorough in "improving" her.

Shepard had never allowed herself a self-destructive binge before, and was slightly disappointed with the results. She would have to think of more creative methods if she decided to do it again in the future.

The absurdity of the thought plastered a small smile across her face, and her mood lifted. Deleting the unread message from Kaidan from her inbox, she went to bed.

This was it.

The culmination of her investigations.

Oresis was in the room in front of her.

The turian had called the previous night, on Liara's private line.

'Doctor T'Soni, this is Oresis. Our game has been fun, but my employer has told me to call an end to it. I am forwarding an address to you, meet me there at midday tomorrow.'

The call was cut before Liara had even scrambled to her desk to activate a trace, or say a word.

The address had arrived in her inbox as promised, and Liara had naturally raced to find as much out about the room as possible. A simple rental apartment which had been let two days ago, paid for in cash. Liara had run checks on the previous three occupants, going back five years, which came back completely clean. The other residents of the block were an array of workers and lowlifes, but nobody who raised a flag of suspicion.

Hacking into and reviewing the building's security feed had confirmed that Oresis had entered the room just before calling Liara, and had not left since. She was wearing clothes that could conceal no more than a small sidearm.

Liara took a deep breath, and entered the apartment. The room was large, very sparsely decorated. Aside from a few empty bookcases and shelves, the only furniture was a single table in the middle of the room, with two chairs. Oresis sat in the one facing the door.

Without a word, Liara closed the door behind her, crossed the room slowly and sat down. Her eyes instinctively scouted the hidden crevices, and possible exits.

She left her hands relaxed on the table in front of her and looked at the turian.

Female turians were rarely seen on Ilium. Males were slightly more common, but the typically very rigid turians found the fluidity of a world almost entirely without regulation difficult to bear.

The woman had dark, nearly black leathery skin across her neck and the back of her head, and the carapace of her face was a glittering grey that looked metallic in the brightly lit apartment. She lacked the sweeping crest typical to males, and her mandibles flickered in what Liara, from her time interacting with Garrus, recognised as a grin.

'You're good.' Her voice was sweet, the subharmonics adding an unusual music to her words rather than the deep raspiness of a man. 'I can see why he's interested.'

Liara stayed silent. Oresis had a plan, obviously, and she would not waste her breath playing the turian's games.

'You did your research, of course, you know that I am here alone. You are armed, but more importantly you could probably subdue me with your biotics before I could even think about defending myself. And yet you do not posture, do not act aggressively, do not make threats. You know I asked you here, and you want to know why.'

The turian kept Liara's eyes, before letting out a very human sounding sigh.

'Aand it seems you have no sense for drama. Shame.

'I'll get to it. I'm an agent for the Shadow Broker. As you know, I have been helping him acquire Prothean artefacts.'

'Why?' Liara kept her voice neutral.

'For the same reason you want them. He wants to know about the Reapers.'

Whatever answer Liara was expecting, this was not it. It had been so long since the word had been said with anything other than disbelief and mockery, that Liara had to stop herself from laughing in the turian's face. Was this how the Council felt when they talked to Shepard?

'The Shadow Broker believes our warnings?' Liara asked suspiciously.

'The Shadow Broker is intelligent enough to know that when two SPECTREs, an asari matriarch and an expert on the Prothean extinction give a warning, complete with a full scale invasion of the seat of Galactic government, it should be heeded.' said Oresis with another flicker of her mandibles.

The casual tone did not diminish the sheer truth of the words. That every government agency was so eager to dismiss the warnings, despite the evidence, was astonishing.

'The Shadow Broker knows you are looking for him, with revenge in mind. But he has asked me to make you an offer. If you put aside your grudge, he is willing to accept that you are in a better position than he to investigate the Reapers, and will allow you access to his resources to continue your research. In return, you will share all findings with him, and agree to act as his primary agent on Ilium.'

'I-' Liara began automatically, before catching herself.

She was ready to throw the offer back into the smug looking turian's face. The Shadow Broker was her enemy.

'You expect me to work with the man who wanted to turn Commander Shepard's body over to the Collectors?'

'It was nothing personal, Doctor T'Soni. The Collectors promised him a great deal in return, in currency far more valuable than credits. Incidentally, he has since come to see his decision as... rash... in the face of Shepard's continued campaign against the Reapers. I don't know if that is any consolation...'

'It is not.' the asari answered bluntly, remembering her horror at the thought of those monsters getting their hands on Faith's body.

'Oh well. In that case, I will simply ask that you do not jump to an answer because of your personal feelings. You are a remarkable woman, you would be a tremendous asset to the Broker, and his resources are far greater than you could imagine. You could buy out entire museums if you wanted the archives there, access the most secret records of any government if you felt they had information you need.'

An agent for the Shadow Broker...

After so long chasing him, the idea seemed absurd. But it fit with all she heard of the information dealer. He did not get involved, did not take sides, and never, ever, let it get personal.

And with his resources... she could scarcely imagine the sheer power the Shadow Broker wielded. After just two years, Liara was confident she could scandalise governments, shatter reputations and cause death with little more than the information in her networks. The Shadow Boker could end governments, build reputations from nothing and start wars with his.

It was his interest in the Reapers that most tempted Liara. She had not met anybody else who had taken her warnings seriously. To have such a powerful ally to help prepare, and help fight when they arrived, would be a tremendous boon to Shepard's cause. But could she trust that the Broker was offering this out of any other reason than his own greed, or self-interest? He had already allied himself with the Collectors, whom Cerberus' latest mission report confirmed were indeed agents of the Reapers.

At that, something ticked in her mind. She could not trust the Shadow Broker, but she needed his resources. There was only one logical path from there.

But could she pursue it from inside the Broker's network? She suspected she was already closely watched, but she was at least afforded some privacy in her motivations. As an agent of the broker, every single aspect of her life would be available for him to comb through. The loss of his resources would be a blow, but hopefully only a temporary one.

'I am afraid I must decline, Oresis.'

She looked surprised. 'Oh? He really thought you would be better than this, Doctor. Such a shame to put your own feelings above the greater good, and now I'm afraid you will be working against him.' Her mandibles flickered again. 'It puts me in something of a delicate position. As a gesture of trust, I came here to put myself at your mercy. So, what is my fate?'

Liara knew she should execute the woman. She was clearly one of the Broker's more trusted agents, and could become a very dangerous enemy. But doing so would also be a direct provocation. Their battle until now had been waged in secret, to openly declare war would be to invite open retaliation. Liara was no fool.

'You may leave. But if I see you again on Ilium, I will kill you.'

The turian let out a loud laugh.

'Welcome to the game, Doctor T'Soni.'

She stood and left, leaving Liara alone in the apartment.