Disclaimer: Mass Effect and all its characters belong to Bioware.

This Is It

Liara heard the hoarse, thunderous bellow and immediately turned on her heel and began sprinting towards where Shepard and Chairman Burns were. Had that been Shepard? What could possibly do that to their normally imperturbable Commander?

She entered the corridor and made a left. Liara froze in her tracks.

"Shepard," she gasped quietly. Just beyond the threshold in front of her was Shepard: eyes bloodshot and crazed, breathing heavy and uneven.

Liara looked past the Commander and to the chairman sitting partially up on the floor behind him. "What did you do?" she demanded.

"I didn't do anything! I swear! He was totally normal until a couple of minutes ago! He looked like he had forgotten where he was a-and then he started groaning and all the sudden he was screaming!" The chairman spoke rapidly, stuttering over his words. Apparently he had been more frightened by Shepard's sudden change in demeanor that by the fact that he had been millimeters from death moments before.

Liara started lifting her right hand to her ear, preparing to radio the Normandy. Before she could, however, Shepard grabbed her wrist, twisted it behind her back, and slammed her to the floor. Digging his knee into her back, Shepard lowered his head besides Liara's and growled:

"I know you can't use your biotics if you can't move Liara." He twisted her arm further and put more pressure through his knee. Liara, whose face was being pressed into the floor, squeezed her eyes shut and tried to contain her whimper.

She couldn't see Shepard grin, but she could feel his breath grow warmer and thicker against her neck and the paralyzing shiver it sent across her body.

Shepard took a slow, deep breath. "What did you think you were doing?"

"Shepard, you're not well." Liara couldn't help the shaking in her voice.

"No? And who the fuck's fault do you think is that?" Shepard screamed inches from Liara's face. Liara held her eyes clothes and pressed her lips together, trying to turn her head away from Shepard's. "Hmm? Liiiiaarra." Shepard stretched out each syllable of her name in a bizarre song-like manner.

Shepard's subsequent giggling was cut short by a light ping coming from his omnitool. He sighed and got up.

"You know what that is chairman?" Shepard looked over to Burns.

"N-no."

"That's our doctor, coming to 'save' you," Shepard sneered. He bent over and picked up the pistol he had dropped.

"You know, because of that impossible shot I pulled off to fake your death? It was pretty good right?"

"It w-w-was very good."

"It was fucking unbelievable is what it was chairman." Shepard smiled. "But, God, you know that kind of shot – especially when you're doing it right on the draw like that – it's so easy to miss." Shepard was lazily holding on to his Kessler as he spoke. "Just One. Little. Miscalculation. And you're dead!" Shepard said gleefully.

"Shepard…"

Shepard ignored Liara and continued: "But me, chairman? I don't make miscalculations. I've never killed someone I didn't mean to." Shepard was walking back and forth in the small room. He looked down at his omnitool and sighed again. "I'd really love to keep chatting Mr. Burns but," Shepard lifted his shoulders, "I'm afraid we're out of time."

Liara turned her face back into the floor when she saw Shepard suddenly lift the Kessler, and never saw the shot go straight through the chairman's chest, going through practically the same wound, just two or three millimeters higher.

Shepard cocked his head to the side and leaned it back. "Get up, T'Soni." Liara pushed her upper body up and looked at Shepard with wary eyes. "I said get up." Liara did. Shepard gave her a deceivingly boyish grin.

Liara was shocked, to say the least, when Shepard dropped his gun, fell to his knees, and started applying pressure to the fresh wound with his gloved hand. "Chairman! Chairman! Stay with me!" He was still in that position when Chakwas and Alenko came running in, and Chakwas pushed him to the side. A few minutes later she said:

"I'm sorry, Commander. There's nothing we can do."

Shepard stood up and nodded slowly. He reached for his pistol and holstered it before walking over to where Liara stood. He stopped less than a foot from her and looked at her with soft eyes. Holding out his hand – the very hand he had used to twist her arm behind her back minutes before – he whispered gently, "Let's go."

Liara, unsure which was her hallucination – the Commander before her or the Commander who had just killed a man in cold blood – was so unnerved that she saw her hand reach out for his without even feeling it.

Shepard took her hand and gripped it lightly. He let go and put his hand against the small of Liara's back and led her out of the room. Once they were back out in the main area, out of earshot of the other two, Shepard took his arm from her back and draped it around her small shoulders.

"You think they bought it?" He looked down at Liara, waiting for a reply.

Liara tried to say 'I do" but the words were caught in her throat.

"Chakwas is smart. I'm sure she'll have her suspicions. But without the body – which I'll be sure to hand over to the Fifth Fleet – my guess is that she'll never really find out. What do you think?"

"I've never seen you wrong, Shepard." Shepard smiled brilliantly.

"Now Kaidan, he's easy. He's a boy scout. He'll believe anything I tell him too." Liara tried to calm her rapidly beating heart, which was pounding from sheer terror.

"You know what that means, Liara?" Shepard stopped her and turned to face her. He dragged his bloodied glove down her neck and said, "It's a secret. Between just the two of us."

A/N: Total wtf? moment right? I think I'm going to enjoy this next arc. And also, don't expect to see Shepard's side of things anytime soon.