Chapter 25

Another six months have gone by since Rebecca told me about her past, and we spent that night on the rooftop. Six months wondering if I made the right decision not to tell her who I am every time I see her, every time we kiss, every time I wake up at night from the visions and see her lying asleep next to me. And every time I tell myself that I made the right choice putting the galaxy first, I'm not sure I believe myself. Hell, it's even hard not telling Garrus any of it, considering I've pretty much come to love him like a brother around here. But I made my decision, and that's how it'll have to stay, for the greater good…I'm not selfish enough to put everything I know in this universe in jeopardy.

Fortunately, I haven't had too much time to worry about that when I've got more pressing issues happening right now. C-Sec welcomed me back with open arms; even Pallin looked a little bit pleased to see me, though he tried to hide it. Ranis was the only person who made it clear he wasn't too happy I was back, because obviously I was kicking him out of his temporary bubble of joy working with Garrus, but that's how the world works. Garrus himself was relieved beyond words at my return, telling me all about how 'he couldn't move for paperwork' and how 'the stuck up bastard's been getting in my way for months'. I humoured him by going along with it, until eventually he finished on his rant about the uptight turian and got me back up to speed. The black market trade in organs has been picking up slowly after the initial drop when we stopped the elcor killer, Caltan Xenvalis. No murders this time, no-one being hacked up for organs, this is legitimate, organised organ production. We don't know if someone's been snatching lowlifes of the street and killing them so no-one will notice, or if some lab is mass producing them. At least, we don't know officially. I've got a pretty good idea of who's behind it. Dr. Saleon. That salarian's been bugging my mind since Caltan Xenvalis mentioned 'the Doctor' in his little monologue when he had me cornered. I always knew it was inevitable this time would come, where we started investigating him…but it seems so surreal to actually be doing it now.

I'm also painfully aware of how close 2183 is, and how close Shepard is as well. This could very well be my last major case, and I'm still jittery about how I'm going to cope with it. Saleon's a real nutcase, but he's a cunning bastard, so catching him is going to be hard when I can't just arrest him based on the fact I know he's guilty, because I'll sound crazy and no-one will believe me. And I'm prepared to stop Saleon here before he escapes. It may change the future slightly, but not significantly enough for me to let him get away with his atrocities. If Garrus and I stop him here, all it means is Garrus doesn't have an assignment during Mass Effect 1 events. I'll take that over innocent hostages being experimented on and killed.

We're getting leads on Saleon. Slowly but surely we're tracking down shipments, catching minor suppliers, little steps that all lead us towards the endgame. Very soon, it's going to come down to us against him, the final major moment of my C-Sec career. And my attitude is set in stone.

Bring it on.

Rebecca rolls over in the bed as I get up, yawning and blinking her eyes while I pull on my clothes and attach my pistol holster to my hip.

"You're up early," she groans. "What's the big occasion?"

"Work. Isn't it always?" I check my handgun's sights, spin it around on my finger a few times out of a mixture of boredom and habit, then slide it into the holster. "It's all fun and games in the Investigation department right now, I'm telling you. Garrus and I have been following some intel about another organ shipment, it's supposed to be happening this morning. Believe me, I wish the criminals could wait until later as well." I pop open my omni-tool, glancing at the time. 5:43 am…Jesus, I'm supposed to be in the office at six, tooled up and ready to go on the raid at half past. I slept in, and I'm still exhausted. God, I hate mornings.

"I'm gonna have to eat breakfast on the go," I mutter, silently furious with myself for not getting up in time. "You want me to leave anything out for you?"

"No…" she rolls over in the bed and looks up at me, sulking over the fact I woke her up early. "Don't make a mess when you get stuff out, okay? Just because you're in a hurry doesn't mean you have to make me suffer as well."

Seriously? "Thanks, babe. I love you too." I lean over and give her a kiss, she grins back as I head out the room.

"See you later." I close the door softly behind me, whistling some happy tune I just improvised as I walk towards the kitchen. Sounds a bit like 'Kids' by MGMT, but slightly faster…I start typing a message in my omni-tool for Garrus while I walk.

'You at the office yet? I'm just setting of now.'

Not technically true, since in reality I'm raiding the cupboards from anything I can eat without having to cook in advance, but it's close enough to the truth. Looks like I'm going to have to settle with some bread and packet of dried fruit…ah, the glamour of an uncooked breakfast. Makes me wish I'd bought some cereal or something, or whatever the Citadel equivalent to it is. Maybe next time. I open the front door and head off down the building's stairwell, just as my omni-tool beeps with Garrus's reply.

'Yeah. We're all waiting on you.'

Oh, fuck. I cram the bread and as much fruit into my mouth as I can, before setting off down the stairs taking them two at a time. I can't believe I'm late to something as important as this…if go straight through the streets, it'll take me ten minutes, but I know a rooftop route that should only last about three…

I hurtle into C-Sec, three minutes and twenty-two seconds after reading Garrus's message, back of my jacket slightly torn due to an overshot jump and subsequent forwards roll on landing. Still, I'm here in one piece, albeit one very exhausted piece. Morgan Patterson gives me an odd look as I stagger up to the front desk, breathing heavily. Can't say I blame him.

"You alright, boss? You don't look too peachy." Wow, honesty really hurts sometimes.

"I'm fine, I just had to run here because I'm late…where's Garrus and the team at?"

"Garrus?" Morgan looks back over to his terminal screen and scrolls through something. "No, he hasn't signed in yet. You weren't supposed to be meeting him somewhere else?"

"No, he sent me a message…"

A flanging voice chuckles behind me, and I slowly turn around.

"About four minutes between you setting off and my message and you getting here. I'm impressed," Garrus remarks dryly, stretching out his mandibles in a smirk.

"Is this your idea of a joke?" I gasp, trying to sound angry and doing a terrible job. "I ran all the way here, worried sick I was holding the raid up, I'm exhausted, all so you could get a cheap laugh at my expense?"

He poses, mock-thoughtful for a second, then looks back at me. "Pretty much," he grins. "Don't say I didn't get you good. Anyway, you should be thanking me. I got you to work early, and gave you some morning exercise."

"You're a bastard, you know that right? I've got a massive tear in my jacket thanks to you."

"Stop exaggerating, Ian, it's tiny. You can get that kind of thing fixed in seconds." True…it's more a matter of principle than anything else though.

"I'm going to get you back for this. You know I am." He just chuckles and heads towards the Investigation offices, and I fall into step next to him. "Serious business now, though. Is there some kind of plan for this raid, or we just going to run in blind all guns blazing?"

"When do we ever do that?" he replies, still smiling. "No, we're going for arrests and seizing the organs, not a bodycount. I've got it all planned out, just wait until the meeting."

Ah, the tactical side of Garrus shines through! The Illusive Man's dossier had Archangel down as a 'tactical genius'…let's see if he lives up to the reputation.

We all gather around the holographic projection of the warehouse, the whole team who're on the raid. And I've got to say, C-Sec pulled out all the stops on this one. Illegal organ trading is taken pretty damn seriously around here, especially after the serial killing affair, so Pallin made sure we have more than enough resources. Around the projection, we've got a team of four turians and three humans (not including Garrus and I), all well trained and very well armed. Still, Garrus said he wasn't planning a shoot-out, so I'll be interested to see what the secretive turian's got in mind…

"Right," Garrus says, clacking his mandibles together to get everyone's attention. "Everyone listen carefully here. We've got a cargo of organs arriving here," he points to the main, open area of the warehouse, "at seven this morning. Our intelligence suggests that the warehouse should be fairly well guarded on the inside, but outside won't have any guards to minimise suspicion."

"So what, we're just going to burst in and grab the cargo?" One of the younger humans asks. "Firefight if necessary? We all know how you two operate." He winks at Garrus and I. Cheeky bugger…

"Our reputation precedes us, it would appear." I say, turning to Garrus and raising an eyebrow, getting a few chuckles from the officers around the desk.

"Indeed." He replies, smiling a little. "Yes, that might be how you'd think Ian and I would operate. In this case, however, you're wrong." There's a few sighs of disappointment around the room from the more trigger-happy squad members. "We want to get as much of the cargo as we can, and arrest the guards as well. This is organised crime, people, and we want as much information as we can get. No fatalities if possible, got it?" Everyone on the team nods, albeit some more reluctantly than others.

"Good," Garrus continues, apparently satisfied everyone's on board. "For the plan to work, we need to catch the guards by surprise. They don't have anybody out the front, but there's surveillance cameras almost everywhere." Camera positions are highlighted on the hologram as he says it, showing that the cameras cover every ground location. "There's only one door into the warehouse, it's heavily fortified and they aren't exactly going to leave it open for us. Nothing a liberal amount of explosives won't sort out, but we can't do that because one, they'll see us coming and setting up the explosives on the cameras straight away and be able to take up defensive positions and destroy the cargo. Two, the explosion could end up destroying the organs anyway, and three, I can guarantee it'll end up with us shooting the bad guys, something I want to avoid in this case." Wow, this sounds pretty grim. And so far, Garrus hasn't really solved any problems, just pointed them out.

"That's the only door in," a turian points out, clearly a little bit frustrated. "I don't see some other kind of entrance there."

"Then you're not looking closely enough," Garrus snaps, clearly a little annoyed at the turian's rudeness. "That may be the only door in, but it's not our only entrance. There's a ventilation system on the roof, the vents lead into the building here." He points to the top floor of the building. It's about five floors high. "If we can get someone through into the main building, theoretically they should be able to unlock the doors without raising the alarm. Once the doors are unlocked, we rush in, take the guards by surprise and hopefully force them to surrender."

"That ventilation shaft is almost inaccessible," one of the humans interrupts now. "That's on a lone rooftop, the only access point is up the side of the building, and no-one here can climb up walls."

"An excellent point," Garrus admits. "But there's neighbouring rooftops nearby, and I know just the person who can get up there without a problem." Garrus turns around to look at me, and every set of eyes in the room land on my astounded face. "He did something similar this morning to get to work, and there's no-one I trust more with this kind of job."

Garrus, you don't know how much I hate you sometimes.

A/N: After the emotional rollercoaster of the past two or so chapters, we're back in business now! The case is gonna be a good one, it's shaping up to be great fun to write. I'm going to be sticking mainly to canon with it. (But of course, taking a few liberties to make it much more exciting and better than canon dictates.)

Also, those of you expecting a violent next chapter are going to be surprised. It's all about infiltration and stealth, so yeah. Fun times with that.

Right, seriously, 199 reviews after last chapter? You guys suck for doing that ;-). Nah, jokes, but just in advance I'm so happy to have hit the 200 mark. The popularity of this fic has exceeded my expectations so much, it's unbelievable. To everyone who reads, subscribes, favourites and especially those of you who review, thank you so much for your constant support, it's a great reward to see such positive reviews and it motivates me so much. Thank you all again.

(By the way, I go back to school the day after this is uploaded. So my update rate may not be as quick now as previously…then again, look what happened the last few times I said that, right?)

See you next chapter!