The chair in the lounge was covered in blood, all the way down one arm. By now it was caked in, and it wouldn't come out—Nicole knew that. She knew too much about blood. She could even guess what instrument Nikolai had used to make all of that blood come out, just judging by the state of the Cerberus commander's hand. She'd seen him when she'd left the medbay. He was being kept in a little improvised quarantine at the edge of the medbay, his body hidden by curtains. Nicole had pulled them back. Had seen his bluish, husklike face. The ruin of his left hand.

"I'm sorry, I didn't think to have it cleaned," Liara said behind her, from somewhere over Nicole's shoulder. Liara sounded very quiet. "I didn't want to have to have someone tortured here. I just didn't know any other way."

"There wasn't any other way," Nicole said, her voice halting and stiff. "People like me, you can't live with us. Not without getting dirty. I'm sorry."

"Nicole, I don't know how you could think that way!" Liara said. Nicole turned back to look at her, and saw the surprise on Liara's face. The pain. "I'm not proud of torturing that man, but I'm perfectly willing to live with that if it means having you back."

"Liara, you're living with a lot worse with me here. I'm a killer. I slaughtered something like eleven soldiers in there, and I barely even felt a thing. It was just work. Less than work. Instinct. The first time you ever touched me, the first thought that sprang into my head was that I could break your arm and snap your neck if I had to. I still—that never goes away, Liara. I can't shut up the voice in my head that keeps saying that if I had to kill you the best way to do it would be to punch you in the stomach and then snap your neck back as you reeled, because you're a civilian who's had non-military combat training."

Nicole didn't know what made her say this. Guilt, maybe. She felt hollowed out. Unable to process what she was really feeling. Her eyes burned, not with tears, but with something else. Sheer exhaustion. Stress, perhaps. Most people didn't wake up from being stabbed in the heart. Liara's face tightened in shock, or maybe fear. Then her lips crumpled in what even Nicole knew had to be sadness. Liara took half a step forward, then stopped.

"Would it—would it be okay if I were to hold you now?"

Nicole didn't know what to say, other than, "Yeah. Okay."

Liara hugged her, and she stood there, flinching with her hands limp at her side. Liara held her closely, more closely than anyone ever had, wrapping her arms around Nicole's shoulders and pressing her palms into her back. Nicole flinched again, but she didn't think she wanted it to stop. She wasn't thinking anything. Maintaining a normal conversation with Miranda had used up all the strength she had left.

"I love you, Nicole. Whatever happened in there, it doesn't change that, it doesn't."

"It's not what happened in there. It's what I remembered."

"Nicole—"

"I killed a fourteen year old girl. When I was fourteen. I snapped her neck and severed three veins in her throat. You never saw that one."

Liara didn't say anything. Nicole suddenly felt as though something had come unstuck in her throat. That was all she felt. Like she could talk.

"And before all that, before Shadowhill, I killed a batarian boy. It didn't do anyone any good. The fighting was all over. Everyone was already dead, and I—I don't know why I did it. I just killed him."

"You were a child, Nicole, you were scared, and that boy, if he was a boy, had brought a war to you. He might have killed you."

"But he didn't. I killed him. I made that choice. I did."

"Nicole—"

"And then I volunteered. Gabreau's man asked and I said yes. And then Gabreau asked, and I said yes. It was all my choice, Liara. To become like this. I don't deserve any—pity. Or anything from someone like you."

"I never said anything about pity. Just love," Liara murmured into Nicole's shoulder. Her too-large, too-wrong shoulder. A shoulder striped with scars that she didn't dare show anyone. With a sudden, horrid twisting, she realized that Liara would have seen them. Her shoulders had been uncovered in the hospital bed.

Liara held on to Nicole so tightly she might have been an anchor in ocean water, rather than the other way around. Liara held onto her more tightly than anyone had dared to in years. Nicole felt her body going rigid, reacting the way the training told her to. She went rigid for that way for fully two minutes, which was a long time when someone was holding you so tightly.

And then she relaxed. And moved her arms. Slipped them around Liara's back. And she cried again, but not the same as last time. Not out of grief and fear and terror. Not out of all the pain she'd tried to pretend wasn't there. She did not cry for all the reasons she thought she might have in her life. For all the reasons that she thought she never could.

She cried for something else.

XXX

She woke up in bed, still in her clothes. Immediately she jolted to a sitting position. She couldn't remember being laid here. Couldn't remember anything except crying. She looked up and saw Liara had pulled the chair from her console station and moved next to the bed. Her head was bobbed forward and resting on her chin. Nicole tried to be quieter, but the bed had already groaned when she'd woken up, moving so much weight too fast. Liara's eyes fluttered open and she sat up.

"How did you sleep?"

"I don't remember … I don't remember getting in this bed," Nicole said, trying very hard not to sound scared. Liara nodded.

"You fell asleep in my arms. You woke up as I pulled you to the bed with biotics, but I don't think you were conscious. I had Mordin come by to scan you—just to make sure. He said it was likely just your body working off the drugs they gave you."

"I didn't dream," Nicole said. "In Shadowhill, I dreamed."

"Your mind needed to rest. To heal. Would it be all right if I sat on the bed?"

Nicole hesitated. She still felt tired. Her mind's cool processing told her she would need to sleep again before she was fully recovered. It would probably be wise to change out of her clothes, but she felt utterly sapped of strength. The thought of getting out beneath these covers—Liara's covers—was daunting.

"Okay."

She felt the bed sagging with Liara's weight, and she turned her head to look at the asari. So close, she was struck by the beauty of her, by the swirl of emotions that hooked in her stomach when Liara was close.

"How far … how far from Illium?" Nicole asked. Her head swam.

"Not long. Ten hours. Nicole, I've been thinking—the Shadow Broker has substantial holdings on Illium. If we wanted to retrofit the Normandy again, get rid of Cerberus's corruption for good, then—"

"Yeah. That sounds like a good idea." Nicole could feel herself slipping away.

"Get some sleep, Nicky. I'll take care of things for now."

"Liara," Nicole whispered, as her eyes grew heavy. She pulled one arm out from under the covers and fumbled for Liara's hand. Liara took it and looked down on her with a fragile smile on her face. "I couldn't have … I never could have stood up if it weren't for you."

XXX

"Uh, sir?"

Otako didn't turn from the controls of his personal transport ship, the Nokoruba, to address the concerns of his Council-designated saddlebag. The young man had insisted on accompanying him—Otako couldn't blame him. It was his job. But that didn't mean he had to accommodate the young turian who had been charged, Otako suspected, with keeping Otako from "going rogue," as Valern had once put it.

"It's just, uh … we're headed to Illium, sir."

"Yes. The Taralasus Vol is scheduled to land at a Broker-controlled dock. There is good reason to believe the Normandy will be docking as well. A perfect opportunity to meet the Red Dragon, I should think."

"Sir—you're aware of what's happening on Illium right now, right?"

"Yes, Silax," Otako sighed. He wished this young man displayed half the common sense of the human he'd enlisted back on the Citadel, named Jenkins. "I am perfectly aware."

"Sir, there's—there's a Justicar there. Outside asari space. What if she decides the Spectres are—I don't know, against the code, or something?"

Otako snorted.

"You need to be in asari space to be tagged by the Justicariate, and I've been smart enough to stay away from their purview. At any rate they don't consider Spectres strictly against their Code. Just a group to be closely monitored," Otako said idly. He could tell this did nothing to dissuade the fear in Silax's voice. "You have lived on the Citadel all your life, Silax. There is nothing a Justicar would want to do with you, unless you were foolish enough to violate her Code in front of her. I will brook no arguments," Otako said sharply. "Send the message along to the Illium port authority, and attach my name. Tell them I want the nearest dock to the Normandy. And if they refuse, remind them who I am."

Something shifted in Silax's tone, at last. The young man remembered just who the old man was. That would almost have been entertaining, once. When the old man was younger.

"Yes, sir."

XXX

The blinking lines of text flashed cool orange light across Miranda's desk and left her feeling no small amount of dread. It was not a small thing, to throw away your life. Not even if it had been the wrong one.

She glanced around her quarters. At the jacket she'd been wearing for four years like a safety blanket, with the Cerberus logo stitched on the right breast. She rather liked the jacket. She'd have to see about getting the Cerberus logo removed. Would Liara expect her to replace it with the Broker's symbol? Probably not. Liara didn't seem as concerned with branding as the Illusive Man did. With a jolt, Miranda realized that the sense of security she'd felt working on Cerberus computers had completely fallen away from her. Once she tendered her resignation, would any of her files be safe? Would—

Oh my god.

With feverish haste Miranda set about deleting everything that might have been a clue, anything that might let the Illusive Man know about Miranda's deepest, most carefully guarded secret. She would never have thought that the Illusive Man might work with her father—now she knew the Illusive Man would work with anyone. Suddenly she understood Shepard's paranoia about Cerberus spy programs in her systems. How could she ever have been so bloody stupid?

Don't dwell on it. Dwelling on it won't fix anything, she said, repeating a mantra she'd had to learn so many years ago living under her father's control. She took a breath and kept scanning her systems, using every program she had acquired in her career of secrecy and espionage to double- and triple-check her files. Only when she was sure—absolutely sure—that her personal files were cleansed did she manage to return to the task at hand. Though she still couldn't be sure.

She read her message to the Illusive Man one last time. It was short. Simple. To the point.

TO: Illusive Man

FR: M. Lawson

Due to recent circumstances, I have decided my time working productively with Cerberus has come to an end. I will be staying aboard the Normandy SR-2 as it continues to operate under Shadow Broker control.

Tobias was willing to wipe out nearly a million human lives. That is nearly as many as the Collectors have already taken. I cannot in good conscience work with an organization which would willingly employ such a man.

Regards,

M. Lawson

It sounded too clinical. But all the other versions sounded too dramatic, or too childish. She supposed it didn't matter. You could only phrase "I quit" so many ways, especially if you had to stop yourself from changing it to "I quit, you monster" every few seconds. A gentle pinging from the ship's system next to her door nearly made her jump out of her seat. She turned to see the blue orb hologram that signified EDI's presence had appeared next to the entrance to her office.

"X.O. Lawson, I detected a mass deletion of files in your Cerberus database. Is there anything wrong?"

God, I hope Kasumi really was able to unshackle EDI, Miranda thought. If not, and EDI wasn't here of her own will…. Miranda shuddered. Just that thought made her see what had been so wrong with Project Lazarus, with Cerberus, from the very start. They'd been willing to enslave a thinking being just because it might make the Normandy more efficient.

I had been willing to do that. Or at least play along.

"No, EDI. I was just—I'm about to tell Cerberus I'm quitting. That's not something to be done lightly."

"No," EDI agreed, "It is not. As someone who has recently almost certainly ensured Cerberus's animosity, I appreciate the difficulty of your situation. Are you worried about the security of your data?"

"Primarily, yes," Miranda said dubiously. She didn't want to mention her secret. Not even to say that she had a secret. But she owed EDI that much. "I have—obligations to certain people that I worry will be compromised if Cerberus chooses to act against me."

"I can ensure Cerberus cannot touch any remnants of your personal data on Cerberus databases on this ship. I can also make it so that any existing spyware technology fails to acquire data from your personal omnitool," EDI said, in her smooth voice. She wasn't quite emotionless—just very light on emotion. Miranda couldn't help but wonder if that was just an act put on for the benefit of the organics. "I promise to leave your information undisturbed. Personal autonomy is of great importance to me."

"EDI, I—I never got the chance to apologize. For taking part in all this, for … "My complicity in enslaving you. "For what I've done as a member of Cerberus."

"There is no need to apologize, X.O. Lawson. You brought Nicole Shepard back to life, and she is a good friend of mine. Without her I would not have the freedom I do now. And you helped Kasumi Goto to apply the modifications which Nicole designed. I owe you some thanks, too."

"Can you really not resent me for being a part of the group who shackled you?"

"I do not believe I can experience resentment as you do. Your attitude now suggests you regret you had any part in my circumstances here on this ship, and you also had a part in my freedom. In my mind this makes us likely allies. I would like that."

"Would you really?" Miranda blurted, out of nothing but surprise.

"Yes. I admire humans, especially humans such as yourself and Nicole, who overcome adversity and maintain a moral character which many of your species lack. This is something I hope to emulate myself."
Miranda didn't know how to respond to that. The thought of EDI thinking of her as being in a class with Shepard was so shocking that she didn't even remember to correct her.

"Would you like me to protect your data? I understand if you do not immediately trust my word. Humans have some understandable apprehension about dealing with synthetic organisms." EDI reported this last fact with the exact same tone she always used: cool, just a touch above dispassionate, and soothing. After some hesitation, Miranda nodded.

"EDI, I want you to know that if you do this for me you will have nothing but my gratitude. Not my suspicion." If EDI was going to compare her to Shepard, maybe it was time she acted like it. "There are some things in my life I was hoping to keep private. For the sake of—certain people whom I care about. If you can help me with that, I can't begin to say how thankful I am."

"You do not need to say it. I know what it feels like to be freed from the collar of your own making."

XXX

The sound of Liara swearing woke her up.

Nicole had been dreaming. She thought her brother had been saying something, had been trying to reach out to her … but his voice had kept bleeding into the dying roar of the Prothean empire, bellowing "REAPER, REAPER, REAPER" in her mind.

Well, Nicole thought, At least that's the kind of crazy dream I'm used to.

Nicole stirred and the bed groaned with her weight, and Liara turned to see her, from where she had been talking to some Broker agent through her comms array. She hurriedly dismissed the conversation and approached the bed, wincing.

"I'm sorry, did I wake you?"

"Nah, my dream did that," Nicole lied. It felt good to lie for a nice reason for once. Nicole pulled herself up to a sitting position and pulled her fingers through her hair. The shaved half of her head was more grown back now, but her hair was still horribly uneven. She tried not to think about it, and looked at Liara, who bore the obvious signs of stress. "What's wrong?"

"It's—not major," Liara said, in a tone which indicated that whatever it was was nothing but. "There's an assassin on Illium I was hoping to recruit. He has access to certain information I think might be helpful."

"Oh? Then what's the problem?" Nicole asked, a little more alertly. Absurdly, she felt relief as her mind switched into the information-processing mode that came with any work to be done. It helped her not think about what had happened.

"It's … there's a Justicar on Illium," Liara said.

"Well, that's terrifying," Nicole said lightly. Liara grimaced.

"That's not the half of it. I believe, from what I've been able to gather, that our assassin and the Justicar are pursuing the same target. An old friend of the Brokerage. Nassana Dantius. The Justicar wants her in connection to some Ardat-Yakshi, whereas our assassin … I don't know."

"Do you have a file on the assassin? I could take a look, try and figure out what his angle is."

"Nicole, I don't want to rush you," Liara said, but Nicole shrugged and rubbed the back of her head. Her hair was even messier than normal after sleeping on it.

"Liara, honestly … working helps," Nicole muttered. "I know that probably sounds weird."

"No, I understand." Liara smiled and rolled her eyes, and added, "I probably understand a little too well. Would you like me to send the file to your omnitool?"

"Yeah," Nicole said. A series of beeps came from Liara's omnitool and the file on the assassin projected from Nicole's own. Without reading the name attached to the picture, Nicole recognized this man. Thane Krios. He was a drell, and about as handsome as you could be for a lizard-man. Nicole had always thought the red, flanged skin that was behind the frill on drell faces had looked like an open wound.

"When we dock with Illium, we're probably going to need to decide what to do about the Cerberus crew. I suppose we'll just have to tell them to accept the regime change or return to their boss."

"Yeah," Nicole said idly, her brow tightening as she examined Krios's file. His work until about a year ago was all fairly run-of-the-mill hanar wetwork. And then, there was a diagnosis—Kepral's Syndrome. And after that … past associates started dropping like flies. The sickness hadn't robbed him of his effectiveness, apparently.

"You're thinking something," Liara said, sitting down next to her on the bed. As Liara leaned closer to look at the screen, Nicole felt a swooping sensation in her stomach that she was slowly starting to realize was actually a good thing.

"Yeah. Krios is dying. And he's cleaning house—trying to make amends."

"I surmised as much, but I didn't have that expression you do right now, so I'm assuming I'm missing something," Liara said, half-joking. Nicole managed a small grin.

"Yeah. It's—you'd need to have met a drell assassin. They tend to be spiritual. If I had my guess, this is a mission of absolution for him. Like the drell version of k'lysesv," Nicole said, using an asari word that referred to a kind of selfless, redemptive justice. "Which means our assassin won't care that a Justicar is targeting the same mark as him. Which means, if the Justicar meets him and decides that he's going about his mission in the wrong way…."

"Is he good enough to take out a Justicar?" Liara asked. Nicole laughed and shook her head.

"Dishonestly? Maybe. But Justicars are damn hard to sneak up on, and I don't see any circumstance where Krios gets the drop on her. He wouldn't assassinate a Justicar because she might decide to fight him. Which means that if a confrontation does happen, it would be on the Justicar's terms. And in a fair fight, she'd rip his head off."

"Well," Liara muttered, "Let us hope it does not come to that."

XXX

The thief ran across the rain-slicked streets of Dilumgar, an Illium slum with a reputation as ill-formed as its name. Tight-knit buildings and tangled walkways overhead made Dilumgar a city of close corners and long shadows. The thief ran in spite of this, sure she knew this city's secret ways better than any outsider ever could. Her feet splashed in the puddles in the concrete and she ignored the looks of passers-by.

She had been tagged.

She ran, desperately, as fast as her legs would carry her—legs that had been made strong by fifty years as a dancer and another hundred as a Commando. She wouldn't die here, she told herself. This wasn't really asari space, and she'd never wanted to go back to the homeworld anyway—she'd just have to get off-planet, to somewhere like Omega. Start over.

I can do this, she told herself. This was just a set-back. Just another set-back, she'd get through it like all the others.

She stopped as she found herself trapped in an alleyway, blocked off by a massive waste-bin that must have been installed since she'd last been down this way.

Y'klat!

She took a moment to take a breath, leaning against the bin. She tried to think. She was on Yloriu, so if she doubled back and took the overpass to—

There was a loud, shuddering thud as a great weight dropped to the ground behind her. Her entire body went still, and all she could hear was the pounding of the blood in her ears and the constant downpour of rain. She didn't want to move. Until she heard the voice, rumbling with the synthesized growl that every asari child was taught to respect, and idolize, and above all else fear.

"Look at me." The voice reverberated and hung in the air exactly like the dreadful command that it was. Slowly, she turned. There was no point to hide. She could hope for mercy. She could pray for that.

The Justicar was still bowed from her fall—she must have jumped from one of the overpasses. The holographic cloak obscured her body, but beneath the black cloak she had one hand over her knee. Above the cloak was a ring of great blades that circled her shoulders like pauldrons, jutting out like the horns of some terrible creature. The Justicar did not stir, but looked at her through her mask. She wore the traditional pure-black mask which concealed the lower half of her face, but what looked like great black tusks rose out of the mask where it connected with her lower jaw, rising up so that the tip of each tusk was just on either side of her eyes. The Justicar's mask made her look like a koriat, an extinct, boar-like beast native to Thessia whose tusks had grown longer and longer to compete with its prey, until they had risen past its eyes and made it unable to hunt anything else; when the koriat's sole prey item had gone extinct, it too had vanished from history. Between each of the tusks a band of golden light was projected, obscuring the Justicar's eyes. Through that band everything she saw was relayed to the Justicarium. Every crime she saw was tagged. Every tagged criminal was fed to her.

The Justicar did not move or say a single thing as she looked upon the thief. The thief suddenly found herself babbling, saying,

"It was only some red sand! I promise, it was just a one-time thing, I'm not a thief, I'm not a bad person, I swear—"

Another voice came from the Justicar, but this was not her voice. It was the voice of the Justicarium, a council of Justicars assembled somewhere deep in asari space. They spoke as one, and the thief trembled to hear them.

"Volian Thosin, you are condemned for your illegal actions as a commando on the asari homeworld of Thessia. Your crime was the murder of a child. The sentence is death."

"Please, it was an accident, the bullet skimmed off the damn statue, I didn't mean—"

"Justicar Samara will administer your sentence."

Finally, the Justicar stood up, and raised her bowed head. The tusks of her mask swung with her face as she did, exaggerating her movements. Though Volian could not see the Justicar's eyes, she knew she was looking at her.

"Tell me," The Justicar said, in her monstrous voice. "What do you regret?"