"General Vakarian?"

The turian in front of the HI spun around slowly, letting the bluish light bleed to illuminate his ragged, pensive profile. "I'd prefer Garrus, Reegar, and will accept no less than Vakarian."

"You were expecting me?" the quarian asked from the doorway, casting his eyes around the room for a better light source.

"The Primarch explained the situation," Vakarian replied carefully, gazing out the door to ensure nobody was in earshot. "Figured Raan would be smart enough to send you. I've already compiled the locations of all salarian personnel we know of in this area, as well as those evacuated to planetside hospitals."

Kal nodded and gestured toward the room. "Thank you, that'll speed things up. May I—"

"Actually, I'd like to get out of this dank cell for a while, if you don't mind walking with me?" the turian interrupted, already standing up and reaching to gather up his things.

"Sure," Kal replied with a nod, and stepped back out through the doorway.

He walked up the five crumbling stone steps that took him up from the half-basement that acted as Vakarian's office to street level where he had left his squad waiting. The soldiers—65 all told—were still standing in formation on one side of the wide thoroughfare now mostly lined with rubble and molten gobs of metals, plastics, and glass.

He had anticipated that it would take slightly longer to compile the information they needed, and had planned with his XO and pilot Mas'Ibhan for the squad to possibly take an early lunch here. With the information readily available, but Vakarian wanting to discuss something, Kal caught the XO's eye and jerked his chin to the side to indicate for the man to take himself and the troops to the dextro field mess huddled in a half-collapsed two-story building a little further down the street.

As the men and women fell out and strode toward the mess, chattering as they did, Kal examined the fence or balustrade lining the squat stairs he had ascended. It seemed to be of a rusted metal, shedding black paint in huge flakes as he ran his finger on it. Miraculously, it was still attached and intact apart from a few singed parts where it had been receiving fire, and the more mundane predations of time. He gave it a few good tugs and, satisfied that it would hold his weight, leaned his hips back onto the railing. Taking the weight off his right leg was a blessing. He did not feel it fair to complain of the small scrape he'd received, not with the number of seriously wounded, and because that husk had only gotten him through his own stupidity and tiredness, but he couldn't deny it had caused him great discomfort in the last few days.

Vakarian hadn't emerged yet, and as Kal glanced down to the doorway over his shoulder, he only saw the light from the HIs flicker as the turian moved around inside. Short, unintelligible bits of conversation drifted in and out of the doorway. Satisfied with the respite from walking, even if it meant having to wait, he turned down his audio receptors and closed his eyes in an attempt to tune out the world, and concentrate on the start of a poem he had managed to construct. He only had three verses, but it was the first thing he thought captured even the smallest facet of how he felt. Upon that realization, his mind was drifting away, considering whether he could try to describe it in its different aspects rather than the entirety at once. It seemed too much for words, all at once, but perhaps smaller…

And then another feeling crept in, a poisonous whisper that told him it was all for naught…he wouldn't have the courage to present it, anyway—he wouldn't even have the courage to go to the Tonbay despite his elaborate plans in the sleepless nights to accidentally happen there. He would not have it delivered, he wouldn't even send it anonymously, the coward that he—

"Don't tell me you came here by yourself, Reegar," the turian said from his side.

With a start, Kal normalized his sensory inputs and, flustered, pointed his fingers in the direction of the mess. "No, I've got a full squad, ten shuttles in all. I sent them to fill their stomachs while we sort this out."

"Ah, yes. Food. Come," Vakarian replied, and beckoned Kal to follow.

They walked a few blocks in a companionable silence until Vakarian broached the logistics of the evacuation when taking a turn to another fairly large thoroughfare, perpendicular to the first. Despite concerted clean-up efforts, the command area wasn't much better than on any of Kal's previous visits. The two dozen or so buildings that were in any way intact from the fighting had been shored up, and temporary structures and scaffolds had been erected around and between them to provide further room and shelter. Most of the top brass had already relocated to orbit; with communications and scanners functional, it was far more convenient to organize efforts from up high. Vakarian was one of the very few commanders who still insisted on staying on the ground. By all accounts, he'd been doing an exceptional job managing the rescue efforts around the London area, but—

"It's strange to be on a planet that actually lives very close to the Galactic Time cycle," the turian grumbled as the pair had exhausted the business at hand and approached the terminus of the street, a small square or park expanding into a walkway along the river that went through the city. "It should be easier, but somehow the lack of time drift just gets me constantly."

Kal chuckled in sympathy, he had found it hard to adjust to himself. "Palaven's days are also longer, aren't they?"

"Yes, they're a quarter again a Galactic Day."

"Did you know we started with ship time kept the same as it was on Rannoch? At some point fairly early on it was decided that we should adopt the Galactic Day instead…this'll create some interesting problems settling back to Rannoch. The days are even slightly longer than Palaven's," he added by way of explanation.

The turian flicked his mandibles in an amused manner as the two came to a halt at the low wall lining the river. "You planning to go there? Rannoch, I mean."

"I'll have to go visit for a short while at least, keelah se'lai. I didn't have the chance to see it before we deployed here," Kal said, gazing at the debris floating by in the river. "I'm not sure about staying…I'm not going to retire for a while, at any rate."

"I'd imagine it to need a bit of adjustment, all of you having lived on the ships all your lives?"

"I don't doubt that, Vakarian. I suspect quite a few people will be drawn back to the stars when all is said and done. I might be one. Never known anything but the ships and a bunch of planets I got drop-shipped on. Besides…I'm not used to making decisions for myself."

That elicited another expression of amusement from the turian. "Perhaps you'll find someone to make decisions for you, Reegar. Or have you already?"

Flustered, Kal tried to laugh his embarrassment off, and trailed into a brief silence engulfed in his thoughts. "How is your crew doing?" he asked finally. "I haven't heard much beyond the official news."

"I…ah, I don't really know," Vakarian replied, a somber expression replacing his earlier mirth. "I've not really…"

"No?" Kal asked, unable to hide his surprise.

The turian let his head drop between his shoulders, his voice low. "I'm not sure they really want to see me."

Kal couldn't really believe that the others would shun the man, but did not want to push further, not knowing the situation. He settled on a sympathetic grunt, and let silence descend once again.

"You should go up there, though," the turian offered. "I'm sure they'd welcome you."

Perhaps he should…it would be nice to see them, anyway, and it would maybe allow him to—

"How's Tali?"

"She, ah…" Kal started lamely, trying to settle himself. "Tali'Zorah is healing fine, still confined to bed though. Admiral Raan says she's past the hard part…she's just stuck on the Tonbay because there are still others worse off with exposure, so they can't really move her."

"I haven't heard from her," Vakarian said with a hint of sadness.

His expression brightening slightly, Kal turned toward the man. "Oh! No, don't… Don't worry about that. Tali'Zorah hasn't really been able to talk to anyone. See, they brought all the high exposure victims to the Tonbay and a few other ships—turns out that the ship had sustained significant damage to its communications systems. There's an extremely high amount of interference throughout the hull, and they haven't been able to really start repairs because they don't want to risk the exposure…"

"That's…unfortunate. She doesn't do very well without extranet access."

"I…understand this is the case. Still, Admiral Raan assures me that the last patients should be out of danger in a day or two…they can relax the quarantine protocols, then."

The turian merely grunted. The two stood there watching the river flow by until Mas'Ibhan called to summon Kal back.

"Mother! Mother! I excavated a relic!"

"Did we not discuss this?" Benezia asked, looking up from her work as Liara bounded from the woods towards the bench she was sat on. "You are not to dig here. This is a park. And look at yourself, your dress is ruined."

Liara came to a skidding halt at the bench, and looked down at herself, flushing deeply. She was covered in a reddish mud almost to her knees, leaves and little sticks plastered all over. Her dress—green, where her mother's was resplendent yellow and white—was torn in three places at the hem, and as she tugged at it, sand and dirt fell in great piles. "I am sorry about the dress, Mother, but I really did find one!"

Raising a brow, her mother reached forward to brush dirt off Liara's cheeks. "What is it that you found, exactly?" she asked, not unkindly, as she brought her hand up to stroke Liara's head, plucking stray leaves from between her fringes.

"A relic! You must come see!"

Benezia watched her curiously for a few seconds before nodding. She put her work down onto the bench and draped her shawl on top of it as she straightened to her full height and offered her hand to Liara. "Show me."

Liara reached up to clasp the three outmost digits in her small hand, and started back toward her digsite with her mother in tow. Navigating into the copse of ashy white tree trunks, she looked for the trail of small piles she had made of the three-pointed, crimson lepae leaves. Twenty whole piles she had had to assemble to keep her bearings, but the route took her back to the dig as surely as if she already had the omni-tool her mother had concealed away for her birthday.

She sensed that her mother had not really believed her until they stepped to the clearing. As they laid eyes on the hole, a good meter deep, she felt the fingers tighten around her hand. The object lay down in the middle, just where she had found it. Barely able to contain her excitement, Liara grinned up at her mother.

"You see? It must be prothean!"

"We cannot be sure what that is, Liara," Benezia said apprehensively. "It could even be dangerous."

"It is not dangerous, Mother, it talks!"

"It…talks?"

"Yes! And it knows my name! Come!" Liara squealed as she started descending the ladder leading down the side of the excavation.

She settled in front of the squat rectangular box, as she had when she first uncovered it. It was unremarkable, just a dirty white box with some bluish gray inlays and some type of a sensor in the front. She waited until she felt the warmth from her mother's legs at her side, and then waved her palm across the sensor panel.

A blue projection came to life, half a meter tall above the box itself. It flashed through a series of strange buildings and blueprints, and then a strange four-eyed insectoid head which finally dissolved into the shape of an asari. The young woman smiled a sad, furtive smile, and then spoke, her words cut in corrupted sections of the recording. "…Liara T'Soni. …Hope this information …help you in this fight."

"See? It must be a VI that can somehow scan this from my hand so that it is familiar to me, like in Secrets of the Ancients!"

Benezia lay her hand on Liara's shoulder, and gracefully knelt down closer to the small image. As mother and daughter watched, the asari spoke of a heroic fight against an impossibly strong enemy, a fight that united all of the galaxy, and yet, finally, all was lost with nothing left but a warning for the future.

"Why is it talking about asari, and quarians, and salarians, and everyone, Mother? I do not understand," Liara asked, turning to her mother in confusion.

Benezia spoke quietly, tears in her eyes. "It is not speaking to you, Little Wing…I think it is you. You lost the fight. It is you."

"Come now, you can't stand around here!" a voice boomed from above. "The ceremony is about to start. Clean this up immediately!"

Turning her burning eyes upward, Liara saw the old park warden looming tall over her dig, filling it back with the dirt she had painstakingly removed with her own hands, rivulets of dirt cascading into great streams pooling at the bottom.

Her mother stood up, and gently pulled Liara to her feet and lifted her out of the dig. She removed her pale yellow scarf and wrapped it around Liara's neck, tugging the girl down closer to her as she did. Fussing with the scarf with one hand, she brought the fingers of the other to her lips, and then gently pressed them onto Liara's. "The warden is right…we must make you presentable for the ceremony. You should go with her, so that you are not late. I must stay."

The warden tugged at Liara's arm, pulling her toward a commotion down below the hill her dig site lay upon. As she desperately and unsuccessfully fought to escape the vice-like grip of the matriarch, she only got one last look at her mother pulling dirt from the sides into the dig with her.

"Where are you taking me? Why can Mother not come?" she screamed up at her harrier, struggling against the impossible strength of the turian's arms.

"She's gone, Liara," Garrus said simply, unrelentingly walking her toward the bottom of the hill where, in the half-circle of the clearing, hundreds of people were sat in neat rows before a shape draped in white velvet and nestled between two saplings at the edge of the wood. "She's gone."

They strode forward, through the crowd, Liara's protestations waning as familiar faces turned to watch her. Tali fell in beside her, guiding her to the three empty seats in the first row. As she took her place, Tali and Garrus remained standing before her, heads deeply bowed, both in white cowls and golden sashes to match hers. Liara nodded, and they slowly turned and stepped to the velvet. Solemnly they pulled it down, carefully folding the cloth in their arms, revealing the statue carved into Shepard's likeness—

—She awoke with her breath caught in her throat, her thin silken sheet tangled around her legs and body. She fought herself loose, and stumbled out of the cot and to the bedside, desperately reaching for anything, something, finding her breath only when her hand found Shepard's under the blankets. In the dark, she fumbled with the railing of the bed with numb fingers until she found the lock to collapse it to the side. With fevered urgency she crawled up on the bed and snuggled her body tightly against Shepard's, head burrowed in the curve of her neck, smudged tears drying on the woman's skin.