A/N: Howdy all!

As you may have noticed, my posting times seem a bit sporadic lately. My work load has changed and I have less time during the day to write. I am still attempting to write evenings on my new laptop, but it is also sporadic the chance I get to do that. Even so, I will still get three or even four chapters out a week at varying times, they just won't be on the solid, consistent Monday thru Friday they used to be.

Secondly, yes, I have seen the EC 'fix' to the endings. My response is to say this: I will definitely still be changing the endings in DE3. There will be no Star Brat whatsoever. So rest assured on that note.

Now, on we go!

A nicely tanned hand swept in an arc over the closed and latched door to the Nest, as if the bearer could sense the pulsing vibrations of those in exhausted sleep past it. Allers pursed her lips a little, her dark eyes narrowing slightly in thought.

Her will and determination would not waver. Despite the risks, she had never felt more certain, more grounded, than she did right now. She herself was unimportant. What mattered was humanity. There was glory in the sacrifices she was making, and she would do them gladly.

At her side, the citrine light of her Shepard VI stood in solemn observance, the unfeeling spectral advisor to an unfeeling living woman.

"VI, access Gaslight," Allers said at last.

"Gaslight accessed."

"Please open the door to the Nest."

The faintest of clicks as the door-lock disengaged, and then the near silent whisper of displaced air as the barrier slid aside.

The Nest was a quiet tangle of shadows, some swirling and dancing together as the barely illuminated tank sent cast silhouettes of its lazing occupants around the room. The faint traces of tobacco smoke made her wrinkle her nose.

Such a filthy damn habit.

Padding barefoot, moving silently, Allers crossed the office alcove and moved down the steps into the living area. Her nose wrinkled even more as she saw both human and asari deeply asleep on the bed, the latter draped against the former's back, her arm slung around Shepard's waist.

The tiny aerosol made a soft hiss, no louder than a sigh, as she misted its contents deftly over Shepard's nose, and then the asari's. The odorless sedative gas would ensure Shepard did not wake for the next few hours.

Liara, on the other hand, would never wake again.

Tucking the aerosol away, the VI looking on dispassionately, Allers withdrew a small hypodermic. Leaning over the slumbering Shepard, she carefully slipped the needle into the crease of one of the myriad folds on the back of Liara's neck, a location where the mark would be all but invisible.

When the ampoule was empty, she withdrew it and straightened, glancing down only to see dark brown eyes, muzzy with sleep, looking up at her.

Shepard didn't leap up so much as explode off the bed, one hand grabbing hold of Diana's shoulder even as her other fist slammed with molten heat into her gut. The air was stolen in an instant from her lungs and she crashed backward, the captain's weight atop her.

For Shepard, it was a whirlwind of confused action that was more reflex than thought…at least at first. Her sleep had been heavy and much needed, and so the act of a form leaning over her took some time to filter through her unconscious mind. When she finally did open her eyes all she saw was someone looming over her, someone not Liara, and her body reacted with pure adrenaline. Before it had even awakened in her mind who the looming shadow was, she had the reporter on the ground, moving feebly and gasping painfully for air.

All traces of sleep were quickly banished, her mind rushing into full clarity quickly. She stared in furious disbelief as the woman pinned beneath her finally managed to draw air again.

"The fuck? What the fuck are you doing in my quarters, Allers?"

Still beyond the capacity to speak, Allers only rolled onto her side, coiling around her wounded diaphragm, uttering a feeble, wheezing cough. Straightening to her feet, Shepard glared at her, then called out.

"Haley! Get your ass and a security team to the Nest, immediately!"

{On our way up.}

Glancing around the room to see if anything had been disturbed by the nosey reporter, Shepard caught sight of the form still draped and sleeping on her bed. Liara had not been there when she'd gone to bed the night before, but it was not unusual for her to sneak in late at night to make sure Del was actually sleeping. That her arrival had not woken Shepard, testified to the depths of exhaustion she had been sunk in. Normally, she was a fairly light sleeper, and would have noted the asari laying down.

She must be exhausted too, Del thought. She's a lighter sleeper than I am. The commotion should have woken her and short of that, me shouting should definitely have done it.

Allers was weakly trying to push herself up. Glaring at her, Shepard planted her bare foot on the woman's hip and thrust her down again. "Stay put, Allers."

Leaning over the bed she took Liara's shoulder and shook her, concerned at her continuing slumber. When the shake failed to rouse her, Shepard's alarm grew.

"Liara?" She shook her again. "Tianlán, wake up!"

Nothing. She gently rolled the asari onto her back, and the limp way her arm flopped against her stomach only sent Del's worry to new heights. Pressing her fingers in at Liara's throat, she ducked her head down, her ear beside her nose and mouth.

"EDI! MEDICAL TEAM!"

Shepard only half-heard herself scream those words, even as she lifted Liara off the bed. Ignoring Allers who was, once again, trying to get to her feet, she rushed up the steps, across her office and out the door.

Haley and two others were just stepping off the lift, Shepard nearly knocking them over in her haste as she moved aboard.

"Allers is in there," was all she told them, but the venom in her voice left her unspoken order to them unmistakable.

Arrest her, and do not be gentle about it.

She could not remember a time when the lift had taken so long. It seemed to move with all the speed of an ice age glacier down toward the crew deck. Liara was dead weight in her arms, the asari's face a pale ashen gray.

"Don't you leave me," Shepard urged raggedly. "Don't you fucking leave me."

The lift doors finally slid open and she nearly collided with a sleep-mussed Chakwas and one of her nurses.

"What happened?" Chakwas asked as Shepard hurried past her and toward the infirmary.

"I woke up and Allers was there," Shepard said. "Li's not breathing and I couldn't feel a pulse."

Laying the asari on the nearest bio-bed- in effect surrendering her to Helen and her expertise- broke something in her. For a moment, Shepard's brain shuddered between collapsing with fear and grief and overrunning with a furious, murderous anger.

Being who she was, she chose the anger.

Stepping back, she turned and strode out of the infirmary, barely hearing Nan's sleepy 'sweetie?' Garrus, drawn by the commotion, blinked at her as she swept past, heading for the lift.

"Shepard? What's going on?" he asked.

Shepard reached the lift just as the door opened, baring Haley and his men and the shackled Allers. Without a step lost, Shepard lifted a fist and slammed it with bone-cracking force into the side of Diana's face.

Shouts filled the air, unheard drones that were nonsensical to her ears. She pressed on the attack, landing a blow into the shoulder of one poor private as he tried to move between her and the prisoner. Someone caught her around the waist and hauled her back a step or two before she hauled them forward again with sheer determination. Her throat was heated with the vehemence of her own shouts.

"I'll kill you! If she dies I'll fucking kill you!"

The arms around her hauled backward again before a second solid grip took hold of her as well. Between the two of them she was forced back, giving Haley and the others room to usher Allers past and toward the brig.

"I'll fucking kill you!"

"Shepard!" Garrus. "Shepard calm down!"

"What happened?" Wrex.

"Allers did something to Liara I think," Garrus said. "Shepard!"

Del almost tore free of them, not an unimpressive feat considering one was a turian and the other a krogan warlord. Growling, the two males wrestled her back again before Wrex pinned her against the wall.

"Let me go you big fuck!"

"No, not yet. I let you go now, you'll make it too quick. If that pyjak hurt Blue, then she deserves to die slow and painful for it. She's not going anywhere, Shepard. You'll have your chance at her."

Del's reddened brown eyes fixed to him, and then to the grim-faced Garrus, before moving back to the krogan. His eyes were narrowed, his tone promising.

"Slow…and painful."

One of the men who had taken Allers down to the brig returned only moments later, heading into the infirmary. There he presented Chakwas with the aerosol and the syringe they'd found on Allers. Shepard, unable to stay away yet not able to bring herself to go in either, paced in a tight and furious little circle just outside the infirmary door.

Nan emerged first only a few minutes later. Her face seemed more strongly lined than it had just a few short hours ago, and catching sight of her expression, Del felt some part of her very soul quiver in frightened agony.

Wordlessly, Nancy came over and hugged her tightly. The strength seemed to go out of Shepard's legs and she half-fell to her knees, clinging to Nan. The air in the room had vanished, and she could hear the echo of her pulse beating in her ears.

Where are the tears? some part of her wondered. Why can't I cry?

She didn't want Nancy to speak, to say the words and make them a reality. When the woman finally did whisper the sound of her voice shook Shepard to her very foundations.

"She's alive, sweetie."

"Alive…"

"Helen has her on support. It was some kind of paralytic in that syringe. She can't breathe and her heart can't beat on its own. If you had not got her down here as fast as you did-"

Releasing Nan abruptly, Shepard got to her feet and walked into the infirmary.

Liara lay on the bio-bed, on full support as Nan had described. Her color still looked ashen, pale and faded, her eyelids marked a dark, sunken purple. Helen turned around and looked at her, but made no move to halt or intercept.

"It'll wear off, right?" Shepard touched the asari's cheek, fingers barely brushing her skin before they fell to rest on her shoulder. "Once it wears off she'll be able to breathe again."

Her eyes lifted, seeking out the doctor's eyes, her next word less confident.

"Right?"

"We can hope so," Helen said carefully. "The substance she was injected with is a long-acting paralytic. There are no counters. Usually, those afflicted with this type of poison do not live long enough for counters to be administered. Her heart and lungs would have stopped instantaneously. You got her to us before there was irreversible brain damage but all we can do is wait it out. Hopefully when the paralytic breaks down enough in her system her involuntary muscle control will reassert."

"Hopefully?"

"There is a slim chance it will not," Helen told her. "If that proves to be the case she will have to remain on support."

"For how long?"

Helen's gray eyes shifted over the asari, her brows knitting. "Forever, Del. She will not be able to function without them. My scans didn't show any egregious damage to those centers of her brain but at times it takes only a few cells to make the difference between full recovery and-"

"-and spending the rest of her life hooked up to some machine." Shepard's fingers scrubbed angrily over her lips a moment, before she dropped them. "How long until you know?"

"At the dose she was given, it will take forty-eight hours or more before it has broken down enough to allow her systems to recover. Until then I am keeping her in a chemically induced coma. The less stress on her now the better."

Shepard's eyes were lost behind the thick gloss of unshed tears, unfocused as they looked down at Liara's peaceful face. After a long, pregnant pause, Helen spoke again.

"The aerosol that Haley and his men found on her contained traces of a potent sedative. We found the same traces on Liara's face, and they're probably on yours, as well. Allers would have used it in an attempt to keep you both unconscious while she-"

"While she killed Liara." Shepard's tone was far from delicate, gentle, or even grief-stricken. She sounded like a woman dangerously close to forgetting every trace of her sanity.

"She did not take into account your increasing tolerance to sedation," Chakwas said.

Ducking slightly, Shepard whispered something soft into Liara's unhearing ear, then kissed her cheek before she straightened.

"Dr. Chakwas, you'll want to prepare the infirmary for an incoming trauma patient," she said, calmly heading for the door.

"Del, remember, we need answers from her," Chakwas said. Del looked back at her briefly, her eyes hollow and ringed with ice.

Then she was gone.

Blood hung like slow, sensual rubies in the air. Each a perfect orb of crimson, they lingered before cascading in gentle rain to the ground. Haley cracked his knuckles, shook out his hand slightly, and then balled it up again.

The dull meat-on-meat thud of it colliding with the reporter's face was almost muffled. Allers slumped to her side, gasping wetly for air through a swollen, broken nose. Smears of blood stained the bare floor of the cell.

Haley took a step back as Allers shifted weakly, a ragged chuckle escaping her. Moving painfully, awkwardly, she braced herself on the wall and got back into a sit. Her dark eyes rolled up to meet Del's unmoving glare.

"Too afraid to hit me yourself?" she asked. Shepard stepped forward and crouched, leaning in until they were almost intimately close.

"I hit you," Shepard said, "and I won't stop until your brains are leaking out of your broken skull."

"You think I'm afraid to die?" Allers asked with a macabre grin, her swollen lips spreading over reddened teeth.

"I couldn't give a piss what you're afraid of, mu gou, but I need information and for that, I need you breathing. Haley. Did you get her omni-tool?"

"Yes. One of the programmers from Thanatos is looking over it right now down in Engineering."

Shepard grunted, her eyes never leaving Allers'. "We're going to start off nice and easy, all right? Are you the hacker?"

A stoic, unwavering glare was her answer. Shepard's glare was just as unwavering. Sitting back a little she ordered, "Everyone, get out."

"Captain?"

"Out!"

Haley and his men departed, moving out of hearing range but staying within visual just outside the open door to the brig. Shepard gave Allers a smile.

"All right, they're gone now. Sorry about all that. Had to put on a good show."

Allers looked at her warily, thin dribbles of blood painting her upper lip. Shepard gave her an almost cherubic grin.

"Listen, Diana, we're on the same side here. Fuck, you think I care what you just did? Good riddance, I say. These fucking treaties have been a nightmare and everywhere I turn around some fucking squid or frog-eyes is whining at me about their poor planet. Boo fucking hoo. Drives me fucking crazy, all this goddamn pandering, but the Alliance wants their precious treaties."

She rolled her eyes with an irritated snort. "Honestly, since that hacker shut down the goddamn network, that asari has been useless for anything around here. Figured throttling her myself was a bit too over the top."

"You're lying," Allers replied, though she sounded unconvinced. "This is some kind of act."

"Oh don't fucking waste my time." Shepard's glare was impatient, pointed. "You think I give a shit what happens to you? No. You made me look bad, and that tends to be bad for people's health, dong ma? So listen up, cupcake, and listen well. The only reason you're still fucking alive is your contacts. You work for Wyatt, right? I know full well he wasn't working alone, but I need contacts. I need help or I have to keep relying on these stupid fucking aliens. If I get Terra Firma's full support, I can dump the turians and sabotage this cure for the krogan. Are you with them or not? I haven't got time to dick around here."

Allers lifted her chin slightly. "I'm with Terra Firma," she admitted. Shepard snorted.

"Fuck. If you're gonna lie to me fucking forget it. I have better things to do."

She straightened to her feet and Allers lifted up onto her knees frantically. "No! Wait-"

"For what? You're not with Terra Firma and you fucking know it. I don't have time for your bullsh-"

"We're with Cerberus."

Shepard paused, then slowly crouched back down, disbelieving. "Cerberus?"

"We're part of Terra Firma, yes, but we weren't acting under their orders. Cerberus gave us resources and Wyatt was able to build his…device."

"That thing he hooked me up to back on Earth."

"Yes."

"Go on."

"No," Allers smiled again. "I'm not falling for this bullshit, Captain. You are pretty convincing when you want to be but I see and hear more around this ship than you realize. You're trying to ingratiate me, get me to reveal something."

Shepard smiled. "You just did."

"Please, the Cerberus thing? That's hardly a stretch of the imagination," Allers said. "A four-year-old could have made that connection. Terra Firma, Cerberus, God's Planet…different limbs on the same animal."

Shepard's grin never waned as she put her hand out against Allers' forehead, tipping the woman backward until her head pressed against the wall. "Haley!"

"Yes ma'am?"

"Ms. Allers here seems to think she 'sees and hears more around this ship' than I realize. How would something like that work, exactly?"

The young man pursed his lips. "She would have to have bugs and other surveillance devices on board, ma'am."

"Is that possible?"

"No ma'am. The ship was completely swept of surveillance equipment of that type when the Alliance took it over. The ship receives routine security sweeps for planted bugs on a daily basis."

"Is there a type of small camera or bug that would be missed by our sweeps?"

"No ma'am."

"You sound awfully confident."

"Yes ma'am. EDI has access to top of the line technology in that field, stuff that hasn't even hit the black market yet. She conducts the initial scan and the equipment we use to fully clear the ship is updated daily with those techniques."

Shepard's brows knit as she thought a moment, searching Allers' eyes. Confidently, the reporter smiled. "You're too stupid to figure it out, aren't you, Shepard? Tell me, Captain. How does it feel knowing you threw away your humanity? To know that instead of fighting to save your people you'd rather be fucking a blue squ-"

This time Shepard's motion was less gentle, and Diana's head bounced on the wall with a sharp thud. The reporter's eyes rolled back and she slumped, unconscious.

"Fucking bitch."

Shepard straightened, stepping out of the cell and activating the field. "Haley, no one sees her but me and Chakwas. If Helen comes down to treat her you guard her with your life."

"Of course, ma'am. Where are you-?"

"To see Adams!"

Mu Gou= bitch

Dong ma= Understand?