Previously...

Shepard and Jacob find the last prothean research location with an incomplete weapon against the Reapers. They also come up against the planet's venomous insects and meet the rachni queen. Her talk with the queen is cut short when she collapses after being stung by the insects.

.

Her throat was raw and parched. The pain and thirst were so strong that they dragged her out of the comforting darkness where she had been residing. She tried to open her eyes, but they didn't want to respond. It felt like there were boulders of sand trapped under her eyelids.

She tried to lift her hand to rub at her eyes, but something was holding it down. Painfully, she pried one eye partially open to see Thane sitting at her side and holding her hand. A blurry look around revealed that she was in the Med Bay. She tried to tug her hand free and vaguely realized that Thane had been sleeping sitting up. "Siha, you're awake," he rumbled softly and brushed her cheek with his lips.

"Water," she croaked.

He nodded and returned shortly with a glass of cool water. He helped her sit up and held the glass to her lips. She wanted to gulp it down greedily, but he only allowed small sips. Each one felt like nirvana to her parched mouth and lips. When she finished it, he laid her back on the bed. "What?" she whispered. Her throat was still so raw and scratchy that the single word was all she could manage, but he understand what she meant.

"The insect venom was quite strong, and you got a much larger dose than Kasumi did. Apparently, when you fainted, the rachni carried you back to the shuttle. I think that scared Jacob more than anything else that happened. Dr. Chakwas had already identified an anti-venom to help Kasumi, so once she administered it to you, there was nothing to do but wait until you woke up." He settled back at her side and held her hand tightly.

"Rachni?" she rasped.

"Gone. Shortly after the shuttle returned to the Normandy, we saw a craft lift off and head out.

Shepard huffed out her breath in annoyance. She had more that she wished to discuss with the queen, but now that would have to wait. Instead, she would have to figure out how to tell Grunt and Wrex they would be working with the rachni. Maybe she could get her point across with a head butt or two. She looked back at Thane and squeezed his hand. "Sorry for scaring you," she whispered

"That obvious, am I?"

She give him a wry smile and gestured tiredly toward the chair he was sitting in and then squeezed his hand. Her message was clear: you wouldn't be sleeping in a chair and holding on for dear life if everything was fine.

Thane brought her hand to his lips. "You are fine now, siha. I knew you were strong." Maybe it was the aftereffects of the venom, but she thought she heard his voice shake slightly.

"Damn straight," she croaked, but she held on just as tightly to his hand. Neither would admit it, but there were moments when life forced you to realize that it was all too fragile, and sometimes it didn't matter if it was a chronic disease or an alien creature - they could both kill you just as dead.

It took them three days to travel from the depths of rachni space to the mass relay and on to the Citadel. It wasn't long before Shepard was out of Med Bay, but the pain still lingered in her joints. Chakwas had promised it would fade slowly, but there was little she could do and the cybernetics weren't any help at all in this case. But as luck would have it, a bigger pain soon surfaced to push the physical ones away.

They lay intertwined in the dark of her cabin, only the light from the fish tank providing faint illumination. As he was wont to do, Thane threaded his fingers through her hair, gently working through the tangles left by their earlier exertions. There was something different about him tonight, however. While he was always attentive, he held her more tightly tonight, loved her more deeply than usual. She turned to her side and brushed the backs of her fingers along his cheek frill. "Spill it," she whispered.

He wasn't surprised by her insight. In the low light, his eyes were nothing more than obsidian chips that devoured all the available light as he looked at her. "My heart is torn, siha," he confessed. Her brows came together, and his fingers brushed the center of her forehead, trying to lighten her expression. "We have been here for two months." When she nodded, waiting for him to continue, he drew a deep breath. "Kolyat has evinced a desire for me to visit, and for longer than our usual layovers."

Understanding hit her immediately. There was little Thane wished for more than reconciliation with his son, and they had been slowly working toward that since they reunited those many months ago. Now to have Kolyat openly ask for his father to spend more time with him was literally the answer to his prayers, but the Normandy rarely spent more than two days at dock anywhere. However, Shepard could not afford to rest. She was the focus of the war preparations, and in spite of all her efforts at negotiation and persuasion, the galaxy was still far from ready and many races and factions still didn't even believe her. If she ceased her efforts, everything would fall apart.

And now Thane was saying that he wanted to leave her.

A sudden pain pierced her heart, and she struggled to keep the evidence off her face. Of course he wanted to spend time with his son. It would be incredibly selfish of her to ask him to stay. She could still write to him or have video chats when the Normandy was close to a comm buoy, and the Normandy regularly called at the Citadel. It wasn't like he was leaving her for another lover, she chastised herself.

"Shh." His hands smoothed her hair and cradled her close to him. Evidently she wasn't as good as she thought at keeping her emotions off her face. "It is not forever." They both ignored the lie implicit in his statement. His health was failing steadily in spite of everything Dr. Chakwas could do for him. Perhaps that prompted his next words. "I can seek out a specialist on the Citadel. Perhaps there will be some help there."

She might have been able to keep it together if he hadn't brought it out in the open and forced her to admit his illness. She opened her mouth to speak, but only a strangled sound came out. She quickly clamped her lips shut and wrapped her arms around him to hold him tightly. He continued to whisper reassurances in her ear while she fought down the storm inside.

Finally she leaned back and looked at him. She had to blink the tears away, but she refused to wipe her eyes and thereby acknowledge their existence. "Of course," she said in a wavering voice. "I understand. You need to spend time with him. You need..." She stopped and swallowed convulsively.

"I need a lifetime at your side, siha," he whispered. "Which is what you have given me, even if it is too short. You brought me back to life and made me realize how wonderful it is. I can never express to you how important that is to me." He pressed cool lips against hers and ran his hand down her back to pull her firmly against him.

Just once, she wished she could ask for what she wanted instead of being so pragmatic, for him to be miraculously cured and forever at her side. There was something he could give her though. She drew back a hairsbreadth. "Make me remember you, Thane," she whispered, somewhere between a plea and a demand.

His lips quirked up into a quiet smile. "It would be my pleasure, siha."

No matter how much they tried to hold back the passage of time, the Normandy finally docked at the Citadel.

"I'm going to miss you," she murmured into the velvety folds of his neck.

"And I you, siha," he said as he twined his fingers through her hair.

"Write often," she ordered. "I want to hear what you're up to. I don't have that whole eidetic memory thing that you do, so I need to hear from you often."

He almost smiled. "Surely you cannot have forgotten the past day so quickly," he chided.

She tried to tease him in return, but the impulse died in her chest. "I'll never forget you," she swore.

He swept her up and stole her breath away with a lingering, passionate kiss as he pressed her up against the repaired fish tank in her cabin. Even though she could see the advancing stages of his disease in the paler shade of his scales and hear the rasping of his breath, his body felt as taut and strong as ever. He picked her up so she could wrap her legs around his waist and kissed her hard. His lips pressed against hers as his tongue sought entrance to her mouth, which she gave willingly. She willed herself to fix this moment in her memory, the scent and taste of him, once so alien and now so familiar and comforting. She wanted to always remember the strength of his body and the security she felt when held in his arms. She nearly whimpered when he finally let her go and set her back on her feet, but she wouldn't let his last memory of her be one of sadness. Instead, she forced a happy smile and brushed her lips against his. "Ashte il-remont," she said. It was a drell saying he had taught her, meaning until we meet again. She didn't want to say goodbye.

He looked deep into her eyes for a long moment before he responded. "Ashte il-remont, siha." His voice was rougher than usual, and he held onto her hand for as long as he could before his footsteps carried him out of her cabin.

She watched him step into the lift, and he gave her the same polite bow he had upon meeting her. Then the door slid shut, and he was gone.

"Z!"

"Well, well, look who the cat dragged in. Took ya long enough to get yer ass to Omega, Shepard." Zaeed sauntered through the airlock, bringing the ripe stench of Omega with him even through the decon cycle.

"Took a while for the Shadow Broker to track down Vido," she said as they walked through CIC. "I thought you were helping set up some security for the Broker."

"Didn't work out," he told her. "Too boring. Set 'im up with some of my mates I could trust, though. Figured I'd hang at Omega 'til ya contacted me. Made m'self a tidy sum o' credits while I was waitin'."

"It's good to have you back, Z. This ship's been far too quiet."

"Where's your drell, Shepard? You two seemed joined at the hip after the Collector Base." The lift opened on the cargo level and they headed into Zaeed's old room.

"He's on the Citadel, visiting his son." It was a short explanation, but she couldn't bring herself to add anything to it. Still, the canny old merc read between the lines.

"No news of a cure yet?" he asked as he dropped his duffel bag on the floor and took Jessie out of her gun case. Shepard shook her head. "Ah well, don't you worry. Did I ever tell ya about my grandpappy? They diagnosed him with terminal cancer when he was seventy six. Told him he'd be dead in a year. He moved to Italy, grew a garden and drank a bottle of wine every day. Got married again when he was eighty two and finally kicked the bucket at a hundred and three. Can't trust those goddamn doctors to know shit."

His story brought a smile to her lips. She'd missed this. "Let's grab some lunch and you can tell me all about Omega," she said.

As they settled down at a table, he looked around the mess hall. "I see Rupert's still slingin' chow, but it seems quieter than it used to."

"Yeah, we're down to about half the crew we had before. EDI's picking up the rest. As for specialists, there's you and Jacob."

He lifted a scar-bisected eyebrow. "That's it?"

She nodded once. "Kasumi was here, but she's off to Kahje for me and Liara. Everyone else is scattered to the winds," she said with an unintentional sigh.

Zaeed huffed out a laugh. "Damn, girl, you got me. What else do you need?"

She grinned back at him. "For starters, a couple of fleets, a krogan army, and a prothean super weapon."

He nodded and wiped the back of his hand over his mouth. "Well, the Suns may not be krogan, but they ain't no pussies. We take out Vido, you'll have yourself a decent army, Shepard. Rupert's gettin' better," he commented.

She grinned. "Just wait. He's decided to try his hand at French cuisine ever since I handed some champagne over to Joker. Wait til you try rack of vat-grown generic meat substitute in an asari red wine reduction sauce."

The old merc stared at her, trying to figure out if she was pulling his leg or not. "Is it edible?"

She shrugged, still grinning. "Put enough salt and hot sauce on it, and anything's edible. Besides, our next stop is Vido, so you won't have to suffer through it for long."

Zaeed made quick work of the rest of his lunch and handed the plate back to Rupert. "Can't come too soon, Shepard. I've been itchin' for some payback on that bastard for a long, long time."

It always rains on Kahje. That stupid truism made Feron snort in disgust. He'd sworn never to return to this prudish mudhole, but Liara had talked him into acting as Shepard's representative. The First Singer had made good on its promise to allow Shepard or her representative access to the hidden sections of the Kahje prothean ruins. That was a big enough surprise. The bigger one was how Liara had persuaded him to return to Kahje in the first place.

He ran from his ship into the docking complex, getting thoroughly soaked along the way. The drier air inside was a huge relief as he futilely tried to dry his clothes. As he did so, he looked around for his contact. All he knew was that his contact was a human who had been on Shepard's crew. He saw numerous hanar and drell, along with a few asari who seemed to be ubiquitous throughout the galaxy. There were even a couple of volus, but no humans.

Until he turned around and nearly stepped on a diminutive human woman wearing a hood that shadowed her face. All he could see was a pair of oddly painted lips and a hint of laughing eyes. "I was beginning to wonder if you would show up at all," she said in a low musical voice.

He blinked his inner eyelids rapidly in irritation. "Give me a break," he grumbled. "I nearly got killed twice last week in the Terminus systems. Kind of put a crimp in my schedule. Kasumi Goto, I presume?"

"None other," she confirmed. "Let's save the rest of our introductions until we get back to my room."

Kasumi's room turned out to be a luxurious suite in the space port complex, one of the rooms usually reserved for aliens. "We can talk freely here," Kasumi told him. "I scanned for bugs and have blocking measures in place." She collapsed into the massive couch covered in arghaht leather and nearly disappeared in the oversized cushions. "Your employer contacted me to assist you in searching through the ruins here. He thought a thief might have more luck finding things that certain people don't want found while you were busy doing all the expected things."

Feron took in the double bedroom, the spacious seating area and equally large dining area. He decided he should ask Liara for a raise next time he saw her. "What do you know about my employer?" he asked. Sometimes Liara forgot to include important details, such as whether or not he should trust the people she sent him to see. Which is why he'd had to shoot the last contact he had in the Terminus system. Damn shame, too. He'd been a promising engineer.

"The infamous Shadow Broker, who's helping Shepard in all sorts of nefarious ways. I'll find out more later, but for now, there are much more promising secrets to ferret out," she added with a barely noticeable wink.

Okay, so Kasumi wasn't in on the secret. Feron made a note to stick with the generic pronouns they used in public. "Good luck with that," was all he said aloud. "Do you know much about protheans?" He hoped she did, because that wasn't on his specialty list.

Unfortunately, his hopes were dashed when she shook her head. "Only what I memorized in the crash course the Shadow Broker sent me when he hired me for this."

Feron sighed. "Well, I've got Glyph." He had downloaded a stripped-down version of Liara's VI onto his omni tool before he left Hagalaz. Now he brought it up to show Kasumi.

"Greetings, Feron. How can I be of service?"

At least he'd finally fixed Glyph's recognition bug. "He knows everything there is to know about prothean ruins. Hopefully he'll be able to steer us toward something that can help."

The next morning, they headed to the ruins that lay in the heart of an extinct volcano. The top of the volcano formed a weathered and eroded island surrounded by a coral reef. The flitter settled down on a landing strip on a black sand beach. Their hanar guide led Feron and Kasumi to a recessed opening that seeming led them into the side of the volcano.

Inside was deliciously dry and cool, and Feron breathed deeply as he looked around. This entrance room was set up to function as a history museum, describing how the hanar first found and then gradually explored the ruins. Their guide led them through the outer room and short hallway into a larger, circular room that had a number of bulbous alcoves around the perimeter. Another hanar drifted over to greet them. This one was considerably larger and floated a few decimeters higher than their guide.

"Greetings. This one may be addressed as Elder Researcher."

Feron got the impression of fat and pomposity. That was fine. He knew how to handle its type. "Pleased to meet you," he said with just the right mix of humility and respect. "We are here at the behest of..."

"Yes, yes. This one is painfully aware of your request. The First Singer made a personal call to explain how important it was that this one takes time from its busy schedule to show visitors around." Somehow, even through the translator box, it managed to imbue the word visitors with dripping disdain.

Feron held back his surprise at the elder hanar's surprising lack of manners. "Yes, we very much appreciate your time and personal attention to such an important matter. As you are aware, every civilized race in the galaxy is doing whatever they can to assist in the preparation efforts."

The hanar had turned its snout away from them and floated toward the back of the room before Feron even finished speaking. He and Kasumi shared incredulous glances as they followed it toward an elevator. Apparently, there did exist hanar who couldn't be bothered with an outward show of politeness.

"This one will show you through the main ruins, although it highly doubts that you will find anything of use. Hanar have investigated these ruins for hundreds of years. What makes you think that you can find something when the best minds in the Illuminated Primacy have not?"

Feron took a deep breath. "It may be a long shot, but these ruins are supposed to be among the largest and best preserved in the galaxy. Shepard feels that there is a chance that we can find something to help us in our fight against the Reapers, and the First Singer agreed to give us access."

It hrmmed through its translator, and Feron mentally translated that as a put-upon sigh. "Yes, yes, this one is well aware of the First Singer's promise. You do realize that it will take you days to even casually explore the main rooms, do you not?"

Here was where it might get sticky, Feron thought. "Yes, but as you mentioned, the hanar have been exploring here for centuries. So we want to start with the oldest ruins, the ones that aren't normally open to the researchers."

As he thought it might, the Elder Researcher flushed an irritated yellow and orange. "See here, those ruins are still being catalogued. We do not allow outsiders in there. You will content yourselves with the public rooms."

Feron shook his head. "I'm sorry, but we simply don't have the time for that. As I mentioned earlier, we're in a race to find anything at all that could be of use." He looked around the dimly lit cavern that marked the entrance to the Kahje ruins. He had expected that gaining access to the older sections would be difficult, and Liara once again came to his aid. He held out a message disc. "Here is a copy of our authorization from the First Singer. I'm sure you can understand how important this is."

One of the hanar's tentacles reached out to take the disc, delicately avoiding touching a single scale on Feron's hand. Once again, it gave that aggravated sigh through its translator. "Very well. Although this one insists that one of our researchers accompany you at all times. The older sections can be unstable. In addition, anything that you find must be reported to us immediately. Is that clear?"

Feron and Kasumi both nodded, playing the part of grateful visitors, willing to obediently follow all the rules. The elder hanar flashed quickly, not bothering to translate through its voice box for the aliens in its domain. A smaller, purple-tinged hanar floated over to them. The Elder Researcher spoke quickly. "This is one of our junior researchers. It will be your guide for today. Don't touch anything," it warned before it floated back to the elevator.

Feron glanced at Kasumi and saw her lips twitch in amusement, but any discussion about the peculiarities of their host would have to wait until after they were out of the ruins. "Greetings," the smaller hanar said. "Follow me, and I will take you to the lower levels." Somehow, even through its translator, it managed to project contempt and apathy for its task.

As they followed it into another elevator, this one looking much more industrial, Feron closed both sets of eyelids and tried to reach for the calm he had been working on for the past several months. It was impossible for him to do here, though, and he finally gave it up as the elevator ground to a halt.

They stepped out, following their guide. Lights rippled on in multiple curving corridors. "How many levels are there?" Kasumi asked.

"There are three above us that have been well categorized and explored. This one and the next two down are generally off limits to outsiders. Below that are the flooded levels. There are two of those." It turned to examine them. "You will need survival suits if you plan to visit those levels."

Feron sighed. He knew this would be a large task, but he hadn't appreciated how big until now. Liara definitely owed him a raise. "We're wasting time," he growled, letting a rumble of irritation sound in his voice. "Let's get going."

Jack Harper contemplated his screens and frowned. On the surface, things seemed to be going according to the schedule he had meticulously mapped out years ago. But dig a little deeper and there were some disturbing discrepancies.

Someone was making a play for his holdings. He'd lost three more companies in the Terminus systems in the past month, and nearly lost one of his major military contracts. There weren't that many players in the galaxy who could compete on his level, and he'd already checked out each of them to no avail. It was someone new, and he suspected it was Shepard's new best friend, the Shadow Broker. He had a rough idea where the Broker resided, but so far, hadn't deemed it worth expending the resources to hunt him down. Now he was reconsidering that decision.

He brought up a screen detailing his progress on the Collector base and smirked. Shepard was so busy trying to rally the galaxy that she had left her greatest resource unprotected. Oh, she thought she had protected it by sending Miranda to lead an independent research team, but it had been incredibly easy for his troops to come in and take over. Now his team had unrestricted access to everything in there. They had already reanimated the proto Reaper and sent several pieces of Reaper tech to his facility on Horizon. Miranda had been the biggest problem, but she was safely on her way back here, even if it was against her will. It was a shame. Of everyone on his payroll, he had thought she was the most committed to Cerberus and its cause. Instead, Shepard had somehow managed to sway Miranda to her side.

He frowned and drank the rest of his whiskey. It all came back to Shepard. She claimed she wanted to work in partnership with him, but she was attempting a takeover of Cerberus. He'd been willing to put up with more insubordination from her than from any other resource of his, but she'd pushed him too far. In addition, she appeared to have found something from the protheans, something that she was hopeful could be used as a weapon against the Reapers. He needed to find out what that was and put a stop to it. He had his own plans for the Reapers, and it didn't include destroying them.

He needed to neutralize her.

He had an elegant solution in mind, one that would take care of either Udina or Shepard. Udina had become more of a liability than a help, and the diplomatic corps was taking too long to find a suitable replacement. He crafted a message to Udina ordering him to revoke Shepard's Spectre status. As soon as that happened, the Alliance would be free to pick her up and take her back to Earth where she would be put on trial for her association with Cerberus. Held incommunicado but safe, she would still be available when the Reapers finally showed up. He still needed her to lead the war effort and hold the Reapers back until he could finalize his plans. If Udina's plot against Shepard was discovered, as he suspected it would be, he could flush out the spies or they would take out Udina for him. Either way, it was a win-win situation for him.

Things were falling into place, and while Shepard had rearranged a few of the pieces on the table, the overall situation was still as he had planned.

Special thanks to Orchidellia, my beta reader who gives me great ideas, advice and feedback.