3 December 2580, Vertorios Medical Center, Presidium Ring/Citadel

I dreamed strange, disturbing dreams for a long time after that. I drifted, alone in a hostile and unforgiving universe. I walked lost amid busy crowds, ignored, unable to get anyone's attention. I wandered, unable to find my way home, unable even to remember whether I had a home to be found. I moved from darkness to darkness, shivering in the cold, certain that everyone I cared for had gone beyond recall.

After a time, I began to think I had died and found an abandoned hell of my very own. A place specifically designed for someone who kept getting her friends killed.

Patēr, don't be afraid. Come back to us.

I noticed it, there in the darkness and the cold. A small, warm pressure.

Someone holding my hand.

Please, patēr.

I ignored the shadows of my unconscious mind, the disorientation caused by terrible injury and strong medication. I ignored the terror that threatened to freeze my soul. Instead I concentrated on that one small sensation, on the ghost of a voice whispering in the back of my mind.

The shadows and monsters didn't want to let me go. They shrieked and gibbered at me, showed me terrible visions, racked me with pain and fear and remorse. Yet through it all, the warmth never departed from my left hand.

It created a lifeline. I followed it, out of the depths.

Eventually the darkness took on a different quality, that of closed eyes in a dimly lit room. I still felt cool, but not freezing, and I realized I only needed another blanket. Something uncomfortable held my face motionless, dove down my nasal passages and my throat.

Someone still held my hand. I squeezed, just a little.

"Patēr?" A gentle voice, just beside me on the left.

I cracked my eyes open. It seemed to require a lot of work.

I saw a blue blur. A moment of blinking to clear my eyes, and the blur became an asari face.

Nerylla, I didn't quite say out loud. I thought it wise to avoid using my voice, past the obstruction in my throat.

"She's awake!" my daughter exclaimed, bending close to examine me. I heard movement, elsewhere in the room.

"Thank the Goddess." Vara this time, looking pale and drawn.

I tried to send her a thought, but either my brain was out of order or it had been too long since our last joining. I "heard" nothing but silence on my link to her and to Shepard.

Vara must have seen something in my face, because she bent close and touched my cheek gently. "Don't try to talk, love, don't try to do anything. You're in intensive care. Miranda and the doctors here agree, you're going to be fine, but Yao's last blow did a lot of damage. You're going to be here for a few days."

I thought about objecting, demanding to be taken back to Normandy, but then I remembered that the ship was so much wreckage in the Wards.

I suppose here is as good as anywhere else.

I tried to ask a question, using only my eyes.

"There will be time to worry about that later, Liara." Vara pulled a chair over, sat down leaning on the bed-rail beside me, her hand still on my arm. "No more of our people were badly hurt after Normandy went down. We won the battle in space, Nerylla and Aspasia are both fine, Matriarch Thekla is fine. It was a hard-fought thing, Aspasia tells me, but eventually the valdarii disengaged, retreated through their wormhole to Goddess-knows-where. Now the wormhole is gone, and Earth space is swarming with Confederation warships. They won't be able to ambush us that way again."

My lips twitched, tried to form a syllable.

"He's fine too, all things considered." Vara smiled. "You'd hardly know he had a krogan bite his arm off only three days ago. He's up and moving around, and the wound already looks completely healed. Of course, he complains bitterly about having to do everything one-handed, and with the wrong hand at that."

Against my better judgment, that got a small chuckle from me. Then my throat closed, my stomach rolled, and I had to close my eyes to concentrate on not throwing up.

Really really do not want to do that while lying on my back with a tube down my throat.

Then, quite suddenly, I fell asleep again. This time, thank the Goddess, I didn't dream.

4 December 2580, Vertorios Medical Center, Presidium Ring/Citadel

Shepard found me sitting up in bed, that damnable tube out of my throat at last, picking at a plate of bland hospital food. He took one look at me and broke up laughing.

"Oh dear. Liara, you should see your face. I don't think I've ever seen you this disgusted with the universe."

The worst of it was that I couldn't snap at him as he deserved. One could argue that he had taken the worse injury. Even if I wasn't mobile yet, at least I still had all my parts.

"I've never been fond of hospitals," I told him. "Come to think of it, I don't think you've ever seen me in one before. Every time I was hurt in the old days aboard Normandy, it was off to Dr. Chakwas for personalized care."

"A much more pleasant prospect, I agree."

Shepard pulled a chair over, turned it around, and straddled it, leaning on the back. I glanced at his face, looked down at his right arm, but saw little sign of suffering. His face showed faint bruising, and his lower sleeve was pinned up, but that was all.

He saw my glance and nodded. "Don't worry about that. This is the worst I've been hurt since I arrived on Mindoir, but my internal technology means I can regenerate almost anything in time. I should have both hands back in a few weeks."

"Good. That's good." I sighed, looked down at my plate again, and pushed it away in disgust. "Miranda tells me I should be out of here before long. That won't be a moment too soon. Although . . ."

"What is it, Liara?" he asked gently, after a few moments.

"Shepard, I'm not sure what I should do once they release me from here."

He cocked his head, giving me that patient look.

"I know. There's still so much ahead of us. The valdarii are still out there, the Adversary still has to be found and dealt with." Suddenly I couldn't meet his eyes. "I'm just not sure what use I will be for those things."

"I imagine you'll be indispensable," he said gently.

"Hardly," I scoffed. "Matriarch Thekla has the political situation well in hand. Once she is President, she'll be able to turn all the Confederation's resources to defeating the barbarians. She'll have you to advise her and help her work with the Intelligence. She won't need me anymore."

"Says the asari who came out of nowhere to become one of the galaxy's foremost powers, and all before she finished out her second century. Come on, T'Soni, you don't believe it any more than I do." Shepard reached out with his remaining hand and clasped one of mine. "What's really bothering you?"

I sighed. "I suppose I've been second-guessing myself."

"Feeling the cost, now that you've had some time to think?"

I leaned back against the pillows and closed my eyes. "Yes. You know, there's something I've always envied you."

"What's that?"

"Back when we were fighting the Collectors, before the Reapers themselves arrived. You gathered a band of misfits and malcontents, forged them into a team, and then led them on something everyone from the Illusive Man on down called a suicide mission. Then you came home triumphant, without having lost a single member of your team."

"We had a lot of luck with that one," he said quietly.

"Nonsense. You won because of your skill and leadership, not because of random chance." I took a deep breath, let it go. "I've never managed anything quite like it. Every time I lead people into a fight, some of them die. This time I've lost my ship, and people who've been loyal friends for most of my life. Not to mention who-knows-how-many civilians, who just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time when Normandy fell out of their sky."

"Could you have chosen any course of action that would have turned out better?" he asked.

"I don't know. I doubt it."

"Then you have nothing to be ashamed of," he told me.

"I know." I opened my eyes to give him a moment's mild glare. "I'm not an innocent maiden anymore, Shepard. I was the Shadow Broker for over forty years. I led an insurrection on Thessia, which the history books may call the Silk Revolution, but which I assure you was far from bloodless. I've held high political office on both Thessia and Illium. I was President of the Citadel Confederation for seven years, and even if we had no open war in that time, the galaxy wasn't entirely at peace either. I have long experience with leading people into danger, and watching as some of them don't survive it. I've learned not to paralyze myself with recriminations, if I truly made the best decisions I could."

"That's good." He squeezed my hand for a moment. "It's a hard lesson for any commander to learn. We must not become the kind of people who can just ignore our losses, because that path leads to something monstrous. Yet we still have to make the decisions to carry out the mission."

"Yes."

We sat there in companionable silence for a few moments.

"You're still going to miss them," he said at last.

"Yes." I leaned back and closed my eyes again, trying not to let tears flow. "Goddess. Nerylla and Tania were with me for centuries. Ever since that day on the Citadel, during the Reaper War, when Councilor Tevos learned I was the Shadow Broker and tried to have me arrested. Do you remember?"

"Yes," he rumbled. "They were good people."

"Nerylla was my lead acolyte after Vara resigned the position. Calm, steady, competent and reliable. She never bonded with anyone, you know. She always said she couldn't find anyone interesting enough to spend more than one night with. But she watched over me and my household with perfect devotion, and she was so good to the children when they were young. Vara and I both loved her like a sister.

"Then there was Tania, and she was nothing at all like Nerylla. Quick, sharp-witted, fiery and passionate. She loved people, all kinds of people, but she was always most intrigued by humans. She had a brilliant liaison with Kelly Chambers, back in the old days, one that lasted for years after the Reaper War was over. She had two children of her own, both by human fathers, both grown now.

"Pala was younger, still a maiden when she died. She came to us about fifty years ago, a kethani girl from a stubborn lineage. They were famous for never taking service with anyone, for five generations back. Yet Pala came to me, and she had to estrange herself from her mother and her older sisters to do it. I tried to talk her out of it, tried to turn her away. She simply sat down in the front portico of the house in Armali, and refused to move or to eat until I let her swear the oath. She was so proud when I finally gave in, and she never wavered from her devotion.

"Iole, the engineer. Demara, the navigator. Kleito and Phenassa, technicians. Tisene, from the security detail. People who might have had a thousand years in peace and happiness, all of them killed when the ship went down.

"No more, Shepard. I know this fight isn't over, but I won't have any more people dying out of loyalty to me. If any sacrifices remain to be made, I can't ask anyone else to make them."

He watched me, and I knew he didn't quite approve, but he said nothing.

7 December 2580, Vertorios Medical Center, Presidium Ring/Citadel

On the day the hospital planned to discharge me, Matriarch Thekla finally came to visit.

I sat in the garden, enjoying outside air and the sound of fountains, with Vara sitting at my feet and three of my security detail hovering like shadows. I felt almost recovered, in no pain, although Miranda had warned me not to do anything strenuous just yet, or call on my biotics.

I first noticed a commotion at the entrance to the garden, and then Thekla arrived, my daughter Nerylla at her side, her own detail following along behind. Rather to my surprise, she had Shepard with her as well.

I had wondered why she hadn't contacted me before, but the moment I saw her I understood. If it was possible for an asari Matriarch to look exhausted, Thekla managed it.

"Goddess, Liara," she sighed, sinking onto a bench across from Vara and me. "If I'd known the Citadel was such a mess, I would never have agreed to our plan."

I gave her a sharp-edged smile. "It's far too late for you to back out now. Madame President."

"I know. I'm stuck with the position until we have everything put to rights. You don't need to look as if you're enjoying my predicament so much."

"Surely, you've made some progress," I said, making an effort to be serious.

"We have. Nerylla?"

My daughter gave me her pleased-with-the-world look, which as always reminded me of an ailouros watching some small and unwary creature from hiding. "The initial polls look very good, patēr. We already have solid majorities among asari, krogan, and turians, and a significant share of the likely voters among salarians and the minor species."

"What about the humans?" asked Shepard.

Nerylla shook her head. "At the moment, the human electorate can best be described as confused. We did just depose a human President who was popular among his people. On the other hand, most humans have already grown very impatient with the Confederation's inability to come to grips with the valdarii. President Yao's apparent willingness to let all of Sol system burn has presented quite the shock to many on Earth, and Earth still carries most of the human species. I think by the time we hold elections, we will have a narrow but significant majority among your people as well. In all, it should be more than enough to get the Matriarch elected with a clear mandate to act."

"Good." Despite my reluctance to get back into politics, old habits die hard. I found myself making calculations. "The problem is that elections will take some time to carry out."

"True," said Thekla. "Fortunately, President pro tem Buthelezi was happy to see reason. He signed off on dissolution of the government this morning, specifying the minimum legal period for elections."

I nodded. "Fifteen days."

"Right," said Shepard. "Meanwhile, the Navy is already redeploying, and the member states have all been asked to go to full mobilization. The valdarii are going to be pushed back, hard and fast, even while we hold elections. By the time the Confederation has a government again, we should be able to move almost immediately to support the Intelligence."

"Do you think the Intelligence can hold out that long?" I asked.

A haunted expression crossed his features for a moment. "I don't know. I hope so."

"I have some thoughts about that," said Thekla.

I glanced at Vara and Shepard. No, neither of them had any notion of what the Matriarch was thinking.

"There's another theater in this war, one that we've been neglecting," she explained. "The whole time they've been overrunning the Traverse, the valdarii have been moving against the Synarchy of Rannoch as well. The quarians and the geth have been fighting hard, but Ambassador Shal tells me that they're slowly being pushed back. They need help, and if they get that help it may take some of the pressure off us, and off the Intelligence."

Shepard shook his head. "Matriarch, I'm not sure you have the capability to deploy fleet assets that far outside of Citadel Space."

"That is correct. The Confederation must hold the line in the Traverse until we are ready to move to support the Intelligence."

"Then what do you have in mind?"

"The Terminus Systems," said Vara suddenly.

It felt like a light breaking in my mind. "Of course! Illium, and the other independent worlds in the region. Call them together, and they can muster a substantial fleet. They haven't been involved in the war so far, but they must see that if the Confederation falls, the valdarii will come after them next."

"Not to mention, their strategic location makes them better placed to support the Synarchy," said Vara.

"All true," said Thekla. "Oh, they may not see all the implications of the situation now, but I'm sure they can be persuaded with the proper application of diplomacy. Now, who might be available who has plenty of diplomatic experience, has spent years in the Terminus Systems, and has personal ties to Illium?"

I sighed. "Goddess."

Thekla gave me a sharp-edged smile of her own. "Now, Liara, it's far too late for you to back out now. Madame Ambassador."