{Alina, I think you have the best overview of the situation?} Lidanya had asked as soon as she had joined the channel, triggering Hannah's activity alert. {The Primarch will be on momentarily.}

{Yes…Lidanya,} Bajic answered with the slightest hesitation just as Hannah replayed the channel's nearly empty backlog and switched it back into her primary, and flicked her eyes at Amita to let her know her attention was elsewhere. {I'll give a rundown as soon as we've got everyone,} the woman said curtly.

{I'm here,} Victus announced just moments after, the exaggerated echo even beyond the normal duality of his voice suggesting he was probably on a detached mic of some kind. {We're just lifting off.}

{Is everyone off the Citadel now?} Admiral Raan interjected before Bajic continued.

{Not quite,} Lidanya answered in Victus' stead, {but the Gardens should be cleared within the quarter hour, and all other essential staff not long thereafter. We are constrained by the availability of small non-atmospheric shuttles. …Which brings us to you, Alina?} she finished, prompting Bajic to start her briefing.

{Yes, thank you,} Bajic said curtly, the small image of her on Hannah's projection nodding in concert. {We're all here, though Admiral Bat has indicated that he's only listening in due to an urgent matter.}

As the woman drew breath, Hannah took a quick glance around the CIC and, reassured by Amita shaking her head, turned back to her console to tune back into the discussion.

{Approximately at 13:20, we started receiving reports of hostilities on the Citadel Wards against high-value targets, initially by C-Sec but shortly thereafter from military channels, shortly being specified as perpetrated by the Keepers,} Bajic said with a heavy breath. {I'm not sure if you're aware, but that one was broadcast live on at least two networks outside of Sol in its entirety.}

{By the news networks covering the funeral?} Raan asked.

{Yes,} Bajic confirmed. {Their broadcast infrastructure had no issues…which brings me to the second event, the collapse of the Wards' communication networks. As you know, they mostly consist of temporary and barely adequate links, and they were unable to sustain the load. So, the warnings about the attack probably reached everyone on the Wards…and then everything went down before we could walk back the threat. This has, evidently, exacerbated the panic on the Wards quite a bit…and caused us all kinds of problems figuring out what's actually going on,} she continued before pausing to take a sip from a glass she reached for somewhere beyond the small projection capture.

{What are we doing about that?} a male voice asked. The flashing channel listing confirmed the man as the mercenary Vosque, as Hannah had suspected.

{C-Sec will hopefully have a briefing on that shortly,} Bajic said uncertainly, {but right now all I can say is that the efforts to communicate are rather varied, but we're trying to get the message out every possible way we can think of. The pressure on the comm infrastructure is easing up a little bit, and I believe C-Sec is trying to get crews to get at least the main networks back online. This is somewhat difficult because of the situation on—}

{Actually,} Lidanya interrupted, {could you go over the rest before returning to the Citadel situation, Alina?}

{…Yes, of course, you're right,} Bajic agreed. {There's not much to tell—which is certainly a good thing in this case. There are no signs of any changes in the Reapers and a good part of them have now been mechanically disabled as well, but we've reinforced guards just in case. This seems like a completely separate incident. The situation in the rest of the galaxy is equally quiet excepting for some civil unrest because of the scare. Or has anyone heard different from their own extrasolar sources?} she asked, receiving a chorus of assuaging negatives in return.

{So what's with the keepers?} Han'Gerrel. The other quarian had gotten online, too.

{The short answer is that we don't know,} Bajic said, sounding decidedly displeased at the fact. {After the whole thing was over—on that part—it's been suggested that the Keepers in fact weren't attacking at all. We're trying to confirm this, but so far only a few teams have made contact with them since their retreat. They are are all reporting the same, though: the creatures are completely non-aggressive.}

{…So we may have killed, what, thousands of them without cause?} Raan said sounding as shocked as Hannah felt. Surely there had been some reason…

{Or maybe they realized the attack wasn't such a great idea and are playing dumb now,} Victus suggested—although whether he actually thought it was a possibility, Hannah couldn't tell. She wasn't sure which interpretation she wished were correct.

{Possible,} Bajic responded to the primarch without much conviction. {Either way, they're clearly not much of an actual threat. They are…easy to eliminate and aside from some we haven't been able to check yet, there are no verified reports of any casualties resulting from direct action by the Keepers. We still have not been able to actually communicate with them but unless anyone here believes otherwise, I think we should continue from the assumption that they are not hostile and adjust that as needed. Lidanya?}

{I agree,} the matriarch replied. {Anyone?} she asked, silence her only answer.

{…Good,} Bajic continued, relieved. {So, that all is pretty stable right now. The real problem seems to be on the Citadel, and Tayseri in particular.}

{What is going on down there?} Gerrel asked. {I'm getting reports that the place is basically a war zone right now.}

{As I mentioned earlier, I hope we'll get that briefing from C-Sec soon,} Bajic said with a sigh, {but my understanding is that there are essentially two main problems. The first is that there are somewhere around two and a half million people on each Ward—which is not much less than there would have been before the war. The changes since are that huge swaths of each are uninhabitable, that everyone's armed to the teeth, that C-Sec is down to around ten percent of their peacetime strength, and that the ruthless and otherwise unpleasant people tend to survive in higher ratios in times of war,} she continued, pausing for breath. {The panic of the Keeper attack sparked all kinds of problems from crazies to rioting to looting to settling scores to robberies to murders to gang and clan wars…and some people just like mayhem, evidently.}

{Surely that will die down once we get the message out about the threat being over?} Victus asked hopefully.

{I'd like to think so,} Bajic said, with equal wishfulness, {but it's a big place. And the people causing problems probably aren't the most forward-thinking ones, so the possibility of intervention isn't much of a deterrent. I know we had words about this earlier, but I personally think whatever PR damage there is from sending the military down there outweighs the risk of what might happen without. We can get back to that later,} she amended as Lidanya was starting to say something. {The second problem on the Citadel is that there seem to be actual organized efforts to destabilize the situation further. Some factions, maybe gangs…}

{What could they possibly hope to gain?} Lidanya asked in turn.

{That's anybody's guess,} Bajic said hesitantly. {It could be that there's not even any logical reason for it—but regardless of that, I'm being assured by some C-Sec sources that there are clear signs of very deliberate, methodical opposing forces down there. They're probably mostly responsible for the shuttle downings and the more concentrated attacks on C-Sec and the military units.}

Lidanya's image appeared on the projection now, too, rubbing the base of one of her fringes with two fingers. {It's not…political, though?}

{In the sense of Cerberus, or Terra Firma, or something like that, no, I don't think so.}

{And not something connected to the Keepers?} Raan probed further.

{I can't rule that out,} Bajic replied, {but it seems unlikely.}

{Hm. Very well,} Lidanya said, taking control of the discussion again. {Thank you, Alina. Primarch, do you have a better estimate of when we can be briefed by C-Sec?}

{There seem to be some…disagreements within the command structure about the situation,} Victus said, choosing his words carefully. {The executor assures me that they can resolve those soon and then—}

{Could we just hear out these disagreeing opinions, too?} Han'Gerrel asked pointedly.

{I agree,} Lidanya said approvingly. {I do not believe the situation to be quite as dire as it is made out to be, but I would rather be proven wrong sooner than later if that is the case. Can you make it happen, Primarch?}

{Yes,} Victus said curtly.

{Good,} Lidanya said with a small smile. {I assume it will take a few minutes…I will be back in a quarter hour, I will confer with my staff. And get a change of clothes,} she finished with an uncharacteristically personal note.

{I will do likewise,} Bajic said with a grunt of a chuckle. {Hannah, can I bother you for a sec?}

{Of course,} Hannah replied, saying goodbye to the channel and switching to the private connection Bajic had opened, gratefully accepting the bottle of juice Eris was offering her while Jonsson was preoccupied helping Amita.

{Good news and bad news,} Bajic said as soon as Hannah connected. {Your daughter's awake.}

{She is?} Hannah asked, trying to feign surprise the best she could. The happiness she didn't have to feign, though.

{Yes,} Bajic said, sounding like she smiled briefly. {However, there seems to be a problem…seems she's having a post-traumatic episode,} she continued quickly.

The words didn't quite make sense to Hannah. She understood them, but… {What?}

{She's having a fairly major flashback or something, I'm not quite sure, just got the report from Tiber myself,} Bajic continued calmly. {Apparently she wasn't medicated for CSR nor PTSD, and the shock of waking up must have triggered it.}

OK, OK, that's not so bad, Hannah reassured herself as she tried to calm her breathing down and keep her composure, fervently wishing she wasn't in the middle of the CIC right at that moment. The 'waking' definitely hadn't caused it, but if she knew anything about the condition, the alarm might have if it went out to the hospital ships too. It must have. It must just be that, nothing serious…

{…Anyway, I've arranged for the asari to relieve the battle group a few hours earlier than planned, since there seems to be no risk of an attack there.}

{Thank you,} Hannah breathed out gratefully. {We will head back shortly.}

{Good,} Bajic said. {I'm sure it'll be fine,} she added reassuringly.

Hannah dropped off the channel with a cursory farewell and, even as she beckoned Amita over, jumped straight back on the comms to reach Liara.

The asari didn't answer.


"What's going on?" Miranda demanded as soon as Liara jumped out of the shuttle, grabbing her by the shoulder and rushing her forward. "What the hell happened to Jack?"

Liara glanced over her shoulder quickly, trying to convey her gratefulness in her nod at the volus admiral. "I am not quite certain," she said, hurrying forward with Miranda on one side and her father and an asari guard on the other. "…Ada Jean and Jack were caught in some sort of a battle on the Citadel and Jack was wounded when they were being rescued."

"Some rescue," Miranda huffed angrily, waving another guard to let them onto the sealed-off deck.

"There is no telling what might have happened without," Liara said, though she was not certain whom she was trying to convince, herself or Miranda, still feeling horrible about having to tell Kasumi that she couldn't come to her side immediately, and not even being able to explain exactly why. It had sounded like the woman understood, somehow, and there was nothing Liara wished more than that being the case. She would be there as soon as she could, she had promised… She was glad that the asari, Hilla, seemed to genuinely care about her charges, so that there was at least someone to offer Kasumi comfort until Steve and James made it there. "How is Shepard?" she asked, returning to what she hated to admit was her more pressing concern.

Miranda quickly appraised her of the situation as it currently stood as they strode toward the back of the vessel where the armory was located, making sure to mention that no-one had been injured—although Shepard herself had a small cut in her hand. "It's nothing," she said with a wave of her hand, noticing that her slight limp had not gone unseen by the ever more concerned Liara.

"We know she wouldn't hurt anybody on purpose," the young asari guard said kindly. "My arm's a little sore, but it'll be fine."

"I am terribly sorry," Liara apologized on Shepard's behalf, worried sick but very glad that the others did not think ill of her bondmate. Liara understood the concept of psychosis, but it was hard for her to comprehend how it could happen—and more importantly, how it felt to Shepard. She fervently wished she had pushed harder in their Meldings… She had felt things Shepard was keeping from her—perhaps even from herself—but she had also felt that the woman was not yet ready to talk about what had happened in those final hours…and so she had not pushed. Maybe that would have avoided the whole problem—

"Don't blame yourself," Miranda said, stopping abruptly, somehow intuiting what Liara was thinking. "If anyone's to blame, it's me. But nothing bad has happened so far," she continued over Liara's protestations, "and with you here, I think it'll stay that way."

"Listen to her, girl," Aethyta added confidently. "It'll be fine."

Miranda was about to say something more, but a terrible roar from the door at the end of the hallway caused all four of them to resume their movement toward it at full run. Barely had the door opened a crack when Liara rushed through and into the room, only to almost run straight into Wrex.

"I'm sorry, Liara, we had her but she just got away through the vent," Garrus said, crestfallen as he turned to Liara.

"Oh no!" Liara exclaimed, the crushing disappointment as she could practically still feel Shepard in the room. "It is alright," she continued quickly with what she hoped was a reassuring small smile both at the turian and Wrex. The two had done well to keep Shepard and everyone else safe this long.

"I…I almost went at her," Wrex grumbled remorsefully, leaning heavily against the wall. "I wouldn't really have hurt her—"

"I know, Wrex," Liara said despite the furious glare at the pair from Miranda. "She is…almost as tough as you, anyway," she continued, trying to sound confident. "Where does this vent go?"

"Nobody knows," Garrus said after exchanging glances with Miranda. "She's not been in there much longer than a minute, though, she can't be far," he added hopefully. "I would've gone after her, but I can't fit in there…"

"I must go in, then," Liara said with a nod. If Shepard managed to fit in through that small thing, then so could she, and she would not give up, not this close. "Perhaps I can catch up to her. You find out where it goes, and head that way to cut her off."

"Are you sure? It's awfully—"

"I have been in smaller spaces, Miranda, I am an archaeologist, after all," Liara said, quickly kneeling down in front of the vent and gathering the hem of her dress to tie it up higher so that it wouldn't get in her way. "Go, we are wasting time," she ordered, glancing back at the others from under her arm.

"Fine. We have you on the comms, but we'll only send text so that there's no possibility of disturbing Shepard. Keep us updated," she added as she turned back toward the door, fingers already flying on her omni.

"That's my kid," Aethyta said proudly as Liara pushed off into the vent.

Liara had been in smaller spaces, that was true enough. She did not wish to add that she was a little bit claustrophobic despite that. It had been much worse before, but her days on dig sites had conditioned her to it somewhat. She still did not like being in any space where she could not turn around, though, and especially if she could not even see behind her. …And this was definitely one of those, she thought with a little flutter of fear in her stomach as she pulled herself forward. She may have had a centimeter or two on Shepard in height but she was also much more flexible and the woman was so much bulkier that Liara—with her shoulders, elbows, and knees brushing against the walls—could not for the life of her understand how she had fit through here. The only thing that was certain was that she would not let foolish fear hold her back, she thought as she slowly crawled forward in the light her omni provided.

The tricks she had used to take her mind off the oppressing walls at the dig sites did not work very well, now, the only other thing that she could think about being Jack. The first time she had met the woman on Hagalaz…how she had very uncharitably thought of her as little more than a barely restrained animal, and the slow strides Jack had made to become first tolerable, ever so gradually even friendly. And she remembered how incredibly good it had felt when the woman had hugged her of her own volition for the first time just a few short days ago. Please, Goddess…

Blinking away the tears in her eyes, she felt a moment of panic when her distracting thoughts were torn down by a junction in the narrow passage. For a moment she was terrified, both about not being able to find Shepard, and about not getting out herself. Trying to calm herself down with rapid breaths, she brought up her right hand to see if her omni's temperature or other sensors might be useful for discerning Shepard's direction—and then she noticed a streak of blood in the duct continuing straight ahead, just a few centimeters off the bottom. Nodding satisfied, she ignored her fear and dove in. After a few minutes of ever-narrowing ducts, she finally saw something other than metal walls up ahead. Speaking into her comms in a hushed voice to convey the information, she crawled closer to the exit, a strange, undulating bluish light visible in the air on the other side.

Only as Garrus acknowledged her message did she realize where she had come…it was the water pool that she had seen signs for at the gym. The underwater lights were throwing the wavy patches of light high up on the walls, the rest of the room remaining impenetrably dark even with the small oval of her omni light at the highest setting.

"We've got it," the text channel transcribed Garrus' speech on the other end as she tried to get her bearings. "we're outside the gym now, but we'll keep here…there are only a couple exits from the exercise complex, we got them all covered. You see if you can find her. There's some rudimentary surveillance infra here, but there's no movement showing on there.

"This'd be a whole lot easier if your wife was the kind of soldier that just ran everywhere guns blazing, you know," he added after a small pause.

Liara appreciated the levity that he was trying to bring to the situation. He was right to…she had to remember that it was not truly so bad. All she had to do was to get her to calm down…

The best she could tell, she was all the way up to ceiling of the space, almost five meters up from the floor. She was not certain how Shepard had gotten down, but not trusting herself to make it safely in any other way, she took a deep breath and pulled her shoulders and arms outside the vent and focused on creating a small biotic sphere around herself to slow her fall as she pushed off the wall to get her legs out, and gracefully levitated herself down to the sandpaper floor beneath.

Shining her light this way and that, she tried to figure out the layout of the room and relate it to the diagram that Garrus had sent her. The pool itself was about twenty-five meters long and maybe seven and a half wide, and it was surrounded by a meter or so of floor space before the tightly enclosing walls. In the small oval of her light, she saw the two exits marked on the map, too…one lead to the washing area and the other to some kind of a janitorial space. Biting her lip and admonishing herself on her inability to see any clues when Shepard needed her, she was just about to stride in the direction of the washing area when with a massive splash of water a dark shape exploded out of the pool right beside her, scaring the breath out of her.

"Thank god it's you," Shepard said with a gasp of her own, taking Liara's hand and pulling her into the janitorial hallway even before Liara quite understood what was happening. "Come here, they might see you," the woman said as she leaned her back against the wall almost at the corner, Liara tightly held against herself by the waist.

Struggling to get a grip on the situation and to think through her immense relief and heart-fluttering joy at being in her lover's arms, Liara ignored the cold water water from the armor seeping through her dress and peered through Shepard's visor even as the woman herself peered around the corner into the hallway.

Shepard looked back at her and suddenly twisted around, pushing her to arm's length, violently tearing at her own neck, frightening Liara terribly until she realized that the woman was just trying to get her helmet off. Taking a cautious step forward, Liara brought her hands on Shepard's, gently but insistently pushing them out of the way as she started undoing the latches herself.

"You don't have a helmet," Shepard breathed out as Liara opened the attachments one by one. "You have to have a helmet."

"I do not—" Liara started, interrupted by Shepard lifting the helm off as soon as she had gotten the last connector detached.

"I won't have anything happen to you," Shepard said intensely as she tried to offer Liara the helmet, her hair a matted, sweaty mess, her beautiful face pale and glistening as it always was when the woman let her instinct carry her.

"I know you would not," Liara said with a smile, taking the helmet and dropping it on the floor, and raising her hand to Shepard's cheek. She knew she meant it, but she could see it now, the otherness. The seriousness of it. With a terrible, aching hollow in her chest she saw that there was something between her and her lover…as if those eyes were, for the first time, artificial. Shepard was in there somewhere, terrified and trapped. That brief surge of utter helplessness at her lover's distress was enough to remind her that she could help.

She hated going in like this. She had finally gotten over always explicitly asking for permission after hearing and feeling Shepard's repeated assurances that Liara was always, always welcome, that the union was always welcome. She was finally comfortable enough to do so, but she still only did when she felt confident that her mate was open to it. Recently Shepard had even been able to initiate the Meld, drawing Liara to herself rather than Liara reaching out, or it felt that way. But this she hated, this, now, because Shepard…it felt like Shepard was not in a state where she could consent. "Shepard…" Goddess, please let her forgive.

"What, dove?" her lover asked, wild eyes barely able to focus on hers.

"Embrace eternity."