"Is the sight still intact?"

"No, it exploded. My team is telling me it was most likely a remote detonation set up in the event the facility was captured," Shepard sighed. He leaned back in his chair, and his feet were kicked up on the desk in front of him. The conversation went silent for a long time.

"Shepard, tell me, what's gotten into you. You've been doing amazing work out there and have saved countless lives."

Shepard just snorted at the comment. Save lives? What a joke. "I'm fine, Anderson," he stated simply. But it was a lie. He was not fine. He felt so empty and worthless. He'd completed the mission, his personal goal. Yet just like before, he was not satisfied.

"No, no you're not. Tell me." Anderson knew asking would probably never yield an answer, but it was worth a shot.

"I don't take orders from you anymore, remember?" He slammed his hand into the desk. "I don't need anything, Anderson. T-trust me, I'm fine, j-just need another mission to get back into the swing of things."

Shepard stuttering? That's a new one. Anderson persisted for an answer. "I'm not asking as your superior, Shepard. I'm asking as a friend." Shepard was clearly anything but fine. He'd have no one else be humanity's spectre. Shepard was tough, capable, and always got the mission done, no matter the cost. But his mental health left something to be desired.

Shepard huffed at the comment. He had no friends; he'd utterly convinced himself of that long ago. Shepard was just another cog in the machine, destined to fight until he died. "I don't need friends, Anderson," he said as his eyes turned glassy.

"Everybody does. And running away from your problem's never solves them, Shepard."

Getting frustrated, he crossed his arms. Why couldn't Anderson just let this go?

"I don't have any problems, Anderson," Shepard spat. "My mission always gets completed. You guys get to take the credit. I'll live, just as I always have."

"But at what cost?"

Shepard remained silent, unable to find an answer. It was the deep, epistemological questions like these that Shepard always ran from. He'd conditioned himself to be soulless and uncaring; that's what made a good soldier. His life didn't matter. Why should it, when so many people die at random for no other reason than to satiate violent needs? Life was meaningless, and he'd prefer to keep it that way.

"Silence is the most damning admission of all, Shepard," Anderson said softly.

Shepard finally conceded. He rested his elbows on the table and put his face in his hands. "I found them, Anderson. I found them."

"Found who, Shepard? Saren?"

I wish. "No, no. Min-mindoir," he struggled to say. The cracks in the dam began to appear.

Anderson had always known that this news would be…emotional, for Shepard. "Who? Where is he? The alliance would be more than happy to round him up for you," he offered.

Shepard let out a short bark of laughter. "No. He's already been taken care of." Anderson honestly thought that he wouldn't kill Balak? Fat chance.

Anderson would have to choose his next words carefully. "This has been long overdue, and it's good to know that you can finally put it to rest now. I'm happy for you, truly. I hope you find your peace, Shepard."

He squeezed his eyes shut. Peace, how does one find peace? He poured his thoughts out, unable to contain them in his mind. "I finally did it. But, why do I feel so empty? I thought revenge would… bring me peace, but I feel worse than before. How is that possible?"

Anderson had finally broken through, but there was nothing pretty to see. He could have added more to his condolences, but Shepard didn't need that right now. "Revenge is a fickle matter, Shepard. There was once a great man, from a long time ago, who said something that always stuck with me: with an eye for an eye, everybody goes blind."

"So what should I have done? Let them get away? That's not fair. They deserve to die for what they've done!" Shepard cried.

"John, if I may. It's not about letting them get away. It's what you do when you find them that matters. You can kill a person, but that will never bring you peace. Only forgiveness can."

"For-give. Ne-never," Shepard struggled to say. Anderson wanted the angry kid to do something he knew he couldn't do. The thought was irreconcilable with everything he had ever believed. They deserved to suffer justice by his hand. But if that was true, why did he feel like he had accomplished nothing so far?

"Shepard, I don't want to pretend that I have all the answers, because I sure as hell don't. But you must learn to let things," he grimaced at his poor word choice, but continued nonetheless, "go. Revenge will not bring them back."

Shepard wiped his eye with the back of his hand. "Then what do I do?"

"Fight like hell to protect what you do have."

Again, Anderson's advice made him feel worse. He had nothing to fight for, to protect, to live for; he thought his purpose was to get vengeance, but that was over now. Well, he always had himself, but he hated himself, so that didn't count.

"Here, I decrypted the next batch of data for you," Tali said. She was working in the back of Liara's lab. Well, it was technically Dr. Chakwas', but Liara had made it her new home.

"Thank you, Tali." Liara started reading the data logs. Shepard had asked her to look into Cerberus' data to find more information about the Protheans, but that was almost non-existent. The lab's specialty tilted towards 'research.' She preferred to call it cruel and inhumane torture. Most of the experiments revolved around genetic alterations to Thresher Maws and the cloning of the long-extinct rachni. Brief flashes of soldiers screaming in a muddy field occasionally interrupted her thoughts while she read about the experiments; residual memories from her investigation into Shepard's mind. "Poor Shepard," she mumbled to herself. To have suffered all that just for 'science' was barbaric.

"Hu?" Tali asked. She was in the middle of decrypting more of the data for Liara when she heard her comment.

"It's just these experiments are so terrible. I can't imagine the people who died all for this."

"I was talking about why you mentioned Shepard."

Liara gulped. "Oh, it's nothing. It's just he had to raid the facility by himself and see all of this. It must have been terrible." She couldn't tell Tali about the memories from Shepard's mind. She'd promised not to say anything, and she would endeavor to keep her word, no matter how much she wanted to say something. There were things in that mind that she'd wished she could forget.

"Uh-huh, sure." She didn't particularly like asari. They could prance around the galaxy showing too much skin to get whatever they wanted. That was something Tali could never do. Liara got to show her face in public and gawk at the attention, but Tali would be condemned to hiding behind this mask. Tali knew Liara was hiding something about Shepard, but it wasn't her problem. Her next file finished decrypting and she took a brief glance at it. These are shipping logs, she realized and got up to leave. "Liara, I'll be back. I believe I found something the commander should see."

Liara barely responded to Tali. She remained engrossed in the results section of the study before her: modifications to make reverse transcriptase more effective. Whatever, Tali thought as she walked out of the lab.

Shepard crossed his arms over his chest, confused. "What am I supposed to do with this exactly?" he asked.

"Oh, well, these are shipping logs that I found from the data we got from the Cerberus base. I thought you might want to see them because…" she tried to explain, only to be cut off by Shepard.

"Can you just get to your point already!" Shepard spat. He was in a particularly bad mood, more than usual, and she wasn't sure why. She wanted to shout back at the commander 'that's what I am getting to' but held her tongue. She'd seen Shepard kill pirates far more ruthless than her; she did not want to get on his bad side.

"I was able to find the coordinates for three other facilities. I…thought you might want to know, but...um, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to bother you. Won't happen again. I'll go." She slowly turned around and began to walk away.

Shepard's mind processed the news, stunned. More Cerberus facilities? That meant more chances to find those responsible and hold them to account. But Anderson's advice remained at the forefront of his mind, preventing him from thinking clearly about anything. He only noticed the quarian turning away after she'd already taken a few steps, her head hanging in shame. "Hey, wait!" He took two giant leaps forward until he was standing in front of her. "You did a good job. Um…." he tried to think of something positive, "keep up the good work."

Tali tilted her head as she looked at the commander, clearly confused. Had he not just yelled at me? She was a little stunned that he'd stopped her; even more so that he had anything nice to say. She just nodded her head. She couldn't tell if he was being sincere, or just messing around. And looking at his face was little help either. Her whole life, she'd grown up without seeing other's faces; naturally, she always found it difficult to tell emotions, a problem that accentuated itself on her pilgrimage. Moreover, Shepard's face was more like a kaleidoscope of anger, sadness, sprinkled in with some hope, and… was that confusion?

"I'm sorry," he mumbled before turning away and making his way towards the staircase, not even giving her time to respond. Did he just apologize? she asked herself. She couldn't believe it.