Chapter 5: The Compromise

March 7, 2185 CE

Normandy SR-2 / Deep Space

The Illusive Man is an idiot, Shepard decided as she lay on her king-sized bed staring up at space through the Normandy's friggin' sunroof of all things. It was a distraction from thinking about her death or any of the other pressing and overwhelming subjects while they cruised past Noveria towards the Mass Relay, but she didn't care.

Just look at this thing! Her omnitool glowed orange as it displayed a slowly rotating model of the Normandy SR2 in the air above her. What a monstrosity of a ship.

The original Normandy was near and dear to her heart, but it was, to put it kindly, a quirky ship. Huge open spaces for walkways, an unproven blend of human and turian design philosophies, even a grand staircase instead of a lift and backup ladder, were among its less-than-ideal traits. It was a political project where both sides tried to out-do the other first, and build a functioning ship a distant second. Still, that didn't mean it didn't work. For its intended purpose of stealthy insertion/extraction and scouting it excelled, but it was a proof-of-concept as much as anything else, and non-critical systems were not optimized in any sense of the word.

The Illusive Man must have missed the memo. Instead of making the ship more practical, he'd made it more unique, more outlandish. He'd upsized it to a cruiser, which meant it was too big to land planetside in even moderate gravity, which meant it had to expand the cargo bay to hold shuttles for the ground insertions it could no longer make, which meant the drive core that already cost something billions of credits had been upscaled and was almost as expensive despite significant improvements in drive core power/cost ratio in the last two years. And what did he do with the space he'd bought at such a hideous price? Made an even bigger conference room. Added observation areas. Added a library, pool table, and bar! Even a custom quantum entanglement communicator so TIM would always be in communication with his pet ship. It was madness building a civilian passenger liner on the bones of frigate stretched out into a cruiser.

She sighed and shut down the display. His tinkering hadn't stopped there, either - he'd completely revamped the weapon systems. There was at least some logic to it, though Shepard was far from sure she agreed with it. Even TIM could see that the Normandy SR2 was bloated enough that it would lose any fight against another similarly sized cruiser or better, so he hadn't even tried to go with traditional armaments and scrapped the dorsal mass accelerator main gun. Instead, he'd banked everything on the stealth systems and traded the main gun out for underslung Javelin Disruptor Torpedoes.

Disruptor Torpedoes weren't new – they were little more than rockets bolted to a small mass effect core that ramped up its mass to overwhelm an enemy ship's kinetic barriers before erupting in random, unstable mass effect fields that ripped a target apart. The high mass levels needed to penetrate heavy kinetic barriers meant they were slow, which meant the only way to get past GARDIAN point defense was to fire them at very, very short range. Hence, they were designed for use by nimble fighters that could hope to get close enough to fire them.

The Javelins were an experimental expansion of the idea, where you put bigger mass effect drives on bigger rockets and put them on frigates with the borderline-suicidal mission of getting in close to much bigger ships to fire them. Putting them on an even slower cruiser was useless... unless, of course, you upscaled the hell out of the drive and mounted a stealth system that should let you get close enough to fire without being detected. In theory.

It meant the Normandy, for all her bloat, could move almost as fast as her predecessor, could close to shorter ranges than a cruiser had any right to, and then hit really hard… for as long as the externally-mounted supply of javelins and the stealth systems held out. And they had better hold out, because TIM had sacrificed all of her longer-ranged weapons to allow her to do the starship equivalent of sneaking up behind someone with a shotgun. Brilliant, when it worked. But if she was ever caught out in the open, she was helpless.

I guess I should be grateful the engines still work. Which, thankfully, was true. The Normandy's massive Tantalus Drive Core and electrical systems were powered by a fusion plant burning deuterium. That reduced the Normandy's effective mass, but they still needed propulsion. Commercial ships made do with the less powerful (but far, far cheaper) fusion torch reaction sustained by helium-3 and burning hydrogen which was available effectively anywhere in the galaxy with a little effort, but while the Normandy did mount a fusion torch as a backup, that clearly wasn't good enough for the Illusive Man. If the Alliance built its warships with more powerful antiproton thrusters, then TIM would settle for nothing less than the same. At least they still used liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen reactions for the maneuvering thrusters.

All in all, she was one hell of a ship, as impressive as she was head-scratching. In the right circumstances she could slip undetected past every scanning system known to man, take out a battlecruiser or even a carrier caught with its pants down, sneak out again, and then host a night-club while she discharged her drive orbiting a classy planet. But in the wrong circumstances, a lowly frigate a hundredth of her cost could easily keep the range open on her while the Normandy helplessly chased after them before being blown out of the sky.

Her musings were interrupted by Joker's voice over the comm. "We're coming up on the Mass Relay. All hands, prepare for jump."

Sure enough, out the window she saw what looked like a massive tuning fork, with arms reaching fifteen kilometers long set around revolving, gyroscopic rings five kilometers across. The rings contained a stupendous blue-glowing core of more element zero than the entire Systems Alliance fleet boasted. Protected by a quantum shield nobody could understand that made them effectively impervious, they floated in space waiting for a passing ship to signal how much mass needed to be moved after which it reached out and hurled though ship through a virtually mass-free corridor of space-time until you came out the other side at its partner relay. Nobody had the least idea how they were built, but they made crossing distances that would take decades or centuries with the best FTL travel happen in days or even hours. They also made the Citadel's map of the galaxy look something like a set of children's tinker toys, with pockets of explored space around mass relays, and virtually nothing known about the space in between. The network was fleshed out with smaller, secondary relays that reached "only" a few hundred light years.

The Mass Relay's core began to pulse, the rings spinning faster and faster as the Normandy approached. Shepard held her breath as the connection was made, and the light outside distorted as they raced at stupendous speed across the galaxy.

For better or worse, here we come.

March 9, 2185 CE

Serpent Nebula / Widow System / Citadel Station

The Citadel was, as ever, a sight to behold as the colossal space station emerged from ever-present cloud cover. Its giant arms over forty kilometers long sparkled with the lights of millions of inhabitants, more than many a developed planet. The space around the Citadel was as busy as its surface, with ships buzzing in and out of docking bays in a never-ending rush.

They'd cleaned up the place since her last visit. The immediate vicinity had been swept clear of debris from the many ships that met there end here in the climactic battle against the Reaper Sovereign.

The Normandy cut smoothly through the crowd on the priority traffic corridor assigned to them by the civilian traffic control center and approached the central ring. Compared to the arms it looked thin, almost fragile, despite being seven kilometers across. The ship settled gracefully into her slot, and with a final hiss of pressurized air the airlock unsealed and she was back.

Shepard took off through the airlock the moment decontamination had finished, leaving Miranda to sort through the mess of crew rosters, personnel shifts, and shore leave. Mr. Illusive Man said she was too important for mundane things like scheduling and mortality; was it her fault if she took him at his word?

The Citadel looked different from her memories of it. It looked . . . clean.

The Counsel chambers were a battle-scarred mess. Shepard leaned up against the remains of a desk that had been burned black by an incendiary grenade before the entire platform collapsed into the garden.

Far above Sovereign did battle with the entirety of Fifth Fleet and the Citadel Fleet combined, the flashes of weapon fire bright over the backdrop of twisted metal burning as it crashed through the Citadel's atmosphere. Shepard kept her focus closer, pushing thoughts of the distant battle from her mind. Something was moving, crawling through the flickering half-light as the electrical systems threatened to fail entirely. Something far more terrible than the turian Spectre it had once been.

She readied her shotgun and hoped it would be enough.

Shepard shook her head and cleared away the memory that belonged to a dead woman. There was no sign of that desperate battle now. No scars from the ruined starships, no mutilated bodies, no crushed towers. It was clean now. A blank slate, a fresh start. It was like the battle had never taken place, like she'd never been there… at least down in the docks.

Yet another sign the world the old Shepard knew was gone. The world that made sense was gone.

"Sorry for the inconvenience, ma'am. Our scanners are picking up false readings. They seem to think you're, uh, dead."

The turian C-Sec officer's voice brought Shepard back to the moment. Dead. Right. She was dead, only now she wasn't. Try finding protocols for that in an Alliance handbook. The thought tugged the corner of her mouth into a hint of a smile. A moment of humor to slide away from the gaping wound of uncertainty that lay beneath the surface.

"Well, I'm standing right here. Do you think I'm dead?"

The Turian officer took it as a joke. "Of course not, ma'am. Please see the security officer inside on your right to get re-entered into the system."

Thankfully there was a human at the desk and not a turian who would have made her run through the entire endless process. It was only a few moments later and she was on her way, which was a good thing; she was officially back on the radar, and it wouldn't take the Alliance long to get their butts in gear and haul her in. Her Spectre status was gone with her death. Counselor Anderson might turn her over, but they went back far enough that he'd let her go.

Probably.

Either way, not the time to take the scenic route. But one stop was mandatory.

The clothing store was the lowest end she could find, but even then, it was far out of her league. The Asari store-worker's bright expression slowly darkened the more questions Shepard answered. No, she wasn't looking for the latest trend, no she wasn't looking for a summer dress, whatever that was.

After ten minutes Shepard gave up and headed towards an athletic apparel store and picked out a pair of gray running shorts and a plain black t-shirt. It was inappropriate for seeing an admiral, but maybe good enough to see an old friend. And, as an added bonus, she could sleep in something that didn't have a Cerberus logo on it. She'd have to see about replacing the rest of her clothes some other time. She swiped her (Cerberus provided) credit chit at the cashier's desk then went back into the changing room to put on her new clothes and dump her black and white Cerberus uniform in the trash bin.

Alright, show time.

Shepard slid out of the store and joined the throngs of people moving back and forth. It felt different now. She didn't feel like there were unseen eyes searching for those Cerberus logos. Now she was invisible, just another face in the crowd.

She made it to the rapid transit system without incident and slipped into the aircar. Her omnitool glowed orange on her wrist as the meter drained her account of the appropriate number of credits. It made her leery – money might not be a concern for the Illusive Man, but until she found all the strings attached, she'd treat it like a bomb ready to go off at any moment.

The aircar lifted effortlessly from its resting cradle and accelerated smoothly through the Citadel's atmosphere, pressing Shepard back into the pilot's couch, which quickly molded to her shape. The nose picked up, lifting her past even the tallest towers and up towards the stars and another arm of the Citadel far above. The aircar creaked as it broke atmosphere and the cold fingers of hard vacuum tugged at the air-car's plastic composite shell.

The vacuum of space clawed at her, sucking her away from Joker and the last life pod.

Shepard shuddered and focused on the view ahead of her of the inner ring of the Citadel which connected all the arms together, called the Presidium. It was home to the wealthy and powerful, host to the diplomatic embassies of dozens of species, and the seat of power for the Council. It wasn't much to look at from this distance, but that changed as it grew in the viewscreen. Green gardens, lush with plant life from across the galaxy, appeared amidst the sculpted white buildings, followed by the blue of the reservoirs, pools, and fountains.

The aircar gave a barely perceptible rattle as it eased back into atmosphere and darted through the glittering sea of high-end luxury aircars to find its resting place near the human embassy.

Shepard climbed out, feeling light on her feet in the 0.3G simulated gravity and looked up at the massive white building. She winced, squinting into the blinding reflected light, and looked away. Well, no time like the present, before the Alliance could blockade the doors. She set off for the entrance, ignoring disdainful glances from the business-suited and evening-wear clad Presidium crowd.

Not surprisingly, the human C-SEC guard sporting a full hardsuit at the front desk stopped her immediately. "I'm sorry ma'am, but this building is restricted to official business of the Counselors only." Shepard frowned at the woman's light but unmistakable emphasis on the word official.

"I'm here to see Counselor Anderson."

"And I'm next in line to see Shai'ira. Sorry ma'am, I asked politely once, but we take security seriously here on the Presidium. Now I'm asking you to leave. Now."

Shepard crossed her arms and tried to clamp down her bubbling emotions. The stress and doubt of the past few days had frayed her temper dangerously short. "Look, I'm sure you mean well, but there's not a chance in hell you could make me leave. Now why don't you save us both the trouble and tell Counselor Anderson that Commander Shepard is here to see him."

With surprising speed, the guard pulled an M-6 pistol out from a concealed holster and stepped out from behind the desk. Shepard's ears popped at the hum of a kinetic barrier generator coming to life. This woman wasn't messing around; she lined her gun up exactly to Shepard's center mass.

"You've got guts, I'll give you that much. But it's time to stand down. You're the seventh woman trying to pass herself off as Commander Shepard. Every time the Counselor gets his hopes up, and it tears him apart every time to see that it's all a lie. No more."

Pain lanced through Shepard's heart. "You have no idea. I wish I could walk away, but I can't. You hear me!? I CAN'T!" Biotic power flared up around her unbidden, a blue haze hovering over her skin, concentrated around her two clenched fists. "I have to see Anderson. Now."

The guard took an involuntary step back before she could stop herself. For a long moment they locked eyes, each daring the other to back down. After five long seconds the guard reached over to her desk and hit the intercom without taking her eyes, or her gun, off Shepard. "Counselor, there's a woman here to see you. You should come down to see her with alacrity."

There was silence for half a beat too long before Anderson's terse acknowledgment. Something was wrong. The odd phrasing the guard had used, it must have been a code word, some sort of bug-out signal.

"Anderson, wait, could you at least see an old friend before running for the hills?"

::Shepard? No, you're dead. It can't be. Just another politician trying to get under my skin. Again.::

The biotics slipped away from her as she rushed towards the intercom, heedless of the guard's trained weapon, with desperation lacing her voice as one of her last friends started to slip away.

"Anderson, wait, please! It's me! I can prove it, please, just listen to me! Remember when you punched Udina in the face to help us get back to the Normandy? Anderson?"

The guard reacted to that one, something both Anderson and Udina had failed to mention in their official reports, if for very different reasons, but Shepard ignored her. The intercom was silent for a long time. Then . . .

::Send her up.::

"But, sir-"

::Do it. I understand the risk, Lieutenant. Just… do it.::

The Lieutenant ground her teeth so hard Shepard could hear it, but she lowered her gun.

Good enough.

Shepard strode up the steps and around the corner, past another grim-looking security squad, then stopped at Anderson's door. Her emotions were a jumble within her, the broken pieces of who she had once been tossed and turned, the jagged edges still sharp enough to cut. Would Anderson recognize her? Was it better or worse if he didn't? Would he try to act like nothing had happened? Would he reject her as an abomination, a mockery of the Shepard who had died?

There was no way to know.

She had turned half-way back to leave when she heard the distinct sound of a pistol unfolding itself as it was drawn from around the corner. A deep breath, a knock, and she entered.

Admiral Anderson stood with his back to her, hands clasped behind him, looking somehow wrong in the Counselor's robes instead of his blue and gold Alliance uniform. He stood tall and straight, strong, an unstoppable force that took whatever challenge presented itself in stride. He was competence, discipline, honor. He was everything the Alliance strived to be. It took her back to the first time they met.

"Shepard, it's good to finally meet you. I've heard good things."

She kept the mask of professionalism and competence in place, but behind it she glowed with pleasure at being complemented by the living legend.

"Likewise, Captain Anderson. I look forward to working with you."

Anderson gave her a rare smile, the white of his teeth standing out against his dark skin. "Just like I heard; professional to your bones. Relax, Lieutenant Commander, the crew isn't around to watch us now. Take a seat and tell me a little about yourself. I like to get a feel for the people I'm going to be working with."

"A – Anderson?" She winced at the stutter and did her best to keep from tearing up in front of Anderson while emotions warred within her. Relief at finally being with someone she could hand things off to, someone she could trust, battled with the burning need not to shame herself in front of her superior, one she respected so highly. She wanted to rage and rail at the confused uncertainty, to stand tall and strong, to break down in tears of relief and despair, to run away from his gaze, to stare him in the eye and dare him to judge her.

She settled for coming to attention and holding back both tears and curses.

Anderson turned and faced her, the wrinkle lines worn deep on his face. "Shepard?"

"Shepard? Where are you? Shepard!"

It was that voice that brought her back from the oblivion that surrounded her, the darkness both metaphysical and real in the rubble of the Council chamber. She sucked in a breath and coughed weakly on the dust. She tried to move, but the pile of debris held her pinned. If not for her combat armor she would have been crushed. The muffled voices continued.

"I'm sorry sir, but she's gone. No one could have survived that."

"No, Shepard is alive, I know it. Keep searching, dammit, that's an order."

"Yes, sir." The voice wandered off, shouting orders in the distance, but his voice stayed close. Always close. "Come on, Shepard, come back to me. I'm not giving up on you, no matter how long it takes."

It was the voice that kept her forcing one painful breath of air after another for those endless hours in the darkness. And at last, when they'd finally dug her out, she'd been able to say only one thing before her strength finally gave out.

"Captain, I came back."

…

The words touched something deep within Admiral Anderson as he looked into the eyes of the young woman before him. And she was young. The scars of experience were missing from the familiar features, leaving the smooth skin of a woman just entering her thirties, but they hadn't vanished. No, the scars had gone deeper, sunk inside her. The pain in her eyes, the pleading, tugged at his heart. And the words – if whatever she'd been through took her back to those hellish hours, pinned, helpless, slowly suffocating to death, then what she had been through was truly awful. But beneath it all was the joy and pain of realizing that it was Shepard. She was alive, but she was hurting, as badly and as truly as any screaming soldier on the front line, for all that her wounds were not visible.

"Shepard."

He broke his command posture and closed the distance between them to give her a bear hug. Shepard remained stiff as a board in his arms, but he could feel warm tears soaking into the shoulder of his Counsel robe before he broke the embrace.

"Please, come in, sit down, can I get you something to drink?"

Shepard sat and nodded wordlessly. Anderson tactfully kept busy in the drink cabinet, giving Shepard the chance to compose herself. After a couple sniffs there was silence, and Anderson allowed himself to find the sugary drinks he'd been looking for. The last thing Shepard needed now was alcohol. He tossed her the fizzy drink before opening his own and settling into his own chair. He used the time to surreptitiously study Shepard.

She hid it well, but not even she could hide it from him. She was on the edge, the tipping point between coming back from whatever she'd gone through and going over the edge of that precipice from which you could never really return.

What she needed, what she was looking for, was something to help pull her the rest of the way. Paternal pride filled him, pride that she had made it this far, come most of the way back all alone, as well as a mix of awe and respect for the sacred trust he'd been given that she had come to him to make it the rest of the way.

She was here asking for help with all the quiet desperation of a last hope so faint that to say it aloud would destroy it. And she was asking for it not from Counselor Anderson, the representative of mankind to the galaxy, not from Admiral Anderson, her Alliance and now Spectre superior, but from David, longtime friend and fellow soldier who'd been downrange with her when it counted.

Alliance Command would either give him a pat on the back or have his head for this, depending on how things shook out, but Shepard was one of his people, and some ties were too tight to break, come hell or high water. She'd come back once again for him. He wouldn't let her down.

…

The Admiral watched her in thoughtful silence for several long moments while Shepard struggled to find the words to say. There was so much she wanted to express, to get out, but words were inadequate. If only she could somehow communicate her feelings directly as they overflowed out of her. But she had to say something, she had to try.

"Anderson, I . . ."

"Shepard, before you share anything with me, I want you to know this. Whatever happened to you, whatever you've been through, you don't need to explain it. You came back to me. You are the same Shepard I knew for all those years, and nothing can ever change that."

There was no holding back the tears. All the emotions she could never have hoped to express were between them now, shared. He understood. He understood.

They talked long into the night, at first about inconsequential things, shared memories and acquaintances, as they became reacquainted again. But eventually, the conversation turned towards more serious matters.

"But now, Shepard, I have to ask… my security traced you back to a Cerberus ship. Are you really working for Cerberus now?"

She clenched, but slowly forced herself to relax one muscle at a time. "I… I don't know what I'm doing. To be honest, I'm still not sure I am… was… me." She leaned back on the couch and stared at the ceiling, trying to wrestle her thoughts into something coherent. "I remember Alchera, searching for more geth forces. A ship. It was enormous, bigger than a carrier, but it moved like a cruiser. It spotted us in stealth, shot us up with some sort of particle weapon that bypassed our kinetic barriers. I set off a distress beacon, then… nothing."

Anderson nodded thoughtfully, arms crossed in his favorite armchair. "I can fill in some of the details. The Alliance received your distress signal and moved to intercept, but by the time we arrived it was too late to save the Normandy… or you. We recovered all lifepods and the Normandy's black box, which let us reconstruct events. Joker managed to limp the Normandy away from the pods and bought them time before it was destroyed. Of the crew of fifty, twenty-one were lost, including you. We recovered you before you got too deep into the atmosphere, but the damage was… extensive. For all intents and purposes, you were dead."

Shepard took in a shaky breath. "But what happened next? How did I end up… like this?"

"From there we know only pieces. Your remains were stolen, we suspect by the Shadow Broker, though we have no idea what the Broker wanted with you. Then there was some sort of conflict between the Broker and Cerberus. I think it's safe to assume Cerberus won. How they brought you back, though, I have no idea."

Shepard looked back down at Anderson and leaned forward. "What do I do? I don't… Cerberus is the enemy, they're monsters. They're trying to put a good face on it, I can see that, but the things they say… I need to hear it from you, sir. Please… what's going on?"

Anderson frowned, thinking hard. "I… can't tell you all of it, not while you're linked with Cerberus. But I can give you the broad strokes. The Council came under incredible pressure after the attack on the Citadel and the destruction of Sovereign. Nobody could agree on what Sovereign was – some believed you that it was a Reaper, some thought it was a geth ship, and a million other theories – but they all agreed that the Council was completely blindsided and nearly destroyed. That's a big deal to humans, but it's an even bigger deal to the races here who have been subject to their authority since our bronze age. They sent out the STG and Spectres in force to hunt down the source of this threat, but when they kept coming up empty, the governments of the Council races decided to take matters into their own hands. It didn't quite break the Council, it's too deeply ingrained for that, but publicly they've claimed it was a geth dreadnaught and that they are destroying the geth's ability to make another ship of the same scale. It's kept down general panic, but not by a whole lot. We're in the midst of the most aggressive, and quietest, military arms race since the Krogan Rebellion, and I'll wager the biggest in human history. It's tense while everyone waits for the other shoe to drop, and the Council is trying to deal with a serious economic recession at the same time which is making everything worse."

Shepard sat still, stunned. She'd hoped that her warning would get some sort of response and been consistently disappointed. The knowledge that the attack itself had proven her right filled her with regret and, to her shame, a little bit of satisfaction.

"I've… spoken with the Illusive Man, or someone claiming to be him, at least."

Anderson looked at her sharply.

"He claimed that the Alliance is pushing colonization to keep from having all of our eggs in one basket, but that the colonies are being left to fend for themselves because of the buildup, leaving it to Cerberus to protect them. He says the collectors are abducting human colonists backed by the Reapers, but we aren't going after them. Is that true?"

Anderson grimaced. "That's… not how I would put it, but it is partially true. We can't go out into the Terminus, not in force. That's beyond our jurisdiction, beyond the Council's jurisdiction, whether we like it or not. Protecting human interests where the Alliance couldn't reach was Cerberus' original purpose before it went rogue. Our best read on the Illusive Man is that he still thinks of himself as fulfilling that role. He's too successful to be completely insane, but his idea of 'saving humanity' has clearly gone far past anything we would agree with. As for the rest, yes, we know it's the collectors behind the abductions. We got solid information from the abductions on Fehl Prime, though at a high price. I'm not sure if the Reapers are behind them or not, but either way, Alliance command are unwilling to commit significant forces into the Terminus Systems to try to track them down. If Sovereign was typical of the Reapers, we have only a slim chance to defeat them conventionally, but that goes to no chance at all if we start a major war right now, and we're clinging to any hope we can get."

"So… what should I do?" she asked, an edge of desperation creeping into her voice.

"Hmm. The Council and the Alliance are leveraging every resource at our disposal right now, chasing every lead they can. If it were up to me, I'd get you away from Cerberus and back in uniform." He hesitated, and for a moment his shoulder sagged with the crushing weight of responsibility on his shoulders. "I hate to say this, but this is an opportunity to gain leverage over Cerberus resources. We would have to get you reinstated as a Spectre to give you immunity and a clear path back home, but the Council might agree to send you out as a sleeper agent within Cerberus, learning what you can and following this lead." He signed. "Listen to me, I sound like a career politician. I see where Alliance Command is coming from, but the ground pounder in me knows that this is a fight we can't win, not without an edge of some kind. We need to learn more about the Reapers, more about their technology. If the Illusive Man thinks the collectors might be in league with the Reapers, then this might be our best opportunity to gain that edge. Believe me, I hate the thought of agreeing with that monster, but this might be the best opportunity for you right now."

Shepard stared at him. "You want me to… stay with Cerberus? To work for them?"

"No, Shepard, I want you to use them to track down a lead that might be the key to stopping the Reapers. You may not be under my command, but if this goes sideways, if the Illusive Man changes priorities, I fully expect you to stick to the primary objective and come back in."

Shepard nodded, not trusting herself to speak. She felt awash in strange emotions: relief at Anderson's acceptance, purpose in having a mission, worry at the evident desperation, and swirling doubt about Cerberus.

"Think about it, Shepard, and we'll talk with the Council in the morning. You're welcome to stay here if you need a place to sleep, though all I have to offer is that couch, I'm afraid."

"Thank you, Anderson. I really appreciate it."

She went to sleep almost immediately on the couch. Anderson watched over her for a few minutes, let out a quiet sigh, and turned back to his desk. He had a lot of calls to make, and he didn't think sleep was going to be on the table tonight. Again.

March 10, 2185 CE

Serpent Nebula / Widow System / Citadel Station

Shepard was a little nervous as the communications gear spun up and she found herself once again facing the Citadel Council, the most powerful beings in the galaxy… until the Reapers arrived, anyway. Together, they carried a strange mix of executive and judicial power that was only ambiguously defined, but very real. The vast bureaucracy beneath them, with innumerable departments, committees, and agencies, were often challenged and closely governed, but it would take a very brave, or very foolhardy, race to challenge the limits of the Council's authority directly on anything but the most clearly drawn limits, of which there were few.

The most striking of them was Councilor Tevos, who was exactly as Shepard remembered her. She (as Shepard's translator referred to the mono-gendered species, at any rate), was the undisputed, if unofficial, leader of the Council. She represented the asari, the most powerful species in Citadel space, and with centuries of political experience the Council leaned on her heavily for her ability to negotiate and take the long view of almost any political issue. And yet within her self-possession, under the white facial marks of her perfect features, there was something, a hint of a whisper of a shadow, that wasn't there before. She was worried.

To her right stood Councilor Sparatus, the turian representative. Always grumpy and suspicious, he looked borderline hostile, hunching slightly like a predator looking for prey. He represented the most powerful military in the galaxy, and he knew it… just as he knew their best defenses had just had their assess handed to them, and that everyone in Council space was looking to him to do something about it. The strain was clear.

The most visibly changed was Councilor Valern, the salarian representative. Already old in 2183, he was pushing twenty now and starting to slow down. For a salarian, at any rate. The color had started to fade from his skin, but he allowed no sign of weakness in his stance. Valern, with the typical impatience of his high-metabolism people, started the meeting without preamble. "Shepard, so you survived. We've heard many rumors surrounding your unexpected return. Some of them are… unsettling."

"Indeed," slid in Tevos smoothly, her tone reassuring. "We called this meeting so you could explain your actions, Shepard. We owe you that much after you saved our lives in the battle against Saren and his geth."

Shepard glanced between each of them. "Saren wasn't the one commanding the geth, it was the Reaper Sovereign."

Tevos winced slightly, and Sparatus grunted and spoke agitatedly. "I don't believe in an immortal race of sentient starships allegedly waiting in dark space, Shepard." Shepard opened her mouth to respond angrily, but Sparatus held up a taloned claw. "Peace, Shepard. I am not denying the threat. I'm not a fool. Our best dreadnaughts are a kilometer long, and a mysterious ship twice that long with weaponry we've never seen attacked the Citadel itself and compromised its defenses. I was on the Destiny Ascension, Commander – I saw how that ship outclassed ours in every way. It was faster, tougher, and more heavily armed than anything we have. It took the combined firepower of the Destiny Ascension, the surviving elements of the Citadel Fleet, and most of your Fifth Fleet, to bring it down. I personally suspect it was a geth creation, but regardless, it came from somewhere, and we don't know where, or who sent it, or why they tried to wipe us out. Rest assured, we are deeply concerned."

Valern nodded. "I do not know if this was a Reaper or not, Commander, nor do I care what it is called. I am interested only in the facts. And the facts are that we don't know who put together that ship, or how. Rest assured, the Special Tactics Group and the Spectres are both well aware of our displeasure with that fact and are working hard to rectify it. They are tearing apart Ilos and attempting to repair the VI you found there, while our best teams are reviewing the wreckage of the ship."

"Which brings us back to you, Commander," said Tevos with a small nod of recognition. "Councilor Anderson explained that you were resuscitated by Cerberus and now have returned to us. This leaves us in a difficult position. You are one of our most well-known Spectres, but you have been very public in your views on the Reapers."

"Precisely," continued Sparatus gruffly. "The Council is working to deal with the threat based on the information we know about it and, whatever we call them, talk of unstoppable machines is likely to spread panic we cannot afford. Combined with your ties to Cerberus, a terrorist organization denounced by both the Council and your Systems Alliance, and you are more likely to hurt than to help our efforts."

Tevos gave Sparatus an icy look before turning back to Shepard. "By which we mean to say that within Council space we are doing everything we can to prepare for the Reapers. We believe you could do the most good, and minimize panic, by working outside of Citadel space for a time."

Anderson finally joined in. "The Council discussed this last night, Shepard. Here's the proposal – we need every resource, every ship, every gun, and every credit, that we can beg, borrow, or steal, at least until we've identified the source of the threat," he said with a glance at Valern, "and decisively defeated the threat of more of these ships," he said with a small nod towards Sparatus. "The Spectres and STG are turning over every stone in the Attican Traverse, and a few even in the Terminus System. However, we have no direct links to Cerberus or any leverage over the considerable resources they wield. So, the Council would reinstate you as a Spectre with the understanding that you would work with Cerberus, try to divert their efforts into following any lead on the Reapers, and keep them from stirring up any more trouble in Council space."

"Cogently put, Councilor," added Tevos with a small smile that didn't reach her eyes.

Shepard bit her lip, painfully aware of how out of her element she was dealing with politics. "If things don't go well with Cerberus, I could come back?"

"Yes, yes," replied Valern with a touch of exasperation. "Report on your activities, re-establish trust, and you can return."

Shepard glanced at Anderson, who nodded encouragingly. "Okay. I just… want it to be clear that I'm willing to stay, to walk away from Cerberus right now."

"We understand, Shepard." Anderson put a reassuring hand on her shoulder. "We know whose side you're on, and we know how big of an ask this is, especially now. I would like nothing more than to tell you to forget Cerberus and come back in, take time to come to terms with what happened to you, get some counseling. But I'm afraid we have to ask. We don't know how much time we have before the Reapers returns, and we need to make every second count."

Shepard nodded more confidently this time. "I understand. And I'll do it."

"Excellent." Tevos tapped a command into her console. "You are now reinstated. Good luck with your investigations, Shepard. We hope for a quick resolution… and a quick end to your relationship with Cerberus."

The line went dead, and Anderson let go of the breath he was holding. "Well, that went better than I expected."

"Yeah, me too." She looked around the office wistfully, wishing to stay a little longer in the world that made sense to her, but the Council's message was clear. They didn't trust her, at least not yet, and she needed to clear out as quickly as possible before she interrupted the delicate house of cards they were balancing. "I guess I'd better be on my way."

"Good luck, Shepard. I'll be rooting for you. And if things go sideways with Cerberus, know you can always reach out to me. No matter what else is going on out there, so long as I'm around, you always have a home in the Alliance." Anderson gathered her in a final hug, she blinked away tears, and turned to leave.

…

Council Anderson sat back in his chair nursing a significantly stronger drink as Admiral Steven Hackett, grizzled commander of the Alliance's Fifth Fleet and effectively the head of the entire Alliance military, appeared on the other end of his display. The admiral's time was even more precious than the Councilor's was these days, and he dove right in. "How did it go?"

Anderson stared out the window of his office at the amazing view. "Well… I think. We owe Tevos for this one, though, and I think she only went along with it because she sees trouble on the horizon. And when she comes calling, it's you she's going to be asking."

The admiral nodded. "I still think it's worth it. Symbols are always important, but never more so than in a long, losing battle."

"It's still a risk. As much as I hate to agree with Sparatus, he's right that we need to get her out of Citadel space. The public is even more jittery than it appears, the economy is straining under massive growth from the buildup that could pop, and the batarians and the Terminus Systems are making their own preparations for war thinking we're getting ready to hit them, no matter what we say. It's shaky as hell on my side, Steven."

"You're preaching to the choir. I hate to lose her, and you know I want first call on her services the moment she's available, but we can't afford any disruptions right now. And if anyone can work a miracle and redirect those lunatics at Cerberus to find us a weapon against the Reapers, she's the one. It's not perfect, and it's damned well not fair to her, but it's the only way I can see to keep her in the field where we desperately need her."

Anderson nodded grimly and took a long pull on his drink. "Desperate. I think that about sums it up. What I wouldn't give to know how much time we have. If it's a month we're not pushing hard enough, but if it's a decade, or a century, and we push too hard now, we could lose it all."

"You and me both. Keep fighting the good fight down in the trenches."

"You too, admiral… you too."