All the Stars Chapter 38: 1-31: In Other Words, a Halo + Mass Effect Crossover fanfic

A/N: Hey, don't you fret I am back and still writing daily. Now granted my professional writing work has kept me occupied, plus the lethargy of the holidays, but we're back to it. Hopefully I can be quick on updates for the stretch of ending ME1 before the Spring ends.

In any case, here's my chapter plan right now: In the direct chapter after this, we do one side mission and then we get to Virmire, and then after that chapter, we have two chapters dedicated to Virmire. After that: one chapter between Virmire and its consequences, and then, maybe, a giant final chapter to close out ME1, if not a stretch of chapters made from that huge word document. After that? Well, we freestyle for a bit.

Thanks for sticking by. I'll go ahead and do a Q&A at the end of ME1 by the way in a giant Authors Note chapter.

I'm replaying Mass Effect 1 right now in the Legendary Edition, and, I'm gonna keep it real, that game is janker then I remember it being, also super streamlined with its characters, that I definitely feel like in terms of like, comparing All the Stars to ME1, I do a lot more emotional baggage and weight onto the characters, mostly because I consider them ME1 characters and write them with considerations of who they are in all of ME.

Garrus I think is still pretty close to on the mark, with Tali, purposefully, flying off into a different version of her. Wrex is Wrex, Kaiden and Ashley I really don't have much to work with, which, of course, leads us back to making sure a lot of the character work is focused on Mai and JD. I think a part of what makes them work right now is that the camera isn't always 100% on them, which gives them space to decompress. Before I get too lost in my own weeds, here you go: this late, emotionally heavy chapter.

1-31: In Other Words

Chakwas asked her privately on the Normandy about it early in their journey.

"Can I ask you something, Commander?" She asked her one late night as she and Shepard went over the crew's medical reports and wellness checks.

"Of course, Doctor Chakwas." Shepard affirmed, already knowing what was about to be asked of her. Chakwas was the only one who learned on the crew, and she joined the handful of medical officers and higher-ups who had held onto Shepard's one buried secret. Even Anderson never knew.

"Why have you never had that scar of yours surgically removed if you play it so close to the chest? Surely even I can do the operation if you so choose."

It was Caesarean, done privately in her San Francisco Apartment, years ago.

It's an answer that Shepard has had to give herself all of her life, every time she tucked in her shirt, "It's my punishment… A reminder, even: about what it's all about."

For her time in the Citadel, Shepard sleeps in Nihlus's bed.

It's perhaps a far more intimate thing than Nihlus can imagine, seeing a woman who has become one of the galaxy's make a home out of his apartment, albeit for a short while, but he does not object. His apartment becomes her office between briefings with the Council and other Spectres about operations plans, and for the first time in years, for Nihlus has never been one to use it even as he was flesh and blood, it hums warmly.

"Nihlus," Shepard asks for him during her final day on the Citadel. Although his attention originally was on the other side of the Citadel at one of the spaceports, watching and alerting the authorities to a pretty obvious contraband handoff, he reappears in front of her, seated at a chair his dining table, pulled out by her pre-emptively.

"Shepard." He greets, although he never really said goodbye.

"Garrus Vakarian, he's a Turian on my crew, works for C-Sec, he helped me confront Benezia and combed the scene for evidence. I'll forward you what data he was able to pull from her, see if you can crack her encryption?"

Nihlus was never a tech-minded operator; no Turian usually is, especially as a Spectre. The more martial strength expected of most Turian males is the ruling mantra. Now, however, things are different.

He nods, taking the data sent in from Shepard into his partition. "I'll see what I can do. Hopefully, we can pull Saren's current whereabouts from this. Matriarchs tend to like keeping personal records."

Shepard rolled her eyes at that, knowing full well that through her travels thus far, she's found records of another, pioneering matriarch and how, she being naturally lost, had a premium on any material that she left behind.

"Thank you, Nihlus." It's nice, Nihlus admits, to be so simply thanked and asked and regarded as a person again, the way Shepard does. The Council had always kept their distance out of practical necessity, ordering him around like an asset he was trained to be, but Shepard, she is flesh and blood and before him, and more than that, still sees him like that too.

"You're… soft." Nihlus says instead of the same thing and saying you're welcome. Shepard raises her eyebrows but chuckles as she realizes what Nihlus means. Coming from a Turian, it might be an insult, but the vocabulary for the Turians to verbalize that strange combination of Shepard as a woman and as a warrior. The closest word he can put on Shepard is motherhood, but she is no mother as far as he and the galaxy know.

Shepard pauses as she considers Nihlus's awe, poking her cheek to confirm the literal meaning, but the answer comes to her simply. In even that singular mission as a Spectre, she has hardly met anyone who didn't come to harm her or work against her. To see someone honest and genuine was a rarity, perhaps, and she is humbled still by the bare minimum that even Spectres do not have.

"There are worse weaknesses to have." She says quietly.

Nihlus flinches as Shepard calls it a weakness, but he holds in his tongue. He has a lot on his plate nowadays and a heavy Covenant-related data packet in his back pocket dropped off by an AI on her ship that she doesn't even know is an AI. It's not his place to question what is going on or what he has found himself in the center of. Every Spectre was at the center of some conspiracy, and even without a body, nothing has changed for him. So, he trusts the cowboy, as much as it feels wrong for him to do it.

This is about her fifth debriefing in three days. But this time, it's one that she feels is more normal than sitting before the galactic Council and telling her that, although yes, she is being highly effective in mission to mission actions and putting a dent into matters of Council concern Saren's capture is not guaranteed.

The debriefing she has now is back in one of those places where it all started: Udina's office, a stone's throw from the Citadel Tower, sipping coffee and sitting at Udina's desk with Captain Anderson on the side.

"Although in the end having a Human Spectre was paramount to Humanity's position in this Galaxy, we had feared that you would operate too far out of Alliance jurisdiction. Well, I'm pleased to consider myself wrong in this instance, Shepard." Udina hadn't changed from being the shrewd man he had been last she saw, and for that, Shepard is thankful. Galactic constants are so rare to find. Anderson, however, his process of change has been less kind. The blue uniform on him is more fit for the diplomats than the warfighter that he is, but it's the politeness that he needs as his assignment now is to sit down at the Citadel and not cause any more trouble.

She's failed Anderson too, she thinks as she looks at the browbeaten face of a man who deserved better; deserved the Normandy at least.

"My duties have remained the same, Ambassador." Shepard says as she sits in that comfy chair, far more comfortable now than she was the last time she was here. "My responsibilities to all people haven't changed."

"Yes, of course, but you are a Human representative first."

She is Human first, she understands that, but she's not sure what that means anymore when given that unique license to kill. She glances over to Anderson's face, and he's deep in thought, not concerned with the procedural discussions about her mission thus far that has involved the Alliance. His head is in the stars, and the stars are, very, very close.

"Captain?" She asks her former CO, and the man perks up, sitting in his chair perpendicular to Udina and herself. He's been caught.

"It's an arms race, up there." Anderson vaguely gestures up to the space around the Citadel. "The Turians are bringing a fleet larger than the one they almost completely mobilized against us during First Contact, and the Asari and Salarians are fighting for second best. They're not used to the idea that the Quarians would actually use the Migrant Fleet as an offensive armada."

Udina leans back in his chair, equally as scuffed as Anderson. "I'm sure the Alliance Military would be participating all the same if it wasn't for our colonies in the Attican needing the protection."

"Not to air the obvious, but I have to ask, why?" Shepard posed, crossing her legs over.

Political and military combine in the answer, which is why both Udina and Anderson talk, with the ambassador going first.

"The Covenant, really, with their backing of the Quarians. It crosses so many lines which the Galaxy thought as immutable: The fact that a power like the Covenant, a seemingly reasonable and understanding entity, would instead appease the Quarians instead of the Council, it screams of assumed weakness. Almost as if the Covenant did not see the Council as worthy of them."

"What, exactly, are the Covenant fielding?" Shepard asked as she usually did in times like this. "Asides from first contact reports, they're still rather unknown."

"Quite the contrary, actually." Anderson perked up. He was there at first contact, and he had recognized them as warfighters immediately in that hail barrage of plasma fire. "The Covenant have been holding combat drills and exercises almost 24/7 since they've normalized relations. More than that they've been integrating into the Quarian military branch. We have a front row seat on Altis to see all of this happen. It's a multi-million strong army."

"A million Volus hit different than a million Turians, Captain." Shepard had made the comment, knowing that that number was inflated, no doubt.

"Of course, but you throw a million of anything at a problem and you'll definitely make a dent. The Quarians intend to brute force the reclamation of Rannoch." Anderson's disapproval drips from every word. "If we believe the Quarian confidence in the Covenant to lead this invasion, it'll certainly be a planetary invasion this galaxy hasn't seen ever since the Turians and their teething wars."

"Did we know about their plans otherwise? The Quarians? That is if they never had the Covenant." Shepard asks more.

Udina barely regards the question. "Wouldn't you know, Shepard? You have a Quarian on your crew."

Shepard is silent at that fact. It seemed a personal question, oddly enough, to ask Tali about what the Quarians were to do if the Covenant hadn't shown up. It was a sore topic it turned out. Tali wore her distaste and distrust of the Covenant on her sleeves, and to see them inch ever closer to an aborted dream kept her close to the Normandy than her own home.

The question slides by without resolution; however, they can't help but keep on the topic of the Covenant. It had been the last general discussion topic with the Council to their Spectres, and one that Shepard kept her tongue about. That feeling within her gut, brewing complicated feelings for peoples she's never known, for her to open her mouth, it would've been to spew toxic black filth she knew where not it came from but Satan themselves.

In some small part, in a part of her she never knew she had: she wanted to kill the Covenant.

The easy explanation was that it was the soldier inside of her who wondered.

However, the reality of it was that these feelings had come so abruptly, too much of a coincidence with her mission and the other inky black dreams of extinction inside of her, for it to be just that.

Liara's offer of a mind-meld had been more and more enticing.

"The Covenant are dangerous." Coming from Udina, those words put her at peace as he crosses his arms and looks out at the Presidium, rotating his chair to look out at it. "They have the entire galaxy on the edge in a different way than the Geth. Their existence, by itself, challenges us. The only saving grace of this situation is that they, asides from one single ship, are mostly relegated to one planet."

"If the Covenant were to acquire a fleet…." Anderson leads but doesn't finish, looking down as a hand rubs the bottom of his chin. "That'd be it: The introduction of a new, massive military power in the Milky Way, with knowledge of this Galaxy that goes beyond our own. We can't seriously believe anything that they have offered to us is truly the whole story in terms of tech and strategic knowledge."

"But they have offered something of advantage to us, have they not? They are squatting on one of our colonies." If it wasn't for the fact she was on a mission, she knew she would know more of the Covenant and their situation other than the fact that they are the shadow at the corner of people's eyes. That name by itself: Covenant, rang of danger in a galaxy where dead gods built the foundations of their society. For the most part, in this galaxy, that truth was only infrastructural.

"Mostly design theory and, to them, basic ideas behind their tech that wasn't developed with eezo." Anderson very much remembers the hail of plasma fire and the purple and lavender war machines that flew without a trace of element zero. The Solace now, even in its monstrous resting place amongst the waves of Altis, was once a more massive monstrosity according to the claims of the Covenant, who had been more than willing to share the true image and size of it.

After all this time, however, the context behind their planetfall and displacement had only been a simple sentence: an accident.

He knew better, as did Udina, but Shepard did not.

"They haven't said anything about planets, however the Prophet of Destiny has assured us that they will guarantee us information as soon as the homeworlds of the individual races are secured, starting with Sanghelios."

"Rannoch?" Shepard clarified.

"A difficult semantic." Udina breathed tiredly. "The Alliance, officially, supports the Covenant and their self-actualization and will do anything as needed to support the Covenant given friendly relations and mutual interest in the region; however, naturally, it's a delicate balance. The Prophet of Destiny is cordial, but suffice to say individual members of the Covenant are not as giving to us Humans for reasons beyond our general understanding."

"Just seems to be a universal constant, doesn't it?" Shepard leaned back.

Human adversity against aliens. Anderson had laughed in one puff, knowing all too well the irony of the two crew members she harbored.

Udina had answered her. "Yes. But the Covenant will soon understand our constant: They're not alone in this galaxy. Wherever they came from, they might've been an empire. Here? They're just another player. Every other galactic government realizes they need to be taught this." Udina was a statesman, and he spoke with that tone of demand and knew a far more brutal system than battlefields. At least on the battlefield, people killed and died; enemies in dialectic opposition. In politics, those enemies were made to shake hands.

The blurring of today was that of politics and war, culminating in the fleets congregating above the Citadel. They were waiting for the arrival of the Ardent Prayer, late, but no one minded. It just meant more and more ships were able to be rallied to impress Shipmistress Karonee.

"I presume we're really referring to that massive fleet just outside?"

Udina nodded. "Officially that fleet is only in orbit in the case of a massive Geth offensive that must be addressed immediately, however more and more as the Quarians ramp up their integration of the Covenant into their ranks, or maybe it's the other way around, commanders are talking about pre-emptive strikes."

"Against the Geth?"

It was funny that Shepard even needed to clarify.

"Yes, against the Geth." Anderson cleared the air. As of present, any combat action against the Geth would have to be made in Alliance space, which had meant intruding on a lot of territory. Even the existence of Spectres in Alliance space already had been a sore spot with some colonies, but a full-on combat fleet? The last time had been during First Contact.

However, one of the other universal constants had been the Migrant Fleet itself. Their intrusion in space was expected at some point, and, although their arrival over Altis had been the first time in Human space, their times parking in the space of the other galactic powers had been a shared burden.

"A multi-million man army, with the naval power of the Quarians." Shepard aired aloud. "That's a fleet that could challenge the Council." It seemed heretical even to say that in the Presidium, and the spice on Shepard's lips was only countered by how tired she sounded. It was true, however, as Anderson and Udina nodded.

"The Quarians?" Udina was annoyed. "Their naval presence is beyond any the Galaxy wields; however their ground forces are lacking. The Covenant rectifies this, and, if as far as intelligence reports, the Covenant definitely have combat forces and logistics to support an invasion of at least one planet."

The "intelligence reports" had been the original debrief of Mai Gul and Jonathan-Jameson Durante, who had been, at the time of their debriefings, hours removed from the Covenant invasion carried out by the Covenant that was on Altis. In truth, their combat force capacity was probably capable of invading an entire cluster of systems, but Reach had been a special occasion.

"The Quarians have made some sort of deal with the Covenant, but we've been unable to get it out of the Quarian Admiralty or the Covenant Round Table." It was Anderson's turn to glance out at the pristine, ivory brightness of the Presidium, looking for answers as he spoke aloud.

Round Table was a distinctly Human term, yet the Covenant had adopted it with how they've organized themselves and their command structure. How oddly it fits, with the Elites and the Brutes in their armor clearly being knights: the Prophets having their crowns, Destiny having one with thorns no less.

Coincidences were rife throughout cultures, however, so there, perhaps, would always be kings and their courts to define the way their people go. The Hierarchs were royalty, and their knights had been their Elites. Everyone else? Workers, serfs, enforcers.

"Need me to put my head to the ground and find out?" She's used to it, after all this time, chasing after ghost stories and half-lies, sniffing out rumors. This is one of the only times those that have poised her to do so shake their head.

What she's doing is still too important. "Saren first, Shepard." Anderson reminds her of the mission that cost him almost everything, and she understands.

"The optics of the newest Human Spectre taking down one of the most senior, rogue ones?" Udina follows up, turning back finally, arms on his desk. "When you deal with Saren, it buys Humanity a lot of goodwill in this galaxy. It puts a lot of trust in us."

Same want, different reasonings. Same story up above:

The explicit and implicit reasonings of the fleets gathering above the Citadel were clear. Still, even below that, there was a long-running opportunity, one that Anderson knew and had lived before. "These militaries, at their full bore, are finally being used. I've run out of count about how many ship captains of fleet admirals are chomping at the bit to make a name for themselves out in the galaxy, and the Geth are such a non-offensive enemy. They are perhaps the easiest enemy the galaxy can get behind, and, honestly, there's a tragic irony to it."

"Irony?" Shepard poked Anderson on. One of her better tricks to getting people to talk along more.

"It takes a threat like none we've ever seen to really unify the galaxy, and even then, there's always conditions to it."

In another life, Commander Shepard would understand this truth like nothing else.

In this life, she still does, but the irony still falls upon her like snow, hunting down bucks, blanketing her until she becomes a part of the world again until, in one explosive gunshot, she emerges.

They continue to talk on, half as old friends, half as people in positions of power and change, but at the end of the day, Shepard knows it's just the formality and politeness to remind her that she is still Systems Alliance. She has never doubted that for a second, but they are not her.

Anderson takes her asides before she leaves for the day, back to Nihlus's apartment.

"Any more questions for me Shepard? Did that meeting on Altis settle your mind?"

So many questions, too many about one woman. Given the avenue, the dam in Shepard breaks to everyone's surprise. "She killed them all, Anderson."

"Wh-"

"The Spartan."

A glimpse, a tinge, of her memories as her eyes widen and look through Anderson. Clarity. Clarity is seen only in the darkest spots of her mind where her being is the only light.

God looks down at her, many red eyes, seeing downward into a place beyond her soul.

She does not fall into that oblivion, however. She feels the pressure on her back. When she looks back:

A Demon.

"What is the Alliance's plan for Mai?" She reaches out and holds Anderson's arms and her hands, hands which have traveled worlds, and for the first time in that entire batshit crazy mission where she is tracking down a rogue Spectre with nightmares in her head, those hands are holding someone accountable. "What is the Alliance's plan!"

Shepard breaks her demeanor because it is a question that has broken her down. It's manic almost, out of nowhere, yet it is the only sane way she can act when confronted with wanting an answer for Mai.

Udina is there, feet from here to witness, but Shepard does not care as she shrieks. She's smaller than Anderson, but her voice carries, bounces up and down in his office. And now Anderson's eyes are wide.

"I have seen her damn- kill, thousands of souls like it was nothing. Like putting out a match light. Do you know how nothing that is?" Her hands are at Anderson's arms tighter. "I've killed Cerberus, I've stamped them out at every corner and I've tried to understand them. I've had to study Saren and how he views Humanity as a plight. When they do the things they do, it is with meaning. They feel, they are obliged to feel, and it gives them meaning in that action. They enjoy it, they feel duty to it. But, but- but for Mai? It is NOTHING to her." Through her teeth, the spit in her mouth, it is pleading. "One day my mission is going to end, my command, and she is going to be sent elsewhere. To me, that is insane."

Ants and magnifying glasses come to mind for Anderson, but just that word: glass, evokes knowledge that he too is holding.

There it is, Shepard, with the full notion of a truth just barely out of her sight, and regardless of what it is, what that truth means, from what she knows, it means too much.

"Is she the first? You put my mentor away for something dangerous like AI, but her, a division of Spartans? An entire division of people like her? What are they being made for?!"

John-117 watches the news reports roll in from his office on Reach. He and the UNSC Admiralty watch on as the principal commanders of every UNSC branch are gathered against for the first time in months since the Sangheili declared a rebellion on Sanghelios after the execution of Thel Vadam. He was executed for daring to stand against the UNSC, despite his position as a UNSC-Sangheili puppet state leader, and it had all gone wrong from there.

Like a rubber band, Sangheilios is abandoned before the UNSC can reinforce the overrun Garrison there. An entire division of Spartan-IIs is dead. Nearly every Sangheili save for those who stayed behind to give the responding forces a war unlike anything else are gone to wage another crusade.

The question of how a species that has been cordoned off spaceflight has left their homeworld is answered by the images of history repeating:

The Outer Colonies again are in revolt.

The year is 2555, and galactic war has begun again.

Side by side, Sangheili and a renewed Insurrection fight side by side against the UNSC.

"We should've killed her when we had the chance." Ackerson, leader of the Spartan Branch, spites remorsefully as Lord Hood in his stone face looks at the images of colonies tearing themselves asunder. The Sangheili wage war for vengeance, fulfilling their duties as warriors to fight that war, having missed their Great Journey.

The Insurrection, however, renewed, the Earth newscaster speaks the reason:

"Less than forty hours ago, classified materials regarding the Spartan Program, the top-secret program which resulted in the creation of the Spartans, were leaked. UNSC officials have not responded to this event, however these materials were quickly spread throughout Human space, revealing a plethora of information including the true origins of the Spartans."

Everything. The who, and the reason simple to understand: Children from the Outer Colonies were kidnapped and made to fight against the Insurrection in those Outer Colonies.

Betrayal by the UNSC.

"How did she-?" Admiral Parangosky is answered before she can finish, tilting her chair.

"The AI which was overseeing her containment facility was based on the research made in the development of Cortana, it was a recent upgrade. There was backdoor programmed into their underlying code." An aide speaks up quickly. "All AIs in the UNSC based on her infrastructure have been shut down or contained subsequently."

Cortana was gone. One of the first to go. John-117 looks to her empty holopedestal on the conference table. Only an echo is in his mind now, replaced by the chaos of this new world.

"She took over the facility, uploaded backups of data from the Spartan Program before disappearing with an ONI Prowler, last detected vector puts her going toward a region of space that neither Covenant or UNSC maps have explored."

"What backups?!" Parangosky snapped. "We purged all of them!"

"We've tracked them back to the personal server of an ONI agent." UNSC Internal Security spoke up, the bags beneath his eyes heavy. "An agent Cameron Masterson. He died in 2549 and an AI of him was made, however it was assigned to a ship lost during the defense of Reach. Operation Uppercut. Apparently, Halsey kept an eye on him in retirement and knew that he was keeping files related to the program. Disgruntled employee, to say the least."

And what that left to them was an Outer Colonies outraged, with Sangheili cooperation. This was worse than an Insurrection: it was their sins turned back onto them.

One of the admirals vaguely gestured to John. "Isn't it enough that the Spartans basically saved Humanity?! What do these people care for how the sausage is made?"

John-117 knew his last name now. Maybe he always had, beaten down by training and indoctrination. Those who respected him called him as he always was: the Master Chief, but those who were being particularly empathetic with him called him a name that he no longer belonged to. It was an insult. After Reach, that first time, along with Linda, he had thought them both the last Spartans as Reach fell. Now he truly believes that as the combat casualties of the Spartan-IIs roll in on his datapad. That was the plan that initially drew them all back to Reach in 2552: To gather all the Spartans, hijack a Covenant ship, and find one of their homeworlds to sue for peace. And there the Spartan-IIs were now, on Sanghelios, and they were all killed for it. History works in circles.

Were they okay? Kurt? Linda? Kelly?

He wishes he knew.

He wished he knew how to pray to God for them.

What did he know, however? He had killed gods for the sake of the galaxy.

However, that was the cost of the warfare they waged and the new conflict that came up to meet them as half of Human space rebelled, and the Elites found their Great Journey in the end. High Charity, now sitting over Mars for study, echoes in its empty chambers laughing at those who inherited the Mantle of Responsibility, the Keyship standing as a gravestone for an Empire, silently pulsing with a signal that all of the UNSC has yet to understand.

"Chief. We need your current training class operational ASAP." Someone calls for his Spartan-IVs.

It takes a moment for Chief to respond, thinking of what had been lost and what he had lost.

"What for…?" His deep voice reverberates in that middle room.

The UNSC admiralty is almost confused over the fact that he didn't know or understand.

Ackerson is the one that clarifies: "For what they've always been for, 117."

"She's nothing but a singular test, Shepard. Her situation is unique, beyond unique, even, and if there is anything to learn from her it is about the boundaries that even she has to consider." Anderson answers, and it is not enough.

"But the cost of her is- She was a Cerberus test subject, and yet we are still using her?" Udina looks over to Anderson and turns his chair away. This was his hole to dig. This was a hole the military had sought to make of the two Humans from another galaxy. "That's not right. Especially when you put Commander Ryder under for doing what he did. This isn't any better."

Anderson straightens his mouth and shoulders. "She's doing this of their own accord, Commander Shepard. If you've come to know Mai at all, you know, more than anyone who's ever lived, you can't stop her from doing what she wants."

Shepard sometimes wonders, if it ever happens, if it ever comes down to it, what would happen if she was given the kill order on Mai, and how many people would die because of it. "She deserves better."

Anderson pauses. He doesn't believe what he says next. He doesn't believe it because if it were true, she would've never been nominated to become a Spectre. "That's not your call to make, Shepard."

"That's not my issue, Captain Anderson. My issue is that it was a call that was made at all." She almost whispers as she ends her sentence as if it was a truth that even God could not hear.

What did it mean when someone like Mai was made?

She had visited Greece during her vagabond period, and she had walked on those ancient lands of Laconia and been there on Mai's namesake: Sparta. Mai belonged to ancient history, and yet she was here in the year 2183. For all the years and centuries since the ancient mythos, they had returned to those warriors and their brutality.

"If she is a test, if she is some forerunner for everything, what could the Alliance be getting ready for, and what are we going to do?"

"War." Anderson says like letting a weight drop. "War, Shepard."

"What war?" Shepard leans in, but Anderson does not budge.

"Every war."

Chief Gul and Chief Durante came from three centuries in the future. Three centuries between now and then and all of it filled with warfare made by man, for man, because of man. Inner Colonies and Outer Colonies. Innies and the UEG. The Systems Alliance was at the very beginning: gifted with the end result.

Whatever the issues of the galaxy, of the Council, they were always on top of the base underlying manifest destiny of a Mankind emergent amongst the stars. One day the Terminus and the Attican would be spread out into, more likely than not by Humanity, and one day-

Shepard looked at Anderson as he said it with a confidence not often used against her.

"Shepard, one day there's going to be a war that changes the Human race. It might be the Reapers, but probably not, because your position right now is Humanity trusting you from stopping those external threats and maintaining galactic peace. What we know however, what you can't stop, is this: Humanity itself."

Shepard opened her mouth, but she could not argue. She was Human.

Shepard fears little in her life. She's faced death in the face and sent people to death. She does not fear the judgment of a Lord above, but she does fear the judgment of an equal.

"One day, Shepard, there's going to be another you, and they won't be fighting for us. Maybe they're with Cerberus, maybe it's a group of colonies that don't even exist yet, maybe Earth falls into civil war because of an issue that's barely on our radar now. It could be all of that, and more, and when that day comes, we need a new type of soldier."

A type of soldier that could kill her.

Udina, all at once, says it plain, his palm against his mouth as his arm leaned on the table. "If you are the one who will save Humanity from the stars, then Chief Gul, or those like her, will be the ones to save Humanity from itself."

Shepard looked on at Anderson, face blank, the singular fact of Mai leaving her lips like a truth too heavy to say aloud: "But she's barely Human…."

She was a Spartan.

No one could contest that.

Anderson was a hypocrite, she realized. Everyone who had thought Mai necessary: a hypocrite that could be judged by powers far greater than her.

This man, who she had learned once called ire over Saren and his methods, putting the innocent at hazard for the sake of the mission, sees Mai differently.

Anderson had been to war, and he spoke of its nature: "You know it's natural to ourselves, Shepard. If Mankind is predisposed to war, we inevitably would find our ultimate warfighter. Mai has been found, and, if not her, one day she will be made. Cerberus regrettably has made that first step, but if Cerberus has made her, she can be made again now, and because of that, we have to build off what we learn from this mission. You, more than anyone, know what the more extreme cells of Cerberus are capable of.

They're willing to go to war against mankind for their idea of it.

Don't you understand that, Shepard? That we will go to war one day, whether we want to or not. We need Mai, and we need her to be and to exist because she will become the new standard one day, whether we like it or not."

Shepard had sat back in her chair as this belief was read to her, but there was no more processing she needed to have. She had her answer: it sounded like defeat.

"Can you trust someone who barely knows their own Humanity to defend it?"

"That's the only type of person who can protect Humanity." Echoed words, Udina quotes Anderson in regards to Shepard herself. It is a question he wants answered as well from Anderson.

The one he gives is the one that puts Shepard as an example: "People can change. You did, didn't you? From Earthborn wanderer punk kid, to pride of Humanity?"

People can change. This is one of her beliefs, one of her religions, and Anderson speaks her gospel back to her.

And yet… She doesn't believe it fully. There is doubt. She has seen otherwise now, on her ship.

People can change.

Can't they?

Today is, once again for Mai, a day of many firsts. The diner back in Buffalo was one thing, but a sit-down restaurant was another. It's like they never left Noveria as a well-suited man greets them at the front door of that wooded bamboo establishment, flame light held above, giving illumination to tables below. Human, at least.

"Reservation for three. Vakarian." Garrus leads both her and JD as JD slides off his jacket, only for it to be taken by one of the attendants. One such Turian, after the usual reckoning with her size, promptly reorients himself and awaits for Mai to take off her own. The jacket is JD's, really, and she feels wrong handing it off to the Turian for some reason, but JD and Garrus have handed off her own, so she emulates, the clothing disappearing off into a clothing rack. It's at least the same jackets they wore on Noveria, still recovered, still in use.

The closest thing Mai has for casual clothes is sweat pants and her flannel, unused since her time on Earth, but they're on now, and, for the immediate moment, they're no cloaked in the aura of military dicta.

In a moment of niceness, Loke, Hitman's point woman, spots the three of them leaving to go out on the Normandy, and before they do, she approaches Mai.

"You don't seem to have one." That is all she says as she deposits a button with a string loop attached to it. The button is a piano key white and smooth like it. It's JD alone that knows what it is before Loke leaves away to rejoin some of Hitman for their shore leave antics.

It's a proper hair tie, and Mai's ponytail, usually held by a rubber band, is now just a little bit more presentable.

"I've never let it get this long." She holds the bundle of her silk black hair almost disparagingly as they exit the Normandy. It's down to her shoulders now, and she's noticing the extra bit of padding that it brings when inside her helmet.

"Well… Try it out?" JD gestures to his beard, and for him and his suggestion, she lets it remain.

They've walked from the Normandy into Garrus's former ward, or at least, current ward of the Citadel, seeing as he was technically on leave from C-Sec. It was an urban ward, a city made on top of the Citadel's arms that had been in place with any cyberpunk dream: neon and people intermingling into a hazy image of an eternal night that kept on rolling with life. For JD, he felt right at home, looking up and seeing the stars how only he, a voidborne Human, could understand. The gravity had felt just right, and the air was filtered in just a way that, maybe, just maybe, if he had ever walked the streets of the Cirsium City as an adult, he imagined this was what it felt like.

For Mai, it was petrifying. Her only real experience with a density of people like this, shoulder to shoulder with human and alien alike, had been in battle or the weird original transitory experience that she had gone through with Buffalo and their original time on the Citadel. Doing it alone, unsupervised, off of their own volition, it had felt constricting, and she had struggled to breathe, even as her head stood taller than most of the current population. Lights, colors, sounds, all had bombarded her, and it had taken her more mental shield than she anticipated to keep a straight face as those she did not recognize came within inches of her. Through those mean streets, the three of them walked, and none the wiser did Garrus lead them through as JD followed, hands in pockets, only occasionally glancing back to make sure Mai had still been there.

"You live around here?" JD had asked before they got to the restaurant.

"Yeah. Few blocks that away. My apartment hasn't been broken in yet, so that's good. Unfortunately, all my plants are dead." Garrus was barely annoyed. "You know I didn't know I'd miss plants of all things after I spent some time here. Too much steel and glass can make even my eyes sore."

"I don't mind." JD shrugged, eyes looking up at a city that reached out to stars.

It had been a long time since he had been home: Since he had been there in those steel cities amongst the stars, with that too clean air and the knowledge that, for as small as the city was comparatively, he would never live long enough to see it all. He grew up in the city, and as the saying goes, the city never left him.

When they arrived at the restaurant, the same routine played out: People, trying their best to be coy (not that anyone was ever successful with Mai's senses) and take a look at Mai in all of her grand figure. She never would fit in a domestic setting, she realized; however, she would fit in next to JD always.

The waiter had taken them over to their reservation. The restaurant had two floors, the second floor allowing them a marginally removed seating, looking down upon the streets that passed by the restaurant and packed side to side with other establishments. The Keepers, the arachnid drones that had kept the Citadel going, hobbled on by, unbothered by the crowds around them.

JD had naturally pulled out a seat for Mai, settling into his own beside her as Garrus sat across.

"My treat. Remember." The Turian advised, already far too comfortable in a restaurant he had never been to, arm on the white cloth-covered table.

The novelty of having an actual, paper menu handed to them still survived as the waiter, after confirming their drinks, returned with them and the articles.

(Coffee. Black, if you could, thanks.)

(Kashkill Tea would be nice.)

(…Coffee.)

Outside their window, the Galaxy moves on, the urban streets of the Citadel flow past like waves. The everyday lives of the average citizen moved on, despite Saren, despite the Geth, despite the Quarians and the Covenant. Just for a moment, too, then, JD and Mai had dipped their toes back into a normal life.

Wordlessly, JD had looked on as the waiters did their dance. He knew them well: for he was once one. Not a particularly popular one, even as a teenager working at an Italian restaurant, it came with a problem of language. His ability to talk, to be casual, to talk like an ordinary man had been a skill honed a little later than most.

"This placed opened up about three years ago, or so?" Garrus picked out at the back of talons. "I never got the time to actually come here. C-Sec meant more grab and go boxes than sit down dinners."

JD had naturally nodded along, seeing the oddity of Parmesan cheese being grated onto a definitely alien meal that Salarian was enjoying. "Hopefully the garlic bread is good." He whispered aloud, glancing down at a menu that was quadruple typed. The miracle of near-instant translation hadn't carried over to print, and even on here, the alphabet of the Turians, Asari, Salarians, and Human English had shared space.

"Sometimes I wonder if galactic peace would be better if half the galaxy hadn't been divided by their biological stomachs." Garrus bellyached, finding garlic bread on the menu and seeing the notice: Not for dextro-aminos like him. This was a fusion restaurant in a literal and cultural sense. "They tell me that Human food culture is about three centuries ahead of Turian."

"Who tells you?" JD is incredulous on that claim. Not that he had any particular oversight on the issue. Culturally he grew up as some sort of urban American, with big Italian undercurrents courtesy of his grandparents. Most of it came down through food.

"Well, you know. People on the Extranet. Their all my friends." Garrus tries to force through, but it doesn't as JD cracks something of a smirk. "Come on, just trying to make small talk."

"I'm sorry to say Garrus, you've brought along for dinner the two worst talkers on the Normandy."

Mai sits there too rigid, too straight to be genuinely comfortable, eyes glancing at every movement within and without. It's not the most insane thing to them. Mai is a veteran, perhaps more veteran than anyone they've ever known bar Wrex, and what it means is that in the civilian world, nothing makes sense, and everything is dangerous. Mai's trauma is unique, and even Garrus can imagine what it means to be her when it comes to being outside of the military mold; however, the underlying knowledge of what war does to a person is as understood by him as it is by JD.

JD doesn't open his mouth as the two of them notice, Garrus looking away to try and imagine he didn't, but he closes it, instead moving his hand beneath the table to where she rests one of her own on her knee, and, in one stroke of his thumb, moves across her knuckles.

It's a message that she gets almost immediately, looking away, shoulders drooping, trying to calm herself down as JD's hand leaves her. Garrus and JD lock eyes, but they say nothing.

It is what it is, and they both know veterans of their own wars that are cursed with a half-stuck switch in their mind that refuses to return to normal.

"I worked in a restaurant like this, as a kid." Around 13 or so, he worked under the table at an Italian restaurant down the street from his home. It gave him pocket change, kept him out of trouble.

"Was it any good?"

"Hm? Oh I never ate there."

Garrus's elbow is up on the table as he leans in, clearly comfortable talking with JD. "Lucky you. It was straight to the military with me."

"Isn't that most Turians?"

Garrus nodded. "Yeah, but cultural expectations are a little different than familial. Can't imagine how my Dad is taking my leave of absence, going around the galaxy with Shepard."

Garrus's father was a C-Sec chief, JD remembered. Expectations indeed.

"Can you imagine yourself as anything else?" JD asked across.

"As long as it's bringing bad men to justice, I suppose I could be a bunch of things." Garrus scratches the back of his fringe. He says it simply, says it true, says it without a second thought, and for that, JD knows that Garrus does believe that of himself.

"It's a bit of a romantic view, don't you think?" JD prods, eyebrow raised.

"Eh. Maybe I've been talking to Shepard too much."

The drinks are delivered, and the mugs they are provided in are carved marble. Garrus's tea evokes a particular odor that smells more of grass than any herbal tea that JD has ever smelled, but, strangely enough, Mai likes the scent. The scent that she takes in is almost strong enough to beat back the automatic sip she takes of her own cup, and there is a surprise. The fact that it is searing hot is a feeling that she ignores as her face goes from stress to an innocent surprise and then: confusion.

"This is… better than your coffee." She looks down at JD, not sure why that was.

"…Oh." The face that befalls JD is embarrassment and disappointment in himself, realizing that maybe he had been feeding Mai lousy coffee for the entire time she was with him.

"Sorry." Mai had blurted out, seeing JD's reaction. She wasn't, but she felt like she needed to see his face drop like that.

"No, no, it's fine. It's not like I've got the right beans or grounds on the Normandy anyway." Scratching the back of his head as he takes his sip of a coffee that is, indeed, far better than the one he makes on the Normandy. However, he didn't drink coffee for the taste or even the caffeine. It's an idea of comfort, of familiarity. The cigarettes are for dealing with the life he's lived, but the coffee is the harkening back to a simpler time when his father and the department would slide him sips and cups when those who knew better than to let a child drink coffee weren't looking. It's not as if he was a particularly bouncy or energetic kid anyway.

What was important was the fact that he was drinking coffee. He remembered his father through the sensory of shitty coffee, and he liked it that way.

"Sometimes bad things are good." JD spurts out.

"What?" Mai is perplexed in a way that even Garrus can find endearing.

"I mean. Somethings can be bad, but good memories are attached to them, so they're good." JD had taken one more sip from his cup, really savoring that bitter flavor that had been beyond his skills to make. "This was the same type of coffee my father drank."

It took a village to raise a child, and, for JD, that village had been half-teachers, half-cops. Coffee, in some measure, had always been present for him.

Garrus had stared at the cup, seeing its steam and luxurious black swirl in JD's hand. "Dr. Michel sends her regards by the way." Garrus had said, thinking of the color, remembering that JD had been the one to save her. JD had nodded, glad to hear that she was still up. "She sent me some dextro-amino chocolate, and I had heard she mentioned that Humans often mix it into drinks like that. How is it?"

Too sweet for his blood, maybe, JD thought. "It's a treat. My Mom, she tried to get Dad to wane off coffee onto hot chocolate instead."

"Not a sweets type of guy?"

Grainweld II. Two years after he became an ODST. It had been a long campaign to maintain an agricultural planet whose grain production had been crucial to that sector of UNSC space. Somehow, he had gone hungry, as did the rest of his company, and upon scavenging a farmhouse, a single bar of chocolate was found. Split into six sections; he devoured his for sugar and sugar alone, the taste lost to him. It kept him alive for the next few days.

"I can appreciate chocolate." JD said, taking another sip of his bitter drink.

"Hm. And what about you, Mai?" Garrus shifted over to the Spartan, and she had been unprepared. So unlike her, Garrus had taken some pride in getting Mai off of her groove like that.

"I… I do not know." Sweet wasn't a particular flavor in her knowledge profile. She had them before, stuffed dry cookies from UNSC mess halls into her mouth before just because it was in front of her, but she hadn't savored the flavor.

When sweet came to mind, what comes to her is vodka and coke, shared with JD.

Garrus retakes a cursory glance at a menu left behind, desserts on the back. "They've got a selection if you're interested. You know, I'm honestly a little jealous of you Humans and your culinary culture. Desserts in particular. They all look so good; it's almost worth being stuck on the toilet for a few hours."

A word catches JD's eye as he looks at his menu: Tiramisu.

"We'll get this to share after?" He whispers over to Mai, pointing it out.

When Mai sees the same, she nods once. She trusts him.

When the waiter returns a comfortable amount of time later, Garrus and JD are in the middle of a discussion about Shepard's tics. It's nothing too concerning, just her sturdy ability to make her rounds on the ship regardless of what's happening.

"I like the Commander." Garrus says aloud, perhaps for the first time with the way he pauses and looks around as if trying to look at himself. "Yeah. I like Shepard. I don't know why I'm saying it, it's just, uh. I've never been with a commander like her."

That much JD could agree with. He had been through so many COs. Some had inspired, some had filled with dread worse than if it had just been the enemy that was trying to put him down. However, Shepard had been the first to make him believe in something better.

All she had to do was to ask him how he was doing.

"May I take your orders?"

Garrus had been the first to answer. "The Caladassian Cake Platter sounds nice. I figure I don't have any reason to watch my weight." Out of context, with no context, the waiter had no idea what Garrus had meant, but it was an order ordered as he drifted over to JD.

"Pappardelle bolognese and the zuppa di giorno per favore." Perhaps the translator was unprepared for JD to slip into another tongue, or maybe he hadn't been speaking another language altogether, but it came out in a voice that JD had never spoken before. The waiter had fully taken it in with a polite nod. "I'm out of practice." The flash of embarrassment on his face made his lighter olive-toned face redden.

"And for the madam?"

Mai had never been referred to like that, so she hadn't responded as the thin waiter looked at her expectantly.

"Mai..?" JD had tried to bring her out of her silence, she was caught off guard.

She had read the menu like a battle map, memorizing it, laminating it into her memory, and yet when push came to shove, with every word memorized on it, she could not bring herself to say what she wanted.

So she fell back on memory.

"Spaghetti!" She blurts out, a little loud, "Spaghetti." The reaffirmation comes, as if saying it softer would negate the first. It doesn't, but it helps her. In a place like that, there was no such thing as simple spaghetti, and as much as JD would've loved to help her, the course was run, the truth revealed: she had no idea what she was talking about.

As any good waiter did, he knew better what she wanted.

"Spaghetti it is then." He said, nodding, walking off.

She wasn't getting spaghetti.

Something close, though.

Flux was a casino nearest to the C-Sec Academy, which, altogether, meant it was relatively safe, even though it was right next to Chora's Den. Being that close to where they originally meant didn't exactly bristle Tali the right way, but then again, all that went away the moment she had used her emergency induction port in a non-emergency way.

Where Wrex had gone off too for his shore leave had been the curiosity of Hitman, and he did not disappoint as he reveled in perhaps his first good-natured bout with the crew, spending hundreds of thousands of credits on number games and slots, on the floor of a glitzy and pumping casino.

"I love this!" The Quarian shouted as she rode the shoulders of Harris.

The same way a twenty-strong contingent of Marines all in one place on a battlefield was never healthy for the environment, the same was true off the field, in the casino.

Soldiers on shore leave are always the same in every culture, and the floor staff of Flux take it in stride as Alliance stipends and Shepard's allowances are spent for the sake of drink and celebration of being alive that night.

Emerson had been, as was still the de facto leader of Hitman when Kaiden or Shepard wasn't concerned, was the only one coherent in any responsible manner. His rum and coke were about as dark as his skin color in the light of the Citadel, sitting by the door and relaxing by his table away from the slots and the mass of people looking on and seeing what a Recon Marine regiment did on their free time from trying to save the galaxy. He hadn't been alone, however: two women had been sharing the table with him:

Corporal Annel and Chief Williams.

"So it wasn't like that with Commander Ryder?" Ashley has been asking about their former posting beneath the famous, infamous Alec Ryder.

Annel nodded her head once as she sucked up her drink from a straw, face as flushed as her red hair. One eye of hers, the eye she used to aim down her sniper scope, was now underneath the influence, permanently stuck in a squint. "Yeah yeah. He ran it like we're supposed to be used to: straight as space. Ain't none of this gushy person-to-person shit."

Ashley defended, arms crossed, leaned back in her chair. Who else would she be comparing Ryder to than his brightest pupil and their current command? "I think the armchair therapist she plays is pretty good, all things considered. I mean, she's like that with the entire crew."

"Why you still need that shit?" Annel poked. Eden Prime had felt so long ago. "Ain't we all adults. Perfectly sane and mentally stable adults?"

Emerson laughs at that insinuation, as does Ashley. There's nothing sane about the lives they live. "If any of us were mentally well," he starts again with a sip. "We wouldn't be Force Recon."

Ashley regards her drink in her hand, the cool surface of the glass against her worn fingers. If her family could see her now and the mission she was on, she wondered what they would be thinking about this unconventional deployment.

She had aired her misgivings about all the aliens on the Normandy to Shepard privately, as had about half the crew to her in the course of them taking on Tali, Garrus, Wrex, and then subsequently Liara. As Shepard had been known to do, she had soothed them all.

She was a good Marine, and she knew how high to jump: however high Shepard told her to do. She knew when to think otherwise with their VIPs.

With all that behind them, however, what left the Marines with the Normandy had been a mission that had made them comrades and friends with a Turian, an Asari, a Krogan, and, as very readily apparent by the upraised Tali screaming delights in the uproar of celebration, a Quarian.

"I feel like Shepard changes us in a way I'm not really used to." Ashley spoke aloud, almost as if forced.

Emerson and Annel had looked over oddly at Ashley. She had been a fine impromptu addition to Hitman, regardless of the blood that ran through her veins. Naturally, there had been some scorn for her that she was a Williams, but combat had a way of crushing those arbitrary prejudices. "Really now?" Emerson raised his eyebrow. "How do you figure?"

Her glass went back onto the table, the sound it made harsh to her ears but true. "It's just a thing about being in the military I guess. We play our roles, we be who we need to be. Hell, my father, my grandfather, and my grandmother, they were all military before me, so it makes sense that I ended up like this. But what Shepard is doing to us? We're not supposed to be like… this. I don't think."

Emerson sniffed at that, glancing at Annel, she too returning that look with her sniper-trained eyes. "And what is that this, Williams?"

She wasn't sure, not enough to answer, that is; however it wasn't something lost between Emerson and Annel.

"I'd die for the Commander." Annel announces too casually. "Of all the reasons to die, for her it feels like a good enough reason."

"Got a death wish Annel?" Emerson had asked his sniper.

She shook her head. "No, but something like death feels like something that empowers the Commander to save more."

"Hm. Interesting thought. I'd very much like to stay alive." Emerson doesn't quite believe Annel, but she does earnestly as she takes a sip of her drink, peering over the lip of the glass at Ashley as she stares on at her. In each other's eyes, they see that this that was alluded to, floating over the air that has marked them as being Shepard's.

Elsewhere, Tali had been living her life to the fullest amidst the casinos and cards of Flux, and her laughter had filled the establishment.

It's a good meal, the best they've had in months, and maybe even years.

Mai's "spaghetti" is pasta aglio, olio e pepperoncino. Noodles, with pepperoncini and garlic, bread crumbs, and some parmesan. A lot of parmesan (Tell me when, the waiter says as their plates and bowls are brought out, grating the cheese over Mai's bowl. She doesn't know what he means, and by the time she does, there is an uncomfortable amount of powdery cheese on her noodles. She doesn't mind.)

As JD breaks bread, spreading on the table, he is the most comfortable with this form of eating, family-style, he asks her as she takes her first bite. It's a silent, quiet question, earnest, he looking up at her, eager to hear what she thinks.

"I like it." She says as the pepper flakes heat against her tongue against the cream and salt flavor of the cheese, the substance of the noodle being chewed by her, just a fork portion so far, pleasant. She thinks she likes cheese. "I do."

A curve of a smile is on JD's lips as he forgets, for a moment, Garrus cannot eat the bread he has given him.

"I can try…?" He holds up the torn piece up to his mouth. Whereas the two Humans see simply a piece of bread, Garrus sees an unknowable something, an unknowable reaction. JD is about to grimace, and his better devils agree that it probably isn't the best idea.

For Mai, eating has always been a process meant to get sustenance into her, not a social function. Even on the Normandy with JD. But here, she at least knows it isn't, so her urge to simply use her delivered fork and shovel it all in her mouth is beaten back as JD lazily dips some of his bread into the soup of the day. It's a thicker tomato concoction, one that is savory enough for him to enjoy before his pasta. Garrus's meal is akin to a meat cake, albeit more visually appealing than the concept would lead people to believe. It's very segmented, almost looking as if unprocessed. But Garrus, however, his body is meant to process it, his mouth especially a bit stronger than those he shares the table with.

It's a quiet meal, one that is filled with the small talk conversation of JD and Garrus trying to see if there are any shared tastes between the two of them as a Human and Turian; whether or not "peppery" held the exact definition between their two races.

"My Mom used to do this thing." He refers to bread that he has broken in two and opened up. "She'd take a piece of garlic and rub it on the bread before peppering it. I love garlic."

Right now, all he has is butter and his soup, but it's enough for him to sate ancient tastes to him.

The garnishing, the green flecks of leaf, becomes Mai's obsession. The way they floated over the red surface of JD's soup and even how it intermingled with her noodles. She had tried to taste for them in her timid bites, but no real distinguishable taste came out. They only were there in a complementary fashion to the taste of her "spaghetti".

"What is this, JD?" She says minutes, long after she last spoke. Her fork pokes at a smattering of green flecks amidst the snow of parmesan.

"Parsley."

"Parsley?" She tries the word on her tongue, and, momentarily, JD lays his utensils down as his fingers and hands go into the subconscious motions. There's no specific sign for the herb, but it's a fingerspell for him as Garrus is captivated by the formations of his hand.

"Yeah. My mother, she grew some in our kitchen." It was a comment that JD didn't think would cause her to stir, standing up from her dinner and following a waiter in the way she ghosts people. It's not the most normal thing to see: this six and nearly half-foot woman follow their waiter without him knowing, all the way into the back of the restaurant.

"Is she…?" Garrus asks, not knowing any better.

The look on JD's face is a slight concern, but he trusts her that whenever she does go lone wolf, it's probably for the best. "Probably looking for the bathroom."

"Hm. Right."

She wasn't looking for the bathroom.

It's the same story, time and time again with Mai. No one could say no to her, and no one could say no to her presence in the kitchen that barely fits her as, finally when her waiter turns around, he is shocked to the point of yelping. The kitchen staff, far too busy to argue or stop her from standing amidst them all, only goes on as that formality of the waiter is dropped and then is shakily put back on.

"Madam…?"

All that Garrus and JD can do is eat on, enjoying themselves, but for Garrus, the cop that he is, he has his question, and finally is brought to ask: "I do have to press, JD, I know you're a taken man, but you and Mai… Naturally there's a question there."

JD stares at his food as he speaks back quietly. "And what question is that?"

"Whether or not there's something more there beyond being battle buddies. And really, I think that's a non-starter anyway. There is already that something more, isn't there?"

JD knows what it's like to love and to be loved. He knows the spectrum from brotherly love to the love of one's comrade, to the love he feels romantically, and to the love he feels for himself if he was so inclined to ever think of himself in that manner. He knows and understands that idea and is very comfortable with the word.

But the words, when meshed with Mai's name,

I love Mai.

It doesn't fit in for him.

Not that he had tried and denied, not that Mai wasn't important to him, but…

It was a cruel question to consider: Did he feel something more for Mai?

Any answer he had, he had long realized, would forever be superseded by the fact that she had been a Spartan.

He was not worthy, and she did not know.

"I care for her, sure. It's not really something I think too hard about." In particular, it's nothing against Mai, but that compartmentalization comes with just being a soldier in a high attrition war. Never get too attached, and if you do, don't think about it too much. Loss is never easier. Harder is when it takes a piece of other people with them.

"Why not?"

He wishes he could tell Garrus about the war. It's a different way than how he would want to tell Shepard about the world he came from. He wants to tell Garrus because he deserves that much of him, at least, but nothing can ever be said, and for that, Garrus will never truly understand a man that he is trying to be friends with.

"Because I just don't want to think about it." JD's fork dances across the ceramic, tracing a crumb across its white surface. "There's no time for it, and, really, it's not for me to think about."

He loved Dawn. That much he knew. He was a shock trooper, and trifling with love mes and love me nots just wasn't something he could afford. Dawn didn't think so either. It was one of the consequences of older age, he supposed, but in the end, loving Dawn was very easy. In reality, he only spent five leaves on Cascade, and thus, only five weeks about with Dawn, with communication during deployments minimal. However, those five weeks were always the most normal, the most regular life he had lived as an adult. He wore no uniform; he was simply a man with his woman, walking the streets of Cascade as if there was no war to worry about.

He always wondered what Dawn saw in him.

He also now wonders what would become of her.

A new thought, too: He wonders what she would think of Mai.

He knows what he does think of Mai, and all those words imbue her with all the power and respect that he can give to a person. He worshipped her in a way, as all the UNSC did. She is more than Human, yet JD knows that she must return to it. Was it his responsibility after all this time? He could not claim, but he had to work toward.

He wanted her to be Human.

"So you don't mind if I ask Mai her hand in a relationship?"

"What?!" It was the loudest JD had ever yelped with his voice outside of combat, the restaurant in their vicinity all looking at him as he had been halfway in a jump, his legs hitting the bottom of the table as Garrus imprinted onto JD's memory what a Turian shit-eating grin looked like.

"Settle down there, JD. I wasn't serious." He wanted to see his reaction. Garrus had long pegged JD as a man of action, not words, so as he sat down embarrassed as the restaurant returned to its usual, he figured that out as well. "She's special to you though, regardless, isn't she?"

"Of course she is." JD holds his chin in his hands, hand wiping against his mouth as he gets some spittle from the yelp off. "If you're asking if I-" If you're asking if I love her. "If you're asking if I like her like that, I really don't have an answer."

"Come on, JD, regardless if you have an answer or not, you have a feeling, don't you?'

To admit that he was a man that felt, it was a basic assumption, but he had been to war for too long to remember if he was allowed to feel strongly, naturally. "I don't know if she can be special to me. Can we leave it at that?" There's some sick, friendly enjoyment that Garrus gets with the masculine tradition of sticking their companion with questions of romance, but he knows that it's usually not worth it with JD to push him too far over the line. He, after all, hadn't done the favor to him. So he nods, and JD is thankful in his eyes. "What's got you asking these types of things anyway?"

"Tali, actually. She's young enough that she keeps falling into crushes and she's not that good at hiding it." He leans back in his chair.

"Young enough? We're barely two-three years older than her." JD points out.

"You've got the charm of a forty year old." JD forces out a laugh at that. Garrus is not wrong. For an ODST, he is older. "In any case, I think she has a crush on you. And me? I think? I don't know." He shrugs. "I'm sure you can think of a reason why she would be enamored by a strong man who wears a helmet as you do. For me, it must be my impeccably handsome form and boyish sardonic personality."

This was something his father did: the way JD dipped his finger into his soup only to flick it at Garrus's head. The red dot that ends up between his eyes cuts the Turian down before any more of that comes out of his mouth.

"Hey!"

Mercifully, JD moves them both to different conversations:

"So how're apartment leases on this side of the Citadel?"

"Whereabouts?" Garrus wipes off the tomato soup between his eyes.

"Your building? Around here, I mean."

"We could be roommates if you're so inclined. But let me tell you, I'm terrible at doing laundry." It's not a terrible thought, thinking of Garrus as a roommate.

"Well I don't have any clothes, actually." JD is quick to remind himself that all his earthly possessions currently could fit in a rucksack. In the after for this mission against Saren, there is another daunting task before him:

He has to build a new life.

Not that he had much of one before, but now, he was at liberty and, perhaps, required to if he was going to live out this new chance.

"No family back on Earth? Relatives? Friends?"

No. None. He shakes his head. Mai is all he has.

Mai does her visual scan and sweep of the kitchen as the waiter is frozen, having just collected a sent-back dish. Her smell is overwhelmed by constructed and masterfully done scents that make her mouth water. She's not sure when she learned the word "zest," but that's the word that comes to mind as white-uniformed chefs keep doing their routines. It's a movement she appreciates: trained and with purpose, and here she is, standing in the middle of it, completely unphased. To her, a stocked kitchen is as foreign to her as Covenant installations, and perhaps even more so: shiny pots and pans with implements and appliances that she couldn't figure out at a glance. What was important, however, was-

"Do you grow parsley here?" She asks down at the waiter. He's shorter than JD, less built; black hair shined into a sheen that glows.

He nods.

"Yes, mademoiselle We- we grow many of our vegetables for use as ingredients here."

She is satisfied with that answer. "Show me."

"I'm sorry you can't…." Mai looks down at him with her vision, and the butler, unfortunate for him, faces down a gaze that only dead Insurrectionists see. The tragedy is that he survives as he relents and nods to himself. This was no upset customer. This was a demand he had to abide by.

In the back of the kitchen, towards a marked pantry, had been a surprising room that was opened.

Insurrectionists, often cut off from traditional supply lines, were known to be self-sufficient that even she could've appreciated in her deep insertion ops. Finding a small greenhouse nestled into the Citadel, entirely for this restaurant, was surprising. It was about a quarter of the size of the Normandy's well deck, but the perspiration, the mist, the cascade of green coming off of shelves and shelves of potted plants and bins. It wasn't an organized affair, but it was pleasing to look at for Mai as the waiter brought her in. In multiple languages, plants were tagged, most of the green and leafy, the shapes and branches touching up against each other in the cramped spaces, accentuating those blue and fluorescent varieties. In the very back of the room, however, typing away at a maintenance console, was a four-legged, bulbous Keeper, typing away in the mist.

"Are… Are you a health inspector?" The waiter had asked quietly, clutching a plate of steak that was meant to be dropped off still. Mai does not answer that, but she reveals herself in short order, satisfied with where she is. "I assure you that these plants are all on the level. The Keepers don't seem to have an adverse reaction to the as- as you can see."

"I am… interested in growing plants." She says slowly before an addendum is added: "At home."

What home?

The slow realization washes over the waiter that Mai isn't exactly there to find something rotten about that restaurant or test them. She is something that he can get out of if they answer correctly. "I see. Do you need recommendations?"

"That would be… appreciated." Her voice shakes just the slightest, the mister above seeming to repel off her body from above.

"For ornamental use or consumption?"

"…Both." She answers, unsure.

"Oh. I see. Well, we personally here get good usage out of our basil plants. This is a strain that we've imported back from Cascadia on Earth…." The waiter goes on, talking about their yield, what types of plants they have available, and how hard it was to import them and make a self-sufficient greenhouse there in that metal box, however as she takes in the words of this man as if they were a mission briefing, none of the words she takes into memory have meaning to her.

All of this is stored away for study for later, but she realizes as the waiter touches a long flurry of mint, to what ends?

It wasn't like she could carry around a bag that could support any sort of healthy garden, nor would that be allowed anyway in her capacity as it was now. Maybe if she ended up in command, having a cabin of her own on a ship, but even then, she was never an officer. She was a soldier, meant to be out there fighting.

Maybe, if it came down to it, if JD left the service, she could leave her plants with him, wherever he ended up.

At home.

But where JD would go, would that be her home?

A burning thought that blanks out her vision, her mind, a white shade of peace in her forethought, cuts through her.

If she ever had a home, JD would be a part of it.

"Mademoiselle, are you okay?" The waiter looks up at her as Mai's eyes gaze out to a somewhere else, but as she returns, she locks eyes with the man, and he feels the effects of being stared down by a titan.

"Yes. I am." She says aloud, but not with the heft of the truth. "What were you saying?"

In all but name, there are places in the Citadel that are segregated. Certain sections of wards are cordoned by their own residents as little slices of homeworlds and cultures; safe havens for new residents of that massive space construction to come and find a familiar place among familiar faces. Little Illium, Palaven Ward, Surkeshtown, Humanville, names of that type, representing their populations. It's why Liara finds herself among blue, while blue, drowning herself in blue at a bar. That ward was a known Asari place, filled with nothing but Asari who were homesick for their high society. Liara is homesick, but down to the micro, not the macro. She is homesick for the T'Soni estate, for a life without conflict, for a life where she was still dusting away at Prothean ruins, and for a life where he mother is alive. Even if she did not know what she was doing, she wished for a life where her mother was, at least, there.

Through the lens of a drink, and the bottom of a glass, she sees this world, so she pours into it.

"Matriarch Benezia was a controversial figure in her late years, and, as alleged by the Citadel Council, criminally related to the rogue Spectre Saren Arterius. As we do not know the details of her demise, we can only speculate that her end came in this whirlwind caused by the callous new Human Spectre, Commander Shepard. It is the editorial comment of this reporter that Matriarch Benezia, in her service to the Asari people and the galaxy at large, what she did was done, most likely, for the good of all of us. Tonight, we pay respect to one of our greatest matriarchs."

In her dreams, she sees a wolf metal demon stalk in shadows, phasing in and out of existence, its claws pawing at her neck as she tries to draw a bead on it. She never does before the beast comes for her and holds her neck, squeezing the life out of her as she feels her neck break. It is usually this moment before her spine is severed when she wakes up breathless.

In the waking world, she sees Mai and realizes how and why some of her kind do not see her as Human.

So, Liara spends as much time as she can away from them all. She finds herself among those who look like her, and some recognize her back as the daughter of Benezia. From all the Humans, from Mai.

There was a bartender there that had been rather attentive to Liara, for Goddess knows how long she had been in there. Liara never asked her name, but it had been right there on her nametag: Aethyta. A lower, huskier voice. Annoyed in its tone but willing to use it to tell her when a new drink was arriving or to check if she was alive, head down on the bar's counter.

"She certainly was something, wasn't she?" Aethyta muttered as she wiped the counter of Liara's sleepy drool. She had been going in and out of consciousness for days in between blowing back drinks. She wasn't quite sure if she could afford it, but every few hours, an Asari would come in and recognize Liara as who she was and, either out of pity or empathy, left a few credits to cover for whatever she had been putting down.

Liara didn't articulate words to respond, only a groan, looking up at the monitor sideways as her hand grasped a glass that was half spilling its contents beneath her. The only solace to that for Aethyta was a grate directly beneath her stool.

The first time Liara had seen her mother cut loose at all was at a diplomatic diner. Much wine was provided, and instead of her matriarchal superiority, lording it over the diplomats from Palaven, she traded out her haughty wisdom with frank and amused laughter at coy jokes and gossip that came from embassies throughout the sector.

Open casket, laid in state, her face is stone as she lays on Thessian ground, her body before the statue of Athame, her holiness gracing the dead. The wide sweeping camera fame of a funeral that would go on for weeks is burned into Liara's mind, even as she tries to burn away the thought on her tongue.

Her mother was dead, aid to a galactic genocide, helping Saren for reasons that she hardly can process, no less explain plainly. The extent of her aid is yet to be deciphered, but if all that it was at the very least was conference and overseeing of what had been happening on Noveria, it would've been enough.

Her mother was dead, and maybe she deserved to die.

But why didn't she get a second chance? A second chance that Shepard was giving Chief Gul for all that she had done.

It didn't have to be like this, and that is the only answer Liara has to anything as she lets the cloudy haze of alcohol take her away from the world.

The next time she's aware, she's been moved to a booth in the corner of the bar, unbothered, a procession of used up glasses filling out the table as the only companion she has. She feels like she's floating again, stuck on Therum in the grasp of a Prothean security system.

Once again, the same person comes to free her.

"Liara?" Her voice is so soft but cutting completely clear in her mind as Liara finds herself in a slouch, dry drool along the corner of her mouth with her eye half-open. She tries to rectify all of those details immediately; however nothing is covered up: this was how she spent leave:

"SH- Shepard?" She says, barely a whisper.

Shepard appears before her from the dark, moody lighting of the bar, her hoodie in black, the only color that of her red hair, and the red of the N7 mark over her chest on it. Behind her: the men and women in black form into one blob of a walking crowd: Hitman.

Her green eyes are open, and they take her in. With genuine concern, she looks back, and two figures from that mass of black. Doc, and JD. Carefully, they move out the table, glasses clinking uneasily, but it gives them space to sit next to Liara and check her vitals.

JD, his hands come to cup her head, moving it carefully so that he can look into her eyes. The way his nose scrunches reveals that she isn't at her best.

Doc knows what this is as JD reports. It's a rather obvious ailment that, here, all Doc can do is grab a stray napkin, dip it in water, and dab away at her balmy skin.

"Is she alright, Shepard?" The modulated voice of Tali asks from the crowd as she makes her way next to Shepard, hands pocketed in her hood. Shepard shakes her head, and Tali moves to Liara; Shepard's hand quickly holds her forearm. JD and Doc have her well in hand.

"Shepard… I'm sorry. I lost track of time." Liara is quickly coming to as the coolness of Doc patting her down with a wet napkin works enough to return her to sanity. JD is sniffing at glasses, trying to find one that is water, but he fails. All that he can do is get ready to haul her to her feet. When Doc has done all he can, he does motion for it, and Liara understands what will happen.

When she gets to her feet, her arms braced and held by the two men on either side of her, the pain of blood rushing into her skull nearly collapses her. Had it not been for the two soldiers, she would've gone back down.

Wrex and Garrus, over by the bar, sizing up any who get too nosy, slip some credits over to Aethyta.

"Tell me," Wrex asks her. "Does she strike as a little Krogan?"

Aethyta smirks at Wrex as she continues her eternal circle of wiping down her counter in that bar, knowing what she does. "She definitely has the stomach as one."

"Hah!"

Garrus isn't as enthused as the conversation is happening, but he distracts himself with that same state funeral on TV, seeing the woman they killed that he had seen in the flesh and in death just two weeks ago. The old term, mass effect, chimes in his mind, and he knows that perhaps this is the first time he has evoked that Asari saying so blatantly.

Liara can do nothing but stand, held by the two soldiers as she finds the gift of language again:

"Commander, please forgive me. I did not intend to miss the schedule." The Normandy was to embark soon, was it not? She probably missed check-in.

More than that, however, Shepard shakes her head. It's not that Liara is late or has caused the Normandy to be particularly late. With Tali and Garrus's help, tracking her down had only put off dust-off by another two hours. What more concerns Shepard is how long Liara had been like this by all indications. She finally steps through, motioning JD and Doc to bring her closer. Shepard's hands reach out and touch upon both of Liara's shoulders, and she looks at her with a gaze that understands pain.

"Liara… It's been four days." Shepard holds her shoulders, wiping her mouth down with her sleeve. "We should go."

Had it been four days? Time flies by Liara's mind. It had gotten away from her in much the same way she would often lose time out on dig sites, but instead of something productive like that, it's this: wallowing in sadness.

"I'm..l…." Shepard reaches down, taking Liara's arm softly, looking into her eyes. "Yes."

Shepard only cracks something of a placated smile, warming her, but it would never be enough as Hitman, realizing it was time to go, slowly makes their way out.

Doc is quick to whisper in Liara's ear. "Dr. T'Soni, if you are so inclined I have a remedy for hangovers once we get back to the Normandy."

"Yes, yes." She says blankly as the air of the Citadel burns her skin and her senses. "That would be nice."

Hitman looks upon her with great sorrow and loss. Pity is on all of their eyes as they see their own leave experiences contrasted with her: Their drinking and partying had been for themselves and pleasure. For Liara, the drink was to deal with the life that they had been living.

As her senses settle by the grace of Shepard, she finds, from behind Hitman, the figure of her nightmares:

Mai, her hair tied in a ponytail, looks down on all of them, electric blue eyes for someone more monster than man. She looks down on her, and Liara thinks that, maybe, this is what her mother saw before she died. It's too much for her, and the next time she is awake and stable, JD is there in the Medbay by her side.

"You passed out, right there in our arms, muttering something about monsters." He tells her as he wires an IV tube into her vein, a good helping of water bottles by her bedside as Chakwas is getting ready for an expected dress down of getting drunk in the corner. "Are you okay, Liara?"

Every coin has two sides. Her mother had two sides. The distant maternal figure that she was with her, and then the cutthroat matriarch persona that gave her a following.

JD is a side of a coin himself, with the other being the wolf that stalks beneath them in the Normandy.

"I don't know." The tears at the corner of her eyes start to roll down to the cot below. "I don't know."

When they return, when the Normandy gets underway back into the galaxy for their mission, Shepard's eyes linger upon the galactic fleet forming by the Citadel as she stands at the head of her ship.

War brews in the belly of the beast, and all it needs is a spark, a justification.

A thought pierces through her mind as if a bullet through her skull: Was she that spark?

Omake:

A special video feature that accompanies an anime, such as a collection of deleted scenes or outtakes.

Example: "In this omake, the characters are breaking the fourth wall to talk to the audience."

Omake Four:

Tiramisu for You (Or: Tiramisu with You)

It's Garrus's turn to go "find" the bathroom. When Mai returned from her impromptu info session on the benefits of grown herbs and plants and a path to do it for her own, the desert was already given.

"You okay?" JD only assumes that she had stomach problems for having been gone for so long.

She answers with a nod, finding herself back next to JD with a cute cube of cake and cream, dusted with a brown confection.

"Tiramisu?" She recalls the word, and JD nods back. He's waited for her to dig in, his fork taking a corner out finally. But he doesn't take a bite himself, even as it goes up halfway. Instead, he has a dastardly idea as Mai looks at him almost eat it attentively.

Instead, he moves the fork toward her, balancing the cake on the utensil as he reaches up the extra distance toward her face. Only later does JD think about the complete trust she must have in him with how fast she opened her mouth and let him feed her the piece of her desert. When she bites down, he swears that she takes a part of the fork with her, but it comes out from between her lips as she chews.

For as fast as her sensations and senses are, the slow, rolling thunder of creamy, smoky, sweet, and coffee-like taste that comes from her tongue and invades her-

She moans.

It's ungracious, and, as a red-blooded male, JD both regrets and congratulates himself for making Mai make that sound. It's louder than any sound of tasteful delight should be and definitely a sound JD could not precognate out of her alone. But it's there now, in his memory, as Mai chews through the cake and swallows, her eyes and mouth in a foreign agreement of pleasure and delight.

When JD takes another piece of the cake for himself, he only, barely, catches Mai opening her mouth ready again before closing it in a clack, realizing that it is a piece meant for him.

The sensation of a delightful cake that she adores and can't wait for another is almost squashed with the realization that JD has, with the same fork that was in her mouth, is now in his as he takes his bite.

An odd thought, one that picks at her with a content feeling, but she forgets it as her turn has come again for her piece, and her broad shoulders droop, letting her go just a little bit closer to JD, her seat shifting so that she is facing him entirely.

She hadn't even realized she moaned the first time, but no such sound comes out of her this time as she takes her bite.

"Tiramisu?" She says again, with pieces of cake on the surface of her teeth which JD follows. He may not have Spartan Time, but he is a soldier who knows what it's like for time to slow in times of great sensory overload, so he tracks those dark pieces of crumb across the whites of her two front teeth as she says that holy word.

The cake looks delicious more in her mouth than it does on the fork and even him eating it.

The cake looks delicious because it's in her mouth and he wants to take-

Across from them, Garrus has returned, wiping his hands on his pants; that shit-eating grin returned as the sound of his chair moving shocks them both from this moment.

Mai, conscious now of a pressure she hasn't felt before on her cheeks, turns back to sit straight in her seat, picking up her fork and, as if she was doing it the entire time, eating from the tiramisu on her own.

Garrus had been told to drop it, and he did, but perhaps, the Turian thought with a mind primed and sharpened by criminal work, maybe JD needed to heed his own words.