Kasumi was seated on one of the beds in the Normandy's medical bay. Dr. Chakwas had assured her that there was nothing physically wrong with her. How she was doing emotionally was another story. Shepard and Ashley were seated in chairs across from her. It was tough for them to see their friend like this. Whatever happened to Kasumi before Balak took her hostage had spooked her to the point that she couldn't talk without a stutter. Hopefully now that things had finally quieted down they could get some answers from her. But first they had to answer Kasumi's question.

"How am…how am I sti…still alive?" she asked. "Balak sh…shot me in th…the head."

"No Kasumi he didn't," Shepard replied, "it only looked like he did. I managed to remotely sabotage Balak's gun so that the thermal clip would overheat and explode. Balak and his men being shocked by the unexpected explosion gave Ashley and me the time we needed to take them down before they could hurt you. I learned the trick from an acquaintance of mine named Jenna. She used the same trick to save Conrad Verner's life when he tried to shield me from a Cerberus operative's bullet."

"What abou…what about Pazness? Is he…o…okay?"

"He's fine. He was in his office when the bomb went off and got into the panic room immediately afterwards. Balak and his men seemed to have no idea the panic rooms existed so they couldn't find him. If it hadn't been for that we might not have been able to stop the assassination."

"The batarians are saying that the power should be back on soon," said Ashley, "also the batarian councilor says that the splinter faction has completely disbanded following Balak's death. Without their leader they don't have the unity they once had to keep the group together. We stopped a coup and brought down a terrorist organization. All in all we couldn't have asked for a better outcome to this mission."

"Indeed but let's not talk about the mission anymore. Ashley and I are more worried about you Kasumi. What happened to you down there?"

Kasumi got up from her bed and walked over to look out the window into the mess hall. A tear fell down her face as the memory of what she saw passed through her mind. She took a deep breath to try and calm down. At the very least she wanted to be able to talk without stuttering. It was going to be a long explanation if she couldn't. Finally she turned back to Shepard and Ashley and explained everything that happened: Keiji appearing again, how his face became red with anger, how he walked closer and closer to her while angrily chanting her name and how she fired her gun at him just before Balak took her hostage.

"Kasumi," Ashley said when Kasumi finished, "that's awful. I can't imagine how terrifying that must have been for you to see."

Ashley then got out of her chair and gave Kasumi a hug. Shepard just sat in his chair thinking. He knew that the only way to stop Kasumi from completely losing her mind was to destroy the graybox but he couldn't force her to do it. That could easily do more damage. However, doing nothing was going to guarantee that Kasumi would never get better.

"Where is the graybox Kasumi?" he asked.

Kasumi broke away from Ashley's hug and looked at Shepard.

"Why?"

"You know why."

More tears started to fall from Kasumi's eyes. She took some steps away from Shepard and Ashley. She wanted to make a break for the door and get away from this conversation. But then she stopped. Something was keeping her from going any further. Was Shepard right about Keiji's graybox? Even though she was thinking it, the words she spoke didn't show it.

"No. No you can't destroy the graybox. I need it. Without it there will be nothing left of him. I won't let him go. I won't."

"I'm not asking you to let him go," Shepard said as he rose up from his chair, "but that graybox is going to destroy you if you keep using it like this. Twice now you were nearly killed because you started seeing Keiji and each time you were left in shock for quite some time afterwards. This can't go on."

"But…"

"You will always have your memories of Keiji. You might not be able to have them visualized but they are still there. He will always be with you. Besides you just told us that you were seeing Keiji with a red face and he was sounding angry at you. Does that really sound like the Keiji you knew?"

"…No."

"Is it really worth keeping that graybox when it's causing you to see Keiji like that?"

Kasumi turned away from Shepard and Ashley and started thinking. She kept the graybox so that she can see Keiji whenever she wanted to. Having the chance to actually visualize all their times together helped her cope with his death. But now instead of helping her remember Keiji as he was, the graybox was causing her to see him in ways that she never had nor wanted to see. The image of Keiji filled with anger was now something she could never un-see and one she could have avoided if she never had used the graybox. There was no other choice. If she wanted to keep her memories of Keiji as they were, she needed the graybox to be destroyed.

"It's by my bed in the crew quarters," she said with a sob, "could you…would you destroy it for me? I don't want to see it ever again."

"Of course," Shepard said, "wait here. Ashley, would you come with me please?"

Ashley became confused. Destroying a graybox didn't require two people and she figured it would be better for her to wait with Kasumi. Why would Shepard ask for her to come with him? She gave Kasumi one more hug before following Shepard out.

"When we get back we can talk more about the wedding," she said to Kasumi.

A small smile appeared on Kasumi's face, "does this mean I'm still invited?"

"Of course, any member of the Normandy crew, past or present, is practically family. We would love to have you come."

"Well then you can put me down as attending."

Shepard rolled his eyes. He realized that after he was done destroying the graybox he was going to be stuck in another wedding conversation. The day he married Ashley would not only be one of the best days of his life but it would also be the day where he can breathe a sigh of relief knowing that he would never have to talk about the preparations ever again. But the wedding talk was not his main concern right now. He needed to talk to Ashley about what had been bothering him since they first entered the presidential palace. After the two of them were out of earshot of Kasumi, Ashley spoke first.

"Forgive me if I'm a bit confused as to why you wanted me to come with you to destroy the graybox," she said.

"I figured it would give us a chance to talk about the mission," Shepard replied.

"Yeah I was wondering how the debriefing with Hackett went."

"He was happy to hear that we saved Pazness and that Balak is no longer a threat. The batarian councilor asked Hackett to pass along his thanks for our assistance. But Hackett was not happy when I told him that there was more to Balak's attack than we thought."

"I don't understand. How could there be more? Balak was a terrorist who wanted to blackmail the government to withdraw from the Council and let him become the Supreme Leader. It sounds like a simple motive to me."

"It's not the motive that I think there is more to. It's how Balak was able to launch the attack. When we first came across the terrorists I had warning bells in my head going off when I saw their outfits. It wasn't until the mission was over that I realized why. Their uniforms were nothing more than rags. They were similar to stuff that I saw the refugees wearing during the war. On top of that, the weapons they were using are some of the worst weapons that are available on the market. I just couldn't figure out why Balak would spend a large amount of credits on an EMP bomb and hardly anything to arm himself and his men."

Shepard and Ashley arrived at the crew quarters and found the bed that they loaned Kasumi while she was on board the Normandy. The graybox was on a night table. Shepard picked it up and plugged it in to the terminal in the room. Once he pulled up the files, he stared at the screen for a minute. He knew destroying the graybox was necessary but that didn't make it easier for him to do it. Finally he started deleting files. Ashley stood behind him but she wasn't focused on what Shepard was doing with the graybox. She was thinking about what Shepard had told her.

"Based on everything that's happened to Balak since the end of the war," she said, "I think it's safe to assume that he didn't have access to a lot of funds. Maybe he just didn't have enough funds to spend on weapons and armor."

"That's what I thought," Shepard said as he continued deleting files, "but if that was the case, how could he have afforded to buy the bomb in the first place. You saw Corin's transaction records. That bomb was not cheap. I asked Liara to check Balak's financials again. Until recently he had nowhere near enough credits to buy the bomb but then suddenly the exact amount he needed just appeared. Where would he get that much money in a short amount of time? He couldn't steal it because his little funds would not have been able to fund a pirate operation. The only way he could get that kind of money would be if someone gave it to him."

"But why would someone give a madman credits to fund a terrorist attack?"

"I don't know and I don't know who Balak would trust enough to accept credits from. Liara said that whoever gave Balak the funds did a really good job of covering their tracks. I explained all this to Hackett. He believes my theory but without any leads to go on there is nothing we can do about it. All we can do now is be thankful we stopped Balak's coup."

As Shepard finished his statement, the last of the files on the graybox had been deleted. Convinced that graybox was completely clean of data, he smashed it against a table causing it to shatter into several pieces. He and Ashley got down on the ground and gathered the pieces up to throw into the trash.

"We can also be glad that we helped Kasumi," Ashley said, "now that she's decided to destroy the graybox and with us as support I think she'll be fine."

"Yeah," said Shepard, "speaking of support, thanks for having my back on this mission."

Ashley smiled, "Always."

Once the last piece of the graybox was in the trash, Shepard put his arm around Ashley's shoulders and the couple walked out of the crew's quarters to meet Kasumi back in the med bay.

Back on Khar'shan, the lone solider was hiding behind a tree a few yards from the presidential palace. From his position he could see the work crews working to restore the power to the palace. He also noticed ambulances being loaded with bodies that were coming out of the palace. Convinced that no one was looking towards his direction, he stepped out of his hiding place and began walking away from the palace.

A few feet into his journey, he heard a ringing coming from his omni-tool. Someone was calling him and he had a pretty good idea who it was. It was not someone he was looking forward to talking to. With a shaky hand he pushed the button to accept the call. He jumped when he was greeted by a distorted voice.

"Report," said the voice.

The batarians nerves caused him to stutter his reply, "I…I beg to report… that phase one was a fa…failure."

A sigh came over the batarian's omni-tool, "It was Shepard wasn't it?"

"I'm sorry."

"Shepard prevented the mission from being completed."

"Ye…Yes."

"Well, if it wasn't for the fact that the next phase does not require this mission being a success I would have you shot for this failure. You should consider yourself lucky."

The batarian let out a sigh of relief, "thank you. I promise I won't fail you again."

"We still have a lot of preparations to make before we can commence phase two. I've sent a shuttle to bring you back to base. Out."

When the voice cut the communication, the batarian took one last look behind him to ensure he wasn't being followed. Seeing no one behind him, he continued on his way towards a shuttle that was waiting for him up ahead. The shuttle doors opened revealing a turian and human on board. Before the batarian could set foot onto the shuttle, the turian raised a pistol and fired a bullet right into the batarian's head. The human smiled as the batarian fell down dead.

"The boss didn't say anything about 'us' not shooting you for your failure," he said, "or that the shuttle would be bringing you back to the base alive."

After saying this, the human and the turian loaded the dead batarian onto the shuttle and ordered the pilot to take off. The shuttle then rose off the ground and shot into the sky to leave Khar'shan.

END OF PART 1