Jane awoke to the beady glare of red in her vision. As her eyes slowly adjusted to the dark tint of the room, her mind attempted to make sense of her surroundings. The room itself was of a circular shape. The walls and ceiling joined together seamlessly in a continuous curve. Her feet felt the floor beneath; a flat and cold surface. She wasn't wearing her boots. In fact as her senses clarified, she realized that her entire suit of body armor was gone. Left in only her under-suit, she began to worry. Years of relying on her armor's situational software to assess her surroundings made her obviously weak without it. She didn't have her helmet's HUD calculating her coordinates. She didn't have her ear piece to check if she could zero in on any com links. And she certainly didn't have anything that would naturally supplement any of that. Shepard might have been sitting in an enclosed space, but it was the same as if she was in the middle of nowhere. For all she knew at this point, the middle of nowhere could look similar to this red room.

She breathed deeply and forced the tension out of her shoulders. The last thing Jane remembered was being pulled into Saren's tractor beam. The look on Nihlus's face had just about knocked the wind out of her lungs as she was dragged toward their enemy. He looked…frightened; alarmed. Hell, she was too. But damnit, she had wanted him to live. A distraction and sacrifice of that caliber was the only option to ensure his survival. Saren had always been bloodthirsty in the previous cycles, so she would give him her own blood instead. Besides, Nihlus was a council Spectre; if anyone could rescue her, it would be him.

But that was where the line got fuzzy. Jane sat back in the uncomfortable metal chair she was so graciously shackled to. Would Nihlus even come for her? If she was in a place inaccessible to him…would he even try? It angered and annoyed her that she had resort to hoping someone would come and get her out of this tinted room. Half of her wanted to give up. That half was winning. She had worked so hard to get to this point; to save Nihlus from his seemingly inevitable death. She had tried the best she could have. Maybe their time was over now. Perhaps she should just sit back and let fate take its course.

Funny that before this time looping Jane didn't believe in fate. She thought she could make her own destiny. Now, she felt confused and alone. She was alone in a red room, without anyone to tell her what to do. At least I don't have to follow orders anymore.

Light footsteps echoed quickly from the darkness in front of her. The sound succeeded in bringing her to attention. The red suddenly turned blue, blinding Jane while her pupils struggled to refocus.

"Are you awake?" It was…a woman? She knew that voice. Jane responded with a groggy croak. It seemed to be enough for her guest, as she could feel the being grasp at her shackles and yank on them. Her eyes were still blurry, but she could make out the sounds of dials clicking and buttons depressing with soft beeps. A hiss blew out through air vents above her as the whole room seemed to shake and shudder. But whatever the woman did worked, as the chains fell away from Jane's sore limbs. When she tried to stand, two cold hands forced her back into the chair by her shoulders.

The woman's voice was directly in front of her own face. "What…are you?"

"I'm a huma-"

"No. Not what I meant." The woman sounded like she was struggling; and there. Dim, but much appreciated lighting flooded the room. Shepard could finally see where she had been stowed all this time, and what appearance her visitor held. Blue skin, regal features with sharp angles; It was Matriarch Benezia. Jane had met her in the previous cycle. They fought on Noveria; it did not end well. It was strange for Shepard to have a victim by her hand standing alive, in front of her.

The woman sat across from Jane, leaning her back against the opposite wall a few meters away. Her chest was heaving, and her hands were balled into fists at her sides. When she spoke again, her voice held tremors in a blatant indication of pain.

"I joined with you in your unconscious state."

Jane froze. Joined? She had experienced joinings a few times in the past cycle. With this woman's own daughter, no less. Besides those encounters, she had always heard stories of an Asari's capability of 'bonding' their minds with another's. They were expected to be a little exaggerated, but she knew enough from experience to understand that it was only done through consent of the other individual. Jane didn't even know it happened, yet she believed the Asari. She shuddered at the nostalgic feeling of someone else inside her head.

The woman chuckled darkly. "He is coming back soon. You will need to go."

Jane squinted suspiciously. "You'll just let me leave?"

When they made eye-contact with each other, Jane noticed the Asari's pupils. They were growing, ever so slowly, eating away at the color surrounding it. She looked away quickly, whether out of fear or uncertainty, she couldn't be sure. Both seemed synonymous of each other. Either way, seeing pupils dilate in real time was unnerving to say the least.

Jane swallowed hard. "Your eyes."

The asari woman shook her head slightly and blinked rapidly a few times before muttering a curse under her breath. "The joining is difficult with you. It is the answers I did not have time to gather."

"Look, just point me in the direction of the nearest escape pod so I can jettison myself."

"You wander as if you are lost, yet act like you are not. Do you know when you're going?"

Jane paused. When? "I'm going as soon as you tell me where it is."

The asari waved a shaky arm at her. "You wander through time." Her eyes went wide. "That's right…you've met her. She can help you succeed where I have failed."

Jane's stomach dropped upon hearing the latest drawl. Benezia must have seen everything.

"Her?"

"I saw him die through your eyes, a thousand times; dead. And you are alive, still. You've wandered for so long, will you ever cease?"

"Benezia, stop speaking in riddles and tell me why you joined with me." Truth be told, Jane was terrified. It wasn't really about her speaking in riddles, for they weren't all that confusing. It was the potential for truth in them that frightened her. The asari had seen everything; all of the time loops that had taken place. But there were only five. Why did she say 'a thousand'? When she looked at the woman again, she was curled up on the floor in the fetal position, clutching her head.

"How have you seen so much, yet know so little? How is your mind so full to the brim with knowledge, yet your eyes reflect such ignorance?" Benezia scrambled to her feet and clutched at Jane's arms. She stared at her, searching.

"Are you willing?"

It was odd, joining with her. The strange feeling of being sucked into another mind, another soul. She felt a flood of emotions; happiness, rage, fear grasping at the edges of her now personified soul and nearly tearing her apart. It was painful and clarifying, yet Jane still had the sanity within herself to find the ordeal nothing more than odd. With a torrent of light and color, Benezia's memories crashed into her being like a wave. But it was strange, because they were mixed with her own memories. The ones that the asari had seen and experienced in the previous joining. Scenes that Jane knew nothing about played out in front of her with the undertones of familiarity. An intense feeling of understanding washed over her, made possible only through the background noise of her own memories. She was simultaneously living both of their lives. It both confused and amazed her. She struggled to think with her own mind as an entity independent of Benezia's.

And suddenly, there was nothingness. The tempest was gone, leaving only their ghostly presence in the void. Jane looked into darkness and reached for anything. She found more memories, only this time, they were only her own. And in another heady rush, her time loops played before her. She could feel the strings of Benezia's mind watching and learning next to her as she re-lived Nihlus's deaths. It was terrifying.

She asked herself why she had allowed this joining to begin with. She had wanted to discover what Benezia seemed to know about her. When the asari had looked at her, it was with an aged look of wisdom and knowledge that perhaps Jane wanted as well. But whatever it was, caused Benezia to become aggressive with her searching. Pain seared through Jane's physical brain, stirring up static shocks and electrical pulses to beat through the memories. It was painful enough to convince her that whatever information Benezia wanted was too important to simply give away.

Jane attempted to pull from Benezia's overpowering sight, but the asari's will was strong. Something within these memories provided answers that Jane did not understand. She needed to get away. Her brain was being picked apart and flipped through like a book, and there was nothing that she could do to stop it. What information was she overlooking that proved so useful to this intrusive woman?

She shrieked and desperately clawed with her mental form, damaging the strings that connected their minds. With Benezia's form torn, yet still rummaging through old memories, Jane pushed once more. Her vision clouded again and brought the darkness back. Slowly, her visual processes revived themselves to show her the physical world. Benezia stood in front of her with paled skin and a befuddled look on her face.

The two stood in silence, quietly recovering from their mental struggle. When Jane blinked and cleared her throat, Benezia stepped back in a manner that seemed like she was frightened. Her hand shakily reached for a console in the center of the room to bring up a control interface. A few buttons were pressed, followed by some quick strokes of her fingers for typed commands. Jane felt the rumble of the room once more, and the blue light brightened to a crisp white. Another few commands entered by the asari brought a panel on the far wall forward. Upon noticing her suit hanging on a few bars behind the wall, Shepard reached for it. She didn't need to be told twice.

A door in the far corner slid open and she made a run for it. As her feet carried her across the echoing floor, strange static began to surrounded her. She felt as if it was pulling her magnetically towards the floor itself. The artificial gravity had obviously kicked in, through some unseen force. Perhaps it was the asari. Her leg muscles were powerfully moving against the resistance and it felt like the N7 training facility all over again. Relief never felt so good as her HUD outlined an opening door just around the corner. Moving almost mechanically now, she rounded the corner and threw her body into the open doorway. Fingers found a release valve and pulled hard. The door closed behind her and Jane could only watch in horror as the new hatch opened to reveal space itself. Only two dreadful options were now available to her; jump into the orbital stream of Eden Prime's atmosphere and hope for the best, or exit the small pressure chamber slowly and cling to the edge of this ship like a spider.

The obvious choice was to cling to the ship. It was a catch 22 situation, with the ship itself being both life and death, but simply having the choice was a gift. Her hands were shaking ever so slightly as she gripped at the metal siding. She realized she had almost begun climbing without activating her suit's magnetic grapplers, and scolded herself for her foolish anxiety. To the untrained individual, balancing along the small lipped lining of a metal frigate would hardly seem safe. But Shepard soon sighed as a wave of calm washed over her with each grab higher up the hull. She felt a hell of a lot less trapped than she did in that red room with a half crazed asari woman. The fact that Benezia had succeeded in entering the inner workings of her mind shook Shepard to her core.

She found a small inlet and rested with active camouflage. Though she sat in the devil's lair, her mind finally felt at ease. The view from her vantage point was breathtaking to say the least. But as her eyes continued scanning the shining stars, her gut began to twist and turn. Jane realized that she had hardly thought of an escape plan. Her mind had been completely blank as she made a break for her life through the giant ship. Now she sat, marooned on the enemy's vehicle of destruction. Her first discovery of Sovereign in the previous time loop had been utterly sobering. The fact that a threat larger and greater than any puny person she had ever met was terrifying. And it was only the beginning. She had found that out right before her death on the Normandy. Saren might have been erased, but the Reapers had become a very real threat, with even more allies recruited to their cause.

And now here she was, back at square one with absolutely nothing to show for it. Jane would even argue that she was now in a worse position than she had ever been in. She turned on her com with an impatient huff. Now was not the time for cowardice and self-pity. Turning on the com link of course spelled trouble, as both Saren or an ally could now find her. She was getting reckless, but she didn't care anymore. She found herself wishing that someone could take over her job. Sitting on the hull of a Reaper was certainly thought-provoking. If anything, it caused her to rethink some of her choices in this loop and equally wish she could start over. This line of thinking was exactly what she feared would happen, but she couldn't help it. One stupid mistake could lead to both hers and Nihlus's downfall, in which case would certainly put a damper in her plans to find out the purpose of her curse. And after her most recent encounter with Benezia, Jane was convinced that the loops had a lot to do with the reapers. There wasn't any other way to explain the connection.

Static broke her trance and for a split second, fear gripped at her gut like a vice. Which side had found her first?

"Commander Shepard?"

…~^~…

Nihlus barely acknowledged Anderson entering his quarters. Like most nights, he was engrossed in his work.

"Am I interrupting?"

The turian set his tool down and rubbed his face with tired hands. It seemed he wasn't meant to work in peace tonight. An impatient sigh left his throat as he swiveled in his chair toward the Captain. He stared at him with sharp focus. Perhaps the Captain would be intimidated and leave. A man can only hope.

"Good. I need to speak with you about this mission of yours." Spirits damn it all.

What could this man possibly want to discuss? Nihlus had explained, at length, the parameters of his objective. Well, the non-classified parts anyway. The only parts he could give away without jeopardizing the mission were what pertained to Saren. The mission itself was foolish, immature, and reckless. He gave it to himself; get Shepard back and find out why Saren took her.

Whether he wanted to admit it or not, seeing Saren in such an insane state was shocking, and caused him to believe everything Jane had told him. By some invisible hand, fate had brought them together to reveal Saren's treachery. The revelation brought forth equal amounts of satisfaction and displeasure.

Nihlus had worked with Saren for the better part of a decade, all the while constantly learning from the aged Spectre. They were a near indestructible force when matched for a mission. Rogue collectives and criminals stood no chance against the pair. They of course, didn't start out as a fluid team. When Nihlus was recruited, Saren was a bitter turian. Forced to take on an 'apprentice' of sorts, he was angered by simply having the young soldier around. As time went on, Saren found him a quick study, and Nihlus found his mentor unmatched.

And just as quickly as they were matched, Saren disappeared. The council always had an excuse, always had a reason for the lack of contact. They defended him and his isolation. Nihlus felt as if he had been cut off.

And now, Shepard had disappeared from contact in a similar fashion. Only this time, he knew by what means. Two weeks passed after her kidnapping, giving Nihlus ample time to research Saren's disappearance and sudden return. But to his disappointment, roadblocks were met at every turn. He would dig deep into highly classified files, hacking and searching through information meant only for the Councilors themselves. He learned much about his mentor that he did not know, and could have lived without knowing. The more he read on Saren, the more he doubted that Shepard was still alive. But a roadblock in the form of an empty file was pulled up. Only personal facts about Saren were uncovered; weapon of choice, armor type, favored ballistic information. Everything he could know was there, yet everything he wanted to know was missing. The lack of answers frustrated him to no end, and he was quickly losing patience for any outside disturbances.

So Anderson had the best of timing, then. Nihlus rolled his neck and leaned against the backing of his chair. Perhaps a short break wouldn't hurt.

"You know I can't tell you much about the mission, Captain."

"It's my ship, Spectre. And I will not have you using our networks to do your dirty work. Dealing with one of you on Eden Prime was more than enough after that stunt with Shepard."

Nihlus chuckled darkly. He made sure to lay the sarcasm thickly on his vocal cords. Humans could surely detect that if nothing else. "And I suppose putting myself in danger right beside her was also part of that plan?"

"You mean to sit here and tell me that you aren't in cahoots with a fellow Spectre of whom you have been working with for the past decade? I'll buy that when I have Shepard back on this damned ship."

If Nihlus wasn't irked already, Anderson's attitude surely put him on that level. With crossed arms and a now lethal expression, he nearly spat out the repeated mission goals.

"My objective is to help your team recover the remaining fragment of the artifact and find out what Saren has to do with it all. Need I remind you, the recovery of the Prothean item was my mission from the beginning."

"So, you're just going to forget about one of our most valuable assets?! If it weren't for her, I doubt you would have gotten as close to the artifact as you did. She was a candidate, and you're just going to leave her in the hands of the enemy! "

Of course not. "I cannot jeopardize the entire mission because someone that I wanted to be Spectre was taken away. I'm sure you have plenty of other potentials to suggest."

"You know, turian, it was one thing for you to be friendly upon your arrival. But misleading a prime candidate into thinking you cared about her success is dishonorable. Who was sponsoring you?"

Nihlus scoffed in disbelief. "Sponsoring me? I was going to sponsor her. Look, this wasn't supposed to happen. But I'm not at liberty to simply discuss these matters with an alliance member. I have Council clearance, and you don't. Anything more that I say puts any classified information at risk, and if we have any chance of finding a lead on her whereabouts, you're going to have to trust my capabilities."

Anderson stared long and hard at the now deflated turain in the chair. Finally, his answer seemed to persuade the Captain as he turned and left Nihlus alone in his room. He sighed and rubbed gingerly at his fringe before locking the door on his omnitool. Turning quickly to a small metal plate, he pushed an activation button to bring up an AI interface.

"Give me everything you can on Saren's cruiser."

"Good evening, Kryik. Still fending off the onslaught I see?"

"Everyone always has so many questions, but you still seem to be the only one with answers."

Small patterns and beams bounced around in the holographic imagery, conjuring a growing pie chart. "You must be particularly upset this time to just jump right into it, despite the size of that frigate. 90% complete."

Nihlus sipped at his tea patiently and ignored the AI's first comment. Of course he was angry, and he was no longer in the mood to simply research anymore. "Since when does it take you this long to find anything?"

"Since I started researching your partner through the Geth Collective."

"He's not my partner. And don't go rogue on me after all this time."

The AI chuckled in his digitized voice. "The geth are hardly one of my ambitions. Besides, I couldn't resist myself when I found that the Alliance team had hauled one of the Legionnaires on board." This caused Nihlus to perk his attention towards the hologram.

"It better not still be alive."

"The base life functions are active, but the operational programming is no longer existent. It has been severely damaged in the recent fire fight. Oh, and you'll like this." The AI paused as he pulled up what appeared to Nihlus as a representation of an artificial nervous system. "These are the only things that are running. I was able to access his network alias, infiltrate their system, and successfully remain undetected."

"How easily can they discover your true identity?"

"Not very easily. As far as they know, this particular unit is still alive. I'm imitating its communication patterns to keep them oblivious. Right now, they think I'm trying to contact another legionnaire for information on the illusive Commander."

"Not far from the truth, I suppose." A flash of green entered his vision as Jane's face pulled up on the holo-screen.

"I've found her. She is resting on Saren's cruiser, orbiting Eden Prime."

This was it. The contact he had been waiting for. Though his AI had tasked itself with attempting communication with Shepard at least once a day, nothing ever came of its outreaches. Hearing those three words felt like rapture, but the wording seemed odd.

"Resting? On?"

"Yes, both."

"You never say 'on'. You say 'in'. Resting in his cruiser."

"No, I've made contact. She is on the hull, 'star-gazing', she says."

In no time at all, Nihlus was headed to his small pod. Knowing that the diplomatic pod would not have any defense once outside the Normandy, he hesitated.

"Oh come on, live a little!" Chimed the AI from inside Nihlus's earpiece. He grunted impatiently in response, but proceeded to climb aboard. Upon closing the hatch, Nihlus engaged the active camouflage sensors and shield generators. Perhaps not completely defensless, so it was a start.

…~^~…

"So…you have an unchained AI…and you let it do whatever it wants." Jane asked Nihlus with a tone of voice that teetered between sounding incredulous and scornful. He chose to ignore the scornful part as he watched her scoot closer to the small holo-platform. His AI stood straight in the display, as if to boast in the newfound attention and show off its digital colorization. Jane sat back with her arms crossed and proceeded to ask the AI multiple questions, one right after the other. 'Where did you come from, how did Nihlus acquire you, do you have embarrassing photos of Nihlus'… Wait, what?

"Shepard…" He cleared his throat loudly in an attempt to stop any further prying.

"Nihlus, I…" her voice trailed off quietly and ended with a defeated sigh. Ever since they had returned from her own retrieval, she had been stalling. Jane knew there was much to discuss, and she knew that he would bring it up sooner rather than later, but it felt surreal now. She was walking in a world completely unknown to her, and for once, she just wanted to enjoy it.

Too many times had she relived the same loop over and over again. Too many times had she changed some part of a loop, only to restart and realize it was all for naught. The last time was the worst. She had gone through the entire loop, lived for an entire year in a constant state of distress. Jane died and came back, just as she always did.

But this time was beautiful. Nihlus was alive and anything Jane did yielded uncalculated results. It was as if it were some other Shepard's life that she had switched places with. And she was happy with every minute of it. She reveled in the feeling of the unknown looming over her. Jane welcomed the feeling of uncertainty with each waking moment.

The only downside she could think of as she stared quietly into the small, transparent eyes of Nihlus's AI was the fact that she could never share this euphoric feeling with anyone else. She truly wanted at least Nihlus to understand. He was, after all, the man that she had grown so close with despite his resetting memory with each loop. But how could she explain what this was like? How could she dictate in so many words how utterly tragic it was to be stuck, and then suddenly, she felt like the sun had come out. He had told her before Eden Prime that he liked how detailed everything was. He appreciated the fact that they knew what was coming. So how would he see her reckless testing? It was a wonder in and of itself of how to let him know how truly grateful she was for his cleaning up her mess.

Was there even any way to tell him her thanks? She felt that there wasn't a word in existence that could convey how she felt. He could have left her; forgotten about her. He could have moved on and taken any glory for himself. He could have, but he didn't. Instead, he spent his time looking for her. And Jane was at a loss for words by it.

His hand somehow found its way to her shoulder amidst all her thoughts. It was the most comforting feeling Jane had ever experienced. In the middle of the chaos of her new world, his touch was like an anchor. Where her mind reeled with questions of the undiscovered universe, he served as her breadcrumbs. She felt his fingers squeeze at her shoulder before his arm drooped back to his side. Jane let the unconsciously held breath in her lungs out in an almost exasperated sigh. She hadn't felt this relaxed in ages, and she let it show.

But all too soon, the moment ended and they were brought back to business by a quiet inquiry from the AI.

"Now that mission 1 is complete, where would you like to go from here?"

Nihlus paused and pulled a chair next to Jane's. "What happens next?"

She just looked at him blankly, mouth slightly agape. "I…I don't know. The last loop took me through so many missions and ended in Saren's death. But there hasn't really been any part of this time that matches with the last…the most significant being the fact that you're still here."

"So we're on our own for this one?" Jane reluctantly nodded affirmative.

She watched his mandibles twitch outward in a smile and she realized it had become one of her favorite things to see. "Why don't we go make you a Spectre before anything else happens?"