A/N: So, after months of writer's block this ended up differently than expected. It's also shorter. The original incarnation had 25k words. This is only 18k.

The Editing Gang did not review this. Nor did my closest friends (Nimiraj and Pallan) get to see the final version. This is raw, as straight and uncut as when I first started this mess, because, well.

In real life, you don't get a second shot at things.

I wanted to have this chapter be un-blunted. Most chapters are still me, but the Editing Gang shifts the focus sometimes, or comes up with new things. This, I wanted – needed – to be just what I set it out to be.

This is a very experimental… odd… and shifty chapter. Some people will hate it. I'm sorry it isn't going to please everyone, especially after such a long wait…

…but as Pallan told me, you cannot always cling to darkness.

Read the works of SLotH4, Nolanstar, Xabiar, Pallan Minerva, Aberron, and Katkiller-V or else I will make the Editing Gang look at Comma's TrashHeap room on Discord chat.


'Sara…'

'Yes, hon?'

'No amount of sex is worth being broiled and electrocuted for.'

'…So… no electrowhips?'

'Ugh.'

-Shepard and Liara


"Embrace eternity."

Trellani watched carefully as the naked forms of Shepard and Liara, half-submerged in faintly glowing water, both closed their eyes, Liara's opening a moment later in the glossy black of a surrender to the meld. She shot a glance to her left, where Aethyta had her hands fixed in a ritual pose, and smiled faintly as the other asari nodded.

"Remind me how this goes again, Trellani." Aethyta's voice had a note of worry in it, as Trellani stood up.

"The ritual does three things. The First House resets and aligns the bond-shards of the other-self within each other, and creates the initial bond-linkage externally, via the water. The Second House forces them to face their own deepest fears and issues while clearing the bond-linkage channel. The Third House will initiate the force bonding while using any remaining bond fragments to act as points of anchoring. The Fourth House will drive the bond-shards inwards and destroy any mental defenses they have, undercutting their ability to separate and making them reliant on the other. Typically this is pairs, but I've seen trios and quads before, depending on how fragmented the mind is."

Walking over to the tub, Trellani withdrew a pair of hypo syringes, injecting Sara and then Liara in the upper arm. Aethyta glanced at the display to her right, showing their medical data, and grimaced sourly. "The Fourth is the sticking point. I get why you have to break the defenses to force the bond, but that allows you to inject whatever commands and shit you have in mind—"

Trellani laughed before stepping back to her place in the circle. Seating herself on the floor, she nodded. "This is why you are here, instead of Uressa, or some other biotic. You are the only person I can trust who will not have an… agenda… in reforging the bond. If I was to try anything, you would know, and…" She trailed off, gesturing at the naked warp sword across Aethyta's thighs, and smiled.

The older asari gave a long exhalation. "…Fair enough. Let's hope I have enough in the tank to get this done. Ready when you are." Aethyta's grip on her sword tightened until her knuckles whitened, while Trellani placed one hand on the crushed eezo circle to her side and spoke a single phrase.

"Aethyta, open the First House."

Aethyta grunted, lighting up with biotic energy, as Trellani used her free hand to toggle the energy bank generator. The power flowed out through the shredded gossamer-thin optronic strands to the solid eezo crystals, then to the ritual silver-chased frames they sat in, and finally to the circle itself.

Both Shepard and Liara stiffened suddenly, blue energy crawling over them in chaotic patterns as Trellani put her other hand on the circle and pushed in her own biotic energy, an ever shifting cerulean wall erupting around the two in the tub. Pulses of dark energy radiated off of them, tiny bolts of electricity sputtering out here and there.

Trellani lifted her free hand and chanted in an ancient asaric tongue, one more closely related to Prothean than modern Trade Asaric:

The Forevering Eye sees beyond

Everglinting peaks of black forbidden ice

The ways beyond are closed

The First House is sealed, to open the way

Is to seek first yourself in the long shadows

of forgotten moments

Baleful flames of blue-black energy raced around the circles, illuminating spidery Asaric script done in pale gray inks. The air swayed with a fluttering, inconsistent breeze as the temperature spiked, sweat breaking out on Aethyta's forehead. The blade-mistress held aloft her weapon, more biotic power pouring from it, then lowered it and drew the razored edge across her bare thigh.

Aethyta's voice was rougher, in the Temple tongue, her cadence slower and unsure, the words spoken not with dispassionate erudition but fear and reverence

Awaken the First House

The Eye within looks ever downward

There is no defense against the truth

Shown by what one cannot abide

The First House opens, the Unkind Past returns.

Trellani only smiled as Sara and Liara screamed in unison.

O-TWCD-O

Half-seated, naked, in a tub of eezo-fouled water, with your lover's naked body crammed tight against one's own body and with your hands basically on her breasts wasn't conducive to having Shepard be entirely calm. She could feel every muscle within Liara shifting, and was suddenly very aware her midnight and azure were pressed up against Shepard's stomach.

It would have been kinda sexy if she wasn't scared out of her mind.

When the joining started, it felt… different and bizarre. Shepard was used to slipping almost helplessly into the bond with Liara, a sort of slickness to thought and emotion, a teasing hint of arousal and playful innocence. It usually felt like a mix of heat and openness and a need that wasn't entirely sexual or emotional but something deeper.

This was not the normal joining.

This felt cold and blunted; what was once a bright light dimmed into fading sparks. There was a feeling of falling or losing balance, as alarms dimly rang in her head, and a feeling of distance and faint pain. An almost damp and heady feeling of being in two places at once ran through her with a shock, and an edge of intolerable sexual need burst into her lower stomach.

There were no memories or emotions, only sensations, and every second hot knives were driving those in further, wantonly. She felt her body as if it split open and it wasn't her body, she could feel both her own cybernetics and the aching wounds of Liara's body, the nerve endings screaming as Liara's biology reacted to a meld and tried to respond sexually.

But it wasn't arousing.

It felt as if she was helpless and at the same time she wanted to scream in frustration. Then came a heavier, deeper pressure, as if she was being crushed. She felt herself reflexively tighten her embrace around Liara as if to protect her, felt her lover curl against her body and felt pain and—

—a single flash of memory, blood spilling madly from a broken corpse—

—bitter silvery liquor poured down an already numb throat, the smell of badly-fouled air filters giving it an almost musky tang, a blank metal wall scored with dents—

—the last ghastly ridge overlooking Torfan, the bent, broken bodies of small children and semicircular blast craters stretching off for seemingly miles, the flicker of kinetic barriers as an Alliance frigate tumbled from the sky, on fire – and ahead, a deep, open black hole of a mine entrance, and the snarl of batarian soldiers—

—flashes of high asari towers all around, and the bleeding, shattered form of a salarian lying on the ground. A pulse of hot anger and fury, and a warp sword slashing across the salarian's throat as he screamed for mercy—

—Rachel Florez, bending over her, lifting her up, the brown hair slipping free of the knot it was always tied in to frame the sardonic grin, the hard smile softened just enough to make it real—

Images flashed too fast to see. Screaming. A flash. Blood. A flash. A skyline view of Nos Astra, through a bloodied window, with a dying turian being thrown through the plate glass.

A flash.

—Pain. Confusion. Scenes of the Protheans, of cutting machines slicing into flesh, a being with four arms tearing at blue skin while a purple figure in tight clothing watches with an amused glint in hateful eyes—

A flash.

—A panicked run as kinetic impactors hit, dust flying by in waves as Baby Blue and Bea hold her down, as Dunn frantically bandages her torn stomach. Ns run by in dusty, battered armor, screams of the people behind them suddenly cut off with a blast of heat and light—

A flash.

—A disapproving frown in a stern face. "I have no time for your intransigence, Little Wing. If you wish to waste your life pursuing the dead, do so far from this House." The barely concealed snickers from lesser cousins, and the arch look of smug approval from Aunt Mithra—

A flash.

—A gasp of passion, a human face, a female biting her lip and a mix of pain and lust in her voice. "I… I don't… I… stop…" A voice so familiar to her, answering. "I don't want to stop, and you don't want me to."—

Shepard felt bile crawl up her body. Liara felt shame pulse through her limbs.

Another pulse of power, this one burning into her body, her arms… a tangle of emotions, feelings, and above all else, hot heat. Memories and snippets of old shames and pains stormed through two minds, ripped open jagged holes in two psyches, left festering wounds in two souls.

Wisps of steam erupted from the eezo-laden water, curls of biotic energy radiating out in jagged spikes as Liara slumped heavily against Shepard, even as her legs gave out. Arcs of electricity radiated up and down their limp forms, as unseen and unheard alarms blared in Shepard's HUD, as the smell of sizzling, cooked flesh misted outwards.

Sara's consciousness twisted, as she struggled to even understand what was happening. She could hear voices – chanting voices, one high, sweet, and cruel, the other lower, tired, and upset. Sharp liquid consonants and sharper spikes of blue pain, long sonorous lines of every time she snorted red sand, including the one where it was mixed with heroin and she puked blood for an hour. Snarled tangled phrases in a twined chorus that left shining, brutal blue swords transfixing her/their bodies.

A slippery, almost tainted feeling of falling, and with another spasm, she/they were suddenly gasping as a memory erupted and they separated for a split-second. Liara was atop her, arched in ecstasy, body outlined in a thin sheen of sweat and heaving, slithery hot skin as they screamed into each other's flesh, the Widow Nebula casting everything in a pinkish purple aura that dissolved into such comforting warmth and a feeling—

—Pain. Jagged. Cruel. Whips. Crying. Fires, blooming into a sky of white nights and black stars, as mysterious mountain peaks of ice lit from within by pairs of accusing eyes rose ever higher. A road of shattered stones and broken skulls lead into infinity, trod upon by a cast of failures—

The shattered, beaten features of Dunn. Bea Shields, a smear of organs and broken limbs, staring at her hatefully.

Amalia, looking hurt and confused, eyes wide with shame and pain.

David Anderson, in a straitjacket, his flesh haggard, hair wild and eyes empty, a line of drool slipping from an idiot's smile.

Professor Ranya, dead at her desk, black-garbed Nightwind sneering and laughing as they butchered her body for defying the will of the Thirty.

Saren and Benezia, drinking wine and laughing, the matriarch's booted foot on Liara's torn open body, the turian smiling as he shot Garrus to death with his Sunfire pistol.

Okeer's booming laughter as Grunt dissolved, as the Normandy flew overhead, air-frame splintered and burning from bow to stern as ill-defined streaks of light smashed into it. Escape pods shattering like cheap glass, tiny figures tumbling into the empty void only to hit the atmosphere and erupt into pyres of agony.

Wetness rained down, splashes of hot blood bursting to steam and then she/they/someone faintly heard a voice screaming out words she couldn't recognize, and the pain rose to a crescendo. She heard herself screaming, felt hands gripping her flesh in pain and need, and then—

"The First House opens, the Unkind Past returns."

Shepard sat up in a comfortable bed.

For a full second, she just blinked, looking around.

It took her several seconds to realize this was her bedroom, in her house on Intai'sei. The bare-bones look of the dresser, the hard lines of the bed itself, and the black silken sheets she was so proud of figuring out how to print… the little stacks of towels and things Liara had piled on the bower before the bathing room.

The air smelled sweet and cool, the sheets smooth against her skin as she shifted her position. She had no HUD, no feeling of heaviness in her body, and she sat up more fully, examining the room more closely. Everything seemed just as she remembered, and for a split-second, she wondered if the past had been some kind of insane dream.

The far door was shut, and as she got out of bed, she realized she was naked. Even as she turned to look for clothing, though, the door opened, and a figure stepped through.

The person was also naked, a mirror of herself. The body was the same height, the skin the same color. But the skin was rough, marred by dozens of ugly welts and scars. The knees, ashy and bony looking. The toes, crooked, with split and ingrown toenails. The fingers, bent here and there. The ink of tattoos crisscrossed the welts from electro-whips on her back.

The long hair, dry and tangled. The upper body, disfigured by more scars and battle wounds, the hands tightened into fists. The nose, slightly off-center. The eyes, flat black and without a pupil.

Sara Shepard stared at Sara Shepard. The latter gave a sardonic smile. "Took your stupid ass long enough to get here. Did you fucking go on a tour or were you getting off on the fact Li's body is shitting itself?"

The Shepard who felt herself real blinked again. "…The fuck?" She took a closer look at the figure like herself and saw after a moment it was faintly translucent. "What are you?"

The ghostly figure smiled. It was an ugly smile, with slightly crooked and discolored teeth she'd hated – until she'd died and been remade as perfect.

"I'm you, idiot. Or what was in Li when you decided being noble and sacrificial and shit for a pack of no-account nobodies was somehow more important than not driving your wife insane."

The ghost-Sara began to cross the room, jaw tensed. "We were one, you stupid bitch. Liara and I. Liara and you. We were a single fucking soul. And then you got torn the fuck away, and all that was left is… whatever I am. Chemical neuron bonds, or mystical ghosts. I don't know."

The fists clenched. "All the shit she said about bonds never prepared me for this, whatever the fuck this is. And as she fell, as she had to commit crime after crime to assuage the hate WE inflicted on her… she lost herself."

The flat black eyes snapped up to meet her own gaze – cold, narrow, pitiless. "She had to drown herself in blood and become the same kind of shit we dragged ourselves out of. But she wasn't a piece of shit like us. She hated herself for it. She cried herself to sleep every time she had to kill 'innocents' – never mind I would have spaced most of those fucking Ilium people without a second's hesitation."

The lips twisted into a feral snarl. "She had to break herself… and Li couldn't handle it, and all she had was… me. And I wasn't enough."

Sara stared at her doppelgänger, and the figure lashed out, a blindingly fast kick that crashed into the side of her head faster than she could react. She slammed into the floor, the pain both sharply real and somehow distant, and the translucent figure screamed.

"And now you come fucking back and this is what you do? Force her already broken spirit to cleave to whatever the fuck you let Cerberus turn you into? Use some fucked up shit Trellani came up with to shove yourself back into her mind without even thinking of what it might do to her?"

Ghost-Sara set herself into the Sea-raptor's Scream of the asari martial stance, and her voice was like iron. "You selfish, blind, ignorant fucking cunt, I'll kill you before I let you hurt my Li again."

Sara got to her feet, wary and prepared now. "Liara's going to lose her mind and die if we don't re-bond and fix what happened."

Ghost-Sara sneered. "Says Trellani, the murdering bitch you just gave a pass to out of goddamned necessity. Of course they'll say shit like that, she's their best method to fucking break you and control you. I thought I was fucking blind, but you don't even see how Cerberus has conditioned you, do you?"

Ghost-Sara tried another kick, but this time Sara was ready, blocking it and slipping the force of the blow, countering with a snap kick of her own. That was blocked, and the two sprang together in rapid-fire combat, grunting in pain as kicks and punches landed. Tidal-touch motions flickered out, each combatant seeking a hold to subdue the other.

A scissor kick crashed into her side, making her wince and hop back, and then she ducked under Ghost-Sara's follow-up roundhouse kick. Snarling with her own anger, she drove a knifehand blow into the other's chest.

The blow landed squarely and drew a short scream from the other Sara, who spat blood and staggered back. Sara smiled, wiping blood from her own lips. "She's my wife, and I'd die before I hurt her. I don't necessarily trust Cerberus, but they know if they get her killed I will fucking end them. Whatever the fuck you are, you aren't me. I've moved beyond you."

Ghost-Sara sneered back. "Fucking spare me, you ignorant bitch. You've done enough damage, monster. Liara had no way to handle our own shit plus her own, and she had to seal her own mind to keep from falling apart. But I can still know what she knows and sees. I had to feel what she felt. And I know all you fucking want is someone to prop your stupid ass up, when you go on a fucking 'woe-is-me' rampage."

The translucent figure spat. "You're goddamned right I'm not you, and you sure as fuck are not me. You are some fucking science hackjob, a fake brainwashed into thinking you're in control, and I'm all that's left of a woman too stubborn to fucking realize she's in over her head. I've learned my goddamned lesson on that."

Shepard gritted her teeth, circling the other. "And just what do you plan to do to fix it?"

Ghost-Sara smiled. "Get rid of you. Once you're out of the way, get rid of the Cerberus pukes and get the Solarch to fix us, instead of a goddamned murdering tramp probably using this whole thing to mindfuck Liara and I both. Did you even consider that? That her having a magic ceremony that just happens to fix everything is goddamned suspicious as FUCK?!"

She flung herself into an attack, but Sara parried the flurry of kicks, lashing out with a backhand that sent the other Sara into the wall. Shepard drew back, dark doubts in her mind already rising up, and hesitated.

What if this is a trick?

A brief flash of memory, of the look in Trellani's eyes when they first met, and she described losing her family and bond-mate, and the pain therein.

Shepard shook her head, firming her jaw. "I don't think so. Whatever the fuck you are, you clearly missed the lesson I learned. Doing shit the Shepard way always ends fucking badly. Not 'compromising' on shit like working with Harper is what got me killed and nearly got Liara killed. I don't give a fuck if Trellani isn't the best person – I don't trust the fucking Solarch either."

She set herself into the Nexu's Bite, remembering the lessons of the Commandos. "What matters is that Liara will die if I don't do something. I already fucked up once. I'm not doing it again." She circled to the left. "And if you try to stop me, you're gonna die."

The spirit gave a mocking laugh. "You are half fucking cybernetics and you doubt yourself, and in this place, belief is power. You can't fucking win. Yet you're stupid enough to try anyway."

Ghost-Sara circled in turn. "And what the fuck do you do if killing me hurts or kills Li, huh? We're linked. You aren't." Her voice turned vicious. "Shit, that's probably what they fucking want, set it up where you blame yourself for her death."

The eyes narrowed. "When you end up killing her, Harper will probably use that little skank Jack to get you compliant enough to do his dirty work for him – you were thinking about banging the dogshit out of her before you found Liara anyway, so why not just get the fuck out and go do that, huh?"

Sara screamed and surged forward, and Sara answered and met her head-on.

O-TWCD-O

Wetness rained down, splashes of hot blood bursting to steam and then she/they/someone faintly heard a voice screaming out words she couldn't recognize, and the pain rose to a crescendo. She heard herself screaming, felt hands gripping her flesh in pain and need, and then…

"The First House opens, the Unkind Past returns."

Liara sat up, sitting on the floor. She immediately recognized her surroundings as being Anderson's apartment on the Citadel. The same black slate floor, the same stone fireplace crackling merrily with warmth, the same asaric art in the corner and…

Sitting at the small bar in the back, dressed in an elegant gown and sipping a drink, was herself.

Liara glanced down at her own body, finding herself dressed in the dirty and smudged jumpsuit and hood she usually wore on Ilium. But her cybernetics were all gone, and she stood on shaky legs.

The other Liara had a faintly translucent look to her as she idly sipped what looked like Scotch from a glass, and her voice was warm, calm, and sweet. "I wondered what was happening, until you suddenly began forming in the middle of the room. And now you are finally… awake, I suppose. Now we can proceed."

Liara blinked, her voice sounding rough and tired to her own hearing. "I am sorry, but… what is happening?"

Ghost-Liara stood up, smiling. "I have several conjectures, but I suspect the most logical is that I am some sort of bond-shard remnant in our beloved's mind – either an echo of electrochemical bonds or something more outrageous, like a soul. The latter is distressingly mystical… but I am as much at a loss as you are."

The graceful motions of the other made Liara feel old and broken, even without the cold metal usually framing her limbs. "And this place?"

Ghost-Liara smiled. "Some of Sara's happiest moments were here. Well, this and Intai'sei, and I have been… flickering back-and-forth between them. Then a red haze covered everything, and I was back here. It is almost certainly some form of mental construct."

Liara frowned. "I begin to regret not paying more attention to Aunt Mithra when she went on about bond courtesy and mind-setting."

Ghost-Liara gave a soft laugh at her rueful tone. "As do I, I fear. It is clear to see that you have had a hard road since we parted… but I have been mostly blind to what is happening to Sara. I feel her emotions – sorrow, anger, aching loneliness – and above all else, helpless despair. A short time ago that shattered in a great burst of hope and fear, followed by more anger than I can remember, and then utter joy."

Liara's composure wavered at that. "After she… died… Cerberus had a plan to save her. To bring her back. I and others went after her body… and I fell, nearly dying. By the time I had recovered, Cerberus had evacuated, and things… went poorly."

Ghost-Liara shook her head. "I can feel the sorrow and feelings of self-hate pouring off of you, I can see the trauma of what must have been brutal years in your face. But if you are here… then you and she are together once more! We can heal and move forward…"

Liara clenched her fists. "I am broken and defiled. I… killed. Murdered."

Ghost-Liara's own mouth turned down. "Killing indoctrinated souls is mercy, not murder."

Liara's eyes flashed. "I am not speaking of that! On Ilium. Where we were dispatched as Aria's catspaws… I murdered thousands. Tens of thousands. I blew up innocent people to get at my targets, I used mercenaries and sent them off to die, I crashed a spaceship into a crowded living area simply to try and kill one salarian!"

She bit out her words, tears streaming down her cheeks. "I am defiled, and Sara will not want a criminal, no matter how much she says she can accept what I am."

Ghost-Liara drew back, then picked up her drink and drained it with alacrity. "…Well, that was not what I expected to hear. This entire… experience has been so strange as to stretch my ability to adapt, but seeing an older, bitter, and hateful 'me' is…"

She trailed off, then straightened her shoulders. "…not important. What is important is that Sara needs you, whether you like it or not."

Liara snorted. "Sara will recoil from what I had to do. She cannot accept it! If she does, she has changed."

The translucent figure nodded sadly. "She already has changed, I believe. I may not grasp how I came to be here – or you, for that matter – but just from experiencing the waves of emotions I feel I can determine something has gone very wrong with our Sara. Until recently, she was in despair. Anger and agony and most of all sorrow occluded everything, in tides."

The ghostly image moved forward, touching Liara's shoulder, the sensation light and yet very real feeling. "But have you not considered you are more aware, more understanding, of what Sara herself suffered now than I am?"

Liara looked up in confusion, and her double smiled gently. "There were times I felt… lost in our bond. There was so much anger, buried deeply enough that it rarely showed, but it was always there. All of the times Sara was broken and tired, what could I do? My hardships seemed brutal to her, but I never felt I could… grasp… her self-loathing."

Liara smiled sadly. "I grasp it all too well now. The rush of combat, of… killing. Of venting your anger because you are helpless to address it. Of the glorious rush of blood, the warmth and the speed of dancing upon the razor's edge of losing control. Of vomiting forth your very soul in mindless, fiery brutality… and then it is over, and you are splattered with blood. And a living, breathing being is dead."

Liara swallowed. "If it were only the Broker's proxies and servants I could… live with myself. But my mind is broken and un-whole, and my anger and despair drove me to dark ends. I poisoned, I tortured, I killed without mercy and without even stopping to minimize casualties at some point. I can understand her anger and self-loathing, but…"

Ghost-Liara shook her head more firmly. "There are no 'buts,' my sister. She is fading and broken, and there is something dark and… uneasy scrabbling at the base of her mind, of her thoughts. A symphony of jagged glass and dark shadows flickering just out of eyesight… the Beacon vision, perhaps. Or something else. Something worse."

The translucent copy spread her hands. "If you – if we – cannot help Sara… I fear she will shatter or go mad. There is so much twined hope and fear in her that if we fail, she may not… survive. Or if she does… a mad Shepard, with her power, unleashed upon a corrupt galaxy, would end poorly."

A kaleidoscope of suffering bloomed inside of her, and she felt her hands start to shake.

Liara's voice was anguished. "And why torment me with such horrific knowledge? I am not whole or sane myself! My strength is spent! I am poisoned with my own crimes, how am I to find the strength for her in this?"

Ghost-Liara shook her head, a dismayed look upon her features, a reminder of childhood scoldings from her mother. "…What has happened to you, that you would cast aside our Sara merely because you are tired? No." She paused. "That is unfair, I suppose. When the wave was upon the far shore, Sara could not make the first move, because she was… poisoned with her own guilt and shames, and exhausted from her struggles. If not for Dunn urging the issue, perhaps I – we – would not have acted."

The figure stepped closer. "But I made her a promise. That night, beneath the stars. On a day in the wind-blown grass of Intai'sei, as we made love. Holding her in my arms, as dark events tore through the galaxy."

Liara could only watch as her double's expression hardened. "I swore that she would never be alone, and now she is. You and I are going to make sure she is not alone. We must, because I do not think she can continue as she is without our help."

The words were spoken in a tone that brooked no disagreement, the force and the heat of them rending apart the cage of guilt and self-hatred she had set up for herself to die in.

Liara sighed. "And if I am too broken to assist? I want so very badly for things to be as they were. I want to be happy once more, to… make Sara and I whole – to be able to do more than just cling. But I fear I am not up to that task, and I fear even more that she will push me away and I will have sacrificed… everything – myself, my life, and the blood of thousands – for nothing."

Ghost-Liara made a sign of siari disagreement, entering her personal space. She found herself frozen in place. "Does it matter? How long will you survive, torn as you are? Sara has always felt fear, fear of losing what was precious to her, fear of being abandoned, fear of not being good enough – but she did not let it stop her from sacrificing all she was and had gained for doing what had to be done."

The translucent copy lifted her chin, her touch a flickering echo of memory. "You and I must determine how to fix this. Or Sara will either die or go insane. I am not going to let that pass, no matter the pain, or cost, or loss. Better we both die than we let her suffer… and if she pushes you away, then perhaps she is no longer the Sara I have always loved."

Liara spat at the poison thought. "She is no different than before, it is I who have fallen." She looked up. "But I do not see I have a choice in this. What exactly must we do?"

Ghost-Liara set her chin into her palm. "I am unsure myself. I do know she has changed in some fashion, but… this entire experience has been surreal. There has been no opportunity for me to gather information, and I am not even sure why you are suddenly here."

Liara explained about the ritual to her doppelgänger, who listened intently, nodding here and there. "I see. Again, I curse not listening to Mithra more. But… I find it curious and troubling that Trellani would engage in such a thing and not provide you or Sara any details of what to expect, or what you were to do."

Liara frowned. "She… made it sound as if most of it would be external to us. That we merely had to endure. But I cannot imagine she expected… this." She gestured at her copy, who gave a thin smile.

"No, I expect not." The Ghost-Liara sighed. "Placing blame – on her, or ourselves – is meaningless. We did so for decades and only through loving Sara did I finally understand that doing so does not solve any of the problems we have. And a thought occurs to me. I am the you who was trapped in Sara, who was a human. This implies that there may also be a shade of Sara in you…"

Liara nodded, then her expression grew grave. "You were… isolated, you said. Blocked from anything but emotional states? Then the Sara… in my psyche… would have been drowning in what I have suffered through the past two years. It may not be stable."

Both of them winced at the same time, and the ghostly figure pinched the bridge of her nose, as Shepard often did. "If we must wait for outside forces to act, we should prepare for what to do about the other half of the equation. You have suffered, you said – tell me what has transpired, and we will reason a way forward."

O-TWCD-O

Vigil hovered in front of the heavy doorway, his gleam brighter than normal, as Pressly and Doctor Sedanya sat across from the entry, and Kelly Chambers leaned against a nearby stanchion.

The sounds of screaming and chanting continued, and Pressly's fists were clenched tightly. He looked up, his cybernetic eye making a faint whine as it narrowed. "There's nothing we can do to help?"

Vigil pulsed sullenly. "Not at this time. What, you plan on going in there with your massive knowledge of biotic rituals and assisting, or do you just want to see them naked?"

Pressly's face darkened. "This isn't the time for humor, Vigil. I just… I don't like this situation. I don't know that I trust Trellani, and we've been told nothing of what to expect except that it is dangerous. We're left in the dark in a situation where we're helpless to do anything, and I am not given to merely reacting to events. Do you know anything about… this ritual?"

The sphere's sharp tone faded. "You are not the only one worried. The ritual is not something Trellani felt she could explain to a non-biotic, although the outlines of it and the power requirements she had to share with me in order for me to prepare the room. The little I know indicates this is probably the only safe solution."

Kelly arched an eyebrow. "A solution to what, though? Trellani said she had to re-bond them, but didn't go into many details."

The sphere's surface rippled as Vigil spoke. "From what I gather, the method used to keep Liara alive after Shepard's death had damaged their bond, and they have to be realigned in order for it to be remade. The problem is that due to all the biochemical and other changes we had to make to Shepard, doing so is not as simple as a regular asari bond. In short, the ritual 'reconnects' the two on a nervous system-level, while the biotic effects overcharge said connection and force it to reapply itself."

Pressly frowned. " 'Force'?"

Vigil pulsed. "Yes. The previous bond was not removed so much as twisted. In the case of Shepard, Trellani made a sort of feedback loop to prevent Shepard's mind from unravelling. In the case of T'Soni, Doctor Sedanya's attempt to create a biotic block worked, but seems to have left Liara's bonding ability in disarray, and it is failing, in any case."

Sedanya's expression fell, her voice sounding tired. "I did what I could, with the tools I had available."

The sphere's voice sharpened. "I did not criticize you, primitive, merely explained. For all the damage caused by Liara losing the bond and the block failing, the fact that it took almost two years to do so and that Liara is not yet insane should be seen as a major triumph, not a failure. As far as I know, every other bond of this type drove the surviving partner insane or killed them instantly upon being broken."

Sedanya's own tone was hard. "That does not excuse the fact that I am responsible for causing some of the damage. Aside from that…" Her voice softened into tones of anxiety. "I must admit I find this ritual being conducted by a person as fell and dark as Trellani is troubling. And we cannot ask Divine Uressa, or the blessed Godtalkers, to assist? I am sure Trellani is skilled and… knowledgeable, but surely—"

Pressly shook his head sadly. "No. From the little I grasped, whoever is doing this has access to both Shepard's and Liara's minds. There's still too many things we can't afford to be known by any outside party. As for the stability of the ritual…" he trailed off, looking at Vigil, who merely pulsed.

Vigil's tone grew musing. "While I don't know exact details, I am monitoring the situation. In order for this to work, the two of them must be synched, and from what Trellani said, her own actions in stabilizing Shepard's mind and allowing her to function without the Beacon vision destroying her sanity made that difficult. The ritual will realign them."

The sphere bobbed in place. "For now, the electromagnetic field strength is stable and – thus far – Shepard and T'Soni's life signs are strong, if very erratic. And I will inform you if that… ah. The spectrum is shifting, the ritual is proceeding as laid out. I will notify you both of… progress as it happens. Or if medical assistance is required."

Kelly nodded. "What about psychological assistance? What kind of shape are they going to be in? We're expected at the Citadel in just a few days."

Vigil pulsed. "It is very likely they will be unconscious after this… primitive mind-fucking that Trellani is engaging in. That should not last long, although I would have a medical team ready to do a quick scan of Shepard's cybernetics for any electrical damage. As for the longer term, hopefully this will fix any issues – we shall have to wait and see. They should be up and around by tomorrow morning."

Pressly nodded and took a deep breath. "In that case, I'll keep my comm-link open and leave you to monitor things. We still have a lot of medical prep to do on other team members and the logistics of going to the Citadel."

Sedanya nodded. "I will contact you if anything changes, should Vigil neglect to do so."

She ignored the Inusannon device's outraged splutter and turned back to the medical display, and Pressly gave a small smile as he walked away.

O-TWCD-O

Inside the room, Trellani's chanting shifted into a lower register, her hands trailing out lines of eezo dust as she moved carefully along the lines of the circle.

The Forevering Eye sees through lies

Vistas of uttermost Truth in the never-seen sky

The ways beyond are sealed

The Second House is sealed, to open the way

is to remember the nature of both regret

and to let go of hesitance and fear

The humming machine in the corner grew brighter, the three Inusannon power stars putting forth more power as the eezo circles illuminated in pale blue fires. Wisps of blue energy danced on tingling, ozone smelling air, as Aethyta planted her sword to the floor and knelt, her voice almost haggard.

Awaken the Second House

The Eye within looks ever inward

There is fury to stop regret

Towards mistake one was too unwise to behold

The Second House opens, the Truth you denied wounds you

The screaming stopped.

O-TWCD-O

Two battered women circled each other warily, one heaving and bruised, the other flickering like a candle in the wind. Narrowed eyes and matching snarls were fixed on nearly identical faces, as they sprang forward once more, kicks and punches flying in rapid succession.

Sara landed a devastating snap kick to her copy's side but caught a brutal punch to the face in return and both skidded backwards, slumping. She spat blood, wiping her mouth once more, pain radiating from seemingly every point of her body. Suppressing that, she forced a vicious smile. "You don't look so hot, Ghost of Christmas Past."

The flickering image of her copy sneered back, heaving herself up with great effort. "And you look like you just got your ass handed to you, bitch. How much longer can you keep this up, I wonder?"

Sara was about to speak when the world twisted. The room – and her copy – swirled and vanished, being replaced by a luxuriant lobby of some kind. Thick pale white and purple carpeting covered the floor, spars of some white wood framing an armaglass canopy roof beneath purple skies, the soaring spires of asari construction all around.

The room held little furniture – a wide divan and several mass effect hover plates, a long asari-style bookcase with scrolls and racks of tapes, a gigantic trideo screen, and doors at either end. She found herself tucked tightly into some kind of nook on the far wall, with environmental controls on a haptic panel.

Sara tried to stand, but found herself locked in place, noticing now that she was translucent as her copy had been. She struggled to move, or speak, but was immobile. Before she could think any further on that, a pair of steel doors on the far side of the wide room slid open quietly.

An asari stepped through, dressed in a black long gown and a silvery shawl, trailed by a pair of turians in light armor and with shotguns at their hips. The asari was an older matron, her facial markings done in the same shades of white and purple as the room, bold upon her dark blue skin. Her features were cruel and sharp, with pale gray eyes that narrowed as she looked around.

A shimmering behind the two turians revealed a shorter, masked feminine figure in black and red armor, holding a long asari rifle. The figure fired twice at point-black range, hitting each turian in the back of the head in a single rapid motion. The plasma blasts tore through them, one shot continuing on to blow a hole in the canopy, the other striking the wooden support beam below it and scorching it badly.

The asari whirled, only for the black armored figure to hit her with a biotic push and send her flying. She tumbled across the floor, scrambling to her feet, and Shepard found herself moving, her viewpoint changing as her own black-garbed hand placed a burning warp sword blade at the asari's throat.

A hard voice rang out, distorted by some kind of voder. "Matron Uthis. How pleasant to finally meet you."

The asari on the ground had looked up, her expression going from fright to pure terror, and she scooted backwards frantically. "I… I…"

The other black-armored figure gave mocking, soft laughter. "Relli got your tongue, murderous bitch?" She tapped her omni-tool and nodded. "Rest of her security team is dead, and the main entrance is flooded with halon. Comms severed. No alarms got out – figure there's a Broker drop team watching, but the drones will keep them occupied."

Her viewpoint bobbed, as if she had nodded. "Good. I find myself unwilling to rush this." The view turned squarely toward the asari, as her other hand lifted, a very familiar pistol rising into sight as she pulled the trigger, blasting the figure on the floor in the leg. The gown immediately soaked with purplish blood as the asari screamed in agony, writhing.

"Move again and I will cut your legs off, filth. Do you know who we are, Matron Uthis?"

Shaking and clearly starting to go into shock, the pitiable asari cowered against the wall, clutching her bleeding leg and nodding. "Y-You are the Sisters of Vengeance… please… I haven't done anything to you…"

The other armored asari gave a snort as she slung her rifle, pulling out some kind of curved scanning tool. "You provided the Broker a method to circumvent Alliance data security, and your proxies were instrumental in a series of alterations to repair orders at the Alliance Citadel docks a year and a half ago. A salarian who worked for you, and several humans who you compromised. Your little band placed an ODN cutout series on the SSV Normandy. Remember that?"

The asari's panicked features became confused, as she glanced between the black-garbed one on the left and what Sara assumed was Liara. "I… I let the Broker utilize many of my resources, I had to! My daughter offended the House of Storms, and the Nightwind were hunting me! The Broker said he could protect me if I just put a tracking system on several Alliance ships so he could sell the intel to the STG!"

The voice of Liara was almost unrecognizable with the voder, but the hatred in her tone was unmistakable. "And your actions led to the destruction of the Normandy. You, more than anyone else besides the Broker himself, are responsible. For everything we have suffered, for the deaths of our entire lives."

A hand lifted, and a grisly crunching sound was heard as biotic force slammed into the asari on the floor, bones breaking into splinters and a scream being torn from the throat of Uthis. Shepard watched in grim and sickened chagrin as the two biotically tortured the helpless asari for more than ten minutes, breaking most of the bones in her body and then idly slamming her traumatized and dying body around the salon.

Shepard wondered absently just how far down the dark paths – that she herself had always felt trapped on – had Liara travelled. Then she thought back to what she had done on Chresi V and shrugged mentally.

Finally, as the nearly unconscious and bleeding wreck of Uthis slammed against the wall, Liara spoke again. "I cannot torture you enough to make up for the pain in my soul, you disgusting bitch. But I will leave a message for those who have profited from the blood of others as you have."

The other asari reached into her backpack, pulling out a long, rusted iron spike, and Liara pulled a long, curved knife from her side. Her other hand grasped Uthis by the throat, lifting her up effortlessly, and Sara could almost feel the savage glee rising up inside her.

She found herself forced to watch, as Liara cut the eyes out of the matron, ignoring her pained, agonized screams and helpless thrashing. She was forced to watch as they doused her with some sort of chemicals and then used biotics to lift her, feet first, to the ceiling. She was forced to watch as they used biotics to slam that long spike through her legs and feet to pin her there – and then set her on fire and watched her scream and cry as she slowly burned to death.

The other asari – Shepard figured it must be Telanya – only nodded as the gruesome body finally stopped moving, burning sullenly. She checked her omni-tool. "Still no alarms. Broker team is eight minutes out. We won't need to use the demolitions charges after all."

Liara's voice was muted with hate and something else. "…Didn't this filthy bitch have offspring?"

Telanya nodded. "Two daughters, and a sister. We bypassed tower security and have them locked in their rooms, omni-tool access cut. I figured we could let them get found by security once the alarms go up."

Liara's voice became colder. "And other residents?"

Telanya said nothing for a long moment, only looking at her, the expression in her eyes unreadable. "The top floors… most of them are most likely Broker employees, or work for Barla Von. The lower levels are just… civilians."

Liara's viewpoint nodded. "The explosives are staged, correct? We can detonate the top floors and not blow the lower levels?"

At Telanya's answering nod, more dark amusement filtered up from somewhere, and Sara could almost feel Liara smiling.

Liara held out her hand, and after a second Telanya handed her some kind of device. "Bring the aircar up to the terrace landing and purge the computers. I'll finish downloading the LINK data. Once we're clear, I'll blow the top floors where her family is."

Telanya tilted her head. "…Not that I care, either way… but why? The bitch paid for what she did."

Liara's voice was flat. "No, she didn't. Not enough. I want them to know I won't just kill them. I will kill their children, their families, their friends."

Telanya was tapping on her omni, and her voice was equally flat and dead. "Like I said, I don't care much. This planet is fucking sick." She glanced up at the grisly figure on the ceiling. "But if we blow the top floors, we also blow up our calling card here."

She pulled out two black roses and dropped them on the floor, before turning to look at Liara. "Your call."

Liara looked at the smoking, battered corpse for several seconds, then shrugged. "Trigger the halon systems in their rooms and let's leave. You have a good point."

Telanya gave a bitter laugh. "Done."

Even as she spoke, the tower twisted, and Shepard found herself in a different location. A dimly lit room, steel walls and rubberized floors, was all around her. Haptic screens and news readouts lined the junctions of walls and ceiling, while a wide screen was sitting on a desk in front of her.

Shepard watched, as what she knew had to be Liara, typed words into the haptic keyboard, grimacing to herself as she read what was being typed.

The search results that came up made Shepard's heart sink. Grainy video of all-too familiar acts. Liara continued to refine her search, until a video of batarians dragging a slender, battered looking black-haired female girl came up.

Liara – Shepard had to believe that this was something she'd actually done, a memory of such – stopped the video with a shaking hand. As she did so, the door on the far wall slid open silently, revealing the form of Telanya, clad in a battered, dirty hoodie and skin-tight leather pants, carrying a box of some kind filled with various parts.

She had a curious expression on her face. "…Lady Liara? Is all well?"

Liara cut off the video, giving a shaky inhalation. "No. But no matter. We… must endure. Did you find the plasma cutout overrides we need?"

Telanya gave a nod, a troubled expression crossing her tired features, setting the box down with a muted clank on the table. "I did. And the modified FTL plotter is coming down at the Vinthan Docks tomorrow afternoon, in a shipment of replacement ion conduits. Customs thinks it's a shipment of asari ice-steel frames for warp swords. The first set of mercs picking it up thinks it's data-set chips on slave bonds held by volus investors, and the second set we'll use to ambush them thinks it is medical-grade uncut red sand."

Liara's voice held a note of tired amusement. "All useless and hard to sell, giving them no reason to steal the shipment for themselves. Very well done."

Telanya shrugged, her voice wry. "I dealt with so much smuggling back at the Citadel…" She trailed off, her voice dipping to a whisper. "…Hard to think about those days now."

Shepard found herself looking away, and then Liara's voice sounded more softly. "I am… I am always sorry I dragged you and Garrus into this and… all that has happened is my fault."

Telanya looked back up. "No, it is not, Lady Liara. Garrus and I owed you and Lady Sara our lives, and the ability to be… the people we should have been. And we both chose to come. We chose to stay, even when it got bad. And…"

The smaller asari wiped her eyes. "It is sad, but I know full well Garrus would have rather died – even knowing what that did to me – than betray his friend a second time. I could feel that. He couldn't just leave it, and if you'd gone without telling us, perhaps you would have died as well, and Lady Sara's body would be in the hands of the Collectors or worse."

Telanya squared her shoulders. "But ultimately, I blame my husband's death – and that of Lady Sara, and the dancers and the human Beatrice Shields – on only two people. Tetrimus Rakora and the Shadow Broker. I blame the suffering Dame Aethyta has endured on them as well as Aria." Her voice hardened. "I may die doing it, but Garrus will not go to the Beyond unavenged and unsung. And neither will Lady Sara."

Shepard found herself standing, Liara's hands reaching out to grasp Telanya's shoulders gently. "There are times I believe I would be lost in my own self-pity and loathing without you, Telanya. I… I doubt we will survive this. But if we do…"

She pulled away. "I will have you admitted as a member of House T'Soni, this I swear."

Telanya laughed bitterly. "The chances of us surviving are… low, Lady Liara." She turned her face upwards, glancing at the news screens. "And… this plan is horrific."

Shepard could almost feel Liara's smile, bitter and cruel. "I fear I have become a horrific person. But that is of no moment. We have expended all other… courses. Fighting Tetrimus on our terms, on ground we have prepared and with the tricks we have come up with is our only chance, but neither the Broker nor Tetrimus is stupid. They will use Tazzik to hound us, and we have already learned the hard way fighting him is to die."

Telanya gave a sigh. "I know that… up here." She tapped her head, her own smile turning sad. "But I also know that crashing a ship into Ilium – into Nos Astra itself – is a huge escalation. Thousands are going to die when we do that, and both the justicars and the Ilium Police Corporation will be looking for us on top of the Broker's agents. We have mostly covered our tracks, and the ship belonged to those turian mercs we murdered…"

Liara's voice had a note of exhaustion to it. "It does not matter. If we kill Tazzik and escalate the situation, the Broker will have to send Tetrimus. Once we get the Broker's location, we'll flee Ilium. It will take days for the Asari Republic to organize a search and by that time, with any luck, we'll have already deduced the Broker's exact location."

Telanya shrugged. "And then what? Assault it ourselves?"

Shepard's vision shook. "Not at all. We then inform Aria we have completed her sick fucking task. She hands over my aithntar and assaults his location. We tag along and make sure the monster dies in agony."

Telanya turned away. "…Garrus would say this is me wasting my life." Her profile was backlit by haptic screens, the illumination showing her shaking hands and almost emaciated features in harsh contrasts. "My mother thinks I am in prison or worse. Your aithntar is trapped with the person who hates her most in the galaxy and has every reason – and all the power – to want her dead. And we are falling slowly to pieces."

The smaller asari turned to face Liara. "I want to see this through… but I am scared to live beyond it, to try to reconcile what I've done, the blood I've spilled, the… the children, and innocents, and just people struggling to live that we killed."

Liara's voice was flat. "I have fallen so far I no longer feel much of anything except my mind slipping further and further into… splinters." Her vision landed on the haptic screen she'd been looking at, and with a simple swipe she deleted her search. "I fear I may not be strong enough to make it. But if we do, I will… try as I can to aid you in rebuilding a life."

Telanya gave her a curious look. "And you, Lady Liara?"

A blue hand patted her pistol almost fondly. "I promised Sara I would never leave her alone. When we have thrown down the monster, I will succumb to the ravages of my broken Soulforge in short order. I would prefer to die sane."

Telanya was about to speak when the comm system chimed. "Incoming Request: T'jasi vas Shana xi Scout Fleet."

Liara sat down at the console, pulling something across her face that felt like cloth. "VI, engage masking protocol and comms redirects."

She glanced up at Telanya, who'd covered her face with a gas-mask and goggles, then clicked a connection icon.

The screen filled with a ragged looking quarian male, his suit battered and discolored and visibly patched, a long crack marring the faceplate that had been sealed with some kind of crystalline substance. His voice was reedy and staccato, edged with the kind of desperation Shepard remembered all too well from her youth.

"Hey, uh, Sisters. I… I g-got the packages you needed. Series six power flow inverter. I custom tapered the EPS baffles… you install this in a ship and the core will go up in a very big boom upon command."

Liara's voice came out modulated and cold. "Very good, Cera T'jasi. Your payment will be ready when you deliver the devices to us. Meet us at 993 Systems-Gallery Tower Plaza, the northside, tonight at hesh-tak evening hour. Come alone… and I trust I do not need to warn you of how we deal with betrayal."

The quarian shuddered. "No, the r-remains of K'kani once you threw her off a starscraper was a most c-clear object lesson. It's just that…"

Liara's voice took on a cruel tone. "Yes?"

The quarian twisted his hands together. "Th-These devices are Citadel-restricted for a reason. You could use them to blow up almost any ship, true, b-but they could also be used on a planetside power station. Anyone d-doing forensics on a blast is going to figure out it's not just some bomb – eezo cores don't just fail for no reason. There are not a lot of p-people on Ilium who can jury-rig things like this."

Liara sighed. "Your unspoken request is acceptable. Assuming you bring us the devices and they check out, we'll be happy to get you out of your contract and off of Ilium with a new identity. Caleston is not… pleasant… but slipping past security there is the easiest."

The quarian gave a jerky nod, his voice relieved. "Thank you, thank you so much, mistress. I… I'll be there."

The signal cut out and Telanya gave a snort.

"Smuggling that moron off the planet is going to be very tricky and expensive… and might point a finger right back at our section of the beach, Lady Liara."

Liara's voice was tired sounding again. "I know. Once we get the parts, he dies. I can't afford loose ends."

Telanya nodded, disgust on her features smoothing to sadness. "I hate I've become this way… but we never had a choice, did we?"

Shepard never heard the answer, as the room and the vision twisted again, and there was another all-consuming flash of light.

When it faded, she stood on the place she last wanted to see again.

The dusty expanse of Torfan spread out before her, the rough mountains dotted with batarian mining rigs and tunnels, the squat circular towers and plain, boxy colony modules arranged in strange patterns. The small pillars here and there, gleaming blackly against the night sky, and the towering murals on the few high towers, of cruel-featured batarians.

She found herself able to move, and glanced down, seeing she wore her old RRU armor, but no weapons. A sound – a scrape of a foot on stone – made her whirl.

Before her stood another Sara Shepard, dressed in identical armor. But the features of this one were… horrific. The hair was longer, tangled and streaked with dried blood. The face was twisted into a feral, angry sneer, the teeth blackened and broken. The eyes were pure red, faintly glowing in the dim light, and the skin was a dusky, ashy gray shot through with black veins.

The other figure spread its hands, and Shepard realized it was as semi-translucent as the first 'other Shepard' she had seen. The voice was a cold, cruel whisper, edged with insane anger and anticipation.

"So… the big bad bitch herself shows up."

Sara backed away slowly, a feeling of danger and something else creeping up her spine. "I already ran into one copy of me… are you another or what the fuck is going on?"

The dark Shepard laughed, the red eyes brightening? "Her? She's the… heh, 'good' part of you, I guess. The part where you want to do the right shit, ignoring reality and the fact that doing what you were supposed to do all those years only got you fucked over and out."

The figure began pacing, and Shepard saw each footprint left behind was bloody. The voice was almost purring with amusement now. "Me? I'm the real ballgame, babygirl."

The figure leaned forward, and Shepard recoiled slightly at the smell of blood and death wafting from it. "I'm the Butcher."

Sara just stared for long seconds, before pinching the bridge of her nose. "So I've gone completely bugfuck insane. Great."

The Butcher shrugged. "I dunno. I don't think I could… think before. Just rage. Sweet blood, the killing, the fear… that was everything. Still is, but whatever the fuck this… place is. This ritual shit – it makes me more. More real. More… together."

Sara grimaced. "Am I gonna have to beat your ass too?"

The Butcher's grin widened, but she only shook her head. "No. Not that you could. But unlike Ms. Goody Two-Shoes, I ain't got a problem with how you do shit. You…"

The bloody figure paused. "I wasn't aware before… but I am now. I know what you know. And you've stopped lying to yourself, blaming yourself for shit. Truth is, honey, the game was rigged from the start. You knew it – the minute good ol' Dad sold us to Thanas and her fuckass rapists, our life was destined to be shit."

Sara shook her head but said nothing as the Butcher continued, making gestures with her hands. "Everybody in the fucking galaxy used the fuck out of us. Dunn, the stupid asshole, was exactly right. But we used them back. We killed and tore and raged and were so… what did Ahern call it?"

"Ah. 'Fuckangry.' Good term. I like it. And it sums up that which we are, what we did."

Sara tilted her head. "…And what is that?"

The Butcher whirled to face her. "That we fucking survived. That we didn't die in some shallow fucking pit… because I carried your ass. When you broke down, I came out and fucking killed! When you couldn't take it, I laughed and did the shit you couldn't. I killed Mom and Dad. I killed Rai and all the rest. When you couldn't fight, I kept going."

The Butcher got in Sara's face. "And you got all the light stuff. All the love, the sex, the admiration, the rewards, the adulation. I got nothing but blood, and killing, and rage."

Sara met the thing's gaze. "…I didn't know."

The Butcher patted her on the cheek, leaving a stain of blood. "Babygirl, that's all I wanted! You and I were the perfect pair. Liara showed up and… honestly?"

The Butcher stepped away, letting her weight fall back on one leg as she folded her arms. "She was sweet. Now, not only could I fight as hard as I could, but I actually had something I felt like fighting for. Shit was good. Then we died. Then that goddamned Harper woke us up and oh my GOD it is so much better now."

She spun in place, dark laughter spilling across the room that made Shepard shudder to hear it. "I can tear apart krogan, outrun a fucking aircar! My biotics can melt goddamned laser steel and I can go toe-to-toe with even superheavy mechs! I can pummel a man into fucking paste and laugh in Death's bitch-ass face. Everyone fears, everyone is scared. It's beautiful."

The Butcher exhaled, grinning even wider, madness in her tone. "Tearing apart Tetrimus was like a fucking half-hour long orgasm. Ne, hermana. You and me, we're not fighting. But I think…"

The gruesome smile faded. "…Not used to thinking, to be honest. But you got dragged here for a reason, to face up to the ugly facts."

Shepard squared her shoulders. "I… had a vision. Of Liara. Of… some of the shit she did."

The Butcher gave a thin smile. "See, that's what I'm talking at. Part of us – the me part, honestly – is okay with it. So what she blew some fuckers up? It's fucking Ilium, the only thing anyone on that shithole is 'innocent' of is actual fucking innocence. And she was in over her head, going crazy, and stuck with no way out. If the choice is 'die like a crying bitch' and 'get your fucking hands dirty,' you know which one to pick."

Sara nodded, then glanced around. "…You mean like what I did… here. When I fucked up."

The Butcher folded her arms. "WE did not fuck up here. Tyrson did. The Alliance did. They even fucking admitted it. Dragunov did, he didn't shoot Tyrson to fucking punish him but to cover the shit up."

A small batarian child wandered into view in the distance, wiping his eyes, his dirty clothing surmounted by a silvery bracket and a flashing light on the back. He staggered forward in an unsteady line, calling out something in the batarian language, and a second later a blast of biotic fire illuminated him. He exploded, the flames from the warpfire giving way to red-hot plasma as the pack on his back detonated as well.

The Butcher turned back to face Sara. "You didn't strap the kid up. You sure as fuck didn't decide to come here on your own. Disobedience meant they would have shot you – and probably your squad – and just sent some other poor fucker to die."

The Butcher leaned forward. "I could care less 'bout morals, love, laws, good, all that shit. I just want to feel hot blood and to scream, to kill and make everyone else feel what I feel. But I also don't bother justifying shit. You want to get your life back? Toss away that shit."

Sara tilted her head. "How does that make me any better than fucking Dragunov, or the fucking High Lords?"

The Butcher's smile was ghastly. "It doesn't. But neither does blaming yourself. Blame yourself for what? Did you have any fucking choices you didn't take? The rapists didn't ask. The Reds would have dusted you in six seconds if you dropped your flags. NYARC po-po would have shot you dead as fuck if you tried to turn yourself in. The Penal Legions told you straight up you were dead meat."

The Butcher shrugged. "If you grew up with all the good shit and did bad things, sure. You didn't. Fucking wasting your time crying about it ain't fixing shit. And the same goes for Liara. She's about the only thing 'good' in your life that isn't trying to fucking use you, and even I see that."

Sara looked at her hands, then looked back up. "This is such a fucking surreal mind-fuck."

The Butcher's answering grin was almost cheerful. "It's refreshing." She glanced upwards, frowning, as blue lights began to emerge, giant cracks in the dark skies above Torfan. "Huh."

Shepard stared upwards. "Now fucking what?"

The Butcher's voice was… fading away, as she became more translucent, glancing over her shoulder. "For me? I gotta go slap some stupid bitches around. For you? Fight and rage, no matter what. I'm all the 'bad stuff' in you, and I'm… what I want to be." She lifted a fist, the smile feral and cruel. "Deal with what is, not what could be. Stop fucking blaming yourself for the shit you had no choice in. And make sure you let me in when we go to skullfuck the Broker!"

With a flash of light, the vision of Torfan faded, and Shepard felt herself falling.

O-TWCD-O

Liara marveled at the insane detail of this mental construct. Together with her double, she began laying out ideas of how to fix the situation they were both trapped in.

Her counterpart was more… positive, more full of love and joy and forgiveness than she was, and still given to framing her ideas in terms of her Prothean studies. "We are operating without information, in a situation where it is clear you and Sara are being forced into each other's psyche – and possibly your own. We must determine the best way to proceed to help Sara."

Liara sighed. "And you are sure that… even with what I've done… she will be better with me than without?" She rubbed her crests. "I want more than anything to be with her again, to… find healing, for myself, for the horrible things I did. But I do not want to be rejected… or worse still, for Sara to force herself to accept me at a cost to who she is."

The other Liara actually laughed. "The bond does not allow one to lie."

Liara shook her head. "It does not allow you to lie to your partner, but what about your inner self? Sara is, as you said… hurt and despairing. I do not want the trauma of what I have done to pollute her, especially in the thrall of a man such as Jack Harper."

The ghostly figure, sitting on the floor in front of Liara, spread her hands. "The hypothesis I have is that this entire construct – ritual – is designed to align you to her. 'Corruption,' as you put it, may be the actual goal. And to be honest…"

The other Liara gave a sigh. "The Reapers are not a foe we can afford to have 'decency' with. The galaxy will need to unite, and cruel and hard choices and sacrifices made. I know you are horrified with what you had to do, but as I said, the waves must end up on the shore, for that is the only place for them to go."

She was going to say something else, but suddenly the room took on a reddish tinge and then twisted. Liara looked at her ghostly counterpart and then everything went black for several seconds.

Her vision returned in a rush of images that were both coldly crisp, and yet fogged by red – flickers of dark dreams and deranged cityscapes, intermixed with other things. A cold white corridor, lined with glass, looking out into some subterranean ocean. A whirling mass of screaming figures – batarian, turian, krogan – dying as white fire from on high obliterated them.

A smear of light, and Liara stood on a cracked plain of dirt, in front of the ruins of what looked to have been a small city before an orbital bombardment ruined it. The shattered remains of a biodome lay in burning pieces in the distance, and endless lines of black, shining mechs marched forward.

Their heavy footsteps fell in slow, measured cadence, each set of eyes gleaming a murderous and cold green as they lifted weapons and fired at tiny figures trying to flee the burning city. Her viewpoint shifted, tilting down to the wreckage of flesh, bone, and burned material that looked like a krogan.

She heard Sara's voice. "Time to die, Rythek."

The krogan's face, shattered and deformed by a tremendous impact to his skull, one eye shut, managed to spit. "You don't scare me, asari bitch. Aria is gonna find you and kill you for this insult."

The voice of Sara gave a dark, throaty laugh as one white-armored hand came into view, lifting the krogan effortlessly from the ground. His eyes bulged as she spoke. "Aria is too busy pissing herself in fear to do shit to me. But you… well."

With a careless toss, she flung the massive alien almost a dozen meters, his bulk slamming to a stop against a plascrete wall, a scream tearing free as the landing shifted the broken, protruding bones in his legs. Two white-armored hands made a show of flexing as she walked forward. "You see, Rythek… Aria's on my list. But you were first. Thalia Renas ring any bells?"

The krogan's expression shifted as Liara watched, unable to move her viewpoint. First puzzlement, then curiosity… and then a slowly dawning horror and denial. "…That's… no. That's not possible. They killed you!"

The krogan was lifted into the air by his arms, and another dark laugh came from all around Liara. "I am that which cannot die, you slaving piece of shit."

With a single surge of motion, the krogan's meaty arms were torn right out of their sockets, a spray of high pressure orange blood exploding forth as the figure tossed them aside.

The krogan was screaming, in pain, in shock, and in actual fear, as one white-gloved hand touched something on the side of the helmet, and a feeling of cruel glee rose in her from some outside source. "I want you to know, Rythek, who kills you. I want you to know it was the tiny little girl you decided wasn't bringing in enough money and could be used in the knife shows, and the tear videos."

With a single, blinding motion a fist descended, punching through battered body armor and krogan flesh and bone, withdrawing a second later as she tore out one of the krogan's hearts. "I know this won't kill you, but I needed a hole."

She knelt, looking the krogan directly in the remaining eye, and Liara could feel her smile. "Rest in piss, asshole." A hand lifted, a plasma thrower mounted on the right arm shoved up against the torn open hole in the krogan's chest, and Rythek screamed.

He screamed as plasma erupted into his chest and bowels, burning and cooking him from the inside out, until his blood boiled. He screamed as his lungs caught fire and white flames erupted from his mouth, as his eye burst asunder and hot plasma tore its way free of his body and head. He only stopped screaming when his entire body was aflame, already dead but still thrashing about as krogan regeneration tried to keep him alive.

A single mech walked up to Shepard, its optics obscured by a shimmering field of silvery liquid in the shape of a circle. "Done surrendering to your caveman tendencies yet, primitive? Or are you going to eat him now that you cooked him?"

Shepard – it could not be anyone else, Liara knew – gave a final dark laugh as she triggered her faceplate again. "He just got a little hot under the collar, Vigil."

The sphere pulsed. "Truly, your wit is only outmatched by your stupidity and water content, meatbag."

Liara's vision began fading again, the sounds of screaming and something else following her down, flashes of even more carnage all around her until her mind felt as if it was falling, and all went to blackness and silence.

Liara blinked as a light erupted in front of her, and found herself sitting in what looked to be the home she shared with Shepard on Intai'sei. Muted sunlight came in through one window, and she sat up fully, finding herself on the floor.

She got to her feet slowly, looking around, only to stop as the doorway to the bedroom opened, and yet another ghostly copy of herself emerged.

This Liara, though, was different from her counterpart in Anderson's apartment. Where Liara had lost her forearm and legs, there was no cybernetics, only grisly burned flesh and fragments of bone held together with what looked like copper wires. Her doppelgänger wore the heavy armored coat-set she'd picked out prior to having been trained on Pinnacle, and the shoulder plate was missing, a gaping wound in the shoulder weeping slow trickles of black blood.

Liara's ghostly counterpart looked up, a thin, eerie smile on tired features. "So the weakling finally shows her face."

Liara blinked. "…Excuse me?"

Other-Liara stepped into the room, the shattered mess of her leg leaving bloodstains behind her. The figure looked battered and battleworn, and there were additional bloodstains spattering her armor here and there. Her voice was a hateful mirror of Liara's normal tones, edged in something else. "I said you showed up."

Liara folded her arms. "I have already met… a fragment of myself, the one that inhabited Sara's mind. What are you?"

The other-Liara sneered. "I am what is left over. The guilt you threw away only to drag over yourself when you wanted to feel 'bad.' I am the anger and the rage you felt when killing that you tossed over your shoulder to convince yourself you were still 'you.' Whatever parts of Sara were in us had to find a home… and once you started suppressing everything, you locked up that part of Sara inside you."

The ghost smiled. "But not all of her. None of us are. I am what is inside you that you did not accept."

Liara felt her stomach drop as she focused on keeping herself calm. "I am not entirely sure what you mean…"

The translucent figure stepped forward. "I mean you went crazy, flipfish. You could not handle what you were required to perform, your mind split and broke and you compartmentalized. You slugged down enough Scotch and sleeping pills to make it through the day, but when it got time to get dirty, your mind just gave up. And I was… brought about. Instead of having to deal with that, you shoved it off. And it ended up on top of me, an ocean of pain, and regret, and bloodthirsty joy."

Liara thought about some of the times she'd committed atrocity, how they almost seemed unreal and dreamlike. How she had used biotics to compress a turian's skull until his eyes popped out of his head and had distantly wondered how much break force it must take to completely collapse it, or when she'd shoved a singularity into the genitals of a salarian arms dealer who'd been instrumental in smuggling the Broker agents into the Citadel to begin with.

"…If that is true, then why are you here now?"

Before the ghostly figure could answer, another one appeared behind her, dressed in the outfits she wore as a researcher with the University of Serrice. Liara felt something behind her, to find another transparent figure, this one dressed in the dimma-silk long dress her mother had made her wear to her Sun-day presentation.

More Liara's wavered into view – some bloody and haggard, grimacing with eyes full of pain, others horrified and confused. A babble of noise and voices surrounded her as they closed in, making an unbroken circle around her, and the voice of her dark ghostly counterpart gave a hollow laugh.

"You still do not get it. We never asked for what you have done to us. To be shattered and broken and used as props to keep you going."

She made a gesture. "All of us are you. Driven into the dark spaces between thoughts, shoved into the memories you drowned with drugs and drink. The urges and bloodlust you embraced, the fatigue and the horror after. We're all the pieces you threw away to survive and we don't think you need to keep on surviving."

A shimmering Liara dressed in the black clothing she wore on her arrival on Intai'sei smiled cruelly. "You do not deserve Sara, you are stained with your crimes and you will only make her life harder. You offer nothing but blood and sorrow, and a broken mind that can't even grasp why the blood you spilled matters."

A second ghost stepped closer, wearing one of the expensive dresses her mother had bought her, holding aloft a glass of pris para. "You do not deserve to exist, when you murdered and committed all manner of crimes and expect forgiveness when your only remorse is how you feel. You enjoyed it, and then shoved that to us so you could feel righteous, only to drag it back up and hurt Sara yet again. Dunn was right – you only use people."

Another image, a Liara in a smudged work jumpsuit, holding a broken Prothean stelae, lifted it in a threatening motion. "You do not deserve to be in the light while we drown in darkness. Sara would have wanted us to remain pure, to keep to only killing those who deserved it, as we did in the beginning. Instead, you felt sorry for yourself and used your impatience to die and stop suffering to justify murdering tens of thousands who did nothing wrong besides being trapped on Ilium."

A Liara in a torn set of old mediation robes she'd worn when she first left home, lifted a text on the Church of Athame. "You spent your whole life trying to find meaning in what you believed and what you pursued. And when Sara showed up, you tossed it all away, to drown yourself in sex and adoration. You didn't help her heal – you parasited her, preyed on her need to be needed, fed on her worry. And now you are here again, ready to use her to prop yourself up!"

The original figure spread her arms, blood spilling from her many wounds to fall on the ground and vanish into smoke. "You have already acknowledged the truth. You have already questioned and realized you are broken and worthless, and you have chased death. Surrender. We will… replace you. Sara can have the pure love and innocence you threw away and spat on and you can have oblivion and the knowledge that you sacrificed for Sara's welfare."

Liara drew back, glancing around with a snarl on her features. "I have sacrificed too much of my life, my sanity, and my morals to allow myself to simply give up. I am not perfect, nor am I unaware of my many sins and failures. But none of you are any better, and I will fight you."

The dark doppelgänger across from her laughed. "Violence, from you? Shocking. You do not seek to understand and reconcile, to rebuild and unify, only to destroy. That is all you can do now – stab, tear, blow up. Immolate tens of thousands in a revenge that was meaningless. You cannot fight us, for WE are your power and rage. Without us you are nothing."

Liara tried to summon biotics, but nothing responded. She launched a rapid kick at the bloodstained mirror image of herself, only for it to pass through without contact. A second later she was flung across the room by a return kick, slamming against the hard walls with a flare of agony.

The crowd of Liaras, semitransparent and with angry, gleeful eyes, descended upon her with bony, almost skeletal phantom hands, seeking her warmth, pulling at her very life. Memories flashed through her head – the confusion of her first link with Benezia shaded with so much pain that she knew now came from her separation from Aethyta. Her first failed dig site, staring brokenly at the construction equipment plowing it under. The broken, shattered look of pain on Amalia's face before she fled.

A flash of her mother at the end. "Goodnight, Little Wing… Eth. I will… see you with the dawn." And then, with those words, she found a glimmer of something inside her. Something buried under layers of pain and old, unsaid words and hopes she'd given up on.

She turned her head upwards at the cloud of wraiths tearing her soul apart and snarled. "The Sun always rises."

Other-Liara sneered. "There is no sun here, fool. Dissolve. Cease. Embrace the rest of the Beyond."

There was a flash of something like light, or heat, and then the crowd of shadows shattered, as a single figure slammed to the ground in front of Liara. Long dark limbs uncurled, as blood matted black hair tumbled down a naked back lined with whip scars she knew all too well.

"S-Sara?"

The figure half-turned, and Liara felt her heart nearly stop with fright. The eyes were glowing pits of red, bounded in bruised flesh. The lips were thin bloodless streaks framing a deranged grin, the skin smeared with blood.

"Not quite, baby. Let me deal with this first."

Other-Liara got to her feet, her face twisted in outrage. "You should be ours! We suffered! We bled! All she did was kill the innocent!"

The Butcher laughed, a nightmare sound Liara would never forget the rest of her life. It was a rasp of outraged surprise, of cruel promises of revenge, and, most of all, of a dark joy that sickened her. "You're not supposed to be all splintered up like this… and we can't ever be in charge, honey."

Almost too fast to see, the Butcher-Shepard moved, the motions of her arms and legs unnatural, bending too far and too fast to be normal. Screams rang out as figure after figure collapsed into piles of shifting shadow, and at last the room was empty save for Liara, the Butcher, and darkness.

"…I don't get a lot of what's going on. I feel like a buncha spears are stabbing me in the guts. Like I'm out of control." The Butcher turned to Liara. "This pile of fuck is mine to fix, not yours. Get your shit ready, the ride is about to get fucking buckwild."

Liara slowly got to her feet. "Is… is Sara alright?"

The Butcher's smirk was achingly close to the one Sara had in real life. "That depends on you, baby." She paused, as if listening. "…You can't hear it?"

Liara frowned. "Hear…"

She trailed off, turning as a sound reached her. "…what?"

O-TWCD-O

Aethyta's hands were shaking as she held the blade point down, biotic energies swirling around her strongly enough that the air moved. Trellani's body was taut to an almost erotic edge, muscles dancing over her naked form as she channeled the power of the ritual, her voice hoarse and her eyes bloodshot as a drip of purplish blood ran down her face from her nose.

"And the Third House… opens!"

Aethyta suppressed a howl of pain as the biotic forces redoubled, eyes fixed on the tortured shapes of Liara and Shepard in the water. The air smelled of ozone, blood, and cooking meat, the water in the tub hissed and roiled even as bolts of electricity erupted here and there, leaving long burns on the naked skin of the two conjoined lovers.

Trellani's voice arched higher, her teeth bloodstained and displayed in a grimace of concentration, her eyes glowing. "The hate for yourself rebounds to the other, the three become one, the one becomes three! The Denied are driven within and the Rejected are a cage of fangs!"

At the pinnacle of the forces building, Aethyta reversed her blade, and with a deep breath drew a single, thin cut across the bared shoulders of both Liara and Sara, before speaking her own line. "The Eye opens, and what cannot be unseen is visible."

Outside, Sednaya eyed the medical status repeater on the wall in alarm. "Vigil, both Liara and Shepard are showing blood loss, electrical burns, systolic overpressure in stroke regions and cascading hormonal failures. Aethyta is losing both oxygenation and blood pressure and Trellani is suffering biotic burns as well as shaadrenalitis!"

The sphere merely hovered silently, its mirror finish surface not reflecting her face in it, she noticed for the first time. "It is almost over, doctor. Prep your teams for trauma recovery, with a focus on CPR and electrical shock dissipation."

O-TWCD-O

Shepard opened her eyes and looked around once more. She was in a vast, dark space, with a hint of some arched ceiling overhead at a distance impossible to grasp. Cold winds whipped past silently, a clammy fog wrapping around her as she came unsteadily to her feet.

"What in the actual fuck…?" She slowly turned around, finding nothing there, but when she faced front again, she nearly leapt back in shock as she could see Liara.

"Li…?"

Liara blinked, glanced down at herself, and nodded. "…Yes. I think. I have had an extremely… disturbing and odd experience."

Sara found herself suppressing a smile. "I have had the trippiest goddamned conversations with myself… Can you please explain to me what is going on? I thought this would be like a bond, with… I dunno. Less sex and more feelings or something."

Liara, still shaken from her last experience, took a deep breath. "I am not sure. I… I met a copy of myself, some fragment of me that was… with you. She and I surmised this is a melded mental construct, being reinforced by biotic electrical fields to overstimulate my bonding link to you and force it to reapply. The… others… are likely the bond-shards. I did not expect them to be… sentient. Or responsive."

Liara looked around the dark, cold space. "Nor do I know where we are now, or \… why."

Sara swallowed. "Liara… I think I have seen some of your… memories."

Liara nodded. "And I yours." She lifted her chin. "We have both, I think, done things that we regret…"

Shepard looked at her a long time. "I don't regret what I've done, Li. Once, I think… I thought words like 'good' and 'evil' meant something. That the silence in my head about what I should or shouldn't do was because I was a piece of trash."

She exhaled, lips narrowing as she did so. "But I see now that the choices we are not allowed to make, the things we are railroaded into doing, those aren't decisions we make without… blinders. We can call killing someone evil if it's done in one set of situations, and a good thing in another."

She glanced back at Liara. "But it's all bullshit. Good and evil isn't in what you do but why you do it. And all the good in the world won't stop bad people doing bad things if you aren't willing to realize you can't always do it with clean hands."

Liara stared at her. "…You used to think differently. That… choices mattered. That goodness mattered."

Shepard gave a bleak smile. "I did. I think…" She paused, then shrugged. "I used to think a lot of shit, Li. I used to blame myself for being put in situations I couldn't have gotten out of. I used to blame myself for being used by people who I had no way to stop. And I used to blame myself most of all for not fitting in and getting people."

She turned to face Liara fully. "But if dying… dealing with Harper, with finding Garrus alive, finding you alive… if all this shit I've just gone through in my head in the past few hours has taught me anything, it is that good matters only if you make it work. I've done some brutal shit since I woke up. I crossed my own rules running down the pirate networks. But clinging to rules that don't help you fix things isn't 'good.' "

Liara gave a thin sigh. "I grasp that, Sara. But my situation is not so cleanly cut. To rely on excuses…" She looked down. "…I met a shattered array of my 'selves.' Things I had thrown away, pieces of my soul and persona I'd cut out to make room for more hate and… I do not know that they were wrong about me. That I did not just cross lines or break rules but defiled myself in seeking vengeance, to a point where nothing I do will make me whole again."

Sara smiled. "That isn't your job. It's mine."

She was about to say something else when a feeling of pressure came over them, stabbing pain ringing in their heads in waves as vague wavelike smears of blue light surrounded them.

"Now what?" Shepard's voice was taut as she unconsciously stepped between the lights and Liara, the gesture so innate that Liara did not even object. Instead, she focused her attention on the vortex of energies, even as she felt herself shifting—

There was a confusing mix of feelings, sensations. Part of her was in that dark space between nothing and nowhere, surrounded by swirling blue mists and pressure so heavy she felt breathing was impossible. But part of her was in what felt like near-boiling water, with agony racing through her limbs and a throat sore from screaming, and her hands clamped around a pair of arms nearly crushing her against Sara's sweating, shivering body.

In front of them, two forms began coalescing, slowly, forming into distinct shapes. To their left another form began coming together in shades of red and black, and to their right still another, this one from scraps of shadows and ill-defined movements.

The two figures in the center snapped into hard focus – one, the blood-stained nightmare shape of the Butcher, the other the worried looking and innocent features of the Other-Liara that Liara had talked to and discussed events with.

Other-Liara glanced around, taking in both Shepard and Liara as well as the damaged body of the Butcher, before speaking hesitantly. "What… what is happening?"

Liara shook her head. "We do not know, only… we can faintly feel our bodies outside the bond now, in some level of physical distress. I do not know how much longer we can take this."

Shepard tilted her head, noticing for the first time just how much Liara had changed. The 'real' Liara's voice was harder, colder. Her posture was balanced for either a defensive roll or to pivot on a heel for a knife hand strike, her free hand gently touching Shepard's own to let her know where she was. Her eyes were not fixed but watching the other shapes forming slowly to either side.

The 'other' Liara, however, was just standing there – unready, unaware, eyes wide but not taking in anything, defenseless. She stood flatfooted and unprepared for an attack. Her voice was soft and frightened.

The Butcher met Sara's gaze with a twisted smirk on its defiled features. "It's obvious. You two are the real people. Me and this part of Li-Li are the good parts and whatever those two… are the enemy."

Other-Liara frowned. "They are part of… us. To attack everything is not an answer, without understanding we cannot win over every foe."

The Butcher's laugh sent shudders down Liara's spine. It was an exhalation of purely delighted hate and anger. "Honey… why else would I be here, if not to kill something?"

The two shapes to the side finally formed. The haggard, exhausted form of Other-Shepard to the left, and a shadowy and ill-defined Liara on the right, flickering from form to form, from clothing to clothing, with black eyes that were pits into nothingness.

The darkness of the room seemed to harden somehow, and the already heavy feeling of pressure grew, making all of the figures save the Butcher stagger.

Sara grimaced, staring at her double, and then at Liara's. "Now what?"

Other-Sara clenched her fist. "We take you the fuck out and keep you from ruining Liara."

The shadow-Liara took a step forward. "Liara is the ruined one. This other one still seems pure."

The eyes of Other-Shepard took in Other-Liara, narrowed. "They're all corrupted, then. Fair enough."

Sara grabbed Liara's hand and took one step back, even as the Butcher placed herself square in front of Other-Liara, staring at Shadow-Liara and Other-Shepard with a gleeful expression.

"You two are so fucking stupid. Hey, sis, keep the real Li safe for me, will ya?"

With a spinning lunge the Butcher moved, flowing like water as she sprinted forward, sliding into a scissor kick that sent Other-Shepard down with a scream. Shadow-Liara moved toward Shepard and Liara, but the Butcher was already moving, leaping a good six meters in a single, animalistic movement that stirred something ugly and atavistic in Liara's body.

The shadowy figure the Butcher struck staggered back, flailing arms and legs of several figures overlapping it before recoalescing. Its voice was a ragged chorus of pain. "Why defend them, the liars, the failures, the ones who trapped us in the dark?!"

Other-Shepard got to her feet, wiping blood from her ghostly face. "Doesn't matter." She tilted her head, before settling into a combat stance. "I won't go down and let Liara fall into the shit I did."

The Butcher's laugh was almost human. "I'm the only one seeing what's happening here?" She gestured to the blackness, which was… falling inwards, spiky shapes of distant size and menacing bulk rushing toward them from every direction. "This couch and four is 'bout to turn back into a pumpkin, girls. I know what I am. I'm just the Butcher. I'm guessing lil' Miss Purity knows what she is too – the part of Liara that wasn't stained with our shit, and that was in Shep when she died."

The Butcher pointed a blooded finger at Other-Shepard. "You're the part of her that was in Liara, and you only hate the real thing 'cause you hate yourself. Because we fucked up. We didn't keep her safe, WE let her go on alone and WE are responsible for her being fucked in the head."

She turned to Shadow-Liara. "And you are basically turning into something like me. All this she couldn't take had to go somewhere. But you are too busy being pissed-off to revel in the heat of blood on your skin, the rush of danger and the thrill of screaming agony racing through the air."

Sara shook her head. "This is so fucking surreal… I must be going crazy. We are not having a goddamned psychoanalysis gangbang in my head."

Liara muttered. "Our head."

"Same diff, Li."

The Butcher tilted her head again. "I can hear it. Feel it. I'm… for whatever reason, maybe I am less caught up in my own bullshit, but I can hear the song."

Other-Liara nodded, a fearful but determined expression on her face. "As can I." She turned to Other-Shepard. "…You can't help me by killing Sara. We are one. We are all one. I cannot heal what you have suffered… but you are not alone."

Other-Shepard's features twisted in a mix of longing and confusion. "I don't want to… die."

Other-Liara smiled. "I do not think we will die. I am… alone. And if this ritual completes with me alone, then I will cease if I am not part of the greater whole. We all will."

Shadow-Liara snarled. "And so the bitch who fucked up everything just gets to live happily ever after? What about us? Why are we alone?"

The Butcher sauntered across the distance, even as the air vibrated with a thundering sound in the distance. "Like I said… you are like me. You don't get why the blood makes you happy, or the pain makes you smile, do you? You need a guiding hand… and hey, it's only fair I get my own honey, right?"

Shepard blinked, then pinched the bridge of her nose. "Look, this place is about to come apart. So what do we fucking DO?"

Other-Liara stepped close to Other-Shepard, taking her hands. "We become one. Open yourself, and let the bonding happen."

Other-Shepard swallowed. "And if you're wrong?"

Other-Liara's smile was so gentle even Other-Shepard relaxed. "Then maybe we will cease or die… but you will never be alone."

Liara swallowed. "Yes. Never again."

The three pairs of figures – one gaunt and tired against pure and hopeful, one a mass of shadows and nightmares against a storm of bloodlust and hate, and Sara and Liara themselves, tired and wounded and scared and yet hopeful…

There was a feeling of absolute agony, pleasure, falling. A thousand perspectives as fingers interlaced, as skin touched skin and mind touched mind, as electrical impulses and biotic fields melded to a level neither human nor asari could hope to survive.

"I love you."

They all said it. None of them said it.

The darkness became light.

O-TWCD-O

"Th… the Fourth House… opens…"

Trellani slurred the words, her energies nearly spent. Blood ran freely from her mouth, biotic burns trailing up her arms and down her spine. Aethyta leaned haggardly on her sword, slashes across her arms and thighs weeping blood and smoking lines of charred flesh tracing asari runes across her limbs and body.

With a final push of what power and energy she had left, Aethyta shoved Bloodwaves-Upon-Flesh into the biotic circle of power, and with a deafening blast of heat and sound, the power station exploded. Lightning flashed wildly through the room, melting lines of molten metal and burning holes completely through Trellani's right shoulder as she fell to the ground with a shriek. The metallic tub holding Liara and Shepard burst asunder, boiling blood-stained water splashing out and shorting out the powerlinks.

The forms of Liara and Shepard fell onto the floor, Sara's arms wrapped in an unyielding grasp around Liara's more slender body, as the far door opened and Sedanya stormed in, followed by medtechs and Vigil.

"By the Goddess! Get the medical staff here immediately! They're seizing!"

Shepard only could make out slurred sounds, as she felt her limbs slacken in non-response. But she felt the heat of Liara's body alongside her own… and finally, once more, the clear and pure connection of her soul, tight against her mind.

Li… we did it. She tried to speak, but her lips didn't move. And yet she felt Liara's understanding, her joy and a sort of panicky, excited and confused hope blossoming into unending, boundless relief.

And then she knew nothing.

O-TWCD-O

Miranda checked her notes a final time as she entered the QEC transmission room, trailed by Doctors Wilson and Six-Hawks, as well as Doctor Sedanya. The glowing image of the Illusive Man was already there, seated and smoking.

"Miranda. Doctors. I presume you are calling to inform me of the results of the… situation with Shepard and T'Soni?"

Miranda nodded, taking a last deep breath. "Yes, sir. From what we can tell, the goal of the ritual – the re-bonding – was a success. EEG and deep brain resonance report reciprocal neural activity consistent with deep bonding." Miranda frowned. "Actually, some of the scans are a little too identical. The depth of the bond is—"

Harper interrupted. "I know, Miranda. This is a discussion to be had at a later date with Matriarch Trellani. For the moment, what is their medical state?"

Miranda sniffed. "Poor. The ritual inflicted first and second-degree electrical burns and damaged some of their cybernetic interlink connections, as well as blew out three of Shepard's heatsinks. They had more than forty minutes of extremely high blood pressure – at one point, Shepard's spiked to three hundred and eighty over two forty-five. There are a number of minor internal bleeds – a nuisance for Liara, very dangerous for Shepard. We're monitoring for sepsis and infection now."

Six-Hawks spoke up. "The electrical and biochemical discharges caused some level of nerve system damage in them both. We are still assessing the extent and severity of that, but using electroactive imaging requires a four-hour exposure. We plan to do that when we sedate them both for final corrective surgery and Doctor T'Soni's cybernetic leg fittings."

Jack leaned back, puffing on his cigarette and blowing a thin stream of smoke outwards. "What of Matriarch Trellani and Aethyta?"

Miranda managed not to roll her eyes. "Minor burns and some electrical shock damage. Both are resting and conscious. I don't predict any complications on that score."

Harper put down his cigarette. "Well done. This was a risky chance we took, but if it worked… then we have much longer than half a decade to derive benefits from Shepard."

Doctor Wilson shrugged. "It solves the bonding issue, sir, but there is still cyber toxic shock, cancer, sepsis, necrosis… and the fact that as it stands, this bond is dangerous. We examined the DDSV and EEG slides of Shepard and Liara from the records we, ah, obtained from Alliance Medical. The maps are not the same – the current EEG map is frighteningly concurrent in real-time between the two of them."

Wilson exhaled. "This is not just a bond. We will not have a chance to intervene this time. If something happens to one of them the other is going to be affected, and if one dies the other one will be dead before the body hits the ground."

Harper's smile was both cool and sad. "Doctor Wilson… sometimes, believe me, it is better that way. From a logistical and practical viewpoint, being able to keep one of them alive if the other dies for some reason is desirable."

His blue-ringed gaze shifted to Miranda, something in the look almost apologetic. "…but as was pointed out to me not too long ago, some grief is not recoverable. And putting someone through agony out of… pragmatic concerns… is not the kind of response that will give us good results any longer."

Wilson looked like he wanted to say more, but instead merely nodded.

Six-Hawks inclined his head. "A wise point of view, sir. I would, however, add onto what Doctor Wilson has indicated. While I agree having an anchor for the soul is good, especially in Shepard's case, given how… distant she is from her own body, I do question the necessity of forcing the issue so sharply. A lower-intensity bond may have sufficed."

Harper smiled. "I find, doctor, that the word 'may' usually ends up being turned into 'unexpected complications.' We cannot afford mistakes, but we also cannot afford half-measures." He turned his head to Miranda's direction. "How long before they're out of medical and ready to proceed to the Citadel?"

Miranda bit her lip, doing both math and medical response planning in her head in a hasty fashion before giving an artfully neutral shrug. "Two days, if we are going to recklessly endanger their lives. Four if we plan to give them good security. Six to play it safe."

Harper nodded. "Once they are both awake… please have them reach out to me." He reached for the controls to shut down the call then stopped. "…and Miranda?"

"Yes, sir?"

He smiled thinly. "Shut down and terminate all the clones for the backstop project and scrub all data for the plans we had to… set up alternative arrangements for Shepard before we knew of Doctor T'Soni's survival. The last thing we need after pulling off the impossible is for Shepard to somehow find out how far we are willing to go."

She nodded, trading a glance with Six-Hawks. "I'll do so immediately, sir."

"Good. Harper out… and give my thanks and appreciation to Matriarch Aethyta for her assistance."

His image vanished, and Wilson sighed. "When you offline the clones, can you have someone at least harvest the organs? We spent months doing clonal line fixes to get those things in shape and Shepard may need… spare parts."

Against her will, Miranda found herself laughing. "I wouldn't use that term around her, Wilson."