Liara

Too bright. Too many lights in the cargo bay of the ship. Humans, dressed in white and black, with the orange symbol of Cerberus stamped above their hearts, poured onto the ship and surrounded the pod. I sat in the corner of the bay with my knees drawn up to my chest, imprisoned by my arms laced around them. I listened to the voices, the austere, un-emotional comments the Cerberus operatives recorded as they examined the pod and its contents.

Then, as one, they began to move it off of the ship, away from me and my protection. Protection I could not give. Every muscle in my body shook with fine tremors, as though my entire physical being possessed a nervous tic. I stared at the wall now as my vision faded in and out, blurring and returning with a stark clarity. My stomach growled and cramped and I wondered when I had last eaten or drank anything. Not that it mattered. My purpose was gone.

I had found Shepard. I had found her, and realized her death. The bright, vibrant woman I loved was destroyed. Destroyed by those in league with the Reapers, the ghosts of the galaxy that no one cared existed.

The sound of footsteps echoed in the now-empty cargo bay and I looked up slowly. My fluctuating vision moved over a landscape of long legs, sweeping hips, a tight abdomen, firm breasts, and finally on the unforgivingly beautiful features of Miranda Lawson. Had it been Shepard, Chakwas, or Ashley, she would have knelt beside me and met my eyes when she spoke. But she was not those three women. She was something else entirely…an operative of Cerberus.

"The Illusive Man wishes me to extend our thanks." the last word sounded as though it tasted bitter on her lips. "Your recovery of Shepard's body is a job well done."

I looked up at the woman who stood over me and rose shakily to my feet, refusing to speak from the floor, refusing to appear as her organization wished me to…a subservient alien, beneath the gaze of humanity.

"I want her back." I said, struggling to keep my voice steady. "On Omega, Feron suggested that I let the dead rest and I…I should have listened to him. She is out of Collector control now, and she deserves the rest that she went to. Please return her remains so that I can see to them properly."

Miranda's eyebrow twitched upward and her lips turned down at the corner. "It will not behoove you to renege on the terms of our arrangement." she warned.

"Oh, I will not renege." I shook my head. "I will of course reimburse Cerberus for the financial backing you rendered. And I…" I winced and fell silent as a spear of pain shot from my temples into my eyes, ricocheting back and forth through my skull.

"What are you on?" Miranda asked, her hand lifting my chin, forcing my eyes to her cold ones, examining me like I was some sort of laboratory specimen. "Your temperature is elevated, pupils dilated, and…" she pressed two fingertips to the artery in my neck and her eyes flared, "…your pulse is racing."

I slapped her hand away from me. "That is not important." I spoke. "Will you agree to financial compensation and return Shepard's remains to me?"

"No." Miranda shook her head. "And I've a very good reason for refusal. Do come with me, Dr. T'Soni."

She turned and left, not giving me much of an option. I followed her out of Tazzik's stolen ship, into the Cerberus cruiser. We entered an elevator and journeyed down to the lower levels of the ship. When the doors opened, I blinked rapidly, almost blinded by the brightness of the lights. The air smelled clean, sterile, as though I were breathing pure oxygen and nothing else. Miranda led me to a wide window and directed me to look inside.

I saw the opened pod that had contained Shepard's remains. Further into the room lay a bio-bed with brutal fluorescent lights over it, turning the husk that was Shepard into a bleak silhouette. Men and women in haz-mat suits stood over the body, entering information into charts, excavating my lover's corpse as though it were an archaeological dig. I placed my hand against the cold window and remembered the warmth of Serena's skin, the heat of her breath against my neck, her scorching kisses and tender caresses.

Soldier's hands can be so gentle…

"The Illusive Man has allowed me to reveal this to you." Miranda spoke. "We were not solely interested in returning Shepard to human hands. We wish to return her to life. I've been researching this possibility for years, and technology has at last progressed to the point where it will be possible. It will take time, of course, but I am fully confident that we will be able to, in essence, resurrect Commander Shepard."

That is…my mind filled with images of Serena's smile, of her silver eyes flashing with fury against the wrong-doings of the galaxy, her words in the face of horrible actions taken for the most honorable of reasons…so very wrong. She abandoned me. She left me behind to save the weak. She has endured so much already…why must she be dragged out of death to serve…I examined Miranda, the arrogant tilt of her chin, the utter confidence in her icy eyes…a darker purpose; one that she despised.

"Tell me, Miranda," I whispered, "will she be who she was before? Will her voice make lesser hearts tremble? Will her hands mete justice…will her heart be willing to carry the burdens of others?"

Confusion swirled in Miranda's eyes, mixed with ire and frustration in a tornado of disdain. "Does that truly matter?" she asked. "Shepard is a soldier, a symbol. She is what we need to defeat our enemies, and living, she will succeed."

"But what of her soul?" I asked, glaring at the Cerberus operative and apparent scientist. "With all of your financial resources and technology; your supposed ability to restore scorched flesh into living tissue, to clone organs…can you reach into the nebulous ether of the human spirit and drag her soul back from the hands of eternity? For it is that which makes her enemies tremble. It is that which storms the bastion of the galaxy's most terrifying enemies. No mind can carry the belief that defined Serena Shepard, that gave her victory when any other would have known crushing defeat."

Miranda's eyebrows drew close together as her eyes raked over me, looking for humor, for jest, for teasing. She would find none of those. I was in deadly earnest with my questioning. If they were indeed successful in resurrecting Shepard, it was imperative that she return as she had been.

After seeing my sincerity etched in my stance and blazing in my eyes, Miranda's brow lifted and her lips parted. A hissing chuckle whispered past her lips, an attempt at laughter. It did not matter that the noise fell flat in the sterile hallway. What mattered was that her mockery was in earnest.

"Scientific discovery has long since decimated the archaic notion of souls, Dr. T'Soni." Miranda informed me, her tone threaded with disgust. "I find it intriguing that a scientist such as yourself would cling to such a primitive notion."

"I had disavowed the very concept as mere mysticism." I admitted, squaring my shoulders. "Until I met Serena Shepard. I saw into her mind, Miss Lawson. Nothing so broken, so shattered, so riddled with open wounds and scars and mental trauma beyond my conception could have endured against what we witnessed while hunting Saren. No mere physical construct could have persevered. My stance is not because I adhere to a primitive notion, but because I have witnessed the presence of something so frightening that humans have attempted to logic and reason it out of existence."

"I do not catch your meaning." Miranda waved a lofty hand.

"Your species is so enamored of control." I spat the world. "You terraform a planet and attempt to rule over it. You fight against everything; accept nothing that does not conform to the miniscule limits of your imagination. You deny the existence of anything that might require faith because you are so fucking terrified of not ruling over every aspect of your life. Your desire for power is what makes you too weak to ever wield it. And Shepard was not like that. She. Was. Different. Mere science cannot restore the woman you want to place at the head of armies."

"Mere science?" Miranda shook her head, lifting her omni-tool, directing it at me, and running a scan. She blinked, slow, then typed in a command before closing down the interface. "Grief can cause strange reactions and even skew the mind's perception of truth and reality, Dr. T'Soni. You are understandably distraught and perhaps not in the right frame of mine to grasp the concepts I am presenting. I can bring the dead back to life once more."

"But not restore a soul." I said, and Miranda's pale skin flushed with anger. "Very well, Miss Lawson. Should your project succeed, a soldier of flesh you shall have. You shall have the face of Serena Shepard to place at the head of your mission. But it shall be a face and a name alone. It will be nothing else."

"I refuse to argue this with you any longer." Miranda said in a haughty tone as a Cerberus officer approached. The young man gave Miranda a sealed box, which she took, then dismissed him with a wave of her hand. "Regardless of your recalcitrance, we have gone out of our way to assist you. It is no secret that you are wanted on Thessia, and while most in your position would take refuge on Omega, Aria has banned you from the station. We took the liberty of digging deep into your mother's holdings and discovered that she has an apartment under an alias on the planet Illium. It is an asari planet, as you know, but the laws are fluid, and credits will often procure innocence."

Miranda brought up her omni-tool and sent a message to mine. I pulled open my screen and saw the address. I wanted to be angry that Cerberus had meddled in my private affairs, but the relief I felt at having a safe place to flee to provided enough comfort to dissuade a wrathful reply.

"Also," Miranda extended the slim silver box to me, "you will need this. The stimulant in your system is quite powerful and highly addictive, and you are about to suffer heavily from withdrawal. You will need to continue dosing yourself with smaller increments until your system stabilizes."

I took the box and narrowed my eyes as I opened it, surveying the syringes and vials it contained. I glared at Miranda with suspicion.

"I do not understand why you are attempting to help me." I said.

"It is not altruism that drives me, Dr. T'Soni." Miranda shook her head, her raven tresses swaying. "The Illusive Man considers you a valuable resource. I am simply following orders to keep you sane and useful. The salarian's ship is yours, and you are free to depart at any time."

"That time is now." I said.

I had no wish to remain here, to see the ways in which they would use perverse science to restore Shepard. Secretly, I hoped that they failed. Shepard was dear to me, even in my anger towards her, even in my loathing of my grief. She deserved better than to be brought back and used by galactic terrorists.

"You know the way out." Miranda said, and I turned to leave. "Also, Liara, the Illusive Man has authorized me to inform you of the success of this project. Do you wish to be notified when Shepard returns?"

"No." I looked back over my shoulder. "Even if your resurrection attempt is successful…Serena Shepard is dead."