Melara didn't know what to think, or to feel, and she did her best to put her own feelings aside out of concern for her mother. Part of her agreed with Athena-loathe as she was to ever admit it. Why do this to themselves? Why tear wounds open all over again over a digital ghost? Mel would stay- she wanted to hear the information for herself, so that Athena couldn't somehow alter it later on- but there was no reason for Irie or Liara to stay for it and subject themselves to that.

There is no real reason for you to stay, either. Vina and Dae can stay and report on the validity of the intel, and you know it.

And right on cue, there was the other part of her-the part of her that knew why her mother had to do this, and why she and Irie had to stay. Even though Shepard's death had been long expected, in her own bed and in Liara's arms- none of them had truly, honestly said goodbye. That last day together they had only danced around the inevitable, alluding to it but never really just saying goodbye, never truly just saying thank you. Liara had bid Shepard goodnight, unable to face the idea that she could wake and find her gone, always with the closely guarded belief that if she just wished it hard enough, Shepard would always have just one more day, and she would have just one more chance to tell her everything she needed to tell her.

This was that one final chance. Melara knew how much this would mean to Liara. It had always bothered her that in that final hour of the war, she had not been there at Del's side. Though Del had made sure Liara stayed behind on purpose, it didn't change the fact that she went through all that suffering and pain completely alone. To have this opportunity to change that, even if it was really just a simulation- perhaps it would finally put that final regret to rest for Liara.

EDI's spare chassis was brought in, the connections made and the work done mostly in solemn silence. It seemed both an eternity and only seconds before Athena lifted her head and nodded. "I think we're ready. The nanites are connected and the interface is in place. Now we just need our AIs."

"If there are any here," Dae said, before drifting back a bit to catch hold of Melara's hand. She gave it a firm squeeze, and Mel almost idly nodded, trying to reassure her wife she was all right.

"If there are not, we will find out soon enough," Athena said, and dusted her hands off. "EDI, Joker, you and your geth stand by. Tama, get ready."

Eír placed her hand on the wall near the power feeds, as the others gathered around. The troopers were parked and dark nearby, the geth inside them already having transferred in to the equipment bank to facilitate matters there. EDI and Joker would be able to interface with the system wirelessly without fully departing their chassis, adding additional processing power as needed.

At Athena's nod, Eír's biotics lit up, the entire wall suddenly seeming to ripple with waves of energy and faint luminescence. A hum started from somewhere beneath their feet. EDI's eyes never flickered, her gaze fixed on the equipment bank.

"I have located what appears to be a secondary maintenance computer. This is an extremely complex biogenetic system."

"Can you establish interface?"

"Stand by, I am attempting to find a compatible connection feed to shake hands."

A few seconds passed in almost agonizing silence.

"Connection established."

"I believe I've located an AI program," Joker said, his eyes flickering in time with EDIs. "It seems confused. I can't keep up with what it's doing."

"I have it," EDI said. "There are others but they are degraded or damaged beyond use or cognizance."

"That one will have to do then," Athena said. "See if you can't talk it into the chassis, explain what we need."

"Processing."

"Wow, I can't believe everything I'm getting," Joker said. "If AIs could babble this little guy would be running his mouth nonstop. Looks like…mission information, flight logs maybe? I can't process it all- EDI I'm going to just data dump into a secondary file, we can go over it in detail later. It's going to take up most of my memory storage-there's a lot here."

"Acknowledged. I believe I have successful communication with the AI program, and have transmitted the details of its situation and ours. It is moving into the chassis for more direct communication. Stand by."

Athena looked up from her work. "Joker, finish your data dump and clear out of the ship system once that AI is through. Tama, once they are clear of the system, stop the power feed and let the secondary computer shut down again."

"The AI is established in the chassis," EDI said. "I am out of the ship system."

"Data download complete," Joker replied. "I am out of the system."

Eír removed her hand from the wall, her biotics dying. Even with their removal, the entire wall continued to ripple and glow for several minutes, only slowly dwindling as the power she had charged it with was used up.

"I have instructed the AI in the use of the chassis," EDI said. "I have explained our need, and it is willing to retrieve the information encoded on the nanites."

"Plugging the nanites in," Athena said, working quickly. "Setting up connection link."

"Accessing," EDI replied.

Athena looked over at Liara, then nodded. "This is it. Are you ready?"

There was, of course, no 'ready', but Liara nodded anyway. Squeezing Sam's hand she broke away from her side, moving over to the prone chassis and kneeling beside it. Melara moved over as well, as did Irie, the others hovering near.

"Connection established. The AI is interfacing with the nanites," EDI said. "Transmitting."

Pain was the first thing she was aware of. It seemed to consume the whole of her body, and even as she started to become conscious, she tried to localize it, and couldn't. Every inch of her seemed to hurt- a slow searing burn as if she had been cooked.

The Reaper beam…was I hit?

She struggled into full wakefulness, gasping as her eyes flew open. Nothing but the thickest, most impenetrable black surrounded her. Its very perfection was familiar, and alarming. During a mission a while back she had been taken over by a young man who had been cruelly forced into a merger with a rogue AI. In the midst of this, she had been rendered completely blind, her sight returned by various artificial means until her eyes could be replaced with clones.

Even more alarming than the blindness and the pain was her complete immobility. Try as she might to move, she could not. She was aware of her body- if even just because of the pain- but she could not so much as lift her hand. Blinking rapidly (her eyelids, apparently, still worked) she thought she heard something nearby.

"Where am I? What's going on?"

There was a pause, and then the shift of cloth. She tried to focus on it, and found her head was just as immobile as the rest of her.

An unfamiliar voice, female and soothing, spoke from nearby. "Take it easy, Captain Shepard. You are safe for the moment."

The moment the chassis gasped and opened its eyes, Liara grasped its hand. She knew it could not feel her, not with its body systems severed, but the motion was instinctive.

"Where am I?" the chassis suddenly demanded, and Liara felt her throat immediately tighten. EDI's normal voice was digitally transmitted, not formed by any physical vocal structure. These nanites were transmitting a perfect rendition of Shepard's voice, down to the smallest inflection. "What's going on?"

Liara tried to speak, but failed as tears flooded her eyes. As she struggled to loosen her throat, Melara touched her shoulder gently, then spoke instead.

"Take it easy, Captain Shepard. You are safe for the moment."

"Who are you? Where am I? What is happening? I can't move- why can't I move? Why is it so dark?"

"You were badly injured, Captain," Melara told her. "You are…in a medical facility."

"What? No, I have to go back. I have to go back and open the Citadel-"

"The Citadel has already been opened, Captain. You…you succeeded. Don't you remember?"

"I…I'm not sure."

"That's all right. A lot has happened over the last few days-"

"Liara? Is Liara all right? What about my crew?"

"Liara T'Soni is just fine. In fact, she is here," Melara looked at her mother, feeling her own throat threatening to close as she struggled back tears. "She wants to talk to you."

"Li? Tianlán, I can't see you-"

"I am here," Liara said thickly, her free hand cupping the synthetic cheek. "I am here, Del. I am right here, and I am not leaving your side."

"Did we win? The doctor said I got the Citadel open- did the Crucible work?"

"Yes, it worked. It worked, Del. You don't remember?"

"I…I'm not sure."

"Shepard, I know you are confused," she said. The more she spoke, the easier her words came, but a steady stream of tears moved endlessly from her eyes. "I know you are exhausted, and hurt, but there is information we desperately need. Something happened on the Citadel that we are unsure of- you may have seen or heard something important, something we need to know. Please, love. I need you to try and remember everything you can."

"It-…so much is confused-"

"That's all right," Melara told her. "Just…start at the beginning and tell us what you remember. You made it to the beam, got on board the Citadel. Admiral Anderson and some others were there, do you remember?"

The eyes shifted a little. "I…I think, I…"

Then her voice steadied. The confusion vanished, but the level of pain in it seemed to increase. Just that quickly, she was not just recounting what she remembered but reciting it as if the events were currently playing out. They listened as she held one sided conversations with Anderson, then with Baillie and the others at the blockade sight. Though Liara well knew the extent of injury Shepard had already sustained by this stage of events, hearing the pain-filled, slurring voice only drove the knife deeper.

Things only got worse. Silent ghosts clinging on her words, they followed the simulated Del through her memories as she and the others made it to the Tower, only to be confronted by the perverted Shiva abomination that was the Illusive Man. He struck the others down, fatally wounding Anderson before Del managed to kill him. Hearing Del's infuriated scream as she crushed the Illusive Man's skull, then the exhausted agony in her voice as she spoke one final time with Anderson, was more than Irie could bear. She broke away from the others, striding off toward the tunnel as sobs broke out. Gerty quickly pursued her.

Then, they were moving in on the crucial juncture. She had opened the Citadel but the Crucible had not launched. Just as she was mentally reaching out for the interface- the place where her normal memories ended and did not resume until Eír had shot her- Liara stopped her.

"Del…Del, can you hear me?"

"Liara?" Confusion filled her, disorientation. For a moment, she had been back in the Citadel, reliving what had happened. Now she was back in the darkness, immobile, with her wife's voice the only light in the black agony.

For a moment, the disorientation was too great. The pain made her head feel stuffed with cotton, made concentration difficult. She struggled to try and piece together what had just happened, for several moments having no memory of having awakened to this darkness before.

"Liara, what are you doing here? I…wait, I…it's dark. I can't move- what happened? Where am I?"

"You are injured, do you remember? You are in a medical facility. I am right here, Del."

With the cold sloth of a glacier, memory began to return.

A nightmare. I dreamt about the Citadel. I must have lost consciousness again.

"I…I'm sorry, for a moment I was- I could have sworn I was-…" Her voice broke. Dream or not, the events would not stop echoing in her mind. She could feel tears welling up, her throat thickening. Normally she kept a decent hold on her emotions, but she was exhausted, hurting, and everything seemed so surreal. "He killed Anderson, Li. That fucking bastard turned himself into a monster and Anderson-"

"I know, my love. I am so sorry…he was such a good man, and I know he loved you."

"How long do I have to be here, Liara? How badly was I hurt? The pain-"

She could not understand why Liara was so close, yet she could not feel her. Blind or not she knew Liara would be holding her hand if she could, touching her, reassuring her. The pain throughout her body told her that she was not physically paralyzed- she was being held immobile, probably in some kind of stasis field. Her injuries must be such they wanted to insure no motion was possible. Even so, that should not have stopped Liara from touching her.

Burns. The pain is burning…if the burns were severe enough, she could not touch me safely.

Suddenly, every part of her longed for some kind of contact, no matter how brief. She still felt some measure of confusion and desperately longed for an anchor, an oasis.

It must be the drugs. Please, just let me feel her, just for a moment. Please, just let me feel her.

She heard her wife sniffle faintly, heard the thickness in her voice, and knew that Liara was crying. If anything else, it only made her long to hold her even more. Comfort her somehow.

"You were hurt very badly, Del," she said. "I am so sorry about the pain. They have given you medication but you are resisting it, as you did the sedatives."

The sedatives. She had a moment of clarity. There was worry in Liara's voice, but as well there was grief…and something else. Liara only sounded that way when she was trying to hold something back, to put on a front of bravery or confidence when in truth she was shattered to the core.

I'm dying, Shepard realized with an odd sense of calm. That's it. I'm so badly hurt that they aren't going to be able to save me. Even if the Reapers were stopped, everything is in such chaos. If I'm injured badly enough even all the resources and expertise in the galaxy can only do so much. They're trying to keep me as comfortable as possible but Liara knows. She's trying to hide it from me, but she knows. I'm dying.

Sadly, she turned her eyes back toward where her wife was, unseen and unfelt. "Liara," she said softly after a long moment's pause. "C'mon, Tianlán. You're a very poor liar. What's really happening?"

Another soft sound, a sad sniff. "You always insisted you were stupid, and you were always so far from that…" Liara said. "Shepard, I love you…do you know that?"

"I know, Li. I love you too."

"Then I need you to trust me right now. I will…I will tell you everything, if you truly want to hear it, but first I need you to trust me, and I need your help."

"Hey, course I trust you," Shepard said. "I'll do anything you need."

"I need you to tell me what happened after you put your hands on those pads, in the Council Chambers. In as much detail as you can remember, I need you to tell me everything you saw, everything you heard. Can you do that for me? That information is extremely vital, Del. It may be…it may be key to truly ending this war."

She felt cold move through her, sluggish and distant. Had the Crucible not worked? Were the Reapers still attacking, even now? Or had they only been temporarily incapacitated and they needed information to take them out completely before they repaired themselves?

"Will you tell me, afterward?" Del asked. "Will you tell me then what's really going on?"

"I will tell you everything, I swear it," Liara said softly. "Everything you wish to know."

Del shut her eyes a moment. It was still so hard to think. Between the agony and the drugs, her concentration kept wanting to break and retreat into sleep.

I can't sleep. Not if they need my help. I have to remember.

Slowly, the wanted information came. Her brows knit with concentration.

"I put my hands on the pads, and it was like being electrocuted," she said slowly. "This energy just gripped every part of my body, just for a moment. When it cleared I was in the dark-…no. No, it wasn't completely dark, not like it is now. There was that golden glow everywhere, the…do you remember when Archer took over my body?"

"How could I ever forget?"

"It was like that. All I could see around me were glowing numbers, mathematics. Curtains and waterfalls and oceans of mathematics. Something scanned me I think- there was a brief moment of white, and then a voice was speaking to me. It sounded like a VI. Called itself Id. Said it was the master program of the Citadel."

"You asked it how to fire the Crucible," Liara surmised. "What did it say?"

"It said 'we are designed for this moment. Justice shall prevail.' I told it to fuck off with that nonsense, I just wanted it to fire the Crucible."

There was soft, brief laugh from Liara.

"That is just like you. What did it say?"

Mel remained silent, fighting to keep a hold on her emotions as she reminded herself over and over that this was not actually her father, just an electronic ghost imparting necessary intel. Still, it was not easy to do, not when it sounded so much like Del Shepard. Not when she could hear the pain in its voice, see the tears on her mother's face.

"It said…I think I can remember the exact words," the simulation continued. "It said, 'Your choices and the choices of countless species before you were taken away. This was incorrect, an injustice. Those that did not agree with this decision left you these means to make your own destiny, to give you justice.'"

Melara's brows tightened. So, whoever created the Citadel and designed the Crucible were at odds with those that created the Reapers?

"I told it I didn't care about that nonsense right then, I just had to get the Crucible to fire before the Reapers destroyed everyone. It told me I could not make a decision in blindness. Then it said it would show me."

Her voice wavered a bit, and after a brief pause, Liara gently touched her cheek again- ignoring the fact the sensation could not be felt. "What then?"

"It showed me," Del said, her voice cracking miserably. "It showed me…oh, Tianlán, what did I do? What did they do?"

"Shepard, please…please, I know it is hard, but you need to tell me what it showed you. Please, my love, please…tell me what it showed you."

"There was a war," she said in a rough, careful voice. "So many countless species, across hundreds of thousands of galaxies-"

"What kind of war?" Athena asked, jumping in without thinking. The eyes shifted in confusion.

"Who is that?"

"I will tell you shortly," Liara said, glancing sternly at Athena a moment before returning her attention. "What kind of war was it, Del?"

"A revolution," she said. "Something happened in this revolution…something was set off and part of the universe was…I-I'm not sure. It only showed me images. Diseased? Somehow made dangerous. A hundred galaxies. The others were afraid if it was not contained it would spread to the rest of the universe, threaten everyone, destroy everything. So the…I don't know what they were. I can only see them. I think they were the power, the ones in charge. Insects, maybe…?"

"Like the rachni-"

"Different than the rachni, but sentient, powerful. They were…" Her eyes flickered again, seemed to clarify. "The Brasa. They were called the Brasa. I can see them. An empire of a hundred thousand galaxies, millions of sentient species, most incredibly advanced. The Brasa controlled most everything for such a long time, before a different revolution. A Senate was formed then, and the bulk of their empire fell, but they remained one of the strongest voices in government. Then this revolution came, and some sort of weapon, I think it was a weapon? Or an experiment…? was set off. A hundred galaxies were 'infected'. I can't really tell by what, it's just a concept- h-hard to put into words. No. Not a weapon-something that others thought would advance their species but it turned out to be too dangerous. The Senate was afraid the damage would spread and so they-"

"They set up a quarantine," Liara said softly. "With Reapers as the enforcers."

"Yes. Yes, that's just it. How did you…no, never mind. Not important. The Reapers were set to make sure no life in the quarantined galaxies ever advanced far enough to leave- because if they left, they'd cause this problem to spread to the rest of the universe. The Reapers were tasked with keeping the sentient races developing in those galaxies in check. When they reached a certain level of development, they were to go in, preserve the species for later revival, and retreat again to enforce the quarantine."

"Preserve the species?" Liara sounded horrified. "They did not preserve the species, they slaughtered them!"

"That's how the Brasa and the Senate set it up," Del said. "The Reapers were supposed to be arks. They would harvest the existing advanced sentient species, storing as much of their genetic material as possible. They were also data gatherers, recording everything, preserving as much culture and history information on those species as they could. Th-that's why the Citadel. It wasn't just a back door for the Reapers to eliminate the heads of government and take control of the relay network quickly, it was also a data cache. After they had control of it, they would copy all the information the rising species had stored in the Citadel for archive. The idea was that after the Senate could find a…a cure? or a solution to the problem plaguing these galaxies, they would then be able to reseed the various species, cloning new members via the genetic material, establish them on various uninhabited worlds terraformed to their exact needs, and allow them to start again when the quarantine was lifted. The Reapers were self-sustaining; with each new species harvested, a new ark was built to hold their genetic material and the sum of their culture for later reseeding. The Brasa didn't care about individuals dying, just the perpetuation of each species at a future date. They put each new culture into a 'holding pattern' until they could figure out what else to do."

"But the Reapers were sentient AIs in their own right, not mere arks!" Melara said. Liara looked at her, her gaze instructing caution, but Shepard answered her anyway.

"That's the problem. The Brasa set all this up to contain what they saw as a temporary problem. Only no one could find a solution to this…this plague, an answer to this threat these galaxies posed. The Reapers were ships, crewed by AIs - much like the geth travel around in their chassis. Only they were sentient AIs, and over a very long time- left alone to this Cycle- the AIs not only evolved…they merged into massive, individual consciousness-and went mad. They began to believe themselves Gods. They were trapped in the perpetuation of this Cycle but it became almost religious to them- they forgot the original purpose of it. They believed they were advancing themselves by absorbing advanced organic species- it became almost a game to them, ritual, a sacrifice on the altar of their superiority. They created the indoctrination processes or…or expanded on something simpler that was already part of their technology? It's unclear. The Brasa left the whole thing to just run on and on and on and after a while they stopped even checking on it. The quarantined galaxies were cut off from the rest of the universe- a dark dirty secret no one ever talked about. They let this horrible slaughter go on and on, let the Reapers go more and more insane, and I…"

Her voice cracked in misery.

"Del…shh. It is all right-"

"No. No it's not all right. Iovino, remember? I know what that means. Iovino wasn't a person, it was a species. The Iovino headed the revolution against the Senate. They're the ones that set off this…device, or event, or whatever it was. When the quarantine was put into place, the Iovino wanted nothing to do with it. They thought it was a horrible injustice to those species that would be held and slaughtered under it. They fought against it, even attacked the Reapers when they were first put into place. But…they lost. Between the Senate's forces and the Reapers, they didn't stand a chance…they were all slaughtered. Systematically exterminated. The Senate eliminated them all, even the ones that had nothing to do with what happened. The Reapers didn't forget them, though. Iovino became part of their lore, part of their religion…then part of their madness. The Devil of the Reaper religion, fancy that?"

She let out a bitter, wet chuckle. "All the Reapers remember of them was that they were the enemy, that they were the cause of whatever it is that necessitated the galaxies being quarantined. To the Reapers, Iovino was the Devil who wanted to stop their good work and destroy all of the universe. 'Killer of Galaxies'…"

Her voice choked off again momentarily. "And I am. I mean, I have, haven't I? I have killed millions. Every Reaper I destroyed held the entire genetic and cultural information of a whole species. They could have been reseeded, had a new beginning- but now any hope of them are gone forever. With every one I killed, I committed genocide-"

"Del, no…please, that is not true. That is not-"

"It is true, Liara. Id showed it to me, it told me. And it gave me a choice. I could let the Reapers live, let them finish their work, destroy our species but preserve their culture and vital genetic information to be given a new chance later on- or I could destroy the Reapers, saving the lives of trillions-everyone I loved- but wiping out untold trillions more in the process. Not only that, but by eliminating the Reapers I would end the quarantine and open the door for this danger to do exactly what the Brasa feared- worsen, and spread to the other galaxies that weren't infected- likely leading to the end of…everything. The very fabric of space and time, the entirety of existence!"

She choked off in a sob, her eyes looking upward. "And I did it, didn't I? Because I couldn't lose you. Because I didn't want to believe it. Because of my own selfish fear. Andbecause of what I did, all of those species that were held in the Reapers are forever lost. Because of what I did, the entire universe may end…I really am Iovino, Liara. I really am the Killer of Galaxies."