Liara's eyes drifted open for a moment. She was comforted by the warmth of the sheets, and the muscled arm wrapped around her.

She sighed contentedly. The cabin was silent, except for the constant hum of the ships engines, and the on-again, off-again sound of the fish tank near the door.

"Look who's awake," he said from his place nestled against her back. Liara turned in his arms to face him.

"I'm dreaming again."

He nodded and smiled. She sighed again. "I miss you."

"I miss you, too." He kissed her forehead lightly. "Don't give up on me."

"Shepard-"

Liara sat bolt upright in bed, his name on her lips. She looked about, disoriented. The gray walls were vaguely familiar, but they were not the cabin walls she'd hoped to wake up to.

The safehouse.

Liara threw herself back down onto the bed with a disgusted sigh, staring at the ceiling. A door opened somewhere near the end of the bed, a silhouette of light framing Feron as he leaned in.

"Liara?" he whispered softly.

"I'm awake," she replied, ire evident in her tone.

"Are you okay?"

I'd rather be dreaming, she thought, but replied, "Yes, I'm much better. How long have I been asleep?"

"About 12 hours. I've got some food out here."

She nodded, realized he probably couldn't see in the darkness, and said, "I'll be out in a moment." The light slowly vanished, and she heard the door close. A moment later she rose from the bed, straightened her clothes, and walked into the main room.

"I didn't dream that data, did I?" She asked Miranda, who was standing at the terminal.

Miranda regarded her quizzically. "No, it's all quite real. And so, apparently, is Shepard."

Feron shook his head from his seat at the table. "I still can't believe it. How did he survive?"

Liara brushed his question aside. "Later. Focus on the next step. How do we recover his memory? He clearly had no idea who I was when I encountered him last."

Miranda shifted her weight, arms crossing her chest. "That is a bit odd. It's as if all the synaptic pathways were erased…"

Feron cleared his throat and waved his hand in the air. "Uh, excuse me. For those of us who aren't experts in human biology?"

Miranda laughed and shook her head. "Sorry. I'll try to boil it down for you. The human brain is a strange creature, really. When we commit something to memory, it gets stored in the brain. In order to bring that memory back up, the body sends an electrical impulse along a specific pathway, which triggers a specific memory. If we stop using those pathways, they begin to decay, and eventually they're overwritten entirely. That's why we forget things like specific childhood memories, for example. If you don't actively access a memory on a regular basis, you forget it, because the brain disregards it.

"Now, imagine if all of your synaptic pathways were suddenly dissolved."

Liara shook her head. "Clearly not all of them: just the ones targeting personality. Remember, I saw him. I spoke with him. He can have a conversation and carry out 'normal' human behavior. It's more as if his personality was erased."

Feron gestured to the monitors. "But everything is fine, isn't it? You've got his memories saved in those files… right?"

Miranda sighed. "In a sense, but it's not perfect."

Feron's face twitched. "I don't understand- how can you have them, but not have them?"

Liara groaned as what Miranda was saying dawned on her. "Because of how associative memory works."

Miranda nodded. "Exactly. Again, the science is a bit complex, but it comes down to this… We could implant Shepard with a memory, of say, his first kiss with Liara. But there is more to the memory than just that- the sounds, the smells, everything that happened in that moment is recorded, but they're not exactly stored together. So, if Shepard is walking along some day, and touches a fabric that reminds him of Liara's clothes, or smells something that reminds him of her skin, it triggers the memory. That kind of neural pathway… I don't know of any way to reproduce exactly those kinds of things. With Lazarus, we got lucky- Shepard's brain was wholly intact, and largely unaffected by his death, aside from the obvious. This… this could be different."

Liara had stopped listening long ago. Her mind had frozen the moment Miranda mentioned the first time she'd kissed Shepard. How his strong arms had pulled her close, fitting his body to hers… The first time he pressed his lips to hers… She recalled the shock of how soft they were… Her chest tightened as if a Thresher Maw were wrapping itself around her heart.

Focus.

It was then that something she'd told Shepard came back to her. She blinked once. Twice.

Is it possible?

"What if I joined with his mind?"

Feron and Miranda turned to her. Liara stepped back from the terminal, and faced them. "What if I joined with his mind, like we did when we worked out the Prothean cypher? Shepard had… downloaded Prothean memories from the beacon, and again from the cypher. I joined with his mind to help him make sense of all of it."

Miranda shook her head. "There's no guarantee that would work. You're assuming his memories aren't gone?"

Liara nodded slowly, trying to put the pieces together. "I'd like to try and work off the hypothesis that his memory was suppressed by the Crucible event, perhaps due to his close proximity to the device when it emitted its signal that destroyed the reapers."

Miranda's eyes widened for a moment as she considered the possibility. "I suppose it's possible. We have nothing to discount the theory at the moment."

Feron shifted in his seat. "What if you're wrong?"

Liara sighed. "If I'm wrong, then we'll have to attempt to implant the memory markers left from the Lazarus research, and hope for the best."

Feron looked at the ground uncomfortably, saying nothing.

"There's one other thing we're forgetting." Both pairs of eyes turned to Miranda. "We have to convince Shepard he's lost his memory. You said he didn't even recognize you, Liara. How are we supposed to convince him that he's someone else entirely?"

Liara shook her head. "I have no idea." She turned back to the terminal, and began typing. "Feron, get every agent in the Terminus systems up to speed. I want to know where Shepard is. I want to know what that vessel is carrying, weapons and cargo. I want to know who the captain is, and any background on the crew that might be relevant. Most importantly, I want to know where they're going. Every source, Feron. I don't care what you have to do- threaten, bribe, cajole. Get it done."

Feron nodded, standing from the table. "It might take a few hours to get to all of them, but I'll see to it."

Miranda let out a laugh. "Agents? Background? Threaten sources? Who are you, Liara- the Shadow Broker?"

Author's note: Sorry for the short chapter this week, but I promise some great stuff coming up! YAY for new cover art! I grabbed a screenshot from ME2, and went to work. Be sure to let me know what you think- or if anyone else wants to take a crack at it, send me a message ;) It turns out, my work has this great break room on the third floor, and it's been great for my writing these past few days. I hope you guys are as stoked as I am for the next few chapters!

Until next time.

-Zero