Thanks to everyone who read and reviewed! Hope you all enjoy part three!

The Normady SR2 was approaching a gas giant named Hibernia. According to the computer, it possessed an atmosphere almost exclusively of methane and chlorine gas, held 49 independent satellites in its gravity well, and measured 2.8 Jupiter Masses. What in the hell Jupiter was, he couldn't even venture to guess.

Garrus was back in the main battery, his own incandescent red-soaked corner of the ship. Illium was five hours and 671.52 light years behind them. Sleep had eluded him last night; the memory was still too fresh in his mind. The rush from the Dantius Towers was just now flowing out of his system. The jitters and the muscle tension were dissipating. Garrus knew his own body. He knew he'd be crashing very soon.

But there was no fatigue in his muscles yet. His eyes felt no trouble staying open. He was as clear and awake as ever, despite going well over forty-eight hours without sleep.

"What do you think?" asked Agent Jacob Taylor, who was standing in the main battery staring at a live feed of Hibernia on the computer screen. "Atmospheric pressure is…"

"Well outside the Voerman Limit." That was Kenneth Donnelly down in engineering, his voice flowing seamlessly into the room through the SR2's communication systems. "Its gravity well is high enough to catch the blast, but low enough that it won't distort the electromagnetic field."

Gabby Daniels's voice poured in as she completed his thought for him. "For the purposes of the test, it'll be like firing into open space. Except it won't, you know, go all Newton's First Law on us and continue at a constant speed and direction until it hits some hapless planet twenty million light years away."

"Physics brings out the bad girl in you, eh?" said Donnelly, his voice exaggeratedly flirtatious.

Garrus heard the indistinguishable sound of a quarian clearing her throat. Tali'Zorah, the unofficial mistress of engineering, interrupted them swiftly. "Engines are engaged, FTL flight is ready to go. Mass effect fields are at full strength. We are simulating full ship-to-ship combat status."

"We should be good to go," said Miranda, who was directing the whole operation from her bed in the medical bay. "The system is uninhabited. The planet is… well, it's a gas giant. According to the computer, it's the most popular drive core discharge spot in the sector, so we already know that no one much cares about it. Does it fit all the requirements for the test?"

"It does," said EDI, the AI's voice coming from the console near the door.

Miranda clicked her tongue. "Then I think we've found our planet."

"Take her into orbit?" asked Joker from the cockpit.

"Do it, Joker."

Now Garrus could hear light footsteps tapping their way down the metal catwalks of the engineering deck. A moment later, Jack's angry and hostile voice poured in through the comm. "What the fuck's going on up here, huh? I'm trying to get some sleep, but you people just don't shut the hell up."

Tali sighed. "Jack--"

"What, you're having an engineering block party and decided not to invite your biotic best friend? Damn, quarian. I'm hurt."

"Jack, get off this channel," Miranda said sharply.

"Ah, should have known. You've got the Cerberus cheerleader on conference call. Who else did you invite? Not the krogan, I bet."

As the audio-only catfight continued, Jacob sighed. He shook his head, giving Garrus a long and exasperated look. "Looks like everyone on the ship wants to be part of the cannon's first live test."

"Looks that way," said Garrus, his voice tight and unenthusiastic. It was true. Everyone was here, in some way or another, to give their valuable bit of input before he fired the Thanix Cannon into the depths of Hibernia.

Everyone, save one notable exception.

Commander Shepard was nowhere to be found.

He could still feel the warmth on his skin. The heat, the tingling electricity on the spots where she'd touched him. It was all in his head, of course -- he'd been wearing full armor, save his gloves. But it still felt real. It felt as real as anything, and by God it felt good.

Was he crazy, or just stupid? After two years of slowly trying to put it behind him… now she was back. And those impossible, inappropriate, inescapable feelings were crawling back with her. They bit at his mind, gnawed at his chest. He tried to push them away, rationalize them off as stupid, dangerous, pointless. But they were there again, and they would not be denied.

Two years ago, he'd been convinced that there was nothing more between him and Shepard than trust and friendship and respect, mixed in with a little hero worship and misplaced attraction. But after all that they'd shared -- all the pain, the blood and the emotions, the nights they spent talking for hours on end... it was inevitable that his feelings would become more. When she died, his whole world turned black. He found that he could not go back to being the man he was before he met her. C-Sec, the Spectres… none of it mattered anymore. Nothing did. That was why he went to Omega.

And now she was back. Everything had slid back into place, like a machine that just needed its fusion sink replaced. The gap of time had closed almost seamlessly, and before he knew it, they were back to their old selves again. Best friends, trusted comrades, trusting each other with their lives, talking for hours in the night. They would remember all the crazy things they had done, wonder about the crazy things they still had left to do. He had opened up to her again, like it was the easiest thing in the world.

They were as close as ever. Closer, even. Hell, she had just poured her soul out to him last night, and he had made everything better almost by accident. She'd done the same thing with him after Dr. Saleon. After Sidonis.

He didn't want to fight it. He shouldn't have been fighting it at all, especially not after seeing what he became without her. Omega… he refused to go back to those days. He wanted to stay here, with her -- the last, best person he had to hold onto.

Here, he was complete.

"In high orbit now," said Joker as he brought the SR2 to rest. Garrus felt it lurch just a bit.

"Everything is ready down here," Tali added. "We are monitoring all major systems."

There was a brief, almost unnoticeable moment of hesitation from Miranda. "…Where's Jack?"

"Oh, I'm still here, cheerleader." Jack's scathing voice came through louder than all the rest. "But don't worry. I promise I'll behave. Wouldn't want shockwaves going off around the mass effect core while the big gun's firing, would we?"

"I'll keep an eye on her," Tali said. "I'll make sure she doesn't cause trouble."

Jack scoffed. "Oh, quarian, what I would give to see you try…"

Miranda took a breath. If he didn't know better, he would have said that the Cerberus operative was nervous. "EDI, do one last full systems check. I don't want some misaligned rotator to backfire and blow the ship apart."

"Working," said the AI. Five seconds later, "Everything appears to be in order. I expect this test to go off without any mechanical complications."

Miranda sighed. "Alright, main battery. We are set for fire."

Jacob Taylor turned and gave him a brief flash of a grin. "It's your gun, Garrus. You want to do the honors?"

Garrus didn't particularly want to do anything, but he forced his attention to the console nonetheless. He took a second to watch the convective bands of Hibernia as they flowed across the surface, passing and overtaking and intermingling with each other like a thousand arms. The chlorine atmosphere gave the planet a dark green tint unlike any gas giant he had ever seen. It reminded him of a perfectly round, murky emerald.

It reminded him of her eyes.

Hah. Your eyes are as beautifully green as a chlorine-methane gas giant with 2.8 Jupiter Masses. Great, turian. Just... great.

"Alright, we're ready," he said. "EDI… fire."

Garrus felt the lightest of rumbles beneath his feet. It may have been in his head, but he could have sworn he felt the room get just a degree hotter for a second, too. Then there was nothing. The orange beam from the Thanix Cannon shot straight through space and into the surface of Hibernia, where it promptly disappeared without a trace.

"Well?" Miranda asked.

Tali spoke up, surprised. "According to initial readings… nothing. All systems are responding well. No heat spikes, no electromagnetic interference, nothing." She added a breathless, "…amazing."

"Come on, Tali, have a bit more faith in the best engineer in the Alliance," said Donnelly smugly.

"Ken, you are not the best engineer in the Alliance," Gabby quickly rebutted. "You're just the only one who mouthed off to the press about Shepard loud enough to get recruited by Cerberus. And I'm the only one stupid enough to be your best friend."

Miranda quickly interrupted them. "What about you, EDI? Any irregular activity?"

"Preliminary scans show that all ship systems are working at optimum efficiency. The cannon appears to have been perfectly integrated with the ship."

"Hah!" yelled Ken.

Jacob nudged Garrus out of the way and glanced at the readout on the computer screen. "Everything looks good on our end, too."

"Well," said Jack. "I'm impressed. I half-expected to get cooked alive by uncontrolled heat buildup. Congrats, turian, looks like you won't be the one to get us all killed after all."

There was a short silence, as the collective lack of patience for Jack from everyone involved threatened to reach boiling point.

Then Miranda's voice poured in. "Well, if that's all…"

"Commander Shepard has just arrived in the Combat Operation Center," EDI said suddenly, interrupting her. "She is about to speak to the Illusive Man. She has requested to be joined by Agent Taylor… and Officer Vakarian."