Nos Astra was as busy as ever. Garrus still didn't like it.

"It's a polished Omega. Underneath the shine, it's just as seedy."

"The sunsets are always nice." Shepard replied.

Thane's lips turned up at the corners.

"Commander, are you sure it's safe to leave the ship alone with Miranda and Jacob?" Garrus asked, changing the subject.

"They're not going to run off with it. I understand your mistrust. But if they've had ample opportunity and didn't take them."

"I guess you're right, but I'm still going to keep an eye on them."

"You do your job however you think you should, Garrus."

The turian smiled, remembering the first time she'd told him something similar almost five years ago.

Liara still had an office over looking the trading floor. She had replaced her secretary, again. Shepard didn't need to know why. The new one was a salarian. He looked young. His skin coloration was a silvery blue darkening to navy at the top and black symmetrical speckles over is eyes that tapered up his horns. He stopped typing and looked up at her with yellowish ringed eyes.

"How may I help you?" He asked politely.

"Is Liara T'Soni in?" Shepard asked.

"She is out at the moment. May I take a message for her?" His fingers were ready on the keyboard for dictation.

"No. Do you know when she will be back?"

"She didn't say."

"Can you tell me where she went?"

"She didn't say."

"What exactly do you do if you can't answer simple questions." Shepard asked, annoyed.

Shepard was becoming irritated. Garrus also seemed agitated. Thane for saw one, if not both of them exploding at the assistant, soon. He briefly wondered why she had chosen him when her temperament often was more attuned to Garrus'. The answer was simply that she'd been sent to him. She was his Sihana. It was fate.

"I take messages and tend to her visitors while she is away. My other duties are none of your concern."

"Tend how? I'm not getting any information."

"Exactly." The salarian smiled proudly. "We sell information. If I gave it away for free we wouldn't have much of a business to run, would we."

Shepard narrowed her eyes at him. This new assistant wasn't nearly as nice as the last two.

"How much for Liara's location?" Shepard asked rubbing her temple with one hand.

"Ms.T'Soni's information is not for sale." The salarian replied smugly and continued typing.

"Tell us what we want to know or I'll rip those things on your head right off your skull." Garrus growled the threat pointing a talon at the salarian's horns.

The salarian was not impressed or shocked. He narrowed his eyes at the turian, and kept typing.

"Threatening me will get you no where." He said flatly.

"How about action?" Garrus said and shot the wall behind the salarian's head.

"Stand down!" Shepard shouted at him, angry and shocked, but only a little, at Garrus' out burst.

The secretary had already stood and drawn his own weapon from beneath the desk which was now aimed at Garrus' head.

"Now let's calm down people." Shepard said slowly with her hands up in a demonstrative surrender.

Behind her Thane had drawn his own gun and trained it on the assistant.

"You're going to pay to fix that, turian." Spat the salarian.

"Really, and who's going to make me? That hole was nearly in your head! It wasn't an accident. It was a warning!" Garrus seethed.

Thane heard steps on the stair behind him. He glanced over his shoulder. Liara was walking up, a very confused and concerned look on her face. He lowered his weapon.

"What is going on here?" She demanded.

Her voice attempted to sound harsh, but the depth was hindered by it's softness. Shepard turned to her and smirked. Liara was alight with biotic flame, ready for whatever she found. Garrus lowered his weapon after the salarian did, eyeing him closely.

"These visitors were inquiring after you, ma'm." Her assistant informed. "Then this one," He glared at Garrus, "threatened me and shot a hole in the wall."

"We will hang some art over it." Liara said passively.

The salarian seemed less than pleased at her response, but nodded to her, accepting her decision.

Liara turned to the Commander.

"Shepard, it's nice to see you again. Won't you come in?"

Shepard sat in the chair in front of Liara's desk. Thane and Garrus stood behind her with their hands clasped respectively behind them. Liara rounded the table and sat in her plush leather chair.

"How are you?" She asked politely.

"I'm here to help you find the Shadow Broker." Shepard cut to the chase.

"I'm doing well on my own. You don't need to rescue me." Liara batted her lashes.

Shepard felt her heart rate increase. Liara always had a way of moving, talking.. batting her lashes, that made her feel weak in the knees.

"I'm not here to rescue you. You're goal and mine are the same."

"You're after him as well? Why?"

"I need information. He's probably the only who has it. I don't intend to pay for it." Shepard said coolly.

"I see." Liara said softly.

She studied her old commander's face. There was a light blush in her long quieted emotions she'd felt for the human were the whisper of a memory. However, time was different for Shepard. It appeared some of her emotions had not yet eroded with time.

The flushed face of his Arasiha did not escape his notice. Thane straitened his posture a little more and lowered his chin slightly, making him look a little taller. It was a reflex, not an intent. The primitive part of the brain in almost any species to protect their claim to a mate.

"What information are you looking for?"

"I need to find the Illusive Man. He's trying to kill me and take my ship. He nearly succeeded once already."

"I'm afraid I do not have that information. If any one does, it will be the Shadow Broker."

"Exactly. If we work together we may reach him faster."

"I have been working toward that goal for a long time, Shepard. If I agree to this I want it understood that it is my mission."

Liara's new forcefulness too Shepard aback. She did her best to hide it. Her natural reaction if anyone else had said that to her may have been a swift boot to the head. But it was Liara. Shepard's first love.

She didn't know how asari, or Liara, felt about that sort of thing. How time effected the nostalgia of it, but for Shyra it was something she would not easily forget. The emotions for the Liara she knew were not as vibrant as they had been, but they were far from gone. Her fingers flexed then relaxed. She thought of Thane. He was her husband. Her Mëha. She loved him like she'd loved no other, even the asari. She drew strength from it.

"Liara, I understand your desire to control the situation. I will certainly heed any advice you give, but my mission is not the same as yours. We only share the goal of getting to him. I'm in this so that we can help each other get there, not to submit to someone else's orders."

Liara batted her lashes again as she blinked at the Commander's words. They were not what she'd expected to hear.

Shepard's fingers flexed again below Liara's line of sight. If the asari had seen the tell, she could have taken advantage. Fortunately for Shepard, she did not.

"Alright. But if I insist, please listen. I've put my life into this."

Shepard nodded then stood. She needed to get out of there, have a drink or meditate or anything to get her mind off of Liara.

"I'll transfer all the data I have on him to your ships computers." Liara said. "Let me know when you're ready to discuss our plan."

Shepard headed strait for Eternity and ordered a round of drinks for herself and her boys. Garrus didn't complain. Thane wasn't much of a drinker, but if it would help ease her tension for him to join her he would. At least until she was too drunk to notice if he was actually swallowing.

"So, Shepard..." Garrus took a swig of something green. "Are we celebrating or just having fun." He grinned.

"Just needed to relax a little." Shepard took a drink of something pink.

"Relax? What were you doing on... Never mind." Garrus downed the rest of the green liquid in his glass.

Thane tried not to smile.

"She's change, a lot." Shepard said to Garrus.

"Yeah, she has. People change, Shepard. Circumstances change. Things happen, usually bad things, and it changes people. You can't stop life."

"No. I just don't like seeing her this way. She's hard and bitter. The words coming out of her mouth shouldn't be said with that voice."

"What should she say? When we lost you everything fell apart. I don't know the whole story, but I know she went through a lot to get you to Cerberus. I know she lost a friend, who I think was more than that to her. She still loves you, Shepard. Just not the same way."

"I know. And I know about her mission to save me. I just wish things could have been different for her. That the happiness she found was not taken from her."

"I wish things were different for us." Garrus thought. He wanted to say it. To tell her everything. About how he fell apart. How he went through Spectre training because of her. What she meant to him. That he loved her. Instead he said,

"We'll find the Shadow Broker. And hopefully we'll find her friend, alive."

Garrus knew that one day he would have to tel her, but today was not that day. Neither was the next day. Or the day after. Certainly not before they caught up to the Shadow Broker, or even the Illusive Man. It may be months. It may be years, but the flame that burned for her would never flicker out.

Thane recognized the turian's pain. He'd seen the look on his face many times, including when Garrus had threatened him shortly after he began his courtship of Shyra. it had only flashed across his features for a brief second, but it had been there, as it was now.

A few drinks later Garrus and Shyra were laughing over old stories and good times, the few there were. Life at that moment for Garrus was the best it had been for a long time. In his mind, swimming in the effects of the alcohol, only he and she sat at the table. For a time she was his and she loved him.

Thane sat quietly by. His life was less humorous, so at the funny parts and chuckled when something struck him as particularly amusing. He nursed the blue liquid in his glass as the two of them downed theirs. He would remember this night as a window into her past, one that can only be opened by someone who shared it with her.

Thane and Garrus helped Shyra back to the Normandy as dignified as they could manage. Garrus had enough trouble walking himself, much less his drunken commander. Thane did most of the work. He had drank the least, so he became the self designated escort.

Garrus managed to find his own way to his cot from the elevator, collapsing onto it with a grunt and surrendering to sleep. His dreams came to him with a grin still on his face.

Thane helped Shyra out of her uniform and into bed. A faint scar on her side reminded him of his failure. The wound had healed quickly thanks to the Cerberus nano bots in her blood stream. Something he didn't particularly care to think about.

Shyra was barely clinging to consciousness as he lay her head gently on the pillow. Her eyes fluttered closed.

"She was so beautiful, so innocent." She mumbled. "She... I loved 'er."

"I know, Siha. We always carry those we love with us. I does not diminish the love of another. Only strengthens it."

He bent to kiss her lips. He could taste the alcohol on the soft, supple surface. She was asleep before his lips left hers.

Thane meditated on the sofa at the foot of the bed for an hour before disrobeing and joining her beneath the sheets.