Shepard drew a ragged breath, hearing the catch of a sob in her throat; she had pushed Liara into a sprint for as long as the asari could maintain the pace, pushed her just a little farther until they had both begun to stumble over debris and trip in the grooves left by heavy machinery years ago. The hell of it was, she had no way of knowing who would give chase- if anyone. Mara was dead, the head effectively severed from the body, but that was no guarantee that Mara's supporters hadn't simply found a new voice; Finch would be ideal for the position, she thought bitterly.

Until she knew for certain whether they were being tracked, she would have to assume the worst, and that meant getting Liara as near to the city as she could safely manage tonight. She paused for a moment, swayed a little when Liara walked into her before jumping away as though scalded. Shepard wasn't too enamored of herself at the moment either; the brief flicker of disgust that played across Liara's face mirrored her own thoughts.

She'd killed Kev. She had as good as murdered the man that had taken a scruffy, foul-tempered urchin under his wing and taught her enough to form a makeshift clan of her own; back-stabbing, murderous sort of family though it had become. Worse yet, it had been entirely unintentional, a product of her miscalculation rather than any malicious design. If it had been possible, Shepard would have gladly stepped back in time just to relive that moment of killing Mara again and again in the hope of finding some sense of justice delivered. Her best, if not only chance now was to take Liara home and head back; the odds of being able to retake the Reds were vanishingly small, but she owed it to the few that had actually kept faith in her to at least return and own up to the mistake. Assuming they weren't dead or dying.

"It's nearly ten miles to city limits. We could manage that in a little over an hour if you can still run." Shepard glanced back over her shoulder, taking stock of her companion.

T'Soni shot her an incredulous look, more shaken now than angry. "I don't think so. Not that far, anyway."

"The city will be safer; we should at least try for it."

"Yes, all your ideas have proven right so far."

Shepard gritted her teeth hard enough that her jaws ached, reminded herself that she had earned that comment at least a dozen times over these past few days. It did nothing for her temper.

"I don't suppose you know of any place we could take shelter? Do you know if anyone is following us? What would Finch do to you if he came out of that alive? We could stop here and argue my decisions, or we can keep moving and hope to find reasonably discreet shelter before evening. What do you think, Doctor T'Soni? Does this plan meet with your approval?"

"If you had bothered to ask that question before, much of this could have been avoided!" Liara drew a breath, a few tears escaping her eyes; Shepard swallowed a blistering retort with effort.

"Shelter, then. We'll rest and take stock of the situation."

"What is there to take stock of?" Liara murmured, seeming genuinely confused and more than a little frustrated.

"Nothing for you; I have decisions to make."

"One of these days your secretiveness will see you in a grave beside your comrades; it has not served you well."

"With Kev, you mean."

Silence was all the answer she needed.

"I thought she was dead. I was certain of it, and she was in close enough quarters to Kev that it wasn't worth the risk of shooting her to be sure. I made the only choice I could have."

"If you hadn't-"

"I know! Save your breath for running instead of pointless recriminations and we can cover some ground tonight."

It took Shepard a few seconds to realize she could no longer hear the soft thud of Liara's boots echoing her own footsteps; a pang of unreasoning anxiety shot through her, stealing her breath and making her fingers jump with the need to clasp a weapon. She turned back quickly, half-crouching lest she had missed the approach of any hostiles while she argued with T'Soni.

Liara stood a few paces away, arms folded protectively around her with head lowered, feet braced apart for balance.

Delayed shock? Exhaustion setting in? Apologies weren't going to cut it, nothing she could do would raise the dead or unmake this day much as she might wish it. Arguing wasn't helping either.

Shepard stalked back to the doctor with as much grace as she could muster, bone-deep weariness seeming to spread further with every step. "I'm sorry, but we have to move. I want you home as much as you want to go home and we're not getting any closer-"

"I have never seen a death so violent as that; it is not a pleasant experience. Worse, I think under other circumstances I might have liked your Kevin far more. This is not easy."

Shepard tentatively reached out, offering a supporting hand the doctor would probably scorn, but feeling compelled to make the effort regardless. "Probably. Kev used to be a charmer; a wise man would have kept his valuables close whenever Kev stopped to chat with him."

Liara straightened, eyeing the proffered hand with a dubious air before slipping an arm through Shepard's and hiking her pack further up on her shoulder. "How do you mean?"

"I can take your pack-"

"I have it. You don't want to speak of him I take it?"

"It's hardly even been an hour. Let it rest." It hurt too much to think on; she and Kev had run a few games when she was still young enough to look the part, and while it had been nothing more than a matter of survival then, they were fond memories now.

"I'm sorry."

Shepard chose not to respond; it would only begin the cycle all over again and this already felt far too intimate. She hadn't been lying when she had claimed there was much to consider; in light of recent developments, it might well be wiser to turn herself in. Better a prison cell or a rehabilitation colony than a premature death at the hands of her usurpers. More than anything she wanted to turn back and lay waste to everyone that had dared to back Mara, wanted to make them scream and writhe in an agony she would never have the chance to inflict on Mara.

Kev had always told her when she was young that if she was killed in one of her hare-brained schemes he wouldn't bother with vengeance; it was a time-consuming and risky business. That was all well and good, Kev was a practical man down to his very soul, but Shepard didn't think anything short of bloodshed was going to ease her guilt; she wasn't even sure that would work, but surely it was better than doing nothing. But then-

"Where could we take shelter?"

"We'll go another few miles and double back. The compacted dirt will make it harder to track our movements and give us time for a couple hours rest. Until then, do your best to hit the soft patches, leave bootprints."

"That is transparent."

"We're not even sure there will be an organized pursuit. Our best option is to put as much distance between ourselves and our origin as we can. No one was there, Liara. That means if we have pursuers, they could as easily catch us on their way back, assuming they're Mara's people- and that's a fair bet. I sent a few out to check our grid, Kev was organizing a couple surprises; I have no way of getting a message to those people or they to me. That means all the equipment is in their hands and we're as good as dead if we don't play this safe."

"Fine." Liara drew marginally closer, nails digging into Shepard's skin painfully; "I do not want to die out here, Shepard."

"That makes two of us." Unfortunately, that was all the comfort she could honestly offer.

!

!

An hour's walk found Shepard and Liara tucked into the remains of what might once have been a supply shed, but was now probably a host for every disease erased from human memory. Liara had no doubt that if she were to take a scraping of the building material she would find all manner of bacteria that would be interesting to her colleagues in paleopathology. Despite the gravity of their circumstances, she couldn't quite stifle an uncomfortable grimace as she settled on the floor across from Shepard, pressing herself as far back into the wall as the small space would permit to shelter from the unforgiving sun.

Shepard settled comfortably, already digging a canteen out of her pack and taking a sparing sip even as she settled into the hard ground.

"Are we safe here?"

"No, but we're as safe as I can keep us. We can't stay for long, perhaps not even the couple hours I promised. Sleep if you can-"

"I feel as though I've just woken up."

Shepard shook her head, "You don't know when you'll next have the chance. Even a light doze would be welcome when you've been trudging over rough terrain in direct sunlight for a few hours. We've been fortunate so far, but the closer we get to our end the harder this will be."

Liara winced and Shepard paled slightly. "Poor choice of words, I meant our goal."

"Our goal being the Atrium?"

Shepard chuckled, but there was no mirth in the sound. "No, I can't take you that far, only to the nearest security checkpoint. The city is littered with them, though frankly they don't do much good."

Checkpoints, and presumably staffed. "How do you intend to manage that? Somehow I don't think the personnel will be too keen on releasing you once I am returned."

"I'll figure that out if and when we get there assuming you don't call them down on me." Liara detected the faintest trace of mockery in the words, but held her silence.

"If you-"

"Take ten and I'll wake you to take a shift for me. Your time starts now."

Liara's glare said plainly Shepard's evasive tactics had been noted; the idea of sleep was almost too appealing to resist; if she could take the rest then perhaps she could forget all that had happened today, even if it was only for a few minutes. She leaned back against the crumbling wall, feeling the warmth seeping through her clothes, but despite her best efforts she couldn't bring herself to close her eyes or relax; Mara's death was still a vivid sight in her mind's eye and she did not care to relive it in sleep.

Shepard sighed softly when she reached for her pack instead, drawing out her canteen and taking a small sip in imitation of Shepard.

"We'll need to be sparing with that; I wasn't expecting to be on the move in the heat of the day and it's guaranteed to take it out of us that much faster."

"I know." Liara took another sip, locking eyes with Shepard over the brim. "I don't want to rest."

"I don't want to run, but nobody's asking what we want."

"Shepard-"

"Please, Liara, please; if you don't want your time, then take the first shift and let me sleep."

There was a raw pleading in Shepard's voice Liara had never expected to hear; she nodded mutely, watching Shepard swallow tightly, clamp her eyes shut firmly and lay back against the wall.

"At some point, we need to discuss what happened today; where were you, what did you see-"

"Tonight, I swear. Just let me be for now."

"For now."

!

!

!

Kaidan was wrong. The Asari didn't come bursting through the door at sunrise demanding a progress update and threatening bodily harm if it wasn't immediately forthcoming. They marched through the door a full two hours early, and didn't so much threaten as imply that if they were not permitted to assist in the proceedings related to the recovery of Doctor T'Soni, there would be Repercussions.

At least, that was what Matriarch Benezia had said, in a soft but carrying tone that had done far more to wake Ashley up than any amount of coffee. Matriarch Aethyta had been far more blunt: "What the hell have you found and how soon can we effect a rescue?"

At this point, Ashley was pretty sure a shout was just Aethyta's idea of a warm greeting. That didn't mean she wasn't pissed, and of all mornings this was the one she chose to say so.

"I've got a list of aliases, a few petty crimes, and no idea where Doctor T'Soni is, but a few guesses where she might be. Given that you've been sleeping all this time, I'd say you haven't done much better." She snapped.

Aethyta winced, and Ashley thought Benezia's lips might have thinned for a split second; evidently she'd hit a weak spot. Good.

Kaidan broke in smoothly, assuming that placating tone that always managed to drive her up the wall. "We have a little more than that; we can say for a certainty where she is not."

"How many quadrants have you ruled out?" Benezia glided over, sharp eyes running over the data on their screens.

"Most of them. There's simply no way you could hide a high-profile hostage in this city. Surveillance is especially tight in those districts around the Atrium; we're no stranger to diplomats and politicians looking to make good-will visits."

"Is there anyplace your surveillance does not cover?" Aethyta's voice was far more subdued, courteous if strained; Ashley answered.

"There are small patches within the city itself- no more than a couple miles square. There are entire passages in the sewage system of course, but we can safely rule that out. Individual districts have submitted requests that they not be monitored- some of the ritzier blocks, which I hope we can rule out. Other than that," Ashley shrugged, "The city is pretty much under an all-inclusive blanket."

"Why should you discount the sewage system?" Benezia cut in, she looked thoughtful rather than accusing.

"Impossible to say what's monitored and what's not on any given day. They would need a civic worker to tell them which passages were clear; there's always some sort of preventative maintenance going on if nothing else. In preparation for Doctor T'Soni's arrival, great care was taken to ensure it would be all but locked down. They would have had to enter from somewhere else, and it would have been a guessing game. Couple that with an abandoned vehicle in the farther sector of the quadrant, and our footage of their exit…I say it can be discounted."

"Are there records of the districts that requested freedom from surveillance? Records of districts that might not require it?"

"I've pulled up the likely districts." Kaidan murmured, turning back to his work. He glanced up just in time to see a satisfied smile pass between Aethyta and Benezia.

"Then we may review them immediately. I take it you've already run the image through your recognition program; any results on that front that might help us to narrow the grid?"

"Potentially. I think the most likely one is here." Ashley called up an image file, enlarging it to fit the screen. "As I said, I have a list of aliases, but I also have a brief history of past crime that might narrow down the area."

Aethyta stepped closer, examining the image closely; the woman in it was young, maybe no more than a child- not that she was any judge of humans. Her red hair was cut short, flying away in every direction, freckles dotted a face beaming with an entirely unrepentant grin and the set of her shoulders screamed arrogance.

"This image is nearly ten years old. We'll call her Jane Doe for now in lieu of anything better; she's registered under several different names, even in the social welfare system. This is the most recent image, taken after she was picked up for trespassing in a restricted zone. There's a laundry list of petty thievery and assault charges that precede it."

"Ten years is a long time to disappear. Where has she been?" Benezia eyes flicked over the screen restlessly, memorizing every detail.

"Not mingling with the average citizens, I think. Half the problem is just finding a direction of flight; honestly, I'm eyeing the old industrial district, but that still leaves eastern, western and southern blocks. It's miles of territory that we're just going to have to canvas if we can't find anyone with more than this to go on." Ashley gestured to the screen.

"We'll distribute the image over local media, hope someone comes forward with information. There has to be someone with a tip to go on."

"Maybe someone with a grudge if we're lucky." Kaidan cut in, "The petty thieves have a habit of banding together, forming cohesive units; it rarely works out well, can't expect a thief to act honorably against their own interests."

Aethyta slanted a sharp glance at Benezia, impatience visible in every line of her body. "Time-consuming."

"Necessary perhaps. We will assist, of course; our resources have hardly been put to use since our arrival." Benezia looked to the screen one final time before murmuring a few words of farewell and heading for the exit.

!

!

"Shiala?" Aethyta lengthened her strides to match Benezia's ground-eating pace, falling into step beside her when they stepped out into the corridor.

"Myself; you will coordinate."

This was familiar, neither needing more than a bare minimum to communicate their intentions, but strategy was Nezzie's forte- Aethyta knew herself well enough to admit she preferred the point-and-shoot school of tactics.

"Try the other way around."

"Were you not given charge of this expedition?"

"Don't even-"

"I will take that as an affirmative response; as nominal head of operations-"

"Nominal?" Aethyta snapped.

"You should remain here to coordinate. I will take the commandos with me."

"I was chasing down smugglers and comparing scars with bounty hunters while you were still learning to put a pretty face to work and clever mouth to work." Aethyta mumbled, "Obviously my skills will be essential."

"You were a smuggler, Aethyta, and as I recall you were stripping in an unknown bar on some half-forgotten planet for a few credits and free drinks while I was exploring my talents."

Aethyta assumed that was supposed to annoy her, but seeing as it was entirely true…"My point stands. I have more experience kicking ass in the literal sense than you do."

Benezia pursed her lips in that way she had when she was honestly trying to hold in a cutting remark and only just succeeding. That used to be Aethyta's cue to step in and find a way to defuse the argument before it degenerated into bitter recriminations and thinly-veiled insults, or sometimes to push Nezzie past her rigid control and into a screaming match that would leave both of them hoarse and restless. She judged the former would probably be more productive in this instance.

"It'll be a moot point if we can't even find the kid. We'll deal with it then." As "nominal" head of operations, Aethyta knew she would have her way, but there was no need to rub Nezzie's face in it yet.

Benezia whirled on her, drawing herself up to her not-inconsiderable height and fixing Aethyta with a gaze fit to freeze any Mortal's blood."I intend to find Liara tonight."

Intentions weren't good for much of anything in Aethyta's experience, but she could practically feel the fury roiling in Nezzie's mind and acknowledged its reflection in her own.

She said none of these things but instead extended a supporting arm, relieved when Nezzie chose to accept the tacit invitation to a cease-fire rather than arguing openly in the corridor.

"We do not have the luxury of time; too much has been lost already. The Humans will want some say in our actions- I propose we refrain from making any decisions until we have heard their piece."

Aethyta rolled her eyes, but graciously forbore to point out she had said nearly the same thing but a moment ago and nearly had her head taken off for the trouble.

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Outline is complete and comes in at about twenty-seven chapters; updates should be on a weekly basis now. :)