"We should tell the council."

It was more than a day later and they were at a standstill. Saren frowned over folded hands. "The Council will not believe the impossible without further proof. An outline in the grass is not sufficient."

"The Spectre has a point. Dreadnoughts can't land on planets, and if this thing is twice the size... Spirits it must have been incredible." That was the younger Vakarian. Garrus had been leading the opposite team at the time of the discovery and Solana had refused to let him visit the site. Wise of her. Something had lingered in the air where the vessel had lain and Nihlus had not been wrong to call it evil.

"Why are we just sitting here talking? The Normandy has been receiving distress signals for nearly an hour now!" Ah, and that would be one of the humans. He had tried to hold these meetings between the civilized races but at the start of the second several of the ranking humans had arrived saying that 'Joker' had reminded them of it. So the private war between he and Mr. Moreau continued. He should have broken his arms when he had the chance.

"The Normandy is on a Council-appointed mission and cannot turn from it for every minor diversion." Was it that hard for them to understand?

Officer Pressly's face was red with anger, the fleshy lines of his skin drawn taught. He slammed his fist on the arm of his chair as he shouted "Damn it man there are people dying on Chohe! This is-"

"None of our concern." Saren deadpanned, not even bothering to look up as the Navigator swore and stormed out of the room in protest. After another hour the meeting adjourned as fruitlessly as the last. The Spectre disappeared into the privacy of his cabin, cleansed himself, checked the few systems that needed observation while grounded and returned to his private messages.

Nothing crucial. An inquiry from a broker about recent stock sales (deleted). A note from Benezia commending him on his new appointment (answered politely). Confirmation from various contacts that no known race was even working on a ship with the specs he had given and a few insistences that it wasn't even possible (encouraged to keep him informed in the matter most appropriate for each). And several scattered messaged from Nihlus (saved and left unanswered). Then searching: for anything that referenced the existence of a ship a mile long, for mentions of Shepard in Alliance databases he had hacked, for anything that wasn't useless through his rapidly mounting exhaustion and frustration...

"Spirits, I thought you were on the Citadel." Nihlus lowered his rifle to rest at his side. He'd clearly been running and fighting for some time but fatigue was far from his eyes. "What are you doing here?"

"The Council thought you could use help on this one."

The words came from his mouth but they weren't his, it wasn't his voice. Something was off in it... something dead. Nihlus for his part didn't seem to notice and when Saren touched his shoulder faintly he smiled. It wasn't a long one, just a flick of a mandible and a change in his brilliant green eyes, and it was gone when he turned towards a series of bizarre structures in the near distance topped with human corpses.

"I don't know how much they briefed you but geth are damn near everywhere. The situation's bad." Nihlus stood tall against the low buildings and murky light of the planet, his long curled fringe inclined back towards him. The tones in the stormy sky made him look even more exquisite than usual. Spirits he was the most beautiful man he'd ever seen. "I'm glad you're here, Saren."

His pistol raised of its own accord, centering on the back of his lover's head.

"Don't worry. I've got it under control."

Saren jerked awake violently with a strangled sound, thrashing against the confinement of the light sheets for a few breaths before he realized where he was. His ship, a nightmare, a dream though he'd never had one this vivid; he could still feel fresh blood splattered on his face in a ghosted heat. When he touched it all that came back on his talons was a thin sheen of sweat. No blood, no viscera, no chipped fragments of elegantly tattooed fringe. Still the unsettling sensation lingered, crawling under his skin.

Several moments later over his ragged breathing he heard the ping of his omnitool- and recognized the tone immediately. Nihlus was awake and he was initiating a call before rational thought could question it.

Rich laughter greeted him on the far side of the call the moment it went through, his registers layered in affection and teasing. "I know I'm good Saren but damn you can't have listened to it that fast!" Then a pause, he could practically see Nihlus' expression change in the sibilant purr that followed. "Unless you're listening to it right now... don't suppose you'd like to thank me by patching video through? I haven't seen you naked in months."

"...Saren?" he asked after the silence stretched too long. The way he said it was not markedly different than he had in the dream.

"Nihlus." was all that would come out when he finally managed to speak again.

"Saren what the fuck happened."

"Nothing, Nihlus."

"You're just about the most unflappable person I know and you sound like someone just walked over your grave. What happened?" All the teasing was gone from his voice now.

"No."

"...If you don't want to talk about it, why did you call me?"

He formed the words twice before they could escape. "I needed to hear you."

Nihlus said nothing at first, but when he did the softness had returned. "Alright. What should I talk about?"

"Anything."

"Alright." A breath, and his voice was lighter again when he continued. "Damn I wish you were here right now, I'm almost certain you'd let me get sweet on you. It happens so damn little so of course it happens when you're a million miles away. So I guess you didn't get my file?"

"There was a message but I had not checked it."

"Aah... " and the return of that mischievous flutter in his subvocals again. "Well you might want to check it a little later. The title should make it pretty clear." Saren twitched his mandibles faintly as he brought up the log- For those long lonely nights in FTL indeed. "I actually recorded that bit of audio years ago but never got around to sending it. You said before how much you liked the sounds I make me so..."

Saren eased as the conversation continued, Nihlus traveling back and forth between topics and never asking what had shaken him so. He even made him smile when he brought up the amazing coincidence that was the best Palaveni doctors showing up to work on his case at the same time Binary Helix's stock dropped because of a single anonymous investor liquidating 15% of their assets in the company and instigating a selloff. It wasn't long before he lost track of time.

"Saren." Nihlus said quietly after some time, "they're prepping me for surgery soon so I can't stay much longer and I just wanted to say something. You don't have to answer, I don't expect you to. I've still got a way to go to hold up my end of the bargain after all." A pause, a breath, an affection deepening his every tone. "I love you. Whatever happens take care of yourself and come back."

The call ended after that. Saren didn't return to sleep but his mind was clear again as he returned to the task at hand.

In her quiet lonely bubble Liara sniffled to herself, the little sounds echoing against the rounded walls. It wasn't right to feel sorry for herself while the guards who had been minding their site were probably dying outside but she couldn't help it. She was just a maiden after all, a certain amount of selfishness was expected.

Really she wasn't crying for herself; it was the artifacts. So many, so important, so ancient, and likely to be destroyed in a firefight... She'd give a century off her life if it meant they would be secured long enough to be truly studied. Goddess she hated crying. Mother never cried, so strong and beautiful and perfect... And frozen in stasis like she was she couldn't wipe her face so she must truly look appalling right now.

It was some time later that Liara heard the sound of feet on the old metal pathways and snapped her head back up to call out "Hello? Is someone there? Oh please help me, I've been stuck here for hours!" The footfalls were coming down and she tossed up a quick prayed that they weren't geth... And oh, she had rescuers! And they were human! And that one was handsome! Oh by Athane's glorious thighs! She forgot all about how wretched she must look in her excitement as she quickly began explaining her predicament to the two humans standing outside her bubble.

She wasn't very good at human expressions but something seemed off about them. The woman had this tick twisting her features but human skin was so much thinner than that of the asari so perhaps that was normal? And the man in charge was so very still, he didn't say a word until she stopped rambling about the generator and the geth and how she'd been here so very long...

"There is nothing to fear, Doctor T'Soni. Sovereign wills to meet you." Liara could barely hear him through the muffling effects of the bubble but her translator recognized the human word. They were dignitaries for a leader? What did a human leader want with her? She was just about to voice her confusion when he pulled a weapon off his back that bore an intensely familiar design and her heart stopped.

The human had a prothean gun.

The end of the weapon flared with pale green light as the barrier in front of her exploded, the beam boring straight through it into the console keeping her captive and she yelped in fear despite herself but she didn't shout at them about the proximity because he had a prothean particle beam and she could barely take her eyes off it. The human stepped over shattered piles of tiles that had broken from the ceiling and offered her a hand. Liara took it, her heart pounding. He was even more handsome than he'd looked through the barrier.

"Who are you?"

"My name is Shepard."

"How, where..." Oh Goddess he was still holding the gun in his other hand and she couldn't take her eyes off it. "...Can I touch it?"

Shepard handed it to her and her knees went weak as she stroked her fingers over its angled forms. She'd never seen anything so beautiful. Liara cradled it to her chest, nearly in tears

"This way, doctor. Sovereign has waited long."

"Yes, your ruler- did you get this from them?"

"Yes.

"Do they have more prothean technology?"

"Yes."

He wasn't very chatty but she didn't care as long as that was true. Something moved oddly in the corner of her eye; the human woman was still twitching faintly, giving her the strangest look. She seemed almost mad. "Is she alright?"

"All is well."

How odd her rescuers were. But they had a prothean gun and more where it had come from and they had saved her, could she really walk away? And where would she go? The geth were-

Liara yelped and raised the weapon at a geth trooper that was right beside her; it exploded in a beautiful and terrifying outrush of pale light that shot straight through the slender machine and into the wall behind it. She was so in awe that she didn't resist when Shepard lifted the weapon from her hands and replaced it on his back.

"The geth are our allies, doctor." There it was again, that deadpan voice, those expressionless eyes.

"But the geth-"

"Are your allies as well."

Now that she looked up they were everywhere, a dozen green circular oculi glowing from the pathways all around them. Geth beyond the Veil. A shudder of fear ran up her spine. But he was right... they weren't hurting her. They weren't hurting any of them. They just... stood there and waited for the three of them to begin walking to fall into line around them. Even in the heat of Therum's tunnels, even with the promise of Prothean treasures and the tantalizing lure of the ancient weapon on Shepard's back something cold lingered on her skin in that nightmarish caravan.

It had been the tech who had spotted the connection. Saren would have ignored it as yet another distress signal but Tarquin had insisted and convinced him to look closer at the situation on Therum. And judging by the mechanical corpses at their feet as the Spectre strode over them, the engineer's intuition had been right.

The Prothean underground of Therum was a maze scattered with dead archeologists and geth. Maps had been obtained from a destroyed research station but it only covered a small percentage of the caverns and seismic activity had the ground trembling intermittently under their feet. Saren slipped silent as a ghost through the tunnels at the head of his group: Tali'Zorah, Urdnot Wrex, and the human Alenko behind him. The Lieutenant had recovered in the month since the Normandy first arrived on Eden Prime, and while his expertise in biotics was minimal compared to his elders in the squad his presence would serve to dissuade the pilot from trying to leave them behind.

Metal glinted around an archway as a shot rang out from a sniper to glance off the krogan's armored bulk. Urdnot Wrex took the shot in stride, barrier rippling across his form as he barked out a laugh and charged into the slender deep brown form to crush it into a pulp "Hah! Now this is work I can get behind. You're never boring Arterius, I'll give you that."

Saren didn't bother responding and Wrex didn't expect him to, barreling deeper down the tunnel towards a trio of troopers to start tearing them apart. After the brief flare of gunfire died back down, the subdermal implant by the ear canal beneath one of his horns buzzed a military call signal.

"Spectre we've found Shepard, engaging the enemy."

"Patch me your location." Around him three alien heads snapped up at the change in tone.

"Coordinates sent. A warning Spectre: he's with the geth, no doubts left. They're guarding him, another human, and a hostage who seems to be one of the head archeologists."

"The hostage is inconsequential, take down Shepard at all costs."

In the cacophony of the firefight on the other end of the line he could pick up someone shouting "A little help back here Sol!"

"A little busy here G!" she called back in response before coming back to Saren. "Yes sir, over and out."

No time was wasted in reaching the firefight. All delaying forces were dispatched with prejudice as they moved swiftly through the sleek architecture of a long dead race, scarred by bullets and splattered in a rainbow of shades of fresh blood. The three turians were attempting to advance under heavy fire when they reached them at the far end of one of the tiled chambers. Something however was missing... there was no sign of Shepard or the hostage, just a single human female in heavily stained armor in the midst of the geth. Saren's eyes narrowed as he moved through cover to find Solana.

She didn't bother glancing over while she shot, raising her voice to be heard over the distance. "He took the asari and they went off ahead through an uncharted part of the ruins. We're too damn bogged down here to chase after them: if I had the rest of my team it would be one thing but the numbers don't work this way. The Normandy needs another ground vehicle if we're going to be effective."

"It will be done." Frustration was heavy in his undertones before he quashed it, hurling a lance of biotic energy into the enemy formation to tear three of them apart into so much shrapnel. Across the way the younger Vakarian forgot to shoot for a spare few seconds of slack-mandibled awe before the quarian girl shoved his head down to keep him from being shot. Spirits they had to give him one of those didn't they? Hero worship was pointless and would only get the man killed. He was no one to worship; he was a turian, he did his duty.

A particularly brutal charge by the Battlemaster combined with a well-timed flare from Tali'Zorah's omnitool overloading several of the still-standing geth left a clear shot through to the human. Saren leveled his pistol and put a bullet straight into a structural flaw of the helmet to break it off her head with a satisfying crack. A breath to aim his next shot, perfect to go through an eye, and a squeeze of the trigger for one more human corpse on the pile that would never be enough to pay for Desolas-

Something jarred his arm hard and the bullet buried itself harmlessly into the stone. To his right Alenko's arm was still raised, biotic blue flickering out on it as he shouted to the woman who was bleeding from the impact of the first bullet but still alive.

"Ashley? What are you-"

At the sound of the name the woman's head jerked up- a hard edged knife of fear in her eyes as she tossed down her weapon and ran towards them, bellowing over the continuing geth fire as more machines crawled out of the woodwork "FORGET THE GETH AND GET THE HELL OUT OF HERE! THEY'VE GOT THE PLACE RIGGED TO BLOW!"

Liara had never felt so small in her life as she did at that moment. Not as an infant at her mother's feet, not as a young researcher reduced to begging to try to get her project funded; in every physical and emotional sense the ship that stretched out around her dwarfed all of those. It was terrifying yes, but awe inspiring at the same time.

Her host barely seemed to notice the frightful majesty arching overhead as they walked through the pathways of the ship, he never said a word save to direct her. It worried her, true. Something didn't seem quite right with the poor man, but she was an archaeologist not a xenopsychologist so what could she do about it? Any time she tried to ask him a question he just told her that his ruler had waited long and all her questions would be answered soon.

Shepard stopped at last at an archway obscured heavily by hanging nets of tubing that were cold to the touch when she brushed them aside to enter.

And froze. Goddess, she thought her heart might burst. Haphazardly piled around the claustrophobic little room lay a treasure trove of artifacts: weapons, armor, jewelry, clothing, technology that she had no inkling to its purpose. Some were prothean and others seemed even older and all of them were in perfect condition. Liara had to sit down, holding a hand over her mouth as she touched an ornamental sword with reverence as tears spilled from her eyes. "Where... did you find this?"

"Sovereign has known many races, many times, and those that have followed it have left things behind. Join us and all of this is yours."

"W-wait, left these behind? But they're prothean! Your Sovereign couldn't have-" It didn't make sense, none of it made sense but she knew that she could no more decline and leave this behind than she could tear out her own bones. She was effectively trapped but her skin tingled with excitement all the same as she made up her mind. "... What should I do?"

He held out a hand to her. She took it and rose again to her feet, her heart beating wildly in her throat. Goddess he smelled like sweat and gunfire.

"There is a vision from a prothean beacon in me but I can not understand it. I need you to meld our minds."

"Yes, I can... yes. Now?"

"Now."

Liara swallowed, smiled, settled her hands on the sides of his head. Then she reached for him from within, her heart full of hope and wonder.