Once again, I find myself begging forgiveness for being away too long. I'll try to keep posting what I have every few days until this main story is completed, and I'll keep this going from there when I can, so no more promises until the Reapers are dead... or they win... or whatever happens in the story. So there.

As always, Bioware owns the characters, but I'm trying to see if I can get their souls second hand...

Also, as part of my full disclosure, part 1 of this was done pre-ME3, part 2 was done about two months ago.

Ash was looking for a fight, and she couldn't think of a better place to find one than Omega. It just so happened that some of the data Miranda had pointed them in the direction of the pirate space station, and a former Cerberus operative that had worked on Project Lazarus. Ash had prepared the whole strike team, not wanting to take any chances. She knew that the multiple mercenary organizations would be lurking around, and if they heard that Shepard's team was back on Omega, some might try to cash in on the multiple bounties on them.

At the same time, Ash knew that, to avoid any further trouble, they would have to pay a visit to Aria T'Loak, the de facto ruler of Omega, and tell her what they were doing. Of course, she wasn't going to run the risk of Aria saying no, so she had already dispatched Thane, Grunt, Liara, Garrus, and Jacob to track down the operative, while she took Zaeed, Jack, and Miranda with her to meet Aria. She normally would have just taken Miranda, since she had previously met with Aria when Shepard was hunting the collectors, but she wanted the added firepower Zaeed and Jack brought, just in case.

As the four of them made their way through the crowded floor of Afterlife, Ash took note of the security. From what Miranda had told her, it looked like Aria had recently upped the number of armed guards in the club, and she even noticed two snipers hiding in alcoves in the upper reaches of the club.

As they reached the back of the club, Ash was stopped by the pair of guards. When they asked who they were, she only replied "Friends of Shepard's, who need a favor." The one guard went to talk to Aria, and Ash could tell the other was hoping that he would get the order to remove the four humans.

After only a moment, the first guard came back down. "Go on up." Ash led the way, and stopped when she was directly in front of Aria. The asari was regarding them with a look bordering between contempt and intrigue. Ash assumed the large krogan standing next to her would be the Patriarch, an assumption that was confirmed when Aria first spoke.

"Patriarch, I have a riddle for you. What is a group of armed humans on Omega called?"

The Patriarch looked Ash and the others. "Usually, dead. But in this case, I'd say trouble."

Aria nodded slowly. "Yes, trouble. I granted you an audience because you mentioned Shepard. I like him. He's a warrior, and doesn't bother with any type of pretense. He's also a man of his word, which is rare… and dangerous. If you're truly friends of Shepard, I would expect you to be the same."

She looked at Miranda. "I remember you. You were with him when he first came here. You reeked of Cerberus then, but not anymore… interesting."

This is getting old. Ash decided it was time to end Aria's gloating. "We're here because we need to take someone from your station. As a matter of courtesy, we wanted to brief you."

"Ah, you wanted to tell me that you were going to cause trouble on my station. How kind of you." Aria sneered at Ash. "Tell me, who are you taking?"

"A scientist. He used to work for Cerberus, and he has intel that we need."

"And why do you need this man? What information does he have? If you want me to condone you taking action on my station, you'll have to give me more information than that."

Ash clenched her jaw. She didn't want to give Aria any more information than she had to. Feeling Miranda's hand on her shoulder, she relaxed. "He was involved in the project that brought Shepard back after he was killed in action. We need some of that information again."

Aria raised an eyebrow. "Has something happened to Shepard? A shame, truly, and such a waste of great material, but how many times can one person be resurrected? Perhaps it's his time. Perhaps you should let the man die."

The words had barely left Aria's mouth when Ash pulled her pistol and pointed it directly between the asari's eyes. Immediately, every guard surrounding them drew their weapons, while Miranda and Zaeed drew theirs. Jack's body glowed with blue lightening as she readied her biotics.

Everyone stood still for a moment. No one moved or breathed. It was the Patriarch who broke the tension by laughing. "Haha, remember the last time someone pulled a gun on you, Aria?"

Collecting herself, Aria stood. "Yes. It was you, and we destroyed half of this club." She regarded Ash for a moment, then motioned to her guards to lower their weapons, though none of them put their guns back in their holsters. Miranda and Zaeed also lowered their weapons, while Jack powered herself down. Only Ash kept her gun out, still pointing at Aria. Aria slowly walked down the few steps towards Ash.

"Well, that's a mystery solved. Now I know how you are. You're Shepard's mate. Nice to meet you. But before I give you any sort of answer, I need to know something: How far are you willing to go for him? I assume that you already sent a team to collect your target, but you have yet to walk out of this club. I could order my men to kill all four of you where you stand, and you'd never see your beloved again."

Aria was now directly in front of Ash, and moved forward until the barrel of Ash's gun was pressed against her own forehead. "What if I told you that you could only take this man off of my station over my dead body?"

Without any sort of hesitation, Ash cocked her pistol, which brought up the weapons of the guards. Ash didn't fire though, just stared a hole through

Aria. After what seemed like forever, Aria smiled, and stepped back. "Good. A woman who's willing to do anything. I like that. You have my blessing to do whatever you must while here on Omega."

Ash finally lowered her gun and holstered it, and the guards followed suit. "I promise we'll keep any disruption to a minimum."

Aria laughed as she sat back down. "Please, if you're anything like Shepard, your idea of 'minimum' is only leveling a whole warehouse, nearly wiping out three groups of mercenaries, as well as entering a plague zone and uncovering a plot by the vorcha to start a species riot. The word 'subtle' isn't in his vocabulary."

Ash let out a small chuckle. "Yeah, that's Shepard."

Aria regarded Ash for a moment, and then motioned to the seat just to the side of her. Ash, not wanting to offend Aria, walked up the steps and took a seat. The Patriarch stood to the other side of Aria, though he turned so he could be part of the conversation as well.

"So tell me," Aria began, "what exactly happened to Shepard?"

Ash took a deep breath. "We were standing next to an EMP bomb when it went off. He had a lot of cybernetic parts from when he was rebuilt by Cerberus, and he went down. We… don't really know if he'll make it yet."

Aria nodded once, her face an impassive mask. The Patriarch, similarly, didn't let any emotion show on his face. "He is a great krantt," he said simply.

"He did a lot for this station. While his rescue of Archangel could've been handled a little more discreetly, he's responsible for keeping the stability of this station intact. He's even become a bit like your boogeyman, 'don't steal or Shepard and Archangel will get you!'"

Aria looked over to Ash, and Ash saw a glimmer of emotion through Aria's cool mask. "I don't say this lightly, but if there is any way I can repay the debt I owe him, you tell me. I have more resources than you suspect."

"Thank you, Ms T'Loak." The title garnered a laugh from Aria.

"Please, you were just holding a gun to my head. I think we're beyond niceties."

Ash smiled. She has a point there. "Thanks, Aria. But I should be getting back to the ship."

Aria's face slipped back into the look of cool detachment she normally wore. "I understand. Feel free to come by to visit anytime. And I'll see if I can throw some of my men into looking into what can be done for your Commander."

Ash nodded in thanks as she stood. Without another word, Ash walked down the steps to her team, and led them back out through Afterlife.

"Well, I never thought I'd see the day," Zaeed said as soon as they were out of earshot, "that someone, much less a lass less than half my age, pulled a gun on Aria T'Loak, Pirate Queen of Omega, and lived to tell about it."

"Oh ye of little faith, Zaeed." Miranda looked over to the mercenary. "After all this time, you still haven't learned the single most important rule of the galaxy?"

Both Zaeed and Jack looked over at Miranda. "Ok, what rule is that?" Jack asked her lover.

Smirking slightly, Miranda looked over to Ash, who was walking a full three strides ahead of the rest of them, not acknowledging anything around her. "Simple: God help anyone, or anything, that gets between a Shepard and their goals."

As Ash, Miranda, Jack, and Zaeed boarded the Normandy, they were greeted by Kelly, who walked with them back to the CIC.

"The other team got back just a few minutes ago with the Doctor. I brought him down the Medbay as soon as he came on board."

Ash nodded. "Good. How's his condition?"

"He's fine; he didn't even know there was a Cerberus hit squad after him."

Miranda chimed in at this point. "Most people don't, until they're dead."

"Anyone hurt on our end?"

Kelly shook her head. "Nothing but the normal scrapes and scratches."

Ash nodded. Good, we don't need anyone else getting hurt. "How's our guest seem?"

"Honestly, I was surprised. He's excited to be able to help Shepard again, and thankful that he was saved from the hit squad."

By this time, they had reached the elevator. "Alright, everyone, get changed out of your gear and relax. I'll go and greet our guest."

Miranda stepped forward. "I'm going with you. He'll remember me, and it might help to have a familiar face."

Ash nodded. "Thanks. We'll meet in med bay in ten minutes; I need to get out of this armor."

Ash walked into the elevator, leaving Miranda, Jack, and Kelly in the CIC. Zaeed had already stalked away back to his quarters.

"Do you really think this Doctor Rosetti will be able to help Shepard?" Kelly looked worried as she asked what they were all thinking.

Miranda didn't hesitate in her response. "He was one of the most enthusiastic people on the project. He'll do everything he can, I'm sure of it."

Ten minutes later, Ash stepped out of the elevator onto the crew deck as Miranda was coming out of her and Jack's quarters. The two women nodded to each other as they walked to medbay to greet Doctor Rosetti. "Are you ready for this, Ash?"

Ash looked at Miranda quizzically. "Ready for what?"

Miranda smiled. "The good doctor can be… unique."

Any further discussion was lost as the door to med bay slid open. Inside, Doctor Chakwas and their guest, Doctor Carmen Rosetti, stood over Shepard. They both looked up as Ash and Miranda walked in. Rosetti's face immediately lit up as he saw Miranda.

"Ah, Miss Lawson! Good to see you again! Still trying to put control chips in Shepard's head?"

Ash shot a startled look over to Miranda, as the other only grimaced. "One of the few times I've been wrong. Doctor Carmen Rosetti, I'd like to introduce you to Lieutenant Commander Ashley Williams."

Rosetti shuffled over to Ash, and gripped her outstretched hand in a vice grip. "Williams… I know it's a common name, but any relation to…"

"My grandfather, yes." Ash interrupted him with a pleasant, if rehearsed, smile.

"Ah, yes, I thought so. You have his eyes. Good man, good head on his shoulders. Always looked at the bigger picture, rather than dwelling on the details."

"You knew him?" Ash was genuinely surprised.

"Not really. Knew of him. I knew a lot of the people who served under him. While the Alliance may have thrown him under the bus, they didn't. Need more people like him in the galaxy."

Ash smiled. "Thanks, Doctor…"

"Please, call me Carmen. It's been decades since I've seen a patient, and formalities are reserved for people who don't have work to do. Which, in looking at the situation here, doesn't include us."

Ash felt a coldness rush through her veins. As the four of them walked back over to the bed where Shepard lay, she forced herself not to look at his face: the sight of the tubes running through his nostrils, and the breathing mask over his mouth made her nauseous.

"So, Carmen, do you think you can help us?"

Rosetti looked over the readings on the screen above the bed. "Well, the simple answer is yes. When he was rebuilt, we had issues in cloning the lungs. Never came out right. We could make them, but they wouldn't work. So we had to use cybernetics. Stupid things, I never liked them to begin with."

Rosetti looked up to Miranda. "I wish we had never had to use any of those cybernetic pieces of crap. So much of the team was focused on the fun stuff, like muscles and eyes, who was working on how to make all of those things actually work? Me. If you can't get oxygen into the blood, the blood can't pump to the newly manufactured eyes. Everyone overlooks the simple miracle that breathing is…"

Ash gently interrupted. "Why couldn't you get the cloned lungs to work? What was wrong with them?"

Rosetti shrugged. "I don't know. We cloned it off of the DNA we had, and they just never functioned properly."

Chakwas took an OSD from the table next to Shepard's bed, typed for a moment, then handed it to Rosetti. "This is what we have. Can we try it again?"

Rosetti took the OSD, and looked it over for a moment. His eyes widened. "This is not the same that we were working off of. Where did you get this?"

"From Shepard, just a few hours ago."

Miranda and Ash looked at each other, before Miranda turned back to Rosetti. "What do you mean 'that's not what we were working off of?'"

Rosetti only glanced over at her. "The DNA we had wasn't the same. There were subtle differences. Who collected our sample?"

Miranda thought for a moment, then closed her eyes, a look of disgust coming over her face. "Wilson. That pathetic worm!"

Rosetti looked up from the OSD. "What do you mean?"

"He was responsible for the attack at the facility. He reprogrammed the drones to attack the personnel, and tried to kill Shepard, Jacob, and myself."

Rosetti nodded quickly, then went back to the OSD. "Ah, I can see why you would call him a worm, then. As long as this DNA sample is good, should have no problem cloning new lungs."

Ash let out a small sigh of relief. "We noticed that there's some damage to the cybernetics in his brain, where some parts had been replaced by cybernetic implants. Do you think cloning would work there?"

Rosetti didn't even glance up from the OSD. "Probably not. Cloning brain tissue just never works properly. That is one case where cybernetics usually works better."

Ash tried to hide her disappointment. One step at a time, we can get him breathing again, then we can go from there. "Well, Carmen, Doctor Chakwas, I can tell you both have a lot of work ahead of you. Let Miranda or myself know what you need, and we'll get it for you."

As Ash started to turn to leave medbay, Rosetti called to her. "Dear, don't worry. I'll do everything I can to get your fiancée back."

She turned back to him. "How… how did you know?"

Rosetti looked up from his OSD, raising an eyebrow as he looked pointedly at her left hand. "Please, I didn't become the best in the galaxy at what I do by overlooking the fine details. After all, that's what the big picture is made out of."

Ash nodded. "Thank you." She left med bay quickly, not trusting herself to stay any longer.

So there we go, another chapter down. Please, feel free to leave any review, positive, negative, or offers to fund my future writing (cashier's check, money order and accepted!)

As this story finishes up, along with the sister story Convictions, I fins myself torn. I promised to keep both stories going, but I'm not sure if I should start new stories, or keep their future exploits under the same original titles. My concern is that I don't want the people who follow this story to miss out on the future of these two, but the future of the characters may not match up with the titles... so any thoughts on that, please feel free to let me know!

Coming up next... old faces, old problems, new complications.