So sorry for the lack of updates! I've been pretty busy lately, but I'll try to keep the updates coming bi-weekly from here on out. As I said in Champion and the Pirate, though, I have a little one due any day, so that might not happen, but I'll try!

Once again, Bioware owns the people, the places, the things... but until they claim imminent domain on my soul, they'll never have my ideas!

Unless they hire me. Cross your fingers!

They sat in the briefing room, trying to decide what to do. Shepard, while breathing on his own and now showing brain activity, was still unconscious. Nothing they did to try to wake him seemed to work, and Doctor Chakwas was getting leery of trying to do too much more, less it adversely affect his condition.

In the meantime, they were still trying to find a way to stop the Reapers, who had already begun their invasion. All of this had led them to this meeting.

Ash, Liara, Miranda, Kelly, Shiala, Jacob, Garrus, and Jack all sat around the briefing table. They had decided that, with or without Shepard, they had to continue the mission. The reapers had started their invasion, millions were dying, and they were still scrambling for a way to fight them. They had no more time to look for a way to restore Shepard.

It was a conclusion that did not sit well with Ash. She knew, though, that he would want them to continue with the mission. But they had a roadblock.

"The knowledge in Shepard's mind is required if we're going to try to make sense of the prothean data recovered from the Citadel beacon." Liara was addressing everyone. "When he was rebuilt, he had somehow lost the cipher. That's why the last beacon made no sense to him."

"I could provide the cipher again, but with Shepard unconscious, it would be useless."

"Me." Everyone looked to Ash. "Give me the cipher. If we can get the information from Shepard's mind into mine, with the cipher I could make sense of it." Ash looked to Shiala and Liara. "Can that be done?"

Liara and Shiala looked to each other for a moment. "A four-way meld would be possible, though taxing for everyone involved." Shiala also looked uncomfortable as she continued. "Since my release from the thorian, I have been plagued by visions of my time with it. I cannot say if those visions would be passed to anyone else should I attempt a meld."

Liara also looked concerned. "We would also have a bigger problem than that to consider. We don't know if we could get anything from his mind, with him being… unresponsive. If there are no thought patterns there to tap into… we might find ourselves in a similar condition."

Garrus looked over to Ash. "There's no point in risking yourself on the off-chance that you can get something from Shepard's mind."

Jack leaned forward. "And what if there's nothing there that can help us? Then we're back to square one anyways."

Everyone was silent for a moment. Ash closed her eyes for a moment. He would want to give us every chance possible. She nodded to herself, and then looked to everyone in the room. "I understand. But it's the best chance we have now. We have to do this."

She slowly stood from the table, noticing that everyone was watching her. "Shiala, Liara… let's not waste any time. Everyone else, we'll let you know how it goes. Miranda, if anything goes wrong…"

"I understand, Ash. Good luck, all of you."

Slowly, the two Asari rose from the table as well, following Ash out and into the elevator to go down to med bay. Ash felt completely numb. He'll be fine, he'll be fine. The thought kept repeating itself in her mind, almost as if she thought it enough, it would be true. She knew, though, that she would have to steel herself against the possibility that she was about to kill the man that she loved. She forced herself to push that thought aside. If something happened, they would have to handle it then. There was no point in worrying about it now.

The doors opened to the crew deck, and the three women walked over to med bay. Each step brought Ash closer to tears with fear for her fiancé. As they entered med bay, Doctor Chakwas looked up, saw who it was, and nodded, almost as if she had expected this. "Just so you're all aware… neural activity is reading extremely high. I'm not sure what's causing it… but be careful.

Ash nodded absently. She walked over to the side of Shepard's bed, and gently grasped his limp hand. There was so much she wanted to say, just in case… but she knew they had no time. Every moment wasted was more lives lost. "Ok, let's do it."

Shiala stood across from her, while Liara stood next to her, close to Shepard's head. They both put their hands to his temples, and then placed theirs on hers. As both of their eyes went black, Ash's stomach dropped, and she was overcome with an incredible sense of vertigo. She barely heard the two Asari speak in unison:

"Embrace eternity!"

Screams, cries, explosions, death, emptiness, fear, despair, falling, drowning, burning, hot, cold. Ash was overwhelmed as the sensations of eons of knowledge flooded through her. There was a jumble of images, and a cacophony of sounds, all lasting for the briefest of moments. She saw a hand reaching from a planet and touch a mass relay. Hands spread from that relay to others, and hands coming from the relays reaching out and grasping the nearby planets.

She saw a reaper swallowing the citadel, then grow and expand to swallow the galaxy. She heard the screams of the protheans as they were exterminated. She could feel the rumble of the reapers in her bones, and somehow knew there was no escape.

Finally, a clear light shown through the jumble of images. It engulfed her in warmth, and the vertigo disappeared. She felt like she was floating in a warm pool, when suddenly she felt someone grab her hand. She looked, and saw it was Shepard. A strange, gold light was coming from his eyes and mouth, and Ash felt it enter her own. She felt herself racing upwards, faster and faster, Shepard still holding her hand, as the light linked them together. She felt a terrible sense of purpose starting in the back of her thoughts, but she couldn't focus on it yet.

Faster and faster they went. Ash tried to scream, but she had no breath. Her body began to tingle, and suddenly…

Ash opened her eyes, completely out of breath. It took a moment for her vision to return to process that she was in medbay. Both Shiala and Liara were leaning against the wall, trying to stay standing, both clearly exhausted as Doctor Chakwas quickly ushered them to open beds for them to lie down. Ash looked down at her hand, registering that Shepard held it in a vise grip. She looked to his face, and saw that his eyes were open, and he was staring at her.

"John, you're awake!"

He nodded, looking at her. "I feel like I've been asleep for weeks."

Ash smiled. "That's because you have been. That's the last time you take a vacation in the middle of a mission, soldier!"

Shepard smiled. "Aye aye, ma'am."

Doctor Chakwas came over and checked his vitals. "Well, Commander, it looks like everything's back to normal. I must admit, your ability to always find new ways to worry us gets a bit old."

Shepard smiled slightly. "Sorry, Doctor. I guess it's an old habit of mine." He looked back to Ash. "You saw everything that I did. Do you understand?"

She closed her eyes. She tried to process everything she had experienced. The reapers, the protheans… she remembered that sense of purpose that had festered in the back of her mind, and, like a puzzle, each piece started to fit together, and she had the whole picture.

"Yes… I understand it now."

They looked at each other for a moment, still holding hands. They finally knew what the reapers wanted, and understood their only chance to end the invasion.

Next time, a debt repaid, running from the Reapers... and how will the crew respond to the startling revelations that Shepard and Ash have to share?

All comments and reviews are more than welcome!