After Liara: Systems Hacking

She needed to get the hell off of Illium. Though she had still had to recruit the assassin Thane Krios, after her latest meeting with Liara Melanie Shepard decided that could wait for another time. For now, she needed some space from the events of the last few days, and she had to hope that physical distance would help lead to it's emotional counterpart.

When the Illusive Man had sent her the new round of dossiers, she'd been secretly excited to see that two of them would take her to Illium. Ever since he'd told her that Liara was there, Melanie had wanted to go and see her, but her mission had taken priority. Now, though, she had a plethora of reasons for a visit, especially since Miranda's endangered sister was also on the asari-run world.

When she had disembarked on Illium, the customs official had told her that Liara had taken care of her docking expenses and was looking forward to seeing her. Shepard felt a thrill of anticipation run down her spine at those words, even though she wasn't sure exactly what she wanted or expected to happen. Before the Collector attack she'd started reconsidering her decision not to be with Liara, but two years had passed since then, even if she'd spent most of them unconscious, and a lot could have happened in that time. Despite the fact that she didn't know what to expect from asari scientist when they met though, she had definitely missed her, and it lifted her spirits to hear that Liara felt the same way.

Their initial reunion seemed to validate her hopes. Though she'd been surprised when the asari threatened whoever was on the other end of her comm-link, the look of pure happiness in Liara's eyes when she saw Melanie alive in front of her and the feel of her arms around her when she greeted the Specter with a hug made the time that had passed seem to melt away. Shepard had been relieved when Liara revealed that, rather than working for the Shadow Broker, she was trying to track him down and she'd been happy to help out, especially after the asari supplied her with useful leads on both of her potential recruits.

Afterwards, though, it had all gone wrong. She'd finished hacking the data terminals in between taking care of her other business only to find that Liara had had another assignment for her, this time unmasking an agent of the Broker. When she'd finally identified the information broker's secretary, Nyxeris, as the spy, Melanie had hoped that Liara would agree to come with her. Instead, she had given Shepard a few thousand credits for her help and said that her work was too important to drop at that moment.

Melanie had been stunned. Since becoming a Specter, she had encountered plenty of people who thought that she should delay vital missions to help with whatever their problems were in exchange for credits. Sometimes she did; the money could be useful to buy supplies and weapons and the causes were often worthy, but she'd never imagined having those kinds of dealings with Liara. Even if their personal history wasn't enough to persuade the asari to rejoin her crew, Liara knew better than almost anyone what Shepard was up against, what the stakes were.

Hurt and angry, Melanie had snapped at her, accusing of Liara becoming obsessed with the hunt for the Shadow Broker. Her words seemed to wound her old teammate, and when she said that she didn't want to lose Shepard as a friend, that she didn't have enough of those, a part of her wanted apologize, put her arms around Liara, and pretend that everything was okay. It wasn't though: despite her regrets, the scientist still wasn't willing to forget the Broker, and all Melanie could do was wish her well and leave.

Of course, it had been a terrible stretch for old friends all around. Her reunion with Kaidan on Horizon had gone even worse than the one with Liara. A conversation that started with him describing her a "living legend" went straight downhill, terminating when he all but called her a traitor to the Alliance, refusing to listen to her explanation for why, for now, she had to work with Cerberus.

Even that was light-years better than Miranda's confrontation with Niket. The man who'd helped her escape from her father died at the Cerberus operative's hand in order to protect her sister's location. Shepard had debated stopping her XO, but it was Miranda's operation, her call, and she was the one who could best judge whether Niket could be trusted not to betray her again.

It was hard to believe, given how close she and her teammates had been, how close Miranda and Niket had been, that things could have turned so sour. She supposed that time apart changed people, and afterwards you didn't always fit together the way you had before. Certainly she was far different than the girl who'd grown up on the streets; when she'd met that idiot Finch from her old gang two years before, he had seemed more alien than a turian.

Liara too had changed. The shy woman that she had met on Therum hardly seemed like the type to threaten to flay people with her mind or to obsess over defeating some black market information dealer. Friends or not, things just weren't the same anymore. Liara had a new life now, one that Shepard wasn't a part of, and that wounded her more deeply than she wanted it to. She needed a diversion; perhaps Kasumi's party heist would do the trick. The thief had even suggested it might not involve any shooting, though after the "simple" pick-up of Jack, Melanie found herself skeptical that anything was going to be as easy as it looked.