Chapter 7: Reunion

Illusive Man

The Illusive Man continued his conversation with Henry Lawson, though he was quite difficult to talk to. He was analyzing every angle looking for deceit in the Cerberus leader words, now the Illusive Man knew where Miranda got it from. Henry Lawson crossed his arms. "Why should I help you? If I remember correctly, you got in my way months ago"

Illusive Man took a sip of wine. "Ah yes Orianna, it was nothing personal, just me honoring my promises, but now that Miranda is no longer with us, I don't have to honor that promise"

"So what do you want?" he asked.

"You are a genius when it comes to genetic manipulation, case in point your daughter"

Henry just scoffed. "Miranda was a failure, just like the dolls before her"

"To you maybe, but back when she was working with Cerberus, she was one of my best operatives" Illusive Man said. "Now do we have a deal?"

"Wait, if I help you, I want something return"

"Name it…"

Henry gave a cruel smirk. "I want my dear daughter to suffer for her defiance, tell me the location of Orianna"

"Done" Illusive Man said. "Now, Mr. Lawson, how much do you know about Husks?"

The Normandy crew-Toronto, Canada (Earth)

Shepherd and team were walking with James to Shepherd's holding room. The personnel cleared the way as the team were walking; some had looks of awe from seeing the great Shepherd, while some were looking at the members of Shepherd's strange crew. However the team were more interested in the fact Shepherd's guard dated Lia. "Wait, you went on a date with this guy? When did this happen?" Kasumi said.

Lia blushed. "Well…"

Months ago

"Eight hundred credits" the man said.

Lia blinked. "Eight hundred? But the tag said three hundred"

"Nine hundred"

"What? That's not fair!"

"Keep mouthing back and I'll make it even higher." The man said.

"You bosh'tet racist!"

"Hey if you don't like it, then leave suit rat" Just then someone spoke up.

"Hey, is there a problem here?" A man said. Lia looked back and saw a gigantic human. His skin was dark and his face had scars, he had on a dark green shirt that showed off his muscles quite nicely.

"This quarian is causing a disturbance in my store"

"You're a lying, all I want to do is buy this device and this bosh'tet ups the price"

"How much did it cost?" the large human asked.

"The device was for three hundred and he wants it for nine hundred" Lia said.

The large man frowned. "Is that true?"

"The suit-rat is lucky I'm even selling to her." The clerk scoffed. Lia fought back the urge wring his neck, instead the large man did it for her.

"Let me tell you how this is going to go, pendejo" He said cracking his knuckles. "You sell this girl the device at a fair price and I won't break your legs"

The clerk gulped. "Now, now there's no need for violence, I'm sure we can work this out"

The huge human gave a smirk. "Try me"

"F-fine, that will be one seventy" he said nervously. "Now get out"

After getting her device, she and the big man left much to the relief of the clerk. "You didn't have to do that"

"That puta had it coming, I hate assholes, especially if they're assholes to women" He snorted. "Besides it was fun"

Lia blushed. "Well thank you, I should go…you know meet up with some friends" she stammered.

The big man stopped her "Are you doing anything?"

"N-no, W-why?"

"Would like to go for drinks?" He asked with a smile. Lia raised a brow.

"Do you always pick up random strangers?" she asked.

The man smiled. "Only if they're cute" Lia blushed. The big human held out his hand. "The name's Jimmy"

Lia shook his hand. "Lia"

"After that we went dancing, and after the date he gave me his omni-tool code" she explained. "We've been talking ever since up until we went through the Omega-4 relay"

Kasumi smirked. "So that's why were so happy that night"

Lia and James blushed. "I-It's not like that….h-he helped me…and well…" she stammered.

"Y-yeah, just helping a cute girl out, t-that's all" he stuttered

Kasumi raised a brow at that. "Oh, Lia is cute, huh?" James blushed even harder.

Kaiden shook his head. "Alright that's enough of that, Kasumi" he said. "James, I've noticed you're the only one to meet us, shouldn't there be more people?"

"Yeah, now that I've noticed it does seem strange, are there anyone assigned to watch me other than you?" Shepherd asked.

"Nope, just me" James replied.

"James, who assigned you?" Kaiden asked.

"Admiral Anderson" he said.

"Anderson?" Shepherd asked. "Wait, Admiral? Anderson's with the council"

James sighed and explained Anderson was booted off the Council for his defense of Shepherd, the Councilors went behind Anderson's back and made a deal with parliament to get a successor and chose Anderson's assistant, Udina. The team looked on in dread, Udina was the absolutely last person they wanted, unlike Anderson, Udina never believed Shepherd's findings about the reaper. If the reapers did come now, it would be a slaughter.

"Fuck…"

"This will make preparing much more difficult" Miranda said. "Troubling…"

James looked at her. "Prepare? Prepare for what?"

"Don't worry about it" Shepherd said. The group turned the corner.

"Okay, here's your room" Shepherd blinked when he looked at the room. No bars, no poorly made make shift bed, it had modest bedding, a bathroom, a TV, and a small laptop for basic extranet browsing. It was nice, in fact much nicer than the man who disgraced the Alliance deserved.

"You sure this is my room? I thought this was a holding cell, not a suite"

"Anderson pulled some strings, and got you this" James said. "If you don't mind, I would like to speak with Lia"

"Um sure, but are you sure you want to leave me here alone?" Shepherd asked. "I could just leave"

"You could but you won't, Anderson told me you were an upstanding kind of guy" he said.

"Any ground rules I should follow?"

"You can go anywhere you want in the building as long you as have me as an escort, your friends can you at any time up until curfew and of course no weapons, other than those rules you're free to do as you please" James said.

"Uh, thanks…" James nodded and left with Lia. Shepherd sat on the bed, not as good as the bed on the Normandy, but he couldn't complain, it could have been much worse. Miranda looked down the hallway looking at James and Lia. "Miranda, what's wrong?"

"Do you think we can trust him?" Miranda asked.

"If he was picked by Anderson, then I think we can trust him" Kaiden said.

"Plus he helped Lia, which makes him okay in my book" Kasumi said. She then smirked. "Plus she really seems to like the guy…" Tali giggled.

Outside

James and Lia walked outside to the courthouse, the human and the Quarian didn't say anything and the silence was becoming awkward for the two of them. James knew she was expecting some answers, and was going to explain himself however Lia decided to speak up.

"I…I missed you, Jimmy" She said with a blush.

"I missed you too, Lola"

"Then why didn't you call? I was worried that you died in some ditch somewhere" James lowered his head; her statement had more truth than she thought. The memories of Fehl Prime flashed into his head, until Lia shook him and brought him back to reality. James looked at her and she had a concerned look on her face. "Jimmy?"

"Sorry… just some bad memories…."James said solemnly. "I'm sorry, but I don't want to talk about it, not now…" he said. Lia looked at his features, it was much more rough since she seen him last, he wasn't the happy-go-lucky guy that she met on Illium. Something happened to him, something traumatic, and as curious as she was, she wouldn't pry. He could tell her when he was ready.

"Okay…" It got silent again until James spoke up.

"So you're a member of Commander Shepherd's crew, that's badass" James said. "Why didn't you tell me?"

Lia crossed her arms. "You never asked" she said. "Besides I doubt you would believe I was traveling with the great Commander Shepherd"

James chuckled. "Heh, good point"

Lia lowered her head. "Do you think Shepherd will get out of this? I asked the others but they keep telling me not worry"

James sighed. "To tell you the truth, I don't really know, but to destroy a mass relay, you have to be either batshit crazy or desperate, since he don't seem like the crazy type, I'm going to say desperate, I don't blame him we've all been in that kind of situation at some point or another"

Lia turned away. "I know what you mean"

James looked at her and frowned.. "Something happened?"

"It was back on the Normandy…these aliens called the Collectors invaded the ship, I had to ignore a lot of my friends to rescue our pilot" Lia shook her head. "It was one of the scariest moments I've ever faced…something I never want to face again" James nodded, even someone as sweet as Lia couldn't escape the Collectors, he was glad that they were gone.

"Well you got through it and became stronger for it, you should be proud, not a lot of people can say that… " James said. James looked at his time, he needed to get back to Shepherd, and he walked to the building. "We should probably get back" Lia nodded and they walked back to Shepherd's room.

"You know if this whole thing with Shepherd ends we should go on another date"

Lia blushed and smiled. "I would like that"

James smirked. "See ya, Lola"

Hagalaz

Back on the Shadow Broker base, Liara was hard at work looking for any leads on the reapers. Since gaining control of the network, she had repurposed a lot of the agents on searching for signs to the invasion, despite how vast the network was there was simply not enough to go on for a plan to counter the reapers. She sat back in her chair and sighed. The door behind her opened to reveal Feron, her second in command; she had told him about the reaper invasion and surprisingly took the information seriously. While the asari worked on finding the reapers, Feron was in charge of the Broker's shadier operations.

"No luck, huh?" Feron asked.

"No, the reapers are as enigmatic as they are dangerous" She said. "How's stuff on your end?"

"I got some info from one of our agents on Omega, it's about Cerberus"

That got Liara's attention, other than what happened four months ago, Cerberus had been surprisingly quiet. "What are they up to?"

"Nothing just yet, but there's has been traffic to and from the Omega-4 relay"

The asari frowned. "Wouldn't they need the Collector IFF to pass through it? I thought only the Normandy had it" she said. "Why would be they be there? Shepherd destroyed the Collector Base"

"Want to bet the Illusive Man had a copy of it? Anyway that much traffic near Omega is making Aria rather nervous, but until something happens…."

"She can't make a move, and neither can we" Liara said. She sighed, as much as she was worried about Cerberus, they couldn't risk attacking a potential ally, the war was going to be huge and they needed all the allies they could get. Although with Cerberus, she used ally very loosely. "Tell our operatives to keep an eye on them"

The drell nodded. "Got it, Liara" he said walking away.

Liara sat back in chair and frowned. "What are you up to, Illusive Man?"

Watch your back Miranda, daddy's coming and with the Anderson out and Udina in, what does that mean for the war preparation against the reapers?

Find out next time. As always review and comment.