Kaidan stared at the closed door to the captain's quarters. In general, Shepard left it open for anyone when she was in there. It happened often enough that it when it was closed it was an unspoken warning she didn't want to be disturbed.

He ran his finger over the edge of the datapad he held in his hands, wondering if he should just wait until tomorrow to give it to her.

Soft footsteps came from behind him as Liara walked up. She crossed her arms over her chest, looking worried. "She hasn't come out?"

"Just to do some basic rounds," he said quietly. "Ashley says she hasn't spoken to anyone outside the basics for the past day or so." Anyone who hadn't known her wouldn't have been able to tell there was anything wrong. She was polite and as attentive to the crew as ever but there was a...distance. A sense she'd pulled back and away from all of them.

"I'd never...never paid much attention to Cerberus except as a name in the vids. Do you think he was telling the truth?" Liara blurted. "About...why he was killing those scientists? The experiments? Injecting venom into him? Do you really think they caused the attack on Akuze?"

Kaidan grimaced. "I don't know...he wasn't really sane, Liara...you saw that..." He hesitated. "But there have been rumors about the kinds of things Cerberus has been...involved in. The Alliance declared them a terrorist group for a reason. I...yes." He let out a sharp breath, admitting it to himself as much as her. "Yes, I think he was telling the truth."

"How could they do that? How can they say they're working to help humans and do that to their own kind?"

Kaidan wished he still had that kind of innocence. "My guess is if you asked one of them, they would make some speech about sacrificing a few to save the many. That the information they have on Thresher Maws there were worth the deaths caused to get it." That old song and dance, he thought bitterly.

"Sacrifice? It's cruel."

"I don't really understand that kind of thinking any better than you do, Liara. I've never argued against them classifying Cerberus as terrorists because I can't condone their methods."

Liara was silent for a long time. She looked desperately sad. "I just wish we could help her."

If only she would let them.

His only shot to get out of it sane and without getting crucified was getting the Alliance on his side. That meant the scientist was only useful if he was still alive, still able to testify. Persecuting Cerberus members helped the Alliance detach themselves from the organization to the rest of the galaxy, so evidence against them was gold.

She hoped against hope that those facts would register with him and could see, with a sinking feeling, that they didn't. He was beyond thinking rationally, his eyes filled with resignation, despair...and a bone deep weariness she understood all too well. It was hard to live with so much hate in you. It buried itself deep into the core of you until it was hard to remember feeling anything else.

She saw that, absorbed that, in a few seconds, but it was still too long. A calm sort of resolution replaced the mad despair in his eyes.

Don't do it...

When you didn't have anything to sustain that hatred anymore, nothing to hunt, what exactly were you left with? She'd had contrition. The knowledge that for all that hatred had cost her, it had cost several people their lives who had not deserved to lose them. The thought that she couldn't die so easily without trying to do something in remembrance of that, it would give her a peace she didn't deserve. It was the Catholic based upbringing she'd had, maybe. She didn't believe in Hell, not their version of it, anyway, but she did believe in penance.

He didn't. Hotshot, overconfident, almost arrogant for all that had happened to him; he'd barely changed at his core.

Don't do it...

She moved toward him with the knowledge it was already too late, that none of them could stop him before he brought the barrel of his pistol in contact with his temple. She had failed him.

"Well, they said there was only one survivor of Akuze..."

"Toombs!"

Shepard was sitting behind her desk when the door lock clicked green and let him in. The room was dark except where green and red dots of electronics glowed and the open door made a bar of light slice across the floor. Her bare feet were propped against the desk, her eyes fixed on some point on the wall across the room. She turned her gaze toward him silently, expressionless, as he entered. Kaidan walked slowly up to the desk and handed the datapad to her. "This just came in from Captain Anderson. They've taken that scientist into protective custody until they need him to testify against Cerberus. And he's given them all the information they asked for. Or most of it, anyway."

Shepard took the datapad and studied it. She nodded wordlessly.

Kaidan hesitated. "The captain says there's a lot of useful information they can use against them," he added lamely, wishing there was more comfort in that. Wishing it was the kind of information that could take Cerberus down completely. Anything to take that fixed look off her face. It didn't belong there. He'd take even that maniacal gleam that sometimes came to her eyes when they were up against a particularly powerful adversary over that look.

He saluted, startled by the movement because he hadn't done so since she'd become a Spectre...only the most conservative of the crew did anymore since Shepard didn't make any effort to demand it. He headed for the door before he put his foot in his mouth trying to figure out something to say.

"Alenko."

Her voice startled him and he looked back.

She smiled at him tiredly. "Thanks."

AN: Good lord this chapter was hard to write, I actually ended up splitting it in two, sorry it's been a while!