"...Creepy. Seriously creepy." Danali's image looked troubled. The expression didn't sit well on her lovely features. Knowing Shepard too well, she turned her eyes toward her friend. "There's obviously nothing you could have done to save the Matriarch, you know that, right?"

Shepard breathed out a sigh and leaned back, looking at the ceiling of her office. "Yeah...I know. I wish..." She waved a hand.

"I know. I'm afraid what I've finally dug up isn't going to make your day any better."

Shepard looked at her sharply. "You found something on Saren?"

"It's...something. Does the name Shu Qian mean anything to you? Dr. Shu Qian?"

"No. Should it?"

"I don't know. Here's what I found out. Years ago, this high and mighty batarian, Edan Had'dah, hired this Qian guy, who was a rogue Alliance scientist. The information on Qian is sketchy at best, which means, darling, that what he was working on was probably pretty sketchy."

Shepard winced.

"From what I've been able to gather, Had'dah was using Qian to find some kind of artifact. Whether they found it or not, we don't know. Both of them were killed in a refinery explosion. We know what we do because Saren was making inquiries about it and a few people noted he seemed more interested in the artifact than the danger the scientist and Had'dah held."

Shepard's mind was racing. Something was tugging at the back of her head. A scientist...killed in a refinery explosion. She sat up quickly. "Where was it, 'Nali? The explosion that killed them? Where was the refinery?"

"Camala. And before you ask, yes, Saren was spotted there. In fact, I think he was there with your captain. The handsome one. Anderson."

"Son of a bitch..." Shepard said, her eyes going wide. Anderson's mission. The one Saren had sabotaged that had ended Anderson's chance to become the first human Spectre. Hadn't he told her the scientist...Qian?...had been hiding out in an eezo refinery when it had been blown up? She got up to pace. Denali, again knowing her well, was silent and let her think it out. Anderson had said Saren had blown it up to distract the guards but what if that wasn't the only reason he'd had? "What do you know about this artifact?"

"Nothing. I'm sorry, my witch, but once Qian and Had'dah were dead there's nothing. If Saren got information from it, he kept it close. After all that, he kind of faded into the background, focusing on deeper parts of space. Since what he was doing wasn't a threat to Omega or Her Nib's business, Aria lost interest in him."

Even Saren wasn't stupid enough to draw Aria T'Loak's attention. An artifact. Sovereign? Was that how he'd found Sovereign? She had to talk to Anderson.

Denali was watching her with amusement now. "I take it that information was helpful, my witch?"

Shepard shook herself. "Yes...oh, more than you know. Thanks, 'Nali."

"Are you headed for the Citadel, then? I have some time before I have to head back to Omega. You look...well, it's been a long time since I've seen that kind of look in your eye, Ari." There was genuine concern in Denali's voice.

Shepard looked at her. She'd been looking forward to seeing her again, but now the urge was almost overwhelming. She hadn't realized how desperately she wanted talk to someone who would understand. "Yes." Her lips twisted into a semblance of a smile. "For the first time I actually want to walk into Udina's office."

"Then I'll find you when your business is done."

Same old 'Nali. "Don't you always."

Later on in the day, when they'd docked at the Citadel, Shepard strode away from the ambassador's office, grumbling under her breath. "I'd have an easier time getting through to that man's head with a hammer."

Kaidan was walking beside her, troubled. "It was interesting to see Anderson tell him to fuck off," he said, trying for levity. In truth, the sight of two of the Alliance's most powerful men with such an obvious split between them made him nervous. Shepard had filled them in on what her friend had come across as they'd made their way to the Presidium. Anderson had been even more interested to learn it, though Udina apparently couldn't be bothered.

With all the grumbling from the press and a close call with an assassin when they had stopped for supplies a while back, the crew had starting expressing concerns to the point Shepard had agreed not to go anywhere without at least two of them with her. And none of them went out alone anymore.

Except Wrex, but with his reputation, any assassin that tried to take him on was obviously too stupid to be much of a threat. Or, Ashley had been delighted to add, any assassin good enough to take Wrex down would be expensive and therefore wouldn't bother with him, they'd go straight for Shepard.

Not a comforting thought, that.

As it was, there were three of them today. Garrus and Tali were still looking at the console that was advertising a new upgrade for omni-tools that they had been looking at with Shepard earlier. The commander veered toward them and Kaidan followed. They'd gone from debating the usefulness of various aspects of the upgrade to discussing how Shepard could maneuver the Alliance into getting it for everyone's omni-tools. Kaidan could have told them that wasn't going to happen and though Shepard gave it a look filled with wistfulness, she knew it too.

The commander glanced to her left and Kaidan followed her gaze. A Keeper was scuttling past them not far away. He had no idea where Shepard's sudden fascination with those things came from. Neither did she, but she didn't seem to be bothered by that fact.

"Watch." Shepard nudged him and nodded to the Keeper. The little creature was standing still, round head tilted back on its long neck and looking straight up. "Next it'll do this funny little turn around move in a full circle, look up again, and then it will move on."

Kaidan blinked at her and turned his attention back to the Keeper. And damned if it didn't do just that. Kaidan looked back at her in astonishment. Shepard grinned. "That's what happens when you watch them obsessively." She flipped some kind of device out and aimed it at the Keeper as it moved away.

"Shepard? What are you doing?" Garrus's voice came from behind them.

Shepard studied the screen of the device and tucked it away. "Nothing."

"You can get in trouble for interfering with the Keepers, commander."

She shot him that wicked grin of hers that always seemed to discomfit the turian. "You gonna arrest me for it, officer?"

"You know I wouldn't even if I still could..."

"I'm not interfering. See? The little guy doesn't even notice. Just...gathering a bit of data for someone. Maybe because I'd like to know more about them. I mean, I never really paid attention to them before but now that I keep noticing them...they're so cool. Everyone ignores them like they're servants...which I guess they are, to the Citadel anyway...but at any random time they could just up and move stuff around and it doesn't matter if it's the lowliest office worker or the highest ranking diplomat. They're like little servants and little tyrants all wrapped up in one. They know everything about the Citadel but they aren't talking and no one can get it out of them. The scientist I was talking to said if you capture them, they self destruct."

"It's true," Garrus confirmed, interested despite himself. "They just up and dissolve in under a minute, like they have some kind of acid in them."

"I wonder why the Protheans wouldn't want anyone knowing about the Citadel," Tali said thoughtfully.

"Don't know. I think I'll run it by Liara when she gets back. Maybe some good hard scientific thinking will help her feel a little better."

"She keeps telling all sorts of stories about her mother, I think that's a good sign," Tali said, her voice hopeful.

Kaidan nodded. The other day a crew member had complained about having to hear stories about the Matriarch all the damn time and Tali had overheard. Apparently that had rubbed the quarian the wrong way and she had reamed him up one side and down the other, giving him the full thrust of a temper none of them had gotten a glimpse of before. The fact she was backed by Ashley in that had left the poor man cowering. In Tali's opinion, and most of the crew's, if talking about her mother helped Liara heal, then it wasn't that big a damn deal to shut the hell up and listen to her once in a while.

They passed by the Relay Monument, a sculpture in the shape of a mass relay that had been there even when the Citadel had been found by the asari. There were many arguments about what it was supposed to represent but at this moment, Kaidan rather liked the idea that it was supposed to represent unity throughout the galaxy.

The Keeper Shepard had scanned scurried between them and the monument on whatever errand only it knew about. Garrus watched it, his head cocked to one side. "You know, I've never seen them pay any attention to that."

"To what?" Shepard turned to look at him.

Garrus pointed at the Relay Monument. "That. It's kind of strange, actually."

"Maybe that hum has something to do with it? Is there some kind of field around it?"

Garrus gave him a strange look. "What hum?"

Kaidan was surprised. "You can't feel it? It sounds like it's coming from the statue. It makes my teeth tingle."

"It always feels like a buzzing inside my head," Shepard said, looking between him and Garrus with interest. She looked over at Tali, who shook her head. "I can't feel anything either."

"That's weird," Kaidan said.

Before they could speak on it further, someone called Shepard's name and she turned to meet a man dressed in Alliance colors. He looked harried, not panicking but worry had sunk deep lines into his face. He leaned close, speaking urgently to the commander. Kaidan couldn't hear what he was saying but he saw Shepard's reaction quite clearly. The woman turned pale, her eyes going wide with shock. Garrus went tense beside him, taking a step forward. "Shepard?"

She turned her head to look at them, looking almost dazed for a moment before her gaze sharpened and she drew herself up. "I have to head to the Alliance docks."

Kaidan felt alarm stab through him. "Something happened to the Normandy."

"No...no, Kaidan, nothing is wrong. It's..."

"Commander," the man's voice was urgent. "I'm sorry but there isn't much time."

Shepard shook herself. "Yes...just..." She waved a distracted hand and hurried along with the man. Kaidan exchanged a confused look with Garrus and Tali, then followed her.

They ended up in the main docks somewhere. Shepard had a strange, fixed look on her face. When the man- he'd hurriedly introduced himself as Lieutenant Girard -stopped, he pointed down toward a stack of shipping crates. "She's there. I have a sniper set up but I don't think we'll need him. She's only a danger to herself."

Shepard nodded and extended a hand. "Give me the sedative."

Kaidan cocked his head, confused and intrigued. That sharp accent that generally showed up in her speech every once in a while seemed more pronounced and he didn't think Shepard was aware of it. In fact, it was similar to Girard's, Kaidan thought with a start. Girard saluted and handed her something.

"Commander?" Kaidan spoke quietly.

"It's all right. Just...stay back a bit..." Shepard said, giving him another distracted look. "It will be all right," she repeated with more emphasis.

"If she seems liable to pull the trigger, back off," Girard urged. "Or walk away. I'm willing to wait her out." He shot a worried look up the docks.

Shepard nodded and moved toward the stack of crates.

"Lieutenant?" Girard turned to look at him. "What's going on?"

"Oh, yes, sorry," Girard said. "Sorry, I'm just worried. It's Talitha. She...she's been unstable ever since she was brought back, but she was never a danger to herself before. She keeps saying she wants to die. I was hoping Shepard could calm her down enough to get her to take a sedative."

"Why Shepard?" Garrus asked, sounding confused.

Girard looked back up the dock, still worried but with a bit of hope in his eyes now. "Talitha...we got her back from batarian slavers a few months ago. Shepard came from the same colony as her. From Mindoir."

She fucking hated batarians.

Shepard was well aware that most batarians were forbidden to leave batarian space, so slavers were the only examples she had seen. It wasn't fair to judge the entire race by one part of its population but she really wasn't interested in being fair where they were concerned. If she met a legitimate batarian who wasn't actively trying to kill her, fine, she'd let him be, but she wasn't going to turn her back on him. They had shut themselves away in their system, their government holding a strict monopoly on anything that was traded or even said as news to the rest of their people. Their society's strict adherence to social caste meant they not only viewed slavery as legitimate, they were insulted by officials trying to stop them. When she'd heard of Baker's exploits on Torfan in retaliation for the attack on Elysium known now as the Skyllian Blitz, it had been the only time she approved of his actions. Because she knew the batarians would not have shown any mercy if their positions had been reversed.

Shepard unhooked her gun-belt and placed it on the floor, checking herself to ensure none of her knives were visible before she cautiously stepped around the shipping crates.

The girl was there, just like Girard said. Shepard took a deep breath, drawing on her own experiences dealing with freed slaves out on the Traverse as the girl jerked and pointed the gun at her with a shaking hand, her eyes wide and frightened. Shepard held her hands up to show she was unarmed, keeping the sedative palmed and out of sight as the girl spoke, her voice shrill. "Stop! What do you...What are you?"

"It's okay," Shepard kept her voice calm. "Lieutenant Girard sent me to talk to you. What's your name?" She knew what it was, but this was one of the most important questions you had to jump on right away. Batarian slavers conditioned their slaves to view themselves as the batarians viewed them: as stupid animals. Not worthy of anything but serving, not even a name.

The girl gave a shaky laugh. "Animals don't get names. The masters put their symbols on her. Hot metal all over her back. She screams when they do it."

Shepard was quite sure of that. She felt the rage in her pulsing to the surface, black and hot, and clenched her teeth, forcing it back. The girl didn't need that rage right now. "You're not an animal. What did your parents call you?" She made her voice smooth out, coaxing her gently. "Do you remember?" The way the girl was speaking of herself, like she was outside herself, was not a good sign. If she could break through, coax her memories to the surface, it improved chances of helping her.

"She remembers a lot of things..." The girl hesitated, letting the gun drop a little. "Talitha. They call her that. Sh-she doesn't remember the rest."

Shepard met her eyes, using that moment of calm to study her. Her hair had been shaved off and her face was lined with stress in a way no one her age should have had to feel. "Talitha. That's a pretty name." She felt something tug at her memory. Who were you, sugar? Where did I see you?

Talitha rubbed at her head, her voice taking on a keening edge. "Leave her alone."

As she turned her head, the way the light played over her face made Shepard catch her breath. A woman...and a little red-headed girl. Selling fruit with Milo and some of his children in the section of the colony where people could set up stalls at certain times of the year for free trade. All sorts of things. And sharing strawberries with little red headed girl with blue eyes. "I remember you...Talitha..."

The girl just stared at her, looking uncertain.

"Your father owned the general store..."

Talitha's eyes widened.

"I remember that too. It was cool and dark and it smelled like sawdust and oil in the front and fresh bread in the back where the drink machines were."

"I don't..." Talitha's voice shook, but she didn't raise the gun again. "Liar! I don't remember. I remember fires. Smells of smoke and burning meat."

Oh, God. She could remember that too.

"Animals screaming as the masters cage them. As they put the metal to their backs. The wires in their brains."

Or just killed them. Carmen standing, trying to shield her youngest children. She was a big woman, what could you expect after she'd had ten children, and there was a lot of her to hide behind. But not enough.

Carmen trapped against a wall with several men armed with guns, keeping the slavers from getting close enough to bring them down. Carmen, with her bright clothes and sun browned skin and loud, booming laugh that could be heard from anywhere in the farmhouse. She wore her graying hair in a braid coiled at the back of her head and there were always hairs sticking out of it.

She could hug half of her children with one arm and bake cookies with the other at the same time, Maman had once said fondly. Would whack you with a spoon if you said the Lord's name in vain in her presence but didn't even blink if you tracked mud in the house from playing in the creek because kids would be kids.

Arian could remember, with sickening detail, the disgusted look on one batarian's face- that look that said he didn't have time to deal with troublesome animals when they could get so many others -as he motioned to the others and they let loose a spray of bullets.

Shepard drew in a shaky breath. Talitha was still talking. "She pretends to be dead. If she's dead, she can't work. But they know. She hopes they'll leave. But they put her in the pen."

I. You have to get her to say 'I'. If she can't even give herself an identity, no one can. The trouble was, talking about herself like that was a defense mechanism Shepard had come across before. It took many forms, but at the core of it, it was the same: their reality was so horrific it was better to believe nothing than deal with it day after day, hour after hour.

Talitha was staring at the gun in her hand. Her voice was small, the voice of a child. "She didn't fight. She was already broken when they put the wires in."

"Cherie." She couldn't stop the catch in her voice as she took a careful step forward. That word hadn't passed her lips for more than a decade. It was her mother's endearment, a loving whisper in the night. "You were a child. You were younger than me, you had to be. What were you? Six years old? What could you have done but stay quiet and hope they would go away?"

"She wants to believe that," Talitha whispered. "She wants to believe nothing would change." She shook her head like she was trying to dislodge something inside her skull. "She doesn't want to be there anymore. In the pen. In the cages. Lying quiet while they do things to her."

"You aren't. You're right here. They can't touch you anymore." Shepard cautiously inched forward a little more.

Talitha finally noticed she was closer and jerked back, waving the gun. "No! She's no good! Don't want to be handled again!"

"Never again." Shepard stayed put, her eyes locked with Talitha's. For an instant, she thought she saw a glimmer of recognition in the girl's eyes. "I remember you, Talitha. I was there. I lived on Mindoir."

Talitha's face crumpled. "Lying! You get hit for lying! Get the buzz or burning. Can't be there."

Oh, yes, those lovely little toys the batarians had perfected for slavers all around. Shock collars, implants into the skull to cause pain. She fought her anger down. Couldn't show it because Talitha would misinterpret it as aimed at her.

Talitha glared at her suddenly. "Why are you alive? Why are you-Why aren't you like her? Broken. Only fit to dig and carry?"

Oh, sugar, who says I'm not. Couldn't say that out loud. "I did the same thing as you."

Run, Arian!

"I got...buried...under rubble. After they killed my mother."

Mirette!

Who had it been screaming her mother's name, drowning out her own tortured cry? Was it Pere Mulligan? She thought maybe it had been. She dimly remembered him calling her own name as darkness had closed around her. It had to be Pere Mulligan because Milo had already been dead.

Pain ripped through her chest and made her draw in a sharp breath. She could remember Milo, seemingly dwarfed by his wife, working side by side with the men who worked for him. Providing not only for his own family but for the two runaways he'd come across in a run down dock and had taken in. His love was quieter than his wife's. A steady, quiet man. And stern when his children needed it.

He'd been so happy...so very happy...the first time she had given him a hug of her own volition.

Talitha was watching her. She'd lowered the gun again. "You lost your mommy and daddy. But you don't dig. You don't carry. You stand up. She wishes she could stand up."

She couldn't let herself get lost in memories. Of all the shining lives that had been wiped out in one blood drenched afternoon. "Cherie, you're here. You escaped, yes?"

"Don't touch her!" Talitha's face twisted again, this time with loathing.

"I won't touch you if you don't want me to."

"You can't!" Talitha almost screamed it. "She can't escape. They have chains! Wires! Needles! You go too far, they take your brains away."

"They can't do that anymore."

Talitha didn't seem to hear her. "Animals like her come. Animals with guns. They make the masters explode."

Good.

"She tries to fix the masters. So they won't be mad at her. She puts all the reds and purples back in, but they don't move."

The next batarian slaver she took down, she was going to carve Talitha's name into his face and ram one of those fucking control chips into his fucking eyes.

"The other animals take her. But she doesn't want to see them. They're not real. They can't be real. They can't see her." Talitha was rocking back and forth, the gun dangling from her hand at her side, forgotten. "If the animals can see her, then this is real. But it can't be. The wires. The chains. The hitting. It doesn't happen to her. A dirty girl. A stupid girl. She deserves it!"

Her eyes were stinging with tears she couldn't allow to fall. "No, you don't."

"It happens to her!" Talitha insisted. She faltered, swaying on her feet. "Doesn't it?" Her voice had softened into a plea, begging for reassurance. "They see her, so it's real. She doesn't want it to be real."

"All of it?" Shepard took another step toward her, bringing her within arm's reach of the girl.

Talitha didn't flinch. "Please don't touch her. She's dirty. You'll catch it," she said in a small voice.

"You're not dirty. You're not an animal. They were." Shepard reached out and very gently tugged the gun out of her grip. For a moment, Talitha seemed about to resist but she finally let go of it. Shepard activated the safety and popped the clip, setting it aside, her eyes never leaving Talitha's. "You don't want any of it to be real, Talitha? The market on Mindoir? Strawberries? Your parents? Pere Mulligan, do you remember him? And the big church they built?" If there was anybody who would help her remember Mindoir as it had once been, it was Pere Mulligan. That robust man with his flashing black eyes who had been the center of their colony, good in word and deed.

Talitha closed her eyes for a moment. "Mommy sang in his choir." When she opened them, that recognition was there again. "I...remember...you..." Her eyes went wider. "Your mommy was the witch lady."

"Yes."

"My mommy bought a doll for me from your mommy." Sorrow tinged her voice. "I lost it...then..." She glanced around, looking exhausted and sad.

Shepard held out her hand, the pills Girard had given her cupped in it. "Talitha, this will help you sleep. If you fall asleep, they'll take you to a place where you can get better."

Talitha stared at the pills for a long time. She reached out a hand, then stopped and pulled it back, seemingly building up the courage to take it. Shepard was silent, giving her as long as she needed. Talitha finally took the pills and swallowed them quickly, as if afraid she'd lose her nerve. She swallowed again, the drug already starting to make her eyes glaze. "Will she have bad dreams?"

"No."

Talitha swayed forward. "She doesn't want any more bad dreams."

Shepard caught her gently, cradling her close. "No dreams, cherie."

"Arian?" Shepard had to close her eyes when Talitha said her name, wondering if she'd even realized she had said it. Talitha didn't seem to notice, her voice a sleepy murmur. "It hurts when she- when I remember me. But she wants to remember..."

She went limp and Shepard shifted, adjusting to the sudden weight. "You will."

Someone moved into her line of vision. Tali. The quarian gently took hold of Talitha's other arm and helped Shepard carry her down to Girard. There were a couple of medics with a stretcher waiting and they laid her out on it.

"Thanks, Commander," Girard said quietly. He ran a hand gently over Talitha's shaved head. "I didn't want to hurt her." He shook his head. "When I see her shivering, curled up in a ball...she was only six when they took her."

"I know."

"Why the hell are we out here if we can't keep one little girl safe?"

"She had a good life up until that point. Good memories to build on. We can't protect everyone. Never have been able to. No matter where we are. We just...save as many as we can so they can have good lives. Good memories." She lifted her gray eyes to Girard's and the lieutenant saw an echo of another little girl that hadn't been safe. Her scars were there, they were just different. "You'll take care of her?"

"I'll take care of her."

"I'd like...well, I'd like to know how she's doing. Once in a while, at least?"

Girard's eyes softened a bit. "I'll make sure of it, Commander."

"Thank you, Lieutenant." She watched them take Talitha away, hoping with everything in her that they could help her. She turned back to her squad. She figured they had been near the crates, and judging by the solemn way they were watching her, they'd heard most of it, if not all.

"Will she be all right, do you think?" Tali asked, her voice quiet and sympathetic.

Shepard ran her hands through her hair. "I don't know. I hope so."

"Do you...need anything, Commander?" Garrus sounded awkward and a little embarrassed...in fact he sounded terrified that the answer would be yes...but the concern was genuine.

She managed a tired smile. "I need a drink."

AN: That information that Denali is rambling on about in the beginning there (Edan Had'dah, Dr. Qian, ect) is based off the plot of Mass Effect: Revelation, by Drew Karpyshyn.