A/N: Somehow this chapter proved very difficult to write. Perhaps it is due to knowing what happens in ME3, but I had a torrid time with this. It also took large quantities of wine, far more beyond my usual consumption. :)

Hopefully I have done justice to Mordin and his loyalty mission. Let me know what you think!

I'll try to get one more chapter (should be full of Shep/Liara fluffness) out on Saturday morning before dashing to catch my train and leave y'all for a week. :)

Chapter 28 - The Doctor Who Killed Millions

There is something inherently depressive about Tuchanka's barren landscape, not a scrap of green in sight, only a mixture of massive concrete blocks and bent, corroded metal constructions, a post-apocalyptic disaster site that reminds Morgan of what very nearly was the future of her own home planet, Earth. The krogan clans somehow manage to survive amongst these ruins, in this infertile wasteland, but this existence is a daily struggle for survival. Wrex's aspirations to improve life for his people are noble, but when Morgan considers what sort of future can truly be built amongst this dismal wreckage, she can't help but feel a little subdued.

The base of Clan Urdnot is located in an ancient underground bunker that is slowly crumbling to pieces, and in the middle of it, Wrex sits on his makeshift, less than glorious throne, listening to yet another chief of a rival clan loudly venting his grievances. When he notices Shepard, Tali and Garrus approaching him, he quickly jumps down from his seat, roughly pushes the other krogan away and steps forward to greet his old comrades.

"Where's my newest Clan Urdnot recruit?" Shepard asks, shaking hands with Wrex. "Is Grunt still away at the female camp? I need him back in one piece, you know."

Wrex bellows a mighty laugh. "He deserves to enjoy himself. That was some fight, Shepard. No wonder he got so many breeding requests." He then faces Shepard with a disturbingly wide grin. "In fact... I even have one breeding request for you, Shepard."

Garrus and Tali are laughing like crazy as Shepard just blinks. "Oh gods... I don't have to commit to that in order to preserve galactic peace or something, I hope," she stares at Wrex, who eventually shakes his head. "Pfew. Just don't tell Liara, she'd laugh the blue off her ass if she only knew that."

"Sounds like the perfect blackmail opportunity, Commander," Garrus chuckles.

"Jeez, I'm surrounded by traitors," Shepard laughs back, before turning more serious. "So anyway, Wrex, do you have something for us? About that salarian?"

"Yeah. Don't know why you would bother, though," the krogan just grunts in reply. "The Blood Pack and Clan Weyrloc have him. And I know of the things they do with salarians. Or turians," he says, looking at Garrus meaningfully. "If you want to recover what's left of him, you'll have to do it with a spoon."

"Sounds promising," Shepard sighs. "So, how do we get to this Clan Weyrloc?"

Wrex waves at one of the heavy trucks parked at the exit of the ancient compound. "Just climb into the tomkah. They have my orders to take you to Clan Weyrloc's hideout. Oh, and Shepard..." he adds as a warning."They've holed up in an old hospital, and it is swarming with Blood Pack. I'm almost regretting not being able to join you, it sounds like a lot of fun."

"We're not going to cause trouble putting down an allied clan?" Tali wonders.

"We're not exactly on friendly terms," Wrex explains. "The more of them you put down, the better for Clan Urdnot."

"Right," Shepard nods. "We'll just go get our salarian. He needs to be part of this. Even if we end up gathering Maelon's remains with a spoon..."

"I suggest you don't linger around the camp with a turian and a salarian following you, Shepard," Wrex advises caution. "There's only so much patience a krogan can display looking at Garrus' ugly mug, trying to withhold a punch, and then you throw in a salarian in the mix, too."

"Love you too, Wrex," Garrus grins wickedly as they leave the dais and return to the Normandy's landing pad to fetch Mordin and then quickly rush back to the waiting tomkah, about to take them to the Clan Weyrloc hideout.

The drive along the rubble filled highway is long and monotonous, always the same sight of depressive post-nuclear destruction accompanying them outside. How close did we come to put Earth in a nuclear winter? Morgan thinks at herself. I guess we'll never know the real truth. But it must have been damn close. I wonder if the salarians would have ever shown up to uplift us as they did with krogan... probably not, we're not as good as cannon fodder.

The approach to the hospital is well defended, but the vorcha and the odd krogan are hardly a match for four highly skilled individuals working as a cohesive unit that has developed by now almost telepathic coordination on the battlefield. They soon gain entrance to the sturdy, thick-walled concrete compound, taking the stairs leading downwards into twilight, immediately coming across a disturbing discovery, a casually dumped body at the bottom of the stairs that Tali manages to accidentally step on.

"That body, Shepard. Human," Mordin says quickly. "Ligatures showing restraints at wrists. Repeated injection marks. Test subject..." his usually high-pitched voice becomes heavy, grim with realization. "Victim of experimentation. Cleary a result of krogan tests to cure genophage, Shepard. Humans useful as test subjects."

Mordin goes on to explain just why humans are such appealing subjects for sick experiments like this, but Morgan doesn't really listen to him anymore. "Clan Weyrloc is working on the genophage cure? Here?" she asks. "Maybe that's what they wanted from your assistant, Mordin? Force him into helping."

Mordin nods thoughtfully, as Garrus speaks up. "Shepard, if the krogan succeed at curing genophage... damn, I... don't even want to think of all the hell that might break loose. They'll want revenge. Salarians first, then turians. Do you think they'll stop there?"

"Those presumptions are slightly preemptive, Garrus," Shepard shrugs. "Mordin?" The salarian looks up at her, still crouched at the human corpse, examining it. "Can you make something from the way these experiments have been conducted? Are they close to curing the genophage?"

"Can't say, need more data," Mordin replies quickly, then stopping to think some more, checking the body for marks again and again. "Ideas seem conceptually sound, though. Genophage alters hormone levels. Could repair damage with hormonal counterattack." He goes on to explain in more and more detail, but Morgan finds herself drifting in and out of the conversation, unable to understand most of the professor's explanation.

"Doesn't sound like something krogan 'scientists' would be able to think of," she only remarks after Mordin has finished talking. "I'm suspecting that Clan Weyrloc have managed to ensure Maelon's cooperation, and I shudder to think how..."

"Agreed, Shepard," Mordin nods. "Finding Maelon paramount."

They encounter some more patrols of the Blood Pack, who all as one decide that today is a good day to be slaughtered by Commander Shepard and her comrades. Shortly after, they reach a part of the compound that Mordin identifies as labs. "Can smell the antiseptic," he states before they have even arrived there. "And dead bodies."

Bracing herself for more grisly sights, Shepard forces the doors open and storms into the labs with rifle at the ready, expecting resistance. But there are only corpses there, dozens of them already wrapped in brown bodybags. Their large shapes suggest krogan. A few are still lying on the lab tables, but before they approach the victims, Mordin steps up to a still active computer console, starting to examine it for valuable data.

He keeps muttering his scientific jargon as he works, most of it sliding past Morgan's notice, her brain filtering out only the few bits she understands. "Very thorough work," Mordin remarks, and Shepard swears she can hear pride in his voice, an appreciation of the work of a fellow scientist. "Avoiding scorched-earth immunosuppressants to alter hormone levels. Good. Hate to see that."

"Recognize a pattern?" Morgan asks.

"Likely Maelon's work, yes. Closely resembles methods used on the genophage modification project," Mordin admits. "Ah, good times," he sighs in remembrance. "Best years of my life. Waking up with ideas. Talk over breakfast. Experiments all morning, statistical analysis in the afternoon. New simulations during dinner, setting data tests to cook overnight. Whole team taking pride in facing the toughest problem in the galaxy."

"I doubt I'd be as cheerful if I was developing a sterility plague for an entire species," Shepard remarks, a little incensed that Mordin still continues to defend the genophage.

Mordin shakes his head vehemently. "Not developing, modifying! Much more complex, much more dangerous! Could have caused complete sterility, malignant tumors. Managed to keep krogan population stable. One in one thousand. Perfect target, optimal growth. Like gardening. Not a monster, Shepard. Could have easily eradicated krogan! Chose not to. All life precious. Universe demands diversity."

"I can understand the reasoning," Shepard says slowly, the cold rationale chilling her to the bone. "But this is no elegant, gentle solution. Think of all those krogan females carrying stillborn... as a woman, I just... I don't think I can ever agree with what you did."

"Nor can I," Tali agrees, her posture suggesting deep disgust. "You cannot pretty up something like this, no matter how hard you try."

"There was no choice and you know it," Garrus exclaims, also feeling the need to defend the decision, considering the turian involvement in it. "You would claim the same about your ancestors trying to kill the geth when they discovered that they gained sentience. You would say they had no choice, too."

"That's completely different!" Tali protests, appearing affronted. "The geth are synthetic! We created them!"

"And you tried to kill them when they became sentient," Garrus shrugs, turning away, not wanting to argue with Tali.

"I don't think you're quite as much at peace with your involvement as you want us to think, Mordin," Shepard says. "Else we would not have found you in that dump on Omega. Looks to me like you were trying to escape from something."

Mordin hesitates before answering, drawing a deep breath. "Wanted to heal people. Good use of the last decade. Something easy, no ethical concerns," he says. "Understand rationale for modified genophage. Right choice. Still... hard to sleep some nights."

Shepard smiles, reaching out and awkwardly patting the salarian on his shoulder. "You won't believe how much I respect you for saying that, Mordin. It means a lot," she speaks quietly. "You were put before a terrible task, asked to make the best of it. If you had refused, they would have just put someone else in charge."

"Couldn't let that happen, Shepard. Couldn't bear to risk someone botching up. Sterilizing and killing entire species," Mordin shakes his head vehemently. "No, had to be me. Someone else might have gotten it wrong."

For a while nobody says anything, until Mordin moves away from the console, approaching one of the victims on the tables, grabbing a datapad placed next to the corpse. "Dead krogan. Female. Tumors indicate experimentation. No restraint marks. Volunteer," he quickly runs his analysis. "Sterile Weyrloc female, willing to risk procedures, hoping for cure." His voice becomes quiet, upset. "Pointless waste of life..."

"You don't think that these experiments brought them closer to the cure?" Shepard asks. "If it did, perhaps it is not as pointless as you say."

"Still lacking data to say for certain, Shepard. But experiments on live krogan at this stage of development unnecessary, risky... unethical," he shakes his fists in anger, before sighing, shoulders slumping. "Rest, young mother. Find your gods," he says, his words surprising Shepard and everyone else in the room. "Find someplace better."

"That was... very spiritual," Tali remarks.

"Genophage modification project altered millions of lives. Then saw the results. Ego, humility, juxtaposition. Frailty of life. Size of universe," Mordin says quietly. "After the project ended, explored many different religions. Before opening the clinic on Omega."

"I hate to say it, Mordin, but that is what we call a guilty conscience," Morgan looks him in the eyes. There is a haunting sadness in there that she has never seen before, but confronted with the results of his work, it seems Mordin cannot hide it anymore. "I understand now. You see this woman driven to such extremes as volunteering for painful, lethal, pointless experiments. Your work has pushed them to this. And you cannot deal with it anymore."

Mordin turns away, unable to hold her stare. "Modified genophage project... great in scope," he says quietly. "Scientifically brilliant. But ethically difficult. Krogan reaction visceral, tragic. Don't consider myself guilty, Shepard. Responsible."

"Still... I guess at some point it becomes hard to rationalize it all away," Garrus says thoughtfully, himself struggling with doubts. "Especially when confronted with... this," he waves his hands at the grim laboratory surrounding them. "Makes you wish that someone had come up with a better solution in the first place."

"If it's eating you up so much inside, maybe you should just admit to yourself that the genophage was wrong," Tali says, less sharply as her previous interjections.

"Genophage not wrong. Had to be done," Mordin shakes his head. "Ran thousands of simulations, war inevitable. Had to choose between genocide and genophage. Saved galaxy from krogan. Also saved krogan from galaxy."

"I know where my gut feeling is on the matter," Morgan says, feeling crushed by the weight of responsibility that isn't even hers, the thought of it alone so overwhelming. "But I cannot outright condemn you for what you did, Mordin. I have had my own share of decisions to make, that... well, let's just say I have only distant memories of what a good night's sleep feels like."

"Virmire," Garrus whispers quietly, Tali stepping closer and briefly touching his hand with hers.

"Maybe one day you'll have the opportunity to make up for what you had to do, Mordin," Shepard adds.

"Perhaps. If not this life, then maybe in next," Mordin nods, drawing another deep breath, now looking more resolute. "Ready to proceed, Shepard."

Getting to Maelon involves clearing the rest of the hospital from a bunch of angry krogan, commanded by the leader of the clan, Weyrloc Guld. The old vanguard almost manages to charge Garrus, and only in the very last moment Mordin's quick reaction saves the turian. "Flammable? Or inflammable?" the salarian ponders, watching as Guld roars in anger having been hit with an incineration blast. At that moment, Shepard breaks her cloaking right behind Guld and empties the entire ammo case into the krogan's tiny brain. "Doesn't matter," Mordin concludes with a shrug.

It appears as if Guld and the last of his krogan have been protecting another lab down at the deepest reaches of the sturdy hospital. They find Maelon working inside the lab, but... something about the scene before them does not seem right. "Maelon. Alive. Unharmed?" Mordin wonders. "No signs of restraints, no evidence of torture? Don't understand."

Maelon turns around to face them. To Morgan, most salarians usually appear amusing and harmless, but she is taking aback by the hatred in young Maelon's eyes, particularly in the glare he directs at Mordin. "For such a smart man, Professor, you always had trouble seeing evidence that disagreed with your preconceptions."

"Mordin, it looks like you are not the only one with a guilty conscience. But unlike you, your apprentice came here to try and correct what you both knew was wrong," Shepard remarks quietly, Maelon nodding enthusiastically at her words.

"Impossible! Never raised any issues with the work we were doing," Mordin looks shocked. "The whole team agreed! Project necessary!"

"How was I supposed to disagree with the great Doctor Solus?" Maelon retorts angrily. "I was your student! I looked up to you!"

"Looked up to me? Performing experiments on live subjects?" Mordin's voice rises in return, as Maelon shrinks back a little. "Keeping prisoners! Torture and execution, your doing?"

"What does it matter if we already have the blood of millions on our hands, Doctor," Maelon replies vehemently. "If it takes a few more to put things right... I can deal with that."

"So you would no longer even care to justify these experiments, because nothing can be worse compared to the genophage project?" Shepard asks. "While I can understand why anyone would feel this way, it also provides a convenient excuse to continue committing acts of butchery and barbarism."

"So I'm the monster, while his hands remain clean?" Maelon accusingly points at Mordin. "The ground is stained by the blood of millions. And you tried to teach me that the ends justify the means. Of course I became a monster! You made me!"

"Would you really take this decision to cure the genophage on your head, Maelon?" Shepard asks. "What if the simulations were right? What if the krogan wipe out your own people before going on to conquer the whole galaxy?"

"The genophage was created for one reason. To preserve galactic peace," Maelon speaks bitterly. "I ask you to look around. Is this a more peaceful galaxy? Batarians attacking everything in the Traverse, constant geth raids..."

"He kind of has a point there," Garrus admits reluctantly. "Still, impossible to predict what would have happened."

"I intend to let the galaxy find out," Maelon claims with determination. "This is what happens when you try to play god and fail."

Damn this. Despite these horrific experiments, I can... almost agree with what he has done. Shit. What to do now? Damn, I'm going to need so much booze to deal with this later, Morgan thinks rapidly, finally turning to Mordin. "Well, what now?" she asks.

"Need to end this," he replies grimly.

At these words, Maelon quickly draws his heavy pistol, barrel moving between facing Shepard and Mordin. "You just can't face the truth, can you, Professor? Admit that your brilliant mind committed an atrocity!" he shouts.

While the pistol is turned at Shepard, Mordin swiftly steps up and punches Maelon, easily disarming him, as the assistant slumps back, hitting his head against the console behind him. "Unacceptable experiments. Unacceptable goals," Mordin pulls out his own pistol, sticking it under Maelon's chin, as the apprentice becomes completely rigid with fear. "No choice. Have to kill you."

"Mordin, stop. You're not a killer," Shepard exclaims, before Mordin can press the trigger and splatter the consoles with green bits of Maelon's brains. "You told me yourself that you were not a murderer. Don't become one now."

Mordin hesitates, then steps back, releasing Maelon. The assistant hastily wipes off sweat from his brow. "No. Not a murderer. Thank you, Shepard," he says, before looking at his wayward apprentice again. "Project finished, Maelon. Get out. Don't even think of restarting. Won't show mercy again."

"You heard the Professor," Shepard speaks up, seeing that Maelon is hesitating. "Get out before he changes his mind."

"Where am I supposed to go, Professor?" Maelon asks, wringing his hands.

"Don't care," Mordin shrugs. "Try Omega. Can always use another clinic there."

With shoulders slumped, Maelon heads for the exit. "The krogan didn't deserve the genophage, Professor. It needs to end," those are his last words before leaving.

"Not like this," Mordin says quietly, staring at the consoles, storing the data of Maelon's research.

"I once told a friend that one day we will see the genophage cured," Shepard says, remembering Virmire. "Maybe I'm a foolish optimist, but I will still keep hoping that it comes true. But... perhaps you are right, and experiments like these... are not the way."

"Still have Maelon's data here. A loose end. Could destroy it..." Mordin sounds uncertain. "Bring closure, security. Research could prove valuable, though."

"You cannot change anything about how this research was performed anymore," Morgan tells him. "Quite the opposite. You said that the way these volunteers gave up their lives was pointless. That alone makes it worth to take the data. Perhaps something in the future will make their sacrifice worthwhile."

"I agree with the Commander," Tali nods. "Don't deny them this opportunity."

"Still far away from proper cure. Closer than before, though. Still uncertain..." Mordin mutters, copying the research and then quickly erasing the local data. "Will need to run more simulations, too many parameters, too many variables..."

"Mordin... when you run those simulations, just promise me one thing," Morgan says, forcing Mordin to turn around and look her in the eyes, relieved to see doubts in his haunted expression. "Promise to remember what happened here. Promise to remember the horrors and the level of desperation that the genophage has driven these people to."

Mordin swallows heavily. "Will do so, Commander. But now, need to be off Tuchanka. Need to be elsewhere. Somewhere sunny." He manages a half-smile, that retains hints of sadness. "...maybe a beach..."