James sat on the couch in front of the fire, a computer set up on the coffee table in front of him. The perimeter sensors sent data to the computer so he wouldn't have to freeze his ass off outdoors all night. The heat signatures of small animals flitted across the different boxes onscreen. He'd been watching the feed for the past two hours, although he hadn't been concentrating on them. His mind was preoccupied with Shepard.

He thought he'd pinpointed the exact moment Shepard had gone from amiable to aloof—the hospital. Specifically, the nurse. As soon as he'd started flirting, he knew it was a bad idea, but he'd wanted to see if he could shift his interest when there were other people around. It hadn't worked. Whatever doubt he'd had about his nascent feelings for Shepard had vanished after the elevator almost-kiss.

He'd wanted to chase after her that day. A few months ago, he would have, but his self-imposed exile on Omega had tempered his recklessness. He'd endured her coldness, her silences, because he'd seen the doubts on her face too. He assumed she would confront them eventually. Honestly, he didn't think she'd do it until after this ordeal was over. Predictability didn't seem to be one of her traits, though.

A few heat signatures of small animals hurried en masse across the screen, focusing his attention on a potential danger. The animals disappeared off one camera's sensors and then scurried across another. A wolf or bear or something probably spooked them, although nothing that big was showing up. He frowned. One of the screens wasn't registering anything at all. It showed the shadowy outline of trees, but no animals like the others.

He put his helmet on and picked up his rifle from the table. As he walked to the door, he activated the fortification to his armour and the heat sensors on his visor. He hoped it was just a bear.

Once outside, he swivelled his head from side to side, searching for anything out of the ordinary. He raised his rifle to his shoulder and stepped off the porch. Nothing stirred on his sensors. The only sound was the crunch of his boots on the frosty ground. He pushed himself up against the side of the house before quickly checking around the side. Clear. He stepped out to check around the rest of the house.

James spun at a soft thud behind him.

Nothing.

Someone was here, his gut told him, and that someone was playing with him. If they weren't, they would have shot him by now.

A blinding flash; a loud bang. James swore. He fell against the side of the house and slapped the side of his helmet with his palm, retracting the visor. His ears rang and stars burst across his vision. Flashbangs. He blinked rapidly, holding up the rifle and searching vainly for a target.

Cold enveloped him and his eyes widened. He couldn't move his joints. With his systems momentarily disrupted by the flashbang, the climate controls had failed and the cryo blast seeped under his armour. He waited for a killing blow, but seconds passed and nothing came. No bullet, no blade, no sound.

The ringing in his ears was dissipating, and he began to make out the dark shapes of trees. As far as he could tell, nothing was coming for him.

Shepard.

He grunted as he focused all his strength into pulling the trigger of his rifle. If the flashbang didn't wake her up, the continuous firing of his rifle would—if the assassin wasn't already inside her room.

Shepard's eyes snapped open as a bang sounded outside. Her barrier instinctively sprung up around her armour-clad body. She slid out of the bed and picked up her pistol and comm-unit from the bedside table. Activating her shields, she crept to the door. A creak in the hall outside her room was drowned out by a volley of gunfire. The staccato went on until, she assumed, the heatsink expired.

Silence.

Her breathing was shallow as she strained her hearing, trying to pinpoint exactly where the person outside her room was. Had they taken advantage of the noise and moved closer? Or had the gunfire spooked them?

Bullets ripped through the door. She leaped to the side. Shards of wood sliced through the air. The rounds warped her shields as the spray moved from the door across the thin, wooden wall.

She threw a pull field and ripped what was left of the door off its hinges. The attacker stood with his back to the light from the lounge. He took cover. In the light that had bled over his shoulders and side of his face, she'd seen the shiny scars of new skin-grafts. It was Aaron.

"Who sent you, Aaron?" she asked, stepping out of the room and advancing slowly, her pistol raised.

"I forgot that was my name until you said it on the Normandy." His tone was dead. "I've been Lucas Hornby since I joined Alliance, and before that I was Mindoir-D11, or slave, or krakha."

Her translator picked up the batarian word and she clenched her jaw—filth.

"I can help you," she said, taking another step closer.

"No, you can't," he said, popping around the corner and firing something from his omnitool.

She turned at the electronic whir of a combat drone materialising behind her. Jagged white lightning shot out at her, crackling against her shields. She fired at the drone. Her shields soaked up damage as she backed down the hall, still shooting. The drone died with a buzz just as her shields fell. When she got to the lounge, she scanned the room. Empty, and the front door was open a crack.

Any other assassin would have tried to push their luck when she was preoccupied by the drone. What was he playing at?

"James, status?" she asked into her comm-unit.

No reply. Fear gripped her stomach in its icy fingers.

She slinked to the door, senses alert for the smallest sound or smell or detail out of place. A click sounded faintly from outside. She checked her omnitool for her shield's status—half-recharged. She strengthened her barrier before she kicked open the door and glanced outside. A sentry turret swivelled toward her. Her eyes widened and she threw herself to the ground.

The turret's rounds tore through the wooden beams of the wall. She crawled along the floor until she reached the hallway then sprinted back down the hall to her room. She flung a throw field in front of her, and the window in her room blasted out, leaving a ragged hole in the wall. She continued her sprint, leaping out the hole in the window and rolling when she hit the ground. She popped back up to her feet, her pistol up and ready to shoot.

"You shouldn't have kissed the lieutenant today, ducky," called Aaron's voice from the darkness.

Shepard's chest ached at the childhood nickname.

She spun to face the voice and inhaled sharply as she caught sight of James. Ice covered his body, thicker at his joints and creeping up his helmet. That would explain his silence. He must have been hit with more than one cryo blast to be frozen for so long. Judging by the glazed look on his face and his too-pink skin, his climate control had failed and he wasn't far from hypothermia.

Aaron, shorter and slighter than James, stuck his head out from behind James.

She moved forward. "Let me help you."

Aaron shook his head and she stopped mid-step.

"I wish I'd gone to the lake with you that day." In the light that spilled from the hole in the cabin wall, Shepard saw Aaron's sharp features lined with regret. He sighed. "We could have hid in the caves together. Maybe I would have become a scientist, like you always said."

Tears burned at the backs of her eyes. Her pistol hand drooped. "You wanted to finish your homework but I didn't want to wait. You were always the one who found school important."

Aaron smiled, and Shepard was transported back fifteen years. Through the scarring, she could see her little cousin again. She didn't care about the danger; she wanted to reach out and pull him into a bone-crushing hug.

"My master doesn't think you'll be able to kill me." He flicked out his hand, and the orange glow of an omniblade materialised. "But if you don't, I'll kill the lieutenant."

"No one has to die. I can save you."

He smiled at her again, wide and genuine. "I know you will."

He pulled his omniblade back to strike into James's side.

Shepard pulled the trigger.

Blood splattered across James's ice-covered waist. Aaron fell to the ground with a yell. Shepard dropped her pistol and ran toward her cousin. She fell to her knees beside him and pressed her hands again his bleeding chest wound.

"Aaron, why didn't your shields–?"

"Deactivated them. She's watching, and the chip in my head…" He trailed off and fumbled in one of his pockets. He pulled out a tiny chip and held it up to her with a shaking hand. "My master's location, her comm channels–"

He coughed and flecks of blood dotted his paling face.

"Shut up. I can save you if you just rest," she choked out, but she already knew she wouldn't get back to Vancouver in time.

"Still a bad liar. Your eyes–"

He coughed again and blood welled up, trickling out the side of his mouth. He tapped the chip against her arm weakly, but she refused to take her hands from his wound. The blood pulsing through her fingers was waning.

"Ducky?"

She could barely hear him. She blinked the tears from her eyes and bent closer. "Yeah?"

"I'll say hi to your parents for you."

Shepard nodded and watched as his eyes glazed over and his eyelids drooped half-closed. The hand holding the chip fell to the ground, the chip resting in his palm. Shepard reached out to touch hesitant fingers to his cheek. Blood smeared across the new scars. With a final, bubbling breath, he died.

A clanking thump behind her tugged her out of staring at Aaron's lifeless body.

She turned. James had collapsed and the cryo was melting away. She wrestled her emotions back into their box—she had to focus on the person who was still alive—but tendrils of loss and anger and grief still spilled over the sides.

She crawled the metre or so to James's body. His teeth were chattering. She grabbed his chin with her bloody hand and forced him to look at her. In the faint light from the cabin, she could see his pupils dilated and gaze unfocused.

"James, you're fading." She pulled up his omnitool and synced it to hers. "I'm going to do a hard reboot of your systems. You'll get a shock."

She tapped a few commands into her omnitool. The lights on his armour flickered off and a few seconds later flared on again. James's limbs jerked and he grunted. He was still shivering, but the data streaming from his omnitool showed some improvements in his vitals. His climate controls came back online and she allowed the armour to inject medigel into the on-setting frostbite on his extremities.

Satisfied that James's systems were back on, she grabbed the chip from Aaron's hand and tucked it into her armour before turning back to James. She pulled him upright and eased him over her shoulders to carry him into the cabin. She staggered under his weight but pressed on until she heard a distinct whirring.

"Goddamn turret," she hissed to herself.

Her barrier sprung up. She eased James to the ground again. James's shotgun was on his back and she freed it from its clip. She wrinkled her nose at the feel of its bulk in her hands. Dropping to the ground herself, she was about to crawl forward when she felt a hand around her ankle. She turned, shotgun up. James let go of her ankle and held out two black rounds.

"C-c-carnage. For t-the armour."

She nodded and grabbed them from his hand. She'd never used the rounds before. It couldn't be that hard.

Loading one round in place of the heatsink, she crawled around the corner of the cabin and popped up just enough to shoot over the raised patio. It took just one shot. Shepard frowned. What kind of carnage round took out a turret with just one shot?

She held up the other round to inspect it in the light. It didn't look tampered with. Shepard breath hitched as realisation dawned. Aaron must have set the turret with a self-destruct mechanism. He'd never intended to harm Shepard; he'd come here to die. She pulled the chip from her pocket again and inserted it into the little port on her omnitool. Information started to scroll across the omnitool's screen.

"Some help here, Shepard."

She looked up from her omnitool. James stood with one hand braced against the side of the house. He wasn't shivering anymore, but he still looked weak. She switched her omnitool back to checking the data from James's omnitool.

"You know, that's a violation of privacy now that I'm better," he said, nodding his head at Shepard's omnitool.

"Your vitals have improved. Your systems don't pick up any lasting damage," she said, voice distant as she closed her omnitool. She walked over to him and he draped his arm over her shoulders, leaning against her as she helped him walk.

They stepped around the steaming pieces of metal that littered the patio and through the door-less doorway. Shepard helped James to the couch. It creaked as he flopped down and stretched out along it, his dirty boots hanging off the armrest.

Shepard sat in the adjacent armchair and turned her attention back to the data Aaron had given her.

"A fire would be nice."

"We won't be here long."

James grunted an unintelligible response. Shepard looked up from her omnitool and studied him. If he had any questions, he was doing a damn fine job of keeping them to himself.

"Are you fit to fight?" she asked after a long silence.

"Give me an hour and I'll be fine." He paused and narrowed his eyes. "Why?"

"I know where to find who's behind everything," she said, standing.

James shook his head. "We need to regroup. We should go back to base and talk to Anderson. Maybe we can get some backup."

Shepard frowned. She was used to him arguing with her, but now was not a good time.

"If we wait, we lose the factor of surprise. If this were April we were avenging, would you wait?" She knew it was a low blow, but she wanted him to cave to her.

James's mouth set into a hard line. He wasn't asking about what Aaron meant to her, or about her use of 'avenge'. He must have heard almost everything. She didn't know whether to be relieved that she wouldn't have to explain, or distressed that he knew more about her life on Mindoir than even Kaidan did.

He glared at her and she glared back at him. With a sigh, he said, "No. I'd go now."

Shepard nodded, vindicated in her choice to push forward. She turned away to go back outside and retrieve their weapons.

"Are you going to kill them?" he asked and she paused mid-stride.

"I'm going to remind them why I'm the Butcher of Torfan."