Beta: None
Bioware owns the ME universe. Marcus and Jason are mine.
Thanks for the new fav and follow :)
And thanks to pixelatrix for giving me the idea for this chapter.

This will not end well, Zaeed thought to himself, watching from the shadows as Kate headed into the VIP section of Afterlife. Catching Morinth, one of Samara's Ardat Yakshi daughters, was not only important to the Justicar but also the well-being of the galaxy. Therefore Zaeed had sworn on his mother's grave not to interfere, no matter what. That didn't mean he wasn't going to keep an eye on them though. It wasn't that he didn't trust Samara not to get to Kate before Morinth overpowered her or that he thought Morinth could overpower Kate. It was that he was beyond worried about Kate's emotional health.

It had been two weeks since her abduction and Zaeed kept waiting for the other shoe to drop. Kate kept insisting she was fine, and that's what scared the hell out of him. She'd said the same thing fifteen years ago. He knew it wasn't true now and it sure as hell wasn't true back then.

She may have told Garrus that nothing had happened until three or four days later, but Zaeed remembered it very differently. In reality, it had been about five minutes after she shot Marcus, before they'd even gotten out of the base.

Despite Zaeed's reservations and the severity of her gunshot wound, Jessie insisted on walking, to prove to herself that she could. She was calm and confident until they got to the main hall, where most of the men had been gathered and now lay dead. She suddenly fell to the ground, whimpering and trembling violently.

Zaeed knelt in front of her and gently took her hands in his.

"Jessie, look at me," he said calmly. She raised her head slightly but wouldn't look him in the eye. He squeezed her hands and repeated the request more firmly. "Look at me." This time she complied, silent tears streaming down her face. "You are safe from them now. They can't hurt you ever again. And I will protect you as long as you're with me, OK?"

She nodded.

He stood and pulled her to her feet. "Are you still OK to walk on your own?"

"I don't care." Her voice was barely above a whisper.

"Jessie?" He looked at her with concern.

"I just want to go home."

He'd carried her the rest of the way; she'd passed out half-way to his apartment and had done little more than sleep for the next three days. It was on the fourth day that she completely lost it, as they were preparing to leave.

Zaeed was in the bedroom, checking and rechecking that he'd packed everything they'd need, when he heard a scream from the living room. He ran in and saw Jessie backed into a corner, pointing at something or someone that wasn't there. He was in her line of sight but she couldn't see him. She was somewhere else entirely. She stood like that for several minutes, not moving at all.

Then, without missing a beat, she slid to the floor. "He's dead. You killed him," she whispered over and over.

Zaeed thought she was done and started walking towards her. Then her eyes opened wide, still unseeing, and she started sobbing.

"No!" she screamed suddenly. "You're lying! You can't be their brother. It's just not possible. You killed them! You killed them all! You're a mon-" She cut her words off and her head turned to the side as if she'd been slapped.

It was then that Zaeed knew where she was and what she was reliving: the very beginning, the day Marcus broke out of prison and killed Jason.

Jessie had told Zaeed just yesterday what had happened that day. Marcus had broken into the Argo after closing and waited for Jason to show up the next day. He'd shot him in cold blood as he walked into his office in the back of the bar. Jessie had been out front, getting ready to call her father, when she heard the shot and ran back to see what had happened. She said Marcus had been utterly surprised by her presence but not at all disappointed. And that's when he'd told her who he really was: not just some random stranger, as her father and Jason had always stated (if they spoke of it at all) but one of her uncles.

"It's been two hours. They should have been back by now," Garrus said as he slid into the seat across from Zaeed.

The mercenary only nodded as he stared into the bottom of his glass. While they weren't exactly what anyone would call friends, the turian vigilante's presence was certainly a welcome distraction from Zaeed's torturous memories.

The two men sat in silence for a few minutes until someone coughed softly by their table, making them both jump as they looked up.

It was Samara, with a pained expression on her face.

"Everything OK?" Zaeed asked cautiously.

"Everything went according to plan. Morinth is dead."

"So why do you look so concerned? I thought that's what you wanted?"

Samara frowned. "It's not that. Is Commander Shepard here?"

Zaeed raised an eyebrow. "No. She's not with you?"

"No. When we were done, I told her I wanted to remain a few moments in Morinth's apartment. She then said she was going to send you a message to meet here for a drink and left. That was an hour ago."

Zaeed was on his feet immediately. "I've been here since you started following them from the VIP lounge. I haven't gotten any messages and Kate hasn't been here."

"You know what this is, Massani. It was only a matter of time," Garrus said as he stood as well.

"Yes, I know," Zaeed said quietly. "I'll go look for her."

"Need help?" Garrus asked.

"No. It's better if I do this alone."

There were only a handful of places Zaeed could think of where Kate might have gone. Though he knew she hadn't been through the club, he stopped and asked Aria if she'd seen her. As expected, the self-described Queen of Omega hadn't seen Kate since she and Samara had come by to talk to her before they'd confronted Morinth. The salarian bartender on the lower level said he had seen her; she'd bought a bottle of whiskey from him. But he hadn't seen where she'd gone after that.

Zaeed left Afterlife and stopped by the tattoo shop where he'd taken Kate to get her first tattoo fifteen years ago, the day before they'd finally left Omega, three days later than originally scheduled. The shop owner, the same one who had been there back then and was well-known to both Zaeed and Kate, said she hadn't been by in three months. That had been while she was giving Garrus time to recover, just before Alchera.

His next stop was the block where his apartment had been all those years ago; he was more than a little thankful that she wasn't there. In the ten years since he'd lived there, that section had been over-run by vorcha.

Then it dawned on Zaeed where Kate might have gone.

Though Marcus would likely always haunt her dreams, this time it wasn't about him. This was about Harkin. But it was more than just him; it was about what had led to Harkin being back in the picture in the first place, Sidonis' betrayal of Garrus.

Zaeed finally found Kate sitting in a corner on the terrace in the ruins of Archangel's base, the mostly empty bottle of whiskey sitting at her feet. He sat down next to her and she put her head on his shoulder.

"How did you know where to find me?" she asked after awhile.

"Is that disappointment I hear in your voice, kitten?" Zaeed asked.

She shrugged. "Maybe. I dunno. Omega messes with my head too much. I just... I needed to come back here, to remember that one moment where everything was almost completely right with the universe, when I had you and Garrus fighting with me, before everything fell apart again and I was thrown back into hell. I mean, I still have you both, but everything's changed. Really it changed long before we ever got here, before Sidonis ever betrayed Garrus. But I've buried those demons. I left them them with the dead on Alchera months ago."

"Do you want me to go?" Zaeed asked quietly.

Kate reached out and grabbed his hand and squeezed it. "No. Please stay. I don't want to leave just yet, but I've had enough of being alone with my thoughts. Now I just want to be alone with you for awhile."