Beta: None
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"'Morning, Sunshine," Garrus said as he sat on the edge of Kate's bed.
Kate squinted at the blurry face swimming in and out of her vision. "Hold. Still," she said quietly as she reached out and tried, without success, to grab hold of his face. "And quit shouting."
Garrus snorted a laugh.
She sat up slowly and shook her head. "Oh. Shit. OK, no shaking my head. What the hell happened last night?"
"You really don't remember?"
"I... remember something about standing on my head. I think. And somebody talking about grassy asses."
Garrus laughed so hard he fell off of the bed. When he finally recovered enough to speak, he said, "That's... not exactly what happened, Kate."
"So? What idiotic thing did I do?"
"First of all, there's no ryncol left. In the universe. You drank it all."
Kate rolled her eyes. "Very funny. But I guess that does explain the hammers pounding in my head."
"And..." Garrus hesitated.
"And what?" Her eyes widened in horror. "Oh please tell me I didn't sleep with anyone."
"Not quite. Though if I hadn't been there, I have no idea what would have happened. Or rather what you would have done."
"Garrus?"
"You got a little... flirty... with Vega."
Kate put her head in her hands. "Fuck. My. Life."
"You passed out in the middle of it though, so..."
She groaned. "I am so dead."
"No one saw it, Kate."
"That's not... fuck. He's never going to take me seriously ever again, Garrus."
"You don't know that. Everyone's done stupid stuff when they were drunk."
"Not everyone is the commander of a ship, during a fucking war."
Garrus sighed and put a hand on her shoulder. "You have got to stop beating yourself up about everything, Kate. You're going to drive yourself to distraction and that is something we can't afford. Now come on. Let's go down and get you some coffee. We'll be docking at the Citadel soon."
"Oh fuckin' hell," Kate said as she slowly walked towards the door, hanging onto Garrus' arm. "I forgot about the meeting with the Councilor."
Before they reached the door, it opened to reveal James standing on the landing. "Hey Lola."
Kate blushed so furiously her face was nearly the same shade as her hair. "Hey," she whispered. "Lo siento por lo que pasó anoche."
"Something happened last night?" James grinned at the confused look on Kate's face. "Don't worry about it, Lola. I've already forgotten all about it."
"Thanks, James," she said with a smile.
"Fuckin' Cerberus! How the hell did they get on the Citadel? This is one headache I really didn't need today," Kate raged two hours later as she, Garrus and James fought their way up to C-Sec. They'd been in touch with both Thane and Commander Bailey, but they hadn't found the salarian councilor yet and Kate was getting worried.
They fought through the back halls of C-Sec HQ up to the Executor's office. Garrus hacked the locked door and they stepped into the room, into the aftermath of a small massacre. The Executor sat at his desk, a gunshot in the back of his head and his guards lay dead on the floor near the door.
"Fuck," Kate muttered as she stepped around one of the guards and looked out of the window to the cafe below. "Hey Bailey? The Executor's dead."
"Damn," the C-Sec commander said over the comm. "Any sign of the Councilor?"
"Not y-" Kate cut herself off as she glanced to a table below. A chair had just moved on its own. She narrowed her eyes and concentrated on the spot. There was a sudden shimmer and Valern appeared as if out of thin air. A tactical cloak? Clever bastard, Kate thought with a smile. She often used the same technique in battle, a trick learned from Kasumi. "Bailey? I found the Councilor. He's alive, for now."
A sudden movement caught Kate's eye. She looked across the way and saw a suspicious figure crouching in the rafters above the unsuspecting Councilor. Without a second thought, she shot the window, took a running start and launched through the hole in the window, straight at the assassin.
She grabbed him by the shoulders and they tumbled to the floor, landing a foot in front of the startled Councilor. The assassin kicked Kate hard in the ribs as he pushed her off of him and rolled to his feet. Kate was on her feet half a second later, putting herself between the Councilor and the assassin.
"Shepard, he's going to kill us all," Valern hissed behind her as James and Garrus flanked him.
"What? Of course he is! He's a fucking assassin!" she whispered back, keeping her eyes and her gun on the assassin.
"No, not him. Udina. He's the one behind the coup. He's the one who let Cerberus onto the station."
"Fuck. I should have known."
"You need to get to the rest of the Council. Alenko doesn't know."
Kate rolled her eyes. "And me convincing him of that won't go well. I'll worry about that later, Councilor. First, please, go with Vega and Vakarian. They'll keep you safe."
"Are you finished, Shepard?" the assassin growled. "I'd like to get this over with before I'm old." He lunged toward her, sword poised to strike. Before he reached her, however, Thane came out of nowhere and was at her side.
"Thane? Where-"
"Focus, Kate," the drell said as he moved towards the assassin.
But she could do nothing as the two men moved across the room in battle. She didn't dare fire her pistol for fear of hitting Thane.
A sudden strike by the assassin plunged his sword into Thane's abdomen. As the drell collapsed to the floor and Kate ran to him, the assassin took off for the carport at the far side of the lounge. James and Garrus were at their side in moments.
"Go. I've got time," Thane said, wincing as they helped him to his feet.
Kate nodded and looked to her squad. "Garrus, stay with Thane and Valern. James, you're with me. We're going after this bastard before he reaches the rest of the Council."
Twenty minutes later, the assassin had disappeared and Kate suddenly found herself in a situation she never could have imagined in a million years: she and Kaidan holding each other at gun-point.
"Kate? What the hell are you doing here?" he asked as she and James stepped out of the elevator.
"Doing my job, Kaidan, same as you. Protecting the Council. And putting a stop to his plans to take them out," she said, pointing her gun at Udina.
Kaidan stepped in front of the human Councilor, blocking him from Kate's line of sight. "Sure. 'Protecting' the Council. Is that what they call it these days when you show up unannounced and threaten a Councilor?"
Kate rolled her eyes. "I know what you're implying, Kaidan. I'm not the assassin. And I don't work for Cerberus! We've been over this."
"I'm not gonna let you do this, Kate. You're not taking the Council down."
Kate scoffed. "Think about it for a moment. I'm a Spec Ops sniper, Kaidan. If I'd wanted the Council dead, I'd have already taken out all of them, and there's not a damn thing you could have done to stop me. That is not be the case, however, as you can see. All of them are very much alive."
"Where's Valern?" Tevos asked anxiously from the corner where she stood with Sparatus.
Kate glanced at the asari Councilor and gave her a small smile. "He's fine. He's with Garrus Vakarian. Possibly also with C-Sec if they've been able to get to them by now."
She then turned her attention back to Kaidan as she lowered her pistol and took a step closer to him. She looked straight into his eyes as she said, "If you truly believe I'm a Cerberus agent, that I'm a fucking traitor, as you've been claiming for the last year, then do your job. Go on, kill me if that's what you really believe. You've killed tons of Cerberus agents in the past; this should be no problem for you." She heard James voicing his disbelief in a mixture of Spanish and English behind her and held up a hand to silence him.
The major hesitated, even as his finger twitched on the trigger.
"Otherwise," Kate continued, "step aside and let me do my job, arresting the asshole who orchestrated this whole fucking mess."
A tense moment passed where no one moved, didn't even dare to breathe. Finally, Kaidan lowered his pistol. "I can't. I can't do it," he said quietly.
Behind him, Udina snarled, "Well if you don't have the balls to do it, I will," as he lunged forward and made a grab for Kaidan's gun.
"Kate, just once I'd like to have you come visit me when you're not limping and/or covered in blood," Dr. Michel said as Kate stepped off the elevator into Huerta Memorial once again, being held up by James.
"I'd really love that too, Chloe," she said through clenched teeth.
"So, what did you do now? You better have gotten these injuries stopping that coup attempt."
"She did," James said as he helped her sit on a bed. "Jumped out a second-story window and got kicked in the ribs, trying to stop an assassin. Who escaped," he growled.
"Oh Kate," Dr. Michel said with a shake of her head.
"That's not the best part, doc," he continued. "After all that, she got shot by Udina."
The doctor paled. "Udina? As in Councilor Udina?"
"Former Councilor now," Kate said with a tight smile and a yelp as James helped her take off her upper armor. "But yeah, he shot me. Aimed for a gut shot I guess but he missed, for the most part. But I didn't. Shot the bastard right between the eyes."
"Oh thank the spirits you two are OK," Garrus said as he walked towards them from a room down the hall.
"Garrus? Where did you get to? Is Valern OK? Thane?"
"The Councilor is fine, Kate. He's with Bailey, Kaidan and the rest of the Council," he said. "Thane is..."
"Where? Where is he?" she asked anxiously as she gingerly hopped off the bed.
Dr. Michel tried to stop her. "Kate, I'm not-"
Garrus held up a hand as Kate hobbled down the hallway. "Let her go, Chloe. She'll be back soon. Thane doesn't have much time."
"How is he, Kolyat?" Kate asked as she slowly made her way into the room.
Thane's son looked at her with concern. "Are you alright, Shepard? You appear to be in a great deal of pain."
"I'm... don't worry about me; I'll be fine," she said, trying hard not to wince. It was getting harder to breathe. "How's Thane?"
Kolyat put a hand on her arm to steady her. "The doctors have done all they could for him but-"
"Kate?" Thane's raspy voice whispered.
"I'm here, Thane," she said, leaning in as close as she dared. Pain shot through her side but she ignored it.
"Did we... is the councilor alive?"
"Yes, Valern is alive. Sparatus and Tevos as well. The assassin seems to have disappeared for now. But we'll find him. He can't hide forever."
"Good," Thane said softly. "And the traitor Udina?"
"Bullet between the eyes."
"Good," he said again. He looked at his son. "Kolyat, please-"
"Of course, Father," the younger drell said as he pulled a prayer book from his pocket. "Commander, would you like to join us in the prayer?"
She nodded and they began to read a prayer of redemption. Before the last verse was done, Thane was dead.
Kate leaned heavily on Kolyat and swallowed hard before she asked quietly, "Why did that last verse say 'she'?"
"He had already made peace with Kalahira and with himself. The prayer was not for him, Commander. It was for you."