Hannah spent the travel time to Earth pressing Steven for more information regarding how Jane had gotten into her current mess. He explained that he'd sent Jane on a personal mission for him to rescue Dr. Amanda Kenson from a batarian prison. Jane had freed the doctor, then discovered that Kenson and her team had uncovered a Reaper artifact that indoctrinated them. Jane learned that the Reapers planned to enter the galaxy through the Alpha Relay. Originally, Kenson and her team decided to slam their base, an asteroid, into the relay to stop the Reapers from coming through, but their indoctrination caused them to forgo implementing their plan. Jane had to make the decision instead to send the asteroid careening into the relay and delay the advent of the Reapers. She'd tried to warn the colonists on Aratoht, but it was too late. The relay exploded, taking the entire system with it.

"I didn't mean to put Jane in such a position," Steven confessed to Hannah quietly. "She went out there as a personal favor to me…now she's going to pay for her loyalty."

Hannah sat still, chin resting on her folded hands, thinking through the details of Steven's story. Hannah fervently wished she could switch places with her daughter, that she could suffer in her stead. She thought back to when Jane was born, conjuring up the image of her preterm baby girl in an incubator, tiny and vulnerable, in need of her mother's protection. Hannah hated that at some point you had to let your children go out into a world of danger and treachery. In her opinion, Jane had been used and abused by the galaxy; she'd been made its experiment of how much a good person could take.

"What's going to happen now?" Hannah finally asked Steven.

Steven frowned and glanced out his window. "I wish I knew the answer to that. 300,000 lives...It's a capital crime."

Hannah gulped and blinked back tears. "Don't let them take her from me. Please, Steven. I just got her back."

Steven turned resolute eyes on her. "I don't plan on letting that happen to her. Anderson doesn't either. We're going to bat for her and make our case that her experience with the Reapers is far too valuable to lose her."

Hannah turned her head to stare out her own window, observing distant stars zoom past. She'd wanted to go back to Earth for a long time to see her mother, now an eighty year old widow who still lived in her childhood home in Michigan. She never thought she'd be returning to Earth to bolster a daughter about to defend herself against the crime of murdering an entire planet of aliens. For only a moment, the thought that it would have been better if Jane had stayed dead passed through her mind. But, no, even in her motherly grief, she selfishly would rather have Jane alive than live without her.

Hannah kept her gaze focused outside her window as Steven's ship hurtled towards Earth. She traced the distinctive mitten outline of Michigan and then its Upper Peninsula, but she could only wistfully watch it disappear as the ship continued on to the west coast of North America, headed for Vancouver and Alliance Headquarters. Steven had told her that Jane would be brought to the detention center there. He expected they would arrive before Jane.

Upon exiting the ship, Steven directed Hannah into headquarters and they made for the detention center. Steven stopped along the way to discuss with administration exactly where Commander Shepard would be held when she arrived. They ended up sitting in an interrogation room, waiting for the announcement that the Normandy had landed.

"How did she come back to me, Steven? Do you know?" Hannah asked, wanting both to break the uneasy silence as they waited and receive an answer to her question.

Steven shifted his tense gaze over to Hannah. "She didn't tell you?"

"She's only sent me one e-mail since I found out she was alive."

Steven spread out his hands on the table they sat at. "Cerberus brought her back from the dead."

Hannah knit her eyebrows. "So she was dead?"

Steven nodded. "But Cerberus does things no one else will. They found her body and worked on it for two years to bring her back."

"Why?" Hannah asked, confused as to how Jane was an asset to the terrorist organization.

"That I don't know. You'll have to ask your daughter. But I do know that Jane hasn't joined them. She might have used them to help humanity, but she didn't become one of them."

Steven's answer encouraged Hannah. Jane may be in debt to Cerberus for her life, but that hadn't swayed her to take up their cause, to push their anti-alien and pro-humanity agenda to the point of experimenting on and killing others.

Time ticked by, one hour, then two. Steven left several times to talk to various higher ups. Once he brought Hannah back a cup of coffee and a pastry. Hannah slowly sipped the coffee, but only managed one bite of the pastry. Her stomach was in knots, wondering what Jane would look like when she walked through the door.

At last, Steven put his hand to his ear and turned to Hannah. "She's here. They're bringing her in."

Hannah stood, linking and unlinking her fingers, nervous, her heart feeling like it had ascended into her throat. In a few moments, her dead daughter would stand in front of her alive. When the door slid open, Hannah held her breath. A broad-chested, formidable young man in an Alliance uniform walked in beside her daughter, his face hard and businesslike. Jane's eyes widened when she saw who waited for her in the room.

"Mom?"

Hannah fought back tears, not able to find the words to respond. Jane looked haggard, exhausted, dark circles under her eyes. She wore no distinguishing uniform, just a set of black pants and a black t-shirt. Her hands were restrained behind her back, a precaution Hannah thought unnecessary. If Jane said she would come in willingly, she'd do as she promised. She speculated, though, that anyone who'd killed 300,000 living beings would have been treated the same way.

Hannah spied Anderson behind Jane and her guard. He nodded to her when he saw her, his face reflecting a combination of anger and worry. Hannah found it interesting that he wore an Alliance uniform, something she hadn't seen him in since he'd become a councilor. Steven moved towards the door and whispered into Anderson's ear. Anderson nodded.

"Vega, get those handcuffs off and then come outside," Anderson instructed, then left the room with Steven.

"Yes, sir!" the young man answered dutifully. His omni-tool flashed on and he unlocked Jane's shackles, then moved backwards, letting the door slide shut, leaving the two women alone.

Jane brought her hands up to her chest and rubbed each of her wrists alternately. She looked across at Hannah. "I'm guessing, if you're here, you know what I had to do."

Hannah nodded, still choked up and unable to speak. She hated to see Jane in this state, clearly perceiving anguish in her daughter's eyes. Jane was an emotionally beaten woman. Hannah couldn't help it. She felt tears slide down her cheeks. She put her hands to her face to wipe them away. Before she could finish, Jane crossed the room and enveloped her mother in a tight embrace.

"It's okay, mom, it's okay. It'll be okay."

In a tender reversal, daughter comforted mother. Jane's voice softly intoned that everything would be fine over and over as Hannah clung to her and cried. Standing there, feeling Jane's arms around her, Hannah released all the pain of the last two years without her. Her daughter was real, right here, truly alive in the flesh.

Hannah eventually returned Jane's hug, then pushed her back to get a good look at her, holding onto her arms. "I love you, honey."

Jane's eyes misted ever so slightly. "I love you, too, mom. Why don't you sit, okay?"

"Alright."

Jane pulled out a couple chairs from the table, positioning them so they faced each other. Hannah took one and Jane the other. Jane leaned back in her chair, her legs extended in front of her. "How much do you know about what I've been up to?"

"Not much," Hannah admitted, taking a deep, shaky breath. "Cerberus brought you back to life. You rescued Dr. Kenson, found out she was indoctrinated and then destroyed the Bahak system to keep out the Reapers. That's all."

Jane brought both hands up behind her head, linking them and leaning her head back into them. She stared at the ceiling. "It would have been great if they'd woken me up and said, 'Guess what? We defeated those Reapers you warned us about. All is well.' Instead, it's, 'You've been dead for two years and now you have to gallivant all over the galaxy again because we didn't listen to sense and we're still in danger.'" Jane shifted her eyes to Hannah. "Seriously, I've about had it. I don't care what happens to the galaxy anymore."

Hannah searched Jane's tired eyes. She didn't buy what her daughter was saying. "You don't really feel that way."

Jane sighed and placed her hands in her lap. "I feel that way, but not enough to give up. But really, I'm going to have to give up, right? They've grounded me and my ship." She stood, her frustration getting the better of her, and paced to the other side of the room, shaking her head. "I saved them again and they grounded me." She let out a sad, heartless laugh.

"They don't understand, Jane. They don't believe the Reapers are real."

Jane turned wary eyes on her. "Do you?"

"I've always believed you. I've spent these last two years trying to convince them you were right."

Jane smiled slightly. "Thanks. Didn't do any good, though, did it?"

Hannah shook her head. "They're too concerned with themselves. But I'm not the only one who believes you. Steven does. Anderson, too."

"Yeah," Jane said, walking back to the chair and sitting down again. "They may be the only ones standing between me and a life in prison."

"Tell me what happened. Your side of the story," Hannah insisted, wanting to hear from Jane's own lips what she'd been through.

Jane sucked in her lips, then blew out a breath. "Do you want me to start at the beginning?"

"Sure," Hannah encouraged. And so, just as she had after the Battle of the Citadel, Jane poured out her story to her mother, how Cerberus had retrieved her body with Liara's help, how they'd brought her back from the dead because they recognized her as a symbol both to the galaxy and the Reapers of the strength of humanity. They'd put her to work solving the identity of those behind the disappearance of the human colonies. It turned out the attacks were the work of a race of aliens known as the Collectors. But the Collectors were actually modified Protheans and essentially mindless drones who did the bidding of the Reapers. Eventually, Jane made her way through the Omega 4 Relay, where she and her team destroyed the Collector base.

"And then, I told the Illusive Man to shove it," Jane concluded, smiling at the thought. "He wasn't pleased."

Hannah wished she could have seen Jane telling the head of Cerberus to stick it. They may have brought her back, but she'd left her saviors behind, knowing them for what they really were.

"And then Hackett called me," Jane said, her tone sobering, her face falling. "And you know about that. I thought it was bad having to choose between Ashley or Kaidan. Now it's 300,000 batarians or an imminent Reaper invasion."

"You had no choice, Jane," Hannah spoke, trying to help Jane view her decision objectively.

Jane shook her head. "I had a clear choice. It was still a choice. You remember how you told me dad found that video album on a dead turian in the First Contact War? How he learned then you couldn't generalize a species?"

Hannah nodded.

Jane blew a breath out her nose. "Have you seen the casualty list?"

Hannah shook her head.

"I have. Whole families dead. Did you know a fourth of those killed were children?"

"Jane…"

"Children. And I'm responsible for them dying. The batarians on Aratoht weren't just a species that humans hate. They were living beings trying to eke by another day, simply wanting to enjoy life as best they could, to love their families. I took that away from them." Jane brought a hand up to her forehead and covered her eyes.

Hannah's heart broke for her daughter. What would it be like to have that much blood on your hands? She had to pull Jane back to the truth of the matter, get her to understand the reason she'd had to act as she did. "What would have happened if the Reapers had come through the relay?"

Jane removed her hand from her eyes and peered at Hannah. "I know where you're going. They would have attacked Aratoht, killed its inhabitants or indoctrinated them, made them slaves."

"You spared them that," Hannah proclaimed.

"I know that with my head," Jane conceded, "But my heart doesn't. It still hurts in here." Jane put her hand over her chest. She rose from her chair, pacing again. Hannah waited patiently for Jane to gather her thoughts, watching her daughter move back and forth at the end of the room.

"I'm glad you're here," Jane finally spoke softly. "Because the worst of it is I had to let go everyone that was close to me, to leave them behind or lead them into judgment with me. I dropped all non-Alliance team members off the Normandy before Anderson got there. I didn't want them pulled into this mess. Those who'd been Alliance chose to stay, knowing they'd take a fall, too, for working with Cerberus. All my people—abandoned or arrested."

Hannah caught the immeasurable pain on Jane's face. "They're like your family."

Jane nodded slowly. "Some more than others. Joker…Liara…Tali…Garrus. Especially Garrus."

"The turian? The one who was with you at the Battle of the Citadel?" Hannah thought back, remembering the quick glimpse she'd gotten of an unconscious turian in the Normandy's med-bay.

Jane's eyes took on a distant look. "He didn't want to leave me. He said he'd stay by my side, see me to Earth and through the trial. I convinced him to go. Told him to save his own species from the Reapers."

Hannah tried to read the emotion in her daughter's eyes. Something about this turian tied Jane to him. What had they been through together?

Jane's eyes focused back on Hannah. "Anyway," she said, waving her hand to brush her feelings aside, "Some things can't be pursued when the circumstances don't allow it." Jane walked back over to the chair and perched her hands on its back. "And now I'm here. Ready to face the music. I'm out of the fight." Jane dropped her head, her last sentence having been uttered as a defeated whisper.

Hannah slapped a hand on her thigh. "Idiots!" she cried out. "They have the one person, the one team in the galaxy that has seen and fought the Reapers up close and they treat you like criminals!"

Jane looked up at her, her gaze intense. "I may be out, but you and Anderson and Hackett, you aren't. You can make a difference, prepare the Alliance. I may have delayed the Reapers' arrival, but they're still on the way."

"I'm not leaving you again, not now."

"You have to, mom. You have to try and save the galaxy from its own ignorance."

Hannah suddenly smiled. "I knew you weren't finished with the galaxy."

Jane let out a sorrowful laugh. "I'm finished…for a while anyway."

"Jane," Hannah said, standing up and taking her daughter's hand, squeezing it. "I'm so proud of you. No matter what happens, I'm never going to stop being proud."

Jane smiled grimly. "Thanks."

The door to the room slid open and the two women turned to see Anderson and Hackett entering the room. The beefy young man, Vega, stepped in, too, standing next to the door as it closed.

"Sorry we couldn't give you more time," Steven said. "But we need to talk strategy. There's a batarian delegation on the way to Arcturus Station. They're going to argue Shepard should be extradited to Khar'shan."

"You'd better guarantee me the Parliament won't do that," Hannah asserted.

"I have friends in high places," Steven stated. "They aren't going to budge on the issue. But things are going to be in turmoil there and we need to move swiftly to settle the situation."

Anderson folded his arms over his chest and stared at Jane. "I've got a lot riding on you, Shepard. You're my number one priority now. I've just told the Council I will no longer be their whipping boy. I've resigned and Udina has finally got the post he wanted all along. I hope he enjoys it." Anderson's last sentence dripped with sarcasm. "I'm going to be your defender."

Jane nodded once. Hannah caught the mutual look of respect that passed between her daughter and Anderson.

"Vega," Anderson called out, "Guard the door. Keep everyone out."

"Yes, sir," Vega answered decisively, stepping back outside the room.

"So," Anderson said, "Let's get started." Hannah and Jane pulled their chairs back up to the table and sat across from Anderson and Hackett, discussing how to save Jane from the retribution headed her way.

The meeting was long and drawn out. Anderson had revealed he'd called for an emergency meeting of the defense committee. He figured Jane's best bet was to plead her case to them, arguing that her act was necessary to stop further tragedy, then to scare their socks off with tales of the Reapers and Collectors. Anderson knew several members of the committee personally. In the last two years, he'd convinced many of them to agree that danger from an unknown enemy force was a possibility. They'd had to admit that Jane had seen and done things they hadn't, that she very well might be their only asset in a future invasion.

Anderson had instructed Jane on what to say and how to say it, warning her to keep her answers simple and her explanations straightforward. He also insisted she let him do most of the talking. "You're a fighter," Anderson had reminded her. "Not a politician. If I've learned anything by watching the Council, it's how to smooth talk the other side."

The committee was organizing and would be ready to hear Jane in about four hours time. In the meantime, Steven had arranged for Jane to be housed in a more comfortable part of the detention center. She'd have a small room to herself to wait for her hearing.

Hannah hugged Jane good-bye momentarily, not being allowed to follow her further into the center. She exited the interrogation room, watching Jane walk with Vega down the hall, Anderson following. She made to turn to Steven when she heard the distinct sound of a shot ring out in the hallway. Looking back, she saw Jane kneeling to the ground. Vega had rushed to the side, slamming someone into the wall and knocking a shotgun out of his hands. Hannah ran towards the scene, followed by Steven.

"We should never have saved you!" an all too familiar voice yelled out.

Hannah knelt next to Jane, ignoring the man pinned to the wall for the moment. "Are you hurt?"

Jane shook her head. "I hit the ground the moment Vega told me to. He saw the attack coming before I did."

"What are you doing here?" Hannah heard Anderson shout out. She looked up to see Anderson face to face with Jane's attacker.

Hannah helped Jane stand, speaking as she did so, wanting to hear the answer to Anderson's question. "Well tell him, Lucas." She glared at her XO, whose fiery eyes were fixed only on Jane. Lucas said nothing, just growled out a cry of frustration.

Steven looked to Anderson. "I think we can handle Shepard. I want this man locked up, now!"

"Vega," Anderson said, "Take him to booking. Get him a cell."

"Sir," Vega answered, saluting with one hand, the other still pushing Lucas into the wall. He roughly pulled Lucas away from the wall, twisting his arms behind his back and forcing him to walk down the hall.

Jane put her hand on her mother's shoulder. "That's Lucas Cox?"

Hannah nodded. Jane had only heard Lucas' name in passing when Hannah mentioned her friend.

"What did I do to him?" Jane asked.

Hannah turned both sad and angry eyes on Jane. "The batarian he loved was going to Aratoht. She may have been there when…"

Jane lowered her eyes. "Yeah. I understand."

Steven tilted his head to Hannah. "Am I to assume you refer to your assassin friend?"

Hannah nodded again.

Steven shook his head. "We'll need to deal with him. You especially."

Hannah sighed.

"Go easy on him, huh? For me," Jane requested gently.

"He just tried to kill you, Shepard," Anderson reminded her.

Jane rolled her eyes over to Anderson. "If someone had wiped out the system of the one I love, I'd feel just the same. I can't promise I wouldn't try to take the person who did that out, too."

Anderson pulled his lips back in a tight grimace. "I see your point."

"He didn't mean it, mom," Jane said, her eyes back on her mother. "He's just controlled by anger right now…like I was when dad died."

Hannah bent over and picked up Lucas' shotgun. It was Keta's modified one he'd been given ownership of two years ago. Hannah looked down the hall, watching Lucas and Vega disappear around a corner. The problem was, she was all too sure Lucas did mean it.