AN: Thanks to everyone who has favourited, followed and double thanks to everyone who has reviewed.

Special thanks goes to my beta Spyke1985! You're the best!

It's here! The chapter where *stuff* happens! Last chapter of Part One but don't worry! There are still two more parts to come. ^^

Hope you enjoy!

Chapter Twelve - The Day I Died

Sarah made her way to the hospital via the catwalks, not wanting to run into anyone. She didn't want to deal with the stares. Her step finally faltered as she reached the hospital and her sense of foreboding grew.

"I figured I would find you up here." A familiar voice came from behind her and she smiled weakly.

"That predictable, huh?" She asked, not succeeding in stopping her voice from breaking. She was tired. Just... tired.

"Oh, honey..." Her mother said, pulling her into a hug. Something in the back of Sarah's mind reminded her that the entire point of her being here was to prove that she was strong enough to manage on her own. But she was too tired to care. "Bad day?" Her mum asked gently and a little jokingly, causing Sarah to choke out a hollow laugh.

"You have no idea." She said as her mother pulled away and sat down on the edge of the catwalk, indicating that Sarah should sit next to her. "Who got hurt?" She asked and her mother's face fell.

"You've always been too sensitive. You got your fear of hospitals from me, you know? When you were a kid, I didn't do or say anything but you still picked up on the fact that I was scared for you when we went into one." Sarah shook her head at the obvious attempt to stall.

"Mum, who was it? Where's Dad?" Sarah asked and her mother shook her head.

"Your father is fine. He's with your aunt Sol. She got wounded. It's nothing permanently damaging..."

"But?" Sarah asked, knowing that there was more.

"Sarah, it's okay." Her mother lied and Sarah gave her a look that told her that she knew. "Her wounds weren't that bad. They'll heal."

"But?" She prodded and her mother sighed.

"She doesn't want anyone to know." She said softly and Sarah frowned.

"Know what?" Sarah asked.

"Corpalis. She's in the initial stages and she won't be bad for years. Not until after the boys leave home, thankfully. But she didn't want anyone to know." She said and at that Sarah pulled her knees up to her chest and wished that the day of horrors would just end.

"I wish I had some good news for you but..."

"Yeah."

"I'm sorry, Sar. We can't contain it. Everyone knows who and what you are." She said and Sarah sighed, nodding.

"I figured as much. So, what now?" She asked, knowing the answer.

"You know that I hate to be the one to say this but..."

"But I have to hide, right? Leave here." She said and her mother nodded.

"I promise that I will do everything in my power to make sure that Cerberus can't touch you but, I'm sorry Sarah, there will be others." Her sub-harmonics trilled with sympathy and Sarah nodded.

"I figured as much. I have to leave everything behind, don't I?" She asked and her mother frowned a little.

"You mean everyone?" She asked and Sarah let out another hollow laugh.

"Yeah." She said and her sub-harmonics chimed in to tell her mother everything she needed to know.

"Oh, Sarah... I wish there was another way." She said and Sarah nodded.

"I know. But wishing for something doesn't make it real..."

Sarah ignored the beeping of the apartment door as she packed her things, hoping that she was packing the right things but unable to see through the haze of tears that refused to stop.

She didn't notice the door stop beeping.

"Blue..." She heard from behind her and she stopped still.

"You hacked the door?" She asked, not wanting to address the real issue.

"No, Tia gave me a key. I was just ringing to be polite but since you wouldn't answer..." He said and she sat down on her bed next to her bags.

"They're not going to stop coming for me." She told him and he nodded, sitting next to her.

"I know." He said and she wiped the tears from her eyes, glad that they had stopped falling.

"The Normandy leaves tomorrow and I'm going to be on it." She told him.

"I'm coming with you." He said and she shook her head.

"No, you're not. Red, I'm not staying there. I have to disappear. At least until after this Cerberus issue is dealt with. It'll be hard enough for just me. We won't both be able to vanish. Not together." She told him and he shook his head.

"No, Blue, there has to be another way..." He started but she just shook her head, her sub-harmonics trilling with despair.

"Red, if you can think of one then I am all ears." She said before facing him. "I don't want to lose you." She said and he shook his head.

"Blue, you're not going to lose me. No matter how long I have to wait for you." He told her and she bit her lip, hard enough to draw blood.

"It could be years before it's safe again. I mean, we don't even know where to start looking for them." She said and he shook his head.

"I don't care. Blue, I love you. I will always love you." With that he lowered his forehead to hers and she felt her heart constrict and she wished that she could stay there forever.

"I love you too, Red. But... I just keep thinking that the next thing I tell you about myself will be the thing that sends you running." She admitted and he chuckled softly.

"Blue, nothing that you tell me could ever make me run or stop loving you." He told her and she raised her eyebrows.

"I can't have kids." She told him.

"I still love you."

"I don't know how long my natural lifespan is. I could have a hundred more years or I could only have ten."

"I still love you. I love you, no matter what. I've bonded to you, Blue. That will never change." He told her and she gave him a bittersweet smile.

"You deserve so much better than me." She told him and he shook his head.

"Don't, Blue. Don't start with that. You're brilliant and beautiful and I can't imagine having fallen for anyone else." As soon as he had finished she pressed her lips to his plates. The kiss was passionate and a little bit desperate, as if she couldn't bear another second of them tiptoeing around each other with words that, in the end, meant so little. Neither of them would believe the strength of the feelings the other had for them until they were shown it, and they were both determined on showing the other.

She moved herself so that she had one leg over each side of his waist and continued to kiss him. He moved his hand to the side of her neck and she moaned into his mouth, wanting nothing more than for him to mark her, her instincts drawing her own hand to his neck. He gave her a growl before pulling away from the kiss.

"Do it." He growled and she gave him a disbelieving look.

"Do you really want to be marked by me? To lose all chances of a normal mate and family?" She asked him and he laughed softly.

"Have I not made that clear, ani? Unless you don't want me to mark you..." He said and she shook her head.

"You don't know how much I want that, ani. I just had to know that it was what you wanted." She told him and her breath hitched in her throat as his talons dug in a little to the right spot and she growled at him. "Stop teasing." She told him and he smiled before finally digging them in deep enough to mark her and she growled before digging her own talon-like nails into the rough skin of his neck, the sound of his growl intensifying the heat that was pooling in her groin as she kissed along the underside of his mandible.

Then there was that look. His deep green eyes pierced hers with a look of predatory lust mixed with not just a deep longing but also, what she could only identify as, love, confirming his feelings for her beyond all doubt.

With that she began to move her fingers over his armour, ignoring the damage and blood-stains. She didn't want to remember the bad parts of the day. He loved her and in that moment it was all she wanted to know. She couldn't think about their impending separation and how she would lose him for an undetermined amount of time. All that mattered was that he was here with her now and, despite the lust growling through his sub-harmonics, he was deliberate to keep his touch slow and loving as she removed her top and he began caressing the soft skin of her waist in exactly the right way to make her growl at him with pleasure and impatience.

The pieces of his armour clashed to the floor in quick succession but were ignored by both the turian and hybrid as they kept their mouths together, their hands anxiously moving across each others' bodies, as if trying to commit everything to memory.

It wasn't long before Tiberius began to growl with impatience and Sarah couldn't help but quirk her browplates at the sound. The raw passion he was displaying was so uncharacteristic of him and so, so much better than anything her subconscious could dream up. She rolled her hips against his, eliciting a deeper growl from him before she let her talon-like nails cut through his undersuit, as his own talons sliced through what clothing she hadn't yet gotten around to removing, revealing the delicious sight of his fully erect cock beneath her.

Her breathing was hard and ragged, matching his own, and her heart was thundering in her chest as his eyes met hers once more. In that moment, she was sure of nothing more than the fact that she loved him.

She started to growl again and the sound caused him to stand upright with her, pushing her body against the wall as she hooked her legs around his waist and he nipped down her neck. The sudden ferocity of the act served to do nothing more than increase her need for him as he slowly slid himself inside of her, causing her to give another moan of pleasure.

After he had started to take her against the wall, she had been so sure that he had gone beyond the point of any reason but she was being proved wrong by his deliberately slow movements that had her riding so close to the edge of climax. She moved her hand to the soft skin under his fringe in response, carefully teasing it so that he let out an almost feral growl. His movements became faster and a little more frantic in response, quickly pushing her over the edge as she cried out his name, pulling him not far behind her.

They rested as they were, leaning against the wall, for several moments before she began to kiss along his bondmark.

"You know, I think I finally understand the fascination with lips that the other species all seem to have." He commented and she couldn't help but smirk a little.

"Oh, Red. I haven't even begun to show you why they're so great." She commented suggestively, knowing full well that he would be good for several more rounds before the morning came.

"I don't want to go."

There is was. The truth. She was being ripped from his side by circumstance and she didn't want to go.

"I don't want you to go." He told her honestly, his fingers moving to brush her bondmark, causing her to blush and smile at him. "But I want you to live more." He admitted and she sighed.

"You're being very sensible about this." She told him and his sub-harmonics trilled with a little humour and a lot of sorrow.

"I fear that if I wasn't, you would never leave. And then Cerberus would come and take you from me in a much more painful way. Blue, I want nothing more than to stay by your side forever." He told her and, despite her every effort, tears began to fall down her face.

"I promise that I will do everything in my power to come back to you, ani." She said and he nodded. "Just promise me something in return?"

"Anything, ani." He told her as she gave him a weak smile.

"Don't do anything stupid. No matter what happens, no matter how this ends... Just promise me that you'll look after yourself?" She asked.

"Of course." He promised and she gave him one last, bittersweet smile.

"Goodbye." She said softly before kissing him one last time and then quickly heading up to the catwalks and away from him.

"Goodbye." He said back, although he doubted that she heard him. He felt... empty. It wasn't the same feeling of frustration that he had felt before. He knew now, beyond a doubt, that she belonged to him as much as he belonged to her. Now he just felt very much alone without her by his side.

He wasn't sure how long he had been stood outside of Tia's apartment when he heard it. An explosion a few sections away, from what he could tell. It sounded small and controlled. He headed towards it as quickly as he could, figuring that he could help.

By the time he arrived, the area had been sectioned off already and there was a group of C-Sec officers, including Tia, clearing away debris.

"Hey. What happened?" He asked the asari, still too preoccupied by Sarah's departure to notice the stoney nature of her features.

"It looks like one of the explosives Cerberus set up to get by the security lockdown. It wasn't detonated until someone got too close." She said, her tone dead.

"Any casualties?" He asked and she nodded.

"Just one. They were too close to the explosion to get a positive ID. But this was found not far from the site of the explosion." She told him, her lip trembling a little as she handed him something and he took it gently, his world falling out from under him as he realized what it was.

Half of a charm bracelet with one charm hanging from it.

A blue half heart.

"It doesn't mean anything. That could have belonged to anyone." Philip reasoned as he paced the empty C-Sec office. Tia sat on the desk, her knees pulled up to her chest, trying her best not to cry. Tiberius stood leaning against the wall, his hand clamped tightly around the mangled charm bracelet. He hadn't said anything since Tia had given it to him but his sub-harmonics were screaming with pain.

"The explosion was on the catwalks. No one else ever uses them." Tia said softly before turning to Tiberius. "You okay?" She asked and he wrenched his gaze up to meet hers, unable to say anything for several moments.

"I thought that I would know." He admitted before lapsing back into silence for a few moments, unsure of how to articulate what he was feeling. "You always hear the stories about when bondmates die. The other just knows. I didn't feel anything until..." He said and Tia nodded. He was still in shock, that much was obvious. She hated it. One cycle ago everything was fine. Better than fine.

And now one of her only friends was dead, leaving her other friend without his bondmate.

She wondered how long he would last before doing something stupid. The pain that he was in was clear and she didn't know if she could handle losing the both of them.

"You ever going to be okay?" She asked him gently and he shook his head.

"No. I don't think so." He told her honestly. As soon as he said it, his omni-tool flashed at him, although he made no attempt to check the message.

"It might be about..." Tia started and he gave her a dead look before nodding and activating the device.

"What does it say?" Philip asked and Tiberius shook his head.

"Nothing." He replied.

"Well, who sent it?" He asked.

"Nobody." He replied and the human frowned before looking at the message himself and confirming that it, indeed, said nothing and was, indeed, from nobody. Which was, of course, impossible. What the message did have, was an audio file attached.

"Play it." Philip told him and he did so, the music filling the room very familiar to both Tia and Philip.

"I'll cry with you honey if you need me to,

Dry your tears, dry your tears for you,

There is no crime, there is no crime,

You and I were meant to live our dreams.

So be very kind,

Don't let the world, fall on your shoulders,

If so, oh hopefully,

I would find, I would find you again.

Oh this is just what we need,

And this is finally for real,

I guess we never wanted anything else,

I guess we never wanted anything,

And you were right to love me."

"It's a recording. From one of our band rehearsals." Philip said and Tiberius frowned.

"What's the noise at the beginning?" He asked, trying to keep his mind from anything but the aching in his heart caused from hearing her voice again, and they both gave him blank looks.

"What noise?" Philip asked.

"It sounded like a series of high-pitched beeps." He said and Tia frowned, transferring the file from his omni-tool to a nearby console.

"What are you doing?" Philip asked as Tia ran the file through an analysis program.

"Sarah once told me about an old form of human communication. Morris code?"

"Morse code." He corrected and she nodded.

"Which is what this is, according to the analysis software. Five letters in human common. A-L-I-V-E. Alive?" She asked and Tiberius's eyes snapped up to meet hers, a little bit of hope daring to enter his heart.

"That has to be Rookie! See? She's not dead!" He said and Tia frowned.

"We can't know that." She said and Philip raised his eyebrows at her.

"Tia, the only person I can think of that would be capable of sending a blank message with absolutely no return information - not classified or unidentified, but missing - is the Shadow Broker." He said and some of the sorrow seemed to lift from her features.

"Who is known to associate with Commander Shepard." Tia said.

"Exactly. If she wanted to hide, the best way to do it would be to fake her death. And everyone would have to believe it. Believe our reactions, especially Smiley's. But she couldn't let him think that she was dead permanently. She knew that it would kill him. Hence the incredibly cryptic message that no one else would understand." He said and Tia smiled at him although Tiberius shook his head.

"We can't know that it's from her." He said and Tia frowned at him.

"But do you think that it is?" She asked and he sighed. He couldn't deny it, even if it was nothing more than empty hope, his heart was telling him one thing.

Sarah was alive.

End of Part One

AN - Additional: ^^ Part 2 coming soon...