AN: Okay, this is the last of this little spurt of uploads. ^^

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!

Hope you enjoy!

Chapter Sixteen - Old and New

"Let me guess; you didn't sleep last night?" Tia asked Tiberius as she sat down next to him, carefully noting his tired features.

"That obvious?" He asked, as he ignored his food and she shrugged.

"Only to your friends." She said and she considered, not for the first time, getting a better translator that would give her some clue as to the emotions he was expressing in the frequencies she couldn't hear. "So, talk to me."

"She ran away."

"She always runs away." Tia replied quickly and dismissively, causing him to sigh.

"Three years is a long time." He said.

"It's… Not a short amount of time, I'll give you that. But better late than never, right?" She asked and he gave her a pained look.

"Tia, what if she's moved on?" He asked and she sighed. This wasn't like Tiberius. He always kept his own council, rarely ever talking to anyone else if he could avoid it. Anyone but Sarah. He would only ever talk to Tia if she pushed, never voluntarily giving information.

"Smiles, if she was another turian, would you be asking this question?" She asked him and he shook his head.

"Well, no, but-"

"Then don't. She may be able to put on a little makeup and cover up her plates and pretend that she's human, but we both know that she's a little too turian." Tia told him and he nodded.

"I know, it's just-"

"Give her time, Smiles. You two have all the time in the world to be awkward around each other now."

"Yeah. I guess we do…"

"Who is it?" Sarah (or was it Azula?) called from her office as Tia knocked on the locked door.

"Me." Tia replied and the door opened, revealing Sarah in the same clothes as she had been in yesterday, minus the lab coat, moving hurriedly about the room, turning over stacks of datapads as if looking for something. Tia moved into the room and the door locked behind her.

"Tia! Sorry about the mess. I hate having to organize my data." She said and Tia was immediately struck by the fact that her friend had placed a hair band behind her plates, pinning her fringe back away from them.

"You sure that's wise?" She asked, indicating to the visible plates, but her friend simply shrugged.

"I hate my fringe. I've always hated it. My hair naturally objects to being cut this way and it just gets in my way. It was annoying me and I figured that I might as well continue on with my trend of bad decisions…" She said as she continued to rummage through the mess that covered a small cot in the corner of the room that looked like it was rarely used, although Tia suspected that it was still her friend's choice of sleeping arrangements. She figured that her sleeping habits were probably as messed up as Tiberius'.

"You think how you acted yesterday was a mistake?" Tia asked.

"Yes. No. Maybe…" She said before sighing. "Every instinct I have is telling me to run to him right now but… I left him. It wouldn't be fair to just expect to pick up right where we left off."

"Sarah, where was that exactly? You two didn't exactly have what you might call a 'standard courtship'. You ran away, then you stopped running and he ran away, then he stopped running and by the time the both of you got around to realizing that being in love might not be the source of all the problems in the galaxy, as you seemed to think before, you were attacked and forced to fake your death. We both know that there wasn't another option and he knows it too." Tia said and her friend let her gaze fall to the floor.

"You probably shouldn't call me Sarah anymore. Sarah's been dead for three years, remember?" She said and Tia sighed, nodding.

"So, Azula?" She asked and Azula shrugged.

"What? I like it. Plus, there's something nice about getting to choose your own name." She reasoned and Tia smiled at her.

"You could have chosen any name and yet you chose the one he gave you. That is how I know that you still love him." Tia told her as Azula sat on the edge of her desk, and the asari sat next to her.

"How did you do it? You left and came back." She said and Tia let her gaze fall to the ring on her finger.

"Sa- Zu, I never stopped blaming myself for that. It was a stupid argument and I let my abandonment issues get the better of me. I never should have left. But that was my fault and my mistake. You didn't choose to leave, you had to. He understands that. Don't let your misplaced guilt ruin what you two have. I don't think it'll be as difficult for you two as you seem to think it will be." She said and Azula nodded. "But, it's more than that isn't it?" She asked and Azula shifted a little, guiltily. "Wait, are you still trying to fight this?" Tia asked, incredulously and Azula gave a little half shrug.

"I... Tia, is it so surprising? I'm not exactly a team player, never have been. I don't like having to rely on other people and the idea that I'm so dependent on the presence of one person..." She trailed off and Tia gave her a sympathetic smile.

"You don't want to get hurt again." She surmised and Azula nodded in response. "Sar- Zu, he was hurt as much as you. Trust me when I say that he's not leaving again."

"Philip told me what happened. But, Red never moved on?" She asked and Tia just gave her a pointed look.

"Did you?" She asked and Azula gave her a sad smile, confirming once and for all that this was the friend that Tia had known.

"Of course not."

Philip wasn't a fan of scientists. As a rule, they tended to make him feel a little defensive. Stuff that they thought 'simple' tended to be a little over his head. Hell, Tia's tech talk was probably the fastest way to get him to sleep. He had left high school at sixteen with a solid C in science and the research being done here was cutting-edge. It was so far over his head that he would probably need to get to it via mass relay.

So, during the briefing, he proceeded to zone out as each group of scientists talked about their progress, until it was Azula's turn to talk. He figured that he should probably try to pay attention to her research.

"Last week we received the last piece of data from the Mars archives and it allowed us to piece together the exact genome of the perfect hybrid. We were right, Prothean DNA was the key. We just didn't know which strands to look at." She said and the other scientists frowned at her as they grappled with the implications of what she was telling them.

"How exactly would this 'perfect' hybrid be created?" One of them asked and Azula grinned.

"They'd be born, just like you or I. The parents would only need mild gene therapy to make the birth possible." She told them, which only seemed to shock them a little more.

"But, what do you mean by 'perfect'?" Another asked and she pulled up the relevant data on a pad in response.

"I mean that there would be none of the competitive inhibition between chiral receptors that we've been seeing and none of the autoimmune response, either. They should be perfectly healthy. I have used the genetic code of Subjects One and Two to produce several images of what a human/turian hybrid should look like." She said pulling up some pictures on the screen in front of her. Philip frowned at the images that were very close to what Azula looked like, minus small changes like gender, plate colour, height and skin tone. All things that changed in each image anyway. "Some turian traits are always dominant over their human counterparts and vice versa, so all of the hybrids should look fairly similar. It's not until subsequent generations that greater variety occurs, but it would still be nothing damaging or… how should I put this? Less than aesthetically pleasing."

"So, you've perfected the turian-human hybrids. I fail to see how this helps us combat Cerberus." Another scientist said and Azula folded her arms, rolling her eyes.

"It's not just turian and human. It's all species. I could bore you with a Prothean history lesson, or I could just tell you that they laid the groundwork in most sentient species. I mean, obviously the line has been drawn at hanar and elcor. But still, if you keep it to the humanoid sentient races, hybrids should be perfectly possible." Azula said, but Nataliya nodded to the scientist.

"You do, of course, have a point. This information doesn't, on its own, help against Cerberus. But it does lay the groundwork for manipulation of the hybrid's genetic structure. In time, we could weaponize this data. In combination with the virus that Gamma team is working on, it could be used to further destabilize the hybrids' system, disabling them permanently." She said and Azula shot her a glare.

"Don't beat about the bush, Nat. You're talking about genocide." She spat bitterly and Philip got the sense that this was a rerun of an extremely worn out argument.

"Just of the Cerberus hybrids. Zu, they're not stable. They will die and it won't be pleasant. If anything, this would be an act of kindness." Nataliya said softly, but Azula shook her head.

"No. We can use the same technique to stabilize them." She said, causing a shocked silence throughout the room.

"You're proposing that we help the enemy soldiers?" One of the scientists asked and Azula nodded.

"Look, I know that it sounds crazy. But they're only loyal to Cerberus because they're promising to stabilize their condition. If we offer them it for real, they might turn from Cerberus." She said and Tia shook her head, finally entering the conversation.

"That's a big might, Zu. You know that I am a big believer in the use of insane tactics but this is crazy, even by your standards. Which is saying something." She said and Azula sent her a pleading look.

"It could work." She said but she kept shaking her head.

"No, it wouldn't. Zu, they've been raised by Cerberus. Brainwashed. It's all they know. They have no reason to believe us and, even if they did, they would never turn." She said but Azula just sighed.

"I'm not completely insane. We should keep the virus as Plan B but… I can't kill anyone without giving them a choice, Tia. And even if we do manage to kill them, then what? We have no real leads to get those behind this. This might be our best bet." She said and Tia turned to Tiberius.

"You think it could work?" She asked but he frowned.

"I think that it would shine a huge spotlight on you." He said to Azula, catching her off guard a little.

"I know." She said and she could hear the frustration in his sub-harmonics.

"Right. You'd willingly put yourself in danger. No shock there, then." He said angrily and she nodded.

"Yeah. I would. Because it's the right thing to do." She told him and he sighed.

"It could work. But it's dangerous and stupid and reckless." He told her and she gave a tiny smile.

"All of my hallmarks, then." She said before turning to the other scientists. "We'll continue to work on both plans and I'll also continue my work with Subjects One and Two."

"So, you're actually going to do it, then? Try and create a hybrid?" One of the scientists asked and she nodded.

"You don't sound too happy about it." She observed and he folded his arms in response.

"Of course not. You're messing with things you shouldn't be. The child will be considered an abomination and ostracized." He said and Tia spoke up once more.

"I think you're giving people too little credit. As I recall, the response to everyone finding out about the Original Hybrid was, overall, a positive and hopeful one." She said and the scientist scoffed.

"Only because she died before any negative response could surface. It was probably a mercy that she died in that blast." He said and Tiberius let out an angry, protective growl.

"What did you just say?" He hissed and Philip put a hand on his shoulder.

"Smiley, calm down." He said before turning to the scientist. "Sarah was a friend of ours. Please be more respectful."

"I'm sorry." He said and Azula struggled to find her voice again, all of her words dying in her throat as it seemed to close up. She could make neither head nor tails of Tiberius's reaction. Did he react that way to defend her or the memory of who she had been?

"This is all assuming that this will work. What if you can't weaponize the data or stabilize the hybrids?" One woman asked and Azula's eyes took on a deadened look before she spoke again.

"We move onto Plan C." She said simply.

"Plan C?" Tia asked and Azula refused to meet her gaze.

"We use me as bait. Get some solid intel on Cerberus's whereabouts and hopefully blow them up." She said simply and everyone stared at her in shock, apart from Philip. If she couldn't stabilize her condition, she was living on borrowed time.

If she was going to die, she was going to take as many of those bastards with her as she could.

"We can talk about this more later. For now, we should get to work." Nataliya said and everyone murmured in agreement before heading out of the room.

Azula was only a little down the corridor before she was pulled into an empty room by a furious Tiberius.

"What the hell was that?!" He demanded and she shrugged, pretending to not know what he meant.

"A recap of our work so far." She said and he growled a little in frustration.

"You know what I mean!" He said and she shook her head, tiredly.

"No, Red. I don't." She replied and he glared at her.

"Do you have a death wish?" He asked, lowly, and she shook her head before returning his glare.

"No. This isn't how it works. I'm a grown woman and I make my own decisions." She told him shortly and he ceased all efforts to hold back his growl.

"Not when you refuse to see how your decisions affect others!" He shouted back but she held his glare, her own frustration from three years of separation bubbling to the surface and igniting into anger.

"But it's still my decision to make! I am all alone in this, Red. Because, in the end, it all comes down to me. It's my responsibility." The pain was clear in her voice but he couldn't see past the anger at her decision.

"I won't let you throw your life away!"

"Why the hell not?!"

He faltered at that.

He should have just told her right then and there that he still loved her - that he had never stopped loving her - but, before he could make up his mind, she was speaking again.

"Yeah, I thought so." Her words were heavy with hurt and anger as her biotics flared across her skin and she left the room, leaving a very confused and hollow Tiberius in her wake.

"All this feels strange and untrue,

And I won't waste a minute without you,

My bones ache, my skin feels cold,

And I'm getting so tired and so old.

The anger swells in my guts,

And I won't feel these slices and cuts,

I want so much to open your eyes,

'Cause I need you to look into mine.

Tell me that you'll open your eyes,

Tell me that you'll open your eyes,

Tell me that you'll open your eyes..."

She knew that it was a bad idea to leave the building with Cerberus still in the area but she couldn't stay still. Her biotics were still flaring and she couldn't deactivate them. She didn't know where to go, she didn't have her own place since she slept in the lab. There was only one place she could go.

"Zu! What the hell happened?!" Cee asked as her friend walked into her apartment, finally letting her biotics flare enough to be seen, dropping the barrier that had holding back both the blue flames and her tears.

"I... I can't..." She started and Cee gave her a sympathetic look, unable to get to her for the whirlwind biotic energy swirling around her friend. At that moment, Azula was reminded of the moment on the Citadel when she had lost control of her biotics and Red had simply ignored them as he held her close and told her he loved her.

The memory just brought forth more tears as the biotic energy crackled around her, causing her hair to lift from her features.

"Zu, are you going to stop destroying my apartment anytime soon?" Cee asked but her friend didn't seem to hear her. "Sarah!"

"Wha-" Sarah was pulled from her daze as her friend used her real name, the shock causing her biotics to dissipate. "How did you...?"

"You're really terrible at keeping secrets." Cee told her, rolling her eyes, and Sarah let out a strange mix of a sob and laugh.

"Yeah, I'm starting to get that..." She said as she sat down on Cee's sofa, pulling her legs up to her chest.

"So, what did he do?"

"Wha-"

"Red. I'm assuming you found him. What happened?" Cee asked and Sarah rested her head on her knees, curling herself up into an even smaller ball.

"So, do you just know everything?" Sarah asked, the intended humour absent from her voice.

"You talk in your sleep. It's cute, if a little annoying. You've crashed here a couple of times over the years and it became quite easy to find out what you've been hiding."

"How come you never mentioned it?"

"Well, I know that I have a habit of overstepping boundaries and... Well, erm... Some of the things may have been a little personal." She stammered and Sarah blushed furiously.

"Do I want to know?"

"Probably not... I mean, you're surprisingly coherent for a sleep talker. A little too coherent. So, you had to fake your death to escape Cerberus and you left your bondmate behind. Have I got that right?" Sarah just nodded at that, unable to speak. "So, now he's back?" Another nod. "So, what's the problem?"

"What... What if he doesn't..." Sarah started and Cee's subharmonics trilled back with disbelief.

"I have always known that you're crazy, Zu. Everyone knows that. But, this? Questioning whether your turian bondmate still loves you? That's absurd, even for you." She said and Sarah sighed.

"Even if he does... I'm scared of what that means." Sarah admitted hollowly and Cee sighed before standing up.

"Get up." She told her friend who just gave her a questioning look. "Come on."

"Why?"

"Because you're going to straighten yourself out, march yourself back there and kiss the boy." Cee told her and Sarah groaned.

"Cee..." She started but her friend just gave her a look.

"No. You are not staying on my sofa and eating all of my dextro ice-cream. Which, by the way, is kind of a give away on the whole hybrid thing." She said and Sarah groaned once more, burying her head in her knees again.

"I don't wanna..."

"Yes, you do. Now get up and... What was it you told Damien to do when I was the one whining about whether or not he loved me?"

"'Bust a move'?"

"Yeah. So, get up and bust a move!" Cee said and Sarah nodded, before standing up and wiping the remnants of her tears from her eyes.

"Yeah, I guess you're right." She admitted, reluctantly, and Cee smirked.

"You say that like it's a surprise." She commented and Sarah dropped her gaze, looking more than a little sheepish.

"Thanks, Cee. I think... I think I'm done fighting against my feelings. I think now I want to fight for them."

"Sarah, leave. For fuck's sake, leave and get the guy."

"Okay, okay, I'm going. But, just before I go?" She said, pulling up her omni-tool.

"Yeah?"

"Here. Give these to Damien. He'll know what to do." She passed her friend the correct files and Cee gave her a look of disbelief.

"Are these what I think they are?" She finally managed to ask.

"Yep."

"But... There's no way that you're allowed to just give me this..." Sarah shrugged at that.

"Who would stop me? The Alliance? The Council? I think it's safe to say that I'm the only one with any real authority on this and I say that if you and Damien want to have kids, who the hell am I to stop you."

"You know, I think you like making enemies." Cee said and Sarah smirked at her, shrugging.

"Everybody needs a hobby." She reasoned.

"Thank you." Cee pulled her into a hug and Sarah couldn't help but grin. After all of the bad things, all of the hurt that she had seen and endured, this felt good. If ever she had a normal life, if ever she could, she would want to help people like Cee.

If only life were that simple...

"He's waiting for you." Cee told her and Sarah pulled away, nodding.

"I probably won't be able to see you again for a while..."

"Sarah! Go!"