AN: Hey guys! I guess it's been a while, or has it? I've been very busy lately.

Thanks again to everyone who reads, especially those who follow/fav and super special thanks to everyone who reviews. You guys are awesome!

Super awesome thanks to Spyke1985 for betaing for me!

Okay, hope you guys enjoy!

Chapter Twenty Three – When Everything Falls into Place, Just Before it Falls Apart

"Tia?"

The asari groaned, knowing what that frown meant. "Honey, we've been over this; there's nothing more we can do until Cerberus makes another move. We needed this."

He nodded, sighing a little as he looked out across the beach. "I just… I guess I feel a little guilty when the others are stuck in the facility."

"Taking a couple of weeks for ourselves when we're not needed isn't a bad thing. Smiles and Rookie needed their space and we needed a decent honeymoon."

He finally smiled at that, drawing her close to him. "Yeah, I still don't quite believe it. So, how does it feel to be Mrs Namar?"

She cocked her head a little at that. "Wait, you were serious about that?"

"About me taking your name instead of the other way around? Absolutely. I need the distance from my family and you need the reminder of yours."

"And to think I used to call you an idiot…"

"To be fair, you weren't wrong."

"No, but you're my idiot…"

"You've gotten sloppy over the past few years," Tiberius told Sarah, laughing a little as he pinned her down with her arms held tight behind her back. She snarled in response as she tried to move out of his grasp, attempting to shift her weight to compensate for how her illness had weakened her muscles. She had kept herself in shape, as exercise made a good outlet for the stress of being separated from her bondmate, but she was under no illusions that between the lack of real combat, or any kind of training, and her becoming... weak, she was far from combat ready.

Which was not a situation she was used to. Or one that made her particularly happy. If the cure for the other hybrids worked, she didn't want to leave it in someone else's hands. But that meant that she had to be able to handle herself. Which is why she had turned to Tiberius to help her get back up to how she had been. Although, he seemed to find it a little too funny when he knocked her on her ass.

"Okay, all you're going to do is dislocate your shoulder," he told her as she continued to struggle.

Her growl deepened, her subharmonics filled with anger. She hated not being able to defend herself, cursing her lack of foresight in allowing herself to get like this. The rational part of her mind knew that muscle memory was a powerful thing, that it wouldn't take long for her to regain what she had let slip away, especially given that they had barely been at this a week.

But it wasn't the rational part of her mind that responded to her being pinned down like that, as she let loose a biotic shockwave, knocking her bondmate from her.

She immediately pounced on him, making sure that he couldn't move his arms or legs, the biotics flaring across her skin compensating for her lack of strength.

"I thought we said no biotics."

"You pushed," she told him, "and this is my response to pushing."

"You can't always rely on your biotics."

"Don't be a sore loser."

He laughed a little at that before raising his head so that his mouthplates were pressed to her lips. She immediately responded by kissing him, although she refused to shift her weight. He began to make lustful growls with his subharmonics that seemed to reverberate through her, straight down to her groin. Her concentration slipped for a moment or two, enough time for her biotics to weaken just enough for her bondmate to flip her over, pinning her once more.

"Who says I lost?"

She grinned in reply, shaking her head. "Fine, fine, I get it; biotics aren't always reliable. Now, are you going to finish what you started or-" She groaned as her omni-tool began to beep at her, sitting up.

"I'd love to," he told her, gently nipping at her neck, "but then we'll be late."

She huffed a little at that, her gaze darkening as she was faced with what she had planned to do that day. He gently brought a talon up to brush away a strand of hair that had escaped her ponytail. "I'd almost forgotten," she admitted gently.

"Blue, if you don't-"

She shook her head. "Don't. Don't give me an out, because I might just take it."

"Okay then," he agreed softly before bringing his browplate to hers.

"Are you going to keep standing there or are you going to go inside?" Tiberius finally asked his bondmate, who had been rooted to the spot for the past few minutes. If he couldn't feel the anxiety pouring from her, he might have thought that she was simply taking her time to enjoy the fresh air.

He had to admit that, despite their careful planning, he was a little fearful that Cerberus would find them. While being stuck in the facility was boring, he would take that boredom in a heartbeat if it meant that Sarah was safe.

Although it wasn't as if anyone could identify her now. She was wearing a large black duffel coat that aptly covered her less-than-human features, even as exaggerated as her illness had made them. Of course, her hair had grown out so that she no longer had a fringe to cover her plates with, so she had ended up settling for a hat that she had told him was supposed to look like a 'panda', but which he just found bizarre.

"I-" Sarah started, but decided against it, simply nodding mutely before opening the door.

"Four letter word just to get me along,

It's a difficulty and I'm biting on my tongue and uh,

I keep stalling, and keeping me together,

People around gotta find something to say now.

Holding back, everyday the same,

Don't wanna be a loner,

Listen to me, oh no, I never say anything at all,

But with nothing to consider they forget my name, ame, ame.

They call me girl,

They call me Stacey,

They call me her,

They call me Jane

That's not my name,

That's not my name…"

Sarah shook her head, simply stopping in the middle of the song. "No, I was right the first time," she told her friend as he stopped playing the piano. "Some songs simply can't be translated without losing their meaning…"

Harry sighed as he sat back on his stool, leaning back against the wall as he turned to face her. "Damn. Oh well, I have more here." Sarah nodded, looking over his list, wondering how much time he had spent putting it together. "Thanks again," he told her as she perused the list, "for helping me with this project. There aren't many people who speak fluent Turian and Human Common."

"No problem. I just hope you get a good grade out of it."

"Me too. Maybe you could submit it to your school as well, or is that not how your grades work?"

Sarah shrugged. "I'm homeschooled, so I don't really have graded projects. I've already taken all of the standardised tests and have all of my high school qualifications."

"Ah, is that you had your nose buried in books the last time you were here?"

She nodded. "Yeah, I guess I got kind of wrapped up in my work."

"Did you take music?"

She shook her head. "I focused on science and maths, with a few languages and cultural studies thrown in there for good measure. I didn't see much point after I did my singing grades…"

"Or you were just too lazy to learn to play an actual instrument."

She rolled her eyes, throwing him a mock glare. "Yeah, call me when you have two A-grade General Certificates and two A-grade Advanced Certificates in mathematics."

"You took two different versions of maths both times?"

She nodded. "Core maths both times, statistics for the General Certificate and further maths for the Advanced Certificate."

"Nerd," he joked before sighing once more as he regarded the work they still had left to do. "Okay, I think we need a break."

"Hallelujah," she replied, grinning, as he got up to sit next to her on his bed.

"Let's go out tonight."

She raised an eyebrow. "What's the occasion?"

"If I'm not mistaken, it was your birthday last week. Come on, I know a place that'll serve us."

"Honestly?"

He nodded. "Well, I mean, you're hardly small, so you'll probably pass for older." She hit him across the arm in response. "I meant that you're tall," he clarified, holding his hands up in defense.

"Yeah, okay then. Shall I call Hillary and Mordin and make a night of it?"

He shrugged. "Well… I hate to say it, but Hillary probably won't get through the door and, well, I was hoping that it would be just us…"

She narrowed her eyes a little, suddenly very conscious of their proximity. "Why?"

He responded by pressing his lips to hers in a kiss that was about as chaste as a kiss on the lips could get, given that neither of them were particularly practised in such things. "That's why," he told her as he pulled away.

"I thought we weren't doing that anymore," she told him. They had dated for about a month a few years back, and he had been her first and only kiss, but they had been barely more than children, simply wanting to grow up as fast as they could, with no real romantic feelings behind the gestures.

"I changed my mind…"

Sarah pulled herself from the memories brought on by the music playing over the speakers in the empty café.

"Hey, we're closing in a minute. I can make you something quick to go, though," the only other occupant of the room told them, a man Tiberius recognised to be Harry. Sarah gripped her bondmate's hand so hard that he thought it might break, making him wish that he had worn his armoured gloves. He was about to respond when Harry frowned at Sarah. "Hey, I know you. You're Cee's mute friend."

Tiberius raised a browplate at that. "'Mute'?" he asked.

"Yeah. Or, she's never spoken to me. At least, not after the first time. She only came in here once or twice with Cee, but that scar's kind of memorable."

Tiberius nodded, refraining from the urge to shake his head at his love's sudden inability to speak. "Maybe I should bring her here more often if she's always this quiet."

"Funny," Sarah drawled in response, narrowing her eyes, before her subharmonics trilled with surprise at her sudden confidence.

Tiberius simply gave her a smug look as Harry grinned. "Ah, so she does speak," Harry joked.

Sarah simply shook her head. "You're both idiots…" she muttered.

"So, are you two dating or what?" Harry asked, clearly curious about their handholding.

"Bondmates," Sarah informed him, earning her another smile as she slipped a little too easily into the easy banter, having to remind herself that she still had to tell him who she actually was, and he may not be so warm after that revelation.

"Good for you two. Wasn't Cee dating a human for a while?"

Sarah nodded. "Damien. They bonded a couple of years back."

"Apart from her, I've only known one other human-turian couple. Kind of. I knew their daughter, at least…" He tailed off, his gaze darkening. "Anyway, you two probably don't want to listen to my rambling. You probably came here for coffee."

Sarah nodded before frowning a little. "So, what happened to your friend?" she asked softly.

He snapped his head up, locking his gaze with hers as he narrowed his eyes. "Who says anything happened to her?"

"That look you had did," she told him.

He sighed, shaking his head. "I don't make a habit of reliving my mistakes with strangers."

"Your mistakes?" Sarah couldn't help it; she was too damn curious. "What do you mean?"

He gave an irritated sigh. "I messed up. We both got hurt and I ended up… in the hospital. By the time I was better, she was nowhere to be found. Probably hated my guts. About a year later, I found out that she had died. Probably still furious with me."

Sarah shook her head vehemently. "It wasn't… it wasn't your fault. She should have known better than to wear her colony marks in public."

He was too furious with himself to question how she knew so much about what had happened, practically seething as he gripped the table. "No… You want to know the truth about Sarah? She thought that she knew everything, and she could ace any test you put in front of her. Hell, at fifteen, she had seen more of the galaxy than most people do in a lifetime, but she didn't know anything. She had grown up in a bubble, removed from normal society. I knew better, but I was stupid…"

Sarah shook her head, unable to take any more of him blaming himself, as she ignored the counter between them, throwing her arms around his neck so that she pulled him into an awkward half-hug over the intrusive surface. He was startled by the sudden move at first, ready to push her away from him, until his mind registered the familiar bone structure that wasn't quite human.

"Sa-" he started, but she cut him off.

"I think your friend probably blamed herself. She probably thought that if she hadn't been… who she was, you probably wouldn't have gotten hurt. That it wasn't fair that you paid for her lack of knowledge... She probably couldn't face seeing you, for fear of you pushing her away."

He was still looking at her, disbelieving, when she pulled away. "I thought- I mean, I should have known, but..."

She gave him a weak smile. "There wasn't much choice. I'm sorry, I should have realised when I saw you again..."

"When you first came in here... I thought I was seeing a ghost. But then you... I figured I was just imagining it."

She shook her head. "I- I should have visited after... when you got better. I just..."

He nodded in understanding. "I get it. I mean, hell, I had your number. There was nothing stopping me from calling..."

"And I had yours."

"I guess we're both idiots, huh?"

"I guess so..." she replied, just as her bondmate's omni-tool began to beep, making her subharmonics trill with annoyance. She just wished that Cerberus would bloody well attack already. Time and careful planning had allowed this short trip, and the call to Cee, but they had to move quickly in order to stay on top of Cerberus.

"I'm sorry. We have to go..."

Harry nodded, having figured that there must have been a very good reason for her to fake her own death and go into hiding. "Will I see you again?"

Her gaze dropped to the floor as she folded her arms. "I... I honestly don't know... I hope so, but..."

"I hope so, too."

"We have to go, ani," Tiberius told her softly.

She nodded in agreement. "Sorry for the rush..." she told Harry just as she headed towards the door.

"Just... take care of yourself."

She had no response to that, apart from a sad smile as she ducked out of the door, closely followed by her bonded. They moved as quick as they dared without drawing attention to themselves. They had avoided parking the skycar too close to the café, not wanting to leave any indication of where they might be heading, or why.

They were sure that Cerberus still had no clue as to her real identity, but it didn't seem to matter if she was Sarah or Azula - or anyone else, for that matter - her propensity to make enemies transcended any identity she could dream up.

Tiberius found himself surprised as Sarah suddenly stopped dead in the street.

"Blue? What is-"

"Shh!" She frowned in concentration, tilting her head to the side as if trying to hear a whisper from far away. "They've sent hybrids after us," she hissed in disbelief. "They haven't sent human agents. They sent hybrids."

"How-" he started but cut himself off, realising that they had bigger worries right now. "Do you know how close they are?"

She shook her head. "No- I can't- I only know that they're hybrids and that they're looking for us..."

"Then we have to move." She nodded before they quickly headed off, back to the skycar.

They were only a few streets away when a shot narrowly missed her ear. She immediately flung up her biotic barriers in response, wishing that she could have worn her armour without drawing attention to herself, just as Tiberius wished that he could be armed with more than just a pistol as he readied his weapon.

"Get down!" Sarah told him, with just enough time for them both to duck behind cover as a second shot was fired. "Snipers," she muttered, as she activated the tactical display on her glasses, earning her a trill of surprise from her bondmate. "What? You didn't think these were just glass, did you?" she joked, before frowning. "Our best bet is to outrun them." Tiberius gave a reluctant nod, all too aware of the fact that she had no armour and wasn't armed. "Hey, I still have my biotics," she reminded him, sensing his thoughts. She kept her tone calm and professional, but she allowed her subharmonics to give a brief trill of reassurance.

He nodded in reply. "There's a crowd two streets down, we can lose them in the fray." She froze at the idea of willingly placing herself into the middle of a crowd, but Tiberius responded by taking her hand in his. "Hey, I'm right here," he assured her.

She took a deep breath, nodding, before they sprinted out of cover, keeping low. They sped up as they heard a couple more shots narrowly miss them, not slowing down until they were enveloped within the sea of bodies. Tiberius was very conscious of the way Sarah was gripping his hand, as if holding on for dear life, her fear seeping in through their bond. He responded with calm reassurance, managing to at least take the edge off of her fear.

"They've lost us," she eventually told him, although her body was still stiff with tension.

He nodded before heading back to the skycar, as quickly as they dared. Neither of them relaxed again until they were in the air.

Sarah seemed to slump forward in her seat, gasping a little as she brought her hands to her head.

Tiberius' subharmonics rang with concern as he finished putting the coordinates into the autonav, turning to her the moment he no longer had to concern himself with driving. "Are you okay?"

She nodded. "Yeah, just a headache."

"What happened back there?"

She sighed, sitting back in her seat as she folded her arms protectively across her chest. "I- Normally I can stop myself from- from intruding on the thoughts of others but... it's like walking around with your eyes shut. The instinct is to open them, especially when you're in danger so if I'm stressed, it gets much more difficult to stop myself... and it isn't exactly pleasant..."

"How did you know they were hybrids?"

She shrugged. "I just did. It feels more... familiar. Easy. Some people are difficult to read, even if I'm trying; like swimming upstream, but others are a little too easy..."

Tiberius wasn't sure how to respond. She never liked to speak of her strange ability, mostly opting for pretending that it didn't exist, but, on occasion, he had still found her reading up on the fabled abilities of the Blood Born, silently cursing the krogan for their lack of scientific records.

She simply gave him an understanding smile before leaning over to press her brow plates to his. "I don't need you to say anything, ani. It's more than enough that you're understanding of all my... eccentricities..."

"I like your eccentricities."

She smiled briefly before letting it fade into a confused frown. "We could have done this any day. Why today?"

He mirrored her confused expression. "I don't know. It was as good as any other, I suppose. Was there a reason why we shouldn't have gone today?"

She shrugged. "Not really. I just don't imagine it's how you fancied spending your birthday."

His frown deepened for a moment before his eyes became wide with surprise. He had purposefully been avoiding any markers of time. They were nothing more than reminders that it was swiftly running out. "Huh... I hadn't even realised. Not that it matters. Turians don't really celebrate birthdays like humans do."

"The ones in my family do," she said simply as she brought a small box out of her handbag, "so, I got you something." She passed it to him, watching him carefully as he opened it. As soon as he could see the strange little box inside, she immediately started babbling. "It's... You probably think it's stupid, or silly, or... I understand if you don't like it, I just-"

"Blue!" he cut her off, mid-ramble, a little worried that she was forgetting to breathe, "I'm sure I'll love it, but what is it?"

"Oh. Well, it's, erm... here." She reached over, taking his hand in hers so that she could guide it to the lid of the box. It lit up at his touch before opening, revealing a holo-image of the two of them, taken just before her symptoms had become visible.

They looked happy.

She gave him a sheepish look as it began to play a tune that he didn't recognise. "I just... I didn't want... I wanted you to have something to... just..." He reached over, silencing her once more as he managed to pull her into his embrace, despite their awkward positions. "I also got you a new scope for your rifle. In case you didn't like it," she murmured into his collar, drawing a soft chuckle from him.

"It's perfect, Blue. But I don't need anything except you by my side."

"The one thing I might not be able to give you," she told him, pulling away.

He responded by cupping her cheek in his palm. "Hey, you'll be fine. I know it."

Her subharmonics trilled with a little disbelief. "How can you believe that when you know better than most that the universe doesn't work that way? Life isn't always fair." There was no malice or bitterness behind her words; she was just honestly curious.

He sighed, thinking for a moment before answering. "Maybe because I have to... or maybe it's just because we can't both be pessimists."

"I'm not a pessimist," she objected, "I'm a realist."

"Funny," he replied, smirking, "I would say the same thing."

"So we're both just a couple of realists with different perspectives?"

"Exactly. You put all of your faith in people, but you don't believe that the universe is anything more than blind chaos."

"And you believe that all people are inherently evil, but the universe works it all out in the end." She smirked, shaking her head a little, pausing before speaking once more. "Thank you again. For helping me with this, ani."

"Honestly? I enjoyed it."

She gave him a curious look at that, before figuring what he meant. "You've missed the action, haven't you?"

He shrugged. "You don't get to be one of C-Sec's top agents at the age of twenty three without enjoying the fight, at least to some degree. Plus... bullets are the one thing I am confident in my ability to protect you from."

She lowered her gaze a little. "I'm sorry. I, at least, can work towards my own cure. If I feel helpless, then I can't imagine how you feel... At least, not without poking about in your brain."

"Just give me a straight-up fight against Cerberus any day."

She smiled at that, before deciding to change the subject. "Twenty three..." she mused, "does it ever seem like older to you?"

He laughed a little at that. "All the time."

"Me too."

"You're still twenty two," he pointed out. "Although, you're also a doctor."

She shrugged. "There have been younger doctors. Plus, having an area of expertise that you have been obsessively studying from the age of five, that no one else will touch with a ten-foot barge pole, helps. Also, having the Shadow Broker as your babysitter growing up doesn't hurt."

"You're not even joking, are you?"

"Not even a little bit," she replied, grinning, before she sighed once more, running her hand through her hair as she freed it from the funny looking hat. "Sometimes it feels like older, but sometimes... sometimes it feels like we're little kids with a box of matches..."

"It's not so bad if that little kid is the only one who understands how fire works," he reasoned.

"Maybe they're a pyrokinetic," she reasoned, completely throwing the metaphor off.

"Wait, what?" he asked, more than a little confused.

"You know, someone who can control fire with their mind. Like the Human Torch or Pyro. No, wait, if we're talking about me, it would totally be like Liz Sherman!"

"You've lost me..."

"Come on, we watched Hellboy last week!"

"Oh, that Liz Sherman. But wouldn't that make me the angry red guy?"

"Hah, yes. I think we've found our comic book doubles. Although, I don't think they were ever together in the comics, so it's more like our comic-book-based-movie doubles."

"Is there not some mad scientist character? Because that would be you. Or, that other guy... Professor X. I thought we agreed that you were Professor X, because of your telepathy."

"No, we agreed that I was Jean Grey. But neither of them get a happy ending..."

He began to grin as he remembered how those two films had gone. "Okay, Hellboy it is. I think I can definitely get behind that ending."

"Yeah... Me too," she replied, as they both momentarily forgot their troubles.

Sarah and Tiberius returned back to the facility without incident, although Sarah couldn't help but wonder when she would next see sunlight without bulletproof glass in her way.

Maybe never.

She wasn't overly attached to sunlight or the outdoors, having grown up on a ship her whole life, but the thought was still mildly disconcerting.

She was pulled from her dark thoughts, however, by the surprising sight of her two best friends, besides Red, having returned from their extended leave.

"When did you two get back?" she asked.

"About an hour ago," Tia informed her, "although I'm much more concerned with where you two have been..."

"I had some business to attend to," Sarah told her.

"Aw, is that all I'm getting?"

"Coming from the woman who snuck off to Vegas to get hitched without telling anyone?" Sarah asked, before realising that was probably something she had no business knowing.

"Wha- how- I was very careful about covering our tracks. How the hell did you find out?"

Sarah simply looked sheepish, shrugging. "It's... a long story. Come on, I've got booze in my office."

"Telepathic?!"

"That's what they tell me."

"Okay, it's not that I doubt the validity of what you're saying but-"

Sarah just rolled her eyes at her friend. "Oh, come on. You're an asari, how do you doubt this?"

"I'm not saying that I doubt it, just that it's a little... unheard of."

"The krogan have heard of it."

"Right. And, as you're quick to point out, they have very little scientific data on it. It's all just legends."

"Well, yeah, they're krogan. Look, I'm not about to start performing cheap party tricks, if that's what you're waiting for."

"I wouldn't dream of it," Tia assured her.

Sarah sighed, before shaking her head a little. "Regardless of whether or not you believe me, it means that I often know things I shouldn't."

Tia paused, clearly disquieted. "Like?"

"Well, like the fact that you and Philip eloped - congrats, by the way - and, also, well... I don't know any details, just that you carry the pain of losing your parents, twice over."

Tia sighed, her gaze fixed on her drink. "I guess you want the full story, huh?"

"Not if you don't want to tell me."

Tia took a deep breath, shaking her head. "No, you might as well know the whole story. I have a feeling it will come up, at least partially, later, and it's probably better that you hear it from me, in its entirety." Sarah didn't respond, simply waiting for her friend to continue. "You have to understand that part of the reason why I don't tell this tale is because it begins hundreds of years ago, before humans were even known to exist."

"Message recieved; you're really fucking old," Sarah joked, in an attempt to lighten the mood.

That earned her a small smile, accompanied by a roll of the eyes, from the asari. "Do you want to hear the story or not."

"Sorry..."

"Okay, so my father died when I was very young; not even twenty. I don't even really remember him, but that's fairly normal for asari with salarian fathers. What was less usual was that my mother died a few years later. My nephew raised me after that. I was so young... I knew him as 'Dad', because I couldn't really remember much else. But, again, he was a salarian, so he died when I was forty two, and then there was no one left to look after me..."

"That's really young for an asari, isn't it?"

She nodded. "I was barely a teenager by human standards. And I've always been small, so I must have seemed little more than a child. I had never lived on any asari worlds, so I wasn't part of any system of care. I was just sort of... left to it. I just became another orphan out in the Terminus."

"The Terminus Systems?"

"Dad had a job out there as an engineer," Tia explained.

"So, what did you do?"

"Whatever I had to," the asari replied, quickly and sharply, "I was on my own against slavers and thugs. It was either learn how to handle a weapon, or die."

"Tia, I'm not judging," Sarah told her hurriedly, "quite frankly, I have no room to. I- I was ten years old when I first shot someone."

Tia frowned at that. "I didn't know that..."

Sarah shrugged. "We only got boarded twice when I was growing up. I barely remember the first time; I was so young and my dad was there with me, so I never felt afraid. But the second time... We were caught off guard with barely a skeleton crew. Hillary and I locked ourselves in our room, but they got through anyway."

"And you killed them?"

Sarah nodded. "I had a pistol and I knew how to use it."

"And your parents still kept you on the ship after that?"

Sarah shook her head. "No, of course not. My mum got really upset and decided that the ship was no longer a safe place for me, but not many places were. Plus, she and Dad were still in the Council's employ, since it was the only way they could get the specialist medical equipment they needed to treat me. I was ferried around for awhile, I even lived with my grandfather on Palaven for almost six months but, eventually, I ended up on Tuchanka. I was there for almost a year before I came into my biotics. At that point I needed real instruction, and the best two teachers were on the Normandy, so Mum finally decided that I was old enough to come back on board."

"Did you miss your parents? When they were away?"

Sarah nodded. "Of course. But, they still lived with me, wherever I was, between missions. Hell, it was probably the most settled portion of my childhood." She smiled a little, but it faded as her expression became more pensive. "But... I don't think I could have taken the shot had it just been me. I did it to protect my younger sister, but for any other reason..."

Tia simply shook her head. "Self preservation is a strong instinct. It's easier than you think to kill in self defense... But I was lucky and I had enough skill to stick around. I quickly realised that people underestimated me and managed to work it to my advantage. But once you get good at something, someone better almost always begins to take note."

"So someone tried to kill you?"

"No. They recruited me. I... have to admit, working as a mercenary was never something I had dreamt of growing up but... I was surprisingly good at it. I knew just how to play people to get my way and I had a knack for strategy. It didn't matter that my biotics barely registered, or that I would never be the best shot. I didn't need to fight, so long as I could talk my enemies out of it, or talk my friends into fighting for me. This carried on for years, decades even, and I rose the ranks. Although, not too high. I was, after all, still a maidan."

"So, what happened?" Sarah asked, entirely enthralled by her friend's tale.

Tia sighed, shrugging. "The Reapers came. All of the merc groups united under Aria T'Loak and I found myself organising strategy on a much larger scale, working with those I had once avoided like the plague. Hell, I was even working with a Justicar! That was actually towards the end of the war. She... She was impressed by my talents and suggested that... well, that I might have a place elsewhere once everything was said and done."

"So, is that what happened? Did you leave the mercenary life behind after the war?"

Tia shook her head. "Not exactly... I'll admit, I was tempted but... There was very little of our leadership left and Aria pretty much abandoned us for her obsession with retaking Omega. Everything had broken down and just getting food became a nightmare for us. So, I took charge and did what I had to to feed my people. Of course, 'what I had to' meant doing things that attracted the attention of... certain people. Certain Spectres to be exact. Accompanied by the very Justicar who had given me a way out of that life, that I had so foolishly turned down. After they had cut through over two thirds of my men, I was almost certain that I was going to die. But Commander Shepard just looked at me and declared that I was just a kid, and she refused to kill me. I was pissed at that; that she thought me so far beneath her that she wouldn't even deign to kill me, after I had single-handedly held together a band of cutthroats and thugs. Of course, the Justicar with her simply reminded me that it wasn't often that someone gets a third chance, so I had better not waste it."

Sarah shook her head at that. "Is there anyone in the galaxy my mother hasn't met?"

"I doubt it. She tends to get around."

"So, what? Did she send you to Aunt Sol for punishment?"

Tia shrugged. "Pretty much. They needed skilled C-Sec officers and they were getting pretty desperate. I worked there for years before getting leave to go to Thessia and get my degree. I came back to work around the time Philip and Tiberius joined the Academy."

Sarah frowned. "Wait, so why were you hanging around with a bunch of rookies?"

"Well, I'm still not that old by asari standards. Plus... even working at C-Sec, I was always cut off from everyone else by my past. It was my choice, I realise that now, but... That day, when I first met Philip, I remember being struck by the fact that - despite his bravado and really terrible jokes - he has a good heart. You don't know how rare that's been in my life... to meet genuinely good people."

"Craddle-robber," Sarah joked. "But... I'm glad you two ended up together. You're good for each other."

"As are you and Smiley. You three... you three are the closest thing I've had to a family in well over a century."

"To family," Sarah declared raising her glass, "even our little, make-shift one."

"Especially our little make-shift one..."