I'll follow you down, through the eye of the storm,
Don't worry I'll keep you warm…
Moments after Hannah Shepard exited, the entire room erupted in confusion and downright anger.
"Keelah!" Tali whispered behind her mask, shaking her head.
"What the shit was that?!" Joker shouted at the vid screen.
"Liara! Where did that come from?" Traynor asked.
"After everything that has happened, how can we even be sure that's the real Shepard?" Kaidan Alenko stated.
Garrus whirled around on his heel, not quite believe what he was hearing. He took a threatening step toward the Major, disregarding his father's hand on his shoulder, "Are you kidding me?" he growled, his subharmonics teeming with rage. "You're doubting her? Again? After everything she's done for you? After the shit you said on Horizon? After she saved you're ass and let you back on her ship?!"
"Are you questioning my feelings for her? I never stopped loving her. I don't even know why she got with you in the first place," the Major said boldly, crossing his arms in front of his chest.
"Because I was there for her!" Garrus shouted, standing up to a threatening height.
"Kaidan, listen to yourself," Liara said gently. "You're being unreasonable…"
"Unreasonable? Is trying to move on after two years, thinking the woman I loved is dead, unreasonable? Was I so wrong to question if it was really her on Horizon? Or question if Cerberus had done something to her?" Kaidan said furiously. "Or the fact that she completely disregarded me in favor of a turian?"
"Is that what this is about? Jealousy?" Tali exclaimed.
"Primitives," muttered Javik from his corner, shaking his head and looking faintly amused.
Garrus clenched both his fists. He swore to whatever spirits listening, if the Major said just one more word… He could feel Archangel creeping steadily back to the surface.
"Alenko, I know for a fact that is Shepard. You don't work on someone for two years to bring them back without knowing every minor detail about them," Miranda said coolly.
Kaidan's fists glowed a faint blue, and Garrus placed a hand on his sidearm, ready to draw it, should the need arise.
"STAND DOWN! ALL OF YOU!" Hannah Shepard bellowed, causing everyone present to nearly jump out of their skins and snap to attention, silently garnering the same respect her daughter could when she entered a room. She had stormed back through the door without anyone taking notice. "You ought to be ashamed of yourselves. My daughter is out there, fighting for her life, and you're all here squabbling over her like a bunch of angsty juveniles!"
"Now I see where Shepard gets her temper from," Wrex rumbled thoughtfully.
Garrus shifted back beside his father, not daring to meet those furious blue eyes, while Kaidan hung his head apologetically, his biotics dying at his fingertips, muttering, "Sorry Ma'am."
An awkward silence hung in the air, until Hackett cleared his throat.
"Hannah, you mentioned the man in the vid? Your husband? He's-"
"Aurora's father? Yeah, that son of a bitch is her father," Admiral Shepard spat in disgust. Kneading her eyes with her fingers, she continued, "He left us, when Aurora was five. At first, I believed he had been killed by batarian pirates. At the time of his disappearance, he was working on Omega with a salarian STG who went by the name Mordin Solus-"
"Mordin? Our Mordin? The same pyjak that cured the genophage?" Wrex growled, disbelief showing on his scarred features.
Hannah Shepard shrugged, "Possibly. I can't know for sure. Cyrus and the people he worked with often used aliases to cover their tracks. The work he did was frequently dangerous. Not many people would take kindly to the types of things he was developing or studying."
"Yup, that certainly sounds like our salarian friend, alright," said Wrex.
"So what happened to him, Admiral," Miranda said almost too eagerly. Hannah Shepard arched an eyebrow, "You're the one that saved my daughter after the Collector attack on the SR-1?" Miranda nodded slowly.
"I never thanked you properly for that, Miss Lawson. Without her, I don't know where we would be right now."
Miranda flashed the Admiral a fleeting smile, and inclined her head in response.
"Anyways, I thought he had been taken out by pirates, or, at the very least, mercenaries. But then, a number of years later, that bastard contacted me again. He wanted to see his daughter."
Garrus could hear the bitterness in Hannah Shepard's voice, bubbling to the surface. This was all new to him, and he found it odd that Shepard had never mentioned her father, not once, in all the years he had worked with her, known her, developed a relationship with her. But then... on the other hand, he had never mentioned his mother to her…
"Just as any respectable mother would do, I told him to fuck off. He made all sorts of lousy excuses, of course. 'He was working to save humanity.' 'He was indisposed.' 'He was working with Cerberus to bring humanity to the apex of the galaxy.'
Miranda straitened, holding up a hand and interrupting, "Wait, your husband worked for Cerberus?"
"Yes, I believe he was working on something called Project Aleya… or so he said. Though he never told me what it entailed. Do you know it?"
Miranda shook her ebony head, "No I don't… Strange… I once thought I knew everything about Cerberus, but I'm beginning to see the Illusive Man didn't tell me much of anything."
Disappointment flooded Hannah Shepard's face. "Well that's neither here nor there, I suppose. The important thing is finding my daughter."
"I may be able to contact some of my old… associates… from Cerberus, see if I can scrounge up any information about this Project Aleya," Miranda reassured. "I'll contact Jacob Taylor. That wife of his may know something. It's a long shot, but…"
"But it's a good place to start… Thank you," finished Admiral Shepard.
Hackett looked at Garrus, and he knew it was his turn to present his findings from the vid. Garrus swallowed nervously before speaking, "There are a number of clues we found while reviewing the security footage." He brought opened his omni-tool interface and tapped 'rewind' until he reached the beginning of the vid and paused it. "The first thing we found was this is indeed Cerberus. Or at least a Cerberus facility or ship." He pointed to a small horizontal C located in the upper right hand corner of the vid, plastered on a wall behind a doctor.
"Second of all, there is not a doubt in my mind that this is the real Shepard," Garrus continued, eyeing Kaidan who was shifting uncomfortably across the room. He forwarded the vid to the first frame of Shepard's body lying on the metallic table. "As you can clearly see, Shepard has her ID numbers tattooed down the side of her thigh. Don't believe me?" He pulled Shepard's dog tags from around his neck and tossed them to Hackett. "They are identical to the ones on these." Hackett compared the tags to the paused vid. "She had them tattooed on after the Lazarus Project… in case something happened again… she wanted…," Garrus swallowed hard. "She wanted her body to be easily identified…"
Nodding resolutely, Hackett handed them to Admiral Shepard. She glanced at the tags, a deep and overwhelming sadness overtaking her.
"Where did you find these?" she asked, clutching them tightly to her chest.
Garrus couldn't even bring himself to look into those eyes… her eyes… his Shepard's eyes… blue, defiant, blazing, full of life…
"She gave them to me before the final push toward the beam," his voice shook with every word, reflecting the same sorrow the Admiral had upon her face. There was a brief moment of silence around the traffic room before Garrus decided he ought to continue.
"After viewing the footage several times over, I believe I know who that salarian doctor is," he said motioning toward the vid screen. "I'm almost positive it's Maelon Heplorn."
"That lizard who was experimenting on the krogan females on Tuchanka?" Javik asked. Wrex shifted his attention to the prothean. Javik shrugged, "The Mordin salarian informed me of the situation."
"They're amphibian, Javik," Liara said through gritted teeth.
"As I've said before, they use to eat flies and lick their own eyes…"
"Would the two of you just shut the hell up? You sound like an old married couple with your constant bickering," Joker groaned. Liara rolled her eyes, while Javik bared his pointy teeth and chuckled.
"I thought he was working in his own clinic on Omega, after Shepard convinced Mordin not to kill him." Wrex said.
"If I can remember correctly that was before Cerberus took over the asteroid and Shepard helped Aria T'Loak take it back," Garrus said. Tychus frowned, "The same crazy asari that runs Omega?"
"Yes, father, the very same," Garrus said waving him off a bit more rudely than he intended. Now was not the time to go into great detail about the political runnings of the seediest colony in the galaxy.
"Shepard never mentioned seeing Maelon while she was there," Traynor mused.
"Maybe Cerberus captured him," Miranda stated.
"Or he volunteered to help them to save his own hide," Wrex said.
"That's exactly what I thought," said Garrus pointedly.
Hannah Shepard turned to face Liara, but not before eyeing Hackett. "So from what I understand we have our own Shadow Broker?"
Tychus dropped into a chair, shaking his fringed head in disbelief. Apparently he had not anticipated his son knowing such a large amount of influential people throughout the galaxy.
Liara nodded, "I'll see if I can dig anything up as to where he went after the Battle of Omega."
"Do you mind sending me a copy of the vid, Liara? I want to attempt to clear the footage up and restore a bit of the sound, if possible," said Traynor.
"Of course,"
Admiral Hackett stepped forward, "I want everyone to pull their resources, old contacts, files, and any discarded messages together. I cannot emphasize enough how important it is that we find the Commander as soon as possible."
Garrus watched Hackett intently. After spending so much time aboard the Normandy, he was able to pick up on human expressions. The look of distress upon the Admiral's face was fleeting but unmistakable. He knew something he wasn't telling the rest of them, hiding something, and it made Garrus uneasy.
"We reconvene in 48 hours. Dismissed," Hackett saluted and left the room abruptly. The remaining members followed after him, speaking in low tones to one another pertaining to the topics discussed and the possibilities of where their Commander may or may not be found.
Garrus faced his father, saying in almost a whisper, "The Admiral is keeping something from us. There's more information here that he's not letting on, and I don't like it."
"Son, he's a high ranking officer of the Alliance, of course he knows more than he's telling else, but you have to respect the chain of command," Tychus said quietly.
As the traffic room emptied, Hannah Shepard walked over to Garrus, waiting patiently for him to finish his conversation with his father. Tychus took notice and his glance shifted to the Admiral. Garrus turned around, his heart rate quickly rising. He was leery of the conversation to come.
Hannah Shepard reached out and took his hand in hers, giving it a gentle squeeze and replacing the tags back in his palm.
"If she gave you these, I… I want you to have them. Aurora once told me that I wouldn't approve of her relationship, and when I found out she was with a turian, I was livid... furious... She knew I fought in the First Contact War," she said. Garrus' mandibles went slack. He was at a loss for words. "But several of the Normandy's crew members found it necessary to tell me that you were different. I know how much you care for her, Vakarian, and I wouldn't want anyone else to lead this expedition."
She turned to face Tychus, "You've raised a good son. Any parent ought to be proud of what he's accomplished."
"I'm starting to realize how true that is, Admiral," Tychus said, his mandibles flaring. She shook both their hands once more and left the room, following after the others.
As it was, Garrus thought, things didn't turn out quite the way he had imagined they would, but it was a good start, minus Hackett not being completely truthful. Hopefully the rest of this operation would go just as well, though he had his reservations about it. Straightforward and easy missions were few and far between when it came to Shepard's crew, and there was no reason that this one would be any different.
Updated 6/7/14