Bioware's party, I'm just crashing it.

Captain's Personal Log: Crescent Nebula, Tasale System, Ilium
Part III: The Assassin

I stood outside Liara's office and I pinched the bridge of my nose. I had wanted to yell at her. She'd played God with my life. She'd given me to my enemies to keep me from my worst enemies. But she wasn't the one who'd killed me; she wasn't the one who considered me an investment. She'd been backed into a corner and did what she thought was right. Something I could definitely empathize with. I'd looked at her and forgiven her. No matter what Cerberus has done to my body. No matter what they've cost me. Anderson. The Alliance. Akuze. Kaidan.

She'd informed me of her need for vengeance against the Shadow Broker and I walked out, stunned and barely registering that only Tali left with me. When I realized it, we paused outside Liara's office, standing in front of her late assistant's desk, the assistant who'd thought to spy on her for the Shadow Broker. I turned and saw Garrus leaning over Liara, the asari's face a paler shade of blue and Garrus looking murderously angry. Before I could interrupt them to break up whatever he was confronting her about, he stormed out of her office, and past us, his hands clenching and unclenching in anger. He didn't stop or even look at me but continued until he was out of our sight. I glanced at Tali and she shrugged. I sighed, "Go back to the ship, Tali. Or better yet, here," I flared open my Omni-Tool and typed in a few commands. "Go shopping. We need gear and I trust your judgment."

She nodded, her face mask glinting in the setting sunlight of Illium's star. "I'll meet you back on the ship. Should I tell Jacob to give everyone leave?" My blood ran cold at the thought of Jack and Grunt on leave in Nos Astra. Apparently, it must have shown on my face, since Tali laughed, "All right, I take the hint. No leave, business as usual."

I laughed, despite my concern for Garrus, "Can you imagine Jack and Grunt running around all of this?" I waved my arm at the pristine orderliness of the city skyline.

Tali regarded the same view, her hands on her hips, "It wouldn't still be standing come morning."

"You're right. See you back on the Normandy. I'll probably take Miranda after I find Garrus and go get Krios." Tali nodded and waved at me as she walked toward a kiosk to buy supplies.

I finally caught up with my gunnery officer at Eternity, a classy bar at the top of the building Liara's office was in. It hadn't taken me long to find him, large angry turians in full body armor stood out like a sore thumb on an asari dominated planet. He was hunched over a drink in the back corner of a small room. He'd already downed one. A tall empty glass sat in front of him, a thin blue liquid coating the bottom of the tumbler. Garrus tossed the second drink back while I watched him. I leaned against the wall, crossing my arms over my chest, "You gonna share?"

He choked back a harsh laugh, setting the glass down and looking at his hands as he folded his fingers together, "I don't know, Shepard, I'm two up on you already." He pushed the glasses away and stood up, rocking the small table, "She's the reason Cerberus, Cerberus," he hit the poor table with his fist, "is the last best hope for the galaxy. Because she gave them you." He looked up at me. "She saved you, and I don't know whether to be grateful to her or hate her."

I shrugged, "Would you rather I stayed dead?" I was reminded how fast he could move when he crossed the distance between us in only a few steps to loom over me. His eyes searched my face and his shoulders were so tense I could see it through his armor.

He sighed out a breath that smelled like a distillery. He may have been drinking dextro liquor, but the stench of alcohol was apparently still the same. "Spirits! Why the hell would I want that?" He stepped back and started pacing.

I waved my hand, "So, then what the fuck is this all about? Why are you drinking when we have a mission to accomplish?"

He stopped in front of me, his chest heaving. He took a step and was looming over me again, "She saved you and I didn't. She saved you, and I couldn't."

I yanked my glove off and pressed my hand to the unscarred side of his face, my thumb rubbing along his mandible, "I don't know how she found my body, Garrus. But Cerberus or not, I'm kind of glad to be back."

He leaned into my touch, briefly closing his eyes before spinning on his heel to resume pacing. "Alenko knew you were alive. He had 'reports,'" he air quoted the word. I almost laughed, he'd seen the turian councilor do that, too, but he was too angry to have appreciated the irony. He paced like a tiger in a cage. "Liara found you and gave you to Miranda to revive you," he stopped and stood still, his fingers clenching and unclenching. "And neither of them told me," he snarled. "I can forgive Tali not contacting me after she ran into you on Freedom's Progress, I'd already gone undercover at that point and was in the middle of being betrayed. She couldn't have reached me, even if she tried." We both knew she hadn't, apparently my death had separated my old squad faster than a hot knife through butter. "Liara I can almost forgive, she wasn't sure it would work at the time. Who would have thought Cerberus could conquer death? But she and Alenko both could have known where I was, what I was doing. Alenko kept that information from me. I was his friend, too. He kept me in the dark."

I wanted to defend both of them, but seeing the pain he was in, I could see that their actions where he was concerned were unconscionable. I'd been his mentor, his friend. He'd taken my death and ran to Omega to kill outlaws in my memory. I stepped closer to him, grabbing his arm to stop his pacing, "What would you have done, if you'd known?"

His silver-blue eyes met mine, steady, unwavering. "I'd have found you. You sure as hell wouldn't have woken up alone."

"Garrus, stop."

He froze, still staring at me, "What?"

"Was there ever any doubts in your mind I was who I said I was?"

He blinked, his cheekplates pulled tightly in against his face in confusion. "What are you talking about?" It took him a moment to answer. He sat down in the booth, still looking up at me, "I saw you, crossing that bridge. I thought I was hallucinating. Or already dead."

I smirked, "So that's why you shot me."

He nodded, "You reacted, so you weren't a vision and I wasn't dead."

"Then what?" I crossed my arms over my armored chest, still leaning against the wall, though I'd turned to face him.

He shrugged, "You saved my ass and I took a rocket to the face." His fingers went to his bandages. "I decided to reserve judgment. You seemed to be you. You acted the same way. You didn't treat me the same, though, which took some getting used to." His cheekplates flared in a grin. "You've yet to get truly annoyed with me. Which has been odd, come to think of it. You are sure you're you, right?"

I shook my head at him, laughing, "That's all it took to convince you I was myself? Save your life?"

He stood up and stepped closer to me, so that I had to crane my neck to look up at him. "Well, the biggest thing that convinced me was that you smell the same."

It was my turn to be confused, "What are you talking about?"

"Clones are illegal, I know – not that that would stop Cerberus, but I've read they smell off from their originals. And brainwashing would change your personality to the point where you would definitely smell different."

What the hell did I smell like to him? I didn't think the turians' tiny noses were any better at smelling than a human's, but I guess all he really needed to do was pass air over the right sensory organ and he could do that just fine. "You're dying to know what you smell like to me, aren't you."

I shrugged. He really knew me too well. "All right, then, tell me." If his nose was that sensitive, he knew I wore a musky perfume and apple-scented hair products.

His voice dropped into that teasing lower register of his that made things low in my body tighten, "There's a yellow flower on Palaven. Grows into a giant plant that tangles around everything in its path. If you don't keep it trimmed, it'll get out of control within a couple of seasons. But if you trim it too much, it'll never flower. It only flowers for one month before the plant is just a mass of green vines. But in that one month, it's all you can smell in my home district. It invades everything. It's a difficult plant to grow, too. But once it gets established, you can't get rid of it. "

I stared up at him, startled. The thing sounded like a weed. Smelly, flowering kudzu. "I hope it at least smells good."

"Of course it does. Women from other districts pay a small fortune to smell like that flower year-round. I'm not saying everything you wear smells like that, it's just . . ." he sniffed the air around my head, "it all combines to smell that way."

I thought of all the times we'd huddled behind cover together, or that one of us held the other down to keep the other of us from doing something stupid. All the times we'd been physically very close to each other. It could be worse, he could have said I smelled like Therum with its sulfur vents. But to be told I smelled like a rare flowering vine by my best friend, was an odd compliment. "I'm glad you like it?"

He grinned down at me. "I'm glad, too. It beats smelling like Therum, at least."

I shook my head at him. "Are you all right to fight? We have a drell to recruit."

He snorted, "An assassin, no less. You find the most interesting people, Shepard. Yes, I'm all right to fight. Takes more than two drinks to get to me."

"Yeah, two years ago, I'd have been finding him to kill him. Now I need him on our side." I looked him over, "Good to know you're not a lightweight."

He checked his sniper rifle, "I'll drink you under the table any time, Shepard."

I chuckled, "You wish, Vakarian. I'm a biotic, remember?"

He followed me out of the small room, "And?"

"I metabolize everything faster." I ran smack into a tall, blonde, slightly homely human male who looked disturbingly familiar. Conrad Verner! Before I could excuse myself and duck out of sight, he shouted my name. Shit.

It took us forever to extricate ourselves from Verner. Though I indulged myself in a conversation with the asari matriarch bartender, and bought a bottle of Serrice Ice Brandy to be sent to the ship for Doctor Chakwas before I went to deal with his "undercover cop."

After we explained to Conrad what had actually gone on (ok, ok, so I lied to the idiot), Garrus asked me as we walked away, "Do you get a lot of jackasses like that following you around?"

I shook my head. "No, it seems to be limited to him and to asari. Unless you're counting yourself?" I raised an eyebrow at him and he laughed.

"I'm far too stylish for that."

We picked up Miranda from her visit with her sister. Night had finally fallen, but as usual in such a huge city as Nos Astra, the ambient light was still bright. Our contact took us to Dantius Towers around sunset. This was one assassination I had no desire to stop.

Nassana Dantius was a real piece of work. She'd manipulated me into killing her sister (not that I wouldn't have done it anyway - slavers had only one destiny if I had any say in the matter and it was usually dead with a bullet between their eyes) and now she was slaughtering innocent workers who had the misfortune to have the night shift in constructing her building. By the time we reached a lone merc standing near a plate glass window arguing over his comm., I'd had enough. I spun and kicked the bastard through the window. He didn't have to kill the salarian workers, whatever his orders had been. That kind of brutality deserved its own in return, sevenfold. When I turned back, I glared at Miranda and Garrus, daring them to comment. Miranda just shrugged and took point. Garrus walked to the edge and stared down. He turned back to me and shrugged, "Harsh, but I guess he had it coming."

I snorted and rolled my eyes at him. "C'mon." We fought our way as far as the bridge between the buildings. We'd gotten most of the way across before we were pinned down by rockets. Miranda jumped up on top of some crates to duck down for cover so she could hit the drones with an Overload and as I was about to join her, a rocket hit her square in the chest, knocking her out. Garrus reached up and yanked me off the platform and onto the ground, half on him, half on the concrete. "Miranda!" I shouted over the wind.

"I know! You almost joined her!" he shouted back.

Another explosion deafened me. "Son of a-! You close enough to Overload those fucking things?"

"Yeah, you going to keep your head down while I do it?"

"If you do it fast enough!"

"Spirits, Shepard, who'd have guessed you'd be this impatient?" A small explosion detonated a short distance away and Garrus dropped back down beside me. He glanced at me as he readied his 'tool again. "Need to do it again, damned shields are tougher than they look."

I looked around the corner of the platform and quickly shot a commando who thought she could sneak up on us under cover of the rocket fire. I summoned a Shockwave and threw her off the platform as soon as her shields dropped. It wasn't a pleasant way to go, but I wasn't in the business of being nice. That assassin had better be alive when we found him, or I'd take it out of Dantius' blue hide in thin strips myself.

When the rocket drones finally exploded, I woke Miranda up. She shook her head sheepishly at me, "Sorry, Shepard, didn't see that one coming."

I shrugged, "If you did, you'd have to be an idiot and you're not. It happens, Lawson. Let's move out."

Again, Garrus tried to take point till I pulled on his shoulder and shook my head at him. he grinned, his cheekplates flaring at me, slightly. "Don't be so slow, then."

I smiled back, "Hey, slow's good. Sometimes." He just shook his head at me.

We took care of the last remaining guard and walked in on Dantius with a handful of tense-looking Eclipse surrounding her. Of course, she tried to beg for her life, even bribing me. I strung her along, trying to keep my amusement out of my voice, but really? She was that much of a coward, she'd try to bargain with me instead of fight it out? But then, she did manipulate a Spectre into taking out one of her sisters.

And then, he dropped out of the ceiling. The rising sun behind him turned him into a dark silhouette and I watched, wide-eyed, as the silhouette became a blur of motion that took out two guards with bare hands, flowing from one opponent to the next as if they were standing frozen and he had all the time in the universe. I caught my breath in my throat as in his finale, he caught Dantius' swing at him and in one smooth movement, drew his pistol, pressed it against her abdomen, aiming upward, and fired. As her heart stuttered from its sudden perforation, Dantius stared up at the drell who gently laid her across a console and almost reverently folded her hands across her stomach. I closed my mouth. He started to pray.

I realized then that both Lawson and Garrus had their weapons out and pointed at the drell. He'd just proven himself exceedingly dangerous, but I doubted we were in any danger or he wouldn't have stopped to pray. I gestured at them to holster their weapons. Miranda obeyed, but Garrus shook his head at me. I glared at him, he glared back at me, one eye somehow still on his target. I glared harder, he scowled and put up his rifle, saying, "Impressive, you certainly know how to make an entrance." I turned my attention back to the assassin.

Who was still praying. I was all for piety; after all, I'd been in a lot of foxholes, but this was excessive. "I was hoping to talk to you," I began.

The smooth-skinned alien blinked his unfathomable eyes and in a voice that made me think very unprofessional thoughts said, "I apologize, but prayers for the wicked must not be forsaken."

Graceful the man might be, but, seriously? For that piece of varren dung? "Do you really think she deserves it?"

He looked up at me, still slightly in shadow from the rising sunlight streaming in through the blinds, "Not for her. For me." He approached from around the console, "The measure of an individual can be difficult to discern by actions alone. Take you, for instance. All this destruction, all this …. chaos." I scowled at him. I'd been cleaning up his and Dantius' mess. Not fomenting chaos. "I was curious to see how far you'd go to find me." He approached, close enough to grab me had he wanted to. He apparently didn't know me very well. While not as graceful as he was, I was certain I hit harder as long as he didn't get his hands anywhere near my neck. "Well... here I am." As if he were wondering what I'd do with him, now that I had him.

"How did you know I was coming at all?" Cerberus had leaks? It wouldn't surprise me.

"I didn't." He sounded amused. "Not until you marched in the front door and started shooting." He stood in front of Garrus and the two men seemed be taking the measure of each other. Garrus looked like he would go for his gun any second. I recognized his twitching fingers for what they were. Or maybe he'd just punch the drell. "Nassana had become paranoid," Krios continued. "You saw the strength of her guard force. She believed one of her sisters would kill her." He turned slightly to glance at me out of the corner of those obsidian eyes, "You were a valuable distraction."

I clenched my fists, "You used me. So you could kill her!"

In that overly reasonable tone he pointed out, "I needed a diversion, you needed to speak with me." I caught Garrus' eye and shook my head, he glared back at me, but held still and didn't pick a fight with the drell. "You certainly fulfilled your end of the bargain." We had a bargain? "What would you like to discuss?"

Shaking my head, I informed him of our mission and the general assumption of suicidal odds. Which I had every intention of beating. "This was to be my last job," Krios said when I finished. "I'm dying." Hence the not seeming to care about suicidal odds, I see. "Low survival odds don't concern me. The abduction of your colonists does."

I blinked, startled. "I hadn't heard that. I'm sorry. Is there anything I can do?"

He looked at me, the obsidian eyes unblinking, "Giving me this opportunity is enough. The universe is a dark place. I'm trying to make it brighter before I die." He paused and stared at the rising sun, "Many innocents died today. I wasn't fast enough and they suffered. I must atone for that." He held out his hand to me. I shook it, a little startled at how warm it was in mine. But it was a brief handshake and I didn't get more of an impression than that. "I will work for you, Shepard. No charge."

My eyebrows went up at that. "Welcome aboard, Mr. Krios."

A membrane nictated across his eyes, "Please, call me Thane."

"All right, Thane. Welcome aboard." I gestured for him to precede me and Garrus fell into step beside him. Within seconds, the two of them were discussing guns. Their sniper rifles to be exact. I rolled my eyes at Miranda and she laughed.

"We are picking up some interesting people, Shepard. You have to admit that." I watched both of the alien men walk in front of us, each with their own grace. Krios moved like a dancer, as if his limbs were made of water. Garrus, on the other hand, had power behind his movements, a predator.

"Very interesting. Let's go see how interesting this Justicar is."