After working through the situation of the kidnapping by the collectors, and their subsequent rescue by none other than Cerberus, the crew of the Normandy could have been best described as shocked. Given how cramped the Hibiscus was, and the fact that I had been in the thick of it, I couldn't avoid their questions forever. The fact of the matter is that most of them accepted my rather simple but quite accurate explanation, that I just got help wherever I could because I was not willing to sit and wait. The fact that, despite our best efforts, as well as a relatively short passage of time between the fall of the Normandy and our op against the collectors, we still hadn't managed to get Shepard out alive, also helped me make the point without having to give any detailed explanations.

I also got to hear how things had gone for them when the collectors captured the crew. Their pods were taken, cracked open, and they never even got a chance to say 'boo' before seeker swarms put them in stasis and the collectors shoved them in pods. After Tela's little surprise when we set up our own trap for the collectors, I could somewhat relate. Still, it was easy to see they were going to have to work through it. Some of them couldn't even get through the explanations without breaking down.

On top of that, Shepard's death weighted heavily on all of us. I hadn't said a word to anyone about the conversation I had had with Miranda in the lab, namely my asking her whether she could bring Shepard back, and I still wasn't sure whether I should. Miranda had said I'd have to follow her lead, and I wasn't sure what she meant by that.

That is, until that evening I got an unexpected call to her office. When I entered, I was surprised to see Pressly was inside with her.

"You called?" I said, and stepped inside.

"Yes," Miranda replied. To my surprise, she just stood up and came towards me. She looked like she was about to say something, then changed her mind, and just gave me one of her standard smiles that didn't quite reach her eyes. "Mr. Pressly would like to talk with you."

And with that, she walked past me and left her office, leaving me alone with Pressly.

"Morgan," he said, and gestured at the empty chair, while he himself took Miranda's. "I would like a word in private, if you don't mind."

"In private?" I said, taking the seat. "In here?"

Pressly shrugged in response. "I don't care if they're listening, I just don't want Miss Lawson in here with us. Has she told you about her plans?"

"Roughly," I said. "Why? What did she ask you?"

"She wants my approval to conduct a space burial for Shepard, instead of returning her remains home," he said.

The news hit me like a punch. I managed not to yell a very loud 'what?!', but it was probably written all over my face. I opened my mouth but didn't say anything, all I could do was let my brain spin in place. So that's how she was playing it with the crew? Or was she really going to... No, there's no way. She has to be willing to bring her back.

Right?

"...why?" I finally managed to say.

"She believes the reaper technology that was... used in her is too dangerous. If the remains are returned, it won't be to give her a proper burial. She'll likely go straight to a lab somewhere, and there's no knowing what would happen." He looked at me for a moment before continuing. "That's what her argument."

"Well that's rich coming from Cerberus," I replied before my brain could catch up. Pressly didn't quite laugh, but he nodded in agreement.

"Indeed. While I do share her concern of not wanting to see Shepard's body used for experimentation, I would like to know your opinion first."

"Mine? Why?"

"Well, you are... were, the Normandy's first Prothean expert," he said, a ghost of a smile on his face. "Or at the very least know more about what's going on."

Pressly was asking about my opinion. Right. My head was spinning with the idea that Miranda might have wanted to get rid of the body as "too dangerous", but I was pretty sure by now that it was likely a ruse. I could tell him about Cerberus' plan to resurrect her, but that'd bring us back to the idea of experimenting with Shepard's body. I knew from in-game that the Lazarus research worked on the spaced, crashed-on-the-planet remains of Shepard, but I couldn't take the image of what my version of Shepard had ended up like out of my head.

Will she be able to? And what's plan B?

The worst part is that I was starting to realize what Miranda had meant when she said I'd have to follow her lead, no questions asked. She probably wanted me to sell it to Pressly. That was a betrayal of trust, in not so many words. I could get on board and lie to the Normandy crew I just had helped rescue, or I could tell the truth and who knows how things would go.

Goddammit Miranda.

"Do you... Did you ever get to see Saren's face during the battle of the Citadel? Were there any recordings or anything?"

Pressly was a little surprised by my tangent, but responded quickly. "No, I don't think I did. Why?"

"He allowed himself to be modified by the Reaper. Became completely indoctrinated that way. When I saw Shepard in there..." With a mental sigh, I threw my lot with Miranda. "She's not wrong about the Reaper tech. Nobody should be messing with it."

"I see."

"Unfortunately I can't really offer any proof," I said, looking at him and shrugging. "I don't know how much weight my words would have."

"Eh? What do you mean?"

"I mean, we're going to have to justify it to someone, aren't we?"

"No," Pressly replied, shaking his head. "It is my call as the Normandy's XO. Besides," he added, and a smile appeared on his face. "You were never very good at explanations."

"Oh screw you," I replied, and the both of us chuckled at that.

We sat in silence for a while, thinking. Or at least I assumed Pressly was doing so, because I sure was. Pressly had trusted me, and I had... not lied per se, but definitely been misleading. I could have trusted with the truth about what Miranda was planning. But I wasn't sure how she, or Cerberus for the matter, would react to that. And I wasn't sure how Pressly would take it. I could be as sure as I wanted about the fact that Miranda could manage - and I wasn't, not with all that stuff in Shepard - but as before, I couldn't offer a shred of evidence. And even more importantly, Miranda's words were first and foremost in my mind. Follow her lead, no questions asked. I knew she wasn't one to just shrug it off if I didn't do as she said, right after I pretty much asked her to bring Shepard back.

"Then perhaps it's for the best," Pressly finally said.

I nodded absently. "If only... If only I had found you sooner..."

"I am not sure it would have made much of a difference," Pressly replied. "You were in a life pod, same as us. There wasn't much you could do with that. while the Alliance is still figuring out what to dou, and you showed up with Cerberus, a Spectre, the Hibiscus, and half of her crew straight out of the SA. I'm not sure how much else you could have done."

"I suppose."

"Well, we better give the news to the crew then."

The news went down like a cold water shower for most of the crew. Even though it was not exactly a surprise to anyone, it still made it more real that it was over. I was quite sure there was going to be some sort of switcharoo, but I hadn't asked Miranda a thing. I'm not exactly known for my discretion.

I hadn't been to a military funeral before, although I had seen and read enough of them to know roughly how they went. I wasn't expecting there'd be blanks fired in the air or anything like that, being aboard a ship, but at the very least the rest went as expected. There was no coffin, instead the body was placed in an emptied javelin casing, to be fired at the gas giant below, and wrapped in a SA flag. Two people gave speeches, Pressly, and Miranda.

Pressly's speech was as I expected. Shepard's reputation aside, he was personally more familiar with her than the rest of us. Hearing all that about her definitely did some good to lift the crew's spirits. Then he moved on to the Spectre candidacy, the hunt for Saren, and the Reapers. That was a lot more fiery than I had expected. But then again, it seemed in-game that the Reapers were mostly swept under the rug after Shepard's death. I vaguely remembered something about the Council having tried to move things "behind the scenes", so to speak, but I wasn't sure whether that was someone trying to give the in-game Council's passivity a pass, or if it would be the case for us now. I kinda hoped it would be, but I wasn't getting my hopes up. Right now, there were more important things to worry about.

I cast a glance around, and when I made eye contact with Talitha, she quickly looked away. Odd. She had been standoff-ish since the mission, and I hadn't had a chance to talk with her. I could imagine why, though. It was a lot to take in, and now that the mission was over, the consequences were a lot more real. For one thing, the SA would probably have some questions for them regarding their collaboration with Cerberus. For another, Shepard was dead. It was a difficult question for everyone in that room.

Maybe that's why we were taking the scenic route back, as Miranda had put it. To give time for people to catch up and think about what was going to happen next. None of the wounded had required more medical attention than what they could be afforded in the ship, so there wasn't that much of a hurry to go back.

I looked around. Kasumi was at the back, as usual, but not in her tactical cloak this time. She was still rather inconspicuous, all said. She looked at me, smiled slightly, and nodded at me. Of the rest of the team, only Zaeed was there for the proceedings. Jacob was still in medbay. So was Julia, and she was probably the worst faring of the lot. Tela was out and about, but for the time being she was making herself scarce, which was a little odd.

And of course Jack didn't give a shit.

"I did not know Shepard as well as most of you," Miranda said when she stepped to the front. "I knew her by reputation, of course, and later by her service record. But after hearing all Mister Pressly had to say about her, it's pretty clear most of the fun stuff was left out of her record."

She looked around as if to gauge the mood.

"I did meet her once, though. It was... maybe two years ago. She probably wouldn't even remember me. There were rumors going around about the Systems Alliance making a new bid for getting a human Spectre, and hers was one of the names that was being rumored. For obvious reasons. So I disguised myself as a reporter." She paused and smiled wickedly, and a few chuckles crossed the room. Huh. "Yes. As I said, not everything was in that service record. To say it was a lively interview would have been quite the understatement. But here's the thing, I got to see the real Shepard, warts and all, as the saying goes. Everyone who met her at one point or another did. And that's what's so extraordinary about her. She never have to hide who she really was. she never pretended to be any more perfect that she was.

"I couldn't have chosen a better person to be the first human Spectre. She was not only the best of us, she was quite possibly the best Spectre the galaxy had ever seen. Shepard didn't do it alone. Mind you, I bet she could have," she added, and smiled as she looked at the faces around her. "And she'd have been good. But that's not how she did things. She built a team. Given a chance, I tremble to think of just how big and how odd her team would have gotten." More chuckles. "Look around you. This is how she did things. All of you, you're her team. And what a loyal team she built, to herself, and to each other.

"But she's gone now. And the rest is up to you. And I know. I know you don't need me to tell you that."

That was it. It rang a little off the cuff, so to speak, which I bet Miranda being Miranda, it was done on purpose. And absolutely zero references to Cerberus, their lofty goals, or anything that sounded like a recruitment ad.

The Hibiscus started its maneuvers shortly after, and dive closer to the planet. Silva, an Ice Giant in the Euler System. That, I found out, was where Shepard had been born. Benning, a garden world, and the main supplier of food and materials for Arcturus station. As the Hibiscus banked closer, the main guns started firing. One, two, three, four times. Then, the ship shook slightly as the javelin was fired.

I just hoped the switch had been so good that it was why I never noticed it.

After that, there was nothing left for us other than go back home. Before that, we made one more trip back to the Lazarus research station. Some people would stay, I knew, and the rest would go back to Alliance space. Not that I had a say in the matter, but I was slightly worried about what would happen to them. Miranda might not have openly tried to recruit any of them, but I had a feeling it wouldn't matter.

Well, maybe having some of the old crew aboard the SR2 would do Shepard some good.

"Earth to Roy," Kasumi said.

"We're not on Earth," I replied, making her laugh.

"So you were listening," she said. "So?"

"To be honest, I'm not too sure. I think I need to take a bit of time to think things through. what about you?"

"Oh that's pretty obvious. Get Keiji back and go rest somewhere nice," she said. "Want to come? If there's one thing I know, it's how to get pampered."

"Oh sure, I wouldn't feel like a third wheel at all," I replied.

It was finally our turn. The door opened and we stepped into the decon chamber, followed by a few others. It was definitely way too many people for that small ship. When the decon cycle finished and we stepped outside, I saw that Miranda was there waiting for someone.

"Morgan," she said. "May I have a minute with you?"

So that someone was me.

"Uh-oh," Kasumi said. "Off to the principal's office."

Miranda chuckled lightly, but as per usual, her eyes remained impassive. "Nothing so dramatic."

"Sure. I'll see you upstairs," I said to Kasumi, and headed off after Miranda.

Even with all the crew of the Normandy coming aboard, the station was too big for it to be particularly noticeable. It was a lot of space for very few people. We took a lift, went up a few levels, and soon arrived to Miranda's office. We didn't really speak on the way there, mostly because I had no idea what Miranda wanted, and her because she wasn't one for idle chitchat.

"So, what do you need?" I said once we stepped in.

"Well, we received a package addressed to you."

"A... package?"

"Yes. It was left in front of the door to our safehouse in Omega." She brought up her terminal's interface and showed me a picture. It was a wide cylindrical package, maybe the size of a watermelon.

"What the hell is that? And who sent it?"

Miranda looked at me for a few seconds, which confused the hell out of me until I realized she was clearly gauging my reaction. After that, she smiled in her own way, and brought up another picture. And this time there had to be no doubts about my surprise.

"What the fuck?!" There was a freaking head inside. Turian. The cylindrical package was to keep it cool, or just so that it wouldn't drip or something. I turned to Miranda and looked at her. "What the hell's all this?"

"That's what I want you to tell me," she said. "There's no name, but it's not hard to deduce it's coming from Aria and her people. There was a note scribbled inside in the turian's blood, keale, which roughly translates to payment in full." Her smile disappeared as she spoke, and now it was the Ice Queen talking. "When we visited Aria, you stayed behind to speak with her. I want to know what you told her, and why she felt compelled to drop a turian's head in front of our safehouse. And I want to know if you compromised Cerberus' operations while you were there."

"What? But who the fuck is that Turian?"

"For what we've been able to determine, one Lantar Sidonis."

*Crash*

That is the best summary of what happened inside my head when Miranda said that.

"Oh," Miranda said, as if putting into words what was probably drawn all over my face. "So," she added, standing up and leaning forward, her hands on her desk, "I need to know what you discussed with Aria, and how you might have compromised our resources in Omega."

"You don-"

"Trusting you or not is irrelevant in this case. Back then you didn't even trust me, and I know for a fact you don't trust Cerberus a whole lot even today."

"I'm try- look, can we speak in private?"

"In private? What do you think this is?"

"Oh come on, like there aren't three microphones and cameras recording everything right now."

"And why do we need to speak in private?"

"Because what I want to tell you has nothing to do with Cerberus, but it's going to point straight at me if it gets out. So I'm kind of trusting you here with quite a lot."

She stopped talking and gave me the stink eye for a bit, then sat down and brought her omni-tool up. After fiddling with it for a bit, she lowered it and looked at me.

"All right then, we're alone now. I know," she added, when I looked at her and started looking around too, "it's not like you can verify it. I'm giving you my word."

"Right," I replied, and with a mental here we go, I decided to go into it and tell her as much as I knew and hope I could get away with it. "I told Aria that someone was going to kill her daughter."

Miranda blinked a couple of times, which I took it as a sign that she was surprised.

"Her... daughter?"

"Yes, and I'm not sure how public that information is, all right? The fact that she has a daughter. So if it gets out there's not a lot of sources it could have come from. All I could tell her was that someone was going to kill her daughter. Something involving drugs or something like that I think, but that's just conjecture on my part."

Lying through my teeth? Not really, because as far as I knew, that was all pretty much true. Vaguely leaving out the fact that I did talk about Cerberus was not that relevant, because for one thing the guy wasn't even Cerberus by the time Kai Leng came around to kill that dude, so whatever. But hones to goodness I had mostly given Aria a warning that her daughter was in danger, because that was the trade I was setting up.

"And Sidonis? Why did you want him dead?"

"I didn't want him dead! I was looking for him because he stabbed someone I know in the back. Metaphorically speaking. I wanted information, I didn't expect Aria to freaking behead him and send me his head as a souvenir!"

"You..." Miranda trailed off, looking at me, and for a moment I thought the Ice Queen looked confused. She raised her hand and rubbed her forehead. "How? Just how?"

"How what?"

"Why are you surprised that Aria killed someone?"

"I didn't say anything about killing him! All I said was his name, that he betrayed someone I knew, and Aria just went all well, it's a big station, who knows, before sending me packing. I was hoping for information, not this."

"Morgan," Miranda said, shaking her head. "Just how is it that you have all this information but are completely devoid of common sense? Who is it you work for?"

I hesitated, but I realized there was nothing stopping me. The AI seemed to be gone, which was a little disconcerting in a way, but left me with a lot more freedom. then again, I wasn't sure if I wanted to tell Miranda a whole lot about it. This used to be a game in my Universe sure wouldn't fly at all.

"If I'm honest, I'm not too sure myself. All I know is that they seem pretty determined to stop the Reapers. They literally don't give a toss about anything else, as far as I know."

"And they chose you," Miranda said.

"What can I say, I asked the same and they didn't really explain anything much. I'm pretty sure at this point I'm just supposed to be an agent of chaos."

Despite herself, Miranda actually laughed at that. I guess it was her way of agreeing with me. Best of all, she seemed content for the time being with my explanation. Mind you, it was true, and I hadn't exactly given Aria any dark, hideous secrets about Cerberus either. So Aria got her daughter out of trouble. Good for her. The whole thing about Sidonis, though, had left me a bit rattled. Then again, it meant Garrus didn't have to put a bullet through his brain, and maybe that his team would still be alive when the time came. I actually never had a playthough when I didn't let him kill Sidonis, what kind of Shepard would go all "there's more to life than revenge"? Not one from Mindoir, that's for sure.

Come to think of it, I wasn't sure what Garrus was up to. Maybe a bit of Shadow Brokery could help him. He might not be a fan of me, and sure, the stick up his ass was very firmly embedded, but, well, I also knew the Garrus that came through in the games, so I still would prefer to keep him alive and feeling good about himself.

Before you go, the Illusive Man would like to have a chat with you," Miranda said.

"Can't say I'm surprised, what about?" I replied.

"I'm guessing he wants to know what your plans are. Same as me, really."

"You know what I'm going to say, don't you?"

Miranda looked at me, and this time she did smile properly. "Let me guess, that all you care about is Shepard."

"You know me so well," I said, and Miranda chuckled at that.

Author's Notes: So glad to hear that there's still people following ME fanfics, and still reading though my stuff. Thanks for the warm welcomes!

You might be thinking nothing much is going on in this chapter, and, well, there's not a lot of action and character development. EXCEPT if you think about what's just happened going forward. Roy just made choices, and choices, as you know, have consequences. I wanted to set this up in its own chapter, and I also ended up cutting some stuff that made it drag on a bit (IMO). The important setup in this chapter doesn't have to go into excessive details. I like leaving the reader with something to think about.

Also, did you forget about Roy and Sidonis? And what I quipped in there is true, I literally never played through ME2 without having Garrus take the shot. Much like every playthough of ME2 I do always has even the most Renegade, battle-hardened Shepard in my hands give Tali a hug during her loyalty mission. I mean, how can you not?

So anyway, that's where we're at! Next week having a word with TIM himself, a couple of laughs, and Roy gets to choose how he's going to spend the next two years while waiting for Shepard. Hopefully two years, right?

Anyway, before diving into the reviews, as before, if you want to support me and my works, you can do so here:

tinyurl (period) com (slash) y2q9cop6

(Man FFnet sucks at adding hyperlinks).

Thanks to those who already have! Still, appreciate the follows, reviews, favorites, etc. too, so thanks a lot!

Reviews time, most everyone welcomed me back, which I really appreciate! Rainsfere, RIOSHO, the seekers in the hands of Cerberus are indeed a worrisome thing, but that's just an appetizer compared to- Wait, no, no spoilers! Soon though, because this won't work unless I reveal it soon-ish. Don't worry, there'll be breadcrumbs about the Cerberus-Collector connection left during the gap. Which, yes, won't be too long; I think the reason some authors get lost in the gap is because it's way too much freedom to do stuff, and unless you're willing to use that freedom to completely derail the next leg of Shepard's adventure, one's going to struggle writing something impactful with those two years. And "sitting and waiting" isn't Roy's style, am I right?

Anyway, to summarize next time, on My Effect: Convergence: A chat with TIM, a kiss and tell, and something Roy never, ever, expected to happen during his stay in the Mass Effect Universe. Until then, ta-ta!