ONE:

No more pain

Revealed too much

Undone

She sat in an empty apartment, slouched into a beaten faux-swede chair facing the panel of windows. The blinders were closed tight, yet the dull illumination of the rebuilt cityscape beyond cast just enough light in to cast her in a dull amber glow. Every so often the headlights from some passing sky-car would flare brightly, pulling at the shadows as it passed.

The place was sparsely furnished. Lonely furniture remained; all her trinkets, model ships, pictures and clothes had been packed and stowed in storage. It was difficult, rummaging through the past, but she did it with her usual thoroughness and attention to detail. In the end, it felt liberating, in a way. It was over, regardless.

She sat half dressed in dress blues, her left arm draped over the armrest of the chair, her right hand holding her head. Her thumb and forefinger massaged and pinched the bridge of her nose, finding pressure points, trying to ease the pounding in her skull. It didn't help. It never did.

Her mind replayed the events of the past few weeks for the hundredth time. The testimonies before Parliament. The interviews. The Council. More interviews. The look on Hackett's face, as he told her the reality of it all. She was too hot, politically, with too many people asking too many questions. People have such short memories. It didn't take long at all for them to forget that the Reapers were gone, and the sacrifices made by the few to defend the many. They needed a new enemy – something to lash out at in a galaxy reduced to rubble and ruin. She understood that. Hate is a powerful motivator.

God knows she wasn't proud of what she had to do to win. She never asked for any of this. Living after the War shouldn't have been harder than going through it. She did it to herself, every day, for eight years. She put on the mask, put on the armor, lived the charade. They asked it of her. It was expected, it was her duty. Now, with the stroke of a pen, that duty – that purpose – was over.

She didn't break. She nodded and agreed, smiled and shook hands. She told them it was time for a change. She told them she was ready to move on, that she had plans. Lies – all of it. She was so tired of the lies. Tired of the platitudes, the endless attention and praise, the uneasy glances and hushed voices. Most of all, she was tired of lying to herself.

The truth sat on the end-table next to her, beside the sweating glass of water she poured an hour ago. The Carnifex Mk. V pistol was an old friend, the very same that killed everything so long ago. She kept it close, all this time, fighting the inevitable.

For what? Nothing. She pushed everyone she cared about away, because she couldn't face the truth. She buried herself in work, in rebuilding the lives left shattered by her actions, attempting to outrun fate.

None of it matters, she almost laughs. I don't get another chance. I don't deserve one. I did my duty. I got the job done. I shouldn't be here anymore.

She stands, the mechanical servos in her left arm and leg purring with the movement. She grips the heavily medaled jacket draped over the back of the chair and pulls it on with a small smile. It feels good to wear it, one last time. She faces the long mirror on the opposite wall, adjusting her tie and gig line.

Her dark red hair looks almost black in the gloom. Tired green eyes drift over a face marred by scars. The pockmarked flesh dominates the left side of her angular face, reaching up past her ear and into her hairline. She reaches down to the coffee table, gripping the medal there. Her first Terran Honor Cross, the one she earned on Akuze. For the ones lost that day. Never for me.

She runs through her mental checklist again. Personal effects, check. Finances, left for the Foundation. Records, therapy journals deleted. That last one had been far easier than she realized. The years of therapy and medication were not going to be missed. No one needed to see what she carried. She doubted anyone honestly cared.

With a final nod and a calm breath, she hefts the Carnifex, turning the weapon over in her hands. God knows I tried. I tried to be what they wanted. I tried to give them all the peace they deserved. I'm so tired of it - tired of the pain, of the lies. I never should have been here. I didn't deserve this, after everything I've done – and failed to do.

With the deftness of a soldier with years of combat experience she chambers a fresh round.

This…is it. No more legend. No more lies. No more pain.

As a single tear burned down from her right eye through her freckled cheek, Valerie Shepard raises the muzzle to her temple.

Liara T'Soni paced before the large wall-mounted vid screen of her study as she listened and tried to control her emotions. It was nearly midday on Thessia, a beautiful day, with the windows and doors open to the bright sunshine. The warm summer breeze caught the light drapes and blinds, filling the room of books and antiquities with the scent of wildflowers and life from the gardens beyond. No one should be so angry on such a gorgeous day.

Cerulean eyes tracked the vid screen, watching the atrocious debate taking place. Two humans, both males, sat locked in argument. Both wore tight, needlessly flashy suits with poorly chosen ties and both looked far to old and soft to have ever held a weapon in their lives. And yet, they sit and speak of possibly the greatest soldier who ever lived with judgement, she scowled with the thought.

'Senator,' the first man began, with his hands folded neatly before him and the name Fletcher Creed displayed in graphics below his portrait. 'There are those among your – and your parties – detractors that claim you're simply using the "Shepard" issues to further your own political agenda. How do you respond?'

Senator Wilhelm Krant smiled smugly at the question, folding his own chubby digits across his synthetic-woven bulk. 'A fair question, Mr. Creed,' he paused for a ridiculously rehearsed moment of effect. 'I believe – and I am not alone, that the more important question here is: why no one seems to be willing to discuss the issues at all? Make no mistake, Shepard and the military as a whole defeated the enemy, no one argues that. Yet the cost of said victory – who is left to account for that? Millions missing as the Reapers collapsed, the Relays damaged, the Galactic Market in ruins…the list goes on and on,' he paused again, pointing a digit at the camera. 'And now, we get report after report of everything from assaulting a member of the press – to outright killing anyone and anything that got in her way?'

Liara seethed, tendrils of dark energy flaring in sporadic arcs across her lithe body. She could feel the anger seeping into her limbs as she watched, and as the sensation reached her fingers, her hands balled into tightly packed fists. The arrogance, she fumed. The sheer, ungrateful hubris.

Krant wasn't finished. 'No, a formal inquiry into Shepard's actions needs to happen – her precious position as a – here he used quote marks in the air – Council Spectre be damned. The people of Earth, her people, have a right to know exactly how that war was fought. And, how the so-called allies of the galaxy managed to bounce back from that trillion-credit doomsday device so much faster than us.'

Creed's eyebrows shot up at the implication. 'You suspect alien influence regarding the Crucible's deployment, Senator?'

Krant shrugged, the same smug smile plastered on his sweating face. 'I find it incredibly convenient that of all the worlds in all the galaxy, the final battle scars the birth-world of humanity. I find it convenient that the plans for said weapon were found – and most likely deciphered – by none other than Dr. Liara T'Soni, an asari archeologist of no special qualification or position, who just happened to be in the right place at the right time.'

Liara felt her control snap, locking the vid screen in a crushing embrace with her biotics. Without an ounce of effort, she wrenched it from the wall and hurled it across the room, shattering it against the towering bookshelves there. 'You bastards,' she hissed.

A soft voice carried in the pregnant silence following the crash. 'Again, Domina?'

Liara sighed, turning into the sunlight. She held her crested head back, her hands on her hips, breathing in the warmth to calm herself. 'I am in no mood for a lecture, Captain.'

Danyssa V'Laani stepped into the room from her position overlooking the gardens, her dark blue skin sharply contrasting the white and teal colors of her commando leathers. Her face was set in a mask of concern, pulling at the dark lines of her facial tattoos. Golden eyes speckled with black eyed the wreckage of the screen warily. 'You do realize how much those cost,' she gestured to the wreck, causing the sheathed sword at her back to shift – the billowing drapes catching on the scabbard. 'That makes three in the past year,' she continued after freeing herself from the drapes.

Liara smiled briefly before resting her hand across her forehead. 'I know, Danyssa. I am sorry.'

The Guard Captain shrugged, moving into Liara's peripheral vision. 'My duty is your life, Domina, not your possessions. Do with them what you will – though I admit I am curious,' Danyssa paused as Liara turned to her, her brow arched.

'Yes?' Liara prompted.

The Captain tilted her head then, her confusion plain on her face. 'Why do you concern yourself with humans? Why do you allow their bickering,' again she gestures to the wreckage, 'to upset you so?'

Liara sighed again, turning back to the light. 'Shepard,' she whispered, closing her eyes. In her mind, she saw that savagely beautiful woman as she once was – fierce and kind, trusting and mysterious, terrifying and loving. She remembered the feeling of her fingers sliding through silken red locks, of losing herself in those fiercely perceptive emerald eyes.

'Domina?'

Dropping her head, Liara lets the memories fade. 'Shepard was…is, my friend, Danyssa,' she pauses, turning to return to her desk, intending to take matters into her own hands. 'She deserves better than them.'

Danyssa nods. 'Perhaps you should tell her that?'

Liara stopped mid stride, eyeing her Captain. It is possible I have revealed more than I intended, or simply spent too much time around her, she mused.

'I mean no offense, Domina.'

'I know, Danyssa,' Liara huffs. 'Be at ease. I am…guarded, regarding her. We…well, we have not spoken in many years,' she resigned, seating herself at her desk. Nearly endless stacks of data-slates, OSD's, and archaic leather-bound books dominated the surface. She feigned interest in something to keep her hands busy. 'And please Danyssa, do not stand on ceremony with me in private. You have known me long enough to know better.'

Danyssa spread her hands. 'If I may, Liara, and forgive me if I overstep,' she paused, seeking the right words. 'I have watched over you since you returned from the War. You are driven, obsessed even, with the reconstruction efforts of the Republic, to the exclusion of all else: save one thing.'

Liara pinched the bridge of her nose. I have revealed too much. Atheyta would find this hilarious.

'It is…complicated, Danyssa.'

The Guard Captain shrugged again. 'Most relationships are.' When Liara shot her the same arched-brow look, Danyssa continued. 'I am six hundred and eighty years old, Liara. I have lost two bond-mates in that time. I have no regrets, because I know that I lived every moment I could with them. I see you, here, when it is so obvious that your heart is out there, and I wonder. Why do you not act?'

Liara's fist slammed against the desk so quickly, the resounding thump barked like a gunshot. 'She does not want to be with me,' she seethed, regretting the outburst as soon as she hissed it. Hiding her flushed face in her hands, she concentrated on breathing. I wish she did, so much.

Danyssa approached with the steady pace of a parent, resting a gloved hand on Liara's shoulder. 'It has been some time since you spoke,' she offered. 'Perhaps something has changed? Humans live short, chaotic lives Liara. Would it hurt to try?'

Liara thought on it. It could. Very much so.

Valerie shut her eyes, pressing the blackened muzzle harder into her temple as her hand started to shake. She squeezed them shut as the images burned into her mind, unbidden and random scenes from what seemed like another life:

Joker, grinning as he toasted her behind a bar. Wrex, launching himself into a wave of Geth, his booming laughter louder than the cacophony of battle itself. Garrus, his mandibles flaring in a grin, telling her that he is with her, for what it's worth.

'Stop it,' she growls through trembling lips.

Tali, her head tilted, her hands on her hips, calling her a string of Quarian obscenities as she giggles. Jack's face after she hears her say that she had never met anyone like her before; her wordless expression of shocking innocence broken by that sneer of feigned disinterest. Taylor, his open expression of gratitude for saving his people – and soon to be wife.

'They don't need you anymore,' she hisses through clenched teeth.

Miranda, watching her sister with tears in her eyes and a genuine smile. Samara, holding her daughter in her arms, nodding her thanks. Grunt, thanking her for getting him out of the tank, his toothy grin plastered wide. Thane, telling her that destroying evil is not the same as creating good.

'They're gone! Just do it, you fucking coward,' she sobs, her body trembling.

Kaiden and Ashley, arguing over kill-counts. Mordin singing. Zaeed laughing. Kasumi rummaging through her underwear. Legion, asking her if he has a soul.

'Do. It. You. Fucking. Coward,' she screams, slamming the pistol into her head with every word.

Vega, grinning up at her after she tossed him on his muscled ass for the 40thtime. EDI, smiling at her behind Joker's back. Anderson, smiling his knowing smile and nodding as he turned away.

'N-no…please,' she begs, feeling the last of her strength fade.

Blue eyes, impossibly deep, so full of innocent love that it makes her heart ache, and a voice so soft telling her that she loves her. They melt into each other, rapturous, whole, unbound, beneath the glow of the Normandy's mass effect drive.

She is undone.

Her arm falls limp at her side, the pistol clatters to the floor from nerveless fingers. She crashes to her knees, sobbing uncontrollably. Every ragged breath is agony – undeserved, unwanted. She doubles over, ripping the coat from her torso, hearing the buttons ping off into the empty space she called home. She howls into the carpet until her lungs burn. There is nothing but the pain, the heartache, the crushing weight of years of regret and loss. She drowns in it, a living corpse, choking on the mistakes of the past and the roads not traveled.

Time passes, and she finds herself curled fetal. A strange beeping noise echoes through the silence. The hell?

She pulls herself up to sit, running a hand through tear slicked hair. Her eyes follow her ears, seeking the source of the irritating sound. She finds it, coming from the extranet console in the adjacent room. It used to be a small workspace. The desk was still there, with a chair and nothing else.

She rips the tie from her white collar, popping the first two top buttons with it as she sits. She runs a hand over the right side of her face, sniffing wetly. No need for anyone to see her for the mess that she was.

She activates the haptic interface, squinting against the bright orange glow of the holographic interface. The words displayed in bold lettering make her breath catch in her throat.

Incoming vid-call – Asari Republics, Thessia, T'Soni Estate