So in my first Mass Effect effort ("The Sea") I mentioned Shepard and Thane visiting Prothean ruins and deserts, and getting into trouble...

Normandy's airlock slid open smoothly, and as always, Shepard's ears popped. No amount of pressure equalization ever did anything for it. Also, bright sunlight almost blinded her.

Haraji was the only inhabited planet in the binary Indira system. It was an unusual system in that its main-sequence star, Ira, had drawn a rogue white-dwarf, Sahi, into orbit around itself. It was theorized that this was why the Protheans had abandoned their settlement there. Abruptly their world would have gone from lush and tropical to arid, with spikes in temperature and radiation every time Sahi came around.

Shepard brought a hand up to shield her eyes, and looked over at Thane. He had his hands clasped behind his back, but when she looked at his face she noticed that the nictitating membranes over his eyes were closed against the glare. They made his normally glossy black eyes milky blue. It was moments like this that reminded her that he was indeed a member of an obscure race from the opposite arm of the Milky Way.

Rather than being perturbed, Shepard found it...intriguing. For one thing, they were never at a loss for conversation. There was always something new to learn.

Thane gave her one of his rare smiles and hopped off the platform.

"I told you it would be perfect." She said, handing him their bags (one for guns, the other for everything else, as usual), then taking his proffered hand, stepped down herself.

"I never doubted you, Siha."

Shepard sighed deeply, taking in the surroundings. The only settlements on Haraji were research stations, but their scientists were well-entrenched and well-funded, and were making the best of Haraji's climate. Rift Station, as it was called, was half-sank into a sheer rock face. There were a few deck chairs scattered around, and they'd even dug themselves a pool.

The planet was actually quite beautiful, in a desolate way. It was all jutting cliffs and sandy vistas, interspersed with scrub-grassy plains. At the moment it wasn't sweltering, and a pleasant breeze was blowing, but Sahi was also tucked safely behind her more friendly sister Ira.

Thane hesitantly put an arm around her, his hand coming to rest on her hip-bone. It had been many years since his hands had done anything but kill people, and it was as though he was only just remembering how to do anything else.

Shepard felt similarly. She was in the Alliance military for ten years, after all, getting sharpened into a weapon, and all their training didn't exactly fade away over night.

But they were learning quickly.

Shepard looked around the empty launch-pad and the still desert, one hand still shielding her eyes.

"It's not exactly Illium, but after the last few months..." She didn't have to finish the thought.

"I agree completely." Thane said.

-

After the Collectors were destroyed, the crew of the Normandy stayed together for a time, but eventually individual interests split them up.

Jack and Zaeed bailed almost immediately, off to do...whatever it was that those two did for fun. It seemed that they'd forged an unlikely partnership and were likely about to be up to no good together.

Grunt went back to Tuchanka, eager to accept the offers made by the females of Clan Urdnot after he felled their thresher maw.

Miranda and Jacob, of course, still worked directly under the Illusive Man and were at his beck and call. They left on some secret assignment a few days after the Normandy came back through the Omega 4 relay.

Samara was by her own admission never content to stay in one place for too long, and left a few days after them.

Mordin, Garrus, and Tali stayed the longest, and the remaining crew spent several long nights in the mess hall reminiscing about past adventures and accomplishments before they, too, departed. Legion tagged along with Mordin, as eager to see somewhere besides the inside of a spaceship as Mordin was to have his own AI assistant.

Joker and the rest of the Cerberus team stayed, of course, since the Illusive Man made it clear that Shepard's services would be required again sometime in the future. But she'd made it just as clear that this theoretical future had better be a long way off.

They'd been kicking around the galaxy for awhile, running little assignments for people, prospecting, and tinkering with the ship, but they rapidly ran out of things to do. In any case it didn't seem correct for the most advanced Human vessel in history to be chasing around on errands at 500 credits per liter of fuel.

So Shepard sent the Normandy to the Citadel for refits on the Tantalus drive, and went on vacation.

She put her hand to her ear. "Ok, Joker. I'll see you in a week."

"You got it, boss." Joker's voice crackled over her ear-piece. "Stay outta trouble."

They moved to a safe distance and watched Normandy's boosters fire. She lifted-off smoothly and nearly silently. She shrank to a glimmer in the thin atmosphere, and there was a faint rumble as she went to FTL.

-

Rift Station had a room set aside for them. Like every research facility she'd seen, the personal quarters were sparse and functional. There was a bed, a desk, and not much else in the way of furnishings. The centerpiece of the room was a huge window that looked out over the desert. The sun was waning now, and the landscape was bathed in orange light.

Thane surveyed the room briefly, then stepped up onto the window-sill, perching there with effortless grace, hands on his knees.

"I've been a long time in cities and starships, my Siha." He murmured, his deep voice moving the air of the room strangely. (She loved his voice. When she was against his chest and he spoke she could feel it vibrating through her down to her fingertips. She even disconnected her translation matrix once to hear the Drell tongue as it was really spoken; it reminded her of a recording of an Australian didgeridoo she'd heard once.)

Shepard didn't have to respond. He knew how many nights she'd spent lying on military cots staring at metal walls.

Suddenly Thane was beside her, his hand hovering on the small of her back. She stepped into his arms.

-

Shepard woke because her lap-top was blinking at her. The blue light blinded her momentarily, and for an instant she thought they were back in her quarters on the Normandy, under the soothing cerulean glow of her fishtank.

Beside her, Thane's breathing was deep and even; the desert air was agreeing with him. She carefully extricated herself from tangled bedclothes, then looked around in the near-darkness for garments. It wasn't an e-mail waiting for her, someone was actually wanting to speak with her right now. She finally located a robe.

Shepard cast another glance at Thane. He was on his side, facing where she'd until-recently been lying, the hard lines of his face made softer by sleep.

She crept out of the room. The researchers' quarters were arranged like dorms, with all the rooms arranged off of a long hallway. Shepard sat against the wall, pulling her robes tighter around herself, and opened her laptop.

To her surprise, it was neither the Illusive Man or a Hanar geneticist, but Liara T'Soni.

"Shepard! It's good to see you." Liara smiled broadly, and for a moment Shepard could see the happier woman she'd once been.

"Liara! It's good to see you. You're the last person I expected to hear from."

Liara was in her office on Illium, Shepard could see the thin skyscrapers of the city behind her.

"I've heard that you're on Haraji."

Shepard couldn't help but laugh. "Nothing gets past you, does it?"

Liara shrugged, but still looked pleased with herself. "It is my job now to know everything."

"I'm here on a vacation, of sorts. I was hoping to see the Prothean ruins here. I've heard these are some of the most complete in the galaxy."

"You've heard correctly. That's why I've contacted you."

Shepard sighed. No one ever contacted her just to say hello.

"...And I've heard rumors that there is a functional Prothean cipher on Haraji." Liara continued.

"Wait...the ciphers are artifacts? I thought they were only collections of thought."

"The ciphers are a...what's that human expression? A Rosetta Stone of sorts. They are objects in the way that the beacons are. They pour their knowledge directly into your psyche, and from there it can be shared and passed on, at least if your mind is sufficiently compatible."

Shepard shuddered involuntarily. She still wondered occasionally if she would someday go spectacularly insane from containing the Prothean beacon in her decidedly "incompatible" mind.

"If the researchers at Rift Station locate a cipher, it's entirely possible that they won't even know what it is. Just keep your eyes open, Shepard, that's all I'm asking."

"I'm supposed to go out to the site with the research team early tomorrow morning. I'll keep a eye out for it."

Liara looked around her office furtively. She was blushing. "One more thing, Shepard..."

"Of course."

"Is it true what they say about the Drell? With the hallucinogenic...?"

"Pheromones, yes."

"Shepard!" She giggled.

"I'm becoming acclimatized to it, thankfully. In the last few weeks I've gone from communing with Amonkira to the walls breathing faintly after every sexual encounter."

Liara was blushing furiously. "I...well, glad to hear it, Shepard. Update me if you see anything on the dig tomorrow." Liara's image went to static, and Shepard closed her laptop.

The door behind her clicked open, and Thane's face appeared around the door. He looked both sleepy and confused.

"Siha, why are you in the hall talking about the Drell lord of the hunt?"

-

The communication went to static, and Nyxeris carefully extracted her program and cut the connection.

"Did you get all of that?" She asked into her ear-piece. Of course he did. That was why she was so well paid.

"Yes. Thank you, Sir. Good hunting."