What see'st thou else
In the dark backward and abysm of time?

Shakespeare, The Tempest

It was sheer chance that led to Anderson's early release from jail. One of the support structures failed, bursting open one of the walls in a spray of glass and metal. His arms and legs were torn up with shrapnel, but not so badly that a little medigel wouldn't patch them up. From his vantage point, he saw Sovereign fall, bits of its huge appendages crashing down into the Council Tower and the Presidium below, and he knew, somehow, that up there, that's where he'd find Shepard.

So he joined up with those few C-Sec officers he could find, and led them in a mad dash towards the Council Tower. The Council had issued orders that Commander Shepard was to be recovered, dead or alive but with a strong preference for alive. Anderson was simply another set of hands to help with the search, albeit one with an emotional attachment, and with the chaos of the recent invasion, few people gave him much attention.

The Council chambers were eerily quiet when he and his team entered. Shepard was swaying on her feet, a biotic bubble surrounding her and her two teammates, debris piled high around them. She rocked back and forth, her eyes vacant, and even before they saw her, they heard her quarian companion begging her to let go. Besides the red lines that flowed from the base of her skull like needlework, Shepard's skin had begun to crack open, flaring with a dim red light that Anderson couldn't hope to explain.

"Shepard," he said, when he got closer, but she didn't respond. "Shepard? Devyn?"

Shepard listed dangerously. Anderson looked to Tali'Zorah, who cradled Garrus Vakarian in her lap. The turian's breathing was shallow, but there, though the blood hinted he'd suffered a massive head trauma.

"Shepard, please," said Tali'Zorah. "Garrus needs help. He might die otherwise."

"Devyn," snapped Anderson, close enough to her barrier that the hair on the back of his neck stood on end and he could smell the barest whiff of ozone. She didn't hear him, so he drew himself up and with a quick look to the others, knowing they wouldn't understand, knowing he was violating some unspoken promise, whispered, "Deirdre?"

Her head turned so slowly, and he watched Shepard crawl back from whatever internal cavern she'd hidden herself in. When she saw Anderson, her lower lip trembled. "I didn't tell you," she said, her voice hoarse, "but they died. I watched them die."

"Shepard, nobody's dead," said Anderson. "They're alive, but they won't be for long unless you take down this barrier."

She glanced back at Garrus, his head in Tali's lap, and every bit of her crumpled. The barrier fizzled out of existence as her knees melted out from underneath her. She started to crawl towards Garrus, and despite Anderson's hand on her, she continued on until she could lay a hand on his chest. The C-Sec officers had called in the medics, and they were prepping Garrus to be moved, but Shepard's eyes were only for the turian. "I shouldn't have brought you with me," she said, her voice cracking. "I should've left you behind."

There was something going on that Anderson couldn't hope to understand, so he simply bundled his arms around Shepard and drew her slowly away, even as she made protestations with what little energy she had left, her body dissolving into sobs as her hands clutched at his arms, until Anderson wasn't sure if he was holding onto her or the other way around.

The med team took Garrus and Tali, who looked even more shaken now than she had previously, but when they made to take Shepard as well, Anderson waved them off. "Give us a minute," he said.

"I watched them die," Shepard repeated, nearly incomprehensible around her sobs. "One second they were right behind me, and the next there was an explosion and then… The tank… And they didn't move out of the way, even though I told him, I told him to be careful and to learn how to duck, and he said that he didn't duck but he'd improvise and he didn't and…" Her nails dug into Anderson's arm deep enough to draw blood. "And I didn't cry, because I didn't have time, because he would've yelled at me for being sentimental when the whole galaxy was at stake, so I didn't cry and I didn't tell you, because there would be time later, or I'd meet him at the bar and it wouldn't matter…"

Anderson rested his cheek against her hair, well aware that, to anyone looking on, it would be obvious that their relationship was something more than professional. He made soothing sounds for her, and understood more of what she said than he let on. He couldn't even begin to comprehend what these last few weeks had been for her, and now that he knew the truth, now that he believed… This shaking, traumatized woman in front of him brought with her a whole new brand of horror.

The Reapers were coming, and that was the stuff of nightmares in itself, but Shepard had seen it, she'd lived it, and had countless friends die around her… Including himself. He'd lost a lot of friends on Shanxi, he'd grieved, and he couldn't imagine waking up one day to find them alive. He'd be happy, of course, but if it meant he had to go back and live through the First Contact War again? He couldn't do it. Not knowing what he knew about turians, not knowing what he did about his friends.

"He was dead," she cried, "he was dead and then he wasn't. I loved him, and he died, but now he's alive and… I almost… He almost…" She swivelled to look up at him, her eyes red. "I can't do this again."

What was he supposed to tell her? That she had to? It seemed an incredible burden to put on her, an unfair responsibility, but he'd seen what happened, seen what she'd lived through… And he knew that without her, there was going to be no way to get through this. But as her tears fell warm and sticky on his arm, he worried about her. Not about Commander Shepard, first human Spectre, Hero of Elysium, but as that little-known Deirdre Shepard who had tried to erase herself so completely, and who now seemed to be bubbling up from the tar pits of the past. Commander Shepard would survive, she would get the job done – she always did – but would anything be left of the woman underneath?

"I'll be with you," he said, hating himself for telling her you have to without having the balls to say it aloud. "I'll be with you every step of the way, I promise."

Her head lolled back against him, and she lay against him, torn, burned, bruised and broken and for perhaps the first time ever, Anderson found himself wondering if one life was worth that of the galaxy. Intellectually, he knew that it was and Shepard knew it too. He just wished he didn't.

He held her until her tears slowed, wondering what this woman had been like, near the end. She'd told him, back when he didn't to hear it, that his last words were or would be that he was proud of her, and he hadn't wanted to believe her then, not with the loss of his Shepard still open and bleeding, but he believed it now. And he wondered, for the first time, if perhaps the Shepard that died in that hospital room, that died with visions she couldn't stop dancing in her head, that died knowing there was someone else to pick up the mantle she was laying down… If perhaps she'd had the happier ending.

0-0-0

They'd sat Tali in a hospital bed and had run test after test on her to make sure that she was suffering no ill effects. Tali had no idea how long this had taken – it felt like it had only been a few minutes, but she knew that this couldn't be true – but eventually a human doctor had come in, placed his hand on her shoulder in what she supposed was supposed to be a comforting gesture, and told her, you're just fine, Miss nar Rayya.

Just fine.

She didn't feel just fine. She couldn't remember ever feeling less just fine. Her body tingled where Garrus had thrown her out of the way. They'd been running, and something had smashed into her. She'd been sure some debris had hit her as she stumbled out of the way, but then she'd heard Shepard screaming, and the sound of it had been more frightening than anything Tali could remember – more frightening than the geth, than Saren, than Sovereign. It had sounded like Shepard was shattering from the inside out.

She couldn't figure out, at first, what had happened. Was she injured? Bleeding? Had she gotten a tear in her suit? And then, she'd seen Garrus lying there, blue blood seeping from his head wound and she'd understood.

Since coming on her pilgrimage, she'd been threatened, shot at, shot and goodness knows what else, but for all they'd waded into danger, Tali had been a contributing part of the team – or so she thought. In the few seconds it took for her to realize what Garrus had done, she realized that she was young, and she rethought her entire life. Maybe the pilgrimage was a bad idea. Maybe she should never have requested to tag along with Shepard at all. Maybe she should've trained harder in the Flotilla, so that she wouldn't be so useless on the battlefield. What did she think, that she could match trained soldiers and killers? That she was anything besides dead weight?

Scrambling towards Garrus, she'd applied what was left of her medigel to his wound. She was so focused that it wasn't until she looked for Shepard that she realized the debris from Sovereign had been tumbling past them without even coming close to touching. And there she was, like a figure out of mythology, arms spread wide like wings, and her body glowing blue.

They'd talked about her extraordinary biotic abilities on the Normandy, after Virmire… Garrus believed they'd been amped up somehow, but Tali didn't know what to believe. According to chats with Kaidan, human biotics were, on average, weaker than their alien counterparts, though of course there were exceptions. Shepard had always been listed among the exceptions, after Elysium, though the Commander had said once that she was only about as good as a baby asari in biotic gymnastics.

Seeing her like that, Tali had realized that one of two things were true: either Shepard had been immensely modest, or Garrus had been right, and something had changed with Shepard.

This realization slowly gave way to fear as she noticed Shepard wasn't moving. Her eyes were fixed on Garrus, and her mouth was open in horror. Tears rolled down her face, and she was at once too present and utterly far away.

"Shepard," Tali shouted, over the din from outside, "he's alive!"

If she heard, Shepard made no move and that scared Tali more than anything. This wasn't like Shepard's recent spikes in temper; this was something else entirely. The quarian debated approaching Shepard, attempting to shake the Commander out whatever it was that gripped her, but she'd once heard that that was the worst thing to do with a volatile biotic. Was Shepard volatile? Keelah, this was so far outside her comfort zone that she had no idea how to react…

Now, in hindsight, Tali could say that it wasn't the fact that Shepard had fallen near catatonic, or that her biotic ability was beyond what Tali had realized that had frightened her so badly. It was the knowledge that inside Shepard, this whole time, there'd been a huge crack. They'd noticed it, sure, but they hadn't realized how deep it was, or how it threatened to break Shepard in half. Not even in her confrontation had Shepard looked so lost. This was the woman Tali had looked up to as indomitable. This was the woman who was leading the charge against the Reapers.

Had the crack always been there? Had the recent weeks simply brought out a vulnerability that they hadn't known existed in their Commander? Or had something happened? Time and again, Tali's thoughts returned to how different Shepard was after her stint in the hospital. It begged an ominous and terrifying question: what exactly had Shepard seen in her vision?

"Miss nar Rayya?" Tali snapped out of her reverie. A human nurse, wearing an apologetic expression, placed a hand on Tali's arm. "We're going to use this room for Commander Shepard now."

That's right. Shepard's body had been lined with red stitching that disappeared into her armor. Tali's limbs were heavy as she slid out of the bed and then realized she didn't know where to go. She had no idea where the Normandy had gone after the fighting, and the Citadel was in chaos. She was currently in the Alliance hospital, which was full to the point of bursting. Anywhere outside these walls, she might not be welcome, or even safe.

Captain Anderson entered carrying Shepard, who clung to him like a small child. Sometime between when Tali had last seen her and now, her armor had been stripped away, revealing only her black under suit. Anderson laid her down on the bed with all the care reminiscent of a father, and Tali wondered about them, wondered about their bond and how it had been built and what these two had been through together. She'd never ask, she knew that as she saw Anderson run his hand over Shepard's head, but she wondered.

The doctors and nurses bustled around, and Anderson gently extricated himself from the Commander, giving them the space to work. Shepard didn't fight, just stared up at the ceiling like she was waiting for death to claim her.

But Shepard… Shepard always fought.

A hand gripped her by the shoulder, and she glanced up to see Anderson giving her an expression of… pity? He gestured outside, and Tali followed, though both of them watched Shepard disappear beneath a pile of nurses and doctors, all without saying a word.

When he'd shut the door, Anderson said, "Please don't come to the wrong conclusion. Shepard may be down, but she's not out. She won't give up."

That's not what it looked like, from where Tali was standing. Anderson seemed to feel the weight of her thoughts, because he frowned at her. "Do you know how much that woman in there has sacrificed?" He shook his head, not waiting for an answer. "If she were going to give up, really give up, do you think she would've stood there, protecting her crewmates? Do you think she'd even have tried? Shepard set out to save the galaxy, even though she knew nobody really believed her." He took a deep breath, and shoved his hands in his pockets. "I believe her. Do you?"

Tali nodded.

"Good," said Anderson, "because she's going to need you, more than ever." He stared at the door. "She bounced back from Mindoir, even though it took her years. She'll bounce back from this too."

He was convinced. It was obvious to see.

Without a word, she turned and wandered down the hall, doing her best to stay out of the way of the nurses who ran back and forth, some covered in blood. She stopped before a door near the end of the hall, and saw Garrus on the bed, his armor cut off and thrown haphazardly in a corner for someone to deal with later.

Since there was nobody in the room, she entered, wringing her hands. Should she be in here? Probably not. Somebody would probably be by shortly to yell at her, but she didn't care. She pulled over a stool that had been exiled to the side of the room and sat down, taking Garrus' hand in hers. His breathing was shallow, heartbeat slow, but he was alive… No thanks to her.

Shepard would recover. Tali didn't doubt it, but she couldn't say the same for herself.

0-0-0

Before taking a seat on the Council, Sparatus had worked his way up through the hierarchy in one of the few ways a turian can: through military service. He'd been good at it, more than good, and so when the previous Councillor had decided, there'd been a vote among the highest ranked and somehow it was his name that got pulled. They knew he would do whatever was needed to protect his people, and the galaxy as a whole. His family had been ecstatic, and truth be told, so had he. Though he had to kiss his secret ambitions of being the Primarch goodbye, he shared power with the most influential committee in the galaxy, and that was no small feat.

He'd seen death, he'd seen war, but he'd never seen what he'd seen today.

It galled, to say the least, that this, this Shepard wannabe was right. More than that, everything else that came of her mouth took on a more sinister connotation. If she was right about Sovereign – and there was some part of him that continued to cling to disbelief, because although Saren's ship was impressive and although it had cut through the Citadel's defenses like a blade through flesh, there was really no concrete evidence yet – if she was right about him, then that meant…

He, Tevos and Valern had taken refuge in one of the many safe houses that dotted the Citadel. They hadn't known until they set out exactly where they were going, and decoys had been sent to various other locations for added security. At the time, Sparatus had been sure that these were all useless precautions, wasting time and money. Whoever this, this abomination was, she was surely playing with them, and there was no way she was as altruistic as she was trying to appear.

Sparatus had woken up in the middle of more than one night these past few weeks, gripped with the certainty that at any second, the krogan would find out about that bomb on Tuchanka and the galaxy would be plunged back into war.

Well, he'd been half right. The war seemed to have arrived, though it wasn't with the krogan.

The Council watched through those vid screens that were still operational. They saw the gigantic ship come through the arms of the Citadel, seize the controls and close them. And through grainy footage, they saw Shepard and her team run in right after him. If she'd been a turian, he might have been impressed. As it was, he was left with a looming uncertainty and a prospect he didn't want to consider: that she might be telling the truth.

Tevos had glanced at him, once, during their time in the safe house, when the Destiny Ascension had called for help over the comm. She hadn't said anything, and anyone who'd spent a little less time with her would think her face was completely blank. Sparatus had learned to intuit the asari's long hidden moods, to know when she huddled around her regret despite all appearances of cold calculus. In that look, as blank as her face was, it was clearly written, I believe her.

This opened up a whole new slew of questions, not the least of which being: what had Shepard been talking about, that first day she came to them, that had so convinced Tevos?

His ruminations were paused when they stepped outside the safe house after C-Sec had announced that all the geth had been terminated. The Citadel was no longer pristine, but instead littered with the broken, smouldering bits of the giant ship. As they exited onto the Presidium, Sparatus could see the damage that had been done, not just to the area surrounding the Council Tower, but also to the wards. The damage was greater than anything he could've predicted, and it made his skin itch, like it had suddenly grown several sizes too small.

"I do not know if Patient B is telling the truth," said Tevos slowly, taking a place at his side. "I do not know many things about her but… Surely it might be better to prepare, on the off chance?"

"And if she's wrong," said Valern from a few steps away, "if she's merely playing a long game, we look the fools."

Tevos breathed out sharply, and put a hand on Sparatus' arm. He jumped at the contact. There had been a time, what felt like forever ago, when he'd deeply admired Tevos. He wouldn't call it love, not that, but it had been close. He'd forced himself to shove those feelings down, far down, so that politics could win out, and so that he could stand against her if he needed to. They disagreed on many things, the latest of which was the benefit of humanity to the galaxy.

He opened his mouth to, well, he wasn't sure what. The Tower was smoking in the distance, bits of the structure tumbling down and smashing upon the ground.

"I would rather save our people than worry about looking like a fool," said Tevos.

Valern sniffed. "That's what we said about the krogan."

The salarian was right. After vanquishing the rachni, the krogan had grown into a threat they couldn't have predicted. There were still signs on Menae, if you knew where to look, of the last turian stand against krogan invasion. They'd saved the galaxy, and nearly doomed it in the same breath. Since then, the Council had always taken a seat of caution, Tevos more so than the others. Though the asari hadn't been troubled in the same way by the krogan, and though he didn't know for sure, there were conversations where Tevos spoke as though she remembered the Rachni Wars and the struggles with the krogan that followed.

"They were an entirely violent race," said Tevos. "She's only one human woman."

"That human woman has caused us no end of grief," said Sparatus, and it was difficult to keep the ire from his voice. "She set us against each other, destroyed entire species, and flagrantly disobeyed our orders."

"And yet," said Tevos, "she saved the Citadel."

He wanted to be petty, to say does it look like the Citadel was saved? The casualty reports had begun filing in, and they weren't insubstantial. But he knew that it could've been worse, much worse, regardless of whether Sovereign was this mythical Reaper Shepard seemed so convinced it was.

"They're going to demand a seat on the Council," he griped. "They're going to use this as a political move."

"Not if we give it to them first," said Tevos. "Then it appears as though we were gratefully awarding our saviors."

Sparatus liked the term our saviors not at all, but he couldn't deny it was close to the truth. More human ships had gone down in the Citadel's skies than any other. They'd been prepared, flooding through the mass relay and taking up the fight almost before C-Sec was aware there was a problem. Preliminary eyewitness reports also said that Alliance soldiers on the ground had taken up arms where Saren and his geth had supposedly sprung up from nowhere. While it disturbed him that the Alliance was so prepared to act behind the back of the Council, he had to admire their guts.

"We might be better able to control them on the Council," said Valern, rubbing his chin. "Humans like to act rashly. We might be able to curtail that instinct."

It seemed unlikely. "There will be those," cautioned Sparatus, "who take offense to the fact that humans get a Council seat while older races – the volus and the elcor primarily – have been patiently awaiting their seat for some time."

"Neither the elcor nor the volus have made substantial contributions to the welfare of the galaxy," argued Tevos. "Humans have."

"And if their ambassador is typical of their species," added Valern, "we should be able to control them better with the right application of ambition."

Sparatus was surprised that Valern was arguing in favour of this. He would've thought that the salarian would keep the humans away from any real power at all cost. They were growing in influence too quickly; they were little more than children who had just stepped out into the world for the first time, and yet they'd already decided that they were owed a significant portion of it just by virtue of existing. With that said, they had contributed men and resources to the protection of the Citadel, and had deliberately gone against the grain to ensure its protection. The turian in him chaffed at such willfulness, but the man, the man was almost impressed.

He nodded his assent. He still wasn't sure it was a good idea, but it would give the humans a vested interest in keeping Patient B under wraps. Just because no race had ever been kicked from the Council did not mean it couldn't happen for the first time. After all, there was something of a precedent with the quarians, though that had been an embassy and not a Council seat. Still, should the humans step too far out of bounds, it could be used as further ammunition against their inability to work with other races.

"We should go find Patient B," said Tevos, folding her hands in front of her. "She should be present when we make the announcement."

If only to mollify her, thought Sparatus.

0-0-0

Her life had taken a strange turn – stranger than was usual. Her mind had hard time coming to grips with her new reality, and her heart was even worse.

Things could be true, and not true at the same time.

True: she watched Garrus die.

True: she saved Garrus' life.

After weeks of pushing aside what she felt, her carefully erected walls had been blown away with Sovereign. She saw Garrus fall, and suddenly it wasn't a piece of Sovereign hurtling towards him, but that tank on the way to the beam and she did what she should've done the first time and saved him, and saved Tali (whatever happened to Tali, oh god) and she didn't give up on them and she didn't lose them. There had been too many people lost, probably more still if her future existed somewhere out there in the dark stretch of space, and in the end she'd been unable to save anyone.

Only, she had. She would. Kaidan was alive. Garrus was alive. Anderson was alive.

But in the cold, grief-worn clutches of her heart, they weren't. She could touch them, feel them, hear them, see them, but they floated like ghosts around her new reality. For a time, she'd used their memories to fight harder, faster, longer. She was going to win (this time) she was going to save everyone (this time), no matter what it took.

Her nature had become oil and water. There was water, pure, steadfast, able to carve out distances and see the big picture. Nourishing. Life. And then there was oil, which was needed for so many things, and upon which progress was built, bridges to better things. Refined until it could no longer be considered natural. Flammable. They floated together in the stream of her consciousness, never mixing together, floating side by side until she wasn't sure which she was any more: the oil, or the water?

As she lay in that hospital bed, pondering this, she couldn't help but recall the other her, the one who had died. Did heaven exist? Was it the same heaven that where she'd promised to meet Garrus? Would her Garrus – he was right behind her and then the explosion hit and she ducked out of the way and the noise was too much and she turned back and Liara reached for her, pleading, but behind her was Garrus and she could see on his face that he just knew – be met with a woman who didn't love him? Or were they two separate heavens? In which case, had the other Shepard gone to be with her family? And if so, would she, herself, the outsider, get to go to that first one, where Garrus would be? Or would she be relegated to this new one? Could there even be two Shepards in the same afterlife, or was there a quota?

And then, when she'd exhausted this train of thought, she remembered the Normandy blowing up, and the long realization that her air was escaping and the desperate need to breathe and the slow fall and the fact that there had never, ever been anything at all except darkness.

Shepard curled up on her side, bringing her knees to her chest. Someone had changed her clothes, put her in a hospital gown, but she couldn't remember who or when. Her body hummed with an electric pain, and she had a vague recollection of holding her barrier too long. She'd had the same pain after Elysium.

She pushed away that thought and took a deep breath. The first time around, she'd felt very little sympathy for Saren. He'd sold his soul to the devil, no matter how unwittingly, and though he'd taken his own life in the end, he'd never been more than a footnote in her history. That wasn't right. He should've been properly remembered as the first casualty of the war. After all, how different was he from her really? They were both stacked against the impossibility of the Reapers. He'd wanted to save his people, and he was prepared to do what he thought was necessary to do so. They were two sides of the same coin, except for the fact that Shepard had miraculously avoided indoctrination up until now.

She wondered now how much he'd known, how much Sovereign had shown him. If she'd seen the future without the context of her own experience, would she have taken his choice as well? Would she have become like the Illusive Man, hoping to control them? In the end, he hadn't been wrong – it was possible – but the cost was, she still thought, too high, and so was the risk. The Reapers were evidence that even the best of intentions could lead down a bloody path.

It was a lesson she kept learning for herself. But she couldn't stop. She couldn't stop because Garrus was both dead and not dead and though it hurt, that was vastly preferable to just dead.

There was a sharp taste of panic at the back of her throat, and she struggled to push it away. She'd already had one breakdown today, the aftereffects still lingering on her bones, and she did not need another.

There was a knock at the door and she shifted slightly. Anderson entered, wary, and closed it behind him. He sat next to her. "How are you doing?"

She closed her eyes. "Ask me tomorrow."

He folded his hands on her bed. "The Council is here. They would like to see you."

"Why?" asked Shepard. She was not in the mood for political maneuvering.

"I don't know," said Anderson, "but I expect it's a thank you."

"Don't hold your breath," said Shepard, and she couldn't keep the bitterness from squeezing out of her voice.

There was a pause, and she could almost feel Anderson composing his next sentence. "I don't think they'll wait until tomorrow."

Unfurling her body, she turned back onto her back and stared at the ceiling. "They're going to give us a seat on the Council," she said. "They want it to look like gratitude, like they're indulging us, but it's not. It's a token gesture."

"Udina?"

Shepard frowned and threw an arm over her eyes. "Did you know that I endorsed him the first go around? Yeah, he's a bastard, I thought, but he'll fight them and get them to listen by being a huge pain in the ass. I was an idiot." She did the closest thing she could manage to a laugh. "I should've appointed you, but I knew that you'd hate it. I'd just taken your ship, and I didn't want to strap you to a desk. I thought you'd be better help with your own crew."

Those words lifted into the air and then descended slowly, like ash in the breeze. She lifted her arm to glimpse at Anderson. He was leaning back in his chair, arms crossed, thoughtful. "You want me to be the human Councillor," he said.

"Can you think of anyone else?"

"How about anyone else?" Anderson's lips quirked when he said it, but his voice was anything but light.

He was the sort of person who believed that most problems could be accomplished with a dedicated team and the right application of force. Usually, he was right… when those problems happened to be out in the field. Politics was a very different game, and not one that interested him.

"I'd appoint Hackett if I thought there was even a chance he'd take it," said Shepard, "only we need a strong presence in the Alliance to sway them to our way of thinking. There are dozens of human politicians, but how far can we trust them? Do we tell them the truth about me? What if they have previous affiliations? What if they don't stand up to the Council?" She shook her head. "I'm willing to hear alternatives."

"You know that even if I take this position, I can't just fire Udina, correct?" said Anderson. "He would still be working for the Alliance, while I'd be an independent party. He could still feature prominently in the embassy."

"But he wouldn't have any real power," said Shepard, "and he'd be muzzled until I could figure out a way to get him discredited."

"I'm going to pretend I didn't hear that," said Anderson, though now his smile was more genuine. He sighed, running a hand over his hair. "I don't like it, but if it helps us destroy the Reapers, I'll accept your nomination." He stood. "I'll show them in and see you later."

When the Council came in, Shepard found herself once again in one of those true/not true situations. It was true that this was the second time they were announcing that they'd be adding humanity to the Council, but it was true that this was the first time they were announcing the same thing. She could nearly recite what they said, even though it had been so many years ago. Then Tevos announced that they would take suggestions for the appointment.

Udina, who had somehow managed to crawl his way into the meeting, levelled a significant expression in her direction. Shepard stared him down while she said, "Captain Anderson."

All three aliens blinked while Udina went an unattractive shade of purple. If her body felt less like it was deep underwater, she might even have laughed.

"Captain Anderson has no political experience," objected Udina.

"No," conceded Shepard, "but he does have experience leading in a time of war, and since that's what we're headed into, I can't think of anyone better to help prepare."

The Councillors seemed unsure what to do with this information. Finally, Tevos nodded and said, "We will take your recommendation under consideration, Commander." The asari smiled. "Thank you and congratulations on your victory."

"This wasn't a victory," said Shepard, "it was just a taste."

And since there wasn't anything else to say, the Councillors left to go, counsel or whatever it was they were going to do at this point. She waited for Udina to leave with them, but he lingered like a bad smell.

"I can understand why you would appoint someone you trust," said Udina, "but if you seek to advance your own agenda, you should know that Anderson has been less than consistent with his regard for you."

"It's not going to work," said Shepard. "I'm not going to change my mind."

"Shepard," he said, and it was the first time she could remember him addressing her by that name. His hands grasped the end of her bed. "I have put years into my political career. I know how these people think. I can get them to listen to me. Anderson will be flying blind. He has no idea how to maneuver the situation to our benefit."

"You know the best and worst part about being from the future?" said Shepard lightly. "That I know things other people don't." She pushed herself into more of a sitting position, though it hurt her back something fierce. She let all the friendliness, all the tactfulness melt off her face so he could see what she really thought of him. "The truth is, I wouldn't trust you with my houseplant, never mind the fate of our people. I know exactly what you're capable of."

Udina frowned, though there was a hint of uncertainty in the way he rearranged himself. "Shepard…"

"Do you want to know how you die, Udina?" asked Shepard, and though she couldn't see it, she knew her expression was stormy.

Most people didn't find her very intimidating on the first meeting. Most people who hadn't seen her in action figured she was just some new merc – good, but nothing to get worked up about. Of course, most of these people she'd met well before the Reaper war. During the war, Shepard had started breaking down her friendly image. It was a mixture of pure desperation and utter irritability. She hadn't had much experience looking into mirrors lately, and frankly she really had no urge to do so, but she could tell from the way that Udina backed off that she'd mastered the art of intimidation.

"Leave," she said.

As he scurried out of the room, Shepard realized that might have been a huge mistake, but she couldn't find any part of her that cared. Instead, she sank deep and gave herself over to the darkness of sleep.

0-0-0

Udina poured himself another drink and tried to figure out when it had all gotten out of hand. He'd done everything right, played every hand to maximize his chances for success, only to be stopped short by a Shepard clone that everyone suddenly seemed to trust. Well, Udina didn't. There were things that girl was hiding. Though she seemed to wear her heart on her sleeve, she had an agenda, and he wasn't entirely sure it was in anyone's best interest.

Her threat lingered like the ghost of an old slight. He downed his glass of gin. It had only been hours, but the memory of it had grown more pungent over time, like a wound that had become infected. What did she mean by that? Of course, he could pick up the inferred meaning – that she'd kill him if he did anything to interfere with her plans – but, assuming her story was true (and he still wasn't convinced), he considered what sort of woman this Shepard was.

The Commander Shepard he'd been introduced to after Eden Prime was idealistic to a fault and stubborn, but there'd been nothing of the cold calculus he'd seen in that hospital room today. Maybe that was it. Maybe Udina should've had her locked away for study from the beginning. They could have dissected her, figured out what made her tick, and ultimately forgotten her in some dark corner of the Citadel.

Of course, had they done so, at the very least there would've been a geth invasion of the Citadel and he might no longer be around. At the worst, were she telling the truth, they would've had ancient sentient machines coming to exterminate them all.

Killer AI from dark space. Honestly. It sounded like a bad pitch for a vid.

He needed to find a way to discredit her, especially in light of her recent victory. Gaining a Council seat for humanity had indeed been momentous news; hearing that he'd been usurped for the position by Anderson – a disgraced ex-Spectre and military man with absolutely no experience – had been enough to send all Udina's aspirations shattering down around him. There had to be some chink in her armor that he could exploit. Something. Anything.

Those idiots on the Council probably thought they were being proactive by offering humanity a seat on the Council before they could be asked for one. They didn't see how minutely they were being manipulated. If he thought they'd get the reference, he'd have sent them all fiddles.

He poured and downed another glass of gin and stared out over the charred and marked Presidium.

Maybe he could bypass the Council altogether and have her arrested by the Alliance. She'd broken half a dozen regulations (that they knew of), and she wasn't technically a Spectre in the truest sense of the word. Though she'd been found on the Presidium, impersonating an Alliance official carried heavy penalties in human space. Udina had powerful contacts. If he could talk to them about the threat she posed, he might have a chance to have her taken out of the game. Anderson would still, unfortunately, probably take the new seat on the Council, but at least he wouldn't have his little puppet master guiding his decisions.

She'd nearly been pathetic in that bed, and only her eyes had saved her… Her eyes and her scars. He didn't know what had caused them – his information on exactly what had happened up in the tower with Saren was sketchy at best – but they were certainly disconcerting to behold.

His door chimed, and Udina snapped out of his introspection. He brought up his omni-tool and patched into his security vid feed. There was a lonely volus waiting outside.

"Whatever you want," said Udina, "I'm not interested."

The volus looked up, right at the camera though it was supposed to be impossible to spot. "Ambassador Udina," he said, with the typical hiss and click of the volus, "I work for someone very powerful. He has a proposition for you."

Udina paused. "Is it someone with the Council?"

"No."

"Then piss off." Perhaps not the friendliest of goodbyes, but Udina was feeling anything but friendly.

"Pity," said the volus. "I was under the impression that you were the sort who would do whatever it took to safeguard your interests. My employer thought you both had that in common."

"Who did you say you work for?"

"Not someone that can be openly discussed," said the volus. He gave a little bow. "I'm a mere financier. However, if you'd like to chat about it further, I've a nice little shop on the Presidium. Sadly damaged, after the events of today, but I have no doubt the Keepers will have it up and spotless in no time. If you find that you'd rather take a proactive approach instead of swilling alcohol on your lonesome, please, do not hesitate to stop by. Ask for Barla Von."

Udina paused mid-pour and turned to check his omni-tool but the volus had vanished. Scanning his apartment, his nerves taut, he searched for any indication of hidden cameras. He saw nothing, but he wasn't content with that answer, and so spent the next hour tearing apart the room. He found nothing, coming to sit with his back to his couch.

It was bad news to get tied in with information brokers, or worse, gangsters. Such liaisons looked bad under the limelight. He should forget about the entire incident, especially since someone had bugged his apartment. He was left distinctly uneasy.

And yet… and yet…

Though she hadn't laughed or even smiled, Udina had felt something of Shepard's delight in his exile from the spotlight. Anderson hadn't even been present, but now he was being elevated to one of the most powerful positions in the galaxy after disobeying his orders and assaulting an Alliance official. This could not stand.

He wouldn't go too quickly. That would show how desperate he was for retribution. Once your enemies know your weaknesses, they can exploit them. Standing, he put the bottle away and instead went to take a shower.

In the morning, he'd surreptitiously ask his staff what they knew about this Barla Von.

Wanted there to be more to this chapter. The "deleted scenes" word doc I saved can attest to that. I'll leave you with this for now. We're nearing the end of Act I - a few more chapters to go!