((AN: I don't know where this came from. I wasn't feeling my main fic, so I sat down to write something else, and this came out. Very much AU, even for my own stories.))

They met in a coffee shop just off Shalta Ward, with water from the garden sprinklers running like rain down the drawn plastic windows. It spattered with aggravating monotony as the timing gear brought it around. Inside, it was warm and slightly humid from the press of bodies, and the din of their conversations did much to hide the specific words of the two people seated near the entrance with untouched cups laid out before them.

At first glance, they might have been a young couple on a first date, the handsome marine in his service uniform, fresh off his last shift at the Alliance outpost, and the dark-haired woman with the svelte haircut and expensive briefcase. But a longer one would reveal the caution of the woman in the way she folded her hands, and the suspicion of the man by the tightness of his jaw. They bent their heads together across the table, a false intimacy evoked by a need for privacy. Neither was comfortable meeting in a less public location.

"You've got ten minutes," he said.

She smoothed her hands against the table. "Commander Alenko, I represent-"

"I know who you are," he interrupted. "I don't need to tell you how badly it would go for me if anyone saw us here. So say your piece and hope it convinces me not to call C-Sec down on you. I've got an old friend who works there."

"We'll skip the preliminaries. Fine." She folded her hands again. "I have some information regarding your former C.O. which might interest you."

That caught him off-guard. He thought himself prepared for anything. After being reassigned to counter-terrorism aboard the Citadel following the abrupt end of his previous posting, he became quite an armchair expert on this particular organization. He licked his lips and glanced away, out the window, to hide the lingering signs of grief from this woman who did not deserve to see it and would absolutely use it against him. "She died eighteen months ago. What new information could possibly exist?"

But his mind was already narrowing the possibilities. The first, of course, was that the strange ship which attacked the SR-1 over Alchera was a Cerberus vessel, but the notion was dismissed just as quickly. There was no chance they had the funding to build something so large or advanced, not when they made their way by stealing every bit of interesting research they ran across and testing it against the bounds of ethics and decency. Several other ideas grew and faltered, until he hit on one that seemed depressingly likely.

He shot her a glare, suddenly angry. "If you're holding her body, I strongly suggest you return it to her parents. I have a long memory for that kind of indecency."

"Close, but not quite." She reached down into her briefcase and withdrew a datapad, cuing up a photograph and sliding it over the table. "It's not her body. It's her."

He studied her a long moment, measuring, before picking up the datapad and glancing at the contents. His hand went to his mouth. He stared.

"I apologize for the graphic nature of the image. It's taken us well over a year to make her look that good. Your commander was an utter mess when she came into my care."

Shepard lay on a table, a hundred tubes running out her limbs like worms burrowed into the flesh. Her hair was gone. Raw, ugly scars crawled over her skin, some of them freshly stitched with rude black sutures. But there were two things in particular which caught his attention: one, the blue eyes staring comatose into the camera with none of the liveliness he remembered so clearly that it cut him to see the difference, and two, the monitor in the background displaying a healthy, beating heart.

"What the hell is this?" he breathed, unable to look away. It was grotesque and compelling and raised too many questions to easily sort out.

"My organization, despite its differences with yours, has always held the advancement of the human race as our central mission." She nodded at the datapad. "With Shepard's death, we lost our only spectre, and a woman not only equal to the most challenging of tasks, but with the even rarer ability to inspire and lead."

She paused. "And with the reapers' intentions now fully exposed by her work, we need every resource at our disposal available for the coming war."

His eyes jerked back to her. "You believe the reapers exist."

"As do you." She shrugged. "My boss has been fighting them longer than anyone, even Shepard, though until she heard the beacon's message and defeated Sovereign, it wasn't clear what exactly was being fought, or the stakes of the battle. It's only recently that he's made some of that history available to select operatives."

"Or so he says."

"I trust him. There's nothing I could say to convince you, I know."

Alenko looked back at the picture. It was easier a second time. "I ask you again- what is this?"

"We did locate her… remains. It was not an easy task." She grimaced faintly, as if burying an unpleasant memory. "After that, it was down to pushing the limits of modern medicine. We've enjoyed a good deal of success, though as you can see, there's still a long road ahead."

He set it down. "For the sake of argument, let's say I believe this is real." His doubt was plain, but he continued. "Why exactly are you bringing this to me?"

She blinked twice. "I was given the impression that you were romantically involved. Were my sources mistaken?"

Lying in bed with her just after they woke, her hair fanned out over the pillow and her face so close he could count the freckles on her cheeks. Her hand warm around his. That smile, just for him. He closed his eyes, briefly. "Your organization doesn't go in for goodwill gestures, Ms. Lawson. What do you want from me?"

"Your help." She sounded exasperated, as if it was all terribly obvious and she had to lead the slow student by the hand. "You know Shepard as well as anyone. It goes without saying that years spent in a coma can create psychological distress."

"Not nearly as much as waking up in the custody of people who did to her what you did on Akuze, and all the rest of it back in '83. Those are just the ones we know about."

Miranda straightened and flicked her hair over her shoulder. "Akuze was a long time ago."

"She lived with it every day."

"If that's what you believe, do you want her to wake up there alone?"

He pressed his lips together, took in the awful image a third time, and squared his shoulders. "You have an agenda here. What are you doing to her?"

"Other than saving her life? Nothing."

"I don't believe you," Alenko said flatly.

"I don't expect blind faith." She reached over and flicked to a new screen, one showing a travel itinerary for five days hence. "We've booked you flights out to the edge of the Traverse. From there, our people will escort you. You can investigate her treatment for yourself."

"And let you trap me out in the Terminus somewhere? I don't think so."

"I'm not going to give you the coordinates of the facility, but tell anyone you like. Call anyone you like. Surely you have some mutual friends with a vested interest in the outcome, ones who wouldn't let you vanish." Miranda rose from her seat. "There's no obligation. If you want more information, be on that flight. If you like what you see, we can negotiate from there."

"Give me one reason why I shouldn't take this datapad to my superiors as soon as you leave."

She arched a single eyebrow. "Because on the off chance that I'm not full of bullshit, you want us to succeed as badly as we do. You want her back. Like it or not, your Alliance would simply shut us down." Miranda nodded. "A pleasure meeting you, Commander. I hope we can come to a mutually beneficial arrangement."

Alenko lingered in the coffee shop for the better part of an hour, his untouched drink growing increasingly cold. The datapad contained additional information. There was a timeline with medical milestones, a selection of recent biometrics, and several other images. The possibility that she was alive was almost too much to process, after living with a grief so deep and persistent it seemed a part of him now, like his legs or his laugh. At the same time, it was too tantalizing to ignore. After so many months of fighting them, he knew the depths Cerberus would plumb to accomplish their goals, and this was textbook emotional manipulation. He'd be crazy to go.

But on the other hand, this brand of mad science, literally raising the dead, was exactly the sort of thing Cerberus would try. It was exciting, unprecedented, dangerous, and amoral. If that was Shepard, what Miranda called medical care others might deem torture. It didn't look like so much as a centimeter of her body escaped the attentions of a surgeon's knife. There was no telling how much of that would stay with her after she awoke. If she awoke.

Alenko couldn't recall much of the first few months after he watched her die. One day followed the next, plodding, inevitable, without leaving an impression. It was like the world ended and nobody bothered to notice. His job performance suffered. Eventually, he couldn't hide it anymore. He was on the verge of being retired from combat duty when Anderson intervened with this posting, hoping he could find some measure of purpose. It worked. In witnessing the perversion of Cerberus and others, seeing the way they destroyed homes and spread like a cancer wherever they took root, he was reminded why he enlisted. That Cerberus was the closest thing Shepard had to a mortal enemy helped. By even considering this offer, he betrayed all of that.

But by not considering it, he might betray Shepard herself.

He left the café and began to make some calls.

/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\

Alenko was shocked by the size of the station beyond the shuttle ports as they made their final approach.

It must have shown on his face, because the young soldier escorting him chuckled, easily. He introduced himself as the head of security for the station and explained that Operative Lawson requested he make Alenko's trip as comfortable as possible. The VIP treatment rankled. Alenko recognized it for the bribe it was.

Jacob folded his arms and sat back on his heel. "A little more than you expected?"

"You could say that." He drifted closer to the port, curious despite himself. "You could have a staff of a hundred here, easy."

"A hundred and seven," he said with pride. "Plus the mechs and the other automated equipment. Nothing but the best."

"I suppose you can afford the best when you're buying it with other people's money."

"We're mostly funded by donations-"

"Donations don't get you the billions of credits you need to run an op like this." His tone left no room for uncertainty.

Jacob sidestepped it altogether. "I'm not a finance guy. Here, we're either security or science. The Terminus has its share of pirates and warlords who'd love to their hands on this kind of facility."

The shuttle entered the docking bay and set down smoothly, with barely a bump. The pilot had some skill. Miranda was waiting as the hatch slid open. "Welcome, Commander. I'm glad to see you reconsidered."

"It took some doing to get leave on such short notice, and I had to lie to my C.O., but I'm here," he said shortly. "This better not be a waste of time."

"Of course." She put a hand on her hip and glanced around with an air of expectation. "It's been a long trip. Would you prefer to settle in first, or shall we get right to it?"

"I want the proof you promised me."

"Very well." She turned and started walking, her heels clicking against the linoleum floor. "I anticipated that might be your response, and so we've made appropriate preparations."

The station was a tall, oval pillar, at least twenty decks, but comparatively narrow. The hallway transected the long axis and led to a central elevator column. The walls were transparent. As they rose, Alenko saw flashes of laboratories outfitted with all manner of equipment, as well as crew quarters and a security station. The staff didn't glance up from their work as the elevator slid by. Miranda seemed content to ride in silence, and Alenko didn't have anything to say. It had been a long trip, debating the wisdom of accepting the invitation, and now that it was so close to an end, his stomach was tied in knots. He was about to confront either the most disappointing or most extraordinary moment of his life.

The elevator chimed softly. There were no windows on this hall. Miranda looked over her shoulder. "Follow me."

The floor seemed deserted, an empty expanse of white walls and gray floors washed in harsh florescent light. The echo of their footsteps and the occasional hiss of the station ventilation were the only sounds. Eventually, she paused before a door and input thumbprint and a numeric code. The hatch rolled open on oiled tracks.

Inside, the room was small, with fresh stacks of surgical gowns stowed neatly in their hypoallergenic wrappers, and a deep sink stood beside a full-body airlock. Miranda handed him various pieces of kit. "I'm afraid at this stage, the patient's surgeries are continual. We must maintain a strict clean room environment for the sake of her health."

Methodically, his mind somewhere else, he washed up and pulled on the necessary clothing. The mask was last. He slipped it over his ears. Miranda gestured towards the airlock. "I won't intrude on such a delicate moment, but I do ask that you not touch anything. Our equipment is sensitive. The intercom system can convey any requests or questions you might have."

He nodded, his throat too tight with anxiety to speak, and stepped forward. The door closed behind him. There was a rush of cold air as the clean system removed any lingering trace of the world beyond this room from his body, and then the inner hatch slid aside.

There was nothing in the room but blinking machines and the woman prone on the table.

She'd been moved since the photography session. Now her face tilted towards the ceiling, and her eyes were shut. Her arms lay limp beside her, a gingerbread woman, lifeless and unnatural save for the steady rise and fall of her chest. Judging by the oxygen line secured beneath her nose, her breathing was independent, he was surprised to note. Apparently the tube crawling out of her mouth was for some other purpose, instrumentation access, perhaps.

Alenko spent the first several minutes lingering on the clinical details, calming himself. It was somehow both more awful and less gruesome than the photos conveyed. But after awhile he could no longer avoid confrontation with the only question that mattered. He approached the table.

In the pictures, she wore a hospital gown to cover her modesty. Now, he was faintly disgusted to see a thin sheet serving the same purpose, as if it was too much trouble to move the gown every time they needed to perform a procedure. Whatever she was, she was owed more dignity than that.

He didn't know what he expected. He wasn't a doctor, or a scientist; how could he begin to verify the woman before him was actually Shepard, and not a clone, or a composite, or some kind of fancy organic VI? With some chagrin he realized the question never occurred to him while in transit. He assumed he would walk in the room and just know, that her authenticity would be obvious once he was close enough to see and touch her. But of course that was ridiculous.

One thing was certain. Scars and other cosmetic damage aside, this woman was identical to Shepard. Same height, same face, same proportions- he noted the electric stimulators attached at various points to her body, preventing muscular wasting. He hesitantly reached for her hand, and it was as warm and comfortable as he recalled. Once he did, he found he didn't want to let go.

There was a stool wedged in between the medical equipment, presumably for the comfort of the researchers. He perched upon it, careful not to disturb the complex network of tubes and sensors, holding her hand and feeling both foolish and desperate. He wanted so badly for this to be real. But Alenko learned at a young age that wishes were useless.

He thought he'd have a million questions, pointed inquiries designed to either prove Miranda a liar or ferret out Cerberus' agenda, but they could not withstand the power of this room and died unvoiced. He lost track of how long he sat there, holding onto the one bit of her he could reach without interrupting her treatment and soaking up the sight of her.

When his heart grew too full to continue, he gently set her hand back on the sheet, and cycled through the airlock.

Miranda, ever patient, still waited in the prep room. She raised her eyes from her omni-tool as he cleared the hatch.

He moved the mask aside and took a breath. "Alright. Show me."

"Let's go back to my office." She snapped the holograph shut. "It's far more comfortable and I can access all of the data from there."

Miranda's workroom adjoined her quarters, occupying the entire uppermost floor of the station, which narrowed as it rose. The office sat directly beneath the apex with a spectacular view of the cosmos above. It was decorated with the same severity as their occupant, in simple white and black with the occasional touch of Cerberus orange. They settled into comfortable chairs tucked into a corner across from the massive desk, and Miranda offered him a drink, which he declined. She twisted the cap off a bottle of sparkling water and took a sip before jumping in. "I'm sure you have a lot of theories about how we're deceiving you. Which would you like to address first?"

"The most obvious. How do I know that's not a clone?"

"I hoped that would be the one." Miranda smiled. "It's easily disproved."

She flipped open a terminal set on the table between them. "First, of course, is that clones are grown in large tubes or vats, where they can be surrounded by a nutrient bath. There's no need to subject them to progressive surgeries."

"That could be staged," he said neutrally. There was no need to comment on the horror of carving up a living being just to put on a show.

"More compelling are the telomere data." She swung the screen around to face him. "Telomeres are attachments protecting the ends of chromosomes during cell replication and gradually shorten over an individual's lifespan."

Half-remembered lessons from high school science trickled back. Biology was never his strong suit. He was more drawn to computers. "A clone's telomeres are longer?"

"Correct. A clone hasn't undergone nearly the same amount of cell replication and replacement as an actual thirty-one-year-old human." Miranda pointed at the screen. "Here you have samples from Shepard herself. And here are samples taken from cloned organ tissue we grew to repair her body. As you can see, the cloned telomeres are substantially longer."

The cynic in him warned that he lacked the expertise to evaluate any of this data. But Alenko was also forced to admit that if it was a fabrication, it was damned elaborate. "How did you find the body?"

"It's a long story. But to summarize, we got a tip that her remains were recovered by the shadow broker, on the behalf of an alien race we know as the Collectors, apparently payment for a favor owed. We also learned the body might still be viable. I was dispatched with instructions to recover her by any means necessary. I succeeded."

"I can't help but feel that you're glossing over the details."

"I am." She sighed and shook her head. "I don't expect trust, not right away. But this project is the primary focus of my life, and that's not likely to change in the near future. I'm deeply invested in seeing it through. You're here because I convinced my boss you could be irreplaceably useful to the project. I'm not your enemy."

The lack of real information layered on top of the hard sell irritated him. "Who is your boss? Do you report directly to the Illusive Man, or are there intermediaries?"

"All in good time." Again, that smile, that set his teeth on edge. "Let's hear your next theory. I'm eager to exhaust every doubt."

The conversation continued for several hours, until his head began to spin and Miranda suggested they break for the night. He was escorted to a private room. Though small, it offered every amenity. Someone went to great lengths to impress him favorably, right down to his preferred brand of soap. All it felt like was a set-up.

He checked his email before going to sleep, and was faintly surprised to find it unblocked by Cerberus system protocols. Garrus was his chosen point of contact, and he sent a brief, nonspecific message indicating he arrived but didn't have anything to report yet. If anything, the turian responded with even more suspicion than Alenko when he explained the trip. Alenko was grateful for that doubt, an anchor back to reality if his hope ran away with him.

The next few days passed in a similar fashion. With and without Miranda, Alenko poured over the project records and grilled the scientists. They always had an answer. It was either true or the biggest fraud he'd ever seen, and at some point, he realized that the probing was pointless. There was nothing they could say or demonstrate that would erase that last drop of suspicion.

He visited Shepard. The lead doctor, a man named Wilson, methodically explained her current status in detail, though with an edge of disdain. It was obvious that the doctor found such tourism a waste of his time and talent. Nonetheless, Alenko took meticulous mental notes. More than once, he caught himself asking how a particular procedure would affect her once she was out of the coma, as if it was a certainty rather than a question mark. The medical team's confidence was infectious.

At long last, when he could think of nothing further, he abandoned the medical inquisition, and found himself back in Miranda's office with an entirely different line of questioning.

She was amused. "I admit I began to think we'd never assuage your curiosity."

"I'm satisfied for now." He sat back and crossed his arms. "But I still don't know why you went to all this effort. You don't have to convince me she's extraordinary, but she's still only one person."

"I thought we went over this. Shepard is iconic. Cerberus is… unpopular. It limits our ability to serve humanity in particular spheres. The Illusive Man believes Shepard is essentially to solving the reaper dilemma, and he puts his money where his mouth is."

"But you still haven't told me what it is you want her to do." Alenko's frustration showed.

"What she does best. Our goals are aligned. She's served humanity her entire life. We can give her resources, ones even the Alliance can't match, and a freer prerogative than she ever enjoyed under military command."

"She'll never work for Cerberus," he said flatly.

"I think Shepard always does what's necessary to complete her mission. Do you disagree?" Miranda raised an eyebrow.

Alenko looked away.

"I've no doubt she would refuse to compromise her principles, but that doesn't mean we can't be useful to one another." She put a finger to her lips. "I could say the same of you."

"Me?" He was startled.

"We've had our eye on you a long time. You're a talented soldier- intelligent, dedicated, capable. There's a mistaken assumption that we hate the Alliance. Many of our best operatives, including Jacob and others you've met during your stay, are ex-Alliance. We simply believe an Alliance bound by legalities and diplomacy cannot fully execute its duty to our species."

At first he was furious, rising from his chair. She watched him impassively as he paced. Then, abruptly, the other shoe dropped and he felt simply ill. "This is it. This is the real reason you brought me here. None of it was about helping Shepard- she's bait."

"It is about helping Shepard," Miranda insisted. "If I didn't think you would be useful in that regard, I would never have gone to all this trouble. But it's not as if it would occupy all your time. She won't even be awake for at least another four months."

"I do your dirty work, abandon my sworn duty, and in exchange you let me monitor her care." He didn't know whether to laugh in her face or punch it. "I took an oath to defend the Alliance."

She waved a hand, dismissive. "Oaths are broken all the time. What matters is principle. What matters is the mission. Do you honestly believe that the Alliance is preparing for the reapers? Is there anything else in the galaxy that matters right now beside that?"

"I can't believe I'm hearing this." He ran a hand over his hair. "This must be what it feels like to go mad."

"It's true that sometimes a cell gets… out of hand. It's a price we pay for an organizational structure that allows us to be discreet, efficient, and invisible. Much as the Alliance pays for its bureaucracy and lofty morals with sluggish adaptation. They're not representative of the whole of our organization."

"No." He shook his head. "We're not discussing this."

She sat back and crossed her legs, her arms resting easily on the chair. "Can you tell me the Alliance has no atrocities or mistakes in its past? You yourself were a victim, as a child. You know I'm right."

"The difference is accountability. The Alliance is accountable to the public, and to our elected officials." He jabbed a finger at her. "Cerberus is accountable to one man with an excess of money and ambition."

"I'd consider our offer carefully." Miranda's calm gaze never wavered. "One cannot serve two masters. You're in, or you're out. No exceptions."

He scoffed. "You'd let me just walk away?"

"We're not bogeymen. The project would go forward without your involvement." The words hung in the air with hefty finality. They meant that if he left, he threw away his only chance to see Shepard again- touch her, hear her. Hold her. His arms ached at the mere thought of it.

For long months of denial, he wished for exactly this, an unlikely miracle or stroke of fate that would render the declaration of her death premature. Sometimes, he imagined it so clearly that he was half-convinced it really happened and he was only waiting to discover it. The phase passed, but the faint, fading hope never entirely died. He never expected the hand that offered it to belong to Cerberus.

Wild ideas crossed his mind. At this point, he was familiar with the station's layout. He imagined escaping with her, blasting a way through the defenses and stealing a shuttle, though he knew there was no chance Shepard would survive the experience. Or telling Miranda to shove her offer, informing the Alliance what he learned, and returning here with a small armada- but he had no idea where the station was, and could not begin to guess. Or even pretending to join up, and pulling off a double-blind, just until he could find a way to get Shepard out. That seemed the worst idea of all. Even if he could convince Miranda, who was too cunning for anyone's good, his superiors would never agree to the plan. Shepard just wasn't that valuable to the Alliance.

As if echoing his thoughts, Miranda said, "We brought her back after your Alliance declared her dead. They didn't even search very hard for the body. Their relationship with the Terminus Systems was more important than sending a few ships to recover her remains and bring peace to her survivors."

For some reason, just then he thought of lying with Shepard in dark, en route to Ilos, aware that fraternization was nothing compared to mutiny but feeling the violation all the same. Knowing it was deeper than that, too, that despite all declarations that nothing could change everything had changed, from the role their feelings played in Ash's death to the way they held each other through that night, afraid of death for the first time in many years because suddenly there was all the world to lose. He loved her so deeply and completely, more than he ever believed he was capable of feeling for another person.

But they survived Ilos, and the Battle of the Citadel. When he saw her climb out from under half the ceiling, in a way the fear died, because what was there left to survive? The mission was over. They were victorious. That same complacency allowed the final assault to sneak up on him and tear out his heart while he wasn't looking and if he closed his eyes he could still feel it, raw and bloody under the skin.

He swore he wouldn't leave the ship without her and then less than a minute later did exactly that, because he trusted she could survive anything. No surprise attack from a mystery ship would kill Commander Shepard. The very idea sounded like the beginning of a punchline, like something Joker would tell when the haul between systems got especially long. "Did you hear the one about the time the commander's ship blew up? She grabbed onto a wing and rode it like a heat shield all the way down and said it was just like surfing a wave."

He left because she ordered him to, and Alenko followed orders. What would she tell him to do now? What would she want him to do?

Alenko licked his lips and glanced back at the quiet woman waiting in the chair. "Can I see her?"

Though disappointed by the loss of momentum, Miranda concealed it gracefully. "Of course."

They arrived at the prep room. He pulled on the paper protectors, the gloves and the mask. The air lock performed its function. Alenko sat by Shepard and took up her hand, as he'd done so many times these last few days, so often that he'd started to take it for granted again.

His heart was like a stone, hard and heavy and dense, a foreign mass in his chest. He felt old as time and twice as tired.

He looked down at her. Her face stared blankly into the lights. There was not a trace of conscious thought upon it, not so much as a hint of a dream.

Shepard's expression behind the transparent mask of the breather helmet was etched in his brain, lit by the fires in the ship's battery and her own inner fierceness, fury that anyone dared attack her ship and hurt her people matched by an ironclad determination to ensure everyone made it to the escape pods. Her eyes were always so intensely expressive. He remembered them the most, that gaze that could pin a rampaging krogan to the wall. He loved that about her- like so many other things.

"I miss you," he said. The woman on the table gave no response. His voice broke. He buried his face in his free hand.

There were other memories, too. The shock and nausea when Toombs shot himself. The disgust as they stalked through the laboratories of Nepheron, uncovering one horror after another. Finding Kahoku's body, tossed aside like garbage. The signs written across the galaxy indicating Cerberus was not only following Saren's research, but replicating it.

There was so much pain. They stood together through it. Pulled each other through it, sometimes. It seemed like yesterday and an entire age ago, all at once. They carried it in the marks on their faces and the way they touched each other, each contact carrying its own moment and all the others behind it, until a mountain of shared moments made up this incredible thing to which they gave the clinical name "relationship" because no word could ever truly fit.

He left her on the ship. It haunted him. How could he have done that? Why hadn't he followed her to the bridge? Because she ordered him to leave? Was that absolution, or just an excuse?

She had no voice now to tell him to do anything.

Shepard didn't want to survive if it meant leaving anyone behind. She lived that before on Akuze, and again on Virmire, and that day she threw away her life to get Joker out. Her choice, the last one she ever got to make. Alenko had been furious with Joker for weeks afterwards, until he realized it was only because he couldn't bring himself to be angry at her, for being so selfishly selfless that she got herself killed.

He could almost hear her in his head now, telling him to go, no matter how much he wanted to stay. Even if it meant she woke up as some kind of Cerberus puppet. Even if it meant she never woke up at all.

I'm not leaving, he thought, an echo of that day, just as reactionary and as futile. I can't walk away again.

It was the wrong answer. Even comatose, he could feel the weight of her judgment and her revulsion. She wouldn't want to be saved, not if the cost was helping them. Not if it meant betraying every value they shared, the duty they swore, and the people they protected.

It would have been funny if his heart weren't breaking. She was always the one teasing him about being too duty-bound and loyal to a fault, insisting he needed to learn how to relax.

Alenko raised her fingers to his lips and kissed them, watching her for a long, final moment, and left without looking back, because it would have been unbearable.

In the prep room, as he tore off the protective covering and tossed it into the incineration bin, Miranda could not contain her impatience. "Have you made a decision? We haven't even started to discuss salary arrangements-"

"Take me home," he interrupted.

Her mouth snapped shut. It seemed, at long last, he managed to catch the operative off guard. "Really?"

"Yes." He didn't elaborate. He couldn't bear to, even if she deserved it.

"Alright. We're good as our word." She frowned. "I'm sorry we won't be working together."

He threw away the final item, the last rubber glove, and wiped his hands on his pants as though they were dirty. This place felt foul despite its scrupulously clean interior. It was a cloud pressing down around him and he suddenly couldn't wait to leave. "I'm not."

The shuttle departed within the hour. He rode in silence, staring out the port into the void. He didn't trust himself to speak. He didn't trust himself to think. His body felt hollow as a drum.

Jacob grew uncomfortable with the quiet about thirty minutes in and took a stab at conversation. "I have to say I'm surprised. I don't think I could have done it- walked away like that. The Alliance is lucky to have your loyalty."

"Go to hell," Alenko said, and they were the emptiest words he ever spoke.