Chapter Twelve

CRACK.

The head of a batarian exploded in a shower of blood and viscera, his body dropping heavily to the stained ground. Clara kept her hands steady as her sniper rifle cooled, focusing in on her next target. The instant she could avoid an overheat she let off a shot, watching as it slid through his throat and effectively sliced his windpipe. He fell to the floor, gurgling on his own blood, and she did not put him out of his misery. Her sight moved on, and another bullet slid through the gut of another slaver.

There was a certain amount of satisfaction gained from mindlessly mowing down batarian after batarian. It was simplicity in its purest form – sight, focus, shoot, cool. Rinse and repeat.

The batarian slave ring they were currently destroying was exceptionally large – it was why the Hierarchy had assigned the job to Nihlus. For once, he didn't go off on his own. He kept with the team, kept his six covered. Specifically, ordered Clara to keep his six cleared.

Nihlus took the lead, fighting with pistol and fists and mowing through unsuspecting slavers who were often trained for little more than the standard point and shoot. Meriones and Creion kept further back, assault rifles aimed and firing at regular intervals. Though they had easily killed thirty or more batarians, there was still a good number left to fell. It made her anxious.

She wondered how Garrus did it – holed up for a week straight, combating wave after wave of mercs. Even if they were rookies, the simple act of zooming in on their vitals and watching as your bullet tore through their flesh and took their lives was completely and utterly draining. It was mind numbing horror, something she got so used to that she didn't even notice the small part of her still very much aware screaming at her to feel again. To feel remorse. To care.

But she didn't. She couldn't. It was like she had turned that part of her off and she forgot where the password was to turn it back on.

"Clara, you've got three batarians headed up to your level," Creion warned her. Clara cursed under her breath and pulled herself to her feet, collapsing her rifle and slinging it on her back before pulling her pistol free. Some days, like these, she wished she was better with a shotgun so she could just mow people down with a flick of the trigger.

She knew that wasn't really how it worked, but right now the only satisfaction she felt was each time her shot took one of those bastards.

When the sounds of footsteps reached her ears she initiated her cloak and waited, watching as the three slavers approached her nest. Two on the left, one on the right, all armed with the standard pistol. One had a shotgun strapped to his lower back, the other two had assault rifles.

Right. Eliminate the first two, then go one-on-one. Easy enough.

She took silent steps towards the two, positioning herself behind them before pointing her pistol at the back of their heads. Two shots, one after the other, and the dropped to the floor as her tactical cloak deactivated. Their third member spun around, pistol aimed and ready to fire, but Clara was fast. She dove behind a crate, letting the thick metal absorb the impact of the batarians slugs and her mind formulate her next plan.

She uncurled and fired, shots slamming into his shields, but he seemed equally unwilling to ease up. As her shields hit 10% she ducked back behind the protection of the crate. She barely let it hit halfway before she popped up again. She froze with her finger on the trigger.

He was gone.

A pistol slammed against the back of her head, causing stars to erupt across her vision and making her stagger to the side. A quick kick at her back sent her to the floor with a heavy thunk, and an instant later the batarian was on top of her with the barrel of his gun pressed to her forehead.

"You lost half of our property," he said, flexing his fingers as four eyes blinked at her. "You're going to replace them."

"Like hell I am," she growled. Her mind flashed back to an old spar, when Tito had her pinned very much like this and a quick twist of her hips had the position reversed. Guilt fueled her movements, her arm lashing out and slapping the pistol away from her head. It fired too late, the slug slamming into the floor, and a quick thrust of her hips had them rolling over.

She moved quickly, using the butt of her weapon as a bludgeon and slamming it into the head of the batarian. His fingers grappled for purchase, digging into her arms while his lower body attempted to dislodge her. The hits were furious, bruising his skin and sending shockwaves of pain through his body, and his attempts to dislodge her were almost pathetically weak. A faint buzzing echoed in her ears but she forced it away, focusing on disabling the batarian under foot.

She lost count of the number of times she slammed the weapon into his face, rage clouding her vision as it was, and she didn't remember when he stopped moving. She forced herself to stop, yanking herself away from his body and staring down at the unrecognizable face of her victim. Bile inched up her throat and she forced it down.

The buzzing increased and she realized that it was her comm. She swallowed and forced her attention on it, "Sorry, what was that?"

"Spirits, Clara, next time you go silent at least let us know you're alive," Creion snapped. "Did you eliminate the threat?"

Her eyes drifted to the body at her feet and she nodded. "Yeah, yeah. I'm clear."

"Good. Get back on your rifle – this is the last wave."

She murmured an affirmative, not allowing herself a moment to linger as she pulled her sniper rifle free and quickly reestablished her nest. She didn't dare look at the corpse at her side, looking into the scope and mapping out the enemy. About fifteen batarians left, heavily armed and taking cover between sturdy crates that could likely withstand the fire of a grenade launcher, let alone the teams slugs.

She breathed in, ignoring the bitter smell of batarian blood that clung to the air, and found her target. She exhaled, and the crack of her sniper rifle echoed through the room as her shot slid through the forehead of her target. Quick and clean.

Time passed quickly after that. She easily fell back into the pattern. Breath, sight, focus, cool. Rinse and repeat.

The last slaver fell and Clara pulled herself to her feet, using her sniper rifle for purchase before she collapsed it and slid it into place on her back. She panicked, her heart leaping in her throat, as Nihlus made his way too her. She quickly kicked the batarian onto his front, shame crawling over her skin like a thousand tiny insects.

"Get to the shuttle," he ordered. "Boreas and I are staying behind to give the place one last sweep. Keep an eye out for any returning batarians – if you see any sign of ships call us on the comm. and we'll head back."

Clara swallowed and nodded, resisting the urge to glance at the body and meeting his stare head on. His eyes narrowed slightly, but a quick nod dismissed her. She didn't need telling twice – she hurried away, praying he left the body well enough alone.

Meriones and Creion were waiting for her by the shuttle, sharp eyes scanning the skies for any sign of a returning slaver ship. There were several docks clear when they first touched down, a sign that some were off 'recruiting'. The thought made her stomach churn – a part of her wanted one of them to return so she could take them out as well.

There was no returning ships though – fifteen minutes passed before Nihlus and Boreas returned, weapons stowed on their backs. Neither of them looked at her and she dared to hope the body had gone unnoticed.

"Ajax, get us back to the ship," Nihlus ordered as they closed the shuttle door behind them. "We've got some information to go over on board."

"Yes sir,"

…

Clara only relaxed when she made it to her room, running her fingers through her waterlogged hair, scraping her nails over her scalp. She'd bathed as soon as she returned, washing batarian blood from her cheeks. She hadn't even realized it'd spashed on her until she'd seen herself in the mirror. She pulled herself up onto her bunk, collapsing into the sheets. She had every intention of napping when a silver gleam caught her eye. She pulled on the chain, felt the metal bite into her neck, and quickly undid the clasp. It took a moment for her to untangle it from the crystalline beads of her rosary. Her heart stuttered and her head grew heavy with thought.

It didn't take long for Clara to realize that taking down Cerberus was a fools errand.

She sat up, watching as the silver chain of Aetius' necklace slid through her fingers like quicksilver. The dark jewel gleamed innocuously, the black of its center looking almost blue in the bright lights of the Actium.

She hadn't taken the necklace off since the night of Aetius' attack, to the point that she almost forgot it was there. Now she stared at it with a racing mind and a pained heart. She should have grieved and moved on by now – it had been almost a year since the attack. She wondered if finding the cure would even help. She didn't care how advanced the technology was, how great the hospital was. Aetius had been in a coma for a year. The lasting damage was going to be extensive. He would need therapy if he even did wake up, and who was to say he'd still love her? If he even did in the first place. They had never said as much after all. What if he wanted to move on with his life, find a turian woman and settle down as the Hierarchy expected? A part of her knew the thought was ridiculous – he had told her he preferred human women, he wasn't shy about his admiration. Not with her.

But Clara wasn't naïve. Love and desire did not always win, and despite Aetius' rather questionable occupation, she knew he was a good turian. She wondered if he would leave her to fulfill the unspoken duty of the Hierarchy: Aliens were for fun, turians were are the ones you settled down with. She wanted to believe he wouldn't do that, she wanted to believe this mission had purpose. But doubt was a tricky thing – it slithered past your defenses before you could blink, took root in your psyche before you could think to circumvent it. It was a poison; slow at first and suddenly lethal.

Clara liked to pretend she was a strong person. The truth was she often felt very weak – powerless. She felt weak when her mother died, powerless when she was pushed off to foster home after foster home. Her demons had defeated her long ago. Now, when she wanted to fight, she felt too weak to try. Could her heart really take any more disappointment?

Clara pushed herself from her bunk, simultaneously pushing her worries from her mind. She hesitated, looking at her necklace and daring to consider for a moment.

She opened her drawer, letting the necklace slide through her fingers and clatter against the bottom. Aetius had given the gem to the woman he loved – to a Clara who did not doubt and did not stray, to a Clara who did what was right. Until she was that woman again, she didn't deserve to wear it.

Her omni-tool went off, breaking the silence and forcing her attention away from the suddenly poignant drawer. She glanced at the message and her stomach clinched.

'My quarters, now.'

She swallowed down her anxiety, though she knew it was well-founded. She closed her eyes, breathed in deep, and attempted to push away the feeling. She pulled on pants, knowing that going to talk to your CO in a tank top wasn't a great life choice. She didn't linger long, though her fear screamed that maybe if she didn't she'd get to enjoy living a little while longer. She knew, logically, that making Nihlus wait was not a way to make friends. It wasn't a great way to stay alive, either.

The trip was quick, much quicker than she would have liked, and she barely knocked before the door slipped open and she stepped into his quarters. He had his back to her, focusing on the datapad in his hand.

"I'm grounding you," he said shortly.

"Am I allowed to ask why?" she asked.

He responded quickly, as if he had anticipated her response. "You're emotionally compromised. You're acting emotionally, not logically. You're a danger to the team until you work through whatever's hounding you."

"I think restricting me to the ship is going to cause more problems than solutions, sir," she dared to say.

"People don't bash peoples heads in because they're feeling happy," Nihlus retorted, turning to stare her down. "You're to talk to Peleus first thing tomorrow and work through your issues. Until he says you're clear for duty you're going back to basic. Lycia will continue to monitor your progress with tech and Creion will run you through your hand to hand."

She wanted to argue that she was fine, that she was more than fit for active duty, but the image of the batarians battered and broken body flashed through her mind. She swallowed down her arguments and nodded. "Yes sir."

"Dismissed."

She turned, abandoning his quarters and quickly making her way back to her bed. She collapsed into her sheets, curling up in a makeshift cocoon and staring out over at the drawer. She reached to her neck, letting her fingers dance over the crystalline beads.

For the first time in years, she closed her eyes and prayed.

…

"He's only doing this in your best interest," Peleus said as he sat at his desk. Clara sighed, rubbing her hands over her forehead – of course, Peleus was the one on board with a psychology degree. Of course. A part of her whispered that at least it wasn't Sorthem, but at least the salarian didn't have those intense eyes that oh so casually reached into your brain and stripped away your defenses one layer at a time.

Not literally. Her defenses were still erected as well as she could manage. It just didn't feel like they were going to last, not with him staring at her like that.

"It doesn't feel like it," she murmured, propping her feet up on the base of her chair and leaning back.

"Well, he also doesn't want to endanger everyone else," he amended. "You've got something going on. We need to talk about it."

"You know, I expected you'd be a little more 'we'll take it at your own pace' and 'I wont ask you to answer anything that makes you uncomfortable' than this," Clara said dryly, folding her hands together and resting them on her stomach.

He quirked a browplate, "Do I look like I would say either of those things?"

"Good point." She sighed, resting her head against the chair and staring at the wall above Peleus' head. "So, what are you going to say?"

"I'm going to ask you why you decided bludgeoning someone to death was more effective than shooting them in the head," he said calmly.

That was good ol' Peleus. Straight to the point. She shrugged, "I lost my temper. You can't say every time you see a slaver you don't want to do the same."

"I believe resisting our baser urges is what separates us from animals, isn't it?" he countered. "You lost control on a mission. You endangered the rest of the crew and yourself. I'm just trying to figure out why."

"And also try to figure out why you decided to get a psychology degree?" she joked.

"Yes, because it means I have to deal with uncooperative crew members who ask evasive questions to avoid what's really going on," he retorted just as quickly. Damn, she'd forgotten how fast his tongue was. There was no way she could play this game forever.

"I just, got angry," she admitted with another haphazard shrug. "He had me pinned to the ground with a pistol against my forehead. I slapped the gun away, twisted the position, and then I…" She mimed a vague smashing motion.

"And then you beat in his skull," he finished. She swallowed.

"Yeah," she said weakly. "That."

"Does this have to do with you sleeping with Atrides?" he asked, and damn if that wasn't another punch to the gut.

"I guess everyone knows about that now, huh?" she asked.

"Anyone whose spoken with Tydeus in the past weeks, yes," he agreed. "Also some people who haven't. So, why are you so upset about that? Everyone makes mistakes."

"Not everyone has a boyfriend in a coma waiting for them back on the citadel," she snapped back. A sort of understanding crossed his expression, his subharmonics causing her translator to pop.

"So, this wasn't anger at the batarian or Atrides. This was anger at yourself."

Clara looked away, avoiding his eyes, and that was enough of an answer for him. He nodded, as if he had expected it all along – she wouldn't have been surprised if he hadn't. The damn turian was way too perceptive for his own good.

"Why did you leave him?" Peleus asked next, swaying slightly in his chair. "You still care about him. Why leave?"

"Because I need to save him," she shrugged and continued to avoid his gaze. "Cerberus has the cure, so they're who I'm targeting. I get the cure, I save Tito, we live happily ever after. Isn't how this is supposed to work?"

"And what if you're too late?"

Clara ground her teeth together, twisted her fingers in her shirt. "I wont be."

Peleus made to respond – not doubt ready to remind her that life wasn't rainbows and unicorns – when her omni-tool beeped. She glanced down at the message, surprise colouring her expression as she saw who it was from. The surprise faded quickly, replaced with trepidation.

She answered the call without asking, and Aelia's face fizzled onto the screen. She didn't look well. "Aelia? What's wrong?" she asked, biting down the panic that fizzed in the back of her throat.

"It's Aetius," she said solemnly. "Something's happened – he's gone into cardiac arrest."

"What?" Clara nearly yelled, "No, no, no, that's not right. Why? What's happening?"

"I don't know!" Aelia snapped back, running her hand over her face as she let loose a heavy sigh. "We were kicked out of the room, I called you first thing."

"Just, keep me posted, please," Clara begged. Aelia nodded and the connection cut out. She sat there for a moment, shocked and terrified in equal amounts.

This wasn't supposed to happen. This wasn't the way things were supposed to go – she was supposed to find Cerberus, get the cure, fix Aetius, and then save the world. That was how things went, this wasn't supposed to happen-

"Clara!"

Her head snapped towards Peleus, who fixed her with those damn iridescent eyes. They didn't emote, not really, but the set of his face plates told her he was concerned, if not stern. "What?" She asked, not sure what he'd said.

"You need to breathe," he said. "Go to your room. Lay down. I'll tell Nihlus what happened."

She could only nod, sinking back into her seat with an exhale as she attempted to correlate the mess that was her mind. She nodded again. "Right. Right. I'll just-" Clara forced herself to her feet, her knees shaking and nearly giving out on her as she tried to remind herself how to walk. She walked to her room, looking like a zombie. When she finally made it to safety, pulling herself up into her bed, her omni-tool beeped again. She looked at it, hope clogging up all semblance of reason, and deflated when she saw it was from Nihlus.

She didn't read it. She forced her head into her pillow, biting down on the fabric as she screamed.

…

Ten days passed without news. Clara threw herself into her training, more than ever before, except now it didn't feel just like training. It felt like sparring. When she finally started to beat Creion at hand-to-hand he called in Meriones, who very soundly beat her back into her place, providing a stark remember that she wasn't hot shit just because she managed to punch Creion in the face.

She felt bad about that, by the way. It left a bruise.

She still couldn't touch Nihlus, though. He seemed to know every move she was going to make before she made it. It was kind of humiliating, to be frank. It kept her from getting too cocky. She knew that was a lesson in and of itself – you get cocky, you get dead. She'd watched enough TV to know that.

Eventually, it distracted her. After the third day she stopped thinking about Aetius at every waking moment. The fifth day found her actually talking to the crew, putting on the face of someone who wasn't on the verge of another breakdown. They didn't notice – or, if they did, they didn't mention it.

On the tenth day, she got a message from Aelia. She said that Aetius was stable again, but his chances of waking with full cognition and full use of his limbs was unlikely. Clara had to push the negatives away and focus on the lone positive: Aetius was alive. She could still save him. Everything else melted away now that she knew how shaky Aetius' state was, how fragile. He could die at any moment without that cure, and she used it as a motivation she so desperately needed.

The one thing she could say about being grounded was it gave you time to think. It was a blessing and a curse all at the same time.

She asked herself a lot of the same questions: Why me? Why now? Why Mass Effect? Why Nihlus? They circled around in her head, chasing after each other until she was dizzy.

She ran her fingers over the clear beads of her rosary, staring at the ceiling as she considered her situation – really, really considered it. Clara wasn't religious, despite her deep reliance on the paraphernalia gripped in her hand. She still wasn't religious: Clara believed in science, she believed in facts and numbers and logic. It was weakness that made her break down and pray to a creator she didn't believe in, habit that made her curse and scream his name in defiance.

And yet she sat there, ancient prayers that were passed on to her from her grandmother dripping from her tongue and filling the silence of the room.

When her throat dried and her hand grew weary it fell to her side, the rosary clasped in loose fingers as she considered the ceiling. She said nothing, barely moved, and for the first time in days her brain was silent.

As soon as the peace settled into her bones it passed, replaced by the same anxiety and the same fear that slid down her throat and choked out any other emotion. Clara closed her eyes and forced herself to breathe deep, to let the stagnant air of the ship fill her lungs and push the thoughts to the edges of her mind. As she exhaled the thoughts returned, taking up the space suddenly afforded to them.

She was here for a reason, some reason she didn't understand and didn't really want to understand. Something had placed her in this universe – whether it was a creation of man or God – and now she was here to…what? Fix things? How could she fix the universe when she couldn't even save one man?

Another deep breath, and another exhale.

She had to consider what she would do if Aetius never came back as himself, if he never reached 100 percent. She had to consider what she would do. Her emotions responded easily enough: she would stand by him, help him, give until she had nothing left to offer. Her logical side protested immediately: who was she to tie her life to someone else, to depend so completely on another creatures existence? She did not owe him anything, certainly not her life, and she had every right to move on from him. While he was lying stagnant in a hospital room, she was out here changing and growing. She was going through a metamorphosis. She was a fucking butterfly.

No. She needed to calm down. Inhale. Exhale.

No matter what, Cerberus needed to be stopped. She believed that fully, completely, with the sort of fervor that was more fitting for religious zealots and priests. She couldn't take them out completely, not if she wanted Shepard to survive the Collector attack in 2183, but that didn't mean she couldn't hit them hard and where it hurt. Just like they had done to her. Wasn't it Shakespeare who had said something along the lines of 'shall we not revenge'? Certainly if that phrase was applicable then, it was applicable now.

Inhale. Exhale.

Her life could not hinge on Aetius' survival as desperately as it did now. It wasn't healthy. It was borderline obsessive, actually. If he survived then there would be no words to describe her joy, the all consuming relief that would rush through her and seep into her very bones. There were no words apt enough to describe the complete and total peace that would effuse through her being. However, on the other end of the spectrum, if she continued as she did now then there would be no words to describe the complete and total devastation that would ruin her should he die. There would be no healing process, no light at the end of the tunnel, no hope, no love, nothing. There would be pain and grief and emptiness. There would be a shell.

Inhale. Exhale.

She couldn't let that happen. God, she loved Aetius – she loved him as much as she ever thought herself capable. But time had passed, ten months if her mental math was right, and despite the feelings that still thrived in her chest she knew that there was a disconnect. She knew that things would never be as they were. Just as time passed and distanced her from her lover, time pushed forward and pressed her closer and closer to Shepard. Could she really have both? Could she really save the world – complete her self-imposed destiny – and be with Aetius?

Inhale.

Her breath paused as the answer hit her. As the air slipped through her nostrils she knew with sudden and complete clarity what was going to happen. She pressed her eyes together, forced back the tears of denial, and tightened her grip on her rosary.

There were only two options: Aetius, and the Universe.

She could still save Aetius, but she couldn't love him and save the universe at the same time. Not if this is what his love did to her.

Contented with her revelation, she forced herself from her bed, pushing the thoughts from her mind. She had every intention of taking a shower to wash away the stress that had built up in her lower back, when her omni-tool went off. She glanced at it.

'Briefing room, 20 minutes.'

She sighed, realizing that any hope she had of taking a relatively relaxing shower was out the window. Instead she hopped in and rushed through the motions of washing, getting out with 5 minutes to spare. She pulled on a clean pair of sweats (since, considering her lack-of-affiliation, fatigues weren't really an option for her) and pulled her hair back in a clip while it dried. She made it to the briefing room and into her chair between Meriones and Creion moments before Nihlus himself strolled in. A small blessing: no one wanted to be later than Nihlus.

Nihlus scanned the group, nodding when he saw everyone was accounted for, and jumped straight in: "I've been forwarding information regarding Cerberus to the Council for a few months," he said. "Sparatus found us a lead."

Clara's stomach bottomed out. In an instant, all her revelations she had made just moments ago flew out the window and she could only pray that this was the lead that saved Aetius.

"He intercepted a message from a Cerberus drop squad that hit the Citadel a while back," he explained. "Instead of stopping them, he had a tracer placed on them. He forwarded the results to us."

In the center of the room a hologram appeared: it was a map of the galaxy, shifting and zooming inward onto the Local Cluster. Her heart caught in her chest, daring to wonder if they were returning to her solar system, but it instead zeroed in on a spec a small ways away from the system. It wasn't in the Sol System, but it was close enough to make her wonder why no one had ever thought to scan the area; a group of human supremacists, certainly they would think to scan throughout the Local Cluster?

"We know nothing about the layout, and even less about the state of the station," Nihlus explained. "But it's the first lead we've found from an outside source."

He looked over everyone, his eyes lingering on each member of the team as he considered them. His eyes reached Clara and his mandibles tensed subtly. It was all Clara needed before she realized why this specific lead was so important. She didn't need to ask to know what the operatives they had tagged were doing on the station before their departure. Her gut clenched and she steeled her resolve. She was going to have to acknowledge that Nihlus wasn't going to take her on this drop, not when she was still grounded.

"We're two days out," Nihlus continued. "I'm not hopeful enough to think that they wont be expecting us, nor that they don't know our routine. If we want this to go successfully we're going to have to change out tactics."

"There are only so many variations of an infiltration we can do," Lycia said, mandibles fluttering anxiously. "Unless we have some more detailed information regarding the station, we're stuck with walking through the front door."

Nihlus seemed to have anticipated her remark – in fact, he looked downright pleased she mentioned it. Clara furrowed her brow, wondering what he knew that they didn't.

"We have the advantage of knowing exactly where they are and the way they have to go to get to the next system," he said. "I've given Tydeus the order to circle the Mass Relay in the Sol System. We keep our eyes peeled and we should be able to intercept a shuttle before it can return to the base. We extract the information we can and use it to our advantage before sneaking in through the back door. We'll be in and out before their alarms even have a chance to go off."

"Are you sure?" Atrides asked, anxiety staining his voice. "This is a big lead, but they know us. Their security has increased exponentially since we started doing these drops, not to mention the leaps in tech. Last time they caught us almost as soon as we stepped foot on to dock."

"That's why we aren't using the dock," Nihlus countered. "It's a risk we have to be willing to take. This could be the last step before we hit the head of the operation. We remove the head, and the body will collapse."

Clara already knew that she was all in. She didn't need reminding of the dangers, she already knew them. She just hoped that the others agreed. There was a tense silence as the team deliberated, hemming and hawing before finally they seemed to come to a consensus. They didn't say anything, but the feedback on her translator told her there was something she was missing. Their subharmonics said what their words did not, and Nihlus nodded.

"Get yourselves ready," he said. "We're going to need all the strength we have to pull this off."

...

A/N: Sorry for all the mess with me uploading this chapter, I'm having an off day. I thought I lost it, and then I found it ,and it was just...really weird.