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The High Cost of Perfection	By : Nicker Category: +M through R > Mass Effect Views: 23047 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: Mass Effect and the characters are owned by Bioware. I make no money from this story.

Chapter List
- 5
- 6
- 7
Ever since Miranda Lawson broke up with him, things went steadily downhill for John Shepard.
Never mind the fact that her argument made no sense, saying it was a fling, a fucking itch to scratch and she didn’t share his feelings. It was immature coming from a woman with Miranda’s qualities. He could have gotten over that. Then being a bitch to Liara, those nude photos she left in the mess hall–crazy, but he could explain that. But Jack–he lost it there. He couldn’t have believed it if someone told him, that this would happen, and it hit him hard.
He didn’t even know when she left the Normandy, missing the last chance to get an explanation from her. The lack of a reason was driving him crazy. And yet, she was the best XO he worked with and her suggestions about EDI were invaluable. It was a miserable trip back to Earth.
Then came the bullshit he had to endure from the Alliance brass for all the Cerberus dealings, and the genocide charges. He took the bullet for the team, to protect Hackett’s ass, but after that, his smile was not honest with the old man, who basically hung him out to dry. Six month of idleness almost drove him crazy. The red tape, the scapegoating, Miranda, it all seethed inside him constantly.
After the shock of the invasion and the escape, he was ready to vent it out on Ashley, getting into a shouting match with her on Mars. The woman was impossibly stubborn, although he suspected that in her place, he would have been suspicious, too. Fortunately, she was too stubborn to die when that cyborg bitch slammed her into the shuttle. She was one of his oldest friends still alive, and they’ve seen so much together. He would have hated to see her die, and he was genuinely proud when they finally made her a Spectre, two years too late.
It was another shouting match with Jack when they pulled her and her students out of Grissom. It was an even argument, since Jack was not really to blame for what happened with her and Miranda, but then they disagreed on how best to use her students in the war.
He just couldn’t get Miranda out of his head. Liara was there to comfort him as much as her awkward, geeky nature allowed, but he wasn’t really looking for that kind of company. When they got to Sur’kesh, he was already a bit of a bully, hurling threats at the salarians until Wrex and him pulled the krogan female out.
That was when things really started to go pear-shaped. When he received Miranda’s call through the Spectre terminal, of all channels, he was ready to burst. Ashley was still in critical condition, he had turians, salarians and krogans to juggle, and then suddenly Miranda pops up out of nowhere, after six months of hiding. He went to meet her simply to chew her out and tell her off.
It didn’t exactly go as planned. He had to admit, that he lost his head. Very badly. He felt the red mist descending on his mind as she talked about her sister. He considered himself observant and empathic, and it helped him through most of his career, but the recent events frayed his nerves, making him more jumpy and confrontational. It was a different Shepard. And that Shepard chose the worst moment to emerge fully, when the sight of Miranda Lawson, timid, dialed down a few notches, slightly vulnerable, blabbering about her sister, made him snap. There was just something in the concept of that gorgeous, smart woman showing a softer side that made him want to break her in two. It was irrational, primal. There was a time when that sight would have made him hold her in his arms and protect her from the whole world.
Instead he raped her. There was no putting it any other way. He tore off her clothes, pinned her down and fucked her sore, and it felt so good. Her body was heavenly, and her struggles made her so firm, so tight. He saw it all in her eyes, the pain and the shock, unable to speak… It burned into his mind. He was disgusted with himself after that.
Ever since his last meeting with Miranda Lawson, people started dying around him.
The first one to fall was Mordin, sacrificing himself for the cure, a very good friend that he was devastated to lose. He cut the line with the dalatrass when she started explaining the sabotage, having pretty much enough of the frogs by that time. Mordin was the exception. Shepard made the call that he needed the army that defeated the rachni, and not the uncertain support of a self-absorbed race. He couldn’t trust them not to bail out when the going got rough.
When he remained one on one with Wrex, he also made it abundantly clear, that if Wrex could not hold the krogan expansion at bay if they win the war, he would personally come back and finish what the salarians started. Wrex laughed heartily at that, but he knew that Shepard was not bluffing. His respect only grew towards Shepard after their talk.
Losing Thane was hard, but it was a good fight. He was dying anyway, and he at least got to go out in style. But then he had Ashley at gunpoint, and after yet another shouting match, he had to pull the trigger. Against one of his own! He had the common sense to shoot to stun, hitting her right arm so she couldn’t pull the trigger. She dropped her gun and Garrus dropped Udina like a sack of potatoes. Things became tense between Shepard and Ashley after that. Her argument made some sense from her perspective, since she didn’t know what Shepard knew. Shepard’s argument was that he didn’t have time for taking her shit.
In the end, they reconciled, but he knew he lost a friend. He kept a very good marine and a capable Spectre, and they could count on each other, but things were never going to be the same between them. He even offered her an advice, “Take no shit from anybody, Ash. You are a Spectre now, you call the shots.”
It would have been pointless for her to join the Normandy crew anyway. In the end, Ashley went on to orchestrate the war effort on the human worlds, advising Anderson and Hackett, too. And by advising, it meant that she got to argue with Hackett if she wanted to. Shepard smirked at that thought. He would have loved to see Ashley shouting the old man’s head off.
His recurring nightmares at that point either included the world burning or Miranda begging for mercy under him. He was slowly starting to lose his mind.
So when the quarians refused to fall back and stop the attack against the geth over Rannoch, he yelled at the admirals like a drill sergeant, throwing threats at them. It wasn’t enough. The quarians were overconfident, so he had no qualms about letting Legion upload the code. He had no empathy left for a civilization that was this arrogant three centuries after they got their asses kicked. A disciplined, well equipped and well organized geth army was much more useful for him, than the quarians, who would have been busy worrying about their reclaimed homeworld.
What he didn’t expect, though, was Tali’s reaction. Her suicide caught him completely off-guard. It disturbed him to no end; losing friends in battle was one thing, Mordin’s sacrifice noble, but Tali– poor girl. She witnessed the end of her civilization. His nightmares returned with a vengeance.
At Thessia, he tried to be sympathetic towards the asari, but their little secret revealed almost made him rip the tendrils off the asari councilor’ head and beat her to death with it. Liara’s whining didn’t help. After Earth and Rannoch, he could not feel the pain any more.
However, he did feel the pain of his ass handed to him by Kai Leng at the temple, taking off with the prothean VI. It was the last straw. He lost his patience, demanding a solution to find Cerberus and finally put an end to their interference.
What happened on Horizon, though, shook him to the core. The whole genetic experimentation was atrocious, something that humanity haven’t seen for centuries, and were a throwback to their darkest times. He went in with full force, Vega and Garrus on his side, EDI hacking through the digital defences, Liara clearing the way with her biotics. They cut through the facility with an unstoppable momentum.
And then it all came crashing down. When he first heard Miranda’s warning, his heart skipped a beat. He tried not to think about what happened to her after the Citadel. He couldn’t even imagine what she was going through, but running into her there was unexpected. Of course, Henry Lawson’s presence made it all clear, but apparently Miranda, while searching for her sister, still took the effort to not only send out a warning, but to leave enough evidence for anybody who followed her trail to know exactly what was waiting for them at the end of the road.
She neatly paved their way to the comm center, and he got hopeful that this could mean resolving more than one of their problems when they finally meet. When he saw Kai Leng attack her, and the feed cut off, a cold dread gripped his heart. As Vega remarked, she had no way of knowing Kai Leng was here. She was not prepared for that.
They rushed into the control room and his worst fear played out in front of his eyes. His heart sank when he saw Miranda bleeding on the floor. He was determined to kill Henry Lawson no matter what, but Miranda beat him to it, in style. And then, he had to watch her die slowly, right in front of his eyes and he could do nothing about it. The others rushed to get medi-gel and they radioed for Chakwas, but he saw it was too late already. She already gave up in her head.
And then, to his utter shock, when he reached for her to provide some comfort, she pulled away in fear. It made him realize how bad he screwed up, when even in her death, she was afraid of him. He felt a squeeze in his throat, unable to say the things he wanted to say, unable to say sorry, and after her reaction, he couldn’t have expected her to say anything.
But even then, Miranda Lawson was able to deliver the final punch and produce the tracer, giving him the single most important bit of information that he needed at that time. The shame of it was almost unbearable. Her last words were not meant to hurt, but for him, they cut to the bone.
Oriana was inconsolable, sobbing over her sister’s body, who gave everything for her to have a normal life. It was a terrible loss and a heavy burden.
He told Garrus to switch off the scrambler and they fell back to the ship to the voice of Miranda Lawson warning everyone about Sanctuary, going on an infinite loop. He carried her body in his arms the whole way. Everybody was dead silent.
They docked Miranda’s ship with the Normandy and they gave Oriana a lift until they arranged her to join the Crucible project. She took her sister’s body with her and left on that battered scout ship, while the Normandy returned to the Citadel to refuel, restock and rearm before hitting the Cerberus headquarters with the everything they had.
Shepard had a few hours to kill on the Citadel until the Normandy was ready. His mood was so foul by that time, that he needed to get away from the ship. Liara also felt that Horizon shook him up and she tried her best to provide silent comfort. He went to the flat that Anderson provided him, to have somewhere where he could unwind. Liara was supposed to meet him there after she talked to her Shadow Broker contacts and get the latest batch of news from her network.
He felt sore, exhausted to the bone, numb. He stepped out of the elevator and barely took a few steps towards his building on the plaza, when somebody bumped into him hard. He didn’t even notice it, which was bad enough, but he was so tired, he couldn’t be bothered to worry about his vulnerability.
“Hey! Watch it!” he hissed, rubbing his ribs where he was hit, grimacing painfully. His eyes went wide, when he realized who it was.
“Kasumi!” he called after her with genuine relief.

“Hello, Commander,” the thief replied in a teasing tone, not even stopping as she strolled towards the elevator. “Fancy bumping into you here.”
Still rubbing his ribs he turned towards her.

“I’m glad you’re still alive and kicking,” he chuckled nervously. “What brings you here?”

Kasumi stepped into the elevator, turned neatly on her heels and looked at Shepard from under her hood.
“Oh, just doing a favour for a friend,” she replied nonchalantly, but her eyes remained cold.

“Wait– It’s been so long. Where have you been?”

Kasumi shrugged.

“Here and there. Terminals to hack. Things to steal.” She reached for the keypad. Then cheerfully added, “Got a ship to catch. Good luck saving the world.”
And then the door closed, the thief glaring at him, while he stood there, not really understanding what just happened.
He shook his head and walked to the flat still rubbing his side, confused. Kasumi sure had a sharp elbow. Then, as soon as he entered the apartment, he understood. There was a box on the coffee table, neatly wrapped and adorned with a plastic bow. There was a message waiting for him, a little icon blinking on the video wall. He picked up a bottle of drink from the fridge and went back to the room, sitting down on the couch, eyeing the box while he commanded the computer to play the message.
He wasn’t prepared for it, choking on his drink for a second.
Miranda’s face appeared on the screen, eyes sunken and dark, hair unkempt. He could only see her shoulder, the dark strap of a tank top and behind her was a battered bulkhead, probably her ship. The whole image had a greenish hue, it was dark, underlit. She was like an apparition. According to the timecode running in the corner, the whole message was only forty seconds long, but as the numbers changed, she was still not speaking. In fact, she didn’t even look into the camera, just shuffled in her place, licking her lips absently, brushing her hair behind her ear with a nervous move, eyes darting left and right, her gaze distant.
Oh, he knew those gestures. He saw them on victims’ faces, when they freed slaves captured on Mindoir or saved civilians after a pirate raid. These were the tells of someone traumatized by abuse. The hand gestures, the inability to look into other people’s eyes, fidgeting, timidness, sullen demeanor… the whole works. And he knew that he did this to her. Miranda Lawson was broken, trying to say something to him on a pre-recorded message, and even then gathering the courage to speak at all. Seconds ticked on the timecode and only at fourteen seconds did she finally let out an exhausted sigh and looked into the camera. She closed her eyes as she spoke.
“I want you to know that I never meant to hurt you. Everything I did, I did it for my sister.” She took a shuddering breath, looking up into the camera again. A single teardrop rolled down from the corner of her eye. “I am sorry. Sorry for the pain I caused. Please—please make sure she is safe.”
He could see her lips pursing down and her face distorting, but the video cut off before more was revealed. That was it. Forty seconds, with fourteen seconds of silence. This was her goodbye message, probably recorded before she landed on Horizon.
Shepard stared at the blank screen with a bewildered gaze. After everything she went through, she was apologising. He couldn’t believe his eyes. There was no lengthy, emotional farewell, detailed explanation, confessing her feelings or condemning him, not even the classic “if you are watching this” monologue. In typical Miranda fashion, it was straightforward and short, without the tiniest bit of sentimentality. She just explained what she did.
Shepard slowly shook his head and leaned forward, resting his forehead on his palms. There was a lump in his throat, and he had to squeeze his eyes shut and grit his teeth not to make a sound. What was this message? What did he learn from it?
He learned more from the first fourteen seconds, than from the rest. He commanded replay and played the video again, stopping it at fourteen seconds and playing it in a loop. Everything was there. The way she needed to gather her strength, the little gestures, the way her gaze darted around, the dullness of her once piercing blue eyes.
His gaze went to the box left on his coffee table. Kasumi’s gift. He frowned and tore it open, revealing a single datapad and a memory unit. He picked up the unit curiously, and slid it into the coffee table’s terminal panel. It started to play immediately.
“Did you get what you wanted?” He heard Miranda’s voice, her tone cold and sullen.

“A bit bristly, aren’t we?” Liara’s mocking tone. “Cutting right to the chase, no pleasantries… Tsk, tsk… I heard everything. You did splendidly, Lawson. Did it exactly the way I wanted to. Broke poor John’s heart.”
The room started to spin. He straightened up, holding onto the coffee table with one hand as he listened to the recording. Based on the rest of it, this was right after their break up.
He didn’t believe his ears. He stepped to the next audio file on the memory unit and hit play. It started generic enough, but it was soon evident from the conversation that they were looking at a video feed of Oriana, while Liara was talking about picking up the pieces. His expression darkened, when Liara started to explain her motives, but Miranda cut her off, like she heard it before. When Liara started to talk about respect, he was already feeling that sense of danger that told him something bad was about to happen.
“—Get what?” Miranda was saying. “I used to have respect for you. Not any more. All that knowledge you gained from the Shadow Broker corrupted you. Think about it, Liara! What would Shepard think if he saw this side of you?!”
And he was wondering about that, too, trying to comprehend what he was hearing. It was hard to figure out, what was happening next, but once he realized, he jumped to his feet, staring at the coffee table like he has seen a ghost. He looked up at the video wall, still playing the loop that slowly etched itself into his mind.

“Uh, I did what you told me, huhh, Liara! Just. Stop.”
Shepard’s eyes widened, staring blankly at the video, while the scene started to play out on the audio recordings. Liara’s monologue on alien genitals was deeply disturbing, but not as much as the sounds of moans and groans after that.
He felt sick to the stomach, falling back onto the couch, clenching hands into fists. He wanted to scream “pause”, but he had to hear all of it. He deserved the torture. He heard their exchange at the end, Liara promising what she would do to Oriana and Miranda agreeing to everything.
He stepped to the next one in the panel with trembling hands. It was their talk after the pictures were found. He winced. The next after that was a recording of Miranda talking with Jack. He stopped playing that after the noises started. He flipped to number five: he heard himself demoting Miranda. He hit next.
Number six. Liara again, talking to Miranda about closure, wanting Miranda to disappear, and an unnerving monologue about human hair, and then those sounds of struggle again. He could only guess what was happening and he tried very hard not to imagine it. Some voices were talking about clients and fresh meat.
Number seven. Miranda and Kasumi, talking to an asari, probably. A very enlightening talk that wrenched his heart.
“Then I was wrong about him. Then he wouldn’t be worth fighting for.”

Shepard snorted in disgust, looking at the video wall. Now he knew he didn’t deserve her.
He eventually got to the file he dreaded the most. Yes, there was a recording of that, too. Miranda’s desperate voice, first asking for help and then just whimpers and gasp of fear and pain. It went on after that and he willed himself to listen to it until the end, until the sobbing started. All he could do was to stop the recording.
* * *
When Liara stepped in, he was still sitting on the couch, the video wall was playing the loop and he was reading the datapad. When she saw Miranda’s image on the wall, Liara reeled back in surprise, her step faltering just for a second before regaining her composure.
Shepard looked up and saw Liara’s expression change into a soft and sympathetic stare, while her eyes darted to the datapad in his hands.
“Oh. She left you a message?” she asked softly.

“Yes, that she did,” Shepard said, stopping the loop and let the message play to the end, freezing at the last frame.

Liara winced, and to her credit, a guilty expression flashed through her features while it played. “I’m sorry, Shepard,” she said reflexively, but inside she felt relieved that it didn’t say more.
“In fact, she left me several more messages, Liara. Do you want to hear them?”

Shepard looked at her with a searching gaze.

“Oh, no,” she shook her head politely. “It is between you and her. I wouldn’t want to—”
“Oh, but they are for you as well. Let me show you my favourites.”Shepard slammed the datapad down on the table, making Liara jump. Shepard activated his omnitool.

“It’s really not necessary.”
Her own voice replied to her from the speakers.

“The least you could do is show your gratitude for not harming your sister.”
Liara winced. She tried to keep her composure.

“How about this?” Shepard went on.

“Imagine how it would feel like if there were more of them… Imagine how it would feel for Oriana.”
Liara frowned, pulling herself straight, trying very hard to control herself.
“I hope you appreciate it. I could have done worse things to you. Cut your pretty face, for example. My predecessor would have had you killed. Or hand you over to Cerberus. Be grateful that I stopped here.”
Shepard stopped the playback, lowering his hands. He turned his back on Liara and walked into the kitchen, pulling out a fresh bottle from the freezer. Liara stayed where she was, putting on her best defensive glare, the guilt vanishing, replaced by a cold, slightly indignant expression.
“You’ve got to hand it to Miranda,” he called back from the kitchen loudly. “She outsmarted the Shadow Broker.”
He opened the bottle, slammed the freezer door shut and slowly strolled back to the living room while he spoke.

“She recorded everything. I suppose there was a first talk, I’m guessing soon after we took the yahg down, right? When you broke her the news. She wasn’t prepared for that one.”
Liara didn’t reply, didn’t move, concentrating on keeping herself together, back straight, the statue of self-righteousness.
“Actually, she only recorded the first two of these. Someone else did the rest.” Shepard smiled bitterly, tapping the datapad with the bottom of the bottle. He started to slowly circle around in the living room, his gestures wide, wobbling a little bit. He was still sober, but he was working on it.
“You see, she left her access codes, clearances and the frequencies to her gadgets lying around where anybody could find it, who knew where to look. Say, a thief.” He chuckled, shaking his head. “Oh, Miranda, she would never make such a mistake. And Kasumi, bless her soul, knew what to do with them.”
Shepard stopped right in front of Liara, downing the rest of his drink.

“She had someone spy on her, Liara, so you would not get suspicious.” he picked up the plastic bow from the table and showed it to Liara with a grin. “They even put it all together in a neat, tidy package. With a bow.”
He threw the plastic bow at Liara, who winced, dodging away by reflex. He gave her a murderous glare and turned away.
“What do you want me to say?” Liara asked coldly. She was not happy for getting busted, sure, but it was more like embarrassment, rather than guilt.
Shepard spun around and glared at her incredulously.

“What do I want you to say?!” He snarled, grabbing the bottle and with a half spin, he threw it into the video wall. The glass cracked, the bottle shattered to pieces but the picture still stayed frozen on the broken display.
Liara shuddered, her calm slowly evaporating, and her defiance was quickly giving way to fear. What she did was not right, sure, but she didn’t kill Miranda…
Shepard squeezed his eyes shut, lifting his hands up, fingers bent like claws, trying to calm down and figuring out where to start. He exhaled sharply and looked at Liara.

“Liara. You raped her.”

“So did you!” she retorted sullenly, but not as aggressively as she planned. His anger, and hearing those words said out loud made her uncertain. “Did you listen to that as well? How she cried after that?”
Shepard bowed his head and scoffed, nodding to himself.

“You spied on me.”

“Of course I did. I am the Shadow Broker. I know everything!” Liara snapped back indignantly.
Shepard lifted his gaze at her.

“And yet, you know so little,” he said quietly.

“Don’t treat me like a child!”

Shepard shook his head slowly and spoke softly, “Then stop acting like one.”

“Whatever. Do you think she would have forgiven you after what you did to her?”
Liara held his gaze, standing her ground, teetering on the edge of a nervous breakdown and a fit of rage. She was waiting for him to say something, watching every tremble he made, trying to guess what he would do.
But he just kept staring at her, the anger fading in his eyes. Sorrow followed, his eyes fogging up. His expression softened and finally he cupped Liara’s cheeks with both hands. Liara shuddered, blinking in surprise, almost melting into the touch, her hands fluttering up to touch his hands. Oh, how she longed for his touch!
It was not what she was expecting, though. It confused her even more, as she felt herself choking up, the same feeling gnawing at her that she felt watching Thessia burn. It may have been sorrow.
“Liara,” Shepard whispered, rubbing her cheek with his thumbs. It felt good, but she also felt being trapped. “We stood on the Broker’s ship, in that big hall, remember? You swore to me, that you will not abuse your position. Do you remember that?”
Liara blinked a few times. She remembered it well, showing him around proudly and excitedly.

“I also said I will help you find a way to combat the Reapers. I did that, didn’t I?” she replied, her voice getting higher as she spoke, her confidence waning.
She had a terrible feeling that he was going to leave her for this.
Shepard nodded slowly, his hands sliding down to her shoulders. It was a bit of a relief, she felt less threatened by him.

“Then why did you do this? Why do this to Miranda, Liara?” he asked. Liara realised he wasn’t patronizing her. He was desperate. Desperate to understand her reasons.

“I-I wanted you back,” she whispered. It sounded so wrong when she said it out loud. “I missed you and I wanted you back.”
Shepard bowed his head again, his shoulders shaking from the nervous laughter.

“It doesn’t work like that, Liara.” His hands slid down to her hands. He took her by the wrist and they sat down slowly on the couch, Liara letting him lead her. It was all so very confusing.

“What have we done?” Shepard whispered, rubbing her hands.

“We? We didn’t kill her. It was Kai Leng!” she protested, hoping that he would see it her way, but he just shook his head.
“You still don’t understand it, do you? We killed her, Liara. You sentenced her to death and I condemned her. She was long dead by the time Kai Leng got to her. He was only the executioner.”
The more he talked and the more she listened, the more it started to sound like he had a point. It was still just a faint notion in the back of her mind, but as much as she hated to admit it, Shepard may have been right.
“I want you to think about this, Liara. I want you to think about how much you made her hurt me.” Liara’s eyes widened, catching his gaze. His eyes were strict and cold, but not mad. He continued relentlessly. “I want you to think about how much you hurt her. No, not just her body. Can you do this for me, Liara? Can you close your eyes and think about the pain? Can you try and imagine the loneliness? Can you imagine what was taken from her?” He paused to exhale slowly. “Can you imagine how different things would be?”
Liara took a shuddering breath, her eyes closing slowly. Yes, she could imagine the loneliness, all right. She remembered how she missed him. And she remembered how she wanted to have him back when he returned, but now it didn’t feel the same. It didn’t feel like the right thing any more.
She imagined how Miranda gave two years of her life to bring him back and how he gave her a chance at happiness. “The perfect Miss Lawson,” as she herself called her. She remembered how it felt when Shepard died on the Normandy, how she lost him and she imagined how it must have felt for Miranda to lose him, and to lose him knowing he was mad at her. To lose everything. To endure everything for her sister. It was unbearable.
She opened her eyes and looked at him desperately, tears fogging her vision.

“Oh, John,” she sobbed, unable to stop the tears. “I am so, so terribly sorry!”
Shepard held her gaze, but didn’t say anything. He let it sink in.

“What-what can I do to fix this? I want to fix this!” she said, blinking away the tears. She could not bear the thought of losing him.
“You can’t fix this, Liara. You can’t bring her back.”

“I know! I know that!” she cried. “But there must be another way– I don’t– I can’t lose you.”
He just shook his head sadly.

“It doesn’t work like that, Liara.”
Now she was even more desperate. She actually felt him slipping away from her, drifting out of her reach, forever. She grabbed his wrists, shaking her head, close to panic.

“No, no, no… I’ll do anything! Anything you want! Please! Just don’t leave me!”
Shepard closed his eyes, peeling her hands off his wrists.

“Liara. Listen. Listen to me.” He said in a soothing voice. “It doesn’t work like this. Even if I could forgive you, I will never forgive myself. She did not forgive me either. This is a burden we will have to carry for the rest of our lives.”
Liara shook her head wildly, tears streaking again, trying to hold on to him, but this time it was Shepard, who took her wrist to hold her down. She fought desperately, trying to wrap her arms around him. Just to feel him next to her. He kept whispering her name until she calmed down.
“Listen to me now.” He smiled sadly. He gave a similar ultimatum to Miranda after their break up. “You have the luxury that Miranda didn’t have. That I am not angry and I have all the facts.”
Liara squirmed, her heart beating faster. He sounded so ominous, so final.
“I am not sending you away now. I need your knowledge and I need the resources of the Shadow Broker to win this damn war. You can come with us on the Normandy. But after this war is over, one way or another, we go our separate ways, Liara.” Shepard sighed. “What you did… it was horrible, Liara. You abused your power and now none of us will get what we want.”
Liara nodded quickly, accepting his terms, still weeping. At least she could stay on the Normandy with him.
“I am not a bad person, John. I don’t want to be a bad person. You know me. You know that.”
There was still a tiny bit of hope. Maybe she can make it up to him, if she tries hard enough. It was not much, but at least she gets to spend a little more time with him. That’s more than Miranda had. The mere thought made her cringe in pain. She looked at the broken screen, still showing the last frozen frame of Miranda, her expression caught in the moment right before despair.
“I used to know you, Liara, but you have changed.”

Liara shook her head.

“I don’t want to change!”
“I am afraid it is too late for that. We all changed.” Shepard said quietly. “This will stay between us, but I need you to leave now, Liara. I want to be alone. I will be back on the Normandy one hour before takeoff, okay?”
Liara nodded, sniffling, that treacherous fear still gripping her heart. She knew she lost him, but at least she can be close to him for a little while. As she stood up, gathering her strength, wiping away his tears, Shepard leaned back in the couch, closing his eyes and pressing his fist against his forehead with a sigh.
She left without a word and he didn’t even open his eyes to look after her.
* * * * *
They hit Chronos Station with everything they had. A whole fleet jumped in and peppered their defenses, while the Normandy slipped in, dropped the team off and joined the fray.
On the station Shepard was done playing nice. They had a solid plan, and they were not taking hostages. Everybody was there, Garrus and Vega providing the firepower, EDI and Liara the support. Shepard took great satisfaction in slamming several fighters into the hangar doors and beyond. Liara’s biotics were sweeping before them, crushing armor, spine, doors, everything. EDI hacked the rest, venting whole sections into space to clear a path to the core of the station.
They stopped briefly before the last door, went over their strategy, cooled down, recharged and blasted in. When the hologram of the Illusive Man popped up, he simply shot the comm. He was done talking to psychopaths. They reached the prothean VI just in time before Kai Leng made an entrance.
They formed a defensive circle around EDI and Liara in the middle of the room. As Leng and his thugs started to step closer, Shepard lifted his gun.

“Now!” he said.
Liara threw up a protective aura around them and EDI fired her gun. The modified shotgun sent out an EMP blast, the blast taking out everybody but Kai Leng. He collapsed to the ground, too, but he managed to crawl back onto his hands and knees. The rest were not.

“Fire,” Shepard said calmly and they let it rip.
Kai Leng didn’t stand a chance, his shield destroyed within seconds, his armor soaking up as much damage as possible before he was down on the floor again. Shepard signalled to hold fire, and he strolled to the groaning assassin in the middle of the room. He leaned closer, looking into his face.
“You didn’t think I was going to play your childish game, did you?” He sneered, kicking Kai Leng in the stomach. “Get up, N7, don’t be a pussy! Show me what you got!” He roared at him, delivering another kick.
“Look at you! Full machine, not half the man! Get up, you fuck!”
Kai Leng staggered to his feet, wobbling heavily, his shielded limbs working erratically, swiping blindly around with his hands. The EMP blast fried half of his electronics, but he could still move around. Shepard continued in his drill sergeant voice.

“What a, piss-poor excuse for an N7! Playing with swords like a little boy!” He gave Kai Leng a hard shove on the shoulder.
The assassin stumbled backwards, bouncing off from the Illusive Man’s desk and stabbed with his short sword towards where he thought Shepard would be. He wasn’t there. He was behind him and his omni-blade pierced through his back, emerging from his stomach. Kai Leng gurgled, spitting blood.

“This is for Miranda, you son of a bitch,” he hissed, yanking the blade free and watched the assassin fall to his knees. Shepard shoved his foot into his back and turned away, disgusted. The others stood and stared at him wordlessly, shifting from one foot to the other.
“EDI, radio Joker. Let’s grab what we came for and get the hell out of here.”

A/N: Final chapter coming up in a couple of days...
- 5
- 6
- 7
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The High Cost of Perfection