Shepard and Javik stood in silence for several long minutes. "Thank you," Shepard said bleakly, regarding the door through which Liara departed, not him. Her eyes were over-bright. A weaker sapient would have allowed the tears to fall. "That was unexpectedly kind."

He knew she was castigating herself for losing her edge during the enforced shore leave. He also knew that shore leave had nothing to do with why they failed on Thessia. Nor was the failure evidence of any shortcoming on Shepard's part.

The asari waited too long to share what they knew. That was the end of it.

"If she is overcome by grief, she is lost to us. And we yet have need of her talents," Javik pointed out pragmatically.

He would drop dead before he admitted any personal sentiment involved with the matter, though he had to admit to himself he had begun to be…fond…of these primitives. Not the way they were fond of one another, but a fondness that came from distance. They tried so hard, and it was laudable.

Sometimes, for their sake, he even wished the galaxy understood fairness. He knew it didn't, knew that wishing did nobody any good, but sometimes, wish he did.

"Thank you, just the same," Shepard said quietly. She didn't ask if he meant what he said, or if he'd simply told Liara what she needed to hear. Whatever his reasons, which were his alone, the fact that he'd built the asari up instead of tearing her the rest of the way down was all that mattered.

Shepard understood the value of telling people what they needed to hear.

"This failure was not your fault," Javik observed bluntly.

"No," Shepard agreed. "But it's my responsibility."

"Yes."

Shepard swallowed. "I have some things to take care of. I'm sorry she lashed out at you like that."

Javik shrugged. "The truth hurts."

"That it does." With this, she withdrew, leaving him to his own thoughts.

Javik took a deep breath, then let it out slowly.

Yes. They needed Liara. Her biotics, certainly, her mysterious resources definitely.

And yet sometimes, although she annoyed him, frustrated him with this naïve insane belief that the Protheans were somehow better, wiser, having more answers, more elevated than those who followed…

Well, there was switchback in his own logic. He called the species of this Cycle primitives, but admitted that his people hadn't really been 'better' than the ones in this Cycle. Neither better, nor wiser, nor gentler.

He sighed again. Perhaps it was this acknowledgement that made him so—by comparison to his previous life—sentimental where these young ones were concerned. He did not want to see their ideals, which they clung to with such tenacity, stripped away from them one by one, abandoned in the face of the brutal necessity he alone understood.

He didn't want them to have to understand those brutal necessities…and the thought puzzled him. It was better to face reality, after all. It didn't go away or cease to be because one refused to acknowledge it. And yet, he would infinitely prefer that they not have to learn all that he had learned. For all the strength he saw in the Normandy's crew—differing kinds of strength—there was a tenderness as well.

Even the EDI machine—although this in no way allayed his mistrust of it—seemed to emulate this nebulous, indefinable tenderness. It could be faking it, of course, and probably was.

Javik settled on his favorite cushion, regarding the mat on the floor.

Yes. He had become fond of these young ones. It wasn't something he knew what to do with. He was grateful that none of them had died on Thessia, that that vile snake Kai Leng had not been permitted to extinguish any of their lives.

He was surprised by the surge of hatred he felt for Leng, was even more surprised to realize he had no personal reason to hate the man…except that the man dared to assault Shepard and the rest of the ground crew.

They weren't his people. But they were becoming something like.

He glanced at the Echo Shard, Shepard's word about dead dogs lying—though what dead dogs, like the Ruffie-dog, and spoken mistruths had to do with one another, he wasn't sure—wafting through his consciousness.

It was the first time he had ever dared to ask himself if he had a future in this Cycle. The Last Prothean. A living fossil.

His men were gone. His people were gone. His culture and way of life—such as it had been—were all long gone. And yet…he had a place, here, on the Normandy. It was strange to consider the future when he knew what the Reapers were capable of, what they could do given enough time. He didn't understand why he didn't feel the corroding certainty that they would do this this tender Cycle what they had done to his.

And yet the question persisted: was there a place in this galaxy—if all their hopes were somehow achieved, if the Reapers were defeated and anyone remained to marvel at the fact—for a lone Prothean, a man out of his time?

Shepard had been a good friend to him, though he lacked many capacities required to be a good friend in return. Would that change if the war was over?

…no. Shepard was what she was, regardless of, with or without a war. And of all the people in this Cycle, only she had anything approaching understanding, of him, of why he was who he was, of the time that birthed him. In spite of all this understanding…she was a friend to him, without requiring him to become something else first.

But wasn't he becoming something else, in grams and milliliters? Hadn't he learned to be fond of this Cycle? To deride its tender nature even as he wished to preserve it?

Change had come, and there was nothing he could do but go forward.