Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The emptiness after a battle is always uneasy and liminal. Is the battle over? Should I keep pushing objectives, or fall back for debriefing? How's the chain of command? How is my team? How am I? Even in unquestionable victory, shellshock and adrenaline coarse through a vast majority of combatants, and exhaustion makes coordination difficult. In times like these, being a part of the elite squad that started, fought, and finished the fight gets you first pick of cleanup missions.

Especially when your priority is recovering your Commander.

Even Admiral Hackett, yet to be stripped of command over the off-world portion of the war assets and possibly the last person in the galaxy to ever have a leash on Shepard, couldn't pretend to exercise control over a single ship with the political power of a small interstellar government. The Normandy, Commanding Officer in absentia, was granted authority over the search and recovery operations aboard the Citadel.

Liara had ended up in the position approximating Executive Officer -- that is to say, the one in command until Shepard's condition was determined -- by virtue of experience handling cavalcades of information like those flying around the system amidst the cleanup effort. Volunteers were transferred to the Normandy's command, and EDI could only do so much coordinating, especially since whatever knocked out the Reapers had damaged her processing.

It was also a bittersweet memory that the Normandy had not seen an XO since Presley aboard the SR-1. Lawson was a sort of second-in-command when the SR-2 was a civilian Cerberus vessel, but she was also the onboard Cerberus liaison. Yeoman Chambers and Specialist Traynor had both served more secretarial roles for Shepard aboard the SR-2, given the Commander's chronic refusal to delegate. Liara herself admitted she was unsure if she could hold a candle to the memory of Executive Officer Charles Pressly.

Nobody would ever describe search and rescue efforts to be "fun". However, Dr. T'Soni had assumed command for perhaps twelve Earth hours and had hardly managed to assemble the crew to form a plan before the messages came in. Congratulations and gratitude, of course, but mostly a gallery of voices asserting what they could and could not do to retake the Citadel. Garrus, goddess love him, was happy to acquire a large net and vent the entire station into space if it made finding Shepard easier. Wrex, who had been brought aboard because if you need rubble sifted through you sent a krogan, was on his side.

The Alliance had probably the most even-handed and understandable demands. The Citadel was still in high Earth orbit, and the conduit Shepard had boarded the station with was reported to have been used to collect human corpses en masse. They needed commitments of the safety of their capital planet from sudden deorbiting of the Reaper fleet as well as a respectful but efficient cataloging of the dead. Hackett had clearly committed to giving up control now that he finally had an opportunity, as the Normandy was now in communication with a joint authority of the Admirals of the remaining Sixth, Seventh, and Eighth Fleets. Rear Admiral Hannah Shepard expressed belief that they would arrive at the correct way forward, whatever that may be. Liara broke down and cried for ten minutes.

The Dalatrass was under the impression that anyone was listening to her, but the presence of STG strike teams at the Battle for Earth proved that was dubious at best. Most were in the process of pulling back to regroup while the Salarian Union prepared to enter the theater, but even then there were numerous salarians among the Normandy's volunteers and many teams were delaying their retreat for as long as possible to aid their fellows in repairs. The official word of the Union was that investigation into the Reaper fleet should be immediately halted until their arrival, and, failing that, damage to the Citadel should remain "less than a hundredth of a millionth of a percent". Liara considered printing that communique just so she could physically trash it.

Primarch Adrien Victus was, as always, a stubborn but practical sort. There was an undertone to his messages that suggested his real wish was to hide his entire race away in turian space to rebuild and emerge to pay off their debt on some magical future date when the galaxy was back on its feet and it was like the universe was new again. That was unfortunately not an option. The Primarch's demands were similar to the Dalatrass', though far more even-handed. If the Citadel was truly free of the Reapers, there was too much infrastructure and personal effects of families who might still be alive aboard to allow for recklessness. There was also the possibility of reestablishing it as the seat of galactic governance, which the turians actually stood a chance of returning to. Garrus asserted he knew Victus would be able to handle his new responsibilities.

It was summarily unsurprising that the asari were insisting on sending a diplomatic attaché to serve as the republics' eyes and ears as the Citadel was investigated. There was no doubt that they were subtly eyeing a return to the Council they had founded and dominated for millennia, but having the longest history with the station did give credence to a cultural attachment that they would want to protect. Liara turned down the diplomat, though the rejection was promptly ignored as they were being sent along with a peacekeeping corps that the Alliance had already accepted the help of.

Aria T'Loak joked about sending mercenaries in exchange for a finder's fee, but admitted they were stretched far too thin to offer anything. She promised to keep Omega's network generally undisruptive and focused on scrapping and reconstruction contracts for the time being. Liara would have called it a rare moment of genuine altruism, until Aria stipulated that anything looted by her men would have to be bought off of them and could not be demanded, though they would vet buyers to prevent another, in her words, "Cerberus incident".

The Admiralty Fleet sent congratulations and thanks and nothing else. Tali was unsurprised, especially since they had likely voted her in charge of the situation the moment news of the battle ending reached Rannoch anyways. She was actually surprised that their QEC was both unbroken and not misplaced.

The geth sent the geth. More accurately, they sent advanced notice that their remaining forces in the sector would be replaced with a sizeable reconstruction detachment in the equivalent of five and a half Earth days, assuming their diagnostics of the Mass Relay system was accurate. Liara sent advanced warning to the Systems Alliance of their imminent arrival.

In the end, they could say what they wanted. While everyone aboard the Normandy was scratching at the door to get aboard and find Commander Shepard, going in blind on a ship that large would be both dangerous and time-consuming. Dealing with the political correspondence was Liara's lip service to the administrative role she had been assigned while simulations were run to investigate the pulse that had deactivated the Reaper fleets. If Shepard could be relied on for one thing, it was to somehow always be at the literal center of whatever was going on.

And after two days of analyzing scant footage from any camera pointed at that part of space in that moment, running energy calculations, and simulating where the source could have been, they had found the room where it happened.

Chapter Text

"I'd usually have a witty rejoinder right about now," Garrus sighed wearily, sat in the middle of a large chamber with canals running off of it like the spokes of a wheel, "but this is frankly the kind of horrifying thing I had hoped would just go away when the war ended."

Liara crackled over the comm, residual energy and circuitry damage to the station interfering with the connection, "The more we map out, the stranger it gets. It seems that the Citadel Spire was rapidly converted into a sort of... mass grave for casualties of Earth's occupation. The layout is entirely different from Council maps of the ship's inner workings."

"Keelah, I believe Dr. Chakwas' theory is correct," Tali echoed from the entrance to another one of the ductways, illuminating the depths. "They were restarting their Human-Reaper project from the Collector base. They didn't get far; likely the repurposing of the Spire took too long. I'm unsure if seeing the bodies is better or worse than seeing reservoirs of genetic slurry."

The Reapers, as always, had been brutally efficient in their goals. The change of the Spire to be so entirely unrecognizable was harsh on the senses, but in exchange the rest of the Citadel had avoided attention and was largely untouched. The Presidium around the Relay Monument was a different story.

There was the sound of clicking feet from one of the canals, and both raised their guns in reflex. They had been proven wrong a hundred times by now, but to say nerves were still high would be an incredible understatement. Instead, what emerged was a Keeper, once again silently carrying a corpse from a dark corner and down through the spine of the spire, walking down the walls and not bothering to take the elevator.

It was more distressing the first time, because the Keepers had stowed far more bodies in the lower levels and therefore had many more to clear out at once. They had also been horrifically callous about the whole thing, dragging the bodies sloppily by extremities and tossing them into a pile near the Conduit in some automatic hope that they'd all be warped back planetside. Luckily, the geth detachment was somehow able to interface with the split ends of their hardware where the Reaper tech had been destroyed and passed along instructions to carry their duties out more carefully. The geth had also volunteered to stay back and catalog the dead for the Alliance; unsleeping efficiency and a lack of distress at reminders of organic mortality made them perfect for the job.

James and Ashley were five floors below and definitely rattled by the whole thing. It was unsurprising; these were their people. A few hours ago a Keeper had slipped and actually *dropped* one of the bodies down the central shaft, and Vega had actually retched at the sight of it falling from the floor above, smacking wetly on the edge of the shaft on their level, and then plummeting into the darkness.

Barring interruptions, the plan was simple: each duo in turn had five sets of volunteers, and as such the two teams were five levels apart. Wired comms transmitters were placed on the top level in case of wireless jamming, and the leaders would guard the cisterns of their five floors while their teams investigated the halls. It was coordinated so that the bottom team would expect to complete scouting when the top team was halfway done, and would then move up five levels to become the new "top team", and the cycle would repeat.

"I know WHY we're doing this, but it still seems too damn slow," Vega grunted over comms. Tali rolled her eyes. She'd been able to wrangle Garrus into not rushing in ahead, but Wrex and his krogans were relegated to moving rubble for the teams clearing the Presidium because there was otherwise no stopping them from blitzing to the top of the Spire. The last thing they needed was to banish another crewmate to the Presidium 10k.

He was right, to an extent: every identical level was about five meters floor-to-floor, and if they were trying to get to the top of the spire they needed to climb a little over three and a half kilometers. Mathematically, they could expect 720 levels of this, which was a long undertaking even taking it five at a time. Enough recruits had signed on that the survey teams could work in shifts, and the crew had taken to staggering naps to avoid downtime if at all possible. Adrenaline and enthusiasm had gotten them through roughly 120 floors, a sixth of the way there, in 12 hours... but people were tiring, and mental distress had led to many of the volunteers to be reassigned to the Presidium or Wards.

"I'm not happy about it either, but we can't risk getting to the top and having the entire tower collapse under us in some final screw-you trap... or worse, completely passing by Shepard if she's somewhere in the middle," Garrus grumbled back.

"Besides, we're not *just* securing the site. We're bringing loved ones back so their family can bury them. This work needs done," Ashley interjected. Her disapproving stare could be heard on every word.

"Meanwhile, the Commander's up there, maybe bleeding out, maybe wasting away, while we twiddle our thumbs doing the right thing the right way." James scoffed at his own insubordination. "You know what, screw it, I'm coming up there. Liara, send the Prothean down, I'll put up with him, maybe it'll be good for checking him on that ego. Tali, Garrus, we all know Shepard is missing you guys most -- uh, and Dr. Tsoni, but she's on the ship; the rest of us can wait our turn."

There was a stunned silence for a moment as the telltale sound of the elevator kicking into gear echoed up the shaft. Aside from the risks of not securing an exit strategy, there had been the unspoken detente about nobody claiming dibs to Shepard's actual rescue. It was just one of those awkward thoughts in the air with the stakes hopefully done with, even if it was entirely ridiculous to be jealous of who gets to make sure their commander is alive.

"It seems your time with Commander Shepard has actually taught you leadership and decisiveness, Mister Vega, though you could stand to flesh out your plans more before jumping in the hotseat," Liara finally broke the tension.

"That was never Lola's strong suit either, and I did learn from the best."

The comms rumbled with laughter. Despite a wealth of dry humor, the crew hadn't had an actual laugh in too long. It was nice. "Alright, I'll trust that after a hundred floors we've established what to expect. Garrus, Tali, I'll have Cortez pull the shuttle around in case our escape plan is spacing you. Give me time to put together a rescue kit for if we find the Commander, and then we'll send you to the top."

It didn't take James long to regret signing up for Javik duty. Whatever spirit of Lola had possessed him to take on such a self-sacrifice didn't last long and he was left overseeing cleanup duty with possibly the most imposing presence in the galaxy now that the Reapers were dealt with. To Javik's credit, he'd been on his best behavior, but his best behavior was a harsh level of stoicism that did his species proud. He had stayed aboard in the first place because nobody wanted to be stuck on duty with him, and he had been just happy with that.

"I am sorry for your people's loss."

"Huh?" James snapped out of his thought.

"Your dead. I cannot mourn their loss as their own kind can, but I have stood among the fallen. They gave their lives to stop a threat the Prothean Empire could not. I am expressing my condolences."

James paused. "Thanks, Bu--... Javik," he finally mustered. "Sorry about the nickname, by the way. I know it's not really your speed."

Javik shot him an intense look, but was that... a smile? "Few things in this cycle are, as you say, 'my speed'. However, the great enemy is gone, and my people are avenged. Perhaps I shall find new ways to avenge their deaths in time, but if I do cannot accept that the primitives of my time are no longer primitive, I should simply step into the void now."

There was another long pause, this one far less heavy. One of the scout crews emerged from their hallway, though they still stayed as far away from Javik as the antechamber would allow. "Javik... can I say something that might make you very happy, might make you very angry?" Vega offered after a time.

There was the heaviness again. Javik seemed to be waiting expectantly. A lightbulb went off in Vega's head, and a chill ran down his spine.

"J-Just don't go running off on us, okay? I don't want to be responsible for a Prothean going off on a warpath... or losing Doc her favorite research subject, no offense. Me and my big mouth though, I probably can't take it back now."

"Doubly so after calling me a research subject."

James swallowed hard. He had managed to put himself between a rock and a hard place again. If this were the Normandy a week ago, he would have just told Javik half an hour ago to square up, and the Commander would have had to stop both from punching a hole into the side of the ship. This was now, though, and the Commander wasn't here to save his sorry ass. It was his turn to do some of that peacemaker shit.

"I-I had a habit of reading the Alliance Navy reports that Lola -- sorry, Shepard -- wrote while she was on the SSV Normandy. When I was assigned to keep an eye on her when she was grounded, I felt like it helped me get to know her. Made me feel less like a small fish in a big pond, I guess."

He could almost *smell* the aura of Javik holding in his impatience. He was grateful.

"On the SR-2, I was even more curious, now that I was serving with her. Doc helped me fill in the blanks, got me the classified versions of the reports and Citadel copies. There was this planet just before the Sovereign incident... Ilos. It had a holdout from the Protheans, technically post-war, probably the most untouched and complete relic of your people. The pods had all been taken offline after all the years, and I think the VI's shot, but... it could hold history, if that's your thing. Maybe a way to bring 'em back, if you're a dreamer. The specs can't have screwed it up *that* much in two years."

Silence again. Then, a rumble, which became a chuckle, which became a laugh. Buggy was laughing at him.

James was at least not dumb enough to interrupt a psychopath during a laughing fit. Javik finally pulled himself together enough to explain, "I am sorry, my friend, it is not you-- I believe the term is 'irony'?. Your commander and I have already discussed Ilos. The weight of your words was unfortunately for nothing." He calmed himself. "I do appreciate your thought. Ilos had disappeared from my thoughts for a long while; I did not truly believe we would survive, 'no offense'. You are, however, perhaps right. The primitives could not have completely defiled the ruin for religion or science so quickly."

Vega punched himself in the leg so hard he wouldn't have been surprised if his knee had shattered. He had put himself on the line for literally nothing?! At least it seemed to amuse the insane alien and... wait, had Javik just called him his friend? "So we good, Buggy?" James froze. FUCK.

Javik shot him a look that could kill, but grinned after a beat. "We are 'good', Shoulders. If I do decide you all need to die, you shall perish last. Or first, should that be your preference." Vega was at least not dumb enough to get that was a joke. "I am still unsure on your... what do you call them? 'Nickname'? Even for a means of affection, comparing me to an insect strikes me as... impolite."

In another bout of utter stupidity, James decided to push his luck. "I could call you 'Four-eyes', but that's more for the book types like Doc."

Javik, in turn, looked back incredulously. "None of you have four eyes! How could that be reserved for scholars?!"

James pondered an explanation. "We sometimes use these things called glasses to see better. Way more common a long time ago, but old people still use 'em to read, when their sight goes. Helps focus your eyes. Looked like an extra pair of eyes... I guess. You usually need 'em more if you're actually looking at stuff up close, like the scientists do. So... nerds. Scholars as you call 'em, I guess."

"I see. The prospect of using this knowledge on the asari is very tempting, but I can see how I do not qualify." Javik appeared to be actually pondering the concept of nicknames.

James opened a private comm line to Ashley. "LC!" he whispered. "I think I made a friend!"

"You have got to be shitting me."

Chapter Text

In theory, having a piece of Reaper tech sitting around should have been the last thing Shepard wanted; as things stood, though, it was nice to have something to talk to.

"Commander's log, day... three? I think? Day three, let's go with that. Honestly I don't know why I dictate like you should be taking logs, considering there is literally one person in the galaxy that I might let know about you, but I guess it's keeping me sane."

In her hand, Commander Jane Shepard held the last vestige of the Catalyst, the only piece of non-mundane technology in the entire chamber that hadn't undergone complete and total structural collapse following the kill pulse. What it was could be compared to the stands for the old Avina holograms: an audio processor, a currently-broken image projector, and just enough circuitry for Shepard to know that it was listening to and remembering what she said. Essentially, it was probably the projector for that hologram it had decided to taunt her with.

It stayed quiet, though.

"I should really destroy you too, you know. Break you down to your components, split those into pieces no longer than a millimeter, and drop it all in a black hole. You're certainly some sort of Reaper tech, I can tell... but you're not, at the same time, or you'd be part of the damn glittery dust I keep coughing up. You're not making that same ringing-- speaking of which, Commander's Log: the damn ringing stopped. Maybe using a space station as a synthesizer while I was still on it wasn't quite a good idea."

Ringing wasn't the right word, but the Reaper counter-signal had certainly been reverberating until recently. Shepard had to admit that the gambit was a longshot, fueled entirely by adrenaline and a manic episode, and that saying she had "heard" the indoctrination wave in the first place felt like a stretch even if it she obviously had. However, somewhere between her ear, her brain, and some subatomic level, she had definitely been actively feeling it after it got emitted across the galaxy.

"You're Wilson for now, by the way. Top secret codename. Old Earth joke. Ancient at this point, but it certainly has stuck around. Guess I understand why now."

The Catalyst had never actually shown signs of life. It was only by a thorough examination when she first discovered the component, combined with her engineer's instinct, that told her it was definitely still in operation. Or she could have just finally gone insane. There was always that option.

"Commander's log, continued: I've been thinking about the Council. Obviously, after that Dalatrass fiasco, the salarians are out. I should say the same about the asari, given the Athame temple conspiracy, except that doing politics without them is like bringing a knife to a Thresher Maw fight. The turians... are alright, I think. The krogan would be a terrible choice, and Wrex would turn the idea down anyways. I think I'll round it out with the elcor and the hanar, just to really screw with people. That'll be my real first decree as God-Emperor of the Milky Way."

She'd been doing this for a while. Declarations as the God-Emperor of the Milky Way. She had every reason to hide behind her chronic sarcasm: she would clearly be the center of galactic politics whether she wanted to or not. Such was the way that power worked. Shepard, however, had never actually been one to participate in statecraft, despite her miraculous talent for getting peoples to work together.

"Anyways, they're probably getting closer; I think I've been feeling Javik's presence... prothean trick. Picked it up myself from the Conduit on Eden Prime, though I assume you know that already. The way their psyches commune, I'm surprised they never caught on to how your indoctrination worked. Maybe it's why they got so close, why the cycle after them was able to pull it off. Might also be what made them such good candidates for the Collectors."

The gut feeling that she was about to be rescued meant that it was time to get ready to go. Luckily, she'd been ready to go for a good long while. She had decided and been completing what she needed to do slowly and steadily this whole time. Set up near the sealed elevator shaft were the body of Admiral Anderson, to be buried with highest honors, and the body of the Illusive Man, to be autopsied and promptly incinerated.

She hadn't actually had the energy to stand up for almost the entire three days; she had collapsed into a deep sleep after about thirty minutes of analyzing her situation and had gotten around by crawling and dragging herself around ever since. Didn't help that one of the few chunks to collapse from the ceiling had managed to land perfectly on her damned leg, which was now almost definitely broken.

Shepard tried one last time to stand upright, to present herself as Commander Shepard, conquering hero. She didn't get very far on that. As she had caught up on sleep, her hunger had grown, leaving her with roughly net zero energy gain. Didn't exactly help that she still had about three months of sleep debt to go, either.

She decided instead to lean on a sizeable chunk of rubble -- probably the one that broke her leg, now that she thought about it -- because sitting up had a bit more dignity than laying there like a dead fish. Less likely to give them a heart attack, too. As if on cue, the cycling of the Catalyst chamber hatch slowly began its opening sequence.

"Wilson" was not a very dignified name. Unfortunately, the grand architect of the Reaper fleet was no longer very dignified, having been robbed of almost the entirety of their processing. If it weren't for some rather phenomenal marvels of miniaturization, the Catalyst could have lost everything that made it what it once was and with it the capacity to ever be the same intelligence ever again. As it stood, it only lost most of that.

The Catalyst still couldn't really feel things. The Catalyst couldn't feel things at the height of its strength, and it was certainly far from that. So the Catalyst was still pretty far from emotions.

Yet one could be forgiven for mistaking its actions for those of an intelligence currently feeling blinding rage.

Okay, rage wasn't correct, either. The Catalyst was genuinely further from the complex processes that approximated emotive thought, but the stimuli that weighed on its artificial mind evoked something with more an appearance of a deep and confused grief. That is to say, it was certainly still conscious to an extent, and it was making an active decision to give Commander Shepard the silent treatment.

You try being chipper when you've been lobotomized to an nth degree.

It was still definitely listening, though. One of the intelligence's primary directives was cataloging information, to the point that was less a directive and more a component of its personality and way of thinking. Also, if it truly could not handle defeat, it would not have given the organic the chance. Perhaps, though, death would have "felt" more acceptable than its current state.

The Catalyst heard the elevator arrive, and experienced something similar to a phantom itch: it should certainly receive the impulse that the station was moving, not learn of it through auditory sensors.

"What took you guys so long?"

 Sarcasm. A form of humor often used as a coping mechanism by organics. It didn't take the entirety of the Catalyst's data banks to recognize this habit of the commander.

"The bigwigs at Alliance brass demanded we follow proper procedure. Something about not dropping the Citadel on them. Don't look at me, I wanted to extract you with a surgical Thanix bombardment."

Another organic. A turian. The turian. Most of the information gathered on the final cycle had been retained, but knowledge of Shepard's crew was reinforced tenfold or more, primarily by Harbinger's almost single-minded rivalry. A frustratingly organic habit it had developed since the Collector experiment, but one the Catalyst was quickly relating to.

The sound echoed of feet quickly covering the distance from the platform. Definitely not turian. "Keelah, you two! How could you be so calm at a time like this! Shepard's alive!" The quarian. This one there was possibly even more information on, courtesy of the synthetics, the geth. Sovereign's pet project, though Sovereign had gotten itself destroyed before it could truly become an obsession. "I am happy you're your usual self, Commander, but we have to get you out of here. You've already lost weight, and your leg should not be bent that way."

There was a rough cough from the commander. "I know, Tali, I know. I couldn't let the first thing you see be the absolute wreck that I feel like. Garrus, get the bodies on the lift, then get your ass over here. I don't think I have it in me to carry my weight with just one of you."

There was the sound of dragging. The Catalyst was missing its light receptors, but presumably Vakarian was complying.

"Shepard..." Tali'Zorah resumed. Surname data was conflicting. The Rannoch conflict had made information from the geth confused and self-contradicting. "What is that you're holding on to?" Ah. The Catalyst had been discovered.

"Trophy, I guess. It's inert, like all the other Reaper tech, so it should be safe. I was thinking about taking it apart while I was resting up. Keep my hands busy." She wouldn't dare.

"Shepard that is a terrible idea." There was a shuffling of something moving, then the sound of air being pushed from the commander's lungs. An embrace, likely. "I'm glad to see you're still you."

"Seriously, you couldn't wait for me before the big hug?" Vakarian had evidently finished his task. "It's good to see you in one piece, Shepard." There was a clapping noise of their hands meeting, then the tell-tale sounds of Shepard trying to rise to her feet again.

"Gah, Garrus, you couldn't have given me a little warning before you stood me up?!"

"If I had warned you you would have sandbagged me. Don't worry, I've got you."

The Catalyst's gyroscopic sensor detected it being picked up, likely by Tali'Zorah, given Vakarian clearly had his hands full. "Yes but then I could've been ready to help too, scrap-for-brains." Shepard stopped whining quite as loud, so both must now be supporting her.

"Liara, put the news out to the rescue team that Shepard's been found, alive. Sorry, Commander, I'm sure you'd prefer not to be paraded, but we're still securing the Spire." More footsteps. They were setting off.

"You know, when I said I wouldn't mind being in the middle of you two, this wasn't exactly what I had in mind."

"Shut up before you make Liara jealous, commander. She's been wringing her hands nonstop since the moment the fleet shut down, not that she'd admit it. Least you could do is save it for her." Vakarian's tone indicated chastizing. "Besides, right now, I think that would be what finally kills you."

"I'm pretty sure I told Liara one time that I wouldn't mind going that way. After all the things I've survived, I want to die either of old age or in flagrante delicto."

Heat sensors indicated that Tali'Zorah's body temperature was rising. Blood pressure, likely caused by embarrassment. Another ridiculous organic sentiment.

Maybe the Catalyst wouldn't mind being disassembled after all.