Title: Logistics
Author: YukiVampyra
Fandom: Mass Effect
Pairing: F!Shepard/Liara
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: I don't own anything.
Summary: Liara reasons on why she stalls pushing her relationship forward with Shepard. (ME3)
A/N: General spoilers for Lair of the Shadow Broker.

"I'd like that list…but later. There's so much left to do. I'm working with EDI. Hopefully we can discover what the Protheans left us."

After Shepard left her office, Liara practically collapsed in her seat before the myriad of monitors. Her fingertips came to touch her bottom lip, the skin of her cheek practically burning with the lingering feeling of the Commander's hand pressed there. She had longed for just that simple touch, just her familiar presence since their last encounter after she had taken up the mantle of Shadow Broker. One night to balance out nearly three years of separation, isolation from the one woman in the galaxy that could make her feel like she was on top of the world.

It had taken a Herculean amount of effort for her to curtail the woman's efforts, pulling away from that kiss she knew was coming, the direction the conversation was going to turn. She knew, though, she knew that if she gave in, that if she let Shepard distract herself by a consummation of the feelings they'd harboured for each other for three years, that it would doom them all. The Spectre had the fate of every species in the galaxy on her shoulders and Liara refused to be the reason that she failed; the reason that she could be killed.

As her fingers slipped over the holo-keys, she paused and considered, unable to focus on the streams of information passing before her eyes. Her heart and head were at war and lately the latter was always in the forefront, so it, naturally, further rationalized why she wouldn't allow Shepard back in as her lover. If she were to get hurt on a mission, there would be nothing to stop the savior of the galaxy from risking her life to save hers. It reeked of desperate logic at its finest, and really Liara knew that even if they weren't as they were before…no, don't think of it…before their separation, Shepard would still risk everything for her.

Liara found herself drifting, then, back to when Shepard had saved her life again, saved Feron's life, completed the work she had started. Shepard had been so earnest and Liara was fearful of hope that the woman could ever love her again now that she was cynical and nothing resembling the star struck archaeologist who had been trapped in a bubble on Therum. But there she had been full of smiles and hope for the future where the galaxy would be safe and they could be together. She had melted and gone back to the Normandy with her. One thing in particular she had told the Commander, her Commander (she allowed herself that luxury of possession, if only to quell the desire to run to the CIC and take the woman into her arms and never let go) stood out to her.

I'm not sure people like us have dates. But I'm looking forward to it.

And she realized, something that should have dawned on her sooner, that she would help her Commander win this war, enlist all of the races so stuck in their past grievances to destroy the Reapers and save the galaxy. She had to. She wanted to try for more dates with Shepard and most of all, at this thought a single tear slipped down her cheek, she wanted to see their little blue children.