Liara's Goodbye

by hochrami

This one snuck up on me. Born of a conversation with another writer as an idea for his original work (and all rights are available to him to use any part of this, if just the idea). My Shep usually lives, and he almost did here. He might still... this isn't what I'd call complete and may be edited (or at least touched up / revised), but for now I think it works as is.

The war was over, but she couldn't find joy in it. When the Normandy lifted off from the planet they'd crashed onto, and word reached them that Shepard hadn't been found, all the heartache she'd suffered just over 2 years ago came back in full. This time, however, there was no body to recover, no Lazarus Project to bring him back, no fight to throw herself into to keep her distracted from the loss. With no body, there was no proof he was dead, but with every passing hour, the likelihood he'd survived decreased.

Liara was spending untold hours hiding in her quarters on the starboard side of the Normandy. She was letting the Shadow Broker die, the Reaper War a convenient excuse to let it happen. Her heart wasn't in anything. She wasn't sure she had one left.

Sleep came in fits and starts. Shepard haunted her dreams, the uncertainty of his fate leaving her frightened and feeling very alone. She had her friends, but her bondmate was lost to her. The few times she left her cabin, nobody would meet her eye, though she saw everyone on the crew casting an eye on her left wrist, and the fingers of her right hand absent mindedly playing with her bonding bracelet. Everywhere she looked around the ship she saw him, and it didn't take long before she had to hurry back to her cabin, past the increasingly infuriating tones of Glyph welcoming her, to collapse on her bed, her shoulders heaving as she sobbed into her pillows.

In London, just before the final push, she'd melded with him one last time. A parting gift, just in case it came to this. She showed him the light her mother had spoken of but not seen, and shared with him memories of their time together, and the love she'd had for him for so long. It'd only been 3 years, but it felt like 3 centuries. If that was to be the last she saw him, she wanted to leave him with the knowledge that he'd always be a part of her, she'd never forget, and that the Asari version of Heaven, as he would have referred to it, was waiting for them. She'd see him again, someday.

When the tears slowed, she crawled inside her head and visited him in both their memories. She remembered how horrible a dancer he was, how gentle a lover he was, how he smelled, how he tasted. She remembered the music he loved, and how he never turned on the radio in his cabin because it didn't play anything he liked. She remembered him singing in the refresher, and how he was just as horrible a singer as he was a dancer. Her thoughts settled on a single memory; Shepard singing a song she had never heard, but, thanks to his memories that lived on in her, she knew by heart.

You'll be fine tomorrow
The sun will rise
again, it's never easy to say goodbye
You know I'll always love you
You know I always will
Goodbye, goodbye, goodbye
My old friend(my old friend)
Goodbye, goodbye, goodbye
We've reached the end(we've reached the end)

Shepard, singing to her in her memories, a final goodbye, and a plan began to take hold in her head.

She'd shown him her family estate on Thessia once. He'd remarked about how beautiful it was, how peaceful, how the weight of the world had seemed to disappear while they were there. He'd been born in a colony and watched his family killed by Batarians, so he had nowhere else to call home. In his memories, she saw the Christian burial service his family had received, but knew he never wanted to go back there, so she resolved that there was one last thing she could do for him and set about informing his friends that they'd be observing a memorial beyond the wall where she'd hung his name next to all those that had died in service aboard the Normandy. She'd have a memorial stone made and mark a place on a hill overlooking the ocean on her family's land, and there they'd pay their respects, properly honoring his heritage and his place as a part of her family.

Once the arrangements could be made, a process that was expedited by the Asari people in recognition of the man that saved so many of them, she sent the word out to all those that had served with him, befriended him, and loved him, and then waited. Travel was slower now, but those that were close enough started arriving and waiting with her for the rest of those that were coming. Those that couldn't come agreed to attend via holographic communicator, and last they were there, circled around the stone. Tears were shed, friends hugged each other, and Liara heard his voice again.

You'll be fine tomorrow
The sun will rise
again, it's never easy to say goodbye
You know I'll always love you
You know I always will
Goodbye, goodbye, goodbye
My old friend(my old friend)
Goodbye, goodbye, goodbye
We've reached the end(we've reached the end)

Shepard's memories of the song surged in her head and her voice broke as the song started pouring out of her mouth, as it were her response to him, her lover, her bondmate, and her best friend in the galaxy.

I don't cry for sorrow
I cry with joy
The memories we've made
Can't be destroyed
You know I won't forget you
You know I never could
And when I say I loved you
You know I meant for good
Goodbye, goodbye, goodbye
You know I'll always love you
Goodbye.