A/N: Something I wrote a while ago and edited recently - forgot how much I liked it! Never shared it, wasn't sure if I was going to write more... but I like where this ends. My canon Jade Shepard.
An intimate smile on her lips, Liara tilted her head forward to rest it against Shepard's. Dim light filtered through the slatted blinds that looked over the street below. Their breasts mushed together, softness giving into softness in a way only the feminine form can.
"Ahh Liara..."
Shepard closed her eyes, feeling her partner's fingers trace up the back of her neck and comb through her hair. Shifting her hips, she linked her leg around the slender calf of the woman, before her head dipped to let mesh their lips. Her rough fingers plied over Liara's hip, and Shepard breathed in the sweet scent of her body.
Languid eyes widening, Liara met Shepard's gaze before returning the kiss, dragging her fingers down to the base of her neck. It woke the soldier from her hazy sleep, lips parting to deepen the kiss as their bodies and hands pulled the other closer together. The asari tugged the dark tresses over Shepard's ear and down her cheek, alien skin contrasting skin as their tongues played.
Smiling into Liara's lips, Shepard rolled to pin her back against the bed, pressing her knee between her legs. Kneading the softness of her hip, she wrapped the asari's leg around her waist, letting her weight down, sculpted muscles melding into her blue softness.
"You know the best ways to wake me." Shepard traced her lips over Liara's cheekbone, sighing over her skin, inhaling the sweet scent of it again. Lilacs. Honeyed lilacs and orange blossoms.
"Is it only two more days?"
Firm fingers traced the outline of Liara's thigh, and Shepard nodded into her neck, her dark hair freed and tangled over the asari's face and jaw. Unbothered, Liara tucked it away, nestling her arm around her Commander's neck.
"I'm of the mind to just stay here."
"Perhaps it can be arranged."
Shepard kissed away her words, rolling back to pull Liara atop her, hands ravenous in their pursuit of skin, raiding up her backside and along her spine to press her body down. The asari's back curved, slender body moving with finesse as pulses quickened, the tease of tongues and nipping lips urging playful grins and touches.
The darkness of stars flickered through Shepard's vision, her breath catching in an empty gasp and spasm, a strain in her chest.
"At ease, soldier."
Shepard's arms dropped down from her salute, and she linked her hands together behind her, posture ramrod straight under the drifting eye of the admiral. The man took a deep breath, looking over the planet that glowed outside the small portico window of his office on the station.
"Sir?"
"Shepard, I called you here to inform you that I have signed a transfer to place you under the command of Captain Anderson on one – no, on the Alliance's most prestigious ship."
Her jaw hardening, Shepard's rigid training kept her expressionless, even as her pulse jumped. "The SSV Normandy?"
The admiral chuckled, turning around to gauge Shepard, "I suppose I shouldn't be surprised that you already know about it. Even if the information on it has been classified."
Shepard coughed and she dropped her eyes, a ghost of a grin on her lips. "Sorry, sir. I gather any information I can. Particularly if it's... sensitive."
"Mm. No matter. This isn't just any mission we're sending you on, Shepard. You'll be representing humanity in a vital matter."
Nodding, Shepard's expression grew stony again as she said, "Of course, sir."
"Just don't forget whose side you're on." The admiral raised the data pad in his hand, his eyes rimmed with fatigue. The beard on his chin was peppered with grey.
Shepard's brow rose, though she didn't speak as the man continued.
"You have two hours to wrap up your affairs on the station and be ready for transfer. Dock A5."
A5. That the ship was docking in the A arm of the station said enough about the gravity of the situation. Raising her hand in a reflexive salute, Shepard righted herself again. "Expect nothing but my best, sir."
"Dismissed."
Shepard wavered as a ripple of pain blossomed through her rib cage, an expanding pressure that couldn't escape out her mouth. It wanted to. It was filling her. Just like the light. And the darkness. She couldn't grasp how they both seemed to consume her at the same time.
Pulse thudding hard, Shepard tore her eyes away from the windows, stalking back from the bridge as the remnants of the detonation mushroomed through the atmosphere of the planet below. Her pulse was in her ears, a consuming rush of her blood, and the sweat underneath her armour had gone cold.
She'd killed him. She sentenced Kaiden to death. Left him alone in his final hour clutching a rifle and an ordinance.
Shepard blinked rapidly, swallowing the crush of emotion inside, stalking back through the command deck to handle her duties and give orders. Going through the motions. She'd seen so many people die, this had to become another hardened node inside. They had to notify the Council. They had to discuss their next move.
It was her job to make these decisions. Soldiers were trained to die.
Tears stung in her eyes, freezing along her lower lids and evaporating before they could even form. She was failing. There was no sound, becoming one with the vacuum.
"Jade. Jade, sweetie, time to get up."
Rolling over, the girl flipped her pillow to cover her head. With a flap of sound, her covers were torn away, and there was the mischievous laughter of a young boy, and the patter of feet as he hurried away. Jade grumbled into the mattress, feeling the cool air hit her, prematurely forced from the cosy cocoon of her bed.
"The transport will be here in 10 minutes. Unless you don't want to go with Dad?"
Jade's dark hair tumbled about her cheeks as her head popped off the bed, the pillow flung aside. The strands tangled in a mess, and she cringed in the light that hit her.
Earth. They were leaving for Earth today. It'd take almost a week to make the trip. Dad was bringing only her. She was his favourite. Dean had cried all night in a fit cuz he couldn't come. She smiled.
Jade tripped as she got out of bed, and she tumbled forward, pulling her pillow with her. She left it on the floor. Her mother sighed, grinning as she left the room and left the blinds open.
Matting her hair down with her hands, Jade pulled on some clothes and grabbed her bag packed the night before, barefeet slapping on the floor as she tore through their house. She was out the door and into the street just in time to see her father putting his cases in the transport.
"Decided to join me?"
"You'd leave without me?" The girl's high-pitched voice cracked as she stumbled, limbs gangly and grown too fast for her age.
Robert Shepard grinned and took his daughter's bag, fitting it amidst the carefully packed and protected samples. "Dean was pretty eager to take your place."
"You said you'd take me!"
He handed her a small chip, and Jade beamed and slipped it into her omni-tool. It flared orange around her wrist, and her attention diverted down as she keyed in a few things.
And there was light.
Looking up, the expansive, lapping waves consumed Jade's eyes, and she held her breath, unable to believe it. They had rivers on Mindoir, and it rained, but nothing like this. Dad said their water was mostly underground. She wanted to explore the caves some day. She'd seen vids and holos, but she'd seen that of the ocean too.
"Does Kahje look like this?"
Brushing his daughter's hair back, Robert rested a hand on her head, giving it a squeeze. "So I'm told. I've never been there."
"Will I get to see a hanar?" Jade looked up to her father as they strolled along the beach. In a second, she was in the air, pitched over his shoulder and she cried out before laughing.
"Not today."
She yipped again in protest as her Dad walked straight into the ocean, and issued another high-pitched squeal as she was airborne, and the sound muffled away into the water. Sputtering, she found her feet, standing up and coughing out the vile, salty water.
"Ewagh. That's disgusting!"
Robert smirked and crossed his arms, standing in water up past his knees.
Her chest constricted, and Jade wiped the water away from her mouth, thoughts muddled a moment.
"Race you to the shore!"
The water kicked up with loud splashes as Jade set off ahead of her father, and the man groaned, reaching after her as she went past. They ran up onto the beach, their bare feet leaving impressions in the wet, compact sand. She hopped around and smiled at him, hair matted to her face, before turning and sprinting back into the waves, running until she could only fall over into the water.
Jade looked up to her Dad and he nodded.
"We should go."
"We'll have to hope for the best and see if it takes."
"What do you mean by that?"
"I don't know Brian, I should go."
Jade tugged her arm from the boy's grasp, her cheeks warmed by a delicate blush. It only encouraged him, and he smiled, leaning close.
"I can't bare to be away from you."
Eyes turning aside, Jade tilted her head and the teenage boy took the offered cheek, leaving a light kiss there. "It won't be long. I need to help my Dad."
Brian pouted a moment, but the expression dissolved into a grin. "Such a nerd sometimes."
"Oh come on," Jade laughed, "I thought that's what you liked about me."
"Maybe."
Their eyes met, and Jade nipped her bottom lip, slowly smirking as they kept each other's gaze.
"I'll miss you."
"You better."
Jade linked her arms around Brian's neck, impulsively hugging him. Closing his hazel eyes, Brian tilted his head into her hair, smelling the clean scent there. It made his heart race, being so close, but it made him just as nervous. He didn't know what to think about how she made him feel.
His body was in the streets, bloodied and beaten. She could scarce recognize them, and Jade nearly cried out, when the butt of the batarian's gun came down on her. Her jaw slipped, and pain clamped around her head, throbbing in her ears. Tears blurred her eyes as she frantically looked for him again, but the two aliens ushered her on. They moved and the world tilted.
The two aliens by her side laughed and cajoled at the face she made, pulling through the streets with liquor-laden limbs. Tali leaned into her, and Shepard wrapped an arm around the young woman. Liara kept her hand linked with the Commander's other arm.
"How did I let you convince me to come? Nevermind that, to drink so much."
"Ohhh Tali, you can't refuse me."
The quarian looked up to her Commander, eyes bright, and a bubble of laughter escaped. Shepard smiled, warm and lax, the stresses bled away now that she was free from the medical bay.
"I'd swear you said the same thing to me."
Shepard's jaw dropped and she turned to Liara, extricating her arm. "Me? But you're practically robbing the cradle, Oh Commander, I'm only 106."
Liara's cheeks coloured delicately, prompting a soft laugh from Shepard. She leant and kissed the woman's blue cheek.
"This when I say you don't look a day over 25?"
"Tha - That would be improper."
Tali and Shepard laughed again. Liara looked at her partner, and seeing the mirth in her features, warmed up to the chorus.
The chorus of sound rumbled in her thoughts, bristling through her chest as Shepard stood wide-eyed on the platform.
"You are insignificant. The cycle cannot be changed, for it is in perpetua, as am I."
The tears on her cheeks went unnoticed, and she could not feel or hear as Garrus called, as Liara tugged her arm. Shepard stood firm as the sky roared and glass shattered.
Joker's voice echoed on the comm. "Uh Commander, I think you got its attention. That thing just pulled a turn that would shear most ships in two."
"Commander, we have to go," Garrus urged, and the red silhouette of the Reaper ship flickered and died.
The presence withdrew from her mind, leaving only the memories behind, another etching of death and genocide. Shepard's heart strummed in her chest, pulsing harder, and it was difficult to breath.
"Shepard!"
Tightness laced through her chest, precise lines of electricity that hummed over her skin and tickled into her lungs. It made it hard to breath, and she gasped. But the haze over her vision wouldn't lift, and the muffled sound of voices and machines murmured into the twilight.
The grey over her vision lifted and she rapidly blinked. She was breathing. She was alive. A rush of sound tingled her senses as she tensed, bracing against the section of wall and ship that nearly crushed her. Firelight danced over the metal, giving the Presidium an orange-warmed glow.
With a heavy groan, the debris sloughed aside, crashing into rubble, and its sound was lost in the cacophony of voices, alarms and chaos. Her arm blistered with pain as she moved, pulling herself up despite the protests. With a click, medi-gel coursed over the concealed, compound break. She was on her feet.
Blurry eyes darted left and right, and Shepard picked her way over the obliterated corpse of Sovereign. They had won. It hadn't been enough when Saren had ended his life at her words; it was only with the explosive battle and all this destruction that she finally felt the weight in her chest lessen. She had no idea where her partners were.
Liara. Please let Liara be alright.
Her pulse thudded in her temples as Shepard slammed her fist into the console, and the doors of the escape pod sealed shut. Another blast hit her full force, slamming her back into the fractured hull of the Normandy. She gasped at the sudden clarity of the pain.
Weightless in space, Shepard's visor glowed with the explosions as the golden beam sliced through the Normandy. She spun through the stars, unsteady as she drifted, slowing in the scant thermosphere of the planet below. Pinpoints of burning welled over her body where she wasn't broken. The pain was searing, more visceral than she could ever remember, but she had to stay calm until they came for her beacon.
They were deep. It might easily be 72 hours until someone came for them. The pods would be drifting. Some of them might land.
Another swath of golden light ripped through the Normandy, bringing with it another explosion. All around Shepard, the pieces of her ship drifted, lost and dismembered, glowing, melted and severed. There was no sound.
But there was. She could hear her breathing being overridden by it. Vented gas, like from an extinguisher. A nozzle. A hole. Shaking her head, the misty warmth of oxygen was there at the edge of her vision. Instinctively she reached back, feeling over the tubes that connected and fed her that which she needed more then anything.
Even on Elysium she hadn't felt this panic - hadn't felt the pallor of death hanging over her features. Shepard gasped a breath, steadying it. She could feel the force of the air seeping from her suit, the pressure on her fingers as she groped.
It was cold. Any heat was seeping out with it. Her life force was bleeding into the air. Spaced. Spaced to save that stubborn ass Joker. Her breath clipped again as she vainly sucked at the thinning air in her suit. She spun and flailed, her body on instinct, in flight, filled with cold and a coming numbness.
Shock. She could remember it from her first suit rupture. She'd been shot. There was no way to explain it. But this was ten times worse. She was expanding inside, a warmth joining the cold, and her lips parted, a cry in her throat unable to be made with the last of the air gone. Darkness was closing over her vision, blotting out the stars. Her body and mind were screaming, there was no dignity or thought.
And then there was light.
"There. On the monitor. Something's wrong."
The sound was muted. She could see. How could she see? Form and shape were coming back.
"She's reacting to outside stimuli. Showing an awareness of her surroundings."
Her tongue was thick in her mouth, and every inch of her ached. There was a heaviness in her limbs and stuck to her thoughts. Someone steady the world. Quell that nausea. Stop the world from moving and dumb this pain. Blackness washed over as she blinked.
She could hear herself breathing again, raspy, ragged. How is she making that sound, it seems so far away.
"Oh my God, Miranda. I think she's waking up."
The blurry edge of the world swayed and lolled, and a woman appeared at her side. The bright lights overhead grew and overpowered, adding another pain to the many that burrowed deep inside. The lights gave way to a man, her view of the world shifting at whim, unstable.
"Damn it, Wilson! She's not ready yet. Give her the sedative."
Inside unknown fires spark, and Shepard moved. A hand in her vision. Her hand. Waving for something, for anything as she panted for air, the feeling in her lungs some godsend. Her eyes welled with tears, adding to the blur. The woman took her wrist and guided it back to the bed.
"Shepard - don't try to move. Just lie still. Try to stay calm."
I am me. This is me.
Blinking languidly, the double world steadied to a hazy blur like she'd had too much drink. The thud of her heart in her chest became a painful vibration, the sensation in her fingertips and temples.
"Heart rate still climbing. Brain activity is off the charts."
Hearing the machinations of her body. Did a breath ever sound so sweet, strong and wanting, blinking again as the world wavered.
"Stats pushing into the red zone. It's not working!"
Shepard's head turned sideways, and she could see the medical station the man and woman were at. They sounded frantic. Her lips were dry, and when she tried to move her jaw to speak she was rewarded with a flash of pain. It didn't move. Her jaw was wired shut.
"Another dose. Now!"
Blinking, she felt a wash of warmth through her veins, and the pain that had been holding her awake - alive - seeped to the edges of her awareness. The light was fading too, and Shepard's head lolled back, eyes dilating wide. The world came into focus.
"Heart rate dropping. Stats falling back into normal range."
Her breathing sounded so far away, lengthening, smoothing like into sleep. Shepard's nostrils flared with the deep suck of savoured breath, and the woman looked down to her. Who was she?
"That was too close. We almost lost her."
"I told you your estimates were off. Run the numbers again."
Limbs deadening, Shepard tried to focus on their voices, on the shape of the woman's nose, on anything to keep herself alert. She'd been drugged into sleep before, eyes closing on the heady breeze of medication. This felt different. She was left without a handhold as darkness closed in.