Liara T'soni lazily twisted her lover's short, blonde curls between her fingertips. A privilege? Tegan Shepard was a military woman, above all else – ruthless, cold…so they said at least. A human…what was the name of their planet? Shepard was from her species' home-world…by the Goddess, what was the name?
Shepard lay on her back, hands behind her head, staring at the ceiling, paying no mind to Liara's fingers wandering through her short cropped hair. It was ironic, she thought, that the only two people she had made love to in three years were Asari. She had never been overly fond of aliens at all…human existence was too important to trust it to the galactic community. Now though…what? Try as hard as she might, she could not deny a fondness for Liara.
"Te…Tegan, what are you thinking?" Liara asked innocently.
Shepard, however she felt about Liara, had no fondness whatsoever for her first name, and she never used it. "Call me Shepard, Liara," she said brusquely.
"But…is it not custom among your kind to use first names with those who are close to you? Perhaps I have assumed too much?"
Shepard laughed at Liara for a second, and gave a small smile to show she meant no offense. "I try and forget I have a first name at all, Liara," Shepard said, with more kindness than usual.
"Oh, I see," Liara said. If she were a human she would have blushed. Even though they had made love, Liara was not at all certain how her commanding officer would react to her – Shepard was a near total mystery to all.
After a moment of what felt like awkward silence for Liara, she continued the conversation on another note, "What is the name of your homeworld, Shepard? For the life of me I cannot remember, though you've mentioned it before, and I've read the fact file."
"Earth," Shepard replied matter-of-factly.
"Why did your people name your planet after soil?" Liara asked, honest curiosity momentarily overcoming politeness.
"Limited perspective," Shepard replied. Calling the area I grew up in "Dirt" would have been an apt name, in any case, Shepard thought to herself.
"It seems like such an attractive blue planet from the few pictures I have seen," Liara said.
A vision of black robotic monstrosities encircling and destroying the "pale blue dot" (as some 20th century astronomer had called it) came to Shepard's mind. The Reapers. Shepard was surprisingly moved at the imaginary image of humanity's home under siege from those cosmic horrors. She hated the place for what it had made her, but she loved it because of what it stood for.
"Earth is like any inhabited world. Full of people and their problems," Shepard said after a few beats.
Liara simply frowned at the negativity, and having nothing else to say, rolled on to her back and joined her lover in staring up at nothing.
Shepard decided that Liara's species had no effect, positive or negative, on the feelings she had for the girl (Girl? She appeared female in every way to Shepard, and Shepard was not in the habit of being attracted to males, but intellectually the Spectre knew that Liara was neither truly male nor female). Shepard liked Liara because she was sweet, because she was innocent, because she had never had to kill her own friends to survive, or steal to eat like Shepard.
Liara might one day, when Sovereign's kind was destroyed, be a bastion against the dark truths of life that Shepard knew too well - someone that she could hold close and pretend that the universe wasn't a kill-or-be-killed place where only the strong survived. Shepard wanted to protect Liara's innocent heart as badly as she wanted to protect her species and her home planet.
And she would. No matter the cost.