Disclaimer: I, unfortunately, own none of these characters
A/N: This is a fill for an old prompt on the ME kink meme asking for a story to go along with this pic: . /tumblr_mdbojt5h8p1qdf1guo1_ . Hope you enjoy!
Through Love's Eternity
Liara felt the light vertigo of the motion dampeners kicking in as Joker pulled the Normandy into a sharp turn. Groaning, she sat up. Clutching her side, the asari grit her teeth against the wave of pain that washed over her as she pushed her legs off the metal table.
"You must stay put, Liara." Doctor Chakwas' insistent hands pressed on her shoulders.
"I can't," the asari pushed the doctor aside. "I can't leave her."
Standing she gripped the table tightly fighting the nausea that overtook her. Limping out of the Med Bay as quickly as she could, Liara blocked out the concern etched across the human's face.
Side stepping running crew, she did not stop to question Kaidan as he matched step with her. She did not even startle when the man firmly (but gently) wrapped a strong arm around her waist to steady her wavering movement. On the elevator, the asari hung on tightly with one hand to the railing and the other to the major's shoulder as Joker flipped the Normandy into another spin. Her head was pounding uncomfortably, nausea turning her stomach, when they stumbled their way through the CIC.
Tense silence greeted them on the bridge. Shepard's motley team stood in rigid stillness each nursing a variety of injuries. Disturbing the silence, Liara disentangled herself from Kaidan and put a hand on Joker's shoulder.
"Turn around," the pilot's fingers stilled at the steel in the asari's voice.
Liara felt the muscles under her hand stiffen as quiet engulfed them. The stillness in the crowded bridge was stifling; the tension in the room ratcheted on the razor sharp edge of indecision. Removing her hand, Liara turned electric blue eyes onto each person gathered in the cockpit. The resigned faces and eyes that would not meet hers made fury explode within her. She clenched her hands into tight fists, her jaw muscles ticked as she mashed her teeth together, and her biotics flared dangerously at the cowardice before her.
"Cowards!" Liara spat between clenched teeth, her tone strangled and dripping venom. "Shepard has risked her life time and again for each one of you." Her eyes swept the group. "How dare you desert her now? How dare you ever call yourself her friend?" The asari was vibrating with rage. Engulfed in tendrils of blue power, eyes menacingly black, face pulled in utter disgust, she embodied righteous indignation.
Boring a hole into the back of Joker's head with an intense glare, the asari spoke in low tones, biting off each word. "She went back and literally died for you, Jeff," she dropped the name from her tongue as if it were a curse. "Would you abandon her now?" The silence stretched as for the first time Joker did not have a sarcastic rejoinder.
Pinning the hulking man in the corner with dark eyes, Liara snarled, "Where is your fidelity, your allegiance, to the Commander who saved you from yourself?" Vega's eyes slid away, unable to answer.
The asari's anger was palpable, the swirls and waves of the biotics pulsing off her body a physical manifestation of it. "And you, she stands alone on a battlefield avenging your people and giving you peace, while you run. Where is your haughty pride?" Four golden eyes regarded her evenly, but the Prothean offered no reply.
Black eyes swiveled to the silver woman standing off to the side, a sneer distorting blue lips. "She gave you life, form, and autonomy. Where is your humanity?" EDI's metal eyes lowered.
Turning to the man who had helped her limp up to the bridge, Liara's lips turned up into a mocking smile her black eyes making her look sinister. "And you, Major Alenko," he flinched at the sing song mockery in her tone, "she choose you on Virmire, and you betrayed her on Horizon. And despite that she forgave you and allowed you back on the Normandy. Would you betray her twice?" His dark eyes held hers but pain radiated from them.
Turning obsidian eyes to the beautiful mask that reflected her angry face, the asari looked through it to the barely discernible quarian beneath. "Shepard saved your life, gave you purpose on your pilgrimage, defended you when your people charged you with treason," Liara's hands seemed to outline each event her voice shaking with the effort not to shout, "she saved your entire race and returned to you your home world." Blue hands abruptly dropped into clenched fists again. "Has cynicism replaced all the innocence and integrity in you that would demand reciprocation, Admiral Tali'Zorah nar Rayya?" Tali wrung her hands and bowed her head.
Black eyes fixing on the final member of Shepard's team, Liara felt the sting of imminent tears threatening. "And you Garrus Vakarian," her voice finally exploded and bounced of the metal walls of the bridge, "you who Shepard has taken bullets and blows for, you who she has molded and imbued with self respect and moral compass, you who she has trusted more than any other in this galaxy to have her back," she stepped close to him, poking him in the chest with every word, "you who are her brother." She breathed raggedly, her black eyes filled with moisture, voice loud and demanding, "Where is your loyalty and honor?" Garrus forcefully took a step back as the asari's biotics pushed him, his mandibles flared in agitation but shame prevented him from answering.
Liara turned and looked at the faces now staring at her warily. Fury and desperation made her voice inordinately loud, "Has she not earned some fealty from us?" The shouted question was made more impressive by Liara's biotics flaring and engulfing the small room.
The darkness that overtook the room after the small explosion of light seemed all the darker in the absence of Liara's biotics. The asari's voice softened to a low whisper, "Has she not earned our love?"
Every head bowed in shame. Not one of them able to answer a single of the asari's queries.
Hands holding Joker's chair, shoulders slumped in defeat, Liara closed her eyes against the tears she would not allow to fall. Her heart ached.
"Turn around," she repeated, pleading with all her being for the opportunity to save the woman she loved, "please."
The landing was rough. The explosion from the Crucible had disabled one of their engines and much of their electrical system. But, Liara did not even take a moment to assess the damage. She burst from the Normandy almost frantic.
She could feel that Shepard needed her. Her heart was screaming at her to find the human. Stumbling through the rubble of destroyed London, she tried to rein in her despair. The city was in flames and more than two thirds of it lay in utter ruin.
Stopping, blue eyes scanned the wreckage of the city around her. Feeling exhaustion pull at her, Liara bent at the waist and breathed deeply. The shrapnel imbedded in her leg pulsed in pain. The gash that a flying chunk of metal opened on the right side of her crest bled freely. The bullet piercing her shoulder (that had bypassed her shields and barriers and had found the space between the armor she wore) limited the movement of her left arm. Her body felt numb in most other places; she was afraid she was going into shock.
Focusing on the tenuous connection she felt, Liara cleared her mind and imagined Shepard. She closed her eyes, breathed slowly, and opened her mind. Spreading her mind to the limit, she waited. Where are you, Shepard?.
Tears pooled in her still closed eyes. Aching loneliness clawed at her. Shaking her head, she straightened her back and moved deeper into the rubble of the once grand city. She refused to believe she was too late. Oh goddess…Shepard…be alive…please be alive…please...
A soft tug at her consciousness halted her progress. For a moment the asari thought she had imagined it, but the feather light touch pressed against her mind again. A ragged breath escaped her before she stopped breathing completely, all her hope hinging on finding the source of the touch. Centering her entire being, Liara channeled all her energy into expanding her psyche. Falling into a trance like state, the archeologist's mind mapped the landscape like fingertips mapping a body; tendrils of her being gently traced every rock, pebble and crevice.
She moved her mind out in ever increasing circles, leaving no spot untouched. Until she felt it. Sweeping over the spot again, she focused all her formidable psyche on mapping the figure behind a large outcropping boulder.
Liara… The sound bounced around her mind. It was faint and fading, but it was most certainly alive.
Trembling, the asari shook the momentarily paralysis that held her. A surge of strength pumped through her veins. Ignoring the various injuries littering her body, she lunged into a headlong run. Shepard was alive.
Bursting over the outcropping, Liara slid to a stop and dropped to her knees directly behind the prone body on the ground. Breath coming in gasps, she ever so gently pulled the woman up to rest on her chest. Surreptitiously, the asari examined the human. She noted the gun fused to the soldier's right hand; fingers curled around the grip and the trigger of the weapon. Blue eyes took in the bloody side, the charred skin, the decimated armor. Fingertips tenderly moved the bloodied hair matting the human's face.
Sharp eyes looked up into the arctic blue of Liara's eyes. A hiccupped sob escaped the asari as relief flooded her soul. Raising her head, Liara looked up into an endless blue sky. "Thank you…thank you…" she mumbled at the universe.
The hand that now covered her own brought her eyes back down to look at Shepard. Tears streaming down her face, the archeologist buried her face in the soldier's hair. It smelled of ash, blood and earth but it also smelled unmistakably like Shepard. Another sob escaped Liara, her arms tightening and bringing the human closer to her.
Shepard bent her head to the side to look at the asari. A crooked smile took hold of her torn and bloodied lips. Liara could not help but return the smile with one of her own. Tears uninhibitedly rolling down her cheeks, the asari pressed a kiss onto the soldier's forehead.
Looking up at Liara with love shining in her eyes, Shepard squeezed the arm she held, "I knew you'd come and find me."