Screams, confusion, fire, smoke, adrenaline, blood, shocks, Shepard commanding her to get into an evacuation pod. A fatal collector ray beam, the Normandy exploding and Shepard spaced…
Liara woke up from her nightmare, panting heavily, her heart racing fast. She was reviving the collector attack to the old Normandy, when Shepard died. So far, the worst day of her life, even worse the fall of Thessia under the Reaper siege. And though it had been more than four years since the incident, and Shepard was still alive thanks to Cerberus, she still had nightmares about it occasionally.
The asari swept away the cold sweat in her forehead, took a deep breath and tried to relax. She looked down to the human sleeping by her side.
"Thank Goddess I did not wake you up," she thought. Liara knew that Shepard was having nightmares too, even more frequently. And not only about the collector attack, or the Reapers destroying Earth. In their joinings, she could feel how dark events that happened before they met were still haunting the human.
Shepard never talked about them, and she never dared to ask. And it hurt. She wanted Shepard to be more than just her lover –she wanted Shepard to be her bond mate. And for that, they needed to trust each other fully: no secrets, no guilt and complete acceptance.
Liara sighed, and laid back again in the bed. She noticed how Shepard move slightly and cursed herself.
"Li?" the human muttered.
"I am sorry, my love. I did not want to disturb your sleep," she whispered and embraced Shepard from behind, feeling the human's back against her skin.
"It's OK. I was dreaming of you, but I'd rather have the real you."
The asari smiled and blushed. Shepard always said these things carelessly, without knowing the effect the words had on her.
"You can have the real me in the morning. Now you need to sleep," Liara said softly and kissed her lover's neck.
"Aye-aye, ma'am."
Shepard stepped out of the bathroom, drying her hair with a towel. She opened a drawer and chose a plain soldier uniform to wear today. Once dressed, she looked into the full-body mirror and saw her reflection: dark red hair, green eyes, a scar in her right eyebrow, a smaller one parting her lip, white skin… a soldier.
"What is troubling you, Shepard?" Liara approached her and squeezed her shoulder.
"Nothing, it's just… I don't want them to change me."
"You will not allow that." Liara caressed Shepard's cheek, trying to comfort her. This was not news to her. "The Human Councillor already informed you that you don't need to accept the promotion."
"Yeah, I bet the Turian Councillor will be thrilled," Shepard said downheartedly. "He'll just think of a different way to screw me up."
"Because trying to promote you to Captain is 'screwing you up'." Liara smiled and kissed Shepard on the lips. "I get that you don't want to change the battle field for a desk, but you already made it clear that you want to remain as a Commander. So you must be worrying about something else too."
Shepard sighed. "Am I so transparent?"
"You have 'Ash' written all over your face," Liara smiled again. "Don't worry, my love. I'm sure the Council will listen to both of you. Just… try not to lose your nerves."
The human left the apartment and walked towards the Presidum Tower. Liara insisted on renting an apartment in the Presidium area of the Citadel so they wouldn't need to stay inside the Normandy or in an Alliance quarters whenever they were on shore leave in the Citadel. Shepard didn't mind staying inside the Normandy, but she remembered Anderson once saying that it was nice to have someplace in the universe to call home and surrendered to Liara's wishes.
While she was crossing the gardens with the magnificient water fonts, she thought about the hard conversation with the Council that awaited her: convince them of her reasons to reject her promotion to Captain; convince them that having Miranda as XO of the Normandy was a good idea; convince them that she and Ashley should work together… A lot of "convincing" to do that was crystal clear for her and a nightmare for the Council.
"Damn, I hate politics," she cursed to herself. "And I hate politicians even more."
When Shepard finally arrived to the Presidum Tower, the Human Councillor and Ashley were waiting for her. She saluted, the Councillor nodded and Ashley returned the salute, smiling from ear to ear.
"Ma'am."
The Human Councillor grabbed their attention. "We should be heading now, I don't want us to be late. This is going to be… complicated."
The good spirits that came to Shepard from seeing Ashley quickly faded away.
"Ash, remind me to ask for a 'one easy audition with the Council' voucher for my birthday," she mumbled.
Once inside the Council room, minutes passed slowly with empty talks and pointless discussions. Like the Human Councillor anticipated, getting the concessions the Commander demanded was proving difficult.
"You cannot expect us to accept a former Cerberus agent not only as crew of the Normandy, but the XO!" the Turian Councillor argued in a dismissing tone.
"The Normandy is mine!" Shepard snapped. "My ship, my rules, my XO!"
"You humans always think you can do as you please."
"Yeah, it's this thing called 'free will' we are born with."
"Shepard, that's enough!" the Human Councillor intervened. "Councillors, I apologise for Shepard's words, but I'm sure she has her reasons to choose Ms Lawson as the XO of the Normandy. That is not a decision one makes lightly. We should respect that."
Shepard bit her tongue, despite of wanting to smash the Turian Councillor against the wall. She felt Ashley's hand squeezing her shoulder and that calmed her down somehow.
"Try not to lose your temper," the human whispered in her skipper's ear, "now we get to the part where we make them agree to have two Spectres working together."
Liara heard familiar voices outside and opened the main door of the apartment to greet Shepard and Ashley.
"You two are drunk," she said. It was not a question.
"Just a bit, Li." Shepard kissed her and Liara could taste the beer on her lips.
"I take this as you started celebrating your victory over the Council without me. Is it good news, then? Are you allowed to work together in the Normandy?"
"Hell yeah!" Shepard shouted and Ahsley started to laugh.
Liara was amused. She had never been drunk, but humans were prone to do it quite often, specially on shore leaves. Shepard drank from time to time with the crew, and as long as the Commander was able to get back to bed by herself, Liara did not really mind.
The asari smiled and hugged Ashley. The human let a pain groan escape.
"What is wrong?" Liara asked, a bit worried.
"She got a tattoo on her back," Shepard mocked. "You just touched it."
"Hey, don't you laugh, Skipper! You got one too!"
"What?" Liara interrupted, "Let me see it."
Shepard took off her jacked, turned around and pulled up her T-shirt so Liara could see the ink on the upper part of her back.
"To strive, to seek, to find and not to yield," Liara read. "Isn't this Ulysses, Ashley?"
"Yup, I got the same one. But it was Shepard's idea!"
Liara rolled her eyes. "Do you really think that getting marked for life while you are intoxicated is a good thing?"
"Well, we humans only live for 150 years," Ahsley shrugged. "It's not such a big deal."
Shepard nodded in agreement. "Besides, it's a good quote," she added.
Liara sighed. She knew that Ashley said that with no malice, but she did not like being reminded of how short human life span was. And the two of them getting the same tattoo… it was odd. She decided to drop the topic and focused on getting the human women sober up.