Pairing: Aria/Tevos, (Liara T'Soni/FemShep)

Warning: You know what to expect with me. Ejaculating dildos, D/s, bondage, humiliation kink. Plus some vanilla scenes without any of that stuff.

AN: Thank you all for being so supportive during my hiatus! Your messages were really touching. I'm very pleased to announce that my mental health break is over, and I'll be updating regularly again. =D I finished all the editing I needed to do. I'm still recovering, so please be gentle as I dive back into Mass Effect. For those of you who don't know, I was offered publishing contracts for several of my novels with Desert Palm Press. Dark Horizons (with Sy Itha) will be released on March 1st, and a reboot of The Second Sister is coming on April 1st. After that, Dante! This is my new February story, and on March 1st, the day Dark Horizons is released, I'll be finishing this and publishing the first chapter of Now And Again (the sequel to For Now And Always).

. . .

The Only Thing

. . .

Tevos stared at the terminal in front of her, one hand hovering over the controls. Her vision was starting to blur from lack of sleep, but even when she closed her eyes, she could see the name flashing on the screen. Commander Shepard. The Normandy's signal was just strong enough for the terminal to pick up. Tevos sighed and hung her head. She knew why Shepard was calling, why everyone had been calling. The Reapers had landed on Thessia.

The matriarchy was in a panic. While the other races had prepared for the coming invasion, gathering their armies and evacuating as many civilians as possible, the matriarchs had held back. Thessia had been at peace for thousands of years. They refused to believe that the horrors of war would touch the crown jewel of the galaxy. None of them had heeded the warnings. Now, Thessia was burning. Her home was burning.

The casualty reports were staggering. Millions dead in the first several hours alone. She had checked the numbers every few minutes, unable to believe the alerts her omnitool was receiving. But by the end of the first day, all communications from Thessia had disappeared. It was impossible to send messages in or out. The casualty list had not been updated since, but Tevos knew that the death toll was unfathomable. When she opened her eyes again, Shepard's name swam in front of her face. Perhaps there was some hope left. Thessia was lost for now, but if Shepard had managed to extract more information about the Crucible from the beacon…

Her fingers shook as she finally accepted the connection. She folded her hands behind her back, straightening her shoulders as a miniature version of Commander Shepard appeared before her. The image was a little grainy, but she could make out the weary slump of the human's shoulders. Tevos did not want to imagine what Shepard had seen on Thessia. She tried to speak, but the first word cracked. Her throat was tight with unshed tears. She swallowed and tried again. "Commander Shepard, are you there? Commander?"

Shepard braced her arms on the edge of something – a desk, perhaps, or a railing – and hung her head. Tevos desperately wanted Shepard to look at her, but when their eyes finally met, she could only see pain etched into Shepard's face. "Councilor… the mission…" Her voice trailed off, and Tevos's heart sank.

"We've lost all contact with Thessia. The planet has gone dark. How soon will the Crucible be ready to deploy?"

"Councilor, I wish the news was better." Shepard straightened up, and Tevos recognized the pose immediately. It was the same one that she was trying to hold, standing tall even in the face of certain defeat. "We didn't get the information."

She had known. Even before Shepard had contacted her, she had known. How could a single human, even a human as remarkable as Shepard, defeat such odds? "What happened?"

"Cerberus was there. We were… we were defeated. We don't know how to finish the Crucible."

"I – I don't know what to say." This was her fault. Her responsibility. If she had found the courage to defy the matriarchs' wishes and told Shepard about the beacon sooner, perhaps the outcome would have been different. "What was the situation on Thessia?" she asked, even though she did not want to know.

"Deteriorating fast. The Reapers are there in strength."

Tevos heard the exhaustion in Shepard's voice. The guilt. All of the same emotions that she was struggling to contain. She raised her hand to her forehead, hoping it would shield the tears that threatened to spill down her cheeks. "Then you'll excuse me. There are… preparations to make. The continuity of civilization to consider."

That thought was almost laughable. Reaper ships left nothing but ashes behind. The weak plan that she and the few remaining matriarchs had thrown together had almost no chance of succeeding. No matter where they hid, the Reapers would find them. They would wipe out every colony, every world, every single life in the galaxy. She pinched the bridge of her nose, ignoring the tears that dripped over her fingers. She doubted Shepard could see them over the weak connection. "I never thought this day would come," she murmured, pulling her hand away.

Shepard hesitated for a moment. Was she crying, too? "None of us did."

The transmission ended, and Tevos slumped down into her chair. She did not have the strength to remain standing. There were calls she needed to make, but she could not find her voice. She just needed a few seconds. A moment to collect herself before she broke the news to the Council and the matriarchs. There was nothing to be done anyway. Another minute would hardly make a difference when the end of the universe was upon them.

Tevos buried her face in her hands and let the tears fall. Everything was gone. Her home, her friends, her entire planet. The beacon was at the temple in Armali, where she had grown up. If Shepard's demeanor was any indication, the city had been completely destroyed. She had no idea where her mother was, and at least half of the matriarchal council was still out of contact. Most of them were probably dead.

Guilt burned through the pit of her stomach, leaving a gaping hole behind. This was her fault. Thessia was dying in flames because she had not acted quickly enough. Shepard had saved her life twice, but she had not heeded the Commander's warnings until it was too late. Now, Thessia was lost, and the rest of the asari would follow soon after. Everything that she held dear had been ripped from her hands.

Or, almost everything.

Suddenly, she wanted Aria. It was a foolish desire, especially now, but fierce in its intensity. Tevos hated herself for it. Thessia was burning, millions were dead, and all she could think about was a single asari. An asari that probably did not even like her very much. During the limited time they spent together, Aria had proved to be a compatible sex partner, but Tevos could never forget what she really was. The Pirate Queen of Omega. Ruthless and uncompromising. She had no idea why Aria was even entering her thoughts at a time like this.

She needed to call Sparatus and Valern. Needed to tell them what had happened. She wiped her wet hand on the skirt of her dress and reached for her Omnitool. As irrational as it was, she did not want to touch the terminal anymore after her conversation with Shepard. She squeezed a few more tears from her eyes and brushed them away with her other sleeve, trying to regain some of her composure. She needed to remain calm. This was her job. After her horrible failure, the least she could do was present herself with some semblance of dignity until the end. Her people deserved that much from her.

Tevos's hand shook as she scrolled through her contacts, searching for Sparatus's name. She gave up before she even found it. What could he do to help her? The turian military was busy defending Palaven, and the matriarchs had denied his requests for aid. Tevos had even agreed with them at the time, convinced that Shepard would finish the Crucible before the Reapers destroyed the turian military force and reached Thessia. Now, she regretted her decision. Her hands were stained with more than just asari blood.

She closed her contact list and opened up the golden-booted messenger icon instead. She needed to tell Asari High Command what had happened. Most of the matriarchal council had been on Thessia when the Reapers hit, and the few that remained were in no condition to give orders anymore. She composed a short but clear message, hardly even processing the words: 'Thessia is lost. Divert all remaining resources to the Crucible. Order all survival groups to go dark.'

Tevos had little hope that the Crucible would work without the missing components, but they had no other choice. Even if all the remaining military forces in the galaxy managed to unite behind Shepard, they would still not be strong enough to defeat the Reapers. She had even less faith that the small asari colonies tucked away on remote worlds would remain undiscovered. Each had just enough members to sustain a viable breeding population, and the hope was that their long lifespans might allow them to outlast the Harvest. Tevos had chosen not to accompany any of the groups even though she met the strict genetic requirements. Her place was here, for better or worse. She would remain the Asari Councilor until her death.

With a shuddering sigh, she reread the brief message one last time. Thessia is lost…

"Goddess, I am so sorry," she whispered to the empty room. There were still civilians trapped on Thessia. If Asari High Command listened to her orders, no help would come to them. But maybe it did not matter. Unless Shepard performed one of the miracles she was famous for and found a way to activate the Crucible without the catalyst, they would all die anyway.

Tevos sent the message. After a moment's consideration, she deleted the last sentence and re-sent it to Sparatus and Valern. Surely they knew what had happened to Thessia by now, but at least this way, they would see that she was trying to do something about the situation. Without the matriarchs to stop her, she would give them all the resources they had been begging for from the beginning. Once she was finished, she switched off her omnitool and bent over her desk, weeping into her arms. She wept for Thessia, for the countless lives that had been lost, for her own terrible mistakes. She wept until it hurt too much to continue crying and she had no tears left.

Finally, she raised her head and wiped her face, sitting up straight in her chair. She could not stay here, alone in this room when the galaxy was dying around her. Her loneliness was almost as crippling as her guilt. She needed… someone.

Her stinging eyes flicked back to her omnitool. Temptation rose. Would it be so wrong to forget, even just for one night? Was it selfish to surrender what little control she had left in order to feel sane again? She was not sure whether she wanted punishment for her sins or mind-numbing bliss, but she knew one asari who could give it to her. She reactivated her omnitool and began typing in a familiar serial number. She hesitated half-way through, torn with indecision. How could she take what little pleasure and release remained to her in this life when so many others were suffering?

But she needed this. She needed something mindless and primitive. It was a good thing that Aria T'Loak was currently on the Citadel, supervising the transfer of her business assets back to the recently reclaimed Omega station. Otherwise, she would have had no one to turn to. "Just tonight," Tevos told herself as she stood up from her chair. "Just tonight, to forget." She activated the connection.

Aria answered almost immediately. The image of her face on the screen was clear, but as unreadable as ever. "I thought you'd call," she said, not even bothering with a hello.

Tevos sighed. It still hurt to take deep breaths, and her chest ached. "Am I that predictable to you after only a few months?"

"Not predictable." The tattoo on Aria's brow lowered, and her eyes narrowed. She looked even more predatory than usual. "You've been crying."

"All communications from Thessia are dark. Yes, I've been crying."

"Just crying?"

"No. I set a few things in motion, but I fear it's too late. There's nothing else I can do now."

"That bad, huh?" Aria's lips twitched up into a weak smile, but her expression was far from happy. Although she usually had trouble deciphering Aria's emotions, Tevos could see the pain in her eyes. At one time, before she had become the Queen of Omega, Thessia had been Aria's home, too. In a way, it was home to every asari in the galaxy, even the ones who had not been born there. "So, you want to spend the end of the universe with me?"

Tevos nodded. "At least for a few hours."

"You melded with me after I took Omega back," Aria said softly. Her smile vanished. "I'll help you now."

Tevos let out a soft sob of relief before she could stifle it. Aria understood. Despite their differences, Aria always seemed to know exactly what she needed. She could not begin to fathom why, but she was incredibly grateful. "Are you still in the same apartment?"

"For now. I won't be staying long."

Tevos did not know why, but hearing that Aria planned to leave upset her. It should not have come as a surprise. Of course Aria was going to leave. Once Thessia was completely destroyed, the Citadel was the next logical target. She shook herself. "I'll be there in a few minutes."

Aria cut off the call without a goodbye, leaving Tevos to gaze around the empty room once again. She smoothed out her dress, and when she turned toward the door, her face was mostly dry. The end of the universe could wait for a few more hours.