[Note: Follows the Destroy ending for a Paragon female Shepard... at least, initially.]
The decrepit Triton ADS mechanized power suit groaned as the pressure intensified around it, each meter deeper causing more stress on the ancient frame and joints. It was in a freefall now, diving deeper, uncontrollably, towards a black abyss far below seas of the planet only known as '2181 Desponia.' If something bad happened – and the sounds the mech were making certainly indicated it might – there would be no rescue. Just a brief feeling of wetness and then a bloody pulp inside a crushed ball of steel.
Liara T'soni didn't care, really. It seemed hardly worth a second thought. She had a mission to accomplish, and like so many before when she traveled with Shep—when she traveled before the last battle on Earth, she set her mind to the task and allowed no other thoughts to intrude. She had developed the practice on Therum when she was trapped by the Prothean energy field and started to panic. She learned to push her emotions away and focus only the facts: she was stuck and she needed to get free.
She was stuck in the Triton mech right now, but she had no desire to get free. No, her mission this time was different, and more than a little desperate. But if one Asari could bring down the Shadow Broker mostly on her own, well, then she could also undo a terrible tragedy.
At least, she hoped she could.
With a heavy thud, the mech finally hit bottom. Liara turned on the flood lamps and looked around. There were pockets of luminescence around her, enough to give some shape to the sea floor around her but not enough to navigate by. The lamps on the mech provided that detail allowing her to step between the cracks and stomp her way towards the largest fissure.
She felt pressure on her skull and she at first dismissed it as being so deep within the ocean, but when it increased as she walked on roughly level ground, she reassessed the situation. Something ... someone was pushing on her mind, seeking entry. Probing. Perhaps someone less skilled might have already been flayed alive by the pressure, but Liara was a talented biotic, she knew how to put up defenses. There were scores better than her, of course, but she was at least good enough to put up a decent defense.
"I know you're there," she said aloud, knowing it was only the echo in her mind that would actually amplify the thought loud enough for the interloper to hear. "I wish to speak."
The pressure in her mind subsided and there was a rumbling beneath the mech as a flurry of bubbles arose from the largest fissure in the ocean floor. The water around her swirled and the mech groaned again as its footing slipped slightly and she sank partially into the ocean floor.
Then she saw it. The entity was huge. The scientists called it Leviathan, and it was one of the last of its species. The first species. The ones who had created the Reapers.
It dwarfed her tiny mech the way the largest Reapers did, filling the entire view out of the cockpit of the Triton. It was probably several kilometers tall and at least half a kilometer wide. Liara was amazed that such a creature could even exist. The biology behind it must be stunning unless it was a composite creature, like sea coral. Even then, for it to operate as a single entity it must-
Suddenly the pressure on her mind returned with a ferocity that blew apart her well trained defenses and split her mind open, crushing her in darkness.
*** [ ME3-DLC ] ***
With a start, Liara realized she was standing. On what, she couldn't tell. It had no texture, no shape, just a feeling that something was suspending her feet above an inky blackness. Above her the sky was also black though just a shade purple. It reminded her of twilight on Thessia, just as the light of the sun was about to vanish forever, the sky fading from purple to black before the stars could be seen.
"What is it you want?"
Liara's head jerked downwards and she saw her standing there. Tall, red headed, freckles, the uniform, everything. Her heart nearly broke in two.
"S-Shepard?" she said. She was unable to hold back. Her emotions rushed forward and destroyed all the discipline she'd developed over the last three years.
Shepard looked down at her body and shrugged. Her voice was ... technically correct, but it was cold. Devoid of any of the fire that burned within the real Shepard. "I am he that you sought. State your business."
Liara closed her eyes and tried to calm her heart. She took a steady breath and tried not to think about what she was seeing. "This is all in my mind," she said. She opened her eyes once more and stared evenly back at ... at the being taking Shepard's form. "You're just taking on a shape familiar to me."
"Speak your business!" snapped Shepard.
It hurt. Liara could barely withstand the sharp tone from her. It felt like being speared in the gut.
"You-you talked to Shepard before," she said, her rehearsed speech falling apart in her mind. "You said you would help her."
"We did," said Shepard. "And your people were victorious."
Liara nodded. "Yes. But Shepard died."
"As did most of my kind," said Shepard and for a moment she turned away, almost regretful. "The Reapers could not be destroyed without a cost. Even in victory, still we are headed towards extinction."
Liara swallowed and tried again to quell the heavy beating in her heart. It wasn't even real, she felt like a child, unable to control her own abstracted mind. She felt like a storm cloud, pulled and pushed by the prevailing winds and whose only recourse is to rain.
She clenched her fists. So be it. She would rain.
"Bring her back," she demanded.
The Shepard in front of her stared and then, quite unexpectedly, she laughed. Loudly. Uncontrollably. She doubled over in fits of bawdy laughter.
"You are as an infant!" said the Shepard through her tears. "Shall I make the universe anew, as well?"
Liara held firm. "Your technology and knowledge far exceed any in this cycle," she said. "We could never have created the Reapers, but you made them millions of years ago."
"And so we are as to gods?" asked Shepard with a condescending smile. "We created something that was even beyond our own control. Devastated by our flawed understanding of balance. You think that makes us mighty?"
"I think it makes you the only ones who might know a way," said Liara, frowning.
Shepard's smile faded and she turned and waved a hand in Liara's direction. "Go away, child."
The world around them started to slip in Liara's eyes and she grit her teeth, digging her mental feet in. "No!" she shouted as she forced the entity to stay. "You have to try!"
Shepard looked surprised as she turned back to stare at Liara. She wasn't sure if that surprise was because of Liara's mental strength... or her arrogance.
"Why should I do this?" asked Shepard.
"Because she is everything to this galaxy," said Liara. "She united the races. She brought peace to plants torn by war. She cannot be replaced. We will descend into war again without her as a leader. She is more a symbol of what we can do together than the defeat of the Reapers is."
Shepard studied Liara carefully. "Nothing lives forever. Even if she lived, you would have to do without her one day. It is no benefit to your 'cycle' to have her stay prolonged. You will either learn from what she has already taught you, or your cycle will end even without the Reapers to force it."
Shepard's eyes narrowed and Liara felt a pressure on her mind again. "But you don't care. If you had to bring back the Reapers to save Shepard you would, because this has nothing to do with the fate of the galaxy. I am not so alone that I cannot recognize love." She turned and took three steps away again. "This is about regret."
Liara trembled and she felt wetness on her cheeks. "Ev-every day I can't see her is a day I know the Reapers won," she whispered.
"Move on, child," said Shepard. "Draw strength from your loss, as you did to find me here."
"I can't," she whimpered. "It's a hole in my mind that cannot be filled. We did so much together, but never were... together. Never a break, never a moment to relax. Just mission after mission. Always duty before self. Always the galaxy before our lives together. We did it all so that we could see the end, reach the day we could relax... but it never came." She couldn't help it, she was openly crying now. "It will never come."
She fell to her knees and ground the heels of her palm into her eyes to try and stop the flow of tears. "Not even a single day of joy."
She cried into her hands for several moments before she felt a soft hand on her shoulder. A hand so familiar even the touch made her heart quiver. She looked up to see the stoic Shepard, the false image, looking down at her with perhaps just a slightly furrowed brow.
"And what would you do with this extra day of joy?" asked Shepard. "If you could have only one?"
Liara's mouth hung open and felt try. What would she do? What wouldn't she do?
"Say goodbye," she whispered.
Shepard looked into her eyes and for that moment she saw her Shepard. The real Shepard. There was sympathy in that look, and sadness. That aching sadness Shepard always had within her. The survivor's guilt she kept tucked away to drive her on but could never be acknowledged, never be felt.
It occurred to her just then that Leviathan probably felt that for its own people. Maybe that's why it hid below the surface even now that the threat has passed. It was grief.
"I cannot bring her back," said Shepard quietly. "But I can give you one day."
Liara's eyes widened.
"One day," she repeated. "With which you can change nothing. Her fate will always be the same. But you can have your day."
"How?" asked Liara.
Then Shepard smiled. And it was all Shepard. A knowing smile combined with endless kindness. "Your people have only scratched the surface of the Mass Relays."
*** [ ME3-DLC ] ***
"Dr. T'soni?"
Liara stirred in her bed, pushing her head into the pillow to drown out the incessant humming of all her Shadow Broker equipment shoved into her quarters on the Normandy. Glyph included.
"Dr. T'soni? Commander Shepard is paging you."
"Very funny, Glyph," groaned Liara. She wished she could back to sleep. She had a wonderful dream where there was a chance to be united with Shepard again. She couldn't remember how it ended though. Something about mass effect fields...? She wondered if there was something to that.
"Dr. T'soni? I am not joking, the Commander has a question for you."
Liara growled and then sat up, throwing her blankets off her bed and staring at the glowing sphere angrily. "Glyph!" she snapped. "You know how I feel..." she trailed off.
Wait a minute. Why was she on the Normandy again? She'd left not long after the battle for Earth. She was... her equipment should be on Thessia now. How did it get back on the Normandy? How did she get back on the Normandy?"
She threw her legs over the edge of the bed and walked over to her console and hailed the bridge.
"Commander Alenko?" she said. "Where are we heading?"
There was a pause and then another voice replied. "Commander Alenko?" said Joker. "You know something we don't, Liara?"
"Joker?" said Liara, surprised.
"And we're heading to the Citadel," said Joker. "Which I thought was for some repairs, but maybe I've been lied to."
Liara tried to parse what was going on, because everything was totally wrong. Joker shouldn't still be on the Normandy, and neither should she.
"Liara?" came Shepard's voice over the comm.
"S-Shepard?" Liara replied, feeling like the world had fallen out from under her.
"Good, you're up," continued Shepard, completely like someone who wasn't dead. "I'm a little concerned with leaving the Normandy unmanned during these repairs in case there is still a Cerberus presence on the Presidium. Can you work with EDI and Traynor to encrypt the main data core in case there's another incident?"
"I... I'm ..." started Liara but she was having trouble thinking. She looked up and focused on the array of monitors in front of her and realized that it was showing the war map with the Reaper forces still on it. In the corner of the lowest monitor there was even a timestamp. She couldn't believe what it read.
"Liara? Are you okay? Do I need to come down there?" asked Shepard.
The war was still going on. They hadn't yet lost the Citadel. Shepard was still alive.
Shepard was still alive!
Her dream was real.
"Yes!" Liara said so excitedly that she lost all composure. She quickly shook her head and took a calming voice. "I-I mean, yes, actually, I would like to consult with you on something, Shepard."
"Uh, alright," Shepard's voice said. "I'll be down there soon."
Liara smiled so wide she worried her face would split.
"And find out about this Commander Alenko business," she heard Joker's voice say.
*** [ ME3-DLC ] ***
Note: Just a little plot bunny that came to me. I'm not sure if I'll continue it through the whole Citadel DLC. I certainly don't have time right now to do so. But it came to me, and I thought it might have been a better framing for the last DLC than allowing it to just be another mission that you could potentially do at any time during ME3.
I've always believed Liara - who is always shown as the strong one - is hiding great pain. Losing Shepard twice... well, I think that would tax even the best of us.
