a/n: This is my contribution to Non-Shepard-Ships week on tumblr, run by Omegastation. Hope you enjoy!
Pairing: Samara/Benezia
Word count: 607
one.
They met when they were in the flush of youth but only one of them was foolish and the other was already wise beyond her years.
Benezia had a future written in the stars but Samara's future was an unfinished constellation that had yet to be shaped. One night doesn't alter the stars.
Blue eyes studied blue lips. Blue hands traced blue cheeks. Blue legs slid onto blue thighs.
"You're quiet," Samara remarked.
"Memorizing," Benezia replied.
Neither of them stayed the night.
two.
It was too dark for Samara to wonder. The lights were off and that meant she didn't have to think.
But Benezia was always thinking and when they were sated and the two suns had begun to shine bright light in through the window, she spoke.
"Why did you come back to Thessia?"
Samara didn't answer.
They left each other with twin silences.
three.
It was always physical, hands slipped between thighs, tangled words that fell from gasping mouths and sweat that glistened on heaving chests. They savored every kiss, but the third kiss was always desperate and passionate and bruising.
They had not spoken of feelings since Thessia, since Benezia's unanswered question.
Talking had gotten too difficult for them. They touched and they felt but they never spoke.
In the morning, Benezia woke alone, a note on the table beside her.
I came back for you.
four.
"You don't talk about her often."
"Liara? What do you mean?"
Samara only gripped her tighter, her arms encircled around Benezia's waist.
Four heartbreaks that Benezia would never know, one for each time Samara had found out that another of her daughters was Ardat-Yakshi and one for when she swore herself to the code. The code that should be restraining her from pressing her lips to Benezia's, but instead, releases her to have this bittersweet love. Her penance for the luxury of love will be when their relationship finally withers and crumbles to the ground.
Samara did not wish the pain on her life on anyone but she has had more time than most to think about the justice of the galaxy and who it chooses to punish.
"I worry for her," Benezia whispered several minutes later.
Samara reassured her lover with a vow to protect Benezia's daughter. She would kill her own daughter, but save someone else's.
It is not justice.
five.
Half a century passed before they saw each other again. The year Liara turned 100 was the same year Samara came the closest to finding Morinth before her daughter slipped out of her grasp once again.
Samara found and killed all five of the mercenaries who had given her the flawed intel on Morinth before she registered the woman they had been threatening just moments before.
Five beats of silence passed before Benezia stepped forward and locked her eyes onto Samara's as blood dripped soundlessly onto the floor from the justicar's fingertips.
Samara did not flinch when Benezia lifted a hand to her cheek.
"I'd forgotten the color of your eyes," the matriarch said.
It was the last time they would meet and they both knew it.
six.
She joined Shepard too late. Liara wasn't on the Normandy when the Commander came to recruit Samara on Ilium and Samara could not remain by Shepard's side when the human was taken into prison.
They met once, the justicar and the archaeologist, after every being had been pierced with green and Shepard had been confirmed dead. They shared a glance and a nod before they had to move on to the ceremonies and the funerals and the rebuilding.
Liara opened the file left in her cabin just before the Normandy SR-2 was moved to a permanent memorial. There were six memories recorded on a holopad inside, six memories to remember a thousand years.
It's fitting, in a way.
After all, one night can alter the stars.
a/n: If you liked, a review is always lovely and please check out all the other lovely works for NSS week!