"Do you ever think about the people we used to be?" Shepard asks softly, gazing at the stars, gazing at the ceiling, lying on her bed and lost in her thoughts. She is trapped in reverie as she lives a life half on Virmire and half stranded on the Normandy.
"You mean when I was an awkward archaeologist and not the Shadow Broker?" Liara replies with a small, cerulean smirk. But then Liara takes a deep breath, chest heaving and shuddering slightly. Shepard feels her mouth become dry. "Or you mean when you still believed in things. Believed in them so strongly that you would do anything to save the people you cared about."
Shepard clears her throat. She does not know how to answer that question.
Her mind plays arriving on Mars, seeing Liara fending herself against Cerberus goons. And she must have thought Shepard's tan and purple hair looked awfully funny after seeing her as a pale strawberry-blonde for years. Or the way she is willing to punch people in the face to get what she wants, a habit that started by headbutting a Krogan when she was trying to stop the Collectors.
"I had to change. There was no way I couldn't, Liara," Shepard says, digging her fingers into the soft blankets. Liara swirls around slightly in the chair at Shepard's desk.
"I did not say it was a bad thing, Shepard," Liara says softly in response. Her lips look wounded and Shepard wants to kiss them and claim them and stop Liara from looking so hurt.
Shepard thinks about fighting the last Shadow Broker with Liara. And the kiss that should not have been. Of staring at that picture she kept at her desk even though Liara probably deserved a thousand times better than the fractured and scarred commander of a ship that blew up.
Virmire is gone. Earth is gone. Everything is gone. Trust is obsolete.
Liara stands up from Shepard's desk. She walks to the commander and lies down beside her on the bed in silence.
Shepard looked at Rannoch. She saved it for the Quarians. But she could not save the humans, even after stopping Saren, even after wiping out the Collector's.
How could anybody trust her after that?
"I know what happened with you and Specialist Traynor," Liara says calmly and Shepard's throat feels swollen. She cannot handle this anymore.
She sees herself collapsing to the human girl. Who seemed like she could think about chess and dating while her planet was being torn apart by Reapers. And it seemed healthier for Liara for it to end this way, because Shepard cannot love anybody without hurting them.
Kaiden's wounded eyes when Shepard chose Liara. Kaiden's bravery on Virmire.
Kaiden.
Shepard sees herself dressed in sleek black, dripping wet in the shower. Hands against Samantha Traynor's hard nipples.
Of course Liara knows. Liara knows everything about everyone.
"You can't trust me anymore," Shepard says softly and Liara shrugs faintly. She purses her cerulean lips and squints at the stars. Bright prickling lights against black. At any second a reaper could float by and shear the Normandy in two.
But Shepard is no stranger to living on the edge.
"I have trusted you about many things, Shepard. It is not... it is not so easily broken," Liara says and Shepard cocks an eyebrow. She never expected that response.
"I'm sorry, Liara. I'm sorry that..."
"You cannot save everyone, Shepard," Liara interrupts. "It is impossible."
They lie there in silence. Trust is obsolete.
Shepard buries her face in Liara's shoulder, Liara's hand touching her neck ever so gently. Every motion of their rocking hips on nights before lives in memories in the gentle touch. But they do not strip down and fuck.
They lie there in silence. Trust is obsolete.
