Author's Note: This is my second oneshot. Takes place post ME3. This is my view of what happens after the 'Destroy' ending'
Enjoy.
Read and Review please!
Disclaimer: I do not own any of Mass Effect or 'An Irish Lullaby'
She holds the cold metal in her hands. It's all wrong. This can't be happening. She looks down at it. A single tear slides from her eye and lands on the plaque that reads 'Commander Kelandra M. Shepard'
Kelandra, she will hate that. Can't even get her name right. She is Kelly to the world. Not Kelandra. She can't be gone. She has to come back. Liara can't think of Kelly lost, somewhere in the rubble. She can't be dead. The woman is too stubborn to die.
A hand rests on her shoulder and Garrus speaks to her. "Liara, it's time."
"No." she says, surprised at the sternness in her voice as she whips around to glare a t him. "It's not time. I won't give up on her, and I cannot believe you all have." She throws the plaque forcefully to the side and strides off to her quarters.
She angrily scrubs the tears away that sting her eyes as she brings up her Broker network, scouring once more the lists of the dead, the lists and photos of the Jane Does. When nothing looks any semblance of Shepard she brings up the wounded Jane Does and most recent updated names. Nothing, nothing, "Nothing!" she cries out, using a biotic throw that tosses various crates across the room.
Fighting back sobs and tears of grief she slams out of her rooms and goes to the airlock. She strides past the officer on duty at the passageway, he merely nods politely, having seen her pass many a time.
Standing on what used to be one of the docking ports of the Citadel, she looks out over the ruins. The still smoldering buildings, the smear and stains of blood, from all races. Pools and rivulets that trace the final path of the dying and dead.
She turns a slow circle, looking around the docks, praying for a glimpse of what she knows is not here. This was the first place she'd looked for her to no avail. She makes her way to one of the few transit cars that has been repaired. Directing it to the Presidium. As she steps out of the car into the false sunlight she looks up and around. Varying sections of the wards visible to her up and across the horizon. Somewhere in there is her love, Shepard.
Darkness is the first thing she sees, and feels. Then pain comes, first to her body that hurts all over, then the pain comes into her mind. Grief hits first. Grief for Anderson, lost. Somewhere beyond reach. The lost on Earth, all those she couldn't save, didn't save in time. Then there was the Normandy, her crew, Liara.
"Liara!" Her shock cries out. Her voice harsh and coarse. She coughs once. Feeling her various injuries all clarifying now. "Right." she whispers to herself. She thinks on each point of pain, singling out the worst. The blood pulsing down her face feels caked, possibly clotting. Ok, she thinks, maybe a slight fracture, thoughts aren't too scrambled, so no concussion most likely. She feels slight pressure across her stomach and lower body. She shifts her right arm, trying to reach whatever is pinning her. Pain fires up to her head from her shoulder and she cries out. The simple movement sends massive pangs through her. Gasping for breath, she feels her grasp on consciousness slipping. she tries to fight, but quickly slides away into blackness again.
Liara steps into the anteroom for the Council chamber. Looking around at the deserted ruins. No one has come up here yet, too focused on clearing up the common areas and the docks. She is strangely glad for it. It gives her a chance to look around unobserved by others. She steps further into the room, looking up at the top of the tower. The long elegant windows are shattered, their supports jutting up like gaping teeth stretching long into the sky. There at the very top, so high no one suspected anything more than a ceiling, is where the council said that the explosion had happened. Whatever it was, it had destroyed the Reapers, shutting them down and sending out a strong EMP that disabled all electronics for long moments.
Liara tears her eyes away, looking critically around her. Trying to pick out patterns, anything that might appear organic and not architectural in stature. The darkness is almost crushing down on the ground. Dust and fog still heavy in the air. Liara calls up a bit of biotics to make her hand glow as she steps further in. She starts in the center of chamber. Following what little of a path through the rubble there is.
She can't see anything that isn't cold and hard. Tucked under pieces and chunks of metal and stone Liara spots limbs and bodies. Keepers, broken and mangled. She has to force away the thoughts that crowd her mind that say her love is lost, broken and buried herself.
She steps gingerly up to the closest pile of rubble and begins to carefully move small pieces aside. Praying once more that she will find her love locked away, trapped somewhere in this room.
Fighting against the fog she pushes her eyes open once more, feeling warm liquid sliding past the corner of her eye. A sound is stirring in her ears, coming through the steady ringing that still plaques her. She tries to focus on the sound. Scrapping, scratching, the shift of dirt. A bark of air punctuates the sounds. An organic sound. Another rings out, thin and high, a cough. A cough! Organic. Someone was near her. Someone meant help, meant freedom.
"Help." she tries to say, her voice is even worse than before. coarse, not even above a whisper, and the use of her chest and lungs sends aches through her tortured body. The pain tears a sob from her and another weak cry of "Help."
When the sound doesn't change she has to find something, anything to make noise. Gritting her teeth, her jaw clenched tight pre-emptively against the pain she knows is coming. She lifts Her head as high as she can away from the rubble. Her neck was stretched back, and the exertion to even bring it level brings spots of blackness to her vision. She presses further up, and catches a glimpse of a small, fist sized chunk of stone near her right hand. She lets her head fall back down, wincing when she hits the hard stone behind her. The impact sending more spots into her vision.
She slides her hand to the right, trying to fight the pain, to breathe normally. When lances of red hot pain shoot through her chest and hand, she presses further. Sliding her hand again, just a bit further until it bumps slightly against the stone. She sighs softly in relief, wrapping her hand around it. She feels her thoughts slide away, her vision going black. She clenches her jaw once more, growling and fighting to stay conscious. She tries to lift her hand and the stone, all she manages to do is roll her hand over though, the pain too great, and she too weak. The movement does rock the stone against a metal pipe she didn't see before. The clear ring it makes gives her hope. She rocks her hand twice more against the pipe before her vision swims away again, taking consciousness with it.
A sound catches Liara's hearing. She pauses in her dig listening. She hears it, a hollow metal ring. rough and clear. She freezes, not daring to move, just listens. There, again, the sound returns, off to her left, a dozen yards or so away. She stands and, hurries that way, scrambling over the debris ridge between her and the sound.
"Shepard!" She cries out, daring to hope she's found her. She reaches the edge of the pit down below the council platform. She remembers this is where their final confrontation with Saren was. The irony of Shepard's mission ending where it began is not lost on her.
She carefully descends the unstable debris that ramps into the concave. "Shepard!" She cries out again. There is no response. The sound is gone. The chamber and dust swallow her cries, eerily smothering. She stands on a tall stone and looks around, trying once more to spot something, anything. A dark stain and smears catch her attention on the far side of the room, halfway up a five meter tall tumble of debris. The stones are darker than those around, metal struts sticking haphazardly out. She runs over, looking at a thin trail of dark red that is thick and congealed coming down from the dark patch.
Blood, it's blood. "Shepard!" She cries once more, her voice hitched. Conflicted from joy of finding her, and fear of the amount of blood staining the stones. She climbs up the steep slope to the area, and sees her. A quiet sob escapes.
Shepard is pinned by a large stone, it presses across her stomach, burying her legs out of sight. Her armor is mostly gone, the chest plate is seared and fused to her skin. Her right arm is completely bare, the armor hued off at the shoulder. In her hand is a stone, a metal pipe right beside her. Liara reaches out to brush back Shepard's blood soaked hair from her face. There is a long gash across her right cheek, extending in a half circle above and through her brow. Her nose is broken, another cut bleeding and half clotted across the bridge and under her left eye.
Liara activates her omnitool, doing a quick scan of her upper body. She is not surprised by the extent of her injuries, but is still very worried about the severity of her internal injuries, and her lower body still pinned.
She opens up a com link to the Normandy. "Joker, come in. This is Liara. Please respond,"
Joker responds almost immediately. "Liara. Joker here. What have you got?"
"It's Shepard. I found her. She's severely injured and needs immediate medical attention. We'll need a rescue crew to get her out. Lock on my signal. I'm not leaving her."
"Shepard?" The shock and relief in his voice can't be missed, "Roger that Liara. Help is on the way. Don't lose her Liara. Joker out."
Liara settles onto the steadiest spot she can and strokes Shepard gently. "I'm here love." She whispers softly, her voice hitching slightly. Tears start trailing silently down her cheeks, spattering into the dust on the stones. "I'm here. I know you're still in there. Come back to me."
Shepard hears music, she knows she must be gone now, music in death. The music pulls at her, familiar. It's singing, a voice she knows, but one that she has never heard sing before. She listens and tries to focus, the tune is one she knows. It gently wraps around her, drawing her out of the blackness. She listens harder and hears the bit of a lullaby, one she does know.
"Oft in dreams I wander, to that cot again, I feel her arms a-huggin' me, As when she held me then. And I hear her voice a -hummin'." As the song pulls at her, the darkness fades away and she finds herself standing on a hill, deep in a meadow. The lullaby continues, "To me as in days of yore, when she used to rock me fast asleep, Outside the cabin door." A figure turns to her on the crest of the hill. Blue and white lights drift and shine around her. As Shepard tries to pull the image of the woman into focus the song starts again,
" Over In Killarney, Many years ago, My Mother sang a song to me In tones so sweet and low;" Her voice is sweet and melodic. As Shepard steps closer the woman turns away again the song continuing, "In her good old Irish way, And I'd give the world to hear her sing, That song of hers today." Shepard is standing close now, but the lights obscure the woman. Only allowing flickers of blue skin to be seen.
She reaches out and touches the woman's shoulder, gently turning her around. Recognition hits in an instant. "Liara.." she sighs out happily. "Liara."
Liara reaches out and strokes her cheek in return. "Kelly, Come back to me." She resumes singing, her voice sweet and light again.
The dream dissolves, her singing blurring away and choking into silence. A cacophony of whirling machines and incessant beeping jarring her. Pain dully pings behind her eyes, under a haze in her mind and body. Something soft is still touching her right cheek, she turns her face into it. She fights to open her eyes, they only come open a slight bit. Enough for her to see a haze of blue beside her. Blinking her eyes open a little further the shape solidifies, Liara. A small weak smile tugs at her lips. "Hey you." Her voice is hoarse and quiet.
Liara has to fight back tears when Shepard wakes. She gives a weak laugh from her greeting and responds. "Hey yourself." The joy she feels at seeing those amber eyes looking into hers again, it is indescribable.
Shepard blinks slowly then looks to Liara again, her heart lifting, seeming to wash her over in warmth. Liara's hand on her cheek spreads more warmth and peace. "I heard you singing." She tells her. "You've never sung before."
"Singing?" Liara looks at Shepard amused and slightly worried. "When? Where?"
"Just now. I was in a meadow." Shepard pauses, closing her eyes. trying to grasp the dream before it fades. "You sang my Da's lullaby."
Liara smiles, she knows the tune Shepard speaks of. It's the same one she hears every time they meld. Just a few lines, the same each time.
"Would you sing, once more?" Shepard looks like she will fall asleep again soon.
Liara nods, "I only know the one piece you've given me." Shepard just nods, her eyes heavily blinking. "Ok, I'll try."
Liara sighs softly pulling up the memory of the lullaby. She starts to sing, haltingly at first, "Oft in dreams I wander, To that cot again, I feel her arms a-huggin' me, As when she held me then. And I hear her voice a -hummin." She sees Shepard's eyes drifting closed, a smile tugging her mouth. Then she gets the tune strong and right. "To me as in days of yore, When she used to rock me fast asleep, Outside the cabin door." As she finishes, she sees Shepard has slipped away again. Her face soft, and peaceful. Liara leans over and kisses her softy on the forehead. She holds Shepard's hand and lays her cheek against hers. The tune, softly playing in her own head, lulls her to sleep.