And An Agreement

by ChronicallyinFlaming

Sequel to An Argument, A Separation. Jane Shepard and Liara had an argument that grew too heated and caused one to just storm out of the room, leaving the other to scream at the closed door before sinking to the floor in tears. Later, they both are having to deal with the consequences of the war and what's its done to them, together. Complete.

A/N: Sequel to An Argument, A Separation

Way too late in coming, and with way too many flashbacks and too much Shepard/Liara angst and drama.

Hope you guys like.

---

Nothing to do, nothing to do

Living rent-free is boring me

Got no use for my PE Degree

Got no use for my pedigree

I feed you every morning and ask so little

(Hedi Slimane)

But you belittle all the work that I do

(And Agnes B)

When you take that walk without permission

I'm not content

I'm not defensive, I'm just saying this cause I love you

- Final Fantasy, "This Lamb Sells Condos"

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds and shall find me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll.
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.

William Ernest Henley, "Invictus."

---

Her crutches were still there, and she found herself loving this place just for that alone.

Full of pain, Shepard took them with little resentment. There will come a time when these will be unnecessary, the Commander vowed. It would actually be nice to run. Run towards something nice, to the car, to a store, down a street. Rather than run towards or away from some danger. I'll jog everywhere.

Her bondmate was trying not to flutter around her, worrying. Watching the winces and as Jane grimaced from the pain in her back, one-hand on Shepard's shoulder and the other trying to open the door. There had been such uneasiness between them for so long; every word had to be watched. Torn between lying and telling the truth even if it hurt was how they'd gotten along for—since before the war had finished. Half-truths and ignoring pain.

Inside a room with Liara, finally. Better than wandering around the streets, hobbled and stubborn as Liara pointed out a hundred different things, and began to go on about all the other things that Shepard had missed and wishing that both of them could have gotten lost in the subways of New York together. The room was plain, Jane could now make out.

Liara's mouth went to her neck. Fingers peeling off her armor bit by bit. "Do you want to order room service?"

"Sure. That sounds great." No great words of romance as she was undressed. And covered with a robe, Liara smiling and promising with her eyes that this wouldn't be necessary for long.

Her hamster still alive and gloriously awaiting her return. They rebounded as Liara watched, on the omni-tool trying to forage for them. Take care of Shepard.

She could relax, and still be in this partnership. Seek help, and still not be completely dependent on Liara with the implication of resentment. There could be some happiness found, and Shepard could take off this armor and enjoy a world not seen while holding a gun.

Their first meal in a long time where they actually felt hungry. Exchanging looks over emptied plates, remembering a hundred thousand moments earlier, and agreeing that now they could do better for each other.

"Maybe we should go see Johnny. Rub his face in that fact that I'm here."

"I don't want to hurt him. More."

"What the hell was that, Liara? Why him?"

"He was a nice man. A lot like you, but—"

"But?"

"Less burdened. Happier. Pleasant to be around."

"Oh, Liara. Don't you realize you were supposed to be as miserable as I was without you? Was there only John?"

"Yes. Well."

"What?"

"There was this other woman, it wasn't anything. But she kissed me, when I was at my door. I didn't ask for her to do that."

"Alright. Fine."

"She had red hair." That breathy voice is thoughtful.

"Is that supposed to make me feel better?"

"No. But I will not lie to you anymore."

"Not even to spare me hearing about your other lovers?"

"They were not—Shepard?"

It was simple to distract Liara and push her over. Onto a bed, one they'd never shared rather than the thrown blankets and pillows they knew too well. Then settled next to the asari, sliding hands under her armor. Too long, it had been far too long, and a part of her sighed in simple relief. Maybe she was meant to be a soldier, but this was what she truly wanted to do with the rest of her life.

Liara practically thrashed under her, flushed and blankly exciting. Groaning when Jane moved her hands exactly where she wanted them, and that was between those blue thighs. "Are you sure you want this?"

"You want me to stop?"

"Never." Those eyes blazed blue, then black.

Shepard threw herself at her, meeting her half-way, unafraid for the first time in a long time. Consciousness meeting, melding, becoming one as they struggled to remove clothes that were so unnecessary right now that it made the physical removal of them redundant.

you.

i missed you goddess did I miss you don't even move don't leave me again.

don't cry please don't cry

They tumbled into each other, welcoming, welcomed.

There were no devices, as they'd left them behind at their old apartment, but that would have been an unneeded distraction. Right now, they just needed to feel each other and have nothing separating them. Neither wanted to pull away from their kiss to even breathe.

i love you never hurt you again dont leave me either

The sex wasn't what they needed, but it helped them get to that point.

It had changed, but in the nicest way. Changed back, as best as possible. Everything was the same, their bodies the same amount of scars, the same blaze of colors that left them blind to everything else in this room that was filled with light from the afternoon sun coming in. Moments like this, with Liara, with their union, made Shepard truly believe in things like souls.

Fingers ran over her chest, stomach, now taking time to familiarize themselves. No longer so desperate, just curious and affectionate. Jane twitched a little at the contact, but decided to not complain. She was Liara's, and so were these marks. Everything she had to give was offered. She swallowed, loudly, missing their union already, hating to be empty in this head, alone.

I want to get better. I don't want to hurt her anymore. I'm going to be there, and only death will separate us.

Liara was settling down, settling into her form, trying to sleep. Perfectly content and smiling while still awake. There had been times, days and nights, when Jane would only see her smile in her sleep. Dreaming perhaps of when Jane had been healthier. Now there was only the slightest burn of guilt, and no jealousy whatsoever in her partner finding joy without her necessarily being the focal point of it. She would make everything better, and be able to make Liara smile every day, with just a glance.

Shepard watched her, getting up and going for her omni-tool. One last thing.

She took a picture, of the window and view, making sure the picture caught the glare of the glass. Then took a picture of Liara sleeping, content. Sending both to her brother.

Then Shepard could crawl into that bed, entangle limbs and fall asleep.

She woke up before Liara, and proceeded to say hello with some well-placed kisses and licks between her blue legs. A hundred times she'd been in this position, and a dozen times for this reason. Asking for forgiveness in this way, bowed and bent before her, lapping and feeling a clumsy hand touching her hair. Seeking her. It had been too long since such closeness, and they savored each other again. The curve of her spine and little gasps and the way her legs tighten around Jane, all good and safe.

Shepard bit the inside of her thigh, kissing her, missing her. "Where would you like to go, Liara, after this? And don't tell whatever I'd like to go. I've dragged you around enough."

"Then…Greece? After."

"After."

Then Jane was whisking her and their hamster onto a plane and farther away from this place. It was nice to realize they were running away together. Though, it would be nicer not to think of this as fleeing. And what exactly were they running from? John? The acknowledgement of flaws that really needed to be addressed in a safe environment? She remembered bad holovids over the years, and had known even years ago that if you set two people in a beautiful environment free of stress, they would get along alright. Might even think they were in love with each other.

Because love was limping around and turning down pain meds to be conscious with that person.

If there was one thing the war had taught Shepard, it was how true people were when put under certain types of pressure with a significant other. Things more straining than which restaurant to eat at. She herself had risen to the occasion (or so she'd like to think) during the war and then fallen apart after when it was just them learning to live, and live together.

They'd long passed that six months that was supposedly some barrier to a relationship. The longest she'd been with anyone. Sometimes, she was still shocked to roll over and relearn that Liara had wanted and chosen her.

Greece was old, dusty, and ultimately a disappointment for Shepard.

Liara of course loved it.

Whisked her off, rather than dragged her here, was easier to believe when she watched her lover smiling. She would take her gloves off, just to run calloused fingers over the stone. Tracing and talking to Shepard about the culture, the battles that had taken place, the cities that had risen and fallen as Jane struggled to recall history classes taken a decade ago. For her, Jane stumbled around with and without crutches, finding more joy in sunrises coming through the window than any blasted building that was under repair.

They talked to the others. Her brother hadn't sent a reply to those pictures, and that was a relief.

A better person. I'm trying to be a better person. She squeezed her hands together, feeling that rushing dizzy heat of a panic attack as Liara slept next to her. Trying not to wake her, and knowing she wouldn't be able to fall asleep, despite feeling some pride that Liara was content and pleased by the quality and quantity of their love making. That was definitely more than the grunting sex it had been in that hellhole. At least her partner was able to even sleep with ease now. Rather than reaching out blindly to make sure Jane was still there.

Let her dream in peace.

In the morning, Shepard woke with sand in her head and had to screw up her guts to tell Liara about the attack. She found reassurance in a hug and a kiss and promise to tell Liara the next time it happened. No judgments. What was hidden under this blue skin, what had she felt and experienced over the years, those two years in particular?

Real. A real person.

It took so much to open her mouth and say she was miserable. "After what I did, sometimes I want to kill myself so I don't have to think about it. That would be the safest thing."

Liara's expression was almost funny. The hug eased.

"When I was up there, that AI gave me a choice, and I decided…it doesn't matter. Because now we all have to deal with it."

Because let's be honest, I've done some crazy shit lately. The past few years. Of course I'm a mess.

Shepard had done something that no other person had done, that no other person would ever be offered the decision to make.

Especially not a person like her. She'd come from a mediocre, normal background. A boring town when not on boring Alliance ships. No trauma as a kid. If not overly close to her parents, she could say that they sure hadn't abused her. Hadn't even lost any of her immediate family either. Billions and billions way worse off. She could have been an orphan, could have been eaten by a thresher maul, could have died fighting batarians during that terrible 'vacation' she'd attempted to take. Cerberus could have been unable to bring her back. Really, there was no end to the list of things that could have happened to her. A brick might fall on her head as they walked through dilapidated buildings that Liara would coo over.

So right now, just take it easy Shepard, a voice told her, sounding like Miranda, like Jack, like Tali, like her Mom. Take Liara's hand and smile and tell her you're feeling better because you are.

"At least everyone's okay, right. I saved the day."

Somehow, one of them struck up a conversation with another couple, one of them dark where the other was light and vice versa. British and Italian accents and one simply friendly where the other was lascivious and flirty. She wondered how Liara and her looked to them. Blue and red, beauty and a wreck. All of them ordered wine.

They—she—probably shouldn't be drinking, but what harm could a glass or two do?

Conversation weaving, as she tried to focus on that and wonder if she was being greedy about her intake. Liara worried, but not stopping her, not growing pale and miserable as she attempted to steer a one-sided conversation to things other than Shepard's death.

"…Too bad he's not here to appreciate the cheese…"

"…So, in a sense, yes. Yes, he did save me."

"That is so amazing."

Shepard had to lean against Liara, who didn't protest the groping. Going through tunnels in crumbling conditions, where Liara was the brightest thing to see, vivid against the faded graffiti that not even the blows from the Reapers and exposure could remove. Like the condoms by that park, human filth would always rise and stay.

"They were nice, those two."

"Who—oh yeah."

Their bedroom had no need for words to be spoken inside its walls.

It was thoughtless flailing and pulled clothes and mindless groping. Their first time had been more graceful. Never this bad since they'd left that apartment. Grabbing her jaw, trying to hold her still, Jane was helpless and pleased. See how much I trust you?

Liara was biting her, tugging at her hair, keeping her close. I love you love you

She felt part of herself being tugged at, torn away. Something frankly she hadn't been aware of possessing inside her empty head. Shepard forgot everything but Liara, forgot that she'd been angry, that they'd ever been separated, that sometimes, in the dark, if she concentrates, her cybernetics still glow beneath the scars that she might pick at.

what are you doing

you

A great answer that keep Jane going, giving in without caring about the intrusion, the digging and inspection and having something looked at, ow what

But then she was drowning and suffocating, dying as she had as the Normandy was destroyed around her, but this time she didn't mind because Liara was here, pressed around her, and they were falling together into the vision of her death, only this time the light was bluer, and moderately less deadly. Teeth on her neck, their minds enveloped and Liara was searching, and burying into her and—

Neither really would remember the details.

---

Shepard is alone and not-dead, and waiting for the alarm to go off again.

She lies there, and knows that what she'd seen had destroyed her brain, her choices had shattered her limbs, she left and turned her back on Liara again for this

Because it must end

There is no other way

There is but no, never

Shepard does not leave thing incomplete, may god have mercy on her soul for that

Does this unit have a soul?

Yes. Yes.

But do I?

She bleeds in the white, and explores her pain. Blind, but no longer able to see that child she hadn't saved, the boy that looks like he might have been her child in another lifetime, the boy that looks like her brother years and years ago.

There is something outside of this of white and a burning child, but Shepard cannot face it.

It is more than anything physical—this is an entire spectrum of agony that she climbs higher and further up, infrared that informs her of thirst and visible light of shattered ribs and legs with ruined cybernetics and glass in her blood and broken bones, fingers that are more than mangled, gone, was her hand even-ultraviolet of Anderson dying, another one lost, and gamma rays that cook her brain with what she had done. It is more than any of those things that Jane Shepard could have withstood.

It is betrayal.

All is white.

But not for long.

It is slipping away, certain memories, and body is self, is it not, hadn't her first death proven that, that if there is a soul, it is caught in this cage of physical being, or had her soul escaped and what then was she, had Cerberus had brought back only a body? And now that body is as ruined as anything else about her. Does this unit have a soul?

She had wanted, but she had wanted and had made her decision because she is a coward.

She wants now to weep.

There is no Cerberus alarm and Miranda to help, nowhere to run and shoot, no one else to fight, she cannot continue to hide in this spectrum and she is terrifyingly sane because there will be generations and generations that will call her a savoir and not know that their children will die after synthetic life continues to evolve and the cycle begins anew. Their children will murder them.

Shepard had wanted so many things. To live and see blue eyes and to have years and a family, a life before her. Had made promises to return, and so she has to come back because Shepard does not break her word to Liara. God help them all for that.

I am alive and I have made the wrong choice.

With her face still feeling broken, with dread, the Commander bared her teeth and opened her eyes.

---

It had been years since she'd felt such peace. Before the war, before she'd met Shepard even. There had always been anxiety in her life, a million little annoyances and fears and discomforts that had been redirected after being saved by the Commander.

This snoring human woman, who'd brought out the best in the Shadow Broker.

For whom—there weren't words in any language to describe what she'd done, what she'd do for Jane Shepard. Any noises that came from her mouth all fell short of the truth. Honesty, Liara knew, was from actions in the end.

She cupped the back of Jane's head, still mesmerized by that red-auburn head. The changing colors and feel of it. Though she wished that Shepard had kept it longer. The warm mouth pursed as the Commander slept and dreamed. Perhaps of old battles or peace or of their love that had rarely been as sweet as last night's. Maybe of a house and grassy fields and trees and daughters and adopted sons.

Things, they were getting better.

They are better, already.

Liara could sleep again, comfortably, back with Jane as they both belonged. Or sit here and watch Shepard, stroking her alien hair and features, and waiting for those eyes to flutter open and that tiny smile to cross her face as she rubbed at her features. Freckled, bony elbows, and with new scars and loveliness to wake up to. Naked as the day she'd been born. Liara was in the same state, and felt no urges besides staying in this bed.

A thousand years Liara could wake up to this. Gladly.

Time for mourning and healing, and watching the sun rise and wake the fire in Shepard's hair. Could they have at least a few more years of this peace, with no interruptions or changes? The last time Liara had brought up the age difference had only been yesterday, and Jane had grinned and asked if this meant that she was a trophy wife, especially since the information broker had all the money and if so, Liara had made a truly bad decision especially since they probably counted as common law married, and so if she ever left again, Shepard would get half of her stuff. "If you get a new Shadow Broker ship, we'll have to cut it in two. But you can have the drell. And Glyph."

"So long as you take the hamster."

The joy in being able to say, without fear of rejection in some form, how she felt to this goddess before her. "Jane Shepard, I am still constantly amazed at how much I love you. Every day I wake up and it's like the first moment I realized how much I cared for you. Only so much more intense—I-I am not doing a very good job with this, am I?"

"Good morning to you too, babe."

"Do you want breakfast? Do you want to go out to get something—you're still sore from yesterday, aren't you?"

Shepard decided to play the part of the injured victim, and Liara had to help her dress. Not that the asari minded in the least. There was little in the galaxy that felt so nice as being able to touch Jane without holding back any affection. And in return the Commander would lay there and look at her and want to hear details of everything Liara talked about, and would light her cigarettes with that light she'd held onto for so long.

"I'd like to go, after you're done here, back to my old house. Eventually. And to have the implants in my legs looked at."

"Finally."

Jane finally fell backwards into her, poking her, trying to crush Liara under her unimpressive weight. Then deciding instead to gnaw on her neck for a few moments while her partner struggled.

"I would—I would like to meet your parents. And John will going back to Ohio, eventually, I'm sure."

That mouth paused. "Are you two still in contact?"

"Yes. Is that a problem?"

"No. You chose me. But we should head there too. We'll meet my family. In a nice way. Well, nice for me, anyway. Since you had plenty of fun with John."

"Will you let that go? I have apologized—are you laughing?"

"It's alright. Really. I know you didn't do anything. I believe you. Besides, my Mom had John sent over there to Europe to look for you in the first place. She's a real puppet master. He left that part out, didn't he? Did he talk about her? I'm right aren't I?

"Why he was sent all the way to France to do paperwork. You know she helped make sure he wouldn't be in any danger. Can't risk both kids, and god knows she couldn't get me out of the frontline."

Anything to stop the stream of smugness. "John did not tell me that part."

Jane could smile at that. Glad to sling mud, as Liara tried not to feel sick, not over John not being unflawed and with his own secrets, but at Shepard's enjoyment over making her partner uncomfortable. "You think you're the only one with connections, Shadow Broker?"

"I guess this was one of Hannah's plots to control her children?" Her bondmate was still smirking. "That desperate to get Liara into the family. You should feel flattered."

And now that voice came back at amusement that made green eyes turn dark: Now that she is with you, what will you do? What happens when they hit a plateau in this re-statement of their relationship?

"We should go back. To the apartment and settle that matter."

Shepard cupped one bare breast, running her thumb over a dark nipple. Thinking. "With an explosion?"

"Perhaps."

Jane was grinning, and that knot loosened because of the honesty in it. "You want to blow that place up, don't you?"

"I have very few pleasant memories of it."

"I know what you mean."

There was a simple beauty to finally agreeing with your lover on something. It definitely felt like they were healing, and getting better. Closer, after all this was through, and stronger for being broken and separated. Oh, this is the person she'd fallen in love with, come back to her again as she'd promised over and over.

We'll be okay.

It was closer, after all, so why not stop there first. To blow it up? Either way, Liara learned to appreciate not having Shepard behind the wheel, despite her asking and melodramatic attempts at backseat driving. Yelling about objects meters and meters away until Liara has to use her biotics to try keeping Shepard still, which almost does result in a crash.

They did not have any explosives. Instead Liara hands over the guns to Jane, feeling secure in that decision. Neither voiced the thought that the asari had been hiding these from Shepard, practically. Liara focused on her guilt over the dead plants and tried to tell herself that it hadn't been all bad here, ultimately. The solipsism had eventually faded, and they'd learned to speak and acknowledge one another rather than exist in separate spheres of pain and misery.

Shepard practically ran back to the car, with a trip of the belongings they wanted to keep. Then Jane rested her head against the window, looking years younger. Lost. And Liara didn't care that she had to carry whatever else she wanted to bring along by herself.

"Let's go."

"Where?"

"To see my folks. I guess it's time you meet my Mom."

The light had definitely gone from Jane's eyes, and without protest, she let Liara drive the rented hovercar. Eventually, Liara manages to learn some new facts about the elusive Shepard parents. John had rarely mentioned them either.

"I used to go there to have laundry done. I had a whole complex system worked out that allowed me to avoid her and to guilt him into being able to use the washer and dryer. It was perfect."

"And you were how old again?"

"From twelve to twenty. When they were stationed on Earth. When I was there."

It's a mixture of affection and fear and disdain that Jane seemed completely unaware of. There is amusement and warmth when it comes to talking about her brother, though. Already, Shepard seemed to have forgiven him for his time spent with Liara. Mostly, Jane preferred talking about John, and their father Jeff and how much he'd like her, and that they would get along just fine.

She didn't know much about Hannah Shepard or her connection with her children, but Liara knew about mothers.

Her own first parent, in yellow, in the garden. Once tricking Liara into a hovercar, on the promise of a trip to the library, only to drop her off at some youth event, as though expecting her daughter to instantly make friends and stop being so introverted. The nannies and babysitters that Liara had vowed she would never imitate should she ever have children. The secrets and dodging and tea parties and sitting in her lap and being taught to read bit by bit. The hand reaching out to protect her from falling or burning herself or knocking something over. A thousand memories that she could nearly recall. Bittersweet, all of them.

Aethyta had laughed when hearing that story of Benezia trying to get Liara to open up more, and the questions about why she'd refused to take a partner for so long. Maybe Jeff will be similar to Aethyta, just not—just hopefully less like her.

They can make this time work.

Maybe Hannah won't be so bad. Maybe they will accept her, and be supportive. Maybe Shepard will wear those old pair of tight jeans for Liara to admire. Maybe they'll have a chance to use those toys again. Maybe she has been talking to her father too much. At least Shepard hadn't been driving.

The house is remarkably unremarkable. Liara had to restrain herself from taking pictures and asking a million questions. The construction the same on this building as the other homes around, though here the grass is a little taller. Shepard takes a long moment to knock on the door, and when a dark-haired woman answers it, Liara is the only one to show any real emotion.

"Hello, Missus Shepard."

"You must be Liara."

There is something that halts any warmth from Liara. The way she stands there, judging, and the way Jane keeps her head bowed. Superficially polite and warm, but nothing touched the hardness to her eyes.

Jeff and Jane team up to tease her about the way she spoke. Within minutes, they are best of friends just over Liara's way of keeping words separate and neat. And joking about the armor Liara still wore. She wanted to bash their heads together, and it was actually nice to feel frustration. Jeff Shepard was a little like John (that voice), and so much like his daughter. They pick up conversations that have continued for years and years and presumably will never be settled. Both delighted with each other, and it was marvelous to see Shepard joking again. Liara would wake in the middle of the night, hearing them laughing over a holovid.

"I've always gotten along alright with my dad. Hey, let's go through my brother's room. Find his stash of asari porn."

"Jane."

"What's the point of being a big sister if you can't bother your younger sibling?" Shepard settled for moving his belonging in hope of annoying John when he came back home. Riffling through things, or at least making it look she had.

Then the two of them might end up in the kitchen, trying to find spoon and cook dinner. Or in the attic, where Liara discovers vids of Jane as a child. Or allow Shepard to drag her into the garage, to find other childhood mementoes and to have terrible, laughing, wonderful sex on a sled used for the snow that was still falling outside. Then they used that sled for its intended purpose, both flushed from cold and exertion and laughter as they took turns pull the other up small hills. Shepard took her to a tiny stream, and revealed a childhood hobby of rocks at bottles.

"Thrilling."

"Better than my hobbies on ships as a kid. Then I would dream about this creek."

"Wasn't your brother there?"

"Yeah, sure. But he's younger than I am, and there's not a lot to do on an Alliance ship unless you're a soldier."

In Shepard's bedroom, in her bed, under her sheets and covers, thrilled over the pictures on the desk and what books Jane had read as a child.

There were posters on the walls, and Liara remembered drinking coffee and looking at Shepard's breastplate. Just waiting for Jane to somehow miraculously fill it again. Smiling at every update from Cerberus, such joy revealed only in her apartment with the lights on in the warmth and beside clean furniture—and aimed at that piece of armor. Had Shepard ever done that, admired the people and places on this wall and what they represented.

Someone, Jeff Shepard it turned out, had left a gift that had his daughter laughing. "Of course. This game. He actually went out and bought this. Just to joke around."

"What is it?"

"'Citadel.' Based on the movie. Based on what I did." Jane was still smiling, if wryly now. "You want to play?"

"Of course. I love playing with Commander Shepard."

She looked on innocently while Shepard acted scandalized. "I hope that's not included in the game."

But of course it was, after only an hour of gameplay, and it had them both laughing and tumbling into the bed while the pixelated versions of them on the screen had the decency to fade to black.

This time is made up of having a domestic scene with Jane, and meeting Jeff and Hannah and seeing holovids of Shepard growing up and changing bandages and having to use a damned bike again to amuse Jane. It was throwing balls in the tiny backyard little like the one she'd grown up with, or hitting those balls against the walls by way of instruments or feet and running away when Hannah peeked through the window to see what that noise was. Playing music loudly, for Jane to sing along with or to hide the sound of them having sex. Stifling guilt over news of her homeworld and its conditions, knowing that Shepard wouldn't have been able to handle such a place, right after the war. Climbing through the garage and going through the shed and trying to help Jeff plant tomatoes and feeling prickles of ice growing in her stomach whenever Hannah Shepard would speak to her. About Thessia, about the university she had attended, about what she and Jane would do if they left the area.

If. Goddess, that was a frightening word when Hannah used it. This human woman would have put a knife in Liara and pulled out her inside for inspection, hardly dotting an eye over Liara's screams. Almost kind, while she handed out poisoned memories as she interrogated Jane.

It is making waffles for Jane and Jeff, who are black holes when it comes to that, and making them at all hours.

It is sharing a bathroom, and watching Jane rehang towels and getting into mild arguments over Liara's carelessness. "Am I your maid now?"

"There. That's your new mission. You are hired on as a member of my team."

"As your custodian."

"I was your nurse."

"By choice—oh, forget it…socks don't go on the ground."

It is sneaking up to this bedroom to experience each other again and dent the bedframe and knock over belongings in Jane's closet during one fumbling time that had them both falling over and missing the safer wall. Making sure Shepard takes her pills and trips to the hospital where she spends the nights as well because this house is not her home, and trips outside that are sometimes an excuse to leave both the yellow walls of the hospital and the blue ones of Jane's bedroom, and sometimes to see more of this place's history, and sometimes just as an excuse to explore and put sunscreen across Shepard's cringing nose.

It is now watching Shepard in the shower, cursing, dripping blood when Liara had gone into the steamy bathroom to brush her teeth.

"Are you bleeding?"

"Thought the hormones were still working." Shepard was staring down at herself. Between her legs and at her stained fingers. "I guess I need another new installation. I feel like a house or an old hovercar and I constantly need new upgrades."

"You are bleeding."

"Do asari not do that? Yeah, it's only supposed to happen once a year, and this is way too soon. It's a human female thing. Under the sink, there should be a box or something…"

"No, I am afraid I don't see anything like that."

And it is leaving the house with directions and a shopping list, and having to buy Shepard tampons while still mystified and lost as to why Jane had been bleeding in the first place. Wandering isles beneath fluorescent lighting, and reading the boxes that contained items whose purpose was less an enigma after reading about 'adsorption' and 'comfort'—though now Liara feared and respected Shepard's body even further. It could bleed, even when not hurt.

There is peace, even if she now has a hard time making eye contact with the cashier at the nearby grocery store who had watched her buy fifteen different boxes of the 'tampons', just to make sure. Laughter, as they watch a couple passing that spoke a language neither knew, as physically mismatched as her and Jane, with bright hair that looked almost pink as she was led around by the dark-skinned woman with what might have been purple hair.

And there is—there is a new enemy of her own to be found here. One that cannot be destroyed or paid off or murdered as she might have any other obstacle. Liara had her own issues, her own tools that had been forged during this war, that were still being carried and sought to be used.

Being around Hannah Shepard reminded her of sitting before her terminal, before opening a piece of new information. Unable to tell if it would be something hopeful or another failure on her part, if she'd let someone else down, most usually Shepard as Cerberus reported that no, Jane remained unchanged but they were 'optimistic.' How that would kill and revive her, during the worst days, going over the medical information for anything hopeful.

Jeff was kind enough, if distant. Sometimes he and Jane would crack their jokes in the living room while watching an old holovid, and Liara would sit or stand, watching them and simply enjoying basking near their closeness. Their relationship was what she'd wanted with her own father, when much younger and unaware of the identity of her second parent. Inside jokes and glances that summed up entire matters and checking in and gentle teasing.

Then there was Jane's mother, which whom Shepard shared little resemblance.

With her, Liara felt…analyzed. One glance of blue eyes, taking her in, and dismissing her. John's eyes, without the kindness. Controlled and pushed without a single clear word stated one way or another. Neither Jane nor Jeff spoke much in her company, at least not in the easy manner they had before. Hannah did not wish her ill, but would use her like any tool, with some respect perhaps, but only as much as Liara was useful. Had she not felt the same on Illium, with orders for mercenaries and assistants and spies before her?

She was the one that Jane took after, in the darkest moments. With her rages and cold smiles and anger beneath the surface. Silences that meant far more than any words could.

One glance, and Hannah seemed to know everything about you.

What do you want from us, was the question that everyone in that family had for her, and one that could never be asked. No one lied, but did not exactly share how they felt. No wonder Jane had stayed away for so long, and John hung back across the ocean.

Liara would find herself actually feeling guilty for having Jane beneath her. Uneasy. Listening for others that might be awake and passing their door, and not simply out of a matter of politeness. The forgoing of cigarettes seemed like a better and better idea, just to avoid any confrontation. It was hard to be afraid of the human woman, decades younger than her, after having faced so much more, but, well, she was Jane's mother and she had plans for her children.

She knew mothers, from her own and from her time as an information broker, and knew never to openly disrespect them or go against their wishes except with the utmost discretion. Hannah and the asari avoided one another, purposely. Remembered their own private grief neither had properly shared over losing Jane years before, even now refusing to open up to each other and actually discuss their loss. Nothing to accuse the human woman of, exactly; her questions were necessarily out of line. Liara remembered Shepard with a grin as she informed her how much Hannah Shepard wanted the asari to be part of the family, and could simply sum her feelings up with one word: unsettled.

Liara would wake beneath sheets and Jane's arm, and love their time together and be glad to have finally met the Shepard family, and wish desperately to leave.

There was the way that she found herself almost avoiding both of Shepard's parents, and the reminder of her own childhood with the way they found themselves following orders unspoken and the simple wish to avoid any confrontation.

This time was also one of making a plan of where to go next, and it was not to anywhere on Earth.

She kept her things packed still, and Shepard doesn't ask about that.

It was after a meld that Liara realized something was amiss in her own body. Standing there, with a dab of toothpaste on her chin as in the bedroom Shepard tells her to hurry up and come to bed. For a second, she remembered Jane going on about cycles and cramps. Pressure in her stomach, something that has to be focused on, a concentrated warmth that leaves her confused and watching in the most distant way her own reflection. Blue eyes flickering black, for a few seconds and an eternity.

Exploring what she felt, the cause, this stirring ball, of a formation, asking herself rather than it—what is going—what is this—what are you

But of course she knows what it is. Not the connection she and Shepard shared, no. How long had it been there, inside the oblivious Liara?

Not an it.

Her.

Standing in this bathroom, of her love's childhood home, she understood in a second what was happening.

Liara T'soni was pregnant, just as she'd wanted a lifetime ago.

---

Shepard is dying, and knows this, and that is why she laughs so hard. Nothing had ever been so funny, she'd found the ultimate cosmic joke.

It is nothing that could be shared, since all her friends are probably dead.

Jane should not be laughing, as she tastes blood and smells decay and fire and foulness and the way that batarian missing the left bottom eye, how his head jerked backward as she squeezed the trigger, giggling.

It is absurdity.

She had never lost it like this, but she knew the truth of the universe as its skin was peeled back and she began to dig inside.

There will be no further laughter from Shepard during stress. Not again will she giggle and guffaw at the sight of spilled alien blood. Iin the years to come, Jane will learn respect and dignity for life, and knows even now as her rifle heats beneath her hands there will be other battles because she knows that she will survive this flux of time. Others will die, but not this rising star in the military, already with the good marks and easy grace. When she dies, it will surely be because of something more important than a few slavers. No way will this-

That person that had rallied the civilians and kept them moving, attacking back, and had volunteered to help hold off the invaders as they chipped through their defenses and stand here in blood that is mostly not your own and your friends that you'd brought here died slowly, she will return and have a calm head and Shepard vowed never to let this insanity take over her again.

She laughs…

Because she is alone and bleeding and dying, they will take her dog tags to her parents and John and bury her rotting remains here, and if she dared to lower her weapon and touch her wound might she feel her own insides, pulsing and confused.

This is nothing Jane, it would tell her. You are nothing, and when you are finally shot or bleed out, the universe will keep moving and roll over your body. Look. Another slaver dead, and the sun does not flicker, there is no change. That is the great thing. You are not all that is, your existence can end and life will go on.

If there was someone here, they would slap her.

She laughs because there is no other choice. Because she had tried to be a normal person, a civilian while taking shore leave, a vacation, like her parents would when not on duty and on their home on Earth, sane with their domestic life for Jane and John's sake.

---

Shepard hadn't expected herself to take up fighting again, by way of a controller this time. But it helped to sit in her room and play this dumb game, helped a little, even as she cursed and had to restart levels. Whitewashed, perhaps, and completely in random order and missing huge chunks and what the hell was up with that dress, but it was almost nice to be able to replay moments in her life without actually being shot at. Liara was better at it, a fact that she never let Jane live down.

Even when Shepard was in the hospital, having another health exam, organs poked and prodded at and her limbs going through a million inspections. Surgery schedules, then another one, then another one a week later while Shepard learned the names of all the nurses, spent time with the kids of the ward down the hall, and learned how to race around in her new wheelchair. "Reminds me of the old days, when I first woke up. Less confusion and worrying about who died, though."

"That's a good thing, I hope."

Her partner was content to stuff her full of vegetables in hideous colors and ice cream. Rather than bring stuffed animals or flowers or cards she brought books and holovids full of history lessons, goddess help Shepard. One of them turned out to be a lecture a younger Liara had done, and Jane could watch that one over and over again. In-between watching the news again, and watching the Mass Relays be rebuilt.

After all the other places they'd been, Cincinnati was rather lackluster to Jane, thought Liara was endlessly fascinated with little bits of human culture. She loved even getting lost when driving Jane to some new sight to explore and make sure her bondmate got exercise and fresh air. Even the museums that hadn't been destroyed seemed to lack something to Shepard—who was admittedly out of her mind on pain killers. They walked through a park, Shepard literally popping pills as her partner compared the remains of the trees to the ones that had grown near her mother's estate.

She could very much get addicted to those meds, and watched her intake of them carefully. That really was the last thing she needed right now.

At least she felt better, even with the unexpected unwelcome surprise of her period that had completely freaked Liara out. "Maybe our melding knocked something loose?"

Watching the asari literally back away in fear. "Is that possible? Is something loose?"

Jane could still smile about that now. Liara would come crawling into their bed with toothpaste still smeared on her chin. Looking as sweet as that naïve archeologist she'd been, so many years ago. It was calming, to lie in bed and simply stroke the folds on her neck, teasing the crests and watching Liara twitching from the contact, rolling away if still smiling up at her. Calm moments, domestic and coming to her with increasing ease. Tomorrow: more of the same.

It was worth all this to be with her. If she'd never touched that beacon, if Saren hadn't been indoctrinated, if the Reapers hadn't decided to invade during this time, she probably wouldn't have ever met Liara. Small comfort for the countless deaths—genocide, really—but at least there was something to cling to that personally made her sacrifices and losses count for something.

If not for that beacon and the Reapers, she would have still been a soldier, one much less famous. A spectre, yes, the first human spectre probably, and N7, but would have lived a different life. Maybe died even sooner than by the Collector's hands, killed be a merc or assassin hired. She could just see someone like Thane, hell, why not Thane himself, being hired to take her out for some political reason. Or dying fighting geth in some slightly different hell than usual. Why Liara worked on some dig site, maybe becoming a teacher and giving up arguing for that cycle-theory that so many had ignored.

Lived and died never knowing Liara—and the archeologist would have probably never suffered as she had. Her life would have been empty shuffling, but Liara might have met someone stable, who could actually understand her papers, and wouldn't have left her for two years to stew in rage and vengeance until she'd become a very different person than that uncomfortable young maiden with the long stare and twitchy left eye.

Liara woke her from a light dose, shaking her as though she'd set the house on fire and they had to leave now to escape the flames and smoke and Hannah's rage as she inevitably discovered who'd started the blaze. As soon as she'd shaken her well enough to widen Jane's eyes and banish the sleep from her, her bondmate was up and throwing things into their bags.

"Why are you in such a rush to leave?"

"I don't—I do not want to spend any more time here."

"Well. Obviously." Jane was a big believer in crossing her arms to show she was listening.

"Shepard. Shepard."

There was fear on that beautiful face, crushing fear that left Jane terrified in return. Tears welling in those eyes. A quivering of her dark lips. "What's wrong?"

Liara covered her face. A swallow that was so loud it did make Shepard wonder if she'd started a fire downstairs.

"I think I am pregnant, and I do not want to have the child here."

Shepard had taken physical hits to the face that had hurt less. Gunfire. Right now, she felt like she was being spaced again, floating in silence and fire and how the world below had been the only thing to see as her vision tunneled and panic emptied any wise last minute thoughts. Flailing. Silence.

Pregnant. Liara is pregnant. Oh, god, no. But if there had been a deity listening and in a position to help as Shepard as she'd drifted away from the dying Normandy, as she'd begged for guidance in that white terrible place with that child explaining the secret so many would never know, it once again turned their face away. Why now should any higher power listen to her, as she squirmed from new simple responsibility so many countless others had faced?

"You think?"

"I know."

This was the moment she was never supposed to experience. About a hundred different scenes came to her head, the grim acknowledgement in junior high that she preferred women much more and relief when watching Sex Ed videos that she would be able to skip about half of that. The skulking moments in bars where she should have been escorted out by the guards. Years spent empty and feeling like an uncaring predator whenever she developed feelings for a woman. The wreckages of her first relationship, nothing like what she and Liara had. With her partner, Shepard knew she could collapse into her arms, physically fall into her, and expect to be caught, and that she was free to mope and yell and stutter and be an ignorant moron that didn't read enough and wished she could leave poetry quote that would sum up how she felt so easily and gracefully. She would have liked to be the type of person that could write poetry and fight Reapers and be romantic.

Liara, who adored her. Who complimented her new, completely unsexy underwear she'd bought when living back in Ohio. With whom she would drag to bed at a reasonable hour and slide a plate beneath her food as Liara tore apart the refrigerator after a long day. Beaming at her bondmate rather than being annoyed, "You're worse than I am," and then watch Liara passing out right there at the table. Liara, who was carrying Shepard's child, another sign of her cruel loving devotion.

It wasn't often Shepard was left speechless. She could normally find words, eventually, even if they were the wrong ones. Meant to politely comfort others, nothing this personal. Yes, that's how you described your fiancé being pregnant with your child: a personal thing. Speak, Jane. Speak.

"I guess that explains why you gave up smoking. It's just one, isn't it? No twins? Triplets?"

It would be very fitting for them to have twins. Two kids to drive Shepard over the edge. Identical twins with their own language and two more people under her responsibility. Little blue children. Plural. A nice bite of shock like salt being thrown into her eyes. Bringing with it a little less panic than being suddenly blinded might have.

Another new accomplishment Shepard hadn't thought herself capable of: unknowingly knocking a woman up. This also explained why her hormones had been such a mess, and she'd begun spotting at strange times.

"No. Just the single baby. I believe—no, twins are very rare, and I do not think…she's very young. I can only just sense her."

"Or possibly them. And it's mine, isn't it? I mean, the kid's not going to pop out with blue eyes and stubble right? One with green eyes and one with stubble?"

Those pale striking eyes that had shocked her the first time meeting the Matriarch's daughter grew only wider. "Shepard. Goddess. Of course she's yours. How could you even think otherwise?"

She hated the fact that Liara had known exactly who she was talking about. She didn't want John between them, his presence steadier than her own, warping everything. He wasn't here, and still he separated them, and Shepard was sick of being without Liara. Nothing had happened between them, and Liara was pregnant. That was the important thing. A little blue kid that would call Jane 'father.'

I need to think. To stop thinking. My mind feels like its cracking in two.

"I guess I should probably get a job. For our daughter."

"What? Why?"

"Guaranteed income? To set an example? Isn't that what you're supposed to do?"

Shepard suddenly, for the first time, wanted medication of some kind. Sleeping pills? Anti-anxiety? Something for depression, is that what was wrong with her? Something besides pain meds. Anhedonia reaching up to strangle her, just a little.

You should be happy about this. Twirling her around. A child with Liara.

Depression?

There would be a new person in this galaxy, because of her and Liara. Clumsiness. 'Just call us mistakes.'

She'd been willing to die for a cause, for all the life in the galaxy. Now she what, wanted to die so she wouldn't have to face the life she'd created? How could any child want her as a father? What did the books on PTSD say about this?

"Should we go to Thessia, for the birth?"

"Shepard. Sit down. Can we talk?"

She was going to be one of those parents that made sure their kid had lots of useless crap, but didn't know a damn thing about anything, especially not those who'd sired her. Would she join the Alliance, or become an asari commando? Search for some meaning that neither parent could offer? Liara had been drunk when conceiving of their child, and new to DNA mapping in the first place, who knows what she'd grabbed from Jane?

Their daughter wasn't even born yet, and Jane saw only some misery. Miscarriage. Closed doors and struggle and death. This baby could be so much better than her, would be, no matter what she was or what choices she made. How could she bring life into this world, after taking so much of it away? Why—why hadn't her decision worked?

Jane tugged off her jacket, her shirt, feeling only compounding crazed heat. Seeing her bare unchanged arms. She wanted to pull her own eyes out, and wished that this had been John's kid, that Liara had met her brother and gone on to live a happy life with him because she couldn't give her partner or their child anything decent.

A little chattering child between them. Taking up space in the galaxy. With thoughts and running around and calling Liara 'Mommy.' That was-that wasn't so…

"I don't want a child, not now. Not for a long time. I did want one. I do want one. But now? How the fuck did this happen? How could you let this happen, Liara?"

Didn't you have to try, to have children, when it came to asari? Had she planned this? Was this a way of keeping Jane tied to her, permanently?

"Don't—Jane. You wanted this too. You said we would have children."

"I decided too much."

"What happened to you?"

It was dark in this room, but Shepard still covered her eyes. "That thing. It told me what happened. Why the Cycle kept happening, and I was given a choice. Thank god I chose something. That's what helps. I did pick, and it won't happen again. I could have said no, and let the Reapers destroy everything. Let them continue, and the new civilizations would get a shot."

"You're not making any sense, Jane." She was talking softly, gently, as though to a wild animal.

When Shepard felt incredibly sane, despite a headache that brought forth memories of Alenko. She sounded perfectly reasonable. "I wish you had left again. Liara."

It was terrible, to hear yourself pleading.

You can still go. Leave, and take the baby. Say it's—really leave with John. Say it's his kid when someone asks. Don't let me ruin this for you. You can be happy and live normally. I can't be normal after what happened. I don't think I can be a father.

They could be together, because they were two somewhat functioning adults, but a baby is entirely dependent. A strange blue baby that will have demands of Shepard.

Liara didn't seem to have heard her. "You're not supposed to be sick anymore. Do you hear me? You're supposed to get better."

It'll be like on Nos Astra. You can live without me. You've shown that. You left too. Go to Thessia, or someplace nice and rebuild. You're better than this place. I'll leave. If you want, you can tell the baby I died fighting some husks.

But Liara was such a terrible liar.

"You are not going to do this. You are not going to run away to die like some wounded animal. I will not let you. If you leave, I will follow you. You will get better. This will pass."

Shepard was breathing too loudly, too hard. Crying. "Throw me on the mercy of a mental health professional? I'm not fighting. I will not fight you anymore. I don't know how to be a parent. I don't know what I'm doing in general, let alone how to take care of a child."

"You think I do? You think I planned this? It was an accident. But she is here. And I want her to be."

"Hey. Liara. I'm supposed to tell you how I feel, aren't I? Because I'm definitely having a panic attack right now."

For a moment, Shepard whole expected Liara to tell her to deal with, and deal with it alone because she'd had enough. Instead, the asari dropped to her knees and held Jane. Pressed her mouth against the ex-Commander's ears to tell her that she was going to make a great father for this child, and how lucky she was to have been chosen by Shepard.

After a few minutes of breathing reassurances into Jane, Liara allowed herself to be pushed away under the pretense of Shepard needing to do some chores. Throw out the garbage and call her brother.

Who actually picked up, for once. Maybe it was some sibling bond thing. One glance at his face, and Jane was actually happy to have contacted him. Relieved that he didn't seem mad or annoyed and that they could move past that. And a simple pleasure in the reassurance that came from contacting a sibling she'd grown up alongside.

"I thought you were still mad at me."

"No. Not anymore. It's good to see you, even if it's over an omni-tool."

"Are we okay?"

"Yes. We're great, John." Her mouth seemed to split into two from the force of her smile. Funny, because she didn't feel like laughing at all. "Liara's great too. And pregnant."

"Wha—damn. I guess you two have been together for a while now though."

"John, you idiot. She's pregnant. It's way too soon. There's no way either of us are ready for that."

"How long will it take? Don't asari age slower?"

"Oh, great. Yeah, I just need a few more months to make me feel like I'll make a great dad. Thanks. So much better now."

"You seem better now."

"I do? In what way?"

"Sarcastic again. Good sarcastic. So, how far along is she?"

"Too much. Not enough. I don't know. She doesn't remember exactly when she got pregnant. You believe that? She got herself pregnant, and doesn't remember the occasion." Now she was laughing, even as she tugged at her hair, and tried not to throw up on the stoop because Hannah hated when she did that.

An email, sent years and year ago, written while drunk of course had once told John that her greatest childhood wish would have been to force Hannah into a gurney or simply break her legs and gag her, and thus allow Jane to scream accusations and air the resentments out. But doing such a thing would have meant trying to give up that anger and attempt fixing her issues with Hannah Shepard, and frankly, Jane was okay with hanging onto her rage for now.

Now she did not slam doors and would help with dinner, with Liara and her family looking at her like she wasn't Jane Shepard, and didn't know if that was cowardice or not.

She'd brought Liara here, to deal with her basically invisible dad and her mom. Who intimidated Liara, Shepard had to admit. Punishment, for leaving Jane behind, for Europe and getting lose in New York subways? Was she still that person, that half-assed Justicar only now dispensing anger and revenge on those who had wronged her? There had used to be room for forgiveness in her, even during the war.

Fuck, they had to tell her mom and dad and Liara's father that she was pregnant.

"Johnny, what the fuck am I going to do?"

"Take care of the kid, Janey. And Liara."

"That's it. What do I know about parenting? Besides stuff like 'remember to feed it' and 'buy a crib.' What if I don't—I mess up? It's a child. You can't undo damage. I went to the grocery store, and there was a kid screaming over strawberries, and nothing his parents could do would calm him down. What if this kid does things like that. They will. They totally will. You and I used to do things like that all the time. There will be a million things that I can't make better for them. What if I don't love it? Aren't there parents that drown their kids, on purpose? What if I do it accidentally? What if she hates me?

"I'm a thirty-something year old woman living at home, and now with a kid on the way. How did this happen? Who did I piss off? She's going to hate me."

John was smiling, looking wise and old and heartbreaking young. "That kid, Jane? She's going to rip out your heart and walk all over it, and there will be nothing you can do but love her."

---

It was the wrong thing to do, to come back here. There was a fighting here, still, on this world where she'd grown up. The last thing either of them need, between her pregnancy and Shepard's healing body, was another battle to fight.

Still, Liara had landed the ship in the refugee camp exactly where her father had said it would be located. It was simple enough finding the others, huddled around the ruined cities. Nowhere near her old home, thankfully. She didn't want to see what had happened to her mother's estate, even while Shepard promised they would find it again, and fix it up, repair it and make it their new home. Everything would be better on Thessia, with Liara's own family that were nowhere near as terrible as the Shepards.

Liara had forgotten what it was like to watch the Commander charge into battle. Terrible. Fear and pride mingling. Forgot the terror of watching her, especially now that she was injured. The pity for those facing her.

Shepard did not hesitate.

With omni-blade or gun.

There hadn't been any time to even ask Jane if she was ready to go out, if she was prepared for this, if this was just another attempt at escaping the life they were attempting to build. She'd been the first to join the commandos and their students. Eager to be gawked at by even the matrons, and exposing some of her scars with exaggerated stories on how she'd gotten them for the children, and frightening them when they see her bleeding and cannot comprehend blood being that shade of dark red. Among the first to join the vanguard.

Liara had a feeling that Shepard was smiling behind her helmet.

You will be widowed, if she keeps doing that.

But Shepard needed that distraction, and frankly it was better than looking at blank eyes that seemed to only stare at her stomach. Even though there was no sign whatsoever of their daughter yet.

Not that she is officially your bondmate, even. There was no ceremony. Neither of you wearing bonding bracelets.

Though, sometimes you do put on her dog tags.

One for her, one for me.

Jane brought it up, while combing her hair and brushing her teeth at the same time. Spitting into the sink and nearly hitting her elbow. "Should we be getting married, at some point? I'm pretty sure your dad's totally up for a shotgun wedding. I've been half expecting that since we got here. What do asari do anyway?"

"Bracelets. Woven bracelets are exchanged during a ceremony, before family and friends."

"I don't really know anyone here, but we could try that. If you want."

"Are you proposing to me? At least this time, you are sober."

"Does that mean it only counts now? Because I'm pretty sure I still meant it even when I was drunk."

"Are you really asking me to be your bondmate?"

"Officially. Yes. And I'm totally sober. Aside from some of those pills I took for my legs. Mostly sober."

"We have been bondmates for some time, if not officially. You are more to me than just someone to map DNA with."

"I guess I can't call you blueberry."

"You hardly did that anyway." She was crying, and knew that Shepard was not.

"Because you threatened to call me strawberry." Jane was breathing heavily, touching Liara's crest. "Do you think our daughter will look like me? Will she pop out red, or purple? Will she look like you? I hope she looks you."

"As I hope she looks like you—"

"We have all the bases covered then. Just need a name. And more diapers."

It was only after they were safely here, and settling in, that Jane finally sent a message to her parents to inform them that they would be grandparents.

Just doing that takes some stress from the Commander, and she was the one to tell Aethyta, who was furious over the news. Then proud of them both, and bringing cigars for Jane and things for the child, and advice that ranged from helpful, to unpleasant, such as informing both of them seriously that their daughter would put a crimp in their sex life, it was inevitable. Then Aethyta took Shepard to get drunk, and Jane came back with her omni-tool blazing and howling some music that the woman sings along loudly too, trying to impress Liara perhaps, with her romantic side. Liara can forgive her father for that, but not for inspiring Shepard to write poetry inspired by the hanar, writing neither will ever talk about ever again.

Later, Aethyta will take her aside from Liara's half-sisters and the nieces, and ask if she was ready for this. More than just the physical aspect, though that worried all of them, but that the last time she'd heard from the two of them, they were in the middle of a separation.

"We were not, not truly. It was just a fight."

"And now you're pregnant. If it was anyone other than you, I might ask who the real father was. You know, a child's not going to help the problems you two have."

"Yes, I know. We did not exactly plan on having her yet. We had wanted to wait a little while longer."

"But?"

"It didn't work out that way."

Meanwhile, Jane took up running, exercise in general, and left messages for James about what she can do to help her legs. She cleaned, and read quietly about asari physiology and specifically found out about certain pressure points that left Liara winded and boneless in bed, or yelling at the Commander to stop, right now, no, it hurt, I can't feel my left arm.

Liara learned to cook for two, because Jane was awful at the simplest recipes. Though she found herself making excuses as to why she wouldn't go over everything in the ship with a broom, as Shepard would do. Maybe it was simply the amusement from seeing the Commander sweeping and complaining about the untidy pile of datapads she is forbidden from touching or even looking at for too long.

"Or what, Doctor T'soni?"

"Doctor T'soni-Shepard. What, is that not a human practice, to hyphenate one's last name after marriage?"

Jane just stood there, very still. "Really? You want to take my last name?"

"Normally asari take the names of their mothers, but I suppose our daughter can—"

She went to one knee, to press her forehead into Liara's stomach. Voice huskier than normal, and making the asari glad she was sitting. "T'soni-Shepard. Little T'soni-Shepard. I'm being an embarrassing mess right now, but it's hard to care."

"I'm sure our daughter doesn't mind."

"Do you?"

With her hand buried in the red silk, Liara felt as young as Shepard looked. "Not right now."

That moment was safely embedded into her memory, to be played and replayed. When Shepard woke up that morning, gently extracting her partner's arms from around her, Liara had decided to follow her example and wake. Then follow the Commander through the camp as she had any other mission.

The human woman checked Liara's guns before her own, fingers plucking at the trigger guard. Digits that she loved and will later put into her mouth, inside her where they belong now instead of on a gun. "You sure about this?"

Why she'd gone out here was still a mystery. Practice? Wanting to be with Shepard—yes, that was it. Three quarters of the reason was to be with the Commander, to watch and protect her, and make sure she wouldn't come back that sullen woman who wouldn't eat or drink and instead just stared at the walls.

With time and perspective and a child on the way, Liara had to admit that she had not wanted this hero. Not the person in armor and with the weight of the galaxy on her shoulders. She wanted what was underneath, the girl, the woman, with her smiles and warmth, a person that will not wear gloves all the time let alone her armor. Could she peel away that title, and have Jane here and whole and free from what she had done in the war?

Not long ago, there was a time when Liara used to love Jane when she'd come back from a mission, sweaty and exhausted and about to collapse on her feet. Sometimes she would slide a hand beneath the dark armor and watch the eyes widen in the bruised face. "Why, I am simply making sure you're alright, Commander." She used to celebrate and weep at the sight of Shepard's injuries, and imagine the cuts on those hands when thinking about the spectre simply fucking her after another victory. Taking her prize for all her hard work. Lips swollen from injuries and kisses and sharing such physical pain through the meld.

Liara would enjoy her own bruises, savor them especially when first coming onboard the Normandy. So much more than anything she'd received at the dig sites and training with commandos under her mother's orders. They were part of something larger, a symbol of the fact that Liara was more than a nervous young asari afraid of talking far too long and scaring off these incredibly interesting soldiers she now traveled with. Especially the Commander, who she'd so wanted to impress, to simply watch and take notes about.

And she had taken notes, pages and pages of them, unable to help herself even while knowing that it was too much, if Shepard—not Jane at that point, never Jane, always Commander Shepard—found them she would be utterly disturbed by Liara. Hadn't she scared off enough people with her obsessions? Then getting to know Jane Shepard, seeing her go through her worse, seeing those green eyes settle on her, her of all people.

Learning to shoot a gun properly, training with Williams and Garrus, biotics with Kaidan, being startled anew at every visit Shepard makes. Learning how to yearn for another person, and somehow to charm Jane into caring for her for reasons other than being a crew member. Learning that Shepard saw more than a plain asari that didn't know how say the right things or how to even express fully how much Shepard meant to her.

She could still be undone by waking up next to that spray of messy auburn hair. Still couldn't understand what might have even attracted Shepard to her, what she'd done besides blurt out how she felt and been stunned to find that yes, the Commander felt the same.

For that feeling alone, Liara would follow Shepard into any hell, and did so repeatedly.

Even now, pregnant and showing, and regretting coming here at the first shriek of banshees and Shepard's laughter. "You still run like a nerd, T'soni."

Gleeful. She was actually enjoying being back here.

Shepard was nothing if not friendly to strangers, even now, and would spend hours away from home, coming back to set aside her breathing apparatus to tell Liara all about commandos and others younger, as old as Jane herself and completely unprepared for even scouting. Liara could see which of her new friends were replacements for those missing. They already had their inside jokes that made Liara jealous, and nicknames.

The youngest, all angry eyes and skinny knees, was Tali, Jack, and perhaps Grunt. The older one that traded little snide jokes with Jane was Garrus, Ashley and Miranda. The scarred maiden, the medic, with the kind smile, is John Shepard and Kelly. Others that are replacements for other soldiers from Shepard's past that Liara had and would never meet. Their names slide through the asari's head, already familiar from all of Jane's stories, and she almost remembered clearly the grad students over the years and that once Liara had wanted to be a teacher to make Benezia somewhat happy.

There are a dozen of them, though of course more would have liked to come and simply bask in Jane's presence, never mind the mercs that have decided to attempt expanding out their territory and believed this world to be one easy to conquer.

How Shepard had laughed when they heard of their ships landing here.

"You love this, don't you?" Liara accused, as they hid beneath a crumbling wall.

"Of course. What, you want to go to a place like Mindoir and take up farming?"

"Yes," she said, fervently, feeling soreness already in her shoulders. "Please."

"Too much time in front of those terminals, huh, T'soni."

For her own good perhaps, Shepard rushed ahead and kept a distance between her and an angry biotic. Still, she turned to make faces at Liara, expressing how much she did truly love this, and there would be no Illos to explore or Mindoir to raise their child on, there was only Shepard and her expensive gun and the enemy.

Her bondmate's joy was only stopped when crouched beneath a crumbling building, a rocket flares out in some desperate attempt to take them all out. What sounds like half of the roof nearly fell on Liara, as she dodged that rocket that had been coming at her. She could see the pieces coming down around her, like dark rain. And Shepard, screaming her name, running towards her and perhaps regretting bringing her here or at least for rushing ahead or making her angry.

Her biotics take the worst of it, though of course she still can feel the snap of pain because it's too much and her concentration weakens because the baby. She fell down, and remembered so many early missions where she'd collapsed like this and that didn't matter because even if her body was going through shock, that there is far too much pain in her right arm and both legs, none of that mattered because their daughter is still okay.

Jane was picking her up. It must hurt, that weight with her back problems and legs still healing.

She remembered handing Shepard off to Cerberus, and wanted to tell Jane to stop, because it wasn't worth it.

---

On Mars, Liara is finding herself once again leaving another new chaste message for Shepard, one where she hopes that Jane is conducting herself politely before authorities, and is getting along well with her fellow prison inmates.

Shepard will send back similar empty messages, never describing the state of her conflicted shame and sense of honor that had made her turn herself into the Alliance in the first place. The military had been her life since being half a child, and to find herself in their bad graces is like being reprimanded by the parents she never spoke of.

Or at least Liara surmises this.

Liara herself will not speak of her guilt and fear, will not mention her hopes for this all to end. That she will clutch her desk during dark moments, recalling Jane's cabin on the repaired Normandy. That there is despair and rarely had she been so happy as she was here, on this planet that's dust is the color of human alien blood and rust. Exhilarated, to be a member of a group, a team, again, and never mind how much she keeps from the others and how little socializing she has done, because they are there and nod to her and listen and address her as 'Doctor T'soni.'

It is also impossible to describe how she lives and breathes in every letter of the emails that Shepard sends her.

They will be in a state of true war, with so many dying and chastised for waiting, and none of that will matter to Liara. She may live another hundred years, watching things die around her, lives destroyed, and that will not matter so much.

Soon, she knows, they will be back together, and perhaps never separated again. Die together.

I would like nothing more, Commander, than to perish holding you and looking into your eyes: Liara will type and erase.

It is for her, her Commander, that Liara will take another stim and think about what her homeworld will soon go through, and of green eyes, and keeps her going even as she finds a message from Eclipse mercenaries, buried and encrypted but not truly hidden (as though it were a gift perhaps? From Omega of all places, a taunt from Aria?). She will think of Shepard, as she listens again and again, to familiar voices that she knows and knows, goddess, she knows that low bawdy voice that she'd heard in a bar that she'd gone in to collapse and had recommended drinks and listened to her as she explained to this strange disgraced Matriarch why she was on this planet and not on the Normandy, this voice that uses the word 'Nezzy' and 'Noveria' and is paired alongside that breathy voice that Liara has not listened to in years since she still cannot stand to watch those holovids that are so easily found—

No.

She will not think about that clip of a message from whomever had sent it, since it does not matter.

There will be war, and Shepard will come here, and with the Commander at her side, Liara knows that the answer will be found, the weapon discover, the crucible unearthed, and the Reapers destroyed. The little battles breaking out will be stopped as Shepard unites them together, and with her, Liara will learn how to make Feron laugh again, perhaps there might be time to meet her second parent.

With her next message, Liara will tell some of the truth, and mention that she dreams of their night together after fighting that yahg. She will only be moderately disappointed that Jane does not follow that thread and instead talks of Earth, of its weather, and how they should come here sometimes, maybe, after the war.

---

When Liara awoke, she knew a little better of what Shepard had felt like after they'd discovered her body amongst the destruction. The crash through her unconsciousness that brought forth a grey ceiling and red-hair that needed to be trimmed and green eyes that had those strange pale glimmers in them that now nearly matched the background. So strange how they could do that, change their shade like that.

Though the damage down to her was nothing compared to what had happened to Jane, who'd needed so many more implants and transplants and had died again and again on operating tables. As around them other perished, from lack of attention as the doctors focused on Shepard. More sacrifices, and organ transplants for the Commander.

Shepard had never found out how bad she'd been. She'd woken up after a medically induced a coma, with rebuilding already taking place, and was only vaguely told by doctors of the damage that was already healing before she'd fallen back asleep, again and again. Carefully monitored, and with everyone agreeing it was easier this way, with the Commander sleeping and healing quietly. With Liara sitting there, an eye on the nurses and doctors, with her own orders.

Liara monitoring her condition, and she would have gone to those other soldiers, civilians, and removed the organs that Shepard needed, with her own hands if it was necessary. That time had been a hard blur of pain and determination that had driven the asari half-crazy. She'd bent others to her will, and watched and waited.

Now Liara wished that she hadn't muzzled those around Jane. Had told the Commander exactly what had happened to her. Not started off their new life with lies and half-truths. It was something that Benezia would have done, something Hannah Shepard would and did do. Shepard would not have lied to Liara, and didn't as she told her the damage. But Liara was so selfish, so desperate to spare Jane, to refuse to accept so many problems. From her Commander's death to what had done on Illium and the changes that she'd undergone, and now pushing ahead with this pregnancy, determined to not deal with Jane's problems because Liara wanted not to be afraid and alone.

She was a coward.

Would she pass that onto her child? Javik had told stories about prothean children, and what they'd undergone, about the indoctrination and how the parents had not flinched from their duty. But Liara was weak and afraid already of what she might have to do to care for this child in this galaxy. Protect her child from Jane's problems, and knowing already that she couldn't leave, never leave Shepard, as her mother had done.

But Jane was grinning, because in no way had their injuries been comparable. "Baby's okay, though. That counts for something."

"Yes. Of course it does."

The green eyes were laughing, free of any misery over the mask she hadn't removed yet. "Don't worry. We'll get you a great wheelchair. Racing stripes and everything."

"I'm glad you can laugh about this."

"I'm glad you're okay. This is how I deal with my fear of losing you. And our daughter. By cracking bad jokes and sneaking in paint to fix up your chair. Also, John and Jeff and Hannah give their regards, although neither can come to their omni's right now. Mysteriously."

'Let her rest,' Liara had instructed those too in awe of them to argue too heavily, too busy as well, and since Shepard would clearly recover…let her rest and let the rest of us take care of things, let her hair grow back out, let her not see what was ruptured and the scars and wonder what little of her is originally hers, let her brain waves return to normal, let her go through surgeries she will not feel if the fates are kind, let her not go through any more trauma for everyone's sake, damn us all.

When Shepard wakes up, in a flutter of new limbs, crying out in guttural sounds that are all she can manage, Liara sets aside the datapads, and begins her real work.

Jane practically sat on her, to keep her in this bed. The Commander liked having someone to take care of, and fuss over and protect like a varren would. Forcing Liara to empty bowls of soup, endless soup, and asking how she felt over and over again.

Her grinning, cheeky reply of "payback," followed by a wet kiss on the cheek.

At least she was spared what Jane had to go through, forced into Alliance blues and stumbling through a script while still reeling from the deaths and whatever she'd gone through. Later, Jane had bared her teeth without mirth and said that at least she hadn't cried. The public would not get that from her; she saved that for her friends and bondmate. But none of them could get her to describe in any great detail what she'd seen, not Kelly Chambers or Jack or Miranda or Williams. Liara had decided quickly to not ask any questions, and simply trust Shepard as she had from the very beginning.

At least she was also able to avoid friends that would laugh too hard at jokes that weren't funny, and pretend they'd won a better victory. 'At least it's over...' and 'you did the best you could, commander' and Liara had wanted to crush whoever said things like that, as though Jane had failed, as though just by surviving she hadn't won a victory, didn't they see that, didn't they see how precious she was even to be still drawing breath, hadn't she done enough? Just leave us alone, leave us be, please.

The little things that had been so slow in coming, just Shepard reaching for her hand left her weak and wincing, and Liara a flush of pride. Their first kiss, butting heads and trying to find each other, like baby sheep Jane later compared it to, and Liara didn't care what species that might have even been because there had never been anything as good as that moment of contact.

Jane found an instrument she couldn't play properly in the least, and attempted to serenade her. Of course it worked anyway, because this is Jane Shepard, and a simple smile could leave Liara giddy even now. She slipped past nurses and guards in the middle of the night to read to her, and then they fell asleep in the hospital bed to be discovered shamelessly by her doctor coming in to check on Liara's condition.

"I think she's getting better, doc." Only Shepard could get away with saying such a thing while Liara scrambled to pull up sheet around them.

They will never leave each other again. Jane will find a way to stay in this state, for their daughter, and they will adjust and learn to deal with problems. This child will have both parents.

Asari come to ask her advice on everything, it seemed. The problems were still endless, though at least Shepard doesn't leave to go on patrol. She spent all her time here, helping with advice on things that Liara doesn't know about the commandos. Acting the part of the Commander she was supposedly no longer.

Medication, too much considering how bad supplies still were, took away her usual shields. Or any rage to build in her. A relief, as Jane turned the page to her book, chewing loudly on some candy she'd found that she enjoyed that strained her mouth and teeth a garish, enjoyable purple. She could lie here, and ask, "Why do you come back, and just sit there in the ship? That's what you used to do, at the apartment we shared on Earth. I never understood it."

Shepard looked at her, finally closing her book. "I'm feeling the mechanical parts. It's almost like they're talking to me."

It sounded reasonable enough to Liara's increasingly heavy head. In fact, rather glorious. Glor-i-ous. Of course that's what Shepard does. She loves to listen and understand. "What do they say?"

"Nothing important."

"Do you talk to them back?"

"Sometimes."

"What do you say?"

"I apologize."

A blanket pulled up to her chin, and Liara knew she had something important to say, some announcement, a brilliant solution to what was bothering Shepard. The words hanging in her head, forcing her sore mouth to open, a human phrase that Jane would understand better than she would what it meant to bond with another. Forging another connection. "Marry me."

"Huh?"

"Marry me? Please."

"Oh, Li. We're already married. Didn't you know that? Now go to sleep."

She woke up, in a cloud of pain, and eventually found her medical bracelet that had the bare minimum written out had been removed some time while she'd slept. Torn clumsily off and covered with tape to repair it, and to adhere a dog tag to the outside of it, almost covering what her blood type was.

When Shepard comes back, carrying two stuffed animals in different sizes ("one for you, one for that baby"), Liara nearly broke the hospital bed and her own damaged wrist by throwing her across it.

The simple facts: Jane's red hair in her grip, the taste of her in Liara's mouth and the way they both squirmed during the meld, the words that slipped out afterward, "I love you, and I've never been so happy." She would make Shepard forget about her problems, about the cybernetics that had been so wounded, about all her pain and fears. She could do that, Liara was the mother of Jane's child, and they'd created a family together, a life. How could she not be enough now, to make Shepard happy?

"Really? Really, really, with me?"

A kiss was the only answer Liara could give her that would explain the truth of how she felt. "You are going to make a great father."

Carrying Jane Shepard's baby. Liara remembered to feel blessed. Had she not thought about this, as they fought the Reapers, as Shepard returned to her and managed to win another victory? Sometimes, she would concentrate on that strange warmth, not believing that she was actually pregnant even after all this time. Jane would find her meditating, and hold her hand and talk to their baby as though she were already here.

There will be fear and terror and her heart will never not be with this child. Worse than anything Jane Shepard had put her through, Liara could already tell. A small child with her curiosity and Shepard's stubbornness. She will be a terror and a joy and keep her parents awake and terrified. Sometimes Liara spent time in the nursery, and was overwhelmed by how much she will have to do, and how much she already loves and fears this child that wasn't yet the size of the infants in that room. Learning to hold a child for the first time, as she has to deal with complaints from the other asari that have decided to look to her for a leader, until more Matriarchs arrive and as Aethyta hands off problems onto her youngest.

Sometimes, Jane will be there, grimly learning to change diapers and attending the birthing lessons and then she and Aethyta will go out to drink while Liara fumes over that, vowing revenge only to laugh when they come home, reeling. Then her father would reveal that Benezia had sent many videos and photos and stories, enough supplies to keep Liara embarrassed for years.

My bondmate, she would think looking at the messy hair covering the drooling face. Mine. The father of my child.

Then of course there were her half-siblings and their daughters and their daughters, children that insist on sitting on laps and pulling on Jane's hair. Her entire family trying to smother first Liara, then Shepard, who only laughed over all of it, even the dirty jokes as her sisters ask about what it's like to have a human, were they really built the same way as asari, and what was up with the body hair? Embarrassing, but at least she and Shepard were allies. They all got along, there was nothing like the tension at the Shepard's household, since even John acted uncomfortable when he would talk to his sister and her bondmate over the omni-tool. Jane and her half-siblings got on well, and with them Shepard would discuss a little of recovery efforts and children. Liara's younger nieces and their children flocked around the woman and seemed to worship her as the second coming of Athame.

That's what she clung to, the soft gentle moments, repenting every harshness they'd done to one another.

Liara missed cigarettes and the occasional glass of wine, and the ability to eat things without Jane following her and reading the ingredients. "Dunno, there's a lot of mercury in that fish."

Eventually, their daughter finally began to make somewhat of an appearance, a polite and discreet bump that could be hidden with her coat buckled. It was the last kind thing their unnamed child did to Liara, because after that she decided to make sure her presence was known to at least her mother. Incessantly, she would kick, and sometimes Liara could nearly feel and sense her rage, it had to be rage, no happiness could account for such trauma to her inside. Already, she was fighting, and Aethyta tried to reassure her that it was a good sign, it meant she was 'healthy and had spirit', with only Shepard believing and enjoying such news.

Liara could forgive and love the Jane that rubbed her hand over Liara's stomach, trying to soothe their child at night, the one that overhears gossip aimed at her, little jokes and appraisals that have her looking down her own shirt and asking if 'they're that bad.' And smirking at Liara over the maidens and matrons and matriarchs flirting with her. Some of them even asking for DNA samples, right there in the mess hall, frightening the Commander over her food as Liara glares at the asari, trying not to shove her bonding bracelet in front of them. Absurd enough to make her family laugh when they see it, but sweet enough to make them smile and tell Shepard and Liara to keep them. It's easy to love that Jane, who put that bracelet on her and wears her own carefully beneath gauntlets and gloves, and calls her bondmate and when annoyed, refers to Liara as her 'nagging wife,' but grinned when Liara would glare at her for that.

The one that had called their friends and told them about their daughter, and refused to make any promises about what she and the others would teach her. Aethyta and Shepard would have the baby teething on pistol parts and Vega and Ashley will have her running as soon as she can walk and there will be no cage to hold her after Tali teaches her how to hack and Kasumi to steal and Garrus will have her be the best sharpshooter in her class and Miranda and Jack will take care of her biotics…will Joker teach her to pilot, will John take her to parks to feed birds?

Hers, that person. Scars and increasingly moody habits and Shepard repainting her armor again and again, sometimes one-handed as the other was too sore. Hers, this human woman slowing down and sliding into a spiral of depressive fits and insomnia that has Jane drinking tea and running laps at night-prone to worrying about their daughter, or ignoring the fact of her existence.

Days were bad, but nights were worse.

Had grown worse over the months. Every time Shepard came back, it was impossible to predict which Jane was there. It might be the happy Jane, pleased and proud to see how far along her students were coming. Eager to discuss the children she'd seen through camp, young toddlers and babies their own daughter would spend time with. She would come in, removing her armor, and Liara could forget about her own day, even as her partner would needle her for information.

Then there would be that blank-faced Jane, who when not speaking in monotone one-syllables would be silent. When she didn't react when Liara would tell her about the baby kicking. There would be grimaces for answers and mentions of her injuries for excuses as to why she was in such a state. Back to that still form that had inhabited her bondmate's body when they'd lived in the dreary apartment.

Stabs at making conversation, with Jane looking up and finally responding. Her voice cracking. "We could go to Illos. You never got a chance to study that place, did you?"

Trying, both of them trying so hard.

Forgiving and forgiving.

The person that will say of course the baby was alright, no way would Liara have a miscarriage, that was way too easy. Then backtrack, and say that was over the line, she was sorry, Li, that—she hadn't meant that. I'm sorry.

Such mood swings left Liara tensed, to say the least.

But there were those moments where she knew she'd made the right decision. When Shepard would come to her, almost possessed. Would allow Liara to feel nothing but each other's bodies, her awareness consisting only of their bed or whatever surface they were pressed again. Jane would hold her still and mutter proclamations of love and possession, leaving bites and bruises. Touch her stomach, press her forehead to attempt and talk to their daughter. Green eyes meeting hers, playful as she'd been on the Normandy when they'd discussed a life after the war.

Shepard, with her guns back.

Out with the body squad, with commandos, burying the dead and trying to repent for a crime she'd never committed. Part of why Liara loved her so much was because she would awake and go out there, and that might be the reason they could never leave the other again. Growing too thin again, and snipping at Liara too much in their too small living space of this ship.

Her half-sisters would be nearby, they'd promised, with their darker-skin and marking that showed their proud linage, how easily they got along with their own partners or memories of them. Laughter and hugs and teasing Jane about her never joining in communal baths, and them with their own children and their children, old stories and jokes. None of them were pureblood.

Had her mother felt this way, when carrying her, afraid for her daughter, and worrying about odds and about facts hidden away from non-asari? Had she worried about Liara, what she might be, what DNA she might have, corrupted, before she had been tested? Was she on that spectrum, had Benezia been justified in her fears, was her relationship with Jane another statistic to prove that something was wrong with Liara. The words, 'incapable,' 'abusive,' 'short and exploitive,' all came to her as she thought of Shepard's bruises and cuts that she hadn't caused but felt responsible for.

Shepard came back again, this time even later than normal, and Liara can breathe again. Sometimes, she was certain that an asari commando, or her own father will arrive at that entrance of their tiny ship, and inform her that the Commander had finally fallen in battle. That's what Jane thought she should do, apparently. Keep fighting enemies, keep finding new enemies and leaving Liara behind again and again and why was she still not good enough for Jane? Still not enough to keep her here, and happy and whole? Would this child be enough?

Could their daughter be another bond, a change in Shepard that will calm her? Why had she decided to map Jane's DNA in the first place? Because they'd been briefly happy on Earth?

Because she will be so much more than another connection between them, another link forged. Their unnamed child will be an entirely separate person from them, with her own thoughts and feelings, and she will be there in the galaxy long after she and Jane are dead.

It was unfair to put so much on their daughter, before she'd even been born.

What if their daughter had Jane's fears and problems that drove her to black rages and grey depressions? What will she look like, what will she act like, will she be on that spectrum of Ardat-Yakshi, will they sit there as Liara and her own mother had, waiting for the test to come back? Would she be a scholar, or a soldier, or both perhaps? Would she resent her parents as Liara and Jane had their own? For now, she was safe, and nearly squirming impatiently as Liara reached out with her consciousness to check on her. Everything that they feared and hoped.

This baby curled up within her, this life and dependent little person that would be half Shepard. She had tried, despite not knowing what she was doing, unaware truly if the father's DNA Liara would talk to her, as Jane did, act as though she were already here and getting into trouble. She could tell their daughter of her plans, of the book she was writing about protheans, about what Liara wanted after she was born and how much she already loved her.

You see her, and you look at her smile and her strength and you feel relief.

But you are also afraid—of what?

That voice sounded like her mother, and Javik, and her father and Shepard herself.

When Jane comes in, late at night and bruised and tired and so very late, Liara watched the grim smile crossing her face as she looked at the asari sitting there on their cot. Shifting green eyes that soaked in the light, set in that face with its scars healed, though sometimes Jane would pick at her old injuries, and exposed what was beneath.

Shepard had the same look on the kitchen floor, leaning in close to kiss her and tell her secrets. Using the tools she'd been given, by birth and natured by Hannah Shepard, with her expectations and plans, and at least their daughter would be free from that human woman, and instead be raised by…Liara had never worried so clearly about what type of parent Jane would be until now. This baby had been created during a more peaceful time, when Jane had been unarmed.

Blood and mud splattering that black armor. There will be fresh blood of the same color on Liara's own clothes soon.

They had never gone back to Illium, to check on the prothean artifacts she'd put into storage. It seemed unfair that she might never see them again, those things that had brought her comfort over those two years and the years before meeting Shepard when she'd been alone but for her dreams and theories.

She felt a bite of pain. This angry child that will come into the galaxy, screaming and fighting. The beginning. "It was cruel to bring you here."

"Liara?"

"Shepard. I think I am having the baby now."

---

She has been on the Normandy for too long, Liara knows. It will catch her off balance, that even the way she stands is different, military straight rather than her awkward caved-in-shoulder and wide-eyed stare that made the other students of her university so nervous.

The others have already left, for their own missions. Returning to whence they'd come, and Shepard cannot keep herself from helping with even that. Protectively, she watched them leave and practically makes them promise to keep in contact with her. Even when they are not under her command, the soldier will want to watch out for them.

The asari sits in her room, and is pleased that she is no longer that afraid little pureblood that avoids others her own age and has to learn to ignore the little jokes about if she was a—shouldn't she be in a secluded temple, is that why she doesn't—Now she is something more, stronger, and unafraid even as she knows what will happen so, of the wars and losses that may break out soon.

Because Jane Shepard is here.

It is for her that Liara remains. Why she has no gone to perhaps Ilos for research on not another paper or article but a book on the empire that is no more, or back to Thessia to resume her studies and for grants and safe rooms lined with books with other asari that may wonder what she had been doing all this time. How could she possibly go back to studying dig sites and leave her friend? For now, all she wants is this, right here, waking up and if not next to Shepard, then waking up and meeting her in the mess or hallway.

It was still too new to reveal to the others, this connection that leaves them smiling when their eyes meet. It was heat in her stomach, and spreading lower, conscious awareness of her hands and worriment of a different sort than usual, fears of not being able to make another person that are soon relieved when those eyes flutter and how she'll sag against Liara. Her crooked grin that leaves no doubt to be left inside Liara T'soni for the first time.

With her, for her, she can be calm and strength.

Liara is annoyed on her Commander's behalf, but it all too pleased to still be onboard a place that is becoming home. For this peace, even if soon they will be forced to fight pirates, or the geth or husks, they will be together, and no one be able to stand before Shepard and her smile.

Because whatever it is, Shepard will find and stop it, and amaze the galaxy again, and prove the Counsel that they wrong. Then she will take care of the Reapers because that is what Jane Shepard is meant to do, to care and to comfort, and to win. Above all, Shepard will win a hard-won victory because anything else was impossible.

---

The last time she'd been on Thessia, she'd been more than a little crazy. Tearful and full of rage and wounds. Hating herself for failing, again, and especially for that look on Liara's face. Similar, but a little different than the one that had been wheeled away from her by the other asari that Liara had never knew well. She had brought Liara to this makeshift herself, carrying her and not looking at that pale face. Then had just allowed Liara to be removed from her arms, her very presence.

Shepard stood there, conscious of her height, of her red hair and clunky boots heavy. Feeling her tongue rub against her teeth, recalling that exact mission. I wanted to fight the Reapers, and save the day. To save Thessia. To make Liara happy, and safe.

Now, she was feeling a little like she'd let that bastard Kai get away again.

Ironic, in light of the fact that she wanted to leave. She hadn't wanted to run, in the war. She and Liara had said some things about taking off with the Normandy, but always after the war.

She was afraid. Afraid of you. For you. Of you. For our daughter.

Of you.

For a second, Jane wondered what would have happened if she'd failed with the Crucible, and had decided to do nothing. A different decision. Would Liara have died on Earth, a planet she'd never even seen before that battle? Could she have gotten on a ship, if not the Normandy itself, and gotten away. Escape to hide, or—no, that was never in Liara to simply run. She would have left, and bided her time, and perhaps have found another way of defeating them. Or fought again and again to try, and made sure the next cycle was capable of defeating the Reapers.

Anything might be better than that, than simply putting aside her gun and dying and letting it all go to hell because of cowardice. Fear. I can't make that decision, I can't. Leaving others to die out, her entire species. Unimaginable.

Perhaps Liara might have followed Javik, the protheans, and sealed herself for the next cycle.

And, oh god, what if that hadn't worked, and she had to wait for the next cycle, if she hadn't died as the other protheans had. What if she'd been indoctrinated? What if she'd died in slow pieces, because of what Shepard had done, or not done?

Jane Shepard, who could sometimes be the worst person, the biggest jerk for all the good she might do.

The little things that would trip her up and expose how callous she could be. Like ignoring Jeff's request that she help fix the roof, and simply moving a pot to catch the falling rain as her bondmate simply stares at her reading her datapad and ignoring the hail and snow beginning to drip through, until Liara, pregnant, goes up to fix the roof by herself. Drinking lager to celebrate Kaidan's memory, and then writing terrible, terrible poetry that she will not reveal to anyone because it made the hanar recitals look great, which sets Aethyta off on a tangent about what things the hanar are good at, and by that point Jane needed alcohol to deaden that portion of her brain—which convinces her it's a good idea to tell Liara about the poetry. That Jane's idea of romance was a romp at the shooting range she'd helped set up, and some bad military grade food, and perhaps serenading Liara with the worse mushiest music that (she and her brother both like; bad taste runs in the family at least) being played on her omni-tool.

Or having Liara find Shepard in the supermarket, with John over the omni-tool and Aethyta taunting her bondmate and egging her on to use the loudspeaker and announce to everyone that this was Commander Shepard's favorite store on Thessia. Setting a terrible example for their daughter Alannah, who would have been delighted seeing her father getting reprimanded by a harried clerk. It would have been nice to say that this was the first time they'd been escorted out. Alannah, whose name was only said inside Shepard's head, safe and secret, because to name something was to create it properly. Liara hadn't even suggested many names yet for their daughter, as though determined not to jinx things. Alannah, who was not even born yet, and needed to be protected from Jane.

And how many times have you wanted to grab her, and ask why the hell had she gotten pregnant now, and why with her of all people?

Jane Shepard is a jackass, and how long until Liara gets sick of that?

Of this partner that would not fix things set on high, and might not want to change diapers for years and years. A father figure that might expose their daughter to guns far too early, or simply grow sick of raising a child, that might become too tired at times to pay attention to the kid and decide to let holovids and Liara raise her. A bondmate that is amused at the wrong moments lately, and simply stood there while she was escorted into the temple-medbay to give birth.

There was this thing, inside Shepard, maybe it had been there since before the war, even. Hidden. Biding its time to show a scaly green face. It fed off her fear and in return brought rage and strength. That thing had told off the Reapers, had sacrificed Alenko, had nearly shot Ashley, had kept her moving, on the Crucible. It was here, and could not be gotten rid of. The best she could do was live with it, this cold thing that smiled at the problems she had faced that would crumble other people, perhaps. And Shepard was not living with it well, at all.

It would eat Alannah alive, chew and spit out some unhappy, resentful daughter.

I could leave.

With this monster in her.

She could be the soldier she'd wanted, die in this armor as whatever higher power might have wanted. A good story, for others to tell. More romanticizing her life. Jane Shepard's last stand. Her looking dramatic on the cover, omni-blade blazing hideous orange as she ran headfirst without fear towards some husk. Die fighting the Reapers as she had a feeling would happen, years and years ago. People would hear, mourn and take pleasure in her sacrifice. The martyr. A decision, like the one she could have made in the Crucible.

A good ending.

There were worse things than dying a hero.

Is that all you are, Shepard? Is that all you want to be for your daughter, some story? She saw John, lit from the afternoon sun, smiling and tired. She was proud of him; Jane had never told him that. He didn't look or sound disappointed, but of course this was her own head.

There are worse ways than being only some holovid with lots of explosions in it, Johnny.

Is that what you are? Just a soldier? Then go out there and make it quick. You've dragged Liara through enough. It's not like she won't have offers from prospective step-fathers. Your daughter might have a chance if she doesn't grow up calling you Dad. Liara knows all about lying, about parents' sacrifices and half-truths.

You can't live without her, Janey. We both know that. But she can go on. Take care of that kid herself, she knows about single parents, and there will be many here on Thessia that will watch over her daughter.

Or can you follow what you did after Anderson died, after the Illusive Man killed himself, after that thing came before you. That form of a child. That form, why that one, why did that one kid haunt your dreams for so long? Damn, even now you still think about him. He reminds you of me, when I was young, doesn't he?

When you were little. And I was supposed to protect you and be a good older sister.

And you were, Jane, you were. You helped me, and you tried to help that child like you do everyone else you meet. So why did the Crucible take that form? What is it about that kid, about kids, really, with you? Innocence, and a blank future before them.

I won, and I still dream about him, about it, because winning doesn't solve everything.

Unless I do go out there and fight enough banshees to finally kill me. Everyone wants me to be that protector.

Oh, god, but she had failed, she had killed, she had not protected those that had trusted her. At least Liara still lived, unlike the others, countless lives, yes, damn you they had been alive in the important ways they had souls, she had failed and messed up fucked up not saved say it say it damn you. You were able to speak even when you were bleeding and dying up there with that thing. "EDI. I killed EDI."

She was a sacrifice. One that you would have made, could have made but didn't. And the geth. They will remake synthetic life again.

As though it were that easy. Ask Joker about replacements. "It isn't the same."

She died so you could live. For her.

It still hurts, her decision.

She didn't know if she could live with what she'd done, even after all this time. That's why she put on her armor and left Liara, and had allowed her partner to get hurt, they could have lost their child because of her carelessness. Another sacrifice, for Jane's ego rather than her life.

A hero. A guardian. A father.

You can be one of those things, but not all three.

Was she crying? Why was she crying? Why was she crying here, alone, and not with Liara? I don't know what to do. But fighting husks on the battlefield isn't helping.

It had been how they had met, as that role, but now it had to be shed and cast aside and she would have to find strength elsewhere. In whatever was left beneath.

You cannot be Commander Shepard, the fighter, and by Liara's partner and father to her children. Not even her brother's voice, not her mother's, not Liara's or Aethyta's or EDI's or the child she hadn't saved. It's only herself, really, in the end.

She will have to find the person that is not the warrior, and not the moping person that wants to be that warrior still, because neither of those roles are good enough anymore. There was no easy solution, Shepard can admit, alone.

Alone. How long had she felt so alone, how long had she been alone? How long had she left Liara alone? How long can she stand here, and wonder…

Everyone wanted her to be some hero, and she had been and now—now I have to take off this armor, and retire. Never touch a weapon again, except for training others. It's time to end being a protector to everyone, officially. Now I need to take care of my family. After, after, we could go sometime and rebuild, just us and if anyone will be the soldier, it'll be Liara. I'll just be a Dad. A farm, what the hell, in Mindoir, with her taking care of their baby, just them. The three of them on some nothing world that had been attacked like them, and will be new and meaningless to them both.

Could not leave and kill herself, could not function without Liara, could not stay and make everything better; she was in a cage, trapped in her own body and the decisions made, and she is trapped. Bars all around her. She was Jane Shepard, ex-Commander, and stuck in a trap of her own design, of her own happy ending.

I don't know what to do, even now. But I will be there for Liara, at the least, I can do that.

Shepard looked up, the sky was still grey here, but it was much less the hell that it had been with the Reapers still around. She had lost here before, but would not do so again.

Going back inside took more courage than picking up a rifle ever had. More bravery than going back for Joker and making sure her comm link had been off and not screaming as her oxygen tank leaked and panic had set in as never had before and left her flailing and for nothing. At the very least, if she'd taken off, Liara and their daughter would have chased her across the galaxy, and considering how much time her bondmate had spent with Aethyta, Shepard would have been tied up and dragged onto their ship when Liara inevitably caught up with her. Maybe with her dad, and half-sisters there and nieces and why not even Johnny. Family that would come after her with shotguns and biotics and love.

Jane had to smile, as she yanked off pieces of chipped armor and kept only her breathing apparatus on her face. I can and will be more than soldier, yes. No more running, into or away from anything.

Was there pain and surprise in Liara's eyes, after seeing her bondmate come inside, or just pain?

There should have been a few more years before this time. Another decade, maybe, before she had to hold Liara's hand and comfort her and hear the words 'push' and 'she's crowning'. Fathers were not even usually involved with asari birth, she was told, before being instructed on what to do. More than the vagueness of before. Aethyta all casual, as though they were in a supermarket and she was giving Shepard directions on how to make something involving seaweed that Liara would hopefully enjoy. She felt the ripe lemon taste of shame for not trying harder to find out more information. That her daughter had been born too soon offered no comfort.

It's not about blame. Let's just get through this. Her, only her voice now.

Liara couldn't hear any of her thoughts, for better or worse. No melding; it was too late in the process for that, and she had to go through this alone, again. All Jane could do was hold her hand and speak to her as though that were enough.

Through sickness and health…your wife. We're married, Liara. With or without a ceremony. If you go anywhere, Liara, I will follow. I will not leave you. That's a vow. Can you still forgive and believe and trust me?

Jane cut the cord herself.

It's a hideous thing, pale blue and scrunched and covered in purple goo—horror. Eyes closed, and a round beautiful face. Someone to dig for treasure in mud with. All the strength left her legs, and she could barely hold the child up. Has to lean against the bed, against strangers really, and hand her to Liara. Who was equally traumatized from this alone, and crying. The most perfect thing Shepard had created. Just look at her. The soft crest and scrunched face and her wailing. Were those freckles, beneath the blood?

Was she crying too? Again? Not alone now, never again will be even alone the same way now.

Nameless except for in Shepard's head. Named for the man she'd sacrificed. They hadn't prepared enough for her existence, but at least Jane might be able to give her a first and half of a last name.

She is here.

Please do not let me fuck this up.