Title: Rebirth
Fandom: Mass Effect
Pairing: Liara/FemShep
Spoilers: MAJOR SPOILERS for ME3 at the very end.
Disclaimer: Bioware, yes. Me, no.
Rating: MA +
AN: To show my dissatisfaction with the ending of ME3. My mood improved when I got the small cinematic showing Shepard taking a breath, but I still wasn't satisfied. So here's MY ending. I know others have done similar things, but... enjoy anyway.
...
Rebirth
...
Chapter One:
There was a great trembling.
The wave of devouring light grew louder and higher, gathering, gathering. Static and electricity crackled around her hands, shooting up her arms in fiery lines of white pain and making her entire body shake, but she didn't let go.
She was used to mental pulses, from Liara and also the Prothean beacons she had encountered, but this wasn't a 'pulse' so much as an explosion that ripped the fabric of the sky and roared in her ears until all she could hear was white static. In a hazy, disconnected way, she realized her sound suppressors had kicked in, but it didn't seem to matter.
In some other awareness, she was screaming, but there was no chance that she or anyone else would hear it. She screamed until everything exploded outward, and the red haze settled in her mind.
The rumbling stopped.
Black tendrils congealed around the edges of her mind, but this time, wherever her mind went, they dissolved into mist like shadows running from the light of a candle. She did not feel the electricity anymore, but the light grew brighter and brighter, from a candle to a flashlight's beam to the headlight of a tank to a large, glowing orb that grew and grew until it was the size of a star, and it kept growing.
She watched the shadows retreating, retreating, until the light was so large and powerful that it hurt, and her body and mind screamed with pain. Instead of everything going black when she lost consciousness, she disappeared into a painful ocean of whiteness...
. . .
"Shepard?"
The voice seemed to be coming from far away.
"Shepard..." She knew that voice. Her eyes tried to open, but they felt so heavy...
"Love..."
Finally, she managed to open her eyes a crack and allow in a sliver of light. She saw white, and a blue blur, but something about the shade was familiar. "Liara," she croaked, the sides of her throat lighting up with pain.
"Rest. Your synthetic parts suffered a lot of damage after..."
Liara wasn't sure how to describe 'after'. The devouring red beam of light had almost killed her, knocking her through the wall of a building and conjuring up a cloud of choking dust. Only a well-timed biotic shield had saved her life. It had taken her two days to wake up. Shepard's recovery had taken over a month more.
Aside from the damage she had suffered during the approach to the beam, the organic parts of her body had not been in un-savable shape. It was the synthetic pieces that had been completely or near-completely destroyed. All of them had needed to be replaced. A new heart and repaired blood vessels that had exploded during the demise of the first Normandy and reconstructed at Cerberus simply shut down, and she had required a completely new left leg from below the knee. Liara was amazed Shepard's brain had survived the trauma intact, although Cerberus had reinforced the bone around her skull with some extra plating. Two near-scrapes with death, and most of her neural functioning remained unimpaired, although her lower spine had suffered some heavy damage and the tissue in her extremities had needed extensive repair due to oxygen starvation.
"Af - ter..." Shepard said, still finding it difficult to speak.
"I don't know exactly what happened after, I was unconscious at the time, but something sent out a cease and desist command to the Reapers, because all of them shut down. The soldiers have been burning them, taking them completely apart so they don't repair themselves somehow. A few were saved for study, against many protests – only bits and pieces. Some of the metal from the others will be useful for rebuilding."
Liara suddenly realized that she was being extremely scientific, and Shepard didn't deserve that. Not at this moment. "Well, you've died twice now, Commander," she said, her own voice breaking as she reached out to touch Shepard's cheek. "You must be very determined to see all those little blue children you keep telling me about."
Shepard tried to laugh, but all that came out was a hoarse groan. "Liara..." she tried to say again. Hearing the three words – two, technically – that Shepard had spoken as excellent progress, considering she had been essentially dead and then unconscious for the better part of five weeks.
"At least it didn't take two years this time. Miranda remembered enough about the Lazarus project to help save you. She wanted me to tell you she did put a "different" chip in your brain, whatever that means, and it probably saved your life."
Shepard was too tired to make a quip about mind control, but her brain thought it, and that was amazing enough to her as it was.
"It sent out the command to keep all oxygenated blood going to your brain and heart, to prevent atrophy and give the medics time to find you. In her opinion, the rest could be repaired or replaced. Fortunately, or perhaps unfortunately, there were plenty of casualties to match with your blood type. You've received almost as many organ transplants as medals. Oh no, I'm getting scientific again..."
Although it was a great struggle, Shepard managed to lift her hand slightly, reaching out towards Liara's. The asari took the hint and gripped her hand gently. That simple touch spoke far more than words as Shepard's eyes closed again.
. . .
Shepard's recovery was not a simple process.
More often than not she was surrounded by a team of doctors, and most of the time she was kept under heavy sedation. She underwent several more surgeries, including one to replace her missing foot, which itched terribly. All of the procedures left her feeling depleted in the rare moments she was awake. Liara was always there. In the few quiet minutes they were spared, Liara took the opportunity to meld with Shepard and gently go over some of her memories of the Reapers. It was important, not just so the Alliance could know what happened up in the Citadel, which had almost been completely destroyed, but so that Shepard could begin to process the things she had seen, things no human should ever see.
Liara had gasped and nearly pulled out of Shepard's mind when she discovered the choice that her lover had been forced to make, and the price that the AI on the Citadel had asked her to pay. Shepard had walked towards the right chair expecting to sacrifice herself for the future of all organic life in the universe. At the time, she had thought Liara was dead to her forever. "But I survived. You survived. Life won, and the cycle is broken."
Shepard was too emotionally exhausted to consider any alternative. The AI had said that the peace would not last, but she couldn't believe that. Not now. Not after all the lives that had been lost trying to win this future for the next generation.
On the fourth visit, Liara finally revealed something that Shepard had been too scared to ask about. "What happened to everyone?"
"Define everyone," Liara said.
"My squad, first of all."
"Tali'zorah has been travelling back and forth between this hospital room and what remains of the quarian fleet in Earth's orbit. She wishes you well, and has been a comfort to me. Ashley is in a room not far from here, very upset that she has not been able to visit you because of her injuries. She went down fighting under a swarm of corrupted asari... you stopped the Reapers just in time. I am sorry to say that James perished trying to pull her out. He wouldn't leave her to die."
Shepard was not the type to play favorites, but there were still so many names unaccounted for, so many unanswered questions. "Garrus? What happened to Garrus?"
"Garrus's body has not been recovered, but – he helped try and push me out of the way just before the Reaper beam descended upon us. The push caused me to put up my biotic shield on instinct, I suppose, and it saved my life when I came down from the forty or so feet that I was sent up in the air. I only remember the fall and red light filling the sky and my head."
Shepard's face paled. She felt regret, regret that she had picked Garrus as one of her squadmates, but like she had told the turian before battle, as a soldier, she just wasn't Shepard without Vakarian by her side. She suddenly realized that she had also taken Liara along, and had unknowingly put the asari in danger.
"What about my crew? Joker? EDI? The ones on the ship?" When the asari's face fell, she knew that she would not like the answer.
"We don't know."
'We don't know' was better than 'dead', but not by much.
"What do you mean?"
"Shepard, you know the Mass Relays were destroyed. The Normandy travelled through one of them before all Alliance signals went offline, but we don't know if they made it to the other side, or have a way of going to look for them."
The depth of what she had done struck Shepard like a blow in the chest. It had been necessary for survival, but the thought that the Mass Relays were completely gone, that all inter-galactic travel was cut off, was terrifying. They were basically stranded.
"Not stranded," Liara said, picking up on Shepard's thoughts through the near-constant mental link that they had established. The Commander's thoughts had been so strong that she had felt them in herself as well. "We have the technology, particularly now that the Reapers are destroyed. We will rebuild them, and when we do, I promise we can try and find out what happened to them. It is unlikely, but possible that they survived and landed somewhere habitable. It might take time, decades perhaps, but rebuilding the Mass Relays is far from impossible. And now, time is something we have."
"Free time isn't something I'm used to," Shepard said, unable to keep the exhaustion from her voice. She was actually glad that the doctors kept her under most of the time, because sitting in a bed for months probably would have driven her insane. "I thought we never fully understood how they worked..."
"We understood less than we would have liked, but enough. Perhaps the technology that we took from the Reapers will do some good after all. The Mass Relays were their design, their technology."
"What if Garrus was on that ship? The Normandy was close, within Earth's atmosphere during the final battle..."
Liara held Shepard's gaze with sad eyes. "There is no way to tell, Shepard. Javik is missing as well. But I would not hold out hope. There are still many bodies to be identified. And even if they did make it back to the Normandy somehow, the ship may have been destroyed when it tried to pass through the Mass Relay."
"Do you really think we can rebuild them? Perhaps this seems inconsequential after dealing with a threat like the Reapers, but it's hard to imagine a world without travel between systems."
"I believe we can. Every species here wants to return to their homeworlds. That is impossible without the Mass Relays."
Shepard took several moments to respond. "Liara... what the child, the AI, said... do you think it's true? Will our children create synthetics and begin the cycle again?"
"The asari are very long-lived, Shepard. Thessia might have been destroyed, but we will remember, and our daughters will remember. Do I know whether this peace will last forever? No. It is impossible to know. But we will not forget this story, your story. It is a warning as much as it is a part of our history."
The doctor kept her private thoughts to herself, her hope that Shepard would have a similarly long lifespan if they could invest in ways to keep her organic tissue healthy and alive. The synthetic parts of her body would easily last or be replaceable.
"When you say 'we' and 'our daughters', do you mean the asari as a species, or the two of us?"
"Yes."
"Which?"
"Both."
To her surprise, Shepard felt herself begin to cry. The answer reminded her of Legion, and images of his death by Tali's hands flooded her memory. She supposed the question of his people was part of the giant question that this entire war had been fought for: 'does this unit have a soul?' She didn't know whether synthetics and organics could possibly carve out a life together without controlling each other or killing each other, but she knew they had to try.
"Since the topic has been brought up, I have something to show you, Shepard... if you'll let me. I am not certain, but I think it will please you."
Those words caused Legion's death to be replaced by a much more pleasant memory, the memory of standing among the stars with Liara and watching that bright beam of light break over the horizon as they kissed. It was one of the few good, beautiful things she had clung to when she had to make the inevitable choice. She had no way of knowing it, but that memory was directly attached to what Liara wanted to show her now.
"All you have to do is close your eyes."
. . .
Instead of standing on a starry plain, she found herself somewhere warm and dark. She was not afraid, but comforted by wherever she was, and she was aware of a gentle, constant thumping that soothed her. There was also a gentle hiss and rush of sound that moved around her, and it reminded her of ocean waves lapping at the shore.
There was life, bursting and beautiful life, all around her, and she drew strength from it.
She felt Liara within her mind, and that sensation was pleasant, but familiar. It was something else, something alien that also probed at her mind, which surprised her. That 'something else' was Liara, a part of Liara. It felt like Liara. But it was not Liara.
How something could be and could not be Liara at the same time confused Shepard at first. They seemed to contradict each other. But then she understood with a brilliant flash of clarity.
This presence in her mind, a presence that was purely love and no words, was not Liara. It was her child. Their child.
"When?" she asked in the darkness.
"My gift before the final battle. I should have been more clear, but there wasn't time, and... Selfishly, I wanted something of you to keep if you perished. It gave me a reason to stay alive, and if the whole universe was destroyed, it wouldn't have mattered anyway. At least, that's what I thought then. I was wrong."
. . .
When Shepard's awareness of herself returned, she felt strangely lighter, but also very confused. That such beautiful new life could be born from such destruction was incomprehensible, frightening, and wonderful. "The beam of light that broke over us..." she mumbled, leaning forward slightly from her sitting position and putting her hand on Liara's abdomen, which did not seem any different than normal.
"The creation of a new life that almost never was. But she is alive. I am alive. And you are alive, barely. It is more than we expected, but I am grateful anyway."
"It's been over two months since the Reapers were defeated. Why couldn't I tell?"
"How could you? We have been melding mostly within your mind, to examine your memories. Of course you didn't notice."
Shepard corrected herself. "I meant physically."
Liara smiled. "Shepard, you are thinking like a human. I believe human pregnancies only last nine standard months?"
"More or less..."
"Asari children require much more time to form. This isn't so surprising, considering our lifespans. It is not that long," Liara added when she saw the look of horror on Shepard's face. "Don't worry, you will not have to deal with a pregnant bondmate for decades, but it should take a little over two years."
The Commander was stunned. "I'm not sure whether to be jealous for humans because, compared to your lifespans, the asari have such short pregnancies, or to be terrified that, compared to our lifespans, you have such long ones."
Since they were sharing secrets now, Liara decided to divulge another. "To be honest, no one has been able to put an estimated lifespan on you, Shepard. For all we know, your synthetic parts, your biotics, and all of the genetic and hormonal therapy you have been undergoing could help sustain your body's function for hundreds of years, or..."
"Or something could go wrong and I could die tomorrow," Shepard said, able to voice the thought that Liara could not.
"Truly, there is no way of knowing when any of us will die. I believe there is a relevant passage in a human book called the Bible? 'We know not the day, nor the hour...'"
Liara was right. There was no telling when the universe would end, or if it would ever end, or if time was even something that could be measured. There was no way to know when or how they would die, either. But for now, they had this. Shepard was in the unique position of being faced with her own mortality and also what felt like immortality, having been brought back from the dead twice within a relatively short period. It made those words resonate with her all the more.
She suddenly realized that, by taking Liara on the final mission, she had put the mother of her unborn child in danger. She was shocked that the fall had not killed their daughter and ended Liara's pregnancy. Perhaps it took time for the gamete cells – or whatever equivalent asari used – to imprint and become a zygote, just like human eggs were never fertilized immediately, but the thought still chilled her.
"We'll need a name."
"And it will probably have a lot of vowels," Shepard said, thinking of all the asari names she had heard. "I actually like Aria, because it's a little like your name and it is also a type of human song, but T'Loak kind of ruined that for me."
The asari frowned. "Aria and I have had a few... colorful interactions with each other. Now that you mention it, I wonder if she survived. She is resourceful, it is possible she left the Citadel before it came under Reaper control."
"I'm more concerned about my crew than T'Loak. She was kind of a bitch. An amusing bitch, but a bitch."
Another memory, this time of Tali very drunk and muttering 'Keelah, she was a bitch,' in reference to Miranda Lawson made her remember something else.
"I know Miranda's alive... I've been aware of her." She recalled a few blurry moments seeing the ex-Cerberus operative's face hovering over hers. "I'm surprised she hasn't stopped by for a longer chat."
"She has been very busy trying to acquire... parts... for your rebirth. The Alliance has given her unlimited funding. They think that if she could do it once, she and her team can do it again. Including salarian and asari scientists this time only made the process faster. Apparently, confining your staff to one species weeds out some of the best minds."
Thinking about Miranda brought another person to mind almost immediately. "Jack? What about Jack and her students?"
"Unfortunately, they were part of Hammer. The majority of them died. I believe she and a few others managed to fight until you brought down the Reapers. Jack survived mostly in-tact, but at what emotional cost, I am not sure. She has remarkable survival abilities. Your friend Kasumi has also been by to see you. Now that you are awake more often, maybe you will actually be able to speak with them. Tali and Miranda have been at your side almost as much as me, but you never seem to wake up except when we're alone. All of us want you to recover."
Reverting to her training because thinking about the individual deaths and the staggering number of losses was far too painful, Shepard tried to take stock of everything in her head. "We lost James, probably Garrus and Javik... EDI, Joker, and my crew are missing God knows where in space..." her heart cracked as she recited the names. "But you, Ashley, Miranda, Tali, and Jack are still around. I saw Anderson die myself. What about Urdnot Wrex? Grunt?"
"Apparently, krogan are not easy to destroy," Liara said. "They both live, but are furious at being stranded on earth, especially Wrex. There is no way to communicate with Tuchanka at the moment, and he can only hope that Urdnot Bakara has been able to keep the clans united. For now, they are rebuilding here."
Shepard ran through any other names she might have missed. "Zaeed?"
"Alive. He dropped in once, but I believe hospitals and authority of any type make him remarkably uncomfortable."
The Commander had no idea whether she was glad that bastard was alive, since they did have a camaraderie if not a strong friendship, or furious that someone so immoral had lived while Garrus probably hadn't. Of all the deaths Liara had reported, that one hurt the most, even more than Kaidan's. She felt as if she had sent the Turian to his death just as she had left Kaidan to die on Virmire.
"None of this is good or fair. None of it makes any sense... If I had lost you, both of you..."
Shepard reached out, trying to pull the asari sitting on the edge of the bed into an awkward, slightly painful embrace. Liara urged her to lie back and reclined next to her, putting an arm behind Shepard's head and gently resting her other hand on the human's breastbone.
"We are here. When the time is right, we will remember those that fell and live for them. But we are alive, and all of that is thanks to you."
But Shepard did not want thanks, recognition, or anything at all. She wanted Earth to be whole. She wanted Thessia to be inhabited by asari again, not simply a pile of rubble. And she wanted Garrus and her other squadmates to be alive. But wishing wouldn't bring back the dead – except, perhaps, her. And even though she was grateful, even though holding Liara in her arms was just beginning to heal some of the pain, she had to wonder why she had been brought back to life when so many others had died. Logically, she understood that the Alliance wanted their hero, that this was their way of trying to pay her back for everything she had "accomplished", but none of them seemed to realize that she had not accomplished it alone. Others had died for the same goal, and no amount of science or prayers would bring them back.
. . .