Author's Note: So, I did a hard burn today to get the next chapter of 'Moments In Time' up, with the result that, come time for bed, I'm staring at the ceiling, waiting for the plot bunnies to go the fuck to sleep so I can, too.

Searched for something to do while waiting for the melatonin to kick in, and hit on the idea of starting to de-anon some of the stuff I've put up over on the kinkmeme, which wouldn't take too much brainpower beyond a bit of editing.

This'll be the first, done in response to a prompt for Liara & Shep to get together after the Reapers have been defeated. Like I said, going to make a few edits & corrections, but it shouldn't take long to get it all up (and after your patience waiting for my schedule and my muses to mesh, I thought that a quickly finished tale would be a good way to say 'thank you').

"Liara, I can't dance." Casey Shepard stared at the image of her best friend on the vidscreen, trying her best to project the utter conviction that she felt. "You know that."

"You need to get out, Shepard," the asari persisted. "You've hardly gone anywhere since you left the hospital."

"Enjoying the peace and quiet," Casey replied defensively. "I've saved the galaxy three times now; I figure I've earned some down time." Truth was, she wasn't sure exactly what to do when there wasn't a looming disaster demanding her intervention. For the last three years, she'd been dealing with the threat of the Reapers, and before that, she'd been Alliance, born and bred: raised in space and weaned on duty. She was a warrior without a war to fight; she'd never known anything else.

And the galaxy wasn't sure what to do with inactive heroes. Everyone kept telling her she should relax, take it easy, but at the same time, everybody wanted a piece of her. She'd received endorsement offers by the score, from products and politicians, most of whom she'd never heard of; the Alliance wanted her to spearhead a recruiting drive, pretend she hadn't carved out victory through countless deaths, surviving herself only through chance, tell the kids they could do it too if they just had that fighting spirit. Casey didn't know what she wanted to do, but she'd been giving serious thought to talking Joker into stealing the Normandy again and going walkabout until she figured it out.

Dancing had never entered into her plans, and for good reason, but Liara wasn't giving up.

"You don't have to dance if you don't want to, but at least come with me? I've been taking dancing lessons on the extranet, and I want to try them in public, but I don't want to go alone. I need someone to look after me."

Casey managed not to laugh too hard at the idea. The shy scientist they'd rescued on Therum had come a hell of a long way. "This from the woman who flays people with her mind?"

Liara looked offended. "I've never done that!"

"But you could, right?" Shepard had seen her biotics at work during the final assault in the ruins of London; she'd never have guessed that a banshee could be bent in that many different directions.

"Theoretically, I suppose." Liara sighed, looking resigned. "I guess I could ask Grunt to go with me. He's expressed an interest in exploring nightlife on Earth."

"Grunt?" Casey blinked. She couldn't have heard that correctly. "Liara, the last time that Grunt went out, I damn near had to hock the Normandy to pay for the damages! And you want to take him dancing?"

"Why not?" Liara cocked her head, a challenging gleam in her eyes. "My father's father was a krogan, after all, and Grunt is a genetically ideal specimen."

Shepard felt her jaw drop. Was she seriously suggesting - "No. No. No. Just...no." She screwed her eyes shut, trying to shut out a mental image that promised to ruin meals for the next week. "It's ... just a bad idea."

"So, you'll go with me, then?"

She cracked open one eye. She'd been played, hadn't she? "All right," she growled. "Just don't expect me to dance."

Liara's smile lit up her face. "Wonderful!" she said with an enthusiasm that made Shepard wonder if she'd even heard anything beyond 'All right'. "Wear the dress that Kasumi got for you."

Oh, come on! "Liara, I can barely conceal a pistol in that thing! I thought you wanted me to look after you?"

"And the gold necklace with the Thessian emeralds that Councilor Tevos gave you. They will look lovely with your eyes."

"Gold and emeralds? Are you trying to get us mugged?" On the other hand, an easy fight with a bunch of punks might settle some of her restlessness.

"And the black flats."

"Dammit, I am not dancing!"

"Pick me up at eight!"

Damn it.

"What are you wearing?"

Shepard could feel her eyes bulging, but Liara just smiled at her and twirled in the doorway.

"Do you like it?" she asked innocently. "Tali helped me pick it out."

"Tali?" Head-to-toe hidden by enviro-suit Tali? "Where's the rest of it?" The skirt was even shorter than the one on Shepard's dress, and above the waist was a complex crisscrossing of narrow straps that barely covered … hell, anything, all of it made of leather dyed a rich fuchsia, with four-inch heels to match and a silver braided-chain necklace and bangles to complete the look. Shepard couldn't believe it. The goddamn quarian was an exhibitionist by proxy.

"The salesclerk did recommend a set of fishnet stockings, but I thought that would be a bit much," Liara mused, oblivious to Shepard choking. A faint frown touched her lips. "I did get them, though, just in case. Do you think I should put them on?"

"No!" The thought of Liara in fishnet stockings was doing odd things to her mental processes, but the sure knowledge of the way nearly every male (and more than a few females) with a pulse were going to be reacting to her friend dressed like that provoked a response that was more familiar. "Here." She swept off the N7 jacket that she'd grabbed on her way out the door and whipped it around Liara's shoulders. "It's cold out here."

"It's August, Shepard." Liara whipped the coat back off, frowning as she hefted it. "And what do you have in the pockets?"

"Spare thermal clips," Shepard replied automatically and recoiled at the death glare she received. "Damn it, Liara, I'm practically naked! The last time I went out with only one gun, I wound up dodging shots from people who were much better armed! And I fell through a fish tank!"

"And you survived magnificently," Liara assured her, patting her cheek, "but I don't think we're likely to encounter another rogue Shepard clone tonight."

"You never know," Shepard said plaintively, watching as her jacket was hung over the back of a chair, out of reach. "There could be batarians, vorcha … Conrad Verner ..."

Liara sighed. "Casey, if you don't want to go ..." She trailed off, looking so crestfallen that Shepard immediately felt like an ass.

"No. No, I'm good. Let's go." She waited as Liara locked the door to her apartment, reached out as her friend stepped onto the sidewalk and slipped an arm around her shoulders, frowning as she felt a shiver run through the asari's slender frame. "You sure you don't want the coat?"

"I'm sure," Liara said firmly, leaning into her a bit. "Let's go."

In the cab, Liara gave the VI the coordinates, then scooted over until she was right next to Shepard, nudging under her arm and resting her head against Casey's shoulder. It wasn't unusual; the asari had few people that she felt truly comfortable with, and she seemed to need the physical contact even more since she had become the Shadow Broker, something to keep her grounded in the midst of the near godlike omniscience that the vast network of operatives provided and the decisions that she had to make in the use of that knowledge.

Which didn't explain why the familiar gesture should suddenly make Shepard feel antsy as hell.

She shifted, trying to dissipate some of the unexplained edginess, sniffed. "You smell … different."

She could almost hear Liara's eyes rolling. "It's perfume. Do you like it?"

"Umm … yeah. It smells nice." Spicy, sweet, with the faintest hint of flowers. The aroma was intriguing … alluring … and doing absolutely nothing to settle Shepard's jangling nerves. "How long have you been taking dancing lessons?"

"About two months," Liara replied.

Shepard did some quick mental math. "Right after I got out of the hospital?"

Liara nodded. "You didn't want to go out or do much of anything, so it was a way to occupy my time." She dropped her head. "I'm sorry, Shepard. I didn't mean -"

"It's all right," Casey replied softly. "I haven't really been..." She trailed off, staring out the window. Six months after the defeat of the Reapers, so much of London still lay in ruins; the full tally of the dead might never be known. "I don't know," she said softly. "There's nothing left to fight, no enemy to defeat. I feel like I'm lost … like there's no more reason for me to be here."

A warm hand slipped into her own, fingers interlacing. "That's not true, Casey," Liara murmured. "There's more to life than fighting."

"True," Shepard agreed wryly. "There's also arguing with idiotic politicians and being dismissed as a lunatic." She heard the bitterness in her voice, but couldn't find anything to counter it with. "They're already blaming me for the relays being broken."

"Those people are a minority," Liara said firmly, "and they'll go away completely now that the relay repairs are being completed. With Charon, Arcturus and Thessia functioning, more will follow, and bring others within FTL range."

Shepard nodded absently, still reviewing her failures in her mind. Anderson dead. More than half of Jack's students lost, along with countless others who had died to get her onto the Citadel to activate the Crucible, and when she had, the casualty count had only risen: the geth destroyed, EDI gone, the mass relays damaged, stranding trillions in systems that could not be reached by FTL travel. How many had starved to death in the last few months, trapped on worlds whose resources had been exhausted? How many more would die before the relay repairs were complete?

Gentle fingers slipped under her chin, turning her gaze away from the destruction outside the window to the worried regard of sapphire eyes. "Try to relax and enjoy yourself tonight," Liara entreated her. "Please?"

Casey nodded, wanting to please her friend. Liara had been with her every day in the hospital, trying to keep her spirits up as she fought to recover from her injuries, visited or called her every day once she was finally discharged, never seeming to mind the commander's ever increasing moodiness. She could pretend to enjoy herself for one night if it would make Liara worry less. "I will," she promised.

Liara smiled at her. "Good," she said, clasping Shepard's hand in both her own and resting it on her leg. Her bare leg, Shepard realized, wondering at the sudden prickle of fire across her skin. She'd seen Liara in less than this; they'd changed clothes in the same room on the Normandy without a second thought, so why in the hell was the feel of the asari's skin under her palm doing this to her?

"It's warm in here," she muttered, realizing suddenly that she was trapped between the side of the cab and Liara's body, with nowhere to go but out the window. Which would probably come across as rude.

"Is it?" The asari gave no indication that she planned on moving. "I hadn't noticed." Turning her head to reply, Shepard found her nose a scant inch from Liara's, blue eyes meeting her green with an unnerving intensity that had her heart racing.

What the hell? She tightened the arm around Liara's shoulder instinctively, edging them even closer together, watched Liara's eyes start to slip closed -

"Arriving at destination," the cab's VI announced.

Blue eyes popped open, and Casey could have sworn she saw a look of irritation flash across Liara's face, but then it was gone, and the asari was scooting away, tugging at her hand as she stepped out of the cab.

"Come on," she urged, and Shepard followed, trying to figure out if she was relieved or disappointed at the sudden space between them.