Hurry! Hurry, she'll be here any minute, Shepard thought to herself as she grabbed another handful of socks and underthings and stuffed them into the duffel on the bed. I have to be gone by then. Angrily wiping a tear from her eye, she surveyed her progress.
Two duffels sat on the bed. One was filled with as many guns from her armory as it could hold, all cleaned, inspected and carefully packed. The other was half packed with various toiletries, a couple boxes of energy bars, a bottle of whiskey and some socks and underwear. Shepard slammed the drawer shut, opened the next drawer and grabbed several shirts without really looking at what she was snatching and shoved those in the bag as well.
Any minute. Any minute. Goddammit, I need to be gone!
As she slammed the shirt drawer closed and reached for the next, Shepard heard the hiss of the front door opening, the rustle of someone entering the apartment, and froze.
Shit!
Carefully and quietly, so as not to give away her position, Shepard opened the next drawer. She would be found eventually, but better if she were ready to flee upon discovery. Hearing the sounds of the other person shuffling about the apartment, she picked up a pair of jeans and turned to pack them away. Footsteps in the hallway…
"Shepard? Where are you?"
She hastily shoved the jeans into the duffel and turned to grab another pair. As Shepard was stuffing the second pair in the bag a figure appeared in the doorway and she froze again. She looked up into a pair of questioning blue eyes.
"Shepard, what are you doing?" the asari asked. She stood in the doorway stiffly, taking in the scene: the two duffels, one bulging obviously with guns, Shepard shoving clothes into another, the human woman herself looking haggard, her eyes puffy and red. After a moment of simply staring at each other in shock Shepard dropped her eyes and bent back to the task of packing.
"I'm leaving," she replied flatly, slamming the drawer shut and opening another forcefully. "I meant to be gone before you got back…"
"You…what? Leavng? But why?! Why would you…" the asari began before the realization hit. "Did you hear from Miran-"
"Yes!" exclaimed Shepard, cutting her off. "Yes! And I won't go down like that, Liara! I can't!" The irritation, frustration and tension were clearly written on her face and in her posture, arms crossed defensively over chest.
"Shepard, love…" Liara started forward with concern in her eyes, reaching out for her bondmate. Shepard, knowing her resolve would crumble if she let the asari touch her, took a step back with hiss and threw up her hands as if Liara were about to burn her. A mask of cold calm slipped over Liara's face and she stepped back to lean against the doorframe, her own arms crossing under her breasts. The human woman began opening drawers and stuffing random articles of clothing into the bag without really looking at what she was doing, just trying to distract herself from her own emotions.
The asari studied her bondmate and her distracted, frustrated whirlwind of motion calmly. It had been almost 200 years since the Reaper War, but the human woman had aged gracefully thanks to the Cerberus cybernetic implants that had also lengthened her life beyond that of a normal human. The only glaring concession to age her body had made was the greying of her hair, which was now almost white. The other indicators were more subtle; the softening of her muscle tone and her curves, the slight deepening of the creases around the corners of her eyes and mouth. Despite the white hair, she looked to be of an age with a normal human woman of about forty-five or fifty.
"I'm a fighter, Liara!" Shepard raged, slamming another drawer shut. "I'm a goddamn warrior! I won't go out in some hospital bed while my body just falls apart! People coming to visit me, people I probably don't even know or like, looking at me all pityingly… it'd be fucking pathetic is what it would be!"
It was the growing frequency of the aching of old wounds which had become a concern. While the human was still active and healthy for the most part, and still a formidable warrior, there were times when these aches became so painful it forced Shepard nearly to the point of collapse. Several weeks prior they had been to see Miranda, who was herself in her twilight years. She had done some tests and told them she would inform them as soon as she had the results. Obviously, the conclusion Miranda had reached had been a dire one.
The time she had with Shepard had been more than Liara had ever dared hope to have when she was younger. Now it seemed that the time they had been graced with was drawing to an end; an inevitability that neither of them had wanted to face. Liara's heart ached but she kept her composure.
"What did Miranda say?" Liara asked quietly. Shepard ceased her packing, the duffel now overstuffed with random articles of clothing sticking out here and there, and sat down at the end of the bed with a sigh, scrubbing her hands over her face.
"My body is rejecting the implants," Shepard answered just as quietly from behind her hands.
"After all this time? Why?"
"Miranda had a big long scientific explanation, but what I got was 'Our physiology changes as we age' and 'What worked at age 30 might not work at 230,'" Shepard sighed, placing her hands in her lap and staring at them. "It's likely new implants would be rejected as well if we tried to replace them. But since they make up a good majority of my body, they can't very well be replaced without killing me anyway." Shepard laughed bitterly. The asari remained stoic.
"So, what was your plan then?" Liara asked a bit more coldly than she had intended, gesturing to the duffels on the bed. Shepard stood and turned to regard them, her face hardening again.
"I was going to find the worst group of criminal thugs in the dirtiest, shittiest hell hole I could find left in the galaxy and take a whole hell of a lot of them down with me," she said.
"Go down in a blaze of glory and all that?" the asari asked with an unintentional sneer.
"Yes," whispered Shepard, still staring at her bags, her shoulders slumping in defeat. Liara worked to carefully control the icy calm concealing her growing fury, but her hands dropped into balled fists at her sides.
What about me? Liara wanted to ask.
"What about Enola?" she inquired instead.
"She's almost 150. She's all grown up, an adult, and she knew this would happen eventually. Besides, she's had longer with me than any other asari with a human parent would have," Shepard replied evenly. Whether or not Shepard had heard the subtext of Liara's question, her answer struck too close to home. While it was true, to Liara it seemed awfully callous, igniting her fury further.
"And yet you would have left her, planned your own demise, without a word of goodbye?!" Liara shouted, her mask cracking, her wrath beginning to enter her voice and gesturing angrily with her hands. The human woman stiffened and turned to face her wife, looking her in the eye for the first time since she had initially been discovered. She realized they were no longer talking about their daughter.
"I never said I wasn't going to say goodbye," Shepard said defensively, "only that I wanted to be gone before you got back. I left recordings," she said by way of explanation. "For you and for Enola, and a few for some of our friends…" Shepard trailed off at the furious glare from Liara.
"Your plan is extremely selfish, Shepard," Liara fumed.
"You're not the one who's dying, Liara!" Shepard spat, her anger and frustration returning in full force. Liara's anger, however, melted into sorrow at her bondmate's outburst, her body sagging under the weight of it, tears welling in her eyes.
"No," she whispered, "I am the one who has to go on living without you…"
Her ire forgotten, and never truly directed at the asari in the first place, Shepard rushed to her wife and folded her in her arms. Liara instinctively wrapped her arms around the human, clinging tightly to her, and buried her face in her neck, tears running silently down her cheeks, dampening Shepard's shirt.
"Li…" Shepard whispered, feeling her own sorrow, which she had been holding back with anger, weigh her down as well. Feeling tears welling in her own eyes she pulled them back to sit on the bed, Liara in her lap.
"Li, I…I was thinking of you…with this plan…I…" Shepard struggled to find the right words, to speak around the lump in her throat. "We've had more time than any other asari-human couple could be lucky enough to have. We got to watch our daughter grow up and become the remarkable maiden we always knew she would be. Our time together has been amazing. And that's…that's what I wanted you to remember…how I wanted you to remember me. Not wasted away, barely aware of where I am before my body finally gives out." Shepard swallowed the emotions constricting her throat and forced herself to finish. "I didn't want that to be your last memory of me."
Liara nodded into Shepard's neck and spoke through her tears. "I understand, Shepard, I do. But, can you understand that to have no opportunity to say goodbye, to see you one last time…I would have regretted that for the rest of my life. Can you understand that?"
Shepard sighed and kissed the top of the asari's crest. "Yes. I'm sorry. I was being selfish," she murmured into the top of her bondmate's head. A tear finally broke loose from her lashes, landing with a small splash on the asari's crest before disappearing into the folds there.
They sat there for a long while simply savoring the comfortable sensation of being in each other's arms. Eventually Shepard felt the familiar brush of the asari's consciousness against her own and immediately opened up as Liara initiated a shallow meld. A wash of muddled feelings flooded the bond; sorrow, anger, love, confusion, fear.
I do not know if I can go on without you.
Shepard poured all the love she had into the meld, trying to drown out all the negative feelings. She held Liara tightly to her, as if trying to make the meld physical as well as mental, reassuring the asari that she was still there.
You're strong, Li. So strong…so much stronger than me, no matter what anyone else might think. She pulled back and lifted the asari's chin to look her in the eyes. And no matter what happens you are never without me. We are bonded, we are one. We will always be together here, she brushed her fingertips across Liara's temple, and here, she laid her hand over Liara's heart. Liara laid her own hand over Shepard's, her other slipped behind the woman's neck and pulled her in for a kiss.
AN: So, I started this several months ago but then the incomparable Melaradark released Dark Energy 4. (If you haven't read the Dark Energy series go right now and read it...what are you still doing here!? Go!) The premise was so similar though more beautifully done that I decided to put this on hold. But DE4 has been finished for a while now and so I've come back to this one. I hope I've put enough of a different spin on it to make it worth reading.
Don't worry that I'm leaving off here. I'm not finished though I am having trouble deciding how I want to continue. I posted what I have completed mostly in an effort to force myself to finish this story before I move on to another. I can't make myself accountable to...myself, so I will make myself accountable to you, dear readers. I promise to have another chapter written by next week with maybe, possibly another chapter after that.
If anyone has any comments or criticisms they are always welcome. I'd also like to hear how you the readers would like to see this play out. Like I said, I'm struggling with how to proceed, so your input is appreciated!