Meeting Commander Shepard has led to a lot of unusual experiences for Doctor Liara T'Soni. She has travelled through a lost Mass Relay, gained and relinquished the mantle of the Shadow Broker, and spoken with a living prothean. In spite of all that however, she never thought she would return from giving a guest lecture at Kosia University and have to ask the question, "Ashara, why is there a tree in the middle of our living room?"
The delicious aroma of baked goods precedes Shepard as she emerges from the kitchen carrying a tray of cookies. "Hey, Liara." She smiles broadly, setting the tray down on the coffee table before leaning over to give her wife a quick kiss.
Liara returns the gesture, but keeps it brief, her puzzlement temporarily overcoming her affection. "Hello, love." She gestures in the direction of the 3 meter tall green plant dominating their living room. "You know I don't mind your interest in gardening, but this seems somewhat excessive."
Her bondmate gives her a look that radiates innocence while chewing on a cookie. "Wasn't me. Blame Ashley."
"Shepard, that raises more questions than it answers. Why would Captain Williams have deposited a tree in our house?"
"It's a Christmas tree."
"Christmas?" Liara has heard humans use that word a few times before but she never found out what it means.
"It's a human holiday," Shepard explains. "It's coming up in a few weeks."
The student of alien cultures in her is intrigued. "What is its significance."
"In theory, it's religious, the same one Ashley believes in. A lot of other people celebrate it though. You put up a tree, give gifts, bake cookies."
She offers up one of said cookies to Liara and the asari munches away on it, letting its sugary warmth dissipate her annoyance at the intrusive foliage. "I have never seen you observe it before."
"I used to." Shepard's voice becomes sadder and more distant. "When I grew up, on Mindoir, it was my favorite day of the year. My sisters and I, we'd look forward to it for a month, decorating the house, trying to guess what Mom and Dad had bought for us, that kind of thing."
Liara leads Shepard to sit down next to her on the couch and puts an arm around her wife, resting her head on her shoulder. The human plants a light kiss on her forehead and continues, "After I lost them, I could never get my heart into it again. It was a holiday we celebrated as a family and I didn't have one anymore."
"I am so sorry." She leans up and catches Ashara's lips for a tender moment, trying to soothe the old wound with her touch.
"Now, though, with us building our own family…" She runs a loving hand over Liara's stomach. At month three of a fifteen month pregnancy, the information broker isn't even close to showing, but the gesture is still a reminder of the daughter they're going to have. "It makes it easier to think about those days. When Ash and I were talking last week, I mentioned there was nothing like a Christmas tree on Thessia and I guess she decided to send me a present." She shakes her head. "Quite a little feat, shipping a pine tree halfway across the galaxy."
"And is that all right? Celebrating it again?", Liara asks gently. Though Shepard has come a long way in dealing with her grief over all those that she lost, her wife still worries for the former Spectre sometimes.
"It is." She gives Liara another kiss. "It doesn't hurt as much as it used to, and I'd like to share those traditions with you. Maybe start some of our own too."
Liara caresses her wife's hand. "I would like that as well. Living here, you have certainly adapted to many of my people's customs. Although," she gestures in the direction of the tree, "This does seems like a somewhat untidy one. There are already needles on the floor."
"Aw, it's all part of the fun." Shepard offers her the tray. "Just have another cookie and don't worry about it."
On Christmas morning, Shepard had awakened before her bondmate, a not-unusual occurrence. Even after leaving the Alliance, she tends to get up on something closer to a military schedule, while Liara enjoys the more leisurely routine of an academic. Having slipped out of bed without waking Liara up, Ashara slides into a pair of thin, black pajamas. The Thessian year is slightly shorter than an earth one, meaning that human holidays fall at variable times here, and this year, Christmas has come in the late spring.
Creeping down the stairs quietly, she pours herself a glass of orange juice and takes a seat on the coach beneath the tree while she waits for Liara to wake up. The scent of pine and the glow of the lights fill her senses, pulling her thoughts far away from her Thessian home…
Her older sister, Jessica, normally so elegant, chasing the dog around the tree when it made off with a mouthful of the cookies she'd spent hours baking. Little Eliza, always oddly determined not to tear the paper, unwrapping each gift so slowly that Ashara had once yanked one away and ripped it open herself. Mom and Dad, keeping up the ruse of Santa Claus three years after all of the kids had stopped believing.
In early years after the batarian attack on Mindoir, the pain of those memories had been too much. Most of the year, Shepard hadn't let her grief rob her of her friendly, outgoing personality, but the holidays had been harder. The first year in the Alliance, she'd gone down Christmas Eve to the pistol range, shooting until her hands trembled, trying to reduce the whole galaxy down to a target so she didn't have to think about anything else. For years after that, she'd spent the day in her quarters, buried in paperwork or practicing her biotics, headphones turned up to drown out the other soldiers drinking and laughing outside her door. By the time she was assigned to the Normandy, she'd gotten better at blocking it out. Christmas was just another day in space, one she didn't let have any of its old meaning for her.
Now, though, it feels different. Shepard will always keep a place in her heart for the people that she lost, but at last, she can also look forward. She has a wonderful wife, and next year, they'll have a daughter. Soon enough, there'll be pleading for an unreasonable number of presents, tearing open gifts Christmas morning, playing in the empty boxes... A smile covers her face just as she hears the sound of footsteps on the stairs.
"Merry Christmas, Liara." Wrapped in a dark blue silk robe, her wife is carrying a box covered in black and red paper. The N-7 colors; never let it be said the asari isn't detail-oriented.
Liara sits down next to her on the couch, placing her arms around Shepard. "Merry Christmas, love."
Shepard leans in, planting a long, lingering kiss on her lover's mouth. Her hand brushes lightly over her cheek, the skin so smooth to the touch. "With you here, it is."
"I am glad." She picks up the box and hands it to Shepard. "I am afraid I do not have much experience with this holiday. I hope that this is an appropriate gift."
"I'm sure I'll love it." She rips open the paper to reveal a plain, white box. Opening it, she looks inside at a small, metal ship replica. "Cool." Pulling it out of the box, she sees it's an Alliance frigate, an older class of ship they don't make anymore. "I don't recognize the design."
"Look on the side."
Turning the model over in her hands, she sees the words, "SSV Perseus," written on along the bow. The ship that rescued her from Mindoir.
"It is a custom model. I may not be the Shadow Broker anymore, but I can still pull a few strings. After all," Liara laughs, "It is hard enough to keep up with which ones you already own. This seemed a safer solution."
"God, Liara. I love it." She peppers her wife's face with a series of small kisses. "I just hope my present lives up." She reaches over to the coffee table and, picking up a green box, hands it to Liara.
The asari opens it carefully, her delicate fingers peeling back the paper and drawing forth a small gold necklace with a set of deep red gemstones inlaid along its base. Her wife looks up at Ashara, her eyes shining "It is quite beautiful." She runs her fingers along the inlays. "These stones are particularly striking."
"They're from Therum." She can see the memories of their meeting replaying themselves behind her wife's eyes and Shepard takes the jewelry from her. "Stand up. Let me put it on you."
The asari gets to her feet and Shepard comes up behind her, unfastening the necklace and placing it on her wife, adding a series of kisses along the back of her neck as she does. Stepping back around to face Liara, she can see the love shining in her big blue eyes. "How does it look?"
"Absolutely gorgeous," Shepard beams. "Just like you." Pulling Liara into a kiss, she catches the asari's lips with her own even as her hand drops down to undo the belt of the blue robe. Her hands slide beneath the silk, dropping the garment to the carpeted floor and Liara is naked beneath it, clad now in nothing but the necklace.
Ashara steps backwards and Liara draws herself up, striking a seductive pose for her lover. "Is this another Christmas tradition I was unaware of?"
"Not exactly." She shoots her wife a devilish grin. "Think of it as a second part to your present. That necklace is staying on until I've made you come so many times you can't think straight."
So, I know I still have a few other projects to work on, but I wanted to write a Christmas story. For those reading 4th Life, this falls in-between chapters 22 and 23, but it pretty much stands on its own as well.
