Shepard woke up with a gasp, a shriek caught in her throat. She sat straight up in her bed, reaching up to run her fingers through sweat-soaked hair as she struggled to get her erratic breathing back under control. Her heart was pounding in her chest, and in the silence of her quarters it sounded like a drum in her ears.
"It was a dream," she grumbled, more to break the silence than anything else. "It was just a dream, Shepard. Pull yourself together."
It wasn't the first time she'd dreamed about Elysium, and it wouldn't be the last. Her nightmares were starting to become intertwined with more recent events, though, changing the familiar dreamscape to something more foreign. Husks had been running through the streets alongside batarian raiders this time, while giant ships that screamed as if alive floated above the city.
Not for the first time over the past couple of weeks, Shepard couldn't help but wonder just what the hell she had gotten herself into. Ever since Eden Prime, it was as if her life was slowly spinning more and more out of control with every passing day.
She took a few more deep breaths before pushing herself up out of bed, standing just beside it for a moment or two in order to make certain her shaky legs would support her. Then she headed for her desk. If she couldn't sleep, she could at least try to get some work done before the Normandy reached Therum.
The way her life had been going lately, who knew what might happen when and if they actually found Doctor T'Soni?
Someone was at her door.
Muttering a few curses under her breath, Shepard reluctantly rolled out of bed. It wasn't as if she had actually been asleep, not that she hadn't been trying for a good hour or more, but it was the principle of the matter. Still, after months of working together, her crew was good. If someone was bothering her at this hour, the odds were high that they had a damn good reason for it.
Shaking her head, Shepard hit the control that opened the door.
Liara was standing on the other side, looking as if she was about to burst into tears.
Shepard gaped at her for a moment or two before her brain kicked in, and she immediately went into action. Almost before she realized what she was doing, she'd wrapped an arm around Liara's shoulder and was leading her inside.
It was worrying how easily Liara let herself be led to Shepard's bed and gently pushed down onto it. The asari wasn't outspoken by any means, but Shepard had learned very early on that she could be stubborn when she wanted. She'd never really thought that much about it in the past, other than the occasional annoyance when Liara's opinions had differed from hers, but it was surprising just how much Shepard missed that aspect of her now that it had apparently disappeared.
"What's wrong?" Shepard asked gently, sitting down beside Liara on the bed. She was careful not to touch her. As blurred as the lines had been getting lately, she didn't want to make any moves until she knew whether Liara needed her as a commander or a friend or something else entirely.
For a long moment, Shepard didn't think that Liara was going to reply. Then Liara finally looked up, her blue eyes wet with tears.
"I'm sorry," Liara said, and it hurt to hear how broken she sounded. "It's just—"
Liara trailed off, not meeting Shepard's gaze. For someone who was over a century old, she looked so damn young right at that moment.
"Everything that happened on Noveria is just starting to sink in?" Shepard guessed, still trying to keep her voice as gentle as possible. She remembered how it had been after Elysium, with days—weeks, even months—passing before anything really started to feel real.
The last vestige of Liara's careful façade collapsed in on itself, her face crumpling. Without saying a word, Shepard leaned in and wrapped her arms around Liara in a tight hug.
"I'm here," Shepard whispered, knowing very well that she couldn't promise that things were going to be fine no matter how much she wished that she could. "Don't worry, I'm here."
When Shepard first drifted back into consciousness, it took her a few seconds to recognize the sterile ceiling above her as that of the med bay. "What happened?" she asked, her voice rough.
"Shepard!"
A blurry blue form appeared above her, and it took a few seconds for Shepard's vision to clear up enough for her to recognize Liara. It took her even longer to realize that the light pressure on her shoulder was Liara's hand, gripping her so tightly that it almost hurt.
"Liara?" Shepard asked, frowning slightly. She carefully pushed herself up into a sitting position, trying to ignore the way that the med bay spun around her for a second or two. "What—?"
She trailed off as her memories flooded back. Virmire. Having to make choice between Ashley and Kaidan. Watching silently as the base below them was destroyed by the explosion, taking one of her friends with it. And then… nothing.
Liara's grip on her shoulder loosened slightly, but she didn't pull her hand away. "You made it to the bottom of the stairs and then collapsed," she said quietly. "Why didn't you tell anyone that you were injured?"
Shepard looked away, not quite able to meet the disappointed look that was currently aimed at her. Then she shrugged. "It didn't seem important at the time," she said, trying to keep her voice as casual as possible. "There were other things to worry about."
"It didn't seem important?" Liara repeated slowly, in a tone of voice that Shepard had never heard from her before.
Liara's hand on her shoulder abruptly disappeared, and it took almost everything Shepard had not to grimace at the suddenly loss. Reluctantly, she brought her gaze back up so that she could see Liara's face.
Her breath caught in her throat.
Liara was staring at her as if she was the most important thing in the entire universe.
"Liara," Shepard started, not quite certain what she was going to say.
Then Liara leaned in and pressed her lips against Shepard's, and there wasn't any need for words.
Shepard hadn't meant to fall asleep.
She supposed that it didn't matter all that much in the grand scheme of things. If nothing else, it would probably do her good to be well-rested before they headed through the Mu relay. Still… she had planned on enjoying the little bit of time that they had left more thoroughly.
Smiling, Shepard let her gaze drift over Liara's bare form. She had apparently fallen asleep as well, sprawled out on Shepard's bed as if she belonged there.
She gently ran a finger over one of Liara's bare breasts, tracing her form. Shepard hadn't quite known what to expect, but in the end they had more similarities than differences. It had taken a bit of trial and error, in the beginning, but hopefully things would be much smoother in the future.
Shepard's hand stilled. For all she knew, they didn't have a future.
"Shepard?" Liara's voice was thick with sleep as she stirred slightly, cracking her eyes open to peer at Shepard. Whatever she saw must have worried her, because her eyes quickly opened wide. "What's wrong?"
Shepard tried to force a smile that she didn't quite feel. "Nothing," she said lightly. "You should go back to sleep. We still have some time before we have to get ready."
Liara shot her an unamused look as she pushed herself up into a half-sitting position.
"Am I really that obvious?" Shepard asked dryly.
Liara nodded. "We're going to stop him," she said firmly, in a tone of voice that brooked no argument. Then her skin darkened to a shade of blue so dark that it was almost purple as she blushed.
Shepard blinked a few times. Then she let her mouth curl upward into a smirk. "Is that an order?" she asked teasingly.
If anything, Liara's blush grew even darker. "And if it is?"
"If it is," Shepard said, reaching out to run her finger over one of Liara's nipples, "then who am I to disobey?"
Shepard woke up to Liara shaking her. "Liara?" she muttered sleepily, trying to blink her sleep-blurred vision into focus. "What is it?"
"There's someone at the door."
It took a moment or two for Liara's words to sink in. The moment they did, Shepard sat straight up, adrenaline rushing through her system and shaking away the remnants of sleep. Almost no one knew where they were staying, save for Anderson and a few members of the Normandy's crew. And they were under strict orders not to disturb them unless there was an emergency.
"I'll be back in a second," Shepard said, throwing the sheets back so that she could get out of bed. She reached down to grab her discarded robe from where she'd dropped it on the floor the night before.
Behind her, Liara sat up in bed, not bothering to pull the sheets up over her chest. "Who do you think it is?" she asked, a hint of concern in her voice.
"No idea," Shepard said, shaking her head. She hesitated a second before grabbing her pistol. Better safe than sorry.
Shepard heard movement behind her she made her way toward the door and, while she shook her head, she didn't say anything. If Liara wanted to drag herself out of bed to watch her back, she knew better than to try and stop her.
Taking a deep breath, Shepard hit the control panel by the door and got ready to bring her gun up, just in case. The door slid open…
… and the gun dropped from her hand, hitting the ground with a light thud.
"Mom," Shepard said, not even trying to hide the shock in her voice.
Hannah Shepard smiled tiredly at her, dark shadows under her eyes. Her arm was in a sling, and there was a healing cut on the side of her face. "Hello, sweetheart."
For a second, Shepard didn't move. Then, almost without any conscious thought, she threw herself at her mother and hugged her. "What happened?" she asked a few seconds later, as she reluctantly pulled away. She gestured at the sling and the cut on her mother's face. "I thought that the Kilimanjaro wasn't here for the fighting."
Her mother gave her a half-shrug, obviously trying not to jar her injured arm. "We weren't," she agreed, "but with so many ships pulling out to join in the fight at the Citadel, some batarian slavers decided it would be the perfect time to attack one of our colonies."
Shepard's eyes narrowed. "I'm assuming they regret that decision?"
Hannah gave her a tight smile and nodded.
"Shepard?"
Liara's voice was hesitant, and Shepard felt something twist in her chest as she spun around. Liara was standing in the doorway to their bedroom, wearing an oversize Blasto shirt that Shepard had stolen from an ex several years earlier. It hung down to about mid-thigh on her, showing just enough skin to make Shepard's mouth go a little dry.
Behind her, Shepard her mother make a noise that sounded much too amused for her comfort.
Shepard quickly cleared her throat. "Liara, this is Hannah Shepard," she said carefully. "My mother."
Liara's eyes went wide.
"Mom," Shepard said, glancing over her shoulder long enough to shoot her mother a warning look, "this is Liara T'Soni. She's my—"
And then she trailed off, not quite certain how to finish that sentence.
If anything, Hannah looked even more amused. "I see," she said lightly, and Shepard had the sinking feeling that she was missing something. "It's nice to meet you, Liara."
The first thing Shepard did when she woke up each morning was check the date on her omnitool.
She knew that she was being paranoid, but after waking up to find that two years of her life were gone, just like that, Shepard didn't care. If it kept her from going insane to check multiple times a day to be certain she hadn't lost any more time, then that was her business.
Once she was certain that she wasn't missing any more time than expected, Shepard stood up and stretched. She pointedly didn't look at the bright red scars crisscrossing her skin, shining like beacons. As long as she didn't see them, it was easier to pretend that everything was just a bad dream.
In more ways than one.
"I miss you," Shepard said quietly, her gaze drifting over to the photo sitting on her desk. She didn't know where it had come from. If she was honest with herself, she was afraid to ask. It did her good, though, to see Liara's face every morning when she first woke up. It grounded her.
They'd barely been together for two months, even if they'd been circling around each other for much longer than that beforehand. It shouldn't have felt so wrong to wake up and not see Liara there beside her in the bed. But it did.
Eventually, Shepard was going to have to actually think about what that meant. But for the time being, she had no idea where Liara was or what she was doing. For all she knew, Liara had found someone else. Two years was a long time to hold onto a ghost.
That thought hurt more than expected.
The remnants of her dreams tugged at her mind as Shepard sat straight up in bed, her bedcover slipping down to pool in her lap. She blinked a few times, trying to hold back the tears she could feel threatening to escape.
It would have been easier if they'd been actual dreams rather than memories.
Shepard took a few shaky breaths before glancing over at the picture frame sitting on her desk. Liara's face smiled nervously at her, nothing more than the shy scientist that Shepard had saved from that prothean security device on Therum. That was the Liara that Shepard knew. The Liara that had won Shepard's heart without even trying.
It had been like talking to a stranger back on Illium.
A part of her hadn't quite believed that it had really been two years, not even with all of the evidence in front of her. But seeing Liara like that, barely recognizing the person she'd fallen in love with under the masks she wore… that had pulled away the last bit of denial that Shepard had been clinging to with all her might.
Shepard closed her eyes.
For just a moment, when Liara had first kissed her back in Nos Astra, it had been as if no time had passed at all. Despite the conversation that she'd just overheard that had said otherwise, Shepard had been able to pretend that nothing had changed.
She wished that she could have kept pretending.
Shepard couldn't sleep.
She'd been trying for close to an hour, but rest just wouldn't come. Her mind was racing with too many thoughts, a thousand and one plans running through her head. So many lives were depending on her, crewmembers and teammates and friends and strangers.
It was like their race to the Mu relay all over again, except this time Liara wasn't here to help convince her that everything was going to be fine in the end. And Shepard was well aware that their trip through the Omega 4 relay might very well be a one-way one.
Her gaze drifted over to her desk, where Liara's picture still sat.
Taking a deep breath, Shepard stood up from where she'd been sitting on her bed and walked over to her desk. She stared at the picture of Liara for a moment, her hand almost unconsciously reaching out to run a finger over her face.
Then she sat down in front of her computer. She was running out of time, and she knew it. There were a few people who deserved messages from her.
She hadn't gotten the chance to say goodbye when the original Normandy had been destroyed over Alchera. This time… this time she did.
"It's happening, Liara," Shepard said quietly, trying to imagine that Liara was there in front of her instead of halfway across the galaxy. "We're going through the Omega 4 relay in a few hours. And, I just wanted to say that whatever happens, even if you don't—" She choked for a moment, the words not wanting to come out. "I don't know if you still feel the same way, but I love you. I'll always love you, Liara. I'm going to do my best to come back, but if I don't… you needed to know. I needed you to know."
It had been a long time since she'd woken up in Liara's arms.
Shepard stretched, unable to hide a grin as Liara moaned and tried to hide her face between Shepard's breasts. "It's too early," Liara mumbled sleepily. "Go back to sleep."
"I can think of more fun things to do," Shepard said teasingly, leaning down to press a kiss against the side of Liara's face. One of her arms was firmly trapped under the weight of Liara's body, but the other was still free. She ran a hand over Liara's stomach, smiling at the way it made Liara hum quietly without actually opening her eyes.
Then she moved her hand a bit further down, and Liara's eyes shot open.
"Shepard!" she hissed, obviously trying—but completely failing—to hide her amusement. "What do you think you're doing?"
Shepard grinned at her, moving her hand again. Liara shivered under her touch.
"Me?" Shepard asked innocently. "I think that I'm molesting the Shadow Broker."
Liara's mouth twisted into a lopsided smile. "Well, who am I to argue with that?" she asked. Then she shifted and moved her own hand, running it over one of the red scars that ran down Shepard's torso.
Shepard moaned as Liara leaned in and pressed a kiss against one of the scars.
Shepard woke up to an empty bed.
A part of her brain was still surprised each morning when she woke up alone, even though by now she knew that she should be used to it. Even after over five months of house arrest on Earth, though, she was still caught off guard every single day.
Shaking her head, Shepard sat up and stretched. A flash of red caught her eye, and she froze, letting her gaze drift down her bare arms. Most of her remaining scars had faded over the past few months, but there were still a few persistent ones that would seem to disappear only to show up again without any warning. It looked like one of them had decided to make a reappearance.
Her mind flashed back to her last night with Liara, before she had turned the Normandy over to the Alliance. Liara had traced every single one of her scars with her mouth, pressing kisses against them as if she was trying to memorize every centimeter of Shepard's body.
Heat pooled low in Shepard's belly.
The part of her that was Commander Shepard knew that she should ignore it. She needed to get out of bed, put on clothes, and go torture poor Vega with an hour or two of running laps around the gym downstairs. But the part of her that was simply Shepard, a woman who hadn't seen her girlfriend in almost six months… well, she had other thoughts.
"What the hell?" Shepard muttered, dropping back down onto the bed and moving her hands downward. "It's not like I have anything better to be doing."
When she first woke up, Liara's arms wrapped loosely around her, it was easy to lose herself in the past. Shepard curled her body around Liara's, pressing a kiss against her bare shoulder. For just a moment, nothing existed except for the two of them.
Then she remembered what had happened back on Earth. What had happened on Mars. On Palaven. Tuchanka. The Citadel. Rannoch. Thessia.
Shepard tensed.
Beside her, Liara stirred. "Shepard?" she asked, not even a hint of sleep in her voice. "Is something the matter?"
Shepard didn't mean to laugh. She really didn't. It just burst from her mouth before she could stop it, a cold laugh that sounded bitter even to her own ears.
Liara sat straight up, pulling out of Shepard's loose grip. "Shepard?"
"I'm sorry," Shepard said, bringing a hand up to cover her mouth. "I just—I'm sorry."
There was almost no hint of the quiet, shy archeologist that Shepard had met three years earlier in Liara's face as she stared down at Shepard. She was colder, more hardened, but… it was still Liara. It had taken Shepard too long to realize that, once she had been brought back.
"We're going to stop them," Liara whispered, leaning town to press a kiss against Shepard's forehead.
Shepard's mind flashed back to that night on their way to Ilos. "That doesn't sound much like an order," she said tiredly.
Liara shook her head. "It's not," she agreed. "It's a promise. We're going to stop them, Shepard."
Shepard woke up.
That in itself was unexpected. She'd made her choice on the Crucible, felt the world start to burn around her as everything had gone red. She hadn't expected to wake up.
She wasn't entirely certain that she had wanted to wake up.
"Shepard?"
It took all of her strength to turn her head, toward where Liara was sitting in a chair by her bedside. Liara's eyes were wide, bright with tears, as she stared at her. "You're awake," Liara whispered, the words so quiet it was almost as if she had breathed them out.
Shepard didn't know what to say. She didn't know what to ask. So she just nodded.
Liara made a noise that sounded like it fell somewhere between a laugh and a sob. Then she leaned forward, her hands awkwardly grabbing at Shepard's as she intertwined their fingers.
"EDI?" Shepard managed to whisper, the sound harsh even to her own ears. "The geth?"
The way Liara's face fell told her all that she needed to know.
Shepard felt guilt churn in her stomach. Letting out a shaky breath, she closed her eyes and simply tried to keep breathing.
Liara didn't let go of her hand.
Shepard waited until Liara's breathing evened out. Then she slipped out of bed, not bothering to put on any clothes as she walked over to the balcony. As many guards as there were around the property, any reporters who managed to get close enough to get pictures deserved the publicity it would get them.
She wasn't certain how long she stood there, staring out at the ocean. Long enough that the stars faded and the sky started to lighten.
"Have you been out here all night?"
Shepard didn't startle as Liara gently placed a blanket over her shoulders, wrapping it around her. She simply leaned into Liara's touch with a sigh and didn't answer.
They both knew that Liara wouldn't have asked the question if she didn't already know the answer.
Shepard tightened her grip on the railing of the balcony, her gaze dropping down to focus on her hands. "It would have been better if no one had found me," Shepard whispered. "My life isn't worth more than theirs."
There was a sharp intake of breath beside her. "You don't mean that," Liara said softly, her voice shaking just slightly. "I know you don't mean that."
Shepard didn't argue. There wasn't a point. After almost a year, she'd learned that much. Liara didn't understand.
"Come back to bed," Liara said gently.
Shepard looked up at the stars, barely visible in the pre-dawn light. Then she nodded, not saying a word.
Shepard woke up to the sound of screaming.
She sat up with a curse, her hand already reaching for a weapon before she remembered that she'd stopped keeping one beside her bed years earlier. Beside her, Liara jerked up as well, her eyes wide as she looked wildly around the room.
A small blue blur threw itself onto the bed between them.
Shepard took a few deep breaths, trying frantically to calm her wildly beating heart. Liara looked like she was trying to do the same, all the while trying to calm the sobbing child clinging tightly to her.
"What's wrong, sweetheart?" Shepard asked, reaching over to gently rub their daughter's back.
"Bad dream," was the muffled reply. "The dinosaurs want to eat me."
Liara's eyes were twinkling with amusement as she met Shepard's eyes.
Shepard sighed. "Did you watch that movie with Grunt even after we told you not to?" she asked tiredly, already knowing the answer.
There was a long pause, followed by a very muffled: "Maybe?"
Liara raised an eyebrow. Shepard rolled her eyes, but she nodded.
"How about you stay with us the rest of the night?" Shepard asked lightly. "We all need to get some more sleep."