2183.03.13

Liara was writing.

That in and of itself wasn't unusual. Her output had always been prodigious, even during graduate school. Her theories about cyclical extinction had never been widely accepted, and in some ways the sheer volume of her peer reviewed writings was her way of compensating for the lack of credibility that came with her young age.

Now however, she was looking at everything with new eyes. She had been so cocky, so arrogant, when she told Shepard that she had "heard every theory out there" in regards to possible reasons for the Prothean extinction. A war with a race of synthetic doomsday beings had never occurred to her. Now that she knew about the Reapers and what they represented, she was looking at all of her previous research and writings in a new light.

Her time on the Normandy was nothing like she would have imagined. Although she had been close to some of the commandos in Benezia's entourage, she had never been tempted to become a commando herself (not that Benezia would ever have allowed her to do so). To think that she would become a member of what was effectively a multi species strike force, led by a human spectre on a human combat vessel, went far beyond the area of unlikelihood into the realm of fantasy.

That this time in her life would also factor so greatly in advancing her archeology research was even less expected.

Shepard had been inordinately helpful in opening doors to data for the young Asari. Considering that Liara was a member of a foreign power (granted, an allied power), Shepard had provided her with a level of access that she doubted Shepard's superiors would approve of. Inquiries sent to Thessia continued to be responded to based on her status as an academic. Inquiries to Alliance facilities were answered even more quickly based on the priority mission status of the Normandy. Necessary data from the Citadel and from other aligned races was provided based on Shepard's spectre status. Liara had always been good at finding relevant details in seemingly unrelated information, but for the first time she felt that she actually had access to all the information she needed to make real progress. She might be able to solve some of the mysteries that surrounded what she now knew was the Prothean war against the Reapers.

To allow Liara to operate even more efficiently, Shepard had granted Liara direct access to the ship's communication systems, permitting her to avoid having to relay requests through the comm officer. With a level of access shared only with the comm officer, Joker, and Shepard herself, Liara was quickly gaining expertise at managing an interstellar communications hub.

Liara glanced at the time on her terminal:

22:06

That wasn't too bad. It had been over an hour since Shepard left from what had become their evening routine of talking about events of the day, the mission, and verifying Liara's well being.

She promised herself that she would only work for another hour before going to sleep. She then admitted to herself that it was unlikely that she would actually be sleeping that soon. Athough she had never considered herself one to have difficulty sleeping, she had adjusted poorly to working in a 24 Earth hour diurnal cycle. Despite Thessia only having just under a 28 Earth hour day, she still did not find herself tired by the beginning of night watch, when most of her crewmates went to sleep.

Fortunately, she wouldn't need to rise overly early the next morning. The Normandy was currently cruising between systems in the Armstrong Cluster. They were investigating a Geth incursion, with their next stop being in the Vamshi system, where they weren't due to arrive for a couple more days. That meant she wouldn't have to muster with the squad at Shepard's preferred 05:00 (which Chief Williams confusingly referred to as "oh dark thirty"). Instead, her first obligatory event would be breakfast, when the human members of Shepard's squad ate together at 07:00, after the day watch crew members had already eaten and reported to their posts.

She found herself blushing momentarily, reflecting that she was still under orders to eat with the squad. She had been both horrified and touched at the series of assumptions and misunderstandings that led to Shepard having to take official action that she consume enough food.

Her console beeped to notify her of the receipt of a data packet from the Mars Archive in Alliance space. She brought it up in the main window to scan for information she was looking for. She was currently seeking information about the radioactive half lives of certain isotopes found in Reaper ordinance. If the original isotopes were consistent, that meant that there had been at least some Reaper activity in the Milky Way as long as 15,000 years after the established dates of Prothean extinction. It was a mystery that she was hoping to use her newfound resources to solve.

The comm log continued to scroll in the upper corner of her display. One of the slowly scrolling lines of text caught her attention when she was certain that she had seen the word "Serrice" go by. She scrolled up into the log, and yes, there was a message directed to Serrice University on Thessia. Only a single crew member each managed sensors and navigation over night watch. With only two crew members on duty, that meant that most of the communication initiated by the Normandy at this hour would be of a personal nature. Who would be contacting the university where she received her degrees?

She queried the system for the sender of message ID i86g6l4f9dd6h5w0d, and was rewarded with a sender of SShepard. if Liara had eyebrows they would have gone up when she read that result. Why would Shepard be contacting Serrice? She thought about asking the commander, but couldn't come up with a method that wouldn't seem like she was snooping. She shelved the thought for the moment, and went back to her research.

23:58

Liara couldn't resist any longer. Before retiring for the evening, she set the comm log to flag entries matching "Serrice" and "Thessia".

.o0o.o0o.o0o.o0o.o0o.

2183.03.14

Liara groggily walked from the med bay to the mess. She felt the eyes of her teammates on her, but they knew by now that she was not a morning person, and would likely not engage in much conversation before having her tea.

While she decided between her various high calorie breakfast choices, she considered what she had seen before leaving her room. The highlighted information on her terminal had confused her. The response from Serrice had arrived within an hour of her going to sleep, and had been a data packet labeled with the title of her first post graduate paper. Although she had been proud of it at the time, she didn't consider that paper to be particularly insightful, and it had quickly phased into obscurity. She wondered what Shepard could possibly have wanted it for.

.o0o.o0o.o0o.o0o.o0o.

2183.03.19

Liara was sore from the typical rough treatment she received when riding in the mako with Shepard. So far they had visited three systems in the Armstrong Cluster, and had encountered Geth on each of them. The debriefing had lasted well into the evening, and all she wanted to do was catch up on her correspondence and sleep.

As she logged onto her terminal, she checked her log filter for communication with Serrice. Although they had separated just minutes before, Shepard had already sent a data request to the university. That made 11 requests so far, and each of the prior 10 had been answered with one of her papers. It hadn't taken long to realize that Shepard was accessing each of her papers in order of their publication. She had no reason to suspect this request would be any different.

Her bruised body forgotten, she again attempted to ascertain a reason for the commander's curiosity into her research. The requests were always only for her papers, never for any of the other material that she cited. Either Shepard had full confidence in Liara's conclusions (many of which were now proven incomplete or incorrect), or Shepard was looking for something else in Liara's writings. What could it be? Had she failed her commander in some way? Did Shepard not believe that she was disclosing all her knowledge on the Protheans? What could she say? What could she do?

Sleep claimed her before she had formulated answers to those questions.

.o0o.o0o.o0o.o0o.o0o.

2183.03.20

It had been an uneventful day on the Normandy. PT followed by weapons practice, followed by a briefing on the system they would reach the next morning.

When Shepard had come to Liara's room that evening, Liara tried for the third time in as many of Shepard's visits to steer their conversation towards Prothean related topics. Why did the Reapers attack? How had the Protheans responded? What mistakes did they make in mounting their defense? She made a point to quote some of her works that she knew Shepard had read, but if Shepard recognized the references, she gave no indication.

Although Shepard was very willing to engage on Prothean related topics during debriefings and when discussing strategy with her squad, that interest waned during her evening chats with Liara. As typical of Shepard, once she was sure that Liara was in good health and wasn't wanting for anything, she asked Liara questions about herself, her family, and Asari culture. Questions that Liara was always happy to answer, even though they had covered the same ground several times before. Liara was willing to talk about anything that Shepard was interested in, just to stay in her company a little while longer.

Shepard finally left after exhausting the areas she seemed comfortable talking about. With an early morning the next day, Liara knew she should retire as well. She resolved not to engage in any research, but she did download a piece of topical Thessian fiction to read before nodding off to sleep.

.o0o.o0o.o0o.o0o.o0o.

2183.03.22

A day in the field had been followed by another day on board ship. Shepard had been overt in her praise of her team's performance. So far on this mission Shepard's squad had 4 separate enemy contacts, each executed with precision, and none with a major injury. The results spoke of a team that had achieved a level of proficiency that only field experience can bring.

Liara was working in her room, basking in the glow of feeling good about herself, and her performance on the mission. Her insecurity and fear of disappointing Shepard was reignited when she performed her ritual of reviewing the comm logs. Shepard had made two more data requests of Thessia the previous evening.

Liara paused. For the first time, only one of the requests was to the university at Serrice. One was a simple download from the entertainment network, a work of fiction. Liara was confused. Shepard may have found her papers interesting, but now she was reading Thessian fiction? Then Liara recognized the title of the work and cringed inwardly, wishing she had made a more refined choice in reading material. Suddenly Liara realized that of course Shepard could be using the same communication logs the was, and for the same reason. The one thing all of Shepard's requests had in common weren't their content, but their relationship to Liara herself.

Liara was suddenly both relieved and nervous at the same time. These weren't the inquiries of someone who was concerned about a security risk or an untrustworthy crew member.

Then she smiled. This was curiosity of a more personal nature then. She still wasn't entirely certain why, but she had her suspicions.

Fini

A/N: Assumptions here include:

FemShep/Liara (eventual LI)
Past the midpoint of ME1

Much less action than what I've posted to date. I'm starting to get a feel for "my" Liara, and I'm still trying to fill in the blanks in her off camera time to explain some of the early inconsistencies in her in-game behavior. "You saved me, you touched a Prothean beacon, you killed my mother, I love you" for example. I think Liara would have needed to feel there was very little chance of rejection before she approached Shepard in advance of the Ilos mission. This and at least two others works I'm planning will help me reconcile some of those behavior transitions.

Don't worry. We've talked about it, and she's OK with everything so far - except my usual failures with spelling, grammar, phrasing, etc.