Chapter 2 — Interludes, Chiefly Domestic
"So, old friend," Shepard said to Wrex when they were alone together. "How long can you stay? You know the girls love having you around."
The krogan grunted. "Politics on Tuchanka is still a nest of…" He trailed off, apparently at a loss for a metaphor to express the depth of his contempt. "If I don't get back there…"
"Indispensable man, are you?" Shepard's tone was light enough, but he regretted his words immediately. Truly, all he'd meant was that Wrex could stand to take some time off and play with his godchildren, but the subtext was undeniable: krogan politics would soon have to do without the old warrior for good, as like as not, and if he didn't have a plan… Shepard shook himself as his old friend answered both questions.
"There are other clan leaders I trust to look after things, but they're all so damn young. Most of the older ones wouldn't listen to reason." — He grunted again, this time in amusement. Wrex was one of the most expressive grunters Shepard had ever known — "You and Grunt know a thing or two about that," he continued, and Shepard nodded. "When you watch the young fumbling around with things they're too green to handle, you just want to take them away and do the job properly. Not that a baby like you knows anything about that. Ask your wife, maybe."
Shepard grinned. "Never mind my thing for older women. Everybody knows about that. Give me the benefit of your wisdom, thou sage elder." His translator must have done a reasonable job with the nuances, because Wrex gave him a look. "Seriously, Wrex, we didn't hear much from you tonight. I want to know what you think."
Another grunt. "I think that if the worst you can say about aliens is that they haven't genetically modified your species, you're actually doing pretty well."
Shepard nodded. "You'll get no argument from me. You know I've always said the genophage was a war crime." He sighed. "You know, I can almost hear Mordin's voice? 'I, for one, understand asari policy. Universal access to anti-agathics radically de-stabilising factor. Especially for we salarians. Eventually might learn to take long view. Extinction in ensuing war more likely, though.'"
"Ha!" Wrex was genuinely amused by Shepard's attempt at an impression. "He would, wouldn't he? Scientists. I wish more of them would follow the truth that far." He shook his head. "Look, Shepard, I didn't say anything because there's nothing to say. Everyone knows anti-agathics are out there. If everyone gets them, there might be a war. If anybody doesn't get them, there'll definitely be a war. You want to avoid one? Hell, I've helped you beat longer odds, and if I can I'll do it again, but…"
Shepard nodded again, more soberly this time. His friend was right, and he knew it. Nothing like a krogan for cutting through the bullshit, he thought. His musings were interrupted as Liara came into the room, and Wrex shook his head fondly as his friend's face immediately lit up. Sometimes, Shepard really did seem very young.
"Benezia is insisting on saying good night to her daddy. Miss Teresa is pretending to think that that's silly."
Shepard got up, returning his wife's grin. "How long is that phase going to last? One century? Two?"
"Are you implying that I'm still in it?" Liara asked in a tone of mock outrage.
"Perish the thought!" Shepard waggled his eyebrows in that way that never failed to make her giggle. "One of the better duties calls," he said to Wrex.
"Hm. And I should get some sleep." Liara and her husband both knew better than to try and help Wrex as he levered himself stiffly out of the chair, but then Liara moved towards him, doing the honours of the apartment with a graceful gesture, and Wrex allowed himself to lean on an old comrade as she showed him to the guest room. Unnecessarily, of course — none of the Shepards would hear of him staying anywhere else on his infrequent visits to the Citadel, and Shepard was still smiling at the elegance with which Liara had helped him save face as he went to wish his daughters good night.
Nezzy was struggling to keep her eyes — big and blue and beautiful, just like her mother's — open when her father reached her bedside. "Daddy… night…" was all she managed to murmur.
"Night-night, baby girl." Shepard whispered, and by the second caress of her head he knew she was already under. He looked up to see his eldest's eyes — pink like her grandfather's, not that it worked that way, as Terri, Liara and Aethyta would all have hastened to point out at once, Shepard knew — coolly watching him. Whether by nature or nurture she was well on her way to an almost matriarchal — or justicar-like — glacial reserve. He crossed over to her.
"Kiss goodnight for your old dad?" He asked, putting on a silly pout, then trying not to giggle as Terri's eyes cut across to check that her sister was asleep before she made up her mind and nodded. She giggled as he made an exaggerated 'delighted' face — not difficult at all — and then, after she'd kissed his cheek and he was pressing his forehead against hers, she positively slayed him: "Good night, daddy," she whispered. "I love you."
"Awww: I love you too, baby girl." For once, she didn't complain at the nomenclature. "Sleep tight."
He straightened the rumpled bedclothes, carefully passing the hems to Terri so she could tuck herself in, and looked up to see Liara leaning on the door-frame, smiling seraphically as she watched the byplay. He felt the haptic implant in his fingertip twitch as he killed the night-light, and, with a last look over his shoulder at his sleeping treasures, went off to bed with his wife.
"You knew, didn't you?" Shepard asked, looking over his shoulder at Liara as she undressed and got into bed.
"Yes, I did." There had been no trace of accusation in his voice, and he joined her in bed as unhesitatingly as ever, but Liara still felt a sense of constraint. She had just admitted having advance warning of the biggest… political shit-storm — Shepard's memories, shared time and again, supplied an apt expression in his native language — either of them could remember, after all. Luckily enough they knew each other pretty well: she was able to enlighten him with one word: "Aethyta."
"Ah." Shepard had apparently felt no sense of constraint: his arms reached out like always, and by force of absent-minded habit Liara accepted the embrace. He always seemed to want to… entangle himself with her: sometimes he wondered if he would ever relax, ever cling to her with a little less… desperation. After all these years, she thought, he's still waiting for the Universe to tell him 'No. Those things you love? You can't have them any more.'
Of course, there were some advantages to getting… entangled, Liara thought, after she was done quivering: her husband knew all the right spots to kiss and nuzzle and caress, and it had only taken him a decade to get the hang of it. Or two. "Focussss," she entreated him, "you're the one who asked!"
"And you answered," Shepard told her simply. He did stop, though, settling for a comfortable embrace around her middle. "Was there more?" He asked, mock-innocently.
Liara shook her head at her husband's ways and wriggled — rather deliciously, Shepard thought — around in his arms so that they were face to face. Rather than prolong the conversation, she took a deep breath and reached out with her mind, knocking at the door of his and, as always, being welcomed right in…
"Hey, kiddo," Aethyta's voice had always been husky, but now it varied between 'whisper' and 'rasp'.
"Please, Lady Aethyta! Save your strength! The doctor said not to talk unless you have to!"
The nurse, who looked to Liara's eyes as though she couldn't possibly be over a hundred, was clearly strung up to the pitch of ending all her sentences with exclamation marks by having a matriarch for a patient. She was constantly cutting her eyes Liara's way, so clearly she knew that Professor Liara T'Soni Shepard, Certified Galactic Hero™ was in the room, to boot.
"My daughter is here, and there's something I have to tell her," Aethyta rasped. "So I guess I have to talk. And you have to give us some privacy." The nurse's eyes went wide at her choice of words: Liara could see her practically mouthing the word 'pureblood'. "Go on, girl! Scat!" Aethyta insisted, though not unkindly.
Aethyta watched Liara watch the nurse walk zombie-like out of the room, and felt a twinge of remorse. "Mind?" She asked laconically.
Liara caught the reference. "Of course not," she told her. "I will never be ashamed that you are my father."
Aethyta snorted. "I see you've not lost your taste for melodrama." She paused for a laboured breath. "You still with that human squeeze of yours?"
Rather than rise to any of that, Liara just rolled her eyes, and nodded. "He's outside."
Aethyta nodded back. "Look, kid, I've got something to tell you. I'm not supposed to, but… shit," she took another breath and grinned wryly. "What can they do to me?"
Liara listened, her eyes growing steadily wider as her father revealed the secret the matriarchs had kept for over two millennia.
"Why am I telling you? Eh…" Aethyta's eyes unfocused alarmingly for a moment. "Seeing you find someone… someone you'd rather go through hell for than spend your maiden days having a good time…" She peered into the middle distance. "I was with Nezzy for four hundred years… off and on, you know…" She looked straight into her daughter's eyes. "You find something that really works, you… ah never mind. That can't be it anyway. You always did take things too seriously." Another pause for breath, then an impish grin. "I'm probably just going bugfuck."
Liara couldn't help succumbing to her father's charm, not that she particularly wanted to. They laughed together for a moment, and then something happened in Aethyta's airway. Her back arched, her pupils dilated, and her mouth shaped rattly breath sounds into words that Liara had surprisingly little trouble interpreting as a disgusted "Oh, crap!"
Monitors beeped, and Liara stepped back as medical staff flooded into the room. They worked on Aethyta for a while, but Liara wasn't surprised to hear that it was all over. Aethyta herself had clearly known it, and having been raised by one, Liara knew that matriarchs had an infuriating habit of being right.
I knew you were struggling with something. Shepard's voice echoed through both of their heads. But I couldn't tell anything about what it was about.
I nearly joined with you completely, she responded at once, and Shepard rushed to soothe her as he felt a note of pleading — how many times had he proudly said "Liara knows me through and through"? Trumpeted his profound satisfaction with a relationship based on complete sharing, not just of one another's lives but of their minds? — I could have used your perspective, but… She radiated the doubt she'd felt: the uncertainty about what the revelation meant to her as an asari, not to mention what Shepard might have to do as a member of the Council once he knew.
Shepard hastened to distract her, summoning memories of the girls' births, not to mention the moment they'd both discovered he had a… thing for pregnant women. I wouldn't have minded that… His mental voice was a gigolo's purr, or his best silly rendition of one.
Focus! She growled affectionately at him, and identical grins crossed their lips as they lay face to face.
I wonder if she knew the STG was closing in. Their connection had deepened: they weren't entirely sure whose mind the thought had crossed. Shepard could very easily and complacently float away into the bliss of a full joining, but Liara held them where they were. It's possible. I should have told you. Maybe you could have prepared…
Hush, love. Shepard radiated the instant forgiveness that made Liara wonder just how far it might go. Impatiently, Shepard let his ideas bloom fully into thoughts: this is just the spark; the powder train has been there all along. His aura turned sour. And most of it is humanity's fault. Trade has grown our economy faster than anything we could have achieved on our own; the Council races have all worked like Trojans rebuilding, and nobody asks if it's a human world, a turian world or what, but all Terra Firma sees is 'alien interference.' And slinky asari space minxes leading honest farmboys from the colonies into bad ways, of course… He let his hands roam, feeling his wife's indulgent amusement at his antics for a beat, and then… yes, there it was, her appreciation as he showed her his fingers knew exactly where to do the walking. They kissed like teenagers.
Liara let herself bathe in his love, the warm, near-worshipful haze that no amount of married life seemed to be able to leaven. He felt her heart answer it, wanting to clasp his gentle strength, his willingness to make himself completely vulnerable, and his nightmares and flashbacks — now blessedly infrequent — too, everything that made him who he was, to her heart and hold them, well… forever.
Mmmmmm, she felt him luxuriate in it. We haven't done so badly, have we? You know, for a dirty pureblood and a lousy bluelicker…
Her amused shock at his conjuring up the disconcertingly graphic slur humans had come up with for people like him was the last thing either of them remembered as they drifted contentedly off to sleep.
"Shepard?" Samara's voice as she peered around the door-frame was the only vaguely calm thing in the bullpen of Shepard's private office in the human embassy. His staffers were frantically struggling to collate and digest last-minute petitions, letters and polling data in advance of the Council meeting, and he was sure that at least some of them were wondering why they bothered, since their Councillor sometimes didn't seem to pay any attention to anything but his own convictions. Shepard felt a twinge of guilt at the prospect of taking time out to attend to family matters when everyone was working so hard, and promised himself he'd rally the troops later. He favoured Samara with a warm smile of welcome, and ushered her into his office.
"I've just come from the museum," she reported without without preamble. "The girls are dragging Wrex around the exhibits at top speed. We both tried to exhaust them with biotic exercises all morning, but…"
"Thank you, Samara" Shepard's voice was the heartfelt opposite of the justicar's apparently unflappable alto. "I considered calling the school and asking if they absolutely had to close down for teacher training today of all days, but…"
"For such a flagrant abuse of the authority of the Citadel Council, I would, of course, have to kill you." There were times when an even tone and a demeanour that reminded you of nothing so much as a glacier could be a real asset. Shepard barked out a laugh. "Thanks, Samara. I needed that."
"It is I who should thank you." Shepard cocked an eyebrow at the apparent non sequitur. "For the girls, I mean," Samara elaborated. "I was by no means sure I could bear to…" She tailed off, and the immense freight of emotion she couldn't find the words for came through just fine as their eyes met. Shepard nodded, and in mercy to both of them changed the subject.
"You know, you were so quiet last night I almost forgot you were there. What do you think of… all of this?" He swept a hand around the room, as though it were a metonym for the turmoil of galactic politics.
"You mean, do I feel obliged as a justicar to hunt down and kill every matriarch?"
Shepard's eyes grew wide. "Is that the way you're thinking?"
"I… I simply don't know. How grievous a wrong can it be not to act? Not to speak? After all, I know of no evidence that my people have tried to check or sabotage anyone else's science. Anti-agathics could have been discovered by anyone else any time these last two thousand years. And yet…" Samara tailed off, her disquiet written on her features for those like Shepard who knew how to read them. He nodded.
"That 'and yet' is a real pisser, isn't it?"
"As you say." Samara gave the barest flicker of a zygomatic flexion at his choice of words. Shepard gave her a boyish grin, then sighed as he noticed the time display.
"I guess it's time."
