The morning light came like a garbage scow on fire in the river, kinda pretty to look at, less pleasant to experience. Thus any teenage boys fantasy to see Shepard wake up to a beautiful Asari matriarch hovering over chest, trailing kisses to her navel, it would be hard pressed to not imagine her radiating joy, but as the old family joke,"Shepards' are blessed with interesting lives." flitted through her head, Shepard couldn't hide the disappointment quickly enough, as Aethyta stopped and crooked her head at Shepard in the classic "huh?" gesture.
"Sorry, don't mean to interrupt nor would I want to." quipped Shepard, hoping to skip any explanations, but she could see a little flutter in that blue brow that showed the joke wasn't going to let thing slip.
Seeing her morning's pleasure would at the least be delayed, Aethyta rolled over to lay on Adriana Shepard's legs. "Huh, guess a roll in the bowl will kill any idolatry not even Shepard in my head anymore," thought Aethyta as she considered her furtively quixotic morning companion. Knowing the likely cause, and seeing as she was still finding herself blushing from memories of last night, she decided to go easy on the kid for the first few moments of the day.
"Hon, you can't think I'll be pissed because you woke up thinking I was someone else?" Shepard jerked, though not getting very much traction since the sheets were near friction-less and her legs were pinned.
"It wasn't that it was her, it was that I wasn't me, well not the me now but the me prior to my...recovery period. It was jarring since I haven't had those thoughts or dreams for months. I had a bit of a accident and I'm told by my little Tasmanian devil of pep and cheer that I'll probably be adjusting through the rest of my life."
"Ah, and now that I understand perfectly. See this," Aethyta pointed to where a human would expect a lower left rib, "can't see it now, miracles of medigel and modern medicine, but here is where the center of my wound was, still kind of hard to even mention as it never fails to bring the memory to the fore." Shepard looked and glided a finger over the smooth skin at the area she pointed to, unlike a human, Asari have a cartilaginous shell, as opposed to individual ribs, so she couldn't see any damage, when Aethyta guided her fingers she could feel the smallest divot where she assumed a bullet had pierced.
"What happened, if you don't mind sharing?" Aethyta considered but some things take time, "Well, I could go into the long and depressing story, or.." Aethyta gave a small grin.
"Or?"
"Or, now that I'll get direct credit for my efforts, I resume my morning exercises." Shepard couldn't help wishing thanks to whatever creator claimed responsibility for letting her get away with just the personal dream issues that had bumped her morning's depression button. The hardest pain came from waking up to a trail of kisses and a slight cinnamon vanilla scent that pushed her way back to 2 years ago when pledges of love and commitment had been spilling from both parties lips.
Remembering that so soon after what was at best a platonic meeting with her former lover, was like a grand master chess player after a traumatic brain injury loosing all ability to play, after loosing a part of yourself that was once the central beacon of how you define yourself, well..recovery is always a nice goal, but sometimes people don't recover, they just change and that is the possibility that was hurting so much right now.
Now to today, when opening her eyes she had seen the truth and the illusion of the past was painfully ripped away. "Skip story time, then. Lets get to round 6, 7? I'm not sure where we left off."
"Humans always try to quantify, last night was one, this is two."Aethyta said with a Cheshire grin.
Finally as noon rolled lazily past, Shepard awoke with a revelry only a career soldier sleeping until noon could appreciate fully. For one whose life was often full of predawn shelling and balmy afternoon snipe hunting, luxury was waking to the sound of..humming? Huh? Taking a moment to appraise her condition, nude and in desperate need of a shower, Shepard tried to hop out of bed gracefully, and immediately regretted it as the slip cover caused her to nearly back flip as she tumbled out of the bed in a heap of covers and throws. As starts to a day were predictive, Shepard had the sneaking suspicion she'd be ending this day either in a full on fire fight wherein a lot of her plans would bite her back, or in another stranger's bed. Add the fact that she was beginning to itch for another firefight and few would wonder why she believed mornings were predictive.
Assembling herself as best as possible with blue near-satin sheets for a robe and pink fluffy pillow cases thrown on like booties, that made her look like a 4 year old wearing their mother's socks, she shambled towards the oddly non-irritating humming coming from down the sunbeam laden hall. Looking up for a second to see where the light was coming from was a mistake, as it was enough to accidentally spot the sun shining down through the sky light and leave her momentarily blinded.
Thus, Shepard, savior to thousands, and threat wielded like a cudgel by both Alliance and Council, was seen stumbling into the kitchen, being surprised at the suddenly slick floor surface and for the second time of the day felt herself in a crumpled heap on the floor. The titter of glee from the blue smudge in her vision next to the window made the accident almost worthwhile for the smile she heard in her voice being brought out. "Shepard, if anyone ever saw your morning routine, they'd assume you were either hoping to join the..what's it called, the circus, or simple daft in the head."
"I haven't gotten enough caff in me to rebut that remark, but be warned it's simmering in the noodle." Seeing a blank look slide across Aethyta's face for a second, before she shrugged her shoulders and muttered "humans", Shepard felt a little glee at stumping the matriarch for a moment, even if it was with colloquialisms. It was kinda like feeling good for beating a 3 year old's calculus exam results, hardly the thing to write home about, but after this morning it was enough to get her laughing as she crawled back to the carpeted hallway to attempt levering herself up.
The mood was immediately broken as "Blue River" started to sing from Shepard's omnitool. Aethyta was starting to ask about the music when she turned and noticed a very pale and twitchy Shepard slowly let herself back down to the ground. Knowing that anyone who knew her also knew she went everywhere with her omni, she didn't even have a excuse to delay replying a few blessed hours. Shepard glanced quickly at the face half hoping a error had swapped tones for just about anyone else in the verse.
"No, damn it, no, no, and crap! There must be some vengeful deity orchestrating this!" Shepard thought, "There's just no way a rational mind would ever try to kick a hornets nest for joy and giggles, was there?" Taking a another 10 seconds as the music blathered on unheard by either of the room's occupants, Shepard looked herself over and simply breathed in and out a few restful times. As the song was wheedling down and the caller likely to begin assuming Adriana wasn't in the mood, Shepard pressed accept.
Liara's beautiful face appeared, her only imperfection a slight yellowing of the lower eye lids indicating a severe sleep dept. "Shepard, hello..I was not sure if you'd pick up." Liara looked at Adriana, her love and literally the most painful experience of her life rolled in one, and almost wept seeing the floppy haired human almost smothered under a pile of some sort of cloth, her dark eyes simply staring like a torture victim stares ahead, knowing no matter how they react, their deliverer was about to darken their day.
Half of Liara's psyche almost slammed the disconnect button, in fury at Shepard's accusatory glare, shame at thinking she was right to hate her. The other half, the dead half that had been alive with Shepard and had been numbed into ice by her death, that part just wanted to get this over with so she could go on pretending it had never happened, the greatest point in her life just a beautiful dream too great to keep for fear of blotting out everything else.
Simply staring at each other for a moment, neither willing to break the moment with words that would never be enough, but finally Shepard asked,"Yes?"
AN: Good? Good enough? Could be worse? Let me know, pretty-pretty-please!