Chapter Three-A Very Expected Rendezvous

The Citadel, Widow cluster, Serpent Nebula System,

Level 5, the Presidium Commons, 1215h, 2186

It wasn't very often when Miranda found herself pondering for a few minutes over how a conversation was going to happen, unless it had to do with a mission or an assignment. But she respected Liara T'Soni; she was just as strong as her mother now, if not just as wise. Being the potentially most powerful person in the underworld of the galaxy also made things a bit more intimidating, too.

Three years ago when Miranda first worked with her to find Shepard's remains, she found Liara to be naive and love-sick. She couldn't understand why in the Milky Way galaxy Liara seemed to be head over heels in love with Commander Shepard. Now she found herself almost in similar circumstances.

Miranda crossed the Presidium grounds just as Liara finished sending a message upon a data pad. She set the device onto the ground, heaved a huge sigh, and leaned against the railing once more upon her forearms. The Asari didn't even seem to notice the Aussie as she made her way over towards her at first. "Liara, can we talk?" she asked and approached her left side.

"Oh, Miranda!" Liara nearly jumped and then held a hand over her chest to calm herself down. "Goddess, you scared the living daylights out of me."

"Apologies; I hadn't realized that I still had that effect upon people I know," she smirked. "Are you free, or do you need some time alone to yourself?"

"It's nice to be able to talk to someone else who actually knows your real name. Or what you really are like as a person," Liara nodded and turned her body towards her. "Three years ago, I never would have imagined us talking to another like this."

"Neither would I," Miranda confessed with a smile. "And you could say…our roles have ironically been reversed to a degree."

Liara's eyebrows knit together while she was contemplating Miranda's insinuation about her own relationship with Shepard. Reality dawned upon her, and she agreed. "Yes, they have."

"I wanted to thank you…for that information you gave…about Oriana's boyfriend to Shepard. He told me about Freedom's Progress, and the odd thing about the whole situation is that I thought as of today that we'd be striking Cronos Station. Last night, he said that had wanted to move up the assault, but here we are today, on the Citadel."

"I'm truly sorry about that, Miranda; I know how much you're looking forward to it, as am I. Perhaps we desperately needed some supplies, and Shepard just wanted to make sure that everything was in order. You know how much of a procrastinator he is."

"And spontaneous, the bloody oaf." Miranda also leaned heavily upon the railing and sighed. "I can't tell Ori about it yet. She's had so much to deal with in the past year. How crazy is it to find out that you've got an older sister twin and an egomaniacal father that was obsessed with making himself out to be the ultimate champion of humanity as well as our species the apex of the galaxy? Then to top it all off, she has no clue where her foster parents are now and can't contact them even if she wanted to!"

"What are their names? I could use my contacts to find that information out for you," Liara offered.

"I appreciate that, Liara, I really do." She paused to give some thought to it. "His name is Silas and her name is Lilith; the surname is Harrison. The last thing I knew about them was that they were living in New Costeau on Trident."

Liara's omni-tool glowed as it recorded that information. "If I find anything, I'll let you know, Miranda. And don't worry, I won't burden your sister with this information or Shepard, unless you want me to, of course."

"No, they both have enough to worry about right now," Miranda shook her head 'no'. "Especially him. I know you do yourself, with your…new responsibilities and such, but at least you can do that in secret without someone constantly chastising you for every decision you make."

"Sometimes I wonder just how much longer that'll remain under wraps," Liara gave a short laugh through her nose. "I think everyone on the Normandy now knows and now Urdnot Wrex, too."

"That Prothean probably doesn't. In fact, it seems like he doesn't seem to care much about anything other than slaughtering the Reapers. I thought that I came off as being anti-social around the crew back when the ship was under Cerberus colors. He's about ten times worse than I ever was." She made a gesture towards herself. "But I think I can sort of understand why."

"Yes, well, how do you think you'd feel if you woke up to a completely different galaxy than the one you grew up and lived in? I don't think that it would be a seamless transition."

"It most certainly wouldn't. Here I grew up without a mother and was pushed to meet preposterous goals by someone I unfortunately had to call my father. But at least I grew up during a time of relative peace. Wasn't he born when the Reaper war had been already going on throughout the whole galaxy?"

"Yes, Shepard must have told you that, didn't he?" Without waiting for her response, Liara went on. "He says that the first thing he remembers is that he saw his world burning. I can't help but think of the children that are being born right of this moment…or the ones that are just learning to speak. How does a mother explain to her son that his father went away to serve in a war that we might never win? Or how can she explain what peace means?"

"I think that it might be possible to explain peace but not illustrate it completely. Well, hang on a minute, maybe there is a way." Miranda brushed some of her hair behind her ears. "Didn't Shepard broker a deal between the Turians and the Krogan? Aren't the Quarians now living on Rannoch with the Geth and not constantly wandering about space?"

Liara lightly smacked herself upon her forehead and ran her gloved fingers through her scalp crests. "How could I forget? I was there on Rannoch when Shepard was firing that syncing laser upon that Reaper destroyer. Watching him roll from one side to the other of that cliff as it tried to incinerate him was making my heart pound in my chest so hard that I thought it was going to explode. And then when the Quarian fleet finally killed it, everyone was so relieved, myself and Tali included."

"So how did this treaty go down?"

The Shadow Broker rolled her eyes. "The Admiral of the Heavy Fleet…Han Gerrel, I think was his name…he started to fire upon the geth. Tali tried to order them to stand down, but the Fleets wouldn't listen. Then Shepard spoke to him. Goddess, I don't know how long that whole thing played out…it seemed like an hour…the arguments that went on between him, Tali, Gerrel, and Koris…"

"Shepard ultimately convinced the moron to stand down, didn't he?"

"Yes. Then Legion…the avatar of the Geth…he gave his life so that all of the Geth could have true consciousness. They now all are truly alive thanks to him, and they honored his wish to make peace with the Quarians."

"And to think that I…that I once thought about giving it over to Cerberus' cyber weapons division," Miranda mused and bit her lip. "If Shepard had actually listened to my advice…naturally I wasn't surprised to hear that he wanted to start it up and interrogate it. He had no qualms about opening up that tank that Grunt came in; he even dismissed that Cerberus officer that I had posted to guard the port cargo hold. Did Shepard ever tell you about Legion?"

"No. When was this?"

"About a week before we went through the Omega 4 relay, we boarded a derelict Reaper to track down its IFF signal in order to gain access to safely travel through it. That was how the Collectors could easily disappear from sight, and why no ship had previously made it back. While the Normandy was there, Shepard, Garrus, and I discovered that we were not alone upon the Reaper. The Cerberus team that had been sent to study it went missing; they unfortunately all became indoctrinated and attacked us. Actually, they were all husks by the time we got to them."

"Did you know anyone there?"

"Yes, I knew Dr. Chandana, the project lead. He helped me write my dissertation regarding the use of modern nanotechnology and the assimilation of-"

Liara's eyebrows arose with confusion. Miranda took note of her body language and shook her head as if to say 'never mind'.

"Anyhow, Legion was also onboard the Reaper doing its own research to assist the Geth ascertain knowledge about some kind of virus that the Reapers had constructed. It would be one that would forever change the equations in all geth's logic; one that would change them all into those things you all fought nearly four years ago under Saren's leadership."

"I believe that I remember Legion calling them heretics," the asari recollected.

"Right. So, Legion had been attacked by several husks; we had just blown up the Reaper core, and now it was lying in a pile on the floor. Garrus told Shepard to leave it, and I recommended taking the geth with us. He took it, then we got the hell off of the ship before it crashed into the brown dwarf beneath our orbit, and back onto the Normandy."

"So that was when you suggested handing the geth over to Cerberus?"

"Yes, it was after I'd finished writing my report up to the Illusive Man, of course. I was actually going to brief him myself about our entire mission in the com room until Jacob came in and started to argue with me about what Shepard had done. Though after what he experienced on Eden Prime, I hardly blame him for being a little…rattled over the ordeal."

"I like him; he's a very dedicated and earnest young man. It's good that he found someone to love, too." Liara wistfully looked away from Miranda.

Oh, bloody hell. I hope that she's not going to bring up the two of us, Miranda thought to herself. Or Shepard and myself.

"So obviously Shepard didn't follow your advice," she pressed. "You know I've…been rather curious of something about you two."

Damnit. Here we go.

"About me and Jacob, or about me and Shepard?" Miranda inquired.

"If you choose not to answer me, I understand, but…I know what drew me to Shepard. But," Liara hesitated as she thought over her words very carefully, "what about you? Was it because of his determination? His charms, his wit?"

Miranda opened her mouth to speak but found her throat suddenly dry up. The thoughts were there; now why the hell weren't the words?

"Perhaps there was something you could give him that I couldn't…and not in the form of conversation, I mean," Liara remarked as she licked her lips unconsciously. "Something physical or mental in the act?"

Miranda felt herself grow extremely uncomfortable now; her cheeks began to flush. Liara now saw this and took a step back. "Oh, pardon me, that was incredibly forward of me, Miranda. Let's…let's just pretend that I never said that, shall we?"

The Aussie nodded her agreement. "I can if you can." She pushed herself off of the rail and turned to face Liara with the beginnings of a smile upon her face. "But…maybe if we survive this crazy war…we'll have to…compare notes someday."

"I'd like that." Liara's face brightened instantly. "Maybe we could…trade secrets? And not necessarily about Shepard, I mean."

"I might have to watch what I say around you, or you might just…flay me alive with your mind." Miranda's expression turned into a closed mouth grin.

"Goddess, I'm never going to live that one down, am I?" Liara sighed and shook her head. "My father also teased me about saying that."

"We'll have to do this again sometime. I'd better go; it looks like Shepard's finally finished catching up with one of his old Alliance friends." Miranda's eyes had ventured away from Liara's; Shepard had just gone over to Taylor's table, no doubt to collect her. He was now sweeping the Presidium with his eyes. "And he might attempt to coerce one of those C-sec agents into tearing the Citadel apart for me unless I make it back to him in no fewer than thirty seconds."

"Yes, he's always been a bit…over protective," Liara agreed and retrieved the data pad from the ground.

"Possessive, you mean," Miranda corrected her and began to make rather hasty strides back towards Apollo's Cafe.

But I still love him in spite of that. Sentimental bastard.

**A/N**-You had to know that it was coming. I had the b**** fight in between Ashley and Miranda, so this was also bound to happen. Notice how tame their conversation was in comparison, I might add. Some people have paired the two of them together, (instead of Shepard and Miranda or Shepard and Liara). I can't really see that happening, to tell you the truth, mainly because Miranda doesn't swing that way. But I think that she and Liara could actually become friends, probably pretty close ones at that. They were both raised by single parents and probably had affluent lifestyles. Anyhow, I hope you all enjoyed the appetizer; the main course will be served soon.