So, this chapter ran away from me. And then I thought about not including the bit with Shepard cause it was so dang depressing. And then I had to rewrite it because I had all the dates wrong, and they're still wrong, but not quite as obvious. And...yes...so. It's long. And all exposition-y. And I'm tired now. And still don't know if I should remove the first part because...GAH! Dang you Shepard. . Anyway, onwards.
TL;DR: Sorry this is so long (and long winded).
Liara leaned against the porch railing, watching her bondmate push herself slowly on the swing. They'd bought it a few years back, when Shepard had started having difficulty with the stairs. It was easier for her to come sit here, rather than make her way down to the stone benches that circled the pond. A fish jumped, splashing, distracting Liara for a moment. She looked back, and Shepard was looking at her.
There was little of the young, beautiful soldier that had rescued Liara. Nothing but the eyes. Yes, they were mildly cloudy with repeatedly corrected cataracts. And yes, the skin around then was loose and wrinkled, looking like old leather. But the same intelligence, the same amusement shone out of them. Her hair was longer than it had ever been, shockingly white. The length, according to Shepard, was because she could, because she had no reason not to keep it long anymore. Liara knew better, knew that the retired spectre's thinning hair was a sore point for her.
She moved over to her, running her fingers through the baby-fine threads before leaning over and pressing a soft kiss to one leathery cheek. That was about as physical as they got, anymore. One hundred and ninety-eight years tomorrow, that was how long they'd been married, and time had finally caught up to them. If Shepard had slowed down, if she needed a walker and didn't have any of her own teeth anymore, that didn't make Liara love her any less. If things weren't as physically strenuous as they used to be, Shepard's control within the meld had more than made up for it.
"It's a beautiful day," Liara said, sitting down and tugging Shepard to her so the woman was tucked under her arm.
"Mmn. Yes." Shepard's voice was raspy, like dry sandpaper. Liara mostly thought it was the most beautiful sound in the world.
"How are you feeling?"
"Mmn, well, I was watching you out of the corner of my eye, and I find I am feeling much better now." She coughed, dryly, then chuckled. She leaned over and whispered in her ear, her suggestions just as lewd as they'd been a hundred years before.
"Shepard! We are outside!"
"You are aware," Shepard rasped, chuckling, "that we could be in the middle of a crowded room and no one would know right? We more or less just stare at each other longingly anymore." Her voice dropped at the end, and Liara knew she was retreating back into herself. She did that fairly often now, ever since Miranda had passed away two decades before.
"Except we are on Thessia, and everyone would know what we were doing." She knew better to bring up Shepard's bouts of depression, though. The last thing she wanted were more denials.
"Promise me something," Shepard said finally, as the light summer breeze picked up.
"Anything I can, you know that."
"Don't mourn me."
"Shepard," Liara whispered. She didn't know what to say. That wasn't something she could promise, Shepard knew that.
"I mean it. I want you to live. These last few years, between me and Allison, I know you haven't had the best time, taking care of us. And...well, Allison had better still be up and giving you hell when I go, but I want you to live. When I stop being a burden, I want you to fly."
"You have never been a burden, Shepard. Don't you dare say things like that."
Shepard chuckled darkly. "I was supposed to go out in a glorious battle you know. Gunned down by something big and scary."
"Shepard, stop it." She wouldn't cry. She did everything in her power not to think about Shepard dying. She knew the woman couldn't live forever, but she was not about to worry about losing her now, not when she was still alive and with her.
"Promise me, Liara. Please. When I go, I just want to know that you'll be happy. I want to know that you won't slink back into you office and never come out. I don't want you to drift away. You have hermit like tendencies, you know."
"I...I can't, Shepard. You know I can't." She was crying. She could feel the tears streaming down her face, and it wasn't fair.
"Promise me, Liara!" And she was herself again. The woman who had stood on the Citadel and killed the thing that Saren had become. The woman who had stared the Collectors in the face and laughed, then blown them up. The woman who commanded armies with no more than a disappointed look.
"I...I..."
"Liara, please." She was begging. Oh, Goddess, she was begging.
"I...I promise Shepard. I promise."
She wept into the long, thin hair of her bondmate. She wept, because she knew she was going to lose her again, and couldn't bear to think about it. She wept, because she knew that she would keep this one, last promise to Shepard no matter how much it hurt.
It hadn't occurred to Teiron that Armali would be in the middle of its rainy season. As she stepped out of the cab onto the gravel drive she tilted her face up to the sky and let the light rain bathe her and tried to remember the last time she had stood on an actual planet, let alone her own home world. The day her mother had returned to the all, probably. That had been over half a century ago. She'd been on the southern coast, then. Armali sat about three hours from the northern sea, the often called One Sea, and could not be more different from the almost tropical location where she had said goodbye to her mother for the last time.
She rolled her shoulders as the taxi took off, casting one last look at the skyline of the city. Armali was the closest thing to a central capital that Thessia had. Though Serrice was larger, it was also largely a university town despite the presence of a few biotic manufacturing plants. The human embassy was here, the only alien embassy on the home world. The other races had their respective embassies on Lusia. With the exception of the krogan anyway. The krogan embassy was on a small space station on the far side of the relay from Thessia. It had been Shepard's doing, if Teiron remembered the news stories correctly, that had gotten the human embassy moved. It had caused a lot of problems; in general aliens weren't allowed to live for any length of time on Thessia unless bonded to an asari, and the human ambassador had not been so. Neither had most of her staff. The rather amusing compromise had also been fairly obvious. As long as they stayed on the embassy grounds, they were fine, and as such a number of small apartment homes were built on "Earth", or rather the hundred acres that the citizens of Armali voted to let Earth have. Any time anyone living and working in the embassy needed to go shopping however, they had to apply for a new visa. The new quick-approval day visa was created especially for them, and was only available for diplomats and their entourages.
As far as Teiron knew, that hadn't changed with Shepard's passing.
The city was beautiful, even in the gray haze the clouds caused. The towering spires, the glow of the lights, it all spoke of the power of the asari. Her people. For one brief moment she let herself feel a wave a pride for them, and then she turned around.
All she could do was stare. She'd always known Liara came from money. Her mother was Matriarch Benezia after all, who had owned stocks in every major research and development company that even considered going public. Those stocks would have been passed, by asari law, to Liara, even with the questions over Benezia's loyalty to her race and the galaxy. Liara's own work as an information broker on Illium had probably given her a sizable income as well. Knowing about the disparity in their income though, and seeing the result of it, were two entirely different things.
A sea green gravel drive, from a time before the asari discovered mass effect technology and still used wheeled vehicles as normal transport, wound its way up a short hill. It was surrounded by old trees, twisted and gnarled, their leaves hanging limply in the rain. The flaky, orange-gray bark put the trees age at over half a millennium. The building they led to probably dated back twice that.
Asari architecture didn't change much. Most of the buildings in Armali were six or seven thousand years old, but it was hard to tell the older structures from the ones that were only seven or eight centuries old, but this was something completely different.
The main house – and there were at least three other buildings that Teiron could see from her spot at the end of the driveway – was longer than most asari buildings, and looked all the longer because it was shorter as well. Most family homes, which could often hold up to five or six generations if not more if every daughter had their children young enough, stood six stories tall at least. This one was only three at its highest point, and the smaller buildings surrounding it were no more than a single story high. It was disconcerting, but strangely more grand than the larger, towering buildings Teiron had always associated with asari. It was also built of stone, the heavy rocks adding even more age to the already ancient building. It was a material she'd been unaware had ever been used in asari construction.
She felt a weight on her shoulders and wished the taxi was still there. She did not belong here. Here, where the door which swung out on actual hinges probably cost more than she made in a year. Here, where the very ground beneath her feet exuded wealth. This house had stood since before the e-democracy. Since before the discovery of FTL and mass effects. It had existed, most likely, since the first of Thessia's nomadic tribes had settled down. It probably predated the republics.
She did not belong here.
She picked up her bag, and considered calling the taxi service. She could be gone in a minute and call Liara and explain. There had to be a lie she'd believe. She glanced up at the door, deciding to do just that when she saw a figure walk out into the rain.
Liara was beautiful. She'd always known it, but there was something different about her here, in her home. She was wearing a soft yellow dress that stopped just above her ankles, the long, loose sleeves billowing in the wind.
Teiron didn't see that though. She didn't see the white sandals that contrasted sharply against her blue skin. She didn't see that the white widow bracelet Liara had worn since the day they'd been reunited was gone from her wrist. She didn't see the way the dress clung to her curves as the rain slowly dampened it. She didn't see any of it.
She saw the crinkle at the corner of Liara's eyes. The way the blue of them shone in the gray light of the evening. She saw the curve of her jaw, and the way it pulled up. She saw Liara's smile, bright and wide, spreading even further as her eyes met Teiron's across the yard. She saw Liara walking toward her, their eyes never breaking contact, and all of a sudden she did belong. This wasn't her world, but that didn't matter. Just that smile mattered.
"Teiron," Liara shouted over the crash of thunder, "come inside. It's going to start pouring any minute." She took Teiron's bag from her, then grabbed the other woman's hand and practically drug her up the to the house. They barely made it, the sky opening just as Liara shut the door behind them. The light sprinkle became a downpour, a staccato rhythm playing along the windows and the roof.
Teiron ran a hand over her crest, wiping the water that had pooled in the ridges away. She took in the entry way, but her eyes kept coming back to Liara. "Beautiful," Teiron said, and hoped Liara thought she meant the house.
"Make yourself comfortable. I've got you in the bedroom right at the top of the stairs, second floor. I'll take your bag up." Liara wouldn't hear of Teiron taking her bag, told her she'd show her the room after dinner, and was gone before Teiron could say another word.
Left alone, Teiron moved into the common room. Despite the oddity of the homes exterior and basic design, the ground floor was easy enough to understand. Open and airy as was typical even in modern design with large, clear windows opening out onto a central courtyard. She could see the kitchen, partitioned off with a sliding wall. In traditional fashion the dining area was completely enclosed and on the far side of the central sitting room from the kitchen. She ran a hand along the back of the low sofa, eyes sweeping over the furniture, the pictures. A large wood burning fireplace dominated the only free wall, above which hung one of the most beautiful paintings Teiron had ever seen. She wandered over to it, eyes gazing over the triptych, idly musing how much Liara looked like the model the painter used for Athame. The Goddess took center stage, her arms outstretched as she taught her followers, who stared up adoringly. To her left was Jinari standing in a field of crops holding a scythe. To Athame's right was Lucien, hand raised to the stars, the major constellations circling the image. She'd seen a copy of this once, at a museum when she'd been a child. This was the original. It was priceless. It had been done so long ago that the artist's name was forgotten to history. Not an easy feat among asari.
Her eyes skipped over the family photos, resting instead on the artifacts dotting the room. A few she recognized from Nos Astra, most were different. Tucked in one corner was a glass case, an old, large, book inside. She glanced at what the tiny label on the case claimed was a Prothean dining set, then made her way over to the book.
It was a hand copied, hand illustrated Holy Book.
The Holy Book.
The text by which the forms of the Goddess cast aside the pantheon and had helped the asari rise from their lowly origins. Teiron was not a believer. She appreciated the art the old religion had inspired, she understood its place in asari history, but she'd never practiced beyond those holidays that had become secular.
It dawned on her, suddenly, though, that Liara could very well be a follower. The house, the artifacts here, the age of the T'Soni name. T'Soni was the longest living single bloodline still alive. Most of the larger names had been lost with the creation of the republics, breaking into ever smaller and smaller groups until the lineage could no longer be traced. That much, at least, she remembered from school. She could remember her mother mentioning to a friend, when Teiron had been no more than Erra's age, how odd it was that Benezia had chosen political power over following in her own mother's footsteps. Teiron hadn't considered what that meant, she'd been a child, but looking at this room now she wondered. She wondered if Liara was one of the very few that still believed that Athame sat in her home among the clouds and watched them, waiting for the time when she would return. Goddess, she hoped not.
Shaking the thought away she turned her attention to the holos. Shepard and Liara, alone. With their girls. Sitting beside one of just Liara's three daughters was the holo that Teiron had seen in Liara's apartment the night that everything had begun to go wrong. She picked it up, running a finger over a much younger Liara's face, her smile a mimic of the one Teiron had just seen outside.
"I thought we could eat outside. The porch is covered, and besides the rain it's a beautiful night," Liara said, coming around the corner. Teiron started, jumping at the sudden intrusion into her thoughts and fumbled the holo back into its place.
"That would be wonderful," she said, her smile easy. Things were less complicated now. She didn't have to worry about competing against Shepard, of trying to win Liara's affection. She'd never thought she'd be content with just their friendship, had walked away and returned to Thessia specifically because she hadn't thought she'd be able to maintain that friendship without wanting something more. It wasn't always easy, but she was finding that it was worth it.
The rain had slowed somewhat by the time they'd collected everything and retired to the back. There was a small bistro table set up just far enough away from the edge of the porch that, unless the wind took a drastic turn, would be safe from any of the rain fall. It took a bit of juggling but eventually all the dinner dishes and the bottle of Batarian blush that Teiron had no idea how Liara got hold of were arranged on the table. It took a bit more for the two of them to decide where they were going to sit, despite the fact that the small table only had two chairs.
Dinner was simple, made with native foods. Conversation started slow. Teiron couldn't think of anything to say that she wouldn't regret moments later. She couldn't read the looks Liara was giving her, and didn't much care. She finally spoke as Liara poured them both a second glass of wine.
"I'm surprised. I couldn't get you to drink even a Thessian wine, even when I brought the bottle to your place," Teiron said, grinning over the rim of the glass.
"I'm over three hundred and fifty years old, my tastes have changed," Liara grumbled good-naturedly.
"And I'm sure it has nothing to do with the fact that you ran out of whiskey."
"How did-" Liara started, then glared, sipping from her own glass, "Nothing at all. There is a perfectly good bottle in the kitchen."
"Mmhmm. Sure. It's probably empty." Teiron watched the war on Liara's face, and considered herself lucky to not get food thrown at her. "This is actually surprisingly good for a Batarian wine, they don't normally export anything but that swill water they call ale."
"I haven't the slightest clue where it came from, but I thought it would go with dinner better than the half century old bottles of some micro-brew ale Shepard had shipped over from Earth. If you thought their hard liquor was bad," Liara said with a grimace.
"Says the asari that until this evening I've never seen drink anything but human liquor. Don't try to pull that, I see right through you, Liara T'Soni."
Liara's response was to get up and go back inside. A sick feeling bubbled up deep in Teiron's gut. She hadn't meant to offend, certainly Liara had never been offended before. What had she said? She replayed the conversation, and wondered if it was just bringing up Shepard that had driven the younger woman away. She leaned back in her chair, sinking down, and for the second time that night wished she'd just stayed in the cab and gone home to the Citadel.
She was working through her excuses to leave when Liara returned, carrying another bottle.
"I lived near two hundred years with a marine, Teiron. I can drink just about anything," she said, putting the bottle down in front of Teiron. She read the label, stared wide-eyed at Liara, then read the label again.
While not as dangerous as ryncol, the bottle of purple liquid in front of her was a close second, at least if someone wasn't asari. And used to drinking. It was a hard Thessian liquor, something unavailable even on the asari colony worlds. It was made almost entirely of eezo, mixed with a spicy fruit that if ingested directly was usually fatal. Teiron had heard that there was a push in some of the outlying republics to make it illegal. "Is that what I think it is?"
"If you think it's me getting even for all those mornings I woke up with a hangover to find you perfectly at ease, then yes."
Well, that was a challenge if Teiron had ever heard one. "You're on," she said, sitting up straight, and downing the rest of her wine in one smooth tilt of her head.
From there, she was gone. They finished the wine first, throwing insults and various veiled threats. Teiron hadn't drunk this much since before she'd gotten pregnant, and by the end of the wine her head was already fuzzy. As Liara filled the wine glass with the harder alcohol, Teiron considered calling it quits. Was her pride really worth it? Would her pride survive Liara finding out she'd become a lightweight?
It didn't matter, because Liara was giving her that damn smile again, the one Teiron had always assumed was saved exclusively for Commander Shepard, and if she was going to say something she'd regret in the morning, she'd much rather have the drinks as an excuse for it.
"We're both going to regret this in the morning, you are aware of that, aren't you?" Teiron finally asked as the slow burn worked its way past her throat, her chest and settled in her belly. It was fire in a glass, sweet and slightly spicy. She felt alive.
"That is very likely. But it let's me pick your brain. I've been curious..." Liara shook her head, shrugging.
"Oh no, now you have to ask," Teiron pried.
"No, it is just, Erra's father. Was he salarian? Is that why he's not around. I do not wish to bring up painful memories," she added as Teiron's face fell, "you do not have to answer."
"Turian. He was a turian. I um, I never actually got his name."
"Teiron!" Liara laughed. "That was...almost asari of you."
"Laugh it up, Liara. Laugh it up. It seemed like a good idea at the time." Teiron would never admit it had been Liara that she had been thinking about when she'd conceived her daughter. It was all in the past now, and the fact that she had held a burning candle for the woman before her for centuries wasn't something she was proud of. She thought she knew the answer when she spoke again; when she asked, "Any turian lovers in your past?" but was unpleasantly surprised.
"Maybe. Sort of. A decade or so after Shepard passed. She made me promise not to become a hermit, to try to find someone else. You were right by the way. Spiky."
Teiron refilled her glass. She should be laughing. It was funny, it was amusing. And yet all she could manage was a tight smile as she thought of Liara with someone else. Someone that wasn't he- wasn't Shepard. Liara and Shepard had been meant for each other, to think of her with someone else, it just felt wrong. That was all it was. That was why it was upsetting.
"That they are," Teiron finally managed to say. The conversation died, and Teiron regretted killing it. She wracked her brain trying to think of something to change the subject. "Is that a pond?" she asked suddenly, just to break the silence.
"Yes. Shepard used to keep fish. There may be one of two still in there, they were decorative, mostly." And just like that they were back.
The bottle got emptier, Teiron's speech became more slurred, but the conversation did not die again.
"You 'member that time, at home, when you knocked the vase off the counter? I swear you jumped six feet in the air." At home. It had been their home, Liara's apartment in Nos Astra, even though Teiron had kept her own place. For months she'd only gone back there to do laundry.
"It was your fault," Liara laughed, "you kept moving it closer to the edge. I didn't get my deposit back because of the stain, by the way."
"Well, we'll just have to go back and 'splain, won't we?"
Liara smiled, her eyes burning into Teiron. She felt the weight of that gaze and stopped laughing, meeting Liara's eyes. There was something there, something the booze would not let her comprehend. She smiled though, because Liara was beautiful and if smiling at her was all she could do then so be it. She could be happy with just that.
"Yes, I suppose we will." Lightening flashed, dispelling the shadows the overhead lights cast on the couple. It startled Teiron, and she winced. She was going to regret drinking so much tomorrow, of that she was certain, the sudden brightness had her almost regretting it already. Liara was speaking again, but she could barely hear it as thunder rumbled.
"Mmn?" she asked, refilling her glass again. Almost half the bottle was gone. Oh, she was going to be so sick in the morning.
"I just, sometimes I wonder. I think about it sometimes, what things would have been like...if things with me had been different."
It took a minute for Teiron to realize what she was saying. She couldn't possibly be saying what Teiron thought she was saying. She thought about them, about what they could have been. No, she was reading into it too much. She wanted to run around the table and show her exactly what it would be like, but the memory of claws ripping at her head and the uncertainty that the alcohol might be making her misjudge Liara's statement made her hold not just her tongue. Anyway, if what Illira said was true, the things that had killed off most of the batarians would have eventually taken over the rest of the galaxy too. "Pretty crappy, probably," she finally said, repeating like a mantra that Liara didn't mean what it appeared she meant, "We'd have either ended badly or been eaten by those...whatchamacallits." She thought the former highly unlikely, in reality. She was a very bad asari, and had always preferred the company of other asari. And Liara was just...Liara. Perfect, in that annoying know-it-all way she had. The latter was much more likely, but the statement lost some of its intensity when the alcohol made her forget what the creatures were called. Liara had mentioned them by name once or twice, Illira had, it had been all over the news two hundred years ago, but at the moment she couldn't remember their name to save her life. So much for being the better drinker.
"Reapers," Liara said, thoughtfully.
"Right," Teiron agreed readily, it coming back to her through her fermented eezo coated brain. Was it possible to ferment a mineral? Element. Whatever eezo was. She thought about asking, considering they were drinking it, but didn't. "The batarian eaters." That was easier to remember than 'Reaper' and easier to say than mineral. At least with her current less than articulate tongue.
Teiron expected a smile. She expected a laugh. That was where they were now, away from when they sank into thoughts of things that had happened a long list of yesterdays ago. She kept remembering a bar on Illium though, a nosy bartender, quiet music, and half her paycheck gone on drinks. The look Liara was giving her now was very much like the looks she used to get across a table tucked in the back corner, the rest of the bar forgotten as she once again said something that made Liara sink into her own thoughts. Which is where she was sinking now, apparently.
"Yeah," Liara finally said, very slowly," but I'd have been able to do this." She stood, her eyes sparkling as another flash of lightning lit the porch. With clearly feigned casualness she pushed the chair back, picking up their still-full glasses and setting them aside. Teiron watched, stunned, a varren caught by the lights of an oncoming tank. What were the Alliance ones called? Makos? She was a varren caught by the lights of an oncoming Mako. Liara was leaning over the table, and Teiron knew what was going to happen. They'd been here before, even her addled brain could remember that. Remember doing this, on the other side. She wondered if Liara's stomach had clenched, if her scales had flared causing this dance of pain and pleasure as the wind blew over her. Liara stopped, her lips so close, so tantalizingly close but so far away. Teiron kept herself from leaning forward, from capturing them with her own. Liara was speaking again, and Teiron forced herself to listen. "Any important calls?" she asked, a smile tugging at her lips.
Teiron felt a giggle start in her throat, but she stopped it, shaking her head. "Nothing that can't wait until morning," she managed to breathe. This was going to happen. Was it going to happen? Was she dreaming? She had to be dreaming.
But it wasn't a dream, and Liara closed the distance and their lips brushed. It was chaste, almost motherly. It would have been almost motherly, anyway, if Teiron hadn't spent the last year daydreaming about doing wonderful, horrible, nasty things to this woman's mind. Liara pulled back, licking her lips, eyes searching. Teiron felt herself giggle. No, it wasn't a giggle, she was not going to giggle about this. That was silly, inappropriate. It wasn't a giggle at all. The not-giggle transformed into a not-sob as Liara pulled away. It had been too good to be true, of course.
Teiron watched her walk around the table, and grabbed her glass, downing the last of her drink. She'd ask her to go now. She should have left already.
A warm hand took hers, pulled her to her feet.
And they were kissing again. There was nothing chaste about this. Nothing motherly. Nothing comforting.
It was heady, and harsh. There was nothing dignified about it. Teiron moaned deep in her throat as Liara's hand brushed against the underside of her crest, finding that spot, the one that made Teiron shiver and have to pull away or risk doing something to stop this fantasy. Liara's hands were insistent, playing with her crest, tugging at her clothes as they moved, lips breaking apart only long enough for them to take deep, gasping breaths.
Teiron searched blindly for the door, pushing it open, Liara pushing her back through it, through the common room towards the stairs.
They couldn't make it up the stairs connected at the mouth as they were, and Teiron pulled away, panting, leaning against the railing. "I," she gasped, "I better not wake up in the hospital." She tried to keep her voice light, and she hoped that Liara's soft chuckle meant she succeeded, but really, she just couldn't handle that again. If this wasn't going to happen, if this was a bad joke or an amazing dream, she wanted it to end now. Two hundred years she'd been thinking about this. More frequently, certainly, over the last few months, but she'd never forgotten those few, short months on Illium, and she didn't know if she could survive going through that again. She had more than herself to think about now, and she could not let the brokenhearted depression that had over taken her when she'd left Nos Astra all those decades ago take hold again. She wouldn't let that happen.
Liara surged forward again, capturing her lips and pressing her against the wall. The railing hurt, pressing against her lower back, but she dared not break this kiss, in case it was their last.
"Not a chance in hell," Liara murmured before pulling away and taking her hand and pulling her upstairs.