A/N: Not entirely happy with this chapter. May have to rewrite it from scratch, it's missing that spark I need it to convey. This is the final chapter, at least for this little bit. I am definitely considering a follow up to it, with Aethyta during the Citadel invasion, before moving on to my main AU of ME1/ME2. I apologize for not mentioning earlier: Pris Para is referenced from Melaradark's Del Shepard stories , which are far superior to anything I write.
By the time Liara found Shepard, she was standing by the south end of the plaza, leaning against the railing overlooking the lower Presidium. Holding a leaf in one hand, Sara had a tiny , brittle smile on her face as Liara approached, stepping past a pair of softly crying humans talking about their child.
Goddess, so much loss, everywhere... Despite the beauty and peace of the Presidium, there were times Liara sometimes didn't even step off the ship when it docked, just curling up on her bed. The pain, loss and suffering that suffused the crowds here was sometimes almost too much to endure. But Liara knew now that sometimes pain had to be endured to be able to hold on to what one wanted the most.
Stepping up behind Shepard, Liara wrapped her arms around her lover, feeling the muscles, the tension in her body. She placed her chin on Sara's shoulder, and just stood there for a moment, eyes closed, ignoring everything except the woman in her arms. Shepard gave a little sigh, one part happiness, one part melancholy.
"... how did it go, Li?"
Liara squeezed once, and stepped back, letting Shepard turn around. The human woman's eyes were slightly red, as if she had been crying, but Liara didn't say anything. "It went...better than I thought. The matriarch was quite useful, actually, she has placed a unit of asari commandos under my orders an-"
Shepard frowned. "Liara..." That same sing-song, slightly exasperated voice.
Liara trailed off, then gave a small, almost spastic shrug, a motion she had picked up from humans years ago on the Normandy. "... .she's my father. And... part of me wants to just curl up into a ball and cry and let all the .. pain, the fear, everything go...but we don't have the time for that. We have to focus on what is important."
Shepard nodded, but her hand reached out to Liara's, interlacing her fingers , brown on blue, squeezing. "I know that. And I know it has to be hard to make that connection now, in such a sudden way. But that isn't what I'm asking either."
Liara leaned back against the railing, careful not to free her hand from Shepard's grip. She is trembling, Liara realized, and pressed up against her, side by side, just relishing in the simple contact. "I know, Sara. We … talked. She has an unconventional viewpoint on living. I have... a half-sister, it seems. And I'm also a person of interest to the Matriarchy. I do not know how to process all this at once. It is one thing to see it on dry reports, or on intel gathered. It is another to hear it from your own sire."
Shepard scratched her head with her free hand, pushing a lock of hair from her face, eyes narrowed. "I'm not sure I am happy about that. You'd think after all you've done, someone would give you the benefit of the doubt."
Liara tilted her head. "Another human idiom?"
Shepard grinned. "The concept that before judging someone, that their past good deeds should make you hesitate to question their judgment or assume wrongdoing."
Liara snorted, unconsciously channeling her father. "I am afraid the Matriarchy is not very good at understanding the choices people are forced to make, or adapt to the war. We are known for diplomacy and influence and .. relationships, not for battle. Given how long we live compared to other species, it's too easy to not know how to react when change is suddenly thrust on us. There are parts of the Matriarchy still reeling from what my mother did, years later. I fear I will always been seen as a figure of distrust and suspicion...and if they were to know my current .. occupation, that would only get worse."
Shepard shrugged. "Fuck 'em. Useless, the lot of them. Tevos, for all her kind words, never did shit to back me up in the way it counted, she went right along with the idea that I had gone right off my little nut about the Reapers and covered it up with the rest of them. And now we're all paying for it."
Shepard shook her head. "That's...never mind. Look, I am just happy you got to meet your … dad. Things are happening so fast now, and there's just so much going to shit that I wanted you to .. I don't know. Be able to say goodbye? Closure? Does someone who lives a thousand years even need closure?"
Liara squeezed her lover's hand. "Of course we do. I have to believe that we have suffered all of this...pain, and loss, and fear for a reason. I have to believe that sacrifice means something, all of our sacrifices. I have to believe that .." Liara trailed off, then exhaled and straightened her back "...that no matter what, we will win this. I believe in you, love. I will always believe in you, no matter what the odds or the cost. That... is what she told me. That I can't give up and just wait for death, that I have to fight."
A pause. "It's … the krogan in me, I suppose."
Shepard only glanced at Liara from the corner of her eyes for a long moment before a wide grin split her features, and a fierce little chuckle escaped her lips. "I already saw you go all Blood Rage on Ilium, after all."
Liara only arched her brow, taking on a serene look. "I was in perfect control of myself."
Shepard giggled. "Says the woman who made Jack say 'and people say I'm a crazy bitch?' , my dear?" She groaned as Liara elbowed her sharply in the ribs, and then wrapped her hand around Liara's wrist. "Come on. Garrus called in with a status report, we're still taking on supplies for the Far Rim run, and we've got some time. I think I need a drink."
Liara followed, her eyes trailing across the plaza to the bar one final time. Aethyta tilted her head, smiling, and made a gesture with one hand, causing Liara to blush furiously. Shepard didn't notice until the Matriarch was out of sight, but paused as they topped the steps. "You okay?"
Liara smiled. "Yes. Just thinking of something my father said. About...how people view the asari."
Shepard pushed her way through two salarians, ignoring their high-speed bickering over something to do with HE3 transfers. "In what way? I mean, to me, asari were always these figures of such... contrasts. Sensual, hedonistic maidens. Stern, family oriented matrons. Mysterious, almost frightening matriarchs. It's daunting to realize your father was your age back when humans were still killing each other with sharpened pieces of metal and thought disease was an evil spirit."
They reached the elevator, past the turian guards, and Shepard punched in her destination as Liara leaned quietly against the cab wall. "And what do you see in me, if I may ask? We never really .. worked that out, on the Normandy in the old days."
Shepard shrugged. "I didn't think we had to analyze falling in love, Liara. It just...happened. Saren, the geth, the melds, the beacon...all the fear and worry and racing against time. It threw us together in a way that most people aren't. You were fascinated and terrified of alienating me, I was too focused and convinced I wasn't worth the time."
Liara nodded, as the doors opened to the ground level of the Presidium. "I know .. what you mean. But my father made the point that we … have a lot of pain in our relationship."
Shepard nodded, almost dancing aside to avoid a shoulder check from a elcor. "Incoherent terror: Please excuse me" it said as it recognized her, making her grin. Liara only rolled her eyes. "Li, I get what you're saying. Garrus said the same thing to me not too long ago. But I don't think it matters. I know I love you, no matter what."
Liara shrugged. "My father thought it mattered. It's … if one views us only based on sex and...how we make others react –"
Shepard made an angry negating slash with her hands, as she headed towards the little restaurant they always went to. "That is NOT why I was or am interested in you. I mean, not the main reason. Shit." The restaurant was quiet, off the main Presidium way, all wood paneling and elegant satins from Sur'Kesh. Tiers of greenery cascaded down along side trilling little waterfalls, and the tables were set into niches along the wall. Gentle polytonal music played, mournful and yet somehow alive.
Liara smirked. "You at least make a girl feel wanted", smiling as she got the rare pleasure of watching Shepard blushing and muttering to herself. "But that isn't what I meant. You took the chance to make me meet my father... to be able to know her, before all of this comes to an .. end. And you were right, despite my reluctance." They stood in the foyer, waiting to be seated.
Shepard nodded, catching the eye of the waiter, who gestured to their usual table. Shepard almost flung herself down, and laced her fingers together tightly. "Alright. But what you are talking about is all over the place, Li. It's one thing to say we need to discuss .. our relationship, another to say all people are only interested in asari for sex and hint that maybe what we have isn't as deep as we think it is."
Liara sighed. "Shepard, I do not think that, either. I just.. it was a hard conversation to have , with her. About mother. About you. About me. About … where this is all going. She feels that no matter how you feel about me that your primary attraction to me is..."
Shepard grits her teeth as the waiter arrives. "Ben, the usual, please." The human waiter bows, and departs a moment later, allowing Sara a moment to unclench her fists and try to find a less angry tone. "Liara, I know Aethyta is a bit of a rough touch. But I am not with you because we do the horizontal tango."
A puzzled look .. "Horizontal... tango?"
Shepard tilted her head. "Because we fuck." Liara flushed, still not comfortable with the sort of crudity both Shepard and her father seemed to embrace so casually. "The truth is, Liara, half of what we have is not something I really .. understand. It's emotions so strong I can't figure them out, and pain and … a lot of things I think we both regret." A long exhale. "But I'm not going to apologize for any of it. And neither should you. If it had happened any other way, we wouldn't be together. And whenever I think about THAT I go all panicky and depressed."
Liara nodded. THAT she understood all too well, nightmares of Shepard's funeral, of watching her burn to a glowing mote through Alchera's atmosphere, of giving her body to Cerberus all too common.
Shepard shrugged. "I know what your dad is saying. I think, at least. When things are bad and pressure is high, people cling to what they know, and they skip past some of what makes a normal relationship work." She sighed, toying with the cuff of her uniform, the gold buttons glinting weakly in the light of the restaurant.
"But at the end of the day, Li, the only reason I can keep myself going is you. I'm a zombie, a dead soul. Ignored , laughed at, sent off to die and then brought back to life by the guy who now thinks huskifying his own troops is a nifty thing to do. Accused of being a race traitor, a terrorist, and crazy. My best friend won't even believe I'm not with Cerberus, even now." A pause. "The only people who believed in me, who … ever believed in me...are a bad turian, a depressed quarian, and a nerdy archeologist."
For a moment Shepard looked so tired, Liara almost wanted to sob, and then her eyes met Liara's, and she smiled, and the strength just flowed through her. "But that's all I need, really, The love of my friends, and the woman I love more than anything. I can't find it in me to save the galaxy for the sake of the innocent, or the lost, or those who sacrificed everything anymore. I do it for you."
A longer pause, in which Liara was trembling inside. And then Sara spoke. "And if you weren't there, I think the doubts and pain and fear I have would make me just .. give up. We aren't perfect." Shepard thought back to a quiet, almost philosophical krogan clone she met on Korlus. "We are not perfect, but we know our place."
Liara's voice shook. "And what is my place?" She paused as the waiter brought their drinks, and Sara only smiled. "By my side, no matter what."
Liara gave a long, trembling exhale. "That is all anyone can ask for, I suppose." She picked up her glass, smiling faintly. "To my father." She drank, letting the wine ease down her throat and into her body, trying to relax.
Shepard only watched for a moment before doing the same. "To the most beautiful woman in the galaxy, for staying with me."
"Flatterer."
