Dawn Mist

from Gregory Orr's Best

The Greeks said: never to be born is best;
Next best, to die young in a noble cause….
Beauty is like life itself: a dawn mist
The sun burns off. It gives no peace, no rest.
'Ou sont les neiges d'antan?' we ask.
But the Greeks were wrong: to live and love is best.


Kaidan frowned. He didn't know how this had happened. He'd felt fairly confident about his chances, but apparently he was outmatched. It was really gonna cost him. Maybe he wasn't as good at reading people as he thought. Fingering the top of the cards in his hand, he took one last look. Call or fold. This was it. As his thumb brushed the queen of hearts, he thought about Shepard, wondered how she was doing. He'd been worried. Thinking about her had been keeping him up nights even before her injury, but the news vids showing her kissing Liara on the Citadel had prevented him from saying something when they'd met for dinner. It was funny. After he'd woken up in the hospital, everything had been so much clearer. They'd finally agreed to get past Horizon, and she'd been so sweet, attentive and strong. He'd recognized the woman he'd fallen in love with in her again, and he'd thought there'd been something there. Having her turn a gun on him had made him question things, sure, but serving beside her again, he knew he wanted to be with her. There'd always been something there for him, and he'd never gotten over it. He'd never managed to move on, not even when Dr. Michel and he had dated. Now he wondered if was a mistake not to say anything. Liara seemed to come and go in Shepard's life, and she couldn't offer what he could. A human family, a normal human life. Liara couldn't understand what it meant to live a century or less, to be a Marine and to serve the Alliance. How could she ever really know what a woman like Shepard needed? Wouldn't it be better to tell Shepard how he felt than to never take the chance? The worst that could happen is that he'd finally know if he had to move on. The best that could happen is that they would be very, very happy together. That's what he wanted. Provided they won this war.

Across the table, Steve watched him closely. It wasn't so much that the guy had terrible luck, it was that he didn't seem to be learning from it. As he waited for Kaidan's play, he looked the acting CO over. He was an attractive man, and Steve had wondered if there was returned interest ever since he thought he'd caught Kaidan checking him out in the showers. But Kaidan was hard to read. Maybe he hadn't figured out what he wanted yet. He seem preoccupied, but hey, it was the middle of the war to end all wars, he currently held command of the Normandy and Shepard's boots were hard to fill. Could Kaidan ever relax enough to go against regs, have some consensual fun and explore the possibilities? Steve took a swig of his beer. Shepard probably had not had this in mind when she had encouraged him to get back out there, but maybe she'd approve. Steve wondered if Robert would have. He looked down at his hand. Maybe after the war he would focus on non-soldiers, take a civilian pilot's job, start a family. But right now, the combination of hard body and gentle man that was Kaidan really got to him. There was no one else on board he'd rather blow off steam with. He grinned.

Garrus leaned back, a toothpick in his mouth, as he waited for Kaidan to make his move. Damn, how had someone so cautious, so apparently diametrically opposed to Shepard ever become a Spectre? He was glad Vega was his partner. They'd already cleaned out Donnelly and Joker in a previous game. Yeah, he was officially going to call Donnelly, "Poor Donnelly," from now on. He didn't feel badly about it. A man has to know when to quit, and when he can't hold his double malt. He smiled. The bottle he'd picked up on their last leave on the Citadel had done the trick nicely. He glanced back to where Tali sat with Daniels, EDI and Adams. Hopefully she wasn't still obsessing over finding a way to decloak phantoms. It was a worthy goal, but honestly, he'd rather she'd obsess over ways to decloak him. Surely she'd almost adapted to him by now? Not that he'd ever pressure her. She was in charge. In fact, he'd better get his head back in the game or he'd end up just like Donnelly. He chuckled as he remembered that all it had taken to totally distract Donnelly was talking about Sam and EDI. Watching Donnelly's head swivel and the man practically drool when the two had walked into the lounge together had given him the idea. He might not have even needed the liquor if he'd figured out that weakness sooner.

Vega's face was unreadable. Poker was his game, and this was his night. Except for the part where playing with Kaidan was like pulling teeth. Kaidan kept acting like he was playing chess, for all the time he took before he'd make a move, and frankly, Vega'd been hoping to get in some time with the ladies. He'd had his eye on the quarian for a while now, but hadn't had a chance to act on it. She had some fire in her! Um um, and those curves! He wondered if he should learn something about quarian culture first, and if her eyes actually glowed or it was just a function of the helmet somehow. Much better to let her teach him. He smiled. He liked how she was always doing these really cool things in engineering, and he thought maybe they could talk about weapons and armor. Together they could probably figure out how to make their own portable turrets, so they could own those Cerberus bastards! Or they could compare notes on shuttles, hang out in one of them…. He could always try wooing her by cooking for her. The ladies always loved it when he did that. Well, that and his body.

"Ok, I'm in," Kaidan finally said, pushing a stack of white chips into the center of the table and laying out his cards. "Read'em and weep. I've got two pair and the queen of hearts says pay me!"

"You sure about that, Kaidan?" Garrus asked. "Because my full house suggests she was talking about me." He slowly pulled back his cards on the table one by one to reveal his hand.

"Yeah!" James said. "That's what I'm talking about!" He picked up his cigar and took a pull.

"Sorry to disappoint you," Steve interrupted, "but this straight flush won't leave a lot of love for your little house." He laid the cards down.

"It's all up to you," Garrus said, looking at James.

Leaving the cigar clenched between his teeth, James shook his head. "We're SOL this time." He slapped four of a kind on the table. "I caught it on the river, but I'll have to throw it back. It's too small. This one goes to Estaban."

"I wouldn't ever admit that what you're holding is too small, Vega," Garrus drawled as he gathered the cards to shuffle the deck, avoiding Steve's hands as he raked in the chips.

James laughed. "Only the Normandy's gun is bigger than mine, Sticks."

"Exactly."

Steve rolled his eyes. Kaidan looked off out the viewport into space.


For a long time, they floated together in a warm, bodiless cushion of blissful consciousness as they woke. Eventually Liara regained some sense of herself. Even more slowly, feeling returned to her body. She discovered aches and twinges of pain where she had used muscles and been stretched in new ways. Her mind marveled over what had just happened. Nothing she'd been taught or experienced or read had prepared her. Rachel. It was like learning a secret that had no words but changed how she viewed everything. Nobody had mentioned the euphoria, or that it'd be possible to stay joined while sleeping. She opened her eyes and saw Rachel looking at her with the same awe she felt. Never had she imagined taking or being taken like that, never dreamt that their connection could go so deep, or how it would feel for it to remain subtly there even when she returned to herself. She felt strangely like crying, and suddenly Rachel was, but not crying—weeping, deep choking sobs shaking her—as her face crumpled. Liara wrapped her arms around her, pulling Rachel to her, and held her. She thought she understood.

Rachel wondered what was wrong with her. Why was she crying? She wasn't sad, exactly. She struggled to stop, but the release was too powerful. She felt Liara's arms around her, Liara's hand firm and small on her back as she held her. She let go.

Liara held her until her shaking stopped and longer.

Later, Rachel found her voice. "Liara…" Her voice sounded deeper and hoarser than usual. Liara loved it. "That was…."

"Mmmm."

"Un-fucking-believable…"

"Quite the contrary," Liara's voice sounded sultrier and smugger than usual. Rachel loved it. "Rachel?"

"Mmm?"

"I love you." Liara's eyes shone, her lips were slightly parted and the apples of her cheeks held dimples from her crooked smile. Rachel would remember.

"That's an understatement," Rachel teased, reaching out to wonderingly brush her thumb across the freckles on Liara's cheek.

"Rachel?"

Rachel kissed her nose in reply.

"Please don't leave me behind on missions anymore." She felt Rachel tense.

"Does that mean we won't be doing…," Rachel gestured to their position on the floor, striving to make the conversation light, "this again?"

Liara mock bit her earlobe. "You know what I mean."

Rachel shifted to meet her eyes. "Liara…"

"If I'd been there, you might not have been hurt."

"If you'd been there, it might have been you hurt."

"Rachel," Liara pushed her into the pillow of discarded clothes. "You asked me to share your life with you. That means the risks too."

Rachel felt tears burn behind her eyes again. Liara bringing this up now, when she was so vulnerable, was not fair.

"No place is safe anymore," Liara continued. "I want to be with you. Whatever happens."

Rachel remembered Kai Leng's hand encircling Liara's throat, the terror that had nearly overcome her then, before he threw Liara aside unharmed. She closed her eyes against the sting, scalding tears leaking down her temples.

"Oh, Rachel," Liara said softly, as she leaned down to kiss the corners of Rachel's eyes. Her own eyes darkened as she reached out.