Chapter Eight
"Here!" Garrus is trying to push a fallen beam out of his way, and also falls when the Krogan appears next to him and lays a shoulder into the heavy object, shifting it almost immediately.
James comes up behind them, his arm wrapped around a limping Liara. "You shouldn't be here. You should have stayed on the Normandy."
"Would you have been able to stay?" She's talking to him, but her eyes keep scanning the debris around them with near panic.
"No. But you can't do anything in this state."
"I'll do what I have to. Garrus, what have you got?"
"Nothing yet, but looks like we should be getting to the…" He falls quiet for a moment.
"Garrus?" James cranes his neck to try and see what's going on up ahead. "Problem?"
"I'm not sure. There's… " The Turian's voice cracks. "Grunt? Get up here!"
"Garrus?" Liara chimes in, and now they're rushing towards him as fast as they can.
Up ahead, Grunt is straining to lift a large piece of concrete. Looking over at Liara for confirmation James lets go of her arm and rushes in to lend his muscle. Garrus is crouched on the other side of the concrete, his hands somewhere under the jagged edges, and when he spots Liara he motions her closer with a sharp movement of his head.
"Liara. Here."
She hobbles around – and almost collapses when she rounds the edge and sees his hand wrapped around limp bloody fingers. Somewhere in there, somewhere under the weight and dust and broken things, is a person. And Liara knows that person is Shepard. She crouches down, groaning at the pain it provokes in her mid-section.
"Shepard? Shepard?"
Garrus shifts over. "Here." He almost reverently opens his hands to let Liara take hold of the fingers. "So she knows someone's here. I have to help get this off her."
"I wish I could…"
"I know," he interrupts gently, "but you can't. Won't help if we lose you over this too."
Liara sits there, oblivious of the pain, her hands both cradling what they first found of Shepard, and when the concrete block moves a little and reveals more, she moves her one hand up to the pale wrist and then to the torn up forearm.
It takes them a while but they finally get most of the debris off the fallen woman. She is lying on her back; her head to the side, an arm and a leg twisted so badly that they can't be anything but broken, and a sticky black pool of blood drawing an edge around her body. There is dust and wire and so much blood, but above all there is Shepard.
Liara has willed each bit of rubble away, has tried with her waning strength to help lift where possible, and has stretched out her awareness to Shepard's as many times as possible. There is nothing. No warm tendrils of the other woman's mind creeping around her own, no wash of pain, not even a flicker of responsiveness.
Nothing.
Liara wants to hang on as much as anyone else. More so, probably. Wants to believe that Shepard will do the fantastic as Shepard always does. But this time it may be a little too much to ask.
"Give her the medigel," Garrus prompts, his voice tight as he pushes a piece of pipe to one side. "Quickly, Liara."
"I …" Liara does as she's told, her vision blurry with tears. "Garrus, I… She's…"
"Don't," James interrupts shakily. "Another one."
Liara obeys, her heart sinking within her. Finally able to join her, the others drop to their knees at the fallen woman's side. Garrus runs a hand over her legs, hesitating as he gets to the broken bits.
James doesn't touch Shepard. He just sits there on his haunches, his hands balled on his massive thighs. "Liara?" He may be embarrassed by his shattered tone later, but right now nobody cares. They'd all sound the same. "Is she in there?"
She runs a hand over Shepard's cold face, cupping the hollow cheek, mindless of the sticky smears of blood which mar that pale skin. For a moment, nothing, and then… She folds double and almost retches, but her hand doesn't move from Shepard's face. Reaching over, James almost touches her shoulder, his broad brow furrowed with concern.
"Liara?"
"By the Goddess," she grounds out, almost nothing more than a breath, "there's so much pain." She looks up, and they're all thinking the same thing: Not this time. Maybe not this time.
Then Liara lifts her hand from Shepard's face and tries to rise, with a sideways nod to Garrus when he hikes an arm under hers to help. "Let's pick her up. Let's go."
"Liara, I…" Garrus pauses, looks down on the broken body, "we're going to hurt her more if we move her. Are you sure it's worth it for her?" He covers his eyes with one hand and shakes his head. "Is she going to …?"
"We have to try."
That's what she says. What she doesn't say is that somewhere inside that head, somewhere beyond the pain and the muck and the darkness in a place that she can only see in her periphery, there is a word drifting around. It's faint, and it's soft, and it's blurred, but it's there.
Always.
"Okay. Here's how it's going to go," Grunt takes over, and they all happily let him. James alternates between carrying Shepard and helping Liara over the worst parts, and it takes them a long time, and it's not the way they wanted it to happen… but Commander Jane Shepard does finally return to the place they all think of as home.
