The Normandy was pandemonium, even given the fact that almost everyone was on shore leave. Shepard continued to hold Liara back, allowing Williams to carry Samantha to the lift while Chakwas followed behind, holding the IV bag up as she followed hot on the second human Spectre's heels.
"Shepard, let me go," Liara yelled, wanting, needing, to be in that elevator with her lover.
Shepard didn't respond, merely holding fast around Liara's waist, immovable, like a stone guardian of old. As soon as the doors to the elevator closed, however, Shepard released her. But it was too late. Liara ran to hit the elevator's call button, turning to glare at the commander.
"Explain yourself, Shepard," she demanded.
Shepard merely stared back at her. "She needs room to do her work. You know that, Liara."
"And you know I would not get in their way, Shepard!"
Shepard's expression hardened some. "And what if you didn't? What if Williams had to turn away from medically assisting so she could hold you back? What if they had to do something you couldn't handle seeing?"
"I…"
"She has a concussion so bad she's still unconscious, Liara. Even the stupidest jarheads know that means swelling, fluid in the cranium. She might have to perform brain surgery, Liara. You saying you wanna be there to see that, or God forbid you're asked to make a fucking decision?! Trust me," Shepard finished, her voice now quiet. "It's easier to have that decision out of your own hands." Liara is immediately reminded of her own prodding of Shepard as Ashley lay bruised and beaten in the medbay. "Chakwas is good. You know you can trust her to make the right decisions."
Liara remained quiet, staring hard at her friend. She was having a hard time processing the words, but somewhere inside she knew the woman was correct. Before she could truly figure it out, though, the elevator chimed, the doors sliding open to admit them. The two women entered, hitting the command to take them to the Crew Deck.
"You are right, Shepard. I am just… so worried."
Shepard sighed, putting her hand on Liara's shoulder. "I know, Liara. I'm so sorry. Whoever did this… they're gonna pay."
Liara nodded absently, not concerned with those that did this right at this moment.
They make love, and it is like a rainbow of colors. The colors continue even after they climax, swirling and flowing into each other. Liara focuses on the color yellow, her mother's favorite, and therefore her own favorite – even if she never wears it or decorates with it.
Show me your mother, Liara?
It is not a request in words, more a… wordless suggestion. A direct thought. Liara is in a happy place. And this is as close as Samantha can get to meeting Benezia…
The color yellow bursts before them. Liara allows the memories to flow over them as they come to her, not attempting to organize it into any chronology.
But it does start with Benezia in her most gorgeous of yellow dresses. She walks up to a small Liara, who reaches for her insistently, reaching out for a meld with her undisciplined child's mind. Benezia's arms are strong, and they go on forever. She exists in this memory without the ceremonial headdress that she wore most of Liara's adulthood, allowing tiny Liara to fiddle with her head crest when they swim or bathe together, or when lying together in bed.
Another memory rises to the fore. Liara is still small, but this time she is weightless. Asari have an affinity for the water, and retain the ability to absorb a small amount of oxygen from water, allowing them to hold their breaths far longer than humans. Babies of most placental species are good swimmers anyway, but asari babies could stay in the water for hours if their mothers let them – and they often did. Liara is especially happy in the water, paddling around, seeking out her mother's warmth before launching away from her. She climbs on her mother, pulling her deeper into the sea. She loves the sea near their home. She could stay there forever.
When she is older, yet still a young child, she is ridiculed for her pureblood heritage. She doesn't know to ask her mother why she would mate with another asari, nor to ask who her father is. All she knows to ask Benezia is why the other children would tease her so. This memory is the first time Samantha interjects herself, a mental wave of comfort and love surrounding Liara in a lovely cocoon.
Liara smiles, moves on, showing Samantha more and more of her mother.
Unbidden rises the darkest time, when her mother dies. Benezia stands before Liara, body rippling with biotic energy. Liara sweats, panting, despite the cold of Noveria, despite the temperature regulation in her hard suit. Her fingers tremble around the handle of the pistol she wields. She cannot do it. Benezia is in front of herself and Shepard, has Tali hanging in the air and Ashley bleeding on the ground, but Liara cannot put an end to the life of her mother. She can't do it.
Shepard does it instead. Regret coming off of her in waves, Shepard plants a bullet in the matriarch's stomach.
There is a shift, then. Shock radiates off of Samantha as she is shown Benezia's remarkable transformation. Samantha's grip strengthens on Liara in the present, their naked bodies interlocked on Liara's bed as they both listen to Benezia tell Liara that she is proud. It is the first mention of what indoctrination truly is like, and it horrifies both Liara and Samantha that Benezia has suffered so. When Benezia's true mind retreats behind the indoctrination once more, the grief both of them experience is very real. Liara is finally able to muster the strength to do what must be done.
Hand no longer shaking, she lifts her pistol, ending her mother's life as the indoctrinated monster the matriarch has become lunges at her.
"Oh God, Liara!" Samantha is sobbing now. Liara shallows the meld, tears on her own cheeks as she gathers the human woman into her arms.
"I am sorry, Samantha," she breathes, kissing the salt on the woman's cheeks. "I should not have shown you that."
Samantha merely shakes her head. From the very shallow meld Liara knows Samantha means it as "it's not your fault, I asked to see her." And it follows that prominent among Liara's memories of her mother would be this utterly devastating one. The guilt still haunts her. She killed her own mother.
"You did not, Liara!" Samantha says sternly, her sobs ebbing under her righteous anger. "Saren killed her. Saren forced your hand. And the reapers forced his. You're avenging her in all of this. As is Shepard. As am I, in my own small way."
Despite the grief in her mind and heart, and the crying woman in her arms, Liara smiles. She hadn't thought of that. She likes it. I am fighting to avenge my mother's death…
