Thessia

Liara stood in one of the myriad empty rooms in the T'Soni estate. She remembered a time when this house rang with life and light, filled with people and laughter, conversations and conviviality. This place had been empty for years, empty like the place in herself where she went when she thought of the past, when she remembered what once lived in her heart. Three hundred years had passed and still, when she reached within herself it still lived there…the hollow, holy echo of emptiness.

Why am I doing this? She questioned herself for the thousandth time. Why do I tread once more on sacrosanct ground, tearing my memories from my mind and heart and giving them to another? Silence has been enough, these three-hundred years. I have chosen to break it, and now I am questioning that breaking. Now I am wondering if it is, in truth, worth it. Do the mistakes of the past need to be undone? Do those wrongs truly need to be righted?

She thought of the door she closed behind her, the almost-finality of the "thud" as it latched in place. Did she need to open it again? Did she truly need to follow through, to see this story filled with pain and tears and blood to its end? Could she not just tell the truth without the stories, the memories that would make her revisit a pain so deep that, in the night, bred dreams that had her awakening still, centuries removed, drenched in sweat and tears?

"I've seen you open a lot of doors, Li." Zhira's voice rang behind her, drawing her into the reality that she wished to do nothing, at the moment, but escape. "Never seen you close one like that. Never seen you walk away from the pain before."

"You found me at such a time in my life." Liara recalled, not turning from her place where she stared out the window on the grounds of the estate, the life that went on without consideration for those who walked upon the planet's surface, watering it with the memories of their lives, loves, and heartaches. "So can you say those words to me, in truth?"

"When I found you, I gave you the choice to walk back into oblivion." Zhira countered. "You didn't take it. You opened the door to pain and you walked through it and lived through it and endured it and came out on the other side, richer in wisdom and compassion. What has you afraid now?"

"There are things I don't want to remember." Liara whispered. "There are things I still cannot remember. How am I to explain to Sen those times, when I had no say over my life or my destiny, when decisions were made for me that have led us to this moment? How can I tell her…how can I tell her that I allowed such things to happen?"

"Because you didn't." Zhira answered, and Liara felt the comfort of a warm, callused hand on her shoulder. The hand of a comforter and friend, someone who had walked with her during the darkest times of her past…someone willing to walk with her now, along this road she feared to tread. "You just said it yourself, Li. You didn't have a say. What was done was done without your knowledge or consent."

"You understand this." Liara nodded, still refusing to look Zhira in the eye. "I understand this. The question is, will she? When I look at her, after all is said and done, will she comprehend the madness of those times, the do or die decisions that so many of us were forced to make, for good or ill?"

"You just told her that her father killed three hundred thousand people and destroyed a star system." Zhira reminded her, not ungentle. "You and I both know that, over the centuries, that particular point in history has been buried beneath the years. No one wants to remember Shepard that way."

"Then why should I have tainted her memory of Serena?" Liara asked. "Why did I tell her that, Zhira? I could have left that part unknown; allowed Sen to continue to believe that her…that her father was nothing other than the hero of history, the Savior of the Galaxy…"

"But that wouldn't have been the truth." Liara heard the sorrow in Zhira's words. "And you've never hidden from the truth, even when it ripped your fucking heart out. This day, and the days that are going to follow it, have been a long time coming. You're seriously considering walking back in there, and telling Sen that she doesn't deserve the end to the mystery because it might hurt too much? If that's the case, Liara, you shouldn't have fucking talked to her in the first place."

"What would you have done, Zhira?" Liara rounded on her friend, anger sparking in her cerulean eyes. "If you had been in my skin, and suddenly seen what I had seen, would you have been able to keep your silence? I saw her and I…I shattered inside. The locks I set upon my heart, upon my memory, shattered the moment I looked into her eyes and realized what…what she should have never been able to hide."

"She was only able to hide it because of me." Zhira attempted to comfort her, reaching out, cupping Liara's cheek in her hand, startling the Shadow Broker with the ferocity of physical connection to another…the sole other living who shared her secrets and her memories and her sorrows. "Because I kept her in the dark. You opened that door, Liara, but know this. If you choose not to walk through it, I will. Because I need my daughter's forgiveness. I don't know if I deserve it, but I'm going to try. The story is going to be told, one way or the other, but she needs to hear it from you."

Liara's anger calmed as she saw the resolve stamped on Zhira's countenance. When she saw the pain in her friend's eyes, as deep, sacred, and long-hidden as her own. She knew then that she could not turn back, for Zhira's sake, for Sen's sake, for her own sake and…and for Shepard. Shepard, who had no voice in the galaxy any longer save for Liara. Shepard, who deserved to have the truth of the life she lived remembered, not painted in gloss and bright colors so that she could be seen as but one thing.

That would have killed Serena, Liara realized, opening up to the truth she attempted to hide from. Knowing how this story has ended, how her life has been altered by the hands of others who misconstrued the truth so hat future generations did not see the ugliness of that time…the true humanity and mortality of the woman still held up as the example of what all should aspire to…she would be furious.

"I know." Liara relented, allowing Zhira to draw her into an embrace, to shelter her from the demons of the past that roared their fury, now that they had been let slip from their chains inside her mind. "I know, but…but there are things I do not want to relive, Zhira. There are moments I do not want to see again, that I do not want to feel again."

"You need to." Zhira whispered against her crest. "And I need to. And Sen needs for both of us to face our sins."

"I don't want to remember that look in her eyes." Liara murmured. "I don't want to hear the pain in her voice."

"Then don't do it alone." Zhira encouraged her, holding her tight. "Walk through it with me. I have forgotten nothing of it, and I am here for you now. Walk through it with me. Please. I am here for you, Liara, and for Sen. Please, don't push me away. Not after three hundred and thirty-six years of carrying this burden."

Liara sagged in Zhira's embrace, allowing her friend to hold her up, to bolster her courage, to fill her heart with resolve. She was right, and Liara knew it. She owed this to Serena. Serena, who had never fled from any form of pain. Serena, who had never backed down from any enemy. Serena, who, with her mind ripped to shreds and her soul splintered, still faced her enemy and emerged victorious.

"All right." Liara relented. "I will see it again. With you. I will endure it again. With you."

Liara trembled as Zhira placed a chaste kiss to her forehead, then withdrew and held her gaze, unflinching, but kind. Resolved, but gentle.

"Liara T'Soni," Zhira whispered, "embrace eternity."