"So, do you think they'll even get out of bed this trip? Can't say I'd blame them if they didn't. I mean, damn, who wouldn't want to…"

Even as the shuttle disappeared from the window of the Normandy's observation deck, Javik was silently walking away from James Vega. No Prothean soldier would have dared to make such impertinent comments about their commanding officer, and once, that would have been sufficient grounds for him to verbally if not physically lacerate the Lieutenant. Now, despite his irritation, he lacked the conviction to say anything.

"Though we are not now that strength which in old days moved earth and heaven; that which we are, we are; one equal temper of heroic hearts, made weak by time and fate, but strong in will to strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield."

Before the final battle, the dark-haired human female Lt. Commander Williams, had quoted those lines, and though he had no idea what they meant to her, they had taken on a very personal significance for the last Prothean. It was his people who were that strength of old. They had shaped a galaxy to their wills while the ancestors of those he derided as primitives were still scampering about in the dirt, and yet for all their power, they had died.

When he had awakened, he had been unimpressed both by the younger races struggling against the Reapers and by the human who was trying to lead them. The people were divided, backwards, and unruly while the commander let herself be diverted by sentiment and held back by mercy. Despite developing a grudging respect for her prowess in battle, he had expected that, at best, she would take a few of the Reapers with her before her inevitable defeat.

And yet, in spite of the odds, she had strove and had not yielded and when, impossibly, she had triumphed, he found he no longer knew what to believe. Without Prothean technology or Prothean ruthlessness, she had succeeded where those whom he had once arrogantly considered her betters had failed. He had told the commander that if the war was won, he would help her asari mate write a book, but though he intended to honor his promise, he now realized he could not now speak to what his people had been. He needed time to explore this age, to find out more of what it knew that his cycle had not, to understand what had made Shepard the one who had succeeded where he had failed.

As she stood in the tall grass feeling the wind in blow through her hair, Ashara reflects that Liara had been right; this time away is exactly what the human had needed, even more than she'd realized when she'd agreed to come. Not counting the two years spent being dead, she'd only had one break since taking command of the Normandy, and that one hadn't been particularly restful. Sitting in Alliance detention, answering inane questions about her ties with Cerberus, watching her information being ignored, the relative physical comfort she'd enjoyed had been accompanied with mental torment. With nothing to do but worry about the Reapers and miss Liara, she hadn't so much relaxed as stewed, furious that the whole galaxy might be lost because those idiots wouldn't let her do her job.

No, that had been a very different sort of "vacation" than the one she's enjoying now. The house is nothing special, impersonal but comfortable and well-stocked, a bit like a medium-priced hotel, but the planet itself is a different story. Warm, lush, and vibrant, it reminds her of how much she likes being in nature. She'd grown up on a farm, but though she'd visited a lot of interesting worlds since joining the Alliance, she'd generally been there in full combat armor with people trying to kill her, leaving little room for her to appreciate her surroundings. Walking outside, the sun on her face, the smell of the plants, the sound of birds and insects, all of it reminds her of a time before she carried the burdens she does now.

She knows that for some people it would be different, but though she's tired of war and death, the memories of what she's seen aren't the hardest ones for her to bear. At 16, she watched her home burn and her family die, and as terrible as some of the things she's witnessed since then have been, after getting through Mindoir, nothing else has hit as hard.

Instead, what's the most difficult for her are the choices she's had to make. Before the Reaper invasion, she'd always been confidant in her decisions and during it, she made the hard calls when necessary, but they'd just been so momentous and so frequent that it was hard to process all that had happened Curing the Genophage, saving the Quarians rather than the Geth, working with the Leviathans, and especially destroying the Reapers; all of those calls could shape the future of the galaxy and she'd scarcely made one before the next had been thrown in front of her. Knowing that, in the end, they led to victory helps, but so many died, often as a result of her choices, that it still hurts. Especially with the future so uncertain, it's hard to stop her mind from rehashing them endlessly, wondering if she could have done something different, something better.

That, more than anything is what's kept her from sleep, and when she lies in bed at night, her mind unable to turn itself off, Liara has been her angel. Her bondmate stays up with her for as long as she needs, listening patiently, letting Ashara talk through the decisions, the frustrations, and the doubts, offering what reassurance there is the face of so many unanswerable questions.

There is no magic wand that can instantly banish the pain in Shepard's mind, but Liara is living up to her promise to help her carry it, and never more so than at the end of their first week there. They'd made love in the middle of the afternoon, an indulgence they'd never been able to afford before, and though it had been passionate and wonderful, afterwards, Ashara had felt those pangs of guilt and regret she'd been having trouble banishing.

"There's something that Tali told me after we destroyed the Reaper on Rannoch," she'd admitted to Liara as the asari lay stretched out on the bed next to her, her sweat drying in the warm breeze blowing in, "that I can't seem to get out of my head. The rest of the Quarians were all ecstatic, but it wasn't the same for her. She said that she had her homeworld back and all she had to do to get it was to kill a friend. When I'm with you… god, you make me feel like nothing else can, but to get back to you, to feel that way again, I…I destroyed EDI."

Liara leaned over and gently caressed her neck with slim blue fingers. "Ashara, do not do this to yourself. If you did not destroy the Reapers for us, then you did not kill EDI for us either."

"I know, but even so. Liara, have you seen Joker since Earth? Between his family not making it off Tiptree and EDI, it's like all the fight's gone out of him. He doesn't crack jokes, he doesn't complain, and honestly, I'm afraid to give the rest of the crew shore leave because without a ship to fly, I think there's a pretty good chance he'll eat his gun. All the times he pulled my ass out of the fire, and this is his reward? Me doing this to him? It's not fair."

"This war was not fair. None of it. What you did… it was about more than us, or EDI. It was about what was right for the galaxy."

"Doesn't mean I have to like it."

"You would not be the woman I fell in love with if you did. But it does mean that you do not have to torture yourself in this way. Sometimes, I think you have difficulty remembering what a remarkable thing you accomplished. For millions of years, the galaxy fought the Reapers over and over again. Every time, they all perished, and the same would have happened to us if not for you."

"I didn't do it alone."

"No, but you were the key. You were the one who warned us, who brought us together, and who finished the war when no one else could have. I have been in your mind, love. I've felt the pain you were in on the Citadel, the strength it took at the end, and if you had not succeeded as you did, I would have died, and so would Ashley, and Garrus, and Tali, and Joker and EDI as well. Just because you could not save everyone doesn't mean that you have not earned all of the happiness you can get."

Her assured tone, the reminder of how close the woman she loved and everyone she cared about had come to death, had punctured Shepard's guilt. "I know," she sighed. "During the war, with Javik and the Leviathans reminding me of all the cycles that went before, just getting through felt like more of a miracle. Now, though, looking at what happened, there's just so much that we lost."

Burying her head in Ashara's chest, the asari whispered, "You did not lose me."

"I don't know what I would've done if I had. When that tank exploded…If you'd been…"

"I wasn't. And even if I had been, you would have finished the mission. You are a hero," she reassured the commander.

"I guess you're right. I would have. But I don't know if... I was so tired when it was over, and it was you that got me through it."

"You made it." Liara pressed her hand against Shepard's face, reminding herself as well as her bondmate of that truth. "You came back to me."

"I did." Shepard turned her head and kissed Liara's palm, and then her wrist, and as their lips met, she really did feel back.