"Are you ready?"
Feron's voice was distant to Liara. She couldn't focus; it was now or never. She could not let Cerberus take the Shadow Broker base. That kind of information in those twisted hands, would only mean disaster.
They watched on the screen as a Cerberus cruiser made its way through the eternal storm of Hagalaz. The fact that the Illusive Man didn't think she'd see him coming was insulting. Liara was going to make sure they knew how serious she was. She felt disgusted; they were just one of the many uncomfortable companies she kept within these past two and half years.
They were an organization she was so desperate to trust, just for anything if it meant getting Shepard back.
To bring back the woman who showed bravery in the face of certain death. The woman who Liara knew who could stop the Reaper threat. The woman who showed her kindness and genuine interested in her babblings of asari culture or her research. And even when Liara had mistaken that kindness for something more, she still tried to bring her comfort in Benezia's death.
"I didn't have the best relationship with own my mother. I held onto a lot of anger for far too long with her after she passed." Shepard paused, looking like she was concentration her. "Sorry, I'm making this about myself, but I have a point I want to make."
"It's fine Shepard; you don't need to try to comfort me. Benezia may not have been all of herself when she died, but the blame can only go to her, that's not going to change. The things she did, I can't forgive."
Liara had meant every word of it then.
"Liara, she's your mother, going about it like that is not healthy. Take it from me; my mother also wasn't herself for a long time, and she wasn't herself when she died. I blamed her for a lot when she was really just sick and needed help."
With a quick search after that conversation Liara had found an obituary. Her mother died from a drug overdose on Shepard's twenty-third birthday. Shepard wasn't particularly happy with her when she went digging for that information.
"Please, try to focus on the good times with Benezia, when she was herself. I know it can be hard, and I had very little to go on, but I try. I like to remember that she loved to sing. I wished I kept some of the records she made."
Liara held onto that idea. It helped bring her comfort over the years. She liked to remember when Benezia would read through all her history books with her. She had showered Liara with so many over her childhood while helping her sound out the big words, breaking them down, and encouragingly laughed as Liara failed to say them. But Benezia just kept on encouraging and reading to her aloud to her. Goddess, Liara missed her voice so much.
"Liara, we need to leave now." Feron's voice kept calling.
Liara looked over another screen that held a whole lifetime of achievements and tragedies of Shepard life. A dossier created by the former Shadow Broker. All full of secrets of her old letters, extranet searches, and more.
All that information at Liara's fingertip. But it wasn't her place to going prying, no matter how much she wanted to. If Shepard wanted her to know about, she'd more than willing to let Liara know.
Liara turned her attention to another screen with the last uploading files. On it was information that the former Shadow Broker found so useless, Liara had to go digging for them. The OSD filled with songs found on an old abandoned social media page of Shepard's mother. Liara would make sure it was passed to Shepard the next to she saw her. Goddess willing that would be soon.
Liara's fingers passed over the keyboard one last time as she wiped the remaining drives with the OSD safely secured at her side.
"I'm ready. Let's go."
From the safety outside the storm, Liara and Feron watched as their ship crashed into the Cerberus cruiser. The ships sunk with electricity and flames towards Hagalaz's horizon.
It was for the best. Being cooped up with all the data was bound to drive her mad as Shepard had said.
And it was almost so easy to let it go. That ship wasn't her home. Her true home, where she felt most like herself, burned up over Alchera almost two and half years ago.
Liara stilled her breath and shut her eyes, remembering the feelings of flames on her skin and her tears that fell so easily as she watched the Normandy fall and broke apart. She had felt so trapped and useless in that escape pod.
Liara let go of her breath, but on this shuttle, she felt free and determined to move forward to where the information had pointed her to go. Towards Mars.
Fifty-three years of sorting, synthesizing and utilizing that information. All of her digging on the prothean, she was the one who the that connected the dots between their destruction and the Reapers. By the goddess, she would make sure to be at Shepard's side to stop them.