A/N: Thanks to Moire, Vernice, and gamings-reminiscence - who took the time to review. It really helped give me the push to finish!
There is a certain loosening of her chest as she walks away from Barla Von, cautiously optimistic. She thinks it went well, after all. He agreed to pass the information on and she didn't stutter, hiccup or falter over her words.
She made him think she was confident, which was almost as good as being confident.
When she is visited a week later by a representative of the Shadow Broker, she becomes nearly giddy. He startles her at first, not only by appearing from seemingly out of nowhere but also because he is a drell. She is speechless, thoughtless, until he speaks and impatiently prompts her back to coherency.
But, after a moment, she returns to life again. It isn't Thane (his voice isn't right, nor is his clothing) and it isn't not Kolyat (he doesn't have the dark Cs on his forehead that the young man does).
That means it must be Feron. Liara's close friend and one of the Shadow Broker's most trusted agents. She perks up at the thought and knows he must think her very strange. She's smiling now, even though she's trying very hard not to.
It doesn't matter. She gives him the Illusive Man's name and tells him that the cure must go to Dr. Chakwas and Dr. Michel at Huarta Hospital. He seems skeptical, but she trusts he'll pass the information on.
Liara will follow up on the information. She will try to create a cure. Once that is done, the doctors will be told and from that Thane will be cured.
For the first time in two years, the girl laughs and it comes from a place of relief instead of macabre humor. The buoyancy of it makes her run the rest of the way home. She reaches her ward and twirls for several yards, head thrown back, until she gets too dizzy to stand. She falls, hard, to her knees and struggles to catch her breath.
It is going to be alright.
